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It's time for The Break on Dallas Cowboys dot Com right with Ambar Garcia, Brian brought Us, Patrick Wolker, and Derek Eagleton.
It is Tuesday, October tenth, twenty twenty three, Season nineteen, Episode number forty nine. Welcome to the latest edition of The Break. We are live from the SWBC Mortgage Studios at the Star and today we've got a lot of different topics we want to hit. We still have to
finish our post mortem on Cowboys versus Diners. We're going to go through and talk about some individual players and how they perform during this game, both on the offensive side of the ball as well as the defensive side of the ball.
Got the whole show yesterday and didn't even mention.
Dak Prescott, so we've got to spend a little time on him today and talk about his performance versus the Niners before we get to that, though, there were three injuries coming out of that game.
That I don't know, it's sounding like right now.
There's some pretty significant injuries here, and so I want to go through those injuries, talk about maybe what we know at this point, and then also talk about how the Cowboys move forward without some of these players. Let's start first Ladon Vandersh. What are we hearing about his injury?
It's a knick injury.
The Cowboys are still, you know, trying to decide what they're going to do with Lane vandor Risch. But there is a possibility that he lands on injured reserve along with c J. Goodwhen we'll get to him in a second. But the report, there are reports out there that it could be a four to six week injury. So that means, you know, if you sit late for late, you sit them on injury reserve. You got to sit him for
at least four weeks. But considering the type of injury, his injury history when it comes to his neck, obviously it was a massive concern because then you have to wonder if it was career threatening. So if the worst case it turns out to be four to six weeks, you know, everyone will take that all day long. But we're still waiting to hear what the organization does with him, but strong likelihood he goes to IR same for CJ.
Good when torn pictorial muscle is what I'm told, Unlike Lton vander Esh this could be and is likely season ending.
For c J.
Goodwin, massive massive loss for the special teams unit. In Bonhem's fossil there Cavante Turpin, he wrote his ankle was a high ankle sprain as described to me. But it sounds as if he has a chance to practice based on what Mike McCarthy said on yesterday. Now how much of that practice he'll get or not get. We'll see. They do have an extra day of rest because they have Monday night football next week, so no practice on Wednesday,
resumes on Thursday. Let's see how Cavante Turpin looks. And I mean, you hate to see himselfer that injury after he makes the big play to kind of show you what he can be in the offense. Jordan Lewis he went down with a foot injury. It was the same foot and that created a lot of concern as well. But I spoke with Jordan in the locker room after the game. He said he was fine after everything got checked out X rays were negative. MRI I came back
showing no structural damage. So it's sore, but Jordan Lewis says that he can run, he can still do everything, so he should be good to go for Monday night. Let's keeping out on him for practice as well. Am I missing anyone because there was a long list of injury?
Did Donovan Wilson have something wrong with Donovan?
Donovan Wilson He exited the game, but he's fine. He's fine. Talk to Donald, He's fine. No concerns from anyone in the organization on Donovan Wilson either. I'm just making sure because it was like a list. Tyler Beyadish Mike said yesterday that Beyadish should get some practice this week. Doesn't sound like the organization has a lot of concern there, but definitely something to watch considering he's missed a game here recently with that ankle injury. So yeah, there you go.
The big ones will be lv E and good when good, when likely done for the season, LVE likely IR candidate, but good news is, as we have this conversation, sounds like he's a IR. I almost say it designated to return, but you don't have to designate anymore, but that he should return in the next month or so.
Yeah, the injuries are starting to pile up. And the one that I think is most concerning is Leydon Vander sch primarily because you look at the depth of the linebacker position, there really isn't a lot of depth. And whatever you think of Layton's play this season, and whatever his play was against the forty nine ers, he still is the best linebacker that.
They have, and he had his moments against the forty nine ers, he had.
He's played.
So the point is like you're losing a major piece in the middle of your defense. My question is how do you think Dallas needs to and how do you think they will respond to that?
From a standpoint of the personnel.
They have the depth at edge to put Michael Parsons back at linebacker is what they'll do, and they'll have to figure things out between Armstrong, Fowler, Sam Williams, all those guys.
Goldston they're gonna have.
They've they've got enough edges to be able to move Micah back. You know, we'll see what the you know, we'll see with what they do potentially, you know, off their uh, you know, off the practice squad. You know that's a possible. Michael Jones was a guy that they signed recently. I was kind of hearing, you know, he's kind of a physical player. Uh, probably a better zone player than man player. If you talk about coverage, Uh, could they go out and get you know, could they
go out and sign somebody off the street. I always reach out and on radio, I call it my gang of seven, which are my general manager friends, directors of player personnel. Ask about training for guys. We won't get into those because those guys are already kind of on contracts with teams, so I'll avoid that. But names I was getting was like Anthony Hitchins, Was it possibly a name that my guy's like? Rai Rashid Evans, Damien Wilson.
It was here. Jermaine Carter was another name.
And if you wanted, well, I don't we talk about practice squad poach guys? Okay, Well then there's just one name on that. So what there are some options as far as trading. Again, you probably have to avoid that right now for the position that we're in here on this show. But those were the names that Gang of seven was telling me, Hey, these are guys that are on the street. They might be able to add a
little depth to what you're trying to do. But I think the big move would be just to move Michael Parsons back to off ball linebacker him Clark, and then they'll navigate what's going on at edge. Maybe they put Micah down on some rush situations, but I think he's going to play more linebacker.
Those are some some interesting free agency names, especially the two most familiar, Damian Wilson and Anthony Hitchins. Obviously they have familiarity here, albeit with the you know, in the Mary Nether regime, not in the Dan Quinn regime. So I like those as possibilities. But it goes to what Brian was saying, and I asked Dan Quinn about it specifically yesterday, and he basically intimated largely that it is
going to be Michael Parsons and that versatility returning. You're going to see Michael Parsons drop back to off ball linebacker, not to say he's not going to get in, you know, to the backfield, opposing backfield. He's going to be on blitz packages. He's going to be sent time and again. But you just you don't have the luxury of dropping him down to full time d without LV.
You just don't take me back to a pre draft before they drafted Michael Parsons and we all thought Michael Parsons was coming into the league to be an off ball linebacker. What was your assessment of him as a as a linebacker, not as a pass rusher, but as a linebacker's ability to cover, his ability to.
Rally to the ball. What was your what were your impressions there?
I'll tell you what, Patrick, If you got thoughts, I'm just gonna pull up my draft notes. No, no, I've got to pull up my draft notes and this thing takes forever when it comes to drafting, because I wanted.
To go back and read to you exactly what.
I had while you're looking it up.
I'll throw another question at you in the same vein though we saw what a great linebacker can mean to a defense with Fred Warner and what he was able to do in that game and.
How many impact plays he was able to have.
Do you think that Micah has that level of athleticism to be able to provide that.
For this defense?
Athleticism, yes, the refinement not right now. Fred Warner not only has crazy athleticism. He also has the refinement of having played x amount of reps in the NFL at a superbly high level to be able to cover as well. And that's where going back to off ball linebacker at Penn State, that's something that I had a question about
when it came to Michael. He has the athleticism, and he can turn and he can react and get back and coverage and kind of drop that gear, but he's not nearly as good as covering as he is as pointing forward and saying, see guy hit guy, seaball, get ball. Fred Warner is unique in the fact that he can do both. You look at the fact that he had on Dak Prescott. He blows up the play which was coverage initially for him, but then that forced Dak Prescott out.
He immediately see guy hit guy. So Fred Warner is only comparable to a guy like Bobby Wagner, for example, Michael Parsons as the off ball linebacker. I think you're going to lose something there in the coverage aspect, But I'm interested to see where he is now in run defense Micah versus where he was as a run defender as an off ball linebacker. Penn State because that was
something that you wanted to see him improve upon. But he hasn't had that many reps as off ball linebacker in the NFL with the Cowboys to be able to say we know he's improved upon that. So playing the run on the edge is different, as Brian will say, is different from playing it as off ball. Two different worlds. Let's see what it looks like once he comes off of that ball.
Yeah, which you got to remember, man, when you get in this one note thing, it takes forever. I've got five I'm saying, you also have a lot of five years of reports in my system now. And this is what and we got to remember about Michael when he came out. He didn't play the twenty twenty season because of COVID. He sat that out. And if you don't mind me reading from me, I appreciate it. Uh, you
know I said. You can't draw him up any better than when it comes to a linebacker physically well put together, stout build appears big on tape, place with physical toughness, desire, shows a burst with range in order to run down the ball, can get forward sideways in a hurry. Best when you can attack the line scrimmage. When he comes downhill, he'll make some impressive plays. Body control can can come and go a little bit. There's snaps when you see him jump around blocks and it takes him out of
a tackle. He'll use his hands his strength to get rid of blockers, but needs to be more consistent with him. He can dominate, but it doesn't always do it. When he puts himself in position, he could really finish tackles. I thought he was better blitzer than a cover man, but it's because he just drops in zones and reacts when he attacks the pocket. He could he could be a load to handle, can see the burst to get there,
very good communication skills, is always directing his teammates. Has ability to make every single tackle, but there's times where he doesn't always do that. So those were the notes I had. I felt like more better a run player than the coverage. And then you asked the question about you know, how does that?
You know?
How does you know Fred Werner? The one if I read you Fred Werner's notes when he came out of BYU, the number one.
Thing I remember about him was how well he covered.
It was much better coverage than it was because you're watching you're watching these BYU tape and he was such an athlete. I just remember him always being around the ball, but always running and then playing in coverage and having that awareness there where if guys came inside, he was there, or if he had to run with a back, he was there. You know, his coverage skills were far more.
But I think MICA's might have been a little bit about more about what they're asking him to do at Penn State just dropped to his own kind of settle and then react, where where BYU was different where they asked their guys to actually play it coverage.
And I want to say it might have been year one from Micah when we saw him. There was a play in a particular game. We saw him carry a receiver downfield, deep downfield, and he made a play on the ball.
Yeah, I think, well there was a wheel.
Yeah yeah, And it was impressive to me that he was able to do that.
But yeah, there was a wheel route one time somebody had done a goal line and it might have been Philadelphia in the game I think it was played here at at and T where they tried to run the wheel on him and he carried the guy and just.
Kind of just pushed him out of bounds.
You know, kind of was in a position to defend the ball, but but his just his presence kept the receiver wide.
And I think that's you and he ran with him.
Now go to the athleticism. I believe that he has the athleticism to have that Fred Warner cump. But when you look at what Fred Warner does as far as pure coverage is concerned, I don't think that's a compared no.
And I'm not I'm not expecting him immediately to jump in and be Fred Warner or Marcus Bang or anybody else.
That's not what I'm expecting. What I'm expecting.
What I'm expecting is if you got a guy that you drafted in the first round, I'm expecting him to be good enough to where you don't lose anything by Layton Vandersh being out. That's it was the delta between him and Layton Vandersh is what I'm looking You.
Got to remember that's what you drafted for. You drafted him to be a linebacker. This whole past rushing thing came about later something that was a very nice surprise injury. I said that for the yeah yeah, yeah, and then gets here and it puts him there to replace some of that or help help, and then you see the magic happened. But now I mean you don't have You're starting to lose that luxury of having him as that guy that can be just like wherever he wants to
and let him be. Micah Parsons, Now you actually need the help. And what didn't dar Own Bland? Did he get hurt too?
Cramps?
He yeah, but that's the other day. No, no, no, I remember something happening, but just another thing to look at. I mean, he's fine, but still keeping in mind what's happening in the in the secondary and the fact that you lost Trevon Diggs is not there and that is starting to get noticed. I mean, Darren Bland has done a really nice job, but you still see that a guy like dis is being missed there. So again, now you gotta make happen with what you got.
What's really interested about it is when you look at this year's training camp, and it was something that I kind of pointed at and it continued to be a thing and now it's definitely a thing. When you look at Layton vander Rish's snaps as far as where he lines up on any given moment. In training camp, we saw a lot of edgework for Layton vander USh. Okay, well, now Layton Vanderrish goes off the field with injury for a few weeks. Michael Parsons dropped back drops back in
the lv E RO. That's proof positive for me that you know there's a package already waiting right there for Dan Quinn to plot Michael Parsons in and say, Hey, I know I'm going to ask you to play off ball linebacker, but I guarantee you you're gonna get your edge rushes in sop.
All right, let's take our first break when we come back.
Let's jump into a little more on this Cowboys versus Niners match up some of the intricacies of what we saw and where it went wrong.
For the Cowboys. We'll be back Dallas Cowboys dot Com Radio.
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Welcome back into Dear Doctor, the show where I answer life's questions with an ice cold cane of Doctor Pepper, Sheila, let's hear from my next caller, would you dear doctor?
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Back to the break, how about this one the most action packed motorsports experience in the world. Returns to Arlington head to a T and T Stadium this Saturday, October fourteenth for Monster Jam. Tickets are available now at seatgate dot com, the official ticket provider of AT and T Stadium.
It's never been to Monster it is kids. It is my kids. When they were younger, they used to love going to Monster Jam.
Bring the headphones along, bringing the air protection for the little ones.
But old ones, Yeah, it's yeah, it's fun. Protect your ears.
Took the family last year and it was the kids just had so much fun. And yeah, I'm not afraid to admit I was having just as much fun as the kids.
Chair And it's kind of neat when they go up in the air and then like parts of it start flying off and then they're like driving the frame around.
There's something to that.
The point of the show is to tear stuff up. That's the point of the show.
They're going to tear up these trucks, right, and so it's just fun if.
You like that kind of stuff.
It's fun just to get out there and watch them tear it up. You know, it's a lot of fun. All right, let's jump back in. I want to start with the offense. One thing that became very apparent to me early in that game was that the Cowboys offense I think by design, went into this game with the expectation they were going downfield. They were going to try to challenge this offense, I mean this defense downfield. Check out one of these numbers I found. Dak averaged eleven
point five air yards per attempt in this game. It was double double what he's averaged in the first four games at around five point nine, which was the second lowest in the NFL.
But the production just wasn't there.
On twenty plus yard passes, he was only one of three with one touchdown and one interception. Ten to twenty yard passes, he was only one of five with one interception. Do you think this was the right strategy? Do you think that maybe how they did it may have been the problem? What do you think of their their decision to go downfield more?
I did you were there yesterday for Brian Schottenheimer R. What did he say about that man coverage? They they didn't expect to get. They didn't expect to get as much man coverage.
He did say they did. They the forty nine ers were focused on a lot of press man. Yeah, that was something that they had to kind of combat through.
Yeah.
Yeah, so he did mention that.
Yeah.
See, that's where I think that to me, the plan of going downfield, because the metrics told.
You and we went through it last week.
Through the next gen stuff was passes that were zero to ten, they're like seventeen of twenty four. Beyond that, they were still having success more on Lenor than on ward on the other side. So you know, but they got they got a lot of man coverage in that game. And the things that I saw were that when you look through all the plays, Yeah, there were some plays where guys were open, but it wasn't to the point where I thought, I mean running to get zone.
I felt like that the Cowboys were like, Okay, they're just going to eat them up. But when they but the Cowboys.
Struggled with that that when they got on the line of scrimmage to have to get off those and I think it affected the way that Dak through the football, you know, And we were talking about if they could protect, they could make some plays. But we were thinking they were gonna probably play more zone coverage. They said, no, we're gonna play man. And it goes back to a little bit of what Arizona did against you you know, and how they played with more man coverage than than zones.
So you know, it's I think that I think that caught them by surprise a little bit, that that they weren't able to win enough in those one on one on one situations off the line.
Yeah, that was very clearly their plan to get you know, middle deep and just deep against this forty nine or secondary that for the most part. I mean, you have Travarius Ward, he does well, and in the backfield you have to Shawn Gibson he does well as well. But Lenora was the glaring the blinking light, as the Cowboys like to say. But to Brian's point, coming into this game, the forty nine ers tend to protect their secondary by
spacing them and having them give that space. And the Cowboys came in and thought, hey, okay, well we can attack this, and they could, but when they saw a press man from snap one and then continually throughout. Now the onus is on the receivers to get separation off of the jam, off of the press and the problem was that we talked about yesterday. The receivers were not able to get that, and that completely disrupted timing. And this is a timing based offense. The Cowboys have said
it time and again. Dak has said it, Brian Schottenheimer said, Mike McCarthy said it. And so that means when you disrupt the timing and kudules to Kyle Shanahan, he realizes this. When you disrupt the timing, that's it. It's a wrap. So that's why while Dak Prescott was airing it out much more or trying to air it out much more, it wasn't nearly as effective because go back and look at the separation rates, I think only one receiver or maybe no receivers had more than three yards.
I think cd Al something like that.
So I don't think any of the receivers had more than three yards of separation. Most separation came from Jake Fergus.
Oh, I should throw this out.
This stat I noticed was interesting, the open percent and this is the number of times when they were targeted they had three plus yards of separation. For the Cowboys, it was only thirty four point six percent of the time. That is their lowest percentage of open receivers in this entire season. So yeah, absolutely it affected what exactly what San Francisco was doing it definitely felt effected.
The Cowboys offense.
Go back and look at the interceptions they had. Okay, the one and just a great example that we actually were two that I the one the ball that was thrown inside the gallop on the slant that was tipped in the air.
There was no chance.
I mean, it was just really a nice defensive play, you know, but there was coverage there. And then if you go back and watch the interception Bert's the linebacker had when he jumped the route underneath Cooks is getting mugged on the top of the of the route too. I mean that ball, if that ball gets through, that's
probably going to be incomplete too. So, you know, the Cowboys have had some success running these slants and being effective at doing it, but in those two particular times, it really resulted in two of the interceptions were off slants, and that's kind of a bread and butter play for the Cowboys.
As the game went on, how should they have adjusted or what should hit the Cowboys have done differently or Mcarthy's final play call.
It you know to me and and I'm not a note, I'm not an offensive coordinator, and I and I but to me what I have done. The cowboys could get into bunch formations and scatter, you know, all of a sudden, it's like, okay, instead of playing wide and allowing the forty nine ers to pick you up one on one and then potentially either you know, shade a safety one way and try and you know, take seat, getting bunch of formations and scatter that thing.
You know, if you look the touchdown they.
Threw to h to Turpin trips right and they motion they motioned him in and then ran him on the on the corner that gets off the press of the nickel. The nickel had no When you move people or bunch them and scatter them, then you you're making you know, and that that helps him in their pick.
Game too, you know. And some of the the.
Dak Dak took a sack. They try to run a pick. They knew that forty niners. Okay, they're trying to run a really a man beater. They run Ferguson across, but they picked the wrong guy, so they you know, all of a sudden, the Nichols able to get through and now everybody's covered. And then you got Warner who avoids the pick and now he's chasing and he's gonna run you down. So to me, movement, they scored a touchdown off it.
They also, I don't know if it was you or Nick that mentioned it during the game.
Again, I'm not a coordinator. Yeah, I'm just telling you what they.
Score on a play where they lined up ceedee lamb. He was kind of out on the outside and then he comes back and just stays like in instead of being spread out. Like you said, that was.
Well, that was Nick mentioned that, and it was it was I think Nick's point is why run the ball when you have a receiver out wide that has a corner out and you bring that receipt that corner in and then it just adds another guy to the body.
Missed the block, I missed the block and so and then you see him kind of clap his hands and I'm well, you know, you're asking him. And then they put Tolbert in the game to run the cracked toss, but they don't do anything else with Tolbert. They just ask him to come down and sign block. So to me, it's kind of like it's almost like the Noah back in the day. The Jason Garrett administration. When you bring Noah Brown in and all he's gonna do is block, you know, you got to show. And that's the great
thing about putting Turpin in the game. You're thinking jet sweep, you're thinking some type of little running play, but then they run him through the formation and then it ends being a big play.
Yes, speaking of you talking about that strategy of bunching your guys or pressing your guys, watch how San Francisco runs their offense. They do a ton of that. It's why it makes it so difficult to control them, is because they'll put all those guys in tight and then they'll scatter.
Yeah, the ball is snapped and they're all.
In different parts of the field and it's hard to really get hands on them within that first five yard cushion, and that allows them to get open and create the separation.
What they want, what.
They do with their tight formations and bunches is they'll block. Those guys are like they'll run it. So you're like thinking, Okay, they're gonna get tight and they're gonna run it here, and then all of a sudden, no wait, they're throwing boom, they scatter, and now they're you know guys are they're
they're replacing guys. I've seen them run routes where they go up and cross and then a guy falls up and then stops, and so they got a cross or with a stop, and now they give the guy the option throw it there, throw.
It there, you know, and it's just it's it's a fun offense to watch.
Really, it really is because of how they use their personnel in a way that you're going man, that that is really an intelligent way of doing that.
And then another benefit of using motion is it it reveals more often than not zone versus man. Right when you when you move this particular person from this side of this side, if you see that player, chase that player, okay, that player is in man. And then if you do a double motion, send somebody else and that person doesn't move, okay, Well this is a mixed coverage. You can help yourself by pre snap by using more motion. I just feel
like the Cowboys. I'm not saying they don't use motion, but when you compare it up against what Kyle Shanahan does and they're eighty six percent of.
The time they have motion in this well, Dallas, again, according to the Great net jet Net. Next section stats is that every week Dallas has gotten less and less
on the motion part of things. And you're kind of like going, okay, is that just because the way the game is going, But you could also the way the forty nine ers do it and teams do it is they'll motion guys too, and they'll move guys over to get a linebacker on, like they'll move McCaffrey out, and all of a sudden, it's like, wait a minute, they bump a corner out to get a linebacker on McCaffrey, and now or use check is now you know used check has got.
A corner on him.
But wait, they got a linebacker on a safety inside and you're like going, you know, so it's it's on the receiver inside. So it's it's really creative the way that they do things.
Yeah, you mentioned Kyle Shanahan, but we also got to give a tip our cap to Steve Wilks. Steve great game plan went up against this Cowboys offense, and I think that's a big part as to why the offense was so staggering throughout the day. We're going to take our final break, we'll come back talk about Dak Prescott in his day and how much that contributed to the loss. We'll talk about that in just a moment. Stouts Cowboys dot com Radio.
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Back to the break, All right, well ready, here we go.
Let's see what we got here. Oh yeah, here hey the Pro Shop.
Head to the Pro Shop at Northeast Small in Arlington, Texas on Saturday, October fifteenth between eleven am and four pm. For Cowboys collections on tours, see Rare Team Archives, custom headwear, and grab a gift with Grab a gift with purchase and enter for a chance to win a giveaway. Stay tuned for more tour stops coming throughout the season.
Yeah, we got a little late start because we were talking about the Hometown Rangers playing tonight.
Good luck to the Hometown Range. Hopefully they'll close.
And survived one last night.
Yeah, brave, brave, I know you were just like losing your mind. Never take another one, you never take another one.
That's a good base.
All jokes isid. Yeah, Baseball God's old me because he took it from me on Saturday, and then the NFL gods took it from me on Sunday. So I'm sitting there yesterday.
At least your football football team.
I'm sitting there yesterday down four oh going into the middle endings and I'm just rubbing my eyes. I'm like, you got to be a kidding me. And then it happened Braves woke up and became the Braves. So the potential Braves Rangers World Series.
It's still a long, it's still love, still a lot, all right.
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Here we go. Let's talk about Dak Prescott.
He was fourteen of twenty four fifty eight percent completion rate, only one hundred and fifty three yards, passing, one touchdown, three interceptions, fifty one point six rating. How much do you attribute the struggles of the offense to DA's play in.
That particular game. I think that you could.
You could point the finger to a lot of different players, but you can also I say the quarterback always is going to take the lion's share of the blame. We're some oping guys, you know the past, the Scoon Maker. If you when you watch the All twenty two, especially from the end zone he's opened, We'll see if Schoomaker would have caught it, but I mean it he was opened.
The ball went a little high.
I thinka Dak was a little, you know, a little amped up in this game as it started. It's unforgedate the long pass they threw out a bounce to Cooks. I just felt like that when you watch him, he was having to move to his left and to try and get that ball as far as he could down the field. His momentum carried him that way, and I think it pulled the ball that way. It's physics. I know you have science.
That's physics, physical physics.
And I'm making an excuse for him because he had some throws that were open. But there was also I give Steve Wilkes the forty nine ers their plan, the way they covered. I gave Arizona a lot of credit for what they did in their game.
You know, with the way they played defense.
They didn't allow you any ability to run the football very well, and they didn't allow the receivers on the outside to win nearly enough. When these receivers are winning, you see Dak Prescott have that ability. But there was some tough, tight window throw. The interceptions were all tight window throws, just the way the balls were tipped and knocked in the air. You gotta, you know, tip the cap to those guys. But you know it's on the quarterback too, you know, when they have to make some plays,
They have to make some plays. They can't let plays go by. You can't leave those plays on the field. And it happened to him a couple of different times. When Dockett plays that way where he's off, this team will generally lose.
That's just the way it is.
It has to play better. Definitely, not one of his best outings in many capacities. And I keep circling back in my mind as I go to this game, and I say, you know what was the early tail as far as how this game was going to go, And
it was the sailed past the Schoolmaker. If you if you make that throw and assuming Schoolmaker comes down with that, that is a huge boost and early boost momentum wise, and you know, morale wise for the Cowboys offense to say, hey, we can do what we want to do against this defense. But that misses and then things just kind of slowly crumbled from there until it started to rapidly crumble from there. And so their passes and and again, I said it yesterday.
The level of difficulty on that pass to Cooks one to ten, that's an eleven. But you know, if you throw it just a little bit, if you throw more vertical sooner too. Yeah, but he I think he had. I think he really had to move his body.
You know, the angle. The angle threw him completely off. And it's not an excuse.
Just watch the throw from the end zone and you'll see where his body position is to try and get that ball out there.
Yeah, we're not We're not going to say that was easy, even remotely easy. Those who know No, that's why we're sitting here saying that that throw was extremely difficult. But if the ball gets out a little bit earlier, if it goes a little bit more vertical than horizontal, then
Cooks has an actual shot of making that play. So things like that, and then when you look at the mobility of deck, there were opportunities where he could have taken off and pushed the envelope and kind of moved the change or at least created you know, more third and short situations if he would have just been more decisive and saying, okay, I see green, I'm taking green. But it was yet another game in which there was green to be taken, but he didn't. He kept his
eyes downfield. And sometimes that's great. But in a game like this, where you can't get any kind of offensive chemistry going and kind of flow going, you have to take any positive that you can get. So the Fred Warner sack, for example, if Jack had decided to just go ahead plays, breaking down, quickly, go through progressions, nothing's there, take off and run, you probably beat Warner on that edge. There was another sack that he take. He took that game.
You probably beat the guy if you just go ahead and quickly determine that this play is blown up. I'm going to take this so from the aspect of being more decisive and using his legs, which is something we want to see from Dak Prescott, and you know some of the throws that he definitely wants back that he needs to make to help a struggling offense. It's most certainly a grade that you look at and say, okay, well A to F. Where's this? This is an F for deck, This isn't F for deck, and there's no
other way to put it. So can he be better? Yes he can. He's shown he can be better, and he's going to have to prove it again against Los Angeles.
Yeah, it's very My emotions are still very high right now, and it's super frustrating this because there are days that you're gonna have to rely on your defense, there are days you're gonna have to rely on your running game, there are days that you need to rely on your quarterback. And I'm not putting all the blame on Dak because everyone played bad in this game, but you gotta do better. We've seen games where Dak has been great. Even last year. He has won of the best game in his career.
The Tampa game. The playoff game was outstanding, he was amazing.
So you've seen him being capable of doing those things. And I love Dak, but at some point, you gotta be able to show up in important games like this where nothing is working, and you gotta be the guy that kind of takes that lead, because that's kind of what quarterbacks do at times when nothing is working. You got to show up and be the one to kind of say or try to save the day.
Lastly, on this point, the thing that kind of frustrated me was it wasn't that nothing was working. The Cowboys actually found one or two things that were working. Jake Ferguson for example. Yes, So then when you look at it from that aspect as well, you look at that and say, okay, well, Cooks, that connection is not working. CD he's frustrated. That's not working. Gallup's not getting a separation. That's not working. What is working? Jake Ferguson, Okay, one, two, three, three, catches,
three receptions, This is working. I'm going to tear this up until they take this away, and them taking this away might open up something else. But they completely got away from Jake Ferguson. And I put that on as much of the play calling as I do the quarterback because the quarterbacks on the field, he's seeing this in real time. You're seeing these guys aren't getting separations. So where's the green light is? Jake Ferguson, And you went away from that completely for the.
Remainders, which is weird and odd because we've seen the tight end be the guy to be the safety blanket to Dak. So that's so strange that he happened.
Now, well, he can be better, he will be better, and the connection between he and Jake Ferguson. It's there, it's growing. We've seen it over the past several weeks. But to walk to see that just get a hard stop in the game where you need it something to start going right, that's very disheartening. And that's one of the many reasons, one of the many reasons the Cowboys got thumped.
Are you seeing a difference this year between Dak Prescott's play and what you saw from him last year to where you can attribute some of it to the offensive play calling in the scheme?
I think that to me, there's a side that you know, I'm okay with the interceptions if I can throw the ball eight yards a shot, you know, if I'm I'm okay with Dak you know, the turnovers and stuff like that. I guess you know a lot of people were complaining about it, but I honestly don't recognize this guy playing the dank and dunk. It's third and five and you throw the ball for three yards, you know, I don't.
I don't get that.
I know there's guys that were covered, and you know there are things going on there, but I just don't feel like this offense suits Dak that way. And I know that Jerry Jones came on one oh five three the Fan this morning and talk about no changes in this and that he's confident all and that's good.
That's his job to be confident. But I just feel like, though the way.
That Dak plays to me, I think playing open, loose, fast, the way he does, I think that's a better suited game for him. You know, you're trying to kind of throw it, be controlled, limit the turnovers and stuff. Hell, okay, you threw two slants. Both of them were intercepted. You know. I mean, if you're gonna that's what you're gonna do, well that you're still throwing interceptions.
You know.
I just don't know if just Nickel and Diamond people with Dak Prescott's the way to play football.
I say this morning with r J, Sewan and Bobby is that I think I feel like Dak is being
shrunk at the moment as far as risk mitigation. And I'm right there with Brian and it's like, yeah, you're trying to eliminate or minimize the number of interceptions, but at the risk of losing the Dak Prescott that we know can throw forty nine hundred yards and thirty seven touchdowns, and honestly, I'm not saying, you know, I want him to throw it up and just like he did against Cooks, I don't want to see that down down the midday. Don't do that. Don't do that. That's not playing football,
that's just heaving it up there. And then you know, seeing what happened for no, which is why he kind of smirked coming.
Right.
But I feel like Dak Prescott needs to be allowed more leeway to say, you know what, let's open up deep mintle of the field, let's take some of these shots, because I would rather you know, thirty touchdowns to thirteen interceptions, fourteen interceptions, as long as the Cowboys continue to win and it's not costing them games versus oh, he only
finished with eight interceptions this season. Then you look at you know, the Cowboys record and it's nine to eight, and then you look at the fact that Dak Prescott only has you know, twenty one touchdowns, like, what did you really gain from that risk mitigation? So I think that the scale has flown too far to the left and it needs to come back to dead suns.
Great point, all right, real quick, before we end the show, solo lap cooat what you got for us today?
So labcoat, yes, science going.
To bring me in Beamer good stuff, all right, So really quickly after a game like what we saw in Santa Clair, we're not going to dig too deep into the stats because it's a glaring The magic number is sixty seven. This is what we're going on, ladies and gentlemen. Sixty seven. That's thirty five and thirty two. The Cowboys defeated Bill Belichick by thirty five points. The following week, they lost to the forty nine Ers by thirty two points.
That is the worst swinging point differential from a victory to a loss in franchise history. This is a team that has existed in its current form since nineteen sixty and what we just witnessed in a two week spread has never happened before. We want to talk about resiliency. Let's see it. That was the worst loss ever to the forty nine Ers, twelfth worst loss in the history of the Cowboys, only two point shy of being top ten worst losses in Cowboys history. They're going to have
to really show what resiliency looks like. It's a team that hasn't lost back to back game since November of twenty twenty one. They're really up against it now because they're all were going against the Los Angeles Chargers team whose offense is not afraid to air it out, not worried about risk mitigation, and know by the way their offensive coordinator has a point to prove. And you're also going to have to do this without Lve on defense. You're gonna have to do this without c. J. Goodwhen
helping you on special teams. Talk about adversity, it has arrived, and it has arrived in space sixty seven points. That's the swing differential from last week to the week prior to this past week. So let's see what it looks like in week six.
We talked about this following the Arizona game. Since twenty twenty one, though the Cowboys have been eleven and one in games following a loss, they have been really good in those games following a loss. We will see if that trend happens this week.
Derek, real quick, Yeah, remember we went to that game we played in the Saints in New Orleans where it was so bad. That game reminded me of that Saints game and.
I think, yeah, that was one of those that it was just like.
Nothing's working today. Everything bad that could happen happen.
Yeah, that dog on song, it was a lot.
Yeah, they crunked this up pretty y.
Yeah, that was but the the lab was good today. You got to have these thoughts about it. And they've had some bounce back. You know that that record is that's that's for real. That bounce back is for real. It ain't something we just made up.
It's for real.
Tomorrow we will start the process of turning the page. We will get into this next game. Brian will give us a little lead in on Cowboys offense versus the Chargers defense.
I hope I'm right this week and we'll get that roll in till then. For Patrick Walker.
Brian brought us Ambergarciim Derek Eilton. This has been The Break live on Dallas Cowboys dot Com Radio.
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