Dak Prescott had a magnificent rookie season when he led Dallas Cowboys to 13-3 record, but struggled in his second year. It wasn’t all on him, to be honest. Zeke was suspended for six games, and the main guy on defense, Sean Lee was out for five.
With both Zeke and Lee on the team, it was a different squad, but still, it was clear that young QB could be better. One of the things that everyone noticed as a problem is the precision of those deep balls, one of the most important things for every quarterback. This is something that he worked on during the offseason and training camp, and according to Scott Linehan, offensive coordinator, he has improved.
These are the things that are quite heavily addressed by Kellen Moore, quarterback coach, in training camp. Here is what Linehan said: “It’s mostly on target. You can tell a lot stuff he has done with his throwing has really paid off for him. Yes the thing with his work, the carryover with Kellen and putting it all together. The timing of the throws are all a big part of it.”
According to Linehan, it is important to have a high percentage of completions, but it is also how you place the football. “Yeah we are on it. You can have a satisfactory grade but have a minus in ball placement. Kellen is pretty shrewd with that. Talk about a guy that knew he had to hit his targets in a certain spot. He understands the importance of that and Dak really buys into that. Very rarely do you have the wide open guy. Every throw you have to have that target off the challenged, contested defender. That is what he has been working on.”
With a revamped receivers corps, Prescott needs to work with all the new guys to get that ball going. New players that will most likely be on the roster are now faster, and it happened on more than one occasion that quarterbacks were underthrowing them.
With fast WRs the opposing teams will have to pay more attention to deep balls, and it will give more room for Zeke. On the other side, everyone knows how good Elliott is, and opponents will need to load the box and stop the run game. As a result, more opportunities for receivers will emerge.
Another thing that will be a focus of Cowboys in the next few weeks is the positioning of their star RB. They can split him out wide, and when he gets the ball, he will go against defensive back or linebacker. This way, he will have one on one instead of eight guys that are waiting for him.
