Talkin' Cowboys: Realistic Free Agency Thoughts

get it right at some point. But it is a cloudy Tuesday, and that means more Talking Cowboys here on Dallas Cowboys dot Com and all the various social media s. WBC Mortgage Studio hosting us again, Mickey Spagnola, Heck Harrison back for a second straight must have something right. It's something right. So you're back in the chair, Everson Walls, And then I'm back in the chair too, So I guess I did. Okay. Kyle Yeoman's here filling in for Bill Jones and guys. Uh, it was a fun weekend.

I know, Mickey, you were down in New Orleans? How was that? New Orleans was great? Anytime you go to New Orleans, it's great and it's not great. Yeah, you have some good food, down there. I had great food, yeah, a few drinks, just a few. Wow, some great entertainment in some of the little local places I know about. So yeah, it was. It was quite a quite a three days yet hit up some of the famous Mickey

Spagnolla watering holes. That's right. Yeah, absolutely the biggest spot, the biggest dive bars you've ever seen in you know, the best bars that are down there are the ones that you you don't even know the name locals. Yeah, just it's the sign said drinks come in building. Yeah, everybody got open. Yeah, Gumbo and red Bees. That's the best you've ever had, no matter where you eat them. And you guys were there at the right time with Marty Graw getting ready to start, so unfortunately it started

the night we left that afternoon. Say, either that are real good that it's really good for a company retreat. Yeah, we gotta get you guys back before start. I've never actually been down to New Orleans during Marty Gral times, so it's quite an experience. Whatever you whatever you experienced during the regular times you went, you got turned it up about ten times. Really, Okay, I don't even don't even think about renting a car not walk everywhere, go

everywhere on fever. Everything is just backed up. Everybody's cruising, everybody wants to be seen. You know, it's just ridiculous, man, But but it's fine. I mean, that's what you like about. Actually went to my first one, probably about five or seven years old, because my dad was thirty about thirty miles up the river, and so we could go there for vacation and it would just so happened to be during Mardi Gras, and learned to beg for beads off

the floats. Yeah. Wow, they were begging you for beads. So come on, you gotta show them to me. You gotta show him to me. Seven years old? About that? Oh gosh, already off socialized. Took us a total of four and a half minutes to get off the rails this week everything. What did you do this weekend? I watched the All Star Game. I was about to say, did anybody watch the NBA All Star Game? I did that. But now, on a side note, it was my anniversary, So okay, yeah you've been. I have to mention that

my wife told me thirty six years. Thirty six years. But your wife let you know that, she let me know that. Yeah, yeah, before I even put my foot in my mouth, you know, happy thirty six, honey, Yeah, there you go. Remember if anyone asked, happy thirty six? Congratulations, thank you brother, that's appreciate that. And of course, kind of going back to the NBA All Star Game. Of course this is a football centered show, so I'm gonna bring the NBA All Star Game into the conversation just

for a split second, fourth quarter. And the way that the things kind of played out in the structuring behind the NBA All Star Game where they basically reset said first one the twenty four go have fun with it, and it was. It was exactly that. It was fun. It was the biggest game of pickup basketball with the best players on the biggest stage in a great city of Chicago. It was unbelievable. But that brings me to the question of how does how does the NFL find

a way to make can't bow like that? You can't do it ranking the same thing, you just can't do it. I think, well, first of all, you have to start all over if you're the NFL, just how you treat your players, you know, that's where it comes from. I mean, the NBA is just it's all include. You know, the players have a louder voice. They are not held down nearly as much as the young folks say they're They're definitely more awoke in the NBA in regards to inclusion,

which is, you know, and being a global game. Yes, we've gone to London and we played some games in Mexico and things of that nature. But the basis of the NFL is totally different from the culture that you have in the NBA. And I think it's pretty obvious. You've got guys who refuse to be silenced on the political views, unlike uh, the NFL. Now, once again, the NBA, they do demand, right that you stand during the national anthem? Is that right? They demand that. I'm surprised that that

that flute with that crew. But when you look at the NFL, you've just got so much more that they could be doing in regards to making this not just a global game, but just start right here in America and deal with your own players and your union needs to be stronger. So when you're talking to the the NFL versus NBA, no comparison whatso well, we're about to find out what we're finding out the new CBA coming up, ye say, the different collective one more year. Well, that's

it's not going to be anything that revealing. No, that that that culture, you know, the culture is changing, but the NFL is still that's still gonna be behind the times no matter what that CBA uh involves. You just can't figure out a good way to play football the way they did basketball and the way they do hockey now, right, because they've made it competitive in a kind of a

weird way. Uh, football is kind of harden to muck up. Right, The physicality of the game in general would change, uh, you know absolutely, But that fourth quarter was as competitive as I've seen in an NBA All Star Game. And I've been watching it for a while, I'm sure as

you guys have. But I loved seeing it. And I also loved the what was at stake, you know, the charity for the kids and having them there and so just having it be a community event and also thinking about like how can this carry over into the NFL. I just didn't see anything that you could. You can't change the quarters, you can't you know, switching quarterbacks or something like that. And I think they've done some things like that where they've had a transitionary player with one

guy can switch sides, you know. But I think it's really kind of hard, especially with how physical the game is versus in the NBA again, because it's just a pickup game and there's no way to play a pickup football game. You know. Initially, when you think pickup game with NBA All Stars, you think boring, you really do, because there's no defenses, lots of scoring. They started, Hey, we saw the first will two charges in the in an All Star game, and you saw at the block

in the fourth quarter. Absolutely, that to me, Let you know what, how they really picked the whole game up. I wanted that to be a goalten. I mean, that's how much I was into the game. And I didn't even want to watch it initially because you know, we know how those games are. They just throwing it up and you know, guys are just halfway oh yeah, not no plays, you know, no, they're not even a picking roll. But when you give him a goal, what was it,

one fifty seven? Yea, they wanted to make that goal. Absolutely. It's funny how just that made much of a difference in the fourth court and maybe Kobe's uh, you know, his whole legacy had a little bit to do with that. What they're playing for him. I don't know if they ever said that, but it seemed like it just meant more. Even with the new rules that were put in playing that Momba mentality was on display even in an All Star game, even slam dunk contest that was impressive as well.

But uh, I kind of wanted to run through what we're going to talk about today here on talking Cowboys. I want to do a peak at the NFC East offseason, what's ahead for some of the other teams around the NFC East. I want to assess what the Cowboys have at tight end and talk about that tight end position a little bit. But one of the get into kind of I want to get away let's talk about that.

Let's let's get away from Dak Prescott talk. It's been another week of kind of stagnant talk between the Cowboys and then the armchair GM saying what should the Cowboys do in terms of Dak Prescott, resign him, sign them to a long term deal, tag him, et cetera, et cetera. There's been so many different talks. Really, there hasn't been a ton of contract talk at all this week. I know Teddy Bridgewater is expected to receive about thirty million dollars a year market value, which is a little scary

for those wanting to resign Dank Prescott. But I kind of wanted to talk about the coaching staff, and this is where I'm going to draw very heavily on Mickey and Everson and even you Heckman as well. Just because I'm a young how to brought my list? There you go, I'm a I'm a younger guy. And so of course Mike McCarthy named the ninth head coach and Cowboys history a whole new coaching staff ahead of us. There's been a lot of high expectations for McCarthy as a Super

Bowl winning coach. He's a guy that now basically since Jason Garrett's gone, it seems like the grass is greener. On the other side, I want to ask about realistic expectations. The dust is settled, the excitement is dying down a little bit, it's time to get to work. For all of the coaching staff, including Mike McCarthy, what are the actual expectations compared to what we've seen in the past

for first year Dallas head coaches. Oh, he's not a first year coach in Dallas, though, it's win the super Bowl automatically. Look at look at what happened over the last look at what happened over the last three years. Okay, right, can you replicate that? Yeah? Well you better yeah, because you got to go forward, right, So I thirteen and three, nine and seven, eight and eight. All right, let's let's

let's go. Because the reason the coach is not here is because he didn't win the NFC's and he didn't win two playoff games. So to me, it's unfortunate, or maybe he welcomes it, but that's Mike McCarthy's bar. He's got to do that at least, right because if he

doesn't do better, why did change coaches? So to me, that's where you start right now, Nicky, have you ever seen any situations that parallel this one in Dallas, say, for instance, and the one that I'm thinking about is Tony Dungee and Tampa Bay when Gruten came in and took over a team that was expected to go to the Super Bowl, and Gruten was that piece that took the team to the next level with having a complete Hall of Fame defense with you know, Sap and guys

that he had over there, but it was the offensive struggles. But now if you flip this around on this side with the Dallas Cowboys, the offense is in place. You bring in an offensive minded coach. But I think with everybody is kind of looking at is the defense and shoring up some of those that we have on defense. And that's what I rode on Friday. Welcome to Dallas, Mike Nolan. Yeah, because if the defense doesn't improve, this

team doesn't improve. If you look at some of the things that took place defensively, um, they didn't improve save from from twenty thirteen when they finished thirty second in total defense. Every year they improved, and this was the first year they went backwards. They went from seventh to ninth, not still top ten, right exactly. But it wasn't good enough because they never they never won a game that

they didn't score thirty points in. Never. Sometimes you gotta win twenty four twenty one, you know, um, and you know, look, look the Super Bowl. If you take away the last garbage time touchdown with Kansas City score twenty four and they were gonna win. So sometimes you got to win those games and the Cowboys didn't win them. To is really is passing percentage quarterback? RADI wasn't that good, right, but you still come out and see an amazing game

played by him. Now, what gave him the opportunity to be in the game. It was the fact that his defense finally stepped up, right. So when you start talking about Tampa, I mean, first of all, Tampa ended on the hot note, right right, went with Dungee, correct the hot note. It wasn't the weird season that the Cowboys had, not just not even just record wise, but there was not a bunch of speculation, a lot of controversy when when Dungee had us. So I think they won the NFC.

I'm excuse me. They lost the NFC championship that year and you got fired because that was was that the game with the catch with the third down? Yeah, that's the game? Right, So so to me, you know, Mike McCarthy, don't go to the Jets and give up a ninety two yard touchdown pass, don't go to New England and get a punt block for the only touchdown of the game. And if the head coach can eliminate those two things. Then you're ten and six, right, So weird things happened

this year. Well, let's let's look at let's look at well, you know, culturally we need to change because you can talk about those two plays and you know we probably would have found another way to screw it up. Be real, guys, Let's be real, because there was still a lot of football to be played after that, so it could be a lot more things. It has to start. Our identity, to me, still needs to be on the defensive side.

We offensively were together. McCarthy's coming in when he was sitting at home hoping that someone that Jerry Jones or someone called him to this organization. He's thinking what he can do with that offense. That's the first thing that he's thinking as he's sitting at home, you know, probably thinking, you know inside or Jason Garrett is blowing this. If I had this team offensively, I would have called this

player that play. That's great. We can all do that because that's why the strength is show me what we're going to do on the defensive side. So you're you don't necessarily want the identity of the team to be defense. So if you just want an uptick defensively. I want an uptick defensively. We talked about going from seventh to ninth, of ninth to seven. That doesn't mean jack. You gotta count all stats. Okay, you can go with numbers all you want, but you gotta go with turnovers, you know.

And when when we Shard first came, when Christoph Shard first came, we were known. I think we got got a number of very timely turnovers. They it's not just the numbers, but the timing of the turnovers helped us propel us into some of the bigger games and bigger wins that we had. We had none of that this year. Yes, we had stops on third downs. We were horrible. I think I'm sorry, I just can't. Yeah, you know, I still seventh. I don't know how they still got that

that that seventh position. Well, let's you know that those numbers don't mean Jack ninth in total yards. So that's what it is. You gotta make plays, you gotta takeaways. Yeah, and that's and that's bottom of the barrel as far as getting takeaways. But I want to also say, Kyle, when it comes down to the Mike McCarthy era, it's very important that Stephen Jones, Will McClay and those guys

have synergy immediately. As far as this draft is concerned with getting the personnel, I don't believe that the Cowboys can afford to have the square peg. We'rend circle mentality with players anymore. You have to have a guy that comes in and it can immediately make an impact. You said last week, Mickey, when it come down to when it was related to the wide receiver position, are we're

gonna have guys that can play immediately? And if you look at McCarthy and his time in Green Bay, Man, he was able to draft guys that were able to play immediately. The James Jones is the DeVante Freeman, Julius Pepper. I mean, guys that got on the field. And so that's what's and even in free agency, getting guys that

can play that fit the scheme right now. And that's what I guess what the speculation is with Mike Nolan's defense, What is his defensive philosophy going to be, because when you look over the years at the success that he's had, the only years, well, I went back to his Atlanta years when those guys were thirteen and three you look at a guy like John John Abraham, Sean Witherspoon, another guy Samuel Asante, Samuel, if you're relating the personnel that

we have in making the comparison, I think we have a lot of that, and so that's what's gonna be. I think that's gonna dictate getting that identity, playing fast, coming after teams and getting those turnovers and kind of going off of that synergy and being on the same page as an entire coaching staff. It goes back to what has been said about really the Cowboys over the past three or four years, making you even talked about record wise. The talent is here, that's been said, but

that's not enough anymore. You can't just say the talent is talent. Everybody has a talent. It's the NFL. There's thirty one other teams out there that have legitimate talent. You have talent here. Now you gotta put it together. You gotta be on the same page. And whether that's through the draft, building through free agency. There's a lot of pressure on this coaching staff and Mickey, you kind of said the expectation as Super Bowl for Mike mccarth

that was kind of tugging. That was kind of tugging cheek. But you gotta at least win the division and get into the playoffs and win a game. So that's first year this year to me, and it was to make the championship, right Yeah, and so anything less. And let's let's point out they got five defensive starters that are free agents. Yeah, so that's either a good thing or a bad thing if you didn't think the defense was

good enough. Right yeah, uh, eight backups on defense free agents, And I don't know where you want to put Tyrone Crawford in that group, but he's coming back from dual hip surgeries. He may not be here, who knows, he'll twenty nine, he'll turn this year. Then his cap hit as well, maybe yeah, And I don't but you got to have good players everybody. If you're a good player,

your cap HiT's going to be significant. Right. So they've got a lot of rebuilding to do, either resigned these guys or that's a lot of work to do in free agency or the draft in one year. But I'll guarantee you the expectations out there are going to be at least what I said, at least get to the championship game, win a divisional game, potentially win the division would be a great start to win the division. If we don't win the division, we're going to be upset.

One quick stat. Out of the eight previous Dallas Cowboys head coaches, fifty percent of them have had a winning record in their first season as a head coach. Fifty percent, So four of eight, yeah, or winning records. Switzer was handed, he was handed a magnificent team. There's different situations back and forth. So and Parcels did maybe the best coaching job of anybody to get that team to tenants six and into the playoffs with Quincy Carter as the quarterback.

Pretty impressive, Pretty impressive. But I have to say on the defensive side, and I went back looked at Dick Nolan's record as well, and the type of personnel that he has. Linebackers seemed to be the that's the basis of his defense. That's where strength he seems top from his strength. Unless we changed the philosophy here defensively from the linebacker position, I don't know if that's gonna fit with him. I thought we had I was way too

far back. They were very vulnerable at all times, we thought that maybe our speed that we had was going to negate. It was going to give us the ability to have good direction and good running start to the ball. That did not happen this year. Maybe the change of thought process of our linebackers will allow us to be as effective as the linebackers that Mike Nolan has had

in the past. Except for the Saints, and I said this earlier in the offseason, except for the success that he had with the Saints from there as a linebacker coach, I didn't see much of him having much success defensively as a d C. And that bothers me. Now you know, he was dealing with just some certain players that maybe he inherited. I'm not sure how that went. But if he's gonna put the stamp on this, he better get his own players and don't come in here saying well,

I had to play the cards that would dealp me. No, we need to get our own players, and I think I think he's going to have to bring some guys in that's going to really fit the culture of what he's trying to do. He's gonna have to. I don't think he has it here. And I'm sorry to say that, but I don't think they're here right now. Well, the positive thing and the encouraging thing about the Dallas Cowboys is that they're not the only team that has a

ton of question marks going into the off season. There's three other teams, specifically in the division in the NFC seas that have a ton of off season question marks. We're gonna address those question marks after we take a quick break. You're listening to Talking Cowboys from that s WBC Mortgage studios. Here at the start, I'm Jay Novachik, former tight end for the Dallas Cowboys. Back in the day. I was the guy who always got the tough yards

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GWS one score. September one, nineteen. Back to Talking Cowboys roaring on here in the SWBC Mortgage studios. Talking Cowboys are on another cloudy semi chili Tuesday, after a beautiful weekend here in Dallas for it work. It was a nice week. He was awesome. Man was perfect, outstanding. I went to a baseball game. Oh you weren't here were a season? Yeah? I was back back. We came back on Friday, Friday afternoon. Oh you really came back too. So yeah, there were a couple of people on Friday.

That's what you get, Mickey does. There was There was at least a couple of people in a group of I don't know, we were about fifty that figured out, Oh, if they're gonna make those reservations, make mine coming back on Sunday and I'll pay for my hotel girl the other two days. There you go. It's like, yeah, what did nice think? Of that because you're too cheat. Yeah that makes sense, but uh yeah, fun week in New Orleans.

But it was a great weekend here. Fort Worth absolutely wanted to kind of continue a little bit of our conversation. We just addressed the Cowboys and some of the expectations for coaching staff, for the new coaching staff rather in Mike McCarthy and company. But there's a lot of question marks in this division. I mean, there's two teams and one either four or less games, the Giants and the Redskins four and twelve, three and thirteen for Washington, and

then you had the Eagles at nine and seven. It was just by far one of the interesting divisions in terms of lack of wins is probably the best way, the nicest way to put it, lack of wins for a division winner this year, nine and seven and the Eagles, but lots of offseason questions for these teams as well. Kind of wanted to dissect these one by one, and we'll start with the defending champion Eagles as they looked to become the first repeat NFC East champion in how

long twenty years? Was in two thousand and four? Four okay, so sixteen years it's been a while since they were the last ones to do it. They won it four years in a row. Okay, and now you look at coming back and with all the injuries that they had, what do you expect out of the Eagles and out of Philadelphia coming up this season? I have no idea. It's a good question. I mean at this point, I mean, who are they? We don't know who they are. We

haven't even seen free agency or a draft yet. So I thought they were always highly beatable, like the Cowboys did the first time around. They didn't go out there and only score nine points, you know, that was that was another unforgivable happening during this season, to score nine points in the game that was gonna win the NFC East basically, So, yeah, are they great? They scored seventeen points against the Cowboys. What was it the first time? Ten ten to ten? So and they scored to that

home Yeah, yeah, seventeen at home. It was a beatable team, you know, shame on the Cowboys. That's true. That's the way I looked at it. So I don't they're beatable. I don't think that. You know, I think people are gonna be hard pressed to pick a favor to win the NFC East. And that's that's not a good thing, right, that's that's just because of so much more calamity. And then you look at I have to give Peterson some credit because they could have folded this thing up. Sure

so long. There were a couple of games when they were coming down the stretch that they won, you know, between he and Carson Wentz, that running game of doing so well man, it was I had to give him a lot of credit because what they were doing when they were grinding, we were losing, and what they were doing is what we should have been doing as Dallas Cowboys. They figured out a way to win games that trail. They had to come from behind against the Redskins. They

changed into a playoff team down that stretch. They their philosophy was, we're gonna play good defense, We're gonna brun the ball. That's playoff defense. Let's playoff basket of football. And so yeah, we couldn't do that. And you look at the NFC East, Well, three coaches fired this year, three out of four, yes, right, yep, three out of four. Doug Peterson is the only one that returns. Well, I can say this now's the Old States. Yeah, I can

say this unequivocally. I hate the Eagles, And I don't know if this is politically correct to say, yeah, but I hate them and the fact that they beat us in a months win game just does not sit right with me, especially with all the injuries that they had at wide receiver and you know the guys talking about how Carson Wentz was playing with the Motley Cruve guys that you know off the street. This one guy was

backing groceries but Greg Warred Houston products. Yeah, but but still, I mean with al Sean Jeffrey, Deshaun Jackson being out, you just looked in their running game, you know, they again winning ugly. They were winning games and it's not like they were doing a lot they were weren't putting

up a lot of stats. They were relying on their defense with Fletcher clocks and random you know they did and that's and that was Malcolm Jenkins, that was the centerpiece of that team that again getting that identify that identity as a team. They ran everything through their defense and it man, it helped them in the end come down the stretch, win the division they wanted ugly, But for them. I think that they're going to be looking at getting a running back because of the guys that

they have. I believe in the last four games of the season, they bought in Elijah hol of Film the Great Champion. Yeah his son is they running back in the National Football League. But yeah, I mean so also getting getting in a top tier receiver. I think on defense they're just getting healthy. Even though they were a little banged up, they played some really good defense. But running back wide receiver is the place that I believe that the Eagles would be looking at improving the the

wide receiver core is Deshan coming back. He's a little old now, yeah, but he came. He was on injured reserve. Ye this year they got off and they were saying that it was this is gonna be the jeffres and you know, it's gonna be that show. It's gonna be that show all year long. Then he's the next game he's hurt. Yeah, so turned around and he was on IR. Yeah he's talking all that trash. Now, he wasn't the

only one on IR. You look at really the injuries that they had to deal with, and I think this goes along with what Mickey was having to say of who we don't know what they're going I was heading too, because when those guys come back, you know what's what's it gonna be like. I mean, you can have Alston, Jeffrey darren Sproles, you got Deshaun Jackson like you mentioned, and then on the defensive side, Ronald Darby was on ir Uh Hassan Ridgeways, all these almost starter level of backups.

I mean, we talked about the free agents for the Cowboys. All these guys were on I R in the middle of the season, didn't do anything, and they still want down the stretch and he still did And that's that's why I don't know what to expect from them. And will Wentz stay healthy? That was the first season he stayed at health first, right, Yeah, And they had four six Pro Bowlers, not including Wins just because Wins, they

had six Pro Bowls, six Pro Bowlers. Now, of course, Wins did get hurt at the end of the season as well. Josh McCown had the step end for a split second. So even in the season when Carson Wentz was healthy for the majority of it, there was still kind of those questions on whether or not he was going to be able to. Yet they still make it all the way down the stretch. And that's what you can throw stats out of the windows. Guys. Sometimes you just gotta come with how much heart do you have? Okay?

How much of a team is this? You know, we can fuss all we want about. Okay, we to have blown third downs, they don't get into six, but just win the game and then well we'll worry about that later. They were able to put things off that they weren't good at and still concentrate on the task at hand,

and that was winning the ball game, you know. And I think it goes back to and I mentioned it last week when we were talking about the Cowboys offense and what Kellen Moore's assessment was of what happened, And it's like, you gotta make plays at key times. You third down? Can I convert that third down? Or a red zone? Can I score this touchdown and set a kick a field goal? And boy did they? And right?

And the Cowboys problem was with all those yards they gained, it didn't translate into points because you got to make plays at key times. And the Cowboys that didn't do it. And Mickey like, guys, like Dallas Goddard and Zach Ernst in the game versus the Cowboys, they just ripped us apart. I mean just just hiding out in those bubbles and sitting hobbling, will hobbling. And who were they gonna throw the ball to? Right? They gonna put a big neon sign up there, right, the two tight ends them, Yes,

can you cover them? And the Cowboys couldn't, couldn't do it, couldn't even We didn't even have a defense drawn up to stop them. And even when they beat the Giants and they beat them twice, right and then Washington once. Is that the way it worked? And it came down to key plays at the end. Who did you think they were going to throw the ball to? You know every time? And they didn't cover them? Nope, didn't quite open.

They should have had three people around each tight end't even I wouldn't even I put a linebacker on Greg Ward if I had to, because west half. But they two got and the the running back coming out of the backfield, I don't say what was his name again from Penn State, the running back that was just dicing them up for the Eagles this year. Oh, that's a good question Miles Sanders of Boston Scott. It was Boston Scott.

See those guys, they came through. They came through in a difficult situation because I believe one of the starters got hurt down the stretch and they came in with the backup. But one of the things I wanted to ask you about, Mickey, as far as the Dallas Cowboys on offense, I think they were the worst in the NFL as far as UH was starting positions on offense, they were, you know, because the defense didn't help out right,

defense didn't help. He's drive started, you know, the worst starting so having having to go the length of the field and have those quality plays, asking Kellen Moore to I mean literally script this thing out all the way from the fifteen yards away and then and when the offense sputter and they had their problems on their woes and let's just say, when they were relying on Brett Maher to kick a fifty five yard field goal, he misses a fifty five yard and then the defense on

the flip side of that, they were starting in the worst field position as well, because most offenses are starting at the thirty five forty yard line. Can't remember the place, but there was at some point and it was the second half of the season that they had only started two possessions on the opponent's side of the fifty two. That's true, and so yeah, maybe that's why they had so many yards because they had to go eighty and ninety.

You think about this. I always say, you use up your playbook on one drive, and you were saying you have to script out and it's not like we're making big plays doing those drives, and everything is just methodical. It's almost like we go three downs every time, we have to do the third down. Every time we have to make the third down in the process of going all the way down the field. No big plays that were able to offset you know, just how methodical we

were and going down the field. And to me, you can't sustain that all year long because now you become predictable. Yeah, there are only so many plays in the playbook, right, I mean, you can only use so many. After you're gonna repeat, You're gonna repeat, You're gonna repeat, and if you go one drive, you might go seventy five yards. Okay, that defense says that was good drive. Okay, we saw some things. Then the pattern is there. Yeah, and so now you you have to continue to do that for

four quarters with no help defensively. So that's how you use up your playbook. Because I use that term, I'm want to clarify that's what that means. After a while, the defense is like, Okay, they've shown the pattern on everything seen before. They shown the same pattern on thirty four. You know, here we are thirty four again, thirty four again, thirty eight again. You know, we're always you know, grinding it out, and that's that's not successful when your defense

is not making place. Did you think that the play calling got predictable at any point in the season. It had to be. It had to because you're using every play. You're not you're not killing them with big plays, right, you know, if you get a big play, then that that the gates the other forty yards that you wy have had to use use your playbook. Now we just use forty yards in one play. Now we can use we can save all of those plays we didn't use

for a more critical time in the game. And I think that's what was super frustrating for Cowboys fans this season is the fact that you saw a team like the Eagles, with depleted personnel, with the injuries that they dealt with, go out and have success. And you said, hey, why can't we do that? Because they did plays at key time exactly and you you know you mentioned predictable. They scored, They totaled more yards than any team in

Cowboy history in history. Crazy Dak Prescott camed up two yards short of throwing for more yards than any quarterback in Cowboy history. And two of them are in the Hall of Fame. So that they have problems moving the football, they had problems scoring, yeah, or making a play at a key time, or kicking a field goal at a key time. You couldn't go through the season where you're your kicker was what one of one of the between those are key three threes. That that's the layups that

you need. That's free throws. That's the free throws that you gotta make right there now, Mickey, Mickey, you're the you're the football almanac here, So I gotta say this as well. Now, when you have a quarterback that throws for five thousand yards typically, I guess besides guys like Dan Marino that had you know, success throwing for those

kind of yards. Those always those are all those numbers are always indicative of losing teams or eight teams if you look over the course of the history of the NFL with guy's having those kind of yards, because I don't even Pat Mahome didn't throw for forty nine hundred yards this year in his offense, so oh, maybe he's going to the stat sheet somewhere. I mean, even if you look at it once again, you've got to have supports on the other side. Yeah, and you can you

can talk about we're talking about that. Let's not forget about Zeke. Zeke had over a thousand, so that you can add that to our offensive success if you want to call it. But when it came down to it, you've used up all of those plays. You're right back in the red zone again because you got to be damn that, because your defense didn't stop anybody, so offensively, you're still behind the eight ball. Now we need this red zone. Well, god, we're back. We've been down here

five times. You know, we've been down in five times. We've been ridzone five times. He had a quarterback that had a career year. You had a running back that ran for a thousand once again, for whatever that's worth. You had the first time since two thousand and six two receivers with a thousand yards receiving. Wow. And you didn't score enough points in eight games too, and we had fifty five at least fifty five. Yeah and so yeah, So offensively, they just didn't make plays at the key

times they moved the football. It just wasn't good enough consistently enough. Um. So yeah, that's why I just said, let's put a big circle around that defense and let's see. You know, it's gotten big. You just have to change the culture around here. We know what we have offensive league.

You know, when when Christi Shad came in two years ago, that was fun to watch seeing that defense go around making plays they would they were guys making it ups and stripped sacks and Jayla Smith picking up fumbles and going for touchdown. You know, you don't have to be tops in the field in any of those defensive categories. You just gotta make the plays when the counts. And that's what they did two years ago when we show

our first game. Well, and that's what Philadelphia was able to do with Zach Ertz and Dallas Goddard in that final game. What's the thing that the Cowboys did not necessarily have on offense that had a successful year. Confidence. I was saying, the tight end position, no confidence, no confidence in the time even that they drove down the field, it just seemed like they were it's just status quo, it is. It seemed like we were just just playing

out the playbook. And we're gonna talk about those tight ends in that position and what the Cowboys could do better when we come back. Talking Cowboys will return in a moment. Since eighteen sixty five, stets and Hats are American Aid with pride right here in Texas, and Stetson is proud to be on the field with America's team. Want to show your Texas and team pride too? You can by purchasing your own Stetson. You can look just like how the flag guys do on field at every

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Yet there it is a rich, delicious Doctor Pepper Paradise. Wait did did that? Can of doctor Pepper, just open itself for you. They all are as if to say, so nice to treat you. And even though it feels weird to talk to we, can you pick one up and say, it's so nice to be treated doctor Pepper, so nice to treat you. Back to talking cowboy. So we have a deadline coming up on Jack Black twelve hours away. To take advantage of a clean getaway, you can get a free turbo washed three ounces or all

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twelve hours Get blackfty nine. That was reserved, that was reserentation. Yeah, that's why you au there was no funny life, no words, no shape, but all over wash oh gotta love the Mickey reads a staple here on Talking Cowboys, and we kind of into the last segment alluding to this a little bit tight ends. Of course, this is a position of frustration for the Cowboys over the last two years, not even just this past year. With Jason Witton in

his return. It was always nice to have Witten back with the Cowboys, and and of course having him in the in the locker room is huge. The fact of having the sixteen years or the fifteen years of experience in a gold jacket went running around. That's always going to help out. And he says the passion is still there. He wants to return and play the tight end position at a professional level yet again. But that brings me

to the question of last year. When he did come back, it was rumored that he was going to see about twenty five percent of the sna apps, he was going to be limited action, wasn't guaranteed to be the starter, But instead he saw seventy of the snaps on offense. And even with a new coaching staff coming in Mike McCarthy, a guy who has been known to use twelve personnel quite a bit in the past, what do the Cowboys

actually have at tight end. Is this something that could be an issue going into twenty twenty In further well, I thought heck I brought it up very well, almost alluded to it doing the break and you know, having that, not having that tight end that you really want in the red zone. I think that's one of the reasons that we did not do well when it came to scoring and finishing our drives. When it came to third downs.

You know, I'm sure we probably did very well decent in third downs, but when it came down the stretch, our third down efficiency was down when we needed those plays, and you could see on the defense SIF side how we were being defeated by the running back and by the tight end position, especially late in the season. Second half of the season was when it came to either the Thanksgiving game or any of the teams that we played on the AFL. On the AFC side, those teams

heavily regarded on their tight ends. It's really what you're going to now in the NFL. That's your save my ass position, okay, And that needed a lot of that last year in key positions, and he did not get it. For some reason. We just didn't target Blake Jawing as much as we should have. I mean, this guy's of an athletic marvel to me, you know, folks, someone who could have the yack of a better yact than probably

any tight end in the league. And that's we're talking about some some studs at tight end all throughout the NFL. And for some reason we you know, let's just remember the joke that I believe that that's got said about Whitten years ago. This is years ago. Yeah, he's only tight end with a negative yak. Yeah, come on, gotta think about that, guys. Yeah, I mean, I love you know, we love Witten man and everything he's done for this team. This guy he supported me as a person and my foundation.

But I think we need to start looking forward to the guys that can get the ball down the field from the tight end position. And that's a good question of what is Blake Jarwin and Dalton Schultz. So those are the two guys that are on your roster at the moment, both extremely athletic. Blake Jarwin had thirty nine percent of offensive snaps this year, thirty one receptions, three hundred and sixty five yards, almost twelve yards per catch, and he had three touchdowns compared to four for Jason

Witten and his seventy five percent of offensive snaps. So what do we have in Blake Jarwin? Is this a guy who can step in and be a starter. My only reserve is if he's that ready to be a starter, why did he not see the field a quarter percent of the time last year? I would think they can trust them enough. Now they used them a lot of too, tight end and they used them a lot on third down. Look the tight ends again, I can give you quantity.

Now we can discuss the quality. Right, the tight ends produced ninety five catches for nine hundred yards seven touchdowns. So from a quality quantity stamp point, ninety five catches from your tight ends pretty darn good. Nine hundred almost a thousand yards season, right, Yeah, got seven touchdowns though, so the catches per touchdown probably not what you want. And you didn't make enough impact plays down the field. Yeah,

if they moved the chains then that's cool too. Yeah. Right, So now what you can condult and shows be your every down tight end and I haven't seen enough of it. You haven't. But that's the question, that's the bigger question with our tight ends, can they run block? I mean catching yards out to catch, that's awesome, But we have one of the world's best running backs here that we're paying to be the world's best best running back in

the tight end position. If McCarthy's gonna play that twelve personnel, guys are gonna have to be able to block. And I think that is what the difference is. Yeah, if you say, that's exactly, those are the things when you look at the other teams are like Kittle at San Francisco. This guy is an animal blocker. I mean he's blocking guys to the gatoray buckets, and that's what you want.

But if you are a mediocre in our system, it doesn't work because we can't be susceptible on the edge because we don't have a tight end that can block. And so when you look around the NFL or just look at just going back to what the Cowboys mantra has been, we sign our own guys. So if we have him here in the house, we're gonna try and

take care of him. He's showing those flashes and it sounds like to me everyone regards Jarwin as a guy that may have had his growth a little stunted last year by Witton coming back, but that's for a reason. If he could block, then obviously he would. You wouldn't have to worry about that. And so looking at free agency or just looking at the guys that are out there, does the Cowboy, will the Cowboys make a trade? Will

we go into the draft looking at tight ends? Because again O. J. Howard is a guy that I think that everyone over the years we've been talking. But will we pay that kind of dollar for a tight end like an Eric Ebrun? Will we bring in a guy that has that those type of salary demands it in or will we look, you know, elsewhere to get a tight end that can make an impact, or we just stay, say the course with a guy that still has those question marks looming when we know what he has to

do in the running game. Well, you got to have priorities, right of course. Okay, what's your free agent priority? Is a line Well, no, it's your quarterback? Well signing, yes, okay, the free agent? And then what's your next priority? Your wide receiver, what's your next priority? Maybe that third wide receiver? What's your next priority might like MALIEK. Collins back. Yeah, right, uh, and then after Quinn? And then where does Robert Quinn fit in? You want him back? Because all this stuff's

gonna cost. So you've got to have a list of priorities and is the tight end? How high is the tight end in that priority list? And how much are you going to spend for something that the other team didn't want? So remember that there's a reason guys are in free agency. Somebody didn't want him. Austin Hooper from Atlanta free agent this year, market value around ten million. Then you've got Eric Ebron. We talked about him a couple of weeks ago. Seven seven point four million is

his right now? Looking forward to Bron? Yeah, yeah, what he's not a free now he's a free agent? Yeah yeah, oh not yet. Yes, he's got a month. He's got a couple of weeks, So teams can a month. Yeah, so teams can resign these guys just because they're out there. Now. That's like saying Dak Prescott's the number one quarter back in free agents, but also he's not going to be

a free agent. Well, so you can't start looking at those things if the coach didn't bring back Yeah, I mean he's they just got to work on a contract or he's gonna get transition tagged or something. So again it you know, you got a lot of wants. You need another linebacker because if Sean Lee is not here, you need another linebacker, right, And then what are you gonna do at cornerback? Yeah? And what are you gonna do at safety? Because you can't draft everybody and say, okay,

these guys. I drafted this guy in the fourth round. He's my starter. No, absolutely not. But but also saying, you know, that guy's a free agent for a reason. I mean, contractually, guys end up being free agents and have an opportunity, like you said, some time, if they're good enough, I'll sign them. But like you said with Byron Jones, you said, give him an opportunity to look at what's going on in the free market. You said, hey,

give him an opportunity. And so if another team coveraged that and they want to make him the highest paid cornerback and Patrick Peterson and let him have him, well that's but that's but saying he's a free agent, but do that. Well, he is a free agent for a reason because if you didn't resign him, then you thought his value wasn't worth what it was going to cost. The sign was worth to see if he's if it's the values there they like you said, the Cowboys just

might want to see what other teams think. Yeah, let them find out what your market value is. Well, and just because you let a guy walk doesn't mean you don't like think about this. You've got other guys telling me team tell me a star player that the Cowboys had heading in the free agency that they didn't resign and lost him, and said, okay, Anthony Hitchins, I'll give you that one, but a star star player. Take Anthony hitch I was just about to say, Anthony really all

right because in the priority. In the priority you had two starting lifebackers and Sean Lee. So yeah, but that name one name a probe bowler that the Cowboys lost because they didn't sign them in free to stay out of free agency. Not many. I have to go back to Ken Norton junior, and that was the first year of free agency and they didn't think that they should sign a guy with a big signing bonus. But other than that, they resigned. Yeah, they resigned their own guys.

But Micky, let me ask you this when it comes down to those those teams in the nineties, right when you Michael Irvin, Emmett Smith and Troy Aikman, those guys had to work out contracts to be able to keep guys like Nate Newton on the roster and with oh oh, I don't know about that. Troy Aikman didn't leave money on the table. Michael Irvin held out an entire training camp if you remember, and didn't sign to the Thursday

before the season opener looking for more money. But if he had done, like a lot of these guys are chesting the chesting the market, being able to go out and get bigger contracts, they still had those things, and then their ability well Mike never had a chance to get into free agency. They seen them. The point that I'm saying is being able to get those contracts structure that fit your team, to be able to bring back

a Byron Jones. Because again, if we the priority, if the priority is signing Dak, if Dak's taking up the lion chair, if we look at the contracts that we have, if a third of those are going to other guys, how are we going to sign any of these other guys? How are you going to go out in free agency and sign another guy for that type of money. Well, then again that's answering the question. We're not going to be able to and we're not going to be able to sign our own guys either, and so we're not

going to have much success. We'll be right back at eight and eight again because we won't be able to get the quality for the dollars that we're paying. They didn't lose quality from twenty sixteen, did they. We had a bunch of guys that were three, thirteen and three, but we had a bunch of guys that were on

rookie contracts as well. Well, I understand, but again, you're you're gonna you can't resign everybody, right, But when you can't resign everybody, that means you don't have enough money to go out there and sign somebody else's How are you going to size you have, really prioritize them, what's important to your right exactly, and then you look and see and fill in and then hope you draft, Well, two guys can step up and fill in holes. If you can't sign your how are you going to find

to sign somebody else? So if we stay the course, if we stay the course with the guys saying you're gonna stay the course, but you got a salary cap, right, and every as well as every team has a salary cap. And either we're drafting well or we're getting free agency. Either way, we have to get someone in here that's gonna shore up that position. If Jason again, let's say the trains left the station on that one, right, we're gonna have Dalton shows Jarwin. We're gonna have to bring

another guy into that room. Either we get him through the draft, that we get him through free agency. We're gonna have to sign them. If it's not one of these top ten guys for bookoo dollars, who are we gonna go to? Who is going to fit into the system that we have, because someone's gonna have to help this team out at the time. In position, you absolutely a try and figure out probity wise, who's the free agent sign he's gonna be. And then also how do

we draft. I wouldn't mind drafting a tight end, right, they have some amazing coming out and they're gonna have to I'm not as I'm not as high on the tight end as you Mightn't you know it was a good but I think you can get a round tight ends out there who can block very well, probably block better than tight ends we have right now. May not be as fluid as jaw And is at this point in this career, but I would take a chance on drafting a tight end out of college and without bringing back.

I mean, it's easy to sit there and look at the top shelf, right, Yeah, Well, a lot of us can't go to the tequila barn order top shelf all the time. Right, Come on, when somebody else's parts right, sometimes that second or third shelfs got to work, can you gotta That's when you got to rely on your scouting department, right, and your pro scouting department say, Okay, this team didn't want to sign this, but you know what, I think he's pretty good. Maybe I can bring this

guy on. Sometimes you can't just look at the top three guys and say, I gotta have that at corner. I gotta have that at tight end, I gotta have that at defensive tackle. I gotta have that at my third wide receiver spot. I gotta have that at the other defensive end spot. Just remember in twenty eighteen when Jason Witten was retired and in the booth we were we had guys like Noah Brown, you know, auditioning at

the tight end position, and it didn't service it. I mean we got he wasn't going to be a tight end. Well he was, he was still a hybrid. We didn't have him a receiver, wasn't gonna block. Yeah, that whole thing with Noel Brown. You know what, if I've got a wide receiver and the best thing I can say about him he's blocks, Well, I got a problem that would always say about Norah Brown. That's what I'm sorry, he blocks. That's no, that's the right one. That's the

right one. Because we gotta put emphasis now all guys that we know that when we get down like Norah Brown against I was thinking about the when we played in the Seattle nor Brown. We go down in the goal line and Nora Brown is out there with jar One and Schultz in the twelve personnel situation. I mean, we're not fooling anybody in that We're not gonna go to Nora Brown another Neon sign. Come yea. So we got if we're gonna get if we're gonna have any Swiss army to our tight ends. We gotta bring in

a guy that can do both. And it looks like right now the guys that we have on the on the roster aren't able to do that well. And going back to Whateverson said, you might not mind taking a tight end in the draft. We took one two years ago in twenty eighteen and the fourth rounde His name was Dalton Shoals. And then going back to what Mickey said, just because you can't look at the top shell, if

that makes sense. You can't look at the top shelf of the tequila or whatever you're you're drinking, but those middle shelves, if you're not careful, it's going to give you a pretty bad headache the next month's right, Absolutely, I know who have some issues. You know, you know who. I just gave him a headache too. As a matter of fact, Rob just turned a show off. He wouldn't

get so mad at me. I know Brown, I know we would like to sincerely apologize to Rob Philops point of nowhere Brown, but that's gonna do it for Top just told his wife I've taken care of the baby off. Thanks so much for joining us. For Everson Walls for heck My Harrison for Mickey's Bango. I'm Kyle Yeoman. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next week. Hey. This has been a production of Dallas Cowboys dot Com and the Dallas Cowboys Football Club out