In 2021, the Cowboys’ high powered offense racked up points at a record setting pace, scoring a franchise best 530 points on the season.
While there were occasions where the offense did underachieve against steeper competition, they still cemented themselves as one of the deadliest units in all of football ending the season number one in points and yards. Due to key loses this offseason however, the Cowboys biggest strength may now be their biggest weakness.
The Cowboys traded star pass catcher Amari Cooper to the Cleveland Browns and also let Cedrick Wilson leave for Miami after the budding play maker had a career season. The two receivers combined for 1467 yards and 14 receiving TDs. Michael Gallup is also expected to miss a considerable amount of time as he attempts to recover from his ACL injury. With none of these players taking the field week 1 the Cowboys will be missing a grand total of 1912 receiving yards and 16 receiving touchdowns from last year’s offense!
With this amount of offensive output missing where will the Cowboys turn to recoup some of this production? Is it even possible for the Cowboys to do so?
Ceedee Lamb had a career season racking up 1102 yards and 6 tds, finishing 16th in receiving yards. Lamb will be forced into a bigger role for the Cowboys offense this season, but even if he is able to up his level of play he realistically won’t be able to put a significant dent in the missing production. Hypothetically, even if Lamb was able to log 1500 yards and 12 touchdowns on the year the Cowboys would still be short 1514 yards and 10 touchdowns from their previous year’s mark and furthermore this estimate is assuming the other returning members of the roster can duplicate their production from the previous season.
A massive percentage of the lost productivity will have to be replaced by the newer additions to the roster. Jalen Tolbert is a promising prospect that will be forced to play heavy snaps due to Michael Gallup’s absence to start the year. While Tolbert appears NFL ready, having the adequate size, speed, and route running needed to succeed at the next level, he is still a 3rd round rookie with no NFL experience. There is no guarantee that Tolbert will be able to contribute his first season in the offense, as it may take time for him to adjust to the speed and talent at the professional level.
James Washington on the other hand has played multiple NFL seasons but has not had an overly productive career up to this point. Washington has never recorded a 1k yard season and has had less than 400 yards receiving the past two seasons.
Tolbert and Washington would both have to perform well above expectation for the Cowboys’ offense to even be remotely as potent as they were in 2021.
It is still possible for the Cowboys to be a good offense. Dak Prescott is still one of the best quarterbacks in the league and Ezekiel Elliot appears to be fully recovered from his nagging PCL injury that derailed the second half of his season. When both play the Cowboys are 49-28 and the offense averages 26.8 points per game.
With a lot of question marks surrounding the wide receiver position the Cowboys will need to rely heavily on Elliot and the ground game to assist Prescott and more so the unproven receiving core. Mathematically it’s not likely the Cowboys passing offense will be as dominant as last year but as long as the rushing attack can supplement a percentage of the offensive output the offense can still be respectable. Prescott completed 70% of his passes off play action last season while the Cowboys were able to go undefeated in games where they rushed for over 100 yards.
With both these stats in mind it will be important for the team to establish the run they hope to remain successful on the offensive side of the ball.