Cowboys 2 Holes to Fill As Training Camp Looms
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00:00Some of this depends on whether you're a glass is half full guy or a Dallas Cowboys glass
00:08is half empty guy.
00:09I'm Mike Fisher, your trusty and trusted reporter.
00:12This is the Mobile Fishbowl.
00:14That is the star.
00:15And as we get ready to head to Oxnard, we think we're facing two gigantic roster questions.
00:23That is to say, as we build our 53-man roster predictions, and you've done the same thing.
00:28By the way, we've written about that, talked about it.
00:30You can get more on our views at CowboysCountry.com on where the Cowboys are going with their
00:3553.
00:38There's two glaring weaknesses.
00:42And in one sense, if you're coming off 12-5, 12-5, and 12-5, playoff, playoff, playoff,
00:52and you didn't go out and spend your money on outside free agents at all, and you have
01:03only two glaring weaknesses, maybe that's glass is half full, maybe that's pretty good.
01:10There are plenty of teams that have more than that.
01:14I don't think, though, in the NFC East, I don't think the Eagles have more than that.
01:19And in the NFC, I don't think the 49ers have more than that.
01:24But you're where you are.
01:26You're trying to be competitive.
01:27A lot of people say, I'm not going to believe Jerry Jones' Super Bowl baloney this year.
01:32You know, if you look really closely, and I have, I think this is maybe the first time
01:39in 29 years, 30 years, that Jerry actually, I take it back, 34 years, that Jerry hasn't
01:52talked about the Super Bowl.
01:53He isn't talking about the Super Bowl, which I frankly think is quite telling.
01:57He's doing the all-in thing and all that silliness, but he's not talking about the Super Bowl.
02:03Maybe a lowered bar of expectations for whatever reason.
02:07Or maybe when we get to Oxnard here in a couple days, we're going to have a glory hole press
02:11conference and he's going to talk for 27 minutes about the Super Bowl.
02:14We'll see.
02:16Glass is half full.
02:18Two glaring weaknesses.
02:21Pretty good.
02:23One of them is running back.
02:25And the Cowboys are about to test, and if they're lucky, prove, you don't need an elite
02:33running back to be an elite offensive team, because this team does not have a 2024 elite
02:40running back.
02:41Ezekielia comes back here.
02:43Is that an admission that they made a mistake?
02:45No.
02:46It's not an admission that they made a mistake in releasing him.
02:49It's an admission that he's as good as they can grab now for the money.
02:54He is entering Oxnard.
02:59Cowboys running back starter 1A.
03:02Rico Doudle is RB 1B.
03:06Maybe he'll be a revelation.
03:07It's conceivable.
03:09He's been here a long time and because of injuries hasn't gotten a full chance to prove
03:13himself.
03:14Maybe, maybe he'll explode.
03:18Tony Pollard did.
03:20It's possible.
03:22And then we have, of course, Malik Davis, Deuce Vaughn, Freeman, and Hunter Lipke, among
03:33others.
03:34Hunter Lipke, of course, a fullback, so he's in another category.
03:36I think Hunter Lipke, as a special team player, might help his cause here.
03:42I know that a lot of people think that Deuce Vaughn, as the second kickoff returner, that
03:47his cause is about to be helped too, and may be.
03:50First of all, and we've talked about this before, but I think it's worth reinforcing.
03:55I'm not anti-Deuce Vaughn.
03:57He's a great kid.
03:58It's a cool story.
03:59At running back, what does he do better than anybody else?
04:02Does he have a thing he does at running back that you're going, oh, he's got to have that.
04:05He does not.
04:06Hey, let's have him play slot receiver.
04:08He can't do that better than the other guys who do it.
04:10Hey, what about second kickoff returner?
04:13We're going to carve out a whole roster spot for a second kickoff returner?
04:17We are going to see at training camp, Cowboys and others.
04:21And again, I've been to 39 of them.
04:26The Cowboys are going to spend more time on kickoff returns on special teams than this
04:33team has ever spent on such a thing, ever.
04:41They're going to try, and again, we've all seen some UFL film and they know all about
04:45it.
04:46They're going to try to use this new rule.
04:48They're trying to mimic what works there.
04:52And one idea is, hey, you need two kickoff returners, so Deuce.
04:55But you're going to hold a whole roster spot?
04:58Can't Malik Davis do that over there?
05:00Is Deuce Vaughn that brilliant, a kickoff returner, that we've got to give him a roster
05:04spot?
05:05Deuce Vaughn can't, I mean, Malik can't do that.
05:11You can't put, I don't know, Jalen Brooks can't do that?
05:15Somebody that also plays a position?
05:17So we shall see.
05:18But running back is a relative whole to the idea of Kareem Hunt and Cook and others.
05:33I stand by my belief that the Cowboys will give themselves 10 days and see what they
05:37have before they do anything there, before they even fly in a guy to Oxnard and look
05:42at him.
05:43I don't think in the first 10 days, my prediction would be, I think that what they have at RB1B
05:51in Dowdle is going to, to them, go, that's fine.
05:55It is a relative weakness on paper, a relative whole on paper.
05:59The other one, of course, it's no secret, defensive tackle.
06:03And they've invested in Mozzie Smith to solve this.
06:07And they're working on his eating and on his weight to get him right.
06:10And hey, we're going to teach him how to do what he does best and let him do what he
06:15does best.
06:16Under Mike Zimmer, those conversations that we've had with a friend of the show, Zim.
06:22It's a lot on Mozzie.
06:25It might be a lot on Carl Davis, too, behind him, the veteran journeyman.
06:31And a lot of us, when we're penciling our 53, are going, I guess Justin Rodgers will
06:36put that, Justin Rodgers is going to make the team and play?
06:40We're not talking about the Osa position now.
06:44Nope, no problem with Osa.
06:45We're talking about the nose tackle, the zero technique, the guy that's got to occupy blockers
06:53and help stop the run.
06:57Get into a gap.
06:58So two guys have to block you, thus freeing up Eric Kendricks and others to make tackles.
07:04That's the job.
07:05And Mozzie, to this point, has not done it very well.
07:07And frankly, last year, at nut cutting time, easier than anybody else.
07:12I think most of us thought that Jonathan Hankins would come back and that he should come back.
07:17Instead, he goes to Seattle and he doesn't get paid to go to Seattle.
07:20Maybe the Cowboys looked at this thing and go, you know, he didn't get it done either.
07:24So let's turn the page and go to the next.
07:27And maybe the kid Rodgers is part of the next, but Mozzie is a gigantic part of part of the
07:33next.
07:34Does John C. Goldston play inside and help as a run stopper, too?
07:40He's not he's not a nose tackle guy, but maybe he can help as a run stopper.
07:46Does the rookie defensive end Nealon?
07:48Can he lean inside?
07:50He's built like he can.
07:51We shall see.
07:52But there's your two holes.
07:57And I don't think where the Cowboys are at in in terms of our blow it up thesis, I don't
08:01think we're talking about, well, we got two holes.
08:03Let's just make two big trades.
08:04I don't think that's where we're at here.
08:06And I believe that you, Cowboy Nation, by the way, 71,000 fish heads in Cowboy Nation.
08:12Thank you for subscribing to what we do here on the Fish Report.
08:15And thank you for reading CowboysCountry.com.
08:18I think we all now have a reading on this.
08:21Maybe you get to the trade deadline and things are going so well that then you go, OK, now
08:25we'll shoot our wad.
08:27Let's shoot our shot now because we're we've shocked ourselves.
08:32We're even better than we thought we were.
08:34That's maybe.
08:35And of course, part of that will be the post week seven by gauntlet where you get a San
08:41Francisco, Atlanta, Philadelphia and Houston.
08:45That'll be part of that bundle as well.
08:49Are they going to fix running back at training camp with a new body?
08:53I don't think so.
08:55Are they going to fix their whole because Ezekiel, it all of a sudden looks like the
08:59old Zeke?
09:00I don't think so.
09:01Can they fix it?
09:02Because Rico becomes a step up guy and surprises a little bit.
09:09You know, Tony Pollard was a semi surprise.
09:12We knew that he was splash play guy.
09:14We didn't know that he would do things between the tackles, which that that first year when
09:18he's successful, he certainly did that.
09:20Maybe maybe Rico surprises that way.
09:23And then on defense, is Carl Davis going to surprise?
09:26No.
09:27He is what he is.
09:29Is Rogers the rookie going to surprise?
09:32That would not be a great bet.
09:34Are there helpers at run stopper?
09:37Sure.
09:39But not at nose tackle.
09:42This is just pivotal.
09:44Again, it speaks to the quality of the rest of the roster.
09:49That two four letter one name first name guys, you know, kind of like share.
09:59Frisco and Mozzie embody the two holes on the roster and ideally embody the answers
10:12in Frisco with the Cowboys fish out.