Video: Chris Simms: The offense is too simple

[Reality]

Sigh......when are people gonna learn when you have a QB with accuracy problems.....having him hit a moving target deeper down field...is going to be a problem?

It's amazing Kellen has gotten this much out of Dak.....

But honestly...the real problem is a lack of a home run threat @ RB. No one is afraid of our RBs breaking one to the house. No one respects our run game....which makes play action useless.

I am talking about the offensive plays, not the quarterback. It would not matter who the quarterback is if the defense constantly knows as soon as the receiver stops, it's a comeback so they can close the gap.

Even if the throws are perfect and the receiver catches it, the receiver is still pointed and moving in the wrong direction (toward the wrong end zone) and the cornerback is right there to make a tackle or even knock the ball out.

Just because I do not like the plays he is calling does not mean I am bashing Moore so you can take off your Moore fan jacket and focus more on what I am saying instead.

I know Moore can design better game plans and call better plays because he has done it in the past with Dak, but lately he seems to be pulling more from Garrett's playbook than his own.

 

[Reality]

Something is definitely up because this is how our offense used to be earlier in the season. Notice the different route combos we used run more often.
You can see us beating cover 4 and cover 2 defenses in the video. I don't know what happened and why we aren't running the same route concepts anymore but Amari's rescent complains tells me something must be going on at the Star.

This is EXACTLY what I am talking about!

They used to do a much better job of attacking vertically, but lately it seems like they have reverted to overly using comeback routes.

 

[CyberB0b]

What happened to that dynamic offense KM debuted against the Giants a couple of years ago? Lots of presnap motion, rub routes, quick throws. The offense was explosive and unpredictable.

 

[Ken]

Rips Kellen Moore and rips Dak for 15 minutes.

See your description i was ready to be defensive of Dak but it really wasn't "ripping" Dak. 2 plays, one that was a bad pass by Dak and the one at the end which had bad mechanics but it was thrown to a spot....what he didn't mention on there was Ceedee's horrible route against a LB. Slow...plodding...like he wasn't expecting the ball. If he burns and pretends its a go...that lb is left in the dust when he suddenly breaks it off for the curl. Dak was waiting on his ******* abd it threw off his timing and mechanics.

What Chris talked about, is some of the things I talked about in other threads. I just broke down a lot more than he did. This was the first game I watched on the ALL 22....our scheme is pathetic. Yes...3 man routes happened a lot against 7 man coverages. Why is our OL blocking schemes so easy to manipulate and get backs/te's on rushers???? It never used to be like this.

Every brainless poster on this forum is blaming Dak, but it is all scheme. It is our pass blocking schemes being manipulated, it is our gimpy rb, it is our two top wr's running uninspired routes, it is 3 guys in a route on 3rd down against coverage.

I don't know what changed, maybe it has always been like this all year. I will have to go back and watch earlier season games. I always remember from previous years us running the curl routes to exhaustion, i guess we still do it.

As I have been saying, we have issues on offense, and the qb is the least of them.

 

[Ken]

This was my biggest complaint against Garrett's offense .. the comeback routes.

I can never understand why you would make it easy on the defender to defend or intercept the ball by letting them face forward.

The offensive player knows where he is going, there is no reason to show the defensive back that as well before the throw.

The Cowboys need to start running vertical plays instead of curls and comebacks all the time. Vertical does not mean it has to be 30 yards down the field either.

You can play vertical with 5 and 10 yard throws with slants or even just straight routes.

It is really weird.....run a couple of comebacks if you love them so much but throw in a couple of other routes in combo....this isn't hard!

We ran the button hooks a ton during the game. We also run the run without turning around patterns for 15 yards down field while Dak has no where to go with the ball...those are fun too.

 

[Jstopper]

It's been the exact same offense for 15 years. Ya got the 11 and the 12 personell and occasionally there's a Te or lb playing RB. That's all folks

except that’s not entirely true. Our play calling was 100% better in the first half of the season. And I’m not even talking about the execution of the plays, I’m just speaking on the route concepts used. We didn’t use any motion at line of scrimmage in the Cardinals game. We were running simple curl route concepts, and they knew our plays. I don’t understand why he’s calling these bogus route concepts now when he was calling a MUCH better offense the first half of the season…..

 

[LatinMind]

Kurt Warner also ripped Moore and his route concepts.

Moore is incompetent. AZ was playing to force everything under the coverage. And all Moore had was that route in the flat. It worked because az was giving it to him. On them third down az was taking the all out blitz then dropping the blitzers back. Moore tried to run vertical routes leaving dak in noman's land. But daks not without fault, you kill the play to the run and force them to play straight. You change a route to a hot read. Or the OC sees this tendency and adjusts.

 

[Ken]

Maybe it has to be kept simple....just saying

J.Goff was playing at Super Bowl level until Bill Belichick exposed him in the S.B.
Teams forceing reads to be faster post snap....o.line not helping

Goff was having his coach tell him where to go with the ball each play in his mike lol

 

[Ken]

Is it possible for him to show the whole play instead of switching over to still shots of the players?

Anyway, he came right out of the conversational gate with the biggest issue.....the Oline. It has been terrible and for some reason feels like it has regressed since the beginning of the year.

See i don't think it is necessarily the players...the Cards schemed to get matchups with Tes and RBs....it is pathetic.

My pop warner teams i coached had more intricate blocking schemes than this....this is bad.

 

[Ken]

Im guessing he cant show the actual play or something because of rights, but who knows. And to be honest, I agree with him on most of what he said. I said it a couple days ago...our receivers are running straight, 1 yard past the sticks, and turning around. Dak then has to fastball it there after they have turned around. No anticipation. Aikman was a master of that in his day. Irvin said he could hear the ball coming like a missile before he even got to his spot and turned around. Dak holds the ball too long and always has. Sometimes he makes an amazing throw but most of the time its button hook fastballs.

Watch the routes of the wrs. They are bad. I know Amari is one of the best in the game NORMALLY but he is on another planet most of the time.

His slant route comes to mind on the hot route slant when the Cards brought the house. Rounded and didn't run hard on a SLANT. A SLANT. I speak this way bc I played the position and know what a good route is....

The routes of Ceedee and Amari are BAD. Watch Wilson run his routes...he is running like someone who wants the ball....it is why he was thrown to 6 times for 6 catches. This is why he and Schultz are seeing so many balls...they are running the right routes the right way.

This backs up what Jerry has been saying...the WRs are not in the right spots at the right depths etc.. I see this all over the game.

Since you bring up Aikman...he wouldn't even throw it to you if he didn't trust you...Dak is doing the same IMO.

 

[Ken]

except that’s not entirely true. Our play calling was 100% better in the first half of the season. And I’m not even talking about the execution of the plays, I’m just speaking on the route concepts used. We didn’t use any motion at line of scrimmage in the Cardinals game. We were running simple curl route concepts, and they knew our plays. I don’t understand why he’s calling these bogus route concepts now when he was calling a MUCH better offense the first half of the season…..

I have to go back and look at the earlier games to see the difference. I can tell you our inability to run against light boxes is amazingly BAD. One play in particular that comes to mind, we brought in McGovern and had 8 blockers. The cards technically had 5 but it was 7 as the two LBs were 4.5 yards off the ball. We should be able to smash anyone with that mismatch....nope...Zeke doesn't run through the hole on the left side bc he can't get through it and cuts back to the middle and struggles for 3 yards.

The run game...specifically with Zeke, is killing us. No one is scared of him, he can't hurt you.

 

[Ken]

What happened to that dynamic offense KM debuted against the Giants a couple of years ago? Lots of presnap motion, rub routes, quick throws. The offense was explosive and unpredictable.

Ya know...i need to go back and look and see if we did this stuff earlier in the year and have stopped recently to "vanilla" our offense like the speculation has been.

If we suddenly come out motioning everywhere and slinging it around in the playoffs...then it was true

IF this dumbing down was intentional....we are really dumb. You can't just turn it on and off.

 

[Reid1boys]

blah, blah, blah.. thats the same crap we heard 6 years ago. So we were lighting people up in the first 7 weeks of the season. Did al of the sudden we get simple?

These people need to just talk cowboys all day everyday to get people to listen. STHU Simms... you sucked.

 

[CowboysExchange]

except that’s not entirely true. Our play calling was 100% better in the first half of the season. And I’m not even talking about the execution of the plays, I’m just speaking on the route concepts used. We didn’t use any motion at line of scrimmage in the Cardinals game. We were running simple curl route concepts, and they knew our plays. I don’t understand why he’s calling these bogus route concepts now when he was calling a MUCH better offense the first half of the season…..

we werent

except that’s not entirely true. Our play calling was 100% better in the first half of the season. And I’m not even talking about the execution of the plays, I’m just speaking on the route concepts used. We didn’t use any motion at line of scrimmage in the Cardinals game. We were running simple curl route concepts, and they knew our plays. I don’t understand why he’s calling these bogus route concepts now when he was calling a MUCH better offense the first half of the season…..

I agree what happened to the motions, jet sweeps, designed QB runs, runs around the corners. Teams always have to be evolving on both sides of the ball.

We played from behind scorewise against Az. And were passing in more long yardage situations these days.

Plus we got schooled by their defensive alignments and coaching.

Az is a very fast team on offense and defense. They prolly woulda been the top seed if Hopkins doesn't get hurt.

I'd rather play Stafford any day then az. Az has had our number for 2 years. Those grass to turf teams are dangerous

Esp w a running QB

 

[Haimerej]

I complained about this with Romo as well, as my comments are not directed at Dak.

I do not hate all comeback routes, I just do not think they need to be the mainstay of an offense. You need to keep the defense on their heels not knowing if your receiver is going to stop and turn back or stop and go.

I know. It's been a common complaint for a while. I've just never understood why. You see those routes in every game. They work, too.

They're really common across the league. Sometimes it looks like it's a bunch of hitches when they're just sitting in zones. That's not every case, of course, but good route runners can usually get decent separation when they hit the brakes against man, like in the Simms video.

They're going to be a part of every offense. As far as, "mainstay," could that be a comfort thing? As in, we think (or possibly know) our guys are best at this play in this situation? They're not exactly attacking the deep inside or outside against cover 2, and we see those routes called in 3rd and long situations. So they're trying to get one on one's at the sticks and hope the receivers out leverage the defender. As Simms said, it's not even a bad strategy, just, "uncreative," which sounds like looking for an issue.

 

[CowboysExchange]

We still only run 2 formations 98% of the time.

We don't run any dual RB or 4wr formations even in hurry up mode.

Thats about 50% of the playbook we haven't utilized in 20 years.

The NFL is predicated on skillsets for the down and distance not the next man up mentality

It's hard to win when ya got 3 out of 6 of your skilled players that are either out of position or don't have the skillsets for that down and distance. Js

The only reason we use all of that 12 personell in the red zone is because of Gronk and Hernandez.

When have we ever had a red zone te scoring threat like either one of them. It's sdupid

 

[DandyDon52]

If big mike has any guts, he'll take over play calling asap, keeping everything the same because he didn't want dak to have learn new terminology and plays was stupid.

he cant lol. coach jerry would have to give him play calling , and he isnt going to do that.
This is very much like it was with wade and JG, wade was game mgr, and def hc, and JG was off HC, and now Kellen is Off HC, mike has no control over
what kellen does with the offense , and play calling.

 

[Oz-of-Cowboy-Country]

The real problem is the option routes. A.Cooper runs a stick route, but is he going to turn inwards toward Dak or out towards the sidelines? Option routes make Dak hold the ball a little longer. And that's not a good thing if the defense is blitzing.


In or out option routes should only be ran by inside receivers. Short or deep option routes should only be ran by your outside receivers. Moore doesn't seem to have any self-made rules in his playbook or play calling.

 

[DandyDon52]

Dak had no real pressure on that one throw, and had bad form which made the throw go low.
He also looked at cd the whole time, no looking off, or going to next guy, he is determined to throw to cd, if that is how play is called.
Dak also throws at guys, not where they will be.

I hated this video in that they dont show how the play ended lol. all that back and forth crap and still pictures was bizarre.

 

[America's Cowboy]

Yeah, we rely on that screen too much. They can see it coming. Pick six in the playoffs, and FG’s instead of TD’s in the RZ will be the death of us.

On those bunch screens that opponents are jumping at the line of scrimmage, it would be perfect for a double pump fake-and-throw. Catch them being over aggressive. The only problem is our Oline struggling to give Dak time.