With the New York Giants’ most recent win against the Washington Commanders, the Dallas Cowboys have clinched a spot in the 2022 playoffs.
Despite this, we must address the lack of consistency from Dallas offense. Over the last few weeks, the Cowboys haven’t been playing good football. They barely pulled out a win against a one-win Houston Texans team in Week 14, and then they took an overtime loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars on Sunday.
Since the week 9 bye, the Cowboys have won four of their last six games, but Dak Prescott has thrown 14 touchdowns and seven interceptions. If your quarterback is throwing an interception for every two touchdowns, that’s a problem!
The Cowboys haven’t been able to shut teams out when they are up. Against the Green Bay Packers, entering the fourth quarter, they were up 28-14. Against the Jaguars, they were up 27-10 in the third quarter, yet they couldn’t maintain the lead. The third and fourth quarters have been a problem that cannot be ignored.
There is certainly enough blame to go around, but with the decision-making in critical moments by Prescott, inconsistent passing, and more importantly, the play-calling; it’s time to dive into the film and find out what’s wrong with Prescott and Dallas’ offense overall.
Late-game collapses.
After replaying this game, I noticed that this wasn’t the first time they ran this play.
On a third-and-3 in third quarter, the offense ran the same exact concept. If Prescott would have just thrown this ball to Noah Brown, they would have gotten a first down to move the chains.
Cowboys ran this same play on third & 3 in the 3Q.
Dak didn't take the underneath. He may have been already too far ahead of Brown here and 95 was in his face. But they ran this mesh a good amount of times on Sunday pic.twitter.com/fpFWS2vjKr— Laurie Fitzpatrick (@LaurieFitzptrck) December 19, 2022
Prescott gave the ball back to the Jaguars offense, who scored on a 59-yard touchdown pass to Zay Jones. Just like that, they closed the gap to only ten points.
Prescott seems to “do too much”, and this is preventing the Cowboys offense from gaining any momentum to close out games.
In the third and fourth quarters of games, per Sports Info Solutions, Prescott has a 54.1 completion percentage. He’s 27th in air yards with 352, and he has six touchdowns, six interceptions and six sacks.
On the next drive, the Cowboys came out in heavy personnel, which would usually scream run, but they don’t even run play=action. Instead of just throwing it away, Prescott takes a sack.
This puts the Cowboys in a second-and 18. Then, Prescott is forced to make a play and instead of taking a sack, or just throwing it away, he forces it and the ball is intercepted.
Prescott put his team in a similar situation against the Texans the week before.
On first down, Prescott could have just given it to his tight end who was running in the flat, since the cornerback was dropping back into coverage. Instead, he double clutched, fumbled, and puts his offense in a second-and-20.
Then on the very next play, he threw an interception:
Tremon Smith has his 2nd INT of the day for the Texans!
📺: #HOUvsDAL on FOX
📱: Stream on NFL+ https://t.co/VIs6xlIHaH pic.twitter.com/Nv1XRvKq5k— NFL (@NFL) December 11, 2022
It’s two weeks in a row now where Prescott didn’t take an easy completion, which then put his offense in a hole where he feels like he has to dig himself out of.
It’s also an issue that head coach Mike McCarthy and offensive coordinator Kellen Moore haven’t been drawing up enough concepts to get CeeDee Lamb, their best receiver, open.
Play-action success.
The play-action won’t work if the run game doesn’t work, it’s as simple as that! When pulling the numbers, Prescott has not been good without play-action.
- With play-action: 99.0 QBR, 8.19 EPA, 6 TD, 0 INT
- Without play-action: 64.3 QBR, -16.04 EPA, 11 TD, 11 INT
Those splits are night and day. When the offense abandons the run game, the offense collapses.
Without play-action, the secondary can play deeper, which would force Prescott to have to throw into smaller windows.
This terrible Dak Prescott INT leads to Packers TD!
Love the sound of it!pic.twitter.com/lQuzMnBq84
— Thomas R. Petersen (@thomasrp93) November 13, 2022
Now look at a touchdown from a play-action pass. Safety Darnell Savage (No. 26) steps up to play the run, and he ends up being the closest player to Lamb on the touchdown pass.
Dak Prescott to CeeDee Lamb, again.
Cowboys extend lead to 28-14 over Packers with 21 unanswered points now.pic.twitter.com/rSiJuLGr7A
— Jori Epstein (@JoriEpstein) November 13, 2022
The Cowboys' passing game is tied to a lack of innovation.
The Cowboys are not sticking to what they do best when the game is in their grasp. In November, 2021, our own Doug Farrar, broke down an innovative play that we saw against the Falcons.
.@_CeeDeeThree with blockers ahead! #DallasCowboys
📺: #ATLvsDAL on FOX
📱: NFL app pic.twitter.com/4XKjNceo6K— NFL (@NFL) November 14, 2021
Unfortunately, the Cowboys have only run a total of 30 screen or flat passes this season with Prescott. Last year, they had a 20% boom (positive play) percentage with screens and this year, it’s only 6.7%, per SiS.
That is a significant drop.
Their playcalls have gotten so bland and easy to predict, even the broadcast team knew which way the Cowboys were audibling to, in this run play against the Texans.
Audibles are supposed to be words that disguise the direction of the play. Unfortunately, the word ‘blue’ is used by coaches in Pop Warner leagues. Everyone knew the play was going to the left.
Then in the fourth quarter against the Texans, it was a critical third-and-3. The play call put the two slot receivers into the same location over the middle.
Another play call that left us scratching our heads was in last week’s loss against the Jaguars. With only one minute left, the Cowboys bring extra pass protection and just send their receivers on streaks.
This is one of the toughest concepts to complete. They called this in one of the most critical moments in the game!
It wouldn’t be fair to put all the blame on Prescott. Even though he seems to ‘do too much’ in those critical moments, he is still playing well overall.
Dak Prescott generated positive EPA on 60.6% of his dropbacks in Week 15, his 6th game with a 50%+ success rate this season.
Success Rate Leaders (2022):
🥇 Prescott: 52.9%
🥈 Patrick Mahomes: 52.0%
🥉 Geno Smith: 51.7%#DALvsJAX | #DallasCowboys pic.twitter.com/qZXfhwvhmq— Next Gen Stats (@NextGenStats) December 18, 2022
According to rbsdm.com via Anthony Dabbundo, Prescott is still ranked in third in EPA + CPOE with (.173). He’s top five in accuracy, efficiency and second in success rate among all quarterbacks; all since week 7.
Here is what head coach Mike McCarthy had to say after last week’s loss: “I’ve been at this long enough to know that at the end of the 17 games, it sorts itself out. I’ve been the (No. 1 playoff) seed and (been) knocked on my ass, and won it from the 5th seed…We just got to keep our heads down and keep working.”
The Cowboys have a lot of work ahead of them before the end of the regular season. The best thing they have going for them is that this upcoming Christmas Eve game against the Philadelphia Eagles won’t be as significant as they already secured a playoff spot.
We aren’t sure who is to blame for the lack of success from the offense, coordinator Kellen Moore or McCarthy, but one thing is for sure. They’d better rely more on the run game if they want to have success in the playoffs.
