00:00Let's make sure that Jake Ferguson is not made out to be a liar.
00:04Let's talk about it here in Below the Belt, which is brought to you by Window Nation.
00:09I use liar figuratively and sarcastically.
00:13Nobody get uptight about that.
00:14You'll hear in just a second.
00:15Before we get into that, I might as well just rip off the Band-Aid and get it done now.
00:21I want to cheer against John Harbaugh as much as I want to cheer against Wemby.
00:27I don't want nice things to happen.
00:29I don't want the Giants to be accelerated down a path of success.
00:33I don't want them to become an organization of consistent legitimacy the way the Baltimore Ravens have been.
00:40And so I said it the other day.
00:42I still have not put it up on the wall.
00:43I need to.
00:44John Harbaugh will not win 10 games a single year that he's in New York.
00:47That's not going to happen.
00:49But I'm having to question myself a little bit, and it's all because I listened to a commencement address.
00:54No, not the one Sean gave to his university where he cussed too much.
00:58I'm talking about the commencement that John Harbaugh gave at Miami of Ohio.
01:03Not big enough to get Florida.
01:04They got Ohio.
01:05Miami of Ohio.
01:06And he was given a commencement address.
01:09That's where he went, right?
01:10Yeah.
01:10It was five minutes.
01:11It was a five-minute long clip that got posted.
01:13It had three million views in 24 hours on Twitter.
01:17Wow.
01:17Because the clip leads off with him.
01:20Imagine if Jim actually spoke.
01:21This is just a section of it.
01:23This is him addressing.
01:24Jim called this host in California.
01:26He was interviewing him.
01:27He goes, thanks.
01:28You're a number one seed glazer.
01:31Oh, my gosh.
01:32Because the guy was like, oh, he's like, what an introduction.
01:34You're a glazer, my wife would say.
01:36And that's a great compliment.
01:37I listen to you.
01:38But basically, you're a little kiss-ass.
01:40Wow.
01:41A little Scott Zola.
01:42I'm so glad Jim Harbaugh was back in the NFL.
01:44I love Jim.
01:45And as much as I love Jim, I don't want John to succeed.
01:48And one has to succeed, John or McCarthy?
01:51Oh, God.
01:52John.
01:53That was a really dumb question.
01:5410 out of 10.
01:55You'd rather John succeed than McCarthy?
01:56Yeah.
01:57So you're a bigger McCarthy hater than a Cowboy fan.
01:59Yeah.
02:00Yeah.
02:02He's got to be right, too.
02:03Yeah.
02:04That's number one.
02:05Yeah.
02:05Yeah, right.
02:07There's a lot of people I'd rather see succeed that would probably get me in trouble for saying
02:11that I'd rather see them succeed.
02:14Kim Jong-un.
02:16I was going to say the cartel.
02:18If you listen to this commencement speech, this shouldn't move me, but it does.
02:24Because I wonder, all right, is too much of the ego in place right now with John Harbaugh
02:28since he's like, I've got to have all the control.
02:30I've got to do this.
02:30It makes me think, all right, in my head, he's an egomaniac.
02:33This is going to be toxic.
02:33It's not going to work.
02:34And then you hear him talk to these graduating students and you go, damn it, he might be good
02:39for them.
02:40There's going to be tough times.
02:41They're going to show up, too.
02:42You might get a call with some bad news, maybe about your job.
02:49Maybe they'll tell you they don't want you anymore.
02:51Time to move on.
02:56What happens?
02:58In those moments, I hope you'll find resilience and that you'll be able to rejoice in all
03:04the good you still have and all the people who still care for you, that you'll come to
03:09understand that there is a great opportunity on the next horizon of your life and that you
03:15can still walk together into every uncertain future with the people you love.
03:22What's so great about that?
03:25Sounds like every other commencement speech.
03:26No, that's just a snippet of it.
03:27I just grabbed the front end of that because he makes the Ravens reference there.
03:30But, no, when you listen through to the whole thing, there's such an authenticity and believable.
03:37Because, I mean, you get up there and everybody says the same words.
03:39That's the thing.
03:42It's that Jim Harbaugh emotion.
03:45You know how we're talking about Jim saying that Jim's authentic, though.
03:48Jim is Jim and you know that whatever you're getting from him is the real deal.
03:52That's who he is and that's, you know what it is, unless it's stealing signs.
03:55That's not always the real deal.
03:56That's kind of working underneath the rules a little bit.
03:58But, John Harbaugh, to me, just watching that speech yesterday, I was looking at it and
04:02I was like, he's somebody that I would look at and go like, yeah, I'll go into battle with him.
04:07Like, I'm on board.
04:09Like, I would charge into battle with him.
04:11So, I don't like that we've gone from Brian Dayball and Joe Judge and everybody else who
04:15couldn't get people on board and even Tom Coughlin, who's kind of a jackass, even though
04:19he was successful, to somebody who clearly can rally the troops.
04:23And you can compare John's speech at Miami of Ohio to Tom Brady's at Georgetown.
04:30I want you to challenge yourself with ideas that are uncomfortable and people who push
04:36you to be your very best.
04:38Even if one of those people is a cranky old coach who cuts the sleeves off his sweatshirt
04:43and screams at you all day, do your job.
04:46How did Georgetown get Tom?
04:47He didn't go there.
04:48He did not go there.
04:49No, no, no.
04:50He didn't even live there.
04:51I mean, I'm close.
04:53What connection does he have to Washington, D.C.?
04:55It's funny.
04:56But again, maybe his vote.
04:58I don't feel it.
04:59Like, Harbaugh, I felt it when he goes, we don't want you anymore.
05:02And he, like, pauses for the laughter.
05:04Like, Tom is just machining through that.
05:06The coach with the cutoff sleeves who says, do your job.
05:08Like, that's the, I need the authenticity.
05:12I need the human connection there.
05:14Tom's comedic timing is pretty on point.
05:16Tom can be funny.
05:17Well, it was in the roast.
05:18In the roast was great.
05:19Really good.
05:19All right, so we played this clip yesterday from Jake Ferguson.
05:23Jake Ferguson was at the home run derby that they do every year for charity, the softball
05:27derby, as Choppy shakes his head that he wasn't included.
05:30It's a home run.
05:31It's a hard one.
05:31Oh, is it?
05:31I thought it was softball.
05:33And Jake Ferguson had...
05:34We're going to get you in next year.
05:36Yeah, we better.
05:37It's been like three years.
05:38I promise.
05:39We got to get in.
05:40I'll figure it out.
05:41Get me a name.
05:42I'll figure it out.
05:43And Colonial?
05:44That media tournament that you guys have now that you kicked Mac Angle and I out of?
05:48Let's go.
05:49I'm not going to work on that.
05:50I was going to say, you can't get Sean onto a golf course.
05:52You're not getting on a Colonial.
05:52I'm not trying to do any golf course.
05:54So this is what Jake Ferguson was saying about where the offense is at right now.
05:58Yeah, last year, that's the starting point for us.
06:03You know, I think we barely scratched the surface of who we could be.
06:06And, you know, we look back at a lot of tape right now.
06:09And we say, hey, there is a lot we can clean up.
06:11And we're looking forward to it.
06:12And we've talked about this, that there's so many, and we mentioned it yesterday, they in all likelihood
06:17are going to regress because of various things.
06:19Javante Williams, is he going to have a career year again?
06:21Is he going to stay that healthy?
06:22Is Dak going to stay that healthy?
06:24Is George Pickens going to be the same motivated individual?
06:26Is there a chance he's going to be a little surly?
06:28Will he not play it to the same level?
06:30Will CeeDee Lamb get hurt again?
06:31Like, there are all these different questions out there.
06:32But we haven't really explored as much the idea of just, well, no, let's assume they are going to be
06:37as good as they were.
06:38And they actually have margins to improve.
06:40And there are reasons to think they might improve.
06:42And I think when you take a look at some things, first thing you're going to need help with next
06:47year,
06:47and it's not completely dependent on the offense, but if the offense wanted to take a step forward,
06:53start reducing the Kavante Turpin snaps on offense so that he can become a more efficient returner again.
06:59The Dallas Cowboys last year ranked 32nd in the NFL in starting field position.
07:05They were good.
07:06No, it's really bad.
07:08And with as consistently as teams were scoring, you know that's not just, oh, you're eating coffin, corner, punted in
07:13there.
07:13You were just not very good in the return game consistently enough.
07:17If you're just middle of the pack, getting up the field, you're putting your team in better starting field position.
07:22They're going to have more success naturally from that point.
07:24I didn't realize this until I was looking at things yesterday.
07:28Dallas was actually like middle of the pack last year in turnover percentage.
07:33Not raw turnovers, but how frequently their drives ended in a turnover.
07:37So that's improvement.
07:38Because Dak only had 10 interceptions.
07:39They weren't like way up near the top of that.
07:41It's not like they were way up near the top in terms of fumbles, but they also had so few
07:45possessions because of how much they were just getting destroyed defensively.
07:48What was their average yard line?
07:5028.6.
07:53In the league average, do you remember what that was?
07:55You're 31.
07:55You're three yards short every single time you touch the ball, which is an average.
07:59So that's real consistently.
08:00You're more like a couple drives every game.
08:04You're 10 to 15 yards short of where other teams are starting.
08:08One thing we also need to talk about moving forward, and Atolo brought this up and I was like, great
08:14point.
08:14We've totally ignored it.
08:15We should talk about, you know, we're all high and mighty and feeling great and fantastic.
08:21We need to talk about the Dallas Cowboys special teams at some point.
08:25Yeah.
08:25We need to talk about that.
08:26We had said.
08:27As a problem.
08:29I think we briefly talked about it.
08:32It wasn't like the sexiest topic.
08:33There was a lot of other stuff going on, so there wasn't a need to.
08:36There's a little bit of.
08:38All right.
08:38Talked about it with Aubrey's contract.
08:40Well, but you had accountability for Matt Eberflus.
08:43Did you have enough accountability for your friend Nick Sorensen?
08:45Right.
08:46Who's your special teams coordinator?
08:48Maybe there were circumstances that say, no, he did a good job.
08:51But I think you always have to check for biases and self-sacrifice and go like, all right,
08:55am I just, is he my friend?
08:56And I don't, I'm thinking too positively towards the job he did when in reality we need a change
09:01here.
09:01Yeah.
09:01I mean, there were a lot of bad penalties last year on special teams.
09:05Marquise Bell had a ton of them that he hadn't had previously in his career.
09:09What's going on there?
09:10Is that just Marquise Bell?
09:11Is that culture wide?
09:12Or is there something that Nick Sorensen's not doing right?
09:14Uh, the Dallas Cowboys back half of the league last year in red zone touchdown percentage.
09:18They were 56%.
09:18They would get into the red zone and only about half the time they were actually scoring touchdowns,
09:22uh, which is 18th in the NFL and way off of the pace of where they had been in previous
09:29years.
09:3024 was not great, but like 22, 23, they started performing much better in the red zone.
09:35They were closer to a top 10 team, which is closer to 70% of the time you're scoring touchdowns.
09:40So that jump right there, the 15% extra, if they can get back to that level and they can
09:45learn from some of that, that's going to be massive for them in terms of margins, especially
09:50in some of these one score games they play.
09:51I think you could miss Dak for a few games and they could still end up at the end of
09:56the
09:56year with a better offensive team.
09:58Oh, so not, not too long, but here's the thing.
10:02If you give me, let's say he misses our offensive team in terms of what, how are we going to
10:06hold
10:06you to this?
10:07Well, statistically, like I think you would potentially, you'd average more points per
10:10game.
10:10You'd be higher up in yards, like those sorts of things.
10:12I think you could still achieve that with Dak missing.
10:16We'll max it out at three.
10:17He could miss three games and they could still finish the year at the top of the league.
10:21And why are you saying?
10:22Because I think they could be so good statistically in the raw categories for 14 games and pass
10:27in those three without him with how, if he's the backup quarterback that they could
10:31have it.
10:32The big things there would have to be, if you've got CD lamb healthy for these games, the offensive
10:36line should be and better be better almost across the board.
10:41Tyler Smith did not have a great year last year.
10:43Tyler Guyton, they have not settled down left tackle.
10:46Terrence Steele, hopefully finding some stability in his second year next to Tyler Booker.
10:50Cooper Beebe has been a guy who's shown he consistently gets better at center.
10:54I would expect Beebe's going to be better.
10:56Tyler Smith is going to be better.
10:57I hope Steele and Guyton are better.
10:59That's, that's the one that you're hoping for.
11:01But realistically, if Guyton's just healthy, I think that alone makes them better because
11:05I think he's better than Nathan Thomas and a lot of those snaps that he got won't go
11:08that direction.
11:09I expect Jaden Blue to be better player and somebody that can contribute for you a little
11:13bit more.
11:14And I think that Ryan Flannoy is somebody that we're probably not talking enough about right
11:18now where I think he's got a chance to really break out as the number three.
11:21If those sort of things fall into place, their offense could absolutely be more efficient than
11:25it was last year.
11:26Be low.
11:27Be low.
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