Dallas Cowboys: Did Jason Garrett take the offense from Scott Linehan?

After a breakout aerial performance last week, some are speculating Jason Garrett, not Scott Linehan, is running the offense now

The Dallas Cowboys offense was significantly different in Week 17 than it was the rest of the season. The Dallas Cowboys offense, which is normally ground-and-pound in nature, suddenly became pass-happy.

While this sudden shift in offensive philosophy could be attributed to Ezekiel Elliott’s absence, it may be something more significant than adjusting to an absence. After all, the Dallas Cowboys have been without Zeke before and they didn’t go ballistic in the ballistic department. Why the sudden change now?

Speculation (but unconfirmed) from some typically reliable folks have been indicating Jason Garrett, not Scott Linehan, was doing the game planning now. And while Linehan is still calling the plays, the plays are Garrett’s.

Jerry Jones indicated before the Dallas Cowboys even played their final regular season game that they had a lot of untapped parts of the playbook just waiting to be unleashed in postseason play. I jerkishly thought he was just telling us Scott Linehan is only pretending to be an idiot and his true genius will show when he goes against all of the decoy tendencies he’s put on film all season long.

It may actually mean Jason Garrett is going to take the reins on offense and start developing the game plans himself.

If you didn’t notice, the Dallas Cowboys scored 36 points on Sunday and did so throwing the ball 44 times and only running it 18 times. Additionally, the passes were considerably more aggressive and went to areas rarely targeted by Prescott this season

The highly successful seam routes were particularly noteworthy. Not only are they a rare sight around these parts, but they were also highly successful. Blake Jarwin didn’t just finally get good at football, he just attacked a different area. The middle of the field (both intermediate and deep) is an area the Dallas Cowboys traditionally avoid with Dak.

On Sunday that changed and it may have something to do with a change in overall offensive philosophy.

We’ll see which Dallas Cowboys offense shows up on Saturday. Will it be the run-heavy plodding attack that grinds out games or will it be the more spread out attack that uses all areas of the field? What we see against the Seattle Seahawks will likely say a lot about who’s offense this is right now.

After the uncharacteristically pass-happy attack on Sunday, many are wondering if Jason Garrett has taken over as offensive game planner. Considering he plays everything so close to the vest we probably won’t know for sure (no matter what he says). But replacing the man who’s almost a lock to be let go this offseason doesn’t sound like a very preposterous thing, especially for a head coach who’s on pretty thin ice himself.

• Published on 01/03/2019 at 23:00 PM
• Last updated at 01/03/2019 at 19:07 PM