00:00Now, we're talking about Terrence Steele here, want to see if you think this is unique, but also, another question
00:08for y'all that's based on the Cowboys, have you ever moved for work?
00:14Either you were relocated by your company, or you just moved because it was more convenient to work, because Neil
00:21Franklin of the Dallas Morning News reported that Schottenheimer was selling his house because it was too far from work,
00:29and he wanted something closer than 30 minutes away from the team headquarters.
00:33It was in McKinney, so I like that focus.
00:36So he's moving to Frisco?
00:38I assume.
00:38I mean, that's where it is kind of natural for a lot of the players who lived at Valley Ranch
00:45were in that area.
00:47They stayed in that area, nicer homes out there at the time.
00:50Right now, the Frisco area is a nice area.
00:59There's a lot of nice homes, a lot of players living there.
01:01So, 30 minutes, though?
01:04That's how far he was driving from McKinney?
01:06That's right.
01:07That's right.
01:07That's not far.
01:08Rush hour.
01:09Oh, yeah.
01:10Did he drive at weird times?
01:13I don't know.
01:13I'm not asking you to answer questions for him, Kevin.
01:16Okay.
01:18I can't say that I have.
01:21I have lived very close to places I've worked, though.
01:25Okay.
01:26Like, yeah, I lived right behind one of the restaurants I worked at for a while.
01:30I moved to Mesquite off of 30 and, like, Northwest Highway, and I was closer to the place I worked
01:41in Rockwall.
01:42Okay.
01:42But I've never been like, I am moving specifically for work purposes.
01:47As a matter of fact, Kevin, I lived in Dallas for a long time and worked in Plano.
01:52And then I got a job in Dallas and I moved to Plano.
01:56So, how stupid is that?
01:59Well, let's just all agree that the people who took the job at the place that it was and it
02:05continued to be at that place and then complained about it, that's your fault.
02:11I also, Kevin, yeah, that's a good point there, whenever you move really far north.
02:16Also, I was one mile short of the taxable, or the way to write off on taxes.
02:22Oh!
02:23I was one mile short.
02:25I did it one day.
02:26I was like, oh, this stinks.
02:28And they were like, we'll give you 10 cents a mile.
02:30I was like, fine.
02:31But on the flip side, if your office moves, I think you have every right to complain.
02:36What if they move closer to you?
02:37Well, then, why would you complain?
02:40I think because you like to complain.
02:42Oh, not change.
02:43You'll just find a way to complain about something.
02:45And that girl did.
02:46No matter what.
02:47Yeah, and that girl did.
02:48Not me, though.
02:49All right.
02:50So, there's that.
02:51Probably the more pressing part of the segment.
02:56But, yeah, there's, oh, yeah, yeah.
03:00I get what you're saying.
03:02From the 214, I want my coaches to sleep in their office.
03:05Okay, all right.
03:06Like the coach in draft day.
03:07I think from the 806, I think now they all live in Prosper.
03:14All the coaches?
03:15Oh, man.
03:15That's pretty close, yeah.
03:17And then this person said they're a plumber, and they've been giving offers to work on a
03:21cruise ship six months out of the year.
03:23Dude.
03:23Did you rent your house out?
03:25I don't know.
03:25Question for another day.
03:26But the more pressing part of the Cowboys discussion, Terrence Steele, and I really like this, and maybe I just
03:34have, like, not heard of this a ton, but it makes all the sense in the world to me is
03:39BT Jordan, the pass rushing specialist consultant.
03:43That's a lot of words that was brought in from the Cowboys to the Cowboys from the Broncos, obviously, to
03:51help pass rush and develop their younger pass rushers.
03:54But one of the things that Schottenheimer asked Jordan to do was to show Dallas' offensive linemen rush plans that
04:03had been designed against them.
04:05So that was specifically, obviously, help call out potential weaknesses or whatever.
04:10And Terrence Steele was one of the people who stepped out and was like, man, I loved it.
04:14You don't really hear that often.
04:15I thought it was really cool to see that, and I definitely want to continue working with him, sharpening that
04:20skill.
04:20So that was going to be one of my questions.
04:22Do most NFL teams do this?
04:24And I just haven't heard about it a ton.
04:26What do you think about this philosophy?
04:29I love this idea.
04:31And, you know, it seemed like such a revelation when Broaddus brought up that Dan Quinn and Mike McCarthy were
04:39having across-the-hall meetings where these coaches would come over and be like,
04:43hey, let me take a look at what you guys are doing and see if I can't help out in
04:47some way.
04:48And it was like, hold on, why is that such a – shouldn't the coaching staff be communicating like that
04:53all the time?
04:54Right.
04:55Now, I understand week to week you have so much you're trying to plan and order, and we'll talk a
04:59little more about this with the Sean Lee thing.
05:00You're trying to get a team prepared for the next game.
05:04And there's only so many hours in a week to be able to accomplish that.
05:08But whenever you have these moments and opportunities where you see something, you go talk to the coach and say,
05:14Coach, I think there's something that they're attacking here that this is what I would do if I was the
05:19opponent.
05:20Why wouldn't you have more of these types of meetings, especially in an offseason, to prepare your team for what
05:27they are looking at?
05:28Because what you're doing is you're making your team smarter in general.
05:31Because a lot of times we focus in on what our job is, and we're not focused on the bigger
05:37picture of things.
05:38Or maybe you're on the big picture and not tunneling in on some of the fine details.
05:43But I don't understand why they don't do these types of things more often.
05:47This is one of the things I like Schottenheimer's leadership here.
05:51He's not saying, guys, I'm going to pummel you with how bad y'all are at something.
05:57I'm going to give y'all some ways to adapt and grow and be better by having somebody who's an
06:04expert at how they'd go at you and bring them in, give you this advice, and then you take with
06:09it what you will.
06:10Now, I do wonder, does the offensive line coach and the offensive coordinator, are they in that meeting, too?
06:15And they're listening and learning, and they're saying, hey, we actually know how to adjust to those things, too.
06:20That's a great question.
06:21And the alternate would be, well, here's why you guys get stuffed all the time.
06:26Like, if you're looking at the defensive line, and especially with the younger ones, like, I know that's the pass
06:31-rushing specialist, but I like the idea of an offensive line coach or specialist being like, yeah, but the knock
06:38on you is every time it's second down, I know you're going to try spin move.
06:41Or, like, whatever this particular pattern is.
06:44And, you know, the other thing on that is maybe it's not just the what, right?
06:50Well, now you've got to ask the how.
06:53Okay, what is happening is they're attacking you this way.
06:56Well, how best would we – that's where you're really having good communication back and forth, where I didn't just
07:03come in and tell you what's going on.
07:05Now you've asked me, well, how do I attack that?
07:08Well, I mean, if you go at this shoulder, if you aim at this shoulder instead, it's going to open
07:12this up.
07:12This is how we've seen some of the best offensive lines attack our defensive plan whenever this happens.
07:18So, yeah, man, I love – I love this and don't understand – I mean, he's – he still says
07:24it.
07:24You don't really hear that often.
07:27Why?
07:28It just makes sense to have a very open group whenever you have a coaching staff working together with your
07:34players.
07:35I like that quote because it made me feel better about thinking, like, hold on, does everybody do this?
07:39And I just have not been paying close enough attention.
07:41Well, what if the best ones are?
07:42You know, what if the best ones – the coaching staff doesn't just sit down in their individual group meetings.
07:48They sit down as a team and they're like, hey, we were watching and we noticed this, by the way.
07:53Well, and especially because what does everybody who – I'm not defending Terrence Steele, but, like, if you're supporting Terrence
08:00Steele, what does everybody say about him?
08:02Well, the Cowboys like his run blocking.
08:04All right, so if you just go off of pro football focus, which, again, I think we all know the
08:08positives and negatives that come along with that.
08:10His run blocking grade was 70.2, so that was ranked 32nd at the position.
08:16But it is his pass blocking grade of 54.9 that was ranked 76th among 89 qualified offensive tackles.
08:25So if you're, like, 32 out of 89 and you're like, okay, so run blocking, you're on the cusp or
08:31you're just right there in terms of potentially being a top third run blocker in the league.
08:37And you're like, oh, okay, that's pretty good.
08:38But then on the flip side, you're the 14th worst at pass blocking out of 89, and you're like, holy
08:45moly, that's scary.
08:46Because sometimes I think people can lose sight – and you can correct me if you think I'm wrong on
08:52this – people can lose sight that is the offensive line's job to do both, right?
08:57Because how does an offensive lineman have a good or bad game?
09:00It feels like so often it's how many pressures did you give up?
09:03Did you give up any sacks that led to a turnover?
09:06And not as often of, man, what a grind.
09:09I know he gave up three pressures, but, man, the right side was open, open, open.
09:14Two touchdowns ran in right behind him, and Javante ran for 68 yards right behind him.
09:18And I just don't feel like you get that part of the argument anywhere really near enough as you would
09:25think.
09:25And, Alec, didn't it feel like – last year, the Eberflus thing, that was a perfect example of this.
09:32Because I like that Schottenheimer's open to things like this.
09:35I really do.
09:36I think it's important because you want the entire team caring about the entire team, not I'm focused on my
09:44individual stuff.
09:45If you notice something, you can bring something up to your teammate and say, hey, try this out.
09:50If I'm CeeDee Lamb and I notice that Revel's having a hard time with this, you know, whatever route, I'll
09:55work with him on that.
09:56Maybe I'll say something that connects with him better than his coach does.
10:01But it did feel like that was the moment Schottenheimer last year said, well, it's not working with Eberflus.
10:06I've got to sit in and figure out why.
10:08He wasn't sitting in there saying, we're getting this dude fired.
10:11He was sitting there going, I've got to figure out what is not communicating.
10:15Ultimately, he got fired.
10:16But the goal was to make the thing work better.
10:20And I do like the approach of just helping each other out at this point, because I think it's fair
10:26to ask, Kevin, if other teams are doing this.
10:28I don't think they are, one, because Terrence Steele kind of reflected that, as you said.
10:31But two, I think sometimes we get lost how really divided NFL teams are.
10:37And it's almost like the FBI and the CIA for a while.
10:40Exactly.
10:41They just don't interact outside of the actual practice itself.
10:45When it comes to meetings and whatnot, they're divided by position group, not just offense, defense.
10:50A lot of the time, they're in their own world, focusing on what little things can I do at my
10:56position, at what I am paid to do to get better.
11:00And I do like the idea of just saying, hey, there's a reason that, especially because BT Jordan is coming
11:07from another team, so he can say, hey, I've heard other guys talk about you.
11:12I've seen how teams game plan against you.
11:16The reason this is happening is X, Y, and Z.
11:19So if you can just break it down from that opposite point of view of like, we know, and not
11:24to spoil what we're going to get to with the Sean Lee audio later in the show.
11:27But one thing he said is practice the things that you know are going to happen, not the things that
11:32aren't going to happen.
11:33If you can tell somebody, whether it's Terrence Steele, whoever, hey, I know this is going to happen because you
11:40do it all the time.
11:41We need to work on something different.
11:43Switch it up.
11:44Make it a more variable concept to where we just don't know what set you're going to get in.
11:49And there is this fine line of stepping over a boundary and being too involved.
11:56Right.
11:56There definitely is that.
11:57But I think that what's important is the first thing Schottenheimer told Bobby and those guys and Sean and RJ.
12:04And they have built up the relationship, right, to where they can ask the tough questions and he understands that
12:11that's just part of it.
12:12But Schottenheimer told us the first time we interviewed him at camp.
12:15He was like, guys, we're going to have to have tough, tough conversations at times.
12:20Yes.
12:20And sometimes it's not, man, dude, all right, I actually had this conversation with Adrian over the weekend.
12:27One of my favorite things about it, about Adrian is there have been times where I've been like, if I
12:33tell her this, is she going to get defensive and shut down?
12:37Or is she going to reflect and say, you know what, that's fair and we can work on that?
12:44And I think that's been one of the real great successes of our relationship is both of our ability to
12:49take the whatever it is and say, is it fair?
12:52Was it a fair critique?
12:54And if it is fair, can I do something about it?
12:57And I think that's the thing that whenever coaching, these guys have egos too, right?
13:01Sure.
13:01They've got egos that are just boiling and ready to go.
13:03There's a lot of testosterone rocking through that place.
13:06But Schottenheimer's like, we've got to be reflective on who we are so that we can have that conversation and
13:12do whatever is best for the next step.
13:15I'm really intrigued.
13:15And I keep thinking about the idea of crossover coaches then.
13:19Like you take these.
13:21Godcham gods?
13:22No.
13:22I mean, that would be awesome too.
13:24But more specifically for football.
13:26That sounds like an off-time thing for football players to learn.
13:30But like, you take somebody who maybe is an older offensive coach and you place them with your defense.
13:38Or maybe is an older defensive coach and you place them with their offense.
13:43Interesting idea.
13:44Just so you can occasionally be like, yeah, but you know the knock on y'all is your third down
13:49tendency is always this.
13:50Or what you're going to run into consistently on first and second down is this.
13:55They can bring you that other idea.
13:58So I'm kind of intrigued by that idea.
14:00And hopefully, whatever it takes to make Terrence Steele a better player.
14:04Yes.
14:04Or quite frankly, anybody on the team.
14:06And Tyler Guyton.
14:06A better player.
14:07Yes.
14:08Or whoever.
14:09Nate Thomas.
14:09Whichever one of those guys is protected.
14:11We just want to figure out how to be better.
14:13Absolutely.
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