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And now your hosts Isaiah Standback, Nick Harris, John Mashoda, and Kyle Yeomans.
I hope you had your Black Rifle Coffee this morning. Everybody, Cowboys Nation, welcome into a Monday edition of Talking Cowboys, presented by Black Rifle Coffee. You're gonna need it because there is a lot to talk about. Twenty eight to twenty three the final score. Philadelphia takes down Dallas in Week nine of the NFL season. Isaiah Standback is here, Nick Harris is here, I'm here, Kyle Yeomens. We've got
Chris Beam in the back run and everything. And really, I don't know outside of a playoff game, because playoff games, every play matters. It always does NFL season, for the most part, every play matters. I don't know if I remember a game outside of playoff time where when we go back and look at this football game, there is legitimately every play was the deciding factor or could have
been the deciding factor. It was one of those games where the breaks go your way, the game goes your way, the breaks don't go your way, the game doesn't twenty eight to twenty three. And there's a lot to hit on this, So I'll let Nick start things off. You were in the building at Lincoln Financial Field. I don't even know where to start.
Yeah, I'm with you, just your overall thoughts.
Yeah, this is about as as true of a game of inches as you could find, and and pretty much any game. It had a playoff atmosphere from the very beginning. I kind of wrote about it and last night on Dallas Cowboys dot com. Uh, it's it's rare that you get a a playoff type feel in early November like this. Whenever the both teams took the field, the energy it was it was palpable in the stadium, carried throughout the entire game, and it wasn't over until the all the
clock at all zeros. I I look at good things and I look at bad things out of this game, and I think, honestly, I feel like the good overways the bad at times, but the bad is so.
It's so Plaguey that it just doesn't it doesn't go away.
Like there's some things that we've seen from this team that are bad this season that just continue to pop up. And just when you think that it's okay, penalties, we've they figured it out against the Rams Bam, it's right back, you know, even if some were just some were unjust whatever, still being in a position to be in those situations. We could start with the good Dak Prescott I man, I think the confidence level it would have to be, it would have to be increased after the last couple
of weeks coming out of the bye week. I think there was something that probably happened during the bye week that that allowed them to utilize Dak to his his max efficiency. For me, it's his mobility once again. I mean he was he was working magic in the pocket
last night. His pocket presence was incredible. Even if he was even if it did crash in on a couple of times, he was still able to get outside and avoid most of the pressures that Hassan Redick was in the backfield quite a bit last night, as well as Fletcher Cox. We could stay with the good, I you know, limiting aj Brown to sixty six yards or whatever it was. I think if you had told me that would be the case coming in, I'd be like, okay, so the
Cowboys won. Unfortunately that didn't happen. Looking at the bad I talked about the penalties. Gosh, there's two players I look at and I'm like, man, if even one of them has a better night, I think this ends up being a different result.
It's Jordan Lewis and Terrence Steele. Terrence Steel probably more so.
It was on that final drive that's when it really became a plague Terrence Steele, and unfortunately they weren't able to climb out of that late hole, and they had two really good opportunities to do. So you look at the Schoonmaker play and how just so very close it would have been to six added points there.
It's a game of inches. And you know, I know, I know.
The officials are a big part of the dialogue this morning on just kind of how things went in that game. But the officials went against both teams. I mean, you look at that final drive with with Philadelphia. There were a couple of calls there that were like, all right, you know it even doubt I think at the end of the day, Philadelphia was just a better team last night. However, there was a lot of confidence in the locker room after the game, like, yeah, they lost, like ceedee lamb.
He was kind of teared up whenever we first walked in, and he kind of got himself together and he was fine. But everyone everyone kind of had the same view of the game, is like, hey, like we can contend with this team, Like this is not what happened in San Francisco. We were three four yards away from making this happen. They still claim to be in the upper echelon. I think they're very clear in the second now after last night.
I mean, you have to beat a team like that on the road before I can put you in.
The upper echelon.
But there's a really good opportunity to go three and oh over the course of the next three weeks home against the Giants at Carolina and then home against the Commanders. If you're looking at eight and three welcoming Philly back into Dallas, then who knows, maybe maybe both teams are looking at the same record with what with what the Eagles have coming up, they have the Chiefs, the Bills, the Dolphins, so we'll see. I don't think this is
the end of the world. This is this is not I do not feel like how I felt like coming after San Francisco. I think this is a much different feel. And that's a team that they can beat, and I think that's a team they'll see three times this year.
I'm proud of them. I don't.
I don't I understand the fandom side of it, where people are like, oh man, we're really.
Close and we hate the Eagles and we want to win. I get it.
The reality is you've closed the gap that was massive After the first couple of games in the season, when you got beat up by San Francisco, you were far behind. I mean, you're way behind San Francisco. Obviously, you're way behind Philadelphia. Since that game, you have closed the gap in terms of the distance between you and those that are considered to be better than you. And that's the positive. Right, Yeah, you lost the game, but guess what. I look at
it like this, if you're racing against Usain Bolt. Okay, a lot of people race against Ussin Boat. A lot of people lost to Usain Boat. But guess what, every time if I get a little bit closer to Usain boat. I could walk away with my chest poked. I said, oh, hey, you got me, But I'm coming, right, I'm getting closer to you. Right, I'm gonna get you one of these days, right, And that's the that's the I ran ten oh two. Yeah, you know what I'm saying, like, Hey, you know you
ran a nine seven nine. The first time you beat me, I ran a ten to three. But this time I ran, I ran a nine to nine. I'm getting there, you know what I'm saying, Like, I'm coming, I'm getting close. And that's where the cowboys are at. You have to take the positives right. When you talk about trying to achieve a goal, you have to have tangible goals along the way. It's not just you just all all of a sudden leap fraud from one side of the street to the other and tadao, we've arrived.
There's baby steps that come with it. This was a baby step you took.
You took a team that on paper, you shouldn't be able to play with based upon some of the things that you've done in the past. The opponents that you've lost to. You lost to Arizona that had a similar scheme. You lost to San Francisco really bad, right, that's they were considered to be you.
Know, A and B. You know, a A one and A two.
You know, however, you want to look at it, San Francisco and the egos and now all of a sudden you've closed that gap. You don't get to play the forty nine ers again, right unless you see them in the playoffs. But guess what, Philly is a team that you look you can look at and say, you know what, we put them on the same level as Sam fran And if we're this close to almost beating Philly, that we know how far we've come since losing that game. And you have to be able to take that as
a positive. And I think you look at what you did. Yeah, there's things that have to get cleaned up. Always is every single game. There's always something that has to be cleaned up every single game. For those that are talking about flags, there's a there's a flag that could be thrown on every play. Yes, okay, it was what ten penalties each team? I believe it was right that both
teams had equal penalties, so that wasn't an issue. Okay, you talked about the last drive, like is Dallas was given opportunities to get down the field and be in the game. Decisions were made. Everybody's gonna look at coach McCarthy and sayd oh, you should have And I was one of those people.
I would have taken the points in the one situation.
But guess what, either way, there's pros and cons to each right, there's always That's what's the thing about decisions. There's pros and there's cons, and you hope that the pros outweighed the cons. Unfortunately they didn't in this game. But Dak Prescott played well. Your defense played their butts off right. The offensive line has some struggles. You're running game didn't really get going, but you didn't expect it
to because of this defensive front. There was a lot of things that what you expected happened and what you hope for happened. But sometimes the team is just a little bit better. And that's exactly what you ran into last night. But you have closed the gap, and you wonder why guys are walking around a lot more confident in the locker room after losing.
Because they know we've closed the gap. It wasn't a question and can we play with these guys? It was like, how close are we?
Right? The last memory we have a playing an opponent of this caliber was not a good memory, right, So all of a sudden, now we play it. All Right, We've come a long way in a short period of time. I'll take that as a victory all day long, even though on the record it says al yeah.
And the response was the exact same as well, because they started the game with a three and out defensively and gave up a touchdown offensive or you know what I mean, and they were able to respond off of that tie the game and stayed in the.
Three out the game. So I'm looking at kind of what I said earlier about the plays, right, There were plays in this game that you can all go back and circle, and I've circled four of them when I went back and watched the film because of points that were left off the board, points that could have been in your favor, or points that Philly tried to give you but ultimately res I guess reversed. I should say, at some point down the line, I'll start with the
two plays that Philly nearly gave Dallas but didn't. They were both swift fumbles. One was in the setdecond quarter, It would have given the ball to Dallas at the forty seven yard line instead Philadelphia just basically he grabbed it for a split second and then lost it again. I didn't know you could lose two fumbles on one play like that. Swift did so apparently, but he gathered it while he was on the ground. They called him down.
That was one play. Seven points. That's seven points, And I understand from that point forward it's a butterfly effect. One play happens a certain way. The rest of the plays may not happen a certain way. But after that, Swift fumbles in the fourth quarter on that final offensive drive for Philadelphia almost I mean the butt fumble, the butt fumble, yeah, nearly the resurrection.
Of the butt fumble.
It was the brown butt fumble.
Micah Parsons had both hands on it. If he reels that in instead of just bobbling it for a split second, that's Cowboys football. At the thirty yard line and then all of a sudden, you're not going ninety yards to score with forty five seconds left. Yeah, you're going thirty yards to score with one oh seven left and a timeout time out. Completely different ball game three to seven points there. Probably seven is what you're going for, but I'm just gonna say state facts there. You had points
on the board there. If you recover that fumble Peyton hinders shot, non touchdown, that's six or seven points left off the board. He runs one more foot into Schoonmaker, that's a hindershot Luke Schoonmaker runs one more foot into the end zone and that's a touchdown.
That's it.
One foot. He takes one half of a step into the end zone a little bit further on that route, that's a touchdown. And then of course Dak Prescott stepping out on the two point conversion. That plain and simple. That's two points on the board, and all of a sudden, it's a completely different ball game. Any of those plays go in the opposite direction of what they did, four separate plays. I think Dallas wins this game, but that's part of it, and it happens on both sides. There
were penalty flags thrown late against Philadelphia. There were times when Philadelphia had Jalen Hurts under pressure. There were times when the defense had lapses. They gave up one hundred and ninety one yards to see Lamb and.
Some of you have penalties, and you extended their drives. You know what I mean, There's a whole lot of that.
There's a lot of it.
That's a lot of it, man, And that's why you can't just put your finger on one thing and say, oh, this was the deciding factor. There was a lot of deciding factors, right, There were deciding factors in the first quarter. If you really want to come down to it. In that regard, it's a close game against two really good competitive teams. This is what you expected, right whe whether it's whether it was for your team or your other team, you know, this was the type of game that you expected.
And this is the reason why why they chose not to give.
Up this game on Sunday, to flex it till a Sunday night game, because they knew it was going to be about Royale.
And and it's awesome. It's freaking awesome, you know. And you look at it from the standpoint you went in there, you made these boys have all kinds of question marks.
Now Philly is like, oh crap, all right, they okay, what we saw against sand friend, that is not that's not what we expected. Okay, all right, these boys came to play and then you left Philly beat up. You beat up Philly, You left some of their main players batter than bruised. And now you never asked, never in
your intention to go out there and hurt guys. But the reality is a very violent, physical game, and you're going out there trying to impose your will, and you left them lesser than what they came in.
I thought that was a huge positive for this team is in games against good teams, at least over the last two years, you've been the lesser physical team. You were just as physical as Philadelphia all the way through, beginning to end. You had the chance all the way through. The Dallas Cowboys were just as physically imposing as Philadelphia.
Philadelphia took their.
Lumps on offense, they took their lumps on defense, and their front seven. Man, they get after the football, don't they. They gave trouble to the entire offensive line. I know we talked about Terrence Steele, we talked about Tyler Biada. It wasn't just those two guys that struggled up front. The offensive line struggled against one of, if not the best front seven in football.
Well, I would say Tyron Smith and Tyler Smith had arguably one of their best games. There were times when they still got beat two Yeah, I mean oall beat overall when you look at what they did over the course of the game against that defensive front, like the left side held up, like the left side was fine. If those two guys at all five play like those two guys, they have a clean pocket for most of the night.
I just wanted to throw that in there.
No, I'm not downgrading Tyron Smith and Tyler Smith, but for everybody that wants to point fingers at just one person or two person, two people up front, that's not the case. There were times when Tyron Smith was in the lap of Dak Prescott. There were times when Tyler Smith was missing a block when he was trying to get up to the second level. There were times like that. But from a grand scheme of things, I mean, that's
part of the reality of playing offensive line. You have ninety snaps in a game, and I know they don't play ninety snaps, but just for the sake of an argument, six fine sixty five snaps. If you have three bad snaps from an offensive lineman, you're not having a great day. I mean, that's just how it is. It's part of the position. I could say the same thing about Dak Prescott too. He wasn't perfect, don't get me wrong, but he played his butt off. He absolutely played. Well, you're
not in that game late. If Dak Prescott doesn't play as well as he does.
You relied on Dak. You he threw the ball forty four times, forty four passes.
Was it you that said last week he needs to throw at least like thirty five in this game.
I think you listen here, you don't want him thrown over forty I can tell you that.
Yeah, okay, but the reality is you weren't going to run a ball effectively against this front as you You're just not. These guys are just too good up front. They held you to three and a half yards per carry on twenty one rushes. That's what you can expect out of that, right, So you have to throw your way to a victory against this Against this team, their secondary is are weak spot in their team, and that's what you try to expose. And Dak went twenty nine
to forty four, sixty five. You know, roll it up to sixty six percent completion, no turnovers. All right, I'm gonna say that again. No turnovers, yep, against a really good defense, and.
There wasn't There wasn't even an our like, oh that could have been bad. It was like the one sack late where he was like kind of throwing.
Over the last few weeks, he's he has he's controlled himself.
There have been throws that he almost made that he decided to take sacks on instead of throwing the ball up in the air, and super proud of him for making that progress, right because old Dak, or early in the season, Dak would have just chucked it, just trying to make play, trying to make a play. But guess what, he tucked it right. He he held back. That was his instinctively, he wanted to release the ball, but he pulled back. He's like, no, I'm just gonna take this
sack and live to play another down. He gave this team every opportunity possible to win the ball game, and he's gonna look back and yes, people are gonna.
Say, oh, well he overthrew.
He overthrew c or Michael Gallup on the one pat Yeah, okay, yeah. Every quarterback usually has a ball that they wish they could have back in every game. AB's a freaking looting Okay.
Just to add to your point, who's the number one film buff and somebody that was uber critical of their own mistakes throughout their career at quarterback? Tom Brady, I mean you've told me that before. I'm kind of surprised you didn't know. I mean, but Tom Brady could, I mean across the board is known as the most lethal quarterback in NFL history, and he still had mistakes. It's just how it goes, part of the game.
But you learn from it, you know. And so yes, there's a gazillion negatives. Yes there's a lot of good positives. But the reality is you guys, you gained ground. You gained ground.
So Cowboys Nation out there, I know you're frustrated. I know you're hurting.
I know you got to listen to all all the little Eagles fans. You probably got to pay up on your bets, all that jazz you take it, give your money, do your push ups, you know, buy the lunches, and just say, Okay, I'll see I'll see you.
I'll see you in a little bit, I'll see you. I'll see you next month.
You know, we'll reconvene on this all right, because you just took a huge leap and now they're Yeah, you're back two and a half games. That's the that's the second part, big part. That's the part that sucks. You're back two and a half games. Now that gap can close because you're tough. Part of your schedule is at the end of the year. Okay, you your last five six games, that's gonna be a brutal you get your mind right for that. Okay, but they're tough part of
the their season. They're facing some of those same teams, and that is right now, right, so right now, so you have a chance to right your wrongs, get your mojo right over these next few weeks, build yourself up. I'm not saying they should all be walking the park type games, but these are games that you should be able to build your momentum going into the last part of the season. They have to deal with the fact that they're number one, they're beat up, their quarterbacks limping and gimping.
Okay, they lost their tight end.
He's gonna be most likely going ir right, So they're gonna have to figure some things out within themselves in the most difficult portion of their season. So they're gonna most likely to get knocked on their butts for a couple of weeks and then try to figure out how to get get it picked back up towards the end of the year. So you're in a good spot. It doesn't feel like it, but you're in a really good spot. And that's why the guys are walking around shaking their head like we're good.
Yeah, yeah, and I whenever you gosh, I had a point I wanted to throw out there. You also have Nacobe Dean that went down in that game. Fletcher Cox was battling injury. They'll be able to go into the bye week and kind of rest up some guys and then come out against the Chiefs. They got to go to Arrowheads, so that'll definitely be interesting. But I know I've mentioned it, but you have a really good opportunity. Giants, Panthers, Commanders, you go three and oh there. Then you're welcoming in
the Seahawks on Thursday night. That's a must win because you're looking at NFC contenders. You play all of them over the course of the stretch, beating them and beating the Lions. That puts you firmly at the top of that second echelon, and then whenever you welcome Philly back in, if you're able to knock them off, then we start
talking about NFC East again. You know, I think it's very plausible to look at two losses for the Eagles down this stretch that they have before they play the Cowboys, just with the amount of contenders that they have to go play. So I really think we could be looking up in December and there's a lot of similar stakes as to what was happening in Philly last night, and I would be shocked if we don't see this game again in January.
The January. Yes, you're talking playoffs, yep, the one thing. I'm looking at both schedules here too. But by the if you take care of business, you win the three games and then you beat Seattle, so four to zero over the next four games, I mean, you get a four game win streak together, which is very likely. It's not not a foe gone conclusion. It's the NFL. We've already seen the circle of parody this year. Any given week,
any given Sunday, you can go down. If Dallas takes care of business the way that they should, they should win the next four games Philadelphia, with it being the circle of parody and going up against as many good teams as they do in a row. Bang bang bang bang. They could lose two games and they could beat that game that you're talking about, might be for the lead in the division. They may have the exact same record
at that point down the line. Now that's looking way down the line, and there's a lot of games left to be played before then. And Dallas learned their lesson in Week three against Arizona not to overlook anybody.
That that obs effect.
It's part of it, Tommy Defto effect.
Yeah, all right, let's take our first break. When we come back, we're gonna hit some of these text messages. Cowboys Nation wants to sound off today, and I do not blame them. Eight or eight one seven, two nine zero three two nine eight is the Cowboys Podcast text line. We're going to answer some of these questions get to some of the fans here over the next couple of minutes as we continue to break down to twenty eight to twenty three loss to Philadelphia in Week nine. More talking Cowboys.
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To Talking Cowboys. Back here on Talking Cowboys. This portion of the show is brought to you buying Quaker Oats, a super trusted super food. Quaker Oats the official oatmeal sponsor of the Dallas Cowboys. Twenty eight twenty three, Philadelphia takes down Dallas. Isaiah, It's funny you mentioned that Cowboys fans have to deal with it for a little bit. Yeah, just for a little bit. And that's part of the game, part of being a fan, of being all in on
your team. I'm with you because guess what. On the way in this morning, I'm stopped at a stoplight. I'm driving in from my house. I'm gonna stoplight, and I'm like, kind of I think, I'm like rustling around. I'm looking for my sunglasses because I'm about to drive right into the sun. And when I'm looking for him, you hear just beeping constant bam, bam bam. And it was beside me, and I was like, what is this guy want? I was like, I was looking at him and he's hanging
It's a truck driver. He's hanging out of the window of his car or of his cab, and he's I've got he's got his arm and he's like waving to my window, and I'm like, oh gosh, what is going on. I was like if something happened behind me or my tail light's out, Like what's going on? I rolled down my window and he goes, good game last night, Go Birds, and then he honks the horn and drives off.
That was this morning on the way into talking Cowboys.
Honestly, credit to him, because I don't know how he saw the shirt because I was he was on my passenger side.
He had the laser vision.
Yeah, I don't have any cow I don't have any Cowboys branding on the back of my truck at all.
He's got he got the.
Egalized Yeah, good game last night, Go Birds, all the cowboys.
Let him have it.
Let them have it, because the reality is this game knocks you two and a half games back, okay, and that sucks. But the game that you're gonna play next time you faced him, most likely is gonna be the deciding factor for who walks away with the division title.
Just say, let him have this one.
Let them have it like let them blow, like like help them, help them, like elevate themselves, like make him feel good about them.
So, yeah, you guys did a he I don't know if I want to do that. Do the Belichick pull the Belichick good job. Yeah, yeah, you know they're so good.
If he wasn't, a semi would have cut him off later and traffic definite would have got ran over. Yeah, I'm trying to get here on time.
You gotta take it.
You gotta take it like they want you. They want you to make excuses. They want you to make excuses. They want want you to blame the referees. They want you to talk about coach McCarthy. They want you talk about like you guys got us, We'll see you again.
I will say I absolutely loved the environment in Philadelphia, just all weekend, like from the moment that we had gotten to the hotel to when we left the hotel, in between uh driving into the stadium.
Just hate and birds and not the not the birds we're talking about even a couple of moons. I mean it was it was cheeks, cheeks thrown out there.
I saw a pair of cheeks, two pairs, But yeah, I was just like I was just listening to my music with my headphones on, and I was honestly just like relishing the moment right there was just.
Yeah, I absolutely love host one. Like, but like I'm looking at you, I just see birds birds. I'm like, ah, this is great, this is awesome. I was like, oh, but okay, cool, cool, cool, keep going another button. I'm like, all right, man. But the the environment was so cool.
And the way the press box is set up in Philadelphia too, it's like basically right on in the in the stands, like there's a divider, like there's glass, but like the fans are right there. And every time the Eagles would do something good, they'd turn around and look at all those Dallas beat people and just same, same more deal, just birds and drunkenness.
I loved it. I gotta love it. Yeah, Dallas needs to have the same energy ones.
Yeah, you can come back to the They gotta come to Union to have.
The same energy all the way through. All Right, we've got some questions on the text line. We won't hit all of these because a lot of them are just yelling and I get it, I understand it.
Uh.
This one's from Dan and Philly he said, why did Dak switch the ball from his right hand to his left hand to reach into the end zone on the two point play?
Is at the end of it?
I feel like that's yeah, that's it. Uh well he called it stupid.
No, no, not stupid. He's reaching for the end zone, not stupid.
In so, I'm not sure I do want to go through that play though, because Dak stepping out, it certainly had an effect on the game.
But that's not a well, first of all, the first ball, there is some linemen up front that got beat, so he was forced out of the pocket first of all. Okay, that wasn't necessarily what it was designed. So he was forced out of the pocket. So here goes your quarterback now getting out of his home. Okay, so he had to go out the house, all right. Now he's out there outside and he's trying.
To find his way to the end zone.
Okay, he's extending to play, trying to see if there's
somebody could pass to. And ultimately came down to the fact that it's like, crap, I'm gona have touch this thing and run, all right, when you were running at such a speed with such with so much weight, heading towards a sideline in order to try to change directions, you have to put your foot in the ground at some point in time, all right, And then if you're if you're going out of bounds, you can't have it in your right hand and the pipelines on your left side.
That's not a realistic thing.
I don't know what kind of contortionists you believe Dak is, but there's no way that he could even have an opportunity to score unless he switched the ball to his left hand and as his body now is out of bounds, the ball is in his left hand and he could try to swipe it across the goal line in front of the pylon.
That was the goal.
That was his game plan.
As that was happening.
It just so happens that he didn't cut his pinky toenails, okay, and he just slipped out of bounds, and it just it is what it is.
It's bad luck, man.
I mean, if he could have prevented it, obviously, he would have prevented it. He didn't know. He didn't know until he turned back around and they're reviewing it. So, I mean, heck of a play by him.
Heck of a play by him to escape trouble, get out on the edge, extend to play, give his receivers a chance to get open, realize that they're not getting open, and now I'm a tucking and I'm gonna get this yardage.
And he talked about it in the post game press conference. He said if he had to do it over again, he would have gotten vertical a lot quicker. So I think the speed, I think it was Reddick that was closing in.
I think it was Reddick. Let's just pretend it was Reddick. He said the speed of Reddick didn't surprise him. He just wished he had gotten vertical.
He's talking about getting to the outside. I believe it was Graham, Graham.
It was Graham, was Graham, It was Brandon Graham. He wish he had gotten vertical, just like cut in and gone.
Yeah. Just got credit to Brandon Graham because he stayed with the play all the way through.
If there was the amount of bounds, if there was a play that I was I would critique on Das running.
That wouldn't be the one. It would be the one where he tried to jump from four years out and oh that size in my head, I'm like that, just run him over, run him over. You're you're, you're two hundred and thirty five forty pounds, Just run him over.
So he had talked about that play too, and that was his initial intention. He was like, I knew I could take him one on one. But at the very last moment I saw he saw in my periphery another guye and I was like, okay, let me try.
To leap for it. And he was like, he was like wrong, decision is wrong.
But like, yeah, I would understand if people were disputing that that particular run, but not the one where he stepped out of bounce.
No, he was reaching for the goal line. Absolutely, his foot slid out bounce. I mean, that's just how it goes. Mike from Boston, this good question.
I'm glad you brought this from up. This is what I wanted to touch on.
Yeah, Mike from Boston. Can we please stop with the Michael Gallup experiment. Let's give Jalen Tobert and Cavante Turpin job to split. Honestly, right now, Cavanti Turpin and Jalen Tolbert have been better than Michael Gallup. And there was there's a couple other text messages that are mentioning both Gallup and Brandon Cooks. One said they were on the milk carton this morning whenever they're eating the cheerios that we talked about on Friday. Neither one of those guys
had been here. Neither one of those guys have shown up. So Nick, I'll let you start what's next for Michael Gallup and we can throw Brandon Cooks into that conversation.
Is look at if something happens with Gallup over the offseason and he's he's no longer a cowboy.
I'm I'm not saying anything. I'm just saying, if that this is going to be the game.
I look at where things just kind of like officially kind of turned towards the wrong side for good for Michael Gallup because he had that very.
Critical drop on third down. I believe that was in the second half or wasn't the I.
Think it was in the first half, but I can give you the exact time.
Yeah, and.
You look at what Jaln Tolbert did yesterday when they needed him. You look at what Kavant Turpin did on the third down and being able to haul that touchdown in on his hurt ribs and have the ball fall on top of it, and then Tolbert being able to do what he did on that next the last touchdown drive left in the second Yeah, so it was that five.
Field goal drive. I guess, look jalaln to Tlbert.
If you look at the snapcouts, he's been cutting into what Michael Gallup has been doing over the course of the last few weeks.
And then after that drop happened last.
Night, it was just like full, full blown, like all right, Tolbert, this is your opportunity and he ran with it. Did Gallup still get opportunities on the field, Yes, he drew that pass interference late in the game.
That was huge.
Absolutely, He's still your big body guy that you want to be able to throw up to.
But you know, I don't know.
We're looking at reports this morning of the Cowboys potentially bringing you Martavis Bryant for a workout.
This would be tomorrow Tuesday.
It's because there's a liability that receiver and they would like to be able to find a solution to it. And if I'm looking at liabilities in the receiving corps, I look at Michael Gallup first, and I look at Brandon cook second, And if we want to touch on Brandon Cooks really quick, what's going on?
Like? Why why can't he not get involved in this?
Folks?
I just but he is clearing out, He's getting two and a half yards of separation, Like it's I don't, I don't, I don't. I'm curious, go back on the film. Is this a McCarthy problem? Is this a dak problem?
Like? What is what is this?
I don't know, but we'll see.
I didn't really dive into it. I was mostly looking at play by play stuff early. I think that's a multi game dive to go back in and really decide what's happening here, Isaiah, based on your intuition, what would you say is going on with Cooks? Is that just a play calling standpoint?
Yeah, he's the clear out guy. I mean that's what I called him.
I mean, not to his.
Not because of his inabilities, because he's very, very capable. He's still the best route runner on this roster. I don't care how great Ceedee Lamb's playing. He's still the best route runner on this roster. And he's not being given the opportunities because you're you're there's give and take. When your number one receiver wants the ball, you find a way to get him the ball. Other guys are
going to suffer. And unfortunately, you brought Brandon Cookson here to be a complimentary player, to be your your number two receiver and a really good number two receiver. But you're focused on getting your number one receiver the ball so much that you're not focusing on distributing it to your other guys to.
Ease the pain.
On CD Lamb, ceedy lamp has sixteen targets, sixteen targets. Nobody's complaining about that because everybody want to see C. D.
Lamb eating. He got one hundred ninety one yards he had production killing only he's killing it.
But you know something we'll talk about later in the week is ce d Lamb has been unbelievable crazy. But what happened incredible.
What happens when you force feed your number one your number two gets two targets two targets.
I don't know what you're talking about.
Your number two had seven receptions on ten targets.
With number two receivers, that's your number two.
Your number two target is definitely ferguson which he's doing a heck of a job. Shout out to Linda Wells and that tight end group. But yeah, I mean be cooks Is. He's been the clearout guy and unfortunately that's what he's been subjected to.
And and kudos and the highest.
Of regard and respect to him for keeping it shut because I said this a couple of weeks ago, right before his first touchdown.
I said, if this dude doesn't today, he's probably gonna lose it.
He's gonna lose it because he has been subjected from being a thousand yard consistent receiver to being a clearout.
Guy for CD LAMB.
And it's not fair to him. No, it's not fair to him. And if you were winning all these ball games, I could eat that. I could eat that, right, I could eat that. And I'm not happy with it, but I could eat it because guess what the ultimate goals do?
What win ball games. But if we're losing ball.
Games and I'm getting two targets one catch for seven yards, and I have a problem. I have a problem because I'm better than this. I'm much better in this. Not not only am I better than this, I'm open right, But we saw this last year with ty Ty was open.
Yeah, right, it wasn't.
It wasn't can he get open all he got? He came in this season late like he was open too, and he wasn't getting the ball. So this is not something that's new.
It's just unfortunate that Brandon Cooks has been subjected.
To being a guy that is now an afterthought, and it is not because of his inabilities.
I agree, Yeah, I was looking for his separation average separation. Brandon Cook's four point three yards.
He's killing people, Oh my gosh.
Just for comparison, this is in this game where he had one reception for seven yards, four point three yards average separation. Ceedee Lamb, who had one hundred and ninety one yards had three yards of separation. The only player on the entire Cowboys roster that had better separation than Brandon Cooks is the man who has a head start, and that's Tony Pollard out of the backfield. He had six point two yards of separation because he's coming from
the backfield, because he's a running back. That's compared to a wide receiver. That is a whole another conversation. There's a text message about it. We'll get to it when we come back Tony Pollard, Where does that weapon get involved? How do you utilize him more? We'll talk about it when we come back right after this with more talking Cowboys.
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I completely forgot about that.
Yeah, please don't forget about it.
I did not, sir.
I'm gonna show up here and would be like, where is everything?
I can't wait, dolf. Yeah, we'll just be hanging out. Uh yeah, store opening up in the do we have? I said I would get the address. I never got one.
I know where it is.
You know what.
I want to make sure people know.
Oh okay, here we go.
Uh FM four to twenty three Frisco, Texas, So North Frisco is where we're headed, fifteen minutes north of the Star. If you want the exact address, sixteen five nine nine f M four to twenty three, Frisco, Texas, seventy five zero three.
Come get a cup of Joe with us, please please do Black Rifle Coffee.
We're gonna be there nine am to nine forty five. I'll get there a little early. I think Isaiah said he'd get there a little bit early there and probably won't be able to stay late because we have shows to film right after that. Absolutely, we gotta we gotta book it back over here to the stars. So if you want to see us, come say hi. Get there early. About eight thirty is when I'm going to get there
in the morning. So should be fun. Black Rifle Coffee and North Frisco off of f M four twenty three, Come join us, Come hang out, bring your signs, bring your coffee. Well, but you don't need to bring your coffee, just get it while you're there. Yeah, that'll make it happen. All right.
We're gonna tell John.
I don know John sitting in here. We have them get to that at Tress it goes yes, please do yep, North Frisco. That's where we're headed, all right, Isaiah standback, Nick Harris, Chris Beam in the back of Kyle Yeomans. Lots and lots of text messages. I really wish you. I could get to all of these, maybe not all of them. Like I said, a lot of them are rants. Yeah, I get it the but the majority of the text
messages have to do with two people. Right now. It's number twenty Tony Pollard and number seventy eight Terren Steele start with Tony Pollard. That's probably a good forty five percent of our questions right now. Where is Tony Pollard?
He is?
Well, Look, man, I was thinking about this last night.
He's a complimentary back and there's nothing wrong with being a complimentary back. He excelled at being a complimentary back last year.
Was he a pro bowler last year?
Yeah?
Yeah, pro bowler last year.
As a complimentary back, there's nothing wrong with that. They need a physical guy, and I think Rico Dawdell can be that guy. But he's not getting the he's not getting the opportunities, which leads me to believe that maybe there's something going on during the week where they don't trust him to carry the ball as much. Looking at the carry percentage, two carries for Rico Dawdell last night and twelve for Pollard. That's back to back games where
Pollard has had twelve carries. So I guess drawing back the load a little bit and putting it more on the passing side and giving it to Dak. But you're looking at twelve rushing attempts for fifty one yards. There's nothing scary about this running game. And I think when this offense was at its best last season and where it's been at its best while Pollard has been here, is a scary running game and they just don't have that.
And you know, I'm always a guy who kind of thinks ahead, and you know, sometimes I think a little bit too far ahead when it comes to like the offseason. You know, you're on a one year deal, you're on a franchise tag with Pollard. If you bring him back and you sign him long term, you have to sign someone else as well, because what you've seen so far this year, you can't be you can't be okay with that, at least for me. They're trying to make him a
downhill guy inside zone. And you know he initiates contact. Last year, he was not initiating contact. He was bouncing around contact like he was making the first guy miss every single time last year, and this year's he sees the first guy's all right, let me put my shoulder into him. It's like, I love you, Tony, but you're not that guy. You know, your complimentary back who is he's your best utilized with your speed and being able
to find little creases. And we saw a little bit of that last night, Like there were a couple of those seven to eight yard runs where I was like, oh, there's twenty twenty two pollared, you know, where he was able to kind of squeeze between the tackles. But it feels like he's initiating contact every time. I think it's a scheme issue. I think it's a running style issue. I think there's a lot of issues that go into Pollard not being as effective as he's been in years past.
I mean, what can you point to one game this year where you're like Pollard was a difference maker? No, how many games could you point to last year? At least three, at least at least yeah maybe so, I don't know, man, that's that's got to be an emphasis. And that's a question I'm very curious for the offensive staff to answer today.
Yeah, TP, Honestly, there was a yesterday. It was the first time all year that I felt like TP didn't look like TP.
I guess throughout the whole game. I feel like most of this year he is he's in himself in my eyes, just not giving enough opportunities. And you know, we we mentioned this last last night on the post game show, the OT Show about the one two punch and how in years past he's had Ezekiel Elliott to be the battering ram. Right, he was the guy that is going
there and be the punisher. And then they get used to that speed, they get used to getting you know, they get beat down, and then Tony Polter comes in and he's a lightning bolt and he's a change of pace, right, and he gets to catch guys off guard, and you get to run outside when you've been running inside, and it's just different.
Now that's not the case.
Right now, you're the guy, and you know, because they're choosing not to use Rico Daudo as the primary down back, you're the you are the franchise tag player.
That is a reality. You should be getting more opportunities than you are.
That's the reality. But also the reality is your old line is not moving people off the ball. So there is not just a Tony Poler thing and he can only do what he is given the opportunity to do if he's not giving any holes. The last time I checked, there's only one Barry Sanders that can make his own holes. So you have to give him an opportunity. And I think yesterday was the first time where I feel like
he has some opportunities. That he didn't hit it the way that you expected him to hit it, and then I feel like he noticed that and he.
Tried to turn it back on and it was just too late. They had to have been in the run.
But anybody who expected to run the ball effectively against Philly, then I don't know, you must have been in the Raiders locker room after the game and partaking what they were partaking in, because there's no way that you're running the ball effectively against against the Eagles, not on the inside.
And you know it just is what it is, man. I mean, you threw the ball more than you ran the ball.
You threw You had twenty one attempts, six rushes by Dak which mostly I would say almost all of those were s were scrambles. So you're looking at actually like called runs. You're looking at what fifteen fifteen called runs in the ball against Philly. So I'm not gonna put too much weight on the disappearance of Tony Pollard in this particular game, but in past games.
Absolutely they're not giving him enough opportunities.
But his average is sitting at about four four and a half yards if I'm not mistaken, in terms.
Of his carrying.
So he's getting the three point eight, he's at three point eight. Okay, Yeah, they got get him with a rock more. Yeah, they gotta get him a rock more. I mean they're trying to put him in between tackles. He's not an in between tackles.
That type of back, Absolutely not.
He's not.
So when you ask somebody to do what they're not, that's what you're gonna get. You're gonna get a shelle of what you've seen them be in the past.
Last year, really quick. Last year. This this rushing offense finished eighth in the NFL in total rushing yards this.
Year at nineteenth.
Yeah, they're not running the ball and trending lower.
They haven't.
They haven't found a way to equally disperse the ball to all their weapons. That's where this offense is hindered right now. They are are are fine focused on getting one person the ball, and that is ceedee lamb eighty eight.
That's it.
That's who they're focused and Fergus and guess whether you're your tight ends, Dak's best friends. So you're safety that Yeah, you're gonna eat. You've always that position has always been the safety net. But the primary right now is getting the ball to eighty eight and they have to back away, which is okay, but you haven't found a way to do that while still getting the ball to your other weapons.
When you think about some of the more the most prolific offices in the league.
You think about the Kansas City Chiefs, right, they get their guy, their primary playmakers the ball, but they still top receivers. They disperst the ball to everybody, right, And you're thinking about the Miami Dolphins now where they got Tyreek Hill. But guess what, Waddle gets the ball right, mostly gets the ball. You got all these other cats. Everybody's getting the ball right, so they're spread it out.
You look at the Houston Texans yesterday, right, I mean they have four or five guys with over one hundred yard, four guys with over one hundred yards. Yes, they're spreading the ball around, So you have to find a way to get all your playmakers involved. And right now I think they're just struggling because they're focused on getting their number one guy the ball and keeping him happy.
So you just got to find a way.
These two guys that were we entered this segment talking about Tony Pollard and Terrence Steele. What do they have in common from this past year?
They got paid.
They were hurt, and they got paid. So there's two things. I was thinking the injuries the payment in there too, But yeah, they both got paid. Tony Pollard differently than Terren Steel. Terrence Steele got the bag in a multi year deal. He's good for a little bit. Both of them are coming off of major injuries. Which one do you feel like is hindered by their major injury? More here in twenty twenty three, If anybody.
If anybody, if I had to say anybody, is T Steele. But I just think he's got Yesterday, he just got beat. He's got. I mean he faced Reddick Rdy. He was kicking his butt for a good portionateity.
The Eagles have one of, if not the best front sevens in football.
Absolutely, so I mean you faced a heck of an opponent. And to your point, you know, if you lose, if you lose on three or four plays, that's a bad day.
I thought it was a long.
Position, so it's really not in your favor. Tony Pollard has no physical restrictions that I could see. He just has not had the opportunity to make those splash plays and he has his little burst moments.
But when you're getting twelve touches, that's not it. That's not enough, man.
Yeah, that's just not a enough If twelve and if I'm getting twelve touches and eight of those touches is in between tackles running it to three hundred and forty pound d lineman.
What do you expect?
Yeah, anything to add there.
I think there were a couple of breakdowns from Terrence Steele last night that he just got out athleted, if that's a word. It was just quick moves, boom, he was done. I mean it was fast, it was fast movement. And Hassan Reddick, I mean he's great at it, don't get me wrong, but he still has shown in the past that he can handle those athletic dudes.
He's got athleticism to him.
He's got the perfect tackle body to be able to hang with those athletic presences off the edge, and there have been times where it's kind of it's kind of worried me.
And what really worries me. I was looking at up in the third quarter.
He had already given up nine pressures and I remember he gave up nine pressures against the Niners as well. I was like, man, is this going to end up being an overpaid situation? And I don't think there's a conclusion there yet. I do not think there's a conclusion there yet, but it's it's it's certainly in my mind.
But we talked about this in the beginning of a week as we started to talking about this matchup, and we talked about how the office line doesn't get to do what they don't get the sub no right, they get no subs off.
I get it, I get it.
I'm talking about but but you take that and you cover that with.
Our concern was that these guys have waves of defensive linemen, right, they had waves of them. So you're dealing a whole game with Hassan Reddick, and then all of a sudden they bring in Brandon Garham as a changeup.
Crap, bro, I'm tired.
I'm not making any excus Yeah, I'm just saying like I'm worn down and they're not, you know what I'm saying.
So that's why we're talking about we start talking about these waves.
Of people, like even if you drop if you have five bad players out of forty four dropbacks, forty four times you had to protect the quarterback and I was I wasn't one hundred percent for five of those.
That's a bad day. So it's not in your favor.
And that's why they get paid what they get paid to play that position, right, But the reality is, you played a really good opponent right last night. He wasn't the worst one on the line yesterday. He was not the worst one online. He was the one that Yeah, I don't think Terry Seeal was I'm going straight to the inside, you know my eyes went, I mean.
Yeah, but I disagree. It would have to be Terrence Steele. I think I think his mistakes.
I think his mistakes were highlighted more because of where he's at on the field. But I think that in terms of like negating what you can do up front, that's that's that's where my attention was at and there's plenty of times where Dak was forced out the pocket because of internal pressure.
Which is harder to deal with from a quarterback standpoint, right. And so I'm saying, like, I agree with Nick by the way, just because of the sheer number of pressures in this game specifically, but there were times when Dak had the.
Role I don't.
I don't disagree on either end, but I'm saying that you're more impacted from the interior than you are from the exterior. And the exterior I think the tackles always get all the all the attention. Nobody's looking at the times where Dak rolls out because on the play where he had to take off and he stepped out of bounds, nobody's.
Talking about Tyl, to be honest, nobody's talking about that, right.
But the reason why he had to get out because ty got beat, right, and there was other guys that were getting beat. I'm not just want to highlight one person, but like, those things matter, right, those things matter, man, And the thing that you played a really good defensive line, you got beat. Go back watch the film, get better, right, get better better technique, be have more sound technique, you
can't really get stronger. That is what it is, right, try to scheme it up, but you got beat and now you learn from it and you try to go back and ensure that it doesn't happen again. That's the competitive nature that has to be within you, where you you dab them up.
You got me. Next time, it's not gonna happen. I promise you.
One last point.
On the offensive line, I think there's gonna have to be a lot of looking in the mirror and going back to the drawing board this offseason on it. They can't if this front five plays the way that they have in the three or four games that they played together, if they played that way throughout the course of the season and they continue to allow pressures and there's zero consistency throughout the course of a game, they're gonna have
to go back to the drawing board. And I know we've talked about Tyron Smith and you know, is this the last yearason a Dallas Cowboys uniform?
You know whatever.
I don't think that would be the only thing you'd have to go back to the drawing board on. I think there's I think you'd have to look at all five and say, is this guy the permanent solution?
Here?
Is this guy the permanent solution?
Here?
Where do we need to draft?
I think that's probably the biggest thing I look at right now if the offseason started today.
One last text message. Unfortunately, we don't have time to completely address it the way that I would like to. We'll have to talk about it tomorrow at Black Rifle Coffee Company in North Frisco. Says Hey, talking Cowboys, this is Josh from Iowa. I'm wondering why you guys are saying it was the offense as the main problem last night.
Some say, yes, I agree, but let's be real. We needed the defense to come out after halftime and get a stop and they didn't, or the Eagles second possession after that after the half, basically saying the defense didn't get the job done. I'm not completely putting one hundred percent of the blame on the offense, but when you look at the way that the defense solidified and held in check an Eagles offense that had been running people over, I felt okay by it.
Yeah I'm not felt okay. Yeah, we don't have time to get into this, but I'm not. First of all, we're not putting blame on anybody. We're highlighting areas that could have been better.
Sure, yeah, let's get areas of the defense.
But we're talking about negating a really good offense to two hundred yards passing and one hundred yards on the ground. Yeah, like what a j brown Horse went nine straight games of one hundred and twenty five plus yards He had sixty six.
It's pretty impressive.
Yeah, half, and if you look at the defense, they gave the offense two opportunities late Loston, Like the fourth quarter was the fact that the defense forced three consecutive three nouns.
And they forced those guys to put the ball on the ground well three times, and they.
Didn't get the two stops out of after the half.
I get that.
I understand that because they came out and they went right down the field, scored, got the ball back, went to write down the field scored. But what happened after that, didn't get a single point after that. So great question, Josh. Honestly, I'm glad you brought it up because there are going to be people that blame one side or the other. That's not the case. This was a team loss just as much as much as these other wins been team wins.
Everybody had a hand in this game losing. Every play had a hand in this game, ending up as a loss for the Cowboys. But guess what, get a chance to do it again next Week's right, yego. We'll break it down for you either way, win or lose. As we continue on Talking Cowboys tomorrow Black Rifle Coffee Company.
We'll be there at eight thirty.
We'll be live at nine o'clock in North Frisco off of FM four to twenty three. That should be a fun time. Come say hi. We would love to see all you guys out there and bring the heat. We may even try and take some live fan questions out there while we got an opportunity. How about that? All right? That does it for us for Chris Beam, Isaiah Standback, Nick Harris and Kyle Yeoman saying so long from Talking Cowboys.
We'll see you tomorrow at Black Rifle Coffee. This has been a production of Dallascowboys dot Com and the Dallas Cowboys Football Club.