The Dallas Cowboys’ offense, led by Dak Prescott, leading the league in total DVOA and top-3 in both passing and rushing DVOA, are quite simply, the most efficient and potent offense in the NFL. Their opponent on Sunday afternoon, the New England Patriots’ defense, lead the NFL in defensive DVOA, and have posted historically great performances all season. On Sunday in Foxboro, that unstoppable force, meets that immovable object, and the resulting collision is sure to be epic.
By now everyone knows Patriots head coach Bill Belichick will be looking for any and every possible edge he can create to give his team an advantage and an opportunity to win, and that one of his key tactics in doing so is to focus his entire scheme on taking away his opponent’s ability to use their primary play-maker on offense.
The Patriots primary coverage is Cover-1, which is man coverage on each eligible receiver, with a single safety in the deep middle of the field. Assuming a four-man rush, with five defenders covering eligible receivers, and a middle of the field player, that leaves one “extra” defender.
Belichick will deploy this defender in a number of ways to create confusion for his opponent and to give his defense flexibility.
One of his favorite ways to deploy this extra defender, to take away an opponent’s primary receiver, is what he calls “One-double”.
This call, made famous by a pre-game interaction between Belichick and former Bengals wide receiver Chad Ochocino will be followed by the jersey number of the primary receiver, in Ochocinco’s case, “One-Double 85” which instructed the Patriots secondary to double cover Ochocinco, no matter where he lined up in the formation.
In this case, the extra defender is used to double cover the single wide receiver on the backside of the offenses 3×1 formation.
This shot shows the potential flexibility of “One double” where the call adjusts to double the No. 2 receiver on the trips side, by having the extra defender roll to the middle of the field so that the near side safety can bracket the ID’d receiver.
Any sane observer would expect Belichick to use this call to double cover Cowboys wide receiver Amari Cooper. But Belichick has another weapon at his disposal to try to slow down Cooper, and that is corner back Stephon Gilmore, who in his time with the Patriots has been perhaps the best man coverage corner in the NFL.
So while there are likely to be snaps where Cooper is double covered, there will be other snaps where Belichick plays Cover-1 and deploys that extra defender in other ways. He could be deployed as a “Rat” in the underneath areas, with orders to cut off any short crossing routes.
Or he could roll to the middle of the field and allow the near side safety to cover one of the trips side receivers while another defensive back blitzes into the back field.
Or he could come down and take responsibility for the running back out of the backfield, allowing the linebacker to attack the pocket.
When you combine the flexibility of their Cover-1 package, with the dominance they exhibit in Cover-0 the Patriots’ man coverage schemes are enough to stifle almost any offense.
So what can Kellen Moore, Dak Prescott and the Cowboys offense do to counter the schemes they’ll see from New England on Sunday?
The first key is the same as it should be against any man-coverage heavy team, use Prescott’s legs.
Prescott is extremely effective as a runner, and the Cowboys offense, and chances of winning improve when he uses his legs. Belichick coached teams have often struggled with quarterbacks who can run, likely as a result of the amount of man coverage they play, and their only loss of the season was to the most mobile quarterback in the league, Lamar Jackson, who ran 16 times for 61 yards and 2 touchdowns in the Ravens 37-20 win over the Patriots in Week 9.
Prescott is not likely to run 16 times, but if he is able to use his legs to convert a few key third downs, or is able to escape from pressure and turn a few negative plays into a positive ones, it could make the difference in a win or a loss for the Cowboys.
The second key, and one that will make the most difference for the offense, will be the play of the Cowboys secondary weapons. You can count on Belichick to have a plan for guys like Cooper, and Ezekiel Elliott, and even Michael Gallup, Randall Cobb and Jason Witten.
So for the Cowboys to win, they will need significant contributions from secondary weapons like Blake Jarwin and most importantly Tony Pollard.
The reason why is quantified in an interview with former Belichick assistant Pepper Johnson. Where Johnson discussed what bothers Belichick from a schematic standpoint.
“Bill never likes two running backs. He never liked playing against two skillful running backs. It’s a problem because he can’t really cover them with his different combination of coverages with the secondary. The linebackers have to get them. And you need good linebackers.”
The Patriots linebacking core, featuring Jamie Collins, Dont’a Hightower, and Kyle Van Noy are an elite and versatile group, but using two running backs, especially those with skill sets like Elliott and Pollard, provides the opportunity to create easy completions in the passing game.
In the Cowboys bye week, this space talked about Kellen Moore’s use of multiple running backs to attack defenses and how it would be a key in the second half. This game is the reason why.
If Moore can use Pollard and Elliott in a variety of ways to create issues for the Patriots coverage rules in their man coverage package, the two runners should be able to prosper on Sunday, and give the Cowboys a chance to come out of Foxboro with a W.
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