Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Cole Beasley is set to become a free agent, and it doesn’t appear as though he’s excited about a potential return to Dallas.
Responding to a fan on Twitter, Beasley pointed blame in the direction of the front office for his seemingly limited role this past season:
Honestly, the front office pushes who they want to get the ball to. I haven’t been a huge priority in that regard. Maybe that will change but I’m not sure. More balls come my way in 2 minute drill where nothing is planned. https://t.co/ioih9BJJv1
— Cole Beasley (@Bease11) January 22, 2019
Beasley’s claim that Dak Prescott targets him more in the two-minute offense, due to the fact that it is less scripted than other parts of the game is an interesting one. Logically, it makes some sense. Beasley is primarily targeted on shorter throws in the slot, which may be more likely to be open if the defense is dropping into a prevent defense.
Unfortunately for Beasley, the stats don’t support this claim.
Using data from Pro-Football-Reference, we can look up the Cowboys’ target share in the two-minute drill. For the purposes of this study, we’ll expand the definition to include the final three minutes of each half, since the fast-paced two-minute offense isn’t limited strictly to the final two minutes. The final three minutes of the first half were used, regardless of the score. In the second half, the final two minutes were only treated as the two-minute offense if the game was tied or the Cowboys were trailing by up to 10 points.
Based on this definition of the two-minute drill, Beasley’s usage actually dropped significantly:
It’s worth noting this is based on full-season numbers, so Cooper’s stats are skewed lower. If we use data from after the Cooper trade, Beasley’s non-two-minute drill target share was 15.0 percent, while his two-minute drill target share was 8.9 percent.
In fact, after the Cooper trade, Beasley’s two-minute target share was fifth on the team behind Elliott (21.4 percent), Gallup (19.6 percent), Cooper (16.1 percent) and Jarwin (12.5 percent).
Based on this data, it would seem the Cowboys confidence in Beasley—even during the two-minute offense—diminished significantly throughout the year.
Of course this doesn’t mean Cooper is wrong to believe he deserved more targets. It’s possible he would have outperformed his teammates if he were given more opportunities. However, his claim that he saw a higher rate of targets in the two-minute offense, due to Prescott’s trust in him, appears to be false.
Another way to test Beasley’s theory that he has the trust of Prescott and the coaching staff would be to track his usage in clutch third-and-long situations. But once again, this stat isn’t kind to Beasley.
After the Cooper trade, Beasley saw just four targets in third-and-long situations, producing two first downs. Somewhat surprisingly, it was actually Gallup who led the team in third-and-long targets in the second half of the season.
Again, this doesn’t necessarily mean Beasley is wrong to believe he was misused. But his perception that Prescott and the coaching staff trusted him more than the front office does not appear to hold up.
