Cowboys Break: What Does Effort Mean?

We're live from the s WBC Mortgage Studios. At the start, we got forty five minutes and we're gonna make the most of it. Today. We got a lot to talk about. There was a lot of talk that we heard yesterday from the head coach and the coordinators that we're gonna get into. There was some interesting things that they said. And then, as promised by Amber yesterday, we're gonna fix this thing. We've got some I got some questions for these guys on how the Cowboys fix what's happening right

now with their team sitting at one in three. And then we'll finish off the show. Maybe if we have enough time, we'll get into a little NFC East talk. Not a lot going on there, but we'll talk about it a little bit. What one sucks right now? I mean, like that's easy to segment done, so we don't have to learn about that one. No One, no one looks

really good, but somebody has to win it. Well awesome, So by the end of the show, I'm gonna ask you guys, who's the best one in this NFC East Which is probably a hard, hard question to answer right now, but we'll do that towards the end of the show.

All right, So let's first jump in Mike McCarthy. Yesterday, he has this press conference with the media, and the first thing that he said that that stuck out to me was regarding it was a question about the problems that they're experiencing right now, and his quote was, if I was going to rank them a number one our turnover race, show is our biggest negative? After four games currently they're sitting at negative seven turnover ratio. Is that

their biggest problem? Nick, let's start with you. I think it is. I do. I mean, because that's what leads to more possessions, that's what takes the offense off the field, and you know, I mean, think about when you when you turn the ball over and the other team scores when you could have scored. That's a seven. That's a ten to fourteen point turnaround. In every game that they played, just one turnover a turnaround like that could could have affect the game. So yeah, without a dat, I think

I think it is the biggest problem that they have. Um. I get Nick's point in logic and it makes perfect sense, but I would say that's not their biggest problem. I think that looking at the team overall, I would just lean towards the issues that the defense is struggling with currently because turnovers, to me, even though they keep struggling with it week after week, I feel like that's something

that has a an easier or faster solution. That's something that you can fix faster, in my opinion, versus what's happening on the defense that I just I just see that such at a such a bigger scale, and it's depending on who they're gonna be facing later on through the year. I think that's gonna come down to what

your defense it's unable to do. Dave. It's kind of like card problems, right, like your car's not running the way you want it to me, and like, it would be great if you could take the engine out and just do the whole thing over again, go in there and really revamp it. Or you can just like turn off the parking break and that's not gonna you know, it's not gonna fix everything, but you probably be a lot better off. My point is to say, the defense is just there's a lot of stuff that needs to

be done there. It is the team's biggest problem. But you can help a lot by just holding onto the ball like it is. It is the problem that can be fixed the easiest and would go a long way toward making the defense or at least helping the defense. So I agree with Nick because I think fixing the turnover problem is something you can actually do. I just don't trust that there's a lot you can do to make this defense significantly better right now. So I'm gonna

challenge you, guys, how do you do it? Like that's the hard part. Yeah, we all know it's a big problem. We all know it needs to be fixed. What do you think is their best route to try to fix it? To get more turnovers or get more or I mean that could be a part of the solution. Hey, if you get more turnovers, then giving more turnovers maybe isn't as big of a problem, right, I mean the offense doesn't need to score. I mean they're scoring enough points.

I mean generally, yes, now you know they're not to be one and three you need more points. But I mean, you know, we see we have enough football games to know you average thirty one and a half points a game, you should be winning and should be winning big. Um. So do they need to be as wide open? Do they need to help more with the offensive line? Do they need a little bit more max protect because they've got two or three receivers, three receivers that can get open.

Maybe they need more of that. Maybe you need your your running backs to stay home, Maybe your tied ends need to stay home a little bit more, and you know, protect the quarterback more because that's typically where the turnovers are coming from. There is the pressure. And then on the flip side, maybe they need to add more pressure. You know, they don't really blitz a lot. Maybe they should start doing that a little bit more. I don't know, what do you think, Amber, How do they fix this

problems with the turnovers? With the turnovers established the run when when you first of all figure out who your offensive linemen are going to be and make that be it for the rest of the of the year. Unless there is another injury, of course, then you have to readjust but going knowing, Okay, these are my start in five and this is what it is. Don't don't do the whole steel thing again. Okay, once that's settled, hopefully you're able to establish the run. I think that the Cowboys,

yes they Dak is throwing the ball really good. The receivers are doing a good job once they're able to get the ball going and connecting and all that. But I think you need to establish the run first because that's gonna just help your defense. Just killed allowed the defense to be less on the field as much as

you can. So just try to score points but using and utilize utilizing your running back Zeke that I know he has his own struggles, but we've seen him do it, so I do have confidence in what he can do in the running game. Still, Dave Hodd, you solve the turnover problem. Isn't the running game the primary culprit and the turnover problem right now? Big part? I mean Zeke has fumbled three times this season, and he's lost two of them. I mean, overall, I don't disagree with the

point Amber took the words right out of my mouth. Honestly, is my primary hope for fixing the turnover issue is continuity on the offensive line. Tyrant is back in the lineup. Hopefully he stays there. Tyler Biadas has played one hundred and thirty snaps through these last two games, and he's played well, so hopefully that can help the interior. And hopefully the coaches are what's the word I'm looking for, humble enough to admit that they were wrong about this

right tackle thing. Hopefully the way Brandon Knight has played when he's gotten in there has proven to them that he should be the guy in my opinion, and hopefully they can go forward with these five and have that clean things up a little bit. To be clear, when I said fix the turnover issue, I simply meant on offense, like defense, prove it to me that you can get takeaways.

I don't know how you fix that without getting better players, honestly, because this is a four year stretch where that's just been the case. So I can't bank on the defense getting men overs. I just have to I need the offense to clean it up. I think continuity on the offensive line would would go a long way toward helping. What do we think the offensive line looks like? I mean, Looney's out for two to four weeks, but I'm not sure, be honest, wouldn't be the starter anyways, But they don't

have to make that call right now. What are we thinking, Tyrn, Connor, be honest, Zach Night. I think that's what they're gonna go with. I think that's definitely what they're gonna go with. Yeah, I mean, unless unless they want to unless they feel like Connor McGovern or, somebody could play guard better than than Connor Williams. Then no, well that's true too, Yeah, better than Connor Williams. But I'm saying, maybe you know, they wanted Brandon Knight, I think, to be a guard anyways.

Maybe he's a better guard than Zach Martin's a better right tackle. Yeah, I think that's what considering. All right, let's move on to what other things you want to? Go ahead, go ahead, Dave, No, I just it's it's possible. I think I continue to think that they're going to do the thing that requires the least amount of movement, Like, I think they want as much continuity as possible and just plugging Night in that right tackle allows everybody else

to stay where they are. Yeah, but sure it's possible. To Nick's point about, well, one thing good, Amber, I was gonna say, one thing that at least they've proven is that they're not afraid to just shuffle people around. So you can look that as a positive as to Okay, maybe they will be willing to just kind of shuffle people around and make some changes. Now, hopefully that's not something that just happens during the middle of the game, but rather something that you plan throughout the week and

kind of go that route and stick to it. Yeah. You know, that's an interesting point, Amber, because I don't think that's something we've been used to seeing around here, is in the middle of games then making a decision. And by the way, just as I'm giving them credit for that, I'm also going to say they probably should have made that distinction before the game. I think Dave

made the point. Yes, if they were so willing to as soon as they made a mistake rip them out and put the other guy in, then they probably knew that was a problem going into the game. They probably should have gone in that way, is the way I look at it. Right. But you know, one of the complaints people always say, it's it's like the coach needs to hold them accountable. They didn't hold these guys accountable. Well, do what I mean, Benjam? Yeah, because that's what they do.

I mean, there's no detention in the NFL. I mean, what do you what do you do to these guys? I mean, they're not running laps. Maybe they do, but I'm just saying maybe they should, Maybe maybe they should. I'm just saying, how do you hold a guy accountable? Well, you, Benjam in front of everybody, and that's that's kind of what they've done. They're not afraid to do that. Yeah. I will make this point real quick before we move

on to the next topic. Nick, you mentioned the number of points that they're scoring should have them in the winner's column a lot more than they are. Think about this. I'm going to read for you the teams that are in the top ten right now and scoring in the NFL,

and see if you see a pattern here. The Green Bay Packers, number one, Seattle Seahawks, number two, Dallas is number three, Cleveland Brown's number four, Buffalo Bills, number five, New Orleans Sayings, number six, Baltimore Ravens, number seven, number eight is Tampa Bay Buccaneers, number nine Kansas City Chiefs, and number ten Las Vegas Raiders. The interesting part about that at the top ten, I think that's probably most

of the best teams in the league. Those are the teams I would guess right now the Super Bowl winner is going to come out of that group. It's amazing that the Cowboys, I guess. The point is, it is amazing the Cowboys are scoring with those teams, yet their results are so much different. That tells you just how bad they're struggling on the defensive side of the ball right now. I think, all right, let's mother is the

next topic. He was asked to Mike Nolan and speaking of that defense, and his quote was, and we're talking about Mike McCarthy's quote yesterday was yas very high confidence in Mike Nolan. We're going to stay the course. My question for you guys is do you agree that you need to stay the course here or should they be looking at other options? Are there other options that they could consider at this point? Let's start first with you, Dave H. I mean, you know, fans are gonna say

stuff like that after a game like that. I it, No, I don't. I don't feel like they need to make a move like that right now. The season hasn't gotten away from him. And again, this is a new coaching staff, a brand new slate coming in. You know, the Texans

fired Bill O'Brien yesterday. That's first of all their winless I know one in three and O and four is not a huge difference, but also Bill O'Brien has a laundry list of things that he's done wrong that led to that decision for seven years, whereas well, yeah, absolutely, so this is this is a clean slate now. I

don't think that's out of the realm of possibility. If things really go south and it looks like this team really won't be able to contend for a playoff spot, I think I don't remember who made the point, but George Edwards, a former longtime defensive coordinators already on this staff.

So I don't want to say that it's impossible, especially if it really, like I said, if it really gets out of hand, but the division sucks, you're still in the mix, and this is a brand new staff, Like I never really thought that was a realistic thing to do after four games. Amber by saying to stay the course, that's strictly talking about coaching specifically. Yeah, he was saying it. He said it in regards to the question about Mike Nolan. So my assumption is he's talking about we're gonna stay

the course with Mike Nolan, right specifically. Okay, Yeah, I didn't know if that was if that man like, we're just gonna stay with why we kind of have right now, including players. But okay, when you talk about coaching specifically, I think, yes, it's a little unfair to kind of rush that quickly after four game when it's a new coaching staff and you guy, guys just kind of trying to connect everything together and build off something new basically, but at the same time, there has to be some

kind of shake up. So I don't know what that would mean behind doors. I don't know what you tell or how they they communicate certain things, but I would be saying someone explicit words in those meetings and being like, okay, you you you need to kind of step it up because even though we're new at this here in Dallas. We're not gonna wait until the end of the season. Like I think that there's a certain point where I don't know. Honestly, here's what I'm struggling with. I'm just

tired of waiting year after year after year. So my patience right now is very low. So I just I'm at a point where, yes, I have to consider he's new here in Dallas, but at the same time, just in Dallas overall period, I'm just tired of excuses and waiting. So I don't know what to tell you. She just

sums right now. Nick, I just I mean, I just it's frustrating because I'm sitting over here with with you, and like this is our twenty second year of doing this and I think I don't know, and five or six maybe six years She's s's yeah, and it's like we should get I don't know how you guys have this. We're so long honestly, two thousand and one, oh yeah, two thousand But anyways, um, I think she's right on

that you better do something. I mean, stayed the course might have been the answer to the personnel move, and I I agree with that because you know this, this has been a different year. I think. I think, um, for everybody, they should have a little bit more patience with all coaches, all sports, all jobs. Really, I mean this is just different. You don't judge what you just see right here. Now, you gotta get this thing fixed quickly. So um, they talked about multiple schemes they could play.

That's what we love about this thing. We can do different things. Well, maybe you shouldn't. Maybe you should you stick to one or two things that you really do well. Yeah, this whole you know, wide open stuff. Nobody's you know, figuring it out. Maybe they're not a three fourth team you know at all. Maybe they're four three maybe whatever. Do whatever they need to do, just you know, hone in on a couple of things that they do well.

And if that means simplifying it, oh, oh well, because it's it's pretty you know there where they averaging points against them thirty eight. I don't even know. It's it's it's ridiculous. It's a lot, it's a lot. All right, we're gonna take our first break when we come back. There's this word that kept coming up yesterday that I want to talk about. And this word is effort. And I want to see what you guys think about this word effort and how it relates to this team. We'll

do that when we come right back. This is Dallas Cowboys dot com Radio. We're back in a tasty treat that's sweeping airwaves and taste buds. It's new Doctor Pepper and Cream Soda. Let's take a listen, Babang Cream sodas he a Newcombonut's music to my ears? Okay, Doctor Bad Times Music's my ears and mouth New Doctor Pepper and Cream Soda Delasis du bay. Want to use what the pros use? How about the official men's skincare brand of

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Our at and T Stadium, the home of the Dallas Cowboys, run on the field, see the locker rooms and so much more at AT and T Stadium Tours, presented by seat Geek. They're available daily. Visit at and T Stadium dot com for details. Well, you could tell you could tell what happens on Sunday Boo the way our show goes. On Tuesday, Browns had a tour, ran all over the place. Geez, they just said run on the field. Well, it's gonna

call Nick the impler. But then he just came out and gave the joke away, right, He was not implying there. It was very It was I gotta work to the point I work with Bucky Moore, you know what I mean, Like like I try to joke with Bucky and it just doesn't He doesn't. He doesn't get it all the time. I don't want to do comes on. I want to tell him. I'm like, Bucky, can we get a bigger microphone for you? Have you seen that microphone? Got a microphone? Yeah?

I was like, but whatever, Well, here's what we're doing. We're going through some of the comments that the coaches made yesterday they had their their time with media, and that was a comment and actually I'm going to get into two different things. There was first to comment from coach McCarthy that I want to talk about now, and then we'll get into a comment to coach Nolan made after that. But the basically when he was talking, he

was asked about the effort of the team. Coach McCarthy was and he said that he doesn't really see effort as a problem and he would cause you others to be careful when questioning the effort of professional athletes from the outside. So my question for you guys is, and I assume most of you, you know, obviously we all watched the game live. I assume most of us have gone back and rewatched it. What is your thought with regards to the effort, particularly of the defense in that game.

Do you think it's an issue of effort or do you do you think it's an issue of skill. Let's start first with you amber certain positions. Yeah, with certain players there there's a lack of skill and just being at that level that you would want them to be,

and a lack of experience as well. But when you talk about the word effort, which has been going around all over the place on social media and many media outlets out there, I always tend to be really careful as well, because you don't know, you never know exactly what the person is physically dealing with to where maybe that is their maximum effort and it's just not being to the level that you personally want them to be at.

But when you look at the defense overall and just watch the game, there's just there's just fire missing just overall. It's just unusual. Even when they miss a tackle, when they get up, it's like the whole like shoulders going like this, like I miss that. There's not like I'm lacking that that passion, that anger that like man, I'm pissed off right now, I'm gonna get back up. I'm gonna go back and do this better. It's just so.

I guess you could call that tighten with effort, but rather than effort, I would use a lack of a fire, lack of just that competitiveness that you usually see within football players. All Right, Dave, I'll very candidly, yeah, I've I've learned that lesson. The hard way of doing this job is it's easy to forget that the worst player in the NFL works really, really hard twelve months out of the year to be able to do this job.

And on top of that, they're all playing with some sort of pain bothering them, and they all are playing with the knowledge that the next rep could end their career and significantly change their life, So I always try to be very careful not to say that that somebody's not trying, And for the most part, I think that's fair.

Looking back at that tape, what it brings me back around to is Mike McCarthy and Jerry Jones have both said in the last twenty four hours that players have to trust the scheme and not revert back to the old way of doing things when things go wrong. And the reason I bring that up is in the sense that, like, there were eleven guys on the field running hard for most of that game. Sure, but it was completely uncoordinated and not working together the way that a successful defense does.

So it's cool that you sprinted, but if you're not hitting your assignment and doing what you're supposed to do, it looks terrible. So individual effort is great, but it's got there's gotta be more of a concerted effort to work together, or we're going to see more of that as the season goes along. If I had to guess, Nick, yeah, and I think you know where I'm going with this. We talked about this a lot. You know I've made

this point. I mean, effort is you can go to any YMCA at ten o'clock in the morning and watch a pickup game of old basketball men playing basketball and see that they get into it. They care, they want to you know that there's pride on the line there. So effort is always there on the field. I think I really believe effort is there ninety nine percent of

the time. But his effort there. On Wednesday night, when you're going home and you have your iPad and you could watch the Browns a couple more plays of them, you could figure things out. You could see the tackle that you're facing in the tendencies and all that kind of stuff, you know, like I think Sean Lee does that. I think he's probably the best that's ever done. It

is the effort there to prepare, like Dave's talking about. That, is that effort there, because, yeah, Jalen Smith is gonna be running all the way down the field to try to tackle Odell Beckham. He can't get him, but he's gonna try his best. He's gonna They're all gonna do the effort. But are they really putting in the effort to prepare like you're supposed to, especially in this weird year of pandemic where you didn't have the same installation

issues or installation time and OTAs and all that. You gotta be extra prepared. That's effort. And I don't know if I don't know if a lot of players in the league, not just boys. I'm just saying that's where I think teams can lose sometimes when they say we give up, they quit. They didn't quit when it comes to playing when the lights came on, they quit when the preparation time was Yeah, you know, I'll actually throw out a different word that I think applies here, and

I think it's unsure. I think what you've seen people like Troy Aikman and our own Bucky Brooks, Emanuelato, they all have put out different statements saying, hey, effort is a problem with this team. These guys are not going all in. What I think I'm saying it is not necessarily them not going all in. I think what I'm seeing is that they're unsure. I don't think, and it

goes back to scheme. It goes back to everybody understanding their role, everybody understanding their job, and everybody being willing to do their job. I think that's probably more what you're seeing. Because I agree with you, Nick I don't think professional athletes loaf. That's a way to get hurt in the NFL. But I do think that when you're unsure,

you're probably a little more pensive. You're probably a little more like, I don't I don't know if I should go here, let me let me oh, maybe I should do so in a little different And that put you a step behind, and that makes you slow to react, and it makes you slow to get to the point, and so it looks like you're kind of just playing slow. But you're not playing slow because of lack of effort. You're playing slow because you're unsure. In my opinion, I

think that's what's happening a lot with this defense. Ourselves had a sign in the locker room that said, exactly what you just said. Knowledge is confidence, and confidence lets you play fast, and that's probably what you're saying. They don't have that knowledge. It's not giving them confidence and therefore their unsure and what they're doing. Yep. And again, I think that's probably a bigger issue for this defense right now than just saying they don't have the effort

that they need. But let's go on with that same topic. Mike Nolan, he was go ahead, Amber, I was just gonna ask, Okay, So let's say we assume that's the case. Then do you put them more on the players themselves just not taking the extra time going home and studying and doing what they need to do, or does that fall more onto again, the coaching staff and then maybe not necessarily teaching the things that they need to be teaching them. I think, if I had to guess, I

would say it's probably a little bit of both. I think in one instance, as Nick said earlier, you got a very very unique set of circumstances this year. I think it's probably unrealistic for a coaching staff to come in and say, hey, guys, we're about to do all this new exotic stuff, but we're not going to have as much practice time. I think that maybe they need to step back a little bit. And by the way, we always talk about it like football's rocket science, it's

really not like it's not really rocket science. But if you've got let's say, for example, in one instance, you've got one read and you react to that one read and do something, as opposed to another situation where maybe you've got three different things you need to key on and that's when you can make your move. It's gonna take you longer to process, and it's gonna take you time of doing that repeatedly to get the muscle memory

to know bam, bam, bam. These three things happen. So I'm doing this right, And so I think that when you're when you're talking about them adjusting to this new scheme and the complexity of it. I don't know again what all those keys are that they're giving these guys. It does appear to me that they have a lot more to think about because I do think they're playing slow, and so I think that's partially on the coaches. They may need to simplify this thing a little bit, and

I do think it's partially on the players. They're gonna have to pick it up a little faster. This is these are unique times, so it requires them to be better than they would have been otherwise. So they got to step up. They got to be even more intent on studying even harder and really being able to focus in because the muscle memory just doesn't there yet. They have not had enough reps for the muscle memory to be there yet. What do you guys think? I guess

you all agree. I think it just left me wondering it just I was thinking of what other teams around the NFL are going through a similar situation where specifically is talking about the defense. Do they have a defensive court, a new defensive coordinator, and how are their defense as a performing given the circumstances that we've all had to live this year with no preseason games, you know, a

shorter offseason, practices and things like that. So I don't I mean, you guys would know a lot better than me as far as two opposing teams and if they're facing similar struggles as the Cowboys are right now. I understand all of that. No, no, go ahead, Dave, But I just add, you know to I'm gonna steal Amber's line, like I'm tired of hearing about how they didn't have a preseason or any of that stuff, because nobody else did either. I think the Patriots had half of their

defense opt out, and this isn't happening to them. So I get it. It's tough and it's adverse circumstances. I do agree. I just the reason I sort of blanked back there is because it's such a chicken or the

egg I mean, it's it's hard to know that. But again, if members of the front office are saying they need the players to trust the scheme, then I assume that means the players aren't buying into what the coaches are selling, So the players either need to pick that up, or if this keeps up, the coaches need to be willing to say, all right, we're gonna pare this down because what we want y'all to do just isn't working and

we need to adapt on the fly. It's got to be one of those two, like a better buy in by the players or the coaches being willing to say, let's put this on the shelf until we can actually have an offseason in a training camp. Yep, yep. And I agree with you, Dave, I don't. I don't think. And all that said was not for the purposes of giving excuses as much as it was to say, sometimes the coaches have to know my players are trying as hard as they can and for whatever reason, it's not working.

So maybe I need to change my strategy, which means I may need to scale things back in order to give them the best opportunity to succeed. Right, all right, let's go on to the next topic, Mike Nolan. Actually, let's take our final break. When we come back, I do want to talk about Mike Nolan. He has some interesting things to say about Jalen Smith, and we talked

about him yesterday on the show. I want to hear what coach Nolan had to say, and then we're gonna a little bit about that will when we come right back. This is Dallas Cowboys dot Com Radio since eighteen sixty five. Stetson Hats are American maid with pride right here in Texas, and Stetson is proud to be on the field with America's team. Want to show your Texas and Team pride two you can by purchasing your own stetson. You can look just like how the flag guys do on field

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the s WBC Mortgage studios at the Star. We're talking about a lot of things that the coaches had to say yesterday. We've been talking about this word effort, and Coach Nolan was speaking about Jalen Smith yesterday and his quote was, I think he's doing all things were asking of him, or at least trying to do them, and said they and went on to say that he doesn't understand all of the criticism that Jalen seems to get. My personal opinion is part of this because a lot

of that criticism comes from the contract as well. There are heightened expectations with that amount of money. But that all being said, He also went on to talk about how they great defenders, particularly in three categories. It's either a winning effort, a losing effort, or you just did your job. And he said that he doesn't think Jalen has had a losing effort in either of the four games he's he said, he's he's did his job or

a little bit better every week. So understanding, and I understand the coaches will always or most often will defend their players publicly. But do you think that the quote that he said he's doing all the things we're asking him to do and here's the important part, or at least trying to do them, signals that he's happy with his effort and not necessarily the results. Nicholas Starr with you, Uh, yeah,

there's a lot to digest there. I mean, I still keep going back to the I don't like the grading system. That's just it just three grades. I mean, this is this isn't it's not. Football is a little bit more complex than that. I think that like you did your job or what is it winning effort, winning effort, losing

effort or did your job? So basically, well, the way I look at that is, if you want to make it simple, it is you were really good, you just passed, or you were bad, Like those are the three options and basically he just passed or maybe a little bit better. Yeah, right. Week is the way I tell you, I'm not with you guys as much on the Jalen Smith like just

saying he's awful, he's terrible, Like I don't. I mean, I'm not saying you guys are saying that if you can say it, if you want to, But I just I'm not as on that train as much as everyone else, mainly because I look behind him and I'm like, I don't see anybody better than that. But I don't think anybody on the defense has played well. And it starts in the middle. That's usually where you know, this whole

thing starts. And he hasn't played great, and he hasn't been that dynamic player that we wanted him to be. We thought he was gonna be a couple of years ago and so, and he makes a lot of money and so therefore he's going to get the target just like the other guy that makes a lot of money that hasn't done anything. Amber. I get why Mike Nolan

has to speak that way. I get it, but at the same time, I just it makes me wonder, like do they give these grades based on like comparison to everyone else on defense, or strictly and specifically to the player without trying to evaluate everyone else on defense. Because to me, yes, Jalen might be doing the better job as opposed to everyone else on defense, but the bar is just set so low right now, like he's not.

To me, he has had better seasons, better years where he's played better, and maybe because I've seen certain games the level that he can play at. When I compare that to where he's at right now, it's just very different. So I just see it as like I don't like

the grading system. I just think the expectation, the evaluation right now is just very low because of the way that the defense it's performing overall, Dave, I gained a lot of respect for Mike Nolan yesterday, if you want me to be honest with you, because I thought he showed that he's willing to jump on a grenade. Is basically what he did in my opinion, um, because I can't I can't bring myself to believe that he actually

means most of that. Um And and it's it's not to dog on Jalen unnecessarily, but he's He's getting it from every angle he like, the media is on him, the fans are on him so bad, like don't search Jalen's name on Twitter, it's bad um and and so like the coach. The coach can't do that, Like, you know, he's he's a talented player. If the defense is going to be better, he's gonna need to be part of it. So if Mike Nolan comes out and jumps on top of him too, you run the risk of him checking

out or him getting pissed off. So I admire that Mike Nolan was willing to do it, but some of the stuff that he said at face value, Again, I get why he said it, but I mean, come on, I mean, twelve million dollars a year, we give him a did his job or slightly better grade all four weeks and that's good enough. It's not. There's no way, And salary is a big part of it. Nobody's mad at Joe Thomas because Joe Thomas signed a one year, one million dollar deal to come in and be the

fourth guy. He is playing up to the standard that you expected of him. Jaalen Smith is on a sixty eight million dollar extension and is not playing like it. If you are making that much money, you should be able to lift the lesser components of this defense, or at least in theory. So to say that did your job is good enough or well, he's not making the plays, but he's trying on all of them also not good enough. It's just not And like again, I don't say that

to be a jerk to Jalen Smith. He's always been a very nice guy and he's got a great story, like everybody wants him to succeed. But you gotta call it what it is. A guy making that much money trying or doing his job like that's not good enough for the money that's involved. It just is what it is. Yeah, when you look at it, I think the thing is on both the offensive and defensive side of the ball, you need it. You got to have a lot of

players that do their job right. But in order to be successful, you're gonna have to have a few guys on both sides of the ball that can play above that right. And if you don't have, like if Dak doesn't play above that, this team has no shot. If Zeke or Maury don't play above that, this team has no shot. You can't just everybody can't just do their job, because in this NFL, playmakers are how you actually win games.

You meet those guys that are extraordinary. You've never seen a team with no extraordinary players win anything, right, So you gotta have some guys that do it. And so when you pay him at twelve million dollars a year contract, the expectations you're paying that because you expect him to be one of those players. So this does not in any way mean that Jalen Smith is not doing his job. The question is is Jalen Smith doing the job he's being paid for, not the job that you're just saying, Well,

this is this assignment. He's being paid to be one of those extraordinary guys, and right now he's just not giving that to this team. Yeah, I mean, because you're right, I guess. But Dave, sorry, so I didn't even listen to what y'all told him to do. I'm sorry. I was just going to make the point that if all Dak Prescott was doing through one month of the season was doing his job, it would be the only thing that all of the talking head shows would be talking

about about whether or not he's trash. What the Cowboys are gonna do next? Is he worth that kind of money? But he's not. He's playing like a badass because that is what the franchise tag requires of him. And the same goes for a lot of the other guys that are on big contracts. Not all of them, but a

lot of them. I mean, it is what it is like that goes with the territory of having a paycheck for eight hundred thousand dollars hit your bank account every Tuesday, is that you are held to a very high standard and the season's probably not going to be very fun

for you if you don't live up to it. Yeah, because I think that that Derek, you guys are both making the same point about you might be doing your job, but but you know what's what's asked of you, Like are you really are you really doing worth the contract? Is your contract? Should should you be having a different job? Think about Zach Martin. Is Zach Martin doing his job? Yeah? Is Is he he's meeting expectations? Is he above expectations? Not really, because our expectations of him or is to

be an all pro? So I don't think his agent's gonna be calling the Cowboys saying I need to get a raise because he's you know, he's meeting his expectations. So I don't know. I don't know if that's necessarily a bad thing to say he's doing his job because his job is to be the best guard in football and he's doing it. But what's Jalen Smith's job is it? Is it to be the captain, the leader of this defense. I think that's his job and he's not doing that,

So I don't I don't think he really is. I don't think that it's fair for them to say he's doing his job and really well. And I'll ask I'll ask David Amber this too, because they know the media people and are in Dallas and even national media. If Mike Nolan said, you know, Jaylen Smith is is like like anybody on this defense. He could play better. He knows it. We've talked about it. He knows he could

play better. He told me he could play better. So we know that we got to get him in a situation where he can do better and do and you can say it that way, and therefore then no one's saying, well, man, he's really throwing him under the bus. He's if Jalen knows he can play better, and everyone knows that, then let's it's our job to get him to play better. So then the question becomes, can he really play better?

Because one thing I heard from and Jerry was talking on the fan this morning talking about Jalen and the word that he used, I want to say it was heroic or it was more around the idea courageous. That's what it was. Courageous. That's how he defined his play. And again, all these words are painting the picture in

my mind, effort, courageous. What they're saying to me as just a personal person that's just listening to this is Jalen is doing the very best he can with what's been presented to him and the condition that he's in. He's doing the very best. He's giving us everything he possibly As he leaves every game with nothing left to give, then the question becomes is that good enough enough? See? I don't think I don't think they believe that he's dogging it. I don't think they believe he's not playing

up to his potential. I think they believe he's giving them everything he's got. And that's when I start to question, Okay, well, if that's everything he's got, is that good enough? Because right now I can't see an appreciable difference between him at twelve million and Joe Thomas at one million. So it you know, how do you how do you rectify that according to your salary cap at the end of the day. Yeah, I mean, I don't know who sings it old eighty song James Ingram, Maybe he's like, I

did my best, but I guess my best. Yeah, I don't know who things it might be Jane Okay, I'm sorry,

good Dave. I mean I've said it all offseason, Like I think Jalen Smith, like he needs to be blitzing more if you can try to use him as a rusher, like I think there is a role there he needs to be moving toward the quarterback or and again, this is not really something that you can fix right now, at least I don't think so is Like you need bigger, better defensive tackles that can keep blockers off of him, because shedding blocks, in my opinion, is his biggest problem.

Like he cannot get a blocker off of him, and you wind up seeing him lunging at guys while a guard pushes him out of the way. If you can free him up to where all he's got to worry about is hitting the guy, I think he'd probably would be pretty good, but we just haven't seen that in a couple of years. And I think some of that is the play of the guys in front of him. But so, yeah, he's either got to get better at shedding blocks or they've got to get linemen who can

keep those blockers from getting to him one or the other. Yeah, that's a great point, because I do also think that maybe some of that is about the fact that they expected Layton Vander should be playing the role of the middle linebacker and him to be playing week side linebacker, which may afread him up to do a little bit

more of those things. And right now, again going back to that, you know, he's giving the best effort he possibly can and him saying he's playing courageously, maybe that's about the fact that he's making the best of what he wasn't really supposed to be doing, right, and they're giving him a little bit of difference knowing that that wasn't what his role was supposed to be in this defense. But he's doing the very best he can do. Under those circumstances, and I can get with that. I understand

that there you get things thrown at you. You gotta adjust, you gotta do your best. That's not the best fit for him, but that's what he has to do right now. So I can kind of understand that. Did you have something you're gonna say? Amber? You know, I just see it as like the Cowboys are in this position. They knew this could happen. That's how I see it. You knew this could happen. You knew Sean Lee what he

struggles with every year. You knew the possibility of him not being able to participate in one way or another this season. Then you get Shan the out. Okay, that happened. You knew Layton Vanderesh was dealing with the whole neck issue. That's always a possibility as well. Obviously it happened again his out. You knew Jayleen Smith. He I mean, last year he had great moments, but at the same time, to me, based on what I can remember right now, he wasn't necessarily being the best that I think he

could be. There were things that he was still lacking in as far as his game and his ability on the field, and yet you decide to go ahead and extend his contract. So when you look at the group of linebackers, you you come down hoping that you can really rely everything on Jayalen Smith given the fact of all the other guys and their injuries and things like that. So you're in this situation and if that's the best that he can do, then you should have known that, Like,

this should not be a surprise. You should have known better, and you should not have been in this situation to begin with because you had time to kind of prepare and be aware of certain things. Yeah, you brought in a few linebackers and it hasn't necessarily worked out the way. You can't expect every single position to have a great depth and talent. But at the same time, it's just like this should not be a full surprise to anyone. You know, they should have prepared better and know that

this could have been a possibility of happening. Yeah, I will say this, like, going into the season, I thought this was going to be a position of strength for them, because if you got Joe Thomas as your fourth best linebacker,

you feel really good about that. But you make some great points there, Amber because all those top three guys had question marks coming in, and although I think they all can be at their very best, really really good linebackers, I don't know that you could necessarily rely on either of the three of them. And we've seen that kind of play out here. It's very and I know, I know we gotta go, but you can take it back

to the draft. It's it's funny because you know, they talk to Kenneth Murray from Oklahoma, they talk to Patrick Queen from LSU, who's leading the league in tackles among rookies right now, by the way, and the thought process, and I'll like, I'll own it, and I still feel fine about it. I said, I I understand that that

is something you need to look at. But between the four that you have, you gotta hope that they can give you enough, or that the coaches can help them give you enough, because this team has too many other needs to be drafting a linebacker and lo and behold, it's basically a worst case scenario between not getting what you need from Jalen and not having Leyton or Seawan.

And it makes you wonder what the future of that position looks like because I don't I don't think you can afford to ignore it in twenty twenty one, that's for sure. Yeah, and it's interesting, Dave. I'll give you guys one more gut punch here before we end the show.

You mentioned those young linebackers that they talked to right now, According to Pro Football Focus, which again we always put in context, but they are grading everybody on the same curve right now, Jalen is ranked somewhere in the fifties as far as linebackers in the NFL. Number one Miles Jack the guy that the Cowboys opted to go with Jalen Smith over Miles Jack. So take that for whatever you do, take that for whatever you want it to be. But but that's that's the other gut punch right now.

I think for a lot of Cowboys fans is they're looking at that kind of stuff, and they're looking at really what they thought Jalen could become and really what he was in twenty eighteen, and I think people are just feeling like there's there's there's a lot missing from where they thought he was going after that twenty eighteen season. All Right, we appreciate you guys joining us. We were back tomorrow. We're gonna have Bucky Brooks join us. We're

gonna start looking forward to the New York Giant. That should be an interesting week. Cowboys will take on the Giants this Sunday. Bucky will tell us about the Giants offense versus the Dallas defense. Till then for Nick even Dave Helmet, amber Garcia. I am Derek and 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.