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Cowboys.
This is the Players Lounge, broadcasting live from Dallas Cowboys World headquarters at the Star.
Now your hosts Barry Church, Danny McCrae, Heckma Harrison and newly Scrugs.
It's Thursday in the SWBC Mortgage Studios, home of the Dallas Cowboys.
I'm with my compadres.
But you know what we're doing, you rocking with the best I am Heck Maharrison and at the desk per usual, two former players, Danny McCrae and BC. The place to be Barry Church is up in here, up in here, fellows, how y'all feeling today?
Feeling good? Looking good?
Got me a little workout in in between. You know, since a minute, it's a beautiful day out here. It's a beautifulay break right now. I tell you, I'm about to complain for a second.
What's going on? Man?
What you got going on?
Man?
This three year old we win crying more than I ever heard in my luck. Bro five forty five this morning she said, Hey, I want Can I have my iPad? I said no, Bro. For the next fifteen minutes. All of her was this dadd that won, my padda, that one, my pad. I'm about to put your time out. I'm about to put your time out. You can't come on, bro, let's do time out of five forty five. In the one of the not getting think, I did okay. Well, she said she wanted to go to the punkin Past.
So now I act like I'm calling the punkin Pass and tell them to come. Oh, she'd be losing it.
No, no, I barely have to pick. I'll be like I'm looking for the phone. She'd be like, oh, Dad talking about it. I'm gonna tell you that work. That right there works till about eight and then it's like, call the punking Past. I got five more years. Yeah, forty five, Bro, I we're talking about mad. You so we got so mad? We get up. We're getting back in there. Go get up. Hey man.
The players now sponsored by Tostos, the official chip and Dip of the Dallas Cowboys. But as we always start this thing, man, we started out with a mental checking. Man, your boy Channeler Jones is the reason why you better check on your people going over.
I have no idea. That's why I'm checking on y'all. D Max, I'm gonna start with you. How are you? Was that the mental check in right there? You know, I'm good. I'm good.
I ain't no no que, no conspiracy stuff like, but man, I'm all right, I'm okay.
It's more parenthood. I understand. That's what it is. That's why she go to school.
All right, So I get I get a long time with I'm dropping off her grandma house. After we're gonna be all right. Now, we're gonna be all You're gonna be alright to You're gonna be all right?
Is amazing.
Mentals are amazing. Like I said, I got a little workout in great, right, you know something going on, but you don't feel great?
Man?
What about you?
Heck?
How we doing over here?
Man?
I'm good.
I came in here in the suit because every Thursday, you like last Thursday, you came in here with it, you know, the light skin Obama walking off. I had to walk, So I said, I'm gonna come in here like I got some respect for myself. Yeah, but no, man, everything is good. Last night my son had a game, and I'm gonna tell y'all. Man, when y'all you got a son, you're on your way to having one. Come on,
put it, you know. But I'm telling y'all, man, when you have kids that play sports, it's the hardest thing in the world just to keep your patience, I'm telling you.
So pray for me. I will pray for you.
Uh man scored a touchdown last night with a lot of stuff going on with that, But I'm good hipp as, all right, yea, man, the boy is doing his thing. But let's talk about men. I got two defensive guys here, so we're gonna talk about defense.
It's entire show today, all right.
So we're gonna wrap this because I ain't like offensive line practices. Yeah, so I ain't gonna We're not gonna get to depressive content, all right, but let's talk about this Cowboys defenses versus the Patch offense. Obviously last week, not to bring up old stuff, the Cardinals pretty much had that weight with this defense. I mean, the running game was null and void two hundred and twenty two yards on the ground for the Cardinals. And everybody now
is starting to question dan Quinn. But I know one man that still says, and dan Quinn, we trust. But when it comes to this running game, the defensive running games getting those stops. What does dan Quinn have to do stylistically schematically to get these to get the job done on Sunday, I mean, listen, without me knowing the full scheme, I don't want to see it act like I know everything dan Quinn doing. To me, what I've
seen is, uh, you gotta be more technically sound. Okay, So if you're going to continue running D line stunts right where the guys are spiking in going into the gap and they line up on the gap outside, then go into the inside gap. You're gonna do that, then your linebackers have to be able to cover those guys when the linemens start to pull from the other side of the formation, so you can't be a step late.
I imagine that's probably what they worked on for the entirety of this week and continue will continue to work on all the way through up through the game, because if you don't, there's gonna be a lot of power which has a pulling guard, a lot of trap, a lot of counter, a lot of that from Ezekiel, Ellie and Stevenson until you find out, until they find out you can stop it.
Or not.
And even when they find out if you can stop it or not, you can.
Guarantee you gonna continue seeing it because when you play schemes like that, it only takes one person to be out of position for it to become a big play it right, and you saw it multiple times when we played against the Arizona Cardinals. It's just one guy who got reached and then all of a sudden, the gap is so big that it's just a safety and that runner one on one and if they missed that tackles a forty fifty yard game, possibly a touchdown.
So I think that dan Quinn's gonna get right.
I think some of the schemes that he runs it's going to help fix that out that we may see a little less, you know, I think you'll see a lot more. Hey man, hint, separate with your hands, play your gap, and then earn the right to rest the pass. Your pass on third and long. I think that's what we'll see this week.
DC.
I'm with Danny on this one. When you talk about the stunts and how the scheme is going. They got punch in the mouth. I mean that's playing as simple. Arizona punched this team dead in the mouth and they weren't able to respond.
So hopefully this week they can respond.
But to me, it kind of goes back to Rob mayor Nelly's days when we were when we were with Rob Manilly as our defensive coordinator.
Sometimes you just got to play.
Man or man, you know, bone on bone football pause. But you gotta do that sometimes. I mean, sometimes you just got to say, our guys are better than your gas. And I understand what we're going with with dan Quinn's defense and a lot of stunting, and it is pressed been beneficial. Don't get me wrong, Dad Quinn is still one of the best defensive minds international Football League. That's what makes his defense so special when you talk about getting after the passer or these stunts that they have
going in like a Parsons flashing in and out. But sometimes when the team is just wanting to dominate you on the ground, sometimes you just gotta be like, hey, line up in your gap and whoop the opposing man across from you. They say, you know, run defense. It's not about scheme, it's about mindsetting.
And I believe that.
I believe that it's just about one on one football. You getting rid of that guy and going and making them play. And if they do decide to double team you, you don't have to get rid of the guy or shut the guy. Just stand your ground. Don't let those guys get up to the second level on your linebackers. So that's that's part of the problem that I had with this defense. And also we need those second level defenders, linebackers, safeties that are.
In the box.
You gotta get down here with it.
I mean, there was too many times we saw on All twenty two where guys were sitting flat footed, and I think they were slowed down by the reeds they saw. You know, like you say before you see too much, you see a little, you see a little, you see a lot.
Now.
I think that's what slowed them down a lot. These pulling guards. It was a great scheme by Arizona. Don't get me wrong, it was great. You gotta give them credit where credit is due. They slowed this defense down by giving them a lot to look at as far as motions, pulling guards where the counter is going.
So it slowed those second level defenders down.
But you gotta get down here at the end of the day, and when you arrive at the ball carrier, it can't be you know, let me catch this guy, you know, wrap them up in and let them drag me to the ground. Because we've seen it time and time again with James Connor, those leaky yardists.
They add up when you fall forward for two to three cards, it ends up being second and five instead of second and eight.
And that's a huge difference when you talk about the playbook because offensively you can do much more with second and five rather than second and eight. Second and eight, you've fallen right into Dallas's strength, which is the pass rush. So to me, when you arrive at the ball at the point of a contact, you gotta be strong. Drive that guy backwards. I understand it's not going to happen each and every time, but you can't let the majority of the time letting that running back fall forth.
For actually, y'all tell me this.
So if you are the offensive coordinator, right, and you're watching the dan Quinn defense, right and you see our down four lineman, what number are you running at? And if I see those down for a line, I'm running at ninety or run at eleven, I'm running eleven. So yeah, so until you find out. I think that's why we do a lot of those students stunts. When it comes to whatever side of Mike is on right, when he's lined up over the three technique stuff like that, it's
harder for him to be able to do that. But if you're lined up at the end and he does that, it shortens the edge, and then that linebacker who's playing over there has to be very aware of how fast that ball and the lineman can get up on him because that essentially gives the tackle a free go up to the next level. So that's what makes it difficult, and I think we're going to see a lot of that.
If Michael Parsons lines up at the right defensive end the offensive left, you're going to see a lot of runs go that way because ninety has been playing hell hell of great football.
And when it comes to the run game and you.
Made an examp, my bad, you made an example of it. I think it was last week or a couple of weeks ago. When you talk about that down down in the round. Okay, so that means a d tackle. The DM they stunting down one gap, they're going closer to the center. Then the de offensive end is going down to the guard and then you have to have that linebacker wrap around. That's extremely hard to do defensively. I mean, the only guy that I've seen really master that with
Sean Lee. He was excellent at that. He saw that down down, Oh let me beat this offensive tackle. That's really hard to do, and I think that's slowing down the second level.
But that's what I'm telling about the mont Clark was like, it's gonna be hard for him to be able to pick up on it like a Lee and it's essentially first year starting. Yeah, that's my and that's what brings me to my second point. When you turn on the All twenty two is it seemed to me like they were the Cardinals were capturing the edges. That's where a lot of those big yardists was coming from, not in the middle of our defense, but on.
The outside of our defense.
And do you attribute that solely to Michael because I mean, he wasn't you know, the kis of the defense when you when you saw these big runs on the outside. But it just seemed like that was something that the Cardinals had just found that, look, they cannot execute us not capturing the edge and getting to the outside. Well, when you run those stunts in short stage, it takes away the inside run. And then the running back now sees that these linemen, these defensive linemen are taking up
the A and the B gap. So now the sea gap is naturally the next spot for you to go. Well, if the lineman is up on the linebacker, now the sea gap is walled off, right, and then you got a receiver coming in the crack that's giving you two
way goes all over the place, right. So, which is why we continue to say, if you're going to run those type of stunts, your linebackers have to be ready to come over the top and meet those pulling linemen at the point of attack, not allowing them to get their shoulders upfield, because once they get there, you see, for us, if you see a Tyron Smith, Terrence Still or Zach Marty coming around.
The corner and they square and they're square on you, it's over for me, it's over for you.
Got to get them while they're coming horizontally, knock them off their path, and then you know, set the edge right there.
And I will say this when we talk about second level defenders, I'm gonna to see a little bit more out of the safeties when we get this going.
Because I understand corners, like you know, a man, they get paid to cover, you know, I get that, but the safeties do us too many times on those edges.
You've seen they getting reached, and I think the problem is it's technicals technical where the coaches. I'm sure they'll get them right on this, but you've seen too many times where the safety is on the edge against the tight end, whatever the case may be.
They got both arms engaged with them.
You know, they're trying to lock them out and trying to shut them, but you couldn't get Those guys are bigger than you.
They're gonna swallow you up, Pauls. So what you gotta do is you gotta keep that one arm free.
I mean, how many times have we seen it?
Or Coach Bacon, all them guys, you gotta keep the outside on free.
So at the end of the day, if you do get reached or whatever, it's gonna be a holding call because you got that one arm flailing out there. They're gonna have to be able to get more into that run support because last week just wasn't it.
So when y'all go to when you look at this this Pat's offense and you look at their wide receivers, and we talked about Bland and.
Defer to you.
You're gonna defer to you because this is this is a matchup that when you look at the Pats offense in their wide receiver room, Juju Smith Schuster still born born man Born and you have tight ends and Hunter Henry uh you have Gooseki from Mike Gaseki from my you know, so obviously last week the wide receiver, when we talked about the wide receivers, nobody thought anything of the wide receivers. And next thing, you know, these guys are free down the field with big games. When you
look at these wide receivers versus the Cowboys defense. Back to this second level that you're talking about, what do you think about this matchup and how do you prevent those big plays from happening.
Well, when we look at the matchup with receivers, you know, Pat Patriots receiver versus Cowboys defense, I think this is a game where Gilmore should be able to shine as far as his one on one matchup. As we've seen, this isn't the twenty nineteen Gilmore. This isn't Defensive Player of the Year Gilmore. He's lost a little bit of a step and that there's nothing wrong with that. You're gonna have that with age, but he's still technically signed at the line of scrimmage. I don't really see anybody
for the Patriots off the top of my head. That's just a burner that's just gonna, you know, give you like Hollywood Brown was able to just run away from me. I don't see that, you know, style with the offense. You got a Juju Smith's new shuster now Bushet his last name, But he's.
More of a possession guy.
He's more of a guy that's going to hit you with that intermediate, that short and I think Gilmour can handle that. Born he's a little we got a little bit of speed over there. We saw him burn Diggs that last year on the double move. So that's the guy, you know, deep threat, That's the guy I would lean towards. But overall, I see this as a good matchup for the Dallas cowbch to get back on track secondary wise.
But you can't give mac Jones too much time back there.
I mean, he's not the most mobile guy, but he's accurate and he can pick it part of defense if you give him time.
So we're gonna need that pass rush.
From the first two weeks when they went against the New York teams, how they were all over harassing guys. But we all know in order to get that pass rush, you got to earn the right which is stopping to run, which is gonna be a feat this week.
Yeah, I think you know.
I don't feel of course, I don't feel as confident as I felt when Trayvon Diggs was in the game because you automatically just see how much stuff he covers up. And I'm not talking about running game. I'm just saying, a man, don't throw over the at seven because if you do it, he might take it back to the
house and that'll be a score for our defense. Like you said, Stepan, I still feel that Duran Bland played the best of our dB group in that game, technique wise, when he's in the press technique because he gets his hands on them and he done, he disrupts their timing. So I enjoyed watching that. But I still think that
this is gonna be a test for us, right. I think it's gonna be a test because I think we're gonna have to put a lot of effort into stopping the run, and that opens you up to play action and man and man coverage. Right then play action essentially by yourself unless we start running cover two and cover three that often and then.
Man the man.
It's just you and them and mac Jones can complete passes all right, So we're not I want to say that like we can't born. We know Juju can catch, can catch some balls. He's a serviceable wide receiver, and I think we have serviceable defensive backs back there. So I still think it's gonna be It's gonna be a nice matchup for us. We should win it if we do what we're supposed to do and stopping to run.
But it's still gonna be interesting to watch to see how we want, how we respond from what happened to us last week anyways, So good to see what we have moving forward in the season. Do you think that offensive coordinators, now that they've seen and step Fank givemore hands lost that step are going to start to him a little bit more because now when you with Diggs, you had a tandem where, hey, if you wanted to travel a guy like digs you could and just allow
for steph Under to do his thing. But now with what you're talking about with him and you guys being around the NFL as long as you have, does that worry you have any concern, especially on the other side when you have such an inexperienced guy. Yeah, No, Listen, I don't think people crazy enough to start going a steph up gilmore like that.
He ain't lost that much of it, you know what I'm saying. It ain't that much of a doubt about.
He's seen enough route concepts to where if you lose the step he could still jump dig ross, jump, come back rosse. They not finish try him like that. Just last year he was out there picking out Dak Prescott.
That's true.
He ain't lost that much for them to be like, all right, this is the guy we're gonna go at. The thing is they won't be scared to take that shot, but they won't be out in their scheming and say this is what we're gonna do to get to get a twenty one. I don't think. I don't think you're gonna see that happening because he's still he was another guy in there tackling filling holes, filling gaps, you know what I'm saying, to make sure that the running gag
was up as best as he could. And also the passes that we saw get caught on him, they were defended pretty well.
He was.
Touchdown. He was right like, yeah, you know, if I was coaching, I was sticking hand out here on swap. But that I mean, it was, it was, it was.
It was. The past was so low. They're not They're not gonna be picking on the guy. He's still he's still a great cornerback. So I'm not I'm not worried about that. But I tell you what I want to talk about next, Mac Jones. Who Mac Jones? We got to talk about him because this defense has been feast of family. When it comes down to interceptions, we're gonna need to get some of these on Sunday and we'll talk about that next on the Players Lounge.
I'm Dak Prescott, quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys.
And they snapped the fresh guy who looks right and you're not there. He escaped, flapped, he'll run for a first down.
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To the players.
Loune Cowboys win. Start before kickoff with winning pregame festivities. Grab all you need to have a winning Cowboys tailgate all season long at the nearest pro shop or log onto Shop dot Dallas Cowboys dot Com. A fanatics experience, I don't know about y'all, but I beat here every Sunday. I got my cowboy gear on, you know, ready to roll. That's how I do my stuff. That's how you do it on Saturday. Saturday, Man, somebody we got old missus,
miss miss I'll be watching. Hey, man, listen, y'all, y'all want to get on the bandwagon. I got T shirts for y'all, you know, little lanyards, you know, whatever y'all need. I'll take care of y'all. You bounce back real quick. But because after that Floorida State game, you had no grease for nobody, and now you back, y'all play, y'all.
Say we put up seventy on Grand looking like Miami dollars out there.
You know what I'm saying. With a seventy on them, we beat Missippi State a class. We feel we feeling good about how we got.
We're rolling right at the sec right.
We showed we got BAM. We got Bam on the list. We am on the list. I feel about it right now. Bama is like, right now, hey, this is the worst we're gonna be, so you better get it now.
Everybody.
Everybody's gonna take this. That's how they're looking right now. So I'm all right, I feel looking at that time. But but we meet Mama.
Last year.
Don't forget that we went to the SEC Championship. We got smoked by Georgia, but you know, Georgia was on the whole other level. So and that's Brian. It was a Brian Kelly first year. Yeah, I'm not saying I got confidence in a guy like that. Uns you got uns you got, but we just went accent.
Come on, dog, what.
We don't know you to take us down there? Man, I told you about this years years. Yeah, I said, no, you ain't booked it. You ain't going I'm just telling well, you got money, so kind. But we're gonna talk about mac Jones somebody else with some semessing money.
Uh Mac Jones. Mac Jones is is uh. I don't know, man.
He's one of those quarterbacks that he's like he's hot and cold like sometimes last year. Last season, he had his moments this year not getting off to a great start. But this Cowboys defense is it there at their best versus any quarterback when they are generating those turnovers.
And getting sacks. Jason make Jones.
You know what I see when I see mac Jones what you said, I see that Tom Brady left. Okay, Bill Belichie has been around the league for a long time.
He was remembering, remembering Tom Brady, remembering Peyton Manning, and they went drafted a proto type when the rest of the league was out there going after Jayalen Hurst, Lamar Jackson athletic guys and he's one of the few, not none, athletic quarterbacks and him Kirk Cousins, you know, shop right there, and you stuck with a guy who's not as athletic as the rest of the league, and he's pretty much,
you know, just in the pocket. He's a pocket guy, but he's not as great of a passer as those guys who who they had hoped that he would be.
Like So for us, I'm like, okay, mac Jones is good. We should beat him.
We seen that if you make a mistake like Treymon did last year on the double move, he'll make you pay. But as far as us being able to create some pressure and forcing him to do some stuff where you say, all right, this is a team, this is a team that we should get some interceptions off off if we force them to throw the ball mac Jones and the
Patriots are them, Yeah, are them. But Bill Belichick is smart enough to say, we're gonna run a sixty times and let them and let them throw at four right, and those four times, we're gonna take a shot and if it works, it work, if not, if not, but if you don't make us throw it, we're not gonna throw the ball. So it's on us to you know, force them to put the games in mac.
Jones hands one hundred percent.
I mean they're gonna have to force him, you know, to talk them into interceptions like we've seen before when you get to mac Jones. But to me, like I've always said, you're gonna have to earn the right to do that. Like you said with Bill Pelijack, we know coming into this game, he's not gonna put it on mac jones shoulders out there at all. He understands that if you go you know, position, position, skill for skill, Dallas is the better team. They're the more talented team
than the Patriots. But when you talk about scheme wise, Bill's gonna get the most out of those players. So it just depends on which Cowboys team is gonna come in. Are you gonna be that team that's gonna be hungry, hunting throughout the entire game, or is it gonna be that team that we saw last that kind of look confused when you talk about, you know, the running scheme and all that. So we know Bill Belichick has two downhill runners, Stevenson and Elliott, and you know we're gonna
get the best version of Ezekiel Elliott. I mean, these past couple of years, he hasn't looked like the guy we've seen before. But coming back to Dallas, going against your old teammates, you're gonna get the best version of he And Steven said, we know another downhill got very similar to James Connor, which we played last week, and.
We saw the success he was able to have. So to me, this is this is it's less.
About Mac Jones out there than it is the defense earning the right to get after Mac Jones. I just, I just I don't want to see Mac Jones get comfortable back there and start slaying that thing all over the place, because we know once he gets his confidence up, he has that ability like he's not the greatest, but he has that ability to carve you up. And I don't want to get this team confidence at all, because
because once they get confidence, they're gonna start rolling. Then you'll see Judo on on the other side, you'll see Gauzalees. You'll see those guys start rolling. So we gotta stop this team out quick fastening the hurts. You can't no confidence, but you can't change your spots for this defense.
That's who you are.
You play in aggressive style that you you want to generate sacks and turnovers. Mac Jones has been sacked six times this season. Okay, has thrown two interceptions. I'm looking at that sack to interception ratio. Not great, but not bad.
And for your.
Cowboys defense, this is a guy that obviously, if you make force him into some decisions, he'll pack the ball a little bit.
He's not like Tom Brady. You know, Tom Brady's getting one one thousand and two.
That thing's gone. So, I mean, you talk about earning the right to rush the passer, they gonna do that anyway.
You know, That's what got him in trouble.
All y'all about to say you're trying to rush the passer on on a rundown, and and and that's what happens, right when you like I said, when you see these guys running these spike techniques and they got their shoulder dip and because you think though you're Finnah, slide right past and you're gonna get you a little sack, it's not gonna happen.
You're not not gonna happen. Football.
And when you.
Listen, they got they do have to earn the right.
They do have to because I'm telling you, if not, it's going to be a lot of Ezekiel Elliott and Stevenson and they're gonna do it until the game is over.
For you know what you're gonna be man.
We had the about four times off the field because we set out there and let them get three four yards of carry, and they took it every every time three four yards boom boom. Mac Jones might throw up for five or six, you know what I'm saying, to
get the first down. But other than that, they gonna they gonna put the game in Ezekiel Elliott, in Stevenson's hands and then depend on their defense because our office is not shown that we finish, get out there and be world beaters, and you know, and and and score forty points. Let me ask you Scott something. You guys have played at AT and T Stadium, and this is the fifteenth season. I believe at AT and T Stadium for the Dallas Cowboys Sunday could be their tenth home win,
all right. And historically people have looked at AT and T Stadium, well, fans around the NFL have looked at AT and T Stadium as a destination place, not even like it longs to the Cowboys, like it's a tourist attraction you want to come in. And now the Cowboys are starting to have a little bit of a home field advantage.
Feel at AT and T.
How big do you guys think that is for this team specifically if they are able to kind of turn the tide with the crowd of AT and T Stadium and have that legit home field advantage, I think it would be it will be huge because I'm telling you, when when you got you know, the crowd on your back.
And you got these guys, you're ah, go all crazy. It kind of pumps you up, especially defensive side of the football. When you get a big hitting dude, I mean, it pumps you up and it gets you adrenaline rolling.
It's sometimes so loud in there.
You see opposing quarterbacks kind of like going like this like I can't hear the audible.
I can't, man.
The team feeds into that.
You see guys on the sideline waving the flags and waving the toils around offensively defensively, you feed into that. That's what you want to have when you have home field advantage out there. Early on in my career when we were playing at AT and T, it wasn't like that. It was more of like a club atmosphere, like you know, people was wearing you know, dresses and stuff that they wear to the club. People had their flyers fits on. It wasn't about the football game. It was more about
a social atmosphere. So what we didn't really have that home field advantage. Now you see those whiteouts, you see the tows flying all over the place, and that's what you want from a from a home field advantage. So hopefully the Cowboys can keep rolling so this off, just this home field advantage can keep staying because they gonna need it.
They're gonna need it.
This is what I know, man, That's why they given Zeke's whatever they should be at the thing, because you're right, when we played were almost begging the fans to come out and get live. Please, Hey man, I'm talking about players are like, yea, hey, it's just not that loud in there. And we you know, oh man, our fans, you know, they just chilling and relaxing. And now the two one four, since the two one four jumping at
the kettlebell, doing all that stuff. Now you got more of a college type atmosphere versus that professional you know, is expensive to come here, so the expensive people are gonna be here acting expensive. And now it's and now it's hey man, hey, hey, college atmosphere. Let's go get a beer, let's go crazy. You see people running through. They always got that video the people running through and they open the games. That's the college atmosphere, right. These
people are ready to see the Cowboys playing. That's because they believe that there's a chance for these teams to win when we plays right. And then Zeke and them got here in its twelve and four, thirteen and three. When your fans believe that they're there and they're helping you win, what the possibility of going to Super Bowl, going to the playoffs, that's where you get that type of atmosphere and it's huge, man, Just like Church said, it is just to hear it right. You make them
play personally, You make a play yourself. That gives you more confidence to be like, oh yeah, we hear now right? Are that first kickoff? Right?
And they get real loud.
You know that the fans are there to play, so now you owe it to them in your mind, Like, I gotta go out here and show out.
What's the craziest stadium that you guys can think of? Thinks back on the NFL. Yeah, three hundred thousand over there.
It's Seattle. Yeah, Seattle, Seattle. Man, they ain't lie by Seattle. Seattle is loud. Kansas City is loud too, But we played when Seattle was out there winning, so man that day.
Man, it's the twelve Man. The twelve Man is real. It's legit. It's real.
Like you feel like when you're out there, like the stadium's right on top of your head, Like it's just it's so loud you can't even hear yourself.
You're looking at signals, You're like, wait, I can't I can't even see the signals.
Because it's so loud. Is cooling?
No?
And then like they're Seattle to me is number one played in both spots, but Kansas City as well. That's another one when you when they finish that national anthem and it goes home with the Chiefs, like it's just the whole stadium is just rocket like. Man, that's that's a crazy atmosphere. Those are the two to me that are most resemblance of the of the college atmosphere.
Nights out there from eight am.
You driving in, you get you know, people throwing eggs at your bus. Like it's one of those atmospheres. Man, it's a cool place to play.
Wait, well in the game all week that but when we ain't got nothing.
New to the teeth playing home yet they've been drinking five am, it's going that tailgate off the team. What was it like going from from the Cowboys to Chicago Soldier Field? Uh, what was the difference between those two? You know, I say what it wasn't No, we were five and the leven Okay, bro After the first game though, after the first game, Bro, it was it was just no, it's just a normal thing. It's just like it wasn't
anything special. But you know, as the season went on, they did we weren't winning no games, we was hoping they ran the clock. I'm not like, man, come on, I'm trying to get out of here. I'm trying to move on back to Texas. Was it like a kick off this It wasn't even fool. They were still coming in, they were still cleaning, still coming there. They were still
coming in and they was excited and we won. Okay, Jake Cuttler, Forte, Martella's al Sean Jeffrey, you know, they was yeah, they was they was they was hyped in.
But us season went on, you could tell.
That was that what about it was it was cool. Wasn't nothing like the atmosphere here in Dallas.
But because early on the stadium wasn't even full kick off, they had to put the tarp up on the upper levels because they was like because the fans wasn't coming in, because they was like, I was gonna be another one of these seasons. But as we started winning, we started you know, putting the putting the beating on people. The fans start coming in and Tart went away. You know, they started doing shots at the upper stands and people
going crazy. But there was still nothing compared to Dallas, though. Wasn't that du ball chain was real.
I didn't know y'all had because I didn't any think about Jacksonville, and they say I never wanted to watch the game.
And then one time I did see him, they had.
A long, cozy cool I was taking long too, out there playing volleyball, looking up like.
Going on, that is crazy picks. Y'all ready for your Thursday night picks? Ready, all right, so we go get our Thursday night picks. Newies already sent his picks in. So I don't know what the record is looking like. But I'm feeling good.
I think I'm I know I'm good.
I should be pretty good. So everybody, so everybody good.
I'm in the catburs, so everybody good.
Everybody can't be good. I was gonna take all you love. We're gonna take out that.
We're gonna take our last break. We'll be right back for the last segment of the Players Lounge.
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Back to the players Lounge.
Your Dallas Cowboys had to Santa Clara to take on the forty nine Ers in Week five of the twenty twenty three season. Come out to Miller Lighthouse at AT and D Stadium on October eighth for a free watch party presented by seven eleven Cheer On the Boys alongside the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders and rowdy while it's enjoying a five dollars Millert barbecue, game day, fair and more. Gates open at six pm and kick off is seven twenty. For more information and to clean your ticket, visit Dallas
Cowboys dot com slash Watch Party Go Cowboys. So a f C and NFC player of the Months Michael Parsons t J Watt, it's getting real and I bet it was like this between TJ and uh.
Garrett. It's gonna be a hell of a race, man, I mean it.
I mean, if they all stay healthy knocking, they.
All say my man, my man, my man. See see what we're going with this? But just making them fault, that's what it is.
That lack in action here on the players lounge, Dan mcraidberry church over here, and look in this last segment.
All we do, man, We picked on Thursdays. Then Friday, y'all get some trick bets in there, you know, and some not bad excuse me, no bets a little bit.
That's what we do.
But this third today's tonight's game is the Detroit Lions and the division. That's true.
Green Bay coming off of victory versus Saints. They pulled it out. Yeah, James got hurt. I mean James got in the game, James ms James got the games. Who doesn't try to be funny I feel about this game tonight.
I want to I just want to make this clear, Okay.
I believe that Dan Campbell has done something spectacular over there in Detroit, because we remember Detroit was was was something with Calvin Johnson and uh Matthew Stafford, right, but you never really just believed that they was going to actually make no noise one of the division stuff like that, because you know the Packers over there this year, I feel like I wanted a division.
You didn't. You didn't believe that. You didn't believe that at the beginning of the year.
This year, at going into the season, I believe that Green Bay will not win the NFC North and it will go to Detroit. And also, my former college teammate, Kevin Sheppard is a linebacker coach. They might have seen them on hard Notch, you know my linebacker coach. So I got an extra reason to be pulling for the Detroit Lions, and I think they're gonna win the division. I think they're gonna they're going to beat Green Bay to night. It ain't gonna be close. Let's just go
thirty one seventeen. Jerry Goff is gonna have a day in Green Bay. Gibbs will have a day. I need Gibbs have a dad. Yes, something, Sat He's gonna have a day?
Is he playing today?
Though?
I don't know. Hutchinson gonna have a day. Everybody. There's gonna be some days. Hey, they's gonna be that career day. I don't know.
No, no, no, no, they ain't no limb. They went out there to Kansas City and beat them at home opening. That's the team that beat them. Break it down.
I'm gonna go ahead.
And he's in Green Bay, right, brother Will, Brother Will over there, what's up. I'm gonna have to go with Detroit on this one. I like, you know, everything Danny said about them. They are hitting on all cylinders. But I'm gonna go Detroit on this one. I'm gonna go Detroit. Even though Love has looked good, and you know, replacing Aaron Rodgers, he.
Has looked good.
So defense looking good, defense looking good.
Turn Garrett, he's what y'all thinking.
I'm going Detroit twenty eight.
You like to say all that positive stuff about the other teams just so we can tell them.
Chop yeah, twenty eight to twenty seventeen, twenty eight, seventeen d twenty eight seventeen, both y'all going with seventeen? All right, basketball, So go ahead Pickgans. Do you believe in them because they played on Lambo?
Leave all? They go ahead?
You gotta make up some ground.
I do? He watching them on TV too, I do. They pulled out the wheel. We're not watching it that defense. And now I'm going with Detroit on this one. Anybody stopped Detroit?
I know.
I'm going twenty one, twenty one ten Detroit, Yeah, twenty one ten on that one, man, twenty one ten. Make sure put this down for because we make sure it count. Yeah, you gotta count, see y'all. Hey man, y'all just threw that one out there. Don't come on. Let the people at home know what we're talking about. Everybody's talking about me picking Colorado and telling them that they're not believings. But I'm gonna go back and rewind the tape because I could have swore it was just like, what do
you think about? What's going on this weekend. It was one of those kind of things when you do this hand most.
So I say, you.
Go watch the table. I think we talked about DM for the first three weeks in the season. Okay, we all did our pick.
So you would never actually on board anyway, Let's just say that you would never.
A believer until the beginning. Y'all believe he gonna go undefeated. I believe you gonna make them better. Y'all.
Y'all ain't saying nothing about this kool aid in about week no, I.
Said, it's still sugar. I'm just making sure, y'alli.
Zone.
You know I scooped out a little bit.
Yeah, yeah, cool, because you know REIZONEI Zone took you because it was about four comps of sugar.
Now, okay, saying that was about three and a half comes. So I gotta ask this. Keep it real with me, man.
There are no must win situations week four of the NFL season, not for us, not yeah right, But I'm saying, because cousin, let's go, let's go lose verse win, especially with the forty nine ers next on the docket. How big is this game for the Cowboys win or lose it's big if you play on winning the division because you're gonna play San Francisco, will actually winning the number one.
See you're gonna play San Francisco.
You got the Eagles twice, they undefeated all of a sudden, You going to with two losses, right and going into San Francisco possibly.
Getting number three.
Yeah, you need to win if you want to keep pace with the other successful teams in the NFC. But it's not a muscle win. Like you lose this game, you still could make the playoffs. Everything is still ahead of you, but your chances are much slimmer if you find a way to lose to the Patriot hard and then have to go in with a pressure game against San Francisco in San franc.
Yeah, I'm with you on that.
I mean, it's not I wouldn't say it's a must win because, like y'all said, it's Week four, you still got a lot of games left out there. But what confidence wise I would I would expect the Cowboys to go out there and at least have a better performance
than they did against the Cardinals. Like if they went out against the Cardinals and they lost to you know, seventeen to fourteen, game or something like that where one side of the football, excluding special teams, one side of the football really showed out.
And I'd be like, you know, it happens. Those losses happen.
But when you go against the Cardinals team and you lose the way they lost, where only the special teams had was the bright spot. You know, defensively two hundred and twenty two yards offensively, turn the football over, can't get it done in the red zone. Those are the type of losses where you look at it like, hold on, man, we gotta get we gotta get this changing together. So to me, this week is not a must win, but they got to play better. As far as the confidence is concerned.
What's most like, is it most important for us to show that we've gotten better at stopping to run. Like because as you go through the season, you say, okay, we're gonna play teams right, and if you play bad against the team, or you put something on tape that needs to be corrected and then you go into the next week and find out it's not corrected, then you start to believe, oh, well, you know what this is.
This is who we are.
So you go into this game and it is important to win, but it's very important for you to show that you've gotten better at whatever phases you say you're working on. That's red zone and that's run defense, right. So that's what I feel like is the most important here. Are we getting better in the and the things that we consider our weakness on the team.
And I'm gonna keep it real man like when you talk about stopping to run that interior, it's not all all Misy Smith, let me tell that it's not.
All or all on the d line. You got the first.
But at some point your first round I gotta.
Show up, Okay, yes, at something.
I mean we've gone down the line before, we've seen first round pick out the first round pick. The only one that didn't hit really was Taco Charlton. At some point, he's got to come in there and make an impact. That's what they got him here for, you know, for him to go up there and solidify that rush defense. So I'm not saying it's all on him, but I'd like to see the young man step up out there.
Yeah. I think that.
I mean, you got you definitely hit it when it comes down to the run game. That's something that the Cowboys have to get better at. But I think bigger than that, this red zone stuff has to get fixed. I mean, you got to fix that right now. It's it's not gonna be enough to run up and down the field if you're only trading field goals with teams.
And man, the criticism that they're getting early is warranted because you look at what two of whatever it is in the red zone right now, it's eleven thirty whatever.
It's a it's getting astronomical as you go.
And when you start to exchange those field goals with teams, I mean they're gonna start playing a ben don't break style with which you started to see Arizona started to play two safeties high. We'll let you get all the way down there and then we just go swinging back down and then we're gonna start to stop the run. But man, I find a question for you guys. And as I was talking about the forty nine ers on looming here it on coaches always talking about this a week the week.
Dang, we don't ever look ahead.
But as players, do you ever start looking ahead to the next week when you're talking when you're looking at an opponent.
Now that to get a stomped like that. They may have been last week.
When you start off that way and you say, okay, the big dogs in the NFC are US Philly and the forty nine ers, and we got them coming up at their house and they beat us twice in the playoffs over the last two years, you could be But then after you go out there and lose to Arizona, then you kind of, you know, you're humbled and you're like,
you know what, can't make that mistake again. If that was the case, because I think I think since we got our scheme that way and then the level of effort, I don't think you just you know, just slept walk. I think that there were some things that you needed to fix in order to be the team that you hope to be. So not they not looking, they're not I don't think we were ready for that yet. We need to go outare and make sure that our run game is right because CMC Christian McCaffrey, Oh they're gonna
run it. Debo, Oh they're gonna run it.
They coming to town man, And I'm with you.
I think you know, it happens every year with you know, teams, you get to a point where you're thinking, oh, man, you know we got it. You know, you start feeling yourself just a little bit and then boom, you get that reality check. I mean, it's National Football League. You know these guys are good on the other side of the football. So I'm glad the reality check happened early
in the season and not towards the end. And then we stumble into the play I was like, we have these past couple of years, So I'm glad it happened now. And hopefully dan Quinn, like we say, we all trusting dan Quinn, Hopefully he can get this thing right in the defense, can roll We.
All trust, yeah, because you made him wait two years before you was like dan Quinn.
Trusted Quinn, Yeah, he gonna run this thing right.
But you know, the run defense, the run, the defense for me is starting to be a bugaboo. And especially and I ask you y'all about this, cause I can't lie to you. Man, I'm San Francisco's knocked U out of the playoffs two years in a row, and for me, I'm looking at that game like, how do we measure up going through? Because we know what Philly's gonna bring. We know the rest of the season and the type of running backs that we still have to face. So look, man, that's uh, I'm looking ahead.
Let me just say that I was hoping, y'all. No, they better not be the bet I'm gonna go with. I'm gonna go with that. Uh man. We had a good shoulder Oh yeah, hey man, that was a good show today.
If you want to fix these reds on issues, there's only one person. You got a call, y'all.
West Man, just say you know what we're gonna watch.
We're gonna watch the next week to everything was going Chris Beam in the back, man, thank you for doing your thing.
Homeboy.
Man.
Let me give a shout out to my hood o, Cliff Texas.
We're in the building, all right, man, appreciate y'all. That's the players Lounge, call him up three oh five.
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