Tampa Bay Buccaneers WR Mike Evans struck a chord with Cowboys Twitter this week when he said Dallas runs a ‘simple’ game plan. One Cowboys legend agrees with that statement.
In an interview with Sports Seriously, DeMarcus Ware shared what he thinks other team’s are seeing in the Cowboys defensive game plan and how they’ve been able to negate their once dominant pass rush:
“The [pass rush] package has been watered down. I don’t see a lot of the plays that they ran early,” said Ware to Sports Seriously. “When you first start the season, you start doing all these NASCAR, crazy packages and you see it become really effective and then you get comfortable.
You get comfortable with ‘alright, well then we’re just going to put guys here and say we’re going to beat you.’ Yes, we can do that. But that’s when the offenses can scheme and say ‘we’re going to double team Micah and slide to DeMarcus Lawrence.”
The numbers back that up, through their first 12 games of the season Dallas was averaging four sacks a game, which was tops in the NFL. In the last 5, that average has dipped to just over one sack a game.
“I think we gotta get back to being dynamic. You got a lot of dynamic players on that defense. Don’t water it down, let those guys go out and do what they need to do,” said Ware. “Yes, big plays will be given up, but the big plays will happen [on defense too], so Dak can score those points.”
Ware also said the Cowboys locker room, and defensive players in particular, definitely took notice of Evan’s ‘simple’ comments.