Moore's offense didnt change midseason like some claim

[reddyuta]

my faith in Moore is almost gone,this is his do it and leave the NFL forever season.

 

[CowboysFaninHouston]

There's been so much combinations thrown at the misgivings of the offense. .. even down to Jerry himself blaming the WRs for not running the right pass routes.

- And yes, here comes Kellen Moore and those dreaded WR bubble screens that we ran so predictably and frequently ran over and over again such that teams could easily sniffed out
that formation and knock us down for no gain and loss yardage. .. Uugh !

- WR bubble screens and roll out waggles to TE Schultz seem like all we knew how to do
with the underneath game.

- Some will go back to Dak's calf injury where everything seem to slow down, but think of what Denver did differently than even the great defensive Belichek himself failed to do.
Stop coming after Dak with multi-blitzes but rather come at him with vast heavy zone coverage
- especially since Cowboys simply cannot run the ball well enough to hurt us upfront.

Good post.

Yes, Dak was beating blitzes easily but when they found out that they can stop the run with 4 or 5 defenders and generate a pass rush it was easy, just drop 6 or 7 I to coverage and

There's been so much combinations thrown at the misgivings of the offense. .. even down to Jerry himself blaming the WRs for not running the right pass routes.

- And yes, here comes Kellen Moore and those dreaded WR bubble screens that we ran so predictably and frequently ran over and over again such that teams could easily sniffed out
that formation and knock us down for no gain and loss yardage. .. Uugh !

- WR bubble screens and roll out waggles to TE Schultz seem like all we knew how to do
with the underneath game.

- Some will go back to Dak's calf injury where everything seem to slow down, but think of what Denver did differently than even the great defensive Belichek himself failed to do.
Stop coming after Dak with multi-blitzes but rather come at him with vast heavy zone coverage
- especially since Cowboys simply cannot run the ball well enough to hurt us upfront.

Good post.

Yes once teams figured out they can stop the run with 4 or 5 and generate a pass rush and drop 6 or 7 into zone coverage it became difficult.

 

[beware_d-ware]

All defenses had to do to stop us was double Cooper. Gallup and CeeDee couldn't consistently beat single coverage, and Zeke wouldn't punish you for leaving a light box. So just erase Coop, Zeke will get stuffed anyway, and then you just let Dak check down all day. He's not going to kill you with Rodgers or Brady type efficiency going station to station. He's going to eat a sack, or C-Will's going to cop a holding penalty, and the drive will stall out.

So the key to beating us was removing Cooper from the game. But don't worry, we removed him ourselves for a 5th round pick, because he's "not a culture fit." This team galls me.

 

[BHendri5]

This info ends the debate that Moore was responsible for the run game's woes in the 2nd half of the year. Or that he went away from running the ball or got pass happy. All myths that never happened.

https://www.bloggingtheboys.com/202...-mid-season-2021-despite-declining-efficiency

Kellen Moore is a successful high school coach that should not be in the NFL, not even college, he's garbage

 

[gimmesix]

that had some to do with it, but wasn't the sole reason....this kind of collapse is result of multiple factors. Moore didn't adjust. our OL got exposed. Dak had issues. we never adjusted. our OL was exposed as weak up the middle with Williams and Biadasz. runs up the middle were negated. zeke was injured and slow. Moore insisted on running the same plays, never disguising it. he stopped moving players around. teams discovered they can stop the run with 4 or 5 and generate pass rush the same, thus dropping 6 or 7 into coverage which made passing difficult.

It's usually a combination of factor. Just saying teams figured us out says that other defensive coordinators we faced when we were playing well weren't good enough to do that. I agree that some blame is deserved for Moore not adjusting, but Dak's injury as well as these other issues contributed. Didn't make it sound like there was just one factor, although I do believe if Dak has been healthy and playing like he did the first half of the season, it would have had a major effect. Defenses can't play the same if they can't stop an aspect of your offense. A few completed throws would have changed the way we were played, which would have opened up things for the running game.

I don't want that to be seen as blaming Dak. A good example of missed opportunities was in the San Francisco game where Dak threw across the middle to Wilson, who then threw a lateral to Pollard. Wilson threw it so bad that Pollard had no chance. It's plays like that that contributed to the offense not being able to put a defense on its heels. Frankly, it's a sample of a good, creative call by Moore to help get the offense going. We just failed to execute it.

 

[RonnieT24]

Kellen Moore is a successful high school coach that should not be in the NFL, not even college, he's garbage

I don't know that I would go that far.. but I have always maintained that most success the Cowboys have had on his watch have been more about guys making great plays than Moore making great calls. Take for example the game winning drive against the Vikings.. Cooper makes a miraculous catch to beat double coverage.. Then Zeke trucks two defenders on that flat pass to set up the game winning TD. In neither case did Moore's play call have much of anything to do with the team's success. Or how about Pollard's long TD against the Saints.. The blocking was borderline awful but Pollard outran the DE to the edge and then had the safety do.. whatever you wanna call it.. escort? him the last 30 yards? Or maybe the game winner against New England when we turned the DE loose to get into Dak's face and the only reason he was able to get the pass off was he's a good athlete. My expectations for the Cowboys' ultimate success will remain low as long as Moore is calling the plays.. I felt much the same way when Garrett was calling the plays. I would not allow myself to think the Cowboys were a Super Bowl team with Garrett in charge and I am not going to allow myself to think it with Moore running the offense. He doesn't appear to get it.. So until he either does, or is gone, the games are just 3 hours of entertainment on Sundays for me.. The only caveat being that if Quinn can create a Legion of Boom level defense I might get sucked in to thinking we could win the Super Bowl again..

 

[Oz-of-Cowboy-Country]

They don't leak RB's out of the backfield when being blitzed. That's a hangover from the Garrett days. The linebacker shows blitz so the RB stays in to block. When the linebacker doesn't blitz the RB just gets from in front of the QB. He doesn't leak out and he doesn't present himself as a target for the QB. Defenses know this, so as soon as the RB moves out of the way...that linebacker comes on a blitz. The bottom line is....Moore needs to go. If he's not going to change them we need to make a change.

 

[CowboysFaninHouston]

It's usually a combination of factor. Just saying teams figured us out says that other defensive coordinators we faced when we were playing well weren't good enough to do that. I agree that some blame is deserved for Moore not adjusting, but Dak's injury as well as these other issues contributed. Didn't make it sound like there was just one factor, although I do believe if Dak has been healthy and playing like he did the first half of the season, it would have had a major effect. Defenses can't play the same if they can't stop an aspect of your offense. A few completed throws would have changed the way we were played, which would have opened up things for the running game.

I don't want that to be seen as blaming Dak. A good example of missed opportunities was in the San Francisco game where Dak threw across the middle to Wilson, who then threw a lateral to Pollard. Wilson threw it so bad that Pollard had no chance. It's plays like that that contributed to the offense not being able to put a defense on its heels. Frankly, it's a sample of a good, creative call by Moore to help get the offense going. We just failed to execute it.

I agree, its a combination and it led to disaster that culminated in SF game, by then it was total chaos, mess, Dak was bad, moore was bad, zeke was bad, the OL was bad. we had no real direction. nobody trusted the system, their teammates and themselves. we played like we expected to lose and that was the results. it starts at the top and that's Jerry jones. Why did McCarthy throw out a cryptic message of I don't touch the offense!!! you are the headcoach and responsible for all that report to you, which tells me about Jerry's finger prints all over it. Moore needed to be mentored. Linehan and Garrett weren't exactly mentors. plus lets not forget he had a total of 1 year of coaching experience..ANYWHERE at ANY LEVEL...and then he is the OC of Dallas cowboys...nobody in NFL ever did it that way. you have to pay your dues. you have to be mentored. you have to learn from some of the best and then formulate your own style. it was stupid to promote him, further more, stupid to say he reports to me....this experiment will fail and fail badly

 

[CowboysFaninHouston]

All defenses had to do to stop us was double Cooper. Gallup and CeeDee couldn't consistently beat single coverage, and Zeke wouldn't punish you for leaving a light box. So just erase Coop, Zeke will get stuffed anyway, and then you just let Dak check down all day. He's not going to kill you with Rodgers or Brady type efficiency going station to station. He's going to eat a sack, or C-Will's going to cop a holding penalty, and the drive will stall out.

So the key to beating us was removing Cooper from the game. But don't worry, we removed him ourselves for a 5th round pick, because he's "not a culture fit." This team galls me.

the reason they could do that was because they coudl drop 6, 7 into coverage and rush with 4,5 and be effective at it.....we couldn't run against 4, or 5 man fronts. we struggled. that's how you make teams pay for dropping that many into coverage and we didn't.....it starts with OL. the OL was bad bad bad.

 

[CowboyFrog]

So basically the OC's gameplan worked great against lesser teams and lost the matchup battles against better teams... I agree, KM did not change anything even when there where matchups that demanded help and changing.....where have I seen this before, something about red hair comes to mind.....

 

[Zekeats]

No his offense didn't change mid-season... the opposing defenses understanding of our offense changed, so he should have made adjustments accordingly.

Thats the biggest problem!!! He didn’t change anything!!

He's Garrett 2.0.

 

[CowboysFaninHouston]

He's Garrett 2.0.

he is, but think about it. who was his Mentor?

 

[Blast From The Past]

I completely agree. In THAT way he was definitely at fault. And certainly not benching Zeke was a huge mistake. Continuing to let Pollard rot on the bench, another big blunder.

He did try things with the run game however as far as trying to run to the outside more. None of it worked as Zeke was simply too slow and predictable.

Putting a round peg into a square hole says it all imho. I'd like to know who was responsible for trotting out a hurt Zeke week after week. Was it Kellen's call? Was it Mikes call or Jerry's call? Perhaps we will never know till a book is written by someone. But regardless of whom made that call it was irresponsible to the ninth degree. I think we almost all can agree on that here.

 

[GMO415]

Denver said they had the blueprint. Come to find out, they did.

 

[CowboyRoy]

Kellen Moore is a successful high school coach that should not be in the NFL, not even college, he's garbage

Putting a round peg into a square hole says it all imho. I'd like to know who was responsible for trotting out a hurt Zeke week after week. Was it Kellen's call? Was it Mikes call or Jerry's call? Perhaps we will never know till a book is written by someone. But regardless of whom made that call it was irresponsible to the ninth degree. I think we almost all can agree on that here.