Player's Lounge: The Dan Quinn Effect

here with the Ultimate Survivor. Danny mccraig got his first immunity, you know, his first immunity idol last week on Survivor. So he's feeling good. It's just me. I'm just your average box safety over here. So that a Burberry shirt. I don't know nothing average about you. Go out a game. Word, I had a rough week. I wouldn't bought me some burdens. You gotta do that hash. You gotta splurge on yourself. It's about making yourself happy. Sometimes it's speaking of being happy.

It is a victory Friday. We were able to watch the game last night, and look, I'm just gonna dive straight into it. Let's get let's dive straight into the defensive side of the footballers. To me, that was the most impressive part about this game. This defense showed up and showed out. So, d Matt, I'm gonna give the floor to you. You you were the man that said it from the beginning, hired dan Quinny's gonna turn this

defense around top ten. I'm not so sure about the top ten, but you were ahead of the mark about hiring dan Quinn. So I'll let you go ahead. I'll give you the floor. What did you think about listen for them? Okay, listen, listen. Let me ask you this before we get into it. Okay, top ten defense. This is what This is what I say we should at least do it to like half a meal. Listen, listen, listen. This is why I say that. This is why I say that, not with people, not a meal, a meal,

half a meal and half half a meal. Okay, this what I'm saying. You you were watching, you were watching this defensive play, all right? Yeah, outside of like total yards, Outside of total yards, would you agree that this defense outside of one to two games this season has looked like a top ten defense. If you don't know how many yards they were giving us some of them were

under certain circumstances. Even last night. You see this last touchdown, they hold them like three or five or whatever, three fifty and all of a sudden there are four or

five right empty game. Um so I think, I think because of that is gonna be hard for us to get to like top ten because of just the yards giving up, but the way this the team is playing, turnovers, stops on third down, not giving up scores like we give up a big play every once in a while, and that just started happening in these in these recent games. But when I talk about when you see our defense

plays better based off our offense plays. Now, offense didn't have a great game less like, but our defense played from ahead and we are able to do that. Our pass rush and the way that we're able to get our eyes on the ball and read the quarterback and make those plays. We're almost unstoppable. Which is the issue, right because you see you have a Michael Parsons what he has tax he got ten sacks. Now you see you see guy Tank came back and for his first

game back games man looked good. Dbes look Anthony Brown bounce back game came back, played, played a good game. Trail un did should have had three picks? Um curse? Can we talk about curse? Yeah? We could go ahead. Man, Like when you talk about somebody maximizing the opportunity because he came in as a guy where you're like, it's a one year deal. We're not really sure we'll see hype plays. This dude is looking like a bona fide

star in the league. Like dan Quinn is putting them in a position around the line of scrimmage to make those plays. You see him rushing every once in a while, he's holding the edge, he's making tackles in the backfield, he's bawling all overall. Dan Quinn has the post on this defense, and the post is we are rolling. They are Neville Gallimar coming back, Randy Gregory coming back one more time for the people in the Galimar, coming back,

Randy Gregory coming back. If you get a chance to get this offense back to rolling how they were before and we're playing ahead just by a touchdown, just by ten points, I think that we will be unstoppable on defense. It's that it's that leakage that we get in the ring game, which we got to try to find him way to fix it. I think, I think Neville and Randy will will help us when we get to that point. But outside of that, you clean up a couple of

big plays and this defense is stout. So I'm like, really really happy and impressed with what dan Quinn has been able to do, and also the players buying in and being able to up their games since dan Quinn has been here as well. Yeah, I'm gonnagree with you one hundred percent on that one, all right. I mean, look, dan Quinn has come in here and he's definitely shifted to molder. He gave him this, this winning mentality, whatever the case may be, He's got this defense flying on

all cylinders. You just mentioned Curse, who was supposed to come in here, and I thought, like a majority of the people, you know, he's gonna come in here, contribute on special teams. He might play a little bit in a dime package or something like that, but his overall career, you're looking at it like, Okay, this guy, he can't be the guy, but he has come in here and it's started from training camp. This guy started in training camp. He became that leader, that vocal leader. As we see,

he has the green dot on his helmet. So he's the guy out there making all the calls, getting everybody adjusted. And if you look at it, that pregame huddle, if you look at it when they're all getting done stretching and everybody's coming to hypeing everything up, who's in the middle of that circle, it's this guy is in there or jay Ron I'm sorry, jay Ron curse. He's in there hyping these guys up. So not only is he a lead by example guy, but he's a vocal leader

as well, and that's what this defense needs. And overall, getting back to the Saints game, this defense was extremely impressive to me. I mean, just to be able to get after the quarterback, like you mentioned, DeMarcus Lawrence coming back from a ten game injury prone or injury injury, was out for ten games for the injury. He came back, he look like he didn't miss a step. The guy him a sack if the edge rolling. Of course, Parsons was bawling. We're gonna talk about him a little bit later.

But this defense bottled up this Saint's attack. Now, granted, you know the Saints was hurting a little bit. You know, their team is hurting. You know, they got Taysom Hilling in that quarterback, and I fought for from the beginning. I thought, you know, going into this game, that Cowboys defense will be able to take advantage of Taysom Hill. I mean, this is a guy who's only throwing eight passes so far this season, so I thought we'd be

able to take advantage of him. I knew he was gonna be you know, good running because this guy's a load. I mean about two forty five wild cat. He's back there like basically a running back, and they got speed. The guy has some juice, so he ran over for over a hundred. So that's one thing the Cowboys have

got to get better is that run defense. In my opinion, because when you go against teams once you get to the playoffs that can run the ball well as well as have a good quarterback, it might cause a little bit dilemma. But last week or last night, they did a great job on Taysom Hill. As far as throwing

the football. They intercepted them four times, and to me, the most important part about that interceptions they were able to turn those interceptions into points, whether it's them taking the ball back or getting the offense in great position. So I mean to me that this defense played lights out and you can't say enough about Dan Quinn and

what he's been able to do for this defense. And then substituting the form Mark McCarthy, who had COVID, he came in there, oversaw the entire the scheme of everything. He didn't let the moment get too big for him, and he went out there and they did what they were supposed to do. Defensively, they dominated a team that they knew they had the upper hand on. They had the better talent, they had the better individuals, and they

did what they had to do. Now, offensively, we'll get into it a little bit, but we gotta make sure we get this thing rolling a little bit because we right now the defense is not the reason this Cowboys team is lackluster in games. They should be blowing people out. Yeah, And the truth is the defensive has had more good games than the offense has. I would agree with that.

I would agree at the beginning of the season you would have came in here and said, hey, man, if the defense is gonna hold of offensive majority of the time, right, you'll be like, oh man, Yeah, y'all crazy. Yeah, that's but at this point, you're looking at the defense to have to play a certain way in order for our offense to get back on track, because, like you said, we're dealing with injuries. We're trying to figure out the offensive line. We're dealing with an injury from Zeke, So

they're looking at the defensive. Dan Quinn has these guys ready saying, hey man, that's why you hear it's a guy like Curse. Come out and say against Kansas City, what we hold them to eight, then we win? Right? You know what type of belief in your coach and your system and your players you have to have to say, hey man, I do want to hear none about the offense. All right, If we hold these dudes to eight points, they score less than we do, then we win the game.

And I believe we can go out there and do that against anybody. That is the ultimate confidence in what you're doing over there. And they got the right to believe so because go out last night and get four picks. Trayvill Didz gets eight. He's trying to keep up with Michael Parker and everybody's like, now you got one, I need one. Give me the right. They did exactly what they're supposed to do against a guy who is not a proven passer. And what you're supposed to do is

go out there handle your business. If you play how you know you can play, that's how the game should end up for you. Trash yards. Yeah, I just wish we could fix it. And that's that's my own selfish thing because I'm just like, I want us to be top ten in yards. They deserve to be in the top ten, But nobody can look at this defense and say, hey man, they're not playing like a top ten that

like one of the top tier defenses. That's why you see when the pro football whatever comes out there, they're number five, they might be number six because they're watching. They're watching the game and they're able to see exactly what's going on. Just like last night, you said, all right, yeah that was actually random ball. Okay, the head hundred forty six yards. We didn't know one run from from from which I'm thankful I got you in fantasy. But

he take away that one run. It was twenty two carries for fifty seven yards, and that's just that's just not gonna work offensively. But back on the defensive side, does it worry you a little bit that if we don't get takeaways that we'll have what it takes to beat a playoff team. Like, I'm not worried about these next five games. We got the Division for four of them, and then we got Arizona, which will be a tough contest,

but I'm not worried about that. But once we get to the playoffs, do you just does it make you nervous a little bit that we have to take the ball away four times in order to get this victory or do you think this offense will continue to get into shape and eventually round into the offense that we thought they would be. Yeah, listen, if the offense doesn't pick it up, I don't think we have a shot. You can go back to Week one against Tampa. We get four, we get four takeaways, we lose the game.

I think Aaron Rodgers has only thrown four you know that season. Kylin Worry is also taking care of the ball. I think the only way you can turn him over is if he's running it. And then also you get a sack force fumble. So you got quarterbacks who you're gonna face, who are able to take care of the ball. So the offense needs to get on track so we have those opportunities, because what we also saw was against Denver, if we're playing from behind, those opportunities to take the

ball away, they aren't gone running that right. So you have to be able to play compromentary football, and so far we haven't been able to since the buy week. I don't know what's going on with the offense, but hopefully we get that back on track so the defense can play how how we expect them to play. Pin your ears back, earned to write the rush on third down, and you got a guy with ten sex, then you

got Randy Gregor, who get pressure on the passer. You know, you gotta take Lawrence we know can get person on the passer. Then you also rusting a guy like Kurty, rusting a guy like Jordan Lewis, Like, you have ways to manufacture this stuff, but if you're if you're not able to stop the run or play from a head, then all that is knowling void. Yeah, without a doubt, And yeah, I'll just got me thinking a little bit of you know, once we get everybody healthy, you know,

the Randy Gregory's come back. Neville Gallimore. Just think of the package defensively we could put out there on third down, like just a NASCAR package we got. You can put Parsons on one edge, Randy Gregory on the other, you can kick d Law on the inside, and put the Daurn's armstrong in their calling, some type of a NASCAR package or whatever it may be. But we got an opportunity defensively to do some damage once we get to these playoffs. Now, our matchup, if everything stays the same,

everything stays the same. You know, Tampa wins their division, we win ours. You know, Green Bay wins theirs, and let's just say, you know, Arizona wins the West. Our matchup in that first round could possibly be the La Rams. It could possibly be the La Rams. And we know what they have over there as far as firepower offensively, So that could be a game that if we don't get you know, this offense going in the right direction,

it could get a little sticky for me. And you know, I don't want to say one it done, but we're kind of nervous about that. Listen, and you know, because I got to step before our defense. Okay, if we're moving on to possibly playing in la if we do everything shakes out. They having the same issues that we have offensively. Oh yeah, yeah, they have no idea where to go would a turn. They have not looked like the same offensive team. Matthew Stafford has been turning the

ball over. Yeah, I've seen. He's my starting quarterback and fantasy so I'll pay a little bit extra attention to him. Okay, they're not they haven't found it yet. They lost it. Uh, they're realizing that that that that loss of Robert Woods, just like like we've realizing that loss of Amark Hoopers. It's bigger than we thought it was. It's not that the next guy just step in and get the thing rolling. Um, So their defensive is feeling the same. They're not able

to get that pass rush. You got behind Miller, you got Aaron Domino. But those guys aren't able to pin their ears back and rush the pastors because they haven't been able to get anything rolling on offense. But the defense of the other offense to have to score those points and move the ball like that. So we're going through this same thing. So right now, as of today, I think it would be okay. I think we'll be

okay two struggling offenses against two good defenses. That would be one of that, like like the game we played last time. Yeah, it'll be definitely be a toss up on that one. And real quick, I know we're about to get into our break here in a little bit, but I gotta discuss this guy before we get off of this subject. Well, we'll talk about Michael in a little bit in the next segment. But d Law this guy, you know, he came back ten game hiatus, ten game hiatus.

He comes back, first game in a long time against the New Orleans team. How did you think he performed out there? Listen, As you know, I expected d Law to come out and play well. Um, I said, if he's healthy and and he's able to move how he normally moves when he's actually one healthy, which we don't we haven't seen often, and I think he's gonna have a huge impact on the game. Um this is his first game back. We saw him move really well. He

looked healthy. He brought a different intensity to that left side of the defensive line. All right, he was wrestling, he was coming off the ball. You see him line up over the three technique. You see him I meaning over the guard. You see him line up outside, I think they were getting them back into the game. And he made some plays out there, right. He made me nervous. One he come across the field, he makes the tack on the guy, he catches a knee to the hem

and I'm like, oh no, come on. And he gets back in the game. I'm like, yes, he's rolling. So I was really impressed with what he was able to do with coming back after such a long time off. Yeah, I'm with you on that. I mean ten games off. I thought for sure the guy was gonna be gas. I'm like, he's gonna go out there and have a couple of good plays and then be like I'm tapping out. But you can see out there, it was like they had to hold him from coming back in the game.

I mean, the guy was like, look, I don't snap count all that pitch count. I don't want to hear nothing about that. I haven't been a part of this team in ten games and I'm looking to put my impact on this game. And I think he did a good job of that. You know, I don't think anybody along that defensive line plays the run as well as d Law did. And you saw that last night. He was able to get in there from his defensive imposition and shut things down. When they're talking about the running

back now, Tasom Hill, that's that's another story. But d Law, I think he did a good job. Came in there. He almost, like you said, he almost forced to fumble out there. It came through His pass rusher is getting better. And this is a guy that's missed ten games. This is his first game back. To me, it didn't even look like he missed a step. So I'm excited for what I've seen with d Law. This defense right now, the sky can be the limit. If they continue to

take the football away like this. That's a that's a winning formula right there. If you can get the ball back to your offense and let's just say, our offense gets back in the shape and what they've been doing and what they're best at is scoring points. If you can take the ball away and get it back to them on a regular basis, I think this guy's limit for this team. I think the one thing that's scary about d Law is this. Okay, give him the same

time that everybody is else. Everybody else's had with Dan Quinn to elevate his game, all right. He had one game he came out forced fumble that he's been out. Give him the same opportunity to trade Munds, Jordan Lewis and Curse and all those guys have had to elevate their game, like uh, playing under Dan Quinn get d Law that time, and I think you're gonna see something special. You forgot one persona. Sorry, but well he didn't elevate his game, all right, I'll give you that, you know.

Speaking of Michael Parsons, we're going to dive into this guy and how explosive he has been so far in this rookie season when we get back from break. This is the Players Lounge where in a s WBC Studios, brought to you by Hotels dot Com. We'll see you after the break. At Smoothie King, we are blending goodness to fuel your greatness. Every blind is crafted to help you achieve your health and fitness goals. Smootie King uses

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one ticketing app. So what are you waiting for? Download the app now or visit SeatGeek dot com to get tickets to sports, concerts and live events and make your butt happy. SeatGeek get your seat in a seat to the players loud Welcome, gat good people. We're here in the SWBC studios. I'm here once again with the Ultimate survivor, Danny mccraie. It was top six right now, still kicking only six level, only six left. That's hell of a

performance right there, man, top six. He's doing it. Man. Yeah, if you were to pray, you would have never heard the end of it. I say that right now. It's good. You're good. You're good. You made it to the top ten. So you know, hey, I gotta give you props on that. I gotta give you props on that. It's just me,

your average box safety over here. So look, we're gonna dive before we dive into this offense, because we gotta have a whole segment, you know, dedicated to this offense when we did the defense early, got to have a whole segment to the offense. But before we dive into that, we have got to take a look and give this man his flowers. Micah Parsons, I mean, look, this dude is playing at an all pro level right now. I

said it earlier in the year. I don't know if I've seen a rookie outside of maybe Das Bryant to have this big of an impact for a team. And I would even say it's a bigger impact because this team is winning right now. You know, rookie year, we was six and ten, even though that guy was bawling, we was still six and ten. But Michael Parsons, he's playing on another level right now, and it doesn't matter where you put him. You can put him at the d N spy linebacker. You put him at the d tackle,

nose guard, it doesn't matter. He seems to be able to make an impact wherever the case may be. We saw him go out there and get a sack. His closing speed is amazing. That's ten on the year right now. I mean this guy's ten sacks on the year right now. We also saw on that j Ron Curs interception. We've seen him carrying a wide receiver up the seams. Like I don't under think people understand how difficult that is.

Because even for defensive back to carry a wide receiver on a wheel route, that's tough, especially a guy like Kenny Stills who can run. But Michael Parsons were there step for step broke the pass up led to a Jay Run cursed interception. This guy is bawling on another level. And like I said, I just don't know if I've seen an impact man like this before. D Mac, what are your thoughts on the young man? I tell you, when I watched Michael Parson's player, I tell you what

I used to hear from coaches all the time. Basketball coaches say, hey man, you can't coach hype. Yeah, football coach, man, you can't coach speed. And when you watch the guy like on the boat right, you think that you're gonna slow him down a little bit on the boot and then Taysom he'll come around the corner and say, oh man, le's dude to my face already the closing speed that this dude has amazing. It is dB closing speed. Some facts have closer speed like this when they're trying to

track about that. Dan Sanders had a closer speed like this year. He would make you believe it's your head up it and when they throw the ball, he go get it up. Michael Parsons, is that guy from the

linebacker position playing great? Another sack? Five tackles? I mean, and that doesn't even account for all the pressures, all the confusion that that he that he calls us on the defense, because now offensive coordinators have to really plan for him specifically, they say, look at the defense, they say, who who do we have to play for? Who is

it who? And you got a big eleven. So when they're a practice and when when the Saint Sara practice on their scout team, somebody has the eleven jersey highlight. So now he's playing amazing man and I think at this rate he could end up with fifteen and sixty sixteen sacks easily, and there's no longer defensive rookie of these. Put it in the trophy case already, it's over with.

You're up now for Defensive Player of the Year, and your team is going for the suit, going for a playoff run, right, playing for the Cowboys be seen all the time, and you just continue to keep rolling, right, because we noticed a such thing called the rookie wall. Yeah, pretty much everybody's hit it. My man is in week thirteen. He ain't hitting that and he is doing just fine.

So shout out to him. The dude's playing amazing. And you know when I see him, and I told you that, I saw Lee up to me, he's the best stack linebacker that he's ever seen coming out of college and being able to do what he's done. And I'm just and I just I'm like, dang, Sean, he was like two years late. That's it. Imagine that Shun Lee next to Michael Parsons kidding, You got Sean Lee, who's basically would have been an extension of the coaching staff out there.

He would have been able to head Parsons. You go there, you go there, and then you got the athletic ability and explosiveness of Parsons out there. That would have been a magical combination. But look at it. I mean, this guy, it don't matter where you put him. It doesn't matter where you put him. He defensive end, no tackle. Coach, go get the quarterback. I got your coach, and he's gonna make the play. And what's most impressive to me is it seems like the moment is never too big

for this guy. The bright lights, prime time, It don't matter what type of game you could be, in the street somewhere, he's gonna give you one hundred percent and he's gonna make plays. I mean, this guy is a bona fide playmaker. And look, I didn't see it. You know that when we missed out on certain we missed out on Jason, I'm like, man, I don't know, I don't know about what this guy gonna do. But y'all

hear this. Y'all hear this, right, because because you knew he sit there talking about, Oh but look what Michael is doing. I was like, yeah, but eld the day of Yeah, I didn't the day of there's no way in here like they can say they knew that he was gonna play well. We've drafted a lot of linebackers, all right, who they who played well, but not like not not a team in the league expecting Michael Parsons to be able to play this well. Now, if we go back into a redraft, he's going he might be

only one number one overall. I mean, the way this guy is doing things, I mean, it's and to be a rookie and a guy that didn't even play football last year because of the COVID situation opted out For him to come in here and still be able to play the way he's playing, I mean, it's remarkable. It's remarkable. It's because it's weird uncle, like that weird uncle. Everybody like everybody like he's a magic listen, listen. In any

of the scheme, I'm sure Michael Parsons will still be great. Yeah, Dan Quinn knows exactly what to do with this guy, which is amazing. So quick before we get on the offensive side of things, where do you put him going forward? Because you know Randy Gregory's coming back soon. He seems to be able to ball out and have a bigger impact on a defensive line. But he makes great plays

at the linebacker as well. And when you already have Tank Lawrence and Gregory there, do you push him back to that linebacker spot or you say, you know what, this guy's causing too much havoc. I gotta keep him on a d line. Go ahead and get after that quarterball. You play that linebacker, okay, And then and most of the time you're rushing five add on tokay, or if you want to, you move Randy in, or you move or you move d law in, you move Micah up,

roll up another another safety. Right, You got many options, and that's what's great about what Michael Parl's can do because the defense can't plan for where he's gonna be it, right, Yeah, the best the best thing that you have now is the mystery of like where is eleven? Right? As long as the offense can't determine or dictate that, then you have the advantage with this guy. Yeah, you're right, you

got the advant with this guy. But overall, man, this guy's playing amazing and man, look, Rookie of the Year. That's that's so. Now we're talking about defensive player of the Year. Now, and the Cowboys got two people in that category. I mean, you got Digs and you got Michael Parsons. I mean, I didn't see it coming into this to this year. You know, I knew we got Dad quitting all this stuff. I didn't see it. I'll get kudos to you because you did see it before.

Because you saw it, man, I'll give you credit. You said before they even thought about hiring Dan Quinton, you know, before we were working it would still work. He was like, Hey, I don't know if this guy's gonna be available, but if he is, we gotta grab him. And I gave him. Man. I don't know, league, I don't know anything about but you was right. So I'll give you the no Shore domas McCrae for now and see we'll see what happens with that top ten. But right now, you're looking right,

you're looking back. Well, now it looks like we got to dig into this offense a little bit. Um. It wasn't that you know, they played terrible like. It wasn't like they were just god awful out there. They put up some points and they made enough plays to win the game. But you look at how this offense was playing early on in the season, you would have thought this was going to be one of the one of the miracles on turf, looking like like like the ninety

nine Rams or something like that. They have that potential going into this season. Now, we had a couple of injuries. We missed Tyron Smith for a little bit, but those guys are back right now. We got the offensive line communicating well out there, and they still they still the offense, it just seems like it's stagnant. They can't get one thing going. If it's if it's the past that's doing well, the running game, stop the running games doing well. We

can't see the pass the ball. We haven't had one of those complete games, like you said, since Atlanta, since we were able to blow out Atlantis. So to me, I gotta know your thoughts. McCray. What did you think

of the offense in yesterday's game. Yeah, you know, I think I've been talking about this for a while and it's and it's the run game, right, Like I think at the beginning of the season, you have to you have to put it in your mind and get that mindset of like we're going to establish the run going into these games, and then when you go into the first game and you just automatically just shot away from

it because of what a team has already done. You are you already setting the tone for what you're gonna do for the rest of the season. Right, You're letting the defense dictate to you how you're going to play the game. Right, So you don't run, you don't run the ball in the first couple of games. All right, everybody's like, Zeke had a good game here, a good game there. Zeke has not been having the Zeke type

of games that we expect them to have. But now you have to say it's a good game because we're a passing team. Right, he gets ninety yards. You're like, oh, yeah, not a good game for Zeke, not under to the standard day we're using. That's a good game for everybody else. But when I see Zeke and the Zeke that I know that he can be, especially when you say that he came in a training camp, he was slimmer. They're gonna try to keep him more healthy, They're gonna give

him the rock ninety yards. I know Zeke can rust from one fifty. I know he could be up there at the top echelon of those guys that are playing running back, so we don't establish the run. We hadn't been a running team, and now all of a sudden quarterback goes down. People start getting hurt. Now you want to become a running team. It don't work like that. It doesn't work like that. So now you see us now trying to trying to force it right, force it

a little bit. And then every time you get a negative, it's like, oh this why we didn't run the ball? Right now we're behind. I'm like, you ain't the only team who've been hit with a negative two or been on second and ten. I was second to ten and you getting stuffed in the run. It's the same second and ten when you throw that deep ball on first down and all of a sudden you're a second of ten, and now the defenses dictated to you, like, oh yeah, now you got two downs to get ten, so we

know you're gonna run it. We run so many boots, we run so many quick players. Now we worked the middle, and I'm like, has has he been figured out? Has he been figured out? Kelly Moore been figured out? It could be this is this is a long stretch of deep defenses looking like they know, just going on a three game run. Now, even even the catches for scores or first downs, they are very very tough catches every everything. And before it was like, okay, here's a catch and

he's gonna run for about ten fifteen yards. He's gonna get that explosiveness. But now you're saying, it's like these defenses,

they're all they're right on the hit pocket. Now granted we've played you know, a couple of good defense or a couple of better defenses they we did earlier in the season, But I just don't I don't know if it's more of Kelly Moore not being as creative as he was earlier in the season, or like if you said, people have kind of figured this guy out and knows his tendencies and knows where he loves to go with

the ball. But to me, if the if the intermediate or the deep ball is not working, like if you know what, we can't get the run game going because the Saints they stacked the box. They was like, you know what, we are gonna make you one dimensional. We're gonna stop this runs. And they did a good job of it. Outside of that Tony Polar fifty seven yard run. They did a good job of it, and they made

this team one dimensional. But even making this Cowboys team one dimensional, you would think with those trio of wide receivers, with Schultzing there, with Dak Prescott at the quarterback position, you would think they would still be able to move the ball, and that just wasn't the case. Now. I would love for them to see for them to implement more of that screen game. We saw the bubble screens to Cede Lamb and what he's able to do when

he gets the ball in his hands. I would love to us for us to see some of that, but just drop him back and trying to hit these intermediate digs or these deep balls. I just don't see that being consistent. You know, I always think at this offense is at its best, it's at its peak powers, it's at you know, the magnitude of all offenses. When they have a balanced attack. When you don't know what they're gonna hit you with, you gotta pick your poison. Do we hit you with this run or do we hit

you with this pass? And when defense makes when defenses make us one dimensional, it kind of bogs us down and we get to that stagged offense that we've seen last night. Give me a top five team that is not successful, sussful running the ball. Name can the Packers run the ball? The only one I can think of is maybe the Chiefs. That's it. They're not top five,

teeny they score nineteen on us. They were just struggling when you look at Look at Lena Fournette, the second coming of Leoni Fournete in college right, all of a sudden four touchdown last week, hundred yards rushing forty yards catching. Tampa can run the ball. They situationally, they know when it comes down to it, they're able to run the ball. Look at New England, they can run the ball. Look

at Lamar Taxes. You have to be able to Like, if you can't run the ball with these teams who can play defense and they once once they make you one dimensional. You look the way that we've looked over the past few weeks, then you're gonna be in trouble. Like, now's the time to be like, hey man, we need to go back to the lab, figure out what it is, what type of runs work for us? Right, Obviously you can't just run power encounter because it's not working, you

ain't even be able to line up and go. You gotta have something, so so find out what runs work good for Tony Pollard, find out what runs work good for Zeke. At this point, especially with a hurt Zeke, you need to find out what what what he's able to do if you're not gonna rust them, and then keep hammering that, man, keep hammering that because the likelihood

of you making the playoffs is really high. But the likelihood of you going out in the first round if you're not able to establish the run against the team, if the passing game is not working, it's really really high. All right, So I think it's time to get there. And if we don't, we can talk about Killer Moore and all the offensive creativity and all that stuff. But it's gonna look just how it's looked in the last few weeks. I would have to agree with you on

that one. I mean, look, this team, they have to get back to the run, and they got ten days. They got ten days to figure out. I'll get back in the lab, get these guys some rest. And speaking about rest and Zeke and Tony Pollard, in your opinion, should the Cowboys have I mean it's too late now, But should the Cowboys have rested that zeke? Because in that game last night, and me and you and me both we've watched it, it looked like the man was laboring.

It looked like he had a big old truck tied to the back of his back, and he just seemed to couldn't get out of second gear and he was hobbled a little bit, limping here and there. You could see he was just you know, on his face. Everything is demeanor. It just wasn't the zeke that we were used to seeing. Usually we see this guy three yards in a cloud of dust and by the time the fourth quarters going around, he's getting up out the pile talking about me. Feed me. You just didn't see that,

you know, last night. So to me, I want to ask you the question, is it it's too late now, but should they have rested him a little bit and gave him to those two weeks because now we get ten days off in between this Thursday and the following Sunday game against the Washington rest or the Washington football team. Should they have rested him? I'll say this, so I don't know the total breakdown on how many runs he had in the first half, how many runs he had

in the second. But if you weren't going to make him a focal point of the offense, you should arrested the ship, all right, because like, I don't know enough about the injury, but I'm sure that Britt and Jim and Gee and all those guys they got a better idea of like what's going on with and what he's able to know what he's not. But what we do know about injuries is if you go out in pregame and you get warm and you're feeling good, right, and then all of a sudden, you don't do anything for

a while. You're not running the ball, you're not really having to use use that burst and get all this stuff. Do you get stiff? You look how Zeke looked when he turned that corner in the second half. Aside, that's that's when the injury gets stiff. That's when it's cold outside and all those old injuries start hurting. That's what Zeke looked like at the end of the game, right, And you can expect that when when you're coming out of halftime, you try to go to get a guy warm.

But if you're not gonna make him a focal point. Then yeah, let's Tony Paula get in there and get there, get those twelve carry thirteen carries and then rest Zeke. Um. I think that's where it makes sense. But if if the assumption was, hey, we're gonna focus on running the ball, like we've heard Jerry Jones say, like we heard Mike McCarthy say, then yeah, I mean, I guess they went with the right decision of trying to get him going, but we never saw him get going. Yeah, you're right

about that. Real quick before we take our second back, real quick, Tony Poler to Zeke, who needs to get more carries going forward? If Zeke's hobbled like that, Um, I think it's you're gonna have it's gonna have to be more. Even so, so Zeke got double of what Tony Parler got, I think it's gonna have to be more, even more off. And that's only because we need a healthy Zeke, like I said, because our running game is Tony Poler is great, He's he's also a change up,

all right. We need somebody with the power running game who can go in there and punish those guys, open open the lanes off for Tony Poler because last night we saw it. If it's not, if Zeke is not Zeke, then Tony Poler runs. Sometimes they don't go as long. Yeah, they might be a splash play, but you can't depend on that, you know, every game. All right, Well, look we're gonna take our last break here. This is the player's lounge, brought to you by Hotels that com one

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to the network. Specific stritchings and exceptions may apply to the players. Loude. We are back in this SWBC studios. This is the Players Lounge, brought to you by Hotels dot Com. Once again. I'm here with the Ultimate Survivor. You heard it right, Top ten, top six, he is in now Top six Babies, Danny mccraid, Ultimate Survivor. It's your boy, just an average box safety. So here we go. Mad. Look the whole offense, it wasn't all bad. It wasn't all bad. One person in particular stuck out to me,

and that was C. D. Lamb. This guy continues to just put game after game together where he's bawling like it. No matter how you get him the ball, whether it's screens, whether it's deep passes, whether it's intermediate routes. This guy is getting the ball, he's catching it, and he's making the most of his opportunities. So I ask you d Mack, Danny mccraigy ultimate Survivor, hass c D Lamb rolls to that number one position above Amari Cooper on the wide

receiver pecking scale. So listen, this is what I said. At the beginning of the year, I was hearing all the rumbles of what Ceedee Lamb was doing with a Mark Cooper out during training camp looked amazing. I even heard people compared to Dais Brian some of the stuff that he was some of the catches that he was making. And then you see a flash of it on hard knocks. You're like, oh man, this dude is this dude is

is serious? Right? So I'm saying I'm not gonnahead. I'll say, you know what, if you can compare to this guy to Das Brian and he's making those type of catches on the favor routes because I'm Mark Cooper can can do it, but that's not all right, then you also add what Ceedee Lamb can do coming out of the backfield running jet sweeps. Every time we've seen the Mark Cooper trying to get one of those. It doesn't usually

he ain't going down. You see, when you see ceedee lamb, get it in your mind, you're like, oh man, this this could this could go right here, right. So I think that he's a little bit more versatile to the Mark than the Mark Cooper at this point. He's also more available than the Mark Cooper at this point, which to me adds up to being yes, number one option, trusted option. But then you got to throw in shots. You got security blanket. Who's he more comfortable with at

this point, Schultz or Mark Cooper? Like It's like, I'm not saying that Shultz is better than the Mark Cooper. Please please don't. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying Shultz has been available. Schultz has turned into that winding type of thing that Romo had. But the connection that they had when you look up and you say, man, if DA's in trouble, who's he looking for? Shultzons catching the balls. I was actually more nervous when I thought Schultz was gonna be out of the game. I was like,

oh man, we're through, We're in trouble. It's gonna be all CD, right, So Yeah. Like, like I said, at the end of the year, I think we will come back to these conversations. Say, man, I think Cede lamb outperformed Mark Cooper one because he was available more in two because he's a little bit more versatile. And then shout out to Michael Gallup as well, who we've all said that deep ball and those over the show, those favors.

That's his specialty. And if you're looking for a guy that you want to pay ten to twelve, twelve to fourteen, who could make those type of place, you need to follow up. You need to go down got about. So like, if you're looking at this guy played when when he's able to be a number two and he had some type of help, we ain't getting double team. He can make some plays, So shout out to him. I saw on Twitter what they said. Then, uh it, CAZy is missing a lot of tackles. You believe he is? He

playing that bad? He's slipping a little bit. Yeah, I ain't gonna like his CAZy. You know he he had an interception last or this last game. But if you look at the angles that this guy's taken out of the post, it's just not good. I mean, half of the time you would think man or they didn't cover zero, like where's the free safety yet? But CAZy, he's just making He's just doing his own thing back there, just roaming it and reading, and you ain't got the cache

to be to be a reading out there. So you know, I think they definitely gotta gotta hone in on his skills and make sure he's in the right right position, because there's been plays where look at that that um the end of the game where Harris called the ball was like a punt retest. You're supposed to have somebody back there stopping everything. He took away everybody's angle. So I definitely think he needs to get better in his post sfety skills. But I'm right there with you on

CD Lamb. I think he's risen above Amark Cooper. One, like you said, because of the availability and two they highlight this guy. They move him around the formation each and every play. He's not gonna be just stagged it on the outside. He's not gonna be just stagged it in the slot. They move him around, hit him with the post or a pre snap motion, so it's hard for defenses to kind of focus in and get their best cover guy on him. I mean, look, how many

times was Lattimore watching cde Lamb yesterday. He didn't have an opportunity because he was moving him around. He's moving all over the place, so it's hard for defenses to pick up on him. So I think they're highlighting cdee Lamb, and I think that's what's giving him him the ability to kind of sturtplant Amark Cooper as that number one ride receiver. I mean, he's doing great things with the

ball after the catch. He's running great routes, and even though some of his catches are contested, he's making them. Malcolm Jenkins knows he's the number one receivers. That's why that's like your worst nightmare as a safety when you come now, this guy got half of the field and it's just you and him one on one and you in the full speed sprint. Yeah, that's just it's it's hard in that situation, Jenkings, if I'm Jenkings, you gotta just shoot your gun. Like If you don't, you just

get shook and get like this stuck like that. It looks wet. I've been in that position, Yeah, I've been. So we're not saying that we're gonna be better at it. Yeah, yeah, I would have. I would have broken ankle. At least he was able to finish the game. Broke my ankle out there, but he took it. So But but here one thing I want to maybe I read too much into it, but I can't remember back when Dez Bryan started to become the number one guy here before that,

he was returning punts last night. Okay, in previous games we had seen ceedee lamb be back there being a print return, said Wilson had the injury. I think, right, yeah, but did you see who was returning punts like yesterday? Was it? Was it? Okay? Am I see in the same type of pattern where I think Das broke his ankle on point return and then Jerry was like, hey,

no purpose. And then you start to look at what we had a Mark Pople being hurt and you're like, okay, we need CD lamps, so let's take them out return. Is that what we're seeing here? He's starting to climb the charts. Man, he's starting to climb the charts, and rightfullymself, the man's balling out. And yesterday he had another fantastic game, So hey, he's taking he might be taking over that number one spot. But let's get into the NFC's real quick.

We only got a couple of minutes left here. Are you nervous or should this Cowboys team be slightly worried that Washington is starting to pick up their game? I think they won three straight. Their defense is starting to perform a little bit better. Taylor Heine kids out there doing some things here and there, but they do have

a strong running game with Gibson and m Kissick. Should the Cowboys be worried looking in the rearview mirror that maybe this Washington team has an opportunity to catch them in the rankings because we still got to play him twice. Cowboys have a two and a half game lead onto the division. Should they be nervous? If the Cowboys are smart, I wouldn't say should be worried, but I think they should be aware. Right just based off how you've performed

since the bye week. I don't think there's any gimmes right even last night. Even last night wasn't a gimme. We spared seven on defense, We gave him the ball and they in our own territory a couple of times, and we end up with twenty seven points, you know what I'm saying. So we have It's not like we've been blowing them out of the water. And when when I made my picks and I say we're going thirty, I looked at you. I said, you don't think we gonna go thirty on the Saints And you were like,

we could. Yeah. So I look at the game last night, I'm like, you take off that seven. That's twenty if we don't get those four turnovers and all of a sudden, you don't know how we're gonna be able to drive the ball to turn and play. When when Parsons tipped to play and Kurse got the pick, it's the Saints. Were to keep running the football, they might have been

in the zone right there, we'll listen. And then also, as much as we complained about the referees the week before, that crackback block that we got all about that, that was one of the worst calls I've ever seen in my life. I thought they were saying, okay, he blocked them in the back, and I was like, it still was a chip tiki tack call. But whatever. But when they said that was a peel back, so you I can't even pick up blitzes now, Like, how about that?

Even my man's lined up on the other side of the formation, he has to get his read of a blitzing player. What is he supposed to do? Him at the quarterback to me like he's rest sometimes that that changed the momentum of the game, BROI momentum of the game. Shout out, shout out, shout out the best. And also, you know, I'd love to give a shout out to Grag the Leg. And you know I call him hooking left. You know, I give Greg the Leg a lot of a lot of flak on this show. But he stepped up.

He stepped up yesterday. I think he was two for two from the field goals, he hit a fifty plus yarder. I think he was three for three on his extra points. So he stepped up his game. So shout out to Zerline you did. You did a little bit better. I appreciate you because I got your fantas so you did a little bit better for me, So I appreciate you.

So good thing for him stepping up. But overall it was a complete game by his Dallas Cowboys team defensively, I think they played one of their best games offensively. Still a little bit of struggles, but we got time to pick it up and look, ladies and gentlemen, that's it for the show. That's one sixteen right now. Players Lounge were in the SWBCS two dos. Once again, I'm here with the Ultimate survivor. Make sure you check him out Wednesdays at I want to say, seven pm Wednesday

at seven pm. Top six, Top six, Top six right now, getting down to the nitty gritty. Only one more episode until the final two episodes, but finale's two hours or something like that, right, gotta be long. Okay, all right, so little you heard it here first, my man is in the top six thanks to CB our wonderful producer back there, always getting us right. Once again, this is the Players Lounge, brought to you by Hotel dot com. We will see you on Monday. We'll have Newis back

in here. No, I'm glad I didn't listen to NEWI to playing Mark Cooper and my fantasy'd have been super sick about that. So yeah, NW he ain't never taking a year advice again when it comes to football. But thank you for watching the Players Lounge and we'll see you on Monday. This has been a production of Dallas Cowboys dot Com and the Dallas Cowboys Football Club.