- 10 minutes ago
Bobby took us Below The Belt for a deep dive into the history of the Cowboys-49ers rivalry. They discussed Roger Staubach's 1972 playoff comeback, CeeDee Lamb's sideline frustration, Brian Schottenheimer's rise to head coach, and more.
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00:00Bobby knows ball. Hey, let's talk ball where the ball knowers and we just talk ball how the San Francisco
00:0749ers are responsible for Roger Staubach and Brian Schottenheimer.
00:13Let's talk about it here in below the belt, which is brought to you by DNM leasing, DM auto leasing
00:16dot com.
00:17Before we get to some Cowboys 49ers history with 49ers and Cowboys getting ready to square off on Sunday, Matt
00:24Mayoko from NBC Sports Bay Area is coming up here in about 20 minutes.
00:29It's there's an interesting bit of audio that's floating around the Internet of Zach Taylor yesterday from the Bengals.
00:35And I was curious how you guys read this audio because we heard it. Yes.
00:40What your read on it was. This is because I heard Gbag talking about it yesterday and they had a
00:45completely different take on it than I did when I heard it.
00:48And so I'm curious how you guys feel about this. This is Zach Taylor talking about that next trade between
00:53the Bengals and the Eagles,
00:54which initially the report was, oh, Evokati had failed a physical and that's why the deal didn't go through.
01:00And then it turned out it was about comp pick formula and potentially losing comp picks.
01:03But this was Zach Taylor addressing the failed trade yesterday with the media.
01:08Obviously, we tried something yesterday and Duke was very explicit with me when he came and spoke to me of
01:15how he wanted this portrayed.
01:16And I'm not comfortable doing it, but I'm going to do what he asked.
01:18You know, and we did make an effort to kind of put some depth in there in place of Cassius
01:23as we got into it.
01:24Obviously, it was going to be a little more costly than we initially anticipated.
01:27So he's really apologetic about it and wants to make clear Philly was a great trade partner.
01:32It was on our end and that's just the way things go.
01:34But certainly have a ton of confidence in our front office and how they do things.
01:37And they've given us the players that have allowed us to be six and two right now and playing at
01:41such a high level.
01:42So we'll put that behind us and move forward and just get excited for this game on Sunday and our
01:47locker room is in a great place right now.
01:49What stands out to you about that clip of Zach Taylor talking about Duke Tobin, the GM or basically guy
01:54in charge of the Bengals personnel department?
01:56Well, first thing that stands out is it makes it sound like Duke Tobin is a coward and a total
02:02chicken.
02:03And then it makes it sound like Zach Taylor was not comfortable explaining things as a general manager when he's
02:12just a head coach.
02:13That's what stands out to me.
02:15And that's pretty much the read that Gbag had on it.
02:19That they were saying...
02:20You put me in an uncomfortable position.
02:22Like, to come on, explain why the broadcast setup failed for the first 20 minutes.
02:29I can't do it.
02:30I can't talk that technology.
02:33I can't do it.
02:33Now, Zach Taylor is much more versed in trade possibilities, but it's not my area of expertise.
02:40I should not be sitting here doing this.
02:41Yeah, and Gbag killed him for this.
02:43Like Broadus was saying, all right, next time...
02:44Kill Tobin.
02:45Yeah, he goes, next time you have a bad coaching decision, Zach Taylor should say, hold on, I'm going to
02:48go get Duke Tobin for you to talk about this.
02:52I heard it a little differently.
02:53I think Chop did.
02:54Chop, how did you hear that?
02:55Because I think we're closer to seeing it that way.
02:57So, I don't know why, just when somebody speaks, like, the way their, the way the tone of their voice
03:05is, I just...
03:05Cadence, demeanor.
03:06Yeah.
03:07I just felt like Zach was, like, a honest dude, like a stand-up guy, like, just for whatever reason.
03:12I don't know why.
03:13I have no frame of reference on this.
03:14I don't...
03:15I shouldn't like him.
03:16I don't like Zach's with no K.
03:18Yeah.
03:19Like the ZAC.
03:20Not a fan.
03:21Sure.
03:23But, yeah, I felt like he was, like, he wasn't throwing him under the bus.
03:29I'll also say this, you know, as somebody, and this is the complete opposite, like, I don't know how often
03:36Duke Tobin speaks to the media.
03:38Yeah, I know he does at a combine.
03:39I'm not sure outside of that.
03:40Like, I also think that if I was running an organization, like, all right, you are, you're the head coach,
03:45you were the face of my franchise, you make all public statements.
03:48Yeah.
03:48And I looked at this one as, for him to say, hey, go out there and represent it, that to
03:55me speaks to, I guess, that Duke Tobin just doesn't address the media very often.
04:00And so I guess that's why the expectation would be that.
04:02But I took it, especially when he circled back at the end and went, complete faith in our front office,
04:07they've given us such great players and blah, blah, blah.
04:09And was basically, like, giving him a bunch of praise.
04:11I was kind of listening back to it and taking it to mean that, hey, Duke's going to, like, take
04:16the heat for this, and I'm not comfortable with that,
04:17but I'm going to do what Duke said.
04:19Duke says it's on us.
04:21Like, I got the, that's how I got the sense of it was that Zach Taylor was trying to say,
04:25I'm not, I'm not comfortable throwing ourselves under the bus here,
04:29but Duke wants to do it that way because he's being a stand-up guy and taking the blame for
04:33it.
04:33So here we go.
04:34This is what happened.
04:35That's how I took it after he had put the praise on him at the back end.
04:38Because I would think you just wouldn't praise him.
04:39You'd say whatever you're going to say and then move on.
04:41No, he's going to praise him because he's still the general manager, and I think Zach Taylor is aware that
04:48Duke Tobin will take criticism for not going out there,
04:50manning up, and being the voice in the face of the trade that fell through.
04:55So he threw out his usual public compliment and praise, like Brian Schottenheimer's going to do for his bosses.
05:02Interesting either way, and I'll be fascinated to see what follow-ups he gets from that the next time that
05:06he talks in the stead of Duke Tobin, I assume.
05:11Duke Tobin, you're a chicken.
05:13You're a coward.
05:13That's what it looks like to me.
05:14Cowboys 49ers playing this weekend.
05:17So we had covered this story a little bit or covered this history of it a couple years ago,
05:23and it was back in 23, 2023, so it was three years ago now.
05:27And I remember Mike came in, Bassick, and belated happy birthday to Mike.
05:32Mike came in right before crosstalk, and he was like, I had never heard that story before,
05:37and I grew up a Cowboys fan.
05:38I didn't realize that.
05:39So I was just going to tell it here because I think there are a lot of Cowboys fans who
05:41don't realize this,
05:42and then also the update that's happened since they're in Cowboys history.
05:46So Cowboys and 49ers go back.
05:48A lot of people just know it as the 90s rivalry.
05:50It is so much deeper than that.
05:52Obviously, the 80s, they played each other a bunch.
05:54There was the catch with Dwight Clark.
05:56They had big NFC battles in the playoffs in the 80s.
05:59But the 70s, they had a lot of matchups with each other, too.
06:03And if you go back to 1970, the NFC championship game is the Cowboys and the 49ers,
06:08and it's a game started by Craig Morton.
06:10The first initial intense quarterback competition that has existed in Cowboys history was Roger Staubach and Craig Morton.
06:18And Craig Morton starts this game, and it's a game where he was the primary starter during the 1970 season.
06:25Craig Morton was.
06:26Cowboys beat the 49ers on the road, 17-10.
06:28They advanced to their first Super Bowl.
06:30They lose to the Colts in Super Bowl V.
06:32The following year, it's the 71 NFC championship game, and it's the Cowboys and the 49ers again.
06:37Cowboys win that one, 14-3 at Texas Stadium.
06:41So they go on.
06:42They go to the Super Bowl.
06:42They win their first one against the Dolphins.
06:44But this time, Roger Staubach is the starting quarterback in this game.
06:49So after the NFC championship game, former president Lyndon Johnson goes in there, goes to Cowboys locker room,
06:55and says they should rename this place Staubach Stadium.
06:57That still was not good enough, though, to get Roger Staubach the job.
07:01The next preseason, Staubach gets hurt in the preseason because he won't go out of bounds.
07:06He jacks and darts it, basically, and he separates his shoulder.
07:10Tom Landry is so furious at him for doing this because he missed 12 weeks because of it.
07:16He's so furious about him.
07:18He had told the New York Times at the time, you can't run over big guys.
07:20You've got to run out of bounds.
07:21He's a great competitor.
07:22He was going for the goal line.
07:24But he called it the worst injury in football and said that there are guys who just don't recover from
07:28the injury that Staubach had.
07:30So it was Craig Morton.
07:31Again, you get into the 72 playoffs again.
07:33And Craig Morton, who had started most of the year and went 10-4, they're getting their asses kicked at
07:38Candlestick Park by the 49ers.
07:41And eventually, they're getting mocked so bad.
07:43Charlie Waters and Cliff Harris, I believe, talked about at the time that they, or it was Walt Garrison,
07:47had said that they heard 49ers players laughing at them throughout the game and mocking them and just,
07:53hey, you boys are going to be okay, that they said it was the most embarrassed they ever felt.
07:56Roger comes in, leads the Cowboys on three scoring drives in the fourth quarter.
08:00They storm back.
08:01They win the game 30-28.
08:0349ers are stunned.
08:04And that was the end of the competition, was that everything was basically decided between Morton and Staubach,
08:09between these 49ers playoffs games.
08:11And Staubach coming in, winning that one.
08:12He got his job back, Landry forgave him, and they were able to move forward after that, and he had
08:17the job.
08:17And Craig Morton, of course, got dealt later, would never start another game for the Cowboys, and it changed everything.
08:22What year was that?
08:231972.
08:24Dude.
08:26He was 30 already.
08:28Morton?
08:29No.
08:29Or Staubach, yeah.
08:30He was such an, I mean, obviously because of Navy.
08:33Yeah.
08:33He was so old when he got really going.
08:35Fun fact, people may not know, Roger Staubach was supposed to be on the cover of Life magazine the week
08:40that John F. Kennedy got shot.
08:41And there were only, there were 10 copies that had been put out, because there's a big cowboy collector, Cowboy
08:48Bob Bragalone.
08:49I've seen it.
08:50He has one of those 10 copies of the Life magazine with Staubach on the cover.
08:53Yeah.
08:54Yeah, he just makes cocky comments in the mirror.
08:56He's a big-time attorney in DFW.
08:59Really?
08:59But he has a copy of that Life magazine of Staubach.
09:02There's only, it's like 10 copies of it.
09:04But when we talked about this back in 2023, that was one of the big points.
09:09And we ran over all these different points of Cowboys 49ers history.
09:11We got one after that weekend.
09:15That is the reason, that game right there is the reason why Brian Schottenheimer is the head coach of the
09:19Cowboys now.
09:20A game that they got destroyed in San Francisco.
09:23So, that was first five weeks of the season.
09:26They were winning games in 2023, but it was not, you guys remember, the offense was looking kind of stale.
09:31And people were saying, okay, you're winning games, but, like, can you keep passing, like, can you keep doing these
09:36five-yard passing routes the whole season?
09:38So, when you get in there, and San Francisco had been their measuring stick, they get their asses kicked.
09:42And that was the big seedy lamb, hands on the hips, isolated on the sideline, not wanting to do anything
09:49with anybody, but was furious about it.
09:53So, I'm going to fast forward a sec before we can cover this.
09:56But, 2024, they lose to the Ravens, and that was one of seedy lamb's kind of pouty games.
10:02He's on the sideline pouting a little bit, wanted the offense to be better, wasn't going the way he did.
10:07And he gave a press conference the week after that, where he apologized for it.
10:11And there was an interesting interaction that we're going to explain here.
10:142024, this is seedy lamb talking about how he was going to be better cut 12.
10:18Last year, we talked about this after the San Francisco game, and you had maybe the best stretch of your
10:23career.
10:23How do you look back at that and maybe channel that into similar?
10:32I plan on doing it again.
10:35And he has the biggest S-eating grin on his face when he gets asked, how do you channel that
10:39again?
10:40Which seems like, how do I think it would be that funny?
10:43The reason why he chuckled and said, I plan on doing it again, is because in 2023, after the 49ers
10:47game,
10:47that is when there was essentially a hostile takeover of the offense.
10:52And Lamb, Dak, a couple other veterans on offense basically had given the feedback to the coaches like,
10:58we cannot win football games this way.
11:00This isn't going to work.
11:01Like, we need to be able to run the offense the way that we feel comfortable with.
11:05And the big advocate for the players in that, the guy who was kind of the guy on the coaching
11:09staff,
11:10lobbying for the players and being their advocate when talking to McCarthy, was Brian Schottenheimer.
11:14And so Schottenheimer, that's how he and Dak got really close that year, was through that and through that growth
11:19and kind of rescuing the offense and turning them into a juggernaut the rest of the year
11:23that would then get blown out by the Packers, obviously.
11:25But if that game in San Francisco doesn't happen and there's not this pushback against what the schemes were
11:31and Schottenheimer kind of taking the mantle for that and leading that, he doesn't get the job.
11:35Because that's what really was the catalyst for the opinion the players had for him,
11:39was how he helped them rally the offense in 23.
11:42I wonder what Dak thinks of Schottenheimer's offense now.
11:46I wonder how many problems or issues he has compared to whatever there was with McCarthy.
11:52Because I could see there being some.
11:54Yeah.
11:55I would bet that if you've seen things...
11:59And there's always going to be some, but...
12:01If you've seen things done a certain way before, like that offense in 23 completely flipped.
12:05That's not the offense they're running right now.
12:06They're not running that 23 post San Francisco offense.
12:09And so, yeah, if Dak was like, this is what I went to bat for you for, and we're not
12:12doing that now,
12:13what are we doing?
12:14But why?
12:15This should be a better offense.
12:17Because the idea of you've got, all right, we've got one-on-ones,
12:21we're going to win these matchups with these guys over here,
12:23we don't necessarily have to scheme stuff up,
12:24we're just going to have these guys crush it on basic route concepts,
12:27and then what we're going to be able to do is devote to a run game that's really efficient,
12:30and then we're going to soften them up that way.
12:31So they're so talented, they're doing, like, less creativity.
12:35I mean, in reality, like, there are, that is a thought for a lot of coaches,
12:39that if you're talented enough to win one-on-one, I don't need to create for you.
12:41We need to create for the running game.
12:43That's your Jason Garrett dream.
12:44It's my Jason Garrett dream.