The Broncos exposed the elephant in the Cowboys' offense

DENVER — If you were listening closely, a comment from Von Miller made on Wednesday of this week should have caught your ear.

“He has one of the best, if not the best offensive lines blocking for him and one of the best, if not the best running back behind him. If I was a quarterback, I’d be walking around like Dak Prescott too.”

While that subtle comment was a needle in a haystack of praise Miller had for the second-year quarterback. If you were looking for it, you may have seen a peek into what the Broncos thought about Prescott as a quarterback.

Without saying it, Von Miller addressed the elephant in the room that sits in front of Dak Prescott. Despite a stellar rookie season it’s hard to evaluate just how good Dak has been because of the resources he has available to him. 1,570 pounds—about the size of a one-year-old elephant—of all-star lineman in front of him, 228 pounds—about the size of a newborn elephant—of all-star running back behind him, Prescott lives within a sandwich of safety.

If the Broncos gameplan was any indication, they simply weren’t sold that inside of that elephant sandwich was a top-flight quarterback.

On the night, the Cowboys threw the ball an eye-popping 50—five-zero—times, to go along with just 11 designed runs.

“We loaded the box,” said cornerback Chris Harris Jr. after the game. “We put everyone in there that we could possibly put in there.”

“We made them [throw it],” Vance Joseph added without hesitation. “They knew they couldn’t run the football. That was our plan, to make them throw the football. He could have run it 15 more times for 10 more yards, but that wouldn’t help him win… Nobody has played them that way. It was definitely a surprise to them in my opinion.”

The surprise may be that nobody else has put that type of pressure on the young quarterback. Of course, most teams don’t have the resources available to their defense that the Broncos do, but nonetheless, the results tell the tale.

While star back Ezekiel Elliott was only able to amass eight yards on the ground, in Prescott’s 50 throws (30 completed) he was only able to muster up 238 yards. His 4.76 yards per throw were less than the 4.82 yards per carry the Broncos’ running backs put down on the night. To go along with the QB’s two touchdowns came two interceptions, one that went 103 yards the other way in the hands of Aqib Talib to officially seal the game. In the end, a 68.6 passer rating.

“They had no option,” Derek Wolfe said. “Their run game was non-existent, we shut it down, we cut off one of their heads.”

“I don’t think Dak throwing the ball fifty times was in the game plan,” Miller added with a straight face.

It wasn’t. In fact, it never has been. The 50 throws were a career high.

“We put a lot of pressure on Dak to make plays,” Darian Stewart concluded. “He didn’t make ’em.”

The Broncos have been known to break an offense—see: Green Bay 2015 and Carolina 2016—the blueprint is now out.