As long as the season doesn’t get grounded, the airshow in Dallas should be a blast to watch. Quarterback Dak Prescott is coming off his best statistical campaign and will be playing on what amounts to a one-year “prove-it” deal that should directly forecast his post-2020 payday, whether that ultimately comes with the Cowboys or someone else.
But oh, those wide receivers. Amari Cooper reignited his career after being traded out of Oakland, blossomed in his first full season as a Cowboy, and earned himself an elite five-year deal from the team. Michael Gallup’s star continues to climb; in his second pro season, he doubled his rookie receptions, more than doubled his yardage, and tripled his touchdowns. And then Dallas inexplicably had CeeDee Lamb fall into their laps in the first round of April’s draft.
The Cowboys’ passing game could provide legitimate fireworks in 2020. But even looking back at the 2019 numbers is good for a few oohs and aahs.
Cowboys VP Stephen Jones told the team’s website that Dak Prescott has thrown with CeeDee Lamb, Amari Cooper and Michael Gallup this off-season. “This receiving corps is going to be something else. I don’t think we’ve seen anything like it.”
— Jon Machota (@jonmachota) July 30, 2020
Bryan Knowles and the crew at Football Outsiders took a deep-dive look at wide receiver play, specifically the difference in production when players line up wide versus in the slot. Overall, their data shows that throwing to the slot is “notably more effective” than throwing out wide. Leaguewide, 56.9% of targets went to slot receivers in 2019; that’s up from 51.8% just three years prior.
Interestingly, though, Dallas was just one of three teams (along with Tampa Bay and Carolina) who bucked that trend and threw more passes to their wideouts than slot guys last season.
For the 2019 Cowboys, that slot role was filled by Randall Cobb. Cobb saw 98.8% of his targets in the slot, being thrown to just once all season when lined up wide. His 81 slot targets put him in 13th place among all receivers.
How did Cobb do with those targets? Football Outsiders uses a metric called Defense-adjusted Value Over Average (DVOA), which “measures a team’s efficiency by comparing success on every single play to a league average based on situation and opponent.”
Cobb’s slot DVOA in 2019 was 6.0%. He bettered the league average on those 81 balls by just six percent, which may help explain why Dallas chose not to bring him back for the 2020 season.
So where does the slot action go now? For one, the rookie from Oklahoma is expected to wreak havoc from the interior as a Cowboy. One doesn’t have to watch much of his college tape to suspect that the 6-foot-2-inch Lamb could prove to be a significant upgrade at that position over Cobb and even Cole Beasley before him. (Read more on what Cowboys Wire had to say about Lamb here.)
CeeDee Lamb was asked on @NFLonFOX where he wants to play in Dallas
Lamb: “I don’t really have a preference but I’ll take the slot.”
Reggie Bush: “All the money is in the slot. You get to go to work on those (LBs/safeties). Stay in the slot.”
Lamb: “I like the slot, for sure.”
— Jon Machota (@jonmachota) April 30, 2020
But the stats show that Gallup is also more of a force to be reckoned with than one might first think, even lined up inside. Known for his acrobatic sideline grabs and as a deep threat, Gallup put up a 27.3% slot DVOA, meaning he performed 27.3 percent better on his slot targets than the expected average. That’s 14th place. His 22 slot targets- where he lined up 19.1% of the time- may represent a smallish sample size, but Gallup made the most of those balls; his DVOA is better than a lot of recognized slot terrors, including Julian Edelman, Adam Thielen, JuJu Smith-Schuster, and Cooper Kupp.
Hard to believe an 1,100-yard guy could be flying under the radar. But if the Cowboys choose to utilize Gallup more often as a slot secret weapon, he may be soaring into the end zone even more often.
It’s one thing for a receiver to excel either in the slot or lined up wide, but it’s also worth looking at who does particularly well at both. The tell here is a positive DVOA score at both positions. Compile a list of the players with double-digit DVOA marks in both categories, and one finds guys like Mike Evans, Michael Thomas, Chris Godwin, Tyrell Williams, Calvin Ridley, Mike Williams, Stefon Diggs, Tyreek Hill, DeVante Parker, and Kenny Stills. Michael Gallup is on that list, too.
Not bad company for a youngster who isn’t even WR1 on his own team.
Now then, about Amari Cooper.
One of Amari’s cleanest routes 😮 @AmariCooper9 @dallascowboys pic.twitter.com/eJBxz6LXeV
— The Checkdown (@thecheckdown) August 2, 2020
The FO piece also tracks a stat called Defense-adjusted Yards Above Replacement, or DYAR. This metric takes into account how well a player performs compared to the player(s) who would theoretically take his place in the lineup.
Using a hypothetical running back who logs 300 carries a season, the site explains DYAR thusly:
“When a player is removed from an offense, he is usually not replaced by a player of similar ability. Nearly every starting player in the NFL is a starter because he is better than the alternative. Those 300 plays will typically be given to a significantly worse player, someone who is the backup because he doesn’t have as much experience and/or talent. A player’s true value can then be measured by the level of performance he provides above that replacement level baseline, totaled over all of his run or pass attempts.”
From the slot position, Tyler Lockett, Chris Godwin, and Michael Thomas lead the way. Each racked up over 300 yards more than their replacements likely would have in the same situations.
For true wideouts, nobody did it better than the Cowboys’ Cooper. The four-time Pro Bowler had 290 DYAR, a full 65 yards more than the Falcons’ Ridley in second place and 74 more than the Saints’ Thomas in third.
In terms of DVOA, Cooper bested the average by 32.0%. That’s eighth overall. (By way of comparison, Ridley scored 34.3% on 20 fewer catches, and Thomas notched just 16.3% but had ten more receptions than Cooper.)
Bottom line, Cooper is a stud. Says Football Outsiders:
“The Cowboys were one of the three teams who threw wide more than to the slot, and one of the major reasons was Amari Cooper, who has been a more natural fit for Dallas than he was in Oakland. Remember, too, that Cooper was hampered by knee and ankle injuries over the last seven weeks of the season; Cooper had 215 DYAR and a 41.1% DVOA out wide over the first ten weeks. You can understand why the Cowboys would be eager to lock Cooper up to a long-term extension, if not so much why they weren’t excited to lock the other half of that passing combo up to a similar deal. With the franchise tag already used on Dak Prescott and more than 70% of Dallas’ wide passing DYAR at any position going through Cooper, Jerry Jones almost had to write Cooper a blank check, which is why he is now the second-highest-paid receiver in football.”
Three wide receivers who can torch secondaries on the outside, and all three can slide in to work the slot. The writing is on the wall, and it’s forecasting big things for the Cowboys’ air attack in 2020.
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