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00:03We do have Cowboys OTAs availability this week.
00:06Tomorrow, Brian Schottenheimer will speak.
00:08We'll be a lot out there again.
00:10And we always, you know, we get up to OTAs.
00:13It's like, here are the things we're watching over the course of three weeks.
00:15But, and then we'll still watch a lot of those things.
00:17So who, you know, the running back two battle.
00:19What's going on with Guyton and Nate Thomas?
00:21What's happening at the backup quarterback?
00:23Is it still Joe Milton getting the reps?
00:24Like, we'll look at all that stuff that we talked about before.
00:26But once you're out there and you kind of see some things happen,
00:30it opens up some new curiosities or some new questions.
00:35And I've got those now that I want to know the answer to five different things
00:38when I go out there tomorrow.
00:39Number one, and this is the biggest thing that came out of OTAs with the availability.
00:44And it was kind of jarring when you got out there,
00:47which was Jalen Thompson was not practicing and nobody has said he was hurt.
00:50But he was out there with the rehab group the entire time.
00:53In fact, he was asked, shoddy was beforehand.
00:55I'm like, who are we not going to see out there today?
00:58And shoddy goes, well, you won't see easy.
01:02Duran's going to be on the resistance bands.
01:05You know, those are just the two that come to mind for me, I guess, right now.
01:08It's like, oh, so the top guy you got in free agency,
01:11the one you've spent the most,
01:12that's the most money they've ever spent on a player in outside free agency
01:15and annual value.
01:17Yeah, because we're not counting Gary.
01:18And he's supposed to be like starting on defense for you.
01:21Like, he's like one of your big chips.
01:23And you just, I don't think you forgot.
01:25I think you're just like, ah, this will be funny.
01:26I won't tell him.
01:27Then they'll go out there and they'll be confused as to why he's not out there.
01:29So hopefully we find out.
01:30He didn't want to reveal something.
01:32Yeah.
01:32No, but I mean, he knew that as soon as we saw him on the cords, we would ask.
01:35So it was like, oh, cool.
01:36I don't have to answer right now.
01:37I can wait till Tuesday to answer this.
01:38But it'll be interesting to see in the press conference.
01:41First off, what shot he has to say about why was he not out there.
01:45And then the second aspect of it will be, is he doing anything out there?
01:48Or is he just, is he dealing with some sort of surgery?
01:50Or did something happen?
01:51So that was a little bit concerning to go out there and see because it was like, all right,
01:54that's one of the main guys you were hoping to come out here and look at and see what
01:58he was going to contribute or how he was lining up.
02:01All right.
02:01The next one here, number two, things I'm wanting to get answers to when we go out to Cowboys
02:06OTAs tomorrow.
02:07Duran Bland.
02:09So side to the injury.
02:10Last week, shot, he said that we will see progression while we're out there, that he's
02:15not going to be just like, it's not like a concern thing.
02:18It's this is the natural part of ramp up.
02:19Not on the shelf till Oxnard.
02:21Yeah.
02:21And you'll see him do a little bit more as he goes along.
02:24And so it's like, okay, well, then I need to see a little bit more because last year
02:27it was, yeah, Revel will do a little bit more.
02:30He's going to, you're going to see him out there in Oxnard.
02:32Uh, you know, probably next week he'll be right.
02:33And it just, it kept regressing.
02:35And then it was like, okay, this is, this is clearly not a match.
02:38His father give us the real updates on G-Bag.
02:40Yeah, that's all we need.
02:41So we got to get close with Duran Bland's dad.
02:43Um, this was, we actually had played this audio last week, this one clip.
02:48I didn't end up doing the whole thing, Sean, but I did play the one clip of Braylon Tatum,
02:52the Cowboys sports science guy, where he was talking about that the way they come up with
02:56their injury timelines is specifically related to, we measure them like physically, how their
03:03muscles are firing and everything like that.
03:04They're measured at what they were at before they got hurt.
03:07And we have to see them ramp back up to where they were.
03:09If they're below their strength or their muscles are not reacting the right way, then that
03:13is what causes the timeline to change a lot of times.
03:16It's not necessarily a, does Britt Brown think he's ready?
03:19It's more along the lines of, does data say he's not physically even there yet?
03:23Packers had like this automatic team, um, guideline for Micah's injury.
03:30Oh yeah.
03:31The one where he's got to miss minimum, but like for six weeks or whatever, that's it.
03:35Like it's done.
03:36Like it's team policy.
03:37Yeah.
03:37Whereas the chiefs are just like, screw it.
03:39Like throw him back out there.
03:40Like, like we'll throw you back out there.
03:41That's crazy.
03:42If you just posted bond too, like we can do that.
03:44Uh, all right.
03:45Number three on the five things that I am looking forward to finding out tomorrow.
03:50I want to see if, if this was, cause this was the biggest thing that stood out to me
03:54from like a player perspective while we were out there.
03:56We obviously have heard Caleb Downs, man.
03:59He's such a leader and he's so smart and we know all those things.
04:02I did not expect to hear him talking.
04:05Like a lot of times guys are not loud.
04:07They'll joke or whatever, but there's not usually a lot of barking out instructions or direction.
04:13And if it is, it's almost always from a veteran.
04:16And in this instance, it was Caleb Downs was like, Hey, no, no, no.
04:20Step back.
04:21You're supposed to be like, he was very clearly on top of, I'm supposed to be doing this and
04:24everybody else is supposed to be doing this and like when a coach would step away or was
04:28doing something over here, working with another guy, then Caleb was like keeping everybody
04:31on top of things.
04:31That was, I was so bummed a couple of years ago when they didn't take Trayvon Merig out
04:36of TCU.
04:37Uh, he ended up going to the Raiders to pick before them.
04:40And that was the thing that was really cool to watch with him when he was training before
04:43the draft.
04:44They had a Jeremiah Owosu-Koromora who was also working out there.
04:48The guy who ended up with the Browns and he was considered this like hybrid linebacker safety
04:52guy who was a linebacker, but his size was a safety is what they thought he should be.
04:56So he was working out with the DBs and the DB coach was telling everybody, Hey, we're
05:00going to have to start with day one stuff today because JOK just got here and we got to teach
05:04him those steps.
05:05And Merig was like, y'all don't need to fall behind.
05:08I know the drills.
05:10I'll run him through him.
05:10And like Merig took him off to the side and got him all caught up.
05:14And that is what, like, I got that same sort of feeling watching Downs out there where he
05:18was completely comfortable.
05:20It didn't come off in any sort of like a know-it-all way or like your boss and people
05:24around.
05:24It very much came across like, oh, he knows.
05:26Caleb knows.
05:27I'll just listen to whatever Caleb says I need to do, which I thought was really cool.
05:29So I'll be interested to see if I see some more of that.
05:32And the last two things.
05:33And Caleb was on the Amon Ross St.
05:36Brown podcast and he said his mother, she needs to play 20-0, the 82-0 NFL equivalent.
05:45There's another website that has jumped on it to kind of confuse you, by the way.
05:48There's a couple 20-0s.
05:51But his mom apparently needs to play that because she was dogging him over his number.
05:55My mom literally said this to me the other day.
05:57She was like, I've never seen anybody wear 13 and it'd be a good player.
06:01I'm like, well, first off, you're hating.
06:03Second off, you're still going to wear the number because I'm wearing it.
06:06So it doesn't really matter what it is.
06:0813 is not a bad number.
06:09I just feel like it's an offensive number, you know?
06:11Then it'll be on defense.
06:13Dan Marino rolling in his grave.
06:14Yeah.
06:15In fact, I got to look here.
06:16I got to see, okay, I guess Gary Downs never played with Dan Marino.
06:20I was trying to see, like, did your husband play with Dan Marino?
06:22Because that would be hilarious if you said you didn't see him.
06:24But no, Giants.
06:26So I think Kent Graham wore 13 at one point.
06:28So that was probably, she's probably just been exposed to really some awful Giants quarterbacks
06:32is the problem.
06:33Yeah.
06:34But I do like that she's just telling him that straight, like, dude, the 13 sucks.
06:38What are you doing wearing that number?
06:39All right.
06:39Next one here.
06:40The things I'm looking forward to getting answers to at OTAs tomorrow.
06:44Where is Brian Schottenheimer?
06:47So you listened to Shottie's press conference last week, and he was talking about the amount
06:52of time he spends with the defense.
06:54And it sounded like he, one of his priorities, I guess, or one of the things that he wanted
06:59to do was he wanted to make sure he was spending more time over there.
07:01And he wasn't just, like, watching the offense and be like, I coach this side, you coach that
07:05side.
07:06So he had talked about, it sounded like he wanted to be more involved over there.
07:10And when they split up the offense and the defense, they have these, like, bags that
07:14they put on either side of the field.
07:15And the guys just doing warmups to start will, like, jog over the bags or whatever.
07:19And the coaches stand over them, like, come on, come on, get through it quick.
07:22They're just, like, talking them through it and trying to hype them up.
07:25And Schottie spent the entire time through all those drills.
07:28He spent it next to Christian Parker talking to the defense.
07:31And they just had Clayton controlling the offense.
07:33And there were a few different times where Christian Parker would be kind of standing
07:37in the middle of the field.
07:37He doesn't, like, lord over any one position group.
07:40He just kind of likes to stand in the middle and check in with coaches.
07:43Schottie was with him a lot.
07:44And it seemed like with him in a, do you have any questions?
07:47Are there anything, like, about practice schedule you're trying to figure out or anything?
07:50It just seemed like he was there as a sounding board.
07:52So I'll be interested to see if that was just something for Schottie,
07:55wanting to get more comfortable on the defensive side of the ball,
07:57or if he was there just kind of training wheels, essentially.
08:01Let's make sure Christian's comfortable and ready to go.
08:03And then I'll go back over to my side.
08:06And then the final one.
08:07This would have been number one last week.
08:08But it kind of pushes down the list a little bit.
08:11Is George Pickens going to surprise anybody?
08:14I don't believe he will.
08:15Like, he will probably show up next week or whenever it is when they've got the minicamp.
08:20But I'll be interested to see if, for some reason, he would pop up.
08:24Because that was a big thing with Michael last year.
08:26When Michael was doing that holdout, I don't know if people remember,
08:28he put a helmet on and did drills in one of those practices when he was not supposed to.
08:33Or when I think the recommendation was for him not to do that.
08:37Now, Sean, you were last week, one of your big things you wanted to see was Malachi Lawrence,
08:42who I did not really notice last week.
08:44But it's kind of hard to notice in the drills that they're doing.
08:47But we played this audio earlier.
08:48We played some of the audio earlier from Ross Winschey, the Cowboy Scout,
08:52going on Crown Global Media with Brian and Votch.
08:55And this is cut 31, Jacob.
08:58This is Ross Winschey, the Cowboys National Scout,
09:01talking about the process of becoming aware of Malachi Lawrence
09:05and just in general his excitement about him as a player.
09:07You grade all your fall guys or whatever.
09:10And then you open up your assignment list and there's 70, 80 guys you've got to watch.
09:14That's just film.
09:15And so I'm working through.
09:16I usually go by position.
09:18So I'm corners, edges, whatever.
09:20And so I'm working through my edges.
09:21I see this Central Florida guy.
09:23And within a couple plays, I'm like, holy s***.
09:25And so I hit up Eric and CV.
09:29And I'm just like, who is this guy?
09:30He's one that excites you early just because you see the movement ability
09:34and the play style.
09:35And you can tell there's some rawness to him.
09:37But like you said, there's instincts.
09:40It's like the leverage angles, the ability to lean and finish.
09:44And then it's fun to watch with bringing in BT,
09:49it's fun to watch him just talk pass rush.
09:52But Malachi has clicked with him.
09:53And there's just some small, subtle things that he just picks up on
09:57of weight distribution in your stance.
09:59Just something like that where you're just cleaning him up,
10:02making him more efficient.
10:03And it's just small, simple things where he gets and he looks confident.
10:08He's going to be really fun.
10:10That's one of the reasons the Cowboys are so high on his upside is because
10:13they're like, he looks so good without having a lot of the stuff cleaned up
10:18for him yet because he probably just hasn't gotten in with somebody who's
10:20really drilled down on technique and knows how to, like you just said there,
10:23just even stance, his stance to make him more fluid in the way that he rushes
10:27and make him more efficient.
10:30But he's a guy who I think there's just the fact that he mentioned their
10:34instincts, that's so critical.
10:36They drafted Charles Tapper years ago.
10:38Charles Tapper was an athletic freak.
10:39Charles Tapper had a lot of stuff that made you say,
10:41that guy's going to be a great pass rusher.
10:42Cowboys felt like he just had no natural instincts playing football.
10:46When they got it, they were like, damn, he just doesn't have a feel for it.
10:49That is almost a bigger killer if you just don't have natural instincts
10:53than if you're the most unathletic player on the field.
10:56So the fact that they've got a good feel for Malachi Lawrence,
10:59being able to have a sense of how he's supposed to play and what he's
11:01supposed to do and that they think it's just time on task is probably a good
11:06feeling for the kind of upside that he has.
11:08So OTAs tomorrow.
11:09Yep.
11:10Bobby Belt will be there.
11:11Other morning shows in the Metroplex and other shows do not have that same
11:16presence.
11:17He is our Cowboys insider here on Sean and RJ.
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