True, but we ran a lot against 8 or 9 in the box in 2014. The 2nd Philly game was a good example. And I was all for it. In the past if teams showed 8 or 9 man fronts hellbent on stopping the run, it was an automatic audible into a pass. Teams were able to easily dictate what we did on offense by simply showing one look and then changing the look.
I hate to say a 'commitment to the running game', but that's what it was in 2014. A commitment to using a strength of ours (run game) to help Romo become an even more efficient QB. It also plays to this scheme in general which is predicated on being able to run the ball to work with the longer pass routes and the play action which Tony is great at.
What Faulk misses out on this is that Dak stretches the field horizontally because he can bootleg in both directions well and is hard for the weakside container to catch if he reads the bootleg correctly. That makes 10 vs. 10 on a running play instead of 11 vs. 10 if the weakside containment sticks with Dak. To me, it's pretty obvious...if you can stretch the field vertically it helps the *passing* game and if you stretch the field horizontally, it helps the run game. With Romo and Dez coming back, we'll pass the ball very well and be more explosive if they return to their old form. But I think it takes away from the run game because Romo isn't as effective on the bootleg, especially bootlegging left.
YR