Years ago, when my eldest son was between 4 and 5 years old (he is 8 now), I was engrossed in the sprawling and time-consuming world of Skyrim on my PlayStation 3 when, as I was clearing out a cave with my trusty “homemade” bow, my son, unbeknownst to me, walked into my man-cave from behind me just as I took down a soldier standing sentry, placing an arrow in his face from roughly 30 yards out.
My son exclaimed, “Wow dad, that was awesome; did you kill him?”
Not wanting to warp my young son’s mind and expose him to that level of violence too soon, I quickly demurred, “No, son, I just knocked him out!”
To which my son replied, “Good; let’s go over there and kill him!”
So much for that.
Some will tell you, “Defense wins championships.” Some will say, “The rules that the league has implemented over the past decade favor offense and as such in today’s pass-happy NFL, you have to have an exceptional offense to carry you to a Lombardi.” Others insist, “Offense gets you to the dance, Defense drops her pants!”
I say, the team with the best collection of talent to support all three phases (Offense, Defense, and Special Teams) will have the advantage in the Super Bowl, with the only exception to that rule depending on the location and the weather conditions on that particular day. Pointing out the obvious, if it’s an open stadium somewhere where there will be copious amounts of snow/rain/wind or a combination of the three, get ready for a defensive show down, regardless of which side of the ball was responsible for getting both perspective teams to the show.
If you remain convinced one or the other side of the ball is where the front office focus to improve should be regardless of need, my dissertation won’t change your mind…especially considering witnessing that history in the making has already failed you in that endeavor. The truth I seek to impart understanding is that we are not here to only bear witness to a new era of Cowboys football, with Dak now the unquestioned and unrivaled starting Quarterback of our Dallas Cowboys; we as football fans worldwide are also on the precipice of a new (and old) brand of football and the Cowboys are one of a few teams set up to excel in this approach.
In football’s infancy, passing was rare; the ground game enjoyed several years of uninterrupted prominence. But as defenses were constantly looking for new and improved ways to combat the ground game, offenses had to evolve, as well, slowly but surely making the passing game the solution to defenses crowding the box in expectation of yet another run play. From a solution it became an art form; from an art form it has been developed in to a science; the latter evolution leading to what many believe the sport is today: Pass-Happy.
So much for that.
If you witnessed last year and think it still is pass-happy, think again. That era is now in our rear-view. That is not to suggest the passing game is once again taking a backseat to the ground game; not at all. Anyone watching the Super Bowl of this past February certainly knows that is not going to happen any time soon. However, if you take a closer look at the two teams this past Super Bowl featured, you might be surprised to see that the AFC Champ Patriots (and now Super Bowl champs) ran the ball 46.71% of the time throughout the season and the NFC Champ Falcons ran the ball 43.95% of the time. The year prior, the Patriots ran the ball 37.85% of the time and the Falcons ran the ball 40.35% of the time.
This shift was somewhat predictable, if you think about it. As passing dominated the spotlight, much like the defenses of old that evolved to shut down the run, teams of the last 10 years have slowly altered their criteria for selecting defensive players in the draft to combat the pass. In favor of the big, lumbering strong defenders, teams have been placing a premium on speed for several years now.
Twenty years ago, the lineman of today would have been linebackers, linebackers would play safety, safeties would be playing corner, and corners would either be running backs or receivers, if they were selected at all. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of corners playing today that could and would have been successful 20 years ago. But, they would have been considered the outliers or exception to the rule, as opposed to the physical build teams were targeting at that time. For example, Ronde Barber was 5’10” 184 pounds, which was considered significantly undersized for the position, when drafted in 1997. The average NFL cornerback today is 5’11” 193.4 pounds.
As a result, slowly but surely the ground game is gaining ground back on the passing game because today’s secondary is not as equipped to tackle the likes of Zeke in the open-field. But because the Cowboys are doing this from wide receiver sets of 3 or more, the opposition has little choice but to respect the Cowboys passing attack and take their lumps with Zeke. Mind you, this evolution hasn’t happened overnight; it is a movement that started to gain steam around 2012 with the advent of the option quarterback and very little of anything else being produced from the college ranks.
College football, operating on a different evolutionary road from the NFL, began churning out more spread-savvy option Quarterbacks versus pocket passers; guys that could both hurt you with their legs or their arm dependent on the situation, but as a result of having all of those tools, the passing aspect of their game often times was not as polished as NFL teams preferred when choosing the next face of their franchise. Rather than attempting to reinvent these quarterbacks (like the Broncos attempted with Tim Tebow in 2010 and failed epically in their efforts), teams like the Seattle Seahawks (Russell Wilson), Washington Commanders (RGIII), San Francisco 49ers (Colin Kaepernick) and the Carolina Panthers (Cam Newton) opted to embrace them; to retool their offense around them and force opposing defenses to once again figure out how to shut down the option.
Defensive coordinators have responded with varied degrees of success, and many of the quarterbacks initially brought in to pilot that ship have fallen by the wayside as a result (Kaepernick/RGIII). But the option did not die; it simply has been retooled to be a look as opposed to being a base. Likely stealing a page or two out of the Seahawks and Panthers book, the Cowboys offensive braintrust implemented this variation masterfully on behalf of Dak last year. Rather than attempt to have Dak do as Romo did, in an offense designed to exercise Romo’s strengths as a pocket passer, the Cowboys quickly revamped their playbook to be Dak-friendly, implementing option plays sporadically to keep opposing defenses uncomfortable and laid back on their heels.
The addition of Zeke, of course, cannot be overlooked or overstated. Zeke was perfect for the option looks, as every opposing defensive player knows to look for #21 immediately following the snap. With his ability to take a play to the house at any given position on the field, the option and play-action became borderline easy for Dak, as defensive coordinators were often times handcuffed to over-compensate in their efforts to stop Zeke.
Last year the Cowboys ran the ball 50.81% of the time; only the Buffalo Bills ran the ball on average more – 50.93% of the time. I suspect the Cowboys will continue to be balanced, with the only augmentation in their routine from last year coming in the form of more passes to Zeke in open space (an area he was largely underutilized in last year) and, of course, the implementation of the “10” personnel grouping, an evolution the Cowboys likely had in mind drafting Switzer in the fourth round this year.
Ryan Switzer doesn’t just give the Cowboys an option behind Beasley, should Cole be injured. Switzer affords the Cowboys another way to steal sleep from opposing defensive coordinators while still using the aforementioned option look. In fact, the four receiver set spread option may perhaps actually be the system Dak does his best work in, as it is extremely similar to the offense his Mississippi State Bulldogs lived in. If you consider that the defense will either be in the Dime or Nickel looks in response to the Cowboys “10” personnel grouping, both Zeke and Dak can feast on the undersized DB’s attempting to bring them down, when they opt to run from this alignment (which I expect they will do substantially more than they have in previous years). When a defense attempts to thwart the run from this alignment, the Cowboys will simply take their top off, as Dak did repeatedly last year.
A misnomer has arisen in recent months about Dak and deep passes. A bit off-topic, but for the sake of completely selling you on how awesome this next season could be, I’ll address that here:
There seems to be a prevailing belief amongst the national media that Dak is simply not very good at throwing deep passes. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, according to Matt Harmon of NFL.com:
“Dak Prescott was one of the best deep ball passers in tight windows. A whopping 39.5 percent of Dak Prescott’s passes that traveled further than 20 yards in the air went into tight coverage. The rookie’s 29.4 percent completion rate was the ninth-best mark on such throws and he never recorded an interception.”
So much for that.
Just because he didn’t have a lot of attempts beyond 20 yards doesn’t mean he struggles to throw the ball deep. Given there 13 and 3 finish (which really should have been 14 and 2) you could make the argument that the need for throwing the ball beyond 20 yards was rare. The deeper a QB throws the ball, the less chance it will be caught by the player it is intended for. So, if you are winning the game, why would you choose to go with the less likely to complete option?
With that diatribe put to bed, let’s review:
The league is transitioning from being pass-happy to being more balanced. As somewhat of a holdover to the pass-happy era, teams have transitioned their defenses to be better equipped to handle speed; the Cowboys are no exception, except on their defensive line, where size and strength seems to be valued over top end speed. As a result of secondary’s getting faster and smaller, the Cowboys may actually run the ball even more in 2017, from sets that you would not normally expect a run at the rate the Cowboys will do it; the “10” personnel grouping in particular. And remember, being the option, I expect Dak will also have more designed runs, especially when the defense answers with a Dime defense.
The dark side of that coin is the question of rather or not the Cowboys defense is set up to weather this same shift from the opposition in the upcoming season. I am less concerned about the Cowboys NFCE foes, as none have addressed the ground attack on the same level as the Cowboys for the exception of possibly the Commanders with newly acquired running back Samaje Perine, drafted this year in the fourth round who will be paired with a decent offensive line. While not on Zeke’s level as an all-around running back and nowhere close to being as fast (Samaje ran a 4.6 40 in this years combine), he is a very powerful back (30 reps of 225 lbs bench press in this year’s combine) that will likely require gang tackling. As for the rest of the league, my bold prediction going into the season is that the playoffs will be dominated by top tier running backs. Should my prediction come to fruition, you can look for even more running backs taken in the first round in 2018.
Thoughts?
