After Hours with Amy Lawrence PODCAST: Hour 4

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That's ShipStation.com slash audio. Good morning to you. It is Thursday, Thursday, August 17th. Significant for a couple of reasons.

Mostly, no not mostly, I'm starting with this because it's the most immediate one. This will be my last night of the week on the show because I am hosting a different show on Friday. And I am always thankful for a different radio challenge. It's good for hosts to get out of their comfort zone now and then. This is my comfort zone. I'm perfectly happy hosting after hours.

I'm not looking for a change anytime soon. However, when your Friday begins generally at 6 o'clock in the morning, Eastern time, and then instead you are asked to host an afternoon show on a Friday. Your weekend doesn't start until 12 hours later.

Well, I'm not sure it's a positive. No, it'll be good. It'll be fun to fill in for Maggie and Perloff. They're out the rest of this week. In fact, I think the entire crew is out. And I will be working with a couple of different producers, not producer Jay.

He will remain here. And that means his weekend will start Friday morning at 6 a.m. Eastern. Whereas my weekend will not start until I battle Friday afternoon travel.

It's Friday afternoon traffic in New York City. That's going to be so much fun. As in the most fun you could possibly have when you're sober. I'm just kidding. I know nothing about that.

That sounded very worldly of me, didn't it? Jay, you would know. Is Friday afternoon traffic in New York City the most fun you can have while you're not drinking alcohol? It's up there. It's up there.

Thank you for your expertise. Yeah, I'm not looking forward to that part of it. The whole rush hour craziness on a Friday. Not just that, but it's the summer weekend, which means there's a mad influx of people who are coming for the weekend to hang out in New York or do vacations. Jay, why is your mouth open? Close your mouth.

I didn't really think about the summer Friday and the traveling and the people coming in at that time. And the people going out, the people coming in. Oh yeah, no, it's nasty. It's gross. To borrow from Bryce Harper, it's both nasty and gross. And I'm not referring to a person.

I'm referring to 15 million of my closest friends all jammed into tiny spaces. Yeah, he's gross. It's very gross, but it's fine.

It's totally fine. I will suck it up for the beauty of sports talk radio here on CBS Sports Radio. So yes, come Friday afternoon you will be able to hear me following Jim Rome. So whether it's noon Pacific Time or whether it's three o'clock Eastern Time or anywhere in between, depending upon where you fall in our time zones, you can hear me completely like a fish out of water. Same studio, same sports stories. In fact, I'll probably be talking about the same stuff come tomorrow afternoon. It's nothing new under the sun these days in sports.

It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence here on CBS Sports Radio. I love that some of you are actually responding to me about a humdinger. I don't even know what it means. It's a whopper? Is a humdinger a whopper?

It's a, I got the exact, here it is. Remarkable or outstanding person or thing of its kind. Yeah, so it's kind of a whopper. It's big. It's overwhelming. Yeah.

It's colossal. What a good word. Wow. Did you come up with that all by yourself or you were looking at it online?

All on my own. Are you sure? I'll leave everything as it is. Nah, I trust you.

I like it. Jay attempts to match my vocabulary with some of his own big words. Sometimes.

And every now and then they floor me. Where? Where did you come up with that one? I read things. What things do you read? Tell me, what things do you read? Yeah, articles. Oh, your face. You're like, I mean, articles.

What are you talking about? What book are you currently reading, Producer Jay? Actually, I have a book.

I haven't picked it up in a while, but I am, I guess you could say reading a book currently. It's a book about a producer actually, a radio producer. It's a real book. It's a fiction.

It's a nonfiction. Is it colossal? Is it a humdinger? Oh, because you could have a humdinger of a tale, right?

You could have, a humdinger could be embellished. It could be colossal. It can be overwhelming. It can be gigantic.

I don't know. When I think humdinger, which I don't very often, I think it's larger than life. Yeah, this isn't that. It's good. I mean, there's some cool stories in there, but it's not really a humdinger. Nah.

Which would explain why you haven't picked it up in a while? Probably. Okay, got you.

It's not that riveting. Another good word. Very good word. I like it.

So don't ask me how or where or when even I last even heard or considered the word humdinger, but somehow it came out of my mouth last hour. That's the only thing I got for you. I don't know. I don't know why. In fact, if I tried to explain everything that comes out of my mouth, we would be here for the rest of time. Did I not?

I think yesterday or the day before say we should go to a batting cage in the near future. Not to me you didn't. Oh, well, maybe I thought I did. Maybe you ignored me. Oh, maybe I wasn't listening? Maybe. Oh, okay.

Got that a lot. But as I type in humdinger's in Paramus, New Jersey, there's a batting cage called humdinger's that comes up right here. We should do that. We should check it out. We should make a field trip to Paramus, New Jersey.

To go to humdinger's. Which, by the way, does feature the second largest mall in America. Did you know that? No. The Mall of America in Minneapolis is the largest in the continental US, but the Garden State Plaza in Paramus, New Jersey is the second largest mall in America.

Wow. I've been there, I believe, but I didn't know it was the second largest. Great IMAX theater there. Is that the one with the ice rink in it?

And the roller coaster? No, that's American Dream, which is closer to MetLife Stadium. That's the third largest mall in America.

Wow. Yeah, so why does New Jersey have the second and third largest malls in the entire United States? Do we need them? They found their niche.

And by we, I do include me in that because I live in New Jersey. I avoid them like the plague, except if I'm attending a movie in a theater and I want to go see it in IMAX. So all the Star Wars movies, the newer ones that just came out in, say, the last 10 years, I saw in IMAX in Paramus, New Jersey. And you saw Top Gun in IMAX. I did actually see Top Gun there and the new Jurassic World movie, too.

Of course. Funny because I've seen Top Gun now three more times. I really like it. I've never gone back and watched the new Jurassic World movie. No, I haven't seen it. No, I mean, it's an ode to the original Jurassic parks with some of the characters, which is fun. You see it once, though, and you don't need to see it again. That's enough. Yeah, that's plenty.

It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence. You can find me on Twitter, ALawRadio, also on our Facebook page. And we are going through your answers still sifting through your responses. We're asking you to fill in the blank about the NFL season. The NFL season will be a success if what? We've heard from, I would say, almost all of the fan bases. I don't think we've heard from the Rams. We heard from some Chargers. We haven't heard from some Rams fans. Who else have we not heard from? We definitely have heard from all the teams in the AFC. Have we heard from the Chiefs? Oh, yeah.

A repeat. I've seen Rings. We've definitely heard from Chiefs fans.

Maybe no Vikings fans. I've thought them, too, actually. Yeah. All right. So we're missing a few. You stragglers.

There's a few. Another reason I should say why August 17th is important is because August 18th is when I'm hosting the afternoon show, which is where I got confused. It's not so hard to confuse me, especially at this hour. Another reason why August 17th is significant is because it's exactly three weeks to the kickoff of the NFL season.

Now, I can't decide if I'm one foot in and one foot out about this. And I really do love the NFL season, so don't get me wrong here. When football arrives, I'll be giddy.

But it does run my life and run producer Jay's life. And there's a bit of a wistfulness about the end of summer, too, although I suppose the fact that there are a lot of people back in school already. There are people all over the country who are back in school.

I've got friends in Florida, friends in Georgia. My mom's already back in school. Her students start next week.

So all over the place, you've got students who are heading back to school. If they're pre-Labor Day, it's happening. And Labor Day is just over two weeks away. What?

How is that possible? I feel like it just turned August 1st. And I was like, oh, wow, it's August. I feel like the NBA Finals just finished up. I feel like Aaron Rodgers just got to the Jets. He just got out of his darkness retreat. And I know.

Sorry. And now we're about to reset with a brand new season. So, yes, I'll be giddy over the moon. I'm sure it's going to be one humdinger of an NFL campaign. See, now I can't stop saying it.

I know it'll be epic. But it does mean the end of summer. So three weeks, you've got three weeks to enjoy your life before your life becomes all about football.

Well, yours may not, but ours do. Yeah, the NFL season kicks off on September 7th with the Thursday night season opener. And then week one, Sunday, September 10th. It's almost here.

Fantasy drafts coming up. Oh, I haven't even thought about that. It's because Cynthia Freeland, who is from NFL Network, we haven't talked to her in a while. We need to get her on the show. She's the commissioner of the league that I'm in, the league that I won last year. She waits until 48 hours before the draft. And it's like, hey, who's in? We're doing the draft in two days.

Yeah, she's notorious for that. My league's been trying to plan our draft for about a month and a half. Can't figure it out. Why are you running into issues? Because everyone's just like, oh, I'm not available that day. How about this day? What if we do this time? Oh, sorry, I have this on this day.

No, so take his auto draft? We like to meet up and do it live, so it's kind of like a thing. We do have a date, but in one of my other leagues, we're still moving around. Wow, some problems.

Jay's very flustered over this. Trying to get 12 guys together for a draft. It's apparently the hardest thing in the world. How many years have you been doing it? This will be year 10, I think. Ooh, going to have an extra large pot. A humdinger of a pot for year number 10.

Raise the pot a little bit, yes. I highly recommend winning. It's fantastic. It'll be very nice.

It's great when the money gets zelled right to your account. Maybe I'll pick up the number one receiver mid-season like you did. I don't know what it means, though, when I win the league.

Does that guarantee me a higher draft status? Last year, I drafted number, let's see, there were 16 teams. I drafted 14th or something.

It kind of stunk. Wow, that's a lot of teams. Maybe there was 12.

Maybe there was 12 of us. In our league, we pick the draft order, or the winner of the season before gets to pick how the draft order is picked. So this year, he hit a bunch of golf balls with our names on them, which everyone went the furthest, got to choose where they wanted to pick, and the least. Wow, very complicated and convoluted. Yeah, you can just put it into ESPN or whatever app you're using.

They'll just auto do it. I don't know how we do it in our league. I just know that the last few years, I have had the worst draft position, as in negative Ghost Rider.

Somehow, I keep getting the shaft. And a couple years ago, I saw the draft order come out. I was number one. And then by the time the draft started, I was number seven. Whoa.

I know. Someone's been screwing with the draft. That's collusion. That is collusion. That would not fly. They're afraid of me, for good reason.

They're afraid of me. Only one person has access to do that, and that's the commissioner. That's the commissioner. I know. We've got to get her on the show. Maybe remind her that the season is coming up, in case she hadn't noticed. It's After Hours on CBS Sports Radio. So there, we're kind of building up here. This is my last show of the week on After Hours.

Tomorrow afternoon, so Friday between three and six Eastern Time, or noon and three Pacific. We're also exactly three weeks from the start of the NFL season. And you know a lot of times I will state this over the course of an NFL season.

I do not take off Sunday nights, right, because those are my favorite nights of the week to work, during football season specifically. We do our, I mean we consider them to be the best NFL show on the entire network. Every Sunday night, in the midst of all the reaction, we're still, we still feel like the racing heartbeat. We are psyched about what we've seen. We're processing.

And of course we're trying to tell you to tap the brakes, let's not overreact, right. So I do not take off NFL Sundays unless they happen to fall on Christmas, which last year they did. If you remember correctly, Christmas was a Sunday. I have to amend that this year because, this is another reason why the 17th is significant. Exactly four months from today, I will be walking down the aisle to marry the love of my life. It happens to be on a Sunday. So I hope you'll excuse me, there will be at least one NFL Sunday that I will not be here this coming season.

Exactly four months from today. It's so good to finally get that off my chest because I feel as though I've been keeping a secret for a long time. So I do not need you to tweet me or Facebook me or anything like that.

I had to wait until I could get in touch personally with my family and friends. I would be mortified if they found out either via my radio show or via Scuttlebutt or via social media. So there's been nothing about it on social. This is the first time I'm saying it publicly.

Can we just... Stop it. You jerk. That's not the music I'm walking down the aisle to.

I'm actually not doing traditional wedding march. However, thank you producer J. I appreciate that. Congratulations.

Thank you. I've waited a long time. Why does it feel like four months is an eternity? I've waited so long.

Why does it feel like the next four months are going to take forever? Because you can taste it. Let's not get carried away. No. Guess what we're having at the wedding though. A cookie bar.

A cookie bar? I'm not going to explain. I'm not going to explain now. I'll share some of the fun details that we are incorporating into said wedding.

Exactly four months from today. Oh my goodness, my stomach's doing flip flops. What if I trip walking down the aisle? No, stop. No, you don't think that's a possibility? I guess it's always a possibility, but you don't speak that stuff. That would so be me.

I would so trip walking down the aisle. Oh no. Never mind. There's no videographer. Just in case that happens, we do not need that on video.

It'd be extra memorable. I don't know. No. Do you know a bunch of my friends have said to me, just be prepared. Something will go wrong.

That's what they say, right? Something will go wrong at your wedding, so you just need to be prepared for it and laugh. That's fine. I'm not a bridezilla. I don't need it to be perfect. I do not need it to be perfect. It's about the people.

It's not about the perfection. However, if I trip and fall flat on my face, we're starting over. We're just going a different day. We're just going to send everyone home and come back the next day. That's probably the only play after that.

Yes, happy to share it with you. Exactly four months from today, but I hope you'll forgive me. I will be missing an NFL Sunday to get married. Is there any other excuse, Jay? Would there be any other excuse for missing an NFL Sunday? Not many good ones. No, that's a good one.

All right. I always thought I'd be one of those people who would never get married during football season, and look at me. Smack dab in the middle of a playoff push.

What happened to me? Love. That's true. Love, a cookie bar, a wedding dress. It's the cookie bar, isn't it? It's the cookie bar.

It really is the cookie bar. A Sunday. I never thought I'd get married on a Sunday, but that's what's happening. Right in the middle of the NFL season. Are you going to check the scores?

Jay, stop it. Could you imagine? Have you seen those commercials where people are in the back of a wedding reception, they're watching games on their phones or they're checking scores? That will not be me. And if I see anyone at the wedding doing that, then there's going to be trouble. It's time for the bride and groom's first dance. Where is the bride?

Oh, she's watching. Right. It wouldn't be the groom. It would definitely be the bride. That's funny. It's a two-minute drive from my home. Just give me a second. It would definitely not be him.

It would be me. No, I'm going to go sans sports and no work for an entire week and a half. I've never done that. Sounds lovely. But right in the middle of football season? It's going to be tough. It is going to be tough. All right. Well, we'll have more on that coming up, but it's fun to share the news with people. It's fun to share the news with you. Thank you for all your kind words. I'm going to see them popping up on Twitter. You all are awesome. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio.

You are listening to the After Hours Podcast. And with the local DBC news, L.O.J. with a triumphant comeback for us all. But tonight... Eddie Rosario to the plate, and he hits a high fly ball towards left-center field. Bader going back, Bader to the wall, puts some muscle into that thing. A two-run homer, Eddie Rosario. And it's two-nothing Braves.

Olson backs up behind Torres. He takes off on the pitch. Strike three call. He took one. Fastball right there. Keiner Felafa strikes out for the third time tonight. He's got the hat trick, and Charlie struck out the side in the middle of the order. Judge Stanton and Keiner Felafa. He's got ten punch-outs.

This is After Hours with Amy Lawrence. The Atlanta Braves and the Los Angeles Dodgers. The rich are getting richer. And I know you may think the Yankees aren't offering much resistance these days, and you would be correct, but the Braves just swept them in Atlanta and outscored them 18 to 3, I think, over the course of the three-game series. Last night, Charlie Morton reverting to form, ten strikeouts, and not nearly as many runners on base via the walk.

He had seven walks in his last outing, so he was a lot steadier in this one against New York. I suppose when you are 120 games up in your division, it's a good time to be cracking dad jokes, right, Pierce Johnson? Because you know it's illegal to laugh too loud in Hawaii.

Yeah, you've got to keep it to aloha. I am a father, so you know the dad jokes just come flowing down. I am not upset that Pierce made a joke post-game.

We know Giannis does dad jokes. It's fine. You're supposed to have fun. You're playing a game for a living.

The season is long. It's the dog days. You need to amuse yourselves somehow. I have no issues with dad jokes. I don't really know why that went at that point, but whatevs.

But it does underscore the larger point. I even wrote a CBS Sports Minute about this. The Atlanta Braves, as well as the Dodgers, and we'll get to them momentarily, they are burying their divisions right now with these recent surges, and Atlanta's really started going back, oh gosh, to right before, I guess it was June when Atlanta just caught fire. They've had a few injuries to their pitching staff, but they're getting healthier. They've had some incredible performances from guys who've stepped up. They've been able to withstand the injuries and continue the surge. And this is with the Philadelphia Phillies playing some of their best baseball of the season and the Marlins being above.500. But they're not even within shouting distance of the Braves. Best record in Major League Baseball. 12 and a half game lead in their division. They've got this fat feather cushion they're sitting on in the NL East. Will not be pushed the rest of the way. No must-win games, no sense of urgency, no pressure.

That concerns me a little bit. There are six weeks to go in the regular season. This may seem extreme, but there's going to be times when they're bored.

They're bored. There's nothing on the line. Not now. You've got to get to the postseason before you can start to think about World Series. And so I don't love the idea of the Braves and Dodgers being up by double figures in their divisions at this point in August. Yeah, you can always tell yourself, OK, we've got to continue to play our best baseball. We've got to make sure we line up our rotation. I mean, it's too early for any of that. And yet they make a mistake.

Couple errors here. Bad offensive game where they don't bring home the runners in scoring position. They leave too many ducks on the pond. How do they allow another team to steal one?

What's the big deal? We're up by 12 and a half in our division. That's the part that makes me nervous about teams that get this far out in front. They're not playing with an edge. Now, most veteran teams do have the ability to put themselves right back in that place.

Flip that proverbial switch, if you will. The Warriors have done it before. But the Warriors couldn't do it this past year. They were so bad on the road all season long. Now, there's a little different because they weren't running away with the division or anything like that. But you can't always flip the switch. It doesn't always work.

Sometimes you got to be in that groove. I'll use the Miami Heat as an example. They had to fight Scratch and Claw just to make the playoffs.

Right? They had to use every last game of the regular season just to get into the tournament. And then the play-in tournament at that. But the fact that they were so edgy and that they had been playing with such pressure for a couple of months put them in the perfect position going into the postseason. So for the Braves and Dodgers, while they do have a ton of veterans, guys who've won World Series, who've played under ultimate pressure on the game's biggest stage, yeah, you would think they can put themselves right back into it.

But I still don't love it. Florida Panthers are another example, right? I just don't love the idea of a team languishing, lazing around, maybe getting fat and happy for the last six weeks of a season. So the Braves will have to guard against that, as will the Dodgers. They've now won 10 in a row. They've got a 10-game lead. The rest of the NL West, they're going the wrong way. Every now and then you get a few wins in a row from the Padres.

The Giants will make a loud statement, but they're all fighting for wildcards. No one's catching the Dodgers in the NL West now. And their pitching rotation is just getting back into focus. Clayton Kershaw with his second start last night after the IL stint. He's 11-4, even though he only went five innings.

Yeah, I mean, you can hear the smile on the face of Mookie Betts. We're pretty good. We do pretty good. Yeah, we're pretty good.

1-9 though, even including the bench. This run we're on right now is a shout out to everybody. It takes everybody to put something together like this. And you know, it's fun. It's good to have fun. Winning is fun.

Makes everybody happy. But it doesn't necessarily prepare you for the rigors of October or the pressures of October. Again, maybe the Braves and Dodgers are aberrations, but maybe not.

The Braves won 101 games last year and went exactly nowhere in October. Does it become one of those situations where you're not playing to win as much as you're playing to not get hurt? You're not playing to win as much as you're playing so that nothing goes wrong?

Do you become real conservative because you have to save yourself for what's to come? I don't like any of it. I don't think they should change anything. Maybe there's a competition for best record in the National League, but honestly, between these two teams, does home field matter as much?

I don't think so. So they may be on a collision course or we may see something like what we saw last year with Phillies and Padres, who were both wildcards mating in the NLCS. I just, yeah, it's on the leadership now. The managers, the coaches, the veterans, to keep up the sense of urgency.

If you have to come up with prop bets every night in your clubhouse, then do it. Some way to keep guys engaged. On Twitter, ALawRadio, also on our Facebook page, coming up. Bit of a deep dive into the Dallas Cowboys offensive changes, though I believe the defense is going to be still the better unit.

Oxnard, California, Clarence Hill Jr. joined us earlier in the show. Zach Martin's back. Zeke is gone.

Mike McCarthy's calling plays. There's all kinds of drama always. It's Dallas drama. It's a special, special section reserved for Dallas drama.

You are listening to the After Hours Podcast. You just look the way he trains, the way he prepares. His training's top notch. He's super consistent.

Humble. He pays it forward. He helps the young guys. So there's excellent relationships throughout the building. So other than that, when he puts his hand on the ground, he's really good.

So, I mean, he just does everything right. I definitely had my days during this thing, especially, you know, I had all my film and all that kind of stuff. So, you know, I was watching practice every day and definitely had those moments. But, you know, kept the faith and had a good feeling that eventually we'd get to an agreement.

And luckily it came when it did. And I'm just, I'm happy to be out here, man. It's great to see everybody and be back with the guys.

This is After Hours with Amy Lawrence. The voices of Mike McCarthy and Zach Martin. Mutual Admiration Society pretty excited to have their contract dispute in the rearview mirror. Zach joining the Cowboys in Oxnard, California. And Mike McCarthy said when the announcement was made that Jerry Jones and Stephen Jones had renegotiated Zach's deal, there was applause that erupted in the coach's room.

That's how you know a man is appreciated. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. We had a chance to catch up with Clarence Hill Jr. of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He's been covering the Cowboys since the late 90s.

So, he has seen it all. Coaches, quarterbacks, a couple of playoff wins, but not very many. It was good to track him down and do a deep dive into Cowboys camp. And I started out by asking him, what does it mean to have Zach Martin back with the team? For the Cowboys, it means everything. Because, you know, this season is going to be what they hope it's going to be. And they have to protect Zach Prescott.

They have to overhaul the running game. And Zach Martin is the best at what he does on the team since he's been on the team. And one of the best in the league.

And certainly has already submitted himself as a Hall of Fame career. But what he's done at guard. So, they need Zach back.

You know, that's important. One of the dirty little secrets about Zach's struggles and the struggles last year with the offensive line was mediocre pass blocking. And Zach is the best player on that team, on that offensive line. So, yeah, they need him back.

He didn't miss much. He's a veteran. He didn't need to be here for the first three weeks of camp.

But he'll be here in time to get acclimated and be ready for the start of the season. For the first time in, what, eight years, there'll be no Ezekiel Elliott behind that line. Why are they so confident in turning to Tony Pollard as the feature back? Well, he was the best back on the team last year.

I mean, he had a breakout season. He was the leading rusher. He was the big play back.

He was a pro bowler. They think he can handle more touches. He is healthy after being injured in the playoff game against the 49ers. He's good to go, ready to go. He had no limitations really in training camp.

It's his time to shine. And with his salary, you know, it's a financial thing. You know, Tony was a free agent. You know, and they had to put the franchise tag on him. But basically traded Zeke's $10 million salary for Tony getting a $10 million salary. And they couldn't, you know, keep Zeke at that same salary range. In the best of worlds, they probably would have tried to do, have him both back this year.

But financially, it just was not going to work. You know, especially with the evaluation, running back and needing to pay Tony. You couldn't pay Zeke that type of money. And it was an opportunity to give Zeke a first start.

But they feel good about Tony and they feel good about the guys behind Tony that they're going to make this thing work. Alright, so the big question, Mark, around the Cowboys, the play calling. No, Kellen Moore, he's now with the Chargers. Mike McCarthy takes over the play calling. And we've heard about more freedom for Dak Prescott.

What have you noticed to this point in Camp Clarence? With Dak, it's more about mixing in the West Coast offense. They're going to be, again, they're tying the receiving routes for SC. They're going to try to get the ball off quicker to help them make quicker decisions. Certainly they want to improve the protection. One thing I talked about earlier, protection was bad last year. And that's Mike McCarthy, his main thing was improving protection and showing up the protection up front and the blocking schemes up front. And there's a blocking scheme so Dak can make quicker decisions and make better decisions and hopefully eliminate some of those turnovers in the past years. But it's about getting the ball off quick. The West Coast scheme, the three-step drive, get the ball to the back, get the ball to the receivers and take your shots down field. But you talk to Mike, Dak has mastered his offense.

He's very comfortable in what they're doing and what he's asking to do. And I look for him to have a big year. This is the first year Dak has been healthy in the offseason, since going before that horrible ankle injury. He's had a clean offseason to focus nothing but on football, no rehab.

He should have his besties. We know Mike McCarthy has received the vote of competence from Jerry Jones multiple times. They did win a playoff game last year and got to the divisional round. But what type of pressure is on McCarthy, even as he takes on more responsibilities in 23? Well, I mean, clearly the pressure is on him. You know, it goes without saying that he was brought here to not get the Cowboys to the playoffs. Jason Garrett did that. He was brought here to get the Cowboys to the NFC Championship Game and possibly the Super Bowl.

That's why he was brought here. He's won a title before. That's why they had him replace Jason Garrett, and they have not done that. Yes, he's had back-to-back 12-win seasons, which is nothing to sneeze at. You know, no one's won more games. The only person that's won more games in the regular season the past two years than Mike McCarthy is Andy Reid.

You know, and so that's nothing to sneeze at. But again, the golden dollars is to get to the Super Bowl for the first time since 1995. And that's why you're getting rid of Kellen Moore. I mean, you put the onus on yourself when you're fired off in the corner and you make yourself the plate caller.

If you're going to go down, you're going to go down doing it your way. And so there's pressure. Yeah, there's a lot of pressure. I mean, they're saying all the right things, and they believe Mike McCarthy can take it to the next level.

But if they don't get it done, they take a step back. We all know that Jerry will make a move as he has in the past. Clarence Hill is with us from Dallas Cowboys training camp.

It's after hours here on CBS Sports Radio. The receiving corps has had a bit of turnover. What do you see with the group that they've got now on the field? Well, I think the question mark was last year. I mean, you know, you get rid of Amari Cooper, and it was C.D.

and a bunch of Mavies. They, weekend after weekend, they had one of the worst receiving corps in the league. You know, Noah Brown was essentially their number two receiver last year. Michael Gallup was coming off an injury, and he's running third or fourth string in Houston this year. You know, you bring in Brandon Cooks, you have a healthy Michael Gallup. This receiving corps is much better, much more capable than the receiving corps last year. They've also played a role in a number of that interception. A lot of those interceptions was bad routes, miscommunications, kick passes off their heads. They go to other teams.

That was all part of it. And Brandon Cooks, I mean, he's been on a number of teams, but he has 4,000-yard season or 6,000-yard season. With four different teams, he's been productive everywhere he's gone. He can still run. He's a perfect complement to C.D.

Lamb with his speed. This receiving corps is much better. It's going to help Dak Prescott. As much as the offense gets a lot of the attention for obvious reasons, it kind of looks to me like the defense could end up being the strength of this team. What stands out about this group with a lot of returning veterans?

That's just it. I mean, if you go back to the Tony Romo era, the defense was always the weak link. It was always their Achilles heel. They've had great offenses. Even the Dak Prescott days, they had great offenses, and they had to make up for a poor defense or a suspect defense. But this defense is the best part of the team in any hopes they have of having success.

Because this defense is going to be one of the best units in the league, led by Micah Parsons, who has been great NFL defensive year runner-up his first two seasons of the league. And to be honest, he didn't know what he was doing. He was just learning at the pass question. He should be better this year because he's kind of learning and he's kind of honing his skills as a pass rusher. Just think, everything he did at a pass rusher, it was on the fly with sheer athleticism. You know, this year, he's really matured. He has really studied pass drugging skills and done different things in the offseason. And he's having a hell of a training camp. He's been the best player on the field day in and day out. I recognize him for the offense.

I look for him to have a big year and really finish and finally be the defensive player. This defense is special. It's not just Parsons. It's DeMarcus Lawrence and that secondary.

You bring in Gilmore to go with Diggs and that cornerback duo as good as it is in the league. And that safety trio is pretty salty as well. They really feel good about their defense.

And this is what's going to lead them. Clarence Hill Jr. of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram says he loves the weather in Cali because it's not as hot as Texas right now. In Oxnard, home of the Cowboys training camp for quite a while and all is well. But the hopes, he used the word hope multiple times in our conversation, the hopes for the Cowboys are extremely high. They're exceedingly high, even in the NFC East. And we did talk about the division too. Does it go up? Does it go down?

Hasn't had a repeat winner in decades. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence, CBS Sports Radio. If you check out our show, Twitter After Hours, CBS or our Facebook page, you'll find the link to our podcast that's available every weekday morning, minutes after the show ends. Just not Friday morning because I won't be here come this time tomorrow. Doing instead the show after Jim Rome, Maggie and Perloff, they're out. And so I'll be filling in three to six Eastern.

That's noon Pacific. We were asking you on our last show to fill in the blank about the NFL season. The season will be a success if what?

And of course, we're expecting you to answer it from the perspective of your favorite team. Greg on Facebook because we went through all the Twitter responses earlier in the show. Greg on Facebook highlights the Cowboys. If they make it to the Super Bowl, I mean, that's the kind of standard Cowboys fans. It's been a long drought since they made the NFC championship. Greg says it's a success only if they make it to the Super Bowl. Some of these answers are fantastic. Terry, the Cowboys season will be a success if Dak stops throwing interceptions. All right.

I love how you set the bar. Frank is about the Green Bay Packers. This is an interesting one because the NFC North is wide open, right? The Vikings won the division last year and they've made a couple of changes, not huge ones. In the second year with Kevin O'Connell, you would think that they would get better. But they flamed out in the postseason regardless of what they did in the NFC North as the division title.

What do the Green Bay Packers have in Jordan Love in that offense? Is the defense going to be able to provide a margin of error, if you will? Frank says the season will be a success if the Packers make the playoffs and the Bears don't. So it's a 1-2 punch there in the NFC North. Sometimes, I know as fans, we can't decide if we care more about our own team's success or more about our rivals' misery.

And if you don't have your own team's success, well then, yes, it does come down to your rivals' misery. Let's see. Tim, if Joe Burrow gets healthy, the O-line stays healthy and our D-line can make improvements. Then the Bengals season will be a success. Fran says the Chiefs will be a success if Patrick Mahomes doesn't get hurt.

What? He was hurt during the playoffs. They still won a Super Bowl. Yeah, I don't think you need to worry about Patrick Mahomes. He will fight Andy Reid if Reid tries to take him off the field, remember? Darryl says if the Chiefs go to the Super Bowl in 2024. Mike, about the Ravens, it'll be a success if Lamar stays healthy through the end of the year.

That's huge. And they make the AFC championship game. Eric on Facebook about the Jets. If Breeze Hall leads the NFL in rushing and Garrett Wilson is tops in the league in receiving because no darkness retreat is going to slow down father time. Breeze Hall is going to lead the league in rushing? Yeah, that's what he says. Not Derrick Henry.

Breeze Hall. Now if he's ready week one, we'll see how quickly he can shake off the rust and be back into a groove. Missy says the Steelers will be a success if they're better than last year, which we've been a winning record and they make the playoffs. Connie says if Kenny Pickett continues to improve. Alright, we'll talk to you Friday afternoon. It's after hours, CBS Sports Radio. Boom!