Friday: Matchup Advantages

Where the Cowboys are strongest/weakest against the Raiders.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Andy will be back. Monday begins tild noon.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
We'll hold you, will hold down the fort, keep you
entertained on your drive home here. I hope everyone has
already made appropriate plans to clear the schedule for the
football weekend ahead. I mentioned we'll talk. We talked on
Wednesday about some of the best games of the weekend.
We've had a few injury news come out, a few

(00:28):
bits of injury updates come out, especially as it might
impact the NFC playoff race. Still holding out some faint hope.
Of course, until you're mathematically eliminated, you're still in it.
But we'll talk about the rest of the league here
in a second, real quick. We talked about it at

(00:49):
the top of the show, the success that Mike Vrabel
was having his first year back with the Patriots. They're
sitting nine and two after the win against the Jets
last night. The same can't be said for Pete Carroll
in his first year in Las Vegas. A Raiders team
that is I think there's no other way to say

(01:09):
it has massively underperformed at two and seven. With the
expectations of bringing in Geno Smith after his success in Seattle,
bringing Pete Carroll out of retirement to be the head coach,
drafting Ashton Genty, and out of all of those three,
Genty's probably the one bright spot of this Raiders year.

(01:31):
But even I would say for a lot of people,
especially his fantasy owners, even Genty is underperforming what a
lot of the expect a lot of people expected.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
Out of his rookie year.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
But the signs of hope as it comes to Monday night,
we talk about all the additions that are coming back
for this Cowboys defense, you know, the additions from the
trade deadline, the additions from the injury list. They're going
to get to go up against the third worst offense
in the NFL. Raiders are only averaging two hundred and

(02:07):
seventy one yards a game. Now they haven't played the
Cowboys yet.

Speaker 3 (02:12):
Which means, Yeah, we made Bryce s Young like a
pro bowler.

Speaker 1 (02:15):
That's correct.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
We may We've got Marvin Harrison Junior out of his slump.
We made Jacoby Burssett the new starting quarterback for the Cardinals,
potentially potentially even expedited Kyler Murray's exit from Arizona. So
this Cowboys defense can be a slumpbuster for the worst

(02:36):
offenses in the league. We've seen that multiple times over
and over this year. But more importantly to me, this
Cowboys team obviously cannot rely on the defense, so it's
all on the offense's shoulders. I've said it before, I'll
continue to say it until they show me something different.
This is the least complimentary football team I've ever seen

(02:58):
in my life.

Speaker 1 (02:59):
Like they the offense is.

Speaker 3 (03:02):
Exact opposite the antithesis of what the defense is.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
That's correct, and it's down to within basically a point
of each other. The offense scores thirty, the defense gives
up thirty one, and come Monday night, the offense will
be going up against a defense that is a bit
of a two sided coin. So on the rushing attack,

(03:27):
Javonte Williams will be going up against the fourteenth best
defense against the run, so almost dead average basically.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
Sure, I would expect.

Speaker 2 (03:36):
Javonte to be just fine going up against that defensive front,
of course, depending on what version of this Cowboys offensive
line we see. But more importantly, the Raiders cannot stop
the pass. And what do the Cowboys do better than
just about any other team in the league. Air it out.
And so this Raiders team twenty seventh against the pass effect.

(04:00):
A big game from DAK, Expect a big game from
CD and Pickens, Expect a big game from Ferg.

Speaker 1 (04:06):
I think you're going to see.

Speaker 2 (04:08):
I think you're going to have to see a big
passing day from DAK going up against this Raiders team,
because that is they can absolutely be gotten through the air.
So again, as it's understandably hard to garner a whole
lot of excitement about the rest of this Cowboys season,

(04:28):
I think Monday Night, beyond all of the emotions tied
to getting back on the field for the first time
after Marshawn Neeland's passing, I think you're going to see
a one motivated football motivated, motivated football team for a
multitude of reasons. Obviously, the emotional lift, the emotional bump

(04:50):
of playing the first game after tragedy, and potentially going
up against a Swiss Cheese defense when it comes to
the passing game should spell a pretty good recipe for
DAK and the offense to have a big day.

Speaker 4 (05:06):
I think in this game, just from what I know
about the Raiders, I think the two areas I think
the Cowboys might struggle the most. That could be real
deterrence in this game. On how it's played. Is while
the Raiders, do you right, Raiders have right now, I
would say an average defense, which compared to their offense,
is actually pretty good. Right Their defense, honestly, right now,
is predicated more on the success of their defensive line

(05:27):
of guys like Max Crosby, Adam Butler's a very underraty
defensive tackle, Malcolm Koons, guys like that. How those guys
play against their against the Cowboys tackles, you know they have.
They have a Terrence steel on the right side. He'll
see a lot, probably a lot of Max Crosby, and.

Speaker 2 (05:43):
We also might see some Nate Thomas. We might spelling
Terrence Steeles.

Speaker 4 (05:47):
I think Nate Thomas is better served as a left
side player. I think he played better over there.

Speaker 2 (05:51):
But I mean, the hell he can spell Tyler Guyton
over there then too, I'm fine with that.

Speaker 4 (05:55):
Well, we might have to get into more conversations about
like if Tyler Goton should go back to right side
because the cow can save like sixteen million dollars, they
move on from Terrence Steele.

Speaker 3 (06:02):
That's a whole that's a different conversation for a different day.

Speaker 4 (06:05):
On the other side of the ball, the Cowboys defense
has actually been remarkably average, which for this defense is
really good against covering tight ends. I don't even know
this not, but they allow only the fourteenth most yards
to the pos and tight ends or I guess fourteenth
least amount of yards allowed to oppose and tight ends
anti end receptions per sorry yards per reception. Whereas Brock Bauers,

(06:28):
as we know, so much of their offense is behind him.
I saw somewhere on Twitter where they said that I
think seventy plus percent of their runs are run to
his side. He is such a big factor in their
running game and obviously he's obviously one of the more
He's one of the biggest stars at the tight end position.
He's a really good receiver, gets open, strong hands. You
know who he is in that offense, especially since they

(06:48):
moved on from Jacoby from Jacobe Myers, and their other
receivers are guys like you know Passes Prime, Tyler Lockett,
Jack besh At a TCU which I.

Speaker 3 (06:56):
Had like a love hate with him.

Speaker 4 (06:58):
Out of that one, they don't have a lot of
weapons outside of Bowers and Nashon gen Z, but those
areas where the Cowboys are matching up with those areas
I think would be are going to how this game's
gonna be predicated, how they protect the Dak Prescott in pressure,
and how well they contain Brock Bowers.

Speaker 2 (07:15):
Whether it's through the run or through the pass. Yeah,
I couldn't agree more. I this is without looking too
far ahead in the schedule. I mean, if they can't
win this game come Monday Night as three and a
half point favorites, then we really will be switching to
eighty percent Spurs coverage every time I fill in elsewhere
across the league. We did get the news it sounds

(07:38):
like the forty nine ers are going to have their
starting quarterback return to the lineup. Brock Purdy looks like
he is set to start again for the Niners this week.
They have a division game against the Cardinals, the aforementioned Cardinals.
But really, the reason I mention it is because right
now the Niners are the first team out of the

(07:58):
playoffs on the NFC side of the bracket.

Speaker 1 (08:01):
So it would have been nice.

Speaker 2 (08:02):
If the Giants had held onto that lead against the
Bears last week.

Speaker 1 (08:06):
Didn't happen.

Speaker 2 (08:07):
Bears are six and three now ahead of the Packers
in the playoff race.

Speaker 1 (08:11):
On the NFC side, But.

Speaker 2 (08:13):
The Niners are going to be either that first team
out or the last team in, it looks like, and
they are getting their quarterback returning to the lineup this week.
Because the problem with the Cowboys, they don't own the
tiebreaker against the Bears, they don't own the tiebreaker against
the Panthers. They play the Vikings later in the year,

(08:34):
so they could have the chance to own that tiebreaker,
but the Niners are going to If the Cowboys were
to go on some miraculous run, you're going to have
to get ahead of the Niners and the or the Packers,
as well as the Bears and the Panthers, who you
don't own the tiebreaker with.

Speaker 4 (08:50):
Remarkably, though, the tie with the Packers actually sits better
right now for the Cowboys than it does the Packers,
oh one thousand percent, because right now we're seeing in
the North, I would expect Detroit to hold onto that lead,
but Minnesota is very much still in it.

Speaker 3 (09:03):
The Bears are very much still in it.

Speaker 4 (09:04):
The Cowboys, I don't know how much they can really
compete for a wild card. They're actually technically still a
possibility to win the East remarkably, which makes no sense.

Speaker 1 (09:13):
Yeah, that would cause that would do That would understood.

Speaker 4 (09:17):
But their schedule outside of Detroit, I think is actually,
I would argue winnable. I think they match up well
with teams honestly, like Kansas City. I think they match
up with guys like Minnesota. I think the Chargers probably
the second toughest game on their schedule outside of Detroit,
because I don't think.

Speaker 3 (09:33):
They're beating Detroit.

Speaker 4 (09:34):
But I think right now, if you look at their
schedule and even look at Philly's schedule, there is a scenario.
Believe it or not, Cowboys fans listening, I don't want
to give you false hope, but I'm also you know me, Puma.

Speaker 3 (09:44):
I don't put stuff out there unless I mean it.

Speaker 4 (09:46):
There actually is a realistic scenario in the second half
of the season where the Eagles are gonna fall off
and the Cowboys could get some wins and some of
these opponents that they match up well with to where
their NFC East could come down to the final two weeks.

Speaker 2 (09:59):
I there is a scenario, and we've seen the Eagles
falter at the end of seasons before.

Speaker 3 (10:06):
But I don't like to sell false hope. It's just
but it's there.

Speaker 2 (10:09):
I'm more you've got I mean, I'm convinced the Eagles
very well could create I'm not convinced the Cowboys could
make up that ground as the Eagles crater. The Eagles
could end up closer to five hundred and still win
the division.

Speaker 4 (10:22):
They read you off the Eagles manu schedule. We have
to say it's a winner loss. But here's who they play. Okay,
they got the Lions, they're at the Cowboys. They got
the Bears, they got the Chargers, and they got the Raiders,
and they got the Commanders. Then they got the Bills,
and then they got the Commanders again.

Speaker 1 (10:36):
Blockchain come, blockchain come, blockchain come, blockchain come.

Speaker 2 (10:41):
That's about how I feel about the false hope you're
selling us.

Speaker 1 (10:44):
Jerry saying we're behind the clock.

Speaker 2 (10:46):
Coming up next, Let's talk some college football before we
get out of here for the weekend.