Cowboys Getting Frisky? Penix's Future, Chase Suspended and MNF Mailbag Questions

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2:21for all the great deals happening now. Save big money at Menards. So, first and 15. Shotgun play fake. Dak into the pocket. Steps up. Throws down the middle. It's caught. Pickens gets away. Left side, 15. Sutter's into the 10. Walks in. Touchdown, Dallas. Holy cow. George Pickens somehow broke away from everyone and trotted into the end zone for a 37-yard touchdown. Oh, you never know what's going to happen when George Pickens gets the ball or when you're going to watch George Pickens in primetime at all. He might get a penalty after scoring the touchdown. He might break a couple ankles. He might be the first Cowboys receiver since at least 1991 to top 100 yards receiving in the first half of a game in which he did not start because he was presumably being disciplined.

3:18Yes, it is the Monday Night Preview. I'm Greg Rosenthal. That was Brad Sham on KRLD. And that was an easy Cowboys win, 33-16, a game that didn't really feel as close as the final score. Nick shook. The Cowboys, even in a game that, frankly, wasn't that interesting. And we're going to do some news. There was a lot of big injury news. And I love everyone that's joining us live on YouTube after that game. We're going to take your questions in the chat after we do the game. and some news in a game that wasn't that interesting. Shook, I do like that. The Cowboys offense does make it interesting by benching their two receivers, CeeDee Lamb and George Pickens for the first drive of the game and then letting them back in to completely dominate a hapless Raiders defense.

4:07I never thought you'd be one for the manufactured drama. I didn't take you as a trash TV viewing type, but apparently that's where we are. Yeah. I mean, the good thing about this is that the Cowboys offense got back to looking like they were supposed to look like they have not looked over the last couple of games and that alone powered them to what really was a runaway victory was not as close as the score uh you know indicated and the funniest part i think about it to me is the fact that it's george pickens the guy who's not on the field like you said for that first drive they don't really play a part in the second drive which ends in a dac fumble and then after that they just light up the raiders defense pickens leads them in receiving and he produces the best highlight of the night which is the one that we just played right there.

4:50Yeah, the other highlights, they were almost too easy. We'll actually get to it first because it really hits on the theme that I wanted to touch on with this game. We won't spend a ton of time on this game. But the Cowboys, we'll talk about their future because four, five, and one, a couple big games coming up against the Eagles and the Chiefs in national windows. They have an offense, and now with Quinton Williams, maybe a defense to compete in those games. But yeah, Pickens ends up with 144 and a touchdown on 11 targets. CeeDee Lamb, 66 yards and a touchdown, and would have had a second touchdown and a 40-burger late in this game for the Cowboys.

5:26But Dak and him could not connect on a wide-open fourth-down call right near the goal line. Let's go to the CeeDee Lamb touchdown because it was part of a trend of the night where it was just preposterously easy for the Cowboys. Don't know what temps here to CeeDee Lamb. Yep, you're thinking the same thing I was. He is split out wide right, fake toss right. He's looking. CeeDee Lamb right on cue. End zone. Touchdown. You're thinking the same thing. He just got behind Polamau and Lonnie Johnson. It looked like there was miscommunication. And Kirk, he was running free on the right side. That is an 18-yard press.

6:00Got the Lamb. Touchdown. Just his second touchdown grab of the year. And the Cowboys nine seconds into the second up 9-6. Great call there. Ahead of the play, Jason Horowitz and Kirk Morrison calling it on KRLV. They saw the touchdown before it happened. I was watching the Manning cast for this part of the game, and they were just, Peyton Manning was so frustrated about how obviously open CeeDee Lamb was going to be on that play and was. And that was a trend throughout the first half of this game. Yeah, it definitely was. You know, I just looked up some numbers because I'm thinking like in hindsight, it felt like everything was easy for the Cowboys in the passing game.

6:34And that felt like they were soft coverage. So I go look at the numbers real quick. They pressed on over 20 % of their defensive snaps the Raiders did. It didn't look like that at all all night. Their average target separation was under four yards. It never looked like that. It didn't look like that on that play. It didn't look like that on a number of other plays where it just felt like the slant was always there. The quick throw was always there. The extended play and finding somebody downfield was always there. Like you said, preposterously easy and exactly what the Cowboys needed to kind of get back on track offensively.

7:00Yeah, there was another touchdown. Who was it to over the middle? Ferguson, where he just has a sit route. He sits down and there's a defensive lineman and a linebacker who are in the same area, and there's no one within 10 yards. And this is just like a fourth and short type of play over the middle. How does a guy get open by 10 yards on a fourth and short play within two seconds? They're really poorly coached defensively. I'm getting texts from Jordan, Rodrigue, obviously, and other people watching this game and just wondering about the future of this Raiders team. I would say this Raiders team, if you had to rank the offensive line and defensive line combinations and say, who is the worst team in the NFL in the trenches?

7:46You know, the Bengals would be in the mix, but I think their offensive line is better, certainly. I think the Raiders, despite having Max Crosby, and yes, one of our viewers right now is saying justice for Max Crosby. He does not deserve it. I think despite Max Crosby, they are the worst team in the NFL. They are the softest team in terms of not getting any pass rush other than Crosby can't stop the run can't run the ball can't even attempt to run the ball what what is this team right now yeah I agree uh Max Crosby's on a complete island on both sides of the ball you're absolutely right and look we I know that they haven't had Colton Miller for most of the season so that takes away some of your strength of your offensive line I know you lost Jackson Powers Johnson against the Broncos you had to move Jordan Meredith over from center to guard tonight and insert an undrafted uh product from Clemson uh Will Putnam in at center tonight first start in his career the the everything's stacked against you i get that but this is exactly what we've seen from them when they were at close to full strength without miller for most of the season they've just been terrible in the trenches offensively gino has never had really any time to throw for most of the year genti i feel so bad for him because he's getting hit behind the line of scrimmage routinely every week and no play captured their offensive lines uh inability to do anything really positive than when genti got tackled in the end zone for a safety tonight like That just perfectly typified the entire season for their trench play right there.

9:09Can't do anything up front. Can't get any lanes open for him to the point where they have to abandon the run. They have to resort to checkdowns and swing passes just to get the ball in his hands because he is a playmaker. It's an offense that has got a hand tied behind its back, and it's also got a ball and chain around one of its legs. It can't get going at all because they can't do anything up front. The gentry thing is making me crazy. In the first half of this game, this is from Josh Dubow of the Associated Press. Getting a lot of pop here on NFL Daily lately. The Raiders were only the third team, according to the Associated Press, to have 30 dropbacks and four or fewer runs in the first half of a game.

9:49I think that was since 1991 or it was ever. Either way, the other two teams that had done that scored over 20 points in that first half because they were teams that are throwing the ball all over the yard and scoring a lot of points. The Raiders were doing nothing. To go that pass happy in the first half of a game when you can't protect Geno Smith at all, who had his customary bad interception. He has one bad one every game. His receivers let him down a lot. It's not like he was great. He's just part of this entire mess. But that game plan, to me, I think gets to this question. The Raiders have to fire everyone, right?

10:29And they did already fire their special teams coach, by the way, last week. That slipped under the radar. I meant to mention it last week. I'm shocked that Chip Kelly is still going. And this sort of game plan, and it does make you wonder a little bit about Pete Carroll and his future. Because Mark Davis has had a quick trigger. Here's all the coaches that have coached for Mark Davis since he took over in 2011. Hugh Jackson, Dennis Allen, Jack Del Rio, John Gruden, Josh McDaniels, Antonio Pierce, and Pete Carroll. That's only since 2012. So that's like each coach is averaging about two years in that span.

11:07So maybe Pete Carroll gets one more year. But the way this is going, there's a chance it's a one and done like Antonio Pierce essentially was with a full year one and done. Early third quarter tonight, I started thinking in my head about this exact scenario, which was who was the last coach with like a Super Bowl pedigree who got fired very quickly from his next job and the first guy that came to mind was Mike Ditka with the Saints he was there for three years now he traded away his whole draft for Ricky Williams one year which kind of tanked what they were doing but I mean I I hate to say it but I do think that the whole Pete Carroll experiment the idea of bringing in somebody with you know experience and everything else is probably coming to an end at some point because what's most important about Pete Carroll teams running the football sometimes you know intentionally aggressively to the point where it may not make sense in the game but they're still going to try to commit to the run and playing solid defense they do neither of those things they're poorly coached defensively they're just they're not a good football team and it's hard to find any sense of direction for them like the trade for gino was a flop because they can't protect him they still don't have guys that can get open reliance on brock bowers you can't even do that now to move the football so it's at the end of the season what do you say?

12:17What do you tell your fans? Oh, we're going to run it back. We just need another off season with a coach who's in his seventies. I don't think so. I think he's got a chance maybe to change coordinators and do it, but yeah, they're, they're at two and eight now. And even Gentry, who is the high pick, like he, he does feel like he's part of it. Like on that play, you know, Troy Aikman noted he stopped his feet and I've watched the Gentry game with Maurice Jones drew and he always gets, it goes crazy that Gentry is always stopping his feet, which is the last thing you want to do when you have such a bad offensive line.

12:46He had a couple of drops in this game. He also had a bad block early in this game that helped Geno Smith get hurt, hit rather on a play before we move on. And we'll, we will move on quickly. Shout out to Quinnen Williams monster. First game for the Cowboys. They get Siobhan Revell back for the first time. He's a third round rookie. I guess he's not coming back, but he's coming back from his college injury. He's on the field for the first time. They get some of their safeties back, you know, Malik Hooker, Donovan Wilson. I don't expect this defense to be good. And it's hard to say when you're only playing the Raiders.

13:24But Quinnen Williams was playing like a man possessed tonight. And a couple sacks, a couple more quarterback hits, a couple more pressures even on top of that. And with Odigizua and Kenny Clark, like there is something here that I'm at least curious to watch next week against better competition, the Eagles. And frankly, their offense, I mean, it is better than the Raiders offense, but it's not a great offense right now. I'm going to run my my top four guys in QB pressures tonight for the Cowboys. OK, because it's going to be an interesting group. OK, Diggie Zua with six, including three quick pressures.

13:59Yeah. Jedevian Clowney with five, including two quick pressures. Quentin Williams with five and one quick pressure and Dante Fowler. On paper, Clowney passed his prime. Not a bad group, like not a terrible group. I have some reason for encouragement that over the next few weeks, as they try to claw their way back into some sort of contention, not really for the East, but just for a playoff spot in general and what's a very difficult conference that at least they feel they should feel more confident about what they have up front. Now the rest of the defense that remains to be seen. Deron Blaine had a really nice bounce back game after getting torched against the Cardinals.

14:35I thought that was big for them as well on the backend. But for the first time this season, I look at it and I go, okay, like I don't think that you're just going to get run all over. we have a comment that Quinton Williams is no Nick Schuch though. Yeah, this is a Nick Schuch appreciation post. I'm going to give Quinton Williams our guy who delivered, and it is time for who delivered presented by Uber Eats because I want to just point out how different PFF can be in terms of tracking compared to Next Gen. For what it's worth, they have Quinton Williams as seven pressures, and Clowney only has two.

15:09I mean, that's a pretty big gap compared to what NextGen has. James Houston, by the way, also had a sack. And I also want to give a shout out to DeMarvion Overshown. I thought he delivered in his first game back. He also delivered back in training camp. If you were with us when I went to watch the Cowboys, he joined the show. And his energy and everyone around that team talked about him as a real deal leader. And a guy who was really dynamic on the field. When he was healthy in his second year, he had an ACL injury his first year, another serious injury last year. So he is making it back from a long injury, played about 30 snaps tonight.

15:48PFF graded him out as pretty high. And he's just someone to watch. So there's at least something here. This Cowboys team. I got my doubts with the kind of schedule that they have. Eagles, Chiefs, and I think they have Lions. The Lions after that. you know, you're very likely to lose two of those three games. Like it would feel like an accomplishment if you even won one of them. And yet I, I at least I'm holding out a little space in my head to say that this offense, this quarterback is good enough. And their defense is now a little different coming off the pie, just that they could be a frisky team, just that they can be a frisky team.

16:31Okay. I was going to say, when even two of those games and like be in the race, It's going to be a tough spot to get to the wild card. We have a comment. They're saying it looks like a team built to lose in the wild card. I don't know about that. But let's say this. I took the over on eight wins for the season before I knew they traded Parsons. I'm not totally giving up on that. I'm not totally giving up on that. We got some Giants in there. There's not many easy games, but just saying. Make it threaten. And if they get, I mean, they get Vikings, Chargers, Commanders, Giants, your last four. That's, it would be really hard to bounce back from losing the next three.

17:08Eagles, Chiefs, Lions. That would be difficult. But I mean, if that's all your interest is in is making sure that you're, you're over under pick hits, which I know you, and I know that you're very interested in that. You're very invested in that. Then that's enough for me to sign up and keep track. Thank you. Yes, that is Quinton Williams. So I'm trusted PFF here. Two sacks, three quarterback hits on top of that. And two hurries. Yes. that was Who Delivered presented by Uber Eats. When football makes you hungry, get game day deals on Uber Eats, the official on-demand delivery partner of the NFL.

17:39Order now. So what we're going to do, and we appreciate everyone in the chat right now, and no, Quinn and Williams will not be delivering any Uber Eats. If you order, you know, he has to enjoy the post game and get ready on a short week for the Eagles. We're going to do some news, and then we're going to take some questions for a little bit in the chat. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters. Tremphaya offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Tremphaya is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks.

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21:47I think we start the news with Michael Penix going to injured reserve. He suffered a knee injury, shook. It is the left knee, not the knee that was twice surgically repaired in college with ACL injuries that ended season in college. So it's a different knee. It could possibly require reconstructive surgery, according to NFL Network insider Ian Rappaport. At this point, they're looking at further tests to see if that is necessary. But either way, Raheem Morris admitted he's going on injured reserve. There's a pretty big risk he's missing the rest of the season. And from the sound of it, we are fearing that it's going to be a long recovery.

22:31What do you think about kind of where the Falcons and Penix specifically are at and where? And let's say he does have a torn ACL where kind of this leaves him. I mean, it's been a very rocky second season for him. It's been up and down, you know, running back that Falcons Panthers game today. I felt like once B. John wasn't getting chunks on the ground, everything was a little bit more difficult for them offensively. But I did like what I saw from him. It's just been very inconsistent. We kind of discussed this when we were redrafting the quarterback class. And maybe maybe we got a little out over our skis too much when figuring out that second tier, because I still feel like he's got it in him.

23:08It's just that the accuracy has not been reliable. and I also really wonder if this offense is tailored toward him like I don't think it really suits him well whether it's the reliance on the pistol and a number of other different things it just it feels like he's kind of having to overcome some things systematically that like scheme wise that just don't fit him but I don't think that this really threatens their long-term outlook it's just the fact that you you wonder about his road to recovery it is good news that it's not the same knee given his history his lengthy history to Indiana before he ended up in Washington but it's never news that you want to get at this point they're fortunate they have to be feeling fortunate they still have Kirk Cousins on the roster now of course they have a lower ceiling they have a lower ceiling offensively you saw that in that game against the Panthers but at least they have somebody to turn to uh it's been a disappointing season for the Falcons overall and this is the most disappointing news of all but I don't know if it necessarily threatens his long-term outlook uh it's just it sucks to hear you know at this point in the season almost as bad as my mouse dying right now also sucks and since this is live you're gonna see me lean over for a second to get okay you know no no one would notice you know most people are listening but we appreciate the diehards that we're gonna take some questions from in a minute penix struggled but the numbers would say he wasn't as bad as kind of the eye test would say and so i went through some numbers for this season first of all his numbers are pretty similar than to that four game span that he had a year ago, which we were impressed by.

24:40But PFF had him graded as the 36th best quarterback out of 41 in terms of their qualifiers. And that is a little closer to where I had him. 17th in QBR, 24th in EPA per dropback. This is out of 34 qualifiers. So in the middle of QBR, 16th in success rate, 32nd out of 34 in third and long. And that is one of the stats I look at and a really bad, like big time throw to turnover worthy play percentage. So add that all up in that profile tells me he's taking a lot of check downs. He's hitting a lot of like five and six yard passes. He's not having a lot of wow plays. He's not having a lot of big plays.

25:22I did think Sunday was one of his best games of the season. He only finished about two and a half, three quarters, but he looked good. Went over the middle of the field like he was having a clean game. I think he was testing the middle of the field a little more over the last couple of weeks. Ultimately, you're right. Like he didn't fit in this system and the system won't be there next year. Like Zach Robinson is just not going to be back as their offensive coordinator. I don't know if Raheem Morris is going to be back. I don't know if Terry Fontenot, the GM, is going to be back. You're three and seven in a year that you kind of went all in and everything is possibly on the table.

25:57And I think this move shook where we move on from Penix kind of points out like, oh, yeah. Kirk Cousins is on the roster with a$40 million cap hit and is going to charge 30 something to get rid of next year in dead cap money. And he's not even a good backup right now. And like we see with a lot of these quarterbacks, it might be someone else's regime that ends up inheriting Pennix. And if he's coming back from an injury, it's a tricky situation. You know what I mean? Where they're going to have to have someone who might be ready to handle the offseason program. Because I don't think Kirk Cousins is going to be that guy.

26:32Yeah, you're right. And I think that anytime there's a regime change to that, you're entering uncertain waters because you don't know if the next person that they hire the next leadership group that they hire even once, you know, Michael Penix, they probably won't want Kirk Cousins, especially at that number. Anytime that you make a sweeping change like that, you are preparing for things to get torn down. And that could include your quarterback, which is what throws everything into a place of uncertainty. So I think, I think that's right. Like I, and you're right. They did kind of go all in and they haven't produced.

27:02So it feels like we're headed in that direction. And yet I think when you take the job, what, and you look at, you know, the full landscape of what this team has, you see former first round pick quarterback played two seasons, showed some promising things was inconsistent. Maybe it is just a lack of system fit. Maybe we can make something out of them. You know that a lot of these leaders, they come there with, they get to where they are in their jobs by a bit of ego, right? In my ego, I can make something out of this guy. So I'm not saying it's the end for him, but there are going to, if they do make those changes, there are going to be more changes than just that, especially in the offensive side, because this is a group that if you look at it on paper, has enough talent to be better than it is.

27:43And it just hasn't been that good. Yeah. They, they have a profile of a five and five team. That's had some bad luck, to be honest. I don't think they're that bad of a team, certainly like a four and six team. And yeah, thank you to Brad for asking everyone to smash that like button. We are loving seeing the subscriber numbers going up lately. So also subscribe. I look at this Falcons team and you just remember that, look, if Penix was coming off this injury, they could even consider taking another first round quarterback. It's not that crazy. Oh, but they don't have their first round pick. They gave it to the Rams for James Pierce.