MISSTEP: Dallas Cowboys’ Preseason Choices BACKFIRE | Biggest Reason For Week 1 STRUGGLES?

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Marcus Mosher (1:22)

The Dallas Cowboys made a big mistake in the preseason and we'll tell you what it is next.

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Marcus Mosher (1:45)

Welcome back to the Locked On Cowboys podcast. We'd like to thank you for making us your first listen of the day. I am your host, Marcus Mosher. He is Landon McCool. And today's episode is brought to you by FanDuel. Get $350 in bonus bets guaranteed when you bet $5 every day for seven days. Join all of the action at fanduel.com. Welcome back on today's show. We are answering your Twitter questions, including, are we concerned about Jake Ferguson? We're going to talk about why the Cowboys have a revolving door at linebacker.

But Landon, I want to start with this first question from Brian.

He says, how much is Brian Schottenheimer to blame for not testing and trying this defense in the preseason? We didn't see hardly any of the current starters on defense play in the preseason. Caleb Downs played like seven snaps.

I know hindsight is 20-20, but did they make a mistake?

Landon McCool (2:42)

Well, first of all, hindsight is 20-20, and that's why we go back over the decisions we make to find out whether it was a good idea or not. So having the benefit of hindsight, I think it's worth noting that they tried to go this very similar route last year, and they had more success doing it. And we could talk about the many reasons that that may be the case, but I think now having had, let's say, two years of data points of doing the, starters don't play preseason, but they do do joint practices, I think that it's hard not to point to this and view it as a data point against that idea, simply because you had twice as many, two versus one, twice as many joint practices this year, and you feel like they actually performed worse than they did, as far as relative to where you feel like their team is at this point last year. So I think, yes, it's a mistake, but it's also understandable, because they've only tried this once before. And I feel like the risk versus reward last year made a lot more sense. You at least were playing very competitively with a tough Eagles team, despite the fact that you had just recently lost Michael Parsons.

I think this year, you look at it, and the fact that they even increased the joint practices, and they came out more flat than they did last year. I think maybe it's time to start reconsidering playing these guys, at least a series or two, at some point in the preseason.

Marcus Mosher (4:26)

I understand why they don't play players in the preseason. Jerry Jones laid it out on the radio on Tuesday. You don't want to leave your team on the field in July and August. What that really means is you don't want your talent getting hurt when it really doesn't matter. You'd rather have them on the field.

But there is a part where you want these guys to be prepared.