2025 Season | Week 11 | Gameday Chatter Thread | Dallas Cowboys @ Las Vegas Raiders | 11/17/2025

[Smitty]

Don't get me wrong I know the Raiders are bad at running the football. But holding Jeanty to like 1 YPC still feels damn good. I think this is a building blocks. No nothing to get excited about but a lot of new faces on defense are getting acclimated and looked good.

I actually think we have the DT building blocks to do something on defense. The secondary still feels shitty but they played way more aggressive tonight.

The problem is that it's building blocks yet the guys are fast approaching 30.

 

[Smitty]

Meh, you know, kinda for a minute, maybe, almost…

We’re the Helen Hunt of playoff contenders

Well said.

 

[Texas Ace]

Girl you know it's true

 

[Cowboysrock55]

The problem is that it's building blocks yet the guys are fast approaching 30.

27 year olds take offense to such comments.

Kenny Clark accepts your comment. But it's the NFL. As much as we all love the thought of a decade long player you just can't count on that in the NFL anymore. Rosters basically look totally different over the course of a couple years.

On a side note, sign Pickens. You want to complain about age. Kid is 24 years old.

 

[Smitty]

27 year olds take offense to such comments.

Kenny Clark accepts your comment. But it's the NFL. As much as we all love the thought of a decade long player you just can't count on that in the NFL anymore. Rosters basically look totally different over the course of a couple years.

On a side note, sign Pickens. You want to complain about age. Kid is 24 years old.

Yeah Pickens and Javonte.

Stop trading away any more picks. Sign your guys. Figure out a way. Make Dak take a pay cut.

Find a pass rusher with one of your firsts this year.

 

[ravidubey]

I think it's going to be playoff worthy next year if they do one God damn thing of note in FA next March.

Eagles’ trade with Miami at the deadline didn’t make the splash Dallas’s did, but was sneaky good as it built on top of an established base

By contrast, the Cowboys’ trade tried to establish a base.

 

[Cowboysrock55]

Yeah Pickens and Javonte.

Stop trading away any more picks. Sign your guys. Figure out a way. Make Dak take a pay cut.

Find a pass rusher with one of your firsts this year.

Yeah DT isn't going to get any better. EZ is looking pretty legit. Now go find a pass rusher to compliment him and I think you're cooking with fire. In an ideal world I'd nail pass rusher and LBer with the two first round picks. Keep Jevonte and Pickens. And just hope with the pressure and talent up front that guys like Bland, Carson and Revel can produce knowing the ball is coming out fast if at all. Safety is still a problem but we live on taking day three guys there.

 

[Simpleton]

Eagles’ trade with Miami at the deadline didn’t make the splash Dallas’s did, but was sneaky good as it built on top of an established base

By contrast, the Cowboys’ trade tried to establish a base.

Yea Phillips has been better than I thought, but on the other hand their offense is average at absolute best.

On the other hand Phillips is a FA at the end of the year and I don't think they can afford to re-sign him without losing other guys like Dean.

 

[Simpleton]

Yeah DT isn't going to get any better. EZ is looking pretty legit. Now go find a pass rusher to compliment him and I think you're cooking with fire. In an ideal world I'd nail pass rusher and LBer with the two first round picks. Keep Jevonte and Pickens. And just hope with the pressure and talent up front that guys like Bland, Carson and Revel can produce knowing the ball is coming out fast if at all. Safety is still a problem but we live on taking day three guys there.

Bailey with the first pick, CJ Allen or Sonny Styles with the second, you're welcome.

I also don't want to hear shit about how difficult it will be to sign Pickens, or how we should trade Osa or cut Clark or whatever to do so, they can easily sign him to a deal around 30/year without getting rid of anybody. It's just a matter of whether or not they have the will to do so.

 

[ravidubey]

Looks like Jerry’s publicly talking up Pickens

So it seems the plan is to hype up his price to get as high a comp pick as possible

 

[Cowboysrock55]

Yea Phillips has been better than I thought, but on the other hand their offense is average at absolute best.

Yeah I also think he is benefiting from scheme. I saw one of Phillips sacks this week and the announcers made it sound great. But they schemed it up where he basically ran right up field with almost no one blocking him.

I have to be careful though because he will probably eat Steele's lunch this week.

 

[ravidubey]

Yeah I also think he is benefiting from scheme. I saw one of Phillips sacks this week and the announcers made it sound great. But they schemed it up where he basically ran right up field with almost no one blocking him.

I have to be careful though because he will probably eat Steele's lunch this week.

Thing is the Eagles are built to make the edge position a revolving door. It’s smart (fuck). Better to lease than buy in that market

Their foundation and long term cap dollars are in the middle

 

[Cowboysrock55]

Looks like Jerry’s publicly talking up Pickens

So it seems the plan is to hype up his price to get as high a comp pick as possible

The comp pick will be a third if he leaves. That's all there is to it.

I don't expect a discount on Pickens at all. But as a WR, isn't it a lot more fun playing with Dak than all the shit the Steelers rolled out at QB? I mean seriously, dude could be one of the top receivers in the NFL, is one of the top receivers right now, but you put him with Russell Wilson and he looks like a solid #2 receiver.

You can be an all world receiver but if your QB sucks, you're not going to look like it. You think AJ Brown is having much fun?

 

[Simpleton]

The comp pick will be a third if he leaves. That's all there is to it.

I don't expect a discount on Pickens at all. But as a WR, isn't it a lot more fun playing with Dak than all the shit the Steelers rolled out at QB? I mean seriously, dude could be one of the top receivers in the NFL, is one of the top receivers right now, but you put him with Russell Wilson and he looks like a solid #2 receiver.

You can be an all world receiver but if your QB sucks, you're not going to look like it. You think AJ Brown is having much fun?

There's only two viable scenarios for me, pay him what he wants or franchise him and hunt a 1st rounder in a deal, or franchise him to buy a little time to pay him I guess.

But there's no world where he should be walking for the 100th pick in the 2027 draft.

 

[Simpleton]

I don't think the Williams performance can be emphasized enough.

5 QB hits, a career high, and 1.5 sacks, more than he had in 8 games or whatever with the Jets over the first half of the year. Parsons has only had 5+ QB hits five times in his career, Chris Jones only four times in basically a decade, and this guy does it in his very first game here.

And in only 33 snaps.

The storyline for him this year was that his run defense took a leap, I believe PFF had him as the top ranked DT vs. the run (for what that's worth), while his pass rush might have dropped a bit compared to years past.

In reality I think you were just seeing the result of him playing on a team that was constantly down, and usually big, and playing offenses that could pick and choose when they would pass without pressing and opening up clear pass rushing opportunities. He probably looked dominant vs. the run because that's what he was seeing the most of, without many ideal pass rush chances given the Jets have been down 2+ scores for probably about half the season.

So if we're getting one of the best run-stuffing DT's in the league, plus that sort of a pass rusher, we could be looking at a Chris Jones-level player in his prime for the next 2-3 years.

 

[Cowboysrock55]

So if we're getting one of the best run-stuffing DT's in the league, plus that sort of a pass rusher, we could be looking at a Chris Jones-level player in his prime for the next 2-3 years.

You really saw what he can do for guys like Osa and Clark as well. When you have a guy like Williams inside just punishing Olineman it makes the jobs of other guys that much easier. Suddenly Clark isn't seeing a double team on every play. Olineman are playing reactive instead of proactive. It just changes everything inside for that group to have an elite talent there.

 

[Chocolate Lab]

You can't underestimate how much playing for a wreck like the Jets can suck the life out of you.

Plus he talked about how much he's admired Kenny Clark for years, and now he's playing next to him.

It's very possible we get the best version of Williams yet.

 

[Simpleton]

You really saw what he can do for guys like Osa and Clark as well. When you have a guy like Williams inside just punishing Olineman it makes the jobs of other guys that much easier. Suddenly Clark isn't seeing a double team on every play. Olineman are playing reactive instead of proactive. It just changes everything inside for that group to have an elite talent there.

Yes, I think we've more or less recovered the sort of impact Parsons had on the defense, just in a slightly different way, with a slightly older player (at a cheaper price) while adding a bit of draft capital plus Clark.

It just sucks that it took half a season to do so, which more or less knocked us out of any sort of contention opportunity.

I also don't see any reason to get rid of Osa, he's kind of like Parsons in that he's best used as a dedicated pass rusher due to his lack of size. Obviously that's not ideal given his contract but I don't think it's terrible either, and he sort of helps tie things together with his upfield ability.

Over the next year or two Clark will probably slow down slightly and become less of a pass rusher and more of a full-time run clogger, which is where Osa's pass rush will be valuable.

 

[Genghis Khan]

Looks like Jerry’s publicly talking up Pickens

So it seems the plan is to hype up his price to get as high a comp pick as possible

I don't see why that stands to reason. I don't think Jerry thinks that way.

 

[Genghis Khan]

I have to be careful though because he will probably eat Steele's lunch this week.

Definitely.

As an aside, I like how they said this week that RT would be an open competition and then proceeded to just go business as usual.