The Kevin Sheehan Show - Andy Dalton?

Episode Date: February 24, 2022

Kevin opened with a QB name that hasn't been discussed that much....Andy Dalton. Then it was Phil Mackey/Purple Daily-Minnesota joining Kevin as they compared notes on the two NFL fan bases that have one major thing in common.....the Kirk Cousins experience. Lastly, Hall of Famer Gary Williams was on to talk about the 20-year anniversary of Maryland's 2002 National Championship team. The 2002 Terps will be celebrated Sunday at XFinity Center.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You don't want it. You don't need it. But you're going to get it anyway. The Kevin Cheehan Show. Here's Kevin. Two guests on the show today. Gary Williams is going to join us. Maryland is celebrating and honoring the 2002 national championship team Sunday in College Park at Xfinity Center.

When the Terps host Ohio State, there are still tickets for that one. They're honoring the 2002 champs. Juan's going to be back. Juan Dixon, Steve Blake, Lonnie. Baxter, you know, Tage Holden, Byron Mouton, Drew, Drew Nicholas, the whole group is going to be back. I think the whole team's going to be back. We'll ask Gary that when he comes on. It's not the actual 20-year anniversary to the date. April 1st is that date when they beat Indiana in the title game, April 1st, 2002. One of the greatest nights of my sports rooting life. But they're going to honor the team.

Gary will come on. We'll reminisce. We'll go down memory lane on the 2002. Terps and talk with Gary about other things as well. My other guest on the show, some of you will be very annoyed that I am having this gentleman on the show. Too bad. I think it's actually a very interesting subject right now. You're not going to be annoyed with the person who I'm interviewing. You're going to be annoyed with the subject matter. With that said, I think some of you will find it interesting. Phil Mackey, Phil is the host of Purple Daily. He's also the host of the Mackey and Judd podcast on YouTube. Phil is a Vikings guy.

He's a Minnesota guy. He's a talk show host, and his partner's been, I think, a longtime writer and talk show host. And they are going through what we have gone through. And that is yes or no on Kirk Cousins and another few years of Cousins under potentially a new contract. I just think that it is time that I don't just drop Kirk's name in periodically into a conversation, which can annoy some of you. But we go into kind of a deep dive, corporate speak, into a deep dive on what they're going through. And we kind of compare notes here. Now, Phil is not a Kirk guy.

I don't think he is. and most of you know that I am. But I think my position on Kirk has always been more reasonable than many of you have made it out to be. I've never said he was an elite quarterback. I just think he's a really good quarterback. And I think he's had some bad luck along the way. But I will say this, as I said it to Tommy, I think yesterday on the podcast. It will be very telling about what is a priority for him professionally.

if he doesn't go to Minnesota and restructure the deal in a team-friendly manner. It's now or never as far as Kirk and winning something goes. Anyway, Phil Mackey is going to be our guest and we'll go deep into what they're dealing with and kind of compare notes on Kirk Cousins. I'm going to start with something and then we're going to get to Phil quickly. Bill Barnwell wrote one of his, you know, Warren Peace-length stories on ESPN.com. But he brought something to my attention

that I thought was interesting, and I'm going to make all of you consider this as well. So he had a column that essentially went through all of the priorities for all 32 teams in the league. And Barnwell got to Washington, and the number one priority is, of course, a dress quarterback. Actually, he didn't do it for all 32 teams. He did it for, I don't know, half the teams in the league, something like that. After explaining, you know, what happened last year with

Ryan Fitzpatrick, etc., Taylor Heinecke, etc. He gets to his final paragraph, and he writes the following. Unfortunately, unless the commanders can corral Aaron Rogers or Russell Wilson, there are not a lot of great options on the market. They would presumably be interested in Jimmy Garoppolo if the 49ers chose to trade their starter, but one veteran who comes to mind is Andy Dalton, who worked under Washington quarterback's coach Ken Zampezi in Cincinnati. Rivera could also choose to use the number 11 pick in the draft on a quarterback, but considering the relative low marks given this class, an immediate starter such as Garoppolo or Dalton seems like a more plausible path for Washington. God, we've talked about everybody. We really have not talked about Andy Dalton.

You know, yesterday with Ben, Ben brought up Teddy Bridgewater. And we debated Teddy Bridgewater. I'm not a Teddy Bridgewater guy, although I think from a character standpoint, from an intelligence standpoint, from a teammate standpoint, he'd be a Ron Rivera kind of guy. And Ben reminded me that Marty Herney was the general manager in Carolina when they signed Bridgewater to play there in 2020, right? It was 2020. Was it just one year with Bridgewater in Carolina? I forget. Anyway, how about the tie, and I forgot this one, Andy Dalton and Ken Zampezee in Cincinnati? Well, that was, you know, Jay Gruden initially had the relationship with Andy Dalton as the offensive coordinator in Cincinnati. The same time, by the way, former Vikings coach, Mike Zimmer,

was the defensive coordinator. We'll get to the Vikings in the offense of Minnesota. here shortly. But anyway, if you told me today the truth, I think the eventual truth, that we didn't get Rogers, we didn't get Wilson, and we didn't get Watson. And now we got to pick from all the others that we've been talking about, Trubisky, Marietta, you know, etc. Andy Dalton can play. Andy Dalton's okay. I mean, Andy Dalton is a big upgrade over what they had last year. Sorry, he is. He's a big upgrade over what they had the year before. Now, he would be a bridge quarterback to somebody that you would draft at 11 or higher, a Malik Willis or Kenny Pickett, you know, etc. But I think that Dalton and Ken Zampeze

fit is an interesting one relationship. And Dalton, to me, would be much better than going with Bridgewater. I actually would prefer Dalton over Marietta. The Tribisky thing, you know how I feel about Trubisky's tapping out in that playoff game against New Orleans, but I think a lot of people view Trubisky's upside or ceiling to be higher than maybe some of the other quarterbacks that we're talking about. I'm not up for Jimmy G. You know I'm not up for Carson Wentz. And I don't think Derek Carr is a possibility. But Andy Dalton would be interesting. Andy Dalton would actually, I think, be able to run this offense competently, more competently than any of the quarterbacks they had on the roster last year. In some ways, you know, Dalton's more mobile than people think.

And Dalton's had some, you know, some games recently. Like even this year with Chicago, like he, you know, he quarterbacked them late in the season to a very close loss against Baltimore. I don't remember if Jackson was playing in that game. He quarterbacked the Bears to a win over the Bengals early in the year before they decided to go to Justin Fields. And part of that was because Dalton got hurt. Dalton's 34. He's a good bridge quarterback and he's not going to be that expensive. I don't think.

Now, Chicago initially signed him to be the starter and then they drafted Justin Fields. And so maybe he wouldn't choose to come here knowing that Washington's going to draft a quarterback. But I thought that was a name we really haven't mentioned that much. By the way, one other quick thing. Mike Floreau had a story this morning that there are several teams that are interested in Deshawn Watson, even if the civil cases, the 22 civil cases, aren't settled. Now, remember, he has criminal proceedings on April 1st. A grand jury will decide at that point to either indict him on criminal charges.

charges, felony charges, or not. So there's still a chance he could go to jail. You're not going to trade for him until that criminal stuff gets cleared up. But the fact that teams would take a flyer on him, and it's not just a flyer, it's going to cost. With still 22 potential civil cases not settled, that's a big risk. And would this team do it? Again, I think they should. But whether or not, you know, Jason Wright and Tanya Snyder are going to stand up there and say, understand 22 civil cases haven't been settled. But this franchise, which is being investigated, you know, 50 different ways for a misogynistic and sexual harassment culture, we feel comfortable moving forward with him. That's a tough sell. But again, how low can they go? Like,

they wake up to a PR hit every single morning. They've got to win. I wonder if Washington was one of those teams to reach out to Houston and say, we're interested. Again, he's got a no trade clause. And so he may not want to come here anyway. All right. Up next, we're going to do a comparison, a note comparison with the Minnesota market. Phil Mackey's going to be our guest. Do they like Kurt Cousins? Do they want Kurt Cousins?

Are they going to trade Kurt Cousins? It wouldn't surprise me if he offers Kurt Cousins to us. That wouldn't happen. But that's what we'll do next right after these words from a few of our sponsors. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast and rate us and review us if you don't mind, especially on Apple and Spotify, really helps us on the revenue side of what we're doing. All right, I am bringing on to the show Phil Mackey. Phil is, according to his Twitter profile, he is the CEO of Vikings Twitter. But he's also the host of Purple Daily.

he does this Mackey and Judd podcast. By the way, his partner Judd is almost, for those of you listening, he's almost like the equivalent of Tom Leverro. Tommy Phil was my longtime radio partner on the Team 980, but he comes on the podcast with me now twice a week, and he's, you know, a longtime columnist for the Washington Times. And, you know, in watching your show every once in a while, your guy Judd reminds me just a little. He's identical to Tommy, and I think you and I have more similarities, even though I don't think we probably are going to agree on the subject, but let me just give everybody the reason you're on. So I think that, first of all, it's trolling many of my listeners who just hate when I bring up Kirk Cousins, which I try to do as often as possible.

But I think in so many ways, our two fan bases have this real connection. It's a Kirk Cousins connection. You know, we're almost like, what do they call that, like cousins once removed on the cousin's subject, you know, and you deal with it every single day, just like I did here doing a radio show in this market for so long every day when he was here. It's amazing to me how polarizing a figure cousins has become definitely in our market. and I think yours as well, if not league-wide for NFL fans. Why do you think that is? Oh, my gosh. I mean, I feel like we could sit here for 27 hours and not come to, you know,

some sort of consensus on an answer to your question. But I'm going to, okay, I'm going to start my answer by reading. I'm going to find this text here real quick here. So I got a text from somebody, let's just say close to the situation, who would know. And I was asking about cousins, and, you know, there's all these discussions now about should they extend him, should they trade him, should they just write out that ridiculous $45 million cap hit? And this person who's in the know was giving me some background on sort of his leadership and how he's in the locker room.

And the phrase this person used was, the Kirk has a dorky, weird arrogance that tends to turn people off. But at the same time, he's statistically one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL over the past. six or seven years. So it's how do you justify the pastor rating being top five all time and the completion percentage being top three all time? Yet the leadership qualities are weird and he doesn't connect with his teammates like some of the other top quarterbacks do. And if you rank the top 15 quarterbacks, passer rating quarterbacks all time in NFL history, 14 of them have not only winning records or the teams they played for winning record, but by chunks, by

50, 100 games above 500. Cousins is the only one on that list that is exactly 500 or below. And so, I mean, it's like he's polarizing by the numbers. He's polarizing by the team results, and I think he's polarizing by some of his own personal beliefs as well.

And it makes for just amazingly interesting discussion across both your fan base and the one that I'm involved with here in Minnesota. Yeah. Now, there are a lot of people listening that are saying, Shian, it's not as interesting for our fan base anymore. Too bad. We're this conversation anyway, because it's a good NFL discussion right now because we need a

quarterback and you guys may need one too. By the way, as you were saying that, it's like, are you serious? He's actually in the top 15 all-time passer rating. Is that true? All-time pass rating? I believe he's fifth. Oh, my God. See? Now, I heard that and I said, see? And then you packed it up with, of course, the, you know, the record of his record being so much different. So let me just, because you don't know much about me or my position, and I want to tell everybody that fills very much, not that you're anti-cousons, I don't think,

but you certainly from a standpoint of would you ship them out or keep them, you'd ship them out. So we used to call people like me, my good friend Steve Zabin, who was on the station for years. Zabe labeled people like me, Kirk jerks. And I think my friend who listens and watches your show all the time said you guys call them Kirk Crusaders.

You know, but see, I think, and I've watched a little bit of your stuff recently as all of these rumors have heightened about Cousins. I actually think we're probably pretty close. Like, I'm a believer that Cousins is a really good quarterback, but he has flaws. like he is not good off schedule. You know, he's not an extender.

And quarterbacks today, the really good ones, tend to extend plays, especially in the red zone, you know, and he doesn't play off schedule well. I think that there, you know, when he was here, and I knew Kirk a little bit. I know Mike very well, and the Shanahan's well, Mike in particular. And there's no doubt that he is definitely different, you know, and a little bit quirky and definitely an introvert.

compared to maybe some of the greatest quarterbacks of the day and their leadership stuff. So I recognize his flaws. At the same time, when he was here, Phil, we had a chance to get him for like a bargain for the most part. And instead, our dumbass franchise went down the path of franchise tagging him twice, which, by the way, is essentially the root cause for the problem that you're dealing with. because if Washington had signed him to like a real market-sized deal after his first year of starting, he would have never made it to franchise tag one or franchise tag two, which then created this opportunity for him to, I mean, totally, totally play the system beautifully

with guaranteed deals twice in Minnesota. So let's start with this. What is your fan base think right now? Is it split? you talk to these people, you hear from these people now, do you guys want Cousins out or do you want him to stay? I think there's a huge gray area here that revolves around value in a salary cap league. And so to the point that you just made, if Kurt Cousins made $8 million to the cap, like a rookie scale contract quarterback would, like a Joe Burrow over the next few years, and you can build a roster around him that limits pressure and brings. that defense back to where it was, you know, maybe a few years ago, then I could get behind it.

I think there's enough fatal flaws in his game regardless of how much money he makes relative to the cap to where I'm out. And if you want to call me anti-Kirk, that's fine. But the struggles against pressure, I think, are notable because you can't just eliminate pressure. He is atrocious when pressured and off schedule. And you can sit here on one hand and say, well, the Vikings need to fix their offensive line. And that's true.

And the Vikings need a better defense. so he doesn't have to put up 30 points, and that's true. But you're never going to get into the second third, you know, round of the playoffs or road games against the best teams in the world and just eliminate pressure. You're going to get pressured. Look at Joe Burrow in the playoffs, right? Like even teams with great offensive lines,

the best defenses that are still left in the playoffs are still going to find ways to dial it up, and he is really bad in those situations. But on the contract side, here's where I'm at. They signed him in 2018. to win a Super Bowl. They had the best defense in the NFL. They had Stefan Diggs, Adam Thelan,

had Kyle Rudolph in his prime. They had almost every ingredient you would need coming off an NFC championship game appearance, and they missed the playoffs in 2018. And since then, even though Kirk has probably gotten a little bit better in certain areas in 2018, the roster has inevitably gotten older. It has eroded.

Mike Zimmer and Kirk Cousins were never a great fit to begin with, and some of that's on, I think, Mike Zimmer for not building a better relationship, but some of it's on cousins, too, for just not being, he's just not a guy that you're going to get a beer with. Like, he's not, he's not a guy that rallies a locker room. So some of it's value and how much money he makes. Some of it's his weird leadership style or just his lack of leadership in some ways. And then some of it's just, they missed their window.

They tried to do what the Rams did with Stafford this year, four years ago, and they whipsed on the playoffs. So to me, it's just, you know, it doesn't, it doesn't, work here anymore in Minnesota. So if there's another team, like if Carolina says, all right, we've won five games each of the last three years, Tom Brady's gone from the division, you know, Sean Peyton's gone from the division. Kirk Cousins is a gravitational pull in either direction towards 500, and that would be great

if you're the Panthers in 2022. They should make the trade. The Steelers, you know, they're ready to get back, you know, make a little noise, maybe win 10, 11 games. They've got a ready-made roster. They need a quarterback. Okay, trade a first or second around. pick for him. And I would even say, you know, the history probably makes it impossible. Washington

could use a quarterback like Kirk Cousins, which I love your, I love your thoughts on. Well, I mean, to be honest with you, I would personally take him back in a heartbeat, but it would never work here. First of all, Kirk's going to have to sign if he gets traded, you're going to have to you're going to have to get him signed to an extension. And he would never sign an extension here. He couldn't stand the people here. And by the way, can't blame him. I mean, this is, you know, a bottom feeder franchise in terms of the people involved and certainly the owner. And even though the coaching staff, I think, is, you know, highly respected around the league.

Ron Rivera is. I think they've got some people in management now, Marty Herney and Martin Mayhew, who are a hell of a lot more competent than what they've had. once Sean McVeigh left here to take the job with the Rams, that was it. He was on franchise tag number one, and he wasn't going to resign here. And they never made him a legitimate market-sized offer for him to stay. I'll share with you a quick story. Chris Cooley was my radio partner, and he comes on this podcast all the time.

He's a really good friend of mine. Chris was kind of a part of the organization. that summer before he signed with the Vikings or that following year, Washington offered him 53 million guaranteed. And Bruce Allen held his arms up in the air and said, how isn't he signing this deal? He'll never come close to getting it. Cooley walked into his office and said, I guarantee you there's a team or teams that will pay him north of 75 million guaranteed when the season's over. Bruce looked at him like he was nuts. And of course, you know, the Jets offered him 90-something guaranteed before, you know, he settled on the Vikings deal.

So no is the answer for him coming back here. It would never work, even though it would be a major, major upgrade over what they have. What do you think they will do? I've heard what you think they should do and what maybe some of the fans think they should do. what will the new GM, the Wilfs, and Kevin O'Connell do? I think they do one of two things. I'll say I think they trade him. But I think they're either going to trade him or the second option would be,

I don't see them signing him to a big money three-year extension because I don't think Kirk and his camp are going to take a discount of any kind. In fact, my colleague Judd, who we referenced earlier here on the podcast, he caught wind that not only is Kirk not looking to take a pay cut, but his agency wants him to get an increase in base to account for the 2023 cap going up. And to me, that's just a non-starter. I don't understand why a first-time general manager,

Questido Flemensa, and a first-time head coach and Kevin O'Connell, this might be your only shot, and you guys are on like four-year contracts. Do you really want to attach your career to a 34-year-old good, not great quarterback on a $40 million contract, basically ironclad. So for all those reasons, I know they're saying the right things. I know that Kevin O'Connell has praised, you know, Kirk's accuracy and all these things. But I think if they had their choice, I think they would trade him.

But the other option would be, if they thought they could run this thing back, you know, they were close to the playoffs last year, I wouldn't advocate for this because I think they need a retool here. But if they thought, now, we can get DeNeil Hunter back on defense, we can make a couple little restructures here, clear up a little cap space to sign an offensive lineman. Let's reduce Kirk's 2020 cap and push some money into void years and make him a free agent. So he gets to be a free agent.

Vikings can push some money into void years and paper him while he's gone in 2020, if they want to run it back. I just don't think running it back is delaying the inevitable. Just get started on your retool and get some value for him in a trade. So those are kind of the two options that I see. I guess we'll find out in like two or three weeks. Phil Mackey is joining us. Phil is the host of Purple Daily Plus.

You can catch that show on YouTube. He's got a lot of stuff working. He is longtime Minnesota sports talk show host, et cetera. Look, Kevin O'Connell was here, and I think I may have told you this in a text message. Maybe not, I forget. but I would be shocked if Kirk Cousins got traded. I think Kevin O'Connell took this job in part

because he thinks that he's got the right offense for Cousins to thrive and to prove to your owners the Wills that this is what should have been happening all along. And by the way, some of what has been happening all along has been at times pretty good. You know, you talked and I talked about his inability to sort of extend plays, and it's not what he does naturally. At the same time, there have been moments over the last few years where Kirk's been

as good against the Blitz as any quarterback in the league. I know it wasn't necessarily the case this year, but there were times here where the worst thing you could do was Blitzem. But I just, I think that the Shanahan's Phil and everybody associated with the Shanahan tree, you know, and the Sean McVeigh tree, and even the Jay Gruden tree, you know, if you want to put Kevin O'Connell off the Jay Gruden tree, and I have Jay on the podcast every once in a while, they love them. They love them. And they think that the record is more or less bad luck.

You know, it's, you know, Alvin, it's Dalvin Cook fumbling in overtime at Cincinnati when that game was won. It's your kicker. I forget his name, missing a chip shot at Arizona. It's a lot of, you know, it's the fourth and 15 or whatever it was at the end of the game. And if not, you guys would have been an 11-win team. It's the kicker before the guy Bailey that missed every big kick he had and missed all those kicks at Lambo one year, that it's just been, you know, that they understand he's not elite. They understand he's not top five. he's not top, you know, eight or nine, but if you put the right team around him and you don't

have a kicker missing kicks every, you know, two or three weeks, that the record would be much better. And I think my comeback to that would be if you put the right team around him is almost impossible when he's making 20% of the salary cap, you know? 100%. Like I said that we literally just got done recording Turbo Daily before I hop down with you here, and one of the things I said was, you know, I found a quote from page. Manning in the Indianapolis Star from 2011.

Now, he said this when he was on the verge of a contract extension that never happened because he wound up undergoing neck surgery. He actually wound up never playing for the Colts again. But at the time, there was talk about Jim Earsay offering him the most money of any player in the NFL. And at the time of the quote that I'm about to read you, Manning was 34 years old, just like Kirk. He was about to turn 34 later this summer. He had been in the NFL for over 10 years, had made, you know, 9.

figures in life-changing money, just like Kirk has. And now it's about, all right, I can see the finish line. My career is going to be over here in the next five years. I'm rich. I want to win Super Bowls. And Peyton Manning said, well, I appreciate Jim Eersay offering to make me the highest-paid player. I told him I'd rather save that money and keep whoever it is on the roster.

Joseph Adai, Charlie Johnson, whoever that may be. I'm willing to take less money than they've offered if they're going to take that money to keep players we need and to go get other players in free agency. All I want is for them to have the cap space and cash to keep this thing together and sign more players. If Kirk were to come out and say something like that and then actually do it and say, listen, I believe in this thing. Let's run this thing back. Let's get healthy.

Let's add a right guard and a center. And let's push forward here. And I will take the hit. We'll still be able to feed a couple generations of cousins kids if I take, you know, $10, $20 million less. money. But at no point in his career has he shown any propensity to do that. So like, you know, it's what the other funny thing is here, I'd be curious to know your answer on this. Whether you're a Kirk Crusader or a Kirk hater, I'm pretty sure 90% of us rank him somewhere between like the 10th and 14th best quarterback in the NFL and the arguments for more about,

you know, how much money he gets paid or what you need to put around him. Like, like, like, for Is he between 10 and 14? I mean, do you have him like 8? No, no, I think that that's it. But I think that, first of all, I totally agree with you on this. And this is a big moment for him. And I hope he recognizes this because his, sometimes I wonder if he's totally detached from how polarizing he is. I don't think he is because I think he's fairly bright.

and I think he pays attention to a certain degree. But I do think there's a part of him, and I actually respect this part of him, that doesn't give a shit at all. But this is a big moment for him because he's got to stop winning the negotiation, and he's got to start winning on the field. And on the field, for those that have been paying attention to the Vikings,

and there are many of us here that pay attention to it. And people get upset with me when I say that. Look, When Art Monk left here and went to play for the Jets, I paid attention to Art Monk and I rooted for Art Monk. When Brian Mitchell was playing for the Giants and the Eagles, I rooted for Brian Mitchell. When Gary Clark was playing for the Cardinals, when Mark Rippin moved on after a Super Bowl win in Minneapolis, by the way, in your great city where my wife is from, she's from Minnetonka. So I followed Rippin when he was playing in Cleveland and then Indianapolis.

I mean, I think that there's some of that with most hardcore fans that you, you know, the players that you actually gravitate towards and like if they get traded or they get cut or they move on in free agency, you'll follow them. But anyway, this is a big moment for him because he's got to stop winning, which he has, this negotiation process where he has really cashed in on being between the 10th and 14th best quarterback in the game. and now it's got to be about winning for him. And I think, by the way, just the gesture, you know, for a lot of people that know him well or following him from afar, he's got to say to them, I want to be here, I want to play with Justin Jefferson,

I want to play with Adam Thielen and Dalvin Cook, and I want better protection up front, and I want a defense where my DPs can actually, you know, break up a pass, you know, stop a third down conversion. and oh, by the way, if there's a possibility that Aaron Rogers is out of the division and Tom Brady's gone, we could be a threat, you know, to win it. I don't know if he'll do it, though, Phil. I don't know because I'm not saying that there's a self-absorption there,

but there is this focus on being a success from a business standpoint, and I think it's short-sighted. And so I will be personally as a Kirk jerk. I will be disappointed if he doesn't make that big, that big gym gesture using an office quote. If he doesn't do that because I think it's time for him to do that. And I read that report the other day and I was like, damn, I'm disappointed, but I'm also not completely surprised. But with that said, I think your team this year, I thought he had. some of his best moments in some of his best games and wasn't rewarded for it.

You know, the Cincinnati driving them for the game tying field goal, driving them into territory to kick a game-winning field goal, Dalvin Cook fumbles. The drive against Arizona in a shootout and the guy misses a chip shot. He won the game against Detroit and Carolina and, you know, drove him down the field and forced overtime against Baltimore, had him in position. Like, that Dallas game was the worst.

and then defensively giving up the throw the Jared Gough touchdown pass was ridiculous. I think that team was an 11 or 12 win team that would not have gone to the Super Bowl. Don't get me wrong, but could have won a game or two in the postseason. And it didn't. And I didn't view it as, you know, from afar, you watched a lot more. And what I did a lot is I would watch kind of. of the 60 minute version on my all 22.

But it just seemed like it was a lot to do with other things than him this year. Yeah, you know, yeah, there were definitely things. I mean, you know, those first two games of the season where you had the Dalvin Cook Fumble, which I'm going to pick a scab here too. It wasn't even a fumble. I'm actually shocked that they allowed it to remain a fumble. And then the Greg Jones and Ms. Field goal. but I keep going back to, like, his Kirk's statistics do not equate to team success,

and they don't even really equate to overall, like, team offensive success, as much as you would think that they do. And there's maybe been some things that, you know, his offensive lines could be better. And, you know, from a full team standpoint, you know, the defense has dropped off the last two years, but it was a top five, ten defense the first two years, years here. And one thing I can't get over, actually two things. from a team perspective. As great as his numbers were, and as great as his individual performance was just on the back of a football card,

the Vikings offense led the NFL in three and outs last year. Yeah. That's incredible to me. Yeah. Because he's not, when the opposing team knows he has to pass, third down an eight, third down and tall, it's a lot harder for him. But where were they in penalties too? Because it seemed like every time I turned on that game, it was first in 20. No, that's that, yeah, and I don't have the ranking in front of me, but they had a lot, I mean, only Udo, the right guard led, I think he was like second among guards and penalties. I mean, he was holding every game. Yeah, I mean, I read that somewhere, which was unusual, not that they've been a great third down conversion team, but I know that for a while they were way up there in offensive penalties. And it's seen, and by the way, this speaks to what we both agree on. His inability to extend plays and playoff schedule is why.

a lot of times on third and 13, it's not a good situation for a quarterback like him, you know, where others have to create and extend to move the chains with an off-schedule play on third and 13. But I would bet you from afar, again, they had a lot of, they had a lot of second-15s, second-and-twenties, and third-and-14s. I'll throw another couple things here, too. So this is great, by the way. A lot of the cousins crusaders that I argue with, you know, they're, I would say they're They're very short and shallow in their ability to actually have a conversation. I feel like all sports debate should take this sort of platform and flesh something out for 25 or 30 minutes.

But the other thing that really bothers me about cousins is this just sort of this I just work here type attitude. Process oriented. Process oriented. We refer to it as I'm very process oriented. Right, right. So two things that really manifest. this season that rubbed me the wrong way. I can't remember the exact game, but there was a game about halfway to the season.

Again, the Vikings are grinding all these close games. Every game was a historical amount of close one-stor games that they played. You're coming down to the wire, and every possession matters. And there was a moment where, and I can't remember if it was the end of the game or the end of the first half, but we're like, they're trying to get points, and they've butchered the clock because no one called a timeout with 30 seconds left or whatever. They let the clock run down and they kick the field goal instead of a touchdown. And after the game, it was one of those classic, you know, first guess,

wow, you really should have called a timeout there. And a reporter asked Kirk Cousins, hey, what happened in that sequence? And he said, well, you know, I leave the timeouts up to Mike Zimmer. You know, I was looking to the sideline to see if they were going to call a timeout. And Mike Zimmer had to come out and say, well, Kirk has permission to call a timeout. And, you know, but Kirk's attitude was just sort of, well, listen, I just work here. I get the, they call the play, and I look to the sideline to call time out. And people are like, dude, you're 33, you make $40,000, whatever it was this year, $32 million.

This is your show. You've been in the league for 10 years. Go run the show. And I think it also rubs some people the wrong way, too, that the Vikings fired everyone, right? They fired, they made the biggest shakeup in the last 20 years of Vikings football. They fired the GM, the coach. And then the 48 hours afterwards, they trot out three team leaders to speak to the public in the media. Adam Deland, Eric Kendricks, and Brian O'Neill, and Kirk Cousins was radio silent for a month.

And, you know, if you're going to be the leader and you're not just going to work here and sort of wait to be told what to do, then step up and be a leader in that moment. And that rubbed me the wrong way, too, I should say, if it's not already obvious. No, I mean, I think that I think there are a lot of people nodding their heads right now and saying, yep, that's him. I mean, there was a game in 2017. They were playing the Saints, a really good Saints team. I mean, Kirk lit the Saints up. And at the end of regular, they had a 15-point lead late, and Breeze brings them back. And by the way, terrible defensive teams here in Washington for Kirk.

I mean, brutally awful defensive teams here, which is just flat out true for those that, you know, say that they're going to Sheehan making excuses for him. I mean, it was actually, they were eight, they were nine and seven and won the division. They went eight, seven, and won the following year. And I promise you, as objectively as I can say this, if they hadn't had the quarterback play that they had those years, they would have been two or three win teams. But again, that, you know, that gets into, you know, has this been more bad luck or is this more about him?

I don't disagree with you. That sounds like Kirk. He's not an extrovert leader. He's not a dude. I mean, people used to tell me this about him. He doesn't play golf. He doesn't go out and drink. He's very religious.

There's a very spiritual kind of side to him. But this New Orleans game, they got to the end and Breeze had come back and tied it up because they couldn't stop anybody. And at the very end of regulation, they had to, the ball literally at like the Saints 35-yard line and, you know, getting ready to get in field goal range. And Kirk like threw the ball away, but it was a grounding throw it away because the play got brought in wrong.

The play was called wrong. Jay told me it was, I think he said it was Pierre's fault. Like he actually blamed it on Pierre-Garson. But the bottom line is if you had been, you know, somebody who was totally. totally in the moment and aware of it, you would have rolled out a little bit just to get outside the pocket and then thrown it away. But he threw it away from inside the pocket. Fifteen yards later, they're going to overtime and they lost in overtime. So, no, I get that. Look, he is, he's flawed. I do think over the years, you know, in this relationship that

Minnesota fans and Washington fans have, I think the Kirk haters versus the Crusaders, I think is what you said they're called there. I do, and I have felt the narrative that comes from those that believe in him a little bit more is two stats based, okay, two numbers based, and there's not enough recognition of what his flaws are, which I've always, like, people that claim that I think he's like the greatest thing that's ever, no, I've always said he is a really good quarterback. He's somewhere between, actually I've said, what I always just say, the early days. This is a top half of the league starting quarterback. You'll see. You'll see.

This is what he is. And then, you know, in 2016, when they were lighting it up, he was somewhere between, you know, 8 and 12. But I think overall I've always had him somewhere between 10 and 14. But I do think that the other side comes off as he sucks, he chokes. His record says all you need to know about him. And I'm just not a quarterback tie. to win loss record person. I just think it's way overrated. I mean, if that were the case, right, like Matt Stafford, who still has a losing overall record, you know, if he hadn't gotten traded, because I always liked Matt Stafford. We used to have that debate here in town. Stafford and I said, I'd take Stafford because he can make plays off schedule. He's a bit more of a

gamer. But Kirk's a good quarterback. And I would be surprised if he gets traded, because I believed the Fowler report, I think it was the Fowler report, that basically everybody that came in and interviewed for that job said, well, if not him, then who? Because that's the problem a lot of teams have, right? If you have 10 to 14, you know, and maybe that limits your upside. Maybe that's your overarching point here, which is a good one. Like, can you actually win the Super Bowl with Kirk Cousins? I don't know. I think San Francisco and or the Rams with him, they would have gotten pretty far.

with Sean and or Kyle. I do think that because I think he's a hell of a lot better quarterback than Jimmy Garapolo. But the money makes no sense. The cap hit makes no sense. They've got to figure that out. Or, by the way, Phil, you should trade him because the big mistake that this franchise made is once it became apparent that he was going to get to free agency and they had run out of tags, I mean, they weren't going to tag them for a third time at 45% over whatever it was.

They should have traded them, and Kyle offered Washington number two overall in the 2017 draft, and this petty-ass organization didn't want to deal with the Shanahan's. They didn't want to give Kirk back to Kyle, and they passed on that, and what a mistake that was, because they got a compensatory pick for him. But I would be really surprised. And it sounds like you wouldn't be. Yeah, no, I would not be. And I'll throw just a couple more things on the fire here.

It's a good discussion. So I think the more we flush this out, too, you probably both agree on this. Kirk Cousins and then the team that he would then be a part of, whether it's the Viking still or the Panthers, whoever else. He's one of the highest floor quarterbacks in the NFL, but he also has a glass ceiling. And I think the team that he plays for with him making

this much money also has a glass thing. And that's why I sort of jokingly but not really call him a gravitational pull toward 500. If you are a side-win team, he's great. I mean, I want to forget, the Carolina Panthers, the Carolina Panthers should be, and the Panthers have one pick on the first two days. It's the sixth overall picks. Obviously, I don't think they're going to trade the sixth overall pick for him. You have to figure out, you know, some draft pick-backed, kickbacks and take on Donald's contract. But if you're the Carolina Panthers, and you're looking to just be competent and maybe win a weak division and go from five wins to nine, Kirk Cousins is the perfect quarterback for you. If you're the

Minnesota Vikings and your franchise has been around for 60 plus years and you are one of the most winning franchises in North American team sports history to never win a Super Bowl, I just don't think there's any way to do it with him making that kind of money. And I'm not sure there's any way to do it with him, period. And so for those reasons, I'm looking like, the four years before Cousins arrived, and Mike Zimmer was the coach for those four years, too. With Teddy Bridgewater as kind of a limited, you know, limited

armed rookie with Case Keenum at one point and broken down San Bradford and all these different random quarterbacks they had, the Vikings in those four years averaged 10 wins. They've averaged eight with Kirk. And again, Kirk's a better quarterback than all those guys. I'm just saying, okay. I was going to,

that was my follow-up. I mean, you don't actually think Case Keenum's a better quarterback than Kirk. No. Okay. No, absolutely not. So Kirk is, this is a, this is a, I guess, an opinion on team roster building and salary cap. But they averaged 10 wins per season, won two divisions and went to the NFC championship game with kind of a hodgepodge of quarterbacks that didn't make that much money because they could invest in the rest of the roster.

They did nail draft picks at a higher rate during that era than they did after, in fairness. The minute they brought Kirk in, the rest of the roster started to erode. And I just think you have to take that into account. If you're the Vikings at this point, you missed your window. The window was 2018-19 with Kirk, and they didn't get it done. And so if you're another franchise, it's kind of like the Rams. The Rams were just in a much better spot to put a Matthew Stafford into a ready-made roster, and he drove the car to a Super Bowl.

And so I'm kind of curious, too. I don't think it can happen with the Vikings anymore because they just need too much. Their roster is just not in a position to win a Super Bowl. I would be curious to see him with Pittsburgh's team. I'd be curious to see, I mean, I still think there's a, you know, half a percent chance that Kyle Shanahan could say, all right, well, we've already seen how far we can go with Jimmy Garapolo. Trey Lance is not ready, and Tom Brady is happy eating cheeseburgers for the first time in 25 years in retirement. Let's make a foot. I would love to see what Kurt could do with a ready-made roster in 2022.

and I almost hope that it happened so we can all kind of put this to bed once and so I don't know if we'll ever be able to do it but I think the funniest thing that's been said on this call and you've said it twice now is he's a gravitational pull back to 500 which by the way I think his actual record is exactly 500 if I'm not mistaken is that right it is with two ties with two ties of course well yeah yeah well let me just tell you here's it here's an interesting thing about the two ties because one of them happened here and one of them happened at Lambeau Field in his first year. And this is why I do think there's a little bit of snake bit in here in his career. Again, not elite, doesn't, has flaws. By the way, we're going to find out if he doesn't, you know, come forward and make that gesture on the contract too selfish.

you know, ironically, you know, very kind of quirky and odd and then maybe a little bit too self-absorbed if it comes down to that. But they played Cincinnati in London and Dustin Hopkins in overtime in a shootout where Kirk played well, missed a 30-yard field goal. And so that was a tie. And correct me if I'm wrong, because I think it was his first game as a Viking because I was very, very curious that year. as to how he would do. They played at Lambo, and was it Bailey, who was the kicker that missed like four field goals, including like one at the end of regulation and one at overtime? It's better.

It's better. You've actually opened up a treasure trove of Vikings' kicker history here. So the kicker that missed those three field goals was Daniel Carlson. Carlson. The Vikings drafted him in the fifth round. to be the kicker of the future, and they were right. They were right. Yeah.

But Mike Zimmer's hatred for kickers runs so deep. They cut Daniel Carlson after that game. He went to the Raiders about three weeks later, and now he's one of the five best kickers in the NFL. Oh, my God, Carlson. Carlson, but am I right that he missed like three or four field goals in that game, and they should have won? And so the two ties he has were both games.

I'm telling you, if you go through, and I could do it for the Washington games, they played Dallas. They blew out Green Bay on a Sunday night. It was the You Like That Game, all right? Which I'm sure, you know, you know the sound drop. The You like that sound drop. And it was they blew out the Packers Sunday night football. I think he threw four touchdown passes over 300 yards.

And they played that. They were two games over 500. In fact, it's their best. record through, I think, 10 or 11 games since they won the Super Bowl in 1991. Actually, that's not true. That's not true. They had a couple of other seasons that were okay. But anyway, it created this heavyweight rivalry Thanksgiving Day matchup in Dallas, and Hopkins missed two field goals in that game, and they lost by five. It was the same year that Hopkins missed the field goal in overtime in London. It was the same year they were in Detroit

and Hopkins missed a short field goal, and they ended up losing by three. I do think there's some, you know, there's some snake-bitten moments for him. And I thought watching you guys, again, not, you know, with granular detail, like you consume the games, but in watching and following it a little bit, that was very close. Like there was a very fine line this year between a team that would have won 11 or 12 games and maybe you're not having this conversation, but of course, from your purposes, it means you'd still have Zimmer.

But that this year probably more so, I don't know, the year that they, how many, what did he, he just, he won the one playoff game against New Orleans, right? That's it. Correct, yep, yep. To his credit, by the way, he threw a 42-yard dime to Adam Bealant to set up the game winner.

Yeah, it was his best moment. The next year, which would have been 20, 2020, right, the COVID year. I mean, again, like they're down getting ready to put Seattle away on Monday night football and they've got inches to go. And I forget whether it was Cook or the backup running back. It gets stopped. It was Madison. Madison.

Yeah. You know, and that was like the same. year in which it somehow Dallas couldn't move the ball against anybody but they gave up like Andy Dalton threw like four touchdowns against them and I thought that should have been a playoff team

but again I'm with you I think we're probably in agreement on most things I just think that the record part of it that there is a little bit of bad luck associated with his overall record not that that he would have a Tom Brady record

okay or a Peyton Manning record but that there's been some bad luck that's kept him from more playoff games, more playoff seasons, but I'm not saying that I think there would have been great or tremendous playoff success. Because I do think that there's probably a ceiling unless it's the perfect fit like I think San Francisco would have been had he been traded there. Yeah, and this kind of feels like our closing arguments here, and so I'll give you mine in that I think

if you look at his career, zoom out to 30,000 feet. Look at his 10 years in the NFL, look at his, you know, seven or whatever as a starting quarterback. And from a coaching standpoint, he's had some of the brightest assistant coach or coordinator offensive minds we've seen. He's had Shanahan to McVeigh, Kevin O'Connell, Kevin Stefanski, by the way, was also his offensive coordinator. He's had both, he had Gary Kubiak, you know,

going back 25 years of great offensive coaching experience. He's actually had some pretty, people bitch about Mike Zimmer, but he's had some pretty good coaching infrastructure to maximize him throughout his career. He had two of the best defenses in the NFL in 2018-19, especially the 2018 defense. And he's had weapons. He's had Stefan Diggs, Justin Jefferson, Adam Dillon. I think, you know, Washington didn't quite have Minnesota's weapons. I should mention Dallas.

Well, they did. They did. I mean, the year they had Deshawn and Pierre and Jordan Reed and Chris, they had, They had some weapons, but go ahead. Sorry. Yeah. And so, you know, has he had all of these things all that once in a perfect storm? Perfect defense, great coaches, weapons, everything, the right head coach at the same exact time?

No. And that's a point to the Kirk Crusaders. But my comeback to that is, who does? You know, how many teams in NFL history outside of the, you know, the Bill Belichick, Tom Brady Patriots, have perfect circumstances over a lengthy stretch. At some point, it's your job to sort of rise above some of the deficiencies on your roster. And I will say this about quarterback wins, so to speak. I'm with you generally. You can't boil a team game that involves 53 guys on a roster and 90 guys on a training camp roster down to a quarterback win-loss record.

But I do think once you get over 100 career starts in the NFL as a quarterback, your influence as the most important player on the roster tends to play itself out. with some exceptions, right? I mean, if you're Matthew Stafford and you spent the bulk of your career with, quite frankly, the worst run organization in 50 or 60 years, you know, in the NFL, or the Cleveland Browns or whatever from 1999 to 2020, there's going to be some noise in there that brings your record down. And I think you could probably make those cases about Kirk and Washington, for sure, and some of the bad luck, the noise in the last couple years of the Viking.

But over the course of a hundred-plus career starts, if you really are a great quarterback and leader and you're someone who elevates people around you, your record probably gravitates above 500 and Kirk's right now sits exactly 500. I don't think his career is anywhere close to being over. I think he probably, if he wants to play for another four or five years, I think he can. And we just, we went through the, the pro football focus annual quarterback manual today and just kind of picked out some of the cousin stuff. He is objectively better as a quarterback with almost.

any measurement than he was four years ago when he went from Washington to Minnesota. But the biggest sticking point for him remains, when things get murky, when things get off schedule, as you've said, he's not good. And if Kevin O'Connell can say, Kevin O'Connell referenced, you know, trying to get Kirk to play with more of a quiet mind at his introductory press conference, if Kevin O'Connell thinks, listen, Matthew Stafford's one of the best quarterbacks under pressure, He literally led the league, him and Joe Burrow led the league in yards per attempt under pressure last season. There's a reason why those guys are playing in the Super Bowl. I can't get Kirk to that level, but I can bring him from like 30th in yards per attempt under pressure and having a chattery mind.

I can bring him closer to average. All right. Then maybe there's an uptick to be had here in the next couple of years with Cousins. But I still go back to the window was 2018-19 here in Minnesota. and if he's going to have big-time team success, it almost certainly has to be somewhere else. So I'm shopping him over the next two weeks. Well, you said something that's actually an argument for both sides,

the perfect circumstances. Mike Shanahan said early on, you know, when the owner basically had saddled up super close and ultimately picked Robert Griffin III over a staff at the time, I'm sure you guys know this, that included Mike Shanahan, Kyle Shanahan, Sean McVeigh, Matt LaFleur, Mike McDaniel, by the way, as well. But Snyder, by the way, thanks for not including Washington in the category of worst franchises over the last 60 years.

But if you'd gone to the last quarter century, it's probably as, you know, it's in the bottom three in terms of run franchises and ownership situations. but the perfect circumstances, it's like the argument for both sides, right? It's like, yes, you can win a Super Bowl if everything's perfect around him. He's good enough to do that, to do that. But to your point, if you're, you know, sort of, you know, in the camp of, yeah, but it's too hard to get the perfect circumstance. And I think from this last postseason, what we all at least were, there was an emphasis, finally, I think it may have changed the thought of many front offices.

you know, especially that Kansas City Buffalo game. It's like, what's the point if you don't go for the highest ceiling possible? Because in this day and age, Washington's in dire need of a quarterback, Phil, right? So it's like, where are they going to go? Well, Rogers isn't going to come here. Wilson might not, you know, I learned that he wouldn't hesitate coming here, but Washington doesn't have the same, you know, ability to trade for Wilson. Philly and the Giants in their own division have multiple first round picks and quarterbacks they can send back.

Washington doesn't have one. But where was I going with that? I lost my train of thought. No, my point being is that I don't want them to trade for Jimmy Garoppolo. I don't want them to sign Mitch Tribisky. You know, I don't want, personally, I don't know that I'd really even want Derek Carr. I think he's got a ceiling. And I'm going for either one of the true studs that may or may not be available,

Rogers Wilson Watson, or I'm going for the highest ceiling quarterback in the draft. And I think that's Malik Willis, who knows. But I can't win a Super Bowl and contend for one if I don't have greatness at that position, especially in an organization like ours, that has so much fighting against it every day, with the ownership situation. It almost needs an elite quarterback to overcome the dysfunction. Yep. 90% of Super Bowl winning teams going back to the year 2000 has had either an undisputed Hall of Famer and or a rookie scale quarterback contract. Right. And once you start to get into the business of, all right, now we're going to pay a pretty good quarterback

top-notch money, you can't win a Super Bowl anymore. There's a couple exceptions here and there where someone, you know, like, I think Brad Johnson kind of fell between those two categories in 2002, and there's another one or two in there. But that's where I, like, you bring up Malik Willis, and that's where I'm at with the Vikings. I think, who do I think would be the better quarterback the next three years? Kirk Cousins or Malik Willis?

Probably Kirk Cous. But if I have what might be a quarterback whisper head coach and Kevin O'Connell, and I get to borrow some of that Sean McVeigh, coaching tree equity. I'd rather him focus on maximizing the peak potential of Malik Willis than the glass ceiling of Kirk Cousins for a lot less money, by the way, over the next five years. And now I can build out the rest of my roster. I think, I think, again, if your only goal as a franchise is to win a Super Bowl, which is where the Vikings are at, they've done everything there is to do in the NFL except when it's Super Bowl, you should be playing for the, even if it's

a risk and it might blow up in your face, you should be playing for the peak potential upsets. at quarterback as opposed to avoiding a disaster that is a three or four wins. I think the Vikings and the ownership group and a lot of the fans are so paralyzed with fear of turning into Washington or turning into the Lions or the Jets. Oh my gosh, what if you draft a quarterback and you wind up whiffing and you go into a Cleveland Brown's like spiral for 10 years? Like people fear that because it's never happened to the, literally never happened to the Vikings. They always bounce back every single decade after maybe a one or two year downstretch.

And people fear that more than they are hungry, I think, sometimes for reaching for a Super Bowl. Well, look, the bottom line here, I think the big takeaway is anything to keep you from that gravitational pull back to 500 or up to 500. What else? What else? So final predictions, I think Kirk ends up being your quarterback next year under a new contract. your final prediction is what? I think they trade him in the next three weeks, and I think they go into a reset mode.

And I do think you can make the playoffs while retooling. The Eagles showed you that by winning whatever it was, eight or nine games and still finding away. And I'm only, I was 100% sure they were trading him a month ago. I'm probably 51% sure now. Okay. Don't hold. Don't hold me to it. Hey, who's the defensive coordinator there?

At Donatelle. Oh, right, the Fangio disciple. Why didn't they just hire Fangio? As a defensive coordinator? Yeah. That's a good question. I don't know. I don't know.

There was some steam that, so Jim Harbaugh was a runner up for this head coaching job. At first, I had heard that, yeah, yeah, he's going to, wherever he goes, he's going to bring Fangio with, but then he went back to Michigan. So I don't know. That's a good question. I'm not sure. Yeah, because I'll tell you what, I didn't like Zimmer necessarily as a head coach, but I think he's a brilliant defensive mind.

Yeah, the last couple years, his ability to keep up with modern pre-snaps movement and all the different things that these young offensive coordinators and coaches are doing, I think he has to go back and maybe reflect

a little bit on if the league passed him by, but for 20 years all the way up until maybe 2020, one of the most brilliant defensive coaching minds in the NFL. And I haven't heard his name pop up a whole lot in the last couple weeks, so he might take a year off and just sit on that Vikings paycheck, but I do think he'll be back at some point. Maybe even, you know, depending on what happens with Dallas, I could see Sean Payton taking over his head coach in Dallas next year.

And Mike Zimmer as his defensive coordinator. Dan Quinn gets a head job somewhere. I can see that. Yeah, that makes sense. Thank you for doing this. Enjoyed it. Appreciate it. Phil Mackey, at Phil Mackey on Twitter, and he and his partner do a really good show.

They're into their team, like many of us used to be really into our team. We've had a lot of changes around here, Phil, over the last couple of years, including a name that is kind of hard for some of us to get used to so far. Anyway, thanks again. It's a great name. the commander, the commies. Come on. Let's go get them and see about the plan. Yeah, you can have it. Thanks, man. Appreciate it. Thanks, Kevin. Hall of Fame coach Gary Williams will join us next.

Maryland is going to celebrate the 2002 National Championship team Sunday at Xfinity Center. We'll get to Gary right after these words from a few of our sponsors. Give it to Dixon. He deserves it. It's his shining moment. And for all the Terrapins as well, of first ever national championship. April 1st, 2002, Maryland won its lone national championship, beating Indiana 64 to 52 in Atlanta. This Sunday, when Maryland hosts Ohio State at Xfinity Center, the 20-year anniversary of that national championship team will be celebrated.

Gary Williams will be there, and I think much of the team will be there as well. Gary joins us right now. Is everybody going to make it back for this event on Sunday? Yeah, well, there's a couple guys that are local. Ron Dixon at Coppin, Lonnie Baxter, Byron Mouton. They're all local. And a lot of the guys that moved away Steve Blakes in Florida now, he moved from Portland to Florida, Ryan Randalls in Texas, Todd Shulton's up in Jersey, who I stay in touch with on a regular basis. He could stand on a campus once in a while. But a lot of the guys, you know, they're just scattered. So this is a chance to get everybody together.

And, you know, looking forward to Chris Wilcox, who I stay in touch with, is coming up from North Carolina. And, you know, and they're just, you know, it's really interesting to watch them now. They're like in their early 40s, those guys. Yeah. And to see what they've done with their lives and see how they've changed people, you know,

and all that. And they have kids, you know, and they look at things a lot differently now than they might have when they were players. But here's what happens. Kevin, when everybody gets together, you're back 20 years ago. You're back in a locker room. The stories come out.

You know, everything gets funny again, you know, like it is in a locker room. So I'm looking forward to it. Will all the assistant coaches, I know Jimmy will be there, and I know Troy will be there. What about Dave Dickerson, Matt Kavarok? Will they be there? Matt Kavorek is coming in. Dave is playing. He cannot make it.

he's at South Carolina upstate and they are playing this weekend. So he can't make it, but all the other coaches will be there. When everybody gets together, and I think, you know, like the 30 for 30, the NC State, you know, 1983 team, the Derek Wittenberg and Terry Gannon and Sidney Lowe and, you know, all of those guys were on, you know, that 30 for 30 and you could see them all back together in the laughter. Is there like, are there certain stories or certain stories, or certain stories about players more than others

when you guys are together that come up all the time where you guys are laughing hysterically? Oh, yeah, and, you know, a lot of the stories, some guys are in denial now about some of those stories, but they happen. They all happen. They happen. And it's really funny. You know, just, you know,

you talk about the timeout in the North Carolina game in the semifinals in 2002, with Juan Dixon just killing Chris Wilcox in the huddle. And, you know, Juan denies that. Chris doesn't remember it, but I remember it. I mean, I was there, you know, trying to get a word in edgewise between those two guys. So, you know, there's a lot of funny things that happen in the locker room. You know, players, you know you have a good team when there's no clicks in the locker room

where these three guys like each other but don't like that other guy over there. You know, it's just a great feeling to be able to walk into a locker room. and there's no BS. There's no political stuff. There's nothing going on except getting ready for practice or making fun of somebody that did something stupid at practice that day and, you know, guys get all over. Have they, you know, 20 years later, they're, you know, between 40 and 42 years old, you know, somewhere in that general area. Have they all developed, you know, as adults in the way that you thought they would? I mean, that's such a, that's, that's, that's such. It's such an interesting perspective that you have because you dealt with these people, you know, as super young people, teenagers, really. And then you have this ability and this opportunity to reconnect with them or stay in touch with them

as they become adults. And all of your former players, and I think most Maryland fans understand this, all of Gary's former players really loved the time and loved Gary and love Gary and love telling the stories about Gary. But on this particular team, like, did they all develop in the way you thought? Was there a player that became maybe a surprise to you in terms of the kind of an adult that they turned into? Well, you know, certain guys you worry about when they're 20, 21 years old.

Right. You know, like you said, you know, the light goes on for people different. I always get a kick out of people to think every college basketball should be mature. college basketball players should be mature and know how to act and all that stuff. When you're own kids, we all had kids that, you know, whenever 20, 21, when I was 2021, you know, I wasn't exactly, you know, on the straight and narrow all the time.

And so you have to remember that. But now I look at him, you know, Juan Vicks is the head basketball coach at Coffin State. Byron Muton is doing a lot of work with kids in the area with teams and individual coaching in the Montgomery County. in Prince George's County area. Lonnie Bax's working for Jim Coleman, Toyota. Steve Blake's in Florida, you know, working with youth basketball in Florida.

Tosh Holden's a stockbroker in New Jersey and coaches a high school team. Mike Grininin's head of New York Life in St. Louis. Calvin McCall is selling real estate in Florida. You know, and just Andre Collins is over on the Eastern Shore. Andre, who transferred at the championship year is doing great things. on the eastern shore in Maryland. So you watch them and, you know, you kind of keep track of them. I don't talk to all of them all the time on a regular basis,

but, you know, I'd say at least half to six to eight guys. I speak to pretty regularly. Those that are still involved in basketball, whether it be, you know, Dave Dickerson as an example, or some of those players, you know, like Taj, who were coaching. I know Steve was coaching up until recently. Juan's currently coaching. How often, if ever, do they reach out to you to say, hey, what, you know, with questions?

Yeah, they're big questions. How come you didn't let me shoot more? But, I mean, questions about coaching the teams or the involvement in basketball right now? Yeah, you know, we talk a little bit, but those guys, you know, over the years, they developed whatever they got out of plane at Maryland to their other playing. some of them play professionally, and they develop their own ideas about how to play. But, you know, we talk, and the game's changed since 20 years ago, you know, how the game's played by, you know, at most levels. And so, you know, they stay moderate with what they do.

But, you know, we talk and, you know, it's great a guy. Like, I got a chance to see the second half of Juan Dixon's game against Howard the other night. They beat Howard a big win for Coppin when they beat Howard. things like that. And then we'll talk. I've talked for once since then about the game and things like that. Of the guys that ended up having, you know, Steve, obviously, Blake had the longest NBA career in the most successful NBA career. You know, Wilcox was, you know, a first round pick was in the NBA. You know, Juan scored 35 in a playoff game with the Wizards. Yeah, I was just that game. It was awesome to watch. you know, but of the guys that had, you know, really talking about Steve, I mean, is this still the most important, you know, achievement of his athletic, you know, career, do you think?

I mean, is this something that he still appreciates and talks about? He's the one we never hear from. Yeah, I think one thing as players get older, they realize that the significance. of winning a national championship in basketball. There's been so many good teams that didn't win. There's been so many really good coaches that didn't win a national championship. So I think as time goes by, we all feel the same way that, you know, we've had a chance to think and reflect and things like that because when you win it,

you know, lives are going on. Chris is a lottery pick all of a sudden, so he's getting ready to go to the NBA. You know, Steve Blake is coming back for a senior year with a different team, all those things. Lonnie Bax's going to the pros. He's drafted, you know, and you go right down the line. Juan Dixon's drafted. So everything, like, within two weeks of the national championship game, guys are doing

different things a lot of a lot of time. So this, as time has gone by, and this is the chance to get together. This is a chance to, you know, reflect on all those things that happened there that maybe you didn't appreciate at the time, but now you've had time to appreciate those things. We're talking, of course, to Hall of Fame coach Gary Williams. All right, I've never asked you this before, I don't think. The 2001 team that lost to Duke in the semifinals and had that epic four-game, you know, rivalry in one season with Duke, all four games being phenomenal. But losing that semifinal game in Minneapolis, you know, and just to remind you, sorry, but with a 22-point lead, which was the second.

loss of that year against Duke. Still, the most satisfying win was the win on Shane Batti senior night. But beyond that, I was, I don't think I've ever asked you, was the 2002 team that much better than the 2001 team or not. You didn't have Terrence Morris on the 2002 team. He was a great player. He was a starter. He was a four-year starter. Hell, he would have been a first-round pick had he come out probably after his sophomore year. Danny Miller was on that team, but then in the next year you had Wilcox as a sophomore, you know, sort of coming into his own. You would add added Ryan Randall.

Was there that much difference between the two teams, the 2001 team and the 2002 team? No, the only difference, you know, talent-wise, you look at Danny Miller and Turn's Mars. Now, Turner's Morris broke his foot in the summertime in there somewhere, you know, and he never was quite the explosive player that he was before that, like a sophomore year, for example. He was really explosive. And so that was as talented as the 2002 team.

And that's what happens. You know, we get into the Duke game in the semifinal in 2001. We come out, we look like the team has been to multiple final fours. You know, we weren't nervous. We executed everything. We were able to shut Duke down for most of the first half until they got it down to 12 at halftime. And, you know, that was a good Duke team.

You know, Shane Badi is on that team. And, you know, obviously a pretty good basketball team. So, you know, and that really hurt. That really hurt. But at the same time, that team could have played the 2002 team if they were two different teams, so that they were that good. Yeah, they really were. And really, I mean, heading into that, you know, after beating

Stanford that year and getting into that first final four. I've told you this many times in so many ways. I mean, the national championship is the greatest, of course. But getting to that first final four and the win over Stanford in Anaheim, I think was one of the more emotional games for a long-time fan, you know, in the 2001 tournament. Because we had finally gotten there. You know, there have been so many close calls. You would have had close calls. You would have teams that you would have. you probably thought should have gotten there. Certainly the Steve Francis team, if, you know, you'd been completely healthy, et cetera. And that Stanford game, to me, was always like it was an amazing moment.

Did you feel that way about that game in 2001? Yeah, that was one of those that you never forget because there is a ceiling, you know, until you get to the Final Four. you like to think you're good enough to get there as a coach or as a team, but you don't do it. You know, you're not there. You can say whatever you want. I had a Boston college team in 85 when three big East teams made it to the final four.

And we lost on the last second shot to Memphis, who was the fourth team, to go to the final four that year. And so, you know, you have teams. You think they're good enough. You know, you don't make it. So there's nothing you can say. but we had to beat Stanford, the number one seed in the West, in Los Angeles, you know, kind of their area. We had a Gwinder, and Stanford has said a lot of stuff before the game about the East Coast bias,

why people thought Maryland was a good team and all this stuff. Casey Jacobson was very outspoken about how he was going to basically kick Juan Dixon's butt, and all that stuff. And, you know, that never happened. I think we won by 13 or whatever it was in that game. So very satisfying. And it was great for the Maryland fans because, you know, until you get to a final four, you know, you're thought of as a good basketball program, but that changes the perception a lot of times of how people look at your program.

Yeah, it does. And there's a story, and I don't know if it's, you know, myth or real about that Stanford game that at the first under 16 timeout in the first half, Dixon came over and was saying aloud enough for Casey Jacobson to hear, Jacobson can't play. This is going to be easy. Something like that. Is that true? Do you remember that? Don't remember, but I'll tell you what.

Juan would say things like that just in his belief in himself as a player. And he would test people right away. You know, he'd get up in somebody's face or he'd try to strip you when you were drivel. or whatever. And so I would say, I'd never doubt that he said something like that, but I didn't hear it if he did say it. All right. Let's go to the 2002 season, the championship season. I mean, you've always got such a great memory on all this stuff. You know, you had a brutal schedule, and I went back and looked at it again just to remind myself, you know, you opened up with Arizona in Madison Square Garden. You know, Arizona was a good team. You had tempsom. You had temps.

on the schedule, who was a ranked team when you played them. Illinois was number two in the country when you played them in the ACC Big Ten Challenge. You know, you're still in November at this point. You played Yukon and that BB&T, you know, which would turn out to be a preview of the Elite 8 game. You played Oklahoma in Norman, you know, coming off, if I recall, like, you know, exams, final exams. Yeah. And that was... That was my fault that game.

You've mentioned that to me. That could have been a preview of the national championship game because Oklahoma was favored over Indiana and the other semi-final. And then, you know, obviously, you know, Duke twice and Virginia twice and, you know, NC State and the whole thing. Give me the game during the regular season, a game or two that sticks out to you more than any. during the regular season before you got to the ACC tournament.

Well, real quick, the Oklahoma game at Oklahoma, we shouldn't have played. And I scheduled that game, and I shouldn't have because you're right, we were coming out of exams. We weren't, Oklahoma's this physical team as you're ever going to play. Calvin Samson is still today at Houston. They play the same way. And so, you know, they were geared for us. We had beaten them the year before in Colfield House. So here we come.

We returned a game. CBS wanted us to play that game that day. And, you know, and I said, okay, we'll play. We weren't, we didn't practice enough to get ready to play a team as good as Oklahoma. But anyway, the game, the obvious game is the Duke game at Cole when Steve Blake stole the ball from Jay Williams at halftime right before halftime when they were playing for the last shot because that gave us confidence going into halftime that, you know, we could beat Duke. and we wound up winning that game by like 17 or something like that. And that was, that that game kind of cemented the idea that we're really good, you know, because you've got to prove that, you know, somewhere.

And it was late enough into the ACC season where, you know, you could, you could ride that one the rest of the season. And then, of course, the last game, I'll never forget in Cole Fieldhouse and was fitting for the great place that Cole was. we had most of the former living basketball players back for that game. And we scored 112 points against a good Virginia team. I think they had 94, 96 against us. You know, just a tremendous, if you like up and down basketball,

that game was wild. And I still have a picture in my office of the referee throwing the ball up to start the game and all the flashbulbs, people taking the last picture of Cole House. When people actually had cameras back then, and you were allowed to bring cameras into their arena back then. Just think about those two things, which things have changed, you know, the way it is. It was an incredible, incredible night. It was, you know, it was so apropos that the final game at Cole Fieldhouse was, you know, during a season in which you were great and you were clinching the ACC regular season title, the one seed, you blew Virginia out, you scored 112 points.

And I remember that night and all those players coming back and being, you know, paraded at halftime. There were a couple of other regular season games that I wanted to ask you about, though. The very first Duke game that year down at Cameron Indoor, I think to, at least during the aughts, you know, from 2000 to 2009, I think it was the highest rated television game on ESPN for a regular season game of that entire decade, if I'm not mistaken. It was the first game after the Final Four game from the previous year, and the four epic games you had played against them the previous year.

And what I remember from that game was just how hyped Cameron Indoor was. And one of the highest quality halves of basketball, back and forth basketball, I think it was 50 to 49 at halftime. We had the lead. Do you remember that game? Yeah, I remember the noise. You know, and Cameron's always loud. That was ridiculous.

You could feel that go through you at that game. And you couldn't communicate. You had to use signals and everything. Play was down the other end. And player could not hear you at all, you know, in that game. And what I remember about that game, which I really like, nobody was going to back off that game. you know, if we were going to play our game.

You know, we had close to 50 to halftime Duke at 50. And that was going to be that game. And that's why I always, you know, whatever people thought about Duke and, you know, the rivalry and all that, I always respected Duke because you know that you had to play great. You weren't going to win the game by changing your offense or slowing down the pace. I think a lot of teams make that mistake when they go into Cameron. they think they have to play different. Well, you're not going to win.

If you play different, you're a good team, you play a certain way. All of a sudden, you're going to try to play different, going into Cameron, you're going to lose that game. So we always would have from down there. Sometimes it didn't work, but a lot of times that created a great game. It was so intense, and you're right, I'll never forget just how, you know, fired up. The country was fired up for that matchup. Yeah.

You know, it was as hyped a regular season game as college basketball had seen in a few years. The other game that I wanted to ask you about, because I actually was at this game, at U. U. Hall, Virginia was very good. They were ranked in the top 10. We were, you know, two or three at that point. And we came from behind late. And that was another raucous atmosphere at Virginia, which the old U. Hall was not an easy place to play in either. And you guys came back and it was like this incredible,

you know, Dixon, Nicholas, you know, Blake, being down the game, not necessarily being over, but I think you guys were down by like seven or eight with like two minutes, two and a half minutes to go and came back and won that game. Yeah, I remember one play in that sequence. And, you know, Drew did hit a big three. Drew Nicholson, a big three. And, you know, Blake was Blake, you know, he was not going to let us lose. But Dixon, we ran a little play where we brought it, we dragged him across the top of two screens, and Steve took it away from Dixon, but then reversed and went back to Dixon with the ball that it was kind of a clear route on that right side, right in front of our

bench in the second half. And, you know, Dixon just took the shot, and he just knew it was going, and he was running back before it went in the basket. And that just, that team was incredible. heart that it had because we were down. I mean, you know, during that year, we legged down in games, you know, and things like that. But, you know, there was never that look of fear in anyone's eye on that team. And I think we were killers, you know, we knew how to, you know, go after it.

And that's the difference in teams that get to the Final Four that win a national championship. Everybody has talent when you get to the Sweet 16. It's pretty talented out there in the Sweet 16. And now it becomes who the killers are. that's why Duke has been so successful in the NCAA tournament. You can point to some other teams that have done well in the NCAAs, like a Michigan state. And that's what we had, those two years. We just had that killer instinct.

Well, and your two killers were your two backcourt players, too, right? I mean, after Dixon, who is one of the all-time great college basketball competitors of all time, and Blake is right there with him, who would be the... the third, you know, killer slash competitor on that team? Well, I think the, I think all the players on the team kind of fed off of Mouton, Byron Mouton. Because they know what he did. He was averaging 22 points a game, but too late. Now, they weren't winning games, but, you know, who's a big time score?

He transfers to Maryland, has to sit out of here. And then he comes into a team that's really good to play. So he goes from averaging 22 a game to whatever 8, 9, 10 a game is what he averaged. And he was willing to sacrifice that to win. That's how important winning was, much more important than the number of points he got. And that got through to the other players. They knew that Byron Mouton was going to do whatever it took to win the game. And that's Juan Dixon, that's Steve Blake, that's Josh Holden, that's all those guys,

really respected what Mouton did for that team. How badly did you want to win the ACC tournament and how disappointed were you that you didn't when you lost to NC State in the semifinals? I was disappointed, but at the same time, we got a little more rest going into the NCAA tournament that time of year. It's always good to get rest, and so it worked out fine. But I wasn't a good ACC tournament coach. I mean, we won it in 2004, but. I never did a good job of going in there.

I think, you know, looking back, I shouldn't have been, you know, so down on the ACC tournament because it really was unfair when you played down there and you played most of the time, you know, in North Carolina. Because, you know, when teams would lose in the first round, that meant you were playing probably either Duke of Carolina in the second round. And they would get all the tickets from the schools that lost. they would sell their tickets. And so it was basically just another road game by the time you got to the semifinals in the ACC tournament.

And, you know, it was just the nature of the league where we were located. Back then it was, you know, only, you know, eight, nine teams in the league. And so you pretty much want to play the same teams every year if you advanced. So I was never good. And I look back, I should have done a better job coaching the ACC tournament. that's interesting because I think that the 2004 ACC tournament championship win over Duke and overtime for a lot of Maryland fans would rank right up there

not in front of the national championship but it would be second don't you think that a lot of us would feel that way I agree 100 percent I felt the same way you know we finally won the thing And if you look historically, I think they won in 58, lefty won in 84. 84. Yeah. And we won in 2004. That's it.

I mean, think about that. I know. We were original founder of the ACC. You know, we won three times. And so, I mean, back when it was an 18 league, like, for instance, when I played, you basically had no chance. I mean, really, going to go in there. You were looked at, you know, people were still fighting the Civil War back then, you know, under 60s. And like, you come down to play the ACC tournament.

They just wanted you out of there. They didn't like your fans. They didn't like anybody, you know. And so, I mean, that gradually changed over the years. But, you know, back then, it was like a lot of hostility generated at the northernmost team, which happened to be Merrill. You know, you won it in 2004, but you had some great. Great games. I mean, memorable games. I mean, there were two semifinal losses to Carolina, both of those games in overtime that were winnable games. You know, you lost to Duke in the championship

game in the 2000 season. The semi-final game in 2001 against Duke where Nate James had to tip in after Blake made the three, I think may have been the best game out of the four you played with them that year. Yeah, I agree. both teams played at a high level, and I'll never forget that. When Nate James tap that in, and that was the one thing that had changed with Terrence Morris, where he was a little reluctant to really go up and, you know, you expose yourself, you just go all out after a ball. I think he's back by then. He was a little worried about coming down on the foot that he had broken.

Right. And so he didn't get up, and Nate James, Nate James could never outjump Terrence Morris in given a normal situation. but he did on that particular play. And then after Nate James taps it in, we jump out of bounds with the ball, throw it to Dixon right at half court, and Juan takes a jumper, and I got a pretty good line on it. It's right on.

I think he's going to make the sucker and hits the back of the room and it comes out. And, you know, that was a great basketball. And I agree with that that was the best of the four games that year against two. That was such a high-quality game. And there's a highlight of Dixon's shot at the buzzer the ESPN call of it, where Vital, I swear to God, you think he's going to have a heart attack as Dixon's ball is online. Can you imagine if that game had ended with a 40-footer from Dixon

at the buzzer to win it? That would have been all time. But I was, so the ACC tournament, that's interesting. I don't know that I've ever heard your perspective on that. All right, let's go to the tournament itself. Did you play a better game? start to finish of the six games, then you played against Wisconsin and Bo Ryan's team in the second round at Capitol One Arena or Verizon Center? Well, I remember the Sienna game, our first game there, we were really nervous. Because we set around, we were the last game in the incident of late tournament that first round. Everybody else had played, you know, we got on the quarter, I think like quarter to 10 or something

like that. And all you heard all day, there's never been a number one seat back then. There's never been a number one seat losing to a 16th. And so, you know, our players are watching the games and everything. And, you know, we were all tight walking in there. And we struggled with the end of the first half and then played better the second half. But, you know, coming out two days later, that was all behind us. You know, we just played to our level. And it was Bow Ryan's first year, I believe, at Wisconsin. And we played great against a good team. And that really gave us momentum going into Syracuse for the regional. Yeah, you won that game by 30 in front of a sold-out Verizon Center where 99.3% of the fans were rooting for Maryland.

And I'll never forget, Bo Ryan was not happy. Remember? I know. Oh, yeah. And what you just said, like early on in the ACC, that's what it was like for Maryland to go down. and play in the ACC tournament. How Bo Ryan felt, I felt every time he went down there to play the ACC tournament. So, but, you know, it did give us great momentum going into Syracuse. 87-57 was the final score. It was a route, and it was a home environment route at Verizon Center. So then you get, you know, Kentucky, you know.

I think most people know, you played the highest possible. seed. Wisconsin was the eight, Kentucky was the four, Yukon was a two, and then you got, you know, Kansas is a number one seed before, you know, facing Indiana, who was a five seed who would upset Duke in the Sweet 16 and then upset Oklahoma in the national championship game. The Kentucky game, you guys played well at the Carrier Dome. It was, you know, that was the Tashon Prince Kentucky game. What do you remember about that Sweet 16 game? What I remember now is once, you know, time has gone by, is how people don't understand how tough that game was forced.

I mean, Tashon Prince played the NBA forever, plus he was really good. Plus, I had a guy named Tubby Smith coaching Kentucky who knew what he was doing, and they were very physical. That was his physical team as we played all year. That Kentucky, I don't know, I don't remember the names of the Rinside players beside Tashon Prince, but they were pretty good. And we grinded it, didn't play great but good enough to win the game. It was one of those games where we had that ability to take it a little higher level-wise

in order to win the game. And I remember that's what we did in that game. You ended up pulling away late. You won by 10 in that game. And that set up the Elite 8 game, which, as you know, you've talked about this game so many times over the years with everybody that you've done interviews with. that, you know, you said was the highest quality basketball game you ever coached in. Yeah, it was.

And as you had mentioned before, we had played Connecticut. I think we won by 10 in the BBNT tournament in December. And I knew then, you know, Calhoun obviously was going to coach those guys. And they were a better team because they were a little young when we played them in December. and all of a sudden you get to March, and they're a better basketball team, and hopefully we're a better basketball team. But, you know, Karam Butler was the guy that night for, you know,

Kennedy, we just couldn't stop. I think he had 26th, the second half. And he was not considered a great shooter going to that game. So we were trying to keep him out of the paint when he had the ball. And unfortunately, that scouting report was not good because he nailed every jump shot he took in his second half. half. I felt bad about that because we had a great defensive player in Byron, Utah on him, and Byron could take guys out of the game most of the time. And, you know, he just really hurt us,

but, you know, we hung, we hung until we could get the game into that last two minutes where our back court basically made shots that were just incredible shots for us to win the game. Well, and I know, you know, you've told this story a million times, but for those that haven't heard it, with the game on the line late, you're in a huddle, you're in a huddle, and you ran a play for somebody, but that wasn't the somebody who took the shot. So just tell us, once again, the Steve Blake story from the end of the Yukon game. Yeah, we called timeout and wanted to hit a big shot to get the game tied up. Connecticut ahead, going down and miss, and this is like two minutes left,

a little under two, I guess, in the game. So we called timeout to set something up to make sure everybody knew what we were doing. And, you know, you got Chris Wilcox and Lonnie Baxter out there playing inside for you, two really good players. So we had Wilcox stop in a circle, setting a ball screen for Blake, and we put Drew Nicholas in one corner. And Juan Dixon in the other corner, there's two of the best shooters in college basketball scores in college basketball that year. And we had Lonnie Baxter on the block just in case anything missed. Lonnie had a good chance to get the offensive rebound. So Blake's job was to take it over Wilcox screen, try to penetrate.

whoever helped, that guy was going to get the ball, so we wind up with you Nicholas or Juan Dixon or drop it to Lonnie for a dunk, you know, in that situation. So the buzzer goes off in an NCAA tournament. They really make you get out on the court for that second buzzer. So we're all running to go off the bench to get to our position to inbound the ball. And I feel this tug on my suit coat. And it's Blake, saying, coach, she said,

what they're going to do? They're going to go underneath a screen because I haven't, you know, I haven't had a good game offensively. I'm going to be wide open coming around that screen. If I am, I'm going to shoot it. And I kind of like, you know, I was headed back to the bench. It was kind of like a voice in your ear. You know, you did like a double.

And I turned around and go, what? You know, and I said, you know, get the ball to Dixon or get the ball, you know, to Drew Nichols. And by then, Blake was gone. And I, you know, we didn't have any time. I wasn't going to call time out again. So here goes Blake. And sure enough, this is why Blake was really good, though. he knew how Connecticut was going to try to play that play,

and they went underneath the screen. He was wide open, and he threw a knuckleball up there and got a piece of the rim and all that stuff. But it went in, and that's what God was God was going. That was Blake's only field goal that day. Only shot he made. He ended up with five points. He had two free throws.

That was it. All right. So now you're on to the final four. And the Kansas game starts with them taking a 13 to two lead early in the, that game. I remember being concerned. How concerned were you guys? Well, usually I'm not concerned about the score much until the first TV timeout. And if it's still bad after, let's say, a minute after that first TV timeout, then, you know, you've got to call another timeout. But we called time out because of the previous year,

I think our confidence getting to the Final Four some thoughts about the Duke game entered into our minds at the start of that game. And so we had to shake that. So I called time out early on. I mean, we're down 13 to 2. And like as we're coming over to the bench, the good thing was for me, I wasn't nervous anymore.

I was just upset. I was really bad at the team because of the way we were playing. And I see Juan Dixon kind of got Wilcox by the jersey, dragging them over to the bench. and Juan just blistered Juan Dixon, or Juan just blistered Chris Wilcox. And he could do that because after time came back in and we were out of the court, he hit back-to-back threes and all of a sudden it's 13-8. You know, it's anybody's game from that point.

But, you know, that was our team, though. Two things. One, you know, he didn't care. Well, I'm going to figure out a way to win that game. And two, Chris Wilcox was a mature enough person where he put up with, you know, a guy, 6-2-70 pounds, talking to a 6-9, 250-pound guy, you know, and, you know, responding as Chris. Chris Wilcox was the best inside player in the country, the three weeks of the NCAA tournament in terms of blocking shots, rebounds, just intimidating.

And that's why he became a lottery pick. He wasn't a lottery pick before those three weeks of the NCAA tournament. Now, he ended up with 18.9 rebounds, four block shots in that semi-final. You know, the game got a little bit sloppy. I remember at the end, there was a big lead. They cut it down to like five had the ball. But then, you know, but then Juan put it away with what was, I think, points-wise, probably the best NCAA tournament game he played.

He ended up with 33 and you guys knocked off Kansas. Now, I'm curious going into that final four. This was really the national championship game from a fan standpoint. These were two number one seeds. and then, you know, you had Oklahoma who was a two-seed, and then Indiana was the surprise Cinderella team. I mean, they were from the Big Ten, but they were a five-seed, and Duke had missed a bunch of free throws in the Sweet 16.

Everybody wanted that tournament to end with a Maryland Duke final. I mean, people were hoping for that, and I'm not talking about Maryland and Duke fans or ACC fans. The country wanted to see a Maryland Duke final, but they were out. Indiana was there. Were you convinced that, if you had gotten by Kansas that you were going to have a rematch with Oklahoma? Yeah, going into the Final Four, yes.

We put most emphasis on Oklahoma, but I think Indiana was very underrated that year. I mean, what you just said, they beat Duke and Oklahoma to get there. In other words, they earned their way into that championship game. Nobody gave them anything. And I heard they were slow, you know, and all this stuff. but they, they grinded the whole game as well as anybody we played all year that, that year. They just,

you know, Cloverdale was just a tough Indiana guard, you know, typical Hoosier type guard, you know, and they had a couple guys that played in the pros on that team, too. And, you know,

it wasn't like there were a bunch of makeup guys. Jared Jeffreys, yeah, yeah. Yeah, you know. Jeffries was first round pick. Yeah.

We had to play. And the thing is that really, the only, I mean, we won the game by 10, but the only thing that really bothered me in that game was that we didn't play better offensively because we were, I mean, we had 95 against a good Carolina team the two nights before. And I just thought that would carry over a better game. But we got nervous, you know, championship game, a new experience for us.

We were a little tight going into that game. But it also showed how good we were defensively because we weren't doing much on offense. but Indiana really struggled. We had them at 49, and then we kind of let them shoot the three right there at the end, where they hit a three to get to 52. But I wanted to hold them under 50 points.

I really did. I thought that would have been pretty cool in the championship game. But, you know, when you get to that championship game, all that matters is, did you win the game? And we won the game,

and that's what matters, despite what Billy Packers said. I know where you're getting to. It was given all of the thrilling games, the exciting games, the prolific offensive games that your team had played over that two-year period, really, that was the biggest dud of an offensive game that you guys played. You didn't shoot it well. You know, you missed a bunch of free throws in that game as well.

And so a more, you won by 12 points. There's no apologize. for it. But, you know, that game against Kansas probably took something out of you as well. You know, by the way, going back to the Kansas game, was that your first meeting with Roy Williams? When did we play that? No, you played them at Verizon Center. That's right. Yeah. The Paul Pierce, team. Yeah. And this was the Drew Gooden, Kirk Heinrich team. But, well, you won the game at the BB&T game. at Verizon Center as well. They were number two in the country, I think. Right. They were good. I'm just curious. You, I don't have it in front of me,

but I'm going to guess that you had a winning record against Roy Williams during the course of your career. Yeah, I did. I'm pretty sure I did. I never checked. Why? I think I did. Why? Because not many people did. Well, you know, they played a lot like us, not in terms of the system, but they got up and down. We were going to be able to score. I always felt against Carolina with Roy Williams, you could score. And it was up to us to play good enough defense to at least shut them down for periods of a game where we could gain the advantage.

And for whatever reason, and Roy's a great coach, but I always felt that, you know, we could stay with them, we could score with them, and then it was up to our defense to win the game. I guess that's why. Who knows? It's interesting because when you got to Maryland, you know, with sanctions forthcoming that nobody knew about, for us anyway, North Carolina was still the rival.

You know, Dean and North Carolina were still the team. Even though Shoshchewski had just started to go to Final Fours, you know, he hadn't yet won a national championship, although he was about to put two back-to-back together with the Leitner, you know, Hurley Hill teams. But it was always Dean and Carolina. And that shifted at some point, you know, because Carolina still was great. They still were contending for national championships. But for the rest of the league, it became Shoshchewski and Duke.

Right? I mean, did you sense that that was a change while you were there, that it was Dean when you got in there and then it became K? Well, I think it was Dean when I got in here because the lefties feeling about North Carolina. I mean, that was his passion and life to beat North Carolina. I mean, we all remember that. But then all of a sudden, you know, Dean retires, Guthridge comes in, goes to two final fours in three years. Bill Guthridge.

And nobody remembers that how good he was as a head coach. I mean, Dean didn't do that. You know, I mean, it's like incredible to go to two and three. years. And then all of a sudden, Dardy comes in there, and they weren't very good during that time. And so that thing switched to Duke, you know, where they became the hated rival for Maryland. And, you know, part of the, the only reason that happened is because we got better. There's no rivalry. I remember losing my 30 to Carolina in the ACC tournament my first year and getting beat by Duke, you know, and, you know, just couldn't, we weren't good enough to play against those guys.

as we got good, then that what happened to Carolina changed the rivalry for Maryland into the Duke rivalry. Yeah. You know, you just reminded me of this. It's amazing. Bill Guthridge, okay, replacing Dean Smith, coached three years at Carolina and went to two final fours. And by the way, the second final four he went to, they were an eight seed.

this was the Julius Pepper's team. Julius Peppers was a really good player. They were an eight seed and went to the final four. Yeah, I mean, go ahead. Was he a good coach? He must have been a really good coach. Yeah, I mean, you know, Julius Pepper was really a good basketball player, but he was a football player.

You know, he couldn't shoot. He couldn't shoot from five feet, but he could physically dominate you. He could intimidate you. you. And, you know, good old professor Guthridge, you know, you look like a college professor sitting on the bench there with glasses on and everything. And, like, he turned loose Julius Pepper. And Bill Guthrer's didn't mind if Julius Pepper put a forearm right into your back

as you went up for a lap or whatever, just to let you know he was there. And to me, that was one of the great coaching jobs at Carolina, getting an eighth seed to the final four. You know, given Dean Smith, given, you know, what Roy Williams did there, that was a great coaching job that year. Phenomenal coaching job when you think about it. I'm looking through the roster. So Brendan Haywood was on that team. You also had Joe Forte, Julius Peppers, Ed Cota was on that team.

But it was not what you would call, you know, an all-star Carolina lineup by any stretch of the imagination. You know, this wasn't one of their more talented teams. But anyway. Yeah, you start with Jordan Perkinsworthy and everybody at Carolina got measured against that team as time went by. But, you know, I always felt with Carolina when you played Carolina.

They had this elitism about them that they just thought they were better school-wise, team-wise, coach-wise, that everybody that they played against. And somehow they got that. their freshman right away. You know, this is when guys stayed four years. So this is, there are seniors telling freshmen coming in, hey, this is Carolina basketball.

This is who we are. This is how we act. This is what we do. And they were really tough, you know, to get competitive with because of that, because they had that arrogance that was really a positive thing for them. Well, it also carried over to their fan base, too, very much so. Sure. Yeah, they were obnoxious.

I mean, they had this pretension. The Virginia fans had it, and I'm not saying that the Duke fans had it, but the difference, the Duke kids and the Duke fans were basically East Coast kids that went to Duke. The Carolina thing was more of a southern pretension. It's kind of always been that way. By the way, you know, the coaches in your regional, in the East Regional in the 2002 tournament that Maryland won, which is what we've mostly talked about here, even though we've gotten sidetracked,

as we usually do. Gary Williams, Jim Calhoun, Jim Herrick, Tubby Smith, Tom Crean was coaching Marquette. They were a five seed. Bobby Knight had Texas Tech in your region. Herb Sendeck, you and I have talked about Herb so many times, NC State, I still think, made a big mistake running Herb Sondek.

Bo Ryan, Tom Izzo, had Michigan State as the 10 seed. Bruce Weber was a young coach at Southern Illinois. Homer Drew was coaching at Valpo. I mean, it's amazing the coaches were 20 years ago. And several of those guys are, you know, a couple of those guys are still coaching. Is Owen Weber are? Tubby just retired. Yeah, and I think people, you know, I don't think people knew how old I was.

I was in my mid-50s. at that time, you know? And like I was older than a lot of those guys, you know. And, you know, that's another reason I felt it was my turn. I didn't have, you know, a whole lot of years left. And so I wanted to make sure if I got the chance, we got it. Huggins, Shishowski, Roy Williams, and Gary Williams were the coaches of the four number one seeds that year. Thank you for doing this as always.

I appreciate it. Enjoy Sunday being back with all the guys. God, I hope there's a big crowd there on Sunday. If you're listening to this, tickets are available. Marilyn's been playing well. Ohio State's, you know, a ranked team, a really good team with Chris Holman coaching them. They're going to be a tournament team. And, you know, I mean, I haven't asked you.

We haven't talked about this. I don't think on the air. They've really played well here. recently, don't you think? Oh, yeah, and here's the thing. You know, anything can happen at the end of the year. Hopefully, you know, we'll help with the crowd. The 2002 team comes back to help with the crowd,

but that crowd should be there to help us beat Ohio State. Right. You know, I mean, that's the bottom line that day. We've got to win that game. If you win that game, that gives you some momentum going into, I know they have to play another game or whatever, but that gives you momentum going into the Big Ten tournament. And, you know, that's still out there.

I mean, talent, hey, people forget, we were picked 20th in the country and fifth in the Big Ten preseasoned. If we can get some momentum going, we have good players. We're going to be able to compete in the Big Ten tournament, but we need momentum going into it. And so Sunday's really a big game. I've been getting in arguments with everybody, including several people you know.

and I've just been saying, you know, over the last couple months, and I put it this way, you know, we don't suck. Like, there's some talent on this team. And I'm still watching every single game. And I'm like, you know, this Fats Russell has turned in to an excellent player, you know. And then you've got some guys who are really struggling at various times. I'll pick on a guy that I picked on early. Ian Martinez to me did not look like a Big Ten player.

he's got in his last two games eight steals you know and so I think you know and obviously with Eric and Dante you know and Hakeem you've got players with a lot of experience and tournament experience it's a shame that a couple of these games that came down to the wire that they had a chance to win you know I'm thinking of Michigan State in Wisconsin specifically it's too bad in the Purdue game too on Super Bowl Sunday. It's too bad they didn't get a couple of those because they'd actually be right in the thick of it as, you know, a team that would be a bubble team had they, you know, won two of those three games. Without a doubt. People, I think people are too quick to judge sometimes. The season's a long season. Yeah. So if they, right now, right now, if you can get playing really well,

you never know what's going to happen. All right. I'm not going to talk to you about the coaching opening this time. We can do that after the season's over. And I'm sure we will probably do this again, maybe before April 1st, the actual 20-year anniversary. But this is a big, big event Sunday to honor the 2002 National Championship team for some of us, you know, like me and many of those are listening, you know, one of the happiest sort of sports rooting moments of our lives. And those players will be forever in our collective memory. so it's cool to get nostalgic about it.

Thanks, as always, I'll talk to you soon. Hey, thanks, Kevin. Always enjoy it. We'll talk soon. All right, thanks to Gary. Thanks to Phil Mackey. Back tomorrow with Tommy.