With all eyes on the Philadelphia Eagles’ NFC Championship celebration and the requisite pole-greasing, the Dallas Cowboys tried to steal back the spotlight Sunday evening in an unexpected fashion.
Long after Black Monday’s exhales had seemingly indicated his safety — and following several head coaching interviews — the Cowboys have dismissed offensive coordinator Kellen Moore. Moreover, they’ve handed his play-calling duties to head coach Mike McCarthy, insinuating the head man is safer than safe moving forward.
Was Kellen Moore set up to fail?
Or, perhaps, he’s been set up to fail doubly if the Cowboys take a decided step back in 2023, with Sean Payton still waiting on the sidelines through a largely uninspiring coaching carousel.
Moore, the 34-year-old coordinator who’d held the OC position in Dallas since 2019 (after one season as their QB coach), will now enter the free agent pool alongside Tony Pollard, albeit with a slightly stronger leg to stand on.
Moore’s existence has long been a point of contention for the more reactionary Cowboys fans. After all, if a team struggles to win titles and playoff games, the chief culprit is typically (A) the quarterback and (B) whoever empowers that quarterback.
Dan Quinn sticking with Dallas despite multiple interviews with various teams
That said, even casual viewers seem to understand that most of Dallas’ success can be attributed to their sought-after coordinators in Moore and Dan Quinn. Quinn announced this week that, against all odds, he’d be returning to Dallas for the 2023 season after entertaining a promotion elsewhere.
Moore? He fell victim to the Cowboys’ stagnation. It didn’t take a detective to discern that Moore might be in trouble after McCarthy bristled at a question regarding his future earlier in the week.
Apparently, that evaluation was completed over the weekend, and according to McCarthy, it showed that he deserved a more hands-on role in balancing the Cowboys’ backfield carries and making Prescott’s offense more explosive.
Perhaps Moore’s fate was sealed the day Amari Cooper was traded to the Browns for salary relief. After all, without any sort of genuine CeeDee Lamb supplement, this offense was doomed from the start.
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