00:00Let's talk about the Cowboys and the Texans and go back to a couple of things.
00:05This is something that I always think is useful for me.
00:08Hopefully the fans like it as well.
00:12Upon, excuse me, after further review.
00:16All right, so there's some plays or sequencing of specific plays that I kind of wanted to go through.
00:23Do you want to start? Do you want me to start?
00:25You go ahead.
00:25I got into mine a little bit yesterday, but I went back and revisited it, and I found something else
00:32out that was important.
00:33Okay, I wanted to go back to that first drive of the fourth quarter.
00:39I assumed that this drive was going to fail because it started with back-to-back penalties.
00:45Specifically, my note was back-to-back penalties to start the fourth. Hooray!
00:49Although, to be fair, for the last few weeks, I mean, I realize they've had penalties,
00:54but it feels like penalties have not been a particularly big issue for the Cowboys.
00:59They weren't the undisciplined and penalized team this week by any means.
01:03How often do you walk away from a Cowboys game going,
01:06they were the worst on penalties?
01:08Yeah, the last couple of weeks at least.
01:12But instead, you got two really savvy hustle plays on the next two plays.
01:18So you have the screen to Flannoy, which I have to admit, didn't love that call when it was happening.
01:24But man, he worked and picked up seven yards.
01:28Now, that does still put you at second and 18 because of the aforementioned penalties,
01:33but it's a lot better than second and 21 or 22.
01:36So I appreciated the hustle right there.
01:38And then let's go to that Seedy Lamb play right after that.
01:40He skips going to the sideline and instead goes upfield to get the first down.
01:48Now, it's true.
01:48If he would have gone to the sideline, you might have still only been looking at third, one, third, and
01:52two.
01:52But hey, third down can always be dangerous.
01:55So I appreciated that instead of going kind of off to the sideline,
01:59he decided to turn it upfield in a tight window already to get the extra few yards.
02:06And I really like that.
02:07And then what I really, really liked was back-to-back runs in the goal-to-go situation.
02:13From the three, you got meh, not very good protection on that one.
02:17But then you dominated the one-on-one blocks from the two.
02:23And Javante scored his third touchdown of the day.
02:26So you took a really negative, potentially negative situation in a couple of penalties.
02:30And then you got hustle and physicality from Flannoy.
02:35You got smarts and physicality from CeeDee Lamb.
02:38You got smarts from the coaching staff in back-to-back runs to Javante.
02:43And on that second run in which he scored, your offensive line whipped their ass on that play.
02:50And you scored a touchdown.
02:51Yeah.
02:51And that's when you took the lead, right?
02:54Yes.
02:54Here in the fourth quarter.
02:55This is interesting because my series is everything after that.
03:00It's the next steps after that that really kind of beat me down a little bit.
03:04No, you're right.
03:05Around the goal line, the offensive line did really well whenever they got in those situations.
03:12And I think, Kevin, it's because, A, they realized, Shadi realized, you know what?
03:16There were a couple moments that he tried, right?
03:19To be like, all right, I can throw to CeeDee.
03:21I can throw to...
03:22Right.
03:22And then he was like, you know what, after the series of Lasseter moments, whenever he
03:28just kept giving us opportunity after opportunity, Shadi was like, just punch it in.
03:33Let's just go do that.
03:34And they did.
03:34And that mattered a lot because I think the offensive line needs the faith from their coach
03:39that they can do that.
03:40The idea that we can go beat...
03:42This is a good defensive front.
03:43And we can go push them around a little bit if we need to.
03:47I thought that was a really important moment in the game, Kevin.
03:49Maybe one of the most important moments, but that's the moment that I thought the tide
03:54had turned.
03:55Actually, it wasn't that.
03:56It was the next series.
03:58The next series.
03:59And I'm going to go through the next defensive series and the next offensive series real quick
04:04for you, okay?
04:05The next defensive series, you get the first down from Houston, right?
04:10And they challenge the play.
04:13They don't get that.
04:14First down, David Montgomery, five yards, tackle by Malachi Lawrence.
04:18I thought he did a really good job on this play, Kevin, coming back into the play to
04:24make...
04:24He had gone too far upfield, but then comes back and gets the stop.
04:28Which is a problem we've had with several defenders.
04:31Yeah, he'd gone too far upfield, but comes back to get the stop.
04:34And then on second down, Montgomery, two yards, winners, and easy step in there and make the
04:39stop.
04:40That was significant right there from both of them to get that stop.
04:44But then that's the minus 11 yard sack by Quinnen Williams.
04:47Yep.
04:47So this is the moment, Kevin, where I felt you had done what you needed to do to turn
04:54the tide on the game.
04:55Can I tell you my notes before you go into that next sequence?
04:59The Texans are now one for eight on third down.
05:04There's 840 to go.
05:05And we had talked about this the week before.
05:09840 to go.
05:10You're up 27 to 23 with a ball at your own 31.
05:14It is time for the Cowboys to go for the kill.
05:18You're right.
05:19This is it.
05:19And this is why, Kevin, right here in my notes, wasted series.
05:24Now, I don't think that looking back at it, I was right yesterday after further review.
05:30Yesterday, I looked at it and I said, I thought the play calling was lazy.
05:35I thought the play calling was conservative by nature because the rollout pass is something
05:41that they're very comfortable with.
05:43And it seems like more teams are picking up on Shoddy likes to run that for Dak, right?
05:48On first down, Steele pulling misses his block.
05:54Booker gets beat pretty bad and Guyton gets juked out of his block.
05:58And it's only a two-yard gain on first down.
06:00Which, and if you factor in, you still got two yards, despite three-fifths of your offensive
06:06linemen losing their battle.
06:08I need to look and see.
06:09Cooper Beebe was really good.
06:10And he's very steady and good.
06:13But on that, three of your offensive linemen kind of whiffed on their blocks, which could
06:19have been a bigger play.
06:20And you're right.
06:20This is the moment you go ahead and put the kill shot in on this team.
06:24You say, you guys are done.
06:26See you later.
06:26Next play, Guyton is beat by Tommy Tagai.
06:33Spanford's chip was kind of meh on Daniil Hunter.
06:37And that whole rollout situation just didn't work out.
06:42And Dak, he's rolling to the left.
06:44And I don't think that's his best throw.
06:47He just didn't have his feet set and everybody was in his face.
06:50So again, Guyton kind of got beat on that, which creates the pressure.
06:53Do you agree with this note I made?
06:55Because I was very invested in this series as well.
06:58Incomplete.
06:59But even if it was completed, it's probably for a loss.
07:02Oh, because Petrie was right there.
07:03Yeah.
07:03Like, Petrie was right there to make the stop anyway.
07:06That play was seen and heard.
07:08And they knew exactly what they were doing with it.
07:10And then the next play, this is the one shot he went back to.
07:13And Kevin, I had it in my notes as like a Lipke play, but you couldn't see it until you
07:18get
07:18the all-22.
07:20George Pickens is wide open for a touchdown.
07:22Yep.
07:22And Ferguson checks his guy, but it looks like he just throws a paper towel at him.
07:28And it's Will Anderson.
07:30And then Steele's like, what are you doing right now?
07:33And Steele's trying to hand fight him real quick.
07:36And all of a sudden, Dax hit.
07:38The ball flies up in the air.
07:40And George Pickens is wide open for a touchdown.
07:42That was the kill shot.
07:43That was the moment that if you had had the blocks in that series right there, I don't
07:49know if...
07:50I'm not going to say I'm going to give 100% credit to the Texans for what they did, because
07:54they didn't look like they did anything special on most of those plays.
07:57But the offensive line really kind of let you down in that one little series that could
08:01have been the big moment there.
08:03But for the most part, they were really good throughout the day.
08:05Yeah, no, I agree with you on that.
08:07And I did make a note.
08:09It ended up being a huge punt for Brian Anger.
08:12He gets 60 yards off a beneficial roll, and that was super helpful.
08:16And then the other thing is, if you look at that last Cowboys sequence in which they
08:22scored the touchdown to go back ahead, you'll just have to take my word for it.
08:27I've made notes all throughout there that I did not approve of the Texans strategy.
08:32I realize it worked for them in the first half.
08:35By the way, that catch, catch number 15 for CeeDee Lamb to get a first down, Houston calls
08:41a timeout with 102 to go.
08:43I thought that was a great throw by Dak.
08:46Oh, yeah, man.
08:47Absolutely tremendous.
08:47He made some big-time throws yesterday.
08:49That one in particular definitely stood out because of the placement on it, where the two
08:53defenders were, and where it needed to be.
08:56But, Kevin, I'm with you, man.
08:57I thought that the strategy in the fourth quarter there by D'Amico Ryans gave the Cowboys the
09:04calm to make the decisions they needed to to get the right play.
09:07I thought if you let them panic, that the Cowboys would probably screw that up.
09:12Yeah, and I just, again, I'll recognize that it worked in the first half.
09:17I just didn't really understand it because of where the Cowboys were at on the field.
09:24Like, when he calls the first timeout, they're at, I believe, the 46-yard line, maybe the 42-yard
09:35line after that.
09:36So you still have, like, a good bit of field to go.
09:41And so by calling that timeout, I thought you just gave the Cowboys more time to figure
09:45out exactly what they wanted to do offensively, where on the flip side, you're like, hey,
09:49if we can just hold them to a field goal at least, we'll go to overtime.
09:53But maybe we can prevent even that.
09:55So I did not like the sequence of events.
09:57And you have the dump off to Javante for four yards.
10:00Texans call another timeout.
10:02I wrote, don't know about that.
10:04And that's their last timeout with 58 seconds left.
10:07And again, it gave the Cowboys time to figure it out.
10:10Yeah, because that little dump off, they still had plenty of time, but they were still a
10:16good bit of a ways away.
10:17Now the Cowboys got the clock stopped again.
10:19They have their time.
10:20They can do whatever they want.
10:22And then you saw that cost Houston on the other side.
10:25I'm not saying Houston was going to march down and score a touchdown.
10:28But in this game, who the hell knows?
10:30But it really rushed them.
10:32And they had no opportunity.
10:33And you even heard it in the very last play when you're like, oh, let's see if you can get
10:38two plays out of this.
10:40And then Stroud just kind of ambles back a little bit.
10:43And they're like, all right, well, this is going to be the last play.
10:45But one more note about that.
10:48Defensive backs or whoever's playing defense on the Hail Mary, your job is not to get an
10:55interception.
10:56Your job is to knock the ball into the ground.
11:00You saw that again.
11:01It would have taken a miraculous effort, but the attempt to catch it, and it just kind
11:07of goes through the hands.
11:08Who knows what could happen?
11:09Knock the ball down.
11:11Knock it to the ground with both of your hands.
11:13Or punch it out of bounds.
11:14Sure.
11:15That's fine with me as well.
