5 Dallas Cowboys “Hot Takes” for the 2022 season
The time for the Dallas Cowboys to finally take the field is upon us. We are just one week away before the Cowboys take on the Buccaneers to start the 2022 season. As we all know “hot takes” permeate throughout the football season and none are as crazy as the ones just before we start the season. Let’s take a shot at five “hot takes” for the season.
Before we get to the five hot takes, I will not do something like “The Dallas Cowboys will win the Super Bowl”, or “Mike McCarthy will be fired and Sean Payton will be the head coach before the end of the season.” Mainly because those are pretty far out there and while possible is just a super reach for views in my opinion. That said, there are still some bold predictions to make.
We look at the five bold predictions, or “hot takes” for the Dallas Cowboys 2022 NFL season before they take the field on Sunday.
Hot Take No 1: The Dallas Cowboys will run, a lot.
While most of the league is trending toward analytics and play design trends by throwing the ball due to being more efficient, the Dallas Cowboys will trend in the opposite direction. Earlier in the offseason, the front office said they wanted their third running back to get more snaps this season. The front office has been pretty clear that they want to run the ball more and believe Ezekiel Elliott should be the focus of the offense.
With the offensive line rebuild ongoing, the current line is better at run blocking than they are pass blocking. This isn’t to say the Cowboys won’t throw the ball, but there are some very young players at wide receiver with almost no experience outside of CeeDee Lamb and Noah Brown to start the year. That could force the Cowboys to run more early and often, but should also allow Tony Pollard and whoever plays behind him to get more touches as well.
Last season the Cowboys threw the ball 59.61% of the time and I believe that will drop to around 55%. If that does happen and the rest of the league holds about the same, that would place the Cowboys around 25th in the league in pass to run. Last year that was Washington, Chicago, New England range of ratio. Expect Ezekiel Elliott to be top three in rushing barring injury.