jday
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...for the Dallas Cowboys.
One Giant Leap for…
Michael Gallup
The Numbers: 7 Receptions, 158 yards, 22.6 per catch, with a 66 long. Not a single incompletion/dropped pass.
It was a career day for Gallup.
At some point in his short career, you have said, thought, heard, or read that if he and Dak can start connecting on those go routes, this offense will ascend to another level. Through training camp, preseason and now a regular season game, the Dak to Gallup connection has been on point, which of all the Cowboys receivers, might just be the most important. After all, he’s the guy that benefits the most from Zeke and Amari also being on the field.
When Zeke is on the field, the opposition will likely by default counter with single high Safety, bringing one Safety in the box to account for a potential run. When Amari is on the field, if there is a safety deep, chances are, he’s shading towards Amari to help what will most likely be a very overmatched corner. This leaves Gallup in single coverage on the outside hash mark in most cases.
If Gallup can consistently beat that coverage (particularly deep and where it really hurts the opposition), they will have no choice but to back the second safety up out of the box, giving Zeke, Pollard, and Dak more room to operate underneath. Long, sustained drives chewing up clock and wearing out the opposing defense is this team’s bread & butter. If they can create that scenario in-game on a consistent basis, they will absolutely win most of their games.
The leap that Michael took was simply trusting and being confident in what he was seeing from the defense. Your immediate recollection of the action will recall, of course, the big plays…but his best plays happened within an eye-blink of the snap and it was clear Dak was throwing to a spot…not a receiver….a classic element of the Air-Coryell offense. Of course, for that approach to be effective the receiver has to be at the spot within a certain amount of time from snap. And he has to be there after having lost his defender to create space to catch that pass.
Last year, the returns on this connection were spotty at best…often times resulting in Dak throwing the ball in what looked to be a different zip code from where Michael was running his route. Whatever the issue, it is clearly in their rearview.
Dak Prescott
The Numbers: 32 Attempts, 25 Completions, Completing 78.1%, for 405 Yards, 4 Touchdowns, No Interceptions and a perfect 158.3 / 97 QB Rating.
It was a career day for Dak Prescott.
Dak Prescott currently is my favorite player on the team. He embodies everything you could possibly want in a young leader of your football team and in particular the one presiding over the world’s favorite sports franchise – The Dallas Cowboys. He is unphased by the media and their constant attempts at baiting him in to being a malcontent in the locker room with no contract (and by extension, financial security). He makes it a point to establish a connection with each and every member of that final 53. He leads both by example and vocally, something we really haven’t seen in these parts on his level since Roger Staubach; Aikman certainly led by example, but being the bad cop following Jimmy’s mutual separation, was not in his wheelhouse and The Dynasty suffered accordingly. Dak Prescott has no issue with holding players accountable and furthermore, he recognizes that if anyone is going to exhibit and uphold the standard, it should be him…The General.
Speaking of generals, Dak actually looked like a field-General in the same vein that I remember seeing from Peyton Manning, when Dak was picking apart the (admittedly bad) Giants secondary…it truly was a thing of beauty to witness and to me the big leap we witnessed on Sunday.
You see, in the offseason leading up to the regular season my predominant concern regarding Kellen Moore in his first stint as an offensive coordinator was how he would mesh with Dak. Kellen is the winningest college quarterback in the history of the NCAA, at 50 & 3, he has a noodle for an arm and was a statue in the pocket. Take a moment to digest that….there’s a lot to unpack in that otherwise small fact-nugget.
What that means is that he had to beat teams from the pocket with his head…and his head alone. Boise State is not a Powerhouse. He did not have elite talent keeping him on his feet and to dish the ball to. His passes had little to no velocity on them and in most cases looked like half-circles in their trajectory. That said, his sense of timing and ability to anticipate his receivers coming open in their route was second to none.
Dak’s, on the other hand, QB upbringing was the polar-opposite of Kellen’s. For much of his career up until he was a Sophomore in college at Mississippi State, he was more of a running back, that dumped off the ball from time to time when the defense keyed on him. He has all of the physical tools and can make all the passes you could possibly want from a starting QB; but when it comes to reading defense's, up until this past Sunday, Dak was playing checkers.
So, the obvious question to me was whether or not Kellen would be able to bridge that gap and mold Dak into an offense where he has complete control to execute that offense, with no gaffs, delayed-game penalties and/or wasted timeouts because he can’t get the team on the same page. We saw none of that Sunday. Dak moved the offense with little to no issues, save the occasional flag bringing back otherwise great play and he did so with complete command, despite a lot of moving parts and pieces to create the most favorable match-ups.
Lost in the brilliance of those Touchdown passes, were the plays Dak made to put them in striking distance…almost every pass hitting his target in the numbers or in front of the facemask, right on the money. For five straight possessions, Dak took the team down the field with very little contribution from Zeke, the guy this offense is supposedly built around. In the last 3 years, you could certainly make that argument, but based on the small dose we were treated to on Sunday, there is no question of who is in the driver seat of the offense now.
Kellen Moore
The Numbers: 494 total yards, 5 total touchdowns, 8 different targets, 7 different receivers, 2 of which accrued over 100 total receiving yards, 5 of which accounted for the touchdowns that occurred back to back, all of which was capped off by 1 touchdown on the ground from the recently returned Prodigal Son, Ezekiel Elliott. The Cowboys were 100% in the redzone – all Touchdowns.
Kellen Moore had a career day…on his first day….that counts anyway.
I have long said that football is the chess of sports….only in football, the pawns can rip your head off, and not all pieces are created equally. When I’ve made that comparison, though, I have never really given much thought about the guy responsible for moving the pieces around to create that coveted situation where the king must concede defeat.
For the first time in my football watching life, I witnessed the pure unadulterated difference between having a good offensive coordinator and having Scott Linehan. To be fair, Linehan did not have this good of a receiving crew entering or closing out the season, Dak appears to be on a different level this year (one game in) and the Giants defense might actually be worse than it was from a year ago and that is really, really bad.
That disclaimer aside, Moore showed why not doing everything within your power to setup your offensive weapons to succeed on every given play is an effort to the contrary in todays NFL.
If you were too busy celebrating to focus on the specifics of what Moore’s offense did, Brian Baldinger in the below clip does an excellent job of breaking it down:
The indictment towards Linehan I’d say is pretty strong when you consider just how effective the Cowboys proved to be Sunday without him and the fact that Moore was his protégé the whole time. Does anyone believe Moore quietly and meekly sat on his hands and bit his lips while watching Linehan run an offense ranked close to dead last in Redzone efficiency?
Moore seems like a very respectful, nice and mild-mannered guy…but he does not ascend from player to QB coach one year and then from QB Coach to Offensive Coordinator the next year by sitting in the corner and being quiet. No, those two butted-heads and probably did so in front of Jason Garrett…maybe even the Jones’. And week after week, Moore’s case was made stronger by the absolute ineptitude of the offense in 2018 that was saved more often than not by a great defensive effort.
As a result, Moore is now the Offensive Coordinator…and based on the early returns, the Cowboys appear to be in masterful hands. Of course, the greatest leap that has happened for this franchise in quite some time, was Moore leapfrogging Linehan.
Thoughts?
One Giant Leap for…
Michael Gallup
The Numbers: 7 Receptions, 158 yards, 22.6 per catch, with a 66 long. Not a single incompletion/dropped pass.
It was a career day for Gallup.
At some point in his short career, you have said, thought, heard, or read that if he and Dak can start connecting on those go routes, this offense will ascend to another level. Through training camp, preseason and now a regular season game, the Dak to Gallup connection has been on point, which of all the Cowboys receivers, might just be the most important. After all, he’s the guy that benefits the most from Zeke and Amari also being on the field.
When Zeke is on the field, the opposition will likely by default counter with single high Safety, bringing one Safety in the box to account for a potential run. When Amari is on the field, if there is a safety deep, chances are, he’s shading towards Amari to help what will most likely be a very overmatched corner. This leaves Gallup in single coverage on the outside hash mark in most cases.
If Gallup can consistently beat that coverage (particularly deep and where it really hurts the opposition), they will have no choice but to back the second safety up out of the box, giving Zeke, Pollard, and Dak more room to operate underneath. Long, sustained drives chewing up clock and wearing out the opposing defense is this team’s bread & butter. If they can create that scenario in-game on a consistent basis, they will absolutely win most of their games.
The leap that Michael took was simply trusting and being confident in what he was seeing from the defense. Your immediate recollection of the action will recall, of course, the big plays…but his best plays happened within an eye-blink of the snap and it was clear Dak was throwing to a spot…not a receiver….a classic element of the Air-Coryell offense. Of course, for that approach to be effective the receiver has to be at the spot within a certain amount of time from snap. And he has to be there after having lost his defender to create space to catch that pass.
Last year, the returns on this connection were spotty at best…often times resulting in Dak throwing the ball in what looked to be a different zip code from where Michael was running his route. Whatever the issue, it is clearly in their rearview.
Dak Prescott
The Numbers: 32 Attempts, 25 Completions, Completing 78.1%, for 405 Yards, 4 Touchdowns, No Interceptions and a perfect 158.3 / 97 QB Rating.
It was a career day for Dak Prescott.
Dak Prescott currently is my favorite player on the team. He embodies everything you could possibly want in a young leader of your football team and in particular the one presiding over the world’s favorite sports franchise – The Dallas Cowboys. He is unphased by the media and their constant attempts at baiting him in to being a malcontent in the locker room with no contract (and by extension, financial security). He makes it a point to establish a connection with each and every member of that final 53. He leads both by example and vocally, something we really haven’t seen in these parts on his level since Roger Staubach; Aikman certainly led by example, but being the bad cop following Jimmy’s mutual separation, was not in his wheelhouse and The Dynasty suffered accordingly. Dak Prescott has no issue with holding players accountable and furthermore, he recognizes that if anyone is going to exhibit and uphold the standard, it should be him…The General.
Speaking of generals, Dak actually looked like a field-General in the same vein that I remember seeing from Peyton Manning, when Dak was picking apart the (admittedly bad) Giants secondary…it truly was a thing of beauty to witness and to me the big leap we witnessed on Sunday.
You see, in the offseason leading up to the regular season my predominant concern regarding Kellen Moore in his first stint as an offensive coordinator was how he would mesh with Dak. Kellen is the winningest college quarterback in the history of the NCAA, at 50 & 3, he has a noodle for an arm and was a statue in the pocket. Take a moment to digest that….there’s a lot to unpack in that otherwise small fact-nugget.
What that means is that he had to beat teams from the pocket with his head…and his head alone. Boise State is not a Powerhouse. He did not have elite talent keeping him on his feet and to dish the ball to. His passes had little to no velocity on them and in most cases looked like half-circles in their trajectory. That said, his sense of timing and ability to anticipate his receivers coming open in their route was second to none.
Dak’s, on the other hand, QB upbringing was the polar-opposite of Kellen’s. For much of his career up until he was a Sophomore in college at Mississippi State, he was more of a running back, that dumped off the ball from time to time when the defense keyed on him. He has all of the physical tools and can make all the passes you could possibly want from a starting QB; but when it comes to reading defense's, up until this past Sunday, Dak was playing checkers.
So, the obvious question to me was whether or not Kellen would be able to bridge that gap and mold Dak into an offense where he has complete control to execute that offense, with no gaffs, delayed-game penalties and/or wasted timeouts because he can’t get the team on the same page. We saw none of that Sunday. Dak moved the offense with little to no issues, save the occasional flag bringing back otherwise great play and he did so with complete command, despite a lot of moving parts and pieces to create the most favorable match-ups.
Lost in the brilliance of those Touchdown passes, were the plays Dak made to put them in striking distance…almost every pass hitting his target in the numbers or in front of the facemask, right on the money. For five straight possessions, Dak took the team down the field with very little contribution from Zeke, the guy this offense is supposedly built around. In the last 3 years, you could certainly make that argument, but based on the small dose we were treated to on Sunday, there is no question of who is in the driver seat of the offense now.
Kellen Moore
The Numbers: 494 total yards, 5 total touchdowns, 8 different targets, 7 different receivers, 2 of which accrued over 100 total receiving yards, 5 of which accounted for the touchdowns that occurred back to back, all of which was capped off by 1 touchdown on the ground from the recently returned Prodigal Son, Ezekiel Elliott. The Cowboys were 100% in the redzone – all Touchdowns.
Kellen Moore had a career day…on his first day….that counts anyway.
I have long said that football is the chess of sports….only in football, the pawns can rip your head off, and not all pieces are created equally. When I’ve made that comparison, though, I have never really given much thought about the guy responsible for moving the pieces around to create that coveted situation where the king must concede defeat.
For the first time in my football watching life, I witnessed the pure unadulterated difference between having a good offensive coordinator and having Scott Linehan. To be fair, Linehan did not have this good of a receiving crew entering or closing out the season, Dak appears to be on a different level this year (one game in) and the Giants defense might actually be worse than it was from a year ago and that is really, really bad.
That disclaimer aside, Moore showed why not doing everything within your power to setup your offensive weapons to succeed on every given play is an effort to the contrary in todays NFL.
If you were too busy celebrating to focus on the specifics of what Moore’s offense did, Brian Baldinger in the below clip does an excellent job of breaking it down:
The indictment towards Linehan I’d say is pretty strong when you consider just how effective the Cowboys proved to be Sunday without him and the fact that Moore was his protégé the whole time. Does anyone believe Moore quietly and meekly sat on his hands and bit his lips while watching Linehan run an offense ranked close to dead last in Redzone efficiency?
Moore seems like a very respectful, nice and mild-mannered guy…but he does not ascend from player to QB coach one year and then from QB Coach to Offensive Coordinator the next year by sitting in the corner and being quiet. No, those two butted-heads and probably did so in front of Jason Garrett…maybe even the Jones’. And week after week, Moore’s case was made stronger by the absolute ineptitude of the offense in 2018 that was saved more often than not by a great defensive effort.
As a result, Moore is now the Offensive Coordinator…and based on the early returns, the Cowboys appear to be in masterful hands. Of course, the greatest leap that has happened for this franchise in quite some time, was Moore leapfrogging Linehan.
Thoughts?
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