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AutoTrader. Listen as Selenia tells us why she chose to vaccinate her daughter. I definitely felt like the pros far outweighed the cons, the diseases that I am protecting my child against. They're still here, and at the end of the day, it's my job as a mother to keep my child safe.
Talk to your child's doctor and learn more at WhyVaccines.com. Brought to you by Merck. Mike, how are you? I'm good. How you doing?
I'm great. Thank you for taking the time to join us. You're quite busy with these cowboys, huh? Never a dull day. That is always the case here in Dallas.
It doesn't matter if it's February, April, September, or whatever. This is life with the cowboys. Life with the cowboys. Well, around 24 hours ago, we heard from Jerry Jones that there is no urgency in signing CD Lambs.
CD Lambs' response was to post an LOL, laugh out loud. We also heard from his son Steven yesterday, who wanted to tell everybody they would love to get a deal done. What's your understanding of what is likely to happen? They're going to sign him before the season starts, right? There's about a 0% chance that they don't sign him before the season starts, yes. Maybe I'm jaded. I'm going into year 10 covering this team. None of this really gets me all that excited anymore.
This is just kind of how things go around here. Yes, they're going to sign him. Yes, it will probably happen before they even come back to Dallas.
Certainly, it's not going to get into September. He's been working out in Houston, staying in shape, ready to play. He and Dak have a rapport beyond reproach. They've been working together all offseason.
Give these guys two weeks together in practice, and they'll be ready to go for week one. I'm really not all that concerned. It's a whole bunch of bluster. It's a bunch of negotiating in public on both sides.
At some point, they'll come to a number. The cowboys are costing themselves money in all of this. If they had done this in March, they probably would have gotten CD for, I don't know, two to three million dollars a year less than what they'll probably end up signing him for. So, it's not great business strategy from Gary Jones and the cowboys. But, yeah, no, this is much ado about nothing and August, you know, contract squabbles that really won't amount to much.
Yeah, well, Mike, that was going to be my next question. We know that Justin Jefferson got $35 million. I think that the numbers for career are pretty comparable to a certain degree for the two of them. What has been the holdup?
Are they nickel and diamond? We all know the range of what the contract is going to be. What could they potentially be squabbling about? And that's the thing.
That's a lot of what I think is behind CD's LOL yesterday of John Machoda's tweet, because you're right. What really is there to discuss here? He is very clearly one of the very best wide receivers in the NFL, if not on par with Justin Jefferson right there.
So, what's the issue? What is the holdup other than the fact that the Cowboys just always seem to do this? They did this with Dak Prescott years ago and cost themselves money. They're doing it again right now with Dak Prescott and costing themselves money. They will assuredly end up doing this with Micah Parsons.
They kind of already are, although that's going to really be next season's next offseason storyline for the most part. This is just for whatever reason what they do. And it's interesting because they are held up as this beacon of this is how you make money in the NFL. And they're the most valuable franchise in sports.
And Jerry Jones is this savvy businessman. And they do this and they do that. And then you look at the actual brass tax of what they spend on their football team, and they're 32 out of 32 in cash spend. They don't actually spend the money that people think they do.
And they get themselves tied up in knots. And they end up costing themselves money on the backend when they could have done Dak earlier this offseason. They could have done CD earlier this offseason. And they probably would have been in a better financial position to do it. And they probably could have gone and gotten somebody else if they had because their salary cap scenario would have been better as well. Again, this is not good business by the Cowboys, but I'm also not concerned as it relates to will CD land beyond the field week one.
Yes, absolutely. Mike Leslie is joining us from WFAA out in Dallas. Now we learned today that Dak Prescott had to slow down and practice, had to sit out due to sore ankles. The last time I saw this guy's ankle, well, he was in a boot on vacation and had to explain it because he worked too hard. The last time I really paid more attention to his ankle, he had a little bit of a calf issue related to his broken ankle. And the last time before I looked at his ankle was the time that it actually broke a few years ago. Is there any cause for concern about how he's going to hold up, how his legs are going to hold up throughout the year?
This is a little weird. I will admit to you this is weird because if it were just, hey, this is maintenance, a little bit sore, let's let him stay off of it for a day. If that were really all this was, he probably would have been out there on the practice field with his guys and just watching Trey Lance and Cooper Rush go through practice and still taking in the mental reps and still being a part of, you know, like we see with so many other Cowboys. Dusvon's had a hamstring the last couple of weeks. He's been out there on the practice field on the days where they've decided it's not smart for him to go and he's just there taking in the mental reps and being a part of practice in whatever way he can, working with Brett Brown, their assistant athletic trainer on the side, on the resistance court, resistance courts or whatever the case may be.
Trevon Diggs, another good example of this where he's bounced back and forth between active and practice and hey, let's take it slow today, whatever the case may be. So his complete absence from practice, coinciding with Jerry Jones wasn't there, Stephen Jones wasn't there. Will McClay wasn't there. Todd Williams wasn't there.
Guys that are very influential in the Cowboys' brass. All these guys weren't at practice today and it's caused everybody to kind of go, okay, something else is going on here and maybe it is, hey, we're finally hammering this thing out and maybe we're about to learn that they did finally come to an agreement on a contract or whatever. But they're also off tomorrow. They've got the game on Saturday that Dak's not going to play in.
They're off on Monday. There was time to do this that wouldn't have impacted a practice. So it's hard to really make heads or tails of this one to your original question of do I think he's going to be fine from a health perspective?
I do. He looked perfectly fine in practice on Thursday in a joint practice against the Rams. If there was an issue here that was actually fundamentally of concern, like with Trayvon Diggs coming off an ACL tear, they did not have Diggs take part in that practice because they can trust their own guys more than they can trust the Rams players to not put Trayvon Diggs at risk.
Dak was out there practicing against the Rams. So whatever this concern is, I do think it's if it's actually an injury concern and not just a cover for, hey, we're all in a back room hammering out a contract. If this is an actual injury concern, I don't think it's a big one. Well, Mike, do you think he's going to play out this year and reach free agency? I know you said it's a possibility they hammering out a deal.
What do you think? Is he going to lame duck this out? That is fascinating to me. The idea that he could play this final year and hit the open market would be the ultimate in, like I was talking about before, the Cowboys. This is just kind of what they do.
They drag their feet on these things and end up costing themselves money. This would be the coup de gras of doing that because he will make a boatload of money on the open market, just like we saw Kirk Cousins do several years ago when he left Washington, when they franchise tagged him back to back years. And I don't think I'm telling any secrets out of school that Kirk Cousins is not some earth-shattering quarterback. He's just a good quarterback in this league. And he broke the bank and reset the quarterback market when he went to Minnesota. Dak Prescott, for all his playoff failings, is a more accomplished NFL quarterback than Kirk Cousins is. And there are several quarterback-poor franchises across the NFL. If Dak Prescott hits the open market, whether it's in Dallas or somewhere else, he will completely obliterate the quarterback market. And people are going to go, what in the world are they spending that much money on him for?
It's because he's played this game to the point where now he's put himself in the catbird seat and he has all the guards. Mike Leslie is joining us from WFAA in Dallas. Knowing that the Cowboys are always in these interesting situations, the offseason certainly not exciting by any stretch of the imagination. Bringing back Zeke Elliott seemed to be the big splash. Knowing that they're competing in the division, you know, with the one of the top contenders, you would think the Eagles, the Giants are trying to get their lives together.
And so are the commanders. The Cowboys, they should be a good team. What do you expect from them this upcoming season?
Yeah, I do think that we chicken little ourselves into a little more than what's actually reality here. They did not get better this offseason. No two ways about it. And I think it is a fair argument to say they got worse. They lost Tyron Smith, a bajillion time All-Pro. They lost Tony Pollard. They've gotten worse at the running back position. I think their defense can probably be about the same as what we saw last year. Plug in Trayvon Diggs in place of Stephon Gilmore. I think the defense is going to be fine and there is still talent on the offensive side of the ball, especially once you do insert C.D.
Lamb back into their wide receiver core. So I do think that there is still talent there enough that they're going to be good. I do not think there's any reason for any Cowboys fan to look at this team with any sort of confidence that, hey, this year is going to be different.
Nothing there to grab at. I wish the fans had a little bit more optimism. Well, I can't blame them. And we've heard this. We've even heard Emmitt Smith kind of put in his two cents.
Is this a reality? Are the fans, have they not showed up to the same degree on Oxnard? Yeah, that was one of the real storylines of the first week or so of practice.
We all noticed it and talked about it a little bit. The very first two practices Thursday, Friday, late July. But they were the first two practices. And it's, hey, this is glorified two hand touch underwear Olympics. There's nothing really all that interesting about it anyway.
So let's see. And then Saturday for the opening ceremonies practice, here they came and we all kind of went, okay, all right, that makes sense. They're back, whatever. And then Sunday was light. Tuesday was light. And Tuesday was where all of a sudden it was the first day of pads. And we're like, okay, this is the first day of pads and there's nobody here. What is going on? And that was where we finally started to cross that bridge of like, not just talking about it amongst ourselves, but you know, this is a story now.
And it really hasn't changed all that much, even with it being talked about. And the thing to me that is most interesting about the fact that myself, who talked about John Michaud earlier with his tweet that C.D. Lamb posted, several of us posted pictures and videos of the lack of fans that day. And a lot of the reaction to those posts was Cowboys fans cheering on other Cowboys fans saying yes, stick it to them, show them that we're not happy. That's where Cowboys fans are right now. Well, we'll see if it translates into AT&T Stadium. I mean, if that place starts looking sparse, then we had a different conversation there.
Wild stuff. Well, Mike, thank you so much for taking the time to join us. Where can people follow you and your work on WFAA if they're not in the Metroplex full of scent? Yeah, social media is definitely the best place to find me. My Facebook account, Twitter account, Mike Leslie, WFAA on Facebook is just my name, Mike Leslie, L-E-F-L-I-E, and then certainly WFAA.com as well.
So yeah, for anybody around the country, there's certainly plenty of Cowboys fans all over the place. That's the Facebook page is probably the best place to find me. Hey, Mike, thank you so much for taking the time. I know you're going to be kept busy all season long.
Oh, for sure. We'll catch you down the line. Thank you.
Thanks, guys. Look around. What do you see? Cars? Lots of them. And guess what? They're probably on AutoTrader.
Whether you're into timeless classics or the latest trends. Did somebody say solar-powered, eco-friendly, vegan leather-wrapped, aromatherapy-scented, disco ball-equipped, self-driving car? If you see it on the road, you can likely find it on AutoTrader. Big cars, small cars, blue cars, new cars, and used cars, electric cars, and one day, maybe even flying cars.
With millions of options to choose from, buying a car becomes a whole lot easier. See it. Find it.
AutoTrader. Christy Pierce-Rampone here. Former member of the U.S. Women's National Soccer Team and three-time gold medalist, two-time World Cup champion, and part of the 99 team that won the Women's World Cup, igniting passion for soccer everywhere. And like Amazon Prime, I'm a lot of things beyond what I'm best known for. I'm a girl mom to two teenagers, a dog mom too, an entrepreneur, a TV commentator, and I use my Prime membership pretty much every day for so many things. I am known for being quick and crafty on the soccer field, and I am definitely crafty at home, especially digging in with the girl school projects. And I rely on Amazon Prime to have what we need and get it to us with the speed I am used to. With every change of season, I love to decorate our home.
And where do I get ideas and the goods? Prime, of course. Not to mention with all the great streaming options, it's a total gold medal experience. From streaming to shopping, it's on Prime. Visit amazon.com slash prime to get more out of whatever you're into.
That's amazon.com slash prime. Here's why April chose to vaccinate her child. I think actually meeting someone who was not vaccinated and now has a lifelong struggle with a childhood disease really cemented for me that it's super important that we as parents continue to vaccinate our children. Talk to your pediatrician or visit why vaccines dot com brought to you by Merck.
