Cowboys’ Playcalling Under Fire: KaVontae Turpin Remarks Add Fuel to Controversy
The Dallas Cowboys entered Week 17 of the NFL season winning four of their last five outings, but the team regressed to midseason form with an embarrassing loss to the Philadelphia Eagles.
Dallas was boatraced by its division rival at Lincoln Financial Field, falling 41-7.
The offense was unable to get anything going and the absence of star wide receiver CeeDee Lamb, who has been shut down for the remainder of the season with a shoulder injury, was glaring.
In Lamb’s absence, veteran Brandin Cooks served as WR1, and return specialist KaVontae Turpin was promoted to WR2. Unfortunately, the team’s offensive gameplan never allowed Turpin to highlight his game-breaking speed and he was unable to get going.
After the game, Turpin spoke to the media about the team’s approach without CeeDee and threw some shade at the playcalling.
“Man, I just feel like, at the end of the day, with CeeDee gone, we weren’t really calling no pass plays. We just run the ball, throwing checkdowns… that’s the plan in the receiving room,” Turpin said, per Saad Yousuf of The Athletic.
“We thought we’re going to go out there and show people, it ain’t all about CeeDee. At the end of the day, we wasn’t getting no down the field routes being called. We just had to see what we could do.”
He continued, “When CeeDee’s here, it’s easy. We just tried to find ways to show people what we could do in the receiving room since our butter was gone.”
It’s a damning review of the team’s approach to the game without Lamb. According to Turpin, the other wide receivers were never put in position to excel or make plays that the Cowboys desperately needed.
At a time when Mike McCarthy was gaining momentum for a potential return, this is not the review of play-calling that he nor Jerry Jones wants to hear from players.
