Mick Shots: The Bitter End

It's now twenty twenty one, and it officially became twenty twenty one for the Dallas Cowboys about three o'clock Dallas time on a little after three o'clock Dallas time on Sunday afternoon. And here we are for another edition of Mick Shots to break it all down. Bill Jones, Everson Walls, Mickey Spagnola inside the SWBC Mortgage studios there at boards Center at the Start in Fresco, which is a very busy place as it always is on the day after

the season. Maybe not as not the same layout as in past years, of course, because of the environment that we are all in here, we are it's a it's a new year, and I guess we'll start with you, Mickey. It's it was a disappointing twenty twenty in more ways than one. But that doesn't take long. The team flips the page to the new year. Thank God for a new year, right, couldn't get here fast enough, although three days in the new year bled back into twenty twenty.

I think for the Cowboys on how that final game turned out, I thought the game was a reflection. Just that game was a reflection of everything that took place for the Cowboys in twenty twenty, from slow starts to a defense not playing well enough, to an offensive line not playing well enough, to the Cowboys inability to score

touchdowns in the red zone. We can go on and on, but I thought Mike McCarthy hit the nail right on the head after the game when he said the game was a microcosm of the entire season, And I think it was. It was very obvious. You know, I've always looked at guys that when you get into the playoffs, and I know this wasn't technically a playoff game, but

it was sort of a playoff game. And when you get beat a lot of times your warts get exposed in games like that in Winter else games, and I thought, no matter the three game winning streak, the Cowboys warts got exposed by the Giants not giving themselves to hang in there to see what the inevitable end was it going to be with Washington playing Philadelphia, which was maybe one of the worst games I think I've ever watched, and I thought the only justice for this year would

have been Philadelphia winning and the three teams tying for first place at six and ten. That would have been justice for this season. I thought it was just me. It was so I was so disinterested in how they played, of course interested in in the outcome itself, but the performance on the field as well as the performance on the sideline. Somebody tell me what the hell coach Peterson was thinking. I mean when he makes the move to

take hurtside of the game. Not only did he look foolish in the game, he even more foolish trying to explain it at the press conference after the game. It just didn't look good. It wasn't a good look at all. His explanations sounded made up, and he sounded like he sounded like the kid that got his hand cart in the cookie jar. He just started railing and just basically flailing with explanations that had nothing to do with why you didn't try and finish that game and win that game.

I don't know if he had a bet. I mean, I don't know if he had an arrangement. I don't know what the hell was going on. But almost if he got a call from the President and said, look, you're losing this game today, I don't even try. You're too close. Well, and you know you got a Black Sox scandal going on here? What the hell? But that was the most unusual game I had ever seen, and

I had the exact same feeling. I felt like I needed to go take a shower after what in that And but it was it was evident on the last play of the game. If anyone had any any wonderment over what he was doing, it was evident on the very last play of the game when Nate Sudfelt, instead of throwing deep, throws a little pass about five yards in front of the line of scrimmage and the receiver

made no effort to even lateral the ball. They had every intention they showed up and played in the first half, but at a certain point they had every intention to get the highest draft but the best draft pick they could possibly have. And the other part of it is,

and I can see this a little bit. I mean, if if Jalen Hurts is going to be your quarterback going forward in twenty twenty one against Chase Young in that Washington defense, the worst thing that could possibly happen for the Philadelphia Eagles on that day was Jalen Hurts getting hurt in that game. And so I'm thinking that's why he pulled Hurts from the game. But uh, and also uh, he'd had no intention of winning that game because um, you know, they get a better draft pick.

It's almost as if a memo was passed around to certain people. You know, everyone didn't know about it. You know, we'll just tell the quarterback, We'll just tell the young quarterback, and we'll tell the receivers. Okay, guys, the fix is in. You know. It was it was. It was. It was

like you said it was. It was slimmy. It was a little slimy, Bill, It was a little slim So what if the Cowboys had won over the Giants and we're all sitting there watching thinking, Okay, Philadelphia is gonna legitimately give this a shot, and you know, Hurts probably

wouldn't even played in the game at all. If the if the Cowboys were gonna make the play opposite if the Eagles won that game, but he would have done it if he would have done it, if the Cowboys would have won that game, and he would have done it's in the same manner that he did it. We will be looking at an internal investigation right now in the NFL. We d d the d J, I'm sorry, the DJ would be down here just so quick, you know, and Jerry Jones would be the one on the other

end of the phone call. So man, we would we would have send us to the Supreme Court because at something might listen to that one at some point, and at some point there's gonna be a sweetheart trade between Washington and Philadelphia. You watch, Yeah, one of those those backdoor deals, right, and that what they called the back

room deal. That's one of those backroom deals. And pace you know, how was it last year or the year before when when uh, when Andy Dalton led Cincinnati to that win in Buffalo, fans all uh contributed to his charity, right, I don't I don't know what Philadelphia's charity is. Bet I bet to the Washington fans are doing to it to day. Yeah, yeah, anyway, and they have the and and so they win the right to host Tom Brady

and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers UH this coming weekend. All right, back to the task at hand, which is us dissecting what happened to the Cowboys on Sunday, And we won't have time to get to the entire season. We can start on that tomorrow. But how about how about we start with UH what everyone was talking about after the game, the decision by Mike McCarthy not to challenge the UH catch by Dante Pettus on the third down play UH and the Giants subsequently kicking the fifty yard field goal

they gave him a four point lead. What what do y'all think of that? Go ahead? Go ahead it Okay, I'll go, I'll go. No, I'll go, I'll go. Yeah. I I still don't know if that would be overturned. I looked at it. I looked at it, and I wanted so badly to say that this would easily be overturned if it would have been called incomplete. That play would have stood the fact that that play was called complete. I truly believe at this situation, the Cowboys just don't

get those breaks. Okay, back to me, I think they would have come back and said, uh, cowboys lost the challenge, and now you're down another time out. You had three, you were working well with your three timeouts. We would have been in an even more dangerous position. With two timeouts, we would have had even lesser chance on that last drive. Tough to risk right there. And you know how McCarthy is. He's been gambling so much early in the season and it cost us some games. This was not the time

for him to make a risky challenge like that. I thought he did a good job at just kind of laying off of it, keeping that red flag in his pocket. See, I absolutely agree with you, and I thought maybe I was nuts. So that's why I was hoping somebody was going to back me up, because look, here's what happened. I just he could have challenged it, and maybe he should have in the circumstance it was in, but he wasn't gonna win it. They weren't going to overturn that call.

No way they were going to overturn it because it was called to catch on the field, and you know how defensive players react when they see the ball it should be incomplete. No one really did that. The Cowboy players were like, okay, caught it. And then when they showed it, and they showed it three times and did the ball hit the ground, Yes, but he still had possession of it, and I just I don't think it would have been I don't think it would have been overturned.

And so everybody's and here's what happened. Joe Buck and Troy Aikman gave everybody a license to jump on the band and whoever, who a pre or whoever, yeah, whoever it was, they gave everybody a license to go. Yeah, see he should have done that and give the excuse because the Cowboys never win a game, lose a game, right, there's always a reason why they lose, and so it gave everybody an excuse to hammer on something that was okay,

was it significant? Okay, fine, right, But you weren't assured if you got that and they punted that you were going to drive down and kick a field goal, right, And even if you did get into position to kick it, that doesn't mean he was gonna make it. So we're assuming all this stuff when the facts of the matter were the Cowboys weren't good enough to win the game. Playing and simple they weren't good enough on the offensive line.

They weren't good enough on defense, giving up twenty three points to a team that had scored no more than nineteen in their last five games. They allowed their quarterback to get sacked six times by a defense that had two sacks in their last three games. He got hit nine times, and they had nine tackles for losses. Think about that. They only ran the ball twenty seven times, so a third of the times they ran the ball

it was for a loss. So let's look at the real facts on why they didn't win the game instead of coming up with some Kakamini reason for the loss in blaming on not challenging a call that was not going to be overturned. And that's the things fags. I mean, the guy, a ball can still hit the ground after the defensive back or the player had control of it. You know, just because it hits the ground, it doesn't mean that that's what allowed the defensive player to complete

the catch. All he needed to do was show that that ball stopped spinning, it stopped moving almost simultaneously to when it hit the ground. And to me, that could have easily been deciphered during that a proposed challenge and he would have lost it. I think they would have lost it. I think the referee would have been extremely hesitant to say, Okay, we have to overrule this. And

that's the key, guys. It was called a catch first, so for them to overrule it, it had to be something extremely clear and to me, and you know this is coming from a guy. I got robbed like that in the championship game against the Redskins, and it was one of the best interceptions I never made. I mean, I did some kind of stuff. I don't know how I did what I did. It was overthrown to Charlie Brown. It was gonna go behind me somehow. I dropped, hit my butt, turned around in one motion and caught it.

But they said, as I turned around and caught it and I did my revolution, that the ball hit the ground. I was the most angrous I've ever been in a football game, because first I was a championship game. We end up losing that game, and I knew we had a It was a tough time for us to win that game. So it was because that ball. They said that that ball, the round stopped the ball's momentum. I said that my hands stopped it. They said, no, so tough to overturn. Guys, it's I've been a victim of that.

And boy, if you if you take that challenge and guess what happens and you lose that challenge, then everybody's gonna be on the other side, you know, say this guy's too aggressive, so that in that situation. Coach McCarthy is in the no win situation. Bill, What did you think? Well, I agree wholeheartedly with you on what you're said. What you said about the network announcers buck In Ekman, and I think it may have been Blandino. I'm not sure

who the official was in the booth. It's amazing how many times the narrative gets established, not only in the postgame talk shows and throughout the week and with questions post to coaches and players after the game, especially in this environment where the reporters are all listening to the network broadcast. If they are assertive and their statement that, oh, he should have challenged it, he should have challenged it,

that becomes the narrative. Whatever. Okay, the only thing I will say about it is I did not and I agree with you on the merits of the challenge. In the big picture of the last six minutes of that game, though, I just didn't have a good feeling that the Cowboys were going to be able to put the football in the end zone. I didn't think they were going to score a touchdown because they hadn't shown the ability to

do it. They scored obviously once earlier in the game, but they hadn't shown the ability to once they got down into the red zone. Especially so in my mind as I was thinking that through at the moment, I'm thinking, you know what, this might be their best chance to win this game, and just grasping at straws to go ahead and challenge that where they don't get a four point lead on you and make it a field goal

game down the stretch. That was just my only feeling on it was I didn't have confidence in the offense scoring. And you think about it, the fact that McCarthy wanted

to make sure he kept his timeouts. I don't think he had confidence that the Cowboys are going to put the ball in the end Zoe, that he was going to need those timeouts even after their next possession at the end of the game because they'd be behind and need it to in order to come back and win the game, sort of like sort of like when you're trailing by four points and you try a fake punt from your own twenty three yard line because the head coach doesn't think the head coach doesn't think we can

stop them, so I better steal a possession right here, you know. Okay, everybody, it's a bonehead decision. I get it. But I understand what he was doing. The other thing that I think went on. I don't know that he

got a look at it on the video board. And for my understanding of what was going on, they weren't showing any many replays on their video board, and they sure as hell didn't want to show that, right because even the Giants were like, oh, we better get through the line of scrimmage, you know, and kick this thing right away as soon as we can. Uh So, yeah, I'm not sure, and I'm not And so the TV broadcast showed three replays right away before he kicked it.

I don't know if the coaches booth gets those that fast. I'm just not sure on you know, what, the intel was down to the sideline, But it didn't sound like it didn't sound like he was talking to anybody at that time, So I think I think people on the sideline thought, yeah, it was a catch, so um, I just and it was. And by the way, Chris, Chris

pointed out, it was Pereira who was the analyst. Pere okay, And and let's be real, guys, you don't want to make just like we did with the fake punt in our own back back backed up in our own side of the field into the field. You don't want to make a death decision. You know, you don't want to make a decision like that under a desperate situation because then you know that that never turns out. Well, he

wanted to stay within the moment. He wanted to stay focused on what the plan was, and keeping those three timeouts was more important because, as you guys said, the Giants were very stubborn defensively. So we didn't really feel good about how can I say, harpooning ourselves by losing a challenge and now you've got one less bullet than your gun in regards to your timeouts. I thought it

was a good no no challenge by coach McCarthy. Yeah, in the moment, he's got to make each got to make that call on whether the challenge on the merits of that play, not on the other stuff that that I was even talking about a moment ago. All right, we continue with more mix shots in just a moment. Hey there, Cowboys fans with Type Cleaners home pickup and delivery,

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dot com. We're back in a tasty treat that's sweeping airwaves and taste buds. It's new Doctor Pepper and Cream Soda. Let's take a listen, Doctor bad and Cream Soda. Is he a Newcombonet's music to my ears? Okay, Doctor bap time put it in a glass of music to my ears and mouths New Doctor Pepper and Cream Soda, delash, just do back back back to mixed shots. Find out why this year's Dallas Cowboy as Cheerleaders making the team

is the most competitive yet. Don't miss new episodes of season fifteen every Tuesday night at nine o'clock Central Time on CMT, we are breaking down what happened on Sunday as the Cowboys loss to the Giants and they turned their attention towards an off season that will be very interesting, to say the least. What were your general feelings. Yeah, I hate it when the season ends every year, and yesterday it was to me, it was a depressing day. You know, this game ends, Okay, I don't really want

to watch these other games. I'm sitting there. I got those Christmas lights outside. I'm like, okay, I went out and took my Christmas lights down, and so so that was depressing too. Now it's the end of the holidays and now reality sets in. It's back to work on Monday, and we got no no Cowboys until August, as far

as hopefully we got some games in August. And so that was the way I felt by six o'clock yesterday afternoon, and I felt worse well after I watched the Washington Philadelphia game, and that's when I decided to take a shower when I got finished with work last night. It was so anti climactic the entire evening yesterday. You know, I've been using this show and you know, the Cowboys researchers as an excuse not to finish my renovations in my home. You got to do that, You got no excuse.

So we had a long talk last night. Yeah, I have to start making my schedule out accordingly. Now we're just going to one show a week, so I will have so much extra time to do things that needed around the house. But at the same time, I hate it when we lose games, and that's usually the Cowboy. You know, when we saw the Cardinals game, we are blown out. Okay, boom. We could always point to those critical moments where okay, we could have won, we could have done this, but you know, we got blown out.

This these kinds of games to where you know, here we are, guys, all right, you know, let's go, let's go. Here we go. You know, let's make the moves. Don't do this, don't do that, do this, do that? All right here we don't looking good, looking good? Oh what the hell are you? You know what I'm saying. I hate those kind of games because then there's this what if that just hangs around you, you know, and like

Spat said, it was a Michael Cosmo about season. So you know, realistically, what happens if we win this game? I mean, you know, realistically, you know, do we come do do we just all of a sudden use that momentum rise up and then we're gonna beat Tom Brady. Now we're legitimizes, you know, all of it enough. No, no,

that that was a bit unrealistic. But at the same time, we were still brought to that break of hope, you know, And that's what I hate, being brought to that brink of hope and then just having those hopes dashed with really what I thought was an unnecessary, desperate move from a quarterback who was doing decent, not doing too well, but doing decent enough doing the entire ball game, and who was really turning the second half around because of what he did or didn't do in the first half.

So the momentum was on his side. He just had to stay more poised, which is, I know, tough to do when you've got big Blue coming, you know, breathing down your neck all the time and breaking through our offensive linemen. But yeah, I had problem making a sense of the first half of Andy Dalton. I just didn't understand what was going on. You know. First I said it is the ball. He was just it was astonishing how off he was and and it looked like that.

It looked like you the movies how they have the fan, the big fan that can blow it blow and make it feel like you're in the hurricane. Felt like he had that in his face the whole game, Like where's he that one passed through? That one passing through to the side. It was like it was like ten feet over the guy's head. It's like what And the ball was coming out of his right hand badly. It was coming out weird, and I was like, what is going on?

And then it turned it around the second half spite getting his left hand stepped on, and that's when he ain't better. Yeah, all of a sudden he's playing better. Then. I'm surprised he's holding on to the ball. But I mean, you know, let's look at this like we always look at Dak. I like to give him the same type of deal. Tough, tough game for for Dalton because at one point man he could have thrown him at least two pick sixes, at least at least sexes. Yeah. Yeah,

I'm not talking about just in the sception. I'm talking about no one stopping this guy, it's gonna be a touchdown. You know. Those are the kind of things that really gave me pause in the first half just seeing him be that inaccurate, as well as the misses. He had about three misses as well that really could have just turned this game around. And we gotta we gotta say it, you know, Bill, I mean, I love you, you know, I'm oh you man, just like you. I'm not texts,

I'm O you. But we're not even talking about any of this. If I a boy just holds on to the ball he's getting Ceedee Lamb because he had a little they had a little interference in front of him. It would have been a great play for the Giants to stop him at the three yard line on that play. That's what I truly believe. The way he's able to run the ball and manipulate himself for a few extra yards, Ceedee Lamb would have caught that ball and would have

at least gotten inside the five yard line. So it's all said and done. If he makes that play. We got a whole different attitude this morning as we talk on Mike us. And that's the that's the crazy thing, and and and and that stuff gets overlooked because what was it was first in goal at the seven if I'm right, yeah, first in goal at the seven, and and they get they get the first play. Um, I'm trying to find it here to make sure I'm right. Yeah, first and goal at the seven, one fifty three left.

And what happens, Oh, of course he gets sacked by Williams right who they didn't block the entire game. Second down in seventeen. Yeah, he hits lamb and he drops it and it's like, no, you didn't drop it. And then now you're third down. No immediate interference at all. And and and Alan Dalton said after the game, and I give him credit. He goes, in hindsight, I wish I had it back. I didn't need to do that. But I was thinking maybe he thought, well, it's gonna

be third down and goal from the seventeen. I've got to throw the ball twenty yards into the end zone. I'll never have time for my receivers to get that far downfield before somebody's in my face because sometimes they just chose not to block the guy off the right side, right, And he makes an excuse for his offensive line. Well, that was my guy. Well the guy that was double teaming inside. It's like, well what about that guy? Oh? Remember pressure on a three man freaking rush. Yes, they

got a sack on three man rush. We had three guys blocking one man on the left side and on the on the right side. We get a whiffed by the tackle back. I'm sorry that we got whiffed by the by the guard. I think Connor whiffed. He's in there right away, and the tackle didn't do much better either. So it's just no escape. I just that was very because once again, once again though we compound. We always compound our problems with the mistakes that we made. We

always do that. It's not good enough that we just dropped the ball. No, no, let's continue to roll downhill and tumble downhill and just pile onto the mistake that we just made with another mistake. So let's say it was an incomplete pass and it's fourth and goal at the seventeen. What does Mike McCarthy do. Then they had

two timeouts, You had three timeouts left. The reason that you kept your timeouts was that you have three timeouts left, right, Yeah, you can kick and goal at the seventeen do you kick it to make it twenty three twenty two, and then you can kick it deep and then you stop him, and now you just need a field goal to win the game. Yeah, well, there's one price you do that. There's one problem there. Stop You got to stop him

right now. Now. Having said that, okay, here's the other part of that, Mickey though, having said that, if you get the points on the board, your defense has a different mentality. You tell me, eversonce, does the defense have a different mentality if they just need a field goal to win the game? To stop him on the difference between it would be unconventioned of the ball because we have no timeout. So we've got like less than two minutes in the game. Someone's stripped the ball, they got

four downs. Yeah, there's a difference between that and trying to stop them so that you can get the ball back to your offense. Yes, the attitude is a bit different. Now, how much time was left If we were it was a minute hit the ball minute fifteen, it was a minute twenty four fifteen at the time of the interception. So and and by the way, and Bill, I understand

what you're saying, but again, it just occurred to me. Now, I didn't think of it at the time, right, But but again, the Cowboys had three timeouts, the Giants had the ball first and ten at the twenty with one fifteen left. How well did that turn out? Right? Exactly? You know? And stop it and I'm the key play on second in five? You know, Gallman tries to give the ball back to the Cowboys as hard as he could with the pouring down rain, and he sits on the ball and somehow it ends up on his stomach.

How did we not? Okay? Man? It's something about now, is that play? You have to have a mindset when you dive into the power. That must be a mindset when you dive in there and you see the ball. You don't just dive in there and not know what to do with your hands. You have to dive in there and encompass anything within your grass that's close to that ball. If I'm I think that was a you wood. If I go in there, I'm going to grab the ball and I'm sorry, but his balls as well, anything

that I can give my hands on around. Kid, you understand what I'm saying. You gotta be in there. You can't just be there laying on there. You gotta be in there grasping and everything. You should have been hurting that guy because you're like, oh, I'm sorry, man, wrong one. You know what I'm saying. I gotta get all I can get, and I just I don't. We just don't have any awareness. It's no way he should have been able to reach down and get that ball when I've

got two cowboys ascending on him from different directions. Just those key little things. I can't. You can't have a drill to teach someone how to get a ball out from other guys. But that's just up to you to awareness. But but tell me this, how was that play any different than how the deciding score happened in the first Philadelphia game. Down by contact, laying on the ground with the ball on the stomach and it gets ripped out. It wasn't a fumble that was returned for a touchdown.

It was down by contact. So that guy there was down by contact, even though he didn't end up with the ball exact same not the Cowboys stadium, Not the Cowboys stadium. No, No, I remember I remember that atmospas. You are so right, and one of the odds that there would actually be a camera angle that would show Gallman with the ball. It is the last one, the last one, because all the other ones didn't show anything. All the other ones showed, right, is him sitting on

top of the ball and the cowboys diving in there. Goodness, But you know it'swhere it's just it's just it's just sums up the season that they had. That's all I can say. But but but once again, once again, and then and I got to go back to it. I know we got break. But I love my man, Bill, me and you. That's our boy. But he is CD. He's gonna think about that. He's he feels like I felt back in nineteen eighty two January tenth. He remembers that think you feel worse. Darn rookies for a little higher,

darn rookies, Hey, white crowd. We continue with more mix shots. At the moment, Oh man, 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 Man cream Soda. Is he a new Combonut's music to my ears? Okay? Doctor at the time in a glass music to my ears and mouths new doctor pepper and cream soda delt's just do dear, it's nineteen oh eight. Don't you think we should get electricity and stop using

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do Moore Selre back back to mixed shots. We just want to make doubly sure you find out why this year's Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders making the team is the most competitive yet. Don't miss new episodes of season fifteen every Tuesday night. That's Tomorrow night at nine pm Central on CMT, Good Jobs Bays Ask the Fisher show of the season.

You finally get ready. That's good and we should point out along those lines that we will be back at you tomorrow Tuesday at eleven thirty, and all the podcast here on Dallas Cowboys dot Com will be at eleven thirty throughout the off season. The offseason starts tomorrow and and we will be every Tuesday at eleven thirty, right, Mickey, Yes, absolutely, And depending on my radio commitment, we might be able to go for an hour, all right, we do anyway.

We always going away anyway, so it's no difference. Yeah, that's right, that's right. To Chris's chagrin, that's right, all right. If you could sum up one aspect of this Cowboys team that affected things yesterday, what would it be? Position groups? Oh, it's it's obvious. The offensive line. It just it killed this team. It just destroyed everything that yesterday. The whole season,

the absolute whole season, you know. And everybody says, well, they weren't winning with Dak Prescott thrown for five or you know, gaining five hundred yards offense when he was planned, But at least they were two and three, and then two and three turned into two and seven, then turned into three and nine. And when you don't have Pro Bowl type offensive linemen out there for the entire season and your plan went backups to the backups, it's a

no win situation, you know what. It reminded me of that year, and it might have been two thousand and four, two thousand and five, guys, helped me out. When Bill Parcels started Rob Petiti at right tack for the entire season, he didn't even know. He didn't even know Petiti's first name. He used to call him this Petiti. That's how he referred to him, right dad or something. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. He started sixteen games. The next year, he didn't make

the team. He didn't make the team. And you've got two guys out there right now, and God bless them, they gave him everything they could, Terence Steele and Brandon Knight. One didn't have any NFL experience. The other guy had played two games and started one in his first year, and they started basically the entire season at tackle. If you can't if you can't block on the edge, you have no chance of winning. And you think Mike McCarthy, Oh year ago this week, Mike McCarthy was named head

coach of the Dallas Cowboys. If at the opening press conference someone told Mike McCarthy that you're going to play the bulk of this season without Tyring Smith, Lyle Collins, Zach Martin, and Travis Frederick, what do you think his answer would be? He would have said, I'm gonna go I'm gonna take that job with the Giants. He would have turned right back around. I'm going and handed back home. I'm going back to the bar. By the way, you

won't have an off season program. You're going to have to be on something called WebEx for your offseason program, and training camp is with no preseason games, no nothing. And you know what, Bill though, to me, as you posed a question, Uh, mine is not necessarily about the unit, any particular unit, and because we've got all the units had issues. But to me it was it was you know, I've always been inspired, you know, by an attitude, you know,

a mindset. You know, to me that that makes all the difference in the world, not just in any individual and in any field, but also with any group. You know, the mindset has to be clear from everyone in the locker room. And whether we had Dak Prescott or whether we had Andy Dalton, no matter whether we had uh, Mike McCarthy or whether we had Jason Garrett, the attitude here it has always been incomplete. You know, you've got one side that's doing good, you got another side that's

not doing well. You got another fashion of the game's not doing well. But to me, by the fact that we are not all in unison and as a mindset, that's what leads two compounding mistakes early in the ball game. That's what leads to being behind and always playing catch up with an extremely talented team. As much as Dak was throwing the yards there was sometimes he just had a brain for it, just like Andy Dalton did in

the game. These guys are better than that. And that's like I said, it's not one person, it's not one unit. To me, it's a mindset. We certain teams come out strong, that's their EMO. They come out strong, they come out ready to play. The Cowboys emo is not that they need to change their motorsoper end so that they can be a better team from beginning to end of the game.

Because what we saw, as Spac said, all we saw was just a Michael coosum of everything that went wrong, and guys we always hoping Pray got the fingers cost But when it's all said and done, the odds are that's what's gonna happen to your team in the last game. If that's what you show throughout your entire season, what do you have, Bill? So what's that? What do you have? What what what part uh mine was? Offensive line? You know what? This reminded me of and and and I

think I got the year right. It was either twenty eleven twenty twelve. It was a year before they drafted Travis Frederick to play center, so he might have been that might have been twenty twelve, maybe twenty thirteen, I can't remember. And that's when Jason Gart. Okay, so that's when Jason Garrett decided, you know, we got to rebuild

this offensive line. It's awful. And they started with Tyrn Smith right, and that helped out at the left, But the middle of that offensive line, I could remember one day he am telling me and he goes, and I don't want to disparage my guys up there that we're trying so hard. He goes, And it's one thing to get knocked back when you're pass blocking. He goes, we were getting knocked back in the middle of that line

when we were trying to run the ball. And I got offensive lineman two and three yards deep, and he goes, you can't win that way. If you can't if you can't play on the offensive line, you can't fake it, right. I remember Larry Lacewell once telling me, He goes, you know, if you don't have a quarterback and you don't have a decent offense, it's hard to fake it. He goes. Defensively,

I can fake things. I can try to do some weird things defensively to try to hold down the fort he goes, But if I don't have a quarterback that can win, if I don't have an offense that can score points, it's hard for me to fake it. And they tried to fake an offensive line this year with all that fancy gingerbread plays to the outside and sweeps and double passes. But at some point point, you gotta be able to run the ball straight ahead. You've got

to be able to protect the quarterback. And they couldn't do it all season long and finish the season giving up six sacks and letting your quarterback hit nine times and have nine tackles for losses. For the Giant's head, you can't win that way. And that's why you sat there with the nineteen points. And we'll get into it

starting tomorrow. But the Cowboys, as they assess things they got to figure out, are they at the same point with their offensive line now as they were in twenty eleven when Jason Garrett took over as a head coach. As far as making sure that they've got I mean, what's the shelf life of offensive lineman in this league? As far as injuries going everything. Tyrant Smith's still young, Zach Martin still young, Lyle Collins, but how much more

with the wear and tear in this league? What do they need to do to shore up that offensive line? And they started last year with Tyler Biadi. They might be a ser age biologically. Tyland Smith and some of these offensive linemen, they are much older. How much tread is on the tire? What it says in the program, Yeah, how much trade is on the tire? All right? We will continue at eleven thirty in the morning on Tuesday on mixed shots and ever since closes out like you

always do, Go Cowboys, there you go. This has been a production of Dallas Cowboys dot Com and the Dallas Cowboys Football Club.