Tag: radio interview

Aikman impressed by Kellen Moore as Cowboys OC, but warns Dak Prescott to enjoy it now

Aikman likens the Moore/Prescott relationship to ones he had with his coordinators in the ’90s, but says Moore may not be an OC for long. | From @ToddBrock24f7

The Cowboys offense has transformed into the high-powered scoring juggernaut that many have been predicting for a while. Quarterback Dak Prescott and Co. currently sit in second place leaguewide in both total yards (trailing Baltimore by five) and points scored (behind Buffalo by two). It’s a testament to the all-star roster of playmakers on that side of the ball who are finally playing at full strength (mostly) and jelling as a unit (totally).

But it’s not enough to have a lightning-fast car. For maximum performance, there needs to be someone plotting the optimal route and mapping out the roads best-suited to what the vehicle does best. Coordinator Kellen Moore has the Cowboys humming and their engine firing on all cylinders, according to the franchise’s three-time Super Bowl champ and current Fox analyst Troy Aikman.

But that makes Moore a prime candidate for other clubs looking to retool and rev up their own machines.

“I like what he does,” Aikman said Tuesday on Dallas radio station KTCK The Ticket 1310 AM/96.7 FM. “I like the way they attack a defense. I think he’s really smart. I think they use their personnel very well. They disguise a lot of what they do, and that’s what a lot of good offensive minds do. For the players, it’s very simple. It’s a lot of the same concepts, but they dress it up and just run it out of a lot of different looks.”

The offense’s ability to effectively and efficiently move the ball down the field in a variety of ways was on full display in Week 5 versus the Giants. The Cowboys ended Sunday’s blowout win with 515 yards of offense: 201 rushing, 314 passing. It marked the first time they’ve hit both milestones in the same game since 1983.

Aikman was just a senior in high school that year and still six years away from suiting up as the starting quarterback in Dallas, but the relationship he now sees between Moore and his signal-caller is very familiar to him.

“I think the best part right now for Dallas is that Dak Prescott and him, are just lockstep together in how they’re thinking. And when you get to that point- I was like that with Norv [Turner] and even Ernie Zampese to a certain extent, but especially with Norv- when you just kind of have an idea of what’s coming in before the play call comes in, and you know exactly why the calls are made and what you’re looking for. I know with Norv we put plays in that were designed just for one particular look that a defense had shown, and I said, ‘What happens if they blitz us out of this look?’’ And he said, ‘Then we don’t have anything, and just throw it away.'” Aikman recalled. “Ninety-nine percent of the time, it would be called and we get the exact look that the play was in for. Those guys are rare. And I think Kellen has that ability, even though he’s as young as he is.”

Being just 33 makes Moore even more attractive to a team- pro or college- looking to jump on the youth movement with their next head coach. He’s already had offers.

“I don’t know Kellen very well, but yeah, I like what he’s been able to do,” Aikman explained. “I think that it only makes sense that he would be a candidate. He was last year for the Boise State job, which obviously makes a lot of sense since that’s where he played. But also, he interviewed for the Philadelphia Eagles for that job. So I think he’ll get more interviews if this team continues to do what we’ve seen up to this point.”

While 2021 marks the third season in the OC job for Moore, he’s had a wild and winding road when it comes to his experience. This is his first year having had a full training camp under head coach Mike McCarthy; last year’s offseason was practically lost to COVID-19 just as Moore and McCarthy were still getting to know one another… and then the campaign was derailed after just five games when Prescott suffered his season-ending compound ankle fracture.

The year before that, Moore’s first season as coordinator came in what was to be Jason Garrett’s final year as Cowboys head coach. Moore faced his former boss- now the OC in New York- in Sunday’s game in Arlington.

There’s significant history shared by the two former Cowboys quarterbacks, not the least of which is the common denominator of being a part of Prescott’s progress in the job now.

“A lot of people forget that [Moore] and Dak Prescott were teammates, went through training camp together, went through an offseason together,” Aikman noted. “And for Dak, sometimes when you’re a teammate with someone- there was talk at one time about Jason Garrett being an offensive coordinator for the Cowboys when I was still playing. And I think the world of Jason, but I don’t know if I’m ready for someone to cut their teeth on this job while I’m still playing and have good years left. But for Dak, he embraced it. He was all for it. In fact, he encouraged it.”

Moore agreed this week that the time he spent suiting up next to Prescott helped pave the way for the coaching relationship he has with him now.

“Obviously a unique circumstance to be with the guy as a player together, in the same room, and then, obviously, transition to the coaching aspect,” Moore told reporters this week. “I think in many ways, especially early on, you can relate in many ways because a lot of the things we’re asking a quarterback to do, I was fortunate to be in that situation, in the same room, being asked to do it from Scott [Linehan] or Wade [Wilson] or Jason [Garrett] at the time. Hopefully, I can relate in that way, and obviously, we’ve built a relationship as co-players initially, and it’s obviously developed into a coach-player relationship. I have a ton of trust in him. A ton of trust, a ton of faith. I think we have seen the game in many ways over the course of this number of years together. So we’ve been able to talk through a lot of things, been in a lot of quarterback rooms. The unique thing, I think, about a quarterback room is sometimes those impromptu conversations that come up: you’re watching a game of an opponent, a situation comes up, a play comes up. And those kind of off-schedule conversations, sometimes those things end up applying in a real game, and you say, ‘Holy cow, we were talking about that.’ And lo and behold, it shows up. It may show up in a couple weeks, but we’re always talking in those situations, talking football. I think that’s what’s awesome about what we have in our quarterback room here right now.”

Moore knows the experience he’s gained- in both the quarterbacks room and the offensive coordinator’s office- will only help him when he takes on a head coaching role one day. And he’s learning that at the feet of a Lombardi Trophy-winning figure and former offensive coordinator in McCarthy.

“I would say I feel very fortunate to be in this situation I am in,” Moore said. “Obviously, Mike’s had a ton of success in this league as a head coach and a play-caller. He’s an awesome resource for me as I go through each and every week, just to talk through conversations: ‘Hey, what do you think about this situation? What do you think if we maybe did X, Y, and Z?’ And we’re able to bounce those ideas off together. I think as this has come into our second year together, I think we’re so well-aligned as far as our approach and the system and the routine that we take each and every week, that we’re in a really, really good place. And that applies to the whole offensive staff. I think anytime you’re able to have the same staff for a second year together. This is the first time I’ve ever been part of a staff where it’s the same staff. This offseason was awesome because we could really start right where we left off and take off from there. It’s been an awesome process.”

But it’s just part of the process. The process, the transformation is far from complete- for the 2021 Cowboys, but also for Kellen Moore. He still has work to do with Prescott; they still have goals to achieve together. But Aikman believes that Prescott- and Cowboys fans- should savor what they have right now.

“I know Dak realizes- I talked to him about it the other day ,” Aikman said, “he realizes that, in all likelihood, Kellen will not be his offensive coordinator for much longer because he’s impressed so many people around the league.”

Many Cowboys fans are already eager to see Moore ascend to the head spot in Dallas. It’s not necessarily because of a dislike of McCarthy. It’s because they, like Aikman, see the potential in Moore for something truly extraordinary, and they don’t want to lose him to another organization looking to create a well-oiled machine of their own.

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Jerry Jones frank on Jaylon Smith’s release from Cowboys, injury guarantee: ‘Something has to give’

The Cowboys owner revealed that Smith is still dealing with effects of his 2016 injury and seemed to compare him to a used Ford Bronco. | From @ToddBrock24f7

Cowboys players got a loud-and-clear reminder this week that pro football is a business with the sudden release of veteran linebacker and locker room leader Jaylon Smith. But they wouldn’t have needed to look any further than the big corner office at The Star, because the boss has always been, at his core, a businessman.

Franchise owner Jerry Jones cut bait on an investment that was no longer paying the kind of dividends his portfolio needed when he sent Smith packing, even if it means taking a loss on the $7.2 million the team will continue to pay him to not wear a Cowboys uniform for the remainder of this season.

And with Smith no longer in the building or representing the brand, Jones had some surprisingly honest talk to dish out on the former second-round draft pick, making something of an admission on the injury that Smith spent an entire season recovering from, and even- in a roundabout way- comparing the onetime Pro Bowler to a used truck.

During a phone-in with a Dallas radio station 105.3 The Fan on Friday, Jones was asked if releasing one of the most recognizable faces of the franchise was difficult.

“Well, it was,” Jones told the K&C Masterpiece show, “and principally, because he’s such a warrior. He really was what you think about when you think of somebody overcoming adversity. And for this game, he had a great hurdle to overcome: his injury. And that drop foot- it’s called drop foot, that he had, and it still plagues him to this day- was mind over matter in my mind.”

Whoa.

Still plagues him to this day is not a phrase Cowboys fans have heard before concerning Smith or the apparent after-effects of his injury. It’s certainly not a phrase that engenders confidence about his future performance.

It’s (perhaps) also worth noting that Jones switched to past tense when speaking about Smith as a player.

The horrific ACL and LCL tears Smith suffered in his final college game at Notre Dame sent him plummeting from the early first round of the 2016 NFL draft, where he was expected to be a top-five pick. The Cowboys claimed him 34th overall, way too early for most pundits at the time. But with the Cowboys’ own doctor having been Smith’s surgeon, the team rolled the dice on him making a full recovery.

After sitting out the 2016 season, Smith returned to action during the 2017 campaign. By 2018, he was a starter and a dominant force at middle linebacker.

Jones, the longtime oilman, had gone in on a well that everyone said was dry. Instead, it boomed. The billionaire has always loved it when his gambles hit, when a diamond on the rough is revealed to have been unearthed under his watchful eye.

Cowboys fans saw it when Jimmy Johnson and his laughingstock of a team morphed into a dynasty. When an undrafted benchwarmer named Tony Romo became the toast of the NFL. When an ex-backup ascended through the ranks to become head coach of America’s Team. Jones was the architect of it all, the record will show. Or at least on the outskirts, like Forrest Gump, in just the right place to be able to claim a supporting role as history is made.

Smith’s incredible comeback was a story Jones had to be a part of. The Indiana native was signed to a five-year, $64 million contract extension. Although some theorized it was, at least in part, a move meant to send a message to running back Ezekiel Elliott during his holdout before the 2019 season, Smith and his new pay grade went on to have a Pro Bowl year.

No one is disputing the level of commitment that was required from Smith to even try to play football again, much less do so at an all-star caliber. It’s a huge part of Smith’s redemption story, and one that Jones was happy to retell.

“Now, there was a lot of physical rehab that he had to do, too,” Jones recounted. “People such as- and I’m serious- specifically, Jason Witten and such as Sean Lee, when they would work with him as he was rehabbing, would tell me, ‘We’ve never seen anybody go to the levels that he’ll push himself for this rehab or to overcome this injury. We’ve never seen anybody.’ Well, look who’s saying that: Witten and Sean Lee. So he had the right stuff, and I thought it was really unfortunate because I love what he is about as a person. The fact that he works so hard as far as entrepreneurial supporting of minority entrepreneurs, and he has that understanding of how to take it and run with it, and that one and one can be three. So he had a combination of not just talking about it on the field, he did it on the field. He had a combination of talking about it and doing it off the field. I think he’s going to be an outstanding success, and he is already, but an outstanding success beyond his football career.”

Smith’s playing days aren’t over; he was signed by Green Bay just hours after his release in Dallas. But Jones sounds like a man who has already moved on. He arguably overpaid for a stock while it was doing well, but he got out from under it once it appeared to be slipping. And now there are new futures to speculate on.

Like the future of the 2021 Cowboys, suddenly a defensive powerhouse over the first four games of the season, with a bevy of bright young stars to get excited about.

Jones was asked if the emergence of the unit’s newcomers- like Micah Parsons, Trevon Diggs, Osa Odighizuwa, and others- made it easier to say goodbye to a player that Jones had clearly connected with.

“There’s no question we got young players that can fit, really, what we’re doing so well,” Jones explained. “And they have an upside. And as I’ve often said: you can’t have it all. Our system doesn’t allow you to have it all. You guys remember my old story of driving up to my airplane in a five-year-old Bronco- in a muddy five-year-old Bronco- and I had media with me and they said, ‘This makes no sense. You’re driving up to an airplane that you have in a five-year-old Bronco.’ And I said, ‘Well, it makes all the sense in the world. You can’t have it all. This is how you have an airplane, is to drive a five-year-old Bronco.’ Something has to give.”

Think about that story, especially in answer to that question.

Is Jaylon Smith the old Ford Bronco? Is the belief that a Super Bowl could be on the horizon the airplane that Jones and the Cowboys are driving up to? Did Jones just suggest out loud that Jaylon Smith no longer has upside?

Sure sounded like it.

Cowboys fans had feared for a while that Smith’s best days were behind him, but it’s harsh to hear an eternal champion of optimism like Jones put it so bluntly.

Another injury suffered by Smith would have put the Cowboys on the hook for over $9 million more next season, and it turned out to be a greater risk than Jones was willing to take. You don’t drop a whole new transmission in the used car you keep out back when there’s a brand-new hot rod sitting in the garage.

There’s been a lot of talk during the team’s 3-1 start that there’s a new culture forming in the Dallas locker room. Jones admits that cutting Smith- a loved emotional leader on the team- changes that culture moving forward.

“I think you’re seeing, from the reaction of the players, there’s appreciation for Jaylon Smith, and we don’t gain on anything by not having him on the team relative to the heart of the team and the competitiveness of the team. That was not–” Jones stopped himself and then continued. “He’s very additive there. And had the story to back it up and would pay the price to back it up. But our situation had some different things we had to consider, and we did. In his case, we had been great to him- the team, the fans, everyone- and he’s been great to the team and the fans. And that’s one of those [cases] that you wish everybody well here.”

In other words, it’s not personal. It’s business.

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Stephen Jones offers clues on who will be Cowboys’ backup QB

The Cowboys’ EVP left out a current QB in talking about the backup job behind Dak Prescott, and hinted at possibly acquiring a new player. | From @ToddBrock24f7

The backup quarterback is always an important- some say the most important- position on any NFL team. For the 2021 Dallas Cowboys, there’s an extra sense of apprehension about who would take the reins should something happen to starter Dak Prescott. Last year’s lesson was a hard one for everyone involved.

The irony, of course, is that Dallas was in a better spot heading into 2020 than in recent memory, having signed veteran Andy Dalton in the spring. Dalton took over for Prescott in Week 5, but didn’t last long. Before Week 7’s game was over, the Cowboys had turned to the backup’s backup, Ben DiNucci. And by Week 9, the backup’s backup’s backup- Garrett Gilbert- was starting under center.

Cooper Rush was re-signed to the Cowboys late last season as an insurance policy. Dalton has since moved on to Chicago. That leaves the Cowboys to anoint a new QB2 behind Prescott.

Team executive vice president Stephen Jones was non-committal when asked on Friday about who had the upper hand in the camp battle. But his answer did offer some clues as to how the organization might be thinking about the backup spot with less than three weeks to opening night.

“I think Gilbert and Cooper have got to continue to work, and they’re fighting for that Number Two spot,” Jones said on 105.3 The Fan. “Obviously, Gilbert’s got a little advantage there, but they’re obviously working to hold on to that role there.”

DiNucci was notably absent from Jones’s answer. The second-year passer out of tiny James Madison was thrown into the fire as a rookie, but it’s possible he’s being viewed as little more than a long-term practice-squad project at best right now.

But that doesn’t mean it’s either Gilbert or Rush. Jones hinted that Prescott’s primary backup may well be a quarterback who’s not even in the building at this point.

“As I’ve said time and time again, player acquisition is 365 days a year,” he continued, “and we’re always looking to get better. They’re not only competing against each other, but they’re competing against other people in the NFL, just as other people at other positions on our football team are doing the same thing.”

Saturday’s preseason tilt against the Texans could go a long way in helping the staff decide between Gilbert or Rush… or perhaps prompting them to shop around for the proverbial player to be named later. There will likely be a surprise cut or two in someone else’s camp before long, or a more serviceable passer that the team feels it could land in a trade.

What’s clear is this: the job of backing up Prescott will come with some added pressure this year.

Prescott supposedly healed fully from his catastrophic ankle injury… only to suffer a shoulder strain in training camp. When Week 1 rolls around, Prescott will have been banned from throwing for a fair portion of the team’s offseason work, taken exactly zero snaps in four preseason games, and gone 333 days without seeing live-fire action against an opposing team.

All of which makes the backup quarterback a position of great interest once again in Dallas.

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Cowboys’ McCarthy reflects on Dak, Jaylon, Nolan, Kellen, COVID, and 6-10 finish

The first-year coach recaps the ups and downs of his first year in Dallas, while offering hints about what he expects for the 2021 campaign.

According to the old adage, hindsight is 20/20. But now, after a year that defies explanation, hindsight finally includes 2020. As fourteen NFL teams advance to the postseason to crown a champion of this unlikeliest of seasons, the Dallas Cowboys are left to clean out their lockers and conduct exit interviews as they close up shop.

Head coach Mike McCarthy says he plans to watch this weekend’s playoff games more as a fan “to see who’s playing well” but will spend next week finishing up his coaching duties around The Star. Then, the 57-year-old plans to travel back to Green Bay to spend time with family (and his snowblower) before early preparations for the Cowboys’ 2021 offseason begin in earnest.

On Friday, the one-year anniversary of his introductory press conference as head coach, McCarthy made his final weekly call-in of the season to Dallas radio station 105.3 The Fan. With no more upcoming opponents to scout, no more injury reports to update, no more gameplans to tease, the conversation was a reflective one that looked back on several areas of the 2020 campaign.

Cowboys’ Jones: Elliott to ‘absolutely’ play through injury; will 1,000-yard season happen?

The Dallas owner and coach both expect their starting running back to play Sunday, despite an injury and his worst year thus far as a pro.

Ezekiel Elliott has yet to miss a game during his Cowboys tenure due to injury. He doesn’t think his current calf issue will keep him out of Sunday’s contest against San Francisco. Neither does his coach. And neither does the team owner. But No. 21’s presence in the Dallas backfield is no longer the magic bullet it used to be.

The running back tweaked a calf muscle during Week 13’s game against Baltimore. He played through it last week versus Cincinnati. While he maintains he will do so again this Sunday, he was held out of practice on Wednesday and Thursday as the team prepares.

“Understandably, he’s a little further away this week than he was last week, because he played in the game,” head coach Mike McCarthy told reporters via virtual press conference on Friday. “I still plan on him playing Sunday. Today will be important, and the amount of work that he gets tomorrow will factor. All things look like he’s going to play in the game. But as a comparable, and rightfully so after coming off of a game Sunday, he’s a little further behind than where he was this time last week.”

Owner Jerry Jones was more emphatic when asked if Elliott would be in the huddle this week.

“Absolutely,” Jones told 105.3 The Fan. “Absolutely. Now, that’s Jerry Jones saying it, and that’s not my ankle and my hamstring and my knee, so it’s easier for me to say. But in terms of my understanding of where he is, in terms of knowing Zeke- which is huge- it’s hard to keep that guy down from the standpoint of something physical. He understands. He wrote the book on how to play with pain and how to be compromised, physically, to play. So I expect him to play.”

But should Cowboys fans expect Elliott to be especially productive? That, sadly, is a different question entirely.

Elliott is averaging the fewest yards per carry (3.9) and yards per game (64) of his pro career. At that exact pace, reaching 1,000 yards on the season is going to be close. Elliott stands at 832; he’ll need 168 over the final three games to reach the benchmark he’s hit in every season except 2017, when he was suspended for six games. And even then, he finished right on the doorstep, with 983.

To crack a thousand, Elliott will need to average 56 yards per game against the 49ers, Eagles, and Giants. That doesn’t sound like much for the two-time rushing champ. It certainly wasn’t for the Elliott of 2016, 2017, 2018, or 2019. In those seasons, he averaged 108.7, 98.3, 95.6, and 84.8 yards per game played, respectively.

But 2020 Zeke hasn’t been that guy. Not even close. Again, he’s averaging 64 yards per game this year. He has only one 100-yard outing this entire season.

He failed to top 56 rushing yards against: Seattle, Cleveland, Arizona, Washington (the first time), Pittsburgh, Washington (the second time), and Cincinnati. He just barely cleared that number in the Cowboys’ first meeting with Philadelphia. The 49ers and Giants? They’re both currently ranked in the league’s top eight for fewest rushing yards allowed. If he’s going to roll the odometer over to 1K, he’s got an uphill road ahead of him.

To be fair, Elliott has seen his snap count drop over the last few months. Is that simply because backup Tony Pollard has deliberately been given an increased role as a planned change-of-pace? Or has Pollard’s noticeable burst and shiftiness helped relegate the former first-round draft pick to more of a platoon player? Is Elliott producing less because of Pollard? Or is Pollard producing more thanks to Elliott’s struggles? Chicken or the egg?

Whatever the reason behind the funk, Elliott is eager to keep chipping away in order to break out of it.

“It would feel good to stack some success and stack some victories,” he said this week, per the team website.

“We have three games,” Elliott added. “We’re still in it. We’re not out of it. So these last three games are important. We want to win these three games so we can put ourselves in a position to win the division.”

That, of course, seems mathematically improbable. But right now, Elliott notching another 1,000-yard campaign- once a given in Dallas- isn’t even terribly likely.

To his credit, though, Elliott says he’s focused only on team wins, not personal achievements.

“I’m a competitor over everything,” he said. “I’m not really trying to relate this year to next year. Every time we go out there we go out there to win a football game. I just think it’s important for this group of men to finish the season strong and do our best to win football games.”

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Cowboys’ Jerry Jones talks defensive regrets and promises change in candid interview

The Cowboys owner admitted he’d like a do-over on the team’s 2020 defense, and promised to do some changing himself after a down year.

Entering the final quarter of a horrendous season has kickstarted a season of serious self-reflection for Cowboys players and coaches. Even owner Jerry Jones is looking around and taking stock of what he sees at team headquarters at the tail end of a disappointing year. And according to comments he made Friday morning on Dallas radio, the 78-year-old billionaire isn’t above also doing a little finger-pointing at the man in the mirror.

Speaking on 105.3 The Fan, Jones made a sobering admission about the team’s historically bad defense, manned up to his own role in the Cowboys’ 2020 failures, and suggested that the offseason would see repercussions coming for some within the organization… with one notable exception.

Jones is well aware that he is catching much of the flak for the Cowboys’ abysmal season, especially after revamping almost the entire coaching staff and overhauling significant chunks of the roster in hopes of reaching the Super Bowl for the first time in a quarter-century.

“You think anybody is talking sweet about me right now?” Jones asked hosts Kevin Hageland and Cory Mageors. “The one that should and does get heat in various forms. You don’t get a chance, when you don’t do it right, to touch that Lombardi Trophy. Do y’all have any idea how much I’d write a check for if I knew for sure I could get that Lombardi Trophy?”

Jones says he’s heard the buzz that grew even louder this week about the team’s perceived lack of effort and heart that’s brought them to the brink of being officially eliminated from postseason contention. But he cautions that not every player on the roster should be painted with the same brush, even though their 3-9 record has certainly been a collective letdown.

“When you have ups and downs and you don’t win, you can see people criticizing, quote, ‘Heart, effort.’ You can see that,” Jones said. “You can hear it if you want to listen to it. And that’s fair to say it. But, boy, I see guys trying to work the problem, trying to get better.”

‘I’d like to start again on how we approached our defense’

Normally the first and loudest to spin things in a positive light, Jones then took off the rose-colored glasses and was frank about the catastrophic shortcomings of the Dallas defense in Mike Nolan’s first year as coordinator.

“We’ve got, like anybody, you’ve got a lot of do-overs. I’d like to start again on how we approached our defense this year. I’d like to start that over again. I’m sure everybody else would, too.”

“I’d start right there, the first day,” Jones continued. “I would really make sure that any changes we were making, I would want to make sure that we did it in the same way that we didn’t make changes on offense, because we didn’t think that we had the situation or we had the time to make those changes and [have] it really be effective.”

In other words, the Cowboys offense was left largely intact. Some of that was due simply to the retention of Kellen Moore as coordinator. But little else was altered, thanks to the scrapping of minicamp, the nixing of preseason games, and the virtual nature of offseason work that kept McCarthy and his new staff from even meeting their players face-to-face until the regular season was looming. They didn’t re-invent the wheel because they were already racing the car.

Defensively, however, the team tried a total rebuild. Nolan’s seismic shift in his unit’s core scheme- with minimal time to make the switch- resulted in a Cowboys defense that’s been more porous than any in franchise history.

Everything changed except the players. It’s as if Nolan took over a kitchen stocked with everything he’d need to make wedding cakes. But he insisted on making chicken pot pies instead, using the same ingredients.

‘You’ve got to make changes’

Jones reminisced about a time the team underwent a similar evolution, just before the 2005 draft.

“We went from a 4-3 to a 3-4 defense. But when we did it, it was very reluctant. Lot of reluctance on making that move by our head coach. His name was Bill Parcells. So he had a tough time buying into drafting DeMarcus Ware. He wanted to draft [Marcus] Spears because Spears fit both ways, 4-3 or a 3-4. DeMarcus Ware was principally going to the 4-3. All we did was turn around and have the greatest draft, probably, we’ve ever had on defense and drafted Spears and Ware and [Jay] Ratliff and [Chris] Canty. And we were able to make the move right then and there. Had we not drafted those guys, that would have been a tough move, and probably, we wouldn’t have gone into it as completely. That’s speculation. But there’s a case. You’ve got to think about the personnel when you talk about changing your scheme.”

The Cowboys didn’t do that. Not really. Sure, they brought in a few hired guns in Gerald McCoy, Dontari Poe, and HaHa Clinton-Dix to theoretically help make the transition to Nolan’s new plan. McCoy was lost for the season within the first few days of practice. Clinton-Dix was cut before opening day. Poe lasted seven games.

The remaining players have struggled to adapt to the new direction. Dallas is in the bottom ten leaguewide in total yards allowed. They are tied for second-worst in takeaways. They rank dead last in both rushing yards allowed and points allowed.

“We’ve obviously done some things, we’ve changed, and we’re having a hard time getting those in place to be a good defense. You’ve got to make changes,” Jones admitted.

You’ve got to make changes.

That’s a startling and ominous declaration with four games to go. Jones was then asked if that need for change extends to the coaching staff who hasn’t even been in place a full year.

“Every bit of it,” Jones interrupted before the question was fully out. “Every bit of it. And then right past that, go right to your general manager. Right past that, go to your general manager. Because coming through the door, the GM was eye-to-eye hiring the head coach, talking about how we were going to approach when he walks through the door and where he was going to go from there. That’s what you do. That obviously didn’t work for us this year.”

Whoa.

Jones just threw himself under the bus as the team’s general manager. He’s roundly criticized for being too involved in the football operations; many wish he would just be the mysterious man in the luxury box who writes the checks and leaves the Xs and Os to someone else. But as self-appointed GM, too, Jones has nowhere to hide.

‘I will change. I can change.’

Jones has always relished his dual role within the organization. Faced with the reality of a season so bad that the networks are dumping Cowboys games from their primetime slots, though, Jones has no choice but to take a long, hard look at the mess that 2020 has become in Dallas… and fess up to being solely responsible for allowing it to happen.

“There’s nobody in any better shape to take any part of it and use it to try win the ball games,” Jones said on-air. “Not only the selection of the head coach, but the players that are playing the game, and the coaches that are coaching them. All of that has to have my approval. So you start right there. And I accept that.”

It would have been a fine place to end the interview, with Jones solemnly taking his lumps for an organization in disarray. And the K+C Masterpiece hosts tried to end it there. But Jones jumped back in as the jocks were attempting to sign off, making it plain that, just in case any fans actually believed this unmitigated disaster of a season would be some sort of last straw that not even Jones would be able to ignore, he would, in fact, continue to be both owner and general manager of the Dallas Cowboys.

“When you work for yourself, there’s no firing him. You’ve got to change him. And he’s got to change the direction he’s going,” Jones cryptically offered. “I’ve worked all my life for myself, but I’ve had to change direction many times. So I will change. I can change.”

Change is coming to the Cowboys. That much seems assured. Exactly what– and who else– Jones will change remains to be seen.

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Dak Prescott makes appearance at Cowboys practice, shows progress

The team’s QB1 showed up at practice on Friday, just days after making remarks to a group of rookies about stacking “little victories.”

Dak Prescott jumped on a recent videoconference to share the experience of his season-ending injury with a small group of rookies in an NFL.com roundtable discussion. He talked about the little victories in the often-grueling recovery process, of the joy in seeing his body respond and improve, even in tiny increments.

On Friday, he turned up at practice to show his Cowboys teammates some of that progress.

It’s an encouraging sign for Prescott’s rehab, and had to be a emotional lift for the team the day after the funeral for Cowboys strength and conditioning coordinator Markus Paul.

Prescott suffered a horrific ankle dislocation and compound fracture on October 11, in a Week 5 game against the Giants. Since then, he’s been working hard to be ready for the first team activities of the 2021 season. And as he told first-year pros Chase Claypool, Clyde Edwards-Helaire, and teammate Trevon Diggs on the Rookie Roundtable call, his journey back has been a series of baby steps.

“In a snapshot, I’ve been able to play every level of my career because the guy in front of me has gotten injured. So I know what it means to be ready, to stay ready, in case a guy gets injured in front of you. But now to be that guy that’s injured for the first time in my career and for the rest of the season, it’s different. It’s tough. But for me, as I talk about the mental capacity, for me, it’s about creating and making small victories. So each and every day when I wake up and I go in for rehab, it’s about, for me, seeing my leg or seeing my body do something that it didn’t do the day before. Creating a feeling that I didn’t have the day before, so I know that I’m continuing to get better. At the end of the day, my team needs me. And I know that they need me now, for support, but they’ll need me again later. So it’s about helping them whichever way that I can and however I can. But it’s about being right mentally and then counting those small victories.”

Team owner Jerry Jones heard those words and spoke of how they’re indicative of Prescott’s remarkable leadership during his weekly call-in to Dallas radio station 105.3 The Fan.

“I noted his comment about his little victories every day. His little victories. Little things. He looks to stack those up. Boy, that’s telling as to how his mind is and how he approaches his work and having those positive gains. Every day, as early as you can, you need a victory,” Jones told hosts Kevin Hageland and Cory Mageors.

Jori Epstein of USA Today noted in a thread of tweets that Prescott, dressed in a track suit and wearing a mask, chatted with vice president of player personnel Will McClay and also caught up briefly with head coach Mike McCarthy. After taking a few steps without his crutch for Elliott, Dak waited in the doorway to high-five all the Cowboys quarterbacks as they took the field.

Then No. 4 very carefully hobbled inside with the help of his single crutch as the team got on with the business of prepping to host Baltimore on Tuesday night.

But maybe just for a moment there on Friday, things around The Star in Frisco seemed entirely normal.

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Cowboys expecting Lamar Jackson to play, Ravens won’t confirm or deny

The Cowboys are preparing to face the league’s MVP on Tuesday night, but the Ravens are giving no hints about their QB’s COVID status.

“I’m excited that we’re getting the game in, we’re getting a primetime game in, and it’s going to be a different date than normal, but I’m anxious to see how that works for that time of week.”

Those were the words of Cowboys owner Jerry Jones on Friday morning, speaking with 105.3 The Fan about the team’s upcoming appearance on a rare edition of Tuesday Night Football against the visiting Baltimore Ravens.

But as any football fan who’s been paying the slightest bit of attention can attest, four days out is way too early to count on much of anything… and the health of the Ravens’ players is the biggest X-factor in the league these days.

Baltimore played Pittsburgh on Wednesday afternoon- a game that had originally been scheduled for six days earlier- with a whopping 17 of their players on the Reserve/COVID-19 list, including the league’s reigning MVP, quarterback Lamar Jackson.

“Knock on wood, we’re in good shape relative to the COVID,” Jones said of the Cowboys’ own state of readiness. “Where we are as we speak this morning, we’re in great shape. We all know that the Ravens have been having to make a lot of adjustments; they did play the other day. I don’t have notation here of anything that is, let’s say, accelerated regarding them, but I don’t know about their detail.”

If the Ravens themselves even know who they’ll have available to put on the field at AT&T Stadium, they’re not letting on.

According to Jonas Shaffer of the Baltimore Sun:

“Among those also sidelined are running backs Mark Ingram II and J.K. Dobbins, fullback Patrick Ricard, and outside linebacker Pernell McPhee. Tight end Mark Andrews, wide receiver Willie Snead IV, and outside linebacker Matthew Judon all reportedly tested positive over the weekend, which means they’ll likely miss Tuesday’s game.”

Shaffer adds: “Guard Bradley Bozeman said after Wednesday’s loss, the Ravens’ third straight, that ‘a lot of guys had some symptoms.’ But he said he didn’t think anyone was ‘super sick or anything like that.'”

Ravens head coach John Harbaugh reiterated this week that all of the affected players are at the mercy of their COVID test results.

“They all have their different days when they’re possibly allowed to come back, but those are medical decisions, in the end, not coaching decisions,” Harbaugh said Thursday. “So when the doctors clear them to practice, that’s when we’ll have them.”

As for Jackson, who reportedly tested positive on Thanksgiving Day, his status for Tuesday’s contest- 12 days after the fact- remains a mystery. When asked about his starting quarterback and leading rusher specifically, Harbaugh was curt.

“I think I already answered that.”

The Cowboys are moving forward with their game prep under the assumption that Jackson will be ready to roll. So said Dallas coach Mike McCarthy in his Friday press conference.

Rescheduled games on odd days and at weird times. Stadiums with no fans. Players and coaches wearing surgical masks on the sidelines. Heck, the Broncos had to play an entire game with no quarterbacks at all.

So gearing up for a Tuesday night game that may or may not happen against a quarterback who may or may not play is just par for the course in 2020. But Jones says that this kind of uncertainty is, strangely, exactly what the sport is all about.

“We have an oblong football; it’s not round. You can’t really manage a lot which way the ball is going to go when it hits the ground. So you’ve got to be ready for it to go either way. Football is rarely canceled because of the elements. Football is rarely canceled because of injury. Football is a game of attrition, it’s a game of being played under unique conditions, and it’s a game of adjusting. It always has been.”

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Report: 8 people tested positive for COVID after attending Cowboys games

Contact tracers say the positive tests came shortly after games at AT&T Stadium, even as owner Jerry Jones pushes for more live fans.

The Dallas Cowboys are taking advantage once again of the luxury hotel attached to their team headquarters, moving the coaching staff into rooms at The Omni Frisco amidst concerns over rising COVID-19 numbers. The news comes on the same day that the NFL announced that, starting Saturday, all 32 teams will be required to operate under “intensive protocol” for the remainder of the season.

Those moves have come too late, though, for several Dallas-area residents who have tested positive for the virus. According to WFAA’s William Joy, eight people from Tarrant County have told contact tracers that they recently attended a Cowboys home game at AT&T Stadium in Arlington.

The results do not necessarily mean that the fans contracted the virus while at the stadium, Joy writes, “only that they told tracers they had attended before later testing positive.”

Per local health officials, one person attended the October 4 game versus Cleveland. Three attended the following week’s game against New York. Three more were at the Week 6 Monday night game with Arizona. One fan had attended the Week 9 contest when the Cowboys hosted Pittsburgh. That game saw over 30,000 live fans, the most to attend any game thus far in 2020.

The news could well strike a blow for ticket sales in coming weeks, as the Cowboys are set to host their annual Thanksgiving Day game versus Washington, plus another two home games in late December.

On Tuesday, team owner Jerry Jones boasted to Dallas radio station 105.3 The Fan about the team’s attendance figures.

“My plan was to increase our fans as we went through the season, and we followed that plan,” Jones said on-air Tuesday, per the station. “We’ve had almost a third of the attendance in the NFL. The whole NFL. I’m proud of that. Our stadium is particularly suited for airiness, openness, air circulation…

“I’m very proud of the fact that we do it safely, we do it smartly. Our fans are really helpful, to say the very least. I see a continued aggressive approach to having fans out there. And that’s not being insensitive to the fact that we’ve got COVID, an outbreak. Some people will say, ‘Well, maybe it is,’ but not when you’re doing it as safe as we are and not when we’re having the results we’re having.”

The league’s franchises in Baltimore, Washington, and Philadelphia all announced this week that they will not allow fans to attend their next home game amid spiking COVID rates around the country.

“The league doesn’t make the decision on how many fans may be at games,” NFL spokesperson Brian McCarthy explained to WFAA in an email. “This is done in conjunction with the club in coordination with local, county or state authorities and public health experts.

“19 teams have hosted fans at games this season. Every situation is different depending on stadium size and local conditions. We’ve been tracking Covid case trends at the local & state levels w/ public officials. No local case clusters have been reported traced back to NFL games.”

Jones had echoed the same message during his radio interview the previous day.

“Literally, literally,” Jones said, “we have had no one report that they’ve had gotten any contact with COVID from coming to our football game. No one.”

No. But eight people can all say they were at a Cowboys home game shortly before testing positive for the virus. It may not be direct cause-and-effect… but it should certainly give pause about the wisdom of inviting even more fans into the stadium, especially while the team and coaching staff is operating under more stringent restrictions than ever before.

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Jerry Jones implies Cowboys’ desire to extend Aldon Smith in offseason

The Dallas Cowboys reportedly have the intention of re-signing DE Aldon Smith after declining a recent trade offer for the comeback player.

Aldon Smith’s resurgence has been one of the most extraordinary storylines of this NFL season. On Friday, Cowboys owner and GM Jerry Jones spoke to 105.3 The Fan in Dallas about the possibility of re-signing Smith after the 2020 season, and he made it clear that Dallas would love to retain the services of the 31-year old pass rusher.

“The idea here is that Aldon is getting better,” Jones declared during the radio spot. He would go on to add, “He’s a bigger man than he was when he played earlier in his career. But that has a lot of positives to it, too. But every time he’s stepping out there, he’s gaining on it, and that’s interesting to be at this stage of his career. But he’s an absolute unique-in-every-way pressure player. We want to maximize our relationship with him. We’ve all got a good one with him. Proud of him. Proud for him. Proud that he’s given himself this chance, and we’re going to help him do it. So, as I’ve said earlier, I’m a fan of his.”

Jones’s sentiment Friday was clear enough, but his actions before the trade deadline had telegraphed these thoughts. The Cowboys, who were seemingly sellers at the deadline, refused to give up Smith to the inquiring Seattle Seahawks.

Coming off a four-year layoff, Smith stepped up in a way few could have predicted and seemed immediately to return to the Pro Bowl form he showed half a decade ago.

Through the first three games of the 2020 season, Smith led the entire league in sacks with four. At that time, the former first-rounder from Missouri looked like, arguably, the best defender on the Cowboys’ roster. Smith’s production has trailed off as the year has progressed, but fatigue is to be expected for a player that hasn’t played more than 10 games in a season since 2013.

31-year old defensive ends in the NFL usually have their best days behind him, but Smith’s isn’t the ordinary 31-year old NFL player. With Smith missing all of 2016 through 2019 for well-documented off-the-field issues, that low career mileage on his legs may now allow him to prolong his resurrection in Dallas. There aren’t many defenders in the league with the physical abilities and upside of Smith, and it would be astute for Jones, McCarthy, and company to sign Smith to a multi-year deal.

The Cowboys have a crucial offseason upcoming, where they have to keep enough cap space available to sign their franchise quarterback, but also continue to augment and upgrade the rest of the roster, especially defensively.

Aldon Smith figures to be a key part of that plan.

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