Although I still love Dak and think that he can still grow, why was he so good his rookie season? Or should I say, why was he so "overrated" in his rookie season? Him and Zeke were both powerhouses and they both were the duo to beat in 2016, but, after that, Dak went downhill. Zeke stayed the same (AKA, a great RB). What happened? The coaching? Tony Romo leaving? I don't understand how our opinions and way of play changed so quickly.
A couple of thoughts here:
1. Beginners often perform better than intermediates because paradoxically they don't know as much and therefore don't process as much and so they just do it. So the "sophomore slump" is actually an indication of learning rather than character flaws. We have even heard Dak say that he knows way more now then he did his rookie year. It takes time for that knowledge to become automatic, and in my opinion I think we were starting to see Dak turn the corner.
2. His rookie year defenses didn't know to take away the center of the field and force Dak to throw to the outside. Dak killed teams with Witten and Beasely because they were off worrying about Dez, which is who Romo would have killed him with. Dak's relative inaccuracy showed up most 10-20 yards downfield near the sidelines and suddenly there was discussion of Dez, Witten, and Beasley all "declining" in the same year. But really Dak's struggles year 2 can be attributed almost entirely to defenses forcing him to play to his weaknesses. The absence of Zeke and no depth at OL exacerbated these issues whereas in contrast to his rookie year he had an incredible OL and running game all year and defenses allowed him to play to his strengths in the middle of the field.
3. Enter year 3 and the plan going in appeared to be to throw more go-routes to force defenses to defend the whole field again and to create some space in the middle. Dak had shown that he can throw the go route and we absolutely needed to find a way to create space in the middle of the field for the passing game. His first TD pass in preseason was a go route. In practice this wasn't a great plan. Go routes are low probability despite attempts from the front office to add speed on the outside. We just couldn't throw enough of those to force teams out of clogging the middle of the field, and honestly the OL wasn't providing the time needed to allow those routes to develop.
So that plan gets scratched mid-season and we trade for Cooper. Here is when we start to see Dak's development because my fear was that his connection with Cooper would be no better than his with Dez. But that proved incorrect and more importantly we were able to see that Dak has improved his ability to throw to the sidelines. Two huge games by Cooper finally forced defenses to start to play more honest and protect against the big play.
So now Cooper "disappears" for a few games, but surprise, Jarwin and Beasley start impacting games. The center of the field is opening up again and it appears that Dak's knowledge is starting to become more automatic rather than thoughtful because we saw signs of anticipation near the end of the year.
I personally would like to see Dak put it all together next year before giving him a big contract, but from where I am sitting I have moved from being very concerned about Dak's abilities to believing we saw him start to turn the corner. A healthy OL next year, a weapon at TE, and my dream of using the Rams scheme and I think the offense will be in good shape.
