Cowboys are already showing glimpses of Mike McCarthy's offensive shift
While the Dallas Cowboys have tried their best to make it seem like the offense won't change that much now that Mike McCarthy has taken over the reins, two preseason games already serve as evidence that it will. Even though these are low-stakes exhibition games that provide little incentive for NFL teams to put anything […]
While the Dallas Cowboys have tried their best to make it seem like the offense won't change that much now that Mike McCarthy has taken over the reins, two preseason games already serve as evidence that it will.
Even though these are low-stakes exhibition games that provide little incentive for NFL teams to put anything on tape for foes to watch, we can already tell the post-Kellen Moore days are here.
Iisha Morrison from Girls Talk, Boys Talk, an official podcast of the Dallas Cowboys, joined my nightly show A to Z Sports Dallas Primetime to recap the preseason, noted the offensive shift, and broke down how it's already noticeable.
"I do think we've caught glimpses of just some of the changes," Morrison noted on the show. "The rub routes, a lot of the motion, some of the disguising they're doing, like some of the stuff we have not seen before."
Watching the game closely will reveal it's indeed noticeable. For example, the Cowboys are running many more horizontal, crossing routes. More slants instead of hitches, the stop-route the offense used so much under Moore that it became frustrating.
Although preseason football is all about player evaluation, Cowboys fans should be excited to see the schematic shift is already crystal clear despite the coaching staff showing only a vanilla version of it.
"That drive with Cooper Rush and the offense, they went tempo a couple of times," Morrison added. "It was good on third down to some of the concepts even so to the slant-flats (a pass concept) like some of this stuff is new, it's new in a sense."
But the Cowboys didn't make McCarthy the man in charge because of a handful of plays being used more often. They made him the offensive architect because his experience makes him one of the best teachers in the NFL. Even his install slides are famously detailed.
Unsurprisingly, that shows up on game day.
"And I really base it on the comfort of the players," Morrison concluded. "You go listen to their interviews, you see how they are and they're able to be successful on different levels because even with Will Grier making his mistakes, there are times even last week you saw that this system and kind of how it's being coached, even your third string offense can find some rhythm and flow in these games. […] And I think it's a testament to what's happening on that side of the ball."
Hopefully, these August takeaways translate into September football when the games count for realsies.
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