Last season was a tale of two separate offenses, one in the beginning of the year that was considered elite and the other one after the Patriots game that was considered average at best. Certainly, there are many factors, but the way Denver devised a plan to defend our offense was the blueprint.
In the early going, teams were stacking the line and taking trying to take away the team's rushing attack, but Fangio, the Denver HC, did the opposite;
-Played extra men in coverage, with two safeties back. His goal was to take away the big passing plays and force Dak to throw into tight windows. Dak had one of his worse games of the season as it was his first game back after injuring his calf.
Other teams followed a similar game plan and had success just like the Broncos did. Force Dak to be patient and throw passes into tight windows. What compounded the offensive struggles was their inability to run the football in light boxes, but also their inability to stay away from the big drive killing penalties. Take away the big play, force the Cowboys to drive the entire field, they will beat themselves. Also, Dak was clearly still hurt and was unwilling to use his legs when his receivers failed to get open.
We saw a similar blueprint against Mahomes and the Chiefs, that really held their elite offense in check. It really took them a lot of time to adjust and they still showed their warts in the playoffs.
Will Dak and Kellen Moore be able to make the necessary adjustments to bring this offense from being average back to elite standards?
This is a fair assessment of what happened to our offense the 2nd half of the season.
I would just add that the Cowboys offense became incredibly predictable when they were one dimensional.
I believe the Cowboys recognized these issues and took steps to try and fix them, perhaps not how most on this forum would have approached it.
1. They got rid of the undisciplined. CW, Collins and Cooper was undisciplined in his effort and route running. Yes route running. Believe it or not, Steele is an upgrade in the run game at RT too...regardless of what the idiotic PFF says.
2. They aimed to get better up front adding a very physical G/T. They tried to add more of a deep threat at WR with Washington and more of a disciplined route runner in Tolbert. He probably won't be the dynamic route runner that Coop is/was but he will be where he needs to be and give effort at all times.
3. They added a blocking/good passing threat at back up TE. We were really hurt by not having Jarwin last year bc it limited what we could do in 12 personnel. While he wasn't a blocker either he was a threat in the pass game. This formation seemed to make us less predictable as well.
4. Dak will be healthy this year and another year removed from the broken leg. Anyone who doesn't think that helps, never had to play a game after a significant injury.
5. Taking away a 20 mill wr let's us focus on Ceedee as a #1 and force him the ball more. I believe that was also part of the equation they used in getting rid of coop as well. He will never have Kupp type targets but 150 isn't out of the question this year. This is something everyone should be on board with.
6. Zeke will have a chance to be healthy again and maybe this year he can stay healthy. If he doesn't, look for them to run Pollard into the ground in a contract year.
