As Tom Brady watched the Dallas Cowboys’ offense try to climb out of a 28-6 third-quarter hole, the seven-time Super Bowl champion acknowledged his analysis might sound trite.
“To say, ‘We want to start fast,’ well, of course — we know that,” Brady said.
Then he explained why an early lead means more than just a lighter day at the office.
“You get to play on your terms; your whole playbook is useful,” Brady said last weekend during the Cowboys’ eventual loss to the Baltimore Ravens. “At this point in the game, [the Cowboys] don’t have their whole playbook. You’ve got basically some downhill runs and then dropback passes, which plays to the strength of this defense.”
The Cowboys’ game formulas have routinely reflected wide scoring margins during head coach Mike McCarthy’s time at the helm.
Since McCarthy arrived in 2020, 48 of the team’s 70 games have featured a lead or deficit of at least 14, a Yahoo Sports analysis of Pro Football Reference data found.
All three of their 2024 games have fallen into that category.
The Cowboys’ Week 1 win against the Cleveland Browns marked their 28th victory in 29 games where they have led by at least 14 under McCarthy.
Dallas’ Week 2 and 3 losses to the New Orleans Saints and Ravens brought them to 17 losses in 19 games when they have trailed by 14 or more at any point.
In short: Get ahead early, and the Cowboys overwhelmingly win. Fall behind early, and the Cowboys’ narrow deficits but rarely overcome them.
Dallas’ strength while playing ahead and struggle to retake leads speak to more than just the psychological impact of a lopsided game or the apparent relative strength of an opponent.
The trends also reflect how scoring margins impact play-callers more broadly, and how strongly the Cowboys’ approach to roster-building has influenced their ability to respond to each situation.
As the Cowboys return to MetLife Stadium on Thursday night a year after walloping the New York Giants 40-0 and 49-17 in their two meetings, Dallas is fresh off two weeks getting a taste of its own medicine. Each NFC East club knows how heavily the early portion of the game will weigh on the outcome.
“We’ve got to figure out a way to be better in the game and start the game better,” Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott said. “Doing the things we do at a high level … earlier and putting pressure on the defense. When we can do that, then we can run, we can play-action, we can do whatever we want to do.
“That’s what I’m looking forward to doing.”
What would an early swing mean for Cowboys, Giants play-callers?
The Cowboys lost by 25 points to the Saints two weeks ago before trailing by 22 points during the third quarter against the Ravens.
So the offense’s play selection has taken a major hit.
“We were behind, we were talking about no-huddle and two-minute in the middle of the third quarter,” McCarthy said. “We need to get more run attempts, we need to get in and out of concepts, and I think that in itself will help us.”
What type of concepts might the Cowboys be able to integrate more without the deficit?
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Teams vary on how they factor in situational football and the thresholds at which their playbook starts to shrink due to scoring margin.
But one NFC assistant coach estimated “two thirds of your stuff is out the window” when a more hasty offense comes into play. The simplified playbook begins with Brady’s description of dropback passing and downhill runs but it doesn’t end there.
“When you’re in two-minute mode and you’re operating at the line of scrimmage, your shifts and motions go out the window,” the NFC assistant said. “All your coverage identifications go out the window because you don’t have time to motion the back out and see who travels with them; you kind of just have to line up and go.”
Time becomes too valuable to spend it substituting personnel packages or communicating at length before each snap. Not only do run plays evaporate but also some pass plays married to run looks in the original game plan.
“You don’t have the luxury of being able to take 40 seconds every single snap,” another NFC assistant said. “You need chunks. You need to eat up some ground quickly.”
Opinions varied on how quickly a team should shift to a hurry-up offense if facing a deficit, the scale usually sliding from third quarter to fourth and from a two-score deficit to three.
But it’s no secret how much defenses covet their teams mounting early leads. On Thursday Night Football last week, Aaron Rodgers raised eyebrows when he shoved New York Jets head coach Robert Saleh and mouthed something that was at first intelligible.
The magic words: “two-score lead.”
Scoring margin drastically impacts Cowboys’ defense
Across the Jets’ locker room last Thursday at MetLife, offensive skill players knew why Rodgers was so eager to broadcast the 14-0 lead to his head coach.
Saleh talked often about that threshold as the point in which he frees up his pass rush to hunt more, his secondary eager to reap the takeaway benefits that become more likely on obvious passing downs.
Even so, the Jets’ 14-point lead vs. the Patriots last week was just their seventh game achieving that in Saleh’s four seasons. The Cowboys, in comparison, had led by 14 in 27 games in that stretch.
“It’s something we haven’t done much, and we’ve put our defenses in tough spots the three years I’ve been here,” receiver Garrett Wilson said. “So that’s what we emphasized all week: Let’s start fast and see what happens. Seven sacks. The [opponent is] dropping back and has to pass the ball.
“That’s the type of stuff that can happen.”
The Cowboys know this all too well. When they race out to a lead, McCarthy’s play-call sheet isn’t the only one celebrating.
Dallas’ defense shines most when Micah Parsons, DeMarcus Lawrence and Co. can rush the passer, a strength the Saints and Ravens largely neutralized first by running more than passing and then by building such a lead early that they did not need to pass much.
Consider that Parsons, an All-Pro, rushed the passer just 17 and 15 times in Weeks 2 and 3, respectively, after wreaking havoc in Cleveland during 48 rushes.
“When you’re up that much or down that much, you look at tendencies,” New York Giants head coach Brian Daboll said this week. “You call games differently based on how things are going in the game.”
The Cowboys lead the league limiting opponents to a 32.8% success rate when rushing four defenders.
But they rank last defending the run — via yardage, scoring and efficiency each.
The Giants will look to avoid the early hole they fell in during their 2023 Cowboys matchups in attempts to exploit a clear weakness.
“We just want to play complementary football,” Giants outside linebacker Kayvan Thibodeaux said. “We got to get stops and the offense is going to continue to do their best to score points.
“And that’s how we’re going to come out with one in the end.”
