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Cowboys Let's go. Are you ready for a break?
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Ready for a break? Yeah, and so much for that.
It's time for the break on Dallas Cowboys dot Com. We were on with Ambar Garcia, Brian brought us, Patrick Walker and Derek Eagleton.
It is Thursday November sixteenth, twenty twenty three, Season nineteen, episode number seventy two.
Welcome to the latest edition.
All of the break Well Lot from s WBC Morriage Studios at the Star and we got our crew here with us. Patrick is out today, but we got Brian, we got Amber, and we got Cowboys versus Carolina Panthers. And at some point in this show, Brian is going to stand up and dance for us.
I don't even know what it's called. That one dance.
I don't know the name it was. It was. It's on your social media.
Do it right, do it left?
It's left right, left, right?
Yeah, yeah, well you're having problems with the left right footwork there looked like a right tackle.
Some people are not born with that kind of skill. Takes a lot of coordination, some pain.
Some can dance.
Right there, you go exactly, lean into whatever God gave you.
Whatever. You a Dominican though, that you could have, you have that.
You know.
That's the kind of shame I bring up on my own people. It's the fact that I'm probably me and my brothers. They claim they can dance, but they can't. But yeah, we were not good dances. My mom can dance really good. Everybody in my family, my dad is a big dancer.
But that's interesting Mom and dad and what happened. None of y'all could.
Yeah, I don't know.
Y'all were busy doing other things.
Let's put it like that, painting.
Yeah, painting.
There you go.
All right, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna we're gonna start that injury report. Patrick's not here to give it to us. But that's a good thing, because the Cowboys injury report is basically empty, like they don't have any They have guys on it, but.
They all have full participation in practice.
Here.
There was one thing that stood out to me, though, I thought was interesting. Tyrant tinnashitot nd shot A shot opened his window. What what can he provide for this offense at this point. Is there anything you can expect it for him to provide at this point coming back from injury, Well.
It would be interesting to see what that looks like, because prior to the injury, he wasn't doing a whole lot, like even from the start of training camp. I don't know what it was. I don't know what kind of funk he was in, but he just was wasn't having a successful start of twenty twenty three season.
Like.
Uh.
It seemed to me that maybe a lot of it was mental because physically, prior to the injury he was fine. He was physically fine.
Last year.
He did a really good job given what was asked of him to do and his role in the offense. But then all of a sudden, I don't know if it was the addition of them drafting look Schoommaker, maybe that got into his head or what. This is just me trying to find reasons. This is not anything that
hurt or seeing myself. But I don't know if if it was that the arriving of Schoolmaker and maybe him getting too much into his head, but because there were a lot of instances that he would mess up not catch a ball or something, and he would have that conversation of that kind of saying, hey, it's okay, Like I would see that, like him reassuring him like, hey it's fine, bro, like you got this blah blah blah, and then they would go and then yeah, he might
catch the next ball and like that. But right now, I don't know what that could look like for him, him coming off that injury, because prior to that it wasn't.
I think she tailed it. I think she absolutely nailed it with him. And there are people in the organization even before last season they were, you know, guys were talking about, hey, watch this Hindershot watching and he kind of he has some productive plays, and then all of a sudden, then Ferguson just completely outplays him. They draft Schoonmaker. And now maybe you're a little bit you're not so sure about what your role is really going to be.
But there were a lot of people in this organization that we were talking about that they felt like that Hindershot might have been above Ferguson at points of time of last year, and then here they are, they go out and draft a second round tight end. It doesn't seem like it's bothered Ferguson all that much. But then Hindershot gets hurt. You know what, it's a capable player, you know, it's to me, it's you know, McEwan. I
know there was a lot of guys. Bobby and I did a podcast yesterday, Love of the Star, and Bobby's like, I want to see more of the Michigan tight end, and I got many too. Man, I'm on this Schoonmaker thing by myself. I feel like it's no McEwan, the other Michigan tie and I went clear and I went, oh, okay, yeah he was. He said I want to see more of the Michigan tied in and I immediately thought of Schoonmaker and he was talking about McEwen and so that.
But I think having Hindershot and Schoonmaker and Ferguson and I think that you it presents a little bit of a different group. Maybe things have had a chance, like Ambar said, maybe he settled down. Maybe the injuries kind of put him into place like okay, I just need to go out and play.
Now.
I've got, you know, a couple of months here to kind of figure out a help and be the type of player that I could be. I'm gonna say it's real quick. The one guy that was surprising yesterday, we were thinking Tyron Smith practiced and we were kind of thinking that it was one of these practices like whoa, whoa wait a minute, now they told us Tyron Smith is not going to practice, is Tyron Smith? Because he wasn't on the injury report. But it was like a
walk through practice, is what it was. So it wasn't like a real practice.
It was more of a run.
Yeah, exactly, it was more of a walk through type of a speed practice. So now you're like going, okay, you know, because you're thinking, please Tyrant don't get hurt in practice because you don't see him on the injury report.
That was the one that got my attention. But I'm glad you brought up a hinder shot.
Yeah.
You know.
The interesting thing about hinder shot and this is this is just my own perspective. I had actually until I saw the injury report, I'd actually kind of forgotten that he wasn't around. That's the hard part about this is and that's why I asked the question the way I did is how.
Does he fit?
Is when someone is gone and realize they're not there until they're ready to come back. Then you're like, what did they really miss I don't. I don't know that there was a role that he had that they missed when he wasn't there. And that's the part where I mean, it's not like he's the best blocker, it's not like
he's the best whatever. You know, you can't find that role of well without him, they don't have this right and that's the part that makes it tough to especially in an offense where they got a lot of guys wanting the ball, right.
They got a lot of guys that that should be getting the ball. It just makes it tough.
What happens is when you play games and you manage to win and you have success without him, then the push to get him back ready to go is not that serious. It's like, Okay, we can take our time with this a little bit. We don't have to push him, you know, try and make it to for him to come back potentially a week early.
We could let this thing ride and then you know, when he's ready, he's ready.
And you know, the cowboys in a way kind of I think they really hate making roster moves when it comes to taking somebody off the roster completely.
I don't think they I don't think they're it.
You know, who's the fifty first guy, who's the fifty second guy, who's the fifty third guy.
They do.
They love their players. They love their players to the point where if somebody were to come back, or they had to go claim a guy, or they had to, you know, make a move, it is hard for these guys to make a move. I don't with the personal guys, you know, maybe a little bit more. But the coaches. They Mike McCarthy, he loves his team, he loves his guys, and so when you start talking about adding guys and having to subtract guys that are playing, it's hard for these coaches to.
You know, to get rid of a guy. They just don't want to do it.
But also for the tight end position, Hender Show wasn't like the best guy that blocking, so he wasn't here to block and that would be more Sean McKeon, and then Schoommaker, that was one of his trades.
I just spit all over the place.
Schoolmaker will do that to you.
That's weird, but okay, but them too.
And then you look at the receiving aspect of things catching the ball, it's not They've shown a whole lot of priority in targeting Jake Ferguson. So the position itself, it's already lacking as far as how much you're using it. So it's just it's hard to do you kind of really envision a role for him right now in what's left of the season.
Yeah, I was gonna say this if I can offer just one of my being wrong about the tight end position. I feel like that I was wrong about Schoonmaker in a way of him being a.
Plug and play blocker. I felt like watching.
Him play at Michigan and the way that they play with that physicality and the way they run the ball, and you know, they're one of the top four teams in the country right now. They still have that physical element to him. Where I misevaluated Schoonmaker is that ability, not so much is the catching. I thought that the catching and part of that would would be there. I really he's had some drops that are they're really inexcusable,
concentration lacks, you know, stuff that you didn't see. Where I misevaluated him was plug and play as a blocker. I thought he is going to be plug and play and they'll be able to run the ball. They'll put him in and they'll run the ball behind him and he'll be effective and all that. He is far from being that guy right now.
He really really is.
And if you if you you know, and I know there's a lot of people they'll throw the word busts and all that, but you know, I just remember Stalton Schultz and guys like that that that the first couple of years just non factors and then all of a sudden they're factors. I'm willing to give Luke Scoonmaker, but just me admitting what I thought of the player coming out of college was wrong in the way of how I thought he can immediately just go in and play, and it's been really hard for him in that way.
Just out of curiosity, where do you have Laporta?
I had actually Laporta above Schoonmaker and having to stay in the second.
Round and they went close together.
Yeah, they were. Laporta for Detroit's played really well. The kid at Buffalo has played. Kincaid has been Kincaid. You know, everybody and everybody pre draft and leading up to even moments when we went on the air here in the studio, we're thinking that cowboys were going to look at Kinkaid, the tied end from Youtubeeah, he was gonna he was
that Dallas was going to take Concaid. And then all of a sudden, some whispers started happening, you know, among our group that Laporta was a guy that they really really liked from Iowa. And so that's that tidy group was actually a really good group, you know. And but you know, everybody's looking at all the other ones that have been selected, and then they see Scoon Maker and then they're going, they missed out on that one. Yeah, you know, that's that's when they missed out. Now give
him an opportunity. But also if you want to blame somebody for maybe misevaluate him, look at me. You know, I'm willing to say that I thought he could be a plug and play player.
He just can't be that right now.
Yeah, And I think at the end of the day, you hit the nail on the head. From the standpoint, we got to get these guys sometimes a little bit of time. I think sometimes we see guys coming to the NFL and immediately have a splash and so we think everybody has to do it right way, and I don't think that's necessarily the case. You see a lot of good players in the NFL that it takes them a little bit to get going.
Well, that's with Mazzie Smith is a really good example. And you know, Mazzie Smith. And we had Brian Baldinger on from the NFL Network yesterday day and Brian was talking about Mozzie Smith one of his better games, and you watched him and you know, and Dan Quinn talked about it and all that. And you know, the thing with the unfortunate thing for Mozzie Smith is everybody sees what Jalen Carter at the Philadelphia Eagles is doing well.
Jalen Carter at one time, before he got in some kind of the off the field situations, a lot of people talked about him maybe being the first overall pick, yeah, in the draft. And so now you're kind of thinking, well, wow, you're comparing Mazzie Smith to Jalen Carter, which is really not fair. They're they're both both have similar trades with strength, and one is much quicker, more active and all that. It's not that Mozzi doesn't can't be Jalen Carter one day.
But it's just.
Right now he's he's having to develop a technique and play a different style than what Jalen Carter played at Georgia and now is playing with the Eagles.
It's a huge difference in talent and traits of a top first round pick and a pick first round pick and they live in the mid to late twenties.
Yeah, twenty different, Yeah twenty one.
Sometimes pick twenty six is better than pick one, though sometimes it Yeah, everyone, you know, every once in a while, like pick twenty one, you're like, man, they stole the guy here. Yeah, they stole one here. And I think Mazie's going to be that type of guy. But I just wanted to I just wanted to throw out there about what my thoughts were about about Schoonmaker.
All Right, we're gonna take our first break. We'll come back. We'll dive into the Carolina defense. We've got a lot of things they got to try to figure out on the defense, because although this team doesn't have a great record, this defense is performing quite well when you look at them ranked relative to other teams in the NFL. We'll talk about that when we come back Dallas, Cowboys dot Com Radio.
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Welcome back. It is the second segment of the break game.
We are allowed from the SWBC Mortgage studios at the Star. This segment is brought to you by blockchain dot com. All right, let's talk about the Carolina defense. I want to start first Brian with their pass rush. Tell me who is the the the pass rusher that we should be most concerned about this game.
Yeah, it's Brian Burns and Brian Burns is listed as a They play a three four front that's their base with the three down linemen and then the linebackers.
The four linebackers and.
Brian Burns is primarily their best pass rusher. He's listed as a linebacker. It's very similar. I kind of compared it to him with what Terrence Steele is going to have to deal with when he played against Hassan Reddick. That kind of that kind of player, and.
You're gonna get Burns.
You know, Reddick plays the one side, but Burns will play both. When you look at his where his alignments are, it's it's really on both sides. But this guy is an extremely productive player when it comes to rushing the passer when he gets I mean, he's one of.
These guys that.
When you watch him play, you're like, my gosh, how they going to stop him here? You know, I mean single blocks things like that. I mean, he's he's hard to deal with because he's just got His first step is just it gets so much ground. So now you're a blocker and you're trying to you know, you want to get your hands on him, but he's already on you because his first step has got to you, and now you're struggling to get your hands on him to
get him on clean. He's like I say, the first step, explosiveness, the overall speed, the pass rush moves.
There's a lot of things that you have to deal with.
You're gonna have to account for this guy really every single play.
When you look at the Carolina defense in their pass rush right now, they are ranked fifth in blitz percentage they blitz, they do more than most teams at thirty seven point three percent. Right, but he was an interesting part. They're thirty first in past in pressure percent right only at thirty point eight percent.
It's a weird defense.
So my question becomes, is that an indicator that they really are much better on the back end, and they kind of expose They expose their back into a lot because they're blitzing, which means they got less people back in coverage and they're not getting home and they're not even getting pressure a lot of the times.
Burns is their best rusher and everybody else I will say this, Derek Brown, who plays They've got some big body guys, so they're not the best when it comes to Burns is the nifty guy. Everybody else are big slug guys, big body push guys, and so what happens is he's the primary guy.
So they have to blitz.
They have to blitz to create other opportunities because none of their other down linemen are going to get home not that often. It's really really difficuelt Derek Brown's the one that's got the best chance to play. He's very similar to what they dealt with, in my opinion, to Dexter Lawrence. That kind of guy, big body, push, you know, can can kind of kind of make some things happen, to create you know, he's one of those guys that creates a new line of scrimmage the way that he plays.
But the thing about it is Derek and I was curious about this because the metrics will tell you that this team faces the least amount of past attempts in the league of drop back passes, their last in the league when it comes to when it comes to facing drop back passes. And I was curious because I was wondering, how do they play, how they played so much coverage?
How much? What's the deal?
Okay, they've given up, they've given up only only the Giants have given up more rushing touchdowns than these guys. Okay, the Giants have given up sixteen. They've given up fifteen. They've allowed four point three yards and carry. That makes them twenty fourth in the league when it comes to defending the run. They're ninth in the in the league with the most rushing attempts faced. They face the ninth
most rushing attempts. So what's happening is they're they're they've had a problem defending Like outside runs is another thing. When you watch them on tape, it's like, oh, balls getting to the corner. They're thirtieth in the league when
it comes to ball on edge. So we saw last week with the Cowboys, remember the toss sweeps, trying to get the ball on the outside, not run the ball at Dexter Lawrence, try and get the ball on the edge a little bit more So this team, I think they're facing less pass attempts because teams are kind of figuring out we could.
Run the ball and have a little success on them.
And but but if you look at you look at how they play like and this is this is why I think is going to happen in this game. Because they play that cover three look with the single high safety. They're going to teams that are that have big time receivers Dolphins, Seattle, Detroit, those teams that have those kind of receivers played zone ninety four percent of the time against the Dolphins played zone ninety two percent of the time versus Seattle played zone eighty three percent of the
time against Detride. They're gonna play a ton of zone in this game against the Cowboys. They're absolutely gonna play and they're gonna hope that they can get that they can get Brian Burns home, and maybe they're gonna have to blitz a little bit more, but they're they're they're big blitz down. By the way, too is first down that they don't wait till third down to blitch you. They come right off the bus first down. They're gonna come blitch you there.
So I kind of feel like.
I feel like that they they they they wanted. They're really really worried about their run defense, you know, but they're but people have had success though even though they've got the fewest pass attempts. If you look in their secondary and you watch their and watch their guys play, you know, j C. Horn is coming back and he's been out since week one. Now he's there and when
you watch him, he's their best press man corner. I mean, he is the one guy that can lock up a guy, like if he gets on CD, he can lock CD up because of his ability and ability to turn, to run, his size, his length, all those things. But the other corners with Dante Jackson and CJ. Henderson, they they get a lot of covered snaps. But the quarterback rating against them, and you could tell it on tape again is really high. One nineteen to six against Jackson, uh one p fifteen
to nine against Henderson. Teams are having success when they pass it. Those guys throwing the ball at him, Yeah, you know they're not. It's like not a lot of attempts, but teams are having success doing it.
You know.
It's a it's a weird thing because maybe the fact that they struggle playing run defense actually helps them not get exposed as much in past defense.
You know what I'd also like to figure out on that note, is is it because because they have lost They've only been two games so far, there are all their losses. Yeah, there have only been two of them when they lost by less than seven points, right, And so it makes me wonder if a lot of the fact that teams are running the ball a lot against them is based in the fact that you get a lead and then you're just trying to run out the gains right, and that that does make me wonder if
that's really the reason. It's not so much that you see a weakness in the run defense as much as it is it's just that's point of the game and you just on a rap the clock.
That is I clearly think I don't think anybody wants to deal with Brian Burns as a rusher. I really don't. Uh, But but I've seen teams run the ball at him and have success. So it's it's it's it's one of
those strange things. Is like I remember they came in here, I think it was two years ago, maybe three years ago, where they were the number one run defense in the league and Dallas and Dallas was Dallas was one of the top teams running the foot ball as well, and it was going to be okay, which was going to happen, and Dallas just slammed him in the running game. And they came out of here and Dallas had a big win and all that stuff like that.
But they ran the football.
I think that's a little bit of I think their pass defense gets masked because of the struggle. I could definitely see now the reason they struggle. I think in the running game is they like to and we always talk about like move the front because you'll see them. You'll see them move all their guys will take a step going, say strong, and then they'll try and fill with a safety or somebody. So they're trying to cover all the gaps, but there's sometimes they don't cover all the gaps, and now.
The ball's through and people are getting yards on.
I could see Dallas in the running game trying the little bit of the edges, but just kind of take as blockers, take them where they want to go. If they want to go hard to the just move them that way and then take the ball behind all the movement there. And that's what teams have been able to do against this team and and have some success doing it.
You mentioned the fact that they run a lot of zone. They actually, right now second and league percentage of plays dropbacks that they play zone about eighty three percent of the time at this point, because we've talked about it. That is at great games versus teams that play a lot of man play a lot of zone. If you had to choose which one you think the Cowboys offense is more proficient going up against zone or man.
I kind of feel like that, man, it seems like they make a lot of big plays and they play man coverage place against these guys, do you know when they when the ability to I know the San Francisco game was a little bit different because of the man.
I mean they didn't.
I don't think they expected San Francisco to play as much man coverage. But man, they seem like they make some huge chunk plays when it's when they're dealing with their running guys through. You know, maybe they're using their picks and their rubs. But it seems like to me the separation that that you know that Lamb has been able to get cooks last week in the game. With the separation, I do feel like to me, just what I pointed out, I think the I think they're nervous
about Dallas's secondary. I think you're gonna see a ton of zone in this game, just because that's in me just going back, I'm like, okay, wait, okay, they play a lot of his own, but who are they playing it against. You know, look at Miami. Miami has weapons, yea speed. You know they're trying not to give up the big play. The thing when you're playing the Cowboys. You got to worry about the big plays. I think
the DAK I think they're going to play. But we'll say with j. C. Horn being back, the Hord could Hord could be great, or he could have a lot of rust. You know, the Russ factor could be a factor here. But he is the one guy that I feel like that they said, Okay, we're going to try and take Ceede.
Lamb out of this game.
He's the one guy I think could go with Lamb and battle him the whole game.
I don't think Jackson or Anderson can do that.
So let's let's go through the last four weeks where they've started changing offensively and being more productive. So against the Chargers, what did they face there?
It's more more zone coverage.
There Rams that was zone, Eagles, that was that was both but that was more man than zone.
And then Giants, Yeah, a lot of so.
Well, I think the other thing to consider is they've played man differently. Like what I mean by that is the Cowboys over the last four weeks, really after the San Francisco game, they basically changed their offensive bit to where they now got a ton of motion.
And it's what we talked about a right.
You're there's no motion there are there's no compression sets, Like they're not doing the things that create opportunities for you to take advantage of man press and not let them be able to get their hands on a clean press on the receivers. After that game, I don't remember what the percentage was, but it's like some crazy jump in percentage of plays where they have pre snap motion now versus or the last four games versus what they were doing against San Francisco.
Talking about yourself, there's something in my scouting bag I want to grab. It's a piece of paper talking about you.
But I think that's really the point.
If you want to talk about like where the difference is, you can't even really say like they were playing man here versus man earlier in the season, because how they how they are attacking man is different.
You would say, it's not so much what the opponent is doing defensively, is more so what the Cowboys have been able to start incorporating.
That's my that is my thought, because again, I feel like they against San Francisco, they weren't doing the things that you typically would want to do when you're placing it playing a team that's playing press man coverage.
Their corners aren't great.
In San Francisco, they just played something I don't think Dallas was necessarily were and in that way, they didn't do the things that they probably should be doing. And as we see after that game, they now have incorporated incorporated those things into their their offense.
I did a little project and I've stood a grabbed my notes when I did it of Ceede Lamb of the you know, he's targeted eighty six times and he's got sixty eight receptions in those times. How many times you think that he's he's face Okay, he's faced h single coverage. He's got forty eight receptions against single coverage, and he's got twenty receptions against double coverage.
So that's of his sixty eight.
So when you watch him play teams trying to take him at you know, if you try and double him, he's he's seen twenty six double coverage snaps.
And he's caught twenty of them.
That's amazing.
See that's what I'm saying.
That's that's the that's the issues that you deal with when you're trying to play ceed Lamb. You're trying to think move him around, which they've done a great job of doing. You could go back on the next gen and watch and they and he's never really in the same spot over.
I mean, you look at all his targets.
So if you're going to travel now, you're messing up your whole defense.
You're messing up hole exactly exactly. So it was sixty eight receptions. Like I said, it was that it doesn't matter whether you single cover him or double cover him.
He's going to he's going to make place.
Do you remember.
I can't remember, but starting from forty nine ers and before that, were they still moving him around?
Oh, I felt like it was more static with whether we were playing. I mean just you know, okay, the tight formations, slants and things like that. It felt like to me there might not have been as much with that. I mean, there's some these the games after San Francisco are the ones that are really noticeable where I had to find me, no, no, where I had to find him.
Like when you after the San Francisco there are times you could watch and you're like, Okay, he's going to be there, He's going to be there, He's going to be there. He's okay, he's there, and then after San Francisco was like, oh no, that's that. Yeah, that's oh, that's that's Cooks. Okay, wait yeah, now you're looking for his shoes. I know he wears like blue shoes, so now you're looking for the blue shoes in the formation, you know, and they're moving them around and bringing him
in motion and things like that. So the San Francisco game really turned this group around, whether it was CD going to Dak and saying, bro, come on, we gotta do something different here. Because you watch you watch Ceedee Lamb's game against San Francisco, it was like it is so just ordinary, and after that it's been like all pro it.
Honestly, is the one thing that gives me some hope that the Cowboys, if they have to face the forty nine ers in the playoffs, can change the tide of what's been happening the last several times that they've played them, is if they would have employed then what they've been employing against these other teams. I really want to see. Now again, your defense is still gonna have to make some stops in it. In that game, they just didn't. They not either, So the defense still got to pull
their weight on that. But I do think the offense can score more points than they scored in that game, obviously doing the things that they've been doing over the last four weeks. All Right, we're gonna take our final break. We'll come back talk a little bit about this Dallas offense. We may even get a question in or two.
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Back to the break.
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Welcome back, final segment of the Break Life Mess WBC Mortgage Studios.
At the Star.
I'm actually gonna start this segment with a question from one of our listeners. Mister test Tasty Beverage is his handle on Twitter. His question is do you think the combo of cooks and CD will allow the run game to get going with the panther panthers and commanders coming up?
When you think about it, one of the things that I think going into the season, I think most teams probably looked at the Cowboys and said, you got us up the run first, and now that the offense is starting to explode in the passing game, you.
Got to see you think that flips it.
Yeah, you got to say.
The one thing the Cowboys have proven that they could do is throw the ball and throw it effectively. You have to be terrified if you're a defensive coordinator their chunk plays, the big plays, I.
Mean they will, they will.
They'll route combo you to the point where you lose track of where your guy is. They'll make it confusing for you, will make it hard for you. And then you know you'll see a play like up the sideline where you know, ceedee, Lamb's wide open. You know they lose the Giants lose coverage with the route combination. Next thing you know, here's Lamb going up the sidelines. Ball
Dak finds him. You know that kind of thing. So yeah, it if you're the if you're a defensive corner, that Carolina has to be worried about Dallas's ability to throw the football.
And the run.
I mean, if the if the Cowboys are running the ball and I hate to say this, it's almost a wasted play really, if you think about it, if you're if you're going to average lake, you know, three point a to carry on it or or something like that, it's almost a wasted play.
And on average you're hitting six, seven, eight, and then Dak still the.
Ball, Dack still the ball where he's nine yards shot throwing it. Yeah.
Nah, I mean if you're you're scared to death of Dallas throwing the ball, you really are.
And when he's completing seventy eighty percent of his throws, like that's a crazy percentage completion percentage number. But when he's up there in the seventies like it is, it's a situation where you take your chances three out of four times he's gonna connect on that pass. A run does tend to be a little bit like is it worth the run?
Run? Right?
I mean, if you run the ball or trying, if Dallas runs the ball against you, and you know you then they get just their average. You're okay with that? You know, you're not okay with giving up a thirty seven yard pass to Cooks, you know, or giving up a forty one yard pass to Gallop. You know you're not that, that's not that's not winning football right there.
Well, let's be positive.
You know me, what about the running game?
You know me, I'm gonna say, no, I'm what I'm trying to say. If let's say, defenses are now focusing more in stopping the passing game and stopping CD Brendan Cooks, maybe that forces you to get better af freaking running the ball. You know, like now you're being forced to really really put a lot of And that's not to say that like they're not putting effort in trying to improve the running game and all of that, but by
doing it. This is my focus in the first in the next two weeks really before we get to Seattle, because that's when things start getting interesting. But this next two weeks, it's a running game. How much can they improve And we've talked about it already yesterday, what that December month can look like and they have to they If that means someone's forcing them to run the ball to maybe force them to figure things out, then I would take that, obviously if it means a win at
the end of the day. But they just they have to find some type of balance. I love, absolutely love everything they're doing in the passing game, but at some point you're going to have to be able to move the ball.
Yeah on the ground, I hope I'm not hot taking this. I would start doubtle over Pollard is what I would do.
I think there comes a point in time where if you can establish what you want to do ambar early in the game, all of a sudden you find a way, like Dawbell breaks a couple of runs. You know, it's it's a four and a half yard, it's a five yards, a seven yards and eight yard. You know, they're kind of running the ball that way. And I'm not saying it has to be like when Zeke was was here and then they'd put Tony in in the second series and all that. I'm not talking about that run it,
run it, run it. Put Pollard in, run it, put Pollard in again. You know, kind of find a way to kind of find a little rhythm with the running game. It doesn't have to be a series the serious thing. But I think starting Pollard, I think Patrick's onto something about the pressure that Pollard is feeling about being the primary back, and we maybe if you allow doubt and this is the first time that Dowdell has been healthy throughout, you know, and knock on wood that it stays that way.
But I kind of feel like though, that if you can find a little rhythm early in the game and get the offensive line a little some good feeling about and find a couple of plays that you can run that you know, okay, they can't.
Stop this play today, kind of.
Find that play, find those two or three plays, run those plays, and just kind of wear that team out doing it. But maybe Pollard being the starter is kind of put you back a little bit in your running game.
Yeah.
I just think even if teams decide that they want to have more people in coverage and say we're gonna stop the passing game more, I'm still not certain that this running game is gonna get a big boost because one of the things I've seen, and I'd be interested to see if Brian you've seen the same thing when you've watched the film. But one of the things I've seen is it feels like there are a number of times when their runs aren't successful, and it's not because
the guy didn't get to the second level. It's because engage with the guy. The lineman lineman sees you, they're holding you, they shed the block, they make the tack right like we've I've seen, It's not just it's not just a situation where if the linebacker's out of place, all of a sudden, now the running game takes off.
Right.
I don't know that that's necessarily the case, because I think right now, for me, a lot of the challenges with the running game exist with the offensive line just not sustaining blocks.
See.
I think you make a really good point because there, but I also remember, and you and I we all watched this play where the hole was inside on the Okay, they they're pulling guys, and you know, uh, Schoonmaker gets stalemated.
Uh the uh.
Gets knocked down. Smith gets kind of in muddy water there. He can't do what he needs to do. But all of a sudden, they've got the backside sealed off and there's a hole where he can hit that hole where Polar also goes into the fray, goes into the fray where if you just if you hit it a little quicker behind the scoop block that they had gotten there, then maybe there's a there's a six seven yard gain there.
Poward's got to help the offensive line too, you know, if they if things are cluttered and muddied and all that. His vision and his quickness has got to be able to help the offensive line when it's not block clean. And that's where I think Daubtle's different. I think when it's not block clean, you can find it.
Yeah, And that's the thing. That's the thing.
You're starting to become one dimensional and that's not good. Like, you have to be able to put on tape a few plays because right now, I don't think.
Any nobody is scared of running a game.
Exactly.
Nobody's scared of you of the running game. Nobody is looking at that as a threat. So you have to put something on tape a few plays.
Yes, I think that is the traditional way you look at football. But right now, if you go across the best teams in the NFL, which ones of them have a scary running attack?
Uh?
I think I would worry when you're about the top teams.
Yeah, I'm talking about the top teams in Miami.
Miami scares me running the.
Ball, by the way, Yes, you can put Miami that category just across the board. Their offense is scary everybody.
Okay, yeah, question, Yeah, yeah, you get me one.
But Kansas City, no, Philadelphia no.
Like you go down the.
Line, you have guys with names that you're like, oh, Baltimore, we have to.
Be But Tony Pollard is that guy too. He has a name, Like he has a name, he hasn't. My point you said guys don't have a name. But my point is like, I don't think anybody's going into the game against Kansas City and saying, man, Pacheco, I don't know, I don't know we're gonna do with that Pacheco.
Like, I don't think that's the case.
I think there are a ton of teams out there that are at the top of the league that you look at their running game and you're like, okay, yeah, you don't want you still need to stop the run because if you don't pay attention to them, maybe they can get some some gash runs on you. But the fact of the matter is their passing game is everything.
I would I would think maybe I'm wrong about this. I believe there's a lot of defensive coordinators. Now we all talk about turnovers all the time. If you gave them a choice between having turnovers or not giving up chunk plays. They might say they'll take the chunk plays. Please don't let me give up chunk plays, you know, please don't let me turnovers. I mean, a lot of teams are to the point now where we just can't get people to turn it over. But we ain't gonna
give up any big plays, you know. We're just not gonna let you. We're gonna make you. One thing teams have figured out with the Cowboys too is make them drive the ball. Make them drive the ball down the field and eventually and a lot of teams will make mistakes. They'll get a holding, you give them a sack, you know, you get a penalty.
Something will stop a drive. You know.
I think a lot of teams are kind of thinking of that about not just you know, playing the defense, not to give up huge chunk plays.
All right, that's a wrap. We will be back tomorrow.
We'll wrap this thing up and we'll let you guys know what we thing's gonna happen this Sunday to live for Brian brought us in Amber Garciam Derek Eilton. This has been the Break live on Dallas Cowboys dot Com Radio.
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