Mick Shots: Minnesota Bound

And we're here to prepare you all for at Bill Jones along with Everson Walls and Mickey Spagnola inside the SWBC Mortgage studios at Ford Center at the Star in Frisco. And how are we doing on this very fine football Friday? Let's start with you ever soon. How are you doing? I am doing just fine. I'm glad we're in this wonderful weather. Anytime you think of the Vikings, you always think of old Minneapolis. What is it? Was it metro Stadium, Metropolitans,

Metropolitan Stadium, Connesota outdoors. They didn't have turf, It was grass. Could you imagine in December what that grass would have I'm sorry, the frozen dirt would have felt like playing against the Minnesota Vikings. That's right, is that, of course the Metro Dome, And now they've got a sparkling, relatively new stadium up there, which Mickey, Mickey Spagnola, you've been in all of the stadiums that they've played Vikings games, right,

I don't think so? Why not? I wasn't there when they had the benches on the same side of the field. Oh okay, that's old school stuff. Did you play in it? I don't believe coach allowed them to wear gloves. Wait did he let him wear gloves? You remember? He was he was you know, Buck was was kind of crazy. He wouldn't they They couldn't wear gloves in the game, no matter how cold it was. And I think practice had the same rules. So it was pretty tough playing for the Vikings back then. You had to be a

man's man, mind over matter. Yeah. But were they in the dome by time you got there? Yeah? Thank god, Yes they were. The do I probably would have played. I probably would have been injured for like the first time in my career if I would have had to go up to playing that old Metro Dome. Frozen dirt, that's frozen tundra. Forget Green Bay frozen tundra is Minnesota many. This is very much though not the Hail Mary was

at the Metropolitan Stadium. It was out. Hail Mary was on my sixteenth birthday, which I always I never failed to point out. So I have been a part of cowboy lore even when I was my voice was still changing. All right, I'm looking up about the old met and it was I was old enough to watch games on television from there with Ray Scott calling the games. Yes, absolutely, my favorite guy. Yep. They broke ground in nineteen fifty five on Metropolitan Stadium. It opened in nineteen fifty six.

It closed December twentieth, nineteen eighty one. So ever since you really did just miss Thank goodness, we didn't have to play that division my rookie. I think the coldest game my rookie year could have been in Indianapolis. I know it was a really ugly game in Indianapolis. Curtis Dickey, Texas say and then running back was the starting running back for the Baltimore Coats. I'm sorry at that time, and we ended up playing in New Jersey last game of the season. We did not need that game. The

Giants needed that game to make the playoffs. It was the last game of the season and we couldn't wait to get the heck out of there. I think it was the wind chill had to be around twenty something beautiful day, snow was all on the sideline, no precipitation, but it was about twenty degrees wind chill, and we went into overtime. Come on, what is going on here? We didn't even need the game and we went into overtime.

That was the worst. I'm not gonna lie. I could care Le's who won the game, but the Giants did win in overtime, and they ended up playing San Francisco I believe uh in that first round Soil, What did you mentioned? Where did the Vikings play? You go ahead, Mickey, Where did the Vikings play before they went into Metropolitan Stadium? Or who was playing in there when they opened it? You said fifty six fifty six. Well, I gotta go back now, you probably had it. I did, and I

moved on. I moved on to Curtis Dickey. Curtis Dickey because it's funny you mentioned Curtis Dickey. I almost mentioned him the other day when you were talking about Herky and being a sprinter. You know, Curtis. Curtis Dickey was a great sprinter. And uh and in fact, I would have wouldn't be surprised if Herky Walls and Curtis Dickey matched up together in high school. It was like this, Herkey was down here running and Curtis was way up here. Yeah.

I remember rutching David and Goliath compete for the hundred hundred at that time, one hundred of your dad. I remember going to the regional track made at Foutsfield in Denton and watching Curtis Dickey run, and Herkey might have been in that same race. I'm pretty sure he was all right to answer your question, Mickey on Metropolitan Stadium, Bloomington, Minnesota. The Minneapolis Miller's minor league baseball team played at the met starting in nineteen fifty six to nineteen sixty. The

Twins moved from Washington. The Senators moved from Washington to Minnesota to become the Twins, and then they got there another franchise which became the Rangers after that. So the Twins played there starting in nineteen sixty one, and the Vikings also started in nineteen sixty one because they were the second So there you go. They were the second

expansion team. The Cowboys were the first, and they came the next year and they gave Minnesota the franchise early enough for them to participate in that six one draft that was in December of nineteen sixty. So they got the first pick where the Cowboys got No. Who was that? Bill? Oh? You know what? I just looked at that yesterday and now I forgot, um, what was that? What was the Vikings had the first pick in the sixty one draft and he wanted to know who it was. Who was that? Yeah?

And the Cowboys had traded away Maybe I don't know the Cowboys had traded away, they would have had the Cowboys would have had the second pick, but they traded it away the year before to get Eddie LeBaron from the Redskins to play quarterback because they didn't have Meredith just yet. So they ended up with the thirteenth pick in that sixty one draft because they traded their first round pick in sixty two to Cleveland to get their first round pick in sixty one, and it ended up

being Bob lily Wow with the thirteenth pick. Bob thirteenth pick, thirteenth pick. And by the way, the Vikings with the number one pick, selected a half back from Tulane University, Tommy Mason. He played with him. Thank you Cowboys, gil Brant. Gil Brant won that draft with the thirteenth pick with Bob Lily. But I think I looked it up, Bill, and there was four four Hall of famers in that draft.

If I remember correctly, it was Ditka. Mike Ditka was the fifth pick to Chicago Jimmy Johnson, not the former Cowboy head coach, Jimmy Johnson, San Francisco, that's right, and a sixth fith to San Francisco. Herb atterly went twelfth to Green Bay, Bob Lily thirteenth to Dallas. So there was I just rattled off four Ditka, Jimmy Johnson, Herbatterly, Bob Lily, uh and fran Tarkington went in the third round.

So the Vikings waited to the third round to take one of the greatest players of all time in their history, might be the greatest. And I don't see another one, and then I think, there you go. And there was two quarterbacks in the first round? Was it Norm Sneed and Billy Kilmer? All right? Going back to the first round of the nineteen sixty one draft. Everything that you would want to know about the nineteen sixty norm Sneed was the number two pick. The number two pick was

norm Sneed to Washington. Okay, I pick acquired from the Cowboys, okay. And the next quarterback taken was Billy Kilbert to San Francisco at number eleven. Very good. So there you go, and now you know the rust you start to be a jerk. Bill. No, I did not play against Billy Kilmer. Okay. My feelings are still hurt from that comment. There you go, all right, Mickey, Yes, Jerry talked this morning. He did.

You want to go straight to Jerry. You want to talk about who's on the well, there's no there's a walk through today. You want to update, Uh, Marcus Lawrence? Is it sounds like lady Gregory's back? Go ahead. Gregory was back in the building today. He had missed the two days of practice with an illness, but he was back in the building, so he's good to go to. Marcus Lawrence is not here, but Mike McCarthy said everything was pointing towards him being able to play on Sunday.

So I think what happened, and McCarthy kind of got into it a little bit later in his conference call. Is any think about this. If I sneeze and you're in the room, you're running out right because we're so worried about COVID, Right, I can't have like an allergy or just you know, I smelled some black pepper or something and I sneezed. It's like, oh no, so when you have when they say illness, now you could have a sore throat or you can have a runny nose

or whatever, and it could be an allergy. But they're going, oh, now, with COVID, you stay home until we you know, you pass a couple of tests. So I think that might be what happened with those guys, just because you know, everybody's such on alert. But it sounded like both should be able to play. And the other thing that I

thought it was encouraging. On the report, I was trying to you know, how you on zoom, you gotta kind of when you're when you're muted, you got to get your hand in the air, your your virtual hand to ask a question. And I was in the midst of trying to get Scott's attention to let me ask a question, and then I got beat to the punch. But it got asked about Brandon Knight how we looked this week, and uh, Mike said, he looked, he looked good and that he liked the way he moved around, but he

wasn't willing to go the next step. So if he's good enough to play, would he go in at right tackle? And he said, we haven't got into that. That's down the line. Obviously he wasn't gonna say, but at least it got asked that, you know, the possibility if he's ready to go, is he a better tackle than Terrence Steel? And we talked about that yesterday, So we'll see where that goes. But at least they like the progress he made.

You know, I have to ask the question because this is such a unique situation in regards to send the people home when you have a game to play, you know, in the number of days from the moment that you're sent home. So you go home and you're isolated, I guess self, isolation. I mean, what do you do? Do they continue to work out? Right? Do they I'm getting ready for a game next week even though I'm at home and they've I've been emancipated even though they've done that.

You know, once you get home, do they make you rest? Um? What is the what is the order of the day from the cowboy doctors? Do I go home and get on the treadmill? You know? Do I go left? Can I still do that? What? What? What's the protocol for a player that's in that situation? You know, I'm not sure,

but you know. In Andy Dalton's interview yesterday, he talked about how, you know, when he when he was starting to feel better from the concussion protocol and he was at home, he had started to kind of work out and do some things from home. Uh, and then all of a sudden, when he thought he was ready to come back in the building, the COVID nineteen hit. And

then he had to go through that protocol. And it was pretty interesting talking about how it wasn't just him, but his wife came down tested positive, one of his sons tested positive. So he's they got a house full of positive tests and and and he said, and that's when I had Yeah, you can't take that stuff for granted. And we just talk about positive tests like I just got a fever. You know, that's it can go from

being very benign to something extremely dangerous. He said that first day had hit him pretty hard, so he had to back off, and then you know, he talked about I was surprised. He talked openly about how he lost his sense of smell and sense of taste, and that the taste still hasn't come back, so he said, he said, he said, I think he put it this way. I might as well eat healthy because I can't taste it. So there's no benefit to have something spicy because I

can't taste it. Plant based food, yeah, I can see him him the plant based burger now, yeah, yeah, yeah, this is the time his wife is gonna slide him that stuff that he needs to be eating as he as he gets to meet me. And Bill's age, he's only thirty three. He turned thirty three the last weekend or the last weekend October. But I'm sure those guys they have they have equipment at home that they can use,

just like everybody. You know. If I'm a Dalton, I'm pretty sure he's got a great workout room at home, and I would be trying to get off in there, stay in shape so that when I come back I'm ready to go, you know. But but you know, if you're feeling like he was feeling if if if COVID hits you like that totally different deal as opposed to being contact in contact with someone who had it versus someone versus you testing positive for it. Two big differences there. Yeah,

and he looks like ready to go, Bill Uh. It looks like he's practiced well. Uh. And Tyrone Crawford should be ready to go to his was contact tracing that kept him at home. So from a from a health standpoint other than Trayvon digs Um, you know they're they're in pretty good shape right now. Yeah, what about the Vikings? What about the Vikings? You saw Huku popped up on their injury report yesterday as a COVID reserve guy. I did not, Did you see that? Now? C J Hamm

the fullback? No, CJ. Yes. We talked about throughout this week about how they used the fullback and so forth. Well, yesterday c J. Ham popped up on their report as a COVID UH positive, as a co COVID reserve guy, not not saying he's tested positive. Well, you see that because on the on the Wednesday injury report he did not practice and it said not injury related. So again there you know what happens when Okay, you're around somebody,

it's like, okay, stay home, don't practice with us. Hey didn't, didn't the center didn't, They didn't their office. The center have an issue as well, Um Bradberry, their center had an injury. Yeah, but he was limited. He was limited in practice. It's Ezra Cleeve London did not participate yesterday and starting offensive guard right, so I would think that Drew Samil would start for him instead. Uh see, how a center, that's a that's an an essential position. I

was watching the game last night. I don't know how many false starts, uh that the Arizona that Arizona NA. Yeah, I mean this this guy was. They didn't even have a crowd there and the twelfth man was still prevalently in that ball game. I mean, they had so many false starts it was ridiculous. And I think it was all related to the fact that they had to replacement center. So you know, that's that's something that could you know, if I'm if I'm the Cowboys, I'm gonna try to

take advantage that. If this guy's kind of injured and then you have no full back. That kind of changes the game playing a little bit. Maybe not the game plan, but my train of thought and how I'm going to attack this offense. And uh, I'm looking at some updated reports on the on the Vikings. The Vikings have ruled Ezra Cleveland out of Sunday's game now and Brett Jones will actually replace him, and U and Zimmer Mike Zimmer says that fullback Steve j Ham, placed Thursday on the

COVID nineteen reserve list, could play Sunday. So that tells you he did not test positive. He was one of those contact tracing ones. And uh yeah, so they got to figure that out by something on their depth chart. They don't have a backup fullback listed, right, and he had thirty five snaps last week and their most recent win. So and we've talked about how much they use that, Helmut, how much they use the fullback, much more than any

other team in the league. Really, yeah, all right, we got some We got Jerry talking about a variety of things that we are going to come back with in just a moment here on Mick Shots. Hey, they're Cowboys fans, the type Cleaners at Home pickup and delivery. Cleaning your clothes has never been more convenient. Simply sign up at your local store, set out your dirty clothes, and one of our tight Cleaners professionals will come directly to your

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Pepper and Cream Soda. Let's take a listen, Doctor Batman and cream Soda. Is he a Newcombonet's music to my ears? Okay, Doctor bad Time, pull it in a glass of music to my ears and mouse new Doctor Pepper and Cream Soda delash just do back back back to mixed shots. You can now support your beloved Cowboys from anywhere. Open up at and t's fan Zone feature inside the Cowboys app and record your personal cheer and referee signals. You will receive a personalized mosaic and may show up on

the ATNT live FX video board during the game. Your own personal cheer and referee signals Mickey, what is your favorite? See what kind of celebrities we have? Yeah, that will do that. You know, I gotta I gotta a deal from the University of Missouri. Uh, they were they were gonna do some of the virtual for a fundraiser. Right, you needed to pay I don't know, twenty bucks, thirty bucks and send your picture with some Missouri gear on and they would make one of those uh fake fans

in the stands with your face on it. I forgot to do it. I was gonna do. Have you done that? No, I forgot When you just says it costs I think like twenty or thirty dollars. That would be cool if you know, you might have got on TV, but they got fans in the stands. What would be cool is you get all of the you get some of the major stars, actors and actresses and other and man like they had in the championship game in the NBA. It'd be nice if we could see, you know, Lebron watching

his favorite team, the Cowboys play. You know, it's a lot of it's a lot of major fans out there that are Cowboy fans, I mean, very notable fans out there, so they'd be right to see a couple of them show up. That'd be cool. Yeah, all right, Mickey, you took a listen to Jerry this morning as a regular Friday morning spot on the fan, and some interesting comments

came out of that this morning. Yeah. Absolutely, And you know, they were talking to him about the division race, and they kind of laid out a scenario that if the Cowboys can sweep all three of the remaining NFC East games and then win one more game to get the six wins, they would have a good chance of winning

the division. And they wanted to know what Jerry had to think about this at this point when so many people are talking about, you know, not trying to win, get a get a better draft choice, and you know, he went out. He started off by saying, you know, I've seen so much in my time, and he basically his point was that if you can get going, you can do a lot of damage with seven games left. And I thought it was very interesting on how he kind of explained himself and basically pointed out, this is

no time to be tanking, but to pass. To get there were daunting but if we get there, we can get there with a team that might be capable of doing more than we're giving credit for. A right today, I know that there's there's just no way. We hear about preparing for next year, we hear about doing some things like that, there's no way I can go there

at this time. I'm interested in what we're going to do up here against Minnesota, if we do some good things on the field and take advantage of some things we're talking about right here, and I'm not going to be ready to talk next year for a long time. And you know, and one of the things when he said about preparing for Minnesota, and he also basically pointed out that, you know, he knows that hasn't showed up

in wins, but he sees the team improving. And he said, and he said, you naturally, with the amount of young guys we're playing, you would improve. The more reps you get in practice, the more snaps you get in games, getting vander esh back on the field, and he said, he said, I don't in any way give us a handicap going into that game. He thinks that they can go up there and play a side holid team and

play well enough to win. So we'll see. And you know, Jerry's always very optimistic, but yeah, he basically pointed out, don't come in here with this tanking stuff. You know, we still got a long ways to go, only one win behind the team it's leading the division. I kind of like it. You can kind of tell when when Jerry um it has a little more false bravado versus

when he's really focused. Right, And to me that sounded like a very focused interview to where this is not where our mindset is and we don't even want to think about that now. The key point is he said at this point, he said what I'm thinking about. So that's good. That's good to hear because he shouldn't be. You know, when you're talking about the businessman running a football team, I would I wouldn't necessarily run a team as a business. But when you start looking you can

get personnel and how you can improve your team. To me, that is business when you start looking at personnel alone. And so when you start doing your quality control as far as what your team is doing, you can see a little hope here, a little hope there. The way you pointed out spags and you go over a certain critical punch in the ball game, and we talked about, okay, if we could have done this better, then the outcome

would be a little smoother. If we could have moved forward at this point, then the outcome would have been better, been more positive. That's the only way you can look at the team quality control, see where you made your mistakes, and say, look, okay, if we're gonna turn this around, these things have to change instead of this being a negative at this point, we're gonna have to change this situation.

Whether it's a third down situation or whether you're talking offensively improving your running game, whatever, whatever segment of your team you want to improve, it has to be really isolated on and you have to really hone in on that. And I like the fact that that's what the Cowboys are doing because that's what we do on the show. We take a particular incident in a ball game and say, if this would have been done better, the outcome would have been different, or at least has a chance to

be different. And that's all Jerry's doing. He's being optimistic about where he sees we can improve. And these are not far fetched optimistic sites that he has on the team. This is something that is very doable. And he feels that that's why you had that sense of defiance in that interview that he had. Yeah, and he kind of started it off. And I don't know if we heard it all from the beginning, but he said, if you can get on the right path, and then his point

was the path right now is dawning. But the other thing, since you mentioned the running game, uh, they you know, they kind of came at him with Zeke, are you disappointed that he hasn't done this, this or this? Uh? Andy, And he started off saying, I think we're selling him short. Uh. He said, Uh. He said, it's it's it's early early when we could see there was some problems with our offense. It wasn't just him, you know, the offensive line, Uh, you know, the turnovers. But I think he caught the

guys by surprise. Uh. And it's a quick cut here, but I think he caught him by surprise when he said this about Zeke. He's our best football player. He's our best one. And having said that, we just got to have more chances to expose him to the defense. And we're going to do that. So how about that. Now, I'm assuming he met the best player on the field

right now. I don't think he was. I don't want anybody to say, oh, he's taking a shot at dak right, but his point wash, you know, and I guess we could argue you want to, you want to argue for Zach Martin, But other than that, I don't know where else you would go on that discussion. Well, to me, if i'm if, I'm Zeke, and i'm i'm I'm accustomed to three all pros and a very solid offensive line. But then all of a sudden, I look in the hovel and it's me, Mickey Spagnola and Bill Jones sitting there.

You know, I'm sorry, my chances of success are gonna be dwindled greatly. So to just dismiss the fact that he's gone through so much in regards to a different personnel on the offensive line, you can't ignore that. I mean, come on, let's let's just be real about it. Any good running any good running back in history has always had a formidable offensive line, and right now Zeke does not have that. It's just it's no no knock on

the guys of the plane, no knock at all. But they don't have the experience, all the expertise of what from what Zeke is used to running behind. Yeah, and you know what, and it's funny how excuses are made for the quarterback when the offensive line is not performing the way it should be. But then it's like, well we should just rely on the running game. Well, if they can't bass block, does that assume that they can run block a lot better? And probably not. They are

who they are, it's not it's not their fault. Are who they are. That's right there. I mean, And so that affects the running game too, when you have guys missing blocks and you've got new tight ends out there that you know have not There have been times when the tight ends have been the problem too, in both instances running pass blocking two. So I understand what Jerry what Jerry was saying, but yeah, he was. He was

pretty interesting today. So if anybody has an opportunity to, you know, listen to his fifteen minutes, it was it was pretty good. Let me throw this out there because I hear it from fans and and from media too. I was just on a radio show earlier today and they're asking me, why not more snaps for Tony Pollard,

Give more carries to Tony Pollard. If Tony Pollard had let's reverse it, and let's say Tony Pollard got Ezekiel Elliott snaps in the game and Zeke got Tony Pollard's carries in a game, what would Tony Pollard's yards per rushing attempt be. He's at four point four yards per attempt right now on the season, he's at uh, where is he? He's forty seven carries for two hundred and six yards, while Zeke is at three point eight yards per carry and Zeke hast one hundred and fifty one

hundred and fifty carries for five hundred and seventy two yards. Whatever. There's my point is there's a difference in the type carries that Zeke is getting compared to Pollard, right exactly, because they're not putting Pollard in there on third and three or third and two and handing them the ball. Uh, he's not getting it on fourth and one when you just need one right tone, Yeah, yeah, exactly, And you know what, and he has the benefit of that change

of pace, right they're used to. You get the defense kind of sitting in there tough and against a guy like Zeke, you kind of know where he's coming from. And then all of a sudden, Pollard gets a pitch out wide and it's like Oh, he's fast. You know you're used to Zeke pounding it in there. I just don't think people give Zeke credit for the dirty yards he has been getting this entire time. We talked about that.

I think we talked about it last week, that the thunder and lightning that I enjoy watching Pollard is definitely benefiting from the hard, tough yards that Zeke is getting. And let's let's just be fair here. Pollard, to me, would be a great starting running back for any other team. Let's just be real about that. He's a great player, very diverse in what he does. He punt return, kick return,

he does it all. He's very exciting. But to be a starting running back, I don't know if he would be able to do that here with the Cowboys on a consistent basis. He's one of those guys I believe would truly need a fullback. He would be like a cook as far as I'm concerned, he would need that fullback.

To me, Zeke doesn't need that fullback. That's why he's always taking that first huge contact anytime he harries the ball, because there's no one in front of him, and once he gets to that hole, he's gonna meet somebody and it's gonna be man on man and usually Zeke wins that battle. All right, picks to click or coming up next to the Cowboys beat the Vikings on Sunday on the non frozen tundra inside what do they call that stadium up there? I knew you were gonna ask me.

Hang on, all right, Nicky's gonna look that up. We're coming back with that. We've been there. Its Bank Stadium, all right, US Bank Stadium doesn't matter because we don't. We're not gonna be there with this for some reason, you know what I mean? Does that's right? No? All right, We're headed to U break and then we got our picks to click and we come back in a moment. We're back in a tasty treat that's sweeping airwaves and

taste buds. It's new Doctor Pepper and creep Soda. Let's take a listen, Doctor cream Soda, a new combonelet's music to my ears. Okay, sorry, doctor music to my ears and mouth new Doctor Pepper and cream Soda. Delas Just dear, it's nineteen oh eight. Don't you think we should get electricity and stop using candles to see it? Night. It's just electricity lights up the room fast. It's more reliable than candles blowing out, and people seem to love it nationwide. Well, candles, DA,

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do more, slure Back back to mixed shuts. The Cowboys will be back at home at a T and T stadium talking about stadiums on Thanksgiving Day to take on the Washington football team. Tickets starting at eighty nine dollars are on sale now, get yours today at Dallas Cowboys dot com slash tickets. All right, our last segment here of the wait, getting you set for the Cowboys and the Vikings. And by the way, yesterday we were talking about great players in Vikings history. I did a little

bit of research. Here are your Hall of Fame players for the Minnesota Vikings. Fran Tarkington, Alan Page, Paul Krausse, Ron Yerry Mick Tingelhoff, Carla Eller, Chris Carter Randall, McDaniel, John Randall, Chris Dolman, and of course you got the head coach, Bud Grant, GM Jim Finks, I did a little talkback interview with a reporter for Minneapolis yesterday. He threw in Randy Moss and Adrian Peterson as great players in Vikings history. So you hear that list, And who's

the greatest player in Vikings history? Who's the greatest? Yeah? Yeah, Tarking. You thought you thought Tarkington yesterday, didn't you? I mentioned talking to him. But I'm gonna go with a defensive man. I'm going with Alan Page. I like Alan Page too, I'm going with Alan Page. He was he was just

a straight up beast. I'm sorry. So my Mickey Desart, my research came up with the six numbers they retired, the six players numbers they retired, Okay, Fran Tarkington number ten, Mick Tingelhoff fifty three, Jim Marshall's seventy, Corey Stringer seventy seven, Chris Carter eighty and then Alan Page eighty eight. Those are their retired numbers. Not Chop Foreman. I was surprised by that. What's that? He said? No, Chuck Foreman, that

was the guy I mentioned yesterday. Chuck Foreman was awfully good. So there you go. We got two votes for Alan Page and Mickey, who you voting? Yeah, Alan Page for sure, Okay, all right, I didn't realize he was the NFL MVP one year, so that's what sold it for me. That's crazy at that time, at that position. Yeah, I'm gonna have him. Yeah, that's a good purple people leaders. All right. Okay, wait a second. Chris Beam, our producer, who were like, I'm looking at him on our WebEx feed and he's

shaking his head. He didn't like our pinion, like alang all right, Chris, who does he like? Adrian Peterson? We didn't even talk about him yesterday. His name didn't even come up. What, no doubt give him credit on that one. I do have to give him credit on that one. So you're changing your vote from Alan Page Adrian Jameson not changing my boat, but god, Adrian Peterson and the Texas kid too. No that that gives him an Oklahoma sooner at that and still that's that's my honorable mention. Sorry,

but I can't get out. I can't give him a bow and paced there you go. All right, So let's talk about the current vikings. And by the way, they've got a player on injured reserve this year who I think is eventually going to be in their Ring of Honor, and that is their defensive end to Neil Hunter. As long as he comes back from this injury. I think he is that good. But he's not playing on Sunday. What's this history, Well, in his first five years, five

years in the league from what school, LSU? In fact, he's the guy. He's the guy I thought the Cowboys should have drafted in twenty What year did Randy Gregory come out? He lasted to the third round twenty. He only had like three sets, he only had like three sacks in college at LSU, but he was twenty years old coming out. I was so enamored with him coming into the draft that year. I said, Cowboys need to

take this guy in the first round. But he was a late bloomers type and so Mary Nelly didn't like him. They wanted someone who can produce immediately, you know, and so they took Randy Gregory in the second round. But anyway, he's got over fifty sacks his first five years in the league and he's only twenty five, twenty six years old.

I mean, he's going to play another ten years. Assuming this injury and debilitating anyway, all right, so this Vikings team, let's start with you ever send your thoughts on a pick to click and a winner on Sunday? Who do you got? Well my pick to click? First, I have to set up the situation the Cowboys in order to be successful, they're gonna have to play first down very well.

We know it's gonna be running. They may come out with some tricks, would play action early on, but when the game as it progresses, Minnesota is going to try and gass you on first down with Delvin Cook. In order for us to be successful, we have to stop that. And we're gonna have to stop that with our linebackers. So as much as we talk about a pick to click, I got three picks to click, and I'm looking at

our entire linebacker squad, Jalen, Sean Lee, and Layton. If we're gonna be successful, they have to have a hell of a game. I'm not y'all just talking about stopping the run. I'm talking about shutting down that tight end. Because when they put that ball, when they put that ball in Cook's belly and they bring it out, they're gonna be looking for Kyle rud Off. And that's another opportunity for our linebackers to make a difference in this game.

I look for us to win best case scenario. I always say this best case scenario, things work out well. Cowboys twenty seven and twenty seven twenty all right, very good opening up that off VICKI what are you thinking? As my pick to click? I'm gonna go with a little bit of a short history here because if you remember when Andy Dalton came into the game against the Giants, who did he hook up with for those big drives won? Michael Gallop? Michael Gallup, and he's been a little quiet lately.

So watch out for Michael Gallop because this offense has to get rolling. The Vikings have been scoring points. They only scored nineteen against the Bears. I get it, but they've been scoring quite a few points along the way, and if you look at it, that was the fewest the second fewest points they scored all season. They only scored eleven when they lost to the Colts twenty eight eleven, But they had thirty four, thirty thirty one, twenty six,

twenty three, twenty eight, thirty four. So the Cowboys offense has to function much better than it has since uh gosh, we can go all the way back to the game they beat the Giants. Giants, they scored thirty seven points. So my guy's gonna be Michael Gallup. He's gonna he's gonna hurt this secondary that has struggled some somewhat against the past. That's why I almost picked Cooper's bags. Yeah, and then you went with Gallop. I thought you'd go

with Cooper. And then for my pick, I swore that I wouldn't pick the Cowboys again to win until they won, and they haven't won yet, right until they won twice. You said, until they went twice. You're right, So this is this will be the key one because if they can win this one and then they have a chance to beat Washington, then I guess I have to pick him against Baltimore, right then you yeah, yeah, pick him

against the Ravens. Then, but I think looking ahead, no fair, look, I think Vikings twenty four and twenty one in this one, Vikings twenty four twenty one, all right, and I'm going with I'm gonna go ahead and go with the Cowboys victory. All right. They're gonna be a half game out of first place by Sunday night, because the Eagles are gonna

lose to Baker Mayfield and the Browns. And then I'll even I'll take it a step further because because my prediction is going to be the Cowboys are going to be in first place by the end of Thanksgiving weekend. How's that? Okay, That's where I'm going with this, and so I'll go tight game, let's go, Let's have a zerline winning on a field goal twenty four twenty three. Hey, and Sean Lee is my pick to click. If they

play him, he'll be the pick to click. Let me go down the hallway and tell tell Mike you need to play. And by the way, I'm going against my little philosophy that the more you win in this league, the closer you are to losing. They've won their three straight, right, so the odds are they're about to lose one. That's my point. Two. There it goes back and the Cowboys have lost their fourth straight, and so they are closer to wait, something, something's gonna land in their lab. All right,

very good? All right, that does it for Mixed Shots for another week. Enjoy the game on Sunday, and we will be back with you on Monday afternoon at one thirty to talk about this Cowboys victory over the Vikings. Yeah go Cowboys. This has been a production of Dallas Cowboys dot Com and the Dallas Cowboys Football Club.