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Cowboys Let's go.
Are you ready for a break?
Yes?
Are you ready for a break?
Absolutely?
Ready for a break? Yeah, and so much for that.
It's time for the Break on Dallas Cowboys dot Com right with Mbar Garcia, Brian brought Us, Nick Harris, and Derek Eagleton.
It is Monday, October fourteenth, twenty twenty four, Season twenty, episode number forty eight. Welcome to the latest edition of The Break. We are a Live ins WBC Mortgage studios at the Star were presented by LGLG as the world's number one O lead TV brand for eleven years in counting See why at LG dot Com.
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I thought you were going to turn around. It was like, actually, that's a good idea. I'm gonna turn back around with you know what.
I was watching the Giants miss the field goal.
That was a bad one. I was watching it watching I was kind of I was.
Kind of thinking that he really missed that. Yeah, but that just shows you, well, you got a kicker that makes field goals.
So yeah, life could be worse, could be worse.
Thanks for that positive note, man, I'm over here that we'll find maybe one or two others throughout the context of this show.
It was a rough one yesterday for the Cowboys.
There make no mistake about it that that was maybe the worst loss of the season. That's saying a lot because that New Orleans game was pretty bad. But yesterday it looked like Dallas just couldn't figure out what they were doing and couldn't get on on a roll on either side of the ball. But let's talk about it. Cowboys lose forty seven to nine to the Detroit Lions. To start at the story of the game. Let's go around the table, Nick, what what for you was a story of this game?
Physicality, toughness.
I'm going to sound like a broken record here, but I think all of those issues really compounded in this game. You go up against a really physical, a really tough team in Detroit, and you add add in a little sprinkle of engines that they were looking to enact from that loss last December, and what happened. A thirty eight point loss, the worst loss in the history of AT and T Stadium, the worst loss, and Jerry Jones ownership of the last however many years it's been I don't
feel like doing thirty five. Now there you go, thank you. I appreciate that, Brian. But yeah, it was it was physicality and toughness. And you saw that from the very first drive until the very last drive, even when the backups were in the game, it was it was toughness and uh, they were just outmanned and they were outmatched physically from the get go. And when you are outmatched on every single play, this is the results you get.
This is what This is what happens when you don't when you don't preach physicality, when you don't come into come into a season trying to be tougher. I think that's kind of the product of what happened here, and we're only going to continue to see it throughout the season. I was able to talk to some players throughout the locker room access and Dak Prescott about what can you do to be more tough U. We can talk about
that as a show goes on. But you know, they're they're they're looking for a lot of answers right now. They don't really have them at the moment.
And that's the concerning part it's like what you hear from them doesn't really give you any sense of hope as far as like, Okay, this is the plan and this is what we're going.
To try to work on and get better at. Like you don't. So that's the difficult.
Part to deal with at the moment, there's no sense of direction or what you're actually going to be working on and trying to execute. And we'll talk about the defense. Obviously not good when you allow forty seven was it forty seven points? But at the same time, and we talked about it during the game, Derek, we were looking at the defense, We're like, okay, well they got what they got at the moment, but they're out there trying
to fight and make some plays. I think there were a lot of different players that we still saw some aggressiveness and some willingness to go in there and do what they can to help the team. But I can't say the same on the offense. It's like the offense, there's really no excuses. I think you look at all the players and the talent that you have. You do have talented players, you have people that you can work with, You have people that you paid money. A lot of
money too. You have players that are healthy, but yet you cannot score a single touchdown. You cannot scheme these guys properly to get them to the end zone. And that's something that's very, very concerning, especially you're heading now into week seven, you're heading into the bye week training camp. Talk it's over at this point of the season. You should have some type of rhythm or something that is working for you, and you cannot figure out either on the running game or the passing game.
Yeah, this one was going to come down to how well your offense was going to be able to play. You were just too in my opinion, too limited to what you could do defensively in this game. And Nick, I like what you're saying about the physicality aspect of it. I feel like we might have overrated an offensive line here for the Dallas Cowboys. Even the best five that we thought, maybe Cowboy Nation thought as best five really
wasn't your best five. And you're showing like a team that struggles at right tackle sixty five plays five plays might be really bad. You have a Hall of Fame right guard, it's not a Hall of Fame right guard anymore. You have a center that's really young who's trying to play the position and pick up twist stunts, but he's kind of confused when that happens, which allows pressure into the quarterback's face. The All Pro guards now playing left tackle because your normal left tackle is so banged up
he can't go in the game. He was on the sideline address, but he was so he was banged up to the point they really didn't want to start him, so they said, okay, let's go with these five that finished the Steelers game. He had some problems at tackle in this game where all of a sudden he steps down, here comes a free rusher. Dack's now in trouble. Boom, there's a hit, balls not where it needs to be.
Maybe the ball's high, maybe it's overthrown. But you're you're dealing with an offensive line that we thought maybe would be a strength in actuality. They're really average right now, they really are. They can't really run the ball, they can't get any push. The backs are struggling with that themselves. I know everybody's complaining about the number of carriers that zeke, but go back and watch the running game. There's really If you're asking me that, okay, here's a good scheme.
Here's a good scheme thing to do. Nick. Let's take Tolbert and try and block him on hutchetson when we're running a play going away and see how that works. Not very well. You know. Let's try and block Schoonmaker over here on an all pro guy and see how that works one on one. Not going to work very well, by the way, bad idea, Bad idea. Tell you what. Though, they schemed a nice job with Edie Lamb that first catch one handed ketch. But hey, look at this little
scheme stuff working here. We're gonna switch the routes and we're gonna drive it and we're gonna clear it.
So after that first drive, I was like, man, we're in for a shootout. This is gonna happen.
There we go, Yeah, here we go. So to you, but that's you know, and you and you and you're like you're sitting here thinking it's they're capable. They're capable, but offensively they're just not good enough. They're not good enough. They don't run the ball well at times, they don't pass protect well enough. Uh there receivers, you know, when when they do have what we call creative routes. I know, Brad Sham and I get out and go back and
forth about this. I hate the word creativity in ways of football because I think there's there's things that you know, you naturally need to do, and you know you can kind of figure some things out, and they have some creative plays. If you go back and watch the game, there'll be some creative plays. Balls behind the receiver, balls too high over the receiver, quarterbacks got a guy in his lap, running back didn't didn't run, hit the right hole.
That's why you lose football games. You know. Defensively, you did not have the personnel to play against that offense. Nick, I'm gonna tell you this, even if you had Parsons, Lawrence, Bland, Carson, all these guys Orleans, it might have been a nass kicking too. You know. That's how good that offense is because they do things to you and they put you under a lot of stress, you know, and that was going to be your offense needed to be good enough to kind of make it a shootout. They couldn't make
it a shootout. I'm probably because they're probably not good enough.
I'm gona circle back to you on that creativity point, but I feel like we have bigger things to address.
Well, you know what, I'll say this, I was very disappointed from the standpoint that yesterday in a game, we have so many players that you don't have. You're playing a team as good as this team is, you're playing at home where the last two outings that you've had, or the last three outings you've had at home haven't been very inspiring. The players that are the best players on the team that you needed most to step up
at moments yesterday failed you. You go down the list and Dak didn't play this great game, his best game. You mentioned Martin and I I have throughout his career. I've loved this player and what he brings to the table.
That's not what we're seeing anymore. He might we're seeing anymore.
Yeah, if you talked him on the side, he might tell you he goes man, that was a rough one.
Yeah, that might have been the worst game I've seen him play.
And I mean to the point where it was consistently he was giving up pressure. You look at Ferguson and that that wasn't gonna be an easy catch. But that's a catch when you're Jake Ferguson, you make that catch.
That was a design play. If you look at it, they put him on the right side and they kind of delay him to run, and it's you thought when he threw it, I thought that's a yolo ball. You know you only live once. Yeah, I thought that was a yolo pass. You go back and watch on tape. It was a design play. Yeah you know it's a design pass. But yeah, you know you've seen Jacobers.
I've seen to make more differ catches in that dig yesterday, I don't think played his best football. There were moments when it was like, what are you? There were opportunities
to make a tackle and he just he wasn't. Then We've seen that before, and so I just I think when you look at it, I don't think anybody can walk away from that game and say, man, I gave him everything that I had and gave him the best of what I have, because, yeah, I've seen so many of these players play so much better football than what I saw yesterday, And in moments like that, that's when I need my best players to really step up and
be better than even what they are normally. And that's just not what they got yesterday, So you didn't give yourself even a chance when you're playing against a team that's as good as Detroit is.
To the Traylon Digs point four targets, four receptions for eighty yards, and a touchdown when targeting Traylon Digs a perfect passer rating, and then going to the Zach Martin point, he allowed seven pressures yesterday.
That's a career high.
Yeah.
His previous career high was five.
Yeah, it's it would just there were just so many things where it was like, I need these guys to be playing at their very best, because I have enough guys out there who are young, who are inexperienced, who may not be as good, who I'm gonna have to already take up for and kind of pull the slack for them. If your best players aren't playing like your best players, then you really just don't have a chance at all. All Right, let's do this, let's take a
quick break. Well, we're gonna come back all over again.
It's like this, I mean, the similarities there offensively is just like you. You literally and this has been shown throughout the season so far, like you've had I can't even remember the first game, I know that was a bigger score. I can't remember how the offense overall looked.
Like in the Cleveland game. The yeah, second half, it was a non It was kind of a no show. They really didn't move the ball all the first half.
But I mean you could say similar things about a lot of games this year that even when they have played well, it hasn't been a full game.
You're not doing much of anything.
You got rezone problems, you can't score points, touchdowns, You're relying on your kicker, which should not be the answer. And what is the stressful is like you don't see any type of improvement in that in those areas to where you're like, Okay, we're getting better here, and like you can at least talk about it and work with that. But right now, at this point, it just feels like, what the heck are we gonna do?
What are we expecting?
Now?
They are who they are? Is Bill Parcells would say, they are who they are right now?
I mean, that's you can't And I said this last night. I was talking to my wife.
I was like, I've been giving this offense the benefit of the doubt. I think that they were still just as good as they were last year. And I even forgot what they were before they got past the San Francisco game, because they were pretty bad before that. And then they seem to get on a roll and then we started to see the offense really kind of come into its own and I gave them the benefit of the doubt that that's who they still were.
I was like, surely the.
Loss of Tony Pollett wouldn't make that much of a difference, but they haven't really lost a lot of other pieces. And and right now what we're seeing is that this offense is not what they were last year.
I don't know if it's all Tony Pollard or.
Not Tyron Smith seeing the effect of Tyrone.
Maybe Tyron.
But also the part about Tyrant is you couldn't allow on him to be there last year for all all those games.
Yeah, so at least, but at least he was a he was a he was a major part of it. There. Now you have questions that left.
Tackle, Yeah, well you got questions all along, you do, but really think about it is you have questions to left tackle, but your right guard, as you mentioned, is his the bar was so high that he's just playing as a mere mortal right now.
Yeah, Yeah, he's a he's an average guy right now, which is crazy to say because he's such a great player and he's been such a great player. It's just not that's not what yesterday looked like.
For sure.
Are we're gonna take our first break, We'll come back, We'll dab a little deeper into the offense. Let's talk about Dak Prescott will be back. Dallas Cowboys dot com Radio.
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Back to the.
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Welcome back.
It is the second segment of The Break live from the SWBC Mortgage studios at the star of the segment brought to you by blockchain dot Com.
All right, let's talk about Dak Prescott.
He was seventeen thirty three fifty two percent completion, one hundred and seventy eight yards, passing, zero touchdowns, two interceptions, forty two point two rating.
What are your thoughts on how Dak performed?
Yes today, Yeah, really poorly.
We've seen him struggle throughout the course of his career against against his own type defenses, and I think Detroit threw a little bit more at him than what he maybe anticipated. And just for one play that could kind of sum it all up was the Brian Branch interception. The first one where you know, he had Dak believing that he was going to go into account for Jalen Tolbert on the checkdown and then as soon as that ball was released, he turned back and be lined to
that ball and he was right there for it. So you know, that's a ball that Dak's got to push to the corner. He's got to push it up a little bit. He's got to trust CD's athleticism a little bit more. And then on CD's end, he's got to play defense a little bit better than that. You know. But I think, all in all, the day that Dak Prescott had it's one of the worst that I've seen in person over the course of my last couple of
years covering this team. You know, I think back to the forty nine ers performance last year, and it was very similar in the sense that rhythm was never established. His receivers were just getting fought in the secondary over and over. And I got to give credits to the officials. They let them play for the most part. They called a couple of penalties. But Detroit they brought that physicality in the secondary as well, and it disrupted the timing.
It disrupted the rhythm of this offense. And when this offense does not have timing and it does not have rhythm, it is inserviceable.
And we saw that on full display on Sunday afternoon.
I'm still that word inserviceable. I like that I do too.
It's a good word.
It's an educated guy talking right there.
Sometimes sometimes go ahead.
Brian, Yeah, I think the thing. I think the thing with Dak is that, to me, there there were opportunities in this game. Not a lot of them, but man, there were some things that they had set up to try and make it happen. We talked about the past. The first the first inside passed, the one hand catch to Lamb. I mean to me, I'm like, there you go, capable of this stuff, you know, And there was some things that they did that he's absolutely right about. The branch.
Branch had a couple of interceptions. The one that over the middle to Brooks was just a really poorly thrown ball. I mean, he you know, there was some little bit of pressure, but he was able to get it out. The pass on the end zone, the one and the that was intercepted, it's kind of like Dallas, I guarantee
you this is what happened. They probably ran that play like three times in gold Line period on practicing it, and every single time they told the corner to bite on the or the the man in the flat to bite on the cross did it on their own. Yeah, well That's what I'm saying, like or yeah, so all of a sudden, Now it's like, okay, this guy this
you know, it's Brian Branch. He's an instinctive player, and you're thinking, Okay, this guy's gonna we're gonna play it like this guy is gonna drive on the drive on the because they're gonna run a screen. They fake basically the screen is what they do. So they get Tolbert like this is gonna bubble, and then he takes off and then out and they're thinking that maybe Branch is gonna but man, he just he's like no. Dak's looking at CD the whole time coming across. You can see it.
You could see it in his eyes. I mean he's looking at him, and Branch is like, you're not throwing this ball that flat. Throw it behind me here, you know. And that's just a good instinctive play.
Especially on third down too.
Yeah.
They were never gonna throw it short of the sticks, right.
There, never never were so Yeah. Unfortunately though that, I think the play caller wasn't particularly good. I don't think the quarterback was particularly good. I think the line was particularly good. A lot of pressure there, they didn't they don't run the ball. So bad day all around, if you want to point the finger, the quarterback takes the arrows. He stands up there and has to answer all the questions. Everybody else kind of, you know, says, we'll look in
the mirror and kind of figure it all out. I do believe this. They are who they are. You're right, it has to be almost perfect for them to have a successful play. I mean they can't. It's it just sometimes if they're off schedule and all that, the creativity of it all. I use that word there, but it's a it was. It was not a good day and they needed a good day from their offense. And I think their offense just watching it now through six weeks, it kind of like I say, it is what it is.
It's it's not good enough.
I just I don't understand it.
We know Dak is better than what he's shown so far this season and what he showed in this particular game.
I mean we talk about the pressure. Yes, sure there was a lot of pressure, but there were a lot of plays that I saw where the pressure wasn't that bad and he was still making bad decisions where he was just throwing the ball to who knows who and then doing who knows why, And we talk about I know I brought this up after some other game, I don't remember what, but the Dak's ability to run and the mobility, and you mentioned the whole ankle thing that
happened during the off season. Well at this point, I mean, I don't want to say I don't care, because if I really hurt, you care.
About, but like do something.
You know, there were instances, There are instances where he has the ability to kind of just get out of the pocket and just gain a few more yards while he figures out the target and throws it. We've seeing him be able to throw good balls when on the run. So that's an area of the game that is not being used at all, not even when they're getting close to the red zone in that area where I think
it can be very beneficial to them. And that's the whole element that's been taken away when you're already struggling without a running game. Overall, I think there are a lot of elements in the game that I think Mike McCarthy is not really utilizing it to his advantage. And we talk about you mentioned Derek Hunter Lipke, another guy that we've mentioned on here all the time, did he do anything yesterday?
He was a sniffer blocker yesterday, a sniffer. Sniffer blocker.
I heard a sniffer in the locker room.
Got here with the knickerbockers, plays right behind the right behind the line of scrimmage and kind of sniffs out stuff that's going on there.
They certainly didn't give him the ball, throw.
The ball, or can him the ball.
They did not touch the all. He did not touch them all.
He was a blocker yesterday.
You guys guys that you can kind of try something different with and you're not so. I mean, this whole thing kind of falls back into Mike McCarthy as a play caller and what he's doing currently. I don't know much about football, but what I watch without very little knowledge, compared to what they have over there on that side of the building and what they get paid for, to me,
it seems like it looks easier from my perspective. Again, I respect what they're doing, but it just from our bird's eye point of view, it looks like you have the tools to create something better and do something that you're not doing right now, like you're not. Again, I don't want to bring up Nativity.
But yes, I'm the one with the creativity. It's it's the right, it's right. But the thing that this the trade team on offense from binds me. The old Cowboy teams that win Super Bowls, you know, when you try and kind of take things away from them, they kind of figure something else out. They figure out how to run the ball, or they figure out how to throw it to the tight end. That play that they designed,
the double you know, the double River. That's that's a I think that's a play someone was telling me, and I need to go back and look at this. It's a play at San Francisco ran against you last year. Do it the kittle for a touchdown? Same play, you know. So that's maybe it's like, hmm, maybe we can steal this play from you know, somebody. And but that's that's where I think with the Cowboys offensively though, it's it's
just such a struggle. And it's just such a struggle because of the line struggles, the quarterback struggles at times, they don't run the ball, as I said, and your receivers don't always make plays for you, you know. So that's I mean, it's you just you watch these other teams that have so much success moving the ball. Detroit's probad of a bad example because they've got one of
the best lines in football. They got really good young talent with Williams and Saint Brown as the receivers, Laporta at that tight end, is Hues and two of the best backs in the league. You see what they did to you. They just kept interchanging those guys. Montgomery the carry and then the next guy, and they went is back and forth with how they you know, and that's everybody's kind of getting on him, like, huh, you got a running back already and you're drafting one in the
first round. Okay, stupid. They look pretty they look pretty smart.
It's a full now.
Their offensive line is really good.
It's awesome.
Those dudes. They play on their feet. They don't worry about your down guys, they block. Their tight ends are good at blocking, you know. They they really they're there. And they got a really fun play caller. I mean he he was trying to embarrass you yesterday. He really was throwing the ball to the tackle and stuff like that. I mean he's like he's like, you know, who's practicing plays to like catch it and pitch it to the your all pro right tackle.
I love big boy touchdown so much. I caught myself whenever was reaching in.
Get in crazy. But that's what you that's what you're up against yesterday, you know, and you you look the opposite of what that And that's probably kind of a bad example because that's one of the best offenses is in the league.
Let's take our actually, let's real quick, we get this one last topic in before we go to break.
Talk about the offensive line. Brian. I know you went down the line and they.
Had lots of struggles, and what I saw was that the majority of the struggles seemed to be on the right side. There were some some things on the left side, but on the right side, it seemed like every play there.
Was something going on over there. They just didn't seem right. My question for you is, how do you fix that?
Because you ain't getting rid of Zach this year, which I'm not saying you should, but that's not changing Steel is not necessarily I don't know if you've got another guy you could.
Even put there in place of him. So what other than them playing better?
Is there anything the Cowboys can do to help the right side of.
The line.
Man, we're just gonna look at each other the whole show here.
I don't know. I mean to me that it's yeah.
There's one solution.
There's one solution that's been tossed around on by fans, and it's played right tack guid in a right tackle and I I think you could do that if you didn't have so much investment wrapped up in terrence.
But is it?
But my question would be for them that may be a long term solution could be. But do you think that after not playing right tackle through from training camp and he get played in college, do you think that he's going to be any better at right tackle than maybe what we've seen already at left tackle, Because at left tackle, we know he's got a lot of development to do. So are you just changing out one problem for another potential problem if you put him at right tack.
I think it's also maximizing Tyler Smith at left tackle if you feel comfortable with what he's done there, and then it's putting Tyler Gotten back into a situation of comfortability. Even though he was protecting a blindsided Oklahoma and there was still aspects that he was able to carry over to the left side. I think putting him back on the right side could help in the long run, but I don't see this team doing that. I feel like it's a wasted conversation. Honestly, they are going to keep
tern Steel there and ride it out with him. Yeah, Honestly, if you look at how Terrence Steel started the season last year and how he finished the year last year, those last six seven games that Terrence Steel had some of the best play he's had in his entire career. And I think they still feel like that that can come rear rear back around through the back half of the season.
I think it's San Francisco, you're gonna see guiding a left tackle, stell A Smith back at left guard.
Yeah, I agree, I don't.
I don't think they're going to tinker with this thing anymore. Like I said, the you're just not good enough up front right now. You just you know, you've got to get Guiden experience. You got to get BB experience. Smith will be fine, Martin, you you ride that. That's that's a Hall of Fame player over there. It's kind of like the same problems you talked about with Tyron Smith. You know, you're like, Oh, I don't know. It's some
days it's great, some days it maybe not. But you know, and then you've got to figure out the right tackle stuff. I just feel like that. To me, it's it's asking a lot and they're they're not going to do anything about it. They they tried. You know, their future is with BB at center and Guidance at left tackle, and I think that's how they're going to continue to play.
Let's take our final break.
We will come back and we'll talk a little bit about the defensive side of the ball.
Not much that was surprising about.
Yesterday, but there are some points that we need to kind of figure out and then talk about a couple of players on that side of the ball. We'll back Dallas Cowboys dot com radio.
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Back to the break.
A TNT connecting changes everything.
Welcome Back.
Final segment of the break line from the SWBC Mortgage studios at the Star were presented by LG.
Let's talk about the defensive side of the ball.
Yesterday, man, they continued the struggles with stopping the run.
They allowed Lions to.
Pick up on thirty six rushes. They picked up one hundred and eighty four yards running a rushing five point one average two touchdowns.
To be honest with you, there was a point.
Early in the game, maybe second quarter, when I was like, it almost feels like they're playing with them, because if they just decided they were just going to line up and run every down they could, the Cowboys were really not stopping them from running. They were just doing trick plays and running all kinds of stuff around there. It just seems like they were kind of toying with them a little bit, But the run defense is where it all starts, and I don't think it was really existent yesterday.
And I think that obviously you look at those numbers and you say that if you start breaking it down, where do you guys think was the biggest point of failure for the defense from the standpoint zopping the run yesterday?
I think getting blown off the ball line of scrimmage was just dominated by Detroit and that was on both sides of the ball. Before talking defensively specifically, I was able to kind of see some all twenty two this morning and it just kind of reaffirmed my thoughts that I saw yesterday. I mean, Golston wasn't horrible, and he was still bad and he was probably your best player on the defensive line yesterday. Mazzie Smith just reverted back to what we saw against the Saints and the Ravens.
You could say the same for the rest of the interior guys, Lynval, Joseph Carlos, Watkins when he had some opportunities, kJ Henry carl Lawson. I mean, none of those guys generated anything in the run game. And so what does that do makes life more difficult for that second level. I mean, fortunately you saw a couple of plays where de Mont Clark was able to kind of be line in and find the run gap, and Marvin Overshown did
the same thing. But for the large majority of the game, the second level was having to play multiple gaps at once, and then that's just asking your defense to do too much at that point, and then once they get into the secondary, nobody in your secondary can make a tackle.
So that's when you saw.
Davidlgomery throwing guys around, and my goodness, Trayvon Diggs, I when it comes to tackling, specifically in the run game, I don't he's had some bad games.
I don't think there was one worse than this.
I just I can't think of one off the top of my head where he just wasn't he wasn't trying to tackle guys. And whenever that happens, from getting blown off the ball to second level having to play multiple gaps at once, and then they get into the secondary and those guys are like, I'm good, that's what happens. One hundred and eighty three yards and however many carries. I mean, that's that's what happens.
Yeah, I think if you talk about the secondary. I think Wilson was fine. I think I think Lewis was one of your better players when you look at that. I will say this though about the secondary, though, that they're man. This team will will stretch you out with the routes they run and how they replace each other three to one side, one to the middle. You know, they do a lot of things, and you know it was it was a difficult day for them in the
backd and I think they messed with Hooker. I think they messed with with Digs, you know, Ao sometimes as well. I mean, it's just to show the biggest problem yesterday with you defensively, and Nick's not wrong about the physicality. Those young linebackers had a hard day. They had a hard day because of all the things that's going on. The play action, the fits, the routes behind them, the routes to the flat. You know, everything was messing with
them the whole day yesterday. And you know you could see that daimone Clark just clearly does not look like he knows where he needs to be or where he needs to fit. You know, all of a sudden, I mean I think they've dropped one ball this year. I think that the Williams inside breaking route was the first drop that they had that was clear. Yeah, and you know what they did. They came back and ran the same play and then they hit it. You know, they're like,
damn it, we got to get this guy back going. Yeah. Very next they threw the ball behind but on the first one on the drop, you see DeMont Clark looking around like WHOA, what's going on? And then the route breaks behind him and it was it was a it was a really rough day for a lot of young players yesterday. And you know, but you're, like I said, even if you had all your starters, that was going to be a different a difficult game. Maybe you had a game like last year, maybe it'd been a little
bit closer. But man, that the Lions knew what they wanted to do running the football. Their offensive line is really good at playing on their feet. They aren't they're not on the ground. The way that they block, the way they get the second level, the way they cut you off, and they make it very very difficult for anybody to have to move the ball on him that way.
Honestly, I'm just surprised we had enough bodies to even be at a game like being half players on the field because at this rate, uh, And we'll hear the report later on on Leu Fou. We know he got out of the game, that he finished the game, but walking out of the locker room, I mean his whole sholder was wrapped up in bandages and stuff. So that's another guy that's banged up. Luckily, by week starts now and they'll have time to rest and get some of
those guys back. But the concerning part is here, even when the starters come back, how is this defense like that? It still doesn't promise you that this defense is gonna be able to take the next step and be better than what they've been. They were already struggling with the starters, especially in the run defense. So right now, honestly, I just feel like a fool I've been. I feel like
I've been. I don't know what the heck I saw during training camp where I really bought into what Mike Zimmer was selling and trying to implement with this defense. I was very, very excited, and honestly, the thing that I was looking forward to the most was this defense and what he was going to do with it.
And right now.
There's nothing exciting about it, and and the kind of job he's done at the moment. I don't know what you guys think about the offense. The defensive coordinator.
Yeah currently, Yeah, Mike is and I really believed that it was going to be buttoned up. It hadn't been buttoned up. You still see the problems, the busts and stuff that that they're dealing with. And we've always kind of talked about with Mike playing with and wanting to play with guys they're smart players and stuff like that, that maybe some of those big plays that we'd seen in the Green Bay with Dan Quinn in that group when it was just guys running wide open, would not
be that case. Mike's Mike's reputation, Mike as a coach was as a button up guy. This is not a buttoned up defense. It's a defense. They're playing a lot of young guys. Not an excuse. Mike will tell you that's not an excuse. Got to coach them, got to get them ready, got to help them make plays. They're not making plays. And you know, as a as a unit, coaches included, Uh, they are really really struggling with it, with it with their guys now because they got a
lot of young guys. There are a lot of young guys are making mistakes and Mike might be a little handicapped aways calling his defenses, but that's on him too. They I like you, Amber, I was excited about them not giving up big, big plays, but those explosive plays have been especially the home games have just been it's been embarrassing. To be honest with you, Well.
I just honestly, I do put some of it. Obviously, the coordinator has to take.
A passion to take the blame. But the fact a matter.
Is, like I think, it all starts with the fact that if you are a defense that cannot stop the run, and quite frankly, if you cannot on the front line, if you cannot do the job of number one, keeping offensive linemen off your linebackers, of being able to hold up at the point of attack, of being able to set the edge, all these basic things you learn about playing defense at an early age when you play football.
If they're not able to do those things successfully and consistently, the defense overall is going to hurt.
Like that.
You just it all compounds and the way offenses can get to all the other things is if they've got you to where you can't stop the run, then everything else is open to them and you have no shot. And I think that's where it starts and ends for me. And really that goes down to the personnel you have upfront. Maybe losing all those guys that you lost at the defensive end position, and I'm talking going back to free agency,
maybe that affected you. Maybe having your first round pick from a couple of years ago not being able to step up and consistently be what a first round pick should be is affecting you. I think that's where I start and finish this thing, and for me, you know, everything else is going to go from that. And I'm not sure that's a fair deck to give someone like Mike Zimmer, but it is what it is. He accepted it, and when you accept the challenge, you got to also
check the blame if it doesn't work. But I will say I think a lot of this has to do with them just not having the personnel necessarily to be able to.
Stop the run right now. And that's that's just a fact in my opinion.
It goes back to Nick's physicality part of it too, though stopping the run, being physical, all those things.
I asked Dak last night and his press or what can you do to be a more physical team? Like within the gap of a season? You know, how can you just implum withdraw?
Yeah, exactly.
I asked Jordan Lewis and de Montclark the same things, but I think Dak probably gave me the better answer, and he was saying, we have to practice harder, we have to prepare harder. And I think whenever you look at a team that has had multiple practice injuries over the course of the last two years, where do you
find the balance? You know, where do you find the balance between increases and physicality but also understanding that your team is one more injury away from being in that top ten of that draft that.
We were talking about, Brian. So, I mean, it's a tough juggle.
It's something I would like to ask Mike McCarthy today, just being like, how how do you balance wanting to increase physicality without sacrificing more depth on your team? So I think I truly believe it's just ingrained in the culture of what you have instituted over the course of the last two and a half years. Because when Mike McCarthy first got here. I don't feel like that was
necessarily a problem. Like even in that twenty twenty season when they were just getting blown out, there was toughness in some of those games. There was more toughness shown in a couple of those games. And we're today, which is wild to say, looking at twenty twenty one, twenty twenty two, I feel like those were the best chances here in the MacCarthy era. You look, last year, physicality, toughness just what nosedive and this year it's it's just going deeper into the earth.
So and what's really interesting is you can see, I mean you literally can see what Dan Campbell brought to that team from this from the moment he stepped in the building. When it comes to physical the Detroit Lions will never considered the most physical or one of the more physical teams in the NFL. He walked in and from day one was like, if nothing else, we're going to be tough and physical, Like we're gonna be physical.
And we all laughed at him too.
Yeah, And now you look at that team and they have built that team. He has literally built that They have built that team. I shouldn't just say him. They have built that team to whereas you talked about Brian, yet they got a bunch of skill guys. Yeah, but even the skill guys are a little nasty, like they got They play with a certain level of aggression. That is you can point back to the coach coming in.
That's all about.
I think the coach bringing that mentality to that team, and that's how they play. And if you're gonna play them, you better match that because if you don't match it, you're not gonna you're not gonna succeed against them.
Let's bringing David Coggins.
Let's hire Doggains bringing him and have some you know, because that's more.
Than physical, that's crazy. Like Davidgins, he's on a whole different level though.
He'll push you to your limit.
I mean, all I have to do is listen to him, and I think I can run through a wall. So I don't know something I'm just saying some kind of inspiration, motivational speaker or something.
I even wonder to some degree, I wonder if if he were being honest, Like not to say he's not being honest, but obviously coaches have certain things that they will say publicly and not. I wonder if if Mike really believes physicality is their problem, you know, I.
Wonder, I don't. I don't, but I don't know that.
And I know how football guys sometimes can say, no, it's really about execution, it's really about we just gotta This guy's got to do his job. This guy's got to do his job. I wonder if he would really think that physicality.
Is is the issue. He thinks not getting turnovers is a big thing, and over too much.
He thinks he had five yesterday.
I think the biggest problem. He probably feels like turning the ball over is a huge problem for him, and not getting any turnovers that that seems like to be his focus right now.
All right, appreciate you guys joining us. We'll be back tomorrow. Actually we will not have.
To see you guys next week.
We're going to we're doing our mix up shows tomorrow and Wednesday, So we got a whole different crew rolling in here for the break. You guys will all be shipped off the places.
I mean the morning, the very morning, bright off the jump, nine am, who's got nine a M? Is that to you?
With sol?
That's all Kyle's signature at the end of.
I think you said you're.
On the Break tomorrow eleven.
It will be myself, Nick Eatman will be joining me, and we'll have our new guy, Tommy Yarsh meeting us as well. And I think Bonnie Jill will be on with us. So we got a nice Yeah.
I'm interested to see how we how we mix in on this show.
What so I put gum under the table and I just touched it.
No, you're kidding.
I paid way too much. Well, Garry paid way too much for the studio, is a proper in the show.
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