The Strengths, Struggles, And Surprise Breakouts At Cowboys Minicamp | Shan & RJ

The Strengths, Struggles, And Surprise Breakouts At Cowboys Minicamp | Shan & RJ

maybe the best player the Cowboys acquired this off season wasn’t George Pickkins at least if Brian brought this is to be believed about yesterday’s practice we’ll talk about that here in a sec and below the belt which is sponsored by DNM Leasing you can check them out at dmautoasing.com it was a uh it was an offensive day for the most part out of practice yesterday cowboys with their second mini camp practice they’re going to practice again today uh which is a little unusual for them in past years uh Mike McCarthy had always given the third day off of mini camp i think Vreyel just gave them off in New England it it’s it’s a common thing coaches will do like a lot of coaches will say “We need to maximize our time let’s do that.” Other coaches will say “Let’s do it as a morale boost give the guys a day early.” A lot of times when it’s a firstear system though or or a first year head coach they’re definitely going to take the third day because it’s like we need as much time as we can with what we’re doing so they are going to practice today and one guy who is looking to build on on a really strong practice and a guy who’s who’s got a lot of praise and Bris was talking about this yesterday i heard him I I knew I texted Zach and Eric a couple things like a couple notes like I bet you these are going to be a couple of things you’re going to hear from Brous in there because I just I know when Brian watches the game was he giddy being out there and being late to Gbag he was He looked like I should have taken a picture of it when I walked into the lobby and he had his backpack on he looked like first day of school kid just like giddy and he was just like “So do they get all about the tuna do are we in the right place do they come get us here cuz uh nobody’s around here yet.” Like “No not everybody was going to get here 15 minutes early like you Brian.” Like like we’re uh we’re all here um but it was uh Brian was was super excited to be there and he was super excited about what he saw from Kaire Elum who Kaire Elum has had some strong practices out here not every day there have been a couple times where he’s been worked over in a practice or you had uh the practice last week that we had talked about where George Pickkins had beat him deep but little bit of air under the ball so Kyrie Elen was able to catch up knock the pass away it’s good there was another play where uh I think Tuesday where people were talking about oh he had an interception or he knocked one down it’s like well it was also a free play so like it was just Dak kind of throwing the ball up because there was a penalty on it so some of it when you start tracking the training camp stats which we’ll get into here in just a second from Kyle Shanahan and why he hates that um when you’re tracking the the training camp or the OTAA or the mini camp stats um it it’s looked good but the reality is it it’s actually looked good this isn’t like empty stuff he’s looked better than I was anticipating and and it does give you a little bit of hope for all right this was a guy with first round pedigree from a couple years ago this was a guy who everybody in Buffalo was like we wanted it to work and he worked so damn hard it just wasn’t clicking here and so it does give you a little bit of a feel of like could it be just a a reset for your background or your scenery or the other question is this just kind of what Kaire does does he flash in practices like these yeah and then when you put the pads on or you’re in game time is it is it not the same level shenheimer was talking about him last week like leading kind of the GPS stats dude he is he is intense at practice he runs all over the field he’s been tasked a lot with covering CD just because a lot of times it’s where CD’s lining up he’s lined up it’s not like hey go take CD show us what you got kid it’s not like that but he’s had some really good reps against CD cd’s gotten his no doubt about it but he’s been really good he battles he’s tough he fights it’s all this positive stuff that you’ve heard about Kaire if you can just kind of center it all together put it all together you might have a decent starting quarterback on your hands i bet you a lot of guys have that one player they just can’t that they just match up well well with yeah i mean there there’s certainly guys who stylistically match up well or size whatever yeah where it could just be like that may be a really good press man corner who doesn’t have a lot of great long speed but this one receiver who’s really good against everybody else he doesn’t like physicality that causes a problem for like Josh Norman was getting torched by everybody in the league there for a while except Odell Beckham Odell Beckham was the one guy who was like couldn’t do anything against Josh Norman to get in his head and he frustrated him but this is at least positive development there in the secondary with Kaire another positive development in the secondary we saw Donovan Wilson out of practice for the first time yesterday so this entire offseason and Donovan Wilson Sam Williams they’ve both been rehabbing with Britt Brown and and getting themselves right they haven’t participated at all never put a helmet on yesterday we got a surprise from three guys putting helmets on and two of them were injured players so Donovan Wilson got in line with the safeties went through some of the drills same thing with Sam Williams going down to with the defensive line they just went through the position drills as soon as team stuff started they went back inside for treatment did their thing but the other surprising aspect that we got was none other than Micah Parsons uh Micah who had observed practice on Tuesday was watching the drills on Wednesday and at least looked it could have been theater it could have been theater and Aiden’s got some of the photos up on the fan cam where you can see him he’s staring down at the the drill and you see him just kind of putting the helmet on pulling it down and then all of a sudden he’s he’s down there and he’s in line it looked like Micah Parson’s competitiveness just got the best of him and uh I wanted to know earlier today whether Micah’s agent knew this was going to happen what was the text message or phone call that he got from David Mulligetta or uh did did he know that this was planned i’d be uh I’d be texting Micah stay the hell off the field i assume he has to know i That’s my It looks like and sounds like it was spur of the moment although Shottenheimimer did say before this week he expected Micah to do some things on the field yeah and and then Micah had to I I think Micah had said if his back had loosened up that’s what he was dealing he’s like “Ah my back’s kind of tight.” Yeah but he said if it loosened up he was going to get in there it did not look like he was going in there though it looked like All right this is the standard thing he’s doing he’s got his his beanie on he’s not he’s not got a helmet he’s standing there just watching and then he put it on here’s my question for you as as you’ve called him before Mike Donuch a little bit of theater little bit of theater there with him do you think this was theater at all go grab my helmet i’m I’m going in or do you think he was probably always getting in there i have no idea i would I would have probably had to be there to watch him over the past few days i don’t know whether Jerry said something to him in the 30-minute conversation the day before you know to spurn it like hey what’s your point i want you to really be the leader like just do something to inspire these guys and then we’ll go ahead and get this thing done don’t tell me what I’m saying i have no idea he embraced it it was uh What do you think i think was it planned or just I think it looked genu like he was he wasn’t going to get in at least not right then maybe he was going to get on on some stuff later but I don’t think he was intending to get in there and then he saw it and he was like give me the helmet come on let let’s go cuz I think he was getting a little bit frustrated uh I mentioned a second ago Kyle Shanahan not a fan of of tracking practice stats this is something that uh irritates him this was a quote he gave uh to the San Francisco like your Dak stats yesterday that’s exact okay so you’re not talking about like quarterback five for seven you’re or you talking about GPS no all like like the the quarterback like Yeah how many they completed for how long like literal like NFL statistics in practice and uh this is what he said he said “I’m trying to get them to trust what they do and let it rip that’s all I want in practice.” Talking about quarterbacks he says “You go through all these practices and you never throw a pick you’re probably not getting better.” I think that’s one of the biggest challenges having you guys around no offense to you guys but they used to not report people’s stats every day and say who’s ahead who’s back who’s whatever you could just practice and when guys play to practice that way they don’t get better at anything and especially a quarterback I mean it’s hard when you get in that stadium and things like that not not only getting it for the hit for the first time but now all that stuff counts i get what he’s saying i love it i get what he’s saying the Jaylen Herz numbers last off season and not throwing an interception for a month yeah right 100% like Cam Ward there was the note about Cam Ward throwing 18 straight completions the other day a lot of that can be checked on different stuff like that and and I get what you’re saying about you don’t focus on that let guys practice let guys work through stuff just like spring training a lot of the great quarterbacks will tell you ask Brady ask Manning ask Rogers they had no problem throwing picks in practice because they knew first of all it didn’t matter that you get it back but second of all it allows you to see what works and what doesn’t mhm you know like will this play fool anybody oh no it won’t you know or or does it does this work does that work and if it doesn’t work you know not to use it or you know to pull it out in stop it very certain situations you know okay you know what can’t use it in this against this defense we might let’s try it again against something else i I I totally agree i mean I’m like yeah go ahead man yeah I I I don’t I don’t fault him either like like I think Kyle Shanahan’s generally right um that that you don’t tracking practice stats is not always productive i think when we’re looking at how is somebody performing in seven on seven in two-minute drill and things like that you’re not just working on some things you are trying to execute there there’s a competition there of who’s better who’s not i I’m not going to practice I’m not going to track practice stats and like hold that as like here’s the the entirety of it but what I am going to say is Jack Sanborn gave up three touchdowns yesterday to tight ends in in coverage as a linebacker that seems to me to be kind of relevant i don’t think Jack Samborn’s just working through some stuff which I know is not what you’re saying is that right but I mean look I mean just look at the US Open we talked about the the putting from 150 yards on the first hole they try it in the practice round you know they they just see it if it doesn’t work it doesn’t work then they’ll then they’ll bury it and they’ll go back to their normal way but if it works hey great and that’s I I have no problem with tracking the stats but you use them to a it’s a it’s one data point out of a dozen sean I’m curious for you cuz I know like we’re obviously like I’m on the beat covering it every day like you guys are not like No I’m just saying I’m just saying like the the context for how we’re we’re working Cowboys coverage can be a little different in the in the ways it plays out so I’m saying for me I may have a hesitancy of like is this productive to tweet like a video from training camp or something like that like like if I see a throw I’m going to be like nobody’s going to have the right context for this and what it means and it’s just going to like be a I I feel like then I’m I’m maybe stirring up a thing of like oh this guy’s really struggling or something like that that that was the thing with the one-on- ones mccarthy I think to his credit McCarthy didn’t want to do he didn’t want to do a lot of one-on- ones in training camp because he felt like corners are going to get if I got corners with rabbit ears they’re going to get embarrassed out here because of the nature of the drill and it’s Was it the Diggs video that blew up a couple years ago who was it that got beat uh Dig Diggs was getting worked a little bit in some of the one-on- ones maybe it was a a fight or something like that maybe it was Diggs um Gayton we got fooled by by Gayton versus Micah mhm we got fooled now if George Pickkins makes a gymnastics catch that to me has value translates yeah yeah it’s like all right he’s a freak if Joe Milton throws a missile or throws one 80 yards it’s like when when Joe does it again I’m like all right he’s got arm strength mhm you know if that’s the value of it it was a pretty bland day by the way for Joe Milton uh since he comes up here but again I think they might look at that and say it was a more productive day like we don’t have Joe Milton we know what he can do we know he can sling the ball sean like R.J you guys are going to have viral videos on Twitter when you park down by the the net and Joe Milton’s throwing those passes in Oxnard that’s going to get retweeted hundreds of times because it looks really impressive and and it and it’s awesome he was spending a ton of time with Steve Shimco the quarterback coach yesterday talking through things a lot of it looked like it was more underneath it looked like the stuff that’s boring quote unquote to people are probably things that the Cowboys think he really needs to work on and drill down on uh but kind of a a a generic practice from him yesterday did have a nice touchdown pass to Jonathan Mingo though [Music]

Bobby breaks down the key takeaways from Cowboys mandatory minicamp so far, and highlights one of the biggest surprises, new cornerback Kaiir Elam. After a tough stint in Buffalo, Elam is starting to show real potential in Dallas, earning praise for his gritty coverage against CeeDee Lamb. Bobby also touches on Micah Parsons unexpectedly jumping into drills, along with Donovan Wilson and Sam Williams making their first appearances in helmets.

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