Talkin’ Cowboys: John Doe

like that. Did I foresee the Detroit Lions offense being dominant? Yes, because they showed it on film, and what we've put on film gave me no vote of confidence that we were gonna be able to slow down there their onslaught. When you talk about our offense versus their defense. Didn't see that coming because what they have put on film leading up to his game is their defense will suspect talking about the twenty seventh ranked past defense in the league.

You know, they've given up a good amount of touchdowns. These guys give up yards on the ground. This defense was not good statistically and personnel wise. We knew that they were undisciplined. We knew that they are well coached, but they just have these these personal I don't even know. I don't yeah, I don't even even know if it's a personal vendetta. They just they play selfishly defensively and turns on the back half, not necessarily front seven. We

know the front seven was somewhat respectable. Aiden Hutchinson was going to be a problem because he I don't I mentioned in the pregame show, I didn't fear him, but have a high regard and respect him because of his his ridiculous, relentless effort. Right, He's just a relentless guy. If you let up on him, he's gonna get a sack.

I think the first sack he had against Terrence Steel, Terrence Steell, you know, kind of got put on, slid on a sled a little bit, but then he led up like he like literally just let him go, and that's how he got a sack. So he's a guy that you can't let up on. Obviously, you know, prayers up to him as they show a replay on the screen as we watch, so prayers up to him and his recovery. And that's going to be a long one. I hate to see that by from anybody. But yeah,

they just dominated. It was it was domination. There's nothing that could be said outside of the fact that they dominated on offense, they dominated on defense. Their game plan was substantially better on both sides, and they tried to embarrass you and they were they were effective.

on yesterday. And I mean, you could go down the line and I said, I wrote this in one of the postgame articles. I said, you could throw a penny in the huddle, and whoever that penny hits, it's probably to blame for yesterday's humiliation right on both sides of the ball. It's very very small amount of people that I can pull out of that group and say, you know what, you're safe. Brandon Oulvrey, You're safe. Cavante Turpin

you're safe. I even say Daimont Clark, you're safe. Stepped up and he played and impacted the game in product for the fastest. Absolutely. But outside of those three and maybe one that I'm forgetting, I mean, that's forty four players that are accountable, that the coaching staff is accountable for what happened on yesterday. And it's just it's mind blowing. I said this to you guys going into the game.

I said, one of the only reasons I was I was picking the Cowboys was because I could not fathom them dropping a fourth consecutive game at home based on prior to the January you lost to the Green Bay Packers. This was the best home team in the entire NFL for not one season, but two seasons. Yep.

no more life. The grit, the fight, the determination that we saw in Pittsburgh, none of that made the flight home to Arlington. None of that. Who the hell is this team? Is this the team that goes on the road and shows the grit the determination and they're three and ozero now and you see what you have there. But then they come home and they let somebody just walk into their living room and put their feet up and put the mundy shoes up on the couch.

not for lack of talent. You have Jake Ferguson. You have Cdee Lamb, who, for all intent's purposes, played decently but was also not on the same page with Dak. And you see an offense just sort of sputtering down the field and hoping for oh well, at least we're in field goal range and we got best kicker in the league, let's go for it. To me, uh, that was the biggest letdown of last night. But for you guys, what would you say is your biggest letdown from last night?

Would it be the offense with the defense?

You beat Pittsburgh, that's a team that you don't know they're gonna make the playoffs. Middle but every team that we know is gonna make the playoffs. Gave up four nan thirty yards, more than seventy yards more in ninety yards.

for the offense to take another step forward. I mean, it's year two in this offense and there should be some comfort here, but you're still seeing disconnects between Dak and Ceedee Lamb, even before Brandon Cooks with Now with the injury, you're seeing issues with separation, not just with Brandon Cooks, but with the wide receiver corps as a whole. The running game it took four games to finally get going. And then even before this game got well out of hand,

the running game was nothing to speak of. I said, I made a note to myself here. This was after the first quarter. Into the first quarter. Here were the rushing stats for the Cowboys. Zeke had four carries for six yards. Rico had one carry for one yard.

the fourth quarter and say, well, Rico he got going. Okay, well before he got going, so to speak, with the garbage time, Rico had seven yards on three carries before his twelve yard running the fourth and then they kind of started feeding him heavily as the game started to wear down and Cooper Rush was saying and then Cooper Rush came in and he wanted to join the interception party, and so he did join the interception party as well. This goes again. If you want to go line items.

First of all, to answer to your question who was most disappointing defense or offense, I'm the option to see all of the above. The secondary no, just no, you failed. And for a guy like Ao who had come in having put solid stuff on tape that deep ball early in the game right side. Don't know what your goal was there, but clearly was not defense. Okay, secondary, no linebackers outside of the mont Clark No, your defensive line absolutely not flip it over to the offensive side of

the ball. Your offensive line got taken the school from one player to another, and you can't. Cowboys fans, you can't put this one on Tyler Gutton. You cannot. You wanted to see Tyler Smith pop out the left tackle and TJ Bass and then left guard. You got what you wanted, now that being said, Tyler Smith, We've seen him play much better than he played yesterday. We've seen TJ Pass play much better than he played yesterday. We've Zach Martin be Zach Martin. Zach Martin led the team

in pressures allowed with six yesterday. That looked like a shell of Zach Martin yesterday. So that's a conversation. So your offensive line f your quarterback was under duress. You didn't do him any favorites. But you know what in the moments when he was not under duress, f okay. And that goes to, you know, the miscommunications with CD. That also goes to just throws that weren't there receiving corps. CD had a mostly solid day outside of the disconnects.

But you need more, Jaylen Tobert did his best. Poor guy the son hit him with a pass breakup? All right, Jalen, Sorry, bro, he did what he could. Jake, you need to see more from Jake. Jake was unable to get his yack yards that you see he couldn't, you know, hit his chimy and shake three. I think yeah. And also difficult ball. But that jump ball middle left gotta come down with that. That's a critical play that that was missed. Jake wants

that ball back. That was one of the on a day where Dak Prescott played poorly for basically sixty minutes of football. Help him out. When you do get a throw like that where it's catchable and it's a critical play and the game is not out of reach it you got to come down with that ball. And then you saw what happened after that, the slant to turpend and you could argue it was DPR whatever. It didn't work. Okay, that was a whip route. Yeah, done on game night.

So when you in the running backs room, I just talked about that. So that that's a fail as well. If you're not on special teams, you failed the Cowboys yesterday. Period. I sam, yeah, I mean, there's there's not much to be said. I mean, it just it was bad all the way around. I don't want to beat them into the ground. They know it's terrible. It was just bad, you know, there's there's one aspect of this team that you're confident in, and that's special teams. Absolutely, that's it.

That is literally it. You don't have You don't have a defensive identity, that's it. You legit don't have a defensive identity at all.

After that it was slim pickens. Right. So the concepts, these are very simplistic concepts, and they can work against certain defenses. Right, But if you realize that these simplistic concepts aren't working from these alignments and from these motions, then you got to get in your bag. Early. I've said this a couple of weeks ago. You got to get in your bag earlier. Right now, Kella Moore, you see empty the back too early? Right now? I feel

like Coach McCarthy's taking a little bit too slow. So I know that he's capable, right because we've seen it. We've seen him get create, we've seen him as with personnel. We've seen him you know, highlight guys. But I don't know if it's because of who he has at his disposal right now, or if he's just just kind of being safe, or he's trying to build some confidence by these guys by giving them very simplistic type of offense

to run. But this he's capable of more. I'll say that coach, Coach McCarthy and Schottenheimer, they are capable of more than what they are putting on film right now. In terms of strategy defensively, I just don't know. I really don't know. And I stand on the same statements, the same sentiments that I had leading up when we were looking for a defensive coordinator. I didn't necessarily have a ton of faith in the in in that particular higher right. I just respect it. I respect him as

an individual, respect his body of work. But this game has evolved. This game has evolved and offenses are a lot more complex than they ever have been. They're a lot more creative than they ever have been. Like a

triple flip. Yeah, And if you guys remember one of my biggest concerns about this particular hire coming into this building, not to say that he can't be effective, but that I was concerned about the effectiveness with the personnel that he has at you know, at hand, do you have the personnel that you need to run your type of scheme? And my answer was no, you didn't have the money to go acquire it, and you didn't have the time to draft the guys to get all the guys you

need underneath your belt. And I think we're seeing that show up. I really think we're seeing that show up. And you're trying to fit what's the analogy a square peg in a round hole around and outside of that. Once you realize that that's not working, now you've got to be creative. Now you have to change what your initial game plan was. Okay, this isn't working for whatever, for a number of reasons. Right, we got a ton of injuries, Guys aren't being disciplined, Communication is not going well.

You know, the guys just aren't doing their whatever it is, it's not going well. So now what Now what, You're sixty games into it, Now what, you're a third of the way through the season. Something has to change. Well, you know, I'll tell you one thing that absolutely has to change. And you make great points, Irs, So I'm going to piggyback off of that. I'm going to put

it on the players. Okay, and this is not me taking it off of Zimmer, but I'm also putting it on the players because this this mustard spreads all over the bread today. Okay, David Montgomery recorded ten mistackles yesterday, ten on twelve carries. Are you kidding me? He does? That is the highest mistackle person person ext gen. That's the highest mistackle rate eighty three percent of any rusher this season in the entire NFL who has started each game.

followed this team knows that. As much as penalties has been have been kind of the crux of the issue on offense, mistackles have been a problem for this Cowboys defense, and not just under Zimbra, but in the DQ era as well. At a certain point, we're also going to point the finger at personnel on the roster and say, hey, you know I discipline and gap integrity and assignment and keys and just play your ball. And what I'm seeing yesterday most certainly as the game started to kind of

snowball is guys. It felt like guys started to trust the guy next to them a little bit less and a little bit less with every chunk play that was made. And when I say chunk plays or there were plenty of those, because I made a note here as well, it's funny because I literally wrote this chunkier than homemade peanut butter chunk plays. Seven rushes of at least ten yards and six receptions of at least twenty yards before the fourth quarter started. Yeah, the fourth quart they put off.

Oh yeah, they could have hung sixty easily on this team. So defensively speaking, execution still a problem. Mistackles still a problem.

included both of his interceptions against man coverage. He just wasn't seeing it now. Pressure didn't help that. Everything fit everything, Yeah, everything fed into the next thing, that fed into the next thing. Right, You needed those compounding press. The defense was wrecked injury wise. Okay, no excuses, because you went in Pittsburgh and you won like that Chauncey and Tyrists and Carl Lawston, Carl last and was brought to this team to be that veteran presence in the event you

have an injury. Didn't provide it, right, These guys are getting paid too, so you need to step up and you need to play those roles. So I understand injuries happened, and it's true, and it does downgrade the talent. However, you still have a task, and the task for everybody on this roster is to step up when the person in front of you goes down due to injury. That did not happen yesterday. But it wasn't just on the backups who were asked to step up in the absence

of Kneeling and Tank and Micah and Deron. It was all so some of the veterans, the veteran main stays that you needed to just play high level football, and they did not play high level football. So now you come to the offense and you say, well, defense is having a crap of a day. All right, offense, get it going. We talked about it. Line's secondary. They can be had, They can be had. Oh why aren't we having them? Oh they're having you instead Okay, pressure, pressure

is making it harder on Dak Prescott. Okay, Dak need you to be super man in this one, because your offensive line is not going to save you. Nope, you're not going to get any good throws from Deck when he has the time to make the throws, let alone, he's under pressure. Okay, well, maybe we can stabilize this with the running game before things get out of hand. Nope, no, no answers, and it's like the receivers. Okay, ceedee lamb

miscommunications Jayalen Tobert again. I draw a circle around jayling Toberd in a positive way because he really did play some ball yesterday. But you know, Jake drops that you can go down the line and you.

late flights. Sometimes you need to somebody you wake up. You know what I'm saying. But the back You're okay with the with the run slap, but if somebody comes backhand, that's where the blatant disrespect comes.

about this game. My biggest issue is that you don't

have an identity, and that to me is worrisome. That's worrisome to me because when when everything else is going to crap, because there's going to be those days, you're gonna have those days where you get blown out like this and you're not gonna like it and you're gonna try to put your finger on it and it's just too many holes to plug all that one time, right, So you go, you watch it, you address it, and then you say, all right, let's go have a better

game plan for the next one, right, because we can't fix everything that we that we see, right, you just can't. You can't address at all. But we're gonna gonna highlight the major areas and we're gonna we're gonna hit those head on and deal with it, look at ourselves in the mirror, and push forward. But when all else fails, what do you lean back on, Like, what's your ethos?

That's a culture, right. That is the ethos of that team, right, and nex stems from you can say stems with Dan Campbell, whoever you want to say, but that's what you know you're gonna get no matter what the result of the field is, right. I don't know what that is for

this team right now. And that's to that to me is worries and because that's something that you can always lean on and that may get you through in certain games when you when you perform like this, that may, right, but at least you know that you I'm leaning on that. And that's that's what's most terrifying about the outlook after a game like yesterday and after you know, looking at the totality of the first six games, is there is no ethos, right, and you have no identity And yesterday

when you talk about having no posts, they were cadavers. Yesterday. They were just a cadaver body. Yeah, just empty shells of a body that were just getting beat up on, kicked on, spit on, etcetera, etcetera. And so to me, what's your identity, John Doe going into the BI week? You're John Doe. You're John Doe. You were just a cadaver with a tag on your toe, and nobody can identify who this body is because you're waiting for dental

records to come back. I guess right, So until you identify, you know, are you going to start out physically people. We're not seeing enough of that to be like, okay, that's your ethos. Are you going to finesse people to death and you know, light up the scoreboard for forty points like you did last year and the year prior and in years prior. We're not seeing that either. Are you going to line up and punch them in the mouth. We're not seeing that either. We're seeing you're getting punched

in the mouth rep after rep. And again you look at like the offensive line and just Terrence Steele had a bad game, and Tyler Smith had a bad game, and Zach Martin had a bad game, and TJ. Bass had a bad game, maybe Cooper BB had a bad game, and and then it just kind of goes from there. I love the word ethos. What what's your ethos? What is your identity? Right now?

the ladder for me. The reason it's the latter is because now now that you've shown me, the expectation is here, So that means the effort in the execution and or the care the details, the details are lacking, and that is infinitely more infuriating from a parental standpoint, because it's just like, okay, it's one thing when you haven't shown me yet that you can do this. So it's like, okay, we're working our way up to this. Let's progress, let's

work away. But you've seen your grace becomes longer and your patience becomes wider. But when you've seen that you can operate at this that they can operate at this level, and then they come down start operating here, no serve like what is this?

everybody's taking it's everything where it's it's a machine. Everything works, and you know, in conjunction with the next thing, that works with the next thing. But when I say it has to start with players, it has to start with number one and the look in the mirror thing, I'm right there with that. I think every all fifty three have to need it to go home last night first and foremost and just sit with this, sit with it,

Just sit with it, and don't don't run. And I'm not saying they are, but this is just me saying what I would. Don't don't run from the film because when you watch that film, your jersey number is probably gonna look real bad on that film. Don't run from it.

Eat that, feel that, and then take accountability forward. Now, once you take your individual accountability, look to the left and to the right and make sure that those two individuals are taking that equal amount of accountability right, and then from there you get out on that practice field and you play like it's your last rep that you will ever play. Okay, and then from there, now you put the coaches into it and say, okay, what adaptations

can we make schematically, offensively, defensively things like that. But doesn't matter what adaptations come offensively for Mike McCarthy defensively for Mike Zimmer if each individual player doesn't get their act together. And that's what I mean, and this is something Mike could talked about when he said, guys playing trying to be Superman, it's the same premise, right, do your job, I'll do my job. Do your job each at the highest level, and then the risk will start

to fix itself. And even if the adaptations don't come offensively defensively, now we're playing good ball that keeps us in football games. And then the thing that needs to be fixed is more easily fixed as far as scheming. Right, not to say that it's easy, but it's easier to fix scheming than it is to make a player play up to his potential when he is down on himself or he doesn't feel that he can. It starts internally, right, So you fix the small to solve.

other systems. It's all about how you're being utilized. So I think it starts with the coaches because coach McCarthy has to reel this thing in and help these guys see the big picture and say, hey, we're three and three, and yeah, the losses we've had have been trash, right, but we're three and three one game. Yeah, so like as bad as it feels right now, like let's etch and sketch this thing. Yeah, let's let's watch this film.

We're gonna come in, We're gonna watch the crap out of this film, and it's gonna suck and everybody's gonna get graded. Don't know if you know this, but you sit down in your meeting rooms and they coach hands you a whole little stack of papers, and in that sack of papers, it has every single play call and at the top of the play, at the top of that sheet, it has a grade and it's circled and

in every every play is a plus or minus. And they your coach, your position coach, grades every single person that touches that field. And you look at that, and you guys talk through every single play and you watch every play intently, like what did we do what we were supposed to do? Then I execute what could I have done better? Okay, next play, and you go through every single play. You do that as a unit, and

then I don't even know it individually. How many times you do that it depends on on your on your work ethic and how much you value the film. But and you that's looking in the mirror. I have to see it. Yeah, you have to. You have to see it. You have to have to acknowledge what the heck.

don't want to look at it, right. I know, I know, I know, I know I need to lose something here, but I just don't want to look at it. That's what this is. Right, you have to see it because if I don't see it, I can't how can I address it? Right? So take it. Take the It's nasty as it tastes bad. It's gonna stand in your tongue for a little bit tea.

to you. We're gonna we're gonna go back and we're gonna dissect everything that they're doing, and we're gonna use all these days the scouting departments already been looking, they've already been breaking down at the analytics of what the San Francisco forty nine ers are doing. We're gonna take

that information. We're gonna rewatch our first six games and say, what the heck are they seeing that they're jumping a gun on us that we need to change up because they're they're they're they're olaying us right now, right offensively, Our concepts are being are being picked out. They see exactly what we're doing. We are. You have to look at it and say, from this formation, we run this same concept, even though we might be running a different way,

they're still picking it up. Right, So what do I need to change? Right? What do I need to change about that? It's self is self scouting, right, That's why there's a whole scouting department that helps with that. You look at those things and you make the change. Boom. All right, now we're changing things that we're gonna do more twelve personnel. We're gonna do more of this. We're gonna run the same concess but I'm gonna run it out of a shift and then we're gonna motion and

then defensively, guess what screw it? I know I typically run this, but now we're changing it up. We're gonna let me go back to last year? What what DQ do? All right? All right, that's not necessarily how what I believe in, But maybe lesten incorporate some of those things, because that's how you guys play. Y'all like to play fast and physical cool. I'm gonna put you in position to play more man to man. But if I put you in position to play a man to man, you

better not get beat. Is if you get beat, I'm taking you out. So that accountability, those type of conversations have to be had, those man to man conversations because it's a room full of men. It's a room full of men. Professional professional, absolutely, and just because you're a

professional doesn't mean that you act as a professional. So you need the leadership, right i e. The wisdom the coaching staff that they have put together that has a ton of wisdom over there, a ton to write the ship, to write the ship both from the players standpoint, former players that are now coaches and successful coaches that have been all the way in one Super bowls. You need that wisdom to show these guys the way. And once they get that and everybody can come to the table

and say, hey, I'm own my own mess. Let's go out there now and it's going to attack the back half of the season. One part about looking in the mirror is you got to first make sure the mirror is clean and not fractured, because it kind of goes to the psychology of what IRIS is saying, as far as the body scan is concerned. Right, So, if you stand in front of the mirror but you're your view is skewed what you don't want the mirror to tell you,

then you're not really looking at the reflection the right way. Okay, if the mirror has its cracks and it needs to be clean, you got a vinegar to that thing down, then you can't really trust what you're looking back. You have to go in to that mirror, in front of that mirror with complete openness and willingness to say, this is probably going to be the ugliest thing that looks back at me, but the only way I can fix it is to see it for exactly what it is.

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it's nine games. But you asked me this question again in you know, mid November, when you're literally halfway through the season, and if if they have a losing record, I'll probably say no, you don't have enough time to get that back, especially depending on what happens with the Eagles and if the Commanders get back on their streak and you know, things like that. But as we talk right now, as much as this sucks, and it does suck, you still got a living games to figure it out.

We're speaking in regards of this week, right.

locker room as well. I've been on I've been on those teams, right, I've been on those teams, and those conversations happen. It's like somebody, we're having to come to Jesus moment, right he coaches, Can y'all go, Can y'all go out there for a minute? We needed. We need to meet real quick brothers. Right.

the way. Didn't earn that? Hey, listen, do you but understand what we're going to be doing the rest of us that are trying to make sure that we get this sting on track. We have to sit here at this thing locked and it sucks. I know I wanted to go somewhere too. This is more important. This is more important. So that conversation has to be had amongst the players. The coaches are going to have those conversations amongst each other, because everybody has to look at each other.

Everybody's gonna say, I'm not doing good enough, right, be real with me. Tell me if we if I sit up here and I suck, I would hope that in the break y'all would tell me that was trash, you know what I mean, Like like you have to have that account of Bill. You have to have that type of relationship where you can have those real conversations. And when you can have those real conversations, now we can have growth. Yeah, now we can have growth.

for an hour. Actually all right, eleven am with a break of course, it's Derek hosting with Nick Eatman again, a double double Nick shot with bon Joe Laughlin, and the podcasting debut of our Boy Tommy Yay Shouts the Tommy Brand New. Twelve pm you got Mixed Shots with Bill Jones, Mickey Spagnola and Kurt Daniels on mix Shots, followed by one pm Hanging with the Boys with Shannon Jazz Monett and Nick Harris of the Fort Worth Star Telegram and your Boy Josh the Josh Rodriguez a Film

School University. And at two pm Players Lounges with Newie Jesse Everson and.