Cowboys Break: Encouraging Loss?

Season seventeen, episode number eighteen. Welcome to the the latest edition of The Break, Real Life from the s WBC Mortgage Studios. At the start and we got to talk about the Cowboys first game of the season. They lose thirty one to twenty nine, but there are mixed opinions as to what that might mean. We're gonna get into all that

throughout today's show. We're gonna tell you what when right and wrong for the Cowboys, where they played well and where they had some questionable moments that maybe could have led to a win. I want to start though, with the big prevailing question I think coming out of a game like this, and we alluded to it last week, when you play as well as the Cowboys did on the road against the defending champions even though you lost the game. Do you look at this as a moral

victory or do you look at as just another loss? Dave? You know what's funny, Like they didn't even play that well, No, I'm not in the grand like, not in the grand scheme, And I'm thinking about special teams missques leaving four points on the field, like they had a lot of dumb stuff, Like they didn't play the cleanest game in the world. That's what I mean by that. But like I'm sorry people that just want to win all the time, like I am hype today, Derek, I am hype, and I

can't tell you I thought that was my role. What are you doing? But see, the thing is is I'm not going to try to tell you what it means for eighteen weeks of the season. But this team can hang and that matters because they could not last year. I mean, like winning is the name of the game. They're oh and one. There's nothing they can do to change that. But you got a chance every time you take the field with a quarterback like Dak Prescott. That's

really that's what it boils down to for me. And if you throw in a defense, they can get takeaways. They're not gonna get four every week, but if they can reliably do it against somebody as good as Tom Brady, and maybe the Bucks aren't. Maybe the Bucks will struggle this year, maybe they're you know, we don't know, but it's a pretty good bet that they'll be good. Tom Brady's missed the playoffs how many times in his career? Like once? Seriously, how many times is Tom Brady miss

the playoffs in his career? Like oh eight when he tores a c all week one, Like, didn't even count that one because Tom's h and O two right after his first of seven Super Bowls. Every other he's in the playoffs every other fricking year. So they'll probably they were an eleven win team that year, ten winting that year that they didn't get they'll probably be in the playoffs.

And the Cowboys went to their house and took it to the wire and know they didn't win, But I can't knitpick that too much after what we had to sit through last year. Man. And I think sometime in the third quarter when they or maybe it was no in the I'm sorry, in the fourth quarter, when they stripped, God went on the goal line and gave Dak a chance to go down and take the lead. I was like, this is all I can really ask for, is if

they're in the game. They got this badass quarterback who can make every throw and it's it's fun and it's entertaining, and I like, if you can't find some joy in that of knowing that is long like, he gives you a chance every week and that's all you can ask for. If you can't find some joy in that, maybe reevaluate why you're even doing this. Nick moral victory or just

another loss? Well, because it was just another loss, but uh well, I mean moral to me, moral victory is if if you're content and I don't want to get you too far. I know you and they had a whole debate off this last year, but I listened to some of their show. I mean that's I mean, if you if you have to play that role, you have to play the role. I mean, if that's how you believe that, I'm sorry. I feel sorry for those two guys,

Jesse and Nate I'm talking about. I feel sorry if they really believe that now, if they're playing the role of like we got to be on the other side, because Shannon and Kurt, you know, because I was watching some of their show, Like, then that's the role they're gonna play. If fine play the role. But like, if you if you really believe that that gets doom and gloom because of that game, I mean, then then why are you doing this? Well, why are you being a fan?

Why are you you know? I mean, it's a it's a long season. If the players were excited about it, then yeah, you could have a problem. It was a quiet plane ride. It was quiet buzz ride. They were upset because they know they had had a game. But like Dave said, if that's why you how you're gonna play like it's the same it's the same reason that we got into that argument about the Pittsburgh game back.

Then if you're gonna play like that, bring it every week, because I promise you this, the Eagles, the Chargers, the Giants, the Panthers, they can't hang with that if you play like that all the time. Okay, we'll get into the Charger conversation next week. That's I'm I'm I think that's a team that that well, we'll get discussing. But but they can't hang with that. We'll talk about that. Now. They will not hang with it premature, can we. I mean,

I'd like to see the Chargers play a game. They got a pretty good quarterback too, and a pretty good defense too. But anyway, let's talk about that next week. Well, and again, if the Cowboys don't go and play like that, then then they won't. But I'm just saying it's if they go out and play the way that you know, and and and they've said they didn't play that great they had they had chances to win. They're not better than the Bucks. The Cowboys are not better than the Bucks,

but they could have won the game. All right. I want to take you guys to two moments in the game, and I want to get what were I want you to take go back and think what were your thoughts in those moments? The first being, uh, when Greg z air Line goes onto the field with I think guess it was a minute twenty four at that point, goes onto the field to have a field goal try in order to give the Cowboys the lead. What were you thinking? Backed me up on this? They like, we say, we

say a lot of stuff, and maybe we embellish. We were sitting next to each other Nick had already gone down to do his postgame stuff. I was like, they're gonna lose. Like they got a time out on the board, there's a minute twenty four. Even if he makes this kick, Brady's going to do his thing. I mean that's I just I felt it in my bones Nick before or after the kick, Before the kick, because I think it's two different things I'm making. You didn't think he was

making Yeah, not really, No, I didn't. I didn't think he was gonna make the kick. Um. I mean, we've we've seen one of the worst field goals of all time earlier in the game now, and I understand he came back and had something, he had a he had a wild night. But I didn't think he was gonna

make it. But when he when he did make it, I was like, yeah, I mean I thought about Aaron Rodgers and the times that we've seen that before, We've seen him going down the field, and so yeah, it just seemed like an eternity, you know, and you get anythink back to all these other miss kicks. You know, I can make another field goal, make one of these other field goals, and then I know the game plays out differently. But if Tom Brady has to go score

a touchdown, still still could have done it. No, no, but it's totally different. You can't just dink and dunk for eight here and four here and all that. When you gotta go get a touchdown. It's I mean, it's very hard to do. But for somebody of Tom Brady's caliber getting into field goal range with that much time, like it's it's almost easy, Like it's you gotta make it harder. I mean, yeah, they gotta. You gotta make him score six. I don't care what the defense is

against him. No, a guy like that, you're given that much time, good luck with that. There isn't a defense against I mean there is, but I mean, you know, the Cowboys did it against Drew Brees and eighteen. If you remember the game, they won thirteen to ten, and it's it's doable, but it's really hard. It's why guys like Brady and Brees have forty five fifty career game winning drives. Yepp so so, did it change once he made the field goal? Nick, you mentioned that that kind

of two different things. Did your opinion change at that point or did you then realize oh it twee twenty four and Brady's coming on the field. No, I'm standing next to one of our PR guys in the tunnel and I looked over at him. This is like before midfield, and I was like, do you think the Cowboys are gonna win? He goes, I do, I don't. I don't. I just think he's gonna go and do this. You know, after Diggs almost got the pick, yeah, like, oh, I

thought that was actually the moment. Yeah. I was like, oh, because he's gonna come out here and get two picks off Tom Brady. But no, it just didn't happen. And you know that's why he's as good as he is, great as he is. Yeah, I'll tell you this. Like at the point when when he was about to go on the field, I had this conflict because in my in my head, I was like Tom Brady one twenty four. And I actually have a friend who was a Bucks fan who was texting me and I was I told her,

I was like, yeah, he's got one twenty four. I'm not feeling really good about this, so my heads tell me one thing. But then you know how your intuition starts to be like, man, the way they've played this game, it would kind of make sense at this point that they would make some kind of miraculous play and actually win this game. And then and then the moment came one play DeMarcus comes screaming around the end, barely missus tom Brady's arm to be able to possibly knock the

ball out. By the way, earlier in the game we saw Duran's armstrong hit his arm. Ball didn't come out, so there's no guarantee ball comes out even if if a tank gets him. He throws the pass, and then you got Digs almost intercepting it, and I was like that that was the moment. That was the moment that to me I would have been like, Okay, yes, this team has maybe that ability to win these kinds of games.

And the fact that they couldn't convert it it kind of also said to me that's where their growth area is. You got to finish these kinds of games. You played a good game to keep you in contention. Those are the moments that make the difference between a team that's a championship caliber team and a team that just maybe makes the playoffs. And then his out I go back and forth. I don't think I completely agree with you because they made a miraculous play to save the game.

The strip on Godwin was incredible, but that wasn't finishing the game. No, you can still have to finish the game. How many times? How many times are you going to

make that play against Tom Brady in that offense? If you're going to beat teams like that, when you're faced with those kinds of situations, going to be to figure out if you're going to beat teams like that, you convert your third downs on your drive and go score the touchdown and put the game on great or run the blockdown and kick the fuel goal with time running out.

That's great, and I agree with you. My point is once you get beyond that point and you now have a two point you have one point lead with one twenty four left, if you're going to be a championship caliber team, you gotta find a way to make a stop. We do this. We do this every time the Cowboys

play a god tier quarterback. Is it's like you gotta make the play aginst Aaron Rodgers or do you got to not put your defense in a position where they're forced to be the ones that have to make the all that's fine side toward the strength of your team, which is the offense. The offense left opportunities on the field. True, we're going into the weeds. And I guess and that's

why Nick's laughs. I just laughing because I'm like, you're right, like to be a championship team, but how about we just how about let's work on getting winning record again. I mean, like last year was so bad and so um and as I wrote and my you know, my story is like this is one thing I could tell about this team is they're a pretty good football team. They are a pretty good team. Now. Really good teams will go and do those things you're talking about. So

it's only been one game. We haven't seen it, but I can tell right now. I didn't know anything about camp and preseason, I know anything about the team, but I know right now that this is a pretty good football team that can get better. And it's going to get better because they got the best guard in football, one of which is coming back. That won't make you one to mention. Yep, I know we're gonna talk about Kellen Moore. I thought Kellen Moore should get some praise

for how he played that game. All that game and just to be clear, I'm not this is not so much a knock on them as much as what I'm saying is that's their growth opportunity and Whycaeld Parson talked talked about it after the game. He said, you know, if you want to talk about where we can be better, that's the kind of plays that we got to make in order to finish games like That's my point is, yes, they're not there yet, and that doesn't mean it's a

bad things. It means that if you're looking at them and you're trying to be objective about how do we play yesterday and how do we take that next step to be that next level team. That's how you take that dex level, both of the offense and for the defense. Offense has to do some stuff, defense has to do

some stuff different. I don't disagree. I just and you're right, you're right, you're right, you're right, But it's the missed opportunities for me or again, offense was they had such a great night against that defense, not having Zach the way the way Kellen called that game was masterful at times, but you know, you go one of four in the red zone that option played a Zeke her things man, such a great call. Jarwin can't get the block on the edge. Ze can't make a cornerback miss or truck him.

You'd like to think Zeke could truck that guy, especially when I'm looking for him on the roster and he's on he was on the practice squad. Well, that doesn't mean what it usually means fair, But I get your point. If it Darian Thompson the same way, and I would think Leonard Fournett would truck him. Good point. But you know, we saw a reverse to Cooper in the preseason to Jarvin and he did the same thing. Yeah, I mean, like out in space, saw that. I didn't think it wouldn't.

I mean, do we have a new starting tight end? Is that what's going on here? Den? Surprise me? Does it surprise you guys? I'm not ready to go there just yet. It's just because it's weak one. But yeah, I mean Dalton Schultz is he got the he got the bulk of it. I still think there's gonna be plenty of opportunity for both. But it was a Schultz night. But I think we saw, I mean we saw. I mean we talked about this earlier in the preseason. This was a guy that last year put up sixty three

sixty three catches. I mean like he had a lot of production for this offense last year. I didn't think it was just a foregone conclusion that Blake Jarwin just came back and assumed the starting position. I think Dalton Schultz earned the right to continue to be the starter. And it's gonna be a different type of tidda. I mean, you know, three catches for Jarman, but he also had to play down the field. That got a PI, you know, and so he's gonna be a little bit more downfield threat.

But I think the way, especially with this offensive line the way it was last night, I think Dak's gonna get the ball out quick to guys like that, and I think Schultz is going to benefit a little bit more if it's just getting the ball out quick. All right, We're gonna take our first break and we come back. We'll get more into this game. We got to talk about Dak Prescott and certainly about Kellen More and kind of game he called. We'll do it when we come

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exclusives and unique accessories. Visit your local Dallas Cowboys Pro shop or online at shop dot Dallas Cowboys dot com. Welcome back into the second segment of The Break Life from s WBC Mortgage Studios. At the start, we're talking about the Cowboys first game in the season. They lose thirty one to twenty nine. Still very a lot of positive things. I was not gonna I'm not gonna say a positive thing that they lost, but a lot of positive things to be taken out of that game. Jim No,

I just like I already said it. I mean, if nobody wants them to lose, but if you're furious about this result, just take a deep breath. I would just say, enjoy this because this is sport and entertainment. So take a moment just to relax and enjoy where we are. Like, that was fun. That was That was one of those games. That was one of those games where you're like, somebody

has to lose and that's unfortunate. What was that. I think it may have been third maybe early fourth quarter, when you looked over at me and you said, no matter what happens. From here on out. I'm good, That's what I mean. And you know, it would be amazing if the Cowboys made a playoff run and and all

that stuff. But like all you can ask for is that the games are fun and entertaining every week, because we've no firsthand what it's like when they're not, and worst, it's like Sundays like going to a funeral every week. Like nobody wants that right, and you're not gonna win them all, but at least they're fun. So let's talk

about Dak Prescott. Yesterday. He goes forty to a fifty seventy two percent completion percentage, four hundred and three yards, three touchdowns, only one interception, which I don't even think was this fault, but he got one interception, had a one hundred point one hundred and one point four rating. Tell me what was the favorite thing you saw from him yesterday in his return to the field after that injury.

Nick so many to choose from, including the first play, but I thought the touchdown passed to Cooper when the snapple was low and he dropped it, picked it up and I mean without even panicking, no screen, you know, just just got his eye, his back on one where he needed to be. Is also a good trust in Tomar knowing where he is. And it reminded me of the game in twenty fifteen where the Cowboys were going

to play the Giants on Week one. UM and it was like last play of the game, ten seconds to go, Romo's driving him down the field and fred Frederick kind of low snap, same thing. He just picked it up, calmly through it to Witten for a game winner. And at the end of Romo's career he was kind of doing plays like that, UM And I thought that was very similar for for for Dak, I mean, and just just a play like that. I thought that was just

total under control despite a little chaotic scene. I could do a whole segment on what I loved about that, actually, the whole the whole thing, all right, I want, I won't do, but I mean, like he made so many amazing throws. The best throw of his night might have not it might have been one that didn't count. The throw that he made the CD on the It was the final field goal drive before Brady got the ball on Tyron Smith got called for holding, just dropped it in a bucket right in this in the gap in

the zone to CD. Just his placement was incredible all night. I mean, it was just it was everything that makes Dak Prescott great. He got rocked. I mean, they were pressure in the hell out of him. There was a play I think he threw it to a Mari. He got the pass off and completed it. The rush came in. They literally they body slammed him. I mean, and he was he was dealing with that all night. Didn't phase him one bit. The fumble play, you know, he had

a quarterback keeper. I think somebody stepped on his hand and they had to glue the cut shut and he's just like, yeah, whatever, and they got it. He called it medic stuff. After the game, he was like, they did some medic stuff so I'd stop bleeding and I got back in the game. Um, Bays are crazy more than anything. And this is this is just me. I haven't talked to him about it, but his demeanor after the game was very impressive to me. Uh okay, I go back twenty nineteen, and in the early part of

twenty twenty, you lose games. You know, they were eight and eighteen in nineteen. They obviously got off to a rough star last year, and he looked frustrated after games and like didn't have answers to the questions and YadA YadA, and I you know, I know he doesn't didn't want to lose last night, but he just exuded this like cool, like he just was like, yeah, they got us, We'll be okay, we'll be back. Yeah, I mean, and that that's cool and that's gonna that's gonna make headlines. You know.

Romo said that to people, to quarterbacks do that. It's it's cool. But just just his whole demeanor was like, yeah, we lost this one, we're gonna win a lot. And you know he's he was like, the expectation is that we're gonna we're a good team that's gonna make a playoff push. I mean to say that after you fall to OZ and one, Uh, just the whole way he

carried himself, like don't take this the wrong way. Like he didn't look angry, and not to say that he's not taking the loss hard, but he just was like, yeah, like we're going we're coming back. We're gonna win some games. Like and I thought that that was really impressive, especially to come so close to such a big win and to just kind of be like, yeah, we'll be okay.

I thought that was really impressive. Yeah, it's interesting. After the game, I think it was I want to say it was a MARII that said this, but one of the guys in the post game said, yeah, the only thing that we know of what coach Toolson locking. Only thing we know at this point is we won't go undefeated, like everything else is still on the table for us, and so I think that was that seemed to be the impression I got from most of those guys was like it was CAZy that said they're going to go

for sixteen and one. Okay, good on him. Good on him for remembering that it's a seventeen game schedule, because I would have said fifteen, because when he said that, I was first. I would have so I said, so it's gonna be sixteen and one. He said, yes, sixteen and one. Hey, I like her confidence. I hope they can back it up and if we if it's if it's like what we saw last night, I think they'll do way more winning this year than they will do losing.

One of the reasons why I thought they won obviously, Dak was one of them. The other is I think the guy calling those plays on offense was a huge reason nick I pointed out to you earlier in the game. I think it was the first touchdown, I think where they he kind of did a pump fake and then went down field to CD and And it was basically set up earlier in that drive Kellen Moore, because they

spread out the receivers. They had basically at twelve person know that two tight ends in the game, which gives you the right kind of matchups, but they split everybody out wide, so each side, imagine this, you got a tight end and then staggered off of them, you got off the line of screen and you got a wide

receiver on both sides. And earlier in that same drive, they had hit one of those wide receivers up tight on a screen and that drew the defense up and then on that play they pump fake and then your downfield here you go. It's it's a little bit of an injustice to just call it a pump fake too. It was an out and out like fake screen because you you faked the smoke screen, then CDs still got to get eighteen yards down field. I mean, you're putting a lot of trust in your offensive lineup. That is

a slow developing play. It was really impressive. So tell me what was What did you notice about Kellen Moore and how he called that game yesterday. Well, I thought he did a great job of knowing that that we're not going to run the ball of the medal here, like this is their strength, this is our weakness of the offensive line, and it's just it's not gonna it's not gonna happen. So let's go sideline the sideline, Let's

make it wide. Let's do different plays. Um. And I said this I think earlier in the week about you know, some trick plays or throw them all out there, and they did. They kind of had some different things out there, a lot of different It looked like a college game, which is great. You know, Um, I don't use Tony Pollard the way Dave's been asking them to use Tony Pollard for a long time. And so you know, now at the end of the game, last play, I think,

I like my quarterback out there. I don't know what that was. Yeah, I don't know what we watched that from the tunnel. I don't even know for sure what happened to be honest with you. Did I hear this right? Because no one can back me up on this. I haven't watched it. Did Mica Parsons snap the ball? Told me that I had? I didn't notice that. I gotta go back and I watched this. I don't know he did. I I was looking at I had a terrible view

that wouldn't let me on the field. Right at the end, I was like looking and I'm like, why is dackling sideline? I've never seen a play like Parsons two in a game. I've always it's always a hell Mary. I've never seen a situation where it was going to be just run the ball, he can do it, throw it back and all that. It's kind of a hopeless situation anyway. No, I like the creativity to trying something different. I mean, likely you were going to get a hell Mary in

that situation. Probably wasn't great. So and maybe it's not straying the quarterback's shoulder asking him to throw eighty yards either. I just wish that this whole time we were worrying about who the backup center was gonna be, it was Michael Parsons all along. Like I didn't realize he was the backup center. I know what you're saying. I get it. Yeah, I had such a nerd crush about Kellen Moore's game

plan last night. It was so cool and it, I mean, it reminded me of the first three games of twenty nineteen. You'll never convince me ever, I'll say it forever. Something happened in week four of twenty nineteen, like they somebody forced Kellen to put the fun playbook away and get

the boring playbook out. Maybe it was Jason Garrett. I don't know, but this was the fun playbook ads so creative to get you know, utilize short passing to substitute the running game the way they had Pollard involved RPOs to screen game like just all sorts of stuff like that, where zeke is an option to keep it if the look is right, but you don't have to do it. You mentioned the fakes, you know, setting up the fake

to CD. You know, I don't know if you want to do super duper gadget plays like that all the time. But even the the fake reverse that Tony Polygrand like, that's where you can literally change the whole play by just telling Tony, hey, stick the ball out when you run past coop and it gives a defense a completely different look. It was just it was fun. It was really fun. But at some point you've got to be

able to run the football. And that's the problem with I mean, like, it was fun and cool and and I'm with you, but when they got down into the red zone, you can't just knock people off the ball. There's that's that's gonna be an issue with this. Let's talk about that because I personally believe that that was a function of the team you were playing. This was the number one rush defense in the league in twenty twenty, and I and the times they did run like they

were getting nothing out of it. And I think as opposed to some years that we've seen this team where they continue to kind of beat their head against the brick wall and have basically meaningless plays because they know they can't do something that they keep trying to do. They just opted to say, hey, we're just gonna back up and throw the ball. So what what are you doing that situation where you know the front, you can't beat this front, And from the standpoint of running the ball,

what are you doing that situation? I do what the Bucks did I do what other teams do, what the Bears do. If Quentin Bohanna is gonna be active, then get his ass out there and let him be a lead blocker. Let him do something different. Get some beef up there. Your tight ends have no beef, like you want to let them be pass catchers and cool. And maybe they're all good fantasy players, but they're but they're not blockers. And so twelve percent problem. They should have

handled back in the season like they don't. They got two guys that are pretty much the same, and so they're not SATs from a standpoint of getting some meat. They should have had a foot fullback that they wanted to be able to do that right something. I mean Tampa did does it. They put their star defensive tackle out there and do it just for a player or two, but they do it, and so you got to figure out different ways to run the ball. So yeah, Tampa, you know that they could say that trick play us

all day. You won, but when you get down to it, you're really not going to score. I would just like to point out that, I mean Tampa did a better job in the red zone, but I mean the Bucks ran fourteen times for fifty two yards. It's not like they bulldozed the Cowboys. The run defense with the Cowboys

was very good. Yesterday. I thought, it's right, it means different arguments, right, I mean, I'm just I'm just saying I just I guess I feel like I never felt like there was a time where the Bucks were like, we're gonna saddle up and pound it down your throat, like the Bucks were doing the same thing they threw Tom Brady through fifty times. Right, I've said this thousand times. So it doesn't matter who you're playing. When push comes to shove, they don't. They don't shove, they don't knock

people off the ball. And that has been a problem with the red zone is that they have to rely on Dak or you know, making a play because that they're not just going to bull those people over the line. I don't disagree with that, um I do, you know, and one game is such a small sample size, but you look at this, I mean, you look at the stats, and that's it's so clever, Like I don't care what

Zeke's stat line is. Michael Gallup probably twenty of his thirty six receiving yards came on balls that were within two yards of the line of scrimmage. Same thing for Tony Pollard's receptions. Same thing. You know, Dalton Schultz had that really nifty screen. If you add up receptions that happened at the line of scrimmage and went free yardage, that's another sixty quote unquote rushing yards to your total. So now you're looking at it and say, oh, they

had one hundred and twenty rushing yards. Nobody's talking about this. If we get a month into the season and this is what all of Zeke's stat lines look like, that's problematic. Um, But right now, I'm impressed that they had the adaptability to play it a different way because we saw them just try to stubbornly match a square peg into a roundhole for years and it never around. Yeah yeah, yeah, I said it, right, Yeah, the same thing. Yeah. But

I mean we'll talk about this on Monday. I was just telling you guys, I want to really dive into that because I do think to some degree, there's an argument that can be made that the identity of this team has shifted and they are this what we saw last night maybe what you may expect to see for the next who knows we can save this season. We can on Monday. We can save it for Monday, but that shift happen is not. Let's talk about that on Monday, because I do think there's some things we got to

talk about. There's some nuances to that. Let's take our final break when we come back. We gotta take some time to talk about the offensive line, because I think going into that game, most of us thought that the big telltale was the fact that you didn't have your best offensive linement. Connor mcgovernment was going to have to start. The question for you guys is how did he play? And was that a problem for them? Was it a big of a problem as most peop I thought it

would be. We'll talk about that when we come back. This is Dallas Cowboys dot Com Radio. Hi, I'm Clint Tullison with you United Agginturf. Before you can park yourself in front of the game, park yourself in a John Dear and power through your chores. Our land Run package is a ten twenty five R twenty five horsepower tractor with a loader, rotary cutter, and a box blade for two twenty nine a month. And the price you see is the price you'll pay no surprises, so don't miss

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the perfect Essler lens for you. See more, Do more, Welcome back. Final segment of the break off in the SWBC Mortgage studios at the Star Cowboys lose thirty one twenty nine to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Next week they will be taking on the Sandy, I'm not San Diego Los Angeles Chargers. We'll be out there next Sunday for game number two. We'll get into that next week on what that game may look like. But before we get to that, we do need to talk about this offensive line.

As I said before the break, I personally thought that the biggest problem that the Cowboys would possibly face last night would be not having their their their best offensive player, maybe definitely their best offensive lineman is Zach Martin and Connor McGregor. We're trying to replace him. What did you think, Connor McGregor, I'm sorry, interesting, it's Connor McGovern. That's funny

McGovern trying to replace him. What do you guys think of the offensive line playing, specifically the play of Connor McGovern. I thought they protected him, you know, I mean I thought he played a decent game, um, you know, and they threw the ball a lot, and that didn't really get hit that much. I mean, well he got hit somebody, he got hit somebody. Didn't get any sacks, just the one critical sack too, Like that was a bad one. That was on Doc. You gotta throw that away or

gotta do something different that. You know, they were first and ten on the twenty one yard line, and they ended up kicking a sixty yard field goal, which somebody explained to me why that happened. Um, I was a bad coaching decision right there, and I'm just gonna be nice about it. I think I just don't know how you kick it. Unbelievable, especially he's struggling to make anything. I mean, he had thirty one yard field goal that did not hit the net. Can I throw this out?

Though they hit the ship? I thought about this and even kicking that way, I'm gonna say, I don't think that was the right end zone. But it's a good job not about this. Do you think that maybe that was one of those situations where there was only upside from the standpoint of your kicker's mentality, like no, wait, let me hear me out. Sorry, a sixty yarders if you miss it. Your kicker doesn't feel bad about missing

a sixty yarder if he makes it. Whatever it happened previously, that now feels a lot better because I made a sixty yard Or do you think that maybe that was a part of the thought process of the head coach with one second left in the clock, right yes, but not with fifteen and not with Tom Brady. And I mean they had a miscommunication. They could have easily gotten in there and gotten a field full. No. I from the strategy of the game, I agree with you completely.

I'm asking if you're trying to rationalize how the coach came to this decision. Okay, that maybe is a part of the fact that I see it and then you immediately immediately, you immediately say, but then you give the goat to ball at the fifty with twenty seven? Did you see He's amazing the way that, like again he got them into fuel goal range with like so much time to spare, and he's just chucking out routes. He's like, I know this is only going to take two seconds

off the clock. I can't prove this, We'll never know, but and I know a lot of people are complaining about it. The miscommunication with Antonio Brown. Brown ran a hitch and he threw deep. He's smart enough that he could have done that on purpose, because he was like, well, what I want not there? But they can't throw a flag on me for doing this. That's just expertise that comes with twenty two years of playing in the NFL.

You're putting him on the fifty with twenty seconds to play. No, and by the way, you get the ball coming out a halftime, so you have all the opportunity to just grab the game in the second half if he misses the kick. And it worked out. It worked out, they got lucky. But even a fuel goal puts them up eight and all, and so now you can't even you can't even All you can do is tie the game. Best case scenario. It was. It was stupid. It was it was bad game management. I asked Mike about it

last night and he kind of dismissed. His answer was icy, and I was like, saw he just he. I was like, it was like, was there a debate or a conversation, like how did you come to this decision? He was like, I just had a lot of confidence in Greg and and and that was It was a very f you kind of tone. Definitely, I don't know, because he didn't do anything in the offseason. He's got back surgery. His

kickoffs are not going to the end zone anymore. His field goal went way left, he missed an extra point. What a part of all of that says he's gonna kill a sixty yard or here and and it'll be fine and we have no recourse. I mean, I just I just don't understand that. Now, Okay, I didn't get that, but I also will say this. You know, he did a nice job of getting the team ready to play. Like this team was prepared, played hard, they played well.

They didn't care about anything else the outside noise. I do give him credit for that, but that that, you know, which is their job. I get it, it's their job. But like they came in there to hit him in the mouth and win that game. And I just did not understand that when and they got lucky that it didn't bite him and I and when I said at the top of the show, they were kind of sloppy the more you think about it. And I mean, the defense is going to give up play as Tom Brady,

that's just gonna happen. Sorry, um, but especial special teams man. And it's not just Zerline, Like they gave up the long kick return. Zerline wasn't he wasn't getting balls in the end zone, which is kind of concerning. Um. I just thought they kind of looked like crap in that aspect of the game. It's great that he rebounded to kick the go ahead fuel goal, but that was gross, and I mean it just was it was. It was if And you know, we've been this has been a

very positive show. First. I mean we've done we've done some shows where we just killed everybody after a loss. No doubt. This is a very positive post lost show. But if you're looking for something that I really hated, basically everything about the way they manage their special teams sucked last night in my opinion. Yeah, And I think it all goes back to starts, and it has a lot to do with what's going on with a kicker, And I think we got to talk a little more

about that. We'll probably get into that on our next show. When we talked a little bit about what the kicker, I'm laughing because you guys in here, our producer, in our ears, we're talking about the kicker? Correct, Right, boy? We got a phone call. We gotta get to this phone call because I'm sure, I am absolutely positive she's got some takes from that game. Welcome to the show, Miss Ambercarcia. Amber, what up? Hey, guys, I just heard Day say, oh boy, but you know what, you guys

got a positive amber today. Oh, abstivity today. Okay, Yes, I'm mainly Collings because I want to know, do you guys and I myself qualify for a ring? I'm sorry if I would. If I could have put money on anybody calling us a bunch of bums for being excited about a loss, I would have bet it would be used with the Obviously they don't. They don't do NFC East rings, right, we know that everybody knows that. Now

doesn't happen. You're talking about a Super Bowl ring? Yeah, well, I did see last night one of our one of our counterparts that works in the digital on the digital media staff for the Bucks was walking around with her big shiny ring and she's only two years in. So I'm guessing they went top to bottom in their organization they do. Those things are ridiculous. Yeah, those are paperweights. Yeah,

they're huge. Yeah. And if the Cowboys ever win a Super Bowl, a paperweight you want on your desk, That's true, It'll be like a watch ring. Yeah. Yeah, I'm gonna say this. I'm guessing what will probably happen is they will have one that they give to the players and they'll have a replica version that maybe they decide to let let employees. Yeah, gee, I thought you were calling to bring us back to reality. What are you doing? Well, you know what it is. You know what it was.

I was going into this game. Obviously, I've been kind of keeping up with things, but not like very deep like you guys during training camp and all that. But what it was for me is that training camp. Okay, you hear about Dak and the shoulder injury. Then you hear you know SAG's not gonna play then, and I know these were preseason games, and I know it doesn't matter, it doesn't count. You're looking for other things other than wings, but it does suck when you don't win a freaking

single preseason game, Like it doesn't annoy me. So my expectations, my point is, my expectations for this game we're pretty low. To be honest. The defense, I wasn't trusting them or anything. And then we hear about the rain in Tampa and then I'm like, okay, won't this is not looking good? Sorry, my baby buddy, He's like, no rings the punt is.

My expectations were kind of low for the game. So when they putted the way they did, I was pretty excited to be Dus performed the way he did, and it like, I'm like in a more positive mood because

of how all my expectations were, if that makes sense. Yeah, I think there's probably a lot of fans out there like that, that they went into this game assuming and by the way you look across all I was watching all the shows yesterday as we were waiting for the game, across the board everywhere, all the picks were Bucks, Bucks, Bucks, Bucks. Even on our shows, like Bucks Bucks, everybody's picking the Bucks.

So yeah, I think there was this feeling I think from a lot of fans that as of last night or this morning, where they were like, you know, like if everybody picked it that much of a landslide and the Cowboys played the way they did, that's actually somewhat of a like I feel better about that, even though it was a loss. Right, the Cowboys employ one of the four or five best quarterbacks in the NFL, and

he looked every bit the part last night. And if that's if that's what you got, you got a chance in every game you play, it's really all you can ask for. So you should feel pretty good about what happened last night. We were seeing that last year. He was giving them a chance. They didn't win some of those games, he was giving them a chance. Sometimes they did, sometimes they didn't, but they were sorry not to cut you off. They were playing bad football. Him included like

they were playing awful football. They played pretty good football last night, not completely great, but pretty good kicker. But the other thing before you guys are going to the coal kicker situation, the other thing for me was also is that it didn't take the whole first half of

the game for them to do things. You know, it was like, Okay, they started off and they were doing something, and then they were keeping up with the Bucks, and it wasn't like, oh, we're getting into the third quarter then the fourth quarter for them to kind of try to catch up to them. So that was another aspect that for me was pretty positive and just feeling like, man, okay, but didn't start with the super slow first half of the game, and that we're doing moving the ball and

doing a few things now with the kicker position. You guys can take on that conversation, this is ridiculous. I don't understand what the problem is. How hard is it to kick the ball right right? There we go, like an extra point. Really, Like, okay, I was thinking, where can I put my Damn Bailey poster? I know that was a long time ago, but um, how hard is it to find a damn Bailey back in the days when he was good? You can probably find him right now.

You know. That's actually take on that conversation. All right, thanks gad to hear from you all. You know, that's act an interesting thing. I was having a similar conversation with my wife this morning about the game, and she was asking a similar question like is there somebody else out there? And I'm like, yeah, but this is the problem that teams face at this part at this time, Like, yeah, there are other guys you could go out and get, but you're basically giving up one problem that you know

for an unknown problem. Like whoever's out on the street, there's a reason they're on the street, and they're probably even if they come in and they get on a streak where they're just like kicking everything, there's a reason why they're on the street, and at some point it's probably gonna rear its ugly head and then you're right back into that same inconsistency. So it's like you know, there's only there's several teams, and there are several teams

in the league. They have a really good kicker, and they're good everybody else. They're kind of just hoping their guy can make the kicks they need because there's not really much recourse. Which and complicating this is Greg Zerline has a contract that is not your average kicker contract. I mean, they signed him for three years, seven million, so and they've freed up cap space with the restructures, but cutting him would cost like two or three million dollars.

And I don't kick. I don't think that's something that you want to do after one week. If it persists, eventually things come to a head. But after one week. Actually, I'm sorry to whoever said this on Twitter. I don't remember who it was, But I don't hate the idea. I don't. I don't think they need to cut Greg today. That's at a little bit of an overreaction for me,

even though he was bad last night. But you could sign another kicker to your practice squad and even get you know, give Greg, that would give Greg time if he's not right, if he's not healthy, get him healthy, or just work until you feel more confident or whatever, But there's sixteen spots on your practice squad. I'd like to think you could afford to carry an extra kicker

for at least a month or so. Do you think it's maybe even worth it to put that guy on the active roster and let him kick off, Because that's the other part to this. That's not when now we're going real college foot but I'm thinking about from a sandpoint, if his back is still an issue and he's having to work it back, the last thing you want to just put too much on him. So is that made

a better in between this? He did say after the game, he did say that two or three of those kickoffs that were short where that was the call, that was the call now because they did come out and kicked after after that he did go go through. So I don't know if he's if he's heard or not or still you know, not one hundred percent. He did have back surgery, but um, you know it just the mechanics of that, the ugly field goal, that was just something

we just haven't seen now. He kind of corrected himself as things were going. I didn't really get a good view of the sixty yard or was it online. Was it just short? I could tell the way our angle was, it was hard to see. It was definitely wide. It was short. Kind of was hoping that guy back there would return it like so that that would at least have less field. Well, I mean, got a tackle him, and we've seen Alabama fans will tell you that that's

not always easy. But um, you know, not that we're should to talk about college football, but but I do think I do think that that I still just hate the kick. I hate the call, but I think he's gonna turn it around and be OK. Yeah, I mean, like I said, who else you're gonna get? You're gonna get someone else's problems. I need, I need you to. It's gonna take me three games before I'm ready to

like completely dive into they have to make a change. Yeah, it's if they wanted to bring another guy on, that's fine with me. But yeah, I think that's a little premature. And it misses the kick with twenty four to go or oh yeah, I think then yeah, I think it does. Yeah, yeah, because you I mean, and it forty eight is I mean, that's the money range, Like that's sixty arders. I don't expect you to make. But forty to forty to fifty

is where that's what's most money. Yeah, when he made the kick, everyone was like, too much time, too much time.

If he misses that kick and then they kneel out the ball whatever, we'd be sitting here going that would have won the game, you know, like he probably wouldn't have come back, you know what I mean, Like you and however you want, of course, I mean you would be like, well, that was a game winning kick and you missed it, yep, which is still honestly, it still is a game winning kick because it put him in the league left and they just couldn't They couldn't finish it.

They couldn't finish the game. Shout out wait before it just since we were talking about it, I just shout out to Jordan Lewis for running down on a Hail Mary cover, intercepting Tom Brady and getting to like the opposing forty. Yeah, I'd have to go back and look at it, but I just lack because the other side of the field looked really open, and I that just would have been like one of the more amazing things I've ever seen. But nice little two takeaway night for

Jordan Lewis. Yeah, that was a all things considered, that was a good performance by the defense from that standpoint. As far as it takeaway as a concern, they just if they don't sorry, if they don't, I mean, if they don't give up the bomb to Antonio Brown on the go route, amazing night by them. They still still

a solid night, but that one bust kind of hangs over. Yeah, Monday, we're going to dive in a little deeper on that conversation to defense, how they performed, and really just looking at this team overall, how much complimentary football they played, how much is this team relying on dak is at a winning formula. We'll talk about that all on the Monday, But you guys, enjoy the weekend till then. For Nick Eatman, Dave Hellman, I'm Derek Eagleton. This has been The Break

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