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This is mick Shot streaming live on Dallascowboys dot Com and the official Dallas Cowboys have and now your hosts, Mickey Spagnola, Everson Walls, Nate Newton, and Bill Jones.
Oh what a beautiful morning it is here in Oxnard, California. It is truthfully day number one of Cowboys Camp twenty twenty three. It is day number one because there will be football players on a football field behind us. And this is micshots Bill Jones with Mickey Spagnola. No, No, Everson Walls, No, Nate Newton. Nate will be joining us as we go along here from Oxnard over the course of the next several weeks. Everson will eventually join us
at the Star in Frisco. But Mickey, it is a glorious football Wednesday, Sun's out, Sky's blue sixty eight degrees.
And I already did ten fifteen minute show with Mate this morning when he called me.
At six a m. But it was eight am his time.
Yeah, right, did I wake you up? And I said, you missed by thirty seconds because my alarm just went off. So this was just your own two man show. I told him, I audience too. You all we did right now should have been when we started the show. You need to be here, and he goes, oh, I gotta wait till the pads come on.
Okay, all right, and the pads will come on on Monday. I got a ramp up period, of course, by NFL rules, according to the CBA, And of course the team arrived here in Oxnard on Monday. We had the State of the Cowboys press conference yesterday. We've already had breaking news here in the first thirty six hours here, and it's gonna be fun as we go along here as the Cowboys of course, will be here for the next going on three weeks, and then the first preseason game back
home in Jacksonville, then another week here. So all told, it'll be four weeks here in Oxnard, and goodness, before that second preseason game at Seattle, they will be breaking camp. But wow, it's it's just great to have football back again.
Yes it is, and it's been a while. And unfortunately these first few practices are basically mini camp practices, so no contact.
They might be better than the current mini camp practices are though, just because they're not, they've scaled back mini camp practice.
Well, they probably scale back this because they all want to get fined again for too much physicality, right, you know, we don't want the defensive backs trying to break up passes or anything forbid.
By the way, you can go online and see the restrictions that are in the CBA. It's there very specific as to what all the teams can do during this first four day period. Then there's a mandatory day off of the players, which will be on the fifth day, which in the Cowboys case will be Sunday, and then they'll put the pads on on Monday. Yeah.
Absolutely, So we'll go through this basically. What we'll be able to find out here in a couple hours is just sort of how they're lining up different guys on the different units. Mike McCarthy already said that they would start the offensive line like they left off in the mini camp, so that kind of gave us a clue
of what they're going to do. And I guess that suggests that Tyron Smith will be at left tackle and Tyler Smith will be at left guard, and then we'll go from there until we get to right guard, where Zach Martin, unless he showed up right and early this morning, was not on the charter flight.
And that's one of two major stories that we have here, and we'll get to Terrance Steele as well. The other thing yesterday the Cowboys place the second round draft pick, the tight end Luke schoon Maker on n f I. He had a previously existing planter fascia issue his foot that he's been dealing with throughout the off season. And then Jordan Lewis, the veteran cornerback coming off the Liz Frank fracture last season, as expected, starts training camp on pup.
And then and and that was it. You know, there was Terrance Steele is active, and he's active. I don't know ready he is, I was told not as ready as maybe you want him to. But the deal is, when you put a guy on pup, he can't do anything with the team. He's got to be away and the only and the only person he can work with is the trainer or strength coaches. Can't even interact with his position coach. So they I felt like he was far enough along that they weren't worried about a relapse
or anything. But maybe not ready to start. Although what they do early, he might be able to do some of that, but they felt like by time a week or so passes that he should be good to go, but they're gonna ease him in, right, same thing with Tony Pollard, Gonna ease him in. You're not trying to win the super Bowl week one of training camp. You
need these guys ready to start the season. So they feel pretty good about both guys being ready to start the season, but just maybe not do everything the start of training camp.
All right, So I mentioned the two major stories that became official yesterday, although it leaked out last week about Zach Martin and then Trayvon Diggs signed to a long term contract that was huge for the Cowboys. We'll get to Zach in just a second, but let's start with Trayvon Diggs. Here a five year contracts extension ninety seven million dollars that can get up to one hundred million,
twenty one point twenty five million dollars signing bonus. It was huge to get Draymond Diggs signed before camp started.
And even more important to him forty two point three million guarantee you And that's what we always look at right. So you know, we got to see with the incentives, it can get just a little bit more than one hundred million, but we got to see how it's uh, you know, how it's mapped out. So but the big thing is forty two point three million. I would imagine with half of that guarantee a signing bonus that you know, it could be three years something and then there's those
big base salaries at the end. So we'll see. But by time those base salaries would hit, the salary caps going up, and it's going up huge next year. It may go up twenty five thirty million next year when the TV new TV contract hits in. So that's how they're structuring contracts going forward. But that's huge to get him done because you can only next year franchise one guy, and you got to think about you you're gonna have Terrence Steele unless they can get him signed to a
long term deal. Look at his position and what exactlyise and I saw online somewhere where they estimate market value, and that someone estimated his market value at thirteen million dollars a year, and it's like, well, if it's that much, then Matt will let's go better get ready because they're probably not gonna pay both starting offensive tackles that kind of money. So they would like to sign him to a long term deal. They wanted to sign Tony Pollard
to a long term deal. My information was they were working on a three year deal. They couldn't come to an agreement on a total. So he's gonna play ten million do on the franchise tag. But he'll be a free agent too next year, so you got to factor that in. Tyler Biattish is on the final year of his contract, so they've got some contract stuff to still work on. Uh ceedee. Lamb would be going into his fifth year option that they picked up at seventeen million.
They would like to sign him to a long term deal. And then Dak Prescott's gonna come along too, So yeah, yeah, he's this is his third year already, right. Uh So, yeah, they've got some things that they got to take care of. They're not panicking. And I saw somebody already pointing out, well, don't worry about the future, spend your money now. Well, okay, that's fine, but there is a salary cap this year too.
And I think it's big from the Cowboys perspective, and I like from Trayvon's perspective too, that he decided to take this deal. I think I read where it makes it his average per season, which is a little shade over nineteen million a season. With the extension, it would make him the fifth highest paid cornerback in the league. You know, his ego could have got the best of him. I want to be paid for the best, and he understands the situation that he has here. I think he
understands and he understands the the market. He understands the you know with the Cowboys, his marketability himself, and the money that he can make aside from his contract. He's in a very good position here, and so I just I think it's a very mature way to approach his future and you know, set his family up for generations.
So you said it averaged nineteen something a shade last nineteen Okay, so we looked up, well.
Five years, ninety seven million. I guess it's the it's the extension part of that, not his current contract. It factored into that, right would be what nineteen point.
Five because he's I think he's at four point three base salary right this year so we looked up what the franchise tag would be this year for a cornerback and it was eighteen point one million. So if he's averaging nineteen, they're looking at well, if he was franchised this year and then next year, you got to do twenty percent more, so that would be around twenty one to twenty two million.
You know, if both sides want to get a deal done, it's pretty easy to figure out what the money will be. Yeah, space off, you know, Okay, well here's the franchise tag number now and what it would be perhaps this year, and you kind of work off of that and you can figure out where it needs to be.
And that's why when I see this, well just just sign these guys. Well it's got to be you know, good for both sides. Right, And they wanted to say everybody's like, well the Cowboys didn't want to pay a running back. Well they did, but they wanted to pay them within reason.
And now look around the league.
Yeah, and see what's happening to the running backs. Right, So it's not like they devalued. They were trying to make an investment going forward. And from Tony Pollard's standpoint, you know, these guys that want to bet on themselves and play on a one year deal, and you take a chance on injury, and then you go into free agency with an injury, right, and then how do you market yourself? The other thing is is he's got to look at the market value for running backs going forward.
He's going to be twenty seven next year. Now, is somebody going to give him more than a two or three year deal going forward for a running back? No, because twenty eight years old is usually the line of demarcation between being very productive and starting to regress.
Now, five years in the league and now they wouldn't have the same number of carries that Zeke had rightly after his first five years in the league. But he's getting into that range there where, Okay, he you know, the average career span for a starting running back, especially in the NFL, right, you know, got to be south of four years.
Yeah, absolutely. And then the other thing you've got to also factor in and just think of what nearly happened to Dak Prescott playing on the franchise tag. He has that gruesome injury. If it was worse, the Cowboys would like, okay, fine, you know, but we'll let you go into free agency and see what somebody wants to sign you, not knowing that when free agency begins, you can't walk into anybody's facility without some sort of artificial assistance, right, So that
hurts your market value. So yeah, you got to be careful saying yeah, I'm gonna play on this franchise tag.
Okay, So that brings us to Zach Martin and ye, so what do you think is going on here with Zach Martin?
Well, he wants he wants an extension. Basically, he wants more money. Right now. When he signed that contract, that was a pretty darn good contract, it was what six years, eighty four million dollars, and so as you move along, contracts increase, right. But I saw a deal where and I'm not sure what it meant, but it said his
contract value. It didn't say how they valued it, but it was the second highest next to Lindstrom's that was one hundred and two million that he just signed, right, So I don't.
Of course, as far as interior offensive yeah, or guards.
Guards, that's what I meant. Yeah, And so now it reminds me of the story I've told you before about Greg Ellis. He signed a long term deal like six seven million, and then a year or two later, the market for defensive ends went way up, and he kind of was butt hurt because he felt like he was underpaid. And uh, we were at a lunch bill and you know, Pat Summer all well, God rest his soul, and we were He was wanting to know why why is Greg
ellis upset? And I was explaining to him that when he signed his contract, he signed too long and then the market value for defensive ends went up, but he still had two years left on his old contract. And I said something like I said, well, I said, unfortunately for Greg, he came along too soon. And some are all in his deep voice goes, we all came along too soon. So that's kind of what's happening with Zach
Martin right now. And you know, he's what thirty thirty two now, I believe going on thirty three.
He will be thirty three November twentieth.
And by the way, Tyron Smith will be thirty three Undercember, so he's the oldest.
He's older, Yeah, Tyron Smith, even though Tyron came into the league three years before Zach Martin and did of course, Tyron came in as the ninth overall pick in twenty eleven after just three years at USC and Zach Martin was already what a twenty four year old out of Notre Dame when he was the sixteenth pick in the draft in twenty fourth So I think, you know, I think I think Zach looks at what's happened with Tyron.
Now.
The difference here, obviously, over the last three years, Tyron has had a difficult time to staying on the field, and Zach, another credit to his future Hall of Fame status, is he very, very very rarely misses games. But I mean, you look, you look just across the room, the offensive line room, and you see what's happened with Tyron's contract.
And you know, Zach, if he has an injury plagued year or something like that, he could be in the same boat here in a couple of years when his contract or next year, when he's going into.
Last year, next year, the last one. And I'm sure that's what he's looking at. And you know, this didn't just happen. They talked him a couple of weeks ago about trying to work out an extension. And now I'm thinking back to the OTAs in mini camp when he was just basically rehabbing, he said a little soft tissue something maybe not right. He might have been making the first volley at a renegotiation there in the off season. And really for this first week, he's not going to
miss anything except for money. Yeah. Well, and from what I keep reading, for a veteran under contract, fifty dollars a day and it's not supposed to be waived either. Before you could say, oh that's okay, well, it's I think in the CBA that you've got to pay that. So now you can negotiate that into the extensions obviously, right, Yeah, but otherwise it's a fine, right, So but we'll see
where that goes. I think they'll figure that out. I don't see him missing any game time, and yeah, gosh, he's so good he can probably miss alli training camp and still be Zach Martin as long as you stay healthy, right right.
Producer Supreme Chris Beam over there, This is of course our first broadcast from here at Oxnard, and so the same format goes where we're about time to take this first break and Miller Lite is the sponsor.
Hey, Mickey, you are have grown so much in your stature that Miller Lte wants to sponsor mix.
Shots because it's the only bear of the Dallas Cowboys. And from now on it'll be Miller time. And I've got some you got some new reads, and do some reads, although one's an old one, all right, And I've got a Miller Light shirt to wear, so I'll put that on next time, all right.
It'll be a regular feature here on mix Shots. We're just getting started with our first segment of mix Shots for the twenty twenty three season and we're back in just a ball.
But I'm Dak Prescott, quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys. Blockchain dot com is one of the most trusted ways to buy, sell, and trade crypto. Whether you're always on the go or stay closer to home, blockchain dot com is just a few taps away put the power of crypto in your pocket, so no matter where you are, you can trade on your terms and build a crypto portfolio to fit your life. For cryptopros, rookies, and anyone in between, blockchain dot com makes it easy to own a piece of the future.
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Oh there you go. That's that's something that we're always looking for.
I finally had my roof checked from that last hill storm where I could have taken batting practice in my backyard if I was had a betting helmet on. Uh and the door just knock, knock, knock. So people that fixed my roof last time, I told them, all right, come by check it if it's good or bad. Put your sign out there, so they quit knocking on my door. So we passed, but he put the sign out and that silenced everybody.
Oh there you go. That's a very smart thinking there.
Yeah, how about that.
I just.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, they'll.
Do that for you too, put the sign on the door. John McLean a veteran reporter down in Houston. He grew up a Cowboys fan, I believe, and went to Baylor or whatever, but of course he's covered Houston sports for decades. He tweeted this just moments ago. I love training camp. My first was nineteen seventy seven. I feel like I did on the first day of school. Every year, the start of Texans camp means we're one step closer to
the start of the season. We can say that about Cowboys camp too, And Jerry was talking about it at the press conference. In fact, he was the last question basically of the press conference yesterday. He was talking about the drive in every year and sentimentally gets and it gets to his room here and then he you know, settles into his room, then he slips out the back door and sleeps at the billboard.
Yeah, that was that was great. Well, So Jerry's first training camp.
Was eighty nine, ye in the ten thousand Oaks and the next year they went to.
Austin eighty nine, makes this about thirty five.
It's thirty four years. And this is the seventeenth year now that the team has trained in uh Oxnard. And of course there were a few years in there that they split training camp right between San Antonio and Oxnard and had had the one year COVID year obviously was in Frisco. But basically the Oxnard journey began I think twenty two years ago.
So when does when was your first.
My first training camp was nineteen eighty two this year, working for a television station in Lubbock and had the great fortune of having a news director who loved the cowboys and so it was not a hard sell at all for us to come out the Thousand Oaks.
For a week.
And it's just amazing how things have changed over the decades and even how we do business. And you know, when you know we're sitting here doing a podcast. Right when we get done here, I'm going to do something with Mickey for CBS where I've got Mickey. They have supplied me with two wireless microphones.
And I used my phone to did you get the little stand for your I got a little tripower for the phone and everything. We're going to set that up afterwards.
But getting back to nineteen eighty two, back in that day, we used to come out and cover training camp and each day we would then drive to Lax from Thousand Oaks and it was a good hour, especially through LA traffic, and put our tape on a plane that they would send it back to, in that case Lubbock, so I would get there like the next day and they put the story together.
Back then, I remember that. I mean, my first camp was eighty five, so I've done every one except eighty eight since then. And so eighty five, eighty five is your first week, Okay, So like thirty I think it comes to about thirty eight years and this year and so yeah, I remember being in Thousand Oaks and the TV stations making drives to LA, the Cowboys sending stuff back and they had to go to LA to put it on some overnight service and then get it.
To this And then by the time Jerry bought the team in eighty nine, most everybody had satellite trucks Big Oaks right drive, Yeah, or in a thousand Oaks, I guess for one two thousand Oaks. And then in fact, the satellite trucks were still a thing even.
When we came here. We returned right for sure.
And then here in the last decade, I mean literally TV camera meant they have little boxes about that big called a live view unit that they were able to transmit what they're shooting media here on the field that immediately goes live back to the TV station. So but it's just I mean the whole Yeah, you think about it when you come out here, and it's it's great to be have this access and be out here and so forth, but it's also a grind. I mean, the
day starts early and ends late. But there are so many you get into a mindset that you're at summer camp, right basically now it's like you're a kid at summer camp. And there are so many great memories through the years of what happened or what has happened at training camp.
We could write books, right, Yeah, you said, you know, John was talking about like the first day of school. So Monday when we were getting ready to charter flight and it was at one o'clock and I don't know if it was anxiety or anticipation. I woke up at five in the morning. We couldn't go back to sleep,
but I'm going come on. So uh now we're you know, still on sleeping on Central time, but we're living on Pacific Coast time, and it's uh, it takes about almost a week to get used to it, the time change anyway.
And then you have to get used to it when you get back home. All right, team on the practice field today, what are some of the things that you're looking for just in terms of uh, you know, position battles during camp and that sort of thing that that you want to get, you know, and to get started.
We had a question on Dallas Cowboys dot com for today. Some of the question was what under the radar position battle are you looking at? And I go, well, first of all, there's nothing under the radar with the Cowboys, And second of all, once the offensive line is settled, and assuming if Thailand Tyron Smith is playing left tackle at the level we're used to seeing him, meaning Tyler Smith can play left guard, I mean the battles are for backup spots and roster spots other than kicker. Now,
we're gonna keep an eye on the kicker. Right, We're gonna sit there and chart every kick those guys have between Tristan Viscayano and Brandon Aubrey that they signed after the offseason workouts. He'd been in the USFL and kicked awfully well, which is a really good story.
By the way, Michael Gelk in the Morning News, I give credit to him. He's got a great story today on Brandon Aubrey and his journey. He played for the Cowboys when he was five years old.
Right, but he's soccer, but he played soccer at Plano. Go ahead, Hey, I played soccer at Plano. Was scholarship soccer athlete at Notre Dame.
By the way, and what did Notre Dame do his first year when he was a freshman at Notre Dame National National championship.
And he got dryfted into professional soccer soccer Major League Soccer.
He was a first round draft pick of Toronto FC. What did they do his rookie season? They won the MLS Cup title and then he and and it's long story how he didn't transferred over to football. But with the Birmingham Stallions in the USFL, what did they.
Do his first year and second year and second year they won the USFL championship And and do you know who his kicking coach was at Birmingham the second year?
You tell me Chris Boniell. That's who I was going to guess, but I wanted you to have that honor.
Thank you since I got a text from Chris boniall after they signed him and it said, darn you just signed my kicker. And I was like, what's he talking about? The kicking special teams coach in Birmingham And it's like, well, how did you get that job? And he goes Skip Holtz is that was the head coach. So Skip Holtz caught coached all those years at LA Tech and Boniol that's where he went to college. So there was a connection with LA Tech.
There always is a connection.
So I wrote about it on Dallas Cowboys dot Com. Boniol was really high on him. He said he he's got the leg, he's got the talent, he's got the demeanor, and he said the last thing I told him before he left was now, you've got to compete, because that's what it comes down to. It's competition. And you're not just competing with Vis Guyano. You're competing with the rest of the league and anybody else out there that doesn't have a job. And I said, you think he can
handle it. He said, he handled it so far, I said, And we ended up talking on the phone and I said, so can when he when he competes. You know, you got to have the right temperament, right, And he goes, oh, he's got that. I said, Now, the hard part is they're trying to replace a kicker, and the Cowboys are going to have trouble with this. That made ninety percent of his field goals last year. You don't find those
guys just walking on the street. And Boniol goes, my guy made ninety two percent of his field coat.
He was He was fourteen for fifteen on field goals this year with birmingam Riam mean, he was thirty five for thirty five on extra points.
And and and so here here's all this stuff works. I don't know if you remember Kevin Holtz. He worked for the Cowboys back in the early nineties, son of Lou Holtz, right, And so I mentioned that Skip Holtz was Aubrey's head coach in Birmingham. So he and he goes, oh, I just saw the story about the kicker and you know my brother and everything he goes, he goes. You know how he got started because Skip. The only reason Skip knew about him was John Carney. Carne was doing
kicking the trainers. Well, when this guy decided Aubrey he wanted to get into football, Carney ended up being his his mentor his teacher. And if I'm remember reading the story, Carne and I'd have to look this up if I remember,
I didn't write it down. Carne had a connection with his dad somewhere along the line Arkansas or Notre Dame and uh, and so there was all these connection with Brandon Aubrey, who we probably I watched that championship game, right, I just but I didn't know who he was or what he was doing.
I watched it looking for a kicker. I said, Well, as I watched, and I said, I guarantee you John Fossil was watching this well. And of course, and of course Cavante Turpin came out of the US last year, and I said, okay, they they've got they've got to have their eye on somebody, because otherwise they would have signed another ricer.
And they kept saying, we were watching everything right. Well, what they meant when John said that was Boniol told me he came to one of their games to scout Aubrey in person. So it was pretty pretty good that the connections there. And uh, you know, and I'm sure the Cowboys probably checked with Boniol and you know, what's this guy got and he said he had talked to Fossil about it, and.
Uh, John Carney went to Notre Dame.
He did what it was? Yeah, okay, so that was the connection.
Yeah, that's right. Yeah, connection from nineteen eighty seven. It's amazing how this stuff works. And by the way, the last time Brandon Aubrey before the Birmingham Stallions, the last time he played for a football team, meaning an American football team, not soccer, was in middle school in Plano, Shimmelfing Middle School in Plano. He was the kicker and wide receiver.
They have kickers in junior high now they do.
Yeah, yeah, So can't wait to feature him on the preseason game.
Oh absolutely, I can't wait to talk to him when he gets out.
Here's right, all right, time for another break and we will continue with more mix shots here in just a moment.
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.
I'm Doak Prescott, quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys. Blockchain dot com is one of the most trusted ways to buy, sell, and trade crypto. Whether you always on the go or stay closer to home, blockchain dot com is just a few taps away put the power of crypto in your pocket, so no matter where you are, you can trade on your terms and build a crypto portfolio to fit your life.
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The official twenty twenty three Dallas Cowboys Star Magazine Training Camp Preview is now available. This edition features scouting report, position analysis, a pull out schedule poster, and articles from your favorite Cowboy writers. By the way, and you can get your training camp preview today at Dallas Cowboys dot com Slash the Star. And I was one of your favorite writers in that for that magazine. If he says
so himself, it says favorite right there. I'm the one who's supposed to say I was supposed to set you up for that. And interesting, I came up with this interesting thought about the Cowboys having gone twelve and five, twelve and five. It was their first double digit victory season since ninety five ninety six, right, And it occurred to me, you went twelve and five, twelve and five, but you didn't get to where you wanted to go, right, And how difficult it is now to pick yourself up
off the ground. They don't grindfather you in back into the playoffs, you don't grand fire you into a ten win season. You got to start all over. And so I was talking to Dan Quinn and you know what, and what brought this up when Giannie talked about getting the Milwaukee Bucks getting beat in the first round, and somebody asked if the season was a failure, and he goes, no, it wasn't a failure. We just didn't get to where we wanted to go. He goes, you can't label everything
when you come up short a failure. And he used the example of Michael Jordan. You know, however many years he played and they think they won six championships. He says, so all the other years for Michael Jordan were failures. And so I asked dan Quinn about it, and dan Quinn had an interesting thought. He goes, we have to address that. And he goes, and the way I explain it to is, you're climbing a mountain, and he goes,
you're not starting from the bottom. You're starting from the base camp, like where that's kind of where you left off, and now you've got to make the climb. And you don't talk about failure. He goes, I never used that word. Mike McCarthy said, never use that word. So, but for the cowboys, they've got to be able to start from scratch. But it's not starting from the bottom. You're starting from where you you were. Now you got to keep improving.
And he goes, in that way, they're on the front porch, Yeah, the front porch, right, they're on the front porch. They're not on the on the grass, right, they took the steps up to the front porch.
I thought Mike McCarthy was about to quote bum Phillips. Yeah, I know, I know when he went down that road about banging down the door, the door down. Yeah, that goes way back to.
Yeah, when he was with the Oilers and Oilers couldn't get.
To Cowboy Mike Renfro who previously was with the Houston Oilers. He was actually in bounds and he was out of bound. Stealer fans will say otherwise. But uh, And then they came home to the Astrodome and in front of a large crowd of the Astrodome, Bum Philip said, uh, they're going to kick the kick the door down next year with so many words, yeah, something like but you got to be on the porch to kick the door down. And so I think that's way Mike McCarthy looked at it.
There are so that story's in, by the way, in that preview magazine. By the way, there are players around the league as camp kicks off here kicking the financial door down at their local bank. And justin Herbert the Latest yesterday as he gets a five year two hundred and sixty two million dollar exten point five Yeah, okay, I'll forget the point five five hundred thousand dollars the bill and averages out to what fifty two and a half a year. So as far as the average salary goes,
he's up there at the top. And Joe Burrow, you're now on the clock.
Uh. And so we thought when Lamar Jackson signed his five year deal that tops at two sixty. We thought when Hurt signed his it was two fifty five. So as you see, it keeps going up. And Deck's got what two years left on his deal?
That's right into dex sees.
That, and I have another guy missing the beginning of training camp.
I just saw this Patrick Mahomes now and his his contract is yeah, so outdated. Right, he is the average salary per year. He ranks third in his division. That's good, right, But no one justin Herbert and Russell Wilson, no one else.
Has got a twenty year contract or whatever the hell it was with.
Eight ten something like that.
Yeah.
The Giants have signed their left tackle Andrew Thomas to an extension a neighborhood of one hundred and seventeen million. So a lot of teams getting things done right now. But there are some holdouts around the league too, not only Zach Martin here, but also Nick Bosa in San Francisco, Chris Jones in Kansas City.
You're holding it's all about the money.
Never Jerry say in the press conference that he never never saw a player or walk away unhappy after We're going for the money.
Right, well, and just think about how it's increased. I remember, uh that year in Thousand Oaks, we were waiting for Tony Dorset to show up.
I think it might see those those training camp holdouts were some of the greatest memories you have of training camps or.
When or when he showed up in eighty six after they signed herschel Walker to a one million dollars a year contract that was unheard of out of the US, right, and so Dorset shows up and everybody asked him, what did you think about the Cowboys signing herschel Walker And he said, feel like a million dollar man. He was already negotiating for a pay right.
And then there was the Randy White hold out one year and he was fishing in East Texas.
It was late twokeny, I think okay, and and somebody was fishing there that I think worked at either the Fort Worth Paper or the Dallas Times Herald, and they ran into Randy fishing on the lake. Because everybody was looking for him, they couldn't find him, right, he just went out there and got out in East Texas and was fishing as he was holding out that year.
All right, two minute warning goes to both benches here as we wrap up this edition of Mixed Shots. You got a partying mix shot for us today.
You know what we were talking about under the radar, you know position battles, and I think maybe the most under the well, I don't know if it's under the radar, but it's Tony Pollard and who at running back? And I think that'll be one that we keep an eye on. And I still got in the back of my mind that Ezekiel Elliot hasn't signed with anybody.
He has not signed with anybody, and he's still outright. Then we're seeing more and more with each passing day what the running back market looks like.
Who just signed for three million dollars? Somebody one of those guys, one of the running backs that was out there, signed for for three million year deal too.
Darrenton Evans signed with Buffalo yesterday because they lost Nahim Hines to an injury. He okay, this was a non football injury. He's sitting on his jet ski at the lake. I saw that and someone crashes into him and he tears his a cl.
So now they're going to put in contracts no jet skis. So so that's my parting shot. You got one.
I'm just excited to be out on the to be able to watch guys on out out on the football field, and we'll see what happens.
You know.
It's it's there's always something that happens, you know, and these as you as you put it, you know, the under the radar piss battles. These teams are all put together during the off season, correct, starting with the new league year back in March, and then the draft and now it's it's just very interesting to follow it as things happen. You know, they're player gets tweaked, injury, tweak, you know, not a season ending thing when they need
a reinforcement at that position. Or well, this rookie that we drafted, maybe he won't be ready. Maybe you know, we haven't the third rounder that we thought might be able to push somebody. Maybe we need veteran help there, right, Cowboys, look at their offensive line, what's going on there as far as the health of the players, and do they need any more assistance?
Then?
Well, if you think back to last year, it was training cap right when they brought in Elik Hooker yep, and it took a while for him to get going.
So look how strong that safety position is now.
Yeah, So injuries, as Brad Sham would always say, we go to training camp, who gets hurt yep?
So that's and hopefully nobody gets hurt today on the first day of practice out here in a training camp. All right, That does it for this edition of Mix Shots. The break is coming up here in fifteen minutes and we will be back together on Friday morning at eight am Pacific time ten am Dallas time. Make it a great first day of practice wherever you are, and we'll see you again on Friday here on Mixshots.
Soya.
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