Cowboys Film Room: What to do with Dallas’ receivers

As you can see, none are having particularly strong seasons, especially when you compare their stats to the previous season. Williams, Beasley, and Butler have all seen their production drop from 2016 to 2017. If you combined all of their stats together, it looks like this:

159 targets – 100 receptions for 1,131 yards (11.3 yards per catch) with 6 touchdowns and 7 interceptions.

Between the complimentary five receivers, those numbers are…well…bad. But it gets even worse the more you dig. Those five receivers have combined to drop 10 passes and Dak Prescott has a passer rating of just 78.3 when targeting receivers not named Dez Bryant.

The group is averaging just 11 yards per catch. They aren’t scoring enough touchdowns considering the massive number of targets they have received and none are making big plays consistently down the field. But the most concerning thing about these five receivers is that they aren’t scaring defenses. Teams aren’t afraid of getting beat by Williams or Beasley.

Too few times when the Cowboys dial up plays for their secondary receivers, they let them down. Take the Oakland game for example. The Cowboys were sitting on a flea-flicker all game long, saving it for when they needed a splash play. They haven’t run it once this season and when they did, the play ultimately failed because Terrance Williams dropped a pass that should have been a routine catch. The throw couldn’t have been better and ended up being a wasted opportunity for the Cowboys:

These are the type of plays elite offenses convert. When it’s time for a splash play, their receivers make them. Unfortunately for the Cowboys, their receivers have let them down far too often this season in these moments. In the same game on a critical third down in the third quarter, Prescott threw a dime to Cole Beasley down the sideline. While the catch would have been tough, these are the type of plays you need your receivers to make. The ball goes right through the arms of the out-stretched Beasley and the team has to punt.

Williams and Beasley are far too good of receivers to be playing at this poor of a level. Each has made numerous big plays throughout their careers, but neither is playing with any type of consistency. Their lack of production forces teams to key on Dez Bryant even more, which is a problem especially when the team doesn’t have their star tailback.