The Kevin Sheehan Show - #9 Headed To Rafters

Episode Date: January 6, 2023

Kevin and Thom today with a buffet menu par excellence. Plenty on Sam Howell, Ron Rivera, and the Cowboys game to open the show. Then the boys discussed Sonny Jurgensen's jersey-retirement ceremony set for Sunday during the Dallas game. The guys discussed what Kevin learned from legendary play-by-play man Frank Herzog (Sonny's friend and broadcast partner for 22 years) on his radio show that Frank wasn't invited to the festivities even though he should have been considered to emcee the event. Two "Smell Test" picks from Kevin, some Terps' hoops recap, Damar Hamlin's continued amazing recovery and how the NFL plans to handle the schedule moving forward. Factor 60% off your first box at factor75.com/KevinDC60 Rocket Money Cancel unwanted subscriptions – and manage your expenses the easy way – by going to RocketMoney.com/KevinDCChime Start your credit journey with Chime at chime.com/KevinDC EVPN Get 3 months free with a one-year package at expressvpn.com/KevinDC Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You don't want it. You don't need it. But you're going to get it anyway. The Kevin Cheyenne Show. Here's Kevin. Tommy's here. I am here. Cooley was on yesterday.

If you missed it, I would definitely recommend to go back and listen to yesterday's show. Cooley pretty much overall agrees with Tom, probably 90% of Tom. He doesn't necessarily think they would have won the game with Taylor Heineke because he agrees with me. The defense was banged up and a problem in the game, but he absolutely was dumbfounded after watching Wentz as to why anybody out there could have thought that Carson Wentz was a better answer on Sunday against the Browns.

He did a Carson Wentz film breakdown. He was really upset with Scott Turner and said basically for seven or eight weeks now, Scott Turner has been part of the problem for all intents and purposes. He did a film breakdown of the defense and just was generally good, including on Sam Howl. And by the way, he had Tommy because he spent several years in the booth with Sonny Jurgensen calling games. He had some real heartfelt thoughts about Sunny's Jersey retirement ceremony on Sunday in Landover. I'm going to get to something that happened on radio with me this morning.

You did hear about my interview with Frank Herzog, right? Yes, I did. I was opened up my social media this morning, and I saw that you opened up another wound for this team that bleeds from places you can't imagine. It's really incredible. This one's actually really surprising to me, and I'll tell you why here in a couple of minutes, but Frank Herzog wasn't even invited to the ceremony. Now, did Frank Herzog play with Sonny Jurgensen? No. Is he a former player that played against Sonny Jurgensen? No. He was just in the booth with Sonny Jorgensen for 22 years and was one of his best friends. And really, no offense to anybody else that Mike might present Sunny's jersey into the rafters or however that'll be handled.

I can't think of anybody that would have been a better MC for this event than Frank Herzog. But anyway. Yes, absolutely. And you know what? What? It's like, and I say this with love. it's like having a three-studious reunion and just inviting Mo and Larry. Well, Sam's not available.

Right. Yes. I wanted to read a quick review or two because many of you have really done such a nice job the last two days, and I really appreciate that. I've asked for more reviews and ratings from those of you who haven't, and we've gotten a lot more in. I mean, we're a top 10 football podcast. I mean, I never typically talk about where we rank on these Apple Podcasts,

charts because they do fluctuate. But we typically are somewhere in the top 30 to 40, unless it's like a slow time of year. But, you know, for local content sports podcasts, we do about as well as anybody does in the country, which is a testament to the audience size, but it's also really important that you rate us and review us like Ron from Bel Air did. So glad to hear Kevin's pod today. I always look forward to hearing Cooley, Tom, SVP, Rigo. I haven't had Rigo on the podcast in forever.

Kevin's knowledge of D.C. Sports is second to none. Appreciate that. This from Jack, who just said, and it's the same thing that somebody else said a week ago, Tuesdays and Thursdays are must listen for not only me, Kevin, but my wife as well. She loves you and Tom. She hates sports, but loves you and Tom. Thank you, Jack.

And look, it wasn't Tuesday and Thursday this week because Cooley had to go yesterday. And Tommy accommodated the Cooley visit yesterday and moved his typical time back to today. But rate us and reviewists, especially on Apple and Spotify, anywhere else. But on Apple, because they have these podcast charts that in some way influence advertisers. to a certain degree. If you can rate us five stars, if you want to rate us five stars and write a quick one to two sentence review,

it's much appreciated. You know, you talk about the ratings and how well the podcast is doing, and it should because it's a damn good podcast. You know, and there's a lot of podcasts out there aren't so good. But I want to remind you now that the year is over. This is contest time now.

this is when you know after the year people start you know start winning awards and stuff and I'm just wondering if we're going to hear anything from our friend Brian podcast association yes it is Brian right because you know

I mean well whatever I mean it is no it is it's Brian it's Brian this is contest time right this is when they start looking over the year or work and start giving out the awards and I would expect that will get out shared. Do we have any more room on the trophy shelf? If I take the book that I just put up on the trophy shelf, which is, you know,

Hail to the Redskins by Tom Levera, which everybody suggested that I put on my bookshelf. So I put it up on my bookshelf. No, I didn't. I actually really didn't. But we have plenty of room. Brian is, you know, the long time, Tom, the long time ahead of the D.C. Sports Podcast Association. I've been there for years running that nonprofit, doing a hell of a job. And you're right. We were voted the number one podcast in D.C. sports, you know, almost a year ago. And, you know, it'd be nice to repeat, Brian.

It'd be nice to be a repeat champion. Anyway. As the great Muhammad Ali once said, get all pretenders off the throne. The lamb has come to claim his own. I don't know what that means, but if it's good, I'm it. Yeah. So we haven't talked about Sam Howell and the back and forth,

cha, cha, cha. That's still one of my all-time favorite bits. The Galdy, the Galdy Kirk Cousins, cha-cha-cha, is one of my all-time favorite radio bits. That was brilliant, Galdi.

I don't know if he still does it on his podcast. Of course, Kirk Cousins is no longer here. But that was one of the greatest things of all time. But, yeah, there was a bit of a cha, cha, cha the other day with, you know, Ron or somebody in the organization thinking, let's go to Taylor and then them being reminded that maybe the game wasn't. And that's what I said. Maybe Ron didn't know that he had been eliminated yet from playoff contention. Oh, my God. Maybe he wasn't sure quite yet.

But what did you make? By the way, in thinking about that, do you think Sunny's been invited to the Jersey retirement ceremony or did they forget that? Good God. So what did you make of like the cha-cha-cha-cha the other day? Well, it showed, I mean, on one hand, it showed a head coach without a grasp of what his team should be doing. it just showed a head coach without a grasp of his organization, but more importantly to me, and you know, my support of Taylor Heineke, well, I think he's a very nice guy. That's not necessarily mean he's a good quarterback. I've always maintained he was their best option, okay? But, I mean, you know, from all counties...

That sounded kind of defensive. Well, from all counties, he's a terrific young man. Right. Well, we've never... No one's ever... No one's ever debated that. I think this was a business and safety decision by Taylor Heineke. Oh, I don't think he willingly gave up his, look, we've had advisement on the show to tell us how quarterbacks think.

They don't even like to give up reps in practice. And this guy has fought to be an NFL quarterback, what, five, six, seven years now, you know, And he's going to say, oh, that's okay. Give the kid a chance? Bullshit. I think he's gone, for one thing. The second thing is, I think he looked at, you know, the Cowboys game, where the Cowboys have something to play for,

and he looked at Michael Parsons breathing down his neck, and he said, for what? And, you know, I just think this was a smart business and safety decision by Taylor Heineke. said, again, I said this jokingly, you know, that they should start Carson Wentz. Okay. But if you really care about this young kid and you're interested in his development, this is not the game to start him. Not this game. Wait, wait, wait.

If you care about this kid and his development, this. Sam Hal. You're saying Sam Hal. Okay. Yeah, because you had said the other day, and I think, I thought it was jokingly, that you start Carson Wentz? No, Tommy. Well, it is half-jokingly.

Only because, look, they're in a position now where they can't start Carson-Went. Okay? So, I mean, if Taylor He bows out in deference to the kid, they've got to start the kid. But the kid is going to be a sacrificial lamb. And we don't know what kind of damage this is going to do to him. No. I mean, the game, you exaggerated it. But what happened in the Cleveland game?

No, but no, my point is that I actually, it's like the Dwayne thing from a few years ago when everybody was saying, oh, well, you can't start him against the New England Patriots. Remember that when it was the final salvo from Jay Gruden with Colt McCoy against the New England Patriots? And it came a week or two weeks after Dwayne Haskins was the backup and had to go into the game because Case Keenham, right, it was Case Keenum was banged up. And everybody was outraged. ruined Dwayne Haskins. I'm like, it's the fifth game of the year.

He's the backup quarterback. We see first round pick starting games. But I'm trying to drive home a point. I said, I think New England would be the best game for him to start, because this would be a true measuring stick to have him, you know, him go against Bill Belichick and to see what he's made of and to see, you know, how he reacts. And I feel the same way about Sam Howell. Look, one game is not going to really sway you. Well, it'll sway some people one way or the other. I mean, I guarantee you a lot of people on Monday will be like,

he's not the answer. Or if he plays great, hey, I think we got a guy for next year. And one game shouldn't be that much of an impact. But I do think that it makes more sense that they're playing a team that has something to play for. And it's not a preseason environment. and that it is a true regular season environment where they're playing a team that's got something to play for, and will at least for a half or so be playing to win the game. I mean, it's possible, and I pointed out at halftime, the Eagles could be up 28 to nothing,

and then the second half they'll rest their starters. But, you know, I had Mickey Spagnola, who's the longtime Dallas Cowboys.com columnist on this morning, and he said, look, I think they were going to play this game to win the game to begin with. because they haven't played since last Thursday. They didn't want like literally two and a half weeks to go by without having, you know, their starters play. So I don't know. I just think it makes more sense for Sam Howell to be in a real NFL regular season environment versus what it could be at the end of the year, which is more of a preseason game environment.

That's my time. Well, I think that, okay, that's reasonable. It's not unreasonable except this is not going to be a real NFL. NFL environment. Not really. Well, we'll be in terms of the competition he's facing versus third stringers in August. Well, you know what? There are future games.

I'm just saying that he's going to be a sacrificial lamb. And, you know, it's funny. You said once people see that, maybe he won't be. Maybe he'll surprise us. Maybe he will be. Show us something special. That's a possibility. I'm not ruling that out.

You know, I think it's unlikely, given the lack of help that he's going to have. Have you noticed the injured list for the team this week? It's like, you know, I called it the bags are packed list. Yeah, but Tommy, because you didn't watch the game last week, it's a lot of the same people that weren't on the field last week in a must game. So it's not a packer bags. Yeah, it's longer, but not by much. You know, Cam Currell, Antonio Gibson,

Benjamin St. Juice, John Allen was not on the injury report, was lost for two and a half quarters of the game. I mean, major key players didn't play in the game last week. It was a big part of the game last week. I know, but we knew that going into the game. No, we weren't sure, actually, until Sunday about Corals and St. Juice. There was still a possibility. Yeah. And we didn't know about Gibson either.

A possibility? I thought we did. We knew Gibson was banged up, but we didn't know officially that he was out. There was more of a chance Gibson was going to be out than Curl or St. Juice. There was still hope late in the week that Curl and St. Juice were going to play. It really wasn't until Saturday that we knew for sure, and maybe not even until Sunday morning now that I'm thinking about it. But whatever. Okay.

Well, keep on hedge. And I don't consider hope to be information. As far as I was today. My point is, a lot of these players were out last week. They were not going to have Cam Carole. Okay. Okay, but not all of them. No, but the key players that were out last week are also going to be out this week.

Yes. Yeah. If this was a meaningful game, where would they be out? I don't know, because clearly Cam Curl has been really injured and St. Juice injured. I don't know what John Allen's status, although I did hear that John could have played this week if he had to. By the way, well, actually, I'll mention that here in a second. Hold on. About the eighth playoff team, did you see that thing? Yeah.

Okay, I'll tell everybody about it here in a moment. But look, your point, your overarching point about him not having a full deck, a full complimentary deck on Sunday against the Cowboys is true. Just like there wasn't a full complimentary deck in many ways, certainly not on defense last week. But this week, not only Tommy what I mentioned, you should mention the injuries, of players that won't be in there. What will happen in this game is they will pull a lot of the starters,

I bet after a quarter or two anyway. So he might not have Terry McClureen for a full game or Jahan Dotson for a full game. Hell, they should not play Chase Young. What's the point of playing Chase Young in this game on Sunday? You've got two really good, feel-good games to enter 2023 with Chase Young. Why risk it?

I don't know. That's a good point. Del Rio actually said he thinks he's going to play. Who, Jack thinks that Jack is going to play, or Chech Young's going to play? Well, given that it is January 6th, he might be ready to suit up and play. But I, no, I think he said that he, in his presser yesterday, that Chase Young was going to play. I have to look through that again to be sure about that. Oh, sure, Chees Young wants to play, probably.

I wouldn't think. I wouldn't play him. I wouldn't play him at all. I don't, I mean, you just got the, you had the best confidence-build situation of the last two games, and the expectations from almost everybody was, we have no idea what we're going to get.

And what we got was a guy that looked just as athletic as he did two years ago. So, I don't know, I wouldn't. I'd pull a lot of people on this game. I would give Sam Howell a chance offensively, certainly. You know, you don't want to have just one backup offensive linemen after another, which, by the way, you're right. I'm looking at the, like, Lucas didn't practice yesterday, Norwell didn't practice yesterday, and Brian Robinson didn't practice yesterday. So you

could see a lot of Jared Patterson with him. I hope Terry McLorn and Jahan Dotson and Logan Thomas and, you know, some of the receivers are out there. And then, by the way, Cooley mentioned this, and I agree with them. Let's just see him throw the football. Let's see him drop back and throw the football. The Cowboys have given up a shitload of passing yards recently. They've actually really regressed here in the last month on defense. Now, they've got the takeaways, but they really have given up a lot of yards and a lot of points. Have you seen the Cowboys defensively what they've been giving up? I mean, not lately. Well, I'll rip it off to you. You know, they nearly got beat by the Texans. They gave up 40 to the Jags, 34 to the Eagles, and the Eagles

were, you know, getting ready to score 41 with a game-winning touchdown at the very end of the game. The Titans were on their third quarterback, Josh Dobbs, and still they moved the football a little bit. So I'd drop them back and let them, you know, throw it around the field. I mean, they don't have a very good offensive line, but, you know, empty set, get it out quickly. Go ahead, what?

Okay. You know, I didn't watch the game because I didn't have to watch the game last week because I had already thought what was going to happen. So I didn't watch this, this terrific positive performance by Chase Young, but I'm looking at the stat, and he had one assist on a tackle. Yeah, he had some pressures, though. He actually, and remember, in the first half, I mean, Cleveland basically didn't even have the ball.

By the way, I didn't even look at his snap count. I am interested in that now. How many snaps he played in that game? I'm pulling it up. But you saw, like you did the week before, you just saw the explosiveness and the athleticism, which I think is the most... Basically, you're talking about gym class,

not football. Whatever. You're not a Chase Young fan. You think you're convinced he's going to be a bust. By the way, I'm not suggesting that you're... I'm not, that's not right. Okay. It's not zero to 60.

I don't think he's going to be a bus. I just don't think he's going to be in the Boza category. Okay. Well, you know what? Can we knock it down from Boza? Because I don't know how many people will be in the Bosa category. He played 30. Okay, I don't think he's going to be a top 10 pass rusher.

But I think he's going to be a good player. You might end up being right. I think if what we saw his rookie year was what we continued to see, like an ascension with experience and playing time and figuring it out, and physically maturing and mentally maturing and all that, I think we could have seen something approaching, you know, one of the top, you know, true havoc-reaking pass rushers in the game.

I'm still hopeful of that. But certainly off of the injury, I'm not so sure. But then again, the last two games, I think what we saw from him, and if I didn't just say it, let me just repeat it. He played 38 of the 57 defensive snaps. 67% of the snaps. That's pretty good.

The fact that he was out. there and you could see the explosiveness there. So I'm looking forward to seeing what Chase Young has next year. I think there's off of these two performances, I'm more optimistic than I was before, but I don't know what ultimately he'll be. Obviously, I have more questions now than I did at the end of 2020. Is that fair enough for you? I'm not going to call, I'm not going to go zero to 60 either. I'm not going to, I'm definitely not going to say that he can't be top 10, but I will say that, you know, at the end of that rookie year, I thought we were going to see one of the dominant defensive players in the league for years to come, and I'm not so sure about that anymore. That's where I am.

But I'm encouraged that I'm not going to see a guy that's going to be a bust because of the injury and he'll never physically be right again because I think we saw signs that he's going to be physically okay. Okay. There we go. That's fair. All right. What are the odds that you think that Sam Howe will surprise us and play well and be effective? Not just play well, but be effective. I have no idea. I honestly have no idea. I wanted to, because you, so there were a couple things.

Number one, I think you were right about Taylor Heineke, and I said this on Wednesday after the news broke. You know, if, in fact, it's true that Taylor Heineke as Jeremy Fowler reported, essentially told Ron, look, just play the kid the whole game. You know, let him take all the reps this week. Let him play the game. You know, he deserves it. He's been working hard all year, meaningless game. I think it's, I think it was incredibly shrewd by Taylor.

You know, there are 20. Yes, it was. There are like 25 games. He's got all he needs on tape. You're facing a team in the Cowboys that he has faced twice, and it's been a disaster, by the way. And I don't blame him for the second one last year. That was off of the COVID thing and, you know, the short work week when they got beat 56 to 14.

But the game that was off the four-game winning streak was as bad a game as a quarterback can play. And he got benched in that game for Kyle Allen. And so the matchup against Parsons and Company hasn't been a good one for him. And then, you know, the Cowboys hungry to kind of blow him out in the first half. And Washington having nothing to play for, yeah, I think that's a, if that was in his mind, that's the right. move. The other thing I wanted to tell you, I got this tweet. Sheehan, do you think Wence isn't starting because of his injury guarantee of $4 million that Ben Stand suggested? I don't think it has anything to do with the $4 million injury guarantee. I think it has to do with what they

saw last week and how many and how long it took for the the laundry to clean out the undergarments that he was wearing that's what I think they're thinking after the game last week we don't need to see any more of this oh my god but did you know he had a four million dollar guarantee yeah I didn't know that yeah so they didn't know that well Ben Ben Stanick knows that kind of stuff he does he does kind of stuff he's very good at it But, you know what, here's how Carson Wentz would start. If Ron Rivera was standing before a judge and on trial for coaching incompetence, the sentence would be, well, now you've got to start on this game, too.

That's the only way Carson Wentz would start Sunday. Now you have, here's the punishment for you. Now you can't wait. For DJ Sweringer, here's your punishment. They're going to make you stay. They're not cutting you. They're making you stay. Still my all-time favorite Tom Levero line, DJ Sweringer released, and he wrote in his column,

if they really wanted to punish him, they would have made him stay. It just was so perfect, given the organization at the time. You know, Jay has told me, I think on the podcast, I think he has said this, that that was a disaster, just a total disaster. The player was just impossible. impossible, and that he wasn't very fond of keeping him around for a while. And finally, I think got his way and was allowed to release him. I'm sure, organizationally, they're like, what are we talking about?

That's one of our big free agent guys, you know, deal with it. Totally disruptive to the operation. He liked the sound of his own voice. He liked the sound of his own voice, that's for sure. Well, look, he also knew he was in a shit organization. It didn't take them long to figure that out as it, you know, it didn't with as it did with many people. So I agree with you on the Heineke thing.

I think, and as far as Sam Howell goes, I honestly have no idea. I do know this. My personal view, and some of you have reminded me of this, but I think I mentioned it the other day. I was not a big fan of Howl at Carolina. Like, I watched a lot of those games. I thought he took a lot of bad sacks. I thought he threw a lot of bad balls and key spots.

But what was obvious is they were incredibly, well coached. Phil Longo was a hell of an offensive coordinator. I think I had him on the podcast after the draft. He's going with Luke Fickle to Wisconsin. And Drake May, by the way, is going to be one of the top two or three picks in next year's draft, and he's a Heisman Trophy candidate at Carolina. So he was in a really, really good system at Carolina. You know, all of you that have watched college football, you know how good North Carolina has been offensively for a few years now since Mack Brown came back, and Philongo was the O.C. But what is really obvious about watching Hall at Carolina is he's got a big arm for a guy his size,

and he is like Taylor in many ways. He's just really competitive. And when they lost the two big time running backs to the Jets and the Broncos in the draft, and they had all those rushing yards, next to last year. Then in his last year, Carolina, he decided he was going to become a big time running quarterback to try to make up for all of those lost yards that they had. They had had back in 20, it would have been 2020.

They had with Carter and Williams in the backfield two 1,000 yard rushers in college that year. I mean, they were phenomenal running the football and they've both been outstanding backs in the NFL. so far. So that year, and I'm looking it up right now because I want to make sure I'm right about this because I'm pretty sure the rushing yards for him were so much bigger than next year. So in 2020 with the, yeah, here it is. In 2020 Tommy with two unbelievable college running backs, 146 yards rushing for him, 3,500 yards passing, 30 touchdown, 7 interceptions. By the way,

Diami Brown was on that team with him. And then in 2021, when he lost Carter and Williams, 828 rushing yards he had in his final year at Carolina. And I remember 11 rushing touchdowns and 3,500 less passing yards. And so I remember him basically doing everything he could to will his team to wins, but he put himself in harm's way one game after another, taking just poundings throughout that year. But he's a competitor. I mean, he's got that Heineke-Baller mentality. The big difference is he's got a big arm, but he's not that big.

And I don't know. I mean, I'm interested to see him. I am. I mean, I don't have a lot of confidence that he's the long-term answer. And whatever we see on Sunday, I don't think will, you know, make me change my mind one way or the other. I mean, I guess he could throw. I would agree. No matter what you see, no matter what you see on Sunday, whoever's running this team next year, if it's not this guy, you need to make a quarterback priority.

No matter what Sam Howe does on Sunday. By the way, Tommy, his last four years at Carolina, okay, after only rushing for 128 yards his next to last year, he had five. games in which he rushed for over 100 yards as a quarterback in a, by the way, in a throwing system. You know, it wasn't, they're not running a ton of read option where he's keeping it. He had games in which he had 17, 18, 21 rushes. He totally tried to take the game over because they had lost those running backs the year before that, you know, I mean, personally, I think Javante Williams before, he was.

He turned towards ACL or what was it, is Achilles this year. I thought he was one of the next big-time star running back. By the way, I want to pull this box score up because I remember it from that year because it was one of the most incredible running back. I forget who they played, but I'm going to look to see. Carter and Williams for Carolina in 2020 had a game. Here it is. Against Miami.

Listen to this. I don't know if I've ever heard this before, and I'd have to read to see if it was a record of some sort. They beat Miami 62 to 26 in the game. Sam Howe, by the way, was 14 of 19 for 223 yards and a touchdown. Michael Carter, 24 carries 308 yards, two touchdowns. Oh, my God. Giovante Williams, in the same game, 23 carries 23 yards. They combined for 544 yards rushing and five touchdowns in a game against Miami,

who was the number 10 team in the country. I don't think, I mean, they ended up in the game, total yardage in the game for Carolina that day, 778 yards against the University of Miami. That's a remarkable, those are remarkable statistics. I mean, I would have loved to have seen that year. Now, that's a game I would have watched. That was the ACC Championship game. That was the ACC championship game that year.

And it was just, it was an unbelievable beatdown with their running game. And Sam Howell didn't have to do anything. So that's what I, like, Sam Howe that year when he rushed for 828 yards was like, we lost 2,000 yards of rushing. I'm going to make up for it myself. And he took a pounding that year. And he also took a. step back in terms of overall passing production, which is one of the reasons he went from being

a guy that was thought to be a lock to be a first rounder. And some people had as high as top three, you know, in 2020, to a guy that ended up getting selected in the fifth round. But he had lost all of his offensive weapons that year. All of them. Like, I'm looking at this Miami game. I just want to see what Diami Brown did. Sort of like what's going to happen to him on Sunday. Yeah, there's not going to be the same weapon. on offense. Diami Brown in that game that I mentioned had four catches for 167 yards.

Diami Brown was a big time target for him. So, you know, they were familiar. I'm a fan of that guy. I am a fan of that guy, by the way. I am too, but you got to be able to, he runs one route. It's a deep route. So what are you expecting?

Well, I'm expecting horror, mayhem, disaster. You know? But, again, I mean, unlike Carson Wentz, where I knew it was an absolute, I'm open to the possibility that he could generate enough positive play for people to be hopeful. Oh, because I don't know.

I've never seen the guy play an NFL game other than preseason football. So I can't sit here and say he's going to stink. I mean, I don't know. He could generate enough positive play where people could. get optimistic about him in a negative atmosphere, so to speak. But I generally think, no matter who the quarterback was going to be back there, there was just going to be disaster, mayhem, and horror. Um, yeah. Anyway, I don't, by the way, I just don't have many thoughts on the game in particular, but I just jotted down a couple. And since we do this every Friday for the podcast,

I'm just going to do it because it's a matter of routine. And I, and you know me, Tommy, I'm a man of routine. Washington will beat the Cowboys if Dallas is eliminated from the NFC East race at half-time. Seriously. Like, they'll have a chance if Dallas says, yeah, that was enough. Philadelphia is crunching the Giants. And by the way, they will have somebody that will tell Mike McCarthy at halftime what the giant's score is and whether or not he should be playing to win the game in the second half or not.

you know, if they don't do that, it's irresponsible. They absolutely should do that. So as to rest all of... What about what Mickey Spagnola said to you? Well, they would get... And what if they don't play particularly well, the first half? Well, that would be different. But if they get the first half in, then it answers Mickey Spagnolas, you know,

they don't want two and a half weeks off versus just, you know, resting everybody from the jump. But I'm saying that if they can't win the NFC, East and they're penciled in against, you know, Tampa Bay next week is the five versus the four. They should not play people in the second half. So one of the ways Washington could win is if Dallas puts in all their subs in the second half. Another way, just so everybody understands, Dallas has been a turnover machine. You know, DAC has seven interceptions in the last four games.

Not all of them have been his fault. You know, if you go back to that pick six loss against Jacksonville, ball got deflected up into the air, I think one of his picks against Tennessee in their last game was. essentially a drop. And they've been giving up a lot of yards. A lot of yards through the air. Gardner Minchu threw for $3.55. The guy that started for the Titans who's starting, Josh Dobbs.

Dobbs didn't have a bad game. Basically, they pulled him off the street to start the game. Davis Mills and the Texans nearly beat him. Trevor Lawrence had a big game. against the Cowboys, you know, throwing for 320 yards or somewhere in that neighborhood. And like five, I think Lawrence in that game had four or five touchdown passes. Dallas isn't the same defensively as they were early in the years. So, you know, I don't give Washington a good chance, but given all of those factors,

you could get to the second half and it could be a competitive game, especially if the Cowboys have nothing to play for. My prediction is Cowboys 24 to 17. What's your prediction? Place 35, Washington, 20. 35 to 20. They've been, by the way, Tommy, they have been scoring. I mean, the Cowboys, listen to this, all right? Since Dak came back, actually his second game against Chicago, 49 points, 28 points, 40 points, 28, 54 points, 27, 34 points, 40 and 27. They are an explosive team offensively.

I also think that I don't trust them in the postseason. I don't know what it is about Mike McCarthy. I don't trust him in the postseason. I'm not sure I trust DAC in the postseason. I agree. I agree. Although it's funny because two weeks ago I said they'd be better off playing Tampa than Carolina or New Orleans.

But after Tampa woke up last week and Brady He threw for over 400 yards, and Mike Evans is streaking down the sideline three times in that game. I mean, that's crazy. Like, they haven't been able to move the ball against anybody. And in a half, Brady goes for basically 400 yards, and Evans has three touchdowns. Like, if all of a sudden Tampa Bay woke up, look out. By the way, wouldn't it be ironic after all you're talking about, well, there are no, you know, Cousins is probably going to be, and Hertz are going to be the two best quarterbacks in the playoffs.

and now you may have Brady and Rogers in the NFC playoffs. That would be something. Playing well, maybe. Yeah. Okay. We got a lot of different things to get to. I do want to play for you the Frank Herzog thing from the radio show. Frank Herzog wasn't even invited to the Sonny Jurgensen retirement ceremony,

Jersey retirement ceremony on Sunday. Tommy wrote a column about Billy and Sunny. Plus, just the amazing, amazing recovery right now that D'Marne Hamlin is in the process of. It's amazing. And how the NFL's handling the schedule. News on that. Right after these words from a few of our sponsors. First of all, are you going to be there Sunday or not?

No, I won't be. I'm going to sit here at home, turn on Sunday ticket, and watch it in the comfort of my living room. Did they ask you to come? No. That's ridiculous. That's absolutely ridiculous. Because I said earlier, and I said on my podcast, I think, last week, you would have been the person I would have selected to actually make the presentation of Sunny. Like, I don't even know who they'll have.

You would have obviously done that had you been asked, right? Oh, sure. I mean, yeah. I mean, Sunny and I, you spent 22 years together sitting side by side doing football and even more than that doing college basketball and working to Channel 9. Yeah, absolutely. That was my exchange this morning on radio on the Team 980 during my show this morning with Frank Herzog. I had reached out to Frank earlier this week. I asked Frank if he'd come on on Friday to talk about Sonny Jurgensen because I think to almost any longtime Washington Redskins.

or Washington football team fan, if you're thinking about a Sonny Jurgensen retirement party, and by the way, you're thinking about, let's be fair, the people who are alive and well, Frank Herzog would be one of the first people that would come to mind, but apparently not for the team. But are we surprised? No. We'll get to our reaction to this here in a moment.

But we do have one of our favorite sponsors to talk about Tommy Shelley's back room. Yes, let me just say, I got this tweet from Mike R that says, Hey, Tom Leverro, looking forward to your return and to say hello at Shelley's backroom. Nice. Again, I keep getting these. Just picked up your book and would love to get it signed.

And then here's the hammer. Unlike Kevin Sheehan, I'll be sure to prominently display it on my bookshelf for the world to see on conference calls. on conference call how about Zoom call since there's a video associated with that I again so he wants to

he wants to meet me at shelley I'll be glad to do that Mike and when I get back and certainly sign a copy of your book and that's not the only request I got I got another request about getting my book signed

from David Moorfield He picked up a copy on Amazon, and he's looking forward to reading the good memories to take my mind off what this franchise has become. Well, we can all do that sometime at Shelley's. Okay, I was going to say, did that last guy suggest that he do it at Shelly's? Because this is a Shelly's spot. Yes. Well, he didn't suggest it.

I'm suggesting it. I'm trying to build a momentum for a Shelly's event. Right. Understood. Okay. If you got, I mean, you know, look, here's what you need to know. If you're a Washington football fan, you need to find a place to go feel good. Shelly's back room is the place to go feel good.

Well, you don't have to be a Washington football fan. Everybody wants to feel good. I mean, yes, everybody does. If you're a fan of the Cowboys, when they lose in the first round of the playoffs, you can go to Shelley's back room to feel better. Yes, yes, you can. You can smoke a cigar. You can blow smoke in the, in the football.

face of a commander's fan that you're arguing with there. It's the place to go to enjoy NFL football, the college football championship game, be a great place to go watch that game as well. It's a great place to watch sports. It's a great place for conversation. It's a great place for food, drink, and cigars. Shelly's back room, 1331 F Street, Northwest in the district. Great place. So look, I don't want to spend a lot of time on this. But I just, first of all, I want to say that I hope that this Jersey retirement ceremony for Sonny Jurgensen ends up being something that Sonny and his family really, really appreciate and enjoy. Ultimately, that is the goal like we talked about with all the Sean Taylor stuff.

It was one blunder after another. but if Sean Taylor's family was, you know, felt great about it, that's important. So I hope that it really turns out to be a good thing. As we talked about when this was announced, and we both said, why the final game of the year, why against the Cowboys, why in early January? I mean, did anybody kind of do any sort of look ahead and think ahead of it might be a meaningless game, the stadium might be filled with Cowboys fans, and it might be 22 degrees.

It's not going to be 22 degrees, but guess what? It might be snowing and 34 degrees on Sunday. It's either going to be snow or rain the way it looks right now. It's not apparently going to be a great weather day Sunday. I hope they're wrong, and I hope it is. But they should have thought this thing out, and of course, if they had reached out to one of two dozen people, media members, fans, I mean, really, it's much more than that.

It's thousands of people that could have helped them with this stuff. But people that they know that they could have reached out to, we would have been able to say, nah, don't do that one on the Cowboys game. Let's do that on a beautiful fall October Sunday against somebody. As far as Herzog not being invited, that's really unfortunate. But it's not a shock.

They don't know the organization. And they refuse consistently to reach out to people, even when people have offered their help and said, Call me. You know, before you put out a press release on something, before you have an event planned, call me and I'll walk through some of this stuff with you. And if I don't have the answers, I've got five people I can call that'll have the answer. But they don't do that, and they haven't done that.

There's no institutional knowledge. None at all. And again, as I said earlier, I know Frank didn't play with Sunny. I know he didn't play against Sunny. Frank was just in the booth with Sonny Jurgensen for 22 years. And of the people who were alive and well, nobody, you know, Billy Kilmer's going to be there. You did a column with Billy. I had Billy on the podcast on December 31st, reliving the 50-year anniversary of that first championship game.

By the way, how sharp is Billy still? I mean, he's great. Yeah, he really is. Absolutely. Billy's going to be there, so at least they didn't forget to invite Billy. Hopefully they did, as I said earlier, remind themselves to invite Sunny. Hopefully they have the actual jersey. Can you imagine, hold on here.

I just had an awful thought. What if the jersey is a commander's jersey? And number nine commanders jersey? They're not going to do that, are they? Yeah. I know they won't do that. Are you sure? What if it just says number nine on there and it's burgundy?

I mean, I need the old 19th, look, the 60s and 70s jerseys were different. I don't care if it's a 60s or 70s jersey. It has to be a jersey that Sonny Jurgensen wore while he was playing for the Redskins. The Redskins is who he played for. Anyway, on the Herzog thing, I mean... It's got to be. But you know what? What?

Kevin, that's a legitimate fear. Absolutely. I know what, seriously? I almost want to pause right now and text somebody over there to make sure that they're not going to use a commander's jersey. But then again, you know what? I know, I'm going to do it because this is about sunny. This isn't about them looking stupid again. No, that's already certified information.

That's already been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. there's no need to continue that, you know, basically it would be more important for Sonny not to be embarrassed. Hold on. I'm seriously texting right now because, I mean, it's a legitimate concern. I mean, look at the Sean Taylor thing they put together. Yeah, no, you're right. It absolutely is. All right. I've done my point. part. Okay.

Good for you. Well, I mean, I'm being serious, though. Like, can you imagine how embarrassing that would be? I mean, immediately, that's their business. It is their business. They might want to sell those jerseys. No, what I mean, embarrassment. Oh, I know.

Embarrassing. But what I'm saying is the business of using a commander's jersey to try to sell number nine commander's jerseys. What if Dan said, hey, we got a chance here to sell a lot of number nine commander jerseys, make sure you get the pink and, you know, the scarlet and white out there, or whatever those colors are they're wearing this year. Actually, you know what? The funny thing about the uniforms, I don't care about them.

They are the uniforms of an expansion team for me this year. and I just haven't given it a lot of thought since 2-22, which was such a smooth rollout of the new brand. Yes, it was. Okay. Sonny Jorgensen. What do you want to say about Sunny? Well, I mean, he was such a good quarterback that,

and such a beloved figure in this town. that it happened in the face of winning. It happened in the absence of winning, for the most part. I mean, Sunny's best years were not winning years for the team. Save for 1969, the Lombardy year, you know, those were sunny's best years from the time he arrived in 64 to 70. and people loved him. And he was universally revered as one of the best passers in the history of the NFL.

To be able to do that, to have that kind of reputation, and to do it while your team is playing not playing well, just shows you how talented you were. It really does. I mean, your talent has overcome the results is what's happened. in that case. Now, when George Allen arrived, you know, offense was a necessary evil.

They traded for Billy. Sunny had a problem stayed healthy in those last few years. And it just was not a good fit. But then I wrote about the whole Sonny Billy thing. But basically Sunni's talent was so strong

it basically overrode the result of a losing team. That doesn't happen very often. Yeah, I think that, you know, Sunny really could be held up as one of the prime examples, for me anyway, of when loss is not a quarterback stat. Sonny had a losing career record. You know, his teams were 69, 71, and 7, you know, back when they didn't. He played a lot of years without over.

Actually, every single year of his career, with the exception of his last year, you had ties. and even in Washington, the 11 years in Washington, 17, 20, and 2 in Philadelphia, 521 and 5 in Washington, one game over 500. But the best years of him starting were the George Allen years, but he didn't start a lot of games because of injuries. But his record, his record just to almost prove the point of the quarterback when lost that being ridiculous. Sonny as a starting quarterback for the George Allen Skins was 11 and 2. 11 and 2 with a great defense and a great running back and running game, et cetera,

and a great coaching staff. Now, LaBardi's season, he was 7-5 and 2, but all of those other years when they were losing a lot of 42 to 35 games, he was brilliant, but his team was losing games. games. There are a couple of things that I want to say. First of all, for me, my first memories, I've told you before, really my first memory is the 71 team, the George Allen, you know, arriving and going to games and being fortunate. I recognize how fortunate I was. My father got season tickets when DC Stadium opened in 1961. And we had three seats in section 513,

row 13 seats 1, 2, and 3. And my father, when I became of age, my father and my two uncles went to every game. And then my father took me and my two uncles, I would send him my dad's lap as a baby, basically, and as a child. And I remember the 72 season, 71-72 season in particular. But I remember very clearly one of my uncles, my uncle Gary, who it passed several years ago. just he'd scream the entire game. Sonny, put Sunny in, put Sunny in when Billy was in. Because Sonny was beloved by, you know, the fans of the team that saw these losers in the 60s,

but Sonny and Charlie Taylor and Bobby Mitchell and Jerry Smith. Like, you know, I don't, you know, I wasn't around for those games, but they were apparently super exciting to watch. But when they started to win, I remember my uncle Gary all the time, screaming, put Sonny in! and Billy was the quarterback. But it's funny, when I got to know Sunny when I started working in radio, I had a football that my uncle had given me that when I got into broadcast

and he's like, if you ever meet Sonny Jurgensen, could you get him to sign this football? Well, it didn't happen until after my uncle passed because he passed like a year later after giving me that ball. But I ended up getting it signed and I gave it to my cousin. But because Sunny was so nice. But I remember those years in particular. And I remember Sunny being hurt all the time, really.

But there's one start in particular that I remember. And I've talked to Sunny about it. And you and I probably talked to Sunny about it during that lunch with a legend, which was one of our favorites that we did. Sunny's all-time favorite game as a George Allen, quarterback came in his final season as the quarterback in Washington. Billy was still the main starter, but in 1974, Sunny started four games and was three and one in those starts in those games. And in October of 1974, the Miami Dolphins came to RFK Stadium for a regular season game.

and Miami was the team that beat Washington in Super Bowl 7. 50 years ago, by the way, coming up on January 14th. 50 years ago, January 14th was the day that Miami beat Washington 14 to 7 to complete their perfect season. And Sonny wasn't, you know, he was out that entire year. He tore his Achilles at Yankee Stadium in 72. Billy came in. They went 11 and 3 and they went to the Super Bowl. But Sonny considered that regular season game in 1974 to be his Super Bowl

because he always felt and a lot of people Tommy felt, and you probably remember this, that if Sonny had been the quarterback in Super Bowl 7 with Washington's defense as great as it was, and they probably would have won the game. So Sonny against Miami in that regular season game, and he's told me this story many times, and I vaguely remember the game.

He said it was his Super Bowl. It was the most important game of his career. It was his Super Bowl. It was the dolphins and a chance for him to show what would have happened in Super Bowl 7. In that game, Sunny threw for 303 yards, 26 to 39, 303 yards, and with two minutes to go trailing 17 to 13 in the ball at their own 20 yard line, drove him 80 plays and threw a six-yard touchdown. Six-yard touchdown pass to Larry Smith on the final play of the game or with. like three seconds to go to win the game 20 to 17.

And he said, that was it. And, you know, for Sonny, that was his final season in 1974. He did play a couple more games. He started a couple more games for them. And then came in in the playoff game that year against the Rams. When Billy was struggling, Sunny came in. And in his final NFL game, which was in December of 19. He was 40 years old, by the way, 40 years old. He came in, tried to rally Washington back and ended up, you know, like Billy, not being able to do much against a Rams defense.

And with the game actually on the line, it was 13 to 10 in the fourth quarter, Isaiah Robertson picked off a sunny pass and returned it for a touchdown and they lost the game 19 to 10. But that game in 74 against the dolphins, I specifically remember Sunny telling me many times. that was my Super Bowl game. You know, because he didn't, he had never played, he didn't start a playoff game. He never started a playoff game, you know, for Washington, obviously, before George Allen got there. And then Billy Kilmer started all of their playoff games. And the only playoff game he played in was that game in 74 is final game of the year at 40 years old. But I just kind of remember everybody always saying, Tommy, and you'll be able to put it maybe in better perspective.

with some of the quarterbacks of the time. I certainly remember quarterbacks that I would consider what people said about Sonny, which was he is among the greatest pure passers in the history of the game. And for me, I certainly understand that. And the film stuff of Sonny, you know, that is available. I mean, he was just such a great athlete. I mentioned this on radio, and Frank Herzog mentioned it as well. Sunny had Division I scholarships for basketball coming from everywhere, including North Carolina and Duke.

And he ended up going to Duke and he played football at Duke. Sonny was there for Wilts' 100 game. Remember he told us about that? That's right. They played a charity basketball game in Hershey. The night that Wilt went for 100, they played the prelim, which was like a bunch of Philadelphia Eagles, which, you know, Sunny started his career with. and he was there that night that Wiltz scored 100.

But greatest pure passer, one of the great athletes, even though the body type didn't look like it, that's ever played the position he could make every throw. And I hope Sunday goes really well for him. Because you and I, we got to know Sonny, just one of the nicest people, kindest people, most encouraging people. And you saw that with players who would walk through the team's lobby

or on game day. he might be, you know, we always would spend time with us, you know, when we were doing our show, or I was doing the pregame show. But players really enjoyed his company. I feel like we're giving a eulogy, which isn't the case. He's just getting his jersey retired. Well, well after the fact, it should have been done a long time ago. But anyway, I hope it's a great day for Sunny.

Hope it's a great day for him. You talked about it. On my short list of gifts I've been given in this job, getting to know Sonny Jurgent is on. that list. I mean, look, I've been a sports writer for 31 years now, okay? I never, like I told you, I don't root for teams. I root for me, whatever works best for me. But you also root for the people you meet in this, in the, while you're doing your job, who you really like to do well. And, I mean, I never lost the idea. that sometimes after I'd be talking to Sadi, you know, we'd be done, and I'd say to myself,

I was just sitting here talking for a half hour. I know. And I would just still be amazed at that. I mean, I, you know, I would still be amazed at that. Yeah, I mean, I don't want to make it about us, but since you brought that up, I, my, some of my greatest thrills getting into this, well, it was. It was talking to Sunny on the pregame show every Sunday. And then when I would be doing the pregame show specifically from the booth and then would stay in the booth and watch the game would be like during commercials, Sunny would take his headphones off and say to me, you know, and I'd be standing back behind.

Kevin, what are they doing? And then we'd have a conversation during the break. And I'm like, I'm sitting here talking to Sunny about the game that's going on. No, there was, sunny always, you know, there have been a lot of athletes in this town. You know, Rigo comes to mind, obviously, in terms of among the most. charismatic and lovable and likable and popular. Sunny is right there, you know, at the time. I mean, we've always said the Mount Rushmore of Washington Redskins's

Sunny's on it. You know, Gibbs is on it. Sunny's on it. Daryl Green's probably on it. And then we can argue about the fourth. Is it art? Is it rigo? Is it, you know, whatever?

But yes. Getting the chance, you know, to know him just a little bit, you know, talking to him once a week and being in his kind of. company for many times. Look, you and I got the opportunity with Sam and Sunny many times to go out and host, you know, and co-host these corporate events where people would pay. And, you know, we would be the moderators and having these conversations with Sonny and Sam. And they were just always so much fun. You know, especially I know what you say, but for me, having been a diehard fan and remembering Sonny, not necessarily Sam is a player, but Sunny at the very end of his career,

was just, it was an incredible, incredible privilege over the years. All right. There's a few things. Go ahead. Let me just, if I could mention the column that I wrote for today's Washington Times. I concentrated on the rivalry between Sonny and Billy and how it wound up being, you know, basically a lifelong friendship that existed. to this day and how it's come to actually define this organization. I mean, quarterback controversies.

Right. I mean, we've made a quarterback controversy out of John Beck and Rex Grossman. Yes, we did. But all that is rooted in Sonny and Billy. I mean, there was not, there were no quarterback debates before that. And now it's literally part of the fabric of the franchise. And I also Talk to

You know, I talked to I had some conversations with players In my archives about how it went And why they never became You know, actual rivals Even though, you know, They were competing for the same position And I know you talked to Billy

And I talked to Billy too this week And he said basically They knew that this was a chance to be a winning team. Billy had never played on a winner. Sunny had only played on one winning team in Washington, and this was their best chance to basically play on a winner, and they didn't want to let a controversy about the quarterback position rate that up. But there was one. Yes. You were on one side or the other. I mean, there were Billy Sonny bumper stickers, bumper stickers and you were on one side or the other.

That was a fan thing, though. Not a player. Exactly. That was a fan thing, not a player thing. Len Haas told me, after Billy first arrived, and after they start, you know, if Billy was traded for in January, and then after they started playing in training camp, they said that Len told me that they got together with Sonny and Billy after a practice and said, let's sit down and have a heart-to-heart talk.

And by the time we were through, we had gotten us all thinking together that the team was the most important thing, and these guys were good enough football players and strong enough individuals that regardless of who played, it would be to the advantage of the team that we could win with either one of them. And so there was, I mean, that was a sophisticated, smart football team over the hill game. Oh, my God, it was. Those were smart players. Very unique players, and they were smart enough to take this right from the beginning and say,

look, we need to make this work. And then it wound up being the lifelong friendship that it's been. You know, Billy told me, you know, he stayed at Sonny's house. Sonny has stayed at his house. They both had kids over. Sometimes that was at a necessity. Let's just get to one of our houses and we'll just both crash. there.

Yeah. But Billy will be there at Sunday, and when I talked to him about that, and I want me to say the team did arrange for Billy to be there Sunday. A couple weeks ago, that wasn't a certainty, but not only did they make arrangements, they said to Cam Recru to interview Billy at his house as part of the festivities that will take place on Sunday. But I tell it interesting that Sonny in a column to Rick Snyder and Billy, in my column went out of his way to say that,

I hope they beat the Cowboys. That would be frosting on the cake. Oh, that's interesting. And I thought, how sad is it that it means more to Billy Kilmer to beat the Cowboys than it does to the commanders? Yeah. God, I mean, the memories of those two and those times, and your point about those teams,

The over the hill gang, the George Allen over the hill gang, was a very smart team. But you know what? But it continued with the Gibbs teams who were always thought to be a step ahead of every single team they played against in terms of X's and O's and the kinds of players and the kind of... Look, I mean, it was important for Gibbs. And he said, I mean, I need smart guys. I need tough guys. I need a couple of crazy guys if they got some talent. But what I really need is I got to make sure that I got some smart guys too.

And, you know, I think, you know, George Allen knew how to build, obviously, a winning culture. He did it everywhere he went. Everywhere he went. And Joe Gibbs obviously knew how to build a winning culture. There's so much more to it than just, you know, talent and X's and O's, clearly, you know, because Gibbs did it in multiple businesses, obviously. Yeah. One last thing about George Allen.

and team building. And I've talked about this before, but it's important to note. There was a lot of labor strife between the NFL and the players in the early 70. Yeah, 74. The players went on strike, but they went on strike in 1970 during training camp, and that was the first time they ever did that. So there was a lot of labor strife, and George, and a lot of union leaders, a lot of team reps, union reps, would get cut. by their teams.

George would go out of his way to pick those guys up. Right. He went out of his way to pick up union reps that might have been cut from their team because he figured if they were voted union reps, they were leaders. And he wanted leaders. He wanted leaders. Yep. And he was a pretty good one too.

Yes. All right. I've got a bunch of things to get to. I want to get to the latest on Demar Hamlin, the NFL's response. scheduling-wise to it, the playoff scenarios that they're considering. And I'll have a smell test, too, when we come back right after these words from a few of our sponsors. Kevin looks where the John Q public is putting their cash and does the opposite. It's time for the smell test.

All right, it's a quick smell test today. Week 18, Tommy's impossible, really, because the lines are changing. You don't know what the incentive is by the time you get to kick off. By the way, the smell test brought to you by MyBooky. Go to my bookie. Go to my bookie.com. A.G. Use my promo code, Kevin D.C., and they'll double your first deposit, dollar for dollar, all the way up to a thousand bucks. Very few people are doing that. I tell you all the time. MyBooky will. Yeah, you've got to bet what they're giving you for free. You can't just, you know, open up the account, have them double your deposit, and then close down the account and take a thousand bucks. It doesn't work that way.

But once you go through that whole betting cycle of betting what, you know, your deposit and what they've given you in a double amount, then it'll become available to you. Look, there are some weird games. There's only a couple of games, really just two of them, in fact, where it's kind of winner go home, Tennessee, Jacksonville, Saturday night, and then potentially Detroit and Green Bay. I mean, I'll get to my pick on that game because it's an if bet on that one. But there's just not a lot to like on the board because there's a lot of uncertainty. Washington, by the way, is a seven-point underdog at my bookie to Dallas. The total is 41. You will probably see in that game at halftime, depending on the Giants Eagles game,

you know, a second half line that'll be much different, you know, if Dallas is out of it at that point. But here are the games. Cleveland buying the half point at plus two and a half to get to plus three against the Steelers. I was eight and three last week. I'm 15 games over 500 for the year. Eight and three last week. One of the picks was the Browns. I told you that I was hopeful Washington would win, and I picked them by one point, but I didn't think they would cover.

I gave the Browns out plus the two. They're two and a half at Pittsburgh in a game that Pittsburgh has to win. Sound familiar? By the way, as an aside, Mike Tomlin is one hell of an NFL coach. He could coach my team anytime. Absolutely. I know Steelers fans who get so upset with the game management and the clock management stuff, you guys never ever suck, even when your talent says you should suck.

You're once again with a very average roster in a final game with a chance to get to the postseason. But I like Cleveland, Tommy. I like Cleveland buying the half point, getting it to plus three as a smell test pick. Cleveland really has been playing much better. They had beaten Baltimore two weeks before when Baltimore needed that game. The Saints game, the Saints were kind of in it. It was 40 below with the wind chill, but that was a competitive game. And then Washington, obviously, they put it all together offensively in the second half against a banged-up team, albeit we understand.

But Deshawn Watson finally looked like Deshaun. Watson. Nick Chubb is fabulous. I just think this line's short. They're begging you to beck the Steelers. The Browns have continued to get better here down the stretch, and I think they will play. It's their rival. They'll play to try to knock them out. They'll play to try to get Deshawn Watson some momentum going into next year, even though I don't really believe in that anymore. But with respect to his situation, considering he didn't get a start until late in the year, you know, it'll be one more opportunity for him to take a step forward because last week was a big step forward for him.

I like the Browns plus the three. And then the other game is an if game. If Detroit is playing for something, meaning Seattle loses to the Rams, the league has obviously set this thing up for Aaron Rogers and Green Bay. I think it's despicable what the league is done. For a league that's been talking about competitive integrity with respect to the scheduling off of the DeMar Hamlin situation, I mean, they just completely, I mean, this is where a conspiracy theorist would have my attention. Usually not. Here, yes, because they've given

Green Bay the best opportunity to get to the postseason. If Seattle wins, Detroit's out, so this bet would not apply. But if Seattle loses, I'll take Detroit plus what will be likely four and a half, which is where the line is now. I'll take Detroit plus the four and a half. I think they're good enough to actually go in and beat Green Bay, which I think is one of the concerns the NFL had. which is why Seattle's going to play before them, probably beat the Rams and make the Lions an eliminated team before the game kicks off. The Lions will probably play hard in this game regardless, but imagine being 20 minutes before kickoff,

and now the game is meaningless for you. So if the Seahawks lose, then Detroit is a smell test pick plus four and a half. If Seattle doesn't lose, then Detroit is not a pick. Plus, the line will change significantly. If Detroit's not playing for anything, Green Bay will probably be a seven-point favorite rather than the four-and-a-half point favorite they are now. So Cleveland, buying a half point plus three, and if Detroit is playing for a playoff spot, meaning Seattle lost in the earlier window at 4.25, Detroit plus four and a half.

There's your smell test. been on a roll, only two plays. I'll let you know about Monday night's national championship game when we get there. I think I like Georgia, but there's some sharp money on TCU. That line opened at 13, 13.13 and a half, it's down to 12.5. We'll see where it goes this weekend, and I might give that game out on Monday. I do like Georgia to win, and I think I like Georgia to win big, even though I'm going to be rooting Tommy for TCU.

My son will be at that game in California. Great. The latest on DeMar Hamlin, here's the latest, because there's even more information out here this morning. He FaceTimed with his teammates and coaches today, face-timed with him, and he told them, quote, love you boys. Love you boys. yesterday he was asked to communicate by pen and paper and the first thing he communicated was who won the game or did we win and the doctor said you've won in the game of life

it's a it's a miraculous miraculous recovery and I think we talked about this the other day you know it's phenomenal that he's it looks like he's going to survive and survive without significant neurological dysfunction, which is what the doctors talked about yesterday, just an amazing thing. But Tommy, as near tragic as Monday night was, it will turn into a real significant day for the NFL in a positive way.

Because these doctors at that UC Cincinnati Medical Center basically credited the reaction time, the CPR, the AED defibular, defibrillator in that moment for saving his life. The NFL was prepared for these kinds of things, and they basically saved the man's life on the field. You're right. You're right. You know, I mean, it could have went much worse for everybody involved, obviously.

But you're right. This is going to turn into a feel-good story, hopefully, when all is said and done. And, yeah, the NFL, well, again, it's not the NFL necessarily, it's specific training staff. Okay, that was on hand, the Bill's training staff. Isn't there medical people, though, and an NFL prescribed, you know, preparation for each game with doctors who are there for various possibilities, including medical, including sports? fine and all of that stuff. Like there's trainers, but then there are a lot of medical people from both sides.

Are you sure that everybody there for an NFL game is there as members of both of the teams or as employees of both of the teams? I'm not sure. I'm not sure, but I know the CPR and the immediate treatment was done by Buffalo Bills trainer. Yeah, in fact, the assistant trainer. Yeah. Yeah. Right.

No, you're right. You're right. Right now, it's a story. that going into the last weekend of the NFL, everybody is happy with, except for the fans that don't like their schedule and their perfect NFL schedule messed up. Can we talk about that? Yes, because that's much more important to them than the life of a player.

See, that's ridiculous because it's not. but it doesn't mean that you can't also talk about that. Obviously, the league's been talking about it. Should the league had just said, look, we're not, we have put business on hold until we find out whether or not Damar Hamlin is going to be okay. No, they should have talked about it. They proceeded.

But the path of least resistance was like what we talked about. But you do know, and it hasn't happened yet, as of the recording of this podcast, that there's going to be a vote today on the suggested course of action by the commissioner and the competition committee. The owners need, they're going to, the owners are going to vote on the following. First of all, if you didn't know, Bengals, Bills, the resumption of that game will not happen. That game was canceled.

So both of those teams will end up with 16 regular season games. They're both going to play their games. There was a question at some point yesterday about whether or not the bills would play their game against the Patriots. But the good news with Hamlin and even better news, obviously, today, they will play against the Patriots and the Bengals will play against the Ravens to finish up their season. So 30 teams will have 17 games and the Bills and Bengals will have played 16 games. And then it'll be based on seating will be based on win percentage.

Okay. Now, here's where it gets interesting. What the voters are going to vote on are, these two possibilities of of handling the home field advantage question, even with the seating. So just so you know, Kansas City right now, if they beat the Chiefs, if they beat the Raiders on Saturday, they will be the number one seed in the AFC. Buffalo will not have a chance to be the number one seed. Even if they had beaten Cincinnati, beaten New England, they would have been the one seed

because they beat Kansas City head to head. Cincinnati also had an outside shot at being the number one seat. If they had beaten Buffalo, beaten Baltimore, and Kansas City had lost a game to get to four losses, they beat Kansas City, too. They could have ended up in that spot. So here's what the NFL is going to vote on, okay? They're going to vote on these two different scenarios. Number one is this.

If you get to an AFC championship game and Kansas City is in it, as the number one seed, and their opponent is Buffalo or Cincinnati with the same regular season loss total as the Chiefs, the game will be played on a neutral site. It will not be played at Arrowhead. The game Buffalo v. Kansas City or Cincinnati versus Kansas City will be played in a neutral site setting. Apparently Indianapolis is a possibility for that. So again, Kansas City could clinch the number one overall.

seed and home field. If they win and Buffalo loses in Cincinnati, if they win and Buffalo loses, then there's no coin, then there's no neutral site. But if Buffalo wins and Kansas City wins, and if Cincinnati wins and Kansas City wins, and you get to the AFC title game, neutral site for that game. Kansas City would be the one seed, have the buy, but not host the AFC championship game. So they're voting on that.

There's another part to this. because Baltimore plays Cincinnati this week, Tommy. If Baltimore beats Cincinnati on Sunday, and then they are scheduled to play next week in the NFL playoffs, which is a very good possibility. The only reason that wouldn't happen is if the Chargers lost to the Broncos and became the six-seed and Baltimore moved up to the five-seed with a win,

if Baltimore beat Cincinnati this week, it will have defeated Cincinnati twice this season. It will complete a sweep over Cincinnati. It will not have the same winning percentage as Cincinnati. However, even though Cincinnati would be seated higher than Baltimore, they will flip a coin to decide where the game would be played next week, either in Baltimore or Cincinnati. I mean, I don't know.

The coin flip. site thing I don't love, the coin flip thing I don't love. Personally, I think what they should have done is say we're not playing the Buffalo Cincinnati game and it comes down to winning percentage and that's what the seating will be and we're just going to go from there. It was an extraordinary circumstance and it's really, really awful ultimately that Buffalo maybe should have hosted the AFC championship game or should have hosted or should have played at Cincinnati but now they're hosting Cincinnati in the divisional round game, but that's the way it goes. And just let it go.

That's what I would have done. I'm with you. I mean, look, whatever they wanted to do was fine with me. I really didn't particularly care that much. And I think what you're saying would work out would have been just fine. You don't just suck it up. I mean, how many times this has happened for crying out loud? Right.

I mean, this is what the commissioner wrote in this note about what they're going to be voting on. By the way, the Cincinnati EVP of something, it's a woman's name, I had this earlier. She says that she's trying to encourage owners to vote no to this. Goodell wrote, as we considered the football schedule, our principles have been to, our principles have been to limit disruption across the league and minimize competitive inequities. I recognize that there's no perfect solution. The proposal we are asking the ownership to consider, however, addresses the most significant

potential equitable issues created by the difficult but necessary decision not to play the game or not to resume the game under these extraordinary circumstances. I would just say to the commissioner, after what you guys did with Green Bay, Detroit, and Seattle and the Rams, your intent was not to create competitive equity in that situation. That was competitive inequity definition with what you did with that. But whatever. I think a coin flip to decide Baltimore and Cincinnati would be, I mean, would they televise the coin flip? Hopefully not.

That would seem a little bit distasteful, wouldn't it? Yes, I think it would. Okay, good. Absolutely. The neutral site idea, I mean, look, the worst maybe Cincinnati beats Baltimore and ultimately had a chance to host the divisional round game and a two, three game. against Buffalo, but they'll have to go to Buffalo for that game to get back to the AFC championship game where let's not forget Kansas City lost to Cincinnati last year and almost lost to Buffalo. I actually think both Buffalo and Cincinnati are better teams than

Kansas City. But I don't know. It certainly is hard to bet against Mahomes, but the Chiefs stink on defense. I wanted to just mention one more thing as it related to this. And it sounds like from earlier, you didn't know this. The NFL, there was a lot of different possible, you know, rescheduling of regular season, postseason, et cetera, ideas going around yesterday. And Floreo reported that one of them was to expand the playoff field to eight teams per conference and have basically nobody get a buy. You know, keep the seating based on winning percentage, but nobody, so Kansas City wouldn't get a buy.

They'd have to play a first round game. but they'd add a playoff team to each conference. If they had done that, Washington would have been alive going into the game tomorrow. They would have needed a Seattle loss and then a win over Dallas. So Seattle's playing the Rams. Rivera could have stood up and said, you see, I was right all along. We're still alive. Exactly. Right. Rivera could have said, I told you guys we were still alive.

Yes. That would have been an outrageous way to kind of settle this. And the bottom line is it wouldn't have created the home field issues, which are in many ways more significant. Actually, I don't know the answer to that. Is it more significant? Is it better to get the buy or play three games and have home field throughout? Probably the buy.

I think, I don't know. I don't know either. I think they like to stay at home. I have one more question for you to finish up the show. Oh, real quickly, to all of you, Maryland basketball, I know so many questions. To all of you Maryland basketball fans who are reaching out to me saying, now you're really upset and you think Kevin Willard wasn't the right hire. You know, a month after you said, Cishian, Turgian sucked, Willard's the best.

Let me just say what I said back then. Turgeon was really good. He was. And Willard's a really good coach. I know they have really struggled to score. It has been painful to watch their last three games against, you know, their last three Power 5 games against UCLA, Michigan, and then last night against Rutgers.

They had eight points with two and a half minutes to go in the first half. Eight. They were down 33 to 7 to Michigan on Sunday. They were down 44 to 13. They were down at one point by nearly 50 points to UCLA. I understand that. They're not, I told you guys earlier, they're going to lose a lot of games,

even when they were at eight? No, I just didn't see the super talented team. Their experience, they had no depth, they have no size. They'll win games. They're going to still be competitive, and Willard had them playing great defense last night. But for those of you that keep saying, why don't they press anymore? You have to make shots to press. Why don't they run anymore? You have to rebound to run. All right, enough about Maryland basketball.

Here's my question to you to finish up the show. show. What if Monday night had happened during the Super Bowl? Hello. Good question. Well, are you there? That's a good question. Yes. Hello? Yeah, it took you all. It sounded like you would drop there for a second.

Well, you know what? I mean, I don't have answers to such big questions about humanity on the tip of my tongue. Okay. But seriously, I mean, like even what if, like a championship? the game. Yes, you're right. They would have stopped the game. Right. They would have stopped the game. Just like if there was a blackout during a Super Bowl, you know, what were they if there was no more power of the rest of the game?

Would they have played the game in the dark? True. If they could stop the game for a blackout, they could stop the game for a player near death. I know, I know. But certainly the game would have resumed as quickly as possible. I guess that's the better question. I made a statement there, but I'm asking you, would the game have resumed quickly, as in the next day or the day after? That's an interesting question. Whatever TV wanted, that's when it would resume. Whatever TV wanted.

Whatever would be best for television. Yeah. If they wanted Monday night, then it would be Monday night. If it would be the following Sunday, then it would be the following Sunday. What if the players told you like they essentially said the other night, we can't play right now. We need a lot more time. I think that would be reasonable.

I think they'd have to consider that. That's why I don't think it would be a day or two later. I think it would be the following week. And you'd have a lot of expense accounts taking some big hits around the country because all of a sudden you'd get another week. Where is the Super Bowl this year? Where is the Super Bowl this year? Is it in Indianapolis?

No. It's not in Indianapolis. It's in Glendale, I think. It's in Arizona. Yeah, I think it's in Arizona. So you'd have a lot more expense accounts, a lot of inflated expense accounts with another week in Arizona. I can't come back.

I got our clients out here. They don't want to leave. They have said they are not. leaving. No, the Super Bowl. Oh, no, next, next, yeah, you're right. It's in Glendale this year, Vegas next year. Yeah. Vegas. If it was Vegas, they would say, well, you know, play three weeks from now. We'll just stay. Remember when you and I, I mean, we'll have time to talk about this, we're in that rotating basis of going to Super Bowls. Because, you know, we went together and then they were like, you know, we're cutting back on expenses for the Super Bowl.

and then it was kind of a rotating basis. We went together in Miami and Dallas. And Phoenix? You and I did. No, I didn't go with you in Phoenix. That was Cooley. Oh, okay, right. And New York?

New York, okay, right. And you went to Indy? You went to Indy. I remember you went to Indy because I was like, no, no, no, Tommy can go to Indy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I went to New Orleans after that. I know.

Right after that. Right. It was kind of a quid pro quo was New Orleans for Arizona, I think. Or it was just the next year, whatever it was. But can you imagine the Vegas Super Bowl, what you and I? You know what? I think we both would have ended up there. We would have held some sort of contest to get our listeners to fund the trip of the person that wasn't chosen to go. All right. Have a good weekend. all right i'll be back on monday with a recap of the cowboys and the skins and the NFL's final

regular season week of the year i get depressed when the NFL regular season is over but we've got a lot of fun playoff weeks coming up and damar hamlin it looks like amazingly is going to be okay