Dallas Cowboys: What if Dak and Garrett had failed like Goff and McVay?

What would the reaction be if Dak Prescott, Jason Garrett, and the Dallas Cowboys did as poorly as Jared Goff, Sean McVay, and the Los Angeles Rams just did?

All due respect to Sean McVay and Jared Goff, but they had one of the worst Super Bowl performances in history. The NFL’s third ranked offense, led by Jared Goff and his fourth ranked passing attack, Todd Gurley ( No. 2 in the NFL in yards per game), and Sean McVay who’s universally regarded as the most brilliant offensive coach in the NFL, only managed to put up three points on the 15th ranked New England Patriots defense. Three. Points.

This wasn’t a matter of New England playing out of their minds either. Sure, they played well. It’s Bill Belichick in the Super Bowl after all. This was more about what LA failed to do rather than what New England did to them. This was complete failure on the offensive side of the ball. Can you imagine if this had happened to Dak Prescott, Jason Garrett and the Dallas Cowboys?

It did not happen to them, of course, because the Dallas Cowboys weren’t a good enough team to advance past the Rams in the Divisional Round of the NFL Playoffs. The Rams offense absolutely rolled over Dallas that day and proved to be the superior team in just about every way.

If only the Dallas Cowboys could be so lucky and get the chance to fail in the Super Bowl like LA just did. But this is about something bigger.

The point of this isn’t to tear down the LA Rams. The point is to illustrate the impossible standard we set for our beloved Dallas Cowboys. I mean, look what just happened to arguably the smartest and most talented offense in the NFL. If the Cowboys did this in the postseason, there would be rioting in the streets all around the metroplex.

With the extra week of preparation, we got excited about what Sean McVay would cook up and throw at Old Man Belichick. But instead of fresh thinking and creativity we got a whole lot of the same. The Rams predictable attack called the same plays New England studied on Day 1 of game prep. It’s one thing to expect to catch a regular season opponent off guard with a recycled game plan, it’s quite another to think it’ll work in the Super Bowl.

Sean McVay deserves all of our praise this season for things he’s done and how he’s done them. He’s perfected motion and bunch formations to free his receivers. He’s called more play-action than everyone else because its effectiveness is a proven fact too many coaches disregard (no, you don’t need to establish the run to make it work). He’s even put an emphasis on 12 personnel and utilizing TEs and WRs closer to the middle of the field to gain a blocking advantage. Dallas Cowboys fans would kill to have a coach that would do this.

The man should be commended for doing what so many advanced stats guys have been preaching for so long. The thing is, he could have stayed true to these philosophies and tendencies and still found a way to be unpredictable on Sunday. But he didn’t.

Jared Goff clearly deserves much of the blame himself. If he had executed just a handful of plays this game could have played out much differently. We don’t have the All-22 to study yet, but it was clear he failed to throw it to open targets throughout the evening.

This isn’t entirely out of character for the 24-year-old signal-caller. He was one of the lowest rated postseason QBs going into this game. But on the biggest of stages he sunk to a personal low, putting up a basement level 16.4 QBR.

For perspective, Dak Prescott didn’t have a single game this year with a QBR that low and only has touched that depth once when he got dismantled by Philadelphia back in 2017.

Dak’s 78.2 QBR (the most accurate efficiency stat we have to judge QB play) and 7.3 points added (number of points contributed, accounting for playing time and QBR, above the average level of QB play) were the best in the postseason this year.

Forget the running game and the defense – just by judging the play of the QB and his impact on the field, Dak Prescott was better than Tom Brady, Jared Goff , Patrick Mahomes, Drew Brees, and everyone else. Yet, we still find a sizable chunk of Cowboys Nation bagging on Dak.

Comparing Dak’s last three postseason games to Brady’s and Goff’s last three:
Dak: 76.4 Total QBR
Brady: 69.0 T QBR
Goff: 43.8 T QBR
Average QB: 50 QBR https://t.co/AJPLGU7TzG
— Reid D Hanson (@ReidDHanson) February 4, 2019

Similarly, we love to come down on Jason Garrett and his offensive coaching staff for their shortcomings. And rightfully so. Scott Linehan almost wrote the book on predictability, overuse of the running game between the 20s, underuse of the running game in goal-to-go, and general vanilla predictability.