Speaker 1: The following is a production of Dallas Cowboys dot Com
Speaker 1: and the Dallas Cowboys Football Club.
Speaker 2: Cowboys.
Speaker 3: This is nick shot, streaming live on Dallascowboys dot com
Speaker 3: and the official Dallas Cowboys apt now. Here are Bill Jones, Savannah,
Speaker 3: Hugh Mooller, Everson Walls, and Mickey Spagnola.
Speaker 2: High noon on a Tuesday, here inside the SWBC podcast
Speaker 2: studio at the Star in Fresco, where it is, well,
Speaker 2: it's in here. It's not eighteen degrees, but outside it is,
Speaker 2: and it sure feels like it, and things are chilly.
Speaker 2: And Cowboys Nation too. Bill Jones, Savannah Humoler, Mickey Spagnola,
Speaker 2: and Everson Walls is not here today. He's got other commitments.
Speaker 2: He's decided he didn't want to talk about fixed.
Speaker 4: I think chicken, come on.
Speaker 2: So here we are.
Speaker 4: I don't know if this was indicative everything, but just
Speaker 4: as soon as you started the show up on the
Speaker 4: NFL network was the divisional.
Speaker 2: Round schedule of games.
Speaker 4: It's like, okay, throw it right in our face.
Speaker 2: Yeah there you go, exactly all right, lot so much
Speaker 2: to talk about since we weren't together. I know, Mickey,
Speaker 2: you did a joint podcast yesterday for some of that yesterday,
Speaker 2: and so you've got things about the game that you've
Speaker 2: gotten off your chest. But new audience here for mixed
Speaker 2: shots fire away.
Speaker 4: Yeah, thanks, open ended. Right. So, as I was telling
Speaker 4: Savannah before we started that, you know, it's one thing
Speaker 4: to lose a playoff game, and then it's another thing
Speaker 4: to get beat as bad as they did, almost competitive.
Speaker 4: I mean, at twenty seven to nothing, did you have
Speaker 4: any hopes that they were going to recover? It was
Speaker 4: somewhat reminded me of that ninety four NFC play, an
Speaker 4: NFC title game against San Francisco that.
Speaker 2: Was twenty one and nothing was still fifty five minutes.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I know, that's what I said. I said, well,
Speaker 4: you know, they almost came back from that, but they
Speaker 4: still had three and a half quarters to play. They
Speaker 4: were down twenty one nothing, but when it got to
Speaker 4: twenty seven nothing, it was like, are you kidding me?
Speaker 4: This is not really happening.
Speaker 2: That was also a team that had already won two
Speaker 2: straight Super Bowls.
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, I know, and yeah it was you know,
Speaker 4: and I know what the feeling is out there. You know,
Speaker 4: everybody should get fired. But as I try to caution
Speaker 4: everyone that firing the head coach means you fired the
Speaker 4: offensive coordinator, and so whoever the new head coach would
Speaker 4: be better have an offensive coordinator if he's not the
Speaker 4: offensive coordinator. So it's not as easy as just taking
Speaker 4: off the head because there's too many other body parts
Speaker 4: that follow along with making changes. And I'm not trying to,
Speaker 4: you know, overly defend Mike McCarthy, but if you do something,
Speaker 4: then are you guaranteeing me that they're going to win
Speaker 4: twelve games next year? And you're guaranteeing me that that
Speaker 4: change is going to win the playoff game. So you've
Speaker 4: got to be careful. I think normally Jerry tries to
Speaker 4: take the emotion out of it and kind of just
Speaker 4: calm down and then look at things pragmatically before you know,
Speaker 4: making a move or not making So I think that's
Speaker 4: kind of where we're at. But I just thought that
Speaker 4: that might be the most unexpected, devastating loss that I've
Speaker 4: seen in my time covering Cowboy playoff games. And I
Speaker 4: counted them up before before the game, Derek had asked me, so,
Speaker 4: how many playoff games have you covered since I started
Speaker 4: cutting them up? And I said, well, this sounds like
Speaker 4: it's thirty two. I said, do I get to count
Speaker 4: the two I watched on TV for the NFL Championship
Speaker 4: with the Cowboys and the Packers. He goes, no, you
Speaker 4: had to be there.
Speaker 2: I said, Okay, this.
Speaker 4: Was the most I think. I mean, they've gotten beat
Speaker 4: bad before, right, but it was it was almost somewhat
Speaker 4: expected a road game at Detroit in the ninety one
Speaker 4: season when they got wiped out. They got wiped out
Speaker 4: by Minnesota that one year. It was ninety nine I believe,
Speaker 4: or O nine or nine. Yes, sorry, I think it
Speaker 4: was ninety nine two. By the way, there you go,
Speaker 4: because it was it was Tarrell Owens, not Aroll Owens.
Speaker 4: It was Randy Moss, right. He was all pissed off
Speaker 4: that the Cowboys didn't draft him.
Speaker 2: The minute of the nine game was thirty four to
Speaker 2: three at Minnesota.
Speaker 4: Right, And then and then ninety nine would have been
Speaker 4: at Minnesota also because they were a wild card team,
Speaker 4: as I remember.
Speaker 2: But that team didn't have the same hopes this team.
Speaker 5: No, definitely not.
Speaker 4: You're right, And it was twenty seven to ten and
Speaker 4: it was only eight and eighteen, right, yeah, and then
Speaker 4: in nine they got wiped out again by Minnesota. Yeah,
Speaker 4: So yeah, I just this was not expected. This was
Speaker 4: not oh we didn't get one more play, or oh
Speaker 4: it was a catch, no catch, or Aaron Rodgers throwing
Speaker 4: basically a hail Mary to set up the winning field goal.
Speaker 4: This was just a butt whipon.
Speaker 6: So Savannah saying, I had to let Vicky do is
Speaker 6: his rant first and then you know, see where we're at.
Speaker 7: But I mean, I also knew it was the turning
Speaker 7: point in that second quarter. I was actually standing in
Speaker 7: the end zone tunnel right when Dak had thrown the
Speaker 7: interception and they ran it back in at Green Bay,
Speaker 7: and the entire Green Bay defense is just running right
Speaker 7: at me, right at the cameras everything, and just the
Speaker 7: fans around me because there were like one of the
Speaker 7: field suites and then people behind me. The amount of
Speaker 7: just screams and all the thing. I just was shocked
Speaker 7: in that moment, and that's when I realized, I don't
Speaker 7: think we're coming back.
Speaker 2: It was like watching a horror movie.
Speaker 5: Correct a slow, slow car.
Speaker 2: Crash and then got very fast right there, and then
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, oh, okay, here we go, so
Speaker 2: here we are, and there's there are so many questions
Speaker 2: to be answered and you have to let the let
Speaker 2: time pass and we're people upstairs figure things out.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I ran into Steven yesterday and I I can't
Speaker 4: remember how it happened, and something about how's it going?
Speaker 4: And he goes hanging hanging tight, just like that, which
Speaker 4: was not the answer question to ask, right. I learned
Speaker 4: that from Bill Parcells after a loss. When we saw
Speaker 4: him the next day, he said hi, and I said Hi,
Speaker 4: how's it going? He goes, not real, Well, he was honest.
Speaker 4: So now I've learned to just say hi to him
Speaker 4: and not ask how it's going, out.
Speaker 2: Of just what you normally say.
Speaker 4: Right, But yeah, so to me, you know, there's also
Speaker 4: there's always personnel questions, but then there's also you know,
Speaker 4: why in the world did you decide to play zone
Speaker 4: on defense in the secondary, And it seemed like they
Speaker 4: did it more than normal from what I can tell.
Speaker 4: And my only answer to that is they were trying
Speaker 4: to hide Steph on Gilmour's injury, that they didn't want
Speaker 4: him having to play man the whole game and not
Speaker 4: benjam and putting the Sean right out there to play cornerback.
Speaker 4: But it looked like they hadn't played much zone all year.
Speaker 4: I've never seen so wide open receivers in my entire life.
Speaker 4: Like there was just miscoverages And the worst was the
Speaker 4: touchdown passed the Musgrave when he stood there by himself.
Speaker 4: It seemed like forever waiting for the past to get there.
Speaker 4: What is back to the end zone standing still.
Speaker 2: To catch like hot right?
Speaker 4: Yes, all I could think of, he's got to be thinking,
Speaker 4: oh my god, don't drop this.
Speaker 2: And it's just a mental bust on that play, right,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 4: Defensively, yeah, it wasn't like they beat somebody.
Speaker 2: Or communication mix up, you know, and it was like.
Speaker 4: But how many of those were there? And so I
Speaker 4: went back and I got the big play type things,
Speaker 4: and so they give you the top ten. Nine of
Speaker 4: them were fifteen yards or more. They had a twenty,
Speaker 4: a twenty two, a twenty six, a twenty seven, a
Speaker 4: thirty nine, and a forty six.
Speaker 2: I believe it.
Speaker 4: We saw it right, and it was just so uncommon
Speaker 4: for that defense to give up that many big plays.
Speaker 4: And so, you know, hand it to Green Bay. I
Speaker 4: thought they had a really good plan, and I thought
Speaker 4: they had a really good plan defensively that I think
Speaker 4: we've seen before from other teams. That have beaten the
Speaker 4: Cowboys that they're able to stop the run with a
Speaker 4: normal front, and they decided that they were going to
Speaker 4: put undue pressure on Dak Prescott and they end up
Speaker 4: sacking him four times. They hit him nine times. He
Speaker 4: was forced to run with the ball six times. A
Speaker 4: couple of them were good runs, but that wasn't the
Speaker 4: design play. It was because of the pressure. And he
Speaker 4: had six more passes defense, meaning he's trying to fit
Speaker 4: the ball into tight situations and the passes were getting
Speaker 4: broken up. So those two things, I think really held
Speaker 4: this offense down to sixteen points until they decided that okay,
Speaker 4: we're not giving up any big plays. You can gain
Speaker 4: all the yards you want, score all the touchdowns you want.
Speaker 4: We still got forty eight points, right, Well.
Speaker 2: The most disappointing thing for me was the play of
Speaker 2: the defense, and you could see it coming in the
Speaker 2: last month of the season, and I spent a good
Speaker 2: part of yesterday morning just trying to figure out the
Speaker 2: linebacker situation. It's been It's bugged me the whole second
Speaker 2: half of the season when Leyton vander Esh wasn't replaced.
Speaker 2: And I understand that you have difficulties during the middle
Speaker 2: of the season finding players to replace other players. But
Speaker 2: those are contingency plans that you have to have in
Speaker 2: place earlier in the season too. Or was it that
Speaker 2: dan Quinn said, hey, and win with this, you know?
Speaker 2: And it was successful in games where you get ahead.
Speaker 2: It's not successful in games when you get behind and
Speaker 2: teams can just run on you. But I mean, you
Speaker 2: go back and look at the linebacking depth chart on
Speaker 2: this team, and I don't look at Marquise Bell as
Speaker 2: being a linebacker. Bless his heart. I think he played
Speaker 2: had a great season moving from safety playing linebacker for
Speaker 2: the first time in his life and subpast. And then
Speaker 2: the idea was after Overshown went down with the injury
Speaker 2: in the preseason that okay, he's in sub packages. He's
Speaker 2: basically replacing Overshown, similar size player. Overshown two hundred and
Speaker 2: twenty pounds. Bell's listed at two ten on the roster.
Speaker 2: But okay, you get into a situation now late in
Speaker 2: the year against Buffalo and the games on the line
Speaker 2: against Miami and Detroit, and you know, and he was
Speaker 2: nicked up in one game where they were playing jy
Speaker 2: Ron Curse at linebacker alongside the Montclark, but you basically
Speaker 2: only had one linebacker who got any defensive snaps and
Speaker 2: DeMont Clark in the last half of the season. And
Speaker 2: you know the Packers when they prepared to face and
Speaker 2: that's why they take the football to start the game.
Speaker 2: They want that they knew the key to this game
Speaker 2: is get ahead, get ahead, and stay it. And then
Speaker 2: you stay ahead exactly. And and so it's a defense
Speaker 2: that is small and aggressive. And when things are going
Speaker 2: well and you've got the lead in the game, it
Speaker 2: it can come up with picks, it can come up
Speaker 2: with you know, turnovers, and but when you get behind
Speaker 2: and a team can just pin its ears back and
Speaker 2: run at you with a running back like Aaron Jones
Speaker 2: slasher who you know, they do a great job up
Speaker 2: front as far as him being able to have holes
Speaker 2: to run through. And you've got I mean, it's you
Speaker 2: look at the goal line situation first and goal at
Speaker 2: the one, and the Cowboys have four They had Parsons
Speaker 2: at left defensive end, two defensive tackles, Lawrence at right
Speaker 2: defensive end, and de Monte Clark on the right side.
Speaker 2: And your middle linebacker is fourteen Marquise Bell. You've got
Speaker 2: six DB's on the field on first and goal at
Speaker 2: the one yard line. And that's been going on here
Speaker 2: for the whole last month of the season, right, I'm okay.
Speaker 2: And so you don't have the personnel to stop the run,
Speaker 2: in my.
Speaker 4: Opinion, and probably the same when they ranted in from
Speaker 4: three yards out or nine yards.
Speaker 2: Or in the third quarter, where you need to stop them.
Speaker 2: But they're going to run the football, and when you have,
Speaker 2: you know, six DB's on the field, and then it
Speaker 2: causes problems when you're converting safeties down into the box.
Speaker 2: They haven't played linebacker for a living and reading and
Speaker 2: reacting and so forth. Now I don't know, you know,
Speaker 2: I got as much knowledge about football and my peaky
Speaker 2: finger as the guys down the hallway do. And so
Speaker 2: there's a reason why they were doing it. But it
Speaker 2: certainly didn't work in this game.
Speaker 4: And they tried, and I thought somewhat successfully putting Parsons
Speaker 4: at linebacker and having that tiger's front at times, but
Speaker 4: not often enough, I didn't think. And you don't let
Speaker 4: him run to the ball, don't just let him get
Speaker 4: overwhelmed at the line of scrimmage.
Speaker 7: Well, I think most of these issues started being a
Speaker 7: parent In that Bills game, that's when you really saw
Speaker 7: how they played and how the run defense was. And
Speaker 7: I think we can say from the Bills and then
Speaker 7: you go to Miami and then from there you beat
Speaker 7: the Washington Commanders, who you know, that was almost a
Speaker 7: given that you that you're going to win that game. However,
Speaker 7: I think we almost were all fooling ourselves a little
Speaker 7: bit going into the Screen Bay game.
Speaker 2: I think what you're looking at is you go back
Speaker 2: into October, and I agree wholeheardly with the everything you're saying.
Speaker 2: At that point in the season, there are no linebackers
Speaker 2: to go find, yeah, you know, to go get and
Speaker 2: they tried and they brought Brashaun Evans in earlier, didn't
Speaker 2: war they brought Shaq Leonard in and he wound up
Speaker 2: going with Philadelphia instead. And so those were the two
Speaker 2: at mid season that were available. But and so to
Speaker 2: Dan Quinn's credit and the defensive coaches credit, they figured
Speaker 2: out a way to make it work and get on
Speaker 2: a roll towards the you know, winning seven of their
Speaker 2: last nine games after Leyton vander esh goes down with
Speaker 2: the injury. But at some point it was going to
Speaker 2: catch up with them.
Speaker 4: So tell me if you sent a pattern here. They
Speaker 4: lost Arizona two hundred and twenty two yards rushing, They
Speaker 4: lost to San Francisco one hundred and seventy yards rushing.
Speaker 4: They lost to Philadelphia one hundred and nine, which was
Speaker 4: they were in the game. They lose to Buffalo two
Speaker 4: hundred and sixty six yards rushing, They lose to Miami
Speaker 4: one hundred and twenty five, no. Ninety one yards rushing,
Speaker 4: and then they lose this playoff game one hundred and
Speaker 4: forty three yards rushing. So there's a year six losses,
Speaker 4: five of them for at least one hundred and nine yards.
Speaker 4: So and that's been there. Their problem in the last
Speaker 4: couple playoff games too, given up last three playoff games.
Speaker 4: If you look at it, when they gave up two
Speaker 4: hundred and seventy three the twenty eighteen season to the Rams.
Speaker 2: Okay, so you're going back to twenty eighteen, Yeah, you're
Speaker 2: talking about the three three losses. Well, I mean against
Speaker 2: San Francisco last year in the playoff it was a
Speaker 2: tight game and they actually contained the run game.
Speaker 4: You're right, the year before they did, the year before they.
Speaker 2: Didn't, and in fact, in fact let's take a we'll
Speaker 2: come back and I'll I spent yesterday morning looking back
Speaker 2: at last year in the playoffs versus this year in
Speaker 2: the playoffs at the linebacker position and be able to
Speaker 2: underscore more of what I'm talking about when we come
Speaker 2: back here on mix shots in a moment.
Speaker 8: I'm Dak Prescott, quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys.
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Speaker 2: not there. He escaped, flapped.
Speaker 4: He'll look for a punks down.
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Speaker 4: To Mixed Shots.
Speaker 2: All right, we continue with Mixed Shots on a Tuesday.
Speaker 2: As we wrap up what happened on Sunday, we're going
Speaker 2: to look ahead to the offseason as well. Wrap up
Speaker 2: my thought on we were talking about the linebacker position,
Speaker 2: and I mentioned last year in the playoffs. Let's all
Speaker 2: recall that your linebackers in the playoff games last year
Speaker 2: against Tampa Bay and San Francisco, you had sixty four
Speaker 2: two hundred and fifty six pounds Layton vander esh In
Speaker 2: sixty five two hundred and fifty seven pound Anthony Barr
Speaker 2: at linebacker. This year you have sixty three two hundred
Speaker 2: and forty pound de Monte Clark and sixty three two
Speaker 2: hundred ten pound Marquise Bell at linebacker. So there's the
Speaker 2: mark difference in the size of the guys that you're
Speaker 2: putting out there trying to defend the run. And credit
Speaker 2: Clark and Bell doing the best they can, but you know,
Speaker 2: I just think that they were overmatched in some certain situations.
Speaker 4: Aaron Jones averaged five point six yards of Carrie three
Speaker 4: rushing touchdowns, which tied the Packers playoff single game record.
Speaker 4: He's now got seven playoff touchdowns rushing, most in Packer history. Wow,
Speaker 4: which means more than Jim Taylor and Paul Horny, who
Speaker 4: are both in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Speaker 2: By the way, the other thing about vander ash and
Speaker 2: bar last year, they got all the defensive snaps in
Speaker 2: the playoff games last year. Clark was strictly a special
Speaker 2: teams player in the playoffs last year, so this was
Speaker 2: his first time to play defensive snaps in a postseason game.
Speaker 4: See. And the reason we bring this up is it
Speaker 4: doesn't look like it was that significant, but it was
Speaker 4: so efficient that it was a hidden factor in the game.
Speaker 4: Right talked about all the big plays, right, and it
Speaker 4: was like, well, the past defense sucked well, but they
Speaker 4: were running the ball effectively to keep their attention and
Speaker 4: they did not get pressure. Now, there was one or
Speaker 4: two plays where Parsons got there a half step late
Speaker 4: to hit Love, but he didn't get sacked. He didn't
Speaker 4: get sacked, and all of a sudden, you start getting
Speaker 4: so run conscious. You're a half step slow trying to
Speaker 4: get to the quarterback. And he only got hit like,
Speaker 4: what was it, four times maybe, and he never really
Speaker 4: had to I don't think he ever ran the ball,
Speaker 4: or maybe one time because he he kneeled down for
Speaker 4: a loss of one, or maybe he tried to run
Speaker 4: at that time. But defensively, the Cowboys had three quarterback hits,
Speaker 4: no sacks. So that was a continuation of what we
Speaker 4: saw down the stretch. Other than the four sacks I
Speaker 4: believe they had against Washington, they had no more than
Speaker 4: one sack the previous five games, I want to say,
Speaker 4: and I can tell you that for sure. It was
Speaker 4: one against Seattle, one against Philadelphia, one against Buffalo, one
Speaker 4: against Miami, one against Detroit, and they got none in
Speaker 4: this game. So their inability to put pressure on the
Speaker 4: opposing quarterback also showed up.
Speaker 5: You got to give credit to Green Bays a line.
Speaker 7: I mean, they really did block for Jordan Love and
Speaker 7: they gave also the ability for him to pass in
Speaker 7: those moments when they weren't running the ball, and it
Speaker 7: worked for them.
Speaker 4: And you know what, and he was as good as advertising.
Speaker 4: We talked about it, right, throwing off his back foot,
Speaker 4: reading the field, but then again when you got guys
Speaker 4: that wide open, but he dropping the ball in the bucket.
Speaker 4: He was awfully, awfully good.
Speaker 2: And the other thing is it really shows. And then
Speaker 2: I think this can be an encouraging thing to Cowboys
Speaker 2: fans when you see what the Packers are able to
Speaker 2: do and the Rams were able to do as far
Speaker 2: as turning their roster over and using these young players
Speaker 2: draft picks. I mean, the Packers had thirteen draft picks
Speaker 2: this year and nine of them are playing primary roles
Speaker 2: as first year players in this league. The Rams had
Speaker 2: fourteen draft picks this year and they make the playoffs.
Speaker 2: A lot of those young players, including Puka Nakua, a
Speaker 2: fifth round draft pick. Second round offensive guard Steve Aveyla
Speaker 2: at a TCU is one of the best young offensive
Speaker 2: linemen in the league. And when you look ahead now
Speaker 2: with this Cowboys roster and where things are right now,
Speaker 2: you know, with guys along in the tooth at certain positions,
Speaker 2: with other guys that are younger guys who are now
Speaker 2: free agents, and what they're going to have to do
Speaker 2: in the offseason, you can you know, the interesting thing
Speaker 2: about the draft right now is be coming out of
Speaker 2: the COVID year. And I think one of the reasons
Speaker 2: that so many and we saw it in last night's
Speaker 2: game where Tampa Bay their Trey Palmer, their rookie sixth
Speaker 2: round draft pick, has a long touchdown catching that game.
Speaker 2: Guys got four to three speed out of Nebraska, and
Speaker 2: he's playing a primary role for Tampa Bay right now.
Speaker 2: I think what's happened coming out of the COVID years
Speaker 2: is you got old players coming into the draft. They
Speaker 2: had to set out the one year and they got
Speaker 2: the extra year of eligibility as well, and so there
Speaker 2: are more players that are ready to play coming into
Speaker 2: the league now during this two or three year window
Speaker 2: coming out of COVID than there were prior to twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: And I think the I don't know if the Packers
Speaker 2: or the Rams or other teams were looking at that,
Speaker 2: when you know clearly coming into this draft there were
Speaker 2: so many more draft prospects than in normal years, and
Speaker 2: I think it'll probably be more of the same this year.
Speaker 2: As we look forward to the draft, there are opportunities
Speaker 2: to get good young players who can replace players on
Speaker 2: your roster that are smaller salaries.
Speaker 4: And depth in the draft right right, what Bill's talking
Speaker 4: about like third fourth rounds that not everybody can be
Speaker 4: drafted in the first or second round that were prepared
Speaker 4: to play.
Speaker 2: The other part of it is coming out of COVID
Speaker 2: the new roster rules, where I mean you counted up,
Speaker 2: but you can go the Cowboys roster, the Green Bay roster,
Speaker 2: the Pittsburgh roster. Pick a team, any team, and there
Speaker 2: are probably seventy five players who were active for a game,
Speaker 2: seventy five different players when you consider the elevations from
Speaker 2: the practice squad, guys getting hurt and so forth. So
Speaker 2: you can take ninety players to training camp and you
Speaker 2: might have eighty of those ninety players who actually play
Speaker 2: in a regular season game for you. And it's been
Speaker 2: a really good thing that the NFL has done in
Speaker 2: changing these what were archaic rules in the past where
Speaker 2: you get injured and you're out for the year, you
Speaker 2: get placed on injured reserve. Now you can come back
Speaker 2: in four weeks or eight weeks, whatever the injury requires,
Speaker 2: and so you have to have more depth on your roster.
Speaker 2: And I think that's another reason why teams why things
Speaker 2: are so much different from the first half of the
Speaker 2: season to the second half of the seas and for
Speaker 2: a lot of these teams. Now, why is Philadelphia so
Speaker 2: much worse now than what they were the first half
Speaker 2: of the season. Well, they suffered a lot of injuries,
Speaker 2: and yeah, they went out and got a couple of
Speaker 2: veteran guys, but maybe they didn't do such a good
Speaker 2: job on the back end of their roster as far
Speaker 2: as having guys that can step in and play, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So there's a lot that goes into this that
Speaker 4: we were trying. I was just kind of looking at
Speaker 4: the guys that actually played in games, and it'd take
Speaker 4: me a while to count it, right, But I think
Speaker 4: you got a pretty good point on that. So I
Speaker 4: think I think that, you know, the frustrating part for
Speaker 4: the fans is they've seen this too many times, right,
Speaker 4: And like I said, going into this, this team had
Speaker 4: no responsibility for what happened. They're twenty some years in
Speaker 4: the playoffs, right, But it's the continued frustration I think
Speaker 4: that has happened. You know, I'm sure everybody's yelling, well,
Speaker 4: if we had a general manager, this wouldn't happened. Well,
Speaker 4: Philadelphia had the general manager and it happened to them.
Speaker 4: And I know Jerry does a good job of taking
Speaker 4: the brunt of the criticism, but you know, we know
Speaker 4: that between Will McLay and Stephen Jones that they basically
Speaker 4: are the day to day general managers. You know, Jerry
Speaker 4: gets the last say, of course, but those are the
Speaker 4: guys that are doing the work, and they've been heralded
Speaker 4: right everybody's you know, heck, just look at what the
Speaker 4: stories were going into the game. How good Mike McCarthy
Speaker 4: and Dak Prescott meshed, Oh, it's a different deal. And
Speaker 4: then you lose one and it's like, well, what the hell?
Speaker 7: Everyone flips yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: And including you know, many members in the media too.
Speaker 4: You know, everything was great and then you lose and
Speaker 4: it's like, well, what are they doing?
Speaker 7: I just think it was shocking everyone and this fan
Speaker 7: base especially had such high hopes this season.
Speaker 5: I mean, you have these seasons going back to.
Speaker 7: You know, with Mike McCarthy that are twelve and five
Speaker 7: and things look like they're progressing.
Speaker 5: Dak Prescott's having one of the best seasons of.
Speaker 7: His careers, and I think there was so much hope
Speaker 7: going into this, especially sitting at the second seed. You're
Speaker 7: on an eight game you know, wind streak just this
Speaker 7: season at at and T Stadium, you had the advantages,
Speaker 7: and then to just get blown out like that just
Speaker 7: in the first half was very shocking to the fan base,
Speaker 7: and I think that's why there's so much flip to
Speaker 7: what everyone is saying.
Speaker 4: And I think there was also this natural reaction that, well,
Speaker 4: they hadn't lost the game at home in the last
Speaker 4: sixteen and they went eight to o this year. But
Speaker 4: as I continued to say, sometimes it matters who you
Speaker 4: play exactly.
Speaker 2: That's what we've been saying all season. I mean, if
Speaker 2: they played San Francisco and Buffalo at home rather than
Speaker 2: on the road.
Speaker 4: They said, would have got beat.
Speaker 2: That's right, right.
Speaker 4: I mean, if you think about it, the best teams
Speaker 4: they played at home Seattle, I don't know if you
Speaker 4: want to throw them in there, Philadelphia, and we saw
Speaker 4: the playoffs Philadelphia, you know, I went downhill.
Speaker 5: The start of their downfall.
Speaker 4: Detroit they got by by one point, and when they
Speaker 4: played the Rams, the Rams weren't playing that way. And
Speaker 4: then the other games that they won at home, the Jets,
Speaker 4: New England, the Rams, the Giants, Washington, Seattle, Philadelphia, and
Speaker 4: then Detroit. So this was technically probably the best team
Speaker 4: they played at home at this time of the season.
Speaker 2: It's either of them are Detroit.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So, and they may be playing each other in the
Speaker 2: UNFC Championship next week, you know. And I mean we'll
Speaker 2: see if Green Bay go to San Francisco and win.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And there was I would them this whole narrative
Speaker 4: about you know, why are you so good at home? Well,
Speaker 4: sometimes it's who you play at least for this year.
Speaker 4: You know, you didn't play Miami and Buffalo at home.
Speaker 4: You didn't play the San Francisco at home.
Speaker 2: So what was the Cowboys' best home win? You just
Speaker 2: listed the Jets thirty to ten, New England thirty eight
Speaker 2: to three. Then it was the Rams forty three to twenty,
Speaker 2: and then the Giants, what was that score? Forty nine
Speaker 2: to seventeen, and then Washington was forty five to ten,
Speaker 2: Seattle was forty one thirty five, Philadelphia thirty three thirteen,
Speaker 2: and then Detroit twenty to nineteen. Now you look back,
Speaker 2: which was the best game they played?
Speaker 4: Probably the Philadelphia game, but that wasn't the best tame.
Speaker 2: But now I'm thinking about who they're playing. I think
Speaker 2: the best game they played was Detroit Troit twenty to nineteen,
Speaker 2: and they barely because of the opponent.
Speaker 7: Yeah, and I almost pinpoint the Seattle game, because I
Speaker 7: think that was one of the biggest games where they
Speaker 7: were down and they were proving their ability to be
Speaker 7: able to come back and win a game. And then
Speaker 7: Seattle went on and had a great rest of their season.
Speaker 7: But I think those games after that, it wasn't until
Speaker 7: we played Detroit that we actually won again, a very
Speaker 7: good winning, And.
Speaker 2: I felt like that game they played above their heads
Speaker 2: as far as stopping the run in that remember, and
Speaker 2: there was a lot of run blitzes and things like
Speaker 2: that against Detroit. Tackles for loss. Yeah, against Detroit. Seven
Speaker 2: tackles for loss in that game, and a lot of
Speaker 2: it is, you know, DeMarcus Lawrence shooting a gap and
Speaker 2: tackling somebody in the backfield or whatever, you know.
Speaker 4: And having said that, they still ran for one hundred
Speaker 4: and twenty five yards. But you're right, they made plays
Speaker 4: this game. They didn't make plays. And I got a
Speaker 4: couple I'd like to talk about, but we're all right.
Speaker 2: I'll get next a couple more Mickey would like to
Speaker 2: talk about as mix Shots continues.
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Speaker 9: You know that sound anywhere. It's the crisp crunch, that
Speaker 9: first nacho chip with its perfect cheese to sour cream
Speaker 9: ratio sitting atop a layer of delicious beans. It's a
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Speaker 9: Because while you can pile those nachos high with every spicy, cheesy,
Speaker 9: savory topping, there's no topping of cool pepsi.
Speaker 2: Finish nachos better with pepsi. That's what I like.
Speaker 4: To mixed shots.
Speaker 2: And mixed shots continues. We've got about eight minutes left
Speaker 2: here and then we are gonna be off from mixed
Speaker 2: shots the rest of this week? Can we do it
Speaker 2: on a weekly basis starting next week? How about this?
Speaker 4: You see that note up there?
Speaker 2: What is that note up there? That she watched the
Speaker 2: NFL network.
Speaker 4: Jordan Love first player since nineteen fifty with a one
Speaker 4: hundred and fifty plus passer rating in road playoff game
Speaker 4: one hundred and fifty seven point two, and at one
Speaker 4: point it was.
Speaker 2: Perfect, perfect, and then he threw that last pass, so he.
Speaker 4: Had an incompletion, and that incompletion dropped it a whole point.
Speaker 4: It was one fifty eight point three.
Speaker 2: Which is a perfect rating.
Speaker 5: Incredible.
Speaker 2: Jordan Love is going to be in the Packer Hall of.
Speaker 4: Fame without a doubt if he keeps playing that way, right, Okay, So,
Speaker 4: and there was just a couple of plays that stood
Speaker 4: out to me. I didn't get a chance on that
Speaker 4: first series to go back and look at the illegal
Speaker 4: contact on Bland. It was the second play of the
Speaker 4: game when they had the minus three. How egregious it was.
Speaker 4: But the one that stuck out to me was the
Speaker 4: non interference call on J. J. Alexander on the interception. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and you know, and they kept saying on television, well,
Speaker 4: he's got the right to go get the ball, and
Speaker 4: he does. But to earn that right to go get
Speaker 4: the ball, he yanked Cooks from behind.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 4: And it should have been either a holding or a
Speaker 4: legal contact, one of the two, and they just they
Speaker 4: just ignored it. And it was significant giving them the ball.
Speaker 4: What was at fourteen nothing and they got the ball
Speaker 4: at the nineteen yard line. Uh, and then they go
Speaker 4: in and score that. That was that was that was
Speaker 4: really big. The other one, I guess it was inconsequential. Uh,
Speaker 4: the offensive pass interference on Tolbert on the two point conversion.
Speaker 4: All he did was run his route and he he
Speaker 4: squeezed right behind between two guys. He didn't block anybody,
Speaker 4: he didn't touch anybody, and they threw the flag on that.
Speaker 4: It's just these mixed crews. I just don't like it.
Speaker 4: I do not like it because I think everybody's trying
Speaker 4: to show that how much they know by throwing flags.
Speaker 7: Well, how about Micah Parson's finally drawing a holding call?
Speaker 4: Two of them?
Speaker 2: Maybe once, but twice twice.
Speaker 4: Well, when you get tackle from behind and the guy's
Speaker 4: riding piggyback on you, it's kind of hard to ignore.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well it was it was time. That was you
Speaker 5: know broken.
Speaker 4: His late take on it that the officials tell him, well,
Speaker 4: you were so far out of the play you couldn't
Speaker 4: make that play.
Speaker 2: His response is.
Speaker 4: How do they know I can't? I can make plays
Speaker 4: that normal people can't. Mate, don't tell me what I
Speaker 4: can't make so anyway, I was gonna throw that out there.
Speaker 2: So what do you think about this off season coming
Speaker 2: up now?
Speaker 4: Well, Mike count they got sixteen unrestricted free agents, including
Speaker 4: the deep snapper who was pretty darn good, our star.
Speaker 2: Of the game.
Speaker 4: Yeah, all his snaps have been perfect this year, which
Speaker 4: is rather remarkable that they were able to pick him
Speaker 4: up off the free agent wire or sign him. I
Speaker 4: should say, Yeah, it's got a lot of work to do.
Speaker 4: And one of the things we've already discussed linebacker. Right,
Speaker 4: you got to figure out running back, and you got
Speaker 4: to figure out cornerback.
Speaker 2: And you got to figure out offensive line.
Speaker 4: And offensive line, mister Newton pointed out yesterday.
Speaker 2: Very I didn't I miss that.
Speaker 4: Well, he was talking about don't be afraid to use
Speaker 4: the twenty fourth picking the draft on an offensive lineman.
Speaker 2: Well, and we don't know yet. I mean, there's a
Speaker 2: couple of them that are long in the tooth, yes,
Speaker 2: Tyron and Zach.
Speaker 4: Right, And you better be prepared, right, not just assume
Speaker 4: you got a game or two out of TJ back, even.
Speaker 2: If you have them under contract, even if they are playing, right,
Speaker 2: it's you have to be prepared in case of injury
Speaker 2: right when you're Tyron is thirty three and Zach is
Speaker 2: also thirty three, right, So Zack actually a few a
Speaker 2: couple of weeks older than Tyron, believe it or not,
Speaker 2: even though he was drafted three years later. It's just
Speaker 2: a basy house. How young twenty year old Tyron? Yeah, Savannah,
Speaker 2: Tyron did not turn twenty one until December twelfth of
Speaker 2: his rookie season. That's how young he was when he
Speaker 2: came into the league in twenty eleven.
Speaker 4: So and Nate his contract is up, yeah, And Nate
Speaker 4: was right yesterday they got to decide is Tyler Smith
Speaker 4: your guard or is the tackle? Is the he the
Speaker 4: inherited tackle on the left side, and then just wherever
Speaker 4: you do leave them there, don't keep rotating or shuffling. Uh.
Speaker 4: And if that's the case, then who's your guard?
Speaker 2: And then Tyler Biada she's also a free agent, right exactly.
Speaker 7: There's a lot of changes to be made in this offseason,
Speaker 7: for sure, and a lot of rebuilding in those structures
Speaker 7: for a lot of position groups.
Speaker 4: And I saw saw Connor McGovern pretty prominent. Yeah, he
Speaker 4: kind of got in a little scrum on the sideline there,
Speaker 4: But you know he's starting playing well, So yeah, you
Speaker 4: gotta be you got to be very judicious what you
Speaker 4: do on this offensive line. Running back, he got a
Speaker 4: draft one, don't.
Speaker 2: You right, because you obviously Pollard and Doubtell are both out.
Speaker 4: There, and you know, I don't know what other people
Speaker 4: think of Pollard, And even if you brought him back,
Speaker 4: you still need uh, you need another guy cornerback is
Speaker 4: you know, I think Gilmour wants to play Juadan Lewis.
Speaker 4: Lewis is up, and then you've got Trayvon and coming
Speaker 4: back from a torn acl.
Speaker 2: You know, so if now you took care of in
Speaker 2: the at safety, you took care of Malie Cooker and
Speaker 2: of course Dotovan Wilson last year, right, so they're under
Speaker 2: contract and curses up, curses up.
Speaker 4: So yeah, cornerback position, you can't just assume Trayvon comes
Speaker 4: back as the same Trayvon right right off the bat
Speaker 4: behind your way. Now you got Bland and that's good.
Speaker 12: Uh.
Speaker 4: You know, I think Gilmore said that he wants to
Speaker 4: play another year, but he's got to have shoulder surgery.
Speaker 2: And bringing it back to linebackers Vagresh obviously with his
Speaker 2: injury situation, and you got Clark coming back. You got
Speaker 2: Overshown coming off in Aco coming back, and that's going
Speaker 2: to take that.
Speaker 7: That'll take development for Overshown as well, because you know
Speaker 7: he's just he hasn't done anything, so it's going to
Speaker 7: take a lot of development time for him.
Speaker 2: Got a lot of needs coming up here.
Speaker 4: It's always amazing to me that you get in the
Speaker 4: playoffs and whatever kind of wart you covered up during
Speaker 4: the regular season gets exposed in the playoffs because now
Speaker 4: you're playing the best teams in the league. And it happened.
Speaker 4: It happened, And here we are, right, how did.
Speaker 2: We do in our picks last week? I know we
Speaker 2: missed one game?
Speaker 4: How about the rest of the league?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I got I know, I got the Saturday games right,
Speaker 2: Houston and Kansas City, and I think we all I
Speaker 2: think we were split on Houston and Cleveland.
Speaker 5: I picked Houston.
Speaker 2: I picked Houston.
Speaker 5: Also, I picked Houston. I picked the Steelers. Work out
Speaker 5: for me.
Speaker 11: And then.
Speaker 2: I can't remember if I picked the Rams of the Lions.
Speaker 5: May I picked the Rams.
Speaker 2: I may have picked the Rams.
Speaker 4: I think I did too.
Speaker 2: And then well, of course we all in Unison picked
Speaker 2: Tampa Bay over Philly.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we did.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we did, and Everin missed them all by the way.
Speaker 2: He's so as we close it out, who's winning this weekend?
Speaker 2: You got The first game on Saturday is Houston at Baltimore. Baltimore.
Speaker 2: I like Baltimore. I really like CJ. Stroud, but Baltimore
Speaker 2: is gonna win that game in my opinion. The other
Speaker 2: AFC game is Kansas City at Buffalo Buffalo. I'll go Buffalo.
Speaker 2: So you got a Buffalo at Baltimore AFC championship game,
Speaker 2: which we will we'll reconvene. We can text week so
Speaker 2: we'll talk about it. NFC Green Bay at San Francisco
Speaker 2: on Saturday night, you're gonna pull the trigger on it.
Speaker 5: San Francisco Francisco.
Speaker 2: I'm going to San Francisco. And the other game is
Speaker 2: now Tampa Bay at Detroit Detroit Detroit Detroit. So we
Speaker 2: got a San Francisco Detroit or Detroit at San Francisco
Speaker 2: NFC championship game.
Speaker 4: How about cooler heads prevailing not trying to play that
Speaker 4: damn game in Buffalo the day before.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah yeah.
Speaker 4: And it took the governor probably to say no, we're
Speaker 4: not doing that right because she didn't want all her
Speaker 4: first responds in police, as she said, taking care of
Speaker 4: seventy thousand people trying to get into it right way.
Speaker 2: That was one case with the with what was going on. Yeah,
Speaker 2: on Sunday that could not have been played.
Speaker 4: So would you have gone over there with a snowshovel
Speaker 4: for twenty dollars twenty dollars an hour, I'd have done it.
Speaker 7: There's some Absolutely, there's some people that are going to
Speaker 7: go out there.
Speaker 2: Now, that's what zoom is for.
Speaker 4: I told somebody, I said, I used to I used
Speaker 4: to get two dollars an hour to shovel driveways.
Speaker 13: No, the problem was the report time, what time you
Speaker 13: had to show up.
Speaker 2: Time was that midnight.
Speaker 5: Because they yeah to do it all through.
Speaker 13: The night, midnight, just shovel through the night, So basically
Speaker 13: you're working the overnight shift at the stadium of the
Speaker 13: lights on.
Speaker 4: I'd have got there at seven in the morning, but
Speaker 4: not at midnight.
Speaker 6: People would do it just to say that they did it. Yeah,
Speaker 6: I got I got to be a period of it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 13: I do think it was funny that they'll add they
Speaker 13: put out it says in the morning, we'll give you
Speaker 13: a free hot breakfast in a warm area in a
Speaker 13: warm area.
Speaker 2: Like there's a warm area anywhere in Buffalo.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but they did a pretty good job.
Speaker 2: Yep, they didn't really they can go.
Speaker 4: They cleared the walkways, they cleared the field, well, I.
Speaker 13: Mean, come on the field. I'm talking about the stands
Speaker 13: that they were really there.
Speaker 7: He clear the touchdowns though, when the fans were throwing
Speaker 7: up in the snow, that was that was cool.
Speaker 5: That was pretty cool.
Speaker 13: I did think it was funny that your ticket doesn't
Speaker 13: where you sit, right, It was like it was open seating.
Speaker 13: Did you know that?
Speaker 4: No, I did.
Speaker 2: There's no way you could find kept I can't hear.
Speaker 4: I kept hearing was open. So if you get in
Speaker 4: the stadium, it's general mission. So wherever you can find
Speaker 4: a seat, sit down except sit down on the snow,
Speaker 4: except for the second level where the heaters are.
Speaker 2: Yeah, where they You notice that that's the best seat
Speaker 2: in the house. Yeah, well that's.
Speaker 4: Why they're youve got sweets behind.
Speaker 2: Uh huh. All right, Well that does it for Mixed
Speaker 2: Shots for this season, and we turn our attention to
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four next week on the next edition of
Speaker 2: Mix Shots, Oh Cowboys.
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