Pump the brakes.
EE has been phenomenal the past 4 games. But, Dak has played a big role in that because of his bootleg passing and RPO skills. When you have a defender that has to account for the QB, that means 10 on 10 football.
The defense is playing well, but they have had some issues from time to time and have gotten bailed out by luck from time to time. And they've needed a high scoring, run focused offense to do it.
If you look at the statistics of teams with similar offenses that are more run focused, but score a lot of points...usually their defensive performances improve immensely.
That's what is getting lost in all of this. Dak's impact on the run game because he effectively stretches the defense horizontally.
I think too many people look at stretching the field vertically as the key to opening up the running game.. But, if you can stretch it horizontally it has a larger impact. And we can do that because we can run the ball to the left, run the ball right and bootleg left and right. Can't do that with Romo or Sanchez. And we are #1 on runs up the gut according to Football Outsiders.
This offense reminds me a little of Chip Kelley's first year with the Eagles where they ran the ball incredibly well. They stretched defense's horizontally because they had McCoy and Jackson involved with the running game and both were so fast and quick it was very difficult to stop.
That's why I was more than glad to see the Eagles trade McCoy and cut Jackson. I thought those were horrendous moves based on what they were able to do with that offense. The other issue was Kelly's scheme, especially from a passing perspective, is over-simplified. But the end effect on the running game was the same.
Now we have an offense that stretches defense's vertically and is less simplified in the passing game. And we also have Whitehead to help continue to stretch the defense horizontally. Essentially, defenses don't know which way to go and a large part of that has to do with Dak. With Romo and Sanchez we may be able to stretch defenses vertically although Dak hasn't had Dez which takes away the vertical threat.
YR
