DALLAS — The Dallas Cowboys will be watching the Super Bowl once again this season, if they even want to partake in football’s biggest game. For fans of the Cowboys, it might be harder to view with the hated Philadelphia Eagles playing for the championship. It’s safe to say that almost all Cowboys fans will be rooting for the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LVII.
While Cowboys backers are stewing while watching another big game without their favorite team in the mix, the organization should be paying attention to what the Eagles and Chiefs did right to get to this point. For the Chiefs, there’s been a half-decade worth of success, while the Eagles have had more of a rollercoaster trajectory.
The NFL is a copycat league and Jerry Jones hasn’t been able to replicate any other team’s success for over 25 years. As the owner and GM of the Cowboys, here’s what Jones and his staff should be taking from the two Super Bowl combatants:
From the Chiefs: Decisively address weaknesses
A few years ago, the Chiefs were beaten soundly in the Super Bowl by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers largely because their offensive line couldn’t stop the pass rush. The Chiefs had gotten old and injury riddled up front, so they were tasked to rebuild the offensive line quickly to protect their All-Pro quarterback Patrick Mahomes.
Chiefs GM Brett Veach went to work to fix the problem and became aggressive to get the job done. The team traded a first, third and fourth round selections for Pro Bowl tackle Orlando Brown, signed All-Pro guard Joe Thuney in free agency and drafted center Creed Humphrey in the second round of the 2021 draft. Kansas City also got a steal in sixth round pick Trey Smith in the same year that they drafted Humphrey.
All four players are starters and linchpins to the success of Mahomes and the Chiefs’ offense. All four were brought in during the same offseason as the Chiefs worked to address a weakness.
The Cowboys under Jones can recognize a glaring hole, but rarely attack it with the aggressiveness of the Chiefs. Last offseason the Cowboys drafted Tyle Smith in the first round but waited until an injury occurred to address their important need for a swing tackle. Wide receiver was a clear need that Dallas didn’t address until well into the season and never addressed to a satisfying level.
It’s one thing to know your weakness and address it, but it’s quite another to address it with quality talent and bold moves that are ahead of the curve. The Cowboys could learn from the Chiefs on the latter.
From the Eagles: Be ruthless at acquiring talent
It’s no big secret for how the Eagles got to be in the position that they’re in going from a 4-win team just two seasons ago to the NFC’s champions in 2022. Philly has been one of the most unrelenting front offices when it comes to bringing in talent. GM Howie Roseman knew where the Eagles needed to upgrade and left no stone unturned.
Unlike his Cowboys counterpart, Roseman recognized that the smartest way to win was to take risks for big talent and avoid taking a measured, middle of the road approach.
In the offseason, the Eagles made a trade with the New Orleans Saints to acquire draft capital, traded for Pro Bowl wide receiver A.J. Brown, traded for safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson, signed free agents James Bradberry at cornerback, and outside rusher Haason Reddick, among others. All those major moves paid off.
Gardner-Johnson was tied for the league lead in interceptions, while Bradberry, Brown and Reddick were all second-team All-Pro performers.
The Eagles went with a philosophy of acquiring top-tier talent by being aggressive and it paid off. Conversely, when was the last time that the Cowboys and the Jones boys took a few big risks to get the best players available? There have been moments of aggression, like trading for wide receiver Amari Cooper, but those moves have been too infrequent over the past 10 years.
Jones is getting up there in age, but surely, he remembers when he traded for defensive end Charles Haley and signed cornerback Deion Sanders to a mega deal. His Cowboys won Super Bowls when Jones was taking risks, but he has apparently stopped believing in that philosophy.
The Eagles haven’t and now they will play for their second championship since 2017.
From the Chiefs: Keep a lid on trades
One of the biggest ideas that the Chiefs and Cowboys shared last offseason was to trade their star wide receivers. Kansas City moved from All-Pro wide receiver Tyreke Hill, while the Cowboys traded their Pro Bowl wide receiver Cooper. However, how both teams went about sending them away came from different directions.
Most NFL teams knew Dallas was moving on from Cooper because of his contract structure and the way the team treated him. As a result, the value plummeted on a very good receiver who was a big help to Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott. Cooper essentially only netted the Cowboys a fifth-round pick, which was a ridiculously low price for a perennial 1,000-yard receiver in his prime.
The Chiefs kept their intentions with Hill quiet and got a first, second, two fourths, and a sixth-round pick for their speedster receiver. Hill is unquestionably a better player than Cooper, but there wasn’t such a gap between the two to where Hill gets four times the price. Kansas City was smart enough to shop Hill quietly and without besmirching the player before making a deal.
Jones loves to talk about the art of the deal, but he didn’t get much value back for one of his best players in a trade that the Cowboys lost. It would behoove the Cowboys to learn from the Chiefs on how to make trades when a big-name player is involved.
From the Eagles: Utilize strength on offense
The Cowboys and Eagles both know that if you want a top shelf offense, you need a good offensive line. The Great Wall of Dallas is an example of that, and to a lesser extent, so too was the unit that was the envy of the league from 2014-2016.
Philadelphia built arguably the best offensive line in the game over the last few seasons, but they also play to the strength of the players around the line. The Eagles embraced their quarterback’s mobility and utilized the line’s ability to move as one of the more cohesive units in the league, which created a dilemma for defenses. Opponents had to find a way to slow Hurts’ running, which compromises their passing defense.
Most teams failed to complete step one by slowing Hurts in the running game. The line allowed Hurts to be the best rushing quarterback in the league this season, and one of the best in recent memory as he ran for 15 touchdowns throughout the year, a record for quarter backs.
In Prescott, the Cowboys have a mobile quarterback and a team that wants to run the ball too, but either by design or trepidation, his legs are rarely used to unlock the full potential of the offense. Prescott isn’t as fast or elusive as Hurts, but he is bigger, stronger, and tough to bring down in the open field. When the offense was at its best in the playoffs, it was when Prescott at least showed the threat to tuck the ball and run. The Cowboys’ offense just didn’t unleash the running potential of Prescott enough, which didn’t put defenses in a bind against Dallas’ offense.
As good as the offense was for the Cowboys with Prescott under center, they could have hit another level by utilizing their quarterbacks’ legs more. Whether it was because it wasn’t in the game plan, or the team’s reluctance to put Prescott in harm's way more than necessary, the Cowboys failed to live up to their full offensive potential by not calling his number on the ground more.
There are no such worries with the Eagles, who ran their offense to its full capabilities by having Hurts use his legs. The Cowboys would be wise to do the same moving forward.
Do you think the Cowboys can learn from the lessons of 2022? Share your thoughts with Ben on Twitter @BenGrimaldi.
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