- Joined
- Apr 7, 2013
- Messages
- 122,744
Why did the Cowboys tire of Kellen Moore and could he figure it out elsewhere?
By Bob Sturm
4h ago
I was able to dig into a few topics this week with colleagues and friends about the Cowboys and there was one in particular that I thought I would push out as this week’s Cowboys Riffing and see what you thought about it.
It was a conversation with my buddy Ted Nguyen of The Athletic who is awesome at what he does. Ted was working on a story that turned into this piece as the Chargers are preparing to enter into their own Kellen Moore era and are rightfully excited about it. This piece details what they hope that brings to their young QB and their frustrating endings to the previous few seasons.
Ted asked me what I thought were the major issues with Moore in Dallas and I told him things that I have probably written a dozen times. I was ready to see the era end when the 2022 season came to a close because of three major reasons. Let’s revisit them.
1. The play design was top notch. The offense was wildly inconsistent. Why? How does an offense make sense with great plays and spatial conflicts that allow for guys to be open in space but it cannot find a groove of consistency? The mosaic off an offensive design — be it Bill Walsh or Andy Reid — is to set things up throughout a game so that you have that special play or opportunity at the moments of truth. Too often, what worked for the Cowboys in the early part of the game or in the early parts of the season would not be built upon. Conceptually, this might be vague, but we know it when we see it. The Cowboys would get figured out and there was a sequencing issue that never fully got mastered. Just like a pitcher might set you up early and save the kill shot for when you were stuck with two strikes, an offense should do the same thing. Trouble was, at key moments during key games, it simply never found the solutions at the highest leverage moments.
Where were they?
2. The offense routinely faded after Thanksgiving. This isn’t a passing or rushing observation. This is a schematic problem that reared its head in 2021 and 2022 when things began collapsing at roughly the same time in the year. Teams get a bead on what you like to do and begin to turn the screws on you. They take away your tendencies and strengths and make you beat them with your counters on top of your previous counters. We talked about it at very great length before the playoffs began. The Cowboys were 31st in 2021 and 2022 when it came to first-down runs after Thanksgiving. They were unable to run the ball at all — loaded boxes, empty boxes, you name it. This placed incredible undue stress on an offense that lacked receivers who could get open. Everyone wanted Dak Prescott to do something and he looked for someone to get open who wasn’t named CeeDee Lamb and it wasn’t working. The ball was forced into guys with no separation and we saw how that worked out — or didn’t. Turnovers started happening and without any respect for the running game, the team was out of answers. The fans and media were mad at the QB.
Truth is, the man with the play-sheet has to provide solutions. Sadly, the offensive coordinator seemed to have none, especially when Dallas played a defense that was top notch. The Cowboys escaped that in Tampa Bay, but not in San Francisco. The playoff exits looked painfully similar. Moore had no solutions because he had very few playmakers who could fix things. A slow running back, a few receivers who could not get open and a basic tight end who provided little beyond checkdowns. There is a case to be made that Moore had few solutions available and I am sure he is right. We just know it was broken and he wasn’t sure how to fix it. And the clincher is it happened two years in a row from Thanksgiving all the way to the 49ers.
3. The route concepts were never evolved into something better. They were still Scott Linehan’s route concepts. This might be an entire semester’s worth of classes if we wanted to really dig deep into them, but my exact complaints from Linehan’s offense were similar for the exact complaints from Jason Garrett’s offense and yes, they were the exact same complaints for Moore’s offense.
Too often, the Cowboys[‘ offense is built on a foundation of what we call “spot routes,” although the language will vary all over the football world. Spot routes could mean curl and hook patterns, but to me and for this discussion, let’s refer to spot routes as anything that is caught while the receiver is facing the QB and not moving east or west. Comebacks, stops, hooks and curls are the primary routes in this heading, and the Cowboys have loved to run them over the past decade. When you are stationary or even close to stationary and your back is to the end zone for which you wish to score, then you limit the amount of damage an offense can do. Before you claim that this is largely a result of not believing your QB can function in any other offense, remember, this offense was designed with Tony Romo as the QB, so I reject that notion.
The opposite of these routes would be “move routes” which would be anything when a receiver is running toward the end zone or laterally across the defense. Crossers, digs, gos, corners, seams, etc. These are where we allow our playmakers to do the damage and yards after catch are possible. Again, I have heard people continuously blame Prescott for this, but the evidence supports that he is well within the realm of satisfactory at hitting these routes at the NFL starting-QB levels. In other words, people with this opinion are either comparing him to Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady or Patrick Mahomes or they are flat-out wrong.
Now, to the evidence that we have gathered from the past four years of the Moore era. There are four Next Gen stats worth considering. The first is “receiver separation.” This is the average distance between the receiver and the nearest defender when the pass arrives. In 2022, the Cowboys finished 30th in this category. Over the past four years with Moore as OC, the Cowboys averaged 25th in the NFL. This is problematic, to say the least. We should not just use this stat, though, because it does factor in a QB’s risk tolerance and his willingness to throw it into tight windows. Also, the deeper you pass the ball, the smaller the windows often get. So, we must cross-reference it with some other statistics — here they are.
The Cowboys finished 25th in wide-open percentage, which measures an open target with separation of at least five yards when the ball arrives. The Cowboys have finished 28th in open percentage (open target with separation of at least three yards when ball arrives). And most damning, the Cowboys finished 29th in yards after catch percentage, which is total yards after catch divided by total receiving yards. In every one of these stats, the Cowboys’ passing offense is in the bottom 25 percent of the league. Look, we all know that they need better playmakers (Noah Brown and Michael Gallup were two of the NFL’s weakest, high-volume receivers at getting separation in 2022), but you also have to run route concepts that lean into the possibility of big plays. Was Dallas productive as an offense? Yes. But, it also never deviated from what it had been doing. And that is to be one of the worst “yards after catch” teams in the league this whole time. Passing yards were accumulated by the pass itself and not a play afterwards. You might claim that this is all because of a QB holding back the team, but again, we saw this with Romo and we saw this with several different play callers. The bones of the offense were hooks, curls, comebacks and such. It never evolved. With Brandin Cooks and Lamb, we may have something new, but I would start with what routes are getting called the most. And I will tell you, I don’t want to see “all-curls” ever called again for a Dallas offense on a big third down. It simply has run its course.
As I told Ted, I don’t mind Moore at all. But, these three things told me it was probably a decent time for Mike McCarthy to make a change. I think Moore has every opportunity to turn into something of a much better coach as he develops, but no, I don’t think they are letting Sean Payton 2 go right now. Moore is still figuring out what he is and believes. He seemed to be running a lot of Linehan’s stuff and when I see Kansas City and San Francisco and even McCarthy’s old offense in Green Bay, they all were able to find far more separation and yards after catch. There must be a better answer.
In five years, is Moore one of the top head coaches in the NFL? It’s possible. But, for now, he seemed to be a man who had a lot of great ideas, but no convincing overview and philosophy that told you he knew the answers to all of the tests.
It is now Dallas’ job to make sure the next chapter of its offense addresses these three issues.
By Bob Sturm
4h ago
I was able to dig into a few topics this week with colleagues and friends about the Cowboys and there was one in particular that I thought I would push out as this week’s Cowboys Riffing and see what you thought about it.
It was a conversation with my buddy Ted Nguyen of The Athletic who is awesome at what he does. Ted was working on a story that turned into this piece as the Chargers are preparing to enter into their own Kellen Moore era and are rightfully excited about it. This piece details what they hope that brings to their young QB and their frustrating endings to the previous few seasons.
Ted asked me what I thought were the major issues with Moore in Dallas and I told him things that I have probably written a dozen times. I was ready to see the era end when the 2022 season came to a close because of three major reasons. Let’s revisit them.
1. The play design was top notch. The offense was wildly inconsistent. Why? How does an offense make sense with great plays and spatial conflicts that allow for guys to be open in space but it cannot find a groove of consistency? The mosaic off an offensive design — be it Bill Walsh or Andy Reid — is to set things up throughout a game so that you have that special play or opportunity at the moments of truth. Too often, what worked for the Cowboys in the early part of the game or in the early parts of the season would not be built upon. Conceptually, this might be vague, but we know it when we see it. The Cowboys would get figured out and there was a sequencing issue that never fully got mastered. Just like a pitcher might set you up early and save the kill shot for when you were stuck with two strikes, an offense should do the same thing. Trouble was, at key moments during key games, it simply never found the solutions at the highest leverage moments.
Where were they?
2. The offense routinely faded after Thanksgiving. This isn’t a passing or rushing observation. This is a schematic problem that reared its head in 2021 and 2022 when things began collapsing at roughly the same time in the year. Teams get a bead on what you like to do and begin to turn the screws on you. They take away your tendencies and strengths and make you beat them with your counters on top of your previous counters. We talked about it at very great length before the playoffs began. The Cowboys were 31st in 2021 and 2022 when it came to first-down runs after Thanksgiving. They were unable to run the ball at all — loaded boxes, empty boxes, you name it. This placed incredible undue stress on an offense that lacked receivers who could get open. Everyone wanted Dak Prescott to do something and he looked for someone to get open who wasn’t named CeeDee Lamb and it wasn’t working. The ball was forced into guys with no separation and we saw how that worked out — or didn’t. Turnovers started happening and without any respect for the running game, the team was out of answers. The fans and media were mad at the QB.
Truth is, the man with the play-sheet has to provide solutions. Sadly, the offensive coordinator seemed to have none, especially when Dallas played a defense that was top notch. The Cowboys escaped that in Tampa Bay, but not in San Francisco. The playoff exits looked painfully similar. Moore had no solutions because he had very few playmakers who could fix things. A slow running back, a few receivers who could not get open and a basic tight end who provided little beyond checkdowns. There is a case to be made that Moore had few solutions available and I am sure he is right. We just know it was broken and he wasn’t sure how to fix it. And the clincher is it happened two years in a row from Thanksgiving all the way to the 49ers.
3. The route concepts were never evolved into something better. They were still Scott Linehan’s route concepts. This might be an entire semester’s worth of classes if we wanted to really dig deep into them, but my exact complaints from Linehan’s offense were similar for the exact complaints from Jason Garrett’s offense and yes, they were the exact same complaints for Moore’s offense.
Too often, the Cowboys[‘ offense is built on a foundation of what we call “spot routes,” although the language will vary all over the football world. Spot routes could mean curl and hook patterns, but to me and for this discussion, let’s refer to spot routes as anything that is caught while the receiver is facing the QB and not moving east or west. Comebacks, stops, hooks and curls are the primary routes in this heading, and the Cowboys have loved to run them over the past decade. When you are stationary or even close to stationary and your back is to the end zone for which you wish to score, then you limit the amount of damage an offense can do. Before you claim that this is largely a result of not believing your QB can function in any other offense, remember, this offense was designed with Tony Romo as the QB, so I reject that notion.
The opposite of these routes would be “move routes” which would be anything when a receiver is running toward the end zone or laterally across the defense. Crossers, digs, gos, corners, seams, etc. These are where we allow our playmakers to do the damage and yards after catch are possible. Again, I have heard people continuously blame Prescott for this, but the evidence supports that he is well within the realm of satisfactory at hitting these routes at the NFL starting-QB levels. In other words, people with this opinion are either comparing him to Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady or Patrick Mahomes or they are flat-out wrong.
Now, to the evidence that we have gathered from the past four years of the Moore era. There are four Next Gen stats worth considering. The first is “receiver separation.” This is the average distance between the receiver and the nearest defender when the pass arrives. In 2022, the Cowboys finished 30th in this category. Over the past four years with Moore as OC, the Cowboys averaged 25th in the NFL. This is problematic, to say the least. We should not just use this stat, though, because it does factor in a QB’s risk tolerance and his willingness to throw it into tight windows. Also, the deeper you pass the ball, the smaller the windows often get. So, we must cross-reference it with some other statistics — here they are.
The Cowboys finished 25th in wide-open percentage, which measures an open target with separation of at least five yards when the ball arrives. The Cowboys have finished 28th in open percentage (open target with separation of at least three yards when ball arrives). And most damning, the Cowboys finished 29th in yards after catch percentage, which is total yards after catch divided by total receiving yards. In every one of these stats, the Cowboys’ passing offense is in the bottom 25 percent of the league. Look, we all know that they need better playmakers (Noah Brown and Michael Gallup were two of the NFL’s weakest, high-volume receivers at getting separation in 2022), but you also have to run route concepts that lean into the possibility of big plays. Was Dallas productive as an offense? Yes. But, it also never deviated from what it had been doing. And that is to be one of the worst “yards after catch” teams in the league this whole time. Passing yards were accumulated by the pass itself and not a play afterwards. You might claim that this is all because of a QB holding back the team, but again, we saw this with Romo and we saw this with several different play callers. The bones of the offense were hooks, curls, comebacks and such. It never evolved. With Brandin Cooks and Lamb, we may have something new, but I would start with what routes are getting called the most. And I will tell you, I don’t want to see “all-curls” ever called again for a Dallas offense on a big third down. It simply has run its course.
As I told Ted, I don’t mind Moore at all. But, these three things told me it was probably a decent time for Mike McCarthy to make a change. I think Moore has every opportunity to turn into something of a much better coach as he develops, but no, I don’t think they are letting Sean Payton 2 go right now. Moore is still figuring out what he is and believes. He seemed to be running a lot of Linehan’s stuff and when I see Kansas City and San Francisco and even McCarthy’s old offense in Green Bay, they all were able to find far more separation and yards after catch. There must be a better answer.
In five years, is Moore one of the top head coaches in the NFL? It’s possible. But, for now, he seemed to be a man who had a lot of great ideas, but no convincing overview and philosophy that told you he knew the answers to all of the tests.
It is now Dallas’ job to make sure the next chapter of its offense addresses these three issues.
years. 
