00:00How do you fill a hole?
00:01Let's talk about it here in Below the Belt, which is brought to you by Window Nation.
00:08Back, uh, got my, my, my segment back.
00:11I heard yesterday the, the edited open that we had yesterday with, with Sean leading it, essentially.
00:18And, uh, by the way, I just want to say, I want to go ahead and cut the music for
00:21a second, Peyton, because I'm going to say this just seriously.
00:23Thank you so much for your concern and for texting me yesterday how I was feeling.
00:27I wasn't concerned.
00:28It did touch my soul.
00:30I wasn't concerned.
00:30However, you gotta justify it, Sean.
00:33We know you care.
00:34It was, and I know he wasn't concerned because the hour in which he text about what you were doing
00:41the next day.
00:42I just dressed up the way in which I was asking, are you going to be back?
00:45Yeah.
00:46But you could have said, are you going to be back?
00:47And you didn't.
00:48You said, how are you feeling, Bob?
00:50I felt like that was going to be a little bit cold to say, are you in or not?
00:53But that's what I was saying, dressed up with, how are you feeling?
00:57Honestly, pulling back the curtain, I told Peyton this yesterday.
01:00You can put the music back up.
01:01I had told Peyton yesterday when I called him after I put the video out.
01:04And I was like, when I heard that, I clipped it.
01:07And I was like, I'm not going to say I'm back until Sean checks in.
01:09Because I want to see, I want Sean to say, how are you feeling?
01:11And then I'm going to, we're going to mix this video down.
01:14I figured.
01:15I figured.
01:16It's all, it's all for content.
01:18That's what we do here.
01:19It's a content factory.
01:20You miss the show for content.
01:21Yeah, exactly.
01:22It's going to happen again tomorrow.
01:23I'm going to miss the show for content.
01:24So that's what you got to do.
01:26All right.
01:28ESPN took a look at the biggest roster holes for all 32 NFL teams following the draft.
01:33And I think this is a good chance to expand something a little bit more that we kind of
01:40touched on at the end of last week about the Cowboys pass rush.
01:44Because the biggest issue right now, I think a lot of people would say is they feel like
01:49the pass rush is just, it's not good enough.
01:52And the selection of what's the biggest hole remaining for the Cowboys from Todd Archer
01:56was edge rusher.
01:58It says the Cowboys have surprised a surprisingly solid too deep across their depth chart.
02:02Edge rusher is a position that isn't a hole per se, but it definitely has questions.
02:06Rashawn Gary acquired from Green Bay.
02:07Didn't have, or I should be clear.
02:09Todd did not write this one.
02:10This is just the article written from ESPN.
02:13So they did not credit this one to Todd.
02:14But it says Rashawn Gary acquired from Green Bay.
02:16Didn't have a sack in the final 10 games of last season.
02:19Donovan Azaraku is coming off hip surgery and has been limited in the offseason.
02:22Sam Williams had just one sack in 2025.
02:25James Houston had five and a half sacks, but couldn't play against the run.
02:28Maris Leifau is moving to the edge, but hasn't played the position before.
02:31And first rounder Malachi Lawrence is a promising rookie, but he's still a rookie.
02:35And this in general to me is more a question of roster management.
02:44Like if you looked at the Madden ratings for the Cowboys roster, you would look at edge rusher
02:49and say, that's probably the lowest group they have.
02:52So, so in that sense, yes, it is the, it's the weakest position, but I think it's, I don't
03:00think it's a situation like with linebacker where they couldn't find their resource.
03:04They kept looking for different resources.
03:06They were falling short.
03:07They weren't willing to overpay, but they were, they were clearly in pursuit of something.
03:11We didn't hear them tied to a bunch of edge rushers.
03:14We didn't hear them tied to a Dafa away.
03:16We didn't hear them tied.
03:17Really?
03:17I was interested in boy, a mafia, but they didn't really seem to want to play in those
03:21waters.
03:21Once they got Gary, they very much seemed like, okay, like we're good.
03:26Whereas with other positions, they have continuously hunted the secondary.
03:29They have continuously been searching for linebacker.
03:33We're finally added a couple of pieces and now they feel like they're, they're kind
03:36of stable there, but, or at least their bases are covered there, but we would all agree
03:41that that's the, that's probably the area where they could stand to add the most talent,
03:47right?
03:47Would just be at Drusher.
03:48We're, I mean, more consistent, younger, linebacker, linebacker's big.
03:53So the only linebacker is not solved.
03:55I know that we're all speaking of overhype.
03:57I mean, we could very well be guilty of overhyping Barham, but a hundred percent.
04:02Yeah.
04:03I mean, we did this exercise a couple of weeks ago in terms of injury confidence in
04:08revel, bland, overshown.
04:11Like, yeah, I still think corners is, is, is a need.
04:16Oh, here we go.
04:17Well, here we go.
04:18I threw out linebacker chop.
04:19He's taking it to, I just, I, I think, I think, I think that the unit as a whole is
04:29more important
04:30than those two.
04:31Okay.
04:32Right.
04:32Like, not, maybe not your number one guy, but your, your overall four that you have.
04:38Okay.
04:39I don't, I have zero faith in bland.
04:43Zero.
04:44Zero.
04:44I mean, I, I can't trust him.
04:45I can't trust his health.
04:49I know people say Downs is going to play a lot of nickel and I'm sure he is.
04:53I have no idea how good he's going to be at, at the NFL level at that position, because
04:58this is like, I don't want to say you're playing him out of position, but do we not
05:04try this with Byron Jones and say, hey, we'll just put him at safety for two years and he
05:07can underperform there when he should be at corner.
05:10Yeah.
05:10I wouldn't say that's the same because I, you get what I'm saying?
05:13It's like, you know, yeah.
05:15Modern nickel is so different.
05:17Yeah.
05:17I get it.
05:17But you're drafting a guy whose genius is safety and you're going to put him somewhere
05:21where he may not be.
05:23Yeah.
05:23We had that, we had that discussion late last week.
05:26In the best position for him to be, to reach his potential, his premium potential.
05:32Yeah.
05:32I mean, look, they, they've invested, I understand not feeling certain with what they have at
05:39corner.
05:40I would say that for them, if they're internally comfortable with Land's health, Revel's projection
05:48and that the struggles were related to something else, then when you look at it from that perspective,
05:52it just like, let's assume they do have comfort with those questions that we have, which are
05:57not necessarily about play, but more about like health and different things like that.
05:59If they have comfort with those, then what they look at it as is, well, we've got somebody
06:03we invested a third round pick in at cornerback.
06:05We've got a guy we paid a significant amount of money to play cornerback.
06:08We acquired somebody else who was a consistent starter.
06:10We paid the most money we've ever paid to an outside free agent in Jalen Thompson to play
06:18the nickel some for us as well.
06:20And we spent our highest draft capital on somebody who can play some corner.
06:23So I think they would look at it as though, as long as they are comfortable with what those
06:27questions are, then they would say all of our investment says we're spending on that
06:32position and we're trying to really invest.
06:34You know, I would say edge, but with the way you've been describing the defense, I'm not
06:40putting as much premium or concern on having your Bruce Smith, Micah Parsons type coming
06:48around the corner where I'm now thinking that our edge rushers are run defenders with some
06:56capability of dropping back in coverage versus third and 15.
07:01I'm coming to rip your head off.
07:02So he comes from, obviously we saw Christian Parker get a little, little terse when he
07:08said, no, no, no, I'm a, this is not going to be the Philly defense.
07:11This is, this is our defense.
07:12Okay.
07:12Which I get owned.
07:13You want to own your defense, but he does come from the Fangio scheme.
07:16He's talked about Fangio and Mike Elko being huge influences on him.
07:20So let's take a look at what those pass rush groups have looked like.
07:24Christian Parker was in Philly in 2025.
07:26The leading sack guy was Jay Licks hunt.
07:28He had six and a half sacks 2024 in Philly.
07:31It was Josh Sweat.
07:33He had eight, uh, the leading sack getter for Denver in 2023.
07:37When Christian Parker was there, that was eight and a half from Jonathan Cooper.
07:41It was six and a half from Draymond Jones in 2022 in Denver.
07:45It was six from Shelby Harris in 2021 in Denver.
07:47These are the leading guys getting sacks for those teams.
07:49Go back to college with Elko A&M in 2018, when he's with Elko there and Notre Dame in 2017,
07:56they didn't have much in the way of monstrous edge rushers.
07:59They had their leading sack guy.
08:00I think in Notre Dame was four and a half that year.
08:02And A&M was a seven.
08:04I believe it was Kingsley Kiki, but Mike Elko system.
08:08It's not like Elko's time as, as a P four slash five defensive coordinator or defensive decision maker,
08:14whether it be his head coach or defensive coordinator has just been littered with a bunch of big time edge
08:19rushers getting sacks.
08:20Cassius Howell last year and then Duke Ejiofor at Wake Forest in 2016 are the only times in Elko's 13
08:27years with a P four or five school where he had a pass rusher go over eight sacks.
08:31Wow.
08:32His high marks are usually five or six.
08:34That's similar to Vic Fangio.
08:37So Fangio, a guy that, again, I don't know why.
08:40I think people have just naturally thought of Philly as aggressive blitzing schemes with Sean McDermott and Jim Johnson.
08:45It seems like people are starting to come around to this.
08:48But in the past, they used to think of Fangio too, I think is a blitzing and he never was.
08:52And so when you look at the way that he generates pressure, similar, the last 13 seasons, like Elko twice
08:59in the last 13 years,
09:01Fangio has had a player get to double digit sacks with his defenses.
09:04They just, they don't.
09:06And one of them was Miami.
09:07It wasn't even guys that he necessarily had a bunch of time to like craft the defense to look like
09:10his.
09:11He dropped in, coached him.
09:13And, and that's what they had success with.
09:15But if you look at the two biggest influences Christian Parker has,
09:18neither one of them have had a big focus on monstrous, like aggressive pass rush coming off of the edges.
09:25They don't have guys just screaming off the corner, disrupting things.
09:29And I think that that's, that's probably on purpose.
09:32It's a scheme choice of, we really want to invest in the secondary, confusing the quarterback rather than just speed
09:39him up with getting a bunch of pressure on him.
09:40Because those guys, Aaron Rodgers and some of the top guys throughout history have been able to just make it
09:46happen faster.
09:46I'll just do it faster and we'll, we'll still be able to be on time with everything.
09:50Very frustrating when you're in a big game and in two seconds, it doesn't matter what you do with your
09:55pass rush.
09:56The ball is already out.
09:57Yeah.
09:57Think about how frustrated Micah looked last year against, against Dallas, where when he, there should have been 10 sacks
10:03there.
10:03If that was Dak from seven years ago, but Dak just knows how to play the game faster.
10:08Now he knows how to get the ball out quicker.
10:09He's seen a lot of football.
10:10He processes it quickly.
10:11He's able to get the ball out and able to have success with it.
10:14We did get the announcement yesterday, a little bit more of the Dallas Cowboys schedule.
10:19You now know it is the Giants.
10:20You put them in order real quick of edge, linebacker.
10:25If you want to throw in secondary, go ahead, but I don't think you're going to.
10:29I would probably go linebacker, edge, secondary.
10:35Linebacker is the one where there's just, everything has a question to some extent.
10:40Barham's a rookie.
10:42D winners has never been the green dot.
10:44Like, even though he's played pretty solid, he's, he's a really solid player.
10:47Like I would think there's probably an argument to be made that bar or winners is higher up the list
10:52of linebackers or higher percentile of good linebacker playing the NFL than where Sean Gary has been at edge.
10:58So you could, you could make that kind of a claim there.
11:00Um, all right.
11:02Cowboys schedule week one.
11:03They've got the Giants on Sunday night football week three is the Ravens in Brazil.
11:06I wonder if that'll mean that we can anticipate week four might be a Monday game or something like that.
11:13Just because typically they give you extra time off because that's such a long flight.
11:17And so if they're not going to play Thursday, Friday, something like that, the only way to get extra time
11:21would either to be make the bye week four, which I don't think the Cowboys know that or push it
11:27to where you've got a Monday night game.
11:28But that's a lot.
11:30You've got them in Brazil.
11:30You've got them Sunday night football week one and then week four.
11:33They're on Monday night football already.
11:34That's using up a lot of their primetime leverage on the Cowboys early week 12.
11:39It's going to be the Thanksgiving game against Philadelphia.
11:41That was the announcement that we got yesterday.
11:45And I would guess again, similarly, they've typically the way the NFL schedules these things.
11:50Dallas plays the week after Thanksgiving, either on a Thursday or they'll play at home in a like longer layoff
11:58time.
11:58It's like an extra bye week for them.
12:00And so I'd imagine that whenever we get the schedule release, that'll be similar.
12:04Watching you go through the math of this scheduled nerd stuff that only you and choppy like I tune out,
12:10but the travel and the plane distance and what they've done.
12:14Bobby's brain was working.
12:16That's what I'm trying to guess.
12:16I just want to know.
12:17His brain was working.
12:18I cannot wait for Thursday where I get all upset that they have to go play San Francisco on the
12:23road, come back home, and then go play L.A. on the road the next week, which is stupid.
12:28It's bad.
12:29Bad business.
12:30Be low.
12:30The bell.
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