Cowboys (Halloween Edition): 4 possible nightmare scenarios

Conservative Approach

The lead up to this 2019 season has been intense. After seeing the Dallas Cowboys conservative approach to offense for the past few years, the Cowboys replaced Scott Linehan with Kellen Moore and fans couldn’t have been happier.

For years we’ve seen offenses trending more towards motion and early down passing. It’s pretty obvious why too. Motion helps QBs diagnose coverage pre-snap and adjust plays and progressions accordingly.

Early down passing has been proven to be vastly  more productive than early down rushing. And when used with play-action, no play in the game is more universally productive than 1st and 2nd down passes.

Now the Dallas Cowboys are still run-heavy on first down and that’s nearly inexcusable. But second down has been a thing of beauty and Dallas has been at the top or near the top in 2nd down production all season long. We can thank second down play-action passing for that.

It’s not just as simple as more early down passing either. Moore has used more creative packages, like passing from 13 personnel (3 TE) and running from spread formations. Dallas is also aggressive deep downfield and is one of the least dink and dunk teams in the NFL.

The Dallas Cowboys offense is currently the top ranked offense in the NFL and that has everything to do with their aggressive approach. This could all vanish in an instant if the Cowboys get shy and revert to their conservative ways of old. It happened against the Saints and even against the Jets. It can happen again.

And that would be a nightmare.