Cowboys Survive Indy’s Blunders and Woes & Evan Grant on Baseball’s Looming Lockout | Just Wondering

Hi. I'm Norm Hitzges. Welcome again to Just Wondering.

The Cowboys managed to defeat a poor Indianapolis team on Sunday, thanks in part to some head scratching strategy by the Indy head coach. But now this season toughens up. And in our last segment, the Rangers beat reporter Evan Grant explains to all of us why baseball almost certainly will have yet another work stoppage starting December 1.

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Before we examine cowboy performances, let's look at who they faced. Indies now two and seven. They've traded away star players and they're about to trade some more away if you can believe the rumored whispers out there.

They were plastered the week before 42 to seven by Jacksonville, who simply laughed at them the last twenty minutes of the game. Indy was, it appeared, a disheartened bunch. But Dallas tendency to play down to the level of their opposition was on full display again Sunday.

Just for the record, through nine games, Dallas is four and five. In those nine games, they've played seven losing teams and only two winning teams. They lost both games against the winning teams and three games already lost this season to losing teams.

And they came perilously close to losing again on Sunday. Oh, yes. Dallas blasted the Colts in yardage 508 to 271, but a 153 yards in penalties.

When is this gonna stop? The Cowboys are thirty first in the 32 team NFL in penalty yards per game. I have a question.

Isn't least some of that coaching? Dak. Dak had a very mediocre game.

He fumbled at his own 19 giving the Colts their first seven points of the game. CD Lamb was terrific, but he fumbled at the Indianapolis 11 costing Dallas points. And Brandon Aubrey, who's been a lot shakier from distance this year than in past seasons, missed again from 50 yards.

And the defense allowed a three yard quick out pattern to turn into a 55 yard catch and run touchdown for the Colts. This all added to with Dallas being ahead by 10 at the half, reaching one thirty seven left in the game and being behind this hapless Colts team. But a big Dak Prescott to Ryan Flournoy pass, and a touchdown scored, and Dallas then stopped the Colts in the last few seconds, and won twenty seven twenty three.

But you wonder if Dallas would have gotten away with a victory, had the head coach of the Colts not made some very shaky decisions in the last few seconds. And that's next. What do you want from your favorite restaurant?

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Let's go to the last two minutes of the game on Sunday. It was tied 20 to 20. That's because Dallas managed to score only three second half points.

Indy rallied to tie and had the ball in field goal range to go ahead at the Dallas 32 yard line. There was a minute and forty five left in the game, and most importantly, Dallas had stopped the clock using its third and final timeout. Indy faced third and eight at the Dallas 32.

At this point, the Indy coach Shane Steichen made a massively questionable decision. On third down, he decided to throw. And yes, the bad thing happened.

The pass was incomplete. And India had used only four seconds off the clock. Yes, then Indy kicked the field goal to go ahead.

Twenty three twenty. But that left Dallas with a minute and thirty seven seconds left on the clock, trailing only three. Ninety seven seconds left is an eternity in the National Football League, even if you don't have any timeouts.

And Dallas, of course, then went the length of the field and scored to win the game. Ah, but what if what if on that third down and eight, Indy had decided to run the ball? Doesn't matter if they don't get any yardage at all.

The clock keeps running and running and running. Indy then lets it run down to one second left on the play clock and uses one of their timeouts to stop the clock with right around sixty seconds to go in the game. Then they kick the field goal, and then they kick off.

Depending on the kickoff, Dallas gets the ball back with between fifty and fifty five seconds left in the game and no timeouts, and trailing by three. At that point, do you think the Cowboys are thinking winning the game? I'm sorry, I don't.

I'm thinking the Cowboys can hope to get in field goal range to tie the game and force overtime. But that's all history now. Shane Steichen made his decision.

And I have to think that the Cowboys at the time he made that decision were absolutely giddy about it. We noted earlier that Dallas is four and five with seven of their nine games against losers and two against winners. Well, party time's over for the Cowboys schedule this season.

In the last eight games, they faced five winning teams, beginning with next week against San Francisco. Somewhere, somehow, soon, very soon, if Dallas is thinking this might still be a good season, they better start playing like a good team. Are you just wondering where your next spectacular vacation will be?

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Just go to the website, fullmoonhealingco.com. How long has Evan Grant been the Dallas Morning News beat reporter for the Texas Rangers? Well, to use some political perspective, Bill Clinton had just begun his second term as president when Evan took over that beat.

He's been an AP top 10 beat reporters in the country multiple times. Evan loves this may not be an order now. Gina, his two step kids, his two dogs, the University of Georgia, 42 to seven over Old Miss.

The late Jimmy Buffett and barbecue. E Grant, thanks for the time this morning, buddy. Thanks, Norm.

Thanks for the great introduction. Yeah. It's great to be here.

Evan, we'll have time to talk Rangers when we have a baseball season next year, if we do. Today, I wanted your expertise about the contract negotiations. The contract between the players and owners runs out December 1, and everyone expects a work stoppage of some length.

I wanted our audience and me too, Evan, to understand what the two sides want. So let's start with the owners. What's the biggest thing the owners want at this negotiating table?

What the owners want is cost certainty, and that's where a salary cap comes in. If I can explain this, the simplest way I can explain it is I believe the owners want their franchise valuations to go up more significantly. And to do so means having cost certainty, that there wouldn't be as much debt taken on, that there wouldn't be as much uncertainty over club payroll.

That is what they want. It is not about parody, Norm. Nobody in baseball wants parody.

This is about the owners simply trying to leverage the situation into a more favorable arrangement for themselves. Now I will say this. There are some headwinds that the game does need to deal with, and that is the transient nature of television rights right now and how broadcast...

How games are broadcast and the revenue stream that creates that. But owners are still raking in money, and they are... Their franchise valuations are going up.

They're just not going up quite as fast as they would like them to escalate. Evan, I said I wouldn't ask a question about the Rangers, but I'm gonna slip a quick one in here. Ray Davis, he's probably been hit as hard by any of the TV revenues going down as any owner.

He's also seen attendance slip the last couple of years. Is Ray Davis staunchly in the I don't care if we have a long strike, I want a salary cap group. He's very...

I don't wanna say that he's in the, you know, I don't care if the season is lost group, but I do... I will say that he's among the more hawkish of the owners. And I think he...

I'm getting mixed signals as to whether or not he believes it will end up being a salary cap. I think the general feeling around the game, especially... And I think this will play out in November here as we see some free agency flurry go on.

I think that's the biggest indication that there are a number of owners that don't think there's going to end up being a salary cap. I think the fact that the rangers will probably be rather inactive in free agency barring reallocating dollars by trading Corey Seager or Jacob DeGrom or Nathan of Aldi. I think that's an indication that Ray still thinks that there would be a more restrictive CBA, and and contract parameters coming into play.

What do the players want? Players want the system to stay as it is. The players believe it's not their responsibility to be the owners' financial managers.

Sorry for my dogs, Norm, but I love them. You know, as my bio said, I do love them. Hey, Evan.

I've got two in the other room doing the same thing. Okay. Well, the players don't want anything to change, you know, and they...

Their perspective is, you offer the contracts. We sign them. It's not our responsibility to figure out your financial mess.

And to the player's point, you know, there are teams with plans that restrict themselves in terms of financial, expenditures that just played in the World Series. And the Milwaukee Brewers have been a really good baseball club for a decade with a very, I don't want to say restrictive, but with a very firm plan as to how they go about things. The Tampa Bay Rays have been a very good baseball team for the large part of the last fifteen years without going crazy on free agencies.

Evan, do you have any feeling? I know I'm asking a guess here about how long this might be? This...

What I tell people when they ask me, and and I want to be clear, you know, because I've had friends of mine, and other people that I've explained to, this would not be a strike. This would be a lockout. Uh-huh.

It would be an owner imposed lockout. The players are more than willing to go to work. Okay.

And so the wording of of a strike would be incorrect. But what I tell what I tell friends is I don't expect that we play baseball before May. I hope I'm wrong.

I hope we play baseball sooner than that. But I think once we get to a point where there's games lost and actual money lost, that's when the owners will get more realistic about casting away the salary cap and getting an agreement that I think is not that difficult to reach. I do think it is important if you're serious about parody.

I do think it is important to create a floor that that teams can... That teams have to reach in terms of payroll. You know, under this current proposal, it's a $180,000,000.

And if you're telling me that these other teams could magically spend another 90 or $50,000,000 on payroll, then why are we fighting in the first place? Uh-huh. But I do think there are some things that you could do.

I do think that the luxury tax can be... Can become more more punitive. I think you can start to impose draft pick loss for really going above the luxury cap in the way the Dodgers did and and and Mets have.

I think that in the Dodgers case, the Dodgers exposed a loophole in the system. There is no way that a team should be able to defer $68,000,000 of a $70,000,000 contract. Every year.

Per year. Yeah. So there are things that need to be addressed and can be addressed.

But the idea of a salary cap with this union, that's not... I I don't see it happening. The general meeting...

The general managers meeting served this week in Vegas. So which strategy do teams take? Do they scurry before the December 1 date and try to fill up their rosters?

Or do they say, let's wait? There'll be tons of players out there after the work stoppage, and I'll fill my roster then. I think that there are going to be I don't wanna say smart.

I think they're gonna be aggressive clubs that will go out and and pick up guys on a free agent market right now. I think there will be a number of clubs and, you know, it's almost always the usual suspects, the teams that drag their feet on spending that will wait until they see what the new CBA is and try to pick off what's left in a very short period of time. Mhmm.

And then I think there's the rangers. And I think the rangers are in this position where given the parameters that Ray Davis has set of a similar payroll to what they had last year, which was a $190,000,000 in player salaries, but about 205, 210 once you figure in benefits and all the things that that apply to the CBP figure. There's the rangers who are gonna spend all of November trying to figure out how they can reallocate some dollars.

Because as they stand right now, they have maybe $12,000,000, $15,000,000, available to spend on fixing the team, you just can't do that. You you mentioned two Ranger players earlier. Corey Seager, who's got five years left in his contract, no trade, dollars 33,000,000 or so a year.

And Jacob deGrom, one year left, 38,000,000, also no trade. If the Rangers are going to reallocate dollars, as you say, Evan, do they have to virtually give away these players or do they pay their salary down so far that another team might actually give them a decent prospect for the player? Well, Norm, that is...

And that is why I think this month is going to be completely absorbed by this issue because there are any number of of... There's a number of layers of things to trying to get a deal done for any of these players. And I'd even include Nathan Ivaldi in there who I think would be the last of the three that they would trade.

He's got the least amount left, But he may be more desirable as a younger pitcher than DeGrom in some cases. But to your point, you've got three players with complete no trade clauses. So first, you've got to go to them and say, who are you willing to waive a no trade clause?

Or or, Evan, how much do I have to pay you to waive the no trade clause? A 100%. But I think even in those cases, you're gonna get Corey Seager to say, I will go to these three teams, and this is what you're going to pay me to do that.

You have to negotiate. You have to figure out how much are you saving dollars here versus how much are you paying down to get a legitimate prospect. And you, you know, it's always difficult, Norm.

It's always difficult to match up with other trade partners. So there's... It's it's a multifaceted deal that the Rangers would have to have to figure out.

And I think I I don't think that teams are going to be willing to pay. Teams are not going to be willing to take on a significant amount of that contract and give you premier prospects back. One last question.

You may have to. Let me let me just add one thing to that before we go. You may have to take on somebody else's bad contract as a way of paying things down.

Right? Yes. You want you want to make a trade with Atlanta, you may have to take on somebody like Sean Murphy who's got some use for you as a catcher, but he's been hurt and he hasn't been very effective the last few years.

But those are the kinds of things you'd have to consider. A final question for you. In regards the possible nuclear option for the Rangers, This team has staggered around 500 for three years in a row.

Forgive me for making this judgment, but right now, this is a one player farm system, Sebastian Walcott. They've got age highly paid. Is there anybody in this organization who says the r word rebuild?

I don't think that they would go full scale rebuild and trade everybody. And I think part of that is still the belief that you've got this young core of guys who should be potential pillars for a winning team. Right?

You've got Wyatt Langford, Josh Young, Jack Leiter, Kumar Rocker. You wanna potentially throw Sebastian Walcott in there who is the bet... In my mind, just having seen him two weeks ago, is the best prospect I've seen come through the system in more than a decade.

Mhmm. More than a decade. There is a potential core here.

Now some of those guys have not reached their their their best version of themselves yet, But there is a potential core here, and I think Chris Young is so competitive. He would resist the idea of we're gonna tear it all of them down. Because if you are gonna tear it down, then you need to trade guys like Jacob Latts and Josh Young and some of those in Ezekiel Duran, guys who have created value for themselves over the last year.

Evan, thanks for your time this morning, buddy. I really appreciate it. And go Georgia.

Always, always go dogs and sicken. That looked that looked like the best college football team I've seen this year, yesterday. They they played yesterday and that was the same takeaway that I had in watching them was that when George is right, I haven't seen a team look any better than they have this year.

It was an impressive win. We'll see if they can keep it up. God bless you, buddy.

Travel safely. 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. Thanks for listening to today's episode of Just Wondering. I'm Norm Hitzges, and know that every day, I'll be just wondering about something.

And I'm Mary Hitzges, and I'll just be wondering too. This is a Stolen Water Media production.