The Dallas Cowboys have been slammed by ESPN’s Bill Barnwell for their decision to move on from offensive coordinator Kellen Moore this offseason.
The Dallas Cowboys are a team that are moving in the right direction under head coach Mike McCarthy. Having won just 6 games in his first season in charge back in 2020, they’ve had back-to-back 12-win seasons since then and have gone from losing in the Wild Card round of the playoffs to losing in the Divisional round this past year.
One of the things that was crucial in helping to turn the team around has been the work of the offense, orchestrated by offensive coordinator Kellen Moore. Having bombed back in 2020 (partially as a result of the absence of quarterback Dak Prescott for most of it) where they ranked 17th in points and 14th in yards, they have taken great strides in the past two seasons ranking 1st in both points and yards in 2021 and then 4th and 11th respectively in 2022 (all via ProFootballReference).
However, McCarthy didn’t seem too happy with how things played out before he decided to move on from Moore this offseason, and speaking before the NFL Scouting Combine, he appeared to call out his former OC for the way it was run because of the impact it had on the team’s defense.
And Barnwell was far from happy with the way the whole thing was handled.
Dallas Cowboys destroyed over Kellen Moore decision
Writing in a column for ESPN, Barnwell criticised the Cowboys for the way they treated Moore, with a particular focus on how McCarthy handles the matter, and claimed that their offense is going to get worse as a result of the team’s actions, even if it comes with a better defense as a result:
The Cowboys blamed their problems on coordinator Kellen Moore and replaced him with Brian Schottenheimer. They have a habit of getting in their own way. When Tony Pollard breaks out and looks like a franchise back, the coaching staff insists he can't play for more than 30 snaps per game, even though Pollard had a track record of producing well after that point… You've seen how Dallas' past two playoff games against the 49ers have ended. It's easy to understand the frustration and the desire for the franchise to finally make a deep playoff run, both inside and outside of the facility.
Mike McCarthy inherited Moore when he arrived in Dallas and let him run things on offense, but after three seasons together, the former Packers coach decided to part ways with Moore and has taken over playcalling duties on offense. Moore wasn't perfect, but McCarthy's explanation for why the Cowboys needed to make a change doesn't exactly sound inspired: "Kellen wants to light the scoreboard up," he said, "but I want him to run the damn ball so I can rest my defense." McCarthy framed this as a big-picture understanding of football that he possesses as a head coach and Moore lacked as a coordinator.
The reality of the league's most pass-happy team winning this year's Super Bowl (and last year's winners being terrible at running the ball throughout their postseason run) need not enter the equation. The Dallas defense will be better rested in 2023, but its offense will be unnecessarily worse for that privilege.
It is going to be an interesting balancing act for the team to manage, whilst their defense could get better with more rest between series, they are going to be asked to do more if the offense can’t produce to the same level as they were before, and if both sides can’t keep up, then that’s going to leave the Cowboys moving backwards, not forwards.