Cowboys Break: Battle of Backs

We are alive from the s WBC Mortgage studios at the Star, and today we're gonna talk a little bit about the NFC East, a little bit about the NFC where the Cowboys sits sit, and what these guys think about their chances of not only winning the division, but getting into the playoffs, winning maybe the NFC. We'll talk

about about all of that. Dave will give us this scouting report on the Minnesota offense in the second segment, and then Nick also has his write up that he usually gives us every week on the storylines heading into this game. We'll get into that later in the show as well. But let's start our first talking a little

bit about the NFC East. Right now, the Cowboys are leading the division, as they have been for the last few weeks, really all season, right, Is there a point this season when they haven't been the leader of the NFC now, I don't know off the top of my head. Maybe like week two. No, because the Eagles lost in Week two. Yeah, the Cowboys started talking. Yeah. Yeah, so at the worst they were tied. But they've been in the league, I guess since the beginning of the season. Yeah,

I think they have. Yeah, So they're a city in five and three. They have Minnesota coming up this week. Philly is at five and four with a buy. You've got the Giants at two and seven, all but out of it at this point. They're playing the Jets this week. Don't count out the Jets. And then, of course you got the Washington Redskins and last play at one and eight,

they also have a buy. Right now, based on everything you've seen, what's your confidence level on a rating, let's say a rating scale of one to ten, ten being I feel absolutely certain this is going to happen, that the Cowboys win the NFC East six NI six six, Oh wow, okay, to win the division six? All right? Yeah? I'd say six or seven. I mean they got to go up there and play, Yeah, so you know that's gonna be a tough one. What makes you what makes

you the most when you say a six? Is it just the fact that you think it's all going to come down to that Philadelphia? Well, I mean they both have tough schedules here, but I mean the Cowboys still have to face some tough teams and they've only beaten one team with a winning record, and that's the Eagles,

who just got a winning record the other day. So I mean they that's what they were saying yesterday, is that you know they're going to face better teams, and when they face better teams, how do they handle it? But this is a team that's lost to the worst team in football, and they've you know, they've only they haven't beaten a lot of tough teams. So I think that they probably can and will. But it's not That's why I say six. It's not even the Eagles that

give me pause. Like the Cowboys have been so good against the division. They're seventeen and five since Dak took over. They swept the Eagles last year, they beat the crowd out of them a couple of weeks ago with a banged up team. You know the Eagles were missing guys too, But whatever, it's everything else. It's everything else that worries me. This is a team that lost to the Jets. This is a team that has already lost tiebreakers to the

Saints and the Packers. I know that doesn't matter for NFC East purposes, but they haven't handled business outside of kicking ass in the division again. I know that's what's important to winning the division, but you gotta play a lot of other games. You've played four of your six division games, so those gimmes are done with. You don't get their redskins again until the season finale, by which point you would assume it's pretty close to wrapped up.

I mean, the NFC East hasn't come down to the final weeks since twenty thirteen, I believe, right when the last time the Cowboys played Week seventeen for the division title. So and looking at it, Okay, when the Eagles come off of their by, they're off this weekend. Keep going. Okay, when the Eagles come off of their by, they've got two really tough games against the Patriots and the Seahawks

after that's over. It's scary how easy the schedule is for them because they go Dolphins, Giants, Redskins, then a big game against Dallas, and then the Giants to close it out. Gimmeas basically for the last like five six weeks of the season. So that's that's nerve wracking. Yeah, but I'd say, you know, six or seven depending on the day. That's how I feel. Amber I feel the same way. I just think it all comes down to what the Eagles are going to be doing for the

rest of the year. But I think very well the Cowboys could make it to the top and win the division. Now my concern is can they make it past that? That's the big question. It depends how they win these upcoming games, because if they win it, how they've been winning this one's I don't feel confident that you're gonna get it any further than what you've been in past

year whatsoever. So it's it's so hard to tell at this point, because it's crazy, we're entering week ten and we still don't know what the Cowboys really are, you know, So it's just it's very confusing. I can see it go either way. Can. I just I love that because a g I feel like speaks for the fans more than any of us, and like that's I'm sitting here, like how can they get to the playoffs? Like can they win the East? And ambers like who cares about that?

Are they gonna do better than they did last time? Like, which that's probably how most people feel, like nobody cares. I mean, obviously you want to make the playoffs, but I feel like most fans would be like, if you're telling me we're gonna make the playoffs and not make it further than we already have in the last two three years, then just screw it. Why what are we

even doing this for? But that's why maybe we do a show every day so you'll go crazy if you keep doing That's why the other day, Like y'all have a different approach than I do, because if we everything is what does it mean? What does it mean? What does it mean to the end? And I get it, like what does it mean that the final end? But like we can't get there, so might as well just announce,

you know, analyze this one. I'm completely with you, and that's I don't approach it that way either, but I do appreciate that, and it's good to keep in mind because again, this is a team with a coach in the final year of his contract. I mean, ultimately, that's how it's going to be decided. Even if we don't even know right now if they'll I just think, like, yes, it's great that they want against the Giants. Obviously that was Every game is an important game for the Cowboys

and any other team. But to me, it's like, when you start looking at this first half of the season, how have they been performing, how have they been winning those games and losing those games? And when you start seeing this pattern of the way they've been playing, it brings the question as to Okay, what happens when they

get there. Obviously there's still a whole second half of the season where it could change completely and they could become that team that we've been seeing in the fourth quarter. They could become that team like starting off in the first quarter, basically what we saw against the Eagles. But it's just like at this point, as I sit here right now and what I've seen so far, I don't feel very confident of where it's headed. The one thing I will say is, if you believe in the Gospel.

According to Bill Parcels, you used to always say you don't know. You're not supposed to know at this point what a team really is going to be. Talk to me after Thanksgiving. And if you look around in the NFL, I think there are some teams you feel pretty good that they are good teams that are going to be in the mix to your New Orleans. But what you don't know is those things that are going to happen between now and Thanksgiving that change the complexion of teams.

There will be some teams that right now nobody's really talking about that will get on a role. There will be some teams that have been on a role that that will for whatever reason fall off and may not be on a role by then. So I just think it, you know, right now, it's it's kind of a you know, I kind of set you guys up a little bit by asking you know what's going to happen because you really don't know in the NFL, and we watch it every year, you really don't know what's going to happen

in the NFL. You can look at this either way you want. If you can, you want to be like optimistic about it. You could say, well, you number five and three and they've they've blown out every team that they've beaten. I mean, I think the average margin of victory is nineteen almost three touchdowns. Every time they've lost by combined fourteen points, two points, two points, and then the ten points to the Packers, So you know they're

playing relatively close. And they got the you know, number one offensive league, top number six defense in the league, so things are looking good there. Or you could take the negative side, which they lost to the Jetta. You know, it's scary. It's injuries, and I know it happens all around the NFL, but the fact that they've had to deal with major injuries or not major, but important guys that have been injured this early in the season, you know they're not going to be healthy for the rest

of the season. They're gonna be battling with those But we've seen how that affects the offense. But the key part in that is, unlike some of the other teams, they haven't got had those guys have to go on

ir and lose him for the year. Tyrone Crawford is probably your most important player that you've lost for the year, and he was a role player, right, So when you start thinking about it from that standpoint, you actually are sitting into, I think, a really good position from an injury standpoint that it's just you haven't had that major injury just yet to a key player who's out for the rest of the year. That certainly is a positive

for this team. I'm thinking that, I'm kind of thinking while y'all were talking in the irony, and you're absolutely right. But like, since the Patriots kind of started this second run of four super Bowls in a row, it's been that's not the point. It's not the point. They've been very like the league has been very top heavy since like sixteen, where I mean the top two seeds in

the conferences are the ones making the super Bowls. But overall since the league aged formats and O two, like, it's very normal to see a team that was crap in November make a run to a Super Bowl. The Giants famously did it a couple of times. Yeah, the Packers did it. Steelers did I think once or twice. It's happened more times than you can count. And that's so yeah, all, I mean, I get your point that

the end result is ultimately what matters. But odds are some crazy stuff's going to happen in the second half of the season. You know, you look at the worse he's hard. You look what the Patriots did getting Mohammed Sanu and I think that that's a move that the Cowboys. Now I'm not saying they should have done that one, but I am a little concerned about the receiver position in the depth. If there, if everyone's healthy, they're fine, but if not, this team can get lose to the Jets.

I mean, Amari Cooper plays that game, they win by fourteen points, if not more. The Jets can't play that way, and they're gonna go up and down the field on them. But after Cooper and then Gallop, it really drops off because Cobb and Tavon are not outside sievers really, and Devin Smith and Cedric Wilson are barely in the league. So let me ask you this. Smith wasn't available anyway for the Jets game. I mean just saying, I'm just saying. I mean, I'm saying, but if you had an injury,

I'm talking about the depth. I'm sorry, Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a spot. I mean, you don't have you know the defensive line rotation. You don't have a Sean Lee you could put in here, or Joe Thomas you could put in. I don't I don't trust what's going on at receiver in the back end. I think they need some more depth there. Do you think that is a normal a normal occurrence around the league or is that

particular to this team? And the reason why I asked that questions because if you look over the last several years with this team, it seems like there's always that like, well, we can't play without turn so that's why they lost that game. Or they can't play without Sean Lee, that's why they lost that game, can't play without Amark Cooper,

so why they lost that game. Is that a typical occurrence around the league, do you think or is this something that the Cowboys for whatever reason, there are just players that when they're out, it just everything. I think it's it's specific to the Cowboys because I think their backups are not all around receivers like Gallop and Cooper. They really don't have all around receivers. They have these other guys that they want to put them in in

packages and things like that. But if somebody goes down, You're asking Tavon to go out there and run route line up correctly, you know, and that's not always going to happen. So I think the depth that receiver, it could be a problem because we've already seen if they don't have their top guy, you know, things change. I do. I mean that that's a problem for everybody in the NFL injuries, But like the best teams overcome it all

the time. And you know, I keep saying that paint by numbers analogy, like that's the Cowboys to a t. Like it never feels like they game plan. First of all, they don't always gain plan to take advantage of the other team's weaknesses, do what we do, and they don't. It's like they don't want to admit it when they have a problem like that. I mean, we've covered this before, but they never you never see them switch it up

drastically to account for a deficiency. They typically just try to do what they always do with a lesser player. Sometimes it works out, like Cam Fleming and Brandon Knight handled it pretty well. Chaz Green not so much. And they didn't adjust, I mean throughout the game they didn't.

They it's it's maddening. And you know, I always say it's you know, I think Jason Garrett probably gets a little bit too much hate, but that is a valid criticism, and it's it's just is what it is a little bit a little bit like not he deserves plenty of criticism. It's probably a little too much, but that is not one that is not an area where he gets too much criticism. That's like you're saying, don't you know, don't don't message me about this, okay, you know, like from

fans and listen a little too much. I mean, I understand, I hear. Well, it happens everywhere. I mean, you know, I don't think it's Jason Garrett's fault that Tony Pollard drops a screen pass. I think I said that yesterday. I do think it's Jason Garrett's fault that they don't come up with more creative or more varied game plans and try to work around their own deficiencies or the opponents deficiencies. All right, we're gonna take our first break.

We'll come back. We're gonna let Nick talk a little bit about some of the storylines heading into this game versus the Vikings. Uh this Sunday night. We'll talk about that when we come back. This is Dallas Cowboys dot com. Radio Selor is a proud sponsor of the Dallas Cowboys, helping fans see more and do more with our best vision solutions. Our lens technologies reveal a world more beautiful

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and that's why I run with John Deer today. In fact, I have a John Deer three zero twenty five E tractor that can handle any yard work I need to do, even the tough yards way out back. So if you have one acre or a thousand, John Deer has the equipment that's just right for you. Visit a John Deer dealer today and run with us. We are the official tractor provider of your Dallas Cowboys. Back to the break Welcome back the second segment of the Break Life from

the s WBC Mortar Studios. At the start, we're gonna go now to Nick Eatman. Let him talk a little bit about some of the storylines heading into this game versus the Viking. What you got, Well, Dalvin Cooks leading the league and rushing and he comes in here at eight hundred and ninety four rushing yards. He's good. He's pretty good. He's averaging ninety nine yards the game, so that's that's pretty good. He's played nine games. Zeke's ninety four or ninety three, so he's he's Zeke greg right now,

he's six six. Okay, yep, that's one of the Cowboys storylines. But I'm just gonna focus on that. We'll get to that when we get to it. Yeah, is it weird? Sorry to interrupt, Like, I don't even think about that anymore, because like Zeke has just been at or near the top for so long that I just assume he's up there somewhere, like, you know, if I'm sure, like the Panthers are probably tracking Christian McCaffrey's progress because he's you know, this is I don't know, it's a new territory for

them to have this great running back. And I'm just like, yeah, McCaffrey's leading the league in all purpose yards twelve forty four and Cook's right there at twelve thirty two. So he's catching the ball, running mainly running. But I mean he's he's really good and he's healthy, you know, which is it's good for them. So he's gonna be a problem. Who's not healthy. Adam Feelin is not healthy. He suffered a hamstring injury. Um, they try, he missed a couple

of games, try to bring him back. Last week, got hurt again, so he's probably not going to play. Um, they're Stefan Diggs is playing pretty well. They also have Josh Dobson, so he's excited about a homecoming. He's off of ir Uh. He's from TCU from Mansfield, so he's from you know, Mansfield Legacy. Okay, Kidden and I went to the same well similar school. You went to Mansfield. Yeah, Mansfield Legacy. No, she went to Mansfeld. I was teammates

with Josh Dawson at Mansfield Legacy. You were teammates with him, But that was right there. What position did you play? I was a corner, He was wide receiver, so he went against each other every day. Who won that battle? Who won that? I? Actually, no, you didn't. Over five years, I won a couple of times, right, yeah, yeah, two times over an NFL player. I'll take that, all right, all right, all right. So, by the way, that was

Kaden Gates out of our producers. So for you guys that are listening to that boys and don't know who, its a point real quick. The storyline. So the Vikings are signing Katon Kates as a corner this week. I probably need him help them out. Uh. Big plays kind of a problem for them last week. Ninety one yard touchdown they gave up, so they're were worried about that. Also, forty yard touchdowns the Tyreek Hill, a forty a couple

of forty yard plays the Tyreek Hill. So he's fast and they don't have anybody on the team like that, but still that's a problem. Dan Bailey comes back he's been thirteen of fifteen this year. Danny b missed two extra points. You missed two last week, but he's two extra points two. But two extra points he's missed, and he's been perfect on field goals. Field goals he's missed, and I know a distance on him. I don't. I don't either, but he's been good enough to win Special

Teams Player of the Week twice. I mean, he's having a pretty decent thirteen of eighteen. Mahar's missed five and then Kirk Cousins comes back. He's won six with the against the Cowboys, all with the Redskins. This is his first game against the Vikings. He's third in the NFL one twelve as a quarterback rating. So I feel like that kind of steals some of Dave's things that he talks. Maybe, but Dave's gonna go deeper, will be much deeper. We'll

be okay. Yeah, I was watching tape of the Vikings. Uh. I was watching him last night and yesterday afternoon on game Pass, and I thought about it because you know, Lizzo is really popular right now, so I was thinking, this is a new plan for the Minnesota Vikings. Instead of a yeah, you get it. New Man Nah, there you go. I should have sung it when when I heard that, I thought they were talking about Terence Newman for the Minnesota No man on the man Annesota Vike,

that's true? Is he still there? No, he's not, damn it. Yeah, he decided not to play his in twenty fourth season with the league, So we'll stick with new plan for the man Annesota by Kings. There you go. No, all right, um, yeah, Nick did cover a lot of that, but let's go deeper. I don't I'm not saying it's I'm not saying it. Maybe it's a coincidence that Mike Zimmer and Jason Garrett are really familiar with each other, but this offense feels

like Jason Garrett fantasy. Honestly, I looked at the stats on this because, like you know, typically, like I write down the starting roster, then I watch, you know, I watch a series or two, and then I start looking at stats, and like, I was struck immediately. I was like, this offense is all tight ends and fullbacks and just super pro style. So I went and looked the Vikings play eleven personnel, which is three receivers like the bass formation or the bass personnel in the NFL twenty nine

percent of the time. That's insane. Like I mean, for those of y'all that aren't aware, I mean, the average NFL team lines up in eleven personnel somewhere between sixty and eighty percent of the time. The Cowboys do at seventy seven percent. And we think of them as being conservative, you know what I mean. They play twelve perconnel, which is two tight ends thirty four percent of the time and twenty one personnel, which is two backs twenty three percent of the time. And that's not like a Zeke

Tony Pollard situation. They've they got their fullback out there a quarter of the time, at least recently. And for the running game, yeah, oh absolutely. It works in their passing game for the most part. I mean they're sixteenth, they're sixteenth passing not great, but they also have a great running game, so they do what they want for the most part um And I don't think that's going to change this week because Adam Deland's probably not gonna play.

So Kyle Rudolph IRV Smith junior, the Alabama tight end, he's a rookie. Get to know those names. Um. I wrote his name down. Where is he? Um? Oh? Yeah, CJ. Ham that's the I love that name. C J. Ham. Uh. He's got decent hands hams uh for a fullback. I'm trying to keep trying stay focused. Dave Um. Yeah, it's funny because like as much pub as Stefon Diggs and Adam DeLand got a couple of years ago when they made it to the NFC title game, Yeah, it ain't.

It ain't there for him this year. Injuries is probably part of that. But like Dalvin Cook is their number two receiver. They throw to him a lot. He's got He's played more games, but he's averaging two more touches per game than Seek. Just to give you an idea of like how much they lean on him. He's caught the ball thirty three times. I think they've targeted him forty.

They love play action again, like you're running game works as well as it does, Like they get cousins on the move a lot, a lot of bootlegs stuff, a lot of misdirection stuff trying I think, trying to get him easy throws. It sounds it sounds weird to say, but I almost feel like the Vikings are afraid of their quarterback, for lack of a better word, a lot

of positive sun. I just I think they want to make stuff easy for him and give him time because I don't have the stat in front of me unfortunately, but like he's he's not good Win pressured, or at least was not in this most recent game. I'll say that, like the Chiefs put bodies on him, and he missed a lot of throws in that game, to the point that Zemmer actually even came out and was talking about like how it looked like his mechanics were off. He

was nineteen of thirty eight in that game. And we're not talking bombs away like I charted it. He missed six passes like that were to the flat or like you know, five six yards down the field. Like not difficult stuff. But yeah, this is this is a pro style team, Like I don't you're not going to see more than two receivers on the field very often. I don't think Rudolph and Smith can both flex out, so that gives you a little bit of versatility there, But

a lot of guys piled up on the line of scrimmage. Oh, line's been a bugaboo. For them for years. I mean, it's been a talking point. I would have thought it would be better than it looked. Against the Chiefs. They have Pat elf Line playing left guard. He was a pretty highly regarded guy coming out of Ohio State, did not play well, and then they spent a high pick

on a center by the name of Garrett Bradberry. I remember Brian loved him on the Draft show, and I was just like, well, he'll be good, kind of like Travis Frederick, like you just plug him in there and he'll be fine. He got bullied. He got bullied in this game against the Chiefs. So think about the fact that the Cowboys have Michael Bennett. Now, Malee Collins looked

really good. I'm very encouraged about the ability to push the pocket on this offense, which is why I think you're going to see a lot of play action, a lot of moving the pocket to try to offset that, not just play action, but like bootlegs and stuff to try to just eliminate the need for Cousins to stand still. I don't like, I don't know. I don't see him getting the ball out as quickly as like an Aaron

Rodgers or an Eli Manning. In his day. But I think they're going to design a lot of stuff to take the pressure off him to just stand back in the pocket because that hasn't gone well for him. Yeah, one thing I'll note right there is you're going back

to when you're talking about the personnel that they use. Um. I wonder how much vander Eshion injury now plays into that because one of the things I've noticed from the Cowboys or the ever been games this season where they have they have tried very hard to stay within their base defense. Even when the other team went to eleven personnel, they still tried to keep their four down linemen three linebackers on the field. This is a game where it

doesn't seem like that team. The opposing team even goes to eleven personnel very frequently, which means that they really can't stay in that base defense, which means all three linebackers stay on the field a little bit more. We'll see how that goes with like Vandereshan and what happens there. Yeah, this will seem like a kind of one of those old school type type matchups there. But you know, Rudolphin Smith, they don't have a ton of catches, right, No, they

I mean they've been fine. They're not they have not to this point been dynamic. I think they're both. They're both pretty well rounded. Like I both they both block pretty well. Smith well for a rookie who's seen as more of a pass catcher, Like I'm not saying he's

Martellis Bennett, but he can get the job done. Which again, like I would assume they're going to lean on the run game another I'm just reading notes I jotted down, Like you don't need to be told this, but Cook is the type of guy who can do He can just generate it himself. Like they're two or three plays per game where nothing will work the way it's supposed to, and he still turns it into you know, maybe not thirty yards but like six ten yards wide. Receivers only

caught five of nineteen passes in this Chiefs game. Again, like, and the funny thing is so again boot boot action everywhere, throwing to tight ends in the flat, throwing to running backs in the flat, a mirror Abdullah, who you might remember is with the Vikings now, so that gives them a scatback option. But by the fourth quarter of this game,

the Chiefs had just sniffed it all out. Like the stuff that was working in the first quarter just stopped working because Cousins wasn't throwing downfield again, Like you didn't see much in the way of like take the snaps, stand in the pocket and look like they didn't do hardly any of that, Like it was all stuff that kind of got him on the move, or very obvious, like designed reads where you know there might be three receivers on the field, but you know where it's going,

like the stuff that Dak does with Witten and Jarwin, to be honest with you, and by the fourth quarter, it just wasn't working. So I would assume they're gonna need to get more aggressive in this game because I think the Cowboys can limit the run well enough. You saw that last week and without feeling there's not a ton that scares you. They've They've got Lakwan Treadwell, who maybe the biggest whiff of my draft prognosticating career. I thought he was going to be Dez two point zero,

and he barely has a role on this team. I'm not saying they're not good enough to hurt you. I mean they have a top ten red zone offense, they're eleventh and scoring, and again like the run game on its own, and obviously, like we've seen Cousins throw for four fifty in this building before. I just don't know. I don't think they're as explosive as they have been in the past, even those Redskins offenses. It almost sounds like this is a very similar scouting report to last week.

You got a team that can run the ball really really well, that makes a concerted effort to run the ball really really well. They have one or two options that can get you in the passing game, but by and large you don't look at their passing their passing game as being just really great and if you can get pressure on their quarterback, you can affect the game. Right.

It sounds like it's a very similar game plan to what you saw last weekend, one that the Cowboys defense executed pretty well, other than you know, just having a more veteran guy at quarterback. Although yeah, but as they've seen and that's part of it. But even with that, he's still like pressure gets him, Like pressure is the problem for him. I argued with you yesterday. I still maintain like Cousins has played some really good games against

the Cowboys, but like it, does he like genuinely scare you. No, he doesn't scare me in the sense. You know. It kind of went viral on Sunday. Just I feel like it's maybe a microcosm of who he is. I think they had third and seven and the play broke down and he made a great play to scramble and then he slid after six yards. I mean, he had the first down easy and he slid too soon. And that's just kind of like who He had a play like that too. Dak's rookie year sixteen. The Cowboys won that game,

I think twenty seven twenty three, it's pretty close. It was a fourth down play, fourth and ten. They're down to their own twenty yard line or whatever, and they got some pressure and he threw the ball away. That was the game, like two minutes to go, fourth down just to get throws it out of bounds. Yeah, I mean, what are you doing? Like that's that's the kind of stuff.

And that was a few years ago. But it's like I thought about this while I was I don't know if I wrote it down, but while I was watching, like he is, he's everything you wanted a quarterback. As long as everything goes according to plan, like if the protections there by nature is not the quarterback position exactly exactly, but like if everything's perfect, he can hurt you. Like he's got a great arm. He made a great throw to Rootolf. Yeah, I got a little more. I like

Stafford a lot more than you do. But I hear what you're saying. But he had a great throw to Rootolf in the back back of the end zone in this game where it went through three defenders, again perfectly clean. Pocket had time to stand there, wasn't really harassed. Like the minute somebody gets pushed back into him, or the proct protection breaks down or somebody's not open or whatever, it just don't I don't trust him. I don't trust him to improvise or make those gut check type of plays.

And I think that's a huge difference, not just in this game, but like that's what I love so much about Dak is it's not always picture perfect, but he does make those type of plays. All Right, we're gonna take our final break. We'll come back. Let's get some calls. You guys call us eight eight eight eight five five two two nine seven Again it is eight eight, eight, eight, five, five, two, two nine seven will take some calls when we come back.

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as far as the eye can see. The phrase two going to be true comes to mind. Get there. It is a rich, delicious doctor Pepper paradise. Wait did did that can of doctor Pepper just open itself for you? They all are as if to say, so nice to treat you. And even though it feels weird to talk to we, can you pick one up and say, it's so nice to be treated doctor Pepper, So nice to treat you. Back to the break. Hey, hey, you didn't know this. I mean the AT and T Stadium can

host a championship game. It's possible Big twelve Conference championship game. What they've hosted some championship championship of course, but Big twelve and you have a chance to watch this game this year September December, the seventh's Saturday. The top two teams from the Big Twelve Conference will be there. Kickoff is at eleven am. That's not great for that, but don't miss your opportunity to get tickets before they sell out.

Not sure who's going to be in the game. You were so kind of got a feeling who's not gonna be You were so excited about that game last year. I was not. I had a reason to be exciting, So they got too excited about it. This year saw the committee took all the credit for beating Texas away from LSU last night and they're like, now, we're not impressed by that anyway. That well, after we lose the way we lost, Yeah, there's there's no credit to be given.

Get a chance to go watch Oklahoma or Kansas State or Baylor or I don't know, I don't know who else can get in there. Texas, Yeah, I think it's gonna be Baylor and Oklahoma. Miss so glad. I don't care about college football. So you're not gonna go to sea dot Com. You don't want to be You don't want to be consumed by stress. Something is of the weekend. It really is stressful. It really is very stressful. College is way more stressful for me than NFL football. I

would no doubt about it. I would think selling tickets to this game, it would be tough. Before you know what's happening, you know, Yeah, I mean you don't know who's going to be there. Right, last year, you did, you bought your ticketbook behind and yeah after they be Oklahoma, I went and boughtom last year. All right, but I won't be doing that this year. So there'll be more tickets for you guys. All right, we appreciate you join us.

Let's let's get into some phone calls. You guys can call us eight eight eight eight five five two two ninety seven. We will start first with a call from Chris and Fort Wayne, Indiana. Chris, what up? How's it going? UM? I got a question. Um has to do with the dbs that play on that path to a Golden Tate that was on Byron Jones. It's a great catch by him.

But have you guys noticed that most of the dbs now around the league, and especially with the Cowboys, on back shoulder passes, they seem to want to if I want to use a basketball reference, they want to get into like a rebound position, hands on with the guy instead of actually turning sideways and being able to look at the ball to actually go get the ball. That's what I kind of noticed around the league now, but I see it more with the Cowboys, especially Buying Jones

lately than a lot of times with a Woozier. Didn't know if you guys had noticed that or wanted to talk about that a little bit. All right, thanks for a call. We've talked about it specifically with Cheeto and how it just doesn't ever seem like he plays the ball, which like in my head, I'm like, well, maybe they're coaching him that way because it's so easy to draw DPI, but the quickest way to draw DPI and my experience is by not playing the ball. I don't have an

awesome answer for you, unfortunately. I think somebody, um our friend Bobby Belt had a great stat I'm paraphrasing, I'm going to ruin it, but basically, Jordan Lewis has way more takeaways in way fewer games than any other dB on the roster, and maybe and by this point in his career, Byron Jones made a joke about it himself like he has bad ball skills. He just does. And it seems fair to question that about Cheetoh as well at this point too, even though he has made some

crazy athletic plays. One of those was in the preseason. But maybe that's just a factor of, well, if you don't trust your ball skills, then try to trust your coverage instead. I don't know. Yeah, I'm not really worried about you know, if guys are gonna make catches like that, I mean, there's not much you can do. You'll take the percentages that the player is not going to make that catch all the time. But I don't I don't have a good answer as far as how they're playing

the back shoulder fade and all that stuff. And I mean, if it's thrown correctly, it's really almost impossible to stop. Man. So I kind of wish the Cowboys would do it more. I wish, And I don't understand why teams don't do

it more. Why you have to do it right by the goal line, think, I mean, if it's third and two or third and three, you even have a more of an advantage because you have all this room, or you can run by somebody if you do a back shoulder fade at midfield, like you're gonna probably be wide open. Wasn't there? It seemed like to me it didn't. Just may have been four or five years ago, it seemed like that was like a lot. It was used a

lot more in the NFL. It seemed like there was a period where back shoulder fades were happening every week in every game. And now it doesn't seem like you see that nearly as normally as you saw it back. I don't know. For whatever reason, that just how it felt to me is that it felt like that was a very InVogue thing to do. Marcus Marcus Colston made a Pro Bowl career basically only catching that pass. YEA. I will say this, and this is a story point with when Dez was still here the you know, the

last two years of his career. I think you got to have a really, really accurate quarterback to really make your living throwing that pass. And I think Dak is more accurate than he gets credit for. But I don't know if that's a route that he really excels at. And we saw it not really work out right before

des left town. So again, he's more accurate than he gets credit for, but to really excel at that, like Drew Brees is incredible at it because he can put the ball exactly where he wants to every single time. I don't think that's Dak's specialty. And maybe that's why they've kind of gone away from it. All Right, let's get a call from Horse in Atlanta. Horse, what up? Hey, what's up? Guys? Hey, I've been I feel like a lot like about what Amer said. You know, my expectations

coming into the season. We're just out the roof. I expect us to be in the super Bowl, and you know, feel like we have the talent to do that. But if we don't get to the championship game, which I really don't feel like our coaching will allow us. And I say that because if you look at how we played against the Jets, you know, for example, not once did we ever really bliss them. And as you look at the other some of the other you know, Belichick, some of the other guys, they didn't give that guy

anytime whatsoever. They blissed them and he folded up like a launch air. And to me, that is what you're coaching has to do. They have to see these weaknesses and exploit them, and our coaches just don't do that, and that is what is really depressing me. I guess about this season. We have so much talent and yet we just can't seem to get out of our way, and that to me is coaching. And so, yeah, David,

I understand what you're saying. You don't want to throw it all on Garrett, but you know what, when it comes down to what he is the head coach, he is, he is the straw that stirs the glass. You know, he makes that team. They make that they make peop Awards and call these you know, trophies, Lombardi Trophies and stuff. Because these guys motivated me and to do better than what they can do. So he needs to do better if our team needs to get to that home, I

expect more from him. All right, thanks for the call, which I agree with what he just said for the most part. Is again, I don't think it's Jason Garrett's fault when a player drops a wide open pass that could have been a touchdown. But yeah, not really blitzing Sam Darneld, not doing anything to make him uncomfortable. I remember, I don't know if it was Jets week, or maybe it was even this week heading into the Giants game,

Chris Richard like, it sounds really good. It sounds like this awesome quote where he's like, we don't really we're not really focused about what they do and we talk about this all the time. He's like, it's not about them, it's not about what they're doing. It's about us, and are we executing our stuff? And like it sounds great until you really think about it, Like, so you're going to approach a rookie quarterback the same way you would like Drew Brees, Like, you don't change anything about the

way you're gonna do this. You're not You're gonna throw nothing different at this guy as if it was another guy, Like you don't think you can get away with zero blitzing Sam Darnold a little bit easier than Tom Brady. Yeah, And I it's disconcerting to me, and I think it's a deficiency of this coaching staff and has been for a while. It's interesting that he mentioned Lombardi there, because what I've read of Lombardi is he was actually the

Jason Garrett type of head coach. He was more of that line of thinking of we're going to have a certain few things that we do extremely well, Like we're gonna be so good at these few things that we're not going to necessarily go into a game and do things differently to address what the other team has a deficiency, And we're just gonna do these things really really well. And we feel like if we can do those things really really well, we can win most of our games,

if not all of our games. And obviously did that for a very long time to great success. And not only that, but he mentioned like they can motivate men. That's the part that I actually think Jason does a pretty good job at. I think he does a really good job of motivating his team. Where I kind of agree with the caller though, is I really would like for this team to adapt more to those situations because I believe the best coach in the NFL today, in

today's NFL and how it looks today, Bill Belichick. That's what he does. And it's kind of baffling to me that no other coaches, well I shouldn't say no other coaches, but it doesn't seem like anybody's been able to figure out that this formula that he's using of being able to adapt every week to whoever he's playing and take away their best offensive weapon. That is going to happen every single week. You just look at the numbers. Whoever's

the best offensive player, they're gonna take him away. And then I'm sorry, well, I mean he is coming off or just getting killed by Lamar Jackson. That is an anomaly for the New England Patriots, that is totally an anomaly. But every week they go and they look at the best offensive player and they say, how can we neutralize the best offensive player and force them to win with their second best offensive player? Right? That's what they do every week, and so I love that and it's obviously

been extremely successful. He did everything he could get those guys in position. But if you can't tackle it, you can't catch. And that's where it gets to do that thing we talked about earlier, where at the end of the day, you can't if your guy's missing a wide open you know, screen passed, and that's not on the coach. I will say that. Sorry, Nick, go ahead, well just remember about you know one thing, when you blitz, I mean, you have a chance to give up ninety yard touchdowns.

So I mean I don't know if if if that's scared off them to blitz more. But I mean, if you've got a corner who's going to fall down in our safety, who's gonna misplay the ball for nine two yard touchdown to an average receiver, it probably is going

to limit what you do blitzing more. Now, I don't I'm not saying that they shouldn't have done it more, but I mean that wasn't something they normally do, and they gave up a big one, So I would imagine that backs them off will bit like maybe doing that again. You know, I kind of disagree with the caller when it comes to the talent. I think I don't think this team is as talented as everyone says. I think it's such an easy thing to say this team's got

the talent. They got the talent to be pretty good, but I don't think they've got talent that that's far and above about everybody else. I don't I think they've got they've got They're very top heavy, they got a lot of Pro bowlers, but I don't think they've got this talented roster. Because if they did, they had all this talent, you don't lose two or three guys and then get beat by the worst team in football. I

don't think they have as much talent as you think. Well, it goes back to adjusting and how the coaches adjust. I think I always go back to the same reference and just looking at what Chris Richard was able to do with Byron Jones, a guy that everyone was getting ready to get rid of, and here comes Chris Richard and changes everything for Byron, turning him into a pro bowler guy. So to me, it does come from the coach and you do have the talent, and it's like,

how do you utilize it? And it upsets me or frustrates me. I would say the fact that you look at how much resource you have here, and you have a whole staff that looks at other teams and watches their games and gets all this preparation to give to the coaches as they prepare each week to face the opponent,

and it's like, how are you preparing? Like you you should have a very very good idea of what this team is going to look like as far as the opponent, and you should have a great game plan as to okay, here's a B or C depending on what they do. This is how we're going to attack, and we don't really get to see that, So I don't know. The resources are there, you should be doing it, They're not doing it, So I don't know. I'm right there with you.

And I've complimented Jason Garrett so many times for the Monday to Saturday motivating. Is it showing up on game days this year? Honestly? I mean it takes them about a half to really get cranked every week. But you know something, and again, sorry, I'm sitting here saying, well, it's not Jason Garrett's fault that guys are dropping passes and getting penalized, And I really I it's hard to determine where to come down on that, but the bottom line is they haven't. They've come out firing like one

time in eight attempts. So who's making the adjustments though? Absolutely? Or I mean if it was the other way around and they came out and then that kept losing, they would be like, this team can't make adjustments in the second half. So yeah, I don't know. It's a sixty minute game, that's the thing. Like, I know that they

need to get a faster start. I have less of a problem with them having a slow start if they can win, right, because I look at there's some good teams around the NFL that are similar, Like I've seen Seattle several several times this year get off slow starts and then they get it going and for by the end of game they win. You're not going to score a touchdown on your on you know, you're not gonna

score twenty one points in three possessions every week. I understand that, but it's just the general competency of it all, like they just they don't see him ready sometimes. And again I think that's why Amber and I were so down on the Giants win is they started like that against the Packers, who are a good team, and it killed them. But the Giants were not. In my opinion, the Giants game was not a situation of them not being ready because if you notice they were moving the ball,

it was mistakes that killed them. So that's not a matter of being ready. That's yeah. I'm not trying to put it all at the coaches. Yeah I'm really not. But again, like if it is, why does it keep happening? Can't And that's that's all I'm saying, is you're not going to score a touchdown on every possession, But just do the basic stuff and you'll probably be in a better position. I don't know, all right, Well, appreciate you guys. You want us for back tomorrow normal time, eleven forty

five will get into this Vikings defense till then. For Nick Eatman, Dave Helmant Amber Garcia. I am Derek Eagleton. This has been The Break live on Dallas Cowboys dot Com Radio. This has been a production of Dallas Cowboys dot Com and the Dallas Cowboys Football Club.