PRO FOOTBALL / BOB OATES : Cowboys Go for the Downs on First

The 1993 pro football season is closer than you think. There are only 155 days until training camp. And when the coaching staffs begin their serious planning this month, their role model, as usual, will be the NFL champion.

To sports fans preferring lively football, that is a happy prospect.

For the new champion is a Dallas Cowboy team that has developed the league’s most aggressive passing offense.

Thus, in last month’s Super Bowl, when Dallas quarterback Troy Aikman threw four touchdown passes, he threw all four on first down.

That was surely a big-game first--college or pro.

Traditionally, football coaches have hesitated to be that assertive--or that rash, as they call it. They like to establish the run first, and then pass.

The Cowboys don’t establish anything. They just do it.

“That is the style of our coach (Jimmy Johnson),” Dallas offensive coordinator Norv Turner said recently. “His style is to be aggressive.

“We feel that you have to pass aggressively to pass successfully. You throw on (early downs) to keep the heat off the quarterback--to keep the defense from (anticipating) run or pass.

“One thing it takes is a quick quarterback, a guy like Troy Aikman, who can drop quickly, set up with urgency, and quickly deliver the ball.”

Turner argues that football’s third-down conversion statistic is overrated.

“The percentages are heavily against you when your quarterback is throwing on third and long,” he said. “That is no measure of (a team’s passing ability). On third and long, the defense dictates to the quarterback.

“As an offensive team, what you want to do is dictate to the defense. You want Emmitt Smith running on a lot of (passing downs). You want to throw the ball on a down when the defense has to play the run and pass both. “

On, say, first down.

The obvious objective, Turner said, is to keep the defensive team off balance, as Buffalo’s was in the Super Bowl when the Dallas offense, en route to a 52-17 rout, produced touchdowns at these five times:

First quarter, first down at the Buffalo 23 on the play after Smith gained eight yards: Aikman to Jay Novacek, touchdown.

Second quarter, first down at the Buffalo 19 on the play after Smith gained 38 yards: Aikman to Michael Irvin, touchdown.

Second quarter, first down at the Buffalo 18 on the play after Thurman Thomas fumbled: Aikman to Irvin, touchdown.

Fourth quarter, first down at the Buffalo 45 on the play after Smith gained 11 yards: Aikman to Alvin Harper, touchdown.

Fourth quarter, third and goal at the Buffalo 10 after Bruce Smith sacked Aikman: Emmitt Smith, fake-pass play, touchdown.

As a pass-offense coach, Turner traces his lineage through Ernie Zampese to Don Coryell and Sid Gillman, with considerable input from Don Read and Dan Fouts.

At Oregon, playing with Hall of Famer Fouts, Turner played for Read, a pass expert who is now coaching at Montana. On the Ram staff, Turner worked with offensive coordinator Zampese, who in San Diego worked with former Charger coach Coryell, who worked with Hall of Famer Gillman.

These are people who would rather throw the ball than eat or sleep.

Yet at game time, Turner doesn’t come out throwing. He doesn’t believe in that approach.

“You come out ready for anything,” he said. “A great passing team is one that can run, too. Aggressive offensive football starts with balance.

“At Dallas, our players are capable enough in enough areas for us to be either a pure passing team or a pure power team. Both are our strengths. Everything we do starts with the threat of both.”

It is a fact, however, that a well balanced offensive team can hit the scoreboard faster with passes than with runs--faster and, as a rule, more often.

“So we pass a lot,” Turner said. “And the best time to take a shot at a (big play) is first down.”

That was illustrated most memorably in the NFC title game at Candlestick Park two weeks before the Super Bowl.

The Cowboys led that game by four points in the fourth quarter, but the momentum, after a long San Francisco touchdown drive, switched to the home team.

While the 49ers kicked off, the Dallas coaches were on the phone. As Turner tells it, Johnson said: “Do what you can, Norv, to get us some first downs.”

Said Turner: “OK, we’ll start with a (turn-in pass), a 12-yard (turn-in) to Irvin.”

The Cowboys’ term for a turn-in or hook pass is curl. And their whole offense is based on simple curls and slant patterns--although, on every such play, other patterns are built in for other receivers.

This time, on first down at the Dallas 20, the 49ers had no idea that Johnson’s team would be that aggressive. They expected the Cowboys to run. They foresaw a blast or two by running back Smith in defense of Dallas’ small fourth-quarter lead.

Accordingly, as the Cowboys lined up--with Irvin to the right of wide receiver Alvin Harper, who was flanked far left--the 49ers lined up an eight-man defensive front. That put three 49er defensive backs in man-to-man coverage.

“(Aikman) and I had just discussed such a possibility,” Turner said. “I reminded him to take a shot at Harper if he got man coverage. To be honest with you, I expected the curl--but the (12-yard) slant to Harper is built into the play if the defense changes from zone to man coverage. When (Aikman) saw the eight-man front, he immediately threw it to Harper.”

The rest is recent history. Harper, slanting in front of a 49er cornerback, caught Aikman’s short, straight pass at about 18 yards and continued on for another 52 to put Dallas in the Super Bowl.

The Harper option on that play wasn’t unusual.

The key was calling it on first down. The Cowboys are among the NFL’s leaders in calling passes on first down.

“We’re trying to stay out of second and 10,” Turner said. “If a big gain isn’t there on first down, we want (Aikman) to dump it off to Smith or Novacek for four yards or so. That’s as good as a run.

“We dumped out to Smith several times in the Super Bowl, and that’s one thing that people are always asking us about. They want to know why we bother to throw to Smith for a yard, or a yard and a half. Our answer is that it’s better than an incomplete.

“If the (primary option) isn’t there, we dump it immediately because it’s a chance to get some positive yards. Any time the ball is in Smith’s hands, you have a chance at a big play.”

Turner concedes that the Dallas offense got three breaks in the Super Bowl’s first half alone when, three times, the Cowboys had first downs at or near the Buffalo 20-yard line.

That is Aikman’s best range. In their game plan each week, Johnson and Turner, from one end of the field to the other, aim for mostly 12- to 20-yard completions--rather than bombs. And as it happens, Aikman, over the years, has had a lot of of experience at those distances.

He doesn’t throw the 40-yard pass as effectively--so the long ball has had an inconspicuous place in Dallas game plans.

“One thing you have to consider is that we don’t have a pure burner,” Turner said, meaning a Cowboy receiver with world-class speed. “On some of (Aikman’s) long misses, if we could run faster, we’d run under more balls.

“But let me tell you something: That’s an area where Troy is improving consistently--one of several areas. On (long passes), he is laying it up better all the time, and my favorite player is a guy who keeps improving.”