The Kevin Sheehan Show - Bye Bye Bryce

Episode Date: March 1, 2019

Kevin opens the show talking Bryce Harper. Barry Svurluga joins the show to talk Harper, Skins, and college hoops. Kevin recaps the Gruden and Bruce Allen media hits from the last two days. Plus, Terps, Jason Witten, Caps and more. <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. All right, I am here. Aaron is here. This show is presented by Window Nation. If you're in the market for Windows, call 86690 Nation or go to Windonation.com and tell them we told you to call. Barry's Verluga will be on the show today. We'll get to J.P. Finley on Monday as sort of a wrap-up for the Indy Combine. The snow today amounted to nothing. Those of you that closed schools are delayed schools. That's the decision a few weeks ago was fine. This morning, not fine. Wet roadways.

Nothing but wet roadways. And the kids are home this morning. I feel sorry for those of you that have your kids home this morning. Let's start with Bryce Harper clearly. And then we'll get to Barry's Verluga on Bryce Harper. And then we've got, you know, lots of recap of the John Gruden interview in detail from yesterday. and then Bruce Allen spoke this morning from the Indy Combine. But I will start with the underwhelming Bryce Harper free agency pursuit.

It's over. I personally think that this was, in summary, you know, a somewhat embarrassing or humiliating experience for Harper and his agent, Scott Boris. Definitely for Boris. You know, this process over the last few months did not play out the way that they had expected. The market for him was more limited. than they thought, and the biggest brands in the sport, or most of them, weren't interested in Bryce Harper, the Yankees, the Red Sox, the Cubs, the other New York team. I mean, the Dodgers and Giants were, but he signed with the Phillies yesterday. $330 million for 13 years, it's a lot of money.

Those of you who want to say, embarrassing, humiliating, Kevin, it's $330 million. It's the largest contract in the history of sports. Of course, it's a lot of money. In context, In context, however, this wasn't the way Bryce Harper and Scott Boris thought it would go. For this sport, for this market, the market being baseball free agency for star players, and I know it was different this year, but in that context, Scott Boris may claim victory, but it's like comparable to a four-touchdown favorite, you know, needing a 50-yard field goal to win at the gun. It's a win, but it's not the way they thought it would go.

$330 million for 13 years with no trade clause and no opt-outs. He's playing in Philadelphia for the rest of his career, basically. The average per year is $25.38 million. It's according to reports, the 14th best average annual contract. Not exactly what they were looking for. Now, the offer in aggregate is the largest ever, breaking the Stanton deal of 13 for 320. The Dodgers and Giants both made offers that were shorter in term, but much higher in average annual money. I'm actually surprised to a certain degree that the reported Dodgers offer, one of them anyway, that would have amounted to close to $45 million a year for three years.

That actually would have been a wow deal. Yeah, that one actually, I think Rosenthal is refuting that one saying that he wasn't quite that. It was still high. It was still much higher than the $25 million. I agree. I would have, if I was Bryce, I would rather take that one. But it seems very clear right now that Harper and Boris wanted a win. They wanted, and the only way that they could get the win at this point was the stand deal, even if it means putting, or to beat the stand deal, even if it means taking a deal that I agree with you, I think are worse than some of the other contracts offered. Yeah, I mean,

I think it would have been perceived as a bigger win if it had been in the 40 million plus range on an annual basis for shorter term length. But anyway, the no trade, no opt-out portion of the contract is quite a commitment by not just Harper, but by the Phillies. Now, it's probably the most surprising part of the deal, the career commitment that Bryce Harper made to Philadelphia. I'm not sure anybody really saw that part coming. We also learned more details about the Nats offer to Harper, which was reported to be a 10-year deal for $300 million. But there was more to it, and John Heyman reported this yesterday, that the Nat's original offer of $300 million for 10 years wasn't really worth $300 million after all.

It was worth a lot less in present-day value. About $100 million of it plus, a little over $100 million of it was deferred. Some of the deferred money Bryce wouldn't get until he was 60 years old. Heyman tweeted that the details of the Nats offer indicated that it wasn't a serious offer, albeit, and he tweeted this, a nice AARP payday. You know, AARP, all right, and we're not talking about average annual, we're talking about the senior payday. That is, that changes a lot for me anyway. Let's not forget that down the road, when someone brings up that the Nats made an earnest attempt to keep Harper,

they really didn't. They didn't. That offer was before free agency even began, and it wasn't anything that Harper would have accepted. No way. Even if it was 10,300 straight up based on, if they never came back to that offer, which it doesn't sound like they did,

they did not make an earnest attempt to keep them around. That kind of deferred money actually raised eyebrows, according to Hayman and others in Major League Baseball circles. That deal may not have been approved. because of the present-day value of such a contract. Look, most of you who have ever dreamed about hitting the big lottery, the $300 million-plus lottery on one of those crazy Wednesday or Friday nights whenever it's played, you've done the math before, you take it in one lump sum.

You don't take the annual payouts. Anyway, I'm curious as to why the Nats weren't sincerely interested in. in keeping a former MVP who they drafted and developed. And the answer is probably easy. Someone in the organization, or maybe everybody, or there are a majority of them, the learners, Mike Rizzo, etc., just didn't think he was worth what they were looking for. It's probably not any more difficult to read out than the learners.

They pencil everything out to the nickel. Ted Lerner had a chance to buy the Redskins in 1999, but he and his financial people didn't think the team was worth any more than $600 million, so they bowed out. It's now worth between $2 and $3 billion today. That was a mistake. By the way, a terrible mistake for all of us. Wouldn't we much rather have the learners owning the Redskins than Dan Snyder? But back to Harper. Let's not forget from a Nationals perspective down the road. If he ends up because, becoming a consistent, a more consistent player in his late 20s and early 30s, which by the way, I think is possible. And he becomes a perennial MVP candidate, that he wasn't with the Nats because of his inconsistency. He was an MVP, but he had up year, down year, up year, up year,

but let's not forget that the Nats weren't overly serious about keeping him, that this wasn't a high priority keep. Therefore, when you view, Harper from that context. He really didn't have a choice to stay here. Not that he wanted to stay here, and I'm going to get to that in a moment, but he wasn't really given a choice. You know, it's similar a little bit to the Kirk Cousins offer after the 2016 season, when the Redskins really didn't give him a choice. I'm not sure he would have accepted a real offer anyway, but they never gave him one. The reaction to Harper's departure in this town included, in my mind's eye, And don't take this personally some of you, all right?

Others, you can take it personally. Included a ton of fake hurt and fake outrage. You know, I watched a bunch of local news last night, listened to plenty of radio, I've read a lot, lots of cliche, you know, man and women on the street interviews, anchors on TV, callers on radio. This hurts. This hurts so much.

What a traitor to go to the Phillies. When he comes back in April in a Phillies uniform, he's really going to hear it from us. Come on. A significant percentage of Nats fans don't even pay attention when they're at the games. The thousands of fake fans and the best seats wearing curly W hats with their heads buried in their phones as foul balls whizz by their heads. Those people are so angry, so hurt.

Give me a break. Have you been to a Nats game and sat in good seats? With all the lobbyists and the hill workers with their thumbs pounding, away on iPhones and for a hundred bucks couldn't name more than four or five players on the team Harper, Scherzer, Strasbourg, then they'd get stuck for at least 10 seconds. It's not all of you, all right? It's not all of you. Some of you are really into it. Many of you though, many of you, you know, are actually part of the reason Bryce Harper wanted to go somewhere else. He wanted to get paid? Yes. He wanted the headline of the largest contract in the history

of the sport. Yes. But he also wanted a better baseball town to play the rest of his career in, a place where it really matters. It doesn't matter as much here as it doesn't Philadelphia. It just doesn't. I've been to a half dozen minimum Nats playoff games at Nats Park. I mean, how many have they had? They've had four years times. two to three. It's been eight, nine home playoff games, something like that. I've been to most of them. I've been to the majority of them. All right? And I've done this rant before where in all of those games, at some point, either me or somebody close to me was told to sit down with a two-strike count late in the game. Eighth inning, tight game, big at bat for the Dodgers or the Cubs or the

Giants or the Cardinals, two-two count. Sit down. I can't see. I mean, seriously, it was embarrassing when that ballpark was a third full at the end of one of the most thrilling postseason games in Major League Baseball history, the 18 inning loss to the Giants. It got cold. It was really cold. I was there. I remember. But that stadium at the end of it was a third full. You think he's going to look up into the stands in the 15th inning of a playoff game in Philadelphia and see a, a stadium two-thirds empty? Not likely. The fact that it was even a question about Metro being open at the end of a playoff game is laughable in a real town, in a real sports town, a real baseball town. People leaving in the eighth inning of a playoff game to get the last train home.

What a joke. You don't think he noticed that? Small-time stuff. He wanted big time. We're small-time. He wanted the money. He also wanted a real baseball town, a real sports town. I'm sure he liked it here.

Philadelphia takes this shit seriously. We don't. We have an interested fan base. We're not an emotionally attached, passionate fan base. When it comes to most things here, I say that and I'm from here. I wish it were different. And maybe it will be one day. When it comes to the gnats, there are reasons for it.

We didn't have baseball here. for 34 years, and it's only been back for 14. The Nats draw pretty well. Harper was a big reason for that. But while Harper, I'm sure, liked Washington, I don't think he disliked Washington, and I'm sure he appreciated the fan base. Do you think he's really concerned about his return to Washington

in a Phillies uniform next month? Like, I'm hearing all this talk, you know, all this, ooh, early April, what kind of reactions he going to get? Like, what's Bill and his girlfriend Linda who both work on the hill for some congressman? What are they going to do? We're matching T-shirts that say, ban Bryce? Are they going to boo real loudly? Did you see Aaron what happened to John Tavares and his return to Long Island last night?

That was awesome. All right? That's a fan base that's into it. Look that up on YouTube if you want to see a former player returning to a real, emotionally attached fan base. Long Island style. It was threatening. Nothing like that will happen here. And I'm not even advocating that it does happen here. There will be a ton of Philadelphia fans in the ballpark when he comes back for his first game in Washington. Trust me. Supposedly yesterday, 5,000 tickets were sold for that

first year. Of course. Probably mostly from Philly fans. He's going to Philadelphia. He's going to a real sports town, a much better baseball town. There have been reports in recent months that this is what he wanted. He wanted to play in a place where it was truly important. We like the Nats. It's fun to go to the games. It's fun when they win. Not many feel super depressed when they don't. He's going to have a rude awakening in Philadelphia. He wants a good sports town. He wants people into it. But let's see how he handles their media. Our media? Not very tough. You know, despite what Jay Gruden and Bruce Allen and all the Redskins and... It's not that tough of a media market.

What? Well, I was going to say, I bet you at the introductory press conference. He gets a question about what took him so long, and if he really wants to be there. He's going to get negative questions the very first press conference. Philly will cut his throat figuratively, all right, not literally. They'll crush him on a daily basis when he's hitting 250. He's going to get what he wants. He's going to get the visceral, the emotional fan attachment, the daily reaction to every

bat from the night before. You know, when he does something good, he'll be great. You know, Joe and Cherry Hill, Steve from the main line, they're going to call in and say, he's better than Mike Schmidt. But when he's on a two-for-27 streak in July and the Phillies have lost seven in a row, he better be prepared to stay home a lot. They'll hate him when he tweets about his love for the Cowboys. They're going to hate him for that.

But they'll love him like nobody else will love him, when he smacks a two-run shot in the bottom of the eighth of a playoff game against the Dodgers. Perhaps this will be a good thing for the Nats. I doubt it personally. I don't think they're better as a team or an organization without them. But for those that say the Phillies have been a rival, no, they haven't been. That's total hyperbole, exaggeration. There's no history of pennant races with the Phillies, no playoff history with the Phillies.

So Cole Hamels threw at Harper when he was a 19-year-old rookie. Big deal. You ask a longtime Phillies fan, they hate the Mets, not the Nats. Maybe Harper to Philly will, in all of the moves the Philadelphia Phillies have made, maybe it will develop something real. Like maybe we'll get two or three years of legitimate August and September pennant races and big regular season games with Harper on the other team, meaningful games. You know, I'm going to.

I'm just going to say that this Harper thing for Nats fans, most of the fan base will barely even care by the time we get to July. But if you get, you know, the good that could come out of it is if the Phillies are good and the Nats are good and both would appear to have a chance to win the National League East, we could have a pennant race in August or September. That could create a rivalry, but it doesn't exist now. That has never had a pennant race. They've either won it going away or they've, yeah. I think the market has missed out. because it has not actually lived through a pennant race. As far as the deal goes, I know the analytics people scoffed at a huge deal for Harper.

They'll point to a few good years, but several average years too, you know, too inconsistent, not even, you know, nowhere near Mike Trout's league. Trout, by the way, a free agent in 2020. That's the thing that's craziest about this. He wants to get the largest contract ever that's going to hold up for a maximum of two years. Trout's going to destroy that contract. And he might destroy it by signing in Philadelphia and playing with Harper in that outfield. It's possible.

He's from Philadelphia. Oh, yeah. Harper may not be Trout. But Harper does have star quality, you know, in qualities, I guess. He's a bigger star than Trout. Yeah, for starters, you know, you do know what his upside potential is. It's the MVP, you know. He plays hard.

He wants to win. He's a good teammate. He may not be a natural leader, but he's got natural charisma. he's going to be missed here you know not in such a you know children are crying that Bryce Harper's gone this isn't that kind of a town the Nats are less interesting without him

it doesn't mean they won't be a good team without him but I wouldn't say as some have that they're obviously better off without him I don't know that that's true yet I actually would not you know I would not discount the possibility that his best years are ahead of him

that he becomes more consistent. Soto, Robles, you know, all of the, you know, those two players in particular make this less worrisome from a baseball perspective. They've got a good team. They've got excellent starting pitching.

But anyway, you know, one more thing, and you mentioned this to me, Aaron, before the show, and I'm going to ask Barry's Ruluga about this when he comes on. But, you know, it's one of those things where knowing what the Nats offer was now,

which was, I don't want to say what John Heyman said, which was it wasn't serious. But it really wasn't an offer that said, we really want this to work out. Bryce Harper was not accepting that offer. No chance at that time would Bryce Harper accept that offer? Look, we didn't think he'd accept just 10 for 300 straight up without all the deferred money that we now know existed as part of the offer. Right. He wanted to get to free agency.

And based on what we know, they never came back. With one another. Anyway, Barry's Reluga will join us in a bit and we'll talk more about Price Harper. Oh, what I was going to say to you. I'm sorry, I lost my train of thought there for a moment because you brought this up before the show. Given what we know now about the Nats offer, why didn't they trade them? Why didn't they trade them if they had a really good deal? And I'll ask Barry about the deals that were perhaps on the table at the trade deadline.

They were still technically in a pennant race. Technically, but look, they had two chances to trade him. They had the offer, which we didn't know at the time, the Astros made an offer, which included a top 100 prospect, a pitching prospect, and a couple other guys. Then later, remember, they put him on the waivers in the post-traded like, and the Dodgers claimed him supposedly offered Yassie L. Puig. This was, you know, in the Dodgers, August 22nd, they were seven and a half games out of first. They were six games out of the Wildcord.

They had no chance at that point. Well, that's not true. came out of the Wildcourt and had to pass four teams to get there. But it's only August 1st. No, August 22nd was when the Dodgers was made. If you want to say the Astros, which was the much better deal. Not the trade deadline was July 31st. It is. But then afterward you can put players on waivers, a team can claim them and you can try to work out a trade if that's the case. Well, I mean, that's one of those things. Like, that's why I said, you know, let's not forget that Harper really didn't have a choice to stay here. You know, you can, you can

say that maybe he should have come back and they should have negotiated and maybe the learners and Rizzo would have gone higher. I think people know enough about the learners to know they aren't going much higher than that offer. That much deferred money probably was a bit off-putting to Boris and to Harper and basically told Boris and Harper all they needed to know, which was they're going to have to look elsewhere for a real deal. All right, I want to get to some of the Redskins news from the last two days. Jay Gruden and Doug Williams spoke to the media yesterday. We had some of that as we were going through the show. I went back and listened to the entire Jay Gruden interview, which lasted 26 minutes, I think, plus. And then Bruce Allen spoke this morning. And I'll just tell you real

quickly on the Bruce Allen front. The headlines from the Bruce Allen interview this morning is that the Redskins were never involved with Joe Flacco. All right. He said never were, we're had any interest or expressed interest on Joe Flacco, which is when this happened, I said to you, Aaron, look, I'd love to be able to tell you that I'm hearing stuff, but what I'm hearing is that people are surprised that that got reported, that they didn't know anything about it. And one person in particular that I talked to would have known, but I didn't, you know, I didn't dismiss it, but there's no way I could confirm it. But I believe Bruce that they really didn't show any interest in Joe Flacco. The other thing is that they've already met with Kyler Murray. They've met with

a lot of players in Indianapolis, but they did sit down with Kyler Murray, and he was impressed, as Jay Gruden was as well. I wanted to focus more on what Jay Gruden said. And let me just say this as a big picture thing on the Redskins and their communication with the media. Jay Gruden, by far and way, and it's not even close, is the best person to be in front of a microphone or microphones for their organization. Bruce gives you hardly anything. He's trying to always pivot and, you know, create, you know, get you moving in another direction. And it's just, more times than not, it's just not a lot of worth there in an interview with Bruce Allen. So Jay Gruden is likable.

He's direct. He'll answer stuff. He's smart enough to know what not to answer directly, but how to handle an answer so that he doesn't just shut it down rudely. Jay Gruden's easily their best face of the franchise. I think he's an average coach. I don't think he's a very good coach. I think they could do better at head coach somewhere down the road. Maybe.

Well, they could do better. I just don't know if they could actually hire somebody better. The point is, listening to Jay Gruden yesterday for 26 minutes, it never got old. It never got tiresome. Jay's a good dude. He's got some issues. But he's a good dude. And by far and away, he's the most comfortable and the best person to talk to about this organization.

Now, a couple of things that he said that I wanted to play for you. The first was he was asked about needs on defense, and I want you to listen to this answer, because I found it very interesting, especially when you put it side by side with Bruce Allen in recent months, recent weeks, saying that they're so close, that they're close. You know, the team and the organization is close. Listen to Jay Gruden, answer this question about needs that they have on defense. Listen to where it goes. Well, obviously, you know, safety is a major priority force, I would think. You know, Haha's a free agent, and we have Everett, and obviously, Apke coming back from his injury in Monte, but we probably need to get a guy, whether it's Haha or whatever, a free agent or, you know, draft pick,

but linebacker, inside linebackers is an issue. Pass rusher with pressing being a free agent is obviously a priority for us, without a doubt. Offensive lineman, we already know that that's a priority. We know the quarterback's an issue. We know the receiver's an issue. So we need to upgrade our entire roster. Jay Gruden just listed six of the nine position groups on the team that they have a need for. He started at safety.

He went to inside linebacker, went to outside linebacker, pass rusher, went to offensive line quarterback, wide receiver. I would argue that he missed on corner, you know, and maybe even tight end. But the only three he didn't mention were defensive line because they don't have a need on the defensive line right now. That is clearly the strength of this football team. Not a bad place to start a building process having young dynamic talent on your defensive front. That's great. But he didn't mention defensive line, corner, or running back. I guess tight end two. So six of the 10 position groups, he's got a need for. He laughed a little bit about that as well. I thought,

you know, you put that side by side with Bruce Allen who tells you how close they are. You know, and Jay went on a little bit later on in the interview and said, you know, I know I listed a lot of positions in need, but we like our guys. We like what we have coming back and coming off of injured reserve. All right, this was Jay Gruden on Colt McCoy. It was a really good question by Tarek al-Bashir, and I'll let you listen to the question and then the answer to because Jay, one of the other reasons I like him in these settings is he's pretty honest most of the time, unlike the rest of them. Is it about Colt that makes you so confident that he can win games as a starter? His record isn't that great, and he's been injured a lot.

Yeah, he has, and it's really good for you to notice that. But I've been around him for five years, and I could be, you know, really ignorant. I just seen him throw the ball for five years in the offseason and training camp. I just, I know that he was, he's been fired up to get an opportunity when we finally got one. It's like letting a animal out of the cage. He ran right into the wall, got hurt, and he just got to slow down the process, which he will. But I have total confidence. He's got a great knowledge of the system.

He's comfortable with the guys that we have. He's a great leader, great competitor. He can run. He can move. And he can make all the throws. But he's been hurt and hasn't done it, like you said. So that was Gruden on Colt McCoy, some real honesty there. And I think it also, he and Bruce both and Doug Williams both spoke about, you know,

first of all, the complex issue surrounding Alex Smith's injury and the, you know, the situation that they're in, that they're approaching 2019 right now a bit blindly. There's still some hope that Alex Smith can be the quarterback. that they traded for. Whether it's next year late in the season or in 2020, they clearly haven't given up on him. But at the same time, the odds are he's not going to be available, certainly at the beginning of 2019, and more likely than not the majority of 2019. So you have to plan for that. You've got to have quarterbacks and OTAs and in mini-camps and in training camp. And right now, they only have one under contract. And that one under contract is Colt McCoy. Now,

We learned from Jay Gruden yesterday that Josh Johnson had an ankle injury. I don't remember which game he injured his ankle in, whether it was the Jacksonville, Tennessee, or Philadelphia game in. But he essentially said he's still recovering from that, but that he likes Josh. And, you know, they're talking about the possibility of bringing Josh back. But even if they bring Josh back, what you heard from him yesterday, too, and you heard from Bruce this morning, is that free agency is a possibility for the Redskins right now. And I don't think that they were talking about Josh Johnson. I think they were talking about a quarterback off another roster,

a quarterback that's not on their roster or wasn't on their roster as a free agent. And, you know, Jay was also asked about the money, and he said, well, that's an Eric Schaefer, Bruce Allen thing. And Bruce Allen, you know, this morning when talked about, you know, how much is invested in the quarterback position with Alex. Alex Smith counting for 20 million. He sort of danced around that a bit. But if the Redskins really are,

and Jay admitted that he had evaluated all of the free agent quarterbacks and was on his way to getting through all of the college quarterbacks. He'd gotten through five of them that they were planning on meeting in Indianapolis. So they're looking at this and they're saying, all right, we've got Colt McCoy. Jay likes him, but admits that he might be ignorant to what Colt McCoy's, you know, upside really is. I think he's also speaking very honestly about the way he feels, and I think it's an indication that there's always been a little bit of push-pull on Colt McCoy. Jay loves him. I think the rest of the organization thinks the way I do, which is Colt McCoy is a nice backup,

but if you start him for 16 games, even on a really good team, let alone a subpar team, that you're not going anywhere, you know, with him as your starting quarterback. But they've got him, but they don't have anything else right now. They're going to draft somebody. I feel now more confident than ever, they're going to draft somebody at some point. I don't know that it's 15 overall, and I hope they don't reach for a quarterback at 15 overall. And Bruce Allen actually had a comment about that this morning, too. He's like, there's a lot of good players, and we're not, you know,

if the quarterback is the highest rated player on the board at 15, then quarterback it will be. But if it's somewhere else, if it's at another position, they're going to draft the board. I like to hear that. It's the way I think you make big mistakes. And Casserly and Betherd over the years have said that. You make big mistakes when you decide to draft away from your board and draft for position. but I think we've got to really seriously consider some of the lower-end free agent quarterbacks. Nick Foles is not a possibility. I mean, could they create room with a long-term deal,

with it backloaded, not much accountability from a cap standpoint in the first few years here with Alex Smith, you know, counting big money on the cap? I guess it's possible. I don't think Nick Foles is a possibility here, but Teddy Bridgewater is not going to cost as much as Nick Foles. Ryan Fitzpatrick is not going to cost as much as Nick Foles. The problem with Fitzpatrick and maybe even Bridgewater, the Fitzpatrick possibility is a short-term deal at 36, 37 years old, whatever he is. So if it's a short-term deal, that means it's all going to count now. You know, so harder to restructure a short-term, or to structure a short-term deal to alleviate cap, you know, pain versus a long-term deal. I don't think Fitzpatrick's a possibility.

What about Tyrod Taylor? You know, Taylor is a quarterback, and I said this last year about Tyrod Taylor. I like Tyrod Taylor. I think he's a good fit for Jay Gruden's system. Cooley said this, though, about Tyrod Taylor. Once you get to your third or fourth team, it's the player, not the team. So, you know, Josh McCown, he's 40. You're going to bring in Josh McCown to perhaps be a mentor to a young,

a backup to Colt McCoy and a mentor to a young quarterback? That would be obviously as a replacement for Josh Johnson. And McCown, I think, has some ties to O'Connell. You know, you got to start looking for some of that stuff as well. those are your guys, you know, those are the people you're talking about. You're not bringing Mark Sanchez back, all right? You're not signing, I mean, they liked Kevin Hogan. Remember, they had Kevin Hogan. Kevin Hogan's a free agent. Brock Osweiler is a free agent. Gino Smith is a free agent. Trevor Simeon is a free agent. Case Keenum might be available. I think we've got to start

thinking about, based on the last 24 hours of interviews, with Doug, Jay and Bruce, that they are going to look for a veteran in free agency to sign. And I think it's going to be someone other than Josh Johnson. Now, maybe they can't work out a deal that they want. They're not going to overpay. We know that Bruce does not overpay. And there may be better options for Bridgewater or for Fitzpatrick or for Josh McCown, even, or Trevor Simeon.

There may be better options. and Bruce isn't going to overpay. And they probably feel like they can always come back to Josh Johnson if they don't find anybody else. Josh Johnson and the rookie that they draft, whether it be in the first round or the third or fourth round, that would give you three quarterbacks for camp. And then they can add another undrafted free agent rookie

as a fourth quarterback for training camp and OTAs in mini camp. Because they need quarterbacks. Jay told us too that they need offensive. linemen. They're going to be very short for offensive linemen in numbers-wise when they get to OTAs in minicamp. But anyway, I think the free agent situation, I may be trying to read between the lines a bit too much, but I heard an indication that they are evaluating and they are thinking seriously about signing a veteran free agent quarterback to go with Colt McCoy, to potentially compete with Colt McCoy for a starting position, or if it were someone like Josh McCown as a

possibility, someone to mentor a younger quarterback and backup Colt McCoy. So we've got to start thinking about that here in the next couple of weeks. I mean, you know, it's, I don't think it'll be Nick Foles. You know, the only thing about Foles is it would be a long-term deal. Philly's not franchising him. He's going to be an unrestricted free agent. And if you did a lot, long-term deal with Foles, you're basically saying Alex Smith's not coming back. That's the other thing you've got to consider. What we've also heard here is they don't want to give up and they're not giving up on Alex Smith. I'm sure deep down they're thinking more about Alex Smith as a starter in 2020, not 2019. That's not going to happen. But if you bring in Nick Foles and you give them a

long-term deal and you backload it, you know, you're able to keep Alex Smith on the roster and keep Foles, but you're basically saying Foles is your starter moving forward. So why wouldn't you just cut Alex Smith, take the pain, totally backload the Foles deal as much as you can, so that it's a low cap number in 2019 and 2020. I don't see Foles. I don't see Foles, but I do now think that, you know, a Fitzpatrick or a Tye Taylor or a McCown or somebody like that is in play. And if they can't get one of those guys, that they'll go to Josh Johnson. And I also think that there's going to be a drafted quarterback. I just don't know when. I hope it's not in the first round if the guy that they really like isn't there. Bruce Allen also made one other comment that I wanted

to mention, and that was he mentioned that we're going to have between nine and 12 players that we will acquire in the draft. When you say, they have nine right now. So when you say nine to 12, He's not thinking about trading up. You know, that's almost a clear indication in his mind today. He's not thinking about trading up. If anything, he's thinking about trading back and acquiring more picks and more players. And you know what? With their salary cap situation, with the needs they have,

they need to add a lot of talent via this year's draft, talent that's going to compete for playing time, if not starting time. So when he said that this morning, 9 to 12 players, new players via the draft, I immediately wrote down, they're not trading up. At least that's not their plan now. All right. I want to tell you real quickly before we get to Barry's Ruluga about scentbird. Sent bird is a luxury fragrance subscription service. It's a way to discover new colognes or perfumes without having to buy an entire bottle. and this is important because good colognes and perfumes are expensive and you're not really many of you aren't sure exactly what you want anyway so you might want to try a few things if you want to smell great and you think you've got good taste but picking out the right scent isn't easy for you scent makes it easy they've got more than 450 designer brands for you to choose from each month Gucci tom ford kenneth cole burberry

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You can easily sort the colognes and perfumes by brand, by occasion, by season, by style, and more. And you can check out their user ratings and reviews on any of their colognes. Sent birds actually got a quiz you can take, which will help you. you discover a more personalized recommendation. Here's the offer right now for my listeners. Get 50% off your first month today. That's only $7.50 for your first fragrance. Go to scentbird.com slash KS-D-C. Use my code K-S-D-C for 50% off your first month. That's scentbird.com. S-C-E-N-T-Bird.com KSDC for your first try on your first perfume for just $7.50. Sign on and smell amazing. All right. Let's bring in Barry's Verluga from the Washington Post,

who wrote about Harper and has covered all of this throughout. And, you know, I guess I wanted to start with, you know, did the reporting of the Nats offer being a significant deferred money deal tell us in some way that they were never really serious about keeping Harper? It certainly puts the offer in a different context than we had viewed it before. And I'm disappointed in that. I wish I had pushed a little bit more to know the details of that. It didn't seem relevant. But we've learned this about the learners in the past.

They don't like to pay you a dollar today that they could pay you in a year or five years or 10 years or whatever it is, because they can take that dollar today and invest them themselves and then pay you with the profits from it. It's just the way they do business in real estate. At some point, I thought that they would change the way they do business in baseball, but they haven't. So I think I had been thinking, and a lot of people had been thinking, hey, the Nats made a good run, Adam. Ten years and $300 million is a completely fair offer. It's not the record-setting total package that John Carlos Stanton got from the Marlins that the Yankees are paying. now, but it is a higher average annual value, and it's a completely fair offer and made it seem like they were trying to keep the player. When you learn, as we did yesterday, that they're kicking the can down the road, not just the way they did with Strasbourg and Scherzer in deferring

money over seven years beyond the end of the contract. But as one source told me, you know, Harper would have been finally paid all this money when he was 60 years old. That changes the tenor. Now, does that mean the Nats didn't want him? I don't know that I'd go that far, but it takes away some of this good faith that we thought they had in their offer. I think it's a different look to what that offer was. It could have been a starting point for negotiations. That didn't turn out to be the case. And I have a greater understanding why Bryce Harper left for 13 years and $330 million that I would have had that just been a straight up 10 for 300. Yeah, I completely agree with that.

And I think the other part of this, learning what we learned about the Nats offer, is when you combine that with the timing of it, which was well before free agency started, there was more likely than not the expectation from the organization that there was no way he would accept that. You know, free agency hadn't begun. They never came back to that offer. And I just think, you know, in hindsight now, it really looks to be a non-serious attempt to keep Bryce Harper. So here's what I would say, though. I don't want to go full revisionist history on this.

I would say that what if the nationals wanted to keep Bryce Harper or at least present the picture that they did, you know, we would be critical of them saying, you know, you didn't even make an offer when you were the only team that could negotiate with them. it was in their interest to be aggressive with him and put the ball in his court and say, look, we're willing to work with you on this. Here's an offer. Let's talk. I would have chastised them for not having gone after them when they were the only team that could negotiate with it.

Because then if Harper in his heart of hearts really wanted to be here above all else, it's on him to go to Boris and say, Look, we've got a starting point. Can you work for me? I don't work for you. Can we get something worked out here? I would have thought that those deferrals would have been part of the negotiating if you're the Harper-Borris camp.

You say, well, wait a second. We see what the numbers are here. But can you reel those in a time when I'm not going to be an old man when I'm receiving this money? Can we get it more in line with the way that the show? or Zer and Strasbourg deals are structured. I just feel like that would have changed the conversation a little bit. It may have. The present day value of their offer would have been $240 million in aggregate, which, you know, again, before free agency started, that wasn't

anywhere near what was perceived to be market value for them. And so, you know, I think we both feel differently about their offer. Maybe I feel more strongly than you do that it was less serious of an offer. But what I would ask you as a follow-up is, why didn't they really, really want him? Why weren't they aggressive trying to keep him? And who was it specifically in the organization that didn't want him? And I'm putting it in the way I feel. You feel slightly differently, but clearly there wasn't this insane interest in keeping him. So I would just say that didn't want him. I don't think there's anybody in the organization. who's saying, well, I don't want that player, but you can't grade it without deciding what the

price is, right? So the Nationals internally thought that Bryce Harper was about a $30 million a year player. He was worth about $30 million a year, which is, by the way, about $5 million a year more than he'll make in Philadelphia. They, internally, that was their evaluation. Now, they also know that paying one player $30 million or $35 million or whatever, it would have ended up being, to a certain extent, constricts the way you can build your roster. And the most immediate impact, and we don't know how Patrick Corbyn is going to pitch here, and maybe he'll be a bust, or maybe he'll be a huge success like Scherzer has been.

But the quid pro quo is essentially, if Bryce Harper had accepted that offer, whatever the offer was before free agency, would Patrick Corbyn have been added to the pitching staff? The answer I've been told was most likely not. We wouldn't have been able to spend that much money on a free agent pitcher. The argument becomes then, is Harper taking up too much of your payroll? Are you going to be above the luxury tax? I don't care about the luxury tax in a given year. I think it's a non-issue that should not be dwelled on.

When it becomes an issue is the third and fourth year you go, on it when you're taxed at a much, much higher rate and it starts to become real money and you have to work harder to get under it to restart the clock again, that becomes a problem because it's harder to get under it when you have more highly paid players, such as a Bryce Harper at $30 million. So that's kind of meandering, but that's how I would kind of, I don't think there was somebody in the organization saying, I don't want him back. I think it's a global way of thinking that if he comes back, you can't pretend it doesn't have an impact on the rest of your roster. I would add to that to, I think the learners historically in business,

and even if you go back to when there was a possibility that they could have been one of the meaningful bidders for the Redskins in 1999, they pencil everything out to the penny, to the nickel. And if they don't feel like it's the right value, they're not moving forward. I don't know that I've seen or heard or read this in the last 24 hours, but was there ever any other conversation between the Nats and Harper in recent weeks, you know, after that original offer, did they ever reconnect Boris and the learners to say, hey, you know what, the market, I mean, Boris wouldn't present it this way,

but the market isn't exactly what we thought it would be. you know, we're still interested potentially in something with you guys. Did that ever rematerialize? So we're aware of one conversation between Scott Boris and Ted Lerner, I believe it was last week. I don't know of anything that happened between the Nationals and the Boris Harper camp over the weekend when the Giants and the Dodgers. And the Dodgers seemed to get involved.

I don't have the specifics on that. It goes against logic to say that Boris wouldn't circle back with the team, the incumbent team, and say, this is what we've got. Can you beat that? That's in his interest to do. But I don't know for a fact that that happened. And it doesn't sound either way, it doesn't sound like there were significant negotiations, like, you know, another offer from the now. once that initial one went off the table. You know, you're going to understand this, and it's how I opened the show in talking about

everything that happened yesterday. A big part of it was, you know, there had been some reports here recently that Harper wanted a real baseball town. He wanted a real sports town. And, you know, the money was a big part of it, and the label of the largest aggregate deal in sports history. in Major League Baseball history was a part of this, but Philadelphia is a legitimate sports town.

Do you agree that, or did you have a sense, too, that while I'm not saying he didn't like Washington and he didn't like living here, but that he wanted to be somewhere where it was really a passionate fan base, where it was super important? 100%. I mean, a thousand percent. That is, it matters to Bryce Harper.

You know, he would make an occasional comment that you could read between the lines on, you know, I think it was when the Cubs series wasn't sold out a couple years ago because they priced everybody out. And he said after the game, well, I can understand that, you know, it's a good time to go to the beach. It was like 68 degrees that day, you know, like he noticed that on a Tuesday night against the Marlins, it was a dead atmosphere. Now, it hasn't been buzzing at Citizens Bank Park in recent years because the Phillies have had lousy teams. But people always speculated like, well, I mean, Jason Worth, his good buddy would tell

him, you don't want to play in Philadelphia. Like, you know, they boo me when I go back there. That's the opposite. I mean, Worth knows the passion of the fan base during the height of the Phillies run, which came before the Eagles won a Super Bowl title. and, you know, Jimmy Rollins and Ryan Howard and Chase Utley and Jason Worth to a certain extent, they won't have to pay for a beer in that town for the rest of their lives. Those people love them, love what they did, were passionate about it in the moment.

That stuff appeals to Bryce Harper. Yeah, it does. Now, will, you know, how will he handle being booed if he's hitting, you know, 148 through the end of April? you know, who knows? I think it would light a fire with him because he's that kind of person, player. He appreciates passion in sports. And while that wasn't maybe a strike against Washington, it was always something I had in the back of my mind that could be a plus for Philadelphia in his mind.

Yeah, it's going to be interesting to see how he deals, you know, with Sal from Cherry Hill, you know, taunting him and his family when he's on a two-for-25 streak in July. One last thing with respect to, actually I've got a couple of others, and then I want to move to a different topic, but do you think the Nats regret not trading him at the deadline, given all of what we just talked about, knowing what their offer ended up being, do you think that they misstepped by not trading him? Well, that's an interesting one, because they were told, the front office was told, look, see what you could get for him. The season obviously wasn't going in the direction that everybody had planned,

and it made sense to do your due diligence on what could you get for Bryce Harper for a contender at the time. If you recall, we reported this later. They did have a deal in place with the Houston Astros. I don't know exactly what the return was, but the front office got off the phone with the Astros, thinking they had a deal in place, they had to get approval from ownership. Mark Lerner, newly in control of the club from his dad, was in the room, and Mark Lerner couldn't pull the trigger on a Bryce Harper deal.

Now, does that mean he regrets it now because of the way it turned out? I have no idea. The Baseball Operations Department was willing to make a trade, a baseball trade for Bryce Harper. I'm sure given how it turned out now, they would love to have whatever prospects they were going to get back in return. But remember, I mean, the return you get for a two-month rental is not what you get when you're trading a guy that's going to be a member of the other team for two years. So that makes it a little murkier. From a baseball perspective, and I'm going to ask the same question from a business perspective, but from a baseball perspective, are they better off without him? I have no way you can say that.

I just don't see how you can put the lineup on the field on opening day without Bryce Harper and say this one is better than the one with Bryce Harper. Now, it's a complex equation too that affects the clubhouse. There are members of that clubhouse who didn't love the way that Bryce didn't always run out every ground ball hard or seem to lollygag in the outfield from time to time. you know, Bryce, what are you? I'm preserving my body. People have criticized me for running into walls too much and putting myself on the disabled list. I'm trying to, you know, walk that fine line of self-preservation versus busting it when I, when I need to. That's a debate we can have forever and ever and ever. But as a skill set, and I'm, you know, I'm biased in this way. I think Bryce Harper's best offensive seasons are ahead of him, not behind him. I think there's more MVP-tens. type seasons than there are struggle type seasons like it was at the beginning of last year. I might be wrong on that, but that's how I view it because I just think he's got such dynamic talent. And when he's comfortable in Philly and in that ballpark, I think, you know, in his worst year, he runs into 35 homers there just because you could pop it up to right and at the

ball carry out. And then when he's at his best, he'll hit him out to left center too. I think he's He's a guy who, at 26, has the best still ahead of him. I agree with that. From a business perspective, they can't be better off without him. Can they be? I mean, he was a legit star that drew people to the ballpark and drew eyeballs to television. I agree with that, but I also think, you know, we're not even 15 years in with his team being back in town. But I do think

I think what matters to the fan base most right now is advancing in the playoffs and getting to a World Series and winning a World Series and whoever the collection of players who did that, who eventually does that, they're going to be happy with whoever those people are. I think it's become more than just about,

I was surprised as somebody who's kind of been in Harper's corner and sees what I think is his real value. I was surprised that the notes and tweets and messages I would get from members of the fan base that were really willing to move on and saying, I'd rather sign Rendon, I'd rather sign Trey Turner, I'd rather keep Soto and Robles here, even though we don't know what Soto and Robles are over the long term. I was just surprised that a guy that is the face of the sport in a lot of ways, and I'm not saying he's better than Mike Trout right now. I'm just saying he was so marketable.

He's got that star quality. I was surprised that how many fans were, if not, you know, celebrating that he's walking. We're totally willing to see him walk and shrug their shoulders and say, you know what, look at the roster we have. Happy to compete with you, Bryce. All right. Lastly, and I'll preface on Harper, I'll preface this with $330 million. It's insane. It's an insane amount of money.

But, Barry, after this, you know, rather lengthy process, where the interest, at least the perceived interest in Harper, seemed at times to be underwhelming. Maybe even a bit embarrassing for him and Boris. Ultimately, did they save face with this deal? Well, I don't know how you go back and say to the Boris Harper Camp, while that's an underwhelming deal, when it's the richest contract in the history of American professional sports.

I mean, I understand the average annual value is maybe not what people thought it might be. And if you look at it one way, he's being paid a little bit more than $25 million a year. I mean, that's Jake Arenda money in a three-year, $75 million deal with Harper's Phillies. I mean, you could look at it that way and say he's not being paid like a true superstar, like Zach Grinke, who holds the record for AAV in baseball. I think it's $34 million on a shorter deal. his AAV is 14th. I thought I read that early this morning. That makes sense to me. I haven't run those numbers, but that makes sense to me. So you can you can parse it that way. I just think

if you take Harper at his word and I'm going to Clearwater tomorrow for his press conference and he will say, and he, I believe will mean, I'm really happy with this deal because I never have to go through this process again. I have no opt-outs. I have a no trade clause. I'm going to try to lure people to Philly to win here because they know I'm not going anywhere. I think that he can frame it as, you're going to tell me I got a bad deal when I'm getting paid more than anybody in the history of baseball or American sports have been made. I'll take that bad deal every time. I think if he had taken that 135 for three with the Dodgers, as it was reported, which, you know, of being 45 a year, it would have looked better.

I mean, we're talking about, you know, we're talking about perception. The man's already wealthy, and now he's got 330 million heading his way in the next 13 years. But anyway, I think that that's something that people get too hung up on. I think ultimately just the time it took and the lack of interest, Barry, from the true heavyweights, Yankees, Red Sox, Cubs, the other New York team. I think the expectations were much higher for it to be more of a frenzy, and it didn't really materialize in that way for them. Well, I mean, you're talking about the landscape of baseball free agency at the moment, too. I mean, there was not a frenzy for Manny Machado who got $10 for $300 million with San Diego,

and players are concerned about that. The final numbers for baseball. both Machado and Harper are fine, but I think that, or more than fine, but I think that a lot of players are concerned about the environment that you're describing where it doesn't feel like a frenzy. It used to be like, okay, your elbow, you know, you want to get in there in November, make your first real pitch, that ownership has taken a more sitting back approach to free agency, and that goes to all levels of free agents, not just the marquee guys, but the nationals are you know, kind of the outlier at the moment. They identified Patrick Corbyn as a guy that they

wanted to go get, and they went and got him. That's not the way that most of baseball works right now, and that's why you've got kind of a, I mean, this is off topic, but you've got a contentious labor situation approaching when the current CBA ends after the 2021 season. All right. Switch topics. Redskins first. Everybody's back. You know, here we are. It's March first. We're getting ready for free agency, the Indy Combine this weekend, the whole thing, and then the draft. And everybody's back in this organization. And from a big picture, from your perspective, big picture, you know, looking forward, if this ends up being the season that I think it'll end up being, you know, the NFL's impossible to predict, but double-digit

losses seems like it's on the table for 2019. Do you think a year from now we're talking about a completely different organization with people running it and coaching it? Well, it's totally possible, completely possible. And maybe if you went to Vegas and found odds on Redskins' front office reorganization, that would be the favorite. But the thing that, I mean, even though instability has marked this franchise for, you know, going back to the last Super Bowl championship, I think the question that we have to figure out, and that was addressed a little bit in Indianapolis yesterday, before any of that is what direction are they going in in quarterback you know last year at this time they were getting ready to introduce Alex Smith I was looking at this before the Harper News broke yesterday I was planning on writing about Redskins and quarterback and I was going back and looking at

some of that stuff and Doug Williams stood there last year at the Smith introduction which I think was March 19th saying you have no idea the impact of QB stability on an entire locker room They don't have to worry about, is this guy going to be here next year? He's referring to cousins, of course, and they were thinking, well, we've got Smith for four or five years, even though he was going to be quite old at the end of that deal. Well, now that's garbage. I mean, that's completely cast aside. And, you know, it's obviously cast aside because of Smith's injury. But we were getting to a point in Smith's career here, just 10 starts in, where you really were,

going to start to look at the production and wonder, is this the guy you want in three years? So in a lot of ways, they haven't had stability at that position forever, essentially, because they won three Super Bowl titles with three different quarterbacks. They, even when they had cousins who sent all these records, you know, franchise records for them, that was a year to year, week to week, as we, you know, we lived that referendum. every single week with him. That didn't feel stable. Obviously, RG3 wasn't stable. You go through John Beck and Rex Grossman and Patrick Ramsey. I mean, when has this franchise had a franchise quarterback that you could think about for years in the future? It's been a long, long, long time.

And now it's March of 2019. And before we get to how bad next season might be, you have to decide who's going to be under center and is it going to be a rookie or is it going to be a free agent or is it going to be colt mccoy how are you going to handle that that's a huge question all right uh let's finish up with some college hoops because for those that don't know barry went to duke and he's a college basketball fan and an acc fan and uh and follows maryland as well living in this market and having to write in this market um i'll start with your alma Maudeau. Can they win the national championship if Zion Williamson doesn't play? I don't think so. And I mean, they could win any game without him for sure, but you're asking

them to win six without their most dynamic player. And, you know, think about it this way. A lot of Duke teams in the past have, you know, people have worried about them being a team that could fall in the second weekend because they relied so heavily on the three-point shot. And if you go, if you go cold on one night with those bad shooting back drops in big arenas, then you can fall to just about anybody, and that has happened time and time again to them. This team doesn't rely on the three-point shot because it's not very good at shooting the three-point shot. So if you take away their best inside presence, a guy who can get to the rim at any time,

yes, Barrett can get there, yes, Reddish can get there. both those guys can hit three-pointers. I just don't, I think you're taking away too big a weapon that's too big a part of their operation for them to win six straight games in the tournament. Will he play? My guess is he will. I mean, that's the flip side. I don't know when.

I don't have any inside information, but it's not been a dire forecast down there. It doesn't seem like it's like, oh, you know, we hope to get him back if we made it to the final four. I mean, whether it's the regular season finale against Carolina in Chapel, Hill or you give him four more days off before you start the ACC tournament. If I were, again, with no inside information, if I were a betting person, I think that I would put one of those two games. I know you realize this, that even if he were legitimately hurt or chose not to play the rest of the way, Duke still has three first round picks on the team. For sure. So let's move to

Maryland. You've watched them this year. What do you think they're upside is. Well, I mean, if you had asked me 72 hours ago, I would have said, like, wow, I mean, they got a, you know, they're really intriguing. They seem to be improving. They've, they have won the games for the most part other than Illinois in, in New York that they should have won. And, and they're getting better as a season progresses with some weapons in Fernando and Smith, if he's more, Jaylen Smith if he's more consistent. I like Cowan. I think that Wiggins has given them good minutes.

There are a lot of things to like there. And then they go and lay a complete egg at Penn State. And you're just like, well, wait, are we kind of back where we always are with Mark Turgeon's Maryland's teams, which is wondering, you know, one year as the young guys hit a wall and they couldn't, you know, they couldn't fight through that wall. And then there was, you know, injuries. the next year, Herder's sophomore year, that's stopped them. I'm a little bit TBD on them right now just because of the Penn State result,

and I'm really, really interested to see how they play Sunday in College Park against Michigan. That should be fun. Yeah, you know, you know this. We've talked about this before. It's just interesting to see, and I think a lot of old ACC fans still probably are entertained by the Maryland fan base that gets so frustrated and thinks we're so much better than we are and deserve so much more when it comes to a coach. But Turgeon's under fire. I mean, there's no other way to describe it. It doesn't mean anything will happen. And in fact, I don't think anything can happen. But much of

the fan base would love if this season ends before the second weekend of the tournament, and I know you get a lot of this too, they'd love to see a change. I mean, there's, as you know, and as you just said, difference between loving to see a change and being able to pull one off. I mean, this athletic department is still in a great deal about upheaval from the death of Jordan McNair and DJ Durkins out, Oster. And I think that internally and within the, you know, the overall school provides some cover for Mark Turgeon. I also think, you know, even if the season ends badly, they're almost certainly going back to the NCAA tournament. I don't think that they're going to gas a coach after he returns to the tournament. Now, the fair question is, and this is kind of the

existential question of being Maryland all the time, is what are you? If you ranking college coaching jobs, where does Maryland fit? It's my belief as an old person that Maryland does not rank as highly as a job in the Big Ten as it did in the ACC. where you're pitching, I got two games against Duke, I got two games against Carolina, or whatever, if it's only one game each year, you were in a basketball conference. Now Maryland is in a basketball school in a football conference, and that diminishes the job, in my mind, to a certain extent. I think it's a really interesting question. Where does Maryland sit nationally?

I think it was a top 15 job when they were in the SEC. Yes. When I say job, that's different than the discussion about whether or not it's a top 15 program, all right? You know, at various points in time, it was, and it may have been a top 10 program at various times, but it was always a top 15 job. I haven't thought about it in that respect from, you know, being in the Big Ten. It's still a basketball school. It's still on a hotbed of recruiting talent, and it still has tradition and a fan base that is intense. passionate and wants to win.

You know, it's still a good job. You know, if it were to come available, it's still a very good job. But I think you made a good point. Because I feel it as a fan myself. There is something missing, and there has been for the last five years. So I would just say, so five years is a good way to look at it because that's how many seasons have been in the Big Ten. My theory, and this is not a provable theory, but it's more of a kind of feeling around

the program and knowing college basketball is, if you're Maryland, and it's Tuesday night in January, and you've got to drive through Beltway traffic to try to get to that game, if you're a Maryland fan, there's something more appealing about playing NC State or Wake Forest than there is playing Purdue or Iowa. You've got a history. You've got David Thompson and those Maryland games back in this. Does that make you get in your car and drive through the traffic to get there? Maybe not. But you're asking fans to identify The biggest home game on Maryland schedule, the most attractive home game on Maryland schedule this year, Virginia.

To me, was the Virginia game. No doubt. And that happened in November. That's not the way it's supposed to work. That's supposed to be a really nice appetizer to an awesome home conference schedule that your fans are fired up about. And that's just not the way it's worked in the Big Ten so far. Thank you. As always, I'll talk to you soon.

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It worked out for me. It'll work out for you. 866, 90 Nation. for Windonation.com and tell them that I sent you. All right, a couple of other things I wanted to get to before the end of the show. Did you see this quote from John Gruden? I think I did. The Raiders coach.

So John Gruden at the Indy Combine, I guess, was asked about how hard it was to replace a guy like Khalil Mack. And he said, it's hard to replace a guy like that. It's sensitive. I'm still sensitive about it. I do know this. my brother, right, he's referring to Jay Gruden, the Redskins coach, my brother didn't get anything for Kirk Cousins except a compensatory pick. At least we got some picks.

We got a chance to do something with them. Closed quote. Of course, you know, so many of you who are with me on Kirk Cousins sent me this quote from John Gruden on Khalil Mack. It's amazing that his own brother would take a shot at him. But you know why he did? Because he knows it wasn't his brother's decision. It wasn't his brother's decision to fuck up the whole contract process there.

All right? It just wasn't. So John Gruden was taking a shot at, you know, Bruce Allen, guy that he used to work closely with, at Dan Snyder and at the entire organization. And of course, of course, they should have traded him and gotten something for him. funny though that he would take that shot at the Redskins. Look, Khalil Mack is a lot better of a player than Kirk Cousins.

It was a much more difficult decision to trade Khalil Mack. Also, what did they get for Mac? What was the exact compensation? Because whatever they got, it probably was in total more than the Redskins would have gotten for Cousins. They got a first right from the Bears. And more than that, right? Was it a first and third? The full trade.

Bears, the Bears got Khalil Mack and a second round pick. The Raiders got a 2019 first round pick, 2020 first round pick, 2020 third round pick and 2019 sixth round pick. Yeah, I mean, a hell of a lot more. Yeah. Yes. Yeah, they were getting two first round picks. Clearly, I didn't remember the details of that trade very well.

But a much better haul for Khalil Mack than the Redskins would have gotten for Kirk Cousins, although I think we know now that the 49ers would have given up a first rounder. Not number two overall, the Solomon Thomas pick, but the one that they had later in the first round they would have given up for cousins. A couple of other things that I wanted to get to. Last night, just real quickly, James Harden had 58 points for Houston and their win over the Miami Heat, who had beaten the night before Golden State. I'll get to Golden State in a second.

But just saying that James Harden had 58 doesn't do it justice. I would just urge you to just go watch the highlights of that game on ESPN.com or wherever else you want to watch them. It is some of the threes he made. He was 16 to 32 from the field, 18 of 18 from the free throw line, 8 for 18 from behind the arc, also had 10 assists, 58 points and 10 assists and 7 rebounds in the game. Some of the threes were like 6 feet beyond the three-point line. Golden State lost to Orlando last night. I mentioned yesterday on the show that they probably are just not even interested in this regular season.

They went to Orlando last night and lost by seven. That's shocking. They got outscored in the fourth quarter by 18. Orlando was down 11 heading into the fourth quarter, and they were down by 11 and ended up winning by 7 in the game. Something most of you are not following, and I know a lot of you don't even care about this, but do you know that Golden State only has a half-game lead on Denver? Denver lost last night to Utah, that Denver Nuggets are a potential number one seed in the West when we get to the playoffs, which we're only six weeks away from now. We're only six weeks away from the NBA playoffs.

Golden State is really coasting right now. Like they are not in first gear. They will be when we get to the postseason. I don't think there's any doubt about that, but I just don't think they care much. I mean, you know, Golden State was always money after a loss, and they went and lost again last night. They have now lost four of their last six games, and we're not talking about losses to great teams. They lost to the magic and they heat. They did lose to Houston, but they lost to Houston They lost to Houston the night that James Hardin didn't play. They lost to the Rockets. The night that Hardin sat out that game.

One other quick thing on basketball, before I get to a quick Maryland-Michigan mention, last night, Cal beat Washington. Now, that doesn't mean anything to most of you who aren't following the Pac-12. The Pac-12 is truly a horrendous basketball conference. I mean, the Basketball League of Arizona and UCLA, none of those teams are going to the tournament. Washington's in first place in the Pac-12, and they played the last place team Cal last night on the road in a game in which Cal was 015 in the league and hadn't won a Pac-12 game since last February. Cal won the game. They beat Washington by three. This could be a one-bid league.

It's possible that only the champion will go to the tournament. I think Washington will get an at-large bid if they don't win the Pac-12 tournament. Aaron, I think they will. It's not a lock. But I don't think it's a lock. It may be a one-bid league. It's no better than a two-bid league. Arizona State has an outside shot to get in.

They lost last night. though. Lastly, Maryland plays Michigan. It's the biggest home game Maryland's had in a few years. You know, you heard Barry say the biggest home game of the year was the Virginia game. I do feel that way to a certain extent. But in terms of their conference games, this is probably their biggest Big Ten game in two or three years at least. Michigan destroyed Nebraska last night. Destroyed them. But they've also got a couple of players banged up. I was going to say, a player got banged up yesterday. Matthews didn't play, and Bristinski, I think, got hurt during the game. You know, I think Maryland's going to play a lot better than they did against Penn State.

They're better. I can't tell you how I truly feel about the game until the point spread comes out, but I would imagine that Michigan's going to be no more than a two-point favorite. Yeah, I was thinking two to three. You know, I think it's going to be somewhere around there. People are going to understand that this will be a jacked-up building, and, you know, hopefully the weather, it could be a. a problem Sunday.

But that it should be a jacked-up building, a pumped-up house, even after the Penn State loss. Maryland's got two home games left, and they need this one. Because I think the Penn State loss drops them probably to the five line, if not the six line. Patrick Stevens has them on the six today. And Lunardi's got him at the five today. But, you know, a win over Michigan and Minnesota to finish up the regular season, and they're right back on the four line with a chance to go higher in the Big Ten tournament. This is crucial, too, to their chance for a double-by to win these two games to end up to finish up the season.

They'll still have a chance if they lose to Michigan by beating Minnesota to get a double-by, but I think they lock it up with two more wins over Michigan and Minnesota. I'm looking forward to Sunday. It's you and I and our like Maryland people, you know, whether you went to the school or you're just a fan of the team, There is really and truly, even in the Big Ten, you know, there's no better live sports experience than a big Maryland game at Xfinity Center. It is, it can be a spectacle. It is a heated, loud, electric environment. And I think it'll be that way Sunday.

You know, it's been that way half dozen to a dozen times during this Big Ten run here for five years. Sunday feels like to me, Aaron, like it should be one of those days. And Maryland, in those situations in that building, when it is revved up like that, they tend to be pretty difficult to beat. And they're a pretty good team to begin with. So is Michigan. But it'll depend really on Michigan's health, I think, to a certain degree. What else did I have? I think I had. Oh, yeah, Jason Whitten on retiring. I'm not shocked by that. I think, you know, a guy, like that that took so much criticism in the booth.

He took the opportunity to retire when he retired because this Monday night this Monday night football thing was sitting there waiting for him. By the way, I've seen all these different names thrown out there from Lewis Riddick to Nate Bertlinson, to Peyton Manning, all these different names. And I

personally think that the big change they have to make is play by play. I just cannot, I'm just not a Joe Testator fan. And of the Three, I thought Booger McFarlane was the easiest to listen to. Yeah, Booger's definitely going into the booth. He should go into the booth.

Yes. And if it's Tessator, I would just leave it as the two of them, unless you can get Peyton Manning. Right. With which they will throw all the money they can at Peyton Manning. And if you get Peyton Manning, God, I pray it's not Tessator. It might be, though. But I like Nate Burleson. I like Lewis Riddick as a television personality and a broadcaster.

I do. I don't know that I would love him in the Monday night booth. I think Nate Burleson is very, very good on television and as an analyst. I've watched him a lot on the NFL network here over the last few years. I think he does a very good job, a really good job. And he's got some personality, and I don't know, that's a big chair, which clearly Witton couldn't fill. The whole booth last year was a disaster. As far as Witten going back to Dallas, they needed it.

them last year. They could have used them last year. You know, it's a good football team, even with some of these suspensions. It's a football team that's loaded, you know, defensively that has some good young defensive talent that's got a chance to get better in the draft, that has a pro bowl running back, a wide receiver now in Amari Cooper that appears to be coming into his own there. You know, Dallas is on paper, you know, it's Philly and Dallas, and then it's the Giants and then it's the Redskins. I mean, if you're just evaluating objectively, all right, the Cowboys and the Eagles are 1A, 1B in terms of talent. I would probably go Philly and then Dallas. I like the Giants' chances to be an improved team, but I felt that way last year. And then

there's a big drop-off in terms of roster from those three teams and then the Redskins for 2019 team anyway. All right. That's it. I don't have any strong suggestions on gambling because I haven't seen any real lines yet for Saturday or Sunday. I'm not looking at the NBA stuff. Some of you have asked me, do I bet the NBA? I really don't. During the playoffs I do. But during the regular season, unless there's something that really sticks out is odd in terms of a line that just really doesn't make any sense. I rarely bet the NBA. and I never bet the NHL. Caps have a big game tonight.

That's the last thing to mention, right? They've got the Islanders tonight in a first round showdown tonight against the New York Islanders. And in a stretch of schedule for the Caps, that gets pretty interesting here over the final stretch. Tonight's game is in New York, and then you get a Caps team that then has to go to New York on Sunday to face the Rangers and then the Flyers on Wednesday.

So you've got three straight on the United. the road and then after that you get two at home but then four after that on the road which includes games at pittsburgh and tampa bay you know they still have tampa three times on the schedule they still they still have the islanders twice uh so a big stretch for for them coming up actually you know what that there's nothing else on tonight right nothing else on caps at islanders for first place i might tune into that i don't watch i don't watch a lot of regular season hockey But that might be a good one to watch. Actually, they're not tied for first because the Islanders won last night. So the Caps are still two points behind the Islanders. In fact, I think everybody in the Metropolitan Division is on a win streak right now.

So the caps are two points out of first, but only like, you know, five points ahead of fifth, which I think is the Penguins. But a big game for them tonight. All right, I'm rambling. Have a great weekend. The snow on Sunday, coin flip. It's either going to be a big rainstorm or a big snowstorm or maybe a mixture of both. I'll tell you on Monday what it turned out to be. Have a great weekend.