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It is Monday, October twenty first, twenty twenty four, Season twenty, episode number fifty one. Welcome to the latest edition of The Breakway Life in the s WBC Mortgage Studios at the Star, presented by lglg's the world's number one o ed TV brand for eleven years in counting See why at LG dot com.
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We got our guys here with us ambers out. She's handling some business for the team. Uh traveling, but she'll be back tomorrow. Till then, though, today it's up to us to get you guys. I guess restarted here. We had a nice little quiet break here with with a bye week. Cowboys didn't play yesterday, so that was a nice, nice moment just to sit back.
It was nice. It was a nice moment just sit back and watch some football.
It was It's always nice in a bye week when you work in the sport to be able to sit and watch other teams and just kind of get a feel for the rest of the NFL.
It's a lot of fun.
Actually, that's rekindle your your your love of NFL football.
You wonder why you work for the Cowboys.
And I don't know if it made me do that, but it did make me enjoy.
Yeah, it's not not working for the Cowboys. Working with the Cowboys. It's fine. It's covering. It's working where you have to. You get to pay attention to other teams, which is kind of fun. But then you realize how much you really do like football when it's like you're not on the line.
Yeah right right, when you can just enjoy the game and not really be like, well, yeah, you don't have.
To sweat whether the third down conversion or fourth down conversions. Yeah.
Yeah. It just reminds me of the day. Come.
The day will come when I'll retire from this and I will be able to get back to sitting in my lounger and watching some games and napping in between A.
Long way to go, Bro, I do have commercial free football.
Yeah, I have all the ways to go, But but that day will be glorying.
I never knew how much fun Red Zone was. Man, you can what I can't.
I can't really get into because I want to see the storyline of the game develop as the game interesting.
It's interesting just from the aspect of the action. Yeah, you know, but I'm with you that I'm with you on the storyline stuff. But when I watch Red Zone, I get a headache because it happens so it's going so fast.
Yeah, yeah, I find difficult.
I find difficulty in figuring out the p breaks and zone.
That's like, give me a break.
I need, I need, I need it erectly.
I try to get it out of the way in the first half of that noon Slate because then for about four and a half straight hours it's it's full on action.
But no, it was really good.
It was some really good games yesterday too, yeah Slate, and then three twenty five it was it was a good day to be off.
I think I tweeted it out yesterday it was like, this is a really good Sunday to be at the Crow Yeah, and then.
The night game even ended up being intriguing just because again the storylines and how the game developed. That was a fun game to watch as well. So I enjoyed some NFL football yesterday. Didn't enjoy college as much on the weekend. But you know, it happens. You have a rough weekend and you just kind of rebound. Congratulations to the LSU Tigers. You guys are moving along. She'd be fun this weekend. You got to in them coming up.
Yeah. Uh, as you're starting to understand the Southeastern Conference could be no fun.
Yeah, yeah, you have some Sundays on Saturdays like that.
Yeah, there's there's days where you like, you think you're like in good shape and then the next thing you know, you're completely falling apart. I think that's the SEC in general exactly. That's a great thing about college football too. I think with the the actual all the transfers and the nil stuff, and I think there's a lot more of these matchs where teams are even there's no more,
there's there's halves and have nots. Don't get me wrong, but the have nots are because of the transfer portals have kind of made a little bit of a little bit of a jump where they're very, very competitive in a lot of these games. So college football has been a lot of fun to watch this year.
It has, and I enjoyed it.
Even in a loss.
You still enjoyed the pageantry and the competition of college football.
I really do. I enjoy I did you enjoy that two hundred and fifty thousand dollars fine from throwing bottles?
Hey?
Man, it got us the call, so hey, pay it up.
We got the money, man, Oh, I know you do. It's just funny. It's kind of SEC rules. Yeah, you take the goalpost down, they charge. It's it's kind of the fine. That's what they always charge. It's always But I was curious, you know, you mentioned with a reverse call in a game, and I know we get to this quick the NFL stuff, but I was trying to think the last time I saw a reverse called during the game, and I think it was the Detroit playoff
game against Dallas. Did they have an interference call that
that it was on? It was on one the linebackers they got, they got they had a pass interference call and it got reversed and it was in the playoff game and it was the game that Romo drove down and I think through the ball to Witting and I think it was a game winning touchdown, but I was trying to remember it was one of the linebackers that got called for pass interference or defensive holding, and then they reversed the call initially call in the field and
then they reversed, and then Dallas uh, I think it was Damian Wilson. It might have been called for for holding in the game and they reversed, and I was trying to think, when's the last time I saw officials completely flip a call after after the call was made.
That one was wild because when that first bottle was thrown onto the field, Carson Beck and the Georgia offense they were getting ready to write the snap like that they would have stood if that didn't happen.
So I think I think the SEC said a.
Very bad precedent, and I wonder how they kind of approached that this week and if they lay the hammer down on Texas a little bit harder.
But yeah, that's their max. They have a they have it. I think it happened in twenty twenty one. They kind of have a that's kind of their standard. Number when you do something wrong, like the band plays the song they're not supposed to play. It's two hundred and fiftys.
I've done that before.
Yeah, it's like they give you this amount, you know, like, yeah, it's kind of crazy how they handle things in the SEC.
But I don't mind the reverse.
And I know it sounds that sounds like, okay, you're a Texas guy. Honestly, in any game, I don't mind a reversal if the call is right.
I'm a big believer in.
Have the eye in the sky that's watching all these games like the rest of us and has the benefit of seeing that replay and being like, who whoa, whoa, Yeah, guys, we messed this one up. Let's get it right. Because at the end of the day, I just wanted to be right. I want the games to be called as close to perfect as possible, right, And so I don't mind if you after the fact decide, you know, that was a bad cause pick up that flag, you know,
especially a play like that. That was so that was such a big moment in the game.
Yeah, I was telling the people that I was watching the game with at the time. I was like, these officials probably looked at it and said, Hey, we're gonna have to answer to this anyway, we may as well get the call right.
Right.
So, I as as weird as that was and as probably not beneficial to Georgia, that was it was the right call at the end of the day, But yeah, it was.
It's fascinating. I don't think I've ever seen that.
Yeah.
I was texting back and forth with Patrick during the game, and I think he even kind of agreed, Yeah, that's probably the right call. Like he had a couple of calls he didn't like, but I don't think he wasn't arguing that one too much.
He was he was okay with that. All right, let's jump in. Let's talk a little Cowboys football.
We're gonna start first today, I guess a lot of our early part of our show. And by the way, real quick, we're going to also take some calls in the second and third segments of the show. So you can call us at eight eight eight eight five five two two ninety seven again eight eight eight eight five five two two nine seven feel free good and light up those phone lines. And we'll get to those calls
a little later in the show. But I think The tenor of today's show is really about as as Mike McCarthy says, the second trimester, what is Dallas going to do now that they've completed the first trimester, They've had a break, They've had a chance to absorb what's happened, and now they have to move on and try to learn from that and be better in the next trimester of the season. That being said, let's start first with Mike McCarthy, and he had some comments this morning about how.
They practice, and he was saying it was really I.
Think the point of it was that he thinks they need to practice better, not necessarily harder. He says, you know, their analytics tell them the team is practicing harder than it has in the past. They just may not be as crisp. They just may not be as detailed as disciplined as maybe they need to be during practice. What are your thoughts on that and maybe what that means as far as the team's ability to play in the way that they need to play.
Yeah, I'll say one thing, Mike McCarthy's a big morning person, because man, he was. He was giving us all the good stuff this morning in the nine am press conference. But I had asked the question about practice because before they went on the buy break, Dak Prescott was talking about how guys are only showing up on Sundays, you need to take the preparation during the week a little bit more serious. And then McCarthy, like you said, had
said that guys were practicing hard, not necessarily well. So I followed up on that and I was like, all the evaluation that's come over the course of the last week. At the bye week, he said he was here every day. Did you guys take a look at practice and how you guys are approaching that? Is there any tweaks to that? And he said that they are going to be approaching
practice with a lot more group work. They're getting away from the one on ones more two on two to three on threes, and then on the nine on seven stuff that we see during combination team periods that we saw at training camp. They're going to ramp that up a little bit more in the team period as well, so focusing more on group work. And that had kind of stood out from something earlier that he had said about meeting work as well. They want guys in group
meetings less individual meetings. Because I guess I could see it from his perspective being Okay, if we're having all these individual meetings, then all the guys are not getting the same message. So group meetings it allows everybody to be under one cohesive umbrella as far as coaching points and things of that nature. So maybe that's kind of
the approach that they're taking post bye week here. But there was a lot of evaluation taken in the building over the course of the last week, and he was actually really complimentary of a lot of guys that had been in the building every day in the last week as well.
That's you never want to hear that. You never want well, I mean, you never want to hear that they're not practicing. Well. You know, there's there's times when you know you you're going to have a bad practice. You know, maybe somebody, you know, maybe your team's just so beat up, you're just not into it. You got back off a trip, you know. I mean there's a lot of things going on too because you know with and a lot of it has to do too with the way you lose.
You know, if you're if you're practicing, and it's really easy to practice when things are going good, you know, but when you're when you're getting you know that right now, this team's three and three and the three losses have looked awful, you know, and and I think that, you know, you think, wow, they're hey, a lot of injuries, they're good to get it to this point and all that.
It's really not, you know. And then you add that to you're getting beat up, and then you're not practicing well, and now you start to lead to other conversations like, well, why aren't we practicing well? You know what, what's what's the issues there is? Is leading is leading?
Uh?
Not is leading to not practicing well? Is that is what's causing you not to play well? I just man, that to me, that's I just I don't like to
hear that. And you know, and I kind of feel like they're looking for answers, you know, the answers that I want to hear are you know, with Like to me, I don't think it's always the scheme when it when you're talking about what's going on with the defense a little bit, I think they're physically just getting beat up, you know, and whatever you have to do to rectify that, that's where I would start to I mean I don't think you could practice physicality like they you know, like
they did back in the day. The things I just I don't know if things even by them talking about it and doing talking about more group than this, I don't know if it's necessarily going to help. I think I think this team really is who they are when it comes to how they play. When it comes to playing defense, you know, I think they lack that. And it's not toughness. They just don't have that ability to take people on that play in a way that makes
that they use big personnel and blockers and stuff. They're just not built that way. They're built to rush the passer. And they just can't get anybody into a game where they can just rush the passer. They got the Cleveland Browns into it, But I don't know if anything practice wise is going to make this any different than what they really are.
Well, one thing he did say as an example was something that we've talked about a lot on this show. He said, you start two rookie offensive lineman week one. They've been stunting and gaming us since we got off
the bus. We've been practicing, but not enough. And I think that is one area that if you're not doing enough of that type of tandem work, group work, if you're doing spending most of your time in one on ones when you got offensive line versus defensive line, maybe you're not going to be as well prepared for handling some of those games, some of those stunts when you have so many guys changing in and out of the offensive line, plus you in the inexperience of the offensive line.
Do you think that's an area that more group work could actually make a difference.
Well, they practice in team and they you know, if you're playing against somebody that moves the front. I mean, when we break down the opponent, we always talk about, oh, there's a twist front, and what are the things When we talk about BB, we always say, and this has gone back from two three weeks ago, he doesn't handle the twist front. And now all of a sudden, everybody's like, oh, we need more work on the twist front. Why weren't you working on twist front than in week two, week
three when teams were actually doing that. You know, I'm sitter watching the tape and I'm like, the one problem that Bib has is he gets too involved with pushing a guy we talked about these these linemen that push a that push a guy down and then they go to the next level. And we said this about bb Hey, he gets too involved, he gets too involved, he gets too involved. Well, here we are in week seven, and now we're talking about it as we're seeing more of that.
It's something that needed to be done, you know, three weeks ago, because I mean, might me personally, I saw it three weeks ago. If you asked me, what was one problem with Cooper Bebe. He doesn't handle the twist stunts very well, you know. And now all of a sudden,
it's like, oh, we're seeing a lot more twist fronts. Yeah, because you didn't work on it three weeks ago, and yeah, and you know, and now it's like and you wonder, how like when he when they when they have pressure, when they have a pressure, it's usually something with moving the front, and so you would think, like why not get ahead of that and say, hey, listen, our sinners
are rookie. We gotta you know, we've got to work on him not going down inside and taking those guys because he's leaving a gap, He's leaving a big area inside there. So this is something to me that when you're not practicing, Well, I understand it, because three weeks ago you could have got that right. It couldn't you know, you could take Teams are going to do things to you when you're not very good at it. You know, watch what's gonna happen this week? Even though they don't
have Brandon Ayuk and all that Detroit. Detroit is the number one in the league for running in breaking routes. What do you think San Francisco is going to do to you? You didn't cover one in breaking route the other day? Not one. They are going to sit there and say, wow, this team camp safeties, linebackers. You know,
they don't they don't play, they don't do this. But this is something that you've seen that you've seen with this team, and now they're talking about it in the well we need to work on Well, why wudn't you work on it three weeks ago when it when it looked like it was going to be an issue. That's the thing that drives me nuts.
Yeah, I in my bye week evaluation of everything, I look at the middle of this defense, the spine of this defense as the core is the core problem of all the issues that are happening. I think if you had a defensive tackle that was playing up to a first round caliber selection, and then you had better safety play on the back end. I think the middle has
been fine. Was talking about the linebackers, but if you had those two positions just playing just a notch better, I think you're a four and two or even a five and one team at this point. I there's there's been multiple multiple games, so for multiple games last year with the middle of that defense was just getting exposed.
And I think I'm probably.
I had to take on some ownership in some sense because I thought it was an issue last year of just not having enough linebackers. I thought it was, you know, a linebacker depth problem, and they fixed that, and I think that's where all my confidence kind of stemmed from coming out of training camp, is like, I think this defense is going to be pretty good because the biggest problem they had last year has been solved, and it's
the linebacker depth. But they lost at that the defensive tackle position and didn't anticipate the safeties playing as poorly as I have been earlier early in this season. So if those two positions can get it figured out, then I believe that they can figure out some of these issues, and.
That could be a practice thing too.
Yeah, you get those guys more involved in team settings as well, because you need Mazzie Smith taking on those doubles out here. You need Mozzi Smith taking on multiple bodies so that he understands that that's going to be the case whenever they're trying to blow him off the line on Sunday, whether it's Jordan Mason, Christian McCaffrey, or whoever. So I could team more team periods benefit this team overall, absolutely, but it would have to be with the right application.
Yeah. See the team period two is also when you watch the offense work and I talked about this last week. Is like I guarantee you they ran that that that route they got intercepted with lamb when Branch was sinking. I guarantee you I told you this. They ran this thing three times in practice and it's like they kept telling the corner Okay, read it, read the read the read the underneath, read the underneath, and Dak's throwing it.
Reading the underneath, read the underneath. And then you get a guy that's like a real NFL football player that like, huh, not throwing that route short? What's coming out behind me? You know? And then that and then I'm just gonna sink.
You know.
That's that's where you get in trouble. You practice stuff and you're thinking, like the quarterback might be thinking, well, this throw in practice was open all week this throw, that's the throw, that's where I need to go, and then it doesn't. You're going, what happened there? Well, all week long, you told the quarterback that guy's gonna that guy's gonna bite on the crossing route. He's not. He doesn't, you know, he doesn't. He's not gonna he's not gonna sink. Well,
what he does, he sinks. So sometimes you the way you practice and the way you prep and the way you show the scout team looks and stuff can really f you up in these games. You know, how how you practice, it's not just you know, it's it's a mental side of it too, your scout team. You know, Hey, that's what made the Patriots so good when they had back in the day with Ernie Adams and stuff, and they're running and running a defense like in the Super Bowl,
they're running a defense. You know, here, the here, the Seahawks are going to try and throw the inside, and they ran a defense and Ernie Adams and then worked on that they saw like three years ago before that. They ran this route. This is what they did, and
they practice that. That's the kind of stuff. You know, when you're putting your scout team together, your preparation for the game, that's where that's where you win games, when you go back and you say, hey, this is you know, this is we needed to prep And I think that's the physical side of it seems fine. The getting the mental side or the preparation of what they're seeing might be off in this games.
All right, we're gonna take our first break. We're going to come back.
We had some interesting comments that we heard at the end of last week from Troy Aikman about the wide receiver core. We'll talk about that when we come back. Dallas Cowboys dot Com Radio.
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Pete Morelli. Yeah, Pete Morelli, twenty fifteen.
That was the call that was picked up you were talking about.
Yeah, that was a call. It was Anthony Hitchins, Yeah on Brandon Pedigrew.
Good memory, right, You said a linebacker.
Yeah, I thought it was one of those linebackers. It was Hitchins. Good, it was Pete Morelli. They actually really quick the back Jorge through his flag for defensive pass interference. Morelli Toll, Todd Archer. We got information from another official from a different angle. He thought the contact was minimal and didn't warrant pass interference. He thought it was face guarding. So that's kind of where that one went. So anyway, like.
I said, I got no problems with the pick. Pick up the flag. If it's wrong, man, pick up the flag.
Call face starting is a penalty in college football, but not in the NFL.
YEP.
All right, let's jump back in over the I guess it was maybe Thursday or Friday of last week. I think it was Friday maybe when Troy Aikman had the comments. He was on the ticket here in Dallas, and his comments were, I think the routes are terrible, talking about the wide receiver group. I think they run terrible routes, and I've thought that beyond this year. I think CD has got to improve in his route running. As a quarterback, if you're not certain where guys are going to be consistently,
it's hard to play the position. That's what I see. I see guys lazy coming off the line of scrimmage. Sometimes they run usually if they don't usually if they do, it's because they're anticipating they're going to get the football on that play. But if they're not, they don't, and it all ties together. I'm not impressed with that part of it now. Mike McCarthy did respond to that this morning in the press conference, he was asked about those comments.
His response was, they don't carry any weight with me because I watch all the tape, I get to go to the meetings, I'm in practice, I'm part of the games, so I have a clear understanding of what and where Troy's statement In particular, I don't agree with the word selection. There is definitely need for improvement in every position, not just one position that he commented on. You agree with Troy's comments based on the study that you guys have done in the film and looking at these wide receivers.
I do. Personally, I think he hit it on the nod. I think with.
The disconnection that we've seen between DAK and CD, I don't think one hundred percent of that can be attributed to there not being enough time to establish that connection. I think at the end of the day, there is a scheme in place that makes this offense very predictable. And I think it starts with the route running. These guys they run short routes across the field, and it's
easy to throw off the rhythm of those guys. And we saw that against Detroit, where these linebackers and these dbs they were able to just put a little enough contact on them and it disrupted the entire route because they don't really have anything complay that goes into their route schemes to where they can bounce off of that and make something happen from it.
So I think Eightman was right.
And then McCarthy, he's gonna defend his guys, so I mean, he's not gonna sit there and say, yeah, he was right, whether he believes it or not. But I think at the end of the day, there does have to be a little bit more intention put on making these routes more complex. I mean, one of the biggest things I took away from watching Football Day yesterday is watching Detroit, watching green Bay, watching Houston. These guys, these are complex
offensive schemes. These guys, they they know how to scheme these guys open and uh, it just kind of reminded me of how the Cowboys are not necessarily there, they they got there at a certain point last year. I think, uh, down, down, down the stretch. But I think all in all, there needs to be more intention put in that area.
I like what you said, and I respect the heck out of Troit. I think you have a team that doesn't have really great route runners.
That's probably a product as well.
I don't think that when you when the route running. I think when you put Ceedee Lamb at Oklahoma was a player. When you put him on the move, that's when he throvened. But if you ask Ceedee Lamb to run precise routes, that doesn't always happen. Doesn't always happen with Tolbert the guy that has the best, but the best route runner you ever had here, and in my opinion was Amari Cooper. When you watch it, how it was,
it was explode, plant break, settle, explode. You know, he had an idea for how to set a defensive back up. I don't think Dallas has maybe Brandon Cooks. Maybe Brandon Cooks, but he is smaller, he's quicker these guys, and.
They don't really use him like that. And then a lot of was that the routes they ask him to run that was part of that was part.
Of what I was about to come back running comeback routes outside the name eighty.
Two percent And I looked this up. Eighty two percent of Dallas's routes that they had the most success on. Is the hitch that doesn't require any real route running there? Does it sounds like it does, It doesn't. I mean, it's very it's very simplistic, you know that. But if you look at Dak, fifty two percent of his passes on crosses and ends are completed fifty so just half of those. But when you throw those routes inside, are guys really running?
Now?
Those guys running those routes with any kind of you know, That's what I'm saying. That's why you guy like Cooks Cooper, those kinds of guys. Those are route runners. You watch, you watch some guys around the league, and you watch their ability to get off the line, to explode, come
to come to balance, boom inside. I mean, one of one of my favorite highlights of a Murray Cooper was on a throw against the Giants where he's on in the in the he's isolated to the left side and he walks off the line and now he's got the dB like, whoa, what's this guy doing? Walk walk bam inside.
You know.
I mean, hey, it's like I'm setting you up. Yeah, I'm not letting you know where. I don't think Dallas has anybody that does that. I don't think Dallas has any type of guy that if you asked him to. That's why this team leads the league in tight window catches, tight window throws. They don't separate. It's the only time they don't run routes in order to separate, you know, and that and that's that's your that's that's talent. I mean, I say it's talent, but that's that's how you're made up.
You look at you look downfield players, high point players, you know, traffic players. Sure, but when you when you said go run a route to separate, to get open, who you got.
So let me ask you this.
It's obvious that they were able to last year, in the second half of the year get a lot out of this receiving core because this offense was clicking. And obviously those are seat those are some of the same receivers that weren't able to run great.
Routes back then. If if if that's just who they are.
What was the difference last year to this year as far as they're their abilities to make the offense.
I have no idea. It might have been opponents you were playing though, too, you know in coverage. I mean, I need to go back and look at that. I just know right now when I watch this team play, I don't I just don't see. And I have the utmost respect for people who evaluate this and trade men and guys like that, gals that evaluate it too, I have utmost respect. I just don't see a group and I need to go back and look at somebody. Okay,
what routes do they having success on? Like I said, they're having success on the hitches and things like that. The incut routes. Incut routes to me are the routes that you have to be able to go up and then break and then have that separation. If you're at fifty percent throwing those routes, it's not very good. I mean, we watched Detroit. You mentioned Detroit. They punish you on that stuff.
I'd be curious to know what the slant numbers of CD last year were because of those one hundred and thirty five receptions he had last year. It probably feels like fifty of them were in breaking slants. It was him lining up in the slot outside, didn't matter, three steps out and then break in and that's and Dak was putting it on the numbers. But I think that's easy to identify, it's easy to defend, especially if you're
expecting it many times. And I think these guys are just putting a little bit more physicality on them in coverage and it's throwing off the timing because what you've we've talked about, or Mike McCarthy has talked about trying to operate under that two point three threshold from snap to throw. Well, if you're throwing off these receivers with physicality and that two point three, they're not going to get it off in that two point three. That means
this offense is operating outside of their structure. So I think that's I think that's more of a product of what we've seen so far. And then also Cooks not being at one hundred percent health, and then he's been out these last couple of games. The only time you have seen north to south action in this offense is throwing a jump ball.
It's like Okay, it's Holbert's down there.
Let's see, let's go grab one kid, and it's it's yeah, you know, it's just it's it's it's how you want to operate a passing offense. And it's it's interesting too because I think I think McCarthy can be better as far as scheming these open because we've seen it.
We've seen it the last couple of years. And in that sense, so.
Do they need a guy that can't separate, like if they were to go draft one next year, Absolutely they need a guy that can separate, and that's unquestioned. But I also think there's a little bit on the play caller to scheme these guys open a little bit better.
Real quick, before I break, we got a phone call from Anthony in New Jersey. He wants to talk about the wide receiver route running.
What's up, Anthony, Hey, guys, how you doing good?
Are you?
Long time? Long time listening to you? Guys? Are great? Thank you, Brian, you like every time you like educate me on this game and I and I just want to thank you for it because I've been listening to you for years. It's just that, Yeah, Mike, Mike, my
question is is the same thing happened last year. These like the season starts, they starts off slow, then they go into the buy and then they come out of the buy and they come out like world beaters, and it's it's kind of happening this year, Like what are these guys doing wrong that I don't understand? Like what are they doing that they that they're getting knocked off routes or they're not or like Troy Aikman said, they're
lazy off the line of scrimmage. And thanks guys, and I'll take your comments both there.
All right, thanks for the call.
Yeah, I think we'll find out this weekend, he says. He looks like that's how it's playing out this I don't know. We're gonna see, Like they played San Francisco last year before the bye, they're coming out of buy this week having to go to San Francisco. We will see if they're able to create some of that same magic that they were able to create last year coming off the by going it coming out of this buy.
This year's version of that San Francisco game last year just happened against Detroit. So I mean, there's gonna have to be a lot of evaluation out of that game to try and play. But I would say the biggest difference that I saw last year, Mike McCarthy says, he splits up the season in trimesters, and at the end of the first trimester, which is at the end of the first six games, they do a big evaluation period. That's what went into this by week last this last week.
What worked last year was just integrating pre stat motion.
Which they seem to go back to not doing it.
Are not complex, That's what's so.
What if I told you, if I told you that their yards per play is better without motion than with.
Motion this year specifically, yeah, I still want to see it more.
What if I told you the Green Bay Packers yards per play is better without motion than with motion.
That's completely different. Separate if I told you your receivers that can get open.
What if I told you the San Francisco forty nine ers h yards per play is better without motion than with motion.
Do you think this team would be better with motion?
Though?
Great, just because it's.
An argument, it's it's an arg. Oh, I was dying on your hill too. I went up and looked at this stuff, and you look at the teams that are heavy that are heavy motion teams, their yards per play without motion in a lot of cases is better than with it. Like the Green Bay Packers. The delta between their their motion and their non motion is staggering.
But let me ask you this could could that also be a situation where because there is motion in their offense, they're able to still create those opportunities when there's not motion that they can still get great plays out of not running.
But they got great players.
But the point, But the point is they still run a lot of motion. Those teams use a lot of motions, but their yards per play fair.
But I'm saying no, I don't think you can just assume that that means that the motion isn't important.
Those teams run a lot of motion.
And so the question becomes is their offense just overall more efficient because.
They've had more more That's what I would I think their offense is just efficient because of the quarterback, the line, and the and the and the receivers. That's where I kind of feel like it is play caller, quarterback, you know these teams that have that ability to make plays when they don't have to use motion. I I trust
me I want to see motion. But if you it's it's surprising to look at the teams that lead the league in motion, but then look at yards per play without motion, and you're like going what you would figure
like Green Bay big motion team. Yep, big motion team, but much better when they play stationary than than they do with most or their yards per play would tell you that when they don't run motion, that their yards they might average seven point five yards without motion and six point five with motion.
The thing that I think about with that's a very interesting point that you bring up, Brian, But the thing I think about with that is this team doesn't happen.
I don't know if that's end all be all. That's what I'm saying.
This team doesn't have a problem with sustaining drives, with moving down the field. It's about finishing the drives and finding the big play. And I think if they integrated more motion into this offense, they could start finding those big plays a little bit more, both in the run game in in the past game. So I'd be curious to know what those numbers stand up against. Whenever you're looking at big play opportunities, and I think if you could just find some big plays for this offense. You
can make things work. The only north to south big play that this team has really found this year was that ball on the left sideline to CD and that was still thrown with two guys in the area, and see he was able to kind of come off of it and make.
A fifty five yard touchdown off of it.
Yeah.
Other than that, it's been a lot of east to west type action.
Packers success And just trust me, I love motion. I want to you if your receivers aren't good route runners, you better put him in motion. Okay, if they can't win off the line, or.
If you have one guy who's clearly better than everybody else, Yeah, and you don't have a lot else, yeah, you probably need to put him in motion.
Green Bays Green Bays play success. Play success with no motion is right at fifty five percent their Their play with motion success is right at thirty nine percent. So you have thirty nine percent motion success and with no motion they're at fifty three percent their play success.
Here's what I will tell you.
Just I think it was two to three weeks ago I heard Luke Keikley, who's a respect Oh no.
I'm a linebacker. No, I know, but I'm just saying what he said.
And he was asked the question how much does motion affect the defense, and he was like, that is the single thing for a defense that makes playing defense substantially harder because the moment you think you know what's gonna happen, because you gotta look, everything can change and you have to then adjust on the fly. And everybody on the defense has to have the same thought when they see
the motion of what's adjusting on the fly. And so he said, he says, it doesn't mean it's insurmountable, he said, good teams figure it out, good defenses figure it out, he said, but it is a part of playing defense.
That complicates things.
And so when you're playing a team that uses a lot of motion, your preparation has to be on point.
You have to.
Prepare a lot harder, a lot better to play those types of offenses. And maybe that's just the part of it. Again, it's not saying it's stand all, be all. It's saying it just complicates things. It gives you a little bit more of an edge going into that game than if you're not using motion, where defense can just see the look right and then adjust to it.
It makes it more unpredictable. Yes, offense unfortunately suffers from no.
No, it's it's it's the scheme. It's clearly the scheme here. Because it's funny because, like I say, I look at this to trait no motion yard per play seven point four motion six point three. They're averaging one point one yard more of play without motion than they are with motion. But you look at the Lions the way they're just their ability to run the football and their ability to hit those crossing routes, it's just amazing. I mean to me, it's it's just it's funny these teams because I always
thought I thought motion was ind all be all. I really really did. But then I'm starting to look at these teams that I respect their offense, and I'm going, man, maybe it's just they got better players.
Well how maybe how often are the big play percentages happening within the motion? That's that was my question in response to this, because I don't think the Cowboys have problems sustaining drives. They can get the yards per play. It's about finding the big play. And I think with these teams that are integrating motion, whenever they integrate heavy motion. It's it's trying to scheme up the big play. So either they take the shot and they don't get it, or they take the shot and they do get it.
I would be curious to know what the percentage looks like as far as how often motion is being successfully run, because I think that kind of takes away from the yards.
Per playing and success like run with bigger plays, which is right, exactly, like the bigger plays come from that more frequently, but the percentage may be less.
Exactly, you just got a bigger play exactly.
Yeah, it's just funny that to me. Like I said that that Green Bay is the difference is fourteen percent between between their successful plays and they're not successful plays with and without motion.
All Right, we're gonna take a quick break. We're gonna come back, and I have one question for you guys about the NFC East, particularly about the Giants and the Washington Commanders. We'll talk about that when we come Backdallas Cowboys dot Com Radio.
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Welcome back, final segment of the break liferom the SWBC Mortgage studios at the Star.
Well, let's go into this real quick.
We don't have a lot of time left here, but I wanted to ask you guys about the NFC East Yesterday, both the Giants and I'm sorry not the Giants. Both the Eagles and the Commanders get commanding wins in their against their opponents yesterday. And as I'm watching the games, I'm looking at Saquon like, man, this guy is he's
a beast. I don't know if he's this looks like prime Saquon Barkley, and then you look at the commanders and although he got hurt yesterday, you still look at what Jayden Daniels is being able to do this year, particularly what he's doing on the ground in addition to the passes he's made, but what he's doing on the ground, And I thought to myself, which one would be scarier for a Dallas defense that is having a hard time being able to consistently stop the run, having a deal
with Sakuon Barkley who runs it his way, versus Jayden Daniels as a quarterback who runs it a little differently but still gets big time results.
What do you guys think?
I think they're both scary.
But I think Saquan if he's running like he did yesterday, there's not many teams in the NFL. It could be that it takes it takes the pressure off of the passing offense.
That's what I'd say, Man, what Jalen Hurts will make mistakes exactly the kid in the kid in Washington. He ain't gonna make mistakes. He protects the football, he scrambles around, he'll throw it away. He's deadly accurate. You know, if you if you take away say, philadelphiare running the ball and make Jalen Hurts. We've seen Jalen Hurts mess up games at the end, throw interceptions. You know, Barkley scares me far worse than what the guy does that guy
at the commanders that that oc they're Kingsbury. He's resuscitated his career. He's figured out how to run the football with his scheme. He never he never was able to run the football great with his skin point, and now he's now he's kind of figured it out because he's got a quarterback that knows how to do it, you know. And the quarterback is he's thin and all that, and everybody's like, oh, he's frail, he's no a kid knows how to protect himself. Yeah, he'll take some hits, but
he'll get out of bounds, get down. He does what he has to do. But Barkley running the ball takes Jalen Hurts out of the game. And that's if you're playing the Eagles, you're kind of counting on him throwing an interception or two.
And that was yesterday without their starting left tackle, who's a really good player. Yeah, and he's he's out now on the ir so he's gonna miss at least four weeks three moreks. So I think that's that was a that that to me was as impressive as anything else that they did that without their starting left tackle.
Yeah, real quick, can I tell you something?
Sure?
Motion touchdowns? Jets four, the Browns three, Cowboys three, pay Broncos three. Those are the bottom four teams. What do we always know about? What do we know about Aaron Rodgers?
Hey eighth?
Where did this coach come from? Hates motion yet?
And tell tell us the up end of that. You mentioned that before. The teams that are that are at the top of the league, what are they getting?
Eighteen?
Yeah?
Eighteen? Yeah, yeah, that's the Lions. Uh, you're the forty nine ers who you're about to play. They have thirteen motion touchdowns, but the top the top teams in the league have eight eighteen. That would be the Bills at eighteen, the Lions at eighteen, the Packers at eighteen, how about the Saints sixteen?
They started us so hot and then it just kind of part. It all tells a part on them all.
I appreciate you guys. You want to be back tomorrow. Brian's gonna have some some I think we're gonna go on the.
More mind talk.
Brian brought us tomorrow and uh and then Wednesday, we'll get you guys ready. We'll start looking forward to the next game Cowboys versus forty nine Ers. Till then, for Nick Harris, Brian brought us. I'm Derek Eagleton. This has been the Break live on Dallas Cowboys dot Com Radio.
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