The Ringer NFL Show - The Play Sheet [VIDEO]: Breaking Down the Latest Cowboys Playoff Collapse

Episode Date: January 17, 2024

After another disappointing early playoff exit, the Dallas Cowboys have some soul searching to do. The Ringer's Ben Solak breaks down what the Green Bay Packers did over wild-card weekend to dice up the Cowboys, particularly how Dan Quinn's defense wasn't up to the challenge of Matt LaFleur's offensive schemes. Watch 'The Play Sheet' on YouTube or Spotify every Wednesday at 8 a.m. PT. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Howdy, I'm Ben Solac. This is the play sheet. Weekly video pod we do here, so you got to click into the Spotify app. You got to watch the video. We're breaking down some Cowboys film. You better enjoy. The opening script. What to do about Dallas. The most surprising result of Wild Card Weekend was the seven-seat Packers

beating the second-seat Dallas Cowboys 48 to 32. This was a good old-fashioned wallopin, right? This was a bigger win than even the final score margin would indicate. Packers were initially up 27 and nothing. They led by 25 at the end of the third quarter. They beat the breaks off Dallas. This now marks the 13th consecutive Cowboys postseason appearance that has ended before the conference championship round.

The last time they made the conference championship, you might remember this, the 1995-96 season. They won the Super Bowl that year. And I say you might remember this because I don't, because I wasn't alive yet. It's tough. This loss is particularly vexing because the Cowboys were so good this year.

They were so good. good this year. Dak Prescott was an MVP candidate for much of the season. They finished the year 12 and 5, which means it's the third consecutive season they've been 12 and 5, which means they're the first team in league history to win 12 games in three consecutive seasons and not make the conference championship in a single one. They were fourth in DVOA. They were second EPA per drive margin, which is your offensive EPA per drive, like minus

your defensive EPA per day. They were really good, really good team. And this was the year for them. With Eagles exploding in the division, they won the division, got the two seed. Obviously, the Niners, one seed, very terrible, very hard to beat, they haven't beaten them. But the biggest threat other than the Niners in the conference were the Lions, a team that Dallas just beat a few weeks ago, albeit in controversial fashion. Altogether, it should have been an easier year than average to make the conference championship game.

All Dallas had to do to start that run was win at home, where they had won their last 17 games, and they came out unbelievably flat. After the game head coach, Mike McCarthy was shell-shocks. I don't think anybody saw this coming. Owner Jerry Jones didn't have an answer as to McCarthy's job security because he said he didn't really think he was going to have to have this conversation this week. Dak Prescott, he was stunned with the loss. And when asked what the Cowboys had to do to get some postseason success, he said,

I don't know how to answer that question. Let's be very clear. I also don't know how to answer that question. This is a very good team that should win some postseason games. What I can answer is what happened against the Packers. Let's go to play action. Let's start with the Cowboys offense. They were predictable.

You saw the Packers secondary successfully anticipate route concepts from different formations and then jump routes. And it caused Dak to hesitate in the pocket and cause him to turn the ball over two. This is the second, third down in the game, third and eight. Front side, three receiver side run and run stick. You got two outbreak and routes and then a vertical route right here. These outbreak and routes can like settle against zone coverage and kind of adjust. Okay, you hit him right there and then he falls forward for two yards.

And if it's fourth and one, you go for it, whatever. On the backside, we're going to run double slants, right? So it's an inside slam from CD Lamb and then an outside slant here. Pre-snap, we have CD with Quay Walker, by the way, walked over him. We kind of like that matchup, right? But this is stick front side with double slants backside. Like, this is just West Coast 101. Doesn't get more West Coast day one install than this.

Three receiver side is where we want to start. Watch the action of this safety right here. This is Darnel Savage. Immediately down onto this outbreak route, right? So you go now you have this bracketed here. So this is going to be difficult to throw. And if we actually rewind this and we watch the nickel corner here, watch the nickel corner against the other outbreak and route Brandon Cooks.

Look at that outside leverage. Look where he's leveraged on the snap relative to Cook's route. And you know that you're getting this rotation down here, right? So you can be outside leverage because you're not going to lose to this route because Savage is stepping down. But in general, we are taking away by structure those two outbreaking routes. We anticipate this. Even the outside corner. Let's watch Share Alexander.

Watch the outside corner. I mean, the whole way he's expecting vertical. and he's going to play with inside leverage because he knows he really only has a deep safety here because Savage step down, right? So we are trying to take away stick right here. I'm extremely confident that's what we're trying to take away. So we, Dak can't take this.

Now he has to get backside and try to throw this slant to CD lamp. You got a little bit of pressure in the pocket, right? You have unblocked guy coming right towards you and you have Quay Walker undercutting this sland. So it's just outside of the reach of CD. End zone view. Watch here we get a little game, right? inside rush, then Roshan Gary is going to come down Main Street,

and that's what creates a little bit of the pressure here, makes this a little more challenging for Prescott. But altogether, this is about that route, that front side getting taken away, and I got to come back side, and with color my face, I have to throw this, and it's just, oh, like it was catchable, but it was a difficult catch, and that's the margins, right? It's just, okay, if we can take away this concept, we expect front side, and we can make it a more challenging throw backside,

we can actually maybe get off the field here. Because the backers' defense, I don't think they were really, planning on like fully stopping the Cowboys offense, but if you can win a couple high variants down, get a couple of key plays, you can survive this excellent passing attack. That's what they did. This right here, a two minute warning. Cowboys are driving, but they're down 20 to that thing. All right. Things are getting out of hand. But do you score here, 20 to 7, going to the locker room. Oh, that was terrible. Okay, I did bad, you did bad. We're only down 13. We can get this thing back. Unless you throw up pick six. And what you're going to get, you're going to get motion, right?

And you can see, oh, it's a linebacker following CD Lamb. Not really. They're just changing the strength of the defense. It's going to be zone coverage. And they're going to actually end up bringing Campbell on a blitz here, right? So, Dax's thinking zone coverage, and he's going to see Campbell blitz off the front side, off the three receiver side. When you get a blitz, you throw to replace the blitz. Wherever the blitz are came from, you want to throw it outside of the field.

So there's going to be a deficiency in coverage. What's the concept? Slant? Slant. Slant. And this right here is a stop route. It's second and two. It's just, again, is this stuff that McCarthy got a lot of criticism for when he was head

Green Bay where the offense just got really basic route concept wise that's some of the stuff that we had going on in this game so all right we're going to go three slants what happens is when campbell comes savage steps down and initially savage is responsible for this brandon cook slant that's what that's the void that he's trying to fill but because you're running all slants like spacing wise this gets a little bit cramped right run this play there's savage stepping down for brand and cook's right slant right here and Savage is going to step down for this. But the second slant is going to come to Savage. And so Savage does what a smart safety is going to do in this position, what a smart underneath the defender is going to do. And reading Dak Prescott's body language, reading his eyes,

seeing where he's looking, he just falls off of Cooks. He just lets Cooks, continue to run, gives him over to Quay Walker, and he sinks right underneath this slant window. Expecting that Dak is going to deliver this to CD Lamb pretty much every time. And he's right. So when this runs, I mean, it hits him on the face mask, right? It is a really nice play by Savage. You see eyes on Prescott understanding what's coming here. But it'd be nice if we had a concept that didn't end up with this spacing. Because that's what allows Savage to go two for one, right?

He's initially taking this away from you. He's telling you don't throw this here. But then he's also capable of getting underneath this slant. That's why as a concept, it's not my favorite one in the world. Okay, we'll pick sex and nobody's catching him. Effort, all right, Tyler Beaudish, appreciate it. Look at Jalen Tolbert. But in general, again, we had Savage step down, right?

It's the same thing. He's coming out to take away one of those quick breaking routes, and Packers are paid off for it. One more example of the Cowboys' offensive predictability. It's just so gosh darned stinking cool. This is not the Packers game. This is against the Panthers Week 11. We've got Brandon Cooks initially aligned outside. Then you have this little two receiver set here. They're going to motion him in. He's going to become the third receiver right here in the bunch. And the Cowboys love to do this. They love to motion a guy from the outside into the bunch or they'll initially line up with him in the bunch and then he'll motion him out and he'll become the new outside receiver, right? So they into and

out of bunch motions. They're a big fan. Concept wise, after we see the Brandon Cook's motion, right? He goes and he gets set. They don't have time the snap upgrade. They want to snap it kind of right now a little bit. It's a little bit late. But he's going to be able to Brandon Cook's motion. The motion is going to now be able to run this shallow with velocity, Jake Ferguson to the corner and then they run this pivot out with C.D. Lamb. And you really like that pivot, right? Because after the Cook's motion, you've now made C.D. the new outside receiver. This outside corner is going to be responsible for him. then obviously he initially is going to have a ton of outside leverage, right? Because he was lined up for Brandon Cox at first. And so now you pull him to the outside with the look of this

outbreaking route and then you pivot it back in and you can throw this, right? So that's the concept. They don't actually end up throwing it the pivot to CD on this one. Dak looks at it, it gets pressure and turns away. But concept wise, we see that motion and then we see that route distribution. So now this is Dak's first interception against the Packers Wildcard weekend. They got two-thirds of a bunch and they got this outside receiver right here. They also got Jayre Alexander, who's just him. This one's moving, him. And there's a ton of communication that goes on here in the Packers secondary.

But the player in particular to watch is Jayre Alexander, right? He's going to motion. Okay, here he comes. And now look at him, look at him, indicate the route, right? You can see him tell him, listen, he's going. He's going to go across the field. I'm handing him off. You get Gallup on the shallow.

You're going to get Brandon Cooks here running the pivot route, and you're get seedy lamb on the corner. Watch Jerry Alexander, who he's the new outside corner, right? So he's responsible for this pivot. Watch him defend this pivot. Watch him the whole way. Look at that head come around. And look at the leverage.

This is third and five. You should be threatened by this. And then Dak hits him right here on the sideline. But the entire time, Alexander, watch the head is peeking inside the whole way and he stays on the inside shoulder there of Brandon Cooks. Just watch him. And then the head comes around and he changes directions just as Cooks does.

He knows this is coming. Right? This is an understanding of the concept that you're going to get. So now Dak tries to throw this in thinking that Cox is going to win that route. He doesn't. Jay Alexander makes a nice catch. You see the Packers secondary, live, understanding and expecting the Cowboys route concepts. And that's, I think, what leads to a bad DAC day. Like, Dak said, I suck today. And Dak did not play well today. He missed throws. It was a bad Sunday for Dak. He's had some bad

postseason Sundays. But the number one thing I see watching this film is how keyed in the Packers secondary was on what was coming to them from Dallas. Now, that was the Cowboys' offense. But it's not like the offense was the only engine of this team. They've had a really good defense for quite some time. Dan Quinn, who's a head coaching candidate across the league, has been the DC there for three seasons. In each of those seasons, they've been top five in DVOA. They were six in EPA per drive this year. This was an unquestionably good unit, and they got punked by Jordan Love and the Packers. Now, it's worth noting that while Quinn's units have been very good, they really have been struggling lately. Quinn's coached 55 games as the Cowboys DC. Six of his worst

seven games came this season. In fact, the other thing we notice is that Quinn really tends to struggle against the Shanahan system, which unfortunately for Quinn is the most widespread and prolific system in the league. Look at those worst games again, and you see the Niners game that he played against Shanahan this year. A Seahawks shootout, Shane Waldron the OC there is off of the Sean McVeigh tree, and then two games against Green Bay Packers. For an offensive coach, like Matt LaFleur, who's just been in this system and be coaching it for a long time, the answers are known. The solutions are known for a defensive system like the one that Dan Quinn deploys. Because Quinn's been doing this for over a decade, right? He wants to be four down. He wants to be single high safety,

play man coverage. And the Packers know how to coach around that. This play right here is like a classic Shanahan offense, Quinn defense interplay. We are in second and 13. The Cowboys are in four down, right? We're in pressure mode. And Green Bay showing like, hey, we've got two tight ends. We're on Dresenter. We might run the ball. And Dan Quinn's like, I don't care. We're going to be a penetration team. We're going to be a little bit light in the box. And if we lose it to the run on second and 13 you actually hand it off fine whatever we're going to be zone coverage in the back too deep right so we're trying to prevent the big play and when dan queen goes too deep he goes tampa too right so here's this is demone clark he's your linebacker technically he's like the only

linebacker on the field this other linebacker is marquis bell who's a linebacker but he's also 210 pounds and he's basically a safety cowboys played with extremely light defensive personnel and the packers all game said we're just going to put tight ends on the field and bully you around you cool with that and danc was like yeah i'm cool with that so they play tampa too right we're going to be deep half deep half and then demone clark's going to run the pole right he's going to to run down the seam with any vertical route coming down in the middle of the field. And what does the floor give him? He gives him that vertical route.

Christian Watson on the seam. So Clark's got to run with it, run with it, run with it, run with it, run with it, and then we just run dagger right behind. Romeo Dubs on the dig. Now most teams, I'll tell you, most teams, when they run dagger and they run the dig, that's breaking at 14 for them. The Packers will break this sucker at 20, right? They really truly believe in their ability to stretch you vertically, yank you down the field.

They'll put underneath routes to tie down your linebackers, and they will make big windows in the middle of the field. They, they push these suckers. So, snap the football. Get our play fake, right? Okay, whatever, four man rush. Jordan Love lands on his back foot. Initially, he's looking at this crawl route right here from the tight end, right? And Markey's Bell's going to take that away. But now Bell's tied into that. And so as Clark works down the field with the seam, Clark needs to have the vision. He needs to have the understanding that he can give this away to a deep half safety, fall off of it and take the dig. But he doesn't feel it, right? And so He's running with the seam, running with the seam.

Here's Dubs breaking. We are tied in place. We are tied down. Jordan Love is buying himself a little bit of time. And so long as this pole runner keeps going, I mean, the void right here for Dubs. Right? And Gilmore, too, right? Okay, you know, I'm playing my outside responsibilities.

You can, you have field vision right now. You can see this. And you have, this is the most common concept, man. They're going to run this all day long. You can see this field doesn't go get attached, but he doesn't. Right. And then someone else is going to pick this up. And so no one is there for the, the zone responsibility. And now here's Jordan Love making a throw under pressure into all the space in the world. Explosive game. Next drive, third and nine. This is another pass rush down. Another pass down. We're going to get a pressure look here. We walked Stefan Gilmore over, right, with this receiver. Because right here, we just have a tight end. So typically we're saying here, right, right, corner over, right? We brought the outside corner over here. We're expecting man coverage. Right. We've got corners over wide receivers. This isn't going to be manned. average going to be his own. And they're going to end up looking in a two deep distribution. And they're going to have Stefan Gilmore running down the seam with Jaden Reed.

This rat right here is going to be vertical. You got one guess what Romeo Dobs is running. Bang, right? It is the same dagger stress, right? So now the football. Get a little pressure game up front. Okay, we get Sam Williams on the blitz. Jordan loves in the scramble drill mode. But here we are right. We are tied down right here because we are worried about the threat of the run. We're going to pull vertical here. We're going to pull vertical here. Gilmore's going to run and the safety's going to run. Romeo Dubbs is going to break to the middle of the field.

Look at this. The row. Yay! First down. Do you want to watch the end zone view? Just okay. As a treat, end zone view. All right, it's not the ball.

Right here, you should have won the down. Third and nine, you got him out of the pocket right when he's landed on the back foot of his drop. The down is one. Just cover. Let it sing. Oh, come on. Get out of down. All right.

Now let's talk predictability versus unprejudicability. because we're going to send jade and read a motion all right we get a new three receiver side and we got three vertical stems right here right vertical vertical vertical what are the cowboys been losing to they've lost a dagger right so vertical and this dig or it's been vertical vertical and this dig and the player they've lost you right here is romeo dubs right he's the number three he's matched up with jordan lewis he's gonna force an inside release and the route you're threatening is a route that's like this right you're threatening the over you potentially okay i guess you can argue you're threatening the seam but you should have help there with Stefan Gilmore.

Regardless, you've been losing the Dubs, and you've been losing that middle of the field. And so as he gets inside, look at Jordan Lewis, he gets put in the trail, and he gets stuck with inside leverage on Romeo Dubs, right? You need to understand as a cover man, that's where you've got help.

You're going to have help here and here, right? Because it's a tight end and then the back that you're worried about. So there's going to be bodies here to help you out in the event that you get this over. You don't need to over-index to it, to overreact to it. But you've been losing it.

this middle of the field. And so you go and you, you, you, you, you overreact to that middle of the field. You worry about that area of the field. And what do you get instead? You get vertical, vertical and outbreaking route, right? You've had, you've lost to this. You've lost to this. And now you're going to lose to this. And that's the change up, right? That's the ability to say, all right. If you're going to start over worrying about this area of the field, then we're just going to play now to the outside of the field. And again, it's Romeo Dubs wide open in space. and one more because you're just to be these knees. I just love you so much.

And Matt Ler was in his bag and I want you to see it. We are going to get hard play action. We got two receivers this time. I'm on a more balanced set. Something we'll get a lot from the Shanahan offense is we'll get this big, big, big post, and we'll get an overout, right, a crosser underneath it. And then one of the common changeups to that is we'll get what looks like the big, big, big post, but then it'll actually break outside.

We'll break into a corner, and they'll have this overrout come underneath it. Right. So that we have in the blue common concept in the yellow common change up. Romeo dubs against Stefan Gilmore. Watch the rat. What are they running? What are they running? They're that over. And then this is potentially going to stay the post or it's going to become the corner. So Stefan Gilmore now is looking for the ball and just is just no no, sir. We're we are threatening this over and then it just it just it just curl rolls right back into this void. Single high safety has to be worried about the threat of this post.

He's been worried about the over. Jordan Love just hanging out in the pocket, a little trick shot throw, getting absolutely deleted on the throat. But he's a tough son of a gun. Man. Floor just had Dan Quinn in a triangle choke, dude. I mean, he had him beat from Snap One.

So that's how you lose and embarrassing a wildcard game. The other play caller has your defensive coordinator's number and your offensive playcalling has grown too stale, too predictable. You get out coached and the players also got out player. Like, Dak did not play well. Gilmore did not play well. The Cowboys linebackers really struggled against the run.

Michael Parsons had his worst game of his career by pressure rate. Like just in general, you underperformed. Here's the issue. You're still a good team. You went 12 and 5. That was an MVP candidate. Everything I said at the top remains true. And so now as Dallas you look forward into the offseason,

you're coming off a year of postseason disappointment, another heartbreaking year of postseason disappointment. And you say, what changes should we make? Should we get rid of the head coach, who's won 12 games in each regular season for the last three years? Should we get rid of the defensive coordinator who other teams want to hire as their head coach

because he can't beat this one system? Do we move off of the quarterback? It was one year left on his deal, 60 million dollar dead cap hit who almost won the MVP? None of these solutions feel good, man. So you obviously don't want to overreact to one game. Well, we lost to the Packers and it was embarrassing, so we have to blow it all up.

But the problem is that patience runs thin in the NFL when you are close but not quite. It's easier to just kind of be bad for a while than to be good but have nothing to show for it. That's somehow more frustrating, more aggravating, and it leads to more tectonic change. So I don't know what Dallas is going to do over the next few weeks. And like Dak Prescott,

I don't really know what they should do over the next few weeks. This is a good team that should have by now made a really good postseason run and maybe just one more year and they'll get it. But they've been telling themselves that for a while. So if owner Jerry Jones pulls the trigger on a big move or a second big move or three big moves or a ton of big moves, I won't be the least bit surprised. It has been a frustrating run for the good but underperforming Dallas Cowboys.

Jordan Love, though? Jordan Love? It's a good ball player. And that'll do it for us here on the play sheet. Thank you so much for watching. Thank you to Cory McConnell for producing the episode. Thank you to Romeo Dobbs for sending Stefan Gilmore into the Netherworld. I hope you enjoyed it.

You got a rate and you got a comment. There's such a good episode, Ben, and then I'll feel good about myself. And everybody will be happy. And I'll see you next week.