The Dumb Zone FREE - DZ 12-5-25 PREVIEW | Cowboys swallowed up by Lions as George Pickens returns to earth

Episode Date: December 5, 2025

Subscribe to hear the entire episode and to receive every episode of The Dumb Zone! DumbZone.com or Patreon.com/TheDumbZoneThe Cowboys couldn't hang with the Lions on Thursday Night Football. Dan thinks Schotty's lack of aggressiveness cost them and Jake explains why George Pickens continues to burn bright on both sides - the good and the bad ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Hey now, what you were about to hear is a free preview of one of this week's premium episodes of The Dumb Zone. If you would like to hear this program in full, along with the full archive, ah, shit. If you would like to hear this program in full with the archive of all of our past episodes, you can subscribe at Dumbzone.com. Well, and that's why I think it was a shoddy loss, because your defense, that was what was happening? And Shottie was settling for field goals throughout the game. And he even mentioned that a couple times throughout his press conference. I'd probably get that for you after the break because I marked the times.

I haven't cut it yet. But he would just refer to that. It's like we just can't be settling for field goals. Well, when some of that is on your decision to go for a field goal instead of, you know, going for a first down. I just thought they needed to be more aggressive. And I could really tell you, I really had a problem with the end of the first half, which you deferred.

You were going to have the wraparound and be able to score on one side of the half and then on the other side. And it turns out that because of their mistakes, they gave Detroit the wraparound, where they ended up scoring a field goal and then a touchdown. it was their Detroit is up 17 to 6

CD is Another big problem is losing CD in the middle of this game Or after the middle Yeah Because he was actually pretty incredible Throughout the first half It was totally a CD game It was whenever they needed to get out of this jam

They could find CD And of course when he's going like that That's going to leave Pickens in single coverage more often. And that's where the offense can really get cooking. Yeah, I mean, you know when CD's really locked in, when he knows it will tolerate, and by we, I guess I mean, Dak, him showing him up despite the fact that he's like a $60 million year player. So that happened right there when they get the ball down 17 to 6.

DAC, a mistake. Dak had a good game overall, but did have some mistakes. And this one, he did not throw a good ball. It was out of bounds. CD was open, and then CD made sure the world knew. This was Dak's fault, as he had to demonstratively point out there where you should have put the ball out there. And that comes with the CD dinner, right?

You're going to take it because he's pretty awesome. Dax a good leader. I'll put it like that. Yeah. So then back to the clock management. Now they get down, it's after the CD thing. It's third and 15 at the Detroit 5th, 48. There's a minute 13 on the clock.

He passed to Ferguson to the 36. Could have been the 35, or excuse me, the 37. So now you have fourth and three, a minute five on the clock. It looks like Dallas is. going to go for it. In fact, Dak really wanted to go for it and was quite pissed when he sees Brandon Aubrey jog out on the field. With on the play clock, not the game clock, the play clock is at 33 seconds here. It had just kind of reset. It's counting down a little bit. It looks like the team is

staying out on the field and they're going to go for it on a fourth down. So the play clock ticks down, ticks down. Now we send Aubrey out. Dan Campbell notices that immediately and calls a timeout at that second. So the play there, what you should have done, which is easier, number one, in retrospect, and number two, if you weren't also the play caller. And this is a thing where you put a first-year head coach in also as kind of the first-year play caller, and it's all happening so fast. what they should have done is what Shottie often does,

is let's send Dak out there to try to get an off-sides. Yeah, if there's any utility for that play at all. That is the spot. Yeah. So let's just get out. Let's try and draw them off sides. And then you bang that timeout, you have the timeouts with one second on the play clock. Dan Campbell is not about to call a timeout.

burn one of his timeouts if he thinks that you're going for it because then that would give you more time to then get down and score the touchdown. Sure. Yeah, he thinks clock's going to change after possession right here. So that was a major mistake, I think.

That is a very good point. And then Detroit ends up getting the ball. Detroit calls a timeout. Now there's 55 seconds on the clock. They get the ball back. They come down and kick their own field goal and that negates the whole we want to score before the end of the half.

So I do agree with you on the process there of the execution of the clock part of it. That is a great point. They love to run up and run that dummy encroachment call. Every time we do it, we get mad because they're like, that's not going to work. Everybody knows they're not going to do it. And it's a good point about the play calling too. Because I will tell you, and I feel like I have to be committed to this. I pretty much just go with the math.

And I am fairly certain that they're, you know, they have the same models, right? So they've got a guy, Ryan Fedder, their game management guy who's in Shottie's ear. And this feels like a time where I should say go for it. And your gut says go for it. But in the moment, I knew that the model said it's a push. and I was thinking you've got to get some points out of this and get to the break down

whatever it would have been one possession at that point you're getting the ball coming out you're great coming out of half I was just I was in favor of kicking it there I'm not against kicking it but the way they did it was a mess you have to account for all that

in a sense though if you are who you are and you are an aggressive team and guy you do go for it But that's not who Brian Schottenheimer is. It's not. The Lions had a weird punt in this game, too. I hope they don't get run off of it just because they'd missed a bunch of fourth downs. But also, I kind of think you're overreacting a little bit to the first half defense.

It wasn't pretty. They were missing tackles, but they still have a lot of good players. And they stopped two pretty good teams last couple of weeks. Now, some people would say, well, the Chiefs and Eagles suck right now. The Lions are actually humming pretty well. This is a real offense. But I would have been fine with him saying, let's re-rack. I bet we can get some stops in the second half.

We have been getting stops in the second half. Let's go for it. But as soon as you give that field goal up, man. If you were going to kick, though, you got to kick. Yeah, you can't leave the chance for. 25 more seconds off the clock easily. I think it was what Ted or TC said last night. This is just what Greg Olson's been saying.

that the field goals are too easy to get. So if you're going to take the field goal, you have to negate the idea that they can negate your field goal. And the only way to do that is to leave no time. Speaking of field goal is too easy to get. Now, they probably have lost the game anyway at this point. But I have another shoddy thing, which is at the end of the game.

And it's right after the very controversial Ferguson pass interference. Yeah, I thought it was OPI. Excuse me, a defensive pass interference in the moment. I guess the fact that they declined to the penalty, you know, it ended up having, you know, no impact on that in that sense. But I don't know. I'm so tired of the NFL and interference. Well, yes, that was a very difficult one.

They showed something from earlier before his like swim move where he kind of grabbed a jerk, like I thought that was a terrible call. I didn't even know if it was defensive, you know, even if you called it defensive, I would have said that's pretty touchy call there. Maybe, yeah. I think I leaned towards like, does that guy look beat? And that guy looked beat to me. But in any case, the incomplete pass.

It was an incomplete pass, and they declined it because that makes it fourth and three from the 11-yard line. There's 3-45 left. Amazon's AI is what we're going to refer to now. Herbie is like Amazon's AI tells us that, you need to score with 319 left. It's a cool stat. Have you heard of this, Blake? No.

Like they had to score by 319 to ensure now this also supposes your defense then gets a 3 and out. With the amount of timeouts you have, with a 3 and out, assuming they're just going to run the ball three times into the line, you need 319. Now they forgot, Amazon's AI, I forgot that Dan Campbell is on the other side of this,

and when they get the ball, they're just going to throw it down the field 20 yards on the first play and not care if it's an incomplete and stop the clock. Well, but, of course, it was a complete because the defensive backs of the Cowboys were shell-shocked by this time and playing soft and probably just sitting there thinking they're going to run the ball. Yeah.

And that caught him with their pants down and totally lost the game. But let's go back now. Pass interference happened. They decline it, so it's really not worth a lot of arguing about whether it was pass interference. Because it could have been third and 13, right? Or whatever.

Yeah, third and... Would that move you back 10 yards or 15? 10. 10, if it's offensive pass interference. But Dan Campbell, smartly, I don't want to give them two more shots at the end zone. So now your decision here, your thing is we got to score a touchdown and a field goal just to tie. Because I don't think Shottie is the kind of guy that goes for two and gets the win.

No, not yet. Although now's the time you do it. We have to get a touchdown and a field goal just a tie. And we're going to have to have a three and outs based on the AI model or whatever. So we're going to have to do a lot of things. The toughest thing, well, is either the three-and-out, but then the toughest thing on offense is going to be that touchdown. You're at the 11-yard line.

You are at the 11-yard line. And you have three yards to go for a first down. And Dak had been dealing. He's fine in Flannoy, Ferguson, picking. He's seen the whole field, and it feels like he's heated up to a point where Dak is being Dak. So your choice there, he kicks the field goal. goal.

Dak was mad. The choice is you kick in a, or I don't remember if Dak was mad at that one, you kick a field goal from the 11 and choose that I'm going to have to get a touchdown somehow like a 60-yard touchdown. Instead of the other way around is let's try to get a touchdown right here from the 11. And if those other things can work out, I can get a 60-yard field goal. that is not something I'm actually worried about but if you had chosen to do that and didn't get it you have lost the game with three minutes left

yeah instead of really you ended up losing the game with 310 left because once you hit the field goal and then they got that first first down it's over yeah so really it didn't delay it by that much You thought you were delayed I just thought that was a very weak play A very weak call

And it wasn't smart either You know It's one thing about oh I'm just being gutsy Or I'm going my gut I've got to feel for this game And I'm going for it because I feel like we're It wasn't even that It would have been both that

Like hey we're we're dealing right now We're moving the ball And smart Because it would be much more difficult To get that few you know, after they end up punning in this scenario, they're punning, you're now at your own 30 and you have to score a touchdown, and you have maybe 30 seconds on the clock. Yes, I completely agree.

I can't recall if we had arrived fully at this when we were live in the moment last night. We were definitely talking about it. And it is just, it's a classic extending the game. Which is a thing. I don't know how many coaches do that they coach for fear. Sure. You're risk averse. Yeah.

But it is interesting. I don't know that you see a lot of teams do it. I don't know that you see a lot of teams in that situation push for the touchdown. They definitely should. Well, you didn't used to see him go for it on fourth and one from the 50, you know? Yeah. Last night was a pretty. He ain't, I do things that I don't, he doesn't do anything innovative.

Yeah. There's nothing in the shoddy game that is like, wow, I can't believe he's bringing this to the table. Maybe he's added some more motion, but it's nothing innovative within the NFL. And you just need to look no further than the other sideline. And the type of innovation that they've had, they do things as a matter, of course. They're going to keep going forward on fourth down, small blip last night, but they're going to keep running crazy shit when their head coach or their coaches go get head coaching jobs elsewhere. Like they have a way of doing things.

shoddy will sometimes do some of those things but it's not part of an overall approach to doing things that way the model that I referenced before on the kick right before half that said it was a push did recommend go for it and the thing yeah that we kept coming back to last night was one it's only three yards and two you're at the 11 but just go back on third and three

they're throwing for the end zone they were never going for it on fourth down because if it's third and three I got Javante. I might run the ball right there. I might take a look at it. I might try to confuse them, kind of like when they came out, a couple of plays later,

and took a deep shot when you thought that they were going to try to milk the clock. I thought they were throwing it smartly because they didn't want the clock to keep running, right? I don't know. I mean, you can't run. There's still four minutes left in the game. I'm saying you just, I don't know, man.

That's why they were trying to, well, I thought maybe they're somewhat aware Detroit called a timeout after an incomplete pass on second down. Oh. So now it's third and three. They did get that ball back with 7-17, remember. The whole operation I'm saying was not like in some sort of we've got to score. This is touchdown time.

They were, you know, that stretch of the game was mismanaged. Even if they were moving the ball, they were never intending to go for the touchdown. And you could tell that as they were setting it up. That took a bad sack on that drive as well. but I mean they ended up getting down to the 11 so we don't even need to focus on that but it was after the Gibbs touchdown oh that's right yeah it's first down for no he saved him yeah he had time to get rid of it uh kind of was rolling left a little bit I mean just straight up if it's second and three from the 11 you're down 10 you have your timeouts you have an offensive coordinator and a coach you believe in like I guarantee

you chiefs fans think they're winning that if they had a you know you're not that So, yeah, they're definitely, and then you add that to Matt Iber Fluse is, you know, I would take Shoddy over Fluse right now and you get to keep one of them, but nobody's ever thought Matt Iber Fluse was like an innovator. He's just defensive Shottie in a lot of ways. He's been around a long time. People trust him. He's competent, but at no point are you hearing about the Cowboys confusing people or.

Defensive Shattie's good. Yeah, I mean, that's a safe hire. It's a guy they know. It wasn't a scheme fit. No, it wasn't. All their corners are man corners. It wasn't a scheme fit at all. You know, I mean, they drafted a Dan Quinn defense.

So if you're expecting him to come out. With the Cowboys overall, we go back to the Belichick Sabin discussion years ago. And they did that little Netflix show or whatever it was. We don't hire, you know, we don't just change what we're doing because we hired this guy who likes to do this. We do what we do. This is our program. This is what we do. You don't now, oh, Iberflus is a different scheme.

But we have all these Dan Quinn guys. I guess we've got to change things up. Like, that feels like a bad way to do things. Yeah. Now, the good news is that they're pretty haphazard way of doing things. Does consistently put them in the mix. And this is probably not, like, winning. analysis, but this year is playing out

exactly like 90% of Cowboy years play out where they're playing primetime big games at Christmas. And then the league cuts the fat and they're done. Well,

they've had some, the hiccups that they had early, like the losing at Carolina and losing to Arizona is what put them in this spot. And having a piss poor defense that got knee-capped out of the gate and was not able to be fixed until the trade deadline. By the way, I don't know if we talk about that enough.

Why didn't you do it earlier? You knew who was available. That's a crazy idea. Like, we give them credit for making the trade, but they knew what they were earlier in the year. You don't think Quinn and Williams helps you in Arizona? I think Jerry said he wasn't available back then. And that may be the case. But I also think that they had to be browbeaten and eight yards of carried and to make

a trade that's funny because that certainly they you know they knew they had problems the second they traded micah i mean you say that it's funny because al michael's loves owners god bless dude you remember that one time or you weren't there but he goes to like the nobu media party the two two of the times i've been there you see him oh yeah i've seen him and like some executive and other sitting there like the king yeah people are saying there like the king yeah people are surrounding him and Jerry, yeah, he's he loves that he's treated like royalty by all the NFL owners.

So I'll make sure I mention your wife's your painting. Art, foundation. So here's Al and they would show him and Herbie in the booth, and then they'd show like Jerry behind, like they have a green screen and the, okay, here's Jerry

in his suite, but it looks like he's right behind them. And then here's Al doing PR for Jerry Jones. Look, the Cowboys have taken a lot of heat about some of the moves they've made. The draft is pretty good, right? The free agency that's just pointed out by Kaylee

is pretty good. I mean, does Jerry Jones get the last laugh at some point? I mean, right now, you know how it is in Dallas. You went three in a row and everybody's talking about going to the playoffs and if you lose tonight, everybody's talking about what the heck's wrong. So that's just one of those.

And you understand that, right? That's just part of the deal, but I'm with you. They've done a heck of a job rebuilding it. No question. That's Everybody's criticizing Jerry for all this Micah stuff

But man Are we going to kneel Before Jerry Listen dude I'm the biggest Cowboys Homer in the world But there's a list It's not long

They're on it Until they're off that list Any criticism of Jerry Especially When they make Momentous trades That people are You know

Pretty roundly critical of You didn't have to Run that PR play Is it that hard to just say they put themselves in a very bad spot with the micha parsons trade that jerry let himself get too personally involved in but they deserve credit for trying to do something about it doesn't that still get you free sushi do we have to just knee pat him like it's dude they haven't been to an nmc championship game in 30 years i think it's okay to be critical of the cowboys all right george

Pickens talk it's like a big phase of tornado that ain't even true it might have been true last night my feelings right now are that you do not get rid of George Pickens after this year uh-oh he is essential what you do is you give him a franchise tag and that is what is happening and if he holds out, he is under the franchise tag and he won't get paid next year. Now, can the Cowboys become this organization that does these things that I would like them to do? And just, I think they can.

I mean, they did it with DAC, of all things. And they ended up with the highest paid quarterback in the NFL because of it still, like, what, two, three years later after he signed his contract, But every other position when they sign a contract, it goes up and up and up. Speaking of the Travolta meme, it was just, it was all my $60 million bros. But I do think you need him. I do not think you want to be the team that signs him for five years and then sees how he acts.

You know, I like him on a contract year and I want him on another one next year. Dude, there's a way to do this. And I'm not saying it'll work. I'm not saying his agent would accept it I don't know if his agent thinks like hey you've got a little bit of risk George this is how this is going to go but there are ways in the NFL

just pay him as you go but pay him a lot like a LeBron type thing like go give him give him like three for 92 or something with 60 of it guaranteed like I don't want to pay him until he's 30 but if you could pay him a lot right now while you can

you know monkey with other cap hits maybe he'd like a big shiny number because yeah you wonder over the long term and you saw last night do I mean he as close as I would say it felt like they were at 2730 or 30 27 he almost dropped the game at the goal line

when he was when they were down 27 9 just being a dummy and that that ain't you're not going to coach that out of no and you're also I'm not trying to be, you know, Bill O'Reilly with the body language analysis, but when they're down, man, it doesn't look like he wants to be out there. Two plays in a row.

The ball, I mean, Herbie called him out for it. It was third and 19 after a penalty. And then he, which was his penalty, wasn't it? Were those back to back? It was. He tried, they sprung Flannoy open on a. rub route which was a great design and all pickens had to do was just pretend like he cared about that play but instead he ran right into both his and flanois defender and then on third down

in a situation where i think shot he might have gone for it if they were able to complete it because it would have been fourth and five or six he just gave up on a route and that's where dach's giving him the what are we doing here dude which one was that it was third and nineteen um late in the game before they kicked the last field goal i want to say um it's somewhere in here well i remember one too before that it was in the fourth quarter i think or late in the third the he kind of ran a real it was very striking because they had showed a uh Detroit receiver and I can't remember which one. Late third.

Go for a, like, selling a deep route and then coming back and being wide open, where they had the exact same play written up for Pickens, but he did not sell the deep, like it was a very light jog, and then I'm going to come back. Well, the defender now, he's not worried about the deep route, and he came back and broke that one up. I don't know if that was the third and 19 you're talking about, but. It was.

Oh, okay. I think it actually was. But that would have put him in a situation. If there's a play to be made there, maybe it's fourth and six or seven, maybe they go for that one. But dude, here's the thing. We don't watch the film every week. I'll watch some stuff on all 22, but we're just calling out the plays where they threw him the ball and he wasn't running. He ain't running half the time.

I promise you, dude, if you were to put on, and they know that. And so does his agent, and so does Jerry. You just really hope that you can manage his energy with vibes and communication to where you limit the level of, because think about what we're talking about, dude. We're talking about ways he screwed them by kind of checking out and ways he almost screwed them by doing crazy too hard stuff, where he won't go down. or he's fighting people and talking shit after a play. Like, it's the full spectrum of too much.

Right. Too much. And you got to also know, if he was not on their team this year, two less losses? Or two less wins? Absolutely. I'd say he's the player you could easily attribute the most wins to. Given C.D.'s absences, like, he's their war leader.

He's been incredible. I couldn't believe the stat when they threw it up yesterday that he has, like, 95 yards receiving a game. But you don't see as much on a two-receiver team? You don't see it often on a one-receiver team. Yeah, that's not accounting for all the pass interference yards. You know, you look at last night. Like what's 1,000 yards?

It's like 60 yards a game, 58 or something. I don't know. I can't remember different now. He picked up, you know, last night it says 35, 36 yards. All the time. And I looked this up this morning because, Penalties are a big topic. They are leading the league right now.

Now, they've played one more game, but per game, they're top three, I think, four. They also lead the league and penalties drawn. And I have to figure that Pickens and Lamb are a huge part of that.