Talkin' Cowboys: "Hard Knocks" Review

Star in Frasco. It's a Wednesday edition of Talking Cowboys here on Dallas Cowboys dot Com for the final time, live from training camp in Oxnard, California, as we continue to break down Cowboys training camp here in twenty twenty one, alongside Mickey's Bag Nolan Ron Phillips, I'm Kyle the Ooman's Where, gentlemen, we have some television to talk about since we were last on air, and I'm not talking about the Bachelorette finale.

That's not what we're talking about. Sorry, Rob. I'll start my own podcast for that one when me and Dave can do that one. And you and Hellman have had some bonding over the Bachelorette finales. But no. HBO's Hard Knocks NFL Films on the Dallas Cowboys and an inside look at Training Camp premiered last night. Make I know you're a big TV watcher, carve out some time and

you're busy schedule to watch last night. I watched it twice. Yeah, I watched it the first time, and then I took some notes the second time, and uh, yeah, I thought it was I thought it was really really good. Yeah. As a matter of fact, you know, we've been around for the other two with the Cowboys, and for a first episode and trying to capture not our attention, but other people's attention that may not be following the Cowboys.

I thought they did a heck of a job of setting the emotion and coming and portraying the personalities of Dak Prescott, Ezekiel Elliott, Micah Parsons, a little bit more of Mike McCarthy and Dan Quinn also. And I thought they did a really good job of capturing it. And you know, the video was real good too, by the way, the audio was good too. And you say you watched it twice and you missed a very key element of

that show, very key open. You know. After you told me that, I remember thinking when the open did and whatever was said, and I said, oh, the narrator, he must have been looking at what I wrote or said, because that sounds familiar. That's exactly what I'm saying. I just passed it off. It was like, yeah, that that's the narrator way, so you didn't notice. I did not. I absolutely did not interesting and nobody. And I was sitting next to Brad, and Brad didn't go, oh that's you.

Sod's used to be in and those well I'd recognized Brad's right, and I said, oh, yeah, they got Brad and I kind of hit him on the side and said, oh there, way to go. But I didn't recognize my own voice. That was off of a Talking Cowboys podcast, right, I believe clip that was our first one here. I think that's what you said. Yeah, so do we get like royalties off that from HBO? I didn't sign any release. Yeah, yeah,

you don't get royalties. You know when we with the Zinger over here, when we when we when when samt does the making of the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders, and when we're the judges and they kind of use that stuff. We got to resign a release, do you really? Yeah? If that's because your face is on it, I wonder if your voice doesn't count as much? Maybe? I think. I think when they signed the paperwork to be all access, it included podcasts, it included anything we do about here. Yeah,

probably I don't I don't think we have separate negotiations. Yeah, I'm sure that that paper was probably signed for us a lot further back than what checks it checks in the mail, right. But yeah, you're listening to the world famous Now Talking Cowboys podcast because they used the clip of ours in the opening of the show. But Rob, what were your thoughts on what you saw last night? I really liked it too. I thought it like Mickey said, I thought it did a good job of really hitting

the high points of this camp so far. And that's kind of way this series goes. You know, the first episode they're going to hit the stars, you know, the major storylines, and I'm not going to give anything away, but you've got a pretty good idea of some of you know, the camp hopefuls and other coaches that they want to feature. You can kind of tell based on where the cameras go out here, and you'll see that

as the series goes on, I'm sure. But yeah, starting off with Dak and getting some more information about where he came from with the injury to his ankle was really good. I think the thing that stood out to me the most was how they are being transparent with his shoulder injury. You know, they took you through everything.

The micd up stuff at practice is unbelievable, and taking you through exactly what happened, why he removed himself from practice, Why Mike McCarthy told him, Hey, go inside, let's get this thing checked out. I think he was probably freaking out a little bit. Well he was right, yeah, what was it an oh my gosh or something like yeah?

And you know what, it was funny because Nick Eatman and I were standing on the fence line right in view of him and Jim Mauer, head trainer, and you could he had sunglasses on, but you could see the way he kind of tilted his head when Jim told him something it didn't sound good to him. And to hear that miked up was really good in terms of just I mean, I think he's got to be thinking the football gods are gonna screw me again, you know, in terms of my you know, starting quarterback, star player.

And but again, I think from a transparency standpoint, everything the Cowboys have told us the public about the injury is what it is. It's a strained shoulder muscle that they're trying to treat and manage and look and again, based on this walkthrough we saw yesterday that was open. He's making progress, he's throwing, so that that was the best stuff to me. That was definitely what stood out to me was Okay, finally we can look at this and say nobody's hiding anything because this is all access.

I mean, the Cowboys do put everything out on the table in those meetings. They're not censoring that for hard knocks. It's not a show from their point of view as to catering to what HBO wants to show on theirs. I think that kind of put that to rest of Okay, Dak's ankle doing pretty solid. I mean, he looked good, he was running good. You got to see a lot of action prior to the actual throwing injury of him

running around on that ankle. And now everybody can kind of see for himself in quality HD just how Dak Prescott was looking from the lower body standpoint and then from an upper body standpoint. Now you see that nothing is being hidden. Well there was a perception there was, Yeah, definitely, I think fans when did I miss you see it on Twitter? You see sire's the first problem. Well it's not. It's not a plot yeah, well it but it that's the fans voice. It's a feel from the fans. It

is an atmosphere fans. Some fans creed. All right, Okay, some guy got all over me on something. I looked him up and he had two followers, and I said, go tweak to your two followers, get off of mine. I saw that. I sent it to a couple of people because it made me laugh out loud. Um two followers look man like. Oh not just with the Cowboys. With any sport, there's always skepticism about, oh, this player's fine, he'll be fine, and and maybe he's not. And so

fans naturally are skeptics about things. Well, they should listen to us. A lot of people don't choose not to do that though. Wow, that's that's their problem. Well, I know, but we're we're we're educating them. We are. I'm just I'm just saying. They did a nice job of showing you're behind the scenes exactly what's going on, the fact that you know, Jerry's on the phone with him and they talked to the Texas Rangers. Hey, this is a this is like a pitching injury. We're just gonna manage it.

It was great stuff. And we saw Jerry and Joey's breakfast after that. That was fun time. Yeah. Did you do when you get a sausage biscuit that you salted put salt on it? I think it's got enough salt on it already, but it looked really good. It looked good it's salted, or just the sandwich sandwich itself. I could use one right now. Yeah, that would be nice. I could hear all the physicians your heart, your heart, um, Rob. You mentioned Dak Prescott and kind of his return from

injury and his progress with throwing. I was it was a pleasant surprise yesterday out in the walkthrough. We weren't expecting to see much. And I made a joke on the fan of we may see Dek Prescott throw a saftball around, kind of how we were talking about on the podcast today prior. Well, he wasn't just throwing a

saftball around. He was lobbing the football for a little bit with an equipment manager got in, did some walk throughs through the football too wide receivers, and then went to the far field and actually turned it up a notch and was thrown it to a Marie Cooper who was running routes. What did you see yesterday? Out of kind of the limited work we saw from those two, I saw that the ball never hit the ground. That's good credit to not only him but Marie Cooper. Right,

he was cutting everything. So what they were doing is he was taking a snap, dropping back. Cooper was running different routes. They were running plays like different routes, and he'd throw to them. And it started off kind of

short five yard toss, ten yard toss. I never saw him throw more than twenty yards down field, but some of the throws that were twenty yards were you know, deep outs, and he was getting it there seventeen yard, was starting to chart at seventeen yards fifteen yards, and he wasn't cutting it loose, but he was throwing it what do you think fifty sixty percent at least sixty feet somewhere in there. And then towards the end he did throw maybe three quarters speed. Uh, and he ramped

it up. And you know, we'll see to date any residual effect from throwing it that much, but he didn't seem to have any problems throwing it. So I'm thinking um at at at at the earliest maybe next week possibly, but possibly for that final preseason game. Yeah. And I was just gonna say, based on some of those throws, it was more than just like Patton go lob it up to somebody. Yeah, yep, those were those were throws

you gotta make in games. And and it was good to have a Maria out there because activating him or taking him off of active pup yesterday allows him to do that, you know, during a walkthrough. So, uh, that's good. That's a positive step for him. Although I don't think he's gonna jump right into practice kind of like DeMarcus Lawrence.

They're going to ramp him up. But yeah, no, that was that was that was a visible positive step for Dak Prescott that we had not seen it this point because Mike had mentioned the day before or a couple of days before light objects, you know, like he was tossing a soft softball around more than those little yellow things they were rolling out to the defensive guys recover a fumble. Yeah, so yeah, I thought it was I

thought it was a great sign. And you know, from I think what we had learned before we even saw that, and you know, I think the trainers thought it was a three to four week injury and so um, and it looks like that's where they're at. And as you know, they captured Jim Miller saying, you know, we're being overly cautious to protect him, to make sure this is not a long term thing, that it's a short term thing.

What did you think about his reaction to the whole that the holding back in the initial parts of the show where he was upset about the rep count that he had that they talked about. I sad enough, I kind of like that from my quarterback specific tell Dell and Double I didn't ask you to take this rep f right. Yeah, I kind of love Double G. That's that's what we've been called him out here. That's that's a side of Deck we don't we don't see, and it's not a bad side. That just shows how freaking

competitive he is. You kind of feel that when you're around him. But yeah, to actually hear it from him that that's like, don't be taking me out of no reps. I got this right, And that's him. That's how competitive he is. And you know, and they established it when he did the interview about the injury. You know, him pointing out. He goes, I was trying to put it in place. I was trying to fix it. And we and we we assume that when we saw him trying

to straighten out his ankle, athletes are wired differently. Man. Yeah, I would be passed out at that point. Yeah. Thanks, Just when you saw it, yes, not David the page, right, but when you saw it, and and and so yeah, you you you gotta you gotta understanding of what he thought at that time. And and yeah, and so now he's getting to play and it's like, well, don't be holding me back, and you know, and and he had

been throwing. That's why I think there was this perception that it was overthrowing caused the injury, and it wasn't. It was one throw, a weird throw, and it caused the muscle to strain underneath his armpit. So um, yeah, so now everybody can just rest assure that it's not an ac joint. You know, he doesn't need Tommy John's surgery. Um, you know, he just needs rest. And that's the way they're you know, they're gonna treat it now. Yeah, thank goodness for that. And I did like to see the

competitive side with him. I loved the the Zeken in Dak Prescott segment as well. I thought that was a funny little thing that whenever he opened the door and Dak was standing right there, he goes, what's doing? I mean, that was one of the funny I was a little skeptical that it was a little Hollywood license. Still thought coincidence was I mean, if you think about it, what are the coincidence that that was going to happen? Right? I feel like it's not that he didn't hear any

from it felt like a producer moment. He didn't hear anything from Dak, like saying, hey, wait, wait, wait, you shut the door on me, right, what's up? No? I think the reason why he knocked on his doors because I was looking at Hard Knocks that day and they had like these big lights outside of Zeke's windows. So they had like this whole production outside his window. Stage. Well, no, because he's wrapping the present, right, So then he put lights in the room. Yeah, so they had the lights

outside the window, right. Yeah. Okay, Hard Knocks and they're interviewing Zeke because he knew his room, let me go knocks on the door. Okay, so you're saying, you don't think it was stage. You think it was Daks seeing something. He probably walked by his room and saw the lights at the window because totally by that. They light at the windows so they can like get more light in the room because you know the rooms are a little dark. Yeah,

they anes with you, so that's what they did. So he probably walked by and like, okay, they're doing something with Zeke in his room. I'm gonna knock on the door. He goes, what are you doing? And Zeke's reaction was legit. Yea. He didn't seemed like somebody faking surprise men. Yeah. Yeah, well I don't think Zeke was part of it. I think they told to go knock on the door. Okay, so how old were you when you wrapped your first president?

Can I just say, okay, that's another thing that's that's legit, too, leg because we all know that's him. A bunch of us watched it together because we wrote. Dave wrote off of it last night and somebody said, oh, that's that's fake. They're just look, dude, I'm forty years old and I put gifts in bags with paper over you because I can't wrap a gift to save me. I probably went out about the wrapping paper for Zeke because they're like, hey,

you're gonna get Dak a president. He's like, yeah, you know, he got me one, so obviously that he had to order it because sure, right, So they probably said you got to wrap it. He's like, no, just give it to him. I got a bag. He's like, no, expensive bag. You can't get to put a president in. Sweet. The fact that he had to go to YouTube and find a video to try to figure out how to wrap a present, because I'll guarantee you what he was doing,

that's my rapping today. No, you know, it comes up short and let's all just put this patch here, yeah, right, and patch it over the top, tape it and and but see his personality, he's childlike, right, And I guarantee you he never had to wrap a present before. I'll guarantee you he didn't. Yeah, I definitely see that. I guarantee you. You know, Christmas time Mom wrapped Dad's present and you know, and finally, you know, they told me I had to wrap a present. It's like, well, how

do you do this? You know? And and and how many times did you try to put the wrapping paper there and you came up short and it was like, okay, you crumble that up and start again, or you start ripping off little pieces and trying to tape him on top of which is what he did, right, yeah? Yeah, yeah? Oh so, And in speaking on Zeke, I want to I want to take our first break when we come back.

I want to talk more about what we learned about Zeke through out the show of Hard Knocks and how we can kind of use that to gauge what his availability will be throughout the preseason, because we've got plenty more to talk about from last night's Hard Knocks episode, and the preseason continues on Friday when we return here on Talking Cowboys, Honey, Big News, Gary, are you okay? Oh? I'm not Gary anymore. I'm Jackie Flash. What see? I want the latest smartphone, but the best deals are only

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the zero you deserve is finally here. Before there was a draft, you could size up a cowboy by three simple factors, the crease in his hat, the bend of his brim, and his unbending attitude a man. Stetson didn't just protect him from what life through at him. It projected a rugged, unstoppable spirit. Stetson hats are still American, made with pride. Right here in Texas. There's still the unofficial crown of all self respecting cowboys, and Stetson is

proud to be on the field with America's team. Find a retailer nearest you at Stetson dot com. Slash Cowboys. There's nothing as unique as our eyes, which is why SLOR pioneers weighs to make lenses as unique as you. Varilux for super sharp vision, Essential Blue for protection, and krisol them from glare, three cutting ex solutions in a single unique lens. So whatever your needs, insist on this at your local or experts and find a perfect lens for you. See more, Do morel to Talk in Cowboys.

Whether you're watching from home or you're cheering in the stands, with lenses, you can see every exciting play book an appointment at your local experts and see what can do for you. See more. Do more. Slur here on Talking Cowboys final show from Oxnard, California. Are you guys a little sad? When I looked at the temperature back home, I was that's pretty much the one drawback, the biggest drawback.

Somebody asked me, you're ready to go home? I go yeah, until I saw the temperature and it was ninety eight for five days in a row. Hey, we're going to Phoenix first, which it's probably gonna be one oh nine yesterday in Phoenix. Yes, yeah, it's gonna feel bombing by the time we get home. It's going to be fantastic, yell. But at least we're indoors and there's a roof. Right for the game, it'll be closed. Yeah, not when we get on the buses and get off the plane and

do that kind of stuff. That'll be a little different to run five miles. Speak for yourself, Mickey, all right, see you get off. The one thing I've said the other day, and we kind of mentioned it very briefly on this show was the availability of Ezekiel Elliott and what he would see in the preseason if he should

see playing time. I was of the mindset he would probably see a series or two one one maybe this week against Arizona most likely though against the Texans in that dress rehearsal game, and I think Hard Knocks kind of shot that down for me. Yesterday it was a conversation between Mike McCarthy and Stephen Jones saying, I think we should protect Zeek throughout the entirety of this camp, basically saying, let's not run him at all and let's try and make sure he's healthy for Week one against

Tampa Bay. I'm not against that mindset, but it did show that, hey, we can learn things along the way from watching HBO's Hard Knocks that premiered last night. Were there any other things along with that one that you guys learned yesterday Rob about this team and how things

were being handled that you maybe didn't know previously. Um, that that Micah was quarterbacking the defense when he was out there and in week one of preseason, that he was taking the calls from Dan Quinn up in the booth and and and running that pre snap and that you know, that's that's a responsibility that that's that's a

big one. And you know, whether he's going to do that all the time, I don't know, but I think that was good to see him do that, and um, you know, he that was a lot of fun just having him miked up and hearing was cool hear him talking about snacks in the middle of practice and in college and stuff like that. But yeah, I think that that shows they're willing to put a lot on his plate, and maybe more on his plate than we thought, just you know, just based on the different positions he's playing.

You know, if if anyone paid attention to the mock game yesterday when they called first team offense, Zeke didn't go out there, so it was Pollard. So that kind of told you, no, if he gets any snaps, it's not this week. Uh. And then do I need to tell him my story about him? Think you have go ahead? So I don't know. It might have been ninety three,

ninety four somewhere in there. It was probably after he had won a couple rushing time titles already, and we're in training camp and he's not in any of the preseason games the first couple and I went up to him, I said, don't you need to get in a preseason game to get used to getting hit again? And he looked at me and he goes, are you crazy? He goes, I know what it feels like to get hit. I don't need to be reminded. And I said, your honor,

I withdraw my question. Yeah, and he got no snaps during preseason, and it was probably ninety four ninety five somewhere there, because ninety three wasn't there. Um, And so I always remembered that with a running back, it's like, Okay, they probably don't need to go and get jostled around there. They're pretty good. And so yeah, I would be surprised if if he uh, if he's used, and I thought what they did would Micah Parsons established his personality, right,

I did. Uh. It's like, hey, come on, give me another one, and Quinn's like, no, we're done. Oh I want one more? No, no, he goes, I want one more Series two, You're done, and he tried to talk his way back into the darn game. Vanderesh laughed at him, right, like, rookie, did you ask him? You asked him the police for war snaps or vanders said, what are you doing? Try to make all the tackles. It was pretty funny because I'm sure Vanderish is going, Okay, this rookie guy. But

but it's a preseason game. But he that's his personality, right. And the part about he was hungry and in Penn State we had snacks during practice, right, Lions always hungry man, Lions always hunk out to feed the lion. Right. You kind of knew he was going to be the star or the show and they'll there will be more of of Micah. I'm sure. One other thing about Zeke is there's not like a huge playbook on what he's done in preseason because when you think about it, they had

no preseason last year. One year he held out. The year before that he did, he wasn't even here. And then I think the year before that, maybe twenty seventeen, he was suspended. Right, so he hasn't been out. He was he in camp. He was in camp, he was in Penn because remember he protested it, and then it lasted till the ninth game, right, he didn't get suspended six games, he was, he was here six second half. But the last couple of camps he hasn't been in

camp or in preseason. Last year, no games. Um, maybe that's why I couldn't hauld On on the football. Huh. Maybe I don't think it helped anybody. Maybe I don't think that, you know, not having preseason helped anybody. But yeah, I'd be shocked if he does much. And you know, Mike reference. I think it was to Stephen how good a shape he's in. But he's got a lot of carries on him over his career, so got to be mindful of that. I mean, he's got a couple two

or three three hundred carry seasons on his resume. I want to also kind of go back to the Micah Parsons conversation there and Rob, I want to get your input on this. But Mica talked about it the other day about being a versatile player, about how it's it is a kind of a chess game. From a coordinator standpoint, you want to be a chess piece that can move multiple different ways. You don't want to be the rook who just can go forward and sideways. You want to

be able to go diagonal. You want to be able to do different stuff. He was very illustrative on how he wants to be as a player. Do you think that there's a balance that has to be had between this coaching staff and with Micah Parsons from a mental standpoint, and then also his physical limitations because there's not a lot of physical limitations are none exactly, but that's but they're throwing a lot on him mentally to be able to call a defense running multiple But he's doing is

repeating what the coach tells him in his ear. He's not like going the line of scrimma. That's easier said than done. Well, why if I give you we're gonna run streak right, you know, backside left, All I gotta do is come out and say that I mean, it's not like you're calling the defense. You're just repeating what the head coach telling or the defensive coordinator tells you. I think, And and look, he he was doing it when he was on nickel uh and he was the

middle linebacker in the nickel, right. I don't think he's calling it when he's the strong side linebacker in the four three running with the first team J Smith and Vander Rather. I agree, because somebody else is going to have the green dot. You can only have one green dot on the field at a time too, by the way, So I just I don't know if they switch it helmets or how they're or maybe you can do it in the preseason, but when you get in the regular season,

it's one green dot. Can't you have a backup green dot? Yeah, you have to too. So yeah, I just thought though that was that was a little inside nugget that we hadn't seen because he talked about it the other day, but we hadn't really seen that behind the scenes him doing that. That's a responsibility. But he had the thing on his helmet, okay, right, we didn't have audio of him doing it. It's my point, all right, So that

that was pretty cool. Um, I do think, and I asked Mike McCarthy this early in camp, like the it's not that, not that part of it, but the number of different things he's being asked to do on the field, position wise, what's the balance of his plate? And Mike said at one point, maybe we're putting a little too much on him. Dan really hasn't said that. He said, if there's anything, it's it's the physical side, the amount

of reps he's taking. And we think about he opted out last year, he didn't play, so there is that football shape element of it. But I I haven't seen anything that suggests this is too big for him. I mean, the way he played in the preseason game. He was as active as anybody out there. And you can tell he's willing to learn. He's he's with win between series, talking constantly, So I don't think it's an issue. And you know, and I think as we go along further,

what he's being asked to do will be clearer. You know. That's what Dan has talked about over and over again. Find out what he's really good at and what he's comfortable with, and then we'll kind of tailor it to that he's good at everything. That's why last Friday when I wrote my column, I said, I'm not going to pigeonhole him and say he's a linebacker. He's a football player. Just put him on the field, ask him to do something, and he will do it. Do you hear what Dak said.

He said, gol, he's fast. Well, that's one of the reasons why you draft a guy like that. You're not drafting a linebacker. You are drafting a verstal, versatile football player who can do a lot of things. And Quinny even said it, he goes, right now, we're gonna ask guys to do a lot of stuff and then we'll find out what they can't do. This is when you find out what they can't do. So when I get into the regular games, you don't say, okay, try to

do this. No, what I'm saying, though, he's a football player. If you look at before to the draft, everybody's like, well, he's a linebacker. We don't draft a linebacker that high. Well, he's a special linebacker. And we got to see that yesterday and and and just showing the highlights of one game, you see that he can do things that other normal linebackers can't do, and that's why you draft a guy that high. You don't draft an offensive lineman who would

be sitting on the bench right now. I think I get what you're saying, and I actually agree with you to a certain extent. The thing that's impressed me the most from Michael Parsons, though, hasn't necessarily even been his versatility.

It's been his ability to keep up with what they're throwing at him from a mental standpoint, because from a rookie, I mean, that's that's hard to do to be able to play multiple positions, have that understanding enough to one, like you said, repeat and call a defense, but you have to have an understanding to a certain stint to be able to play multiple positions and still do that.

That's what's most impressed me, outside of what he does from a physical standpoint, because he's fantastic there as well. One thing he said to us the other day was this scheme is very similar to what he did at Penn State, which so great. So there's not a ton of new information. I mean, terminology is different and all that, But if you watched his tape in college, he rushed the passer a lot I mean he was That's what

he's probably the best thing he was good at. You know, he's an off the ball linebacker, gap be gap blitzer man. He was great. He's great at that. You know, he was also good at that stop on the run too. Well, that's very instinctive. Yeah. Now the coverage part of it, that's something that maybe will improve with time. But I think like those first two things are things that he was just flat out dominant at. Looked like Mike Singletary

out there making plays in college. So that was interesting that it's not this brand new scheme for him, and that's you know, and I'm sure that's part of the evaluation for the Cowboys and dan Quinn is like, oh, what he's doing in college works perfectly with my scheme and what I would have him do. Here. You heard what he said. He goes, I'm a football player, and I'm saying that's what he is. You don't need to put an LB by him, just put f P football

player and then let him go. You know. It's like Palomlo, Right, Polomelo didn't have any restrictions. He kind of freelance back there. I remember Bill talking about Polomlo. He goes. He doesn't know what he's doing. He's just out there, you know, and you see it. So that's hard for us to predict what he's gonna do on any play because he's just freelancing out there. But if you know how to play the game, you can get away with that because if you make a mistake, you just might have enough

athletic ability to compensate for your mistake. I agree. You sound like you're defending this draft pick. No, I'm not, you do. I'm just well, there was a lot of saying it's a terrible pick. There was a lot of criticism when they drafted him. Is there criticism now, No, they're starting to see, they're starting to see. That's the

point that Rob's making is there was criticism at the time. Yeah, why because there were other options out there who would have been sitting on the bench and the corner Batley had given. Okay, who would whose pot was he taken? He could have definitely taken fifty two. I like Connor Williams and he's a fantastic camp But I mean, you don't know that. For Shawn Slater is a really good player, Okay. I mean, I'm with Mickey here. Did you watch the

defense last year? Oh? They were terrible. Okay. How would you not spend your first pick up somebody on defense to help you? You have somebody and they did. Okay. That's what people were upset about, is that they didn't want to be pigeonholed into a defensive player, and they felt that way with Micah Parsons. Even though Arsons is a really good football player and should have been drafted at the twelfth overall pick. There was nothing wrong with that.

It was the fact that they wanted a corner. They were both gone, and then they felt pigeonholed, and that's why people were upset. Yeah, well they should they I understand the corner thing. The corner one gonna stop you from giving up twenty five hundred yards rushing. Hopefully Michael Parsons can do that. Well, that's why can't. He can't do it by himself. It's gotta be a couple other guys. Yeah, Mike McCarthy said he's gonna try to stop it all

by himself. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true. Lion's always hungry, man. That's right. When we come back here on Talking Cowboys, we're gonna preview Friday's matchup with the Arizona Cardinals. What should you be looking for? We're gonna give you a roadmap to preseason game number two when we come back here from Oxnar Hi. I'm Clint Tillison with United aggin Turf. Before you can park yourself in front of the game, Park yourself in a John Dear and power through your chores.

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talk in Cowboys. Dallas Cowboys training camp returns to the Star in Frisco, starting with Cowboys Night presented by American Airlines on August sixteenth. You can watch the Cowboys practice and enjoy free activities at the Star beginning at four pm Central time. Fans have the chance to catch three additional practices as well as the Cowboys Night August twentieth, the twenty seventh, and the twenty eighth. Admission and parking

are both free. Visit the Star and Frisco dot com details So the fans getting it up close and personal look with the Dallas Cowboys when they returned back to Fort Center at the Star, we are getting our final look at the Cowboys today. They'll take the practice field coming up here in just a couple of hours, and you can catch all of the updates on Dallas Cowboys dot Com, Mickey's Bagdola, Rob Phillips, some Kyle Yeoman's and guys.

We were talking about it in the break, but one extra note on Zeke from Hard Knox was does he have a new nick name or at least through the team. I missed it, so go ahead, Mick. No. I saw on the back of the stripe of his helmet vertically it was spelled out donkey, and I was like, what is that? I don't know why, and I said, we probably need to find out. I wonder if we'll have to ask ask Zeke that question at some point, because that's one I've never heard something. So that the practice

you were talking about. Yeah, I didn't know who was the televising it. We are, And what's it on? Do you know t x A twenty one, Oh, Dallas cowboys dot com? If that's the the Cowboys night? It's Monday, yes, okay, six teenth, all right, Monday, we get back so folks can watch that too. Watch it will Hall of Famer Drew Pearson is going to be on with Bill Jones. All right. Well, also somebody else is in the booth throughout the entire broadcast as well, some unknown voice, some

some guy who started Hard Knocks. I thought they're going to rotate you guys, so we are. I'm I'm it's me and Bill the whole time, and then it rotates the writers with Drew. Okay, yeah, okay, whatever. I'm just reading the press release Oh, I'd never get it, said Bill Jones, And that's what I said. For press record, we're reading rock Sand's email. Yeah, that's true too. I

don't I'm not big enough to make those either. Um preview for the game on Friday with the Cardinals, anything that we really need to hone in on Rob going into that matchup, that that you're watching and that the Cowboys need to accomplish. I mean, I'm curious to see

how much the starters play. I would think, you know, if they treat this like the first kind of the first preseason game because they had an extra one, maybe they guys get a series, maybe two series again, but probably not a whole lot, because look after last year, what's the biggest goal here? Get everybody healthy to the season. So I wouldn't expect a ton from the starters, but I'm curious to see how much how much they play.

And obviously Garrett Gilbert's probably gonna get that start. Do you think you'll see more of him throughout the game? You think maybe he'll get more than the two series, maybe go an entire half, especially because of the availability of Cooper Rush maybe being in question. I think he'll get I would bet he gets almost a half because without rush there then all you got is a Dunucine and he needs the reps because he's the guy if something were to happen to that moving forward, give him

each a half. Yeah, you know, I don't know that they'll throw CD out there. Maybe else see again, uh Beadish Williams, Tyrn Smith. I don't know if Tyrone will go or not because they didn't sure didn't use him the first time, right and when they called first team offense, Uh, tyed n Secki was out there at left tackle. So yeah, be interesting to see if they if they hold him out and maybe give him that third game and then see what see what happens Um and even else, I think,

what did he do? He played two series and I think he was out. Uh, And they brought in Terrence Steele, so so select veterans may so I think maybe from a defensive standpoint, you may see more starters out there like we saw in the first name. Trayvon Diggs did not play in the open or maybe he played. Gregory

will probably get a snap or two. They might do that, and then the linebackers they used t Um and they probably couldn't tie Parsons down to keep them running out on the field unless they took his helmet away from him. A couple injury notes yes from from yesterday, we saw Malie Hooker take part in the walkthrough. He did. Now, I'm not saying he's gonna play in this game, but he's ramping up, and maybe when we get back from Oxnard, he's ramping up and he can get some preseason work potentially.

We asked you asked Joe Witt about that yesterday. He didn't really have an answer for us, but his activity on the field is increasing and he needs to get going. He might get left behind. Your big mystery of camp is Greg's airline in the kicking situation, right, and Bicky loves a kicker. Battle take it away, and I think Fossil basically spelled it out that he really doesn't need to kick. You know, he he thinks if he kicks.

What he said was he kicks. If he can kick for three to four weeks leading to the first game, he'll be fine. And evidently he's been kicking behind the scenes. We haven't seen it. So he seems pretty confident that you'll get all greg zerline. Even though he's recovering. You know, I thought I thought the surgery was after the season. I was told it didn't happen till May. So no, they said Spring, No, maybe that was a tank. Yeah,

I think so we're talking. Usually when you have a back issue like that with a disc, it's a three month recovery, so May, June, July. So he's kind of ramping up right now. They feel he feels totally confident that he'll just go out there and pick it up as normal. But you know, one of the things you got to consider is the operation because you're going to have a new holder and a new deep snapper. So but I guess maybe they're working on the side, and

he seemed pretty confident. He also seemed pretty confident that Anger is going to be the punter. Ye when he called he called poor Hunter the punter, a developmental punter. He did, even though he was the starter, he right and kicked better than the start that was here initially. That's not a surprise though, I mean he we we talked to John in the spring offseason workouts and he talked about Hunter getting a chance to put some stuff

on tape. You know, he's look Brian Anger's got ten years experience on him and look and punted well last year. But you know, John has a lot of sway clearly one personnel, I mean he does. You know Zeroline was his guy with the rams. They brought in Jake mcquad as a long snapper, so um yeah, it sounds like that's what they'll probably go without. Another guy that was

out in the in the walkthrough yesterday was Gallimore. Yeah, he had come out and I guess it was I asked and it was an ankle, So I don't know why they were stretching out his leg when I saw that, but he was out it there, so maybe he can go U bash him. I did not see him out there, and Goodwin was at least on the chords, so that's kind of a move in the right direction for him. And it sounds like, um, Olana lewis probably dust in the for ir that's with the neck injury. They sounded

like they might have some plans for him. Yeah, he had a chance. I wouldn't even say a chance. I think he was a favorite to kind of work his way in there because a full back, but as as one back kind of have that like h H back hybrid tie end type. A lot now depend on how and it's got to be serious enough that you know, they don't think he can get back in time to at least put him on the fifty three and then put him on IR to make him eligible to come off.

But you know, when you're a guy like that, and and a lot of your job is to stick your head in there. After you hurt your neck, you're gonna put your neck up up in there again. Moose came back and did it. Well. I mean, we don't know. I don't know the extent of the injury. We just know that he's got to just sound serious enough to yeah, probably land on IR. So that's one to you know. And then but they still use some of that formation.

And they used Nick Ralston, the kid from from our gyle uh as the fullback and then use them one back and they use that same formation last year with Sean mcun so. They have some guys that are potentially confiding. So do you think they keep an extra tight end if they don't keep that fullback? I think so. But so Sprinkle might have a chance, honestly, Yeah. But that's that's the thing is, like I think you could have kept Alana Lua and just had him as kind of

the flex position for both spots. That gives you that opens up another spot for somewhere else potentially. That's kind of maybe where they were thinking. I just thought the rep he had with Parsons I was gonna bring in the one on ones was really good. It was awesome, and he's got some swagger to him. Yeah, you know that that was that was fun. It was something we

might see, huh. It was something we didn't see with Alana Lua last year because one he being an undrafted free agent and a borderline active inactive guy on the practice squad. You never got to talk to him ever really last year. And then he comes out this year and you hear that the miked up stuff and he's talking with Michael Parsons. I mean, this is an undrafted free agent fullback talking with your first round linebacker and then joking him on a on around bard yourself on

a wheel route. It was awesome, real quick on the show. I just because you're closer to Mike's age than I am, not by a ton, but Harry High school Charlie was blank around. It was it was it. Wait, are those terms that you had growing up in Chicago Heights, Charlie f around. Yeah, yeah, Harry High School and then it was Harry High School, get your get your butt out of the door. Sorry, I had to bring that. This is about waiting. No, that was that was that. The

whole thing was priceless, Yes, priceless. And by the way, um so I had next to that note, Uh, Brad looked up online. Uh the suitcase it was two thousand and five hundred and fifty dollars. Yeah, it doesn't surprise me. Includes the bag, the orange one that it came in. Oh yeah, yeah yeah. Um. I kept getting questions about Vinny. Did I miss something? Vinny test? Is that what? No?

Somebody was asking about Vinny. It was when Dax's GPS numbers were up and he was taking less reps and he said something to either CD or maybe Will McClay. He mentioned blocking Vinny and Dave and I went up and down the depth chart be nicknamed n Yeah, I don't know. We had we had that as an un answered question as well, Well, we will figure it out. We're gonna find a way to find out who this Vinny character is. If everybody a nickname and we don't

know him, you know, Yeah, it's true, it's true. Let's see we find you figured out at some point. Vicky, it has been a pleasure to have you back on talking Cowboys Training. K I enjoyed this. This was great. We'll have to have you on at some point along the way. We will be back in Frisco coming up next week with Rob Phillips, Isaiah Stanback, heck My Harrison, myself, Kyle Yeomans. But for now, for the great Mickey spag No, look, Chrispam, William Boykins here in the tent. That's gonna do it

for us. We'll see you next time here on Dallas Cowboys dot Com. This has been a production of Dallas Cowboys dot Com and the Dallas Cowboys Football Club.