10 Takeaways from Cowboys, Reeling Rangers Team & College Football’s Grit | Just Wondering with Norm

Welcome again to Just Wondering with Norm Hitskas on today's show 10 quick reactions to the Cowboys exhibition opener against Seattle. A Ranger team that's looking pretty mediocre right now. And the future looks pretty mediocre also. And then a story of incredible grit and determination from college football. 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. I must tell you, after watching more than sixty years of preseason NFL football, I have a very hard time finding definitive answers after watching a preseason game, but I have thoughts, several 10 of them in fact, about the Cowboys preseason opening seventeen seven win over Seattle last Thursday. Number one. What does this win mean? Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilk. Nothing. Oh, yeah, they beat the defending Super Bowl champions. That's what the other jerseys said Seattle. But you know, the Cowboys played a fair number of second team players. Seattle did the same. But by the second half, we were down to third teamers and fourth teamers, and a whole bunch of guys that aren't going to be on the active roster for either team. Oh, it's nice to win, but the win means nothing. Number two. So did something actually mean something in that game? Oh, yes, indeed. No serious injuries. Now, I know we're talking backups here, but still during a season, you're going to need many of those backups to play key moments for you because of players getting injured or they're exhausted, come off the field, second team defensive linemen have to come in. It's really important to get through this phase of the season, the preseason without piling up any significant injuries. Now, the next few points will be about positions. Point three. Who's the backup quarterback here? Well, we don't know. I think it's Sam Howell, by the way. But Sam Howell and Joe Milton each played the other day and they were almost identical statistically. Now, Howell did get hurt by a bad drop of one of his passes in the first half. But they they each looked solid. But we got to remember something though. If during this season, either one of these guys has to start a whole bunch of football games, the Cowboys hopes are likely in the Dempster Dumpster. Number four, who's the backup running back? Well, we know who the Cowboys want the backup running back to be. And that's last year's fifth round choice, Jaden Blue. But he didn't look very good against Seattle. Eight carries 19 yards. He did have one past the car of the backfield for 13 yards. But Jaden Blue just doesn't look like a power runner at all. And I think the Cowboys are gonna want that as a backup to Javonte Williams. Again, the question here is, if Williams gets hurt, who do you want to be given the ball to fifteen, eighteen, 20 times in the game? It didn't look like Jaden Blue Saturday night, and it didn't look like his backup. Last year's seventh round draft choice, Phil Maffa out of Clemson, who looked no better than Blue. In fact, maybe a little bit worse. I'm mystified about something though. Why doesn't Malik Davis get more respect on this team? Davis when given opportunities last year, as a backup runner to Javonte Williams, he looks solid to me. But when camp began, it appeared that Davis was number four on the depth chart at running back. And I just don't see why he's behind Blue and Maffa. And if you saw the game on Saturday, you probably don't realize it either. Davis was measurably better than either of those two kids. In fact, the number five runner here, Israel Abadakanda. Love to say that last name, Abadakanda. He looked better than Blue or Maffa. Next, let's go to the backup backup tight end battle. And that involves Luke Schoonmaker. When Schoonmaker was drafted three years ago, he immediately was given the number two tight end position behind Jake Ferguson. In fact, Ferguson was approaching the contract and if the Cowboys hadn't been able to come to a contract, yada yada, well, you know what? Schoonmaker never challenged for that job. In fact, he's been beaten out for the backup tight end job by Brevin Span Ford. So Schoonmaker in this the last year of his contract now finds himself in a battle to keep the number three tight end job. Schoonmaker looked okay the other day, but Michael Trigg, the undrafted free agent looked pretty active, caught four passes for 30 yards, and realized Schoonmaker's due to make 2,000,000 this season, and Trigg a little less than 900,000. And if Trigg gets the job, you might be able to trade Schoonmaker for a seventh round draft choice. Point six, Did someone play well enough to make the team who was not expected to make the team? Well, yes, maybe. Wide receiver Camden Brown had two wonderful touchdown catches. Wonderful. Camden Brown's is sort of an odd story. He was a pretty well thought of recruited Auburn, and he spent three years at Auburn and had an impact of zero. Last year, he transferred to Georgia Southern. Now that is some rungs down the ladder in competition. But 65 catches, 14 touchdowns, 16 and a half yards a catch that didn't catch enough eyes for him to get drafted. So he's in camp as an undrafted free agent. And probably at the start of camp, I would say he would have been the number nine wide receiver on a team that's going to carry five or six. But the competition for the number five wide receiver job, Lamb, Pickens, Flournoy and Turpin have the first four locked in. The competition isn't very strong there. You got veterans like Jonathan Mingo and Marquez Valves Gantling, and the number seven draft choice, Anthony Smith and an undrafted free agent named Trayshahn Holden. Brown, with that standout performance against Seattle, may have pushed past all of them into the number five spot at wide receiver. Point number seven. Did someone expected to make this team play so poorly? He may have endangered his roster spot. Well, yes. Cornerback Kalen Carson On Seattle's first drive, their only touchdown drive, their only point scoring drive of the night, Kalen Carson had a pass interference and then a face mask. I mean, drive Seattle's drive was honestly mostly Kalen Carson committing penalties. And then later, he gets another pass interference call. He didn't look like a a a defender. He looked like a grabber. And you don't want grabbers at cornerback. Now, what could save Kalen Carson? The fact that the cornerback crop here is not very strong, and Carson might hang on to a spot just because the alternatives aren't strong, but he better start playing better. Point number eight. You know, James Houston's an unusual story. He had a wonderful season for Detroit back a few years when he came in the league, eight and a half sacks. And and then, well, he disappeared in usage and wound up signing with the Cowboys last year as a free agent that hardly anybody noticed. And then James Huston is a spare part player, had five and a half sacks. The Cowboys had only 34 sacks last year, and 17 of those sacks are by players no longer on the team. Jadavion Clowney, Osa, Odigi Zua, Dante Fowler Junior. Houston is by far and away the leading sack returning player for the Cowboys, and he was good the other day. He flashed several times against Seattle. Now on the other side, linebacker Marist Liu Fa, the Cowboys are trying to convert to an edge rusher. He he was a little disruptive also. But when Seattle ran straight at him, he was a little less impressive. Number nine. Questions that we didn't get answers to. Are the tackles, Guighton and Steele gonna hold up this year? The interior of the Cowboys offensive line is very good, but the questions are about the tackle. And what if one of them should go down? Well, Nate Thomas, who's the first reserve, he didn't stand out last year and he did not stand out Saturday night in Seattle. Cowboys may have some concerns back up offensive line. You may see a signing there as camp goes on, wanders to the rest of California and back to Frisco, I guess, should say. And and where will the pass rush come from? We don't know. The Cowboys don't have an accomplished pass rusher. They did sign 37 year old DeSoto, former DeSoto resident Von Miller to a contract. Now Miller may be 37, and he may be may have had thirteen years in this league, and he is headed for the Hall of Fame. But he did as a spare part player have nine sacks for the Washington commandos last year. Maybe he can help as a part time edge rusher just like Clowney did last year in that role. But we don't know where it's coming from. The pass rush. And we won't. We won't. We'll more on that in just a minute. And what does starting cornerback Duron Bland look like? We're not going to get that answer because Bland didn't play, and I don't think the Cowboys are going to play Bland in the preseason. He was excellent three years ago. Hurt the last two years, and when he wasn't hurt, nothing but mediocre, but he's making $23,000,000 a year, and the Cowboys need Duron Bland to be a number one corner. Because if he's not that, if he's mediocre again, this defense for Christian Parker has a worry at cornerback. And finally, point number 10. Does does Dallas have a really solid d? How much better is it gonna be from that putrid mess that was on the field last year? Well, we're we're not gonna find out that. Oh, yeah, the scoreboard said they only allowed seven points. But again, we're talking second, third and fourth teamers here. We won't know that because Dallas does not intend to play any of their starters during the preseason. They just don't want to get anybody hurt. Now the flip side of that is sometimes players need a little work to knock some of the rust off, but but that's what scrimmages are for and things like that. Dallas has got to be better defensively. How much are they improved in that area? We're gonna have to wait till September 14 in the opener against the Giants to start start getting clues about that. Next, we look at two Texas Ranger teams. What do you want from your favorite restaurant? Fantastic personal service, a cheery, welcoming, spotless atmosphere, and of course, 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. Do you bet on football? I'm Norm Hitskas, and I've been handicapping sports for the last five decades, and what an incredible last two years we've had picking games. For all of our college and pro football selections, plus the NCAA basketball tournament, we've posted a wonderful five twenty seven winners and four thirty four losers. After subtracting the juice, if you're a $200 a game player, that's a tidy profit of right at $10,000. And unlike those big betting services, we don't cost an arm and a leg. $200. That's it. $200 for the entire package of football and basketball picks. Email right to you every week. Sign up by clicking on the link below. And let's have another solid profitable year. I'd like to talk to you about two Ranger teams, the one currently staggering around like a drunken sailor, trying to find his way home at two in the morning, and the Texas team that'll start the 2027 season in a little over seven months. First and very quickly, what is becoming the sad story of this season? About three weeks ago, on the morning of July 29, things were looking pretty rosy for our Rangers. They'd won four zero five. They'd taken over first place in the ALS, which is not all that hard to do given that this entire five team division, the five consists of nothing but mutts, stragglers, teams that are hoping if they can just be mediocre that might be good enough to win the West and get them in the playoffs. But starting from that morning of July 29, the roof began ever so slowly collapsing on the Rangers. They lost two to Tampa Bay, and then they got swept by Houston. But the gods of baseball had a present waiting for them. This collection of junk that they get to play for the next three weeks. Patsy's, San Francisco, Baltimore, the Angels, the Athletics. But beating Patsy's proved too much for the Rangers. Over the last two weeks before this one started, they went six and seven against those terrible teams, scoring barely over three runs a game. At the start of this week, more limpers on the schedule Washington in this weekend, the angels who are terrible, but the angels play like the Dodgers when they face the Rangers. There's seven three against them. And to begin the week, forty two and seventy three against anybody else in baseball. My Texas still win despite pitching injuries, despite inconsistent setup situation in the bullpen, despite an offense that stinks. And with their best players, Langford, Seeger, Young not being able to stay healthy. Oh, oh, yes. Oh, yes. Because there are no monsters in this division. Houston's had more Ranger injuries than the Rangers. Seattle's offense, if you can believe it is worse than Texas. And then of course, there's the Angels and the Athletics, a pair of pathetics. On the other hand, what may be more concerning is next year's Ranger team. Owner Ray Davis reduced payroll this year to about $209,000,000 off of about $2.25 you pay each of the last two years. Now, some of that's understandable. The attendance last year dropped about a quarter of a million people. And the Rangers TV situation is a mess. They're not getting any kind of substantial income like they used to. And that could lead Davis to be a little more of a penny pincher. And this year, he was reluctant to spend anything at the trade deadline. Now, dollars $2.00 9,000,000 is enough to put a solid team on field. Couple three well paid teams spread the rest of well paid players spread the rest around. But let's who see who's gonna get most of that salary chunk next year. There's Jacob deGrombo. He'll make $37,000,000 to be the ace of the staff, but he's gonna be 39. They're starting pitcher Nathan Uvalde. He'll make $25,000,000 next year. He'll be 37 years old. He's hurt right now. Each of them have no trade clauses that could affect the offseason. And they're each having probably their worst year in the last five years of their careers. And then there's shortstop Corey Seager, a good player having a terrible year, and he's hurt again, hurt again. This is a career line story for Corey Seager. He'll be 33 next year, making $32,000,000, but he will have played as many as 123 games in a season only once in the last seven years. And then there's Brandon Nimmo, solid player, having a solid year. He'll make $20,000,000 next year, and he'll be 34 years old. Those four will make a $114,000,000. You worry about their ages. You worry about several of their performances this year. Therefore, others go into arbitration, starting Petra Kenzy, Mackenzie Gore, currently hurt third baseman Josh Young, and two people having solid years, first baseman Jack Jake Berger, and star utility man Ezekiel Duran. I'm gonna guess after their arbitrations are all finished, these four make another 25,000,000 between them. That's a 139,000,000 committed eight players. If you're going to hold to about 209,000,000 like this year, that's only 70,000,000 to cover the rest of the roster. Jake Peterson, who's having a good year. He's free. There are no catchers currently under contract. They need at least one more outfielder and three or four bullpen pitchers. You know, the Rangers have hung around 500 for three years now. Their stars are getting older. That's a situation that the Rangers are gonna have to deal with after this currently meandering season is finished. 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. Pick a cozy bungalow for two or bring the whole family to villas that can accommodate up to 14. Cerenianbay.com, sirenian. The sand and the sea are just waiting for you to get here. On recent Just Wonderings, we have complained about what's going on in college football. Isn't almost everybody? Kids transferring willy nilly here and there abuses the NIL system. Hey, and then we got these kids. They're all over America playing football for five years, six years, seven years. This year's veteran in college football is a Montana linebacker named Solomon Tui Aupupu. I think I got that correct. This is your name from him but for him but this is not some kids scamming the system. It's an incredible story of determination. He he started in 2019 as a four star recruit linebacker at USC. Hey, this is a good player. And then foot problems, surgery, ruins his first two years, then working out the summer, he blows out a knee and misses two more complete systems. Finally, by 2022, he's back on the field playing as a reserve for USC. But then disaster strikes again. Another severe knee injury wipes out 2023 and part of 2024, where he comes back to play a little bit for USC. Then he transfers last year to Montana, and plays an integral part in a Montana Grizzlies team that went to the semifinals of the FCS National Championship playoffs. And this year, he's back for year nine playing college football. He's missed five full seasons to injury in his career. What a story of grit and determination. Solomon Tuiyalpupu, one tough dude. 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 balm cuts the timeline to about a week. And ordering's so easy. Just go to the website, fullmoonhealingco.com. Podcasters, the football season starts in just a couple of weeks. College football debuts right at the end of August. Do you bet college football games? I've been handicapping games for more than forty years now. And the last couple of years ever since my retirement from talk radio, I've been selling my picks. The price is ridiculously cheap. We ask $200 That's for the entire football season, college and pro, and the NCAA basketball tournament thrown in. How well have we done the last two years? Five twenty seven winners, four thirty four losers, if you're a $200 game player, after the juice is subtracted from losing plays, if you're a $200 player, that's right at a $10,000 profit. Dollars 200 the picks get emailed right to you every Friday, and several times during the basketball playoffs, obviously. How do you sign up? That's easy. Send an email to my stepson, Zach Danz, and he'll get right on it. The email is Zachary. Danzgmail dot com. Zachary. Dansgmail dot com. Let's go out and have another winning season. 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 Hitchgis, and I'll just be wondering too. This is a Stolen Water Media production.