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It's time for The Break on Dallas Cowboys dot Com. Were with Ambar Garcia, Brian brought us, Patrick Walker and Derek Eagleton.
It is Tuesday, September twelfth, twenty twenty three, Season nineteen, episode number twenty nine. Welcome to the latest edition of The Break. We're a lot from s WBC Mortgage Studios at the Star. Amber's not joining us today, but we got the other three guys, the three of us in studio.
We'll have lots to talk about today.
We're going to do a little stroll around the NFL and the NFC East particularly. We got some player evaluations that we didn't get to yesterday of a few players that had some games, some good games, some that we probably will talk a little bit about that maybe you want to see a little bit more from. We'll talk about that in the second segment, and of course in the third segment, we got our regular regular mainstay on Tuesday's lap Coat with no c We'll get into that
in the third segment. So let's get this thing rolling. Let's first talk about the NFL and a story that that really has transcended football to some degree. I got a notice from I got a little push notification from CNN, and my wife said at the same time she was getting a push notification from TMZ.
Tells you a lot about our worlds, right, But yeah, that's what.
And they were all talking about Aaron Rodgers being gone. He's gone with an achilles injury. I'll throw up to you guys to get your opinions, but I'll just say, first of all, last night, I would assume I'm not the only one that just felt almost like a gut punch.
Even though you're not a Jets fan.
You kind of wanted to see how this thing was gonna play out, and certainly didn't want to four plays into the season figure out that he's not going to be there anymore.
What were your thoughts.
Yeah, the I thought that Robert Sala postgame handled it very well when you listen to his comments. My experience working in this league, and you know, Patrick, you're new to being in the NFL, but Derek, you know you've been here a long time as well. The thing is, nobody feels sorry for you, have no doubt about it,
you know. And nobody feels sorry for you. You know when when when injuries like this happened, you know, it's and and and I think Robert Sala sent the right message to his team, you know, don't feel sorry for me, don't feel sorry for this team, feel sorry.
For Aaron Rodgers.
Yeah, and we could all feel that way. But in the NFL you look at it and you go, well, that's an injury. You know, we've we've been so conditioned to Jason Garrett's next man up philosophy. And but that's that's how you have to live in the National Football League, you know. There there's sure they they moved on, you know, if you they moved on from Zack Wilson, you know they picked Zack Wilson second.
Overall, that's the thing they have to repair. Now.
Yeah, they have to fix Aaron Rodgers, but they have to fix Zach Wilson here.
So if you're the Jets, that should be your focus.
But I'm looking at it like, you know what, that's it's part of what we want.
That's what we deal with here in the NFL.
That's you know, when you when you sit in those chairs, you know there's a potential that you might not walk out of this hole with your football team. And now the Jets, and they've got a good team. The Jets have got some skill guys. We'll talk about that this week. This will be a difficult game for the Cowboys. But this is also the side of me. It's like, you know what, now you're really going to see what the New York Jets are all about. Can they withstand a massive loss.
To their team and be able to and to be better for it. We'll see.
It's it's one of those situations where you know, I mean, I've been covering the NFL for about ten years and I've been an NFL fan all my life, and you know, I harken back to my childhood and you see players like Joe Montana go to Kansas City. Then you fast forward and you see, you know, Brett fav go to the Jets, Tom Brady go to Tampa Bay, and now
Aaron Rodgers go to New York. Whenever you have those future first ballot Hall of famers, make those changes, and we'll stick to quarterback because you couldalk about mm Smith, but that's PTSD.
We don't want to do that.
But when you talk about these future first ballot Hall of Fame quarterbacks making these changes and all of the pomp and circumstance and hype that builds up to it, this arguably or maybe even without argument, was one of the more hyped up off seasons for this type of change in the NFL. So then we only get four snaps of Aaron Rodgers. He was pressured on two of them. It was almost two sacks. The one that was a sack by Leon Floyd unfortunately ended his season, which then
brings question marks on did it end his career. We'll see, you know what the future holds for Aaron Rodgers. But I'm with Brian one hundred percent from inside the locker room. You can't feel sorry for yourself as a team. You can't get down on yourself. So credit to the Jets defense for stepping up and continuing to play. Credit to Zach Wilson for stepping in and at least not giving the game away. He had the touchdown to Garrett Wilson. But that's all that all goes to the leadership of
Robert Salad, who's just a magnificent leader of men. But you think about it also from the capacity of a fan, and you really have to feel like all the air went out of the room if you were a Jets fan. And granted, the Cowboys are going to go up against the Jets and you have that friendly banter competition things of that nature. But I find it difficult to not feel badly for the Jets fans because they've been waiting
so long. You're talking about the Cowboys, but the Cowboys have five rings, and yeah, we're waiting for the draft end, but we've at least a lot of us have at least felt that the Jets Joe Namath, I mean.
How six years old when that happens.
So this you're sixers.
So this as a Jets fan, it's devastating. It's crushing, bittersweet evening. They were able to finish it on a high note, but to get the confirmation this morning and to see it happen in real time, I mean, you had to feel like your chest got I mean your heart got ripped out of your chest.
For those Jets fans, it's interesting because as someone who wants to see the Cowboys do well. When he first went down, I'm like, high ankle spring I'll take a high ankle sprain just so we don't have to play him.
But I didn't want him to be down.
I wanted him to play this season because I mean, as a football fan, you want to watch the best players play, right, And so that's the part that's always just hardening this time of the year, particularly, is when you see really great players on any team go down for your own selfish reasons for whatever team you're rooting for. You kind of like, well, we don't have to face them, but the same time as football.
But then also here it comes to asterisks. The Cowboys do what we expect him to do on Sunday afternoon. Now it's like, oh, it was against Wilson versus Aaron Rodgers. I go back to the same thing I felt going against Tom Brady going into the Wildcard game last year. I want to play these guys because I want to exercise these demons. And that's another gut punch for me
because I wanted to see Aaron Rodgers. I feel like this defense and even this offense was primed to finally get over that Aaron Rodgers home and we kind of got robbed of it.
Well, I think that if we could all go back and remember how we felt this time last year when Dak Prescott true was dealing. We were trying to figure out did he break his thumb, did he break his hand?
What happens here? You know?
And and now you're thinking, okay, here's Cincinnati and Joe Burrow coming to town in week two and you're thinking like, okay, ie, yeah, I guarantee you there were people. There were people, and you're right, in my timeline, there were people that were.
This season's over. Yeah, this season's over.
And but you know, look what happened. Look how well the defense picked things up? How will Cooper Rush played? You know, it's as an NFL fan, you should still have hope. You should still if your team is good enough, and what we saw last night with the Jets, they're good enough. You know that the team you might feel sorry for if you're into drafting is the Green Bay Packers because the Green Bay Packers were thinking they were gonna get a first round pick from Aaron Rodgers and
now they get a second round pick. So you know, with him not playing more than seventy percent of the games. So as a Packer fan in the Packer organization, you're probably damn you're doing that.
But as as a whole, I think the Jets.
I think the Jets could be very similar to what the Cowboys were last year. You know, if they'll figure out a way to run the football, play within what they can do with you know, with their quarterback with Zach Wilson, and their defense will find a way to shine.
Yeah.
I think the worst thing the Cowboys can do at this point is to underestimate the Jets. No, not at all, a way too talented. You do not want to underestimated the defense team that has a great defense, because defense, as we know it's it's said all the time, but it really is true. Defense does win championships. If you have a great defense, you can be in every single game and all it takes is to play here, play there, and you can win that game.
As we saw that well you saw Buffalo last night just turned the ball over.
Yeah, you know, and that ultimately led to the end of the end of their their opportunity to win the game. You know, with this, but that's what the Jets do. The Jets, you know, we'll get into them more this week. But they they create opportunities and they will continue to find ways. And I think maybe the one thing for Zach Wilson him working this summer with Aaron Rodgers and Aaron Rodgers at one time wasn't.
The most touchy feely guy.
He's not the you know, he wasn't, but he he really did embrace Zack Wilson. And maybe you Zach Wilson learned some things along the way here, you know, and maybe his teammates will. But there's there's going to have to be some repair in the Jets organization when it comes to Zach Wilson.
You know, they they they did.
They basically said, hey, we're going to go get Aaron Rodgers and he is going to be our quarterback. So now it's a little bit about okay, well, you know, here we are and Zach Wilson, I'm sure he's better prepared now than it was, you know, if he was going to be the starter.
And I believe that to be the case as well. And we'll get into more of the Jets this week. But I was asked this morning on the fan, will the Cowboys overlook the Jets now? And I don't believe that's going to because that's not the culture in the
locker room. But I will also say for any fan that wants to suddenly overlook Zach Wilson and the Jets, inclusive of their defense, go back and look at last night's game, because Buffalo felt like once they knocked Rogers out of the game, oh, the game was in the bag at that point if you're Buffalo, because your defensive front had been dominating their offensive line so forth, and so then what happens Josh Allen One take one giveaway,
There's another giveaway. Here's another giveaway, here's another giveaway. Four giveaways on the night ends up being in overtime because you got stuck at thirteen points, you had the Muster sixteen, which was the field goal that got you there, and then you lose on the walk off return for the touchdown.
So any fan.
That's overlooking this Jets team needs to look no further than the psychology that the Buffalo Bills had when Aaron Rodgers won out and what happened after that. So, as a fan, think of it from that capacity as someone who's walking around this building with these players in these coaches. One hundred guarantee you they're not overlooking anybody.
Let's slip the conversation to the NFC East Cowboys tied with Philadelphia and Washington at one to zero top of the division. Both Philly and Washington won this last weekend, although Philly did try to give that game.
Away twice twice and Bill Belli just could not come from the Patriots, and Bill Belichick allowed it to happen, which is surprising, you know, to me.
He went for it.
There was three opportunities that the Patriots had to get points, and to give the Eagles defense a lot of credit on the final three, the drive that they stopped him on fourth down that turned the ball over New England could have kicked the field goal there, could have taken the points and then found away with timeouts and time left, could have found a way to play defense, and ultimately, you know it, they they got the ball back twice, you know, Nick Sirianni gave it to him one time.
Could have punted the ball and Mac Jones is not going to drive the ball the link to the field to get points.
That's just not going to happen. So yeah, but give the Eagles credit.
They made two, well, actually three really good stops to win that football game, and.
The Patriots they should have if they capitalized on that Jalen Hurts fumble, It's likely a different outcome of that game. I mean, and dan quinn talks about it all the time, like McCarthy talks about it all the time. There's one it's one thing to take the ball away, which is a huge plus, but what happens what do.
You do with that takeaway after that?
Is it a defensive touchdown or does the offense go down and make get points off of that? The Patriots ended up not getting anything out of that, and ultimately it came back to buy them in the end. But I mean it was Jalen Hurts didn't light up the scoreboard and he had the fumble that was lost in. I mean, you look at gain well fifty four yards rushing, which was the leader of the team, Anthony Brown and
DeVante Smith. They had pretty solid games seventy nine and forty seven yards received and respectively, but only one receiving touchdown between the two of them. So it was a game that Patriots could have won. And you look at the Eagles and this is who you're gonna go up against as far as trying to take the NFC East crown. If you measure the Eagles output or what the Eagles put on film against the Patriots versus what the Cowboys put on film against the Giants, you could rightfully lean
right now this scale is good. I mean it's gonna tip up and down as the season goes on, but right now edge to the Cowboys. Just in comparing film to film, you.
Look at the Giants, the only team in the division to lose, and lose in grand fashion. Might I say, at the hands of the Cowboys. That being said, are the Giants as bad as what we saw they are the night?
No?
No, I don't think so either. Go ahead, Patrick, you got it.
No, I was gonna say absolutely not.
Hashtag keep that energy is one of my main things if we're going into this game constantly saying this New York Giants team is not a pushover in this dayble era. They've shown competitiveness, They've shown they can go out there and beat anyone you line up against, line them up against. But then they get basically molly wopped by the Cowboys. Now suddenly we're going to say, oh, well, they were never good in the first place.
That's just not accurate assessment.
What the correct thing to say it will be is that the Cowboys were just that dominant, They were just that elite. The defense was simply that special on that particular evening, and the Giants had no answers for it, so they shrunk more and.
More as the game went along.
I can guarantee you Da boll is going to get in that locker room, getting those meetia rooms, get on that practice field.
You're not probably not going to see.
The Giants get manhandled like that again at any point this year because this serves as their wake up call. But the Cowboys were the right team to serve that wake up call.
Yeah, I feel like that if they go and lose to Arizona this week, if they continue to have problems with their offensive line, you know, then you start to ask the questions. But yeah, there's some issues they have. You know, they really do struggle turning people over. They got really no pass rush. You know, there were questions about the Cowboys offensive line, especially inside with the doga. He answered that the questions there there were things that
the Giants just could not take advantage of. You know, they did protect. They ran the ball initially well enough, then went completely away from it. So I think the Giants are gonna need to go back to trying to
be and who they are. You know, They've got to realize until they get their offensive lines solidified or at least going in the better direction, they're gonna need to lean on Saquon Barkley running the ball and then sometimes Daniel Jones running the ball, you know, because if they're going to turn into just a team throwing the ball and they do have better skill people, they better find a way to protect. That is the biggest issue that the Giants have right now is their offensive line isn't
good enough. But that's not a bad team by any means.
Yeah, I agree with you.
I think ultimately, to me, that was a bit of a coaching fail in that game because I think.
They I don't know if they panicked.
I don't know if they just got away from the run just because they felt like they needed to throw the ball or wanted to throw the ball. But to me, I think they what they showed in that first series and then to have I think it was two or three more series, well they didn't throw it.
I mean they didn't run at all. They were just throwing.
Yeah, and a second series, the second series after after the block fuel goal, they go three and out and what do they do. They had a they had an incomplete, they had a PBu by je Ye Thomas, and then they had a sack by Michael Parsons and then that was that was the end of what we knew is the Giants offensive. Right, Yeah, they should have just said, okay, fine, we're down six nothing. Barkley for five, Barkley for six, Daniel Jones for seven.
You know, I mean that's that's that's what they needed to get back to. And they lost. They lost their path on that.
And once you go down two touchdowns to the Cowboys, I think it becomes.
A very very you play right into their hands.
Yeah, if you look at the Minnesota game, I don't think Minnesota was a bad Venon was a good team last year, but they got into a situation where they fell down and they couldn't get back up because the defense that's right where they want you. So I think, you know, teams, if I'm a coach from an opposing opposing team, I don't care if I'm down two touchdowns
I'm still running the ball. I'm gonna keep forcing the issue with the run to get myself back into the game, because if I'm going to get into just passing downs.
You're going to lose a game.
You're gonna lose if it turns out to get embarrassed.
Yeah, if it turns into a game where you constantly have to drop back and throw the ball against the Cowboys, you were going to find that you're going to probably lose that game.
You're either maybe lose a quarterback.
You're gonna maybe lose your quarterback, but you're probably and you could either you're probably even turn over the ball.
That the way that these guys playing the second.
This Cowboys defense to a ball constrictor. Okay, once they start, they'll wrap themselves around you and then it's you know, three point le, six point le. It gets tighter, You start to your breaths get a little bit quicker, not panic jet, but you're like, okay, what's going on? This is what happened with the Giants. And then all of a sudden there's more points and more points, and you can squeezes more and more.
You can't breed.
Suddenly it's twenty six to zero with you know, five minutes left to play in the first half, and now you're fighting for your life. They're choking you out, and they're choking you out. And then over the remaining course of the course of the remaining two and a half quarters, it's just constricted, constricted, constricted, and by the time you get to the top of the fourth quarter, they're they're dead.
They're done.
I think that's how the Jets are going to have to play the Cowboys. I think they're gonna have to find a way to when we we get to that the running aspect. But on the Cowboys, on the flip side, you've got to make that quarterback try and score points. You know, if you put pressure on him to have to score points. To Patrick's point, they're gonna get choked out on that because they're they're not going to be able to score a lot of points with that quarterback
right now as is. But uh, but the Cowboys that that's gonna be the Really I think one of the keys is make the make the Jets have to play score for score with you and and I don't know if they can do that.
All right, We're gonna take our first break we're gonna come back. We're gonna get to some player evaluations. The first time I'm gonna throw at you guys is gonna be Tyron Smith. I want to hear what you guys have to say about him and how he performed in this first game. We'll talk about when we come back. Dallas, Cowboys dot Com Radio.
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All right, here's what we're gonna do. I'm gonna throw out a name.
In some instances, I may throw out multiple names because they kind of aren't groups of people. Yeah, but I'm gonna throw out a name and then I want you guys to just riff a little bit, tell me what you saw. I assume you've had a chance to kind of digest and then watch the film and get an idea of these guys.
But let's start first with Tyron Smith.
Thoughts felt like the Tyron Smith played well in this game. I was really worried about the potential of him and Thibodeaux and Ojilari, you know, carrying him up the field. Maybe he's not as with the ankle. What's there gonna be some problems. No, the physicality was good, the set was good, the string he plays. A couple of times he got into space when they were able to get
the ball to the edge. You know, he worked well inside with a Doga, you know, a Doga had his had moments where I thought he was really really good. So the left side, where you thought there might have been a little liability over there, really played a nice game. And I was expecting Thibodeaux to try and move Tyron a little bit, but Tyron wasn't having any of that. So it felt like a good start to his season.
He definitely played some great football.
And like Brian said, a lot of us were wondering not if he were he would play, because we were confident he would, but you know, was he operating on a bad wheel with that ankle sprain and going up against o Jaalai and Thibodeaux, how would he fare?
And he fared extremely well.
Sixty two pass blocking reps, zero pressures allowed for Tyron Smith. And that's in the passing game, which is just stellar football. And then you look at what he was able to do as far as effect the run game. Talk about Cavante Turpin off the left end, talk about Tony Pollard being able to operate on that side of the ball. So for me, Tyron Smith looked every bit. It prime Tyron Smith. And as long as he remains healthy, the Cowboys should feel fantastic at that left tackle position.
They can get Tyler back, that's even better. Yeah, although a Doga, as you mentioned.
No Adoga was you know Adoga.
What I learned is Adoga is a better guard prospect than he is a tackle prospect. And I know there's a lot of people saying, well, you guys owe a doga an apology, No, we owe a Dooga? What we saw and in training camp he was not good on that as an offensive tackle, and the Cowboys felt like, Okay, well, wait, who are we going to put a guard?
Well, let's put a dogat guard.
Jerry Jones talked about it in the pregame show and and Mike McCarthy did it with us at one oh five three the fan before the game, about the versatility of some of his offensive linemen. The Cowboys always believe in to be able to cross train and if a guy could play tackle, he could play guard, maybe he can play center. So you know, those are the kinds of things that you need to see. He obviously, to me, is a better guard than he is a tackle.
Prospect.
Le bro say, I mean, at the end of the day, you are what you show, And in training camp he didn't show was much of anything. And then he had the injury lating training camp. But we said on the same panel and we said that we hope he goes out and he shows something different right against the Giants, and guess what he did in the next morning.
We made sure we give him his roses.
So next name Layton Vandersh.
I'll tell you what I liked watching Layton Vanderresh play in this game because to me, what when the confidence that he plays with and you could tell the guys around him play with the confidence. I felt like that Vandersh the way he's able to get to the ball, the way he's able to play and help and coverage. You know, you watch him and with the with the way the pressure was, the drops and things like that. Daniel Jones's eye level was down anyway he was looking
at the rush. But with Vandersh, I didn't feel like there was any gaps or anything like that. The cross and stuff they handled, anything that was dealt in the middle of the field, anything in the running game. He stepped up the first series I thought. I felt like that that the scheme wise, the Giants had done some things to them. Came off the ball a little bit better, got into those guys a little bit more than probably that they were ready for.
But as a game, wore.
On Layton did a better job of playing with his hands, getting off blocks and then getting to where he needed to be.
I love what I saw from Lve. He was my marque matchup against Saquon Barkley. Going into this game, I said that he was going to be paramount, he and DeMont Clark and playing sideline the sideline and containing Saquon.
Barkley, and he helped do just that.
And he finished the night with, you know, six meaningful tackles, because not every tackle is meaningful, but all of his were third most on the team, behind only jay Ron Curse and Marquise Bell. The safety unit had themselves a day as well. But what I also saw from Layton Vandersch was versatility, because this is something that I pointed out over the course of OTA's mini camp and training camp.
At one point, dan Quinn deployed a scheme that had Michael Parsons at zero tech and you had LV rushing off the edge. Now that play almost worked if not for Jones's mobility breaking contained on his left side, which is the Cowboys right side. But you saw Layton van Dersh flying all over the field. You saw his versatility. I love what he put on film this past Sunday.
Yeah.
One thing to note that you were talking about the what they did in that first series. Jerry talked about it this morning on his radio show and said he thinks that they actually got taken off guard a little bit.
It is they used some different blockings scheme.
Maybe that's what they'd showed shown before on tape, and but they made an adjustments and uh, and I do think that the Giants went away from the run. I also think the Cowboys made some adjustments. You can buy those two things, and it worked out well for the Cowboys.
Right constrictor yeah, all right?
Next name.
Actually this is a guy that played a little bit more than we've been used to seeing him play, particularly on the offensive side of the ball.
Cavante Turpin.
You know what.
It goes back to OTAs in mini camps where you saw him get more opportunity. And I don't know if that had to do with some of the injuries or some of the what was going on in OTA's with the wide receivers, or they were just holding guys out, but you did actually see him in some of the scheme packages. And you know, good for the Cowboys the offensive staff for trying to figure out ways to get their players on the field and would terping, uh the you know one of the ones.
Uh, it was a little bit Uh.
I wouldn't call it shocking, but to have him line up as a single back and then hand him the football, Uh, and you know, and trying to attack that way. I think showed some creativity on the offensive staff. But this is something that when you watch him play, you see that ability to make people.
Miss the wiggle. Uh you know.
Sometimes he'll run to darkness, which is crazy. He'll like like he'll like he'll find right into somebody.
But but but.
Over running faster than you really Yeah, but it's like he's going well, that's the thing about it. I always get equated to, like, if you've ever seen a dovermin run, it's front legs go over here and back legs go over here. And Turpin's a little bit like that. But what you saw from him is the creativity to get him involved in the game, not only throw him the football,
but hand into football. Just the quick, just initial burst to try and get okay, let's get maybe you get five six seven yard cards before the defense really has a chance to react.
I like the versatility. I like how they used him in this past game.
Now, if you look at last season, Turpin comes in off of an MVP season with the USFL, jumps right in the Cowboys training camp, and then on top of that, the Cowboys did show the willingness to utilize him on offense in training camp before saying, you know what, regular season, you're an ace returner and we're not using Ceedee Lamb as a returner anymore rightfully, so we have to protect you and workload management again coming off of that USFL season,
now fresh rested, battery, fully recharged, and credit to Cavante Turpin because I asked Mike McCarthy, you know what would be the difference outside of the workload management that could help Cavante Turpin be utilized in this offense this year. He said he has to dive into the playbook, has
to dive into the playbook. That's exactly what Cavanta has done over these past several weeks, several months, and now he's he has the coaching staff confident in the fact that he understands his assignments and his reads and things like that. So then you see week one, they wasted no time getting Cavante. We were all wondering, what does duce Vaughn look like in week one? How many reps
will he get, how many touches will he get? Well, Cavante Turpin has shown that in that head to head battle to be that that change of pace back so to speak, with duce Vaughan. He has to lead three carries fourteen yards, four point seven yards per carry, one touchdown. That's good stuff. On three targets he caught two of them eleven yards. That's five and a half per carry up per catch. Great start. So let's see how the Cowboys start to mix him in more and how they
bounced that with duce Von. But from a Cavante Turpin standpoint, and anyone who wanted to see him involved in the offense, you got to love what that start looked like.
Hold on to that ball, bro, Yeah, hold on to that ball, right.
Yeah, you know I started to think as I was watching them play and watching Cavanti Turpin be involved in the offense, I was just thinking to myself, I wonder what would happen three years ago if Michael McCarthy was coordinating the offense and you had a zeke that was doing the things that he was doing back then, and you got a guy like Pollard who would be the consummate gadget player, right, And it made me just because you know, the joke always was for all of us, like, yeah,
we'll believe it when we see it that they'll get Pollered more involved doing more things than just you know, kind of being the backup to Zeke. I just wonder how much more he would have been involved in how they could have used him in this offense. Because I'm looking at Turpin, I'm like, they found a role for a guy that just has immense talent, and that's the key, Like you find the talent in your guys, you stuff.
It's what dan Quinn is is so great at R. He finds what's your talent, and then I'm gonna exploit that. I'm just gonna do all kinds of stuff to get you in your environment to do what you do best, and we're gonna work it all together to where the defense.
Is just well.
The Cowboys have been looking for a Lance Dunbar since Lance Dunbar, and especially being that Lance Dunbar didn't turn into what they wanted him to be, but they've been looking for that shifty, kind of gadgety guy, and maybe Turpin turns into that, and maybe Vaughan does as well, and maybe it's a two headed, you know attack as far as that particular role. But yeah, I think they do a phenomenal job at saying, let's not try to
make you into what we want you to be. Let's acknowledge what you are and make you great at what you want.
So, yeah, they're doing great.
If you really want to make Jerry Jones, Matt ask him if he felt like that, did he waste a Pollock's career so far?
Make you mad? I asked him that question.
He got a little hot, You got a little hot. It's okay, But that's what you have to do. You have to figure these things out. Yeah, you know, you give a great example, dan Quinn. Every guy on defense had to roll. Everybody had a role in that victory the other night. The way they played, you know, you
saw different guys, different opportunities. You know, tell me about opening day if you would have thought that jan Ye Thomas was going to be in the starting lineup, Tell me if you thought Belle was going to play as a linebacker. Now, maybe that's because of overshown in his situation. I was worried that they were going to lose the overshown package that they had in mind. But it looks like they've got a couple of guys that could potentially do what they want to do with overshown being gone, and.
Let's not forget like the reason why they're out there also is because your starter isn't there back he's going to do Donovan Wilson type things. So I just love how band just coordinates this thing. He just knows how to put guys in position and have him make plays. And that's that's so much about creative groove, well just about the coordinator just understanding his talent.
And scouts really appreciate finding players for a guy like Dan Quinn. And not to say they don't appreciate finding players for offensive coach that's too. But if you know, if you if you are on the road and all of a sudden, you're sitting there at Florida A and M, and you see a player and you're thinking, Dan can use this guy as a linebacker. Dan could use this guy as as one of those safety linebacker guys.
You know. Now, all of a sudden, like hey Dan.
I saw a kid you know in Tallahassee that does this or does that, and it just makes it as a scout, it kind of it opens up to other opportunities to find players because coaches use the players the way they do.
The defensive side of the ball is just magnificent at the primary three phases of winning on a player development standpoint, So it's scouting slash. That was scouting slast, drafting right, coaching and development and then scheming, you know, scheming these guys and where they need to be and helping them be in positions to win. And at all three of those levels, I mean talking about Al Harris and Joe Witt and just they the scouts have been phenomenal. The
assistant coaching and position coaches have been phenomenal. And of course Dan Quinn, he's gonna Dan Quin.
Well, Dan, Yeah, Dan takes an active role in that. Dan's out there shoulders shoulder with the scouts and not again, nothing agets Mike McCarthy and Mike does you know, his job with personnel stuff. But Dan's willing to roll up his sleeves and get out there with the scouts too.
I think Dan wants to lay them up.
Years old yesterday, Happy belated birthday to Dan Quinn.
All right, we're gonna take our final break.
We will come back and we'll get into a little lap coat with no cia. We'll do when we come back. Dallas Cowboys dot Com are you.
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Welcome back.
Final segment of the Break Live mess WBC Mortgage Studios at the Star. Let's get into a little lab coat with no cee.
What you got bring me in beamer? Yes, science, all right, so labcoat ladies and gentlemen. Weekly segment where I reach into the proverbial lab coat, bring out one or two items that the Cowboys should focus on, be it within themselves or with the upcoming opponent. And now that well, once Aaron Rodgers went down, immediately start digging into Zach Wilson, and two numbers poke their head out.
So let's talk about it.
Play action. So the first number is thirty nine. Second number is going to be twenty five. We'll get to that in a second. Thirty nine. Thirty nine percent of Zach Wilson's dropbacks are on a play action. But here's what makes that more intriguing. Only twenty one percent of his total career yards are accounted for on successful play action plays.
I say all of that to say I.
Was asked this morning on the fan, am I worried about Garrett Wilson, not entirely because of the Cowboys secondary Breeze Hall, Dalvin Cook, Breese Hall, Dalvin Cook. If you stop Breese Hall, who was explosive against the Bills, and Dalvin Cook is still Dalvin Cook.
Yeah, just say the least right.
Tim cares one hundred and twenty seven yards.
Yes, then you will negate the play action period for Salah and Zach Wilson. And that's taking out forty percent of their expected play calls for that young man, which then makes it that much easier to tee off on him as a pass rusher. Next number twenty five. Zach Wilson in his career with the Jets and their offensive line, as we saw last night, is still not great, particularly at the edges. Twenty five percent of his throws when under duress are categorized as bad throws. This is a
stat I found on Pro Football Reference. Shout out to those guys, they do great work and bad throws are excluding spikes and throwaway, So just pure dropback throws, which includes play action as well. If he's under duress, Zach Wilson throws a bad ball once out of every four attempts. The Cowboys will get opportunities to take the ball away. Now some of those this is just kind of an aside. Dak Prescott bath throws thirteen point two percent for his career.
Now this is since twenty eighteen when they started tracking the stat Aaron Rodgers seventeen point four eight percent, it's twenty eighteen, so those two are on a different planet. But when you use that contextually, up against that twenty five percent which is technically twenty four point nine for Zack Wilson, shut down Breese Hall and Dalvin Cook, which eliminates the play action, shrinks the playbook for Zack Wilson
quite a bit. And then get him under pressure situations and he will throw you a bad ball once out of every four times. And when he does, question is are you going to take that ball away?
Yeah?
I think that to me, And those are all great
numbers and great ideas. The thing that I'm looking at with Zach Wilson is legs no different defensive, a different offensive coordinator from what we've seen last year with him, I think, man, this is where maybe there's a little advantage for the Cowboys of Mike McCarthy's understanding of Nathaniel Hackett, and maybe they you know, and maybe they can have a little bit clear Mike could help Dan and them understand what Nathaniel might be thinking that as a play caller.
Of all the numbers that you just said, that just tells me right there, I don't need Zach Wilson throwing the ball very much. So I'm going to try and figure out ways to help him. I'm going to try and make as simple throws that I can. I'm going to try and make the defense look as easy as I can, because what's gonna happen is if they turn if this turns into a passing game, everything you just said,
Patrick is absolutely gonna happen. There's gonna be bad passes, there's gonna be turnovers, there's going to be awful football for the Jets. I think Nathaniel Hackett now understands. I think having a training camp with Zach Wilson, he kind of understands now what he can and cannot do. And there's a lot of cannot do. So how do you navigate that? How do you find a way? And to me, it's Brice Hall and Dalvin Hook is what it is.
It's and the one.
Thing the Cowboys showed that first drive that there could be some problems stopping the run. You know, even if you have a compromised offensive line, and this is not a very good offensive line. I don't think it's as weak as what we saw with the Giants and what
they did, but there's some issues there. To me, it's all about Nathaniel Hackett figuring out things for Zach Wilson because all those numbers will play if they sit there and say, okay, we're just going to turn into a team that's going to try and pass the ball here. So this this team now, to me, turns into run first, play great defense, run first, play great defense.
And to that point, and I will turn into Brian brought us on this one. Mobility for the quarterback, right, So the mobility of Daniel Jones was a concern right Philly. So and you saw it play out over the you know, first three quarters of that opening drive against the Giants. Zach Wilson is actually slightly more mobile. Yeah, Zach Wilson has thirty scrambles in his two year career and he's averaging nine yards per scramble. Daniel Jones is averaging seven
point nine. So while the mobility is equivalent, Sam Wilson is actually slightly better at his escapability. Might go to athleticism, might go to youth, whatever the case may be. The good news is the Cowboys showed, with the assistance of the Giants changing up their play going, that they can contain that for the course of four quarters. But when we're talking about the Jets going run first, which I agree on they will, that's going to be a part of their run first dynamic.
I will throw monkey wrench in that first statue throughout there. The one thing that can complicate that a little bit is that Garrett Wilson is a bad ball catcher.
As we saw last night in that game. That was not a great throw, that was great coverage.
He literally was just like, Eh, give me that, and he took it and it's a touchdown.
Right.
That's the part that I think can be a little bit of a challenge. Like again, when I was talking earlier in the show and we were talking about the Jets I'm like, their defense is so good. Their defense can keep you in games, and all it takes is that kind of moment where Garrett Wilson makes a bad ball throw look like a great throw and turns it into a touchdown and now you're in a ball game that's fair, and now you end up losing to a.
Team that you probably should beat.
But because their defense is so good and keeps them in the game, it just all they need is at one moment when he can catch that bad ball.
And turn it into something great, one accurate.
And I will say this in real time. When Garrett Wilson made that catch, and I even tweeted, I was like, man, what to catch? Respect?
Respect? Because that was ridiculous.
If you go back and you look at the play, I wonder if gil if that's a PBu for a guy like Gilmore who rides the hip effectively, because if you look at the spa scene in that corner of that pipeline, I mean, I think that's a play that Gilmore has a shot on. I think that's a play
that Treyvon Diggs has a shot on. So that would be Garrett Wilson's ability to catch bad throws versus the ability of Treyvon Diggs and Stefan Gilmore to stay on the hip of guys that girl Wilson, particularly short yarded situations where there's not a lot of space for that receiver to operate.
So I'm looking forward to that. I believe that that's the case.
Yeah, absolutely, But if out of sixteen attempts, if there are four bad throws, not all of those throws are going to Garrett Wilson. Somebody also is going to get targeted and it's going to be a bad throw who is not a bad throw catcher like Garrett Wilson is.
So the opportunities will be there.
Yeah, But I do think Garrett Wilson will be a problem and we'll get into that very well as we start getting into the shows.
I think, what are we doing tomorrow?
Tomorrow? Defense?
Little bit of defense, and it was offense on Thursday. But when we when we start talking about that, I think that's going to be a big part of it is that those running backs will be huge, obviously, but Garrett Wilson is a guy that's he could be a problem for you. And even whether it's a quarterback that doesn't he reminds me of of of of I'm trying to think of my guy that used to be with the Texans, that Hopkins.
Hopkins.
Hopkins was the same.
Yeah he's attendsee now, that same kind of guy.
Yeah he had bad quarterbacks throughout the vast majority of his career, but you know what he did every year still caught a bunch.
Of those came for a second because Andre Johnson.
I was like, no, no, I wouldn't make yeah Webster slaughter, right, But no, I mean that's that's that's what I'm starting to get a little vibe of Garrett Wilson. He's that kind of guy that doesn't matter who you put back their quarterback, he's gonna make some plays.
And he's gonna make his share of his fair share of plays.
And you got to be concerned. They're going to try and protect this quarterback. For sure, They're gonna try and ease him in, and they understand if it turns into a passing game, doubts that that's the that's Dallas's advantage right there. If I'm if I'm Robert Salah, I'm going to die on the hill of trying to run the ball, no doubt. I'm gonna try because I know, if I drop back and throw the ball, bunch, I'm just like the other New York team.
I'm gonna look just as bad.
And you got two great running backs.
Why not, Like they're set up for success running the ball because they got those two backs they got.
Yeah, and Delvin Cook, although he you know, hasn't been successful against the dan Quinn regime.
I mean, it's a team game.
If you go back and you look at what Delvin Cook was able to do as far statistically, he's put up solid numbers against the Cowboys. Now, obviously it was in the Vikings outfit with the Vikings offensive line. Not that they're world beaters, but you know they're, you know, arguably better than most.
They got good skill there, Yeah, skills.
So he's the second, he's the second, he's the second, he's the second.
They can wear you down with that. We'll get into that more Thursday.
Appreciate you guys, join us. We'll be back tomorrow. We'll get into more talk on Cowboys versus just still that for Brian brought us to Patrick Walker and Derek Eaglston. 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.