Mick Shots: Almost Falcons

day once again. It's already Thursday again. We got the Browns and the Bengals tonight, and we've got Mickey Spagnola in the s WBC Mortgage studios, Everson Walls in the SWC Mortgage Walls Studio, and Mickey's probably Everson. Mickey's probably gonna get distracted again because he's got his television on. He's talking about what's on the NFL net work right now. Yeah, he's worried about other teams. He should really concentrate on us,

the Dallas Cowboys. That's the problem with this organization. Too many distractions. I could multitask. Don't you worry about that? All right? All right, there's plenty that the Cowboys need to multitask about as they get set to play they Atlanta Falcons. Have we have we put the rams game behind us yet, Mickey, Oh, I don't know. I've noticed a couple of things once I got to see the All twenty two that I thought was pretty interesting on why certain plays turned out to the way they did.

But other than that, yeah, I think the team has and they've moved on. As Mike McCarthy said the other day, you know, after they had their team meeting on Monday, it was onto the Atlanta Falcons and so you know they're practicing right now that they're probably just finishing up. And one of the screens up here, by the way is where they're getting ready to interview Dak Pressco today. So because remember Thursdays in the locker room was Dak's day.

Wednesday was Zeke's day, and Zeke explained his feed me tattooed to everybody yesterday. And you know, we'll get the audience, I'll get the audio of Dak here when we're finished. I was thinking, you know, wouldn't it'd be neat while that interview is going on on Thursdays with Dak, if we can just cut in live and listen to it. But I don't know if we're allowed. I don't know if we're allowed to do that. But I'm going to ask probably not, Yeah, probably not. We need to ask

Chris that one. We need to ask Chris. Can he multitask himself? Now? I bet if we needed to, Chris could figure it out. It's a matter of if we're allowed to do it. Well, McCarthy's press conference is live, then why not the quarterbacks press conference? That's a good

point streaming live. Yeah, yeah, but speaking of that, I was just looking for the problem with if if he is going to have his press conference at the same time that mix shots is on, that takes away time from you, and you do not want to have your time taken away, you know, for the quarterback. I'll bend over backwards. Oh I like that. I like that. I'll tell you what, guys, what I saw was a few guys getting thrown under the bus. You talked about putting

last week's game behind us. I didn't know that Schultz was supposed to be the goat of the game. They talked about not just him missing passes, but they also mentioned that on that infamous fourth down play that he didn't run far enough of field to set the pick for a CD LAMB to get past the line to game. I hate that the line to game so ceedee Lamb did not go get to the line to gain because Sheltz was too shallow to pick off his defender or

at least screened him a bit. Now where did you get? Hey, man, I can't call it out. I have my own Uh well, okay there, now, I have my own devices and things of that nature. And then I went back and looked at the play itself, and you could you could put a little blame there on Shelts, but to the basic yeah, I'm with you. Now, I'm with you. I'm with your spags.

I'm with you. I mean, let's just be real. He could have UH done a better job of picking, but so could everyone else that Dad could have thrown a better pass. CD still could have uh reached the line to gain even with without much extra effort, Right, so I see your hands of what? So I finally got a chance to see the all twenty two and I must have watched that play five times on both shots, and yes, CD, CD could have taken another step and gained the line he cut it across. But two other

things happened. Number one, that Joe Looney missed the help block on Aaron Donald and Zach Martin got pushed back into Dak, and Dak couldn't step up to throw the ball, and consequently, instead of leading CD as he was crossing from left to right, he threw it right at his body and CD had to turn and catch the ball

in his body instead of catching it here. Had he been able to lead him, he would have had enough momentum to get across Fuller, who did a heck of a job of coming across the formation from the safety position and coming up and making a heck of a tackle. But if those two things would have taken place, either CD runs the route a little bit deeper or they block Aaron Donald. Now he probably didn't get credit for a pressure on that, but Dak could not step up.

He had to stand there flat footed and fling it. And that's got to be I'm thinking a tough pass for a quarterback across a short distance to lead the guy so he can catch it out front. And that was one of the reasons why that play, you know, didn't work the way they had hoped. And as a matter of fact, on the play before it was third and six and they hand off to Zeke. Guess who messed that play up. Aaron Donald once again, and Zach

Martin had his hands full with Aaron Donald. And on that play it looked like Joe Looney was supposed to chip and then go get the linebacker. Well, he missed the chip, so so Zach was protecting to his right. I don't know if he's assuming he's going to get help to the left, but he didn't get it, and that screwed the play up. If they had got that block, Zeke's gonna score a touchdown because the whole is huge.

It is all you saw. Connor Williams did a job on his guy, and if they had gotten that block on Donald, the linebacker was not going to make that tackle. When Zeke fell, he slid. You know, you could tell he slid that he slid for about another yard. No one was even around him when he fell. Of course, he was tripped up before he fell. I would have to disagree with you a bits bags in regards to

the defensive back coming up from the safety position. I still thought with the momentum that he had, even if CD would have if Dak was able to get the ball out there a little bit more, CD would have had to pull one of his old U miracles and catch it and at the same time reach forward. That would have been a heck of a move to make. And Bill Bill is a CD man that I am too. We've seen him do that, of course in college, and

we know he has the ability. I still think the momentum of that collision from that safety still would have been a tough reach for CD to reach above the line to game. I still don't think he would have made the play. But the third down play I thought was extremely key, and we started talking about this because of because of Schultz. I look forward to Schultz really shutting everybody's mouth in regards to how he played this past game. This guy's a stud. I think he's a

stud as well. He enjoyed and almost hit the tat. I think he can block better than Jawing and I look forward to him making up for being the goat of the game. And sorry, Bill, we haven't moved on. And I noticed one other thing on that play. For a split second, and if Everson looked at this, he probably saw it. For a split second. Dak was getting greedy. He saw the receiver coming out of the slot running basically a post and for a split second there. He was wide open, and I think he was thinking, I

got a touchdown on this play. And because CD was wide open before he threw him the ball, he could have thrown that ball to CD a lot sooner before Fuller broke across the back of the linebackers and came up and made that Had he thrown that sooner, he would have had the opportunity to turn up a quicker. But he saw that guy breaking and just when I think he was thinking of throwing on it, the linebacker got in the way and he didn't have a clear

shot and then he came back underneath. But they had another alternative on that play, and it looked like he would have scored. It would have been a touchdown pass had he thrown it sooner. So there was a lot of other things in that play, in those two plays that I saw that that took place. All right, Bill, we're moving on. Bill, We're moving on. But moving on.

But to that point where and I'm monitoring it on periscope and there's a delay on periscope the video that Chris Beam is showing up of the play and you can really see it on periscope where the linebackers are there at the first down sticks, and where CD starts his crossing route, he has to start it a yard upfield from it because they're guarding that first down line, and so it's easy to say that CD needs to

get further upfield. Well, he can't get further upfield because there's two linebackers and then the safety comes up that are guarding that first down online on that crossing route right there. Yeah, And unfortunately, you know, without after the game, when no one has an opportunity to see those then it's like, well, yeah, he should have ran, we should have executed better. Well, there was other things that needed to be executed better. Uh, and he didn't need to

be executed for running the route short. So there, And I watched it again right there, and yeah, I mean your knee jerk reaction when you watch it on television and you see the result of the play as oh, he's got to get further down field. Well, then you go back and watch it and well, how's he getting beyond the sticks running a crossing route when there's three defensive players right on the where the first down line is. It's impossible. So yeah, anyway, I guess we'll move on though, right,

let's move we have to okay. So one of the questions on periscope, Mickey, this is from McCarthy's press conference today, and it is, what did you think about McCarthy's view about pre snap I do that was coming. Why is this town so enamored with pre snap motion? Right? Pre snap motion? They don't do it enough. That's going to confuse the defense. And I thought his action twenty sixth

in the league and pre snap motion. They only were in pre snap motion four percent of the time against the Rams, and they didn't do it enough last year and they gained more yards than anybody else in the National Football League. Right, that was Garrett's fault. Now it's McCarthy's fault. Right, what is it? What the I was glad that he explained pre snap motion. Basically, he said

it's for two reasons. One to create someone of a nuisance, and two, it gives the quarterback a better read on what the defense is doing because you're going to see if they're in man or zone. And then he went on to explain that he did it a lot early in his career at Green Bay and then the more experienced Aaron Rodgers was able to get He could read the defense quickly himself without having to see motion to detect if it's zone or if it's man. And he didn't want it anymore. He wanted to read it in

his zone. And talking to Babe Laffenberg, he said Tony Romo hated motion because he felt like he could read it as good and they didn't need to waste all that time run in motion. And when you get into a hurry up offense, there's no motion. You're getting to the line and you want to snap. You don't want to sit there and go okay, come on, get him across the motion. No, I don't get why everybody's enamored with that. Well, you know that's what the Cowboys are

really known for. Going our way back to Tom Landry, you talk about pre snap motion. We had lineman going up and down, We had switches, we had doors set was going to swing. He and Ron Springs would just be going back and forth. They would have about three or four or five pre snap reads just before you snapped the ball. I mean, that was that was one of the more outrageous, well outlandish, i'd say outlandish movements that that any team ever had that that came from

the Dallas Cowboy. Maybe that guy was he must be in our generation that asked that question. Well, because yeah, and so I'll ask you. Ever, so, how many straight years did the Cowboys go to the playoffs using pre snap motion under Landry? It mustn't wait. It took. It took him till nineteen eighty four to we finally didn't make it. If I'm not mistaken, So come on, let's not start comparing everybody the time lander you get You're

going down a deep rabbit hole with that one. All right, mickey, before we take this first break, anything else you want to get in off the top here from we probably need to or anything else. Yeah, we probably need to clear up the portion of practice that we were able to see. Um, there was one guy missing from practice, and of all people, it was number fifty eight, And you're sitting there going, oh, are you kidding me? You know, maybe the seventy four of the snaps wore him out,

but as it turns out, him out. I believe that should be true. But apparently, uh, he didn't do a good enough job of flossing or brushing his teeth because he had a dentist appointment. We'll take that work. We'll take that work. He deserves a break. I look as I look at the game, he had an amazing game. Of course, he made some mistakes and we'll talk about

that a little bit later. But the guy just had an amazing game for someone that hadn't played for five years and for him to play at that high level and and and you could see that he was a bit fatigued, but but that that's that's football fatigue to where you can still line it up and play the next play. He did that time and time again. Pretty proud of him. And boy, you talk about a steal,

Will McClay, he deserves another. If he hadn't had a raise already, he deserves another raise for going out and finding this guy. Actually, you know that on periscope they're thanking Jay Glazier for that. Yeah, that's just thank you, Jay Glazier and Tom Sula for Alden Smith. Well, Jay Glazier, that's where Alden Smith went to do his training, UH and not only the physical training but also mental training.

And he runs a kind of a rehab training center where they athletes and UH and in former military people that need to rehab and that's where as a matter of fact, as the story goes, Mike McCarthy ran into Alden Smith at Glaizer training session in December, before he even knew he was going to become the Cowboys head coach. He had gone to la to visit his daughter and I don't know if she was working there or working out there, but he visited the place and ran into

Alden Smith. And he kind of told the story when he did his first interview after signing with the Cowboys, how he kind of ran into Mike McCarthy and he said, we just kind of talked, just kind of you know, and he goes, I kind of liked the guy. And one thing after another fell into place. Remember we interviewed his agent, Ron Slaven on Mick Shots back in I think it was early July, right, and he said yeah, and he got a call and said, hey, would would

you be interesting this guy? So a lot of things fell into place, and I would imagine, you know, the last thing you would have thought that he would have played that many snaps in the first game and then be the second guy on the team with twelve tackles, the only guy with a sack and by the way, his pressure created that interception that Cheeto has to Joe. And you're right, well you you say pressure, pressure, you

know it was more of a club to the head. Yeah, that's a lot of pressure, right when you get hit in the head, A lot of pressure. And he admitted and it wasn't perfect, and even McCarthy said it. And you can see there were some running plays that he didn't react correctly on the edge, did not he did not contain well. And I'm thinking, God, if he did it all right, if he did it all right, he'd have had twenty tackles. That's true, That's very true. He

would have been Aaron Donald. Yes, all right, all right, we continue with more mix shots, and we'd taken up close look at these Atlanta Falcons and some key matchups when we come back here. Hey, they're cowboys fans with type cleaners at home pickup and delivery. Cleaning your clothes has never been more convenient. Simply sign up at your local store, set out your dirty clothes, and one of our tight cleaner professionals will come directly to your home

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the Jack Black Starter ten bucks free shipping. I'm Jay Novachik, former tight end for the Dallas Cowboys back in the day. I was the guy who always got the tough yards and that's why I run with John Deer today. In fact, I have a John Deer three zero twenty five E tractor that can handle any yard work I need to do, even the tough yards way out back. So if you have one acre or a thousand, John Deer has the equipment that's just right for you. Visit a John Deer

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information or to book today. As we continue here on Mix shots and Mickey, I've got I've got a text I need to answer right now for work related to purposes, and so how do you want me to carry on here with a yeah? Why don't you carry it here for a couple of minutes. Well, while I take care of this little text that I received that I gotta take talk about multitasking. There you go. That's right. I can't multitask, So you do your thing. I'm listening while

I do this. At the injury port that came out yesterday, the only guy listed on the Cowboys injury port was Jordan who was and it was full practice, so uh, he should be full go for this week. I would think the same for Brandon Carr, who was signed off the practice squad onto the fifty three man roster. Uh so, and he's been out there, you know, practicing both days

this week with the team. Uh. It looks really good in the in the drills we get to watch, so I would imagine they they try to find some rotation that gets him on the field. And as for Atlanta, the only significant player that was listed that did not practice was Jake Matthews, their starting left tackle. So we'll see where where that one goes as the week goes along. But yeah, he was not able to practice, and uh, you know, they had a couple other guys, but not

really any of the starters to speak of. So both teams, for you know, the guys that are there now are pretty healthy. Although I keep seeing that Cowboys injured reserve list growing. It's now eight. I think it's started with three before the first game or so, and now it's stretched out to eight. So that's getting to be quite a bit. And that's what I think. Ever since, people need to understand about salary caps type stuff when they see a team and it's like, oh, they got ten

to twelve million, why don't they spend it. Well, when you start getting guys injured, when they go to injured reserve, they're still getting paid, but now you got to you gotta replace them with somebody else, and that continues to eat into your salary caps. So you've got to have a buffer on that cap. And the Cowboys usually like to keep about ten to twelve million in buffer just for things like that or the ability to maybe pick

somebody up off off the waiver wire. So yeah, so from an injury standpoint, in practice today, as they started, they were in pretty good shape except for Alden Smith. And oh, by the way, I can't remember if we talked about this yesterday or not, but Randy Gregory is on the field now. He was conditionally reinstated and he's allowed to do conditioning work on the field, his own individual drills on the field, and take part in the meetings.

And so for the last two days, those are the first time we saw him out there working with the trainers on his own. And he looks pretty good too. By the way, I have a you know, a question in regards to to equipment. How did Jordan Lewis give up his jersey? Wasn't wasn't he number twenty seven last year? Yea, he was twenty seven last year and now drey Von digs his twenty seven. So here's what here's what he's

what net, Here's what happened. So uh haha, Clinton Dix veteran him and said I want twenty seven, and so he gave Oh that happened first. That happened first, and then when he got released, I think Lewis just decided I'll just keep twenty six and he stayed with twenty six. And then Diggs who was thirty one, decided he wanted twenty seven, so he took twenty seven. Do you ever have an argument about numbers No? One? When I went when I went to the Giants. When I went to

the Giants, of course I wanted twenty four. But uh, OJ Anderson, Yeah, he's older than me so and he's a little bit of a jerk, so he wouldn't really negotiate with me much at all. They started calling him instead of Oj, they started calling them old Ja. So that was always my little payback for not getting my jerky. So that's how I ended up with number twenty eight with the Giants, as opposed to having number twenty four. Do you remember do you remember Jimmy confused? Go ahead, Bill? No, no,

you go ahead? Make you what I was gonna say? I was gonna ask you ever cf He remembered Jimmy's first year training camp in Thousand Oaks when the Cowboys ended up acquiring Steve Walsh, and Steve Walsh was four in college. Well, Mike Saxon had four for the Cowboys, and somebody asked Saxon about giving his number up to

Steve Walsh, and Saxon said, well, for a price. Yeah, and so somebody told Jimmy ball and I could still see us walking back over the bridge and we're coming down that path towards the locker room, and somebody asked Jimmy about the number. Jimmy exploded and said, yeah, well Saxon ought to just take care of himself and make sure he's on the team to keep number four. And oh everybody. That ended up being the story that night, right, and it was the evening. I don't I don't think

Jimmy like kickers much at all. If you were called when we were doing our first conditioning and he had us run like seventeen one hundred ten yard dashes. Yeah, and the first thing that happened is that guys over there bent over and he happened to be a kicker that had asthma. And boy, and you talk about if it would have been Facebook back then, he would have gone viral by cursing out the kick yo viral even then they did. Wasn't find it on YouTube right now?

Was it a mas w whatever he was, he didn't stick around, No, he was getting cut around. He wanted going to be the kicker. So Jimmy just sacrificed him and yelled at him and said said something like the damn asthma field is over there, and he pointed to the asthma. My ass over to the other field. That's exactly what he said. Jimmy was over there. Jimmy was such a bully. If he could bully you, man, he would go off on you. Oh my goodness, what a bully.

Oh all right, we got any other number issues. I just remember, remember Jimmy, we'll get you a matchup here in a second. I just gotta tell remember jas who cares about the matchup. Let's talk about Jimmy. Go ahead. Remember the game against the Giants. Postgame prescotference, Jimmy was so mad and he's talking about it. The worst officiating he's ever seen is that? Is that one lost the game for us? The officiating. Yeah, that's what did it. That's the worst officially I've ever seen. I think it

was since my daddy. Go ahead. I was gonna say that was the ninety season when they went to New York and and got clobbered, just got clobbered, and go ahead, And then he basically said, the worst officiate I rememver seen since since my Daddy said, this is what you call them football. Now. If that was in ninety then yeah, I was already with the Giants. Yeah we did whip their asses pretty well. But if you remember, had another to officiated, but there was a person named lt Yeah

that's what it was. There wasn't officiated. And if you remember the year before when you played that, it was one of the final games of the season. I think it was the second to last game, and you got shut out like twelve to nothing I think by the Giants. Uh. And it was freezing cold. And after the game, and I saw this take place because I had followed somebody out to the bus and Jimmy called all the assistance off the bus that was going to take him to

the charter flight and and reamed them. And then one of his comments after the game, because you had, like I want to say, there was two we were three first in goals and didn't score any of them. The Giants just shut him down, and Jimmy said, yeah, we're just not strong enough. We gotta get stronger. And then two games later he fired coach Ward that had been the strength and conditioning coach for like everbody and everybody qualified. It was, Yeah, they weren't strong enough. It's like, no,

they weren't good enough. We had no talent on that squad. Guys, it was zero talent. I'm sorry, all right, Everson. I want to ask you about one specific matchup Cowboys secondary against these Falcons receivers yea three one hundred yard receivers last week against Seattle, and specifically, how about Trayvon Diggs when he's matched up against Julio Jones. Wow, that's gonna be a heck of a match. Obama on Obama. The only problem is one guy has about eight nine years

experience over the other eight hundred catches in his career. Now, well, both both all three receivers had not not just one hundred yards, but they had nine receptions themselves. Julio, of course, is the man. He didn't score, but he had one hundred and fifty plus yards in the last game. You better put your track shoes on Trayvon, That's all I gotta say. I'm sure he already, he's already aware of it. I wouldn't be surprised if they may have talked several

times on the phone between Trayvon and Julio. But right now, really too. Can thank you Cavin Ridley as well. You talk about a guy he had two touchdown passes in last week's game. You're gonna you're gonna see a much more exciting offense than you saw against the Rams. I think it's gonna be a lot of the same type of mechanisms that are gonna be used. They're gonna be throwing on first down. They're gonna make sure that they have a short third dawn that they have to deal with.

They're gonna worry about our defensive line getting pressure, so Mattie Ice is gonna get rid of the ball very quickly. The problem you have with Julio Jones probably one of the most athletic wide receivers in the NFL, and that goes out through a number of decades. He's big, he's fast, he's smart, he has experience, and he has a connection with his quarterback. They have a good combo thing going that they've been having going for a number of years.

Trayvon Diggs is gonna have a problem with Julio. I would rather you get a Woozier on Julio Jones rather than have Trayvon matched up against him. I want someone with a little bit more experience in dealing with the big physical receivers. And let's be real, guys, you can't play off man to man with these wide receivers. You

have to challenge them. You have to make every route difficult for them, because not only are they good physically and catching the ball, Julio Jones has one of the best yards after catch that you're gonna find throughout the NFL history, tough to bring down. He's even more dangerous after he catches the ball. So, guys, this is gonna be a tough game. Yeah, Spat said it during the break. You might end up with each team scoring thirty points

at least. And you know, if the Cowboys play size, I bet Atlanta uses motion and get Julio Jones to the other side on digs. Right. Oh, you got pre pre snap motion. Well we'll be charting pre snap motion this week and maybe that will be a key to victory. All right, we continue with more mix shots in just a moment. Hey, they're Cowboys fans with ty cleaners at home pickup and delivery. Cleaning your clothes has never been

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your store manager and tell them Yokierro Yokiero Guacamole. Back back to Micked shots. I didn't know what the hell he was doing, but so you know, well, I wasn't concentrating on that. I was concentrating on my camera. Make a hear on the air celebrating styles and design worn by players and coaches. Over the last sixty years. The Dallas Cowboys Pro Shop introduces the new Era nineteen sixty

headwear collection that I am wearing right now. Find the full assortment at your nearest Cowboys Pro Shop and on shop dot Dallas Cowboys dot com. And this was the sixtieth nineteen sixty hat in that collection, So get online and shop for hat of your choice. All right, the reason why Mickey was a little slow on the trigger, We're all getting set straight by our producer Chris Beam on the real story behind why Jordan Lewis gave up

number twenty seven. Well, as it turns out, after last season, twenty six opened up for Jordan Lewis, and so he's actually switched to number twenty sixth of his own volition because it was his college number at Michigan. So twenty seven was available when Hawawk came in. When ha was let go, then Dig switched from thirty one to twenty seven, and of course Digs wore number seven at Alabama, so that made a little more sense making Christopher sounds good.

And by the way, Everson brought something up that I got a mix shot on. By the way, via the Cowboys Scouting Report, in their release, And I don't know if you guys saw it, but when you talked about the amount of yards Atlanta gets after the catch, especially Julio Jones, right, well, there's a there's a note here in the release, So I'm going to give them credit.

The Cowboys gave up two hundred and seventy five gross passing yards in week Runt one at the La Rams, including two hundred yards after the catch, So seventy two point seven percent of the Ram's total output through the air was rot yards after the catch. So Jared Goff never threw the ball more than probably ten yards. You're going to see that all over again until the Cowboys can stop it. That is the only way that any team is going to try in the gate our pass

rush at least a threat of a pass rush. And also with the lack of pursuit that we saw in the game as well, most of that yak, most of that yak was caused by miss direction, quick screens to the wide receivers and guy's missing tackles down the field. And you didn't see a linebacker or a defensive back in the picture for twenty yards. So if I'm the Atlanta Falcons. I'm gonna run that play until I see that the Cowboys can stop it, you know, and I and we said we wouldn't look back. But on the

big play, I believe it was to Woods. When he came across the foremotion at the formation on the snap from the Falcons right to left, Goff rolled out to his right and then threw back to him going left. They set up a screen and there were four offensive linemen out ahead of him, okay, four ye. The only player the Cowboys had there was Jalen Smith. He had no shot right. And here's what happened. They lined up

a wide receipt and Everson. You know, you kind of got to know what the defensive call is, right, So I'm not blaming anybody, But they had two wide receivers to the right. Cups stayed there and blocked, and then they sent At the snap, he came across the back of the offensive line to the left, and the receiver that was lined up to the left ran one of these kind of post routes and Digs went with them

the whole way. And they had ended up with Digs in two safeties on that receiver, and nobody stayed on the Cowboys right side of the defense, and I think that was like a thirty yard game. So that was one of the reasons why the play was so wide open that somebody busted a coverage. Well, once again, that's the only way you're going to nullify the Cowboys threat

for a pass rush. And you know, we're not really harping on the Falcons necessarily as we continue, I'm sorry harping on the Rams, but the Falcons are looking at that video, they're looking at the game, and trust me, they are chopping at the bits at what our defense

was not able to do against the Rams. So whatever you saw against Los Angeles, you're gonna see it, and I think I would have to say, you're gonna see it with much better athletes on the edges, and you're gonna see it with much better running backs in the backfield. So as much as Girly didn't get a hundred yards against against the Seahawks, that we're gonna get a heavy dose of Girly on first down. We're gonna get him out of the backfield. And that's what happened with the Cowboys.

Their failure defensively was they allowed the Rams to go big on the first down, and they never could stop anyone on third down really until the second half when they finally settled down. But we can't wait till the second half defensively to be aggressive. I think when you look at the Cowboys defense, what I always expect is that same defense that played against the Saints leave that was Sunday night. When you look at the potential of the defense that we have, that's the game that I

always look at. Now, maybe I'm crazy, but I think that that potential should be lived up to the longer they stay together. But it has not. As a matter of fact, it has gone downhill in regards to the aggressiveness and in regards to their understanding what the offense

is trying to do. So somehow, some way, the coaches have to find a way to get this athletic defense that we have to be more effective in every fast of in every fast of the drives, because what you see is defensive backs letting tight ends beat them inside. When the tight end is almost on the sidelines. You have to play for inside routes. When you see defensive linemen that are being a food by the bootleg or the misdirection, all you got was stay home and then

that played Tuns into a totally different outcome. These are the kind of things that the Cowboys must shore up. And that's just all about preparation, guys. It's all about preparation and recognition. We have to as a team. You don't need great individuals to make good plays. You need a team to stop good offenses. And so that's what

the Cowboys have to do. They have to play as a unit right now, and even going back to last year, they were playing as individuals and it's so disappointing to see such an athletic team, athletic unit not live up to their potential. And one of the things that one of the guys who played so well in that game against the Saints that you're talking about was Jordan Lewis.

And of course Lewis wasn't there last week, Mickey. One of the questions on periscope right now, if Jay lew is healthy, how many snaps do you realistically see him playing versus Atlanta. He was a full participant yesterday in practice, wasn't he. Yeah, we were doing that as you were taking care of your work, email or text or whatever it was. He's been he's basically fully practiced the last three times they've practiced, or four times actually, so he's available.

But that doesn't mean he's won a job. I mean he hasn't. He hadn't practiced since the I think that injury occurred the first week of training camp, and training camp I understand wasn't that long. So I don't know that they immediately say, Okay, you're the slot guy. I guess we'll we'll find out because the way they were playing it was Anthony Brown was in the slot quite a bit. They did a little bit of Darryl Worley in there with Lousier on the outside and digs at

the other corner on the outside. So we'll see where he fits in and just how many snaps he might get. But I don't know that they go into it and say, well, it's it's your job, because they just haven't seen much of him, uh in in pats. So yeah, we'll see where that one goes. And uh. You know when when I said Woods caught that wall for thirty yards, well it was thirty one yards, uh, and it ended up

being almost the majority. He had five other catches for seventy I think seventy five yards or something like that, and that thirty one got him over a hundred. So yeah, the Cowboys got to be careful for that and the tight ends, and that was one of the things that they didn't adjust to, or maybe they don't want to do it, but in that first series there was several plays that, um, the Rams went two tight ends and

the Cowboys stayed in their nickel defense. So I'll be interested to see because the Falcons liked their tight ends too. By the way, all right, we're out of time on this edition of Mixed Shots. Oh my god, it's amazing. That's exactly right. I have no idea, but we're gonna be back tomorrow. We'll be making our picks, including our picks to click when the Falcons come to town on Sunday at noon. We will see you again tomorrow at

one thirty. So long, everybody. This has been a production of Dallas Cowboys dot Com and the Dallas Cowboys Football Club.