Ive seen everyone on here and radio/internet guys keep saying the playbook is outdated.
Nate Newton, who knows more than anyone of us on here said we run 95% of the same plays post snap as the Rams.
The difference and what we’d like to see changed is the presnap misdirection that causes defenses to hesitate which opens up holes in the run game and pass game.
I’ve said forever that most NFL teams are running about the same playbook since there no true west coast or only air Coryell schemes anymore.
What separates is the timing of the calls. The perfect example is the play vs the Eagles Cooper wanted changed. We didn’t put in a new play in the huddle, we just audibled to one that already existed.
Whoever the new playcaller is, they need to have the openness to change and add some presnap motion.
But they don’t have to throw out the entire playbook.
He is really talking about what the Rams do relative to other teams and then saying Cowboys instead of other teams.
McVay (Rams HC) has openly talked about the fact that what they actually run post snap is not complicated. The difference is pre-snap in how the disguise what they're doing.
IMO, the best thing the Rams do is execution not scheme. When they run a reverse or fake reverse it appears that they've practiced that play to perfection. When the Cowboys run similar plays, it often appears that they have not had many practice reps doing it.
The Rams OLine is very precise in their execution. The Cowboys have more talent on the OLine but their execution has declined every year since Bill Callahan departed.
I do think the WR coach is a big improvement from the past and the 2018 TE coach has a decent track record as a college OC.
We saw what a difference legit NFL coaching can make with Kris Richard on defense. The previous DB coach had Byron Jones playing Strong Safety much of last season. The CB Brown said that the previous coaches let him decide what technique he would use from snap to snap; whereas, Richard was coaching them in great detail on technique and it is part of his play calls.
The year that the Cowboys coaches were the coaches for the Senior Bowl, they showed (with audio) Scott Linehan giving the play calls to QBs in practice. It was a very odd process and he didn't appear to be a good communicator. The play calls seemed random and unorganized for a practice setting.
On the flip side, we saw and heard Kris Richard coaching players in training camp and there was no possibility that he was not a good communicator.
Football schemes are not that complicated. It would be easy to make them more complicated than most players could understand.
Great coaching always comes back to getting players to execute correctly on a consistent basis.
We saw a very complex scheme with minimal focus on execution when Rob Ryan was the D-Coordinator. Sometimes he had a good day calling plays and it worked. Other days they gave up many big plays because there was no way they could practice all of his various alignments and overall complex scheme.
They replaced Ryan with Marinelli/Kiffin and their ultra simplistic scheme; however, the.the defense started to improve over time as they learn to execute the details consistently.
The execution on defense took another big step with Kris Richard who puts an extreme emphasis on teaching players how to know which technique to play based on straight forward "keys" from what the offense players are doing.
Summary:
Many people could come up with complex schemes but not many people can get players to execute those schemes to perfection.
I could come up with a complex scheme that would look great on a computer simulation going against most NFL schemes; however, I could never get real players to execute my scheme. In fact I probably couldn't get NFL players to execute a 5th grade scheme because I don't have the Jimmy/Parcells/Kris Richard type power of persuasion over people.