Mark Elfenbein talks Cowboys, Mavs, and radio | Free4All+

Hey guys, welcome to Free For All Plus. I'm your host, Sam Gannon, filling in for Jeff. I'm not normally here on Fridays, but it is a pleasure to be here nonetheless. In a moment, I will introduce you to a special guest. He comes from the ticket. Love is energy. We always have a great time. So he will join me in just a second. Of course, we're going to be talking all about the Cowboys. Does that win over the Eagles change at all how you feel about this team? Probably not. But if they can stack another win on Sunday, gives you a little bit something more to be optimistic about. But let's talk big picture for a second. So a win against Arizona on Sunday gives the Cowboys back-to-back wins for the first time this season, puts them back at 500. And four out of these next five games, including the Cardinals, all of those teams, One have losing records, the only one that doesn't, the 49ers, and they come to town on November 15th. The Cowboys, though, as you saw there, were getting in some final work before Sunday's noon matchup against the Cardinals. Now- This team still has everything in front of them. They're second in the NFC East. And while Arizona has just two wins on the season, the Cardinals have owned the Cowboys pretty much the last two decades. They've won the last four, seven of the last eight, and are 4-0 at AT&T Stadium. Dallas' only win since 2006 against them came in 2017, which was Dak Prescott's second year in the NFL. Coach Shottie today says the reasons for the losses come down strictly to that turnover battle One and eight against them, going back to, I think, 2011, four in a row at home. They've beaten the Cowboys. I'll disagree with CD a little bit. I know why. Minus 11, turnover differential in those games. Last year, we were minus three. So the ball is what this game's going to come down to. I don't think it's got to do with energy. It's a noon kickoff. Both teams are going to have to draw from it. We have the fans. But, again... The ball, minus 11, or minus 3 last year, good luck. Right, and joining me right now is Mark Elfenbein of The Ticket. Elf, what's going on, my man? Hi, Gannon. How are you? Are you cool with me calling you Gannon? I am cool with that. Okay. It feels very official when it comes from you when you call me Gannon. And the reason I ask is because when I had Jane Slater as my partner for a couple years on the radio, it was called Elf and Slater. And Jerry Jones, when we did the show, he would not. Let me call her Slater. Really? He says, I'm only going to call her Jane. I ain't. So I just want to make sure it's cool. It's cool. All right. It's cool. Welcome. Gannon, I'm glad to be back. This is awesome. We love having you on, Elf, per usual. And for those who might be just meeting you right now in the airways right now, where and when can they listen to you on the ticket? Well, we're every Sunday morning, 7 to 9 on Sports Radio, 96.7 and 1310, the ticket. I'm 7 to 9 a.m. It's early. But we take you to church. Sometimes the priests get upset because you're stoned in the car listening. But I've cleared that with my rabbi, so you're okay. And you have a special live broadcast coming up here in a couple weeks. Very, very exciting. Sclafani's Bagels at Preston and Northwest Highway off of Luther Lane. November 15th, it's the morning of the 49er Cowboy game. That's going to be a blast. Pretty big game, so you might want to get a lot of bagels. Yeah, I've never tried that place. I need to have a big bagel. Everything bagel with chive cream cheese. Can I have that? Oh, come on. Yeah, a little tomato on the side, maybe? Yeah, I love that. Okay, we're good. All right. I got you covered. I want to bring up a viral picture from the Monday night game. It involved CeeDee Lamb after he scored this touchdown. This has to be one of the most epic sports photos now of all time. And it's because the fact that this is such a big Big rivalry, but look at this photo. out the number of Eagles fans flipping the bird. Well, it looks like he's doing a little something to the infield. Field. Right. I mean, if I just now looked at that picture, I said, it looks like he's sprinkling the infield. Yeah, I want to see the picture from the other side, right? But I think it's hilarious because you have a gal up front that's smiling at C.D. Oh, man. Then there's the lone Cowboys fan in that picture wearing his jersey and he's drinking Don Julio. How the heck did he get that in the stadium? I've only seen it once where somebody literally, it was at the Texas-Georgia bowl game many, many years ago. And somebody reached into their boot and they pulled out a flask. Okay, so maybe- Yeah, so they must have had some big boots. It's funny, I actually found the gentleman that took this picture. His name is Var. He's a big Eagles fan and right now I'm trying to convince him to do a Zoom interview with me. So we'll see if he gets back to that. Okay, that'll be great. Talk about the Cowboys, Elf. There are some positives to take away from the Eagles game, yes. My whole thing is they were really banged up. Did Dallas have to come in and win this game otherwise? I thought their season would be over. Eagles front was solid, so the offense got back to his identity. But is there anything that you took away In a positive light from this game. I think the first thing is running the football was what they kept talking about. We need to run the ball, need to run the ball, it'll help the offense, it'll help Dak, it'll help the receivers. And I think for the first time, Tyler Smith got his legs up under him a little bit. Yep, yep. And we were like, man, it's been three games, he's done nothing different. But Javante Williams was great, the running game was great, and obviously it helped them out offensively. Dak dropped some dimes on a couple of passes. I mean, that pass to CeeDee and the one to Pickens were so perfectly thrown. So the running game to me was a very, very big difference. You're gonna have to force that because they were not as banged up defensively as they were offensively. Right. You still do what you had to do, and you had to run the ball. Didn't it make you wonder, when I saw how well Javante ran the ball, it's like, well, why did Coach Schottenheimer get away from that so much up until this point? It's like, you have a 1,000 yard rusher, that's a tough runner, some of his runs, I mean, the dude runs through guys. So it just made me question, like, Get that balance back in there with this offense. I think, and we love Shotty, right? We love Shotty. I don't think he's done a great job this year, but I really like Shotty. And I think the problem is Shotty wants everybody to like him. He wants to please everybody. And you want to, oh, get CeeDee the ball. Make sure Pickens gets a little bit. Make sure Ferguson. Make sure they're happy. Everybody's happy. Dak throws it enough. And I think he was fighting that. Run the ball. Yeah. And sometimes you have to force feed the run a little bit to make it happen. They got off to a great start, and they realized, keep pounding it, keep pounding it, keep pounding it. Offensively, that's great. We need to see it again. It's not going to get easier. Yeah. I mean, it's going to get tougher because the Eagles were not all there. But they still have a lot of work to do. Look, you'll take the win. You'll take the win. To me, the defense is still really concerning. And, you know. They just haven't played well overall. The third down, that's still a concern. The worst in the league. The worst in the league. I mean, I know it takes time when you have a first-year defensive coordinator, when you have a new scheme. But at what point is it like, okay, it's time for them to start looking better than they've looked? I had a question. How many green dots do we have to give out? Right. Because we've given them three different linebackers already, and Shamar got it. Couple of things, number one, the big name players have to make plays. Quinnen Williams, Kenny Clark, Rashad Gary, Ezekiel, Malachi Lawrence, D, I mean, your guys need to make plays. I loved seeing Overshawn back on the field, and it was finally nice to see him healthy. And when he's on the field and he's healthy, he's really active. Yep, he's really active. He made some big hits, some big tackles, he made the great interception. He's just got to stay healthy. And Joey Porter Jr. does make a difference. You know, they don't do a lot of completions on his side of the ball. Defensive. Defensively, they were better, but the Eagles were so banged up and so depleted. So you have to take that with a grain of salt. You look at this Arizona game and they're playing at home. I picked them to win. Our whole sports department picked them to win. But it's also one of those games that you look at as a trap game too, right? Because Arizona two and five, they've been competitive in some games. What's your thoughts on this matchup? Trap game's a good way to put it. Every time you think Dallas is going to play well, they don't. And every time you think I think they're not going to play well. They surprise you. I want to believe that they found a little something in Philly, even though Philly was depleted and you won the game 38 to 21, whatever the heck it was. I mean, it's a pride thing too. Yeah, but you have to start, they like to say stacking games. Yeah, stacking games. Get another win, because right now, the way their schedule lays out. Earlier in the year, you were going, oh, my God, this is going to be a tough stretch. We have that schedule, too. We want to pop that up so we can show the next five games here. And take care of the Cardinal game. Yep. Indianapolis has basically said we're trading everybody. We're done with the season, so to speak. To me, that's. You should be winning that game? Go there. Frisco's going to be the tough one. I mean, they're going to come here, and they are a lot better than we thought they were. Now, here's the thing. If Dallas plays the 49ers competitively, and really, I think when you play at home, that gives you a certain type of edge. Absolutely. Even if they lose, if they play them competitively, that'll change my thinking about this team if they make it a ballgame. Yeah, and I think their if is... If we do what we're supposed to do, we beat them at home. Right. If we do what we're supposed to do. Now, granted, they're old, they've been banged up, and they keep winning. I think Dallas- The penalties too, Elf, the defensive penalty. I mean, how many more times are we going to talk about penalties with this team? If I see one more false start, I'm going to throw up. It was awful. And a lot of them, I think, in that first half happened on third down, I want to say, or something like that, you know? So it's just- Isn't that a discipline thing? That's not a coaching thing, right? What is it? It's discipline. It's coaching, it's a little bit of everything, but your star players have to start playing like stars. We saw a little bit more from Quentin Williams. Okay, good. I saw a little bit more from Kenny Clark when he was in Green Bay. You should with Quentin, you just paid the guy. Come on. I mean, this is it. This is where you start to, you make hay a little bit. Okay, you had to get through the rough roads here and figuring out your teammates. Fine. Now, It's been what, seven games? It's coming up to eight? Yeah. Let's go. With Coach Schottenheimer, it was so interesting, because I'm sure you saw his post-game interaction with the media. Sweet. People were so surprised. I think it was Tad Archer who asked him, hey, is everything okay? Because Schottenheimer, I'm sure hears all the noise. To me, Mike and I talked about this, want to get your thoughts. I understand he had a human moment, but it's also like, this is what comes with being That the head coach of the Dallas Cowboys, you better expect this when you're not winning. If somebody tells you they're not reading the headlines, they're not listening to the radio shows, they're not listening to the talk, they're full of you know what. Okay, we all do, it's just natural. The way of the world now. He heard the noise. I mean, look, I even said it last Sunday on the show. Listen, I love him to death, but he did a crappy job. And I still think the jury is out on him. And that's simply because of the fact the Cowboys haven't shown Themselves, this fan base that they can beat winning teams, they beat the bad teams. So until that changes, I mean, what is your vote of confidence right now in Coach Schottenheimer? Yeah, on a scale from one to ten, I'd say about a six and a half to a seven. Okay. I mean, I still think he's here. Yeah. I don't think you're near an eight or a nine or a ten by any means. Six and a half to seven. I think he still has the locker room. I don't think he's lost that. He has it, but it's funny because we all said the Cowboys don't do anything. Jerry doesn't do anything. They went and got all these players. They made these trades. They went and got Porter after the season started. They've done all these things. And then when you put this on top. Right. This is the easiest the NFC East has been in 25 years, they're giving you the division. It's like, come on. If they mess this up, it's real bad. My gosh. So an off the field topic that has made national headlines has been this whole Troy Aikman, Joe Buck feud and that this is gonna be Troy's last season at ESPN, which I just think is a shame because I think the two of them in the booth have been so great. What do you make of the way that this has all unfolded? Look, I think we all love Joe and Troy, they're great together. I get a kick out of when Joe Buck starts, he goes, I'm Joe Buck and he's the Hall of All the favor, Troy Aikman. Yeah. But I think what got Troy upset was the fact that he had an opportunity to sign a long-term deal and decided to wait for Joe. And then when they went to Joe, Joe said, okay, I'll sign mine right now. That favor wasn't returned. And that kind of got Troy a little surprised maybe, disturbed, upset. I wasn't sure about the shouting match, but apparently that did happen. Apparently there was one there. Yeah. And I just think he's so good at what he From every comment that I've seen on social media, because then he and Jerry Jones had that exchange pregame because Jerry was asked, would you ever consider bringing him into the front office for a major role? He said, yeah, I would and I could and that whole thing. Do you think there's a scenario where that happens next year? I think five or six years ago. When it first kind of did some circulation about Aikman maybe coming to the Cowboys front office guy, GM. Because that rant that we saw on the sidelines with Troy, when he was ticked off about Barry Switzer. Yeah. And I mean, us and everybody out, you're going, that's what we need. That's what this, yeah. We need that kind of voice. We need a guy that- He's a straight shooter. I mean, he said after that Eagles game, does this change what you think? He's like, no, let's not get carried away. Yeah. And that's real. I think he was being very cautious in talking to Jerry about, he wanted to set the table for himself. Put that out there. That I'll sit down anytime you want me to sit down. But he also knows that a game a week is a heck of a gig. Yeah, it really is. I mean, no stress, no pressure, making a ton of money, and that's it. That's it. And quite honestly, when he steps away from Monday Night Football, cuz we know it's coming. Jim Nance is waving already. Yeah. Hey, come sit with me. I would love to see that. Right, even Sunday night football. Tell Collinsworth goodbye. Yeah, let Troy come in and fold. And him sit with whoever, or even Al Michaels on Thursday night. So it could be one of several things. Troy's doing okay. He's doing okay. All right, and we're doing okay. Yes. You're going to be here the whole show. We're going to hit a poll real quick and then a break. And that's, will the Cowboys beat the Cardinals? And right now, the majority of you, you say yes. Dallas will get the job done. Elf, coming up next on the other side of the break, we're going to talk some Dallas Mavericks. They're off to a good start, maybe a better start than most people thought. We'll get into that next. You know, Kyrie, number one, when you've had a great career and you've been a great player, you come in as the teenager, you have a great career, then you become the old geezer. And you kind of have to- Yo, chill out, Charles, chill out, Charles, chill out, man, yeah, but I'm accepting of it, but you're right, though. But how do you balance, I need to teach these young guys. I've been through it. Because a lot of times, it's like when we're talking to our kids, they think we were born old. They don't realize, like, no, there's nothing you're going to experience on a basketball. I've been a young, great player. I've won the world championship. I've been an all-star multiple, multiple times. How do you balance that? Like, guys, I've been through the wars. Just listen to me. You won what? Yeah. Yeah, I mean... Oh, my God. I love this, man. You won what? No, I think it's a great question. It's a good question because It's a great question because I think, for me, I'm still figuring it out as we come into the season, early on in the season. But I think the most important thing is we have some time to gel in the summertime. We came in, we put in a lot of work in training camp. I think the luxury that I have on this team, especially being an older guy and veteran, is we've got a lot of young guys that are trying to still prove themselves. You know, we've got Zachary Riches, who's the number one pick in Atlanta. I don't want to say they gave up on him, but they let him go, and now he's on our team doing all the little things. You got Walter Clayton, and of course, Coop is going to do what he does, but these young guys have a very strong competitive nature, and they bring it every single day in practice, and that's all I can ask for. That's why I love inside the NBA, Mark Albin at the ticket, joining me here, Chuck giving Kyrie a hard time, calling him an old geezer. I mean, he's 34, but by basketball terms, I guess he's getting up there. Yeah, I mean, look, with LeBron, what, 41, which is more incredible than anything. I think it's great to just see Ky back healthy. We'll see. I was one when I heard he was coming here, I was kind of like, eh, whatever. But. He is one of the best ball handlers I've ever seen. He's one of the best left-right finishers I've ever seen. His shot is great. And off the court, I think he's amazed me more than even on the court. All the things he's done, he's taken the young guys in stride. All the things he's been doing with the players and taking them and doing and- And, you know, You better be careful because if he keeps it up, he's going to get traded. Well, that's the thing. Yeah, he is. He looks good. Still not maybe at the peak Kyrie yet, but he's been on minutes restrictions. He's working his way back, but he's still averaging 19 points per game on 51% shooting. In his first three appearances, the Mavs-Rockets game is underway. They got blown out, of course, and they played them in the season opener, I believe. Yeah, that was... So we'll see because the Rockets are good. They're undefeated right now. The thing with Kyrie, and you bring up the will he be here at the end of the season. It's interesting cuz I think Kyrie is at a place in his career where I think he really loves Dallas. I think he loves playing alongside Cooper Flagg and who wouldn't after seeing the way Cooper's performed this early on. Yeah, I don't know what accolades to throw at first, Kyrie looks great, health wise he's great. And again, he's gonna get stronger and stronger we hope and everything continues. As you can tell he absolutely loves Playing with Cooper Flagg, and the Mavericks have a lot of nice pieces to the puzzle. They do, a lot of interesting pieces. Yeah, but Cooper Flagg, I remember when he came and played SMU at Moody, and I was sitting next to some guy named Nico Harrison. You can't say that name around here anymore. I know, sorry about that. Anyway, but I looked at him, I said, you know, this guy's pretty good. And he's like, yeah, he's okay. That's when I knew Nico Harrison was a schmuck. Did he really say that? I thought he was messing with me. But Cooper Flagg is so unbelievable. Got bigger, got taller, got stronger. And he just... Dude plays both sides. Did you see that block that he had? Yeah, it's insane. He loves to play defense. He loves to rebound. I think the Jason Kidd move by giving him the balls to point guard actually helped. Yeah, cuz he was thrown into all situations. Yeah, and he kinda knows what to do with the basketball and he has the drive and the desire to play. 100% of the time. We have about a minute here just to tick off the Mavericks fans. Just wanna make a quick mention that Luka Doncic, he's also going off, he leads the league in scoring, he's averaging 36 points per game. If he's not gunning for the MVP this year, I don't know when he is because he's on a tear very early on. And somebody needs to tell that yo-yo from Golden State, don't talk smack to Luka. He's going to drop 70 on you tonight. Okay, be careful. But yeah, the Mavs, I think, are going to be very entertaining. I think they're going to be in the mix, especially if they stay healthy. And again, they're three and two entering the night, first time above 500 since March of 2025. So we need to hit a break. We'll be right back after this. Stay with us. Back here on Free For All Plus, Mark Alvin la Bein of The Ticket, my guest tonight. It's been so much fun. We want to give a little shout out, though, to the ladies. Carter, hit this video for me. We want to give a big congratulations to the Hebron girls water polo team on their first ever state title. They defeated Brazoswood last weekend for the third time this year to complete their perfect season at 28. And no, the number one ranked team in the nation. Well, see, because Sam Gannon is a swimmer. Right, so it's like that water section. Listen, you have to give a shout out. I have to give a shout out. You're damn right. So what else is on your mind? What else is on your mind sports-wise? Did you see the Dwayne Wade statue, how they decided to redo it? I didn't see how they redid it. It was so bad at first. Yeah, because when he saw it, he was like, oh my God. And it is better, but I'm like, I don't remember. Does it look like him? It looks more like him. Okay. It looks more like him. All right. What are your plans for the weekend? That's cool. Well, Halloween, where I live now, I learned real quickly after my first two years in my new home, I bought all this candy and nobody came. Trick or treat like they used to, not like when I was a kid. When we used to get the pillowcase, and we used to go to the houses that would sell the big candy bars. What's your favorite Halloween candy? Go. Oh, I'm Snickers. I'm Twix and Kit Kats. Okay, I also like Almond Joy. And I like Starburst. Do you freeze them? And peanut butter M&Ms, sometimes. Okay, just checking. Thank you very much. Well, you're welcome back every time. I know you like hanging with Jeff, with me, with Mike, with Ethan, with Carter. We got everyone at the house tonight. The whole crew at Fox 4 is amazing. I just cannot wait to see the new building. Oh, you're going to be in there come January. Oh, listen, you just tell me when. I'll be there. All right. Because that'll be fun. That's going to do it for us tonight on Free For All. Plus, see you back on Fox 4 at 10:30.