Hangin' with the Boys: Long Hall

because Nate host it. Nah, I can't host it. But we were trying to start the show so I can ride you dog and Kurt, Kurt and cow would not go behind your back? How would you got tool this man of favor because he threw a fit because he didn't have any water before the show starts. So I went to go get drinks and I come back in the hall and out he him go, let's start the show, start the show, trying my best to stab him in his back. Not going along with it? Man, how you

fellas doing good? Good? You're good? You know what? What what you got on them two guys? Man? What you got on Kurt? Because Jesuit rolling with his boy. No, don't do that. You bought running this boat by yourself. They wouldn't want to complain about the water not being here. He's the one person who never drinks his water, right because I like taking home and say, man, Shannon got this fun. It's okay, we're good. We're here, but we're here, and we are also here with long time special guests.

First time this season, first time this season. Yes, Chris, Welcome to the show, Chris. And that was in the summertime. Okay, cool, cool football seating the start. Hey, Kyle, we need some applause for Chris. Welcome to the show, Chris. Okay, you know who running the show though. Okay, what's up man? How you been man? Just grinding away trying to find football players for next year's draft? So tell us what

you were working on right at this moment. Right at this moment, we just had a kind of a midseason check up report with all of our scouting staff, our

college guys. We brought everybody in town for three or four days and kind of went over with each individual guy in their area, just kind of went through their areas and did a little midseason check up to see where the players are, where they think they're going to be, making sure that we're not having just a guy out there that only one person is seen, so we kind of get a little check up there to see if we need to readjust some schedules and get in and

see a guy practice here. End of October beginning November before some of these smaller schools closed the closed their shop down. So try and get at least two, if not three sets eyes on everybody that we think will make the draft board during the fall, and then we let the process roll out in the spring from the

All Star Games and the Combine and the protests. All right, can you break it down for the fans, because when you talk about scouting, there is there's two sets of scoutings, right, you have your college scouts and then you have your pro scouts exactly, So break it down to the fans. On one, you know what areas of regions are guys going out for the college scouts? And then how was it broken down for those pro scouts yep, and evaluating talent and trying to bring talent in during the season

exactly a week away. So our college group we have there's uh, there's basically eleven or twelve of us that are out on the road all during the fall. Once once we get out of training camp we're we're out hunting guys until November on the road visiting college campuses. We break the country up into six areas, and each guy we call them the general manager of their area, and it's up to them to handle that area and

know what's there and know where the players are. And then there's three or four of us that will I cover all of Texas, and then there's three other guys that will cover the whole country and just try and get second and third looks at the top players. So we like to get as many eyes and talk to

as many people on campuses as we can look. Anybody can put the tape on and give you an opinion about a player, but the real scouting and the information is when you're on campus talking to the different people that you're allowed to visit with to find out about the person. We can look at the tape and tell you what kind of player we think he is, but the other part of the equation is figuring out who the guy is and is he the kind of guy that we want to bring onto the Cowboys roster and

let him compete for a spot here. So that's the college end of it and the pro end of it. We've got four guys and a couple other helpers in the office that work the pro rosters every day every week during the season. A couple of the guys work on advanced scouting for the opponents that we're going to play in future weeks, and then we're always looking at the guys that are on practice squads, going back to

the preseason tape, looking at them. We've got a lot of reports on those guys already, but the ones we don't, we go back and look at that trying to cover every aspect of you have an injury. That's the first guys you tend to look at as the guys that are on somebody else's practice squad. And then there's the

guys that are out on the street. So the pro scouts are looking at practice squads, they're keeping up on who's on the street, whose names show up on the waiver wire, who's getting workouts at other places, and a lot of it's just based on positions of need too and where where you're trying to improve your depth, or you run into an injury and all of a sudden, Ty Crawford goes out for the year, and you got to find a body to replace him, and it might come from a practice squad, it might come from a

guy on the street, could come from a trade. You know, you have to be prepared for all those different scenarios. Now we have Chris Hall Hill, and I'll tell us your position again, Coach. I'm the college scouting coordinator for the Dallas Cowboys and this is open week. So we thought, Shannon thought it would be a great idea to brain coaching and see where we add in the different things. And just this is Chris all great man. You're having

to questions for him? Sure, a bunch of questions. All right, Wait, I gotta I gotta one important one. Sure, had you ever heard before he made the team? Had you ever heard the name Jesse Holly? Sure? From the from the show. Obviously we knew who he was from all that, all right, but then yeah, North Carolina, we knew who just okay, okay, we knew where I was listening. I was okay, I wasn't you know, I had some acc honors. I was all right, Okay. I I wasn't a complete because our

fans think you you just describe. No, I wasn't a complete scrub. Had a college Yeah, I got it Hill. This was okay, it's water than most. You're not on Twitter a lot. You don't see the fire that the fans of this show. Oh I'm a total scrub. I'm like, I didn't know that. So I just wanted to listeners to know Jesse had Jesse had some football cred coming out of college. Yeah. So yeah, just always behind Calvin Johnson.

That's the hard far was. It was like Calvin Johnson then everybody else, Calvin Johnson, Chauncey Stucky, uh who was at that time? I was at that mix. But I would like I used to go back and watch film, like, all right, how can I get these Calvin Johnson numbers. I literally sat down one week and I watched a

bunch of Calvin. I'm trying to figure out, how is this guy doing it every week while you were in college and he was in Yeah, because I'm like, well, if I'm if I'm the one here and he's the one there, I want numbers comparable to what the one over there is doing. And I'm like, all right, he

was averaging at the time like eighty five yards. Again, now think about this, this is this is this is joy the tech, this is ten years ago, twelve years ago, right, This is this is before the whole past happy league things. Everybody's in shotgun stuff. This was you know, tight ends and fullbacks and all that kind of I'm like, this dude is averaging like eighty five yards a game. Yeah. And the thing with Calvin was and coming out of

that offense that they were running there. He didn't get that many balls play, but when he did, he was making huge plays. And the routes you get to run in that offense as are Shaver, usually vertical and asking for big yes to have and that's and that's how he got. Like they would throw maybe three or four just fifty fifty balls, and you think about it. All you gotta do is catch one that's fifty right, right right, and everybody else he'll catch two or three. I'm just

buy average. If he catches one that's fifty and then little little you know, ten yards here to five yards there at end of the game, oh, one hundred twenty five yards eighty nine yards one, and Jesse's going back going, hey, just throw it up three times. I'll get listening. I'm like, hey, listen, I'm sixty three, I'm not six five. But let's just take me a couple of shots down here. I'm like, I'm like, give me a chance. And no, no, no, not Kurt. I hate that man I cut him off. Yeah,

I'm sorry. He tried to get involved. We shut him down. So so man, I asked you to ask a question there of course, Chris Hall. So obviously you guys have worked with Jason Garrett and his staff over the year. That's a camp. You gotta get him the day because he trying to come back to the day. Yeah, is there a mute button? Yeah, exactly. Um, he's obviously he doesn't obviously doesn't have a contract. So does that make

anything change for you? Is a tougher because you don't know what You maybe have a new staff next year, there an entirely different new players or something like that. Does that change anything which you or affect you guys at all? Not really. I mean we kind of have some philosophies in place here, and yeah, it certainly can change when you get not just a new head coach,

but new position coaches as well. Um, so you always try and go scout good football players and then if something were to happen down the road, obviously we would adjust to whatever style we change too, but we're still going to scout the guys the same during the fall and you put a grade on them and then do they fit what we're doing at the time, and we adjust as we go forward getting closer to the draft, But it really doesn't change our approach and how we

look at guys. We know what we play right now, and we know what type of guys fit what we're doing right now. But if all of a sudden we changed to a three four scheme, it's going to open up the door for a whole lot of players that don't fit what we do right now. You know, if all of a sudden we changed to a gap scheme running team, you know, it's going to adjust and change

what we're looking for as an offensive lineman. Somewhat. You were here when Parcels came in, so that you kind of experienced that then, didn't he changed the Yeah, the scheming, Yeah, they'll changed a lot of things, you know, as how things were done on the field off the field, but it was yeah, you do you change it. You know, we had coach Zimmer here at the time and we were we were you know, we really made a big adjustment there, not the first year, but we kind of

transitioned into it in the second year. And as as as the style that we were going to play on the field evolved, so did us as scouts. We had to evolved to what we were looking to fit into each particular piece. Nice, it's good. How much does you know when you hear so much talk these days about analytics and new stats that again, does that affect what you guys? Is that changed how you scout it all?

I don't think it's changed how we've scouted, but it's become a bigger part of the puzzle that we put together each spring. You know, we've got a full analytics staff now that's grown over the last few years. They interpret a whole bunch of different things that they bring to the table, whether it's stats, tendencies, the type of

player that fits in different things. There's a lot. There's so many different things to evaluate now and Tom Robinson and his staff do a great job of bringing another aspect to throw into the puzzle for us to figure out. You know, we don't just go with what analytics say. We don't just go with what scouts say. We don't just go with what coaches say. You know, Will McClay does a phenomenal job of putting that all together and passing on the information to management and we make a

good group decision on what's best for the team. That's a perfect segue to my next question. You brought his name up, Will McClay, and he is someone who I would say that in the last couple of years, you've seen his name become more of a household name, and a lot of times you don't hear that about the head of scout, you know, the head of scout department. A lot of those names kind of stayed under the radar.

But this is a guy who's been talked about, you know, being a GM and what he's meant to this team and how he's built this team through the draft and free agency. What is it like working for Will McClay, Working under Will McClay, Yeah, it's I've known well for a long long time, back to when he was the coach of the Desperadoes and even money was coaching in the XFL, putting helping Galen Hall put together the Orlando

Rage back in the day. And Will Will's a grinder, he's a workhorse's he's the most demanding, but it's hard to put it the right way. I've never worked with the guy that works as hard as well does so is work as you can you see, because when your boss sets the bar up here, you've got to answer that every day. You've got to come to work and you've got to work like he does. Your whole staff does. And he's done nothing but make our entire group better.

He watches more tape than any human alive, I promise you that, and he studies it and he knows it and he loves it. I mean it's in his DNA. He loves the game of football. He's been invaluable to our to our team and helping unify everything that we do between coaching, scouting, and he's he's a great voice to help management understand the whole process that we go through too. He's he's been an irreplaceable piece to what we do in building this team. Philip Bowling on Twitter

wanted to know, how do you get into scouting. There's a lot of different roads. Yeah, there is. There's there's guys like me who never played it down on football in his life that have found their way into it. By Hooker Crook and then you've got ex players that are involved in it. You've got coaches that get involved done it. You got analytics people that find their way into it. There's a lot of different ways. And I've been doing this now for almost thirty years. What was

your road? How did you get I was really fortunate so way back in the day. I went to SMU when we didn't have a football team, when we were on the death penalty. I was in school during that time, and a buddy of mine, Brett Daniels, who was a longtime employee out here. He worked in the PR department for twenty five years and he's gone on to help put Super Bowls together in Atlanta and work at Georgia

Tech as an athletic administrator. But Brett, and now everybody's back in the day, and he had had a job out here a year ahead of me. And I was still looking for a job with my big SMU degree after I graduated that May, and I was making five bucks an hour slopping the mail around in the athletic department. He called me and said, Hey, there's a spot in the scouting department and this guy just quit. You interested, And I'm like, man, I got like five hundred bucks

left in my bank account. I need a real job. So I was fortunate enough to get an interview out here and they next week they asked me to come back and I got the job. And that was September of nineteen ninety. Wow. And no experience at all, huh um. Not directly with with football, no, huh um. So I learned from the literal ground up. I was the intern that that put that into the computer, that bought the

newspapers in the morning, that you know, managed clips. And there was no iPhones then, right, Oh my god, it wasn't we had we had uh you know, we would get uh either beta tapes or still some eight millimeter film at that time, and so that film you would have to send back to school, so you would be borrowing it essentially. And uh, the dub the Dub Center

as it exists today, didn't exist. I mean we're so fortunate now games get played on Saturday and a lot of times we have that tape Monday morning to look at. So it's you know, in the instant world that we live in now with with phones and computers and technology to far cry from you know, having to go track film down just to evaluate players back in the day when I first started. And we have time for another question that we're going to a break soon. Now we're

gonna we're gonna extend it a little bit. He's gonna stay with us about thirty minutes, so we're gonna break late. So alright, alright, so ten minutes when you're talking about the scouting, right, and we won't we won't bring up the negative. We'll just stick on the positive side of things, thank you, right, because this is a positive week. It's a positive week, right, as a scout, you all come back with the player, right, you'll stay This is my guy.

What is a guy that you brought back and stood on the table floor and saying, y'all may not think, but this is a guy and it actually worked out for you. The guy I always used one when I get this question is Patrick Creighton. That's my guy. So I love PC. That's that's a good friend of mine. I love Patrick was a was a was a basically an option quarterback quarterback up at a little school in Oklahoma, and uh it was it like Northwesternwestern day yep, and

he uh he ran for a bajillion yards. He threw the ball pretty good, and he showed up at an All Star game that at the time was actually in Las Vegas. There was a game out there a couple of years. I can't even remember what the name of it was at this point, but I went out there and they'd moved pat to wide receiver and man, he caught everything. I mean, those big hands just snatched it

and he could He ran well enough. He didn't run great, but for a guy that had been working as a quarterback, it was really impressive to see his hands and how he could just go get the football. And we ended up taking him in the seventh round that year, and Parcels was the head coach, and I was still kind of wept behind the ears at that time a little

bit and evaluating and doing things like that. So I would pop up with Crayton's name every now and then when we were going through things, and he got a little juice in the room eventually from some other people too, And when we finally made that decision to use that last pick, I'll never forget Parcels looking back at me. I was kind of in the back doing my thing on the computer, and he goes, well, you're going to get your palm palms screw out, so you know it

worked out pretty good. Yeah, that was a really good, dependable player for a lot of years for us and UH and and had a lot of good things for him over the years. Yet anything, Nate, you're being really quiet. No, No, y'all ask the right questions. Man and coach love to do his thing. So Chris hall Man, head of cottage, director of cottage scouting and personnel. I'm loving it. Man, that's that's a good build me a little bigger than I am there. But thank you. You've been done radio before.

That was a good reason. I was gonna let you read. But I don't really reset. I never it's a great reset. I never resent n that's a great year. What the hell I'm doing? And I don't know why to keep me on the show? I got a couple of questions. One start with us. One, Obviously, we aren't looking for

a quarterback or weren't looking for a quarterback? Were there some guys in that draft, the handful of the top four or five guys that went early this past year, were there's some guys that who was y'all kind of favorite in the room as far as this past year. Yeah, you know, the quarterback thing. When you've got one, you're you know, honestly, you don't hunt quite as hard at that position. You know, over the last couple of years,

we've we've seen some really good guys come in. You know, Daniel Jones was this year, and you know Sam Darnold last year, the two guys in New York, and then of course Mahomes and that whole crew of guys that have come through here. And you know, we have these discussions about quarterbacks when you talk about a first round quarterback, because at the end of the day, if you go look through history, more than half of them flame out and don't become anything that you think they're going to be.

And that's what makes it so difficult. We've been in an amazing position in the last two quarterbacks we've had. One was a rookie free agent from Eastern Illinois and the other was a fourth round pick from Mississippi State who you know, honestly, we tried to get two or three other guys before we even got him. So you know, it's not an exact science. It's not a perfect deal. There's not a yep, this guy's a sure fire, can't

miss guy. Um, there's a couple other guys in the draft this year coming that are going to be in that same boat that you got to decide on if you need a quarterback. And that's why it's so valuable that if you have one, you find a way to keep him and instead of hitting the reset button where you reset and you're fifty fifty regardless of where you're picking them. Yeah, and my other question is you're in the draft room on draft yes, all three days? Yep.

What is what is that like? Or do you have a story that you can share that's funny or tents or however you want to talk about the draft room? Just talk about something about draft day. Yeah, Draft Day is a lot of hurry up and wait quite nicely, you know, especially the way that they've changed it over the years. You know, you have one pick on Thursday night, and if you're fortunate to have a first round pick, which we do again this year. Last year it was

it was ridiculous we didn't have a pick. You know, we Arts had already you know, hit some home runs for us on the field right before we draft. It just eating catfish last right, we're snacking and watching the world go by, so you know, there was no pressure on that. And on the second night we got involved and you know, we made some picks, but even the second day is a little bit slow sometimes too, because

you're only picking twice. Now, we haven't been as active moving around the draft board as we used to be. We make some trades here and there, but I mean, we used to look at trying to do something with dang near every pick, it seemed like sometimes. But we've settled in to follow on our board and taking the best players that are up there, and we've done a pretty darn good job of it the last few years

and building this football team. By the time you get to day three, that day three is really the exciting day because now you're kind of you're digging a little bit deeper into some names that people really might not as be as familiar with, and those are the guys that you've done a lot of scouting work on, your

coaches have gotten involved in that. There's usually a dozen fifteen guys that you got your eye on as you're watching that progress between the you know, the fourth to the seventh round, and you just kind of watch that develop and sometimes guys you like, they start popping off and you're thinking it's getting thin up there, and then there's a few more that hang on there, you know,

like a case with Xavier Woods. We had a pretty good grade on him a few years ago, and you know, we're kind of looking around, going, hey, let's go get this guy. And then we actively got on the phone and and made some calls to different teams until we found a deal that we liked and we picked up a sixth round pick and we added him to the

team and he's starting safety for us right now. So that third day can get really exciting because there's a lot of moving parts with it, not just with the draft, but when the draft's over and rookie free agencies, that's the real fun. That's complete chaos, and you know you're trying to add anywhere from twelve to twenty guys to your roster at that point, and you know every other team's trying to do the same thing as well, so it becomes a it's a little bit of a free

for all. There's there's some money and some guarantees involved in that, and how good do you negotiate or what kind of what kind of relationships you have with agents or agents that have done their homework and know that the players are good fit for you or or he

might be a better fit for another team. And sometimes it doesn't always come down to the signing bonus, but it comes down to a guy who's done his homework and says, yeah, you know what, I think my guy can make your team as the third tight end, so I'm gonna send him there. Or you know what, there's two receiver spots to be had on that team, so I know you drafted a guy, but I'm gonna let my guy come there and compete for one of those

other spots. So the Day three is really the exciting day of the draft, honestly, for the for the scouting guys, Chris, you know you want. It may seem early to the common fan, but you your your work never's done right. It's like there's always worked to be had, and you guys are already looking towards this upcoming twenty twenty draft, definitely, And if you can share this, you can. If you can't, just blink three times, like, um, what do you think

the need is? We're we're standing at today? If the draft was let's say next week. What do you think the need would be for the Cowboys right now? You know, that's that's hard to to really put a finger on right now, quite honestly, because right now it's you know, we've got we've got really good depth on this football team, and we've had some guys step up when other guys

have been hurt. I mean to me, you can always you can always add depth on the offensive line and the defensive line, and sometimes those are not as sexy picks, but they pay off for you down down the run um. You know, having guys that can step in when guys miss a couple of games is really important. Um, we can we've gotten pretty young on this football team. If we're not the youngest team, we're right there, second or

third up, I think. So, you know, it's it's continuing to find good pieces all the way across the board to add to your deal. You know, I don't want to specifically say which position, but you know, like I I feel like we've got good depth across the board, and as long as we can keep adding guys at a high level that can compete and get the best out of the next player. Now, we always have an eye towards free agency too, where we know whose contract is up and where all of a sudden we're going

to be a little short on depth. So maybe those positions turn into your positions of need. When you know that you're gonna lose three defensive linemen or three or four of them are available to leave in free agency if they choose, then maybe you put a little heavier eye on that spot and you really do a little more work there. Or you know, we've got several guys in the secondary that are potential free agents or a year away from being a free agent. It's not necessarily

guys that are leaving right now. It could be a guy whose contract is up next year that we want to get ahead of that, so all of a sudden, it's not a oh crap, man, we got to draft a guy. And then you get in the area of committing the cardinal sin of drafting for need or perceived need, and that's when you can start to make some mistakes where you pass up a better player at another position to fill a perceived hole or perceived need. Chris, Okay,

I've stot quieting that he dudes do it's hard for you. Yeah, the question I have is uh maybe kind of weird, maybe not? Okay, we we gotta buy and I understand this ain't the halfway point, But do do we ever as a team come in in house with our scouts?

So do y'all have time or do it's certain guys that come in the house not only now and self scout us and break us down as a team, or do y'all need that to the coaches and then towards if we make a push towards the playoffs, do everybody come back in then and help scout us or either scout other teams? Um, Honestly, I don't I don't know the answer to that question. I know our coaches continuing us continuously self scout. We've got a lot of different assistants and a that's a little bit of what the

analytics guys do on a weekly basis as well. So they're they're pointing out tendencies, uh, letting Kellen and coach Rod and coach Schard. No, Hey, maybe we're calling a certain coverage too much or we're running certain plays at this percentage. Um, I think there's continual in house scouting going on. It's more I think with coaches and analytics, um our guys are more about building the team, not not the xs and os with it. That about one

more question? Anybody don't want it? Any concert has been too late? Iron Maiden a couple of weeks ago? How was that? I was great? And he's steal away? As are all still sixty five years old and rocking? I got what time we're using? Is that? Iron Maiden? Kurt headbanging? Muted Rob? What's his name? Rob? How? Devil Rob? How that's Judas priest? Okay, I got one more kind of scouting question to them this summer though, before you before you go. I'm very active on Twitter and so Pete.

All the time they say, go get that guy, go get this guy. You know, someone gets released, someone go get this guy. Like, can you explain to the people it ain't just that simple to say. People are like, oh, we should get Jamal Adams. I'm like, wait a second, you do know Jamal Adams is a good player on a really good team. Who's I'm not a really good team, but a really good player for a team, and it's not gonna let him walk. So when people say that, like oh we should go get him or gott please

said we should have him, We should have him. Explain to the people the process isn't as simple as they think. No, it's really not. I mean, you know, first and foremost, you gotta have two people to make a deal. And while there's a lot of you know, we're seeing a couple of pretty good players here the last couple of Daysmanuel Sanders, Mohamed Sanum, the Quinn kid at Detroit. You know, Quan Diggs, Diggs, not Quinn. Quinn retired last year. But

these guys have all been moved. And for the casual observer, it seems like, well, they're just getting a couple of draft picks for this guy, who can go help him play right now? Well, there's a lot of things involved in that. First and foremost, it's what's the player's salary and can you fit him under your cap? What's his contract? Is he controllable just the rest of this year or does he have two or three years left on it? So some of these things are an investment for here

and now. Some of them you got to look towards the future. You know, when we made the deal with Amari last year, we knew we had him for last year and this year and the idea was to get a long term deal done with him at some point. That's still the goal with him as far as I'm aware. And you know, those are small parts of the deal. But sometimes a guy's just having a fire sale and getting rid of a guy that doesn't fit on that team. Maybe they changed their scheme in the offseason and they

didn't just want to flat cut him. They wanted to see if they could get a draft pick for him, get some capital back. And then you got teams that stock up draft picks just for this reason so they can go make deals and everything. So there's a lot of different ways to look at it. But it's hard just to say, you know, well the jet stink, so maybe we should go trade for Jamal Adams because people think that our safeties aren't playing well enough. It doesn't

work that way. You know, first of all, the player has to be available, and then you have to have the capital to acquire him and to where it makes sense for both teams. Um. You know, that's that's the beauty of the salary cap. I mean, it's designed to help provide parody. You know, it works in some ways, and some people are better at manipulating it than others are. Okay, I lied, but I'm blaming this last question on you.

More question. You brought it up. So I want to ask this something I didn't want to know Amari deal last year when that started to go down, Were you guys involved because you're giving up a first round pick? Were you guys involved in the decision making process, like, do is there someone in the first round that we're looking at value? Oh? Definitely is that a big group

to the value the Amari as a pro player. The evaluation work was done mostly by our pro guys and everything, but it Will certainly came to us and said, what's the strength of the draft? What do the receivers look like coming out this year? Is there a guy that we could possibly get in the first round they can bring us what Amar could bring us? And you know, that was one of the things we looked at and

said probably not. You know, there were some talented receivers, but worthy of the caliber that Amar is we didn't. We didn't think so. So that did play into our decision in trying to trying to make that deal. You know it definitely we certainly looked towards the future at at what would be available in April, and uh, you know there were some good players there, but the deal came together to where it made sense to to go

get Amari here and now. And I mean he helped help flip the switch on the on the season last year for us. And I mean you see what he's done when he's on the field for us. He's a phenomenal football player. So well, man, we know you're busy. Thank you so much for stopping by. It's always a pleasure. Yep. We can do it more often. We need like an hour. We need the room who show the magic real. Yeah,

we appreciate your stall. Be We don't know what the hell we're gonna talk about the second half of the show, so tune in callers due to respond to what my man Chris Halls said. Okay, open up the bones call us. Maybe we can get those other four guys you shout out yesterday. Oh we'll be right back on hand m

back hanging with the boy. All right, we are back and Kurt wants to talk to you about Oh yeah, true cowboy loves this freedom and Tommy John gives you that feeling of freedom where it counts with a contour pouch that nestles you in fabrics you can barely feel shock Exclusive Cowboys underwear Tommy john dot com Slash Cowboys for twenty percent off your first order Tommy john dot com slash Cowboys. All right, then we should just listen

to you to argue someone who who's your name? No? No, no, no no. The reason I wanted some callers, man, because we we told, we promised the people us today we had we act like we was gonna really, you know, get involved with the people. And that's why I kind of stayed back. And first off, like between me and Jesse, they may not get opportunity once we get the rolling and Bloyd, behold, who you shid the show down? I was six minutes I did show down? Man? How good

was Chris? Like? That was great? That was great? That was that was awesome. And think about him, y'all, you guys, you see me first and foremost, I'm about the team, and y'all was the questions y'all were presenting. I'm like, by the time I get him my little question, I knew it wasn't gonna go the way I thought it was. Because the more I thought about it, the more he was telling us they don't have time to break this team down. So who breaks this team brow? You know

what I'm saying. But man, it's just I think people sometimes they don't realize all that's going on, and they think, like, oh, Scots are just sitting up there playing Candy Crush, you know what I'm saying. He's like, you know, and Chris said it, you know, they said, you know, I'm over the whole Texas and you know, in order to find your Patrick Cratons in northwest Oklahoma, like you know, like you know you got that's that's churning over Rocks, the Amari's,

the Jalens. Yeah, you ain't gotta go far to see them, right. Those guys have been talked about since the Little League. Yeah, you you heard about Zeke when he was in high school. You're about so that name, You're like, well, we know

this guy. But when you go, when you find you're Patrick Cratons, when you go and you find your you know, your Byron Jones at Connecticut or you're going, you know what I'm saying, when you're going find these different dudes who wasn't on the radar or may not have been, or had the biggest name that can come into this league and make a tremendous impact, Guys like you know, Barry Church, Eric Williams, Eric story set. No, I'm telling Eric Williams, I can't think the pro scout over John Wooten.

We used to go for a little walks, you know, at Valley Range. You used to go for a little walks. Who you know? Who you who? You know? I'm found that you think is so great in the draft offensive line, you know, I'm I'm feeling myself right now. They say, man, I found this dude at this small college. Sence said, Philadelphia kid. He mean he tough, he or crushed folks, and he really was two players there. It was Deepn's

man that wind up with the Eagles. And he said, man, when draft call, man, I'm gonna be all over this kid. He said. People ain't valuing him like I'm valuing and man, he literally had to get up on the table and tell coach Johnson, I got this kid, Eric Williams, he is the next it. Y'all gotta get him. And they was gonna try to pass him one more time. He got up on the table like, nah, yeah, I'll put my job on the line for this kid and the

restless history. Man. Hey, William was a beast. You hear me, a beast? See the strongest, most aggressive guy you ever played around. Not the strongest, but the most aggressive. Yeah, not the strongest, Very Adams the strongest man I've ever seen in my life. But I'm telling you, man, he gave seventy five percent of the NFC's the concussion protocol.

I'm telling you started with him. I'm serious, man. It's funny that that biggest bull that he talked about, he saw Patrick cratonat so when he said they canceled it, I laughed, because they canceled it year. I was supposed to go to it. I promised because I was training in Phoenix, Arizona, and everything all setting ready to go, and they canceled and I had I had a choice between two games, and I was like Vegas. I'm gonna go to Vegas for a couple of days. And they

canceled it. So they canceled the two thousand and seven, the year I was coming out. Man, where did you go after college? Were you free agent? Yeah? I was undropped the free agent Cincinnati. You went straight to Cincinnati after that. And I also laughed because he talked about you know that free agency, you know that preferred free agency, that rookie type thing. He talked about the money. Yeah,

um yeah. I was a poor kid out of New Jersey and I stupidly of me, I chased the money instead of chasing the situation because literally the minutes that I mean like, I was at my cousins sweet sixteen and the draft ended and my phone begin to blow up, my agents calling him. He's like the Rams, Baltimore, Atlanta, Cincinnati, and I'm like, all right, cool, what are they offering? And he said, you know they're all I think the Rams Baltimore were was offering like fifteen thousand, and I

was like, that's it. And then Cincinnati came about and I think they gave me like five thousand more. And I was just so dumb. I was so dumb because I should have went to the Rams or Baltimore, but I went to cinc. And they had Chad Johnson, T J. Hushman, Zada God Russia Soul now Chris Henry. So they had three receivers right there. I had no concept of special team. They had a guy out of the name of Tad Perry. Out of UCLA who was really a special teams dude.

So they had about like four dudes already that was locked and the special team right, the receivers and a special team's guy, and I had so for five dat I was like, I'm going to sit the dullest thing I remember, dum dumbest thing done. And again you gotta remember this is this is oh, this is twelve years ago. So all this whole three four or five receiver sets, they weren't doing that. They were lining up tight end, full back, two receivers. So Jokers wasn't keeping six seven

receivers on the roster. It was like four maybe five. That was a special teams guy, right, So it's like, you know, and then they kept they had one of one of the guys from LSU Scylar Green. Yeah, he was their returner. So they had like a special teams guy, all core special teams guy, and they had Skylar Green was the returner. And so I ended up making, you know, making the practice squad. But I went back and looked at it. The guy who came behind me, who was

like my second starting at college. He ended up going to the Rams the next year and spent like four or five years with them, like the team on the team, like active, like no practice squad, and he like he was one of those kids who hated a ball, but he just was good at it. So people Rememberody kept telling him play and I remember like visiting he was. We were in Miami at the same time. He was like, man, I don't feel like playing. He's like, but the money's

too good. So he didn't even want to play, and I'm like, I want to play. I should have went to I should have went to the RAM to Saint Louis at that time. What you told it before? What was your story? I stopped based sold out for the money too, But I'm gonna tell us here it wasn't to where in the world. I was gonna make the washing risk. And they just come from playing in the Super Bowl. Then next year they won the Super Bowl.

Many they office the line set and then back then it was keeping like seven guys eight guys, so you know, and then they got the drafted the guy big Henry Winkloud of Wisconsin, who was garbage. Henry. If y'at there, you still garbage anyway. Anyway, they hid him. They hid him. He know her garbage. I love you though. You can say that, you can say that you've been to the Pro Bowl six times, you got through the range. You can start calling folks garbage. But now it's only one person.

And I'm joking with Henry, but there's only one coach you ever hear me say anything bad about? And that was the coach, the great coach y'all for the for the Miami Dolphins, his son, Dave whatever. That's the only guy you would really let me say, man, And not because where he treated me, but the way he treated Troy. See, I was looking for no love. You know. You know you can tweet me a college grub, a wing. The

rains got me. Yeah, I just saw it in meetings before games, and Troy's our starter, and me and Troy and all we saw out of eye, so it one like we were boys and nothing. But this is the quarterback. Yeah, hey, Troy, what play you think for this? And the Troy would give a play, Oh that's good. Then he would ask the other guy what and then he would do say something a little bit better, and instead of him saying Troy, you know, hey, you know and soothing it, he would

be point blank without quarterback. I'm like, wow, how you want to respect quarterback? Are you talking to him this way? Right? And so? But Mike Urban checking, I'm glad Mike Urban checking, like, man, that's our quarterback. That blew, that's you know the other golf here. I played with it too, But this is our quarterback. So don't don't lose that. Whatever you got for him, keep it because he gonna be the one day. Either pat you on the back when the coach hey

passing bout? Who's thinking about that? Either? Gonna get it junior season, you know, two of your season. All right, let's get back on track and take another quick break. And when we come back, can we get one call? Who? Why are you gonna call some one? Call? Oh? By the way, there's this show is not on the air tomorrow. We're doing this abbreviated um Shannon when he cut everybody show, this has nothing to Shannon cut everybody. I was trying to cut myself out of here. Tomorrow. Cut out, you

cut out. I'm cut out. You guys are in. I'll tell you what the deal is when we come back. We're your next at the stadium barbecue. Gear up with Autterbox, the official outfitter of tailgating. It starts with the Venture Cooler, built tough in America. Venture keeps ice for days and days. Or stay light on your feet with Trooper soft coolers, perfect for packing in your signature side editions. Tailgating wouldn't be complete without a beverage, so pour one into the

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All right? Join us at another official Cowboys watch party presented by AT and T on Sunday, November the twenty fourth. Who do We play? The twenty fourth your Giants? Is that the next Sunday twenty fourth, I think we played Jesse's favorite team, New England. M oh November twenty four. Enjoy a festive game day Atmosphere on the Plaza at

the Star in Frisco. This Cowboys take on Jesse's. That's gonna be such a fun week to talk about Cowboys Patron, I get so football, honey with them, oh Man, so much to talk about, emissions free and so is parking. Visit the Star and Frisco dot com for details and if you haven't been to one of those, it's actually pretty awesome. I've seen pictures and video and things, and it's a good make a day out of it. It's a good deal. Come out here, eat, walk around, shop,

watch the game, bring the family. When we're taking our show in the row, it's a great question. My question. Um, now we can set something up, we need we can figure something out. I don't know, but we are tomorrow. We're doing and abbreviate no show Friday tomorrow. I'm looking up now, I'm still coming in Friday. I get that, uh, get that money. That door is gonna be a lot. Good luck getting in. You might have to break the wind out because the rule is on this show, once

you walk through the threshold, you're paid. You're paid. Whether it's a ten second show or a two hour show, you're already paid. So we'll be on eleven thirty to twelve thirty tomorrow. It's gonna be me, Jesse, Nate, Nick and brought us. We're saying, this is what I do. Blow by this game. He gonna always try to work for sure. That was all Derek. That was all Derek. Derek. Derek said that email. He didn't even consult me. I was trying to get out of here early tomorrow. Now

you don't want to be and he looked. He looked me in do you want to get the spot now? He can't look. Oh, man, I appreciate you. I appreciate your boss trying to get your past. Shannon Man. That cow kurtin boy, guess I don't know what he got on them, dog, I don't know what you got on them. He's our quarterback. You want to go to line to me like my quarter I gotta love a little work.

Do that again? Do that again? It's my quarterback. I remember that TiO TiO did that one week in two weeks then he talked about the man like a dot. Do that one more time, play it one more time. It's my quarterback. I remember that, even got the sniffing. I'm like to really cares. And then two weeks later, yeah, crush. Everybody's like, oh, he's changed. He finally come around. He's not that guy. And then oh my god, what happened?

You stopped getting the football as a receiver. You start taking a shot when you don't get that football no more? Head Shannon. That that's awesome, man, when they just stop it. I think it's the angle, because it's that angle. It it looks normal. If I'm not here, where go with this? I don't know. We've gotten all over the place. Let's

do five more minutes. So let's okay. So here's some of the questions that I So here's some of the questions that I get, like on a daily people all we want to know about just this Cowboys team currently constructed. And one of the thing that I've got a lot today, um uh today was about now it's replacing Jeff Heath And it's like and let me ask, like, you know, what do you think the Cowboys should do at that position, so they continue to have Jeff Heath as they're starting.

I don't know what's strong safety knowledge, playing some free safety or should they try to work in some other players, a new kid from Texas and Nan Wilson, you know, Jess, I have no answer. This is why when it comes home to I know some players thanks to Shannon, I know a lot of players and him and Kurt, but once and I didn't go to training camp, but once all these OTAs and all that, I kind of stopped going over there, and so I kind of so you don't see where a guy is mentally a physically. You

just see the results on Sunday, you know. So it's hard for me to you know, if I would go up to practice every day, then I would give you a country now, so je I'll be like nah nah no either yeah yeah yeah. So I don't know where he's at, and I don't know where his team is at, but I know one thing. Chris Hall was just here and he just told you how hard it is to

get a stud, a stud type guy. If y'all want that playmaking change in safety, he ain't coming here because they're not gonna give a safety here over twelve million dollars a year. You can forget it. It ain't It ain't happening. And their priority of what they think makes that defense run a twelve million dollars safety is not it unless they drafted. All right, let me ask this question now, because you you've kind of answered that but spurred me to another question. There are some contracts that

need to come and the next near future. Amari Cooper is one of those guys, right Byron Jones. He's one of those guys. Now there's another guy that you're gonna have to throw into this mix. Five sacks and two in six games. Robert Quinn. Now, I don't know if he was a guy who they planned on having come in here as a long term deal thing or was it just a patchwork to see if they're gonna get ready Gregory back or whatever it is. But the point of the matter is we're here now, he's solidifying himself.

What do you do? What do you do? Let's just say this trees. So there's a couple of things when you look at this, and there's been some reports and I always take the National Guys reports a little bit with a grain assault because they're National guy they aren't here every day. They're not like where you start every single day. And um Amari Cooper. So there's been talking about Amari. You know, maybe he'll go take his opportunity and go see what the free and see market looks like.

But if you, let's just say, for all intends of purposes, Amari Cooper signed, still deliver. It's not an if, but when he'll be a cowboy for the next five to seven years whatever. There's only but so many contracts that you can have going around. Barbe Jones he'll be twenty seven at the end of this year. Robert Quinn will be thirty. But at the pace he's going at now five sacks in six games, at this pace, he's going to have somewhere around you know, twelve, you know, twelve

anywhere fifteen sacks. I'm just saying, I'm just give a take at this pace, somewhere around twelve to fifteen sacks, thirty years old. And this is a guy you're trying to pay or are you saying, you know what, we're gonna pay a corner because you heard Chris say it. You just can't find guys in the league that can be stud players and I know Byn doesn't give you the turnovers, but he also don't give you the yards either,

you know what I'm saying. That's the thing, like you know what, you heard his name a lot, and that's a good thing. Where you don't hear cornerback's name, that's a great thing. I am one who always feel like the d ends and the cornerbacks are on a string. Those guys get more sacks because these guys are covering better. Those guys get more turnovers and less yard thrown at them because these guys are rushing the past better. So those two guys to me are on a string. Let's

just say on that list. Oh and I forgot Dak and Dad. So let's say Marie and Dak boom boom they're getting signed. Who do you sign on defense? Out of these two guys, you signed Byron Jones because I honestly don't think Byron's not taking the hometown discount. And Robert Quinn doesn't have any relationships here. The key wasn't

drafted here. He you know what I'm saying, there's no he ain't been here but for a little Bill ain't like you gave a first second falling, So He's like, listen, I'm doing Yeah, I'm playing well for you now, but I'm also playing well for thirty one other teams because at the end of the day, I want to go and get paid. The franchise tag this year for a

cornerback of sixteen million. The franchise tag for a defensive end this year is eighteen million, so that number will go up next year with the salary cap going up. Is there enough money to go around? And who will you sign if there's only one guy that you can sign Kurt Reidoff, who's up after this year? You've kind of in addition to the guys you've mentioned, Sean Lee m Bye bye jas don't worry. Malik Collins he no,

he's Carrie Hyder. Malik might be gone because they're probably don't want to pay him about five million dollars a year. Man Andrew Brown Nthew Brown. Yeah. I mean, you've got several guys on that defense that are gonna be but they still have See Christian Covington. I don't think, I just I don't think Byron's gonna take a hometown discount. Neither is Robert Quinn. Neither's Robert Quinn. I don't think

either one of them. And from what it's sounding like, and I have just heard the rumor meal like everybody else, it sounds like amor he's wanting to see what he could get, so he's maybe not taking a hometown discount. None of those guys, is even of the guys that the big name guys that we name are taking discounts. Right if he he want all he can get, he

want every don and he needs to. And again I tell people all the time, just because you don't consider Dak to be a top five quarterback in this league, he is the number one pick for this team. He is a quarterback in this league. That is all that matters. That's all that matters. I don't, I don't. I don't have to have thirty two teams like me, just one one, yep. And he is valuable to And you heard Chris, he said, well, when you got a quarterback, you don't kind of look

for him, you know, we ain't. We ain't really kind of you know. And the thing is, Pete, pete, what you just said. Right here for our fans, repeat what Chris just said. You're not he said, when you got a quarterback as a scout. You ain't really putting a lot of fire into finding another one. Yeah, and if you do, who's out there that you can go get? I mean, look, what people have tried to do with Dak is just as good, if not better, than anybody that's been let go in the last four or five years.

Where do you rank that? Out of one through thirty two? Where do you rank that? Top ten? I will go, but he's at the twelve ten, he's in ten to twelve. For me, really, where do you rank? I don't know this year he's top five this year in all the stats. Where do you rank I think beginning of the year out of said ten twelve, I think to me, he's probably eight. Maybe we do that next week, Maybe we maybe we rank everybody. Let me say this and see

to it make makes sense. He ranks number one because you starting quarterback for the DA for your ten That's what I'm saying. Yeah, so you know, did you have no other option? You have backed yourself into this corner one way you see that that this is the problem. They do have other options, And he answered that we can reset. You can always reset. Listen when you reset,

like that's a when you reset quarterback. Think about think about what I'm What I'm trying to say is like the Cardinals, they reset, got rid of Josh, but then it's fifty fifteen. You don't know. Listen to me. They reset and got rid of a guy that was was a first round pick way higher than you know. You can reset depending on who you have, But are you ready for what transpired between the Troy Aikman and the next guy? You ready for what happened between Roger and Troy?

It's it's it could be a long reset. Now you we were grown in and grinding about. It's been twenty five years and but we've had some success and the twenty five years, but before I got here, before Troy got here, we ain't had no success. It was ugly man. We haven't had any sex twenty five years. Who that the Cowboys have had they have. He's been able to hold their head up. It's some teams they ain't been able to hold up. Yeah. Yeah, what I'm saying what

we've had three playoff appendances. But what I'm saying is first, this team for the first time and I don't know how many years, Jesse I think has a core that if they're mature, right. If they're mature, right, can be something special. Yeah. But but look at the guys we just talked about. There's a lot of guys in that core. Yes, sir, that's gonna cost you some coins. Yeah, that core comes

with coins. That's why we had already and you've already given up one hundred and eighty five million dollars this year for that core. That's why we got Chris Hollands where he can go out and find future coin. No, he need he needed, I'm saying, guys, he need to play for cheat. Yeah he can be. When these guys get a little older and we've called them up out of here, like like England Patriots on them up out. Think about what the Cowboys just signed for the guys

this year. Two guys one hundred and eighty five million dollars. Two guys won't eat that up next year, Amari. And that's gonna be a hundred that's probably another eighty five million dollars million, and two guys they got a core guys this year from hundred eighty five million, two guys gonna eat up one hundred eighty five million dollars next year. And I ain't counting Quinn, and I ain't counting up Um or Malik or Anthony Brown or Joe Thomas or

whoever else. But this is the amazing thing. Some of these guys, and I don't know which one now they they ain't saying they're gonna sign with Dallas. One or two of these guys can't get a shock because they're aging them telling them one thing. Because this is one thing I had to learn the hardway. Other teams scout too, and other teams have vagus and set numbers on guys too. Now you maybe Cincinnati or the team that's really really hurting and they're trying to show their fan base something.

You better hope one of those. Hope one of those teams out, because if it's not a couple of these guys gonna get shot, I'm gonna take one. That's it. You want to say, I just didn't want to say. Come on, you want thirty? Yeah, come come on, because because a lot of times, like New England, people think I don't know why and it doesn't show well. People think if he was with New England, he come to us to be all right? With Dallas, he come us

to be out and it don't always work out that. Yes, we gotta go, fellas, let's row We're off Friday, joint show tomorrow, no show Monday. Man, it's gonna be damn near a week before we're back together. Ye tell Kylins all right, you know it's all right. You know that we can cut the show off once you say it, because he ain't gonna do nothing we say. I'm just saying, you know, Kyle, the first part of the show today you were gone. I did. Yeah, don't worry about it.

Thanks Kyle, Yeah, yeah, thank you Kyle. Boys, Kyle's got to deal with you for one hour a day. He's got to deal with me for like eight hours a day. I love you, Kyle. We love you too, Kyle, Kurt, thanks for being here. Jessie, see you tomorrow, Nate, see you tomorrow. Kyle, Thanks for having my back. Where you at? Kayton? I love you, Kayten, stay away, William, We'll be back Tuesday.

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