Getty Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Anthony Hitchens.
The Kansas City Chiefs don’t get to play the Dallas Cowboys very often — only once every four years. But that doesn’t mean the defending AFC champions don’t have a little extra intel on America’s Team heading into their Sunday, November 21 matchup.
Dallas’ offense is coordinated by Kellen Moore, a former NFL quarterback that played for the Cowboys in 2015, per Pro Football Reference. A player that sat alongside Moore in meetings during his time in Dallas was veteran linebacker Anthony Hitchens, who was drafted by the Cowboys in 2014 and played four seasons for them before joining the Chiefs in 2018.
Hitchens, despite playing on the opposite side of the football, says he knows how Moore thinks, which gives Kansas City some extra intel when it comes to figuring out how to stop Dak Prescott and the Cowboys’ offense in Week 11, according to NFL Media’s James Palmer.
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Hitchens: I Know How Moore Thinks
Here’s what Palmer said about his conversation with Hitchens regarding Moore during his report on NFL Network :
“I talked to Chiefs linebacker Anthony Hitchens, who told me ‘before I came to Kansas City, I was in Dallas, I was teammates with Dallas’ offensive coordinator. We sat next to each other in team meetings.’ He said, ‘I know he’s extremely creative, I know that Dak [Prescott] can throw for 400 yards against anybody, including us. But in his core, Kellen Moore is a physical play-caller, and they can run the football at you repeatedly.'”
Interesting inside knowledge of #cowboys OC Kellen Moore from #chiefs LB Anthony Hutchens. He told me he knows how his former teammate thinks. Massive test for KC’s defense that believes they’ve turned a corner. My report on @nflnetwork
Cowboys Without One of Top Offensive Threats
Although the Dallas offense is one of the top explosive units in the NFL, they will be without of their top offensive talents in Week 11.
Four-time Pro Bowl wide receiver Amari Cooper was placed on the reserve/COVID-19 list on Friday, September 19 after testing positive for COVID, and will miss the matchup against Kansas City as well as the Cowboys’ Thanksgiving game against the Las Vegas Raiders, per ESPN’s Todd Archer.
Amari Cooper has been placed on the reserve/COVID 19 list and will miss the Cowboys next two games.
Cooper, 27, is in his fourth season with Dallas and is on pace to finish with some strong pass-catching numbers this season. Through nine games, he has caught 44 passes for 583 yards and five touchdowns, per Pro Football Reference. Cooper may not even be the best wide receiver on his team, which speaks to how potent the Cowboys’ offense will be in Week 11 even without him.
Dallas’ second-year wide receiver CeeDee Lamb is one of the top receivers in the NFL, and his numbers prove it. Lamb has 726 receiving yards on the season — ninth-best among wide receivers — and six touchdowns on 44 catches, which is an average of 16.5 yards per reception, per the NFL’s official site. Then you add in Michael Gallup, who is easily the best No. 3 wide receiver on any team in the NFL, and tight end Dalton Schulz, who is seventh among tight ends in receiving yardage (448), per Statmuse, and the Cowboys have one of the NFL’s most potent passing attacks in Week 11 even with Cooper absent from the lineup.
Quarterback Dak Prescott is the one distributing the football to all of Dallas’ pass catchers. In eight games this season, Prescott has completed 70.3% of his passes for 2,341 yards, 20 touchdowns — fourth-best in the league — and five interceptions. Running back Ezekiel Elliott is the star of the Cowboys’ run game with 663 yards on the ground and seven rushing touchdowns, both of which are fourth-best among all running backs, according to ESPN.
Even though Cooper will be absent from the Week 11 bout, the defending AFC champions need to stop Dallas’ run game if they want to have any chance of defeating the 7-2 squad. If the defense can do that, then the Chiefs may be able to extend their win streak to four games.