Kellen Moore Hired as Cowboys Offensive Coordinator

The Dallas Cowboys turned to one of their old quarterbacks to fill their vacant offensive coordinator position.

Dallas officially hired Kellen Moore as the new OC on Thursday after it fired Scott Linehan following its playoff loss to the Los Angeles Rams.

This comes after Ian Rapoport of NFL.com reported the Cowboys were considering a promotion for Moore from quarterbacks coach to offensive coordinator as part of a larger reshuffling of the decks that would leave Jon Kitna as the new quarterbacks coach.

On Thursday, the Cowboys also announced that Kitna will indeed replace Moore as the team's quarterbacks coach.

Chris Mortensen of ESPN noted head coach Jason Garrett plans on being more directly involved in the play-calling after the firing of Linehan.

Moore is best known for his days as the quarterback of Boise State, where he finished in the top 10 of Heisman Trophy voting in three different seasons and captured two WAC Offensive Player of the Year awards and one Mountain West Offensive Player of the Year award.

He was a career backup at the NFL level, including his time with the Cowboys, and appeared in just three total games with four touchdown passes and six interceptions.

Moore is familiar with the Dallas offense after serving as the quarterbacks coach in 2018 and will look to build on the success the backfield combination of Dak Prescott and Ezekiel Elliott have enjoyed. The team has finished with a winning record all three years with the combination and won the NFC East twice, although it has yet to advance to the NFC Championship Game with the duo.

The new offensive coordinator has the two young pieces to build around and Amari Cooper on the outside, who made the offense more dynamic down the stretch with opposing defenses no longer able to stack the box against Elliott.

Still, the Cowboys were just 22nd in the league in total yards and scoring in 2018 and will need to make offensive strides under Moore if they are going to capitalize on Elliott and Prescott's prime and win a Lombardi Trophy.