00:00Yeah, Jaden is 0-4 against the Cowboys.
00:05Certainly not of his doing in the first one in 2024.
00:11And then, of course, last year was another one of those games
00:15in which he played and did not finish getting hurt early in the third quarter,
00:20which cost him more games as well.
00:23That game, you know, the game last year in Dallas, week seven,
00:28remember about that game.
00:31Washington had put together a couple of decent games.
00:35You know, the Chargers game was probably the best game of the season for the team.
00:41You know, start to finish both sides of the ball.
00:44The Chargers offensive line was in complete disarray.
00:47So the defense actually didn't stink in that game.
00:51And Jaden coming off the injury against the Packers and having missed two games,
00:56the Raiders game and then the Falcons game, I think it was in that order,
01:01the Raiders game and the Falcons game, came back against the Chargers
01:05and had a Jaden-esque 2024-style game.
01:09I mean, he was absolutely lights out in that game after the first two drives.
01:15And they rallied from 10-0, I think it was, to a 27-10 win.
01:19And then they played really well on Monday night against Chicago.
01:24Offensively, they played well in that game until the fumble late,
01:28which obviously cost them a game that they were about to put on ice with another first down.
01:34And that was on the quarterback.
01:37You got to protect the football.
01:39Ball security is everything.
01:41And even though he had played a very, very good football game,
01:44his second back-to-back, it was a loss.
01:48And instead of being 4-2, they were 3-3.
01:51But if you recall in the moment at 3-3, yes, it was a disappointing loss to the Bears.
01:58And we had no idea that the Bears were going to be a good football team
02:03in that first year last year with Ben Johnson at that point.
02:07There wasn't a lot of concern, though.
02:11You know, the two games back-to-back looked like 2024,
02:16the Chargers game and the Bears game,
02:18with the exception of they didn't win the close game against Chicago
02:23like they did in 2024 with a Hail Mary.
02:25They lost it.
02:26But going to Dallas, that particular game was a game in which I think we all felt like
02:33they got a shot.
02:33Now, I remember specifically being, at that point,
02:37legit concerned about the defense.
02:39You know, they had given up basically the best days of the year
02:43to Michael Penix Jr. in Atlanta, to even Geno Smith in a win.
02:48Geno didn't have many games like he had against Washington.
02:51Michael Penix Jr.'s best game of the year was against Washington.
02:54Later on in the season, J.J. McCarthy's best game of the year was against Washington.
02:59And probably Sam Darnold and Jared Goff's best games of the year
03:03were against Washington.
03:04I mean, the defense was legit horrible.
03:06But going to Dallas, I remember being concerned that you're going to have to win
03:11kind of a shootout.
03:12And that's the way the game went.
03:14I mean, Dallas scores.
03:16Washington comes back and scores.
03:18Dallas scores.
03:20It's 20-15 late in the first half.
03:24We scored with 45 seconds to go to make it 20-15.
03:27Both teams moving the ball effectively, scoring.
03:32And Dallas goes down the field in 45 seconds.
03:37Not for field goal range, but for a touchdown with like 10 seconds to go in the half.
03:42And all of a sudden, it's 27-15 at halftime.
03:46And then you had to keep pace.
03:48You had to come out.
03:49You had to score on that opening drive.
03:51And they were on the move in Dallas territory at like their 35-yard line.
03:57And J.J. got sacked.
03:59And there went the hamstring.
04:01And there went another couple of weeks.
04:04And the game fell apart from there.
04:06Mariota was picked sixth on the next Washington drive.
04:10And it was a blowout 44-22.
04:13J.J. did not play, obviously, in the Christmas Day game.
04:16But, yeah, what was interesting about 2024 is that even the game that went 34-26,
04:26the Cowboys, no, it's a completely different defense, new coordinator, new scheme, the whole thing.
04:33By the way, I watched the Giants-Cowboys game, and I have a couple of thoughts about the Dallas defense,
04:38which I'll get to, because the perception is it was legit horrible and very disappointing.
04:44And you'll hear Mickey Spagnola on with us at 12 talk about it as well.
04:48But it was a really strange football game.
04:53Really strange game.
04:54Each team only had the ball six times, if you don't count the end-of-halves, end-of-game situation.
05:02But if you go back to 2024, those two games against the Cowboys and the Vic Fangio game on the
05:11road on the Thursday night,
05:12and then take the Tampa opener out of the equation,
05:15those were the three games in which they didn't look in sync offensively.
05:22You go through the entire season, take the Tampa Bay opener out of the equation,
05:28it was the first game, season opener.
05:31The next time the offense looked out of sync was the Thursday night game against Philadelphia.
05:37And then against the Cowboys at home, which was the following week after having a Thursday night game
05:44and having sort of the mini-buy, you know, the numbers looked fine.
05:48They scored 26 points, but they only had 20 with 25 seconds to go.
05:54And Jaden had two picks in the game.
05:57They turned the ball over.
06:00They ran it okay, but it was basically Jaden running the football as the total rush offense.
06:07And Dallas had them a bit figured out.
06:10And then you saw it again in the first half at the end of the year.
06:14Is that applicable?
06:15No.
06:16Because it's a new coordinator.
06:18It's a completely different scheme.
06:21And they've got new players, too.
06:23By the way, they've got some injured players as well.
06:26So I think, you know, first of all, every year's a new year.
06:31Every week in the NFL is essentially its own entity.
06:34But you can't really go back and say, well, we haven't done well against Dallas here recently.
06:41And it hasn't been the best offensively against Dallas because it's just two completely different football teams.
06:48Yes, there's some similar personnel.
06:50But the schemes are completely different.
06:53They're going to face a Christian Parker, you know, scheme.
06:56Christian Parker is off the Vic Fangio tree.
06:59He's going to play two high safeties.
07:02And what the Giants did against Dallas is they ran the football.
07:08You know, it's what Blau tried to stick with against Philly on Sunday.
07:12It's very hard when you go two high safeties.
07:15And it's obviously been a major league trend here over the last few years.
07:20Teams are essentially saying, we're not letting you go deep.
07:24You can scheme up deep, but you're going to be forced to check it down.
07:29And you're going to be forced to go on 10, 11, 12-play drives to score.
07:36And that's exactly what the Giants did.
07:39Their first drive, 10 plays, 83 yards.
07:42Their second drive for a touchdown was six plays, 55 yards.
07:46They had a big play in that.
07:47Then it was 12 plays, 74 yards, 13 plays, 65 yards, and 12 plays, 47 yards to run out the
07:54clock.
07:55They ran the football against that too-high safety look to the tune of 165 yards.
08:03And they threw a lot of short passes.
08:07They didn't have one completed pass over 20 yards in the game.
08:14The longest pass was 19 yards to Isaiah Likely.
08:17And some of the other double-digit passes were catches and runs after the fact.
08:23So, that's how most teams have to do it against the teams that are hell-bent on playing two deep
08:31safeties.
08:32You've got to run the football.
08:33You've got to make one of those safeties creep up.
08:37And then you can go over the top.
08:40So, yeah.
08:42Going to have to be patient.
08:43Going to have to run the football on Sunday.
08:46And I also will tell you that running the football was an interesting watch because there were several stuff's short
08:57yardage plays.
08:58But then they were able to overcome third-down situations.
09:02The Giants were 9-for-11 on third-down.
09:05The Cowboys were 8-for-11 on third-down.
09:09I mean, I'll be honest with you.
09:10That 17 out of 22 combined on third-down, that has to be close to some kind of a record
09:17for combined third-down conversion percentage in an NFL game.
09:23Has to be.
09:25But anyway, yeah.
09:28Okay.
09:29They haven't done well.
09:30Jaden hasn't done well against the Cowboys.
09:32Maybe it starts Sunday.
09:34I think it can.
09:35It's a winnable game for sure.
09:37All of these in the early portion of the season.
09:40Seem on paper.
09:41Winnable.
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