The Kevin Sheehan Show - Adrian Peterson

Episode Date: September 10, 2019

Kevin and Thom opened with the question of the day....did Jay Gruden really screw up deactivating Adrian Peterson on Sunday in Philadelphia? Lots more on the Skins-Eagles and a look ahead to Skins-Cowboys. Some Monday Night Football follow up too. <p> </p><p>Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices">podcastchoices.com/adchoices</a></p> Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You want it. You need it. It's what everyone's talking about. The Kevin Sheehan Show. Now here's Kevin. You're listening to The Sports Fix. Yeah, Tommy is here. Aaron is here. We're all here. And we're going to have some fun today in a short sprint mode because we've all got things to do this afternoon. So we apologize for that. That's my fault because we had some issues with the studio this morning. So we are going to have this studio up and running for 45 minutes. which will give us a quick 45-minute podcast for you today. I guess, you know, when I think about it now, I didn't even have to mention that. We could have just gotten to 45 minutes and stopped. Yes. And people would have said, hey, what's the deal? Why is it so short?

But I'm telling you up front, it's because we're getting started late today because we had issues with the studio. And now we've got people like Tom and Aaron that have other responsibilities this afternoon. So let's get to it. First of all, good week to you. I haven't seen you since last Thursday. We've had a lot transpire over the weekend. Oh, yes, absolutely. A lot.

I'd like to start with the things that I actually care about the most, and that is getting your reaction to the Redskins 32 to 27 loss to Philadelphia on Sunday. You were there. Yes, I was. You were in the locker room afterwards. What did you think of the overall day, the effort, and then the reaction to it? Well, I mean, the overall effort, first of all, Case Keenham was remarkable.

It's very good. He was very good. And in the first half... I mean, he missed some things. Don't get me wrong. Like the biggest play of the game he missed. In the first half, Jake Gruden should keep that first half video

when he goes to apply for another head coaching job and say, you see, look at that. That's what I can do. And that's not Aaron Rogers back there. That's Case Keenham. Right. And we were playing the Eagles. I mean, that's how good that first half was for him.

and then the decision to me I think the decision not to activate Adrian Peterson and this sense of urgency of using Darius Geis I thought that turned in the second half for them now I'm a real small minority on this and I'm sure you won't agree with me but there was a sequence of plays early in the third quarter where Redskins led 20 to 14 at that point

and they got the ball pretty deep in their own territory, maybe the 25 or maybe it was just the 25. And first down, Darius Geis, no gain. Second down, I think it was Case Keenum and complete pass. Third down, Darius Geis five-year loss. They had the ball for two minutes there, basically, and then they punted the ball from deep in their own territory. Darren Sproles, who has found the fountain of youth,

returned it to the 47-yard line. And then you had the 53-yarder to Deshawn Jackson for the touchdown to give Philly the lead. At that point, when they had the ball deep in their territory, you needed a running back who could grind it out.

You needed a guy who could just move the chains once. You know, twice would have been great, but just once to have moved the chains to have kept your defense off the field a little bit more, kept Philly's offense off the field a little bit more, being better field position when you punted the ball down the field to put Philly deeper in their own territory. That was when you needed Adrian Peterson.

Do I think, do I know Adrian Peterson would have been able to do that? I don't know if he would have, but I know he has done it. Darius Geis has never done it in an NFL game. That was when they needed just, They needed two first downs at that point. One would have been fine. Two would have been a gift at that point. And then they punt the ball,

and maybe you never see that to Sean Jackson touchdown pass after that. And to me, that illustrated the foolishness of not just benching Adrian Peterson, but this whole notion of special teams. And Jay alluded to it in the post-game press conference, talk about how impressive Darren Sproul was done. in the game. Well, if that's the case, why the sense of urgency for dressing and starting Darius Geis? What was the urgency? If this was a situation where you really felt you needed your special teams situation at that point, why play the rookie to start? If you're in a running back

dilemma, why go with the guy who still hasn't proven himself in an NFL game? I think Jay had a terrible, had a great first half, but it was overshadowed by his, really a foolhardy decision not to use Adrian Peterson. This is the great thing about what we do, and I was talking to Doc about this yesterday, about, you know, it seems like we get into this football season and with this particular franchise, and then what we do, which is cover this team and talk about this team, it's the gift that just keeps on giving. It never stops. It is a total lock that they're going to give you something other than the results of the game,

which more often than not are losses, to talk about and to be upset about, and to debate about. And all positions more times than not are reasonable. So I would just start with this. And I said this on the podcast yesterday with Cooley and on the radio show. After the defense failed them, the defense failed them, and the defense failed them, and the defense failed them, I would get to like the fourth reason they lost the game. That's my view. The defense gave up 308 yards, 25 points, and 8 of 10 on third down in the second half. And by the way, just for, you know, to mention this, even though it doesn't show out statistically as much,

the defense only allowed seven points in the first half, but Philadelphia drove the ball on them. You know, Philadelphia had a 12-play 50-yard drive. They went for it on a 4.5. worth and two. The only reason their first drive got derailed is Jackson got hit with the 15-yard penalty for fighting with Dunbar. They scored a touchdown on one, and then on another one, they had a penalty. So it's not like the defense was phenomenal in the first half, but it wasn't the glaring issue that it became in the second half when it essentially could not get off the field at all at any point in time. Philadelphia went touchdown drive, touchdown drive, touchdown down drive, field goal drive, kneel out one play to end the game. So I, in terms of just this game,

and I'll get to the Adrian Peterson stuff, it's what happened on their first drive in the second half when Geis gained nothing on a play in which, and then on second and 10, they were going to run them again, but there was a false start, all right, with Moses, and now you're first and second and 15, and then they ran them again, and Fletcher Cox completely blew up the interior of the line. Maybe Adrian Peterson on that first down play would have gotten seven yards, and then the false start would have been a second and eight instead of a second in 15. I don't know. Maybe.

I do know this, that Jay's success in the first half and the right game plan against Philadelphia was to attack Philadelphia's weakness, which was their secondary and not their interior front seven, trying to run the football against a team that's difficult to run the football against, and they were successful doing what he had the idea to do, what he and Kevin O'Connell game planned for, which was to throw the ball with, by the way, surprise weapons to all of us, not to them. Right. No one knew, I mean, we heard about Terry McLorn, hadn't seen it.

Now we know. That guy's got not only blazing speed, he's got separation skills, he's got hands, he can track. Anything you get him. So this immediate, you know, when he got into camp optimism and almost the day one, we were hearing, oh, he's not even going to play in special teams. He's going to be your lead receiver and we're like, really? Terry McLaurin, the guy they drafted in the third round? We just thought he was a gunner and a great specialty and may develop into a good receiver.

Well, we saw what they saw in the opener. I on the on the Peterson thing Tommy it's like my feeling yesterday and I came in today on radio and spent too long talking about it but the calls just kept coming I can't put this is a real hot button topic right now how the hell could Jay Gruden deactivate a Hall of Famer and you mentioned you know the players that they had up in lieu of Peterson you know in those players like the running back smallwood was in a special team snaps. You know, it's not like Adrian Peterson. So you would have more likely than not, who were you going to put down? Were you going to put down Chris Thompson? I'm going to put down Geis. Okay, you're going to put down Geis. Yeah. You're going to put down the guy who basically they told us a year ago when they drafted him. They stole him. He was a first round guy. This is Emmett Smith, Barry Sanders, and Jim Brown in reincarnated. We're so smart for drafting this guy.

And of course he gets hurt. The only reason that Adrian Peterson is on this roster is he got hurt in the preseason last year. And then Doug Williams did not ask for permission. He decided to beg for forgiveness and just go ahead and bring Adrian Peterson in for a workout. And Doug was right to do it. And Adrian was great last year. He wouldn't have been here had Geis gotten hurt. Had Geis not gotten hurt in the free season. They played Geis in the third preseason game. It looked really good. Yes, he did. And Peterson looked good in his one thing. Yes, he did. So you get into the area of the coach made a decision that he thought was in the best interest of the football team. Now,

it's hard to really debate strongly that they wouldn't have been better off with Peterson. You may be right. They could have been better off of Peterson, the experience, the opener, the stage. But I don't see any way in which Geis was healthy off being drafted where he was last year over the excitement, over what we were told we missed all last year, not having Geis to put him down in the opener. I can't imagine. imagine that that was ever going to be a possibility. So you're a prisoner of your own decision in that case. You're a prisoner of the decision to draft Darius Geis. No, you're a- prisoner of the fact that the player that you want to play and may be the right player to play

for the football team. Gice may have been the guy that Jay thinks gives him the best chance to win Sunday. Best chance going forward. The problem is, is the player you deactivated was Adrian Peterson. If it had been, you know, another journeyman running back that it had had a good year, let's just take Alfred Morris. Let's say Alfred Morris had come in last year and been, you know, the back for the Redskins when Geis got hurt. No one would have cared. No one would have, it was the fact that you were deactivating Adrian Peterson and then the stories came out about how, whoa, the locker room is not happy. You know, all of these veteran players in the locker room that have won so much, aren't happy. It's gone beyond that. Aaron, what did Ben say?

I just talked to Ben. Really? Yeah, I just talked to him because somebody texted me what he was reporting. Yes. And I called him because I didn't really understand what the text was. And Ben essentially believes that Gruden is the only Geis fan on the coaching staff. That the rest of the coaches believe that Adrian Peterson is just a flat out better player and would have been a better option for them not only in the opener, but moving forward.

Which, you know, is a knock on Geis and a credit to Adrian Peterson. Now, I do know that Jay does like Geis. I also know that Bruce likes Geis. Remember, Bruce didn't bring Adrian Peterson in last year. And we know how petty and small-minded he can be and jealous he can be. I don't think that this is the case here. I think Bruce and Dan and Jay and others in the organization have been excited to see Geis. They've been talking them up, Tommy.

I know that, but you've got to recognize a sense of patience and a sense of moment. If you all were forced in your mind to only address three running backs in this situation, Adrian Peterson has to be one or the running backs. Maybe next week if you use four running backs. So who would you have sat? You would have sat, guys. I would have sat Geis. What if, what would one more week coming off an injury? What would that have killed? As it turned out, he got hurt in the game and may not be back for another week or two. But, you know, you mentioned the defense. And what I pointed out, gets. to the heart of what was part of the problem

with the defense. If you can move the chains in that early third quarter drive one first down, maybe two first downs, then the defense isn't on the field that long. And then, and then when they are on the

field, they're not defending from the 47-yard line. Of course. In that particular spot, you want to move the change, you want to hit a couple of other big plays. I mean, why stop? Like, I at 17-0-0, and I didn't feel this in the moment, so this is hindsight and going back. A lot of people kept telling me yesterday and last night, you know, when you got that lead,

if you're Gibbs or you're Marty Schottenheimer and you got Rigo or you got George Rogers, you got Ernest Binder and going through all the grades, you start to play smash-mouth football. Well, the truth is, is that's what Jay tried to do up 17-0. He ran Geist for five yards, ran him for another five, and then they got a penalty. They got a holding penalty that set him back and he ran him again. So they did attempt and they got a little bit conservative

on the drive up 17-0. The next drive up 17-7, they ran Thompson twice. So look, I'm really my, my, I want to just remind me to bring up Doc Walker's point to you because I think it's the best point about this whole

thing and why Adrian Peterson should have been active. But when it comes to football and 2019. I subscribe to what the greatest organization in the league, if not all a sports, subscribes to. And that is, whatever it takes to win, today we may throw it 45 times and run at 10, and next week we may run it 45 times and throw it 10 and throw it 15. But we're going to do what we think is the right thing to do against this particular team. And Jay had it right in the first half. They threw it 22 times. They ran it 10. It was to throw. He knew,

knew that case was, by the way, let's be honest here, we haven't seen an offense hum like that since 2016 with this team. Not one time last year. Did they stretch the field and attack a defense via the throw like they did in the first half on Sunday? Everything Jay Gruden did in that first half seemed to work. Right. So here was Doc's point on Peterson. Doc's point on Peterson, which was a good one. I had this conversation with him yesterday afternoon off the air. He said, the one reason you don't deactivate Adrian Peterson is you don't put that pressure on Geis. You don't create the situation where the locker room is talking about Adrian Peterson being deactivated before your first time near rookie running back is going to play his first game.

That's an excellent point. It's an excellent point. It put him in this position. I don't know how he handled it. Maybe he handled it fine. But you risked putting him in that position of it being awkward before his first game. Like, I'm getting ready to go out and play my first NFL game. And my brother's over here are all talking about the other brother that got deactivated.

And by the way, I didn't want him deactivated. It's not my fault. That's the coach's decision. I think that's the best point out of all of them as to why Adrian Peterson should have been activated. You know, even if it wasn't the right football, technical football decision, because he needed Wendell Smallwood for 19 snaps on specialty. teams. It is the, you don't want to put Geis into the position of feeling badly about Adrian Peterson being deactivated. Not in his first NFL start. Not in his first start. Yeah.

I mean, look, I mean, I agree with all that. You know, it just, it was, it was a, it was a wrong decision. And then Jay Gruden looked really foolish in a post game press conference with a smart as comments. Yes. About, you know, running the ball 55 times from the I formation. From the I eye formation. So what it's real, real quickly, what do you think he specifically, who do you think he specifically was talking to there? You know, I don't know. Who do you have a theory? I don't know anything. I don't know. My theory is, is that he, you know, that Adrian's come to him, which we, we know has been a part of the story last year to say that he doesn't love running from the gun as much. You know, that he, his best running plays are from the eye formation with,

the quarterback under center. You know, so there's that part of it. I also wonder whether or not some coaches are like, Adrian's our best back. Let's tweak the running game to fit his strengths. And Jay's like, no, we've got this system. This is what we run, and it's perfect for Darius. You know, I think there could be some of that.

But what it was an indication of, you know, because we know Jay Gruden now, you know, he talks. Yeah. He was, it was sarcastic and it was frustration. And by the way, on a day in which, I don't know if you picked up on this, but after the game and then yesterday, he's really, really upset with the defensive coaching staff. He thinks that team defensively wasn't prepared enough,

the miscommunications in the secondary, and didn't adjust enough in the second half to no pass rush pressure in the first half. And this goes back to their attempt to replace Minuscchi. They did everything they could. Remember, even Minnowski tried to replace. place himself. He was in on all the meetings. Yes, he was. If you believe that. Um, and I do believe that, you know, Jay potentially was a part of that, that Jay looked at their team last year and said,

we've got too much talent to be given up 40 points in two and a half quarters to the Giants. We've got too much talent to get torched like we did against Atlanta or New Orleans or, or, you know, even some of the other teams late in the year. When, you know, Dallas and Philly in the, in the back-to-back, you know, Thanksgiving, then the, Monday night game. Because I think they do all believe they've got talent defensively. And one of the takeaways from this game is a lot of our fans think Jay's on the immediate hot seat.

And by the way, I wouldn't have any problem with that. I didn't want Jake to come back for 2019. Right. But Minoski's got to be on the hot seat. Oh, got to be. Got to go situation if they get torched again. Yeah. This week by the Cowboys.

Look, I know it's not exactly the same thing. I know they're going to sling it more with Case Keenham. But still, the formula that got them six wins in the first nine games last year still has to be the basic formula that they used to win this year. I don't know if I agree with you after seeing one game. And I'm trying not to overreact. Try not to overreact here. I like that formula.

Run the football, stop the run, win the turnover battle, play great defense. special teams. I don't mind that formula, but that formula does have a cap to the upside in today's game. Like, we knew sitting here last year watching it, even though we were complimenting it. I think we agreed on this. It was limited. That it was limited offensively. Like, you could see they really struggled to throw the football in a league where you've got to throw the football. I get that. In this situation,

when you've got the lead, I still think this is a team that can't play from behind. I think as much as you might have liked it, this team is going to lose most shootouts. They get it. I'm not advocating for a shootout. I'm advocating for a really good defense and an offense that's aggressive. Well, once you get the lead, I think you're capable of being aggressive. Right.

Once you get the lead, I think you've got to go back to last year's game plan a little bit more. Well, he tried to. That's the thing. I just went through it. At 17-0, he ran the ball, too. twice and they got a holding penalty and they ended up with, you know, second long and third and long. And then on the fourth drive, after going touchdown, field goal, touching the fifth drive of the half, they ran it two times on that drive. And then, you know, to start the third

quarter after Philadelphia opened up with a 12-place, 75-yard, seven-minute drive, they ran Geis for no gain, and then Moses got a false start, and they ran Geis for minus five. I know. You know, all I kept hearing was they should have gotten, they should have tried to protect the lead, they should have run it. He did try to run it when they got the 17-year. nothing lead, which by the way, I don't think, it's easy to say it now, I think they should have stayed on the attack. The one thing Philadelphia could not do, they couldn't cover, even in the second half when Philadelphia finally took the lead and the skins got it back for the second time. I tweeted this out during that commercial break. Better get back to being aggressive and throw the

football. And they went deep on first and 10, play action, and McClearns got 15 yards of separation for the touchdown that takes him to 27, 21. We're 20. 28, 21, 26, 21, if they go for two there. And they just missed it. You know, and by the way, like B. Mitch said to me yesterday, that's football. You miss that stuff. Yeah, you do, but it was the right play call. That was their better opportunity to win the game was to keep throwing it.

And Jay did get a little bit conservative with the lead. And the penalties obviously hurt. And then the drop passes on that third drive of the, um, uh, was it the, the third drive of the first second third drive of the second half was when you had a couple of drops.

You had a Richardson drop and you had a Vernon Davis drop. Actually, I'm sorry, that's my fault. That was the second drive. The deep shot missed a McLorn, then Richardson dropped what would have been a first down catch, and then Vernon had a chance to pull in

what would have been close to a third and ten catch, but there was a penalty on that. Anyway, his penalties drops in a terrible defense that doomed them in the second half. Terrible defense being number one, in my view. I think you're in love with that offense. I'm not in love with it yet. I was impressed and encouraged by it. Here's what you can take away from the Philly game.

Case Keenum is not going to go zero for interceptions most days. He threw 15 interceptions last year in Denver. And this is a team where turnovers will cripple them. Well, Tommy, that's where I would add to how bad the defense was. They gave up 25 points, 302 yards, it gave up 21 minutes of time of possession, 8 for 10 on third down. In Philadelphia, got all those points by driving long distances, not by getting turnovers in short fields. You know, the Redskins offense didn't contribute. The special teams didn't contribute to the demise or to the Philadelphia points.

Now, you can say, well, the offense needed to move the football. I understand that. Can't commit penalties and be in second and 20. You can't miss. And by the way, I'm not in love with this offense yet. I was encouraged by it because what I saw is I saw what Jay does best. Jay gets people open in a pass offense. And if he's got a quarterback that he has a fit with and Keenham may be a good fit for him,

you could see the ball was coming out early. It was going to the right places. Yes, it was. You know, this was the opposite of what you got last year. A lot of you are going to say, stop bashing Alex Smith. I love Alex Smith. He was not a good fit for Jake Rudin. And what you saw on the first half Sunday, you didn't see one time last year.

Not once. It's been since 2016, 2017, since you've seen that. So now, Case missed some stuff. He missed the deep one to McLaren. That's unfortunate. That happens in football. Good quarterback sometimes overthrow a wide open guy. He had some balls dropped on him.

He threw inaccurately a few times. Should have been picked in the first half. a drop on a quick slant. But for the most part, yeah, one game, trying not to overreact to week one, I thought that Keenham played well, their receivers. How would we, we didn't know anything about them. They looked impressive. And by the way, I was not against Geist starting.

I was for Geist getting in there and playing. He's your future. They've been telling us this guy is going to be a dynamic. And look at running backs in this league. Tommy, it's all about youth. I mean, the impact that, you know, Kareem Hunt, that Zeke Elliott, that Alvin Kamarro, like all the great impact game-changing running backs are all young. That's the position. So I was hopeful that Geis was going to be the next one of those. And I think they were too. The bigger takeaway from this game after the defense and the defensive coaching staff

and the defensive coordinator who could be in trouble is that you, your second round pick that you, you know, told everybody you stole. By the way, they traded back. So if they really thought they were stealing him, wouldn't they had just taken him with their first second round pick? Hello. And the reporting at the time from Schefter was that they were going to take Kerry on Johnson, but Detroit took him the pick before. I mean, just real quickly, just I won't get stuck on this. But they told you they stole a first round talent, but they knew to trade back into the second round that he would be there. You know, come on. So the thing about Geis here is if he's your future or if he was supposed to be the guy this year,

what you've learned here in a year in a few months, he's injury-prone. He may never help you. May never help you as a second-round pick. And again, in this situation where you've determined you can only dress three running backs, I don't see how you sit the guy

that averaged over four yards of carry for you last year, who was the offensive MVP. I mean, instead of sitting the rookie, who hasn't played an NFL down yet, who's still coming off, you know, recovering from knee surgery. What's the problem with resting him another week? Well, look, I'm not going to argue that point. I was ready to see Geis.

I wasn't displeased that he was going to be the starting running back. I was a little bit curious about it. First of all, I don't think Jay should have told people. You know, he seemed so anxious to tell everybody Darius was his guy. Oh, yeah. And we know the reporting from the junkies is that Jay wanted to, to cut Peterson. Yeah.

By the way, which I said at the time, I don't think that's a good idea. You got a guy that's been injury prone. Like, who's going to be the guy if you lose Geis again, which they have now lost Geis again? So it's going to be a moot point come this Sunday because Peterson's going to be in the starting lineup. But here's the thing that we just don't know as fans. We have no idea who would have been the right guy to sit. Let's just, I want to take Geis out of the equation because you were.

They weren't going to sit Geis. You know, he played really well in that preseason game. There's been a lot of excitement about seeing him. It would have been very curious had they deactivated Geis. Not necessarily for the same explanation. You couldn't use the same explanation for benching Geis that you did for Peterson? No. Why not?

Because Geis is the future and Geis was the guy that was supposed to be the guy last year. And Geisn't finally looked healthy and we saw him in a preseason game where he was exceptional. A preseason game. I understand that. But the point is that there was excitement. after that preseason game. I get that. And these are how you make your coaching decisions?

If you, no, I think he made his coaching decision with the intention of putting the 46 players on the field that gave him the best chance to win. I do. That's absurd. I mean, you can't not put Adrian Peterson on there if you're including that.

But again, this is what I was going to get to, is what I don't know. I can't sit there and judge, you know, interior blocking on extra points or exterior wing blocking on a field goal. or, you know, punt coverage, that shit's really hard for most of us. Like, do we really know that if, let me pick out a guy with a bunch of special team,

or just a few, like Montez Sweat took five special team snaps in the game. Would it have been better to have Adrian Peterson active? Sweets the wrong guy, because you don't want to deactivate your first round pick. see DRC only had one special team snap in the game in part because he got hurt. It's hard because all of these guys had double-digit special team snaps. So let me use sweat. Would it have been better for sweat to be deactivated, not play any of the 51 defensive snaps that he played or the five? That's the wrong example.

I've got to find a better example. It's hard to. This is the point here. Like who is it? there was one player, you know, that did not take a snap in the game. Dwayne Haskins, okay? You're not going to deactivate your backup quarterback. No, you're not.

You can't do that. But you can deactivate a running back, which he did. He just deactivated the wrong one. Wendell Smallwood would have been the decision to make, and you would have taken one of these other players that didn't get the 19 snaps that Smallwood got on special teams, and you would have made them, I would assume, play his 19. He didn't have three special team snaps.

Wendell Smallwood played 19 special team snaps on Sunday. All I'm saying is this is the kind of thing where coaches are like, okay, if this isn't Adrian Peterson, it's like a no-brainer. This is the running back that sits. But he's a Hall of Famer. And by the way, he's good and can help us. But he doesn't play special teams. Are we going to take Troy Apkey, who's a free safety, did not play one defensive snap, 23 special team snaps. So 23.

Vaheo, linebacker, 19 special team snaps. Are we going to take them and sit them and then try to make it up with another player? That seems like it would have been the only way. You see, I don't understand. I don't understand either. Why that keeps, you know, being a reason. It's not a reason. What I'm saying is I don't know if that's easy or difficult from a coach's standpoint when it comes to special teams.

I don't know the answer to that. We didn't know that Darius Geis would struggle. on Sunday. We didn't know that. I don't even think it was hard to evaluate his performance personally. I don't know that he's struggled. Oh, he's struggled. And we don't know if Adrian Peterson would have struggled.

Right. That's an unknowable. What we do know is what Adrian Peterson has done. Right. And he has done well in situations like that in the past. Right. Over his career. We have no track record of the other guy.

I think it's a foolish coaching decision to go with the excitement, the promise, the potential of Darius Geis in exchange for benching Adrianne Peterson. I just think that's foolish. And I think, look, they may have lost the game anyway, but I think in that early in that, you know, when they first got the ball back in the third quarter, that that drive, I think that was the death now.

I think, you know, next time Philly got the ball, they were 2120. I mean, Philly had the ball for almost 13 minutes in the third quarter. Yeah, they had it for 21 plus in the entire second half. They didn't get stopped. They were not stopped in the second half. The only way to stop them was it to have a deal. Is to keep the off the field.

Right, of course. And if they didn't commit penalties, drop passes, and if they had connected on the one bomb, then it would have a totally different context. I meant Philly off. I meant Philly offense off the field. I know what you meant. But one last point in this,

because I think this is what was in the mind of Jay Gruden and Bruce Allen and maybe one or two others, apparently not the rest of the coaching staff. Kareem Hunt was a rookie third rounder, Aaron. Was he a third rounder? Yes. So, you know, they opened up his rookie season in Foxborough against the defending champion Patriots that particular season. That was the Thursday night opener.

Nobody really knew who Kareem Hunt was. And they had some other veteran running backs that had been on that roster in recent years. There's nobody of significance. I'm trying to think who they were. Well, don't forget he was only starting because Spencer Ware had torn his ACL in pretty season. Right. Let's just say, though, that Spencer Ware, Charkandric West, whoever else the Kansas City veteran backs were, let's just say that, you know, there's some discussion like, look, we really like Kareem. We think he can play, but this is, you know, a pressure opener.

Don't want to put all the pressure on him. And it's Foxborough against the defending champions. Let's make sure our veterans are up and they get the bulk of the carries. Kareem Hunt, that night, I don't remember his stats, although I just pulled them up. He became a star on that night. And I do think in the back of Jay's mind and Bruce's mind is that they missed out on one of those star rookie running backs last year by not having geis, and they're ready to see him. They believe in his talent.

They believe he's a dynamic game changer. And by the way, if you knew you had the next Kareem Hunt, I'm just using one example. there's no way in hell I'd start Adrian Peterson if I thought that he was the next Kareem Hunt and that putting him out there he was going to end up with 17 carries 148 yards 5 catches 98 yards and 3 touchdowns against the Patriots. Coaches get fired for potential all the time.

Understand that, but that's one of those positions where the young players, the rookie players that have the talent do perform and do perform right from the get-go. We've seen that our whole lifetime when it comes to the running back position in the NFL. and save for Alfred Morris. They don't need to sit. We've never seen it here in Washington.

They haven't drafted a great running back. When's the last running back they drafted? We don't know if they drafted a great running back. We don't. And I wasn't a big fan of Geis. I'm not totally against them. There were just other running backs that I liked a lot more coming out of that draft. But in terms of the Redskins all time, when's the last time they drafted a rookie running back,

a running back in the first two rounds? Was, was, uh, I don't know. Lidel Betz, was he a second round pick? He may have been. I don't know if he was or not. You seem bored by this all this. Well, I mean, let's not go into the last time they drafted and running back in the first two rounds. I'm like a dog with a bone when it comes to this stuff.

I've got to find out. So I'm going to find out. So you're just going to sit there and wait. Sorry. Liddle Bets was the second round of the 2002 draft. There you go. See? Didn't even need to pull up pro football reference.

But Lidel Bets was not like this dynamic back. And that was a later pick in this. in the second round, I believe. Yes. 56th overall. Yeah, there you go. And by the way, what was Geiss? He was probably 50-something overall, right?

Probably. Yeah, 59. Yeah, there you go. But there was more excitement about Geis than there was bets. Last year's draft, if you recall, the excitement was much more about Geis than it was about Duran Payne, who was the first round pick. Right, well, look at this excitement you're talking about.

Yeah. Who's it coming from? Well, the organization, don't you remember after that second round, the way they, you know, their move? And this is the time you decide to believe them? No, I didn't say I did believe them. In fact, I didn't believe them. All right, then. So what do we care that the organization was excited?

I'm giving you why they wanted to see him out on the field. Why the front office and even the coach, I believe, wanted to see him in what they thought they were missing last year. My God, somebody in that room has got to have a brain. to say, what are you talking about? You've got a new quarterback in your system here. You've got new wide receivers, except for Paul Richardson, and you're going to start a rookie running back when you've got Adrian Peterson in street clothes on the field.

What kind of fool are you? Somebody in the room has to say that. I think the conversation for me would have gone like this. And I'm not going to use Doc's reason, which is the best reason I've heard, I didn't think of it and I wouldn't have thought about it in the moment. I would have just said, do you know that if we deactivate Adrian Peterson, this is going to be a massive story? And by the way, there's some players in our locker room.

Adrian's beloved in the locker room that are not going to be happy. Isn't this unnecessary? We're playing the Eagles. It's the opener. We got some players that are playing the first game. We got 20 new players on this roster. Do we really want the additional story and the aggravation of having to do? deal with why we deactivated a Hall of Fame running back? That would have been my conversation.

But Kevin, you know, this is Jay Gruden. Kevin, I need Smallwood on teams. Adrian doesn't play teams. Find somebody to take Smallwood's 19 snaps from the linebacker or DB's room. Were they going to play 18? Make them play 37 snaps now. We don't need, we don't need this. At the same time, I believe it's the coach's decision, ultimately on game day. And Tommy, the last point I'll make on this. I don't want to hear from these players. I don't want to hear from Morgan Moses telling publicly, saying publicly on JFK yesterday. This was a slapping his face and all of our faces, and I'm going to go in and have a conversation with the coach about it. You know what you should do, Morgan Moses? Not commit so many penalties. You led the league in penalties last year,

number one in the league last year in penalties. He's already off to another banner start with a ton of penalties from Sunday. How about you do your job and let the coach in the organization worry about this. This is where a culture squashes that, a good culture. You're not going to hear anybody, first of all, in a good culture, they probably wouldn't have made that decision. But if they had made that decision, they would have had players that would have said, that's a coach's decision. Listen, I understand from an organization viewpoint why you would want that. Let me just say, and I think this needs to be reminded every chance that I can do this.

At some point, they should put DJ Sweringer in a ring of honor. Okay? What's your favorite? What's your best line from that? Well, because this guy basically predicted on the way out everything we saw happen yesterday on the field with this defense. This guy told you that the defense was in disarray, that the head coach, you know, I mean, was running a camp, you know,

instead of tough practices. As much as you may have not liked DJ Sweringer mouthing off, he seemed to speak the truth, and it gets exposed now all the time. My favorite, all-time, one of my top five favorite Tom Levero lines from a column was when DJ Sweringer got cut. Tommy wrote that if they really wanted to punish Sweringer,

they would have made him stay. That's my all-time favorites. When I read that, which was Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, because you get cut on Christmas Eve, I'm like, that is funny. They would have made, if they really wanted to punish him, they would have made him stay. But you saw it with the way they got exposed in the secondary, the miscommunication from what Josh Norman said was going to be the greatest defense he's ever played with. Oh, God, yeah. I mean, I talked about this all day. Here we go.

All-time defense. Rob Ryan. five talent. It's the constant over-promising under-delivering. It's one game. I do think they've got good young defensive talent. My concern all summer was, would it be coached well enough? We'll see. I mean, I'm not going to judge him on one game. I'm not going to judge Montez Sweat, who I really liked on one game. He was lousy, by the way, and looks incredibly stiff. I went back and watched some of that game. It's the same thing I saw in the preseason. Smoot told me he's injured, and nobody knows this. This is not the flexible

relentless high-motor player that played at Mississippi State in the preseason or in the opener. Anyway, they've got Dallas this Sunday, and they are a mere four-point underdog now. Tommy, this game opened at six. It's down to four. You've been following this, right, Aaron? There is so much sharp money on the Redskins this Sunday. It's unbelievable the amount of sharp money on the Redskins in this game. I don't get it because I think Dallas is really good, but it's the NFL. And I'll tell you, recent impressions, move the public, and also move the contrarian sharps in the opposite direction. I know. I get how it works.

But, look, Sunday could basically be an extension of what the welcome home luncheon was. You know? No, because there's going to be a lot of people there. Yeah, they'll be cow. Yeah, like the welcome home luncheon, if they let cowboy fans in. Yes. That's basically what it's going to be like. Right. By the way, you know, remember back in the day and you know this,

and maybe I'm sharing something with all of you that you've never heard before, but there was a time where, you know, if you wore a cowboy's jersey to FedEx Field as a client in a suite or something like, you were invited by, you know, a suite holder invites people and accidentally invite some cowboy fans or maybe not accidentally, and that person wore a cowboy shirt that they would actually be told to take it off, you know. I have a feeling they'll be out there with fruit baskets welcoming the cowboy fans into the stadium on Sunday now. It could be a bad situation. By the way, how petty is that? Do you remember some of that stuff? Oh, yeah. I mean, Jesus, God. What a group. All right,

the two games last night real quickly. God, that first game was unbelievably good. But Bill O'Brien's a terrible coach. You know, he hits. Why do you say that? Cooley thinks so, too. Why do you think that? I mean, he just seems to freeze in the big moments. Well, what was the big moment there? Where did he freeze? On the final play, where they were in pre-vent with six seconds to go, that was a terrible decision by O'Brien. Well, actually, you wanted to talk about last night's game.

There's something we missed that I wanted to ask you about in the Redskins game. Okay. And that was Jay Gruden failing to call a timeout. Oh, I killed him for it. I mean, that's unbelievable. But he's terrible at that stuff. He's terrible. I mean, especially after you saw what you saw last night.

Yeah. Happened. Last night there were some issues, too, by the way. I mean, Sean Payton got lucky. I'll explain in a moment. But Jay Gruden had the ability to potentially score and line up for an onside kick, which happened. The problem was is that if they had recovered that onside kick, they barely had any time

left. But they did have a timeout left that he took to his locker room, which is just beyond stupid. I mean, he could have had another 15, 20 seconds in the event that he recovered the on-side kick. But trust me on this, he does not understand this. He is very limited when it comes to this stuff, as a lot of coaches are. But in that particular instance, that is just insane. Like, you're down 3220. I know most of the world's checked out, oh, the Redskins aren't going to win this game. I was still involved because of the plus 10 bet that I had made. It's somebody, by the way, Aaron, tried to tell me, you predicted the Redskins to get crushed.

I said to him on Twitter, like, dude, I played the Redskins a month ago at plus nine and told everybody that this game was going to be close in the opener. Predicted 2217, so I had the five-point difference. But you've got to prepare for this. You've got to have an understanding of game situation and clock and score. And like it would have occurred to him had they recovered the on-side kick. Shit, I still have a time left. I could have used that on offense.

I got a shot. I could have used that on offense and had 25. five seconds left instead of five. Yeah. But they don't think that way in the moment. He needs somebody to help him on that. Cooley has offered my services to him. He doesn't want him.

And by the way, the other thing about last night is, are you ready to get off the Denver Joe Flacco train? No. Get out of here. Well, it's not the Joe Flacco issue last night. I stayed up and watched that game. The Denver defense was a massive disappointment. Wow.

I mean, I really, I mean, I like Denver. to go deep into the postseason because of their defense before anything else. I think it's the best defense in the NFL on paper. Certainly no worse than the second or third. And they could not get off the field. Oakland was killing them. 10 for 14 on third down, they just couldn't get off the field at any point.

Flacco actually, he wasn't great. He was under siege the entire night. They've got issues along the offensive line. They lost Juan Jameson, the big free agent. They got the wrong quarterback if that's the way they're going to be under siege. all the time. Yeah, but Flacco didn't play poorly. Flacco led him on four scoring drives from the end of the second quarter

in the second half and kept him in the game. He wasn't great. I'm not suggesting like he carried them, but the story last night for Denver wasn't Flacco. It was that their top rated defense or perceived top rated defense couldn't get off the field on third down and couldn't stop Derek Carr. Derek Carr was 22 of 26. And they were 10 for 14 on third down, and two of them were penalties that they had picked up the first down, but they got called for penalties.

No, I'm not. I think Denver's defense is so good that it'll come back. I'm hoping last night was an aberration for them defensively and that we see the real defense, you know, emerge here in the season. But when you've got Chubb and you've got Von Miller and you don't sniff Derek Carr for the entire night, not one sack, the entire night for Denver. That's going to be a problem for them. I don't see that continuing. As far as Flacco goes, I think Flacco is the right fit for them. They do have some offensive line issues, which is a problem if Flacco's got a bad offensive line in front of them, no doubt about that. But he was not the reason they lost last night.

They lost last night because their vaunted defense was horrible last night. God, that game, by the way, the Oakland fans were so into that. Did you hear... I don't even watch the second game. You heard about the chance, the F-U-A-B chance? Really? Yeah. And the, you know, they were not happy. But that was a community of those crazed Raider fans that came together in the midst of this brown stuff for the final Monday night game ever in Oakland. And that was a, Aaron, did you stay up and watch it?

That was an intense crowd. I watched through the middle of third quarter. That was a great environment in Oakland. I mean, we remember what the Raiders were in Oakland. And that crowd last night showed out. out in a major way. I was so fascinated, but I could have seen that going either way. Like, I knew the crowd would be rabid, but I wasn't sure if it was going to be rabid in support or rabid against the team. Oh, yeah, it was in support of the team and against Antonio Brown.

Let's finish up with that. I spent some time yesterday talking about Brown. What are your thoughts? Well, everyone's, everyone is praising, not everyone, but there's a school of thought that is praising Antonio Brown for basically like he engineered this move to wind up playing for the Patriots all along. I think there's a good chance he's not on the roster by the end of the season.

I think this guy is a legitimate head case who will do one thing after another after another, whether it's Bill Belichick or Mike Tomlin to basically not be able to play as a team player. As much as

everyone thinks the Patriots can just Lay hands on a guy, and all of a sudden he'll go from crazy to healthy. That's not going to happen. I don't think he finishes the season with the Patriots. I mean, you know, I think you and I talked about this. I know I talked about this on Friday that the Patriots were the one place. It'll probably end up being there if it doesn't work in Oakland. I have no idea what's going to happen in New England.

I wouldn't bet against what you just said, and I wouldn't bet for the opposite, you know, of it completely, you know, working. I, because it is the, you know, it's the gold standard organization in this league. Now, they haven't made every wayward, you know, guy work. But the, you know, they've made some work, you know. And I just don't know if there's a comparable to this guy. This guy is a bad guy. Yeah.

You know, he is self-absorbed, but also mentally unstable and, you know, mean and he's a liar. He's a liar. And nothing illustrated more that he was, that, that he's a big liar than did you see this yesterday, that the video producer that produced that incredibly well done video that we all saw Friday night that I thought was going to end with, you know, the Nike swoosh. I thought it was a commercial when I first was watching it. And he had recorded the conversation with, with John Gruden. Well, the video producer who worked with Brown on this story, It said that Gruden approved the use of the telephone conversation. And I'll just read from this report.

The guy's name was Alejandro Narciso, speaking on the Dan Lebitard show yesterday, said that the recording that Brown last week did started when Agent Drew Rosenhaus told Brown that Gruden was on the phone. Narciso, the video producer and the videographer, videographer, kept taping while Brown took the call and later included. it in the video, but before it got released, Brown's marketing manager called the video guy and said, you can't do that until we get consent from the coach, from John Gruden. So Brown texted Gruden, showed him the video before it got released, and Gruden answered with three texts. The first one, wow, I love it. Second one, loved it. Third one, I love it. So with that, they said, there's your permission. Go ahead. You can run it because it's a two consent state.

Right. And so you had the permission from Gruden for Brown to go ahead and include this in the video. I mean, in that moment, if you believe the reporting that Brown had already consulted a social media expert to figure out the best way out of Oakland, there's Brown and Gruden having this text back and forth. what do you think about the video in the moment where they had just accepted his apology on that particular day? Yes. And they had said he's going to play against Denver. When all the while this guy was working them, he was working Gruden. And I don't know if Gruden's smart enough to figure out, you know, that while Brown obviously made himself out to be a selfish lying. I mean, that's dishonest in the moment.

What do you think of the video, coach? Will you give me permission all the while he's trying to get out of it? You know, he's a total whack job. He looks awful in the process. He may have lost $21 million in the process, but he made the Raiders look like fools in the process too. Yeah, he did. You know, because ultimately, they took this high road,

this odd high road where they basically wished him well, told the world what a great guy is and how misunderstood he was, as he boarded his private jet to go to Foxborough with a box of chocolates from Gruden. It's really unbelievable. It is. The whole thing is unbelievable. I had Charlie Casserly on the radio show this morning, and he said, in what world, I'm paraphrasing, in what world would anybody normal think that it would be the opposite?

Like he was talking about how Brown's going to sue for some of this money back, the fine money, because it was deducted from the first game check that he's supposed to get because he was on the roster on Tuesday. And he said, in what world wouldn't you think the opposite that the team would be suing the player for this behavior? Not in sports, not in the NFL, the player who completely. behaved in an absolute, unself, totally selfish, bizarre, you know, dishonest way, he's the one that's suing the team.

It's crazy. He's not going to be on the Patriots roster by the end of the year. I hope you're right. I really want this thing to fail. I wish the Raiders had put him on the list that Joel Corey told me about yesterday, Aaron, the reserve, non-whatever list, and basically kept finding him

because he wouldn't play. and if he showed up, made him crawl back and told him that, you know, if the BS starts again, they're going to suspend him for conduct detrimental and he won't play another game this year. They'll deactivate him. I think it was a dangerous precedent set by this player, and I don't think it was good for the league over the weekend. Well, it was terrible for the league on one hand. On the other hand, in this day and age, that kind of noise gets you a lot of attention. Yeah, and you know what?

It's amazing. I heard Zabe talking about this last night. It's so true, the way he put it. He said, you know, we've entered new territory when these players are so self-absorbed and wrapped up into the show, the social media show, that they don't even care about the money. $21 million, minimum, he left on the table to create this incredible, you know, crazed, you know, sitcom on social media for a month. I mean, starting with the hot air balloon ride, you know, into town.

And now he's going to end up in New England, in particular. potentially he can make that money up. But as Zayb pointed out last night, Lavian Bell left $14 million on the table. You know, it's like money isn't necessarily, you know, they need respect more than anything. That's a different world that you're living in. I'll do coaching blunders tomorrow, all right?

We got a roll because Aaron's got another show he's got to produce. You got a roll. We ended up doing more than 45 minutes. That's it for today. Real quickly, use stamps.com. Stamps.com is the best, especially for if you're a small business. It saves you time. It saves you money.

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