On Friday evening, the Dallas Cowboys announced that Brian Schottenheimer would be their new head coach. While many people are apprehensive about the team’s decision to hire him, it’s really hard to know what kind of coach they’re getting. A career assistant, he’s never been given this type of control before. Only time will tell if he’s the right guy for the job.
While we’ll have to wait for actual football to be played before we learn what he has to offer, we might not have to wait that long to get an idea of how he’ll try to improve the Cowboys' offense. Will he put a greater emphasis on strengthening the ground attack to give Dak Prescott some help or will he look to add more weapons in the passing game? The Cowboys could answer that question by how they use the 12th overall pick.
It’s no secret that one of the Cowboys’ biggest weaknesses this past season was running the football. They averaged just four yards per rushing attempt this season, the third-worst in the NFL. The team’s biggest rushing weapon was undrafted free agent Rico Dowdle, who had a career-best 1,079 yards despite having a limited workload during the first half of the season. Ezekiel Elliott was the team’s RB2, but he was very inefficient. He ran the ball 74 times for 226 yards for a career-low 3.1 yards per carry. Deuce Vaughn had 17 rushes for 70 yards, and for a couple of games Dalvin Cook was a thing, but he only had eight carries for just 20 yards. Suffice it to say, the Cowboys running back arsenal left something to be desired.
Taking the best college back would certainly bolster their rushing attack, and Boise State’s Ashton Jeanty is this year’s top dog. This past season, Jeanty had gaudy numbers running the ball 374 times for 2,601 yards. That’s an impressive seven yards per carry. He scored a remarkable 30 touchdowns.
Schottenheimer was successful running the ball during his time with the New York Jets and Seattle Seahawks. Jeanty has great vision if Schotty employs a gap-scheme rushing attack as he did with the Jets. He does a good job finding the holes and has an excellent drive from those powerful legs to plow through defenders. But the icing on the cake will be when Schottenheimer works in wide zone, allowing Jeanty to get around on the outside and use his sharp change of direction to cut upfield and go wild in space.
A running game can be a quarterback’s best friend. Remember in 2014 when Tony Romo had his best season despite throwing for just 247 yards per game? He was aided by one of the league’s top rushing attacks led by DeMarco Murray. Dak Prescott also had things easy with prime Zeke. Drafting a player like Jeanty would help give the Cowboys’ offense a balanced attack. While nobody will complain about having a talent like Jeanty on the team, the 12th overall pick is a high price for a running back. There are still plenty of other running backs in the draft that can help the Cowboys' rushing attack. The same is not true for wide receivers. The 12th overall pick is a great chance to land one of the few elite talents in the draft.
There was a time when the Cowboys featured a deadly air attack, but that was when they had both CeeDee Lamb and Amari Cooper. Since Cooper’s departure, the passing game hasn’t been the same. They’ve tried to find a quality WR2 with Michael Gallup or Brandin Cooks, but it’s just not the same and at times, outright terrible. Most of the time it’s been CeeDee Lamb and nobody else.
The Cowboys have a golden opportunity to rectify that in April by taking one college’s best receivers. For the sake of this argument, it doesn’t have to be Missouri’s elusive yard-after-catch receiver, Luther Burden III. It might be the big physical ball tracker of Arizona’s Tetairoa McMillan or Ohio State’s route-running specialist Emeka Egbuka. Regardless of who’s your favorite, the Cowboys should have a receiving stud to choose from with pick 12.