Will the Cowboys ever have a normal, peaceful offseason? The Dallas Cowboys have made Kellen Moore their “fall-guy” for their Divisional loss to the 49ers, though the Chargers didn’t seem to agree as they immediately signed him up for their OC spot.
Only in Dallas is there as much fanfare and ridiculousness around the offensive coordinator position as there has been with this Kellen Moore move.
Obviously, something had to change in the Cowboys offensive team room for its horrible outing against the 49ers a week ago in which the Cowboys lost due to the offenses inability to score a single touchdown.
Now, there have been some coaches already fired by the Cowboys, such as running back coach Skip Peete, O-Line coach Joe Philibin, assistant HC Rob Davis, and quality control analytics coach Kyle Valero, since the game, though this is easily the biggest move Jerry Jones has made to his coaching staff since McCarthy’s first season in charge.
Kellen Moore has been Dak Prescott’s go-to-guy ever since the 2016 4th Round pick has been the Cowboys starting quarterback…literally. Back in 2015 when Tony Romo fractured his collarbone, Moore was raised to be one of the three QB starters (Matt Cassell, Brandon Weeden, and Kellen Moore) the Cowboys used during that horrific 4-12 season.
Then, the very next season, which was when Dak Prescott became the starter after Romo injured his collarbone again, Moore was one of the QBs that mentored (he was inactive with a fractured fibula most of that year) a young Prescott to the Cowboys 13-3 record and Divisional Round loss to Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers. After that, Moore stuck around for another few seasons before retiring, being named Dak’s QB coach in 2018, and then the offensive coordinator in 2019.
So, it’s clear that Prescott and Moore were quite familiar and trusted one another…which makes this move all the more interesting for Prescott’s future.
The Cowboys and their upper management’s anger/frustration (mainly Jerry Jones) towards the team’s inability to make it out of the Divisional Round was put on full display a few weeks ago when the Cowboys Twitter account essentially tweeted that the Cowboys would have won if it was not for Prescott’s two costly interceptions. Ouch!
So, for the Cowboys to get rid of a guy who has manufactured a Top-5 scoring offense (2nd in 2021: 63 Total TDs; 5th in 2020: 52 Total TDs) in back-to-back seasons and has built a solid relationship with the team’s purported “franchise QB”, it shows that Jerry Jones is having serious doubt about Prescott and his ability to win meaningful games.
And that has to be really worrying for Prescott as he enters his 8th season in the NFL, and the second to last year under his 4-year, $160M contract (which can be cut short a year if Prescott opt-out).
As for Kellen Moore, he must be licking his chops as he now heads an offense of Justin Herbert, Keenan Allen, Mike Williams, Austin Ekeler, and Gerrald Everett in a division that only has one serious competitor in the Kansas City Chiefs. Yeah, the O-Line isn’t that great, and the Chargers are currently $20M over the cap, but a few cuts to some excess players should bring them under to be able to improve the roster while Justin Herbert is still on his rookie deal.
This is simply a really good career move for Moore.
So, at the end of the day, this story just proves that chaos is still running the Cowboys, and uncertainty will always cloud over the franchises’ head.
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