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From the Dallas Cowboys World Tours at the Star in Frisco.
Street Kidson Touchdown.
And now your hosts Isaiah Standback, Nick Harris, John Mashoda, and Kyle Yeomans.
It's a Thursday edition of Talking Cowboys presented by Black Rifle Coffee Company. We are live from the SWBC studio at the Star in Frisco. It is Cowboys Eagles Week and it's a Thursday, which means today we take a look through QB vision with Isaiah Standback, we preview the Cowboys offense going up against this Philadelphia defense that just came off of allowing a forty burger against the San Francisco forty nine ers.
So will they.
Rebound or will another forty burger be served? On Sunday Night Football. We've got Isaiah Standback, John Mitchoda, Nick Harris and Kyle Yeomen's.
Gentleman, how we do it today? Doing well?
I think I was talking with someone yesterday. It feels like this week is just taken forever because it's I guess it's a ten day rest and it feels like we should be playing ball by now, but we're not, so a couple more days we're not.
Do you think an added factory to that is that this has been the most anticipated matchup for sure, probably of the season.
I know Week five was pretty highly anticipated.
To go up against San Francisco, Week nine against the Eagles, but getting the Eagles at home, it's it just feels like it's a little bit different.
Yeah.
Absolutely, I think the weight of the matchup as well is definitely creating some excitement around here.
So yeah, I'm ready for Sunday night.
John Mitchoda is ready for Sunday night.
He is.
And I will say, I'm just happy to be feeling well, considering where Mike mc arthy was at yesterday morning and judging by Dak talk to a small group of reporters in front of his locker yesterday and was talking about how he had kind of a stomach bug over the weekend, and so he thought Mike McCarthy might have had the same thing, and obviously Mike's situation was a little bit.
More than that. So hey, I'm happy to be here feeling good.
Yeah, same here.
It wants to be healthy.
There was a stomach bug going through the Star last week. Just in general.
Yeah, wasn't wasn't pretty in certain areas. But yeah, it's one way to put it. But good to see that Nick does have baby wipes, It's true. Any other news and notes, and we could start with the McCarthy use and kind of explain what that situation was.
Yeah, leading off with that.
Mike McCarthy yesterday came into the facility, you know, ready to kick off on field practice this week, and he typically gets in about five six a m. And whenever he came in, he was meeting with a couple of people. He ran into Dan Quinn and he just wasn't feeling rights. He said, had a lot of abdominal pain. Got checked out by the team doctors, a team training staff here and they were like, why don't you go get further evaluated up the street at the hospital.
So he went up the street.
Turns out he has a cute appendicitis and had surgery yesterday afternoon to have his appendix removed and out of the hospital. And I do not expect him to be in the facility today. My expectation would that would be that he would be here for the walk through tomorrow on Friday, and as far as we know, he anticipates coaching on Sunday, so I don't think there's a huge
concern there. I forget who tweeted this out yesterday, but somebody did saying that North Turner had his appendix removed on a Friday back in two thousand and nine and he was coaching on Sunday.
Take that for what you will.
And we asked Dan Quinn yesterday at the press conference he filled in for Mike McCarthy, and he said, you think that big tough irishman is gonna miss this game? So I think he'll be there on Sunday, but definitely send him prayers out to McCarthy. Hope never thinks going well as far as his recovery, and yeah, definitely, John said it yesterday. You can't go you can't go a day without something happening around here.
Dak was laughing about how he knew how upset Mike was going to be when they did their zoom call.
He had anticipated he'd probably want to do one to go over plays and things like that, because that's where you're at kind of now in the season, like it's not like there's a ton of new install it's kind of, hey, this is what we like, we're gonna work work in this different situations and so they always meet together, and so he was thinking that maybe this week it might be via Zoom and he just was joking about how Mike is going to be complaining about how this is
like turned into this whole side story and he doesn't want it to be, you know, that type of a thing. He wants to obviously the focus to be on the game. But yeah, so yesterday we had Dan Quinn at the podium. Today this morning it's supposed to be Brian Schottenheimer, and so the plan is for all three of the coordinators
to kind of run practice and that. And one of the quotes that said out on me yesterday was when DeMarcus Lawrence was talking about it because they went through twenty twenty with COVID, there were so many things that were done virtually and things like that.
He said that they.
Were prepared for it, but goes shout out to COVID for preparing us for it. I never thought i'd hear anybody give a shout out to COVID but it does seem like I think I think if this was earlier in the season, maybe it would be a little bit more of an issue in terms of the game planning and things like that. But I just feel like where they're at offensively, with Mike and Dak being on the same page, I don't think it's going to be a huge.
Setback from that perspective.
What I do find interesting is, and believe me, I did love when you post some tweets about this. I'm sure you got some of these. Me and Todd Urch we're talking about it. When you post what happened to Mike McCarthy, there is just people that will jump.
In there, Like my uncle had that he was back in two days. I know, somebody had that they were drinking by Sunday.
You know, like there's always people that try and like, you know, relate it to their own life. So the thing that I find interesting though about this is everybody anticipates Mike to be back on Sunday. Yeah, but I wonder if he'll be coaching from the sideline.
Oh I thought about that as well.
In the box.
Maybe I thought about that as well.
Well.
How do you feel about the booger mcfarlande mobile from Monday Night Football.
Sign me up. I think it would be a better I mean, it couldn't be worse of a.
Situation than what it was for a broadcast situation.
I forgot that.
Was the thing.
Nick.
Nick just looked like he relived some childhood trauma.
I would think that if that was the case, then I would think dan quinn would come out of the box. It'll probably be on the sideline and then so Mike will call plays from helping the booth.
But I don't know.
I mean, I don't know that that remains to be seen. I don't think anybody knows for sure on that, but they everyone seemed confident that Mike will be their Sunday Night.
Did you ever play in a game where your head coach was unavailable? Head coach wasn't able to coach high school?
Yeah, high school. There was one game in high school here he got suspended.
Different situation.
I was pretty much the coach on the field, So that was interesting. Outside of that, Yeah, we won. Let's go on stand by quarterback draw the whole game.
Both ways or just I was quarterback quarterback?
Yeah, he got to protect his legs to go to Washington.
It kind of depends on the size of school you went to.
It was. It was not. I mean, we were not a football school.
Okay, yeah, so you made it a football school.
Definitely didn't win a lot of games, but you want that one, that one.
But from your perspective as a former player in the NFL, you know, on an actual game day, how much you know is that head coach matter to be on the sideline as opposed to being up in the booth like that.
Honestly, outside of outside of my time in New England, I would say not much. Yeah, I would say not much. I just I mean, there's so much of it. It's just a game plan the players are coming in. Obviously, it's a little bit different with coach McCarthy because he call him plays Setenheimer. Obviously, as official officer coordinator, he will have a role in that. But I don't foresee it being too much of an issue. I just really don't.
Is it more impact to have him miss times during the week to miss days during the week, then it would be have him or on.
The fielder rather than in the booths.
No, absolutely not. It's more important for him to be in a practice week than it is for him to be in the game. And that's not trying to take away from his importance to his team. I'm just speaking from a player's perspective. Again, I don't know how. I don't know how they communicate during a game in terms of coach McCarthy and Dak and you know how often they're talking and things of that nature. I would imagine that Shody plays a big role in that as well,
but I can't speak to that. But I do know that when you're on game day, you're literally just getting calls, getting feedback, getting a couple of coaching points here and there, and then you're blowing and going like. There's not a lot of sitting down and having discussions. You know, there's just not a lot of that going on.
Saturday is a huge practice for them.
Since Mike McCarthy's been the head coach, he's always put a lot of emphasis on that day before practice, which is something that was new that he implemented brought over from Green Bay.
And so.
I don't know for certain, but I would think that if there's any chance that he can be here on Saturday, he probably will be.
Let me clarify, you said it would be more important for him to be here during the window than at the game on Sunday. Yes, even though he's offensive play calder.
Well, I mean you still have shoddy right, that's what I'm saying. I don't know. I mean, I mean, you guys are talking about physical presence. Yeah right, I'm talking about Okay, he's gonna be at the game most likely. I mean I'm assuming that I'm talking about sideline presence.
He's talking about votes. Yeah, on the sideline.
I don't know, if not in general, because we all anticipate Mike to be there. Yeah, I think you should anticipate Mike to be there. But whether he's in the booth or on the field is what we're talking about.
I hope, I hope it's like a Hugh Free situation where they have the hospital bed like up in Cherry.
Sweet and he's just calling plays from the bed.
He's in the screen, isn't it isn't a screen like six levels or something crazy like that, the video board. Yeah, yeah, it's just put him in the screen.
Put him in the screen, have him bird's eye views, looking straight down, looking looking down. Dolly Parton lights that if it looks like mad like he's just playing Madden is what he's doing.
At that point.
So Quinn has filled in as the head coach when Mike missed time because or he missed that one game in New Orleans, I believe during COVID, and so Quinn has been their head coach during during a game before. And so I would anticipate that if Mike can't be down on the field, that Dan would come out with box.
It really just comes down to those situational decisions, right, So you're talking about those fourth downs, you know, whether to go, whether you're talking about you know, punting or not. You know those those are the type of things you know, do you challenge his play? I think those are The head coach on game day is more impactful than anything.
Yeah, any other news and notes, Yes, So yesterday, as we were awaiting Peyton Hendershot's determination, he was activated and Sean McEwan was put on the I R. And then also Matt will let's go offensive tackle who has not played all seasons, suffered a shoulder supplexation.
Is that you said, I don't even know what that is.
Yeah, it's like shoulder like pops out of place, like without needing to be manipulated.
Yeah, that's that's so strange. That's a little too gross for me.
But uh yeah, So he had his twenty one day practice window open, which really surprised me. I figured he was done for the year and they were just going to kind of shelf him. But his twenty one day practice windows open. I don't see why, but I'm curious to see if y'all have any perspective on it. But first, Hendershot being activated. You know, how do you feel about this.
With the tight end room. I know we've talked about it a lot this week, but now that it's determined.
Well, you had to find a spot and we had a feeling it was going to come from the tight end room and if there was an odd man out in the tight end rotation at the moment, it was Sean McEwan. And so that's kind of the decision that they made and ended up putting him on IR and didn't cut him straight out. They want to keep Sean McEwan.
They've made that abundantly known the last couple of years, and they've had opportunities to move on from him, but instead they've continued to protect him and keep him as a part of the roster, so hendershot coming back, they make sure McEwan's locked up with the irs THENT and then yeah, Matt, well let's go. I was kind of along the same lines as you were, just based off of what we had seen in training camp and him
going through that injury process early on. I'm shocked he's even opening the window, and maybe this is a chance for him to come in. You got the twenty one days. If if it does work out, that's great, there's offensive line depth. Yeah, if it doesn't work out, then it's right back to what we probably anticipated in the first place, and that's being out for.
The entire year.
Yeah, that was one thing that I thought yesterday. Maybe they just want an extra practice body for the next three weeks. You're going up against three really physical teams in the next couple next few weeks, so just to have an extra practice body, maybe that's the reason. But yeah, not really sure entirely what he could bring on the field at this point in the year. I mean, you have you've shown that you had death of tackle with
Cheomi Doga. They've thrown Austin Richards in there as well, So yeah, that's I'm interested to see what they do with Well, let's go down the line.
And You've always been very adamant that that's a tough injury for anybody, especially for somebody that plays as heavily up top as offensive line do.
Yeah. No, I mean, there's only a number of things that you can do without having to have surgically repaired, and that's just strengthening the crap out of it. You know, maybe that's the time that he's utilized, you know, throughout this whole season, is him just strengthening the structure of that shoulder and then obviously wearing some form of a shorter harness our strap to try to keep it from getting in compromising positions. So the combination of those two
things might allow for him to play. But I'm not I'm pretty skeptical. Obviously haven't been through it three different times, three different surgeries in regards to that exact injury.
I'm just disappointed that I'm oh for two on my last predict, two predictions at Shacklosson coming here our chef, sorry, Leonard Shack Leonard, And uh.
I didn't no shock Shack Lasson was available.
Yeah, right, he's in the NFL these days, shack or whatever. And then also I did. I was surprised when they when they told his history that henders Shot was coming off and that Aquan was going back on. I wasn't expecting that just from things that I had heard that I heard it was going to be a little difficult
for Hendershot. So to your point yesterday, it's there. I like what he can bring in the passing game, so yep, it'll be interesting interesting to see where that goes, for sure, because we have seen him make some big plays in the passing game when he's healthy, so let's see if he can get back out there.
I'll say this.
I talked to hitter Shot in the locker room after it was all determined that he was going to be back, and you'll like this.
He had a little bit of confidence in him.
He was like, yeah, I'm ready to contribute however they want me to contribute, you know, I'm here here to do that.
I was like trying to get a couple of touchdowns for the end of the year. He was like, for sure, like let's let's get it.
So I think there's a little bit of confidence there, and he was kind of chopping it up a little bit more with this tight end teammate yesterday in the locker room, So maybe the mental part of it is in the past and we'll see what he can contribute from receiving and going forward.
Yeah, finally was a note. We haven't addressed it this week.
I missed at the last couple of days, but DeMarcus Lawrence being the team's nominee for WALS from Peyton Man of the Year just the opportunity to speak on that.
I guess. He's been awesome on the field.
Obviously, his contributions off the field have taken notice of the team and the people here, so good for d Law.
Yep, it was really cool the video that they did that showed that he was the nominee. They took Dak, who of course won the award outright last year, has the patch on the jersey for the remainder of his career, and it was Dak that delivered the news to d Law that.
He was going to be the nominee. A really cool moment.
If you haven't checked it out yet, go online Dallas Cowboys dot com and Nick has a write up as well about d Law and what he's done in the community and first time nominee for him too, so a really big deal and he's he's very proud about being that nominee for the Cowboys as each team gets their own selection to push forward that award moving forward.
All right, let's take our first break.
When we come back, it is time to go through some QB vision. What does the Philadelphia defense bring against Dallas on Sunday Night football? Isaiah Stanback breaks it down based off of the film study.
When we come back.
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Welcome back into Dear Doctor, the show where I answer life's questions with an ice cold can of doctor Pepper. Sheila, let's hear from my next caller, would.
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But what's the right gift that says thanks for being the shoulder.
To cry out?
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Isaiah, you get yours in this morning?
I did? You did? I sure did?
While you were watching film.
With some freaking crazines.
Wow. Yeah, it's impressive.
I can tell.
Whenever he has he has a little bit more juice, a little glow, not yeawning.
He seems like he's in the zone.
He locked in.
He sweed.
Even Dek was like, oh, you're getting a little film study in this morning ride. I'm like this, All I do is film study deck. That's all I do.
If you would like to join sometimes, I got you. All right, let's go through.
Some Why Eddie Why Eddie put it's time for QB vision with Isaiah's stands back.
It was good, all right. QB vision very similar to what we talked about last. When we face these guys, these guys are a let's let's go this way. What is the strength of their team? Their defensive front, the big boys up front. Obviously you got Jalen Carter, Fred Fletcher Cox, Hassan Reddick Big. I call them big Baby Davis in the middle. Those guys are the engine that makes his team go. Beyond those guys, these guys can be compromised. I really hope that Dallas has a game
plan to initiate the run. I don't want to go into this game and just say, ah, we can't run the ball against these guys because they're big, they're physical. They got, you know, a thousand pounds of grown men in a in a three techniques I want to see the Dallas Cowboys initiate a running game because I think it will open up everything else in terms of the passing game. Number one, number one thing that you have to take care of is Hassan Redick. This dude is
a complete terror. He terrorized Dallas last time we played them. Terrence still did not have the great some days against him. He even moved inside on some stunts and gave ty to beat there some issues. He's a he's a problem. He's he's an absolute problem. I don't really foresee too many passing pass rush issues outside of him, So you need to make him a priority. That just needs to be number one. If you want to pass the ball effectively like you did last time, take care of Redick.
He's the only one who caused you issues. Coverage wise. These guys aren't great coverage wise. I don't care you have. You have the names Darius Slay, you know, was it Kevin Byerd, You have some names out there, But honestly, these guys are not very good. They are at the bottom of the league in terms of yards given up. They're at the very bottom of the league in terms of touchdowns given.
Up, points per game, allowed, twenty fourth passing yards per game, twenty ninth passing touchdowns allowed, thirty first and takeaways they're type for twenty third.
Yeah, they're not great. They're not great, and the coverages that they play are very simplistic. They are they want to be a single high team. I want say's about seventy plus percent at a time. They're a single high. They want to play nickel. They're mixing it up between Manda man and Cover three Manda man coverage. You have to win. Obviously, Dallas did a great job across the board tight ends, running backs, receivers of winning their one
on one matchups last time against Philadelphia. It's the reason why CD was able to go off. There's plenty of opportunities there. There's actually a lot of missed opportunities in terms of our tight ends as well. Running a lot of stick stick you know, stick and go type routes, a lot of double move type things. These guys like to hold. You can get them going in one direction and obviously beat them on a double move Cover three. I really want Dak I should have told him this morning.
Huh sure, But I really want Dak to be patient in Cover three and obviously, in order to be patient, you have to reaction. Yeah, you have to. You have to obviously have the time to be patient. So if you can block up Hassan Reddick, then you will honestly be in a position to take advantage of their single high cover three safety coverage and being these guys carry Darius Slay carries a ton in Cover three. He plays it like man. You're not supposed to play it like man.
He plays it like man, meaning that he's playing about twelve yards off. He doesn't want to get up in your face in this particular coveage. So it's really easy to identify in terms of who gives it away. It is going to be buyered. He gives the coverage away. You find him, You find thirty one, You find out what these guys are running coverage wise, thirty two what's his name? Sorry? Blankenship Actually like him, but they want him to be the free They want him back kind
of going sideline. The sideline. They want Kevin Bayer to be down near line of scrimmage, but he sucks in coverage. He's trash and coverage. He will grab you in a heartbeat, but he will give it away, even your trash and coverage, and when they try to show a too high shell and drop him down late, he's the one that's going to drop if if Bradberry's coming down or not, Bray, why do you want to keep someone to say Bradberry blanking ship comes down is because they really need him
to cover one of your tight ends. Okay, they want Buyer down there for run support. That's why you need a running game. Keep him in the box, keep keep the blanket ship back. But in cover three, he's playing about twelve yards off Darius Slay that is, and he'll turn his back if you have a vertical threat going his direction. He will literally turn his shoulders and tended in the direction of the end zone, meaning that his responsibility that is on the you know whatever the boundary side.
There's nobody underneath, and I mean nobody underneath. So if you can get your running backs out, if you can get your tight ends across. San Francisco did a really good job of bringing I am really blanking out on name today Kittle across information and getting a chip on on Reddick. Right, did a really good job bring him across in motion, get a chip on Reddick and then letting him get out to the flat.
La.
There's one play that he did that and then turned into a target in the flat and oh, he took off like thirty nobody opened or there's nobody defensively down there because he chipped off the edge, got a chip on Reddick, bought a little bit of time for Perdi and then dumped it off underneath the kittle in and he took off for the rest.
It's absolutely the player that I have in mind, and it happened multiple times. Yeah, where there were guys coming out late. Right, So if you have a vertical threat, he's already playing twelve yards off, you get on his toes, he's going to turn and open the shoulders and go towards the end zone and then there's nobody there for that responsibility. He doesn't have the discipline to play to
be aggressive and take care of his responsibility. So if you threaten his zone, his area, he will lose all responsibilities. You could take advantage of that underneath. So I say be patient, Dac, because a lot of dump downs, right. I know, as many times we want, we're starting to work the ball down the field, but this is one of those games where you can get it to one of your players underneath and let him run right and
just take advantage of the yak yardage. And with that, you know, you can obviously extend drives, you can get first downs, you can move the change, you can obviously do whatever the heck you want to. And if you can find a way to run the ball against these big boys on front, I don't see them being able to stop the Dallas offense. I really don't. I think that what they did, what we did against them last time,
it caused them a lot of issues. I think they realize that they don't have the personnel to match up against Dallas man the man. So if they want to play zone, then they're kind of compromising the sense of Okay, now you're playing zone with undisciplined players, and they really rely heavily on big number seven to get back there and get pressure on your quarterback. Outside of that, they're not doing a ton. They're just not in the stats that you just mentioned. You know, back that statement up,
back up that sentiment. These guys are getting scored on left and right. They're giving the passes left and right. Their thing is they want to put you in long passing down so that Reddick could get back there and cause you some issues. But if you can find a way to double him, what do they have pressure wise? I don't know?
All right, So I got two questions for you. One, we're going to get the pressure in the second. First, just because they're fresh off playing the Seahawks. You're a coach, I come to you and I say, in this game, you need a safety that can cover. And you got to pick between Bayered and Jamal Adams. Who are you taking?
Oh I'm taking I'm taking Byered over Jamal Adams. I mean they both are the same type of player.
Yeah.
I think Jamal Adams is just reckless. I mean doesn't. I mean, that's just his style of play, that's his energy.
You called buyer, trash and coverage.
Jamal Adams doesn't cover. He just doesn't even does.
Try to cover about it though. He's pretty sensitive.
That's fine. I mean I'll go against him right now and run around on him.
He will go lower, that's what he said.
He Yeah, he'll try to injure you for sure.
But he was a part of my Fergie touchdown called you realize that I kind of threw at him a little bit like, that's for you, Cowboys Nation, that's for you because whenever he caught the touchdown, passes like he's covered by Jamal Adams, but it doesn't matter for.
Like just kind of put their little down in the rock Johnson on that one.
Also, whenever they do go cover two, okay, whenever they do go to high safety is usually a Tampa two, meaning that the middle linebacker turns and goes to the to the heavy side. If you have a three receiver side, right tight end receiver receiver, he's going to turn open up and running that direction. One thing that they don't do a great job of, and there's an opportunity here is what we call the honey hole. It's the spot between the cornerback and the safety. That cornerback is really
sitting heavy. That's one of the few times that you will see Darius Slake stay in his area is.
Not twelve yards off, not twelve yards old, creeping toward the line of scrimma.
He's gonna be about three three to four yards off the line of scrimmage. He's gonna have his shoulders turned in towards the quarterback. You're gonna see that safety kind of mess around like he's gonna like he's gonna drop down to a single high. But then what did I say, fine, thirty one, he's there's always one guy who gives it away. He's the man that's gonna turn and open up early.
So if Dak's giving hard counts at the line of scrimmage, he's gonna be looking at thirty one, making it and seeing where he's at, and he's usually gonna drop back out of there as soon as as soon as dacks whatever it might be. Okay, there we go. Yeah, then that's what Buyer's going to open his hips up and start running towards cover two. You know where it is, Okay,
I identified it. Now, get to my snap now, and if I can get a clean release at the outside, okay, whether that's Brandon Cooks, Brandon cook CD, whoever might be jaylen Tobert, Michael Gallup, if he's out there, okay, you can. You can real a freaking twenty five yard shot right in that hole.
Now.
I'm not saying that you're going to get that multiple times a game, but there might be a third down situation where that pays dividends and you can really just drive that thing in there. Because that safety wants to get deep and over the top. They don't want to get beat over the top. Even when they play man the man press up front, that safety is about twenty five yards deep because they don't want to give up that big play.
So everything you're communicating about the vulnerabilities that they have and cover three when they have the single high and in Tampa two. How important are Dak size in this game? We've seen him utilize that more and more as the season has gone on. I've loved the breakdowns that I've seen throughout Twitter and YouTube and whatnot about especially on that touchdown to Turpin on Thanksgiving, like him just looking off the safety moving them around. Boom right there, moving
linebackers around as well. How important are Dak size in this game?
They're huge eyes and footwork. Safeties watch your eyes, cornerbacks, watch your footwork. So why is that because safeties in first of all, they can't really see your feet. They can't realcount me stead you're taking It's about Dallas is what percent? Whatever? No, no, it's not take that back. I'll take that back. That was another team. I remember what percent is Dallas is in the shotgun. But they're in the shotgun a good amount.
Two seconds sixty two percent, which is twenty second. It's below leave average twenty second. In the NFL Eagles, on the other hand, they run eighty five percent of their snaps oide of the shotgun, their second in the league.
But as a safety, okay, I want to control you with my eyes because you're looking at me. You want to see exactly where my head's at. So the reason why Dak and in any other quarterback in the league is able to control safeties is because when they're looking back there, they're in coverage. They're trying to see where can they get a one step lead in whatever direction you're gonna throw the ball. Right, So if you're the safety,
I'm dropping back. I'm looking dead at you. Right, you're dropping down into the into that middle the of the coverage type safety hole. Now I'm gonna go opposite direction, right, or if I want to lead you in a direction, I'm gonna go ahead and scan to the right. I'm gonna get you to shuffle your feet over that way. Now I'm coming back to a tight end that's right where you left. I just need you to move one or two feet, you know, in one direction. That's how small.
That's all you know. Incremental is this game is everything is super tight and from the cornerback's position. Okay, Darius slag gets in trouble because he's looking at your feet, right, He's looking at He's looking at the feet of Dak the entire time. If Dak catches the ball, Boom, he sets his feet, he knows he's probably going to be a short route. All right, we're talking about a five
yard route, eight yard route, whatever it might be. That's where the cornerbacks are kind of setting their feet and kind of looking in right now, if Dak Boom resets his feet and he gets back a couple more steps, okay, now that turns into a five step It depends. If he goes another five then it turns into a seven step drop from the gun. So cornerbacks are looking at this process of elimination all the time, right, they're Boom, They're looking in coverage, They're looking in Okay, Boom, and
I'm playing his own coverage. Is he setting his feet at as soon as he gets the ball? Nope? Okay, Now those routes are now out the picture. Now it's the next set of routes, right, Okay, does he go three steps from the gun or does he go five steps from the gun. There's all these route concepts that go along with how many steps the quarterback is taking based upon not only the depth of routes, but also
what am I seeing on film. And that's why a lot of times, if you can find to some of your some of your tails as a quarterback, then you can kind of I can't use that word. You can kind of trick them, right, You could trick them a little bit. You you can trick You could trick guys a little bit. And that's not to give a sky exactly. Yeah, you can really mess around with cornerbacks. And that's when you start seeing quarterbacks really elevate their game because now
I know what you're reading. I know that you're looking at my feet. I know that you're looking at my eyes, and I can start moving you in the direction that I want to. I can start manipulating your coverages and the things that you do at your feet because I know what your indicators are from your perspective.
I don't understand why you're not giving any love to Drash Spider. Brandon Graham over here, it's all this sign Reddick love.
I mean, those guys are manageable. They really are. I think, I really. I mean, I'm not saying that they're not great players. Those guys are really good players. Yeah, I think those guys are a relativity managable. Reddick is causing everybody problems. Like, seriously, it's not just it's not just Dallas,
it's not just Terrence Steel. Like he has calls. He calls the San Francisco problems, and you could see it was a point of emphasis for San fran Don't let this do terrorise the game, Like, get a chip on him. Take our one of our best players in Kittle and screw criticle going down the field. I need you to take out seven, right, and we'll get you the ball underneath.
Right.
I don't need you going down to field. I know you're one of the best tight ends in the entire game of football, but guess but I need you to chip this guy right here, right, Scott, don't need you running down the field. That's how important is to stop this guy. If you could stop him again, their coverage isn't gonna hold up. So if you have time to sit back there. That killed last time against Philly, right,
he destroyed these guys. So if you can a lot for him to have that time and pick these guys apart, their coverage sucks. Their guys are undisciplined in the secondary, and they don't have the personnel to match up against you man to man. So if you can get them playing zone, all I need is time.
Prescott had three hundred and seventy four passing yards, three touchdowns, no interceptions in Week nine.
I was looking at this comparison.
These are the NFL rankings for four major categories for quarterbacks and where Prescott ranks versus where Philly ran in the NFL. Completion percentage, DAK is third, Philly is sixteenth on completion percentage allowed, Prescott is fifth in passing yards per game, Philly twenty ninth. DAK leads the league in passing touchdowns, Philly is thirty first, so next to last,
and then passer rating DAK is second. Philadelphia allows the third worst passer rating in the NFL, twenty ninth in the league, so an opportunity for DAK to put up some phenomenal numbers. And it's interesting to me to think about how good Philly is up front. They still provide pressure, They still provide a challenge in the front seven. Are they really that awful after that linebackers and secondary? I mean just guys that are behind that defensive one.
Yeah, And that's why they went out and picked up Fired. Yeah, not Byered, but they picked him up mid season who we just talked about. Yeah, she kill Leonard. That's why it was so important for them to get him because they need that support behind that front. Though. Those guys are really good upfront, but they're not pass rushers in that sense, right. I mean, sweat is he'll get after you, Graham, if you allow for him, he'll get after you.
Right.
But it's this seven they don't have. They don't have, you know, three four guys that you fear. There's guys that you respect, they're not guys that you fear. There's one guy on that defensive line in terms of pass
rush that you fear. Now, when you started talking about the rending game, that's a whole other conversation, right, They got they have monsters up there that can wreck hav it, Okay, and that's why most teams don't run the ball against them, except unless you're a san Francisco forty nine ers and even on the plays that they ran the ball, well somebody was still free, right, they just they just ran away from them.
So from a personnel standpoint, definitely, not from a schematic standpoint, would you compare them to the Giants from last season? Just they had a dangerous front, but everything kind of behind them was working and they're giving up those same kind of numbers. But obviously it's much different from a schematic standpoint because the Jeah.
For sure, I think I think that's a fair comparison. I think that's a fair comparison. And you know the thing that I would say about these guys versus Dam is these guys are undisciplined and the gonna hold I'll probably I'll probably say safely, there'll be three PI calls against they get called. Yeah, I'm saying three called PI calls. I was gonna say four before. It's a lot, right, But they're safely. I could say that I have confidence that they will. They will get three three pass interference
calls against Dallas because that's what they do. They just don't move their feet. Well, they just don't. They're not cover guys and slay Slay's not what he used to be. Sorry to say it, but he's big place slag. He's not what he used to being.
Draft sweat too, man.
Why do you feel like Jake Ferguson had such a big outing the last time that they lined up seven receptions ninety one touchdown.
They try to they try to minimilar opportunity.
They try to man them up, They really try. They tried their best, but again, they just don't have the personnel and we did. They Dallas did a lot of double moves, a ton of double moves last time, as you watched the film, and because because these guys are so overly aggressive and because they don't move their feet, well, the only way that you could stop a double move is by grabbing, right, I mean, just grab, grab, grab all day.
I mean.
The route concepts were not they were not they were they weren't the don't want to talk about. They weren't very vast, but they didn't have to be. I mean, they ran a lot of smash concepts, right, whereas like a corner a corner route, a hitch route or or a whip route on the outside coming back underneath like it was very simplistic things but there were things that were beating what these guys ran. There was some plays that we left on the table too that coach McCarthy
called up that were very simplistic. You know. Dak, you know, had a couple of inaccurate throws that would have been touchdowns, but we ended up scoring on a drive, so nobody cared. But CD was destroying these guys. Everybody was winning their matchups. When you watch the film, everybody was winning their matches. Come out they Turpin was winning his matchups. He scored a touchdown because he ran what we call a whip
route right. He went up, ran like he was running out of fake slant, whipped it back out to the sideline right, and he won. He was a beatst man by half a step. Dak put it on him. Yeah, little three point turn. I mean, it's just everybody. It was like pick your poison. Even on the passes that Dak completed, you can look on the other side of the field and somebody was open as well.
If you didn't notice this guy, we can just move on.
But I just wanted to ask you if in any of your films study at all, you noticed number three Nolan Smith, the kid out of Georgia. He doesn't play a ton, He's only got one sack this year. The only reason I bring him up is because you know, he was a big guy during the draft, like the Jalen Carter and Kobe Dean where just like everybody keeps talking about how, like man, the Eagles are just loading up on all these Georgia guys. It's going to make
them pay, And I just haven't noticed. I don't know if you guys have noticed Nolan Smith very much at all, but I just know that he's a guy that a lot of people when they when he fell to them just kind of like Ringo and all these Georgia guys.
There was like they're building the whole Georgia defense like that.
And now, don't get me wrong, Jaalen Carter is obviously lived up to that so far, But I didn't know if you noticed him at all.
No.
I think he might have made one play against Dallas last time.
I remember, he didn't play a ton.
Yeah, he doesn't popped off film. So the only person that pops off film for me is Reddick obviously the big boys up front in the running Game, and then Blake and Ship. He doesn't get any respect out there with all these other names out there. But I think those are the only few guys that really like flashed me, Like, okay, you might want to put some respect on their names.
Yeah all right.
See the last time that hold On that these two teams played, Nolan Smith had twenty snaps, was one of the highest snap Counties had all year.
Actually, but yeah, sorry, he was dealing with an injury coming out of school too, and maybe that's played a factor bigger than what Philadelphia had.
Like Mazzie Smith, some guys just haven't caught on yet.
Yeah, it happens, Heyzi, he started to pick it up. He started out playing better.
Yeah all right, but a confidence too in him. You can see it a little bit.
Oh, you could see when he was loading that truck. Yes, really gift. I mean nobody, nobody took on more gifts than Mazzi.
Good.
Good for Mazzi.
Good for Mazzi helping out the Salvation Army. He's doing the most good. That's what he's doing.
All right.
When we come back, I want to talk about the trenches offensive line. Who has the advantage in the trenches between the Cowboys offense and the Philly defense. When we come back with more talking Cowboys.
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Back here on Talking Cowboys.
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Isaiah Stanback, John Machoda, Nick Harris, I'm Kyle Yelmans.
We've got an interesting stat line for you guys.
Okay, So, not only do both the Eagles and the Cowboys defenses, they both rank inside the top four and QB pressures. Of course, the Cowboys lead the NFL with a forty six percent QB pressure rate that's the best in the NFL according to NFL next Gen Stats. But the Cowboys and the Eagles are the only teams in the NFL to have more than three combined first team selections for All pros along the offensive line. The Cowboys have eight all Pro selections and the Eagles have seven.
And that's combined, by the way, so Zach Martin has six, Tyron Smith has two, Jason Kelce has five, and Lane Johnson has two. So out of at least all Pro selections, I know a lot of those guys are on the backside of their career. They've been around for a long time. You also talk about Pro Bowls combined, The Cowboys have seventeen combined Pro Bowl selections along the offensive line, most in the NFL. The Eagles have eleven combined selections, second
most in the NFL. So what I'm saying is these two teams traditionally have been the best trenches in football offensive line and then more recently, defensive line. Who has the advantage in this matchup?
I would have to give it to Well, you're asking which offensive line is better with which.
Team has the advantage in the trenches period.
Gosh, that's a tough one.
It really could be either or, and when both of these teams are healthy and playing like they have been, it really does kind of feel like a coin flip. But I'm just going to kind of leave it at that because you look at the experience you mentioned that with Jason Kelsey, Lane Johnson, those guys.
Have been around.
Then you look at the experience on the Dallas side, Zach Martin, Tyron Smith, those guys have been around.
Now also come the youth on both sides.
You got Jordan mylotta where I've just really come to love over last year at tackle for the former rugby player, and you can see it. He's super physical and he's a ginormous human being. And then you look at the youth for Dallas and you got Tyler Smith and what he's been able to do. He's having an all pro type of season. It's almost like a mirror images of each other. And how they put those offensive lines together. I think they're two of the best offensive lines, maybe
two of the best three in the league. And whenever you see these two guys go up against each other, it's definitely fun. And then you just combo that with the defensive side of the ball for both of those teams as well, and it's again the same thing. Athletic pass rushers, youth and their veteran experience, guys that are competing for league awards every year.
So it's really fun.
I guess if you factor in the defensive line, I think I'd give the edge to the Cowboys just because of what they've been able to do from a pass rush perspective, how they've shared up that run defense in the interior so far this year. But if we're looking at offensive lines, Like just straight up those five guys, it's too close for me.
To call there.
Yeah, I agree with you on all of that. Really, the offensive line.
Though, I will give an edge to the Cowboys as of right now with the way they're playing and they're being completely healthy. The thing is, though, is that there's a part of you that when you cover this team long enough, you're just kind of like, well, how long is it going to stay this way? And if they lose any one of those guys, then to me, it's Philly No, No, I just don't think that the next guy up, It just is a significant loss for this offensive line.
So as it sits.
Today, you know, as of today's practice, going into this game, I guess I would give a little bit of an edge to the Cowboys, but I would be just fine if you want to argue the other way.
Yeah, tooche, tooche, touche.
I'm nothing more to add one.
Speaking the offensive lines, real quick, I do think that they have a lot of nice pieces on this Cowboys roster on both sides of the ball. But I do feel right now, even if they finish this whole season with that offensive line healthy, if I had to bet right now, I think the favorite for their first round pick is an offensive lineman. Would you guys agree or disagree with that?
Cowboys?
Yeah, Like, it's obviously not going to be. It probably won't be a top twenty pick. You know, it might be it's going to be in the back end. But I just feel like, whether it's guard, tackle, whatever. I'm not saying it's a large advantage, but I'd say if someone was like, you have to bet right now on what position while the Cowboys draft in the first round, just knowing what you know right now, I would probably say the offensive line.
I would too, And I mean you look at some of the other position groups of need if you. I mean, I'm just saying that because of contract situations. Running back, you're not going to draft a running back in the first round. You feel pretty good about wide receiver and what you have moving forward there. You feel good about tight end, you feel offensive line will get to that in a second.
Defensive line you feel good.
Linebacker, You're not going to spend a first round pick on corner you feel good, Secondary you feel good, or safeties you feel good. I think it's a no brainer it would be a favorite to go get an offensive lineman, especially with the revolving door, with what you have from the age standpoint of Tyron Smith and Zach Martin, I would be right there with you at close.
It seems like they almost took an offensive lineman last year in the pest.
They've been looking for the last two years to do that, and they did, of course with Tyler's Smith.
And then they almost did it again last year.
And this is the best player we'll get to you. It's the best player available. Team they certainly will look that way. But I'm just saying, if you had to bat right now on a position group, I just think they want to do what All right, go ahead, Oh nothing.
I don't much to say. I mean, just myself and Nate Newton just beating the table for what for the last year for office lineman in the first round. Yes, I was about to say, you guys, guys didn't want to old lineman in the first this year, we.
All wanted an offensive lineman.
I wasn't on the show.
I don't Yeah, you didn't know me when the draft happened.
First off, No, this helps speaking for myself, I don't know I want it. I wanted a first rounder. I wanted a big name free agent. But Denver took care of all that. They got all of them.
It's working out for him.
It's starting to Yeah. I wanted a first round of this year. I just really did. And obviously they went a little bit lower and they got somebody for some debt. But you got it. You have to spend. You have to spend as much money as you're about to pay Dack. You better go out there and spend some brand on somebody that's a sure thing on the old line to protect them.
The question I do have is do you go get a guard and to bump in future bump Tyler Smith out to attack whenever Tyrone is done, or do you want Tyler to focus on guard?
I would go get a guard.
Gosh, I feel like you could go either way there.
I guess it depends. I think it depends on what's out there right right. If you have a dog out there that's a that's a tackle, go get that dog.
Well, you best player available at that point.
If the best player on the offensive line is a guard taken, you move.
Okay, So what if you have a guard and tackle ranked the same Say that again, what if you have a guarden and tackle rate it the same.
I think you would lead tackle because of the position value. I think I might lead guard just because I do feel confident with Terren Steele and Tyler Smith going forward, and I would hope that that guard to be drafted in the first round has some a little bit of guard center flexibility. I would like to have a guard that has some backup center flexibility for potential debt purposes. So I think I would lead that way. But I think this team would go would go tackle.
Well, if you're looking at the breadcrumbs of what almost happened last year whenever it was down to the wire twenty seventh overall pick and it was Mazzi Smith on the board or they were debating Matthew Bergeron from Syracuse. Bergeron was a guard who had center possibilities. So maybe based off of what they've been seeing in the past, they would go guard with some center backup possibility there too.
So I think they would still value tackle higher, just because that's that's the value of the position of finding a solid tackle. You could keep Tyler Smith at guard. He's been phenomenal there beyond up this year.
Yes, yes he is.
I center could be there too, you could beef up that position. I think there's there's ways that this offensive line could get better. It doesn't necessarily have to be pingeonholed in the one specific situation.
I will say, I haven't gone all the way through my draft prep, but so far, it's looking like a really deep guard class. There would be really good opportunities in the first three rounds. Like you look at a guy like Christian Haynes out of Connecticut in the first round. Cooper Bebe is a guy out of Kansas State that a lot of people have started to love recently, and I thought he was coming out last year and yeah, yeah, he's gonna end up being a second or third round guy.
And then Donovan Jackson out of Ohio State. He's still up in the air about if he's gonna enter or not. But that's another really interesting guy you would look at. But really good guard class so far that I'm seeing.
I love draft talk. This is awesome.
Guys.
Yeah, don't get me going ya shouldn't have got me going back in the bag, all right, and Christian offensive guard.
All right.
We are wrapping things up here on talking Cowboys. Will be back tomorrow, John. Before we go what's your pick for Sunday?
I mean, I'm telling you, since the day the schedule came out, I haven't wavered at all. I just I've always thought that it was going to be the Cowboys that would I thought the Cowboys would lose in Philadelphia, and when when they come back here and there's no reason for me to think there's nothing that's changed. And this is before I knew that Dak Prescott was going to go in like the best stretch of his his career, and so I like the Cowboys.
I'm gonna go with what what.
Was the score when they just played with a twenty twenty eight twenty three flip?
Okay?
Interesting?
I like that, a little flip of it, nicely done.
Isaiah was ready to toss the microphone.
I was ready for it, covering my wes.
You you're gonna toss it. We'll give our picks tomorrow and we'll outline the rest of the NFL slate as well as we're back to a say it with your chest Friday here at the Star in Frisco. But that does it for us today for Chris be and Isaiah stand back, John Manhoda, Nick Harris, I'm caw Yeoman saying so long, We'll see tomorrow with more talking Cowboys.
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