The Kevin Sheehan Show - Alex Smith's Next Step Is The Biggest

Episode Date: August 25, 2020

Kevin opened the show talking about Alex Smith getting closer to 11 on 11 action which may be the precursor for his return to the field. JP Finlay called in from Ashburn to add to the conversation about Smith, talk about the latest on Reuben Foster, and more. Kevin ended with a Bradley Beal retweet that he liked. 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.

J.P. Finley coming up on the show right after I tell you about Window Nation. If you've been thinking about New Windows, I know I talk about Window Nation all the time, but please use Window Nation 86690 Nation or Windonation.com. They will take good care of you. They love me. I've been a fan of Window Nation forever. I've been a customer of Wind Donation. I've had family members and friends and listeners use Wind Donation and it's always worked out. I talk to the owners all the time. I talk to their customer service people. I talk to their sales reps. They're the best. And there's no risk to trying Window Nation if you've been thinking about new windows. They'll give you a free estimate, totally free estimate. They can do it virtually online if that makes you more comfortable or they can come

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Now here's Kevin. J.P. Finley will be our guest. He's actually going to join us from Ashburn, from the park, as the team is practicing this morning. But we'll get into a bunch of Washington football stuff with J.P. Finley from NBC Sports Washington here momentarily. We won't take long to get to him. It'll be a shorter show today, and the show today is brought to you by My Bookie. Winning season returns at My Bookie. Winning season means doubling your first deposit. Winning season means survivors,

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Make your picks. Win big, collect your cash. Use my promo code Kevin DC and double your first deposit. Your winning season begins today only at my bookie.ag. All right. Before we get to JP, a couple of things real quickly. I read this quote yesterday about Alex Smith from Ron Rivera. He told Michael Phillips from the Richmond Times Dispatch about the next step for Alex

Smith, which would be participating in 11 on 11 drills. Now, I'll ask JP about this. We'll get to this because JP had Ron Rivera on his podcast as well. But Ron Rivera said about 11 on 11, which by the way is, you know, now contact and the possibility of Alex Smith, you know, dropping back and having, you know, getting sacked and having contact. Rivera said the following. We'll see.

We'll see. I don't know if you guys saw on Sunday, but there was a breakdown in the route combination. and he, Alex Smith, tucked the ball and took off running and threw on the run. Those are the kinds of things we're looking for. Those are the kinds of things that can lead to the next step for him, closed quote. I read that and I thought, well, if we get to 11 on 11, and he's dropping back with pressure, and he can get sacked, even though he's got a yellow jersey on,

but he can have people falling down around his feet. And there's now more of a risk of injury. then it means that they're serious. Now, they haven't gotten to that point. We'll ask JP about it, but that means they're serious. And I'll just sort of reemphasize what I've said all along about this.

I'm inspired. I'm hopeful for him. I'm happy for him. That Project 11 documentary to see him at the end of it with his kids and him moving around with his kids in the backyard after we had just seen 45 minutes

of absolute. leg destruction, a near amputation, a near death from sepsis. It was inspiring. And to know where he is now, it's really amazing. And I have nothing but respect for it. But for me, as a Washington football fan, and really being, you know, not, again, I'm not heartless, I'm not uncaring, I'm not trying to minimize in any way at all what he's done. But I can be inspired on one hand and then be focused on the football team on the other. And I don't know what we're doing here. Like, Alex Smith is not the future quarterback for this franchise.

Dwayne Haskins is or isn't, but if he isn't, it's not Alex Smith. So what are we doing here? Like, it is time to put the ceremony and the inspirational story to the side and focus on football. Again, if he gets to that 11 on 11, now I've got to take. take it seriously that he might play or that they may be serious about his comeback. At this point, I'm still not convinced that they're going to let him do 11 on 11 and have him at risk. I'm not convinced. And I'm not convinced that they actually believe that Alex Smith is any part of their future, unless I'm totally reading the room wrong on how they feel about Dwayne. And I'm not saying they're

convinced about Dwayne, but I don't think that they know about Dwayne, but I think they want to see. I think there's enough there that they want to see more, and the time to see more is now. Okay? It's now. In Alex Smith, I'm not saying that he's mucking it up, or he's getting in the middle of it, or he's a distraction. I'm not really saying that. I'm just saying, what's the point? Dwayne Haskins is the future.

Kyle Allen's the backup. If Alex Smith ends up in the room as a mentor on injured reserve collecting his money, you know, and counting one more season as a big cap number, that's fine. But why are we going through this process and, you know, creating the conversation that Alex Smith could potentially be back on the field? I don't think that it's in the best interest of the organization to be the organization that puts him back on the field. I don't think they can afford Alex Smith to go out on the field and get injured under their watch.

They're the last organization that can afford that. But more importantly, football-wise, to me, it's Dwayne Haskins team in 2020. And then we'll reassess at the end of the year. But it's not Alex Smith's. They're not going anywhere with Alex Smith at 36 years old. With, by the way, drop foot where he can't even lift his foot off the ground. Anyway, there was that. We'll get to JP in a moment.

I also just wanted to mention a couple of things from the New York Times story that Tommy and I talked about. Tommy made me aware of. up reading it last night. And there were a couple of things that I know we mentioned, but I wanted to emphasize just so everybody was clear on what was revealed from this story. The first reveal, and we talked about this briefly yesterday, was this section of the story written by two authors, by the way. The authors were Ken Belson and Catherine Rossman. But it was a section titled, Snyder Hints at Ownership Coup. And it reads as follows. Behind the scenes of what seemed to be a shift caused by societal change, Snyder had been at war with Frederick Smith, the FedEx chairman. Smith,

Dwight Schar, a real estate developer, and Robert Rothman, an asset manager, collectively owned 40% of the franchise and had been members of Snyder's inner circle since they bought into the team in 2003, but they've been looking to divest for many months. And this was the part that Tommy first focused on yesterday. Snyder took Umbrage and several months ago removed them from the board. Aggrieved, the three men asked the NFL to resolve the matter and other issues. The commissioner's office appointed an arbitrator in late June. According to two people familiar with the matter who were not authorized to speak publicly, the NFL declined to. comment. So the reemphasis here because there is an outstanding, you know, look into why Snyder

remove these three men from the board because the three men, the three minority owners, asked the commissioner to help and the commissioner appointed an arbitrator. So that's a whole new thing that is being, you know, I guess worked on, for the lack of of a better description and will have some sort of resolution at some point. Then a little bit further down in the story, I found this to be very interesting. Snyder filed this defamation lawsuit against a New Delhi company called MEA Worldwide. M.E. Worldwide published the articles that linked Snyder with Jeffrey Epstein, referenced sex trafficking allegations, you know, talked about,

bribing NFL officials, etc. Snyder filed this defamation lawsuit against this company. The company itself says they did and they admit to making some errors but denied that they were paid to run the articles in there to run the articles and said that there would be an investigation of the situation. Last week, the judge in this particular case gave this media company, MEEA Worldwide, an Indian company, four weeks to provide an affidavit that discloses its sources according to a court document.

That's in this story in the New York Times. So last week, and if they gave them four weeks, we may be three weeks away from finding out who MEEA worldwide had as sources for this story. Now, I thought that there was sort of a freedom of the press and freedom from disclosing, you know, confidential sources, but they are being asked to provide and disclose the sources. Well, that leads to Schar. And the next paragraph in the story reads as follows. In connection to the lawsuit in India, Snyder's lawyers have sought permission in the United States federal court to conduct discovery inquiries to learn, among other things,

if Schar, Dwight Schar, was part of a scheme to leak negative stories about Snyder. So, you know, we've got, we have the arbitration being conducted right now appointed by the commissioner in an answer to the three minority owners of the Washington football team about why they were removed from the board of directors. We have this affidavit that needs to be produced here shortly disclosing the sources for the story that this Indian company, these stories that the Indian company put out there.

And then we've got more than that. We've got the Discovery Suit, which will lead back to this Comstock organization, this real estate company, which is owned by Dwight Schar's son-in-law, and Dwight Schar's daughter actually is on the board of directors. But before we get to that, there was something else in this story that I thought was a bit of a revelation,

because it ties Shard directly to Mary Ellen Blair. Mary Ellen Blair was the executive assistant to Snyder from 2013 to 2017, and she's part of this discovery attempt by Snyder and his lawyers. Blair, according to this story, contacted former colleagues in May or June about forthcoming articles about Snyder. about Snyder. Now, Blair, who's also worked for, and I don't know that we had seen this before, in addition to Snyder, she's worked for Arn Tellem, he's a big sports agent, and Harvey Weinstein. She was an executive assistant to Harvey Weinstein. According to the New York Times story, she told an employee of Snyders and two other team employees that she was in contact with

and working in coordination with a third party and that they were involved in articles that were going to be damaging to Snyder. According to a transcript of one call which was recorded, Blair said that Schar had called her to let her know that the Washington Post would be publishing an article damaging to Snyder. Now let me try to, in my own mind,

and for you, separate. these a little bit. Blair was calling employees of the Redskins, I believe, based on the way they described this, to tell them about the stories that were coming out from this Indian company, that she probably helped provide, or allegedly may have helped provide. So she was calling those employees to tell them, hey, there's going to be some serious stuff coming out about Snyder, stories. And I think they were the stories tied to Epstein, sex trafficking, drugs, you know, bribing NFL officials, etc. This stuff that apparently was completely and utterly false and made up.

But when this, when the transcript from one of her calls, which was recorded, said that she had said that Sharr had called her to let her know about the Washington Post story, I think he was calling her to tell her about the Washington Post story that was coming out that Thursday later in the week that referred to the 15 women that stepped forward. about sexual harassment and verbal abuse. Now, what's interesting is that Blair said that Sharr called her. So that links Sharon Blair to Sharr and Blair together more than just the fact that Sharr's son-in-law and daughter's real estate company was somehow giving Blair a good deal on a

luxury apartment. Now we know that they talked, or at least according to Mariel and Blair, they talked. Now there's a little bit more in here that we didn't get to yesterday. The founder and chief executive of Comstock, Comstock being the company, the real estate company, that Snyder claims provided Mary Ellen Blair a discounted luxury apartment, discounted rent. Blair's attorney says that's total bullshit. The founder and chief executive of Comstock, Christopher Clement, who is Dwight's son-in-law, said that there was nothing to hide

and that Snyder was just trying to create a distraction from the investigation of the team's front office. There's a quote from him in this New York Times story. Quote, Dan Snyder could have just called me and asked me for the information, and I would have told him. Why he's doing this in the press and in the courts is because he's trying to stir something up and deflect from the drama that goes on at Redskins Park.

In a filing, Comcast asked the court to deny Snyder's request for discovery, calling it a speculative fishing expedition. Clement also added in the New York Times story that Mary Ellen Blair pays market rent and that Dwight Schar has got no involvement in the day-to-day operations of Comstock. Now, Tommy brought up this Norman Shireight, which is an interesting aspect of this story. Shyright was General Counsel to Snyder from 2002 to 2005. and yet he joined the Comstock board in 2004, probably after meeting Dwight Schar. I don't know. That's a guess. Shyright stepped down from his role with Comstock just two days before Snyder's lawsuit against this M.E.A.

worldwide Indian company, New Delhi company, that they're claiming, you know, put out these false stories. Now, Clement, the CEO and chairman of the board of Comstock, and Shyright was on the board of Comstock, said that Shyright may have broken board governance rules if he assisted Snyder in litigation that could involve Comstock. Yeah, I mean, connect the dots. Shyright leaves Comstock. He goes to work for Dan again and tells Dan, hey, they're, you know, Dwight Schar is involved with, Mary Ellen Blair in this, you know, India company and putting out all these false rumors about you and hopes that it'll damage your reputation so severely that you'll be forced to sell the team. And then Dwight Schar and Fred Smith and Bob Rothman can benefit from the sale of the entire team versus just a portion of it.

Because as we've learned here, selling as a minority stakeholder in a team, you're not going to get the same valuation that you would get if the majority owner sells because it doesn't come. with a path to majority voting rights or, you know, having the ability to run the franchise on your own to a majority, you know, ownership stake. Not to mention the fact that they're having a problem selling those shares, I would imagine, because there isn't a lot of interest in being partners with Dan Snyder. That's why they want him to sell too. I did want to read, though, the final paragraph from this story, because it really sums up everything. Actually, I want to read from the first paragraph and I want to read from the, I want to read from the opening part of the

story and I want to read from the last paragraph because these writers after detailing all that the organization's gone through here in this offseason, you know, the coach has cancer, the team name got changed, the sexual harassment story, now the legal battle on where those rumors before the sexual harassment story came out, where the rumors about Epstein, et cetera, et cetera, going. And not to mention the fact that they've got three minority owners that one out, and there's some sort of arbitration going on to figure out why those three minority owners were dropped from the board of directors. Anyway, in the opening portion of this story in the New York Times, there's the following sentence, in the century-long history of the NFL, rarely has a team faced

this much turmoil at once. I mean, a lot of teams have faced turmoil. You know, being sold, or having controversy, but never has a team faced this much turmoil, this many things going on at once. And even we know, right, as fans of the team or as followers of the team, even we know at this point that with all the shenanigans, with all the craziness in every off-season, this has been crazier than normal. The last paragraph of this story in the New York Times. When the Washington football team plays the Philadelphia Eagles in its first game of the regular season on September 13th, it will do so in a fan-free home stadium led by a coach battling cancer. The franchise will most likely still be searching for a new team name and logo,

awaiting the results of an independent investigation of sexual harassment in the front office, and court rulings in the United States and India. Football will, for once, be the least troubling issue Snyder faces in Washington. I love focusing on the football piece. I can't wait for football season to start. I can't remember as dysfunctional and as crazy as things have been in this organization, so many off seasons where we will be inundated over the next several months with either updates to these other stories that have nothing to do with football or potentially resolutions to all of them. But it is true. Coach has cancer. Investigation into section.

harassment in the front office. Court rulings in the United States and India to find out who was the source of all of the salacious rumors that went out about the owner prior to the Washington Post story over a month ago. Dwight Schar, Bob Rothman, and Fred Smith, there's an arbitration going on that the commissioner of the league appointed to look into why they were dropped from the board of directors. Also, the fact that they want to divest their ownership in the team. A lot going on. This can't please the league. But one of the big takeaways from reading this story start to finish for me was this. Snyder's pissed. He believes that Dwight Schar really wronged him and that his heels are dug in more than they've ever been in terms of owning this team and continuing to own this

team. That's one takeaway. The other is something I've already mentioned before, and that is the irony of all that is going on with these rumors that came out, the source of the rumors, who funded them, could it have been one of his minority owners, et cetera. The irony being those rumors actually lessened the blow of the Washington Post story for the football team and for Dan Snyder. I think think they know that, but I think he's also pissed off that it happened. All right, quick word about manscaped, and then we will get you to J.P. Finley. All right, guys, manscapes got you covered. They're going to keep the hair looking nice and trimmed and feeling supported,

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From the moose to the caboose, always use the right tools for the job. All right, let's welcome in J.P. Finley, of course, from NBC Sports Washington and his Redskin Podcast, which is now titled Washington Football Podcast, Washington Football Team Podcasts. Is that what you decided on? CJ and I were talking about this morning on the radio show. What did you decide to name it? I hate the name right now so much.

I'm not sure that I'm allowed to change it, but right now I think it's Washington Football Team Talk Podcast, which is just the clunkyest. I think New Coke had a better debut than the Washington. in football team talk podcast. You know what? I agree with you, but it's not going to stop anybody from listening. No, the numbers are through the roof. I'm cool with that, but I don't know.

We've got to come up with something. So let me begin with this, because I've actually had a conversation about you and John and Ben and everybody else that is on the beat a couple of times. Once I think with Tommy last week on the podcast and once with CJ this morning. Well, I mean, gushing things about all the guys that mean. Well, I mean, come on. You know what you're going to get from him. At least it's predictable.

He is an equal opportunity offender, as we know. But one of the things that I have always found, and this isn't a new thing for me, is this time of year. And by the way, I put myself in this category, not specific, not apples to apples with what you guys do, but with having to every morning on radio come up with like another skins you know segment that really in many ways is sort of you know it's basically made up to try to generate some interest and try to generate calls and I know it really doesn't have any staying power some some of the time but other stuff we come up with is good but what what we've talked about a couple of times in the last week is the play by play of training camp from you and Ben and Rianne and Walker and John and the whole thing.

And I'm not being critical at all because I understand there is an audience for it. I just wonder whether or not you enjoy doing it. I mean, you are the creator of the mock schedule, so everybody goutes down to your content prowess. Fair enough. I'll say this, man. I think there is a large bastion of like very hard core hit Washington football fans that would be at training camp that don't get to be here this year.

So I'm in my head anyway, I'm making more of an effort to give more detail on specifically Hapkin and how he looks and how his development is going because there's no video allowed. and like the team doesn't allow, like if I can just shoot video of his plays, I think that would be way better than play by play, but we're not allowed to, and those are NFL protocols, and I understand that,

especially in a year with no preseason, like there actually is a competitive advantage or disadvantage by limiting that stuff. And then, I mean, I feel like I'm doing more of it this year than I would normally, but it's also, I mean, Twitter is like the perfect place for that.

right? Like, I don't know. People are always going to get cranky about stuff on Twitter, but I think for a large segment of fans, they like seeing that. But I get to how it could be, I get how it could be annoying. I think what's more annoying,

and I've tried to dial back, but I'm also just like a, like I'm a very frenetic energy person, but I think it's more annoying in press conferences that are being live streams to tweet out every answer, Ron Rivera gives or every answer, John Allen gives or whatever, because the people that want

every one of those quotes can just watch it on Twitter as well. I think the biggest thing I try to caution, and I've done this in like every blog I've written about camp, is that you cannot overreact to one play. Logan Thomas yesterday got popped over the middle by Troy Afty, fumbled the ball, came over the sideline, was pissed off, threw down his helmet, right?

that moment is worth documenting, but Logan Thomas has had a really good camp. He's locked in at the tight end at the top tight end spot and looks like he could be a legit pass-catching option. We'll see if that comes to fruition. But people will seize on, oh, he fumbled the ball and hit by Troy Afty. He just didn't play rather than seeing the big picture. So I don't know.

I try to balance it. Maybe I don't do a good job of it. No, no, no. I, by the way, the point of, you know, live audience not being allowed at training camp is a good one because the few that have showed up in recent years in Richmond are probably, you know, a significant part of the audience because, you know, look, I get jaded sometimes and I admit this and I concede this point. You know, we're media members and we're closer to a lot of this stuff than the normal fan is.

And for me, you know, I can't remember even before I was in the media ever desiring to go to training camp. But that's beside the point. I think I've always had this, I think I've always been predisposed to thinking that this time of year, including the preseason games, which we're not getting, is just so irrelevant. And it just very little translates to the meaningful stuff, which starts in September. Now, I know for... I largely agree with you, but I think this year is unique because there's been no offseason. Haskins has had no time with Scott Turner. this offense. So I do think each, now let's say a normal August 25th rep would have 3% importance. I say this year it has 5% important. I still recognize that it's August and it's not real and

all those things. But I do think there's heightened importance to it because of all the circumstances. Anyway, I mean, this isn't the first year I've done this where I've read from various Twitter accounts about the play-by-play and the analysis of the play. And my favorite really is to read the reactions. You know, if somebody tweets out, you know, that Haskins miss somebody, you get somebody that says, that's it. I mean, enough of this Haskins experiment. Let's move, you know, and it was a seven-on-seven drill.

Oh, whatever. But, you know, you made a couple. I thought you're, I was in the car this morning when you and C.J. We're making fun of all the excitement around the Haskins to McCoran play. Right. pun. I was laughing at that. That was funny for sure. But you said something that, you know, your point about people tweeting out everything from a press conference is a good one because that's something that an actual, you know, consumer fan of the team can watch his or herself

or read, you know, the transcript from the website afterwards. But to me, this time of the year has always been about like the real news, like an injury, right? Or a declaration of this guy's our starter. But really, to me, what I've always found interesting, and it goes for the regular season as well, is depending on the coach, and we've had a couple of them, certainly in Jay Gruden and even Shanahan to a certain degree, where once you sort of learn their communication methods, you can really read into what they think, you know, and then you can put it side by side with other pieces of information you're getting.

And I think sometimes that can be very important. constructive, and that can be helpful, you know, more than obviously Haskins going four for 10 and a nine-on-nine. Like, it just doesn't, you know, just like I don't think if Haskins went four-for-10 in the first two series of their second pre-season game last weekend, I just wouldn't put much stock into it, you know, without a true game plan or anything. But anyway, God bless you, as Ken Biotrish, what once used to say, because you're clearly a, appealing to an audience because you get a lot of retweets and a lot of responses on it. All right, let's move on to real football here.

What are you learning from training camp and the putting on of pads here over the last week or so? Well, there's a number of things to try to learn here because this is our first time. I mean, you talked about learning the communication patterns with Gruden and Shanahan. This is our first time with Ron on a day-to-day base. Right. We're learning. Ron has these dudes hitting. I mean, there hasn't been a shells day yet.

Even today, I thought it was going to be a light special team practice, and they're not in full pads, but there's plenty of contact. They have helmets and shoulder pads on. There is nothing light about this camp, and I think he's going to max out the number of padded practices he can have. There's more contact in the seven days of camp I've watched, and I would say, and I've been going to camp back to Shanahan, And there's more contact in these seven days than there has been in those.

And what would that go back? Seven, eight years? Yeah, and Shanahan didn't have a lot of hitting in these training camp practices. Shanahan proudly said, we don't hit, we don't tackle. Right. So, you know, everybody talks about Club J, but this is a different vibe than anything in the last decade. I think offensively, if Dwayne's job, until Alex gets cleared, it does 11 on 11, it's Dwayne's job.

If Alex gets clear, it does 11 on 11, that could get interesting. But Kyle Allen's not the guy. I think they're going to run a ton of motion. You're going to see a lot of two-back sets. I think they're going to be really creative in what they want to do with the football. I think they're kind of going to have to generate offense because they may not have the horses to run a, you know, like a more traditional West Coast or whatever,

because I'm not sure the receiver depth is really there, but I do think Gibson, Brightblood, APs catching a lot of balls. I think it's a North Turner, Scott Turner-Statele to throw the ball to these backs, and I think you're going to see plenty of that. A lot of sweep action and reverse action and jet action. Logan Thomas, I don't know, man, because it's exceptionally hard to get excited about a guy that had 16 catches last year and 16 games, but he does seem to be fine in a real groove with Dwayne,

especially in the red zone. But I'm just hesitant to be too excited about any of it. McClearn looks good. The defense looks good. The defensive line looks really good. I think questions at corner will become more visible. I always talk about Aspirin syndrome on my podcast that I think the media fans, everybody kind of tuck themselves into certain players

maybe being better than they are. I think the corners and the secondary, are looking better right now than maybe they will when they're lining up against those Cowboys receivers or something. You know what I'm saying?

I just don't know how much they're being pushed, but we'll see. It is, for all the talk of culture change, and I'm guessing you kind of got tired of it like I did, the on-field demeanor and feeling is very different than it's been. I say that with certain things.

Well, that's good to hear. You said something, and it was a bit of a throwaway, but I want to explore it. You dismissed Kyle Allen, and I'm not suggesting that I think Kyle Allen has a chance. I hope he doesn't. I want it to be Haskins, who ends up being the quarterback. But you really, that's the first time I've heard anybody who's been out there, and you can hear JP, he's actually in Ashburn at the park right now, as the team is practicing here on a Tuesday morning.

but why did you dismiss Kyle Allen with such certainty? I'm not dismissing Kyle Allen like the person I just, the talk we heard of a true quarterback competition between Dwayne and Kyle, I don't see that at all. I really don't.

I think it's Dwayne's job, but as I say that, Kyle Allen was through a nice touchdown past the Kams in. But you want me to do the play-by-foot or four? No, I don't, actually. I mean, I've been so enamored with the Haskins' throw to McLaurin all morning long. I don't think I can take anymore. I think it's Haskin's job.

I think they are focused on getting – they want to see what they've gotten, Gwain, is what I really think. And I think they know what they've gotten, Kyle, and they trust it if they need it. But they are happier to see – they need to find out what they have in Glein. That makes – like – they know – Kyle runs his offense really well, with a ton of his passes are just going to the line of scrimmage, whereas Dwayne is looking to take chances down to the field. Yeah, I mean, and by the way, the segue from what you just said is into this Alex Smith conversation

in the 11-on-11 step that he needs to take. And, you know, you've said it's Dwayne's job to lose. Kyle Allen's not taking it from him, and I would guess that you would believe that Alex Smith isn't going to take it from him either, right or wrong? Yeah, until I, he was doing 9-on-9 earlier, and they kind of changed the 9-on-9 where they stimulated, like, edge pass rushers rather than just interior. And Durantaine completely blew up the drill and made contact with Alex's foot and, like, lower leg. And every reporter on the sideline, and I swear, every coach and player kind of gasped.

And Alex was fine and kept going, but you can't be... Did he fall? Did he fall into his foot, or did he step? Was he upright? Upright. Everybody was upright, and Alex went through unscathed to the next play. But I just, I talked to Ron in a one-on-one interview earlier this week. Yeah, I played some of it.

He's a little nervous when he puts Alex out there. Right. He's nine-on-nine drills. I just, I think it's going to be hard to get past that for a while. So if Haskins can just hit the ground running and play well, there is zero quarterback controversy. And, you know, I know we've done this a bunch of times, and I get tired of doing it, too, but my position on Alex is I just don't know what it's all for.

I mean, you know, they've got all this stuff circulating the franchise. I mean, we've got lawsuits, we've got investigations, we've got, you know, coup attempts. We've got all this stuff going on. And it's like, for me, as a fan, I just want to see them focus on becoming a real football franchise. and a real football team and a competitive team. And I just don't see the end game with Alex Smith here, not with this franchise. And I'm not being, you know, I'm not being insensitive. I'm inspired by everything.

And if he got back out onto a field, I think that would be awesome. I just don't want it to be this, you know, with this team. So where are you today on August 25th on what the end game is with Alex Smith? Now having talked to him and having seen him for seven, eight days, whatever it is, his end game is to play and to play at a high level. I now firmly believe that. Now, whatever else is going on organizationally about what a great story it could be and some redemption for a team that is, you know, off the field,

just a complete train wreck. That, it's hard. You and I are in the media our job is to be skeptical, right? It's hard not to view things through that prism. But seeing out, hearing him, this is about, his own journey and his own recovery. So I hear you on that, and the thought as I certainly cross.

I don't get the point of it from a football perspective. Right. Because if there's a rebuild, you're 3 and 13, see what you got in this kid, because then in 2021, you know. And one thing that I think people sleep on is Cam only find a one-year deal in New England. But if Cam plays well and is healthy, I will not close that door until something different happens.

If Dwayne plays poorly, they'll probably have a high draft pick. I mean, who knows what's going to happen to college football on the draft, but you've got to find out what you have in Dwayne. And even Alex getting the nine-on-nine reps, it's cool, and you can't help but watch, but is that taking work away from Dwayne? I don't know. You've just said so many things. It's about his own journey.

And by the way, I'm not, I don't think you're saying it, and I'm not suggesting that you said that it's like a selfish thing. It's not. But this should be about this football team right now. And I understand he's under contract and what he counts in terms of the cap and the contract. I understand all of that. They need to be focused on Dwayne Haskins and the rest of the football team. This can't be about putting, you know, having some sort of uplifting story that the franchise can saddle.

up next to to have Alex Smith return to the field as a Washington football player. Not from my standpoint. I think I agree with you. I mean, why take that work away from Dwayne? If he ends up being a mentor as an injured reserve mentor for this final year at $21 million cap-wise, you know, that's fine. I don't want the distraction. I don't want anybody to think for a moment that Alex Smith,

is a means to a successful end for this franchise, because I think personally that's such a long shot. And I think their best, you know what? It's funny, JP, a caller brought this up this morning. And he said, think about it from another perspective. What if Alex Smith hadn't gotten hurt? And let's just say they had finished eight and eight or nine and seven. That's where I think they were headed. And last year he had a middling season on a five and eleven, six and ten team. And they had drafted Dwayne. We'd want to see Dwayne now anyway. And that's without the perspective of what Dwayne showed us at the end of last year. Like, take the injury, put it aside, and just project what, you know, the rest of 18 and 19 would have been.

It wasn't going to end in Super Bowl, that's for sure. And they were going to draft a quarterback of the future at some point. And if Dwayne were on this roster and Alex were healthy as a 36-year-old coming off two middling seasons, we'd want to see the focus on Dwayne anyway with the new, with the new coach. coaching staff. Sure. The only difference I would say is if Alex is healthy, I don't think they would have

taken Duane in 2019. But, I mean, we're getting down quite a hypothetical road. But I hear you. I mean, here's one thing that's important to say, being out here watching Alex, knowing him a little bit, he's not, it's not a distraction.

It's not taking away outside of the actual practice reps that Dwayne doesn't get because Alex gets them. And who knows, maybe those reps just wouldn't exist, because it's only a nine-on-nine. Seven-on-seven, they always have four quarterbacks anyway.

That's one thing that kind of gets lost is generally at camp you have four QBs anyway, because you don't want your starter to run out his arm, throw into, you know, they got 10-11 receivers out here. So somebody's got to throw the ball to all these guys. So I don't know

that Alex is taking reps from Duane, but when they get into real, you know, these Red Zone 9-on-9 drills are real. So maybe there's some work on there. I do think it's because he's under contract and everything, I've been fairly dismissive of this for a while, but I'm starting to see it.

I do think there's value to Alex being around Dwayne this whole season, whether he's on the field competing with him or not. I'm not sure that that value over. if Alex gets on the field for this team, which I absolutely am not rolling out, Kess. I really am not. I mean, you love the odds. If I got Alex starts the game this year, what would you give me odds on Alex to start the game this year? I mean, you know, 15 to 1, 10, 15 to 1, 20 to 1.

I mean, the only reason I say that today, and they probably... If you give me 20, I got 100 on. The problem is, is I don't want it to be like a ceremonial start. Like, it can't be a ceremonial start, so now we get into, you know, because look, this organization... You can put a minimum number of snaps on it or something. I'd be fine with that. I'm talking, I'm not talking the ceremonial thing.

I'm talking about actually playing. Watching what's happening, and then when I talked to Ron, He said the next step is going to be Alex in 11 on 11, but doing handoff. So he takes 11 on 11 on 11 work on a day where it's a big run installation day. Yeah. Well, I'll tell you what. I think that's coming, dude. I think that's coming maybe this week.

Well, the handoff thing, I didn't realize there was a distinction between 11 on 11, different 11 on 11's there for him. That handoffs is far different than taking a drop back with an actual rush, even if he's wearing a yellow jersey. They don't make that distinction. It's not going to say that in the practice schedule, but some days are heavy run days, some days are heavy past days. Maybe it's just a way to cross that threshold,

to get Alex out there to just all of these are little and or big steps on this path. Those of you waiting to hear whether or not I take that bet are going to have to wait a little bit longer because I just want to mention a couple of things real quickly. of all, I know, and I saw the reaction from some people thinking that I was heartless this morning and having this conversation. It's not about heartless. It's about business. It's about me wanting the football team to be focused on its future and me recognizing that it's a long shot that Alex Smith is going to be truly a part of perhaps a winning future if they can get to that point. So let's get down to, you know, what are we doing here? Also, I have these still

nagging suspicions that, you know, this franchise is, they love ceremony, you know, they love talking about Ring of Honor and who the nominees are going to be. Will it be London Flector or somebody else this year? I heard you say that. How about they have London working on their radio? They do. But my point, my point is, my point is in so many conversations over the years, you know, primarily off the air, I can remember saying, are you guys serious? Like, you're four and nine. Like, The football. No, no, no, no, we got the Ring of Honor game. We're going to have the big homecoming. It's like it just used to drive me crazy. Can I say something?

Yeah. A lot of that was Bruce, man. I read this book about Enron at the end of their collapse, and the people that were kind of like at the top never wanted to talk about the actual books or the actual numbers. They just wanted to talk about their culture and their pride. And if you listen to Bruce in the end of his era, never wanted to talk about the record and not being good enough. It was about the culture and all these other things. Like, I think you have to create these side shows when you know you state and your record is awful. Ron is not a side show guy.

Not to mention he's coming in here. If Ron gets to run the organization, I don't think there will be as many pomp circumstance award dog and pony shows. Maybe they want to keep doing that from a marketing perspective? I don't know. Look, on some level, there are a couple things there. First of all, it was happening before Bruce got. year. I mean, you know, the Harvest Fest and there's always been this incredible, to me, delusional feel that they've gotten about what their fan base is from a significant minority

that will show up to anything. And I, you and I both, I think, both warned them about that in the past. I also, you know, feel like you do, that if Ron's in charge, we will have less of it. But I also want to mention this because I think it's true. I don't have an issue with them from, you know, a social media marketing, you know, standpoint of understanding that they need to really connect with their fan base because they've lost so much of it. And even though a game hasn't been played, what I've noticed is I've noticed, you know, Julie as an example. I mean, they're really trying to connect as frequently as they can via social media with fans with as much information as possible, Ron's been pretty transparent for the most part, and I think that's the state of the organization, right?

You know, they can't be, I don't like when coaches, I don't like when coaches give out things that could lead to a competitive disadvantage. I prefer the Belichick method, but they're not selling tickets or suites or sponsorships, and eventually, you know, they're trying to make a push to get people back. But my take on that is I have no problem with them doing that. bottom line is winning matters number one and whatever number two is you got to count 20 steps to get there. So all this stuff that's going on, it doesn't, it really doesn't impact winning and it doesn't impact bringing that fan base back. I did have, so you talked about the 11 on 11. Back to the question that I was trying to get to and probably didn't state it as specifically as I should have. who has made like a very favorable impression on coaches, on you guys,

and who has made maybe a less favorable impression? Does anybody really stand out offensively, defensively, et cetera? That aren't the names or not the quarterbacks? Yeah. Okay. I mean, obviously, Terry, but everybody knows that. Yeah. I would say

Jared Christian has been better than people expected. I think he's going to be your starting left tackle. I think Sean Dionne Hamilton has looked finally healthy and is flying to the ball. And he's being very aggressive. He had a hit on J.D. McKissick the other day that absolutely would have been a 15-yard penalty.

And the coaches yelled at him, but I think he's trying to make a statement in a relatively crowded linebacker room. If he had another hit today, I didn't see who it was on, but he is showing them that he is in position. And I don't think that's an accident. Ronald Darby's looked pretty good. And Ronald Darby's been a guy that has been good in the NFL.

He just gets hurt. I don't know how you, you know, you got to hope he stays healthy. I'm going to write a story for our website. The way everybody talks about Antonio Gibson is pretty wild, man. I did a one-on-one with Adrian Peterson, and he talked about how Gibson his athleticism is forcing AP to work that much harder. And AP works incredibly hard all the time. He's not a guy that typically would acknowledge somebody else.

But, I mean, this kid's build and speed is pretty wild. I think he's pretty raw. I don't know how quickly that will all come together, but he's got a lot of things that, I don't know, the coaches like. And one thing that stood out for me, Kevin, and this will be maybe kind of boring for listeners, but Pete Hainer is a tight end coach. Yeah. He is a, he is a son of a gun, man. He is on these guys hard. And I don't know offensive. The previous staff had Jim Tom Sula, who was a real, you know, in-your-face guy,

but they haven't had a hard ass like this Pete Hainer dude in a while. And then John Mattoe is the O-Line coach. And Callahan was a hard ass. but it was quieter. There would be some eruptions, but Mattko and Painter are all business, man. And, like, those guys are screaming at somebody often. And I don't know. One of those things you notice with the new staff. What about Apki?

Do they like him or not? I think they do. I think it's legit. But the one thing that sticks in my head is, Ron, I don't know what day, all these days kind of blend together, but Ron got asked about Apki on one of the press conferences, and he said, we really like Troy, he's doing good work, but we also want the other guys to know that we're confident in going with Troy.

And I just wonder if that was trying to push Sean Davis to be something more. Maybe it's not coming, maybe that's just how Ron is, but it was a comment that stuck with me. But Apci's also, I mean, he's been, he's big. in the right place it appears and we know he has the speed that a guy like Landon Collins needs somebody to pair with. Right. Yeah, I'm actually, I mean, this is the one area of the team more than any other that I'm looking forward to seeing because I want to see it well coached and I think there's talent. I think Landon Collins, there's been so much

discussion about Landing Collins season last year. I actually thought it was impressive at times. and I think he does have a chance to take that next step and be perceived as an upper echelon strong safety. I did want to ask you. Back to being present. I mean, he wasn't perceived that way for a few years in New York and then he had an injury. But he was good last year.

The only problem is he was being paid to be great. And that's not third call. You know, take the money you get. But this defense could really excel if they had a great year from him. Yeah, I think there were, there were moments last year on obviously a dysfunctional, you know, team situation, you know, not well coach necessarily. I saw some glimpses of great.

I mean, he's very physical. He moves very well. And I think he's an outstanding tackler. I mean, I don't even care if he ends up being just a great in the box safety. That's fine with me. I just want great somewhere. And I think he's got the potential to be that. You mentioned Antonio Gibson.

We've obviously heard a lot from Adrian Peterson recently. Is Bryce Love in the mix or not? Yes, I would say firmly. He looks good, he looks quick. The coaches all talk about him in really high regard. He's an impressive person off the field. We got to talk to him for the first time because he was drafted earlier this week. I would say so.

I know Dr. Chow, the Twitter doctor. Right. I saw that. that he might not be ready to go. The Twitter doctor. The Twitter doctor, for those that missed that, Dr. David Chow, I think it is, who was like the Chargers team doctor years ago

that's weighed in on a lot of these injuries on Twitter and various other places over the last few years, basically saw highlights or saw some practice video of both Bryce Love and somebody else, actually. I'm trying to think about it. Oh, it was Alex. And basically gave up on. both of them. I'm exaggerating a bit, but said that there is some hitch in his get-along.

You're not exaggerating much, Ben. Yeah. I have had people tell me that coming out of Stanford, there was a legit concern about the knee because the injury was severe, and that I think Tom Pell Sero reported last year that a couple teams had taken Bryce off their draft board. I mean, there is some legit question marks there, and then talking with one guy, kind of an analyst. He wondered if Bryce put on the upper body weight he needs to take the pounding in the NFL. So these are all things we'll find out. The linebackers last one, and I'll let your run. How is it going to shake out? Who's, I mean, right now, I mean, we've got 18 days till the opener, and it seems you've already mentioned Sean Dionne Hamilton. We hear KPL,

Kevin Pierre-Louis's name all the time. We've heard a lot more. more about Ruben Foster in the last week. Who plays? Who's in the mix here? My starter, strong to weak, would be Thomas Davis, Sean Dionne Hamilton, Cole Holcomb. So Holcomb as a weak sidebacker, Sean Dion, in the middle, right? And Thomas Davis as the strong side backer. And then so the Kevin Pierre-Lewis stuff and the Ruben Foster stuff, are they,

are they on the team and are they significant contributors? They also love Bostick's, you know, leadership. Honestly, I don't know. I mean, Ruben's been running with the threes and doesn't look to be fully athletic, doesn't look to be all the way back. Everything we've heard about what an explosive athlete he is, it doesn't seem to be there.

So the athleticism. maybe it's going to take a while. He's got a really big brakes on his legs, but it depends on the numbers. I think Bostic certainly on the team. They like KPL a lot, and he can help them on specials. But the kid, Khali Hudson, that they just drafted,

I mean, they just drafted that dude, and they want him to play special. He's a linebacker. One thing that's tough this year, and I'm going to roll mine out this week, I know other people are doing their roster projections, is that normally we get to talk to these coaches as they're leaving the field every day. And as much as the tweets about 11-on-11 performances, those conversations

with coaches give you so much information about what the roster looks like, and we don't get that this year. So we're flying a lot more blind. And the staff do a good job of mixing everything up, of players coming in and out on different snaps and different packages. So it's hard to know, but if they're going to keep six linebackers, I wonder what happens between Ruben Foster and Kleeke Hudson, a guy that just drafted. Foster is incredibly higher potential. I just don't.

Maybe you can sneak up Foster back to the IR. I don't know, man. I don't know. I think, I mean, that's been, that's actually really interesting about the backers. You know, Sean Dionne Hamilton, you know, in the middle, Davis-strong side, Holcomb weakside. You could see Holcomb last year would be a perfect weak-side, you know, four-three outside

linebacker with his speed. But that's also interesting information about Ruben Foster because I think there's a lot of, you know, a lot of hope when it comes to him. Well, here's the other thing. And no preseason game might be a factor, but there haven't been any injuries out here yet. And, you know, you knock on wood,

great. But typically, you know, you've got a couple more weeks before they play a game. Some of that stuff starts to emerge, and that changes the numbers, too. I don't know. I mean, I think Kevin Peer, I don't know. The linebacker situation is super interesting because everything else appears somewhat settled, even on the offensive side. I think you're looking at McCorn Sims inman, and then Danny Golden's trying to fight inman for that spot. Lohey Thomas is tight end. Like, there's not a lot of, questions as far as starters right now. I mean... So Inman's made that much of an impression that quickly.

He came in here, they signed him to be part of their top three guys. I mean, maybe it's by default a little bit, but yeah. Okay. Lastly, I would go double dark chocolate Milano 1, double milk chocolate Milano 2. and what I've become a big fan of recently is the strawberry chocolate Milano's and the raspberry chocolate Milano's surprises to me, but somebody picked up a box. I think it was my son a couple months ago, and I tried one of those, and both of those are now among my favorites. I like the salted caramel, too. The toasted marshmallow are terrible. I can't go with the regular, you know, one layer of chocolate

Milano's anymore, whether dark or milk chocolate, because the double's so much better. I love that you paid attention to that. And it all started because Pete Haley brought those terrible marshmallow on Milano to my home. Oh, he did? It started a whole thing that ended up with our taste sets. I love the mid-Milano.

You're right. The Milano has evolved that you need, it needs to have more than just the classic regular Milano. Yeah, it's almost like it's like a way, it's way for it. you know, without the two layers of chocolate in the middle. I like mint Milano's too. They used to be among my favorite, but I'm telling you, the raspberry and strawberry are great. The toasted marshmallow just flat out foul. I mean, can't eat those.

There's a new one out that I almost picked up the other day at our favorite giant, and that was the caramel macchiato Milano, but I haven't tried that yet. But it looks good. I am definitely sticking with Milano's. I don't do, you know, the distinctive farmhouse, whatever they're called. I don't do those. I don't do the Montauks and all that. I'm a Molano guy.

Yeah. Keb real quick, Dwayne Haskins just had three snaps and 11 on 11. Went two of three, one nice deep ball to Dantrell-inman, and Marcus Ball dropped one. What thought it would have been a first down. Oh, my God, he didn't. Come on. Marcus Ball dropped one. That's his, I thought he was a lock to make the team.

I think it could be in question now. I think a lot of guys are starting to think about Marcus Baugh for a late round fantasy pick. I'm not kidding, based on some of the play-by-play. From Kyle Allen. Thank you, as always. I mean, we've got plenty of time between now and the opener to revise our discussion,

and especially as it relates to the quarterback. I do think it'll be big news, though, if Alex gets to the 11-on-11 with the drop-back, you know, beyond just the hand-offs. That would be a... But I want to... I want to get the bet in before 11-on-11-11. Oh, my God.

We almost forgot. We almost forgot. Okay. So I'll give you 20-1. I'm not going to take $100 bet on 20-to-1. All right, I'm going to limit you to $50 on the $20-to-1 bet. So you win $1 on a $50 bet, but he's got to start a game. And he's got to, I mean, he's got to be a legitimate starter in a game that isn't ceremonial.

that isn't, you know, the last game of the year, if they've clinched a buy, being very optimistic. And he's got to take, I don't know, more than a half's worth of snaps. Is that fair? That is fair. Now, officially, of course, I couldn't actually take the set. It was just a very fun hypothetical conversation. Oh, I didn't know you could see on podcast. You can do whatever the hell you want to do. I don't know what the hell I can do, but I'm going to text you here in a minute. Thanks. Appreciate it. The Washington Football. team podcast, but of course, at J.P. Finley on Twitter.

All right. I'll talk to you later. Okay. Thanks, man. Bye. Thanks to J.P. Now a word from another sponsor. J.P. Finley, everybody from NBC Sports, Washington. At J.P. Finley, NBCS on Twitter. Follow him. He was there at practice at the park. I love J.P. He's the best, and he's always generous with his time. And we were talking about Pepperidge Farm cookies for most of you. probably figured that out because he tweeted out his favorites, I guess, at one point on Twitter

and I was looking at it as we were having the conversation with JP, so I gave him mine. Yeah, we are a big Pepperidge Farm family. Always have been on the cookie side and on the snack side as well. A quick word, speaking of food, about DoorDash. Now, we've been using DoorDash a lot during the pandemic. And if you want to help out restaurants and support restaurants in your community and do it safely, there are thousands of restaurants now open for delivery on DoorDash. And they need your patronage now more than ever. Support your favorite restaurants on DoorDash.

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Kevin DC, when you download the DoorDash app in the App Store. Kevin DC is the promo code, K-E-V-I-N-D-C, for $5 off your first order with DoorDash. I wanted to finish up with something on a shorter show here today. Bradley Beale tweeted something out last night. I follow Bradley Beale on Twitter. I think Brad's a smart guy, thoughtful guy, and I don't know if you go through his Twitter account, you may agree with some of his stuff and not agree with others or whatever.

I think he's, I just think he's thoughtful and smart, and I think he's really developed into a really, really good player, and clearly an upper echelon scorer. Just as an aside, and I forget who mentioned this to me and whether or not we talked about this on the podcast before I get to what he tweeted. You know, the NBA could be in some trouble next year without fans as well. A lot of franchises could be in a bit of trouble, just like hockey. The economics in both of those sports, much more so in hockey than the NBA, but they really rely on, you know, live attendance, live gate.

And knowing the ownership of the Wizards and the Bradley Beale contract, you know, is it possible that the pandemic may influence the Bradley Beal as part of the Wizards moving forward, or might they take advantage of a guy that would bring back a lot in a trade? I don't know. But the economics for a lot of these teams in hockey and in the NBA and in Major League Baseball are going to dictate and influence some of these decisions. Anyway, back to the Beale Twitter account. He retweeted something from Jordan McCray last night.

Jordan McCray tweeted out the following. Funny how these mid-range shots are used by the league's best players. Bradley Beale retweeted that and wrote, analytics, my ass. I loved that tweet and retweet because, As I've been watching these NBA playoffs, you have gotten a sense that a lot of the best players right now on these teams are guys that work their way into mid-range shots. You know, if you take the clippers who are the favorites to win the whole thing. I mean, Kauai Leonard, nobody is king, more of a king of mid-range than Kauai Leonard is.

As we've watched Luca Donchich, now he'll shoot some threes, so will Kauai. But Donchich really works his way into a mid-range game. Now, the Mavericks have a ton of three-point shooters around Donchich, which makes it easier for him. But, you know, last night or yesterday afternoon into the evening, the Rockets Thunder game ended 117, 114, Oklahoma City, eveninging that series of two games apiece. In the game, Houston set an NBA record for the most three-point attempts in a postseason game in NBA history. They attempted 58 three-pointers in the game. 58, breaking their own record of 57, by the way, as an aside. Now, they made 23 of the 58 for 39.7%.

That's not a terrible three-point percentage. But they lost the game. You know, Hardin shot 15. House shot 10. Tucker had eight attempts. Covington had eight attempts. Gordon had eight attempts. Jeff Green, off the bench, had six three-point attempts.

23 of 58. They had 91 total field goal attempts. So 33 of them were twos, 58 of them were threes. Meantime, the Thunder, now they shoot some threes too. They attempted 32 of them. But Chris Paul is a guy that finds and gets his words. way into the mid-range, a lot. You know, when you saw that over and over again in that game.

I don't know when Jordan McCrae sent that tweet out, but I would assume that it may have been right after the Rockets game and talking about how some of these really good players in this postseason, you know, get themselves into a mid-range situation more often than not. Anyway, look, you can sell me on a lot of things, and I'm open-minded to a lot of things. I've said this many, many times. There are, you know, a guy like Bradley Beale, when all of the analytics people were screaming at him that he needs to take more good threes and fewer bad twos.

I was saying if you watch Bradley Beale's game, part of his game is, you know, he's a good three-point shooter, don't get me wrong. But he's really good, you know, coming off a screen and firing. He's now really good at creating off a dribble. And that dribble rhythm into a shot takes him many times inside that three-point line. You want him shooting in rhythm. You don't want to, you know, and whether that ends up being a two or a three, you want him shooting in rhythm, not out of rhythm. And out of rhythm three is not better than an in rhythm two, in my opinion. Now, if you want to design an offense that keeps Bradley Beal beyond the three point line or, you know, most of your team behind the three point line, that's fine.

And I know the Wizards have shot a lot of threes, a lot more threes in recent years. And a lot of it's been off Bradley Beale's playmaking ability. but an in-rhythm two is better than an out-of-rhythm-three. The analytics people that don't understand anything other than numbers, and I'm not saying all of them, you know, don't understand the game. But I can watch Bradley Beale's game and tell you whether he's shooting a two or whether he's shooting a three if it's in his normal rhythm. If it's in his normal rhythm that gets him to his spot or gets him into his stroke

in a way in which he's got the best chance to make the shot. There have been many times where I've watched Bradley Beale where he's pump faked, somebody's gone flying by, and he takes a couple of dribbles to get into his rhythm, and he takes him inside the arc. Now, Steph Curry and James Hardin and other guys that can really bomb him from, you know, 30 feet, and we've seen more 30-foot-plus-3s, I think, in this season

and in this post-season than we've ever seen, a lot of those guys have more room between the three-point line and where they shoot it. So they can ball fake and get a guy off his feet, get into rhythm with a couple of dribbles and still be behind the arc. Beale's not that kind of a guy. Beale's not a 34-foot three-point shooter. He's a great corner three-point shooter. He's a good three-point shooter in general. I don't have a problem with Bradley Beale.

I wouldn't have a problem with Bradley Beale taking in rhythm 15-3s in a game. Wouldn't bother me at all. But he's not where some of these other guys are, Lillard, Curry, Hardin, the guys that regularly shoot 27-footers and beyond. They have more room to get into rhythm on their stroke, on their shot, and still remain behind the three-point line than a guy like Beale. Now, the mid-range stuff, it's because these guys are shooting where they're comfortable and in rhythm. Kauai Leonard's not a bad three-point shooter.

By the way, I'm just looking Beale shot this year, 35.3% from behind the arc. Now, he wasn't involved in the restart, but he did average more three-point attempts than at any point during his career. And his field goal percentage overall, even though his scoring average was 30.5 points per game, his field goal percentage was the lowest that it's been in five years,

and his three-point shooting percentage was the lowest it's been during the course of his career. Now, he made more threes this year because he attempted more. Now, he averaged 30.5 points per game. You can't really knock what he did offensively. And he finally improved his free-throw shooting percentage to 84.2%, which I've been saying for a long time that he had too flat of a free-throw stroke, which I think he did, and he improved that. Wouldn't be surprised if people close to him and his family basically helped him with that.

I think that's what Tommy Shepard or maybe it was Scott Brooks told me a while back. But getting to the free throw line more times than he's ever gotten to the free throw line and making 84.2 percent, which was his best percentage of his career, helped lift that scoring average as well. Anyway, I'm not anti-analytics at all. I'm open to all information and using information were applicable. I just know in basketball when people who have never played the game, but our major you know,

analytics, you know, sports analytics guy, guys tell me that Bradley Beal shoots too many bad twos and passes up

on better threes. They don't know what they're talking about. You know, I know what kind, I can watch Bradley Beal

and I can tell what kind of shooter he is. There are times when he can take an in rhythm three, and there are times

where he's behind the arc, but to get into good rhythm on his shot, it takes him inside that arc. I'd rather an

in rhythm two than an out of rhythm and uncomfortable three any day of the week. And by the way, that's not just about being defended either. Beals terrific shooting off screens. He's terrific with his feet set. But dribbling into a three, not what you want to see him do. Dribbling into a mid-range, absolutely.

Especially on the step-back. When he dribbles hard, shakes the defender. The defender's backing up, and then he can shoot sort of a step-back mid-range shot. He's deadly on those. All right, tomorrow, Bram Weinstein, who is the new play-by-play voice for the Washington football team and a friend of mine. Bram will be the guest on this show, and I think Tommy will join us on Thursday. Have a great day.