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August 19, 2025 42 mins

PFT Live co-host Mike Florio weighs in on the NFL smelling salt debacle and compares the careers of different QBs. Producer/director Maclain Way previews his new documentary "America's Team: The Gambler & His Cowboys" and shares what Jerry Jones is like behind-the-scenes. 14-year NFL QB Chase Daniel reacts to Daniel Jones being named week 1 starter in Indianapolis and cautions that Matthew Stafford's back issues could loom larger than most expect. 

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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You are listening to the Dan Patrick Show on Fox
Sports Radio.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Let's bring in Mike Florio, the pompulter host of Pro
Football Talk Lot. Let me start there, Mike, whose career
do you want? Joe Flacco or do you want Philip Rivers?

Speaker 3 (00:15):
Probably Flaco because it's the ultimate team sport. You want
to win a Super Bowl. He won a Super Bowl.
He was twice the highest paid player in all of football.
And I love the fact, Dan, when you think about
true franchise quarterbacks, guys who were once paid more than
anyone else in the sport. For him to be willing
to humble himself and be a backup for years and
just keep playing, keep going.

Speaker 4 (00:37):
How many guys do that?

Speaker 3 (00:38):
Could you imagine Peyton Manning holding a clipboard once his
starting days ended. It really is refreshing to see a
guy who loves the sport so much he hangs around,
he gets his chance.

Speaker 4 (00:47):
And off of Paul's point.

Speaker 3 (00:49):
About the Pro Bowl, my favorite fact about the current
Cleveland Browns roster at quarterback. They have six guys and
one Pro Bowler, Tyler Hunt. The other five no Pro Bowls.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
Mike's latest novel, Big Shield, debuts today on Amazon and
tale of gambling, the mob and pro football. But for
legal reasons, it's definitely not about the NFL.

Speaker 4 (01:16):
I can't stop you.

Speaker 3 (01:17):
You know, there's a franchise in Vegas, there's a franchise
in Baltimore, there's a franchise in Minnesota. I can't stop
the reader from envisioning the colors and the logos and
the name. But for legal reasons, I just go with Vegas, Baltimore, Minnesota.
They can't copyright city and state names.

Speaker 2 (01:39):
Do you expect to hear from the NFL.

Speaker 3 (01:42):
No, I think they'll ignore the book. I think it
will bother them enough that they'll ignore it that that'll
be the strategy. However, they should like it because Dan,
it's a cautionary tale about what can happen with inside information.

Speaker 4 (01:52):
There's so much inside information out there.

Speaker 3 (01:55):
Who's really injured, who's not, what's the game plan, who's
going to get the ball?

Speaker 4 (01:58):
All sorts of things before game and during games.

Speaker 3 (02:01):
I know they're concerned about guys on the sidelines giving
signals to people who would lock in micro bets for
runner pass. Coincidentally, that's what happens in this book. That's
the premise. A backup quarterback for the Vegas franchise of
a fictional pro football league gets tied in with a
mobster and it all kind of goes from there where

(02:23):
this relationship has ups and downs and twists and turns,
and four hundred pages later you get a resolution.

Speaker 2 (02:30):
It's a called Big Shield. Now the NFL is called
the Shield.

Speaker 3 (02:35):
Mike, Well, that's right, and I loosely refer to the
NFL as Big Shield.

Speaker 4 (02:39):
So it's all part of the game. Look, I want that.
Did you see the Billy Joel documentary.

Speaker 3 (02:44):
The best thing that ever happened to him was the
Catholic Church banning.

Speaker 4 (02:47):
Only the good Die Young.

Speaker 3 (02:49):
He sent them a note saying, will you please ban
my other songs?

Speaker 4 (02:54):
When people feel like they're not.

Speaker 3 (02:56):
Supposed to read or watch or listen to something, it
makes them want it even more.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
Do you want the NFL to sue you?

Speaker 4 (03:03):
Oh, they won't sue me. No, Dan, they won't.

Speaker 3 (03:05):
They won't sue me because nothing in here infringes on
any of their copyrights. And it's a pure work of
fiction that there's nothing in there that libels anyone. All
the characters are made up, The whole thing is completely
made up. The only issue would be copyrights. I don't
use NFL, I don't use team names.

Speaker 4 (03:23):
I'm I'm I'm safe there.

Speaker 3 (03:25):
Now, if they would want to assume me, if it
would help book sales, then you know I would.

Speaker 4 (03:28):
I would deal with that. But they won't. They'll ignore it,
Like they remember the film Concussion.

Speaker 3 (03:33):
They were scared to death of that movie, and their
strategy was to ignore it, and they did and it
workedn't It didn't really move the needle.

Speaker 2 (03:42):
I'm still trying to wrap my head around this whole
smelling salts. We know it's supposed to mask a concussion, right,
Why are they allowing you to still bring in something
that it's bring your own smelling salts into to mask concussions.

(04:02):
Shouldn't you make that illegal so we can detect if
you have a concussion.

Speaker 3 (04:08):
This is one of the realities of collective bargaining, and
collective bargaining can be very good, but it also can
become ridiculous because if the league were to go to
the players and say we want a complete and total
ban on smelling salts, the players would be inclined to say,
what's in it for us? If you want the ban,
we're going to say we don't, so we can get

(04:30):
something from you to give you what you want.

Speaker 4 (04:33):
And it works both ways.

Speaker 3 (04:34):
Look, marijuana legal in most of the states now where
the NFL does business, Why don't we just get rid
of it. Well, it's a collective bargaining issue, So what's
in it for us?

Speaker 4 (04:45):
This is the NFL. What's in it for us if
we agree to get rid of it.

Speaker 3 (04:48):
So it's ludicrous when the union sent out to the players,
oh hey, you can still bring your own, it's like,
wait a minute, is this really a good idea? Should
they be having these things around? Should they be using
these things? Yeah, the whole thing's ridiculous. And the sooner
those things are off the sideline, the better off everyone
will be.

Speaker 2 (05:07):
This garnered a lot of headlines, but we know why.
It's Shudoor Sanders, Dylan Gabriel and Dylan Gabriel saying that
basically there's entertainers and then he's a competitor, and people
thought he's referencing Shador Sanders. Did you hear it that way,
that he was referencing people in the media and not
shud Or Sanders.

Speaker 3 (05:28):
Well, I think it's reasonable to look at those comments
and consider the context and come to the conclusion that
he was making a comment about Shudur Sanders. I think
that's not an unreasonable reaction, and that's what happens. When
you put your words out there into the public space
for consumption, people are going to come to whatever conclusions
they want. I didn't take it that way, but I

(05:49):
could see somebody looking at that and thinking, oh, he's
taking a little bit of.

Speaker 4 (05:53):
A shot there. At the end of the day, he
is a competitor.

Speaker 3 (05:55):
I mean he walked through the door with the mindset
he's going to be the starter. He's become the starter
every where he's been. The Browns quarterback Depth Charty's fascinating Dan,
and they're a week away from having to decide how
many of these guys are they gonna have on the
fifty three man roster. I think Kenny Pickett's gonna be
the odd man out. I think it's gonna be Flacco
and the two Rickeys rookies competing and or entertaining all

(06:15):
of us. Throughout the course of the twenty twenty five season.

Speaker 2 (06:19):
We spent a good portion of the first hour talking
about how bad the commander's uniforms look. According to PAULI,
he thinks they're the worst uniforms in the NFL. Then
he gave me his bottom five in there, we'll ask you,
where do you sit on the commander's uniforms home uniforms.

Speaker 4 (06:39):
I don't think they're that bad. No, there were worse.

Speaker 3 (06:42):
The Dolphins I think are the worst. The Dolphins based
uniforms are horrible. They should make their throwbacks their full
time uniforms. I mean they're worried about the perception that
they're soft. Those uniforms screen soft, right you see the throwbacks.
The throwbacks are badass. Like if you want to make
and you ask any NFL player, how you look is

(07:03):
how you feel. The projection, the image, everything the toughness
at all oozes from how you look.

Speaker 4 (07:10):
So I think the Commanders are fine. The Dolphins. The
Dolphins are horrible.

Speaker 3 (07:14):
And don't get me started on the nikefication of the
NFL with all the alternate look I will gladly say,
get off my launch. I want to be able to
turn on an NFL game and know right away who's playing.
I don't want to have to sift through throwbacks and
alternate uniforms and what are they wearing this week? That
drives me crazy, and it's all Nike's fall.

Speaker 2 (07:35):
Talking to Mike Florio from Pro Football Talk Live. You
can see that show at preceeds hours on Peacock. He
also contributes to NBC Football Night in America. I'm trying
to figure out what's going on with the RAMS with
Matthew Stafford, because every time Sean McVay gets in front
of the media, he says the same thing but uses
different words. Here is Sean McVay talking about Matthew Stafford.

Speaker 5 (08:00):
Was good to be able to have Matthew out there.
He did a good job today. I thought he looked good.
But you know, I don't really have any updates. You know,
I think there was a lot of intended information, but
there's no updates. We're going to keep it a day
and really a week at a time, but you know,
we'll see how this afternoon goes and tomorrow.

Speaker 2 (08:18):
Okay, Mike, what's going on here?

Speaker 3 (08:22):
The key is when he says a week at a time,
they're still concerned that this back problem isn't resolved. That
the goal was to give him a long runway between
when he had the epidural in June and when he
started throwing and practicing and the idea was when he
comes back, he's fine. It's not an issue. It's over.

Speaker 4 (08:44):
It's it's calm down.

Speaker 3 (08:46):
He can go play seventeen games without it acting up.

Speaker 4 (08:49):
That didn't fly.

Speaker 3 (08:50):
He threw sixty eight passes on Saturday last He was
supposed to practice the following Monday, and all of a sudden,
he doesn't. And for Matthew Stafford, that's a big deal
because this got as tough as nails.

Speaker 4 (09:00):
He's John Wayne.

Speaker 3 (09:01):
He's gonna fight through anything, any pain, any discomfort, and
he doesn't care. And so the fact that he practiced yesterday,
it's all very tentative, he said, Stafford, I mean m McVeigh,
excuse me, said, we'll see how the afternoon goes. Like
they're constantly going to be watching him, how's he reacting
to every workout, every practice, every game, every throw.

Speaker 4 (09:20):
And I think this is gonna hover over them into
the regular.

Speaker 3 (09:23):
Season and then he's gonna start getting hit during games.

Speaker 4 (09:26):
It's not gonna get any better.

Speaker 3 (09:27):
So I think they need to feel very good about
their backups. It's Jimmy Garoppolo and Stetson Bennett, and we
may see Garoppolo play at some point in the regular season,
because this just doesn't feel like it's sustainable for seventeen
regular season games.

Speaker 2 (09:43):
Well, I thought the tell was that Garoppolo didn't play
at all this last game, that Stetson Bennett played every
single play, as if Sean McVay is saying, I can't
have you out there and risk you getting injured when
I have Matthew Stafford who might not be ready to go.
So they sent Stetson Bennett out there to throw forty pounds.

Speaker 4 (10:02):
They went through this last year.

Speaker 3 (10:03):
They had to be sure Stetson Bennett was ready to
back up Matthew Stafford for the first two games of
the season because Garoppolo was suspended. So they had to
trust Bennett. And they have to have Bennett ready in
the event that he's the number two to Garoppolo, and
I think they'll keep Garoppolo in bubble wrap in the
event that they've got to play him week one. It'll
probably be Stetson Bennett and Dresser win this weekend in

(10:24):
the preseason finale, and they just got to hope for
the best. I mean, Stafford is one of the toughest
guys that I've seen in years in the NFL, and
he doesn't complain. I think he's had injuries nobody knows about,
not even his wife. He just shuts up and he goes.
But this is one I mean back issues, I mean wants.
That thing grabs you, It changes you, and it's not easy.

(10:45):
And I don't know how many I don't know how
many tour it all shots you can take to overcome it.
But I think it's just going to be a day
to day, week to week thing. And right now I
don't feel confident one way or the other he's going
to be good to go week one. I don't think
anybody knows if he's going to be good to go.

Speaker 2 (10:59):
Week Who's more Hall of famey We had this two
weeks ago, Matthew Stafford or Russell Wilson Junior? The third?

Speaker 4 (11:08):
Oh oh, without question? Stafford without question.

Speaker 3 (11:11):
I mean what Wilson has has slipped the past few years.
And I remember when Eli Manning was in the final
years of his career. Shreen Williams, who works with as
a PFT and is one of the Hall of Fame voters,
She expressed the concern to me that if Eli hangs
around like this, he's gonna undermine his case Russell Wilson
has undermined his case the past few years. Remember Kurt

(11:32):
Warner had that and then he sprang back.

Speaker 4 (11:35):
To the super Bowl with the Cardinals.

Speaker 3 (11:37):
I mean, Russell Wilson is gonna make it harder for
him to get in the longer he plays, and he's
a shadow of what he was when he.

Speaker 4 (11:45):
Was at his best. I think Stafford is that guy.

Speaker 3 (11:48):
His numbers are incredible, He's higher and higher on the
all time list, and he's just kind of I think
it's because of his time in Detroit, Dan we just
never really noticed him. But he's been one of the
greats and he hasn't had that dip and he's got
the Super Bowl win and he's still going strong at
thirty seven.

Speaker 2 (12:05):
What if we reversed their career so Stafford wins early
and then doesn't do anything, whereas Russ doesn't do anything,
and then all of a sudden is in eight or
nine Pro Bowls, he goes to two Super Bowls, he win, Like,
what have you ever looked at if we re reversed careers,

(12:26):
how we would look at some of these players?

Speaker 3 (12:28):
Oh, I think it's always better to finish strong. But
when you say not do anything. Even when Stafford was losing,
he was great. Wilson has been statistically not great, and
just the eyeball test, he's not the guy that he
used to be.

Speaker 4 (12:42):
Stafford's always he's.

Speaker 2 (12:43):
Got ten Pro Bowls, Mike, He's got ten, Stafford's got two. Well,
Russ has better stats.

Speaker 4 (12:52):
Yeah, now look at the career numbers. Though, Look at
the career.

Speaker 3 (12:55):
Numbers, Stafford is inching higher and higher on the all
time list.

Speaker 4 (12:59):
I I hear what you're saying.

Speaker 3 (13:03):
I just think that it's gone so badly since Russell
Wilson was traded to the Broncos.

Speaker 4 (13:08):
And this is what he wanted. He wanted it to
be all about him. He wanted to let Russ cook.
And what happened from the.

Speaker 3 (13:14):
Moment he got to Denver, the career has gone off
the rails. And yeah, last year in Pittsburgh there were moments,
but boy, it fell apart down the stretch and who knows, Hey.

Speaker 4 (13:23):
He still throws a beautiful deep ball. That pass he through.

Speaker 3 (13:26):
The Steelers wouldn't let him throw down in the middle
of the field last year. They thought he was too
short to throw down in the middlefield. Beautiful eighty yard
passed down the middle of the field. He still can
do it. The question is when it starts to fall apart,
can he get away from pressure.

Speaker 4 (13:38):
He used to be able to do it, Now he can't.

Speaker 2 (13:42):
He's Mike Florio and once again, his book is definitely
not about the NFL. It's a novel he's called Big
Shield and he debuts today on Amazon, A tale of gambling,
the Mob and pro football. Once again, definitely not about
the NFL.

Speaker 6 (14:00):
You can be a witness when they sue me. Thank you,
Mikey Dan. That's Mike Florio Pro Football Talk Live. You
can see that show with Chris Sims prior to this
one on Peacock We take a break. He is the
director and producer of a new documentary that drops today.
It's about the Dallas Cowboys. We'll come back with that

(14:20):
after this.

Speaker 1 (14:21):
Be sure to catch the live edition of The Dan
Patrick Show weekdays at nine am Eastern six am Pacific
on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app.

Speaker 7 (14:31):
He's Mike Krmen, I'm Dan Byern. We have a brand
new fantasy football podcast called I Want Your Flex. Twice
a week every Tuesday and Friday, we come up with
new episodes to not only look back at what happened,
what you need to do at that minute, and also
look ahead of what's coming up in the fantasy football world.

Speaker 1 (14:50):
That's right, Dan.

Speaker 8 (14:51):
Every week we're gonna scour the waiver wire to find
the pickups to turbo boost your fantasy lineup, sit starts,
fantasy football players rankings to get you ready to dominate
the competition.

Speaker 7 (15:02):
Listen to I Want Your Flex with Mike Carment and
me Dan Byer on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts and
wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 2 (15:09):
The documentary available today America's Team, The Gambler and His Cowboys.
It chronicles Jerry Jones and the era of the Cowboys,
the good years, the nineties, the dynasty, but also some
controversies and key figures. McLain way is the producer director,
and he and his brother have done a wonderful job

(15:29):
with Netflix with the Untold documentaries. Who set the parameters
here McLain of what you could and could not talk
about with the Cowboys?

Speaker 9 (15:39):
We did?

Speaker 10 (15:39):
You know? It's like Jerry was one of our first
questions when we hopped on the project. You always want
to know, like, wait, who gets to control what goes
in and what goes out of a project. And luckily
we've been making documentaries with Netflix for over ten years
and they're really trusted partners and we work with them
a lot, and ultimately they got to the kind of
decide as we would say them cuts and things like that.

Speaker 9 (16:01):
So Jerry was an open book.

Speaker 10 (16:03):
There were no questions that were off the table, and honestly,
it was like incredibly supportive of the documentary and what
we made. And when we showed him the documentary he
said that there were very painful reminders for him, So
I think he liked parts of it. I think there
are other parts that were a little tough for him
to watch, but all in always very supportive.

Speaker 2 (16:25):
What era does this cover?

Speaker 10 (16:27):
Yeah, this is mostly focused on like the early nineties,
you know. I think episode seven gets us about halfway
through to what the Michael Irvin trial was, which has
happened about three weeks after they won their third Super Bowl.
So it's mostly chronological and linear, but starts with Jerry
striking oil and netting himself one hundred million dollars, going

(16:48):
and buying the Dallas Cowboys from bum Bright, firing Tom Landry,
and igniting an incredible amount of controversy, brings in Jimmy Johnson,
his friend from you know, when he was seventeen years old.
They went back to back Super Bowl's massive divorce between
the two of them, brings in Barry Switzer to win
one more and then we kind of quickly get into,
you know, kind of the downfall, the decline of this

(17:09):
team on the field and this thirty year year, thirty
year streak of not really being able to replicate that
Super Bowl success.

Speaker 2 (17:18):
What's the wildest story in the documentary?

Speaker 9 (17:22):
There was a lot.

Speaker 10 (17:22):
I mean, I think that this documentary is like a
big reason why we jumped on It is a bit
of a murderer's row of talking heads, like, yes, Jerry
is a big and larger than life character, Jimmy is
as well. You got Michael Troy Mnett, and then you
got Dion he comes in in episode five. So that
was a huge reason why we obviously jumped at this.

(17:43):
There were fun stories about the halftime the first Super
Bowl at Pasadena because Michael Jackson played the halftime show,
and so Michael Irvin and Charles Haley dipped out on
Jimmy Johnson's halftime speech to go watch Michael Jackson do
Thriller at the Rose Bowl, and so stuff like that
was things that I didn't quite know about. But as
these guys roll into these stories, all of a sudden,

(18:05):
they're telling you about how they they go watch Michael Jackson.
So stuff like that was always super fun.

Speaker 2 (18:12):
Did Dion talk about going to a hotel room and
walking in and seeing Michael in bed with a bunch
of women and Dion said, Mike, I don't live this
way and walked out of the hotel room.

Speaker 10 (18:27):
It's it's a story that sounds familiar. I don't think
it was deon standers. I heard that story from Michael,
but it was Terrell Owens, And it was Terrell Owens
that came into a hotel room, and it was right
after there.

Speaker 2 (18:38):
Might be there might be a number of people who
experienced that. It's true. It's just just to be honest
with you, the Dion, you.

Speaker 9 (18:48):
Have some options of people that you want to choose from.

Speaker 10 (18:50):
But I heard it was Mike Tyson after he got
out of prison, and they all went into a limo
and had a nice suite in Vegas, and Terrell Owens
came in and his eyes got his biggest saucers and
Apparently he said I can't. I don't live this life,
I can't do this, and so the Mike and Mike
scared away too, apparently is the story that I was told.

Speaker 2 (19:13):
We learn anything new about Jimmy Johnson's exit from the Cowboys.

Speaker 10 (19:17):
Yeah, I mean, I think that the access to both
Jerry and Jimmy was fundamental and crucial to why we
wanted to make this documentary serious. And I know that
they've spoken at length, almost separately about their relationship, and
then when they have gotten together to chat about it,
it's maybe like a short segment that they did on Fox.

(19:39):
But for us, our opportunity was we got to sit
down with Jimmy for a full day I think seven
hours of interviews, and we filmed with them a couple
more days, and then Jerry we interviewed for about forty hours.

Speaker 9 (19:49):
So for us, the.

Speaker 10 (19:50):
Opportunity to go deep with these guys was really what
drew us to it. And obviously I know that it's
been covered for years, and I think that this is
there's an element of this is true.

Speaker 9 (20:00):
Which is their egos got too big.

Speaker 10 (20:01):
They had a massive credit argument and they tried to
claim more credit than the other one felt, and I
certainly think that that's a part of their story.

Speaker 9 (20:09):
But for us, we tried to go a little bit deeper.

Speaker 3 (20:12):
You know.

Speaker 10 (20:13):
For Jerry, I felt that what ultimately I ended up
kind of feeling as I made this documentary series was
this was a guy who had a transformative experience in college.

Speaker 9 (20:23):
It was the best moment of his life.

Speaker 10 (20:24):
He won the nineteen sixty four national championship at the
University of Arkansas. Years later, he nets himself one hundred
million dollars and he does what maybe I would do
or my friends would do if they won one hundred
million dollars over night, they go and they buy the
Dallas Cowboys. And I think he did that in an
attempt to kind of recapture a really big, beautiful, transformative

(20:44):
part of his life in college. And he hires a
guy that he's known since he's seventeen years old. But
Jimmy's point is, like, Jerry, you hired me to do
a job, and I need to go out and convince
these players day and day out to go sacrifice their
body and their health so that we can win Lombardi Trophies.
And every Sunday they need to go and do that.
But the locker room practice, These are my areas, and

(21:06):
when you come in you can be a distraction in
that endeavor, when you bring camera ESPN cameras into the
draft room, things like that. I think ultimately started just
really rubbing these guys the wrong way, so they kind
of almost had different schools of thought. I would say,
and listen, there's still some things that these guys are
never going to agree on. If you get them in
the same room and ask them who deserves credit for

(21:28):
the herschel Walker trade, you're just you're never gonna get
the same answer.

Speaker 1 (21:31):
You know.

Speaker 10 (21:31):
They're just that's how they feel, and that's how they're
always going to feel. But I do think that they
still have a lot of actual respect and admiration that's
grown for each other. They've always had that to a
certain degree, and I.

Speaker 9 (21:42):
Think that that's beautiful.

Speaker 10 (21:42):
It's okay to disagree with people forever and still get along.
Jerry and Jimmy teach us.

Speaker 2 (21:46):
That McLain ways producer, director, co director, executive producer of
the new documentary on Netflix, America's Team, The Gambler and
His Cowboys. I started to think about this with Jerry,
and it's hard to tell a billionaire that they're wrong,
and you know, nobody's gonna tell Jerry's not gonna listen
to anybody. But I go back in his coaching tree,

(22:08):
and it felt like there were only two coaches who
didn't need Jerry Jerry, you know, Brian Schottenheimer, Jason Garrett,
Dave Campbell, like these guys all needed this job. They
needed Jerry, Bill Parcells did not need Jerry, and Jimmy
Johnson did not. Does Jerry talk about who he's hired

(22:30):
or why he's hired these coaches who this is America's team?
You would think you could get any coach that you
wanted to coach these teams.

Speaker 9 (22:39):
Yeah, it's a great question.

Speaker 10 (22:40):
And actually I didn't really dive into Jerry too much
throughout the you know, each an individual head coach that he's.

Speaker 9 (22:47):
Hired over the years.

Speaker 10 (22:48):
But I we hung out a lot as he was
making the Schottenheimer decision.

Speaker 9 (22:53):
And I don't know for better or worse.

Speaker 10 (22:56):
And I listen, I did not grow up a Cowboys fan,
so I you grew up in Los Angels in the
late nineties, so I unfortunately didn't have an NFL team
to root for. But so I didn't quite feel it
as hard as the fans do. But Jerry, as he
neared the Schottenheimer decision, talked about comfortability. That was like
a big word that he used time and time again.
He was comfortable with Shotenheimer, comfortable with Shottenheimer, which did

(23:19):
strike me as unique because this is a guy that
has taken risk after risk after risk, and even with
something like the Johnny Manziel story that he kind of
tells about Steven being like, we're not going to draft
Johnny Manziel and Jerry being like, all right, we're not
going to draft Johnny Manzel. But Jerry's retort is, you know,
that was the middle of the road decision, and I
didn't build it.

Speaker 9 (23:38):
Dallas Cowboys the way I did.

Speaker 10 (23:40):
By making middle of the road decisions, you have to
take risks because the reward is just, you know.

Speaker 9 (23:45):
Ten x what you can get.

Speaker 10 (23:47):
But Schottenheimer was a comfortable decision for Jerry. And I
don't know if that's because he feels like he's very
close to what he where. He ultimately wants to get
to a super Bowl and he doesn't want to change
things up too much.

Speaker 9 (23:58):
But I was a little like.

Speaker 10 (23:59):
Okay, interesting We're not really making like a big, risky,
splashy choice here. He's going to go with someone that
he's comfortable with.

Speaker 2 (24:07):
There's a quote that's attributed to The Athletic and it's
the Cowboys twenty twenty three playoff loss to the Packers,
where midway through the fourth quarter it's forty eight to sixteen,
and Jerry in the documentary says, this loss hurt us
in every way more than anyone we've ever had. That's

(24:28):
the worst loss in Jerry Jones's career.

Speaker 9 (24:31):
That's what he said.

Speaker 10 (24:32):
And man that we've were with that team a lot
in twenty twenty three, and ultimately, I think if they
would have had a deep playoff run, it probably would
have been a larger part of the documentary series, kind
of following the team on the road that year and
filming them a lot. And well, listen, I was on
the Cowboys hype train that year too, because you know,
they were kind of undefeated at home. They had won
I think like sixteen games at AT and T and

(24:53):
they were coming in to play Green Bay, and I,
you know, I think they were the favorite.

Speaker 9 (24:57):
I was looking forward to that game, but.

Speaker 10 (25:00):
Watching Jerry watch that game, I mean that family got
shell shocked that game. There's no doubt Jerry was quiet
and intense as he was watching what felt like a
very good chance for hopefully a playoff run kind of
crumble in front of him. And there was no doubt.

(25:20):
I mean, it was like after that game. We had
been at Cowboys games after losses before. This one was different. Obviously,
it's the end of the season, so it carries that way,
but it just felt like this family had been through
oh very terrible experience watching watching Green Bay put up
the numbers that they did against against the Cowboys, And

(25:41):
no doubt Jerry said this loss hurt. It hurt on
so many different levels, is what he said. He said,
it hurt, It set us back, It was a financial pain.
It was a lot that he was talking about that
that loss in many ways. So yeah, I think it
is the worst loss he ever experienced.

Speaker 2 (25:56):
Does Jerry care too much?

Speaker 9 (26:00):
That's interesting?

Speaker 10 (26:00):
I think that Again, I wasn't a fan, so I
know the thirty years that it's been, you know, conceptually,
but I don't quite feel it as a fan, So
I don't quite know what that pain feels like. But
the one thing that sometimes I would read that I
just personally disagreed with was like that Jerry doesn't want
to win. It's like all this family wants is one

(26:22):
more super Bowl for Jerry, Like they really like. My
experience just being around them is like, Yes, this is
a tremendously successful franchise. Off field, they do the brand building,
they do the people talking about the team incredibly incredibly well.
But at the end of the at the end of
the day, I think that they are starting to get

(26:43):
that sense of urgency that listen and I think even
Charlotte says it's in the documentary. We don't have a
lot of those next seasons. Well, there's always next seasons
because their dad is getting older and older. And I
think more than anything, what this family wants for Jerry
is one more super Bowl, and I think Jerry certainly
wants that to.

Speaker 2 (27:01):
Being around him, knowing what's going on with Michaeh Parsons,
your sense is what my sense.

Speaker 10 (27:08):
Is that Jerry is like very comfortable in these situations.
And I don't know if that's a good thing or
a bad thing. I think for probably Cowboys fans it's
it's not a good thing.

Speaker 9 (27:18):
But I don't think.

Speaker 10 (27:19):
That he sweats in these situations, which I think normally
motivates most people to be like, all right, I gotta
go sign one of my star players to a long
term contract and lock him up early. And for some reason,
Jerry doesn't quite feel that ert that that that, you know,
he even says it. He's like, I'm comfortable being uncomfortable.

(27:41):
I'm comfortable with ambiguity, you know, And so it was
it was an interesting process I to to see him
be like that.

Speaker 9 (27:47):
So I I don't know why he.

Speaker 10 (27:50):
Necessarily does these things the way he does, or maybe
there's more information I don't know. Maybe maybe there's things
on MICA's team that they're not responding to or doing.
I don't know enough about it, but I know that
Jerry is very comfortable in these situations, which doesn't make
me think that things are going to change necessarily.

Speaker 2 (28:06):
What's the next documentary with you and your brother? Oh?

Speaker 10 (28:10):
Actually we don't know. Actually we're gonna take a little
time off. We had a three part doc that came
out in December of this last year that took us
a while, and then this was an eight parter. So
we do do the untold series on Netflix. We'll probably
jump back in and do a little bit more hands
on producing there, which we're really excited about.

Speaker 9 (28:28):
But right now we don't we don't have anything in
the hopper.

Speaker 10 (28:31):
We're gonna take a little time off and then try
and tackle something hopefully is big. But this one was
This one was tremendously fun. I mean, it was the
first football documentary we made. I absolutely fell in love
with the sport and just following the Cowboys around and
really getting to meet these guys, Troy m and Michael, Dion, Barry, Jimmy,
they were all just phenomenal, phenomenal interviews.

Speaker 2 (28:54):
Congrats to you and your brother, great stuff and good
luck with the documentary.

Speaker 9 (28:58):
Awesome, Thanks so much for having me on Den.

Speaker 2 (29:00):
That's McClain way, producer director. He's the co director, executive
producer of the new documentary on Netflix, America's Team The
Gambler and He's Cowboys.

Speaker 1 (29:09):
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
the nation. Catch all of our shows at foxsports Radio
dot com and within the iHeartRadio app. Search FSR to
listen live.

Speaker 2 (29:21):
Chase Daniel, co host of the Athletics Scoop City podcast
and host of The Chase Daniel Show you'll find it
on YouTube. Always one of our favorites. He makes us smarter,
all right. When you look at these quarterbacks, Daniel Jones
Anthony Richardson, how do you how do you pick somebody
to be your starter out of those two? Like, what

(29:43):
would be the deciding factor here?

Speaker 11 (29:45):
Yeah?

Speaker 12 (29:46):
I mean, look, if you're going with pure athleticism, it
would be Anthony Richardson. But I think what Shane Steiken,
at least what I read and have seen, has.

Speaker 11 (29:54):
Been looking for.

Speaker 12 (29:55):
It's someone who can run the huddle, who can get
it in and out of the huddle, who can get
us into the right place at the right time, who
knows how to fix protections, who knows you know when
to check to a go route versus slant round. I'm
not saying Anthony Richardson can't do that, but it's an
all encompassing thing.

Speaker 11 (30:10):
And that's what quarterbacks is.

Speaker 12 (30:12):
It's not just hey, go out there, throw a bomb
seventy yards down the field like Anthony Richardson we've seen
him do, and you're completing forty something percent.

Speaker 11 (30:20):
Of your passes. I think that's sort of what Shane Stiken.

Speaker 12 (30:23):
I think that's what Chris Ballard sort of wants and look,
Daniel Jones has some athleticism, and I appreciate that, but
when you look at the whole thing, I actually love
the fact that they came out and they named Daniel
Jones the starter because it takes all the pressure off
Anthony Richardson. Anthony Richardson, if Daniel Jones struggles, he can
go in there, he can maybe provide a spark. And

(30:45):
I like to say this a lot because I've been
on the sideline a lot, right, I only started five
years in my career.

Speaker 4 (30:51):
You get a different perspective.

Speaker 12 (30:53):
From the sideline. You're able to see what is happening
in a different manner than you would be behind center.
And it's not only on the field, but it's also
in the classroom as well. How does Daniel Jones prepare?
How does Daniel Jones handle blitz? You do all this stuff?
And I think it's a great learning experience for Anthony Richardson.

(31:13):
I mean, the talent is undeniable, he just hasn't been
able to put it together.

Speaker 2 (31:18):
Yeah, I wonder how long we wait before we move
on with quarterbacks, because it used to be you could
be drafted and you might sit for two years three
years back, you know, twenty five years ago. Now it
feels like, all right, we've seen two years maybe and
then maybe that's enough, whether it was Mitchell Trubisky or

(31:40):
you're looking at Trey Lance, or you're looking at Zach Wilson,
and we don't give you that much time anymore because
there's so many other quarterbacks that you can go. Why
don't we just you know, reset the clock and draft
another quarterback?

Speaker 12 (31:54):
That's exactly right. And honestly, if you look at the
twenty twenty six class come out of college, it's a
really deep class. Reminds me of two years ago, like
with Jay and Daniels and Bonick. So I'm sure that
gms have their eyes on that, and they've already scouted.
There's could be possibly four to five to six quarterbacks
go in the first round. So I do think, you know,
signing Daniel Jones, he's not going to be I don't

(32:15):
think the future of.

Speaker 11 (32:17):
The Indianapolis Scholts. I don't know if they're moving on yet.

Speaker 12 (32:19):
I know Ballard personally, I've talked to him a little bit.
I think that they really want Anthony Richardson to work out,
but they don't have that time, because if they don't
win this year, Shane Steike in, Chris Ballard, they're probably gone.
So they have to figure out something. And that's something
I guess is Daniel Jones.

Speaker 2 (32:37):
Yeah, and I kind of look at the cold sign,
look at the Giants. If I'm ownership of the Giants
and I still believe in Brian Dable, then I have
to let him know that his job is safe, because
if his job is safe, then he's going to play
Jackson Dart a little bit. If his job's not safe,
he's going to play Russell Wilson. And I don't think
that helps the bigger picture. But you've looked at Jackson

(32:59):
Dart the preseason. What do you see?

Speaker 12 (33:02):
He's played excellent And I'm I'm of the camp, and
I might be the only people, especially outside of here
Giants fans, that say I think Jackson Dart needs to
play sooner rather than later. Let me break it down
for you. I like Russell Wilson, future Hall of Famer.
He lives right down the street from me.

Speaker 11 (33:18):
I'm in car.

Speaker 12 (33:18):
Drop off literally with Sierra today, dropping my kids off, like.

Speaker 11 (33:22):
We go to school, like all that stuff.

Speaker 12 (33:25):
But when Jackson Dart plays He's got something about him
that brings a little bit of a spark. You watch
these preseason games that he was playing in, and Brian
Daball is running a little bit of that Old Miss
style offense. You see that fake piss pitch toss like
middle route by the title, that was a play they
ran at Old Miss. You see this old this up

(33:47):
tempo style offense. I'm not saying Russell Wilson can't do this.
Jackson Darts a better athlete at right now and is
in his career than Russell Wilson.

Speaker 11 (33:56):
But if you were Brian.

Speaker 12 (33:58):
Daball and you are Joe Shane, if you don't play
Jackson Dart and you don't make the playoffs and you
ride with Russell Wilson.

Speaker 11 (34:06):
Your jobs are gone in my opinion, Like I don't
think you make it through.

Speaker 12 (34:10):
Whereas you play Jackson Dart early, and it's a brutal stretch.
Six of their first eight games are against playoff teams.

Speaker 11 (34:17):
It's the hardest schedule in the NFL.

Speaker 12 (34:19):
If you play Jackson Dart early, though, and you get
seven eight wins and you show some hope down the stretch,
you're going to keep your job.

Speaker 11 (34:27):
I think that's how they need to proceed with this. Now.

Speaker 12 (34:32):
I get it, you don't want to throw the rookie
in with all these crazy defenses that they have to face.
But the only way to play and to get gain
experience is guess what den you have to play, You
actually have to go out there and do it. And
so I think that's what they need to do with
Jackson Dart.

Speaker 2 (34:48):
I think a lot of times we'll just see highlights
or we'll read something, and then we'll take our opinion
from that. And I've specifically watched when Dylan Gabriel played,
and I watched when Shood or Sanders played because I
wanted to be to this situation instead of just taking
somebody's opinion on that. And granted it's my opinion, but
you know, that's what this show is based on. I'm

(35:09):
watching Dylan Gabriel and I saw good things with Dylan Gabriel.
I saw a tight end who should have you know,
got a pass and it ended up being intercepted. But
I don't know if we will grade him the same
way will grade Shador Sanders. You looked at both of them,
what did you take away from their performances?

Speaker 12 (35:30):
I couldn't agree more with you. I think you're right
on Dan. And when you look at Shador and you
look at the first game, he was electric. I mean
it really was.

Speaker 11 (35:37):
He made some throws, he missed them throws.

Speaker 12 (35:38):
His first throw in the NFL right was a five
hundred miles per hour slant route that went.

Speaker 11 (35:43):
Right through the guys because he was jacked up.

Speaker 12 (35:45):
And he was ready, and that's normal, and I think
we need to normalize this. But he gets so much
fanfare for other reasons that I think that we grade
him on a different scale. And then when you look
at what Dylan Gabriel did the whole first drive and
really of the game was really, really good. Now you
make two mistakes, and I think the handoff, based on

(36:06):
what I saw and what I know of the play
they were running, I put that more in the running back.
He was a little wide on his track. And then
you look at the interception. You have two receivers literally
in the same spot and he throws it in the
middle of him, and I'm like, Okay, that's probably the
mistake that you want to just eat and say, hey,
just continue on the run. He stopped in the pocket
going out to his left. He should have continued on

(36:28):
the run or just dirt it live to fight another down.
But there's some outside pressure on him to play well
and he wants to make every throw and he's more
of the short intermediate throw.

Speaker 11 (36:37):
But he was excellent.

Speaker 12 (36:38):
He was on rhythm, he was in rhythm, he was
on time, he was pinpoint accuracy, and it was I
thought it was a good start for them. But if
you look at the stats, which I don't love to do,
you're gonna be like, oh man, he is out two turnovers.

Speaker 11 (36:52):
He led to thirteen points. I thought it was a
pretty good start. Maybe I'm the minority on it.

Speaker 2 (36:58):
He's Chased Daniel cohost the athletics Scoop City and it's
a podcast also the Chase Daniels Show on YouTube. Speaking
of putting it in the dirt, Joe Burrow still taking
hits in preseason.

Speaker 11 (37:11):
What are you doing?

Speaker 9 (37:12):
Why?

Speaker 2 (37:13):
Why? I don't know.

Speaker 11 (37:15):
I don't know. And I saw that and everyone saw
Buck was like, just it's August, Joe, throw it away.
You know, I was laughing, but like, what are you doing?

Speaker 12 (37:23):
You're the franchise, Like if you go down with his
injury history, I get it. I do love the fact
that the head coach there is playing the starters.

Speaker 11 (37:33):
He's taking the Andy Reid approach.

Speaker 12 (37:35):
Zach Taylor is they haven't played in a long time
in the preseason, and if you look at their record
in the first two weeks of the season since Zach
Taylor has been the head coach, they're one and eleven
and that is awful.

Speaker 11 (37:49):
Like they just don't start fast.

Speaker 12 (37:50):
I think that playing and I was with the Andy
Reid tree and even Sean Payton, he played some of
the starters in the preseason to sort of get the
juices Slowan I would say to Joe, like, you don't
need to take the hit to get the juices lawn.
But he has three drives this preseason and three touchdowns.
They're gonna be just fine if they can figure out
what the heck is going on with Trey Hendrickson and
that defense.

Speaker 2 (38:12):
The Matthew Stafford situation, it was a curiosity. Now it
feels like it's a concern. It's a back issue at
that position. What do you think, how would you handicap this?

Speaker 11 (38:27):
Look?

Speaker 12 (38:28):
I know Matthew Stafford well grew up in the same
area in Dallas and played with him in twenty twenty.
He's one of the strongest and toughest dudes that I've
ever met. When it comes to injury, there's always seems
to be a nagging elbow or an ankle that just
isn't right, or a right shoulder, or just just always something.

(38:51):
And it's just cause he's getting old like me. He's
my age, right, we're thirty eight, almost thirty nine. It's
hard to play quarterback in the league. But when you
get with a back injury, and you have a back injury,
it's a little bit different because of the type of
thrower of the football he is. He's not an arm thrower,
which means, hey, you just put all your stress on
the arm and that's all that matters, and that's all

(39:13):
it takes. You are really turning and you're really much
of a core thrower, so you're torquing your body.

Speaker 11 (39:21):
And he has such good mechanics.

Speaker 12 (39:23):
He goes to Tomhouse, to guru who worked with Drew Brees
and Tom Brady. He's consistently working and perfecting his craft.
But those type of throwers, right, I don't know if
you've dealt with any back pain. I have a little
bit it like it just the finest of torque on
the shoulder or that leads down to the neck that

(39:44):
then connects. Everything's connected, and it's really difficult. I'm gonna
be interested to see how he throws the football if
he has the same amount of zip on it. But ultimately,
like the dude's an iron man. He rarely misses games.
I think eventually he'll be fine. It doesn't help that
he missed him camp though.

Speaker 2 (40:00):
Would you rather have Joe Flacco's career or Philip Rivers?

Speaker 12 (40:05):
Oh my gosh, where did this question come from?

Speaker 11 (40:13):
Look, Phillips was great.

Speaker 12 (40:15):
I feel like Philip never won the big game, right,
like he always had these winning season that the playoffs
always got from him. I'd probably go Joe Flacco because
the dude just doesn't die. Like he's just continuing to play.
He's a starting quarterback, he's forty something years old. He's
got a chance to do it again.

Speaker 11 (40:33):
I actually played golf.

Speaker 12 (40:34):
With him a couple months ago in a tournament here
in Orange County, and you never.

Speaker 11 (40:40):
Know, like, like obviously, other than the size, like he
is just a normal dude. Like it was awesome. He's
like talking about his kids.

Speaker 12 (40:48):
He has his crew of kids who are like sixteen
years old, just like running around, falling around.

Speaker 11 (40:53):
It just looks like a normal dude.

Speaker 12 (40:54):
And I'm like, bro, are you playing He's like, I
don't know, I think so, but you know, it's just
like one of those.

Speaker 11 (40:59):
Things where it's really cool. He's just he's just shugging
along man.

Speaker 3 (41:03):
Yuh.

Speaker 2 (41:04):
And there's something to be said for that that it
was never too high, never too low, never too big
for him. He just kinda I mean, you're two years
younger than him.

Speaker 11 (41:15):
Yeah, which is crazy. It's it's nuts. I mean, he's
he just continues to do it. And I wouldn't be
surprised if he plays well.

Speaker 12 (41:22):
I mean, you saw what he did in twenty twenty
three with Kevin Savanski before and one down the stretch, right,
he didn't play very well last year.

Speaker 11 (41:28):
But it's gonna be a tough division to do. I
just don't know.

Speaker 12 (41:32):
Like I'm of the I'm of the thinking right, like,
I think it's smart to play Joe Flacco.

Speaker 11 (41:36):
What's gonna happen to Can he pick it? I don't know.

Speaker 12 (41:39):
But you got those two rookies, Like I'm of the
camp of like you need to play one of the
rookies because you need to see what you have going
forward if any of them are the answer. Based on
the twenty twenty six draft class, which Cleveland has two
first round picks at.

Speaker 2 (41:52):
Yeah, my only concern with Dylan Gabriel and Shudeur Sanders
is will you give them enough of a runway that
you can find out if they play before you go?
I don't know, Let's use these two first round picks
and move up and get a franchise quarterback. That would
be the only concern that I would have that they
get a fair shake to prove that they can play

(42:12):
or not.

Speaker 12 (42:13):
Yeah, I mean, and I think I think that would
be eight to ten games. So what Flacco gets six games?
Seven games to prove Hey, if they're if they're two
and five through seven, like, do you make the switch?

Speaker 11 (42:24):
Probably if you're five.

Speaker 12 (42:26):
And two, No, And then you're rolling with Flacco because
Kevin SEVANSI you don't two time coach to you don't
think he wants.

Speaker 11 (42:31):
To lose his job.

Speaker 12 (42:31):
I don't think he's going to lose his job. But
if stuff, you know, crazier things have happened. I just
it's a it's a really precarious situation that they've sort
of put themselves into.

Speaker 2 (42:41):
Great to talk to you again, Thank you, Thanks Dan.
That's Chase Daniel, co host of the Athletics Scoop City
podcast and The Chase Daniels Show on YouTube.
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