Cowboys' Week 2 Mailbag

0:00It's time for the Dean Julia mailbag will take your questions as you are listening to the love of the star podcast, love of the star. It's an Odyssey podcast. You can find on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. Make sure you're going to the on time experts. Judge your $59 tune up today. That's the on time experts.com. We love you and thank you for presenting this program. All right, Brian. We hit the Dean Julia mailbag. We look through. We always love the feedback and the conversation from our loyal listeners here on Love of the star. Dr. Chet. He's already coming in. How do we fix the linebacker room? The assigned Bobby Wagner? Are you pension? Do you winters? Are you rotating barham on early downs and Shamar James on passing downs? Are you just moving barham to edge? It is an overreaction post week one week. I mean, should we just cut everybody? What'd say you Brian brought us? Well, I felt like and this is not the told you so because I don't have many told you so memories. But my main concern was the linebackers going into this thing, folks. And I know there was a lot of pushback like Bobby Wagner can't do this and Bobby Wagner

1:04can't do that. And you know, if you want the most simple fix right now and listen, Bobby Wagner, I believe if if Vaughn Miller can roll out of bed and get eight sacks, OK, I'll, I believe that Bobby Wagner can roll out of bed and get you 10 tackles. So they gave they, they, they want to play the, they want to play the, the front with a light box. And they got punished for it. They got punished for playing the light box. And if I'll say this though, it doesn't, the linebacker play will not matter unless Quentin Williams and Clark and others play better up front. And I, and I say that, not seeing that they were terrible. But they're needed to be a dominant, you needed to dominate the inside against that giant, those, the, you know, with Malanoa, you know, and John Michael Smith and those guys. And it was quite the opposite, you know, and so if, you know,

2:06linebacker play will not improve until the front, the front play improves. And that's going to be the big challenge this week. And likely the most simple, the most simple fix is now, you could start, Tramar James in this game. You very well could, you could start him because he has made starts. And then because let's be completely honest here, Barham looked overwhelmed. And I'm going to say that the last play that everybody's watching where it looked like a loaf and all that. I think his conditioning wasn't great. I think there was a lot of guys on that defense that were getting beat up and all of a sudden the conditioning in the second half was nowhere where it needed to be. And they, and they, and they, they, they, they, they suffered that. That was a big suffer. You know, they're out there in the second half. They're on the field for 21 minutes of that second half. So you're going to have some issues if you have to deal with that.

3:07And so that I, I would not be surprised. I would not be surprised. And this is just a thought. This is not anybody I've talked to with the Cowboys or I, I wouldn't be surprised if James started and then they brought Barham in. That's, that's just a, I think a, a fix. Now a lot of people say we'll just plug in Barham and away you go. And they might very well do that. But he looked overwhelmed. And I'll say this about, I'll say this about the commanders in the way. They get in that 12 personnel stuff. They do a lot of shifting. They do a lot of motion. They are kind of that team where they're not a very stationary. Team. I mean, you see them moving tight ends. You see them what we call trade where they take two tight ends on one side and then move them over to the other side. I think some of the communication problems you had last week, mainly the one that likely passed that that winters didn't carry the route was a, was a, was a, a motion and then, and then overshown and winter switching assignments.

4:11And then all of a sudden, uh, winters got, was thinking, my old assignment instead of new assignment and that's why you had to bust. So I, you need, you're going to need some veteran presence. And I know that Schemar James is only a second year guy, but at least he's lined up and started NFL games. And maybe he can get you, it would be like very similar to like a, this, you know, you and I cover baseball, the Texas Rangers. And for a guy rocker, they always have a, a guy that leads sometimes they'll have this guy that starts, yeah, an opener, an opener. And it may be, maybe that this is what, maybe this is what barham needs. He needs an opener and then he could get into the flow of the game. Well, there you go. Brandon Laurie and everybody out there are, are clippers. You can, you can clip it there. You heard it here for Schemar James will be starting, uh, the Cowboys against the commanders, but yeah, just an idea. Just an idea. There's a thing people will always tell you what you got wrong.

5:14I do think it is a little bit of an, I told you so a moment. I think you should have that with the linebackers and Bobby Wagner. I'll take that at training camp. I said, I think we need to tap the brakes on barham. You know, I mean, everybody was just loving this guy. We were out there. Absolutely. There's things to like about him, but he's, he was a third round pick. It's been kind of moved around. He was in an off-ball linebacker at Bayerlin. Now they're playing him in edge of Michigan. I think he's going to be a good player, but I think it's a lot to put on a, a third around linebacker that's learning a new scheme. He's technically playing a position he didn't play a year ago. I think, you know, give him a month to two months. Maybe then he can be a starter for you. That's a lot to be putting on Jason Barham right now. And you never know. Some of these guys can't handle that. But I think that's unfair expectation to expect this guy is going to be able to slide in, start for you, maybe wear the green dot, call the defense week two at the NFL level. So, you know, some are James would make a lot of sense. I know people will ask us about Justin Barron. But we haven't really heard much about Justin Barron ever since we had the greatest,

6:16you know, practice of all time with three interceptions against the Rams. Yeah. No, that's, you know, it's, it clearly is, and it clearly is a spot where week one, it showed itself. But this is something that you should have seen the way that Christian Parker wanted. I mean, watching Philadelphia play defense, you know, against the commander offense, Philadelphia, they got, that's what you got. You got an all pro, you know, Zach Bond, you've got all pro linebackers, you know, there, the defense looks a lot better when you have guys that, you know, and I, I, this is, I thought it was unfair to overshoot. I really did. I, you know, overshoot gave you the best effort he could give you. But for him to take on blocks all day is not good for him. It's just not. And, but they tried. They tried because they felt like that Quentin Williams and Kenny Clark were not going

7:21to let guys just run right up on them, you know. And if Dallas doesn't do a good enough job getting off blocks up front, they, I don't care to steal a line from a, to steal a line from a, a, a, a, a, a, a, sarc down there in Texas, if you're playing Jones high school, it doesn't matter. It does not matter, you know, I mean, you're playing Jones high school. If they're blocking you and you're not getting off blocks, you're going to look bad. You're going to look bad. And so it really, really starts with they need, they need Quentin Williams to be a dominant run defender. And that his, he, he has, his career has been. And if the metrics will tell you, he is a dominant run defender. They were not, they got dominated on their end of it. And that's going to make if you, if your best players are getting handled, what's happened to the other players who aren't dominant players? They're, they're in trouble. And the giants and I said it earlier and I said again, and people hate me for

8:23a bird peeting. I just hope this is not, you match a physical team and they just beat you up. And, and I think the commanders are going to try and be physical with you. And I know damn good, sure. Well, that next week we talk about the Ravens, that's going to be a physical team. It's going to try and beat you up. Absolutely. All right. Two last things and we'll get out of here. Uh, our buddy, Hey, Tacos wants to know about the preseason stuff, especially the defense. Do you think it looks as bad a week one if you play preseason, especially since you have a rookie defensive coordinator? I think football players, you play football, I get the injury risk. I'm all for trying to play these guys a few snaps. If somebody gets hurt, you look like a dumbass. I totally understand. But how you look at you look like a dumbass season. Yeah, you look like a dumbass. Yeah, you look like you're a dumbass if you don't win the opening game because you just, yeah, physically beat up. So you want to look like a dumbass getting overshown hurt or do you want to look

9:25like a dumbass overshown can't take on a block, you know, or having trouble taking on blocks. This is this is a, this is a, they say a slippery slope to I personally, I was from an era where guys played, I, guys played like I remember Bill Parcell's playing like we played a green Bay Bill Parcell's played his team, the whole game and a preseason game. His offense and defensive starters played the whole game. You know, and nobody said a damn word then nobody said a word then. There were coaches when there were six and seven preseason, but they're like, one time six preseason games, you know, but we had four preseason games and guys played the thing that's happened is with less games, with less games. Now you're really scared about playing guys. You know, now you're really, you're really, because if you have more games, you're kind of like, okay, I can put him in a week two and then you know,

10:26put him in week three of the preseason and then we're done. We don't, or we could do week one and week two and then be done three and four. But it's, it's hard when you're a personal guy and we have a major injury in a preseason game and it's a starter. Then you really question, but Jerry Jones was adamant on our station on 105, three of the fan. He is totally okay with them not playing the way they play the preseason games and not having to deal with the injuries, but you're going to suffer. You're going to say, I don't think this was preseason football problem. I think this was just a physical problem. I think this was just a physical problem and I and and playing against, you know, playing against the Rams or playing against the chargers or playing against Vegas or playing, you know, anybody that could play, that playing against Arizona, you know, playing against Seattle. I mean, the Seattle game was a good game. I mean, Seattle was a good game. I mean, you showed your backups could play through the preseason, but the starters that, that, you know, that was a whole another whole

11:29another thing. Last question here and then we'll be adding here. But I think this is an interesting one from Starlin at Thundercat 254. What do you think about the different challenges between a rookie D.C. And then a rookie offensive coordinator because it seems like in their opinion, rookie offensive coordinators typically make a big, initial impact for their teams. I don't think Christian Parker forgot how to coach guys. I really don't. I think this was, I think that Christian Parker, I think Christian Parker had an idea what he wanted to do in this game. I just think the, the New York football giants took it to him in a way that he, he was, I think he was aware of what was going to happen or what they were potentially going to do. I think the calls he made in that game didn't, I think it didn't matter. And I don't think it mattered because he, he tried, he, we always bitch about

12:29blitzing and all that stuff. And we mentioned the blitzing wasn't the problem. That it wasn't the problem. He could have probably put 11 in the box and they might not have stopped the run. You know, I think it was an actual physical problem. And people were saying, listen, they'll, if, if motion is changing coverage and players are not picking up on that, that could be a teaching problem. That could be absolutely, but that's where you, that's where Christian Parker is like, I've kind of buttoned up classroom to practice field to, we've seen it. And you know, we've seen it in some, you know, some instances. But this, this one was, this one was, as they say, an old-fashioned ass kickin. This was, you could have put, like I said, you could have put 11 in the box and they were going to find a way to take record and scatter boo and those guys and hammer you with that. So I don't think Christian Parker's forgot how to coach. I will say this though, as, and Jerry Jones even said it again on 1053, the fan yesterday

13:32when he was visited with, uh, was Sean and RJ. They went through and looked at individuals in this last game. They looked at individuals. They, it wasn't like a group thing. They went, they looked at one on one matchups who was winning those and who was losing those. That was a big issue. That was the biggest issue in the skin. I don't think it was Christian Parker calling the defense. I think the one on one matchups that they had across the board were the reasons why they lost this football game. There it is. There's another additional love of the star will continue to break down this throughout the week. Cowboys, commanders, we had you said for week two, desperation mode for both teams. You don't want to start owing to, and you don't want to start owing to in the division about as much when there's a must when game can be in a week two of an NFL season. I'm Zach Walshuk. That's the Superbowling Scout Brian. Roda, thank you so much. Like, share, subscribe. We appreciate you making a support of your cowboys game day and cowboys prepped

14:33throughout the week. We love you hugs and handpounds everybody. Until next time, I love on the star.