The Kevin Sheehan Show - Bathe in Josh Johnson's Glory While You Can

Episode Date: December 18, 2018

Kevin and Thom talked about the uncontaminated as-of-yet Josh Johnson and why you should root for him. They also talked about the Redskin-fan conundrum of rooting for the current team to win games knowing that it may result in no off-season changes. They discussed about Bruce Allen's influence over who plays and who doesn't. They talked about Joe Theismann's tweet, the MNF broadcast booth returning in '19,Trevor Ariza, and last night's Panthers-Saints game. The show finishes up with "Coaching Blunders" which includes a non-blunder stroke of brilliance by Bill Belichick. <p> </p><p>Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices">podcastchoices.com/adchoices</a></p> Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You want it. You need it. It's what everyone's talking about. The Kevin Sheehan Show. Now here's Kevin. You're listening to The Sports Fix. Yeah, Tommy's here. Aaron's here. This show's presented by Window Nation. If you're in the market for Windows, call 86690 Nation, or go to Window Nation.com and tell them that we told you to call. Good morning, Thomas. Morning, Kevin. How are you this morning? I'm doing Chipper. What is that T-shirt you're wearing, Lafayette Baseball? Lafayette baseball. What do you know about that? Well, Chris Spira, one of my colleagues on the D.C. Grace, his son played baseball at Lafayette College. And I used to work in Easton, Pennsylvania, home of Lafayette College.

You know Gary Williams. Yep, that's where he started his coach. Joe Madden used to coach there as well. I didn't know that. And they knew each other in those days. So I've got a Lafayette connection, and Chris got me a nice t-shirt. I didn't know Joe Madden and Gary Williams knew each other. Oh, absolutely.

They were at Lafayette at the same time coaching? I believe so, yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Gary's first job was as the soccer coach at Lafayette. At Lafayette. And apparently they went undefeated, you know. And little did we know it wasn't quite at the same time,

but we all drank in the same bar, the College Hill Tavern, just down the road from the college. What was, were Easton and Scranton and Wilkesbury and all those places, Were they basically the same back there, then? Was the industry steel and or coal? Well, you know, Easton, it's not Scranton Wilkeshire. Right. Scranton Wilkeshire is probably about two hours away from, maybe an hour and a half away from Easton's further north and west?

Easton. Easton is south and east. Okay. It's Easton, Bethlehem, Allentown. Allentown, Bethlehem, Easton, A-B-E. A-B-E. A famous Billy Joel song, by the way, which was a great song called All-A-Land-Lown. And Scranton-Wilksper.

is up in the mountains probably about two hours away. Right. Different region. That's much more important. Where they had some very good paper supply companies. Yes. Up there in Scranton. And mobsters.

And mobsters, which you wrote about. Yes. In some of your early years. Tommy was a news reporter and covered a lot of the organized crime stories back in the day. In fact, there's a movie that's supposed to come out sometime next year on Netflix, directed by Martin Scorsese with Robert De Niro. It's called I Pain Houses. And it's supposedly about this guy named Frank Shearron

who allegedly claims he's the guy who offed Jimmy Hoffa. And I wrote about that guy, Frank Shearin, back in the day. He was a union leader back then. Didn't you get a list of something one day? Refresh my memory. It's a story you told about how you came across list of names or a big get-together, a big mob get-together. Is that what it was?

Yeah, Russell Buffalino. Buffalo, who was a big mob boss in northeastern Pennsylvania. That's not a made-up name, isn't it? No, no, he's one of the old mob guys. I mean, right up there with Angelo Bruno and Carlos Gambino. He's part of that group, and he had just gotten out of federal prison for, I don't know, maybe the fourth or fifth time. And they were quietly having a testimonial dinner for him at this law.

in Wilkeshire, this hotel, and I found out about it. So I went up to it and hung around the lobby just to see if I could get some color, you know, write some stuff about it. I knew it was going on. That was good enough story as it was. And I noticed on one of the tables, they had seating charts taped to the tables of everyone who was supposed to attend and where they were sitting with their names. So at one point, everyone goes into the ballroom, and the doors called.

close and there's nobody in the lobby. And these seating charts are still taped to the table. So I go running past the tables, grab these seating charts in one, like in one motion, grab the charts off the tables and keep running and run out the door, never look back. For you, what was running like at what speed back then? Well, I tell you what? Were you quicker back then? I was never quick.

I was never quick. But I was running with a sense of urgency. I could tell you that. And I never looked back until I got to my car, my Volkswagen Vietel, about two blocks away. So what did you do with the list? Well, then I wrote a story about all the people who were scheduled to attend this dinner honoring this mob boss and including judges and politicians and a union boss by the name of Frank Shearren. Wow. So was that a good story?

Was that a good get? That was a front page story. You get any pushback? Any threats? Well, what happened was years. later. Didn't Laverro one of ours? I'm sure they thought you were one of theirs.

About a year later, the Pennsylvania Crime Commission was the investigative agency that looked in the organized crime. And they had a hearing about a year later, which I covered about something to do with the mob. And after the hearing, these two agents walked up to me. And they said, you're the guy that went running out of a hotel room at the dinner. They had been across the street in like a, uh, a van taking pictures of people going into the dinner.

Well, maybe they had your back in case somebody chased you out of that. Oh, I don't think they were going to blow their cover to save a reporter. What if old Franco Scheran had seen you running out? Oh, yeah, that was a real risk. Oh, you must have had a heartbeat of about 300 beats per minute. Yes. You know, and that wasn't just from the running. Yes, like I said, I ran with a sense of urgency.

That's awesome. Russell Buffolino, you can't make that up. That's a real name. All right, we got a lot of things to get to, including your column, which you sort of started to initiate that conversation when you were here on Thursday about the Redskins resorting to things like promotions and giveaways to get people to go to games. You know, that Philadelphia game real quickly, if the Redskins were to somehow win on Saturday, which they're not going to do.

but if they were to win, or even if Philadelphia wins Sunday, and Philadelphia is playing for something Sunday night in the season finale, that game could get flexed to Sunday night. That could be the flexed game. Now, I was looking at the schedule. Aaron and I were looking at the schedule yesterday for the final week. I know you don't care about this stuff, so just, you know, do whatever you want to do for the next 30 seconds.

Indianapolis and Tennessee play on that final Sunday. Right now, that looks like a game that potentially the winner goes to the playoffs and the loser goes home. That looks like a flex possibility. And the other one really is Redskins Eagles. There's a chance that the Redskins Eagles game may mean something and that could get flexed. We usually get that answer on Monday, right? I think there's one other possibility and it would just be if the Vikings are the six-seat and if they win they're in, I think Vikings Bears is the other. But the question there is do the bears have anything to play for?

question there is that the Vikings have been on Sunday night and Monday night so much enough of putting poor Kirk into prime time where he has a miserable record. Yeah. He hasn't do very well there. The problem with the other two games is just as of now, it's possible that those games are meaningless if the teams that are in the playoffs just continue to win. We've had this situation before where there has not been a Sunday night game. Remember? Wasn't it last year? It was last year or the year before, yeah. Where there wasn't a good enough game to put into prime time so they didn't do it. And that possibility exists.

Real quickly. Well, let me tell you something. If they move that Redskins, Eagles game to Sunday night, that's not going to help the box office. No, it's not. The Sunday night before Christmas Eve, that's not going to help. The issue is whether or not if Philadelphia... Well, it wouldn't be before Christmas Eve.

It would be the 30th. Oh, the 30th. Okay. Before New Year's Eve. That's right. It would be Sunday the 30th. Yes. Now, if Philadelphia is playing for something there, you'd get potentially a lot of Philadelphia

fans to come down for that. Real quickly. last night's game. And not so much on the game itself. Although, let me just say that Cam Newton is clearly hurt. I don't know how they thought that he was the right option for that team last night. He can't throw the football right now because of his shoulder. But that game last night, Tommy, combined with the Rams Bears game a week ago, combined with the Cowboy Saints game. You've had three primetime games here in the last two and a half weeks. Cowboys Saints, Rams Bears, and Saints Panthers last night that all included these

juggernaut offensive football teams in what was supposed to be the year that we stopped watching defensive football because all games are going to be 54, 51. And now the last three matchups with the Saints and the Rams have been 13, 10, 15 to 6, and 12 to 9. last night. You're right. I forget whether or not you and I had this discussion. I know I had this conversation with Scott, shortly after the 5451 Monday night game, Chiefs and Rams. And I said, I just don't see a future of 5451. I'm not saying that I'm not, you know, that I, that I disagree that offense has been given every opportunity and that we've seen much more of it this year. And it probably benefits the league to have more offense,

but to me, there's still a place for really good defensive football, especially when you get late in the year and into the postseason. And I think we're seeing that. And what it leads to is this in the NFC. The Rams and Saints are no longer locks to play each other in the NFC championship game with the winner going on to the Super Bowl. No. The Bears are going to complicate that.

The Cowboys could still complicate that. I know they got shut out on Sunday. But when you're thinking about the really good defensive teams in this league, first of all, the bears are going to play a home game to start. And it's possible they could have a first round by. Yes. And a Chicago at New Orleans NFC championship game, I would give the Bears a chance now. I wouldn't have given them a chance a few weeks ago. The Cowboys are likely going to play a home game to start and then go to Los Angeles or to New Orleans or potentially to Chicago.

I guess that's still in play. I just give all of these defensive teams in the NFC, Dallas, Chicago in particular, Seattle to a lesser degree, Philadelphia to a lesser degree if Philadelphia were to get in, Minnesota has an outstanding defense right now. Didn't start the season that way, but when they got Everson Griffin back,

now they are playing lights out defensive football. In the AFC, same thing. I'd give the Chargers a chance. To me, the Chargers are actually the most complete team in the AFC. Offense and defense. Kansas City's defense is lousy. I would give Houston definitely a chance. The Baltimore situation is the strangest, because I don't know that we've seen football

played offensively the way they're playing it right now. Well, that's where I was. That's where I was on Sunday. I was at the Ravens game. Oh, I forgot about that. Yeah. I went up to write about what we talked about, the promotions and giveaways that they were doing at the Ravens game.

But it's very unusual. You know, it was really hard to get a read on what Lamar Jackson was doing because it was difficult to throw the ball in that rain anyway. But, you know, if you take the rain away, he's got a long way to go to being an NFL quarterback. A long way to go. And what they're doing, I mean, like, my God, he's running for almost 100 yards. Beyond that, it's the number of carries that we've never seen. You know, in 2012, when the Shanahan's took Chris Alt's pistol formation from Nevada, put Griffin into it and started running Zone Reed.

Not that Zone Reed hadn't been run before because Cam had been running it as a red zone package for Carolina. And then San Francisco, you know, benched Alex Smith, put Kaepernick in, and they started running a lot of it. Now we see it as a staple, you know, one fourth or one fifth of an offense for, you know, at least half the teams in the league. But Jackson's different in that Jackson isn't in there to throw the football, but occasionally. His carries now, all right, since he's started, since he got the first start, are 26 carries, 11 carries, 17 carries, 14 carries, and 18 carries.

We've never, in the history of modern football, you may go back to your days of watching single-wing football to find a quarterback that carried as much as he did, but no one. ever averaged essentially, you know, 17, 18 carries a game as a quarterback. He's also right now averaging five and a half yards per carry as a quarterback. It's not really that he's a quarterback other than he's the one taking the snap. He's a runner. He's a running back. Yes. Who they occasionally have thrown. Now, I shouldn't say occasionally he's thrown it 20 times a game somewhere in that neighborhood. I still think Tommy that they've played

in their stretch of wins here, in the stretch of his starts going back to the Bengals. It's Bengals, Raiders, Falcons, Chiefs, Bucks. They've played five subparred defensive teams and now they're going to get the Chargers on Saturday night in a must win. He's going to go with this. You can't turn back now.

No, no, it can't change now. But Flacco will be there waiting in the event they get behind and are forced to throw the football. Now, but by the way, my point on Baltimore was their defense is good enough to win against Kansas City, to win against New England on the road. What we're talking about in those three games that you mentioned, I'm going to take an opposite view. I don't think we're looking at great defense. I just think we're looking at self-destructive offense. I just think that that's more the issue in anything. You've got too much coaching going on.

You've got coaches who think they're smart. They're too smart for their own good. You have too many offensive schemes getting in a way what should be a simple offense. I just think what you're looking at is offensive incompetence rather than a defensive excellence. You know, this is exactly why I love you so much. Because right now what Tommy just did is he took my premise,

which is, hey, defense has still got a place in the game, and he's coming up in his own mind with a column here. That's what he's doing. He's like, wait a minute, what can I come up with? It just refutes what Kevin just said, because I can't agree with him on it. And he comes up with this, no, what it is actually. And let me just mention, he didn't watch last night's game. He didn't watch the Dallas, New Orleans game, and he didn't watch the Chicago Rams game. But he's got to come up with something that he can really run with,

and what he just came up with in that 30 seconds is actually it's offensive incompetence and it's all of these coaches outthinking themselves. That's a column, isn't it? Well, I don't know if it's a column or not. It's not a bad idea, but I watched. Am I right about what I just described? You're semi-right. Yeah.

I've watched enough NFL football this year, not just the Redskins, to recognize that usually when you see a breakdown, when you see low-scoring, it's because of self-destruction, not because of anything the defense is doing. Not every time, but I think there's a lot of that. Yeah, last night it was Carolina's Luke Keekeley, who's a great player, Thomas Davis, great player, Kwan Short, all of those guys, just hitting the shit out of New Orleans all night long. That's what it was.

I mean, they were physical as Dallas was with New Orleans. New Orleans has now played a couple of games where either you're right. Sean Payton's completely outthinking himself and they're self-destructing, or they've played some really good defenses for the first time who have figured out a way of hitting them really hard and really often and slowing them down. And that's what it looks like to me. That's what it looked like in the Dallas game.

That's really what it looked like Philadelphia did to the Rams Sunday night. And yeah, they're forcing some self-destruction. some turnovers. But I will see. Let me just tell you what I don't think we're going to see in the postseason. I don't think we're going to see a 54 to 51 game with the Chiefs, Rams, or Saints. I think it's more likely that we see a 17-13 game. They might win that game, but I think it's more likely that we'll see that.

And not every year would I feel that way. But this year, in addition to the explosive offense, you've got some really good defensive of teams this year. We can't say that about every year. Last year, perhaps the best defense didn't make the postseason. That was Baltimore's defense and it didn't make the post-season. I want to read this tweet to you. It came from Kevin, who tweeted me the following yesterday after the show. You didn't seem very impressed with yesterday, meaning Sunday's win over Jacksonville. I understand the Jags aren't very good, but the team effort was an indication.

that the players haven't given up on Jay Gruden and his staff, this will serve them well in the future. This is what I wanted to say about this. This is the kind of thinking, Tommy, that we as Redskin fans, or those of us who are left as Redskin fans, need to be concerned with. For starters, Kevin's right,

I wasn't very impressed with the win on Sunday, with the exception of pointing out that they indeed actually showed up for the game. laid down and checked out after what had happened to the Giants. They won a game 16 to 13 that they could have easily lost 16 to 13 against a team that was horrifyingly bad on offense and had nothing to play for. Seriously, for the few of you that watched in the TV ratings, did you see those again? They were slightly higher than they were a week ago. I think that's because it was a competitive game and there was a lot of rain. No one was going outside this weekend. So, no, I wasn't

impressed with beating perhaps one of the only teams in the league that they could have beaten on Sunday. Maybe Arizona, maybe the Raiders. Jacksonville was an atrocious offensive football team with a high school quarterback in offense on Sunday. Now, with respect to Kevin's assertion that the win was an indication that the team hasn't given up on Jay Gruden and his staff, and somehow this will serve them well in the future, I don't agree. I mean, where were they last week when they laid down against the Giants. Exactly. This is my point.

I mean, everyone is putting this thing out. Boy, they don't quit on Jay Gruden. What do you think they did in the Giants game? I mean, what is, what, because they don't quit every week? Yeah. That counts as you put, you give them a merit badge. You put, you pin a medal on Jay Gruden because his teams don't quit every week. They quit against the Giants.

They quit against the Giants last year at the end of the season. They've quit a number of games in Jay Gruden's career. him. Just because they don't do it every week doesn't mean like their green berets going into battle for God's sakes. Navy Seals. I mean, how much respect was there for Gruden and staff down 40 to nothing last week where they completely buckled after Sanchez through that pick six, which just started an avalanche. They didn't tackle. They stood around with their hands on their hips. They quit. And they're capable of quitting any game. week. I was rooting for

Josh Johnson on Sunday. I was rooting for John Allen. I enjoyed watching John Allen play. I liked watching the Skins defense annihilate Jacksonville's high school offense. I did. But as you just mentioned, where was it last week? Where was it against Philly? Where was it against Dallas?

Where was it against Atlanta? The defense is the best part of the team and the most promising part of the team, but it's also the part of the team that has let everyone down over the last month and a half. It's got a long way to go before being good. It's an average defense right now.

It's better than it has been because the last few years they've had arguably the worst defense in the NFL. And I like Allen in pain and ionitis. And I think that is the only thing right now that you can sort of look at is glass out full. But I don't think these players were showing how much they respected the coaching staff. I think they played a garbage team in a game they could have easily lost just as much as they won. And as far as serving them well in the future, this is where we need to be careful. It's hard for me to root against this team. You know this.

I mean, I'm a glutton for punishment over the years. When it comes to 1 o'clock on Sunday, I don't want them to lose and I don't want them to embarrass themselves. But if our dumb, dumb front office is swayed by last Sunday's win over Jacksonville. All right? And convinced people like, I guess Kevin, that this is an indication of forward momentum, let's say this Tommy, what if one more win and a finish of 8 and 8 or a competitive loss to Tennessee and Philadelphia, that the front office somehow deems that to be, hey, we've got forward momentum. This is what's dangerous.

This is what's dangerous. This isn't the group right now, Bruce Allen and Jay Gruden, to lead this franchise to sustain success, or even for that matter limited success. I agree. A couple of things about the Jacksonville game. First of all, doesn't Blake Bortles after that game have to go home, look himself in the mirror and say, I must be the worst quarterback in the world to not get in that game, the absolute worst. I don't get it.

Look, Bortles is not a good starting quarterback, but he's a hell of a lot better than Cody Gessler. I mean, come on. think he is. I mean, you've got to put, I mean, that's just absurd. I mean, that's embarrassing to sit there to be a starting quarterback and watch that guy replace you. On the other hand, I'm going to take an optimistic approach here, not to the long-term future, but in the final days of this week, if you're a Redskins fan, you have an opportunity to bathe yourself in goodness. between now and Saturday. In other words,

Josh Johnson is arrived at Redskins Park without a suitcase, without baggage, without anything but the clothes on his back. So he hasn't been contaminated yet. Okay? And so, and he turned in an inspiring performance. It wasn't a great performance, but it was inspiring.

It was an Alex Smith game. He threw for 150 yards, and he didn't turn the ball over. He actually made many more. plays with his legs. Yes. So, I mean, and that's, look, the reason I thought it was going to be a blowout for Jacksonville

because I was convinced Josh Johnson would have at least two interceptions. So he not turning a ball over was all the difference in the world. So right now, Redskins fans, you have a chance to at least say, what is Josh Johnson's story? It just feels so good. This is a guy who didn't even start a game since 2011. And now he's our starting quarterback.

and he's bringing goodness and light and decency and godliness and all the other things to the hellhole that's Redskins Park. Let's enjoy it until Tennessee crushes us like bugs. It's a holiday miracle. Yes. It's a Christmas miracle. It's an early Christmas miracle. So bathe in it.

Enjoy it. Just forget about all the dysfunction. Forget about all the mess. forget about Bruce Allen, forget about Jake Rudin. Concentrate on Josh Johnson because right now you are rooting for David. And, you know, the Redskins are neither David nor Goliath. They're Sodom and Gomorrah. That's who they usually are.

Let Josh Johnson just wash all over you this week. Absolutely. Just enjoy it. Absolutely, brother. Put your hands on the radio. Can I get a witness? Oh, my God, that's funny. And you know what?

He is easy to root for. It's a good story. I mean, he has not been content. Look, he hasn't been contaminated. Alex Smith is a decent human being, but he was contaminated by the trade itself. I mean, again, you can't just root for Alex Smith and not forget, let's take the broken leg out of it and everything else. Okay, let's do that. And not forget, and hope he's healthy.

And not forget how he wound up here. You just can't do that. Even Colt McCoy, God Almighty, he's been here so long that he carries the stench of the whole, you know, quarterback competition that wasn't really a competition to begin with. But here's Josh Johnson. He hasn't been contaminated by the aura of self-destruction. He's, he's pure. He's pure.

He is. And what a story it would be if he can take this situation, avoid being contaminated in end up with a starting job somewhere next year. Yes. Where we can even root for them even more. And God, you know, through some remarkable achievement, you win the Tennessee game with Josh Johnson. And the Eagles game is for all the-

They're going to get squashed like a bug. I know, but I'm taking the slim chance that that happens. Christmas miracle. Come on, Kevin. And they're playing the Eagles for all the marbles. The Eagles and the Redskins with Josh Johnson, a quarterback, all the marbles. You have to, look, if you're a Redskins, fan, you have to be there at that game.

I mean, you have to be there. I mean, because you know how many opportunities you're going to have to root for somebody good? To root, you have to feel good about yourself as a Redskins fan at Ghost Townfield. You can count them in the last five years on one hand. Ghost Townfield. That's Tommy's column nickname for FedEx. Oh, God. Yeah.

Well, you're right about the Alex Smith trade, too, because the most of the most of the most of the more and more we learn about that trade, old Doug and old Jay, they didn't have a vote. No one had a vote, except for one guy. Let me just go back for a second to what I was saying about the danger of thinking, not what Kevin who tweeted me, but possibly that Dan Snyder is thinking, Bruce Allen is thinking, that if they somehow go eight and eight and they have a competitive loss to Tennessee and beat Philadelphia, that somehow, you know, Bruce and and Jay and staff are to be celebrated. You know, next year is doomed if that happens.

They're not going anywhere, all right? More harm than good might come out of these final two weeks. I'm being serious, and it's a quandary. It's a conundrum for a Redskin fan, because come 430 on Saturday, you're going to be like, hey, let's go beat the Titans. It's Burgundy and Gold. Josh Johnson, the Christmas miracles here.

And who knows? I know. they're not going to get if they somehow pulled off a true Christmas miracle and got to the postseason they're going to get run out of the building in Chicago in the first round first of all I don't think they have a prayer on Saturday they're playing an actual NFL team I didn't play that on Sunday I get that I don't think they do either here's the problem Tommy when they made it in 2015 they looked like a team on the rise you know they needed defense a lot of defense but they looked like hey wow oh they were coming off a four and 12 season

the year before. I know, and they ran the four, got into the playoffs. When they made it in 2012 with Griffin, we thought it was all the beginning of something special, a long-term run. When they made it in 2007 with Todd Collins, it was Gibbs. So anything was possible when you got to the postseason. If they make it in 2018, not one of you out there, not one of you out there thinks they'll have a chance of winning a game. And very few of you believe that they have a team and a roster that's headed in the right direction. That's where we are right now. You know, it's like as a lifelong fan,

it's hard to watch and not hope and root for the best, but rooting for what's best in the long term, all right? Winning another game down the stretch could result in the subpar team president returning, the subpar head coach and staff coming back, and you know what that's going to breed, Tommy? Mediocre results on the field

and more embarrassing moments off it. Yes, it will. So I'm ready for a change. I want change. And I'm afraid that if they win one more game or they're competitive in these final two, that they're just delusional enough out in Ashburn and detached enough to what is really going on

with the significant majority of the fan base that want this thing gone. They want Bruce gone. They want Jay gone. They want a total reboot. Well, they want Snyder gone too. That's not going to happen. Right.

And these last two games, believe it or not, could impact that. Kevin, you made fun of me last year and before when I talked about the importance that they placed on the Giants game last year at the end of the season. They were seven and eight going into the Giants game. And I said that this is a big game for the Redskins in their minds to go eight. and eight and eight and you scoffed at that I did but Jay and I still do but I know what Jay Gruden you take everybody so literally well no Jay Gruden but but isn't that it isn't that a window into the thinking at Redskins Park well that last year had been then he should have gotten fired well if it had been important he would have been fired they laid an egg but if they think

if they think that eight and eight last year was an accomplishment what will they think about it this year I understand that my point is is that it ultimately really wasn't I know that. I know that. I agree with that. But that's not what they think. When I made fun of you, I was actually right. I just want that, you know. Yeah, but we were both right. Well, no, we weren't both right. Yes, we were because I said it was important. It mattered and it ended up not mattered. To them. But it didn't matter. But to them, it did. But then he would have been fired. Oh, not. I mean, look, getting fired for failing, if failing got you fired, nobody would have a job at Redskine's Bar. Hold on. I don't want to lose this particular argument right now.

because I think you've stepped into it and you don't even realize that you've stepped into it. You said before that giant game at the end of last year, when they were seven and eight and the season was over, they had nothing to play for it. You said because Jay Gruden said how important it was to eight and eight, you took them literally and said, this is really important to the organization. It's important in their minds. In their minds? Yes.

In their minds, it's very important. But just because they didn't do it doesn't mean people get fired. Well, what was the consequence to the importance? perception. What you're talking about is perception. If they go eight and eight this year, they're going to sell the perception. I know, but I'm not comparing this year to last year. I think they're totally different. But the record is the same. If they go eight and eight, they're going to be selling the perception to Redskins fans that they're moving in the right direction. Okay. Well, last year, when they didn't come through for something that they deemed to be important

in your mind, they left things as they were. I think this year is different. And And the only, here is the similarity to last year. The similarity is if you want a reason, you can use injuries once again. And actually this year, because of the fourth quarterback that they're working on, it's even easier to sell inside the building to each other. My God, I mean, he lost. And remember this, too, that they all thought that Alex Smith, that they had traded for Drew Brees. Remember that, too.

And they were six and three when he got hurt. He had thrown two picks in the game. were headed to six and four with him, and actually Colt McCoy rallied them and gave him a chance in that Houston game. Let's not forget that about the Houston game. And I don't want to, I'm so happy that Alex Smith is healthy. And I read something last night about the injury and the road back to actually just normalcy with his leg. And it's frightening. You know, it's a sobering situation with him right now. But at least, you know, he's out and the infections have stopped and all of that. But in that Houston game, let's not forget that he had thrown a backbreaking pick six right before the end of the first half.

And it was Colt McCoy who came in after he had thrown a second pick that actually led them to two touchdowns and the lead in the fourth quarter. What you were seeing was the defense starting to falter, the running game starting to disappear, and the Redskins having to ask Alex Smith to do more. That's what you were starting to see the results of. But I guess getting it back to what started this portion of the conversation, Bruce Allen made that trade essentially on his own. I mean, I'm sure with the help of Dan Snyder and with the approval of Dan Snyder. I mean, we know that Doug Williams knew nothing about the effort to trade for Alex Smith. And we know that Jay Gruden was really not a significant influencer in trading for Alex Smith.

He would have been just as happy, keeping Kendall Fuller, keeping the pick, drafting a quarterback and going with Colt McCoy. Right. All right. But in Bruce's mind and in Dan's mind, hey, we were a six and three team with the guy we picked. And then he got hurt. And it's really unfortunate.

We can't put this season on anybody else. You guy, hey, Bruce, you did the right thing trading for Alex. We were six and three. Jay, you were doing a hell of a job with Alex. We were six and three. So compared to last year, which actually they had more players on injured reserve and they had nothing offensively, remember with the offensive line. And this year you have a lot of the same issues. I'm not going to, it's not apples in oranges.

It's close to apples and apples in terms of the overall injuries. And you could say because of the quarterback situation that this year is even worse. But last year, my feeling at the end of the year was, you know what, given ever, everything they didn't have this year and the players they lost, it is amazing that they actually got into position, you know, late in the year. I thought, let me just say this. If Chris Thompson doesn't get hurt, I think the team still, even with all those injuries, had a chance to be competitive. I thought he was the most valuable player on offense when he got hurt, and that's when the season really flipped. But as it relates to this team, I just, I personally look at this

and say the six and three was a bit fraudulent to begin with. I don't know that they were going to win nine games with Alex Smith healthy the rest of the year. They may have, but they weren't going anywhere. This wasn't forward momentum. This wasn't like a catapult season to something much bigger and better. So I as a fan, and I think I know, because I've talked to many people that feel the same way, it is really a quandary right now. It's like you don't want to root against it.

them, but you don't want this group coming back. There is no future in Bruce Allen and Jay Gruden if sustained success or at least limited success is what you're hoping for. None. But you see, you are of the school of thought. You're convinced that there's an opportunity if they falter at the end for both of them to be gone. And I don't think either one's gone. I know I'm definitely in the minority on that. I just don't see with all the things we've talked about for weeks and weeks on end now about the erosion of this fan base and the fact that it's accelerated. This has been the year where we've seen, you know, if we, if we were looking at some sort of, you know, graph, this is the year where the acceleration of

the erosion of the fan base really spiked because we've seen it in the attendance, worse than we've ever seen it before, and we've seen it with television ratings, worse than we've ever seen it before. So I just think that unless they're so detached from that, and I have heard many times that Bruce in particular is detached with the way most of the fan base thinks about him and Dan and the organization, that he, you know, sort of bathes using the term de jure in the harvest feast crowds, harvest fest crowds, you know, the people that show up for the draft day party, you know, the real the smaller part of the fan base that will never ever think the organization. organization is doing anything wrong and will spend significant dollars year and year out on the

franchise. You and I both know, and a lot of others know, that that is the significant minority of the fan base. The majority can't stand the way this operation is run, and they want significant change. They'll never get the true change they want, which is Snyder to sell the team. I mean, you'd have celebration in the streets if he did that. How about Dolan? Did you see that comment? that he's considering selling the team, Nick fans would go nuts. Listen, I've went through this as a Mets fan. I know you did. You explained that last week.

Right. And it is a joyous moment. But sometimes, as the Who said, when you meet the new boss, they're as same as the old boss. It just might take some time. I mean, Mets fans would love nothing more than to see Fred Wilpon now sell the team. And he was their savior almost 40 years. ago. You know, this would have been the perfect thing, and I wasn't even thinking about it,

but we would have done this had we been doing a radio show with the ability to take calls or the want to take calls. Bless you. This would have been the perfect question today. Do you want them to play well enough and perhaps even advance to the postseason if it means you've got to take Bruce and Jay back? Because I think that this is one of those things. Bless you again, what do you got going on over there? I think I'm allergic. to, I don't know. But seriously, this is, do you see these final two games the way I see them? I even see Sunday is sort of that way.

Like Sunday, they are, to a certain extent, they are probably bathing in the success of a win over Jacksonville, of standing up for Jay Gruden and staff. You know, I think you're underestimating a drowning fan base, you know, hanging on to a life preserver here. I think more people than you would think would be surprised would be rooting for a win on Sunday. Saturday. I think they're so tired and so fatigued

and so embarrassed to being Redskins fans that any semblance of success, even fake success, would make them feel good. I will say this, because this is where I let some portion of my brain or heart get in the way of reason. But as you were describing the Josh Johnson Christmas miracle, I thought to myself, wouldn't it be interesting if, you know, the defense was starting to get it together again?

I mean, they completely shut down Jacksonville in that high school offense. But let's just say they came up. Actually, they didn't completely shut them down. Jacksonville ran for almost 200 yards. Kessler ran for the majority. of it. But they somehow defensively started to play like they were playing, you know, right before the middle point of the season and those wins over the Giants and the Cowboys. And Josh Johnson just starts making play after play after play.

Or just does what Alex Smith did. Well, but Sunday he did more than what Alex Smith did. He did more with his legs. Yeah, because he had 50 yards rushing. 50 yards rushing and they were all crucial. I mean, two of them were for first down conversions. And somehow Josh Johnson, at 32 years old, becomes like Kurt Warner, you know, when he came out of nowhere, you know, and at a, how old was Kurt Warner that first year? I don't remember.

He was close to 30, wasn't he? Wasn't Kurt Warner close to 30 that year? I don't remember. He was, this was 2000, right? Yeah, 2000. He may have been 28, 29. Yeah, he was born in 71, so. 71?

So he was 29 in 2000, or 28 and 99, which is the year they want it. But what if Josh Johnson? Johnson is not a figure that you can despise at this point. He's not been contaminated yet. The story's a good one. He played relatively well on Sunday. And if he goes into Nashville on Saturday and somehow puts up 20 for 29, 201 yards, a touchdown, no interceptions, rushes for 45 yards and a score.

And they win 20 to 17 in overtime where he drives them for the winning field goal. And the defense stood up and held Marriota down, it'll be a different feeling. Of course. Of course. But I just, I don't, I don't, it would be a different feeling with respect to, okay, you know what, this team's coming together. Let's take this for a little bit of a ride. But it's not going to change the way I feel about this organization as currently constructed. But there is. Jay Gruden is not all of a sudden going to become better than an average coach.

There's a segment of the fan base, and I think it's a growing segment. And I could be wrong, but there's a reasonable segment of the fan base that is convinced that nothing's going to change. And that if nothing's going to change, then enjoy the moments that come. And don't expect more than immediate success. Don't expect more than immediate gratification. Occasional and immediate gratification. So when you get the occasional every four or five year fluke? You embrace it.

The problem, and I said this to you, is that embracing this fluke is not like the previous flukes. They were, as it turns out, they were flukes as well. But you didn't think so in the moment when Griffin had the year he had. You didn't really think so at the end of 2015 when it was apparent that Kirk Cousins could be your franchise quarterback. You didn't think it at the end of 2007. It was Todd Collins, but it was Gibbs, and you didn't know Gibbs was leaving at the end of the year. So anything was always possible with Gibbs. And when they went into that postseason, you know, you thought, hey, you know what, they got a shot here.

Yeah. Got a shot. All right. Window Nation loves this podcast. They love when Tommy's on. Harley, Aaron, and Eric, they listen all the time. If you've been thinking about new windows, I promise you, as someone who has had Window Nation install windows in my home twice over the last decade, you won't go wrong by giving them a call. Right now, it's Window Nation's triple zero sales.

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I want to remind people that you can listen to me on 1067 a fan with Chad Duke. Tomorrow. Wednesday afternoon, 4 to 6. And I still do the show with Andy Paul. Saturday mornings, a great show. 9 to noon. You could read my stuff in Washington Times. Follow me on Twitter, Washington Times.com.

And tonight, I'm doing a podcast with one of our old friends. Who? I'm doing Zab's podcast with him. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. the one that he's doing out in Nashville. Yeah, out at the Steakhouse, me and Andy are going out there and doing the podcast together. So I'm looking forward to doing that as well. That'll be fun.

Now, Kevin. Yes. I give you a lot of credit. You must have matured since what we used to do to show together. You've grown as a human being. Okay. Because you haven't mentioned a name Trevor Arisa at least once. It's on my list.

Look what's written down right here. What does that say right there? I would have thought. This is Areza. I would have thought you would have. danced in here to talk about Trevor Areas. We're going to talk about that. I had a couple of other quick redskin things that people, that I didn't mention yesterday

as a follow up to the Jacksonville show that I wanted to go into more detail on. And I also wanted you to talk about your column if you wanted to talk about your column, but we're going to get to a reason, I promise. Number one is this. I mentioned Capri Bibs that they released him. Green Bay picked him up yesterday. It was Green Bay, right? Yes.

And who picked up Simi Cobbs? New Orleans. The Saints. Okay, so a lot of you said, why didn't you mention? I think I did talk about Capri Bibbs. This is the bottom line on Capri Bibbs. He's a good back. And the Redskins apparently were hoping that they'd be able to sign him back.

But Gruden has loved Byron Marshall since the day he arrived. He thinks he's one of the most explosive offensive players they have. It's just that Marshall hasn't been healthy. He likes Marshall. He wanted Marshall up for the game. they had to release bids. Now, in terms of Simi Cobb, who the Redskins had on their practice squad, Gruden did say, did he not, Aaron, that they were planning on signing him at some point

and bringing him up to the active roster? Well, when the, I believe it came out, reports came out that when the saints claimed him, the Redskins did try to keep him on, but he decided to go with the Saints instead. Right. So, which I didn't realize that that's how it worked, that you would have your choice as a practice player. So Simmy Cobbs ends up in New Orleans. In New Orleans, Cooley has told us from early in the season, even when New Orleans was putting up those prolific numbers, he kept saying over and over again, he goes, you know, the interesting thing about that team is they only have one receiver

that gets separation. That's it. Michael Thomas is the only guy that gets separation. They've got great backs, but he didn't see them as having a Rams-like receiving corps. Anyways, in New Orleans has been trying. Remember, it was Des Bryant. Then they, Brandon Marshall, who they just recently released and now Simi Cobbs. Look, our people, our fan base, they get so worked up over some of these players that are on practice squads and in training camp. If this guy, I'm not going to put it past Jay Gruden and staff to have blown a decision on a particular player.

Well, look, it's not Jay Gruden's decision. It's Bruce Allen. In terms of signing a player off the practice squad to come up and play wide receiver with the situation. Wait, no, not. It's all Bruce Allen. Every decision, every personnel decision is Bruce Allen's, every single one. Let me just say this.

When they signed semi-cobs, I said, this dude can play because Aaron and I is Big Ten football fans, which we are now with Maryland and the Big Ten. He was a big target with good hands. I told Cooley during the draft, you know, check this dude out. So I remember the talent and I recognize the talent. But if you were really wowing people, given their wide receiver issues, that's not true, Kevin. Yes, it is true. No, it's not. As it relates to a practice squad player, yes, it is.

It's not true. Oh, you think he said, I want to bring Simi Cobbs up from the practice squad, and Bruce said no. If Bruce Allen signed Michael Floyd, Michael Floyd's not going anywhere. Michael Floyd wasn't a big off-season signing. No, but that doesn't matter. That doesn't matter. This is how general, this is even how good general managers were. let alone bad general managers.

Their guys, they're protective of their guys, even the stupid mid-season pickups. And if Bruce Allen, I'm sure, was the guy who signed Michael Floyd, he's not going to cut him to make room for semi-cop. All right. You know what? I'm going to give you, I'm going to concede that point because it's not worth debating with you. I'll just say, okay, Bruce had a hand in semi-cobs not being called up. That's fine. And at one point, I mean, if I'm right from what I've read from JP,

Finley, they only had 52 guys on their active roster at one point. That was a game a couple of weeks ago. So, I mean, their roster management is terrible. Yeah, it's not good. But what I wanted to say after I've now conceded that Bruce Allen may have been involved in telling Bigruden to keep Simmy Cobbs down, which I'm just conceding that because it's a quid pro quo here. I talked about this with JP yesterday on the show because I think I've made.

mention this to you during the course of the year. And a lot of you reacted on Twitter to this because you hadn't heard this. And I thought I had mentioned some of this during the course of the season. But Ha ha, Clinton Dix was traded for. And during the show that Jay Gruden does with Zabe on 980 on Fridays, Zab asked him about, you know, ha ha, ha, Clinton Dix's performance. And, you know, why haven't we seen, you know, Monta Nicholson more? and he said, well, we traded for Haha Clinton Dix.

The implication, of course, management's telling me I got to play Haha Clinton Dicks. Well, during the early portion of the season, and I thought I discussed this, and it may have slipped my mind to discuss it, but I heard from credible people, and JPs heard the same thing, and we had this conversation yesterday, that yes, when the Redskins were playing very few defensive linemen, really through the early to mid portion of the season, snap count-wise, It was Duran Payne and Matt Ionitis and John Allen taking 90% plus of the defensive snaps and the rotation that Tom Sula and Minoski really preferred to keep people fresh,

which is what we've seen in the last few years, was basically not an option for the coaching staff this year. They were told essentially, you play the players that we drafted in the first round. We don't want to see a rotation. We want to see them in the game, the entire game. Now, in recent weeks, you've seen more of a rotation. You've seen some Tim Settle. You've seen some other defensive linemen coming in more of a rotation.

Matt Ionitis has been hurt, wasn't healthy. And Allen and pain have even gotten much, many fewer snaps. But yes, for, I would call it, and I haven't gone back and looked at the snap counts for a while now. But through the first half of the season, or roughly the first half of the season, if you go look at those snap counts, they didn't have much of a defensive rotation, defensive line rotation. And, you know, I find that to be discouraging. I know many of you do as well. When JP and I had this conversation yesterday, a lot of you said,

this is why it's never going to be right. And I agree with you. I agree with you. Now, I suggest that this was Snyder as much as it was Allen. JP was very clear. This is Bruce Allen telling Jay Gruden, Duran Payne and John Allen are playing most of the snaps. I want the best players on the field.

I don't want this, you know, defensive line rotation thing. Now, anyway, to be fair, that would support your semi-cobs that it was a Bruce decision. Now, to be fair, I've covered general managers in many, in a number of sports, who have done the same thing, who have ordered coaches or managers to play certain players for various reasons. They're usually bad general managers, but this is not an uncommon thing for general managers to, I mean, I know we don't think, we might think it is, but it's not. That, you know, we think that the coach, you know, decides playing time, and a lot of times the general manager does, you know.

Especially in basketball. Especially, yeah. And this happens a lot with bad organizations in particular. I do. I'm not, I'm not going to take back completely my concession on semi-coms. Uh-huh. Because you're not capable of it. Because I'm not totally mature yet.

Yes. But Gruden's quote about him to J.P. Finley was, was quote, it was tough because we had him in the building and he was progressing very well. In hindsight, I probably should have activated him sooner, to be honest with you, close quote. In other words, I should have done something and not left it up to the front office to do it. Not left it up to the idiots who run this team, who I work for to do it. I wanted to get to something else real quickly. Aaron brought this to my attention after the show yesterday, and I don't know if you saw it.

But Sunday, before the football started on Sunday, not after the Jacksonville game, but before the game, Joe Thysman tweeted the following. Did you see this, Tommy? About Lewis Riddick? Yes, I did. I'll read the tweet for all of those who are unfamiliar with it. Joe Thysman tweeted on early Sunday. He tweeted the following, quote, I want to throw a name in the hat for a GM job or a VP of football operations. Lewis Riddick.

John Lynch went from booth to GM Lewis's football knowledge and experience qualifies him and I think he would do an excellent job that's my cup of Joe for this Sunday that was sent out before kickoff on Sunday what did you make of that well he's not the first one

to think that Lewis Riddick would probably I'm not about it I'm talking about do you think he was talking about the Redskins yeah so do you think this is a big deal I don't think it's a big deal at all, actually. But when I had Joe on two weeks ago, Aaron, I thought he was for Joe about as critical of the organization as I've ever heard him.

Really? Because we know what Joe typically is. All right? And Joe's perspective on whenever we've had Joe on the show, I want to hear him just talk about football and what he's seeing. Because when we get into the organizational stuff, he's going to defend everybody in the organization, as if we've got, you know, Gibbs and Bethard, too, you know, and all of the other stuff.

But he, this tweet, to me, I don't know, by the way, I don't know if I agree with you that it's definitely a Redskins tweet. I think a lot of people, you know, took it that way. I think a lot of people think Lewis Riddick, you know, would be a good GM. I will tell you that if Lewis Riddick were a really good general manager candidate, I think he would have gotten hired at this point. That's my personal view. He's been interviewed. There have been multiple availabilities. There's a disconnect for me with all the people who aren't running organizations who say

Louis Riddick would be a fabulous head of football operations or general manager and the fact that he hasn't gotten a job yet or hasn't even been given an opportunity to get back into an organization since he left Philadelphia after Washington or was it Washington after Philadelphia. I forget. I think he's great on television. I think Riddick's great on television. But I think Joe, here's what I would say.

If this was a, hey, Riddick would be great as a head of as a GM in Washington, or a head of football operations in Washington, Joe's turning here. He's turning against Bruce. Unless he sees him working for Bruce. Unless he sees who working for Bruce. Lewis Riddick. Oh, I thought you said Joe. No, Louis Riddick.

He doesn't necessarily see him replacing Bruce. He's turning against Bruce as the lead football person. But technically Bruce isn't the lead football person. Doug Williams is. I know that. It's all an illusion. I get that. Yeah.

And Joe understands it's an illusion, too. If Lewis Riddick, look, I'm not ready to assume that Lewis Riddick wouldn't be a good GM candidate just because he's been passed over. That said, if Lewis Riddick is as smart as he seems to be on TV, he'd say. he'd stick needles in his eyes before he'd take the general manager job as the Washington Redskins. Well, and he knows he knows Snyder. Yes. He's been in the dysfunction. Yeah, so, I mean, if he is a legitimate GM candidate, then he knows somebody else will hire him at some point.

Joe, when he was on with us two weeks ago, was really critical of the Redskins signing Ruben Foster. and really critical, I took it as really critical of Bruce Allen for making that move. Good for him. And very disappointed. He called it a head scratcher. I think a lot of ex-redskins were embarrassed by it.

But anyway, whether it's Lewis Riddick or somebody else, if Joe is talking about Redskins, I think for the first time we're hearing Joe Thysman, who really, there's a core group of people who would never criticize. size, Snyder, Bruce Allen, anybody in the organization, that is a bit of a shot. Yeah. If you believe that it was that.

I'm not sure what I believe. I think he's impressed by Lewis Riddick overall. Listen, everyone is out there waiting, Kevin. When are we going to get to it? We're going to get to it. I also wanted to mention that or have this brief conversation. I wonder if Josh Johnson is making a case to be on the roster next year, regardless of what the position is.

I think, look, if Jay Gruden's back, then Colt McCoy will be the starter in 2019 as they wait for some sort of resolution on Alex Smith. Maybe we'll have it well before the season. But that would be the plan. But I think that Josh Johnson may be making the case for having a roster spot next year, or at least being signed to come to camp. And that would be interesting because, you know, he's the number one pick of the San Diego Fleet in the new AAF Football League, which supposed to start play in February. Really?

Yes. I knew he was in that league. Yeah, he's their number one pick. I thought they were already playing. I'm getting confused with all these different leagues. They start in February and Mike Morris. Which one is the Vince McMahon League? That's the XFL.

That starts in 2020. But the AAF starts in February. He's the number one pick for the San Diego fleet and he'll be playing for Mike Martz. He's the head coach there. You are the king of other football league information. I love obscure leagues in any sports. One last thing before we get to the Wizards and Trevor Areza.

There was an announcement yesterday or an indication from ESPN that the Monday night football booth is coming back in 2019. And that was met with great cheers. Oh, my God, Joe Tessator and Wigr and Witt. Bugs, Witt, and Tess. They're coming back. Oh, my God, you've got to be kidding. Now, look, you've managed businesses. you've been a manager.

There's a school of thought probably at work here saying you can't give up on a decision so early. Yeah, I mean, there's somebody there who believed in this that got their way of getting one more year just to say, hey, we've had these situations in the past as I think is where you were heading, where it was terrible, terrible, you know, criticize, criticize, and look who ended up being right, you know, because they needed some time to come together as a group. Look, I'll tell you what, like, Boogs, he doesn't bother me that much. I actually think McFarland's the only one there that's got any personality. Testatory, I've just never been a fan of as a play-by-play guy in anything that he does.

He's just over the top. Everything is the greatest thing that's ever happened in the history of that particular sport, team, or venue. And it just drives me crazy. Here's the thing I'd say about Witten. He's not a broadcaster. He's got no personality. I think his contents, okay. I think he knows what he's talking about.

But, you know, if you told me that you're going to bring in another play-by-play guy and put him with boogs, I'd go for that. Saturday night, the Browns Broncos game, Mike Tariko was on the call. And it was like, there you go. Give me Mike Tariko, for Christ's sake. And he did the game with Kurt Warner, who, you know, I'm a Kurt Warner fan. I thought Kurt Warner was excellent with Toriko. I got a question for you now about your boy, Scott Van Pelt. Yeah.

Look, ESPN has chosen to diminish the Monday Night Football broadcasts with an announcing crew like this. Why not enhance it? Why not put it back on the level that it used to be? Would Scott Van Pelt ever consider being in the booth for Monday Night Football? So I have had that conversation with him before. I've said, because we've talked about the Monday Night booth and I'm not going to share with you what his feelings are because these are people he works

with. Right. But I've said to him, I think I said it on a show earlier in the year. I'm like, they should put you on there. You could do this. And he's like, I don't do play by play. I'm like, either does the guy they have. And I'm like, you know, you know that his sports center right now, along with, you know,

PTI, those are the two most successful things the ESPN is doing right now. Did you see the rating from last night? that just came out. I didn't. 3.1. It's terrible. No, that's great. The 3.1.

For Scott's show. Oh, for Scott Show. I thought he said for the Monday night. No, no, Scott's show last night got a 3.1. Which comes on at midnight. Comes on at midnight. He's killing Kimmel. So why not take your best asset and bring back Monday night football to its glory and put him in the book?

You put him in a booth. He says he wouldn't do it. Well, that may be. He said to me, I've brought this up a couple times. I'm like, I actually think you could do it. And it would take, you know, a dozen to two dozen practice games in the off season. And you could definitely do it. Look, there is definitely a, you know, a science to it.

But it's not brain surgery. No, it's not. And this pains me to say this. I'm listening. This really pains me. me to say this, but it's honest. You put Scott Van Pelt in that booth with Chris Cooley, and you're going to have a very entertaining Monday night football broadcast.

And informative. It'd be great, because I'd be able to hang out in the booth every single Monday night game. But it's true. It's true. I mean, come on, Jason Witton. Look, whatever, look, Cooley is head and tails better than Jason Witten. My God. He really is.

I mean, I, look, Chris should be working for an organization. He should be working for this organization. He would be a significant improvement. I thought you liked them. Over the people they have. I thought, why would you punish them by that? I know. But back to Scott SportsCenter, and I don't know that a lot of people know this in the

rating that Aaron just gave out, like he's beating Kimmel and Fallon in his sports center spot on cable with the key, you know, male demographics, including. the Young demo. It's one of the, like one or two things that you would go out of your way to watch on ESPN. Yeah, it's really well done. All right. Let me tell you about Farish and then we'll talk a little Trevor Ariseo, which is what Tommy's waiting to do. Ferris, Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, and Fairfax should be on your list if you're considering a new vehicle this time of year. Kevin, Kevin Farish has owned it forever. Ralph Perkins has run it forever. Ralph's a really good friend of mine. Kevin's a good friend of They have supported this podcast.

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You're going to ask for Ralph Perkins. Ralph is going to put you with their best salesperson. He's going to take good care of you. They're not going to hard sell you. They're not going to harass you. It's a real comfortable environment out there. And their deals right now are really, really strong. It's the best rebates they've had all year long.

They're trying to get rid of their inventory before the end of the year. And that means great deal opportunities for you. The Jeep Cherokee, the Jeep Grand Cherokee, the Jeep Rangler and Ram pickups right now. They've got plenty of inventory on their lot. it's the best deals of the year on all of those vehicles. They've got to clear that lot in time for the new shipments that will come in post-January 1. They're located right there in Fairfax Circle. Ask for Ralph when you get there.

Tell them I sent you. You can also find out everything Farish has in stock right now, live inventory, live pricing, at ferrish cars.com. All right. Trevor Areza. Yeah, you know I'm happy about that. but there are a couple of things that I'm not happy about. One that it didn't happen in 2015.

Well, that, you know how I, 2016. You know how I felt about Trevor Areza when they decided to go all in for KD in 16, which I never thought there was any chance that they were going to get KD. And I just, I was frustrated by that because I, and anybody that really knows basketball understood the value of Trevor Arisa to the team that they had, that young team that they had, that had made the playoffs for the first time and had won a series for the first time.

And I think people understood that. And it's the same thing, you know, veteran coaches and veteran teams in Houston understood. It's why the Lakers and LeBron won him so badly, even right now, won him so badly. But those two years that he was here, you know, I thought they were building something. And at that point, Tommy, he's only 28 years old, you know, and 29, whatever. he was. He's 33 now. He's 33 right now, I believe. So, yeah, I don't know what it's going to look like now. He's 33 years old. You know, he's, how many good years does he have left? You also have

the dynamic that he's entering into, and Chris Miller was on with me yesterday, and Chris is really close to this team covering the team for NBC Sports Washington. And he said, look, John and Brad are different people now than they were. In particular, John, this is not the young John Wall. who's going to follow the veteran blindly, like it was when maybe Trevor Areza was here. This is a John Wall, who in many ways, to the detriment of the team, has exercised his influence on the way things are run on that team. I will say this, though, what I've heard, Chris mentioned this yesterday.

I've heard it from others as well, that John and Brad really wanted Trevor Arisa signed in the offseason. and I didn't realize this because I don't think that it was ever reported. It may have been rumored. But Areza was considering the Wizards in the offseason. This was one of the places he wanted to come to. L.A. was another one when LeBron signed there, that he wanted to come here. And Wall and Beale are really embracing this.

But you still don't know how that's going to work in terms of how it worked five years ago and how it works now with a more mature Wall and Beal where it's been sort of their team and their locker room, not a positive one necessarily all the time, you know, over the last few years. So I wouldn't use the word mature with John Wall. I'd just say older. Yeah. Older John Wall.

I didn't. You said a more mature John Wall and Bradley. I stand corrected. I think the maturity has not been there. No. You know, they haven't been knuckleheads. No. Off the floor, neither one of them.

No, they haven't been. There hasn't been any documented knuckleheadness. Oh. What do you have? I mean, look, John Wall's been a knucklehead, and they've talked about it. You've heard it surface. I know, but he hasn't gone to jail, hasn't. No, he hasn't. He hasn't done what Gilbert Arenas has done. But I just, the part of this that I'm frustrated about is that I'm happy and I'm looking forward to seeing with this team. Look, this is an injection for me of a little bit of life into this season, which was to me dead on arrival here the last few weeks.

and it's disappointing because when football season ends, I like to have, you know, Maryland basketball is a bit of a go-to for me in January and February and March, but the Wizards in recent years, I know they haven't been a championship contender, but you've been able to look forward to a postseason, you know, a Best of Seven series. And by the way, in every Best of Seven that they've played,

they've either won in the first round or had a chance to win, including the Toronto Series last year, as an eight-seat against a one-seat, losing in six games. but I really don't think that Ernie extracted the value that could have been there for Kelly Ubre. I don't know that this was a really good trade. The two second rounders could have been, look, they probably would have sold the, like they do. Like they do for cash. But it also could have been leveraged a little bit before the trade deadline into something more.

I don't know. What I'm saying is I'm not sold that this is the right long-term move, that it was the best. trade that they could have made for the long term. But I am also simultaneously excited to see a player who I think has tremendous basketball IQ. He's one of these players, Tommy, that only basketball coaches will be able to tell the analytics people. So much of what he does that impacts a team positively isn't measured. It's not measured. And I'm not talking about the leadership locker room stuff. I'm talking about the things he does defensively where he's, will get into a passing lane two passes away or one pass away that adds more time to a play

that got disrupted that leads to a bad shot attempt that leads to a miss that leads to a rebound or potentially leads to there's so many things that Trevor Areza does and so much in basketball in general and football that's just not measurable that only somebody who really you know understands Randy Whitman I've had I had many conversations with him about Ariza he's like I didn't want to lose him nobody wanted to lose him. He just does so much for you. And we talked one day off the air after an interview that we recorded about all of the things that I'm like, yeah, how does that get measured?

He goes, it doesn't get measured. This is the stuff that, you know, those people don't understand. But I don't know what it's going to be like on this team right now at 33 years old. I don't. I'm hopeful. I think that they have maturity on the team for the first time in a long time. That's not going to change, right? he's going to bring an adult into the locker room that knows how to win.

He knows how to win. Yeah, but they may be bringing an adult into the locker room who looks around after two or three weeks and says, I'm embarrassed to be part of this locker room. I can't change this locker room. This locker room is too much of a mess. It's too bad they can't bring Neney back and Gortod back. Yeah, no way, it's like this is the deal that this was a deal they should have made a couple years ago. Look.

Well, they should have never let him go. The embarrassment, the arsonist fireman was never a better description of Ernie Grunfeld. You nailed it. Then in this trade where the guy who sets the house on fire and then turns around and gets credit for putting the fire out. You think he's getting credit for putting the fire out with this trade? Yeah. Oh, I don't. I think he is.

I think he's being, I think Ernie's being mocked for this trade, especially the way it went down. Well, no, he's being mocked for the way it went down. Yeah. I mean, not just mocked. By the way, I don't even think. think we know definitively that that was Ernie that that the Memphis the Memphis general manager. Yeah, but the Phoenix, the Phoenix people say that's not true that Phoenix had the conversation with Memphis. So somebody's not telling the truth here. I'm not saying that it's not. For a general

manager like, like the Memphis GM to come forward and say what he's, what he went through, what, what he dealt with what's unprecedented. Phoenix, Phoenix basically gave you conflicting information and said they had direct conversation about the Wright Brooks, Marchon. But whatever, with, with, with with Memphis. Memphis is saying they never talked to Phoenix and Phoenix is saying, no, we did talk to Memphis and we had the, it was Marshawn Brooks. So somebody's not telling the truth there, but it could be that the Phoenix people aren't telling the truth and that Ernie completely bungled the whole thing. But I don't think with respect to the actual trade that he's being, you know, that bringing Trevor Areza back is being lauded as a positive. I don't think that he's putting any

fire out with that. I think he is to some extent, at least with. his owner, with his boss. Tommy, he did not, they could have gotten more for UBray. I know you don't like Ubre, and I've been a new, I've been an UBray fan. I think Ubre is one of those guys that in three, four years could be a really, really top flight player. And I think there's recognition in the league of what his upside is. And I just think if he had waited a little bit longer, there was more to be gotten for Kelly Ubre. Or I'll trade him in the offseason. Well, no, trade before the trade deadline, because your season's not going anywhere. and trade them to a contender and get something significant.

They're going to be pretty busy at the trade deadline because they're going to be trying to unload John Wall. And Trevor Areza may be the way. It depends on what their record is. And Trevor Areza may be the way to trade John Wall. Trevor Arisa could get dealt by the trade deadline. To the Lakers, you have to take John Wall with the deal.

I mean, it's possible that the Wizards, that Ernie's like, look, we're going to give it until February. If we're not in contention, if we haven't moved up to the six, seat or five seat at that point. You know, Areza will be a good trade chip for us to a contender. But I also think he could be leveraged to force whoever wants Eriza to have to try to take John Wall off their hands and that contract.

That's ironic. Couldn't it be? Yeah. Hey, look, if you want Trevor, you're going to have to take John Wall. I mean, it's pretty funny to think of it that way. But there, you know, there are contenders that wanted ERISA. Now, all of what you just said will be contingent on their record at that. point. Yes. If they all of a sudden start to play well and you see a team that is headed towards,

you know, the five or six seed in the east, and then Ernie's going to be able to sell the Ted. Hey, we got it back to where we want it. We got a chance to perhaps win a series and take a shot at Toronto or Boston in the conference semifinals. You know, and that'll give you, by the way, the additional three or four or five playoff games that you need to turn a profit. You know how big those playoff games are to profitability. I know, absolutely. Huge revenue. Look, in every sport, not just NBA, but MLB playoff games, huge revenue.

In hockey and basketball, and I guess in Major League Baseball, but in hockey and basketball in particular because you have the potential of so many. Yes. It is, it's profit margin. It's like the difference between break-even and profit margin for a lot of these teams if they can host two, three, four, five playoff games. Yes, it is. It's more money for the city.

It's more money for business. around the arena. It's just more money. I found something I think you might be interested in. In 2010, when Ted Leon's has bought the Wizards after the passing of A. Paul, and he came up with a list of 101 signs of visible change that he was going to do with the Washington Wizards. Oh, his Wizards list? This is different from when he was about to die on the airplane and came up with a list of 100 things he wants to do before he dies.

Was this in the business? of happiness where Ted tells everybody and lectures everybody on how to be happy? I'm not sure this was in the book. Okay. But that was the name of the book. Yes, the business of happiness. This is his list of 101 signs of visible change for the Washington Wizards. One, more transparency concerning strategy and plans via more connection with fans.

Are you going to read through all 100? No, but that one right there. Okay. More transparency. Is that number one? That's number one. What's number two? Well, number one.

Let's stick with number one. I'm ready to move on to number two. Okay, there hasn't been enough transparency. There hasn't been, the fact that they had to hide the general manager's contract extension. Really? That's a good. Really? That's the number one example right there.

Here's the second one. Reconnect with Gilbert Arenas. That was the second one. Oh, my God. It's just, he's, you know. connect with Gil. Ted, it's an embarrassment. Ernie, get him the hell out of here.

Put this fire out. You know, your general manager is an embarrassment. And Ted, let me just say one thing. Sell the team. If you don't want to run it right, sell the team. This is the second time you've gone there. Well, sell the team. Sell the team to Steve Jobs' widow.

She wound up buying 20% of it a couple years ago. Just sell the rest of it. What's her name? Lauren Powell Jobs, I think her name is. I love that Tommy all year long on this podcast has made more of an effort to get Ted to sell his team than Dan Snyder to sell his team, as if they're even comparable. Right now, that could be a poll for the day. If you have your choice of Ted selling the basketball team or Dan selling the football team. Well, there's more fans.

What would that percentage be? 991, 982? Yeah, but how many times can I write that Dan Snyder's the problem? needs to sell the team. I've been writing that for years. What was your column you wanted about, you went to the Ravens game, but I didn't read your column. I'm sorry. You send me the column. I didn't read it today. I know it had something to do with what you talked about on Thursday. I know you're so busy with everything. It's not that I was so busy, but you know, reading your columns online, it takes an effort. A commitment. It takes a commitment. It takes a commitment that one friend would

make for another. And I usually do. And I usually do. But you know what the problems with that website Yes, I do. Yes, I do. I went to the Ravens game in part to write about the new business of the NFL and to point out that the Redskins are not the only ones dealing with empty seats and stadiums. The Ravens did two things that were pretty amazing. For one thing, Ravens games now, you can buy your tickets digitally on, like with your phone. Can't you do that to Redskins? You can't do that with the Redskins?

You can't do that. You can't get toast or Wizards games. Yeah, I know that. But the NFL told all the teams by. the end of 2019, they all have to be on digital platforms. The Redskins still haven't done it yet. The Ravens did it this year. They offered a deal to their fans that for the final two home games of the season,

the Tampa game and I think the Browns game at the season finale, you can buy two tickets for $44. That's $22 a ticket. But the only way you could buy them was through the mobile app. When when you buy them, you didn't know your seat until game day. So you couldn't pick your seat. You got your seat on game day. The purpose of this is to reach out to millennials, to reach out to young people that don't like to make commitments, that don't like that.

You know, that might decide day a game, let's go to the game or something like that. So that's the purpose of this. This is something that more NFL, usually NFL teams used to sell tickets. They'd sell their season tickets. and then they'd be done, and then they'd sit in their office and count their money. Right. Well, those days are gone. Sure.

They've got to sell every day now, all the time. Everywhere. We talk so much about the problems here. It's a live sports problem. It's a live sports problem. Yeah, so everywhere, you've got to sell all the time. And so the comm was partly about that. Also, they did a giveaway.

They gave away 30,000 scarves. Nice Raven scarves. NFL teams. Did you get one? No, I didn't. I didn't take a giveaway. NFL teams don't, this is not baseball. NFL teams don't do this.

They don't give away. It's not bobblehead night. No, they don't do that. So this was another indication. What was your favorite baseball giveaway night as a kid? Oh, bat day. Bat day. Bat day was having that.

Bad day was the best. Yeah, absolutely. You couldn't do it today. But that day was the best. So they're giving away scarves to a home game. Now, look, granted, it was a terrible weather day. but there were only half, half the stands were filled, half the stands were empty. And apparently the giveaway didn't go so well because a fan posted on Facebook that people were grabbing two or three or four scarfs at a time.

Because they're not used to doing this. Right. They have a staff that's not used to giving stuff to people as they walk in the door. It's like Halloween. They just put the candy out there and said take one. Yeah, that's it. But this is what the NFL, this is what the NFL is now. This is sort of what the NFL is going to have to do.

They're going to have to try to convince people to show up for the games other than just the games. And that's all that was. That was pointing out that it's not just a Redskins problem. It's an NFL problem. Look, the Chiefs and the Chargers game on Thursday night, Arrowhead right now is top two or three in the league in terms of home venue and dedication from fan base and all of that. And one of the things I noticed late in the game, and it was a great game. That Thursday night game was just off the hook good, is that in their club level, there were a lot of empty seats in the club level.

And it was a cold night. So a lot of that is just people saying, I'm going to go inside to the concourse level and watch this thing and drink some beers and eat some food. But it's, Tommy. It's a new world right now. It's a new world, but I also sometimes have to be careful, because I let my personal circumstance get in the way. I don't like going to games anymore. I haven't liked going to games in a long time.

Do you know that this will be the first year, unless I end up going to the Eagles game, the first year since I was five years old, that I will not have gone to a Redskins game. Well, you have to go to the Eagles game then. You can't. I can't let that streak end. You can't let that streak end.

That is on my children. That is true. My father had season tickets, and he started taking me. Even when you were in college, you went? Even when I was in college, I went to Maryland. I was here locally. I know. I went to games.

But you weren't passed out on Sundays and too messed up to go to games? Look, when I got to college, I didn't go to every game anymore, although because they were so good, you know, during those years, I went to most of the games every year. Now, there were a lot of games that I got there impacted, you know, but I was there. And, you know, but it, so I sometimes let that get in the way of, like, my boys, they like going to games. They actually, Thanksgiving weekend, the Texans game, I had two of my three boys say, can you get me tickets to the Texans game? And I'm like, you really want to go to the game?

And I ended up getting some tickets, a couple of tickets, and they went. And they wanted to go, they wanted to go to the, to the giant game. I'm like, why do you want to go to the Giants game? But it's still for a younger demo, you know, it's hanging out with friends. It's a social thing. But you see, that's the demo that's not coming to NFL games. I guess that's true. I mean.

Yeah, that's the demo. They're trying to figure out how to get back. But don't you think older people aren't going? Look, my father at some point, as a Redskins season ticket holder said, I'm just not going anymore. Well, I think now more old. Look, the whole mobile ticket thing that the Ravens were doing, was all about, well, I interviewed the guy, the vice president of marketing and ticket sales. It's all about reaching a younger audience, an audience that they're not connecting with right now.

Are they going to give out scarves again? No. I don't know. But it was pretty stunning to see that at an NFL football game. Right. What would be a good giveaway for the Redskins to try to get some people there? Oh, we don't want to go there. I mean, there's a lot of possibility. There's a lot of bad jokes.

If they wanted to be self-deprecating, They could do a lot of things that people... Sometimes I think that... Look, when you have the personality that those guys have, you can't see beyond your self-absorption and you can't ever be the butt of the joke. And there's even, in their own minds, I think there is...

I mentioned this earlier. There's a level of delusion about what people really think of them. There is. All of those people out there, all of them, All the people we know. Some of them have no idea how much the organization is despised, you know, from a lot of their long-time fans and want significant change. Anyway, I've got some coaching blunders to finish up the show, but real quickly, let me tell you about launch workplaces in Bethesda.

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240-86714. That's 240-86714, or you can visit launchworkplaces.com today. Again, if you're in that area, Bethesda, Chevy Cheveche, Sepper, Northwest, Potomac, right over the American Legion Bridge in McLean or Vienna, you know, in that area, and you're looking for a place to get work done outside of the home, launchworkplaces.com. Let's do some. coaching blunders for the week. Bad play calls, clock management gaffs, missed opportunities. It's Coach Ian's blunders of the week. All right, Tommy, I'm going to start with the opposite of a blunder.

I'm going to start with coaching brilliance. It's a good time. That's good, because you don't have many good things to say about coaches. Yeah, I do. No, you don't. Bill Belichick, I do. Yeah, that's true. I don't know how many people caught this in the Pittsburgh, New England game on Sunday.

But late in the first half, New England had the ball and they were facing a fourth down and one. In their own territory, after the review of a play, the ball was at about their own 40-yard line. And a pass to Cordell Patterson was under review by the replay officials in the booth. It was under two minutes to see if he had actually made the line to gain. He didn't. They came back. It was fourth and one. Pittsburgh had all the timeouts in the world to potentially call a timeout,

you know, expecting New England to punt to get the ball back. But Belichick kept his offense on the field. And after the replay, the review was announced by the head referee, they rolled the clock. Now, what Belichick did here, I don't know that I've seen done. I'm sure someone will correct me that you've seen another coach do this. But it was in that area of, well, Pittsburgh is saying to themselves, well, if they're going to go for it, we're not going to use our timeouts here,

because we don't want to give them more time if they make it. So Belichick, with about 15 seconds left on the play clock, after he had burned 25 seconds plus of the game clock, he sends his offense off the field and his punt team charging onto the field. His intention the whole time was to punt the football. but he didn't want Pittsburgh to use their timeouts to have more time when they got the ball back after the punt. It was brilliant.

And so by the time they punted it, there were, you know, there were, Pittsburgh got the ball from their own 20-yard line, and there were 20 seconds to go, and Rathlisberger took a knee and went to the locker room. So instead of having the ball back with about a minute to go at their own 20-yard line, with time to try to make something happen,

Belich gave him 20 seconds. with that brilliant disguise of going forward on fourth and one so that Pittsburgh didn't take their timeouts and then switching it at the last second and sending his punt team out there. It was really, it was so well done. If it's been done before, send me that on Twitter.

At Kevin Sheen, D.C. is my new Twitter. Right? Did I just fuck up my new Twitter account? What is it? At Kevin Sheen, D.C. is what I was about to say at Kevin S980, which he was for years. At Kevin, she and DC, send that to me. I'm sure that's nothing that Jay Gruden wouldn't do. That's exactly what I thought in the moment.

I'm like, this is exactly what Jay Gruden would have come up with. Absolutely. But it was just really so smart. Romo picked up on it, and Romo was like, this is brilliant. He totally duped Pittsburgh into believing that he was going for the fourth and one to burn an additional 25 to 30 seconds. of what could have been a Pittsburgh drive. It was so well done. Back to the Thursday night game, this wasn't a coaching blunder. Actually, it was a coaching blunder. It was also a major quarterback error at the end of that fabulous 29 to 28 Chargers Chiefs game where they went

for two at the end and won the game. The play at the end where Rivers was hit helmet to helmet defenseless and it wasn't called. Just one of the, one of the, dumbest and worst officiated games of the year, and there are a lot of them to choose from, but that Kansas City, San Diego, Kansas City, Los Angeles game was the worst. So Rivers gets roughed up at the end of a play. The play ends at 26 seconds,

and Rivers gets up going, where's the flag? There's no flag for the defenseless helmet-to-helmet hit on him. And he's complaining, and Anthony Lynn is complaining, and all the while the clock is running. 13 seconds rolled off between the end of that play and the Chargers calling their final timeout. Now they ended up scoring,

but they should have had after the first and goal, well, on the 3rd and 10, they got the penalty on Kendall Fuller. Kendall Fuller, by the way, is out for the year. He got injured in that game. There was a bogus pass interference call in Kansas City, which gave the Chargers a first in goal at the Kansas City one yard line with eight seconds to go, and there should have been 20 seconds to go. So they should have had four opportunities if they needed them from the one yard line.

Now they scored on that first one. Right. But really, they only had time for two plays. Yeah. So that was terrible clock management by them at the end of the game. Saturday's game, late game, the Denver Cleveland game. And it happened last night, too. Ron Rivera did it.

with the Panthers. If you miss the very end of last night's game, I'll get to it in a moment, because the Saints really screwed up, not coaching blunder, but a player really messed up at the end. But in that Cleveland Denver game, when Cleveland missed on a fourth and one, and Denver got the ball back, and they were driving, there is a fourth down completion for a first down over, you know, towards midfield, Tommy. It was a fourth and two. They completed it. Their midfield, and the play ended with about a minute five left. Let me just say this. If you got more than a minute left in a game,

more than 50 seconds left in a game, don't clock it, don't spike it. The downs are more important than the clock at that point. You've got plenty of time, and you're on offense, so you can hurry up and run a play. Denver went up and clocked it with 54 seconds, 53 seconds left in the game. and sure enough, second and ten was incomplete, third and ten's incomplete, fourth and ten he gets sacked, game over, instead of having four full plays.

They had three full plays, and you had plenty of time left. All you needed at that point was for one of those four plays. You were not going to run out of time to run four plays. It's one of those plays to go over the middle for 10 yards, 12 yards, and you're in field goal range with a chance to give your kicker a chance to win it. And then last night in the Carolina New Orleans game, first of all, New Orleans, I haven't mentioned this yet today. I can't believe I haven't mentioned this yet today. 3-0 smell test over the weekend. Wow.

Carolina was a winner last night plus the six. It got dicey there at the end, didn't it? If you were up watching it. My record, I've lost track. It's like 47, 14, and 2 over the last six weeks. It's ridiculous how hot. I am. And now I'm hitting it like 58% for the year, something like that. But it's the fifth straight winning weekend after that worst weekend in years, 3 and O this weekend. And everybody reminded me, I may have mentioned this yesterday on the podcast, almost every lean, strong lean, near-smell test pick I gave out hit, all of them. But last night at the end of the game, and this was, you know, a situation in which New Orleans is up 12 to 9, Carolina scored on a two-point conversion interception return for two points.

When New Orleans scored to take the lead 12 to 7 in the fourth quarter, they went for two and it was picked off and returned. And that's why it was a three-point game, which was great, because if they had made the two-point conversion, I'm down seven. And watching that game last night, it did not look like old Cam was going to lead him to any points. In fact, their only touchdown was a half-back option pass. But New Orleans at the end of the game last night

had a third down and four at the first. Carolina 5 with about a minute 50 to go. Score a touchdown, the game's over. You don't want to kick a field goal there if you're New Orleans, but they had a chance to get a first down also, which then they would have taken three knees game over. And they did a little jet sweep to Lewis, and he stretched the ball out for the goal line

and fumbled it out of the end zone. Touchback. Carolina's ball. It was a terrible play by Lewis. But Carolina, after getting the ball back, they've got a chance to go down the field, and getting field goal range to kick a field goal. And after a third down and one completed pass to McCaffrey,

and the ball is now, I don't know, at the Carolina 40, 38, 40-yard line, minute 15 left. Cam spikes the ball, clocks it. I don't, are you that ill-prepared as a football team where you've got to wasted down with more than a minute to go in the game? That's crazy to me.

The down is so much more. important in that particular situation than the clock. You want to clock it when you get to like under 40 seconds. Right. You know, where, you know, 10 seconds running off the clock before you can snap it is going to be truly meaningful. But at a minute 10, dude, take your time. You got plenty of time. You want to have four downs here. And they spiked it. And sure enough, incomplete, incomplete, incomplete. They have three plays to get 10 yards. And it wasn't enough. They They needed another down in that situation, and they lost the game 12 to 9. That's it.

Did you see what Drew Breeze is doing? I did not. This is very cool. Very Drew Breeze-like, you know, he went over, as you know, from watching the Redskins game, he went over 500 career touchdowns. What he's done is he has sent a personalized football to everybody who's ever caught a touchdown pass off him. How many people? I don't know how many there are.

I don't know how many it is. I didn't look at the number. But anybody who's ever caught a touchdown pass from him, he sent them a personalized football. Wow. That's pretty cool. It is, but I'm wondering what the number would be. I mean, do you think it's more than 30?

It may or may not be. I mean, I don't know. I just think the gesture is amazing. It's an amazing gesture. He's an amazing quarterback. He's a Hall of Fame quarterback. I still don't put him anywhere near the top of the list of the greatest quarterbacks. do I.

Going back to one of the first conversations we had today, I think the NFL's fascinating right now. I think it's a really fun, this is going to be a fun postseason. It's going to be, you know, these last two weeks with the playoff spots that are still up for grabs. And, you know, and you've got some huge games, like the Baltimore Chargers game Saturday night. Yes. Is going to be a great game to watch. Saints Steelers on Sunday afternoon, followed by Chiefs Seahawks in Seattle on Sunday night. You got some really, really compelling matchups the final two weeks.

But the postseason, I really do think that this year there's this offense versus defense conversation that we've been having with the incredible presumption, you know, that offense has overtaken defense and defense no longer can win, that you've got to have great offense. And I don't know that we're going to see that in the postseason. It would not shock me if a few, if not more than a few of the defenses, merged by the time we get to Super Bowl Sunday. As long as we figure out what's good defense and what's bad offense. Well, I think you can watch those three games that we talked about,

the Saints, Cowboys, the Rams, Bears, and last night, and say there was some pretty damn good defense played by the Cowboys, by the Bears, and by the Panthers last night in particular. Look, maybe it is a New Orleans problem. New Orleans, the three games that I mentioned, two of them are New Orleans. Yeah. But New Orleans was uncheckable for the first thing. 13 weeks of this season, and now all of a sudden they're shut down?

I mean, 10? Tampa shut them down for three quarters. And they just started turning the ball over. But anyway, all right, what else do you have anything? I got nothing else for you, baby. All right, I'll see you on Thursday. Thanks to Aaron. Thanks to Tommy.

Thanks to all of you. We are back tomorrow, and then Tommy will be back with me on Thursday.