Mick Shots: Still Here

turned the page into the new year. Bill Jones with Everson Walls and Mickey Spagnola inside the SWBC Mortgage Studios at Ford Center at the Star in Frisco. And Everson, you got cowboy blue on what you got on there? It's my favorite blue. Yesterday I had on my coach McCarthy jacket from mister Mickey Spagnola. This one was from the from Jerry Jones himself. You know, don't get jealous bags friends. So I thought Micky was the only one

that Jerry gave things to. So somehow he stopped. He's still pay it, Everson now now it's with Hail Unfortunately for ever soon that's all he's getting paid. So Mickey, how are things at the Star in Frisco? Well morning, they're going through their exit the remaining exit interviews today. Mike McCarthy last night when he did his press conference, UH said that they got through thirty two of them, so he probably had thirty two at least thirty two more to go, so they were continuing that today. We

heard from Layton vander Esh. We were supposed to hear from Ceedee Lamb. I don't know that that took place yet. And we heard from Jerry Jones this morning one more time on his radio segment. And then it's just time to move into the offseason, talk about that draft position, talk about the upcoming opponents, and start reviewing this season and put it to bed. We can also talk about Joe Judge not a happy camper, by the way. That's what I want to talk about. That it's causing a

big stir on both sides, right. I thought that was pretty interesting. And former Cowboys assistant coach Anthony Lynn got fired today with the Chargers, so a lot of wheels turning into Garrett is being interviewed for Jason Garrett's being interviewed for that Charger's job. I didn't see very good. Yeah, yeah, yeah, And ever since I'm watching the NFL network and I got breaking news Byron Jones had an interception against the Bills Sunday. I'm sitting there watching. He had a toad

drag on the sideline. I guess the way he got credited. He gets zero. He gets the problem for getting zero interceptions, right, that was what last year? He's got your number all years ago. He's he's all pro. He's getting one interception and they'll probably put him in the Hall of Fame just because of that one in the second So he got paid all that money. Was that his first one of the year? That is his only one of the year? Is it early? Well, yes, maybe he just switched to

number twenty four. That's why he got the interception. He thought he thought it was the number, like like the Jordan in the shoes. No, no, it's not the number. See see he thought it was the number because he saw a Woozier get an interception this year. So he said, oh, it's twenty four. Wait, you've got sudden levels of twenty four. Let's establish that right now. Okay before we go on. Okay, that's twenty four, Okay, two thousand and there's pre two.

Twenty four is it's big difference, a big all right, all let's start. Joe Judge tell it. Tell me what you think about what Joe Judge said about Doug Peterson. I want to hear Mick Star tell me stuff, Mick, What's what's going on with this man? No, he called out Peterson for not upholding the integrity of the game and not trying to win the game with the Eagles. Uh, not only pulling his quarterback when it's basically a three point game and putting in a guy that really hadn't

played all year. But also I think they sat like eight or nine guys. I think they listed him as injured. I don't know how injured they were. But he thought he wasn't trying to uphold the integrity of the game. And I've seen Michael Irvin come down on the other side saying, old, quit complaining, you had sixteen games to win enough games to win the division. Don't be depending on somebody else to help you out in the last game. That guy's gonna take care of his own business. So

now he's Mike's right about that. I'll give him that. But you know, we all need to be beholding to ourselves and to our organizations, and as far as I'm concerned, you cannot justify what you did. And trust me, I'm not a Giants fan. I tell people all the time I played for the Giants, but I'm a I'm a Giant fan of that particular team that I played on.

I could care less about the Giants right now. But to me just looking at it as a cowboy fan, I'm sorry, just a football fan or football purist, I guess it's no way you can justify and he couldn't. Doing the press conference, watching him try and justify Coach Peterson try and justify that move, that was the most uncomfortable thing I think I've seen in a long time. It was worse than when my my my daughter was trying to lie her way out of tearing up one

hundred dollar bill. You just can't lie your way out of that. You're the only one that did it, So whatever your reasoning is, you can't even make it sound good. That was. It was a pitiful postgame press press conference. I hope she was only five years old with you know, yeah she was. She was only five years old. And guess who was with her? Ron Springs daughter was with her. I couldn't spake her. I wanted to spake it so bad because not my kid. I didn't I didn't hear.

I didn't hear Doug Peterson's press conference, so I didn't hear exactly what he was saying. But I do see Jalen hurt stats in the game, and he was just seven out of twenty for seventy two yards with a quarterback rating of twenty five point four. Now he was awful, and and I thought of it when they pulled him. I said, yeah, I'd have pulled him sooner than that. So the j the Jalen Hurts train slowed down greatly. I think all this talk about okay so so so.

Considering that, and Mickey you said that you thought they probably should have pulled him earlier, then what's the beef about? Doug Peterson? And I said yesterday it was obvious at the in the final drive of the game, they weren't trying to win the game. I mean the final play of the game, Sunfeld looked like he was instructed to throw the ball five yards forward and that is it, you know, and not even try to win the game.

But what's what's everybody's beef about? Peterson. If Hurts was playing that poorly, yeah, and I don't know that they they mentioned Hurts was playing poorly. They just mentioned that he sat, uh eight guys and that the other guy put a quarterback well, and they had Carson Wentz and active. By the way, yes, that was the problem. You could have gone to wins, but he had to go to Sudfeld. But you don't have a win snaps. No, you don't have a wins and you only have a backup who

hadn't probably thrown a snap or whatever. I don't know what the stats were or his career numbers are. The point is you had no one else to put in. That was a non factor. He was a non move as far as I'm concerned. And you should not have ever tried to go to a quarterback with that little experience in the ballgame. And once again, the explanation was not that Bill in SPACs. It was not about, uh, what Hurch's playing badly. That was not his explanation post

a game. It was all about trying to get this guy some playing time, trying to get other guys some playing time. Shut up, They're not trying to get playing time for people. The last half the last half of a ball game. And by the way, the commentators, they weren't really Yeah, the numbers were not good at all for Hurts, but they weren't really targeting that as the

reason that they sat down. They didn't even try to put They didn't even try to offer a reason a matter of fact, that gave Hurts the benefit of the doubts saying that you know, this is never really not the time to take him out simply because you're only three points down. You're only three points down with a quarterback with no experience sitting on the bench. You don't make that move. M very interesting. I agree that go ahead, go ahead, Mickey, I was gonna know, I was gonna

tell everything. I agree that that that it. I agree with what Joe Judge says about it. I think they ought to play it out. In fact, I think here I thought ever since the NFL went to this, uh having division games the final week of the season, I understand why they do it. They an opportunity to have if a division title is on the line, two teams going up against each other. I don't like the fact

that they've got the schedule like this. I think the division games need to be played before the last week of the season, because too many times the division games are the most important games that you play in a season, and there's too many times that teams are eliminated and you're taking one of those important division games that you play, one of the six that you played during a season, and odds are that it's not gonna matter at all with the outcome of the season when you schedule it

the last week of the regular season. That's the way I look at these division games. Well, now, if you think, let me say this go ahead, I was gonna say so if you have if you flip that a round bill and you have these non divisional, non conference games matchups at the end of the season, to me, that just leads the door even why they're open for Let's say a team in the AFC is going to play

the Cowboys. You know it's not going to improve their position necessarily by playing an out of conference or out of division game at the end of the season. Am I am I? We all do that makes sense to you. Here's here's what I think they should do. You know, there's only two games on a schedule that is different

than other teams in your division. I think one of those games needs to be the last game of the season, because that way you're having you're playing these basically the same opponents for the first fifteen games outside of one week. In fact, I would the way I would schedule it is those two games that are different than and these are these are conference games that are different from other

teams in your division. I'd schedule them one of them the first week of the season and the other one the last week of the season, and that way, the middle fourteen games of your schedule, they're the exact same teams you're playing other teams in your division, and that way, your division, there's so many times that playoffs are decided before the last week of the season, and that way you're playing the same basically the same games, the same

opponents as other teams in your division. That's the way I look at it, and I think I think it regardless of whether you're playing a division rival or someone outside your division. If the team is out of it like Philadelphia was, it doesn't matter whether they're playing Washington or the New England Patriots, they're going to treat that game the same way. See, you know what I was wondering. I was wondering, and it was Michael Irvin and who else was? It came to former cowboy came down on

it pretty Marcus Spears. I was wondering had the Cowboys won when they thought the same thing, Oh, yes, right, because it would have been Philadelphia needs to win so the Cowboys could win the NFC East. Oh what did you do? You didn't play? It wouldn't have been so much worse. As much as we talk about New York City being the mecca of so many things, if the Cowboys would have been in the same position as the New York Giants, it would have gone to a totally

different and higher level. We would have we talked about it yesterday. That would have been an investigation, an international investigation. What the heck is going on? They would have looked into Peterson's background, tried to see who his parents were, to see if they had some type of communist background. It would have been crazy, man. They would have gone that deep. You think Jerry madelayed at the Cowboys. Jerry would have made a call and say, hey, can you

find me one more win somewhere. They would have added another game to the schedule. That's how bad it would have been. I bet, I bet Sudfeld would have played the whole game if the gift the calcul Probably, that's what I believe. That's what obaie, no pretense, build, no pretel. That's exactly right. But it's good having this little bit of controversy here. As long as we're not involved, that's what matters. Mickey was Jerry asked about it this morning

on his appearance on the thing. Yeah, and he was I'm trying to find it. He was pretty non committal on on it. Um. He sure he was happy that they didn't have anything to do with it for once. The only thing he said is that was sort of definitive. He says, we must and should have uh games uh that have consequences to win at the end of the a season. Uh. But but but he he can't regret that, I know. And he said these are pro football that doesn't uh well, yeah, he didn't really. He didn't really

have an opinion on it. I think he kind of talked around it about the integrity. But you know, he also he came up with some example about New England, like if you if you had to win to keep New England out, would you would you try to win. Well, of course you would, right because you don't know what New England in the playoffs. And he was talking about with Tom Brady and that so um, but you know, we can we make jokes about it and it turned into a meme. But but the demand was great. You

play to win the game. I mean, that's just it. I don't know how you can play not to win. I don't know how to do that. I mean you can get your butt kick, yeah, no doubt about it. I was on a couple of teams that lost double digit, had double digit losses. I just don't know how to play to lose, a play not to win. Yeah, you can get your butt kicked, that's one thing. But to just say okay, I'm not going to win, doesn't everyone

have to be in on that. You know, if I'm out there busting my butt on defense and you got a quarterback back there not trying to win the you know, the domino effect to me is massive, you know, And like I've always said that, especially if that goes on for a number of games, that's if I'm a player, that's gonna affect the way my contract negotiations may turn out.

In the future where you look at this game and judge me on that game, Well, what if I need you to get another stat to break a record or something. It's just it's an ugly, ugly thing. And and so for if a coach is gonna go off on its own and do that, that makes it even worse because now you're you're jeopardized your entire staff, so to speak, your entire player staff. Yeah, Everson, how do players approach

that situation? I have never had a conversation about not about playing not to win or a playing to lose. Bett has never come up in any conversation I've had with any teammate period. I've only talked about this with the media. I've never had a conversation about this with a former player, a present a current player. I just I don't even know how to talk about it, how

to even start talking about it. So what about what about like Kansas City basically sitting their quarterback because they had nothing to gain and they're not trying to win, they're not trying to lose, right, But Pittsburgh sat Roethlisberger and that's happened, And there's always been an argument on that last game if you've got nothing to gain. Do you set your players to preserve their health going into

the playoffs? And I always thought that was a difficult one because say I got Mike game here and I say, okay, you you you, and you you're sitting because I need you. I don't want you to get injured. Well, this guy over here goes, ha, what am I chop meat? You don't mind if I get hurt. I gotta play because I never I never understood the mentality. Well, the Pandura's box,

it starts right there. Like you mentioned Kansas City, they're going to the playoffs, so winning or losing really doesn't matter, but it matters to the other teams that need you to win this game. So that's where the Pandura's box started. Right there. They're not taking the game, they're just preserving because they're going on to play postseason. The Eagles have no postseason, So who are you trying to protect for an entire offseason? Trying to protect the player? You let

me get all this out at you. If that's throw, we shouldn't even play the game because next year, you know, Dak Prescott, we want to protect him for because he got hurt the previous years. You start getting into too much stuff when you deal with that, right and and uh and so I wonder if it's in Peterson's mind protecting Jalen Hurts for next year from a potential ACL injury or something that could affect his availability in the off season or leading into next year the same And

I don't. I don't agree with this. I'm just presenting it as a devil's advocate. It's the same deal as the in many ways, as the as the players opting out of bowl games and stuff. I mean, they're protecting their futures. And okay, how about a coach protecting the quarterback that he thinks is going to be a starting quarterback next year in a meaningless game That I do not agree with? Well, Everson that the latter, I do

not agree with it. I just wanted to tell you, since you're you're you're now, you know kind of in the media here you're doing broadcasting. There's five GM jobs open, so you might keep your eye on them. I can't even get a dB coaching job locally, so what are you talking. You can parlay mix shots into a GM job, right right? Everybody else's door come right, out of the SWBT mortgage studio right onto the field. Yes, there you go.

All right, We continue with more mix shots and more about what Jerry had to say this morning on the fan when we come back. Hey, they're Cowboys fans with Tight Cleaners at home pickup and delivery. Cleaning your clothes has never been more convenient. Simply sign up at your local store, set out your dirty clothes, and one of our ty cleaners professionals will come directly to your home

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It's new Doctor Pepper and Cream Soda. Let's take a listen, Doctor and Cream Soda. Is he a new combone that's music to my ears? Okay, doctor time music to my ears and mouths, New Doctor Pepper and Cream Soda. Delas 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 Mickey, have you done that yet? I

have not. I couldn't figure out which referee signal I wanted to use, giving that's the one you want to use, right right? Hey. I saw him the other day on a throwback YouTube video. Sometimes I set up him feel side for myself. So I go back to like the nineteen eighties and nineties and pull up some old Cowboy and Giants videos and look at all the plays that you you made. Come to find out, you might see some plays that you tried to forget about and they

kind of ring as the whole moment. But that referee was in one of the games. Ben Ry has always been so demonstrative. He tried to he talked about tripping and instead of just kicking his leg out and you know, demonstrate tripping, he actually put the leg behind him as if he did one of those Tony fritz on side kick moves. And I'm like, why would he pick that, you know, but he did it, and he was all you know, he put the body language into it. So that was not an admiration by him. He had done

that so many times. I would imagine he's retired now, he may even have passed on, but he was entertaining even as he called penalties. Yeah, Ben, I believe it was Ben Dreife was the one giving him the business. Good dude, right, Mickey. Mickey is pouring over his notes, says he was listening and he was tuning me out. That's what these doing bills. Yeah, what did you say? Jones was on the radio? You know, the NFL was better when officials had that kind of personality. Don't you

think they're pretty automated nowadays everybody's so politically correct. Yeah, you can't. That's right, that's right. All right, So Mickey, tell us tell me about Jerry this morning. I'm gonna let you guys guess what the first question was Coach Peterson? Uh, no, that was that was about Prescott ten minutes in. No, that was about fifteen minutes in. Mike Nolan, that was about nine minutes in his neck. Yeah, the plane now known as the catch, Yes, that was a question. Yeah,

you're off the hook. We got a new catch now. Yeah, now there's a new catch. You're off the hook. I guess we can name it the challenge, right right. So on that note, Jerry said, my initial reaction was it was very difficult to get those things overturned, and then he talked about the consequences and how it turned out. He said, now, if you had a do over again, you could have easily burned that, meaning the time out. Uh and and tried to make it more difficult on

them on on fourth down. And then he was asked, did do you think you got a chance to see it on a video board? He didn't really answer it. All he said is we were scrambling like hell to communicate. It was quick, he said. Mike knew it was close and realized it was tight, but didn't see enough to go ahead and challenge it. He goes, So he goes, that's the price you have to pay. But he talked about when you're on the road, you know, the visiting team is not obligated to put that up on the board.

And so he wasn't quite sure how quickly the video got to the coaches in the box right, and Mickey the reason why he wasn't sure what was being shown in the stadium is because he's in one of those suites and so he's watching the Network TV broadcast and I got watching the stadium video board, which is what Mike McCarthy's having to watch down on the field, and I guarantee you the Giants are not putting the shots on the board that the opposing coach needs to see

to challenge a play, you know. And here's the other thing. Here's the other thing. What happens sometimes on the road in stadiums that even if you have the TV up and you're receiving the game, sometimes it's delayed. The delay it's it's not it's not real time. And I think it's kind of delayed a little bit in the Cowboys press box. I think not on the board, but the TV copy is delayed. And there's a couple of different

channels they can put it on. One of them is more real time, and there's another one which is through cable or whatever that is or direct TV that has a delay on it. Yeah, and that's the coaches booth. All of this, all of this technology, all of this technology, we have, all of this technology we have. You're gonna tell me, we can't have a universal process on how the videos are going to come through, what you're gonna see, how it's gonna be done, And you have to work

within that paradigm as far as hurrying up. If you have to offensively to try and hide the you know, the question called question play. You could do all of that, but it's got to be a universal process. If we have too much technology to where oh man, we couldn't have access to it. You couldn't get access to it. But you might have access to me in the showers somewhere, but you can't get access to a replay on the video. I'm sorry. It's it's a way to make this happen,

whether you're on the road or not. Exactly. It has to be a universal process through the NFL when it comes to this type of thing. The only obligation the home team has is if the play is under a review, they are supposed to show what the officials looking at. That's the only obligation they have. So if it's a if it's a questionable call and it doesn't get challenged, you know what, we don't think we need to show see, we don't neither. No, that's not part of football. No,

here's the YadA, YadA YadA. There's no YadA, YadA YadA in this. That means to be a firm process and a fair process. I've got their firm I've got one. The nothing different depending on what stadium you're in or whatever. I got the firm fair process on it. Now. I didn't know what zoom was until March. Now everybody knows what zoom is. I use it right here in my office for my television broadcast because there's a delay on my cable and so when I'm narrating highlights, I can't.

I can't narrate highlights and look at my home TV. But so what the TV station does is they've got it. I'm on a zoom with the TV station where it is basically in real time. There might be a half second delay where they zoom me the broadcast from the TV station and it comes right to me right there.

And so all they have to do the NFL has to do is through Zoom, WebEx whatever format they want to use on it is for each coach's box in the league, they have the network TV broadcast zoomed to that coach's box where from the NFL office with real time or from the network wherever it has to be to where in real time the coaches in the booth have the same access to high to replace that what people at home have and and you're not dependent on the home team giving you the feed or anything like that.

You're in charge of it yourself. You get you set up the zoom feed where you can see it for yourself. That's all you got it. And a good example of that is what we're doing right now, because I've got the live feed and you guys are two seconds behind me. And that's why talk over each other, right and see this is not a reaction of well because it only happened to the Cowboys. Now you guys want to make

all these changes. I've always thought there was a Kouki relationship between video versus you know what, the other teams see what stadium you're in and all that kind of crap. You know, that's old school football. You know what, we can find out, what kind of loopholes we can you know, break into in regards to the process. That all needs to be eliminated. Now, Man, nobody's worried about or what we got to wear long cleach now because the Raiders

went the field or all that little craziness. Man, get that mess out of the way. Let's just play some football and stop trying to be tricksters. So let's just be athletes, sort of like finding Alvin Kamara for having a red shoe and a green shoe for Christmas. Seriously, really, oh yeah, they find yeah, absolutely okay. The second question was the two point conversion. Should they have gone for it?

And I thought, it's too early in the game. It's right at the beginning of the fourth quarter, right, And Jerry's comment was I'm good with that that they didn't do it, and he goes, plus, he goes, we don't do so well in the red zone. Nothing like brutal honesty the press. And then it was next about the season and he said, number one, we fell short of

what we thought we could accomplish. And he said, I think we underestimated what the impact of not being with the team in the offense, I mean in the offseason was. And he said, in specially on defense. You know, we were trying and he's said this before, we're trying to implement these new techniques, a new scheme, and he goes, and we didn't have an opportunity to, you know, do more than zoom and walk throughs on the field, and he said, and we underestimated the impact. He said, we

probably should have stayed with the overall philosophy. The one we had and he said, that's on me, that's the GM, and that's the second time he's kind of said that, And so he thought that they should have put emphasis on familiarity, not try to change so much stuff because it took so long to try to get everything changed. That's interesting. Let me throw in something I was listening

to on Monday morning. I listened to Bill Belichick's end of season press conference, and they asked him about the whole offsea and this is you know, and obviously he's been there for twenty years, and so it wasn't a new coaching staff, but they do have new players that

come in, yeah, every year. And he went on and on talking about the very same thing that you're talking about, Mickey, and what Jerry was talking about, the whole WebEx and the virtual offseason and everything, and how the players were not getting as far as the complex things that they were trying to teach the players in the off season

leading up to it. Their retention which just was not there for new players, and they didn't know that until they get on the field, and sometimes you don't know that even until you get on the field in a game. And of course they even had a situation. And the Cowboys did too, where they had to go virtual at some point during the season and they players were not

on the same page at all. And I think a lot of what the Cowboys were doing defensively you can attribute to the trying to learn this offense and a virtual capacity even though you're starting a week earlier in April, and you're taking it throughout the off season. As coaches, unless you are or hands on and can be on the field and demonstrating and all that sort of stuff,

you don't know what they're grasping. And especially when you're just talking on a video conference with twenty different guys or however many it might be that that you have in your position group during the off season. And uh, and so I think that that is very real. But all teams went through that this year. And he pointed, and he pointed that out. He went on to say, Uh, he said that many teams had serious problems and things

that were related to COVID. Uh, you know, but they're in the playoffs, he said, So people got the job done with COVID. We got to wear that crown. They did and we didn't. Meaning they got the job done, that is, But let me let me throw him one more thing on that the one thing though, with a new coaching staff, and you remember making Bill Parcels, and of course ever since you would know this from Parcels

that you know. He talked a lot in his press conferences about teaching players, and he talked about how different people learn in different ways. There are visual learners. There are others where they can comprehend what you're telling them just by word of mouth. But some people you have to get out there and actually demonstrate it. With a new coaching staff that has totally new players, they don't know their players well enough to know, Okay, is this

a visual learner over here? Or is this a guy that can get it if I just write him a note? Whatever you know? And so there is where a new coaching staff is at a disadvantage because they don't know their players and how they learn. So now you know what teachers went through trying to teach virtually to lashroom.

Can you imagine you got a twelve year old and I've had teachers tell me this, right that they're trying to teach and they're looking on the screen and there's two kids sleeping over there, right, And there's no parent there to administer things, and it's like, how do I wake that person up? I can't go shake them, or like they used to do when we were out in elementary school, either throw the e racer at you, or one teacher had that stick, that pointing stick that he

would throw it like a spirit at somebody. Yeah, yeah, the yard stick or going banging on the desk and just shocked the hell out of somebody. It get fired today unfortunately, Oh my god. Okay. Also, he was asked out after this season not having DAC did that give him more leverage and negotiations and Jerry said, I don't know how you could have any more leverage than he already has. He basically said, he's the he's the picture

postcard of legend of leverage. He goes and it's substantiated by but he also said, but he also said, but that's substantiated. But what we offered him today, meaning this year, that they've given him what they thought was a fair thing because of his leverage, and they wanted more, and then they made the mistake of asking, well, well, what's

the difference between years four and five? And they got a lecturer on the cap right, And it's like, you know, you buy a car and you can pay it off in three years and pay more, or you can pay it off for six years and pay less. And they got an economics listen too much? How many people fell asleep doing that one? Hey, but you're talking about the kids and the and the virtual learning. That's just how

bad it can get. I remember on Twitter they have one moment where one of the kids passed gas while the teacher was trying to teas all that, so you could just imagine all the distractions that grown ups have. These are grown young men who are trying to learn a new system with the distractions that might have been going on. But as you said, you know the person that came out the best. Yeah, it had to be luck of the draw in regards to what you had

to deal with. But as you had those issues, then your expertise and how you dealt with people and dealt with crises during that season, that says a lot about you as a coaching staff. We had the worst we can't say the worst luck. We had some of the worst luck in regards to injuries. As far as any team around the NFL could. We could put ours at the top. Forget the COVID stuff. It was just the injuries that we had to deal with that just were, you know, ridiculous for us. So we just didn't deal

with that. Well, those teams that were blessed enough, not good enough, but blessed enough to where they have fewer injuries, especially on the offensive line, those were the ones that

were more consistent throughout the season. Well, you know what, and and and it's funny you mentioned that because when Stephen Jones did his UH segment yesterday and they were talking about the need for a quarterback, and Stephen said, Jarreny and I were looking at who's who was who was in last night meeting the playoffs, and he said, and it was their starting quarterbacks having most of the season.

So if you look at the playoff teams, here's some of the starting quarterbacks, Goff Rogers, Wilson, Brady, Rivers, Jackson, Mahomes, Mayfield, Roethlisberger, Tannehill, Josh Allen. Oh, sorry, Alex Smith, but if you look at those guys, the majority of those teams had those quarterbacks the entire season. And I left out Mayfield. I think the majority of them had those I did, okay, Uh, you know, some of them might have missed a game or two. I don't know, Breeze missed two or three games.

But boy, all that talk about, well, they're not going to rush him back because Tayson Hill's playing so well. The minute Breeze was healthy, he was back on the field. So first of all, that was Drew brees decision. So that was the whole He took that decision out of anyone else's I'm playing, but I thought it was it was a good point. And the other thing Bill on the injuries. It's one thing to have injuries spread out over the team. It's another thing to have injuries to

offensive line like the Cowboys have. Because you know what, this league doesn't have enough quality offensive lightman to start with. That's why those those those spring leagues fail because they don't have enough offensive lightman to protect the skill players for them to have a good game. And when you're missing three guys who could be Pro bowlers, because I think Lall Collins was on his way to be a

Pro Bowler, how do you compensate for that? And not only that, but then you lose the guy that was the backup to those tackles. You lost him. So now you're down to the backup, to the backup that matters. And I know they don't want to make excuses, and that's fine, I get it. But when you look at those things and it's like, wow, what are the cowboys gotta do? They gotta blow this up and start over. No,

they gotta get these gas. If they could have laid hands on these guys, it would have fixed their problems. So let me ask you this. So we always talk about, I know me defense being the star warth of any team. To me, the COVID has shown that the offensive line might be the most important unit on any squad. And I never would have said that before this year. And if you think about it, if you had that defense, you can survive not playing well offensively. You know, sometimes

you gotta win a game twenty to seventeen. Sometimes you gotta win a game seventeen to twelve. And so you're struggling offensively. But if your defense steps up and is not ranked twenty third and thirty first against the run, you know, the last I think I looked, that's the lowest they've been ranked on defense since twenty twelve, when they were thirty second. And I think it had to go back to two thousand to find them ranked thirty first in run defense. So that tells you how bad

they were defensively. And it doesn't help when you strike out, whether by injury or by lack of motivation or lack of play, when you strike out on Gerald McCoy, Don Terry Poe, Everson Griffins, ll ly, I mean and even I mean, that's that's a long list where these veteran guys who are supposed to be coming in and help the transition as much as anything, where you don't have to play the younger guys. Uh, and you don't get

anything out of any of those guys really. Uh. That that that put you behind the eight ball to start with that shot. You got to be very particular when you shop at the dollar store. That's right, and we're back in a tasty treat that's sweeping air waves and taste buds. It's new Doctor pepper and Cream Soda. Let's take a listen, Doctor pepper and Cream Soda. Is he a new combone that's music to my ears? Okay, doctor times, music to my ears and mouth, New Doctor Pepper and

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and nationwide. Switch to AT and T five G. It's not complicated. Five get requires compatible plant may not be in your area. See att doc com slash five G for you for details. I'm Jay Novachek, former tight end for the Dallas Cowboys back in the day, a guy who always got the tough yards, and that's why I run with John Deer today. In fact, I have a John Deer three zero twenty five E tractor that can handle any yard work I need to do, even the

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But I gotta say do what now? Yeah? That's right? Yeah, that time that show nine nine pm before you go on the air at ten o'clock Central Central Central time nine pm. One other one other note. You know those quarterbacks I mentioned that are in the playoffs. I looked at the leading passers and that goes by their rating, right, So okay, eight of the top eleven rated quarterbacks for this season are in the playoffs, and ten of the top fifteen are in the old ones not in the

top fifteen, Roethlisberger, goff uh Smith and true Biscuits. Yeah, quarterbacks, which three of the top eleven did not make the playoffs. Deshaun Watson was second, Cousins didn't make it, and carr And and Herbert and the top fifteen. Yeah, yeah, all right, the top fifteen. Yeah, okay, all right, all right. What about Mike Nolan. What's gonna happen with Mike Nolan? Yeah,

that's a good question. Uh, you know that m DeMarcus Lawrence did his conference call yesterday and he was asked about the defense and asked about Nolan and uh, you know kind of and they asked it very generally to him, but that he knew what they were asking. And his answer was, we went through some tough battles at the beginning of the sea. Not me personally with coach, but I'm just saying in general, as a defense, we went

through tough battles. When you're playing with young guys on defense, you have to take into consideration that some things that are easy for me won't be easy for the next person. I respect Mike as a man because he looked himself in the mirror and he changed some things to make us play faster than helped us play better. I mean, it was later in the season, but we started to see improvements, and I think it really shine light on the top of players, on the type of players we are.

So he kind of generally suggested that, yeah, there might have been some disagreements with what they were being asked to do or how they were being asked to do it. Early in the season. Did anyone ask to Marcus if they run a three four or four three defense? They did not, And I and you know what, And I still can't tell when they had five guys on the line if it was a three to four or if it was a four to three with one of the defensive ends playing strong side linebacker standing up on the edge.

And that's what it looked like to me, because I saw Laurence arm Song this last game dropping in the coverage and made a play. Did he absolutely did? But I also saw Xavier Woods having to play linebacker in the nickel against two tight ends and he got the ever eleven daylights knocked out of him by an offensive offensive lineman. Why did Randy Gregory only play twenty snaps? That's a very good question, because the question was asked last week that oh, he wasn't playing that many snaps.

Now he's playing a lot of snap and then he goes back to twenty snaps, right, and he and I went back. I was I went back and the coaches film wasn't loaded yet on NFL dot com whatever, and so I wouldn't have a look at coaches film. But I went back and last night and looked at the first quarter, and it looked like Gregory got a decent

number of snaps early in the game. I was wondering if anything may have happened to him that or just because whatever whatever their substitution pattern was, did for whatever reason, he didn't get more snaps later in the game. I'm not sure. Maybe it was because the Giants had a lead and they weren't then they were going with h more two tight ends. Uh, you know they used two tight ends a lot in the game. Um, even three

tight ends, right, three tight ends, So tight ends. If you count up that the snaps of the tight ends for the Giants in that game, they uh, there were fifty eight offensives snaps and ninety six tight ends snaps, so they were you know, pushing it to almost where there were two tight ends all the time. In fact, there were just twenty snaps difference between the two tight

ends and three wide receiver formations. And you remember, and you remember over the last few years, how Garrett used to get criticized because he ran too many two tight ends and he ran right over the cowboys with two tight ends. Oh the ends they run and they know the cowboys are gonna run. Why do they do that? Let's spread them out. Well, they ran three tight ends and ran right over the cowboys. How do they think they were able to run more two tight ends? Now?

I just had to ask that, what did you say? I'm sorry? What was that? How's it feeling think Jason Garrett? I mean, we I really haven't heard him brought up. It was like, you know, he's gotta be as much as he's upset with Peterson. I'm sure he is. He won't say it. He's gotta be sitting back like, you know what, they can kiss my butt. He's gotta be thinking that right now. Because we was so happy to get rid of him. Here we go and all of a sudden, all of a sudden comes down to Jason

Garrett and the cow versus the Cowboys. I mean, we're not even talking about the fact that he came out victorious and basically stuck it to us. He stuck it to us. So what do you think his stock is

as a head coaching candidate. He's being interviewed by the Chargers, and I saw on Twitter a lot of snarky comments about, oh, Jason Garrett's getting, you know, at the thirty first ranked offense in the league this year with the with the Giants, and he's getting interviews for head coaching jobs, and they act as if he didn't do anything here in Dallas

the same. If he's gonna get to me, if he's gonna get any no the riety or any type of consideration, it would be because of course what he did what the Cowboys. Because to me, if you're in the NFC East, you're six and ten, your your quarterback, I mean, your team ranking is as bad as it was thirty first.

I don't think anyone's gonna be beating this door down well because of this, not because of this past season, but it would have to be because of what he did with the Cowboys, and maybe they weren't able to go after him at that time because they were already dealing with another coaches seeing how that was going to work out. But yeah, it would be based on what Jason Garrett did before he got to New York, but would not. All he had a chance to do was

just stick it to the Cowboys. That's it. He just stuck it to the Cowboys and then he can move on. But if you look objectively at what the Giants had on offense, and they lose se Quon Barkley earlier in the year, they had Nate Soldier who opted out their left tackle at the beginning of the year, so they had to play their rookie first round pick at left tackle, and they had to start Cam Fleming at right tackle

the entire year. There's if we look at it objectively, they didn't have much to work with even to begin with. I mean, Kas McCarthy should be Coach of the Year exactly. I mean it's the same for a lot of teams. And there's a reason, there's a reason Doug Peterson is probably on the hot seat in Philadelphia beyond what he did the other day because and and the reasons are because when you look at what the Eagles had and

their the injuries on their offensive line. You know, back when we were looking at when the Steelers came to town, and you look at the Steelers and that was halfway through the season, ninth or tenth game of the year, and you looked at their injuries and they had lost nobody, and you wonder, well there was you didn't have to wonder why they're unbeaten. I mean, they had one injury, their middle linebacker was the only injury of the year, and they were able to trade for for one right

before the deadline when he went down. Uh, And so it's it's just so huge, uh, staying healthy in this league. I mean, it's not We're talking about the defense and Mike Nolan, and you know, I'm thinking, of course, I always think of Jalen Smith and our linebackers and how they played in this system. And I know we're talking differently from three to four four three versus the flex defense, which is what I grew up on and actually played under.

Does anybody remember, even when we were getting stomped, how many tackles Eugene Lockhart had those two years. He set a record in eighty nine because no one else was tackling and yet he was still making tackles. He didn't use that excuse of having probably the worst defensive line. If it wasn't the aging all from all pros that we had, then you had. But they were bringing guys in that I mean, they were bringing guys in that had just run a good forty time like three days ago.

So okay, let's put this guy in at defensive linement, and Spags was there. He saw that crap. You have to you have to really take your head off to a guy that got over two hundred tackles two years in the roots bags under such horrible conditions. I think we were three and thirteen and eighty eight times last year, and we were one in fifteen. Of course in eighty nine I used to come into the huddler and look at Eugene Lockhart and it's almost as if during the

game his pad started to wear down. That's just how many tackles he was making. Two hundred plus. He has a ring, he's got, he's got he should have more than one ring, because he had over two hundred tackles two years in the row. If I'm not mistaken, and I'm glad Bill's looking that up for me, but whatever number he comes up with, it's going to be amazing. And see, that's the kind of stubbornness that a linebacker had.

All good linebackers that I've known were extremely stubborn, like I don't care what the odds are, I'm gonna go in here. I'm gonna raise hell today. And that was always Lockhart's deal. He always used to say, you better buckle up your chin strap. And he said that a little bit more provocatively than what I can say on the TV on the air. And so that attitude I don't see from our linebackers, even with Vanderesh and Jalen. Now, of course Sean Lee has that mentality. He just his

body just can't hold up. And he wasn't nearly as big as Eugene was. But when you start talking about determination at the linebacker position, that's the kind of thing that I'm kind of looking for. I mean, I played with with Lockhart. I played not to complay Lockhart to LT But then you're talking about guys that have the same mentality, not the same talent, but the same mentality. And that's the kind of mentality I think is missing for Mike Nolan. So I'm not blaming that on Mike Nolan.

I think he needs to instill that in his linebackers. And Lockhart, Uh you know, Pro Football Reference does not have tackles. Uh back going back to nineteen eighty nine, they weren't keeping track of tackles like they do now, lock Laws, but the Cowboys did. And yeah, Lockhart was he said, a club record with two hundred twenty two tackles in nineteen eighty nine. And those were the days, right, he had to make them. Yeah, he was the only wasn't making them. Those were the days one one hundred

fifty four solo tackles. Guys come in one hundred fifty record one hunt four and I think I think I think Sean Lee's probably second, or at least second. I can believe that, so I can definitely believe. So those were the days the revolving door. Right, guys would work out on Tuesday, practice on whe Day, start on Sunday, get cut on Monday, cut on Monday, and they was just repeated over and over, and you named the position, what took place? And so what did Jimmy Johnson do

with Eugene Lockhart traded him? He traded him to the Patriots exchange an exchange for the first overall draft pick of the nineteen ninety one draft, Russell Maryland. He was traded along with Ron Francis, linebacker David Howard, a nineteen ninety one first round pick number eleven overall, Pat Harlowe, who was involved in the Herschel Walker trade, and a

ninety one second round pick, which was Jerome Henderson. But they had so many picks that it was easy to do that because they had already, uh, they had already Chelford Minnesota, and they knew they couldn't afford Yeah, David Howard was, Yeah, I'm glad you're brought up Eugene Lockhart mean Gene the hitting machine. Hitting machine. I think he gave himself that Murray did. I'm sure he did. Yes, here's one of my too. All right, Mickey, you got

a closing thought. Um, I'll be interested to see once they do their evaluations, uh, not only of the team, but when they do them on the coaching staff also, Uh, to see what comes out, because I think the thing you have to remember a boy putting a staff together, you don't get caught. Carte blaunched treatment right to just pick who you want, they got to be available. So with six coaches now having lost their jobs, Anthony Lynn, Doug Moroney, Gas, Dan Quinn, Bill O'Brien and Matt Um

what was the last one? I wrote, Patricia, there's gonna be there's gonna be a lot of there's gonna be a lot of these staffs. There're gonna be a lot of staffs out there, you know, assistant coaches looking for jobs.

So be interesting to see when you have that big of a pool, if you go, all right, let me see, is this better than they look at those coaching staffs and connect the dots, right, See if look at those coaching staffs and see if there's connections to McCarthy and that's what that's what he did, and that's how he kind of put this staff together. There was all connections. Maybe he's got better connections out there, So be interesting to see going forward. Yea, all right, that does it

for this edition of Mick Shots. And we are back throughout the offseason every Tuesday at eleven thirty for Mix Shots. No telling what all will happen by the time we reconvene next Tuesday here on mix Shots. Make it a great week and Everson close us out Gold Cowboys. You like that one. That was a good one.