Tempo of Offensive

[ThreeandOut]

Prior to this year when the Cowboys were primarily a passing team, it used to drive me crazy when they ran the play clock down and snapped the ball right before time expired. It seem like it allowed the pass rush to know when the ball would be snapped and it resulted in unnecessary timeouts or delay of game penalties.

But now that the Cowboys are more of a running, ball control team, I've come to appreciate this strategy more. Over the course of a game, it contributes to our time of possession advantage. It forces the defense to play at our pace. We seem to be the anti-Eagles when it comes to the offensive tempo. And unlike these fast paced teams, we don't have to change our style of play we we have a lead and trying to kill time.

 

[Eskimo]

They do it to force the defense to show their hand before the snap and Romo is supposed to be one of the best QBs in the game going through his pre-snap reads. The key to our offense is execution and not trickery so it feeds into our strengths to run the clock down.

Having said that I wouldn't mind if we occasionally changed things up and went no-huddle to catch the defense off-guard and in personnel they don't want in the field. It'd be great if we ran more true 2-TE offense and then kept flipping between run and pass looks without changing personnel to generate mismatches for us. It would give them something extra to try and prepare for. The downside is that short 3&outs would put a lot of stress that our defense cannot withstand presently.

I do hope we get back a healthy Lee, re-sign Lee and get to pursue a quality DE in FA this offseason. Otherwise just keep drafting BPA and continue to build a great team.

 

[blindzebra]

The only time using all the clock bothers me is short yardage. It eliminates the hard count and the quick snap works so well every time I see teams do it.

 

[ThreeandOut]

The only time using all the clock bothers me is short yardage. It eliminates the hard count and the quick snap works so well every time I see teams do it.

This is true but I guess they think they can just line up and physically beat the guys across from them.