Cowboys: Why Mike McCarthy and Brian Schottenheimer will help Dak Prescott

More Slants, Fewer Hitches

The picture above pretty much sums up what the Cowboys receivers would see once they got the football, either the defenders on their backs or in position to make a tackle instead of seeing an open field in front of them. Under Moore, the Cowboys’ most-run route was the hitch or curl route which does give the receiver the ability to cut off his route and catch the football but it also had a negative effect on this offense. Yards after the catch for this team ranked 24th in the league due to this fact and in a league where teams are scoring more and more on offense, you can’t settle for short yard completions where your receiver is facing the quarterback instead of hitting them in stride in order to give them the chance to pick up more yards after the catch.

If there’s one thing the Cowboys receivers are very good at its yards after the catch when given the opportunity, but with Moore focusing on hitches and curl routes they weren’t able to showcase those talents. With McCarthy calling the shots now you should expect to see a lot more routes that allow Prescott to hit his receivers in stride instead of him waiting for them to either come back to him or turn around. Now for this to work for McCarthy, he’s going to need to find receivers other than CeeDee Lamb that are able to beat man coverage, if not this system will just revert back to what we became used to seeing from Moore.

That’s something that just can’t happen if this team truly stands behind Prescott and want to give him every opportunity to succeed. Prescott has the arm and accuracy to hit his receivers in stride, he’s done it his entire career, now it’s time to allow him and his receivers to open up this offense and let it rip instead of playing it safe.