Dallas Cowboys: Kellen Moore’s scripted plays are carrying Cooper Rush

Much praise has been heaped upon Cooper Rush this week after he raised his record as starting quarterback to 2-0. For good reason too: Rush took out the defending AFC Champs at a time the Dallas Cowboys season was on tilt. He made the throws he needed to make, and won the game in the final seconds.

Far be for me to rain on his parade. Well done, No. 10. But we seem to be sleeping on the real hero of the afternoon, the offensive coordinator who built those successful plays.

Kellen Moore deserves the bulk of the praise for Cooper Rush’s success, and will be key to the Dallas Cowboys surviving the next few weeks

It’s often hard to decipher where an OC’s strategy ends and the quarterback’s ingenuity begins. Both are required all game long in order to show offensive competency and both deserve praise/reward for results.

But generally speaking, the first 15 plays of a game is scripted by the OC in pregame preparation. It’s based on film and it’s practiced during the week. Offenses know how they will start each game and good offensive coordinators usually come out on top in these early situations.

Such has been the case this season…

Many will be surprised to learn that the Dallas Cowboys are third in the NFL this season on scripted plays. For as inept as this Cowboys offense has been overall, they’ve been brilliant on the first 15 plays of their games (numbers, curtesy of Arjun Menon).

After those scripted plays end is another story. There, the Dallas Cowboys are the second WORST in the NFL. That includes the three quarters of action Dak Prescott gave us in week 1. It’s odd to see a team on such extreme ends of the spectrum, but just two weeks in – here we sit.

Now, Kellen Moore does still deserve blame/credit for his play-calling as the game continues. And Rush deserves credit for his ability to execute early as well. Once again, both sides need the other side to pull his respective weight on this offense. But generally speaking, scripted plays usually go to the OC while the rest of the game is more evenly split between the QB1 and OC.

We looked at this over the offseason where Dak Prescott and Kellen Moore both looked equally strong in scripted and non-scripted plays (much bigger sample size). To catch up on that check out this article: Cowboys 2021 offense: scripted vs non-scripted.

It’s possible that after grabbing a decent lead early last week, the Dallas Cowboys willfully took their foot off the gas. If you remember, Cooper Rush threw two almost interceptions and the Dallas Cowboys nearly coughed up the game.

But a look at down field route running shows the Dallas Cowboys were still running deep routes, they just weren’t delivering those passes. This season the Cowboys are top-5 in average depth of route (ADOR), but just about league average in ADOT.

I want everyone to keep the sample size in mind when they look at this. We only have two games of data so reading too much into this is a little dangerous, but we know Kellen is historically strong in scripted plays, so I want to point out his success in this area this season as well.

It’s a big reason the Dallas Cowboys start is absolutely critical to their success this week in New Jersey. They are top-3 on scripted plays, but bottom-3 in non scripted. Another reason for us to eagerly look forward to Dak Prescott’s return.