Do Cowboys Deserve Credit Or Criticism for 'Fixing' 3 Roster 'Flops'?
The Cowboys said goodbye to three players on cut down day, with one being a big surprise.
Video Transcript
Should we bash the Dallas Cowboys because they had three big flops?
Or should we credit the Dallas Cowboys because they shifted gears and turned the flops into fixes?
Mike Fisher reporting from Frisco, Texas, home of the Dallas Cowboys.
We'll be inside to start today.
1 p.m.
Shoddy press conference, and then I believe we're on the field after that.
So keep it here and at cowboysroundtable.com, and we will keep you posted.
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Cowboys make their cut to 53.
Of course, they're not done.
There's never anything on an NFL team.
But and there's a lot of notables in there.
I counted last night 14 guys that might merit bringing back to quad.
You can have a maximum of 17, of course.
But I'm going to focus on three of them this morning.
Three notables that represent a great glasses half full versus glasses half empty argument.
In these three moves, did the Cowboys suffer a flop or they go get themselves a fix?
Oh, and by the way, many of you who've been asking, today's the day.
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Dig it?
All right, here we go.
Sam Williams, Nate Thomas, Jaden Blue.
Let's start with Sam.
And again, the thesis statement.
Do you blame them because Sam Williams didn't work out?
Or do you credit them because they found something better?
Now, Tyrus Wheat beats him out, at least for the moment.
Is Tyrus Wheat better than Sam Williams?
Well, the roster cuts say he is.
But they added Von Miller.
And as soon as they added Von Miller, of course, we knew that some of the writing was on the wall for somebody like Luafalo gets hurt.
That gives Sam Williams a little elbow.
Von Miller's here.
A lot of bad decisions in his time with Dallas.
He did his four-year stint as a rookie.
He had a year where he had five sacks, but he also turned his car upside down driving a million miles an hour right down that street.
And goofy penalties and all the rest.
He's a second-round pick.
The Cowboys knew that he had some behavioral challenges in college.
That's a fact.
And they never quite got it fixed.
VJ, I'd rather have Williams and Wheat.
Well, they disagree, obviously.
Credit to him, by the way.
He puts on social media, thank you, Dallas.
A classy exit.
And by the way, I mean, if he doesn't end up on another NFL team, maybe I'd give him another swing to the practice squad here.
But for now, Sam Williams, done.
Beat him up because they blew a second-round pick on Sam Williams?
Fair.
The Cowboys need to get away from that habit.
Hey, second round.
And Jerry used to say it.
Second round is we're going to do a solid one in the first round and we're going to roll the dice in the second round.
Stop that.
Why don't you just do a solid one in the second round, too?
So Sam Williams out.
Todd Self, Uncle Fish Premium.
I'm catching breakfast at Fish and Ease and we're eating good.
We do this every morning at 8 a.m. Live.
We do it every evening, Fish at 6 as well.
And of course, this evening, Fish at 6 will wrap up the Cowboys' day of practice as we this is real football now.
I give them credit.
Sam Williams is an NFL player.
And they didn't give him a second big contract.
They gave him a second little contract.
And they replaced him with somebody better.
Von Miller is better than Sam Williams.
So I don't put that down as some horrible flop.
It's a lesson learned about what to do in the second round.
But they got better.
Next to Nate Thomas.
Did they prop up Nate Thomas, offensive tackle, as a competition to Tyler Guyton to light a fire under the first rounder Guyton?
Yes.
And it worked.
Tyler Guyton has had a very good summer according to Shadi.
I believe him.
Nate Thomas, meanwhile, was a month ago ballyhooed as i- in, in a real competition.
It n- never was a real competition.
He's not even close to Tyler Guyton t- physically.
Seventh round pick.
Does this count as a failure?
Really?
'Cause a seventh round pick didn't pan out?
Of course not.
SS Dirk, "I need to win that Bob Lilly jersey for my mom, Uncle Fish."
You know what to do, SS Dirk.
Tcuroundtable.com, that's it.
So they almost got themselves a decent piece of scrap metal in the seventh round on Nate Thomas.
Then they see, "Oh, this isn't working.
He's not good enough to be the swing tackle.
In fact, nobody on this roster is good enough to be the swing tackle, including Drew Shelton."
So they call the Steelers and say, "We'll take Broderick Jones."
Now, Bro- Broderick Jones is obviously flawed, but he's a f- he was a first round pick a couple years ago who started in Pittsburgh.
Now, he had the spinal fusion thing, and got medical clearance to come back to football this summer.
He said a couple weeks ago, "I, I, it's gonna take me some time to get my strength back," and all that.
The initial reaction from people that weren't paying attention to that trade this weekend is Cowboys give up a third round pick for Broderick Jones.
That's not true.
You gotta tell the full story.
They gave up a three, they got a four, they threw in a six, and then with the Nate Thomas trade, they made up for the six.
Nate Thomas gets traded to Houston.
So in the end, they move Nate Thomas out, former seventh round pick who isn't panning out, move Broderick Jones in, former first round pick who started in Seattle in Pittsburgh, who clearly is in a different class of player than anybody else they have on this roster in terms of being a swing tackle, and maybe even competition for Steel at right tackle.
But for now, swing tackle.
He's a w- a, a, a lot of cuts above.
And in the end, what they did in this switcheroo, one, two, three, four, five picks and two players involved, five picks, two players, and three teams, what they really did was trade w- was Nate Thomas out, Broderick Jones in, and move down from wherever they're gonna be, 'cause they give up a third round pick, to wherever Pittsburgh's gonna be in the fourth round.
Now we're just guessing, but we think Dallas is gonna have a winning record, right?
So maybe Dallas in the third round has the 21st pick.
Okay?
20 m- maybe, maybe Cowboys are good.
25th pick.
They go to the playoffs.
Let's project for the fun of this argument that the Steelers are gonna be mediocre, so they pick 15th, let's say.
You've just moved 20 slots down is all you did.
You didn't trade a third round pick for Broderick Jones, you moved down 20 slots to trade Nate Thomas for Broderick Jones.
You get it?
Yes, this is n- number two pencil time, but if you think about it, big picture, you, you see the big picture.
If you listen to Steelers beat writers who are going, "Yeah, w- what a great deal for the Steelers.
They dump Broderick and get a third round pick," that's not the story.
That's, that's just the pinky toe on the whole foot.
So once again, had they stuck with Nate Thomas a- and, and to- looked themselves around the room and said, "Gosh, we announced that he was gonna compete for the starting left tackle job, and boy were we wrong.
Let- let's, let's keep him so we don't look embarrassed."
No, they go out and fix it.
So Nate Thomas, seventh round pick, a flop?
No.
Broderick Jones, first round pick, a fix.
Immortal, $5 pitch in, "Cowboys don't have a great history of third or fourth rounders.
I don't mind the trade."
Well, of course, they, they have a habit of investing fourth round picks in guys.
Now, Trey Lance didn't work out.
Jonathan Mingo's on the football team.
We shall see.
And then the third one, ding, Jaden Blue.
Don't tell me that I was wrong about J- thunder and lightning.
They were wrong about thunder and lightning.
That was the plan.
I think somebody on, one, one of the radio guys said, "What, what was ever the plan?
What was ever the point with J- " If, if you read cowboysroundtable.com and pay attention to this show, you knew in February what was the plan for Jaden Blue.
We gotta mature him up, gotta teach him some football, and we want him to be the lightning to, to Javante's thunder, not the backup running back, the caddy to go alongside him.
The backup running back was gonna be somebody the backup starting running back was gonna be somebody who could carry a 20 carry load, and that's turned out to be Malik Davis.
So once again, let's go to running back, and Blue, maybe he circles back here.
We shall see.
When they start assembling the practice squad.
Fifth round pick.
So they, they did roll the dice on a fifth round pick who has this incredible track speed and doesn't seem to fully get football, frankly.
Did they fix it?
We get so caught up in the quote flop of Blue that we're ignoring the fix of Malik.
I don't think Jaden Blue did anything particularly wrong this summer.
Do you?
He had a fumble in a, in a joint practice.
That's all I remember.
But this is, this goes back to glass half full, glass half empty.
You want to beat them up because a fifth round pick didn't live up to what they wanted?
Or do you want to give them credit because they rediscovered Malik Davis?
You guys have been saying all along, Malik Davis deserves it.
Malik Davis deserves it.
Well, don't change now.
He deserves it.
SMK, is Hunter Lipke going to be the number two running back?
Hunter Lipke is a do it all lock on the roster and he's not going anywhere.
Fullback.
He can carry the ball a little bit.
Core special teamer.
Line up a tight end.
Jaden Blue's football savvy was not there.
That doesn't mean he's done in football.
It doesn't necessarily even mean he's done in Dallas.
But you get to choose how you want to view this.
Flop or fix.
Oh no, Sam Williams, flop.
Or we got Von Miller.
Oh no, Nate Thomas, flop.
Or we got Broderick Jones.
Oh no, Jaden Blue.
It didn't work out.
But Malik Davis is working out.
The Cowboys, with those three moves, are better than they would have been had they not made those three moves.
In other words, you could have said, we're stubbornly keeping Nate Thomas.
He's the swing tackle.
We said he could be.
We're stubbornly keeping Sam Williams.
We gave up a second round pick for him.
We're stubbornly keeping Jaden Blue.
We told Fish thunder and lightning.
You can be stubborn or you can get better.
You can worry about the flop or you can go get the fix.
You decide which way you want to look at it.
And you also decide, in a way, who's going to win Bob Lilly by going to tcuroundtable.com.
And one click of the button makes you eligible for a prize that a Cowboy fan like you, you can't even put a price on that baby.
And I'm just giving it to you because that's the kind of Fish I am.
Fish out.
