With another season about to start, the Dallas Cowboys have some changes on offense they need to employ in order to take the next step. The first item on the docket, is using motion more than they have in the past.
If we are to believe the rumors that the front office has a defined idea of how the offense should run, “Cowboys football”, then this may all be a moot point. However, the trend in the NFL has gone to using motion before and at the snap, to get players open and/or into better matchups.
Long gone is the old moniker: “just line up and beat the man across from you.” Sure, a player still has to perform their job, but scheme can help hide many flaws and open up the offense in ways that put the defense at a disadvantage.
Last season, much like previous seasons, the Dallas Cowboys ranked near the bottom of the league in motion used. There was hope early in the season as we did see more motion than we have in the past, but as the season wore on, the less the team used it until it was almost completely gone by the time the playoffs rolled around
Sport DFW’s own, Adithya, spoke on this topic just five months ago here. Now, it is time to see it come to fruition.
The Dallas Cowboys offense has to get into motion this season if they want to truly be considered a team to contend.
With the departure of Amari Cooper, and Michael Gallup’s uncertain injury status, the Dallas Cowboys need to get creative. The O-line is an unknown as is the situation at RB. With CeeDee Lamb being the number one wide receiver, teams will now most likely put their efforts into forcing the Cowboys to beat them with another player. To combat this using motion to create space for Lamb will help immensely.
Allowing the offense to use motion will have to start at the top and trickle down to Kellen Moore. Teams for years have talked about how plain the offense has tended to be, and a large part of that is once the Cowboys have lined up, they don’t add a ton of pre-snap or even at-the-snap confusion.
This has allowed teams to key on certain players and recognize what they are seeing. For context, the Rams had a little over 10% of motion on passing plays at the snap and almost 30% on running plays. The Dallas Cowboys had about 5% of motion on passing plays and under 10% (lowest in the league) on running plays. Only the Vikings, Jaguars, and Steelers had less motion on passing plays than the Cowboys. The 49ers were way ahead of everyone on both motions.
If we watch the comments of fans as they watch the games, a lot of times the word predictable comes up. Far too often does it seem we can all see the play before the ball is snapped. If we can see it, then other teams can see it. It is amazing to think about how powerful this offense has shown itself to be in the past few seasons and how much more effective they could actually be.
As the season wears on and teams study tape, it seems the offense tends to take a step back. Just as it has the past few seasons.
This is the year Kellen Moore has to force motion. A revamped offense without several of their top weapons, whether due to injury or no longer on the team, has to be revamped in the playbook as well. Now, the players do have to understand what they are doing, but there is no reason to think they couldn’t put more motion in and consistently use it more. Now we wait for training camp and hope they are in motion.