Cowboys prepare for Cardinals game | Free4All+

It is Free For All Plus. I'm Mike Ducey. Thanks for being with us here tonight. If you're consuming us on the Fox Local app or however you are watching, we appreciate you tuning in. Sam is off tonight. What a coincidence. We've got a couple of midnight showings of Free For All on Fox 4, and Sam hasn't been working either of those nights. It's just crazy how that works out, isn't it? We're kidding, Sam. I know you're watching tonight. No, you're not. Anyway, the World Series is over. Milwaukee wins it in five games. But, yeah, when you do what we do for a living on a Fox station, man, those games go on and on and on. So we appreciate those of you who stayed up late for Free For All on television every night. We're back at 1030 tonight on Fox 4. I was really happy to see the Brewers get it done. I mentioned on Twitter my first TV job was in La Crosse, Wisconsin, way back in the day, back in the 80s, kids. That was a long time ago. Brewers were good back then. They could never get over the hump and win the championship. I know what it means to that fan base. Actually, my wife and I went to a Brewers game on our honeymoon. That's what a romantic I am. Green Lake, Wisconsin is where we spent our honeymoon. Ruth's aunt and uncle's lake cabin, and we stopped at County Stadium and saw the brew crew and had a great time. But it was a fantastic vibe then, and I'm sure it's even better now as they win the World Series for the first time. Mavs beat Oklahoma City last night. Cooper Flagg is becoming a huge story early in this NBA season. I heard one of the national radio guys, I can't remember if it was ESPN or Fox today. In the car, talking about his flag and all NBA talent already. I would tap the brakes on that, maybe five games into this season. But the Mavs are above .500 for the first time in memory. And they host Houston on Friday. Okay, I was out at the Star today. Let's go to the Cowboys, who are back at work. 3-4 Dallas, 2-5 Arizona Sunday at noon on Fox from Jerry World. Dallas has lost eight of the last nine meetings between these franchises. It's really weird because Arizona hardly ever is very good. Arizona won last year, 27-17 at Jerry World. Cardinals have never lost there. They're 4-0 at AT&T Stadium. Cowboys hoping to build some momentum offensively after finding a balanced attack in the win at Philly Monday night. With reporters today, both receiver CeeDee Lamb and quarterback Dak Prescott discussed the aforementioned balance. And the importance of building that momentum to try to win back-to-back games for the first time this year. We know what we want to be. When you've got the weapons, when you've got the talent we have, sometimes you can get caught up in... So trying to air it out, right, knowing how great we are in the past game and wanting to just take advantage of that and not forgetting but taking for granted, you know, what those guys do up front, them controlling the line of scrimmage, controlling the time of possession, we're just running the ball and that opening up our play actions. And so, yeah, everybody returned, but things don't just happen. It's not like, you know, last year just rolls over into this year. And so we've got to reestablish everything, find out exactly who we are and get comfortable in improving that. No, that's exactly who we are. We're very balanced. We can beat you in a run game. We can beat you in a pass. That's what we all know. So just honestly just putting that out, putting that on tape for one and then believing in it for two. And I feel like once we do those two things, we've got to be consistent in that department. Yeah, you've got to win your games at home. That's a huge advantage. We've got to make it an advantage for us. And as you just said, haven't had many, so we've got to take advantage of it. And knowing that we've got a few more here in the back half of the season, it would be great momentum to create. Momentum's real. For real. Just to be able to use it, to be able to get a win, to gain a win on the road, a division win, and to be able to come back home and use this momentum of that win, use the crowd, use all the resources that the game offers you. We've got to take advantage of it and use them to our benefit and get two in a row. Last I saw, Cowboys, a six-and-a-half-point favorite. If you care about that type of thing, on Sunday, 12 noon, at Jerry World, we'll have our picks, Sam's pick and Jeff and producer Landry, and yes, Poppy's pick coming up for Cowboys Cardinals on Sunday. As I said, I was at the Star today, and always great to run into the guys from the media, the many guys I've known for all these years and women I've known for all these years who cover the Cowboys. One such person tonight is a very special guest. Take a look. Great to catch up with Babe Laufenberg from the Cowboys Radio Network, a frequent guest on Free For All. Bambino, good to see you. Good to see you. First of all, I'm worried about you. You're wasting away to nothing. How have you lost the weight? You know, just watching the diet, and I've always worked out, but 25 pounds. But I actually want to put five on. Oh, come on. No, I do. I feel like I'm too thin. Yeah, me too. I went to a lot of experts to try to lose the weight, and now I'm going to go to you. How do I gain five? You're starting some of that stuff you gave up. It'll come back in a hurry. Hey, we were just out watching practice as we record this. I'm curious as to... What a guy who has your football knowledge does at practice. What are you looking for? Because we're not able to see much, frankly. We see the early stages. What are you watching for in the 25 minutes that we're out there? Did you say what a guy with your limited football knowledge? No, extensive is what I meant to say. Did you leave a word out? Extensive. No. Yeah, I don't see much more than you do, quite honestly. We just kind of get to look at who's practicing, who's on the bands, who's kind of off to the side. But, yeah, once upon a time now, and you probably were here for that, you got to see the whole practice and you got a better feel. Now you just have to take the coach's word for whatever is happening. And not to obsess on the practice and how teams practice now and good old day syndrome, but watching a practice like today, I wonder how difficult it is to prepare for actual football when you're forced to practice that way with no contact. I guess they were in shoulder pads and shorts today, but it doesn't feel like what they're going to feel on Sunday at all. Can I just tell you, shoulder pads and shorts was like a holiday back in the day. You went full pads. Every practice you were pretty much full pads except for the day before, you know, you had the Saturday practice. It was not. But yeah, it's just changed. I do think that's why you see so many of these soft tissue injuries, the hamstring injuries. They don't go full speed in practice. And once upon a time you kind of did. So that here comes Sunday or Monday in the Cowboys case or Thursday in the Cowboys case and all of a sudden you're asking your body to do something it hasn't done for a week. And I'm convinced, a lot of those hamstring injuries, and we've seen a ton of them this year, right, all teams. I'm convinced that that's a big part of it. What do you make of the balance the Cowboys were finally able to find in the Monday night win at Philadelphia? It's called an aberration, okay? Okay. It had been an abomination. That was an aberration, no. You can Google that later for you. Thanks. No, hey, my dad. You started at Stanford, I know. No, but my dad graduated from Iowa. We discussed that. Yeah, I cannot say that. You had to transfer to Indiana from Stanford. But anyway, go ahead. All right. I did. Balance on offense. Yeah, I mean, I think you're always looking for it. Every coach is looking for it. It's just like these teams that blitz a lot. If a defensive coordinator could throw two guys and get a pass rush, he'd rush two and drop nine. But you just keep adding them until. You know, you get there and you get there with a pass rush. So the running thing, if you could run every down and win games, coaches would love that. Obviously you can't, but certainly you're not going to rush for 200 yards like they did against Philadelphia every week. But the balance is important for a lot of reasons. One, you want to be able to run the ball, but most importantly, too, Dak the week before drops back 54 times. You drop back 54 times, you put a lot of pressure on your offensive line. We heard Clayton Adams today talk about the fact that he thinks pass blocking, and I agree with him, is one of the most difficult things in all of sports. And so if you're sitting there dropping back 54 times, your quarterback's going to get hit, your offensive linemen don't like it, so a lot of good things come out of that running game. And to your point about running the football, I almost think Javante Williams has been an underappreciated player in his time here, maybe even by the fan base, and for some of this year, maybe by the coaching staff. I mean, the guy runs so hard, he almost seemed to find another gear in that game Monday night, too. And it helps when you've got all that space. Yeah, he had, you know, I'm talking during the game. I said, Brad, boy, that was a great second effort by Javonte Williams. And that was getting him 10, 12 yards. Second effort in a lot of those games was getting him back to the line of scrimmage. And I understand, as a play caller, you sit there and you call that running play on first down, and then you're second and 12, or second and 10, you're like... I mean, you start saying, well, you know what? I don't like that second and tenth stuff. Let's get to throwing the ball. So it is a fine line between beating your head into the wall, right, and saying we're going to run the ball. I don't care if we're third and tenth because we've had zero gain on the first two runs and having that, as you say, balance. How would you describe the type of season Dak Prescott has had so far? I'd say very good. I mean, early on it was obviously great. Great. You know, some things have come up the last couple weeks, but the funny thing is, too, Mike, you get to see Dak Prescott every throw, every week. The fans of the Cowboys do, right? If you're a Cowboy fan, you've seen every throw by Dak Prescott. Then you put the highlights on, on Sunday night, you watch Mike Doocy's show, and gosh, Josh Allen didn't miss a pass. You know, Mahomes didn't miss a pass. Jacoby Brissett didn't miss a pass, because all you see is him throwing touchdowns. Well, you don't get to see all the other bad plays they make. You don't put those on, right? And so, I think he's played very well. Need to address the defense. I would argue that in reality, there really hasn't been much improvement, even though it maybe looked like it in some ways on Monday night. What say you on the state of this defense right now? Improvement Monday night came from the fact that they didn't have their starting quarterback, Philadelphia. They didn't have their two starting wide receivers. Saquon Barkley touched the ball nine times. I'm going to put this to you. If Saquon Barkley is healthy in that game, do the Cowboys win? Probably not. I mean, yeah. Certainly becomes a lot tougher. They showed no signs that they were going to be able to stop a healthy Saquon Barkley. No, and they couldn't even stop an 80% Saquon Barkley or whatever he became. But, you know, I am. Maybe more optimistic than most in the sense that you do have to give it a little time. I know we want everything to happen yesterday. It is a new defense. It is a first-time coordinator, first-time play caller. You've got guys playing together that haven't played together. Joey Porter just came on board a couple weeks ago. You've been missing your safeties. I mean, there's a lot of, you know, it's a fine line between reasons and excuses, right? Right. But I do see them. They're getting better as they get guys back, Obershon's back, I do see them getting better in the future. You're not wild about topics like the one I'm about to bring up, but I'm going to bring it up anyway, and that is the Schottenheimer mood thing after the game on Monday night. Is the moral of the story you're better off being a jerk all the time so that nobody notices when you are a jerk after a win on Monday night? Yeah, did anybody ever question Belichick's demeanor on Monday? Boy, he was a little gruff with the media. No, and I understand. You know, it is a tough job. You have to have thick skin, all the above, tortoise shell so you can climb your head back in. But, you know, if I'm up there, I think if any human being were up there and people were taking shots and you put in so much work, so much work, that I'd be a little defensive at times, too. And I do like the way. Human nature is to be defensive, and it's okay if you or I are defensive. But, oh, he was defensive. I'd say, well, I would be too. I think a human moment from Brian Schottenheimer that we all overblew it because that's what we do. We've talked about this, I'm sure, in the past, probably when Jason Garrett was coach, but the difficulty of being the head coach and the game manager while also calling the plays on offense. In a perfect world, you have two different people doing that job, do you think? You know, it's a great question, and obviously as a head coach of an NFL football team, there's a lot on your plate. Thank you. Even, you think about the decisions that, let's say, Brian Schottenheimer today has to make, that Tom Landry did not have to make. You didn't have a two-point play. You didn't have to decide if you were going to go for a... Fourth and one, you punted. You didn't even think about, you know, there were no analytics. You didn't think about going for it. Challenge flags, right? Tom Landry never had to throw a challenge flag. The list goes on and on on how many more decisions these head coaches have to make today. Thank you very much. And it's a big job. And then, you know, you add the play calling duties on top of it. It is difficult. But I always think this, too. These guys get hired. For an expertise in a certain area, right? Sean McVay got hired because of his offensive mind, if you will. So do I then take that guy and say, hey, we hired you because you're a really great play caller, really good offense, and we love all that, but we're going to take that away from you. Sean Payton. Another good example. Gave it to Davis Webb for about, what, a game and a half? Yep. Took it away at halftime of the second game. But, you know, again, you're hired for that reason. And then you say, well, okay, yeah, we hired you because, Mike, we hired you because you have a good head of hair. Now we want you to shave the head. No. Okay. It's funny that you would assume that was the reason I got hired. It had to be something other than what I saw. It was in 1994, believe it or not, if you look at this now. Finally, oh, by the way, the Cowboys do play the Cardinals Sunday at noon. As you have done your research and continue to, from a Cowboys standpoint, what should be the biggest concerns about this Cardinals team? Just the fact that they beat them. Every time the Cardinals, as you know, they've never lost at AT&T Stadium. But I always say, too, half of these guys on defense, they weren't even here last year. Some of them weren't even here at the beginning of the season. So the notion that they're going to remember, oh, geez, is that Arizona Cardinal Red and go into some type of shock, that's not going to happen. But, hey, we've seen it. Tampa came in here. Cowboys were the biggest favorite on that weekend of any team in the NFL. They lose to Tampa. Giants were the biggest underdog. Of any team this past weekend, they go down to Houston, they beat the Texans. So the notion, you know, this isn't college football where Georgia's first two buses, the first team and the second team bus, don't break down. You know, if we can get the third team there, they're going to win the game most likely. It is so close, as we all know. You see all these games, they come down to one play, one kick. You know, they always said the NBA is a make or miss league. Well, that's what the NFL has become. So I do not take the Arizona Cardinals lightly, and you've just got to hope these guys don't. All right, Dave Laufenberg calling the game with Brad on the Cowboys Network on Sunday. Have a sandwich, my friend. And let's... I'll give you some tips if you need them. As the great Warren Zevon once said, enjoy every sandwich. Bambino. Closing it out with a Warren Zevon reference there. We thank Dave Laufenberg. Hey, let's go to our picks here from the Fox 4 sports crew for Cowboys and Cardinals. You'll see it Sunday at noon right here. We all have Dallas in this game. Most people do. I've got a seven-point win for the Cowboys. Sam's got them by 10, as does Jeff. And Landry's going even bigger, 40-21. Dallas. How about Poppy? Oh, Poppy. Poppy. All right, Poppy goes Cardinals. Poppy's had a rough year. Then again, Poppy is, in fact, only a dog. So we will forgive her. And we'll continue here on Free For All Plus. Carter's coming up to talk college football and some of the thoughts for the weekend ahead. Our viewer poll tonight has to do with Cowboys-Cardinals. Of course, we simply want your prediction. Seventy-five percent of you so far are not believers. You're going with Arizona in this one. Fox4News.com slash free-for-all or scan that code to vote. Again, college football Carter is next right here on Free-for-All Plus. All right, our digital superstar Carter Freeman is with us right now. You are always traveling. I follow you on social media faithfully, and you're like. By a beach somewhere here over the weekend. Where did you guys go? My girlfriend and I and her family, we were in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida. It's near, what, Seaside, Florida, right? Oh, yeah. Where the Truman Show was filmed. Yeah, so they just rented a beach house out there. I tell you what, Mike, everything in my life decided to happen in October because it was Nashville for a wedding. It was then up to Norman for an OU game. Then it was to Florida for this. And last month, Katie and I were in Michigan for the OU game that they played up at University of Michigan. It's been a very busy several months. It's been very fun. Good time to be you. But this upcoming weekend, I think we have a long run and a Halloween party here, and I'm just ready to kind of sleep in a little bit. Very nice. Let's talk a little college football. Some of the topics that I know you wanted to get into. The one loss Texas team most likely to make the college football playoff, SMU or Texas Tech? SMU lost to Louisville. Tech lost to Cincinnati. SMU still has to play at Notre Dame. They do. And that does count as a conference game for them. So I think if you're SMU. When I look at them after that Louisville loss that you mentioned, that was in week two or three. That was very early in the season. They've been nothing if not super consistent since then. They just look on both offense and defense, not explosive, not this clear number one team. But Rhett Lashley, since he's been in Dallas at SMU or Highland Park, I should say, or University Park, actually. SMU has been just the model of consistency, like week in and week out, especially in ACC play. And you look at what BYU was. was able to do to Notre Dame. I know that game was in Provo, but Notre Dame is not, as many people thought they were, this machine, this unbeatable machine. So I think if you're SMU, you feel much better about yourself and your playoff chances than Texas Tech right now. I know Texas Tech is coming off a loss to Cincinnati, like you mentioned, on the road. Even going back to some of their games against Colorado on the road, where they were in a dogfight with a team that has one power four win this year that they arguably shouldn't have had. It's looked terrible the last two years. And Texas Tech, both at quarterback, they just have not managed to replace either Brendan Sorsby, who never played for them, or even... their quarterback situation from last year and their defense as well as giving up more points than people thought they would have coming in. So Texas tech this weekend has a big game against Arizona at home. I understand that that's in Lubbock, but Arizona's look quite resurgent this year. They're actually tied or ahead of tech in the standings right now. So that's no walk in the park. So that could very well be like a big 12 elimination game for them. And if you SMU I feel like the ACC path to that conference championship game, and I know you probably play Miami in that, you've got to be feeling a lot better about yourself now than I would say the Red Raiders do. Yeah, Lashley's done some really impressive work on the hilltop, that's for sure. Some disappointing programs this year anyway. Baylor and TCU, Aranda's out. At Waco. Could Sonny Dyke soon follow him? Could be. I guess the question is, which one has been a bigger disappointment to maybe their faithful here? Which local program? I feel like coming into this season, you had more faith in TCU to be a little more of a wild card in the Big 12. I think under... Under Sonny Dykes, outside of that miraculous run to the national championship game in 2022, that's always been TCU's roles, like around like an eight and maybe a nine-win team. That'll knock off a Big 12 contender every once in a while. But this year, going back to their very first game against Bill Belichick in North Carolina and Ireland, their offense has just looked inconsistent. It's looked just too choppy. It's too, they just can't figure out what they had with J.J. Hoover last year. Changing offensive coordinators, bringing Gordon Samus from UConn, it just has not worked. Every year that TCU's kind of talked about this, oh, they could end up winning the Big 12 or they could be a dark horse, they've seemed to just underwhelm. And like we mentioned outside of that, that championship run for them, that's kind of been Sonny Dykes' name of his game. With Baylor, I picked him to win the Big 12 last year. They didn't even make a bowl game, so clearly there was a lot hotter seat in Waco going into the season. That's also been kind of the rub with Aranda, and now he's out of there. So I think I would go TCU. And funnily enough, TCU is second to last in the Big 12. Their one conference win, it's over Baylor. All right, let's go to some of the games you already referenced, Arizona and Texas Tech in a bit of a Big 12 elimination game. Yep, so that game's in Lubbock. That's one of our few, if maybe the only, ranked matchups we actually have this week. And it's a bit of a slower weekend as far as the big games go. But, you know, we've also got. Trying to think of some of the other games here. I know we have a graphic that we might be able to throw up with some of the games on it, but Ohio State is going to USC. That's going to be a big one. I understand that Ohio State's lost their starting quarterback, USC's in a bit of a flux, but that is still, I think, an interesting game on Halloween. Now, Wisconsin-Iowa is the Fox, the big noon game, and that clearly was scheduled before. Iowa laid that egg against Minnesota. This game would have been a lot more if the Hawkeyes had taken care of business there. That was tough for the black and gold. That was a good old-fashioned Big Ten West kind of game right there. Just low offense. But you mentioned Wisconsin-Iowa. You were obviously an Iowa Hawkeye. I got a couple trivia questions about this particular matchup. Do you know the trophy that Wisconsin and Iowa play for? It's funny. I looked at this earlier, and I did not look at Floyd of Rosedale as Iowa-Minnesota. Peg, yeah. I was going to say Paul Bunyan's axe, but I don't think that's right, because I don't think Iowa's involved in that. I think they call this, is it the Heartland Trophy? That's how you know he's an Iowa Hawkeye, folks. That is indeed the Heartland rivalry, Battle for the Heartland, whatever you may call it. Do you know how many times these teams have played each other going into this game? Well, I'm going to say 125. You're a little high, but this will be the 100th playing of Wisconsin versus Iowa. And going into this matchup, Wisconsin has won 49. Iowa has won 48. Oh, I love that. And there are two ties in there. So this is about as even. It's probably going to be a 13-10 game. And you mentioned they got unlucky. Well, Wisconsin did beat USC last week. So they do at least get one of the ranked teams in this game. Yeah, a lot of these Big Ten teams, they have a lot of trophies that go into these games, especially Big Ten West. It felt like when that was a thing, all those games were for some sort of trophy. Yeah, that's our big noon kickoff game in Florida, Georgia, world's largest outdoor cocktail party. This is the first time this is a ranked game since, I think, 2020, which is the last time Florida won. And then Northwestern going to Oregon. Northwestern somehow ranked going into this game. Oregon's not. Isn't that crazy? It's bizarre, but Northwestern has not beaten a good team all year, so this could be a bit of a – is it weird to call going to Oregon a trap game? Because I do think the Ducks will win. I think the Ducks fired their offensive coordinator this past week as well, so rough times up in the Pacific Northwest. Carter Freeman, thanks very much. Yeah, thanks for having me on. We'll wrap our show up in a minute. Simply asking for your prediction on Cowboys-Cardinals, go to fox4news.com slash free-for-all or scan the code. We are back at 10.30 on Fox 4 with free-for-all. We'll see you then.