So besides the difficulty in returning, how was the experience of Rio? Was it everything you thought it was gonna be?

I'm so glad I went, Donnie, because, you know, we had been warned about, you know, a lot of the, uh, security issues and, and how you have to comport yourself.

And, and listen, I, I just wanna make sure everybody hears this.

When you go to Rio, is there a lot of poverty? Absolutely.

It is South America.

It is a country of haves and have-nots, and there is some abject poverty.

But by and large, when you go to any large city, it ...

All right.

Do you think that's the case, or is it early, and they would definitely have to make the adjustments to see how they can get a better performance out of those two?

Yeah, Donnie, I'm so glad you went that way because that was, you know, the next part of what I was saying.

I mean, when you think about the inability for this Cowboys defense to stop the run.

It's concerning and it's confounding because if there's one thing that most of us thought when we thought about the ability for this defense to at least be average or perhaps even better than average, the one given was stopping the run because of those two guys you mentioned.

Quinn and Williams being a run-plugging defensive tackle.

Kenny Clark, another big body in there.

Why have they not... talking about them earlier.

The most important question we can ask you in this visit right here, Joe,

I was shocked.

The shock was actually not the word I used, Matt.

The word I used stunned.

It was stunning that, you know, what they told us, especially about the defense for me, what they told us about the defense and how they viewed that defense put that kind of an effort.

you know, on tape.

And the thing I was interested in was, and I'm going to come back to this a million times this year, so get ready for it.

It's AI, not artificial intelligence, but it is assignment integrity.

But they could have done a lot more early on to give this team a chance.

That's true.

You can.

I mean, that was, that was, that was perfect intro for what you're talking about because, you know, I've had, I've had fans emailing me, I've had friends texting me, a- and I actually put the question to Dak when we did our one-on-one interview yesterday.

I said, "Listen, there are a lot of fans who are saying this team feels different" and I asked him specifically why, why are they correct? If you think they are correct, why are they correct? And he said, "Listen, there's a different way that he's going about trying to lead these guys." He, he, he told me, and I asked him flat out, "Are you much more in their face about it, right? When it becomes time to have that difficult conversation, when you have to correct someone" and he said, "Yeah, that comes with age.

I know that what I'm saying is correct and just, and I feel like it's my, my responsibility that everyone else around me knows it as well." His sense of urgency is higher than I've ever seen it, um, and I think that's gonna serve this team well.

And then when you, when you couple that with all the defensive optimism that there is, um, I think that is where all those feelings are coming from.

Last thing, I'm the old jaded guy now, though.

Yeah.

So how do you reconcile your decision to protest with your love of country?

Well, to me, it is my love of country that I do it.

Because if you look at our Constitution, it says, we can do peaceful protest.

And even our founding fathers said, if this government's not working, we need to fix it.

And I think that is what truly democracy is.

I think it's the fact that we can protest peacefully without fear of retribution.

I think freedom of the press is critical.

How did that event change Americans' relationship with patriotism?

So which fan base is being your favorite? Which one surprised you the most about how they go about their traditions and go about their business?

Yeah.

So it's interesting, Donnie, because early I got a chance to see Japan twice.

I thought it was going to be Japan twice.

Because some of the things that they do, you just don't see with sport.

It happened to be for the first game when they got that late draw with the Netherlands, right? When they scored late in the game, I was in the press box.

And where I was positioned happened to be as close as you possibly could in the press box to where the Japanese fan base was, right? Because they have big swaths.

And that stadium is not even recognizable, right?