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

The Dallas Cowboys needed to make a change on offense, so they decided that their offensive coordinator, offensive line coach, quarterbacks coach, and running back coach services were no longer needed.

Leaving many wondering who was going to call the plays going forward, well that question was answered after it was reported that head coach Mike McCarthy was going to be calling the plays this season. Still, when you bring in offensive line coach Mike Solari and then name Brian Schottenheimer as your offensive coordinator it’s clear we are going to see a complete overhaul of this Cowboys’ offense.

The simple, but effective offense that Kellen Moore ran in Dallas just starting to become predictable, and putting Schottenheimer in that role will add more misdirection and more play action in an offense that for some reason every year under Moore just failed to deliver at the heading into the playoffs.

The combined offensive knowledge that McCarthy and Schottenheimer have over Moore can only benefit quarterback Dak Prescott and this offense overall. So let’s take a look at a few areas where this Cowboys offense will be able to get better.

How Cowboys offense, Dak Prescott can get better under Mike McCarthy and Brian Schottenheimer

More Play-Action

Last season, 72.8% of the plays Prescott ran under Moore were straight dropback passing plays.  That means Moore knowing he had an underwhelming receiving core put a lot more pressure on Prescott to find receivers that were open, most of whom couldn’t consistently create separation. Compare that to just 27.2% of play-actions plays that were called and you can see why it was easy for defenses to just drop back into coverage and make plays on the football. If you don’t have any misdirection in your play calling you’re eventually going to allow the defense to dictate what your offense is going to do and at times that exactly happened thanks to Moore’s play-calling.

McCarthy and Schottenheimer aren’t going to allow defenses to dictate what they want to do, so we should expect to see more play-action and pre-snap motion in order to help Prescott read the defense as well as forcing these cornerbacks and safeties to creep closer to the line of scrimmage using Schottenheimer’s play-calling in the running game. During his time in Seattle Schottenheimer ranked sixth in run-play rate (42%) which allowed him to set up the play-action passing game which under his watch came in at eighth in play-action rate (28.4%). With the running backs the Cowboys have on the roster Schottenheimer is going to be able to lean on that running game to help Prescott manage the football game and make plays when he needs to.

It will be especially helpful in the red zone, an area where Moore just couldn’t seem to find any consistency or success due to his limited play calling. Schottenheimer on the other hand has been one of the more successful offensive coordinators in red zone scoring offenses thanks in part to that misdirection and his willingness to have his quarterback run the football enough times to be a threat a defense must focus on. Again opening things up for Prescott should he actually throw the football.

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.

Moving the Pocket and Use your Legs

When teams have a mobile quarterback they tend to build the offense around the strengths of that quarterback, in this case installing more bootlegs in order to threaten defenses with his ability to run. We didn’t see much of that, RPOs, or designed quarterback runs for that matter, and when you have a mobile quarterback that’s just unacceptable. Now I know Prescott hasn’t been the same since that horrible leg injury but last season he showed he can still move the chains.

Schottenheimer will look to mix in some RPOs and force the defense to think about who has the football and give Prescott more chances to take off and run or hit a receiver downfield who has a step on his defender thanks to the misdirection at the beginning of the play.  This can also be very effective in the red zone again you have a mobile quarterback and he has only two rushing touchdowns this past season. It worked out well for him during his time with the Seahawks and I can see him adding more of this into the game plan.

He also liked to move the pocket for Wilson in order to give him space when facing more aggressive defensive lines and pass rushers. It’s more effective than leaving your quarterback in the pocket and allowing pressure to force bad throws and turnovers or take unnecessary hits. This also buys your receivers more time to get open which is very helpful when you have receivers on the roster that just can’t create separation fast enough. It will really help this offense overall and help lower the interceptions from Prescott.

Overall these two with their combined experience, McCarthy with his play-calling, and Schottenheimer and the way he designs game plans I believe will be a breath of fresh air for an offense that just never evolved under Kellen Moore.

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