You are listening to the Dan Patrick Show on Fox Sports Radio Final Hour.
In this Wednesday, we'll talk to the former Cowboy coach Jason Garrett. Last night, Horizon League Robert Morris advances the CIA, UNC Wilmington, the NEC Saint Francis of Pennsylvania and WCC Gonzaga. Tonight, you have a couple of automatic berths available the Southland. It's Lamar and McNee State Patriot League, Navy versus American University, and the Big Sky Montana versus Northern Colorado.
All right, a couple things. No real movement, no updates.
Here on what's going on with the Pittsburgh Steelers and New York Giants. When it comes to Aaron Rodgers, DeAndre Hopkins to the Ravens which would have been a really big deal like seven years ago, Joey Bosa to Buffalo that is a big deal. And Cavaliers who won fifteen in a row. They're so good they're forcing networks to actually talk about the Cats.
I love it.
Fifteen consecutive wins and they are off to a historical start. They're fifty five and ten, that is tied for the fifth best record through sixty five games in NBA History.
Who now stall of a day, Start of the Day, Statuta day, scant outa day.
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Good morning.
If you're watching on Peacock, that's our streaming partner garage sale. It's inventory time. We're clearing everything out. Go to Danpatrick dot com. Some great sales going on Big ten, Big East men's basketball tournaments. Tipping off live today exclusively on Peacock. Gang's all here, Ready to go? Final hour eight seven seven three DP show poll question for the final hour of the program, Seaton.
Last hour we had up there, who career would you rather have Bobby Hurley or Danny Hurley?
Right now? Fifty three percent of the audience saying, Bobby Hurley's pretty good, pretty close. Okay.
I think that I think we're right that maybe people have forgotten just how huge Duke was thirty years ago or whatever, that that was a massive four year run.
Yeah, but maybe they didn't like Duke.
Yeah, well I didn't like Duke, But looking back now, it's like, man, that was a hell of an accomplishment.
They were a deal, that big deal. Back then yeah, absolutely.
We also had up there free edged quarterback you would sign right now. Aaron Rodgers has thirty seven percent of that audience, followed by Russell Wilson, Gardner Minshew and Jameis Winston.
Not really in this one. Yeah, I didn't think they would be. Yeah, yeah, that's not And.
I think it would be a sneaky little pickup if the Brown's got Kirk Cousins. All you want is stability. If you're a bad team, at least give me something that's stable. You know, the Raiders bringing in Gino Smith, I thought it was a really good decision. He can be there for a couple of years. If you draft Ashton gent you got a really good running back, you got a really good tight end, you got Max Crosby, and maybe a new direction.
For this team.
Now.
I don't know if that would preclude them from maybe if Shador Sanders fell in their lap and they took him instead of Ashton Genty the running back. But at a Boise State I don't, you know, not quite sure, And it's the lying season right now, nobody's going to tell you the truth what they're doing. I'm assuming Tennessee is taking cam Ward but do the Giants give them an offer that they can't refuse? What's cleveland do it too?
If you got your quarterback, let's say, and Kirk Cousins, or maybe you got Russell Wilson.
Huh.
I wouldn't rule that out.
But you know, the Colts reportedly they tried to entertain the idea of bring in Sam Darnold.
Now you bring in Danny Dimes and.
And there's there was a lot of talk yesterday McAfee's show talked about you know, if you're Anthony Richardson demand of Trade twenty two, you got no business demanding anything. You can go in there and say, hey, is it best if I go and try to find, you know, another place? You know, what's my future here? Because Daniel Jones is coming in to compete. He is coming in to be the starting quarterback. And it's not like you're bringing in Joe Montana. If you're Anthony Richardson, now's the
time you need to grow up. Not let me run away from the problem. Attack the problem, win the job. They you know, management has their butt on the line. They went all in on you and drafted you a lot higher than a lot of people had.
You graded.
Yeah, Pauline, You've always said, sometimes you call a player a bust. Anthony Richardson didn't draft himself fourth overall. He got benched at Florida his last year there. He was a spotty at best college passer who had these unbelievable running and long distance highlights. Sounds like what he did last year with the Colts. Every couple of weeks he would have this great highlight. But then he's a forty six percent passer.
Well, what is going to hang with him?
Linger?
Is him asking out of a game. A key has to overcome that. He has to say, Hey, that's not who I am. But he's only twenty two, and I mean that is so young. I mean used to be quarterbacks got their chances to play when they were twenty four to twenty five, twenty six, twenty two. He acts like it, he plays like it. But if you've saw enough to draft him, then see this all the way through. Give him another year, but make em earn the job. You bring in Daniel Jones.
Great.
I think it's a great decision by the Colts. Bring him in now, Anthony Richardson, Now show me who you are eight seven seven three DP show email address dpat Danpatrick dot com, twitter handle at DP show. Congrats to Dave Roberts, the Dodgers manager. They extended his contract. Looks like Arizona State is keeping Bobby Hurley another losing season and for ASU.
And that's why.
We were bringing up the pole question of would you rather have Bobby Hurley's career or Danny Hurley's career. Certainly I said Danny because it's now and it's continuing where Bobby is holding on to a thread to keep his job. But what he did when he was at Duke in the nineties pretty much unsurpassed, unmatched with how great they were and how great he was. But and then we brought up McAuley Cockin and Kieran Cockin. Of course, as
most shows will do. Karen Cockin big deal. Now McAuley Cockin one of the biggest childhood movie stars that we've had in our lifetime.
Yes, Marvin, and I also forgot Bobby Hurley was on the one team that did beat the Dream Team. Okay, oh watch the documentary by the way, we beat the Dream Team on Max. Yeah, Bobby Hurley was running through those guys. They didn't have anybody to guard him.
Yeah, but it's I don't know how big a deal. O.
Win is a win. Win is a win. Win is a win. Greatest team ever assembled? Okay, all right? Yes to and coach k.
In that documentary swears that they let them win. That they didn't have Michael Jordan playing very much, and Chuck Daily didn't mix switches that he normally would.
It was a game that meant something.
They didn't play their harnessed if Wayne played our harness, then they wouldn't have had a chance.
Thank you, coach. Yeah.
I go back every once in a while at NBA TV and watched the Dream Team documentary, and my favorite note is that Chuck Daily didn't use a timeout during the entire Olympics.
Let's get this going.
I would have called a timeout to say, hey, we haven't called a timeout.
I just wanted to call one. I want to get a little TV time here.
What a funny like I don't know if that's a stat or like nugget or whatever, but they didn't call a time out the entire Olympics.
That's that's hilarious.
Uh.
Stephen A.
Smith, ESPN First Take host has had a lot of things to say about Lebron James and can can we bring up do you have the original? This is what stephen A said. Was this about a month ago? Marvin, what was it?
Jerry Ninethe?
Okay, So January twenty ninth, stephen A said this on his show on First Tick.
I'm really really trying to be as respectful as I possibly can be towards Lebron James, one of the top two or three players in the history of basketball, Number two in my eyes, a treasure to the game of basketball that we should and will all miss when he is gone. I am pleading with Lebron James as a father, stop this, Stop this.
Okay.
He's referring to Bronnie being out on the floor against the seventy six ers and Tyrese Maxey embarrassed him, truly embarrassed him. I don't know why stephen A has to give us the resume of Lebron. I thought that was kind of blabbering. Just get to the point, you're bothered by Lebron that he put his son in this situation where he's getting embarrassed on Teving Yes, pony.
Yeah, And it feels like stephen A and he referenced it the other day when he recapped this, he was talking about the entire past year as well, the efforts to get Bronnie James on the Lakers, et cetera, et cetera.
Right, So, stephen A was on Gilbert Arena's podcast, Gil's Arena and had this to say about a run in with Lebron on the sidelines recently, and stephen A was asked about that.
I thought it was weak. I thought it was some books.
Okay, first of all, it's not weak because week would have been tweeting something out. He confronted you, so that's not weak. They didn't push him or anything. There were words exchanged, and then stephen A had this to say about lebron James.
You said, my son, thought was it?
I was talking about you. I was talking about you, yet.
One about your son. I know he's number fifty five. I know he got work to do. I believe that he got potential. I believe that he got the potential to go pro I truly believe that's gonna be tough, but I think he could pull it off. And by the way, and root for him. I ain't ruled against nobody, but I'll talk about yod you you did this. You don't want that had us as reported as a league, as an NBA franch I've almost got to sit back and be quiet and capitulate to you.
Okay, So steven a is he's all fired up talking about Lebron. Lebron the father and what he did to his son to get him on the Lakers. It's not like Lebron sent his son to Afghanistan. His son is on the Lakers acting like he's the fifty fifth player drafted. He's a bench player. He goes back and forth to the G League. And oh, by the way, how many guys have been embarrassed by Tyrese Maxi in an NBA game?
Quite a few. It just felt.
It felt like it was over and above what needed to be said. We all understandie Ronnie's not going to be in the league when Lebron retires. He's just not good enough to play. He can be a G League guy. Should have stayed another year at USC, But his dad is probably saying, I don't know how much longer I'm going to play. I want to play with you. This has been his goal. He was able to pull strings and he was able to make this happen. People had
a problem with that. A son wanting to play with his father, I'm going to use, you know, all my cache and he was able to do that. He wants to be around his son. By all accounts, his son was raised properly and seems like a really, really good kid.
But when you.
Start talking about somebody's parenting, like that's where it felt like it was. You know, if I'm Lebron, that's a trigger point where you're like, okay, now now your question to me is a father, that would be the problem that I would have with this, And he's saying it in such a dramatic way all I mean, come on, I mean, Brownie's doing okay, I'm gonna get his ass kicked a little bit. So what do I blame jj Reddick for putting him out there? Do I say to Lebron, Lebron,
I don't want him out there on Tyres maxing? I mean, there's culpability here, there's blame to go around. But you know, steven A showing up and Lebron is going to say something to you in person that's not week Week would have been tweeting it out or having somebody from your management company, your agency reach out to stephen A, but we make it seeing and I brought this up. I don't know did stephen A say to Michael Jordan. I'm
pleading with with you be a better father. Your son got pulled over for driving under the influence and he's a thirty year old man. No, he didn't, is Lebron? I mean, is this, you know, bad parenting?
Yeah?
Pull, I'm okay with steven A critiquing Lebron's basketball decisions. And one of his basketball decisions was working the Lakers to get them to add his son to the roster. So as long as it stays in that lane of we're critiquing a sports move here or a sports decision, which I think he is. That word father, I bet
you bothered Lebron a lot, just like you said. But if he said Lebron made a mistake and shouldn't be using his influence to change a Laker roster for an inferior player, yeah, A lot of people have said that wouldn't be the first.
And I agree with that.
Lebron was going to put an inferior product on the bench, maybe playing in games. Now he's not going to be playing in important games, but somebody lost their spot because Bronnie's going to be on the bench. Bronnie and I got to see him in the limited time at USC, and he was nowhere near the best player on his own team the G League. He's had a couple of moments there. He's just not ready for this. Lebron wants him to be able. He wants to be able to play with him. I understand that he wants to be
around his son. There are worse things. Did he use you know, his power? Yes he did. I mean parents do that all the time. You might try to help them get into USC. Hypothetically, he might try to help your kids get into USC. Now, the father part of it, that's what would be the trigger for Lebron, James ys Marvin.
Yeah, Night one when they did the whole playing together thing, Yeah, I was kind of thrown off by that. But now Broni's doing what the fifty fifth pick in the NBA draft. He's doing what they do, playing really good basketball in the G League and sitting the bench in the NBA.
So he's doing what the fifty fifth pick does.
It's not like he was the seventeenth pick and don't connect was there, he's a fifty fifth pick. Name another fifty fifth pick.
I'll wait, yeah, I mean I don't know what people expected. You know, should he have been the fifty fifth pick? You can make an argument, No, he shouldn't have he shouldn't have been drafted.
Yes, there are a lot of truly terrible fathers in the world who do awful, awful, awful things. I would imagine not getting your son into the NBA to play for the Lakers is probably pretty far down on the list of horrible things you could do as a father. I mean, as a father, you've got to stop doing this, like what he's playing for the Lakers. How yeah, wow, Yeah, that's really crappy parenting.
He got it, okay, if he didn't get embarrassed by Tyrese Maxey.
Would stephen A have said this?
Because I watched it, And yes, Bronnie had no business out there. But Tyreem Maxie is one of the top twenty players in the game. You know, Bronnie is at the end of the bench. Should he have been out there?
No?
Did lebron say to JJ Reddick, Hey, can you put him out there? Then I have a problem with it. JJ Reddick's got to run a team. He's not running Lebron's team. You got to prove that this is your team. And if you put him in because bron said put in my son, then I have a problem with that.
Yes, Mark, I do.
Remember that post game. After that game J J.
Reddick Bronny had a couple of good games, he said, oh, you know, let me just put him out there, just see what he can do. I said, the South Bay Lakers, Hey, that's a whole different animal than Tyreese.
MAXI. Yes, he wouldn't play nobody. It is good.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no no. But I don't think this is makes him a bad parent. It may make his basketball decisions questionable because this is putting an inferior product out there while you guys were struggling at the time, or we didn't know how good the Lakers were going to be.
Yes, Ton, But.
If you're not dramatic and viral about it and making a whole big deal about it, the whole thing.
He could have easily said, there's a million ways you could say, talk about nepotism, what is Brownie doing out there? And then you move on to fifty other stories.
But when you say it in that dramatic flair.
Then all of a sudden, this is such a.
Big Well, No, Steven, he's an entertainer. Let's make no mistake about it. That's what this is. He's entertaining people. If he would have said, you can't put him out there, Tyrees Masey, you know, totally toasted him and then you move on to something else, then nobody cares.
But to say it in a breathless way, that's the entertainer.
Yeah.
Point.
I did go back and look at the draft to be fair, and the Lakers taking Brownie at fifty five. They passed on Ulrich Comacchi, who's averaging point seven points per game from Memphis.
Big mistake by that, But is his dad on the Memphis team? I am checking. Okay, see if he's mister Camachi. Yeah to you, Yeah, see ltus.
If you look at the Lakers roster, they have twenty four players listed, and in terms of like minutes, you know, average minutes, say, Bronnie is twenty third of twenty fourth, So I mean, come on, wait, he's starting, you know he's not you know who's twenty fourth in minutes on the Laker bench.
Maxwell Lewis. Wow, good, mad you got jobs. Yeah, it was.
Dad's not good enough to be in the NBA, so he gets some playing time. You got to get my son in and MAXI gets some run here. I think I got to be a little bit more breathless when I deliver things like that. That's how you go viral.
As a father. As a father, I know you can talk about me as a father.
Yeah no, Marvin, you can't say that.
Which is better as a father that your dad getting your kid to play for the Lakers or completely ignoring that they exist publicly?
Whole question who He didn't say it like he was on drugs or anything.
No, Ronnie's a good kid.
Yeah, you know that goat stunt isn't on. Never mind, take a break here, lads, take a break. We're gonna talk to Jason Garrett. If Joanna sign loan from NBC, We're back after this.
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Always great to see Jason Garrett back on the program. Coach, good to talk to you again. Let me put you in the Minnesota Vikings situation. JJ McCarthy coming off an injury, would you entertain the idea of bringing in Aaron Rodgers.
I don't like that decision for them right now. I think you want to create an atmosphere and environment for JJ McCarthy to be the quarterback of your team. And I don't think you want to have a guy who's as accomplished as Aaron has been throughout his career. I think you probably want to have a more traditional veteran backup who can go in and play for short periods of time. I think Aaron Rodgers wants to be a quarterback of one of the thirty two teams. I don't
think he wants to be a backup. And I think you made that decision with pick ten last year that JJ McCarthy's going to be your guy, and I think you stick with it and create a great environment for him.
What are the Steelers doing or what should they do?
I think they should really entertain going to get Aaron Rodgers. I really do he played better when he was healthier at the end of last year for me, when you analyze his career, A really interesting crossroads came when Matt Leaflora was hired as the head coach of the Packers, and Aaron had done things a certain way in the system for a long time, and Matt Laflour had come from an offense where they were under center more with
the quarterback. They ran the ball, play action, maybe a little different than Aaron wanted to play, and I think there was probably some tension between those two guys early on, but eventually they kind of settled that, Hey, we're going to do some things that Aaron does well, but we're also going to do some things that I want to do as the head coach. I want to run the ball, I want to run play action stuff from under center.
And they got to that marriage, and I think that worked out well for them, And so in Pittsburgh, I would try to do the same thing. I would not do what the Jets did and say, Aaron, you're the quarterback, but you're also the offensive coordinator and let's play GM two. When you bring your guys in, I would fit them in and say, hey, this is the way we want
to play in Pittsburgh. We want to play great defense, we want to run the ball, play action pass, and oh, by the way, we're going to create an environment for you, Aaron Rodgers, to do what you do best. And I would blend it that way. And I think at forty one years old, Aaron Rodgers would embrace that. I think he'd embrace maybe taking some of the burden off of him to do everything every snap like he did for
a long time. I think he would understand and playing for one of these incredible foundational teams and the Pittsburgh Steelers like he did with the Packers, I think he'd embrace that. And I think if you could fit into how they want to play, I think it could be a good marriage.
I'm wondering if you had contact with somebody before you signed them in free agency legally, but like Mike Tomlin, if you're Mike Tomlin, would you reach out to Aaron Rodgers and say, let's not waste time here. If we can help each other great? Did you ever do that as the head coach of the Cowboys, to reach out to say I need to get an idea where you are right now?
Well, I think you have to be really careful with tampering rules and all of that. I think everybody knows with how these free agency rules and logistics have changed in recent years, that they have this dead period to a lot of people talking to the dead period, But I think you got to be careful about being direct. But I do think they are representatives that can talk to representatives, can talk to representatives to get the idea out that Hey, we want you in Pittsburgh. What's your interest?
Is it a resurgence of the running back position?
Well not in my mind. The running back position never left in my mind. And I don't want to be one of those guys. But I've been banging this drum forever. You know. I played for the Cowboys for eight years and we won three Super Bowls, and our running back was EMMITTT. Smith, the leading rusher in NFL history, And I just saw the impact that he made on the entire team, the ability to run the football with a guy like that. We handed the ball to him twenty
five times a game. He made the offensive line better, and the offensive line was really good. He made the quarterback better, and the quarterback was really good. He made the receivers better, the tight ends better. He made the defense better, and all of those guys made him better. And it was just the way to play football. And we won three Super Bowls in four years. And I haven't changed from that, you know. When I became the head coach the Cowboys, that's the kind of team we
wanted to build. We drafted lineman, We drafted running backs. You know. DeMarco Murray in twenty fourteen led the league in rushing. Oh, by the way, it happened to be Tony Romo's best years of pro Dak Prescott in twenty sixteen won thirteen games as a rookie. Oh, by the way, Zeke Elliott led the league in rushing. You know. So the value of the running back to me has not changed. They're so impactful. And I've said this before, and Devin
mccordy and I talk about this a lot. I think the New England Patriots and Tom Brady distorted the value of the running back. When Tom Brady's your quarterback, you can load up on defense, and you can only you know, you don't have to draft lineman real high, and you don't really need an every down running back, you know, because he was so amazing at making the whole situation work, and then people said, hey, you know, you don't need running backs, you know, and not that they didn't have
good running backs in New England. They had role player running backs. They didn't have the marquee guy that were going to hand the ball to twenty twenty five times a game. And for me, that changed everybody's perception of running backs that hey, you don't need this guy. Well maybe you don't if you have the best. If we're going to make mount rushmore of players, the first face your chiseling is Tom Brady. Well, if you have that guy as your quarterback, maybe you don't need a running back.
But short of that, the running back helps everybody else. And I do think it's fun for me to see the resurgence because I think it's just a reaffirmation of those values.
We're talking to Jason Garrett Football Night in America analyst, But that brings me to Anshton Gent. We had an analyst who said, reminds me of Emmett Smith by faster.
Did you tell that analyst that Emmitt Smith rushed for over eighteen thousand yards in the NFL? Yeah, and he was kind of good. If you remind you of Emmitt Smith, but he's fast. You probably should draft him. And I just think you gotta be careful of talking about reminds me of that, you know, one of the greatest players ever to play in the NFL. But you know, I can see what they're saying. He seems to be a guy that is not overly flashy, but it's hard to tackle.
He's got excellent contact balance, always finishing forward. You know, those guys make a difference on your team. And you know, we were talking on Football Night in America all year long, maybe the last half of the year, who's going to be the MVP? And in about week seventeen, I blurted out, how about Saquon Barkley? Right? I mean, do you think
he had an impact on that team? The offensive line was great, I get all that, but when you have a runner who rushes for twenty one hundred yards in sixteen games and you don't think that's going to positively impact your quarterback. One of the best things that Kellen Moore did in the Super Bowl Dan is he kept running the football, uh seikwe I think was twenty four
cares for fifty seven yards. There were forty seven Kansas City Chiefs on the line of scrimmage trying to stop Sakwon Barkley right, and all of a sudden, aj Brown is a big game and these receivers, well, it's because of the it's because of the runner and the threat of the running game that you have to load people up and you create favorable looks outside and it certainly helps your quarterback too. So if Gent is like Emmitt Smith but only faster, you should be the first pick of the draft.
The Commanders were great surprise last year, but as I've cautioned people, they did win a lot of games on the last drive, last possession, last second, and it's hard to sustain something like that. Yet, Jane Daniels was wonderful and they have gone out and gotten some other pieces here, and I do like that. But if you're going to handicap Commanders in the Eagles, what's the what's the separation between those two, at least right now going into next season?
Yeah, I think Philadelphia is still a cut above and and Philadelphia is losing players, and that's what happens when you have a championship team like they do, and they're so talented. But but Howie Roseman has done an amazing job building the team, and you know we're talking about it earlier. You know, one of one of Jeff Bezos's fourteen leadership principles is UH is great leaders are right a lot and uh And you know when you can I become a billionaire if I come up with silly
things like that. Yeah, but but it's true. You know, if you simplify it, you got to be right a lot, and you have to be right in personnel because ultimately that's what separates teams. You can have the greatest personnel process there is how we how we talk about it, how we go out on the road, or reports, all that kind of stuff. But when it comes to nutcutting time and you got to pick a player, you got to pick the right one. And Devin and I were
laughing about it. With pick one, the New England Patriots took Tom Brady in the year two thousand, middle of the fourth round. In twenty sixteen, we drafted Dak Prescott. You know, there's a lot of other guys that you're talking about, you're thinking about, but you got to pick the right guys. And how he's done an amazing job both in free agency and in the draft picking the right guys for Philadelphia. So even though they're losing guys, I have confidence in him to keep that thing going.
Can you be honest with me, would the Cowboys have taken Connor Cook out of Michigan State if he was available the pick before you guys took Dak Connor Cook went. I think to the Raiders from what I always told you, guys were higher on Connor Cook than Dak Prescott.
Well, I'll take you through that whole draft. You know. You know, right at the top of the draft, we had the fourth pick and we drafted Zeke Elliott, which to me, it was a fantastic pick. He, you know, really changed our team in so many ways. But the quarterbacks went first, Jared Goff and Carson Wentz and then you know, the next guy up was Paxton Lynch. So there's conversation at the bottom of the first round about Paxton Lynch, should we trade up, should we do this,
should we do that? I mean a lot of conversations about that. And then you know, there were other guys I'm trying to think who was in the maybe in the third round somebody went and then and then it got to Connor Cook, and the Connor Cook discussion was more about he played in the dropback system at Michigan State. He was under center. You know, we felt like Dak Prescott was one of the five guys in the draft that could be a starting quarterback for us in the league.
But he was a guy, and I'll be honest with you, I thought it was going to take him time because he played in the gun. There was a lot of quarterback run and at the time that's not what we were doing, and so he had all the stuff, but it was like, huh, you know, he's probably two or three years away. Well, sure enough, he wins thirteen games as a rookie, so there goes that part of the evaluation. But we had no doubt about Dak in terms of we were all in on this guy can be our
quarterback in the future. It just seemed like Connor Cook was more ready to be our backup right now and then possibly the quarterback in the future. And and Oakland traded up to get him. We fell back. We took a defensive lineman from Oklahoma in the fourth before we took Dak in the fourth, So you know, all those different things when you reflect back on him certainly fell favorably for us, but he ended up being an amazing pick and a great player for US.
So I was correct that you guys liked Connor Cook more than you did Dak Prescott.
We did.
We had healthy discussions about you guys liked Paxton Lynch. Didn't Jerry love Paxton Lynch?
Yeah. And you know one thing that I always laugh about is that, you know, people go back afterwards in the draft and say, you know, there's like revisionist history. You guys would have taken him. You guys would have taken you literally talk about three hundred players all day long. Hey, what would happen if this guy fell back? Would you trade up for him? So if you went back and and and transcribed those conversations, you know, history would be different. Right.
You know there's always the story that Bill Walsh like Steve Dills better than Joe Montana. Well he ended up drafting Joe Montana.
So I got all Cody Kessler, Cody Kessler, Christian Hackenberg, Jacobe brissaid, those are the other quarterbacks that were taken before Dak Prescott.
Yeah, and and and we felt we felt great about Dak. I'll give you a good story about that. You know, Wade Wilson uh was our quarterback coach for years. I don't remember way we passed a few years ago, but he was one of my teammates. He played nineteen years in the NFL, and there was our quarterback forever. And Wade never liked quarterbacks, like he would go work guys out and you know, in for the draft. I mean, and I would say, Wade, what'd you think of that guy?
He can't play, He can't play, he can't play. I mean, this went on for years. Dan, it went on for a year, and I'm like, he can't play, I can't play. I'm like, at some point we got to like one of these guys will never draft anybody, and I'll never forget it. I think it was a Friday night he called me early March leading up to that twenty sixteen draft and he said, I think we got one. Oh well, I said what He's like, Yeah, I'm down here in Starkville, Mississippi.
I think we got a quarterback. And he just raved about Dak. He loved him. And then and then if you remember this, like two weeks later, Dak gets a DUI yeah, yeah, and so I'm like, you know, he was the face of the program. Everybody loved him the whole deal. He had all stuff you wanted. And he gets a DUI and I'm like, hey, here's our guy. What the heck you know? And over the next month or so, we had some real aggressive conversations with Dak
about the whole process. And I'll tell you the quick story. We used to do this thing for about three hours with quarterbacks. We're thinking about draft, and we get him in a room, a quarterback room, and it would be me and the time was Scott Lenehan who was our coordinator, and Wade and some other people. And I would stand up there and I would put three plays in from our offense, three pass plays, five man protection of six
man protection of seven man protection. I would talk really fast, use all our jargon, give him every rule that we had, talk about defense. This is what happened, debt dot dot dot dot, and then I would erase it and say, Okay, you're up, and now you've got to give it back to me. And I would interrupt them on purpose and talk really fast and see if they could retain information, see if they could spit it back, see how much football.
He knew all that, but we had a real question about about this thing with Dak Prescott, about this dui, because she just seems so out of character for him. So we get him up on the board and I'm talking really fast and put it all in and I'm like, all right, you're up. It's an empty whiteboard. Give me the first play. And he starts talking and starts going through it, and about ten seconds into him like hey, stop, stop, stop, hey, hey,
give me the story about this dui. Oh okay, and so I'm like, hey, get me to the bottom of this, and so he tells me the story. It was fantastic. It was so accountable and specific detail. I had a couple of margaritas after the workout. I was going thirty eight and the thirty I got pulled over whatever. I mean. It was like and it was clean and it was direct and it was accountable and I'm sorry for it and whatever whatever.
I keep going.
And so he draws up the rest of the play and we're asking him, question, stop, hey, go back again. You know, you're the face of the program at Mississippi State. You know this whole thing. I'm peppering them, and he kind of stops and gives me another explanation. Okay, third time, he's drawn up another play stop one more time and he turns and it was a great answer. He said, I said, tell me what happened again on this deal And he said, Coach, I don't know what you want
to tell you. I told you exactly what happened. I took accountability for it whatever. And it was just a Dak Prescott answer. And I said to myself, I need to be quiet. So he finishes up the interview and he's phenomenal. I can't tell you how good he is mentally, he's just off the charts. So sure enough, he comes to the Cowboys, has an amazing start to his career. All of that. Wade Wilson tragically passes away about four years later. So we're at the repast after the funeral
and Dak comes up to me. He says, Coach, I never told you this story. He said, you remember you did that meeting with me before the draft where you were talking really fast, interrupted me and all of that. I said, yeah, he's like, Wade Wilson told me all the answers to the questions before I went in there. I said, he's gonna ask you this. He's gonna ask you this. He's gonna ask you this. So he said, when I got a little frustrated when you kept parting
with the question. I wasn't mad about the question about the DUI. I was mad that I was forgetting all the stuff that Wade had already.
Told me.
It was a setup.
Uh that's great. Always great to talk to you. Thanks for sharing, and uh we'll talk to you soon. Thank you, Jason, you got it. Thanks Jason Garrett, take a break. We're back after this.
Be sure to catch the live edition of The Dan Patrick Show weekdays at nine am Eastern six am Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app.
Last call for phone calls, I won't be learned. Junior Bridgeman passed away. He was a part owner of the Milwaukee Bucks. Great businessman, became a billionaire. I believe he was part of the Leuwele Sindor trade and from the Lakers to the Milwaukee Bunks. Junior Bridgeman was a very good NBA player, great college player. He invested in Chili's and Wendy's. I think I think he had over one hundred of those locations and became a billionaire. Alrighty, how
about this Dan in sports history? Paul, This is one of one. If you get on YouTube sometime. Larry Bird of the Celtics scored sixty points in a game in nineteen eighty five against the Atlanta Hawks in New Orleans.
Right, Dan in New Orleans.
Weirdly, I still don't know why.
But if you ever want to watch that, watch the players on the bench for the Atlanta Hawks, mL Car, Tree, Rollins and so forth.
Is that right?
mL Carr wouldn't have been on that now it was Cliff Levingston, Cliff Livingston and twine Car okay antwine Car.
Yeah, they're celebrating Larry Bird on the sidelines on the bench.
It's fascinating YouTube. And we've had Mike Furtello on.
He was the hawkshead co and boy was he upset at his players that they were They're falling all over themselves because Bird is throwing up. Bird at one point says he's going to take a shot. He tells the bench he's going to take a shot, fall out of bounds and land I think in the trainer's lap. Bird takes a shot in front of the bench, fades away, makes it and falls into the bench.
Yes, Marvin, I think Dominiqu Wilkins was on our show and he talked about those guys got fine after that because he was so mad about that.
It's great video on this date. In two thousand and nine, Syracuse in six overtimes beats Connecticut in the Big East Tournament. Oh how great was that game? Well, not for Marvin, but that was a great game. That's a lot of fun, right.
It was, looking back, it was an amazing game.
One twenty seven, one seventeen, Syracuse over Yuku. Uh had some bit on the line tonight. We talked about that. Uh, there's a couple of them.
You see.
You have the South Land, you have the Patriot League and the Big Sky.
All right, Todd, would you learn today?
Jason Garrett says, any team that might compare Ashton genty to Emmitt Smith or oh that means only faster than him, should draft him right away.
Seatan, Would you learn Jason Garrett's got stories?
He does?
He did text me.
He apologized for going too long with the Dak Prescott story.
Marvin, would you learn.
Today Brooks Robinson broke your heart?
Yes he did.
Nineteen seventy the vacuum cleaner. Paul, would you learn.
Patriot League tonight? Who do we root for a Navy or American?
I'm going Navy. I'm still an American if I root for Navy. Most cars on the road could use a little TLC. At Mako, they bring your car back to life. Affordable paint choms, light collision repairs. Get a free estimate today. O Oh, better get Mako. Thanks for the phone calls. Sorry I couldn't get to more of those today. We look forward to talking to you tomorrow.