2022 was a tough season for the Cowboys offense and much of that
was due to the sometimes-erratic play from quarterback Dak Prescott.
Not known for being a turnover machine throughout the early part
of his career, Prescott regressed into a player who was throwing
risky passes at a high rate and unfortunately it was not accompanied
by enough big plays to make up for it. Prescott’s 15 picks
tied for the league high despite the fact that he played in three
fewer games than his counterpart, Davis Mills.
Much of the Cowboys’ offensive woes can also be tied to the lack
of pass-catching weapons they had throughout the season. CeeDee
Lamb produced as a high-level WR1 for fantasy, but primarily played
out of the slot and the Cowboys just did not have the outside
pass catchers to continue to produce when opposing defenses would
key in on Lamb. They did at least partially address the issue
this offseason with the acquisition of veteran Brandin Cooks,
who brings some much-needed reliability to this group. The team
will also need Michael Gallup to take significant strides forward
from what we saw in 2022, as he did not appear to be anywhere
close to the player he was prior to his season-ending injury in
2021.
Prescott has the ability to return to being a top-10 fantasy
quarterback or even better than that if things break his way in
the touchdown department, but there are some concerns that could
lead to him having a season that resembles his 2022 campaign.
One such issue is that while he was once one of the league’s
better under-the-radar runners, Prescott has become a significantly
less run-heavy quarterback over the past two seasons. This corresponds
with when he returned from his season-ending ankle injury and
it makes sense that he would be more hesitant to run after that
painful situation. Additionally, Prescott will now be without
offensive coordinator Kellen Moore who joined the Chargers this
offseason. While not everyone loved Moore’s philosophy,
there’s really no denying that Prescott’s numbers
benefited from Moore’s system. Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy
has made it very clear that he plans to run the ball heavily.
That change could make things tough for Prescott to ever return
to being a top-five player at the position.
Thankfully, his ADP doesn’t necessitate that Prescott needs to
finish as an elite option to return value, so he’s a fairly safe
option who is unlikely to completely tank your fantasy squad while
still providing some decent upside as a much later-round quarterback
than he had been over the previous few seasons.
RB Tony Pollard
(2022 RB Rank – No.8, 13.1 FPts/G)
With Ezekiel Elliott now out of the way, fantasy managers are
understandably anxious to land new Cowboys starting running back
Tony Pollard in drafts. Primarily a backup in 2022, Pollard still
managed to finish as an RB1 in fantasy and that was on a fairly
limited workload. Pollard was, in fact, one of only two RBs (Leonard
Fournette) who finished within the top 20 scorers (standard scoring)
at the position and did not reach 200 carries on the season. An
expected increased workload both in the running and passing game
means that the sky is truly the limit for this highly talented
back.
Some experts believed that the Cowboys would end up making a
move to acquire another back of note this offseason, but that
didn’t happen. While they brought in veteran journeyman
Ronald Jones and drafted rookie Deuce Vaughn, neither player projects
to be a significant hindrance to Pollard’s role as the team’s
feature back. The lack of competition behind Pollard on the depth
chart, along with the coaching staff’s vocal commitment
to running the ball, are just more reasons why Tony Pollard looks
primed to finish as a high-end RB1 here in 2023.
If you’re looking for skepticism, one thing to keep in
mind is that the Cowboys opted not to make Pollard their feature
back in the past despite the fact that he was significantly out-producing
Elliott on a per-touch basis. Instead, we saw roughly a 50/50
split at best, oftentimes with Elliott seeing the lion’s
share of the ever-important goal-line touches. If the team was
unwilling to make Pollard a 20-touch player when Elliott was clearly
struggling, there has to be some concern that they may just not
view him as a true workhorse back. Still, given the lack of competition,
it’s safe to assume that Pollard will see at least some
increase to his workload and if he can remain anywhere near as
efficient as he has been in years past, there’s no reason
to think that he won’t produce top-12 numbers at RB this
season.
Dallas’ backup RB role is still up for grabs as the team
brought in veteran Ronald Jones and drafted Deuce Vaughn. However,
as of right now, it appears most likely that the primary backup
for Tony Pollard will be 2022 rookie Malik Davis. Davis appeared
in 12 games last season, carrying the ball 38 times for 161 yards
and a touchdown, while adding six receptions.
Davis was the third back on the roster behind a high-paid veteran
grinder and the league’s most explosive change-of-pace back,
so he didn’t get much of an opportunity, but he also didn’t
“pop” on film which led to many people believing that
the team would look to bring in more competition this offseason.
That really didn’t happen, though, as Ronald Jones has shown
himself to be not much more than a worse Ezekiel Elliott as a
subpar grinder. Vaughn, a highly-accomplished collegiate back,
went viral during the draft when his father, Cowboys scout Chris
Vaughn, made the call to his son to let him know that the team
was drafting him. However, at 5’6” and only 172 lbs,
even his father has to admit that Vaughn is likely too small to
be much more than an occasional contributor in an NFL offense
in 2023.
This leads us back to Davis, who was not much of a producer in
college and didn’t get much of an opportunity as a rookie,
still being the most likely player to spell Pollard when the opportunity
arises. There might not be a lot of that to go around anyway if
Pollard is used in the bell cow role that many are projecting,
but there’s always the risk of an injury in the NFL, and
any player getting 10+ touches in the Cowboys’ offense would
almost certainly be fantasy relevant, so don’t forget about
Davis late in your draft.
CeeDee Lamb came into the NFL as one of the more highly-scouted
receivers in recent seasons and while he was fine over his first
two seasons, the truth is that he had been a bit of a disappointment
from a production standpoint. That changed in 2022, however, when
the Cowboys moved on from Amari Cooper, allowing Lamb to finally
secure his role as the unquestioned top target in the Dallas offense.
Lamb saw 156 targets, catching 107 of them for 1,359 yards and
nine touchdowns - all far exceeding his previous career highs.
Lamb did this despite the other wide receivers on the Dallas roster
being embarrassingly bad across the board, which led to defenses
being able to really focus on him much more than they had in previous
seasons.
Dallas addressed this issue at least a bit this offseason by
signing veteran free agent Brandin Cooks, an outside pass catcher
who should allow Lamb to continue to play primarily out of the
slot where he has become one of the league’s most productive
pass catchers. The Cowboys did also lose Dalton Schultz, who often
operated in around the same area of the field as Lamb, which might
actually end up benefitting the wide receiver from a fantasy standpoint.
The only real concern for Lamb is that the Cowboys will almost
certainly end up running the ball more often than they did in
recent seasons. With Kellen Moore gone, Dallas’ coaching
staff has made it known that they want to run the ball and that
will almost certainly lead to fewer total pass attempts for the
offense. However, with Schultz gone, there’s little reason
to think that Lamb won’t again see an elite-level target
share, which combined with his elite-level talent makes him a
strong candidate to finish as a solid fantasy WR1 again this season.
Journeyman wide receiver Brandin Cooks has produced everywhere
he’s been throughout his nine-year NFL career, but there’s
some concern that what we saw from him in 2022 was more to do
about a decline of skills than just the terrible Houston Texans
offense he was stuck in.
Cooks, who will turn 30 early in the regular season, saw the
second-lowest yards per game of his career in 2022, while scoring
just three touchdowns on the season. A more analytical dive into
his numbers will also show that he struggled to create separation,
particularly against zone coverage. Still, even with the risk
that he may be on the decline, Cooks still offers something that
no other receiver in Dallas did in 2022—the ability to make
plays down the field from the outside.
A perennial value, Cooks is being drafted as a WR4/5 in most
drafts and it won’t be hard for him to return that type
of value on the season. He did that in Houston this past season
in a significantly worse situation. His skills, however, may end
up being less useful for his own fantasy value than they are for
creating opportunities for other players in the Dallas offense.
We have to remember that Michael Gallup was coming off of a terrible
season-ending ACL injury in Week 17 of the 2021 season, but it’s
hard to understate just how bad his 2022 season was. Gallup played
in 14 games for the Cowboys, but commanded just 74 total targets
(less than 5.3 targets per game) despite the fact that CeeDee
Lamb was really the only other wide receiver of note on the roster.
He couldn’t get open, wasn’t making contested catches,
and really wasn’t even stretching the field effectively
so that other pass catchers could make plays. It was a disastrous
season for Gallup and he now almost certainly finds himself as
the third option at wide receiver in this offense, behind Lamb
and newly-acquired veteran Brandin Cooks.
Gallup was a 1,100-yard receiver in his second professional season,
but he hasn’t even reached 900 yards receiving in any of
his past three seasons. Some of that is due to injury, yes, but
past injuries like the ones Gallup has dealt with tend to have
a way of resurfacing. The Dallas offense has been good enough
to support three pass-catchers in recent seasons, but given the
apparent shift in philosophy, it seems likely that Gallup will
be more of a complimentary piece and not someone you’ll
want to be starting in normal redraft leagues.
The Cowboys let veteran tight end Dalton Schultz walk this offseason
which has led to some real debate about the depth chart at the
position. Jake Ferguson and Peyton Hendershot were on the team
in 2022 and while both players had their moments, neither one
really separated himself into being an obvious starting-caliber
player going forward. This became particularly true once the Cowboys
drafted a tight end—Michigan’s Luke Schoonmaker—with
a second-round pick in the NFL Draft.
This type of draft capital at a position like tight end typically
means that a team intends for that player to be a contributor
early in his career and that is likely to be the case for Schoonmaker.
However, those contributions might end up being more important
for the Cowboys offense as a whole than they are for Schoonmaker
as an individual contributor. Schoonmaker was highly regarded
for his blocking skills during the scouting process and his 6’5”,
250-lb frame should allow him to continue to do that in the NFL.
Schoonmaker is an athletic player who would seemingly have upside
as a pass-catcher, but we just haven’t seen that much as
of yet. He caught just 52 total passes over his final two seasons
at Michigan.
It’s easy to look at Schoonmaker’s profile and be
enamored by the potential, but the reality is that rookie tight
ends rarely produce for fantasy and oftentimes they end up not
even securing a regular role in their offense until late in the
season.
As of right now, it appears most likely that Ferguson will begin
the season as the Cowboys’ starter, with Schoonmaker and
Hendershot battling for the TE2 spot on the depth chart. Schoonmaker
is the player you’ll want to draft if you’re drafting
purely for upside late, but if you’re looking for day-one
production and the player who will likely lead this group in overall
numbers for the season, Ferguson is probably the best bet.
