Mick Shots: Back Again

Today's Landry Award Day for the high schools, and he's busy doing all those things right, doing interviews. So Everson, I will try to hang in here. It seems like we haven't talked in a week. Well, yeah, it's almost that way, right. Yeah, you and I talked though. We talked on Friday. Yeah, I was trying to see if we can get the show going, and and that was good because I was driving at the time, so that took up some time. Somebody said, what do you do

all the time when you're driving? I said, I call friends. No, you were trying to Yeah, you were trying to make us do your time with you. That's right. We can't do your drive with you. So yeah, that's why the show would not have worked. I was out of town. You were out of the town. The last time we had the show was Wednesday. Yeah, it's Monday, right. We weren't ready for that. No, yeah, yeah, wait. The last time I had the show was Tuesday. Oh, it was Tuesday.

It was Tuesday. We had to hurry up. When I picked the clicks, we had no idea. How do we do? I did? Okay, let me see I have I had thirty one way I'm looking through. I would have been close if not for the Big Fat Man returning an intercept.

He called himself it was the big Fat Man's dream, right, interception returned for a touchdown, which, by the way, that hadn't happened by a Cowboys defensive lineman since Jim Jeff Coach tell me no, nineteen ninety nine, Greg Ellis, I was gonna say, Jeff Jeff Jeff cot rumbled one back and then back in the day, Larry Cole used to always do pick sixes against the way at that time, the Washington then Redskins he did, I believe consecutive years had one he returned pick six. It was something crazy

like that. Guy. I was so young then, of course, so it was Tuesday. So it was Tuesday. So what do we got here? Here are we had held on? Here's what we had for pick to click? I had now Bill had sixteen thirteen and d Law was going to be his pick to click. You had, no. I had Cowboys twenty four to sixteen. That's pretty good. Not close. Just look at that, okay, and I had Dak over three hundred yards real close because he didn't get it, you know, he didn't he didn't get it. And you

had twenty eight to twenty twenty three. I can't read my chicken scratch and Gallup was your pick to click. So we didn't do so well on we put us all together. We did ball five catchers. Yes he did, Yes, Yes, Dak did well except for the last. We could definitely get into this. His last three possessions. I think he must have gone and taken to hit us some weed or something. Man. That was that was the most confusing last three possessions I've seen, especially after seeing his excellence,

uh product to that. Yeah, just just putting them in there, especially that one throw that went to like nobody. That was a couple of those, right, And I don't know if receivers or they weren't on the same page. I have seen him bark at more receiver is now since out this whole three game stretch of working with young guys, working with side, working with Brown and uh and and you know, I think he kind of he didn't like

doing that. He doesn't like doing that. So other than our picks, your thoughts on winning that game on Thursday night in New Orleans twenty seven seventeen. Okay, here's what I here's I see when I when I listen, I listened too much sports talk radio. I used to be good at not listening to that crap, But since we're part of that now, then I feel like I need to.

And the more educated part of it. Yeah, yeah, we are the more educated part of I don't know what the heck they're talking about out there in the streets, but we always worry about how we went right. You know, we gotta be perfect. Everything's you know, I'm nit picking about the last three series. When he's making ceedee lamb, right, Dak is making ceedee lamb. Catch him? You know, I mean, you either have no choice but to catch stuck inside and stuck like any inside. I was. I was amazed

at that. And it wasn't like he was going for the home run. He was taking what they give him, which is how you got to play on the road, especially against a decent more than decent defensive team with the Saints which came in and number three against the run by the Let's look at the last three Super Bowl seasons we've had, of course with the Eigman teams of the Triplets and Michael Irvin, Emmy Smith, the defense that we had at the time, including Dion and Charles Haley,

Ken Norton Junior. This is you know, they always wont ugly. They always won ugly, and no one had any complaints. There were times when you know, you might try, might throw for two D fifteen yards and they but they were good to fifteen and you had Emmy doing this thing. We were riding. We were riding that Emmy Smith wave, were riding that train, and we were okay with that defense. Every once in a a while give up something stupid, but overall they had the game in the bag. Right. This

is how this game was. And and when you think of all the things that were piled up against him going into that game, right, two game losing streak, had lost three of the last four the stadium, right in the NFL. And then you had to deal with COVID last week. So they really didn't They had like maybe one full practice, uh, losing players, losing the coaching staff. And and this was what when I did my radio segment on Friday, which by the way, I did stop

to do it. I quit driving seventy five miles an hour, right you hit. I got before that actually because I hadn't got past the and I made those guys laugh. So I it was time to pull off. And it was the Donaldsonville exit and I said, okay, this is poetic justice because that's my dad's hometown. Wow. Right, that's where he grew up, right, And that's the one I was at when I pulled over, right. Uh. But anyway, I was saying, look at all the things. They were No.

Neither of the offensive line coaches, right, Uh, their offensive assistant Scott Tolzine, he was out with COVID. Two of the three strength and conditioning coaches were out with COVID for that game, and all three of them during the week when they didn't they didn't open the weight room, virtual meetings. You don't have your head coach all this going against him and playing the third game in twelve days. Yes, that's the main thing. And this was this was a

tired I think team maybe mentally too. And they won. And so my lead, and I'm glad you brought it up, was there's nothing wrong with an ugly win. And I went back and you know, but you should because you probably know what I'm going to write. So anyway, my point was, and I brought this up in my column, I said. In nineteen eighty three, the Chicago White Sox won the the Central Division, time team Central Division and qualified for the American League playoffs for the first time

since nineteen fifty nine. And about the middle of the season, and by the way, they ended up winning ninety nine games and had a twenty game lead on the second place team. Right the middle of the season, the Rangers manager Doug Raider said that team wins ugly. Well guess what. That became their battle cry. And I found look what I found here, Chris, And I don't know if you winning ugly, how old is that thing? Nineteen eighty three. It's yellow, right, Oh, yes it is. It's a little

dingy if you can't see. And that became their battle cry and they had no problems winning ugly, like you know, get a walk, a bunt, base hit, a walk, a bunt, a steel, a sacrifice flight, whatever it took to win, right, and they that was their battle cry. And that's when that first started winning ugly. But when you look at this team, let's just remember how young it is. This extremely young team. A veteran quarterback, what is he twenty seven? I mean, you're talking about trying to lead a team

that can be somewhat temperamental. Dadn't know what it's like to play this three game stretch. You know, when you when you look at the veterans on this team, a lot of them are getting nearly as much playing time as the younger guys who don't know what it's like to play through this. They were probably second teamers last year on another team last year. Now they're going through

this stretch. This was a very unique stretch that's only unique to the Dallas Cowboys themselves and whoever their opponents are. So you got to look at this as a win, just win, you know what I mean. Or win is a win, and we, like I said, we can complain all we want. I'd rather look at the good things that we did. How many interceptions do we have for four interset? And who got one of them? Oh my goodness, my band got one of them? So now that's nine.

That's nine. So yeah, that's nineteen eighty five. Yeah, he's five games. Yeah that was Yeah, that was one of my boyshears. So now that was that. That's something that I can still brag about. And you know what, who he hasn't caught yet? Right meyl renfrol Right had ten, had ten. So let's not forget it. And as my ego gets blown up as this goes on, let's not forget man the guy that I always idolized and had

to catch up to myself. I think the last regular season game against the Philadelphia Eagles, I broke the record. I think it was the last game against Philadelphia. So you're looking at a guy all goddon before Dion uh His long jump was was Olympic quality, fine speed was was was unmatched by any other defensive back. And he was just a He had all of that with instincts. He didn't just come up on something because he has speed,

you know. He was kind of like Dion Toway. Not only did he know where you were going already, he's gonna beat you there. And so those are the kind of players that were just unbeatable. So here you got ten interceptions. That digs. That's his next hurdle and I've been missing him because he hadn't gotten more. Was in the last four games it had been. Now he well, I can't think it's les last three games. He stuck

on it, and that's kind of how I was. I believe after the I think it was the Dolphins game of the Vams game in eighty one for a while. Man, he just gotta play some solid ball, you know. And that's what he was doing. Because they had an under over coverage on that. He was the under guy and Taysom Hill didn't read it because he thought he was lobbing one to a wide open guy and he was trailing underneath and was able to pick it off. So he became one of four players in the NFL since

twenty ten to have at least nine interceptions. The most was Xavian Howard ten I believe last year, last year also Texas. Also J. C. Jackson had nine last year, and then Tim Jennings I think it was two thousand and ten, eleven somewhere in there had nine. See, they don't want to go too far back because I would call Mark, call you. Yeah, there was a lot of guys. There was a there was a list this log of

had nine. Nine. Yeah. So so yeah, so anyway, four interceptions U pick six by the big guy going twenty nine yards to seal the game that was still in doubt. Right at some point, you got to win these games, you know. I keep saying that, and no one seems to believe it. Uh. Now we'll go four written. We'll see if the things that everybody was upset about, you know, was that game or they've got big problems, but it

was a win. Uh. They're eight and four with a two game lead in the NFC East, and there's only I think, if I remember correctly, two teams that have a better record than them in the NFC. I think in the NFL the Packers in the car and the Cardinals, right everybody else right in the NFL and in the NFL.

So eight and four, Uh, my guess is had had they won eight games last year, they would have won the NFC East, And now they got five games to go, right, so progress, right, and and again they can't win the Super Bowl in week thirteen. You got to play this thing out. Uh, And well it's always sounds so easy

to criticize because we're not out there playing. Yeah, and most of the people doing the says they hadn't he ever played ball in their lives, but they know what it looked, what good ball looks like, so therefore they think they're experts. And it didn't look good, but it was a victory. It was after all that. Right. It's like I tried to explain the guys all week long, what did we talk about, Well, how's it going to affect this team that Mike McCarthy's not there as the

head coach. How's it going to affect this team that Dan Quinn has to do both manage the game as the head coach but also called the defense and not from up above where he's used to doing it on

the sideline. Right, what's it going to be like when they come off the field on offense, who's going to talk to the offensive line because neither of the offensive line coaches or if it was so easy to just switch hats like that, to just change hats and wear different hats, then the greatest defensive coordinators are offensive coordinators that have gotten head coaching jobs. Then they should have automatically been Super Bowl winners right right off the bat.

Most the times it does not work out. And so that's the difficulty that you're talking about facing being an offensive coordinator. Defensive coordinators totally difference from being a head coach. Everyone can't do that. And it's not like you just roll it out there and say, Okay, you just put one coach downstairs and another coach upstairs and that's it. No, it's about being comfortable and where you are the best

at doing your job. Dan Quinn's better at being a defensive coordinator when he's up in the booth, right, And that's just all it is. You can't be that same defensive coordinator when you're not using your own eyes and ears to see from upstairs. And you basically had Ceedee Lamb coming back was the second he missed the game and a half missed the game and a half Amari Cooper.

Now Cooper ends up playing, and we said that he would play, but not as he only played twenty four snaps, but he had one huge catch, right, Lamb ended up with sixty two out of seventy snaps. He about played, uh the entire game. Um, and punts didn't Initially yes, he did, he didn't have Cedric Wilson was huge basically that fourth, fourth, three, right, and that's why he was returning those initial puts. Uh. And then they put digs back for the one boy. When it started, it looked

good and then it just kind of right. That was the twelve yards though, right. Well, exactly, so they were up against a whole bunch. DeMarcus Lawrence playing for the first time since the season opener. They had a pitch count on him, and I remember asking him after the game, Um, so did you play more than the pitch count? He goes, yeah, I wasn't counting, but I got a feeling I did well. He played thirty seven snaps, but you know what they were,

thirty seven? Really he was impactful, Yeah, really impactful snaps. You're you're exactly right. Uh so when you look at all that what they were facing, uh, and a quarterback that would rather run the ball than throw it. You know, there was a couple of plays where I don't know if they were they were third downs, and it's like, well, what did they think they were gonna do? He's gonna run the ball, He's not throwing it. I think his best running play is to actually attempt to pass and

then take off. That's that's when he's his most dangerous because everything is spread it out for him. At Plus, they were fortunate he sprained his middle finger on his throwing hand. He had a splint on it. Well, to say fortunate is one thing. He was fortunate to get out of there sometimes, right, So yeah, to say that he's fortunate to be able to use his hand because the pressure was coming. It wasn't just like it was the one time we had pressure he happened to be

throwing the ball. No, he was under duress almost the entire game. So when I talk about the team, some of my favorite gut teams, pittsburghs Ravens, you know how they win games under these weird conditions and you're like, you know how they pull that off. This wasn't quite that for the Cowboys, but you definitely had some adverse conditions that could have easily led two excuses to lose this ball game. So that's how I feel like we matured this week. The Cowboys had two sacks, they had

six tackles for losses, they had six quarterback hits. But this was the key one passes defense. They had nine right nine, So yeah, it wasn't pretty offensively, I get it.

They were two of thirteen on third down conversion. Seven of their fourteen possessions were three and outs, and it you know, basically, they scored twenty points as a matter of fact, if you look at it in the last in four of those last six games, they've scored twenty sixteen nine and then twenty seven, but really twenty on offense. And after the a five and one start, they've gone

three and three. So that average over those four games I just mentioned eighteen points a game, and that's with the twenty seven and the problem we have with that. What goes along with that on both sides is the running game. We are not able to run and support our passing game, and we are not able to stop the run either, which keeps our offense off the field, right, and that'll be big both of those in this next game against Washington. We're just getting the customed to it.

That's what we're doing. We're getting ready for that. So the totals, when you look at totals, you know, running the ball, they were twenty four for one forty six, but two of those runs were ninety one yards a fifty eight yard touchdown run by Tony Pollard, and then they called the task play to Cede lamb or run instead of a catch and that was thirty three yards. So I figured out they were twenty two for nine

d one or two and a half yards per carry. Well, now let's let's remember I talked about this when we played against the Bears for the sixth defense. Tom Landry always talked about it's gonna be tough, guys. There's gonna be many plays where you get zero or minus yardage, but you have to look for the break. The break is gonna come, but you gotta continue to do your job. And it's like I talked about with those stubborn teams, we have to remain stubborn. We can't just give up

on the run just because they stop it. Then we'd be like Seattle against New England and the Super Bowl. Oh, we'll stacked up the line of scrimmage. We can't. We can't think about running the ball on third and inches or third and goal. You know, let's just throw the ball. Well, yeah, that's what happened in Malcolm. Butler's a hero. So just do what you're supposed to do. Be stubborn. Who That's what football is about, right, Who is the most stubborn?

They're the ones that wins. And then you break one and all of a sudden, it's like, oh, they go. So this game to me was more about plays than consistently moving the football and even defensively stopping consistently the Saints and they made plays and we will talk about some of those plays and next here on Mick Shots on Dallas Cowboys dot com. Hey Cowboys fans, ready to spice up your next watch party? Bring Yokiero guacomole and

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This is for you, William. As we even do the victory song, we may have to play it coming back from the next It's well, I told you it's been a while since we've done The dark Man Show. Always depending on Chris. So we left off talking about big plays and um, I don't know about you, but for me, yeah, Tony Pollard's fifty eight yard touchdown run. Right. We mentioned to Marie Cooper the forty one yard catch Carlos Watkins

interception returned for a touchdown. But to me, the play of the game was Michael Parsons on third and two

from the Cowboys twenty six yard line. The game was twenty to ten at that time, and we were going into the first play of the fourth quarter, first play of the fourth quarter, and they're going to score something there, right, They're at the twenty six third and two, and for some reason, when you always wonder why people call plays that they did, the Saints decided they were gonna throw while Taysom Hill was running the ball eleven times for one hundred and one yards, right, and they called the

pass play and Micah Parsons broke through, and I don't think Taysom Hill figured out how sudden this kid plays because he thought he was going to run away from him, and the next thing you know, he sacks him for not only a sack, but eleven yard loss, took him out of at least a field goal range, right and potentially getting a first down and scoring a touchdown, and

not suddenly it's twenty seventeen. Right. He was like a shark, right when when the shark comes at you, as it gets closer, it gets faster faster, And that's what he did. It's like because you first you're like, oh crap, you know what I mean, he comes because you know what's coming. But then there's the realization of just how much space

has closed in the short amount of time. And so now you're you're you're not just surprised, now you're alarmed because you could actually lose the ball because others why then you're saying, oh, s right, right, And so now you're trying to figure out what not. I'm not trying to salvage the play. I'm trying to protect the ball now. And there are times when that usually comes out, but it was amazing that Hill could just even hold on

to it. Dan Quinn early when he was talking about the attributes of Michael Parsons, he said, he is so sudden, and I thought, that's the that's it. He's sudden. He just all of a sudden, he's on top of you, right, And so to me, that play right there kind of preserved the Cowboys lead. Uh, and you know they kind of cling clung on, cling on, clung on, Yeah, clung on until they got to the interception, which was funny because when they got the interception, it was, you know,

several minutes left in the game. So I'm packing up to go down because previously, although they speeded it up, maybe it's because it's Caesar's Superdome. The elevator to the press box was the slowest elevator in the United States. So I'm going, okay, I better go down, right. So I go down, and by time I get on the field, the Cowboys got the ball and I was like, well, what the hell happened? And Chris goes, well, they kicked off.

I know what you mean, they kicked off. I didn't see they had scored the touchdown to get to seventeen, right, um, but yeah, So to me, that play right there was huge, forcing them the punt from their thirty seven yard line. Let's think about this and brought it up. We knew it every game. He's almost the fastest person on the field in every game. Good point. That's that's crazy when when when you think about that, it's just this is a linebacker. This is two hundred and forty fifty pounds,

almost fifty. I think they officially put him at two forty six. And he doesn't even look like it. No, and that's scary as well. So it's almost like watching uh, the running back from the tightness. It's almost like David watching David Himmy, it's that amazing. Could you imagine a matchup between those two. I just thought about that. That would be crazy. I still want him to put the ball in his hands. They just think, well, he's on punt coverage, right, Uh, maybe he can pick one other right.

As Fossil has pointed out, he wants to return punts, I mean kickoffs. He wants them. He wants to return kickoffs, and he goes, no, will will like to look I don't even like that. Look, I don't like that. All I know is and I mentioned this before on the show. Franklin, the head coach at Penn State, had said during the draft that had Michael Parsons played that that COVID year, that he was going to have him return kickoffs at Penn State because he was that good of all, and

he was, yeah, that was he recruited as a running back. No, I think they recruited him as a defensive end and then they turned him into he's got too much speed to play defensive end linebacker. He's more free to go and do different things. Right, and now the fact that you've got DeMarcus Lawrence back, it looks like Randy Gregory is going to be back. Okay, so now you got

your defensive ends. You know, you're these are things that that is no one ever talks about that they do all during the week, but when the game happens and it's like, oh, well, well that is, and I'm talking about these guys that really they're not they don't have any any credibility necessarily as really people that no sports. They're just good at talking sports. And so when you think about that, you're talking about though, really they're just

glorified fans. But what I want them to see is you're so biased against the Cowboys in what they do and how they do it. You say, I Cowboys should win this game, but you say that hoping they lose, so as you can criticize they don't believe. They don't think they should win it because of any particular formula. They just think they should win it because they see all the talent on the team. Well, what you see is we had the Gregories out. We haven't played with

DeMarcus Lawrence. What you see is what we have on the field. But what are we missing? And when that depth is affected, you got new guys playing, You've got other guys playing longer than they should. Now that five and one, it's not as easy to achieve the next six games. And that's what we're dealing with. And so that's why you need to have gutsy wins. You need to have coaches that understand that, which I believe our coaches and our veteran players understand that this is an

extremely rare stretch of games, these three games. Now, how we come out of this, to me, that's going to tell how how we're going to go, how we're going to to go into the playoffs. Right, it's how we come out of this. And I love the challenge and we could talk about it later on the NFC East Challenge that's coming up for us right now. I think it's perfect timing for us to show just what we

can do. And going back to Parsons, so talking about that was his tenth sack, and they're thirteen NFL rookies with ten plus sacks in a season. The Cowboys rookie record sixteen games was was eight by where and then and then overall, Harvey Martin and Willie Towns had I believe it was nine, one in seventy three and the other one in nineteen sixty six. Those were their rookie years.

So yeah, what he's done has been an awfully remarkable and not playing defensive end full time, he did it kind of a fill in guy for what three three games maybe, And now he's back at linebacker and and I should have memorized this, but here's his line in the game, five combined tackles, one sack, one tackle for a loss, two quarterback hits, and he had that pass

covered downfield that ended up getting deflected and intercepted by Curse. Right, that was a great play overall, He'll have a pass by the way, Yes, he was gonna lay that thing in there. Yeahs now, yeah, he ain't getting it there. And for Jaylon, I mean he had digs there. Who if he wasn't not a bounce, he probably would have

reached for it. And of course with Jaylon coach coming up with such a heads up play, these young men give up place, of course they do, but all their minds and their eyes are always on the quarterback and they seem to always be ready to make not just a good play, but an amazing play. They're not just satisfied with the knockdown. They're going for the great play. That's what happens when you have a guy like Parsons and you have a guy like j. N. Curse And

let's let's just be real. He has the same mentality as any other player on this defense, no more, no less, And that's what I like about it. We love Parstons and how he approaches the game, but he's not the only one that approaches it in that manner. And you can see it on the field because Curses numbers are always high as Parsons. Here's how high they were in this game. Nine tackles, eight of those solo, two tackles for losses, an interception, a pass defense, and I don't know.

The first fumble was Anthony Brown, who led him with ten tackles. By the way, Anthony Brown, Yes, So here before we go to break, I noticed what the Saints were doing with the Cowboys playing so much man. They were playing these tight bunch for me with their receivers and then they're crisscrossing and that's how they got him on that one place. So what is the technique for a cornerback when you've got these guys and do you get away from playing man or do you just have

to fight through because it's not a pick. They're they're actually using your other defender to pick off their teammates. Well, you have to coordinate. You can't have both guys on. You have to have one guy off, one guy on. If you can have two guys off, then make sure that the priority is the down and distance. If you're gonna if you're gonna play soft on someone, you don't play soft on the guy going towards the end zone.

He play soft on the guy that wants to the shortest route, and then you react up with so if you're playing both off, it's almost like a zone technique, but you're just end and out on two receivers. To me, the best way to go, one guy up, one guy off. You take care of him. He can't wherever he goes, he goes you. You're gonna stop him from picking off my defensive back, my fellow defensive back, because he's off the line of scrimmage, and that gives him a chance

to read. Brown was the most susceptible from the from the lineup, from the alignment, and from the lineup. He should have known that that is a possibility. There's no way you should get up. All of you guys get up and the jam technique when you have a bunch formation. That was a mistake from the beginning. So I don't know why Brown even got up there in the first place. Number two, every route that's hits you big, it's been inside, yes,

So just lineup off and inside. Let them have the sideline. Okay, it's a it's an eight ten yard route. You line up, you play another down as opposed to a quick six because if you don't get pressure and they've got that much time to run from the right side of the formation. Then we saw it last week with the Shawan Jackson right. Yes, he goes all the way to the left side. That makes a catch when you when you have a bunch formation.

Let's make sure we designate right away. You go up on the lava screams, I'm off, you got your man, I got my I'll play off of you. There you go. You get that on mix shots only here on Dallas Cowboys dot com. And when we come back, we'll discuss some of the things that the Cowboys do need to improve on if they're going to continue and start another winning streak here on Dallas Cowboys dot com. The Medal of Honor is our country's highest military award for valor

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that pick up the pace? Baby? Let's go as we continue here on Mick Shots Cowboys today or basically doing weight training. I think the weight rooms finally reopened. Um, they will do conditioning work and the coordinators were doing their weekly media sessions started about nine minutes ago, so we'll hear what they've had to say after we finished the show. Dan Quinn getting a victory. Yes, it's been a while since he's had a head because I think they started off oh in five last year in Atlanta.

That's why he ended up getting fired. But he's he's he's kind of closing a few loops here. He right, came back and beat uh Atlanta Bill Belichick. Oh yeah, right, that's the first thing. Came back and beat Bill Bill Belichick. And that was our first victory, he says, like eighty six in mass and the Falcons beat the Falcons. That door.

Now as a head coach, as the head coach, you one one and somehow they you know, we're able to kind of as Mike McCarthy talked about on Friday, Um, you know, everybody stepped up and did what they were asked to do, and we're capable of doing it. With dan Quinn, we talked about him doing both uh lounda wells coaching the tight ends but also the offensive line. Ben McAdoo going up top in the in the in the coach's box. Uh So they had a lot of guys as dan quib there's how did he put it?

No job that isn't your job, basically, he said when he did his deal last week. And so uh, they were able to survive that game, Uh, no matter how ugly it was. But there are things the Cowboys got to get better at and we know that, and one of them is being able to effectively run the football and continuing uh to struggle with that, and we pointed out the yards they gained other than the two big plays.

To me, it comes down to, and Steven Jones said it today on his radio segment, the offensive line has to be better. It has to be more coordinated. They need more continuity on the offensive line, and if that improves, then the running game improves. And I hear everybody talking about Dak and what's the problem. Well, if the offensive line is not playing well on the run game, does that mean, oh, but they're doing a heck of a job protecting the quarterback and they're not. He is under

so much pressure every time he passes the ball. And we've mentioned many times on the show before that that Dak is one of the best. It's been noted that he's one of the best quarterbacks in the pocket under pressure. So that's one of those things that we should be thankful for it because he's getting a lot of pressure. When you look at the touchdown that we scored on the on the running play by Pollock, everyone did their

perfectly right. Not just talking about the offensive lineman. One of the wide receivers came Beligue shielded them off perfectly. Believe Schultz turned someone outside and they stayed with their blocks. And as I looked at all of it, the offensive lineman on the left side, they shielded off people with just enough time to where the weakness was created in

the hole. I believe it was mcgoverned. He ran his man all the way down I believed ten to fifteen yards down the field and was still had contact with him. We talked about maintaining and continuing contact as an offensive lineman. That's the toughness that they need. It's not coordination. You have to whip that man and not just the initial contact, but stick with the contract as you drive through. That's how other teams are able to take average backs and

get above average George. And that's why we have these above average backs who are getting below average George because I will often sublimel are not staying with their blocks as they did on that pot of play. It was typical of how you're supposed to block a successful running play, and he shocked him with his speed to thim. Yes, he thought he had the angle on him, and all of a sudden he goes, oh, no, I'm losing ground here. He's tried to play it safe. I don't know what

he was doing. This is the guy that every once in a while, he's the one that gave up the past two I believe it was Digs the miracle in New Orleans. The Vikings end up winning the game. Well, yeah, he was the guy that's supposed to make the interception. He didn't do either. He didn't want to commit passing offense, he didn't want to hit hit the guy too soon, and and he didn't do anything and ended up losing

one of the bigger games in Saints of history. So he's had that that that knack to do something like that. But consistently on both sides, we have been inconsistent. I mean, we talked about versus the run, we know what Taysom Hill's gonna do, and yes we talk about our team was tired and boy, they just that's one of those games you just gotta gut it out, but we were still in that process. We were still consistent in giving up too many running yards and big plays in the

passing game too. And he wasn't throwing the ball very well either, but too many big plays in the in the running game. Um, you know, he's got a long or twenty four yards that on that one player, and that's the one he hurdled. Whoever he hurdled that was. So when when quarterbacks do that? As a defensive guy, do you just like, I'm gonna get that. I'm just

gonna and when I get him, I'm gonna really nail over. Yeah. Well, Casey's like smaller than me, and Taysom's like two hundred and forty pounds, so he ain't gonna get nobody unless he's not looking right. So all he has to do just keep on making plays. And I must admit I saw some people out there that are still as consist as can be under these tough situations. I thought Cheltz played a really good game. Blocking is still tough, but he made some catches for us that kept the chains

moving right. And I know Dad put it in there tight, but you still gotta go get it. And watching him make some of those big plays on those out routes against a very good strong safety and Jenkins. That's something that you just can't take for granted. You know, when you see Marty Cooper come in, we know he's hobbling, meaning physically. I don't mean that he's you know, got

knee problems, a lower leg problem. Just you know, when you come into a game like that, you gotta be a little cloudy after missing two games from COVID, right and just man, the dad threw that thing up there and he just he plucked it out like he just picked a limited from a tree, you know what I mean, Just the way he just reached up and got it. That's the kind of thing you just can't take for granted, but we do. And having that luxury, that's something that

Dak realizes he has. That's something his coaches realized. And I don't think that's why the panicking right now, because that's the guts that you show, the consistency from those those players. That's what you need in a game like this, because he could be easily going, oh man, show's not catching it today. Oh man, they go cool, he's not

ready to day now. But they didn't give you that opportunity to do that because they came through and so and the and the guys they had coming back Tyrn Smith, so he had missed a week or two and wasn't practicing that much. You mentioned CD coming back, Amari coming back Gallop. That was just his second game back, looking good to d Law his first game back, and he looked good too. And think about what he did and you know his his line, Uh wasn't bad for a

guy that was playing his first game in quite some time. Uh. And he had two tackles, he had a tackle for a loss and two uh two Uh he actually had two passes defense to the line of scrimmage in thirty four seven snaps. Yeah. So, uh so you got to get these guys back in the swinging things. You would hope the COVID thing disappears this week and you get

back to practicing in they have consistency. Now we have ten days to get ready for the next game, and you've got these players that are going to capitalize and they've had enough rest because they had basically Friday, Saturday, Sunday off. Get back in here today lightly and then get back to practicing Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, when you got your job and get me to get the report, the

report for injury report. Oh, the injury report. The first one will come out on Wednesday, Wednesday after our show. So um so that's where they're at going forward. Eight and four, still two game lead in the NFC East and now the showdown with Washington that we will get into tomorrow in depth on a team that has won four consecutive games after starting your own babies, I believe they started to see you when we see one in five, will see you when we see It's time all right

forever someon walls on Mickey Spagnola. That's mix shots on Dallas Cowboys dot Com, Go Cowboys. This has been a production of Dallas Cowboys dot Com and the Dallas Cowboys Football Club.