Talkin' Cowboys: George Chahrouri 1-on-1

promise you you should. And they are standing at the finish line waving the flag on their competition. And this guy is amazing. He's a jose A degree from Loyola merrimonth In mat Madox, a former teacher and now currently the chief revenue Officer, data scientist and co host of PF Forecast. This guy's a genius. He's gonna play humble and deny it. However, the one thing that he cannot deny is that he has the best hairline and all of analytics. Man, my guy, mister George Jory, how are

you saying? I don't know how I'm gonna ever talk that intro that was the nicest thing that just about anyone's ever said about me. But man, I appreciate. I'm excited to talk Cowboys, to talk to football, and everything you said about PFF I think is true, and I'm I'm happy and excited and thankful to be on a great team with a lot of people around me that are honestly doing some really cool and awesome stuff. So it should be a lot of fun. Man, I'm looking

forward to talking to you. Oh good, George. Man, Well, listen. One of the things I gotta tell you, I'm a big fan of you guys. You and Eric, you guys are it's ere Gas mcgold listening to you guys. I get a lot of my facts from you and Eric, and I don't know how you maintain a straight face with that guy, because I'm telling you here is hilarious.

But look, one of the things that I've been doing, and I've argued about this part in the segment because I think it's very important, man, But if you could tell me, give me your quarantine chronicles, give me the cliff notes to what it's been like dealing with COVID nineteen. Man, First off, I would say, Man, I I thank God above for the fact that I still have a job

and my health. So that part has been fantastic, And I don't know what's been harder, keeping a straight face when Eric makes some sarcastic comment that like two people in the world will get, or the fact that I am without a gym, which has honestly been one of the hardest parts of the whole quarantine. I've been quarantining here in DC. I live in since Stan that's where pfact is. But my girlfriend works and lives in DC see and can't really pick where she's going to be

because of her job. So I have been annoying her to no end in her small little studio without a gym, and so I've been doing all kinds of weird body weight workouts in this small, like tiny, cramped space. And so that's been a huge part of my quarantine. In addition to look, every night you sit there and you go, you know, I don't have to I don't have to go anywhere tomorrow. Maybe one glass of tequila or a glass of wine won't kill me. So that's basically been

my quarantine wrapped into one man. Listen, I feel you in the quarantine. Fifteen is for real, and I'm a sufferer fifteen myself. I mean, look times like these Knat chocolate chip cookies. Okay, so let's be real about it, or another shop tequila, whichever you prefer. You're so spot on. I feel like everyone when the quarantine started, and I was one of these people, was like, Okay, I have all this opportunity ahead of me. I'm going to learn

a new language. I'm gonna read three books that I'd never have gotten to read, and I'm gonna get in great shape. And then all of a sudden it was like, oh, wait, no, that's not gonna happen. I'm gonna be lazy. I'm gonna watch some show that I've already watched three times, and when it comes to ordering ice cream, I'll probably get four point four pints instead of three, because why not, George, I feel you man, Listen, let's get down to it.

And the one thing that I am so fascinated about the PF, and I am a pinging subscriber to PF. I love you guys in by the way, yeah, of course, of course listen. And the other thing is you and Eric have got to mention me as a friend of the show. Boy. I'll talk about that later, all right.

But the thing about PFF that I find so fascinating is, you know, the vision of Neil Hornsby that started in twenty seventeen or two thousand and four, and with Chris collins Worth the partnership and taking this thing to the next level. What you guys have brought to foot and your motto of judging every player, every play, every game has added a completely new dimension to evaluating football. Like for guys like Will McClay, Senior vice president of Player Personnel,

this is invaluable. And you see coaches endorsing PFF. You see you know in the NC double A endorsing PF. How have you guys been able to capture this large market in such a short period of time, you know? And you mentioned Neil, and Neil had a hobby honestly that he was super passionate about it. And I feel like that's something that you always hear in stories where there's a success at the end, is someone's just really

passionate about something. And I don't know anyone that loves football more than that crazy englishman Neil Hornsby, who if you've ever heard his accent is startling, as as is his football knowledge. And Chris tells a great story about the first time that he ever talked to Neil. He had heard about I think after the Giants won their first Super Bowl and a super Bowl and mentioned PF I think it was actually maybe their second one, and had mentioned PF because they've been using it. And he

calls up Neil and he tells the story. He goes, I thought I'd dialed the wrong number because when I heard him say hello, I was like, this can't be it. Some Brits gonna tell me about football, and he says, you know, within ten minutes, he goes, this guy knows more about football than I do. And it's a testament to what analyzing every player on every play and every game can do, and also being humble about it, saying, look, I'm not going to let my preconceived notions or beliefs

about a player draw me in any direction. I'm going to be brutally honest with how they've performed on that play and in that game and in that season. And I think it's helped, you know, it's obviously helped our company a ton that Chris has invested, and you know, it's such a hands on I talked to Chris more than just about anyone. He has a wealth of knowledge,

obvious slee but he leverages PF. He really cares so much about when he's calling a game, being right and being accurate and doing a service to the game that we're watching the best game of the week. Um. And I hear the impact of PF in basically every game that he calls, if not every play. UM. And it's it all comes down to passion, you know. Neil is passionate about it. Chris is passionate about um, you know,

calling the game of football. And I'd like to think that myself and all the people that work um, you know, kind of under the cover of darkness in Cincinnati, we all love football too. And so it makes grinding those extra few hours, whether it be coding something up or watching, you know, an extra few games of film, makes it easy. So I appreciate all the kind things you said. We're gonna we're gonna hook you up. Though you have been very kind. We might even have to get you on

the forecast. I don't know how you feel about that, man, I feel real good about it. But listen, I got to ask, well, no, I have to ask this question. And you know, if you watch Sunday Night Football, Chris Collinsworth,

it's shameless plug for PF every Sunday night. You know he's saying something about a PFF stat But the thing that I find very remarkable is the fact that coach like coach Mike McCarthy, and you know, the year before before he received the job as the Cowboys coach, he's that was one of the things that he delved into.

He talked to Peter Peter King about that in an in an interview, saying that how valuable Pro Football focus was to him revamping his strategy as a coach and optimizing his play calling, everything from that to grading players. And like I said, for you guys, as an organization, coaches swear by you. How did you earn that trust

so quickly? Well, one of the things that Chris does every single week, and this is a part of the production of Sunday Night Football, is but he talked to every coach and I mean the Packers were on a few Sunday night games in their day, so you know he's talked to Mike McCarthy plenty of times. And that's how they prepare, and so coaches have become familiar with

us in really two ways. Their departments, whether it be analytics or scouting, or their coaches are leveraging it on a daily basis to help prepare for games, to evaluate players, you know, just to watch film more efficiently. And then on the other side of things, they see, okay, well, you know, people calling the games and you're you're right about this are using it to talk about the game more eloquently, and so coaches have become very familiar with it.

And Mike McCarthy, who I had the pleasure of sitting down with and talking to for about an hour when he came to Cincinnati. You know, they're able to let their hair down and just be like, Hey, I'm going to come here and I'm going to talk football, and I might learn a few things. I might push back on a few. We learned so much. I think it's always fun to talk about how much you teach other people.

But I've learned a ton from listening to, you know, the different coaches we talked to at the combine as well, and I am excited to see what this Dallas Cowboys team can be because Mike McCarthy did a lot of things that were innovative. I mean everyone thinks about that end with Aaron Rodgers, and it was ugly. I mean I talked to some people that were questioning whether Rogers was realistically kind of throwing them under the bus with some of his play. So that's about as ugly as

it gets. But before that, there was this offensive explosion that Green Bay had. I mean, they had a great quarterback play. Obviously they had great receivers, but that was one of the best offenses year in and year out. And now in Dallas, he's got a nucleus that honestly is not that dissimilar. I mean, they've got three stud wide receivers that you're excited to watch, they have a

great offensive line, they have a quarterback look. Dak Prescott is not Aaron Rodgers from the talent perspective, but he's pretty darn good. And if he brings some of these new efficiencies that he is fine tuning with, whether it be situational play calling, whether it be going forward on fourth down things that he has, you know, maybe he'll admit in some situations has messed up on in the

past that could make for a really exciting season. So um, you know, not not to get too carried away with it, but I am really the Cowboys are one of the teams that I'm most interested in seeing this season. God willingly have one. Yeah, we're gonna have one. Man, We're gonna have Well, I'm just claiming it right now. But you you kind of segue into something that I really want to talk about, and that's Dak Prescott. And you know, Pro Football Focus has a very interesting perspective on how

you guys grade quarterbacks. I mean from formation to empty you know, to no pressure or two pressure, things like that. And when you look at Dak's grade from his first year all the way through the fourth year, pretty much average. He's about high seventies, but first year in the eighties, fourth year in the eighties as well, and that's indicative

of all the yards that he's had. Looking at the lack of an extension and Dak playing under the franchise tag, and the thing that's alarming about it is historically franchise quarterbacks have never had to play under the franchise tag. Were you and it's too I guess there's questions two sided? Were you surprised that Dak didn't receive an extension based off of those numbers, And what do you believe Dak Prescott has to do to be considered amongst that upper

echelon of quarterbacks in the NFL. Great question. I was surprised. I guess I'm less surprised this year than I was surprised that he wasn't one of the first players they went to lock up. And you know, I think sometimes you are faced with a ton of different situations, and obviously the Cowboys were, and you kind of, you know, you maybe lose track of which one is really the

most important. If I looked at all those players that the Cowboys had to lock up, Dak was one with a bullet Because it doesn't matter who your stud receiver is, it doesn't matter who your running back is, doesn't matter who your edge defender, your best edge defender is if you can't have a quarterback throwing the ball accurately and

making plays. So I thought that following looking just at the Philadelphia Eagles what they did with Carson Wentz, which I thought was a really shrewd move, which is to say, look, I know, the price for quarterback play maybe the hardest to fined skill in the world is only going up. I mean, it's only there's no way that it's going down, and so locking a guy up early would make sense.

So after they decided, you know, they're not going to do that, it then made me less surprised this year that they couldn't come to an agreement because clearly the Cowboys had a view of Dak press Scot that he was not as valuable as Dak thought he was. And if you look at what the Frank Guise tag gives him this year, which is about thirty two million, and then you go, okay, well next year, I mean, how

bad does he have to play? Cannot be worth another franchise tag because there aren't quarterback options growing on trees. We saw with Kirk Cousins he didn't have that great of a year after his first franchise tag and tag him again. You just don't have that many options. So to me, the Cowboys put themselves behind the eight ball, and Dad Prescott is now the guy with the leverage. I mean, he's got an amazing supporting cast around him. He's already had, you know, arguably his best year. His

rookie year was great. But I thought last year, he kind of put the team war on his back. He was our third most valuable player using wins above replacement over the course of the regular season, which is you know, I mean that is a testament to what he kind of took on himself. And now as a coach, I thought Kellen Moore did a great job of leveraging the passing game and the right sit and now I think with McCarthy there's going to be an extra bit of innovation,

willingness to let Dak shine. That betting on yourself in that situation sounds pretty appealing to me. So so yeah, I guess what I'm saying is I'm surprised the Cowboys missed it a year ago, and at this point I'd be very surprised if they are able to get Dak Prescott at any sort of discount. Ever, again, yeah, everyone knows the price is going up, it's not going down. And like you said, the frenchise sac thirty two million dollars and next year, I believe is thirty seven million dollars,

And that's sixty nine million dollars in two years. And I don't think Dak would be disappointed with that. Neither would none of us would, George, none of us would. But the truth of the matter is is that you you know, you've seen this circumstance with Kirk Cousins, but at the same time, when you find a young guy like Dak prescotting, you just look over the years at

the numbers. It's, in my opinion and based off of what I'm getting for Pro Football Focus, deck is trending in the direction of your upper echelon quarterbacks in the NFL. And it's it's hard because you go, Okay, well, I just saw the Kansas City Chiefs win a Super Bowl with Patrick Mahomes and Patrick Holmes is transcendent. I mean, you're not going to find a Patrick Mahomes just you know, in the next draft, right or the next ten drafts, so the next twenty I mean, how often did those

guys come around? And so you say to yourself, Okay, well, where's the cutoff? Like where can I win with a quarterback? And I'm looking for a guy that can have a top ten season, and I believe that Dak Prescott is a guy capable of having a top ten season. I mean, if you were drafting quarterbacks right now, and we did at PF a few weeks ago, which I thought was a really interesting exercise. We redrafted the league. Here was a guy that went in the top ten, and I

think that's right on. I don't think he's a guy you've taken the top five, but you're not going to find those guys. Uh, you know, just at will. You can't say I'm gonna get rid of Dak Prescott and go find myself a top five guy. That's not going to happen. So um, I think you have to pay for a top ten quarterback and you have to understand that you're probably going to set, you know, some sort

of standard. I think Mahomes was interesting and that it was definitely a bar that was right, you know, raised a bit, but it wasn't as much as people want to believe. I mean, it was a ten year deal. It was basically kind of these two five year deals. Obviously the total figure was massive, but it also allowed

them to sign Chris Jones. You know, like the money that that Patrick Mahomes is getting over the next two years is about what Miles Garrett is getting, so you know, so there are different ways to look at these things than just kind of the overall macro view and and with quarterbacks, you're just going to have to set you know, some of those um you know those parameters, you're gonna have to extend them a little bit and you're gonna have to accept it. And not every guy is going

to be Patrick Mullins. But if you can get top ten play, it's worth it because there are ten guys in the world that can give that to you. And Dak Prescott it was weird his rookie year. He had such a good supporting cast, and then kind of throughout the organization. I felt like from coaching on down, it really petered out in those next two years. And with a Marti Cooper coming in, a receiver that could actually get open, and now he's got three of them, he's

got a solid offensive line. I would say what we saw last year is way more indicative, but we'll see going forward than anything else. Now we're going to switch over to the other side of the ball, and the question is about our linebacker linebacking corps. The thing is, two years ago PFF had Jalen Smith and Layton vander Ess ranked as the top duo of linebackers in the NFL, and that's saying a lot with the kind of youth

and talent that there is at the linebacker position. Obviously, last year man not the same, all right, the percentages away down Layton Vanderas obviously dealing with the neck issue. And also I'm sure Jayala Smith would agree that last

year wasn't possibly his best year statistically. Going forward and looking at this new Cowboys defense, and you and Eric have made a lot about pass rush versus pass protection and things like that, but just the efficiency of the linebacking group from for the Dallas Cowboys, how do you see the improvement there being something that asks to the

overall success of the Cowboys defense. Something that we try to talk about is going from season to season, people are really tied to what they saw the last year. So they see a defense play well the last year and they go, all right, they're going to be dominant again the next year. And there's a way to test this mathematically. How confident should you be? And defense is something that you just don't have a lot of confidence. It's in from season to season things fluctuate, and a

lot of that is because they're playing defense. The offense is the one that decides where to go. With the ball, so they control a little bit more of these things. And so just by its very nature, defense is more volatile. And then you've got things like injury. Right, Layton Vanderesh was great and then he was injured and he wasn't so great. I want to say his mistackle rate doubled last season. Jalen Smith was not quite himself either. But we just came out today with our linebacker unit rankings.

My man Steve Palozzolo put them together. I have a couple of beefs with him. There's you know, let's not mix that up. But he has the Cowboys at number two. I'll let everyone listening go find out who number one is. I'm not sure I quite I guess I kind of agree with it, But that tells you the potential for these guys. Now it comes down to health, and it also comes down a little bit to luck. Are you playing a bunch of great offenses that can take advantage

of you? Because the offense ultimately dictates things. But here's what I like about both those guys. They're both athletic and they can cover. And if I am thinking about a linebacker in today's NFL, I know we are you know, sort of tune to think about linebackers. The guy that's a hard hitting, you know, football player, if their ability to cover is the number one thing that I'm looking for, and both those guys have shown the ability to do that.

So if I'm looking at what could be, Yeah, they could be the best linebacking unit in the NFL this year, certainly, and they're one of the teams that has the best chance to do it. Okay, now, I'm telling you, I've heard a lot of fascinated arguments from you and Eric, and I think that one, when it comes down to pass coverage versus pass rush, is very intriguing. And I think you used the example of us an illustration of Aaron Donald beating his guy and create and getting a sack.

But you attribute Jalen Ramsey value add to Aaron Donald getting the sack because you, on average, quarterbacks passed the ball two and a half seconds and Jayla Ramsey just sticking the quarterback hold the ball for that tenth of a second creates that value for Aaron Donald. Now that permeates not just through the coaching staff with bringing in guys or drafting guys like Jayla Ramsey. That also goes up to the general manager and how you pay guys when you look at it on the back end side

being creating that value. I think that when you talk to football purists, the knowledge is build from inside out and not outside in. But the numbers are supporting different Speak to that man and how that changes football. It's

definitely a nuanced conversation. And I think sometimes you can throw out, you know, we live in a world where you've got to get your point across in ten seconds and or one hundred forty characters or less, and so you'll say something like pass rush is more valuable than coverage, or pass rush matters more than coverage, and immediately you've offended someone because you've made it seem like their life's work as a pass rusher does not matter. And that's

not the case. But the prevailing conventional wisdom has been pass rush matters way more than pass coverage. I think, honestly a lot of it is because what do you watch on TV when you see a quarterback and you see the pass rushers and sacks are certainly super important, but those happen view and far between, right, So what is happening on all of those other plays and coverage plays a massive role, especially now that the passing game is so important, and so you know, it's not something

that's impossible to test. We grade every coverage player, we grade every pass rusher, and you can test out the value of having high grades or a pass coverage unit versus high grades for a pass rushing unit. And what you see is being elite as a coverage unit versus being elite as a pass rush unit. The difference is like almost two wins on average in the favor of the coverage nit. And I think this has been borne out in a lot of successful teams. And give you

a couple of examples here. The New England Patriots have invested in a multifaceted coverage unit. Their defensive backs are awesome. They stifle teams. And if you can name a pass rusher on that team right now, and you're not a Patriots fan, I applaud you. You know, like there aren't that many. I mean, they're leading guy in terms of pressures last year was a reject off ball linebacker named Kyle van Noy from the Detroit Lions. Like he wasn't

good enough for the Lions and they're terrible teams. So that tells you about the ways that you can scheme pressure. You know, you can glitz and creative ways you can run stunts. But in coverage, yeah, you can put guys in a position to win. But as you spoke to if Jalen Ramsey can't cover for two seconds and you're playing a good quarterback, you're done. And I'll take it

one step further. Even if you have a good number one guy and a good number two guy, if your number three guy can't cover, guess what, I can pick on him all day long. So not only does it take understanding the value of coverage, it takes investing in it a lot, because you have to put five guys out there that can cover. On the defensive line, you can get one guy. You know, if you have Aaron Donald,

you have a pretty good pass rush. So thinking about all of those components can help you invest You know, I would take tons of shots at defensive back, be willing certainly more amenable to paying some great pass rushers because I'm confident they'll be able to continue that play and I'm confident that they'll help my pass rush as a whole. But it might make me shy away from being the chiefs and paying two guys you know, that much money. So there's so many different ways that comes

into play. It's a fascinating conversation. It's I'm glad we're able to have that conversation here instead of me just offending ninety percent of the people out there by telling him pass rush doesn't matter. The analytics movement is here. Either you get on or get rolled over basically is the term for this man. But look, those are all of my tough questions. I am it is man. I'm honored to have this opportunity to talk to you because, look, man,

I'm a part of that analytics community. I think it's taking over football in that situational awareness is everything and when you can maximize on that, that's where you and guy's like Eric come in and so but listen, man, this is the exciting part of this show because I'm at my rapid fire questions. There's just random things that I think around the house when I'm doing my chores, and I figured out to ask you these all right, George, So I'm ready for you guacamole or hummus. Oh, I'm

lo the knees. So a real good hummus is gonna get it for me. But man, comparing it to guacomole is tough because those are like my two favorite foods out there. But I have to side with my nationality. I have to ask you that you know, I know? All right? Now, are you a d Y kind of guy? Are you an Angie's List kind of guy? I'm a DIY kind of guy because I hate spending like an extra twenty five thirty dollars on something that I'm not I'm not eating. Basically, I'll spend it on good food

and everything else. I gotta do it myself, all right. All right, now, you're you're all right, You're you're a fitness guy. So if you got one set, you're gonna max out and you're going heavy and you need that one jam to play through your earbuds. What's that one song? Man? I was just thinking about this and I had such a hard time. Um, I'm gonna go with till I collapse by eminem All right, my man, I'm man, Okay. So open a day you get an opportunity to sit

in a stadium charges in rams game? Whose side are you sitting on? La? Charges in La Rams? I'm going with the La Rams. Um, I like Sean McVay, and yeah, that's that's about where i'd go. It's a tough one because I was in so cal for a good part of my life and before either of those teams were there. And I have friends that have latched on they they've jumped on the bandwagon. They've all jumped on the Rams bandwagon. So I'd be sitting with my friends there all right.

Oh good, Now I'm gonna say a name, and you tell me what you think about this guy to rail Boys entertaining, entertaining, All right, Now, I heard he was one of the guys that got you to watch him football, So yeah, to he is your guy, right, I love to. I mean I will never forget where I was standing when I watched at incredible catch, the catch two point zero. Um. I just found him so refreshing. I find him funny

in an organic way. And those are people we all know, those people right where You're like, just being around that guy, I'm gonna laugh and have a good time made me really enjoy the game of football. I don't think he gets enough credit that too many people hate on to with you on Matt Man Now, George. Tell the people how they can find you. On social media. You find me p F underscored George. You'll find my sarcastic comments.

Know that, And occasionally I'll throw out a good stat here or there, probably pointing in the direction it's some good PF content, because the person that probably enjoys reading the articles that we pump out more than anybody else is this guy right here. So I'll lead you in the right direction. But you can follow our main handle as well, PF on Twitter, you find us on Instagram. We've got some real talented people putting some good content

out there. So wherever you're looking, we've got you covered. Hey, George, don't you worry about the gym's closing moment, because you still look like the best crop top model I have to see. Man. Yeah, the man. I appreciate it. Thank you, brother, Yeah, thank you so much, and thank all of you for joining us here on Talking Cowboys. We'll see you. There's news. He was named Stree