Giants at Cowboys Week 13: What can the Giants expect from Cooper Rush and the Cowboys?

Recent history between the New York Giants and the Dallas Cowboys has not been kind to the Giants.

The lowest point was clearly their opening week shut-out to start the 2023 season, but there haven’t really been any high points since the Giants swept the Cowboys in 2016. However, it looked as though they got a golden opportunity to get a win on Thanksgiving.

Dallas has struggled all season long and their 4-7 record belies one of the most disappointing years in the NFL. Dallas has been hit hard by injuries across their roster, culminating in the loss of QB Dak Prescott for the year.

Of course, the Giants’ own season has spiraled out of control and they’re now lost at sea themselves. They’re fielding one of the very worst offenses in the NFL and the defense hasn’t been able to pick up the slack.

This will be a battle between beat up offenses missing their starting quarterbacks, which means the winner could come down to which defense takes control of the game. What can the Giants’ defense expect from the Cooper Rush-led Cowboys?

Stats that matter

Note: For offensive EPA, positive is better while negative is worse. For defensive EPA, negative is better while positive is worse.

A simplified offense

As mentioned above, this is a meeting between two beaten-up teams. The Giants might have lucked out when Dak Prescott was lost for the season to injury, but then the Munich game happened and now neither team will have their starting quarterbacks on the field.

The Cowboys spun their wheels through the first couple weeks as Cooper Rush struggled to find traction on the field. He finally got going this past week against the Washington Commanders, completing 75% of his passes for 247 yards and two touchdowns. There was surely an element of settling in as Dallas (and Rush) got clarity on Prescott’s status for the remainder of the season. However, the Cowboys also used a simplified offense against the Commanders, at least compared to the more sophisticated attack run by Prescott.

The Cowboys used a variety of quick passes against Washington, feature one or two-man reads on route concepts designed to create early separation. The passing concepts they used typically featured run-after-catch opportunities.

The play starts with Jalen Tolbert motioning from a wide alignment into the backfield. Rush shows play-action, faking the handoff to running back Ezekiel Elliott to draw the defense in and force them to honor their run fits. Tolbert sprints to the offensive right, behind the line zone blocking to the left, eventually getting into the shallow flat. Tight end Brevyn Spann-Ford releases into a shallow crossing route which both creates a layers concept and a potential secondary option for Rush or puts him into position to block.

Edge defender Dorance Armstrong does a good job of staying disciplined and dropping into coverage to pick up Tolbert. However, he’s also in no-man’s land with no help over the top for Tolbert. Rush takes advantage of that with a subtle turn upfield to fake a QB run. Armstrong is forced to honor the potential of a run and comes up to tackle Rush. Instead, Rush throws over him and to a wide open Tolbert who turns upfield for a 16-yard gain.

At least in theory, a simplified offense should be easier for the Giants to defend. However, they’re only getting a couple walk-throughs to prepare for the game. That might not be enough time to discover and plan for Dallas’ tendencies and counter the advantage of the offense being able to play faster.

Expect misdirection

Every modern offense incorporates misdirection. Quarterbacks, and offense in general, is most effective when the ball is going where the defense isn’t.

Legendary coach Bill Walsh consistently believed that the play-action pass (or as he termed it, “run action”) was the safest way to attack downfield. The use of RPOs, pre-snap motion, and passing concepts with clear-out routes and schemed friction are the modern evolution of Walsh’s concepts.

The Cowboys made good use of misdirection to create space for their receivers and give Rush wide receiving windows. Rush only threw into coverage on five of this 32 pass attempts against Washington, or 15.6% of the time per NFL NextGenStats. For comparison, Dak Prescott was throwing into coverage on 21.3 percent of his passes. The Cowboys’ offense previously depended on Prescott placing the ball well and throwing his receivers open.

And while Rush’s accuracy and ball placement aren’t poor, he isn’t Prescott and the Cowboys adjusted their offense to help him out.

This was Rush’s third pass of the game. It’s built around play-action into a bootleg rollout. The play design is to tight end Luke Schoonmaker, who starts by motioning from the offensive left to the right which would put him in position to block on the back side of a running play. And he does indeed block initially, which helps to sell the run-action fake. He The tight end motion compels the Washington defense to rotate just before the snap, with a safety coming down into the box to help defend the run. That pulls him far out of position to defend the out route that Schoonmaker releases into after his initial block.

The play ultimately goes for 24 yards, but is a safe and easy way to get the ball out of Rush’s hand quickly.

On average, the Cowboys were able to use their play design to create good separation for their receivers. Four of Rush’s top five options averaged higher than league-average separation.

The Giants will need to be disciplined in how they defend the Dallas offense. They’ll likely want to be aggressive after how they were manhandled by the Buccaneers a week ago. And while they want to fly to the ball, they can’t allow themselves to be drawn out of position. The Giants currently rank 10th in the NFL with 73 missed tackles on the season. That’s a problem that has gotten worse as the season has spiraled on them. The Giants will need to swarm to the ball and tackle securely to limit leaky yardage, and that will be tough if they’re chasing misdirection.

Stop CeeDee Lamb, but don’t ignore the other guys

CeeDee Lamb is, easily, the focal point of the Dallas offense. He’s their best offensive player and one of the best receivers in the NFL. Not only is Lamb sure-handed and a dangerous route runner, he can create after the catch and play out of any alignment.

He, rightfully, should be the Giants’ foremost concern on defense. The Giants will almost certainly look to double him every play and do their best to take him out of the game. In fact, I would suggest that they recreate the game plan they used against the Cincinnati Bengals and use a combination of Cor’Dale Flott (or Adoree’ Jackson) and a safety to bracket Lamb, while using Deonte Banks one-on-one against Dallas’ second receiver.

As before, the logic there is that if the Giants are going to double Lamb — and they will — then they need to ensure that the player left with a one-on-one is best equipped to execute it. In that case, Banks is still the Giants’ best cornerback and should be able to match up with Jalen Tolbert or Jonathan Mingo.

That said, the Giants can’t afford to myopically focus on Lamb to the exclusion of Dallas’ other receiving options.

Rush did an admirable job of spreading the ball around against Washington, which hurt the Commanders when they focused to heavily on Lamb. While Lamb was the target on 12 of Rush’s 32 pass attempts (he caught 10 for 67 yards), nine different Cowboys were targeted by Rush over the course of the game. Six of Rush’s eight other targeted receivers saw at least two targets, including tight ends Luke Schoonmaker and Brevyn Spann-Ford, as well as running back Rico Dowdle and tight end Henry Luepke.

The Giants will need to pay attention to those tight ends and backfield players. The Cowboys moved them around the offensive formation quite a bit against Washington, and were able to isolate them against second level defenders. They also use their tight ends to attack the seams downfield, as in these plays:

This first play sees Spann-Ford release upfield off of play-action to the running back. As before, the play-action draws in the linebackers, creating a void in the defense in front of the deep safety on the offensive right. He was able to make the catch and pick up a bit after the catch for 18 yards.

Later in the game, Rush goes to Schoonmaker for a 22-yard touchdown reception.

In this case, the defense appears to be in a Cover 1 shell, with man coverage on the three receivers. Rush identifies zone coverage at the second level before the snap, and knows that there will be a void in the defense as soon as the deep safety starts to cheat to the offensive right to cover Lamb.

Safety Jeremy Chinn initially picks up Schoonmaker in his zone drop, but doesn’t turn and run with him. Chinn doesn’t realize that the deep safety has rotated to cover Lamb and Schoonmaker is running free into the endzone. However, even if Chinn recognized that he didn’t have help over the top, he probably wouldn’t have been able to turn and run with Schoonmaker who was running full speed. It might not have looked as bad, but Dallas had the right call to take advantage of the attention paid to Lamb.

As mentioned above, the Giants will likely have to double Lamb to keep him from taking over the game. That could force them to walk a narrow line to avoid Rush being able to find answers elsewhere in the defense. Likewise, Dallas’ offensive line could get healthier for this game, and the Giants may have to blitz in order to get pressure on Rush.

In the play above, Washington sends five defenders after Rush, but none are able to apply pressure in time to prevent the pass to Schoonmaker.

Ultimately, the Giants have a winnable match-up on this side of the ball. But considering the struggles on their own offense, they’ll likely need their defensive front to take over the game so they can slow down Lamb as well as account for Dallas’ other options. They could be in for a long evening if the pressure doesn’t materialize or Rush is able to pick apart their secondary.