The Kevin Sheehan Show - Adam Peters Introduced

Episode Date: January 16, 2024

Kevin and Thom opened the show with thoughts on the Adam Peters introductory press conference earlier today. Plenty on his hiring and what comes next in Commanders' land. The boys talked NFL Playoffs, RG3 vs Jay Gruden, and a lot more.   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 Chean Show is Kevin. Quarterback, just like all the positions, we're going to sit down and evaluate. And that process will start once we hire the head coach and his staff. And we're going to do that collaboratively with the head coach, his staff, the personnel department, R&D, analytics, and come up with our evaluations for all that before we move forward.

That was Adam Peters just moments ago during. his introductory press conference as the franchise's new general manager, answering a question about the quarterback Tommy and the way he answered a lot of the questions today without a lot of specifics. There wasn't, it wasn't eventful in any way, shape, or form. But as you said to me right before we started to record the show today, well, he didn't say anything dumb either. And that's true.

It was a rather uneventful presser. He spent about 10 minutes thanking all of the people in his life that made this opportunity possible. He talked about what a great franchise and what a great group of people and what a great guy, Josh Harris is, and what a great opportunity this is. And then when we had our beat crew try to get into the nitty gritty, it was basically two things. We're going to hire a head coach and it's going to be a collaboration. process and a lot of those evaluations and a lot of those things will be done, you know, down the road. He said two things. One thing in particular, a couple of times that struck me as somewhat indicative of something, but I'll share that with you in a moment. What did you take away sort of big picture

from the Adam Peters first ever press conference in D.C.? Well, again, there's value in not screwing it up. We've seen what happened when a new coaching candidate in this case goes up there and gets the team colors wrong. Although I'm not sure as at this point what the team colors actually

are. So maybe he couldn't even get them wrong because I'm not sure what they are because you don't see them on the uniforms half the time. But I think I thought he did a good job. I mean, he didn't cost himself anything by putting him in a

position, I think, something that would come back to haunt him. He came across as personable. He came across as very happy to be here. He seemed comfortable sitting next to Josh Harris, the owner. You're right. He used words, he kept using words like aligned vision. You know, there was a lot of that aligned vision in their collaboration, inclusion, leadership. nothing particularly dynamic, but nothing to make you be worried that they made a mistake. I think, look, this was the guy. Like Randy Mueller wrote in The Athletic today, the former NFL GM, this was a no-brainer. This was the guy.

Is this the guy that if I had just called Mike and my one call to just figure this whole thing out, he would have just said hire Adam Peters, and that would have been it? Well, I think since Adam Peters worked for his son, I think that would have been it. Yeah, well, maybe. From the group. It may have worked out that way. I think that that would have been it. I think that would have been it.

I say in my column today that he's got the Shanahan seal of approval because he's not working in the 49ers front office as the second in command in their structure unless Kyle Shanahan likes him. Right. Because Kyle calls the shots, football-wise there. So overall, I thought it was a positive day for the organization. What was interesting is they had a helmet. And they may have done this before, but they just had the helmet up there on the podium, on the table. I wasn't at the press conference.

I don't think there were any Super Bowl trophies in sight. Did you hear of any? No, I didn't see any of that. I didn't see there wasn't a lot of reference to the glory years. There were references to, you know, this being a pillar of a franchise and the fan base. Quarterstone in the league, yeah. Yeah, and that's fine. That's fine.

But, you know, they didn't drag out the trophy. No. You know, they just had that helmet right there in front of them. And I give both of them a for the press conference. And nobody wished anybody a happy Thanksgiving, so that was good. There were two things that really stood out to me. And it was largely, as I've said, and I think you agree, it was largely uneventful, the entire thing. There were no headline-making statements from this presser.

But I thought he mentioned a physical football team, the physicality that he looks for, and that that's the kind of team that he wants. He mentioned that a couple of times. The reason it stood out to me is I've said several times about watching the 49ers. They are one of the most physical teams and one of the hardest teams I can remember to tackle and get on the ground. Debo Samuel, Kittle, McCaffrey, you know, obviously Trent Williams up front, you know, Warner and Bosa. and it's just the way they have attacked the draft. They have had the ability to find these hyper-competitive physical players,

and I love that about their best players in particular. So this is something that I would say when he's evaluating players, he's looking for tough dudes who are really, physical, fearless kinds of players. I mean, when you watch the 49ers, we're all football fans, I don't think I'm exaggerating to say

they may be the hardest team to tackle in a long, long time. You can't get Debo Samuel to the ground without gang tackling. You can't get George Kittle to the ground without having three people jump on the original tackler and on his shoulders to get

him down. And so that stood out. And then the other thing was, he was asked specifically his preference in building a roster, and he said, we'll build through the draft supplement with free agency. It is the draft in which the 49ers have focused on, you know, since Kyle got there. And, you know, his area of responsibility and his area of, I think, true strength has been the draft. You know, I don't know about trades. I'm curious about all the other stuff that he's handled as the associate GM, as the assistant GM. You know, I've read a lot that would suggest that John Lynch really is more of a figurehead GM and that Adam Peters has been doing most of the work,

but that Kyle Shanahan is intimately involved in the personnel decisions as well. You know, like the trade. We don't know. One of their biggest deals, obviously. the biggest moves was trading for McCaffrey. Trading for McCaffrey, trading up for Tray Lance, or just trading up and then not, and then sort of going back and forth between, is it Tray Lance or Mack Jones that we want? They would have been, you know, they're wrong.

They were wrong about Tray Lance because if Tray Lance turns into a really good quarterback, he's going to do it in Dallas or somewhere else. And Mack Jones does not appear to have been the answer either. But yeah, and the McCaffrey deal, look, the McCaffrey deal, I remember when it was made, you know, and it's a running back. And you got a lot of the analytics people screaming, you don't trade for a running back. You don't give up that much for a running back, especially a guy that's been injured. And Cooley came on this podcast the day after the trade and said, they just won the Super Bowl. And I said, why?

And he said, because I know their offense. I know what defenses have to do to match up with that. And with Debo Samuel, Kiddell, and now McCaffrey on the field, it means Kyle will know exactly what defense you're in every single play now that McCaffrey's back there and they will be unstoppable. He said he will be the – and he was right. If they don't lose 17 quarterbacks in the NFC title game last year, They're probably in the Super Bowl.

But yeah, that was obviously a trade that accelerated their run last year and got him into the NFC championship before they had the bad luck of losing the quarterbacks in that game. Now, one thing I wanted to say that this came up, and I didn't expect them to give up any particular secrets here. You know, he was asked a couple of times Adam Peters was about what he's looking for in a coach. you know, what he thinks about a coach. He said, we're going to do that process collaboratively, and he's looking for the best leader for this organization.

Yeah, leader. I wrote this in my column today, and I will stand by at 100%. He knows who he wants to coach the team. He's known it while he was sitting in an office in San Francisco for the past couple of years. Most guys like this, they have a list. in their wallet that they carry with them. If I'm going to run the team, this is a guy I want to hire his coach.

Might just be on their phone rather than in their wallet. Well, in their wallet, on their phone, whatever. So he knows who he wants to coach your team already. There'll be this massive search, you know, to find the right coach. But this guy knows who he wants. It doesn't necessarily mean that's who they'll hire, though, because it's a process done collaboratively. Yeah, and look, it's like any hiring process.

There are always, in any business, there are, you know, if you have an opening, there's always, you know, an executive or somebody who's in charge, it's like, this is the person I've always wanted to hire. This is the person who I want here. And then it comes down to, you know, availability. And then you do sometimes go through that interview process and your mind can be changed. You can be blown away. in an interview. But what you started off by saying was something that he said also a couple of times. I forget who asked the question.

Maybe it was David Aldridge about what kind of, you know, his offensive, defensive coach. And it was leadership. We're looking for the best leader. But they're also looking for somebody who's, you know, super smart and et cetera. But, yeah, you know, if you're right and he's got this list, not in an overstuffed wallet where you get to check out in that commercial where they said, how much, $19.25. No, I'm just buying mine. I'm not buying everybody else's. I would imagine that a guy that was in San Francisco for a while and who has proven to be a very intriguing candidate in Houston as the offensive coordinator with C.J. Stroud, and they are still

playing, Bobby Sloick would have been on that list. Maybe, who knows? Like, here's the thing. Everybody connects Bobby Sloick to Adam Peters. For all we know, Adam Peters thought Bobby Sloick was just, you know, he's really smart and he's really good with X's and O's, and he'll be a good coordinator, but never would I ever hire him for a, you know, you just don't know enough about these people. You know what their results as an assistant have been. This is why I said on Friday, Tommy. This is, I think, a very exciting time because it's new for this fan base. We have not had somebody in this position since Charlie Casserly.

And I'm talking about a true general manager with total authority to run the football operation. So that... You have to go back to 1990. the 93 season and the hiring of Norv Turner. Yeah, right. But, you know, while Charlie was here with Norv, I mean, Charlie pulled off, he basically traded one player for an entire draft, you know, with Buddy Ryan. But if you're talking about the hiring process, that's how far back you have to go

to compare what's happening today to, you know, what's happened in this organization. And that hasn't happened since Charlie hired North Turner. And let me point out, and I agree with you 100%. It's laughable all the people on social media that think they know the right offensive coordinator to hire to be a coach. Because there's a big difference between being the assistant and being the top guy. It's a big leap. Okay. And look, North Turner was maybe the best play caller of his time, but he was not a good head.

coach. No, he wasn't. He was not. Man, it sounds like we've got an aligned vision today. Our vision is very aligned today because that's, I think, the point I tried to make on Friday's podcast, which, you know, a couple of you were like, and whatever. I'm very intrigued, encouraged just because of the structure that. that we're going to have in place.

But I'm also a football fan for a long period of time. And I know that hiring Adam Peters and the subsequent head coach hiring and then the number two overall pick or whatever they do with it, there's no guarantee that it'll work out. In fact, I don't want to go down the fifth round pick route again and give you all the odds. But the bottom line is, you hire assistant GMs or assistant coaches and you elevate them more times than not,

it doesn't work out, no matter how hot the candidate is. So just understand that there's a chance that three years from now, there's another press conference to announce somebody else because the hot guy that they hired wasn't really cut out to be this. Now, what's interesting about this in addition to the structure and being able to do it in sort of a normal functioning environment versus what the last 25 years have been about is they did seem to get, by all accounts, the number one guy by a long shot. I know Ian Cunningham is highly respected and a couple of others, but this is a guy who's been in this organization that has produced for a few years. now, one of the top two or three rosters in the league, and he was, for all intents and purposes, according to many people that have written about his role there. He was the de facto GM.

So this, and to get him, as I also mentioned on Friday, is really more than anything else. The indication that it's a new day, because there is no way this guy even giving him. Washington an interview if Dan Snyder still owns the team. Absolutely. And instead... I have to work for Kyle Shanahan. Right. He's not going to do that.

Well, that's true, too. Obviously. Yeah. But no, you're right. This is why I said in my column that he brings a level of credibility to this, to the Harris ownership group that we haven't seen in last three decades. Yeah. You know?

last two decades. I mean, he brings a level of credit bill, because you're right. He wouldn't come here because he turned, according to ESPN, he declined interviews with two teams last year when he was under consideration. So for him to come here, he picked Washington as much as Washington picked him. Yeah, of course. It certainly sounds that way, and that's just amazing when you think about what's gone on here. for so long, no doubt.

And you know what the best part is, you know, that consultancy really came into play because Bob Myers, who was the former Golden State Warriors, GM and one of Josh Harris. I sense sarcasm here. Basically, it was just a local phone call for him to the guy in San Francisco. So that worked out great. Well, hopefully he's not paying any longer on long. distance with his cell phone than he is with local calls.

But it's interesting because going back to the last time we did a podcast, last week got a little bit disjointed for me, so Tommy and I didn't end up doing a podcast after a week ago. This week, by the way, just a heads up, I do have to go back out of town for Thursday and Friday for a funeral. But I'm going to try to get something done and recorded so that we can put something out on Thursday. But I don't know if you read the Albert Breer MMQB story about how this whole thing came together. So let me read it to everybody. By the way, he does a good job. Don't you think Breer with a lot of the behind the scenes and how things came together? He's clearly plugged in

in ways that a lot of other people haven't been over the years. I'm not saying that there aren't a lot of other guys that get a lot of the detail. But whenever he writes about something like this, there's so much detail. Do you agree with me or not? Do you know him? I don't really know him. Look, there's a lot of detail in this because somebody wanted a lot of detail out there. Yeah, okay. Well, of course. I mean, somebody's telling him he's not making it up. So they, and he had permission to go forward with it. So Albert Breer, um, in, the Sports Illustrated MMQB, you know, Monday column that he does, that, you know, Peter King does, I don't even know who does it these days, but he talked about the process of hiring Adam Peters.

And I'll read from it. He said the commander's process moved fast. And really the wheels started turning a little over three weeks ago when former Golden State Warriors GM Bob Myers, who'd gone to work as an advisor for Harris, Blitzer Sports and Entertainment, reached out to former Minnesota of Vikings GM, Rick Spielman, and asked whether he'd come to Miami to meet with the new commander's owner, Josh Harris. Spielman's been living on Florida's Gulf Coast and is in Fort Lauderdale every weekend for his work at CBS. So a couple of things real quickly before I get to this next paragraph on this, because there's a lot of detail in here. All season long, you know, I've said to you that he's got to be talking to somebody. You know, he's got to have somebody

that's going to help him create the list of people that he needs to interview to be the chief football person in the organization. And we, you know, speculated on different names, including Kevin Colbert, who was in Pittsburgh and he was a minority shareholder in Pittsburgh. By the way, my producer, Denton Day, this was like two months ago, two and a half months ago maybe, said, you know who'd be awesome for him to talk to and would be really an interesting fit? Bob Myers, who retired as Golden State's GM, and I wonder if they know each other, but the guy's been successful in everything. So I give Denton, my producer, credit for just throwing it out there like two and a half months ago.

But anyway, we now know that the guy that, you know, he's been talking to to a certain degree that was going to help him with this process was Bob Myers. And Bob Myers' first call to the football person came three weeks ago. All right, this was the weekend of Christmas Eve and the game against the Jets in the Meadowlands, and he reached out to Rick Spielman. So Spielman, you know, makes his way in to meet with Josh Harris. So Breer continues. That made things easy on everybody.

Spielman got there over the weekend on week 16, and Harris told him that while no decision had been made on coach Ron Rivera or his front office, he wanted to be ready to roll if the commanders did move on. He invited Spielman to join Myers on his search committee, and as soon as Spielman accepted, asked the GM to start, old GM, to start doing background work to find a head of football operations and a head coach. So let's just, you know, say that three weeks ago, doesn't seem like that long ago when everybody was holding their breath on that, you know, that long field goal at the gun that if it, you know, goes, if it goes awry, Washington's picking fifth. against the Jets. That's when Spielman was essentially tasked with going to find and create the list for the head of football ops.

Two weeks later, Spielman working off a list of 15, whittled it to five. Three days after that, they had Adam Peters hired. And so there's more detail here from Breer. Spielman's work through the final two weeks of the season was done quietly. He made calls but didn't tell folks who he was working for, gathering information discreetly. Then the Monday after Week 18, right? So that's a week ago yesterday after their loss to Dallas to conclude the regular season. Once Harris let Rivera go, Spielman drove to Miami and got to work talking with folks such as

former Arizona Cardinals GM and Fritz Pollard Alliance exec, Rod Graves. former Giants GM Jerry Reese, former Jacksonville exec, Michael Hugie, and former Steelers GM, Kevin Colbert, all of whom worked in the league for decades and attended last month's accelerator program. For those that don't know, there was this accelerator program for potential future GMs. Harris was there, and I forget who wrote about it, whether it was Kime or maybe it was Ben. I think Ben wrote that he was impressive to everybody that was asked about Josh Harris. Anyway, he was on the phone from 7.30 a.m. to about 11 p.m. checking every box on the five guys he'd identified, all of whom carried assistant GM titles. What is interesting, Tommy,

is all of the perspective, this hiring cycle, new general managers, none of them are old. general managers or proven general managers. They're all guys that have been assistants this year. I mean, it's possible I'm forgetting a name of somebody who's out there that might get hired by somebody. But anyway, his list of five was Borganzi from Kansas City, Cook from Cleveland, Cunningham from Chicago, Hallaby from Philadelphia, and Peters from San Francisco. And then this is the part that I am sure Tom.

was thrilled about because just pick up the phone and call Mike and ask him who to hire. They did it the opposite of that. After creating the search committee, the first round of interviews happened at Harris's offices in Miami. Each candidate spent two and a half hours first with Spielman, then another two and a half hours with Harris and Myers. So, hey, Rick, you're the gatekeeper, two and a half hours with you. If they get through the gate, they can meet with Bob and me for another two and a half

hours. That's a five-hour grind on this, it was two days last week, Tuesday and Wednesday. It was Borgonzi, Cook, and Peters who went on Tuesday, and then Cunningham. and Hallaby went Wednesday. The group then reconvened to pick two finalists, Peters and Cunningham, then met with the three of Harris' co-owners. The meetings weren't done yet, Tommy. They still had to meet with the rest of the search committee,

Mitch, David Blitzer, and Magic to get a consensus and finalize those two as the leaders who would then get 90-minute second interviews on 30-minute. Thursday morning. After that, the larger group met one last time to pick Peters. It was a close call between the final two with Peter's seven years of experiences in number two, and the successes 49ers have had serving as a tiebreaker over Cunningham, who had been the chief lieutenant in Chicago for a shorter period of time, and the bears weren't necessarily as successful. There's one other thing that I wanted to read here real quickly. So the new head of football, all right, the new general manager, Peters reports directly to the owner.

And the plan is for the coach to report directly to Peters. So, I mean, that's a normal structure, you know. It's not everybody's, every team's structure, but the head of football ops or the general manager, and he hires the head coach and the head coach reports to him. and the general manager reports to the owner, but they've got to work collaboratively, et cetera. And, hey, maybe we've got Jack, Bobby, and Joe back together again. Let's hope. Man, that's some interviewing, wasn't it?

Yeah, that was something. What else? Come on. Say what you want to say. Okay. Okay. Now, you've got to listen to me very carefully, though. I know. Okay.

Because not everybody listened very carefully. last week. No. Okay. This is, if all this is true, then Josh Harris is not the owner that we think he is. Because what happened three weeks ago should have happened three months ago. I mean, Josh Harris pretty much should have known in September, unless this guy, this coach, does some miracle turnaround with this organization.

I need to hire a general manager, and we're going to need to hire a coach. You mean he sat there through almost the whole season and didn't give this some thought, some study, some consideration, didn't already have guys out there doing this work for him? He waited until the end of December. Well, you couldn't do anything. What was he doing it? What do you mean? What?

change, but you could hire a football consultant who could do this legwork for you. You know, tell me about these guys. Put together an intelligence report on these guys. This is what he should have been doing. I mean, the Jets game is when he decides he needs to do this. Bullshit. Well, Bob Meyer. Absolute bullshit.

All right. So I listen carefully. I'm not done yet. Okay. I'm not done yet. All right. Okay. Okay.

About Rick Spielman, all the people he talked to, they make a point in this story to tell you everyone he spoke to. And they also make a point to tell you that he was on the phone from 7.30 in the morning until 11 o'clock at night. Check in every box of the five candidates he identified. This is right out of the transparent Ted Leon. his school of thought. Remember when Ted told everyone? He made 78 phone calls. Then hired Tommy.

He put him to Barack Obama before he picked a general manager. Tommy Shepard. This is a guy trying too hard to convince you of a story, not the truth. All this is just part of this whole. And again, I'm not criticizing them for it. It was important to put on a show. It was important to create perception that this is not your father's or your old Washington football team. We're doing things differently, and we're bringing in all this extra help to do it, you know?

But come on. You know, they know who they wanted as general manager. I mean, you could have put any idiot could have put this list together. And then you just interview a couple of guys. And, okay, first of all, first of all, the team, when they make this announcement, after Josh Harris' initial press conference after firing Ron Rivera, the team puts out statements from the two consultants. Who does that?

What team issues consultant statements? Okay? So the team did that. And the new general manager, Peters, went out of his way pretty early in that press conference to thank Myers and to thank Rick Spielman. This is trying too hard to convince you that they did something that was actually relatively simple. Like Randy Mueller said, this was a no-brainer hire. Well, first of all, you can't be sure that he's going to accept your offer because he had other options.

So I want to make sure today that everybody, you know, I mentioned to many people read Tom's column last week rather than just commenting on the comment. of the column. You are okay with them putting on what you believe to be this show to basically say to a fan base that's been starving, we do things differently than the last owner. And let us tell you how and why, right? You're okay with it. I think it's valuable. I think it's important.

Right. But I'm not falling for this song and dance. You know, I know how business is happening. I know how these guys do business. I know what happens when a bunch of rich smart guys get together in a room. No, you don't. And they think they've come up with a new model. No, you don't.

You don't. And I'm going to tell you why. In sports? I'm going to tell you why. In sports, I do. I'm going to tell you why. Because things have changed just in the last like 15, 20 years. Like, Josh Harris is an entrepreneur at heart more than anything else.

And nothing said that to me more than his introductory press conference all the way back. in July. You could see the sweat of the pressure of not only delivering something that is much different than what we've had to a fan base, to a city, et cetera, but to investors that came up with about four of the six billion dollars to buy the team. And I loved his introductory press conference and talked about it, you know, back then. But there are a lot of of entrepreneurs, you know, from a personality standpoint, that just shoot from the hip. They are decisive. They just go with their gut, their hunch.

And if they're wrong, all right, because they don't fear failure. They keep swinging until they finally hit on something. And I'm sure there is some of that in Josh. But I have met many and been around many entrepreneurs who are much more deliberate, much more consensus building, much more thorough in what they do. Now, is there some element of that that's done to impress, say, shareholders, to impress clients or customers? Yeah, there's a certain element of that because at the end of the day, 15 candidates whittled the five, they probably knew of those five, the two or three that they were probably going to pick from to begin with.

I don't disagree with any of that. But it's not everybody operating the way you think they would operate in this situation. There are, I guarantee you, Ted Leonis and all the, you know, consensus building and all of the big business jargon and all the big business words that get thrown out on all of these things and they end up hiring Tommy Shepard. I love Tommy, by the way. I think he has made every decision. in his professional career that way. Remember, Ted wasn't necessary. Ted was an entrepreneur,

had a company down in Florida that AOL bought. He was not the founder of AOL. Steve Case and the other gentleman's name who was escaping me, the Marine who was, oh God. Jim Kempsey? Jim Kempsey, thank you, who passed away just in recent years, right? I'm pretty sure.

But there are guys that are rich and super-sophiles, successful, whether entrepreneurial or, you know, as an employee or as a key executive, that do operate this way, Tommy. And in some cases, it's the right way to operate. And I think as far as Josh goes with respect to this decision, I think he's in the dark a little bit. He's a basketball guy. And to a lesser extent, a hockey guy. And I don't think, you know, there may have been some trepidation that he didn't want to fuck it up. What? It's not rocket science.

It's not rocket science. None of this is rocket science. No. But it's much, but it's more involved than you think. I don't think it is. I know you don't. I mean, I've been covering these sports for 30 years. I know how involved it is.

I know what general managers do. Yeah. Well, I've been watching and been around for a lot of my life before this broadcast. life around successful entrepreneurs who are running companies, some of whom I still know, some of whom I have been directors in their companies, been on compensation committees before, all of that stuff as well. And I'm telling you, they're not all built the same. And there is more of the collaborative and the consensus rather than, fuck it, I know.

This is the guy I want. And we're moving. There's the difference between those products. and this one, you didn't grow up watching those other products. True. You didn't grow up thinking you knew better than everybody else who's in charge of these those products. Football is different.

Sports are different. Sports franchises are different. And everyone, unless you're off the street, whether it's misguided knowledge or not, you believe you have a certain knowledge of these widgets, okay? You're not just coming in buying a widget company and then making a decision to make them. It depends what kind of owner you are. It depends on what kind of owner you are. What if the people in Philly who have told us that Josh Harris is really a bottom-line profit margin owner,

you know, P&L owner, this is what he cares about most. He admittedly doesn't know anything about sports, and he relies on experts to help him hire and then empower those that he hires. What if he isn't the kind of owner that is owning a sports team because he loves sports, because he thinks he can call the right time out or go for two in the right critical spot as I would? Maybe it's more... But that's not what he says. He calls himself a steward of the city.

Steward of the city. That doesn't mean that he, you know, and he also referred to himself as a fan who went to the games and et cetera, et cetera. But he's not wearing the belt buckle like Snyder did. and, you know, and operating it as if he's a fan. So, I don't know. I think the, I'm okay with the process. I think it's, I'm okay with the process. I'm okay with the process.

No, you're okay with the show. I just don't believe. I'm okay with the show. Yeah. Yeah. I think the process was just the show. Well, I think the process was a show. Right. Yeah. And you're okay that then you feel like it makes a lot of sense to have put on a show. I'm just telling you, while maybe. some of it to a certain degree is exaggerated. You know, 15 whittled to five, two and a half hours,

gatekeeper, another two and a half hours. You know, I'll never forget when Scott McLuhan got hired. Do you remember this? You and I were doing a show together. And I'm pretty sure we were. And I had been talking to Scott. I had reached out to Scott months before they had hired him because I was told by somebody that this was somebody that they may be interested in hiring at some point. So there was this story that came out that whatever it was. The team made some sort of statement that Scott McLuhan had interviewed with Snyder, remember, for 14 hours at Snyder's house. So I talked to Scott and Scott said, yeah, I was there for two, two and a half hours left.

And so that's what I reported, that after two and a half hours, they decided to do the deal, whatever. And they went ballistic in Redskin Park that I had suggested and diminished the time of the meeting. The next day when Snyder introduced McLuhan or Bruce, I can't even remember how it turned out. Basically, I think Snyder said, met with Scott yesterday for two hours at the house, really got to know him, and we just decided to do this. And, you know, they had, do you remember they went to Chuck? They were, God, Tony was so upset that I said it wasn't 14 hours. It was only two and a half according to my source, which, by the way, was Scott McLuhan himself. Now, who knows, who knows at that point what, you know, what Scott actually remembered from the day before.

But that was beside the point. But anyway, I think some elements are sort of. certainly are exaggerated in any of these deals, you know, when you make a big hire. But I don't have any issue with the process. I do not think that they were absolutely sold that it was going to be Adam Peters three months ago ago or that he should have been sold that it was Adam Peters three months ago because it's not the way it works with the general manager hiring cycle. General manager candidates emerge often later in the season when a team that, yeah.

But he was in demand last year. Yes, he was. He was. He was. You're right. You're right. Okay. Okay.

I would have called more than Mike. I got something else I wanted to address as far as the general manager if you wanted to come back to that. We can. I want to come back to that. I want to get to the two games yesterday. that were played. We definitely have to get to this RG3J Gruden thing. Did you, did you follow that? Oh my God. And B. Mitch, too. I know. The B. Mitch got involved in it too. So we will do that. We got a lot to get to here on this show. We waited for the Adam Peters press conference before

starting to record this because I thought, who knows, we might hear something newsworthy. I don't think anything newsworthy came out of that press conference. And guess what? I'm totally fine with that. I don't want my general manager giving everybody the strategy. No, absolutely. If you're a fan, you've got to be happy with that. That's right.

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nicotine is an addictive chemical. All right, Tommy, tell us about Shelly's. Well, I tell you why, I'm not missing being up north with the snowfall, but it's not that warm down here right now in Miramar Beach. It's in the mid-40s down here, and the wind coming off the Gulf makes it a little bit cold, but nobody shovel it with snow down here. But when it's this cold, it's not enjoyable to sit outside and have my deli cigar smoke. So I usually go, I have to embark on a place to smoke indoors since we've taken steps back in civilization and you can't generally smoke indoors in most places.

You have to find an oasis like Shelly's back room. Well, there is none down here. I thought I found one and the next town over, I went over there the other day. It's all closed up. Okay. So there is no place for me on a cold day to seek shelter from the storm like, Shelly's backroom, like this gift that you have up there in Washington. Shelly's Backroom at 1331F Street, Northwest, where you can walk in and warm yourself

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Shelly's backroom.com for more information. Yeah, nice to be in a neighborhood kind of pubs cigar bar on days like today. A lot of people not working today. A lot of schools closed today, Tommy, the whole nine yards. I don't think they've had a snow day. The schools around here probably since 2022, because there was no bad weather last year. Just a reminder and, God, we got some really, really good reviews and ratings in,

and a not-so-good one. I'll read here in a moment. But rate us and review us, especially on Apple and Spotify. It takes 30 seconds to pause the podcast, give us, Five stars if you see fit and write a quick one to two sentence review on Apple. Follow us on Apple and Spotify. Subscribe to the podcast. You can write something as simple as five stars from El Koki. Love the show just about the only DC host and podcast I can listen to. That's all we need. It just helps us on the revenue generating front. This one from, hold on, hold on, where is?

visit. This one from Raleigh, FJH. Love listening to Kevin and appreciate his insights on sports. I've been listening to him for 10 years out here in Santa Fe, New Mexico. God, we have so many listeners, as I've mentioned before, from so many different areas. But the reason I read this, Tommy, have you ever been to Santa Fe? Yes, I have. Beautiful town. Oh, what a great town. Santa Fe is. Albuquerque, not so much. Santa Fe is awesome. Furs supermarkets, Raleigh, they were a client of mine way back in the day. Anyway, I found Kevin through his time with Cooley, have stuck with him because he sees the sports world as I do, et cetera, et cetera.

Then there's this, hold on. Less gambling talk, please. And this is from Nat's fan, one, two, three. We only got four stars out of five. excellent podcast for DC sports fans. Just please back off on gambling talk as it's much more interesting to hear discussion and reflection on the success or lack thereof of DC sports teams. Thank you for the suggestion. I think the gambling talk on this podcast is vital during football season in particular.

But I understand too much of it. You're right. Too much of it is too much. You know, it's interesting because it reminded me when sports gambling became legal, you and I were doing a show together when it became a massive news story about this was going to happen, that states were going to be given an opportunity to legalize sports betting. And I had a couple of opportunities, and I'm not going to describe them in detail, But basically to leave what I was doing and go host, you know, like a three or four hour a day gambling, sports gambling show.

And I didn't take the offers because my feeling was I think that's way too niche. I think sitting there and talking about sports gambling and in the middle of the summer talking about baseball lines, and totals for three to four hours and matchups. First of all, it's not what I want to do. I love betting on sports and have my whole life, and I like talking about it. But if you've noticed, it's really during football season because football is what's bet on more than anything else.

But I've watched some of the... Now, the Veezan Network, our good friend Tim Murray, you know, hosts a very successful show on the VISA Network. But I always kind of felt that it would be, hard to do every day. Not that they're only talking about point spreads and money lines and totals and prop bets, etc. But even the shows that focus just on gambling, Tommy, and Amma sports better, I can't watch them. I can't listen to them. The host, it comes down to the host, like Tim Murray does a great job, you know, hosting his show, but I can't sit there and watch

this stuff on ESPN that they do. First of all, as you know, I don't think anybody knows anything about anything, which is what I admit when it comes to gambling, which is why I just understand that the house usually wins, and so I try to have the sides they have. But I agree with you to a certain extent, Nats fan. I think I've done a decent job with it for the most part. There are shows out there that do so much of their content on gambling.

I would put it in the range of 10% of the overall offering, whether it's the radio show and more so on this podcast. I mean, Tommy doesn't gamble on sports. Actually, Cooley does bet on sports now, and he loves talking about gambling. But I do appreciate the thought. And I do have kind of a governor for that because I do know, and I recognize that it's not something that. that everybody does or even thinks about in terms of our audience. But anyway, all right, you said you had something else to add to the conversation, I think, about Adam Peters. So go ahead.

Well, about the general manager shot. First of all, two things. There's two things I want to add. Yeah. Do you think that now that there's a general manager in place, this eliminates the possibility of a mic-frame, or Jim Harbaugh, or let's really set the bells and whistles off, Bill Belichick, all of whom would seem to have the gravitas to take a job where they would dictate who their top personnel guy would be.

Are these guys off out of the running now? I think Belichick's been out of the running from the beginning, but if I didn't know that Belichick was out of the running from the beginning, I would say it takes Belichick out of the running. I would not say that it takes Vrabel or Harbaugh out of the running. I'm not sitting here telling you that I think they're in the running. You're asking me. It wouldn't take them out of the running for me because I don't think Vrable would be necessarily looking for that level of control.

And Harbaugh and Peters, they didn't cross paths directly in the Bay Area with the 49ers because he had already gone to Ann Arbor when Peters got hired by John Lynch. but I think Harbaugh wants a general manager, wants somebody to be that person and to work with, you know, wherever he goes. Now, the guy from Indianapolis, Dodds is the guy that I know the Raiders were interviewing if Harbaugh ends up there. But, yeah, so. I mean, I'm not talking about control. I'm talking about guys that they have a comfort level with. Yeah, I don't think it would. It should take, God, man, I want Vrable.

I want Vrable to be in the running for this job. Brable's a great effing coach. Yes, I know. But you see, if I'm Vrable, I mean, one of the things I, one of the things I'm bringing is I want to decide who I'm going to work. I want to have a say in who I'm going to work with as my personnel guy. Right. And now they don't have that. I mean, they may have enough respect for Adam Peters.

Right. His reputation may be so strong that they may, you know, that guy's great. Right. You know, that guy will be fine. That's a possibility. I'm just saying, I think it raises the question if it takes some of those high-profile coaches out of the running. I think it might. I would say definitely on Belichick.

I'm not so sure on Brable and Harbaugh. Okay. The second thing is, if you go to the team website right now, okay, Could you do that? I know what you're going to say. It's the two general managers at the same time. It says Martin Mayhew is the general manager on the team website today. Over an hour after they introduced Adam Peters as the general manager.

Okay. So what's your point? They didn't update their website quickly enough? Well, it's kind of embarrassed. This is embarrassed. This is no small thing. This is their presentation to the fan base. And right now, they're presenting Martin Mayhew as the general manager.

Okay. Well, maybe by the end of the day, Adam Peters, now that it's been officially, they'll get to the, updating the website. Seriously? Yeah. I mean, it's pretty, it's pretty weak. And you see, it's not pretty weak. It would be weak. It would be weak if they put Adam Peters up and they spelled Adam A-D-E-M Peter.

That would be weak. And we've seen a lot of that over the years. The fact that they don't have them listed yet as the general manager doesn't bother me at all. Well, that's weak. Okay. Okay. In your opinion. Yeah.

Here's the second part. You see who the top dog is in the front office? But that's been that way for a while. I know that. Well, the top dog is Josh Harris managing partner. And then front office, Jason Wright team president. And then you go to front office, Jason Wright. Right.

It's the first guy on the list. Right. I mean, but really, he should be separate from the front office, right? Yeah, I think that they will probably rework this website at some point, you know? You think so. Well, here's why, Tommy, because they could be up. I understand John Carrack isn't maybe a high-tech owner, you know? Maybe he's kind of old, maybe not really up on top of things like websites and stuff like that.

I get it. They could be updating this on a daily basis based on the moves that are forthcoming. So maybe they're just waiting. Every day since the news came out. No, no, no, no. No, you're, that's my point. It hasn't changed. And they're going to wait for all of the moves to be made.

And then they're going to redo the whole front office page of the website. How many? It's so hard. You are bending over backwards. It's so hard. It doesn't move me. What moves me was the incompetence of the last regime, which, by the way, Jason Wright was a big part of, of just the constant wrong information that was included on the website. Wrong information on the take command or the whatever they call that, you know, series that they did on the brand.

But that should no longer be your measuring stick. I understand that. I'll tell you what. I'll tell you what. In two weeks, if it still looks this way, I'll, I will call out there myself. I will call Jason. I will call Josh, all right, and I will say, update your website. You're starting to look dumb by not having an updated website. I think the... No, don't call them. I will. Let them figure it out for themselves. No, but, but I thought you were going to say this. I thought you were going to just say, what you texted me the other night.

Isn't it odd that right now they have two general managers? Why didn't you say that part of it? Well, because that's that's that semantics. I mean, I'm sure they probably talked to Martin Mayhew, who has worked with Adam Peters, by the way. That doesn't mean he'll be staying. But I'm sure they probably talk to Martin Mayhew and say, you know, we're really evaluating, we're hoping to have a role,

whatever's happened. I'm off that. Okay, good. I'm on the public display. The team's introduction to fans. Here, come to our fans. Come to our website. This is who we are.

Oops. I think there's, so none of that. By the way, you just gave the answer that I gave to you the other day, which is Martin Mayhew's been told, hey, we're getting this done, and there's going to be a lot of evaluation, and Adam Peters is going to make the decision on a lot of this. Rather than demoting him now or firing him now or giving him some new title, it's okay. Just relax. They're not playing a game tomorrow, and they don't have a draft or free agency decisions to make tomorrow.

They'll get this right. He just landed in a snowstorm last night with his, you know, very beautiful wife and cute two girls, and they're in D.C. and they're excited to be here. Let's give them a couple of days before they get. the Martin Mayhew new title and the website updated. All right? Can we do that? I've got a solution.

What? They need to hire a website consultant. That's what they need to do. Hold on, hold on. Hire a website consultant. Yeah, but that would require... Because this stuff is obviously beyond their graph. That would require a two and a half hour gatekeeper interview and then two and a half hours

more. I'll tell you what. Seriously? when I hear that, to me, that's trying awfully hard. I do relate to that in terms of, really? Like, let me just tell you, as someone who's been responsible for sort of these kinds of meetings and even interviews, five hours is enough. I mean, that is more than enough.

But anyway, it could have been going so well. It could have been going so well, the time got away from them, and it's just like, oh, my God, we could have gone on for another three hours. But anyway, beside that, I'm not worked up about the website. I am interested, though, with the Martin Mayhew thing. Martin Mayhew, I bet you he stays on with the organization, and it'll be interesting to see how they handle it if I'm right about this. because typically in most companies, you don't give somebody a lesser title, maybe even lesser compensation, and ask him to stay. You know? It's like that's not done.

That's typically not done. But a guy like Martin Mayhew, who may not have a lot of other options, who may love living here, who may love Adam Peters, they work together, he may. may be perfect in a new role in the organization. And, you know, just because it's not typically done doesn't mean they shouldn't do it if the person that's on the receiving end of this is the right kind of person for this role and it's okay. And there's probably a way to do it without it being insulting. But any. Okay, one last thing. You're not paying attention to the most ridiculous element in this whole consultant search committee process. Rick Spielman was on the phone from 7.30 in the morning until 11 o'clock at night.

According to Albert Breer. Okay. I mean, come on. If you're going to present a show, you know, don't, make it presentable. Don't make stuff up that people can't possibly believe. I know. But Tommy, Tommy, most people. reading this, most people just think, well, that's what it takes.

That's what it takes. In this particular case, maybe it did take that. 16 hours. Let me just tell you where I am right now. You're ready for this? You ready for this one? I am definitely happy and encouraged by this new day of normalcy. It seems normal.

Yes. You know, it doesn't mean that, you know, like I said, there's no guarantee of anything, but I'm excited about the decisions that are forthcoming, the head coach decision, the decision to who are we going to franchise tag if we're going to franchise tag anybody? What are we going to do when free agency begins? And then, of course, the conversation after the head coach is hired is going to focus 80% from the time the head coach is hired, say, in a week, until, or two weeks,

until the draft on what they do with number two overall. And it is a massive decision here. You don't want to be on the Bryce Young wrong side of Bryce Young C.J. Stroud, even though it's too early. But let me tell you the other thing that I've been thinking about here over the last couple of days. Just an observation. Commanders, there's been no...

no pushback, no, you know, no hesitancy in throwing commanders out in every single press release, in every single discourse, every single press conference like today, it's starting to worry me that they have decided to run with this for a while. I know back in the summer, by the way, for those of you that are saying this just isn't important, just shut the fuck up for a second, because it's important to a lot of people, okay? It doesn't mean that it's the priority, okay? The priority is getting the general manager hired, getting the head coach hired, and getting number two right, maybe more importantly than anything else if it's a quarterback.

back. But this is very important to the majority of longtime fans. I know that they were taking this seriously and that this was something that not only the managing partner, which would be Josh Harris, but many in just the large ownership group, were not only talking about, but wanted to see something done about it. Remember, a lot of people in the ownership group, the largest ownership group in the NFL, other than the Packers, who are publicly held. They're from here. They don't like it. And the one thing I kept thinking about was, what if they end up having a successful season

with commanders in these jerseys? You know, that could change the opinion of everybody. Like, we're not going to jinx it and now go back to something old when we won two playoff games. Well, that didn't happen. They were four and 13. And the worst team, along with Carolina in the NFL. I just, I've observed here over the last week, Josh Harris's presser a week from yesterday,

the presser today, the presser today, the press releases that have been coming out, that there's no hesitancy to use commanders and to say commanders at every turn. And it's just an observation. I do not have any update other than what I just shared with you from the summer that they were definitely taking this seriously. They understood it to be an issue. with the fans. Remember, he said as much. But his refusal to even address it last week didn't come up today. Can you imagine if the first question to Adam Peters is? So what do you think about the name? What are we doing with the name? But I'm just wondering if, you know, as time passes, and this happens with a lot of things, when there's real anger, real emotion involved in something, sometimes just the passage of time. It never helped Dan Snyder, as you used to say, the passage of time does not improve Dan Snyder.

It usually hurts him. But maybe in this particular case, those that are done with the team are done with the team because of the name. Let me just say something to agree with you about that. And what I'm going to bring up, maybe beyond the tech skills of the ownership group. Okay. You know. Enough of that. When they deal with their consultant, maybe this will come up.

But I watched the press conference on the team's Facebook page, which meant that fans could comment as the press conference was going on. A lot on the name, right? A lot on the name. Always. Yeah. A lot. Yeah. Even on the YouTube thing, their YouTube channel, which I watched it, it seems.

It's just, you know, change the name, change the name. Yeah, a lot on the name. What I hope the, if they decide to just plow forward, maybe for another year and just see then what happens, I hope it's not based on an idea that the people that really are angry or have, or were angry, have already checked out anyway and they don't believe that a name change will get them back. Which, by the way, to me, there's some reason to this. Because we know it will never be Redskins again,

they may have had people say to them, you know, a lot of different consultants, branding consultants, branding experts, that it doesn't matter what you change it to. The reaction is going to be as polarizing. So our recommendation is to just go with this bad name and these bad uniforms for a while. Because I could understand if somebody who really is an expert in this said, look, the bottom line is, unless you're going back to Redskins, the amount of incremental positive or gain or revenue that you get from changing it to something else just isn't worth it.

because it's just going to be just as polarizing. There's a lot that's true in that respect. I just personally feel that the reason that you get around that by just going to Washington and not picking a name. But maybe branding people say, well, that's stupid because without a name, you can't generate the kind of revenue you can with a name. That is plural, et cetera, et cetera. This is not my area of expertise by any stretch of the imagination.

It's just an observation that I made that it's just. just seems like there's no hesitancy to use commanders over and over again and everything. And I think there was a little bit of hesitation earlier in the year. That's it. So I'm just wondering if it's indicative. One of my thing on the name, and then we can move on, I think you bring up a lot of good points there. I think if you can figure out, and I'm not sure how you do that, a way to connect the tradition of the team to the new name, I think then you have some value. What do you mean? The new name being the commanders? No, no. If you pick a new name, a different name commanders, if that new name can be easily

connected to the old tradition. Right. I don't know how that's done. Well, it's done with a name like the hogs or something like that. Right. Yeah. Right. Like red hogs. Something like that. Right.

I mean, I don't care what they're called, you know, not my team. I know. All right. Let's finish up by talking about the two NFL games yesterday. Get your thoughts on Dallas losing on Sunday. And we will talk about this Robert Griffin III, J. Gruden thing as well. We'll do all of that right after these words from a few of our sponsors. So, Tommy, are you a car person?

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I had a neighbor, by the way, when I was a kid who had like three different, you know, Mustang convertibles. Like they were vintage, you know, those years that you were talking about. I don't, you know, I don't know cars. It's never been a fascination with me. But I know it is with many of you out there, and this is why I bring it up. I want you, for those of you that are into high line, exotic vehicles, I want you to go to magden motors.com. That's M-A-G-D-E-N-Moters.com. They've got a premier high-line

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No, it was not a great weekend of football. There weren't any particular memorable games. You know, I... The Dallas loss. Yeah, Dallas lost, but I picked Green Bay to win that game. You did? I thought Green Bay has been playing great down the stretch, and you can bank on Dallas's ability to self-destruct. I mean, it's like the old Washington team before Josh Harris arrived, the aura of self-destruction.

And I just think you could bank on that given with the fact that Jordan Loves played great, down the stretch. And I just thought that it was a line for that. I did think the Rams, though, would beat the Lions. And I was off about that. I thought the Rams had also played well

down the stretch. The team I saw take the Ravens to overtime, I thought would just be too much for the Lions to handle, particularly their receivers. And give the Lions credit. Give Dan Campbell credit for pulling it off.

Yeah, you're right. Five of the six games, you know, determined, decided by 14 or more points. The average margin of victory all weekend long, including the one-point game, the only competitive game, the Detroit Ram game, 17.3 points. So it was not a compelling weekend of games for sure. I still think that the number one storyline from the weekend was Dallas. not just losing but being embarrassed in their loss against Green Bay. And as of the recording of this podcast, still no news on McCarthy, but it's got to be coming, right, Tommy? There's no way Jerry's sticking with McCarthy. Well, let's take that. I agree with you. Like I texted you during, you know, while the game was going on,

that there's no way he survived this. This is just such an embarrassing defeat for them, considering the talent that we believe they had. But here's what complicates it, why Jerry should be just like hot to do this right now and get rid of McCarthy. It's the coaching candidates who are available. Yes, yes.

That's what's driving this. And this is why Nick Soriano should be on that same hot. Suriani, yeah. You know? Yeah. Because, I mean, if you're in a Philly owner and you're thinking, I got Mike Braybaud out there.

I got Jim Harbaugh out there. I got Belichick out there. It's the availability of the pool that has to give every owner who has to have second thoughts about his coach reason to say pull the trigger. Yeah. It's so true. And if Siriani and Tomlin and McCarthy, I mean, not only do you have a deep pool of candidates, you've got a lot of openings all of a sudden. So, yeah, that is true.

I expect McCarthy to be gone. As far as Siriani goes, I have no idea. That team, though, did end up having one of the all-time NFL collapses. There are a couple of Washington teams, interestingly, that I remember as big-time collapses, not on the scale of this because this was a defending NFC champion, a near Super Bowl winner, 10 and 1, everybody picking them in the 49ers to play in the NFC title game, maybe another rematch between the,

or maybe the Eagles winning the Super Bowl this year. But they lost five of their final six regular season games and then didn't just get beat last night. They got crushed and they looked completely. sideways, like just unmotivated. I've never seen a worse tackling night than the night last night by the Eagles. But there are two teams that I remember. Washington in the 1978 season, it was the first season after George Allen. It was Jack Pardee's first year. They started off 6 and 0. I mean, the town was going. pulling nuts over jack parties first season and how good this team was.

They had beaten Dallas on Monday night football 9 to 5. It's a famous game because on the final play of the game, Thysman took a safety, ran through the back of the end zone, but started high stepping and pumping the football into like Cliff Harris' face as he ran out of the back of the end zone. And then all hell broke loose. They went eight and eight. They lost, you know, they were six and oh, and they ended up losing eight of their final ten games, and they missed the playoffs.

But the other season was the last season at RFK, and this was such a disappointing season. The 1996 season, they started off seven and one. And they were an offensive juggernaut in that beginning of the season. They were putting up points. Gus Ferrat was having a really good season. You know, it was a little bit of a house-of-card situation because they weren't very good on defense, but they were seven and one.

And understand this, that's now five years removed from the 91 team. The 92 team had gone to the playoffs and had won a playoff game, but you had gone 93, 94, 95 with three bad teams in a row. Norve's first two teams, follow. Richie Pettibone's team. And so the last year at RFK starting off seven and one, it's like, oh my God, we're back. We're back. And they went nine and seven. They won two games the rest of the way, finished two and six and missed the playoffs all together and missed on an opportunity to finish up RFK with a game for the division against the Cowboys in the season finale. But this Philadelphia

is much more high profile than those Washington teams. This was really a collapse. But what's interesting about their season is going back to the first Washington game. I talked about it on the podcast. I'm like, it was a really good day for Sam Hal and the Washington offense. But man, that Philly defense looks slow to me. I remember specifically saying Bradbury looks slow to me. They're secondary.

I mean, just everybody was wide open. And it was really a harbinger of things to come. I think Scott last night on the postgame show was talking to Ryan Clark or somebody and said, look, we should have known when Washington, you know, that they barely beat Washington twice and gave up so many points. And it's true. I mean, they gave up 31 and they gave up. and they gave up 31 twice to Washington.

Their defense was horrible. It shouldn't have been that bad either because they were better up front, but they were old and slow in the secondary. But last night they couldn't tackle, and then they couldn't protect Hertz. I couldn't believe how easy it was to rattle and get to Hertz. And they got blown out 32 to 9. I mean, it was 16.

to nine at halftime. They hit that one big play, that bomb to Devontas Smith. But yeah, Philadelphia goes from 10 and 1 to an 11 and 7 basically finish, a 1 and 6 finish. What a collapse. And so Tampa, Tampa, Houston, and Green Bay are in your final eight. The Buffalo Pittsburgh game, Mike Tomlin, I just, I don't know how that team won 10 games. And then I don't know how it comes back from 21 down to make it a 2417 legitimate game in the fourth quarter.

He is a hell of a coach, a hell of a leader, a hell of a mentor, all of those things. But here is what he's not very good at. And this is frustrated Pittsburgh fans, Big Tony and others for years. He's just not a great in-game strategist. And I'll give you the example yesterday that drove anybody that was watching absolutely nuts if you wanted Pittsburgh or you wanted Pittsburgh to cover. Sorry for the gambling reference. Pittsburgh had it 21 to 7. And Buffalo had the ball at the end of the first half.

And Buffalo was scheduled to get the ball to start the second half. And Buffalo's punter had hurt himself badly, a hamstring injury. They get a sack with 45 seconds to go, and it's second and 17, and Pittsburgh's got all three timeouts left, and they don't use them. That's massive negligence in clock management. You're down two touchdowns. You are not getting the ball to start the second half. Their punter is hurt. You have got to use your timeouts, and yeah, it's Buffalo, and it's Josh. Allen and they may turn that second and 17 into a first and 10 at your 25-yard line in one play. Understood.

But you're going to get beat more likely than not. So let's get beat going down trying to get another possession before we don't see the ball for like an hour of real time. That's what's frustrated the Steelers fans about Tomlin. But other than that, I don't know what frustrates them about him because that team had no business winning 10 games. That team had no business being down 21-0 and turning it into a ball game at 2417 in the fourth quarter. Whatever he does to motivate, he's a master at it because his teams are consistently, and I'm talking about the post-Bent teams, the post-Ben Rathlisberger teams, they have overachieved. and I don't think any NFL fan could describe it as anything other than that. Mason Rudolph was the quarterback for crying out loud.

I know, and you saw the press conference when somebody asked him about his contract, he walked off? Yeah, I did. Yeah. You know what? He's gotten to the point where he's been so great in press conferences that he can walk off a couple of times and be good with me. So we're down to the final eight here, and I wanted to point something out that my buddy Jay, of the eight teams left seven have quarterbacks that were drafted in the first round five of the eight have quarterbacks who were drafted in the top ten i know that we will have a lot more to discuss

as it relates to number two in the coming weeks and months ahead but this is why you have to be thinking about quarterback at number two. It is still more likely than not that you'll get it wrong. It's like a one out of three in the top half of the first round. But these are where teams that have sustained success, this is where they get their quarterbacks. Brock Purdy's a needle in a haystack. Dak Prescott's never won more than one playoff game.

Kirk Cousins is never one more than one playoff game. It just doesn't come from day three. a lot more often than not. So I know that some of you are still invested in building around Sam Howell, the fifth rounder, and got really upset with me when I talked about, look, fifth rounders typically don't make it. Typically you find your quarterbacks on the better teams in the first round.

And really the top 10. We got number two overall. This has got to be a quarterback year for them. But first blush on these games. I really like San Francisco and Baltimore to pummel Houston and Green Bay. They may be smell test picks by the time we get to Friday, but I really do like the two best teams in the league this year to really get after Green Bay and Houston,

who are great stories, Houston in particular, but Green Bay also because they're the youngest team in the league with Jordan Love. I mean, these are two teams to keep an eye on here in the coming years, but it's not their time. It usually takes, you know, some time to get there. And I think Baltimore and San Francisco win big on Saturday. Did you want to talk about the RG3 thing? We should, right?

Yeah, we should. I just think, I just can't believe how this guy injects himself into so much ridiculous, trivial and embarrassing conversations. He's such a goofball. he really is well yeah I mean he's just he's he's a textbook narcissist but but beyond that he does he does get attention man he has figured out uh how to and look from his standpoint i don't maybe he is monetizing this social media presence that he has in connection that he has with a lot of people to a point where we would both be saying, well, of course, keep it up.

But let me just tell you what we're talking about. Jay Gruden, during the game last night, tweeted out, if I ever put a quarterback through what Philly is putting Jalen through, I apologize. If I ever put a quarterback through what Philly is putting Jalen through, I apologize. pick up a blitz exclamation point. First of all, that was a spot-on, of course, analysis if you were watching the game. They were all talking about it last night. The Manning cast was it's like, oh my God, where are the easy answers for Jalen Hertz against what Todd Bowles is doing?

I mean, they had no answer for what Bowles was doing. So Gruden was just, you know, making a comment about the game. and an RG3 writes first of all he posts a picture of himself with head tilted down, glasses tilted down like, excuse me, and he writes

say what? And Jay Gruden writes back you weren't prepared, Robert, to which Robert responds, quote, you told me you didn't know how to coach a quarterback who could throw and run like me, so looks like you weren't prepared, Jay?

Oh, hashtag know your why, Robert. I mean, the whole reason for hiring Jay was so that you could play quarterback the way you wanted and Dan wanted you to play quarterback. Hashtag this is for us, the movement. Yes, you told Mike Shanahan, you weren't a running quarterback. You wanted to be a pocket passer. That's why Jake Gruden was here. We get to play the way we want to play hashtag the movement.

Remember that? I mean, the whole thing is just so hysterically funny. Well, I mean, look, again, if this is somehow he's able to monetize this stuff in a way that others aren't, because he does get, I mean, thousands and thousands of retweets and comments. and they broke you, Robert. They broke, you know, the whole thing. But I don't know. What was the part with Brian again?

Let me find that part. Brian got after Robert, too. No, he got after Jay. He got after Jay. He got after Jay. Really hard, too. Yeah. Well, I don't think they ever liked each other.

In fact, I'm pretty sure that Jay never wanted to go on with Brian, and Brian didn't have any love for Jay when he was the coach. And you know, everybody gets along with us, right? Everybody gets along with us. Yes. Even the people who aimy. Yeah. Oh, here it is.

Okay. So when Jay wrote about, you know, if I ever put a quarterback through what Philly is putting Jaylon through, I apologize, pick up a blitz. Brian commented, are you serious? with five question marks. Dude, please just effing disappear, exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point. And Jay responded, I are a punt returner.

Be quiet. I think he was trying to say, you are a punt returner. Be quiet. And Brian said, I was way better at all of my jobs than you were any of yours. You are a joke to which Jay said, you have criticized every coach that has ever coached in D.C. Why don't you coach punt return team would be sick?

Yeah. I love Brian and I love Jay coming on with me. I think Jay is a great guest and I think he's a good football analyst. But Brian has been relentless on every coach that's coached here, no doubt. Brian's been relentless on every player when they don't play well. He is not afraid to share the way he feels in the moment he's feeling it, which is why he's had success doing what he's been doing. Yes, yes.

And by the way, I bet you Brian would be a good coach, although in today's day and age, would they handle Brian's coaching? Because Brian would be a tough coach. Brian's smart, though. He'd be a good coach, but he'd be a tough coach. You know, the one year I covered the football team in 92 as a beat writer. Brian was one of the best guys to deal with because he was smart. He is smart.

He didn't. And he was always a go-to guy to have something to say. And it was usually very well thought out. Yeah. But he would be incredibly tough, don't you think? Oh, yes. I mean, he'd be very demanding. Yeah.

All right. You got anything else? This is a long show. here today, I think. We had a lot to cover. But you know what? It was good stuff, and I think you should charge people to listen to this show. It was that good. Well, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. I'm just going to ask everybody, again, to rate us, review us nicely, because

that's how you can pay us back. Thank you for that. All right. I guess we are done for the day, right? We're done for the day. I'll be back tomorrow. See you, boss.