October 17, 2023 • 37 mins
Jason Smith and Mike Harmon react to the Cowboys beating the Chargers on Monday night and explain why this fine performance from Dak Prescott is the best you'll get from him for the rest of the season. Jason and Mike dive into the Jets handing the Eagles their first loss of the season. Plus, the guys break down why the loss to the Browns does not detract from the level that Brock Purdy has reached at quarterback this season.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Speaker 2 (00:23):
You're listening to Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Greetings and welcome inside our three of The Jason Smith
Show with my bes friend Miike Harmon hobo live from
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(00:50):
the Cowboys with a thriller over the Chargers. Not OLP game.
But what do we always say, as long as it's close,
it's all that matters. Cowboys go to four and two,
Chargers drop. I mean, look, this is a this is
a game where you start to look at the standings
now in the AFC West and you go, ooh wait
(01:10):
a minute, man, everybody else has at least three losses.
Chargers have three, Raiders have three. Chiefs are now got
a two game lead in the division. It's one of
those years where the Chiefs haven't been great, but they're
gonna wind up plinching this thing by Thanksgiving again. It's
just gonna happen for him. But we'll hear from Brandon
Staley coming up in a few minutes as he's getting
(01:32):
finishing talking to the media. Right now, the Chargers lose
to the Cowboys, and I can already tell you what one,
because the show is ahead of the curve. I can
already tell you what one the big driving headline is
gonna be for the Cowboys out of this. They're gonna
talk and talk and talk and talk, and they're gonna
say how great Dak was, and look at Dak, this
(01:54):
was his best game, and look how great we always
knew Dak was this good. And they're going to talk
about making clutch plays and Micah Parsons sacked the one
defensive play they really made the game. And they're going
to talk about coming off of this loss to San
Francisco and the intestinal fortitude of a champion and going
(02:15):
on the road Monday night baseball playing a home game
Monday night in Los Angeles. Look at what they overcame
to win. Boy, really start believing in ourselves when the
reality is, the Chargers gave them this game. Justin Herbert
was awful. It should have been a Charger win by
at least two touchdowns if he was anything accurate, if
he had an average game, it would have been the
(02:36):
Chargers by two touchdowns. Their touchdown passes that he missed on,
multiple touchdown passes that he missed on, the lack of
urgency at the end of the game, everything you want
to say. The Cowboys are gonna talk and talk and
talk and there has Yeah, that's great, I have to
listen to it. But really, the Chargers gave them this game,
and that's gonna be the overwhelming narrative coming out of Dallas.
Says Hey, because we have to have this narrative because
(02:58):
we've convinced ourselves every week is so unbelievably emotional that
it's the super Bowl, and coming off a week's win,
how do we get back to where we are? Look
at this huge win we met and they're gonna over
emphasize the things that they did and not talk about
how and understand that boy, we were lucky because we
escaped on this one. This is going to be a
win for the team, and we're back and we think
(03:18):
we're terrific. Trust me, that's all you're gonna hear from
the cowboys. And it's not reality. It's not reality at all.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Well it should be.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
I mean you you take the positive points, right, History
is told by the winners.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Get that should be on a T shirt? Or is
that already a T shirt?
Speaker 2 (03:35):
That's already a thing.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Really, history is taught by the winners.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
It's a pretty old statement. It's been around a couple
of thousand yukon history.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Winston Churchill. Okay, well, if it wasn't in the crown,
I wouldn't have known that. If Winston Churchill didn't say it,
I wouldn't have known that.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
So the idea just being that, look I won, and
look oftentimes it takes us into real roled and off
of the playing field. But you know, all the people
that that have the the victory get to you know,
get that verbal history going, write it down. Here's the
the tails of our of our win and in this
(04:13):
case it's gonna be Look, he was quiet all day,
but when it mattered Micah Parsons made the play of
the game. Gilmore had been called for a penalty, had
been you know, kind of abused a little bit by
Keenan Allen on route running over the course of the day,
but when it mattered, he was there and he was
the one that secured the game clinching interception. It's all
(04:37):
the matters, right, succeed and proceed for you had the
the big sixty yard burst off a broken tackle by
Tony Pollard. What are they gonna say he was well
we talk about for fantasy or for any other purposes.
He was over one hundred total yards against the Chargers.
Nobody's gonna remember how that came to pass. Same thing
here for Dak Prescott. He was battered and beaten and
(05:00):
legend all night, found Cede Lamb when he needed to,
found Brandon Cooks when he needed to, and your field
goal kicker was true. Doesn't matter that Mike McCarthy botched things.
It doesn't matter, you know, here in Los Angeles because
it's become you know, commonplace. Yeah, I mean, the tale
is going to be about the Chargers and late game
(05:22):
execution and finding some other stats that are now being
pushed forward because people raising their hands on Justin Herbert. Hey,
fourteen fourth quarter comebacks or game winning drives, I should
say eleven fourth quarter comebacks, all of those kind of things. Okay,
But the sentiment, the gut is that this team finds
(05:44):
a way to rip your heart out, to go back
to the old Steve Irwin thing that he said so
many times in his career. So, I mean, you're just
looking at a situation for the Cowboys. Yeah, feel chesty,
you got the next See what Sean McVeigh dials up
for you offensively. I know Kyron Williams is hurt, but
(06:07):
it's a curiosity right of what that offense brings to bear.
But you celebrate tonight because your defense, while they weren't spectacular,
they made the two big plays when it mattered.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
They did look and they won the game. But because
of their emotional attachment to every single game this year,
they're gonna inflate this as something that's this is this
is not Hey, we went on the road and we
beat that, and we beat the forty nine er.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Flag high heading back home to Dallas.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Look, look, I can give you something great for the Cowboys.
But again with this, it comes with a caveat, right,
So it is with the Cowboys, but I can give
you something great. Look, Dak Prescott played really well tonight
and they will prop him up the next couple of days.
Jerry Jones tomorrow will be on one O, four to
three the Fan and they'll say, this is a Dak
Prescott that I knew, this is the Dak Prescott when
(06:56):
we gave him that money. We are expecting games like this,
and games like this are what super Bowl quarterbacks are
made from. And that's exactly what we got from Dak
last night. And he was absolutely magnificent. It was Dak. Okay,
that's you're gonna get and they're gonna prop Dak Prescott up.
And yes, he did have a really good game tonight. Right,
he had a really good game. Now you know the
(07:17):
caveat is this is kind of the peak game that
Dak Prescott can have. All Right, Dak is no longer
a twenty five, twenty six year old quarterback. Where hey,
the best days are ahead of him and his continued
growth is gonna be fun to look forward to. Now,
Dak Prescott is who he is at this point. He's
thirty years old, he's been in the league for a while.
(07:38):
This is who he is. This is the best game
you're gonna get out of Dak Prescott. Right, The Dak
Prescott games where I'm gonna throw for four hundred and
three and three touchdowns and potentially throw us to victory,
those days don't happen. Right. You don't get that from
Dak anymore because he's older. He doesn't just physically doesn't
do things money like that great play, Yeah, scramble, No,
(08:04):
this is this no, hey, no, I'm telling you. This
is that he had a good game tonight. Right, Dak
Prescott had a good game tonight. And but to expect
him to be that big, dynamic guy that he showed
you was in the past, He's not that quarterback. And
with all as great as Dak Prescott played, the Cowboys
scored twenty points. Twenty points in a game where they
(08:25):
should have needed thirty and they only had were lucky
that Justin Herbert was awful that they weren't looking up
on this scoreboard. So for the Cowboys, yeah, okay, look,
I get Look, you a win's a win. You're excited,
you're about whatever you need mentally to convince yourself that
things are back on the right track. Okay, I get it,
But you know the truth about DK is, Yes, this
was a good game Dak at This is also the
(08:46):
best game you can expect him to have. And it's
a game where the Cowboys scored twenty points, right, and
they should have probably lost because their defense was lucky
that the other quarterback just I don't know what happened
to Justin Herbert tonight. He was an accurate, he sailed
the football. It's probably the worst game I have seen
him play. I don't know that I've seen him actually
play worse than what he did tonight overall, top to bottom.
So that's so that's the reality is Hey, yeah, Dak said,
(09:09):
he celebrate Dak, he played great, He made clutch plays.
It was awesome. Yes, he did get sacked a lot tonight,
he had, he got sacked five times. He still came back.
But this is now the ceiling for him, and the
ceiling is not boy, Hey, this was where he made
the clutch plays on a night that wasn't his night. No,
this is about as much of Dak Prescott's night's he's
ever gonna have. And is that gonna be enough for
(09:29):
the Cowboys going forward? That's the big question. Because now
the Cowboys winning doesn't put the you know, doesn't put
to bed the forty nine ers loss or the fact
that they fell asleep against the Cardinals. It doesn't. It
doesn't do any of those things. But it does show
you that, hey, if everything is working, Dak can give
you a night like this, and that's really good. But
when you're giving a guy, when you even this guy
(09:50):
forty million dollars, you know, forty five million dollars a year,
you expect, Hey, you got to give me a little
bit more than that. You gotta more times. But this
is but look, this is Dak Prescott who has been
overvalued for his whole career because he's the quarterback of
the Cowboys, and he pushes his advantage because he knows
that Jerry Jones wanted to pay him, because Dak Prescott
succeeding for the Cowboys makes Jerry Jones look good. I
(10:11):
drafted him, he fell in the draft, and look where
we got him, and nobody else could. He's a draft
fine for me, and as long as he's paying to
be the quarterback of the Cowboys, it looks good for
Jerry Jones. So that's but that's been Dak. But now
to think that suddenly, hey we're gonna get this all
new Dak or Dak No, No, this is this is
kind of who Dak Prescott is. So this is kind
of the ceiling. So it's great for Dak, but this
(10:32):
is the ceiling of what you're gonna get from him.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
That's all right. It's week the end of week six,
plenty of time. We always talk about separating the the
league calendar into quarters, and you want to be playing
your best football win where we're heading towards. You know,
Dolly Parton singing at halftime of Thanksgiving Day is one
(10:54):
of the news items of today. So sure, but I
mean that's when you want to start making your run
to where your your climbing your peak like the guy
off of the the yodeling dude on the Price is right.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
I mean, we got to make our climb then. But
he's been lamar Odom. He's been in every he literally
has been in every other game. Guy this year in
the NFL, well.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
You know what, today he averaged nine point one yards
per pass place. If you compare that to the league
over the year, that would rank second.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Okay, that's the one time. Last week he averaged six
yards per pass.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
I mean the show US today, Show US today, and
he got the job done as the Cowboys are victorious. Look,
they're not all going to be masterpieces. And he is
not counted on week to week to put up massive
numbers because normally the defense is going to do the
job right. Last week he ran into the forty nine ers.
(11:49):
This week, the forty nine ers ran into a really
good Cleveland defense. A couple of guys got hurt and
suddenly everybody there is terrible and the sky's falling.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
So that's what we do in radio and TV here.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
But it's right, I'm all made up.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Let's go put the camera on.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
He's in every other game. Guy, he's not a say look,
your people just want more from Dak Prescott than what
he is.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
Yeah, it ain't my money, No, I know, he's the
only one who's gotta worry about whether he's enough completions
per dollars games.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
But this is but, but this is but this is
about hey, getting that money and the responsibility you have
to produce on the floor.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Stend, don't go throwing out spider man quote state.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
We had great paychecks, come great responsibility.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
So what you're trying to do here? You know, through
five games, he's got six touchdowns and floors, right, his
quarterback rating is well below me. I don't care about
quarterback telling you, okay, yeah they're four and two that
you know, they'd be at just an average, they'd be
the Jets. Yes, if they they beat the Giants opening
week where Dak press I could have played quarterback for
(13:00):
the Cowboys open week May May, yeah, I could have
handled the ball office. I'm gonna las all right, So
I mean, look, yes, you you win this game, but
it's it's not that everything is suddenly great and problems
are solved and Dak is great. Look, dak is, dak
Is is playing, he's he's an average quarterback. He had
a good game. But look at look at this body
(13:20):
of work. I mean, this is who you are when
they needed him. Look what happened last week is a
really good defense. He was awful, he was he was
awful against Arizona, Right, he was awful. This is who
he is, right and and and I'm telling you, the
narrative is gonna be that dak is great and dak
is and just don't believe it. Just understand a different quarterback.
(13:41):
He's limited. But yeah, so you're gonna hear or back
dak dak back dack dak dakd you're a dak dak
da da da. And that's not the truth. That's not
the truth. And people are still gonna expect more from him,
and he's gonna fall short because he's just not that
quarterback anymore. I mean, he was, he was on the
cusp of years ago, and I thought Dak was gonna
(14:02):
take that next step right when he when he's coming
off that that thirty and eleven season of twenty nineteen,
I said, Okay, he's gonna be really but then you know,
we have COVID twenty twenty and he gets hurt. All right,
that's fine. Then he bounces back and says, hey, man,
thirty seven, his best season thirty three years ago. Shut up,
best season three years ago. Okay, he's twenty six, twenty
(14:22):
seven years old. Now he takes that leap. And then
last year, eh, he was just okay. And now this
year so far, he's been less than just okay. And
that's kind of what you're gonna get going forward, because
you're never gonna see him being the level he was
at the one finale. He had two really good years
out of three, twenty nineteen and twenty twenty one. Twenty twenty,
(14:45):
he got hurt. It was covid. Okay, we'll throw that
one out. That's something that just didn't exist for him.
But you know, getting back to where he is, you
can see already through a season and a little bit
over a third since twenty twenty one, he just simply
isn't that quarterback.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
The bigger thing?
Speaker 3 (15:00):
Because Brandon Staley, we get all into his management of
fourth down situations. I still need an exorcism in the
locker room given the number of guys that have been
hurt and missed.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
Time and whatever. But you come into this game give
it up twenty six points per game.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
Defensively, you haven't figured anything out, you haven't fixed anything.
And Khalil Mack had a massive game last week with
his six sacks and he had won right off the jump.
And they did get to DAK five times today. But
coming into this game, the teams behind them in terms
of points allowed per game, Denver last at thirty three
(15:37):
and a third per game, Carolina one step higher, Washington, Chicago,
the Giants, and the Cardinals.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
That's it.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
So it's not exactly a world beater, so to you,
the larger point is you didn't exactly go in and
dominate a top team, but you did what you needed
to today and you had a good game, including that
sprint for eighteen yards that they will run on a
loop because because it was a good playfake and he
(16:08):
found the end zone. But the point being that the
Chargers haven't exactly been world beaters on defense. That's the
other part of the Brandon Staley narrative that at some
point has to get some run as well. If we're
going to keep talking about fourth down decisions, how about
the fact that you can't get your defense off the
field oftentimes.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Be sure to catch live editions of The Jason Smith
Show with Mike Harmon weekdays at ten pm Eastern, seven
pm Pacific, Fox Sports Radio The Jason Smith Show with
My best friend Mike Harmon. If you like using debit
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(16:49):
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Discover Bank member fd. I see. We'll have more of
the Cowboys and the Chargers coming up in a little bit,
and we'll talk about one of the biggest controversies coming
off of this game tonight. But the two biggest results
(17:10):
in the NFL yesterday just happened to be the Jets
and the Jets. Sorry, the Jets and the Browns Jets, Joe.
The Jets and the forty nine ers upset previous unbeaten
teams in the NFL. And I was besides, I actually
watched the game yesterday with one of my really good friends,
guy Coach with and he's an Eagles fan, and it
was so tough because, you know, the whole game, it's
(17:31):
back and forth, it's back and forth, and I and
after and after the Jets picked off Hurts on that
really ridiculous play call, which we'll get to in a second,
because that was the game. I, you know, and they
score a touchdown. I turned, I go, I'm sorry, but
I need this win way more than you do. He goes, no, no, no,
it's you know, it's good it's good. You know, this
will wake us up. You know we're five and zer,
it'll wake us up. I go, don't patronize me when
(17:53):
I'm patronizing. You don't sit here and do that to me.
Tell me you didn't want to throw out a full
ten D but uh, but I'll tell you. Look for
all of as well as the Jets played defensively, and
as well and and and as well as games are,
(18:13):
the razor thin line is apparent, not just in a
madefield goal or a missed field goal, but sometimes it's
apparent in something as a ridiculously stupid play call. Because
sometimes you know that's saying that goes. You know you
gave me the saying. You know, history is written by
the winners. Yeah, it's a pretty good one by Winston Churchill.
I'm gonna give you can't fix stupid, said by many times.
(18:34):
I think it was Jim Varney who might just said
that first. Can't fix stupid. I can't believe how many
earnest movies there are. What a hell of a run
he had. I didn't know that guy thought he was
not like after.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
Fourteen of those, yes, he just just kept going. It's
a new puzzle. For Ernest agitate U.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
But this game come down to and you've seen the
play so many times, Tony Adams of the Jets picking
off Jalen Hurts on a third and eight play near
midfield in the final couple of minutes, and it was
a bad read by Jalen Hurts. I don't know what
he was seeing because he's trying to get the ball
into aj Brown and it's you have dbs on either
side of them. What are you really seeing on that play?
(19:20):
It was a bad throw. He runs it back to
the eight yard line. Breese Hall is in the end zone.
The Jets d it up in the next possession because
the Eagles are all over the place. Look not a
great day for Jalen Hurts, right. The Jets were able
to really clamp down on him and force a lot
of turnovers. But it should have never come to that, because,
like I said, sometimes you can't fix stupid. And I
(19:40):
don't know if this was hubris or thinking we're just
gonna win this game this way, but sometimes you have
to understand, Hey, we're in a dogfight, and however we
win this game, we win, right, I'd like to be
able to win the Eagles way I'd like to win,
by being able to throw for a first down and
running out the clock and kneeling down walking off the field,
(20:01):
right because it was it was that kind of game.
It was very chippy back and forth. There was a
lot of stuff being said between the team. That's why
Robert Sala went off yesterday saying we faced elite quarterbacks
and we've and you know, we've made them, We've embarrassed them.
There was a lot of smack talk going on, right,
Sala leaving the podium saying they ain't twelve to zero
no more. And I get that. You want to get
caught up into winning a game in certain ways, you
(20:22):
can be that way. But if you're Nick Sirianni, just
think about it for a second. How how how dumb
was a decision? What was it to throw the ball
on third and eight? Okay, because look at the game.
In reality, the Jets offense did nothing. They did absolutely
nothing against you all day. There were four trips inside
the twenty yard line. It was four field goals. Okay,
(20:44):
you're winning, all right, you're winning. If you run the
ball on third and eight, you forced the death. The
Jets are gonna let you know, their last time out.
They're gonna get the ball back with about a minute
or so left to go at their own ten yard
line and no timeouts. Think about what you're the Jets
get the ball back, Zack Wilson gets the ball back
(21:05):
at his own ten yard line with about a minute
or so to go and no timeouts. All right, this
is where you make the smart decision and say let's
run the football here on third and eight instead of
throwing it, because the worst thing was going to be
an incomplete pass, stopping the clock, kicking the ball back
to the Jets, and you know the Jets have forty
two to forty five more seconds left on the clock.
(21:26):
That's the worst. But the worst worst case was the interception.
Why would you do that? The best way to win
this game was to kick the ball away and force
Zack Wilson to have to go seventy some odd yards
to get or to get to the point where a
zerline could kick a field goal, because look, get inside,
from sixty yards out, you're forcing him to go sixty
(21:47):
some odd yards right, probably sixty five yards for the
Jets to have a legitimate chance at a field goal
that could win the game. Zack Wilson, who has had
a tough time all day, and he made a couple
of nice throws. I'm not saying he didn't, but the
Jets offense was and it's been bad. And just because
they're winning a couple of games, there's the consensus that, well,
Zach is playing really well, okay, and he's playing better.
(22:07):
I'm not saying he's not. But you're gonna win this
game easy. You punt the ball, the Jets are gonna
fair catch it at the ten yard line. Right, That's
how it goes in the NFL. Now, right, there's no
punts that go into the end zone and come out
to the twenty. There's no punch that got We're in
the best era of punting that we've ever seen in
the history of the NFL. Right, We're in that era.
Punting has never been as good or as accurate as
(22:27):
you are right now. A guy needs to drop it
inside the twenty. He drops it inside the twenty. Guys
you dropped to the ten yard line. Drops the ten
yard line. Guys fair catch on the ten yard line
because they know the gunners are down there and there's
enough air under the ball that if they let it
bounce at the ten, they could wind up downing it
at the two right. Balls don't bounce into the end
zone anymore, so you're definitely you're definitively pinning the Jets
(22:48):
back at the ten yard line. When I saw Jalen
Hurts fading back to pass, I knew it's at Oh,
this is the best thing I could possibly see. And
I was expecting it in a complete pass, but instead
it was a pick. It was even better. But this
is where the Eagles screwed themselves because they wanted to
try to win a certain way and be overly aggressive.
And I understand that, but that's not how the game
was going for them. They struggled to move the football.
(23:10):
They turned the football over a lot, three turnovers. Jalen
Hurts was not having a Jalen Hurts game. You're not
just turning him into a player that's terrific. After fifty
eight and a half minutes of struggle. Win however, you
need to look as happy as I am to get
this win for the Jets. And we're a floating I'm
hoping Rogers comes back after the bye. Look, I know
the Eagles gave us that game yesterday with that play call.
(23:33):
And if Nick Siriann he's good the coach that I
think he is, he's walking around going I cost us
this game. I should not have called that play. I
should not have called.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
Back why he didn't talk to anybody?
Speaker 1 (23:42):
You know, I should not have called that play.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
The players all.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
Went in and yelled at each other and screamed about
leadership and composure and keeping your composure. Look, that attempt
to throw the ball over the middle of the field,
to god, it is just dumbfounding. Right, you had Brown
one on one against what would that have been the
six cornerback over there, and he cut off his route
(24:05):
and kind of looked back like, wait, he tried to
squeeze it in there into double coverage. To your point, yeah,
you were on the proper side of the two minute warning.
That free time out was already gone before that ball
got snapped. So play for you know, the the ugly
winning ugly for lack of a better term. You don't
(24:26):
need style points, you don't need to push stuff, and
in this case, certainly you're you're not throwing a heater
through two defenders that are that are guarding gutter.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
It's just not happening.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
So forced them to drive the length of the field.
And it goes back to all the certain game circumstances
we keep talking about from all these coaches, and again
it's been a referendum on Jalen Hurts made a bad throw. Okay,
does that mean he's suddenly a lesser quarterback. No, but
it's something we've been talking about for the better part
(25:00):
of five and a half weeks. At this point of
they don't look right. They don't look like the team
you are anticipating. They also don't look like the team
that for the last couple of years. The identity is
I'm gonna run the ball down your throat and do that, right,
Hurts when your leading rusher with eight for forty seven,
(25:20):
and good job by the Jets front, no question about it.
DeAndre Swift limited to eighteen yards rushing gain well two
for thirteen, and they always entertaining to say his name,
Boston Scott. I'll hang up and listen to your answer.
Two carries for two yards. Yeah, you had nothing in
(25:42):
the run game, So extend the run game. Where's you know,
a screen free release whatever, A designed run for Hurts
because he had made plays with his legs, whatever, you
need to do force Zach Wilson to come and beat you, right,
he doesn't have to be great. And you know all
the argument of well he's just a game manager. Fine,
(26:05):
if he doesn't throw up on himself and you win
the game, who the hell cares in October? Eventually that's
going to matter. Right now, you're just trying to get
chips and see if you find anything in your offense
that you can push forward and leave and say, hey,
here's a couple of plays that we get some good
gains on. We've been pretty consistent at running this, that
(26:27):
and the other, and put that over in the keyp pile.
The other one's going into the shredder or into the
dumpster that we're gonna set on fire. So that Zach
Wilson stuff coming out of yesterday's game, and the last
couple is dumb dude. It's like it's one game doesn't
make a guy for the Eagles. They're still adjusting and
(26:48):
bringing in everything that the new coordinator is doing. And yes,
should it be further along in the process, Sure should
your decision making be better in these circumstances if you're
jaling her? Sure should the play call beat back? Towards
your strength of what your identity is as a team.
You don't abandon it, especially when you can punt and say, okay,
(27:12):
Zach beat.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
Me exit out about a Fresca exit Swollen down the
Jason Smith Show with my best friend Mike Carmon Live
from the TIREC dot Com studios. Now when it comes
to the forty nine Ers and the Browns, right, the
Browns were able to pull the upset off, and everybody's
waiting waiting for the Niners yesterday, waiting for the Niners
doesn't happen, Okay for this game. It's good and bad news. Right.
(27:37):
The good news is, you know what, the Browns have
a great defense. The Niners were playing on the road,
they lost McCaffrey, they lost Debo. You're gonna lose a
game once in a while, and you still were a
miss field goal away. Yeah, in front of his entire
damn family. I know how sad with Zach, and he
posed for the picture with all of them before they game. Hey,
my whole family's here to watch me play.
Speaker 3 (27:59):
That's like a right, And they kept making such a
point of it of how many people were in attendance,
and then he kicked and I'm like, oh, that's not
coming back in and you know how much.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
You know, on the ride home, one of his uncles said,
we had to drive all this way to watch him.
Miss that's a horrible thing to say. You know that
there's gotta be one one of the family members. Yeah,
I didn't want to go. I like watching it on TV.
But look, that's so that's the good news for the Niners.
As bad as things went, and Brock Purdy was bad
(28:30):
and limited, you were still you were still that close
to me.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Still put you in a position to win the game.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
So that's good. Now here's the bad part though, And
this is not anything about Purdy. This is not about
anybody else, but this is about the way teams are
built to win. And if you are not built around
a star quarterback, you have to have every other bit
of your team clicking if you're gonna win. And the
(28:58):
Niners are built around their defense, their running game, their
wide receivers and you know guys like Deebo running Jets sweeps,
their tight end, one of the top tight ends their
offensive line, and Brock Purdy being hey, mister irrelevant, who hey,
look how good he is. He's making all the plays.
That's why we're comparing him to Tom Brady because look
(29:19):
at what he's doing so far as a young player.
I get it. What he's doing is is very Brady esque.
But that's the danger in building a team around a
guy who's not a superstar quarterback, right because perty's not
gonna win passing titles, He's not gonna throw for forty
touchdowns in a season, right. But he's a great quarterback
and a great system for this team. But to win,
you got to have everything go right. And by that,
(29:42):
I mean every other part of your team has to
be firing at the highest level. It ken. You can
still win games if your defense stinks but your quarterback
is red hot, you can win. You can win games
if you have no running game and you can't get
to the quarterback. But your quarterback has a great game,
you can win. But if you're not built around a
great quarterback, then every game you play, you need the
(30:05):
great defense, need the wide receivers, you need the running
game to support the quarterback. You need all of that, right,
And what happened yesterday the Niners lost. Over the course
of the game, they lost their running game, They lost
a little bit of wide receiver with Debo, and you
saw them struggle to move the football and they struggle.
I mean it look pretty need to throw for one
hundred yards, right, You saw them struggle to move the
(30:26):
football and that's a real red flag. And that just
shows you. And the bad news is that this shows
you how hard it is to build that kind of team,
because you can do it right. We've seen the nine
of their success. But if you're missing one of those
pieces you need, you need five aspects of your game
to be, you know, firing, you know, at the top
of their game. If you're gonna win, If you're at
(30:48):
three and a half and one of those pistons isn't
your quarterback, you're gonna lose. So that you saw the
danger of building a team the way the Niners did yesterday,
because hey, they lost two guys and that was it.
Like their offense was gone. It's absolute gone. Whereas if
it was a quarterback, if the Niners had someone like
Rogers or Lamar Jackson or Mahomes or something, hey they
can still go and gone and win that game. But
(31:10):
with Purdy, you're not gonna win that game.
Speaker 3 (31:12):
Well again, forty one yarder, what is it eighty two
percent of the time in the last twenty years or
something like that. I forget the actual timeframe, but it's overwhelmingly.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
Yeah, but that was to beat the Browns. But that's
to beat the Browns. I mean, you're going forward but
again to play better teams than the brown and that's
not even gonna be and that those aren't gonna be
close games because of that.
Speaker 3 (31:37):
Yeah, you're also trying to give props to the rest
of the NFL. I got I got news for you, Hey,
most of these teams ain't better than the Browns.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
You're gonna played good You're gonna played good teams this
season because you're thinking Super Bowl. You're playing as right.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
But if I've got to now adjust things in a
Christian McCaffrey and Demo Samuelus world, I've got time to
work to that and try to maximize what I got
in this particular game against what is the league's best defense.
Right now, you still had a chance to win. Like,
(32:10):
what are we talking about if if he actually hits
if Moody hits that field goal, are we still talking
about brock Perdy's just a guy, Because that's kind of
what we're doing here right, and that's been the narrative
over the last twenty four hours. He's not a guy
to elevate you. Well, he still puts you in a
position to win the game with a very makeable field goal,
(32:31):
and the narrative is much different if that goes through.
It wasn't his best day, but boy, he gutted it
out and got.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Him to a win.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
Be sure to catch live editions of The Jason Smith
Show with Mike Harmon weekdays at ten pm Eastern, seven
pm Pacific, Fox Sports Radio The Jason Smith Show with
My best Friend Mike Harmon, Well Dressed Hobot Live from
the tiraq dot Com Studios and the Cowboys win over
the Chargers tonight twenty to seventeen. It comes full of
(33:00):
controversy and questions and Mike McCarthy's decision making and Brandon
Staley's decision making, and you know it's one of those hey,
hold my beer moments. Oh man, I've screwed up getting points.
At the end of the first half, they'll talk about
me forever, and Brandon Stilley's Hey, Mike McCarthy, hold my beer.
Speaker 3 (33:16):
And he sends him back a foster size can Troy
emphasize how huge that decision is, like one of those
little mini kegs that you could buy at the grocery store.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
Kind of Oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
I went through an oil can phase for a few months,
very very few months. I said it's cool drinking oil cans.
I'm like, yeah, No, I just didn't like the taste there.
I'm like, why am I doing this? It's kind of cool,
I like oil can.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
Well, at some point you want to want to be
done out and move on to a new phase.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
It was, you know, there was a lot, and it
was it was all I'm buying is I'm getting a
lot more from my mind by like, I just don't
like it. Uh. Brandon Staley goes for it on fourth
down mid third quarter while the Chargers are down three,
goes for it on fourth and one from inside the
Cowboys ten yard line, and the Chargers fail. They don't
get any points and it's a field goal game. And
(34:04):
once again it's what is Brandon Staley doing? Why going
for it on fourth down when it clearly is something
that holds the team back and it has not worked
out when the Charges have gone forward on fourth down
hardly at all for him ever, And it's the one
thing that has his name being mentioned every week. How
long is he going to continue to be the head coach?
(34:25):
How long un till he gets fired? Right? How long
u till he gets fired? And to forget about for
a second about the math of well, if you go
for it on fourth down and it's worth three points here,
and you can just think about this for a secon
because I can give you the Brandon Staley thing pretty
simply is that you've seen the Chargers in many big
situations and Brandon Staley want to go for it on
(34:47):
fourth down, and we talk about it all the time.
How do you fail? How do you do this? It's
pretty simple from a football standpoint. The Chargers aren't good
at going for it on fourth down? Right, getting first
downs on fourth down as a skill. Just ask the
Eagles who say, when it's fourth and one, we know
how to do it. We run the brotherly shove and
we get it's a skill. It's not just hey, we're
(35:09):
going to execute and we can make one yard. You
got to know how to make that and be able
to do that under pressure. And the Chargers aren't good
at it. We've seen enough that in big moments when
you don't have to go for it on fourth down.
The Chargers fail right now. When you have to go
for it on fourth down, obviously after you have no choice,
but when you don't have to do it, if you're
not good at it, don't do it, because all you're
(35:31):
doing is hurting yourself and hurting your team. There's nothing
that I do in my life that if I'm really
that bad at it and it's a really big thing,
I'm gonna try to do anyway. I mean, that's just dumb.
It doesn't work. So from a football standpoint, you can
argue all you want to talk about the math and
what this point was worth and the chance of getting here.
You're not good at it. You can tell me all
the league average of getting a fourth ronth it doesn't
(35:53):
matter because you're not the league average. You're a team
that struggles in big moments on fourth down. You can't
do it. So if you don't have to do it,
don't do it. Especially the game like that where it's
ten to seven and points are at a premium. If
it was thirty eight thirty one or thirty eight twenty eight,
I understand, but it's ten to seven, middle of third quarter,
you take the field goal, but throw on top of
it when you can't do it, well, why would you
(36:13):
continue to do it? I don't understand well.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
And that's the larger point that you have to make.
When we get into these stats, right, everybody gets excited.
Well here it is, you know, on fourth down, it's like, well,
what about us? What about us in this game situation?
What's the flow of this game?
Speaker 1 (36:31):
Right?
Speaker 3 (36:31):
Because while momentum may be fictional, the way you're playing
in short yarded situations, the field that your offense has
and where you're at game down distance, whatever may be
a bad thing.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
Twitter, and how about a fresco Mike get swallowed up?
It's pretty simple, right when you break it down like that.
Oh yeah, if you're not really good at it, why
not do it? So here we are solving problems right here.
I'll send that memo you'll hear from Justin Herbert coming
up next? Do we get back into the other big
controversy coming out of this game that the Cowboys escape
with a twenty to seventeen win. That's next right here,
Jason and Mike Fox
Thanks for listening to The Jason Smith Show with Mike
Harmon podcast. Be sure to catch us live every weeknight
ten pm to two am Eastern seven to eleven pm
Pacific on Fox Sports Radio. Find your local station for
The Jason Smith Show with Mike Harmon at Foxsports Radio
dot com, or stream us live every night on the
iHeartRadio app by searching FSR.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
You're listening to Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Greetings and welcome inside our three of The Jason Smith
Show with my bes friend Miike Harmon hobo live from
the Tiraq dot Com studios Direct dot com. I'll help
you get there an unmatched selection, fast, free shipping, free
road hazard protection and over ten thous it recommended installers
tirect dot com. The way tire buying should be Well,
(00:50):
the Cowboys with a thriller over the Chargers. Not OLP game.
But what do we always say, as long as it's close,
it's all that matters. Cowboys go to four and two,
Chargers drop. I mean, look, this is a this is
a game where you start to look at the standings
now in the AFC West and you go, ooh wait
(01:10):
a minute, man, everybody else has at least three losses.
Chargers have three, Raiders have three. Chiefs are now got
a two game lead in the division. It's one of
those years where the Chiefs haven't been great, but they're
gonna wind up plinching this thing by Thanksgiving again. It's
just gonna happen for him. But we'll hear from Brandon
Staley coming up in a few minutes as he's getting
(01:32):
finishing talking to the media. Right now, the Chargers lose
to the Cowboys, and I can already tell you what one,
because the show is ahead of the curve. I can
already tell you what one the big driving headline is
gonna be for the Cowboys out of this. They're gonna
talk and talk and talk and talk, and they're gonna
say how great Dak was, and look at Dak, this
(01:54):
was his best game, and look how great we always
knew Dak was this good. And they're going to talk
about making clutch plays and Micah Parsons sacked the one
defensive play they really made the game. And they're going
to talk about coming off of this loss to San
Francisco and the intestinal fortitude of a champion and going
(02:15):
on the road Monday night baseball playing a home game
Monday night in Los Angeles. Look at what they overcame
to win. Boy, really start believing in ourselves when the
reality is, the Chargers gave them this game. Justin Herbert
was awful. It should have been a Charger win by
at least two touchdowns if he was anything accurate, if
he had an average game, it would have been the
(02:36):
Chargers by two touchdowns. Their touchdown passes that he missed on,
multiple touchdown passes that he missed on, the lack of
urgency at the end of the game, everything you want
to say. The Cowboys are gonna talk and talk and
talk and there has Yeah, that's great, I have to
listen to it. But really, the Chargers gave them this game,
and that's gonna be the overwhelming narrative coming out of Dallas.
Says Hey, because we have to have this narrative because
(02:58):
we've convinced ourselves every week is so unbelievably emotional that
it's the super Bowl, and coming off a week's win,
how do we get back to where we are? Look
at this huge win we met and they're gonna over
emphasize the things that they did and not talk about
how and understand that boy, we were lucky because we
escaped on this one. This is going to be a
win for the team, and we're back and we think
(03:18):
we're terrific. Trust me, that's all you're gonna hear from
the cowboys. And it's not reality. It's not reality at all.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Well it should be.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
I mean you you take the positive points, right, History
is told by the winners.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Get that should be on a T shirt? Or is
that already a T shirt?
Speaker 2 (03:35):
That's already a thing.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Really, history is taught by the winners.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
It's a pretty old statement. It's been around a couple
of thousand yukon history.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Winston Churchill. Okay, well, if it wasn't in the crown,
I wouldn't have known that. If Winston Churchill didn't say it,
I wouldn't have known that.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
So the idea just being that, look I won, and
look oftentimes it takes us into real roled and off
of the playing field. But you know, all the people
that that have the the victory get to you know,
get that verbal history going, write it down. Here's the
the tails of our of our win and in this
(04:13):
case it's gonna be Look, he was quiet all day,
but when it mattered Micah Parsons made the play of
the game. Gilmore had been called for a penalty, had
been you know, kind of abused a little bit by
Keenan Allen on route running over the course of the day,
but when it mattered, he was there and he was
the one that secured the game clinching interception. It's all
(04:37):
the matters, right, succeed and proceed for you had the
the big sixty yard burst off a broken tackle by
Tony Pollard. What are they gonna say he was well
we talk about for fantasy or for any other purposes.
He was over one hundred total yards against the Chargers.
Nobody's gonna remember how that came to pass. Same thing
here for Dak Prescott. He was battered and beaten and
(05:00):
legend all night, found Cede Lamb when he needed to,
found Brandon Cooks when he needed to, and your field
goal kicker was true. Doesn't matter that Mike McCarthy botched things.
It doesn't matter, you know, here in Los Angeles because
it's become you know, commonplace. Yeah, I mean, the tale
is going to be about the Chargers and late game
(05:22):
execution and finding some other stats that are now being
pushed forward because people raising their hands on Justin Herbert. Hey,
fourteen fourth quarter comebacks or game winning drives, I should
say eleven fourth quarter comebacks, all of those kind of things. Okay,
But the sentiment, the gut is that this team finds
(05:44):
a way to rip your heart out, to go back
to the old Steve Irwin thing that he said so
many times in his career. So, I mean, you're just
looking at a situation for the Cowboys. Yeah, feel chesty,
you got the next See what Sean McVeigh dials up
for you offensively. I know Kyron Williams is hurt, but
(06:07):
it's a curiosity right of what that offense brings to bear.
But you celebrate tonight because your defense, while they weren't spectacular,
they made the two big plays when it mattered.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
They did look and they won the game. But because
of their emotional attachment to every single game this year,
they're gonna inflate this as something that's this is this
is not Hey, we went on the road and we
beat that, and we beat the forty nine er.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Flag high heading back home to Dallas.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Look, look, I can give you something great for the Cowboys.
But again with this, it comes with a caveat, right,
So it is with the Cowboys, but I can give
you something great. Look, Dak Prescott played really well tonight
and they will prop him up the next couple of days.
Jerry Jones tomorrow will be on one O, four to
three the Fan and they'll say, this is a Dak
Prescott that I knew, this is the Dak Prescott when
(06:56):
we gave him that money. We are expecting games like this,
and games like this are what super Bowl quarterbacks are
made from. And that's exactly what we got from Dak
last night. And he was absolutely magnificent. It was Dak. Okay,
that's you're gonna get and they're gonna prop Dak Prescott up.
And yes, he did have a really good game tonight. Right,
he had a really good game. Now you know the
(07:17):
caveat is this is kind of the peak game that
Dak Prescott can have. All Right, Dak is no longer
a twenty five, twenty six year old quarterback. Where hey,
the best days are ahead of him and his continued
growth is gonna be fun to look forward to. Now,
Dak Prescott is who he is at this point. He's
thirty years old, he's been in the league for a while.
(07:38):
This is who he is. This is the best game
you're gonna get out of Dak Prescott. Right, The Dak
Prescott games where I'm gonna throw for four hundred and
three and three touchdowns and potentially throw us to victory,
those days don't happen. Right. You don't get that from
Dak anymore because he's older. He doesn't just physically doesn't
do things money like that great play, Yeah, scramble, No,
(08:04):
this is this no, hey, no, I'm telling you. This
is that he had a good game tonight. Right, Dak
Prescott had a good game tonight. And but to expect
him to be that big, dynamic guy that he showed
you was in the past, He's not that quarterback. And
with all as great as Dak Prescott played, the Cowboys
scored twenty points. Twenty points in a game where they
(08:25):
should have needed thirty and they only had were lucky
that Justin Herbert was awful that they weren't looking up
on this scoreboard. So for the Cowboys, yeah, okay, look,
I get Look, you a win's a win. You're excited,
you're about whatever you need mentally to convince yourself that
things are back on the right track. Okay, I get it,
But you know the truth about DK is, Yes, this
was a good game Dak at This is also the
(08:46):
best game you can expect him to have. And it's
a game where the Cowboys scored twenty points, right, and
they should have probably lost because their defense was lucky
that the other quarterback just I don't know what happened
to Justin Herbert tonight. He was an accurate, he sailed
the football. It's probably the worst game I have seen
him play. I don't know that I've seen him actually
play worse than what he did tonight overall, top to bottom.
So that's so that's the reality is Hey, yeah, Dak said,
(09:09):
he celebrate Dak, he played great, He made clutch plays.
It was awesome. Yes, he did get sacked a lot tonight,
he had, he got sacked five times. He still came back.
But this is now the ceiling for him, and the
ceiling is not boy, Hey, this was where he made
the clutch plays on a night that wasn't his night. No,
this is about as much of Dak Prescott's night's he's
ever gonna have. And is that gonna be enough for
(09:29):
the Cowboys going forward? That's the big question. Because now
the Cowboys winning doesn't put the you know, doesn't put
to bed the forty nine ers loss or the fact
that they fell asleep against the Cardinals. It doesn't. It
doesn't do any of those things. But it does show
you that, hey, if everything is working, Dak can give
you a night like this, and that's really good. But
when you're giving a guy, when you even this guy
(09:50):
forty million dollars, you know, forty five million dollars a year,
you expect, Hey, you got to give me a little
bit more than that. You gotta more times. But this
is but look, this is Dak Prescott who has been
overvalued for his whole career because he's the quarterback of
the Cowboys, and he pushes his advantage because he knows
that Jerry Jones wanted to pay him, because Dak Prescott
succeeding for the Cowboys makes Jerry Jones look good. I
(10:11):
drafted him, he fell in the draft, and look where
we got him, and nobody else could. He's a draft
fine for me, and as long as he's paying to
be the quarterback of the Cowboys, it looks good for
Jerry Jones. So that's but that's been Dak. But now
to think that suddenly, hey we're gonna get this all
new Dak or Dak No, No, this is this is
kind of who Dak Prescott is. So this is kind
of the ceiling. So it's great for Dak, but this
(10:32):
is the ceiling of what you're gonna get from him.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
That's all right. It's week the end of week six,
plenty of time. We always talk about separating the the
league calendar into quarters, and you want to be playing
your best football win where we're heading towards. You know,
Dolly Parton singing at halftime of Thanksgiving Day is one
(10:54):
of the news items of today. So sure, but I
mean that's when you want to start making your run
to where your your climbing your peak like the guy
off of the the yodeling dude on the Price is right.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
I mean, we got to make our climb then. But
he's been lamar Odom. He's been in every he literally
has been in every other game. Guy this year in
the NFL, well.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
You know what, today he averaged nine point one yards
per pass place. If you compare that to the league
over the year, that would rank second.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Okay, that's the one time. Last week he averaged six
yards per pass.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
I mean the show US today, Show US today, and
he got the job done as the Cowboys are victorious. Look,
they're not all going to be masterpieces. And he is
not counted on week to week to put up massive
numbers because normally the defense is going to do the
job right. Last week he ran into the forty nine ers.
(11:49):
This week, the forty nine ers ran into a really
good Cleveland defense. A couple of guys got hurt and
suddenly everybody there is terrible and the sky's falling.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
So that's what we do in radio and TV here.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
But it's right, I'm all made up.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Let's go put the camera on.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
He's in every other game. Guy, he's not a say look,
your people just want more from Dak Prescott than what
he is.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
Yeah, it ain't my money, No, I know, he's the
only one who's gotta worry about whether he's enough completions
per dollars games.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
But this is but, but this is but this is
about hey, getting that money and the responsibility you have
to produce on the floor.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Stend, don't go throwing out spider man quote state.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
We had great paychecks, come great responsibility.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
So what you're trying to do here? You know, through
five games, he's got six touchdowns and floors, right, his
quarterback rating is well below me. I don't care about
quarterback telling you, okay, yeah they're four and two that
you know, they'd be at just an average, they'd be
the Jets. Yes, if they they beat the Giants opening
week where Dak press I could have played quarterback for
(13:00):
the Cowboys open week May May, yeah, I could have
handled the ball office. I'm gonna las all right, So
I mean, look, yes, you you win this game, but
it's it's not that everything is suddenly great and problems
are solved and Dak is great. Look, dak is, dak
Is is playing, he's he's an average quarterback. He had
a good game. But look at look at this body
(13:20):
of work. I mean, this is who you are when
they needed him. Look what happened last week is a
really good defense. He was awful, he was he was
awful against Arizona, Right, he was awful. This is who
he is, right and and and I'm telling you, the
narrative is gonna be that dak is great and dak
is and just don't believe it. Just understand a different quarterback.
(13:41):
He's limited. But yeah, so you're gonna hear or back
dak dak back dack dak dakd you're a dak dak
da da da. And that's not the truth. That's not
the truth. And people are still gonna expect more from him,
and he's gonna fall short because he's just not that
quarterback anymore. I mean, he was, he was on the
cusp of years ago, and I thought Dak was gonna
(14:02):
take that next step right when he when he's coming
off that that thirty and eleven season of twenty nineteen,
I said, Okay, he's gonna be really but then you know,
we have COVID twenty twenty and he gets hurt. All right,
that's fine. Then he bounces back and says, hey, man,
thirty seven, his best season thirty three years ago. Shut up,
best season three years ago. Okay, he's twenty six, twenty
(14:22):
seven years old. Now he takes that leap. And then
last year, eh, he was just okay. And now this
year so far, he's been less than just okay. And
that's kind of what you're gonna get going forward, because
you're never gonna see him being the level he was
at the one finale. He had two really good years
out of three, twenty nineteen and twenty twenty one. Twenty twenty,
(14:45):
he got hurt. It was covid. Okay, we'll throw that
one out. That's something that just didn't exist for him.
But you know, getting back to where he is, you
can see already through a season and a little bit
over a third since twenty twenty one, he just simply
isn't that quarterback.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
The bigger thing?
Speaker 3 (15:00):
Because Brandon Staley, we get all into his management of
fourth down situations. I still need an exorcism in the
locker room given the number of guys that have been
hurt and missed.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
Time and whatever. But you come into this game give
it up twenty six points per game.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
Defensively, you haven't figured anything out, you haven't fixed anything.
And Khalil Mack had a massive game last week with
his six sacks and he had won right off the jump.
And they did get to DAK five times today. But
coming into this game, the teams behind them in terms
of points allowed per game, Denver last at thirty three
(15:37):
and a third per game, Carolina one step higher, Washington, Chicago,
the Giants, and the Cardinals.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
That's it.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
So it's not exactly a world beater, so to you,
the larger point is you didn't exactly go in and
dominate a top team, but you did what you needed
to today and you had a good game, including that
sprint for eighteen yards that they will run on a
loop because because it was a good playfake and he
(16:08):
found the end zone. But the point being that the
Chargers haven't exactly been world beaters on defense. That's the
other part of the Brandon Staley narrative that at some
point has to get some run as well. If we're
going to keep talking about fourth down decisions, how about
the fact that you can't get your defense off the
field oftentimes.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Be sure to catch live editions of The Jason Smith
Show with Mike Harmon weekdays at ten pm Eastern, seven
pm Pacific, Fox Sports Radio The Jason Smith Show with
My best friend Mike Harmon. If you like using debit
over credit, Chincha also get rewarded, well, now you can
with Discover cash Back Debit. It's a checking account that
rewards everyone with cash back on everyday purchases with no
(16:49):
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com slash cashbackdebit. That's Discover dot com slash cashback debit
Discover Bank member fd. I see. We'll have more of
the Cowboys and the Chargers coming up in a little bit,
and we'll talk about one of the biggest controversies coming
off of this game tonight. But the two biggest results
(17:10):
in the NFL yesterday just happened to be the Jets
and the Jets. Sorry, the Jets and the Browns Jets, Joe.
The Jets and the forty nine ers upset previous unbeaten
teams in the NFL. And I was besides, I actually
watched the game yesterday with one of my really good friends,
guy Coach with and he's an Eagles fan, and it
was so tough because, you know, the whole game, it's
(17:31):
back and forth, it's back and forth, and I and
after and after the Jets picked off Hurts on that
really ridiculous play call, which we'll get to in a second,
because that was the game. I, you know, and they
score a touchdown. I turned, I go, I'm sorry, but
I need this win way more than you do. He goes, no, no, no,
it's you know, it's good it's good. You know, this
will wake us up. You know we're five and zer,
it'll wake us up. I go, don't patronize me when
(17:53):
I'm patronizing. You don't sit here and do that to me.
Tell me you didn't want to throw out a full
ten D but uh, but I'll tell you. Look for
all of as well as the Jets played defensively, and
as well and and and as well as games are,
(18:13):
the razor thin line is apparent, not just in a
madefield goal or a missed field goal, but sometimes it's
apparent in something as a ridiculously stupid play call. Because
sometimes you know that's saying that goes. You know you
gave me the saying. You know, history is written by
the winners. Yeah, it's a pretty good one by Winston Churchill.
I'm gonna give you can't fix stupid, said by many times.
(18:34):
I think it was Jim Varney who might just said
that first. Can't fix stupid. I can't believe how many
earnest movies there are. What a hell of a run
he had. I didn't know that guy thought he was
not like after.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
Fourteen of those, yes, he just just kept going. It's
a new puzzle. For Ernest agitate U.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
But this game come down to and you've seen the
play so many times, Tony Adams of the Jets picking
off Jalen Hurts on a third and eight play near
midfield in the final couple of minutes, and it was
a bad read by Jalen Hurts. I don't know what
he was seeing because he's trying to get the ball
into aj Brown and it's you have dbs on either
side of them. What are you really seeing on that play?
(19:20):
It was a bad throw. He runs it back to
the eight yard line. Breese Hall is in the end zone.
The Jets d it up in the next possession because
the Eagles are all over the place. Look not a
great day for Jalen Hurts, right. The Jets were able
to really clamp down on him and force a lot
of turnovers. But it should have never come to that, because,
like I said, sometimes you can't fix stupid. And I
(19:40):
don't know if this was hubris or thinking we're just
gonna win this game this way, but sometimes you have
to understand, Hey, we're in a dogfight, and however we
win this game, we win, right, I'd like to be
able to win the Eagles way I'd like to win,
by being able to throw for a first down and
running out the clock and kneeling down walking off the field,
(20:01):
right because it was it was that kind of game.
It was very chippy back and forth. There was a
lot of stuff being said between the team. That's why
Robert Sala went off yesterday saying we faced elite quarterbacks
and we've and you know, we've made them, We've embarrassed them.
There was a lot of smack talk going on, right,
Sala leaving the podium saying they ain't twelve to zero
no more. And I get that. You want to get
caught up into winning a game in certain ways, you
(20:22):
can be that way. But if you're Nick Sirianni, just
think about it for a second. How how how dumb
was a decision? What was it to throw the ball
on third and eight? Okay, because look at the game.
In reality, the Jets offense did nothing. They did absolutely
nothing against you all day. There were four trips inside
the twenty yard line. It was four field goals. Okay,
(20:44):
you're winning, all right, you're winning. If you run the
ball on third and eight, you forced the death. The
Jets are gonna let you know, their last time out.
They're gonna get the ball back with about a minute
or so left to go at their own ten yard
line and no timeouts. Think about what you're the Jets
get the ball back, Zack Wilson gets the ball back
(21:05):
at his own ten yard line with about a minute
or so to go and no timeouts. All right, this
is where you make the smart decision and say let's
run the football here on third and eight instead of
throwing it, because the worst thing was going to be
an incomplete pass, stopping the clock, kicking the ball back
to the Jets, and you know the Jets have forty
two to forty five more seconds left on the clock.
(21:26):
That's the worst. But the worst worst case was the interception.
Why would you do that? The best way to win
this game was to kick the ball away and force
Zack Wilson to have to go seventy some odd yards
to get or to get to the point where a
zerline could kick a field goal, because look, get inside,
from sixty yards out, you're forcing him to go sixty
(21:47):
some odd yards right, probably sixty five yards for the
Jets to have a legitimate chance at a field goal
that could win the game. Zack Wilson, who has had
a tough time all day, and he made a couple
of nice throws. I'm not saying he didn't, but the
Jets offense was and it's been bad. And just because
they're winning a couple of games, there's the consensus that, well,
Zach is playing really well, okay, and he's playing better.
(22:07):
I'm not saying he's not. But you're gonna win this
game easy. You punt the ball, the Jets are gonna
fair catch it at the ten yard line. Right, That's
how it goes in the NFL. Now, right, there's no
punts that go into the end zone and come out
to the twenty. There's no punch that got We're in
the best era of punting that we've ever seen in
the history of the NFL. Right, We're in that era.
Punting has never been as good or as accurate as
(22:27):
you are right now. A guy needs to drop it
inside the twenty. He drops it inside the twenty. Guys
you dropped to the ten yard line. Drops the ten
yard line. Guys fair catch on the ten yard line
because they know the gunners are down there and there's
enough air under the ball that if they let it
bounce at the ten, they could wind up downing it
at the two right. Balls don't bounce into the end
zone anymore, so you're definitely you're definitively pinning the Jets
(22:48):
back at the ten yard line. When I saw Jalen
Hurts fading back to pass, I knew it's at Oh,
this is the best thing I could possibly see. And
I was expecting it in a complete pass, but instead
it was a pick. It was even better. But this
is where the Eagles screwed themselves because they wanted to
try to win a certain way and be overly aggressive.
And I understand that, but that's not how the game
was going for them. They struggled to move the football.
(23:10):
They turned the football over a lot, three turnovers. Jalen
Hurts was not having a Jalen Hurts game. You're not
just turning him into a player that's terrific. After fifty
eight and a half minutes of struggle. Win however, you
need to look as happy as I am to get
this win for the Jets. And we're a floating I'm
hoping Rogers comes back after the bye. Look, I know
the Eagles gave us that game yesterday with that play call.
(23:33):
And if Nick Siriann he's good the coach that I
think he is, he's walking around going I cost us
this game. I should not have called that play. I
should not have called.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
Back why he didn't talk to anybody?
Speaker 1 (23:42):
You know, I should not have called that play.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
The players all.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
Went in and yelled at each other and screamed about
leadership and composure and keeping your composure. Look, that attempt
to throw the ball over the middle of the field,
to god, it is just dumbfounding. Right, you had Brown
one on one against what would that have been the
six cornerback over there, and he cut off his route
(24:05):
and kind of looked back like, wait, he tried to
squeeze it in there into double coverage. To your point, yeah,
you were on the proper side of the two minute warning.
That free time out was already gone before that ball
got snapped. So play for you know, the the ugly
winning ugly for lack of a better term. You don't
(24:26):
need style points, you don't need to push stuff, and
in this case, certainly you're you're not throwing a heater
through two defenders that are that are guarding gutter.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
It's just not happening.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
So forced them to drive the length of the field.
And it goes back to all the certain game circumstances
we keep talking about from all these coaches, and again
it's been a referendum on Jalen Hurts made a bad throw. Okay,
does that mean he's suddenly a lesser quarterback. No, but
it's something we've been talking about for the better part
(25:00):
of five and a half weeks. At this point of
they don't look right. They don't look like the team
you are anticipating. They also don't look like the team
that for the last couple of years. The identity is
I'm gonna run the ball down your throat and do that, right,
Hurts when your leading rusher with eight for forty seven,
(25:20):
and good job by the Jets front, no question about it.
DeAndre Swift limited to eighteen yards rushing gain well two
for thirteen, and they always entertaining to say his name,
Boston Scott. I'll hang up and listen to your answer.
Two carries for two yards. Yeah, you had nothing in
(25:42):
the run game, So extend the run game. Where's you know,
a screen free release whatever, A designed run for Hurts
because he had made plays with his legs, whatever, you
need to do force Zach Wilson to come and beat you, right,
he doesn't have to be great. And you know all
the argument of well he's just a game manager. Fine,
(26:05):
if he doesn't throw up on himself and you win
the game, who the hell cares in October? Eventually that's
going to matter. Right now, you're just trying to get
chips and see if you find anything in your offense
that you can push forward and leave and say, hey,
here's a couple of plays that we get some good
gains on. We've been pretty consistent at running this, that
(26:27):
and the other, and put that over in the keyp pile.
The other one's going into the shredder or into the
dumpster that we're gonna set on fire. So that Zach
Wilson stuff coming out of yesterday's game, and the last
couple is dumb dude. It's like it's one game doesn't
make a guy for the Eagles. They're still adjusting and
(26:48):
bringing in everything that the new coordinator is doing. And yes,
should it be further along in the process, Sure should
your decision making be better in these circumstances if you're
jaling her? Sure should the play call beat back? Towards
your strength of what your identity is as a team.
You don't abandon it, especially when you can punt and say, okay,
(27:12):
Zach beat.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
Me exit out about a Fresca exit Swollen down the
Jason Smith Show with my best friend Mike Carmon Live
from the TIREC dot Com studios. Now when it comes
to the forty nine Ers and the Browns, right, the
Browns were able to pull the upset off, and everybody's
waiting waiting for the Niners yesterday, waiting for the Niners
doesn't happen, Okay for this game. It's good and bad news. Right.
(27:37):
The good news is, you know what, the Browns have
a great defense. The Niners were playing on the road,
they lost McCaffrey, they lost Debo. You're gonna lose a
game once in a while, and you still were a
miss field goal away. Yeah, in front of his entire
damn family. I know how sad with Zach, and he
posed for the picture with all of them before they game. Hey,
my whole family's here to watch me play.
Speaker 3 (27:59):
That's like a right, And they kept making such a
point of it of how many people were in attendance,
and then he kicked and I'm like, oh, that's not
coming back in and you know how much.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
You know, on the ride home, one of his uncles said,
we had to drive all this way to watch him.
Miss that's a horrible thing to say. You know that
there's gotta be one one of the family members. Yeah,
I didn't want to go. I like watching it on TV.
But look, that's so that's the good news for the Niners.
As bad as things went, and Brock Purdy was bad
(28:30):
and limited, you were still you were still that close
to me.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Still put you in a position to win the game.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
So that's good. Now here's the bad part though, And
this is not anything about Purdy. This is not about
anybody else, but this is about the way teams are
built to win. And if you are not built around
a star quarterback, you have to have every other bit
of your team clicking if you're gonna win. And the
(28:58):
Niners are built around their defense, their running game, their
wide receivers and you know guys like Deebo running Jets sweeps,
their tight end, one of the top tight ends their
offensive line, and Brock Purdy being hey, mister irrelevant, who hey,
look how good he is. He's making all the plays.
That's why we're comparing him to Tom Brady because look
(29:19):
at what he's doing so far as a young player.
I get it. What he's doing is is very Brady esque.
But that's the danger in building a team around a
guy who's not a superstar quarterback, right because perty's not
gonna win passing titles, He's not gonna throw for forty
touchdowns in a season, right. But he's a great quarterback
and a great system for this team. But to win,
you got to have everything go right. And by that,
(29:42):
I mean every other part of your team has to
be firing at the highest level. It ken. You can
still win games if your defense stinks but your quarterback
is red hot, you can win. You can win games
if you have no running game and you can't get
to the quarterback. But your quarterback has a great game,
you can win. But if you're not built around a
great quarterback, then every game you play, you need the
(30:05):
great defense, need the wide receivers, you need the running
game to support the quarterback. You need all of that, right,
And what happened yesterday the Niners lost. Over the course
of the game, they lost their running game, They lost
a little bit of wide receiver with Debo, and you
saw them struggle to move the football and they struggle.
I mean it look pretty need to throw for one
hundred yards, right, You saw them struggle to move the
(30:26):
football and that's a real red flag. And that just
shows you. And the bad news is that this shows
you how hard it is to build that kind of team,
because you can do it right. We've seen the nine
of their success. But if you're missing one of those
pieces you need, you need five aspects of your game
to be, you know, firing, you know, at the top
of their game. If you're gonna win, If you're at
(30:48):
three and a half and one of those pistons isn't
your quarterback, you're gonna lose. So that you saw the
danger of building a team the way the Niners did yesterday,
because hey, they lost two guys and that was it.
Like their offense was gone. It's absolute gone. Whereas if
it was a quarterback, if the Niners had someone like
Rogers or Lamar Jackson or Mahomes or something, hey they
can still go and gone and win that game. But
(31:10):
with Purdy, you're not gonna win that game.
Speaker 3 (31:12):
Well again, forty one yarder, what is it eighty two
percent of the time in the last twenty years or
something like that. I forget the actual timeframe, but it's overwhelmingly.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
Yeah, but that was to beat the Browns. But that's
to beat the Browns. I mean, you're going forward but
again to play better teams than the brown and that's
not even gonna be and that those aren't gonna be
close games because of that.
Speaker 3 (31:37):
Yeah, you're also trying to give props to the rest
of the NFL. I got I got news for you, Hey,
most of these teams ain't better than the Browns.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
You're gonna played good You're gonna played good teams this
season because you're thinking Super Bowl. You're playing as right.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
But if I've got to now adjust things in a
Christian McCaffrey and Demo Samuelus world, I've got time to
work to that and try to maximize what I got
in this particular game against what is the league's best defense.
Right now, you still had a chance to win. Like,
(32:10):
what are we talking about if if he actually hits
if Moody hits that field goal, are we still talking
about brock Perdy's just a guy, Because that's kind of
what we're doing here right, and that's been the narrative
over the last twenty four hours. He's not a guy
to elevate you. Well, he still puts you in a
position to win the game with a very makeable field goal,
(32:31):
and the narrative is much different if that goes through.
It wasn't his best day, but boy, he gutted it
out and got.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Him to a win.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
Be sure to catch live editions of The Jason Smith
Show with Mike Harmon weekdays at ten pm Eastern, seven
pm Pacific, Fox Sports Radio The Jason Smith Show with
My best Friend Mike Harmon, Well Dressed Hobot Live from
the tiraq dot Com Studios and the Cowboys win over
the Chargers tonight twenty to seventeen. It comes full of
(33:00):
controversy and questions and Mike McCarthy's decision making and Brandon
Staley's decision making, and you know it's one of those hey,
hold my beer moments. Oh man, I've screwed up getting points.
At the end of the first half, they'll talk about
me forever, and Brandon Stilley's Hey, Mike McCarthy, hold my beer.
Speaker 3 (33:16):
And he sends him back a foster size can Troy
emphasize how huge that decision is, like one of those
little mini kegs that you could buy at the grocery store.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
Kind of Oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
I went through an oil can phase for a few months,
very very few months. I said it's cool drinking oil cans.
I'm like, yeah, No, I just didn't like the taste there.
I'm like, why am I doing this? It's kind of cool,
I like oil can.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
Well, at some point you want to want to be
done out and move on to a new phase.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
It was, you know, there was a lot, and it
was it was all I'm buying is I'm getting a
lot more from my mind by like, I just don't
like it. Uh. Brandon Staley goes for it on fourth
down mid third quarter while the Chargers are down three,
goes for it on fourth and one from inside the
Cowboys ten yard line, and the Chargers fail. They don't
get any points and it's a field goal game. And
(34:04):
once again it's what is Brandon Staley doing? Why going
for it on fourth down when it clearly is something
that holds the team back and it has not worked
out when the Charges have gone forward on fourth down
hardly at all for him ever, And it's the one
thing that has his name being mentioned every week. How
long is he going to continue to be the head coach?
(34:25):
How long un till he gets fired? Right? How long
u till he gets fired? And to forget about for
a second about the math of well, if you go
for it on fourth down and it's worth three points here,
and you can just think about this for a secon
because I can give you the Brandon Staley thing pretty
simply is that you've seen the Chargers in many big
situations and Brandon Staley want to go for it on
(34:47):
fourth down, and we talk about it all the time.
How do you fail? How do you do this? It's
pretty simple from a football standpoint. The Chargers aren't good
at going for it on fourth down? Right, getting first
downs on fourth down as a skill. Just ask the
Eagles who say, when it's fourth and one, we know
how to do it. We run the brotherly shove and
we get it's a skill. It's not just hey, we're
(35:09):
going to execute and we can make one yard. You
got to know how to make that and be able
to do that under pressure. And the Chargers aren't good
at it. We've seen enough that in big moments when
you don't have to go for it on fourth down.
The Chargers fail right now. When you have to go
for it on fourth down, obviously after you have no choice,
but when you don't have to do it, if you're
not good at it, don't do it, because all you're
(35:31):
doing is hurting yourself and hurting your team. There's nothing
that I do in my life that if I'm really
that bad at it and it's a really big thing,
I'm gonna try to do anyway. I mean, that's just dumb.
It doesn't work. So from a football standpoint, you can
argue all you want to talk about the math and
what this point was worth and the chance of getting here.
You're not good at it. You can tell me all
the league average of getting a fourth ronth it doesn't
(35:53):
matter because you're not the league average. You're a team
that struggles in big moments on fourth down. You can't
do it. So if you don't have to do it,
don't do it. Especially the game like that where it's
ten to seven and points are at a premium. If
it was thirty eight thirty one or thirty eight twenty eight,
I understand, but it's ten to seven, middle of third quarter,
you take the field goal, but throw on top of
it when you can't do it, well, why would you
(36:13):
continue to do it? I don't understand well.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
And that's the larger point that you have to make.
When we get into these stats, right, everybody gets excited.
Well here it is, you know, on fourth down, it's like, well,
what about us? What about us in this game situation?
What's the flow of this game?
Speaker 1 (36:31):
Right?
Speaker 3 (36:31):
Because while momentum may be fictional, the way you're playing
in short yarded situations, the field that your offense has
and where you're at game down distance, whatever may be
a bad thing.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
Twitter, and how about a fresco Mike get swallowed up?
It's pretty simple, right when you break it down like that.
Oh yeah, if you're not really good at it, why
not do it? So here we are solving problems right here.
I'll send that memo you'll hear from Justin Herbert coming
up next? Do we get back into the other big
controversy coming out of this game that the Cowboys escape
with a twenty to seventeen win. That's next right here,
Jason and Mike Fox
Hosts And Creators
Jason Smith
Mike Harmon
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