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It's time for The Break on Dallas Cowboys dot Com. Were on with Ambar Garcia, Brian brought us, Patrick Walker, and Derek Eagleton.
It is Thursday, September twenty eighth, twenty twenty three, season nineteen, episode number forty one. Welcome to latest edition of The Break live from the s WBC Mortgan Studios at the Star. Got Brian, Patrick and Amber here with me. We're going to talk about the Cowboys defense versus the New England offense for bulk of the show today. I do also
want to talk a little bit about Tony Pollard. We haven't spent a lot of time on Tony poll but I thought I saw some interesting statistics about his performance so far the season. We'll get into that here early in the show. Before we do that, though, we'll get a little bit of updates on our injury situations. We got plenty of injury situations.
To talk about. Patrick, talk to us about.
Who's on the injury part and what we should know and expect to happen as the week ends.
Well, as it stands, Tyler Baddish and Zach Martin are expected to ramp up a bit in Thursday's practice. They were both D and P did not participate on Wednesday. Mike mcarthy says they're both expected to be limited, so progress there. Tyron Smith is expected to be with the rehab group. Don't know that he'll see any limited work today, but they'll see how he feels after the rehab group ends and they'll go from there. But I expect him to be D and P again this today as he
was on yesterday. Tom Idoka was limited because he's still working through that elbow that he hyper extended against the Jets, but no expectation that he'll miss this week as long as he doesn't have a setback anything like that. DeMarcus Lawrence ced Lamb were both absent from Wednesday practice, but it was a veteran rest day that I'm told for both of them.
How can I sign up for one of those?
I would like to have one as well. I should talk to my immediate supervisor.
Yea, you who needs to approve it.
Fair enough.
So I don't know my immediate supervisors watching. My immediate supervisor's immediate supervisor is sitting right here. So but yeah, so veteran rest days for DeMarcus Lawrence and Cede Lamb. So no concerns on either one of those guys. But offensive line, there are at least there's at least some progress being made towards them possibly returning on Sunday.
If you had to pick one guy that you probably don't want to play without this week, who is that guy.
On the offensive line?
I don't know to me, and I appreciate what Adoga has tried to do, But if you told me I could have Tyron Smith back this week and play and now, I mean the way that Patrick's talking about him missing another day, will see how the week goes. I don't know if I want to go through another of Matthew Jordon versus a doga on the outside. You know, I just I feel like that, you know, with what brock Hoffman did inside at guard, I'm okay with, you know, not that TJ. Bass was great, but he wasn't, you know,
terrible either. Having Zach Martin back would be huge, but to me that left tackle spot, especially because they're committed to going ahead and playing.
Tyler Smith at left guard.
You know, there doesn't seem like much of an interest in saying, well, I know, Tyler, hey, by the way you were, you know, all rookie basically as a left tackle. You probably you know we're flirting with Pro Bowl thoughts as well by the way you played. But no, we're just going to keep you at guard and let Adoga handle that tackle spot, even though Adoga looked probably better at guard than he has looked at tackle. Sometimes the
decisions baffle me a little bit. And I understand when you start to talk about, well he worked here all week.
What we've learned about the NFL in this day and age.
This isn't nineteen seventy eight where the same five guys played all fourteen games. You know, back in the day, you have to be able to adapt and move and not get caught in a bad spot. You know, playing Tyler Smith at left tackle last week might have helped you in that football game, might have helped you in
that double move that you got sacked on. You know, I just there's things, there's discussions, and in my mind, I'm like just let me have Tyron Smith back the way he played the first couple of weeks.
Let me have him back there at left tackle.
I'm willing to give them the benefit of doubt last week because again, you got Tyler coming back from injury, You got the whole week where you maybe thought Tyron was going to play, and then you get to last minute. I agree with you, though you get to this weekend. You had a full week now to play with the prospects of Tyron Smith not playing, and it will be in interesting to me if Tyron doesn't play this weekend and they still opt to keep Tyler Smith at guard, right,
Because I do agree with you. I think when you look at that defensive line, Judo is a problem. He is a problem, and if you don't pay attention to him, then then you're going to have a problem. And I think that you're he is I mean Tyler Smith is. I mean Tyler Smith is one of your best offensive linemen. If you're not going to put your best on the best, then it just it makes me wonder a little bit.
Yeah, no, I agree, And I like you said, we'll give them grace for last week because they didn't know what was going on with Tyron Smith. I mean the knee injury pops up on Saturday, and then they really tried to give him a goal on Sunday. Then things just got weird as far as posting actives. He's team captain, but he's not going through warm ups and then he's
not playing. And all last week they had too many dope. Sorry, they had Tyler Smith taking left guard reps, so they didn't want to disrupt the scheme at the last possible second. But to your point, Derek, you don't have that going into this week. I mean you have a very real concern about Tyron Smith being able to go. So is
Tyler Smith getting reps at left tackle? And to Brian's point, if you are without Tyron Smith, then for me, I've got to see Tyler Smith at left tackle and then you put you know, Eatoga at left guard.
Yeah. I just man it just right the grace period.
But this day and age, you have to be super flexible in how you play because with your lineup, with your current group of offensive linemen, you have one guy that it seems to something always happens to him, and it might not always be in practice or something.
When you look at You know, with Tyron Smith.
He could wake up in a bad with a bad back, he could wake up with a bat anybody can. But he seems like the one that like crazy, what what what happened? Kind of injuries, you know. And I just think that, you know, with McCarthy, the couple of things that he identified with getting the backups more work, but also trying to be a little bit more flexible with what they're going to do with the line.
I hope that's the case this week.
And this is where you have a backup plan, then a backup, backup plan.
And I'm talking.
Specifical about situation because Okay, to be fair, you never expect three of your starters to be out. So when you add him uh Sech Martin, Tyler bed Ish, that's.
Something very unexpected that you did it.
You could plan for Tyrone exactly.
But then that goes into the question that maybe the guy that you had for to be Tyron's backup, now you've got to move around because of the other guys being out.
But I think to me, there was always the side of me that once that Tyler Smith played the whole season at left tackle last year, I'm like leave him there.
That kid can play. Just let him. You know, if you have to move on from Tyron Smith, I get it.
You had a great career. Sorry that injuries limited a lot of your work, but I was in my mind I was moved on. I said, okay, now, if you want to try and a dress the guard spot, we'll do that. But Tyler Smith to me was my left tackle going forward.
I'm gonna throw the text out here. Actually it was a really interesting text. You guys can also hit us on our text line anytime during the show eight one seven, two nine zero three two nine eight. This one comes from Brian in North Carolina. He said, at this stage of his career, why hasn't Tyron Smith been considered as a swing tackle? Considering his history with injuries, It would seem to extend his career and solve one issue. Tyler Smith can move to left tackle, he dog at to
left guards. What are your thoughts.
I actually floated that idea a few times last year on Talking Cowboys, and I'm right there. I think at this point in his career, you're asking a lot of Tyron Smith to take on the bulk of the workload that comes with being your starting left tackle, and then that leads to durability issues once you get to October, November,
most certainly December. So I think you should shrink his workload and you put Tyler Smith because and I'm right there with Brian in the aspect of I hadn't mentally completely moved on from Tyron being well, from Tyler being the possible left guard, whatever the case may be. But I do feel in my heart of heart that Tyler Smith is your future at left tackle period, regardless of him playing left guard this season. Tyler Smith is your
future at left tackle. So with that being my belief, I'm one hundred percent on board with shrinking the workload for Tyron Smith, because you know, he is one. He's still one of the best left tackles in the game when he's on the field, But if you keep exposing him to additional snaps, then you're possibly shrinking the amount of playing time you're going to get from him anyway, which then at the end of the season might not be any more reps than he would have gotten at
swing tackle. But now maybe you've missed him for a particular critical game or something like that. So yeah, I love that.
He wasn't particularly great at right tackle. Yeah, that's the problem you'll.
Run into last year when you start to talk about the swing tackle position. You know, Tyrann Smith is a left tackle, even though he came into his you know, into the Dallas Cowboys, he started as a right tackle. But the combination of him and Zach Martin together, which I thought was going to be outstanding, wasn't that outstanding? You know, there was there were problems in the running game, there were there were some things with combination blocks that
they had problems with. You know, he talked to Zach Martin about Steele. He'll tell you the first thing he loves about Steele. He knows exactly where he's going to be. He knows exactly how he's going to fit. You know, there was so much of that uncertainty when you watched Tyron Smith and Zach Martin played next to each other. Now as a swing tackle, yeah, he might have to play some right tackle in the game. If you know that, you're probably not going to get the best at right tackle,
but you're going to get an outstanding left tackle. Yeah, it's worth it's worth the thought to try and do that. But I know in my mind I had moved on. I just felt like, hey, this is this is We've seen it now. Tyler Smith has proved to me he's more than capable of handling the right left tackle spot. Let's move on, Let's kind of try and develop some others at some other spots.
I just don't understand how he himself as a human, yes, can just keep going. I mean, at some point, your body, I'm I'm sure it's gonna hurt every time you wake up and get up.
I mean we see him on game day looking like a machine. Well yeah, clearly, but but.
Just him for his own personal health and what's in his rest of his life as a civilian, moving past whenever that time comes from football. It's just it's just tough on his body. So it's just it amazes me because me being a lot more naive to the game, when I first started working here and learning all that, I was ready to move on from him long time ago. Little did I know how great he was when he
was healthy. And he's been here for like five years, seven years since I made those comments initially, So it's impressive. But at some point you gotta move on from like being always have that thought in the back of your mind, in the back of your head, can he get hurt? Is he going to be available this week or next week?
So it's just for the whole coaching staff. But I agree, I definitely that idea sounds really good ideally, But then I wonder, I mean, I would assume they've thought of that, sure, so I would I wonder why it has held them to more decisions that they've.
What's what's really interesting is you're not going to see a prettier football player built wise than Tyron Smith.
He's one of those guys gets off the bus first, right.
There are guys that are sloppy and you know, don't look great and they don't miss a beat.
And then you have a guy that looks like he hung out with the Romans. You know that he was gladiator. Yeah, that he was like beating.
You know, he was in the arena, you know, and just mauling people with that body.
Even the way he walks like he just walked.
The way he moves, You're thinking, can sloppy guy doesn't miss a game and this guy has injury history problems. That's the thing that blows scouts away. You could sit there like, oh, great body, great physique.
He's always hurt though, Brian, He's always hurt, you know. And now you're going, oh no.
You're right, availability lack of You can look great, but if you're not always available, it doesn't matter how damn good you look.
I think, And to talk to your point Amber about why from a Tyron Smith perspective, where is the event horizon and him looking in the mirror and saying, you know what, I still got a lot left in the tank, but I might need to change, I might need to be willing to go back up.
Bro.
I don't think that's entirely dissimilar from.
He played really well though, has he the first couple he was. I mean, he's kind of turned back the clock a little bit.
But you also, in the back of your mind kept thinking.
You're ready, You're ready for the other shoot. Yeah, you're mad. You have to think like you don't even want to talk about it.
You know, You're like Tyron Smith, it's good, but just nod your head like, yeah, you don't even want to talk about him because you just wanted to keep going to your point.
I mean, that's That's where I'm at with him.
I'm like, he actually did turn back the clock playing left tackle to the point where I'm like, Okay, I can see why he came back. I see why they did what they did. But then now this thing hits you where now it's been any problems since his days at USC, Well draft him when he's like twenty twenty one years old, right, it's been a long time. You know, we're dealing with that thing again.
I just think it's mean.
If Tyron Smith was willing and the coaches were willing to put him in a backup capacity, you instantly have the best backup tackle in the league instantly, and you're
also helping his durability. But I think from an athlete's perspective, and I'll speak from an athlete's perspective and a competitive mindset, it's it's not entirely different from you look at a shutdown corner like a Darrell Reeves or Woodson, and at a certain point in their career, they really did look in the mirror and say, you know what, my body's changed. I can't run the same that I was running. I
can't cut the same that I was cutting. In what they do, they drop back to safety and tried their hand in safety so you have to be willing to look in the mirror and just be honest with yourself. We talked about self awareness this week. It's just honesty. So can Tyron Smith be still play at high level when he's on the field apps of freakolutely? He can, but the time has come for maybe him to just admit that his body can't take the.
Workload as of a starter.
So you can still contribute to this team and help this team possibly win the super Bowl, but maybe not in the capacity that you will want to. So then you got to think about what needs to be done, and maybe that's what needs to be done.
All right, we're gonna take our first break when we come back. Brian's gonna give us his breakdown. Dallas defense versus New England offense. Oh you're ready, I'm ready, all right, So we'll take our break. We'll come Backdallas Cowboys Dot Coy Radio.
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It is the second segment of the Break Life from SWBC Mortage Studio. You're here, Fanatics, There you go and in this segment is brought to you by blockchain dot Com. All right, so here's we're gonna do. I want to talk about this Dallas defense versus the New England offense.
Brian.
One thing I noticed and looking at this team is right now, they are ranked ninth in total offense with seven hundred and forty eight yards. It's about two hundred and fifty little hundred hundred fifty yards per game. Here's the interesting thing. They're only twenty six though in points scored, averaging about seventeen points per game. Talk to me about this defense, I mean, this offense and why it's having problems scoring.
It is having problems, and a lot of it has to do with the offensive line. They have some issues up front. But I'll get to that point as we go. You know me, I gotta ramble on here. So Bill O'Brien's your offensive coordinator. He's the guy used to be at the Houston Texans. He was at University Alabama and as matter of fact, he was Mac jones coach at Alabama, and so they're back together here. There is with this offensive group, there's going to be some movement with the
way they play, but it's not anything that's alarming. We've seen those like Arizonas and stuff. All the movement that they play with the motions and stuff. It's just they're pretty stationary the way they play. The majority of their snaps are playing the shotgun rather than under center. The line will really struggle to protect this guy. They get pressured quite a bit. They break down, They have some problems. Their best when they can run the football and try
and help Mac Jones. Where they run the ball, the best is when you watch them is off the left side. So that'd be once again the Cowboys, right. You need to kind of shore up some of the problems that you dealt with in the Arizona game. I mean, they're probably looking at that like, Okay, let's run it, Sam Williams, Let's run at Armstrong. Let's run who's ever playing right in for the Cowboys over there? You know, Let's see if their linebackers can flow. Let's see if the safeties
will take a good angle. So if they're looking at the Cowboys, their their strength of their ability to run the football would be to your right side.
That's inside and out.
They're they're they're a lot better too, in just a little bit of study when they when they face teams that play that light box. So if you're a six, you know, defenders or fewer, that's when they really they thrive running the ball, and that's when Ezekiel Elliott is actually at his best. But this group has not been very good. When you play with seven or eight in the box or more, that's been a problem for them running the football.
Uh I mentioned mac Jones.
I think the growth of mac Jones as a quarterback has been slowed by the issues the club's gone through with their coordinators. You know, they've tried different coordinators. I don't think he's been able to grow and really flourished. You know, we'll see what with Bill op Ryan could do with him.
Now.
He doesn't have the strongest arm and he doesn't have the best mobility, but he is capable when it comes to navigating the pocket and then order to deliver the ball. He's his biggest trade is his toughness because he gets hit quite a bit when he goes back to throw the football. Uh, he'll deliver the ball in the face of pressure. There's snaps where it take. He takes some big hits as he's you know, throwing the ball. These receivers really struggle to get open. That goes back to
the biggest problem. While there's not scoring points, he doesn't throw to a lot of open receivers, and he doesn't throw to a lot of wide open receivers. That's another thing that's been an issue for them. He's constantly under pressure. He you know, he just doesn't play the game with a lot of rhythm. You know, sometimes these quarterbacks get back there and it's pass pass pass. You can watch two of play in Miami, and it just seems to be a rhythm the way that he plays, the way
the ball's out. You know, there's some continuity to their offense and stuff like that. I mentioned there the running backs, it's Ezekiel elliet It and then it's also with Stevenson are the two primary backs that they play with Zeke.
We know him.
He's still gonna run with toughness. He's still gonna run with power. He's still but he doesn't have that elusiveness that he you know, I mean, he's lost that ability. The ball is going to come down hill. He's not going to make many miss but you know, his best attempts were the ones when they tossed him the ball when they said, okay, we're going to get you out on the edge and let you try and run down hill.
You know, the TOAs sweeps and stuff like I said, go into the offense's left defense is right, We're some good plays for him. He splits time with Stevenson to it. He's not These guys aren't the most nifty types of backs, but they're really steady in the way that they play. They're going to run with toughness, they're going to run with determination. The numbers that now he is where Zeke might struggle with the stack boxes, Stevenson is better versus the stack boxes, so.
Keep an eye on that.
He's also really a good receiver catching the ball out of the backfield. Quarter back as of ninety point nine rating throwing him the football and you can see it on tape when it's the swings and screens and.
Stuff like that.
And by the way, he's the only running back with a rushing touchdown to their credits. So the wide receivers, it's a veteran group. Kendrick Born, Juju Smith, Schuster, and Devonte Parker. There's nothing really wow about this group. There's nothing that you know. It's there's some inconsistency in the way they receive. I mentioned they don't create a lot of separation. They don't get open a lot. The offense
makes some kind of stationary target targets. You're going to see them run picks, rubs, they're going to run combination routes to try and get that separation. But there's been problems. When they get the separation, the protection falls apart, and now they're in a little bit of some trouble that way.
So their best most explosive player is a rookie named Demario Douglas out of Liberty, and he's the one guy that when they want to when they want to play like an explode, those that play, he's the guy they throw the ball. He's got seven receptions this year form are for first downs, so rookie kind of getting involved.
He's kind of a.
Speedy, twitchy kind of player with the ball in his hands. At tight end, this is the best group that they have as far as how they're going to try and and get offense. Hunter Henry and Mike Gisiki are the two tight ends. They're both super reliable. They both they run these routes where they find they do combinations like we were talking about, where they they work off each other. They run the spot route just easy throw, they run the out easy throw, they'll curl back inside easy throw.
That's kind of how.
They play with with with Daniel Jones, They're trying to make it as easy as possible for him even when they're covered. These guys are ultra reliable when it comes to their hands and the ability to get in situations where they can make plays. When things get a little harry in the pocket, that's kind of where.
The ball is going to go.
It's going to go to one of those those tight end decent blockers. Nothing really great, they're not going to blow you away, but this is the most productive group that they have on their offense. Now we'll get to the offensive line. This is the weakness of their deal here right now. They're not a physical run group. They struggle with pass protection. They've tried to use draft picks
in order to kind of supplement their line. But these young guys aren't ready to play, and I mean they're not ready to play because they're not playing, they're going with the group. The majority of their group has been made up of trades or free agent signings. The biggest struggles this year have been at the tackle spot, where they've rotated. Trent Brown, Anderson, and Verderian Lowe are the guys that they kind of rotate. Low has been the one that struggled the most. He lines up at left
tackle against the Dolphins. He plays right tackle against the Jets. He doesn't have power, he doesn't have strength. He physically can't hold up when you hit him. He tends to become a one legged football player. He gets noted back quite a bit. You'll observe him getting pushed giving ground playing on one leg. You have to take advantage of him in the game. If he's in that he works number fifty nine. They might not play him. If Trent Brown's healthy and Anderson are healthy, those could be your
two starters. But if Low gets in the game, that's the guy you need to go after because he can't handle it.
He really just can't.
And that's been a big, big problem the guard inside. Cole Strange was a first round pick for them. He could be a little bit of a liability right now. Like Low, he really doesn't deal with power.
All that well.
You need you need.
He needs to develop a little bit. He's just a young guy, that's the biggest problem. He's a fighter, a battler, but he's limited in the way he's blocking right now. He's just not a very strong guy, and so what happens is he's going to get challenged throughout the game. I would not be surprised, like I say, if Low is at one of the tackle spots, you work off him.
But maybe you see Micah play a little bit more.
Inside and dealing with with Cole Strange the guard.
He's the left guard. You need to go after him.
He's been limited a little bit with a knee injury this week in practice, so that might be you know, he's not getting the reps, he's not getting the work, and he might be a little bit compromised as a blocker.
So we take advantage of this.
New England offense is on the offensive line, and that's one of the reasons why they're struggling. They don't have explosive players, so they don't score points. They got steady tight end players, they got a quarterback that takes a beating, and their offensive line is a little bit of a mess right now.
Sounds like offense is not what they do well.
Nope, they play really good defense and they're really good on special teams. They figure out special teams for you too.
One of the things I did notice though, is against the Jets last week, they rushed for one hundred and fifty seven yards. Now, in the two weeks previous to that, they only had seventy six rushing yards against Philly eighty eight against Miami. What did they do different against the Jets or did they do better against the Jets?
I think you d better for a better rushing day.
I think that we might be overrating the Jets run defense a little bit here, you know, with the way we've thought that they played with that wide nine we were talking about, people are finding ways to kind of gap them little bit and it hit them like I said the ball, the ball was the ball was out on the edge quite a bit. That's where I noticed, like the tos sweeps and the stuff where they were trying to get the ball to the outside. And you know, but I think the Jets are a little suptible to
what's going on with their run defense right now. The New England did a good job. They stuck with the running game too. I think they put they I think Bill O'Brien puts this quarterback in some bad situations.
Now he might they might.
Try the plan of saying, Okay, Dallas is struggling with the run a little bit in the first half. They struggle with the run. Let's test them. Let's see if they've fixed any kind of issues that they have, because if they don't, I could see them continually.
I didn't see a lot of pin and pull.
I did see some counter movement and stuff like that, but it wasn't something like Arizona where you're just every time it's down, down, around, down around, you know.
You know, I didn't see a lot of that with New England. But that's not me.
That's not to say that they won't try something like that. They won't try counters I do think they're going to try and make you play in space a little bit and see if you're able to. You know, are you going to rush up the field? Are you going to create gaps? Are you going to you know, not play the scheme like it needs to play. Are you gonna play like play hero Ball where you're overrunning plays and stuff.
It'll be a test in that regard, and.
Probably more than any team in the league. I think Bill Belichick is shown over the years he wants a team that's extremely versatile, that can do different things every week.
So just the fact that we haven't seen those penn and pulls and those kinds of things that Arizona did doesn't mean when you're playing a Bill Belichick ring that all of a sudden they see an opportunity and they won't exploit it and do some things that maybe they haven't done all season, because that's just the way he coaches. Offensively and defensively. They try to create, they try to take advantage of what you cannot do, and they'll change every week to try to do that.
They morph into different things defensively. I know the one thing one of my dear friends is Mike Lombardi who works who worked with New England the Patriots, a former general manager.
The one thing Mike.
Always told me about Bell is though he will save something that you haven't seen, he will save something too. And the great example is that is in that Super Bowl game when they played coverage, you know, on the gold line against Seattle, and all of a sudden, it's something they hadn't shown. They knew to practice it, but they didn't, you know, they didn't show it, and then
all of a sudden you play it. But he's there's something that you know, there's a first half game plan, and there's a second half game plan for Belichick, and he's going to try and find something that you're not very good at and take advantage of that, like the But we'll see if the offensive line can execute penn and pulls well. That that will be the big test for these guys because they may not they might not be able to upfront, but if you get them into
a passing game, that's that's church for them. They that that is a struggle for them to have to deal with that kind of constant pressure.
They just don't hold up as a unit very well.
And I was going to say, what makes their their weak spot that much weaker is Cold Strange is dealing with a knee injury. He's dealing with the knee injury last week. He was limited yesterday in practice. So you talk about Cold Strange having issue with strength and keeping his feet and keeping his anchor, Well, he's on a bad wheel right now. So this is a matchup where it's their weakness, their biggest weakness against the Cowboys biggest
strength their offensive line versus the Cowboys defensive line. And then what they'll do is they'll try to use Ramondre Stevenson because he's also effective as a pass catcher out of the backfield. They'll try to use him to try to alleviate some of that pressure keep the defensive line playing honest. So linebacker speed Cowboys and the linebackers are going to have to make sure they keep Stevenson bottled up. Ezekiel Elliott, you know what you get from Ezekiel Elliott.
He was in this organization. Mike McCarthy coached him. You know what you're getting there. He's not the home run hitter that he once was. He's the downhill guy. He's not going to do too much in space, but keep an eye on Stevenson and how they try to use him in those bubbles and flats and screens to try to help the offensive line.
But you can't.
They're not going to screen themselves all the way to a win. So you bottle up a couple of those. Make the offense play that much more, honestly, make their run plays go through the A and B gaps and then.
Need tee off.
At that point we're going to.
Take our final break.
We will come back. I have a couple questions for you guys about this Cowboys defense. Well day when we come ba Dallas Cowboys dot Com.
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Back to the break.
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Final segment of the Braake Life in SWBC Mortgage Studios at the Star. All Right, here's the question I have for you, guys. This is a bigger picture question about the defense. What we saw last weekend, we don't think is typical of what we've seen from this defense in a lot of instances over the last couple of years. Really, do you think that was a situation where they were exposed or do you think it was just one bad game?
What do you think? Amber?
I mean, you've had hints of their and we've talked to this about this over and over as far as like the run defense and the issues that they had. That's exactly why they went out and drafted Mossy Smith in the first round and why you resigned Jonathan Hankins back on the team.
So they know they're well aware of that.
I think, yes, they were exposed in Yeah, if we do this, just watch this game against the Cardinals.
If we do this to.
You, you'll react this way. But at the same time, I think that the drive, the passion, the commitment from the defensive players. Dan Quinn is there, So it's like, I don't expect them to make this a trend. I expect them to get better. They got better in the second half after halftime. They came back and those yards went down tremendously. It went down to like forty forty something,
so very different than the first half. So at least that gives me hope that, Okay, they're still able to make changes, adapt and figure out, okay, let's change the game plan lest readjust so, I don't think it'll be something that now teams are just gonna expose them every week. I think they'll come back here, like they've said, reassess and rework and according to Micah Parsons, they figure out exactly what they need to do according.
To what he said this week.
So yes, I don't think the run defense is going to be fixed overnight.
There'll be instances where.
You get a good running back or a good quarterback that can run with the ball, because that's the times that they seem to kind of struggle with those mobile quarterbacks, and they'll have those games where they do give up yards. But I think they'll be able to figure something out and adapt and adjust to where now they're not being completely killed by that.
I think they bounced back. I don't think this run defense is broken. I've seen them excel in the first two weeks, and I think because going into last week's game, I thought that they would be emotionally charged after losing Treyvon Diggs, but you add Digs to the late week injuries to Beadish and Tyron Smith and Zach Martin's now playing now, And then we talked about how with seventy seven the game started kind of on a weird note. It felt like they were emotionally exhausted as opposed to
being emotionally charged, and Michael Parson spoke to that. Jaron Kurr spoke to that and basically said that they were disappointed with the effort. And it sounds like, if you read between the lines, last week took a lot out of them emotionally, so coming into this game having been beaten in the fashion that they were beating in Arizona because they were bullied in Arizona. But this is a locker room that takes pride in being the bully, right.
I think they look at the Patriots team as they're a very real opportunity to remind everyone that hey we can stop the run, Hey we can get after this quarterback. We can still take the ball away without Treyvon Diggs on the field. So I get the sense that they're gonna you know, there's a great likelihood that they bounce back in the run defense. Give the Cardinals credit, they put some good stuff on film as far as any opposition that's looking to attack the Dallas Cowboys run defense.
But if you go back and look at that film, what you see is a lessened effort. What you see is miscues and you know, lack of communication. You talked about Michael Parsons looking back at the Green Dot Lve and being like, where am I supposed to go?
Where am I here?
I don't think you see those things coming into this Patriots game.
They got exposed.
They got exposed, and you got exposed to the point that they don't play very good run defense on the edge.
And that's a problem. You know. That to me, that's you know, when when you when things when.
You watch the Cowboys and there's misdirection and there's they play with your eye level and they send you one way and bring the ball back the other and they you know, to me, running the running the ball inside on this group is not a good way to travel if you're an offense. But if you're going to be willing to get up the field and take yourself out of position and that you're able to like get guys up on the second level, uh, because of you know, some of the things that the Cardinals were.
Able to do.
That The problem to me is, I worry. I worry about the linebacker. We talked about the linebacker group. We talked about Clark, we talked about Van der Esch, you know, we talked about Wilson coming back. You know, we talked about Curse. You know, these guys are you know, these these guys have to play better. And if I'm a football team that's playing the Cowboys, and I'm going to find a way to see if i can run the ball in the edges with you, I'm not messing with
that inside stuff. I can't run the ball there. I'm not going to make a living doing that. But I'm gonna infect your eye level. I'm gonna move lineman, and I'm gonna see if you could play the ball on the edge, and if you can then I will find something else to do. I'll probably lose the game. But you've shown me that I have an opportunity to have success doing it, and so that's that's what I'm going to take advantage of.
But hasn't didn't the fact that they were able to make the stops in the second half, as you mentioned, Danber, doesn't that suggest that they're capable of doing it. They have the players to do it, they have the right scheme to do it. It's just whether they're committed to doing it, which would make it feel less like they were exposed and more like they had a bad first half they cinched it all up and by the second half they way they.
Tried if they should Arizona, if Arizona would have come back and ran the ball off the edge, I think the more majority of they were trying to get the ball with Connor. They were trying to kind of find some ways to work inside because they hadn't had some success to it that. So I think the way that the game flowed that was more inside run.
So you think it was less about the Cowboys adjustments. And if I.
Was if I was Arizona, I would have I would have I would have kept read optioning you until you figured something out. I think there were some times where that when you know that when Dobbs he handed it inside, where if he'd just taken it, maybe it's a.
Little bit better game.
I'm not saying it would have broke a run like he broke the forty four yard run, but it might have been a six seven yard run instead of gaining one or two handing the ball inside. I'm gonna I'm going to I'm going to challenge you. If I'm an offense, I'm going to challenge the Cowboys defense, you know, to play with better discipline, you know, to play with better eye level, to play not to get fool. I'm gonna
play with you, to play your gaps. You know, there's there's there's a lot of really good things about this defense, how aggressive it is. But when you start to overrun plays and you take yourself out of opportunities to make plays because your angles and things like that, I'm going to see if I'm going to see if you've really fixed.
That one thing I said.
There was something that Michael Parson said yesterday that yesterday that really jumped out at me. Go back to the Josh Dobbs play option and Josh goes up to the left side for forty four yards. Well, Michael Parson has made a note to bring that out in the interview yesterday, and he said on that particular play, he was basing what he thought Dobbs would do on the propensity of what NFL quarterbacks typically do and the ball, so he was playing what he thought Dobbs would do as opposed
to playing what Dobbs was actually doing. So he said he owned that, and he said going forward, I just need to play football, play what's right in front of me instead of playing what I think is going down.
And the interesting part is they did try the read option multiple times later in the game. The difference was and I remember one specifically I'm thinking of right now. Micah did exactly what he was supposed to do. He read it perfectly. He got he was the open guy, and he just stopped. He waited to see where are we going to go? And then as he saw to play go job Dobbs read that. Dob said, I won't
have the free release to the outside. He hands the ball off the rest of the defense then makes the tackle, and I think that's the point that makes me think that again, I think they got taken advantage of in this last game because they didn't come in and whether you want to call it, they weren't prepared, or they didn't play with a certain level of intensity they may played with before, or maybe they were overly aggressive because they were trying to go get the quarterback versus really
playing the run. Whatever it was in the first half, I think a lot of that was the fact. I mean a lot of that ended up resulting in a half way. They just couldn't stop the run. And I think that's the part where I look at it and I want to see what happens this week. Now it'll be different because right they run more of a traditional run right at you kind of running style, and that the Cowboys have done really good at so far.
Absolutely stop.
So we may not actually see what you want.
To see until you get to a better game. You don't have better team.
Too long for a big challenge.
Here we go after this game. I mean, you got one coming up.
And then Eagles are not far behind.
We'll find out, all right, Appreciate you guys, Johnes. We'll be back next tomorrow. Actually, we'll be back tomorrow and we'll wrap this thing up. Let you know what we think is gonna happen this weekend Cowboys versus Patriots. Till then, for Patrick Walker, Brian brought us Amber Garcia. I'm Derek Eagles and this has been The Break live on Dallas Cowboys dot Com Radio.
This has been a production of Dallascowboys dot Com and the Dallas Cowboys Football Club.