00:00Sean is going to be dead wrong about the Cowboys cornerback situation, if Tommy Yarsh's article is correct.
00:08Let's talk about it here in Below the Belt, which is brought to you by Window Nation.
00:12Before we get to feeling better about Savone Revel, we do have Cowboys OTAs today.
00:18There will be availability this morning, later this morning, and then into the afternoon.
00:23So hopefully we'll get to find out a little bit more about the Jalen Thompson situation.
00:26Why don't you ask Shadi in the presser?
00:29I mean, somebody will ask him before I will get to it.
00:31Why don't you just do it?
00:32I could.
00:33I'll go like this.
00:35I'll raise my hand, and then Tad will put me on the list, and I'll be like eighth on the
00:37list.
00:38When's the last time you raised your hand?
00:40Last time I asked a question?
00:41Yeah.
00:41Last game of the season?
00:44In like a post-game presser.
00:46Post-game presser.
00:47Yeah.
00:47Yeah, yeah.
00:47And so that was whatever that game was, Washington or whatever.
00:50Eighth on the list?
00:52No, because there's like...
00:52Hang on.
00:53Hang on.
00:53I'll name it.
00:53I know.
00:54I know.
00:54You don't have to tell me.
00:55I've been doing this longer than you.
00:57So we'll have Calvin.
01:00Then we'll probably have to get Clarence.
01:04AP?
01:06Todd, usually.
01:07Archer?
01:09AP?
01:10No.
01:10Usually after that, it's going to be probably John or Nick.
01:13John or Nick.
01:15Jane?
01:16AP.
01:17If Jane's there.
01:17I don't know if Jane's going to be there today.
01:18The Associated Press guy.
01:19Yeah, not Arnold Payne.
01:20I'm thinking Arnold Payne.
01:21Yeah, you're thinking Arnold Payne.
01:22I'm like, wait a sec.
01:23I don't think AP's asked a question.
01:25Would you beat out a DallasCowboys.com person?
01:28Yeah, no, it's not like that.
01:29So it's like every day there's the structured, like, hey, we're going in this order for every
01:32day.
01:32Yeah.
01:33And so then when, like, if somebody has a question that day that they don't normally, that's
01:35what I'm saying.
01:36I would fall behind whatever the default line is every day of, like, these people are asking
01:39a question every day in a row.
01:40Yeah.
01:41And so it's like, I think there's like seven people that ask a question every day for sure.
01:44Yeah.
01:44And so then I'd be like, they would put me behind that and then I'd get queued up.
01:49I know.
01:50But I would then, like, raise my hand and be out in the second question.
01:52I'd be like, no, never mind.
01:53I don't have a question.
01:54All right.
01:54That's what it'd be.
01:54I don't think someone will.
01:55We'll see if someone asks in the first seven questions about Jalen.
01:59Oh, I'll make you a bet.
02:01You don't tell Archer to do it?
02:02No, no, no.
02:02I won't tell Archer to do it.
02:03It probably won't even get to Archer.
02:05I bet it'll be asked before Archer.
02:06But if it gets to Archer, Todd will ask it.
02:08All right.
02:09So we'll be on the lookout for Jalen Thompson.
02:11See if he's out there today.
02:15He had an article up.
02:16Hagen was very sarcastic about this story yesterday, by the way.
02:19Which one?
02:20Jalen Thompson.
02:21Oh, my gosh.
02:23What am I going to do about him not practicing at the practice where people aren't practicing
02:29before the next series of practices that don't really matter?
02:33And that was all the football that KNC talked all day was him making that joke.
02:37And then they didn't actually have it segmented again because they had to talk about, you know,
02:40just a string of Ocho sports.
02:43All right.
02:44So they've got lacking a star Cowboys.
02:49We'll have two instances today to test whether Hagen's been listening.
02:52We know he hasn't.
02:53Corey will report to him.
02:55Yeah, Corey will report to him.
02:56Because Corey does listen.
02:56You say he's a tattletale?
02:59My only saving grace is if Corey's prepping right now, he won't have it on.
03:03But if he's driving in, he's going to hear it.
03:06All right.
03:06So it was keyword if last week, last week we had the you liked the quote from Shoddy when
03:13he was talking about Rashawn Gary, where he's like, oh, he's a grown ass man and everything
03:16else.
03:17It did cause some observations.
03:19And that was kind of the crux of like what Todd's article was here, is that when they
03:22said, hey, you know, you guys are kind of lacking a star pass rusher.
03:26The Miles Garrett trade goes down.
03:27Like, like, how do you feel about this room?
03:28Like, how do you feel reliable about your pass rush in the course of that answer?
03:33The name Tyrus Wheat was mentioned.
03:36I believe the name Marist Leofau was also mentioned.
03:39The name James Houston was mentioned, which shout out to James Houston.
03:43He was named the national black college player of the year in the NFL.
03:49He just got the award this week because there's like a lot of these HBCUs.
03:53They just don't have a lot of NFL representation.
03:55So James Houston actually won the award this year.
03:57But when you're mentioning James Houston and Tyrus Wheat and Marist Leofau and a position
04:02change, that feels like, and then the very first name you mentioned is Donovan Azaraku,
04:08who is coming off of.
04:09What do you mean James Houston won a college football award?
04:11He won an award as like the alumni, like the HBCU player of the year or whatever in the
04:17NFL.
04:18Okay.
04:19And so he had like the best year.
04:20It was like you're the season amongst.
04:22Yeah, it's like you're the NFL player who best represented us this year or who like represented
04:27everything that we're about.
04:28Five and a half sacks.
04:29Yep.
04:29And so he played.
04:30And for being a late addition, that's the tough things that we need.
04:33And underused maybe.
04:34When you look at, that's the thing.
04:35When you look at who they added last year, Clowney was added in the middle of the year.
04:38He led the team in sacks.
04:39Then it was Houston who was added, like what, right before the season started.
04:44But their entire edge rusher bet is on Azaraku hitting big, like him actually bouncing back
04:53and hitting what he didn't, which made me go bald last time.
04:57And Rashawn Gary being somebody that everybody in Green Bay, at least analysis-wise, said
05:02he wasn't anymore.
05:04Of course, we've talked about it before.
05:05There's a big part of this that is, it's not going to be as much of their focus anyway,
05:09is trying to get to the passer and trying to attack the passer because they want to more
05:14manipulate things in the back half of the defense and change what the quarterback's looking
05:18at.
05:19But this is still something that feels very much like they're not prepared for.
05:24And they're leaning very heavily on this pass rusher by committee approach.
05:29And a couple times you can remember them doing committee stuff in recent years at a position
05:33where they've been like, this is our solution.
05:35The most obvious one that they've done it with was Dez.
05:39When Dez left, when they let Dez go, they said, we're going to go sign Deontay Thompson.
05:43We're going to sign Alan Hearns.
05:45We're going to sign all these guys.
05:46You don't need a number one receiver.
05:47You can have a bunch of just guys who are okay.
05:49And together, collectively, they can do the job.
05:51And then middle of the year, they went and, even though it worked out, relative to the
05:56market, overpaid for Amari Cooper and gave them a first round pick when no one else was
05:59trading first for him.
06:01And you ended up being in that position.
06:03So are we going to find themselves in this spot again?
06:06Because you would love to see the Max Crosby headline, just from a talk standpoint.
06:10Are we going to find ourselves in week six looking at this and going, they're about to overpay
06:15for a pass rusher?
06:18I'm worried about it.
06:20And then I saw Archer's article talking about what recent successful teams have had as their
06:27sack leader.
06:27Yeah.
06:28So he talks about that.
06:29The Seattle Seahawks were led by a trio of players who had seven sacks on their way to
06:33winning the Super Bowl.
06:33The New England Patriots, whom Seattle beat, were led by Harold Landry's eight and a half
06:37sacks.
06:37Dallas's new defensive coordinator, Christian Parker, spent the past two seasons with the
06:41Eagles.
06:41They were led in sacks by Jalex Hunt, who had six and a half and the two other and had
06:45two others with at least four and a half and five more with three.
06:48In 2024, Josh Sweat had a team high eight with a team high eight for the Eagles, but four
06:54others had four and a half sacks.
06:55In Parker's three seasons as an assistant coach with the Broncos, they did not have a defender
06:59record more than eight and a half sacks, but they had four players with at least four and
07:03a half.
07:03And that was something that we had mentioned a couple weeks ago where we looked through
07:07the history of Parker and Fangio defenses, where it's like the Fangio tree and the Elko
07:11tree and these guys he's been with before.
07:12They've never had double digit sack players.
07:16So this, I have to be looking at an incorrect stat here, but I think I have the right one.
07:20This is kind of crazy.
07:22Count the playoff teams amongst the sack leaders last year in the NFL.
07:28The Raiders had the most sacks in the league with 64.
07:32Were they sacked the most?
07:34That's what I'm saying.
07:35I have NFL.com pulled up with defense.
07:40Okay, Raiders, then Chargers, Jets.
07:43This is definitely allowed, I think.
07:45Right?
07:46Yeah, because the Chargers couldn't block for Herbert last year.
07:49Okay.
07:49I know I ought to be looking at that wrong.
07:50I'm like, eight of the top ten teams on this list missed the playoffs that had the highest
07:57sack totals.
07:57Yeah, I'm trying to find this because we've done this stat before where like...
08:01I want team sack correlation.
08:04I want the team sack leaders.
08:07Here it is.
08:08Here's the right one, I think.
08:09Denver, Atlanta, Cleveland, Detroit.
08:14You still have three of these four teams missing the playoffs.
08:17Minnesota missed.
08:19Pittsburgh, then the Rams, Seahawks, Texans, Chargers.
08:23So it bottoms out with playoff teams.
08:26Yeah, and there is a...
08:27There's a stat there like...
08:28We've done this more where the highly paid edge rushers don't ever win the Super Bowl.
08:36Like how Donald has, or Chris Jones have, because now that's moving interior.
08:40But that's the thing is that a lot of the pass rush has changed as to where it comes from.
08:44It's on the interior.
08:45And the Cowboys do have a highly paid interior type of guy.
08:48They have Quinnen.
08:49And that's where you start seeing like whenever people were like, well, you know, the Chiefs
08:53didn't have a big time address.
08:54Well, they had Chris Jones.
08:55Chris Jones was 15 sacks from the middle.
08:56Yeah.
08:57Aaron Donald is Aaron Donald.
08:58A lot of people, that was something that shifted, I don't know, probably 10 to 15 years
09:03ago where teams started looking at it and going like, A-gap pressure, if you can win quickly
09:07and get in the face of a quarterback, that's so much more valuable than, you know, run of
09:12the arc.
09:12Obviously, the edge rusher is still the premium position.
09:15It's still important.
09:15But when you can get that pass rush ability from somebody on the interior who also is
09:19strong enough to hold up with those big guys on the interior, those offensive linemen,
09:24that's what's huge.
09:25But it is something where we've talked about, this is not necessarily a heavy focus on getting
09:29to the quarterback with this scheme.
09:30And so the fact that that exists.
09:32Sounds weird.
09:34Because they were still, well, I mean, but just like it played out there, like Seattle
09:37didn't have it like that.
09:38And Philly didn't have it like that a couple years ago.
09:40Yeah, but I still feel like Seattle's D-line kicked your ass.
09:44Yeah, and I think that's the thing.
09:45I mean, I think they believe they're going to win in ways that are just not sacking the
09:50quarterback, though.
09:50You're going to feel their presence.
09:52You're just not going to see them pick up eight sacks again.
09:55I foresee coming in on many a Monday morning and going third and 13, third and eight, third
10:04and 12, second and 14.
10:06That sounds like they sacked him a bunch off of a 10-yard mark.
10:09And no one's in the backfield.
10:11That's my worry.
10:12Yeah, and it very well could be.
10:13Oh, schematically, we didn't want to do it.
10:14You always have to rush the passer.
10:17100%.
10:17100% could end up that way.
10:19And like, because I'm not saying this is going to work.
10:20I don't know if it's going to work, but they think it's going to.
10:23They think they're in.
10:24Now, they also tried to trade for Max Crosby.
10:26So they clearly had some question.
10:28Yeah.
10:28And they just weren't able to.
10:29So that's the one thing that I think exists in the back of my mind where it's like, you
10:33wanted to fix this, though.
10:35You wanted a player like that.
10:36And you didn't.
10:37You weren't able to get him.
10:38And if you would have traded up into the top five, it would have been for Reese.
10:42It would have been for Bailey.
10:43It would have been for the guys going after the quarterback.
10:44You probably weren't trading up to go get downs.
10:46You were going up that high because you wanted one of those pass rushers.
10:49So even if that's where they're at and they talk about that, there's still no matter what
10:54the scheme is.
10:54I don't care what kind of a scheme you play.
10:57Somebody who can get to the quarterback consistently as an edge rusher is valuable to anybody and
11:01everybody.
11:02And Dallas absolutely could get to a point where they're looking at it this year and
11:05go, we're not good enough there.
11:06We have to go make a move and we're going to have to go sacrifice capital to do it.
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