Turners offense really wasn’t that creative. People talk about how predictable our current team is running Elliott on first down, well you could almost bet your bank account Turner would do the same with Emmitt. 3rd and 6-7 yards to go was going to be a short slant to Irvin an unusually high % of the time. That offense was just so disciplined and so talented and so efficient teams still couldn’t stop them. For Turner with that team the unexpected was maybe a lead draw on 3rd and 6-7 instead of the expected slant or short pass to Novacek.
There's some truth to that. Our players and other players pointed out that defenses knew what was coming and just couldn't stop it.
I do think Turner understood what to do with the talent he had, though. He could have been pass-happy with Aikman, but he knew he had a great running back and running game so he let the passing game complement it. I also think the timing passing game was perfect for Aikman's skills.
Then, there were plays like the deep pass to Alvin Harper in the playoffs against San Francisco when everyone was expecting a handoff to run out the clock. So he made the right calls in some crucial moments.
Part of the reason I believe Garrett coaches offense the way that he does is because of the efficiency of that offense. He mainly played when Ernie Zampese was the coordinator, but Dallas had established that it could win on offense primarily just with execution and Switzer and company didn't mess with that formula. As the players aged and free agency picked the team apart, that advantage went away (which is one reason we tried a more innovative head coach in Chan Gailey), but Garrett seemed to have gotten the impression from his playing days that winning is all about execution, while execution in the salary cap period is just part of what's needed since teams can't simply out-talent opponents.
