Talkin' Cowboys: Riverboat Dak?

but either way, it is still a victory Monday. Here from the Star in Frisco in Week fourteen of the NFL season, the Dallas Cowboys come out on top up over the Houston Texans twenty seven, twenty three, and will break it down for you here over the next forty five minutes from the Star in Frisco, presented by Black Rifle Coffee Company, alongside Patrick Nose Walker, Isaiah stand back Chris Beam in the backroom, Kyle Yeoman's, gentlemen, how are

we doing? Everybody got their heart rate down a little bit? Is it back down to resting rate at the moment I was able to. It took a well last night, but I was able to get it smoothed out. There was a nervous energy from the middle of the first quarter, really up until the end of the game, I mean until the pick was made by Israel mcquamu aka Treyvon Diggs, whoever, whoever,

whoever you ask, when that pick was made. That was finally the decompression after what was a three hour long nerve fest all the way through, because as soon as Kavante Turpin muffed the punt, it looked like it was gonna get tcey and you thought the Cowboys would pull it out. You thought they would pull away at some point.

That didn't necessarily happen, Isaiah, Nope, didn't happen. That's what happens when you show up a thing that you just handle anybody based upon records, based upon your skill sets. I mean, this is the NFL, or this is a professional athletes, the best in the world. There's only so many guys at each position, there's only so many coordinators.

You're gonna face the best you know every week, and you have to bring your a game no matter what, no matter what situation you think that you're walking into. And you know, the Texans punched Dallas in the mouth, and unfortunately, it takes a lot to try to get yourself out of a rut. That's why you show up and you start fast, because if you don't, then you give teams confidence and then they can stick around, and

then you find yourself in a situation. And luckily they was able to find themselves out of one just because of that quarterback play on the part of the Texans. But everybody knows that Dallas should have lost that game. They should have lost that game, that had that quarterback not gone the wrong way, they probably would have lost, and a couple other things and a couple but specifically

line stand. I don't know that the Cowboys mentally were overlooking the Texans as much as it was just good old fashioned mistakes, just good old fashioned mistakes, I can I can guarantee you that you know Turpin after he cost that fair catch, he's not thinking, oh, this is the Texans. No, just good old fashioned mistakes. And then what do the Texans do. They go down, they get a touchdown off of that, and correct me if I'm wrong. The Texans had seventeen fourteen or seventeen points off of

Cowboys turnovers. Fourteen should have been twenty one because they had the ball outside the five yards. So you know, the Cowboys, we talked about it, MISQ shooting yourself in the foot. They shot themselves in the foot. And that's how you allow teams that you're better than to remain in the game. And that's what we saw. And it's something that the Cowboys are going to have to be consistent in cleaning up because the only reason they were

able to escape. And kudos to a ninety eight yard drive and Dak Prescott and Dalton shots and you know, Noah Brown and Jason Peters and we'll get to I saw your tweet on y'ahoo news last night. Did you which one his tweet about Jason Peters giving him as good jacket? They they posted it on an article. 'ah that man his gold jacket in the post game? Um? And you know, and kudos to Joe Philbin and coach McCarthy for making that decision. But it took that to overcome,

you know, errors that the Cowboys made. So again, I don't believe it wasn't as much that they overlooked texts. I don't believe they did. And I don't believe that the Texans quarterbacks played poorly. They made a poor decision ultimately that helped cost them the game. But they really attacked that young Cowboys secondary outside of Treyvon Diggs. And and you know, kudos to Kelvin Joseph for making up for it with that huge PBu on that third down,

but prior to that he was getting targeted. To talk about the thirty plus yard gainer that ended up being a field goal, I believe for the for the Texans, uh so be it him or n Sean right, whomever the case may be. They in their two quarterbacks set, which was weird, but they had nothing to lose. But between Driscoll and um David's Mills, they really just attacked underneath and those young guys you know you're gonna have to step up. So Lovey Smith had a plan and

they were executing that plan. But it wouldn't have mattered if the Cowboys had played clean football. No, I agree with you completely, and I like the way you kind of set that up because one, and this is kind of a sidebar, but I thought Calvin Joseph and Deron Bland played good football. Going back and watching the tape, for the most part, they were solid. They gave up a couple of receptions. It's gonna happen from time to time, and honestly, the one passed to Chris Moore on the sideline,

that was just a ball. That was a dime from Davis Mills. They in good coverage from Calvin Joseph. That was the sidebar. Sidebar now over. But the way you set up the fact that offensively there were mistakes, they made the plays when they needed to. Defensively, there were certainly mistakes, but they made the plays when they needed to. Dallas should not have won this game. The way that they played for eighty percent of that ball game, eighty

percent of it, the Texans outplayed Dallas. You could tell they wanted it just a little bit more. It looked like a young college team looking to prove something. And not to compare the Texans to a college team, because they are a professional organization. However, it just felt like that type of energy. It was pent up aggression, trying to get the job done. But Dallas, when they needed to answer, was there when it mattered most, and that's

what ultimately ended up being the deciding fact. They still tall, particularly the defense who time and again gave the Cowboys opportunities as far as the offensive side of the ball to get new possessions and go downfield and score. And unfortunately later in the game, it wasn't until that ninety eight yard drive that won the game that it happened.

I have in the fourth quarter, third and seven pass breakup by Kelvin Joseph, the Galimore pass breakup on third thirty four right, the fourth down stopped by Galimore and Bard that came after that tank shut down on Rex Birkhead, and that those two plays alone saved the game. And finally the Cowboys offense once they put Peters in to protect on the right side other than you know, outside of Josh Ball, that's when they were able to make

that drive. But kudos to the defense because they you know, they allowed air quotes twenty points in the first half, but again the large majority of that was predicated upon mistakes made by the offense. Fourteen of those twenty were off of turnovers in short field. So the defense is really who saved the game long enough or I should say kept the Cowboys in the game long enough for

the for the offense to figure it out. And thankfully, the offense figured it out with with not a second to say to spare and they had to get down the field. First, Yeah, the offense looked like pepulp at least, let's talk about it. What happened second drive For first drive was pretty good, even that there were there were that was that was surgical. But yeah, that wasn't good. He wasn't go. He struggled yesterday, Yes, until this is.

This is not a first time though, this is this has been reoccurring this year, and he's technique wise, it was shot. I felt like he relaxed on his mechanics and just relying on his arm to try to gun a lot of balls into bad situations. Not only was the velocity turned up substantially from what he normally throws, the location was off. So the velocity is higher and the locations off, bad things happen, tip balls happen, ball

gets on QUICKITYR receivers quicker, they're in bad situations. And I just felt like he just wasn't I feel like he could just in his mind. It appeared as if he could feel he could just gunsling it if it felt very Brett farvish like, like, you know, just just I could throw it around. If it touches your hands, you're supposed to catch it type of thing. I'm not gonna place it where it should be. I'm not gonna

place it with the velocity. I'm not gonna place it with the loft, and it's gonna put you in the best situation to be able to come down with the ball. I'm just gonna get you to get the ball in your area. Figure it out. A lot of times at home, when you're sitting there and you're watching the game, you're thinking about it from like a maddened standpoint where you're playing Madden and if it's a it's an underneath route, you're holding down that bee button to try and get

it quickly and throw a strike to your receiver. And that velocity is not a bad thing. Why is the real game of football on the gridiron? Why is it different that velocity doesn't always equal good And last night we saw that with Dak Yesterday we saw that there's different balls. I mean, with the velocity that he was thrown with all yesterday. Those that's the velocity that you typically throw on a timed post route, on a on a comeback route with tight coverage and things of that nature.

These were slants, right, These were slant routes that that he was throwing those into some of some of these. There was obviously other routes in there as well, but it just wasn't good. And if you are going to be thrown a ball that hard, then it needs to be on target. And it wasn't on target. And that's why you're starting to see tip balls. There's there's one interception, nothing yet two interception should have like five, let's call it how it is. Should have been like there's five minutes.

I mean, maybe compeople are gonna try to call him, but there were about five other opportunity unity east that they had to intercept the ball. Well, defenders had their hands on the football right, So it wasn't good. And these are things that I've brought up in the past, in past years, and then I brought him up again today, right because he's in this he's thirty nine passes too many. We've talked about Dad. We don't want DA getting anywhere

near forty passes. And Keller Moore went back to old Keller Moore and put him in situations now where DA's like, Okay, it's on me. It's on me to start slinging this thing around. And he's not that guy. I'm sorry, he's not that guy. Is he k ball for taking you down there and winning the ball? Absolutely? Dak Prescott is skilled. He's a skilled quarterback. I don't put him in the elite call umn. I think he's a really good quarterback when he's not forced to have to throw the ball

into victory. Well, yesterday, we can all agree, even if we disagree on that point. Elite not elite. I say he's elite, but elite players have bad games, and it was just wasn't a good game. But it was a mixed bag as far as the pass an attack for the couple's yesterday because on one note you'd see it out. Use two plays on the same drive from two Dalton shots to illustrate my point. Here, on one inside slant, Dak throws it slightly behind shots catchable, but obviously behind.

It was this early in the game. Yeah, this was first half. It was There was one that was just a complete sale, just a different one. This is okay, this is this is thinking of the sale would have had a huge This was hot. No, this was this was shows on an inside slant shoulder right and it was back shoulder, so it was behind. You're not catchable. No, not catchable behind you ain't catching it. But the one that would have been the touchdown that Shows dropped. Oh,

that was a dot. That was a rope into triple

some good balls. No, My point being that yesterday was a situation where Dak struggled, but he wasn't helped until the ninety eight yard game winner for the most part by the Bye receiver like don't show us for example, So step up at that last drive and and Noah Brown stepped up big and obviously you had to you know, the interest option targeting Noah Brown, right, So you had all of this these exorcisms of the demons earlier in the game from Noah Brown in that interception, Dalton Shows

in that drop touchdown. But it just it felt like the Cowboys offense passing offense, not the run game because Tony Poll and Zeke they were doing their thing, but the passing attack it was just unsettled again. And it's not to Isaiah's point, this is not the first time this season we've seen it unsettled. So the Cowboys just need to establish the consistency in their passing attack that says, hey, we're not going to get away from the run. We're

gonna use it to set up the pass. And when they started to get away from the run yesterday, we started to see some some disheveled looks in the passing games. One thing I want to I want to bring up and kind of kept Dak off balance. Houston did a good job of disguising coverages. Yes, yes they do. Going back and looking at it, there was a lot of single high look that would turn into a cover two. They would have a couple of guys in and out.

They had this Tampa two at times. Whatever they had the linebacker kind of carry the guy down the middle of the field. They did a good job of disguising until the final drive. Texans went back into their shell. I guess and no pun intended back into their shell because it's a shell defense. They went to a Cover two and they stuck to it all time and Dak

Prescott that's why I did a part. It's easier to work down the field in a two minute drill than any other portion of the game because defenses are playing it safe. There's a big but don't break type of mentality, and most defensive coordinators revert back to that. But to your point, in terms of the coverages that they're running. Every team's going to disguise coverage. Some are gonna do

it better than others. Levy Smith is Levy Smith, He's been around, He had that game plan ready, absolutely, and other teams are going to watch this film. Other teams are going to watch this film. But even with those disguises, Dak Prescott which just wasn't on his game and I'm not going to sit up here and belittle him or he had. He had a bad game and everybody has a bad game. He's had multiple. He has had multiple and that's where my concernedness. You can't let it compound

into something bigger. I don't know, is it. Is it just because of expectation on Dak. No. I don't, I don't not. I don't put any pressure on deck because the numbers are there, and I know you're not a numbers guy at all at all, but the numbers from an offensive standpoint, there is a significant difference with Dak Prescott at quarterback than it was without that. And it's supposed to be and it's supposed to because there's levels to this, right, there's levels to everything that in every asthme,

everything that you do in his life. There's levels to it. Dak Prescott is supposed to be a top thirty two quarterback just period, right, he's hired. Yeah, but there's top ten in the world. He's the top thirty two quarterback in the world. Sure, Okay, that's that's facts. Okay. Now you can go up there and have discussion debates sometimes on how high up he goes. But the reality is what they were doing yesterday was not disguised enough right

to cause him complications. There were routes in there that we ran real well, and there's just bad balls. Whether there's velocity, whether it's location. We talked. I talked about it many times out here before left show versus right shoulder. When I'm running a route to my left side and when I'm running a slant route to my left, I want the ball on my upfield shoulder. I want it right on my body. I can't put it on my back shoulder. It doesn't matter if it's lofted in there.

It doesn't mean it matter if it's give his guns in there. That's no different than throwing a running back of ball in the flat. You don't throw the running back the ball in the flat you know, saying a freaking bullet most of the time because usually know your personnel, they can't handle it. Right. Luckily you had at Tony Pollard out there because he came to his swing routes out late a few times, yes yesterday, right on the touchdown.

It just happens to be a TP out there. So those are the things that I'm talking about that like get kind of kind of covered up and muddied up because I want not that much attention is paid to it, because the result of the play was awesome, right, But my analytic mind, in my eyes, I see it. I'm like what I say, and when we're watching the game. So he came to that late, Oh, I'm in the middle of the player, in the middle of plants that he should be the ball should have been out, missed him,

miss him, and then he got him. He got a CP just did TP thing, sure, right, But you start thinking about some of these other teams and some of the other personnel that these teams have. All I saw on that play, Reggie Bush. I saw the Reggie Bush play when he's playing for the Saints. He got his whole got decapitated right, folded in a half those type

of plays can happen. I'm not gonna say, well, happen, they can happen, and those are game changing plays because you're just saying, oh, my guy can do this, or oh I don't have to focus on the details of this particular play, or my mechanics got to tighten it up. Yeah, I agree. Again, we are all in agreeing Dak Prescott had a bad game. Yes, I would say the good news is it's a week to week league. So last week they blow the doors off the coach. This week

play barely escape the upset over the Texans. And now you moved to Jacksonville now and we'll preview Jacksonville later in the week. But Jacksonville is better than the Texans, so you better clean up actually one of the hotter teams in the NFL, and you better clean up what you need to clean up this week going, you know, as you prepare for the Jacksonville Jaguars. But you know, again it's it's another bad I say another bad because for me, I still harken back to week one. Week

one was just abysmal. And again, and I've said it before, Week one to me was the worst outing in Dak Prescott's career. So was this as bad as that. No, But it doesn't mean that it wasn't bad. I mean, this was still a struggle game for Dak that was able to be deleted by Dak thankfully once he got the protection on the right side, and then the confidence in the clutch meter kind of just went through the roof and march those boys down ninety year yards. But

prior to that happening, you have flashes. You saw the fifty plus yarder to Noah Brown and you know, made some big plays and get big catches by Ceedee Lamb, and but more often than not, you found yourself asking yourself during the game, what's going on with this Cowboys passing attack. This isn't the same one we saw against the Coast, This isn't the same one that we saw against the Vikings, etcetera, etcetera. So that tells you that

they can do better. Just do it, Yeah, a consistent basis, because if if this isn't the Texans and you have this out and you lose this game. There were a lot of struggles up front too for the Cowboys offensive line, and it wasn't just the right side with Josh Ball Tyler Smith didn't have a good game. Connor McGovern didn't

have a good game. Uh, Tyler Biadash was decent. And then Zack Martin, Zach Martin, he's perfect it certainly and it absolutely did Josh Ball struggled now struggled bold statement here he wasn't he was serviceable in the first two drafts that he was in serviceable, but then it just fell off wheels fell off complete and it was not good. But we'll talk more about the offensive line a little bit later on. I want to switch the focus to

the defense. Just how Houston didn't disguise coverages, something that kind of helps keep things off balance for the Cowboys offense early. They made another change in the fourth quarter that just leaves me mind boggle. Now I bring that up in a moment that might have helped Dallas win the ball game. We'll be right back with more talking Cowboys right after this. When you build, you start with the foundation, and home ownership is a foundation of a

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from partner brands. Ease your mind and let Black Rifle worry about your coffee supply. Go to Black Riflecoffee dot com to join the coffee club Today to Talking Cowboys back here on Talking Cowboys presented by Black Rifle Coffee Company. Here from the Star in Frisco. Glad you're with us, Isaiah stand Back, Patrick Nose Walker, Crisp Beam. Running it all in the back gives us an opportunity to give you some information about holiday camps. Tis the season for

Dallas Cowboys Holiday youth camps presented by a vizillion. Registration for one day football and Dance Academy camps are now open. Don't mister chance to send your athlete to camp at at and T Stadium on December twentieth and twenty first limited spaces remain. You can registered right now at Dallas Cowboys dot com Slash Academy. You may even get to meet Danny McCrae, reality TV star who's running those camps. Danny Nice. He's gonna be out there at at and

T Stadium. Should be fun to watch and send the kiddos too, if you haven't already. All right, let's focus on the defensive side of the football. First game all year, all year that Dallas had been held without a sack, gretit to Houston. They did a good job up front. There are a couple of times when Kenyon Green struggled against notably Osa Diggi Zoooh so Diggi Zoo had a great game. I thought the coverage was solid, but you're also going up against Chris Moore and not going out.

He had to get He had a day. He was pretty much the only guy that yeah, I mean more more had ten receptions for one hundred and twenty four yards. That's a freaking day, Yes it is. But nobody else really did anything other than maybe a Marii Rodgers who had the touchdown. Drafts had key position, sure that extended drive. But for the most part, Kelvin was was solid, dron Bland was about as good as he has been, and then Treyvon Digg's battling injury was good at times too.

But I want to talk about the pass rush for a second. What did they do differently in this game, Isaiah that kept Michael Parsons to Marcus Lawrence Dareance Armstrong out of the backfield because no other team has been able to do that yet. They got the boat out their hands. I mean they were They were effective and getting the ball at their hands quickly. They weren't trying to hold onto it. They kept mixing the quarterbacks up

in terms of running the ball as well. Um, they didn't just allow you to key in on Pierce, even though I think they end up getting knocked out the game, right, Um, but I think they ran the ball effectively and then they just ran quick game. They weren't going to sit back there all day long and hold it. They weren't going to give Dallas opportunity. I war, I think the Texans had a really good freaking game plan, a really

good game plan, and I'm a little concerned. Well here's here's why I'm not concerned in the realm of the pass rush. And you know I said it during the game, you know, I tweeted it as much. I said, this a zero SAT game, this is weird to watch from the Cowboys. But then I started thinking about it on the drive home, and I'm like, you know what happened. I went back and I looked at the you know, the all twenty two wasn't up yet, so I look at the condensed version of the game. Was kind of

just scheming over it. And Isaiah's right. So point number one, they got that ball out quickly, but that two quarterback, that that back and forth, back and forth, you can't time your cadence like you can't get the cadence timing for that. If you're the defensive lineman and that's your get off, is a large reason that you'll get pressures and you'll get disruptions, and you will hopefully get sacks. So when you have a team that's it's David's mills, right, now,

but the next play it's Drisco. Then the next play it's Davis Mills, the next play Driskol. Okay, well, the Texans prepared for that all week and then going into this game. But if you're the Cowboys, you're like, okay, what's drisclls cadence? And then you're trying to okay, I think I got Driskles, and then here comes David's Mills and you're like, oh crap. So I think Isaiah makes a great point. Go back and look at the game.

They absolutely were getting that ball out as quickly as possible, and Piers was doing his thing for the most part before he went down to injury. But again, a large part of it was just the subterfuge of constantly swapping out quarterbacks. I think that those two different cadences on a play to play basis really just wrecked what the Cowboys pass us wanted to do. That was a big word. What was that word? Subterfuge? What does that even mean? Misdirection?

Mis direction? If you just get you looking over here and can you write that down? You spell it sub subter t e r fuge, subterfuge, get you looking Never heard that one. Get you looking left and then here comes to right, and then now you're looking right and here comes to left. Does that throw guys off that much to have two different guys at quarterback and kind of have every other play? I mean, yeah, it was all over. Yes, I even charted it for a little bit.

First half, where's it at? First half? Mills had ten pass plays, six run plays. Drift School, however, had fifteen run plays and four pass plays while he's in the ball game. Isn't that just a dead giveaway of whenever Drift School you see six in the backfield. Yeah, you have the four pass plays, but for the most part you're running the football. How do you not key in on that? As a defense? They're running his own read too. So that's that's the thing that keeps you at Bay.

That's the thing that's given Dallas issues. Right. We talked about the RPO. RPO you know has caused issues for Dallas in the past. This is really not that much different. And the defensive ends have to stop, they have to read the quarterback. And that's the reason why the Texans did this. They watched the film, they've seen, they've seen

the teams that Dallas has struggled against. They've seen, you know, the Philadelphia Eagles, how they pretty much just neutralize the defense with the pass rush of these guys as well. It just is what it is, man Like I said, everything that we say, every topic that we address, it goes back to them having a heck of a game plan and they executed it too. They executed it too. They just didn't have enough players to execute it at the level to beat Dallas, but to finish it. But

this will be copied. There were only are you calling this the blueprint? Are you calling this a brute the blueprint? I'm saying that the blueprint has been has been laid out in previous games. And Lovey put it all together. There were still a couple of guys on the defensive line that the Texans had no answer for being the run of the past. So in the in the past and game Osa was having himself a day. I can watch the film and he almost had to walk off

sack if that false start didn't delete that tank. In the run game, we talked about what he did the Birkhead. You saw him back to getting hands on Piers Tank affected the game in a massive way as well. You would have obviously liked to see more from your generational game record and Michael Parsons, you didn't, um Blamie Tunsil was who he went up against quite often. Yeah, why why didn't they flip him around more? Off? I don't

have an answer for that. That's that's my thing, because he went up against Tountsol a lot and give blaremy Tunsol a ton of credit. He's great. I mean, he's one of the best tackles in the league. And Michael Parsons was head up on Tunso for quite some time and they didn't flip them to the opposite side. I mean it could maybe he didn't want wasn't that. It wasn't a whole lot of stunts. I could have been because Tank was. We just said Tank was affecting the

game on the left side. So I don't want to really want to disrupt that to try to get Michael going. But I mean, this is a great question, A great question. Well you know, we'll ask well as DQ this afternoon. Yeah, to say you're gonna you're gonna make that after nine. With that being said, I felt like we went back to where we were the past three weeks of taking a lethal running back in Damian Pierce and at least

neutralizing him. He wasn't He was physical. He had some big runs, but for the most part, he was limited in terms of the numbers that he could come to. At the end of the game, What did you think about the way they handled the run? What you can expect from him. He's a dominant running back. I don't care anybody says he's on a terrible team, obviously, but he's a heck of a running back. And you know, he got what seventy eight yards something like that, Yeah,

seventy eight and one Tuddy. He was physical, He was what you thought he would be, and I think he got a little bit banged up there. But I mean that's there's no other options for them. I mean, they obviously had a receiver that one out there and had had a day, but there's not a ton of options. My concern isn't with these teams that have just one guy that can beat you up and you do a

good job of keeping him under under one hundred yards. Again, all my thought process always goes to the games that are one and out, the playoffs, and if you face a team that has the ability to have a guy run eighty one hundred yards. Oh and by the way, there's three other receivers out there and tighten. Now, all of a sudden, that presents a problem because you can't just key in on that one aspect of the game.

When you're playing the Texans, you can kill on that one aspect of the game because you're really not that concerned about other people hurting you. There's one receiver that went off, Okay, cool, But there are going to be teams that you face when those games matter, and they're gonna have two to three threats on the outside plus

a running back that can hurt you or a quarterback. Well, I'll say this for Damien Pierce, and you know he affected the game as well, But the Cowboys did do a pretty good job, all things considered, the bottling him up. And I'd be remiss if I said that and didn't make the point of l Laton vander Esch played out of his mind yesterday fourteen combined tackles, nine solo. He had three more solo tackles than the second most tally on the team, which was the Ron Bland, who made

a good game as well. Lvee was all over the place. He was decisive and you know, filling the gaps, attacking those holes to cantastic. So between him helping to set the edge, Pierce did get off a couple of times on the edge, but if you notice, Pierce didn't really gain a lot of success in those A and B gaps until Jonathan Hankins went down in with injury. When Hankins went down with injury, suddenly you saw three four consecutive run plays into those those gaps, and that also

shows you the value of Jonathan Hankins. So hopefully Hankins is good to go. Sounds like it's a shoulder slash pick issue. You know, we'll know more here in the next day or so. Maybe Mike McCarthy will have some insight this afternoon. But all things considered, between how l V played in Hankins when he was on the field and DeMarcus Lawrence being magnificent against the run, it's like you said, how it's yet another game in which they

at least bottled up a dynamic running back. So it looks like the run defense is healed, but you got some secondary issues as far as your cornerbacks are concerned. Outside of Trevon Diggs and de Rhyn Bland. What we're gonna say, I have to say is not in regards to defense. So I'll hold it. Oh, hold it for just a second because I've got a bold statement. Okay, let's let's say, let's finish on some bold statements and then we'll give some helmet stickers in the next segment.

So all right, you mentioned how Damian Pierce left the game, right. He injured that ankle early in the fourth quarter. He came back, he played with ten fifty to go in the ball game, took a third yard or a third down in two carry and he punched it up the middle. Looked fine. He was actually in the play or in the formation up the middle. He was in the formation three plays in a row, bang bang, bang, and he was fine. So he was absent at the end of

the game. In a goal line stand. Lovey Smith after the game said that if he was healthy enough to go, he would have been in the plans inside the five yard line on the goal line stand. I don't buy it. I don't buy I think they held him out. I think they held him out in the goal line stand. You think I think so? Is it a T word. I think they held him out. So that's a bold statement. I have nothing of concrete to put that on Asa. I'm just I don't I don't buy it. I'm gonna

take it. I'm okay with it. I said this after the game offline to a colleague. I said, I wonder if that was the perfect game for the Texans because they were very competitive and almost landed the biggest upset of the season. But did they still remain number one in the draft seating? So you did exactly what you needed to do as a hey coach and say, hey, I can see I can make these guys compete with anybody. Yeah, but I did it without losing my eyes. I just I think it was It was the perfect game for

a coincidence. And if there's if there's smoke, sometimes there's fire. Maybe not, who knows. But they didn't change They changed their entire game plan defensively in the back half of the fourth quarter on the ninety eight yard drive, and then they all of a sudden didn't have their best running back on the field in a goal line situation whenever he played. After he was injured, he came back

into the ball game and he played. If he hadn't have done that, then I would say, Okay, maybe he got hurt, but the Texans are doing what the Texas are doing. But can I make a bull statement? Yeah, now it's your turn. I need everybody to go back, going back, everybody who was arguing with me about whether or not Tyler Smith should be bumped down to the left guard position. When Tyron Smith comes back, go watch

the first series of the second quarter. Oh, just just watch that series and you decide if he's if he's ready to be the left guard of the starting left guard. You watch, just go to break on that one. You have other sample sizes of him at level guard this season as will put it all in the pot. Not just that sample. I'm talking about the whole the whole series. I rode the fence last year, but I'm gonna ride the fence or last week. I'm gonna ride the fence

again right now. Because just as there was bad tape for Tyler Smith, there was also some bad tape from Connor McGovern tis. There was there. It was both they we even looked at have a lot of good tape of mcgovernor at left guard. Sure we have, including this game he made play don't have we have maybe a sample size of good tape of Tyler Smith at left guard?

Are you talking about this is? This is where he's at left guard and pieces when Peters is the left tackle in this game against the Texans and they put Tyler Smith at left left guard, watch that series the series, not the play the series Jesus and then added to the other samples go ahead and also without tip and it didn't make you're educated if think about it this

way too. This may be a conversation for tomorrow. But Terrence Steele, if he's unavailable for the rest of the season, which it looks like that might be a concern at the moment. Still nothing concrete on that either. However, if he's not available, would you rather have a backup left guard in Connor McGovern sitting on the sideline or would you rather have a backup swing tackle for if Tyron Smith or Jason Peters. Conversation is different now, yeah, it's

completely different. It's different now. Yeah, so scrap everything we've talked about this week, because in my boat room, your boat is in a different lake. Right, It's nothing. He's got one of those flying flying planes all right, let's do some helmet stickers on the other side of the break. We'll be right back with more talking cowboys. Presented by Black Rifle Coffee Company. Todd thought it would be secure

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with the official coffee of the Dallas Cowboys. That's Black Riflecoffee dot Com. To fuel up today this sweet? Did you get to work on time? Yeah? But I just realized it's Sunday. Little sweets his head on home. Doctor Pepper's on its way. Maybe there's nothing better. I bet you've probably done something that investionistic and n f GP and I don't even know what that is. It's a nonpunchable token. Something has a doctor. I want to use what the pros use? How about the official men's skincare

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The Jack Black Starter ten bucks, free shipping. To talk in Cowboys back You're on Talking Cowboys don't miss your last chance to experience the most electrifying event of the holiday season, Cowboys Christmas Extravaganza powered by Reliant, Every Friday

and Saturday night through December seventeenth. Christmas Extravaganza nights the Star in Frisco with an unforgetable holiday experience showcasing the world renowned Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders, your favorite Dallas Cowboys football heroes, and Santa claus to visit the Star district dot com slash Christmas for more info out here at the Star in Frisco. Last couple of weeks of that one coming up should be a whole lot of fun Santa Clauses out here. If you got to see Santa yet, Isaiah,

you got a chance to go out and see Santa yet. No, I've not seen any Santa yet. Okay, we'll make it work. We'll make we'll arrange something you didn't You didn't go so you could ask for your rifle grid writer, Wow, black rifle coffee? Yeah? Need? Is that what you need? Anyway? You should rider, baby, that's what it was. Too many hours. I bought my son that last night. Absolutely, okay, fire you should I bought them the wrong size though literation

this early in the morning, there's no one's friend. It is okay my friend. Now, you guys know whenever I stumble over my words and I just can't handle the topic of conversation this early in the morning. Yeah, it's a problem. Let's do some helmet stickers. Patrick, get us started, all right. I'm going with the tomato. As you can see here, ladies and gentlemen, tomato, tomato, tomato, tomato, tomato. Tomato, and tomatoes are a fruit, by the way, not a vegetable.

Um My tomato goes to one. Jason Peters. Why a tomato? Because you need tomatoes to make ketchup? And Jason Peters wasted no time catching up on plain white tackle at a high level yesterday after having not taken snaps at that position since two thousand and five, a fifteen year gap between taking snaps, and he stepped in with the game on the line. Give it to me, coach and showed you why he's a gold jacket. So bars tomato, because it took no time for Jason Peterson catch up.

I liked it, Bars, which is really funny because for those that know you, you that we all know you absolutely hate catch up the spies catch up effect. But you just made a Jason Peters made me make me like it for a day. Okay. Uh, you want to go, and actually you want me to go next? Yeah, you want to go. I'll let you go because I know who I'm picking and you may take him who knows I'm not gonna take him. Yetta. See this right here,

that's some bananas. That's some bananas. You know by church there one there was one player on the field that hit everybody with the old banana and the tailpipe, and and they did it in bunches. That's going to mister Dalton. Scholtzi had his best game of the year. Six catches, eighty seven yards. He showed back up just when you thought he had disappeared, he brought his nine. Yes, I'm not gonna fin the tailpie. You gotta sit with your chests many I'm not going. Yes, classic movie banana and

the tailpipe. All right, this is a this is a pineapple. He looks like he's leaping. He's he's jumping, He's or maybe even flying. Layton Vanderesh was flying around the defensive side of the football yesterday and he even at one point he leapt Oh I just stuck it to the table. No I didn't. I saved it. Oh maybe maybe got it back. We're good recover. But yeah he was. Yeah

he nearly he almost had a rec recovered fumble. But yeah, Layton Vanderesh, he was flying around the football, leaping over piles. At one point he was trying There was one on the goal line stand it was a it was the off sides called for Micah Parsons. He leapt over the top and he was even trying to reach back. But he was all over the field. I mean, you talk about sideline, the sideline. I really have been impressed with

Layton Vandesh lately. So here it's the helmet sticker today, Wolf Kyle, all right, gentlemen, We've got a lot to talk about this week. We've got some injuries kind of starting to pile up a little bit and some key situations as well. Injuries starting to really affect how this team is building heading into the postseason. And of course

you got to get to the postseason first. Cowboys can get really close to clinching a postseason spot this week, and of course keep tabs with the Philadelphia Eagles in the NFC East race against Jacksonville Jaguars this week, but tomorrow it's Talking Tuesday. Give us a call. Eight eight eight eight five five two two ninety seven. Oh just kidding, Chris Beam just got into my ear. We don't have a talking Tuesday tomorrow. Oh that's right, I forgot. We're

canceling podcast tomorrow for good call. It is a good cause. We're gonna be at the Salvation Army tomorrow. We're gonna be helping all those in North Texas. It is a great cause. A little sad we don't get a talking Tuesday. Maybe we'll take some calls on Wednesday. Ye up for it. I want to make up for it a little bit. We want to talk to the people. I agree, we want to talk to the people, So we'll move it. We'll do talking Wednesday this week, but no no show tomorrow.

We'll be back on Wednesday, nine am Central Time right here on Dallas Cowboys dot Com for Chris Me and Isaiah stand back, Patrick Nose walk around, Kyle Yeoman saying so long from Talking Cowboys. We'll see you on Wednesday. This has been a production of Dallas Cowboys dot Com and the Dallas Cowboys Football Club