Cowboys Break: Rush to Judgment?

Episode number twenty five. Welcome to the latest edition of The Break Life in the s WBC Mortgage Studios at the Star, Nick, give me a twenty five. Oh, Junior Tadatasi. That is my favorite player of my favorite name of all time. He played a running back in nineteen eighty nine. How about say that was before my time? Junior titles. I mean that that. I just love the name. I just love that you're like confidently and I assume correctly

pronouncing it. Yeah, I think so. I don't know if that guy joined the team today, you'd be like, I'm calling you Junior two. You make the team. I don't care. Yeah. In eighty nine, he mean, I mean he was on the team, but I mean that doesn't mean anything. Everybody was on the title Tassi. Okay, it kind of rolls

off the tongue kind I kind of like it. Yeah, I don't think he was a good player, but but you know, if you only played on the nineteen eighty nine Cowboys and like no other team, yeah, and he might have played for it. I don't know. Maybe played for the Eagles. I don't know, but I'm just saying, you know, just because you played on the eighty nine Cowboys, I mean you're great NFL player. Was our guy Charlie Williams twenty five? He was? He also was forty two.

I like Charlie. I wish he would have said twenty five for Charlie because that's my dude. Like, I haven't seen him in a long time. He used to come around a lot, cool Valley ranch. I like Charlie. I'll see him, but you don't get many opportunities to say junior junior title good Points played the Eagles for three years, and eighty nine with the Cowboys was his final year in four year prot fitting guy. He played for both of the teams that are playing this week. There we go,

look at Nick, that's my dude. There we go, all right, into that one. Today we're gonna talk about today. We actually are going to uh the Yesterday, the Cowboys gave us an opportunity. The media gave us, I mean gave the media the opportunity to talk to the coordinator's offense, defense, and special teams. There were some things that came out of those press conferences that I thought we'd dissect today.

We're gonna start first with the offense. Kelvin Moore. I was looking at some of the numbers through two games, and obviously, let's put this in context. It's two games. This is not what you are for the season. It's just two games. But it does give us a little bit of an indication on some things right now. The Cowboys offense is fourth in total offense, there's seventh, and rushing offense sixth, and passing offense. Here was a part that was interesting to me their fourteenth in points scored.

Why do you think there's so much lower in the amount of points that they're scoring relative to the number of yards that they're getting both overall and pass and UH and Russian. Well, they sucked out loud in the red zone in week one. I think that's the and then I'm pointing it. It was my red drink. Oh thank you. I wasn't. I was. I was like, I don't know what's going on over there, but I'm just gonna answer the question. Sorry, Um another one today? Yeah,

really say that's good. That's good. I like the energy, keep going day. They were awful in the red zone in Week one and then Week two was a very um shortened game. For one thing, the Cowboys only had seven possessions. They only made it into the red zone three times. Um. So yeah, I think I think that's the main culprit if I had to guess how they get better. They you know, don't play as good a

defense as the Bucks and maybe the Chargers. I mean, you know last year, if you think about it, you know they wanted a couple of games, and then the knock was they haven't beaten in any team with a winning record on that that stuffs out the window. They've played two good football teams, I think, and you know they've won one of them. I had a chance to win. The other one had a chance to lose this one, so I mean even doubt. But I think you know, the competition will won't won't be as good and I

think that they'll they're getting their pieces back too. I mean, they're figuring this thing out on offense. I don't know if Lyle Collins helps a lot more. Obviously he's better, so he'll come in and they'll they'll just be kind of a well oiled machine. I think that they'll you know, figuring out things in the red zone with Pollard, and you know, because think about it, the Pollard touchdown I

think helped the Zeke touchdown, you know. I mean, I just think when you're showing things wide like that, then you can run up the middle. So I think that they're going to be fine. I think that I saw some encouraging things out of the red zone this last week. You mentioned the Chargers, and I think we all agreed, even last week, we agreed that they are a good team.

I started thinking about a context, and I'm still kind of torn where I think they are relative to other teams in the league, and specifically even in their own division. If I had to put them in order, I think they're probably the third best in their own division. I would say the Raiders and the Chiefs are probably better teams at this point. But I don't know that for sure, and Denvers two and oh, we don't know what they're

going to try out to be. I don't think they're that great, but I think obviously they're two and oh. Right now, do you do you think when it's all said and done that because you gotta go through that division, do you think that that's gonna be a really tough road for the Cowboys if that's the thing, if they end up being the third best team in that division?

Chargers you mean, yeah, time its Chargers. Yes, I think they're gonna go as far as as Herbert's development takes them, you know, I mean, he he has it all in terms of you know, just how good, strong, all that stuff, but he makes some some bad decisions in the red zone too, and you know he's had I think they've had three turnovers in the red zone in their first two games that probably you know, that costs them and

win there could have cost them another one. So, um, if he continues to make you know, develop and all that he's got all the tools, he'll I think he'll, you know, if if he gets a big jump in his development, I think that they can probably be the second best team in that division. I think for all the jokes we make about the Cowboys, I think the Chargers are one of the more uniquely snake bitten teams in the NFL. Like it seems they always have a

good roster, and like they've had years. It was a while ago at this point, it was when Rivers was still closer to his prime. But they were like best in the league in offense and defense and finished with a losing record. They were good last year and finished seven and nine, and then two years ago, like the very last good year of Rivers career, they went twelve and four and they upset the Chiefs and looked like

they were going to make a run. So I guess my point is I think they've had a better roster than their record implies the vast majority of the last decade, probably well, and the Keys, they've had a quarterback for long time, which is not what most franchises can say. They've got a worse record in one score games over the last few years than the Cowboys do, which is something to think about. I don't know. I don't that's

a college football thing for me. I don't care, Like, I don't know if I think the Raiders are better than the Chargers just because they're too a no right now and it doesn't really matter. You just win the games in front of you. I think those teams are gonna be in front of you. I mean part of them. But I guess my point is I'm not concerned about the quality of this win in terms of like how good are the Chargers. I do know they had their

offense at close to full health. They didn't have their right tackle, but they have a very nice receiving corps and one of the better quarterbacks they're going to play this year. I feel confident saying that Mahomes is better. Who else they have to play this year? They Brady Brady was better, But like one of the five, I'm gonna say that, I'm having a hard time coming up with the the ones I think are better than this. One of the five best quarterbacks on the schedule they just

beat Well, that's huge. Ranked it back in you know, the summer, I think he was fourth or fifth. Okay, Um Matt Ryan, some people view him better just because of you know, he's a good quarterback back. They don't have a weapons better and he's in a former MVP. Uh, there's also a former MVP that's not on a roster right now, so that doesn't always be a pointing. Okay, I'm I have the schedule in front of me. I don't have to guess at this anymore. I'm just looking

at it. Uh Mahomes obviously, Brady obviously, Brady obviously. And then you can, depending on how you feel, you could argue Kyler Murray and Derek Carr. And really I only throw better than Derek Carr in my opinion. No, no, I'm saying yeah, yeah, yeah, And I only even threw car in there because he's on fire right now. Yeah, Like going into the season, I would have been like, justin Herbert's way better than he's having a good Yeah, Ryan Cousins, I'll take Herbert over both of those guys,

not even hesitating. Yeah yeah, yeah, he's right up there. Again, you can a lot of times you can tell the quality of the team, but quality of the quarterback. So I know this has been discussed probably before. I just kind of thought of it. When you're talking about the right tackle out, you think Parsons lines up to a

defensive end. If Bulog is out there bloggings later, you think you think that they decide to do that, because if if Bilaga is better than Slater, then nobody was really going to be getting a lot of pass rush. That's a good question. I didn't even think about it until you just said they were playing without the right tackle, and I was like, man, because I mean, he kind of worked that guy in the second half. Honestly, Storm Norton was what people thought Terrence Steele was going to be.

There's no doubt about that. I think they would have still done it because I think they did it not because they wanted to. They did it out of necessity. Yeah, personally, So I think they would have still had the same need to do it, and they still would have done it. It's a great point though, because and that's why, and there's there's already a lot of talk about like maybe Mike should just play end until until DeMarcus Lawrence comes back,

and I'm like, I don't know. I don't know if Michael wants to smoke with Layne Johnson on Monday at least not forty times like he got on Sunday. And I think and Dan Quinn put out, you know, made a good point when he talked about it yesterday that it's it's not you know, seventy snaps. You can play seventy snaps at linebacker. You can't play seventy snaps at defensive end either. The past rushing that going every the physical beating that it takes to rush the pastor and

get up there. Now, I mean, this is gonna sound dumb, but I mean, I guess it. On the offensive side, it's different, you know, because you're not rushing up the field or whatever chasing guys around. So but but basically what you're saying is is that he can only play a limited amount of snaps or you're gonna play defensive end. A linebacker, he'll probably be on the field a lot more all the time, all the time. But he he said this week, he said, we've moved him for this week.

He said he's gonna be a really good linebacker for us. He didn't sound like he wanted to make this full time switch. Yeah, I'm gonna get back to that. I want to get to that, and we'll talk about that when we get into the defensive side. I did have one more question for you guys regarding the offense. Something Callum Moore stands to me kind of stuck out. He said, in the press conference that stuck out to me. He said, they want to aggressively take what the what the defense

gives them. And I thought it was interesting because it wasn't just like you hear all the time, take what they give you. He said, we want to aggressively take it. And I was like, okay, so what does that really mean? But the question I have for you guys is do you like this approach better than having a specific identity that the team goes into. You know, a lot of teams you kind of know going in they are a running team they're gonna pound you, or they are a

passing team, they're gonna air it out. And for those teams, they do it really, really well, and even though you know it's coming, you can't stop it. Do you think that's better than just having the type of team where you can morph every week and you can try to do both. And by the way, you may not be as great as those teams who do one thing extremely well, but you have two things you can do pretty good.

Isn't that an identity? Maybe that's an identity that you're like, we have studs everywhere and we will do whatever you think hurts less and we'll hurt you at it. I love it. I mean, I've talked about it a lot already this season. But I think that's an identity unto itself, is you know, people are all up in arms that the running game really wasn't a part of the Week one game plan because Tampa is amazing at it, by the way, the Falcons through the ball fifty times Week two.

By the way, like people know the book, the book is out, not obviously not on beating Tampa. They're two and oh but why are you gonna bother running into a brick wall. It's a waste of time. So Cowboys come right back and you got to keep up with point. By the way, Chargers are famous and not their chargers aren't famous. Brandon Staley is famous for playing with a light box and so they run for two hundred yards

as a team. And I think I did love that quote from Kellen because it's kind of an oxymoron, right, But I think that just means we're gonna take what you give us, but we're still going to be creative and try to be explosive and make big plays. You know, whether that's the goofy swinging gate formation with the three offensive linemen or you know, Dak took one deep shot. It wound up getting intercepted, so I could argue, maybe that wasn't the best idea, but they tried it handing

off to Cede Lamb. I mean, they made aggressive calls within the flow of the game, but it was within the context of what is what are the Chargers presenting us? Yeah, Tyren Smith Terren Steele split out left like that, Like I liked it. I liked it too. Yeah, And then like the second down play of it, I liked the second two. I was fine with that too, because I you know, I mentioned it in the win Week one,

he did a some of the thing. He did something kind of unconventional, and and then he came back later in that same tribe and tried to use the same kind of unconventional concept but did something different with it, and it ended up being a big game for them downfield to Ceedee Lamb. This game, he tried to do the same thing they did. They took a concept, they used it earlier, and then they tried to lure it. I liked it too. I just think DA made a bad decision there because he said I'm gonna throw it

way out here and for a four yard loss. He threw it out here. CD versus Durwin Jane James in the open field. That's probably not a favorable matchup in a one on one um but but but I mean, the best part is you're gonna play off of that and you're gonna see it again, and then you know, sooner or later, Tyran Smith's gonna go out for a pass and you know, here we go. I don't know that. Oh God, I hope. I don't know about that. I I don't know this. That's a possession receiver right there.

Zeke ran like a Texas route on that play, and Kenneth Murray is a really good player and just played it really well and it it looked to me like Dak kind of pumped in the direction of Zeke and was like, that's covered. But that's what he won. If it hadn't been well covered, it was Zeke had twenty yards between the linebacker and the safety, and so maybe Dak could have thrown that away instead of throwing it the CD. But I like these, you know what's going to happen off of that? I think I think you

can do this. I know you can't in college. Just wait for that. I'll probably I'm not giving away any game plans here, but you put the tackles out. Why look that you can put guards out there, They're gonna sneak it tied in like a jar win or something on the line, and he will go out there because because you just could look at it like center or two guards and it's like, well, they're you know, they're

the lineman. One of those guys can be eligible. Though I believe, I know you can do that in college. I don't know if you can do it in the NFL. But you just kind of you'll get used to seeing it. You'll used to seeing these guys and it'll be one of these guards right up in the middle. It's gonna go. And going back to your original point on that, I don't know that like under those circumstances, if Zeke's covered and that's what you really want it, I don't have

a heart. I'm not I don't think it is a bad decision rather than throwing it away to give your guy CD an opportunity to beat a guy in the open field. I don't care who he is. I know Derwin James is a good safety and he has the ability to tackle in the open field. But Ceedee Lamb also can make guys miss. He also can get off to break tackle. So for me, I'm like, give it a fifty fifty chance that he actually makes a play out here in the open field and see what you

can do. It ended up not working for them, but I love the nature of the call. I love what they were trying to do there. If you watch last night and DeVante Adams is an amazing receiver, but he catches a lot of passes within a yard of the line of scrimmage, and they trust him to beat his man and he does a lot. And yeah, I trust Ceedee Lamb to make a guy miss more often than not. But Derwin James is a hell of player, right, and

it happened sometimes. All right, We're gonna take our first break when we come back when talk about the defensive side of the ball, and Nick kind of teed it up for us. We will talk about Parsons and what they think of Parsons, And my question for you guys will be is Parsons the second best defensive end or actually say pass rusher, not defensive and second best pass rusher on this team. We'll talk about that when we come right back. This is Dallas Cowboys dot Com Radio,

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saw this tweet. This actually may have come out a little earlier, but I just saw that Nick Sirianni, the head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles, confirmed at Brandon Graham they're defensive end His season is over after suffering an injury last week. We'll talk about that more tomorrow, but that's that's a really, really, really big thing of the Eagles. With the Cowboys coming up, that's probably probably their best defensive player, if not their best among their best defensive players,

definitely their best pass rusher. So that'll be huge for the Cowboys especially Again, what do they say? Uh, what do the kids say? Fletcher Cox has entered the chat? Is that what they say? Well, something like that. That's always gonna be a challenge, but you know, I mean, what do you say he is our best defensive player?

It's like, well, good point, yeah, good point, good point. Um. But I do think that's something to keep an eye on as something note with the Cowboys, uh this week again, we would assume Terrence Still is going to be the starter again this week, So that'll be a little interesting to see who they're gonna put out there. He'll face something. You gotta well, let's talk about Terrence Still real quick. I know we're going back to defense, but but about

this matchup. I mean, you know, the Cowboys aren't gonna get credit for that, but if he does turn out to be, you know, a pretty good option here, good good back up. You gotta give the Cowboys not only Joe Field been offensive line coach for working with him, but also last year they stuck with them, and we

were all like, why why are they doing this? And they didn't have a lot of options, but they were also building it for down the road, like let's just keep working with him, working with him, and he looked like a guy that was a little bit more polished and not overwhelmed by the situation in the game. And so you know, I mean, they stuck with him last year and I think for at least one game it

paid off. There's something to be said for them or coaches seeing something in a player and saying Okay, this is a young guy. We see traits that we can develop, and we're going to develop them and then seeing that workout. It doesn't work all the time, but in this instance, you're right, it may end up being something that works out for them. I'm not ready to say it's there yet. I am willing to say that last week he certainly showed us more than he showed us last week last year,

which means he's getting better. I think Brandon Knight was a better tackle last year, but early I think so. I don't think by the end of I know, but I mean I think just better. You know, he was a better tackle. He came in and did a better job. But I think he had more of a ceiling at tackle. Terrence Steele had a bigger ceiling. And they're like, we're just gonna go with it, go with it, even though you know, you got to go two steps back to kind of go forward, and we're getting ahead of ourselves

a little bit. We'll see. I mean, he had, he had a nice game. He's gonna have to keep doing it though. Yeah, I will say this. After we talked about yesterday on the air, I went back and watched some of that game on replay. Still can't get the all twenty two yard, but I was able to watch at least a little bit more of him, and one thing I did notice. They did give him a lot of opportunities where he was out there by himself. But it seemed like a lot of those times where when

they were getting rid of the ball quick. There were a few times when he got beat, but they were quick gott they were quick throws, so it didn't end up hurting them. And they tended to give him help when they wanted more, you know, plays that developed a little would needed more time to develop. They tend to give him a little more help. But overall, as I watched him, there were some plays when I was really impressed with him. In the run game, he was there

was some plays he was like throwing guys around. Yeah, he was playing some go football in the run game. So again, he's better than he was last year. And that's all you can ask from what players are you getting better every week? And I think he is. I think there's I just think of it as two lines of conversation, and it's weird to think about now because

it's ancient history. But in that five week stretch before Dak got hurt, I was like, y'all are being stubborn like Zach Martin might give you the best chance to give Dak the best chance to win without these tackles. And then once Dak got hurt, I was like, yeah, I played the play the young guy who needs to develop, who gives a damn like sorry Andy. So once it got to that point, I was like, yeah, play him

and get him all the experience he needs. But there was a window where I was like, I'm not convinced y'all are doing everything you can to help the quarterback. But right now it has paid off because they got all of that time to play him. If you know, when Lyle does come back, they're probably going to be in the best situation that they've been in knock on

wood but for an off line in a while. When you think about Steele as the backup for both sides, and he's played a lot of games, Connor McGovern as a swing guard who also can play some center for you, then he Brandon Knight, a guard who can play some tackle, and I'm not even thrown in in secky. I want to see kind of what happens with that and Farniak and all that, but you've got young experience that has played and started in games. That's that's with flexibility, position

flex That was all through the summer. It was like, if Terrence Steele can make a year two leap, then it's gonna mean a lot for this offensive line. And it's only one game, but it's a hell of an encouraging game. It was absolutely all right. Let's move on to the defense. Dan Quinn talked to the media yesterday. My question I came out of it with is and Nick I mentioned this to you. We were looking at his stat line, Michael Parsons. He had one sack, he

had two tackles, he had four quarterback hits. Dave, you said you saw it. I didn't see it on my stat sheet, but you said you saw somebody credit him with eight back pressure. Was pum That all being said, like that stat line, if you just saw that stat line for any defensive end in the NFL, you would say he had a really good week. That being said, my question for you is absent uh tank Lawrence? Is he the best pass rusher that this team has right now? I remember he did that on two days of practice.

Two days of notice. Yeah, not ready to say that until I've had more of a chance to see Randy Gregory. Okay, yeah, but I think I think he's going to be either second or third best pass russure and then he doesn't have to line up a defensive end to do that. So yeah, that's why I was careful, not defensive end, of course. I think I think he's a really good

pass pressure. We saw that. That's one thing that just jumped off the tape in college is that these guys couldn't block him, and competition is going to get better. But they he just has a way of kind of you know, knifing through and around people. So and he did that and he got better as the game went on and figured that out, and the competition will get better too. But um, we talk eight pressures, that's what they said, we I mean sounds about right, especially a

lot is d Law. I mean at the end of the season forty five pressures. Is was like really good forty five season. So I don't know good at man. I don't know what they do on on bolt Talk Weekly or whatever they call it. Boat. I'm taking week and taking talk joke talking bolts talking Bolts. I bet they'll bring in with the Bolts. I bet they'll be talking about Storm Norton. Sounds good. I bet they'll be talking about Storm Norton the way we talk about Chaz

Green for a while. If I had to get wow, I mean, I know, he didn't give up seven he annihilated him. I know. I mean he didn't give up. He didn't give up six sacks. But I mean Micah Parsons wrecked the Chargers game plan in the second half. I mean Storm, he just you're still thinking of talk show names because his name with a storm Oh got it? Sorry? Sorry, um storm on the on the Charges, like that's actually a great name to fit for the team. He might not be there that much longer. One, I mean one

stand Quinn was his deal. I don't know, you don't know anythbody. I think he's like a veteran guy that's like just kind of filling in for a hurt guy. I don't know who he is. But Mica, once they gave up on trying to rush him against Rashawn S later, I mean, he just all it wasn't as bad as chat screen. That's that's not anyone who different level, but he I mean he was in the backfield every other snap, it really was, and they definitely got away withholding them

two or three times. They're gonna be good. They're gonna be good if Blagger comes back and slows that down because Keenan Allen and Mike Williams and and of course Jared Cook like Cowboy fans were tired of seeing that guy like Jared Cook likes so everywhere. Yeah, okay, he goes to different teams and still teams that the Cowboys are playing. Yeah, big games, Yeah all right, um uh Parsons, Yeah, Parsons.

I think we are talking about No, I mean I thought I was going back to Okay, yeah, we're back to Parsons, but but actually I wanted to move on from Parsons. Dallas right now is twenty eight in sacks, twenty ninth and pressures the How can they get more pressure than what they've gotten to this point, because obviously we talked about that stat line for Parsons, but really you look across the other guys that are rushing the pass,

I don't know that they're getting enough pressure. Now we know a week one you're playing a quarterback to get rid of the ball extremely quickly. Do you think it's just who they face to this point or do you think it's like this is a problem they got to figure out how to get more pressure. I mean it's a little bit of both. Yeah, they I mean these have both been matchups where you're gonna be hard pressed.

Bread he gets rid of the ball super quickly. And I mean, justin Herbert, they might have sacked him six times if he wasn't such a freak. And I don't, like he's not in he's not sneaky athletic like the classic euphemism for a white quarterback, like he is athletic. He is huge and fast and can get away from pressure. And that's what I mean. That's what made MICA's sacks so impressive was that he still got to him. So, I mean, that's a hard guy to get on the ground.

Probably not gonna get a lot easier week three, by the way, hurts Um And then and then you, I mean you don't you didn't have either of your best guys. That's maybe it's a homer answer, but I'm just like, well, how much do you want him to do without either of the big guys that they expected to rush the passer this season. You know, I mean, right now, you say, who are the two best quarterbacks they faced? I mean, obviously they faced two Brady and Herbert. In six weeks,

that's still going to be the answer. You know, the best receivers they faced are Mike Evans and Keenan Allen and Godwin and Antonio Brown, and in six weeks, the best receivers they're gonna face are probably gonna be those guys, and then maybe a Kenny Galladay if he can calm down. When I love how Kenny Galladays. I wasn't yelling at Daniel Jones, yelling at Garrett. I was like, oh, okay, um, but I mean I don't think I've ever heard of a player come out and say no. I wasn't yelling no,

not you him at the coach. I was yelling, and everybody was like, oh, yeah, that makes sense. Okay. I would yell at Jason Garrett. Yeah. Um. But I mean they face some really good play. I mean, I'm not saying the Eagles don't have town because because Hurts is a different kind of beast. I mean, he's he's running back.

He can be a check and throw, and he can throw I'm not saying he's not in a quarterback because the eighty yard passed the Daniel Um Deshaun Jackson last year, I was like, everybody was like, oh, oh, he's last game, didn't he he can sing? I think somebody told I think I read somewhere he had like a sixty or seventy yard passed this last It was like they say,

that was probably the only great play they had. But he's a lot like da To me, he really is this the the you know, the trajectory of his career. I think it's very similar. You know you're gonna have you're gonna have doubters, but you're like, you know what, he just kind of goes in and does well in games. Can figure it out, and he'll figure it out. And you know, if he figures it out before the coordinators figure him out, then you know, I think, I think

he's gonna be a really good player. It could be a problem for this team because I still think they face the best receivers and quarterbacks they're gonna face in the first month or two. To get back to your I guess the question, which is something that I think

about and I wonder if Dan Quinnell change it. They have not blitzed much yet, and as impressive as Micah looked as an edge rusher, I'm look, I look at that closing speed and i'mlike, this guy send him through the a gap and even a guy like Jalen Hurts he might have the closing speed to get to him.

And that's that is an element that I want to see and it's why I you know, people are talking about moving him to end and I'm not about it at all, especially in a matchup against better tackles than what the Chargers had out there on the right side. Not saying he shouldn't do it at all, he absolutely should. But that's the fun of a guy like this. He should be doing a little bit of everything. And he keeps answering the bell, So just keep putting more on his plate. If he if he's if he shows that

he can handle it, why stop. You know, I want I want to see, you know, with a guy like Brady, you know you're not going to really confuse him, you know, but he's seen it all, but he sees it in his sleep. But you know, these guys coming up here and even Herbert, you know, confuse him a little bit. They confused him. If you go back and watch some of those, they did a nice job of kind of showing Blitz backing off he was. He was kind of

making the wrong read wrong decision there. So I want to put Parsons up the middle on the a gap. I want to put him at the end. I want to I want I want Hurts looking for him, Daniel Jones and Mac Jones and Darnald you know who's coming up here. I mean, he's sort of a veteran. But I'm just saying it. Just show Parsons at all spots and whatever point they can have one of these dominant

or both of these dominant. We well, the most dominant pass rushers that the Cowboys have a defensive and once they get those guys back, and now teams start looking for Parsons and he lines up on one side and they slide protection to that side, and now you've got that frees up a guy on the other side to now have a one on one. That's where you really start hitting. That's what it meansporunity to call him a queen on the chess. Yeah, exactly. People that just want

to rook. Sorry, Wow, that's good No, that was which actually I was about to I was about to call him a rook, not in the punnyway. I was like, if you just want to move him to end, you're just creating a rook. You're just a guy that goes straight to the quarterback, which he's good at. But you want him to be as three dimensional as possible. Wow.

I can't get over that. No, but that's but that's the point, Like, he's too good and too versatile for you to just put him at defensive end, right, you really want to put him everywhere, and you want to make defenses have to account for the fact that he can line up anywhere and they're gonna have to count for him and wherever he lines up. That's just one more thing they got to prepare for, one more thing they got to do. Every time he kind of line of scrimmag just figure out where he is and try

to adjust that. All right, we're gonna take our final break. When we come back, we'll talk some about the special teams. John Fossil had something to say yesterday about that decision to try to go and get that punt. We'll tell you what he had to say. And we want to get some opinions from you guys. It will tell you what Jerry Jones said about it as well. Today awesome and we come right back. This is Dallas Cowboys dot Com Radio. Hi, I'm Clint Tullison with you United aggin Turf.

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visual metaphor on the radio. I do deserve that, Doctor Pepper, zero sugar, the zero you deserve is finally here. Before there was a draft, you could size up a cowboy by three simple factors, the crease in his hat, the bend of his brim, and his unbending attitude a man. Stetson didn't just protect him from what life through at him. It projected a rugged, unstoppable spirit. Stetson hats are still American,

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it's time for some new gear. It rhymed. Just head to the pro Shop your official story Cowboys Nation scored some classics like your favorite player, Jersey's teas and hats, plus exclusive exclusive collections and the unique successive exclusive Visit your local Dallas Cowboys pro shop are online shop Dallas Cowboys dot com. Welcome back to the second the final segment of the Break Life from SWBC Mortgage Studios at the Star. We are talking about the coordinators they met

with the media yesterday. We gotta talk about special teams. John Fossil said something in his press conference yesterday that made me raise my eyebrows, and I'm sure probably did for a lot of people out there. When asked about the decision to what their decision was as far as a situation where the Cowboys went and got called for roughing the kicker on a punt, his response was, and I'll read it, and this was the quote he says, I think Cowboys fans aren't the play it safe type.

I was going to give them what they wanted. Hope they are happy. They're not. They're not. But let's Leo on just to be I kind of want to take it back first and and explain, like what happened on that play? What did he say happen? What was the decision, and how did they get to that point of even having guys that end up in rolling into the punter. I think it goes way back. But before that, this guy wants to be involved with everything. Okay, he does not,

This isn't the third phase of it. He wants to be involved. Let's look at him at training camp. He's got the referee shirt on, he's got the whistle, he's I mean, he's got a mike. He's yelling. He wants to be aggressive. Let's fake punts and all that stuff. He can't just sit there and just and just let the game go to him. He's trying to dictate the game. And I think Mike McCarthy they give him a little too much, too much leeway on it. There's no reason

to rush the punt right there. Yes, you could block it, but the way Dak and them are moving the ball, they can move the ball. Don't take the ball out of Dack's hands. He's the best player on the team right now. So that that was just like Dave said yesterday, risk reward, it's not there. Did they did? They kind of block him into it maybe, but that's not a reviewable play. You know, Dave said all this yesterday, and I totally agree that that ref is looking. Does the punter?

Does the punter get hurt? Does he get hit a b does he go to the ground. Yes, Wow, that's fifteen yards, no doubt about it. It's all they care about. It's the same And if you if a guy comes anywhere near a quarterback below the knee there, the same flag is gonna fly regardless neck and guess what, you can get thrown into the quarterback by his offensive tackle and the refs don't care, and they're going to they'll block a punt this year. They'll block a punt you think, so, yeah,

probably haven't done it in years. They won't. I mean if they're if they're rushing like this, I mean they probably will. They'll block one. But is it? Is it gonna be worth it at the end of the day, Like, is it? And I'm I'm glad you mentioned that, and I brought it up yesterday. Week one, Pittsburgh did block upon it was a game changing block. They scored a touchdown off the scoop and score helped them upset the Bills. Pittsburgh's offense sucked in that game. They could not move

the ball. Big Ben looks washed as hell. You know who looks great? Kak and the Cowboys offense. You know what, I'd rather have the ball at the twenty or twenty five. I don't remember. Do you remember where CD Fair caught it before it got moved back. I want to say it was like around the ten or fifteen, but I don't know which. It might be wrong. It's a long field. I don't care. They had already scored fourteen points. By the way it's it's I think at that point they

were going to be down like two minutes left. They had a minute fifty three to play, and they would have had two timeouts to work with. So probably you're getting you're getting a field, but you're getting points, or you're not giving them the ball back one of the two. But either way, nothing bad comes from net right, And I think I think that was just John Fossil's way of kind of being funny about like, well, I thought, y'all want us to be aggressive, and I do. I

want you to be aggressive, but not reckless. And I think that was reckless. Well, let me ask you this because I think it even goes back to last year. There was some decisions that were made and a lot of decisions. Baking a punt on your own twenty in a Thanksgiving game that you're still in on fourth and ten not even that's reckless, right going for you know what we haven't mentioned one fricking time was when they went for it on fourth down in the first half.

What I'm looking at that right now, ye turnover on fourth and five on the other side of the field, that's aggressive. Doing it on your own twenty is reckless. Well. Also also if you're gonna go for it, See, I don't I don't think that the special teams and this team. I don't think special teams has to be aggressive at all. You do not have to be aggressive. You don't really have to run a lot of fake punts unless you just absolutely see something that will work, go for it.

But the Chris Jones passed to C. J. Goodwin on fourth and five that they threw it down and he dropped it. While your punter is throwing to a cornerback who can't get on the field as a cornerback, why don't we just let Dak throw it to Amari? Different coverage probably, but I'll take my chances now that fourth and five, I hated that because he ran a fourteen yard when the guy was off of them. Get to the sticks seven yards stop. That's pitching catch all day.

They ran a fourteen yard route and it went low. That didn't make sense to me. But either way, I just don't think this is a team that needs to be aggressive because if you want to really go for it on fourth down, get your pro Bowl quarterback throwing to your Pro Bowl receiver with pro Bowl blockers in front, not you know who's the punter anger throwing it to Goodwin with you know, Drill Cox blocking up front. I'm not all the way I agree with you for the

most part, but I do. I kind of like knowing that that's in their bag of tricks, and we know for a fact that teams are going to change the way they play the Cowboys because of Fossil's reputation. I think that gives you something and they'll steal a possession or maybe even score points because of that. At some point, punters, punters want to play for him because because their net average is going to be outstanding, because everyone's worried about

a fake, so they just put it up. I mean, the fake against Pittsburgh last year was incredible, and that's that was fun and I like knowing that that has the potential to happen on any given Sunday. But I just this, I don't think this was the time for that call. Yeah, I agree with you, Dave, when it comes to the whole nature of it being you know,

reckless versus something that that's just aggressive. I like aggressive mindset because I do think there will create you'll create opportunities for yourself and if nothing else that, you know, you give a team that much more that they have to prepare for on a given week, and you only got so much time in the week. So if you give them a little extra that they got to deal with, what else are they neglecting to spend time on in order to make sure they spend time on that? So

I do like that. Yeah, I just think there are

times when the timing just not right. It opens up another discussion but but to me, fifteen, your appenalties that are automatic first downs need to be reviewed in my opinion, and a play like that needs to be reviewed because that is a turnover really and you know, I'm not saying it was probably wouldn't have changed, but it's such a bang bang play that if a guy gets blocked into you know, and you could kind of block him into the guy, and if that happens, they need they

need to review that. I don't know if they want to, but I'm just saying I have no faith that they would have overturned it anything. I don't think so either in that case, but I do think that there's some times where it kind of gets a little muddy in there like that and then yeah, so I mean, and that's that's a turnover. That's what makes it so risky is again the Cowboys didn't technically do anything wrong, but the refs don't care. They saw the punter fly up

in the air and the ground and protecting him. You know, I've seen a lot worse, you know, where the foot doesn't come down all the way, it just kind of hits a player like in a back not not he didn't even go to the ground. It's just his foot can't come down and they call that as a fifteen yard penalty. Another thing that was interesting to me on this topic. Fossil said that it was his call. He makes a decision when he wants to try those kinds

of things. My question for you guys is should it be is this when you're the head coach and you know you've got a special teams coordinator that tends to be aggressive and can do it a lot of different points in a game, is it a better situation for the coach to be the one either making those calls or making sure he has to check with him before making those calls if he's having If the head coach responsible for managing the entire game and you're trying to

play complimentary football, I love the idea that the coordinator makes the call, the head coach should have a final say over whether it should happen. I mean, it's Mike McCarthy's job to manage the ebbs and flows at the end at the end of the day, So I don't expect Mike McCarthy to say, I like this, look, this is where this is a good spot for this, Like that's John fossil's job to know the ins and outs of what their coverage looks like and stuff like that.

But he should click in and be like, hey, Mike, this is what we're thinking. What do you think? And Mike's like yes or no if he's making that call, and the head coach is just as surprised as the rest of us about what happened. No, I don't like that at all. Did you get that impression, because that's the impression I got from the way he was talking,

was like, I just make the call. It's almost like you call in an offensive player or a defensive play from the offense or defensive coordinator, and you don't necessarily check with the which on every call. And it makes seem like he just makes this call by himself without really and I don't Again, I don't know if that's the truth. That's just the way the impression I got. The head coach gets on there for everything and says, hey, let's yeah. I mean, it all happens in his ear,

so I would remember. But the head coach can get in there and say, hey, let's let's back off here, let's let's get a safe return, you know, let's let's be smart here, but you know you're also thinking too, like, this is the difference between maybe going to get a touchdown in a field goal. You know, because you get the ball to your fifteen yard line, you're probably gonna get and arranged for a field goal. You get a punt block there, and even if you just recover it

right there. Now you're thinking, let's go get a touchdown. The problem is you got a penalty. Is should have been a six points swing, three points off the board for you, three points for them, but they missed the field goal. Yeah, so because of the Fossil's great defensive block. You know, here I got another issue with Fossil too, and somebody pointed there another thing, another thing. Okay, this

aggressive guy wants to be aggressive. Do you know how many guys rushed the kicker for the Buccaneers game winning field goal? Uh? Six? Six out of the eleven. The other five were kind of they pulled back at the last second. Jalen Smith's back there. Obviously obviously the Bucks are gonna run a fake there with two seconds to go, so they could, you know, instead of winning by three, they want to win. What I mean, why aren't we sending eleven. Why aren't we sending eleven? And if we

rough the kick, we rough the kicker. That's one I don't understand. I thought we were super aggressive here trying to block of kick and win the game. That is, if if there's a scenario where murdering the kicker is okay, that's that go for. What's the worst is gonna happen? Right, Well, he misses and then you get another fifteen and all that. But if you, like you said, then let's have a shot. You don't have a kicker at this point. Your kicker's gone.

We took care of that. Everyone has that backup heath like a backup. It's right. I wonder who the backup kicker for the Cowboys, well, because it would be probably anger. But then you have a holder. Cedric Wilson. He does everything else, parsons thing interesting. Probably throw him out there, let him do everything interesting. I don't see why not he hasn't done. I'm about don't think they found anything yet. He can't do, so keep giving him. I don't know,

I don't know. Maybe I don't know. Possible. All right, let's got a phone call. We got a call from Matt in Jersey, Matt, what up, what's going on? Break? Hey? Yeah, good good had a great victory Monday. Um, you really got on a vossil topic. I was gonna say because I am a fan and it's not what I want to see. I mean, kind of cute like aggressive call gives them, I like your point topics, gives other teams

something to look at down in the year. But but are these coaches a little bit surprised in the way this defense is playing from last year? They're not. I don't know what they saw on camp, but what I'm seeing he's in the next in the in these first two weeks is a really really kind of a solid defense. You know, three and out right there, we got a couple three and outs, we got an interception earlier, we got another late interception. I'm just saying, why would you

even attempt when the offense was rolling? I just can you tell me to score at that particular time of the of the game? Was it fourteen three? It was fourteen eleven exactly, We're getting the ball back to take more time off the clock. Out of a To be honest,

Herbert is going to take over the control of the league. Um, so honestly, we're taking the ball out of a really good pastor's hand and putting it into our good pastor's hand, and to call that play right there is dan Quinn a little upset that his defense got a three and out and then it has to come right back on the field. All right, thanks for probably good question. I'm sure you're not going to tell us that anyway. Yeah, I mean, I'm sure it's not like, oh, all right,

let's go do it again. Guys, let's go get back out there. We just did our job. We'll have to do it again. Well, let me say they did. Let me ask you this question, though, and I don't I don't think nothing that he said suggests that he had this much thought was put into it. But let's assume

for a second. Could it have been a situation where they trust the defense enough to say, if something this is worth the risk, because if something does go bad, we've seen this defense can stiffen up, especially they can stiffen up when it comes to not allowing a touchdown. So the risk is worth the possible reward. No, No, it's a six point swing because they roughed him into field goal range. I mean, you gotta expected and McCarthy.

If he thinks his kicker could make a sixty yard kick in the middle of the Tampa game, then he probably thinks that the Chargers guy's gonna make a forty five yard or you know, you have to assume that stiffening up is I mean, yeah, once the penalty is assessed, they're on the Dallas thirty nine. Theyde five yards to be in make and I guess, but that would be the calculation is wrong calculation. No, hold on, let me tell you the calculation. The calculation is worst case scenario,

our defense will hold him from getting a touchdown. So the risk here is that we give them three points. The reward would be we could possibly a touchdowns. You said earlier, you get a block. Now you're in position where you can actually get a touchdown. You don't have to just get a field goal. So that's where I think the calculation can come. And by the way, I'm not saying this is what happened, because nothing that John Fossil said suggests that he did that kind of calculation

in his head. I'm just saying, would that have been a calculation and made all of us feel better about the decision. If that's the way they thought about it. I just wanna maybe I'm giving Dakota too much credit. Screw a field goal minute fifty three with two time outs. You can get an enzone getting the end zone easy. So no, And then I thought the caller he didn't directly say this, but he brought up a point that

I think is worth remembering as well. The Chargers were getting the ball after halftime, so you're risking and low and behold, that's exactly what happened. You're like, if we mess this up, we're not touching the ball again. And then they get the ball at the start of the third quarter. I just I don't think there's a way to swing it as the right thing to do. And Chargers never led in the game, right, I don't think

they know they did not. I think they got They got ahead on the scoreboard for a second when they scored, and then they took it off the board. Yeah. No, they took the lead a couple of times for twenty seconds, and then the ref said no. But no, they never never officially had the lead. All right, let's get a call from Devin in Pennsylvania. Devin, what up? We lost? Devin? All right? Um, you know, actually, I think that's gonna be a rap for us. We were gonna get a

couple of calls, but I think that's a rap. We will be back on tomorrow. We're gonna do some We're gonna score car start getting you guys ready for Cowboys versus Eagles. We'll talk tomorrow about Philadelphia offense versus Dallas defense. To then for Nick Eatman, Dave Helmet. I'm Derek Eagleton. This has been The Break live on Dallas Cowboys dot Com Radio. This has been a production of Dallas Cowboys dot Com and the Dallas Cowboys Football Club.