If there’s one thing we know about the 2023 Dallas Cowboys, it’s that they love to play man coverage. This season, Dan Quinn’s defense has lined up in man on 40.3% of their defensive snaps, most in the NFL. And if you take away their loss to the Miami Dolphins in Week 16, when they played much more zone against Mike McDaniel’s turbo-charged offense, that rate jumps to 41.0%. Ostensibly, that’s extremely good news for Jared Goff, whose Detroit Lions face those Cowboys on Saturday night.
Against man coverage this season, Goff has completed 71 of 124 passes for 837 yards, 547 air yards, eight touchdowns, no interceptions, and a passer rating of 99.4. Against zone coverage, Goff has completed 233 of 325 passes for 2,775 yards, 1,701 air yards, 13 touchdowns, all 10 of his interceptions, and a passer rating of 97.9. So, more explosive plays against zone, but also all of Goff’s interceptions, and there are some common threads here.
In this week’s “Xs and Os with Greg Cosell and Doug Farrar,” the guys get into why Goff’s attributes as a timing and anticipation thrower of the football can also get in his way against certain coverages. Also, how the Cowboys can take advantage… if they want to flip the script a little bit.
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You can watch this week’s “Xs and Os,” featuring tape and advanced metric analysis of all Week 17’s biggest NFL matchups (including Lions-Cowboys, of course), right here:
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You can also listen and subscribe to the “Xs and Os” podcast on Spotify…
…and on Apple Podcasts.
Now, let’s get deeper into this Jared Goff-Dan Quinn matchup.