Talkin' Cowboys: The Remix

the Dallas Cowboys. Here from the s WBCs studios at the Star in Frisco, and we've got a special episode today and tomorrow for you all on Dallas Cowboys dot Com. And the reason for it is, this is not the normal cast of characters all day long on our podcast. We are switching things up for the bye week, and of course we switched things up on Talking Cowboys with Danny mccraig. No, Isaiah stand back, I do have dreads, but I am not him. He is not me. Thanks

Thanks CB for the Survivor music. I'm gonna say that Survivor music in the back players loud, CB. You know he likes to play that every time New York or Bury bringing up Survivor, so you know we have that. Yeah, so you've got the former Cowboys side of you, you've got the Survivor now side of you, as you were still on the show on CBS. Moving forward, I mean, at least at the moment heading into this week. Of course, that airs tonight, right tomorrow. Tomorrow's right tomorrow was Wednesday.

I'm already makes listen. Survivor takes over the TV's on Wednesday, and we're trying to get it to take over the Cowboys Nation on Wednesdays as well. There you go. Well, this is a great way to do it, and we'll talk a little bit of Survivor, I feel like, throughout the next two days. But we'll also have David Hellman joining the show. It's point, but we are the early show. We're the nine am show normally on Dallas Cowboys dot Com,

and Dame's usually up, but at least not today. It doesn't seem like that him and him and Rob had the adventure of a lifetime trying to get back from Boston from the New England game the last couple of days. So I give Dave a pass on this one now if he's laid again tomorrow. That's a difference. Well, yeah, listen, you gotta think of it this way. Okay, So Dave, we can pull out a big win at LSU on Saturday. It's true. We pull out an overtime win on Sunday

in in Foxborough. Plane goes crazy. He's not able to get home. So he's had a very very interesting weekend, all right, so his mind is probably a little shaken up. Ye, so you know, I'm sure he'll be back tomorrow on town. Yeah, I'm sure he will be. And of course you and Dave both LSU homers there he is smiling. Oh, look at him, he's like ear to ear walking in. He's frowning because coach's leaving. Oh that didn't looked a little

offendion when you said that too. When y'all start the show like that, I can't pretend like I wasn't late, But we were just saying how late you where? We gave you many excuses and any reasons? Uh, the scene valid. I need to talk to management about making the guy who lives the furthest away do the earliest shown show. What's going on? Hi? Hey buddy, Hello, Hi Danny till tigers. We were just talking about how you had a long weekend. You had two win LSU over Florida, Sure did, then

you had the overtime win with the Cowboys over the Patriots. Yes, and then at an adventure getting back home. Yeah. Yeah, I love football season. It's just the best. It's just nothing's better than watching football and acting like that's exhausting, you know, like what a weekend I sat and watched people kill themselves for my entertainment. Just I'm so tired. Obviously, there's that emotionally exhausting game because the first three minutes

was like, oh man, who are we? And then we settled down a little bit, and then you got some in and it was like like a Game of Thrones episode where you know it just it was like up and down and super exciting, and then you're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, we pulled it out. It's been a minute, man. But so twenty nineteen was a disappointing season. Twenty twenty

was obviously terrible. So it's been at least three ish years since the Cowboys have played like a classic, you know, like a game where you're like, yeah, that was that's on a on a top, that's on a top ten somewhere of like just at least in the modern era of like most entertaining games, like certainly certainly Mike McCarthy's tenure. That's probably the best game of his tenure as head coach, just in terms of entertainment value the Atlanta game. You're right,

you're right, You're right. I think this was a better game start to finish, though, I mean really, like you said, yeah, because minutes a blowout doesn't become interesting until the comeback. So so that that was my one thing with it, and I thought the same thing. I was trying to stack this win in terms of where it ranks among McCarthy's career among the Cowboys games that I've seen, at least as an employee here, and I don't think there's one that was better, just in terms of a beginning

to end entertainment value. Of course, the lore of not winning in New England since eighty seven, and of course not beating Bill Belichick. I mean, there's so many different storylines that all just kind of panned out the right way, and it made it super entertaining. I don't want to exaggerate too much, but so this is my ninth season, I don't think. I think it's in my top ten just best games that I have personally covered for Dallas Cowboys dot Com. It's right up there with like twenty

sixteen in Pittsburgh twenty fourteen in Seattle. Yeah, I'm just saying those are two great games. I mean, and I think those two are both better than this one probably, but man, it's just fun man. John Fossil took the words right out of my mouth yesterday, which is funny because he's coaching the game. But I appreciate that he

can stop and appreciate it. He's like, Yeah, sometimes you're just in a game where even in the heat of the moment, when you're making the calls and worrying about this, that and the other, you're still like, damn, what a what a game this is? And that's what I was standing me, Nick and Rob watched the end of the game from like jump we're not allowed on the field, but like just inside the tunnel at Gillette we're kind of watching the field and looking at the JumboTron. I

was just like, God, this is this is incredible. Just what a football game. I think. And I think that's the big difference too, because I was here and uh And I've never actually been on the winning side of a game like that. It's usually on the losing side. I think back to uh to Denver when Peyton Manning was there and they came here, and I think nobody can stop anymore from scoring, all right, it could be

an interception of something. Yeah, and we're playing the game and you're hoping that it goes the way that he went on Sunday. But you know, our history at that time was just it just didn't work out for us. So it was exciting, but we ended on the wrong side of it. Let me ask you this, So, if let's say the Patriots had a better record than what they are now, I mean what they're two and four

at the moment, yeah, now with the loss. So if they were let's say reverse that they were at four and one going to four and two, do you think that would be classified as a better game overall? Do you think just the fact that the Patriots with a rookie quarterback, an offense that had been stagnant up until Week six, do you think that took away any from what this game looks like from the grand scheme of things.

I mean, I get where you're going and yeah, like you're going back to those that Seattle game, right, or being Peyton Manning that the best statistical offense of all time, or at least it was at the time. Maybe maybe you puff your chest out a little bit more. Maybe it's more of a measuring stick because you were, like, those guys are going to be there at the end of the year. I know they are, and I doubt the Patriots are gonna make a ton of noise in

the playoffs this year. But even like you just you don't apologize for wins in the NFL, like should it have been should it have been that thrilling? No, like they should have scored two touchdowns in the red zone and maybe won that game by ten or fourteen points honestly, like they played a very sloppy game. But you don't apologize for going on the road and beating anybody in the NFL. Yeah, I actually think that that was a

good thing about it, right. I think when you're on a team and you're trying to get to the Super Bowl, and you watch some of those teams that have made it to the Super Bowl, you see them get lucky. Sometimes you see them pull out wins in those sloppy games where everything goes wrong, but they found a way to pull out the win. And I think that is a signature for a team that's that's poised to make a long run into the playoffs. I'm so glad you said that, Danny, because I've seen and I know it's

it's always a vocal minority. I'm not saying a lot of people feel this way, but I've seen fans that are like, super Bowl teams don't do this, super Bowl, they don't play games like this. I'm like, the hell they don't. Erfol teams play ugly games all the time, like and that's I mean, that's the mark of a good team, is winning a clunky game. Yeah, when when you play terrible and can still find a way to pull it out of the fire, that's that's the mark

of a good team. And so that's what I'm yeah, Like, maybe if the Patriots still had Brady and you knew that they were gonna win thirteen games this year, you feel a little bit, No, you feel a lot better about that win, but you should still feel good that you can go on the road play kind of crappy in several aspects, of the game and find a way

to win. And I wouldn't take anything away from the fact that they're on a four game winning streak, Like it's so many things in their mind that can Like they're trying to get to the bye week, they're trying to be healthy, but they but they are also trying to win that last game. So in your mind is just a lot of stuff going on. And it's very, very hard to go on a winning streak that long

without making mistakes like we did on Sunday. How much does something like that that mindset, those different things kind of sneaking their way into a mindset heading into a game, especially with the great coaching staff on the other side. I mean, even if the Patriots aren't there in the playoffs, they still have Bell Belichick as there as their head coach. They still have McDaniels, They still Belichick two point oh.

They have so many guys on that sideline that can make mistakes for you, And of course the Cowboys did show that they can make mistakes there. But with all of those different things from a mindset standpoint, how hard is it to keep it straight from a player's man I will be lying to you if I said that it's just you go out there and you just focus on the task at hand, but it's really not that easy.

You have to really really fight throughout the week to try to center your mind back onto the task at hand. And then when you get out there and you're playing a certain way and you're like, man, it's starting to it's starting to look bad. And then you start to think back to last year, like, man, we weren't able to pull pull out these games when we made these mistakes last year. And I think that's the sign of

how we've changed as a team. You look at it, you look back, and you say, man, last year we weren't able to do this, all right, But this year we're a different team. So we're gonna come out and we're gonna make whatever play we have to make, no matter what happens. Because think about the mindset. After Trayvond's get that gets that interception for touchdown, and then you get bombed the next one for seventy five yard touchdown, usually your mind goes, man, we just cannot figure out

a way to get it done. Everything is going against us, the rough suck whatever, like nothing can fall in our favor. But this year on this team, we come back and we're like, all right, we're not budget come back. Ceedee Lamb dances into the end zone for for a walk off touchdown. It's just it's different, and not to you know, say we're gonna win a super Bowl anything, but up to this point in the season, it just looks different.

I completely agree, and I think you make great points there because let's say, same scenario, same run of events happens in the New England game this year, and it happens last year in twenty twenty. You lose Tyrant Smith, you give up a seventy five yard touchdown with two minutes left. You have I know it happened on the last play of the game, but Dak Prescott is banged up a little bit. I mean, any of these things, oh, one hundred and fifty yards of penalties, let's throw that

in there. Why not any of those things happen? Any multitude of those things happened last year, you think you're gonna lose the football game, you automatically think, hey, there's no way the Cowboys won that game, at least in a vacuum. This year, after every one of those things happened, It's like, man, we're not playing the best, but still feel like the Cowboys can pull this out, still feel like they can win it, even after the seventy five

yard touchdowns. That's a sign of a team that's ultra confident, knowing that, hey, we just gave up a bomb to Kendrick Bourne in an offense that's literally known for not having the big playability, and we gave up a big play. Let's go down the field and let's kick a field Dave. Have we become that team that has the quarterback that says, oh, you score too fast? Yes, yes, we become that team.

I actually one of the highlights of my Monday. You know, after any game, you just spend Monday digging through what everybody's saying about everything. And I don't I don't know who it was or where it came from. But you know, every time Rogers does that, there's always somebody's snapchat that leaks on to Twitter that's like they gave him too much time, you know what I'm talking about. Yeah, they'll take like a selfie like they're celebrating even though Rogers

has forty seconds. Somebody did that for dak At Jillette items I'm sorry, I don't know the guy's name, but it was some guy. He's got his selfie cam and he's like, all these pats fans are celebrating they gave Dak too much time. I'm like, yeah, they did, da Yes, Dak is that dude? To answer your question, it's nice to have. It's nice to be on the other side of that, right because we've like we've usually been on the side where we've getting given somebody too much time,

usually Aaron Rodgers. And now we're on the side of like, if you give us forty seconds, we believe we can still make a play. I don't say that like I was. I wasn't. I wasn't doubting him. I have supreme confidence in Dak Prescott. But you know, the Patriots punted in overtime, which I thought was kind of a questionable decision. Honestly,

I agree to not a great punt. Dak gets the ball, like I mean, they punted it, and I assume in hopes of pinning Dak inside the ten, they get the ball on the twenty, right at the twenty where CD caught it, And in my head, I'm just like, if you're worth forty million dollars you win this game, Like that's just that's all there is to it. And I don't say that as if like I'm doubting him. I'm just saying that this is this is why you're this is why you're worth this money, and like not didn't.

Obviously he delivered, But like, at no point did I even think it wasn't going to happen. You know, yeah, it was awesome. You're not alone in that fact. We were in the studio watching the game and Barry Church, who you're on the Players Lounds with with, was standing right next to me. He goes, all right, one hundred forty million dollars man, one hundred sixty million dollars. Man, this is the guy, Like, get after it. Uh, Like, this is what you're what you're paid for. And I

want to just play Devil's advocate here. Is it so much Dak Prescott or is it just the offense and Kellen Moore and and just the momentum they have as a whole on that entire unit. Well, that's I mean, that's everything, right. I Mean, Kellen is in his bag. Obviously he's doing a great job. Offensive line is awesome. Zeke's having maybe the best year of his career, or at least the best year since he was a rookie. Proble in all a rome as being all around, but

he was, he was. He was amazing in that game. I thought, you know, like that he got seven passes. He had a couple of catches where he like, I don't think of him as this like amazing receiver, but he made some crazy catches. I think he had a bobbled one that got called back by a penalty, A little bit of first down. Yeah, yeah, I mean the way he was running, like he only had like one really big one, but just grinding for those four or five six yards. I thought he was great anyway. It's

the whole thing. But the trigger man makes it run right, And uh, I'm not I'm not saying he's the best, and I don't. I don't think it matters, to be honest with you, I think I'm stealing this point from The Athletic Football Show, which I love. But it's like, like who cares? Like one, two, three, four, five, Who cares? It doesn't matter. Do you have a guy who can deliver in those circumstances or don't you If if the

answers yes, awesome, and he's worth that much money. If the answers no, I'm sorry, but that ain't the Cowboys problem. It's really all there is to it. I don't care if Dak is better than Mahomes, Rogers or whatever. Can he deliver in those situations like do you have a guy that makes the difference when it matters? And the Cowboys do And I will say this everything that Dave said,

plus they punt it right. Well, so the defense came in, like, I think we're to a point now where you can you see that we have a difference maker at every level of the defense. We have a difference maker on the d line or Randy Gregor. You have a difference maker possibly coming back soon with Tank Lawrence. You go to the second level, you have a Michael Parsons at the linebacker level. You go to the third level, you have a tray Mund Dix. You have somebody each level

who can turn the game. And we saw two of the three levels turn the game, all right. You saw Randy Gregory come in get two big sack, sack, force fumble. You saw Traymund Diggs with a pick six. Uh. You know at the end of the game. You know, I'll be he did get you know, even at out with the with the touchdown, but he still made the play. It all goes together, right because it's easy to focus on the offense because of all the penalty and the

two turnovers in the end zone. But this was this was not a great effort by the defense overall, you know, I mean, seventy five yarder that just can't happen to Bourne. Uh and the way that I mean, um dan Quinn said it himself, He's like, we got our ass kicked in the first quarter. I mean, they came out there, they were they they came out in personnel and packages that they just weren't ready for. And what fourteen fourteen points in the first like two possessions, right, Yeah, they

scored touchdowns on each of the two. Now and short field does help the first proportion does, but you still, I mean, they still do it. And but kudos to them. The Patriots had like the Patriots had I think one hundred and forty yards in the first quarter and then then they had fifty until like midway through the fourth, like they clamped down. Obviously, the Patriots got it back, and that's how they wound up in overtime. But um, I just thought it was a remarkable job of responding

to not your best stuff. Yea, because because the way the game started, you could have said, hey man, this is gonna be one of those games for us. On defense, I had the meanest tweet written out about the defense. I had the meanest tweet like it was going to be something about I was like, well, it's fall and we're in New England, this feels like a good time for the defense to turn back into a pumpkin, I guess,

And I held off on it. I held off on sending it and lowing me, and I wound up deleting it because I was just like, well, clearly I was wrong about this. They needed some time. I think I think people are finally starting to see why I have the ultimate faith in my man. DQ dan Quinn had backwards sitting up in the booth, like I have the ultimate faith in the fact that he's going to get it figured out. You come into the game, you said, oh man, we gave up some points. We can't stop

the run. We can't do this, we can't do that, And then like you said, third second and third quarters, half of the fourth. We played great defense. Now, you know, we gave up some points at the end of the game, some yards of seventy five yard whatever. But I also think that is something that you're going to have to live with when you have a player like Traymon Dix who's going to make those type of plays ninety percent of the time and then he's gonna give up a

touchdown every once in a while. You've seen, you know, great cornerbacks in the past that coaches are like, you know what, we'll we'll take that because what we've seen opposite of that is what we really need and we want him to continue to be aggressive as we moved throughout the season. Keep doing you, buddy, Yeah, I mean that's the seventy five yard or just I hate to like make excuses or whatever, but that was such It

seemed like such a flukey play. And dan Quinn said there wasn't a miscommunication, and he's like, he was like, I understand why you think that, but that's not what happened. But man, it just looked like they each thought the other guy was going for the ball. Let me tell you this, And I love Trayvon, so I don't want to bash him a little bit. But what what what?

What we know about what we knew going into this game was if your offensive coordinator and you have a guy that plays as aggressive as Trayvon Diggs, sits flat footed on some of the hitch rops, makes those interceptions, is aggressive on double moves, what are you gonna run? So when you watch the first touchdown to Hunter Henry on Malik Hooker, if you look outside, you see a double move being ran bout the number one receiver and Trey Mundick's three or four yards behind the guy he

ran out and up. You see it, and I'm watching, I say, oh, they're coming back to that now. They came back to it really really late. But they were testing him for that game to see it. What are we gonna do and that guy to have a situation. We're gonna go at him because he's being really aggressive and we're gonna see what we can get out of it. I don't which I agree with what you just said, but I don't. It didn't seem like he got like outright burned by the double move. You know, he was

in trail like that's Quinn talked about this yesterday. He was in like trail position, and I'm I'm not trying to throw Demante Casey under the bus either. That was a horrible angle day, and like it seems like they played it well right up until the moment the ball got there, and then they both kind of just had

a brain fart. Basically, it was. It was a horrible angle by the same thing I liken it to, like when you're at practice and you can't really hit the receiver, so you have to take that weird angle to make sure that you don't hurt anybody. That's what it look like it felt between both of them. It just felt like maybe Kasey was afraid of a collision, or maybe he thought Trayvon was gonna jump the route. I don't know, but it just looked like they were both like you

got it, you got it. Oh, neither one of us got it. I will say this, there was a bad angle taking on the Hunter. Henry play as well. Yeah, I wasn't the best guy playing safety, So I'm gonna say it because I can see it. Because I can see it, and I've been in a situation and I've taken those bad angles. That was a bad angle on the Hunty Henry play and it was a bad angle on the seventy five yard touchdown. Now, I would like to see tray Mound stay on top a little bit