Cowboys Break: Line Change

twenty one, Season seventeen, episode number forty four. Welcome to the latest edition of The Break Life from the s WBC Mortgage Studios and at the Star and I'm blessed to day to house some some some the Drid Hands is here. Yeah, I was, actually I was thinking two dreads in a ball of fat. But right now we also have the lovely Amber Garcia joining us. But we're gonna we're gonna have some fun here these next two days. If you guys haven't noticed, we're mixing things up for

the bye week as we normally do. I got my man, Isaiah stand back. See, everybody makes that mistake. Why do you do that? Even? Could I do? You? Just No, I wasn't putting, I was I was just talking. That was not a literally said my man, Isaiah. You know I let Isaiah. You see, I was following the hand you said. Did you say that? Jaiah? Stand back? Jesse Holly, thank you. Of two other shows, we're not gonna mention

those shows we're talking about. You know what I'm gonna do tomorrow before we end the show, I'm gonna give both of y'all. Y'all get ready, I'm gonna give you like two minutes a piece to sell your show. I'm gonna give you a chance. I'm gonna give you a chance to be able to let all the people that listen to the break normally, which is we got a really big audience. So this is great marketing for you guys.

So that's what I'm gonna let you give you a second to be able to just talk talk about your show and let people know why maybe they should come out and check it out, like you coach you like you coach shirt tied and all that kind of stuff. Now, but where are you from? Like Crosby texting? Right? Small town? Small town, right, Crosby? We we we we all. Actually, Barrett Station is the actual name. That's where the brothers live. So we're gonna say, Barrett Stations. So we've all known

some brothers from the streets. Yeah, ain't no brother from the street. They ever have to advertise their stuff. I don't. I don't know what that you you give it, you give it to the right person. They advertise it. They they they taste it. Street start talking. Okay. But yeah, So so here's what I'm so. That's what I'm gonna let you do about hanging with the boys. Not enough, not not over here in this break neighborhood, they're not

talking about hanging with the boys. I'm gonna give you a chance to get your testers out and then we see what happened Fallow. Whatever you want, just don't call a blue match. Well, welcome to the show. We got a lot of talk about what I'm gonna do over the next two days is we're gonna really go big picture. We got a lot of questions I'm gonna throw at you guys, just big picture. Give you guys an opportunity to talk about what you think of this team through

six games. Obviously, it's been very exciting here. It's probably more exciting than anything we've seen in quite a while around here. So I'm gonna start first, I want to go back a little bit to the New England game. There were a few questions I had from that game, and I wanted to start talking to you guys about Let's start first, what things do you think Belichick exposed that Dallas will have to see over the next few weeks, because, as we know, in the NFL, it is a copycat league.

You show teams what can possibly be a Kryptonite four team, they're gonna try to do the same thing. So what are you thinks that? What are some of the things you think Belichick may have shown this last week? Big boy ball, the ability that is simply just I'm bigger and I'm stronger than you, and I'm coming at you downhill every single play. You saw that with New England's first drive. I mentioned it yesterday on yesterday show. They

with thirteen personnel for the entire first drive. They went thirteen personnel for our whole first drive, three tight ends. I don't care if we're using all five line in all three tight ends and we're coming downhill, good luck trying to stop us. And we struggle with that now. Obviously we have some of our our key pieces that are missing. In turn, the former Gallamore and d Law. We'll get Tristan Hill back, you know, some of those guys.

But that's a problem if we face an opponent that has the personnel to you know, and that's something that we give up by having a fast defense. When you have a fast defense, just like when we played against Carolina, they had a fast defense, like a running hit you. But what do we do. We just said, Okay, we're bigger and fasig. We're bigger and stronger than You're gonna

run the ball down your throat. So when you choose to have a defense like we have now that's so versatility, that's so fast, that has those various various personnels, we're going to give up something. And I think we were giving up size and strength in that regard. Yeah, I think you hit it right on the head. Is for a long time, the Cowboys have been weak in the

middle of their defense up front. And I said in earlier last week coming into that show that this game will be won or loss at the line of scrimmage, that Bill Belichick and company wanted to control that line of scrimmage, being that they will be physical on their side offensively, and then defensively being able to create some uh some some some confusion, some pressure, really attack the

middle of our offensive line. And for the Cowboys, uh, you know, they really have to kind of if they want something to work on to kind of be the quote unquote complete team. It's trying to find ways. Okay, we know that we're fast, we know that we're physical, we know that we have dynamic playmakers on our our defense,

but how can we shore up that middle um. Now, when you talk about the team that we have coming down the stretch next up being Minnesota, we knew what we know what Minnesota will try to do to us. They will try to do what doing a Patriots did to us. And Dalvin Cook has been a thorn on our side both running the football and catching the football. But a lot of teams don't have the ability to do what do what the Patriots do. A lot of teams don't have the ability to do what Minnesota will

try to do with Dalvin Cook. So in contrast to that is we teams will either have to continue to play their style of football and hope that it works or try to go another way because most teams don't can't do what the Patriots do. You don't have the personnel and you don't have the brain power, and that's that's that is key. So it's easy to say it's a copycat league, but it's hard to copycat when you

know one got the Cats to copy it. But let me ask you this, what did you think that this last game was an aberration when it comes to um the running game and not being able to stop the running game? Or had you seen shades of this and other games? Maybe other teams didn't do it to the level that the Patriots did, But did you see moments where you were like, this could be a problem going

down to stretch. I mean, I think there's pieces that we obviously need to shore up on the defensive front, but overall we've had some really good play out of our defensive front. You got some guys like Osa Basham, some guys that are really starting to show up and play um. At the end of the day, it comes in personnel matchups. And you know, asked why I hate when something when people say, oh, well this team, you beat this team, but you couldn't beat this team. It's

all about matchups. It's all about matchups. Just you know, there might be some some big boys across that across the way that you just can't handle. There's these are grown man. They get paid. I'm sorry, Cowboys Nation. These boys get paid too, right and um. And that's one thing that they invest in. They invest in big guys up front and dominant downhill because at the end of the game, at the end of the day, Coach Belichick wants you to have a tight game where he can

just just smash mouth football. That's it. If he could run the ball eighty times a game, he would do it. And the thing that we have going to our advantage to help our defense. And this is why I was so I was all for Mike McCarthy going forward earlier in the football game because yeah, I was too. Actually I was so forward. I was so. I was so forth one because I want to set a tone. And two, the thing that the Cowboys can do well that other teams can't do is that we can score at track fast. Yeah.

And when you score early and often, team now have to play outside of their realm. And if now we gifted them fourteen points, which made us have to kind of play a little bit differently, and they were able to kind of stick to the script, but what they wanted to do. But when you come out early and teams already know, they already know. They they cut the film one and they like, you got Zeke, you got Tony, you got shots, you got Jarwin, you got CDM. Mark.

You can't stop all these dudes. So once you go up fourteen, all running up, running the football and trying to eat up possessions and eat up clock, that goes out the door. And now you have to play a game that we want you to play. And it is kind of worked in our favorite because Trayvon Diggs is just sitting back there saying, all right, you guys may get me for one or two of quarters, and I may give up a couple of players here and there,

but just throw another one. I'm gonna get it. And so that's the Cowboys have had that advantage all year long, is what those weapons offensively, teams haven't been able to do what they want to do in the running game, you know, to our defense, because you just gotta score

with us. And the Bill Belichick and Josh McDaniels, they came out with a great plan that said, you know what, today you will play our game and the Cowboys did for most of the game have to play that game, and then it just came down to we got one

too many horses. And then so to Dario's point, do you think that that these guys just opened up a wound that was already there or do you think that because of the game plans or because of how we've been ahead again most games, we haven't necessarily had had to encounter the running so much. Yeah, a lot of people you can try. Yeah, you know, people always say what Mike Tyson always says, everybody got a game plan until you get pushed in the face. Yeah, you know

what I mean. So you can come out and try it if you want to. But when you die fourteen points and and and number four and company walking back out on the field again, you start saying, all right, now we got to match the point of the game. Yeah. Yeah. And the way I see it is like, yeah, there are a lot of things that need to be cleaned up in the Cowboys played on defense and also on offense.

You know, all the penalties we talked about yesterday. But I think that this game and the way that he played out it actually showed case something very positive that the Cowboys have in our building, and it's to show opponents that this is not the same team that was years ago and even last year that you know, when mistakes happen, it just goes down the hill and they can't really catch up. No, this is a team that's actually fighting and going out there and building this chemistry

of you know, there's no laziness. Even on the defensive side of the ball. You can see little things that happen that are not good and need improvement, but at the same time, you're seeing a defense that is energized and go out there with fire and it's fighting back. So I think that's something that the fact that they won that game the way that they did in overtime against Bill Belichick is actually going to show other teams down the road that this is not a Cowboys team

to really mess around or sleep on. You know, this is someone that whatever you do, they're gonna come back and keep fighting for it. Yeah. That's a good point because I think, and I would say this, when you get to a point like that where you have a team that handles it city, well, I put that on coaching and I put that on confidence, and I think

this team has a lot of both. Now you can say what you want to say about Mike McCarthy, but whether it's Mike McCarthy or whether it's the offensive or the defensive coordinator, they're figuring out ways, even when they get in a game like that where things aren't going their way, to figure out how they can make the adjustments they need to make in order to get themselves back into the game and ultimately win it. And that's the sign of a really good team. Let's talk about

Dak Prescott for a second. We know that he got hurt there on that last player of the game. Really great play obviously to win the game. I was happy with the fact that they were just being aggressive and didn't just think, hey, we're in our kicker's range, which we heard so much this year. Don't do that. If you got a chance, your best shot is to left forward do his thing, and that's what they did. He got the touchdown, but he gets to the calf injury.

How concerned are you guys about this calf injury injury? I know they have the bye week, but that's two weeks. Is still not a long time to recover from an injury. How concerned are you I'm very concerned, like and I get it. You know, there's talked throughout the building about it's not that bad. You know, initially everybody said, it's not Michael Gallop. Right, everyone, it's not Michael Gallop. Right.

Everybody wants to say that it's not Michael Gallop. I'm glad they said that too, because my thing is, it's the right calf, the same calf, same leg of the ankle surgery. Now, I'm no doctor, no trainer. I don't have a PhD. I went to a public university, barely got out of there. But when you talk about that particular play, right, Dak Prescott rolling out to his right, delivering the ball down the field, what happens when we got to do that against Minnesota? What happens when you

have to do that against Atlanta? Does that now hinder his ability to do those things, his ability to be mobile in the pocket, his ability to take off a rowan it's time to take off and run. It may not be an issue now, Maybe it's an issue two weeks from now. Maybe it's an issue three weeks from now. Pushing off that leg and a zaid I let you speak more into this, because you have more of history

playing at that position. But everything is so critical from the quarterbacks position, about balance, about having the right base to deliver the fault, to deliver the ball accurately down the football field. So if your base is off, and everything that we want to do in this offense, we can't do it now to me, that that worries me something, and I think we don't. You can say that, you know, we have nothing to worry about because this week we

act nothing to worry about. We had no game. But I just think it's a little bit deeper than just we don't have anything to worry about. Well, I say this first, we don't know how how bad it is. Well I don't think we'll ever find out really how bad it is. Um, they'll get an MRI. They have likely he has the best training staff in the league. Trust me, I've tested most of them out. He has an amazing staff and he has a lot of all the resources he needs. With that said, Backdorn, what what

Jesse said. We've had two guys out with calf strains. Gallop this year. We haven't seen him since week one. We're going to week six to six weeks by week Okay, So we haven't seen gallup since he had his calf strain Zach Martin last year. Calf strain. Okay, he was out obviously for a minute at the quarterback position. Yes it was his his injured ankle, but just taking the ankle out of it. As a quarterback, you're dropping back,

you're pushing off your left leg. As a right handed quarterback, you're pushing off your left leg, and you're setting setting your base with your right leg. Right, So that's the leg that he has to set Now. Obviously, the ankle's fine, we can set on an ankle, but now with the calf, think about that right that is literally absorbing all your energy from dropping back. Now that you've absorbed the energy, if you set on that back leg, now you're asking him to drive off of that back leg and push

and throw the ball. Okay, Now people can say, oh, he doesn't have to push, he's strung enough arm, all right, But now that comes to then to matter what did he doing camp shoulder and shoulder and the shoulder pick whatever you called it. Right, So if he's not pushing off his leg and he's using his upper body more to create the velocity, now he's putting that at risk. So it's not even just one thing here. It's not just the cat on a calf. He'll be okay, we

don't know how bad it is. It might be something he needs a week off of, a week off of, or he might need it multiple weeks. But even if he is allowed to play, it plays a role because now it puts his shoulder at a risk for potentially injuring that simply because he's going to be trying to create velocity off of that versus just sitting back and

throwing off his regular leg. Yeah, it's a really great point because I think both of you guys make because one thing begets another right when you start talking about injuries. The body is all connected. So if you're favoring something, then it puts extra pressure on something else. And how long can that handle the extra pressure That can create a lot of issues for him. And you can putting the physical part aside, and I and Doc is one

of the most confident guys I have ever met. But you have to take into an account the mental aspect of it, and you can't help it sometimes, you know, hesitation him being mindful of that and then creating that extra step his mind and then throwing to the mix what Tyler Beat is just dealing with. You know, that's something else in the formula there that Dad has to kind of keep in mind, the little struggles that he

has had the center position. Then it just takes away maybe from his full focus of this thing of the football, that it's actually now becoming something so natural to him. You know he hasn't. You don't see him just standing

there in the pocket really thinking things through. So I just it makes me wonder, although he's super confident, makes me wonder, Okay, is this gonna really kind of slow him down mentally and what he's doing in the field before making a play aside from obviously what these guys mentioned as far as the physical aspect, and I think it changes. It's the game planned as well, because when he's healthy, right, Kellen can call anything he wants to call. But when he's not healthy, you you have to now

condense what you can call. Right, maybe we're not calling as many rollouts. The great thing is you get Lyle Collins back. I don't know how rusty he'll be, but now you maybe have a little bit more security and he doesn't have to kind of scramble that much in the pocket. But one of his biggest throws if you watch in the last game, right, you got the d D in coming up. What does he do? He pulls through and now he has to break out to the right.

Does he have that mobility to do that again? Because we're at a point in time of the season where there's so much film out there and now teams can say, Okay, here's what we want to do, here's what we can do. And you know you're talking about how to stop this Cowboys offense. It's not really no way to really stop the Cowboys offense unless you can get to four. And if I know four is hampered, then you've been around long enough. You've been around long enough, you've been around.

Zimmer's coming. Like he's not gonna sit back and just say we'll just wait. That's not who he is. Like, Zimm's gonna come and he's gonna bring blitches from every single weear and he's gonna test Tyler beyandest he gonna test you've been out for five weeks. I'm gonna test to see if you're ready to go. And by the way, I know what y'all said. He was Okay. I know y'all said he was all right. We're gonna find out. We're gonna find out just how okay he really is,

and we're gonna touch him up a little bit. I wouldn't even And this is not I want to say it's dirty, but it's it is said amongst teams. Hey make him feel you. I ain't saying hit him late. I ain't saying be dirty. But every time you get close enough, pull a pad on him, pull a little shot on him. Let this let him know I'm near, I'm coming, I'm touching you. You're gonna feel my presence all day long. So it's it's it's one of those deals where it's it's who Yeah, all right, we're gonna

take our first break. When we come back, we're gonna talk a little bit more about this offense. I actually want to talk about Dak and I want to see where you guys place him among the other quarterbacks in the NFL this year. Because there's a lot of good quarter play quarterback play happening, he's obviously among them. I want to see where you guys rank him in that top five, maybe you push him into that top ten. Well, when we come right back. This is Dallas Cowboys dot

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And there's always this this debate that happens around the NFL throughout every season of how do you rank quarterbacks around the league. There have been some really good quarterback play and Dak has been right there among them. I'm gonna throw out some names for you guys. These don't have to be yours, but I want you guys to

kind of rank your top five for me. You got guys like Lamar Jackson, call Murder who, Kyler Murray whose team is undefeated and he's playing really good football, Josh Allen, Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, lots of good quarterbacks. How would you rank your top five? And where would you put Dak? Start with you, Jesse, everybody don't go in for me. I'll say this. I got Dak at three, okay, So who's one and two? So Dak is three for me. I got Kyler playing at two until he's dethroned. Until

he's dethroned. I'm putting time at one, okay, Tim's that one to me? And maybe I'm just I don't know. He's one of my NFL man crushes, but I got time. Uh Aaron Rodgers at four and Lamar Jackson at five, that's my that's my five. Right, Yeah, I might have to say deado man. As I'm going through, y'allouldn't get because I actually was. I was thinking you guys might give Lamar Jackson a little more love. No, No, I

think his ability. He makes plays, but I don't in terms of everything that a quarterback is in my head, I don't think he's consistent enough in that regard, and he'd be acting childish. I don't like that. Sorry, But yeah, TV twelve is all right, be real with you. I'm gonna switch it up a little bit. TV talks my dog. You know that we both played with. Right now, Kyler

Murray's number one. Yeah, Kyler Murray's the most the most dominant quarterback in this league right now, simply not only just with his arm, and it's about to get better because he has a tight end coming in right Zach Hurts, but his throwing ability and he'll destroy you with his legs if you even try him, if you even try him. I don't think that Dak presents that problem or that threat right now. Now, he'll he'll torch you through the air right now, and he'll run when he has to.

But Kyler can create with his legs. So for that reason, I gave him number one. Then I go TV twelve, and then I throw, I throw, I throw Dak in there probably three, and then you got obviously got Pat Mahomes and there number four. So yeah, it's interesting because Kyler Murray, like if and I assume you guys have watched him back when he was in high school and how Dominie was in high school obviously wan a Heisman Trophy in college, Like this is who this dude is.

And it seems like now he's starting to figure out the NFL game. And so it should be very concerning to everybody in the NFL that's not an Arizona Cardinals fan that this dude is starting to figure it out.

He's downloaded the Yeah, he knows how to win, and like you said, he presents, uh, that unique balance that I don't know that there's another quarterback in the league right now that that is equally good in both those different areas passing and running as he is, and and that are real game changes like he is with his legs and with his arm like it's just it's the

That's the last quarterback I want to face. Yeah, if I was if I, if I, if I was just a defensive coordinator coming into with the thirty third team ever in the NFL history, that's the last dude I want to face. You can't game plan him. What do you do to stop him? Yeah? You draft micup persons. You need a couple of those. Good luck. I mean, that's why I'm circling that I've been circling that game. You know, I am circling that game because that's gonna be a heck of a matchup. All right, So let's

go back to the beginning of the season. Let's go through these first six weeks, and I'm gonna start with you Amber. Tell me, what do you think was the most impressive performance that the Cowboys have had. Let's remind you guys, they lost to Tampa Bay thirty one twenty nine and start the season. Then they go to Los Angeles beat the Chargers twenty seventeen. Dallas then beats Philadelphia

destroys Philadelphia forty one twenty one. Then they beat Carolina at home thirty six twenty eight, then destroy the Giants forty four to twenty and then last week's our last two gay two days ago, the game against the Patriots they win thirty five twenty nine. Which game was most impressive to you? Well? Week one was pretty impressive, I think because of the opponent obviously, and the way that they played. They were right up there battling back and forth.

But I'm gonna have to stick with this past weekend. Then beating the Patriots just because of how dirty the game was, you know, the mistakes that were made. Not just that, you gotta add everything that happened with the refs and all the flags and everything that was kind of pushing against the Cowboys to not let it go their way, and yet the way they were able to fight back, It's just to me, that was pretty impressive.

That's something I've been wanting to see. So it was just honestly the most exciting game and not the most enjoyable at times, but definitely I think the one that showed the most for them, I would say I would say last game. I would say the Patris game simply because it had everything, all the forms of adversity that you really have to overcome. You had to overcome the environment, you had to overcome the greatest coach of all time.

You had to overcome being down, You had to overcome injuries, right, you had to overcome turnovers, so everything that you had to overcome. Oh and by the way, you weren't at full capacities because you have guys out still, so we're still not at one hundred percent. So I feel like last week's game was probably the most impressive win to date simply because we've had our playmakers had to stand up. Not only did we had to game plan our way

back into the game and stay in the game. We get we tried to we try to cancel ourselves out with penalties, which were terrible penalties. They have to show up. Guys stepped up and made plays. Your playmakers made plays, the guys that you pay out the wazoo to make sure that they do that. But then guess what, the guys behind them did it too. So everybody wanted in on that victory. So I think that was most impressive. Yeah, it's going to be a clean sweep because I say

the same thing. Um, it was one of the it's one of those games when you go back at the end of the year and you're kind of like just looking at how your season went. That was a defining moment for this football team. You go to a place where you're historically you just haven't been able to win up there. Uh, you haven't been winning in Foxborough against that coach and that team, And you know what it's all. You knew what was going to be a tough game

and you found ways. The biggest thing for this team that we have not seen in such a long time, and am or you hit on it was the ability to adapt and adjust. We talk about it all the time and we hear about it all the time, but we haven't seen it a lot with this with this football team in the years past. But you saw the adjustments.

You saw the team continue to fight. You saw them overcome adversity and from many many, many, many many many times before a team that we've seen we're going to a game like this and fold like cheap lawn chairs and would have been like, uh, we're gonna take this ellen, go on head home. But they kept fighting, kept fighting.

Tying the Secy came in and held his own for a little bit, said Wilson with the probably outside of maybe CDs catch, probably had one of the best catches and mighty the most important catch of the game on the fourth down. And for your quarterback to go on a fourth down and say, you know what, yeah, I get it. He's done. Number four our receiver, I'm throwing it to him. I'm throwing it to him. And and hell of a throw and even hell of a catch

because that ball had to be perfect. Right, You're not going to CD who had a great game, You're not going by the way. It wasn't perfect. Said had to go up and get down. That was like perfect throw, like maybe the perfect throw saying because it was a dB that was sitting right there like you know what I mean, it was perfect a sense of getting it right over the height and said, you know, set went

up there and got it. So this was this game had a little bit of everything in it, man, And to walk out of there victorious is one that can carry the momentum for this team for I mean weeks upon weeks upon weeks, because you can look back and say, hey, man, listen, we were down, we were out, the refs, you know, away, the crowd was against us. Everything was against us, but we battled through, we fought through, we came out with a victory, and those type of things you look at

and you say, this is how you win championships. This is how you put yourself in a position to win championships. Yeah, the fact, no matter if you watch the NFL, you know, any team that's gonna go deep in the playoffs has these kinds of games and they win these kinds of games because that's the nature of the playoff. Like that's gonna be NFL playoff football. Like when you're playing these

good teams, you're gonna have adversity. They're gonna win some too, Like you said before, they get paid too, and they're good teams too, So you're gonna have to just weather the adversity. You gonna have to figure out a way to win. You keep chipping and then when it gets down the end of the game, you gotta make a play. And I think there's a lot that was made about that game offensively and then driving down and get that.

But you gotta get some credit to the defense, Like going they're into overtime, they made a stop, like they didn't allow them to get down kick a field goal. That was none of that. They had to stop and forced them to punt. That you put on the defense because we always talk about this defense, can you make the stops at the moments in the game when you

need to make the stop. They did and not allowed the opportunity for the offense to Then going past years, how many times how we would would we talk about how the defense would be already tired, like towards the second half of the game. It's like they were exhausted, and obviously that affects them. But now they can keep up and obviously with the help that the offense is given them. It's just it's creating the perfect balance for them.

What I mean, that's created because you got guys that are secondary and third you know, third guys that are stepping up and making plays. So as a defensive coordinator, you can rotate them. Now you can rotate guys. The guys aren't having to be out there as long they're not getting all those raps on them anymore. But you know, but to that point, you know, we had guys that were some you know wood what do you said it yesterday? We have some just some dogs, you know, Randy Gregory,

They should have had a holding call. They didn't call it. So what did he do? Did he complain about it? Now? He got pissed off and said, forget it all right, I'll make the play right, all right, since you're since trying gonna call it, I'm gonna run through this dude's face, right, And then you got DIDs coming up there and snatching that thing up. Um you got you know, I mentioned Yesterly Gifford. I don't know how he got through there. Yeah, but Gifford was like, hey, don't forget about me. I'm

abo to make a play. So you know, you got everybody coming off. You know, everybody's coming to the playground trying to make play. But that's what winning does. Like, when your team is winning, you want in however you can get in, coach special Team, all right, come on, I'm in because you you wanted your name to be a part of something you don't want to just when you're losing, you just like, man, my check will be

hill Tuesday. You know what I'm saying, Like whatever, But when when it's when you're winning and everybody's enthusiastic and you're looking around, you're saying, how can I be a part of this. How can I get a chance to get my name in the billing? And so this is this is I said this worth wrong with two weeks ago. This is a rejuvenated team because guys want you want to be a part of winning. You know, That's why

everybody wants to come on hanging with the boys. You just wanted you apart, No as you slide over to the break, Yeah, everybody wants right, all right, we're gonna take our final break. Well we come back. We got more questions with these guys. I want to talk about a couple of the offensive players. We'll talk about defensive Marvin. Talk about a couple of the offensive players who have who've been out and their return and what this means in their return. Talk about that when we come right back.

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made with pride right here in Texas. There's still the unofficial crowd of all self respecting cowboys, and Stetson is proud to be on the field with America's team. Find a retailer nearest you at Stetson dot com, Slash Cowboys. Back to the Break, Welcome back, Final segment of The Break, Live from the SWBC Mortgage Studios at the Star. We're talking about the offense, big picture, about the offense. Smart

We'll get into some topics around the defense. But there have been two players I want to talk about who have been out on injury and presumably maybe coming well, not injury action for Lyle it was a suspension, but both are projected to possibly be back after the buy. You've got Lyle Collins right tackling. You got wide receiver Michael Gallop. My question for you guys is who will

add more to the offense when they return? Because both of the replacements have played fairly well here in their absence, Who adds more when they come back? Gallop? Why what? He what you have to You have to respect the crap out of him when he's on the field. Um, he is our deep threat. Yes, Cedric Wilson can run um, but he's not a He's not feared by the opposing team, right, maybe just because he hasn't had enough reps to be feared. Um,

he's fully capable. But Gallop is known when you when Gallops on the field, you better identify what the heck he's at, otherwise he's gonna end up behind you and your sake, thank you. Cedric an advantage, though I'm not if we're not utilizing him that way, right, So, I mean that's so, that's that's the thing, right, I mean, so it gives him advantage if you're gonna go to him. But Gallup could draw draw. I mean, now, Gallup might come very well come back and not get the ball.

But guess who else is gonna eat Coop's gonna eat CD, is gonna eat Schultz, is gonna continue. Safety has to respect to respect him, and if you don't respect him, you're gonna he's gonna hit you over the head with the oopsie because him. Because Gallop and Um and Dak have a great relationship, right, and they have chemistry. So I think Gallup comes back and has a great impact. Whenever he does decided or have opportunity to come back,

Collins would come back. And he's the for sure thing, right He's the thing that you don't have to worry about him. But his replacement has stepped up and not raised any concerns. So in terms of who had the greatest impact, I have to go with Gallup. I would agree with Gallup. But it's interesting we were talking about it during the break. You know what happens when Lyle comes back, and it's one of those things that this offensive line has had so many struggles injury wise, you know,

and then getting adjusted and adapted to different things. You know, last year we saw many switches and then we finally got a guy that didn't have a great year last year, and then this year is stepping it up, and I'm like, I don't want to move. I don't I don't want to touch it. And I know it's Lyle. I know he's a guy that has proven himself as well. But then when something is working, why mess with it again?

So I'm curious what is really gonna happen here, And if one thing McCarthy has shown, and it was last year, he's not necessarily scared to be like, oh well, he's the starter. He has to be there. We saw it happened last year, and I know a veteran guy has their power, and you know he's the guy that's supposed to go there. But McCarthy seems to not be afraid to do the un what would you call that unconventional unconventional thing. So we'll see what happens there, but I'd

definitely go with Michael Gallup. That's the biggest threat. But well, to combat both of your points, because I'm going with Ile Collins. You just said, right, and you said, well, if it's not broke, if it's not if it ain't broke, you know, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. That wrote is passing game, that is slaying that thing around the Park seven eight guys a game, get at least a catch up too. We ain't missed Michael Gallup. Ain't nothing that Michael Gallup has brown that we've We sit

back and we go dangn man, I'll show us. We would have had a deep threat. Nope, if we didn't get a holding a health a penalty said it would have had a fifty yard bomb last game. The passing game has not fallen off, not one bit. When it's been time to go to the passing game easily? How do you want it? Who wants it? Where it's gonna go? So for me, it's show up the offensive line and I get it. Ty Steel has done a good job

this year. He has earned himself some money because we all know it's hard to find offensive lineman in this league, and once you find a couple, you'd like to keep those bad boys. So now we know that he can play, he could we finally found our swing tackle. So if if Tyrant happened to have a little bit of lingering neck or elbow or shoulder or kneel or ankle or whatever, cool Terry Steel is playing with a ton of confidence.

He is familiar with the calls he's familiar with the offensive line, and now we can shift him up to the left hand side. But if I want to be a dominant offense, not just the dominant passing game. If I want to be a dominant offense, then I want the best players on my offensive line. And while Terrence has played a really good season, Lyle was a better player. There's a reason why Lyle was in next position before the suspension. Michael Gallup, we haven't missed a beat. Nobody

has missed a beat. Dac Is still has the highest completion percentage in the National Football League, is third in touchdowns in the National Football League, is third in yards in the National Football League. So there's no need to go out there and mess with the receivers. They're all doing just fine. But let me challenge you a little bit. And you guys both played in the league, so you

know this. You've seen this. There's something about an NFL offense, especially good teams, about their ability to evolve as the season goes on. As the season goes on, they start

showing more and more and more. So just when you think, let's say, for example, you just finished a New England game where you feel like maybe Belichick may have exposed some things like this may be a way for you to kind of slow them down a bit now adding that new wrinkle of oh yeah, by the way, we got this guy that can go yard on you, like right, That's the part that maybe missing a bit. They haven't done that a whole lot. This year. We saw CD

have the deep pass. Was that last game not the last game game four last, But that has not been something that is traditional that has been in this offense a lot this year. It was in the offense a lot last year before Dad got hurt. So I'm interested to see is this a moment where the offense can evolve even more and create even more of a problem for a team that's getting ready to play the Cowboys

on how do we now handle this challenge? Due now it becomes a situation do we have to take away the running game, do we have to take away the short to medium passing game, or do we have to really be concerned about the deep ball and giving up that one or two play drive that now turns into a touchdown. That's the part where I think Gallup can provide a big difference over what they have now because he allows the offense to evolve. YEA, what do you

think That's why? I think I think Gallup is presents more of a respect factor in terms of what the defense has the honor. Right. No, I'm not disrespect or disregarding what you're saying, turn Collins. Collins is a better player, and that's still that's that's easily said. But there's a continuity aspect that goes with offensive line. Right, and when you've missed how many games? Five games? When you missed five games, it's gonna take a little bit to get

rolling again. All right, now, will you get there? Absolutely right? But do I see us all of a sudden becoming a more dominant running game, the running team because Collins is in there. No, because our issues have come from the interior line, because we're undersized there with Connor William and Tyler Beads. We're undersizing the interior. We haven't had any issues running outside. I think that Gallup gives his ability to score more and to be threatened more and

do more offensively. Now, huge testament everything that you just said in terms of Kelly Moore, his ability to make things happen even in the absence of Gallop. That's a great officsive coordinator make you feel like you're not missing a beat in never Guard, but we are missing him in terms of our ability to go over the top, and we have not until your point, we have not had that threat. All of our big plays. We had one they ran, they ran man and CD got by

him last week or the week before. But everything else has pretty much been over routes, pretty much been over routes. We had our big plays and that's cool, but we need a guy to can get that. Yeah, but that's been go look at the across the league, what has been the dominant route that people have this this this new deep over situation. They say, Okay, I'm gonna clear out the top and I'm gonna take one of my

fastest guys and it's run them across. And if I get to protect, if I get the protection at the offensive line to protect me, then I can just I can just wait for him to go from this hash mark and looking good I got from that. I got from this hash mark to that zideline. My guy's faster than that safety or that DBS on his hip, and I could just throw it out there for a big play. The vertical passing game. The Randy Moss put your hand up. Passing games, it's changed. It's you see more of the

deep overs. You see more of a clear route than then once you hit him on that one time with that clear out, now that safety bites down and now you hit him over the top. But you know, and I think we're all agreeing with that. I think the point though, is that just adds that extra dimension now, but you gotta protect it. I get that, but especially now when your quarterbacks has a bad calf. I get that.

But what I will say is, if you watch that game yesterday, there were a couple of moments when things got a little weird, but there were a lot of moments, and Antonia was talking about it on the game a lot. There were a lot of moments where Dak was just standing back there. It had all day, like there was a wall of protection. And so even with still they're giving him time, he has time to get the ball out there. You get a guy like Gallop out on the outside now who can really go yard. I think

that's where you have just that extra dimension. You're right, the crossing routes are always in today's game. That's that's the preferred way to get the ball down field quickly. But I think you when you got that guy that can just go, I think that adds a whole different dimension to the offense. Or right now, I just don't think they have you know what. I not to say that turn Smith is gonna be out or anything, but we already know that he's getting banked up, and history

says Tyre is gonna miss two games. With that being said, I feel more comfortable keeping still in the game, just to keep the rhythm going and keep him doing what he's been doing. And just what are you saying to bench him? No, Leo, I mean he can warm up and hey, welcome to the break. Stay ready, stay down over there for a minute. We're talking about good chemistry. There's no hard feelings. It's okay. I know he really tried hard to get back on the field and get

back from that suspension. But at the same time, I don't want to mess with Steele leave him there. I have a feeling. I'm not saying. I obviously do not want him, don't want this to happen, but if Tyrant for whatever reason, is not able to play, I'd rather, you know, at that point, bring Lyle collings back in who is the guy who has the experience. He's a veteran. He can get back into things rather quickly than me. Mess with the guy that's uh, you know, finally starting

to find his groove. So that's that's how I see it, and I get it. It's a battering guy at all. But let's ask no hard feelings, which position poses more of a threat of something going wrong by replacing the guys that currently are in position? If you're by replacing steal. If you replace Steal, is there a greater chance of Collins causing some issues upfront? There's a loaded question. Is

a loaded question, but but there's risk. There's risks because because I mean, you can put a receiver out there and he literally has no impact in the game. You just don't go to him, and it doesn't hurt you, it doesn't help you, you know whatsoever. Ahead add to my point, No, I'm add to your point. It's not

he was making your point. But what I'm saying is is that that Lyle, you know, anything can go wrong with the offensive line, right, It's like, here's a bad like offensive line and cornerback are the two positions on the field where you can do everything right for ninety nine snaps yea, and on the hundred snap you could be so dominant for ninety I mean pancake blocks or ask break us and your break coverage and all that, and then on a hundred snap give up a sack

and all of a sudden you trash. You can give up you know, a pass behind your head and four touchdown games over now it's like you're like, wait, I just locked him down for not one. So those are the two spots where it's so much pressure on them for them to be so good all the time because the one moment they aren't can be so to that point, though, to that point are you secure? And now this is

no knock on comments. This is anybody in the offensive line with your officsive tackle, you're right tackle, right coming out and missing six weeks, he's he's been, he's gonna be six weeks rusty. This isn't This isn't him coming through all the through camp and then coming in and playing against Tampa Bay Buccaneers and he's fresh and he's been playing. This is six weeks of not practicing. By the way, remember, offensive line is the area where we

always hear it. It's about continuity as much as it is about any individual and the abilities. It's about how are they're working as a unit. So if you got a unit that's working pretty well together, do you really want to disrupt that? Remind me again, how much work do you actually get to do when you're suspended? Are you you're not allowed to work out, to work out with the trainers. Yeah, he was able to be in

the building, but he was not able to practice. He hasn't practiced him at all for six weeks for this well, after this week, it will be six weeks. You give me the best player. That's just me here, that's just me. Honestly, I don't think you got a wrong in I don't think you got a wrong exactly. That's exactly right. Yeah, I think you when when Monday gets here, uh you know, whenever they get back to practice whatever you know, for

for for the Minnesota game, run him at some gasers. No, you're right all the time, buddy, Like you can't be tired. You just have five weeks off. Let's go, let's let's go, let's go. And I even give here's a moment in time, hey, Tiry, rest the ankle still steal let's go. Sure you know so, I'm just saying, Lyle will get every single rep in practice, like do you will? Don't think about facts when we're doing the water break. Go get a rap facts, like

every single rep you'll get in practice. But then at the end of the week, I'll know we're gonna go steal this game. Give you another week, but if you're gonna get every rep starting on that Monday, preparation for for Minnesota will happen. All right, that's a record race for it race here. We don't know. He wouldn't talk about him. He was talking about me. All right, that's a rap man. We'll be back tomorrow. We got lots to talk about tomorrow. We're gonna foot over the defensive side.

There's so many storylines around this team on the defensive side. But we'll do that tomorrow till then Friday. I stand back Jesse Hollie amber Garcia. I am Derek Eagleton. This has been The Break live on Dallas Cowboys dot Com Radio. Let's Go. This has been a production of Dallas Cowboys dot Com and the Dallas Cowboys Football Club.