Friday Free Mailbag! Your Questions and My Answers.

Jake Ferguson's breakout, Barry vs Emmitt, No Micah Parsons holding Calls, and Dan Quinn's coaching future.

We have made it to another Friday and finally that highly anticipated Cowboys Week 15 date with the Buffalo Bills has arrived!

I cannot tell you how excited I am about this one. I realize it is not a playoff game, but the weather, the setting, and the general quality of both rosters have me feeling like it is a Pre-Playoff Game that I am thrilled to get to enjoy.

Of course, subscribers will get a Cowboys pre-game Three Thoughts in the next 24 hours where I will go over that matchup in detail and then, of course, we will deliver all of the post-game pieces on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of next week.

Christmas Weekend will be a bit of a break around here, but I anticipate we will do a Cowboys Pre-Game piece for next Friday (no mailbag, happy holidays) and since the Cowboys play on Christmas Eve night, the Cowboys Morning After will hit somewhere between late that night or whenever I can fit it in the following morning. After that, everything else that week – Decoding McCarthy and DQ Report – will drop when it drops.

No real promises.

We also plan on some Texas Longhorns preview materials for the college football playoffs during this stretch of time. In fact, if you are like me, you may wish to review last year’s Alamo Bowl matchup between Texas and Washington to give you a little taste of what might occur in New Orleans on Jan 1.

Speaking of subscribers, I would like to pitch you on our Christmas Special right now. I have lowered the price of annual subscriptions from $80 to $60 from now until Christmas to try to encourage you to upgrade for basically all of 2024. This start-up newsletter wants to earn your business and I promise you the football offseason is going to be a lot of fun. I plan on covering a lot of topics that will still keep you up to speed on the Cowboys offseason and the 2024 NFL Draft, but also I can finally dive into plenty of Dallas Mavericks, Dallas Stars, and World Champion Texas Rangers coverage as we go. I have big plans that also include revisiting classic games and I think we will start doing a “game of the month” concept where perhaps a founding member can pick a game that they want us to review. If it is relevant and available – from any of your favorite teams or eras – I think it would be great to do some level of a community rewatch here at SturmStack.

Anyway, back to the special, 25% of the price of an annual is only good from now until Christmas Day. As you know, for monthly folks, I am at $8 a month, but if you do an annual, that is roughly the price of 7.5 months for the upgrade. In other words, if you might go from training camp to the playoffs (July to January) of Cowboys season, this special would get you basically the rest of the year for free.

Even better, I am biased, but I think you might love to gift #Sturmstack to someone for the year. Talk about easy Christmas shopping for that DFW sports enthusiast!

I really do appreciate all of you who have allowed me to make this thing happen. When the Athletic punted on me, I was sort of wondering what might be next. I had no idea what was around the next corner. It has been quite a lovely journey in 2023.

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Last thing before we start answering your questions. For whatever reason, I have really fallen back down the rabbit hole of my beloved 1990’s-era NFL football this week by watching two documentaries about two of my favorite players of that era. I think you might enjoy one or both of them in your down time.

My favorite of the two is Bye Bye Barry. This is Amazon Prime and is about Barry Sanders. As you probably know, there was nothing like Barry Sanders. If you still struggle with Barry vs Emmitt as a sports debate, I can appreciate the brand loyalty, but I think there is no answer but Barry Sanders. Here is the trailer for the film:

I thought that documentary was worth every minute of my time.

The second one was “The Minister of Defense” which was the latest ESPN 30-for-30 and it was all about, of course, Reggie White.

It was good, but spent the majority of the time on the personal journey of Reggie White the man and the preacher. I was interested in that journey for sure, but I wish they would have spent more of the time on his football greatness. I think Reggie is as rare and special as Barry on the field and the Barry Sanders documentary made that the majority of its content and the Reggie White doc sort of made that less of his focus and more on his personal decisions to speak on matters he thought were more important than football and that often got him on the wrong side of the public.

Again, its all interesting and I realize that some people cannot even consider Reggie White the player because Reggie White the preacher caused such a conflict, but I am not sure there were many defenders in the history of football who were better than No. 92 and for me, that was where my head was at as he raised my favorite team from the ashes.

Here is my favorite two minutes of the Reggie White Doc. It is JJ Watt telling you about Reggie’s Hump move and it ends with the legendary Cris Carter story:

Anyway, feed me any and all NFL Documentaries from the 1970’s-1990’s and I will watch them all. Love that stuff!

Ok, Let’s put 90 minutes on the clock as I sit here in the dark on Friday Morning and answer as many of your queries as I can get through before I take the little lady to breakfast.

Go!

From Josh Peterson: What's Jake Ferguson's ceiling as a tight end? Every week the guy makes plays, and he's obviously oozing confidence as well.

Josh, I love this conversation, because I just don’t know. I am so impressed with how he has developed as a player and to think he was a mid-round TE in the 2022 draft who was always very solid at Wisconsin, but never felt like he was going to be an NFL starter, let alone potential stud.

I watched most of his college career with great interest and am guilty of perhaps not seeing this for what it was. He was always very good with the Badgers and there is no bigger label to wear than “Grandson of Barry Alvarez,” but I certainly did not have him earmarked for potential stardom. Here are some clips from his days in Madison.

He was always a solid player, but the athleticism in Dallas is a real credit for how hard he has worked to continue to improve his body. Wisconsin does not always get exceptional athletes, but when they do, they make an impression in the NFL. The oddity of very few NFL TE’s from the university since Owen Daniels, I guess, probably kept me from using my imagination enough.

Regardless, here are 10 Ferguson plays from the last five weeks or so. Tell me this guy hasn’t leveled up and made everyone forget about Dalton Schultz in a hurry.

He was the eight TE taken in the 2022 draft and I am curious if he might emerge as the one with the best NFL career. Arizona’s Trey McBride is probably the only one in the group who he is currently contending with and he was the top TE of that class. It is clear that the Cowboys personnel department is hitting a lot of home runs these days.

From Dave Hoekstra: Bob, for a few years I had always complained that Dak wasn't very adept at "stepping up in the pocket". His feet were planted after he dropped back, which led to chaos in the backfield. This year seems different. Have you noticed a change in his footwork this season that is leading him to success?

I am certainly not a QB footwork expert, but I think his navigation in the pocket this year has been superb. He looks like he has fool confidence in every component of his game. So yes, mechanically, things look better, but I can only say what looks “right” to me. Things are now timed up well, he knows where his answers are, and it just looks like expert-level QB play.

Why did we get here now? Why did this never happen well with Jason Garrett, Scott Linehan, and Kellen Moore? Well, it is perhaps just the normal progression of a QB now having basically received a Master’s Degree in his craft. 10,000-hour rule and such. Or, maybe Mike McCarthy has been the right guy at the right time to come along and speak with a credibility that working with two other NFL MVP’s and helping them figure it out has given Dak the confidence that he is finally with a teacher that gets all of the nuance that success requires. I am not sure, but it is a good conversation as we watch this guy look so well schooled and confident. He is playing at a level we have never seen from him and most had run out of hope.

From Dominic L: Hey Bob. We saw the beginning of Easton Stick with the Chargers Sunday. Too bad he doesn’t play hockey 🙃. But he has to be up there in the pantheon of sports names. Do you have a top five? He’d crack mine with Razor Shines, Milton Bradley and the afterlife adversaries that must be God Shamgod and Miroslav Satan 😜!

This is a question that I should probably have a better answer for you, but I guess I do not given that I love a lot of your list more than anything off the top of my head.

The name I was obsessed with as a kid was Sixto Lezcano. He was the right fielder for my Milwaukee Brewers until I was 8 years old and as a kid. I had no idea what I was looking for at that age, but the guys with the curious names were always the most interesting to young me. That is absolutely how Chris Chelios was a favorite, as well. I guess when your name is Bob, you channel what having a cool name must be like. Bob is absurdly basic, so I always loved Sixto more.

As someone my age who loved sports often would, I left the names to Chris Berman and still can’t think of Marion Butts or Bert Blyleven without hearing Berman’s voice in my head.

From Jack Lott: Bob, I question the lack of tipped balls by our defensive linemen. Is there a lack of emphasis on this with the coaches or is it a trade off to keep attacking the QB and don’t stop to get your hands up. Does anyone track this league wide and keep the stats?

The Cowboys have seven batted passes this year and are ranked 21st in a league where the average team has 8.3. The tops in the league include this week’s opponent, the Buffalo Bills who are tied with the New Orleans Saints and the Carolina Panthers at 14 each. I guess I have no idea if Dallas emphasizes getting your hands up in passing lanes, but I can ask around. I guess I never would have guessed that basically one per game by a team is enough to lead the league. It doesn’t appear to happen as much as we think. I suppose this is another sign that NFL QBs are amazing. Imagine trying to find open receivers with a pass rush of those monsters coming at you. How they see anything, let alone keep focus and accuracy, is a testament to their skills as a group.

From Nevin: Bob, with mock draft season starting...general question, what position group would you like to see Dallas targeting with their late first round pick?

Great question! I plan on doing plenty in this department in the months to follow, of course, but off the top of my head, I would continue to hit the offensive line and secondary in every draft. I do need a running back for sure, too. And I suppose we better keep looking at defensive tackles.

I know linebacker is on everyone’s mind, but the kids are getting better and there is more help on the mend. Remember that DeMarvion Overshown and Trevon Diggs are too very nice additions to next year’s defense, too. This should be interesting to see what they come up with in the spring time.

From Michael: Besides Dak's MVP-level run, nothing has been more important to the offense's success than CeeDee's leveling up this season. It's been remarkable. He is essentially uncoverable. I'll tell you what has stood out to me, though, and that's that he seems to LOVE playing football. Whether it's blocking on running plays, blocking downfield for receivers/tight ends (the big 3rd and 6 to Jake Ferguson Sunday night being a prime example), or celebrating someone else's success, he obviously loves playing this game and seeing his teammates do well. I don't have a question, just wanted to say that I love watching this dude, and I'm sure you do, too.

Michael, we are on the same page here. I remember in mid-2022, there were legions of fans who were dissatisfied with Lamb’s play. Remember those interceptions vs the Bears and Packers where it looked like he didn’t know what he was doing or even quit on a route that ended up being a Prescott interception.

I am so pleased that he has found the next level and has also proven to be so durable and resilient. It is easy to forget how slight he appears, but often those guys are great at avoiding tons of punishment and he does that well. He took some massive hits as a rookie, but has avoided them more as he has gone along. Lamb is now a player who can do it all and has earned himself a ton of money here before long. I am not sure there are three receivers in this league you would rather have than CeeDee Lamb, who is just 24 years old.

From Brooks W. Klein: Bob, Micah Parsons seems to get very little respect from the officials when it comes to holding calls on him, particularly in crucial parts of the games when he puts forth his greatest effort.Three years into his career, I’d think he would be getting a few more flags for holding calls against him. The Dallas O-lineman seem to have 3 holding calls a game in crucial situations which lead to FG attempts rather than a possible touchdown. I know every fan of every team feels the refs are against them, but Micah seems to get very few calls. With all the money the NFL makes why do they not employ and train full time refs? The money is too big to have so much inconsistency.

Brooks, first allow me to offer you this. I do not like getting too deep into the refs component. Yes, they are not very good at their jobs in all of the sports I follow, they make calls every week that seem to impact the outcomes of these games. I personally find some people fixated on it to the point that it ruins their enjoyment of the games and I don’t want that to happen. It appears society has agreed that either their team wins or that the refs are cheating us our fair outcomes. Nobody ever loses anymore. They have just been cheated by the refs (I am definitely not putting you in this category).

Having said all of that, yes, Micah Parsons is held a ton and the calls aren’t made as often as they should. It certainly appears that this is consistent with other top edge rushers, as well.

For instance, Michael Gelkin of the Dallas Morning News recently had this tweet:

That sounds incredible, right? Why is the league against Micah Parsons?

Wait. This tweet out of Pittsburgh from Steelers analyst Derrick Bell where TJ Watt never gets any calls:

And then this one from David Lombardi who covers the 49ers:

I guess what I am saying is that every city thinks their pass rusher gets held on every play. I am also not saying they are wrong, but there is a time where penalties ruin the game, so they try to “let them play” so the game is still watchable.

In closing, I am sure we have talked about this every year of my life and I am also sure we are convinced officiating has never been worse. I have no solutions here, just observations.

From Jay Beerley: It seems that the Stars have a crazy amount of long stretch of off days with bunched game days quite regularly this season instead of being nice and spread out. I’ve never seen so many 3-4 days off stretches. Is this something intentional in the league I missed, random schedule quirk, or am I just wrong?

I will certainly invite our favorite hockey writer and editor of this SturmStack, Sean Shapiro to weigh in here if he would like, but I don’t think anything is too odd in this setup. The Stars need some practice time these days to continue to figure out what has caused the issues with the defense, in particular.

Dallas is a very fine hockey team, but we are seeing that they have some things to address as they roll through December. Everyone seems to agree they need a solution still to the never-ending “partner for Miro Heiskanen” vacancy, but for now, they need to get back to stringing consecutive wins together. I know I didn’t answer your question too specifically, but I think the schedule cadence is about where it always is.

From James: Two related questions: Is Stephon Gilmore a surefire HOFer like the announcers said during the game on Sunday? And do you bring Gilmore back next season, or do you hope Diggs fully recovers and run with him and Bland on the outside and Lewis+others in the slot?

Sure-fire? Well, that might be a stretch. But, yes, I do think it is conceivable that Gilmore is going to be in Canton. I have been a huge fan for about the last six years – since he left Buffalo for New England – and he spent a few years as “the best corner in the league”, so these things really help. Has he done enough if he retired today? Probably borderline, but this 2023 in Dallas is not hurting his case at all. I am tempted to say he is in.

As for back in 2024? I am completely down with this plan. I think he has been a huge addition and obviously his work against the big receivers has been a real savior for this thing after Diggs was lost. I am all-in.

From Dalton Cook: Want to circle back on the 20+ point victory conversation. I believe we have 2 more since you broke in down in November. That makes the most in Cowboys history and tied for 3rd all time. Do you think they have 1 or 2 more in the tank?

Yes, the Cowboys are now in a tie in 3rd place all time with eight 20+ wins in 2023. They now trail only the 2007 New England Patriots (10) and the 1999 St Louis Rams (9). The Patriots lost the Super Bowl. The Rams won the Super Bowl. The 1996 Packers won the Super Bowl, too. You may notice that those three teams all had Super Bowl in their season and then, the only other team is the 2023 Dallas Cowboys.

Incredible!

From Mike Humphries: What happened to the #bananastand? And could you clarify your use of the term? I know the reference from Arrested Development but missed out on the reason for the usage in your previous work.

The BananaStand was a workaround for when The Athletic told us to stop using NFL All-22 tape because the league might get angry with us. I am not sure the league cared, but I was told they threatened to not give us credentials to league games if we didn’t listen.

I thought that was ridiculous, so I would put the film on my twitter – which is where a thousand other account also posted film. The film is not part of the broadcast companies footage that is paid for, so I consider showing people film to be an educational endeavor so everyone learns and enjoys the game more.

As you know, I don’t have to listen to those rules anymore and here I can post what I wish – partly because I don’t really need credentials to games. The Cowboys do grant me credentials, but if they chose not to, that is ok with me. I can cover games in other ways and don’t really require access to the lockerroom. So, no rules means no need for the #bananastand anymore. And yes, it was definitely a reference to Arrested Development because they always had money hidden in that banana stand and that was code for the family to look there when they visited Jeffrey Tambor in prison.

From stephen m demarest: Bob, question on DQ. Media keeps telling me he is "sure to be a head coach somewhere next year". But he's had opportunities the past two seasons and chosen to stay put. In a world where head coaches are fired midway through their first seasons, why wouldn't he again choose to stay where he is winning and celebrated, especially if J. Jones makes it worth his while? Do we know for sure that he's determined to be a head coach ASAP?

We don’t know this for sure. We assume that Quinn is ready to be a head coach again and we assume he is in high demand. But, we don’t know the inner workings of this all because in the end it is his decision. Jerry Jones can absolutely pay him “head coach money” if he wants to lure Quinn to not be in a hurry to go back. But, at some point, Quinn will find a job he cannot refuse. Perhaps to succeed Pete Carroll in Seattle? Perhaps he was told to plan on succeeding Mike McCarthy here? We are all guessing. But, for the third straight year, he will be in high demand. At some point, he will say yes. And the Cowboys are hopefully sure that they have someone to step into his spot when that time comes. He has been incredible here.

From Chris Rickard: Hey, I'm not sure if you discussed this previously, but what's your reaction to Mark Cuban selling the Mavericks franchise (sort of, I guess)? He is saying nothing will change but, I can't understand how he'd continue to be in-charge of basketball operations but not own the team. He'll essentially be spending the Adelson's money but they don't want a say in how it's spent? I feel like there is a clock ticking down with Mark's involvement with the team and I can imagine this coming to a head in a few years if the Mavs feel like they need to dive into the luxury tax to keep a contender around Luka.

I should write at great length about this soon, but overall, I think that we need to see what is happening next before we know what to make of it. Is it really about getting sports gambling pushed through in Texas so that the team can build a casino/arena and subsidize the franchise’s future.

Mark still owns between 25%-27% of the franchise and that is not in any way a tiny chunk, but yes, he is now under the umbrella of the Adelson family. He appears to have no plans to exit, but we also are left to wonder. I do know this, the Mavericks seem determined to chase a title hard with Luka Doncic entering his prime and that will require resources. With the TV deal a mess, it makes sense that he wanted to build an alliance with someone flush with cash to allow the team to operate and figure out their own financial future as player salaries will probably be near $100m per season for a super star between now and 2033. If he was feeling a little stretched with all of these realties and is chasing the profits of a new arena and sports gambling, it maybe is a more basic explanation that some off-ramp approaching.

That said, I agree, it was a shock story and one that is definitely unique in that a guy “sells” a team and yet still runs it. We will have to monitor closely, but I do not see anything here that makes me offer doomsday reviews. No, they are not moving the franchise and no, they are not tapping out of trying to be a big boy contender in the next 5 years. This might all mean the exact opposite.

Ok, that’s all for today. Have a good weekend!