Dallas Stars’ Shocking Exit & Cowboys Draft Drama: NFL’s Goose Gosselin | Ep 220

Today, I'm just wondering. The star season is over abruptly, almost shockingly. Then one of the most respected football writers in this country, Goose Gosling gives us his insight on the Cowboys, the NFL draft. And then finally, last year, the Mavs unexpectedly leaped up to the number one pick in the draft. But is what's happening right now sliding the Mavs down this year's draft? And now a word from our title sponsor. Eying retirement? We aim to turn your nest egg into a paycheck with half the amount you've been led to believe. Fluent Financial combines in house portfolio design risk management with income generating investments designed to aid your financial independence. Our goal is to develop an effective portfolio strategy to help you retire sooner and have a better lifestyle. Fluent Financial can also implement a program that allows business owners to install a cash balance plan, which may potentially reduce income tax payments. You've worked hard to become successful. Let us help develop an effective portfolio strategy that works for you. Learn more today about Fluent Financial. Retire sooner, better lifestyle. For more information or to schedule a meeting, visit fluentfinancial.com or call (972) 852-4800. Last Thursday night, as Minnesota's Matt Boldy scored two very light, late empty night. I'll start it again, Ashley. Last Thursday night, as Minnesota's Matt Boldy scored two very late empty net goals in game six of the series with the Dallas Stars, the realization set in. The star season was over. How could that be? The Stars were basically built to win the Stanley Cup this year as they had been the last few years. Now out in round one, this team seemed primed to win it all. They have a terrific mix of savvy veterans and talented youth, a very balanced offense, solid defense, an excellent experienced young goaltender. And each of the last three seasons, Dallas had made it to the Western Conference finals, only to be denied a trip to the Stanley Cup finals. The stars had finished behind only Colorado in the final Western Conference standings this year. And in 82 games, they had lost in regulation only 20 times. 20 times. But for reasons known only to God and Broccoli, the NHL changed the way they set up their playoffs this year. And thus, here in the first round, the second best team in the West, Dallas, had to face the third best team in the West, Minnesota. Sorry, but that change is absolutely stupid. To open the season in the playoffs, number two should be playing number seven. The Stars power play in this series was fantastic, but Minnesota was far far better when the teams were skating at even strength, outscoring Dallas and almost unthinkable four fourteen to four. Ottinger was very solid in the nets for the stars, but Minnesota rookie Jesper Valstadt was better for Minnesota. So now suddenly it's over. And where did the stars go from here? This certainly isn't an old team in need of a significant makeover. Yes. There's some age on the roster, but that's true of every decent team in the NHL. The captain Jamie Ben is 37, and at that age, there's always a chance of retirement. Matt Duchene's 35, but he may be playing the best hockey of his excellent career. Tyler Sagan missed the entire season at 34, but he figures to be back at full strength next year. And Roddick Fox is 32 and a solid role player. Age is not a problem. And there's lots of talented youth at 30 years old or younger. There are top notch scores, Miko Ranton and Jason Robertson and Wyatt Johnston, along with excellent defenders like Mira Heisken and Thomas Harley and Leon Bixell. Plus, terrific forward, Lupe Hintz, who missed the series with the series with Minnesota with an injury. He'll be back next year at full strength. But now the questions begin. As always, the first one, was it the coach? But there's lots and lots of others. What on earth happened to the teams when they were even strength? Why did terrific players like Harley and Ranton and some others not play well at all in this series? Who goes? Who stays? Who knows? Questions like that arise when a team built to win the Stanley Cups Cup right now can't even make it out of the first round of the playoffs. Next, the football insight of one of the finest writers of the sport we have, Goose Gosselin. What do you want from your favorite restaurant? Fantastic personal service, a cheery, welcoming, spotless atmosphere, and of course, great food. The primest of beef, Wagyu, and lamb, incredibly fresh seafood, lobster, salmon, shrimp, hall of fame food from a hall of fame restaurant, two locations of Bob's Steak and Chop House, the original Bob's on Lemon Avenue, and the gorgeous new Bob's at Craig Ranch McKinney. My wife, Mary, is the co creator of Full Moon Healing Balm, and I guess I'm the reason this terrific cream was developed. A few years ago, I began getting these huge, ugly blood blotches just beneath the skin of my arms and hands. The condition's called senile purpura. And no, you don't have to be senile to experience this embarrassment. It happens as you age. And then to cover it up, we begin wearing long sleeves, even when it's hot. It took two years working with a New Jersey lab to refine the all natural ingredients of full moon healing. Gently massage a very small amount into the skin, and within a day, the blotches begin to fade. See now, purpura usually takes weeks to disappear, but this bomb cuts the timeline to about a week. And ordering's so easy. Just go to the website, fullmoonhealingco.com. Our guest today is one of the most respected NFL writers ever. He's the goose, Rick Gosselin. After starting his career moving around from places like Kansas City and Detroit and New York and covering baseball and the NBA and his first love hockey. Rick arrived at the Dallas Morning News in 1990 and settled in as their prime NFL writer. His prowess at covering the draft is literally legendary. He spent the last decade plus of his news career as a front page columnist before retiring, but that certainly doesn't mean he stopped writing. His latest book, The Team That History Forgot, The nineteen sixties Kansas City Chiefs, is available in several places, but especially at Amazon Books. Hi, Goose. Welcome. Great seeing you, Norm. You know, we don't we don't talk that much very often and now the radio is gone, but it's always a pleasure talking to you. Hey. And we talked for a lot of years, buddy. Yeah. Twenty twenty plus years at Tuesday morning segment. But we're Yep. Doing every Let's begin with the draft and and your theory. You've covered it for so many years. You've watched teams and their approaches. If you owned an NFL team, what would your approach be to preparing for the draft? Well, first off, if if I ran a team, I'd clear out the war room. No, I'd the sponsors, the fans, everybody out of the room. I'd have four people. I'd have the owner, the general manager, the personnel director, and the head coach. I don't want any clutter. These are obviously the three most important days of the NFL calendar because you're building toward a championship team. So the less noise in the draft room, the less clutter, the more clear thinking you're going to be. I get rid of the circus, get down to four. And then when I had a question about a player I wanna call in a coach, I'd call the coach in and then send them back out of the room. If I had a question about a scout, I'd call the scout in, send them back out of the room. Build the draft board. You the four people are there with the draft board. If the draft board is good enough on Wednesday night, it has to be good enough on Thursday when you're on the clock. But I would I would simplify things, get rid of the clutter, just have the voices speaking that matter. And in your approach would elevate the scouts' opinions incredibly, wouldn't it? Yeah. Without without a doubt. The scouts spend eleven months building the draft board. They're on every campus. They're talking, not only watching the player work out, they're talking to the players' coaches, the players' trainers, the players' strength coaches, counselors. They have a good read on players both on and off the field. My feeling is the more you get coaches involved, the more screwed up the draft gets. Coach will go and fall in love with a player, and then they'll disregard the eleven months of work the scout did on that player. A good example was when Rod Maranelli wanted Tristan Hill, he was not a great player in college, and yet they took him in a second round and he never had an impact with the Cowboys. That's because the coach wanted the player. Scouts know what, know what you want at every position. They're looking for that. They're building their draft board based on what the team wants at each position. You can't let one voice, I. E. A coach, influence the whole process. Trust your scouts. Goose, you've already begun this interview by wounding Cowboy fans mortally with that Tristan Hill reference. Okay, let's go to the Cowboys right now. This is not a criticism of their recent draft, but three months ago, they hired a bright young defensive coordinator named Christian Parker, and he's bringing in a totally different system. And the the I guess the problem I'd say is only in Christian Parker's mind does he understand exactly what he's looking for. So they had to pretty much base this entire draft on his approach, didn't they? Well, I would hope that he gave the the scouts an insight in what he wanted, and that insight, was instilled in the draft board. I think the scouts probably knew what what they want, what kind of scheme he's gonna run, what kind of player he wants in that scheme. So, but yeah, I think the new coordinator, having been a miserable failure last year, that defense ranked, and they gave up the most points and only two teams gave up fewer yards, they needed a complete overhaul. You know, I think what you see in the big picture, the Cowboys drafting philosophy, it's pay offense, draft defense. Jerry made Jack the highest paid guy. He made the kicker the highest paid guy. Elliott was the highest paid guy at one point. Zach Martin, Tyron Smith, Jason Whitten, he showers money on the people that put points on a board. The best defensive player. Michael Parsons comes to the table. He wants his. They traded him. They're gonna spend the money on offense and draft defense. Problem is, you've got a hit. The guys they took have to come in and be players. You look at the first three rounds are your premium rounds. I would expect my first overall pick, especially a top 15 pick like downs, to come in and start right away. I want my second pick, Lawrence, on the field and starting some games by the end of his his rookie season. I want my third pick, Barham, on the field starting in his second year. You need those three players to have an impact if you wanna get better on defense. You know, Goose, I was gonna get to this down the line, but your theory of pain, it runs negative to something I learned from Goose Gosselin thirty years ago. Defense, not offense, defense wins Super Bowls. You to stay in games. The great defenses, go back to that Seattle defense that just throttled in there. Denver, mean, there was Tampa, go back to the Ravens, Tampa. You need to be able to combat the great weapons. I liked the fourth pick more because of his size. He's a six'three, two hundred pound corner. Those guys are old because the receivers in today's game are going to becoming six'three, six'three, but the cornerbacks aren't growing with them. You're still having five'ten, five'eleven, and six foot is considered a big corner. A six'three guy who can tie up receivers at the line and be physical with him should be a great pick, in the fourth round, any round for that matter, but get him in the fourth round. They need to fix this defense. I look back when Jimmy started winning. That 'ninety two team led the league in defense. Everybody talked about the triplets, but that unit with no pro bowlers led the league in defense. And then we talked about this. Defense travels. Offense doesn't. Yes. And that's the key. You can have a defense be a factor for seventeen weeks out of the year. What you took, you could go back in history, look at that charges when they played the Bengals in zero degree weather. Perfect conditions are great for an offense, but you're not always gonna have perfect conditions, especially in November and December. Defense travels. Defense wins. You know, goose, the Seattle victory in the recent Super Bowl was the forty ninth time in 60 Super Bowls that the team with the higher ranked regular season season defense won the Super Bowl. Defense There's another stat for you. When you think of what's the most common thread of all Super Bowl champions? Would say defense. Scoring defense. Yep. It's it's how many points you allow. The fewer points you allow, just historically more so than passing, rushing, total offense, total defense, run defense, it's scoring defense. If you don't give up points, you can win championships. That takes me back to Christian Parker for a moment. This system is unique in cowboy history. He's going to install a system that may look like a three four, may look like a five two four, may look like a three four four, it it may look like a a five one five at times. Goose, what happens if in a year or two this bright young coach leaves to be a head coach. Well, you hope that one of the assistant defensive coaches has learned enough under him that you would maintain the current scheme. And that's been one of the problems that the Cowboys have had over the years. When they change head coaches, they change defense coordinators, they flip back from 4.3 to 3.4, and they look for big corners or speed corners. That's why I got the greatest respect for the Steelers. They've had the same defense for decades. They know what they're looking for. They've never, even when they've had off seasons, they've never given up on that scheme and that defense. You need some continuity and some consistency. And this franchise for decades has been flipping flopping all over on defense. And the bottom line, it doesn't really matter what scheme you have. It's the players in the scheme. You look at the Bears. When the Bears won in 'eighty five, everybody wanted a copy of the Bears '46. Guess what? Everybody didn't have the personnel of the Bears '46. It's it's still the players in the scheme. That's why this is such an important draft. They have to hit on these guys. Downs and Lawrence and Barm and Moore, over 10. They've gotta come in and have an impact for this defense to get better. What's your guess on the George Pickens outcome? Well, I I like the fact that what the franchise tag on him. I'd be reluctant to give him, with his history, I'd be reluctant to give him that big money that, again, another huge contract or an offensive player. I mean, you're already paying Dax the highest paid quarterback in football, C. D. Lambs, one of the highest paid receivers. You can't have that much money tied up in those three spots and have no Super Bowl to show for it for thirty years. You know, I'm afraid that there's a history in this franchise when you give the guy the money, he doesn't play to the level of the money anymore. Yeah. And that would be a concern for anybody I'm giving that contract to. So play it out, let's see how Pickens does this year, and if he has a, if he's the best receiver on football, then you pay him. If not, you let him go. You know, Goose, drafts feed a club. That's the best way to keep a club afloat is to have good drafts. And it strikes me that's that's one of the Cowboys problems right now. From the 2021 draft, that's only five drafts ago. There's no one left on this team. The 2023 draft, There's very little left on this team. You're you're chasing your tail endlessly if you don't draft well. Yeah. In a Sarah Camp world, your your your draft picks have to make it and have to be players because they're the bottom half of your roster that allows you to play with the maximum salary cap. Now this goes back into the into the nineties. The Cowboys have always mismanaged the cap. They're always they they again, they give these monster contracts to offensive players, and there's never any money in the off season to go with free agents. When that's the case, your defensive rookies better come in and play, and they better stay. They better play two, three, four, and five years. They're they're better they they better have some Demarcus warriors in this class. Well, that brings me to a look at this roster and what this roster has been the last several years. You mentioned Dak, CeeDee Lamb. Now Pickens is gonna get 27,000,000 plus. Tyler Smith just got a giant contract, and there's a giant contract on the other side of the ball with Quinn and Williams. Goose, the Cowboys have no middle class. Those guys making $7.08, $9.10, 11,000,000 who are the the bones of your franchise. They're not the stars now, but they're the bones of your franchise and your lineups. It's all the draft. That middle class would be rookies on the third and fourth year of their rookie deals. Cheap, inexpensive. But when you're not, every time you blow a draft pick, have to overpay in free agency. This too often, this club has found itself overpaying in free agency to compensate for bad drafts. But like I said, when you got two drafts in the last six years, we had zero players. That's a major failing in the account of both coaching and scouting. I want to ask you about grading drafts. Everybody has this pop analysis of the draft. I mean, I finished doing the draft this year late Saturday afternoon, got home, and by 08:00 you could find 20 top analysis of the draft. I have a question about that. A team I got an answer. I can tell you're not a fan of that. But if a team uses its draft picks to maneuver, shouldn't that be considered part of their draft? For instance, the Cowboys used the number five to acquire the linebacker D winners. He likely starts for them. San Francisco used number three, gave it to Dallas for the defensive tackle Osa Odigi Zua. They desperately needed a defensive tackle. Philadelphia used two threes to acquire a wonderful edge rusher, Jonathan Greenard, and the Rams traded a number one for the cornerback Trent McDuffie. Those appear to be solid moves, but they never get mentioned in post draft analysis. Draft grades are inconsequential. I I look at these draft grades every year. When I was grading drafts, I operated under the assumption 99% of all drafts in the history of the NFL have been average. So on draft day, everybody started out with a C on my board, not an A. Most people, everybody starts out an A and you gotta lose it. That's why you see ten, fifteen, 20 As on draft cards. I would have one A plus, which I thought was the best draft, and a couple As, couple Bs. I'd probably have 22 to 24 Cs, a D or two, and occasionally an F. You can't tell on a draft right now. You can't tell in two years and three years. You really have to let four years go the length of these rookie contracts to judge. This is all guesswork. And I've done it. I mean, least I had a system. I had a number system. I could look at it and rationalize why I'm giving a grade. But most of these people, you're grading the first round, essentially. If you like the first round, it'll give you a good grade. If you hate the first round, the draft's gonna be bad. But most guys don't have a clue on the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh rounders. And that's the second day, the traditional second day of the draft are what makes good drafts great. Hitting on those picks, getting a fourth. And I wrote in a thing I did on the history of the draft a couple weeks back, Ron Wolf was the greatest second day draft from history. He got Donald Driver in the seventh round, and Donald Driver became the all time leading receiver of the Packers. He drafted quarterbacks, Mark Brunell, Aaron Brooks, Matt Hasselbeck, Ty Jemp. He took those guys in second day of the draft, even though he had Brett Favre. He took them. And then with those fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh round picks, he traded those players for ones and twos and threes. You know, there's an investment you make in the second day of the draft. A lot of the draft guys wanna kiss that part off. They wanna look at your first three rounds. But I always look it's a seven round draft. You can find Tom Brady was what? A six? Terrell Davis was a four. I mean, you can find great players down there. So I I never even when I did it, I didn't put a whole lot of stock in the draft grades because you don't know. It's all good. Well, you know, when you do hit on those now third day picks, draft has gone to three d. When you do hit on them, goose, you've gotta keep them. Example. The Cowboys found center Tyler Biotos in the fourth round. He's gone. They found Tony Pollard in the fourth round. He's he's gone. Durant Armstrong in the fourth round. He's gone. Tight end Schultz, Dalton Schultz in the fourth round. He's gone. The the center guard, Conor McGovern, who's such a fine player for Buffalo now, found him in the third round. He's gone. You you just can't find players, let them go, and figure, oh, no. I'll find some more. But the problem is that the cap is top heavy. Like you said, they've got all that money in the top six or seven players. And what so what happens is when those those guys come up with their second contracts, they want more. They want something with a decimal point in it, And a club is not equipped to pay that. And they leave and they say, well, we'll draft another center. We'll draft another Dorrance Armstrong. We'll find younger players, cheaper players, because that's how their cap works. They can't keep that middle class. There's so much money invested in the very top of their roster that it's it's it's been frustrating for three decades to watch, Norm. Goose briefly referenced something he recently wrote. It's it's an incredible piece of writing. It's looking at sixty years of the common draft in the NFL, common being when the AFL and the NFL merged. It's 11,000 words. It's the highlight of every draft over the last sixty years. Highlights, nuggets. Goose, where can people reference that if they'd like? It's on on my website, rickgosseland.com, rickgosselin.com. And it's not necessarily the highlight, it's something. I talk about trends. I have a block in here when offensive tackles became a thing, when edge rushers became a thing, big corners. I took nuggets like Bo Jackson when he was drafted and played baseball, Rocket Ishmael going to Canada. You know, just I tried to cover a lot of different teams and a lot of different elements of the game. I talked about developing quarterbacks. I talk about backup quarterbacks, but it's a fun read. The NFL people that have read it have absolutely loved it. Most of them have been through all these drafts, and they love the nuggets that I pulled out. Goose, know how much I I cherish our thirty five years of friendship now. It's mutual. Thank you for your thank you for your time today, buddy. My pleasure, Norm. Anytime you want me, I'm here. You got it. That's the goose, Rick Gosling. Stolen water media is making a move. After two plus years, it's time to change and keep up with our growth. You can continue to view all eight of our podcasts on our Patreon pages. But now you can get all episodes at www.stolenwatermedia.com. This is a developing story, but you can begin by watching and listening right now at www.stolenwatermedia.com. Continue to find all audio wherever you find your favorite podcasts, and some you may not have heard of, but I think will enjoy. Are you just wondering where your next spectacular vacation will be? Relax. Feel the sun on your body. Let your cares melt away at the all inclusive Cerenian Bay Resort in Southern Belize. It's literally built right on the sand. The ocean, your ocean is just a few barefoot steps away. Laid back luxury, terrific food, a swim up bar, a spa, air conditioned gym, unimaginable service, fishing, snorkeling in gorgeous turquoise waters. Do you want relaxation or do you need adventure? You choose at Ceridian Bay. Barry and I have been there three times and this summer will be number four. Take a cozy bungalow for two, or bring the whole family to villas that can accommodate up to 14. Sirenianbay.com, S I R E N I A N. The sand and the sea are just waiting for you to get here. The NBA lottery will happen this Sunday afternoon. It'll determine the order of the first 14 picks in this year's draft. Last year, the Dallas Mavericks got incredibly lucky. And in this lottery, jumped from tenth place to number one, where they took the rookie of the year and future superstar Cooper Flagg. This year, Dallas hopes to find another good player. A stud point guard is their hope with their pick in the first round, but the value of that pick has been slipping. Three weeks ago, we warned you of the possible cost of Dallas winning its meaningless final season of the game. Now that has happened. Dallas went into the last game tied for sixth, the sixth worst record in the NBA, tied with Memphis. But by beating Chicago in the finale, they dropped down into a tie for seventh with New Orleans. Since then, they have lost the coin flip to determine who would draft seventh and thus they'll drop draft eighth. Now, Dallas could get lucky again and drop in or move into the top four. But if they don't, and but if they don't, like the Mavericks did last year and someone behind them jumps up in front of them, Dallas would drop to number nine. And what would that mean to Dallas? The Mavs want that point guard of the future. After the first four picks, which are clearly the four best players available in this draft, Betanza, Peterson, Boozer, and Wilson. The next four best players by almost everyone's estimation are all point guards. Acuff, Waggler, Fleming's, and Brown. They should go number five through number eight. There isn't a real true point guard then available through the next 20 picks. Maybe Dallas gets lucky and leaps up again. Maybe just stay at number eight and get Louisville's Michael Brown or or maybe the guy Fleming drops to them, or maybe, just maybe, the luck runs out this off season, and they don't find that pure point guard they covet, And all because of that meaningless final game victory. And now a word from our title sponsor. Today's episode has been brought to you by fluent financial Retire earlier, live better. And by Bob's Steak and Chophouse on Lemon in Dallas and in Craig Ranch in McKinney. Bob's, a Dallas tradition for more than thirty years. If you've enjoyed just wondering, please hit follow and a fresh new episode will land in your mailbox early every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning. Should you know a sports fan who might like our work? Please share our contact information with that person. Thanks for listening to today's episode of Just Wondering. I'm Norm Hitschkes, and know that every day I'll be just wondering about something. And I'm Mary Hitchegas, and I'll just be wondering too. This is a Stolen Water Media production.