It’s 3rd & 1 and the Dallas Cowboys need a short push to get a much-needed first down. Behind the best offensive line in football, this looks to be easy for Darren McFadden and the Cowboys. The ball is hiked to Matt Cassel, Cassel proceeds to hand the ball off to McFadden, and McFadden is stuffed at the line. The Cowboys are then forced to punt. How many times have you witnessed that happening this season?
Well, it’s actually happened a lot. According to 105.3 The Fan’s Shan Shariff, the Cowboys are 7-18 on 3rd & 1. For all of you math majors out there, that’s a 39% success rate. Yikes.
Unbelievable stat: #Cowboys are worst 3rd & 1 team in league, now 7-18…….with the “best” offensive line in football.
— Shan Shariff (@1053SS) December 13, 2015
Behind All-Pros like Tyron Smith, Travis Frederick, and Zack Martin, as well as an up-and-coming player in La’el Collins, and a guy who isn’t so bad himself in Doug Free, the Cowboys should be converting easily, but really, the problems lie all on the coaching staff. On short-yardage plays, the Cowboys bring in jumbo personnel, meaning two more tight ends for extra blocking. In theory, this sounds like more blocking, but it attracts more defenders which means more clutter and less space for the offensive line to do what they’re best at. Here’s a picture of what I’m talking about:
In this picture, because the Cowboys come out in their jumbo personnel, the Packers basically have all 11 of their guys within five yards of ball. Robert Turbin is seven yards from the ball. Once the ball is snapped, and it’s determined it’s a running play, it’s honestly easy to see why the Cowboys aren’t having success on short-yardage plays.
Let’s take a look at two plays where the offensive line opened up huge holes:
On this play, notice how Free is sealing the edge, Martin is blowing out the “backup” man and how James Hanna is sealing the outside linebacker. This leads to a hole like this:
This leads to a 50-yard gain for McFadden. Let’s take a look at another play:
Notice on this pitch to McFadden how Jason Witten comes underneath to seal the defensive end, allowing Collins and Smith to use their athleticism get to the outside. The outside-man, Smith, blows the cornerback off the football.
We then see an absolutely huge hole for McFadden. Shortly after this image, we see Collins absolutely destroy Ha Ha Clinton-Dix and then continue running another 30 yards to block another defender.
These two plays are prime examples why the narrative of ‘the Cowboys’ offensive line isn’t nearly as good as it was last year’ is simply a joke. The other bad one is ‘maybe DeMarco Murray helped the offensive line more than the offensive line helped him’. Dallas’ offensive line is still the best in football. Over the next few years, this unit will only continue to get better.
This year team the whole organization is horrible, does jerry jones want to win? First of all we need a good backup QB not a bargain also take a look a some of the DB'S. The Cowboys should be in a league with the Patriots you know they always make the playoffs, we made the playoffs two times in 20 yrs thats unheard of.Jerry wake up and make some decisions.
The coaching staff are just plain DUMB & STUPID. They will NEVER get it. Don't even know how to manage a game. Bring on Sean Peyton, at least he knows how to build a team and how to be UNPREDICTABLE. Garrett IS NOT a coach with any experience. Jerry Jones just likes to use Garrett as his scapegoat. As long as Jerry Jones controls him, they will NEVER win a Superbowl. CowboysNation continues to suffer for their STUPIDITY. THANK Jerry Jones & Family!!
The play calling is so predictable that a high school defense could recognize the offense when you're at the goal line trying to score on a run play why not a sweep because Linehan! U see up the middle is gonna be jammed up. Common sense!!!!!
Thanks for a great article, Ryan!
I think the idea that the Cowboys offensive line isn't very good is ridiculous. Do they have flaws that maybe we didn't know about (or chose to ignore) heading into the season? Sure. If the belief was that Joseph Randle was going to be a 1,500 yard back behind this offensive line, then surely you're disappointed right now.
With that said, they are indeed one of the top 3 offensive lines in football, at least. They're young and they do have a pretty weak link in Doug Free, so they're not perfect but they're VERY GOOD.
My main gripe about yesterday's game: McFadden's two stellar runs came on similar types of plays. Both pitch-out plays where McFadden was running outside trying to get the edge. Why did they only run that play twice? Zack Martin and La'ell Collins are SPECTACULAR running that play. The best blocks I've seen in several years have come this season on those exact plays where one of those guys pulls to the outside and functions as a lead blocker.
I understand minimizing it because you can't have your offensive line running all over the field on every play, but only twice? When it yielded a 40 yard gain both times? I really don't think we're giving enough credibility to the idea that maybe Scott Linehan just really isn't that good of an OC unless he's got perfect talent (like last year) at pretty much every position.
Yes fans are so stupid. Thank God for so-called "experts" like Ryan to explain it all to us mindless dumb@$$es!
Teams don't fear our passing game. Haven't since Romo went down.