The Offense Begins To Make The Changes

On the practice fields in Oxnard, an offense is slowly being revealed. What's new?

There is no question that one of the main objectives of this offseason was to attempt to sort out how the Dallas Cowboys offense planned on functioning.

I have written several pieces to this point that will offer background and context. If you wish to catch up, I will link all of those at the bottom of this piece.

We investigated the new ideas in the running game and also the key personnel changes and find both of those things very promising. Adding incredible talents like George Pickens and Tyler Booker to this group should help things maintain and perhaps improve just by switching out a few starters. Losing Zack Martin is a blow, but we believe the interior of the offensive line can be pretty powerful moving forward.

But, there is plenty from the offensive scheme – despite the truths about the McCarthy era (second in the NFL in points per game over the five years) – that appeared to leave “meat on the bone”, especially in those big games with high stakes.

The team is not changing out the quarterback, as that has been decided with great clarity. They know that the 2023 version of Dak Prescott is more than good enough to contend and they aren’t wrong. But, the offense in general was not explosive enough to win there. They needed weapons – which Pickens immediately solves to a great degree. Again, I wrote about that part, too, with the link below.

What we want to continue to explore today is the changes that Brian Schottenheimer has in mind for his offense from simple tactical alterations that were not being used on a deep enough basis.

We look around the league and we see bright and innovative ideas being employed by many teams and for years, the Cowboys have been behind the curve. They have not been creative enough and exploratory enough to look for edges. They have not pushed the envelope enough, at all. They have asked their players to be the deciding factor too often. There is nothing wrong with asking your players to be great, but what if you helped them with the ideas and creativity?

I believe that is the objective in 2025.

Now, it has also been the objective around here several other years before this one and we always hear these guys promise things in July that are not delivered on in October, but I really have heard enough of this coach to see that this was why he was hired.

He had a clear and concise priority to fix this offense – or rather to maximize the ceiling of what is possible from this group – and that got him the job. That is his mandate, if you will.

Fix the offense. And bring in the ideas that you have collected and not been able to implement because you did not have full approval.

Now, you do. Let’s get cooking.