Mick Shots: That’s All Folks

in the studio. And we're here to break it all down over the course of the next forty five minutes on Mick Shots, I was smiling, wondering how you were going to start this off since you didn't have any musical starting to thee there's no music. The band has gone. Music has died. Although as you can see, I refuse to accept the seasons over. I still got that was a tough one yesterday. So how you go? I don't know how you're gonna make me feel better, Spacks, It's

gonna be very hard. And it sounded like listening to Stephen doing his segment on the Fan that just moments ago as a matter of fact, that there wasn't a lot of good feelings in that team meeting room and everybody was kind of down, I would imagine, because the weird thing about NFL seasons, especially when you get into the playoffs, is you go one hundred miles an hour for six months and then everything comes to a screeching halt, right, and it's hard to accept, not only I would imagine

for the players, the coaches, whatever, us two, that you do something this much for six months and then it's over, like in the blink of an eye. It's almost like my football career too. Yeah. Man, you just you know you're you're kind of prepared to go forward. You're never willing to accept that. Yeah, but it could be over. And for the Cowboys it's over. They got themselves a lot to blame for. And I don't know where you

would like to start, but start from the beginning. We should point out what Stephen did say in that interview, because it's top of mind as far as coaching going forward, and we did get something that was somewhat definitive from Stephen kind of absolutely, yeah, he basically as far as the head coach goes that I think the question was posed or you're confident that Mike McCarthy will be the head coach of this team this year, and he said yes, absolutely,

So get that out of the way right on. And it's really weird that it even comes up, because if you get into the business that if you lose a playoff game, you're fired, boy, you're gonna have a lot of turnover in the right And I don't know why that always starts, um, you know, And and I think two things have created that. Um. When they fired chan Gaily after the ninety nine season because he didn't win

a playoff game those ninety eight and ninety nine. But really the reason they fired him is it wasn't a good fit between the head coach and the quarterback. Remind me on that how long after the season was a decision made not to bring him back. It was after meetings, It was after right, It was after digesting the season, having an opportunity to talk with players talk, right. Yeah.

And because if I remember correctly, they named Dave Campo the head coach when I was already at the Super Bowl, I believe, So what was the record before that season? So they wasn't like this, They went ten and six, lost the first round game to Minnesota, and then eight or maybe it was the opposite way around. One year they lost to Minnesota and then the next the other year they went ten and six and lost to Arizona, and that's when he was fired and he and then

he got fired. So he had two consecutives ten and six, eight and eight, and the ten and sixth season was the last time, So that might have been the ten and six season was the last time they had swept the NFC East. They won eight games in the division. That's back when St. Louis was still in the NFC East. If I remember correctly, Lieuten in six and ninety eight lost to Arizona, and in ninety nine it was I can read it. I mean eight and eight in lost

Minnesota Minnesota. That was the wide receiver had a big day. Yes, Randy Montys, we got lost. After we got they started a verb for him too. So anyway, and then in twenty ten, look the reason, and everybody keeps saying they fired Wade Phillips so Jason Garrett could take over as the head coach. They fired Wade Phillips because they were one in seven and he had lost the team. They were not playing for him the last eight games and one in seven they were no the first That's how

they started that season. One in seven and they were flat. They were they they just didn't have anything, and it was time to change. And the easiest change was because Jason Garrett was there. So I think those two things. And he went five and three of the rest of the season, and he was named the permanent coach after that, right, and then eight Nate eight Nate eight Nate until they

went to eleven and five and twenty fourteen. So anyway, and the other part of that and why the why questions are being asked about the head coach is because other teams are interviewing the both coordinators for head coaching jobs, Kellen Moore and Dan Quinn. And so the thought out there as well, if if Jerry Jones really is enamored with keeping Kellen Moore or Dan Quinn, whether you make a change. So so it was basically Stephen has put

that to rest. It's he said he confidently absolutely expects Mike McCarthy back now that we can get to the game. And and since we're going to get to the game, it's like after the way the offense and defense performed in that game. That's what That's what That's what they say anymore. That's what I said last night. I said, I laid all that out about the coordinators. And then unless these other teams watch today's game and that gives

them pause, you know. Uh. Starting with the defense though, Okay, the way the Niners came out in that game, I mean that opening drive of the game, it was like a knife through butter. Okay, and they did everything exactly the way they had planned. And then they had the exactly the way we figured right right. I mean we all knew it, right, we one knew it. I can't see them saying, oh wow, that was a little twit. But then I wasn't ready for that. They could not

have said that. And then they were they were held to field goals the rest of the I mean, they had success offensively, but they had to settle for field goals. And so it's a sixteen seven lead at the half, and then the score they got head in the second half was after an interception and next play Deebo Samuel's in the end zone. Yeah, they have to give up a twenty six stard run. The next play. Right, this is when you make This is when you answer as

a defense right, right, this is when you respawn. And that's what I expected to But no, the issue on offense that you better score more than seventeen points right to win a playoff. Well, I'm gonna we'll get into how the game ended, right, But the reason they were in that situation at the end. On Friday, in my column, I wrote three things that had to happen if the Cowboys were going to win. Number One, their offensive line had to play better than their offensive life. And they didn't.

They did not. It was embarrassingly bad. Dak was and everybody wants to look at why was Dak so inaccurate? Number one? He got sacked five times? Number two, and this may be even worse, he got hit fourteen times in the game. Throwing past is fourteen, okay, And they couldn't run the ball. And if you look at the running game, they had seventy seven yards. Seventeen of them was not a planned run. It was Dak Prescott's scramble

for a touchdown. So they had twenty one carries. First, how many did you get on the last play of the game. I forgot about that. Yeah that was the running backs. The running backs had sixteen carries for forty five yards. Yeah right, And and other than that one run, even the one run for a touchdown, they ended up with twenty carries for sixty yards. Well that Your offensive lines got to play better than that, got to play

better than that. And they didn't. And by the way, the other team did not have their best defensive player on the field for the last thirty minutes of the game, Nick Bosa. Uh and and shocking he got a sack by spinning into the inside. Somebody had to look for that, right. They didn't play well, but again that has been a problem the majority of the year. The offensive line number two. They had to not let Deebo Samuel take over the game.

He took over the game right, and ended up with one hundred and ten yards from scrimmage, including the twenty six yard touchdown run on an end around that he doubled back on. And I don't think anybody laid a hand on him for twenty six they did not. He danced around back there, picked his spot. Boys, he did. He's good. He is good. But but you know, you allow greatness, right, you know, And I'm thinking of that as well. I know for a fact, when you have as a safety, it is your job to find the

hole that the running back is going to find. As well. You have to anticipate what that is. You can't come over first of all, over pursue when you abably have another guy out there setting the edge for you can't over I'm gonna do the play. Yeah, you can't over pursue. You have to be poised waiting for that moment. Otherwise he can't make it through the sideline. The extra defender that's out there. This is your gap here. You know, you're learned that from playing with the flex That was

the whole thing of Tom Langer's defense. You have to plug in were you're supposed to be, trust them to do their job. This is no time to not be disciplined, right, This is no time not to be poored. By the way, did you hear what Deebo said to Kyle Shanahan after that interception? Oh? Yeah, give me the ball. Yeah, he said, give me the ball, and he gave him the ball. And by the way, what was the play they ran when they had they were trying to get a first

down to end the game. It was basically it was Deebo Samuel, same deal and wound up an inch short. Actually, Shanahan said afterwards when they asked him about it, he said, yeah, he said, Debos said something to me. There was so much noise. I didn't understand what he said, but just looking at him, I knew what he meant. Yeah, like give me the damn ball right now. And then thirdly, what has been this defense's problem all season long? Big plays,

big plays? And I pointed that out that if they don't get multiple takeaways to get San Francisco off the field, the big plays will kill them if they didn't stop that. I went back and looked before the game, Cowboys had given up seventy six plays runner pass of twenty yards or more and they came into the game with seventy. So their offense was big play. It wasn't marching down

the field play after play after play. Well, in this game, they had fifteen snaps of at least ten yards, totaling two hundred and forty of their three hundred and forty one total yards, two hundred and forty came on fifteen plays, So they didn't stop the big play. So all the things that worried about going into the game came to fruition and that's why they were scrambling at the end to try to get one more play to throw to the end zone. And you know, it's amazing that we

even got into that position. Actually, it's a testament, but it's nothing you can be proud of. It really isn't because it's the pattern that we've shown, and that pattern has always been been shown as a failure. When I like the pattern where we come back and score fifty points, well, that's not what we saw yesterday. And that's been our consistency or inconsistency throughout the last half of the season.

Is trying to be more consistent in victory, right, trying to make the plays that you need to play when it's time to do and not leave yourself in this frantic situation at the end of a ball game. God defensively, guys, I was we we When it's all said and done, there are certain things you have to know about yourself. And no matter how good we feel certain games, we do not have the defense that can carry a team. We have one that can make plays, but offensively, we

still have to compliment our offense. I still think that's our identity. And when our offense is not playing well, then we struggled. And when I say struggled, that's when we start to lose our poise and start to make mistakes. And if you look at I mentioned the duress Dak was under, Jimmy Garoppolo did not get sacked one time and he only got hit four times. So he threw the ball twenty five times and they just didn't get

to him. And you lost to a team whose quarterback rating ended up sixty seven point four sixty seven point four and only passed for one hundred and seventy two yards. But it was the plays they made, the big play bring the chains, right, they played like us. That's us, that's the Cowboys. They're not trying to go down the field. They are trying to get themselves in position to move the chains. That's exactly what they did. Controlled ball game.

Multiple played drives and it was a quarterback plane with a spraying thumb. He didn't well, they didn't need it because they're running the ball. They got debot hundred in sixty nine yards rushing, and that's how you protect your quarterback right there. Run the ball and move the chains without having to ask for third and fifteen thirty nine. We're looking at thirty s when they managed to get them into those situations. By the way they that's when

they were successful. We were successful games. Yes, absolutely, Okay, it's break time or what do you want to talk about when we come back? We got to take a pare to talk about. We start, we go to the end of the game. We'll go to the end of the game when we come back on mix shots. Hey cowboys fans, ready to spice up your next watch party, Bring Yokierro guacomole and be the game day hero. Yo kiro means I want and we know you want. Great fresh tasting, ready to serve guacomole for your home gating

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to join today. And I don't know if this little fan pack thing had anything to do, but I noticed in the game, and I usually don't see these things, that before they let the standing room only crowd in, there were people already lined up along the railing, and I was wondering if those were the Cowboy United fan packed and you got that privilege to enter the squatters They were the squatters, the sooners before everybody else came

rushing in. I saw the video of everybody rushing in. Yes, yep, it's Mad Dash and to the surprise of the people that were on the West concourse, Nickelodeon was set up taking their space in the middle standing room on that second day. Wow. Yeah, And the announced attendance was ninety three thousand, four hundred and seventy. Didn't get a hundred, No, not two hundred. I bought my brother in law and uh, my foundation partner. The forty nine ers fans tried to

get it to one hundred thousand. Yeah, I brought the couple and so yeah, brother in law was his birthday, Elmo. He's crazier fan than than you and I put together. I was gonna have to do my zanas before the game he did. How about after? Yeah, okay, and we really I must commend both of us because my foundation partner is a major Niner fan. Okay, So how was the setup in the stands? Because on TV I was watching on t when the forty nine Ers came on the field, they showed a shot of the visitors side

of the stadium. There was in the background and there was a ton of red all that it appeared anyway to be a ton of red. But then when the Cowboys, Okay, so when the Cowboys came on the field, and the cow on the home side of the field, it was seemed to be virtually all white, more normal. Yeah. And the upper deck that you didn't see in the four hundred, it was almost all red on their sideline. Okay, yeah, yeah, you can see that. You can see where the line

was drawn. Yeah. Yeah. So a lot of Cowboys fans made a lot of money because they sold their tickets. And I you know, twenty four. I ran into somebody and said his buddy of his had two lower level seats and he made twenty four couldn't dollars, He couldn't pass it two tickets each. I mean to each that about pace for your season ticket, almost right, okay, okay into the game, all right, have had it. So I

don't know what your guys feeling is. I understood the last call, why it was made the way it was. It was designed. It wasn't like a spur of the moment. And if you saw the all twenty two, the way San Francisco was played, they were all lined up on the side of the field knowing that they could not give up a pass to the boundary and let him get out of bounds. Yes, right way. This way, this way,

this way. They looked lined up on the sideline the way. Uh. The poor kicker for San Francisco was lined up inside the Cowboys cheerleaders lines when they were marching off the field that he was in the middle of him practicing his kicks. Right, So they're all lined up up on the side, So there was no San Francisco player between the forty and when they showed it the twenty, there was nobody. The rest of them were at the goal line.

So the idea is run the ball up the middle, slide when you think you've gotten fire enough, and then spiked the ball. Well, here was the big problem. And I finally looked it up and found it because I thought I had remembered when the NFL changed where the umpire stands used to be five yards behind the defensive line. And they said, you know what, that's a little dangerous. We're gonna move him behind the offensive line so they can have a look. So he kind of lined up

opposite across from the head referee. In twenty ten, the NFL announced that this repositioning would be permanent. Or five major injuries were suffered by the umpires in two thousand and nine. From twenty ten to twenty fifteen, the umpire returned to the defensive side of the line of scrimmage during the last five minutes of the second half because they figured, all right, teams are going to be trying to hurry up. We got to have the ball spotted quickly.

Right in twenty sixteen, they this provision was deleted and now the umpire stands in the offensive backfield and all plays except when it's obvious when the offensive team will spike the ball. So here's what happens. I went back, I watched the time Dak takes off. There's fourteen seconds to go. He slides down. With nine seconds to go, the umpire was still at the fifty yard line. I don't know what he thought he was going to see from there, but he was still at the fifty yard line.

And we'll get into way. Alex Kemp, the head referee, answered the the pool reporters questions. He did not get to the ball until there was like four seconds to go. He had to run twenty five yards and then he had to bust. He had to bust through the line. Yeah, yeah, And he had to bust through the line to get to the ball, and the rule is the umpire has to touch the ball before you're allowed to snap in a hurry up. So I don't know what he thought

he was doing back there. But here's what else happens. You know, Dak mentioned he got run in from behind. He did well, he did, but the guy had to get to the ball right. He spots it and then he moves it again. Why why did he have to reposition it like the length of the football? He put it down and then brought it back to him. And guess what he did after he spotted it. He ran behind the defensive line. So just they did not when

they made that decision. They didn't factor in the ball had to be spotted right, And and I heard criticism who didn't factor in the Cowboys maybe in their timing of how long it was going to take to get the next play off. But it shouldn't. But it shouldn't have mattered because you don't even But why wouldn't they as as you practice it, you know the rule right, and so you know that the official has to them

said it was going to take that long. Again, that's because when you practice it, you assume he's going to be much quicker than five. I heard people saying that Dak made the mistake. He's got to hand the ball to the official, not to his center. There was not an official in sight. Once again, both guys away, both guys on the sideline stood there with their foot mark and where the ball was. Nobody came in to get the ball. But that's not the job on the side.

It's the umpire supposed to come in. That's right. And it took and I'll mispronounce his name. I don't know it's our A M O n George, So it's Raymond or Ramone. He took all day to get there, right, and then he respots it and by time I thought he got chipped up. No, I didn't know what the heck he was doing. He was fifty and so and so nobody there was nobody to hand the ball too. So he hands it. To be honest, everybody gets lined up and this guy doesn't show up till three seconds.

By time he respotted it got out of the way. They didn't get the snap off right. But McCarthy said that you know how, they had the alternative officials on the sideline, both sidelines, two on each. They basically immediately told him that that's going to get respotted. They'll reset the clock to one second. And they didn't do it. Okay, so they got no call down from the replay referee, they got no call from New York. And when Alex Kemp was asked if any of those things happened, he said, no,

we discussed it on the field. Well, they didn't discuss it for long because the next thing we heard is the game is over. Yeah, with no explanation. He gave a better explanation for the punt hitting the video board than he did at the end of the game. He says, very unusual play. Yeah, I think I never heard anyone say that, wow, you know, announcing a call. So when they asked him, there was no replay assist or from New York. That is correct. That's handled on the by

the officials on the field. And when he was asked, when the umpire is that far away, should he have been closer, he said, we're trailing the play, keeping proper distance so that we can identify files if there are any. Once the play is over, the umpire immediately goes to the spot of the ball, and that's what we did. That is not a freaking answer. That is not an answer. That's not what you did, like he was gonna call a penalty twenty five yards, or that's the way you write.

That's the way you write down an answer. That's a multiple, multiple choice answer. You know what, we know what you're supposed to do. That is not what you did. If you're that far away, you just can't beat in a timely fashion. When you practice that, you assume that the umpire right is going to be there. All you worry about is what your teammates do, what's coming from the sideline, from your coach, that's all you worry about. You don't

worry about. Oh, let me get out of the way, because now the umpire is going to come up three seconds later. If Dad had waited, he'd have been holding the ball, like come on, okay, well yeah, yeah, I don't do that. I have to get the next call. I have to make sure my guys are lined up. We assume that you do your job and in a timely fashion, because of course we're working against the clock. Also, you can't be the reason for the delay. All Star crew and they saw everything, and I know that much.

I tell you, how many did we get fourteen again, fourteen? How magic number? Got A couple other will go over what's your understanding on have you ever talked to coaches about through the years about this scenario and how much time typically you want on the clock or what's that cut off the number, the number of seconds on the clock in order to be able to run a play of this duration get lined up and be able to clock it. I thought they were right at their threshold

for enough time all right for me. I think I remember him once saying seventeen seconds was the cutoff, and they were at fourteen. They were at fourteen, And it wasn't like it was they ran a play and they're at fourteen. It was a it was stopped clock. They knew that they had fourteen, right, you know what? I remember going all the way back to the Jay Novacheck play against Bill Belichick's Cleveland Browns in nineteen ninety four where you got stopped on the goal. I remember at

that point talking to coaches what's that threshold? And I have always thought this ever since nineteen ninety four, the threshold was sixteen seconds. That's my issue with this play call it. I love the concept of it, it's the amount of time left on the clock and you and you can run it as many times as you want to run it in practice, and you cannot simulate that situation right there because of the adrenaline, I mean, the

stress that's on everybody involved, including Plus. And that's the other thing is Plus, the most important person in the equation, is not at your practice to simulate right exactly. And so that's the issue that I had with running that play. And so you're at the forty yard line, would you have done that all? Hell mary? Well, I'm looking at in that situation because of what they were doing on the sideline and so forth. You have to throw to the end zone and maybe you get two shots at

the end zone from the forty. But I love the concept if you've got sixteen seconds. I don't when you got fourteen seconds, because this kind of thing happens. And Dak said they had two plays already to go. One was five guys down the field and then the other one was a hell Mary from and from the twenty five. The hell Mary's a little more realistic, right, Yeah. So, and I know you got my my column probably just

got posted. But the lead to my story was about the last seconds, and I said, my imagination had run wild. Either they were going to get forty six years later, the second hill Mary of their career to win the game from the forty, or from the twenty four the tight end was going to catch the catch two in the end zone to win. I would call it, and neither one panned out. And so I ended my column with a little Michael Jackson, just my imagination running away

with that, temptations. Yeah, yeah, Michael Jackson saying it. I thought he did. I think he did his own temptations. Temptations did it? So you know the other thing that I was when I heard McCarthy talking about it after the game and he liked the idea of the five verticals to the end zone rather than a hail mary.

I wondered your your call. Going all the way back to training camp and Dack's injury and training camp, my understanding is that they had come throwing a hail mary and the back the back injury, and so I wondered how much they have actually practiced the hail mary passed due to the fact, obviously you don't want that to happen again to your quarterback, the most important player on the team and so which might have given them more comfort in because it's it's still even the five vertical

thing to the end zone. I mean, what are your chances of completing it? You know when you've got everybody in the end Yeah, right, right, So, anyway, that just thought crossed my mind. I was trying to remember if they even had to throw a hell Mary this year. Well, if there have been times, there have been times. This

isn't the first time I've thought this this year. There have been times where they were in position and they run the lateral play instead, And at those times I thought, I don't think they want back to throw a hill Mary, which, by the way, that play was gonna work. How is it? Well, okay, can I get this play done? Right? Here? The best play that never had? All right, here's what you're interest. Instead of the back draw, run the Cedric Wilson over

the middle, throw it out a bounds play. Dude, what oh, run the Cedric Wilson throw it out a bounds play. Well, you mean, I don't think what they ran aloradier in the game. They didn't. I don't think you could do that on purpose. Though you run the same play you got Tony Poller going, I didn't get penalized on that,

throw it behind him. Yeah, I mean just doing inaccurate past to Tony Pollard on the sideline because it get interesting and get intercepted because they're defending the sideline anyway. Now you can just throw it out of bounds. You're saying, that's what they did or can't be and you can't say there you were, you were grounding the ball because you throw it beh Yeah, that's what I'm saying. It's

a backwards pass. We need to talk to Kellen Moore about that set like those, I mean actually completed one time, but that would have been the one time. That would have been the one time the play would have worked, say, because then you would have had you could have run that ten yards down fifteen yards down field. Cedric Wilson throws it to Tony Pollard incomplete out of bounds. How many taloon does that play take from fourteen seconds? Well, so you're nine seconds now you can do it again

and now you're you're at the fifteen yard line. You can take your shot at the year zone. Well, the fact the fact that we are in the fact that we're talked about low percentage plays. That means that we did something wrong to get to that play. That's right, and that's the point to that point. How about this, in the last eight minutes of that game, Okay, Cowboys pulled her within twenty three seventeen with eight to two left in the game. And what does San Francisco do

on their next possession. They accumulate three first downs and they run five minutes and seconds off the clock. Yeah, okay, if you don't want to be in this position where you're having to stop them, yeah, stop them and don't commit the penalties. I believe the penalties. That's right. We have penalties on the hand, by the way, yeah, Osa with a whole defensive holding and oh, we gotta do

that next. And I'll just set it up with I've watched every game, every snap, and I don't think they ever had a defensive lineman called it for the first Let's go all right, we'll be back with more of that in 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

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Stetson dot com. Slash Cowboys Back back to mixed shots, speaking of defensive holding. Your favorite WWE superstars return to AT and T Stadium for Rustlemania on Saturday, April second in Sunday April third, twenty twenty two. Get your tickets to the most stupendous two night Rustlemania in history. Visit SeatGeek dot com, the official ticketing provider of AT and T Stadium. All Right, we have precious little time left, and so we're gonna have to go to our hurry up, okay,

real quickly. I wanted to give a shout out to Tired Archer. He was the Pro Football Writers Association pool reporter, and I've had to do this before several times, go into that officiating locker room and ask them questions about something that was sort of off kilter. He hung in there and got nine questions asked. I think when I got to four and I wasn't getting anywhere, I just threw my hands up said I'm done. At Texas Stadium,

the locker room for the officials was very small. It felt like you were in one of those old Jimmy Cagney movies back in the forties in a hotel room in New York when you can go like this and hit both walls standing up. That's the visual that I

actually have. And they're all so you got a recorder in your hand, The official head official head referees got one, and then there's an NFL person with one, so you got three recorders going, and all the other guys are shooting daggers at you right because they're all looking and they call the official up that made the play. So they're intimidating the hell out of you, right, and then you ask a question and you get these little short empire empires answers, like was the umpire in where he

was supposed to be the umpire spotted the ball properly? Right? They give you all these little short question answers, right, and you can't get anywhere because they're so defensive. Right, there's no discussion whatsoever. But anyway, I give Todd credit ESPN Dallas for hanging in there and continuing to ask the questions. Did he get the good answers? Just to be clearer, there was oh replay assist or call from New York on this play that is correct, that is

handled by the officials on the field. Would that been something that should have been looked at before the call of the game was ended? Or once you called the end of the game, it's the end of the game. That's the end of the game. Once we confirmed it with the officials on the field. That sounds like he's in court. Oh absolutely yeah. So anyway, good job by him. He tried to get something out of him more than

the standard answers. All right, was the defensive holding, defensive holding twice, like Everson I said, I think in the break. Hadn't seen it called all years. Twice in one game. Okay, And I'm going to start with the first possession, the first play of the game. When they called Randy Gregory for in the neutral zone, Trent Williams moved his left leg. He moved it so obvious. I wrote down on my notes right here, it's too Samuel, meaning the past arrow,

false start, seventy one left tackle false start. Oh nope, they called Randy and the neutral zone. Why did they call? Why did they stop the play? Why did they whistle it when it's a neutral zone violation? I have no idea, because he one of the officials must have thought false start. Then they conferred and the other one overruled him. I thought the guy on that sideline called it, and Trent Williams moved his foot, his leg, his left leg which was to the official, moved. It's like he twitched it.

And then that's when Randy jumped right. Randy was already lined up off side, and maybe they thought he was already, but his foot. Now, I don't know. Do they call it if your head's over the line, but not your foot. Yes, okay, well then that's what they call, so that maybe that's what happened, all right, that's that must have been what had happened. The reason that they blew the whistle was

because Trent Williams moved it was a false start. But the fact that Rand and so the other official from the side probably came in and said he was lined up, lined up in the neutral zone and that must be the rule on it. Then, well, because the ball was on the dates the false start, the ball was on the twenty five, and the ball where they were hiking it was just behind the twenty five. And if if

it's a false start, the ball hasn't been snapped yet. Correct, correct, So doesn't matter where Randy Gregory's lined up at that point. Well apparently apparently it does because they called it right and then the ball snap, So it doesn't matter where Randy is right now? Correct? And then later he didn't jump, He didn't know, he did not. He was still until he took off when he but he was still and he was still in the neutral zone off sides when

the ball was snapped. But you're saying when the false start on the false start but I assume what what the rule must be on it if a guy is lined up in the new a defensive player is lined up off sides and everything, Yeah, that overrules everything. Maybe I don't know, that's it. And then it happened again, and the second time, his head was not over the line of scrimmage and there was Trent Williams. He was digging his left foot into the ground like yeah, like

he was getting ready to go. Yeah, and they didn't call it again. It's like okay. And then they totally botched the delay of game after the fake punt because and Tony Romo got it wrong on the on the broadcast because Romo was saying, okay, they left the kicking team out there because they were trying to get a time out from San Francisco. Oh no, they had another their play that was right, right, and and C. J. Goodwin was on the field, by the way, and he

I think was a former quarterback. He was lined up in the backfield right, yeah, okay, So what happened was they were going to run a play against their special teams, right, they were going to run a play against San Francisco. And then and then yeah, what happened was number one and I forgot about this. You have a kicking ball. So the umpire had to pick up the kicking ball and replace it with a regular ball and throw the kicking ball off the field, right. So San Francisco is

seeing what was going on. They ran their defense back out there, right. Of course, they did the right right now right, it's yeah. So so here's what here's what takes place. They reset the clock after he changed the ball to twenty five seconds. It got down to twenty and the Cowboys realized, oh, they got their defense out there against our twenty five seconds. To realize it took it took five seconds, and no, I watched it again, and they didn't even reset the twenty five second clock

for about ten or fifteen seconds. Well, because they had to switch out the ball right, and then with twenty seconds left, McQuaid goes, oh, hell, we got to get off the field. So he waves everybody off the field. So they had to bring in the offense right. Well, they got him in. They made their substitution change and oh, George, the umpire is standing over the ball like this, and he and he waited till three seconds left on the clock.

To move and they couldn't get the snap off. That was the one that got me that one case, because they made a change, and you have to leave time for the opposition to make their change, and even if they are making a change, and McCarthy said that he was told that they initially said we were making a

change and the Cowboys weren't. But they got a cuse for one of the guys on the sideline celebrating and he was on the wrong side of the sideline, and so they were looking at that guy's coming in, so they said, oh, we got to hold it up so they can make their change. So there it goes all of a sudden, you're first and ten at the thirty six, I think it was. I have a question on that.

Can you tell the officials in advance should have that that we want to use the same ball, the kicking ball on the next plus the only way the should have told him what was coming before the game, and even there before the game, you tell the That's what

I'm wondering. You tell you tell the officiating crew if we run a fake punt, we want the kicking ball on the field, because we're leaving our kicking team on the field, we're going to run another play, and on the last play they should have told umpire George, this is what we're getting getting ready to do. Be ready to spot the ball right now. Nobody knew they were going to do that twenty five yards away. Do you think Dak made the decision to do that. No, that

was the plan to run. Yeah, yeah, that was the play. But the reason I say that, I think in his postgame comment, I think the verbatim on it. I didn't hear him say it, but the transcription of it said, I decided to do to run the play. Oh. I don't remember him saying that. I'll have to go back and look. But Mike, they basically said they've practiced that right. Oh yeah, yeah. It wasn't like all right, it wasn't like he drew it up in the sand. Yeah, let

me see. I think I headed somewhere. Let's see. Um where'd it go? Um? He said, here's the verbatim on it. I made the call knowing that we're going to get some yards and get down and I've got to clock it. So that which made me think that it was Dak

on his own who decided to do that. But I don't know for sure, Like he told Kellen Moore, no, I'm not running what you called, or they've got a play called and then he can he saw what was open in the middle of the field, and they've practiced it, and so there's no Well they lined up that way for the I think the previous two plays. Obviously, that's what that's the play you run. I mean to me, that's the play you run. Do you have enough time?

That's something you should have taken care of before that play, So you don't run the you don't throw to the end zone until you have to. I thought they would getting themselves in. They set to get a closer like a real play. Yeah, and that I know that was what they're intent. Yeah. Yeah, The question is did they have enough time to do it? Well, yeah, you got You got no choice. You got no choice, and you shouldn't have been in that position to start. All right.

That does it for Well, we went a season six minutes over. We're gonna be back again tomorrow. That we got the snap off on our last play, that's right. We went overtime here, all right, Cowboys didn't have the liberty of having overtime, all right, That does it for today's show, and we will shout at you again to borrow go Cowboys. This has been a production of Dallas Cowboys dot Com and the Dallas Cowboys Football Club.