The Kevin Sheehan Show - Commanders, Tornadoes, and Girls Next Door

Episode Date: April 1, 2022

Kevin and Thom today on every Washington Commanders' story worth discussing including the latest on "financial impropriety-gate", the stadium, and next year's super-easy schedule. They also discussed Maryland's National Championship win over Indiana 20 years ago tonight. Add to that, they told some April Fools Day stories, talked Disney World trips, discussed last night's tornadoes and then somehow moved on to Helen Hunt, Elisha Cuthbert, and a "girls next door" analysis.  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 Cheyenne Show. Here's Kevin. Tommy's here. I'm here. So much to get to today.

We'll try to talk some football, but the team just won't let us talk about only football. We'll get to that. But it is April 1st, April Fool's Day, Tommy. And my father used to live for April Fool's Day. when we were kids, and my sister and I and my brother who was much younger were kids, he would come up with something every single year until we got too old and we figured it out. I actually pulled something on my boys when they were younger.

Was April Fool's Day a big day in your household at any point? Not really. Look, my kids would probably tell you that every day was sort of April Fool's Day, living with me. I pulled something on my boys. I want to say that they were probably like, you know, 10 or 11, 8, you know, 6, probably, you know, somewhere in that age. It was probably a weekend morning because I remember this being in the morning, so they weren't at school. And I had my wife go downstairs into the bathroom in our, what was kind of the kids' rec room, playroom area where the bathroom was. shut the door. And so the boys were up kind of watching TV upstairs. And I came up and I said,

oh my God, you're not going to believe this. I was outside downstairs off the laundry room and a fox ran into the house and it ran into the bathroom and I shut the door. Where's mom? And they're like, what do you mean? I go, where is she? Oh, that's right. She had to go to the store. Come down here real quickly. What are we going to do? I'm going to open up the door and you guys are going to try to shoe it out of the house. And, you know, their eyes were wide and the whole thing. And we get downstairs and my wife is like scratching on the door from the inside, making all of this ruckus. And so we did the thing where we got them close to the door. And I'm like, all right, ready? I'm going to open up this door. It's going to run out. You've got to try to. And they're like,

no, dad, we can't do that. What, what? We should call the fire department. I'm like, no, no, it'll be easy. You can just guide them outside. And we open the door. and my wife jumps out and Kenya screams, and we got him good. We got him so good. I don't think we ever had a chance to do that again because it was too good. But, yeah, my father always came up with something. Whatever it was, I can't even remember most of them, but he got us when we were younger. So I tried to carry on some of that tradition.

Meantime, happy birthday, Sean Taylor. Sean Taylor's birthday. Well, he would have been 39 years old today on April 1st. Rest in peace. Anyway, you got up really early this morning, didn't you? Yes, I did. I got up 5 o'clock in the morning, and I thought about you getting up at 5 o'clock because I know you got up earlier than that.

And I had to take my wife to the airport because the logistics, of it aren't worth explaining, but ultimately, she will wind up in Orlando tomorrow night, where I'll be tomorrow, because we're taking our granddaughter to Disney World and Universal Studios. Awesome. What about Epcot? Yeah. Not Epcot. That's, Epcot. That's like a science project. Epcot, that's nothing. Well, she might be... We got three. We got three. We got three days. Two at Universal, one at Disney. That'll be fun. I forget.

How old is your granddaughter? She's 13. She's 13. She's right. This is the edge. This is the edge. Yeah. This is the outer edge.

How excited is she? She doesn't know. It's a secret. Oh, awesome. Awesome. So you took Liz to the airport. Where'd you take her? BWI?

Well, yeah, BWI is our favorite airport. When we're used to, the easiest. one to get in and out of the least traffic. At least it seems to me. And she's flying out to get our granddaughter, and then they're flying tomorrow to Orlando. Where I'm flying to Orlando tomorrow, and I'll meet them there. So you don't have to fly all the way out to Spokane to pick her up.

That's what Liz is doing. You've done that before already. You've done the fly out and pick her up. When we get her for the summer, like for three or four weeks in the summer, one of us will fly out with together and one of us will bring her back right um well we won't get into the you know the disney controversy here over the last couple of days um because i don't feel like talking politics right now but that sounds like a phenomenal trip do you know um do you have fast pass you know do you have some of those fast passes so you don't have to wait in long lines at

Disney? I don't know. My wife handled all the arrangements, and she's kind of a cheese skate, so we probably don't. Well, I'm just trying to think. Here's the thing, right? It's April. This is spring break time. Oh, it'll be crowded. It's going to be so crowded, right? Although, I don't know. Well, yeah, in Florida, it's going to be so crowded.

There were... I think we did Disney with the boys. three times, although my youngest still to this day complains that he's never been to Disney. So the three trips that we made to Disney were before he became of age to go to Disney. And so the two older boys kind of benefited from being older on those trips,

and then we got tired of doing it so we just didn't do it because I know he has told me before, I've never been to Disney World. I wasn't on that trip. I don't remember. Why didn't you ever take me? Well, you know, whatever. You know, sometimes the youngest, you know, has to take the brunt of some of that.

It's kind of like college trips, got to the third boy, and he's like, aren't you going to take me on college trips? I'm like, you know, can't you just figure it out on your own? But we ended up doing college trips, although I think I've told this story before. The college trip was my wife said, you're going to take him to see colleges, right? Yeah, so I took some days off, and we went to Charleston, South Carolina, where he visited the College of Charleston. beautiful school. And then from there, we went and we played Kiowa's Ocean course. The next day we went to the Masters, the first round of the Masters.

And then we played Pinehurst number two on the way home. And when we got home, my wife said, well, how were the trips? What did you guys like? And I said, he really, he likes Charleston a lot. And Ryan's like, Charleston was really awesome. And, you know, well, what else? What about, you know, what about Wake Forest? What about the University of South Carolina?

What about whatever other schools? Elon, whatever other schools were on the trip. Some of you parents are listening, you know when you make that college, like, Southern trip, these are all the schools you end up visiting. Clemson, all of those. You know, he really liked Charleston. It was just one, I think out of everywhere we went this weekend in terms of the schools, he really liked Charleston.

We went to one school. and then played golf at Kiowa, went to the first round of the Masters, and then played Pinehurst on the way home. And by the way, he never went to Charleston. He didn't wind up going there, did he? No, he went to Penn State. He went to Penn State. But on the Disney World thing, the best Disney World trip we ever made

was in late September. We went in late September. my oldest was in school, you know, probably eight years old. My middle son was at that point five or six years old. And then Ryan, my youngest, was too young to go. So, you know, I think my mother, we stayed at my mother's or whatever. And we went down late September. And I'm telling you, the park was empty.

It was the perfect Disney World trip. The other two times we went were this time of year, spring break time of year. and it's just, it's so crowded. Now, you know, you're easy, although you're not going to want to wait in lines. I would urge you to figure out how to get, and I don't even know what the super, you know, line skipping passes are of the day. It's been years. I'm going to ask Scott, though, because Scott was down there recently with his kids, and he had all of those passes,

and he said it was like, you know, it made all the difference in the world. So I am going to actually, if you remind me, after this call, I'm going to reach out to him and Steve Sands, Steve lives in Orlando, and find out if they can help you guys with some of the fast past. Because seriously, if not, you're waiting in line for like 45 minutes to get on a ride. Okay, wait a minute here. You mean they didn't close the park for Scott Van Pelt? No, come on.

You mean they didn't say, we're going to close the park, and you don't have to wait on any lines for Scott? Steve actually might be the bigger help here because Steve is Mr. Orlando, even though he's Mr. Golf Channel and Mr. NBC Sports. And by the way, he listens to the podcast every day. And he will be on either the radio show or the podcast next week because we are a week away now, less than a week. Well, we're a week away from day two of the baseball season. By the way, is DeGrom now going to start it?

Did I see that he got hurt? He's getting an MRI. He may not start opening day. Well, would that be Scherzer then? Then we don't have to. It would be Shurzer then, I would think. That would be awesome. Then we don't have to, you know, then you don't have to have Apple TV to see Shurzer on night two.

But we are next week in Masters Week, and there's a chance that Tiger Woods is going to play Augusta, which would really be one of the incredible sports stories of the year. I know you don't care. but Sands will join us next week at some point, radio or TV in preparation for Augustine. Scott's going to be down there all week as well. Actually, I'm going to see him tonight. But yeah, I mean, I think that you, especially with, you know, I know that sometimes you go along to get along or you'd like to have people believe that you are that.

But if you're standing in a third or fourth straight line to go on some ride, which you won't be doing. You'll be, you know, sitting over there with your turkey leg on a bench, watching Liz and your granddaughter in line. But when it's that crowded, you've got to have some of those fast track passes or whatever they are called. It makes a big difference. Okay. We will look into it. I kind of left it to her, and I'm just assuming she probably didn't do that. Okay. Well, where do you want to start today? I mean, there's so much. I think we have to start with what I had to actually redo the beginning of the podcast yesterday on, and that is, you know, this story of financial impropriety. You know, we had,

there's now been a GOP response to this story from Congress, and I will read that as well. I had Andy, by the way, on the podcast yesterday. I would urge all of you to go back and listen to it. Andy was talking about, did you see the Facebook posts that he made about 30 years? Yeah, about 30 years at, yeah, at WTEM, yeah. Right. So we ended up talking a lot yesterday, and, you know, Andy was obviously there as the beginning. You know, the Rails brothers basically hired Andy to, you know, hire everybody else and start figuring out, you know, what the station was going to look like.

So it was actually a great conversation. And we both talked about afterwards. I don't think we did this on the air. But we're going to figure out, you know, and Andy's good at kind of organizing these things. You're actually very good at organizing things too. But Andy's like, all right, you, me, Tommy, Zabe, Doc, you know, Scott, C.J. We got to get everybody and do a dinner.

Scott Jackson, everybody, and do a dinner one night. It's been a while since all of us have been together. It's been a while for a lot of people to be together. Count me in. Okay. So don't forget to rate us and review us on Apple and Spotify. Thanks. So I guess, you know, let me just update everybody that, you know, isn't up to date on this story.

And then we'll get after it in terms of our response. So yesterday, you know, once again, you know, barely a day can pass by without something resembling controversy or scandal or something non-football related about the Washington commanders as they're. known. This one yesterday from the post, Congress investigating allegations of financial impropriety by the commanders. The congressional committee that is investigating the NFL's handling of widespread sexual harassment in the Washington commander's workplace is now also looking into allegations of financial improprieties under Dan Snyder's ownership, multiple people familiar with the proceeding said. Allegations came to late in recent weeks as the House Committee on Oversight and Reform reviewed more than 80,000 pages of documents.

and interviewed witnesses in its inquiry of the team's workplace stuff, and people with knowledge of this matter speaking on the condition of anonymity because proceedings are so sensitive or at the sensitive stage said this is what, you know, this House Committee on Oversight and Reform are now looking into financial improprieties. The investigation remains behind closed doors among the highest levels of the 45 person committee asked about the new phrase, the new phase, excuse me, several members of the panel indicated that they've heard speculation about it, but said it remains at such a sensitive point that they do not know details. Other members were completely unaware of this. Then there was this report

from A.J. Perez at front office sports, Tommy, a credible, a credible publication. They've had some stuff in the past, right? Yes. Absolutely. So this was kind of the follow-up from front office sports and the story written by A.J. Perez. A congressional committee is expanding the scope of its investigation into the Washington commanders

and is primed to use its subpoena power to delve into the finances of the team and owner Dan Snyder. At least one person familiar with the team's financial health was already interviewed by the committee's investigators who are now exploring whether the commanders used two books of financial information that paint different pictures of the team's money situation, sources with knowledge of the investigation told front office sports. The timing and the number of subpoenas, as well as who specifically will be targeted,

was not immediately known. Front office sports has learned some of what the investigators are seeking through a series of interviews most on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, or because details of the investigation have not been made public. Actually, all of the following details were clearly on the condition of anonymity, not most, because no one's attributed to any of this information in terms of a quote. So here were the three things that front office sports reported that Congress was looking into with respect to financial impropriety.

Number one, the debt load Snyder has undertaken could be impacting the team's finances. As we know, Snyder received a debt waiver from the league's owners at the NFL's annual meeting a year ago in order to finance a large chunk of the nearly billion dollars used to purchase the 40% of the franchise he didn't already own, as we know Tommy, Fred Smith, Dwight Schar, and Bob Rothman. You also reported, by the way, a year ago that in addition to the debt waiver, Snyder borrowed money from the league to buy out those minority shareholders. That was number one. So the debt load Snyder has undertaken, could be impacting the team's finances. Number two is the committee is seeking interviews and documents related to allegations

that the commanders use deceptive accounting practices. Per the NFL's constitution and bylaws, clubs are required to submit a certified audit report annually. Investigators also, the third point was, investigators also received allegations of pay disparity between male and female employees, including bonuses. Now, the team's response yesterday, And I read this on the show yesterday, but just for the purposes of updating everybody. The team is not aware of any investigation by the House Oversight Committee regarding financial matters, despite vague and unsubstantiated claims today by anonymous sources. The team categorically denies any suggestion of financial impropriety of any kind at any time.

We adhere to strict internal processes that are consistent with the industry and accounting standards, and are audited annually by a globally respected independent auditing firm, and are also subject to regular audits by the NFL. We continue to cooperate fully with the committee's work. Today, there was a GOP, hold on, I'm looking for it. I had it up here a second to go. Where is it? Here it is. This, a GOP oversight committee spokesperson on the latest investigation into the command.

This is GOP oversight spokesperson Austin Hacker. Quote, the leak of one-sided, unconfirmed, unsupported allegations from a disgruntled ex-employee with an axe to grind is just further proof that the Democrats' investigation is a waste of Congress's time. Nothing the committee has heard from any credible witness points to any financial improprieties. In fact, the only credible witness in a position to know the facts the Democrats have heard from has denied any such improprieties. proprieties. The Democrats' investigation is nothing more than an attempt to draw attention away from their parties' abysmal performance, both in the White House and

Congress. The American people deserve better oversight from Congress. Let me just say one thing about that, okay? The ending of it. You should have quit while he was ahead. I agree with that. Does anyone really think that the Democrats are using

the investigation into the Redskins to the commanders? to call attention away from Joe Biden and the Democrats in the White House and in Congress. This is their diversion. No, there are a lot of diversions out there, but I don't think this is one of them. So I agree with you on that. All right. So I'll let you.

You should quit while he was head. All right. So I'll let you take the first swing on this latest, you know, story and report. Well, you know, I'm curious, because there's still some people out there that, you know, operate on the concept, the legal concept, which is a moral concept as well in our country of innocent till proven guilty. But I would think that based on, you know, getting pounded over the head, like you said, like it's not just weekly, it's almost daily.

With one thing after another, after another, you have to shift what your moral compass with this team and operating on the premise, well, yeah, of course they did this. They're the commanders. Of course they did this. And they did that. And they committed this crime and and screw this guy because that's what they do. I mean, so I mean, I think, you know, you have to reverse the process that this country was founded on, the legal system of innocent to proven guilty when you deal with this organization from now on. You have to operate on premise. Of course they did that.

Proof us, prove they didn't. You know, however unfair that is. Okay? The second thing is, you know, you ever have a company called Enron? Yes. Okay? Yeah, we have a company called WorldCom. Yes.

For Wells Fargo. Yeah. All these companies, high ranking, you know, big fur businesses. Cook in the book. All kinds of auditors, all kinds of auditors, you know? I mean, Arthur Anderson was a respected, you know, a financial auditing company and went out of business because of Enron. So, you know, don't tell me that our books are audited. You know, that means nothing to me.

That's my thought. I know, and here's the other thing. And I heard you talk about a little bit about this on your radio show, because whenever I'm up that early and I'm driving, I'm going to listen to your radio show. Right. Of course, because I enjoy it. And, you know, I heard you talking about, you know, like it kind of like goes away from what the, this financial arm of it goes away from what the focus seems to should be. And that the, you know, the sexual misconduct charges.

And I would say that I would say that in an investigation, at least at this stage, you want to expand it as much as you can. Okay. You want to expand. Maybe for publicity purposes is not the best, but I think you want to reel in as much as you can to get as many people talking. So you don't want to open every door you can, you can open, until the point is where you've got to narrow it and come to a conclusion.

But at this point, look, remember, they're still interested. We haven't heard anything about the Gruden emails. I mean, that's what sparked this whole thing. The Brun-Brewfound email. We haven't heard anything about that. So I'm assuming they're still interested in that as well. So I just think that they're just expanding their investigation. I have no idea of the credibility or the strength of any of these financial issues

that they're talking about. And of course, it was leaked. I mean, the only people, who else would know about this? Except a handful of people on the committee. Yeah. So, I mean... And it is D.C. and people leak everything. So, with respect to what you just said,

my point was, you know, it was part of an overarching theme, which is, just be careful. Don't overreach on something where there's nothing there because, you know, you're going to give people the impression that the core thing that you were investigating, you know, might have some wobbly legs to it. And you could ultimately create some empathy for this guy, sympathy for this guy. But by the way, by the way, back to your first point, I agree with you. And we've talked about this for years now. You

assume the worst with this team, and they've earned that. Okay. They've earned over there, over the course of the 22 and a half years of Dan Snyder, you know, to believe anything horrible said or reported about them. The problem with this one is I don't even know what they're being reported. I don't even know what's being really reported on. And that's a little bit of my frustration. And again, more information might come out. But we're kind of where we are yesterday to a certain degree with the exception of I didn't have the front office sports report yesterday. But let me start with this. I mean, I just, I can't get over the Ron Rivera earlier this week down in Florida saying, you know, we're an easy target. I'm tired of it. And basically, in his own way, pleading

Tommy for everybody to just focus on the football. You know, and the few of you out there that really kind of off on all of this where you kind of blame the media for all of this, which is absurd, right? But literally since Ron Rivera's plea on Monday, and you could tell in his voice, if you listen to that, there is definitely some emotion and frustration because I do think they believe they're doing some decent things on the football side. And whether you agree with that or not, it's more competent football-wise than it was. But he's never going to get away from the fact that he's working for Dan Snyder. And Dan Snyder has this black cloud hanging over him, which, by the way, all the dust that he's kicked up created the cloud.

Like it's all self-inflicted. And he's, you know, he decided, you know, with maybe a nudge from Gibbs with a bit of a warning to take this gig, and I understand a lot of what happened after he took the gig, the pandemic, the name change, the post, you know, reporting that led to all of the sexual assault, you know, investigations, etc. You couldn't see it being this bad, but we know that, you know, while it didn't maybe happen every day or every few days, it was certainly happening every few months, you know, before Rivera got here. You know, there are one or two big ones a year where you're like, Jesus Christ, get rid of this guy. And we're not even talking about the results in the field.

I just would love, like, I'm sure Rivera got back from Florida this week and said, Alex Smith said what on the Rich Eisen podcast? And then said what? The post is reporting what? Oh my God. What are we doing here? I mean, seriously, because he's a decent person. I really believe that.

And, you know, you can go back to the Jerry Richardson stuff. and I get that, you know, and all of that. But the bottom line is, especially given that he beat cancer, you know, just over a year ago, I don't know how much more of this he's going to be able to take. But anyway, that's the first thing that I thought of. The second thing is, it's the same thing I thought yesterday. It's like after I read the posts and even after I read the details of the front office story, it's like, so what did they do?

Like, what's going on? So the debt that Snyder's undertaken could be impacting the team's finances. Well, no shit. Of course, anytime you take on that much debt, you know, it's going to impact the team's finances. So the committee's seeking interviews and documents related to allegations that the commanders use deceptive accounting practices, you know, that there are two books. Okay. That kind of sounds serious.

but I don't really know what that means. I mean, I understand Enron. What was the guy's name? Did he commit suicide, Kenneth, whatever his name was? What was that guy's name? The Enron guy? I don't remember. After that, did he commit suicide?

Whatever. I don't remember. I don't know. Okay. But anyway, you know, I, there might be something there. You know, maybe they provided fraudulent numbers to the three months.

minority shareholders as part of the, you know, way to get to a final price on the team. You know, maybe somehow they're providing something to the league. But by the way, that's not Congress's purview. That's not something that Congress, are they going to hand it over to the DOJ? It sounds more like, you know, I talked to somebody about this yesterday and they said, I listen to your podcast. You're right. This isn't something that Congress would deal with.

This would be settled in court or, you know, more likely not than not. in a civil case between the minority shareholders. But you need a plaintiff. You need a plaintiff in court. Okay. Who's going to, I mean, who's hurt? Say again, who's hurt? Did you say hurt?

No, it's like, who's the injured party? Well, I don't know. In this specific example, we might be saying that the three minority shareholders, you know, overpay, you know, or didn't get enough for their share based. on the numbers that were provided in terms of the financial health of the company or the team. But, you know, all of that stuff gets funneled through the NFL. All of these sales aren't made just between Dan Snyder and the three minority shareholders. They waived the debt limit for them.

They loaned them the money to do this. And then the third thing, investigators also received allegations of pay disparity between male and female employees, including bonuses. Well, is that a shock to anybody that? Female employees may be getting paid less than male employees. So anyway, my second reaction was, I don't know where the real substance here is. By the way, I'm not saying that I'm right on this. There isn't anything that jumps out and it's like, whoa, tax fraud. They could get them on tax fraud or, you know, whatever.

Again, I could be wrong. I could be missing something and more information could come out, you know, after the fact. But that leads me to this, and that is, and again, the two of us were hardly Dan Snyder, sympathizers, or defenders. And by the way, I hope, let me be really, really brutally honest and transparent. I hope there's something that they can get them on. I hope there's something that Congress found in their investigation of the sexual harassment stuff for the purposes of improving HR or whatever the, you know, the big goal of doing this is for Congress that can go to the, you know, that could result in some sort of criminal charge. It could cause him to lose his team.

I hope that's the case. I wouldn't bet on it. But here's the point that I felt yesterday just in my gut. And that was, you know, just be careful. I'm not saying that anybody's ever going to actually have sympathy for him. but the Tiffany Johnston accusation of a hand on a leg underneath a table and a nudge into a limousine. The reason they were so quick to denounce it and basically open up, attempt to open up their own investigation of it is because they saw an opportunity for a result that would give, because he thinks she's a liar or they don't think they could prove it. And so they're looking for these PR wins so that if they won that one, they could say, see, all of this stuff is bullshit.

And the NFL obviously shut that down and said, you're not investigating yourself. We'll handle that. And so if Congress starts to overreach and this stuff is kind of, you know, a leak, you know, Neal and Rockville was on with me this morning and I love him dearly. But he actually mentioned something that kind of makes sense. This guy, Jeff Connolly, who's on this House, you know, Oversight and Reform committees of Virginia. guy. He doesn't want the stadium there. He doesn't want the 350 million committed, which are going to vote on Monday. You know, the leak could have come to sort of, you know, somehow impact the stadium vote in Virginia. Whatever it is, be careful because if you start reaching for stuff, overreaching,

and there's not a lot of substance to it, you know, and then all of a sudden you give him a couple of PR wins, you know they'll take that and run with it. And then all of a sudden people start to say, what's going on here? You know, we don't like them. We hope all this is true. But what's going on here? That was my only, you know, the only point about the, you know, moving off of the core goal, which is the sexual, you know, the sexual misconduct and, you know, the atmosphere, the misogynistic workplace culture in Washington, and focusing on something unless they really have something.

I don't think it's possible to overreach with this. organization. I don't think it's possible. Again, the one of Leverro's rules. If things look bad from the outside, they're usually much, much worse. So I don't think it's possible to over-reach with this thing. I think that you need to dig and raise every kernel you can because every, every kernel could turn into a boulder with this organization. Yeah, but what if seven reaches? What if seven What if seven reaches fail? In 20 years, how many attacks have been on Dan Snyder that he turned around and used to his advantage?

I don't know. Not many. Not many, if any. That's true. It's a risk, it's an easy risk for me if I'm them. But wouldn't you agree this is the most bloodthirsty environment of a lot-thirsty environment of a lot? all time to get him? Yes.

So what if they swung and missed on three or four of these things? You don't think that that could? No. Okay. I think that, I think that, you know, whatever they find will be worse than what we know. What we know a month from now about Dan Snyder will be worse than what we know today. Okay. Look, I remember one other thing.

And I never forgot this. You know, John Moog is a very important power broker in the state of Maryland. Right. He used to be chairman of the Maryland State Authority. He's a financial advisor. He was advising and representing the three minority owners. I remember. In this deal, you know, to get them bought out by Snyder.

And him and Snyder had a big, you know, set to via tech back and forth. and there was always this text I never forgot from Moog if you continue your game you know what I know and what I have never spoken about and you know it has nothing to do about the media s media shit

it's the more serious shit if you want to get it to a clean conclusion let me know if you want a shift show we are on for that too okay John Moog's talking about? Well, I remember, as you were reading it, I remember when you brought up his name,

that there was the minority shareholder representation. I also think that there was a Bezos connection to MoG, if I don't, if I recall correctly. But beyond that, if he wasn't talking about all of the sexual harassment stuff, I don't know what he was talking about. But the bottom line is the three minority shareholders drop their lawsuit against Dan Snyder and accepted the deal, which Moog probably brokered on their behalf. Yes, probably. You're probably right. We may never know what John Moog was talking about, but if he wasn't talking about sex, then he was talking about money. Sex, drugs, money, and rock and roll. And it probably wasn't rock and roll. Um, Although, you know, he did request you too, apparently, to go with the cheerleader video,

the special cheerleader video he got. He wanted music behind it, if you recall. You know, the, you just reminded me of something, and what was I going to say off of that? I guess, well, it's a couple of things. Number one, the leaks. Congress leaked this more likely than not. Who knows? Maybe the NFL leaked it.

Maybe just everybody's in this. Yeah, perhaps. In this bloodthirsty environment of just wanting him to, you know, to get to get to this point where he bails. Like, but he's not going to, Tommy. He has already shown us the calls from lawyers to you and others. He didn't get fine. The team got fined. He wasn't suspended.

We've seen him dig his heels in even further. So the strategy of going after him and annoying him and harassing him, if you even want to describe it that way, you know, and the potential of him appearing in front of Congress, he's just digging in his heels further. Why? Because he's a narcissist and he doesn't think he's wrong. He doesn't think this is anything about him. So that strategy isn't going to work. Secondly, the leaks, my God, what if they did come from him? You know, what if the original, the Bruce Allen stuff and John Gruden's stuff, which really rekindled all of this? This, this. This, this. This stuff was dying on the vine, if not dead already.

And what if, you know, somebody associated with him, they've denied it, they've denied it, and there are other possibilities, including league people and, you know, the league itself. Remember, that was the Charles Robinson Yahoo theory, I think. But what if it was? But, again, but let's divide those up, just so we're clear. There's two sets of leaks, one would follow the other. The first leaks came from the Wall Street Journal. That's right.

And the second leaks came from the New York Times. Right. And the theory is the New York Times leaks came from the league because they felt that Gruden was such a damaged figure from the Wall Street Journal Leaks that they wanted to make sure the Raiders forced got rid of them. And the Wall Street Journal story was the one that first talked about the comments he made about the head of the players' unions.

Demarest Smith. And the writer that wrote that story was the writer that had written Beaton, was it? Was that his name? Andrew Beaton. Andrew Beaton, who had written that embarrassing puff piece on Snyder a few months earlier. And a few months before that, the Washington football team made a big hire of some high-ranking communications official who used to work for Dow Jones. Right. The company that owns the Wall Street Journal.

Right. Exactly. Yeah, that was, what's his face? The guy that's there still now. Yeah. I'm forgetting his name. That's okay. We don't need it.

They've got the guy, you know, Rush that was down at the league meetings who came from, you know, was the CFO of Rock Nation, the JZ thing. And then there was the other guy. Maybe he's the one that left recently. Trying to keep track of all of this is. really hard. But, you know, back to the leak thing, it really would at the end of the day be so poetic if it actually was Snyder or somebody associated with Snyder that leaked that initially to the Wall Street Journal to get back at Bruce, to embarrass Bruce, and it basically reignited all of this. It really would. Because...

But again, it fits his M.O. I mean, he is a self-destructive individual. Right. People who are as petty and who live in a world that he operates, that he thinks exists will always self-destruct. This is the aura of self-destruction. This is what I've been talking about for years. You know, that's black cloud. I know.

That's the aura of self-destruction. Now, it's not, the point is not to embarrass Snyder or to make sense. or to make it so distasteful that Snyder would leave, that's never going to happen. The point is it would make it so embarrassing to be in business with Dan Snyder that, like Anheiser-Busch, you get out of business with Dan Snyder. That's the point of all this. The point and the point of it is to get the NFL at some point to come to that conclusion. And again, that may not happen until Roger Goodell is.

forced to sit in a chair in front of that committee on televised hearings to defend Dan Snyder where they come to that conclusion. But it's not to get, Snyder's not leaving. But they can't take away. They can't take away his team just because he's a terrible owner in ruining a market either. I think there's got to be provisions in ownership that, Look, I think they could take away his team for any reason they want, to be honest with you. Okay.

I mean, the other thing, you know, that we haven't talked about, and I, you know, just referred to moments ago since you came on earlier in the week, is just, you know, the Matt Paris report in your newspaper that Snyder has been back, you know, working day to day, which, you know, is sort of in conflict with what Goodell said the other day. To be honest, me, that whole thing about fine, not fine, suspended, not suspended, you know, the bottom line is the league wanted to do more and Snyder said try it. Just try it. You know, so there's a lot of, you know, part of why, first of all, I want to make sure one thing clear.

I'm not, I disagree with you. I think this financial story right now, if I had to wager, I would, wager that it doesn't amount to much and that it was a swing and a miss. And I'm not saying it's going to really hurt them, but I would say if you had four or five of those swing and misses, it could start to hurt and help Dan, which is really a reach. I understand that. The other thing back to the, you know, has he been allowed to be in the building, whatever, there's a rift there, and they appear to be afraid of coming out and saying, we wanted to suspend him or we wanted to find him, or, you know, he's not allowed to be in the facility,

because they waive the debt limit for them. They loaned them money. Let's not forget about that either. As much as they hate them and they want him gone, which is true, they're also like borderline afraid of them. that it that's inexplicable to me do you agree with it or not i i agree with you i mean their actions would indicate that they cower to him you're right that your actions their actions would indicate that and uh i i mean i find it hard i find a hard to believe this is just based on you know the owner saying their book with a grace of guy go i and not want to kick anybody at

or club for fear they'll be kicked out someday as well. I can't believe it comes down to something as simple as that. Why not? It often does. You know, it's, again, if this were in this day and age, obviously it should be in any day in age, if this were about racism or if this were about, you know, homophobic or if this were about a true sexual assault, you know, you. you know, then you can't avoid it.

But other than those biggies, it's like, be careful because he's come, and they know this guy, we know he sued the city paper. He sued old lady season ticket holders. He's litigious as hell. And if they tried to take away his team for just being a horrible owner, which all of those people would agree on, it's going to be in the courts forever, I guess. I don't know. probably would.

He certainly wouldn't leave on his own, you know, willingly. I mean, I do come back to one thing. But again, here's what we don't know. We don't know what's in an agreement to own an NFL team. Because that would tell you there are certain things you agree to, and we don't know what they are, and some of those things you agree to are ways they can get rid of you. I also think you're not allowed to.

Every agreement. Isn't there also something we've read before that where you really can't sue the other owners, even though Al Davis did it for years? Yeah. I've read that too. I've heard that too. Again, people who cover the league who know more about this than I do have written that, that you can't really, owners can't sue other owners. But they seem to have a fear of what this guy will do. They certainly can't admire them.

They can't just say, wow, you know, this guy, he's had a rough 20 years, but I could sense he's about to turn it around. Well, yes. And I also think that, you know, some of this could have to do with him giving up the name. You know, there may have been some sort of quid pro quo. It's like, you got to bail on this thing, dude. We don't agree with it either. Now you got FedEx, you got PepsiCo, you got Bank of America. You know, we're in a world where, you know, it can't handle it right now.

You're going to have to do this, and we'll have your back on some of these other things. I don't, you know, some of that could be part of it, too. Because God knows. It could be. And I tell you what, the thing that may ultimately get him, and I've heard somebody I know in the business in the league has speculated this to me privately. the most important thing an owner does, as far as the NFL is concern, is get a new stadium. The most important thing they do.

Yeah. And if he screws this up, that may be the thing that drives them out. All right. Well, let's talk about that, because we haven't talked about that this week, and some of the reporting that came out from the guy from WUSA TV 9, Eric. Yes. I'll pull it up. I have his last name here somewhere. my fault. But we'll read through that, comment on that. Also, Tim Murray sent me something a little

while ago about what Warren Sharp, Warren Sharp spent a long time sort of NFL analyst and, you know, about Washington's schedule this upcoming season. We'll get to that. Also, 20 years ago tonight, Maryland won their lone national championship. Final four discussion as well before the end of the show, right after these words from a few of our sponsors. Eric Flack is the guy from WUSA TV 9. He's been doing a really good job on the stadium reporting stuff over the last, you know, month or so. And actually, as we're recording this, you know, I just pulled up his Twitter and he's breaking news right now. He interviewed in a one-on-one interview with Jason Wright today, and he tweeted out the following.

during a one-on-one interview with Washington Commander's President Jason Wright. Jason Wright revealed the new stadium will have a dome, but he will not commit to being out of FedEx Field by 2027 when the lease is set to expire. You can't close the door on anything at this stage, said Jason Wright. Eric Flack also wrote, Wright also made clear the team does expect a financial investment in some form wherever it builds a new stadium, but it's not about giving Dan money

and it's not inciting a bidding war. It's just actually the due diligence of finding the proper site for stadium vision. Oh boy, here he goes sort of talking in. Okay, I think I understand what he's saying there. I'll go back and read his report from earlier in the week here in a minute or two. I'm not going to sit here and break my own arm

patting Tommy on the back. But God, everything is pointing now more and more to perhaps land over. I want to make one thing clear. I think I'm clear on this. I think this is accurate. They can stay with FedEx Field on that spot for as long as they want. They were committed for 30 years. They own the land.

He owns the land. He owns the stadium. The lease was to play there for a minimum of 30. years. By the way, that was so that PG County and the state of Maryland could, you know, make sure that whatever their investment was in the stadium and in the infrastructure, you know, that they get 30 years out of it. But this is becoming more and more possible, if not likely, that they're going to play in FedEx Field longer than we think. The dome thing, I'm not a big fan of the dome thing, but, you know, they're going to have to turn this into,

I think it should be a retractable roof, but that I guess is, more money. But Maryland is not going to give them any more money. This has been made clear by Hogan in the past. And I don't know about PG County. They're going to give them infrastructure money, but they're not giving Dan one penny for the building of anything around there other than infrastructure, which is a lot less than what Virginia's, you know, potentially offering. Am I right about that? Yeah, and again, the whole Virginia scenario, which I find humorous on so many levels, there's a long way between, you know, a bill of, you know, offering to put up $350 million or $300 million in financing and a stadium. There's a long way between those two things.

look, you're right. I mean, they could play in FedEx Field. So there's no, I don't understand there to be any particular deadline that they have to leave. They don't have to leave. I think you're right. I've maintained all along. The bills just announced they're building a new stadium, right next to the old stadium, okay, where the Giants built their stadium and the Eagles built their stadium.

It's the pass of least resistance. So that's, you know, what you've got to do is make accessibility to that stadium either through some kind of transit system, transit extension from the metro stop better. Right. And that would... That's the key.

And that might be the investment. That might be the investment from the state or the county, however that would work. Yeah. I mean, especially if they have bigger plans, and just a stadium there, you know, some kind of business complex there. You would want to be connected to the metro more than a mile and a half walk

from Morgan Station stop. So, I mean, I still think that that's where it's going to wind up, and it's not the worst thing in the world. I mean, I just, I mean, the best thing in the world, everyone agrees at RFK, but that's got the biggest roadblocks of all. I mean, you know, and so I just think that there's nothing wrong. It's not like, you know, he would have anything to be ashamed of that they said,

we're going to build a stadium on this plan that we own right next to the old stadium. And it's going to be part of a complex where ultimately it will be easier to get to the stadium for everybody. You know, Jason Wright's comment that he's not going to commit to being out of FedEx Field by 2027. when the lease is set to expire, confirms that they don't have to leave in 2027. I just want to be clear on that. Look, they own the land, they own the stadium. So all it is, if the lease runs out in 2027, all it is is the landowner, the stadium owner, doing a new lease with the team.

Well, it's the same group. It's Snyder. They own the land. They own the stadium. And they're also the tenant. So they can stay there as long as they want. you've made it clear. Like I think, you know, they offer some infrastructure dollars the state of Maryland does.

They improve, you know, the metro access. They build some sort of new road or a bridge or a tunnel or whatever it is. And boom, that's their investment. Whereas Virginia is offering, well, we'll find out on Monday or Tuesday or whenever that vote is, if they're going to commit $350 million to the team, because that would be a much larger commitment than the state of Maryland. And right now, the D.C. thing, you've been telling me this for a while.

I've talked to one or two people over the last couple of months. They essentially said, as much as Muriel Bowser might want the team and some members of the council might want the team, it's problematic because not everybody wants the team. And that land, the RFK land is owned by the Department of Interior, by the federal government. And they're not going to get taxpayers, DC to pluck nickel one down other than infrastructure stuff.

I would think, though, that the infrastructure stuff for DC is much easier because the metro's right there, you know, the armory. But so let me go back to what Flack reported earlier this week. You know, his report was that they had slashed the billion dollar commitment to 350 million. And then there were these two quotes, which were really interesting. one state senator who asked not to be identified so that he could speak freely on the issue. Boy, there's a lot of anonymity when it comes to speaking about the football team or Snyder or anybody else.

Yes, there is. Not from us. No. Not from us, right? No, no, although we put our name on everything. Yeah, I'm going to, there's something that you did tell me before the show that I'm going to have on next week's show where I'm going to say somebody on the condition of anonymity told me. I'm kidding. This first quote from this state senator on the condition of anonymity,

public reaction to this project has been underwhelming. With every passing day, it's evident the team lacks gravity. And then that state senator said, quote, a lot of us have concerns that the team has the ability to stay viable for a decade or even five years close. quote. So let me make sure I have this right, because somebody explained this to me recently. The Virginia offer of, you know, potentially, and they're going to vote on this next week. You know, this is the final passage of this bill. And you can elaborate a little bit more on,

you know, the passing of this bill of $350 million in commitment and then eventually getting an actual stadium plan going with the rest of the money. You can talk about how difficult that is because I think I have. a vague understanding of that. But this $350 million commitment is essentially going to be handled through the selling of bonds. You know, essentially they're going to, you know, they're going to invest the $350 million based on future tax revenue down the road that will pay for, you know, the bond, the bonds that they take out to generate the $350 million, the bonds that they sell to generate the 350 million. And so what this state senator is saying is, essentially, I think he's saying, you know,

are we going to be able to pay this thing back? Because this team isn't viable. This team lacks gravity. Well, I would suggest to this state senator, as bad as the team has been, as low as the attendance has been, as much as the interest has eroded, it's still a GD NFL team, okay? They're an NFL team. They're not going out of business. They're going to keep playing games in the new stadium that's built.

By the way, once that stadium is built, that's a commitment to obviously stay in the market, not relocate, which I've thrown out in the last couple of days because it's like, if nobody wants to build them a stadium, what's been the biggest driver of franchise movement over the last 30 years? It's a city not, you know, chipping in to build a stadium for the owner. You know, that's why Cleveland left for Baltimore. That's why San Diego left for L.A., etc., right? I don't think he's going to relocate the team,

although I wouldn't mind it if he did if we were guaranteed an expansion team right away. I would love that. Like Cleveland, like what happened in Cleveland. Yeah, like Cleveland. Although they did have one season without football. Well, yeah, they had more than one season without football. Why?

They had three years without football. No, no, it wasn't three years, was it? Yeah, they did they had to build a new stadium before they could have a new team. Was it three? I mean, they had, yeah, they played in a new stadium, the new Browns. They didn't play in the old stadium. Interesting. So I think it's about, I think they started in 99 and the Raven started in 96.

So I think it's a three-year-old fan. I'm going to look that up. That's fine. But just tell me this real quickly. This guy's That's hyperbole, don't you think, from a guy that just doesn't want this bill to pass? Probably, but he is right that there's not a lot of momentum. I mean, the first part of what he said is accurate, I'm sure.

You know, there's not a lot of momentum behind it. Of course, you're right, it's an NFL team. I mean, you're going to get your money. Yeah. They're not going to go out of business. No, but the first part, I think, is right. Let's talk about the $350 million for a second. By the way, you're right.

I mean, three years, 96, 97, 98. Cleveland didn't have a team. Okay. Yeah, because I covered the opening. Yeah, no, you're right. I don't know why I thought it was much less than that. Okay, go ahead. So, uh, the $350 million is like cat fair home from Shelly's.

I mean, the bills, our bills, are going to build a new stadium in Buffalo on land that they own, okay, that's going to cost an estimated $1.4 billion. Right. So that's almost, that's over a billion dollars more that Dan Snyder would have to come up with. Plus, for Jason Wright, it's going to be a dome stadium, which could add maybe another billion dollars to the cost. Is that what it is?

That's not what it is. I don't know. I know. Okay, let's say half a billion. Yeah. It's got to cost at least 500 million more to put a dome on a stadium. Okay. And then he's got to acquire the land.

Right? In Virginia. Yeah. They're going to have to acquire the land. Apparently there's some land at one of the sites that he already owns, I think. I don't. Okay. Well, let's operate on premises.

have to acquire the land. What are you getting to? What are you getting to? I mean, if Dan Snyder is going to have to come up with on his no own, if the Virginia deal, which as ludicrous, I think it ever happened, let's say it happened, you know, if they went through with it, and they give him the $350 million, he's going to have to come up with another... $2.7 billion. If $3 billion, well, $3 billion, the... the overall tag for not just the stadium, but everything else they want to do around it.

Because that's been a big part of it. You know, hotels, restaurants, a casino, you know, all of what would go around it. The billion, when it was reported that Virginia was willing to contribute a billion dollars, it was to a $3 billion price tag for one of those three sites, the Dulles site, the Woodbridge site, the Dumfrey site. So if it's still $3 billion in Virginia, and now the commitment's $3,000,

$50 million, which Michael Phillips, I think, totally nailed the fact that the reason they reduced it is they realized they were bidding against themselves. They didn't have to offer a billion dollars. They just needed to offer more than what Maryland was offering. D.C. is not offering anything, which was infrastructure in Maryland. So, you know, it would be $2.65 billion. He'd have to come up with on his own. Or that project.

So I'm getting your point. I'm getting your point. Yeah, I'm getting your point. Yeah. How's he going to come up with that? I mean, that's a, he's going to have, just for the. stadium alone, he's going to have to come up with well over a billion dollars. Yeah, if you're comparing it to Buffalo, it's going to be more than that because of just the land and the building and the expenses in a market like this versus upstate New York.

So let's just say it's a billion and a half more, you know, on his own. Yeah, no, I get it. The Pagoolas only have to come up with $350 million. The rest of it, Erie County and the state of New York are picking up essentially a billion dollars of the $1.4 billion cost. It's the reverse for Snyder with a higher price tag. Yes. So I don't know how he comes up. Obviously, he's a smarter businessman than I am.

Every businessman is a smarter businessman than I am. But that's a lot of change to come up with for people who really, for the most part, don't want to do business with you. that is you know it's a really good point that Tommy just made because I don't think people have thought about this you know this Virginia vote next week let's just say you got it we're going to give you 350 million of it and then Washington by the way it doesn't mean that Washington then accepts it and says Virginia's our partner let's make plans let's pick a spot let's start the zoning let's start the land buying all that whatever goes into it I mean my god it's a process you know, before you ever actually put a shovel into the ground.

At that point, to your point, okay, now we got to come up with two and a half billion plus to do what we really want to do. He needed a debt waiver and needed to borrow the money to pay off his minority shareholders. Now, one way to generate some capital was to clearly sell, you know, know another big minority chunk of the team. And I think that's going to happen anyway. But all that's going to do is pay off the loan that he needed to buy out his previous shareholders. So, yeah, I don't know.

Whereas in Landover, the cost is going to be much less. Yes, much less. Yeah. He has people there who, you know, they want him to stay there. you have to pay for the land, does have to go to public hearings, does have to deal with citizens fighting them, doesn't have to deal with any of that.

It's true. Which is what he'll face in Virginia, guarantee it. By the way, Michael Phillips. Virginia is a not in my backyard state. Michael Phillips did report today. From a Democrat in Fairfax, everything I'm hearing is that the Virginia Stadium bill

will pass when the special session opens Monday. But if for some reason it doesn't, whoa. You know, if it doesn't, it's this fear. Well, you know, I don't know. Maybe the constituents of that state and of Northern Virginia in particular, they don't want it. Maybe they don't want to give one penny to Snyder.

I mean, I would bet that if there was, if there were polling on this on what the actual constituents of Virginia, you know, if they want to. they want to give Dan Snyder $350 million? I can't imagine that more than 50% would say yes. I agree. I would agree. So, all right.

I wanted to, Tim Murray sent this to me earlier today. And I thought it was really interesting because for so many years, I've talked about, you know, in my own mind anyway, the fallacy of the schedule conversation, you know, the, you know, the looking at next year's schedule and saying, oh, win, win, win, loss, loss, you know, win, win, win. It just never works out because you really, the NFL's a, you know, week to week league, let alone, you know, year to year. And to do that is, is a joke. And I think most of you understand that, that when you, you know, you look at a schedule for the following year,

it's really hard to predict. Well, Murray sent me this thing that Warren Sharp put together. And I won't bury the lead. The lead is that the commanders have the easiest strength of schedule for the upcoming 2022 season. And at the same time, based on, you know, the real advanced metrics, not just records, okay, overall records, which is how you typically determine strength of the schedule at the end of a year, but using more advanced metrics, Washington had the most difficult schedule in 2021. So I, you know, looked into this a little bit and Warren Sharp from Sharp Football Analysis wrote this, you know, story yesterday. 2022 NFL strength of schedule, regular season, which teams have the easiest schedules

for 2022 based on projected win totals, the Washington commanders have the easiest strength of schedule for the upcoming 2022 NFL. season. So when I read that, and this was what Murray's point was to me, he's like, look at what his, you know, overall analysis is based on. He bases it on sort of Vegas win, you know, wind totals, you know, the over under wind totals. Remember we talked about this the other day, Washington's over under number of seven and a half, right? So let me just say, that's a much better way to evaluate an upcoming schedule than to look at last year's final records. That's a terrible way to look at it.

You know, Vegas, as you know, I believe, has the most knowledge and the biggest handle on any of this. So it's not a bad way to look at next year's schedule based on the wind totals, the projected wind totals in Vegas. Now, he doesn't say here which, you know, Vegas sports book he uses. I don't know who he uses. Maybe he uses an average of a lot of different ones, maybe. I don't know. But the point is that, first of all,

one of the reasons it's so hard to look at a schedule and say hard or easy is you don't know really if those teams are going to be as good as you think they are, and then you don't know when you're going to catch those teams. When you play those teams is sometimes just as important, if not more important as who you're playing. Look at Washington next year. They have the Cleveland Browns on their schedule next year.

Are they going to get the Cleveland Browns with Deshawn Watson at quarterback? Or are they going to catch the Cleveland Browns with Deshawn Watson being suspended? You know, and serving part of his six-game suspension. That's a big deal, you know, next year. Yes, it is. So, you know, are they going to get Aaron Rogers because they play the Packers next year? are they going to get Aaron Rogers, you know, healthy? Are they going to get Aaron Rogers banged up?

Are they going to play Kirk Cousins next year, which they do, with Kirk on a roll? Are they going to catch Kirk with a banged up offensive line? Because it's never Kirk's fault, Tommy. It's always somebody else's fault. Just ask me. But it's interesting. Now, here's the one thing that I want to make sure everybody's clear on. So this guy Warren Sharp, you know, using projected win totals from Vegas to determine schedule strength for next year, which is a better way to do it rather than what the final records of the teams were last year, much better way to do it.

I just want everybody to understand this, that remember, the teams in the NFC East all have almost the exact same schedules with the exception now of three games and a 17 game schedule. used to be two games. It's now three. You know, they play the same AFC division. They play the same NFC division. They play the same division games against one another. And then there are three different games. They play the team that finished in the same spot in their own division, in the two divisions in the NFC that they're not playing the whole division of,

and one division in the AFC. For Washington this year, the schedule, they're playing the NFC North, they're playing the AFC South. And then that's what all the NFC East teams play. And then the Washington three games that are different from everybody else's are the 49ers on the road, the, the Falcons at home, and the Browns at home as well. Remember, the NFC gets nine and eight and eight next year. They got eight and nine last year in terms of home to road. But I want to make sure that everybody understands.

That's great. You know, according to Warren Sharp, they've got the easiest schedule in the United. NFL. But by extension, the fact that they basically play for the, you know, for the most part, the same schedule as everybody else in the division plays with the exception of three games. That means the other teams in the division are playing an easy schedule as well. And per Warren Sharp and the projected totals, and again, the difference would be three games, the Eagles have the third easiest schedule in the NFL, the Cowboys have the sixth easiest schedule in the NFL, and the Giants based on projected Vegas win totals next year,

have the eighth easiest schedule in the NFL. So if you get giddy over the fact that based on the Vegas totals next year, Washington's got the easiest schedule. Don't forget the other three teams in the division basically play almost the same schedule, and all three of those teams have top eight easy schedules, Philadelphia at three, Dallas at six, the Giants at eight. So just letting everybody know that, you know, Great, it's easy, but the other teams in the division have a very easy schedule on paper based on projected win totals as well.

I don't know if that made sense. But you know what the other teams don't have? Carson Wentz. That's right. They don't have Carson Wentz. I got no questions about Carson Wentz. No question. Yes, you do.

And I do too. But, you know, we'll see. We'll see. All right. Now it'll play out. Up next, 20 years ago tonight, Maryland won their only national championship. More on that, when we come back right after these words from a few of our sponsors. That's off to this Hoosier team and its team effort and its humble coach, Mike Davis,

a wonderful run to the championship game. But when you're not playing your best, and you can still be a champion. That's a real tribute to a bunch of players, and that was the case for Maryland tonight. Maryland will get to end the game with the ball in their hands. Give it to Dixon. He deserves it.

It's his shining moment, and for all the Terrapins as well, a first-ever national championship. The two seniors, part of more wins than four years than any time in Maryland's history just jump out each other. unusual game, outstanding champion. That was 20 years ago tonight, Georgia Dome, Maryland beating Indiana, 64 to 52 to capture their only national championship in men's basketball.

20 years ago, I had Gary Williams on the show this morning on the radio show. I would urge all of you to go listen to it, you know, at the team 980.com or you can download the Odyssey app. Gary was great. It was so funny. Yeah, I listened to it. He was really good. I mean, he, I played a lot of the sound from the game that, you know, he has never watched in full. And he immediately got his, you know, competitive juices flowing as he often does because he did not like the way Billy Packer called the game at all.

I think he really wanted to take on Billy Packer. And it's true because I watched the game a couple of times. and I went back and went through it yesterday as well. And Billy Packer was critical. You know what? It was an ugly game offensively for Maryland. Maryland was a high-scoring, fluid offensive team. They had scored 97 in the semifinals against Kansas, 90 in the regional final against Yukon.

And, you know, they really struggled, you know, in that game. And Billy Packer, you know, throughout the game said this is a really awkward game. And Marilyn and, you know, Gary heard some of that this morning. And, you know, he wasn't. very thrilled with it. It was great. No, he wasn't. He's going to be competing until he is gone. It's amazing how great he looks for somebody his age because he looks phenomenal. He's in great shape. And it takes very little for him to get, you know, really? Really?

All right, well, let's go play. He's ready to compete at the drop of a hat. But anyway, God, that was so great, Tommy, 20 years ago. I think I've told you. I enjoyed it a lot. Were you there covering it? No, I wasn't covering it, but watching it from afar. I know my boys were into it. It was a lot of fun.

I think I've told you this story before. The semi-final against Kansas was on Easter Eve, and my boys were young, and they were really excited about the Easter Bunny. So I did not go down there for the weekend because I wanted to spend Easter with the family. but I had a ticket and I had a plane ticket for Monday if they made it to the final. My brother was in town and Scott, you know, a bunch of us had tickets together and I was stuck at National Airport. I had like a four o'clock flight that would get me down there at 530, 545, whatever, jump in a cab, meet them wherever they were, have plenty of time to get to the Georgia Dome in the game.

And the flight had mechanical issues at the gate and was delayed and delayed. and delayed, and then finally, at like 630, 645, I bailed. I'm like, I'm not going to risk missing any of this game. You know, I'm not going to be in a cab driving to the Georgia dome and missed the first 10 minutes of the game. I just didn't, I wasn't going to do that. So I went home, and I ended up watching the game at home. I never, I did not go to the final. But I've mentioned this many times in the past. That championship is one of the greatest sports rooting moments of my life. You know, it was such, to be in that position on that Monday night after watching it for so many years was great. But I still have said, and I've said this before, going to the final four the year

before beating Stanford was the most emotional I've ever been as a Maryland fan, because making it to the final four, it's weird about that sport. Making it to the final four is celebrated, you know, almost as much as a championship is in some cases. And Maryland had had all those teams over the years going back to Lefty that we thought were final four teams. They had never made it, and Gary finally got the team there in 2001. That was incredible. And then beating Duke in the ACC finals, the ACC tournament finals in 2004, was incredible, too. But I'm not going to say that it tops winning it all.

That was a great night. Awkward game, big spot for Juan Dixon in the second half when Jared Jeffries gave Indiana the lead with 10 minutes to go. immediately answered on a pass from Blake with a three in the corner to give Marilyn the lead. Gary Williams getting very exasperated over there, Jim. He knows his team is playing a game that he's not familiar with. Another big position. Count the basket.

Indiana has its first lead of the final. And now nobody coming back. Look at how confused Maryland is. Newton almost picked off another one. What's the defenders? Back outside. Dixon for the lead back. Yes. Huge play. 45, 44, Maryland.

Juan Dixon's first field goal since the 10-03 mark of the first half. They never looked back and they won the game and they were national champions. It was amazing. I can't believe 20 years ago. What a different world it was back then, too, when you think about just everything. You know, social media and just everything. thing. And my kids were super young too, super young. I mean, my oldest remembers it and how exciting it was, but barely, you know, my middle son, I don't think really remembers it. My youngest son certainly doesn't.

Oh, my youngest son still remembers it. I mean, he used to pretend to be Juan Dixon and the other guys on the team. You know, I remember, I forget, I think it was Juan Dixon's sophomore year. I went to Cole Fieldhouse. They might have been playing Georgia Tech. I forget who they were playing. But I went to see Terrence Morris, who was the big dog from what I read. I had never seen him play. And he was a junior.

And Dixon was a sophomore. I wasn't getting that much attention yet. But Terrence was the guy. Yeah. You know, and I think they beat Georgia Tech or whoever it was. I remember writing a column saying, you know, Terrence Morris may be the guy who gets all the attention, but this is Juan Dixon's team. And he was a sophomore.

I mean, you could tell then it was his team. He had such a court presence and was so smart a player. I was so impressed with him then. It's funny. I remember, like, in his freshman year, my father saying to me, my father was a basketball coach, and my father saying to me, the kid Dixon from Baltimore, Baltimore, he's, he's going to be a prolific score. Just trust me on this. And this was like in his freshman year, Dixon averaged like seven points a game or something like that. And he was right.

I remember, I didn't see it. I saw the defensive quickness and he was so, but he was so rail thin. I mean, you know, Dixon at his best was probably 180 pounds. And as a freshman, and he was probably more like 155 pounds. But he had, he, he, he's the most clutch player to ever play for Maryland. He is the second greatest player, in my mind's eye. I think bias is the greatest player in Maryland history. Dixon's the champion. Dixon's the second best.

And then we can talk about who's third. However you want to put one two, I put bias one, Dixon two. And then I have John Lucas three, but it's, you know, it's a distant third from, Dixon and bias. But Dixon's the greatest clutch performer. And one of the just incredibly, as you said, high IQ players, he had just such a knack defensively of getting into pass lanes, picking off passes, and then took every big shot. And as Gary told me this morning, he never feared taking any of those shots. I asked Gary something this morning that I don't think I've ever asked him before and I said, was that your best team or your most talented team?

Because, you know, he's talked a lot about the Steve Francis team as being an incredibly talented team. And they lost Obina Akizzi before the ACC tournament. Their starting center that year. And Lonnie Baxter was only a freshman. And so they ended up losing to run our test in Eric Berkeley and St. John's in the Sweet 16 in 1999 as a two seed in a team that a lot of people thought had a chance to win a national championship or certainly go to the final four and they lost and it was incredibly disappointing because at one point that year they were you know they were ranked number two in the country for a significant portion of the early part of that season. Francis was just a star you know in that one year and people were talking about Steve Francis he was he was probably the

most exciting player in college basketball that year and and Gary had mentioned to me this morning he goes, look, the 2001 team, you know, he's like, we had Terrence Morris and Danny Miller on that team. You know, that team was really, really good. We didn't have either one of those two players. Now, we ended up getting Byron Mouton, who ended up being such a valuable player. And they were more experienced coming back. But, you know, Gary didn't say definitively that his national championship team was his most talented team. You know, the team that, you know, he thought would win at all. But, you know, they had the experience of going to the final four the year before. They had seniors with Baxter, Mouton, and they had, you know, a truly special player.

But they had a legitimate chance up 22 in the semifinals against Duke the previous year to win the national championship that year, too. That was a really good team. Really good team. Yes. Yes, it was. So, anyway, what else did I have for you? Bobby Wagner signs with the Rams for all of you that thought there was a chance. He wasn't going to sign you.

The rich get richer. Oh, I know what I wanted to end the show with. Last night, if you were up early and you were listening to the beginning of the show, you heard me talk about this. Last night, there was a tornado warning for where I live. You know, we've all lived with, you know, severe thunderstorm warnings and tornado warnings at times, but usually not exactly where you live. Last night, my wife says to me is I was watching television, are you seeing this?

And I picked up my phone, you know, tornado warning. And then all of a sudden they broke in with the, you know, the emergency thing on television. And they literally started listing neighborhoods. And one of them was our neighborhood that, you know, there was a tornado in northern Virginia, Tyson's McLean traveling 30 miles to the east. I live just in, barely into the district over the Maryland line. and literally they started mentioning neighborhoods, one of which I live in. And Doug Camer then is on TV.

By the way, he did a great job last night. I mean, he's good in these spots. And he's talking about how, you know, because he lives in this general area, too. He lives in Bethesda. And so he's like, this is heading right for us, including Channel 4 on Nebraska Avenue, which I live literally five minutes from, you know, where the Channel 4 studios are. It's the first time in my life, I believe, that I've actually ever heeded the advice and gone to the basement. Kara's like, it was just the two of us that were home.

She's like, should we go to the basement? I'm like, nah. And then all of a sudden they started listing neighborhoods. And she's like, no, we're going to the basement. And because I opened the door and I went outside and the wind was really starting to swirl. And, you know, it was nighttime. And there wasn't a lot of lightning. I think if there had been a lot of lightning, you would have seen like this.

sky. But anyway, netting it out, there were, and according to the Capitol Weather Gang this morning anywhere, anyway, and I guess the National Weather Service will confirm this. And maybe they've done that already this afternoon. Let me see if they've done that. But there were two touchdowns of tornadoes, one in Centerville and one at Tyson's. And there's video of the Tysons where they claim, if you look closely, there's a 30 to 50-foot funnel cloud at Tyson's corner. And as the crow flies literally from my house to Tyson's corner, it's probably like two miles max. So maybe not even that much, you know, over the river. So have you ever been, have you ever gotten to the point where you actually went to a basement?

No. No, I never have. God, it would have been. such a tragedy to have a weather event of all things be your demise. My demise. It would have been so unfair and so unjust. Have somebody who worship at the altar of weather like you do, go down with a strong wind. No, I've never experienced anything like that. By the way, the Capitol Weather Game just put out this video that I'm watching from Tyson it's a new video and yeah it appears as if you know there was a funnel cloud god it's wild you know

um weather is wild and uh i don't know if they've confirmed that that was an actual tornado but that is that that that's a tornado there that's going to be confirmed having touched down there i i usually as you know big snowstorms i'm out driving around in it right and and and and even with like big you know severe thunderstorms other than when they're heavy on the lightning i love being out there right before you know it comes through when the wind starts kicking up and the rain just barely starts. It's just kind of wild to be out there. And last night I did go out there

and then my wife's like, they just, did you hear that? They just mentioned our actual neighborhood, basically in D.C. that we live in and so we went to the basement and nothing happened. Anyway, you know, I do realize... You've seen... You've seen Twister, haven't you?

Of course. Yeah, of course. That's one of my favorite. favorite movies. What was I watching the other night? Oh, wait, what was, Helen Hunt's, obviously, the star of that movie with the guy that recently died. Why am I forgetting his name? Bill, Bill, uh, Bill Paxton, Bill Paxton. Is that it? Yeah, Bill Paxton. What a great actor. Great actor. Died, you know, really young. And Helen Hunt's in the movie, movie Twister, but the other night, the movie with Nicholas Cage and Kathleen Turner,

do you remember the movie Peggy Sue got married? Yeah, I think Francis Ford Coppulent directed it, I think. Is that true? I didn't know that. Well, for... I'm pretty sure. For whatever it was on... I remember the movie. I thought it was very entertaining when it came out. Yeah, I think it was a decent movie when it came out in the 80s. Anyway, it was on. I didn't invest a lot. I didn't invest a lot of time into it. I always thought Kathleen Turner was, you know, was, was, it was super hot back in the day. By the way, you know, she went to the University of Maryland. Kathleen Turner did. It was super, super hot. And what, what made her hot was not her looks also. It was the attitude.

Yeah, and the attitude and the whole thing. Yeah. She had that, I've smoked 20 packs of cigarettes today and garbled with razor blades. So what I, the reason that I just... And Francis Ford Coppula did direct it. He did. He did. Interesting. Yeah.

God, how old was Nicholas Cage at that point? Anyway, the reason that I just thought of that is because Helen Hunt plays Peggy Sue's daughter in that movie. And I saw her the other day. I'm like, that's Helen Hunt. And then I realized she's actually one of, you know, Kathleen Turner and Nick Cage's children in that movie. So Helen Hunt, the movie was from like the early 80s. Do you have the movie stuff up?

Because you must have looked it up because Francis Ford Coppola directed it. You just confirmed that. 1986. 86. Yeah. And Helen Hunt, I have a big crush on Helen Hunt when she was mad about you. And I consider Twister to be Helen Hunt's soft core porn. Really?

Yes. Why? Because she's soaking wet and she's in clothes and... Yes. Oh, God, yes. Absolutely. I think she's really, really cute and castaway. Of course, you know, it's just...

You know, she's one of these actors, actors, actresses that underwent a facial surgery, you know, plastic surgery and didn't turn out for the better. She does not look nearly Oh, that's a shame. I've not seen her in a while. That's too bad because I would describe Helen Hunt very much as kind of like a girl next door look, right? Oh, that's the way I envision her, but yeah.

Yeah, well, I didn't say that you couldn't envision a girl with girl next door looks in the way that you're thinking right now. She was attractive, but I guess the word would be, attainable. Not for you or me. Of course, you probably think you could attain it. But the girl next door description is, I'm just going to make up the definition here, is one that just seems like attainable, you know, something within reach, I guess, you know, more of a wholesome, kind of all-American kind of pretty. I don't know. That's the way I think of it. Who would be in the girl next door category?

Let's look up the girl. I love when we do this. Girl next doors. Well, this is the Gilgan's Island argument. Ginger or Marianne. Yeah, I just wasn't, you know. Ginger is the sultry, sexy goddess. Marianne is the girl next door.

Right. Yeah. I'll take the sultry sexy goddess. Yeah, I know which one you would pick. I kind of like both. What was the girl next door movie with What's Her Face, the Canadian that's just super hot that's married to the hockey player? Hell yeah, I know, I know, I know.

I know. I forget. Yeah. She's married to Brooks, Brooks White. Is she married to Brooks like? I think so. Why are we blanking? People are out there screaming right now. Joey Huff?

Julie Ann Huff? No, no, no, no. Alicia Cuthbert. God damn. I can't believe I didn't come up with that. Alicia Cuthbert. Who was she married to? She's married to a hockey player, I'm pretty sure.

Okay, why didn't know that? The movie was called The Girl Next Door. 2004. Amel Hirsch was the guy next door. Alicia Cuthbert. God, how old is she right now? She's only 39. She's married to Dion.

He's a hockey player. He's a hockey player that plays for, or he's retired now. He was a hockey player. And she was super smokeshow in that movie. I've never heard of any of these people you're talking about that. You've never heard. Look up Alicia Cuthbert. You know who she is when you see her.

Okay. But I just had a list of like the top, a list of the girl next doors. It was like somebody put together top 15 list, and now I just exited out of it. So I got to find it again. Sally Fields was a girl next door, right? Yeah, I think that's probably right. Yeah. No, it's the difference between cute and beautiful.

And, I mean, I think they're equal. I mean, I'm not disparaging cute. Like more attorney. More attorney? She's cute. Right. She's a girl next door kind of cute. here's a list.

Amy Adams is considered a girl next door. Oh, no way. I don't think so either. It's too hot to be a girl next door. Catherine Heigel is considered girl next door. No. Cameron Diaz is considered a girl next door. I don't think that at all.

I agree. Jenna Fisher is considered a girl next door. Yes. She fits that description. 100%. Yes. Absolutely. Who else is on this?

There's some names here that I'm not familiar with. Whatever. Who cares? Okay. Certainly. The people listening to this podcast don't care. Oh. Oh, wait.

another list. Let me see. Alicia Cuthbert number one. Okay. Eva Mendez is on the list. Carrie Russell. Boy, God, Carrie Russell and the Americans was so awesome. Yeah. See, I know. Yeah. I don't know who, I don't know who Susan Ward is. I'm looking at her right now. I don't know who she is. Sarah Romer. Anyway, the number one here on this list and then another list is Alicia Cuthbert on the girl next door. But of course, that's why she starred in the girl next door movie. You should watch that movie. It's a pretty good movie. Jennifer Lawrence, girl next door?

I don't think so, do you? No. Blake Lively's much more than a girl next door. She's number one on another list. No, she's super unattainable. Well, you know what, Tommy? With our confidence level, never count us. out. All right, that's it for the show. What are you doing next week?

Drop the mic. What's your schedule? I'm not with you until next Friday. Next Friday. Okay. Yeah, I get back from Disney World on Wednesday night and I'll be at opening day at Nats Park on Thursday. You know, I can call you from Nats Park for a few minutes on opening day if you wanted. You let me know. Okay, we'll figure it out. I'll be back with, you know, a national champion. a preview, the talk of the final four games. By the way, real quickly, on the radio show this morning, Mark Allerie was on with us. He was great.

Mark played for Coach Kay's first, you know, the class that saved Coach Kay, Allery, a part of that team with Billis and Johnny Dawkins and Tommy Amaker, et cetera. That was a really good ESPN film on that. Allery played for the bullets for several years, has lived in the area. Of course, he did.

He did. He did play for them during some of those years. I know. He's actually really, and I don't know him well, but I've been on occasion with him at places. Super nice guy. And I thought he had some really interesting stories this morning about Coach Kay, so you can go back and listen to that one as well. I like Villanova.

Neighbor Nick apparently likes Kansas, but Neighbor Nick was right last week. So maybe it's time we don't go against neighbor Nick. Villanova lost your second best score to that torn Achilles. Yeah, Justin Moore from DeMatha, and yet they're only a four-point underdog, which is kind of why perhaps neighbor Nick and others really like Kansas, which is why I kind of like Villanova. I cannot wait for the Duke Carolina game. It's going to be epic all time.

We're done for the day. This is too long of a podcast. Catch you guys on Monday. See you, Tommy. Enjoy Orlando. See you, boss. You said yesterday I want to be a leader for my school one more time. How do you put it in the words what this guy and all of these men behind you

mean to you on championship night? I can't put it into words man. I'm so proud of the coach. He took a chance for me. He proved a lot of people wrong. I love him for that. And these people back here, we worked hard and we were consistent in the whole year. And look where we are today. Mary is the sweetest sound in the world. I know you're the national champion. And you're the first fans in 74 to take your school, your alma mater, to a national championship. It's a great feeling. People involved. A lot of former players, a lot of assistant coaches, and the administration has to make that decision to allow us to be good enough. You got a job to do. You got to get a trophy and cut down some nets.

All right. Gary, great going. Gary Williams, very popular in the coaching ranks. There are a lot of men out there celebrating with them tonight, Billy.