Blogging The Boys
There is definitely a camp of people who want to see Kellen Moore return to the Cowboys.
The Dallas Cowboys are searching for a new head coach and one name that has gained a lot of traction is their old friend Kellen Moore. Not everyone welcomes bringing Moore back as some distinctly remember the bad stuff. From being bludgeoned by all the curl route rhetoric to seeing Ezekiel Elliott playing center on the final play he ever called, it doesn’t bring back great memories.
While those are things that people bring up, there’s a lot more to this. Regardless of what some fans think of him, many people hold him in high regard. And one of those people is Jerry Jones. Should the Cowboys run this thing back and give Moore the keys to this football team? Here are some things you should consider before hashtagging NoKellenMoore.
Moore’s time in Dallas was interesting. Despite an underwhelming audition at quarterback late in the 2015 season, the team wanted to keep him around. A training camp injury ended his season in 2016, and he hung out on the practice squad in 2017. Even though his on-field performance wasn’t up to snuff, the Cowboys didn’t want to get rid of him. All the talk around the organization was about how smart this guy was, so it surprised no one when they made him the quarterback coach in 2018.
After just one year of NFL coaching, Moore was promoted to offensive coordinator, where he immediately transformed the Cowboys' offense. Dak Prescott went from a “game manager” to airing it out. Suddenly, this 227-yards-per-game quarterback was averaging over 300 yards per game. We saw things from Prescott that we hadn’t seen before. In the first year with Moore as their offensive coordinator, the Cowboys had the most total yards and the best passing efficiency in the NFL.
Before Moore’s arrival, the Cowboys' offense had not led the league in total yards on offense since the ‘70s. Now, they have done so in two of Moore’s first three seasons as the team’s offensive coordinator. In 2021, the Cowboys scored 530 points, the most in franchise history.
2022 was a weird season. Prescott missed five games, but the Cowboys still finished fourth in the league in points scored. What is even more impressive about that is they did it with Noah Brown as the team’s WR2. In the end, Prescott threw too many interceptions and Mike McCarthy wanted a more controlled offense that complemented their defense. And just like that, the Kellen Moore era had ended in Dallas.
Moore took over as the offensive coordinator for the Los Angeles Chargers where everything was bad that season. They dealt with several injuries as he lost his WR2 Mike Williams early in the year and all their offensive stars (Justin Herbert, Keenan Allen, and Austin Ekeler) missed time. On top of that, the Chargers' defense was terrible so it was an uphill battle for the young play-caller.
The Chargers...
