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Cowboys Let's go.
Are you ready for a break?
Yes?
Are you ready for a break?
Absolutely? Ready for a break?
Yeah, and so much for that.
It's time for the Break on Dallas Cowboys dot Com right with Ambar Garcia, Brian brought Us, Patrick Walker, and Derek Eagleton.
It is Thursday, December twenty eight, twenty twenty three, Season nineteen, episode number ninety seven. Welcome to the latest edition of The Break. We are live.
Happy birthday too, Hey, join in, guys, leave me by myself.
They're turning tame.
Christmas Dayrek, big birthday.
Thank you.
I want to say it. I've always take.
Fifty one right, fifty one fifty one. I have rounded the corner and I'm heading towards sixty. I guess you know, never goes back. I was gonna go forward, but.
I figured I'm gonna start going backwards.
Now, how's that going to be?
Next Birch Benjamin Franklin, say, Benjamin, but gonna start at sixty. I'm gonna go back. I'm gonna try and make it till thirty.
She hit pause. Yeah.
True, I guess you could do.
That on my body, right man. I'm telling you I was wrapping up presents on the ground the other day before Christmas and my back no afterwards, I've been My back has been hurting like on an old lady all week.
Yeah, so not literally this morning when I was up to a department right right when I got this morning, I was like thinking, like, oh man, taking inventory. I'm like, I got a bum toe, I got a bum knee, I got a bum ham string, I gotta bum lower back. Like it's just like everything is breaking down. I'm like, that's what age does. Yeah, but I ain't stopping. I'm gonna keep going. I'm gonna keep going. To the wheels fall off.
When you get up off the bed and it sounds like somebody's making popcorn.
Everything starts popping.
Ankle pop twice, the knee pops you stretch, and the backs that pop pop pop is like, okay, over written boker, but it's better than the alternative.
Exactly.
Well. Your is good, your rib is good, your you know spring Yeah, yeah, you keep up with your running and.
Everybody still running eighty miles a morning.
I can't do that. And I'm earlier than you.
So I think that's gonna end. At some point my body is starting to say, man, running stuff, you might want to try biking, you know, Yeah, biking is fun. It's all right, let's jump in. We got a lot to talk about today. We're gonna talk about Detroit defense versus the Cowboys offense. Before we get to that, though,
let's catch up on some injury updates. We've got three guys that want to talk about Tyron Smith who did not practice with a back injury, to Manydoga who has a toe injury had limited participation yesterday, and then Rico Dada with an ankle injury he did not practice. What are we hearing about those three?
I think Rico is going to be hard pressed to play against the Lions. I mean, he only had two handoffs for four yards. I think the ankle injury that he's been managing for the past several weeks, I want to say two months at least, is really kind of catching up with him. And I think they're at the point where they're looking at maybe shut him down a little bit so that try to.
Help him heal up for the playoffs.
I think that gives you Elie Davis for his third and final elevation for the regular season, so look for that to be a thing. Like you said, Derek, he didn't practice rico on yesterday. We'll see if he does today, but I doubt it because he was downgraded yesterday to meydoga, like you said, popped up with a toe injury. Limited. I don't think that this is something that will hold him out. But again today being the Thursday practice technically
for I day, we'll see how it goes. With the designations. Jonathan Hankins, we talked about him yesterday. There is some optimism there, but if I'm a betting man, I don't bet that he plays. I'd be pleasantly surprised if he does. Malie Cooker good news. Upgraded from limited to full with his ankle injury, so he's back to full health or damn near it.
So that's a good stuff. That's good stuff. Hunter.
LOOKI also upgraded with his thigh issue from limited to full. Zach Martin had a rest day Tyrone Smith DNP, which is did not participate again. I don't know that I put too much stock in that simply because he's on quote unquote the plan. So whether it was the back issue or him not practicing any way, because that's the course that they have him on. I don't know that he would have participated, so it makes it hard to determine where he is in the process. But they're at
least mostly optimistic that he'll play. But we'll see, maybe sixty forty and well, let's go. He was activated yesterday in that transaction that replaced Rashaan Evans, So I do want to point out for the Lions though, Taylor Decker they're starting left tackle. He was down from limited on Tuesday too, did not participate on Wednesday with a growing injury, So they have an issue at left tackle, maybe something the Cowboys can exploit. We'll see, but that's a big one to look at for Detroit, if.
My memory serves correct. Yesterday, Brian and we were talking about the line's offense. You were saying that left side had some problems anyway. Is that is this worsening it or was Taylor Decker part of the problem.
He's part of the problem too. I mean, yeah, you know, he's a very good athlete, but the problem with him he's not very strong. And you got a couple of guys on your defensive line that are really good and they go speed to power, and that's where I think that the you know, he's talking about the growing injury with him. We'll see if in fact that he does play in this game, but that was going to be a spot I was going to attack anyway with him
in the lineup or out of the lineup. I'm still going that direction.
That should be an interesting matchup for the Cowboys. And as you said, like I really believe this game is going to come down to the two offenses in how well they can operate. So if there's a way to be able to affect their passing game or the running game, I think that's going to be a for the Cowboys.
All right, let's jump in.
Let's talk a little bit about this this Detroit defense, and Brian, I'm gonna start again where I started yesterday. I want to get a big picture look, and I really want to do this because this is not an opponent that the Cowboys necessarily face often. I want to make your fans have a good overview of where they are. Tell me what they do best and what they struggle the most at when it comes to their defense.
Well, Dak loves playing him. I think he's four and ohero in his career against these guys, so when he does see him, you know, that's a positive there. I think the best thing they do on defense is their ability to affect you with linebacker pressure rush in the passer. This is we saw last week the problems that the Cowboys had dealing with the linebackers and the blitz They do a really good job of timing up linebacker blitzes,
safety blitzes, slot blitzes. So you're going to see Aaron Glenn, who's their defensive coordinator, does a really good job with this. He's going to you know, he's going to disguise where he has guys in the box and then next thing you know, you're going to see blitzes coming that direction. So, you know, the Cowboys didn't exactly handle things very well
against the Dolphins. Maybe you know the communication. I know I was listening to Nate Newton last night on our show, The Cross Talk Show, and he was talking about communication with offensive linemen on the road. We talked about on our show as well. And you know, but you have a home home game this week, so hopefully that will help you. But that's something that I would worry about
with the with the Lions. You know, if they get in this game and now all of a sudden, it's like you start to see their linebackers near the line, you start to see their safeties near the line, they're likely going to bring a blitz on you. And so they're really good at at handling that. I think where I would I would say to me where the attack would be is I don't think necessarily at the cornerback spot that they're great. And I say this in a way, I think their safeties are some of the best you're
gonna play. Melifan Wu and Joseph they're both outstanding safeties. Brian Branch, the rookie from Alabama who was a safety at Alabama, plays as their slot corner. He is really good in coverage. He's you know, he's a sticky guy. But I think Cameron Sudden the corner on where's number one.
I think there's some snaps where you'll see him lose his man in coverage, and you know, especially they'll ask him if they do play they play about the metrics will tell you about sixty seven percent zone coverage, but they they'll they'll have times where they will lose guys in coverage, and they're and they're they're hopeful this week that they get Jerry Jacobs back the corner they lost. They've been playing with a couple of fill ins the last couple of weeks and it's been just okay for him.
But I kind of feel like that where people have kind of taken advantage of these guys is like a guy like I said, Cameron Smith, who loses men in coverage. You know, Ceedee Lamb really good at route running and his ability to have guys not stay with so uh blitzing linebackers, blitzing secondary the best and then the lack of coverage on the corners I think is an issue for them as the worst.
It sounds like they are better at the slot than they are on the outside.
There's no question they are. That's and and you know they they I said, they're just they're committed to playing uh you know, and playing with that with their with their with their slot corner. They just don't want to move Branch to the outside. They like him inside and they're going to try and figure out ways to to to navigate the uh the other you know, the other positions.
But man, I'll tell you what. Branch is a good player and Melafwan moved the safety and Joe those are good play Like I say, those you make a mistake just being careless with the ball and you just like throw it up and you're like you're not quick throwing it, or you're not you know, you're not confident in throwing it and you just kind of loft it out there and hope for the best. These guys will hawk it, yep, you know, and that's that's what you kind of have to worry about in this game.
With that being said, then do you think that this is a game where maybe instead of moving CD into the slot as often as they do, then maybe you keep them on the outside on the outs. Going up the middle might be a bit of a challenge with the safeties in the black corner, I think so.
To me, it's I I try and find as many times as I can get my guys on. Sutton number one. Yeah, that's the guy that I would and you know, like we'll see, we'll see if there's any rust, uh. You know, with Jacob's coming back, he's still with a hamstring injury, and but they've had a lot of guys come through and try and help and play the position. It just hasn't probably worked out well for them. But I would
be very mindful of these safeties and their nickel. That's who I would try and kind of stay away from it if I could.
Yeah, the other thing you could consider there is if you know that they they're stronger there, they may also you may want to kind of occupy them with CD and then take advantage of the outside with cooks and and maybe this is a game where Gallup can get more involved you take some shots down field. If you can get the safeties to really be preoccupied with CD in the middle of the field, there might be some opportunities there as well.
Well if they're not blitzing.
Yeah, yeah, right, because they've lit like one third of the time. Yeah, but they play a lot of single high because they also like to play a lot of own. So the key for them for the Cowboys in order to exploit the downfield opportunities is you got to figure out a way to pick up those blitz packages. And then even outside of the blitz packages. You're talking about a deferent defensive line that features eight and Hutchinson, right, So you got to be stout in your past protection
Fingers crossed. The turning Smith is back for this game because this is one where they're definitely going to need him. But if you can pick up those blitzes and you can win your one on one matchups as far as you're a starting offensive lineman, then yeah, the shots are going to be there. I love the idea of keeping CD more so to the outside because Brian is right
soon he's a liability. Those other guys they are much stickier as far as their hands are concerned, and they are much better in coverage, so the slightest mistake turns into an interception. These guys do take the ball away pretty well in the air, and it's evenly dispersed between those camera Sutton notwithstanding those other guys, three interceptions here, three there, four there, So it's it's a pretty stout unit. And those safeties play play very well, so keep them
playing forward. But that means you also need to establish the run. This is a game where you need to make sure that your run is your run game is solid. So it would be key how the Cowboys handle the ric o'dowdle situation and do they rest him. It's Malie Davis up. Do you get more reps to Hunter lip Key?
Forgive him for that fumble that happened, because he had two third down conversions on that same drive, so at least he's coming in and then they had the pass to him as well, so they got him active in the past game as well.
You gotta forgive sooner.
Chris keep them off balance.
I'll tell you the metric that stood out, and I know we all like to look at the metric. The one that stood out for me in this game, come in the matchup is this team's only giving up five touchdowns playing zone coverage this year. That's the thing about it. And they play at sixty seven percent of the time. It's the third fewest in the NFL. So we'll see if they if they if Dallas could take advantage of I did a study too. I'm going to break it out one day of Dak versus zone coverage, man coverage,
split safeties and all that. I just got to type it all up and I'll send it to you.
Can't wait.
All right, let's take our first break when we come back. I want to talk about the player on their defense that I think is probably the most dynamic Aiden Hutchinson. We'll get a scout and report on him and see where he matches up and maybe could be a problem for the Cowboys when we come BA Dallas. Cowboys dot com Radio.
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Back to the Break, de Marcus Lawrence is Dallas Cowboys nominee for the twenty twenty three Walter Payton Mann of the Year war presented by Nationwide. Help Tank raise funds for the DAK for Dak Prescott's Faith Fight and Finished Foundation by casting your vote on NFL dot com slash Man of the Year or tweet your support using the hashtag w P m O Y Challenge and voting ends on January eighth. Vote for Tank Welcome Back.
It is the second segment of The Break with live from the s WBC Mortgage studios at the Star. The segment brought to you by blockchain dot Com. All right, let's jump back in. Let's talk about Aiden Hudginson. Give me a scattery report on this guy. What does he do well and where is he? A bit of a where can you challenge him?
Yeah, he's a pain in the rear for sure. Yeah. It really does start with their defensive lineup front, and he's the main one. He's the guy that you absolutely have to deal with. Here's a guy that's he's got a long, tall frame. He could tower over guys. You watch him play, Gosh, he just looks like he's so damn big out there, but he plays with range. He's all over the field. He's always working towards the action. He has a true nose for the football. He's got
really good hand techniques. He's got some upper body, elite upper body strength, twitchy in the way when I talk about twitching that quick movement to get off blocks. He's got a variety of pass rush moves and strategies. He looks like he has a plan when he rushes the passer. He's tremendous lower body flexibility. He can put himself in a variety of positions when you know top still maintaining top speed and quickness. You're gonna need to account to
this guy. This is the most important thing about this guy. You're gonna need to account for him throughout the echo of the whistle. Because this guy doesn't stop. The minute you stop, he's going and now all of a sudden, your quarterback's running around back. He gets more pressures and sacks when the plays going on and on and on and on, and then all of a sudden, everybody quits but him, and now it's a pressure or a sack.
That's just the way that he plays the game. So I'm I think that this is going to be the critical point of dealing with the Blitzes, but also his ability, the Cowboys ability whether he plays left or right. They'll move him around in these in these games, but they need to find a way to account for him at all times and make sure that you were locked up with him as the whistle's blowing, because if you don't, he will find a way to outwork you and get to the ball.
Where is he lineup most off left? And okay, and who do you expect? Like, how does he match up? If you walk me through Tyler, I mean, I'm sorry, Tyron, and walk me through Tuma. How does he work best against them? And what can they do against him?
Steel? He's gonna play the majority of snaps, likely against steal is what he's going to deal with there, and so you have to be ready for that matchup there if he's against Tuma. Then you know the thing with Tuma the other day, and I know that everybody's freaking out about Tuma, but when you watch the All twenty two and we were just talking about in the break, the metrics was saying thirty nine pass dropbacks and three pressures.
That's that was his metrics in that game. You know, the mental mistakes were the biggest issue in that football game. But what the thing will the thing that that that that Hutchinson will do is if you're not quick out of your stance and quick to get to him, if you just kind of set soft on him, he will throw moves, moves, but he keeps coming at you. And and the thing with Tyron Smith is Tyron Smith is different.
As we all know. He's so big and so when he kicks out and he just and then he sets in his hands and now he stops a guy like Hutchinson. You know, you that's the one thing is Hutchinson will keep moving as long as you let him keep moving. You know, the minute you set on him and punch him and make him You saw the vikings in this game. Hockinson, the tight end, was trying to chip him. They just kept trying to chip him because they were trying to get him to stop. Yep, you know. And that's the
best way to play him. To me, if you don't feel like you're good enough on the outside to handle him one on one, just keep chipping him, make him make him start stop, start, stop, start, stop the whole game, and that way that'll keep him, you know, keep him off your passer. But of course you're going to have a better opportunity if he goes over and rushes with Smith is going to be able to hand him. Steele is probably going to need a little help. You know.
Steele has got the athletic ability, but Steele doesn't have I think Steele could get broken down easier like Steve if he's not good with his hands, and this guy will like swatch your hands, push your hands, push you. Like I say, there's a lot of pass rush technique in the way that he goes, so he could break you down pretty well. But if I'm Dallas, I'm finding a way to Sometimes you see Ferguson, Jack Ferguson, chip the edge, chip the edge, then go out in the route.
I think that's going to be a necessary plan this week for Hutchinson.
What does the middle of their defensive front look like from a pass rush and a run defense.
That they really don't let you run the ball all that much, but their offense scores a lot of points. So they're like the Cowboys in the way where you get behind in the game and you don't run the ball anymore because you're chasing points. But what they are is they are really really big inside. Benito Jones and Isaiah Bugs. Their defensive tackle. Jones is like six to one, but he's super wide and he does a lot of the dirty work inside for the Lions. They can anchor
on double teams. They hustle. They got some sneaky speed to these guys, and they move them along the line of scrimmage. Bugs the same way. Massive man three point thirty keeps his feet moving, kind of head up, locate the ball, you know, just gonna push the middle of the pocket, like I say, they're gonna push you. But
here here comes linebacker Blitz and Zelony linebacker Blitz. We were talking to Zach Martin yesterday and he brought up Alex and Zeloni the linebacker and how much these guys blitz, And so that's where you're gonna that's all of a sudden, you get that middle push, but now you get guys occupied and they're not coming off and getting picking up blitzing linebackers or blitzing secondary guys. So that's that's something
you're gonna have to do with. This is the size of the two guys being both being about three hundred and thirty pounds.
How would you best offset their blitz?
Well, well, the one thing that you've one thing is the recognition of it first, you know, would be the thing that I would make sure that you know. And I think Dak's got to help you a little bit too here, you know. I mean they had a sack the other day where and I don't know why Dak did this, he moved Pollard from the left to the right and sent him into the flat and then the blitzer came from his left, whereas if he just left Pollard there, pick up the blitz, account for the blitz.
Everything that I'm doing, I'm trying to help to if in fact, in fact it's a doga. I'm helping everything to his side. I'm just I'm just I'm just assuming that you know, it's not going to get picked up. It's just I mean, I'm just assuming that. So I'm just making sure if it's setting back or this the communication about making sure that they're they slide or pick up the right guys. I think they had to have
worked on all this all week. I mean really worked on it all week when it comes to because you watch the Lions play, it is it is about that pressure. It's not you know, last week you see four man line pressure. This one you see the pressure from the linebacker. Like I say, Angeloni, he's the of off ball linebackers. He's like the second most pressures in the league, you know, blitzing guys. So you got to be ready for this one. And but I would make sure that that you got
the offensive lineman and all on the same page. But also to be careful about moving backs away from potential blitzers. You know, I'd keep I'd keep it back to anzelone's side there just in case you do see that rush.
And there's also ways to make them pay for linebacker blitzes. Obviously, first you want to recognize it and make sure that the protection is there for it. But you know, your screens get get more effective at the screen game have like emergency, the little valves that you can pull in case of emergency. For example, if there's a blitz coming, okay, well maybe you should have somebody in the flat just
in case. Maybe you should have a quick slant in place, just in case, because if that's if it's the mic that's blitzing, then ideally your slide on, a quick slant should be right there for you for the quick hit, so you know, acknowledge it, recognize it, make sure your protections line up. And then of course if you're back pollared, if it's Rico, Malik, whoever the case may be, make sure maybe they get a chip before they head out. But yeah, you can do that in the quick passing game as well.
Brian Baldinger and I were talking about, yes, Sir on our show and you know Baldy NFL Network, and he was talking about I was asking about the hot throws, you know, and he says, I don't see teams hot throw anymore. Nate Newton last night on the show was talking about Dave Campo brought it up hot throws and stuff. There were a couple of times where it looked like to me, Cooks looked for the ball. Yep, first look for the ball and the throw wasn't there. So hot
packages are as old as Pop Warner playing football. You know, when somebody blitzes, you just replace it. You just sort of the ball and get it out. So maybe that's something that last week was that they missed on. Maybe it's something this week you pick up on. If they're gonna see blitzers, those guys got to look for the ball and facts got.
To hit them to get their vacated spot.
Yeah, all right, we're gonna take a final break. When we come back, I want to talk a little bit about the Dallas offense and one question I have for you guys will revolve around Tyler Smith and Tyron Smith and should the Cowboys really be making some considerations about whether it's a good thing to move Tyler Smith out to left tackle in the event that Tyron Smith is still not able to play. We'll talk about that when we come back. This is Dallas Cowboys dot Com Radio.
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Back to the Break. Sean Polite is your twenty twenty three Cowboys Fan of the Year. And now he needs your help. Vote for Sean to be given the ultimate title of NFL Fan of the Year, presented by Captain Morgan by casting your vote at NFL dot com slash Fan of the Year. Have we ever won Fan of the Year.
For the NFL?
Sure?
I don't think so. Conspiracy.
We have a fan.
We won like for the NFL.
Didn't we I kind of wonder if any don't think we have won yet.
We have.
Our fan base.
I think there's nobody chance and tells and somebody's going to vote for our guy. I'm sorry, we're working against the rest of the league.
We need all of our fans to turn out and vote for the guy because because you know another teams. By the way, any team is going to just vote for whoever is their representative.
That's how there's no no, They're never there's never going to vote for a guy it's a Cowboys guy. There's a fan base that will not No. I get that.
I'm just saying, everybody's going to vote for their guy. Everybody's gonn vote for their own team.
And they're going to rally against poor Shawn. Everybody listen, like a vote. You don't have to vote for our guy, but hey, don't vote for that cowboy.
Yeah, all right, here we go, final segment of The Break, Live from the s w BC Mortgage Studios. At this let's talk about Tyron Smith and Tyler Smith. We've talked about this a few times. I know, we've talked about this a few times this year, and I think it's a worthy conversation at this point based on the fact that last week, as you said, Chulmann didn't have as bad a game as that Trick thinks he had.
That's what I'm saying. I was watching the tape and I was like, and people were losing their mind, and I'm like, when, guys, I don't think it was that bad. I'm sitting right. And I went through and I did plus minus plus minus I kind of six overall minuses that I thought and three of them were just mental mistakes. Right. But that's the physical the physical part of him passing stunts and picking up guys and cutting off guys, that
part wasn't a problem. It's the problem. It's just like the it's like when you bust, when you have a mental bust, and it just it just wrecks the play at the worst time. That's where you're at, right, and that's where you're at.
And that's the part quite frankly for me, when you're talking about a left tackle is most worse him because when you just choose not to pick up Chubb, that's how you get your quarterback injured exactly. Those are the those are the type situations that put you in a much worse situation than just a sack. And that's why
I'm like, I think the conversation is warranted. Should you put a more capable person in Tyler Smith out there as opposed to Chuma Edoga because he's more capable to take care of the blind side of your.
Court and play basket left guard and pay and play basket left guard. Y see the the the radio guy in me says, absolutely do that. And then but you know, the those guys sitting in that thing, they they do not want to move. I get it, they do. They absolutely do not want to move Tyler Smith. We all, I mean, I'm sorry, I don't mean to speak for you. I kind of feel like though, as a group, we're saying, yeah, put, we've seen Tyler Smith play at a very high level
at left tackle. What is the problem. Put? Him out there. There's something over we're on that side of the building, and it and and there. It's their job, it's their job. It's our job to talk about it, their job to execute it. And there's something fundamentally, and it might go back to Jerry Jones's belief when I did work with them in scouting that how important the inside three are for him. You know, he learned somebody in his journey in the NFL, Al Davis John Madden. Somebody told Jerry
Jones about having the front of the pocket firm. And he believes that with all his heart. You know, he believes that if a quarterback can step up, he has a chance to throw. Quarterbacks should be able to handle stuff off the edge. It's the stuff in the middle of their face that they can't handle. And they, as they fundamentally do not believe moving Tyler Smith is a good move for that.
See, no one's going to agree with me on this one. But how do you leave with that because we already kind of talked about.
It during the break.
Yeah, yeah, but I don't know what he's going to agree. But if it was up to me, and I'm the head coach and I'm sitting in this situation, and I know we're in the playoffs, that's a fact you're going to go in there. And I know the struggles that the O line is having, regardless of the stats and all of that. I think you want to give yourself. You want to give the quarterback the best protection that you possibly can. And we saw the way that Dak
played in that game. Whatever it was. Mentally, he wasn't really being his usual self. But if it's up to me tiring and sitting, he's watching from the bench, sitting resting his back. I need him full health for the postseason. I get it. A win is important. You don't want to turn it into a three game losing streak. That's huge, But I'm I care more about the playoffs and giving ourselves the best chance possible to go out there and
compete and have health all in the A line. So I would make the change, And this is definitely not going to happen, but I would sit tiring make the change that you're talking about, Derek, because then that gives you two games of getting a good look of like, Okay, what can this possibly look at? Worst case scenario emergency plan if tying at some point in the game or whatever reason, it's not able to go. You take him out. Okay,
emergency plan goes into effect. But you cannot just ran randomly just move the guy, move Tyler, and just expect because we've seen it kind of before where they do switch in, you know, and play musical chair. We've seen that happen and it hasn't been terrible. But you don't want to just do that out of nowhere and expect it to or just fully rely on that plan working for you. So I would take these two games to
get get a good look at that. But nothing I'm saying matters at all because it is absolutely not going to well. To Bruce, that's what I would do, But also that's why I'm not a head coach.
To Bryn's point, it also when it comes to Jerry and also McCarthy as well, they don't like to move two pieces to solve one problem, and it also goes to that as well. That being said, you could speak for me on this one because I've been on this train. When Tyron missed the first couple games or so, I was like, just pop Tyler Tyler Smith back out there. Cowboys who're like Nope, we're not gonna do it. Tyrn
missed more games. I was like, just pop Tyler Smith back out there, and like, Nope, they're not going to do it. So, like Brian said, this, this organization, this coaching staff, this front office, they are hell bent on keeping Tyler Smith that left guard. I if I were the coach, which is your question, I would in fact pop Tyler Smith out to the left tackle and put TJ. Bass at guard. Because we're also talking about the blind side. We're not because both sides are not created equal, right,
So you got friends side, you got blindside. You if your left tackle is missing assignments against a guy like Bradley Chubb and key situations blind side, that's a very dangerous situation. That's more dangerous than just the play being disrupted or blown up. You might not have a quarterback after that. So you got to account for that as well. And we talk about it, and it's true that the interior three are more so important than the outside lineman.
But then the question becomes what's the talent drop off?
Right?
Is there a bigger talent drop off from Tyron to Tuma versus Tyler Smith to TJ Bass or is it the best? You see what I'm saying, you have to put that into the value equation as well.
And I think when you.
Look at it also, the which side is more important?
Right?
But when you look at it like that and you start looking at where's the biggest talent drop off? Then I still I definitely say Tyler out there, and because there's a shorter drop off from Tyron to Tyler at left tackle than there is from Tyron to Tuma. So all of that, but I don't agree. I think you played Tyron Smith this game and you wrest him against the Commanders. Yeah, that's when you put this into play risk takers.
Not me. I'm playing it safe.
I would planned.
Risk a three game losing straight, three of the best teams in the league. What does that do for your momentum and your morale one week away? Because after this game, you have one week away from good They don't play well on the road. So who says you going to Washington and win that game? So now you're risking nope, get to win.
Who let me ask you this? Have you given up winning the division?
Sounds like she has?
Oh my god, no, no, no, I'm asking because I'm just your decision, what you're doing.
That's a fair point.
No no, no, no, no, no, I'm asking you this way. I'm asking because if you believe that eighty six percent, if you look at playoff probabilities and all that, that you're going to be the fifth seed, absolutely do what you're talking about doing. If you're locked into being the fifth seed, absolutely do what you're you're talking about doing, Reus Tyrant Smith. But if you have a just you, it's also you got to keep playing until they say
you're the fifth seed. Because if you if there's a chance that you can and again it's a slim one, but you got to keep playing. You got to keep winning and hope that something happens in Philadelphia where you win the division or you know, or you can get the second seat. I would hate to rest Tyron Smith and then lose a game. But if you feel like if you feel like that, no, it's eighty six percent, we're locked in that odds are too much for us. Yes, let's rest them.
I totally understand how important is Tyron Smith in the playoffs for.
You, huge, He's huge, more than but but but I got it. I got to try and get a home game. I got to try and get to the second seat because the second seed to be the second seed.
Okay, different question, home game or Tyron Smith have you seen.
Question?
Would answer that question.
But if I don't have much better at home without road with Tyrons.
Okay, Now with that being said, that argument can convince convince me a lot more than yes, because yeah, absolutely will take the home games.
See to me, if you're if you're the two seeds, somehow you're playing Seattle at home again, I'll take my chance. I mean, I know it was a I know we all were hold on to our rear game, but I mean it was you know, you gotta win, you know, all right, y'all convince me.
I'll even complicate this just a little bit more. Listen to what you said, Bro about the linebackers and the blitzer. I think maybe this is not the game where you'd maybe want to move Tyler out because if you've got linebackers coming out the middle and you haven't adapt to that, I may think, Hey, this is a game where I really need my interior to stay as consistent as possible. And they know each other, they know how to adapt to different things that may be coming at them and
in one more week. Let's let's also be clear, like Chuma wasn't bad when he played earlier in the season, he had some bad moments in this last game. My expectation is coming out of going into this game, he'll probably be a little bit better. And and that being said, I'd rather keep everything as consistent as possible. Well, when I'm playing a team that's going to send a lot of different pressure in a lot of different ways.
You need to be better too. And last week was unfortunate because your center wasn't better. Your center, your centers, your center's been good. And you know he earlier he had some moments where he wasn't good and then he kind of found himself and playing a lot better and they you know, they're running the ball and all that. Last week he wasn't as good as he needed to be,
and so we're kind of focusing on Tuma. But the center wasn't great either, and that that that's that's an issue when you're talking about it.
So excited about him this year, just going back to training, fine, it's just it's just every time amazing.
Sometimes it reverts back where he gets overpowered and and you know, and struggles with the blocks and sustain and things. But I mean, that's you could say that about a lot of centers. But when the Cowboys are bad on the offensive line, it's generally they're bad at a couple of spots. It's center and right, and that's that's where they've kind of they've had their struggles.
I had a question for you guys. This comes from Shoes and Sports on Twitter. He says, why haven't Why haven't we seen more of Awesome Richards?
That's a good guy on Twitter, by the way, good guy. That is a very good question, very good question.
Should should we be seeing more of him?
Well?
I think for this one, I'd have to defer to the coaching staff and assume they're seeing something that we're not seeing that has them, I'm not gonna say shook, but not exactly as confident as they would be or feel like they should be at this point in the season, because in a game like you know, you saw against the Dolphins, Tuma not struggling physically, but struggling with his
decision making. If you're confident and Awesome, maybe Awesome starts that game right, but you've not really seen I mean, we're going into week seventeen and you've not really seen awsome Richards get you know, much of any playing time, even with injuries at that position. So I just I feel like there's something there that they see that we're not seeing that would answer the question.
But we just don't have the answer.
Coaches do not want to play a rookie player if they don't have to. I mean there's I mean, in this in this day and age, sometimes you have to plug and play guys and go. But they would they would rather remember a doga, a Dooka was we thought was a better guard than he was at tackle. I mean there were times of training camp at tackle you were going, oh geez, moving back inside. Yeah, and awesome. There's sometimes are awesome, looks great and other times looks
like he's in a revolving door. You know, he's just getting kind of knocked around and all that. You know. I mean, you just gotta coaches will go with what they know. And as much as they were saw what they saw with a Doga, they know what a doga can do. That's what they did.
It's so much youth there between Richards and then well let's go and you know, let's go second, your guy, but you gotta wonder if if his shoulders can can hold up. They say, so, it's like, wow, just get in stay healthy for the next several weeks time, and that's really all you can hope for.
Well, it's crazy. We have Sorry what we started the season kind of talking about the old line and all from the beginning. I mean, we've gone through we're coming near the end of the season, and we spent pretty much all season talking about something about the O line.
For seven health lives, real health for seven. For seven weeks. It really held together.
Well despite all the health concerned because even when they were in there playing, we all know they were still dealing with everybody with something. And it's been just a I'm talking about yeah, just health strictly, people dealing with stuff in the O line and the way that they've managed to hold up and get as many wins as they have. Now the running game does I feel it's taken a hit because it hasn't really been that great, but just yeah, we made it this far and now we're here.
Well, look we.
Got we're coming off of the absence in Miami, you know, not coming that one, but we're coming off of the tyrone Smith having played seven consecutive games, so he played all five in November and then he played two to start December. If he comes back this week or maybe next week, he comes back this week, then maybe we get six consecutive games because they get you. Yeah, you see what you're going with that, right, So you don't need seven. My point is you don't need seven straight
games from him anymore this season. Five or six, five or six consecutive games of health and your offensive lines should should be okay.
And you're just being held hostage right now. Yeah we are. I mean, you're so you need him so badly, and yet you just when you pray to the football gods that please let him be healthy today because you just got to have him. You just don't know from day to day, and you just don't know. He might he might be sitting in that airplane seat flying to Washington and then the back tighten up on him and you're like, okay, well here we go.
Yeah, you know, all right, appreciate you guys. Jon us back tomorrow. We'll wrap this thing up. Let you know what thing is gonna happen Saturday night, Cowboys versus Lions till then for Patrick Walker, Brian brought us in Amber Garcia. I am Derek Eagleton and this has been the Break live on Dallas Cowboys dot Com Radio.
This has been a production of Dallascowboys dot Com and the Dallas Cowboys Football Clubs.
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