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It's time for The Break on Dallas Cowboys dot Com. We were right with mbar Garcia, Brian brought us, Patrick Wolker, and Derek Eagleton.
It is Monday, October second, twenty twenty three, Season nineteen, episode number forty three. Welcome to the latest edition of The Break. We are live from the SWBC boy studios at the Star and today we're talking about the Cowboys win. They get back on the win to their winning ways. They beat New England thirty eight to three at home, and now it all sets up for the game we've
been waiting for Cowboys versus forty nine Ers. But before we get to that, today we will recap the game, tell you what went right and wrong for the Cowboys. We'll talk about this defense that did a little more of what it's been doing in the first two weeks of the season, and also talk about a bit about the offense and what Dak Prescott was able to do yesterday. Let's get it going. Let's start first on the defensive
side of the ball. Yesterday they allowed two hundred and fifty three yards as two hundred passing fifty three rushing. And actually, before I get to that real quick, let's go around and see what everybody's storyline of the game was coming out of that game. What do you think is the big picture storyline you'll remember from Week four of the twenty twenty three NFL season, sybody Patrick.
Other than the Cowboys handing Bill Belichick his worst loss at South Carline.
That's a massive storyline.
I mean, obviously, when you're going against someone that cerebral as Bill Belichick, you always have concerns, and then you know you have the subplots of Ezekiel Elliott and Will Greer being quote unquote interrogated and hand signals and all of that. But the Cowboys again showed resiliency. I mean, they hadn't lost two consecutive games since November of twenty
twenty one. Question was could they protect home field? And they not only go in and do that yesterday, but the fashion in which they did it was just flat out impressive. They executed and I've said it and I'm going to continue to say this Cowboys team is going to go as their run defense goes. One week after letting, you know, allow two hundred and twenty two yards on the ground in Arizona, you hold Remandre Stevenson the thirty yards and Ezekiel Elliott and emotionally charged to Ezekiel Elliott
to only sixteen yards on the ground. That allowed the Cowboys to earn their pass rush and from there they teed off and you gotta love it.
So the win is huge.
The fashion in which they did it makes it that much more meaningful and puts them back on solid ground for what we know is an all important game in Santa Clara.
Coming up a lot of good things to talk about on defense, special teams, but also offense. Everything we saw from them, I know there's still work to be done around the red zone, but you saw improvement. Was a red zone? Was a twenty yard line? That was confusing?
Yeah, but he did saything idea. You were like, yeah, I learned something new today.
Yeah, Yeah, I asked pr. I'm like, so, wouldn't like if you're on the freaking twenty yard line, doesn't that count as red zone?
No?
It does not.
Your tone needs to be passing the line, you need to be inside anyways, just it is promising and it gives you something that Okay, now we got something. You feel like they're working with something you see and you weren't expected at least. I wasn't expecting a night and day difference as far as improvement in just one week. But they were able to show different things offensively where it gives you promise to like, okay, they're trending upwards.
Now they're changing some things around any it shows to be working.
Yeah.
I was surprised how easily they were blocking the Patriots front, especially when it came to throwing the football. I felt like that maybe the Patriots were going to try some things. I was worried a little bit about Patriots coverage. I think when Gonzales got hurt that kind of took them out of some things they might wanted to do coverage wise, traveling wise. Initially in the game, they didn't start off traveling Gonzalez with say Lamb. I thought that maybe that
was something that they would try initially. They didn't never got to that because Gonzales got hurt. But it was really a nice effort up front for the Cowboys. The one sack that they had was a little disturbing was the one that Dietrich Wise had where really four guys missed on the play. You know, it's like they run a two man game and then all of a sudden, it's like three guys are kind of looking and another one's trying to look, and say, you have two guys reacting,
one guy not reacting. It was a little bit of a mess that way, but overall, the way that they were able to have time throwing the football and even when there was a little bit of pressure, receivers did a great job at driving routes coming back to the ball. Dak put it where it needed to be, So a lot of positive on that side of it.
Let's talk about the defense specifically. As I mentioned a little earlier, they allowed two hundred and fifty three yards two hundred passing fifty three on the ground. Going to Patrick's first point about the fact that they stopped the run this week and how effective they are when they can do that. The other thing note there was they had seven quarterback hits and two sacks eighteen quarterback pressures. They didn't get the number of sacks that they've been
getting when they've been successful. But the pressures were definitely there, and you could certainly feel that in the eighteen times that they pressured mac Jones. Would you guys assess that defense overall yesterday?
I thought it looked fantastic. And it's a perfect example of why although sacks matter, why it's mind boggling people kind of disregard disruptions and QB pressures and QB hits because all of those things go to the overall category of disruptions, and the Cowboys were insanely disruptive on yesterday. No, they didn't walk away with five, six or seven sacks, but they did force mac Jones into a passer rating and thirty nine point nine ultimately got him pulled from
the game. For Bailly Zappi, they forced him into two interceptions, which also goes to dron Bland quickly coming into his own as boundary corner. And now I think that's also helping the Cowboys as a defensive unit try to find their identity in the post Digs era for this season
until Digg's come back in twenty four. So when you, like we talked about when you earned that pass rush by stopping the run, and that stopping the run was made effective because the front four was winning their matchups and that allowed guys like Leyton Vandersh who was reading, reacting and executing filling gaps. He was magnificent. Damon Clark helped in that capacity as well. Now you're forcing the
guy to throw. And when you forced the guy throw against the Cowboys defense that loves to take the ball away in the air as much as they love to take it away on the ground, it's a recipe for disaster for you. And that's what happened with the Patriots yesterday. So I think it was masterclass by the Cowboys. Dan Quinn had those boys ready to play some football.
Yeah.
I can care less about sacks and stats and any of that whatsoever when your defense is playing the way that they did they did when you got guys they're on blind Leyton vandor Esh getting in the end zone and scoring points for you. And going back to stopping the run that has been the main problem for the defense. We saw it last weekend, and then just seeing them adapt, adjust and make those changes and improving an area that has been their weakest point. I'm just I was super
excited by everything. So I'm sure Micah left that game a little bit upset about himself, you know, not being able to shoot.
I'll talk about that a little bit.
No, and he should not because what he's doing, his presence and everything that he's doing creating opportunities for everybody else to play the way that they did. So even guys like Golston when he's doing those plays, I mean, you got to credit mic along with that, but I'm going back to him as a player. We know Mike how competitive his But either way, credit to everyone on defense and the great job that they were able to.
Yeah, his pressure. I don't know why the on that first drive, the Patriots through the football on third.
And one down there on the goal line. I you know, I felt like they were going to.
Try and run it down there and see if they could make some hay out of that. It might have been a you know, it might have been something they thought about, but they didn't. They tried to throw the ball at the back of the end zone and might Gasicki and Parsons pressure forced mac Jones to throw the ball too far. You know, you know, it's a decent play call, but that pressure from Parsons, you know, it really forced mac Jones to have to make a quick decision.
And you know, Kasiki was a clear of Hooker.
In the end zone and so you know, if he has time to throw that ball, then maybe it's a touchdown there. But you know that pressure is what adds up there. The scoop and score was really a great backside pressure as well when they you know, when Fowler beats his guy in the way he was able to track mac Jones, Mack never felt him there and so to hammer the ball.
The thing that concerned me about.
The defense was the forty two yard pass play that they gave up in this game. And it's We've seen this a couple of times when Dallas is bad on defense, they lose coverage, they lose and I was trying to figure out by watching the tape. They're playing man on the outside, they're playing zone on the inside, and you get a route that comes across and you don't know if they're supposed to pass it, and again this is curse and Hooker playing inside. Everybody else has got manned.
They've got everybody locked up. But then the route materializes where it turns across and now it goes into into a Curse's zone and they just lose. And then Curse gets kind of caught in no man's land. Here's the quarterback moving and just throws the ball over the top, and and you know, they give up a big play. But you know, you got to wonder about that sometimes when they give up these chunk plays. We saw it happen in the Arizona game. They lose track of a
guy in route, big play sixty nine yards. Again this week, lose track of a guy inside running the route, big play. You know, you can't have that happen in the game. It didn't kill him in this situation, but we've seen it two weeks in a row. Now, good defense for the majority of the game, and then all of a sudden, you give up two big chunk plays like that back to back.
You know, what I definitely did love about the defensive line is that you had you have guys that are getting their legs back, like Donovan Wilson. He had a much better day than he had in Arizona, which was
his first game back. But when you see the interior of the Cowboys defensive line in names like Neville Gallimore start to flash, and then you see Mizzie Smith, although you won't see him on the stat line, but he was able to push the pocket a few times and arguably he had the best showing so far in his
young career. When those guys start to step up, in addition to some of the bigger name guys that you expect to step up, Jonathan Hankins and Chauncey Ghosten and of course Osa Diggie Zoo on that interior, and then you have Michael Parsons and his presence and you know, disruptions and being able to take away you know, the ability for other teams to try to shade one way or the other. I mean, this Cowboys defense as long as they continue to execute, and I keep harping on
that word execution, execution, execution. If they continue to execute, the only team that can beat them is themselves.
When you talk about the run defense, was there something that you guys saw that was different in what they did this week versus Arizona or do you think it was just better execution of what their roles were.
I don't know why more teams don't try and do what Arizona did when it comes to running the football with not I think that with New England and give Dallas credit for this. They did a nice job along the defensive line. When you start to talk about the physicality which they played with, the ability to state square not get hooked, you know, the linebackers were much better shape when this team's had trouble. I think now in this this is something that maybe somebody will take advantage of.
We'll see.
But when they play their diying package, they're running the ball at these linebackers that are defensive backs, they're kind of figuring out, Okay, is Kurse going to be able to hang in there? Is Bell going to be able to hang in there? Is Wilson going to be able to hang in there? When they're having to deal with blockers that get up on them. You know that's going
to be the key going for the Cowboys. You know, how you play your run defense against how the offenses attack this Dallas defense will be Now, can these linebackers or these safeties who are playing down in the box, if linemen are getting free runs at them, that's a problem for the Cowboys.
It didn't.
It showed up a couple of times yesterday in a couple of the runs they had. But I would worry about a team that really really runs the ball well and then all of a sudden they're like, Okay, we're going to make you with that bubble. That linebacker who is a safety, who's not a big guy, We're going to make you defend the run with him. And I think that's what Arizona did. The Pinn and poll stuff was really effective. Didn't see any of that really from
from New England. Just a couple of times they ran guys that pulled. But the Cowboys did a great job of hanging in there when they had to, you know, dealing with the run, staying square, playing downhill, and then finishing the play the moon. Clark played the best game he's played in four for the Cowboys this year.
Shades are big, Yes, I like it, big win, shades come back, Yes, that's how we roll up.
Oh, you know it was interesting to me, Brian on that point though, I actually saw that that demon Clark actually played only forty five percent of the snap. Yeah, and Bell actually played forty percent of the snap, which made me think the Cowboys maybe were doing a little bit more of having those safeties in there. Yeah, at that linebacker.
Well, it turned into a game where they knew New England was going to have to throw the football, so the.
Run game was just completely out the window. I think that the Moone.
Clark, I wanted to believe that the Moon Clark was a guy that could play all downs and never come off the field.
I don't know if they completely trust him again.
And that's just a thought by me, not anything to anybody said to me or anything like that. But I just wonder when it turns into a passing game, having Bell on the field is at a little bit of a difference with the way they play their coverage.
Yep, all right, we're gonna take our first break. When we come back, we're going to jump into the offense. Talk a little bit about Dak in his day and some of the skill players and how they play. We'll talk about that when we come back. Dallas Cowboys dot Com.
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Back to the break, your Dallas Cowboys head to Santa Clara to take on the forty nine ers in Week five of the twenty twenty three season. Come out to Miller Light Miller Lighthouse at AT and T Stadium on October eighth for a free watch party presented by seven to eleven. Cheer on the Boys alongside Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders and rowdy while enjoying five dollars Miller Lights, Barbecue, game Day, fair and more. Gates open at six pm, kickoffs at
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Welcome Back.
It is the second segment of the Breakway Life Mess WBC Mortgage Studios at the Star. This segment is brought to you by Blockchain dot Com. We will also take questions. If you guys have any throughout the show, you can hits on our text line eight one seven two nine zero three two nine eight again eight one seven two nine zero three two nine eight. Let's talk about Dak
Prescott yesterday. It's twenty eight to thirty four, eighty two percent completion rate, two hundred and sixty one yards through the air, one touchdown, no interceptions, A one hundred and eight point five quarterback rate neat rating. He also threw uh to. He completed passes to nine different receivers. Uh did have Schoonmaker who he targeted three times, who didn't get a catch that would have been ten. But all in all, good day for Dak Prescott. How did you guys assess his play?
I think he was surgical again and like you mentioned, with no interceptions. It's his third out of three out of four games he's not turned the ball over, so he's playing you know, clean football and not putting his defense in bad positions where they have to come back out and fight against the time of possession battle and then that you're fighting against your own fatigue and then sloppiness and like of execution comes from that. But I mean Dak Prescott. You look at the first offensive driving.
There's a reason the Cowboys lead the league and offensive drives that have ten plus plays or more, and that's because of Dak Prescott in a large part. And the red zone issues come from again. And you're gonna get tired of me saying it. I'm tired of hearing me say it's execution. The drop by Schoolmaker that should have been Dak Prescott's first touchdown the handoff to Tony Pollard on third and one where they collided. Execution right, little things that can be cleaned up, but need to be
cleaned up. But from an aspect of what Dak Prescott, Dak Prescott did in the air, I mean, he was in complete command for the most part. He spread the ball around very well, and he's really finding that security blanket in Jake Ferguson that he once had with Dalton Schultz. Ferguson seven targets, seven catches, seventy seven yards magic number seven.
What is that?
Twelve catches one hundred and twenty five yards over the last two games from Dak to Jake. So that connection I think has become kind of the stabilizing force while the Texas Coast offense tries to figure out things outside of that.
So that'll be promising going forward.
Yeah, I feel like Dak has become more mature this year, Like there's something about his game, probably that he's just freaking tired of hearing. Yeah, we got a little bit of that yesterday at the press conference. Good stuff, but it's wonderful. But I just think he's still lacking that like and I really thought and that's why I chose
Dak to get the first rushing touchdown. I really thought that part of the red zone work that they were doing this week was going to involve at Dak Prescott that gets out of the pocket and runs and gets in the end zone, and we didn't really get to see that, and I was disappointed about that. But I think that's part of the game that's kind of missing from him right now. It's just kind of letting it lose a little bit. At the same time, I don't
think they're playing super super conservative. I think that he some of those throws that he's thrown down down the field has been really really good. But that's the missing part that I think for me is where where the game is lacking. It's just letting him be free a little bit, use his legs, use his body. But all in all, I think he's he's done a great job. I think the fact that you saw him connect with so many different receivers that's exciting because now you see
McCarthy allowing all the different weapons to be utilized. And Patrick just mentioned those little errors that did occur. But all in all, I think he did a really good job.
Yeah, I think that to me that the routes were deeper, the opportunities were deeper. Receivers did a better job of getting open for him. They did a better job of finishing for him when he put the ball on target. The decision making I thought was good.
To a point.
The pass that he threw to Gallop in the early on the first drive was a really nice read by him. A corner falling off and then you know Gallup still maintaining leverage going up the field. Dak saw that when when the corner dropped, he knew, Okay, that's where I'm going to go with the ball. They were trying to kind of maybe think about the ball was going to go to Lamb, but that when the case, Dak did a good job of getting.
The ball to the outside.
He's going to look at the tape today and he's going to see that he should have pulled the ball twice on a Reid option. He's going to see he had a walk in touchdown with Ferguson. It's a play we've seen with the Kellen Moore regime before where they bring the tight end across.
And he's going to lead Dak.
He hands the ball inside the Pollard it's a three yard gain, but we've seen it before where he's where the tight end has led him in. We see Schultz lead him in before. There was two times where I felt like that he could have walked this thing in if he wanted to, but he chose to give the ball inside.
That's the read that he made. And I think when he watches the.
Tape, he's gonna say next time, I'm gonna pull that. Because after the play, you see you see Ferguson like turn around to him and like slap him on the chest like what are you doing kind of a thing, and you see Dak kind of like I know, I get it, you know that kind of thing. So but overall, the way through the football was well. He move around in the pocket, the way he delivered the ball, decision
making and finding the open guys on the routes. But like I said, I think he's gonna look at the run option stuff and say, man, I got to pull that next time. I think I could walk this thing.
I think that's the most frustrating part when watching yesterday's game in the red zone area, you see them playing so well, moving the ball so well prior to getting there. Then they get there and every play that they make it is so close, like they're just right there and something happens. It doesn't work out him running into Pollard, I mean.
Get out of the way.
But see, I think that was really on Pollard because what happens the hole opens up, and I think Pollard was looking to where he was going to go, and what happened It opened up to the right of where the center was, and so Pollock's probably got his eyes up and his eyes are taking him to that direction and Prescott's kind of standing there like, wait a minute, I'm in your path now.
So yeah, you're you're right about the way.
That there's sometimes like there's things that happened that they have miss blocks, you know, Stell I don't think Steele was really as good as he normally is in the red zone with some of the blocks that he had. They had a little bit of some trouble securing some of those down linemen, and you know, those are the things that kind of kill you when.
You run the ball.
And you know, I think the thing with Hunter Lipkey, I mean that was a well designed Again, Ferguson runs the Ferguson with a really good seal block Brandon Cooks. They bring him in motion and set in there and he gets block right at the point of attack. So that's how you have to find a way to get these some of these touchdowns in this If you get these guys, put them in position, and they're able to finish.
You know.
The interesting thing about it is, I actually look at the red zone offense and I have reason to believe it'll get better over the season because of the kind because of the reasons why they're not getting in right now. It would be one thing if it was one or two players that were always making the mistakes and you were like, man, we're not getting rid of this guy.
But he's a problem in the red zone. He's they don't have a good runner in the red zone, or they have an offensive line who's all who can never secure his block.
In the red zone.
It's not that it's almost on every play. It's almost like there's a different thing that's happening. And that's just to me something that as season goes on, more repetitions, the hope is that they will get better and get more consistent.
The thing they have to figure out is how many plays are you going to put in the game plan where you're trying to fool somebody, because they've had some red zone struggles this year where they've just they've they've they're thinking, Okay, this fake or this movement will draw this guy inside. For example, you know that they try and they've got a good idea. They're gonna try and throw the ball to Gallop. It's one of the sacks that Prescott's Prescott gets against Tavai, you know, and they're
gonna try and fool him with the run. They're gonna say, full flow run to the right and they're gonna hope that he trails down inside and then Dak's gonna loop and they're gonna throw a little pivot route to the outside, a little little in and out route to Gallop and it's it's there. The problem is they don't fool the in man. He doesn't go down. And they've had it a couple of different times where they've left guys unblocked and they're saying, Okay, this heavy playfake is going to carry.
Guys away, and it just has it. They've they've had.
Two three plays this season where they've just guys have been left unblocked and.
They're not fooled.
Is that also because they haven't been as successful running the ball down there? Because if you're not being that successful, then nobody's gonna like really take that hard playfake, Yeah, because they're like zoom running well anyway.
They assume that people are gonna be undisciplined down there. You really do, I mean to me, that's it happened in Arizona, it happened this past week. You know, you just assume that that this guy is going to go flying down inside. And you know, to your point, I don't know if it's so much about the running the ball down there?
Is it?
Is it more that you're playing against teams they have to think, okay, we have have we seen this guy before?
Chase?
You know, to me, that's where I would base the game plan. If you've got somebody that's super aggressive always chasing the ball down inside, I could see doing that. But they've had a couple of different times now where they've tried to do movement on the goal line and it hasn't affected the.
Guy they're trying to move.
That's where I kind of maybe some rethought about what you're doing game plan wise, skime wise.
Speaking, of the red zone. One area we did. They did get one positive note coming out of that. They use Hunter Lefki down there. He gets into the end zone. We talked about it last week, and does that Does that kind of make you think, okay, if they if they're getting that, if they're starting to realize he could be that guy in that area, that that could be at least the impetus to get the red zone offense moving in the right direction. And then from there you
play off of that with other things. But you know, you can maybe rely on him a little bit more in those tight situations just handing the ball into the end zone.
More so handing him the ball than letting him block. He's not and that's he's a young guy. He'll learn, but they're his blocking down there is not as good as it needs to be. But you hand him to the football, he has a feel for how to get forward.
I believe that kind of to your point.
And this is why I wanted Hunter Lopke to be more involved in those handoffs because the question last week was do the Cowboys missu Ezekiel elliet And I said, only as far as comfort level goals, but physical build and being able to just hammer a ball in on short yardage. I think Hunter Lopke has that ability. And then you see them hand him the ball and what
does he do? He hammers that in. So that gives opposing defense as something that they have to concern themselves with, because if Hunter Lipky is on the field and there's only one or two yards to go, then they're probably the more you handed off to him reasonably, so you don't want to, you know, overload it. But the more you handed off to him, the more they have to account for him, and by doing so, that puts them
at a slight disadvantage. If you then want to run the creative play that becomes the passing play out in the flat or on the you know, in the back pylon or something like that. So one thing has to compliment the other. And I am a big believer that integrating Hunter Lipkey Moore in the short yards game is going to help free up some of those passing routes. But again, once it does, the execution has to be there. I believe that not out of ten times Schoolmaker makes
that catching the end zone. So those types of things have to come into play as well, because the play call can be fantastic, but what the player does or does not do after that is what really matters.
Well, we'll see what happens with Rico Dowll's injury. He left the game with a hip injury, and I believe today.
Or you're not kind of yeah, yeah it was X rays were negative last night, which is positive. But the MRI is scheduled for today if it has not already occurred, so we should hopefully get an update on him.
Then what happened with him? If he does have to miss some time extended time, I think we would be Oh, I would imagine the Cowboys utilizing Hunter maybe.
So then you also have to look at Miliite Davis squad. He'd likely get a lot of that burn as well. So being that Malik Davis is the insurance on the practice squad, you know that he's going to come up. The question still becomes how much of you know those reps? Or Hunter is Hunter that you be going to see?
All right, we're gonna take our final break, we'll come back. I want to talk about the passing game, particularly the deep passing game, Brian, you mentioned it a little bit earlier. We saw some things that were pretty I don't know. Pretty uh. That that made me think that maybe they can get this going and maybe it can be something that can be a benefit for them even in this offense. We'll talk about that when we come back. Dallas Cowboys dot com Radio.
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It is the final segment of the Break Life in NESWBC Mortgage Studios. At the start, we'll talk about the Cowboys win yesterday. They beat the New England Patriots thirty eight to three at home and set up the meeting that we've all been waiting for. Cowboys versus forty nine Ers, make sure you check us out all this week. We'll be telling you what we think is going to happen. We'll break down that forty nine Ers team, really interesting and very good team. We'll break all that down this
week and get you ready for that game. Let's talk about the passing game, in particularly the deep passing game. Yesterday Dak Prescott about well, first of all, about thirty percent of the throws they threw yesterday worth ten plus yards in the air, so getting the ball downfield a little bit more. Now, only one pass was twenty yards or more. It was the one twenty yard touchdown they did through the CD LAMB. But they are getting a ten plus yards down the field a fairly good amount
of time. And he's been pretty good yesterday on that seventy eight percent completions of those passes that were ten to nineteen yards, That was seven of nine for one hundred and eleven yards. That being said, is that enough for you to feel like this team is getting what it needs out of a deeper passing game or do you really think they need to see more of those twenty plus yard plays to really really be able to get what you need out of this offense.
I think you need more.
I think it's positive, it's its progress and kind of like what I wrote in the Science Lab last week, I think you need more. And then when you look at this next gen chart and it breaks down, you still even in yesterday's game, you didn't see anything past twenty yards in the middle of the field. So that middle of the field is still still a glaring opportunity
for the Cowboys to try to attack. And I know they it seems like their gun shot from it because of the interceptions that happened in that particular area of the field. But I feel like that's leaving some meat on the bone. If you want an opposing defense and an opposing secondary to cover, you want them to cover the entire field, not just two thirds of the field, not just the boundary. Make them cover that twenty plus yards and down the middle as well. So yes, there's
some progress being made there. But I think that while we understand that the West Coast at its basis is about getting the ball out quickly in the hands of your playmakers so they can make the plays, I do think when you have a guy like Ceedee Lamb and you have a guy like Michael Gallup who's a deep threat on the goal ball, and you have Brandon Cooks, who you added via trade. You have guys that can go deep. So you need to try to at least take those shots and stretch that field, which will make
opposing defenses play with more on their heels. And then guess what you get to do. Then you get to run the ball more effectively. One thing comes one hand washes the other in that capacity.
Yeah, you mentioned a touchdown to with where Lamb was able to score, and you know everybody's asking about, well, did you take advantage of Christian Gonzales being out? That was the next play. Yeah, he's on the other side after Miles Bryant in this one. It wasn't the replacement of Gonzales. It was they went after the starter, is what they did. And it was a really well designed play.
They went thirteen personnel with it, three tight ends, the one back, and I mean Lamb gets separation right off the jump, and I think this is where the cowboy deep passing game could flourish if in fact, you're winning off the jump, if you're winning off the line, if you're able to get separation as you're going up the field. They did a great job of driving play a lot of his own coverage. The Patriots, they're do a great job of driving these defenders back and then coming back
to the ball. But if you could win right off the jump, like Lamb was able to win off Miles Bryant, you could throw the ball down the fields. That's the possibly the matter of fact. The schoon Maker pass going back and thinking about that when it went to the middle of field was a longer play.
But man, he could.
Throw a touchdown to Brandon Cooks over in the right corner of the end zone. Cooks was that down the field separation, you know. I mean Dak was trying. Okay, I'm going to fit this thing in between those two safeties, and this thing's going to be a touchdown.
And it should have been a touchdown. It was.
He should have been a touchdown. But the thing about it is, though they are doing a better job. If they can win off the line, they can get vertical in a lot of these routes, and that that will help them with their long passing game.
Well, for.
Long passes like that, I would say, yeah, absolutely needed. When you're trying to put that on film, film and keep defenses on their toes and all that. But right now, I personally, I'm okay with what they're doing just because I mean, they moved the ball so quickly anyways, they've been so good at it, and that's if there are no penalties or a flag or anything like that. It just moves so quick. I'm looking dot on my computer.
They're on the field, start all the way to the right, and I look up and they're about to get into the you know, the twenty yard line. And so it's been effective what they're doing. But I would say it's definite. It would definitely be beneficial to start incorporating more of those taking those chances and hopefully they're positive and it works because then you're putting that on film for other teams to be aware of and keep them guessing.
I think this might be setting them up in a good way to be able to go down the field in the coming weeks. Because, for example, we talked about, you know, how does Michael Gallup play into this Texas Coast offense? Is a square peg round hole? Well, okay, we've got that question answered. Over the past two weeks, he've hit he's had two really solid, two really solid games one in Arizona. Now that sixty yard game he
just put up against the Patriots. But then if you also look at what he's been doing, it's forty four yards after the catch against the Patriots. So he's getting separation and better than I've ever seen him get separation on his breaks, and then he's getting a ton of yeck thereafter. So what's going to happen is opposing defense is they're going to start try to play him up because they're going to say, oh, well, Michael gallup. He's not just the goal route guy. He can attack us
at the second level. And then when they do that, that's when you tell Michael go, and that's when you can really start to break the game open.
So I think this might be that long.
Term chess match that McCarthy's playing over the course of seventeen plus games.
Let's get a question from Dan and Philly. He says, thoughts on Cooks not really getting involved in the passing game. It's disappointing to me. I thought they would use his speed to go deep more. You guys disappointed about what he's been able to do so far.
Well, I think that there's to Dan's point, there's things I mentioned the block on that he was able to get on the touchdown they had down there in the red zone, that he's doing what he has to do. They're asking to run crossing routes things like that, they're asking to drag routes. I mentioned that the pass that went to Schoonmaker down the middle of the field, he was opening the end zone. That could have been a ball that was throwing his direction off the right side there.
Dak took the shot. He saw cover too. He's trying to fit Schoonmaker in there, and you know he had it. And you know, but if if when he watches the tape today, he's going to see there's a couple of different times where Cooks was open and you know, the ball just doesn't go your direction. Sometimes that's a great thing about sitting down and studying these games that you say, well, I'm a little disappointed in this guy or that guy. But then you say, well, man, this guy's doing his job.
He's getting open. You know, the ball is just not going his way. And I think that I think there's going to be some opportunities where they do figure out how to get him the ball down the field. He is a weapon in every sense of the word.
Uh.
But again there's there's you know, the balls that Dak's throwing. He's throwing to the right guys, they're they're getting finishes. But I think Cooks is finding ways to get open. I don't think Cooks was.
Open as much last game against Arizona.
Uh.
That was a little bit of struggle for all the receivers. But in this game, these guys did a nice job of finding separation in this own defense and making some good, good plays.
And they're sending him at least often enough to keep the safeties kind of playing honest. Because if you go back and you look at his route chart against the Patriots up the middle where they haven't been throwing deep middle thirty plus yards, he had a route go that way.
He had a twenty four.
Ish route deep middle, and then on the right side he had an eighteen nineteen yards. So I mean they're sending him. It's just a matter of those were non targeted though. So those are those types of plays that maybe he was the decoy and they wanted to see if he get open. But you know, I think those who start to kind of play themselves into the Cowboys offense as the season rolls along. So I mean, ultimately
he did finish with four targets, four catches. On those four targets, he had the effective block, so you know, keeping in mind that he also missed week two, right, he didn't play in the preseason, nor did Dak Prescott, so give him a moment. I think he's getting his wheels in this Cowboys system, and I think it'll start to show here soon.
Well, we're heading into week five and at least.
That huh No, I was gonna say week five is when we really start to find out what it looks like.
Yes, but he's another weapon that you're just excited to keep like that you have but haven't seen all of it yet, So that's exciting. I would say it's definitely disappointing that he hasn't been super involved right now, and in week four, there's only a couple of plays that I can vividly remember that he's done in the games that he has played so far, and that's disappointing because all through training camp, I mean, he was my favorite
player to watch. One guy that we kept talking about on the show, the type of weapon or a deep threat speed that he showed and how the chemistry between him and Dak it was just so automatic right away, right off the bat, they were connecting so well, and all of a sudden we haven't had a chance to see really see that to fruition during games, but hopefully hopefully happens soon.
All right, real quick, before we end the show, I did want to talk a little bit about the tight ends. As you mentioned earlier, Ferguson had a nice day. He is becoming a real weapon, I think for Dak Prescott. But Brian, I think you were one mentioning last week as you look at the tight ends, doesn't seem to quite have the same I don't know, it just doesn't seem to be the same as what it was with Dalton Schultz last year. What we did see yesterday was
Schoolmaker had three different opportunities. He didn't get a single catch. I don't think Peyton Hendershott had a single target yesterday.
Do you think the counboy hit right?
Yeah?
Right, right? Yeah?
Show me someone was up for him.
So you're looking at a situation where you're really do you think you're not getting enough out of the tight end position, even though Ferguson is actually providing something really nice for you. Do you really need more from those other tight ends, especially considering as much as Dallas likes Froun twelve and thirteen personnel.
Yeah, it's it's funny that you say that, But to me, I think Schoonmaker had the drop was bad. Yeah, that was a bad play. He's got to make that play, and he knows he has to make that play. The other one he had an opportunity on. The ball is tipped at the line of scrimmage, if you remember, they're down there in the red zone, and like he's got the defender on his back and Dak is gonna throw the ball to the outside there and there's probably gonna be a catch, and then it's gonna be a die
for the goal line. Bentley the linebacker is gonna rush, and Zach Martin just stones him and it stops Bentley. So he doesn't so what does he do? He backs up and he just jumps and so instead of the ball going to scoon Maker, it's tipped and knocked away. There you go, there's another one of your red zone You know, what the hell, what the hell just happened?
Plays?
You know, it probably would have resulted in either a catch at the one or a catch and a touchdown. But yeah, I think, you know, I look at also the way that these guys blocked in some of the running opportunities. Hell, McEwan made a hell of a play getting down the field and recovering Turpin's fumble. You know, I mean he gets the key block to get Turpin around the corner and now he's chasing the play much like what we have with Tyler Biattish and you know, falls on the ball right there.
You know, could have been a bad situation.
When that happened, I was like, thank God a guy is running along with the person who has the ball.
There are some moments where these guys should they've done more. Absolutely. Is there some bad luck along the way?
Absolutely, you know there's some There's some unfortunate things that.
Happened, uh with these guys.
I think the thing with Ferguson that I've learned is every time you throw him the ball, he's gonna make one or two guys miss.
He is this run after catch guy.
It's that the slant he caught him third down and got it was like a third and five.
He gets nine yards.
I mean just carrying guys with him, uh, you know for the first down, so getting more from him.
Yeah. Sure. But are you just totally like, oh, it's just a bad group. I don't. I don't think so. I don't think so.
I think we're starting to see some things with them and how they're using these guys a little bit more, and I think it's going to benefit, you know, in the in the coming weeks.
Yeah, and when it comes to Jake Ferguson, and we've talked about it, and I said, until further notice, he's the tight end one, and as Schoonmaker starts to kind of come along, maybe we'll revisit and have this conversation later in the year. But Jake Ferguson, you know, he overcame the drop in the rain against the Giants, but even that, that was a fantastic blocking game for him. You can see he's put on some mass, he's getting in there, he's getting dirty with the blocking.
You absolutely love it.
And then now he's starting to come on as Deck's security blanket. Seven targets, seven catches, seventy seven yards in that obliteration of the Patriots. So I love what I'm seeing from Jake Ferguson and at the moment, after seeing what he is doing as both a blocker and as a receiver, and you know, in being a receiver the yak and also the dirty yards because he's making guys miss, but he's also running through guys and running over guys.
I don't know that I would say I need to see more from Jake because I feel like more is coming anyway. What you want to see is while Sean McEwan being Johnny on the spot, great job with that. You want to see more production from a receiving standpoint for those Titans not named Jake Ferguson Schoonmaker. I believe he'll come in eventually, that'll come on for him. I don't think you're going to see him target it three times and not catch any of those going forward. We
talked about it Brian at Michigan. I don't think Michigan really used his hands.
I think he has he's got to make plays. Yeah, that's the bottom line.
I mean, yeah, and he's going to get criticized because he was the second round pick.
Yeah, So that's my point.
You want to see more production from Loop Schoolmaker as a receiver. You need to see more of that. You want to see more when Peyt Hendershot gets back on the field. He missed this pass Onday because of the ankle injury, but prior to that, yes, he's upgraded as a blocer. Not as good as Jake just yet. But where's Peyton Hendershot in the receiving course? So to answer your question, Derek, when it comes to Jake Ferguson, love what he's got going on. And thankfully for the Cowboys
they have at least that guy. They have a him that's definitive in that room and right now with Jake Ferguson, But for the other guys from the receiving component, you gotta get more. Schoolmaker's got to make those plays and he'll be the first one to say he has to. Sean McEwan. You know what you have with Sean McKowen. He's never going to really be that guy. But when
Peyton Hendershott gets back, what do you got there? Especially in the season where you were hoping that you'd have John Stevens, but you lost him before you could really do much with him.
All right, appreciate you guys, Johnes, We'll be back tomorrow we'll start taking a little bit of a bigger picture look at the NFL and the NFC East Giants played tonight on Monday Night Football. Will see how they end up.
Till then.
For Patrick Walker, Brian brought us Ambergarci. I'm Derek Eagleton. 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 Club.