The Dallas Cowboys did it again. There are two early themes to the Cowboys’ 2020 season, injuries and overcoming double-digit deficits. On Sunday, they dealt with both in a major way. Dallas fell behind the New York Giants 17-3 in the blink of an eye, came back, lost their starting QB for the year to fall behind again, and came back again.
The last-second victory brought the Cowboys record to 2-3. Despite the heart attacks and heart ache that seems to be the central theme of this season for the Cowboys, momentum-swinging plays continue to define things. In a bit of contradiction to this idea, homage has to be paid to the effort of Ezekiel Elliott for providing the non-chunk plays which set the pace.
Ending the game with two scores and 125 yards from scrimmage, once again when his team needed juice it was Elliott who steered the ship for the Cowboys.
Trailing 17-3 early in the second quarter, Dallas started with the ball at their own 25. To that point, Elliott — who no longer is the central focus of the club’s early-game plans — had three carries and two targets out of 16 non-kick snaps. His carries went for seven yards, his one catch was for 14 yards and the other target resulted in a pick-six when Prescott’s throw sailed over his head.
But just like the Week 2 home contest against Atlanta — incidentally the Cowboys only other win in 2020 — turning to Elliott is what got Dallas calmed down when their offensive world was spinning out of control. In Week 2, Elliott’s fumbles were part of the malaise, but the team started out with two runs by Tony Pollard and was immediately out of sorts.
Trailing 20-0 at the end of the first quarter, the club turned to Elliott to settle down. On their first scoring drive of the game, the former first-round pick saw the rock on 7 of 11 snaps as the club methodically marched down the field.
- Pass to Cooper for 11 yards
- Elliott up the middle for 8 yards, plus defensive holding
- Elliott right guard for 7 yards
- Pass to Lamb for 9 yards (end of quarter)
- Lamb right end for 9 yards
- Shotgun run by Elliott for 10 yards
- Pass to Elliott for -3 yards
- Pass to Bell for 10 yards
- Elliott for 7 yards (on 3rd and 3) injuring tackling player
- Elliott for 1 yard
- Elliott for 1 yard, Touchdown, injuring tackling player
The Cowboys after going punt, fumble, fumble, turnover on downs, fumble then went on to score on their next four possessions and seven of their final eight drives.
On Sunday, Elliott saw the ball on 9 of the 14 plays when down 17-3.
- Elliott off right tackle for 9 yards
- Elliott up the middle for 5 yards
- Pollard for 5 yards
- Pass to Cedrick Wilson for 4 yards
- Offside on Giants
- Elliott right tackle for 3 yards
- Elliott left guard for 8 yards
- Pass to Wilson for 10 yards
- Elliott right tackle 3 yards
- Pass to Gallup 8 yards
- Elliott right guard for 8 yards
- Elliott left tackle for 1 yard
- Pass to Wilson for 5 yards
- Elliott for no gain
- Elliott for 1-yard touchdown
15 snaps, one penalty and 9 touches for the workhorse back. That jumpstarted Dallas who finally got to Giants’ QB Daniel Jones the next drive and scored their first defensive touchdown of the season. They followed that up with another offensive score for three straight touchdowns and took control of the game.
There’s no question Dallas is 100% right by becoming a pass-heavy team. There’s no question the Cowboys are more difficult to defend when they have diversity on early downs and skew towards the pass. However, there’s also no question their offensive identity for the last four years is in Elliott being the centerpiece and going away from that seems to have the offense in disarray over the first five games of the season.
In the games where the Cowboys have been able to start fast, or at least reasonably well, Elliott has been heavily involved from the outset. That includes the season opener against the Los Angeles Rams, where the teams were tied at 7 early in the second quarter, and Week 4 against the Cleveland Browns, where Dallas led 14-7 going into the second quarter.
In the small sample size of NFL seasons, five games is even more minuscule, but it certainly looks like the Cowboys are better off starting games when Elliott is involved, and he’s been the reason they’ve found their footing in the games they weren’t.
The game against the Seahawks in Week 3, Dallas started off with six straight passes, so even with Elliott getting adequate work on the drive with three touches, things still felt off from the jump.
Advanced metrics allow us to know so much more about what the proper decisions are in football. Expected Points Added, or EPA, is one of the leading indicators as it says on a play-by-play basis how much a decision contributes to the possibility of a score. It’s the foundation of the running-backs-don’t-matter movement, along with the obvious evidence that running backs more than wideouts and quarterbacks can be found at later points in the draft.
But we’ve long since argued Elliott is outside of those parameters for multiple reasons.
He is continuously among the best of his position, and clearly, the Cowboys offense centers around him.
This year, EPA seems to match the assessment. Passing will always dwarf rushing when it comes to EPA, but in looking at the Dallas offense compared to the rest of the league, they have comparatively been a better rushing team than passing.
Despite still being a net negative (-0.011) Dallas ranks eighth in the league in rushing EPA; they rank 19th in passing EPA (0.115) despite Prescott being on a record-setting passing-yard pace prior to his injury.
Despite Elliott’s three fumbles, the Cowboys run game has been highly productive.
Data science has claimed to prove that passing success is independent to having defenses need to respect an opposing running game. But when Dallas still relatively skewed run in 2019, the passing game EPA was through the roof. Now that the Cowboys skew pass heavily, the EPA has dropped and the run EPA is among the league best.
Again, small sample size may have a lot to do with it, but it’s certainly more than anecdotal the Cowboys in 2020 have fared better when Elliott is a focal point.
Feed Zeke.
Watch: Catch This Fade, S5E12
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