Despite doomed 2019, here’s why Cowboys’ historic offense provides hope for the future (2024)

The normal Decoding Kellen Moore format feels a bit out of place on this New Year’s Eve, as topicality takes top priority. We don’t fully know the news because the Cowboys seem to be sorting through some matters. Change is coming, but we still wonder to what extent. But, in due time, I promise all of the data and analysis from 2019 will be presented. Until then, there is this:

The 2019 season ended the same way it began: The Cowboys blew the doors off another AT&T Stadium visitor by a remarkable margin. The offensive objective of this season was to unveil an attack that would be difficult to stop in a variety of ways. They had an ensemble cast that was dynamic and balanced. They had great depth to withstand absences, and they had enough talent that a defense would be very hard-pressed to take away a component without paying for ignoring another. By just about all standards, the evidence suggests the offense found plenty of success in 2019

And that is what makes this a real mystery.

The 2019 Dallas Cowboys season was an unmitigated failure. We now know this all too well. We just don’t know exactly why. We have attempted to peel back the onion enough to give everyone theories, but honestly, some are flat-out ridiculous. Others hold some water, but not all of them. This is a complex sport, and when you try to perform an autopsy on the death of a talented and promising group of players, you can also get caught chasing your tail in search of the answers.

Was the 2019 Cowboys offense a failure? If so, how, exactly? This may take a long time to fully identify, because nearly all indicators insist this team was very good. In the end, I am simply unsatisfied with the catch-all shrug that they just didn’t catch breaks in close games.

Today, I want to present a few thoughts about this offense that we should be aware of when analyzing this situation.

First, let’s start with something we can all relate to with regards to our personal jobs and careers: the dreaded “year over year” performance review. How much better were you in this calendar year versus the last? Here are the league rankings:

I know this is not great for the hot takes and the daytime talk shows that will continue to yell about narratives like the QB isn’t that good or the offensive coordinator looks too young.

The Cowboys’ point production is way up. Their yardage output is through the roof. The rushing game has improved, and the passing game has shot to the top of the league. Turnovers have fallen slightly, but their third-down conversion rate has shot up as well. Their red-zone offense went from awful to league-average. Big plays have multiplied and the sacks have diminished to almost nothing. Time of possession has dropped, but again, as we have said in the past, there is a direct relationship to time of possession and the lack of ability to find big plays. In other words, if you are good at creating explosive plays, you don’t use as much clock. This should mean that time of possession may not be terribly important, but rather serves as an indicator of a team’s personality.

Either way, I hope this makes intuitive sense. The Cowboys were up nearly a full touchdown from 2018 to 2019. They did everything exceedingly better. They went from “bottom 10” in the league in many categories to the top of the league nearly overnight. They turned the ball over more, but what did that mean? It means they went from 17 giveaways to 18.

What is my overall point here? When analyzing a frustrating team, it is important to not throw out the baby with the bathwater.

In other words, I wholeheartedly agree that Jason Garrett needs to go. I have been there at times since December of 2012, although he has definitely shown gains at times to make me second-guess that. But do I think the team needs to gut its offensive staff in the process? Do I think everything needs to be torn down and assigned a new architect?

In short, do I believe Kellen Moore succeeded or failed in 2019?

Under almost every circ*mstance, I believe Kellen Moore should absolutely be invited back to continue what he has started. That said, there is nothing I detest more than Jerry Jones naming the staff of his future head coach before that coach is put in place. I believe in full autonomy from my head coach, so he can bring anyone he wants or run the offense himself. But I would really hope this new head coach reads this piece or something like it to be made fully aware of what the Dallas offense accomplished.

There are issues to consider, and we all know what they are. For instance, the offensive home/road splits were incredibly disconcerting but also rather consistent with Jason Garrett teams of the past. I absolutely cannot concede that Kellen Moore just happened to have the same fatal flaw as Garrett did — rather than considering that it is Garrett himself who prefers a much less aggressive and creative mindset on the road. The head coach has the final call, and I don’t think it is crazy to identify how much less adventure the offense seemed to have the stomach for when away from their friendly confines.

The other issue that bothers fans is “who did they beat,” and that seems to be a new way to take a shot at the offense/QB/coordinator. But I submit that the offense was quite productive in games against the Packers and Vikings. Those games happened to be at home, where the offense was quite adventurous and productive in nearly every single game, save for Buffalo. Yes, the Packers game was filled with costly mistakes, but on a play-by-play basis, the offensive work in those games suggests more of the same: This offense was amazing at home and tentative on the road. New Orleans, the Jets, New England, Chicago and Philadelphia were the story of the season. Win one of those games, and you reach the post-season. Win two? You are a 10-win team and nobody gets fired, most likely. They lost them all, and while each game has a story to tell, the common thread seemed to be an offense that did not resemble what we saw in Texas.

When we evaluate young players, we often have to decide what sample to believe. We know there is progress to consider, and maturation doesn’t happen overnight. It will be better (or should be) in Game 50 than it was in Game 15. I believe Kellen Moore is going to continue to build on the good and learn from the bad, just like we should look at a young QB or a young left tackle.

One of the great indicators of success is a team’s ability to destroy an opponent. Now, many cynical fans don’t care about “blowing out bad teams,” and I don’t blame them. Those performances certainly look like empty calories. But I believe the Cowboys can win a Super Bowl with this exact offense, and here’s why.

As you know, earlier this year I started making note of the regularity in which the Cowboys were destroying teams with 30+ points, 400+ yards of offense and a 10+ point margin of victory. You can say those are all arbitrary numbers, because they are. But they are also extremely rare thresholds for this organization. So, I started looking at how many times the Cowboys have ever done this.

Here is every Cowboys season with at least three of these:

Most wins of 30+ points, 400+ yards, 10+ point differential, season (Dallas History)

By this measure, the 2019 Cowboys are the best in the history of the franchise by a significant margin. How?

Wait! It gets worse (or at least, more staggering).

I decided to see how accumulating seven of these games ranks all-time in the NFL. I decided to move it to 1960-2019, so we must apologize to the 1948 and 1949 San Francisco 49ers. But look at the list of teams that accomplished what the 2019 Dallas Cowboys have. Warning, this might upset you:

Most wins of 30+ points, 400+ yards, 10+ point differential, season (1960-2019, NFL History)

As you can see, the 2019 Dallas Cowboys are on the list of all-time great teams. Only 14 teams ever have six of these games and only seven did it seven times in one year. Of those teams, four were champions, five others lost in the Super Bowl/Championship Game, two more lost in conference championship games and the others lost in the divisional round of the playoffs. Every single team that played in a 16-game season (1961 Oilers and 1968 Raiders played 14 games) won at least 13 games!

The 2019 Cowboys went 8-8.

It is one of the biggest anomalies you will ever see.

My bottom line? Be very careful about sending Kellen Moore away. This offense was occasionally irritating. It underperformed at times and absolutely spit the bit in Philadelphia.

But they showed an absolutely incredible ceiling and perhaps an indicator of good things to come.

Top photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images