Offensive Play Calling Horrendous

[DrunkWithPower]

I know others have probably hit on this already, but what happened last night? Did Linehan get concussed? I mean, with one of the best run teams in the league how many shotgun formations can you call? No protection and no chance of play-action, especially in the red zone where our tendency is to run. I know some may say Linehan decided to flip the script and outsmart the Eagles defense, but we basically went away from all our strengths. We also stopped spreading the ball and targeted 88 way too much (I don't know whether that was Prescott or Linehan). The only thing I did like was not running on every first down, but since most of our plays operated out of the shotgun the defense knew we weren't running anyway.

 

[John813]

Well, Dak does have some familiarity in the shotgun formation. Maybe Linehan called more of those plays to try to get Dak out of his funk?

Will say the lack of a willingness to establish the ground game was interesting, but the Eagles made an effort to stop the run and have Dak beat them with his arm.

 

[Stash]

I thought the exact same thing. As good as Linehan's play calling has been all season, it was flat out awful last night. Prescott wasn't sharp, and they were still calling way too many passes Andrew abandoning the running game and the league's leading rusher.

Thumbs down Linehan!

 

[MichaelWinicki]

My big problem with the play calling was the continual forcing of the ball to Bryant.

 

[CATCH17]

It was awful..

I've came on here and praised Linehan after games.

Well i'm here today saying it was absolute garbage.



Ezekiel Elliot is a Superstar tailback and you want to get away from him? Come on.

 

[CowboyWay]

Couldn't agree with the OP enough. Very poor play calling for the most part. I didn't like bringing Morris in to spell Zeke when we were backed up on our own 5 yard line either. You simply have to put your best players in the game in that situation and get a few first downs. Otherwise you punt the ball and giving them the ball at the 50. Which is what we did.

Forcing the ball to Bryant last night was a problem as well. A couple passes to Cole, and a couple to Witten. That simply isn't going to do it.


Also....first and goal at the 5, and we throw the ball on 1st and 2nd down. Are you kidding me? Dak isn't Tom Brady back there. And with our O-line and zeke.... you need to run the ball.

The eagles play calling was worse than ours though. Their last 2 drives, on third down, they literally threw the ball backwards and lost yardage. One of which knocked them out of field goal range, and basically gave us the game. They will be roasting Peterson in Philly this week, and rightfully so.

 

[JBS]

Doesn't help the play caller when the QB is having by far his worst game of his young career

 

[romothesavior]

A couple of examples of the terrible situational playcalling that especially stand out in my mind:

• The end of the 2nd quarter when Dak threw the pick
• The drive in the third quarter where we went empty set on second and third down from the 5 yard line and had to settle for a FG
• The 3 and out and the end of the 4th quarter when we had tons of time and all three timeouts, yet went totally one-dimensional

All inexcusable. No logic to that at all.

 

[Supercowboy1986]

Offensive plan was definitely questionable. We went away from EE too soon. He only finished with 22 carries because of OT. EE ended the game with 17 carries at the end of regulation.

I'll concede however that the eagles were playing more Cowboys football then we were last night. They kept feeding sporoles to open up the short/intermediate passing game which was effective and Took a lot of time off the clock.

 

[CATCH17]

Doesn't help the play caller when the QB is having by far his worst game of his young career

Dak thrives off the running game.. We never established the run and when we got in the redzone we got pass happy.


The playcalling just before halftime nearly cost us the game.1:44 left on the clock and you're throwing? What?

 

[JBS]

Dak thrives off the running game.. We never established the run and when we got in the redzone we got pass happy.


The playcalling just before halftime nearly cost us the game.1:44 left on the clock and you're throwing? What?

Play calling was bad..but there were opportunities, many, that were there to be had w the play calls that were run in which the qb failed to execute

 

[JBS]

Play calling didn't change in OT

Team went down and scored a TD

 

[Sydla]

My big problem with the play calling was the continual forcing of the ball to Bryant.

That. The red zone play calling was awful too. We had a chance to put real pressure on them in the first half and Linehan and Garrett really made some bizarre calls in the red zone in the first half. To not use Elliott inside the 10 was bizarre.

 

[Zman5]

Worst was when we passed 3 times in a row and took off only 19 seconds with almost 2 minutes left in the game. Giving the EaGirls another chance to win the game. That was inexcusable.

They should have featured Beasley more. Beasley killed them last year when Jenkins was covering him.

 

[JBS]

You guys complain when defenses take Dez away and wonder why we paid the guy.

Then you guys complain when the coaches and qb tries to get our best receiving option / mismatch as many opportunities to take over by feeding him the ball

 

[DrunkWithPower]

I will admit the Eagles D was throwing the blitz at us, but where are the plays a good coordinator would normally use to remedy this? Short passes, screens, halfback flairs...anything. I don't know why we never throw anything to EE out of the backfield. He's a beast no matter where he gets it. We didn't throw any quick slants but maybe they're not Zak's strong point? With a big fast receiver like Dez the slant should be there a couple three times a game...

 

[Tenkamenin]

Dak ran the ball more than usual and looked gassed.Moreover, if there's anything our OC should've learned from yesterdays game was that screens are good for this team. Philly takes the easy yardage when the DBs back off 10 yds, those screens will get you a good 4-7 yds making 3rd and short manageable. Compared to Dak, Wentz was hardly in a 3rd and long situation.

 

[Longboysfan]

My big problem with the play calling was the continual forcing of the ball to Bryant.

I thought of that.

I think it was more of Dak giving him a longer look that other receivers.
Where he went through quickly in previous games.

Bryant usually does not run routes that open quickly.

 

[Tenkamenin]

I will admit the Eagles D was throwing the blitz at us, but where are the plays a good coordinator would normally use to remedy this? Short passes, screens, halfback flairs...anything. I don't know why we never throw anything to EE out of the backfield. He's a beast no matter where he gets it. We didn't throw any quick slants but maybe they're not Zak's strong point? With a big fast receiver like Dez the slant should be there a couple three times a game...

Agreed we should've made Schwartz pay with screens, however for whatever reason Dak missed Beasley on several occasions. I bet he catches this during film study this week and will file it in his memory bank.

 

[Sydla]

Worst was when we passed 3 times in a row and took off only 19 seconds with almost 2 minutes left in the game. Giving the EaGirls another chance to win the game. That was inexcusable.

They should have featured Beasley more. Beasley killed them last year when Jenkins was covering him.

And we had timeouts too. We could have ran the ball in that situation and it probably would have worked because the Eagles were pinning their ears back going after Prescott.