Talkin' Cowboys: Drawing The Line

Studios at the Star in Frisco. Glad you're with us, Kyle Yeoman's, Isaiah stand Back, heck Ma Harrison and the great Rob Phillips as always and well boys, you know this last couple of days, this past weekend, the thing Giving holiday has taught me one thing, and that's to

appreciate what I have. And it's to appreciate and reflect and rest up a little bit after the weekend, because, uh, there was a bit of a beat down on Thursday that we kind of have to get to in terms of the Dallas Cowboys and one that I know that a lot of us kind of wanted to forget about as Cowboys fans. Ones that we one that we kind of wanted to shove to the side. Well, we're not gonna do that. We're gonna attack it straight at it.

We're gonna talk about the forty one to sixteen loss to the Washington football team coming up here in just a little bit. But first, let's let's start off on a positive note. Let's keep things positive because it's been a good weekend, Rob, how is your Thanksgiving? It was? It was good. I didn't I didn't leave the house. I got to catch up on dad duty for with the nine month old who's soon to be ten months old. So that was good. I was looking forward to that,

just just being a dad. Man. That was a lot of fun. That's awesome, Rob, or excuse me, Isaiah, Mi is good man. I got to sit down, you know, aside from you know, I did a little bit of work, but not too much, man, So it was it was. It was good time, spending time with the kids much in ea of time. And uh, the wife got a new vehicle, man, So everybody's happy. It's a good weekend. Balling. Isaiah always says it to us in a joking manner,

But you can't you can't hide money. Heck, mo, you just can't you can't using a statement against him, but you can't hide it. He was your thanks it's it's it's good. But when it comes down to Isaiah, it's rare air up there. That's because I'm taller than all, y'all. That's all. That's I'm taller than kind of true. True indeed, man, My my Thanksgiving was amazing. Man, it was good and for me and my family, we were we're self quarantine in ourselves. So it's the first time that we didn't

have Thanksgiving as you know, the big family gathering. My wife had to prepare all of the food and she did a wonderful job. So I'm sure wife Nicky cool points point. You've done all the Christmas decorations though, so yeah, he's already got the Christmas How about that. It's a little Grinch tree, the Charlie Brown tree is what we were calling you. Why are you gonna come? It's her one footer. You gotta get at Chris. It's not something to talk about. Okay, let's let me say this. Let

me say this though, can you say this? I gotta thank I gotta thank Derek Eagleton for helping me with my whole Yeah, Grinch then not wanting to decorate before Christmas, before Thanksgiving, and so yeah, there was a little Twitter back and forth with Derek and yeah, so I was able to go up in the attic and obviously we have the Christmas Wonderland already going. So yeah, well it's after Thanksgiving, so it's okay at this point, it's fine to do it now. Yeah, it's after Thanksgiving. But let's

let's talk about that Thanksgiving battle. Let's let's go back into this. And Rob, you were at the game, I want to kind of start with you on this one. But forty one to sixteen, the Cowboys give up twenty one unanswered points in the fourth quarter alone, and it seemed like the Cowboys had a lot of momentum. The last play of momentum swing was the Jalen Smith interception and then after that it really kind of went down the hill. But what did you see from that game

and how did the Cowboys let this one slip? Well? I saw two different entire league games. I saw one game before the fake punt, and I saw another team after the fake punt. You know, I thought, and we can get into those fourth down decisions. I'm sure we will but I thought up until that point, given everything that they have dealt with during the week, and I think also I want to and I know we all

want to send our condolences to Marcus Paul family. Um. You know, I know last time we were on the show, we you know, we were hoping for good news and just tragic that that the Cowboys strength and conditioning coordinator Marcus Paul passed away. And I think it was really hard for this team to get like emotionally ready for the game. Just the circumstances around that what happened is

really difficult. I thought they battled up until that point, and I thought after that decision, Dare just kind of went out of the balloon for the Cowboys and trying to to withstand everything they dealt with during the week. And then you lose Zack Martin and Cam Irving on the same opening drive an offensive line and your offensive line just continues to be just a mess, really and after after that play, you know that they they weren't the same team, and Washington just kind of finished it off.

So now we're in December and it's gonna be really interesting to see how they respond. Heck, month, you know, Rob said it, and I believe that when you say not the same team, and I want to say it this way, this is I've seen this happen twice, and I've seen it happen versus the same opponent. And the one was when Andy Dalton in DC took that dirty head by the linebacker Bostick. You could tell that mentally this team just packed up. They were already on the

bus and then the plane headed back to DFW. But after the fake punt, after the fake punt, it was like they packed up. This thing is it's a rap. Whatever we were playing for, whatever we thought we were in this four, let's go ahead mentally, and they checked out. I didn't, man, I was our right about it. I realized that there's a lot of analytics, probability and everything a risk assessment that goes into decision making and I may not be a prone to understanding a lot of that.

And no matter what you have going going to however you practice it, it's never a good ideal on your twenty four yard line and fourth and ten to do a double reverse pass too. I guess you know. The first read was the punter and then C J. Goodwin. Either way, all of those names don't equate to ceedee Lamb and sequel Elliott none, none of that. And so I guess the whole trickeration or whatever we were trying

to go for right there, it didn't succeed. And man, it just started to look like amateur hour after that. So when you're a brand new coach and I'm not when I say brand new, I mean like new to the new two organization, Yeah, yeah, new to a team, and especially coming off this all season that we had where they haven't had the opportunity to be with their coach every single day, build a relationship, build confidence, and

build a rapport. There's going to be there's gonna be a couple of plays during during the season worth you're gonna be tested as a coach, and there's gonna be a couple of opportunities, a couple of situations where you have an opportunity to instill confidence in your players, to instill that that rapport with your guys and say hey I got you. Um, this was a missed opportunity. This was what we're what we're all referring to right now,

what we're all talking about is exactly that moment. There was that was that moment where you're down by four points, your guys are battling. Your guys have shown you that they're willing to battle you. They've shown you that they're willing to overcome two guys. They're two starting offense alignment out the game in the same series. They overcame that in the first quarter, right, and these guys are now in the second half. They overcame that, they overcome the

Zeke fumble. But then you show that you don't have confidence in their ability to then go down and play some defense. You have a new punter on this team who's been kicking the crap out the ball, who's been changing the field of possession like crazy, and you don't trust him to change the field of possession. You don't change You don't trust your team to go out there

and continue playing tough defense. Um, you don't trust Zeke, your ninety million dollars running back to continue to top the ball the way in which you know he's capable of. After after seeing that he responded will following the fumble, right, he came back. He was running hard, These guys were blocking hard. And you go out there and you just totally show a lack of confidence to your team, and

that's the response that you received from your team. Those guys gave up on their coaches because their coaches gave up on them, Rob, Do you think that's something that is deeper stem to, like you talked about earlier, maybe the energy level. I mean, I definitely didn't see the same energy that was there in like the Pittsburgh game, or even a little bit earlier in that Philadelphia game

and throughout in Minnesota as well. But you think it was kind of the energy of what was a hard week, an emotional week, but also just the fact that the things just didn't go your way and things started the snowball. Yeah, I mean it's really it's hard for me to judge just kind of how the circumstances around the week because we're not around the players this season. I do know that, I do know that after the game, guy were definitely

emotional about Marcus Paul. I know it carried into to Friday, even talking to coach McCarthy and the assistance and he said, look, I didn't know how we were going to play, and that's think about it. I mean, really, they didn't practice until the day before the game, so um, just a just a terrible week, an odd week in terms of scheduling, I thought, and I know the team has gotten ripped the last few days, and just in terms of I mean,

it was a twenty five point loss. That was a misleading final score because I thought, given everything they were dealing with in the game, you lose your your starting tackles who were filling in for the starting tackles. You know, offensively, they struggled, but they were still able to hang around. I thought any Dalton played pretty well. And the thing about the fake punt is defensively the previous two drives you had the Jalen pick almost for a pick six

and then you got a three and out. So yes, they're you know, defense, they leaked some play, you know, once again, the rushing yardage, I get it. And a lot of what they did is what teams have had success against them, where they're testing your eyes and they're doing a lot of misdirection and motion pre snap, and so that was a problem. But man, with twelve minutes left, you're basically saying we're going to decide the game right here.

And that's that's what made it so surprising that And I thought John Fossil explained the rationale better than anybody. He said, Friday, you know, we looked at the time of possession. I think at the time it was like ten minutes difference in time of possession. Maybe they felt like the defense was just running out of gas and offensively it was tough to sustain drives and we just had to do something because we were just overmatched in

terms of the injuries at that point. So I get that, but you you put, like Isaiah said, I mean, you took it out of the player's hands, you know, with one decision where a lot had to go right to get a fourth and ten. I mean almost when you're thinking it out fourth and ten, it's almost like, could you just put the hands of it, put in the hands of Amari Cooper who really couldn't be covered for most of that game. Isaiah didn't think go for it. Heck no, I just p I appreciate what you said, man,

but that that absolutely made no sense. The the explanation from coach Fossil, I didn't. I didn't appreciate it. I felt like, you know, no matter how you time of possession, even when they did like in the second quarter, I'm trying to think specifically. They had a long drive. I believe it was like a six minute drive. They it still ended up in three points for the for the football team, your defense showed up. Those guys were playing, they were giving it everything. To that point, you were

still in the game. Even with some of the miscues on defense, even with some of the bad plays on offense, the team continued to respond, like Isaiah said, with fumbles, no matter what it was, to try and to win this game. I think that was the point that and we're going to talk about other points in this game, but I just felt like if you can go to one thing and circle it where the bottom completely fell out, that was it right there. Because the team after that

it was lifeless. There was nothing else that they could offer. But also going forward on your side of the field like that, you just kept giving the Washington football team short field, the short field advantage. And again, like you said, the final score is definitely misleading because they were in

it for three quarters. Well, in Heckman, you brought up Fossil's rebuttal to the call, and you talked about what he had to say, and then Mike McCarthy also came out and said, we were trying to go for a big play. It wasn't even like they were aiming for the first down for the ten yards. They were trying to go over the top and try and find a big time, game changing, momentum shifting sort of play. That, of course, was a high risk, high reward type of thing.

But Isaiah, do you give any credit to the coaching staff or at least trying something there or is it just all bad at that point because of the decision that was made. Not it's terrible, it's terrible play column. We've been seeing it all year. Um, Yeah, No, we've gotten lucky a couple of times this year. In regards to our special teams, I think we've we've talked extensively about our our aggressiveness in this particular reason. I think we've also talked about the lack of the lack of

element of surprise. Now with that unit. Once you once you've displayed that on film, you're as a punt return team, you're on high alert. You're you might have your part return team out there. But believing me, everybody's thinking safe, everybody's thinking it safe, nobody's coming. You won't see it for the entire year, and you haven't seen all year nobody coming for the punt. We're not. They're not. They're

not rushing to block the punt. They're playing safe defense and they're playing hold up is what we called it. We play hold up. You come off the ball, you grab your guy and you start you start walling him off in the direction that you're supposed to according to the play. And your eyes are always on the punter in the in the long snapper, I mean the punter, and the up back, the personal protector, to ensure that

they're not running a fake. Nobody's being caught off by not being caught off guard anymore, it's not something that happens. And also when you make these decisions, okay, as a head coach, when you make these decisions, you have to make sure that if things go alway, if things go all the way wrong like they did on that play, what position am I putting my team in to still be successful to come out with the victory in this

ball game. You're making yourself go into a two possession game at that point in time with what a quarter, not even a whole quarter left' that's you can't do it. So worst case scenario, Okay, they get you know, maybe they get three points. Maybe worst case scenario, you know, and we're still in a one possession game. But no, not when you're backed up like you are, you're making you're giving them the game at that point in time. So there's zero chance, zero reason why they should have

made that call. And again, as a player, as a former player, when you see your coaches make decisions like that, it's like, man, what the heck am I even doing? Like for what? Yeah, And the thing about it is, it's like, you know, John Fossil talked about they they liked the look they got free snap and the actually he said his only regret was was was not doing it the first time. I think it was a quarter before that because post snap it would have been a

touchdown based on the way Washington reacted. But to Isaiah's point, like, it's not just this year, it's John Fossil's reputation, teams are, teams are ready, they are on high, high alert, and it's once you reach deep enough in the bag, eventually a team's gonna be ready. And post snap, when they did run it, Washington's I believe it was their line one of their linebackers stayed home. On nice wander on CJ.

Goodwin down the field. And remember I mean CJ. Goodwin did complete he and et Ceterric Wilson did complete that pass a couple of weeks back against Pittsburgh. So no teams are gonna be ready. I like respectfully, I speak respectfully about it just because I'm not. I don't do the hours of prep they do to try to pull off something like that, but it just did. It was the ultimate amnium. I don't come at the end of the day. Rob, Rob Rob No, I love you, Rob.

Don't don't don't back. Don't you take your foot off in the battle. My opinion of it, no question about it. On coach Yeah, On Coach Fossil, listen up, let me make this very clear. As a special team's coordinator, your job is to make sure that you try everything, everything that possibly could be successful, so that I don't I don't have any issue with coach Fossil. I have zero.

I have zero issues with Coach Fossil. You're supposed to throw stuff at me if your offensive coordinator, you're supposed to say, I got this play right here. I think it's a work you're supposed to pitch those things for me. But as a head coach, that's why you're the head coach. As a head coach, your job is to make sure that your team is in the best position to be successful, and everything comes through your Everything comes through your headset.

When a special team's coach wants to run a fake punt, he has to come through you. He comes to the head coach and he says, hey, this is what I'm thinking. What do you think. Coach McCarthy said, yeah, let's do that. That's terrible by coach McCarthy, not by coach Fossil. Coach Fossil is doing he's supposed to do, which is be creative and trying to find ways to spark, to spark some energy and get some some positive plays. He's not supposed to just be out there just just to block

and punt the ball. That's not his job. His job is to create something. So that's not his fault. Coach McCarthy. He needs to take ownership for this, and he won't get these guys to ever buy into him unless he comes out and says, you know what bad call? Yeah, I mean, you know, And the other thing about it too is it was fourth and ten, but by the time, by the time Cedric Wilson was in position to try to throw the ball, it was more like fourth and twenty. Yep.

I mean you're just so much yeah to pull that off, and you're talking about a punter trying to catch the ball and run with it or c J. Goodwin way down the field. It just seemed high risk and very low chance of a very high chance of something going wrong in a situation like that. Uh, the fourth down earlier in the game, I didn't. I had less problem with it. I'm more conservative in situations like that, whether you punt or whether you just handed off to Zeke.

And actually, Kellen Moore said Friday, Look, it's basically said, it's fair to second guess what we did. Yeah, they liked the matchup on the outside, that didn't work, But we're talking about fourth and inches compared to fourth and ten. That that just that'd be fuddled everybody, everybody, I think

across the country. And they both led the thing to go for an Yeah, but I was gonna say, but just to my point, those are all plays that community you're communicating every time you make a play call as a coach, you're communicating something nonverbally to your team, right, You're every single time, every decision that you make, whenever you're faced with these with these situational play calls, your team is looking at you to say, let me see what coach is gonna do? All right, let me see

what coach is gonna do fourth and inches. Is he going to turn around and give it to Zeke and show him that guess what we gave you ninety million dollars because we believe in you. Or is he going to try to throw the ball outside with his backup quarterback to a receiver who has man on man in press coverage. Which one? What is he gonna do? Right? So again, you lost confidence there. You go out there, you run these fake punch You lost confidence of your

d fans. Who's there to believe in you? Why? Why? Why? Why should they believe in you if they're going out there and they're busting their butt every single play, fighting through at virsversity, fighting to overcome these hurdles within the game that everybody else feel like they should have tanked on but they didn't. And then you go out there and you take their ability to win the game from underneath them. That's what you did. You literally took the

ability for them to win from underneath them. They were in a four point game, a one possession game. It's us terrible, man. Yeah, it's not good. And believe it or not, there were other parts of this game that happened that led to the loss for the Dallas Cowboys. So we are going to take a break. When we come back, we're going to discuss was this the worst game of Ezekiel Elliott's career. I think it was. I'll tell you why when we return here on Talking Cowboys.

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do more. Thank you, Isaiah, stand back for backing up. He's like he's all got back. You're like a background singing like on these reads. That's that's what I would equate to it. Hey, I'll be your backing up. I got you kind of about it. Man, you're the best. Hey hey, hey, hey, as as we all know this is your show, you know what I'm saying. You know, because we all got kicked off the show. We all know. We all know that is Isaiah. That's one thing that's

clear about this show is Kyle's show. Yeah, what was that line? What was that line during the during the shuffle where he was like, I don't have to change because yeah, because I'm well. They asked me the question, you said, why you get to stay and why do we have to go? And that was the answer because Darren kept the host on their shows and so I was the host. So I stay, that's not what you said. That's not what you said. That's not what you said. I don't believe that it was. It was I'll get

I'll give Isaiah pas Kyle. This is a circle of trust, circle of trust. Oh, I'm outside the circle of trust. I'm out. I'm outside the trust tree. Now that kind of makes me sad. I got, man, that's gonna take a while. That's gonna take a while. I'll have to bring backup dance, Isaiah. I am all heard that. God. Oh hey, you brought the You brought the smoked mac and cheese this past weekend though, and that was fire. So for the Thanksgiving game, Isaiah brought an entire pots

pan thing of smoked mac and cheese. Oh my gosh, it was yeah, brilliant, and the pounds about right. Oh my god, it's a pound cake. That's not a joke. Yeah, and he brought some fire pound cake too. It was some of the best pass Yeah. Shot out the Mama D. Shout out the Mama D from my facility. Stiffast performer. She went out there and held it down for us. She kicked. But thank you for the poundcake. She'd made that specifically for y'all. That was That was so maybe

next year for me? And hey, yeah, yeah, I don't know. I don't know Rob, I don't know Rob. I'm just here once you're back in the hunt. Yeah, how about that? So I teased this going into the break talking about Ezekiel Elliott, and he ended up with ten carries, thirty two yards and a fumble. That's the lowest yardage in any game of his career where he has also lost a fumble. It's the second lowest amount of yardage he's

ever had in the game. The only other time he was underneath thirty yards was in twenty seventeen on the road against Denver at Mile High Stadium. That was also a game where the Cowboys lost by twenty five points, but that one was forty two to seventeen. This one was forty one to sixteen. So my question to you, and we're gonna start with Hekma on this one, but

was this Zeke's worst game of his career? Seeming that he had a fumble, he lost the fumble and then also only ended up with thirty two yards on ten carries in a game where you really needed him to shine. Yeah, I think that the fumble was just a cherry on top flour. How bad the game was for Zeke and the last couple of games that he's had versus the

football team haven't been you know, glowing games. But you know, if you can, he has built in excuse if you want to talk about the offensive line and losing both of your tackles and the ability for this offense not to sustain any rhythm, and also the Washington football team and those long drawn out drives that may have frozen this offense. But it was bad. I mean, it's enough

blame to go around for guys. But offensively, we couldn't get anything going because man, the football team's defense, their front seven was just I mean, it was rockham socka robot. Yeah, And the thing about it is, as Cowboy Nation, we just gotta get ready for this matchup between the football team because they're really good up front, and they're gonna be They have a bunch of young guys. And I know you're asking about Zeke right now, but I gotta say this, man, this kid McLaurin, as soon as he

can find a quarterback, he's gonna be a problem. He's gonna be a big old problem. What's what's crazy about that is he's their only deep threat right now. So if they add another deep threat and they shore some things up offensively, they're gonna be yeah, because the defensive is not line's not going anywhere, no pain, all of those pains Montest sweat. I mean, what an athletic play that he made. But this's just Terence still whipping on the block. He absolutely didn't know who he was going

with or four at that point. So, um, you know, Zeke is just all of these things are just a byproduct of the fact that our offensive line is not any good when we don't have Zach Martin on him. Is zam Yeah. I can't speak to his to his whole career, I could speak to this game, and I honestly think Zeke was running pretty darg on heart. Man. I know everybody's being hard on him right now. And

I know he lost a fumble. Whenever somebody loses a fumble, I always look to see how they respond, what kind of energy that has come back with, a kind of vision does he come back with, does he have patience? And I thought that I thought Zeke was running hard. Obviously he had some the old line was struggling with the with the defensive line defensive friend of Washington, like they what we expected. But overall, I don't think Zeke

was running bad man. I think it's hard for guys to get their legs underneath them when they want to get in the ball ten times. I don't know. I mean, I don't you take any starting running back and you give him ten carries. I don't know what you expect the production to be. I just I just really don't um. So, I think Zeke was actually doing okay. I wish they would have gave him the ball more and then we would have really been able to see what he can do.

But I thought his vision was good. I thought his patience was really good on some runs. I thought he hit it up in their hard Sometimes they put him in there at fullback on one play when it was I think it's fourth and one or something at third and one. Um, you know, they put Poller that running back to put him at fullback and he I think he snuck out like eight yards on a quick little dive route. I thought he was doing well. So that's that's my that's my that's my take. I don't think

he was the worst game of his career. I think the worst game of his career was a few weeks back against Arizona at two loss fumbles that led to two touchdown, fourteen nothing Cardinals lead, and the game was over at that point. And that's the week after Dak gets hurt and you're looking to Zeke to spark the team and lead the team, and that was the result, and that that to me, was his worst game. I'm more so. I'm more so with Isaiah on this. Like I it's not been a good season for Zeke by

his standards. I don't think there's any question about that. His yards are down, his carry numbers are down for different reasons. The fumbles are a career high. But it's hard to evaluate. I know, I know he's paid to be special despite the circumstances around him, but it is really hard to evaluate this running game this year based on the deficits they've had, based on the offensive line combinations that have been in and out. It sounds like excuses,

but it's just a fact. And I just pets. The pass attempts, yeah, I mean they what they I think they had eighteen carries in the game and it was a close game, and so but I just think maybe Kellen More just felt like, look, we can't get it established against this front with the line that we currently have in this ball game right now. But here's here's

the fact. I mean, this is gonna be your offensive line, barring more injury, for the rest of maybe the rest of the season, at least the next couple of weeks, because it sounds like Zach and cam Irber are gonna be out for for multiple weeks, is what Mike McCarthy said. Yep, Zach's yeah, that's what That's what we're doing. Man. We're data mining for bad and it's just we can only go off of what we're seeing, and it it looks bad every week, and so it's it's the fumbles for me,

and I just want that is my pet peeve. That is one thing I do not like is a running back that fumbles the ball, and no matter how you come back from that, and especially if you don't have a guy dragging on you, poking at it. And it's just I mean they replayed it. It didn't look like how did that ball come out? I don't know. But again, ten Russian's thirty two yards a fumble. Yeah, it's a bad showing for from a running back that you're paying

those kinds of dollars too. And again, if it's if it's everything that he's gonna do for the rest of the season, it's going to be contingent on having an offensive line. Let's just say we don't have one, so that we can just go ahead and get ourselves mentally prepared for what his production is gonna be over the next of the over the last half of the season. Yeah, you still have to run the ball. You still got to run the ball, man, I mean, of course, I mean,

there's no you can't reinstill confidence. I don't give a dog on how much somebody's getting paid. You're still a human being. You still run off a confidence. Right, Either I'm confident holding the ball, holding onto the ball and tolding this thing, or I'm not right. And if you don't, if you don't allow for me to get my feet underneath me, if you don't give me the attempts to get myself out of this rut, how do you expect

me to ever get out of this rut? Right? The facts of the matter are Zick needs to protect the ball. Facts that Also. The other fact of the matter is Kelling Moore doesn't like running the ball. He doesn't like running at all. He doesn't like it. He's a pastor guy. He wants to show off what he could do in a passing game. So you're battling those two things right now. And unfortunately, Kelly Moore doesn't run enough and doesn't run often enough to allow Zeke to get himself back going,

to get himself going again. Obviously, you can talk about the office of line, We could talk about you know, all these other aspects, right, but at the end of the day, your team revolves around the run. I don't care what office coordinator you have in there. I don't care what you have going on at the receiver position you have Zeke, you have a office line that's beat up. They will figure it out. They will figure it out. Give him the ball. Let him get his feet going, man,

because that's where your energy comes from. You've never seen this fourth and inches? Ye, fourth and one. You don't turn around in hand twenty one the ball? Yeah, I mean that's what are you telling him? But what are you telling him when you do that? Maybe we're saying this, maybe we're saying the same thing different, but I'm just saying. I'm just saying that when you look at it from from a team perspective, you know, he's not even a viable option. And when he is, there's a probability that

there may be a fumble involved. He's leading the league in fumbles, right, And is that a byproduct of our offensive line or is that him? Right? And And so that's that's That's what I'm asking, Isaiah. I mean, so so when when I when I hear that question, I think back to like Brett Farve, Brett Fireft interceptions left or right. But you're he's still Brett Farve, you know

what I'm saying. Like he's still Brett far If he's still gonna he's still gonna make some plays for you, and that you take that risk with it, right, You take that risk with it. But you know he's still a dog. Right, So when you're talking about when we talk about this leadership and a lack there of leadership on his team, now Zach Martin goes out boom, He's gone, right, who are you turning to? Who's your leader on that

side of the ball. I know we're all going to say, Zeke, Right, So if twenty one's your leader and you go fourth in inches and you don't give the ball to your leader when any other coach would, what are you communicating to him? And what are you communicating to his role

on this team? Now, I will say, and I've thought this before forehand as well, and I've definitely been guilty of this, But I also don't like talking about quote unquote leaders and using that term leader so loosely because of the fact that we're not in that locker room. We don't know how the coaching staff's relationships are with players. We can only see what we see from the outside looking in. So maybe Zeke's not the leader that we think he is in terms of from an outside perspective.

I know that's kind of a stretch, but I'm just saying overall, we don't know. We're not in that relationship. We're not in those friendships, those meetings, etc. Etc. But I will say, and kind of going back to a point Isaiah said a little bit earlier, was the fact that Zeke asked for that contract, And a big reason why he asked for that contract, the one that he has right now, is because he saw Kellen Moore ahead of him. He saw the fact that Kellen Moore is

a pass happy, air raid sort of offensive coordinator. So the running game might have been at stake and the numbers that he had had previously as a running back might have been at steak, which is one of the reasons he wanted to get paid. But with that being said, I and heck, but hit this too. Offensive lines don't cause fumbles. You still pay this guy to be elite and to hold on to the football and be that bellcal But he hasn't been that all year long, even

with the offensive line issues. Isaiah, Hey, it happens. Nobody likes that it happens. It turns and guys, yes, it happens six times. You guys, guys getting a ret It's not something that you like. It's not you guys. Think of something that he's not trying to correct or, You think it's not something that's on his mind every time he touches the ball. Now, it's not something he's trying to do, right, Just like quarterbacks going on these interceptions tyrants.

You think Tom Brady likes throwing interceptions right now? No, but he's throwing them right. So I mean, like like like people get into little rets and you have to get yourself. You have to get yourself out of this rep but you have to be given the opportunity to do so. And you know, when I start talking about what are you communicating to your team? And some people might think that, oh, you're looking too deep into it. Trust me, this is coming from somebody who's been in

playing the locker rooms. It matters, right. Think about the Seattle Seahawks when they decided not to get Marshawn the ball? What happened to that team? What did that communicate to the team? It can it communicated directly to Marshawn You're not our dude. Russell's are dude. That's exactly what That's it. Russell Wilson's are dude. You're not our dude. Forget what

you've done for us so far. We know that you probably could have made the play, but we're gonna go with him anyway, just because we're leaning that way, right, so it's a lot deeper man. And then that everything blew up. You know, you lost. You lost on a bunch of guys after that that were a part of that program that did no longer believed in coach Carroll

because of that decision that he allowed. But the thing about it is, prior to this last game, they did get back to basically yeah, and they were more competitive scept that is because the defense has been more competitive, gives your offense a chance to do it. That's why I was surprised they didn't at least try to stick with it a little more in the second half against Washington, because you're talking about a one score game. It just

they didn't. They didn't stick with it. And but I Isaiah's right, like, they've still got to find a way to try to run because I don't think you can put it all in on any Dalton these last five games. I just wonder how proficient they can be a doing at that, because there was no There's no question when Zach came back from the concussion, there was a difference in the running game, and now he's out for who knows,

at least a couple of weeks. I completely agree, and I'm saying to you the running the ball is the alphabet super. Is this the alphabet super football? Right? You gotta run the ball. It balances everything. You saw what it did versus Minnesota. It made everything right like rain. We said, you know, the office, the play calling from Kellen Moore, it almost looked subdued because we were seeing just normal football. But that's not what when when the

when the running game shuts down, they have nothing. There's it's a free for off of what you're gonna call. You get double reverses. You got a fourth and one when you try and isolate Ceedee Lamb instead of just turning around and handed the ball to Zeke and getting the first down. And a guy who has as or who just came off of concussion protocol, you're willing to run his head up in there to get a first down.

And Andy Dalton played brilliant with getting with his legs and a lot of times those first downs that he picked up. I mean all of you were probably like, come on, Andy, get down, but that's him being brave and still just trying to pick up something in the running game. Our offensive line is as bad as it gets without Zack Martin on it and Cam Irvin obviously on it. So how do we continue this? Okay, we're just gonna run into this brick wall. We're trying to

get our offense started when it's not there. You saw it against Washington, Man. We could get nothing going against this team period. The coaching, the coach's calls, let you know that they felt the same way that they saw it. We can't do anything with this team. So let's do ask your question. Let me ask you a question. What was our what was our rushing average? Since we're such such an analytical team now because of our punts and

we're looking at the analytics, what's what was our rushing average? Right? I know, three point three so there's three point three yards? Give you a give you an inch, yes, yes, okay, guys, wondering, just wondering, just hands wondering, just wander like, come on, man, like, come on, dude, like it's so much deeper. It's so much deeper than just a play call. And I hope everybody truly understands that what is it is? It is blatant delivery messages communication to your team. You're talking to

your team without talking to your team. And right now, none of these guys on this side of the ball have a reason to believe anything these coaches are saying anything. If you if you think that your defense is not watching a fourth and inches play intently, if you don't think that they're on the sideline over there looking like, are we running there? Are we throwing? Oh? These casts

through the ball, they're watching. They're watching right when you go out there and you let your old line come off, you say, hey, we're giving you guys the ball. We're coming right behind you. We're coming right behind you, whatever number you are, We're coming right behind your butt. You're gonna fire off, or you're gonna go ahead. We're gonna throw this thing around. That's whack. So following the fumble,

there were four carries for Ezekiel Elliott. The first one was seventeen yards and that was the one that I know, Isaiah you were referring to in the moment as, Oh, he's coming out and throwing some energy into it. We'll take that one away because there was a penalty on Dalton Schultz and it was holding and it actually backed him up ten yards. So after the fumble there were three official carries for Ezekiel Elliott the rest of the game.

There was an eight yard run, a minus two yard run following the interception to Jalen Smith, and then he ran for three yards at some point in the middle of the fourth quarter. That was it. That was all that Zeke saul for the remainder of the football game against Washington after he fumbled it. So there's plenty to talk about whenever it comes to the running game, the play calling, and Ezekiel Elliott. When we come back, I want to hit the defensive side of the football. We

talked about them playing well. We only got a little bit of time, so we're gonna hit it as quickly as we can. When we were turning here on Talking Cowboys, We're back in a tasty treat that's sweeping airwaves and taste buds. New Doctor Pepper and Cream Soda. Let's take a listen, Doctor Pepper and Cream Soda. Is he a new combo? Let's music to my ears? Okay, Doctor Pepper time a music to my ears and mouth. New Doctor

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five G, fast, reliable, secure and nationwide. Switch to AT and T five G. It's not complicated. Five G requires compatible plant may not be in your area. See att dot com slash five G for you for details. To talk in cowboys, no matter how you're listening to talking cowboys here on this beautiful Monday after Thanksgiving, it's not gonna be quite the same unless you're listening with bows Quiet Comfort earbuds. You can definitely listen. Heat's got the headphones.

I realized this the other day. You're you're showing off the headphones. We're talking about bows, quiet talk about I'm just showing the bows. Hustle man happen. I'll let the I'll let the hustle happen. I like it. I like it. But bows Quiet Comfort earbuds are the official earbuds of the Dallas Cowboys. Wanted to shout out bows before we close things out. One question for you here in this final segment, and this is gonna sound kind of interesting.

I'm gonna I'm gonna phrase this in a way that I want to phrase it, and it's gonna be fun. And Isaiah, we're gonna start with you. Did the defense play well on Sunday or on Thursday? That's that's my question. Did they play well? Yes? Or no? Because I don't know. I can't through one through four play Did they play well one through four not? I'm putting it all together. It's all one game, So damn it, man, I'm gonna say yes before the coaches show lacker of a confidence. Yes,

Why you can't just say yes? And then you gotta at least get me so you said it was no question. I know you have to. It's a podcast. I think I think the guys were playing well. I think the guys were playing well. I think again, they're trying to reinstill their confidence. Um, they weren't doing anything that was that completely terrible until they had the meltdown. And as soon as soon as the meltdown happened, guys were like,

I don't care. That's honestly what happens. I mean, guys get to the point where they just like, man, whatever, dude, these coaches are tripping, And that's what happened. So up until that point, I thought they were they were fighting right the answers, I'm gonna say no and nope, And because you got a forty burger put on you and all the way up until that point, you still have an opportunity to stop them and you couldn't. So that ism I like that I got. I mean, I'm with

I'm with Isaiah in terms of everything. No, everything, No, I'm with I'm with everybody. I'm with everybody because I think you I don't think you can evaluate this game without mentioning the fake punt. The fake punt changed everything. However, if we are judging it off of an entire game, No, they didn't play well. Now up until that point, they allowed twenty points and they were still in the game. However, start to finish, No, still having trouble stopping the run.

You know, I it earlier like Terry McLaurin is their only deep threat. I think they had other than McLaurin. Scary Terry. They had two wide receivers for two catches for twenty three yards. You're getting beat by running backs and tight ends in the passing game and just just trying to dink and dunk like yeah, I mean that you ought to be able to do more against that because that their passing the attack is not what it should be this year, and they still couldn't stop it. So, no,

they didn't play well overall. They are they better than they were a month ago. Yes, they still are better, but no, but not good enough. Thursday, I would agree. I think there's still a lot of things to grow on from a defensive standpoint. I thought your defensive line got you a little bit of a push Randy Gregory. I mean, how about the game that Gregory had, and

that's something that I know you can build upon. I thought Alden Smith was decent and run defense, and he didn't necessarily have the pass rush that you want to see, but he was good as well. I think that defensive line played well, so you have stuff to build on, but that defense still has a lot of holes that you have to fix whenever it comes to stopping the run, slowing down tight ends, and then of course the deep

threat like we saw with Terry McLaurin. Now we'll be back tomorrow, Hopefully tomorrow will know more about what's going to happen this week in terms of the Cowboys and the Ravens. Still lots of unfolding there. We're gonna hit it tomorrow, but it is fans on the fifties, so bring your fan questions. We're gonna continue looking back at the Washington Dallas game, but also look ahead a little bit to the Baltimore Evens coming up on what is now at this point scheduled for a Monday night game,

are really a Monday afternoon game. So we'll hit that tomorrow when we come back here on Talking Cowboys. But for today, for Chris Beam in the back, for heck Ma Harrison, Rob Phillips, and the great Isaiah stand Back. I'm Kyle Yeoman. Thanks for listening. We'll see you tomorrow here from the Star in Frisco. This has been a production of Dallas Cowboys dot Com and the Dallas Cowboys Football Club.