Cowboys Mike McCarthy: “We want to be explosive on offense; pass rushers to pin their ears back”

We don’t really know what to expect from the 2020 Dallas Cowboys, but there sure are a lot of reasons to be excited. Certainly, one of the biggest changes this year for the team comes with a remodel job of the coaching staff, starting with the head coach himself, Mike McCarthy.

With a new head coach comes a new philosophy as everyone goes about winning football games differently. McCarthy has painted a picture of a more aggressive Cowboys football team which is music to our ears as many fans believed the Jason Garrett era featured a slow and excruciating death to the season, with little moments of hope here and there.

It’s easy to be excited about what’s to come as change always brings about new hope. Of course, that’s a song we hear every year as we helplessly raise those expectations believing this is the season it will happen. But things might be a little different this time around. Actions speak louder than words, and so far those actions are setting the table for a pretty aggressive Cowboys unit this season.

In his Saturday press conference, McCarthy credited the team’s front office for doing a fantastic job assembling the roster, and expressed his pleasure for the added pass rushing talent on this football team.

“We all understand the priority of what pass rushers bring to your football team. We want to be explosive on offense and put points on the board. And we really want to put our pass rushers in a position to pin their ears back. That’s part of the way we look to attack this season, so you can never have enough good pass rushers.”

They want to be explosive on offense

Yeah, we know that. Spending their first-round pick on yet another offensive star sends that message loud and clear. With the addition of CeeDee Lamb, the Cowboys receiving trio of Amari Cooper, Michael Gallup, and Lamb has to be considered one of the best in the league. With a stout offensive line, star running back, and a quarterback who has his own football field built in his backyard - all systems appear a go for this explosive offense to take off.

They want their pass rushers to pin their ears back

It’s not just lip service when they say they can never have enough pass rushers. Entering the offseason, the Cowboys had just one player on the roster, DeMarcus Lawrence, who has had six plus sacks in a season (Tank has done it three times). Now, with the addition of Everson Griffen, Gerald McCoy, and Aldon Smith, they have four players with a collective total of 18 seasons with six plus sacks. That’s a lot more.

They also went from one player with two Pro Bowl seasons to four players with a total of 13 Pro Bowl seasons. This is what you call a pass rushing arsenal.

Losing Robert Quinn was a big ding for the Cowboys defense this offseason as that guy had one of the best win rates in the league over the last two seasons. But this organization has done a fantastic job re-loading. Adding Griffen is a big move. He finished last year with 66 total pressures (14th among edge rushers), but 56 of them were earned. He had by far the lowest rate (15%) of pressures where he was either unblocked or were just clean up plays, meaning this dog was out there fighting for those pressures.

If the offense does their part and put points on the board, this Cowboys defensive line is going to be salivating at the mouth because opponents are going to have to resort to throwing a lot more. With the new talent the team has added to their defensive line, this has all the makings of a sack-a-delic season for the Cowboys.