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This is nick shot, streaming live on Dallascowboys dot com and the official Dallas Cowboys apt now. Here are Bill Jones, Savannah, Hugh Mooller, Everson Walls, and Mickey Spagnola.
High noon on a Tuesday, here inside the SWBC podcast studio at the Star in Fresco, where it is, well, it's in here. It's not eighteen degrees, but outside it is, and it sure feels like it, and things are chilly. And Cowboys Nation too. Bill Jones, Savannah Humoler, Mickey Spagnola, and Everson Walls is not here today. He's got other commitments. He's decided he didn't want to talk about fixed.
I think chicken, come on.
So here we are.
I don't know if this was indicative everything, but just as soon as you started the show up on the NFL network was the divisional.
Round schedule of games.
It's like, okay, throw it right in our face.
Yeah there you go, exactly all right, lot so much to talk about since we weren't together. I know, Mickey, you did a joint podcast yesterday for some of that yesterday, and so you've got things about the game that you've gotten off your chest. But new audience here for mixed shots fire away.
Yeah, thanks, open ended. Right. So, as I was telling Savannah before we started that, you know, it's one thing to lose a playoff game, and then it's another thing to get beat as bad as they did, almost competitive. I mean, at twenty seven to nothing, did you have any hopes that they were going to recover? It was somewhat reminded me of that ninety four NFC play, an NFC title game against San Francisco that.
Was twenty one and nothing was still fifty five minutes.
Yeah, I know, that's what I said. I said, well, you know, they almost came back from that, but they still had three and a half quarters to play. They were down twenty one nothing, but when it got to twenty seven nothing, it was like, are you kidding me? This is not really happening.
That was also a team that had already won two straight Super Bowls.
Yes, yeah, I know, and yeah it was you know, and I know what the feeling is out there. You know, everybody should get fired. But as I try to caution everyone that firing the head coach means you fired the offensive coordinator, and so whoever the new head coach would be better have an offensive coordinator if he's not the offensive coordinator. So it's not as easy as just taking off the head because there's too many other body parts
that follow along with making changes. And I'm not trying to, you know, overly defend Mike McCarthy, but if you do something, then are you guaranteeing me that they're going to win twelve games next year? And you're guaranteeing me that that change is going to win the playoff game. So you've got to be careful. I think normally Jerry tries to take the emotion out of it and kind of just calm down and then look at things pragmatically before you know, making a move or not making So I think that's
kind of where we're at. But I just thought that that might be the most unexpected, devastating loss that I've seen in my time covering Cowboy playoff games. And I counted them up before before the game, Derek had asked me, so, how many playoff games have you covered since I started cutting them up? And I said, well, this sounds like it's thirty two. I said, do I get to count the two I watched on TV for the NFL Championship with the Cowboys and the Packers. He goes, no, you had to be there.
I said, Okay, this.
Was the most I think. I mean, they've gotten beat bad before, right, but it was it was almost somewhat expected a road game at Detroit in the ninety one season when they got wiped out. They got wiped out by Minnesota that one year. It was ninety nine I believe, or O nine or nine. Yes, sorry, I think it was ninety nine two. By the way, there you go, because it was it was Tarrell Owens, not Aroll Owens. It was Randy Moss, right. He was all pissed off that the Cowboys didn't draft him.
The minute of the nine game was thirty four to three at Minnesota.
Right, And then and then ninety nine would have been at Minnesota also because they were a wild card team, as I remember.
But that team didn't have the same hopes this team.
No, definitely not.
You're right, And it was twenty seven to ten and it was only eight and eighteen, right, yeah, and then in nine they got wiped out again by Minnesota. Yeah, So yeah, I just this was not expected. This was not oh we didn't get one more play, or oh it was a catch, no catch, or Aaron Rodgers throwing basically a hail Mary to set up the winning field goal. This was just a butt whipon.
So Savannah saying, I had to let Vicky do is his rant first and then you know, see where we're at.
But I mean, I also knew it was the turning point in that second quarter. I was actually standing in the end zone tunnel right when Dak had thrown the interception and they ran it back in at Green Bay, and the entire Green Bay defense is just running right at me, right at the cameras everything, and just the fans around me because there were like one of the field suites and then people behind me. The amount of
just screams and all the thing. I just was shocked in that moment, and that's when I realized, I don't think we're coming back.
It was like watching a horror movie.
Correct a slow, slow car.
Crash and then got very fast right there, and then all of a sudden, oh, okay, here we go, so here we are, and there's there are so many questions to be answered and you have to let the let time pass and we're people upstairs figure things out.
Yeah. I ran into Steven yesterday and I I can't remember how it happened, and something about how's it going? And he goes hanging hanging tight, just like that, which was not the answer question to ask, right. I learned that from Bill Parcells after a loss. When we saw him the next day, he said hi, and I said Hi, how's it going? He goes, not real, Well, he was honest. So now I've learned to just say hi to him and not ask how it's going, out.
Of just what you normally say.
Right, But yeah, so to me, you know, there's also there's always personnel questions, but then there's also you know, why in the world did you decide to play zone on defense in the secondary, And it seemed like they did it more than normal from what I can tell. And my only answer to that is they were trying to hide Steph on Gilmour's injury, that they didn't want him having to play man the whole game and not benjam and putting the Sean right out there to play cornerback.
But it looked like they hadn't played much zone all year. I've never seen so wide open receivers in my entire life. Like there was just miscoverages And the worst was the touchdown passed the Musgrave when he stood there by himself. It seemed like forever waiting for the past to get there. What is back to the end zone standing still.
To catch like hot right?
Yes, all I could think of, he's got to be thinking, oh my god, don't drop this.
And it's just a mental bust on that play, right, you know.
Defensively, yeah, it wasn't like they beat somebody.
Or communication mix up, you know, and it was like.
But how many of those were there? And so I went back and I got the big play type things, and so they give you the top ten. Nine of them were fifteen yards or more. They had a twenty, a twenty two, a twenty six, a twenty seven, a thirty nine, and a forty six.
I believe it.
We saw it right, and it was just so uncommon for that defense to give up that many big plays. And so, you know, hand it to Green Bay. I thought they had a really good plan, and I thought they had a really good plan defensively that I think we've seen before from other teams. That have beaten the Cowboys that they're able to stop the run with a normal front, and they decided that they were going to put undue pressure on Dak Prescott and they end up
sacking him four times. They hit him nine times. He was forced to run with the ball six times. A couple of them were good runs, but that wasn't the design play. It was because of the pressure. And he had six more passes defense, meaning he's trying to fit the ball into tight situations and the passes were getting broken up. So those two things, I think really held this offense down to sixteen points until they decided that okay,
we're not giving up any big plays. You can gain all the yards you want, score all the touchdowns you want. We still got forty eight points, right, Well.
The most disappointing thing for me was the play of the defense, and you could see it coming in the last month of the season, and I spent a good part of yesterday morning just trying to figure out the linebacker situation. It's been It's bugged me the whole second half of the season when Leyton vander Esh wasn't replaced. And I understand that you have difficulties during the middle of the season finding players to replace other players. But those are contingency plans that you have to have in
place earlier in the season too. Or was it that dan Quinn said, hey, and win with this, you know? And it was successful in games where you get ahead. It's not successful in games when you get behind and teams can just run on you. But I mean, you go back and look at the linebacking depth chart on this team, and I don't look at Marquise Bell as being a linebacker. Bless his heart. I think he played had a great season moving from safety playing linebacker for
the first time in his life and subpast. And then the idea was after Overshown went down with the injury in the preseason that okay, he's in sub packages. He's basically replacing Overshown, similar size player. Overshown two hundred and twenty pounds. Bell's listed at two ten on the roster.
But okay, you get into a situation now late in the year against Buffalo and the games on the line against Miami and Detroit, and you know, and he was nicked up in one game where they were playing jy Ron Curse at linebacker alongside the Montclark, but you basically only had one linebacker who got any defensive snaps and DeMont Clark in the last half of the season. And you know the Packers when they prepared to face and that's why they take the football to start the game.
They want that they knew the key to this game is get ahead, get ahead, and stay it. And then you stay ahead exactly. And and so it's a defense
that is small and aggressive. And when things are going well and you've got the lead in the game, it it can come up with picks, it can come up with you know, turnovers, and but when you get behind and a team can just pin its ears back and run at you with a running back like Aaron Jones slasher who you know, they do a great job up front as far as him being able to have holes
to run through. And you've got I mean, it's you look at the goal line situation first and goal at the one, and the Cowboys have four They had Parsons at left defensive end, two defensive tackles, Lawrence at right defensive end, and de Monte Clark on the right side. And your middle linebacker is fourteen Marquise Bell. You've got six DB's on the field on first and goal at the one yard line. And that's been going on here for the whole last month of the season, right, I'm okay.
And so you don't have the personnel to stop the run, in my.
Opinion, and probably the same when they ranted in from three yards out or nine yards.
Or in the third quarter, where you need to stop them. But they're going to run the football, and when you have, you know, six DB's on the field, and then it causes problems when you're converting safeties down into the box. They haven't played linebacker for a living and reading and reacting and so forth. Now I don't know, you know, I got as much knowledge about football and my peaky finger as the guys down the hallway do. And so
there's a reason why they were doing it. But it certainly didn't work in this game.
And they tried, and I thought somewhat successfully putting Parsons at linebacker and having that tiger's front at times, but not often enough, I didn't think. And you don't let him run to the ball, don't just let him get overwhelmed at the line of scrimmage.
Well, I think most of these issues started being a parent In that Bills game, that's when you really saw how they played and how the run defense was. And I think we can say from the Bills and then you go to Miami and then from there you beat the Washington Commanders, who you know, that was almost a given that you that you're going to win that game. However, I think we almost were all fooling ourselves a little bit going into the Screen Bay game.
I think what you're looking at is you go back into October, and I agree wholeheardly with the everything you're saying. At that point in the season, there are no linebackers to go find, yeah, you know, to go get and they tried and they brought Brashaun Evans in earlier, didn't war they brought Shaq Leonard in and he wound up going with Philadelphia instead. And so those were the two
at mid season that were available. But and so to Dan Quinn's credit and the defensive coaches credit, they figured out a way to make it work and get on a roll towards the you know, winning seven of their last nine games after Leyton vander esh goes down with the injury. But at some point it was going to catch up with them.
So tell me if you sent a pattern here. They lost Arizona two hundred and twenty two yards rushing, They lost to San Francisco one hundred and seventy yards rushing. They lost to Philadelphia one hundred and nine, which was they were in the game. They lose to Buffalo two hundred and sixty six yards rushing, They lose to Miami one hundred and twenty five, no. Ninety one yards rushing, and then they lose this playoff game one hundred and
forty three yards rushing. So there's a year six losses, five of them for at least one hundred and nine yards. So and that's been there. Their problem in the last couple playoff games too, given up last three playoff games. If you look at it, when they gave up two hundred and seventy three the twenty eighteen season to the Rams.
Okay, so you're going back to twenty eighteen, Yeah, you're talking about the three three losses. Well, I mean against San Francisco last year in the playoff it was a tight game and they actually contained the run game.
You're right, the year before they did, the year before they.
Didn't, and in fact, in fact let's take a we'll come back and I'll I spent yesterday morning looking back at last year in the playoffs versus this year in the playoffs at the linebacker position and be able to underscore more of what I'm talking about when we come back here on mix shots in a moment.
I'm Dak Prescott, quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys.
And they snapped the press guy who looks right, it's not there. He escaped, flapped.
He'll look for a punks down.
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To Mixed Shots.
All right, we continue with Mixed Shots on a Tuesday. As we wrap up what happened on Sunday, we're going to look ahead to the offseason as well. Wrap up my thought on we were talking about the linebacker position, and I mentioned last year in the playoffs. Let's all recall that your linebackers in the playoff games last year against Tampa Bay and San Francisco, you had sixty four two hundred and fifty six pounds Layton vander esh In sixty five two hundred and fifty seven pound Anthony Barr
at linebacker. This year you have sixty three two hundred and forty pound de Monte Clark and sixty three two hundred ten pound Marquise Bell at linebacker. So there's the mark difference in the size of the guys that you're putting out there trying to defend the run. And credit Clark and Bell doing the best they can, but you know, I just think that they were overmatched in some certain situations.
Aaron Jones averaged five point six yards of Carrie three rushing touchdowns, which tied the Packers playoff single game record. He's now got seven playoff touchdowns rushing, most in Packer history. Wow, which means more than Jim Taylor and Paul Horny, who are both in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
By the way, the other thing about vander ash and bar last year, they got all the defensive snaps in the playoff games last year. Clark was strictly a special teams player in the playoffs last year, so this was his first time to play defensive snaps in a postseason game.
See. And the reason we bring this up is it doesn't look like it was that significant, but it was so efficient that it was a hidden factor in the game. Right talked about all the big plays, right, and it was like, well, the past defense sucked well, but they were running the ball effectively to keep their attention and they did not get pressure. Now, there was one or two plays where Parsons got there a half step late
to hit Love, but he didn't get sacked. He didn't get sacked, and all of a sudden, you start getting so run conscious. You're a half step slow trying to get to the quarterback. And he only got hit like, what was it, four times maybe, and he never really had to I don't think he ever ran the ball, or maybe one time because he he kneeled down for a loss of one, or maybe he tried to run at that time. But defensively, the Cowboys had three quarterback hits,
no sacks. So that was a continuation of what we saw down the stretch. Other than the four sacks I believe they had against Washington, they had no more than one sack the previous five games, I want to say, and I can tell you that for sure. It was one against Seattle, one against Philadelphia, one against Buffalo, one against Miami, one against Detroit, and they got none in this game. So their inability to put pressure on the opposing quarterback also showed up.
You got to give credit to Green Bays a line.
I mean, they really did block for Jordan Love and they gave also the ability for him to pass in those moments when they weren't running the ball, and it worked for them.
And you know what, and he was as good as advertising. We talked about it, right, throwing off his back foot, reading the field, but then again when you got guys that wide open, but he dropping the ball in the bucket. He was awfully, awfully good.
And the other thing is it really shows. And then I think this can be an encouraging thing to Cowboys fans when you see what the Packers are able to do and the Rams were able to do as far as turning their roster over and using these young players draft picks. I mean, the Packers had thirteen draft picks this year and nine of them are playing primary roles as first year players in this league. The Rams had fourteen draft picks this year and they make the playoffs.
A lot of those young players, including Puka Nakua, a fifth round draft pick. Second round offensive guard Steve Aveyla at a TCU is one of the best young offensive
linemen in the league. And when you look ahead now with this Cowboys roster and where things are right now, you know, with guys along in the tooth at certain positions, with other guys that are younger guys who are now free agents, and what they're going to have to do in the offseason, you can you know, the interesting thing about the draft right now is be coming out of
the COVID year. And I think one of the reasons that so many and we saw it in last night's game where Tampa Bay their Trey Palmer, their rookie sixth round draft pick, has a long touchdown catching that game. Guys got four to three speed out of Nebraska, and he's playing a primary role for Tampa Bay right now. I think what's happened coming out of the COVID years
is you got old players coming into the draft. They had to set out the one year and they got the extra year of eligibility as well, and so there are more players that are ready to play coming into the league now during this two or three year window coming out of COVID than there were prior to twenty twenty.
And I think the I don't know if the Packers or the Rams or other teams were looking at that, when you know clearly coming into this draft there were so many more draft prospects than in normal years, and I think it'll probably be more of the same this year. As we look forward to the draft, there are opportunities to get good young players who can replace players on your roster that are smaller salaries.
And depth in the draft right right, what Bill's talking about like third fourth rounds that not everybody can be drafted in the first or second round that were prepared to play.
The other part of it is coming out of COVID the new roster rules, where I mean you counted up, but you can go the Cowboys roster, the Green Bay roster, the Pittsburgh roster. Pick a team, any team, and there are probably seventy five players who were active for a game, seventy five different players when you consider the elevations from
the practice squad, guys getting hurt and so forth. So you can take ninety players to training camp and you might have eighty of those ninety players who actually play in a regular season game for you. And it's been a really good thing that the NFL has done in changing these what were archaic rules in the past where you get injured and you're out for the year, you
get placed on injured reserve. Now you can come back in four weeks or eight weeks, whatever the injury requires, and so you have to have more depth on your roster. And I think that's another reason why teams why things are so much different from the first half of the season to the second half of the seas and for a lot of these teams. Now, why is Philadelphia so much worse now than what they were the first half
of the season. Well, they suffered a lot of injuries, and yeah, they went out and got a couple of veteran guys, but maybe they didn't do such a good job on the back end of their roster as far as having guys that can step in and play, right.
Yeah, So there's a lot that goes into this that we were trying. I was just kind of looking at the guys that actually played in games, and it'd take me a while to count it, right, But I think you got a pretty good point on that. So I think I think that, you know, the frustrating part for the fans is they've seen this too many times, right, And like I said, going into this, this team had
no responsibility for what happened. They're twenty some years in the playoffs, right, But it's the continued frustration I think that has happened. You know, I'm sure everybody's yelling, well, if we had a general manager, this wouldn't happened. Well, Philadelphia had the general manager and it happened to them. And I know Jerry does a good job of taking the brunt of the criticism, but you know, we know that between Will McLay and Stephen Jones that they basically
are the day to day general managers. You know, Jerry gets the last say, of course, but those are the guys that are doing the work, and they've been heralded right everybody's you know, heck, just look at what the stories were going into the game. How good Mike McCarthy and Dak Prescott meshed, Oh, it's a different deal. And then you lose one and it's like, well, what the hell?
Everyone flips yeah, yeah.
And including you know, many members in the media too. You know, everything was great and then you lose and it's like, well, what are they doing?
I just think it was shocking everyone and this fan base especially had such high hopes this season.
I mean, you have these seasons going back to.
You know, with Mike McCarthy that are twelve and five and things look like they're progressing.
Dak Prescott's having one of the best seasons of.
His careers, and I think there was so much hope going into this, especially sitting at the second seed. You're on an eight game you know, wind streak just this season at at and T Stadium, you had the advantages, and then to just get blown out like that just in the first half was very shocking to the fan base, and I think that's why there's so much flip to what everyone is saying.
And I think there was also this natural reaction that, well, they hadn't lost the game at home in the last sixteen and they went eight to o this year. But as I continued to say, sometimes it matters who you play exactly.
That's what we've been saying all season. I mean, if they played San Francisco and Buffalo at home rather than on the road.
They said, would have got beat.
That's right, right.
I mean, if you think about it, the best teams they played at home Seattle, I don't know if you want to throw them in there, Philadelphia, and we saw the playoffs Philadelphia, you know, I went downhill.
The start of their downfall.
Detroit they got by by one point, and when they played the Rams, the Rams weren't playing that way. And then the other games that they won at home, the Jets, New England, the Rams, the Giants, Washington, Seattle, Philadelphia, and then Detroit. So this was technically probably the best team they played at home at this time of the season.
It's either of them are Detroit.
Yeah.
So, and they may be playing each other in the UNFC Championship next week, you know. And I mean we'll see if Green Bay go to San Francisco and win.
Yeah, And there was I would them this whole narrative about you know, why are you so good at home? Well, sometimes it's who you play at least for this year. You know, you didn't play Miami and Buffalo at home. You didn't play the San Francisco at home.
So what was the Cowboys' best home win? You just listed the Jets thirty to ten, New England thirty eight to three. Then it was the Rams forty three to twenty, and then the Giants, what was that score? Forty nine to seventeen, and then Washington was forty five to ten, Seattle was forty one thirty five, Philadelphia thirty three thirteen, and then Detroit twenty to nineteen. Now you look back, which was the best game they played?
Probably the Philadelphia game, but that wasn't the best tame.
But now I'm thinking about who they're playing. I think the best game they played was Detroit Troit twenty to nineteen, and they barely because of the opponent.
Yeah, and I almost pinpoint the Seattle game, because I think that was one of the biggest games where they were down and they were proving their ability to be able to come back and win a game. And then Seattle went on and had a great rest of their season. But I think those games after that, it wasn't until we played Detroit that we actually won again, a very good winning, And.
I felt like that game they played above their heads as far as stopping the run in that remember, and there was a lot of run blitzes and things like that against Detroit. Tackles for loss. Yeah, against Detroit. Seven tackles for loss in that game, and a lot of it is, you know, DeMarcus Lawrence shooting a gap and tackling somebody in the backfield or whatever, you know.
And having said that, they still ran for one hundred and twenty five yards. But you're right, they made plays this game. They didn't make plays. And I got a couple I'd like to talk about, but we're all right.
I'll get next a couple more Mickey would like to talk about as mix Shots continues.
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.
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To mixed shots.
And mixed shots continues. We've got about eight minutes left here and then we are gonna be off from mixed shots the rest of this week? Can we do it on a weekly basis starting next week? How about this?
You see that note up there?
What is that note up there? That she watched the NFL network.
Jordan Love first player since nineteen fifty with a one hundred and fifty plus passer rating in road playoff game one hundred and fifty seven point two, and at one point it was.
Perfect, perfect, and then he threw that last pass, so he.
Had an incompletion, and that incompletion dropped it a whole point. It was one fifty eight point three.
Which is a perfect rating.
Incredible.
Jordan Love is going to be in the Packer Hall of.
Fame without a doubt if he keeps playing that way, right, Okay, So, and there was just a couple of plays that stood out to me. I didn't get a chance on that first series to go back and look at the illegal contact on Bland. It was the second play of the game when they had the minus three. How egregious it was. But the one that stuck out to me was the
non interference call on J. J. Alexander on the interception. Yeah, and you know, and they kept saying on television, well, he's got the right to go get the ball, and he does. But to earn that right to go get the ball, he yanked Cooks from behind.
Uh.
And it should have been either a holding or a legal contact, one of the two, and they just they just ignored it. And it was significant giving them the ball. What was at fourteen nothing and they got the ball at the nineteen yard line. Uh, and then they go in and score that. That was that was that was really big. The other one, I guess it was inconsequential. Uh, the offensive pass interference on Tolbert on the two point conversion. All he did was run his route and he he
squeezed right behind between two guys. He didn't block anybody, he didn't touch anybody, and they threw the flag on that. It's just these mixed crews. I just don't like it. I do not like it because I think everybody's trying to show that how much they know by throwing flags.
Well, how about Micah Parson's finally drawing a holding call?
Two of them?
Maybe once, but twice twice.
Well, when you get tackle from behind and the guy's riding piggyback on you, it's kind of hard to ignore.
Yeah, well it was it was time. That was you know broken.
His late take on it that the officials tell him, well, you were so far out of the play you couldn't make that play.
His response is.
How do they know I can't? I can make plays that normal people can't. Mate, don't tell me what I can't make so anyway, I was gonna throw that out there.
So what do you think about this off season coming up now?
Well, Mike count they got sixteen unrestricted free agents, including the deep snapper who was pretty darn good, our star.
Of the game.
Yeah, all his snaps have been perfect this year, which is rather remarkable that they were able to pick him up off the free agent wire or sign him. I should say, Yeah, it's got a lot of work to do. And one of the things we've already discussed linebacker. Right, you got to figure out running back, and you got to figure out cornerback.
And you got to figure out offensive line.
And offensive line, mister Newton pointed out yesterday.
Very I didn't I miss that.
Well, he was talking about don't be afraid to use the twenty fourth picking the draft on an offensive lineman.
Well, and we don't know yet. I mean, there's a couple of them that are long in the tooth, yes, Tyron and Zach.
Right, And you better be prepared, right, not just assume you got a game or two out of TJ back, even.
If you have them under contract, even if they are playing, right, it's you have to be prepared in case of injury right when you're Tyron is thirty three and Zach is also thirty three, right, So Zack actually a few a couple of weeks older than Tyron, believe it or not, even though he was drafted three years later. It's just a basy house. How young twenty year old Tyron? Yeah, Savannah, Tyron did not turn twenty one until December twelfth of
his rookie season. That's how young he was when he came into the league in twenty eleven.
So and Nate his contract is up, yeah, And Nate was right yesterday they got to decide is Tyler Smith your guard or is the tackle? Is the he the inherited tackle on the left side, and then just wherever you do leave them there, don't keep rotating or shuffling. Uh. And if that's the case, then who's your guard?
And then Tyler Biada she's also a free agent, right exactly.
There's a lot of changes to be made in this offseason, for sure, and a lot of rebuilding in those structures for a lot of position groups.
And I saw saw Connor McGovern pretty prominent. Yeah, he kind of got in a little scrum on the sideline there, But you know he's starting playing well, So yeah, you gotta be you got to be very judicious what you do on this offensive line. Running back, he got a draft one, don't.
You right, because you obviously Pollard and Doubtell are both out.
There, and you know, I don't know what other people think of Pollard, And even if you brought him back, you still need uh, you need another guy cornerback is you know, I think Gilmour wants to play Juadan Lewis. Lewis is up, and then you've got Trayvon and coming back from a torn acl.
You know, so if now you took care of in the at safety, you took care of Malie Cooker and of course Dotovan Wilson last year, right, so they're under contract and curses up, curses up.
So yeah, cornerback position, you can't just assume Trayvon comes back as the same Trayvon right right off the bat behind your way. Now you got Bland and that's good.
Uh.
You know, I think Gilmore said that he wants to play another year, but he's got to have shoulder surgery.
And bringing it back to linebackers Vagresh obviously with his injury situation, and you got Clark coming back. You got Overshown coming off in Aco coming back, and that's going to take that.
That'll take development for Overshown as well, because you know he's just he hasn't done anything, so it's going to take a lot of development time for him.
Got a lot of needs coming up here.
It's always amazing to me that you get in the playoffs and whatever kind of wart you covered up during the regular season gets exposed in the playoffs because now you're playing the best teams in the league. And it happened. It happened, And here we are, right, how did.
We do in our picks last week? I know we missed one game?
How about the rest of the league?
Yeah, I got I know, I got the Saturday games right, Houston and Kansas City, and I think we all I think we were split on Houston and Cleveland.
I picked Houston.
I picked Houston.
Also, I picked Houston. I picked the Steelers. Work out for me.
And then.
I can't remember if I picked the Rams of the Lions.
May I picked the Rams.
I may have picked the Rams.
I think I did too.
And then well, of course we all in Unison picked Tampa Bay over Philly.
Yeah, we did.
Yeah, we did, and Everin missed them all by the way.
He's so as we close it out, who's winning this weekend? You got The first game on Saturday is Houston at Baltimore. Baltimore. I like Baltimore. I really like CJ. Stroud, but Baltimore is gonna win that game in my opinion. The other AFC game is Kansas City at Buffalo Buffalo. I'll go Buffalo. So you got a Buffalo at Baltimore AFC championship game, which we will we'll reconvene. We can text week so
we'll talk about it. NFC Green Bay at San Francisco on Saturday night, you're gonna pull the trigger on it.
San Francisco Francisco.
I'm going to San Francisco. And the other game is now Tampa Bay at Detroit Detroit Detroit Detroit. So we got a San Francisco Detroit or Detroit at San Francisco NFC championship game.
How about cooler heads prevailing not trying to play that damn game in Buffalo the day before.
Oh yeah yeah.
And it took the governor probably to say no, we're not doing that right because she didn't want all her first responds in police, as she said, taking care of seventy thousand people trying to get into it right way.
That was one case with the with what was going on. Yeah, on Sunday that could not have been played.
So would you have gone over there with a snowshovel for twenty dollars twenty dollars an hour, I'd have done it.
There's some Absolutely, there's some people that are going to go out there.
Now, that's what zoom is for.
I told somebody, I said, I used to I used to get two dollars an hour to shovel driveways.
No, the problem was the report time, what time you had to show up.
Time was that midnight.
Because they yeah to do it all through.
The night, midnight, just shovel through the night, So basically you're working the overnight shift at the stadium of the lights on.
I'd have got there at seven in the morning, but not at midnight.
People would do it just to say that they did it. Yeah, I got I got to be a period of it.
Yeah, absolutely.
I do think it was funny that they'll add they put out it says in the morning, we'll give you a free hot breakfast in a warm area in a warm area.
Like there's a warm area anywhere in Buffalo.
Yeah, but they did a pretty good job.
Yep, they didn't really they can go.
They cleared the walkways, they cleared the field, well, I.
Mean, come on the field. I'm talking about the stands that they were really there.
He clear the touchdowns though, when the fans were throwing up in the snow, that was that was cool.
That was pretty cool.
I did think it was funny that your ticket doesn't where you sit, right, It was like it was open seating. Did you know that?
No, I did.
There's no way you could find kept I can't hear.
I kept hearing was open. So if you get in the stadium, it's general mission. So wherever you can find a seat, sit down except sit down on the snow, except for the second level where the heaters are.
Yeah, where they You notice that that's the best seat in the house. Yeah, well that's.
Why they're youve got sweets behind.
Uh huh. All right, Well that does it for Mixed Shots for this season, and we turn our attention to twenty twenty four next week on the next edition of Mix Shots, Oh Cowboys.
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