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Cowboys Let's go. Are you ready for a break?
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And so much for that.
It's time for The Break on Dallas Cowboys dot Com with Mbar Garcia, Brian brought Us, Patrick Walker, and Derek Eagleton.
It is Tuesday, January sixteenth, twenty twenty four, Season nineteen, Episode number one eight. Welcome to the latest edition of The Break. We are live from the s WBC Morriage Studios at the Star and today we're going to take a big picture look. We are going to hash through everything that has happened in the debacle that was Cowboys Wild Card playoff game versus the Packers. They lose forty
eight to thirty two. Score doesn't really tell the story of that game, but we're gonna break that down and we're gonna talk about some of the finer points of the game, some things that maybe can put that in perspective. What you actually saw on Sunday was not pretty. But again, we're gonna go through it. We're gonna break it all
down for you guys. Towards the end of the show, we'll also have a little bit of discussion around the coaches, around Mike McCarthy, around Dan Quinn and what they contributed to what you saw on Sunday and what it looks like for them going forward and how you evaluate that. So we'll do that throughout the show. But let's start first. I want to get some general overviews. And I know obviously it wasn't a good day for the Cowboys, but
just as a big picture, what was your takeaway? What's your big picture takeaway from that game?
Patrick will start with you Cowboys are kind of back in purgatory, and it's a horrible place to be because you know what direction do you go from here?
Right?
And we'll know touch on the coaching situation going forward, But when you have a coach and a staff on both sides of the bar that put you in position to overcome adversity like losing Trayvon Diggs and players like that, and you deliver another twelve win season, your second division title in three seasons. But not only do you not make the playoff run, which was basically an obligation at this point, but you lose and the fashion in which you lost, and to whom you lost and where you lost.
It could not have been more of a meltdown. It was a nuclear meltdown, absolute shared noble at at and T Stadium. So now fear Jerry Jones, Stephen Jones, Will McLay. You're sitting there and you're trying to figure out, well, what do you do? Do you move on to a new head coach? And obviously there's no guarantees there, no matter how big and fancy the name is. Dak Prescott admittedly said he sucked on Sunday, and he did. He said, if you're going to put McCarthy on the hot seat,
put me on the hot seat. We will. But what does that look like? Because he's up for a contract negotiation Cowboys, and on the defensive side of the ball, dan Quinn, he's set to undertake his interviews. Now right, we talk about the stock of a head coach and how dan Quinn was rightfully being courted. Stock took a massive, massive hit for dan Quinn. I had no rhyme or reason for what I saw schematically against the Green Bay Packers. They basically kneeled for four quarters and let Jordan Love
do whatever he wanted to do. This was a failure on every possible level by everyone involved not named Jake Ferguson. Jake Ferguson and maybe two or three other people are the only ones I could point to in this particular game and say they left it all on the field. Offensive line did well as well, so I'll give it to the offensive not Tony Pollard did well as well. But for the most part, your defensive players, Michael.
Where were you? Yeah?
Where were you? Penalty showed up? Dak Where were you? Where was the MVPDT wasn't there at all? This offensive play calling that had been so great most of the season, where was it? Defensive play calling great most of the season?
Where was it.
So at at the end of the day. That's where the Cowboys are. Its purgatory. Don't envy the decisions they have to make. But they got to make them, and they got to make them quickly.
You know what, Well said?
Patrick Well said, the I think the thing that that that was Green Bay had a really a great game plan. They had a game plan both offensively and defensively, how they wanted to attack your quarterback, how they wanted to play and coverage. Some of the looks that had been given DAK problems throughout the season. You know, Joe Berry basically rolled the dice and said, you know what, I'm going to play certain coverages here and see if I
can get something out of it. I think that, you know, when you talk about the you know, the one of the interceptions that DAK had where that disconnect, that early disconnect with CD in this game and they run the double slant and they throw the interception off that which turns into the pick six. The savage that to me was one of those Okay, I'm gonna try and get you going throws. I'm going to try and get you know, maybe that wasn't the best place to put the football,
you know, and it goes back to bite you. That's just good scheming by you know, by the by the Packers there to kind of be in the right place the right time to force a turnover there. They did a really good job of handling your offense, you know, for the for three quarters and then you know it
turned into garbage time. But the defense that that's the thing that was the most disconcerting to me about this, the way that that that they played, because I know there's times where we've seen and they've tried to put band aids on amputations. Here at linebacker, it's just been a it's a struggle. They don't have the personnel to play the way they want to play, you know, and they play so much dime because they have to. They don't have any other players. I mean, Bell's one of
your better players. He's not a linebacker. You know, we're learning on the We're learning on the run here with Clark, you know, I mean, he's learning.
He some days he's really good. In other days he's not so good.
You know, when they're knocking down you know, Jonathan Hankins on the ground and double team in him, and you know, there's just a lot of things. You have to tip your cap to Green Bay for the way they schemed it. They tacked the middle of the field.
They knew that, you know.
They saw that that curse a as a true free safety.
It's not an answer for you right there. You know.
I think there's dan Quinn had just he was trying to put players in place to make up for the lack of some of the players he didn't have, and I think it ultimately caught up to him at the end. Green Bay schemed, you really really.
Well in this football game, you know, and and.
You give their quarterback a lot of credit too, you know, he he threw several passes in the teeth of a rush, which the Cowboys have been good at all year. But it, you know, ultimately, it's what caused the Cowboys to lose this football game. They just weren't able. They just were undermanned in a lot of areas. And it like the Old House of Cards just kind of came tombling down on them in this game. I think we saw that they were playing with fire all year and they finally got burned in this game.
Well I'm gonna watch what I say because I don't want to get fired today. But well your jinxed, so you know what people started tweeting on me. I'm like, sure, sure, yes, that they lost because I jinxed it. Sure they've lost all these years because I opened my mouth. Sure, if I had that much power, I probably wouldn't be sitting here. If my mouth had that much power, I'll be you talk to him swimming in a jack kusie full of cash.
But anyways, I agree with everything you guys said, and the funny, crazy twisted thing is that in that game, everything that was that the Cowboys tended to do well went wrong, and the areas that they tended to do bad went somewhat well. So including oh my god, I almost call him brand Maher Brandon Aubrey included him. But it's just it's I don't know what to do with
my life right now. This week, I'm trying to because, and I've said this off the air, every single part of me had zero doubt that they were gonna win this game. And of course that's not being me being naive or stupid of like the past history, but I truly believe that this was such a great matchup for them to start the playoffs against a team like the Green Bay Packers, and it wasn't the case. I don't think it matter who the opponent was. The way the
Cowboys played. The Cowboys played was just absolutely terrible. And it's one of those things that now we got to talk about and like try to figure out, Okay, how do you how do you move past this? And I'm like, okay, part of me is like we know the drill with the during this so many years, But at the same time, it's like, right, now I literally have no answer, no
quick fix. Like everything in my mind right now seems so like, oh, reconstructing or starting over from zero, Like nothing seems like there would be like a change that you currently make, even if there was to be a change in the head coach position. There are so many pieces that are about to change that it's hard to visualize something that will get you to that next step
in the near future going into next year. And I know we talked about it on one of our shows, Derek, where we were talking about the now and the coaching and dn quinn him having interviews and all of that, and it's just so many moving parts that I really thought this was the year if you were gonna do it, this was gonna be the year where.
Yeah, yeah, To be honest with you, that kind of encapsulates my thoughts on this is there. You'd have to go back to two thousand and seven for me to find a game that a playoff game that was more
gut wrenching than this one. Because just like in two thousand and seven, you were the top seed, you had everything was laid out nicely for you had the team, you had the home field advantage, everything worked to where you should be able to exercise all those demons of what has happened to this franchise since their championship days in the nineties. And you go and have that game against the Giants and you lose in the first round.
And I felt the same way about this game. I look at the Packers and I'm like, this was a good matchup for the Cowboys. You can't convince me that schematically the Cowboys what they'd done all season didn't match up nicely against this team. And everything had laid out in a way to where you had everything clear all the way up until you had to deal with San Francisco. Do you see what happened at San Francisco for that championship game if they didn't lose somewhere.
Along the way.
But the point was, like you, everything was laid out nicely for you, and for whatever reason, they just couldn't get it right in the first round. And that's the part that's hard. And that's the part where when you start talking about where do you move from here? I don't think there's a lot of answers because you left like almost dumbfounded, like how did this happen to be able to even.
Understand where you need to go.
You gotta first understand, like how did it happen against that team? And again I'm not trying to kill him. Love played his butt off some of the throws he made. That throw he made into the end zone like where he was kind of yeah, that was an awesome throw, Like you, you won't find a the vast majority of the NFL quarterbacks in the NFL right now that can make that kind of throw.
He played his butt off.
The fact matter is.
Though the Dallas Cowboys should have won that game. They were the better team, and it's hard to say that, but you look at it, and that's why we're all so dumb founded, is because you look at it on paper and you say, Down has more talent Dallas is.
You would think they have.
Better skime, You would think everything matches up for them to have won that game, and for whatever reason, they did not.
And that's why I don't I often don't get into the whole the dialogue going into the playoffs of matchups and things like that, because we all know matchups do matter in the playoffs, but what matters more than matchups is effort and execution and the complete lack of effort. The complete lack of execution we saw from the Cowboys would have gotten them blown out by every team in the league at at and T Stadium or anywhere. You see what happened to the Eagles in Tampa Bay. Lack
of effort, lack of execution. So it's not that the Cowboys finally dropped a game at home, it's they didn't show up on their own field in the first place. And to Ambar and Derek's point, the thing that makes this so difficult and dumbfounding is you look at the loss to the forty nine ers, Okay, in last year, that's January. You lose Tony Pollard, your most explosive player, Okay.
So then after that you could say, well, if you had Pollard, Okay, Kellen Moore was the offensive coordinator in the Green Bay game last year, you say, okay, well if the offensive coordinator had done this differently, So what do you do. You swap out the offensive coordinator. So those types of changes have been made. But then you look at what happened this past Sunday against the Packers, and you don't have those things to point to. You have to point at everything. So how do you fix everything?
You try to figure out, Like Derek said, what's the root of it? And it's not lack of talent. They definitely took some hits. They had, you know, size issues at linebacker. Yeah, they took some hits. But this was the perfect matchup for you. Where was your pressure up front from your defensive line Michael Parsons and those guys.
In coverage George dropped back. We'll talk about that later, but go ahead.
Jordan Love pressured only only four times. So in breaking down like Science Lab I did last week, I said, you have to get pressure from your front four on Jordan Love, don't bring the blitz. They did not get pressure, so then they panicked. Then they brought the blitz and Jordan Love tormed to shreds every time they blitzed them. And then when he had time two and a half seconds or more, over two hundred almost three hundred yards,
three touchdowns, no interceptions, almost a perfect passer rating. Play after play we saw we were sitting in the press box. Snap, Why did he take him deep fade? Yeah, forty fifty yard reception, third and six pre snap? Why are these ten yards off the receiver? On there are so many things you could point out that went wrong because almost everything went wrong and not much went right. And when that happens, it doesn't matter where you're playing, who you're playing.
It's unacceptable and it has to be fixed. But there is no easy fix. And that's where we're left right now. Which knob did you turn? When you got to turn all the knobs?
All right, let's take a's say, our first break when we come back, let's dive into the offense a little bit. We'll talk about Dak Prescott and his day. As he said, he didn't play well that game, but we'll talk about what some of the more specific things that went wrong for the Cowboys offense a little be backed out this Cowboys dot Com radio.
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Cowboys fans, after that move, we've just coined the term rowdy replay.
Let's roll back the table.
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Back to the break.
Welcome Back.
It is the second segment of the breakuld Life from the SWBC Mortgage studios. At the start of segment brought to you by blockchain dot Com, Dak Prescott on Sunday was forty one or sixty sixty eight percent completions, complete completion percentage four hundred three yards, passing, three touchdowns, two interceptions at eighty nine point eight.
Rating a lot of that very hollow.
They really they seem to get things going at the point in the game where the Packers are basically like, just don't let them get anything quick, and so they racked up a lot of yards even some points. But if you look at the games holistically, and let's really take that first half where I think that's where it all went downhill, what would you say was the biggest problem for the offense and Dak Prescott on Sunday.
I'll say this quickly and all though right to Brian o Ambar. Brian mentioned it in his first description of what went wrong, that connection between Dak and set Lamb that's been so explosive all season. It was not there. It was ice freaking cold. They could not get on the same page to save their lives. Right, Well, he was trying to force it, which was probably number one, but at the same time, miscommunications on the routes and you know what, the anticipation that was normally always there
for those two it just wasn't there. And then you started to see CD get frustrated because they just couldn't get it together. So for me, there's a lot of things you can point to, but that because they couldn't get that motor going, everything else just started kind of the crumble after that.
Yeah, I think that I think it really started. Dak tried to throw the ball to the middle there to the CD on third down, and CD really didn't have a chance. I mean, he extended Dak both feet off the ground. He's looking to his left. CD's probably not expecting the ball, and then all of a sudden, he's trying to Now Dak's like, okay, I got to try and make a play here.
So they try and get in the middle. It doesn't work.
They come back and they throw what the play is called sprint right option, where Dak rolls to his right and Lamb is on the running.
Along the silen. It's kind of run a little bit.
Of a curl router end route, and Dak lets the ball fly before CD even breaks and it got to CD so fast that he really couldn't even adjust, you know. So I think that I think the disconnect really happened. When you you looked at a play. They were going to run a pivot route where where CD breaks in and Dak expects him to break in then out, and he throws the ball the outside. And after the play you look at it, Dak, He's got palms up at CD, like, bro, what's going.
On here today?
You know, at that point in time, it then be kind of became and then we had you know, he didn't have a catch until right at the two minute warning.
Yeah, you know, And so it was a rough day.
And I think that to me, Green Bay did a really nice job with their coverages. I think they frustrated CD a little bit with it. I think they frustrated Dak. He gave him some different looks. When you play what they we call that cover four where it's all quarter coverages.
You got fourg to say you got four.
You know, everybody's covering four in a deep part of the field, and then you take your linebackers and you run them in underneath in the wide, and another quarter of.
The field's taken taken away from you.
This seems like a difficult defense for Dallas to deal with when it comes to their route combinations, and I think it makes it difficult for the quarterback when he doesn't see it clean, you know, he anticipates throws, but it when that that kind of that coverage gives him a little bit of problem. And green Bay stuck with it.
They did they they went with it. You know, like half the first I kind of kicked the fourth quarter out of this game for Dak because it's the game was you know, it was it turned into stats at the end, and it's but if you look at the first three quarters though, the way they played coverage against him, the way they covered CD and it wasn't traveling coverage and stuff like that. They caught a really frustrated receiver.
They caught a quarterback that was dealing with a lot of the problems of seeing and reading where it needed to be and the route combinations. Might got an absolutely no rhythm as a play caller. They just didn't have that. You know, Green Bay seem to have a little bit of rhythm to their play calling, the way they were setting things up and getting to them. You know, the
play action game was big for them. Dallas didn't have that rhythm to them, and I think it's it's you know, Joe Berry much maligned at Green Bay for the way they played defense this year, but he came up with a brilliant plan and it did a great.
Job of frustrating the Cowboys. That was a big difference in this game.
You know, I love Dak, I really really do, and I think he's had his best career this season, but he comes down to once again, can he show up when it really matters in imporant games like this. And the crazy thing is we've actually seen it this season. For example, the game against Philly out there, an away game where even though they lost, Dak was one of the very few players that you saw him really fighting and putting carrying things on his back. And in this game,
he just he just wasn't there mentally. And it wasn't a game where and Patrick you mentioned the O line, It wasn't a game where he was constantly under pressure, nothing like they haven't dealt with all throughout the season. It was the old line did a solid job. Dak wasn't constantly under pressure, but you could see him that that quality that you love so much about Dak as a so like as a leader and so focused and confident. Yeah,
it wasn't it wasn't there. You can see him right from the beginning just kind of lost a little bit too much in his head where he's just thinking too much and now he's just throwing the ball to see if he gets kind of lucky. Lets let's just let's just give this a try, and it wasn't working.
So I don't really know what.
To pinpoint exactly, because it's it's something we haven't really seen from him this season, and then for us, you have talked about the interception through the season and be like, well, that's something that he's fixed, and then all of a sudden it happens twice in a game like this.
I don't know.
I don't know how you justify much other than the play calling and Dak not not being there for whatever reason.
I don't know.
Seeing Dak play great in a playoff game. Tampa's playoff game last year was, I mean, and that's kind of what you were hoping for going forward. You're like, listen, Okay, Dak has had some playoff troubles before. But you know that's the thing is you see that type of a game and you're like, he's capable, He's capable of doing that, and you know that's Unfortunately that's how they measure quarterbacks,
especially in this city, especially on this team. It's about championships, it's about playoff wins, you know, and he's trending the wrong.
Way right now.
And you know, do I think that they're going to move on for him from him? No, I really don't. I don't see that.
You know. Uh, he's do a huge he's got a huge cap number.
They've got to figure that out, you know, unless they've got some creative way that I don't know about. You know, I think Dak Prescott's going to likely sign an extension here. But you know, there's things that they did very very well this season, but there's there's there's something fundamentally wrong in these playoff games, you know, and they've got to figure that out. And and that's that's the But we've
said that now for three years. You know, there was a time when we talked about this team lack of toughness. That lack of toughness showed a little bit the other day too. Remember after some of these you know, San Francisco they beat him up today physically, they beat him up today, you know, and you're kind of like going, okay, well that that they you know, Green Bay physically beat you up a little bit yesterday. And so is that the players? Is that evaluation of the players. Are the
players not tough enough? If you play this game, you're tough. But you know, you talk about look at the look at the teams that are going forward in the playoffs. You know there's a certain amount of mental toughness about them and to be able to put things aside and move forward. And this team lacks it right now in the playoffs. They really do.
Yeah, let's be clear about this.
And I know people are upset right now, and I think a lot of people are questioning, you know, what do you do with Dak Prescott. Let's be clear. There are half the teams in this in the NFL that don't have quarterback. There are not enough quarterbacks to go around. It is one of the biggest challenges of the NFL.
Tune end of the draft show. We'll talk about a few.
Good but and the crazy part about it is even at that if you wanted to, if you wanted to as the Cowboys, let's say you wanted to restart this thing, and you're like, we're going to go back to the well and try to find a quarterback, right now you're drafting twenty fourth, the likelihood that you're going to find the guy you want it is not as great. Well, when you're drafting at twenty fourth.
Well, here's here's the rub.
Now then, and you've got you know, you've got a quarterback that you went and got from San Francisco.
Yep, you know that's the rub. Instead, can you fix him? Because he's a project exactly, and there's and.
There's class taken on his contract.
You got to make it.
And see that's the thing about it right now is you know, in a in a perfect world, you find a way, you you learn about him and you're able to do these things. There's people that believe that you have Jordan Love sitting on your bench. You know, you talk to the scouting world, they'll you get you've got You've got a guy they've got. So that's the decision they.
Have to make, right, They got to figure that out.
They've got to figure that part out because maybe they don't have to use the twenty fourth pick on a quarterback. You know, maybe they they made they gave a pick up in this draft to have an opportunity to work with a guy for a year.
Right, You know and.
Maybe that's if if, if this thing turns because they're out of options with Dak, I mean options of tags and.
All these other things. He's got all the leverage, he's got all the leverage on you.
He's got a huge cap number, and there's really smart guys and gals upstairs that'll figure this all out. But there's there's also you know, they've protected themselves that if they do make that decision and you do want to start things over here, you go, yeah, that's that's a guy they think a lot about if they want.
To start the thing.
And the point but the point real quick, the point I'm making is you don't get rid of a quarterback in the NFL unless you got a sure as sure as you can be option. Now, if they get to the point after they've worked with Lance to where they feel like, yeah, he can be the guy, and we think we got a young guy that can turn into that, then great, you got options now. If you don't, if that's not clear to you after working with him, then
I think NFL teams would be foolish. It's the reason why guys like Kirk Cousins keep a job is because he still is a good quarterback. He may not be great, he may still have deficiencies, he may not be able to play as well in some of those bigger games, but he's good enough to where he gives you a chance.
Every Sunday. He gives you a chance. And that's the part where you got to put it in context. Dak had an MVP caliber season this year. He just didn't play well in the playoffs. And by the way, that's.
Becoming the recurring theme, yes, is he hasn't play well in the playoffs.
That's the and that's.
The part where you got to kind of figure out is he ever going to get there or is it going to be a situation where this is just who he is and you're gonna have to deal with that. But again, before you make that move, you got to make really sure you got an option. Because I went through those years when the Cowboys didn't have a quarterback. That's hard when you go into every game knowing you have no.
Quarterball and you're and you're absolutely right, and I was right there with you sitting on the other side of the room. But today, in today's football, you have a better chance of getting a veteran quarterback than you did in two thousand and two, two thousand and three, when you know, when we were going five and eleven every year, we couldn't find it. People are now moving on from their quarterback. Look at golf Baker Mayfield. People are moving
on from their quarterbacks right now. The problem you don't want to get into is do you want to say, Okay, we're going to make this player a fifty million dollar player and that's your that's fifty million out of your your cap right there. And you know, and but if you if you're doubting that the player can't get you you through the playoffs, boy, that is a that is a terrible feeling that you're.
Committing fifty million dollars.
To a position that you don't feel like or you have questions if if that could get you through the playoffs, just so you have a quarterback.
You know that.
That's but this organization, and I'll say this, they can afford to make a decision on the quarterback, good or bad. And I'll tell you why. The general manager here is not going to get fired. And I mean that origin.
Take a chance.
It could take a chance if.
We were running another team and we committed fifty million dollars to a quarterback and it didn't work out, we'd all be fired. You know that they they can move on from a fifty million dollar quarterback if they want to. You know, there's a lot of teams that can't because you're you'll do anything to keep your job by having a quarterback. Jason Light a buddy of mine down in Tampa. He did it with Tom Brady. He was going to
get fired. He is going to get fired, and all of a sudden, Tom Brady shows up and he got a five year extension just because and a.
Super Bowl ring. Right. See, that's that's what I'm saying. You you have it.
It's possible to make a change a quarterback and still benefit from that, but you have to determine though this guy here.
I think the one of the problems is the Cowboys. The calendar isn't working in their favor because you're going to have to make a decision on Dak Prescott as far as likely extending him to get that captain down. But you're not really going to have true evaluation start on Trey Lance until training camp, right because you acquired him, you know, ahead of the trade.
Well, I think they probably have a better evaluation.
No, I get it. They have a better evaluation. They have a better evaluation than they did this time last year. Yees, because.
But if you look at the how practices are run and Cooper Rush is still the definitive TB two up to this point, is Cooper getting those second team looks in practice.
Him out before?
You notice before every game he had a little session here, he wasn't present. I'm sure mom came.
It'll be a complete unleashing of Trey versus Cooper, which, really, then I guess their hope at that point should be for Trey to step forward and kind of nudge Cooper to the side, which then gives them the position, the leverage going forward to say, Okay, well, twenty twenty five if Dak doesn't, twenty twenty six if Dak doesn't. But again, calendar's working against you because Trey Lance's rookie deal is
coming up. To do it to expire to that next year, Yeah, next year, so you got to you gotta make a decision there. So I think ideally, you know, realistically, like you're saying, this is an MVP candidate in Dak Prescott who basically his mentality just went out the window against the Packers. The cerebral version of Dak Prescott wasn't there.
He was off. Something was just completely awry, and unlike a separate playoff game where you could point out and say, well, Dak wasn't the reason they lost, he was a reason that the Cowboys lost. Those two interceptions and the timing of it, brutal pick six, it helped to pedo the
Cowboys season, just as the defense did that. It's also true though that the best, any quarterback that you would name that's better than Dak Prescott is already on a team and they're not letting them go, and they're probably not going to spend the twenty fourth overall pick on a on a quarterback.
Because they got trade so they're not going to draft a quarterback, right, That's what I mean.
So this is where this is where there's where you're at the develop.
What's Brady dear He does come back from retirement before wants to call Philip No, no, no, no.
No, lot of kids to talk about a tough guys, get Philip Rivers.
No. I was just gonna say, it's one of those things that is just it's very hard because as much and I get it. So many people hate Dak and want to get rid of it. But same as you said,
there it gets. It's one it's very hard to find a quarterback, but two that has shown you really really good moments like yeah, where we're part of you, part of you, even though you're you're like, okay, you still take this game as something that's uncorrect, helped me out, uncorrect, uncharacteristic, uncharacteristic of him, that you're like, okay, we know what he can do in good moments, and part of you, in the very very part of you, because I know
right now we're still mad, but there is that hope of like, Okay, well he has it, but if we put him in a better position, then maybe. But you've already done so much changing the whole team around him to cater to him and put him in a better position as far as like even changing the scheme of things. And although he has improved this year, it's still it's just I don't think it's enough to make a drastic change.
One because you don't really have options. But two, there's part of you where you still see the really good assets in him.
Yeah, you do actually have an option you do have an option, you can determine that you're going to move on and let Trey Lance run this thing at a cheaper contract and then try and and sign CD and sign others in draft and go that route.
How many years are you out into the hope of getting somewhere.
Well, he's at a point in his career where if you made that move, the expectation he's ready to jump in and ready to take off.
Like Jordan loved it exactly. That's what you're that would be your hope if you're making that.
This isn't like you're dealing with a rookie guy.
You're dealing with a guy that you're dealing with the second overall pick in the draft, right, second third overall pick in the draft, and Dallas thought enough of him. I think they had him at the very top of the second round on their board, so you know they they thought enough of this guy too. If they want to make if they want to pull the band aid off and go and just say, you know what, we're not going to pay a fifty million dollars quarterback there.
They're not gonna get they're not going to lose their jobs. But you know, if I was.
In Tampa and and.
I have a quarterback, I'm going to lose my job. These guys aren't going to lose. And again, I'm not taking that as a slam. I'm just telling you that's that option. It makes it a lot easier when you know that. Listen, if I make this move and it doesn't work, it's on me and we'll just find something else to do.
Let me just say for the record, I ain't with that. I'm I'm unless I am very certain. I gotta be so certain with Trey Lance that I'm willing to do that. Like I still feel like, and call me naive, I still feel like Dak Prescott can still get you there. I just I just feel like, if if you get the right things in place, And I know that's hard to say when you're paying fifty million dollars, you're like, I shouldn't have to have everything.
I know.
I get you, I understand you.
But I guess that's also my fear of going back to not having the quarterback, because if Trey Lance doesn't work out, if you went that route and he didn't work out, and let's say Dak moves on to some other team and all of a sudden, Now Dak is balling that, I'm gonna be like that, Oh my god, no, I will that will That will drive me absolutely.
You live with them, You live with a Maury Cooper making two hundred and fifty, you know, fifty years in the game.
Yeah, but that, honestly, that doesn't bother me because Amari Cooper is doing the same thing he did here. He's having some games where he's really great. Sure, he's also having some games where it's like, where's a Mark Cooper? So he's doing exactly the same thing he did here. My problem would be if you let a quarterback go who you know is good, but he just wasn't able to do it for you in the playoffs, and then he goes somewhere else and he's able to do it in the playoffs, then it's like, man.
We gave up on it too soon. And that's the part again. I might just be being fearful.
That may be driving my thought process here, but that's where I am. I'm just like, I'm not willing to go that route unless I know I for sure got a better option.
See the thing about it is, I think there's a lot of people will evaluate he's two and five as a playoff quarterback, and that's fair, and that's and that's and they'll ask you, well, what more do you need?
You know? And that's the question.
Somebody will say, Okay, Derek, what more do you need? He's two and five. He's not five and two. He's two and five, you know. And they've they've bounced out in wild card games, they've bounced out.
In divisional games. You know. See, that's the thing you have to that's the thing you have.
To address here is is are we gonna be doing the show again next year? And the same thing happens, and then you're gonna go, Okay, I know, three hundred and sixty five days ago we talked about and I and I you know, and I I I understand, you gotta, you gotta. But then at the point now you're you're the three year contract extension, and now you're thinking about, oh, okay, now we got to carry this. We're gonna carry a cap charge now for the next three years on my team.
Again, that's that's the decision. They have to make it right, not us.
And that's why it's a hard decision, is because it'd be much easier if Dak Prescott had just been bad all season, sure that would be a much easier.
It wouldn't be in the playoffs, right.
It wouldn't be in the play right, And then right there there they were in the playoffs because Dak Prescott played at a very high level. The problem is, though, when you get in the playoffs, you've got to find a way to advance. And you know, two games they advanced with him, you know, five games they didn't.
You know, I mean that's that's that's that's reality. That's that's you know.
And again, I do I think they're gonna do something different move on from No, absolutely not. But that's the decision they have to look at. If they move on from this guy, it's because of the two and five. That's why they will move on.
And you also got to take into account. You know, Jerry Jones's quote keeps popping up in my head. I don't have time for a bad time. Yeah, So, I mean, he not to be grim, but he senses his mortality at his age, right. And if you take the risk on Trey Lance, and a huge risk, it is because you haven't seen Chrery Lance in a Cowboys uniform. Take a single snap just yet, not so much as a preseason game just yet. Calendar's working against you. So if you roll those dice and they come up snake eyes,
you've reset the entire franchise. And now you have to guess what You got to go back out and got to find another quarterback back while all of this is happening, Guess whose careers are rolling along being wasted? Seedee Lamb, Michael Parson, some of these other guys, Jake Ferguson.
So well, see that's the thing about it. And like I said earlier in two thousand and three, we had no options of finding a quarterback, had none.
Yeah, it's not that people.
People now we're willing look look at the guys, like I said, Baker Mayfield, they got rid of him, look at you, and yeah, everybody to get rid of these quarterbacks. Now it's like people say, listen, we're not good enough at quarterback.
We got to do something different.
Yeah, and they move on and they move on, and you know, so I don't think you could be fearful of not finding a quarterback. I don't think you could be fearful of that. And I think, you know, I think they protected themselves with Lance, I really do.
I mean, I'm just to me.
At least it gives them an option that they don't have to look at this draft and say, you know, oh.
We have to have a quarterback.
Yeah, you know, and you're probably speaking the right thing.
I'm speaking the scared thing, really, and I'm so true to that, Like I'm just afraid to death of making a move.
And then you're like, oh, gosh, we don't have a quarterback, and I don't know where you're going to get one. If you don't have a quarterback, debilitate.
If you don't have a quarterback and your record's bad enough, you you'll.
Draft a quarterback.
Yeah, but then it's a craft show. It really as a crap it is. You're talking about we've seen, we've seen guys.
You draft number one overall and they are a bus like it is such a crap show.
They thought they had Dak Prescott and Jamil Showers.
Think about, well, think about how they got their last two quarterbacks.
Both of the last two quarterbacks the Cowboys have gotten.
They got in an inopportunity, like they got in a way that was just luck. Basically, they looked into Dak Prescott. They lucked into Tony Romo. So those like the.
Last two times, it's just happenstance. They they looked into a quarterback.
Look at the Packers, I mean the last forty years. I mean it's from.
Sep getting it right, keep getting it right.
And see, So what did they do?
They moved on Green Bay and the last two times they've changed quarterback, moved on from a Hall of Fame quarterback, moved on from another Hall of Fame quarterback. Sometimes you can't be scared sometimes, but that Rogers is a pain in the ass. So I understand while they moved on from him, right, you know.
But anyway, all right, we're gonna say our final break.
We only have four more minutes, so we're gonna take a final breakway, gonna come back real quick, get a few more points in before we end.
The show.
Is the Dallas Cowboys dot com Radio.
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New you Back to the Break.
Welcome Back, final segment of the Break Life in the SWBC Morgan Studios at the Star. We got exactly one minute and two seconds, so what we're gonna do here is real quick. I did want to talk a little bit about the defense Jordan Love was sixteen to twenty one, seventy six percent completion rate, two under seventy two yards, three touchdown, zero interceptions, and a one fifty seven point two quarterback rating. If that's not perfect, it's very, very
very close to perfect. That being said, was there something that Green Bay's offense did that was particularly challenging for Dallas because we saw wide receivers open the whole day like it just everything looked off. Was there something they did differently than what they've been doing all season that really may have thrown the Dallas defense.
I think communication was really bad for the Cowboys defense this game. The big plays were.
Because of bust and I think the Romeo Dobbs forty six yard play was I think they were going deep over on it. They met Max protect deep over. He just ran a route on his own and it lost it lost Gilbourn, It lost Gilbore, and he broke. He went to where he knew the route was going, is what he did, and he ended up with the ball. And then also I think that I think Wilson dropped the coverage on the on the tight end that that ended up being a touchdown.
The thirty eight yard touchdown there. That was they were man.
That same play from Arizona game.
No, but it was.
It was it was a man free situation with the defense man underneath free safety in the middle of field.
Wilson went to the outside and he didn't carry their out and that's what it is.
But he was a man cover. He just busted.
Yeah, he just busted there. Wow.
Yeah, So that's I think communication and busts were with the big problems in that game.
And it seems like it happened over and over again, which again does beg the question where they prepared for this game.
Yeah.
They one time though the first dobs inside passing the middle of the field.
That like I said, that cursed free safety.
Three guys ran with one receiver and that left the middle of the field completely open. That's the one with Michael Parsons was in position, and you kind of wonder was Michaels supposed to be deep enough because they had a route previous in that and that's where they ran the linebacker and a vertical to try and take care of things with Clark and stuff. See wonder maybe Michael maybe was you know, they all were kind of short and maybe they needed a little bit more debt.
But they had short.
Linebackers and deep safeties and they ran three ran three with one guy and it kind of messed them up.
A little bit.
Just for the record, I'm going to have a problem when the best guy with the best pressure percentage in the NFL is doing anything other than rushing the quarterback. I just I don't understand. That to me is the definition. I get it, but I just to me, that is the definition of we're going to outthink them, trying to outthink us, Like, just do what you do that. You can do a lot of other things schematically, but if you got something, you do extremely well. The best in
the NFL. His pressure percentage was better than anybody in the NFL. And have him go get the quarterback every single time.
Sometimes y'all think yourself.
Sometimes, defense just it executed and communicated poorly at all three levels. You had a defensive line who leads the league, led the league in pressures. Got to speaking past tense now thanks for that. Theyed the league in pressures and basically were not able to win their matchups at all, and then behind them, whilst they're unable to win their matchups, communication on the back end was as poor as I've ever seen in a football game, and that is no exaggeration.
You got guys missing assignments. You got guys taking guys that shouldn't have been there, guys. You got guys that are you know, running the wrong coverage in what the coverage looks should have been. And then, like he said, he brings up the Romeo. Dobbs big Gainer, basically led Gilmore all the way in across the field and then broke off and okay, you got Gilmore that you got him, where's the safety help? Safety help was both your safeties on the other side of the field.
They had they had they had the over hea. Yeah, they had the over covered.
The problem was the break the quarterback made it. You know, Dobbs ran the route thinking like okay, I'm in trouble here.
He just went to where he knew the ball was going to be. Yeah he was. They were thinking deep over and he just turned Gilmour around it.
And then schematically, when you look at they got themselves to a point where you're not getting any pressure up front and you're communicating pulling on the back end.
Panic mode.
What do you do? You send extra guys. Don't send extra guys to Jordan Love.
You know what you get.
You get the Kobe fade away backfoot lob touchdown. That's what you get, back foot lob forty five yard game. It just all fell apart because on at each level of the defense, and this also goes to the overall scheme of the defense.
Cowboys were just not what.
I'm not even going to say they weren't what they should have been. I feel like that's an understatement.
They ran the ball at Bell. They weren't a.
Professional football team on Sunday. I didn't see a professional football team from the Cowboys on Sunday.
Hang when they made me look stupid, because that was exactly how I felt like. No, it's like we headed into the game. I just so many great matchups. I thought the back end of the field would be taken care of. All you gotta worry really is just stop the run. Maybe that's something that they can actually do. Run the ball on you. And then no, they did everything. They did everything they could possibly do. On offense, you gave up so many big, big plays and there was
no answers. I mean, sometimes you see a guy catching the ball and there on bland the guy. Okay, I love you their own blood, but man, you're like, what five yards away from the guy you're supposed to cover, Like, I know what.
For those that don't know, that's a long way from the stay anyways, this is yeah about an hour.
Yeah, that was pretty bad.
All right, guys, we appreciate you joining us.
We are.
This is our final show for the week. What we're doing is we got Draft shows starting to Draft Show will go this actually today is our full slate of all of our podcasts. Then tomorrow we will have Draft Show tomorrow and Thursday. Told me no podcast on Friday, and then next week we start our off season schedule. I think as of right now, it looks like we're
gonna probably be going on Wednesdays at eleven o'clock. But we will be putting out the official schedule later today or tomorrow, and we'll put out there for you guys to see, and all the shows will be going once a week, so you'll have about three shows a day with storyline mixing in this year. Uh so, we'll have some good times and I'm looking forward to the Draft Show. It's gonna be really good.
We'll get as.
Usual and maybe Brian will convince me there's some quarterback out there we need to be thinking about it.
I don't know.
You see, we'll see save us tomorrow.
Patrick Walker, Brian brought us A Regarcia and Derek Heilton. 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.