The Kevin Sheehan Show - Chase Young: Voluntarily Missing Again

Episode Date: May 23, 2023

Kevin and Thom today on the news that Chase Young was one of three players missing from the first day of Commanders' OTAs. They also talked Rivera/Mayhew GM rankings, NBA Playoffs, NFL rules changes, and more.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You don't want it. You don't need it. But you're going to get it anyway. The Kevin Cheehan Show. Here's Kevin. Tommy is here. I am here. And we were together last night at Tommy's D.C.

Gray's Cigars and Curve Balls charity event down at Shelley's back room. And we are both dragging just a little bit here today because it was a great night with an incredible turnout. I would say it was the most people that you've ever had for that event. That would be my guess. I don't think I've been there when there have been that many people there. It was by far dwarfed the biggest. I mean, it was the biggest crowd we've ever had. I mean, I wasn't prepared for it.

I ran out of cigars. They had to open a new box. I've never run out of cigars before. You know, I bag all the cigars, three cigars, in a bag to give out to people. I had bags, 54 bags, and I'd run out. You know, I had to open up a new box. Right.

Well, I mean... It was by far the biggest, and the owner, Bob Matarazzi, of Shelley's backroom, being the generous guy he is, he says he's moving us into the bigger room next year. We're getting the big room next year. Yeah. We get to go to the big room. We're not playing these small venues anymore. We're getting, we're getting, we're at least moving into the arena area.

Stadium maybe comes 10 years down the road. No, that was, that was a great night. Congratulations. That was, it was awesome. It was so good to see so many people that I haven't seen in a while, meet some new people who were there. I know you did as well. And it was a, it was a nice night.

It was a really nice night. It was all, it was a fun night. and man, I was dragging this morning. Just finished doing radio a little while ago. Yeah, but it was worth it. Totally worth it. How did you do auction-wise? I think, well, first of all, for the podcast, we did pretty well.

We'll be doing two winners of the sitting in on the podcast with us in the coming year at some point. But overall, it looked like you guys did pretty well with the auction. Well, with everything combined, we hit $20,000. That's $4,000 better than we've ever done. That's great. That's awesome. Yeah. Good for you.

All for kids in baseball in inner city, D.C. I'll tell you what. You really are, as I said to you last night. You are, I was in Tommy's place with Tommy's people last night. And, man, you know, Other than the summers in Spain and Italy and the winters in Florida, he is an everyday man. You are a man of the people. You really are.

It was fun. And very nice for some people to come down, like Mike Rizzo, who's come every single year. And is really, you know, we've said this before about him. He's one of our favorite GMs, if not our favorite GM in town. A, because he's really good at what he does. He's also a really good dude. really good guy. Yeah.

You know, and very generous. Yeah. Absolutely. It was great to see Doc there. Doc is a big supporter. Yep. Of the event, Andy Paulan came out for it as well. He's another big supporter, and I appreciate, you know,

and people come to see all you guys. That's one of the draws. Well, I don't, I wouldn't put us in there as key draws. The event is the draw, and it's, It's your event. You put it together, and I mean, how many years is this now? Well, it was, we didn't do two years during COVID, and we started in 2014. Okay.

So, seven years? I'd say, this was seven years. Yeah, it's awesome. Yeah. All right, well, well done. Well, done. And by the way, Chris, thank you for that box that you gave to Tommy to give to me. I have not opened it yet, but I'm assuming.

assuming there's just like a bunch of hats in there. And that was very kind of you. And Mike did a great job with the auction last night. A couple of times I thought he was going backwards instead of going upward. You know, you want to increase. Like when somebody says, it raises their hand to $250 for an item, you don't want to then say, well, who's, do I got a $200? Do I got it to, anybody out there with a $200? No, the next, the next is the $300 stage.

Well, you know, he did a very good job, but he's no Chris Spira. No, he did agree. Chris is usually an auctioneer, and, you know, he was missed, and I'm sure he'll be there next year. You know, Tommy. He was there in spirit. He donated some liquor and a few other items. I, someone, this is several years ago, it was for one of the kids' schools' annual auctions, and they asked me to do the auction. And I told them, I go, I'll do it, but it's a big mistake.

This is something where you spend the money on somebody that does this, you know, professionally. And some of you understand this if you've been involved in auctions before, but there is a skill to being an auctioneer. And whatever you pay that person more than pays for itself. And, you know, I convinced them, I said, If you want me to do anything else, I'll do anything else. But I think you're making a mistake to have me do the auction. This is important to the school that you raise as much money as possible.

And there are people that do this and have the real skill of doing it. And Chris has always done it well. And look, Mike did a good job last night. He did an excellent job. I mean, by the way, the results were the best overall, the most amount that you've ever raised. So obviously Mike did a good job. Did a great job.

All right. Where do you want to start today? Because we do have some Chase Young news. I think we're going to start with Chase Young. Have you been following this at all today? Absolutely not. I had to write a column this morning before we did this. And I wrote a column about Jim Brown.

Oh, you did? Okay. So today was an OTA day, you know, one of those OTA days that are, you know, as we've said for many, many years now, they are voluntary per the collective bargaining agreement between the players and the owners. And for Washington, three players did not post for the start of OTAs. Montez Sweat wasn't there? Charles Leno wasn't there. And Chase Young.

wasn't there at day one of voluntary OTAs. So it happened at the end of the radio show, and I got this tweet from somebody that I just saved because this was a beauty. It was from Gene. Please don't start with this Chase Young hate. Do you know what the word voluntary means, question mark? I think this got tweeted to me

before I even mentioned it on radio because it happened at the very end of the radio show. Thank you, Gene. I really appreciate the tweet. At Tom Leverro on Twitter, if you want to follow Tommy or tweet Tommy, at Kevin Sheen, DC for me

on Twitter. I just don't understand some of you people. We do know what the word voluntary means. Do you know what one and a half sacks in eight games means. Do you know what not getting the fifth year option of your rookie deal when you're the number two overall pick means?

Voluntary is voluntary. It's your choice to either show up or not show up. You can't be punished if you don't show up. In this case, I wouldn't confuse voluntary with what would be, I think, strongly suggested by anybody that cares about this young guy. Like, you don't have to go, but I strongly suggest that you go. In fact, I wouldn't miss any of these OTA days this summer. Your career is dangling here.

Now, he's going to be given a shot if it doesn't work out here. and look, he may be given a shot here by a whole new regime next year that says, oh, they didn't understand you. They were trying to coach you in a way that didn't make sense. We understand you, and he might be signed to a contract next summer by a new regime that's in Washington next off season. That's possible. But, you know, voluntary or not, highly suggestible for him, highly suggested,

that he show up to OTAs. This is not about injury that he didn't have his fifth year option picked up. This is about him proving that he wants this as badly as maybe some of his teammates do, as badly as his coaches want it for him. There's a lot going on here. And for this player, more than Montez Sweat, Charles Leno, I'm not going to pick on either one of those. And, guys, Montez Sweat is Missimo.

OTA days in the past as well. I understand that. But this story of the three players that didn't post for OTA days is about Chey-Shung, not showing up after his fifth year option wasn't picked up. Look, try to imagine at your place of work, and let's say you don't work at 7-Eleven or something like that, but you work at a company where there's responsibilities and things like that. There's 100 people that work at your company, and they're going to have an event, a company event. That's voluntary.

Okay, you don't have to show up for it. And 97 of your 100 fellow workers show up for this thing. How are you going to feel? You know, I mean, aren't you going to stand out by your absence? Isn't it obvious that, you know, maybe you're not on the right side of this page? since almost ever. This is not like they do these OTAs that 50-50 show up. Almost everybody's there. Right. All the time. Right. Yeah. I mean, it's, that's an example that you gave. I've always given the

example in the past. It's like, hey, you know, you're in a company and you're part of like, you know, a group of leaders. You know, you're part of the people that you're part of, you're, you're a talented guy in the organization. You're a bit of a producer or an expected producer. And you haven't really produced totally, but they're expecting a lot out of you. And the boss says, hey, we're behind on getting this stuff done for the, you know, the Happelthorpe account. And we got to, I got to ask if you guys don't mind, can you come in Saturday morning? We'll just be here for a couple of hours. if you can't do it, I totally understand. It's your day off, but we're behind on this.

We've got to get some stuff done. By the way, that would be the equivalent of. We went 8, 8 and 1 last year. We went 7 and 10 the year before. We got a lot of stuff to accomplish here. But we're behind on this big account. And I'll have bagels. I'll have coffee.

Two hours tops just to get caught up on everything. You know, if you can be there, that'd be great. and basically everybody shows up but you. I don't know. Some of you wouldn't show up. I understand that. I understand that some of you wouldn't show up. For me, the way I've kind of worked and been in situations, not broadcasting,

there's no way in hell that I wouldn't show up, unless I had a funeral to go to or something truly, you know, oppressing. And then I would say to the boss, look, I would be there 99 times out of 100. I just have this one thing that, and hopefully they would understand. Let me ask you this, though. Let's say you've been passed over for a promotion, and you're pretty pissed off. Right.

Like the fifth year option, didn't get picked up? Yes, yes. And you say, I'm going to send them a message. You want me to do extra work where you ignore me, you don't give me, what I'm due, I'll show you, I'm not going to be there. Is that what's that play here? It might be, but it's just, it wouldn't be the way I would handle it. I would, I would show up and I'd be like, you know what, I'm going to prove that you were wrong not to pick up my fifth year option. I'm going to prove it. And if there was any self-awareness at this point, I would probably

understand why they didn't pick it up. And maybe, you know, start to at least, say, well, maybe it has something to do with me. Not everybody can do that. And when, you know, it's emotional, maybe sometimes you can't get to that point. But no, I prefer the people that would say, F you, I'm coming in here and I'm going to make you regret the day that you ever even considered not picking up my fifth year option. It's hard not to think that the two are connected. Well, why? He didn't show up in 21 for any of them.

He was the only one out of 90 players that didn't show up. I know, I know, but he's coming back from this injury. I mean, he played in three games last year, and he looked functional. He looked athletic, but he still was not Chase Young that we've expected him to be. I just think that if they had picked up his 50-year option, he'd have been there. So therefore, since they didn't, he's not there. He's got one and a half sacks in 12 games in two years. One and a half.

Look, I'm with you on this. You're right. You should have been there. You know, he's got no case. But that doesn't mean he thinks it's his case. And he thinks he's in the right. Or he's just pissed off. I just get a kick out of people like Gene.

Like they are, you know, they're so hell-bent on, you know, he's got his rights. And so does the organization. And they exercise their right not to pick up his fifth-year option. And there are a lot of other teams that will be watching this. He needs, he's going to have to earn this. And not showing up for the first OTA day is, something that, you know, at the very least, show up for the first one. Like, have enough self-awareness to know that if you don't show up for the first one,

it's actually going to be kind of big news. And, you know, show up for the first one and the second one and then miss the third one. That almost gets masked by the fact that, oh, he was here all, you know, he missed, got to get here for the first two days. Not very strategic. But I don't think he really, it would have. appear as if he doesn't really care. Anyway, I wanted to read this email that I got from Gus.

I read it on the radio show this morning, but I really wanted to read it to you. Tommy's column on Jason Wright, which we talked about on Saturday show, it got a lot of, let me just say I got a lot of feedback on Tommy's column from a lot of people and a lot of. different places. And 98 to 99% of the people that responded said, spot on. Amen. Please pass that along to Tommy. This came from Gus.

Gus is actually someone I've known forever, but I hadn't heard from in a long time. He said, Kevin, I hope you're well. Tom's column the other day was perfection. In fact, it's our first litmus test on the Harris Group. If somebody who's made as many sloppy errors as Jason Wright and or his staff remain, that would be a red flag. Incompetence in the past isn't always indicative of future performance. And obviously, Jason Wright is in a new role for him having more direct accountability versus consultant participation. But I think it would be hard for many to overcome the nightmares slash impressions of all things Sean Taylor or the crest or 2-22 to name a few.

It's just best if they move on from any of these recent embarrassments and memories. Dan's obviously the ongoing embarrassment, but it's not like things got so much better over the last couple of years. So I wanted to, I thought, you know, I'm not even sure that we didn't even discuss this on our Saturday show because I know I've thought to myself, you know, it'll be interesting to see what happens with Jason Wright when Josh Harris and Mitchell Rails and these guys take over the organization. Like if they decide that he's going to be the team president moving forward, I'd be a little bit surprised. I don't know if it's the litmus test because as I've said before, I don't know everything that Jason Wright does. And I'm not discounting the possibility that more positive has been done than negative by a lot. And it's just what we've seen, the public blunders that have been displayed over and over again over the last year and a half, two years are really just the aberration.

And that really there's a lot good going on. It's possible. We're not there every day. That's my position. I don't like to shoot everybody, A, without a solution, and B, without knowing for sure. But Gus's point is it really doesn't even matter because the perception of the customers is that this guy messed it up a lot. And it's going to be hard to erase that from their memory. So it's best just a clean house.

I don't think I disagree with that. Yeah, he's right. And I mean, the aboricians that you spoke of, there's been so many of them, I think it goes beyond an aborition to have that many public miscues and mistakes. Again, like I said the other day on Saturday, Jason Wright may have cleaned up the warehouse, okay? inside the organization. They have cleaned up the building,

may have gotten a few things in order, but from the outside looking in, it doesn't look that way. And, you know, unless you're going to take people on tours or do the Jason Wright success tour and show everybody that, look, we did this and we have a human resources department.

Now, as if that was some kind of, you know, genius move to create a human resources department and we're treating people like human beings. Again, you know, I mean, the bar was so low to have reached any level of so-called success. It's just getting to ground zero. Look, a lot, first of all, you've said many times before, you know, your line, you know, when things look, bad from the outside, they're usually much worse on the inside or whatever it is that you say all the time. Yeah.

And, you know, the HR progress, let's not forget that he has, you know, he's stuck his chest out a couple of times during the last couple of years to say they've become the gold standard in a lot of their practices. They're emulated by, you know, places in, you know, in the league and beyond, you know, we're worldwide. And so I, you know, maybe Josh Harris and Mitchell Rails get into the inside and they say, man, you know, hopefully you learn from all those blunders, but man, you have kicked ass here on the inside. What an HR department. What an accounting department. What a sales team. What a ticket selling team you have. This is really first rate. But ultimately, that's possible. I'm not,

I'm not dismissing it. But ultimately, what will really be a big part of whether or not he stays is what the people who work with him and work for him say about him. That'll be a big part of it. Yeah. I think so. Look, I find it hard to believe that Josh Harris, who has run, who owns two sports franchises and isn't already an NFL owner with a small piece of the Pittsburgh.

Steelers hasn't already put in place his management team that's ready to go. And I don't think that would include anyone personally. I don't think that would include anyone of note currently existing in the organization, at least on the business side. I just had this flash forward of a year from now. and everybody associated with Dan Snyder and his ownership tenure is gone. I'm not talking about the people that we don't know.

I'm talking about anybody that's been, you know, even a partial face of the Dan Snyder era. And I thought to myself, as I was thinking about 2024, off-season next year, that the name commanders might even not be so offensive. and I think part of it is that the idea of just a cleaning of the house in a whole new organization and nothing, nothing associated with anything we've seen in in the last couple of years would just be a breath of fresh air.

I don't think I'll ever like the name. I don't think I'll, you know, in the next few years, it'll ever actually be accepting of it. But man, it'll be, if we can just rid. ourselves of all of the people that were associated with any of the embarrassments of the last 24 years, including the last two years, I think it would give people a completely new perspective. Look, again, it's possible they go in and say, we can't get rid of Jason right. You would not believe what an incredible organization in terms of the way things function here. I mean, this is the gold standard of HR.

This is the gold standard of marketing and merchandising and sales and and accounting and everything else. I mean, he's really, really good. Made some mistakes with the public stuff. But we're not going to let him do that anymore. We're going to let him do what he's been doing well. It's possible. But man, if he is around, it's going to be tough for people to separate that stuff from him. It's going to be tough for people to separate the name from him.

Yes, it will. But maybe he can overcome that. Maybe he can. Who knows? We're going to sit here and chronicle all of it over the next months and years to come. It would certainly appear that, based on what Jerry Jones said and what Jim Mersey said, kind of two different things, that the league is having a problem with the Josh Harris structure and the amount of of debt that they've probably, you know, taken on for what is the largest sale in the history

of North American sports. Let's not forget that, you know, first of all, the Walton's and the penners, they didn't need to take on much debt. Teper bought his franchise for $2.25 billion. This is $6 billion, and it's tough to just plop down a couple of billion for the 30%. But they need to get comfortable, it would appear with the debt. But other than that, you know, and it may take a little bit longer and it may be the summer when this thing gets approved or it may be, you know, right in the days leading up to week one of the season, who knows. But I still think it's going to get done. I really do. And this Brian Davis thing to me, the one thing that I've, you know, in reading all of this stuff, what really occurs to me is that what's been made very

clear is none of this money is his. So I don't understand why it's gone as far as it's gone. It's not his money. Isn't it gold hidden in a cave in the Philippines? The whole thing with this Severino guy who was a CIA operative. He was a Filipino-American in World War II, and he saw Japanese soldiers hiding a bunch of gold, and apparently he got access to the gold. This guy, Daniel Wallach, I had this guy, Dan Lust on the show today.

He was good. Daniel Wallach, who's with is another athletic legal analyst. We've had Daniel on the show before. He documented where all this stuff came from. It's a fascinating story.

But what's clear, if you look at the check, the bank draft, and you follow just the actual what was apparently presented in Maryland District Court in Greenbelt is that this money isn't his. This money was, you know, in an estate managed by this woman for this guy Severino who had all of this gold. How Brian Davis got them to write a check to Bank of America for the purposes of potentially buying the football team.

Who knows? But his company and his name isn't anywhere on the check. So it doesn't look like it's his money. But anyway. Listen, yeah. Daniel Wallach, just to clarify, he has his own Twitter account. He is a legal analyst for the athletic. Yeah.

But he also co-hosts a podcast with Daniel Lus. Yeah. They called Conduct detrimental. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, look, yeah, it is.

It's probably going to wind up a movie at some point. Gold and the football team and Brian Davis and all that. It sounds like an Elmore Leonard story to it. Who's Elmore Leonard? Is he a writer? Elmore Leonard is a famous, like, detective writer. He wrote Get Shorty, the book that's the movies based on. What a great movie.

You know, he's written a bunch of great. books that have been made in the films. So what I find kind of laughable is the whole issue of the NFL raising concerns about the bid, which my answer would be, okay, go someplace else to get your money. Go someplace else to sell the team. You don't like it? Go find another buyer. There's no turning back.

Wait, I'm missing what you're saying. Sorry. What do you mean? I mean, the idea that the NFL has issues with the bid by the Harris group is kind of laughable. Oh, I see what you're saying. Yeah, because there's no turning back. There's no, you know, I'm sorry, but this isn't good enough. We can't accept this.

Right, right. You know? I mean, I almost feel like if I was Josh Harris today, okay, go find yourself another buyer. You want them? You got them. You can have Dan Snyder back. Yeah, I mean, look, but that's not the way, yes, but Harris really wants the team. And this is a, you know, a you know what measuring contest. You know, it's like they're like, no, no, no, you're going to do it our way.

And we tell you when it's time to, you know, look, I mentioned this, I don't know if I mentioned this on the podcast with you the other day, but I was thinking about this over the weekend and especially with, you know, how this finance committee hasn't done it and things are getting pushed back. And it's like the NFL is saying to Josh Harris, slow it down there, partner. That, you know, leaking that prospectus, you know, the story that Kime had on the prospectus that they put together, see him and Seth Wickersham had, you know, with the, you know, the $1.25 billion from Virginia.

And oh, by the way, the report that Magic Johnson had met with Maryland Governor Westmore, hey, ho, ho! Wait a minute. You don't have this team yet. We tell you when you have this team. So there could be a little bit of that going on. It also, by the way, makes sense to me that $6 billion with $1.1 billion in debt allowed, and it's got to, that it's debt allowed against the team. And you've got to come up with $1.8 billion basically in cash, 30% of it roughly.

It's just the hardest team in the history of sports to buy, especially with the league restrictions. And I think that's one of the reasons they're trying to work through this is, you know, the last two buyers didn't need any of this. But he's the only guy that made an offer that was, you know, close to what Snyder wanted. And so to your point, like if Josh Harrison, Mitchell Rails and Magic Johnson said, Hey, Roger, get, you know, get the Maras and get the Roonies and get all these people on the phone because we've got a message for them. And the message is this, you've got 24 hours to approve this thing or we're out of here. We're pulling it.

And what would they do? And then you can have your boy, Danny, back again. Or you can entertain the Brian Davis Gold offer. I mean, I guess you could do that, but that's not how you want to enter this particular club as the new guy. No, it's not. I realize that's an emotional response and not a logical response. Because it's logically you know that eventually you're going to get the team. Whatever hoops are going to make you jump through, they have no.

other options. That's the reality of it. You've got to play to the dance, but when the dance ends, you're going to have the team. I saw, I'm trying to pull it up right now, Michael Phillips her good friend from Richmond tweeted this out, because this is kind of in the same vein

of what we're talking about right now. And I can't remember specifically what he said, here it is. He tweeted out yesterday. I'm not super interested in hearing about how complicated the deal. is you wanted Snyder out, he found a buyer, the buyer is happy with the terms, time to wrap

this up. Yeah, I agree with it, but that's not the way they do it. If you're going to be in their club, they want to make it understood that it's not easy to get into their club. And so, I mean, this is where like, you know, look, even the Walmart, you know, airs, they were paying cash basically. And they didn't get that team until last August, you know, months and months after, you know, the deal was accepted by the, you know, the Boland Trust. But, you know, there is some truth to what Michael's saying.

It's like, you know, Denver, you had a lot of offers. You could be a little bit more discerning. In this particular situation, you basically got one work. offer and the current owner you desperately want, you never want to see his face again. And you want it to happen as quickly as possible. So maybe they ought to put their you know what's back into their pants and just say they're lucky to have found this Josh Harris and Mitchell Rails and Magic Johnson that, let's face it, are overpaying for this team. I'm not saying that they won't make a great profit down the road. They probably will.

But it's not worth by everyone's account that saw that prospectus $6 billion. That would be, look, it would be a tragedy. But imagine the shit storm if Harris people say, you know, I'm sorry, we couldn't reach an agreement with the NFL. We're withdrawing our bid. Right. but I'm sure that Brian Davis will make a great owner. Yeah, I mean, no, I mean, when you think about it because they're really the only one, again, not the way you want to enter this particular club. But if this gets to the point where it's just dragging on and like it's almost becoming very obvious that they just want to make you grovel a little bit,

seriously people? Who else you got? Yeah. We're the ones. We want to make all of you even wealthier than you've ever dreamed of being. Your franchises are worth so much more because of what we're paying for this team. Now let us in. Here's the thing.

Get this thing done. You won't have to walk the halls of Congress anymore hiding your face. Yeah, right. All right. Anything else football team related? I got something. I can't think. You got something?

I do, but I'm going to save it for the next segment because I found this thing that I thought was interesting. Another ranking, another list, if you will, it's May. We'll get to that, the NBA playoffs, and more right after these words from a few of our sponsors. Tommy, tell us about Shelly's. What a place last night. Well, you saw for yourself last night. I've seen it before. I've been there before for your events, and I've even been in there when it wasn't your event.

I know, but you saw for yourself the outside area when it's a beautiful night. Oh, packed. You know? I mean, it's just amazing. It really is such a great area. One of the best in downtown D.C. to gather. outside when it's a beautiful night like last night was, and the smoke a cigar and talk to people.

You know, we had a lot of people going in and out last night, because the room was so crowded because it was such a big crowd. And I also want to thank, not only do I want to thank Bob, moderati, the owner. I want to thank the staff at Shelly's, who made sure everybody who wanted a drink had a drink. Okay. You know, there was a lot of people there to serve and a lot of little nooks and crannies to have to work their way through in between the crowd with their drinks.

I don't think anybody spilled anything, you know, and that was always a possibility in a night like that. So you saw the great staff at Shelly's that's always there to serve you, whether it's a big event like mine or you're just stopping in for a drink and a smoke. you know, Shelly's back room, 1331 F Street Northwest, in the district. Great spot. And Bob, thanks. Great night.

And you're right. That outside area on a nice night like last night. You know, you're in the city. You know, you're not out in the suburbs. You're, you know, I like sit. I like to be in the city. I prefer that. But it was a great night in a great spot.

So NBC Sports Edge put together this list. This guy Patrick Dardy. He's put together lists in the past for NBC Sports Edge. And he ranked, and he does it every year this time of year. He ranks the NFL general managers, one through, in this case, 30 because they're two new general managers. By the way, in going through the list of general managers, do you know that there are 10, minority general managers. Basically a third of the league is minority in the general manager category. I mean, that's a very important position in the NFL. The NFL, I don't think, does a good job of

promoting how diverse they are at general manager because of the issues they've had with head coach. But anyway, I digress. They put together top 30 because they're two new general managers that he didn't rank. Tennessee's Rancarthon and the Cardinals, Monty Ossonfort. And I won't bury the lead here for us. Ron Rivera Martin Mayhew, the combined GM, 26th out of the 30 teams ranked. And this is what Patrick Doherty from NBC Sports Edge wrote. One reason this front office's big ideas haven't worked, they haven't had any. I'm going to come back to that because I think that's the

part that deserves some pushback. Tampering, allegedly, with Andrew Luck, is as creative as it's gotten in Washington during Ron Rivera's reign as footballs are. To make matters worse, the can't miss defender missed. Chase Young had the looks of the next great pass rusher until tearing his ACL. Now he's appeared in just 11 games in two seasons, and his fifth year team option was declined. That's a hardship, but not enough to explain Rivera's squad, being stuck in the seven-win zone. Rivera has done a reasonably good job populating the defensive side of the ball, while the offense admittedly has some playmakers. There just isn't the high-end talent to put the operation over the top.

With no quarterback and a new owner coming for 2023, Rivera is going to have to revisit the 12-13 win heights of his best Cam Newton years to have any shot at retaining his job for 2024. So let me just begin with this. I don't have a problem with the ranking, 26th out of 30. I mean, you could quibble a little bit with a couple of people in front of them, but it's really hard to make the case that Ron Rivera and Martin Mayhew is a combined GM, because Rivera is the coach-centric final call. And by the way, he's not the only one.

You know, there are many organizations. When you go through this list, there are many organizations where the head coach is basically the, you know, co or, you know, the final say in football operations, even though he's got a GM, like Andy Reed with Brett Veach, like Kyle Shanahan with John Lynch, like Sean McDermott with Brandon Bean, like Sean McVeigh with Les Sneed. I mean, Bill Belichick is the final say, period, in New England. And, you know, so this situation in Washington is not like unusual, even though I think many of us, and this would include myself, would love to see the more traditional, hire a football person and let him do all the hiring and put him in charge, a general manager.

Anyway, 26th at a 30, I'm not going to quibble with that, maybe a couple of spots higher. I don't know, they're two groups lower. Scott Fitter in Carolina and George Patton in Denver. I think you could make the case they're both better than Washington's situation. But here's what I thought was just inaccurate is when he writes one reason this front office is big ideas haven't worked, they haven't had any. That's just not true. First, you know, offseason after, you know, 2020. So their second offseason, actually. They went after Matt Stafford. They just didn't have an offer that was comparable to the Rams offer. And really, they didn't have a

destination that was as attractive for Matt Stafford. And the Lions wanted to do him a solid on his way out. but that was a big idea. You agree with that, right? Matt Stafford was a big idea. Yes. In year two last year, or their third off season, but after their second season, Russell Wilson was a pretty big idea. They made an offer to Seattle for Russell Wilson that was actually more than what Denver paid for Russell Wilson.

That's a big idea. I think actually, you know, settling on Ryan Fitzpatrick, that's not a big idea, but that's an idea after they missed on Stafford. Oh, that's not an idea. Yeah, well, it's better than doing nothing. And the Carson Wentz in the moment was not a big idea, but it was an idea. The perception was they didn't stand still in the moment. But it's unfair to say that they haven't had big ideas. They called, according to Martin Mayhew, remember last year, every single team trying to land the big idea on their big idea.

Quarterback has been the primary focus what was in 21 and 22. They just didn't get their guy. Now, one of the reasons I would keep them at 26th or somewhere in this general area is because they didn't solve the quarterback problem, and they haven't since they've been here. But the other reason you might move them up a little bit from 26, then call them maybe closer to average, is that they've actually done a pretty decent job of roster building, which Ron inexplicably talked about in this off season as a new idea. His new big idea is roster building. He's actually been doing that.

And even though some of those players they didn't acquire, they didn't draft, they retained. You know, they kept John Allen. They kept Terry McLorn. They kept Duran Payne. They're not the worst in the league, but they're probably close to where they should be. But it's just interesting because I say that, and yet I recognize that the roster is probably better than it's been in years, minus the quarterback. But that's a big deal. Yeah, I mean, look, the coach himself said it's a big deal, the quarterback.

when people asked last year, what's the difference between you and the rest of the teams in the NFC East? And he blurted out quarterback. So, yeah, that is a big deal. I think part of the problem is the organization, at least among, you know, a lot of people, and they rightly earned this, is such a laughable organization

that the idea of trading for Matt Stafford or Russell Wilson seemed laughable to some people that they would actually come here. I mean, a great idea is not saying, you know, I'm going to the store, I'm going to buy $100 worth of lottery tickets, and I'm going to win the lottery. Okay?

That's not necessarily a great idea. It's not a retirement strategy. Okay, so the idea that you're going to trade for these guys, knowing very well, they're not coming. here. I don't know if that qualifies as big ideas. I don't believe that when they were really aggressively pursuing Stafford and Russell Wilson, that they were doing it just to make it look like they had a big idea. I think they actually believe they could land them. Oh, I don't think they were. I think they meant it. I just think to

the rest of the world, they said, are you kidding? You know, for a big idea, you got to have something that'll work. They're not. coming to your organization. Yeah. I guess, I guess anybody can have a big idea, but it's a bad idea, even if it's

big, if there's no chance that you can actually pull it off. Yeah. But I think that they believe that they can pull it off. It's, this rating, this is like, you know, this is, this was the same thing when Bruce Allen was here. Bond with a barrel.

You know? I mean, nothing's changed. It's remarkable. It really is remarkable. A whole new set of people. And you're still at the bottom of the list. Yeah. I'm trying to think of any sort of this kind of ranking

where they were ever in any different spot. Not really. I mean, with Mike probably in the first couple of years, you know, a Mike Shanahan, Bruce Allen, combo probably was at least in the top half of the league, maybe, not at the bottom. Certainly Marty Schottenheimer in the years he was, you know, the year he was here, but that's a long time ago now. All right. Whatever.

Do you, by the way, if Ron Rivera wins 12 to 13 games, of course he's coming back for his final year if he wants to. I actually think if he wins 10 and wins a playoff game and Sam Hal actually looks the part, he's probably going to have a chance to come back if you once. But more likely than not, they're going to end up in that, you know, as this guy, Patrick Doherty wrote, they are stuck in the seven win zone. You know, seven and nine, seven and ten, eight, eight, and one. But it was almost seven, nine and one.

But the Cowboys decided not to post in the season finale. And Sam Howe was great in that game. It was great. Yes. Yes, the stuff that dreams are made of. So last night, I watched the first half of the game at Shelley's at Tom's event and saw the second half at dinner with a couple of people I went to dinner with after the show, C.J. Neal and Rockville. And it just was an incredible basketball game. You didn't see it last night. You didn't see any of it, right?

I'm assuming you didn't. I watched some of it at Shelly's. I watched the last five minutes of the first half, and then I watched a comeback by the Nuggets. So LeBron James had 31 points in the first half at 38 years old. I've been talking about LeBron in this postseason as he's really played well. I mean, he's really been incredible in these playoffs,

and I'm not the biggest LeBron fan. I don't deny his greatness. but he's just been great, and they've been fun to watch. Hit in a game down 3-0 that you had to have, 31 in the first half as they built a 15-point lead. He was 11 for 14 from the floor and 4-4-from-the-arch. Now, one of those we saw was an intended pass that went in. And then Denver, who's been the better team,

and it's been obvious that they're the better team, even though all four of these games, all four of them were close competitive games. But Denver was better, and they came back, and Yokic was unbelievable in the second half, hit some unbelievable shots, ended up with another triple double. He's averaged a triple double for the postseason.

He's now four triple doubles or three triple doubles. Double doubles beyond Wilt for the all-time playoff triple double mark. Keep in mind they play a lot more playoff games now than they did back, you know, when Wilt was playing. 30, 14, and 13 for him last night, including the game winner. I thought LeBron looked really tired. LeBron played all 48 minutes last night. The oldest player on the floor played all 48 minutes. He finished with 40 and 10 rebounds and nine assists.

The last two possessions were really ugly for him and ugly for the Lakers, but I could see watching it in a restaurant how exhausted he was. He just looked at a gas. But Tommy, you're going to laugh, and I don't care. I swear to you, and I'm not, this isn't a creature of the moment thing. It's not me trying to be hyperbolic. This is the best level and the highest level of basketball I can remember why. watching. This postseason, the teams involved, Denver in particular, just one of the most selfless

teams, just truly every single player, totally unselfish, well-coached, an absolute genius of a basketball player in Nicola Yokic, two superstars on the team, great supporting roles. They only played seven players last night. Malone's a hell of a coach. The Lakers, you know, are great. Miami's been so much fun to watch. Boston, not so much. Denver is, by the way, I'm really excited for that fan base. Imagine if you're a lifelong fan of a team and your whole life they've never even been to the big game. Like, imagine if you're a Detroit Lion fan, and let's just say that this is their year that they make it to the playoffs. how unbelievably exciting that'll be.

You wait. I mean, when was their championship, 57? Like the Cleveland Brown's fan base, 64, Jim Brown. They've never been to a Super Bowl. You know, Detroit, just getting, Denver in their 47 years, have never been to the NBA finals. And here they are in the NBA finals, and damn, they are so,

good. They are great. And I don't know if they'll get credit for being great. They swept the Lakers. They beat the Sons in 6. They beat the Timberwolves in 5. I'm not comparing them to the 86 Celtics. I'm not. That's the greatest team that I've watched in my lifetime of NBA watching. But man, they're very similar in the way they play. It's a total team effort. all five guys on the floor participating, totally unselfish. They're a pleasure to watch.

And I hope we get Miami in there, and I think we might, and it's going to suck for the NBA because you'll have two conference finals going four games. And do you know what that means, Tommy? We don't get... Oh, yes, I do. June 1 is game one of the NBA finals. That's a week from Thursday night. If Miami wins tonight, and I think they're going to, because I think the Celtics have bailed,

we're not going to have basketball for nine days, not until next Thursday night. I know why they do it. They do it for, you know, advertising reasons. It's just like the Super Bowl. You have to have this fixed date for the Super Bowl. For the NBA finals, you know, game one, everything's, you know, planned around this one date, June 1st. Well, it's not good for the sport, this sport in particular, that has the highest ratings they've had in decades for their postseason this year, to go dark for nine nights. I think that's too big of a risk, especially if it ends up being Denver, Miami, which it's going to be.

You know, it's one thing if it were Lakers Celtics. But Denver, Miami, and you're going dark for nine days as a lead-up to it, not good. I think they need to fix that. These finals, back in the daytime, you remember, once both teams had qualified, it would be two or three days later, maybe four days later. It was not nine days. It was not a week and a half. But anyway, I have loved watching Denny's.

Denver, Miami, a lot of these teams, a lot of these games, and Yokic is so special, so special. Four nothing sweeps. How can you say they're being great? They're not, I didn't say the series was great. I said the basketball was great. The basketball was, to me, as high a level as you can see, the way Denver's played. Maybe. Today. Not ever. Not time. All time. Oh, that's ridiculous. No, I'm fine.

Haven't lived through the Lakers and the Celtics. Haven't watched the Knicks of the early 70s basically conduct a classroom in how to play basketball with six all-famers on the roster. Shooting 35% from the floor. Yeah. Absurd. It is absurd. By the way, I watched the Lakers and the Celtics, too. And I love, and that's my favorite era of basketball. The 80s are by far and away.

I enjoyed that much more than the Jordan era. And I love the Jordan era. But this is great. It's great. And I'm looking forward to the finals, Denver, Miami. I'm really looking forward to it. I just wish it would start sooner. But you've come around a little bit.

At least I was able to introduce you Did a Nicola Yokech a two-time MVP? I like watching him. And I like watching Jimmy Butler. I'll be happy if it's Denver, Miami. I'll be interested in watching it. But I'm not losing my mind. I'm not having one of your big ideas and think this is the greatest basketball in history.

It's a big idea. It's a big statement for sure. No doubt. It's a big idea, all right. All right. We got a few more things to finish up the show with. We'll get to them right after these words from a few of our sponsors. This segment of the show, presented by MyBooky, use my promo code, Kevin D.C.

For a chance at boosted odds using the MyBooky money bag. What does that mean? Well, first of all, getting started is simple. You just sign up today at mybooky.ag or mybooky.com. Use my promo code, Kevin, D.C., and you can secure a first deposit. bonus of up to $1,000 have to use my promo code, Kevin D.C. if there's something written

in the promo code section, which happens sometimes just erase it and write Kevin D.C. Whether you're a diehard or casual fan, simply put, there's never been a better time to start exploring the world of online sports betting with MyBooky.

Tonight's line at MyBooky, the Miami Heat are one and a half point favorites. First game in this series that they've been the favored team that tells me that the books think that Boston is cooked, that they are not even going to post tonight. I kind of like Miami, but I've not bet the last few nights of games. I just haven't liked games enough to bet them, but I'm staying off tonight. But Miami's a one and a half point favorite. All the NFL, by the way, prop bets are up for

the upcoming season, including the regular season, wind-toe. which I think I've told you before, Washington at my bookie has an over under of seven and a half on the upcoming season. Kind of like the big idea guy from NBC Sports Edge when he said that, you know, they're stuck on that seven to, you know, that seven win range. Well, the big idea here, maybe it's go over the total. Wait a minute. I have an update on the over under number. at my bookie for Washington. I was assuming that it would be seven and a half because it was seven and a half the other day.

It's six and a half. I'm looking at it right now. You got to lay minus 121 on the over at six and a half. And you get six and you get the under it plus 100. That's the lowest I could remember in a while. Yeah. I don't know. I forget.

I mean, my recollection is it's usually. Usually seven and a half. Well, it's not, it was last year. I think last year was actually last year they got to eight, eight and a half, or eight, right around eight. In the NFC, the only NFC teams with a lower total, looks like Arizona at four and a half. And with them at six and a half. They're opening a opponent. Yeah.

And they're favored by six in week. one. MyBooky.ag.ag. MyBooky.com. Use my promo code, Kevin D.C. So a couple of things here to finish up the show with. The NFL is going to go to Flex scheduling for Thursday night football. They voted on that yesterday at the league meetings. Weeks 13 through 17. If you're scheduled for a Sunday game, you could be moved back to Thursday. If you were on that Thursday, you could be moved forward to Sunday. You have to give, however, 28 days notice on this one. And this is what got it passed, because when they voted last time and they only had 22 votes, not enough for it to be passed, it was 15 days notice. Now, they're 28 days notice. And I don't see it happening a lot. What

they're really trying to do, first of all, Amazon is a big league partner, and they're the only league partner without flex scheduling because Monday night football has it now. Sunday night football's had it since 2006 and now they're going to give it to them in weeks 13 through 17. And the reason they put it at the end of the year is because that's when you can really get matchups that don't deserve prime time, you know, billing. And early in the season, nobody's got that bad of a record yet, or at least both teams don't. But you don't want to get to the end of the year where they've got the Saints playing the Rams. And the Saints are two. and 13, and the Rams are 4 and 11.

You know, but, you know, to hell with the convenience for fans, the planability for fans, safety issues, all of that. But 28 days notice they think will solve that problem. It's very possible that they won't even get to it. They won't even need to use it. You know what was interesting in reading the story about the Thursday flex scheduling, Tommy? is on average the Sunday night flexibility, which has been around since 2006, only 1.8 games each year on average get moved, get flexed. I would have thought it was more than that.

Yeah, so would have buy. Another thing the NFL did is they added the emergency quarterback rule. a 47th player, third quarterback, as an emergency player, if your first two quarterbacks are injured or ejected from the game. They don't want what happened in the NFC title game to happen again. Just as in FYI, many of you know this already, when they moved the game day rosters from 45 to 46, the purpose of it was to have the third quarterback.

but teams started to use that for other players and kept two on the active roster. I still don't know why, and no one's given me an answer on this, I don't know why the 53-man roster that all 53 aren't eligible to play on Sundays. I don't know why they have the inactive list. I'm sure I'm missing something there, and there's a reasonable explanation, but why not dress all 53? I've been in favor of expanding the rosters, period. I think it speaks to safety as much as anything to expand the roster

and the quality of your football as the season goes on. Yeah. So, yeah, I don't understand why the whole 53 can't just play, why six guys got to sit in the stands or do they even dress? No, no, you get the inactive. list every week and those players don't dress. That's right. Yeah. You get the seven inactives. Lastly, the NFL today voted in a new rule on kickoffs.

And I don't like this rule at all. It's the college rule. You can call for a fair catch in the field of play. And the ball immediately goes out to the 25-yard line. line. And so the idea, look, a lot of the kickoffs, especially indoors early in the season when weather's warm, you know, you get, we've reduced the number of kickoffs exponentially over the years because of the booting it, you know, through the end zone and giving it to them at the 25. And teams seem to be fine with that on defense. And offensively, they'll take the 25 instead of what the rule used to be years ago, which was the 20-yard line. But now the idea of kind of a pop-up kickoff inside the 10, getting down there, nailing them. poor field position. As long as you call a fair catch, ball's coming out to the 25. And this is done for pure safety reasons.

Rich McKay, chairman of the NFL's competition committee, said that most of the injury surge on special teams can be traced to an increase in returns caused by pop-up kickoffs. You know, in the field of play. So, you know,

at this point, we're probably headed towards at some point, maybe even in college, you know, doing away with the kickoff and just giving the team the ball up to 25-yard line. And if you do that, obviously you're going to take on-side kicks out of the game and you're going to have to come up with the on-side kick, you know, XFL rule, which is the fourth and 15, I think it is. Yes, fourth and 15. Yeah.

So what this does is as the game changes for different reasons, it even enhances the accomplishments of some people that will never be matched. A guy like Brian Mitchell. Yeah. And what he did with kickoffs. I mean, no one's going to do that again. I mean, you can still return a kick out of the end zone. Yes, he can.

You know? And I would also say that kickoffs that are more line drive in nature may get feel in the field of play, you know, beyond the goal line in return because there's a chance, you know, with a quicker receipt, you know, receiving of the ball for a better return. It's those, you know, it's those kickoffs that went high up in the air and you see people flying down there and they're nailing people at the 12-yard line. And by the way, crowds jacked up, you know, it's a home team. You get the defense chance going and you got them in poor field position.

but look, we've seen it in college as college football fans. That kickoff that's high up into the air, they didn't get to make it to the end zone. It's an automatic fair catch. Let's take it at the 25. We have seen, I think, more, I don't know if we've seen more or not, but I've seen more chances taken by long kickoffs that are more line drive, even if they're in the end zone. You know, it's funny because, I mean, the history of this team,

in the 80s with their special team units and guys like Pete Cronin and Otis Wansley and the stories about Wayne Severe, how the special teams coach, how he would fire that unit up before they go out on the field and how important it was to their success. Oh, my God.

I mean, that's, I mean, you know, if you're not going to have a unit that's going down there to kick and take names if there's no ball to go after. No. The greatest returners, you know, be Mitch. Yeah. I think the greatest returner of all time is Devin Hester.

But, you know, Brian was a different kind of returner and one of the greatest of all time. Mike Nelms? Well, for Washington, Washington had a history. I mean, Herman Mulkie, Larry Jones, Eddie Brown, Mike Nelms. a guy in 1978, a rookie out of Florida, Tony Green had a couple of big returns. I mean, Washington's always had, you know, they had a history, like you said, of great special teams.

I mean, Marve Levy is the first ever special teams coach, hired by George Allen, who put such an emphasis on special teams. But Billy Whitechews Johnson and Dion's one of the greatest returners of all time. Yeah, Mel Gray, you know, the, The Mel Gray who played with the Oilers and with the Lions, right? Yeah. Devin Hester, though, for just pure electricity on a return, like every time the ball was in his hands, there was a chance he was taking it.

And by the way, I think Gail Sares was probably that way, Tommy. You know, I know that he had some of those incredible games. But, yeah, I mean, those guys were not going to see many of those. those guys in the future. No? No, you're not. Cordorrell Patterson in terms of kickoff returners

in recent years has been my favorite to watch. He's the one that basically seems to have a green light, no matter how deep into the end zone the kickoff goes. Man, Brian Mitchell, still, you know, second all time on the all-purpose yardage

list. It should be in the Hall of Fame. Yeah, he's the one you can make a really good case for. But I personally believe Devin Hester is more Hall of Fame worthy than Brian Mitchell. And I'm a big Brian Mitchell fan. And I think that he's deserving. But Devin Hester, it was, I mean, I'm looking at up right now, just touchdowns alone, like in his career versus anybody else. He had, in returns, for his career, 14.

punt returns for a touchdown, five kickoff returns. He had 19 touchdowns on returns. It's pretty amazing. Wow, that is amazing. I mean, there was one year in 2007. He had four punt returns for a touchdown and two kickoff returns for a touchdown. Was that the year in the Super Bowl that he had the kickoff return on the opening kickoff in the Super Bowl? Or was that 2006 with the 2007 game against the Colts?

Yeah, that was the 2006 season. Devin Hester, 92-yard kickoff return to open up that Super Bowl in South Florida. He was special, man. All right, anything else? Actually, I've got one more thing. Roger Goodell just spoke at the league meetings, Tommy, and he said two things. John Kime just posted this.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell on the commander's sale, quote, I think we'll get it to a point where it's approved. close quote. That's a lot for him to say that. Yes, it is. You know, that's actually significant in my mind. Is it in yours? I mean, that's pretty much a commitment. Yeah. And then on a new stadium in Washington, the commissioner said, quote, I've had conversations with the mayor and with others in D.C. in the Washington, D.C. region. I understand the passion of the fans in Washington. That's something new ownership will have to address. I know new ownership will

be focused on it, closed quote. A good question would have been, what do you think of the dump-free site? All right. We are officially done for the day. I will talk to you on Thursday. I'll be back tomorrow. See you. See you, boss.