- 6 minutes ago
The K&C Masterpiece recapped the Cowboys' ugly win over the Colts. They discussed the back-and-forth game, Brandon Aubrey's kicking struggles, Joey Porter Jr.'s availability, and more.
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00:00Prescott under center, backing out, crowd making a lot of noise, Lamb in motion left to right, in the shotgun,
00:07Prescott, snap is back, looking right, looking, pumping, throwing in the end zone, right corner of the end zone, waiting
00:14for Ferguson, touchdown!
00:17Can't see masterpiece right here on 105.3 The Fan. A lot of people already have a lot of thoughts
00:25about this game from the 214. Positives, we won the game. Defense, well, they looked okay. Now, from the 469,
00:35I'll disagree with this partially.
00:37The idea that anyone could be happy about yesterday is ridiculous. A win is a win, except for in the
00:43circumstances we played like Dog S. So the issue that I have with that is you are a bad team.
00:50And so any win at this point feels like a positive thing if you're hoping to compete.
00:57But also, I can agree with the first line of that. They did not play well. I don't have to
01:02be happy about it. Sure. I think, did you see CeeDee Lamb when he was walking out of that stadium
01:07yesterday, and he was still ticked off about the fumble?
01:11You know, which is good, because when he did make the fumble, he was yucking it up with his opponents,
01:15and I was like, hey man, you might have just lost the ball. You need to be concerned. Instead, he
01:19was like bumping with people and stuff, and I was like, you just lost the ball.
01:22Yeah, the whole idea of being disappointed with the performance, and the way that it goes, I don't think that
01:31you have to be happy about the win.
01:33Oh my god, the game was so ugly.
01:34I think that's the positive that comes away from it, is that you're still in the division, if that's your
01:39goal.
01:41Even though, Kevin, it looks like those Giants, as predicted, are better than we thought. Or this division is as
01:49bad as we never expected it to be.
01:51So I don't think, I'm not happy about it, and I think that you should, everybody on that team should
01:57go, man, we still have so much more work to do.
02:00Not, hey, we're satisfied, look at us, we told you guys, y'all talked all that S all week, and
02:04here we went out and got a win over this team.
02:07No, you can't, you can't do that this week, and be like, y'all talked all that, that trash.
02:13Now let's go celebrate with Shoddy in the locker room.
02:16Yeah.
02:16Even though they did, they did do that, because you gotta celebrate wins.
02:19I mean, look, when they've been hard to come by under this regime and this season, why not?
02:25It's still, though, Kevin, it's so frustrating to celebrate a win like that.
02:30When you hear the Jimmy Johnson story about how he just rode them so hard all the time about anything
02:38that they did,
02:38and then finally they get to a point where they do something special,
02:43and they think finally he's gonna give us that little nibble, that little congratulations, boys.
02:49They think it's finally gonna happen, and then Jerry Jones walked in and screwed everything up.
02:53But they thought, they couldn't wait, they were hanging on every word of his.
02:57Right.
02:57Because they needed that gratification of, we did it for him.
03:02Do you feel like Shoddy is an over-celebrator then?
03:05Um, just, well, you know, Tomlin said that recently, right?
03:10Like, you can, he was talking about another coach, and how, I think it was Harbaugh.
03:16John Harbaugh.
03:17And he was like, you know, I think starting off as a hard-ass is important,
03:21and then you can kind of start becoming more friendly later,
03:24but you need to establish the discipline first.
03:27Yeah.
03:28And so, I think that it's difficult for being the guy that he wants to be,
03:33and not having that, like, hey, here are the expectations,
03:37and you're never gonna live up to him,
03:39even though I know you're gonna try as hard as you can to live up to him.
03:43So, I mean, we can ask Stephen about this later.
03:45He usually tells us, you know, like on Mondays,
03:47it's tough to have this information already,
03:50but a couple of injury notes coming out of there.
03:52Jake Ferguson is gonna get more tests on his left knee today,
03:56today, and then P.J. Locke suffered his second concussion in his many games.
04:02Schottenheimer said afterwards, look, we've got him covered in our prayers.
04:05And P.J. Locke is a fascinating case study out of this,
04:08because even you and I disagreed about the takeaway from yesterday with him.
04:15I thought he had some great plays.
04:16I also thought he was a liability on the field at times.
04:20He's not Jalen Thompson.
04:22Yeah, but at least...
04:24We also don't know what Jalen Thompson is.
04:25I know, and that part's been so frustrating,
04:28is because, like, I know they didn't spend all of the money,
04:31but for the Cowboys, it feels like they spent all of the money
04:34to bring in Jalen Thompson, and obviously, because of injury,
04:37he's been MIA most of the time.
04:38And I'll say this, the liability that Marquise Bell has been
04:43compared to P.J. Locke is, I think, less.
04:45Now, against the Cardinals, I didn't like the way P.J. Locke played at all.
04:48Right.
04:48I thought he was better this week than he was against the Cardinals.
04:53But I think that you're right.
04:54Like, the liability of those other backups are creates an even bigger problem.
04:58So, like, it's a...
05:00But, again, you get to see more of what you want from Caleb Downs.
05:03So, hopefully, you can get a healthy other safety out there
05:06to kind of allow you to do what you want to do defensively.
05:09Now, I've seen multiple people text in about this,
05:13and I think, obviously, this is a very fair question.
05:16Can you give me cut number 19?
05:17I know what happened with the snap and the skip,
05:22but go ahead and give me this right here,
05:24because people are concerned about Brandon Aubrey.
05:26Here's the kick.
05:27On the way.
05:29Wide left.
05:30That one's on you.
05:32No, it's not, because it was 50 yards.
05:34The streak is still intact.
05:36In fact, he's at 52 from under 50 yards.
05:40That was right at 50.
05:41That one was ugly.
05:42From the ugly snap to that kick just being,
05:45you could tell immediately that it was drifting,
05:48not only left, but, like, pretty far left.
05:50And then, for Aubrey specifically,
05:52you had the third time that he couldn't get the ball
05:55into, like, the drop zone or whatever they're going with,
05:59and that leads the NFL.
06:00These are the types of things that are frustrating in general,
06:03but especially right after you pay your kicker.
06:06What is your concern level?
06:07I know there's a lot of things to be concerned about on this team.
06:10What is your concern level with Brandon Aubrey?
06:13I mean, going back to last season,
06:16I thought that there was too much trust in he'll get it,
06:20and so we had that conversation a lot.
06:23You know, just, hey, all you know how to do is get it to 10 yards
06:25from the other side of the field, and you're fine.
06:28He could kick it from the 10-yard line.
06:31All those things, I thought there was too much trust there.
06:34I think kicker's a tough position anyway.
06:37There are a lot of things in the mechanics of how the snap works
06:41and everybody that has to block in front of you,
06:43and some of those moments have happened.
06:45But, Kevin, that's the number, right?
06:4714 of 24 on 50-plus-yard field goal attempts
06:51since the beginning of last season.
06:53And I want to see that a little bit more factored out with the blocks,
06:56because I've always hated that part of the stat.
06:58If you're asking about the kicker,
07:00you're asking about the whole process.
07:01Yeah, that's true.
07:03I don't put that on Aubrey specifically.
07:06Okay, then we'll see where the ones have gone left or right.
07:09But even still, the fact that, like,
07:12I don't know if he trusts himself on some of these right now.
07:15It doesn't feel like it.
07:16That's my biggest concern.
07:16It doesn't feel like it.
07:18It's that yips are a thing.
07:19And when I say yips, dude, if you're afraid that it's going to get blocked,
07:24that's a yip.
07:25If you're afraid that that ball's not set up correctly,
07:27that's a yip.
07:29And so the whole process has to be a fluid, confident thing across the entire board.
07:35And from wherever it starts to wherever it ends on who, you know,
07:41the whole special teams process, I do have concerns about it,
07:44because that was a thing that we felt was automatic but no longer exists.
07:49Can I go back to a particular sequence in the play?
07:52Hefty amount of cash.
07:53I mean, that's true.
07:54To, hey, it's not like he's the first Cowboys player to get paid
07:58and then just do not a whole lot.
08:00You have to take shots at Dak like that.
08:02That was, well, of all the people that you can list off,
08:05I do not feel like Dak is in that top tier of that conversation whatsoever.
08:10All right.
08:11I want to go back to something that continues to be agitating about this team.
08:17And you got the win yesterday.
08:19And that's the main thing.
08:20But the first sequence in the second half is just, it's the good and bad of this team.
08:30The 15-yard drive?
08:31Oh, that's second quarter.
08:33My bad.
08:34So to start the third quarter, the Colts get the ball.
08:37You did a good job on the other side with your lengthy touchdown drive,
08:42making sure that lengthy in terms of yardage,
08:46making sure that the Colts can do anything in terms of getting a field goal
08:49or anything like that.
08:50Defense comes out.
08:51It's 17-7.
08:53You have palpable momentum even coming out of the locker room.
08:57And what do you do?
08:58You get a three and out.
08:59You get another three and out.
09:02First, you get the target to Warren, but he drops it.
09:06And then Rashawn Gary, he draws a hold.
09:09I think you did a really good job of disguising the pressure
09:13and the way that you were deploying it.
09:14And so, boom, three and out.
09:17And I made a note right there.
09:19LFG.
09:20Exactly.
09:20And then the next thing I wrote is, make the Colts want to quit here.
09:25Because we talked about it going into this game.
09:27Not every team will be like this.
09:29In fact, most won't.
09:30But this is a Colts team that was just looking for reasons to be done.
09:34They were like, we're not going to give the ball to Jonathan Taylor a bunch.
09:36He had already had a speech written, more or less, about how this was his last game.
09:40And you get the ball.
09:41I bet on that note, you said,
09:44make them want to quit.
09:45Average five yards a carry.
09:48Yeah.
09:48I mean, that can help.
09:50If you can get five yards per carry on this drive, we're going to be okay.
09:54And of course, they start off like that.
09:57But this drive had a little bit of everything.
10:04It was five yards total, Kevin, because of the little bit of everything that happened on it.
10:09So you get a good run to start.
10:12And then you get a penalty.
10:15Happens.
10:16And then you get a sack.
10:17On a six-yard run.
10:18I know.
10:19Yeah, that was 11 yards on two plays.
10:21How'd you even do it?
10:22And then, Shottie gives up on the drive.
10:25And this is the thing that is continually agitating.
10:29Now, I realize, if I'm Brian Schottenheimer, my response is, it's tough to continue your forward progression when you've already
10:38had a penalty and a sack on the same drive.
10:41And that is a fair point.
10:43My counterpoint would be, even though you're backed up, you've still got a little bit of room.
10:48It's third and 17.
10:49It's tough to find the third and 17 play.
10:52But with this offense, maybe you've got a shot.
10:55But instead, they give up.
10:57And they run.
10:58Now, Javante Williams does the best he could to make you think, holy crap, is he going to get this
11:02first down?
11:03But that drive had everything that drives you insane about the Cowboys' offense this season.
11:08Penalties, poor offensive line coverage.
11:11And then, a give up.
11:13And so, instead, what do you do?
11:15You punt the ball away and you waste another great drive from the defense.
11:22And so, now, not only is the game not over, by the time the Colts finish with the ball off
11:28of a short field, they put three more points on the board.
11:32And it's a one-score game.
11:33And, obviously, that helps set up everything that happened in the fourth quarter to make this an absurdly dramatic game.
11:39But it's those drives right there.
11:41That really infuriate me.
11:43Because I do think this offense is very good.
11:45I just wish they were very, very good in the drives that matter earlier in the game.
11:52Yeah, the penalty sack combo.
11:53It was a disaster.
11:55It creates what you hate about Shoddy.
11:58Because from your own five-yard line there, you were backed way up.
12:03A, you need to give space to anger on the next play.
12:06You've got to give them a little more room to work with.
12:09B, you don't want to throw an interception and put them on your side of the field now.
12:14Now, if you're at the 30-yard line, do what I always say.
12:17Throw it as far as you effing can.
12:19Right.
12:19And see what happens, and maybe that was your punt.
12:22Maybe you get a pass interference.
12:23But there's the two plays prior to that set up the conservative run play there.
12:30And I don't know if the book would say to do that.
12:34But Schottenheimer does not have that faith that they can get and convert that on that right then.
12:43That being said, I see other coordinators.
12:45But again, those guys are probably at the 25, 30-yard line feeling like they can push and get a
12:5017-yard play
12:51and put themselves in a better position on fourth down.
12:53And you might be right about the book.
12:55I do worry that he does not have killer instinct for 2026 football.
13:02Or that he has a different copy of the book.
13:03Yeah, he has the 1991 copy of the book or whatever.
13:08And that's what I worry about is he has killer instinct for 1991 where he's like,
13:12Oh, boys, we're about to play the field position game.
13:15And with Brian Anger, it's going to go our way.
13:18And I'm like, that's great.
13:19In old Bill Parcells-style football.
13:22In this, I hate it.
13:23I think there are games you can win like that for sure in the NFL.
13:26Probably.
13:26This did not seem to fit that bill.
13:28This was one of those that you felt like you really needed to have a steamroller offense.
13:33Sure.
13:34And Kevin, I felt like they were going to come away from this with all the excuses.
13:40Look, we were without George Pickens.
13:42I mean, that changes our offense completely.
13:43We didn't know how to plan for that all week.
13:47What is our...
13:48I thought that there was going to be just a litany of excuses for them to say.
13:53Joey Porter was out.
13:54I mean, our defense was going to look different.
13:56You should probably be used to that for Porter now, right?
13:57They look pretty good, though.
13:58Yeah.
13:58No, yeah.
13:59This is one of those things.
14:01Has he missed more games than he's played with the Cowboys?
14:04No.
14:06Okay.
14:06He's probably missed more plays than he's played.
14:08Oh, okay.
14:09I got you.
14:10But yeah, I felt like they were going to line up all the,
14:14Hey, this is why our offense looked clunky.
14:15And, you know, George is going to...
14:16Your offense hasn't looked good even with George on the field at times.
14:20Yeah.
14:20For the most part, Flannoy was missing throughout this game.
14:24But it was...
14:25That was a frustrating series and set.
14:28Almost as frustrating as the, like, 15 minutes of punt, punt, punt, punt, punt, punt, punt,
14:34touchdown right before halftime.
14:36I'm going to go to one Bobby Belt who tweeted out,
14:38If you're a the best ability is availability kind of guy,
14:42you're probably not loving the start of the Joey Porter Jr. era.
14:45Missed games plus games playing fewer than 50% of the snaps.
14:50Previous two seasons.
14:51Five.
14:51Five.
14:52Six games with the Cowboys.
14:54Five.
14:56Because he thinks he's J.J. McCarthy.
14:58So, man, you know what?
15:00By the way, the internet did J.J. McCarthy dirty yesterday.
15:04Like, the way they did not set up that he was trying to come back in the game from injury.
15:10I saw people being like, oh, McCarthy just got hit by Manti Teo's girlfriend.
15:15I was like, oh, what a topical reference.
15:17But, yeah, it made it look like he just got hurt out of nowhere.
15:21And you're like, but what about, like, how he actually got hurt?
15:24The wave really has no limitations.
15:26Oh, man.
15:28Damn.
15:28But, yeah, so that's one out of six games for Joey Porter Jr.
15:32And that's the thing that makes it tricky.
15:34I'm not going to sit here and argue like, oh, well, he doesn't want to be here.
15:38Like, I'm not saying that at all, but how do you make that determination of what you're supposed to do
15:43with him if he's not out on the field?