Below is a transcript from The Simple Handicap podcast (listen here), presented by Right Angle Sports. We’ll be doing a first-look preview of all 32 NFL teams, followed by more complete team previews prior to the season. Interested in signing up for the RAS NFL service? Join here.
Brian Schottenheimer takes over as the new Cowboys’ offensive coordinator, but he will not be calling plays. That could be a positive. When you hear Schottenheimer’s name, most people go to his time in Seattle, when he was criticized for a lack of creativity despite the Seahawks once setting a scoring record. What we can expect from Dallas’s offense with him installed as OC is a lot more speed and potentially an increase in tempo. In his interviews, Schottenheimer says there’s a lot of emphasis on Dallas playing fast. That’s a buzz word for many coaches in preseason, because most fans don’t want to hear a coach or OC say their team will play slow. But there are signs here with Dallas—from their signing of Brandin Cooks, to moving on from Ezekiel Elliott, to Tony Pollard moving to starter—these things lead to more speed being on the field for the Cowboys, something they haven’t had in recent seasons.
That ties into the key route concepts within Schottenheimer’s offense that will differ from what prior OC Kellen Moore had last year. When you watch Moore’s offense, it was a lot of hitch and curl routes. Dallas ran those routes at the fourth-highest rate in the NFL. That means receivers are stopping and coming back to the ball and standing still at times. Schottenheimer’s route concepts focus on continuous movement within routes, getting the ball at full speed. When you think about CeeDee Lamb, Cooks or Jalen Tolbert, all these guys can be very dynamic when they get the ball moving because of their speed and their ability to separate down field. That, combined with what we’re hearing from Schottenheimer on pace, seems relatively promising.
Jerry Jones did a press conference recently, and he followed up on this and said he wants to get the ball out of Dak Prescott’s hands a lot quicker. He went on to ramble about if a throw isn’t there on the first or second read, he wants Dak running more, getting outside the pocket and using his legs to help the offense. Dak led the league in interceptions last year, in part because he sometimes goes too deep into his reads.
Dallas finished fourth a year ago in offense. This was a very good offensive team. But now if they mix in some tempo and play faster, they could definitely be a team where receivers catch more passes on the run and in the second level of the defense, while Prescott perhaps uses his legs more to create big plays.
The ultimate question here is how the run game fits into all this. Because this is a Cowboys team that has been hindered by Elliott the last few years. He’s been hurt and he’s lost some speed. Pollard can be a better all-around back for the Cowboys than Elliott has been, and if you listen to Dallas’s offensive linemen who have been interviewed this offseason, there is internal belief that they can be a more effective running team in 2023.
All in all, it’s a very good offensive outlook for the Cowboys if Mike McCarthy can maximize the play calling and we avoid seeing the predictable version of Schottenheimer style play calling he’s become known for.