(00:00) Jerry Jones on Cowboys struggles
(23:09) Cowboys at Giants TNF preview
PFT Live with Mike Florio
Cowboys recent struggles + Cowboys at Giants TNF preview
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The Wells Fargo Active Cash Credit Card, that's real-life-ready. Terms apply. Learn more at Wells Fargo.com/activecash. This episode is brought to you by Progressive. Most of you aren't just listening right now, you're multitasking. But what if you could also be saving money by switching to Progressive? Drivers you save by switching save nearly $750 on average, and auto-customers qualify for an average of 7 discounts. So multitask right now. Get your quote now at Progressive.com. Progressive Cash Relief Insurance Company and Affiliate's national average, 12-month savings of $744 by new customer surveyed, who saved with Progressive between June 2022 and May 2023. Potential savings will vary, discounts not available in all states and situations. Heartbreak laid out Monday when they turn it around here in New Orleans. Hurts can back. Hurts step up. He fires. Trying to get some of it back, they'll get plenty. This gunner is running up. Go from, go from, go from, go from, go from, go from, go, go from, go, go from, go, go, go. Jordan Mylon, I thought the drive was over. It was not over because Dallas Goddard could not kick it into overdrive. He got farther than I thought he was going to get. Was not able to get to the end zone. That was one of the great moments from Sunday. It's a Wednesday edition of PFT Live. Michael Holly is back as he observed before the program started. I have yet to piss him off. My response is, I have a plan to do so today. What will happen? How will it go down? We've got two hours for it to play out. Will I do it early? Will I do it late? Will I do it in the middle? Will I do it continuously? We'll find out. Good morning. Good morning. I look, well, you didn't start there. You could have said, good morning. You, what's the London bingo card? You bleep, whatever. You could have done that. There's one in particular. But you were very nice. The first one that comes to mind, the first one that comes to mind is a horribly offensive word in the UK, but also was the last name of a sitcom family that was popular back in the '80s. No, it was the maiden name of the mother. That's what it was, the maiden name of the mother of the sitcom family. But you can't say that word. We didn't realize it. At one point, Sims let it fly. And we're still on Sky Sports NFL for some reason. So, yeah. It's just weird, and I've said this before. My God, I've said this before. There's one word particularly that will never say it's like horrifying. You rarely hear it. And they just throw it around all the time in the UK. Like it's no big deal. I don't know if you know which word I'm talking about, but if you watch any of the various British shows. Yeah, it's amazing. And every time I hear it, I'm like, oh my God, you can't say that word. And they just throw it around all the time. Yeah, see, you started off though. You didn't start off there. You started off with good morning bloke, my good bloke. It had a nice little British opening there. But I think your game plan is probably about 15 minutes in. I'm looking for it. That's what my scouting report says, 15 minutes in. The over under is 14 and a half. We'll see how it goes. Please bet responsibly. So yeah, I really continue to get good feedback from all of it. Like it's every day it's somebody different from me. And I'm not complaining poor me, but I got to adjust every day to somebody else. And I'm used to just sim, sim, sims. And it's kind of good. It's kind of nice. Frankly, don't tell him. Nobody tell him. It's kind of nice. They're not going to have to deal with the big meat head three days a week or four as the case may be. But it is an adjustment. And it's really not that difficult. It's like a variety pack. You know, when we were kids, back in the days when I used to piss in the garbage can. While trying not to miss saving cartoons. The little, I always love getting the little variety pack of cereal boxes. That's kind of what it's like for me. I got a variety pack of cereal every day of the week. Oh, I love the reference. Those variety packs. You had the corn flakes, which were like the boring ones. But then you had the little tiny fruit loops. Okay, the good stuff that your parents would. I don't know if your parents were like mine. They were just so boring. You know, that's not good for you. You have to get the cocoa puffs. You get the fruit loops. That was the good stuff that they give it to you in small doses. But they have you eat, you know, corn flakes or the old school generic, you know, the generic aisle. Remember the generic aisle? The whole aisle was black and white. It had all the just like the basic good for you stuff, but no fun sugary stuff. So yeah, I love those variety packs. But then people would get like corn flakes and special K and the boring cereal and dump sugar on it out of a bowl. The bowl is sugar. Just three, four, like just get the special K like what the hell. I'll do respect, but what the hell? Special K didn't get good till they started putting little chunks of chocolate in with it. And they added something to the flakes that gave them a little, you know, just a tiny sugary coating. Not much, not quite frosted flakes. But yeah, I miss the variety packs. I haven't had cereal in a long time, but it's probably because I don't even think they make the variety packs anymore. I've yet to see the variety packs in my local grocery store. I'm going to have to go on a hunt now. I'm obsessed and I'm going to have to find anybody. If you know, if you've got an Amazon link, any other grocery store link, Walmart, whatever, I need to find myself a variety pack of cereal boxes. We need to have show and tell next Wednesday. Let's see, that's our challenge. Which of us can find a variety pack of cereal boxes and demonstrate it? Assuming that my plan to piss you off doesn't work and you are back next Wednesday. If that happens, I'll definitely come back. If you piss me off, I'll look forward to it. (laughs) I'm a gline some ways. All right, well, we'll see. We got plenty of time to get there. And this is that weird day of the week, Michael. We haven't had this conversation. This is only the second Wednesday you've done. I never quite know on Wednesday whether we talk about the week that was. We set the table for the week to come. It's just this strange pivot. So it's kind of like when they have a meeting and they say old business before they get to new business. It's kind of like we got old business. What's the old business before we focus on the new business? And we got a topic that bridges old and new because short week football, which is ever present throughout the season now, involves the Dallas Cowboys. First time in a long time, probably first time ever they've played on a short week this early in the season because their short week every year is Thanksgiving. They've had the hammer lock for decades. We see them on the road against the New York Giants and because Jerry Jones does a weekly Tuesday and Friday spot on 105-3, the fan in Dallas throughout the season, he always gives us something good whether he intends to or not on Tuesday. So the Cowboys now 1 and 2. And the guys on the morning show in Dallas, they're not afraid to ask him tough questions. And they asked him yesterday, who's to blame for the mess that has been the Cowboys the past couple of weeks? Who's Jerry Jones on that? That's fair fair, that's fair fair. It's well known that no decision is ultimately made there for what I either have an acquiesce or approve it. That's fair fair. How could you think otherwise, if we are basically, whether it be who's out there coaching, whether it be who's out there playing, whether it be the stadium you're walking into, whatever it is here, that's the way it is. Now let me just say this, do I have a huge amount of input in making those decisions? When they've done their homework, they are very influential input to me. And we've got a lot of people when the Dallas Cowboys that have done their input. And I think I've forgotten what it is. Now I'm not trying to say this, but if you look at who's won the game over the last four or five years, Kansas City has of course, but we're not poor right? We're right in that bag. Now we're in a soft spot. We've got to get it out of it. Get out of it. You know you're not successful in the post-season when you focus exclusively on your success in the regular season, which is what the Cowboys have been, 12 and 5, about three straight seasons of 12 wins, and what he ultimately had to show for it. And by the way, the overrun on me screwing up a throw to sound was 10 minutes if you had the undergo cash or ticket. I should have said that was Jerry responding specifically to a poll from WFAA. 78% of the people who responded blamed him for the shortcomings early in the season. So he said that's fair. That's fair. And I, you know, what else is he going to say? Because if he says he's not fair, he's got to figure out who else to blame. If it's not him, he's got to point the finger at somebody else. Well, Mike, I was trying to help me out here because I listened to that a few times. And the first time I said, Oh, wow, you know, good for Jerry for taking responsibility. He's being accountable. That's a great answer from the owner/general manager. But then the, when I just listened to it there, I heard him say that's fair. However, there are some other people that I've, I think what he's trying to say is there are people I've given power to. They have, I'm responsible, but they have input. And they're to blame too. Is he, am I misreading that with the input thing? Cause I think input's the wrong. It's not the word I would use, but it sounds like he's saying that. You're right, but he's ultimately responsible. He does delegate. And when you make yourself the GM, on one hand, I respect it because I know a lot of these owners metal and they hide behind the football people they hire. And they make them accountable ultimately for the decisions that were influenced by, if not outright made by ownership that go belly up. And Jerry doesn't have that buffer. He can't fire himself. I remember Bob Cost is asking him that question years ago. Would you fire yourself if you could? Well, I can't. That's the beauty of being the owner. The owner never gets fired. That's Jed York's line from seven years ago. You don't dismiss an owner. So when the owner is holding the final say on football and the title of GM, it's on you. But yeah, there's others who are giving him input, but he's making the decisions. I don't know how many decisions he actually makes. I think the idea was, and when I listen to Jerry Jones, it's hard not to tune out because it's just word salad, word salad, word salad. How about them cowboys? That's basically his answer to every question. And he spun back around to how about them cowboys touting their regular season record over the last five years, even though they still haven't been to an NFC championship game since 1995. I just think this is another example of guy who says whatever he has to say to get through the question, find a way to brag, and please keep coming to the games. Please keep giving me your money. Please keep watching the cowboys on TV, no matter how bad we might be. And that's where he's a master. There's still America's team, even though they have nothing to show for it, Michael, in 30 years. He's so good at it. I mean, in that answer, he starts off talking about, yeah, I'm responsible, you know, no matter what you look at, I'm responsible for it. But then we start talking about, hey, when I took over the cowboys, you know, I fired the franchise icon, the legendary Tom Landry, and we won one game. And you can believe the stuff that people said about me, and we'd go around the country and whether you hate it, the cowboys, like why are we talking about this? Now he's giving us the oral history of the Dallas cowboys, not really focused on that poll, 78%. Now I'm surprised it's that high in Texas. I think if you're a non-cowboys fan, 78% sounds reasonable. I'm proud of them, the fans who voted because they're right. I tried to find a way to say that, oh, you know, it's 30% Jerry, and then put some on Zimmer, put some on Mike McCarthy. No, it's probably, I mean, it's probably 75% to 80% on Jerry Jones, because he's the tome setter. As he said, everything that's wrong with the cowboys, I think goes back to him. Everything, he's had a terrible off-season. As a general manager, it's been a really bad off-season from managing expectations to decisions that they've made on the field, to decisions that they've made with the coaching staff so far. It, it looks like a just an epically bad off-season for GM. And it's on one hand admirable to stand up and take responsibility. On the other hand, when you have no accountability, it's easy to take responsibility. Because he ain't getting fired. He owns a team. He owns a team as long as he wants to own the team. He can take responsibility for anything, and there's going to be no consequences to him. Unless and until, and this is the great conundrum that sports fans have, the only way you can send a message to an owner who is driving the franchise into the ground is to deprive yourself of the thing you love. We love the cowboys. We want to follow the cowboys. We want to go to cowboys games. It's an integral part of our fart, oops, sorry, part. Oh, an integral part and, and maybe, maybe it feels like fart, of our family experience. We've been doing it for years. We love going to the games. This is what we do. We don't want to boycott the cowboys until Jerry sells. We don't want to not watch the games until the ratings are so bad. The value, it's like it's too nebulous. It's too long of a project. You love, see, that's the thing. They've got us. We're hooked. Even if the drugs go bad, we still want the drugs. So the thing that would cause him. What's the cowboys drug? What's that drug called? Well, it's nasty. It's, it's, but they still need it. Cowboys fans still need it. So, and, and I feel back, because think of any name of franchise that's run by a bad owner right now. If you, if you love the feeling of winning, rare as it might be. And I think for some fans, you kind of get addicted as well to the feeling of disappointment because you get so damn used to it. But yeah, he's, it's a perfect situation. There's no way for Jerry Jones to ever face true accountability. So you just, you just keep going. You do what you want, motivated by whatever. And yeah, I'm responsible. So what? What are you going to do about it? Nothing. Yeah, you know what? I'd like to hear it. You're right. My, and it's, it's really a helpless feeling as a fan. Like when you have a truly bad franchise, let's say, okay, you said name a bad franchise, even though they won last week, the Panthers. So if you got, you have a guy like David Tepper. And you have, you don't even have regular season success. You know, we're making fun of Jerry for, hey, you're bragging about the regular season and your annual 12 and 5s and getting bounced in the first game in a playoffs or second game in a playoffs. Imagine being in Carolina, you don't even make the playoffs. You're out of it by November. And then you got an owner who's just sitting there. Oh, what Washington went through with Daniel Snyder for a generation. You're just sitting there saying, like, well, this guy get out of the way. You can't do anything about it. That's frustrating. The Cowboys are even more frustrating because they have some success. But you wonder, and this is what I want the radio guys to ask Jerry. How badly do you want to break that drought? And like, how badly do you want to do it? Because you say it, but your actions don't really line up with what you say. Like, didn't he say last year at the end of it when they got bounced by Green Bay? Didn't he say, we're all in? Well, not his comment. We're all in. Oh, yes. We're all in. Okay, you're all in. And yet you wait until the last minute to sign Dak Prescott. You wait so long to sign CD Land that he misses training camp. You get embarrassed at home. There's this circle back a little bit. You get embarrassed at home to Green Bay. You got Mike McCarthy and not that I'm saying, oh, the guy should lose. I don't know, roof for anybody to lose their job. But if you really want to get back to the Super Bowl and this guy is part of the problem, part of the failure, you bring back Mike McCarthy when Bill Belichick is out there. I wonder, you say you really want to get back, but all the actions seem to suggest that you're okay with the status quo. You're okay with just kind of being the face of the Cowboys without really asking some hard questions and making some tough decisions. From time to time, Michael, Jerry Jones will say you would be surprised by the size of the check that I would write if it would guarantee a Super Bowl victory. And it usually comes up in the context of the salary cap. My hands are tied by the salary cap. If we didn't have a salary cap, you would be surprised by the size of the check that I would write if it guaranteed a Super Bowl victory. And it dawned on me at some point this year. We would be surprised by the size of that check because it would be so small. Because I think at the core, Jerry Jones is cheap and he's done a hell of a job of hiding it in the salary cap era. He and Mike Brown, who are diametrically opposed on the surface and have fought notoriously over things like Brown's chronic refusal to sell the naming rights to the stadium where the Bengals play until they realize we better get some money because we got a quarterback who's pretty good and we want to keep him. Jerry Jones and Mike Brown are bound on one factor. They are both cheap. At least Brown is open about it. Jerry tries to hide it. Jerry tries to conceal it. You mentioned Dak and CD Lam. You're going to sign him anyway. Why the hell are you dragging your feet, kicking and screaming to do it at the last possible minute? When you could have done it back when Clarence Hill asked him the question, are you all in? And it was the context, the usual sense of all in. Poker chips, middle of the table, all in, yet we're all in, we're all in. And then he gaslit us all into all in being something other than all in. It became, we're very motivated, not, we're going to do everything possible. We're going to spend every dollar. We're going to make a big bet on this season. So I came to the conclusion when they were spinning their wheels with Dak, CD, and they got a gift in Micah Parsons who didn't hold out and should have. He should not be playing for $3 million this year, period. They got lucky with that. I came to the conclusion when it comes to dealing with their young talented players, they are cheap, they are short-sighted, and they aren't as smart as they think they are. Yeah, and to your point, the cash spending is not great over the last 10 years for the Cowboys. They are at near the bottom of the league and most people, because we spend so much time talking about the Cowboys and the focus is on them because they are entertaining and they've got some natural storylines and they got Jerry. Jerry always says something that hooks us. Most people don't think that about the Cowboys being one of those cheap teams. But when it comes to cash spending, they really are. And if you look at the CD-LAM contract situation, not that this is everything, but just think about workplace dynamics when everybody knows. Everybody in the locker room knows who are our best two offensive players. Well, Dak and CD, CD and Zach, Dak, one or two, one of them is one, one of them is two. Just take your pick and you're holding those guys up. And it's affecting training camp and it's affecting timing and rhythm. So on the field, it's a problem because you don't have CD-LAM there. Not that he needs some grueling old-school two-a-day training camp, but he should be there. But symbolically, in the workplace, and just think about it, if they're doing that to this guy, he's our best. It's so simple. He should be here. If they're doing that to him, what's the message to the rest of us? It's just unnecessary. You got to sign him. You respect him. He had over 100 catches last year. He had 10 or 11, 100 yard game. Just record setting across the board. Just go ahead and sign him. Why are we doing this? Where you got to wait until the last second to bring back a guy that you like? It's just, I just don't think he has thought of the ripple effect of just the thoughtlessness of just waiting an extra six weeks. Think about it that way. An extra six weeks to sign CD-LAM. It's foolish. That's right. And it sends a horrible message. You're absolutely right. And something dawned on me while you were saying that. At some level, look, Stephen's involved. We know Stephen's involved. Stephen does his fair share of media. It gets overshadowed because he usually doesn't say something outlandish, like Jerry does, either deliberately or inadvertently. Jerry is more entertaining. I wonder at some level, is Jerry providing cover to Stephen? Because, and I got to this spot because I'm thinking, look, and I don't mean to turn this political folks. I'm just using it as an example. We had a presidential candidate who stepped down because it became clear that the fastball is gone. We're all going to lose our fastball at some point if we live long enough to do so. Fortunately for me, I never had one, so I don't have anything to lose. But it's entirely possible Jerry's lost his fastball, but Stephen's been there side by side with him. And we know the story about how they managed to get him to not draft Johnny Manziel in 2014. They steered him towards Zach Martin. So they know how to manage Jerry when they want to. I don't know if they just decided it's exhausting that we just give up, but all this talk from Jerry and all this blame on Jerry, you know, Stephen's awfully quiet through all of this. And I wonder how much of this is really on Stephen for not taking the keys away, for not taking control at a time when maybe dad's best days are behind him. And I don't mean that disrespectfully. I hope to live that long. Jerry Jones is in the hall of fame. He deserves all the credit we can get. And hey, Michael, for all his faults, mission accomplished because we're 25 minutes in. And what are we talking about? The Dallas Cowboys, a fairly crappy team right now. But this 78% Jerry, maybe Jerry's just taking the bullet for Steven. That's interesting. I hadn't thought of that, but that would be okay. That would be a pretty good tack for Jerry Jones. It's my son. It as you said, Florio, I'm not going to get fired. So if I take all the responsibility for something that my son does, all right, who gets hurt? He doesn't get hurt because nobody's talking about him. I don't get hurt because nobody's going to take the Cowboys away from me. I'm never, he's made this clear. I'm never going to allow anybody to be the general manager. I don't care if Bill Belichick comes in here. I had Bill Parcells before. Nobody's going to be the general manager. So really, what do I lose by saying the people are right? By the way, you disappointed me there because I thought you were about to go down and I was looking forward to one of my favorite characters, one of my favorite pro football talk characters. Now would be Dr. Doom. I thought you were about to get Dr. Doom when you said, hey, as long as we live, and I thought you were going to talk about like the fragility of life and how we don't have that much time and one day closer to death. I mean, I was expecting that, Mike. So I'm a little disappointed. We didn't go there. Maybe I have lost my fastball. Maybe the end is coming sooner than I expected. When you mentioned character, I didn't even realize there are characters. There are two. There's Dr. Doom and there's Prison Mike. Prison Mike only makes rare appearances and there's yet to be anything this season once the games have started to activate Prison Mike. Prison Mike is lurking. Dr. Doom is there. There's probably some others I'm not thinking of, but I think we might be onto something here because look how long it took for us to figure it out for anyone to figure it out. I haven't seen and I try not to watch a lot of the shows because I don't know. Oh, you stole our idea or whatever. I have yet to see any clips on social media of anybody suggesting where's Steven? Where's Steven? What's what's he doing to counteract Jerry being too cheap and too short-sighted to recognize? We're going to pay these guys anyway. Why don't we pay them at a time that will give us the cap space that we could use to maybe sign Derek Henry? He got to ask that question again yesterday because he said after the game on Sunday, we couldn't afford him. Multiple people have come to the conclusion that that's a load of crap, including me. You easily could have signed him if you wanted to sign him. $5 million cap number this year. You could have done it. Find that in the couch cushions. Seller caps almost $250 million. You could have found the $5 million to sign Derek Henry. He got to ask that question yesterday. Man, he interrupted the hose. I'm going to stop you right there. He won't even let them finish the question about Derek Henry because he knows he's full of crap on that. Then he just kind of word-solid his way to the conclusion. If you listen to the answer, if you can keep your focus and that's hard for me because it's just like, is he saying anything? What's he saying? He eventually invoked the Randy Moss example. He mentioned that Jason Garrett's dad was a scout at the time and Jason Garrett's dad was basically standing on the table saying, "Are we crazy here? Are we nuts? This is the greatest receiver in NFL history and you're not going to take him?" And Jerry used that example because basically, this isn't the first time I've screwed up and made a bad decision on personnel. He didn't come out and say it, but by using that example, he's essentially conceding, "I got it wrong. Hindsight's proven me wrong." So regardless, they didn't want him. They could have had him. They could have afforded him. They chose not to sign him. And again, who's responsible for that? We're going to say, Jerry, because he says, "Blame me." Where's the rest of the mechanism? All these other people that get praised when things go well. When things go poorly, Jerry just stands out there and takes all the heat and nobody else gets any of the blame and maybe that's really... And this is why I like doing this because I don't know that I ever would have come to this conclusion, sitting in my office because I don't have the attention span to really devote thought. There's value in this, folks, because to the extent... We may be wrong, but we're exposing something. We're raising a question that no one else has raised as far as I know. How much blame should Stephen Jones get for the mess that is currently the Cowboys franchise? And Jerry's doing a great job of providing cover for it. It's a beautiful situation if you're Stephen Jones and maybe it's not that for somebody who is not named Jones. So if you're a great scout, let's say you're the number one talent guy, not named Jones, who works for the Cowboys, you'll never get the credit for finding Dak Prescott in the fourth round. You'll never get credit for bringing in a really talented free agent or just making a shrewd move because that's all on Jerry Jones. So maybe you don't get the advancement that you're looking for in your career to some of these other young scouts and college scouting directors get because their name is out there. They're getting credit for it. But on the flip side, Mike, things go poorly. You can't stop the run, which the Cowboys can't. When you get pushed around on the defensive line, your front seven doesn't provide any resistance. They're not talking about you. They're not talking about the players you didn't bring in at talking about Jerry Jones. So if you want a nice long career without any scrutiny, work for the Cowboys, you can hide. And only one who really holds you accountable is Jerry Jones. And if Jerry's not paying attention, even better. And what may plays the guy who gets most of the credit for all of the draft picks that they have found. They have done a great job of drafting and developing players in recent years. It allows them to win 12 regular season games. The problem is they make bad decisions about what to do with the dollars when it's time to pay or not pay. And it's not just a situation where they're cheap with Dak Prescott, CD lamb and Michael Parsons. They also have done some dumb things by way of spending. They never should have used the franchise tag on Tony Pollard last year at $10 million. They could have gotten him to a longer term deal coming off of a broken ankle. And I hate to be that ruthless about it, but that's how the game is. Guys coming off a broken ankle, you're going to commit $10 million fully guaranteed at a time when the running back market is depressed. That wasn't smart. They gave a significant contract to Michael Gallup, receiver coming off of a torn ACL and ended up cutting him. And he retired. So they have done some dumb things by way of spending and they've done some dumb things by way of not spending. But they've done a pretty good job and they've been roundly praised. That's one of the things Belichick did. And you know, back when it looked like maybe Jerry would circle around to Belichick, fire McCarthy and hire Belichick, somebody pointed out to me, look at all the times, the Cowboys and Patriots are getting ready to play each other. Look at Bill Belichick's comments about Jerry and Stephen Jones and the team they have put together there. He is. And this isn't a guy who's going to throw out gratuitous praise for anyone. He constantly praises them whenever he has the chance to do so for the kind of team they put together. But the question becomes, how do you properly hold it together in a way that manages the cap and that doesn't put one hand behind your back in the off season as you could go out there and find guys who will enhance your roster and make you better than one and two and make you better than a team that just looks lost in their two home games. They had lost a regular season home game in two years and they've looked lost the last two weeks. Now credit they, you know, they gave the Ravens a run late, but it was too late. They had already been embarrassed down 28-6 in the second half. You know, Mike, I'm just thinking about this with the Cowboys and hearing you talk about some of the struggles that they've had. Here's the worst thing you can say about your team. If you got a team that wins 12 games regularly and is always in a playoff conversation and you say your team is soft, like defensively, they're soft. And I don't know, is that on Jerry? That probably, or Jerry or Steven or somebody in the front office coaching staff, whatever it is, they're a soft team because when you're a fan of a team and your team can't stop anybody running the ball, the Ravens ran for him in like 270 yards. They ran all over him. So if that happens to you, your team saw. If you know the team is going to run and you can't stop it and they just do it over and over and the Saints did the same thing. When the Cowboys lose, you think about all their losses, that their high-profile losses, whether in the regular season or post season, it's usually somebody just saying, "Oh, we're not going to manage the game. We're not going to just take our opportunities. We are going to take it to you and you can't do anything about it." Saints did it. The Ravens did it until they kind of led up there in the fourth quarter. You think about San Francisco, the image that I can't get out of my mind a couple of years ago, playoff game, Niners, Cowboys, and we got the last play of the game, Ezekiel Elliott playing center. Run over. That is the image of, wait, here's this running back playing center on some crazy, I don't know what the design of this play is supposed to be, but this overmatch running back on the offensive lines, as it were, just being overpowered. So I think if you look at all the Cowboys losses, it's when they're just not physically up to the challenge. Teams come to them and say, "We got to punch you out. We got to punch you in the mouth. You can't do anything about it." And that's when the team has ultimately failed. Last three years in the playoffs, he goes back to the moment against the 49ers where they chose to have Dak Prescott scramble late and they were going to clock it and they didn't allocate for the reality that the umpire has to actually touch the ball and he can't teleport through the quarterback in the center. You have to actually stand aside and give him a chance to get there so he can touch the ball so you can spike it and they lost their final shot at the end zone to that whatever it was going to be. It never got started because as soon as Kavante Terpen got the ball from Dak Prescott, he got tackled so the play never got a chance to materialize. And then last year, hey, there wasn't some weird play at the end that Mike McCarthy had designed that failed because they got their asses kicked right out of the gates. And that's what happens when you beat the Cowboys. I think that would be the game plan league wide. If you have the personnel to pull it off, you just have to get on top of them early and they change. They when they get on top of you early, it all just keeps going. And it's the flip. It's like whoever scores, whoever gets the first 10 point lead, two score lead, you get a two score lead, that's the team that's going to win a game against the Cowboys because the Cowboys aren't coming back from it. And when the Cowboys have it, you're not coming back from it. And I don't know how you fix it, but that's become fairly obvious. They've been at their best when they get it rolling, score on the first drive, hold score on the second drive, game over, flipping around, same thing. Other team scores twice and you don't game over. That's it. Yeah, I mean, I think that's a it's a it's a mentality part of it is a mentality of the team, but I think it is personnel. I mean, you don't necessarily have players. A lot of fans aren't looking for the the great two down run stuffer who comes off the field for the past wrestlers on third down, but you need some of those just those big guys in the middle who can just who can just stuff the run and put teams in passing situations and need some pretty stout linebackers. I know the game has changed a bit, but then they need some linebackers who can say, like, this is not going to happen. You're not going to you're not going to run on us, and they just don't have those type of players. And I should have added, by the way, just to know the political animal. And you know this, the political animal that Bill Belichick is. Why does he continue to say great things about Jerry Jones and the Cowboys? One, he wants the job. But before he was a free agent, why did he say great things about Jerry Jones, especially lately? Because that's Robert Craft's rival. So it's a way to to stick it to Robert Craft. Joe's in a, Joe's in the Hall of Fame. Craft isn't it really bothers Robert Craft that he's not in Hall of Fame and Jones is. And so Bill will just go on and on about Jerry. Oh, he's great. Oh, he does great stuff. And if you look back, Mike, and this is, this is how you know this is really this is some dirty pull here on Belichick's part. If you look back and you see a comment that he was asked, Belichick was asked to comment a few years ago. Hey, Robert, to Hall of Fame candidate, what do you have to say about the guy who signed your checks? He said, uh, a pretty good candidate. That was it. That is pretty good. Next, you want to talk about third down defense? You want to talk about the, uh, you want to talk about the kicking game? You want to talk about the long snapper? So this is, this is some political business happening. You say you don't want to be political. Bill Belichick wants to be political. That's why he's raving about Jerry Jones because Robert Craft can't stand it. Oh, I've had people sending me clips of the various things Belichick says this year. And he's on too many platforms for me to even be interested at this point. But some of the stuff he said has made it onto my radar screen. And he's doing what he can to sanitize this idea that he can't be worked with. And sometimes owners make decisions. I mean, he's acknowledged you need two people to run an operation. Like it's just a lot of stuff trying to try to get folks out there who might be concerned about Bill Belichick showing up and taking over that he won't until he does. And I've kind of gotten unofficial bill Belichick watch list. And the Cowboys have been at the top of it. At some, at some point in one of these shows, the occasion will arise to list the rest of the teams that I'm keeping an eye on. But the Cowboys in the most obvious, I think at the end of the day, Michael and Jerry Jones has talked about it openly. I think at the end of the day, he's not going to pay him. He's too cheap to pay him. You know, the Bengals could be on the watch list too. Mike Brown definitely isn't going to pay him. I think at the end of the day, Jerry wants to talk about it because we'll talk about it if he talks about it. And he wants to dominate the news cycle. And that'll be the big mystery after the season ends. Is McCarthy going to come back? Probably not. Who's they're going to hire? Well, Bill Belichick's going to be hovering over everything. We're going to talk about the Cowboys. I think at the end of the day, I mean, if Belichick wants market rate, I don't think Jerry's going to give it to him. Yeah. Well, this is where he could though. This is where he could give it to him. Belichick may have lowered his price a little bit. The Belichick says I can work with anybody. And I don't necessarily need personnel control. I'll be the head coach. All right. So what's the market rate for just a really good head coach? Not the czar of the entire football operation. I mean, you can make the case that Belichick was worth it. You know, after, after a while, we lost track of what the number was 22, 25 million. Yeah, I'm not just coaching the team. I'm also the general manager. I'm the face of the franchise, especially after Brady left. I'm the face of the franchise. I've got championships. Yeah, this is the market rate. But let's say it's not 22. Let's say it's 14 or 15. Would you pay? Would he pay bill balance at $15 million to coach the team and stay away from personnel? Just be an input guy, but not necessarily the number one decision maker. I don't know. I really don't. I need to see what he's paying McCarthy because that's the thing. You never quite know exactly what coaches are making because they get paid by the team and then they get paid on the side. And it's okay because there's no salary cap. There's the actual salary that sometimes comes to light. And then there's the real compensation that gets hidden. So the guys who aren't making as much don't get any ideas. And I believe there's been collusion when it comes to coaches for decades and they'd be better off with a salary cap because there would also be a salary floor and everyone would know what everyone is making and you could negotiate better. But I don't know what McCarthy's getting. 15 million still sounds like more than what Jerry Jones would want to pay. And you raise an interesting point, would he truly, would Belichick truly submit to whatever Jerry and Stephen Jones and Will McClayer putting together? Maybe he would. And then there's the separate side of it. And this is where Jason Garrett says it would never work. Bill Belichick wants to be all about football and Jerry Jones wants to be all about everything else and could Bill Belichick ignore just his noise that's meaningless to what he's trying to do. This stuff Jerry says twice per week on 105 three the fan in Dallas because I think one of the first things Bill would try to get Jerry to do is stop doing that. No, I actually I disagree. I think I think he'd be fine with it because he knows going in that's what Jerry is. That's what Jerry does. And if you want to say there's a weakness to Bill Belichick's game, Jerry has taken care of two weaknesses of Bill Belichick. One recently personnel, I Belichick the last five years has just been a bad evaluator of talent, whether it's in the draft or free agency, just a bad job. Period. And the Cowboys, whether it's Jerry, Stephen or McClayer, they've done a pretty good job of personnel, drafting players and signing players. And the other thing is, he doesn't always want to play the media game. We know that with the he's doing it now, but he didn't want to do that and all the short answers and and just not really engaging on simple stuff with the media. Well, let Jerry handle that. In a way, Jerry Jones would allow him to focus on football. Okay, Jerry wants to do his thing with the fan. I understand he's not going to give up any state secrets. He's just going to do the Jerry thing. But what I'm concerned about, you know, keeping the intel inside the locker room, I know he's not going to break that trust. So fine. I think it'd be a good fit. You know, you're intriguing me as you say that. You're right. You just let him go out there and say whatever he wants to say. As long as you can trust, he's not going to give away any of the things that you don't want to be compromised. Just yeah, go pay attention to Jerry and I'll be over here doing my thing and no one will really know what I'm doing. That's an interesting point. I still think at the end of the day, money could be the key and built whatever. However, he would spin it. He's going to have to take less than what he's used to getting from Robert Kraft with the Patriots. And maybe that's another way to stick it, taking dramatically less from his arch rival in Dallas. Maybe that maybe there's a benefit to that as well. Everybody's talking about shrinkflation. Companies are now giving you less for the same prices before. At Domino's, we're giving you more. Mix and match any two medium two topping pizzas and we'll upgrade one to a large for free. That's moreflation. And that's Domino's for dinner. Prices higher for some locations select online only offer through September 29th. Prices, participation, delivery area and charges may vary. Two item minimum, PAM pizza extra, exclude specialty pizzas. Only one medium two topping pizza will be upgraded to a large. With the Wells Fargo active cash credit card, you can earn unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases you want and purchases you need. That means you earn 2% cash rewards on what you want, like season tickets to watch your favorite team and 2% cash rewards on what you need, like paying for parking. That's the beauty of the active cash credit card. It's ready when you are with unlimited 2% cash rewards. The Wells Fargo active cash credit card. That's real life ready. Terms apply. Learn more at Wells Fargo dot com slash active cash. This time of year, Saturdays mean one thing and one thing only. College football. With Sling, you get access to hundreds of games and the biggest network starting at $40 a month. That's just $40 a month. Sling takes your love of college football to the next level. It's a no-brainer. Streaming games and saving on them too and it's not just college football. Sling has live sports, news, entertainment channels you love and less of the ones you don't. So you save hundreds of dollars on live TV. Sling also lets you choose and customize your channel lineup so you can choose the channels you actually like to watch. Sling's cloud DVR lets you record your shows to watch on your schedule. There's no complex technology, no long-term contracts and no hidden rigamarole. Get rewarded for watching college football. Sling lets you do that. Visit sling.com/play to learn more and get started. That's sling.com/play. Sling.com/play. All right. Let's pivot to Thursday night football. One of the reasons why we're talking about the Cowboys today because we will see them tomorrow night at MetLife Stadium against the New York Giants. And the reality is the Cowboys for their postseason struggles, they do plenty of things right, including beating the Giants 13 in the last 14 times. Here's Jason Pinnock, Giant Safety on the Cowboys recent domination against their NFC East rivals. For Dallas, I mean, you've lost six in a row and 13 of 14, I think. I mean, are you guys, how do you change it? I mean, it's a new day. I mean, that's the only thing I could really say, man, I mean, it's kind of like, with that, my analogy goes towards my big brother. We joke about this all the time. It's like, yeah, he probably beat on me for 12 years, but that 13, I'm going to bust your ass. So this is what it is. I don't know that's a great strategy. You beat me up 12 out of 13 years, but I'll have my day. Once every baker's dozen of seasons, I will have my day. I was waiting for Jason Pinnock to say, okay, yeah, my big brother used to beat my ass. And then finally, one day I did it. I don't get the sense that it actually happened. That it actually happened. Did you beat your big brother? For someone who was a little brother, Mike, I've been in that position. I still remember the day that I got my first win. It was right around, it was probably like around 12 or 13, but I finally beat the big brother. But yeah, my big brother, he's three years older and he used to do some things. He really had my number and it was so bad. One time he beat me up and it was so, it was so decisive. I said, okay, the only thing I could do to get him in trouble is to exaggerate it. My mom wasn't home. So, you know, he got me and you know, I got some, I got some licks. I got, you know, swollen, swollen cheeks and all that. So, I waited and I could hear my mom coming around the corner. So, that's when I kind of laid out in the chair and I got some ice packs. Just doing this. Only thing I could do was just get him in trouble. He beat me up already. So, I wanted to get him in trouble with my mom. That's the only thing I could do. But then, once I did that pathetic maneuver, just to exaggerate the loss, then it was time to beat him. When I finally beat him, I was on my way. Yeah. And that's the way it usually goes. Once you do it, the worm has turned and you're now the big brother. It's not just settling for just a periodic flash you want to take over. And maybe the Giants can. I don't know one advantage they have. And this is a post that I saw last night. Cowboy's PR is putting this out. Ed Werder is the one who posted it. First time the Cowboys are playing a road game on three days of rest or fewer. Every other time they have played on a Thursday after a Sunday, it's been at home. Yeah, it's been Thanksgiving. Every other NFL team has played at least six road games on that kind of rest. And this is the product of the NFL's pivot to Thursday night football. The full embrace a decade or so ago when it became every week, every week, every week, the Cowboys always play their short week game at home on Thanksgiving. Now that the NFL and this started last year, we'll tell teams more than once and we've seen several teams with two this year. You're going to go Sunday. You're going to go Thursday, low and behold, the Cowboys get a short straw. They get a short week. And for the first time ever, they've got to pack up the operation and go on the road. And I don't know that it means anything, but they've never done it before. And for some reason, Cowboys PR feels compelled to put it out there. Like, let's build in the excuse for a little brother to kick our ass ahead of time. They're making us do something we've never, ever, ever had to do. Yeah, I don't know if that's going to be a factor though. I don't know if that like Cowboys PR, I know why they're doing it. And I think we look at this the same way. It does seem like a preemptive strike. Hey, wait a minute. Everything goes back against us. It's a short week. We've got to go on the road. Let's not read into this result. But the factor, this really comes down to which team is going to save its season. I really do. I think this game, the loser of this game is it's cooked. I do. I think the season, any playoff hopes, not the people are talking about the Giants as a playoff team. But I think playoff hopes are gone for the loser of this team. And I think that the coach who loses this game, watch out. Watch out. There's a chance that that coach won't make it through the season. Won't even make it to November. And really, whether that's Brian Deball, Mike McCarthy, one of these guys, they have to know it. Even though you'll ask them in a press conference and they'll say, we're just focused on this game, they have to know what's at stake here. This game only in September, but I think it has those kinds of stakes. I think you're right. And the Giants were a pleasant surprise this past weekend, winning in Cleveland, the one place where both the Giants and the Cowboys have won this year. They're otherwise winless. But the Giants the past two weeks have shown us something. If they actually would have had a kicker available to do extra points or field goals against Washington, they might have won that game as well. But you're right. This has fairly high stakes. I don't know that Jerry Jones would fire Mike McCarthy during the season because he just doesn't like to pay people to not work. But he did fireweight Phillips 2010 during the season and elevated Jason Garrett. And that's everything too. There isn't like the in-house successor. When Garrett was there, it was just a matter of time before he became the head coach. There isn't a guy there that he would be able to say, well, I'm just accelerating my timetable and I'm giving my next coach some reps. He'll be better for it if I get him some games. So I don't know that that he would do it. I think I think the Giants would be more likely to move on from day ball in season than Jerry with Mike McCarthy. But I agree with you. I agree with you. It's a whether the unemployment comes during or after the season. The chances for unemployment are going to go up for whoever loses this game. Well, Mike, there's not the young, you know, Jason Garrett on staff, a guy played for the team and they groomed him and they really saw his potential. There's not that guy. But you know this better than most. There is a former head coach on the roster who's not doing a great job because the defense is getting trucked. But there's a former head coach who had some success success and he's kind of a tough minded, you know, at times inflexible leader. So Mike Zimmer. Mike Zimmer's there. If maybe he's not your long term coach, but if you needed to do something with Mike McCarthy, at least you got somebody who has done the job and made the postseason before on staff, I think he would be the guy. My good friend Mike Zimmer is how he's officially referred to. Great friend. I'm not your good friend. That's good friend. My good friend. Mike Zimmer. Right. Back to this point of the Cowboys going on the road short week. This is week four. They go to the Giants this week. Thanksgiving. The Giants go to them short week. And that same thing happened last year. Lions week four went to Green Bay. Thanksgiving. Green Bay went to Detroit and I don't remember Lions PR pushing the idea. This is the first time ever. The Lions have had to go on the road on a short week because the Lions felt pretty good about themselves last year and they won that game now. Green Bay got them back on Thanksgiving. So I just, I look at that PR comment. I look at, I look at the situation. They want, they want to have that built in excuse because I think they understand there's a chance that little brother has something in store for him on Thursday night. Can't imagine though. Can you imagine? I mean, what have we seen from the Giants? If you look at it from the from the Cowboys perspective, is there anything that? Yeah. Well, okay. But you can, if you're, if you're the Cowboys and you've, you've beaten them 13 out of the last 14. Malik neighbors is dynamic. But in the last 14 games, you've seen some pretty good receivers, not neighbors. But you also saw the great Saquon Barkley. You've seen Barkley have some great moments for the Giants and it still wasn't enough. They, my point is they should be able to, they should be able to take neighbors out of the game. If that's their focus, if they're only worried about neighbors destroying them, they should be able to shade their coverage to neighbors and let everybody else beat them. Now, if they can't do that, whoa, if, if they can't, if they can't just take out neighbors and win the game, yeah, then Jerry Jones will say, yeah, I don't like to pay, I don't like to pay people not to work, but I'm used to beating them. I'm used to getting what we want from the Giants. And now we can't do that. It's got to be a change. Well, when the Cowboys went to MetLife Stadium to start the season last year, it was one of those games where score giants screwed something up, fumble interception, whatever block was a block. Oh, the Giants were driving down the field and look, I, hey, they got something going, blocked field goal. And then the floodgates opened and it was an embarrassing snoozer of a game. The Cowboys wrote all over them. This time around though, the Cowboys come in six point favorites. As we well established, they've won 13 out of 14 times over the Giants and the Giants are underdogs for the 19th straight time. That is a franchise record in their 100th season. Wow. Something of which they are very proud. Something that might be the only thing of which they can be proud all year long other than their decision to get Malik neighbors. 19 straight games where they are the underdog. Oh, that is, I mean, that's, that's almost, I mean, that's hard to believe, isn't it? Like 19 straight games. And so that's why I say, even though it's September, this is, this is a must win for both teams. And I usually don't use that, that phrase, but it is because if you're the owner of the team, 19 straight games, you're the underdog suggests that your fans are starting to be, starting to feel hopeless. Your, your fans are angry and hopeless. And so if you lose the game, again, you're an underdog, you lose your one in three. You don't have anything outside of Malik neighbors of Daniel Jones, reverse. Then at, from an owner, from an ownership perspective, you got to do what you've done a lot in the last 10 years. You got to think about changing the head coach. And I know Brian Deball knows that there's no question that's got to be on his mind. I think that streak is going to get past 20. And then some next week they're at Seattle. They will be underdogs there week six. They have the Bengals coming to town for Sunday night football. Now the Bengals should be favored. But if the Bengals are winless, will they be favored? And wouldn't that be the ultimate salt in the wound for the Giants? The Bengals, if they're winless, would still be favored. They have Carolina this week though. I think the Bengals won't be winless. Then it's the Eagles and sake won't Barkley come into town. Then it's at Pittsburgh. Then it's Washington, who suddenly has something with Jayden Daniels. It won't be until week 10 at Carolina. And it's not at Carolina. It's going to be in Germany that I think the Giants will end this streak of games in which they're underdogs. And then the streak ender, what's your prediction? Two point favorites? Because you can't give them the automatic three because they're not really at home. So what do you give them? Two and a half? Two? I it'll probably be in that range of two and a half or three. Now there's still a lot of football to be played between now and then. And I'm looking at week 11 by week that that at Panthers in Germany could be the Debo Swan song. If he makes it that long that because that's always that's always the best moment to transition. You have extra time to get your ducks in a row and get the interim coach up the speed. Give him half of a chance. So we'll see. But this schedule coming up does not look promising for the New York Giants. And we'll get a good look at them on Thursday night. And we'll see them again on October 13 on Sunday night football and BC and peacock against the Bengals. And it may be well on its way to a real problem if they don't win tomorrow night. If they don't take advantage of the fact that the Cowboys are going on the road on a short week for the first time in franchise history and parlay that into a victory. It could be a long season for the Giants notwithstanding the fact that they won in Cleveland this past Sunday. All right, we have managed Michael in only your third time with me to burn through an entire hour without a break, which means we got a lot of ground to make up. And we're going to get to work on that when we return specifically focusing on the ongoing question of who the starting quarterback is in Pittsburgh and whether Mike Tom even cares to provide us any insight on that point. That's next year on PFT Live. Everybody's talking about shrinkflation. Companies are now giving you less for the same prices before at Domino's we're giving you more mix and match any two medium to topping pizzas and we'll upgrade one to a large for free. That's moreflation. And that's Domino's for dinner prices higher for some locations select online only offer through September 29th. Prices participation delivery area and charges may vary to at a minimum. PAM pizza extra exclude specialty pizzas. Only one medium to topping pizza will be upgraded to a large. With the Wells Fargo Active Cash Credit Card, you can earn unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases you want and purchases you need. That means you earn 2% cash rewards on what you want, like season tickets to watch your favorite team and 2% cash rewards on what you need, like paying for parking. That's the beauty of the Active Cash Credit Card. It's ready when you are with unlimited 2% cash rewards. The Wells Fargo Active Cash Credit Card. That's real life ready. Terms apply. Learn more at Wells Fargo dot com slash active cash.