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This is Nick Shot streaming live on Dallascowboys dot Com and the official Dallas Cowboys at now Here are Bill Jones, Everson Walls, and Nicky Spagnola and.
It is Cowboys Wednesday here at the Star in Frisco. This is Mick Shots inside the SWBC SWBC podcast studio. It's brought to you by Miller Lite, Bill Jones, Mickey Spagnola and it will be Everson Walls in a matter of minutes, in a moment, in a moment. Okay, do you think when he was with the Giants, could he call ahead and say he was running ten minutes late and Howard Parcels react to that?
Beyond time?
Minds me of the summer that Keishawn Johnson was with the Cowboys for the first time, and he had gone to Santa Barbara to see his daughter in a Michael Jordan basketball camp Sunday. Uh huh, Well, he didn't realize that on Sunday the traffic on the Pacific Coast Highway is backed up going back towards LA and he was in a traffic gym, and he knew he was going to be late for the team meeting at six o'clock.
He called Bill and he goes, got no shot to get in their coach, he goes, whatever the fine is, let me know, Well, we don't find people, No, we don't.
We don't, so but we await the arrival of That's right, Well he will make a grand entrance here shortly. Cowboys have a later schedule than what we are accustomed to on Wednesdays, and I assume that's because of the Sunday night game. It's given him a little extra time.
Yes, I think Mike made reference to trying to keep get the guys off their feet as much as they can because of the later rival. I mean, I didn't put my head down on a pill and I didn't play in the game till five o'clock in the morning on Monday.
So that does not count as a full day of rest for the team.
Not really, because I'm sure they had sick call and then they had a meeting and Tuesday was the day off. But I think he's just kind of trying.
To basically, instead of a three twenty five kickoff, it was a it was four hours later, So you just pushed the schedule back on Wednesday four hours basically, yeah, what it amounts.
To get them off their feet, let them cooperate, cooperate, Okay, recuperate.
So the Mike McCarthy press conference coming up later this afternoon, our availability with the players later this afternoon, and as they get set to uh face these New York Jets, and it will be interesting to see what the Jets have as they we know they won't have Aaron Rodgers when they come here on a Sunday afternoon. But I'd like to get into it a little bit after Everson gets here just how equipped this Jets team is to
win games without Aaron Rodgers at a quarterback. But first off, let's just get.
They already won a game, and they did.
I mean there was proof positive right there against a team that some people meaning me picked to be in the Super Bowl this year. Oh no, one person meaning me picked Josh Allen to be the MVP of the league. Didn't get off to a straight start.
I wanted to tell you this so because of the way the Jets won the game. Yes, Xavier Gibson with the punt return sixty four yards in overtime for the touchdown and finding out he was a local, local guy yep, motivated me last night to go watch the last three episodes of Hard Knocks. Okay, I wanted to see if he was kind of part of it at any point.
Yes, he was, well, he was.
I was surprised somewhat, but it was a storyline, undrafted rookie wide receiver. He and the other guy's name was it was it Brownlee?
Jason Brownlee.
Yes, so they were kind of buds. They kind of hung out together because they were both in the same boat.
I'll tell you what my daughter did. As soon as he returned the punt for a touchdown, she texted me and it was OMG, oh my god, that's Gibson. I loved him on Hard Knocks.
Right, see, So I went and watched it. So it got to the last episode where they were showing the cuts, right, So Brownlee gets called in first, and they kind of screwed with them and then finally told them, okay, you made the team. Well here comes Gibson. He goes in. He's with Joe Douglas and Robert Salah, the head coach the GM, and they started going on and on he goes, hey, man, you did everything. I understand how you got here. You weren't drafted, it was a long shot. You gave us
the best effort. He goes, but this is a business and we got only fifty three guys to make it. And you can see the kid dying on the couch right, and they're just they're just killing them. And and he goes, and you know, we only can keep fifty three guys, and you're one of them.
You're a New York Jet.
And I thought he was just gonna pass out. And it was.
It was. He had he said it was the longest twenty minute drive ever. It is right because he had they told him come come to the office. Yeah, twenty minute drive away.
It was.
It was really good. And and you had to love the kid right, just the way he acted, just the way he interacted with the team during during that whole deal. And I didn't realize that, you know, somebody knew about him prior to the punt return.
And he you know, he really did a lot in four years at Stephen F.
Austin.
He was a In fact, he was recruited as a cornerback. He played cornerback in high school at Woodrow Wilson and probably playing offense as well. Uh I actually called his high school coach, Bobby Estes, who's now at Thomas Jefferson. By the way, the Cowboys did a great thing yesterday. It was a lot of the rookies. Charles Haley was there,
Charlotte Jones was there. They dedicated a new football field at Thomas Jefferson was their school and the facilities ruined back by the tornado which happened during that Sunday night Cowboys game a few years ago. And uh so they were out there yesterday, had the field dedication. But I talked to his old high school coach, and you know they have they have morning practices, and uh so, he said he went to bed at halftime of the game.
But two sons who played with Zay Gibson at Woodrow Wilson, and so he got a call from one of them at ten to fifteen Monday night, waking him up saying, Dad, Dad, did you see Zay. His other son calls about ten minutes later, wakes him up again, just falling back asleep. Hey Dad, Dad, did you see Zay?
Yeah, I'm aware of it.
So yeah, Anyway, his phone was ringing off the.
Pretty pretty good story and speaking of undrafted free agents who arrived early in his NFL career despite being an undrafted free agent.
Everson Wallas is here.
We're talking about way too much fun without me.
We're talking about Xavier Gibson, the pride of Woodrow Wilson.
High School with the playing golf with someone that went to his high school from Charles Hayton.
Just a peon, just a guy. Well he was on my golf team.
Yeah, and he went to Woodrow Wilson who had the Charles Haley golf tournament at the Cowboys Court today.
And so did we ask you this how you found out you made the team? We were just telling the story he found out because they played him on hard nun.
The GM and the head coach they.
You're an undrafted creag.
No, we we knew uh when we came.
They just said, you know, no one came to the room at all to say I made the team. Once we went to the meeting, then Tom Landry was there and he said, this is what we're going with and that was it.
That's how I knew.
Like because you were in the meeting, that meant you made it.
You made because you didn't get called into another meeting, called out.
So when you said they didn't come to the room, did they do this in training camp or.
I remember the twin sixties.
Oh, you were staying in the hotel.
Twin sixties hotel. They put us all up there. And I remember when we came to the meeting. We knew how many dbs were gonna make the team because we were all counting stuff. And we walked into the room and there was the same amount of dbs as it was before the last preseason game. And so we're like, hey, something's going on. There's too many people, too many DB's, And by the time the meeting was over, there was one less dB. But we didn't know it until the
meeting was over. They had come and tapped Aaron Mitchell on his shoulder and told him, you're going to Tampa. And that's how we found out. So traded what we're going.
So they traded to make room for you and.
Make me and downs, and I remember, as a matter of fact, Tom didn't say anything. It was when we broke off into our own section, our own you know, dB section, that that's when Gene Starling said, this is what we're going with. Tom Landry never said hey, congratulations, You guys got this confused with normalcy.
This was not how we did it back in the day.
It was as crude as ever, always crude. There was nothing de about anything. They didn't say anything until we sat in the dB meeting room at that time and we looked around and Mitch was gone, Aaron Mitchell was gone, and that's how we knew. Tom Jeane started said, okay, guys, this is what we're going with.
They didn't have cameras in the room.
Yeah, they didn't have to play or anything, you know.
Very unceremonial.
That's what I can s ever, good job, you played hard, but we only have this many spots. Nope, and you made it.
Yeah, none of that, none of the congratulations, none of that. It was almost as if Jane Starling was pissed that this is what he was left with. You had two undrefted free agents and me and Michael Downs. You had uh Ron Fellows it was a seventh round draft pick, like seventh A. And then you had Dennisterrman. So come on, would you be happy with that group? Not knowing what the heck was going on?
Jane was like, I am freaking cursed here.
And the way he came to us was like, Okay, this is what we're going with. You guys are going to work hard and I'm gonna make sure you got Okay, Jeane.
Thank you for congratulating us. It's almost like he.
Was upset there was no parade down there.
He seemed a little disappointed that this is what he had to work, very disappointed.
All right, before we kicked things off with the Jets. Gilbrent memorial service was yesterday after afternoon and there was a whole lot of former cowboys that were in attendance, a lot of gold jackets.
Yeah, they said, well those gold jackets, they did they did?
They told them to, Well they listened because by my list, Troy was there, Cliff Harris, Bob Lily, Drew Pears Pearson, Roger Roger was there, Mel was there there, and Scott Holly was standing in for Chuck Holly. And I think that was where the one size that had gold jackets that had gold jackets on there was like eight of them. I think I don't know how many I just said, but yeah, it was a pretty impressive group and a
lot of the other former players showed up too. Timmy Newsom was there, Preston Pearson, of course, John Fitzgerald DJ was there, Chad Hennings and Chad Hennings. That's how he. Gil was the one that drafted him when he still had to do Air Force service. I think they drafted him late, maybe in the eighty eight draft, twelfth tenth, twelfth round, something like that, and then he actually got released early and I think he made it there in ninety two, maybe ninety one, ninety two. So yeah, there
was a it was it was nice. It was nice and I didn't see.
Him, but some reason he popped in my hand.
I was like, well, because see us came after Gil was there. I had to leave because I had to do TV at three o'clock. I never drove so fast my life to get back here with one minute to
spare right to get back. And it was like you but yeah, it was good and and and and you know the I think it was the minister at the end talking about how we all, you know, hope that we make an impact on this world while we're here, and talked about the impact that Gil made in so many different ways, not what just what the cowboys, but with the National Football League and some of the charities he worked at. I wish I could have gone to h They had a reception at Dallas Country Club afterwards.
I couldn't make it there. John Wooton was there. By the way, John's getting old. He's in his eighties. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but he's still getting around.
So spirit Spirit.
And and and Drew gave a eulogy, and he was talking about how Gil would go places where no one else would go to find players and he goes in you know, a lot of us were overlooked, and he roses, he raised his hand and he goes hello, Cliff, just like that. So it was it was really nice, so nice thing that Jones family was in there in entirety. So it was a nice, nice service.
How about the bond that players have after their careers, We were just talking about it. Gary Myers has a book out on the New York Giants. Once a Giant is the title of the book, and he's talking about how the Giants players have. You know that they have their own fraternity from the Super Bowl teams that they
had and so forth. It really is unique. Uh, you don't find any I can't think of other professions where you get a group that works together and there they have the opportunity to get together on down the road in life.
I know I only worked with the Giants for a few years, but yeah, they considered me part of that that clan.
Uh.
But I must admit I think the Cowboys might have the closest alumni group.
Part of it has to do I think that people, yeah, living here right by the way.
I just the city itself.
I missed one of the gold Jackson, Tony Dorset and looking good. Yeah, he's had a nice recovery from where he was white. I didn't see Randy.
Randy.
Randy's trying to do better. He's he's been doing better by himself. And and when you see him, you're happy.
And the one person I wanted to say hi, I do. And I didn't get a chance to Jerry Mote motor work in the PR department. She was there. She's still motoring along.
Ja man, that's the name.
She was an old timer still is. I should say, all.
Right, Well, we got much to get to on the Jets and the Cowboys. Later schedule for the Cowboys today, we get into all of that when we come back here on mixshots.
I'm Dak Prescott, quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys, and they snapped.
The press guy who looks right, it's not there. He escaped slapt He'll look full a punch down.
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All right, and Cowboys and Jets three twenty five kickoff on Sunday game will be on CBS. Jim Nantz and Tony Romo will be on the call. And you know, looking at this Jets team coming off the victory, it was interesting driving in this morning listening to people talk about the Jets and what are they going to do at quarterback now?
Right?
What in the world are they going to do at quarterback? Who's out there that the Jets.
Can sign Tom Brady And that one has.
Been mixed, I think by Tom Brady himself now. And it's like it's crazy talk because even if there was a Hall of Fame quarterback that was out of work right now willing to come, he's not going to be able to step in right now and do better than the one who's been in camp and with them for the last year.
It's like they don't realize that Tom didn't just when Brady came to Tampa. He didn't just come in like after the season started. He prepped with the team all off season, He learned the system, you know, he was ingrained in and all of a sudden, now he's ready to play. But it wasn't You can't just come just plug someone in.
I say, where Fitzmagic is doing commercials?
And you know, so, I mean even the talk Chad Henney who retired and he was backing up the homes in Kansas City most recently. But you look up and what they they link it to. Okay, Nathaniel Hacket's the offensive coordinator, and so who does he have a history with. Well, he was in Jacksonville when Henny was in was a backup in Jacksonville. And last time Chad Henney started a game in the National Football League was it was twenty fourteen. Oh twenty fourteen. It's been nine years since he started
a game. And okay, yeah, this guy's gonna do better. There are a whole bunch of people in that Jets front office, coaching staff, you name it, who thought enough about Zach Wilson that they made him the second pick in the draft. Yeah, I mean they've hitched their wagon to Zach Wilson.
I saw somebody got a hold of Bill Parcells to ask him about the deal with the Jets, and he goes, hey, they don't cancel the season. You know, things happen. Don't care who you are, no excuses, And he goes in in three weeks, he goes. You know, if they lose a game, they're going to be talking about the cornerback that missed the coverage or the wide receiver that dropped the ball. They're going to forget who's playing quarterback. Right, It's like injuries, right, you talk about injuries all week,
and then the team gets beaten. It's like, well, what the hell happened? Well, we're missing three starters.
Nobody wants to hear that. No, no, no.
You know, to your point on Tom Brady, of course, when he went to Tampa Bay, that was the COVID year. COVID hit in March of that year, and there was all the video that Tom Brady got his receivers out on football fields, practice fields in high schools in the Tampa area or wherever to get him ready, get acclimated to his new receiving corp and everything. Probably gave him a huge advantage over other teams in the league. They were doing it more than anyone else was during that year.
Well, if you think about it, they were getting after him. It was like illegal gathering. It's like you weren't supposed to be out in public in a group, right, and they were gonna I don't know, well the NFL were going to find him, but the city was worried about.
But the point is just show up and oh yeah, this guy's going to do better than someone who's already been there for uh some length of time. So and you know, you think about it. All the Jets have to do and for that matter, I think the Cowboys can look at it the same way. Is when you build a football team good enough to where you can lose your starting quarterback and still come close to reaching your ultimate goals. The San Francisco forty nine ers are
a great example of that last year. I mean when they lose Jimmy g Well, they first they lost Trey Lance to begin the season, and then two games in, Garoppolo goes down and it's the last pick in the draft, Brock Purty, mister irrelevant, who's able to win football games for them? And then you look before the Cowboys played on Sunday night, the most impressive team that took the field on Sunday forty nine ers, and and what Brock he was doing at quarterback. But it was as the
old as the old coach Barcels. I mean, if you're a bus driver the game manager. I mean, but he he looked very impressive, that's right.
But when you've built your.
Team well enough where you can run the football, you can do you have a very strong defense. That's what the Cowboys have done here as well. Rush So Robert Sally was in San Francisco. All he has to do is look at that blueprint of what they've done in San Francisco and tell Zach Wilson that's what you need to be. You just need to be rock party last year and.
San Francisco did fine until they lost all of them.
Right exactly.
Any guy that just showed up, and that's what that's what happened. When someone just shows up, you can't function at all. But really, I mean, I think the Cowboys can can learn from that too. Dak can learn from that. You know that he's got a good enough team around him that you don't have to make that extra throw.
I'm pretty sure that's what they talked about the entire off season. That's what the change in the offensive plan was. And you saw it in the game this past Sunday night. He didn't try too much. You know, he saw whether the game was headed. He saw that there was a shutout going his defensive playing, well.
Don't force anything. Be like Eli.
Remember Eli used to just throw the ball in the ground and it didn't look pretty at all. But what did look pretty was the fact that he saved you from it getting a sack. And in the next play he throws a dime down the field.
That's what you want, and you just put it on the shoulders of everybody else. Right, it's like, hey, you got something to do with this. We can't sit here and just you know, drop our heads and like, oh woe's me. No, you got to go.
And whether we like to admit it or not, those quarterbacks out there, the Brady's, the Rogers and all that, they've had help.
They've had very good help. Yeah, they didn't do it by themselves.
When it's all said and done, you want to say this quarterback did this, or this quarterback did that. But the truth is, if you look at the entirety of the film, it was done by the entire team.
And not to say this is going to happen all season long, but Kansas City the first game, right, everybody, well, quarterback, you know we got guys missing. Put it on your back.
Is Patrick one of the greatest examples of a recent, fairly recent Super Bowl winning team that had one of the greatest quarterbacks.
Of all time.
And did he put pedestrian numbers up? Not even pedestrian numbers up in some games. It was Peyton Manning with the Broncos. I mean his his stats from that season were horrendous.
Well, then you had Von Miller, right, I keep to leave.
Yeah, the hell of a defensive team on the other side, and why not let them, know, ride their backs every once in a.
Whe win a Super Bowl without your starting quarterback.
Oh, we won without the starting quarterback and running back. We lost Rodney Hampton early in the season and that's why OJ forgot about.
That's why O. J.
Anderson ended up getting the MVP because we had nobody else.
And Phil Simms was on the way.
He had the Achilles went down against Buffalo in New Jersey and after that we struggled three and three, but we knew where we were going that that was a good deal.
Seems like there's another team about that. Twenty sixteen, there was a yeah quarterback that went down and started his broadcasting career, and Dak Prescott did what he did that actually.
Parcells pointed out that on the same day in ninety nine, Finny Testaversity Vista Verdi tore his achilles the same day, nine to eleven in Giant Stadium, and he went to forgot the next quarterback he went to, and then he went to Luke Lucas.
Was that the.
Not Robert Luke? I forgot his first name? Anyway, they finished eight to eight, almost made the playoffs. So his point was, no one wants to hear this.
No one's feeling sorry for you, right, they have no time, so whatever the locker room is feeling, and they should. If I'm the Jets, I'm feeling pretty good. I'm thinking I can win with Zach Wilson. My defense is ready to go. Let's go defense on defense. That's what they're looking at, right, And they're gonna look at the running game. We're gonna they're gonna see what they did well against a very good Buffalo squad. So, yeah, this is gonna
be a tough game. It's gonna be This is not gonna be one of those forty forty Burger ain't coming up. They needed another.
They needed another episode of Hard Knocks, because here's the hard knocks right now.
This is interesting right now? Yeah, And I mean.
They proved it against one of the best teams in the league on Monday night, and there's no reason why they can't come in here and put up the same thing. Here's the deal. They have put a what they believe is a Super Bowl contending team together around Aaron Rodgers's That's what Zach Wilson has around him this year that
he didn't have last year. Is they have actually built this team to win now that they they they're farther along in their development by signing Dalvin Cook and they got brace Hall back, they got a run game that they can rely on.
They ran for one hundred and seventy two yards. Yes, one hundred and seventy two. Now, I know eighty three was one run, but.
Even if you take that out, you're looking at a very solid running again.
When he took off from where he did and you saw him running, did you think of Dorset going ninety nine? Because I did. Oh my god, this is the second coming.
All right, I've got a question I want to throw out for you too and give them we come back about it time to think about it. I was asked the question today, and that is who is the second best player on this Dallas defense? Oh, second best player on this Dallas defense? Answer when we come back here on mixed shots.
The Medal of Honor is our country's highest military award for valor in combat. More than forty million individuals have served in the armed forces since the Civil War. Fewer than four thousand have received the Medal of Honor. The National Medal of Honor Museum will be a place to preserve these legacies and inspire America. It's being built right next door to the Dallas Cowboys in Texas. Help us honor our country's greatest heroes. Learn more and get involved at mohmuseum dot org.
Cowboys Football and Miller Lyte What a pairent can Crack's a kickoff, Tailgate's going Way Pass, postgame Sunday Night overtimes followed by Monday Morning Swagger, Brisky than the Smoker, Miller Light, and the Cup the America's team playing America's greatest sport. Miller Lit, the only beer of the Dallas Cowboys. Dallas Cowboys Football, Taste like Miller Time, Celebrate Responsibly. Twenty twenty three, Miliberal and Company, Fort Worth, Texas I'm.
Dak Prescott, quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys, and they.
Schnapper a crushdout who looks white. It's not there. He escaped flap. He'll hunch down.
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All Right, you mentioned earlier about the Testaveriti Achilles injury and the season opener in nineteen ninety nine, and so I was just pulled up a story on that season for the Jets, and they actually they initial parcels initially went with Rick Myer, that's right, to replace Testa Verdie.
I couldn't remember.
And then it was Ray Lucas. Okay, And in December, December of that year, the Jets came in here to Texas Stadium and Ray Lucas led a fourth quarter comeback to beat the Cowboys twenty two to twenty one.
As they were on their way to an eight and eighth.
That's right, all right, and so and with the wind Lucas had a four and three record as the Jets starting quarterback, third highest passer rating in the AFC, and but this was what was funny, Parcels In the postgame interview. Postgame, Prescotvery says, you guys had him out of here after the Green Bay gay talking about Lucas. Now you're giving him the job. Parcells said, uh, as the reason he went with Meyer instead of Lucas after testa Verdie went down.
I had a guy with fifty starts. I didn't know about Lucas back then. Now he knows about it, so that anyway, Yeah, all right, Dallas defense, who is the second best player on this Cowboys deepen, there's something easy for a cornerback? Yeah, like Everson. The salaries say it too, Yes for the recent.
Right, yeah, yeah, I don't know why he's taking so long. Well, go ahead, it's Diggs. Come on, it's Digs.
You have you know.
Of course, you got DeMarcus Lawrence, who is definitely worthy. You can say what you want make him, especially when you talked about last year, one of the most important players on the Cowboys defense. But with Michael Parsons and his superlatives, you want to put him up there and Diggs has his own.
Superlatives that you can deal with.
And we talked in numbers eleven interceptions last year, second year in the.
League, two years ago, two years ago.
Then he's got you know, the big plays that he made against the Jetsah, he's starting.
Already wrong against the Giants the other.
Night, Giants starting off strong this year.
It didn't have to be interceptions.
It does not.
I mean he seems to be all over the field and the way he made the place he salvaged them. You know, when the ball was caught by the guy in the quick slant, I mean he followed him the whole way, tracked him down.
It was a twenty four yard reception, and he stayed on top stage with him and stayed with it, knocked it out.
It wasn't by accident that that ball came out. That was clearly by design.
Cowboys announced at the beginning of training camp with the second best player on this defense with.
A salary year, how much was it eighty four?
I haven't written down as a five year, ninety seven million dollars extension.
I tried to even think about it.
But think about some other players that think about Stefan Gilmore we just we've just seen him in one game, right.
He played very He played first of all, great interception. We didn't talk about that yesterday, trying to stop it from hitting the ground.
They tried so hard to show it hit the ground right.
Well, it was a veteran move by him.
He knew that camera was right there, so he turned his back to camera able to overturn the call on the field.
But now that, yeah, and not just that he had a break up, you know that.
Was and his just the presence that he brings the veteran, the veteran yeah, leadership, and it's just a he's so calm. Yeah, and it's a calming presence for the entire team.
He seems to have a presence over digs.
It seems like to have a apport to where like, okay, I'm following your lead.
I like that there's a quiet confidence that everybody on the team can have knowing that, Okay, we got this guy on our side.
Now.
I mean it's there's there's some guys they get off the bus and they're intimidating because of their size or whatever, you know, or you know Micah and the way he plays, But there and there's other.
There's poise in presence. There's poise in his presence.
Uh.
And if there was another candidate, I would have gone with DeMarcus Lawrence. I think he's uh sort of boy. What he does up front, so many different things heralded. Yeah, and then I may have one on That's right.
I think I'm thinking of the same person you're thinking of. Let's give it, let's give it half a season, another full seasons.
Oh see, that's what.
I said to the guy asked me. I said, there's an under the radar guy who is now getting a little over the radarcers. He had two sacks in a month in a Sunday night game. But and he's he's been like that ever since he came to the league.
How was his camp?
I mean, I was going to say he was the best defensive tackle they had during training camp.
You saw it, you can see it last year. I was hoping that he continued.
And so when they see his rookie year too, well who's the three technique? Well it's osa you can figure out who's playing next to him, right, because everybody it was like all this attention on Mazi and you know he was the twenty seventh pick in the draft. You know, that's getting close to the second round right the way. But that three technique guy can make a difference, and boy, he sure did, and and and those guys. A lot of times when they go to their change up defense,
he's not on the field. You know, they're using linebackers to line up as the as the defensive tackle. I had his snap count here.
He had o dig azua.
Yeah, he had twenty. He only had twenty seven snaps thirty and got two sacks and got two sacks, So that's pretty good production per play, right, and he also had four tackles. He had two tackles for losses, three quarterback hits. That's pretty good play production there, and maybe that says something for being fresh too.
You know, it was a third round draft pick, seventy fifth overall, and he really showed it even in his rookie season. Right, and he had four sacks last year.
You know.
The thing that's so impressive about him, he is get off. He's just the way he plays. But he's got those long arms. He's only he's only six to one and a half, but he's got thirty four inch arms with an eighty four inch wingspan and he uses it to his benefit. But he's strong even with those long arms. He had twenty five inch reps of two hundred and fifty pounds at the combine, which shows how strong he is well.
And it's something to be said for that low center of graphic he has that as well. Yeah, you know, it's hard to knock a guy like that over. You know, he's not tall and lean. I mean, he's already almost like a fireplub, you know what I mean. He's you know, fire hydrant. He's ready to go and you're not going to knock him over. He's going to be stable no matter where you hit him.
You know, as much talk as there is in the NFC East about the defensive tackles in this division and what the Eagles have even without Javon Hargraver's now with the forty nine ers, but Fletcher Cox for over a decade now, and the guys they've gotten out of Georgia, including Jalen Carter who impressed in his first game, but and then the Alabama guys that Washington has on their front, and then the Clemson guy, the exter Lawrence that well,
here's a UCLA guy, in Osa. Who is holding his own when you compare him to the other top notch Pro Bowl type defensive tackles in this division. And I.
See a few more games, But to me, Dimone Clark is going to be a baller. He only got to start five games last year, and the majority of the games he played were special teams. But once he got back in training camp, so in this game, very silently, he had five tackles and I think he can be a force in the middle. Somebody was talking about the Cowboys problems at linebacker, and I'm going, hey, don't go to sleep on Leyton Vanderish.
Oh, by the way, and where.
Would have Demone Clark been drafted if he didn't have the he's a hurt.
He's no lower than a second round. He might have been a first round pick out of LSUE and he.
Fell to the fifth round because of the medical.
Yeah. Absolutely, this guy can play. And he's big, he's strong, and he's fast. I don't know what else you need in a linebacker. And he seems to be really really sharp, so watch out for him. But again, the way they play it, those guys don't What did he get? He had forty six snaps, So that was sixty six percent and some of that's screwed because those guys came off the field.
Yeah.
When playing this, well, everybody can't be on the tackle, right, You can't half a tackle.
Like oh said he had four sacks last year. Well, if Mikah gets there before him, I mean you can't get.
And in this game, everybody was just salivating to get to the quarterback.
What's interesting about the question that I asked is because I was asked it this morning by a guy who lives in Philadelphia, and I think and he picked the Eagles to win the division. I picked the Cowboys to win the division. And I asked him before I answered the question, I asked him, so, who do you think is this second best player on this Dallas defense? And he mentioned first mentioned So this is sort of a national perspective. He first mentioned Vanderish and then he mentioned
Dorin's Armstrong. We didn't even mention those guys, you know, but from a national perspective, they're watching that game and they're seeing guys because we know who all the players are nationally. And this is a guy who follows the NFL, but he doesn't see a certain number and say, oh, that's vander ash right. You know, he's watching his team Philadelphia. Okay, he's just seeing all these guys flying around making tackles and he's going, Wow, they got a bunch of guys
on that defense. Who's the second best guy?
If they keep seeing fifty.
Five and they're seeing fourteen, who are this fourteen right from Marki's bell? See.
And that's why when people asked me about what the defense did and how shocking it was, I said, it wasn't shocking to us that watched practice for a month. We saw this. Nobody else saw it. Evidently the Giants didn't see it either, right, they saw it. They got di answered right, But we saw this brewing in Oxnard that they ruined so many practices because of the pressure
they can put. I think McCarthy said they ended up counting seventy five percent of the defensive snaps were pressures on the quarterback.
You know what I told the guy in Philly, I said, there were games last year that the guy who did not even play in that game on Sunday night might have been the second best defensive player on the field, and that.
Was Donovan Wilson.
I mean there were some games tackler. Yeah, had five sacks last year, which was a club tying rock for a safety.
And we haven't even mentioned Bill Bates. Bill Bates.
Bill Bates had.
Five one year, and we haven't even mentioned the other two safetys. By the way, one of them was a first round draft pick and the other one was a free agent steal Lee Cooker and jay Ron Kirk.
Well, they can't even make it to that level. The Giants couldn't.
Make it to that level.
It's like when I was playing with the Giants one game and we're playing against Barry Sanders. He had like toasted them for like over one hundred plus yards the year before, and we were looking at the video. Man, the guy's been there salivating. LT's going crazy. I got we're getting into the game. I'm back there playing safety. I got nothing to do. I got nothing to do. I mean, that's just.
How strong they were paying to stop them up.
They stopped them up front the entire time. Belichick calls me into the office and goes, hey, you gotta do more.
Do more.
What you gotta got a squad here, I've never seen anything like this much. Let's play behind it. That's what our safety is am looking at the front seven is handling everything. By the way, no one escapes through that.
Oh, by the way.
The Cowboys also have a backup edge rusher who is the third pick in the draft once upon a time in Dante Fowler, that's right.
And who's playing very well.
And he's doing playing his role right. He goes, I'm kind of a designated pass rusher. I go in and give DeMarcus Lawrence.
A break and he does it well.
Yeah, because I saw people when they were given injury reports about all the starters the Cowboys had out, and it's like, Okay, we know, it's not shocked that Donovan Wilson wasn't going to play in the game. He's probably not even playing this week. I would imagine he's got to go through a ramp up, right, And then they were counting, uh, Jordan Lewis as a starter and it's like, no, he's not a starter. When he gets back, it's going to be an interesting dilemma. They have to is he
active because Doran Bland's the guy. Now, don't you think.
I agree with that? I mean have to last year and the.
First game on and so somebody's gonna if he's active, somebody's got to sit. And I don't know, after you have a performance like that, who are you going to tell that was on that defense. I don't think you're gonna make the You.
Know what, I liked about Deron Blaine as much as anything. Yeah, he had to pick six Okay, right place, right time, made the play whatever. I like the way he was playing at the end of the game. He was coming up and making tackle, playing right physical.
Not bad for a fifth round pick.
So I just look at last year and looking at last year, I just think that he proved himself beyond a shadow of that.
So we should get a maybe an update on Tyler Smith to see exactly where he is in this game, if he's ready or if they got to give him another another week. But you know what, and we said it, I'll say it again. I might have been wrong on a Doga because he he was more than serviceable in that game. I thought he'd played decent night.
I'm happy.
And speaking of Nate, as we close out this edition of Mix Shots, we got a text, Oh Nate in Frisco. He says, great show, Fellas just joking and that's it for Mix shots on a Cowboys Wednesday and we will see you again and try to do better for Nate in Frisco on Thursday at noon.
Go Cowboys.
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