waving monkey
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There’s no debate: the Cowboys are deficient at wide receiver. Entering training camp, the position boasted six to eight capable contributors … unfortunately, all of them would be third or fourth options on most teams. This offense suffered through shoddy receiver play last year and became inconsistent. Head coach Jason Garrett and offensive coordinator Scott Linehan must reshape their approach. Out with the spread formations that were built to emphasize Dez Bryant outside and Jason Witten inside. With receivers who cannot win on their own in space, an offense must manufacture aerial opportunities via designs from its running game. Those designs often come from condensed formations, where receivers can appear to be potential run-blockers.
The good news is a dominant O-line (more on that later) and an explosive, deceptive runner like Ezekiel Elliott, make Dallas’s ground game the best in football. It’s an almost unbeatable equation when you factor in Dak Prescott’s mobility, which can occupy unblocked defenders and, via rollout designs both real and fake, tame a defense’s backside pursuit.
To maximize that ground game, Garrett and Linehan should flavor it with more misdirection elements. Jet sweeps, end-arounds, decoy pull-blockers and multi-option zone reads would be great additions to Dallas’s staple ghost reverses and split-zone runs, where receivers and tight ends work back across the formation. The Cowboys are primed for this; if they weren’t, they would not have traded for ex-Ram Tavon Austin (and his $3 million cap number, which is more than five times pricier than similarly skilled 2017 fourth-rounder Ryan Switzer, who was shipped to Oakland in a separate deal).
Prescott is best-suited for a run-first offense—and that’s not a slight at his quarterbacking. He has what few mobile QBs possess: the poise and toughness to stay in the pocket and deliver with defenders closing in. That’s crucial for long-term development. But Prescott is not an aggressive anticipation passer like most of the league’s top pocket QBs. He’s a facilitator who can make second-reaction plays when need be. This type of skill set works great on play-action, bootlegs and rollouts—tactics, in other words, that stem from the running game.
https://www.si.com/nfl/2018/08/20/d...er.com&utm_campaign=themmqb&utm_medium=social