Clicking on All Cylinders : Cowboys' Offense Is Skilled, Big and Fast, but It's the Little Things That Make It Go

By BILL PLASCHKE

Nov. 11, 1995 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

IRVING, Tex. —

The mastermind behind the most feared unit in the NFL is holding three ink pens. Ernie Zampese is always holding three ink pens.

He rolls them around in his right hand, like dice. Clickety-click, around and around, from when he starts worrying in the morning until he fretfully grabs his pillow at night.

Clickety-click. The pens’ soft sound is the music that accompanies Zampese’s life as offensive coordinator of the Dallas Cowboys.

“I used to rattle coins in my pocket,” Zampese said. “But then I wore holes in all my pockets.”

The television cameras focus on the pens as Zampese sits in the upstairs coaching booth during games. John Madden laughs. Fans in the stands turn to look.

The mannerism appears unusual, compulsive. And yet it is all very planned.

Zampese always holds three pens. They are always rolled counterclockwise. They are the same three pens until the side lettering wears off.

Separately, nothing more than three writing utensils. But together, an unstoppable object that has been known to drive people crazy.

And now you know everything you need to know about the Cowboy’s world-best offense.

“It’s simple,” fullback Daryl Johnston said, smiling. “It’s the same stuff we’ve all been doing since we were 9 years old. We just do it a little different.”

The facts on the Cowboy offense:

--It leads the NFL in points, yards and domination.

--It has perhaps the three best skill players of any team at one time in NFL history--quarterback Troy Aikman, running back Emmitt Smith and receiver Michael Irvin.

If the season ended today, they would be the first trio from the same team to lead the league in their respective statistical categories.

--It has an unmatched offensive line featuring three Pro Bowl players.

--It has the game’s best big-play tight end, Jay Novacek.

Now for the magic:

--Smith scores routinely on five-yard runs on which nobody touches him .

--Millions of TV viewers know Irvin is going to be thrown the ball, yet when he catches it, there is nobody within five yards. And he’s standing in the middle of the defense .

--Aikman walks away from a game without a spot on his blue jersey. After a game played on grass .

--Smith scored on his first carry of the season--a 60-yard run in the Meadowlands--and the Cowboys have seemingly scored at will ever since.

--In their only loss in nine games--a 27-23 defeat by the Washington Redskins--Aikman threw only three passes before leaving the game because of a calf injury.

--When their 11 starters have played the entire game, the Cowboy offense has been entirely unstoppable.

Why? How? Is it simply because their players are better than every other team’s?

“That may be the way it looks,” Johnston said. “But what the fan sees, and what really happens, are two different things.”

Five unseen reasons for those happenings:

BIG BLOCKS

The first thing you need to know about the Cowboy offense is that every skill player blocks.

When Irvin is not thrown a pass, he blocks. When Novacek is ignored by Aikman, he blocks.

When Smith is sent out on a screen pattern as a decoy, he doesn’t start walking when the ball goes the other way, as do many other stars. Smith finds somebody to hit.

“We’re still talking about a couple weeks ago, when Emmitt almost killed a guy while blocking for Irvin,” said Joe Brodsky, who coaches the running backs. “He’ll get right up there in somebody’s teeth.”

The biggest reason the Cowboy quarterbacks have been sacked only seven times this year--fewer than all but one other team in the NFL--is that Smith and Johnston pick up blitzes like nobody else.

“What nobody sees is our skill players when they don’t have the ball,” Aikman said. “They are an unselfish group. They will block for anybody. That makes all the difference.”

Johnston, considered the most intelligent player on the team despite a nickname of “Moose,” even blocks people he is not supposed to block.

“This is because he picks up stunts and blitzes that other guys can’t,” Brodsky says. “So if one guy misses his man, by then, Moose has already scooted over in the formation and is there to pick him up.”

BIG BUTTS

You don’t believe us? Listen to Pro Bowl guard Nate Newton:

“The secret to this offense--and I’m serious now--is that all the linemen have nice butts. Some of us have fat ones, some of us have flat ones, but they are all nice, strong butts.”

Hudson Houck, offensive line coach, put it another way.

“These guys are big, but they know how to get up underneath a guy and get leverage,” he said.

So while the Cowboy fast guys are good because they block, the big blockers are good because they are quick?

“Exactly,” Houck said. “Just watch our linemen’s feet.”

That is not so easy. The only feet you usually watch around the Cowboy offensive line are those belonging to Smith, who has gained about two-thirds of his league-leading 1,137 yards before that first defender lays a hand on him.

But films show that linemen Erik Williams, Mark Tuinei, Larry Allen and Newton are usually able to beat Smith to the hole on pulling and counter plays.

And when they do, a defender is left trying to handle more than 300 pounds of charging anger.

“We have to be quick, because Emmitt is so quick,” Newton said. “It’s like, we block, we block and then--where in the hell is he? He’s gone.”

BIG WORKERS

Jason Garrett, Cowboy third-string quarterback, realized the seriousness of this offense last summer, at the end of the July 4 weekend.

“I had just gotten home from a trip, we had a week before training camp started, a time when most people take it easy . . . and I had a message on my machine from Michael [Irvin],” Garrett said. “He told me to meet him at the complex at 5 o’clock. I did, and he ran 60 routes.

“On a Sunday night. In the middle of summer.”

Irvin works out twice a day during the summer.

The offensive linemen, as a matter of pride, refuse to leave the field during the 100-degree days of training camp.

During the season, the Cowboys are one of the few teams that wears pads three days a week.

The 49ers, for example, wear pads one day, if at all.

“It’s so crazy,” Newton said. “During practice you’re, like, asking the guy across from you to hit you. I’m, like, ‘OK, Leon Lett, I have a big game Sunday, I need the work, come at me.’ ”

BIG TEACHERS

Unlike many of the league’s new-style attacks, the Cowboy offense is not run by hollering coaches, but quiet teachers.

Zampese has a master’s degree from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

Hubbard Alexander, wide receiver coach and father figure to Irvin, was a high school coach for seven years.

Brodsky, running back coach and confidante of Smith, was a high school teacher for 13 years.

As teachers, they have been known to study an opponent’s film so thoroughly that Houck recently advised his linemen that when a certain defender had his legs bent a certain way, he was rushing the passer.

They also punish like teachers. You miss a block during practice? That will be $5, thank you.

SMALL, SMALL PLAYBOOK

Would you believe the Cowboy playbook contains only a few running plays?

The passing plays are easily numbered so that the receiver knows immediately where he is supposed to be.

“Lots of offenses around the league use names that require memorization, or that don’t mean anything,” Garrett said. “Ours are so simple, you don’t have to think about where to go.”

Like, Jack right, scat right, 839 F flat.

Jack is the formation, scat is the pass protection scheme, 839 are the three routes of the receivers, and F flat is where the running back stands in case the quarterback needs to throw him the ball in desperation.

And unlike virtually every other team, Aikman never changes the entire play at the line of scrimmage.

Three similar plays are called in the huddle, and Aikman simply chooses one of those three with a word he shouts during his cadence.

For the Cowboys, that is where the fun begins.

Just listen to Tony Dungy, Minnesota Viking defensive coordinator:

“You have a standard defensive formation, Emmitt runs the ball all night and you lose, 21-10. You put extra guys up with Emmitt, that leaves Michael Irvin in single coverage, and he gets the ball all night.

“So then you put an extra guy up front and still double-cover Michael, then Jay Novacek is one on one with a linebacker. And a linebacker can’t cover him.”

So how can they be stopped?

“Well . . . “ said Dungy, pausing, sighing.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Heads of the Class

A look at how Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith and Michael Irvin rank in key categories this season as compared to their closest competitors:

QUARTERBACK RATING

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Player Rating Rank Aikman 102.1 1 Harbaugh (Colts) 100.7 2

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YARDS PER ATTEMPT

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Player Yards Rank Harbaugh (Colts) 8.17 1 Aikman 8.14 2