The Invasion- Bob Sturm Talks New Cowboy Rashan Gary

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2:00But the Cowboys make a trade. They acquire defensive linemen, Rashan Gary from the Green Bay Packers and Exchange for a fourth round pick in 2027. And to talk all things Packer and Cowboy with us, we go over to the Diamond Factory Ticket Hotline. And you listen to him. You'll hear him this afternoon on the hardline. It's our buddy Bob's term. Hello, Bob. Hey, guys. Hi. This is exciting. It is. Me, as me, as me, as me. I'm excited already. To be on. I know it's great to have you on. When we hear of Rashan Gary and Packers and Cowboys, it's only one person we think to talk to about this. It's you. It's a compliment. Well, it's a compliment to you. Yes, congratulations. Well, I'm honored. It's just, it's great to, it's great to be on the invasion is really my thrill more than it is to talk about Rashan Gary, but it would ever get to me here, you know. No doubt, no doubt. Well, let's talk about it. What did you think when you first heard the deal? Well, it confused in terms of, it was not something I had on my radar.

3:02I did not know that this would be appealing to them. Certainly in all of this Max Crosby Trey Hendrix in talk, I was not even pondering would they be more interested or as interested, or even, you know, rally over to a guy who I think everybody in the world expected the Packers to release this weekend, including Rashan Gary himself. So I don't know if you guys were talking about that. Yeah, he went the heck route. You know, that's that's into playing a book of a lot of people. I was hacked. Yeah, so, so he was positive. He was getting released and set so on Instagram. And by the way, so as every Packer fan in the universe is that the moment they made the Micah Parsons trade, they made it because Rashan Gary was not the top edge that they had hoped and that they had paid for. And so they went and invested in, you know,

4:02hypothetically the best in the market. And that meant Gary's days were numbered. And so, you know, that probably tells you the Green Bay perspective, but it also doesn't mean he's not a very, very solid player. You look at him and last, I think it was the last 10 games last year. He doesn't have a sack, but he's regularly a seven and nine sack guy pretty consistently throughout his seven year career. What do you see with him that you think benefits the Cowboys for a fourth round? And the price they're going to pay, which is right now like a cap hit of 19 and a half, I think it is next year. Yeah, I mean, that's that's the crazy thing. When you look at Kenny Clark and Rashan Gary is nobody would tell you they weren't really, really strong Green Bay Packers and won't be remembered fondly for, you know, making a lot of plays at a lot of times. It's just the economics of the whole thing that, you know, and by the way, this isn't because you're in cap Hades or anything like that. You know, the Packers have a lot of room to do a lot of things

5:04because they have a pretty cheap roster because it's the youngest in the NFL for like four straight years. The issue though is just, you know, well, I guess the issue is simply on the cap sheet which is a complicated thing because what you want is production at each spot. And like I was just talking about this with Lucas Van Ness, not with him personally, but about him being their option because the Packers drafted an edge in the first round in 2023 that hasn't quite chased Rashan Gary off the field. So in a way, they're both disappointing guys, right? But one is disappointing at four million and one's at disappointing at 24 million or I guess the Packers cap hit was going to be 28 million this year because of the signing bonus of then his base. So there's a big difference in disappointment levels when you're given somebody 1.5 million every Sunday versus a draft pick that hasn't quite broken out yet.

6:05So the Packers are like, okay, well, we have Lucas Van Ness across from Micah Parsons. We think that that is what we need. And then the Cowboys are not comparing him to Micah Parsons or Lucas Van Ness. They're comparing him to Dante Fowler and James Houston and Sam Williams. And they're saying, well, let's just put the tape in of these guys and there's no question Rashan Gary is the better player. So again, you know, one team's trash is another team's treasure. There's a number of ways to put this. By the way, I don't really think the Cowboys acquired Rashan Gary thinking that he's going to be 20 million a year against their cap. They probably think he will accept a haircut because he had accepted a couple days ago that he was about to be released and then he has no contract whatsoever. So so there was no guaranteed money left on his deal for the Packers to deal with except for their signing bonus. And much like Kenny Clark, when they traded him to Dallas, everybody in Green Bay thought Kenny Clark was getting cut

7:06at the end of the 2025 season. And they were no there was no chance they were going to pay him his cap hit for 26 just because he's not that player anymore. So so did the Cowboys take two really good players from the Packers? Of course they did. But in both cases, I believe Green Bay thought the financials were way out of whack. And I'm curious if the Cowboys feel the same way, almost like what they did with Terrence steel earlier this morning. This is our buddy Bob Stern from the hard line talking Cowboys and Rishan Gary. Okay, so the Cowboys definitely making some moves to get under the cap. Did it surprise you a bit that Terrence steel because he was one of the, hey man, maybe you can move on. Maybe you moved Tyler guidance over to the right side and he could be one of those casualties to to say money on the cap. Not only didn't they do that. They gave him guaranteed money 22 mil. Lesson is dealing. It looks like the offensive line is going to be exactly what they wanted to be next year with guidance on the left and Terrence steel on the right. Yeah, I just, I think that's the most prudent move, Donnie. I don't, you know, obviously Terrence steel

8:07is somewhere around dead bang average for a right tackle, right? He's not an elite right tackle, but he's also not trash. And I think, you know, in some ways, he's the Rishan Gary of his office, right? He's a decent NFL starter in a world where you don't want to not have enough decent NFL starters on your roster. So the old case for average discussion. And with Terrence steel, I think he's average. And I think what people miss about Terrence steel is he generally leads the Cowboys offense in snaps. Meaning he's always on the field since his knee injury, which I want to say was what at the end of 2022 maybe or 2023. I'm trying to remember when he really heard himself. But the point is since he's returned, he hasn't been anywhere close to all pro. But he has been on the field every Sunday for 65 snaps and that does have value.

9:08It also has value when sometimes he don't even notice him. And he plays games where, you know, I would say over the course of his career, there's been a couple games where he looked like he was outclassed, but not very many. And that has value. So I hate to just continue to go back to either our levels to this and basically just be the ticket's meek mill right now. Donovan or Matt or Matt, either of you can like meek mill, I suppose, but the point would simply be that you do need a proper level of performance. And in my opinion, putting Gaiton at right tackle and let's say Nate Thomas at left tackle or maybe Tyler Smith and now TJ Bass and now you're super thin that the first time there's an offensive line injury, you're screwed again. And you're put, you know, the cowboys have to get out of the business even though I don't know that they get this when they're trying to trade

10:09for Max Crosby, but they need to get out of the business of having the best top five players in the league. You know, they have a group of five guys. And the rest, the other 50 on their roster, it's like, who cares? We got these five guys. And I think we're seeing every year, the teams that win have 25 guys, they don't mind being on the field and that they think can play. And clearly to do that, you can't pay everybody 60 million a season, but you can begin to put rosters together by adding solid NFL players and Rashon Gary, Terrence Steel, Kenny Clark. These are solid NFL players. These are not superstars. Well, a good friend of mine once wrote a book called This Year is Different. Are you feeling the same way about this with the Cowboys, Bob? No, I'm not, but I would say I would say there's a long ways to go and we need to let them cook and see where it takes us. Rashon Gary is not going to swing the balance

11:11of the NFC. There is not shuddering across the league right now that this is the Cowboys master plan. But I do think not doing Max Crosby might be saving them from a giant mistake. I just, I, for the life of me, if the price was anything close to two number ones or what the Cowboys allegedly offered, which is a number one and number two and also Diggy Zua, I just, that just doesn't make sense in terms of a team adding 29 year olds like Quentin Williams and Max Crosby to try to fix a team that has many, many holes. So I need those two first round picks to be starters. I would prefer one of those first round picks becomes like a lesser first and maybe a second or a third. So I can get three pieces out of this draft. And then I can maybe add Nicobie Dean by lunchtime today and Rashon Gary. And, you know, I would have been sniffing around on Mika Fitzpatrick to be honest,

12:12but clearly they feel differently. But, you know, this is a team that needs to have five or six NFL starters. Now, what that means relative to what we saw last spring is they added five or six guys, tried to tell us they were NFL starters. And I'm not sure any of them were. Kair Elam was not Kenneth Murray was not Jack Sanborn was not. I mean, we can go down the list if you'd like, but they added a bunch of guys who other teams were like, this guy can't play. And the Cowboys have their hands in the air and say, well, Adam, well, Adam. And, and I guess Javante Williams was a yes. And the rest of the list was pretty spare. And they need to be shopping in a little higher bin, in my opinion, to add guys who could start in them in, what, 15 cities. Like Rashon Gary can start in the NFL at the right price. Let's say 12 million a year. He can start for half the league. There's no question about it.

13:13Kenny Clark, same thing. Now it's just a matter of price tag. Terrence Steel can start in this league in more places than Dallas. Kenneth Murray could not. And that's where they have to get to is they, they, they don't harbor players who are only starting because they're Dallas Cowboys. That's, that's how you're not good enough. And that's what they're trying to fix, I hope. Well, man, we truly appreciate the time. As always, you have an open invitation to the invasion. Any time you want to join in, you are more than welcome. We truly appreciate it, man. Can't wait to hear your thoughts with Corby and Davey on the Heartline today. Well, thank you, gentlemen. And I appreciate you having me. That's Bob Stern from the Heartline talking a little bit about Rashon Gary. The Cowboys trade a fourth round or in 27 for the Green Bay Packer Pass Russia.