Head coach of the San Francisco 49ers Kyle Shanahan is the crazy professor of the fastest-spreading offense in the league. The wide zone concept he employs has been problematic for defensive coordinators across.
Dan Quinn, the defensive coordinator for the Dallas Cowboys, is more familiar with this problem than most. Even though they have defeated teams with inferior quarterbacks, his Cowboys have not been able to defeat stronger teams, particularly ones led by Shanahan.
Since Quinn took over in 2021, Dallas has allowed 0.045 anticipated points added per play against the branches of this tree, according to John Owning. In comparison to all other players, the figure drops to a far more encouraging -0.094. That is to say, this wide zone attack has caused a great deal of problems for an otherwise formidable defense.
Of course, the entire country saw this on Sunday as the 48-32 victory by the seventh-seeded Green Bay Packers forced Cowboys supporters to leave AT&T Stadium early. Dallas, trailing 27-7 at the half, exposed itself to scrutiny from the football community and issues about job security.
One of Shanahan’s most successful coaches, Matt LaFleur, the head coach of the Packers, outmanoeuvred Quinn’s defense to become the first seven-seed to win a postseason game.
Then, on Tuesday, while getting ready for Green Bay, Shanahan put insult to injury.
“That day, we were already [preparing] because we were already here. We had hit up a few teams earlier in the week, mixing things up a little bit,” Shanahan remarked. but about halfway through the second quarter, I really started to concentrate on them. I kind of played both at halftime when they scored at the conclusion of the second quarter, and the third quarter was all-one team play.
Social media took notice, whether it was out of disdain for his former boss in Atlanta (Quinn), encouragement for his protégé (LaFleur), or just a simple remark about the way the game was going.
Once again, the Cowboys became the laughing stock for the rest of the NFL as they catered to their own self-fulfilling prophecy. Dallas didn’t help itself over the weekend, but it remains to be seen if Sunday’s disaster will result in improvement.
Jerry Jones and the team of experts around him need to determine what has to change significantly in order to overcome this obstacle. Not only are the 49ers winning against the Cowboys. As they get ready to play a squad that has proven to be better than them, they are making fun of them.
