National Football League

Sharp: Mike McCarthy's offensive philosophy for Cowboys is misguided

Published Mar. 8, 2023 12:57 p.m. ET

The Dallas Cowboys jettisoned Kellen Moore as offensive coordinator after four seasons with the team. The agreement to part ways was apparently "mutual." But based on comments shared by Mike McCarthy at the NFL Combine, it felt anything but mutual.

McCarthy shared his offensive philosophy with the media. And what stood out most was the juxtaposition of one sentence with the next.

"Kellen [Moore] wants to light the scoreboard up."

"But I want to run the damn ball so I can rest my defense."

McCarthy later added in the same statement: "I don't desire to be the No. 1 offense in the league."

Here is his full comment:

This philosophy does not make sense to me.

Obviously, every coach wants to win a Super Bowl. How hard each actually tries, relative to trying to save their job, is up for debate. But let's first ignore the comments related to being the "No. 1 team" and winning the Super Bowl. That's standard.

Let's focus on the philosophy.

Working backwards, his goal is to rest his defense.

To rest his defense, he wants to run the ball. This is presumably to bleed the clock while on offense and keep his defense on the sideline.

From McCarthy's perspective, the goal is to rest his defense so the focus is to run the football on offense.

But this is precisely the wrong way to achieve that goal.

The true way to rest a defense (which is the wrong goal to begin with, but we'll get to that) is not by running the football.

It's by gaining first downs.

The more first downs you convert, the more plays your offense gets to run, and the more time is consumed while your defense rests.

A team could run the ball on first and second down if they wanted to, but it's highly likely they will find themselves in a third-and-obvious passing situation on third down. Those are difficult to convert. And that puts your offense right back on the field unless you do convert.

The focus should be on gaining first downs by any means necessary. If gaining first downs are the focus, how is that best achieved? Most simply: doing whatever it takes to avoid third downs.

That means being efficient on early downs.

It might shock Mike McCarthy to see this next stat from 2022 in the first three quarters of games:

When the Cowboys passed the ball on first down, they gained a first down on that series of plays 81.1% of the time.

That ranked No. 1 in the NFL.

When the Cowboys ran the ball on first down, they gained a first down on that series of plays 68.6% of the time.

That ranked No. 24 in the NFL.

No team saw a bigger decline in the ability to gain a first down in 2022 by running instead of passing than the Cowboys.

For some teams like the Panthers or the Jets — teams without good quarterbacks or offensive designs (both teams fired their offensive play callers) — they actually were more likely to gain a new set of downs when they started the series with a run play.

But for a team like the Cowboys, with a solid quarterback No. 1 receiver and above-average offensive designs, they were far better suited by passing the ball on first down.

Mike McCarthy wanted former Cowboys OC Kellen Moore to 'run the damn ball' more

Mike McCarthy spoke to the media at the NFL Combine to provide insight on the Dallas Cowboys 2023 season. While he did praise his former OC, he also shared that the two did not always have the same vision. David Helman breaks down McCarthy's comments about his former OC.

And it wasn't just last year, either.

Dak Prescott missed most of 2019 with an injury. The last two years combined, 2020 and 2021, the Cowboys rank No. 1 in the NFL in rate of gaining a first down in a series when their first-down play is a pass (in the first three quarters of games).

McCarthy is wrong that running the ball is the key to staying on the field. Converting first downs is the key to staying on the field.

For the Cowboys, they're far more likely to do so when they pass the ball on first down.

As stated below, staying efficient on early downs will allow you to score on offense while maintaining time of possession. Coaches must seek the right balance between third down avoidance and explosiveness on offense. But the goal is converting first downs.

And to address one other point that didn't make a lot of sense, let's also note how wild it is to have this philosophy given McCarthy believes "we have a really good defense." You might expect a team with a bad defense to care so much about keeping that bad defense off the field, because they allow so many points when they are on the field. But for a team that has one of the best defenses in the NFL (what McCarthy believes), why would you alter your offense just to help the defense?

Especially when that alteration worsens the offense?

Warren Sharp is an NFL analyst for FOX Sports. He is the founder of Sharp Football Analysis and has worked as a consultant for league franchises while also previously contributing to ESPN and The Ringer, among other outlets. He studied engineering before using his statistical acumen to create predictive football models. You can follow Warren on Twitter at @SharpFootball.

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