Cowboys, Dak Prescott thriving in 2025 thanks to play-action’s return

FRISCO, Texas — Clinging to a 28-21 lead in the fourth quarter of their eventual 31-28 Thanksgiving victory over the Kansas City Chiefs, the Dallas Cowboys began a drive on their own 10. 

What play did Dallas go to backed up into the shadow of their own end zone? A play-action bomb that Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott launched to his longtime top target CeeDee Lamb, who made a spectacular 51-yard catch all the way down to the Chiefs’ 39 that helped Dallas put the game out of Patrick Mahomes’ reach. That drive concluded with a 26-yard from kicker Brandon Aubrey that put the Cowboys up 10, 31-21, with 5:20 to go, a deficit Mahomes & Co. were unable to Houdini their way out of in Week 13. 

“We’re confident in what we do, and [coach Brian Schottenheimer] is going to call those types of plays when we’re in that situation,” Prescott said postgame. “We want to win the game and we’re not playing to lose.” 

Lamb entered Week 13 co-leading the NFL in drops with eight, and a play-action explosive like that helped No. 88 get out of his own head and get back to making plays.

“Felt good, man. Felt right. Felt like something we’ve been doing for a long time,” Lamb said Monday. “Again, like I said, it feels good to get back on the right track. Just looking to continue it down the line as we’ve got the stretch coming up.”

Back to play-action

When Dallas was rolling to three consecutive 12-5 seasons from 2021 to 2023, the Cowboys used play-action on 15.8% of their offensive plays, the 11th-highest in the NFL, and they were the league’s No. 1 scoring offense, averaging 29.5 points per game. Cleary they had figured out the formula for keeping defenses honest. 

But in 2024, Prescott suffered a season-ending hamstring injury in Week 9. The run game had already collapsed (100.3 rushing yards per game, 27th in the NFL) and without any threat of anything, Dallas’ play-action rate dipped to the second-lowest in the league, 11.1%, and they were the NFL’s 21st-ranked scoring offense, averaging 20.6 points per game. 

This season, though, Dak, the run game and the play-fake are back. 

• The Cowboys are using play action at the fifth-highest rate in the NFL (18.4%). 
• Prescott leads the NFL in completions (303) and passing first downs (161) while ranking tied for second in passing touchdowns (25) and second in passing yards (3,261). 
• Prescott’s expected points added per dropback this season of 0.18 is the third-best in the league. 
• Running back Javonte Williams is up to 955 yards rushing, the sixth-most in the NFL. 
• Wide receiver George Pickens ranks second in the NFL in yards receiving (1,142). 

Here’s why play-action is at the heart of the Cowboys’ offense, and why it benefits them so much: it forces defenders to pause, and just those extra few seconds to throw have been lethal for opposing defenses when Prescott drops back to pass this season. 

“I think at the end of the day, if you’re able to play [what] we call normal down and distance: you’re first-and-10 and you’re second-and-6 or less. The league has even shifted harder this way, in my opinion, in the past three years: defenses are all trying to get you to play third down twice, and offenses are trying to get you to play first down every down,” Cowboys offensive coordinator Klayton Adams said Monday. “That’s what I want is to play first down every down, and that shift comes from the influx of pass rushers that are being drafted, and there’s just some freaky athletes on defense [at the edge rusher position]. Those guys want to rush the passer.”

The multiplicity of Dallas’ offense this season has allowed head coach Brian Schottenheimer to call more play-action looks for big plays like Lamb’s 51-yarder last week, which leads to he and Adams throwing more of those plays into the game plan on a week to week basis. 

“What is an easier task for us? An easier task for us is to go forward. Taking a pass set as an offensive tackle, in my opinion, is probably one of the most difficult things in all of sports. So yeah, you got to do it, and if you’re going to win the big one someday you’re going to have to do it several times in a row to probably seal that deal. The higher percentage of the time that we can be in that normal down and distance, whether you’re running the ball or you’re in play action, it’s a lot easier to block those dudes when they don’t know it’s a pass,” Adams said. “So if you can get them to jump out of the gaps. hit some big plays, and force defenses to fit gaps properly and play the run, it’s easier to protect longer. Rather than just taking a pass set at a tackle and saying ‘I’m going to hold this dude for four or five seconds, let’s see if we can get him to fit the run for two or three seconds and then transition into a pass rush.’ By then, we got dudes working downfield. So the math plays in our favor where we can do it, but if we can’t run the ball, you can’t really live in that world as much as you want to.”

The math is certainly working in Prescott’s favor with him ranking as the NFL’s second-best play-action quarterback in terms of completion percentage (79.6%), passing touchdowns (13), touchdown-to-interception ratio (13-0) and passer rating (138.2) this season.

“You’ve got to have a run game, and I think that’s the bigger thing, comparing the two seasons [2024 and 2025]. We’re running the ball much better this year. When you’re able to do that, the actions mean more,” Prescott said Monday. “The linebacker’s up in the line of scrimmage. You’re able to take advantage down the field. As I said before, it’s something that I’ve always loved is the play action and the run action in the game plan, but it starts with running the ball.”  

Exploiting the Lions’ aggressive defense

Play-action is something the Cowboys and Detroit, Thursday’s opponent and a fellow NFL playoff contender, have in common. The Lions’ play-action rate of 17.3% this season is just behind the Cowboys’ 18.4% for the sixth-highest rate in the NFL.

Even though both offenses use play-action with regularity, meaning each teams’ defense sees it every day practice, the Cowboys could find more explosives (passes of 16 or more yards) with it. 

The Lions play a handsy, aggressive style of man coverage on 36.4% of their defensive plays, the second-highest man coverage rate in the NFL. That’s led to Detroit allowing 62 passing explosive plays, tied for the sixth-highest rate in the league. Twenty-four of those have come when the Lions’ opponent has run play-action, the seventh-most in the NFL.