CFZ A Possible Explanation of Why Dak Played Jekyll and Hyde (and Hope I Find)

[America's Cowboy]

...and there we have it, you'll just make up subjective excuses for anything.
1) If the Tyron hit had put off the throw it would have effected of pushed his arm to miss into the center of the field, not behind.
2) The DB doesn't appear until Dak's on the floor, plenty of time to get the balk away.... not that Dak appears to notice TY's there.

You're either blind or downright dishonest with what you're seeing. Your personal bias is getting in the way.

 

[conner01]

Great stuff bro @T-RO ! Thanks for the info.

It explains what some of us have been saying: Dak hardly had any weapons to throw to in 2022. The Oline certainly didn't help, either, nor the passing schemes or playcalling.



Cowboys Oline finished 2022 ranked #21 out of 32 overall.

https://www.statmuse.com/nfl/ask/2022-nfl-offensive-line-rankings-by-team

Cowboys Oline also had the 7th best run block win rate...but the 28th out of 32 in pass blocking win rate. Very likely explains some reasons why Dak struggled when he did.

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id...aderboard-win-rate-rankings-top-players-teams

Pass blocking requires every guy doing what every other guy expected him to do. Otherwise twists and blitzes don’t get picked up
Having the same 5 at the same place for 17 games makes a huge difference

 

[America's Cowboy]

Pass blocking requires every guy doing what every other guy expected him to do. Otherwise twists and blitzes don’t get picked up
Having the same 5 at the same place for 17 games makes a huge difference

Of course, but it's not as if they hadn't practiced this in practice.

 

[jterrell]

Consider the case of two quarterbacks...

Exhibit A: Dak "2022 Jekyll" Prescott...124-164, 76% completion rate, 8.9 YPA, 1,463 Yards, 11 TDs, 3 INT...117.0 Quarterback Rating
Exhibit B: Dak "2022 Hyde" Prescott...121-202, 1,256 Yards, 10 TDs, 11 INT...71.7 Quarterback Rating

The Jekyll numbers would have beaten out Mahomes, Allen, Burrows...every QB in the game, and by no small margin. Exhibit B is Hyde/Zach Wilson territory.

WTH, you ask? Is T-Ro cherry picking games, trying some sleight-of-hand deception?

Permit me to explain:
Exhibit A is the "Jekyll" version of Prescott, the totality of stats when Dak was throwing to Lamb, Pollard, Ferguson, and Hilton.
Exhibit B is Dak and his "Hyde" production, the complete stats when DP threw to Schultz, Gallup, Brown, & Elliott.

I didn't bother to tally the small contributions made by other receivers with few targets.

I've got more to say (of course) but I'll pause for everyone to digest this much...and share thoughts.

This is a good post!!!
The team tracks this kind of data.

And this follows that they only brought back one guy from the "naughty" list. Gallup who is returning with a full off-season after major injury.

 

[Bigrandrn]

Cooks is going to be a huge addition. The WR room sees him as a guru and I think his impact is underestimated at this point. Brown who he is replacing was a trainwreck as a WR.

Gallup will either heal or he won't. Similarly, Tolbert will improve or he won't. How these guys do really impact the ceiling and floor of this offenses performance. If both of them step up this offense becomes electric. A couple of injuries and these guys break bad and then we have no receivers.

Schultz had horrible YPA but he was gimp for the second half of the season. Dak threw to him anyway. I am hoping that a little more of Parcells idea that throwing the ball away is sometimes a good play this year. Particularly with this defense.

Schoon doesn't really have a high bar to clear in terms of efficiency to replace Schultz. Hopefully Ferguson can maintain his with added usage.

Good OP BTW. What I take from that is there are 8 main targets and half of ours were mediocre to plain bad. Our top 8 is now:

Lamb
Cooks
Pollard
Ferguson
Gallup
Schoonmaker
Tolbert
Vaughn

Throw in contributions from Hendershot, Turpin, and RB3 and I like this stable better than last year.

My hope is that Gallup gets back to form and gets something from Cooks and then we have a trio of legit wideouts and some play making TE (Ferguson showed promise). Now can Dak be accurate enough to use them….a lot of time yes, in playoff games, no.

 

[jterrell]

That first link is misleading. Statmuse, unless it has a simple, specific stat to track, will just list teams. It’s a little bit of a faulty site. Notice how it’s not ranking them by any noted metric.

Here are some other ones:

ESPN has Dallas 6th


PFN has Dallas 5th
https://www.profootballnetwork.com/best-offensive-lines-nfl-rankings/amp/

FTN has them 8th
https://www.ftnfantasy.com/articles/FTN/50012/nfl-offensive-line-rankings

PFF has them 6th
https://www.pff.com/news/nfl-offensive-line-unit-rankings-tiers-2022

TGD has them 9th
https://thegameday.com/nfl/power-rankings/ol/

Lineups has them 5th
https://www.lineups.com/articles/nfl-offensive-line-rankings



While I don’t dispute Dallas had issues on the Oline, so did many teams last year. A big reason why Philly and Dallas had such ballooned sack values. But the Cowboys finished the season right around where their Oline was rated as being (roughly 7th best team in the league, lost in divisional round).

The tweet and top link is for 2023.
Dallas was rated highly LAST year ENTERING the year.
They did not finish high statistically.
They lost the RT and the LT.
Had a shuffle all year and Zack had his most human (and lowest graded) season of his career.

Where people rank them on paper is meaningless.
It is how they graded out that matters.
And the metrics were poor.

Dallas was 28th in pass block win rate:
A pathetic 53%.

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id...-win-rate-rankings-top-players-teams#pbwrteam


Individually DAL had 1 player finish in top 10 in a block rate category. Zack Martin for Guards in pass blocking.
0 Tackles made the list for Run or Pass, 0 Centers for run or pass and zero Guards for Run.

Why the woes? Dallas lost a very good right tackle in Steele, a still very good LT in Tyron Smith and they started a rookie in Tyler at 2 positions.

 

[conner01]

Of course, but it's not as if they hadn't practiced this in practice.

They do practice but the oline on any team has to work together more than most other players. They have to see the same things and that comes from lots, and lots of reps together. We should be due a healthy oline since I can’t remember that last time we’ve had a healthy oline for even most of a season

 

[khiladi]

Great stuff bro @T-RO ! Thanks for the info.

It explains what some of us have been saying: Dak hardly had any weapons to throw to in 2022. The Oline certainly didn't help, either, nor the passing schemes or playcalling.



Cowboys Oline finished 2022 ranked #21 out of 32 overall.

https://www.statmuse.com/nfl/ask/2022-nfl-offensive-line-rankings-by-team

Cowboys Oline also had the 7th best run block win rate...but the 28th out of 32 in pass blocking win rate. Very likely explains some reasons why Dak struggled when he did.

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id...aderboard-win-rate-rankings-top-players-teams

The way you act like the evidence supports what you have been saying is comical and the more you say it, the claim becomes true. We all know you said Kurt Warner didn’t know what he was talking about when the majority of video analysis was calling out Dak, then he, psd you, suddenly needed to be out OC because he criticized a couple of Moore’s plays, even though if one did a breakdown Dak would be the one called out the most. Then you tried to snooze around it by saying your objection was that Warner previously was just blaming Dak and wasn’t being fair. Now you are saying that it’s because Dak didn’t have the weapons and thats what Warner was saying, even though Warner was basically saying Dak shouldn’t have thrown out to Lamb and so on. Comical, since Warner also did videos last year criticizing Dak when he “had the weapons”..

 

[tyke1doe]

Schotty has more experience than KM. Also, when you add in McCarthy I think less confusion and clear communication of the scheme will be beneficial. It doesn't sound like McCarthy had much input before.

I'll agree with you there.

 

[khiladi]

Dak bring Jekyll and Hyde is not a 2022-2023 thing, this is Dak throughout his career.

Here is 2021:

https://nypost.com/2021/12/14/dak-prescott-cowboys-offensive-woes-stumping-jerry-jones/amp/

After beating up on the Commanders,

Dak passed


Dak padder his stats against a weak team already done for the playoffs with Moore in such situations basically owning his counterpart DC in terms of play calling, Dak after that game said it would be hard to call their offense as being in slump, after putting up 50.

https://www.nfl.com/_amp/dak-prescott-slump-cowboys-offense-washington

Then as usual, he proceeded to flop.

In 2019, he had the same “slump” and in this case he tried to throw his own players under the bus for allegedly not practicing and preparing, which is ironic coming from the guy who is known not the practice well.

It’s a mess of their own making, said Prescott. The team is too deep to be derailed by injuries. There are no excuses for penalties and drops. He spent this week demanding better focus; demanding that they prepare more like running back Ezekiel Elliott, tight end Jason Witten, and, of course, him.

“I always practice hard. More individuals need to do that,” Prescott said. “Just from the outlook of it, just from my eye, I think they do.”

https://www.inquirer.com/eagles/phi...ott-carson-wentz-20191017.html?outputType=amp

The next week vs the Green Bay Packers would be a nightmare from the outset. Prescott threw two interceptions on the Cowboy's first three drives as they would fall into a 17-0 hole at halftime. Eventually falling behind as much as 28 points, the Cowboys never established any kind of offensive rhythm as Prescott had to basically throw every down if they were to have any hopes of a comeback.

In Week 6 vs the New York Jets, who were 0-4 at the time, the Cowboys had a great opportunity to get back on track, at least that's what it looked like on paper. Quarterback Sam Darnold was seeing his first game action since the season opener as he dealt with mononucleosis. However, you wouldn't be able to tell as he lit up the Cowboys secondary for 338 yards and two touchdowns, not an ideal defensive showing. Offensively it wasn't any better as they only mustered together six points in the first half. Elliott would grind out 105 tough yards on 28 carries but it wouldn't be enough. The Cowboys lost their third straight game 24-22 and found themselves searching for answers.

https://insidethestar.com/cowboys-were-the-nfls-biggest-disappointment-in-2019/

 

[KJJ]

It’s been Jekyll and Hyde with Dak since he returned from the calf strain in 2021. It all started with the Denver debacle. His confidence has never been the same since.

 

[nalam]

Three of the players on the bad list are gone, along with Moore and Philbin, only Gallup is left.

Wonder who the scapegoats will be in 2023?

Pray we dont have a scapegoat need in 2023 , win it all ,

 

[Strykerscm]

Can't handle the truth?
What is trolling about it?
If anything I responded to a trolling post.

You’re saying Dak is not a Jekyll and Hyde qb?

 

[T-RO]

May I introduce the forum to Aaron "Hyde" Rodgers?
January 22, 2021: Aaron Rogers leads Pack to only 10 points in home Playoff loss to Niners

Oh, and say hello to Jalen "Hyde" Hurts?
January 16, 2021: Eagles don't score a single point until 4th quarter trash time vs Bucs. Losing 31-0 they do add meaningless late scores.

Oh, look who just walked in -- Mathew "Hyde" Stafford.
In a decade Matt couldn't win a single playoff game with the Lions

Wow, you here, Tom "Hyde" Brady?
Only a QB Rating of 59.4 in his last playoff game with the Patriots. Only 13 points in an embarrassing home loss?

Need I go on?

Alls QB have a dark side, and are vulnerable when the talent surrounding him isn't up to the mettle of the opposition.

 

[America's Cowboy]

The way you act like the evidence supports what you have been saying is comical and the more you say it, the claim becomes true. We all know you said Kurt Warner didn’t know what he was talking about when the majority of video analysis was calling out Dak, then he, psd you, suddenly needed to be out OC because he criticized a couple of Moore’s plays, even though if one did a breakdown Dak would be the one called out the most. Then you tried to snooze around it by saying your objection was that Warner previously was just blaming Dak and wasn’t being fair. Now you are saying that it’s because Dak didn’t have the weapons and thats what Warner was saying, even though Warner was basically saying Dak shouldn’t have thrown out to Lamb and so on. Comical, since Warner also did videos last year criticizing Dak when he “had the weapons”..

Oooh, poor little pathetic hatred of yours can't handle the truth? Tough cookies. Go cry to someone who cares. I've been right all along. Kurt Warner did start off last season only criticizing Dak without criticizing other QBs or taking into account the lack of weapons around Dak or the putrid play calling/schemes/routes. I'm not the only one. So many fans got on him on YouTube early in the season until he started being more fair and honest with everything affecting. Even Mike Martz said more than half of Dak's interceptions were not Dak's fault. Martz even broke down Dak's playoff performance against the 49ers. Looks like it got you all triggered and bent out of shape. Tough cookies. Guess you can't handle the truth. Grown man with a child's delicate mind. BooHooHoo...DAK IS STILL YOUR QB. Deal with it.

 

[Zekeats]

I've watched you a bit this year and learned some things. Whether the topic is Mazi Smith, Dak, Jalyn Hyatt, or Maryann-Ginger...You hold your opinions with zero doubt, and zero openness to consideration. And you eagerly scrap together a few fragments of *potential evidence* and view it as supreme triumph.

"End of story. Game over." Really? What an Interesting comment. Or better described in Monty Python, "What an idiosyncratic performance."

Your posts repeatedly remind me of something my dad used to say of my mother, "She's sometimes right. She's sometimes wrong. But she's never in doubt." My mother had her virtues, but she could lock in with a vice-opinion in half a second with just a tea-spoon of information.

So here's the thing: I'm open to considering that Dak's inconsistencies are a true thing, a concerning thing, perhaps even a fatal flaw. I'm willing to consider it.

But you haven't even provided a good opening statement to the jury. You've belched. Care to try again?

What has Dak done? What was his signature game so far? A meaningless last game of the year against a terrible Giants team when Cole Beasley made an amazing grab? Is that it? Forget the interceptions. There are tons of times that this guy just can NOT move the ball with the game on the line. Go back to 2019 he froze against half the teams he faced and couldn't move the ball with 2-3 chances at the end of the game. NE, NO, Pats, Vikings, Bills, Eagles, Jets and other games just completely didn't show up. Ive seen it live in person and it's a terrible feeling to know he just cant and wont get it done. With Romo there was always a chance. Not with this guy and they knew that in 19 before giving him a terrible contract. Shoulda drafted someone else and started over. We will be stuck with the 10-7 no where to go in the playoffs as long as he is here and even Parsons knows it with his comment at the end of last years playoff loss. There is plenty more situations with Dak I just don't want to waste my time.

 

[CowboyoWales]

Alls QB have a dark side, and are vulnerable when the talent surrounding him isn't up to the mettle of the opposition.

Agree, but as we know the CZ fanbase is so polarized on the question of Dak that it's either his fault or he's totally exonerated and blame lies else where.....
We are in the enviable situation of having two data sets which gave (in two very similar scenario's) gave similar results and even (after the first game) had a helpful commentary from a protagonist.

Rather than apportion blame we should be addressing why and how to stop it, but that'll take an honest appraisal and acceptance that players have weaknesses and we should play to the strengths. IF we struggle in hurry-up offense against a deep cover defense we need to focus on eradicating (to the best of our ability) that scenario, in being less prescriptive and more creative earlier on........but then again as your figures show, as a whole, Dak plays better in the 4thQ.

 

[T-RO]

Agree, but as we know the CZ fanbase is so polarized on the question of Dak that it's either his fault or he's totally exonerated and blame lies else where.....

Neither side of the extremes is trying to seriously seek truth, or to argue their points honestly. Lots of ego, wild declarations and foot stomping.

I've sure done it myself plenty here over the years. I've embarrassed myself, and will likely do so again.

 

[Jarv]

That’s not what you said. You said bipolar qbs don’t win SBs and those guys are more bipolar than anyone.

Like I said, none of them were bi-polar during their playoff/super bowl runs. They got hot.
But I agree they were all bi-polar for the majority of their careers. Eli happened to get hot twice, but his lifetime stats were mediocre.

 

[T-RO]

Like I said, none of them were bi-polar during their playoff/super bowl runs. They got hot.
But I agree they were all bi-polar for the majority of their careers. Eli happened to get hot twice, but his lifetime stats were mediocre.

With 2:39 left in the 4th quarter of Super Bowl XLII the Giants had scored a meager 10 points. On third down Manning wildly heaved a rainball into the middle of the Patriots defense. Tyree's helmet caught it, with help of a bracing hand. 32 yards and a first down. The second-rate receiver impossibly pressed the ball to his earhole just long enough...Giants go onto win. Manning is heroic.

So many moments are composed of impossibly tiny, weak little threads, completely outside a Quarterback's control, yet connect eventualities and declarations: "You are a Champion" or "You Will Never Get it Done!"

Fans want to feel legends and heroes. Not think about stuff.