John Owning of Pro Football Focus joined the GBag Nation to talk about what he's been seeing at Cowboys camp so far, his thoughts on the team signing DE Carl Lawson & trading for DT Jordan Phillips, if he'd pay Dak Prescott $60m a season and more.
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00John, it's a big day for you, man.
00:17Carl Lawson is finally a Dallas Cowboy.
00:20You have been dreaming about this moment for many, many years, and I just want to say congratulations.
00:26This has happened.
00:27How pumped are you that the Cowboys made this signing?
00:31I'm very excited.
00:32Very, very excited.
00:33Especially, you know, given the fact that he worked out with the team a couple weeks
00:36ago and they didn't make that sign.
00:37They didn't sign him then.
00:39From everything that I heard, it came down to kind of a money thing where Tony and AQM,
00:44or Al-Quadi Muhammad, were a little bit cheaper, and they were going to see if they were able
00:50to solve their issues with kind of the cheaper route.
00:52And once they saw that Shaka Tony, with his groin injury, and Al-Quadi Muhammad just aren't
00:58performing up to snuff to be able to replace the production that, you know, Sam Williams
01:03left, Dante Fowler left, I think that made them decide that they wanted to go get someone
01:08that was maybe a little bit more expensive to help their edge depth, especially.
01:14I think he, when healthy, has proven to be a very effective pass rusher off the edge.
01:20I think he's someone who has familiarity with the scheme dating back to his time in Cincinnati.
01:24He didn't play under Mike Zimmer, but he did play under Paul Gunther, so I think the Cowboys
01:28are very aware of the skill set that he has and the things that he can bring to this scheme
01:33and this defense.
01:34So, I'm very excited.
01:35I think he's someone who can kind of play in that Dante Fowler role that they had last
01:40year, a guy that can be a really effective pass rush specialist for them, who can be
01:45efficient on pass rush downs, third downs, two-minute situations, those type of situations
01:51where you need to generate as much pressure on opposing quarterbacks as possible, and
01:55that's something that, when he's been healthy, Carl Lawson has been able to do throughout his career.
01:59They also bring in big Jordan Phillips as well to bolster up the D-line and the run-stopping.
02:06What do you make of this Zimmer defense?
02:08Do you feel like this has the potential to be better than the defense that Dan Quinn
02:12was bringing to stadiums every Sunday?
02:16I definitely think so.
02:17I think where Dan Quinn was so good at the motivation factor and things like that and
02:23getting his players to play fast, I think Zim is going to bring kind of the scheme element
02:28into it, and he's going to be able to kind of play chess with the opposing offensive
02:33coordinators where Quinn kind of didn't.
02:35We saw that Quinn has kind of had trouble with the Shanahan and McVeigh kind of coaching
02:39trees, those teams that use a lot of play action, use a ton of motion at the snap, a
02:43ton of shifts, give your offense a ton of eye candy, and they try to exploit the weaknesses
02:49in your zones and your communication and those type of things.
02:54And I think Zimmer does a much better job of establishing orders of operations for going
02:59against motion.
03:00I think that's a big thing we've all noticed with the Zimmer scheme during the preseason
03:04and when we were down in training camp is that the Cowboys are handling motion much
03:08more effectively.
03:09They have definitive things.
03:12The one thing that I keep harping on is that they're keeping the math in their advantage.
03:19So much about playing defense, especially coverage-wise, is you want to have the math
03:24advantage.
03:25And by that, I mean you want to have, if they have two receivers to one side, you want to
03:28be able to have three coverage defenders to that side, so you have three over two.
03:32Or if they have three receivers on that side, you have four over three.
03:36And when teams created motion last year, that would kind of mess with the math of the Dan
03:40Quinn defense.
03:41They didn't do a good job of when they would be static, they would be three over two on
03:46one side.
03:47But when they motioned one receiver over to create a three receiver side, it would kind
03:50of be a three over three, and you'd get an only man-on-man situation, and if everybody
03:55is not perfect, you can get exploited, especially if you don't generate pressure on the opposing
03:59quarterback.
04:00And that was kind of something that became an issue for the Cowboys, I believe, last
04:04year when teams were putting a ton of emphasis on slowing down Micah Parsons and no one else
04:10was really getting home consistently.
04:12They were able to exploit the Cowboys through the air, and I think that's something that
04:17Mike Zimmer is going to do.
04:18He's not going to allow offenses to exploit the math.
04:21He's going to always be able to keep things three over two, four over three, keep that
04:26math advantage for the Cowboys defense, and that's going to allow them to, I think, have
04:30more success against these more cutting-edge offenses that they're going to see, you know,
04:35the Shanahan's, the McVeigh's, the LaFleur's of the world.