In the debut season of Mike McCarthy’s offense in Dallas last year, the Dallas Cowboys finished in the top five in yards per game, points per game, time of possession and third-down conversions. Coming into the second year in McCarthy’s offense — the same starting quarterback (Dak Prescott), same top playmaker (CeeDee Lamb) and same security blanket (Jake Ferguson) — the expectation was that the offense could hit the ground running in 2024.
Instead, after four weeks, the Cowboys sit outside of the top 10 in each of the aforementioned categories. The defense, struggling through a change at defensive coordinator and now a rash of key injuries, hasn’t been there to pick up the slack.
In fairness, this is not the same Cowboys’ offense from a year ago.
Most of the key pillars remain but there are a couple of rookies on the offensive line, including left tackle Tyler Guyton, who has been decent but is going through growing pains. The running back room lost its lead back and the front office chose to replace its philosophy at running back instead of the player. Now, No. 2 receiver Brandin Cooks, who was already struggling to produce, is out with a knee infection without a timetable for return.
All of it sets the stage for what may be McCarthy’s defining stretch in Dallas.
One of McCarthy’s most impressive achievements as Cowboys head coach came early in the 2022 season when the Cowboys managed to go 4-1 in a five-game stretch Prescott missed with a thumb injury. At the time, it was Kellen Moore’s offense but the offensive-minded McCarthy deserves a lot of credit for surviving in what led to the second of three consecutive 12-win seasons.
As difficult as it is to get through five games without your franchise quarterback, the upcoming stretch could be just as challenging.
In the four games the Cowboys won without Prescott in 2022, the defense allowed an average of just over 13 points per game —twice holding opponents to 10 points. This season, the Cowboys gave up 17 and 15 points in their two wins, and then 44 and 28 points in their two losses. The 2024 Cowboys’ defense hasn’t shown any signs of being a unit that’s ready to rescue and pick up the offense as it struggles. Two of those four wins in 2022 also came against teams that missed the playoffs that year. Although it’s unlikely to finish this way, there’s currently a case to be made that the Cowboys’ next seven opponents are playoff-caliber.
There’s no question that the Cowboys’ front office failed McCarthy with its personnel decisions. Resting on that reality is not a choice for McCarthy right now. He has to figure out a way to maximize what is at his disposal, which includes utilizing wrinkles that have been absent this season.
According to Next Gen Stats, the Cowboys are tied for 23rd in the NFL this season in plays with pre-snap motion. McCarthy has explained the lack of pre-snap motion as a result of the way games have flowed. In their losses to the New Orleans Saints in Week 2 and Baltimore Ravens in Week 3, the Cowboys stumbled out of the gate. They trailed 14-3 after the first quarter in both games. The large deficits required Dallas to abandon its offense and go into two-minute mode in an effort to dig out of the holes.
“You’ve got look at the situation, particularly on offense. Some of our formation tendencies, you’ve got to factor in, I think we’ve been almost three quarters of two-minute (offense),” McCarthy said. “So, those are skewed a little bit but yes, as far as the motions, how much motion we want to do, CeeDee’s utilization in motion … we’re clearly aware of our numbers in those areas.”
The numbers back up McCarthy’s explanation. Last year, the Cowboys were ninth in the league in pre-snap motion when they played from ahead most of the time and had blowout wins over inferior teams. This year, they are No. 8 in the first quarter. That tumbles to No. 26 in the second quarter, No. 31 in the third quarter and No. 27 in the fourth quarter. Clearly, the Cowboys’ slow starts have impacted this aspect of the offense.
Another result of the slow starts is having to ditch the running game. McCarthy preaches balance on offense but it doesn’t help the cause when you’re digging out of a double-digit hole when the second quarter begins. The Cowboys rank last in rush yards per game and second to last in yards per attempt.
The Cowboys are middle-of-the-pack in yards per rush in the first quarter, tied for 17th in the league with the Buffalo Bills at 3.9 yards per carry. It’s not a rushing attack that will keep defensive coordinators up at night but it’s one the Cowboys should be able to survive with, if supplemented adequately.
That’s where we come back around to the issue of pre-snap motion. This week, former Carolina Panthers linebacker Luke Kuechly joined Daniel Jeremiah on his Move The Sticks podcast. Jeremiah asked the former Panthers great about the impact of pre-snap motion on defenses.
“Say it’s two-by-two and the slot receiver motions to make it three-by-one,” Kuechly said. “There is no stress on anybody in the second level of the defense for him to get out front side. … You can figure out rotation. But now, it’s like, hey, we’re playing the San Francisco 49ers and they line up in two-by-two and Deebo Samuel is running mock five across the formation, I don’t know if he’s getting the ball. I don’t know if he’s running a pass route.
“Now, I have to (ask), is it zoom motion? Because if it’s zoom, I have to bump. The more speed that happens pre-snap on the offensive side of the ball, the more stress it puts on the defense. It makes playing the run game really hard because you can’t get downhill. All of your movement as a backer is lateral. Stress on the defense is caused by pre-snap motion and the speed at which they do it.”
The final bit of Kuechly’s answer is a key element. Utilizing pre-snap motion shouldn’t be used to simply check a box off on the analytics to say it was done. It has to be done with a purpose, which is something Prescott mentioned Thursday.
“A thousand percent,” Prescott said when asked if pre-snap motion helps. “Enjoy motion, used it a whole lot here in my career. I think it depends on what the defense is, what kind of defense are they? Do they adjust a lot with the motion? Are they leaving their nickel to the field or do they bring him to the boundaries?
“Sometimes you can be doing it for no reason so for us, it’s about knowing when we’re doing it, why we’re doing it — for not just me but for the whole offense — creating leverage on certain plays. But yeah, when you use it for the right reasons, it’s a huge benefit.”
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As the offensive coordinator and play caller, that is on McCarthy. Having a veteran quarterback like Prescott, who is able to dissect more based on defense’s reactions to pre-snap motion, should be an asset. It’s on McCarthy to figure out how often it needs to be used, as well as in what fashion. Sometimes it may be the standard moving a player from one side of the formation to the other. It may be a player sprinting full speed to make the defense react (as Kuechly alluded to). It could be to hand the ball to that receiver sprinting across. It may also be to move the defense with that player and run up the middle.
Getting creative before the snap could help the run game, which should, in turn, also help the passing game. According to Next Gen Stats, the Cowboys are tied for 21st in play-action percentage. Last season, the Cowboys were tied for third in the league.
“Look at the games,” Prescott said when asked about the decline in play action this season. “We’re down in a couple of them, big early. You don’t have much of a run threat so when you don’t have that, no reason to play action. On top of that, the run game, we wouldn’t say probably has been as efficient as we want it to be. It starts with us getting the run going, us playing ahead in games, like we did last week, running better, like we did in the game last week. From there, I think you’ll see that open up more.”
A lot of the explanation from the Cowboys on the lack of creativity, such as pre-snap motion and play action, comes back to their slow starts in half of the games this season. Avoiding the early deep hole is crucial, but so too will be how patient McCarthy is able to be in sticking with the offensive game plan before turning it loose to a two-minute offense, if things go south early in games.
“The biggest thing is, you want to stay healthy with your game plans,” McCarthy said. “Just like anything, any time you have a lot of change, particularly in personnel, you’ve got to take a hard look at your volume. Any time your volume goes down, it’s clearly the responsibility of the coaching staff to have more creativity.
“Less volume, more creativity is something that I’ve always lived by, as a coaching principle. That will hopefully shine Sunday night but we’ve got to be on top of it because we’ve got a lot of players playing with adjusted roles. We’ve got to make sure they have clarity. Clarity gives them confidence and (with) confidence, they’ll play more aggressive and with more speed and more finish.”
In four games this season, the Cowboys have only run six plays inside the opponent’s 10-yard line, two of which backed them out due to holding penalties. With a struggling defense battling key injuries, that’s not a recipe for success. Even with Cooks’ injury, two rookie offensive linemen and the lack of a go-to running back, the Cowboys’ offense needs to find ways to sustain drives and finish with touchdowns.
(Top photo of Dak Prescott: Cooper Neill / Getty Images)
