With Mike McCarthy back for his third year and Kellen Moore back for his fourth (as OC), many believe things will stay status quo on offense for the Dallas Cowboys. But there’s reason to believe that will not be the case in 2022, and that the Cowboys offense is going to evolve into something a little different.
Keep in mind, with Amari Cooper playing in Cleveland these days, the Cowboys lost a fundamental part of their passing attack this year. The addition of Jalen Tolbert and James Washington should help, but no one believes them to completely fill the void left by Amari’s departure.
Further complicating matters is Michael Gallup’s injury situation. Gallup is fresh off an ACL injury and is not expected back in time to play in Week 1. That means two of the Dallas Cowboys top-three WRs from 2021 will be absent when the new season kicks off. That’s going to an effect on what Offensive Coordinator Kellen Moore does.
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Dallas Cowboys: Expect more 12 personnel (2TE) in 2022 (sportdfw.com)
Kellen Moore likes 12 personnel (2 TE sets) but not for the traditional reasons.
Traditionally coaches have used 12 to boost the running game; however, Kellen Moore likes it for passing game matchups.
- He likes to see if defenses will play an extra LB over a DB (base vs Nickel) when he uses 2 TEs.
- Moore has been good at scheming TEs open in general and especially in 12 personnel.
- In the games that Jarwin played with Schultz in 2021 and with Witten back in 2019, Moore used Jarwin as a chess piece.
- I saw a little bit of that with McKeon/Schultz mid-2021 but McKeon had a neck injury in game 12 and his snap count dropped to minimal afterwards.
The key is for both TEs to be good route runners.
- Moore is much better than Garrett ever was at 'probing' defenses early and then coming back with a similar but altered play later to exploit coverage tendencies.
- It can be as simple as re-running a play except the TE that is being schemed open varies the angle of a post route.
- The TE might have run a post that was close to a square-in on the original play.
- Then on the repeat play, he takes it more vertical because they know the FS will cheat to the other side of the field.
Moore also likes to run a tiered route scheme on designed QB rollouts which is common; however,...
- He seems to prefer doing it with TEs over WRs.
- i.e. Schultz running a square-in at 10 yards and Jarwin running a square-in at 20 yards with Dak rolling out to that side.
A big part of the reason they liked TE Jake Ferguson in the draft, is that he is considered a High IQ player.
- It is unlikely the Cowboys would have drafted MartyB if Kellen Moore had been the Offensive Coordinator back then.
- MartyB had a multi-million dollar body but a 10 cent brain.
