If Trey Lance is struggling with Cowboys system, Cowboys should tweak the system
By most accounts, Trey Lance is not off to the start he was hoping for in Cowboys training camp. He’s struggled to deliver the ball with anticipation, he’s floated passes on a regular basis, and he’s misread coverage, leading to frustrating interceptions. Perhaps Dallas will look to change their approach with him.
These struggles are by no means a departure from the norm for Lance. The former No. 3 overall pick has struggled to live up to his draft status since joining the NFL four years ago. Acquired in a late summer trade with the 49ers last season, Lance has largely been developing in the background in both San Francisco and Dallas.
Over the past few months, the Cowboys decided to rebuild the 24-year-old from the ground up. After declining his fifth-year option for 2025, they have been dedicated to seeing what they have in the young signal caller before further commitments were made. Lance has already taken a high number of snaps as a back-up in camp, giving fans their first clear view of him since joining the squad almost a year ago. The results aren’t very inspiring.
Lance looks like a player who doesn’t have much experience. With only a handful of games under his belt in the NFL and just one full season of action in college, Lance is far rawer than the average fourth-year veteran. He has a physical skillset that says franchise passer but the kind of experience that makes a back-up job a stretch.
It should be no surprise he’s struggled executing in the Cowboys’ relatively sophisticated offense. While Kyle Shanahan’s attack in San Francisco is based on play design, movement, and misdirection, Mike McCarthy’s Cowboys offense is more about pre-snap reads and progressions. Dak Prescott, one of the NFL’s very best in these two aspects of the game, operates the system flawlessly. Lance, not so much.
But instead of trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, what if the Cowboys try to provide a square hole?
