Let’s Talk About the Cowboys Linebackers | Cowboys Break

Let’s Talk About the Cowboys Linebackers | Cowboys Break

The following is a production of DallasCowboys.com and the Dallas Cowboys Football Club. How about you? Go. Let’s go, baby. Are you ready for a break? Yes. Are you ready for a break? Absolutely. Ready for a break? Yeah. And um so much for that. It’s time for the break on dallascowboys.com. We were on the break with Ambar Garcia, Brian Bris, Vach Lombardi, and Derek Eagleton. It is Tuesday, October 28th, 2025, season 21, episode number 67. Welcome to the latest edition of The Break. We are live from SWBC Mortgage Studios at the Star. We are presented by LG. LG is the world’s number one OLED TV brand for 11 years in counting. See why at lg.com Evo. Chris, I told you Derek is too old to know the trend. 67. What? What are you doing? And bro, let me just keep it above. What are you talking about? V is too old to know what the hell 67 is. And I ain’t got kids, so I don’t know. Nobody’s Nobody’s taught the 33y old what 67 mean. You know, that’s actually that’s actually around the age where you start losing touch. Like cuz you don’t care no more. Like you don’t care about impressing young kids. Who cares? Who cares? Like I that’s about the age where I started being like I don’t care about what y’all talking about. Y’all talk it’s stupid. It’s crazy. When I was in When I was in high school, when I was in high school, the best rap in the world was Lil Wayne. Lil Wayne was ridiculous. You in high school? When I was in high school? Yeah. Middle school. Really? Wayne was hot for a long time. My dad had no clue Wayne was hot. And I was like, man, how do you not know that Lil Wayne is hot? NBA Young Boy is a guy now. I know who he is. Can’t name one, not one song from him. Don’t know who that is. Right. Bad Bunny. Don’t know one Bad Bunny song. Yep. can’t sing it. You start seeing them in places people like, “Oh, that’s whoever.” And you like, “Really?” Who that is? Oh, the NFL love of famous YouTube content creator, Tik Tok character. I know. Who is that? Yeah. What they do for what they saying? I don’t know. Hey, man. I don’t know. You got to keep up. What’s 67? 67. It’s something that we can’t say. Are you in group seven? I don’t know. Then no, you only know if you’re Only Group seven people know if they’re in group seven. It sound like something we we we can’t say on TV, right? It sound like something we can’t say. Sorry y’all. Brian, where are you on this? Man, I you know what’s inside Brian’s mind about 61. I got I got some questions. We got some football, right? Back to football. Change the programming. Right. Back to football. I got some I got some football questions. Let’s stay focused. All right. So, here’s what I want to do today. We’re going to uh we got we got a we got a defense that gives up six, seven yards a carry. There full circle. We are going to get to we are going to dive inside the brain of Brian brought us in the second segment. And in the third segment today, we’re going to try to hear from you guys. We’re going to take some money. Oh, no way. No way. You are such a trend setter. You are such a trends setter. You want to know what it is? You want to know what it is? What it is? No. I didn’t get a chance to do the rundown last night. So, this morning I was like, what can we do in the third segment? Questions. Let’s take questions. It don’t matter the reason. And by the way, And by the way, next week when we on a buy and the week after that coming off a buy, we’re going to take we going to take a lot of questions. So, get ready. Get ready with your questions because we gonna be listening to y’all talk more than we gonna be talking over the next two weeks. So, just know that’s how we Thank you. Thank you. Next up on my list, the TVs. We got to make sure this happens before the We never get There are TVs right there. Two TVs right there. Christmas time. What? Yeah, for Christmas. Chris did what? Chris Bean. Christmas. Christmas time. Oh, Christmas time. I’ll take a TV. I think he’s getting on you the way you We are. We are. I thought you said Christmas. And she’s getting frustrated with us like you know what I’m talking. Snobby die. Wait till we get to the break. That’s something for you in the break. I won’t get too cocky. All right, here’s what we got to do. Derek Stallin, we ain’t going to talk about y’all. Time is just ticking. Time is just Okay. No. Uh, first segment today. I did want to talk about injuries. BB coming back this week, bro. What it look? Huh? That’s not what I want to talk about. I actually want to talk about linebacker. I want to talk about linebacker because the owner and general manager brought up linebacker this morning. I thought it was very interesting the way they called him out. This is what he said. He says, “We need to basically have better play from the linebackers, maintaining the integrity of our gaps, which the linebackers have to fill. The linebackers have to slide.” So, they did a good job against us talking about Denver, and we did a poor job. That being said, how significant do you think it is that Jerry spoke specifically about a position, which he doesn’t tend to do a lot. He doesn’t tend to call out specific players or positions even necessarily, especially when he’s giving a critique. How significant do you think that is, man? And I don’t, you know, I don’t want to come on his radio station and all this that he’s paid for all these microphones and things like that and and and say he’s a couple weeks late on that, but boy, Mr. Jones, you’re a couple weeks late. A little later on that one. Hey, we’ve been talking about on the break for a minute. So, he if you want to look at it indirectly like he don’t listen to us is what that mean. Yeah. He don’t listen. He has the people that he pays talking about it. So, it’s it’s been addressed. Yeah. He just didn’t address it till today. But gap integrity, y’all. That’s uh that’s the name of the game. When your run defense looked decent, uh, your gap integrity was, you know, it was it was solid. When your run defense is horrific, nine times out of 10, it’s somebody playing hero ball and not team ball and the gap integrity is not always there. What we’ve uh saw plenty times, me and Brian broke broke down a little bit of film on it. I showed it twice. It happened like seven is sometimes your end doesn’t stay outside, you know, and what happens is if your end don’t stay outside, then running back goes outside. If you’re a linebacker and you don’t feel your B gap, nine times out of 10, somebody going to go right where you left off at. Uh most of these offensive run systems are based on the running back’s eyes, what they see in them finding grass. So, not only if you didn’t hit your gap, but if you far miss your gap, I think it’s something on film also. I can’t prove this cuz I ain’t got Shawn Peyton number. Brian do and I’ll let you know when EV text us back. I think that they’re seeing on film that our edges get caught inside too much and that makes the linebackers get caught inside too much. So, what’ll happen is these teams will confidently uh crack your linebacker with a wide receiver and they’ll just put your tight end one-on-one with your edge guy and just pin everything to the inside. And that happens a whole bunch. I wonder if that’s something that uh that these past few coaches have saw from you. But, uh Jerry ain’t wrong. Jerry and his people that’s feeding him analytics and information. He’s absolutely right. Let me ask you this question real quick on that before you go, Brian. Um, when you talk about the the the defensive ends getting caught inside, and I’m I brought this up yesterday, and I can’t quite figure out which I think it is, it’s happening a lot. As you said, you see it on film a ton, particularly with Sam, where he crashes down hard and takes that inside gap. It makes me wonder, is he being coached and is it his responsibility to take that inside gap, in which case, really, it’s not him that’s the problem. The problem is the linebacker again is not scraping and getting to that outside gap where that is his responsibility. Which do you think it is? It’s called a run blitz. And what it is is and Sam and we we’ve talked about this before. If we remember when Tank Lawrence, remember how instinctual Tank would be? It would be third and three and you’re playing the Seahawks and all of a sudden he’s reading formation and he sees wing to his side and he’s thinking like, “Okay, they’re coming this way. I’m going to go hard inside charge and see if I can make a play.” I think Sam is doing it because Sam is told that, “Hey, we’re going to run blitz this this this particular play.” And when you go down and like Votch was talking about and I thought very well the the the the where the fills come in where it’s an it’s a A gap, it’s an A gap charge, it’s a B gap fill, it’s a C gap fill. And there’s been times where we’ve seen and again Votch and I broke it down this morning where you do see hard inside charge and then you don’t see Murray get over the top or you don’t see James get over the top. So the design is you the whole idea is to replace all the gaps. So if you have a guy playing C gap going to A gap now you got to replace the B gap and the C gap all in in in defense to make it make it a solid front. Dallas hadn’t been able to get that. You know, they’ve had, unfortunately, they’ve had plays where all of a sudden a guy say like an outstanding run defender like Kenny Clark is on the ground. He’s on the ground. Now, a guard’s up on the linebacker, so the linebacker can’t get over to make a fill. So, now you have an inside charge, no fill, and then the the other fill is too wide having to take two gaps. We saw that with the the situation with with Elum. you know, Elum is in the in the play, but he’s too wide to make the play. The ball goes up inside of him. So, uh, it’s it’s when to answer your question, it’s Sam being told to play, but they’re getting hurt when it comes to the execution of actually where everybody needs to fit to make the run be defended. Also too, as ways you can actually tell, the very first play of the game, Marshon Nean, when you saw him, he didn’t immediately go inside. Like he was outside a little bit and tight end took him inside. Like like that’s that’s one way to tell. Um and then there’s another way to tell. Um you know, coaches will tell you to cheat a little bit. Like if if it’s your job to get the B gap, then you can kind of pre-nap just cheat to B gap to just make it easier for you to get there. Um it happened to Dante Fowler. This ain’t me calling him out. It just kind of happened a little bit. Dante Fowler started off real wide. I’m like, man, why would you start so wide if it’s your job to be in B gap? Turned out it wasn’t his job to be in B gap. I think he felt something and he felt the run go away. So, he crashed real real hard and the running back went right off of him and it was a one-on-one with Elim. And Elim wasn’t expecting to be the only one on the island with the running back and bad things happened after that. Mhm. To your question about, you know, is this unusual or this is unusual for Jerry to single out a specific group, position group, I did find it interesting. One, I’m okay with him doing that. That’s totally fine. We’ve been talking about the linebacker position. I like the accountability. I like that. Okay, they’re seeing what we’re seeing, you know, not that they’re not, but it’s always better to hear it that they are also kind of on the same page. But I did find it interesting because after the game, Brian Shottenheimimer, one of the things that he emphasized was the culture of the team. And he’s like, “Okay, um, when you have adversity, that’s good. It’s good. It’s what you do with it, though. It’s either going to make your team or break it. It’s how you respond to it.” And he said something about the culture that he’s building on the team is that right now there wouldn’t be anyone that starts fingerpointing and saying this person did that or that person did that. And that’s something that he was very proud of voicing and being that’s when kind of everything can start to go downhill when you start singling out people. And the fact that then Jerry makes that comment, I just thought it was kind of, you know, it’s a contrast there. So I did find it kind of interesting in that sense. I think when you’ve listened to and this is one of the advantages that I do have of working with 1053 is that we have the opportunity to talk to Jerry Jones and to Brian Shottenheimer and to Stephen Jones. I think this week from all three of those gentlemen there’s been a different tone. There has been a different tone. It’s not the well hey we’re okay and we just got to execute better and we got to No, this week it this week was a like it was a real slap in the face, pardon the expression of reality of what this football team probably is and there the the tone of Jerry Jones now saying linebacker play has to be better and you know he could have he could very easily said our defensive line play has to be better our secondary has to be better but when you look at overall some of the things that they’ve struggled with in the running game. It has been the linebackers. I think he gave you a very honest answer, but I think overall the tone of your top your coach and your executives has really changed. You know, that that game was very eyeopening and Stephen Jones is right. Three, four and one is not going to get you into the playoffs. I mean, that that is just not and you know, usually it’s like, oh, we just need to play better. You know, we’ll worry about no and you know, put our heads in the sand kind of thing. I I I didn’t detect that the the last couple of days when listening to them talk. I I I sense there is a sense of it is not good enough and we damn need to do something about it right now. Yeah, it’s interesting, Brian. Even on starting on Sunday, I think we heard a different tone from coach Shotti after the game. It it didn’t feel like what you typically hear from coaches that we’ve heard over the years, you know. We’ll get on the practice field and we Yeah, usually we got correct our mistakes, but we’ll be better. You know, it wasn’t that. it was, hey, this ain’t good enough. We got to fix it and there will be changes. And and my question becomes like I know he said, you know, there will be changes and and kind of alluded to after the buy, but my question is like what kind of changes could even be made that really at this point would give you faith that the defense can be better? I mean, I know you’re going to get some players back, but as I said yesterday, I don’t trust I have for you today. Okay, good. That’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to take a break. We’re going to come back and we’ll dive inside the Brian brain of Brad. It’s more than fine. Taking it to break right now. Follow that. Yeah. Well, we’ll be back. Dallas cowboys.com radio. How’s it going? You see that Cowboys game? Oh, I watched. Been seeing some good things. Totally. They have some talent. Yep. Some great talent. And they got some fight. Hoping this is the year. Me, too. Oh, I’m Cody, by the way. I’m Travis. Nice to meet you, Travis. Go Cowboys. Go Cowboys. Make a new friend based solely on their shirt choice. What would you like the power to do? Bank of America, the official bank of the Dallas Cowboys. Copyright 2025 Bank of America Corporation. If you shout, “How about them Cowboys?” You have that undeniable passion that’s the heart of Cowboys Nation. 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Before you ask, I’ve done my homework and the dishwasher’s unloading. Nice. Hey, can you Hey, hun. Yes, I’ve got the finale ready to play. Here’s your wine. Wow. Isn’t it nice not having to ask? We think so. That’s why if there’s a network interruption, AT&T will proactively credit you for a full day of service, guaranteed. Credit for fiber downtime lasting 20 minutes or more, or for wireless downtime lasting 60 minutes or more, caused by a single incident impacting 10 or more towers. Restrictions and exclusions apply. See at.com/gar for details. Back to the break. Choose perfection. Choose LG OLED EVO. Check out the best TV in the game at lg.com. That’s why I’m here, bro. I need some more money. You feel me? I need I need Derek. Hey, I need both of y’all to pull. But let me just tell you just tell you if you need more money, it ain’t time to have kids. They going to drain you. They will drain you. Sunday, I was at at the game working. Amber saw my phone rang. It’s my my daughter. And she says, “I was just talking to mom and she said, “You probably had a few minutes, so I figured I wanted to call you to ask for money.” And her mom had literally said, “I’m on the phone with you. We have joint accounts. You can ask me.” And she was like, “No, I need to call dad to ask for money.” That’s real though. That is very real. And actually, I like it that way. I need her to know there’s no man out there that can take care of you better than your daddy. So, it is, you know, we going to talk about that a little. I’m just saying we can’t Yeah, but we going to talk about that. These are parenting advices for you brothers out there dealing with little girls. Anyway, get all the wisdom. Hey, let’s uh let’s let’s jump in to the brain of Brian Bro. Actually, segments brought to you by blockchain.com. I was just f to hit you, boy. You were not. You forgot all about it, too. All right, Brian. Let’s go inside the brain of Brian BR. What you got, Brian? What’s up, y’all? Do you feel like did Stephen Jones regret saying that the defense was fixed when they made the trade for Micah? the run defense was fixed. Man, they all regretting that stuff. Boy, did he say that verbatim? Of course he said it just like that. Boy, I I bet they watch Packers games. They just got to shake their head and just imagine and play a good old game of what if he Where did they get it wrong then? Where did they where did they get it wrong? Where did they get it wrong? I think they got it wrong thinking that Kenny Clark was like the the one piece that was going to, you know, fix it like in that kind of way. And and Brian, what we’ve learned is that this defense is so bad as a whole. Even if your run defense is solid, then teams still find a way to throw the ball against you. You know, if you do deal with the with the pass, well, then then we’ll just run it around and we’ll just do it like that, Brian. Uh I think this uh now where they still have a little hope, Stephen maybe spoke a little early. Shouts out to brother Steve, me and him. Uh I think you know where they may have spoke a little too soon, the run defense may not be better this year. You crack cuz I a little bit the run defense. Pardon me. this this this uh this uh true blue the run defense may not be good this year but after they traded or they draft some kids or whatever and come up in here then they’ll be like well well I never told y’all that the run is going to be good this year but the run’s good next year with Kenny Clark and draft picks or Kenny Clark and some miscellaneous cat that we can go trade for to come help the run defense. How about you Amber? Does Stephven Jones you think he regrets saying that he felt that the run defense was fixed when they made that trade? Um, it did improve for a little bit. We saw a little bit of improvement there. But I think I think that regardless of the trade, and I’m going to go further beyond just the run defense, I think the defense would be exactly what it is right now. Maybe not exactly the same obviously if you have a pass rusher, but at the same time you I truly feel you would be getting similar results as to what you are having right now. And I hate criticizing coaches and certain players because you develop a certain type of relationship. So it makes it difficult for you to come on here, get on a mic, and then start talking about their job and how bad they’re doing and this and that. So, I hate that. But at the same time, I think it goes beyond the players ability. We keep talking. Yes, it is a combination there, but it comes back to coaching and what is currently happening with the defensive coordinator. And I don’t want to say, oh, pack your bags and leave. They don’t know me. I’ll say it. Hey, man. If if you if you don’t figure something out, it’s happening fast, brother. It’s just it’s just unfortunate that it’s gotten to this point of the season so far along to where you haven’t actually seen true improvement or some sense of hope. We saw it. What was it? Who who did we play? The was it the Panthers two weeks ago? No. Anderson. Washington. We saw there and there was a little bit of hope that you started feeling but you knew you had to see it happen back, you know, backtoback weeks and have some kind of consistency there. But not enough has happened to where you think, yeah, that trade made any difference. Derek, you go ahead. How much better does this defense have to be and how fast before we start to feel better about about Flu? Two more stops a game. Two more stops a game. Two more stops a game. Like, is that enough to make you go, “All right, Flu, next year we going to run it back.” I I’m just this, you know, to me that’s why I think I’m still really gung-ho about making a trade because I’m interested in finding a way. Give this offense two more possessions a game. Sure. Give them two more possessions a game and see what happens. You I think that I think you’ll be out of harm’s way a lot more. You know, now now teams are chasing, but teams have thrown the ball well against you, too. But I would rather them try and you know, maybe you can you’ve seen them get pressure. You just haven’t seen him get the sacks, but I’m thinking two more stops a game handing the ball back to your offense. It worked in the Commanders game. They got plenty of stops in the Commanders game. What’ Dallas do? They took advantage. The offense took advantage of that. Put up a lot of points. That’s all I’m asking, man. I If you give me two more good stops a game, I I I could I could be okay with what this team’s doing. Yeah. I honestly I I look at I’m a little bit disheartened by what I’ve seen from the defense from the standpoint that they are giving up chunk plays in the run game and the pass game and against poor competition. That’s the part that really bothers me and it’s it’s really honestly there’s only been one team that that didn’t gash them like that and they had some moments too and that was Washington. And so you basically the only team that hasn’t gashed you to that level had no players. Yeah. they were down their top three wide receivers and and and so I I yes I I look at it and I’m like I I’ve gotten a point now I’m not sure that you go out and get me that stud player that we’ve been talking so much about on this show. Sure. I don’t know that it’s going to change a ton because I I would say right now change the years the next year. Yes. Yes. And by the way if you get the right back to your back to your original question I think Kenny Clark may be more valuable to you if you get more players in this defense. Sure. I just think right now like it there are so many problems and and a lot of the problems I I’ve been saying forever. I still believe it reside with the linebacker position. And because the linebackers are not being that will expose so much about your defense because they have responsibilities in the run game and the pass game and them being out of position can affect both in some very profound ways. We’ve seen plays downfield. We’ve seen plays downfield this year where linebacker was out of position and play ends up behind them and it’s and yeah touchdown. So I think right now the biggest challenge is the linebackers. But I think there’s so many issues right now going on. I’m not sure that one player solves it. And so for me that’s where you do have to say, okay coaches, y’all got to figure out a plan with this group of players because all the players can’t be bad. Yeah, you got to figure out a plan now to use the the the skills of the players that you have in order to make this defense decent and workable. I think even if Michael was here, things would look weird on defense. Yeah, that’s my point. Yeah, that’s my point. Cuz guess what? He would be crashing down just like Sam Williams doing and that linebacker still wouldn’t be filling and you still have that 40 yard touchdown. Yeah, Mike could be playing corner or something. Coach Shanheimimer Coach Shanheimer addressed changes with the lineup. Give me one you’d like to make. Wait, say it again. Coach Shenheimer addressed changes with the lineup. Give me one you’d like to make. Can I get a boys credit while she’s thinking? Uh, Sam and Fowler got less got less reps this week. Okay. I thought that was important. Shouts out to them. It ain’t helped nothing, but I did notice that they had less reps and uh Clowny and Nean got more. Still got to figure it out a little bit, but that’s a change. So, shouts out to them for doing that. All right. Offense or defense? Amber, you can make it. I was I was Well, there are two things. No, it’s cuz I don’t want to say it. I don’t want to say say it. Write it down. I’ll say it. No. Sign it. I don’t do locker room. It Well, it just goes back to the previous question and what I was saying like I I don’t like talking. No. Okay. Um, I don’t like talking about people’s jobs, you know, but if there was a change to be made, there would be two. Why not make the trade? She’s like, I don’t want to say it, but I got two. I got two more than what you asked for. One is a trade. Okay. I’m making a trade happen. I don’t care what you guys say about the picks and next year and all that. I want someone that has the experience already. I don’t have time to develop players. I need one that has the experience to come in here and stay for here next year. Okay. Mlay like a word with you, please. No, I’ve seen it happen already. Okay. Enough is enough. That’s Yeah. And then the other one, I would change your voice. I I would change a voice. That’s a polite way to say it, boy. Because I I want to hear some other different type of inspiration, some other different type of ideas. Let’s brainstorm in there. Just hear it from somebody else. And that’s all I would say on that. point. That’s classy as hell. Ambar, that’s a great way to say fire the damn defense coordinator. That’s a fant what I was saying. I need a new voice. Boy, that’s fantastic. Go ahead, Brian. I’m sorry. Eric, who do you got? You make I think I’m changing the right tackle. I think I’ve seen enough there. I think uh Nate Thomas I think Nate Thomas might be able to give me a little bit better um a little bit better production consistently. Uh because I I will say this, I thought uh at least and maybe it may take a little while for them to get back to it. The right side of the offensive line earlier in the year I felt like was giving you a really good push in the run game. They were. This last game that wasn’t happening. Um and maybe it was the opponent, maybe it was going to take a while for Booker and him to get back on the same page, but I just feel like I that was the part of of Steel’s game that I actually was appreciating was he was giving me something in the run game. If this last game is an indication of where we’re going to be, then I would say let’s let’s get Nate out there and maybe you can get a little bit more uh out of one or the other. Um but right now I just feel like that’s that’s the weakest link in my opinion on the offensive line right now outside of getting your your center back. When you get your center back, I think that’ll sh that up a little bit more. Brian, I I I think we should find a new green dot guy. I think we should find a new green dot guy. And if if the biggest problem is communication, then you can kind of go to the nucleus of the defense, I would say, which is our green dot guy. I’m just Hey, man, as nice as I can say it, man, you know, he fantastic Washington game. You had a fantastic Giants game, but if you’ve had more, you know, if if you had like a great game and maybe like a cool to average or a bad game, I think there’s a you know, you can I can hang around and I can hang with you. I can defend you publicly, but if you have like a fantastic game and the worst game I’ve ever seen and another worst game I’ve ever seen, then maybe there needs to be changes at green dot guy. What what we often see is they’ll rotate linebackers out, but they’ll rotate the opposite guys, but they’ll keep green dot guy in there. I’m trying to be nice like Amber, but but but they’ll keep green dot guy. I’m in my head right now. I’m like, why did I say anything? You ain’t say nothing. I said it. I think this team could benefit. I think Maris Leaf would be a fantastic green dot guy. He may not be the best linebacker that you have right now, but he is smart. And if your biggest problem is communication, as long as you run in the right direction, you may overrun it, but as long as you run in the right direction and you could at least get everybody else on the same page and maybe call some things out. I think that’ll be a little bit of a benefit. Can I say something real quick? And then to this is to the point that you were making, Amber. I would say even a better way to look at that is before you would say because I I don’t love the idea of changing the actual person in season. I don’t think good things typically come from that. What I would say might be a better option is if I were if I were the head coach, maybe I would go to him and I would say, “Look, man, I’m not saying the scheme don’t work. I’m saying the scheme isn’t working with this set of players. What I need you to do in the by-week is I need you to come up with a a a set of plays and and maybe it’s not a different scheme, but I need you to figure out the plays in that scheme that best fit these players. If you keep asking this defensive end to crash down, you want your linebacker scrape hard to the outside and they’re not doing it effectively, do something different. Let the defensive end stay outside and have outside contain versus having him crash down. Maybe that’s a better way to do it. I would just say don’t don’t change the person. Say I need you to flip. We’ve tried it for nine weeks at that point. If it ain’t working, it ain’t working. It’s time to say it ain’t working. Try something different. That’s where I would be making the big changes is change the script. Like whatever you’re doing is not working. You need to flip the script and do something very different that these players actually can execute because right now you’re not going to get new linebackers. Over’s coming back, but you’re not going to change all the linebackers. So you may want to ask them to do something different because what you’re asking them they’re just not capable of doing. Man, this this sad part. Coach going to look at you and be like, “Coach, I don’t have plays that ask the ends to to crash. They they supposed to be outside. They just crash anyway.” Well, I will tell you this. If that’s the case, cuz that’s that was my dilemma earlier in the week when I was seeing that as you said, like seven, eight plays, the same thing was happening. If you got a player that on seven or eight plays doing something that you’ve told him specifically, don’t do this. Yeah. Why is he still playing? And that’s what makes me think this is not him just freelancing. Sure, if he’s doing it that and by the way, this is the first game. We’ve seen this throughout the year because I remember mentioning it to Nick this last game as we were sitting in the press box. I was like, have you noticed every time they’re getting gashed, like Sam’s crashing hard to the inside. I’m like, he cannot be doing this over all these weeks just on his own. And nobody has said, Sam, if you continue to do this, you won’t be playing. Sam got mad on the internet, but we ain’t going to tell no lies about you, brother. If you get cracked, the technique is to cross face because if they cracking you, they run on the other side of that crack. Ain’t nothing wrong with getting cracked cuz sometimes you don’t see the crack. Donzaraku does it real well. If you crack him, he’ll instantly cross face and he’ll get back in the fight. You can’t get cracked all the way to the other C gap. I ain’t made up no lies about nobody. I could do a film session, me and Amar win an Emmy on it. I ain’t I ain’t lying about nobody. It’s the small technical things. You can’t run around with your eyes closed. You got to find the ball carry. Sometimes it look like your edge rush or run around with their eyes closed or run down to Millip with their eyes closed. You can’t win like that. Here’s my last uh hot take. I know we got to go to break though, but Oh, trust me. Der ain’t got nothing for this third one. Go ahead. This you got time. This is everything that everybody’s saying is absolutely true, but there’s a bigger fundamental problem. What’s that? It’s the interview process of hiring your coaches is really what Oh, for sure. And I say this in this way. And it’s unfortunate the last three years you’ve had three different coordinators. We’ve talked about that. We’ve talked about the style of players you have, the players that are currently on the roster and stuff, but if you have a team that is really good in one specific area or is built in one specific area and you feel like, listen, we can’t completely overhaul the team just for this coach. It’s about the hiring of the coach. It’s about the process of knowing when you’re going to hire. Yeah. They have familiarity the front office. They have familiarity with Matty Reuse. Matty Refuse is a good coordinator. He has been in the past. The problem is though, if you have a team that’s been built a certain way and then you try to say, “Okay, we’re going to bring this guy in because we have some familiarity with him.” And this is what’s unfortunate about with Shotti as a first year head coach. You know, maybe he had an idea of who he wanted to bring in offensively, but maybe he didn’t have an idea of what he wanted to do defensively, and maybe he didn’t have enough time to really think about it. But Clayton Adams was one of the the hottest hired when you when you start to think about like, okay, well, we have familiarity with Matt Eberfloose as a coach. Well, what’s his scheme? What does he like to do? How does he like to play? Well, let’s look at the next thing. Is our team built in a way currently to play that type of scheme? Were the Bears good on defense? I think that I think that you have to. It’s It’s really a It’s bigger than that. It’s bigger than uh guys coming down and run and linebackers scraping and all that. You have a team that was built a certain way for certain coaches. It’s not built for this current coordinator to be that way. And that’s why when Derek has to ask the head coach to walk in there and say, “Hey, come up with three things. Come up with three things.” The coordinator will look at him and say like, “Hey, I’ve been doing this a long time. you know, if we had players that could do this, that’s that’s the biggest disconnect to me that that if you want to if you want to talk about Dallas Cowboys defensive football issues, it’s you have players that don’t fit what this coordinator Well, does that fall under the inexperience of like again remembering this is first year, year one, he’s had a lot of injuries though, too. They’ve had a lot of injuries, but they but you have a team that, you know, you had a team that was built with you got Dan Quinn players, you got Mike Zimmer players, you’ve got players, and now you’ve got a scheme in because you went and hired a coach, I think, because you had a first year head coach. You had a guy that probably didn’t have a whole lot of time putting together a staff. And so, to me, that’s the number one fundamental issue right now. You have players that are built to play a different way. And until you get players that play, but then again, what are we gonna do? Oh, we’re all getting mad at the coordinator and rightfully so. Okay, now we get rid of the coordinator. Okay, now that’s the fourth coordinator that we’re going to have. And do we have players that are built for how is his scheme? See, this is where the attention to detail when it comes to hiring coaches is so important because you look at teams like the Ravens and and others that when they lose a coach, they have the next one ready that knows the scheme and knows how to play the scheme and knows the players. They have somebody ready to go. You don’t have that luxury here right now. And I think you’re paying for it. All right, we’re going to take our final break. When we come back, uh, we’ll get some questions from you guys. Let’s see what you guys got out there to say. You can also call us 1888552297. Again, it’s 8888552297. We’ll be back. Dallas cowboys.com radio. I’m home. Hey, Mom. Before you ask, I’ve done my homework and the dishwasher’s unloading. Nice. Hey, can you Hey, hun. Yes, I’ve got the finale ready to play. Here’s your wine. Wow. Isn’t it nice not having to ask? We think so. That’s why if there’s a network interruption, AT&T will proactively credit you for a full day of service, guaranteed. 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Stand tall while you’re tailgating or cheering in the stands with the Dallas Cowboys collection by Luc Casey. Shop the collection today at the Luc Casey store at the Star in Fris or online at lucasey.com. Lucasey, the official boot of the Dallas Cowboys and Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders. Back to the break. AT&T connecting changes everything. Welcome back. It is the final segment of the break live from the SWBC mortgage studios at the Star. Uh we’re gonna take some phone calls here in the final segment. We got a call from Brian out in Kansas City. Brian, what up? Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. What’s up, big dog? Hey, so my question is really a from a pro scouting point of view, and I’m not against moving Leaf Foul to be green dot guy, but from the outside, is it realistic in the middle of the season to bring in a Mike linebacker, give him the green dot, and say, “Hey, Tiger, go get him.” You know, I I’m just curious. And I’m not talking about the oddball guy like a Luke Kinkley or a Sha Lee. We know that you give that guy two weeks, right? He’ll have the whole defense figured out and be teaching everybody else. But from a pro scouting point of view, is it realistic for most people to bring them in midseason or is edge defender are we kind of boxed into edge defenders kind of the only thing you can do at this point in the season? And I’ll hang up and listen. Thank you. Fantastic question, man. I think um that’s that’s something that you have to think about like these Mike linebackers are really as good as they know what’s happening but boy this is the rare situation of the Cowboys that you have yourself in. It’s just like the linebackers you have right now just all over the place. So if you have a linebacker that he may not know everything about this system but he’s simply just not o just not all over the place and you know maybe he can just read keys a little bit better. You’re just trying to get a little better and lucky for us it’s still October now. then maybe he’ll know the system by November, December when you’re really trying to make this run. Yeah, I think there’s certain linebackers and I mean and I know it probably is not against I mean we saw Roan Smith did when they traded him from the Bears and and I know Roquan Smith is a is a is a rare player that way, but I I think there’s some linebackers that you could absolutely bring in here and and and they can make a difference right off the jump. I know uh we can’t really talk about names cuz they’re still on, but there’s there’s a couple that I’ve looked at that I know uh that if they were given if you traded something for them and brought them in, I think you can immediately plug them in and they and they’re not named Rocoan Smith or anything like that. Plus, uh cover three at the Dallas Cowboys is just like cover three at Natches High School. You want to expound on that? Uh, cover three is basically uh two D’s in the flat and three D’s deep. However you decide to work that out, it could be two corners and one free deep. It could be a free and a strong and a corner deep. As long as it’s that configuration, you got it. And two guys in a flat. Got to have that. Good stuff. Let’s get a call from Carmine in uh New Jersey. Big, what’s up? Hey, how you doing? I got I have a quick question, but I got to tell a story real fast for three seconds. We only got two seconds. Go ahead. All right. Go. All right. So, V, this is out for you. I’m actually in New Jersey and I just want to let you know in my meetings when we have a meeting, I start out by saying, “Man, I’m talking about my boy.” Holy. Yes, sir. So, so just for the note of it, the whole New Jersey says, “Man, now that’s hard, man. Shouts out to you, brother. What you got for us?” Yes, sir. All right. My uh question is uh Brian, you just said a couple seconds ago about the player personnel, which I agree, but don’t you think a good coach would adapt to uh the coaching style of the players? Well, I think that’s what I’m saying. These coaches are a lot of I know Mike Zimmer, the Bill Parcels allowed him to coach this 4-3 defense for Bill’s first year and then but he told Mike, he goes, “If you’re still going to stay around, you’re going to have to learn how to coach a 34.” And Mike did to the to Mike’s credit. and Mike learned that way. But I think a lot of it has to do when you’re when you’re a brand new coach on a staff. Now Matt’s been around a long time and every and Matt has his ways of coaching thing coaching. I think there’s things Yeah, you have to absolutely adapt. But this mean this to me seems like they haven’t adapted well enough. And if if there’s not a willingness to do that, then Matt was the wrong hire. That you have to have that willingness to be able to adapt. But to me, this just goes back to three coordinators in three years. I I I think you’re asking a lot of the I think you’re asking a lot of the coordinator. I think you’re asking a lot of the players, but again, the front office is like, you know, if we keep having turnovers at coordinator, doesn’t it doesn’t it I think they learned their lesson. Make sure that you have the coordinator that can can currently coach the style of play that your players are good at. That takes a lot of that. Well, you need to adapt. That’s that’s big thing for a coach that’s been doing this for a long time. Well, you know that one of the things that that I would think about, Brian, there you you mentioned Zimmer. I think when you hire a an experienced and a really good defensive coordinator, I think there is an expectation that that guy can adapt to the players that they have. Because if you look at Zimmer last year, it didn’t start off Rosie. No, he said he wish he would have done his own way. He he said he goes, “I wish I would have done what I wanted to do earlier instead of try and play to the strengths of what I got.” But I guess my my point though is with an experienced defensive coordinator, whatever you start off doing, I think there’s an expectation that you have the ability to be able to adapt as the season wears on to whatever you need to do. Whether that is do more of this, more of that, more of that. Like you’re experienced, you’re good at it, figure it out. That’s where again I get back to that’s where I would challenge if I’m the head coach I would can’t challenge Ibra flu at this point to say it’s not working. What you’re saying and what you’re wanting them to do is not working. Now it’s time for you to figure out how to adapt. And I think that’s where that’s the difference between hiring a guy who’s had success in the NFL as a defensive coordinator and has been a good defensive coordinator and and a guy that’s a first-time defensive coordinator. You may not have that faith in them to be able to adapt. I would suggest you should be able to have that kind of faith in an experienced highquality defensive coordinator and that’s where I would challenge him to do that. Well, also when you talk about the the players and I know a lot of people want to discuss, oh well, you don’t have the talent. You don’t have the talent on the field and to that I would say there are players that are are talented and we’ve mentioned it here before. We’ve seen them play at a higher level, but at the same time I f find it very hard to believe that even with backup players that they are unable to play at a certain level. I mean there’s a reason why you’re in the NFL. backup or not backup, you’re in here because you’re trusted to have the abilities or capabilities for you to be able to do something at least. I’m not saying be groundbreaking and start, you know, getting interceptions every time, turnovers and all that, but at least to be able to cover a guy, be close enough, know where to go, know what’s happening. The amount of times we see in games and that someone is completely open, it’s like, what in the world? Like, what is happening? What is happening? So, I think there’s something to be said with the lack of communication and people knowing exactly where they should be and who’s doing what, who’s doing what job and all that. So, all of that to me personally comes down to the leader in that room. All right, we appreciate you guys joining us. We’ll be back tomorrow, man. We don’t That was the only two we had for now. I’m sure if we stayed on the line, we might get some more build up. That’s it. That’s it. That’s a wrap. We’ll be back tomorrow. We’ll jump into uh into the Cardinals and get on their offense versus the Dallas defense. Till then for Vot Lombardi, Brian Broad, Amber Garcia, I’m Derek Eagleton. This has been the break live on dallascowboys.com. This has been a production of DallasCowboys.com and the DallasCowboys football club. How about you?

Derek Eagleton, Ambar Garcia, Voch Lombardi and Bryan Broaddus discuss latest Dallas Cowboys news and notes on Cowboys Break.

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