Teams started playing more zone and reduced their blitzing against the offensive line. Dak has been getting favorable coverages to exploit since he stepped on to the field in 2016 with this running game and OL, meaning teams basically were bringing extra men in the box, 1 safety look with man. For the last couple years, I always thought to myself they really don’t respect Dak that much, yet they do it too much. In reality, any NFL QB with adequate blocking and talented WRs that can win 1 on 1 matchups can exploit man consistently. You look at the 1 on 1 match up on the outside, you give a brief look to move the 1 deep safety and you let a guy like Amari or Gallup beat the DB.
Even the article in SI admits:
Dak sucked against San Diego, whose base defense is cover 2 and this was in week 2, but our RG was playing dominant at the time, so Dak could check into a run and Zeke and Pollard could still move the ball against it.
https://www.bloggingtheboys.com/202...escott-kellen-moore-offense-run-game-playoffs
This article from 2018 was telling us how bad he was against it.
https://sportdfw.com/2018/10/24/dallas-cowboys-zone-coverage-is-daks-kryptonite/
This article gave numbers in reference to Amari and Dak, right before the Colts game, a team that also ran cover 2 as their base defense and after the article the Cowboys got shut out.
Notice how everything becomes short-based for Dak, though his completing percentage shoots you
https://www.sportsinfosolutions.com...-amari-cooper-face-challenge-with-colts-zone/
Also, to point out, garbage time also pads Dak’s stats against zone, because those are generally soft zone coverage and the defenses are simply content in funneling everything inside to keep burning time of the clock.