The Kevin Sheehan Show - NFL Over-Under Best Bets

Episode Date: September 1, 2025

Kevin opened the show talking about the arrival of September and the anticipation of a new NFL season. He also described how this season is the highest expectation season in 25 years for the Skins. Kevin gave out his "NFL Over-Under Best Bets" for 2025. Bobby Belt/105.3 The Fan in Dallas jumped on to talk Micah Parsons trade and preview the Cowboys season. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You don't want it. You don't need it. But you're going to get it anyway. The Kevin Cheon Show. Here's Kevin. The show's presenting sponsor is always Window Nation, 86690 Nation, WindowNation.com if you need new windows. A quick show on this Labor Day, 2025.

Happy Labor Day, everybody. Happy September, everybody. Here we go. You know, this is the part of the calendar that says, satisfies those that like routine. For those who like to know the kids are back in school, everybody's back at work. And of course, there will be scheduled football every weekend and many weekdays, I would add, for the next five months. Those of us who like that kind of rhythm, that kind of routine, welcome to September.

You know, the view from September is that football season looks right now like it's a marathon. But man, when we get to the end of it, it feels like we just went through something much different, more like a sprint. You know, this time of year we get hot and humid football, although it wasn't that way on the East Coast this weekend. It was beautiful here in the DMV. It'll turn cooler next month as we get into October. The leaves begin to change. Pumpkins start to appear in dot doorsteps. And before we know it, we'll be cutting the turkey and passing out pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving,

watching those damn Dallas Cowboys. By the way, speaking of the Cowboys, Bobby Belt from 1053, the fan in Dallas, will join me in the final segment of the show to talk about. the Micah Parsons trade and more importantly, what the Cowboys look like this year without him. I will try to get on a guest this week from Philly and from New York as well to talk about the other two division teams. But yeah, Dallas and Detroit on Thanksgiving Day, that's a ritual. As is, cold weather in December, which will be here before we know it, with football around the clock during the holidays, including this year a first ever Skins game on Christmas Day.

Football season flies by, so savor it, because, you know, the world of fan conversations, debates that we have during the off season isn't nearly as much fun as when we have real games to talk about and to reference. You know, our team is in a place where it hasn't been in a long, long time. We've talked about this a lot over the last few months, but this season is the highest expectation season in 25 years. It's the most anticipated season, I would say, since, you know, 2012, 2013, but maybe 2004, the year Gibbs came back.

but expectations-wise, they haven't been this high for this team since 2000. Per pro football reference, Washington's pre-season Super Bowl odds, right? Their Super Bowl odds in 2000 before the season began were the second shortest odds behind the defending champion Rams, the greatest show on turf. The Rams were plus 300 to win the Super Bowl in 2000. the skins were plus 350 to win the Super Bowl. Washington, if you recall,

was coming off a division winning season in 1999. They won a playoff game at home against the Lions, had a chance against the Buccaneers in the divisional round. That would have put them in the NFC title game against St. Louis, in St. Louis against the Rams.

And then they went out and got Dion and Bruce Smith and Snyder's first fantasy football off season. And Washington's over-under heading into that year, 11.5, as in 11-5. That was the over-under on wins. They haven't sniffed that since. It's nine and a half this year. Of course, we remember what happened to that 2000 team. Dan's involvement, you know, vanilla ice cream on Mike Nolan's desk, you know, ripping Norv Turner in the locker room after a loss in Dallas. us firing Norve before the season ended and that team finished eight and eight and it was the beginning, the true beginning of our quarter century nightmare. This year's odds, by the way, aren't nearly

as good to win the Super Bowl, but they are the best since 2000. Washington isn't plus 350. They're like plus 1,800 at my bookie, but that is eighth best in the NFL this year and the over under, as I mentioned on win totals, nine and a half. The expectations and, you know, the anticipation for this season are really about the idea that this is the first legitimate Super Bowl contending team in a long, long time. But the reason for that starts and ends with Jaden Daniels. And because this is going to be just his second season, I think the excitement and expectations and anticipation is here to stay. All of that is here to stay. You know, it's,

the beginning of something. I think it became apparent last year when we realized that they had gotten it right with Jaden. It kind of lent itself to thinking that we were at the beginning of something that could be long term, that it wasn't just a one-off. This upcoming season has a chance to be special, but so does next year and the year after that, as long as he's the quarterback. We haven't had a run around here, you know, a legitimate, you know, playoff after playoff season run since the early 90s. I mean, that is, we're talking about like 33 years ago. I've said this many times in the past, but Snyder's most amazing accomplishment, if it can even be described that way is the resounding destruction of an NFL franchise during a time

in which the league was designed to prevent it. And yet, Washington, just two instances over a 33-year period of back-to-back winning seasons, 96, 97, that was before Snyder, and then in 2015 and 2016. And you can bear, call those back-to-back winning seasons. It was nine and seven and eight, seven and one, twice, 96 and 97, and then 2015 and 2016. In terms of back-to-back playoff seasons, you've got to go back to the glory days. It has not happened since 90, actually 92 was the third straight year they had made the postseason. They made it in 90, won the title in 91, of course, and then we're back in the postseason in 92.

And that really was the end of everything. But that had, that concluded a run of nine out of 12 seasons of being in the playoffs. The franchise has done a 180, you know, with Snyder's departure and Jaden's arrival. You know, Snyder's departure meant we had a chance for the first time in a quarter century. But there was no guarantee that that chance would be taken advantage of. you know, the NFL is hard. And developing a sustained winner typically involves finding the franchise quarterback, and it's really hard to find the franchise quarterback.

I mean, there are plenty of franchises that function like normal businesses, normal, you know, franchises that don't win big or have sustained runs. And that's, of course, where Jaden Daniels comes in, you know, chalk it up to timing and some good fortune. Number two overall in a draft year where there was a generational talent sitting there at number two overall. Can't wait to see what is in store for this upcoming season, his second season, but I think the second year of a sustained run. It feels that way. And it's been a long time since we had the ability to feel that way. way. This from Derek, Kevin, this is crazy, he writes. We have the highest number of transplants in

the NFL. Only 42% of our roster began their career here in Washington, making us the only team in the league below 50%. The next closest team is the dolphins at 51%. So what he's saying, and I'm going to assume, Derek, you got this from a place that's accurate, is that, only 42% of the roster started here as a draft choice or an undrafted free agent. That's the only way you can start here. If not, you end up signing here after playing somewhere else or you get traded here, right? I don't think I'm missing any other way to acquire a player. But Derek writes, it just shows how many draft picks and developmental opportunities were wasted during the Ron Rivera and Dan Snyder era.

under new management, Washington is starting fresh, but the numbers highlight how much damage was done in the past. Yeah, that's, I would have guessed that Washington would have had a low number of players that started their career here. I mean, Ron Rivera did tell John Kine, remember, just a couple of years ago. In fact, basically two years to almost the day, that if the team wins the Super Bowl with his players, just send them a ring. Here's the exact quote, by the way. And remember the context for this quote. Kime had done, you know, an interview with Rivera before the season began in

2023. New ownership had just taken over. They didn't have time to make sweeping changes football-wise because they didn't take control of the team until early August. But that season was definitely a lane. duck season for Ron Rivera and his staff heading into it. And remember this too before I read the quote, man, was he wishful thinking and praying on Sam Howe? He wanted that to work out, even though I swear to you, I believe to this day, nobody there was ever sure it was going to work out.

He went from the season ending game in 2022 where it was meaningless for Dallas and Sam, Howe plays, and he didn't even want to play Sam Howell in that game, and Taylor Heineke made it possible for Sam Hal to get the start in the game. And literally, you know, he watched him that one game, which wasn't even that great of a game, and driving home, he realized that he had his quarterback. Here was the quote. Quote, if we go eight, eight and one this year, and he, Harris, fires me, and next year they win the division and 40 of the 53 players we drafted, and it's the same quarterback, I'm vindicated. Send me my Super Bowl ring. Yeah. Well, they, in the first year without them, they nearly did get to the Super Bowl. They were 30 minutes from it, but the quarterback was not

even close to the same. And by my count, 17 of the 53 players on the roster for the postseason in January were with Ron the year before or in the years prior. He was not a general manager, that's for sure. I will stick with my dying day that Ron Rivera was a decent head coach during his career, especially in Carolina. I always felt Ron Rivera, was a decent coach, not an elite coach, not a, you know, great or even really good coach, but he was a top half of the league head coach when he was in Carolina. And, you know, you could make the case that that team in 2020 towards the end of the year overachieved, the team in 2022 overachieved. Anyway, what he wasn't was a general manager and a talent evaluator and a talent

procurement guy. That is for sure. Nor was Marty Herney or even all due respect, Martin Mayhew, in the role that he was in. All right. I'm going to move this show along quickly. I do want to get to the college football from the weekend. And I am going to give you on today's show my best NFL prop bet over under for the season. I have made a few NFL over under wagers. We'll do all the, you know, records, division picks, playoff teams, Super Bowl, you know, participants, Super Bowl winner later on in the week with Tommy. But I will give you the teams that I have played over under prop bets on when we come back. Right after these words from a few of our sponsors. It's good to have prize picks back. It means it's football season. College football's already back. Pro football right around the corner. Don't miss any of the action this season on prize picks. Prize picks is simple to play. You just pick more or less on between two and six players and their stat projections. If you get your picks right, you could cash in and win up to 2,000 times your money. Imagine with our team how much fun it would be.

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Joe Beninati Saturday in College Park. He is so good. On the call for Maryland's 39 to 7 win over Florida Atlantic. but that particular call, highly touted freshman quarterback Malik Washington's first touchdown pass of his career. This segment of the show is brought to you by MyBooky. If you want to bet on football, my recommendation is to go to mybooky.ag or mybooky.com. Use my promo code, Kevin D.C. And MyBooky will give you a cash bonus on your initial signup. They've got everything you need for tonight's late.

Labor Day game, and of course, everything for week one of the NFL season, starting Thursday night in Philadelphia when the Eagles take on the Cowboys. The Eagles currently at My Bookie are seven-point favorites over the Cowboys. I did see some seven and a halves out there, but the line at My Booky is staying at seven. So if you like Philly, my bookie would be the place to go play that. Currently, Washington, a six-point favorite over the Giants. The total in that game is 46. MyBooky, where numbers are fair, pricing is the best.

This is old school. They're going to treat you that way. You're going to get paid when you win. You're not going to overpay when you lose. Go to mybooky.ag, mybooky.com. Use my promo code, Kevin, D.C. Not a bad week one for the smell test. A four, a three and no Saturday.

I had Miami last night, so it was a four and a weekend. Five and one overall for week one of college football, five and one on this season. There were some insane backdoors. Toledo backdoor for the win. I had them, but nothing as crazy as the UTSA cover against Texas A&M. Getting 23 and a half down 4217. They put in the backup quarterback and had him hand the ball off four times. And then on fourth and seven, they actually let him throw the football.

He completed a pass, but it looked like they were running the clock out. And then with 22 seconds to go, they let him drop back again and he threw a touchdown pass. That was an absolutely amazing backdoor cover because I thought it was, I basically turned the channel when the backup quarter. quarterback started to hand the ball off, and they were letting the clock run. But then I turned it back just to check to make sure that the clock had run out and it was a loss. And no, they were letting the guy chuck the ball. They changed their mind.

Good on them. Four and O over the weekend, five and one week one smell test. I'll have more plays coming on Thursday show. So week one of the college football season, first full weekend. Look, we got to start. Well, I'll start real quickly with Maryland. So I thought most impressive about Maryland was its defense. I thought Malik Washington really looked good.

I mean, he's big, tall, he can really throw the football. Maryland did that thing where they committed a lot of penalties. They had 14 for 100 yards. They had 11 in the first half. I think they nearly set an NCAA record for penalties in the first quarter. when they had eight in the first quarter alone. But that's been a hallmark of Locksley's teams. They tend to get penalized a lot.

They tend to be a bit undisciplined. But they're also talented, and they seem to have another decent group of skill position players and speed. Washington looks great, but defensively, they looked awesome. Six interceptions against Florida Atlantic. the most in the game for Maryland since 1998. So I was encouraged, look, it's Florida Atlantic. Maryland was a 14 and a half point favorite.

I actually thought that Florida Atlantic with the way the game started was going to keep it close. It was 7 to 7 at the end of the first quarter. But the defense just kept getting stops and then turnovers. You know, one thing to keep in mind, you know, when you win the turnover battle plus six, You know, it better be 39 to 7, right? So you're not going to get that in every game, although sometimes it becomes contagious. But I was fine with the Terps when I just would love to see them a little bit more buttoned up and more organized with respect to penalties. And a lot of them are really not forced.

You know, they are self-inflicted and at times silly. But they got the win. Elsewhere, Virginia Tech, hung in there with South Carolina yesterday, ended up losing to the Gamecox 24 to 11 in Atlanta. Virginia got an easy win. Navy got an easy win. So all but Virginia Tech in terms of the quasi-locals did well. Now, on the national stage, we start with Saturday at noon

and Arch Manning's debut in the shoe. also Julian Sayans debut. Both quarterbacks, I thought, were awful. Arch Manning really looked uncomfortable. He was tight. There was no doubt about it. It was interesting that he was getting killed, I'm sure, on social media. And my friends were certainly in the midst of crucifying him in group texts during the game.

And he looked terrible. And then he gets that touchdown pass late and they get the ball back. and I'm thinking he could erase the last three hours pretty quickly with one more touchdown and maybe an overtime win or even a two-point conversion win. You know, we saw a lot of the big games sort of end up being very defensive games. LSU Clemson was the same on Saturday night for the most part last night. You know, Notre Dame in Miami was kind of defensive for a while. This game was not, in my opinion, as much about.

great defense as the LSU Clemson game was. I thought this was about some bad offense. And I thought Sarkesian really called an incredibly conservative game for a guy that was the preseason favorite to win the Heisman trophy, you know, from royalty. Look, you don't know anything about these guys until they start to play in real games. You know, so many five-star guys don't make it. Many more don't make it than do. So you don't know until they start playing games.

And maybe this will be a one-off for Arch Manning because he did play a little bit last year and looked apart. And Ohio State's good on defense and that's a tough atmosphere to go into to open up your career. And maybe, you know, he comes back against San Jose State and Utep and Sam Houston. Those are the next three opponents for Texas. And he, you know, throws for 15 touchdowns and, you know, something like 900 yards. the next three weeks, but it did not go well for him in the opener. Long season, certainly not, nobody should bail on a kid with that kind of talent. I thought the most surprising thing overall was tight.

He was, and I thought Circassian didn't give him a lot of opportunities. Maybe they just didn't feel comfortable with him dropping back. They were successful, you know, in that touchdown drive running the football. They ended up rushing, I think, for nearly five yards. carry. You know, Ohio State's quarterback Julian Sand, I didn't think he was very impressive either. It was for the excitement of that game, there was intensity, there was pageantry. It was not a great football game. Ohio State gets the win. They were number two in the coaches poll, number three in the AP. They got a couple of weeks of, you know, nothing games. And really, their first big test doesn't come

until, you know, early to mid-October when they host Illinois, who is good this year as well. You know, the Florida State win, that was one of my smell test picks. Man, I thought the kid from Boston College, Castellanos, looked great. I thought they were aggressive in their place calling Gus Malzon makes a difference. I mean, the yardage they put up. You know, the funny thing is when the game started in Alabama went right down field to take a 7-0-0 lead. I'm like, this Ty Simpson's going to be a better all-around quarterback than Jalen Milro. He struggled. Florida State's defense was great. I think Simpson actually kind of looks

the part to a certain degree. We'll see. Long season. But man, Florida State, completely different situation, different coaching situation with the coordinators and the quarterback. And that place was hopping. I mean, Doe Campbell, the renovated Doe. Campbell was insane. And then Saturday night, LSU Clemson, I actually thought that along with the game last night in terms of the big games.

They were the two best. I'll tell you what, I mentioned this to Stanford, Steve. I mentioned this to Denton on radio the other day. I've mentioned it before. I'm not a Kade Klubnik guy. I don't get it. I think he doesn't see it. I think he bails too early. I don't think he's a

great sort of in the pocket processor. He was not very good in his game against LSU, both defenses. This was the best LSU's looked on defense in years. And Garrett Nussmeyer is functional. He does see it. He does feel it. He's not athletic. I mean, Klobnik is, but Nussimeyer, 28, 38, 2.30 a touchdown in no big mistakes. There are a couple of, you know, the touchdown that got overturned. They won this game 1710. It felt more like a 27 to 10 game. LSU was the better team in this game. I felt like they were.

They had a touchdown, I thought, taken away by replay. I did not think that that was worth overturning the catch in the end zone. And, you know, they had in this particular game, they ended up turning the ball over twice when they were moving the football. So, yeah, look, Clemson's going to be good. They're loaded and they are so good defensively, really good defensively. Just call me on the, you know, on the train. that does not include Cade Clubnick. Because I just haven't seen it.

I see a guy that processes very slowly and makes big mistakes and isn't always accurate. He's a tremendous athlete. And against lesser teams, he's going to have some big games. And you guys are going to tweet me or send me an email and say he had 400 yards passing and 150 rushing. And he may have some of those at the college level. I don't see it at the NFL level. Last night's game, you know, I gave out Miami, and I am a Carson Beck guy.

Denton and I used to get into an argument about Carson Beck all the time on the radio show. He couldn't stand him, and I said, there's something about him that looks NFL like. Carson Beck looks like an NFL quarterback. To me, he does. He processes quickly. He's big. He stands tall in that pocket at 6'4, and he can really sling it. Now, there may be, you know, intangible stuff.

that will keep him from something. But Miami last night gets the win, 27-24, did not like the way they played that final drive. If you were watching that, they ran the ball and got super conservative for a 47-yard field goal with a minute to go with a kicker, you know, who was questionable, basically. You know, they had botched a kick early in the game.

Good college football, you know, a highly anticipated weekend because of the matchups that we had. But, you know, some forgettable games, but it was just great to have football back on. And we had some big games, including one tonight to see Belichick's debut against TCU. No smell test pick, as I mentioned, on tonight's game. We will have, I'm sure, plenty when we get to Thursday. All right. I usually do this with Tommy, but Tommy's off tomorrow. So we're going to save a lot of the prediction stuff for Thursday, but I'm going to get some of it. of the way in advance. So every year I give you my over-under plays, the teams that I have played

over-under bets on. I will tell you that I've already played two of these. I haven't played the other three yet. I'm waiting for just a slightly different price on those. But here are the five win-total over-under bets that I have made, or two I've made, but I will make. And there's only one under. There are four overs. And I'm just going to start with Washington. I'm going over nine and a half wins. I just think this is going to be a team that is unstoppable at times offensively. I'm hoping for defensive improvement, but they won 12 last year with a bad defense. I think they can win 10 this year, even if their defense isn't great.

I think there's a lot of talk also. This is contrarian, Kevin, stepping in. A lot of talk about Washington and a stepback season, all those close games, all those fourth downs, all the luck, you know, et cetera. I'm going over nine and a half on Washington. The 49ers are, the total on the 49ers is 10 and a half. I think there are a lot of people that are surprised that people really like the Niners this year. The odds makers do. So do I. I'm going to guess that they stay healthy this year. That's a guess. You can't be as injured as they were last year. They're so well-coached, in my opinion. I think a lot of, that division's going to be

interesting. And Stafford, and I'll talk about him in a moment, but I think the top two teams in that division are two of the best teams in the NFC. I like both of those teams. They've got to stay healthy, and that's, you know, what you're rolling the dice on. But I think if the 49ers stay healthy, they've got five A players on their team and a good coaching staff. I think they win more than 10 and a half. And then I like the Rams over 9 and a half. I understand it's totally contingent on Stafford. But Stafford with Nakuwa and Devante Adams and Kyron Williams and Jared Verce on defense, the well-coached team, this is a team that can win 10 plus. Hell, they won 10 last year and they started the season poorly and were devastated by injuries early in the

year. The Rams over nine and a half. And then my other overbet, Steelers over eight and a half. I believe in Aaron Rogers' ability to have a top half of the league quarterbacked season. I just don't think he was as bad as everybody thinks he was. Here's the one thing I can't stand hearing. He has sucked for two straight years. Two years ago, he tore his Achilles on the fourth play from scrimmage. Okay, so he didn't play two years ago. He was really good at the end of last year, looked like Aaron Rogers.

When Devante Adams joined that team, that was a bad. bad team. That team's downfall last year was not Aaron Rogers. It was the defense and the kicker more than anything else. It was the dysfunction with coaching. Yeah, I like the Steelers this year. They're actually one of my favorite choices of all these. I think they win nine plus games this year. They always do anyway. And then I've got one underbet, and this is strictly to go anti, you know, everybody. Everybody believes that Patriots are going to be that team this year. The team like Washington was last year or Houston was two years ago. Look, Rable's one of my favorites. I think Drake May's got a chance to be a really good quarterback. I'm just going to go under eight and a half on contrarian

principle. There's a lot of over New England, eight and a half action. So those are my five over under prop bets of the season. Washington over nine. and a half, San Francisco over 10 and a half wins, the Rams over nine and a half wins, the Steelers over eight and a half wins, and the Patriots under eight and a half wins. All right, we'll finish up the show with Bobby Belt from 1053, the fan in Dallas. He'll give us a preview of the Cowboys and talk about the Micah Parsons trade from last week. We'll get to that right after these words from a few of our sponsors. Are we finally ready for some football?

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Bobby hosts a show on 1053 The Fan in Dallas. He covers the Cowboys also for Dallas Cowboys.com. You can follow Bobby on X. At Bobby Belt TX. We're going to be talking to somebody from each of the three other NFC East cities this week, leading into week one of the NFL season. And I'm glad we have Bobby on first because we are, still talking about from a few days ago the Micah Parsons trade.

So let's start there. I kind of sensed, and I talked about this on Friday show, Bobby, that the reaction from outside Cowboys Nation was hypercritical, but much different than the reaction from inside Cowboys Nation. Describe that, you know, perspective. What was the reaction of Dallas fans to the Micaheastern? You know, I think it was something that initially, if there's any level of irritation, the strongest level of irritation among the fan base is probably the return they got and when

they made this move. But I think it got to a point for the majority of the fan base that they either, their thoughts on it were, I get it, or good ridden. So there were a lot of people, I think, would become frustrated with Michael Parsons throughout this process. even before this particular process. I think a lot of people were frustrated with some of the stuff relating to his podcast, relating to

the way that he interacted publicly with other players on other teams and, you know, oh, he's interviewing Jordan Love not long after they got destroyed by the Packers and different things like that. And so I think a lot of fans were really, really frustrated with him by the end. And so while nationally, I think everybody

has been kind of holding up the narrative of the Cowboys or Idiots, and they've made one of the worst moves of all time, things like that. There's a lot of fans who are just kind of like, okay, go ahead. We could stand the gaps facing from extra picks. That's more valuable than Mike is. Yeah, that's interesting, and I kind of read it the same way, even from afar, based on a lot of the reactions afterwards from people, you know, that cover the Cowboys.

Can two things be true simultaneously? Dallas fans are kind of okay with this trade, but they also think Jerry is a problem in handling all this. Yeah, Jerry's not a winner in this. I don't want to sound like that. It's that the Cowboys fans would view it as two losers. Initially, I think it was Jerry was the enemy. Michael was the hero.

And then as the negotiations wore on and different things happened, it was more just like there's no winners in this at all. We're unhappy with Jerry. We're unhappy with Micah. And just because you move on from Micah after we've become frustrated with him, doesn't make Jerry the winner in this situation. So, yeah, I think there's still a ton of frustration with Jerry. But I think it just, it's, those two things are not mutually exclusive.

They're frustrated with Jerry, but they're also on a level happy that Micah is out of, not even that Mike is out of here. I think people wanted it to work here, but recognizing he got 47 million. So you're talking about, all right, which is better, Micah contributing and taking up 47 million of the cap, or is it better to say, let's save 47 million a year? let's get a Pro Bowl defensive tackle and let's add two first-round picks. Like that team, those resources are probably going to be more valuable to the Cowboys winning football games than Mike on his own. I would assume you've gone through the exercise of talking about and trying to determine what the best possible return for Micah Parsons would have been had Jerry and the Cowboys done this much earlier, like say before the draft.

what do you think that return would have been? Yeah, if they do this in March, they probably pick up another first, is what I would guess. So in that sense, they aired. Now, they would say, I imagine, we didn't think it was going to go sideways. We didn't think the negotiations were going to go poorly until after the draft. So that's where they're at. Now, the return they got, that was as good as it was going to get. So the rest of the league had an understanding that the Cowboys were heading to a divorce with Michael Parsons.

And so because of that, the league looked at it and said, If we wait until the spring, we're going to get whoever. We're going to get him, and we just have to give up two first-round picks. Mike is going to get to go wherever he wants. Because even if they tag him, the team is going to negotiate the deal, and the team will say, fine, well, this is actually these two first-round picks are less than we would have had to give up, so we'll hand this over gladly. And so I think what Dallas got in return for speeding the timeline up by six months

and the Packers being able to get him for this season, teams looked at that and I think they said, okay, you'll get it. something else on top of the two first round picks we would normally give up in the spring, but it's not going to be exorbitant. And so what a lot of these teams were offering were players like Interior Defense Alignment and good players, not the level of Micah, but good players. And Kenny Clark is that, but also Kenny Clark's 30 years old and he's been paid already. He does take up some salary caps rates, not a ton this year. It picks up a little bit next year. But what they basically looked at was, all right, you're getting two first round picks,

that is your baseline. Your reward for speeding up by six months is we will also give you Kenny Clark. And in that, I think the Cowboys said, all right, if we do this earlier, we probably get a better return, but things haven't gone sideways yet. So this is the best we're going to be able to get. Different subject. Is there, you know, revisionist history on the Dak Prescott deal? Do Dallas fans look back on the 60 million a year and think it was too expensive? I mean, for the fan base, there certainly is. For the Cowboys, I'm think, yeah, the Cowboys, every time they get out of these negotiations, I think they wish they would have started them earlier. And they should have started the one with Dak earlier. Instead,

they got held to an absolutely unsustainable negotiation to where when that season started, DAC had told them, when the season starts, negotiations are done. And so what would have happened is Dak would have run out of his contract, would have been exposed to the market. You got to remember the time when they signed this who's coming off runner-up status as MVP. The before he had a bad year last year. And so he was saying, we're cutting off negotiations. When the off season begins, I'm exposed to the free agent market because we had a clause in my contract and said you could not tag me.

And the other problem with that is you can't do anything to massage the cap figures at that point. You are open. And if he leaves at that point, you are accelerating, taking all of that dead cap money that you've shifted to future years. So they were in a really tough spot where they were not going to be able to even. easily move on from him. And even now, they probably can't move on from that contract until after 2027. I mean, certainly not paying Micah makes it a little easier to swallow some of these numbers

and, you know, not have to make a, like, renegotiate the deal or to move money around. Like, you're going to be able to just kind of eat some of the cap charge a little bit easier now. But, yeah, I think that a lot of people within the Cowboys look at it and say, this was an overpay. But I think a lot of people at the Cowboys also look at them and say, we really didn't have a choice. We were either going to pay this or we were going to be in aggressive levels of cap hell without a quarterback.

In an era in a time period where Jerry's really trying to win one more Super Bowl. Let's talk about this year. I mean, the Cowboys had three straight 12 and 5 seasons between 21 and 23. Last year, obviously with the injuries, they fell back to 7 and 10. What are the expectations heading into this season?

Yeah, and I mean, you mentioned the injuries and how they fell back to 7.10. I think that was a bad football team last year even before the injuries. I mean, the injuries didn't help, but early on it was like they were having massive struggles in a lot of areas that they should not have before they got hurt. This year, I mean, I think it's honestly, it's probably about a 7-1 football team. Brian Schottnheimers. I like Brian Schottnheimer. I think the Schottentheimer hire was good. I would take him 10 times out of 10 over Mike McCarthy, no question about it.

But when he's operating and what he's trying to do, he is trying to build a foundation culture-wise and trying to build a program that in one year it's probably not going to be able to be done. And I think when you look at the roster and sort of the depth issues that they've had in recent years, they did their best to replenish some of it. They signed a number of free agents, which they don't normally do, not big, the high-cost players, but they signed the number of them. and they've done, you know, they used their draftics up and stuff, but they had more holes than they did capital to fill them this offseason.

So there's going to be a number of ways that they're tested this year that they're probably not going to be ready for. I don't think the defense is going to be very good. I don't think it was going to be very good before Michael left. And so a big question for them is just going to be, how good is it the offensive line? Does Tyler Guyton at left tackle, Cooper Bibi at Center, Tyler Booker, their rookie right guard?

Do those guys elevate? Do they take a step up? or in Booker's case, if he debut really strong. If they get good offensive line play, that offense is going to be really, really good. If they get average or below average, things could go sideways for them, and it could get really bad. But I think ultimately what happens is, like with most of these things, it's somewhere in the middle, and it's a 7-8 win team.

Let's just go with the scenario that the offense ends up being really, really good. Are they better at running back anywhere? Is Jaden Blue the guy? Is Javante Williams the guy? How does it look in the backfield? Because that's been, I actually thought Rico Dowdell was a pretty good back and was a pretty good runner. But what does the back field look like? I don't have to figure if Dowell is a good player.

I think Dowell is better than any of the backs they currently have there right now. Now, the only catch there is if the offensive line does step up, like we're talking about, that running game will be better. Just because they were not a very good run blocking team last year for about the first half of the year. second half, they got a little better. But, I mean, you're talking about Tyler Booker. That's going to be one of the things they really want from him. He's a powerful road grader there at right guard. Right tackle is Terrence Steel, who did not get along with the offensive line coach in previous years.

Mike Solari, so he kind of gets a reset. He's two years removed from an ACL injury. You hope that he takes a step up. And if he does, he was one of the better run blocking right tackles in the NFL before his injury. So the idea is right side of the offensive line could block really strong. Cooper Vee at Center, you hope is taking another step up. He played solidly last year's a rookie. You hope he elevates again this year.

And then if Dyton and left tackle is past some of his growing pains, you know you've already got Tyler Smith as one of the elite left guards in football. So I think for the Cowboys, if they get that better blocking up front, it'll be one of those instances of just there's going to be more space. And so you could have a worse running back group on paper and still have a better running game just because the offensive line is improved. But I think the Dowell is better than Javentai Williams. I think he's better than what Miles Sanders is at this point.

Jaden Blue's obviously a question. He's just been hurt all of training camps. So nobody's really gotten a chance to see him other than the last preseason game. That was for a very short time. So maybe Jaden Blue shows something, but that's just a question mark at this point. He had a lot of questions coming out in Texas about ball security and some of his decisions when running the football. And so I think he's gotten a chance to be better.

But as of right now, it's it dabbles better. But this offensive line might be so much better than it was last year. that the running game is better. How's George Pickens fitting in? He's been a model citizen. Now, it's complicating that his agent is David Mulligetta, and that is the agent of Michael Parsons, who they just have all the issues with.

So I hope that that is something where if he performs at a high level, they'll be able to look past it. I think they will. Knowing the Cowboys history, knowing David's history, they tend to look at negotiations as isolated and approach things in a business manner. But George Pickens clearly knows the narrative that existed about him in Pittsburgh.

and he's trying to be a good citizen as he's trying to get paid. So he's been unproblematic. He's been really tough to cover in these training camp practices. He's been a high performer. So, I mean, everything right now looks good. I think the Cowboys are in a spot where they're going to get really, really good output from George Pickens. Because he wants to play well. He wants to be a model teammate.

He wants to show teams that you can invest in him. You can't pay him. You have to invest the Cowboys or somebody else. and so I think Ceeley Lamb has been thrilled with it but lamb and Pickens are really tight I think that George Pickens is going to have a really strong year for them as a number two and you know probably put himself in a good position

to get paid by the Cowboys or somebody else next spring what will the offense look like in a Brian Schottonheimer world with Clayton Adams as the O.C. So there's going to be a bigger answer on the run game specifically with Clayton Adams here because he's a big run game guru that's kind of his thought process. Ryan Schottner wants to run the football more than they have, but it's funny.

Shottie's whole reputation is then as kind of the, oh, Stone Age, run the ball a bunch. There's a book that came out years ago called Collision Low Crossers, the last year of the Jets, where you'll hear some of the comments that he makes in team meeting rooms of like, wake me up when we're done going through to run play on film. Like, he does want to pass the ball. Yeah. But I think he recognized that they need to have a stronger running game. if you look at the second half of

2023, an under-discussed storyline, I don't think it's been mentioned much nationally. An under-discussed storyline was in 2023. Mike McCarthy took over the offense from Kellynne Moore and tried to install the West Coast offense. The first five, six weeks, they were absolutely awful. There was a lot of pushback internally, privately from players about his offense.

Brian Schott and I'm was kind of a conduit to that and kind of the bridge between the players and McCarthy at that point. And the offense was really taken over the last 10 weeks of the season by Brian Schott, Nymer, and Dak, Brescott. So if you want to look at how the offense will operate, it'll probably look like those last 10 weeks of the 23 season, which was a really strong offensive output for them. Obviously, you need players to play up to that level,

but schematically, I think a lot of that stuff is going to be similar. You're going to see more cut splits. You're going to see play action. You're going to see some different things under center. It's not going to be shot them nearly as much. I think you're going to see Deep Crossers come back. I think you'll see some option routes come back. Those were two things, Mike McCarthy,

they didn't like running. So those sort of aspects are going to come back to the offense, I think. But I do believe that you're going to see a lot of trying to run the ball and trying to run the ball out of different looks and confusing the offense as much as possible. But the risk you run there, obviously, by doing a bunch of different crazy things on offense before the snap is you need guys who are on task and know what they're doing. Otherwise, you run the risk of confusing the offense and getting penalties and getting busts. So that's a lot of what they're going to have to iron out now.

but I think Clayton Evans is the guy they're really impressed with and probably believe they're not going to be able to hold on to too terribly long because I think they believe he's going to continue to build that reputation here. All right. I think anybody following your team from afar knew that offensively there was potential defense was going to be the problem, and now you don't have one of the best pass rushers in the league. So what does the defense look like? They won't get any worse against the run without Mike Parsons.

But what does it look like? I mean, I think the big problem for them right now is against the run, they have been really poor. Even when they've had really strong defenses with Dan Quinn, the run defense would have time for it was really bad. But I think there's a question about their linebacker group. Kenny Clark obviously makes them better there. There's a little bit of a misnomer that's been talked about here in Dallas.

Like, oh, Kenny Clark, you just basically got, if you want to go back in the day, Gilbert the Graveigger Brown from the Green Bay Pack. You're not getting like this massive 400-pound run stuffer who's going to just eat up space. That's not happening. He's a good run defender. Last year he was kind of an average one. But you're getting a solid run defender. That does make them better, though, because they didn't even have solid in their defensive tackle room.

So that will keep some stuffling. The passing attack or their past defense is a concern. And so obviously taking Micah out of that makes things a little more challenging. They did draft on of an Azaraku in the second round who they're really high on as a situational pass rusher early. and then somebody who's going to take some more snaps than that. They brought Dante Fowler over from Washington back from Washington after he had left Dallas for a year. And I think they like Mershon Neal in their second round pick last year,

who had kind of been a run defender with pass rush tools that needed to be refined. I think they've seen some good progress from him this off season. The corner room is a big question. You don't know what you're getting in Trayvon Diggs, who's kind of fallen out of favor with the team. When he's out there, is he going to be the guy that you saw a couple years ago, or is he going to be the guy that you've seen most recently,

who didn't play very well last year at times. Duran Bland is a guy that they like who they just paid yesterday, but how much is Bland going to be a guy that can really be that shut down corner or something that I think they're wondering about, especially after he missed a lot of time last year with an injury. And then they don't really have a good plan at Nickel. It's probably going to be Bland moving inside and playing nickel, which he doesn't want to do, but they're stuck.

They lost Jordan Lewis this off season. They don't have a great answer inside at the nickel. And so a lot of what you're going to see probably is Duran Blaine moving inside. And then Kair Elam, who was a bust essentially in Buffalo, who they traded for this off season. Elam playing outside. Now, Elam's at a really strong training camp or really strong summer practices so that they feel optimistic about him. Maybe the change of scenery was good. But he's got to show that he can do that.

Until he does, the assumption has to be that he's going to continue to be the same player he was in Buffalo, even with the practice. He's got to show that exchange. So I think secondary is probably Elam and digs outside whenever digs is healthy and then on the interior, playing the nickel, you're probably going to see Blan. I mean, the one thing that I thought about watching your team last year

and then even seeing some of the kicks he made in preseason, you basically, all you have to do is cross-half field and you're in field goal range with Brandon Aubrey. This guy is an unbelievable kicker with a massive leg, legitimately, what is field goal range? I think, and he's been asked that before, and he gets kind of shy about it, or he just kind of like, you know, puts his head down,

I don't know, I don't think they really want to tell everybody what his range. I think the assumption from just about everybody there is 70, probably. That 70-yard field goals is probably right around his range. And he does. He's got a booming leg, and he's been incredibly accurate, and he's, you can make an argument that there have been times over the last, you know, year or so that he's been the most popular player on the team. People love him.

Like, I mean, fans love him. There's more kicker jersey than the fans than you probably see in normal places. But people think Aubrey's great. Now, there's one downside to that, or there was with McCarthy, and there may continue to be a shot number. He's a legitimate weapon to get three points on the board. I think it does lend to, at times, a little bit more conservative play calling once he passed a 50. because he'd be like, all right, well, we're already in Aubrey's range here, and so that can frustrate some people times where maybe there's a fourth and one at the 37, and you got fans

who would say, go for it, we need a touchdown, we don't need three points, go for it, and the coach and staff may feel like, well, we know this is a solid three points for us, send Aubrey out there, and so I think that can be frustrating at times that it can lead to more conservative play calling because you do believe in Aubrey to that extent, but yeah, he has been absolutely fantastic for them, and I wouldn't, I wouldn't be surprised if you see him make a 70-yarder this season. Yeah, somebody's going to make a 70-yarder, and he would be certainly one of the two or three you'd choose from.

All right, one last question, and I'll let you run. You mentioned something about Quinn when he was there, and the fact that they were never a great run-stopping team, even when he was the defensive coordinator. I mean, the last, you know, impression was that Green Bay playoff game, which, you know, we saw everything work against Dallas's defense. But without question, last year's weakness. by far and away was Washington's run defense on that team. The defense in general wasn't very good.

Joe Witt Jr. is the defensive coordinator. Why do you think that Quinn has had some recent troubles with his defenses and stopping the run? I think here in Dallas specifically his issue was, and he deserves a lot of credit for this. Dan, and I don't know how much he may have talked about this with you guys in the media there in Washington, or if it would have come up. He talked about that he went through a rebirth, essentially, after the Atlanta run, and after everything he went side with. And he started reevaluating different things and how he does things and really challenging,

what do I believe about things? So I think one of the things he really believed is there are one of things he changed on. One of the things Matt Eberflux told us this year he's kind of evolved on is the idea of you can't discount good football players because they don't fit what you do. So I think for Dan, he had a lot of kind of jumbled pieces coming out of the Mike Nolan era that were not a really good defense. And he was just making, you know, taking the lemons and making lemonade. And so I think in a lot of instances, he has just said, okay, what do you do?

You do this really well? You do this really well. We're going to move right here. And I just don't think he ever had consistently good enough pieces to defend the line. Michael Parsons is a great player. Michael Parsons was drafted as a linebacker and expected to be a linebacker for them when he became a pass rusher a couple weeks into the first season. They didn't realize that was going to be able to he's going to do. But they realized, right, this is what he does well, is what we've got to do.

And then he was poor against the run. So they've had some of those issues at times. He's tried. They made a trade for Jonathan Hankins in the middle of the year, one year to try and improve the run. They'll operate with their limited resources to go get players. But you've got to pay for run-stopping resources still. So that's what Dallis just did with Kenny Clark. But in the past, they've had so much money devoted to pass rushers, corners, receivers,

quarterback, offensive line, that the run game was generally deprioritized. And so I think a lot of times he's just trying to scrounge with the resources he's got and apply. I don't know if that's been the case in Washington, obviously, but here in Dallas, people felt like that was the issue, is that he just didn't have the personnel and he was just trying to make do. Bobby, thanks so much. Really appreciate it. Absolutely. Thank you. Appreciate it. at Bobby Belt TX on Twitter.

Bobby hosts on 1053 The Fan in Dallas. All right, that is it for the day. Back tomorrow.