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By Bob Sturm 3h ago
There is nothing more common in the NFL than coachspeak. They all speak the same language and all want the same things. They want players to block and tackle. They want them to take care of the football. Force turnovers and protect the ball. Take advantage of opportunities and probably even bend but don’t break.
Blah, blah, blah.
The actual goal is often to talk to the public without revealing anything of value. Some coaches wish to educate the world about this amazing game, but most just pay lip service so that they may get back to the practice field or film room and be left alone.
What felt this way more than the last several years of being told “all three phases” of the team must be great? Offense, defense and special teams. We could string together a clip that lasts five minutes of Cowboys head coach Jason Garrett as he rolls through the three phases and attempts to tell us about the importance of each. Then they would put all of their time, resources, and energy into two phases, while special teams absolutely remained an afterthought.
They elevated Keith O’Quinn to coach the special teams in 2018 and 2019 from within after Rich Bisaccia was allowed to leave without much resistance to go to Oakland. O’Quinn was part of the offensive staff before studying some under Bisaccia. He was well-learned and ready for the chance, as many young coaches are. But we may never know exactly how good he could have become because his resources appeared very limited while his powers to make meaningful changes to his talent options or tactical situations were almost nonexistent. Almost every special-teams moment seems to come back to the head coach taking charge and wanting to affect the game in his way. This is normal, for sure, but also reinforces those questions about how much O’Quinn was responsible for and able to do.
Of course, it also allows another anonymous name to be a scapegoat for underachieving. And boy did the Cowboys underachieve after Bisaccia left town.
When you are not putting much into your special teams via resources, you aren’t trying to win games because of them. Instead, you are simply trying not to lose them. That is not an invalid consideration, although many of the best franchises in the last decade – New England, Baltimore, Seattle – routinely flipped games with that key moment at that huge time by being aggressive on special teams. But you must not rank at the bottom of the league.
The chart below utilized the red for spaces in the last 11 seasons when the Cowboys ranked in the bottom 25 percent of the league, and you can see much of the red was spilled during the O’Quinn years in 2018-19.
Cowboys Special Teams Ranks, 2009-2019
| SEASON | ST COACH | PUNT COVER | KICK COVER | PUNT RETURNS | KICK RETURNS | AVG RANK |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | O'Quinn | 22nd | 19th | 26th | 32nd | 24.8 |
| 2018 | O’Quinn | 16th | 31st | 31st | 20th | 24.5 |
| 2017 | Bisaccia | 1st | 18th | 13th | 3rd | 8.8 |
| 2016 | Bisaccia | 18th | 21st | 23rd | 23rd | 21.3 |
| 2015 | Bisaccia | 11th | 15th | 29th | 8th | 15.8 |
| 2014 | Bisaccia | 20th | 6th | 13th | 13th | 13 |
| 2013 | Bisaccia | 18th | 7th | 5th | 4th | 8.5 |
| 2012 | DeCamillis | 16th | 6th | 4th | 29th | 13.8 |
| 2011 | DeCamillis | 14th | 5th | 27th | 20th | 14 |
| 2010 | DeCamillis | 3rd | 27th | 2nd | 23rd | 13.8 |
| 2009 | DeCamillis | 9th | 15th | 6th | 20th | 12.5 |
But we’ve established the Cowboys had horrendous special teams the last few years and they’ve certainly cost the team wins. It reminds me of the cliche about goaltending in hockey: “Goaltending is 50 percent of the game — unless it’s bad goaltending. Then it’s 100 percent.” That might be an oversimplification, but there is no doubt that that unit can cripple a team when you deflate a 60-minute balloon with a blocked punt or a missed chip shot. See: the trip to New England in Week 12 or even that ridiculous fair catch incident against Minnesota in Week 10 (both last November).
The subjects of blame are in the eye of the beholder, of course. But there is certainly blame, and it has to be addressed. Was it O’Quinn, Garrett or the front office/organization not really putting much thought into special teams and the impact they have? It’s probably the latter, most of all, but in the end, you should probably look at everything.
So in comes Mike McCarthy and with him, perhaps the highest-profile special teams coach in the business, John Fassel, who was plucked from the Los Angeles Rams. Bones has been doing this a long time at a high level and also has the distinction of being a football lifer known for pumping the tires on all of his special-teams contributors to make them feel as though they are vital to the success of the team. He riffed about this when he was hired back in January:
I think a big thing is chemistry. A lot of the successes on special teams have a lot to do with intangibles. Really, you know, the personnel is a huge part of it. And the player development is a huge part of it. But when you can get a group of running backs, linebackers, tight ends, receivers, defensive backs to become cohesive and make it seem like those guys are very valuable to a football team, then I think that’s probably the biggest component to being successful.
Being successful on special teams is building chemistry, building pride and then getting them to feel like they’re important when a lot of times, they are backups on offense and defense, but they’re starting on special teams. And that’s kind of my message to them, that you’re important to this football team. You know, they really say it’s a third (offense), a third (defense) and a third (for special teams), and that’s what it is. And I think Coach McCarthy, when I talked to him, has that mindset that this is going to be an important part of our football team and that was all I needed to hear.
There is a lot in those paragraphs, for sure, but, the heart is making it a simple priority. His philosophy seems the opposite of what we have seen here recently, and that resonates in the roster. Is this important, or is this something we are just trying to get through so the offense and defense can play again? If we truly believe this is a game of inches, then essentially ignoring the priority in the last two years falls on the organization. And now it is clear they are willing to fix it.
Now, will we get full-power Fassel? His special teams are known for their efforts to try to win games, and with that comes a huge number of fake punts and field goals from all over the field. He has been as aggressive as the Cowboys have been passive. Sometimes, that swings games. In fact, the 2018 NFC Championship Game in New Orleans had a fake punt from deep in Rams territory with Los Angeles down 13-0 that might have shifted the game in the Rams’ direction down.
There are other times where it causes its own issues, of course. In fact, there was a very clear incident in Week 17 of last season when some think his exit from the Rams had a little to do with the Rams running a fake punt that seemed to really annoy Sean McVay, who charged down the sideline to ask Bones, “What are you doing?” It might not have been the reason they broke up, but it was the last game and therefore those dots have been connected.
Regardless, as we look at what can be expected from this version of the Dallas Cowboys, we must assume that there will be changes. Fassel brings an approach that is foreign to both Dallas in the recent past and Mike McCarthy, for sure. McCarthy had plenty of success in Green Bay but also some very notable moments when he ran into the same issues of whether or not special teams were his ultimate undoing. The 2014 NFC Championship Game is the most notable example: simply recovering and defending an onside kick was all that stood between his team and another Super Bowl opportunity.
As for the love of the fakes, we should discuss that briefly. Fassel has run 34 since 2008, which is more fakes than any other special-teams coach in the league regardless of how big you want the sample. With Jeff Fisher and Sean McVay, Fassel is No. 1 in the NFL in fakes from 2012-2019. If you measure it just with McVay, it is still No. 1 in the league. If you go back to his time with the Raiders, Fassel was No. 4 in the league. (He would probably tell you that he had an enormous advantage — punters who had been QBs back in high school, Shane Lechler and Johnny Hekker, gave those teams a significant advantage in a category that is still underwritten by luck.)
Meanwhile, the Garrett era featured four fakes in almost a decade. Since 2017, Fassel has called 13 fakes while the Cowboys ran two.
https://twitter.com/LetsG0Global
But, again, we don’t know how much is because he had this Hekker weapon that made some very impressive throws while the Cowboys had a punter who punts.
Bottom line on this, I think the change at the special-teams coordinator is huge, but that huge change will depend on several other components that might be out of his purview. Which players can he have on the roster for no other reason but to make special teams better? What players can remain on his units once the offense or defense starts using them more as young players? What level of authority will he receive from McCarthy as it pertains to fakes and opportunistic trick plays, especially after one doesn’t work?
None of that is predictable at this point, but I am here to monitor how it goes, which will be fun after the last few years of predictable mediocrity once it became obvious that special teams ranked between a low priority and no priority whatsoever. The Cowboys refused to cut their kicker until it became almost a leaguewide piece of comedy, and now they have two kickers who are substantially better than the one Dallas kept for way too long. Is Greg Zuerlein in decline? Maybe. But maybe it was also just a rough year – and either way, Kai Forbath has already proven to be a dramatic upgrade himself.
And that is what is needed here: the challenge and demand to squeeze everything out of every component of the roster.
Lip service is a waste of air. But accountability and attention to detail are how championships are won.
I suspect this is another step in that general direction.
