However, Garrett’s offense on the whole was fantastic in 2007. They actually improved as a unit from the 2006 season, rising up to third in yards and second in scoring. Romo made the
Pro Bowl, and the running back tandem of
Marion Barber and
Julius Joneswas effective, combining for 1,563 rushing yards and 12 touchdowns. But Garrett wanted to make a change to his blocking scheme, it seemed.
Sparano got hired away as the
Miami Dolphins’ new head coach, and Dallas brought in none other than Houck himself. Garrett knew Houck from his time spent in Miami on Nick Saban’s staff, and of course from when Houck coached the Cowboys previously. So as the Cowboys entered the 2008 season they adopted the blocking scheme that Turner had used in the 90’s.
For a while, it worked really well. The Cowboys entered December with an 8-4 record and sitting in second place in the NFC East with an offense that had been averaging 25 points per game, which ranked tenth in the NFL. But just like the previous season, Dallas faltered late and lost three of their final four games, including being blown out 44-6 in the season finale against the
Eagles, which ousted any playoff hopes. Dallas finished 13th in yards and 18th in scoring.
This caused the Cowboys, and most notably Garrett, to do some introspection. They ended up letting go of
Terrell Owens, entering the 2009 season with (brace for it)
Roy Williams as their top receiver after trading for him during the 2008 season. Garrett also changed up the way he coordinated the running game. For two years, Garrett had used Barber as his main back with Jones - first Julius and then Felix - as a complement. But after the Cowboys’ December downward spiral coincided with losing both Barber and Jones to injury, Garrett began to use more of a running-back-by-committee approach between Barber, Jones, and
Tashard Choice.
Garrett also started to make his offense a lot more pass heavy than before, which required asking more of Romo. Prior to the 2009 season, Romo was averaging 29 pass attempts per game for his career. In 2009, Romo averaged nearly 35 pass attempts per game. He also set a then career best for passing yards with 4,483 while increasing his yards per attempt from 7.7 to 8.2. But the biggest change for Romo in 2009 was that he was asked to do more pre-snap reads of the defense.
This began a trend that Romo became comfortable with, where he usually wouldn’t snap the ball until there were roughly five seconds or less on the play clock. This tactic was supposed to make defenses jumpy and force them to reveal their coverages and blitzes better, and it mostly worked. Something that Garrett did to help Romo with the pre-snap reads was a significant use of pre-snap motion. When I went back and watched the 2009 Cowboys offense, I was shocked at just how much motion Garrett used. It felt like watching the Rams or
Chiefs today, and it’s weird and frustrating that the team was so ahead of its time back then but wasn’t able to do any of it the last few seasons.
