NFL insider Mark Schlereth joined the GBag Nation to discuss the Cowboys getting out-physicalled by the New Orleans Saints, the Shanahan coaching tree, why the Baltimore Ravens are 0-2 going into Week 3 again Dallas and more.
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00And a good afternoon, Mark. How the heck are you?
00:18I'm doing great. How are you guys doing? We're doing pretty good. You know, that one
00:22hurt a little bit. We're doing Trappy Stink. We just got our heads kicked in, bro.
00:26We crapped in our helmet again, Stink. Yeah, yeah, you certainly did. Listen,
00:32you know what? I said this on Breakfast Ball, the show here I do in New York. I've said it
00:39on my podcast. You know, I predicted the Saints going in there and beating the Cowboys.
00:47They're a physical freaking group, man. They're a physical football team. And it's so funny. I just
00:54got done doing an interview in Chicago, and it's amazing how you build a football team.
01:01And, you know, Chicago has built it from the outside in. Like, hey, we got so many, like,
01:08we got, you know, we got Keenan Allen, and we got DJ Moore, and now we got Roma Doomsday,
01:13and we got, you know, a tight end in Comed, and we got a running back in Swift, and like,
01:17we're going to be unstoppable. We got all these weapons. Well, guess what? You can't block anybody.
01:22Last Sunday night against Houston, 37 dropbacks by the quarterback, Caleb William, 36 pressures.
01:29So you do the math. Like, how's all that, how's all that weaponry doing as you're kicking field
01:34goals? Let me ask you that. So it's really interesting when you put a team together
01:40that can absolutely dominate a lot of scrimmage, and how it just basically beats the will out of
01:47you. And, like, one thing I would tell you is, you know, watching that game, and it's humiliating
01:52getting physically whooped at a line of scrimmage and physically just beat down. How do you respond
01:57to that? And the answer for the Cowboys is they had no response to that because they could not
02:02match the physicality of the Saints. And that's concerning. Like, because that's on film, that
02:08shows. And then you just start saying, well, hey, listen, guys, we might not be able to out-talent
02:13the right receiving corps. We may not be able to out-talent them, but we can beat them up. And
02:19that's going to be a recipe until they solve it. Like, every team's going to come in there
02:23and try to physically wear them out. So how do you become a physical team?
02:29Well, you've got to have the right players, obviously. I mean, that's probably the biggest
02:32thing. You've got to have the right players. And then you've got to have a dedication to it.
02:39It's got to become your identity. It's got to become what you do, who you are, and the way you
02:44go about handling your business. And so it's one of those things that you just come out and say,
02:49this is who we're going to be, and this is how we're going to work on it. And this is the way
02:54we're going to play the game. Now, unfortunately, listen, it's really hard to work on those things
02:59because, you know, I don't know, in a physical contact sport and, you know, where technique
03:06and coming off the ball and creating leverage and all that stuff is really important. We're
03:11no longer allowed in this league to practice. Like, we're no longer allowed to hit people in
03:16practice. And so it's really, if you don't have it, and it's not something you did in training camp,
03:23and it's not really how you're built or who you are, it's really hard to have that happen.
03:29You know, it's funny. I was calling a game in Detroit last year, and Roger Goodell came up to
03:34me and he said, Hey, Stink, how's it, you know, like, how's it going Stinky? He goes, you know,
03:38at this point, like all, like we had so many quarterbacks miss games. I think it was 68
03:43games missed by starting quarterbacks in the league or something at this point is what are
03:47we going to do about all these quarterbacks missing, you know, missing games. And I go,
03:51well, I don't know, Roger, you know what I mean? If you keep legislating contact out of a contact
03:55sport and you don't get to work on it as an offensive line anymore. And you like, you don't
03:59think there's a cause and effect of guys getting hurt at the quarterback position. I mean, come on,
04:05you can't work on it. You can't block people. You don't know how to block people. And now we
04:09wonder why the quarterbacks are getting hit and getting hurt. I mean, it's, it's silly to me,
04:14the way we operate as a league, but yeah, once, you know, once that shifts sell, it's hard to,
04:19it's, it's hard to all of a sudden go, okay, now we're going to be physical. Well,
04:23when are you going to work on it? I don't know.