Some things are better in actual application than they sound in conception. Buffalo chicken wings, front-wheel drive and the Cocaine Bear movie; all pretty terrible sounding ideas when first mentioned, but after seeing the finished product, they turned out to be solid additions to the world.
When Mike McCarthy spoke to reporters at the NFL combine, he made comments that sounded scary to most analytically-savvy football minds. He said “balanced,” “complementary” and “I want to run the damn ball”.
At face value, a re-commitment to the running game this day and age sounds like a poor plan, but much like a mustache, if properly executed, it may turn out to be a nifty accessory. The details make all the difference.
“Just look at our run totals the last three years,” McCarthy said. “We were a different offense in ’22 than we were in 2020. And that was part of the evolution of being a more balanced, more complementary football.”
He’s right. The Cowboys dropped from top-10 in early down pass rate in 2021, to bottom-10 in early down pass rate in 2022. Dallas is trending heavily in the direction of the run and McCarthy sounds like that is according to his plan.