Offensive Play Calling Horrendous

[bark]

Yep...that's when I got pissed. It's football 101. Scott is in love with Dak and I get that but he put TOO much on him last night. Yeah, the Eagles were taking away the run but he was missing some EASY blitz busters we've run in the past. He got back to some of them in the 2nd half (with Beasley) but the best one is simply swinging it out to Zeke in the flat and letting him ROLL over people. That will back off their ****** blitz in a hurry, especially when he busts one. Linehan got outschemed by Schwartz for 3 quarters I thought.

Agree that we were outschemed for most of the game.
One thing I thought we should have done more of was have dak keep the ball on the read option a couple of times to keep the ends from crashing down so hard on zeke. We ran it on the first td for a walk in score and it was there all night for the taking

 

[percyhoward]

Dak was erratic for three quarters, we forced the ball to Dez, it's the best defense we've faced, and we didn't run enough (as Garrett told Tafoya at halftime).

All these things really did happen, and yet somehow we still won a tough division game with a backup QB.

 

[dogunwo]

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.

And the substitution to Alfred Morris seemed forced and unnecessary. I like Morris, but we definitely lose a good bit of juice when he is in the game. Remember the 3 and 1 pass to Zeke? The blazing turn and acceleration would have only been a 1 yard gain if Morris even caught it.

 

[Clove]

The only problem I had with the play calling last night was them not using the audible to move more people back in for max-protection. Philly was hell bent on stopping the run, and when Philly put us in 2nd and long, you could not run the ball and risk putting the team in 3rd and long. The few times we passed the ball first, missed, then ran the ball on 2nd, when the ball didn't move on 2nd, we were in 3rd and long.

I would have either liked to see more swing passes to Ezekiel on those blitzes like they did in OT. The blitz is pretty easy to use if you have a dynamic runner. I would also liked to have seen Beasley more in the back field as a switch runner with Zeke also in the back field. This puts a linebacker on him right away. When those blitzes came, you could have swung them both out, someone's in trouble on defense.

 

[visionary]

The Eagles have a very good defense and we have a rookie QB. It's much more likely they called plays based on what the defense was doing rather than being confused.

But you would think that would call for more screens and slot receiver passes

That did not happen

 

[Tenkamenin]

I think you identified the real problem. The Eagles stuffed Elliot several times on 1st and 2nd, putting us in 3rd and long situations. This is why the play calling looked so bad. We had difficulty running on early downs and got stuck in 3rd and long. We spent all night chasing good gains on 1st and 2nd and when it didn't work, we tried to pass to achieve the 3rd and short situations. This is where we missed Romo. The Eagles were selling out to stop the run, but we didn't exactly make them pay. Linehan was persuaded to try to pass out of the situation because Elliot had a few negative runs.

Schwartz guessed right all game, but we won our individual matchups in the passing game. I do feel that this game wouldn't have been close if we ran more screens when they all-out blitzed us or ran in the Shotgun formation. I noticed anytime Dak was in the Shotgun set we passed, and the Eagles stacked the line, but a few delayed Shotgun runs would've softened the Eagles aggressiveness.

 

[Toruk_Makto]

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?

Zeke had something like 30 to 40 yards rushing in the first quarter last night. How is a 120 yard rushing night pace "not establishing the run?"

It's excuse making for everyone's new pet cat (Dak).

Dak was bad last night. Missing wide open receivers while having time in the pocket. A lot of his caught balls were high and great efforts by the wide receiver.

I also like how suddenly Dez getting 14 targets is "forcing him the ball" even though he was open. People forget he had 12 targets his last healthy game in our Division win against the Commanders. He turned those targets into a 100 yard game as well. In that game Dak had a QBR of 88.2. Was that forcing the ball to him then? Where were the complaints then?

Again...this is people trying to protect Dak from his own poor play.

 

[BAT]

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.

Eagles are a poor run stopping team and they never stopped the run last night. if anything, it was the Cowboys that stopped the run by not running.

Zeke smashed them in 1st Q and then was forgotten in 2nd and most of 3rd.

 

[John813]

Eagles are a poor run stopping team and they never stopped the run last night. if anything, it was the Cowboys that stopped the run by not running.

Zeke smashed them in 1st Q and then was forgotten in 2nd and most of 3rd.

When I meant "effort to stop the run" was that the Eagles were loading up the box, and it seemed like the cowboys were calling plays based off what the defense was giving them. Aka the Giants game. For the middle periods.

 

[Wolfpack]

This was an off game for the play calling, which has been much better this year overall. Getting away from the run as noted by others and falling into the shotgun empty sets too much.

 

[AdamJT13]

Zeke smashed them in 1st Q and then was forgotten in 2nd and most of 3rd.

We had only two possessions in the second quarter. One of those was with Morris in, and the other was near the end of the half.

We also had only two possessions in the third quarter. We went three-and-out on the first one (Elliott had one carry for minus-1 yard), and he got four carries on the second one.

You can nitpick plays here and there, but Elliott was never "forgotten." He's not going to play every snap, and we're not going to run the ball on every down. If Dak doesn't play well and the offense doesn't sustain drives (and the defense doesn't stop the opponent from sustaining drives), Elliott isn't going to get a chance to have as many carries. If Dak had played better and converted for first downs, Elliott would have gotten more carries. But unlike most of our previous games, our offense didn't sustain drives as well, and our defense couldn't keep the opponent from sustaining theirs.

 

[BAT]

We had only two possessions in the second quarter. One of those was with Morris in, and the other was near the end of the half.

We also had only two possessions in the third quarter. We went three-and-out on the first one (Elliott had one carry for minus-1 yard), and he got four carries on the second one.

You can nitpick plays here and there, but Elliott was never "forgotten." He's not going to play every snap, and we're not going to run the ball on every down. If Dak doesn't play well and the offense doesn't sustain drives (and the defense doesn't stop the opponent from sustaining drives), Elliott isn't going to get a chance to have as many carries. If Dak had played better and converted for first downs, Elliott would have gotten more carries. But unlike most of our previous games, our offense didn't sustain drives as well, and our defense couldn't keep the opponent from sustaining theirs.

You can't cherry pick either. There were no runs called in the red zone before Dak threw the pick, he had an incomplete pass to Dez on first down just before that.

Dak also almost threw another pick in end zone after the half, fortunately Williams broke that up with a great offensive passing interference.

Dak was struggling mightily in the first 3 quarters and the play calling emphasizing the pass was not helping him. Even Garrett admitted that the Cowboys needed to run more after half time.

Drives were not sustained because Cowboys went away from running game. Dirty yards, even small negative runs, are all part of the running game. No reason to abandon it at all, otherwise Cowboys should have abandoned the pass with all the misses in first 3 quarters.

I know you love to support the passing game but this is a running team first and foremost. Don't fix what ain't broke.

 

[windjc]

Zeke had something like 30 to 40 yards rushing in the first quarter last night. How is a 120 yard rushing night pace "not establishing the run?"

It's excuse making for everyone's new pet cat (Dak).

Dak was bad last night. Missing wide open receivers while having time in the pocket. A lot of his caught balls were high and great efforts by the wide receiver.

I also like how suddenly Dez getting 14 targets is "forcing him the ball" even though he was open. People forget he had 12 targets his last healthy game in our Division win against the Commanders. He turned those targets into a 100 yard game as well. In that game Dak had a QBR of 88.2. Was that forcing the ball to him then? Where were the complaints then?

Again...this is people trying to protect Dak from his own poor play.

You are right. I will say that not pounding the ball into the endzone with Zeke on two drives at the 5 was a huge mistake. We are a running team. Run the ball. We got 3 points and should have had 14. Sometimes OCs complicate the game. Its simple. Pound it.

 

[TwentyOne]

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.

You are so right. Other then Prescott not having a good day this was a badly called game on offense.

I really hope this has nothing to do with the return of Dez Bryant. To me our offense with him took a step back yesterday. They tried to use him way too much. When Bryant is on the field we take our biggest missmatch out of the game - Beasley. And that hurt us alot. To me we get so predictable with Bryant and without Beasley. We went away from the run and played pass first. I dont understand it. Ezekiel had 6.4 yds/a something in the first half. Dak was off target alot so why not stick to what we can do best ?

There were so many bad calls in that game. with a first and 10 at the end of the game we throw 3 passes and give the ball back to them ? come on. first and goal at the 5 yd line and we start with two passes. thats just bad play calling.

 

[Jake]

Play calling didn't change in OT

Team went down and scored a TD

My experience has been that "play calling" always looks better when the team actually executes the plays.

 

[AdamJT13]

You can't cherry pick either. There were no runs called in the red zone before Dak threw the pick, he had an incomplete pass to Dez on first down just before that.

Dak also almost threw another pick in end zone after the half, fortunately Williams broke that up with a great offensive passing interference.

Dak was struggling mightily in the first 3 quarters and the play calling emphasizing the pass was not helping him. Even Garrett admitted that the Cowboys needed to run more after half time.

Drives were not sustained because Cowboys went away from running game. Dirty yards, even small negative runs, are all part of the running game. No reason to abandon it at all, otherwise Cowboys should have abandoned the pass with all the misses in first 3 quarters.

I know you love to support the passing game but this is a running team first and foremost. Don't fix what ain't broke.

Like I said, if Dak had played better, like he usually had this season, Elliott would have been able to run more. In other games, if Elliott had a short run on first down, we still were able to pick up a first down, giving him a chance at more carries. Last night, we had six possessions when we didn't even pick up a first down, mostly because of how poorly Dak was playing. It's Dak's fault as much as it is the coaches' fault.

 

[links18]

Getting Dunbar back could help defeat the blitz. Are we getting Dunbar back?

 

[Idgit]

You can't cherry pick either. There were no runs called in the red zone before Dak threw the pick, he had an incomplete pass to Dez on first down just before that.

Dak also almost threw another pick in end zone after the half, fortunately Williams broke that up with a great offensive passing interference.

Dak was struggling mightily in the first 3 quarters and the play calling emphasizing the pass was not helping him. Even Garrett admitted that the Cowboys needed to run more after half time.

Drives were not sustained because Cowboys went away from running game. Dirty yards, even small negative runs, are all part of the running game. No reason to abandon it at all, otherwise Cowboys should have abandoned the pass with all the misses in first 3 quarters.

I know you love to support the passing game but this is a running team first and foremost. Don't fix what ain't broke.

Adam doesn't support the passing game. He reminds people that effective passing is what wins in the NFL. And he's saying here that we weren't passing effectively much of the game last night.

It was a good defense we faced last night. Dak was off early, and it took them time to make the adjustments they ended up making and moving the ball more effectively. I was as surprised as anybody we didn't run the ball in a couple of those early red zone situations, but clearly they didn't like the matchups in there close and installed a red zone package that had Dak throwing the ball more (apart from his early running score). Ultimately, he throws a couple better balls (i.e., passes more effectively) and those series could have been successful, too. I think we're a good enough offensive team that the QB/OC have earned some benefit of doubt when it comes to calling multiple pass or run plays inside the 10. We've got the players to make teams pay, either way.

 

[reddyuta]

we got be make teams pay for blitzing, i have no doubt that the browns will be blitzing a lot.

 

[LocimusPrime]

I think you identified the real problem. The Eagles stuffed Elliot several times on 1st and 2nd, putting us in 3rd and long situations. This is why the play calling looked so bad. We had difficulty running on early downs and got stuck in 3rd and long. We spent all night chasing good gains on 1st and 2nd and when it didn't work, we tried to pass to achieve the 3rd and short situations. This is where we missed Romo. The Eagles were selling out to stop the run, but we didn't exactly make them pay. Linehan was persuaded to try to pass out of the situation because Elliot had a few negative runs.

Good post! This is so true.