GBag Nation

State Of The Cowboys | 'In The Huddle'

From 'In The Huddle' (subscribe here): Jason and Baldy dive into Thursday Night Football and the Aaron Jones revenge game on Sunday.

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Broadcast on:: 26 Sep 2024
Audio Format:: other

Dallas Cowboys might have the worst d tackle room in the NFL. Jerry Jones has built a roster devoid of space eaters, devoid of guys who can fill gaps and take on double teams and and win. He's built the team devoid of special running backs. The offensive line looks to be in decline. Certainly if we compare it to two or three years ago, Baldi, when they were best to breed, it looks like a flawed Frankenstein football team and the giants have their faults as well. I tend to think it's going to be a cavalcade of points in this one. What's your assessment of the state of Dallas Cowboys right now? Well, I mean, it's not it's not a great roster. He said, like I played for the Cowboys. I know the history of their organization since 1960. You go back to, you know, Dan Reeves and Walt Garrison and Tony Dorsett and Emmett Smith and Tony Powell and Zeke Alley. They've always had great running backs always. They don't have one right now. It's just weird, you know, I'm Derek Henry. Maybe could have been a cowboy. He sure looked like a Hall of Fame running back to me the other day. But, you know, just, I mean, forget about the roster. I mean, if you want to stop the run in this business, you could stop the run. Okay. So you might have to sell out. It's basically if you give a Hall of Fame running back and open B gap because nobody's there, he's going to find the open B gap. If I can go pull YouTube highlights of Lamar Jackson and Pompano Beach, Florida as a 15 year old running a read option and the Cowboys act like they never saw. Like it's just a Simon football. So the thing that more than the roster, which is a concerning thing, more than roster is what about what are they doing? The basics of run defense are giving up five and a half yards of carry. You had no idea. You have up to 60. It looked like a bad college game the other day. And, you know, an SEC team against, you know, a small college team. But the basics of run defense, run gap, run fits. Like that's the basics of every defense. Get your heads in the A gap. Those defense attack positions are talking about, which isn't strong. But I put your, get somebody in the big gap. Let's fill the C gap. Let's set the edge. Like these are fundamental defense. And then if you go, okay, well, then you're asking Trayvon Diggs or Kaitlyn Carson or, you know, Donovan Wilson to make a tackle on a freight train in the open field. Well, they're going to close their eyes and grab air. So it looked terrible. It really looked bad. And so if you look at what the Giants are doing, they were terrible. Week one, it was awful. They got better week two, even though they lost, they had a chance to win. Last week, they played a good game. The defense just rattled the Sean Watson all game long. They took advantage of a broken offensive line like all those guys you talk about Dexter Lawrence, Brian Burns, Kvon, Ojolaari. They all showed up and Shane Bowen called a great game. Like he blitzed the hell out of Cleveland and they sacked him eight times, hit him 15. They, they, I would say dial up that pressure again. And if Daniel Jones, he wasn't great, but he's got a great player in Malik neighbors. He's got a dependable back in motor single Terry. The offensive line is playing cohesive unified football. There's not breakdowns in leaks. They got a fighter's chance. Now they've never had, they've never been able to stop Michael Parsons since he came in the right, he's ruined their offense. So and even when they try tripping him or double, like he still ruins it. And he chases Daniel, like, so to me, if they can do a reasonable job of containing Micah, they got a chance to win this game tonight. I'm very intrigued by Daniel Jones rushing props in this game, Baldi, because I like, why would you not like you get with single Terry in the pistol and you run sprint plays away from Parsons side? Like, I mean, it's not rocket science, right? You don't want to let, we don't want to let Parsons wreck the game. We run at him with power. We run away from him with speed and they've got the personnel to do it. No. Yeah, no, they do. I think Daniel Jones has to be a big part of the run game. I mean, I always to do is just pull out these Lamar runs last week and just how fundamentally unsound they were in stopping a basic read option play. Like Daniel Jones is good at it and he's been good at it. Now it's led to some injuries also over the course of his career. But I don't think Brian Deble was thinking about anything else, but we're in the game anyway that he can tonight and getting in front of that crowd and getting themselves to 500 and getting themselves into the race and staying relevant. So he'll do whatever he has to call tonight in order to get that done. So can Dallas, does Dallas work on some of those issues they had last week? Because it's just going to come, it's going to come out of this week. I would look into Daniel Jones and Singletary anytime touchdown props. The Cowboys balding have somehow allowed 11 rushing touchdowns in their last four games, 11 rushing touchdowns allowed in the last four games. Do the Cowboys even try to run the ball in this one or has that ship sailed? Like Dax going to have to throw it 40 to 45 times whether we're playing on the moon, whether we're playing at home, whether we're playing in the Meadowlands. Well, I mean, if if the Giants, look, I don't think they can just shut down CD lamb. He's just too, they move him around too much, but he's not playing great right now. He had a drop last week. He was part of the issue. But I don't know that they have enough right now for Dax just to drop back and throw it. Like that's not a good formula, like they look like a sawed off team. When you have Deuce Vaughn and you have Cavante Tarpon and Brandon Cooks. Like I like a big team, they're a little team. And you know, you're not going to you're not going to pound the belly of any defense with the running backs that they have, but it's up the deck right now. And they certainly have the, they certainly have the creativity to do a lot of things that did, did week one against Cleveland to nullify a pass rush to get some play. So, you know, it's going to come down really just to turn over. Which team takes care of the football right now? Yeah, Dak 10, three and one against the spread and his career against the Giants. I couldn't back him here the over. I like it, but you could have got it at 43 and a half. So I hate seeing two points. That's a big deal. And as we mentioned, Daniel Jones, rushing props could be a good play here. Baldi Green Bay, Minnesota, maybe, maybe my favorite game of the weekend. La Floor, it's been a master class from identifying Malik Willis to getting him ready to play so quickly to basically playing rugby week one with him and Jacobs against an Indianapolis team that can't stop the run, opening the playbook up more for the second week now that he's been in your building and probably a shock to the system, how well they passed them all last week. Also, they did a good job with the espionage of this, keeping that Jordan love door and jar just to give people something to think about. Brian Flores, I don't know that any defensive coach is better than him right now. He's not blitzing 50% of the time. Like last year, he has adjusted. He has adapted and he is still incredibly effective. And he's had the secret sauce his whole career against that Shanahan family tree. Like he's 3-0 against the master, Cal Shanahan himself. Yeah, this is a really, really intriguing matchup, which stands out to you about it. Well, all the things you just mentioned, Jason, you're spot on. I mean, you've done your homework on this. Floor has been amazing. I mean, they've given up 30 points in three game, Jason. CJ Stroud told Brian Flores after the game, like hats off. Like he was for the first time ever, he looked confused about what to do. And honestly, I've been studying for instance, it just keeps evolving. And now he's got Stefan Gilmore out there who's still on his game. Still a really good player. They know they can lock up a guy on the outside to free somebody else up. Andrew Van Ginkle, like nobody knows who he is, but just another Wisconsin linebacker that's been cross-trained can do everything. He could easily after three weeks be the defensive player to year. Like he's everywhere. You don't really know what front they're going to be in. You don't never know on third down who's coming and who's dropping. They play, you know, Mel Kuiper is making a big deal about cover two. They play food team coverage last week. Yeah. What are you going to say about that, Mel? I mean, I like now, but you know, I think they give you a lot. They don't let anything go over their head. Those two safeties Harrison Smith and Kay Vine, they're really good at what they do. They rallied to the ball, but I mean, Matt LaFloor is an amazing coach. He just is like George Love. OK, he got his contract got hurt when they trade from Leak Willis. I'm like, what are they doing? They're watching. He his first play last week was 30 yards to Jayden Reed. He hit Christian Walker with 30 yard spray faith. He ran on the opening touchdown of the game. They went right down the field and he and he was he hasn't come close to turn the ball over and they're running a little similar offense. What Baltimore has done, you know, with Patrick card and the power position that used Tucker craft in that position there in Green Bay. Some read options, some, you know, play action face. I mean, everybody's touching the ball. And oh, by the way, Josh Jacobs is still really good. So like there, this is going to be a great, it's going to be a great matchup. Now, maybe Malik Willis falters against his defense. And maybe that's the story, but you watch Sam Darnell with Kevin O'Connell, coaching matters, his creativity, his design in the plays, using Justin Jefferson and Aaron Jones, the two great players, they are. And the way that they manipulate the defense with their formations and their motions, it's, it's really good. It's, it's really creative, but I'm happy for Sam. He's got stability. He's playing great. I don't know if it's going to, if he's going to fall off the cliff anytime soon, the way he's being coached right now. I couldn't get behind either of these sides, Baldi. I just think it's such a close game. Like is Jordan love going to play? Is he going to play at full capacity? This is a big step up for Sam Darnell and that, and that group going on the road outdoors against this defense. That looks pretty good. I am playing it through Aaron Jones, though, right? This is an Aaron Jones revenge game. Aaron Jones since what week 15 last year has been going over a hundred scrimmage yards almost by birthright and Green Bay's run defense. Like the numbers, to me, paint a picture of a group that's improved, but still with the ways to go, like their 13th and run defense EPA this year, four, seven, a carry, I could see Aaron Jones getting his hands on the football quite a bit in the run game and the past game. Do you think he features in this game plan? Oh, I mean, I mean, last week called touchdown pass, he spread out wide receiver. They put Justin Jefferson in the backfield and they ran a play for Aaron Jones. He's a beach in the screen game. He's always been an excellent receiver. Look, the greatest motivator in this whole industry is revenge period. Like Aaron Jones has been thinking about this game since the day Green Bay gave up on him and they said, we want Josh Jacobs. I mean, you're going to get, first of all, the thing about Aaron Jones, you know, since the day it came out of Texas El Paso, the guys got great vision. He is like he sees, if there's a hole he sees that he finds it, he's got all the ability to get to it. The only thing that has ever slowed him down are some knickknack injuries. And that's it. Otherwise, the guy is an eight player. So, and he loves playing football. So he's, yes, he's going to be a motivated guy. He knows that field. He knows that defense. I mean, at least the defensive philosophy has changed, but he knows the players. You know, he knows Kenny Clark or Sean, he knows all those guys. So he's going to be, he's going to be chirping. He's going to be, it's like. I remember talking, I built a good relationship with him. I remember when he went to play in Dallas two years ago, he ran for four touchdowns. He was back in Texas. He's a Texas kid. He's from El Paso. He grew up a cowboy fan. He couldn't wait to play the Cowboys, Jason, and just put one on. I think he feels the same way about going to Lambo this weekend. Yeah, I like Jones over rushing attempts, 13 and a half. I like him over his scrimmage yards as well. Anytime touchdown, you know, he wants to Lambo leap it, right? Like it ain't going to be a Sam Darnell keeper from the two ball. The, I know that I have a feeling. I have a feeling that whoever runs his social media account, I don't know. If he has one or a big one, I don't know. But somebody's going to be on the sideline capturing him. Oh, yeah, they're making that leap, uh, when and if that happens, I lean under here. Green Bay at home last two years, six and three to the under Minnesota on the road. Last two years, six and four to the under, uh, Green Bay home games averaging 38 points. Minnesota road games averaging 43 points in that span. We're sitting right at that 43 and a half favorite play. But the one thing I'd say, Jason is, you know, Brian Flores has been there for two years now. So, you know, Matt, the floor has had a chance to kind of see it. Yeah, that just did a little bit. A lot of new personnel, Jonathan greener, all these new guys in Minnesota, right? Andrew Van Ginkle, a lot of new personnel. But what he's trying to do, especially on third down, I feel like Matt, the floor knows the challenge that Flores presents. I believe he's probably spent a great deal of time in the off season studying it. Like I want to know, I don't know the quarterback situation, right. They have done a great job with Malik and they have taken care of the football. So I'm curious what Matt has sort of gleaned from seeing this defense a couple of times. Yeah, that's it's a hell of a game. Um, I cannot wait to tune in.