The Dallas Cowboys have been undefeated since their backup quarterback Cooper Rush has come in for the injured Dak Prescott.
Rush is the only Cowboys quarterback to lead his team to wins in his first four starts. In these three games, he has a 60% completion percentage, 737 passing yards, four touchdowns and no interceptions. Well, the interceptions he has thrown were all during penalty plays, and lucky for him, they were negated. Otherwise, he’s been playing it pretty safe.
On Sunday against the Washington Commanders in a 25-10 win, Rush completed 15 of 27 for 223 yards and two touchdowns, giving him a 107.5 rating.
The real question is if Rush actually creates a quarterback controversy in Dallas — because, believe it or not, that has been a bit of a narrative of late.
“I can’t say enough about his play,” Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones said after the Commanders game. “What it has possibly done for this team this season to give us a chance to sit here after these last three ball games and maybe have the opportunity we’ve got for the rest of the year. It’s amazing. It’s far more than what I would’ve expected.”
Let’s get into the film to see where he does and doesn’t play well and if he offers anything that Dak Prescott doesn’t.
Taking what the defense gives him
When we look at the Cowboys’ offense right now, they are doing more than enough to stay afloat. Dallas is top five in the league in quarterback sacks allowed per game (1.5) and getting the ball out the fourth fastest in the entire league (2.6 seconds).
Even though Rush is getting the ball out quick he’s also averaging the seventh highest completed air yards on average (7), according to Next Gen Stats. This means that he isn’t just checking the ball to the flat, the scheme is getting his receivers open.
Rush is simply taking what the defense gives him, while also playing it safe. He’s not taking chances down field as much, which is why he also has zero interceptions.
Last week in the touchdown drive against the Washington Commanders, Rush’s longest throw was a deep curl route to Michael Gallup.
The Cowboys rarely have explosive plays. Right now, they are running an offense that is based on trying to find the open receiver, which is mostly coming from slants and curl routes.
When the Cowboys got to the red zone shortly before the half, the offense noticed how the defense was bracketing No. 1 receiver CeeDee Lamb.
Towards the end of the play, the whole right side of the endzone was wide open.
So, on the very next play, the Cowboys come out in a similar look, and held the outside corner with an in-route and then used Lamb as bait to open Gallup in the back corner of the endzone.
Any quarterback who can throw on the run should be able to make this same throw. Especially a guy like Prescott, when healthy, is known for making accurate throws outside the pocket.
Most big plays through Week 4: pic.twitter.com/KmZcP4bycR
— Marcus Mosher (@Marcus_Mosher) October 4, 2022
When we look at the offense at a whole, Rush isn’t completing passes at a high rate. He’s 27th in the league with a 60.8% completion percentage. His company is Jared Goff, Mitch Trubisky and Marcus Mariota.
The Washington Commanders run a defense with a lot of communication issues — as our own Doug Farrar asked in his piece last week, “Can the Commanders fix their godawful defense?”
Feeling the pressure
Even though Rush doesn’t have any interceptions on the stat sheet, he did throw two last week that were negated by penalties. When kept in a clean pocket, without a blitz, Rush has 997 passing yards and five touchdowns. When under pressure, he has 218 yards, four sacks and only one touchdown.
Rush is preforming at a high level when able to go through his reads against zone coverage. He’s able to make accurate well anticipated throws. But when he faces pressure and defenses are in man coverage, he isn’t throwing his receivers open.
Here is Prescott throwing under pressure against man coverage.
Dak Prescott connects with CeeDee Lamb for their first TD of the season 😤
(via @NFL)pic.twitter.com/ws6bWihaqZ
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) September 10, 2021
Prescott remains poise and makes a beautiful touch throw up the sideline for a touchdown. As of right now, we have not seen anything from Rush that Prescott isn’t capable of. Prescott averages a high completion rating and also puts his offense in better positions to win.
Broncos have the 13th ranked offense in the NFL by EPA per play. pic.twitter.com/5d7NCA2B9B
— Joe Rowles (@JoRo_NFL) September 26, 2022
The Cowboys are at the bottom of the league when it comes to drop back expected points added (EPA). So even though they are getting wins, the offense isn’t efficient.
Cooper Rush is what he is, and nothing more.
Rush certainly takes chances that are working out against mediocre teams, but usually defenses need about four to six games to draw up a game plan that attacks your weaknesses. Right now, Rush is preforming well when the run game is a success, but when Rush is asked to make play out of nothing, he forces it.
If we look at who the Cowboys have faced, they scored early on a Cincinnati Bengals team whose offense couldn’t get out of their own way. The defense did a great job against the New York Giants, totaling five sacks on Daniel Jones and they held Saquon Barkley to only 85 yards on the ground.
When Prescott is healthy enough to play, it won’t be a question about who has the ‘hot hand.’ Rush has been playing well, yes, but he’s a solid backup and that is as far as it goes.
The Cowboys are better off with Prescott. Rush is a serviceable backup.
