News: BTB: Cowboys Playcalling With Brandon Weeden: Was It Too Conservative?

[NewsBot]

There is a common assumption that Dallas' offense was too predictable while Brandon Weeden was the starting quarterback. What do the actual numbers tell us?

The Dallas Cowboys coaching staff wasted no time in making the decision to name Matt Cassel as the starting quarterback over Brandon Weeden during the bye week. There are a variety of reasons advanced for why the team made the call. One that has been cited is that Scott Linehan's playcalling became far too predictable, going with runs on first down until the team was trailing or fighting the clock to move the ball.

Is that really true? With only a three game sample size while Weeden was the starter, it is hard to be sure based on the numbers, but I became curious to see if anything could be gleaned from looking at how many times runs or passes were actually called. To do this, I went through all three games and charted not only how many times runs and passes were called on first down, but also whether or not the team converted that series of downs into either a first down or a touchdown.

The numbers are as accurate as I can make them by referring to the NFL's chart of game statistics for each game. They count a series as successful on the results regardless of whether the first down or lack of one came because of a penalty. Here is a table with the numbers broken out for each game.

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