The SPOD Pod - Episode 1

The Spod Pod is a podcast where the hosts discuss current events, news, and games related to the Dallas Cowboys. They also talk about the performance of the team's defense and the impact of key players like Michael Parsons and Dak Prescott. The hosts praise coach Mike McCarthy for his preparation and offensive strategies. They predict a victory for the Cowboys in their upcoming game against the Arizona Cardinals. All right, everyone, welcome to the first episode of the Spod Pod. My name is Jared. This is Austin. Quick show. We'll talk about some Cowboys current events, news, some NFC East matchups, previous Sunday's game, talk about some Saturday football games, go in, down, talking on some betting lines. We'll get into our Graham Fantasy League chat. We'll talk a little bit about current events and that. And then we'll get into some sports and outdoors, some hunting stuff to wrap up the show. How's it going, man? It's going good, dude. Just watching the Dirty Catholics get beat in the Ohio State game all the way back. They won. Punched in at the one. All right, so Ohio State wraps that game up. They beat number nine Notre Dame, so they'll probably move into the top four spot. I would imagine they're going to probably take over that spot at number four. Yeah. So some big Cowboys news, obviously, this week, Trayvon digs down. What was your first reaction to that? Yeah, that was my first reaction, dude. It was painful. Every year, as soon as there's a little bit of hope, something happens. But you know, like, everyone keeps saying it, if we're going to have an injury, it sucks for it to be him, but for that position to have an injury is probably the best position on the team. So, as far as depth goes. Yeah. Big moment. Derron. Exactly. I mean, we were, he stepped up for us last year when Andy Brown went down. We were on him early last year in the preseason. He was the first guy who I remember we were watching. And I think he's going to be, I mean, it's obviously a way different player, but I think he's going to fill a pretty good void and surprise a lot of folks once again, like he did last year. Yeah, I mean, I'm excited to see if they put in, because Wanye plays on the outside too, right? Like, is that his primary position as cornerback or does he play nickel a lot? I think they're kind of putting him more in that linebacker kind of strong safety position more than anything right now with Donovan's absence, but with him being back this week, I'll be curious to see how they utilize him and Bell both, actually. He's a stud, dude. I love Wanye. So, I was doing a little research just to kind of speak and kind of transition talking about the Cowboys defense, obviously. Number one, her pro football reference, they've allowed for two games, 386 total yards. Number one in turnover percent, number one in scoring drive percents. The scoring drive percent was a pretty interesting stat to me. So they are allowing scoring drives less than 10% of the time. So at 8.78 mark, number two is Cleveland at 13.8 and number three is Jacksonville at 20%. So that's just goes to tell you how good the Cowboys defense is playing right now. I saw a stat, and I had never seen this stat before, but it's called the Havoc Rate. Like pass breakups, QB pressures, all that shit. The Cowboys were number one with 80% and I think the next closest one was like 56% or 57%. Dude, they're nasty. So a lot of this, obviously a lot, everyone knows this starts with probably the greatest specimen on a football field that I've ever seen, Michael Parsons. So through two games, he's played 70% of the snaps. He's got a pass deflection, a forced fumble, a fumble recovery, three setbacks and four tackles for loss. That is insane. That was pressure percent because Michael Parsons is at a alarming 32% rate in their career for opposing quarterbacks. And I think that's just kind of where it starts. Well, yeah, dude, you see it. Look at a player like Osa Digizua, like, I mean, he's a great player and everything, but it makes it a lot easier when you only have to beat one guy, really, maybe at times a half a guy because the other dudes are trying to cover Michael Parsons. Yes, absolutely. All these other dudes get the E. It's been great to watch. I'm excited to see Osa. You know, it'd be a lot better if our first-round draft pick could make an impact as well, but it's early. Maybe he'll pick it up and kind of catch on to what the rest of these dudes are doing. So it's a fun defense to watch, though. It's a fun defense to watch. The back end, I mean, I know the front end gets a lot of talk, and they should with all the pressures and sacks and everything, but our back end is nasty. I mean, they don't have to hold guys as long, but when you look at having Bell and then Madonna coming back, it's just, if we could get away and Vander Esch can be a little bit more durable through this year. Yeah. He's got to stay healthy. That's going to be key. That'd be nice. Yeah. So, something I kind of want to talk about that I think has been kind of under-talked about at least at the national level is the job that Mike McCarthy has done, I mean, again, in two weeks in, but just having his hands all over every aspect of what is going on on the offensive side of the football I think has been night and day. I mean, you can just see the team just looks prepared. Last few years coming out week one, I mean, it's been the talk about being, oh, Dak doesn't play in the preseason. That's why they're not performing well week one. And this was actually, I want to say maybe the first week one win that Mike McCarthy has had since his time in Dallas. So I think that that talks about his preparation and how he's getting these guys prepared. He goes out against the Jets and we win the toss and he elects to receive the ball instead of deferring to the second half because he wants, he knows that our offense is going to be prepared to go out there and put this team ahead by seven points against a really good defense. So my hat's off to him so far this season. I think he is an underrated candidate for coach of the year if this team makes a run. It helps to have the defense that you have too, because you can play a little bit free and take the ball to start because it doesn't really fucking matter with this defense. He's got Dak playing right though. He's got Dak playing right. And the way that, I mean, the way he runs at offense, it runs like a machine, but also you got to look at the guy that was there last year, where he's at now, hasn't really translated too well for Kellen down in Los Angeles, almost at San Diego. Hear me out. I mean, I guess, I mean, they've put up some points, but at the same time, like they've had some pretty, pretty bad games. Pretty bad games for sure. Like that defense was ferocious. I don't know. They were Super Bowl, there's like Super Bowl, supposed to be Super Bowl contenders coming to the year. They've got another quarterback, apparently. I mean, I haven't talked to him since freshman year of college, but he's, I mean, you got to win in the NFL. I mean, he hasn't done it, so. No. Dak Prescott, real quick, just to touch on him. We talked about it. He is, obviously, he's played pretty well through the first two weeks. They haven't asked him to do a whole lot, but what he has been asked to do, he is doing it at an absolutely efficient level. But that, hey, look at our most successful year with Dak. What was he asked to do? Not a whole lot. 2016. So, I wanted, I have some references here. So, something that sticks out on the page for me is, it has to do with his time to throw, obviously. His time to throw has been insanely fast through the first two weeks. He's leading the NFL in that clip, and it's his intended air yards to throw is 5.3 right now. Damn. Which is pretty crazy low. I mean, I would be interested to see, does it have last year's air yards? Because there was times where he was just choking the ball. He's generally around the 7 to 8 range, which I think is pretty standard in the NFL. 5.3 is really, I mean, that's like a, that's a Justin Fields, that's a Zach Wilson number. But, it's the offense that Mike McCarthy runs, I think. And you can see why. His percent of bad throws, his percent of bad throws is the lowest of his career right now. So, I think it's translating, and he's doing what they're asking him to do. I'm not going to lie to you, dude, seeing some of, like, I love, I love Deuce now, but to be honest with you, when we took the pick, it's kind of like, he's taking a small running back like this. A guy like Kevontae Turpin, I thought he was great last year at the return, but, like, he really didn't bring anything offensively. And then, you're seeing a little bit more of those guys being used, and I think, like, Mike McCarthy had this in his head the whole time of his plan, and it took a little bit longer with Kellan, but, like, the way he runs that offense, and having these little speedy guys where you can just toss it to him two yards behind the line, and, hey, go get six yards real quick, make one dude miss, and then maybe you bust one every now and then. A lot of people, I don't know, it's a cool style of football, hopefully. I'm glad you brought that up, because this is one last thing on the offense, and kind of ties back into Mike McCarthy, what he's doing. So speaking of, like, the little gadget players, the Kevontae Turpin, the little swing passes he's doing, so, through two games this year, we've run eight RPOs already, okay? We ran 40 RPOs all of last year. Oh, my God. We ran 45, which is the highest for Dak's career, in 2018. So I think we're going to see that number climb pretty exponentially this year. It's going to be, you know, up there around, hopefully, 60, 70 is what I would like to see on that. That'd be badass. Yeah. All right, so I guess we can do a little talk here. We'll get into the NFC East matchups. We've got the Cowboys playing the Arizona Cardinals. Red one I checked last was minus 12 and a half Cowboys, minus 700 Moneyline Cowboys. I've got Cowboys winning this one, 33 to 12. I don't think it's going to be close at any point of the game. I think the 12 points for the Cardinals come kind of sporadically throughout. Cowboys are 13 now. 13, so it's up to 13, so their money's still hitting them. I mean, yeah, even, which is kind of crazy to think with the injury reports that have come out, but I'll just tell you what people think about the Cardinals. Although the Cardinals have played better than I expect, than I think a lot of people expected to start the year, but still. But this is the game, this is the game where we found out how real this Cowboys team is, because traditionally, this is the game that the Cowboys go in, we're going to beat the shit out of them, and then it's tight going into the fourth quarter, and yeah, maybe we pull it out, or hell, even we lose, what was it, 20-21 Jets, we walk into the Jets and they beat our ass. So that part kind of scares me, but 13, I still think, I mean, if you look at the Cowboys' margin of victory at this point, 13's a pretty solid bet, so. Yeah, for sure. What was your pick on this, what are you, are you writing, did you write my score down? 33-12, let's keep track of these and we'll- Oh, okay, yeah. Got 33-12, Cowboys. I think it's going to be straight up 35-10. 35-10? All right. 35-10. I think we stick to the 10, like we just leave it at that. I like it, 12 is going to be a hard number. I think for Arizona to get, because they're probably not going to be in the game of kick and field goals, but we'll see. Maybe if we can block a couple of, block a field goal, or a PAT, and then they'll try to go for two or something, and they can hit that 12 mark for me. All right. Another place that people don't look at the Cowboys and understand how much better we are than everyone. It's insane. John Fossil. Hey, John Fossil. He caught a lot of hell at the first couple of years of him being here because of how aggressive he is. The talk was that he loves to be the one in the spotlight in a game, but he has this unit ready to play every single Sunday. Eagles at Bucs, the Birds minus 4.5 last I checked, and they were minus 255 money line. I'm going Bucs, or sorry, not Bucs, I'm going Eagles 28-17. Dude, this one is a tough one because Bucs have been playing pretty good. They have. The Eagles have not been playing good. The Eagles have looked floppy. I agree with you, but I think this is a good get-right game for the Eagles. I think that they're going to come out and look pretty solid. Yeah, and I think this is the week that Baker falls. Not that he's been above earth too high, but Baker's a decent quarterback, but he has weeks where it shows you, why is he starting in the NFL? He's got a connection to Big Mike though, dude. He likes Big Mike. But Jalen Carter gets to him pretty damn quick, so I'm saying Eagles 32-21. 32-21, so you've got them covering that 4.5 mark as well. Yeah. All right, so Bills at Commanders. Bills are 6.5 point favorites on the road with a plus 2.15 on the money line. I've actually got the Commanders covering the 6.5. I've got Bills winning this one 26-24. Yeah, I agree with you. I think Commanders cover that. That's a lot of points at home. 6.5. And they haven't played great. The Bills have not looked great for two weeks. I mean, obviously they're good, but... The Commanders defense is no joke either. They're even with the good. That front southern that probably competes with the Cowboys, let's be honest, but their back end just isn't quite the same. Yeah. Sam Hell makes me a little nervous, but I still think that's a lot of points at home. So let's talk about him, actually. So what does he make you nervous with? No, he makes me nervous for my Commanders pick. I think he gets fucked my Commanders pick up. Well, I've been hearing this talk that they've found their franchise quarterback, and I just have not. I'm not seeing that. But we'll see. Maybe they surprise us and throw up some points on this Cowboys defense. Who was the guy? I can't remember his name now. He was the backup the last couple years at Washington. Heineke? Yes, Heineke. He's a more polished Heineke, but he's still going to make him play, give away the ball. Yeah, no. But I'll take Commanders and points. 24-17. 24-17? No, no, no. No, that's not covering. Maybe they won't cover. Does that? That's how I would just do that. I'll take 24-17 bills. OK, all right. Once I set it out loud, I'll have it. That'll be our match right there. We'll see who pulls away on that one. Giants and Niners recap. Anything we need to touch here? No, I can't believe they paid Daniel Jones hundreds of millions of dollars. Yeah, and then Niners, man, they look tough. Yeah, but I don't think Brock Purdy's going to kill him. I don't believe in Brock Purdy. I don't either. He's lost a lot of throws, but he's just a good decision maker. If he's missing throws, that's one thing. He's not throwing throws into bad positions is the thing. His offense, Kyle Shanahan is just always going to have an offense ready to go, but I think Brock Purdy's, yeah, he's a good decision maker, but he's also played some teams that haven't really forced him to have to make tough decisions, and I think the Cowboys will. Well, he only put up, what was it, 19 on this defense last playoffs, and I think, well, I don't know now with Trayvon down, but I had thoughts that his defense was much better than it was last year, but we might be on the same plane as we were last year, still at this point, though. Yeah, but I think even with Trayvon down, some of the guys that have stepped in, like Bill, I think that guy, he's a monster just waiting, and Jerron Kersh looks reinvigorated, and I'm excited to see Donovan Wilson come back. That game, what is it, October 8th? Yeah, I think. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, it is the 8th. Week 5. That is going to be fucking awesome. It's going to be insane. I hope we're healthy for that game. Yeah, me too. That's another thing, we got Zach Martin. We got three offensive linemen, and Tyron Smith added to the injury report today. That's some news we probably should have talked about up at the top. I mean, this offensive line is, we keep talking about, we still haven't seen this group of five who've played together a single down of football yet. It's crazy because when you think back to 2016, like at that point, those dudes with like Doug Free. Doug Free, that was his last year. Tyron Smith, like there was a couple years there where when one of those guys was gone, you were kind of like, dang, like that's crazy. They never miss games. And now it seems like, you know, I get all five out there, especially like the Oddish now, which I was reading a thing earlier. The Oddish, they're saying he's going to play, but they pulled up two centers from the practice squad. Yeah, they've been playing TJ Bass, which that's that undrafted kid that stepped in and kind of stepped up for us. Yeah, so they've been working him at center from last I heard, and they've been giving him a lot of reps there. So we'll see if the Oddish doesn't go, who they plan to plug in there and get the start tomorrow. I've got a couple more bets that I liked the lines on. Chargers are playing, who'd you say? The Vikings. Chargers, Vikings, I got Chargers plus one and a half, if that's still what the points are there. Plus one. Plus one now, okay, so that's kind of catching too. I still, I like the Chargers winning that game outright. They have to. Yeah, they're going to, right? Yeah, they got, for sure. The next line I got Titans. Titans over the Browns. Titans, Browns, Titans plus three and a half. I think that, I mean, even if they lose the game, they'll keep it within a field goal. Saints, Moneyline. Grable's always got his guys ready to rock. Absolutely. I mean, and they're healthy, I feel like. They haven't really lost anyone. So the last one I've got written down was the Saints, Moneyline. They were plus 104. Yeah, Saints over Packers, plus 104 on the value, which isn't great. But plus one and a half, I like their Moneyline there. Yeah. I'm with you on all those. The one I did think I will take, the Patriots minus two and a half. I think this is. Who are they playing? The Jets. Yeah, I like that. I think with the Jets in turmoil, Bill Belichick hates the Jets after what happened to him. And that defense in New England right now, man, they are a problem. They are good. Yeah. I mean, they have to be with their division. It's just if they can find a quarterback. But, yeah. Match up, isn't it? No. That's the only other that I had other than the ones you already had written down. Oh, all right. Fantasy League. Let me pull up the old sleeper real quick. So let's run down. So we matched up last week. Honestly, I mean, it wasn't until my defense played. Yeah. My defense, the Steelers defense against Cleveland got me 29 points. They had six sacks, three forced fumbles, three fumble recoveries, and two touchdowns. I mean, just went crazy. Took me over the top. I was projected 102 points. You were projected 108. And I ended up scoring 142. So pretty fun match up for me. I was biting nails all weekend, basically. And then Monday night came. And it was just kind of like a naked victory lap for me. Overlook for the league right now. We got me and Bryce both sitting at 2-0. But we got a lot of people at 1-1, dude. We are pretty balanced right now amongst everyone. Yeah. I'm in eighth at 1-1. I mean, like. Bryce's team is looking really good. Josh's team is looking really good. Josh put up a billion points last week and was just playing Bryce. So, I think I've taken the L. They both put up 150. So, both of those teams are the top two in my opinion right now. They're going to be hard to beat. Yeah. Dude, I just. I hate, I hate, I hate having fucking a rapist as my quarterback. And I hate that I did it, but I had to at the time. It was a terrible decision it turns out to be. He sucks, man. He sucks. I don't know how you haven't grabbed someone then. Your other one is Pickett. Like, what are you doing? You got Stafford now? Yeah. You starting him this week? I don't know. Since he's pretty good. Their defense, anyway. Who are you playing this week? Zomer. Zomer? I'm playing Ben. He's probably going to kick my ass, but we'll see. All right. So, that's it for the sports section. I guess we'll transition just right into a little dove hunt recap from our fantasy draft. Weekend opener, we went out to Brockmorton. How many people did we have out there? Maybe eight or nine of us. Something like that. I think we shot maybe a limit of birds total. I think we came back with 16. Yeah. Not good. Not great, but it was a good time. We drank some beers and drank some Bloody Marys and had a good time out on the field. So, it was good to get everyone in for the draft. Man, that was a blast. I'm glad we got to finally do that in person. That's something I've been wanting to do for the league for a long time, and I'm glad it finally is starting to come together. You've got to say that. It was so much fun. It's so much better in person. It is, dude. I don't know. Just having that would make it a lot better. Just booked up everything for Kansas for the pheasant opener. November the 10th is the Friday, I believe. The 11th is the opening day. So, that's Saturday. They took out the field that we hunt with the radio tower. That's not huntable this year. Damn it. That was the one that we actually got a resale on. I know. We're going to be finding somewhere else to go. Corey's going to reach out. We got to hunt that lady's private land last year, actually. She let us hunt that. So, hopefully, we can get back on that, because we shot some birds out of there last year. It was a lot of fun. I'm interested to see what it looks like. Has there been any word on the hatch this year? Very good, apparently. Yeah. Yeah, grass is looking great everywhere. I mean, people have been talking about it around me, as far as pheasant being pretty decent. Do they get out in the east country? Oh, yeah. About, I don't know, five, ten miles from me, it just turns all into farmland. Apparently, the pheasant hunters are out there. But if you go a little further east, it's supposedly pretty good out in the plains. Nice. Corey got the millet planted out at Dickie's. It's been catching some rain, dude. He said the ground was pretty wet whenever he laid it, and we've got rain twice on it since last weekend. So, he said it should be starting to sprout up now. So, I'm going to maybe go out there tomorrow and go check it out and see if we're getting any life out of it, see how much water we've taken up. It would be nice to see if we can start getting some rain, dude, start flooding that in. It would be perfect. I don't know. I don't know. I want to see what it's like this year. I mean, from what I've been reading, it seems like it's going to be a pretty decent year, but nothing like, no one's predicting the greatest season of all time or anything. Something that I am finding super interesting, and I'm here for it, dude, because, I mean, they're always in numbers down here, but take these with a grain of salt because, you know, some people say that these numbers are all just made up, and, you know, it is hard to predict the true numbers, but just the volume of teal number increase over the last few years on the reporting is pretty cool to see, and we've seen it down here. I mean, we're in them all the way into January. I mean, we're still shooting them, so. Which, yeah, like you said, it's not a bad thing. I'm here for it, yeah. Oh, yeah. Anything else? No. I don't think so, man. I'm just ready for duck season to get here, full fledged, have some really get out in the blind, see how it is. I'm ready to hunt up here in Colorado, first year in Colorado, so see how it goes, try and get on some. I'll try to get up there one weekend and try to get into a goose field somewhere and go smack some geese. Dude, they're thick and heavy. I see more and more each morning that I drop into work. I believe it, dude. They're coming. Rob sent me a video either yesterday or the day before of a bunch of geese out at Lake Graham already, out on the creek, yeah, on the banks out there. Which, I mean, I'll go out and shoot some big-ass hawkers, but I would love to get in some speckles again and see if we can. It does just seem to eat better. Are we going to try to go back to Arkansas this year? I would love to. I mean, I found that one spot, that BRBO, that private land that had water on it. It was like 90 bucks a night for their little shack that slept like six or eight people. Oh, and they did say you could hunt. Yeah, you could hunt their land. They said that they couldn't promise birds, but, I mean, shoot, for that price, I've just as good of a chance as we shot last year in Arkansas. I mean, all we shot out there was the same stuff we shoot back here, teal, so. Yeah, and, you know, you might get lucky and pull a few down. Yeah, it'd be cool. All right, dude, I'm going to stop this recording. We need some outro music. I know. We're going to have to clean this up on the ones going forward, I guess, but I guess what we'll start doing, just to give everyone an outlook, is I guess we'll start running these, try to run these every Saturday and publish them Sunday morning before the NFL kickoff. Yeah, if possible. I think we don't worry about it this week as far as, like, trying to put it out. I'll try to put it out. I'll try to get it at least out on Twitter where we can kind of share it amongst our buddies and try to start kicking it out there. I'll chat you up tonight and see what I can get done. Sounds good. Sweet, dude. Well, for everyone that wants to find it, my Twitter is at JaredMahan. Austin's Twitter is at OldGregTaylor. Actually, I'm not at JaredMahan. I'm at JaredMahan1, the number one. So this is where you'll find these episodes, at least until we get a little bit more officiality going between us and we'll start landing some sponsors and make this thing big time. So thanks for listening, if you tuned in, and we'll catch you next week.