00:00Brad Sham, Babe Laufenberg, Christy Scales at AT&T Stadium.
00:03Dallas trailing 14-10, driving in the third quarter.
00:08Prescott throws it over the middle, tipped and incomplete and intercepted.
00:12It was the second deflection.
00:17Yaya Diabe, the outside linebacker.
00:21That was my dude that I suggested.
00:24On Thursday, absolutely.
00:26All right.
00:27Would you like a pseudo-positive drive or a negative one?
00:33I feel like there's going to be a lot of negativity here.
00:36There is.
00:37I have a positive and negative thing, too.
00:40But let's go with the pseudo-positive and then work our way.
00:45All right.
00:46Let's go to, I believe it is the second quarter.
00:52This is when Brian Anger was punting seemingly all of the time.
00:58And you get a great punt from him and the Bucs take over.
01:05And I just thought this was a really great representation of what we all hoped the Dallas Cowboys defense could
01:17get.
01:17So you pin Tampa back at their own three with 12-26 left in the half.
01:24The very first play, you get three Cowboys get pressure from the left, right, and center.
01:31By the way, I don't know if you've ever played that game.
01:33You might call it left, center, right.
01:35But it's a great start.
01:37And then on second down, you still got them pinned back.
01:41Kenneth Gainwell doesn't get much room, runs for two yards.
01:44So you've created an advantageous situation with a third and eight, partially because you got pressure and then because you
01:51shut the run down.
01:52So the two things, like, we all have desperately wanted way more of this season and you had high hopes
01:59going in.
02:00Then on third down, Malachi Lawrence goes uncovered, harasses Jalen Daniels,
02:06and then Barham moves in from the other side to prevent Daniels from breaking containment.
02:13And so he has nowhere to go, throws the ball away.
02:17So essentially, you had the ball thrown away twice in the span of three plays.
02:22You get a punt.
02:23It's a very efficient three and out.
02:25But unfortunately, once again, because yesterday or Thursday was quite the anomaly for the Cowboys,
02:33their offense does nothing with it again.
02:35And that ensuing play in the Cowboys offensive drive was the most frustrating maybe of the game where Dak did
02:44a great job of evading pressure
02:47because it looks like he was going to get, like, murder, death, killed, sacked.
02:51He does a great job of avoiding that.
02:53But again, for the third time in the game, he does his little jump pass instead of setting his feet
02:58because he had CeeDee Lamb for what looked like it would have been a easy touchdown on third down.
03:05And so even in the good things, you can't have a corresponding positive thing
03:09because you got a good punt to set it up for the defense.
03:12The defense looks great.
03:14Give it back to the offense and just...
03:16Yeah, that specific play almost intercepted there, right?
03:19That specific play I watched multiple times because Tampa Bay did a really good job creating a math problem for
03:26you up front.
03:27And lining up four or five guys on the left side, looking like you had two more lined up on
03:34the right to come in.
03:35It looked like all pressure, right?
03:37And then what happens is your two linebackers on the right side drop into coverage.
03:43Everything gets pushed up front against Bebe and Tyler Smith and Tyler Guyton.
03:48Tyler Guyton misses the guy on the stunt.
03:51The guy on the stunt cuts in, and that's where the pressure is.
03:54Number 51 cuts in, comes right up the middle on Dak Prescott, forces him to roll outside.
04:01And Dak had, what, five yards before he was going to get touched?
04:04Right.
04:04And still decided to throw off the right foot.
04:07He was still jumpy off of the pressure.
04:09And Kevin, that right there, that was a...
04:12Go look at that again and watch Javante Williams and how good he was on his pickup.
04:17Right.
04:18He was very good in blitz pickup, by the way.
04:21Listen, with the Tyler Guyton miss there, it's not like that's a tough block to do.
04:26He's cutting across the entire backside of the defensive line, coming up to a space that's vacated now.
04:32Because, honestly, Terrence Steele didn't know what to do.
04:36He was like, now who do I block here?
04:38Because everybody vacated.
04:40It wasn't a Titans situation where their left tackle saw the rusher coming and go,
04:44I'm going to pivot over here to double team this guy.
04:46Yeah, Duke Manyweather is very against what's going on there.
04:49He's like, this is the responsibility of him as the guy that the tight end took out.
04:54And he's not supposed to block this cornerback, this guy.
04:57Anyway, that's a different story.
04:59But watching that play specifically, Kevin, I didn't think Dak needed to do that.
05:03But guess why?
05:04Why is he there in that mental headspace?
05:07Because the pressure from Todd Bowles all night long, aside from that first drive,
05:12that pressure got to Dak.
05:15He started expecting.
05:16His clock is way too fast.
05:20And because Terrence Steele can't block, his clock has to speed up even more.
05:24And I will certainly say, I have to imagine it's probably tough to reset your clock right after.
05:29Like, he almost got annihilated on that play.
05:32And so it's probably tough to reset your clock while moving.
05:36It's just unfortunate when you watch the All-22, you're like, holy crap, that was easy.
05:40Yeah, or like the way that they made it look.
05:43Theoretically, yeah, theoretically.
05:44And that was one of the things that I came away from looking at this game, Kevin,
05:48was Tyler Smith is still very good at football.
05:50Right.
05:51So that's a positive thing.
05:52The offensive line wasn't at their best.
05:55Terrence Steele is still not.
05:56And that's a frustrating thing because that's something that we're now being told
06:00we just kind of have to accept.
06:01Yeah.
06:02Is that your right tackle position, or maybe the right side,
06:04even whenever you put a tight end over there to chip,
06:08your situation doesn't feel like it's helping Dak at all,
06:12be comfortable in the pocket.
06:14And that's going to be a concern all year.
06:16Now, Dak does a pretty good job of getting away with it for the most part.
06:19Sure.
06:20And if Terrence Steele can be a half a tick better,
06:23just a half a tick better, Dak will have a little bit more time
06:26to make the next decision, the next good decision he needs to make.
06:29But Mickey said it, and Todd Bowles did it, and that was,
06:35you know what, if we can't chase these guys down in the secondary,
06:39we're going to have to make Dak uncomfortable,
06:41and that's what they decided to do, and that's how they got their win.
06:44By the way, K-Swiss is the leader thus far.
06:48Oh, really?
06:48K-Swiss?
06:49For the kind of offshoot, though, attack force from Payless
06:53and L.A. Gear are all making a run.
06:56But K-Swiss is the early leader for the shoes that you had that, you know.
07:01Is Payless still around?
07:03I don't know.
07:04Let me know.
07:06I used to go to Payless for sure.
07:08I mean, I think once a week.
07:09And not even just to, like, get shoes,
07:11just to go around the shoe store and see what else was there.
07:15Yeah.
07:15But it was like, I was never seeing any Nikes there.
07:18I was trying on pro wings.
07:20Did you always have, like, that little bit of hope
07:22that somebody accidentally put Nikes in a box?
07:25Not really.
07:26Oh, see, I did.
07:27I was always like...
07:28$20 deal.
07:30I was like, are penny loafers in style?
07:33Yeah, I didn't know if they were, like, a stylish shoe or not.
07:36And did you have to wear a penny in them?
07:39Like, did you have to have pennies in that little slot
07:41where they had the spot?
07:42A whole baby.
07:43Like an oldie cart.
07:44Yeah.
07:44Yes!
07:45Man, that's so weird.
07:47Payless emerged from bankruptcy in 2020.
07:50Let's go.
07:50Oh, I can't say I really see Payless's around here,
07:54and this is a very brief investigation, so I don't know.
07:57Can I tell you about one more drive?
08:00All right, let's go back to the first Tampa Bay drive.
08:03We're going to skip ahead to the eighth play of the Bucs drive.
08:06So I don't want to make it sound like, well, if not for this,
08:10it would have been a three and out.
08:11It would not have been a three and out.
08:13But you had taken the ball, marched down the field with relative ease,
08:18and scored a touchdown.
08:19And then you get first and ten from the Dallas 40.
08:23It's the eighth play of the Bucs' first drive.
08:27Bucky Irving makes a run.
08:29He has momentum to the hole, but Barham slows him down,
08:33and then Justin Barron takes him down for a gain of just two.
08:37And that's a key thing that I think we lose sight of sometimes.
08:40It's not just making the tackle, but if you can stop someone's unabated momentum
08:44so somebody else can slide in there and make the assisted tackle
08:48or maybe the tackle themselves, that's huge.
08:50So now, second and eight.
08:52Shallow throw to the outside to Egg Bucca,
08:55but only gets a gain of three on that play.
08:59The reason why I thought that was so incredibly important is,
09:02how many times have you seen that ridiculous shallow throw to the outside,
09:07and you're like, oh, so we're not covering that?
09:10And so it was the fact that you were able to stop that
09:15and stop that very efficiently.
09:18Justin Barron again, right there, makes a stop.
09:21So now it's third and five, and you're like, here we go.
09:23Third and five at the Dallas 35.
09:25You can stop him here that you can force a field goal.
09:28It'll be a long field goal for sure, and so that's a positive.
09:31But you get early pressure up the middle.
09:34Nothing doing.
09:34But the receivers either are on lock or Jalen doesn't see it.
09:39And then he gets six more seconds, and then you get a positive result.
09:45So it was a weird play because you're like, that's not great.
09:48He had six whole seconds to just stand around and look around.
09:51But either he was young and didn't see it or the coverage.
09:54Then Vaughn Miller, Shemar James, get to him.
09:58It's a great defensive sequence.
10:00You push him back to the 48.
10:02Are they really going to kick a 66-yard field goal on their first possession of the game?
10:06Probably not.
10:08But then there was Deron Bland there to ruin the fun with a holding penalty.
10:14It's okay.
10:14It's okay.
10:16We have a plan for Bland.
10:18Okay, great.
10:19Because I wrote, and we're going to get to that, I wrote, this could be a game changer.
10:23And whether or not it was tough to say, Cowboys didn't play well for most of the game.
10:27But then you get the silly revel penalty as well.
10:31Then Rashawn Gary with a neutral zone infraction after it's already second and goal from the 10,
10:36and you made your stand on first down.
10:38And it's just, the Cowboys gave up the opportunity to force a punt.
10:42Then they gave up the opportunity to force a long field goal.
10:44Then they were like, let's just help you get to the end zone.
10:47Let's give you some confidence, young quarterback who probably shouldn't have any confidence.
10:51Exactly.
10:51And so what happens?
10:52They score right after the end of the first quarter.
10:54But if nothing else, they killed the rest of the first quarter with this epic drive at a time that
11:00the second the Cowboys offense got the ball, boom, touchdown.
11:03And so they're like, fine, let's drag this game into the muck.
11:06And they did.
11:06And they were able to.
11:07Absolutely.
