2025 Season | Week 14 | Gameday Chatter Thread | Dallas Cowboys @ Detroit Lions | 12/4/25

Simpleton said:

The fact that he's still playing over Wilson seems...not great, for us or Wilson.

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I will reiterate….this is Murray’s 3rd team in 4 years .. there’s a reason why he hasn’t been signed to a multi year deal …..but Jerry saw something in him .. I don’t what.. but he saw something

The OTs on this team are horrific. Any talk of elite offense can stop with them. Both need constant help or basic JAGS can blow by them easily.

And Pickens attitude and play is a huge alarm going off. I don’t know if you can keep him after that bullshit.

SaveAHorseRideACowboy said:

Jerry saw something in him .. I don’t what.. but he saw something

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Tank the season. Rip the band-aid off

Rev said:

They say the best ability of a football player is availability

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And "they" are fucking idiots because I'm available. Do "they" want to sign me to play LT for their team?

You know who else is always available? Terrence Steele -- and I can't wait till we send that asshole packing.

That's such a stupid phrase and I'm surprised something that dumb caught on.

Huge props to Flo for, looking at box score, trying his best to make up for Pickens no show and Lambs injury.

Rev said:

I agree but Im not counting on Guyton. They say the best ability of a football player is availability and he misses games. Top that off with dumb play and Im not sure we shouldn't be looking at OT (again) high in the draft.

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I really, really hate saying this but if the OT's look more or less the same over the last 4 games as they have over the first 13 I think there is a very strong argument to consider OT with either of our two 1's, especially if we end up in the 15ish range as I expect.

If your boy Bailey is there when we pick it's a no-brainer, but if he's gone and either Fano or Mauigoa (both RT's) are on the board there is a very real possibility that they are the BPA.

Throw in the fact that Steele is eating up a huge chunk of cap space for nothing, and Guyton's inconsistencies, and I think you could easily argue for clearing Steele's contract with a BPA RT pick in the first and hoping Guyton can improve to "average-ish" at LT.

I really would not love it given the situation on defense but if the BPA plays a position that is also one of the weakest on the team, what can you do?

As far as Eberflus replacements go, I still generally believe in former HC's who were good DC's but just didn't cut it as HC's.

With that in mind I'd be more than happy with someone like Raheem Morris, Gannon, Schwartz, or maybe even Leslie Frazier.

But if the defense ends the year looking more like they did over the last 3 games than last night, am I rolling the dice on a random position coach over hoping Eberflus can figure it out in year 2 with some more talent?

That's where I'm iffy.

Simpleton said:

Schwartz

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Do it for booze.

1st Quarter TDs through 13 games:

Cowboys 4
Opponents 12

Random Thoughts:

-I believe historically most of Klayton Adams' expertise is in the run game, and I think he's done a great job there, but there are certain games (mostly on the road) where you can just tell early on that the OL approach to the game is off, and that was last night. I do think a big part of the pass protection issues are the fact that Dak can manipulate it much more at home vs. the road, and Dak has been amazing at covering up pass pro fuck up's by the OL this year.
-Logan Wilson played 26 snaps to Murray's 36, and Murray seems to be getting worse. He literally has no idea how to take angles to the ball and instead of attacking the ball he just retreats and engages with an OL downfield for who knows what reason. But the fact that Wilson can't even outsnap him at this point probably means they're both gone next year. LB is arguably the biggest need on defense for me.
-Revel was shit but you had to expect something like that at some point. I'm still optimistic about him overall, just the fact that he's able to play this many snaps without looking completely out of place is something, especially since I don't think he's truly 100% back physically.
-Even though Thomas was horrific I still think he's a big hit as a 7th rounder in that he's a very reliable swing OT, he just doesn't look like a future starter as we hoped.
-This is the blessing and the curse on Pickens, you know he's immature and could do dumb shit at any given time, but he also might be a top 5ish WR in the league and blends perfectly with Lamb. I'd consider moving him for a 1 but to me the only two options are: 1. Franchise to extend him and 2. Trade him for a 1 in a decent WR class, nothing else.
-Dak was great overall, it's a shame 95% of the rest of the team shit themselves.
-Schottenheimer's red zone play-calling is a bit predictable, in back to back weeks we saw a screen to Williams, and at least 2-3 times a game you'll see a Dak bootleg to the right that has barely worked in weeks. The Spann-Ford TD vs. Philly was a broken play basically.

Chocolate Lab said:

Do it for booze.

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He's a really good DC, maybe he's cooked, but I'd roll the dice on him over Eberflus.

Smitty said:

But Schotty was already the OC?

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Not sure what you're saying... When you get a new head coach, he usually gets to hire his people to work for him, right?

It sounds like they wanted almost a Switzer situation where the OC and DC are already hired for him.

Simpleton said:

He's a really good DC, maybe he's cooked, but I'd roll the dice on him over Eberflus.

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Absolutely.

I've said it 100 times, I don't see what Eberflus brings. He had a couple of pretty good defenses at Indy - not even great ones - and that's all he's ever done. He has the personality of a manilla envelope and loves super soft coverage. No idea why the Jones Boys love him.

On Schottenheimer - I think he's done a really good job with the offensive design. I love the play action, I think the run game in general is imaginative and he deserves lots of credit for identifying/hiring Adams, and overall I think our offense actually resembles the modern stuff we've been wanting for years.

He also seems to be pretty decent at galvanizing the guys with his rah-rah BS, but it's impossible to ignore how sloppy the offense in particular has been in terms of focus/ball security.

Think about this - since just the Arizona game (the last 5 games) we've had: 1. Ferguson losing a fumble vs. AZ in FG range unnecessarily fighting for yards, 2. Ferguson fumbling out of bounds against the Eagles with about 1:30 left in the 4th, 3. Pickens fumbling inside the 10 against KC with about 4 minutes left when we were about to make it a two score game, 4. Ferguson fumbling last night in fringe FG range fighting for more yards, 5. Pickens fumbling on the 2-yard line fighting for a TD despite being surrounded by literally 4 Lions players, 6. Turpin tripping over his own two feet and fumbling off the ground vs. Philly.

A top tier HC would never allow shit like this to continue, throw in the obscene amount of offensive penalties (often many that are procedural like Guyton's false starts inside the 5) and the very lackluster ST play overall, and I think it's really bad when you take a step back.

It's these sorts of under the radar, "hidden" facets of the game that elite HC's like Parcells would obsess over, and I bet Schottenheimer's dad would as well.

Instead we got this fucking guy letting these idiots butterfinger the fucking ball every game for two months.

It was crazy how bad we lost field position last night. I can't remember it being like that. Lions started every drive minimum 40 yard line. Every one. Kick coverage has to be better.

Look at this in terms of skill position fumbles (excluding QB fumbles since they're usually outliers given strip sacks, scrambles, etc.):

Pickens (4), Ferguson (3), J. Williams (2), Turpin (1), Sanders (1), Blue (1) - that's 12 fucking fumbles from skill position players, many of which you could argue may have straight up cost us games.

I just picked a few random playoff-ish teams who I wouldn't consider "elite" to compare:

Bears - 4
Panthers - 7
Packers - 6
Jagurs - 4
Bucs - 3
Colts - 4
Chargers - 7
Eagles - 4

I've said many times that I don't think our defense is good enough for a deep playoff run right now so making the playoffs isn't a huge thing for me, but this is the sort of shit that costs you playoff appearances, playoff games, making the NFCC vs. flaming out in the divisional, etc.

That's 25% of the league overall, none of whom I would consider elite teams or teams with elite HC's, and they're averaging about 4-5 non-QB fumbles while we having fucking 12.

That's the HC not cracking the whip and letting shit slide.

Chocolate Lab said:

Absolutely.

I've said it 100 times, I don't see what Eberflus brings. He had a couple of pretty good defenses at Indy - /not even great ones - and that's all he's ever done. He has the personality of a manilla envelope and loves super soft coverage. No idea why the Jones Boys love him.

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He had the worst game plan for the Lions I could have ever imagined. It was vanilla 4 man pass rush and soft coverage all night long. The way to stop Goff is to get in his fact, and we continually didn't try to do that at all. Meanwhile backup safeties are covering speedy receivers on crossing routes. Like are you retarded or do you just not care?

Tony D said:

It was crazy how bad we lost field position last night. I can't remember it being like that. Lions started every drive minimum 40 yard line. Every one. Kick coverage has to be better.

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Our kicker coverages are just fucking awful. Its like we teach our guys to take on blocks instead of getting past guys. No one is flying to make a play. Its just gross.

As far as McCarthy goes - I think he's a better "walk around HC" than Schottenheimer for sure, but he deserves plenty of blame for being egotistical and not letting Schottenheimer have full offensive control (including OL play, i.e. McCarthy's buddy Solari as the OL coach).

That's on top of the egregious GB playoff game, which was an immediately fireable offense on its own.