Mick Shots: Cards On Deck

in Fresco. I am Bill Jones, And for the first time in a couple of weeks, Mickey Spagnola is not here inside the studio with him, as he is at a remote location inside his own s WBC mortgage studio somewhere. Hello Mickey Spagnola and Everson Walls with the imposing picture of Everson himself looming over his shoulder. And Everson has Cowboys gear on, and so does Mickey. How about that? And what about Bill? Well, I've got I'm taking a TV show, so I've got you. I've got a little

blue shirt on, so that qualifies as Cowboys gear. I got my Cowboys gear right behind me, right here. It's the SWBC mortgage sign. That's my Cowboys gear. There you go, very good. I hope you're not lonely in there. Well, it is kind of lonely here at the start today because normally on a Wednesday and come out here at one o'clock in the afternoon for this one thirty show, and the team is out on the practice field, and the team is not out on the practice field right now.

Of course, it being a Monday night game this week against the Arizona Cardinals, so this is actually a Tuesday by Cowboys standards. Tomorrow Thursday is Wednesday preparing for a Monday game. Although players are on the premises, they're just not on in the practice field right now. They got an extra day this week, and Mickey, I think we probably need an extra day after what happened on Sunday afternoon. Yeah, I think you're exactly right. And an extra day for

the coaches too to prepare just as important. But it'll be good to get them off they're off their feet for a little bit and a little longer too, because it not only is it Monday, but it's Monday night. So give these guys a little bit more rest in between games and that that always helps out and it but it mostly helps out the coaches in their preparation.

They don't have to rush into things. So, you know, I think the guys the misnomer is it's like, oh, you've got a Monday night game, you got an extra day to prepare. Well, they really don't practice an extra day. They just get an extra day off and it will start their normal schedule Thursday, Friday, and Saturday and Sunday. Since they kind of changed the practice routine here. Uh, he likes to practice the day before the game, not

two days before, and then take a day off. Well, hopefully they can use the extra time, guys, to get prepared, get Andy Dalton prepared for what he's gonna do, and make sure that he has the entire game plan in his head. And also they have the game plan for the Cardinals themselves. So yeah, they're gonna need this. Uh, Cowboys a first place in the NFC East, something that

we can all take pride in. But at the same time, when you're the when you're the best team in the worst division, I don't know how much you want to brag about. Hey, it still counts if you win the division, you're in the playoffs. So that so they're not the operators not answering the phone at the Star. Our first

place Dallas Cowboys. Let's hope that's last for quite some time. Well, the news coming out of Phoenix today which was expected as Chandler Jones, it's official that the Pro Bowl edge rusher for the Cardinals, who had nineteen sacks last year, sixty sacks the last four years with the Cardinals and signing there or being traded there from New England. He is out for the year. Had needs surgery on a torn biceps, And so the Cowboys aren't the only ones

dealing with injury issues. And that's a very major one for the Cardinals losing Chandler Jones, you know what, And it ends up being a major break for the Cowboys having to start their two undrafted offensive tackles and they don't have to deal with that guy. Now. He only had one sack this year, but he's still a pain and he's awfully good. And Bill, you mentioned his nineteen sacks. I think he had like eleven four some fumbles last year, so yeah, he can wreck have it a kind of

an offense. And I bet he was frothing at the mouth to be able to go up against a couple of these young tackles. Believe me, he was figuring Okay, I'm gonna get my stats up there, right. So a break for the Cowboys, especially since you've got two young guys protecting now you're new starting quarterback. And he also finished second in the voting for NFL Defensive Player of the Year last year. Wow so, and he finished second in sacks. Shaquille Barrett had a half sack more than

he did. So. Yeah, this guy, you know, they list him as an outside linebacker. They play a three four, but when they go to their nickel, he's the defensive end that he's coming to get you. The two tackles in the quarterback, that's tough. You know, all of that is brand new for us. That's something that we're gonna have to deal with. H got a lot of confidence in Andy. Everyone says that if we're gonna deal with a backup quarterback, this is probably the best case scenario.

And of course we've got injuries. They've got injuries. So I'm assuming that we're all starting from scratch here. That's kind of what it seems like. We're all started from scratch and just trying to throw some stuff up against the wall right now and see what sticks. I think that's pretty much the way the entire NFL is going right now, Mickey, how do you how do you think the two young tackles spared against the Giants the other day, Brandon knighted left tackle and Terring Steel at right tackle.

You know, I think I think they proved. I think they got better, you know, and who knows, maybe with more opportunities to practice, more opportunities to play, you know, maybe they they do improve. You know, I think they each probably had their moments when you say, oh gosh, what you know, what what was I doing there? But for the most part, you know, when you put up that many yards of offense and your ability to score thirty points with the offense like that, they had to

do something right. Zeke ran the ball well, the Cowboys ran the ball well. So now they got help. But that's fine. That's what you have to do. You have to adjust and make uh, you know, minor changes. You can't expect Brandon Knight to go out there and play like Tyran Smith, but you know, he did okay, And I thought Steele continues to improve somewhat. So uh, you know, as long as they give them help, put the tight ends there, let the running backs do a little bit

of chipping, and I mentioned it yesterday. I like the fact that they use two running backs at the same time, Pollard and Ezekiel in there together, so you don't know which one's gonna get the ball, which one might stay in the block, which one might go out in the pass pattern. Gives the defense something else to think about. You know, you would think that right now, we'll go to a little bit more conservative game plan. We talked about this yesterday's bags. I thought they were already going

there before Dad got hurt. It's just one of those things where I'm sure they were thinking, we need to take a little load off of our quarterback. Well now we I think we have no choice but to do that, And I think that offense would be more defense friendly for us, meaning that we'll probably have a longer drives. We're probably gonna run Zeke a little bit more. I was hoping we would start to do that anyway, just

having that throw for so many yards. Yet it all looks good, but it's just not a solid game plan, especially when it comes to how the Cowboys do business. So I'm looking forward to seeing how we settle down using the two tight ends, using the two backs, Now, having said that, we're still explosive. Even with the two tight ends in or the two backs in the ball game, we're still extremely explosive. You take out one of those tight ends, you put it in Pollard, and you've still

got a very dynamic offensive weapon. So I'm looking forward to seeing how diverse we can be, even more diverse we can be with a different personnel that we're dealing with it. You know, I think I think you ought to call what they're gonna do or try to do offensively more so balanced than conservative, because I don't think you have to be conservative with Andy Dalton. You know. I listened in on the conference call today with Cliff

Kingsbury and he was talking about Andy Dalton. He goes, well, I know enough about Andy Dalton, right, UH played at TCU, played his high school ball in Texas. And then he said, we played them last year. So I was interested to see what happened in that game. When Arizona played UH Cincinnati.

The Cardinals ended up winning twenty six twenty three. They kicked a walk off field goal to win it, but the score in the fourth quarter with about four something to go, the the Bengals were down twenty three to nine, and Andy Dalton led the Bengals on two consecutive touchdown drives, and on one of them that began, I guess it

was more than that. It began at seven h seven he led him on a ten play seventy nine yard drive that took three oh four and in that drive he completed eight of nine passes before he threw a two yard touchdown pass. And then he came back with two minutes to go and let him right down the field again for another touchdown and threw a touchdown pass to go hit him with a touchdown path with two

minutes left to tie the game. Dalton was twenty seven or thirty eight in that game for two sixty two, two touchdowns, seventy one percent completion percentage, and he had a quarterback rating of one oh seven point six. So I don't think Cliff Kingsbury thinks that Andy Dalton can't step up and lead this team to a victory, knowing what he did to the Cardinals last year against their defense.

And we should point to tell you what that kind of also shows how good Kyler Murray is because what you say two minutes to go, right, I guess many's the only problem when he's scored too soon, and we gave the Cardinals a chance, gave him a chance to get down and kick a field goal as time expired. Yeah, exactly. That's something that the Cowboys defense should be looking at him. Of course, they don't need that game to see it.

You know, Kyler Murray is trying to work on his own campaign for being Player of the Year just simply by his amazing athletic ability and mental acuity as well. So I'm looking at one of those one of those moments where we're gonna still have to set the edge. He's gonna challenge our defense in every way. He's gonna be like the coronavirus of quarterbacks when it comes to how he plays. This guy will He will probe and pride any way he can to try and find your weakness,

and usually he does find it. I love the way we rushed the quarterback last week. It was amazing. We're gonna have to do that again this week. But once you let him out of the pocket, it's different from Lady Daniel Jones out of the pocket. It could be it could be catastrophic for your defense. So we have

to work on that even harder defensively. And by the way, the touchdown passed the Dalton through the tie of the game at twenty three was a forty two yarder, so he can get the ball down the field, and we saw that with the passes to Michael Gallop. So to me, if the Cardinals come in and say, okay, we're taking Zeke away, we're not gonna let you do that, then you've got to go after them with if they come

out and man coverage. We should point out in that game, the Cardinals did have Chandler Jones and he did get a sack of Andy Dalton in that game. They're not gonna have Chandler Jones this time. They did not have Patrick Peterson in that game. And Patrick Peterson, eight time Pro bowler, is back playing for the Cardinals this year. So and as week goes on, we'll break down more of the Cardinals. You know, it's interesting. I had a

conversation with Mike McCarthy last night. We had a taping of the Mike McCarthy Show, and I want to pass along some tidbits from that when we come back here on Mick Shots. But so let's take a break and let's come back with that. We got much more to get into as we move on from the Giants and head on to Arizona. And that what Belichick says, We're onto Cincinnati, We're onto Arizona when we come back here

on Mick shots. Hey, they're cowboys fans with Tight 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 Cleaners professionals will come directly to your home for a totally contactless experience. Your clean garments will be returned promptly the next scheduled delivery day, So skip the errand and

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and that's why I run with John Deer today. In fact, I have a John Dear 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 Dear dealer today and run with us. We are the official

tractor provider of your Dallas Cowboys. Back Back to Mick Shots tour at and T Stadium, the home of the Dallas Cowboys, Run on the field, see the locker rooms, and so much more. At and T Stadium. Tours presented by SeatGeek are available daily. Visit att stadium dot com for details. It's great to have twos back at at and T Stadium? Are they full capacity? Are they gonna cut it down to a small percentage? They don't have

that listed on this read that I just did. I'll try to do some research or maybe Mickey can do some research on that. They are available day see how the right? Yeah, that's right, that's right, all right. I had a chance to chat with Mike McCarthy, and of course, it being a Monday game this week, there was no Mike McCarthy availability today. I'll have his next press conference

tomorrow morning. But it was one of the things that I found interesting and talking about the Arizona Cardinals, he said that he spent a lot of time last year looking at the Cardinals with clip Kingsbury coming into the league, and um, you know, he had a lot of time

to study the rest of the NFL. And that's one of the things I think, um strategically and schematically, what Kingsbury was bringing from the college game, it's probably something he wanted to look at those RPOs and that sort of stuff, and so he spent a lot of time studying so the Cardinals and it's very impressed with Kyler Murray as well, and just his transition to the NFL.

The other thing that's interesting is, you know, the quarterbacks coach and the pass game coordinator under Kingsbury at Arizona is Tom Clements, who was McCarthy's long time quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator for eleven years at Green Bay. And so that was probably another reason why he was taking a close look at at Arizona, just because his buddy

was his coaching Kyler Murray and Tom Clements. So anyway, it's it's interesting and ever since you kind of alluded to it, with what Kyler has done since he's come into the league, he's it's been a smooth transition for him, and I think they probably have tweaked things along the way and part of tweaking is shoring up his offensive line, and a big part of tweaking was acquiring DeAndre Hopkins in the off season. He's got some weapons and u and more than anything, the stage has not been too

big for Kyler Murray. So this is going to be a challenge this week. And off to a three and two start are the Cardinals this year. You know, Kyler Murray should be pretty comfortable playing at eighteen and T Stadium, right, that's right. I don't want to get too comfortable. I don't know. I don't know how many high school games

he played there. I tell the story all the time about how amazing he was in high school, and of course we know about college, and you know he played at Alan, so uh, you know, I grew up out here in Dallas and most of my relatives live out on the South Side. So talking you know, South, o'cliff, you're talking to Soto, You're talking Duck and Ville, Cedar Hill. I pulled against Kyler Murray every ball game that I saw, and I am over. I am over for that that

moment in my life and his life as well. He has been amazing and he didn't just win it easily. These games were where he was challenged in every way. Great coaches, Coach Sample. We all know about Coach Sample. We all know about Cedar Hill and how how talented they are. Duck and Ville de Soto. He comes out and when his clutch time, they might be behind, and he will drive all the way down the field. And I'm not talking about easy passes. I'm talking about dropping dimes.

So he made me a believer way before he went to A and M and before he ended up at Oklahoma. So I was so glad. I know Bill too, but so glad he ended up in Oklahoma. That was some of the best times, best football I think I've ever seen in my life, well in the and the other part of it. He was just a starter of course for one year at Oklahoma. And one of the best games that he played was against Texas in the Big

twelve championship game at AT and T Stadium. He had a pass to his big tight end with two minute and that was a great game back and forth. The score was in the high thirties. I can't remember the exact score. They had to come back to win it, and he had a great pass to his tight end Grant Calcatera with two minutes left in the game. That

was just perfectly placed. But you go back, and for those who don't live in the area to give some background on what I mean is, I would say that, especially at the highest classification of Texas high school football, which is Class six A, he is probably and I may not even need to put a probably on it, he is the most accomplished high school player ever to come out of the state of Texas in high school football, due to the fact he won three straight state championships

for Alan High School. His sophomore year, he was not the starter at the beginning of the year. It took about three games into the year because he had transferred in I think, to Alan, and it took him about three games before they realized what they had and they were reeled off. You know. He never lost a game and then they won it. Never lost the game, and then they won it all. And in Texas, you're playing sixteen games. I mean, you're playing an NFL regular season

to win a state championship. So you're talking sixteen and sixteen to sixteen and Ozero. Yeah, as much as I love this guy, I do love him. I had to grow to love him, I still say, and I'd love to have a little back and forth on this. Still save bench Young is probably the best high school quarter back to come well, and I'm saying the most accomplish that and no doubt, no doubt, I'm one, I'm the state championship and so forth. Yeah, I understood, I understood.

But having said that, I still believe Vince Young maybe our best high school quarterback. Well since I've been a lot, since I've been a lot, and I can't I don't think I ever saw Vince Young play in high school, so I don't know. I see what he grew up in the Houston. Mister periscope, mister YouTube, you should have all kinds of videos. No, no, I can. I can go look look it up one day and enjoy yourself. Okay, it's gonna be a long video, you know what. I'll

take a look at those Earl Campbell videos too. In other words, I mean, we could go on and on talking, you know, talking about a high school player. That says a lot. Even if you're in the conversation for greatest high school football player to come out of the state of Texas, that is a mouthful right there. And I don't know people in the lad The people in the lado are raising their hands right now, hold up, waiting minute.

And we know about Jonathan Gray here since he didn't do anything after college and unfortunately suffered one, I think but two achilles injuries in college and he never got to the league because of that. But and I don't know, there's to speak of Kyler Murray playing at AT and T Stadium. There's no telling how many games he played there. Because here in Texas regularly those six playoff games you're playing every year, at least half of them were probably

each year. We're probably for Alan High School at AT and T Stadium, so very comfortable at that place. That's gonna be a great storyline that you're gonna be ESPN is gonna be all over on Monday night as you're watching that, you're gonna get so tired here in about Kyler Burry. I'm already tired. We just spent a segment talking about him. Probably all Alan have bought up all the twenty five thousand tickets already, Yeah, probably. Well, that's the other part of that's just the band alone. The

band alone could take twenty five thousand takes. That's the other part of it for those of you who don't live here in Dallas Fort Worth, that some of the most attended high school games. I mean one of the reasons they obviously they play at at and T Stadium. You can put and I've seen high school games at at and T Stadium that weren't state championship games that had over forty thousand fans there, and one in particular

was Alan, an Alan high school game. Um so, so yeah, it's gonna be fun and that's gonna be a great storyline coming in and it's in that it's gonna be a challenge too. Uh, It's it's kind of a different Uh, it's a different deal than what Seattle does. You know what Russell Wilson does as far as extending plays. I mean, there are some designed runs that are in this offense, as you can see if you just go look any of their games. Uh, some zone read type stuff. And

Murray has been smart about protecting himself. You know, he's a baseball player, first round draft pick in baseball, and so he knows how to slide and and he's you know, he's so small. He started to find him as well, and he's so fast. So did Mike give you the game plan? Then? How do you defense this? I was surprised that he even led on that he studied Cliff

Giggsbury's offense last year. I mean, we've already seen that McCarthy's not revealing much and he doesn't and he doesn't reveal much, right, especially Uh, you know, going into that game against Cleveland, it was pretty funny. And I can't remember if I told you guys this story or not, but the Thursday before the game, I was going to ask him in the in the in the press conference, Uh, do you have to play more base defense? Because Cleveland

wants to run the ball. You've been playing, you know, against nickel offenses, and you've been in your nickel defense the first three games, right, And they ended the press conference. So Friday, I said, okay, I'm asking them this, you know, base defense, what do you do? Will you go for three or what? Well, Todd Oxer beat me to the punch and Mike McCarthy said something to the fact, Oh, so are you one of the coaches from the Cleveland Browns and want to know what we're gonna do defensively?

And I said I told Todd thanks for taking the hit, because I was getting ready to ask the question and we didn't get an answer. And we saw what they did, and I thought they improved their ability to play bass defense against the Giants by just kind of changing things up. Maybe I don't have a true strong side linebacker, but they got Francis Bernard into some plays. I think he had like seven or eight defensive snaps. They called him

up from the practice quiet. He's more of a true middle linebacker more so than I think Joe Thomas is. But Joe Thomas plays well. I just think he's better on the week side or on the strong side. But he's got to do what they need him to do at this point. But they continue to start implementing some of these young guys. You know Bill talked about, is it Stephen Parker the safety um? You know, they got him some stamps the number number forty that I had to I had to grab my sheet and go forty.

Where did he come from? But you got to get these young guys going. So maybe we see a little bit more of Bernard. You never know how how they're gonna do it, but what they do need is in this game particularly Jalen Smith has to play like he played this pass game to be able to deal with a guy that that's who's that versatile at quarterback. I think both linebackers need to play the way they played

last game. And let's just face it, like you said, Joe Thomas is really just playing where he needs to play, not where he wants to play. And let's let's give credit what credit is due. The linebackers were able to make their plays because our d lineman were doing everything they needed to do to make space for them to make plays. They pushed the pocket back many times. They want as consistent as you wanted it to be, but I saw them pushing the pocket back. I saw Everson Griffin.

Of course, we saw DeMarcus Lawrence. We didn't even speak about the play that he made that really kind of turned the game around for us and hitting Daniel Jones, and then you've got Brown picking it up, scooping and scoring. That's something that we just hadn't seen since last year, maybe even two years ago with the Cowboys. I remember Jayla Smith haul and asked for a touchdown. He had

picked up also on the fumble. So I'm looking at hopefully this this defensive line, understanding the potential that they have. And of course I think we talked about the young man Bill Gallimore, if I'm not mistaken from Oklahoma, just another kid that we put in, a big body, very active and hungry. We want some young guys that are gonna come in and just like still, just like night on the other side. On the offensive side, I hope

that the more they played. Of course, the more you played, the more your weaknesses are going to show up, and you're gonna get game plan. But to me, I'm hoping that the more that these tackles played, the more that these young guys play on the defensive end as well, that they can realize the potential that they have and just kind of fall into it. Don't don't question it.

Just understand that this is your time, this is you, this is why you're here, and start making some plays instead of questioning yourself and not understanding if you need to be there not. That's the attitude they need to have, especially on that D line, you know. And Lawrence's sack forced fumble stood out, but he also had six quarterback pressures so that was huge. So that but he did what he should have done right. You got Cam Fleming on one side, they should be able to run right

by them. And then they had the rookie Thomas is that his name on the other side, and they switched sides a couple of times. So they should have done what they did and that's encouraging. We'll see if they can continue it going forward, do you think and I would throw my two sets in. I believe that Nolan being on the sideline really helped a lot. I think they were able to make adjustments right there as the guys came off the field. I think the communication was

a lot better. You could see that Jalen was loving all of this, and so to me, I hope they just make that a habit of leaving Mike Nolan down on the field as opposed to being like a consultant up in the booth. He needs to be down on the field in the mix. I think. I think it worked out fine for the defense, and they need to continue being aggressive. Before I thought I felt like they were playing catch on defense. This game, they were, they were attacking, and I think that that's something that they

need to continue to do. You know, I think that's a great point. Everson on the defensive coordinator on the sideline. I mean, you think about it just from a logistics standpoint, in order to in order to talk to Jalen Smith or to talk to Xavier Woods, whoever it might be, you've got to say, hey, get get Jalen on the headset for me if you're up top, but if you're on the sideline, right, you can go make the rounds.

And so the communication is going to be so much better just from a practical standpoint, Yes, so, and that's what it seemed like it was because, as I said, the linebacker, as we're complimenting the D line and how they were playing, you know, everything just kind of seemed to fall into place. Yes, as Spags mentioned, you know, you've got a lot of injuries on the old line, but there's injuries on everyone's old line. And eventually, I

think sometimes you just need that confidence. You just need that game to say, Okay, this is how it flows, this is what it's supposed to look like. Now we can be a little bit more aggressive even the next game and understand where our shortcomings might be and how to cover our own butts. And when you're on the sideline, you can talk to five guys at once, right, right, right,

but especially as they're transitioning into a new defense. I mean, it'd be different if you had a veteran, if you've been around a little bit and you know the fact that you ain't even headed off season. You know, you didn't even have three season games and stuff. So as much hands on coaching as you can do, the better, I think. So. I think the coaches are trying, are having to learn as they go. Okay, I can't do

it the way I've always done it before. I've got to make adjustments, and the staff's doing a good job doing that. 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 more convenient. Simply sign up at your local store, set out your dirty clothes, and one of our ty Cleaners professionals will come directly to your home for a

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Help your fellow Cowboys Nation fans in their fight against cancer by purchasing Dallas Cowboys Crucial Catch gear. Support a great cause and look good doing it. Visit your local Dallas Cowboys Pro shop or shop dot Dallas Cowboys dot Com. All right, last segment here of mixed shots. One other thing I wanted to get to with my conversation with Mike McCarthy last night. We kind of touched on it a little bit in the first segment as far as

the Cowboys running the ball a little bit more. I asked him specifically about that drive that started in that was second quarter, early second quarter when the Cowboys were down seventeen to three and they go seventy five yards in fourteen plays, ate up seven minutes of the clock and Zeke ran the ball nine times on that drive.

It kind of it settled down the game. And McCarthy loved that drive and in fact, he's he said that, you know, when he talks about balance and the offense, it's not about numbers, how many how many runs you have, how many pass plays you have, whatever, It's an overall thing and that's that's what he wants to have in his offense, where if he needs to be able to run the ball in order to re establish you know, what they're what they're trying to do in the game,

they have the ability to do that, and that's what that drive showed that they could do that. Uh, you know, there were plenty of other impressive drives, including the last one of the game for Andy Dalton, hooking up with Michael Gallup a couple of times in the two minute offense just to get in position in the last thirty seconds of the game to kick the game winning field goal. But I thought that drive was an impressive one and and something that this this team needs to get back

to doing. What do y'all what do y'all think? I like the concept, And I've always said numbers don't mean anything. It's when you put those numbers up. And so what we're talking is situational football. Bill. We're talking about, Okay, certain situations. We need to capitalize short third downs, key third downs, maybe uh some fourth down tries. We have to be successful. Goal line situations, we have to be successful.

Red zone situations, we have to be successful. Those are situations that they can play you in or out of a ball game, and that's where you have to be careful as a coach. The special teams. Also, you know, all these numbers, they really don't mean anything unless you can do them and perform them in the clutch. And that's what he's talking about. When I need my running game,

I need that running game to be prolific. When I need to get a third down, I need I need to be automatic and sure in getting that third down. So to me, it sounds like that's what he's talking about. Yeah, we're good with numbers. Numbers don't win championships. It's when you make those plays in those clutch situations, in those critical strategic situations that's going to make a difference. Belichick has shown it. We talk about the Packers and Rodgers is his own coach on the field. He's able to

make that difference and be that intangible as well. So that's what we need to do. Whether it's Zeke who I think is gonna stand up and strong right now and be the leader of this team, I think he's gonna take that on his shoulders. I think that touchdown showed what his mentality is going to be like for the rest of the season. Those are the kind of things that we need to depend on, not just who's going to lead the league in passing, who's gonna lead

the league in rushing. Numbers mean something, but situations meet everything. See and on that drive, you, guys, they only faced third down twice, so that makes it a lot easier to continue running the football right. They were at second and one, third and one. Then they were first and ten, first and ten, second and seven, first and ten, third and one second, first and goal at the one and second and goal at the one. So when you're actually

being successful, then it's east down down. It's easier to continue running the football when you when you have you get in those situations, they're they're moving the football. So yeah, it just kind of played out right. I don't I don't know that they just said, well, let's load up and run. But the running was working, and they were fake. They weren't in third and ten, third and twelve, third and eighth, and you can and now you're balanced, right

and you can. They don't know what you're gonna do now. They probably knew what the Cowboys are gonna do. On first and goal from the one right, you're gonna get Zeke, and then you're gonna get Zeke again, and if necessary, you're gonna get Zeke again before I before I play fake and throw it to my tight end or or my or my three hundred and ten pound fullback. You know, it's kind of funny. I like you said, Andy Dalton's a great quarterback, but we don't want to put him

under any undue pressure if we don't have to. That's that's the way I'm looking at it. That's why Zeke is there, That's why that offensive line is there, and let's that's another situation spags where first down runs will make a difference in your drive, which will make a difference in your scores, which will make a difference in winning the ball game. First down is extremely important. It leaves you with a short third down even if you get there. And we've always been stuck with these impossible

situations third seven, third and eight. Those are kind of things that we've been dealing with when we're not playing well. But when we're playing well, first down there is a piece of cake for us, and it leaves it leads the play calling. You can be very extremely varied in your play calling as long as you have that luxury of a big first down game. You know, I noticed that not only but they might have lost Chandler Jones, but they get Derek Kennard's little boy back missed the

last two games. He's missed the last two games with a calf injury. But is it is it Devon or Devin? Devin? Ye, he's coming back for this game, so that certainly I'll help them in the middle of the defensive line. Big baby. And what a nice career that Canard has put together. And he got a very nice contract with Arizona after getting seven sacks last year with Detroit. Was originally a

fifth round draft pick of the Giant setback in twenty fourteen. UM. So, you know, back on that that Zeke drive, what Everson was talking about there, The key on that is having success on first down. Okay. It's one thing if you're running it on first down with Zeke and you're not going anywhere. But they got they went. They started with Zeke for nine second and one, gave it to Zeke again for five, Okay, then another they went with Paullard for five on that the next first down play through

a pass. Then when they got another first down, it was Zeke for three. On second and seven, Zeke for eight. Then on the next first down they threw a pass to Cedric Wilson another first down, and then they go Zeke for three on first down, and then the next first down it's Zeke for eight. It followed up with a second and two Zeke for one. I mean they were they were committed to running the football the next time they got the ball, because the next possession was

the Lawrence Strip sack that Anthony Brown. The next possession for the Giants was the strip sack where Anthony Brown returns for a touchdown that tied the game at seventeen. Well, then the Giants got the ball again, and so the Cowboys didn't get the ball again until there was less than a minute to play in the half. So their next possession that was at the two minute offense in the third quarter. The Cowboy what they do on first and second down, zeke for seven and away we go.

So obviously there was a renew commitment to running the football, uh and and re establishing what this team can do not just throwing the ball, but also running the ball. And we'll see if that continues against Arizona. And you can be and you can be a little bit more run oriented when the score is only twenty four to twenty three, right, you're not down forty one to seventeen

or something ridiculous scorer that they've been born. Of course, you can attribute that that that closeness to the fact that the defense came to the game, and when they come to play, everything changes, all right, that does it? For this edition of Mick Shots. It's been kind of strange being oh no, we're gonna finish on time. Hey, that's because I'm in studio, I can watch the clock

a little better, so we started on time. When we're finishing on time, if I would shut up, yeah, all right, Well you'll have another chance to talk again tomorrow at one thirty. Here on, Mick Shot. Let's have a great Wednesday, and we will see you again tomorrow. This has been a production of Dallas Cowboys dot Com and the Dallas Cowboys Football Club.