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Decoding Schotty Week 17- Running the Ball Again
The Dallas offensive performance on Christmas was just how you draw it up. Of course making us wonder where it was when needed most?
Bob Sturm
Dec 29, 2025
Here we go. Our objectives for today:
OVERALL OFFENSIVE EVALUATION
I can already hear plenty of you suggesting that there is nothing more perfect for the Cowboys and Dak Prescott like going for your best offensive day immediately after being eliminated playoff contention. The extra cynical ones in our audience would suggest that this is absolutely perfect.
In Week 17, that we thought would be of significant importance, instead was between two teams who are going nowhere fast and it was meaningless, standings wise, on Christmas. During that game, Dallas set a season-high for total yards (480), rushing yards (211), and time of possession (38:44) and absolutely suffocated a game in exactly the fashion that made sense on the white board of how you might wish to play in 2025.
The idea in this game was to beat down the Washington defense with the run. If we know Dan Quinn, we know how he builds a defense. He wants speed and pass rush and while that works if you are contending, it doesn’t help when you are trying to slow down the run. Washington is 31st against the run, so Dallas had a plan.
The plan is simple. Run the rock, build drives, move the chains, and keep the ball. You can do this against the Commanders much easier, we see, then against the Chargers or the Vikings.
But, look at this ridiculous drive chart with five drives of 11 plays or more. That is absolutely absurd. I suppose that is how you pretty much take 40 minutes of the clock with you.
I thought it was worth checking in on the run game with a bunch of their better first-half runs. In particular, I liked what my two guards were providing.
I think Tyler Booker has been great and has a bright future. TJ Bass is interesting and I don’t love Tyler Smith at left tackle, but I do wonder if Bass and Smith could handle the left side moving forward if we decided to go that route. I suppose we should talk pass protection below.
But, first, I did want to drill down on the personnel groupings to run the ball. You may have heard that 12 personnel is up around the league and 13 personnel, too.
These looks of multiple tight ends are used to balance up the threats of run vs pass. The idea is that teams want to run out of passing looks and pass out of running looks. This puts the defense on their heels and they cannot gang up comfortably on anything. The usual suspects do this all day where they force you to play nickel or dime and then run it. Or they force you to play your big personnel and run stuffers and then make them defend against a pass. It is the proper way to play modern offense.
Dallas has not been able to get there because the running game has been undependable. They have not been very good running the ball with bigger personnel all season, which, given the investment in the tight ends for just this reason, is disappointing.
Here was Thursday – 11 personnel is 5.7 yards per carry, but 12 personnel remains down at 3.83.
This matches nearly perfectly the season-long numbers (below). Where 11 personnel runs are 5.6 YPC and 12 personnel runs for the season are 3.5 with a success rate of 36%. Then, the Hunter Luepke-blocked runs - those in 21 and 22 personnel – are also pretty rough, but 21 does seem to offer some promise. Perhaps we can look more into that as the offseason goes on. It is highly possible that Luepke is their second-best blocking TE-type.
There is nothing bad about running out of 11 personnel. You should love that. But, at its core, we want to be able to be good enough at running the ball that we can actually “declare” our intentions by putting out our biggest and baddest dudes and the opponent cannot stop it.
Instead, it does seem that the Cowboys best run tactic is the threat of a pass. And the best pass tactic is the threat of a run. This is good, but not the highest goal. The highest goal is proficiency either way you wish.
And they aren’t there at the moment.
There are several ways to look at this game and the most important one is surely the idea that the game doesn’t matter at all. But, let’s give them a little credit here. They did whatever they wanted on offense. There is no red on the ledger above, but, of course, that shouldn’t be taken as it was a perfect game.
This was not perfect at all. The QB was all over the map and the protection was poor. Of all of the linemen on the Cowboys line, only TJ Bass escaped this game with just one QB pressure allowed. Of the six sacks allowed, three were on blitzes and three were normal four-man rushes.
In the first two months of the season, we were convinced that Dallas was great at sack avoidance and that Dak was chasing away blitzes because he was burning it too badly. But, since November arrived, the Cowboys now have three different games of 5+ sacks each and Thursday was the season-high of six sacks allowed. Of course, this isn’t helping folks decide whether Prescott should even be playing right now.
Here are the six sacks on a reel:
The first two were both coverage sacks where Dak has no place to go with the pass. The third one is more of a situation where TJ Bass lost too quickly which allows Beebe to lose track of the excellent 95-Jer’Zhan Newton - Johnny as we knew him in the Sturm 60. The fourth sack is Malik Davis learning that Bobby Wagner is not here to let a tiny RB keep him from a sack. We have seen plenty of LB’s trucking the Cowboys RB’s this season and it is clear that the word is out on the streets about this. The 5th one is Tyler Smith losing so fast that it actually made it look like Terence Steele lost on the other end. And Finally, the last one is 66- Ricky Barber dancing Tyler Booker back and destroying the bootleg.
Let’s just say this – you can’t win football games by giving up 5 sacks or more. The Cowboys seem to mostly struggle right now with teams beating the Cowboys with scheme more than might. These guys can mostly do the job, but at times, they are losing due to tactical errors or adjustments.
Meanwhile, this spray chart should tell us Dak was not playing well. For whatever reason, he was all over the board on where his passes were headed. He eventually was able to connect enough to put up some nice numbers, but it wasn’t very good.
I would argue it was his worst passing day of 2025, but it appears PFF has the days at Denver and at Detroit and versus Arizona were also not his best work. In other words, the more times he is on the ground, the tougher his performances must be. Like every QB who has ever lived, the more you hit him, the lesser he becomes.
Now, how did Dallas make everything look so easy if the QB and the protection were so rough? Well, you certainly are aware that the Cowboys converted 6 of 6 on 4th downs. They were determined to keep the ball and to use all four downs.
From the post-game notes from the Cowboys PR:
Dak sure looked dialed on these throws and the work of Javonte Williams on that 1-yard gain in the 2nd Quarter (the 4th snap) was exceptional. If I was a bit more full of attitude, I would say that this should not be just the second time the Cowboys went for it on 4th down at least 4 times. It should have been used way more. Like I said, having a good kicker has actually been a handicap at times for the decision making around here.
FILM STUDY
OK, I will keep this short, but I do still want to talk out some of these snaps and then we will spend time on the defense tomorrow.
1Q - 12:28 - 2-10-DAL 48 - M.Davis right guard to WAS 31 for 21 yards (Q.Martin).
I loved this play when it happened, so I was going to definitely choose it for the feature snaps. Malik Davis has something. He doesn’t have everything, but he can hit the hole hard and get into the secondary in a blink. I really am impressed with how well he runs downhill between the tackles. This one is blocked up nice, but I particularly like Terence Steele walling off Bobby Wagner in the hole. For once, someone else had a Linebacker guess incorrectly and getting him sealed off worked wonderfully. Malik has four different explosive runs and they all happened since November 23rd. He has made the most of his opportunity.
2Q - 7:11 - 3-11-DAL 14 - D.Prescott pass deep middle to K.Turpin for 86 yards, TOUCHDOWN.
This is just a beauty. I love that they came right back to a play from last in the Chargers game and ran it again in nearly the same situation. So, before you look at the one above, look at the play below. The play below seemed to confirm that Turpin and Dak were not on the same page and when that happens, we will usually blame the WR who barely has WR credibility. So, they spent time in practice and in film look at this concept and came right back to it vs Washington in the very next game.
It is so beautiful. Cover 2 and Turpin splits the safety. Perhaps the difference is that Derwin James stayed on top and Washington did not have that defended, so Dak and Turpin make it look easy on 3rd and 11 to hit for 86-yards. What a beautiful piece of football and a sign that teams work hard all week to get things right.
4Q - 7:11 - 3-10-DAL 46 - D.Prescott pass incomplete deep middle to K.Turpin.
So, once you unlock Turpin, now you use him to open up Lamb. Look how easy football gets when you can do it this way. Cover 4, but a vertical from Turpin takes both guys and that leaves Lamb all alone on the sideline for an easy conversion on 3rd and long. It makes football look easy when you do this. Motion Lamb behind Turpin and suddenly, use their memories against them. Pitch and catch on 3rd and 8 is exactly what we are seeking.
4Q - 15:00 - 2-8-DAL 26 - D.Prescott pass deep middle to B.Spann-Ford to WAS 43 for 31 yards (J.Reaves).
Another one that needs to be included is big Brevyn Spann-Ford running down the seam like this. As we start to take inventory on different position groups, Spann-Ford is a guy I have liked more and more as a depth tight end who can really help the blocking groups and the special teams. Now, adding this – the first explosive play of his career – will be great heading into the spring. 6’7, 270 running down the seam? Yes, please.
4Q - 1:52 - 3-1-DAL 36 - D.Prescott pass short right to G.Pickens to WAS 43 for 21 yards (F.Luvu).
Here is 3rd and 1 and a play-action rollout right as Washington has Cover-0 on to take away any runs. So, you boot and now you have everyone in man with great options all over for Dak. He, of course, chooses the giant WR running across the middle against 31-Jones for Washington and it is an easy conversion and the end of the game. When the offense is running on time, they have mismatches all over the field. On this day, they hit plenty of them when they needed to and bossed this game like few others in 2025.
But, throughout you see the obvious – this offense is not that far from contending. The questions are how good it can be on those days when everything is uncomfortable, especially on the road. They are just 3-5 away this year with wins over the Jets, Raiders, and now, Commanders. All three are truly awful outfits this year. To be taken seriously, you would need a win over a road team who is actually close to decent and that hasn’t happened in a long time. The last quality road win for the Cowboys? Probably at Pittsburgh in early October of 2024.
Goals for 2026.
The Dallas offensive performance on Christmas was just how you draw it up. Of course making us wonder where it was when needed most?
Bob Sturm
Dec 29, 2025
Here we go. Our objectives for today:
- Overall Offensive Evaluation
- The running game remains a mystery.
- Pass Protection surrendered six sacks as Dak missed way too much.
- Look at plenty of All-22 film and see what we can see.
OVERALL OFFENSIVE EVALUATION
I can already hear plenty of you suggesting that there is nothing more perfect for the Cowboys and Dak Prescott like going for your best offensive day immediately after being eliminated playoff contention. The extra cynical ones in our audience would suggest that this is absolutely perfect.
In Week 17, that we thought would be of significant importance, instead was between two teams who are going nowhere fast and it was meaningless, standings wise, on Christmas. During that game, Dallas set a season-high for total yards (480), rushing yards (211), and time of possession (38:44) and absolutely suffocated a game in exactly the fashion that made sense on the white board of how you might wish to play in 2025.
The idea in this game was to beat down the Washington defense with the run. If we know Dan Quinn, we know how he builds a defense. He wants speed and pass rush and while that works if you are contending, it doesn’t help when you are trying to slow down the run. Washington is 31st against the run, so Dallas had a plan.
The plan is simple. Run the rock, build drives, move the chains, and keep the ball. You can do this against the Commanders much easier, we see, then against the Chargers or the Vikings.
But, look at this ridiculous drive chart with five drives of 11 plays or more. That is absolutely absurd. I suppose that is how you pretty much take 40 minutes of the clock with you.
I thought it was worth checking in on the run game with a bunch of their better first-half runs. In particular, I liked what my two guards were providing.
I think Tyler Booker has been great and has a bright future. TJ Bass is interesting and I don’t love Tyler Smith at left tackle, but I do wonder if Bass and Smith could handle the left side moving forward if we decided to go that route. I suppose we should talk pass protection below.
But, first, I did want to drill down on the personnel groupings to run the ball. You may have heard that 12 personnel is up around the league and 13 personnel, too.
These looks of multiple tight ends are used to balance up the threats of run vs pass. The idea is that teams want to run out of passing looks and pass out of running looks. This puts the defense on their heels and they cannot gang up comfortably on anything. The usual suspects do this all day where they force you to play nickel or dime and then run it. Or they force you to play your big personnel and run stuffers and then make them defend against a pass. It is the proper way to play modern offense.
Dallas has not been able to get there because the running game has been undependable. They have not been very good running the ball with bigger personnel all season, which, given the investment in the tight ends for just this reason, is disappointing.
Here was Thursday – 11 personnel is 5.7 yards per carry, but 12 personnel remains down at 3.83.
This matches nearly perfectly the season-long numbers (below). Where 11 personnel runs are 5.6 YPC and 12 personnel runs for the season are 3.5 with a success rate of 36%. Then, the Hunter Luepke-blocked runs - those in 21 and 22 personnel – are also pretty rough, but 21 does seem to offer some promise. Perhaps we can look more into that as the offseason goes on. It is highly possible that Luepke is their second-best blocking TE-type.
There is nothing bad about running out of 11 personnel. You should love that. But, at its core, we want to be able to be good enough at running the ball that we can actually “declare” our intentions by putting out our biggest and baddest dudes and the opponent cannot stop it.
Instead, it does seem that the Cowboys best run tactic is the threat of a pass. And the best pass tactic is the threat of a run. This is good, but not the highest goal. The highest goal is proficiency either way you wish.
And they aren’t there at the moment.
There are several ways to look at this game and the most important one is surely the idea that the game doesn’t matter at all. But, let’s give them a little credit here. They did whatever they wanted on offense. There is no red on the ledger above, but, of course, that shouldn’t be taken as it was a perfect game.
This was not perfect at all. The QB was all over the map and the protection was poor. Of all of the linemen on the Cowboys line, only TJ Bass escaped this game with just one QB pressure allowed. Of the six sacks allowed, three were on blitzes and three were normal four-man rushes.
In the first two months of the season, we were convinced that Dallas was great at sack avoidance and that Dak was chasing away blitzes because he was burning it too badly. But, since November arrived, the Cowboys now have three different games of 5+ sacks each and Thursday was the season-high of six sacks allowed. Of course, this isn’t helping folks decide whether Prescott should even be playing right now.
Here are the six sacks on a reel:
The first two were both coverage sacks where Dak has no place to go with the pass. The third one is more of a situation where TJ Bass lost too quickly which allows Beebe to lose track of the excellent 95-Jer’Zhan Newton - Johnny as we knew him in the Sturm 60. The fourth sack is Malik Davis learning that Bobby Wagner is not here to let a tiny RB keep him from a sack. We have seen plenty of LB’s trucking the Cowboys RB’s this season and it is clear that the word is out on the streets about this. The 5th one is Tyler Smith losing so fast that it actually made it look like Terence Steele lost on the other end. And Finally, the last one is 66- Ricky Barber dancing Tyler Booker back and destroying the bootleg.
Let’s just say this – you can’t win football games by giving up 5 sacks or more. The Cowboys seem to mostly struggle right now with teams beating the Cowboys with scheme more than might. These guys can mostly do the job, but at times, they are losing due to tactical errors or adjustments.
Meanwhile, this spray chart should tell us Dak was not playing well. For whatever reason, he was all over the board on where his passes were headed. He eventually was able to connect enough to put up some nice numbers, but it wasn’t very good.
I would argue it was his worst passing day of 2025, but it appears PFF has the days at Denver and at Detroit and versus Arizona were also not his best work. In other words, the more times he is on the ground, the tougher his performances must be. Like every QB who has ever lived, the more you hit him, the lesser he becomes.
Now, how did Dallas make everything look so easy if the QB and the protection were so rough? Well, you certainly are aware that the Cowboys converted 6 of 6 on 4th downs. They were determined to keep the ball and to use all four downs.
From the post-game notes from the Cowboys PR:
- Dallas was six-of-six on fourth down today, becoming the first NFL team since 1991 - the furthest back the stat can be researched - to convert 100% of its 4th downs in a game on six-or-more attempts.
- Four of Dallas’ fourth down conversions were in the first half, the most by any team since the 2006 New Orleans Saints (four in Week 16 vs. NYG). They are the only two teams with four fourth down conversions in the first half since 2000.
Dak sure looked dialed on these throws and the work of Javonte Williams on that 1-yard gain in the 2nd Quarter (the 4th snap) was exceptional. If I was a bit more full of attitude, I would say that this should not be just the second time the Cowboys went for it on 4th down at least 4 times. It should have been used way more. Like I said, having a good kicker has actually been a handicap at times for the decision making around here.
FILM STUDY
OK, I will keep this short, but I do still want to talk out some of these snaps and then we will spend time on the defense tomorrow.
1Q - 12:28 - 2-10-DAL 48 - M.Davis right guard to WAS 31 for 21 yards (Q.Martin).
I loved this play when it happened, so I was going to definitely choose it for the feature snaps. Malik Davis has something. He doesn’t have everything, but he can hit the hole hard and get into the secondary in a blink. I really am impressed with how well he runs downhill between the tackles. This one is blocked up nice, but I particularly like Terence Steele walling off Bobby Wagner in the hole. For once, someone else had a Linebacker guess incorrectly and getting him sealed off worked wonderfully. Malik has four different explosive runs and they all happened since November 23rd. He has made the most of his opportunity.
2Q - 7:11 - 3-11-DAL 14 - D.Prescott pass deep middle to K.Turpin for 86 yards, TOUCHDOWN.
This is just a beauty. I love that they came right back to a play from last in the Chargers game and ran it again in nearly the same situation. So, before you look at the one above, look at the play below. The play below seemed to confirm that Turpin and Dak were not on the same page and when that happens, we will usually blame the WR who barely has WR credibility. So, they spent time in practice and in film look at this concept and came right back to it vs Washington in the very next game.
It is so beautiful. Cover 2 and Turpin splits the safety. Perhaps the difference is that Derwin James stayed on top and Washington did not have that defended, so Dak and Turpin make it look easy on 3rd and 11 to hit for 86-yards. What a beautiful piece of football and a sign that teams work hard all week to get things right.
4Q - 7:11 - 3-10-DAL 46 - D.Prescott pass incomplete deep middle to K.Turpin.
3Q - 7:37 - 3-8-DAL 34 - D.Prescott pass deep right to C.Lamb pushed ob at WAS 42 for 24 yards (J.Reaves).
So, once you unlock Turpin, now you use him to open up Lamb. Look how easy football gets when you can do it this way. Cover 4, but a vertical from Turpin takes both guys and that leaves Lamb all alone on the sideline for an easy conversion on 3rd and long. It makes football look easy when you do this. Motion Lamb behind Turpin and suddenly, use their memories against them. Pitch and catch on 3rd and 8 is exactly what we are seeking.
4Q - 15:00 - 2-8-DAL 26 - D.Prescott pass deep middle to B.Spann-Ford to WAS 43 for 31 yards (J.Reaves).
Another one that needs to be included is big Brevyn Spann-Ford running down the seam like this. As we start to take inventory on different position groups, Spann-Ford is a guy I have liked more and more as a depth tight end who can really help the blocking groups and the special teams. Now, adding this – the first explosive play of his career – will be great heading into the spring. 6’7, 270 running down the seam? Yes, please.
4Q - 1:52 - 3-1-DAL 36 - D.Prescott pass short right to G.Pickens to WAS 43 for 21 yards (F.Luvu).
Here is 3rd and 1 and a play-action rollout right as Washington has Cover-0 on to take away any runs. So, you boot and now you have everyone in man with great options all over for Dak. He, of course, chooses the giant WR running across the middle against 31-Jones for Washington and it is an easy conversion and the end of the game. When the offense is running on time, they have mismatches all over the field. On this day, they hit plenty of them when they needed to and bossed this game like few others in 2025.
But, throughout you see the obvious – this offense is not that far from contending. The questions are how good it can be on those days when everything is uncomfortable, especially on the road. They are just 3-5 away this year with wins over the Jets, Raiders, and now, Commanders. All three are truly awful outfits this year. To be taken seriously, you would need a win over a road team who is actually close to decent and that hasn’t happened in a long time. The last quality road win for the Cowboys? Probably at Pittsburgh in early October of 2024.
Goals for 2026.
