The Kevin Sheehan Show - Cooley Grades Alex Smith

Episode Date: October 24, 2018

Kevin starts the show with a brief World Series game 1 recap, then talks about the Giants trading off parts of the defense and asks if they're packing it in. Cooley joins the show with an assessment of Alex Smith. Steve Buckhantz is a guest from Northern California, where the Wizards play the Warriors tonight. Plus, NFL Buy or Sell. <p> </p><p>Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices">podcastchoices.com/adchoices</a></p> Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You want it. You need it. It's what everyone's talking about. The Kevin Sheehan Show. Now here's Kevin. I'm here. Aaron's here. This show's presented by Window Nation. If you're in the market for Windows, call 86690 Nation or go to Window Nation.com and tell them that I told you to call. World Series Game 1 to Boston, 8 to 4, 3 hours, 52 minutes long. Ended a few minutes after midnight. 12 pitchers used. The sale, versus Kirshaw thing didn't really amount to much. Kirshaw gone in the fifth, sail the same. Kirshah didn't get much help, really, from his defense. The first batter he faced, Muki Betts, should have been taking a seat on a pop-up in foul territory that wasn't caught. That ended up, he ended up scoring in what turned out to be a two-run Boston first. You knew as soon as that was dropped that he was going to end up scoring. And he did.

They kept telling us throughout the broadcast, Joe Buck did, how caught. cold it was in Boston, but then said the temperature was 53 degrees to start the game. I'm like, that's not cold. Maybe cold to the L.A. people? Yeah, I guess that's the point he was trying to make. It got into the upper 40s at the end. Five of Boston's eight runs came with two outs. And a very interesting statistic that I read this morning, half of their 64 runs in this

postseason, 32 of the 64 have come with two outs, which really makes them all. awfully dangerous. Game two tonight, it will be more legitimately cold tonight in Boston, 42 degrees at first pitch, 30s before it ends. Chris Cooley coming up on the show today. Steve Bucanx will be on the show today. Buck is in Northern California for the Wizards and Warriors tonight. We'll do some NFL buy and sell also. This tweet, though, from Chris to sort of get the show started. Kevin, you've got to stop mentioning Kirk Cousins on your podcast. You were right. We get it. Now stop with the victory laps. He's not here anymore. First of all, I wouldn't say that there's any victory lap taking. And we're a long ways away from anybody being proven right on whether or not

he was worth the money. I think, you know, I think I was proven right that Kirk Cousins is a franchise kind of quarterback, a top 10 to top 12 type of starting quarterback. That's what I've already taken victory laps on. But Chris, I appreciate the suggestion, but I'll have to say no to never mentioning him again. First of all, Aaron and I went back yesterday. We checked the percentage of Kirk Cousins' discussion on this podcast, and we came out, you know, we added up all of the time, the aggregate amount of time of podcasting since we started in September, and the amount of time that Kirk Cousins has been either mentioned or a part of a conversation. And it comes out that he's been two-tenths of one percent of our shows since we started

in September. If you think we're making it up, we actually had the whole thing audited by Pricewaterhouse. So it was a very detailed analysis done, and it's not as much as you think it is. It isn't. But, you know, if you want to keep exaggerating it, look at what everybody else around the country is doing. You know what they talk a lot about? Kirk Cousins. You know why? He's a relevant NFL story, a relevant NFL story this year because of the contract that he got, because of what happened in Washington, because Minnesota decided to unload their quarterback for the new guy.

But anyway, Chris tweeted me because I said something on the show yesterday. And I said it sort of offhandedly, but I really believe it. And I just said, look, this team this year with the improved running game and the much improved defense, I believe this would be an 11 or 12-win team with cousins. And I also mentioned that Kendall Fuller being here would also be helpful. That's it. I mean, some of you responded saying that the skins would be 2 and 4 with Kirk quarterback because of all the turnovers he would commit. And with Alex Smith, they're 4 and 2 because he doesn't commit and doesn't turn the ball over. Well, I don't really feel that way. Minnesota's defense is worse than it was last year. Its running game is non-existent, 27th in the league.

Cousins is in the top five of every statistical category known to quarterbacks and mankind in general. And he's only got three interceptions on the season, top five in the league and the fewest interceptions thrown this year. I just thought he was good getting better entering his prime, and I think that they would be an 11-12-win type of team with him at quarterback. or somebody at his caliber at quarterback. But hey, Alex Smith, I mean, look, he's been largely responsible for this team being in first place and it's a division right now. Right? Yeah.

Thanks for the tweet, Chris. All right, real quickly. The opportunity that exists on Sunday in the Meadowlands. So I was listening, Aaron, yesterday to Mike Frances's interviews on the fan, WFAN in New York, with both Pat Shermer. and Eli Manning. See, the Giants as the WFAN is the flagship station for Giants football. They get the coach the day after the game

and the quarterback the day after the game. That happens in almost every place, every NFL city, with the rights holder, except for here for some reason. And yes, that was a swipe at the team and maybe a bit defensive, but also spot on accurate. The team never gave 980 any advantages, even though we weren't just the rights holder, we were actually owned by the owner of the team. They actually went out of their way to do as little as possible for the station when they owned it. It was strange. Trust me,

it was really strange. But in most cities, if you're the flagship of the team, you get access that others don't get. And WFAN does an exclusive interview the day after the game with the head coach Pat Schumer and with Eli Manning. And I happened to listen to both because I wanted to see how the Giants were handling this in New York and what was going on with the Redskins heading towards the Meadowlands on Sunday to face the Giants. And I will tell you that my main takeaway is that the Giants are moving on to next year at 1 and 6. Well, the past 24 hours has certainly shown that. Well, you know, it's funny that I mentioned Eli Apple on this show yesterday. I said he is as overrated as any first round pick in recent years. I mean, he stinks and the Giants dealt him yesterday.

Now, some of the headlines that came out of the Eli Manning interview with Francesa on WFAN were that Eli staying, he's not going anywhere. I listened to the same interviews, and I wasn't totally convinced. I think there's a chance that Eli's going to get moved before the trade deadline. It may not happen because of contracts and cap space and compensation, but I listened to both of those interviews start to finish, and I came away thinking, they are moving on to next year and it's very possible that he like to get traded, maybe to Jacksonville, maybe to Tom Coughlin and the Jags. I think that if they had a guy to build up, that would be a very smart thing and a very possible thing, but they don't have the guy behind him right now. They have the guy that they drafted from Richmond that a lot of people that evaluated Kyle Aletta thinks that he is a starting quarterback. They think he is a starting quarterback at some point down the road. But look, at one in six, You can, I'll tell you one thing about New York.

They traded their best defensive player. Yeah. Who? Snacks. Yeah. When? This morning. Oh, did you not see this?

I did not see this. They traded Snacks Harrison to the Lions. Are you serious? I am serious. Fourth round, or fifth round, or fifth, or fifth. I swear to God, Aaron, I didn't see that. Yes. No, they are going to next year.

Snacks Harrison. How did I miss that? What time did? It happened 10 minutes ago. You just got it. No, 745 this morning. Oh, it did? Yes.

Shepter first reported that 745 this morning. Snacks Harrison was traded from the Giants. Wow. So that even confirms my feeling even more that they are moving on. Because I'm listening to Shermer yesterday and my God, I mean, Francesca's drilling him. And he's, you know, he's talking about, no, you know, it's one game at a time and, you know, it's one and six. And, you know, we just got to focus in the building and keep all the noise. out. The problem with the Giants right now is that this season was supposed to be for the Giants this big turnaround year. They didn't draft the quarterback at number two overall because they

believed that they had this short window to make something happen with Eli this year and maybe even next year. If you were one in six and you had drafted a rookie quarterback at number two overall and you were playing that rookie quarterback, you would feel as a fan or as a market that they're building towards something and that the one and six was part of that process. But one and six with an aging quarterback that you might trade is depressing. And that's what I really took away from there is that it is a depressing situation in New York as it relates to the Giants. The weird thing is they have talent. They do have talent, but there was resignation in the voices of Eli Manning and head coach Pat Shermer. And now that they've traded snacks,

Harrison, Damon Harrison, who is part of their interior defensive front, which is good. And they traded Eli Apple, which I don't think they'll miss him at all. Wow, they are moving on. The next chip to fall is going to be Eli. They're going to trade Eli to a playoff contender that needs a quarterback. Jacksonville would be at the top of that list, especially given that Tom Coughlin is the team president. So now the Redskins, and I'm going to check. to see if the point spread has moved at all. Usually it does not move because you lose a defensive.

But in that case, you lose two defensive players, even though Eli Apple wasn't very good. Do you know what the line is for this game right now, as we speak? It's scary. Scary, smelly. Pick them

or minus one. Right now, and I'm going to text my offshore context. to see where the public action is because it's got to be overwhelmingly on the Redskins. The public, especially this morning,

has to be slamming the Redskins. Look, did you know, so the Redskins haven't started a season five and two since 2008. But listen to this. I went and looked this up. They haven't won their first two, their first two division games

in a season since 2010, but before that, it was 1995. So just one time in the last, last 22 NFL seasons, the Redskins have won their first two division games. Just one time. It was the 2010 Shanahan season when they opened with a win over the Cowboys on that Sunday night. And then I can't even remember what the second one was then.

I can't even remember what it was. But I went back and looked at it. So it's here somewhere, 2010. I'll find it here in a second. We're going to get Cooley on here too. talk about his film breakdown. But 2010 was the only time in the last 22 years, the Redskins. Yeah, they beat Philadelphia.

It was the Donovan McNabb return game to Philadelphia. They beat the Cowboys in the Sunday Night opener. That was the game where DeAngelo Hall had the fumble return at the end of the first half for a touchdown. And then they beat Philadelphia in Donovan McNabs return to Philadelphia in week four. So that was the one time in 22 years that the Redskins have won their first two division games. God, that's pitiful. But they have a chance, although the line, based on the way I think about things when it comes to Vegas and point spreads, is begging you, begging you to play the Redskins laying the point or at a pickum.

It'll be interesting to see what happens to that line during the course of the week. because if it just stays there and they just allow the public to pile up money on the Redskins without moving up the line to incent anybody to bet the Giants, then I guarantee you the Giants will be part of the smell test on Friday. Guarantee it. I won't want it to happen and I'll want to lose that bet, but it will be. All right, let's bring in Chris Cooley, who joins me on this podcast today and he's got a podcast

and I was on his podcast last week helping him or just standing by and listening to him do some film breakdown which was fun but I want everybody to know that you can get his podcast on any of the normal platforms iTunes

Stitcher tune in Google Play all of them and you can get it at Redskins.com as well so you're doing this podcast four days a week right now and you're doing your film breakdowns, which everybody should listen to, it's a must listen to. I wanted to start off with this real quickly.

The Redskins are only one-point favorites. Actually, some places have it as a pick-em Sunday in the Meadowlands. You know what my reaction to that is. That worries me a lot. But at the same time, and I started off this show or just mentioned it, you know, a few minutes ago, I think the giants are in moving on to next year. year mode. I mean, they traded Apple, they traded Harrison. They may trade Eli before the trade deadline to a playoff contender. What do you make of this first blush? Well, they may trade

Eli is the headline there in terms of what you just said. But I don't know about that. I don't know if he'd want to be traded. I'm sure that'd be up to him. But as far as the line goes, I thought about this yesterday after watching the Monday night game. And I think New York is a competent football team. and they have weapons on offense. And if you don't stop them and you don't tackle, then they can put up some points. Now, I don't think they're an explosive offense. They don't necessarily scare me

because the offensive line is completely dreadful, and Eli does not have time, and he can't buy time if he has to buy time. So they get set back a ton offensively, so they can't finish a ton of drives. But on defense, they're okay. I mean, they just traded away two starters defensively. So I think that impacts them a little bit.

But when I look at this Redskins offense, I don't see them putting up 30 against the Giants. I think that's unrealistic. I think that they're probably, I think they win if they put up 24. They probably win if they put up 21. But even at that, they scored 13 against Dallas. So, honestly, I'm not surprised at all. And plus, you're talking about the Meadowlands or the Redskins for whatever reason,

always seem to struggle. And it'll be a tough game. It'll be a closer game than anybody thinks or could be a closer game. I guess than anybody thinks. I think I agree with you. The reason I think they're in moving on mode is I actually listened to a couple of the interviews yesterday that WFA and the flagship did with Pat Schumer and Eli Manning. And it just sounded like that's where they were heading.

And if you get a team in that mode, you know, that's a good thing. But I completely agree with you. I think the giants are talented and capable. The big problem they have, to me, Cooley, isn't. Eli offensively. It's an offensive line that may be the worst I've seen in years. Oh, they're horrendous. And it's just amazing when you look at their offensive line over the past few years, who they've had and who is not on that team. They had Weston Richburg, a guy that they drafted who is now starting for the 49ers. They had Eric Flowers, a first-round pick,

who is not playing for anybody. I'm forgetting somebody else who is also not playing for anybody that was a first or second round draft pick, and now they have a young group, and they're figuring it out. They're not very good up front. I mean, Will Hernandez is a rookie, and not having a great year, and Nate Solder is not the answer, the true answer at left tackle that they hoped he would be. And on the right side, it's just bad. I mean, it's just really bad on the right side, and so there's no time for Elias to throw

the football, and they're not a great run team unless they're running out of gun, and Sequin gets on the edge. And I would say that I think Atlanta is very good. good offensively, but they didn't face a good defense the other night. They're going to be facing a much better defense Sunday. Facing a better defense on Sunday? The Giants are facing a much better defense in the Redskins defense than the one they faced Monday. Yeah, Atlanta had a good defense when they started the season. Yeah, they're just injured. Yeah, they've had a bunch of injuries. And so, you know, the Redskins are to win this by more than a touchdown. It will be because

it will be because our defense shows up and they're outstanding and they allow the Giants no more than 10 points. And I think they can actually do that. We've shut down every back that we've faced this year. They're doing a great job with penetration at the line of scrimmage, keeping gap, integrity, keeping gap control, not letting backs get out, in and out, playing them in the past game, and really shutting down everyone's number one back. And so I don't know if Sequin's going to kill you. He's going to make a couple plays because he does. But I just don't think the Giants can really scare anybody until they can throw it over the top. And they should be able to with the weapons they have,

but that they don't have more than two seconds to throw the football. And Eli doesn't want to sit back there for more than two seconds. He really, you can see clearly that he's hanging on towards the end of his career and does not want to take any big hits because he doesn't want to get injured. Which is interesting, by the way, as you start to talk about that, as if I were Eli, don't you think at one in five, one and six, you just want to take one right in the chest and say, that's it

I'm going to go on the IR I'm going to retire quietly at the end of the season we're going to have a great big ceremony well I guess it's not quiet but I'm just going to I'm going to say we're done I'm going to bounce I think Eli's got to be done

I mean I just I feel for the guy I know what it's like to try to hold on he's done so that's that line and Eli at the level that he's at he might put a couple games together here and there they might win three or four this season They're not a bad team.

They're completely rebuilding, but he's done. Yeah, I mean, the problem in New York is that one in six, if you had drafted a rookie quarterback number two overall, you feel like you're building towards something, but one and six with an aging quarterback is depressing because you don't have a future right now that you can easily see. I think there's a chance he could get dealt to Jacksonville before the trade deadline. Let's go backwards because we've already gone forwards to Sunday.

and talk about the Cowboys game. I do want to hear about your offensive film breakdown, which you can listen to in its entirety on Cooley's podcast, and just follow them at the Cooley Zone, and you can just link right to the podcast, and he did the offensive film breakdown yesterday. But overall, what were your big takeaways from the win over Dallas? Offensively, I'm still impressed that they can run the ball the way they're running the ball. They left some on the table as well. I mean, Adrian missed a couple holes that I think he could have

but he's really the lifeblood of this offense. They don't have receivers that can separate. They don't have offensive speed in terms of weapons. They don't create initially for Jordan Reed. And Alex Smith feels very uncomfortable in the pocket right now. And you can see it clearly by his body language in terms of when he goes from his number one, read. It's not to number two or number three across the board.

It's to checking what's going on in front of him. offensive line and you can see his helmet move down and you can see him become jittery. And I counted Kevin as I went through the game. I think he had eight scrambles. I think five were completely irrelevant scrambles where he still had a pocket and did not need to leave the pocket. Three he did, but five of the scrambles, I didn't think he had to go out of the pocket, including, by the way, the last play of the game on offense where he scrambled out

of bounds. Trent Williams ends up giving up a little penetration on the left. he puts his guy down on the ground. There's a picket fence completely on the right, and Alex has a chance to just remain a passer in the middle of the field at that point. Was anybody open on that play? Initially, Kev? No, nobody was open on that play.

But if he stays in the pocket, I think there's a much better chance. And the other thing about some of his scrambles is they're not, they're immediate panic scrambles, and so basically he's taking, you know, 60% of his eligible is cutting off half the field and saying goodbye to you and eliminated it to 40% of his eligibles, which is not a very good probability for him to

throw the ball. And it's just, it's not effective for us. Look, I think that there are some things that he's doing okay. You know, he made some throws in the game that I liked, but they were all one read throws. His only second read throw was the comeback he threw to Doxon early in play action, where it looked like it could have almost been picked. And so, If you remember that, it was just over the linebacker's head. Yep, I do. Now, in my film breakdown, I said the reason that looks like it's going to get picked is because he turned down the first read, which I think he probably could have gotten to,

which is a quick slant. And Josh Doxon runs a 12-yard comeback. It's an 18-yard comeback. The depth would have made it look much better. By the way, speaking of that, depth was also a theme for me in our receivers. A lot of this game is a lot of the throws that look like could have been there or we're just off. His receivers are super short.

I'll give you a couple examples. The 1E airmailed that Jordan Reed in the end zone on a third down and six. Jordan's running a backline end zone route. It's a backline end zone route. I can see the concept, and I know the Redskins utilize this in the red zone in almost every game, where you have a couple hooks right in the front or right on the goal line, and you're looking for them to come up and play short coverage

to throw it over the top, and if they don't, you throw it on the goal line. Well, Mo Harris is running right to the middle of the film. And initially, I thought, Moe was running a short crossing route, like a three or four-yard crossing around, and I'm wondering why he's so deep. He's not. He's hooking on the hash on the goal line, right on the goal line. So Jordan breaks just inside the goal line.

Now, it's all out blitz, and so it's got to be fast, but that's why that ball's deep is there's no spacing between Jordan and out. Well, he was throwing it away there, right? To some extent, because he didn't know what Jordan was doing. Wasn't Harris? Wasn't Harris open? No, Mo Harris is getting cut by the same. safety there, but when Molyarice is getting cut by the safety, he's dragging the safety right into a

slam by Jordan. It's not a slant that Jordan should have been running. He should have been running six yards deeper on that route to break it into the middle. And now maybe had Jordan not broke, Alex would have drifted back a little to try to buy time to get it to him, but when he sees him break, he knows he can't get that ball. And that's not me talking to Alex. That's just I see that. I give you another really good example. He threw a deep out route to Michael Floyd, who couldn't get both his feet in on the sideline. The ball was a little high, and it looked I guess it was a pretty good ball, but it's a little high. It's called a bench route. It's a 15 to 18-yard deep-out cut.

I've learned from you, and I know what a bencher is. And you're trying to get spacing between a flat route underneath it at about three or four and the deep 18-yard cut so that underneath the fender is going to choose between the two of them. Well, Michael Floyd runs it at about 11 yards, and so he doesn't create that spacing, and so Alex has to throw a ball a little bit higher to get it over the underneath defense, and Michael Floyd can't get his feet in. But that route, it's six-yard short. I mean, not one or two, it's six.

And this happened multiple times in the game. And look, I'm not sitting here making excuses for Alex because I can go through a bunch of throws that he didn't make. I'm sure you're going to want me to do that. But receiver speed, not there. True initial number one, winning, not necessarily there. And then you combine that with Alex's, I think, right now, frustration or anxiety in the pocket.

and it's just not voting for this offense. The end of the half, when they had it in Dallas territory, and they were just one, you know, medium completion away from a field goal attempt at the end of the first half. I thought it looked like Dallas was playing it soft, and there was an opportunity to get that completion and get into field goal range. Am I wrong?

No, I think you're absolutely right. I think the second down play, they had a Burt's concept where you had Josh Doxon, three receivers of the left, Doxon being the inside one, and then he threw it over the head of Doxon scrambling. Jordan's running a six-seven-yard hook route. He should have just begged it to Jordan right there because Doxon, talking about depth, running that deep crossing route should be 20 yards on the opposite number,

goes underneath the defender in the middle and ends up at about 12 yards and then has to break deep on the scramble. So it basically takes himself out of play. I thought he should have just thrown it to Jordan. It would have put you in Filgo range, and we would have moved forward. He did almost, he did have a pretty good Hail Mary throw, though. Michael Floyd hit him right in the chest. End of game strategy.

Before the drive started, I wanted them to be aggressive on first or second down to move the chains and knee the game out. Why do you think Jay got conservative there? Because Jay's tendency is to get conservative. I would 100% agree with you. I think in first down situation, you'd just go with some kind of spread offense and you go five-yard out routes or five-yard hook routes or slant or something easy quick game throw and if you don't really want to do that

you just boot Alex and you try to take a shot out of the personnel you were in and you see what you can do now when you say that I started this conversation by saying Adrian missed a couple cuts if you go to the second down an 11 play shotgun one pushes way too hard outside and what the Giants had done was they'd walk their one of the backers that was in the box to the outside edge. And they walked him right up on the line of scrimmage. And they covered out. Cowboys. So that's out way outside our tackle mo. And then they covered the guard and they covered the center. So the pre-determined read, he's never going to get outside. He pushes too far outside before he cuts back. If he cuts it two steps earlier, I actually think he gets the first down

on the play. I actually think he gets 11 yards on the second and 11. I do. I think he gets free all the way to the safety. There's a pretty good cutback laying there and he missed it. If that had happened, the game would have been over and all of the conversation about Gruden in his final possession and then the Cowboys in their final possession, which was way too conservative when they got into Redskins territory with still like 52 seconds left and they ran three more plays from scrimmage during that period of time. Okay, so last week, you know, we talked about sort of the model that they. they had this winning formula model that a lot of people will say is old-fashioned or traditional old school NFL of, you know, winning the turnover battle, running the football, stopping the run, having great field position, getting good special teams, not committing a lot of penalties. Don't beat yourself, you know, the adage of, you know, more games are lost than one in the NFL and don't lose the game. It's worked two weeks in a row, plus five turnover margin. Peterson's got 196 yards on the ground. The rush defense is. has been exceptional, and there are no bad penalties, and the special teams are contributing, and the quarterback's not hurting them. He may not be helping them a lot, but he's not hurting them. How long can they employ this sort of winning model? It is. It's a winning formula in the NFL

against the schedule they'll face, and then is there a limitation as to what they're upside is if they play this way the rest of the way? As long as they start fasting games and get up, I think that they can employ this and probably win 75% or 80% of the games that they're playing if their defense plays the way that they are. Now, you can't battle from behind with this. And it's also hard to say that you're going to get as many turnovers, but sometimes it happens. You know, sometimes there's fourth and one, and the quarterback gets stuffed, and the safety strips the ball from them, and you get it at midfield.

Doesn't happen a lot, but it did happen on Sunday. I mean, it happens like never, but still, they did what they would have turned them over right there anyways. So if you can stop the run and you can see. stay ahead a little bit, I think you're in good shape. And the other thing is the way they play defense. The field position differential was massive. Massive. I think at the end it was like the Redskins were 12 yards better, I think.

So 33 to the 21. Right. Or the Redskins started on 33 versus Dallas is 21. If there's ever a 10-yard filled position differential, it's a massive swing in probability in terms of who's going to win the game. So when filled position, you don't turn it over. It's amazing at the end of the year. those are the 10 teams that are in the playoffs, the teams that don't turn it over.

But I think when you ask a more important question, can you really win in the playoffs that way? I don't know, Kev. I think it's tough to win in the playoffs that way. So I will say this. The offense is not going to get worse. They're going to figure some things out. Alex is going to get more comfortable. Jay is going to get on the same page with Alex.

I would bet on that, and I'm not saying that homerish. but if you can just find ways to win early while you're figuring it out, man, it gives you a chance late. It does. It's so much better than not having any chance late. Oh, totally agree. Look, the last two weeks I've been impressed. And you know what? They can do the same thing again on Sunday.

And they can do the same. If they can continue to run the ball and stop the run and win the turnover battle, they're going to have a chance in all of their games. games the rest of the way. All right, let me just get to a couple of things before I let you run. First of all, you did the offensive film breakdown. I want everybody to go to iTunes and download it and listen to it, but will you just give us a couple of the highlights from it? Like, what was Alex Smith's grade? So the Alex Smith grade is obviously, it's not good. I said C-minus, you could put it in the D-range if you really want to put it in D-range. I think there's a little bit

that's going to be arbitrary because of some of the throws that he made to lack of receiver depth. But there was also some wildly and accurate throws and some things that I really didn't like, like a bunch of the scrambles I thought were unnecessary. Missing Mo Harris wide open in the middle of the field on a play action in the third quarter where he had a big shot, he looked at him, turned it down because he saw pressure, felt pressure, that you've got to take a shot there, and you're probably going to take a shot and take a shot as you throw that football. Missed Jordan Reed on a screen where he just dumped it. out there in the flat late in the game

and Jordan was open out on the side a bunch guys in front. All he had to do is get it over one defender. I mean, he is protecting that ball like it is a huge bar of gold bullion right now. He does not want to risk that ball at all in terms of turning it over.

How about the throw to sprinkle on the bootleg at the goal line? I mean, that's a bad throw because that's incredibly rushed. Like I'm coach, I said this, just yesterday in the film breakdown, and I don't want to belittle Alex, but I'm coaching flag football. They're 10, 11, 12-year-olds, and I'm trying to get my quarterbacks or whoever is going

to throw the ball to actually sprint out and get outside before they set up and throw. The same thing with Alex. The ball didn't have to come out. Sprinkle had a ton of space. Take another two steps, get your shoulders squared up to the line of scrimmage and throw him a little lob ball out there. He's wide open. He just rushed to throw. And so, yeah, he had some bad throws in the game, and he had some things that I'm sure he would like to have back in the game. But it's not like it was all bad. I mean, he had some throws that could have looked much better.

You know, you throw a ball to a number one draft pick on a fade that he's shown 55 times at TCU that he's going to go up over the top of the corner, who was a wooze, and he just can't come down with it. Like, he comes down with that, and we're saying that's a dime. It's a good ball. Right. So Floyd comes down with a hell Mary, and we're like, holy cow, look at Alex, pulled off a hell Mary.

So there are some things that really could have helped him. but it wasn't great. The other thing I think could help him as I finish before I get to any of the other highlights is, look, you ran the ball 15 of 18 times on first and 10 situations. Not counting first in five, not counting first in 20. I had it at 17 of 20,

and I took out the last drive of the first half. Yeah, take out the last drive of the first half. All but three times you ran the ball on first and 10. And you can make an argument where you're saying, hey, look, we average 4.1 yards per carry, and we had some big runs. You can make an argument and say, we had eight RPO's called in those 20 plays,

and so could have been passed. My case on the RPO's, first of all, I think you could have thrown two of them, but my case is once Dallas reacts after the first three or four to making sure they're playing pass, you're calling a run. You know what they're going to do. You know what you're calling.

You're getting a run out of that play. And so I think it's great to average 4.1. You don't want to get behind the chains, but at the same time, Those are situations where you can move Alex's spot in the pocket. You can have a three-step drop, which they didn't have on a first-in-10. No three-step drops. None.

You can go with some more play-action. They did call one, and they called a boot. The one they called play-action, Alex didn't give the play-action. He didn't give the fake, and then he heard he dumped it to AP, and the pocket was still there. So, I mean, some harder play-action plays, some boot stuff, maybe a sprint, some three-step stuff. But the point is, ultimately, you've got to get him in rhythm, and first down is a chance to start to get him into a little bit of rhythm where he doesn't feel pressure on second eight to have to have a big completion,

where he can just get an open underneath throw. You know a lot of the coverages you're going to see based on the personnel groupings that you're going to get. And then finally, you're going to change the spot that the quarterback's at, and then you're going to change the rush of the defensive line. You're going to make them adjust to, hey, look, do I set my rush to seven yards? Do I set it to nine? I don't know exactly where this quarterback's going to be. and it makes it harder for the D-line, which makes it easier for the O line.

Look, they had a game plan for it, and it actually worked. I really don't like running it as much on first down, and I'll bet you Jay's over 70% on the year of first and 10 runs. I will almost guarantee it. But as you said, I mean, you could make the case with how effective they've been, at least the last two weeks, or in their four wins, really, overall, how effective they've been running the football. There'd be a lot of people, if they were throwing it more right now

or were more balanced and not getting the same results would be screaming, just run it. I'll make the case for you from the Dallas game. You scored 13 points on offense. You had the ball at midfield four times. I know. I'll make the case for you right there. I know. Those are opportunities to move, to create rhythm, to do some things offensively,

to get your guys touches. I just think Jay's afraid of throwing it on first and ten because I don't think he believes he can convert when he's in second and ten. situations. I disagree, but... Well, that's scary right there, because that, I think what you're speaking to is right now Jay's not completely confident. I don't think anybody's watching isn't completely confident that the quarterback's comfortable right now. I don't want to say to the other thing. Any second short they ran it on as well. So, like, I love second short for being able to do

whatever you want to do. And I think in second short, he's sitting there saying, look, I don't want to get a penalty and I don't want to get a sack and I don't want to have anything happen. I don't think he's afraid of a third and one. I think he's afraid of a third and eight if something happens on second and sure. So he says, I may as well just get back into first down situation and give us a run for a yard. That's telling. I know it is. I know it. Well, what you said, it was the same last week. They had two possessions start in Carolina territory and got no points out of it. But anyway, you know, there are people out there that say, hey, this is better than what they

had because this guy doesn't turn it over. Well, I've already said yesterday and today already, if they had last year's guy on this year's team, it'd be an 11 or 12 win team. You don't need to comment on that. But I want to move to the offensive line. Do you think that that was the best performance of the year? I know that they were back healthy and people were back like LaValle and Rueh, et cetera, but was that easily their best performance? I wouldn't call it easily. What was better? Trent B plus, LaValle C, Ruey C minus, Sheriff B plus, Morgan C. Don't give out all your grades. People have to go to your podcast to hear.

Well, they're trying to protect you. They actually protected the quarterback better than it looked like. I thought they did. To anybody, against Dallas's front, to anybody saying, look how many times Alex had to scramble, it wasn't always the man that he scrambled. He didn't feel comfortable, so he's immediately scrambling. And I don't like that, to be honest with you. I don't like how quick he scrambling.

So they were pretty good up front in terms of protecting the pass. A couple pressures, but nothing, not many immediate in your face. You're dead if you don't run right now. I mean, a lot that he could have survived. You know what's also interesting is his scrambling's not been very effective. He looks slow. I agree. Like, if you're, if you're going to bail too early and sort of, you know, bail on a play early, make a play then.

and he's not making a play. There was a play in the game where he threw, he scrambled, I thought, way too early, never got his eyes down the field and actually did throw it underneath the bibbs on a third and 11, which created a better... Yeah, 10. And created a better...

It was 3rd and 11, he got 10. Yeah, I'm saying. But it was short of... He threw short of the sticks. It was a check-down throw. He was never looking down field as he scrambled too quickly to try to make a play, which, you know, going to... into this game, I was like, look, take your lumps, check it down on third and long, and punt it

and win the field position battle game. Don't take a sack there. But he's not making plays when he scrambles too early. No, it's amazing. And you've got to get guys reacting a little bit better to some of these scrambles. But at the same time, there are some things where I think he's got open guys on a couple scrambles or he potentially has throws and he's committing to running way too early. And when he commits to running, he can't really set and score to throw it further down the field. He's got to dump it within 10 yards of where he's at because he doesn't have the leverage to make that kind of throw. All right. Last thing, and then I will let you run because I think you've got to go do your thing today, right? You haven't done it yet. I got things. I got all the time

you want. Okay. Well, what I was going to say is that I think Alex, look, Adrian Peterson's the MVP right now of the team, certainly the offense. The team would be debatable. I think without Adrian Peterson right now, you wouldn't have, you wouldn't have a two-game winning streak. But that's beside the point. What I wanted to get to is this. I think they've really missed Chris Thompson,

and I think Alex Smith is going to, I think this offense will change and be much better with a healthy Chris Thompson because now you've got two playmakers that you can guarantee touches to. You can't guarantee that Jordan Reed or that Jordan Reed's going to get touches, but you can guarantee that your running backs can get touches. Do you agree with that or not that Chris Thompson that they would have been better offensively

the last two weeks with Chris Thompson? So first of all, I guarantee that you can get Chris Thompson touches, but that's a lot of times running the ball and screens out of the backfield. Right. I disagree. I think you should be able to guarantee that you can get Jordan Reed touches. and that goes back to some of your quick game stuff and some of your underneath stuff in first 10 situations

where I think you have to create a little bit more for Jordan. I do. I think that Jordan has to get at least eight targets a game right now, and if you can't create targets for him. And it's funny, as I say this, because I remember going through different coordinators. And there were certain guys that said, I've got to get this guy touches,

and here's how I'm going to do it, and there were certain guys that says he's going to get touches through the scheme of the offense. and Ali Al Saunders was a guy that when you'd go into his office would have your name and 18 plays. If I don't have a touch to Cooley in the first quarter, I'm going to call one of these plays. And if I'm going to touch, I'm going to call the next one. I'm going to get him in touch in this game. I don't think Jay has really made enough of an attempt to say, I need to get Jordan more touches.

I don't care if it's on a spot route, five yards over the ball. Why not? I've got to get him touch. Why not? Well, I can't answer the why not because only Jay answers the why not in this situation. And I'm sure he would say, look, I do want to get Jordan touches. But to me, it's got to be more of a precedent to be able to get him involved in a bunch of different ways. If Zacherts, they get him touches.

Kelsey, they get him touches. Kelsey, they got him touches with Alex Smith. You have to create and you have to understand how they're going to play him and what you're going to do to beat it. I think Jordan has to get touches. that's my thought process on this. Back to the Chris Thompson thing. I just, I have this thought that they can use him as an extension of the running game

by throwing him, you know, checkdowns. They can throw him screens. They can throw him sort of quick, you know, quick sort of, you know, flare passes, you know, flat passes on quick sort of stuff. I just want to see my playmakers that I know I can get the ball to get it to. And I know what you're saying. You should be able to get the ball to Jordan Reed, but for some reason,

they don't even target him enough to get him enough balls to make a difference in a game. I mean, the throw out of their own end zone or deep in their own territory on that first drive of the third quarter was huge, the 27-yarder. But that was basically it for the day. Yeah, he had one more on the third and eight where he had a little throwback that he got a nice, run a great route and got a little throwback. Yeah, the Chris Thompson thing,

here's why you can guarantee to get him touches, in my opinion. Because there's an argument to me made, which I think Jay made after the Green Bay game, where he isn't getting touches. When you say checkdown, for the most part, if you don't want it back to get checkdowns, you just bring an extra blitzer, and on a six-man protection, he's going to have to stay in it. He's going to have to pick up the blitz. Where you'll demean that argument is you'll say, okay, well, let's just go what most teams call scat protection,

and we'll go five-man protection, they'll bring the blitz, and we'll have Chris Thompson out of the backfield one-on-one. You've got to get it out fast, but Chris Thompson wins fast. So if you get a team that thinks they're going to blitz to keep Chris Thompson in the past game, then you're going to five-man protection, and you're saying, you've got to get that ball out fast, but that's how we're going to get Chris Thompson to touch. Yeah, you can have multiple plans for getting Chris Thompson touches in the game. You can also run him with the football, and I think he's great when he runs with the football,

especially on some of those edge runs. Yeah, I mean, look, last year he was, very easily debated the best offensive player on the team, the most valuable offensive player on the team before he got hurt in New Orleans. And this year, I know he's missed a couple of games. He's missed the last two games, but even in the first four, he wasn't nearly the factor that he was last year. I'd like to see him become more of that kind of a factor. I think it would really sort of help this offense that isn't making mistakes and they're able to run the football, but they're also not scoring points.

I mean, it'll help this offense. I mean, two other things that are going to help this offense is finding a way to get Jameson Crowder back and healthy and fighting a guy to get Paul Richardson back and healthy because you went into a game where he had Brian Quick, Michael Floyd, Mo Harris. Right. And Doxon can't win one-on-one. He's not winning one-on-one or separating one-on-one. He's playing much better than he's played.

He's blocking his butt off, but he's not necessarily winning one-on-one. And he doesn't have that innate quick move to separate at the top of the time. of a route or at any point in the route he just doesn't have that sense yet. All right. So you'll have the defensive film breakdown up later today, right? Which is going to be very good. Can't wait because I can't imagine that too many people could have ended up with anything lower than like a B plus.

Maybe Stroman. Maybe Stroman. Here was the coolest thing about this defense. The biggest complaint for any Redskins fan over the past five years, or however long since I've been out is we can't stop the run. Kevin, we were incredible against the run. I mean, in terms of keeping Ezekieleli in the backfield, not allowing him cutbacks, not allowing him to bounce.

I mean, it was actually really, really fun to watch, and I've watched a bunch of it, so I'm very well aware. But Allen, pain, ionitis, awesome. And the funny thing, like, a big part of the film breakdown is going to be Lell Collins today. I mean, talk about it, bad day at work. Lel Collins got his ass warped over and over and over again by every single person that lined up against him. The Cowboys have issues with Lell Collins.

That dude got destroyed. So I'll have a little fun with Lell Collins today. All right, good. So everybody go to iTunes or go to Redskins.com and you can listen to it. The offensive film breakdown is up as well. And Kooley and I will continue to do stuff together because we like doing that together. We like doing stuff together. So we'll continue to do it.

We should play golf together. soon. Well, it's the weather is getting colder, but I think we'll have a, we'll have a stretch here. Do you have a temperature that you're unwilling to play golf? Yeah, I don't like playing in cold weather. I mean, 50s is fine. 40s with no wind is fine. But if you're in the 30s or 40s and you've got some wind and clouds, it's no fun. I mean, it's still golf. By the way, you know what I'm doing on not really. It's not really golf at that point. It's golf. We're a jacket, buddy. Yeah, I can wear everything I want to wear. I just, I like warm weather golf. By the way, I know that you did not listen to my podcast yesterday with Greg Huff because

you would have had something to say about getting mocked on it, so. I haven't listened to it yet. That's true. I know you haven't because we mocked you. What did you mock me about? Your asses. Oh, God. I don't even, I don't even know what that means. We talked about going to Ruth's Chris and having a sizzling steak sandwich. Well, try, try doing the Ruth's Chris, uh, sizzling steak read.

Not easy. Not an easy to eat. You know what I'm doing on Friday? What? Putting up Zab's goalposts. God. Two children. Have fun with that. Who puts up gold posts every year at their house? He does. He does. All right, I'll talk to you later. Thanks. See you. Thanks. All right. Thanks to Cooley. Let me tell you about Window Nation. Windonation is my favorite window company, and it should be yours too. Temperatures are falling fast. It's a great reminder that your window, pun intended, for getting new windows and installed before the holidays and snow hits is closing. While most window companies are experiencing 12 week lead times, window nation can do it in less than half the time and save you half the money.

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drafts, and start enjoying all the benefits of new windows today. That's windonation.com or 866.6.6.000. 90 Nation. All right, let's bring in the longtime voice of the Washington Wizards and one of my mentors and one of my friends, one Steve Buckhance, who is joining us very early in the morning, Northern California time, and he's not very happy about it because Buck likes to sleep in East Coast time. And, you know, at this point, typically you're still asleep, East Coast time.

And now I'm waking you up early West Coast time. which is, you know, a little bit later, East Coast time, but you were up late last night preparing for the Warriors game, just like a player would. Well, I don't know if the players were preparing at 2 o'clock in the morning, but I was. So, you know, I was, yeah. You're not very happy about doing this, are you?

Well, you know, reasonable time would be nice, but nobody cares, really, Kevin. You know what, that's so true, but I care because I wanted you to be on the show, and I thought, you know what, I'll just text you yesterday to see if you'd want to do it. But I said to you, I'm like, look, if it's too early, don't do it. It's not a big deal. We'll do it when you get back here. But I've got to record this podcast early and get it out.

I can't wait for you. Clearly. You know what I'm saying? I do. I know what you're saying. How about that game the other night? Did you see it? Did you stay up?

Of course. I stay up and I get up early. I don't sleep as much as you do. I don't. But I did. I stayed up and watched the entire thing. Good. And it was a thrilling game.

There was so much to it. Yeah. So what were your big takeaways from the win over the Portland Trailblazers and overtime? We don't have a lot of those games, which is why I really got a special enjoyment out of it. You know, we just, I don't know, we either beat somebody or they beat us or whatever. But, I mean, this was a really good game that I just, the more. the game went on, the more I enjoyed it, the more I think the broadcast was fun with Kara and Chris Miller, and I really enjoyed doing it. And, you know, that's an amazing environment. I mean, a lot of people

don't get to travel like we do, and they don't see what these arenas are like around the country. And this one is second only to Oakland, to where we're going tonight, Oracle Arena, and not far behind it. The fans are incredible. They know the game. They know when to they clap, they know when to cheer, they know what it's about. Collectively, they're really good, and it's a real great basketball environment. So when you play well and you have a good game and then you win in an environment like that, it makes it awesome. So it was a good game.

That was my biggest takeaway. It was just that it was a fun, you know, back and forth, good, you know, really clean, good basketball. Then the second takeaways were, you know, I mean, we saw this two years ago against Boston. When they play like that, they can beat anybody, and they're good enough to beat anybody. They just don't do it on a consistent basis. And then the third takeaway was individually, you know, Marquief Morris was fabulous. Kelly Ubrae Jr. was fantastic. He was great.

He was, you know, that's, and I've been saying it for the, I don't know how many years he's been there for, years or whatever that he has the ability to do that. He's a tremendous athlete. He's getting a better by little each year. And it's at the point where, you know, he needs to be doing that on a regular basis. And it's not that he doesn't try. I think he's good. So when they play like that and they get that kind of a game from Wall and Beal and everybody that's involved, and this is all being done without, you know, a productive center right now, it was good. So they went small and they played well and they hung on and they got the win and it was very satisfying. There are a couple of things about the game that I want to get to with you in a moment, but you started off by talking about

Portland being the best that there is in the league. And, you know, the NBA is different in that there are multiple teams in cities where the NBA team is the only team and Portland is one of those cities where the trailblazers are it. And they're a big deal. And I actually had a chance in the 90s. I spent a lot of time actually traveling to Portland. I was there one day a month for about two straight years, once a month for two straight years. I actually didn't mind Portland, but I went to a couple of games in the old arena when it was like 12,066. I think Buck was like the attendance, a full house. And you're right. It's a basketball town. They really know it, and they're really

into it. You know, it's interesting because that town and also Seattle, which is a good basketball town too, as we know, they're also soccer towns. They go crazy for soccer. Seattle, you know, they're nuts for it. And here, we happen to see a bunch of people. There was a soccer game here the day we got here, which was yesterday. Actually, yeah, that afternoon, and people were walking down the street. And, you know, it was fun to see what was going on around here. So you're right, they don't have much else to talk about so they get into it. But it's an unusual city. Yeah. People are different than they are on the East Coast. All right. To the game the other night, at the end of overtime, when they had the two-point lead. And, you know, they were trying to

to get, you know, Marquief Morris involved in a pick and roll with John in that particular case. And Portland did something that they weren't doing before, which is they switched it so that Morris wasn't left alone to bury them with another three. But I just, Buck, I get frustrated watching, I'm screaming, I want Beal in this pick and roll. I don't want Wall having to take this big possession shot right now. And there's some nights I don't feel that way. But, you know, that night was one of those nights. John couldn't hit anything. He was four for 18 from the floor.

And yet there he is like he was in the Miami game, you know, sort of saying, uh-uh, this is my team, my ball. And he banked one in. I mean, it was lucky. It was really lucky. And then he missed two free throws, which, you know, led to a rather crazy ending with Porter's block. But I just, I don't know, some nights I feel like Brooks has to insert himself and say, It's going to be Bradley that's going to be involved in this pick and roll with Kelly. You're on the other side of the floor.

Yeah, I mean, I probably agree with you. I don't know how you change that culture or that mentality. I think, you know, it's John's team. And, you know, I know he tries to do the right thing. How about, you know, the play where he gave up the shot and made that pass to Beal. I mean, that was last year or two years ago, maybe he doesn't do that. So I think he's aware of it. It just doesn't always work out that way, but I think he's becoming more and more aware that he's got to get the ball to people that have a better chance of making a basket than he does.

And he did that when he passed it to Beale. Yeah, he did. But on that big possession up two at the end of overtime, he banked one in, and it ended up being the difference. Yeah, but still, you know, you mentioned Dubray and I was going to talk about. him. I thought he was exceptional the other night. And for whatever reason, when he is really into it, and it isn't that way all the time, he is such a disruptive NBA defender with his length, with his, you know, competitiveness. I don't think he's going to be here next year, but somebody may end up benefiting from him, you know, maturing a little bit as a player because he's really got talent.

Yeah, and he's had it. I saw it when he was a rookie. Fearless is a rookie. Yeah, he was. And, you know, he was raw and just everywhere and out of control sometimes and missed assignments defensively and still does on occasion. But he's got so much talent and still has a lot upside, I think. And you're right. When he plays the way he plays, which played the other night, which is being engaged.

And you're right, you used a great description, disruptive. His arms are so long. he's excellent defender. He always has been. He's starting to hit that jumper now with a little more regularity, and he just seems to be all over the court. I mean, I can think of a couple of games a couple years ago against Boston, where he just was there putting in offensive rebounds,

which he did the other night, you know, putting back shots. And, you know, I just, I hope he, you know, I know he knows he can play that way every night. Whether he will or not will remain to be. be seen, but I think he's a good player. He's fun to watch. And when he's like that, he's a real contributor on the team. I was glad to hear Kara say something towards the end of the broadcast. It may have been in the fourth quarter, it may have been in overtime, it may have been afterwards. I can't remember when it was, but I totally agreed with her. I can't stand all of the,

the analytics stuff about Otto Porter shooting more threes. I think Autoporter in the opener, when he didn't shoot any threes, actually was very impactful in the game. I thought he had a very good game the other night, and he was 0 for four from behind the three-point line. Sometimes people have to overlook all this other garbage. You know, they don't run a lot of set plays for anybody, let alone trying to run a bunch of set stuff for Otto Porter to shoot threes. I think it's ridiculous. What do you think? I agree with you. I mean, I've never been big on analytics anyway. I understand. understand why they have them. They are beneficial to some extent, not only to players and coaches,

but obviously the fans want more and more information. And, you know, you hear people talk about content and all this stuff. That's all great. But you've got to play the game. And I remember Phil Schenier would always say, you know, and this was a couple of years ago when you were just starting to see everybody shoot threes. He would say, you know, it's okay to shoot threes. But if you consciously give up a mid-range shot to step back and take a three, he said, sometimes I could really disrupt your whole flow and rhythm and head and everything else. And I agree with them. You know, I mean, it's great.

You know, and now they're all looking to get behind that line and take threes because they're being told to do that. But, you know, it's not necessarily a natural thing. And it's made the game different to me. first of all, rarely does anybody go into the low post anymore. And so the big man is not what he used to be. There still are good Big Ben, but not like they used to be. And so now you're seeing guys come down court and just fire up a three whenever it looks like they have one. And that's fine if they go in.

So I agree with you. I think Otto plays hard every night. Sometimes he gets shots. Sometimes he doesn't. but the last thing I want to see is anybody just running down and forcing up shots. Now, they're doing a better job of passing the ball. I think you've noticed that too. And all teams, all good teams do that.

You know, you look at the old San Antonio teams, and you look at even Atlanta when they were good, and you look at Golden State, everybody makes the extra pass now, sometimes to a fault. But it's, I like that now. I like seeing that, and the Wizards are much more aware of that now. They're passing the ball around. and looking for the guy who's got the open shot.

And I kind of like that. That's pretty cool. Yeah, and I love what you said about what Phil said, and Phil would know. Okay, he's one of the great shooters in the history of the game. And I've always described it. I'm like, look, you know, Curry, when he gives that pump fake, it's from 28 feet when the defender flies by, so he can get into that rhythm with that hard dribble squaring up,

and he's still behind the three-point line. And he shoots the long ball better than anybody else. Exactly. But you get a guy like Beal who maybe catches behind the three point line, gives a pump fake with a defender running past him. He sometimes needs that dribble, that one hard dribble to get squared up into his rhythm, and sometimes that brings him inside the arc. And you can't have a guy shoot an uncomfortable three. Otto Porter's best threes are with his feet set, behind the arc, catching and shooting very often unguarded at the beginning,

like off the catch. And that's when he has shot high percentage threes, and you get more of those they will when they run more, and it's hard to run a lot when you're not rebounding well. Like one of the ways you get out in transition is to rebound, and they're getting killed on the glass in these first three games. They are. And I like to say, you know, that's not having Dwight Howard,

but of course he hadn't played for the team yet. We don't know. We don't know what he's going to do. but if he does what he did last year, I'll take 12 rebounds or 15 rebounds a game or whatever he's hopefully going to give you. But yeah, we don't know yet when he's going to be ready or whatever. So you're relying on Maheen and Jason Smith, and now you're relying on Ubre and Beal to get rebounds, which they're doing, but they're still getting hurt on the boards, no doubt. And that's why you're seeing a lot of small ball too.

But, yeah, they need help on the glass, no doubt. about that. All right. So real quickly for tonight, last year's game at Golden State was rather eventful. You had Beal smacking Draymond Green and getting tossed and in that moment. You can correct me if I'm wrong, but they had a massive lead. Like it was a double. 17 point lead at that time. Now, against Golden State, that's nothing, but they were playing awfully well. Very well. So they go, they play there tonight. First of all, what is the status of Maheen me and Jeff Green? Because Green got hurt late in the game the other night. Yeah, and he played well. He did play well. I talked to him yesterday. Saw him and he just said he was sore, but I don't know

what his status is. He could have changed in 24 hours. Hopefully it will. I don't know what kind of treatment he got or how they worked on him or he gets, you know, that we have a team masseuse that flies with the team and, you know, she's always, you know, massaging these guys and trying to keep him limber and all that stuff. So other than that, I don't know what the athletic training staff did for him, but I asked him what happened. He said Beale need him unintentionally, obviously, when they landed off. He fell down.

So he just said it was sore. I don't know what his status is going to be. Maheen me on the plane, walking up and down the aisles with the athletic trainer to, you know, because he had had back spasms. I don't know what his status is. So, I mean, that stuff's up in the air. know, hopefully they're okay to go. But, you know, that was a frustrating game last year because they were playing so well,

and everything seemed to change when Beale and Green both got thrown out of the game. Although the Wizards did have, you know, their lead at one point was 18. That was their largest lead of the game. And they even had a lead going into the third quarter. So I don't know, you know, what will happen tonight. Who knows? Now, Golden State, you know, they've lost a game, but then they came back against Utah, massive comeback from, I think, 16 down to win the game in Utah.

So they're capable of doing anything, you know, at any time, and they rarely lose at home. So we'll see. It's big that they won the other night, really big, because they would have been staring 0 and 4 in the face. All right, real quickly before I let you run. Just take us inside or behind the curtain of what Steve Buchance's day is like. on game day. Like, have you already finished your preparation, your charts, everything for the game, or is that something that you'll do today? Well, I did most of it last night,

thinking all along about you and you calling me at 7 o'clock in the morning to get up and do this. So my concentration wasn't quite there. And still isn't now because... Actually, you've been great. You've been great. Well, thank you. So the question now is, I'd be able to get back to sleep and get a little more sleep. But I'm not quite finished. I will go back online. Now, you know, some people go to shoot around. I don't usually do that.

I mean, there's benefits. There's some benefits to it. I don't find that there are many. Usually when I go there, nothing happens. And I have my time is better served doing more research, reading press clippings and things of that nature. Or playing golf. Yeah, but never on game day. No.

No. Okay. So I will go online, first of all, and I will read more about the matchup of today's game, tonight's game. I will look at who the officials are, and that's come out now. It comes out at 9 a.m. Eastern to see who's referee in the game, because I want to get information on each official just to have it to make sure. You know, I look up how many years in the league they are, so I know whether it's a young crew or a veteran crew,

and that kind of thing, whether it's a local guy or not. So I like to know about that. Jason Phillips, Mark Ayat, and Scott Twardsky tonight. Twardowski. Tordoski, yeah. Like the other night, we had a young crew, and it was, I forget whether it was against Miami or Toronto. I think it was Toronto. I think it was Toronto.

I can't remember. Yeah, it was. And each of the two lead, well, the lead official and the second official, both had just nine years. and the third official was in his second year. And I'm thinking that's a young crew for such a big game against Toronto on a Saturday night. And as it turned out, Brooks got ejected. And it was a heated thing.

So anyway, I like to know about that and just a few other things. And then I will have to go print out my rosters because I put them on special paper and legal stuff. So I have to go through that process, which isn't always easy. And then that's it. So I will spend, but that's not just what I do. I'll get up at some point, do that stuff, and then I'll go work out and come back and shower and get ready and then go to the arena.

You drive over with the team? No. The team goes on the bus. They take two buses, an early bus and a later bus. Obviously, the early bus is for guys that want to get there early and get treatment and also shoot and stuff like that. and then everybody else goes later. They really don't want us on the bus going over there for the game day, you know, during the game. Used to be years ago there was just one bus and everyone was on it, and it got pretty crowded.

Well, that changed several years ago with the advent of things like social media and where teams started sending extra people on trips and things of that nature. You couldn't – there just wasn't any room. So now there's a second bus, which originally was just for the media. I call us the media because they call us the media, even though we're not really the media. It's me and Kara and our broadcast crew, which is three other guys. And then it's Glenn and Dave who do the radio broadcast. And then it's social media people and some trainers and things of that nature, equipment people and so forth.

So now that's everybody on the second bus, and that's actually a lot more crowded than it used to. to be, but it's a full-sized bus. Anyway, they don't want us on that bus going to the games, so we cab over, Uber, or whatever it is, and it's generally me and Kara, and in some cases, it's

me, Dave, it's all the four of us. The other crew is already over there. You like being on your own schedule. You don't want to be, you know, you don't want people having to rely on you to be anywhere at a certain time. You'll be there when you're supposed to be there, and you'll

get yourself there the way you need to get yourself there. And you'll be ready for the broadcast. Yes. I mean, you have to, we have to, you know, we have a production meeting at home for a 7 o'clock game. We meet at 4.15. So I'm usually there by 3.30 anyway. I'm usually the first person there. Basically, because I need to try to beat traffic coming from home.

And it's, there's, D.C. is virtually impossible to get into now with the, you know, closing of the lanes on Memorial Bridge. and everything else. Here comes some complaints. It's virtually impossible. Horrible. It's killing you. Just killing you. Say again.

It's killing you. It is killing you. It is. So if I leave my house any later than 2.30, I'm done. Right. So anyway, I'm usually there ahead of time. And then for away games, it's pretty much the same. Tonight's games at 7.30 local time.

So we'll have to be there at like 515 or something. Look, that was great. I mean, it doesn't sound like a really exciting day on game day, but there's a lot going on, and I appreciate you taking us through the whole thing. Thank you for doing this. You're welcome. I really do appreciate you getting up. Go back to sleep and then get yourself a big breakfast.

Will anybody be listening to this? Yes, lots of people will be listening to this. Really? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Good. Yeah, so. I'm happy to hear that.

I hate to think we're doing this for just me. and you. What we could do? No, I mean, look, today could be completely different than the last month, but we're going to have some people listening to it. I promise you that. And I think a lot of those people will be hopefully up watching tonight, watching Buck and Carrot. I hope so too. Call Wizards Warriors. It's a big game. It is a, it's a big game. All right. Thanks so much. Enjoy the day. I'll talk to you when you get back. All right, Kevin. All right. Thanks to Buck for getting up early out on the West Coast, Warriors Wizards Tonight on NBC Sports, Washington. Ferrish Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, and Fairfax

should be on your list if you're considering anything new. Go to ferrishcars.com right now. And if not now, when you get done listening to this podcast, but you could pause it right now and go to ferrishcars.com and come back and pick up right where you left off. Look, Ralph Perkins and Kevin Farish, they have supported me. They did support me at 980 as an advertiser on my show for over a decade,

and they're doing the same on this podcast. I love both of them because they've, both are smart and they get their customers. They know what customers want and they make it easy for them. Everything about Farish is easy. If you go to Farish Cars.com, the easiest website to use. New inventory, used inventory, and scheduled service. Those are the three options you get right on their homepage. It's not a bunch of stuff where you have to figure out how to navigate the site, how to find where the new cars are or where the used cars are. Three big bars on the homepage of the website. New, used Schedule service. This is why Ralph and Kevin have done so well at Farish. They make it easy. Their

sales team makes it easy for you. Most of them have been there for over 20 years. Their service department, it's the best. You have a scheduled service. You're in and out quickly. Plenty of inventory right now on their lot. Whatever you're looking for, you'll likely find it in the make, model in color and be able to drive it off the lot today. If you're thinking about any Jeep, whether it's a Cherokee, Grand Cherokee, Wrangler, Renegade, now is the time to act. You're going to save big on all jeeps. Same goes for the Chrysler Pacifica if you're thinking about a minivan. The deals are as good as you'll get on that, that they've been all year long. If you like this show and you're thinking about buying something new, I give you my word that you will be taken care of if

you head out to Farish and Fairfax and ask for Ralph Perkins. Ralph is in the store basically every day. And Ferrish is located in Fairfax Circle. Right there in Fairfax Circle, easy to find. Ask for Ralph when you get there. Tell him I told you to ask for him. You can also find out, as mentioned before, everything that Ferris has right now,

including live inventory and pricing at ferrish cars.com. Let's get to NFL Buy or Sell. Are you buying or are you selling? They'll buy your sell. All right, I'm going to make this quick because there are a couple of buys, a couple of cells, and then we'll end the show for today and start getting you ready for Redskins Giants and the whole football weekend tomorrow. But I'm buying the Houston Texans.

I forget officially if I bought them last week. I've talked a lot about them. I think I mentioned, and I got mocked on Twitter for mentioning the Houston Texans as one of those AFC teams that some of the real high-octane AFC teams wouldn't want to see in the postseason. and I got mocked because many people said, well, Houston's not going to be in the postseason. Well, yeah, they're sort of heading right now in the general direction of the postseason because they're leading their division after winning four straight games.

Now, you can look at the Texans and say, okay, they beat the Colts, Cowboys, Bills, and a struggling Jacksonville team. You can say that. And it'd be true because those are the four wins. and the three losses were to the Patriots in a tight game in the opener. They also lost to the Titans on the road, and they lost to the Giants. That's who the Giants beat, Houston. But Houston's defense is so good.

The defenses in the NFL are getting completely overlooked because of all of the points that are being scored. And I get it, like if you're scoring a lot of points against good defenses, it's going to be about the offense. New Orleans, for three quarters, could only score seven against Baltimore's defense, ended up with 24, not 40, all right, not 30, but 24, and it ended up being one point better than what the Ravens produced after Justin Tucker missed that extra point. But Houston's defense, in the last three games,

they have allowed 272 yards of offense, 229 yards of offense, and 292. yards of offense. Point totals, 16, 13, and 7. In fact, they've only in their last three games scored 19, 20, and 20, but they've won all three of those games. I think they are coming offensively. I think they are going to be okay offensively with Deshawn Watson. They have played three good defensive teams in a row in Dallas, Buffalo, and Jacksonville. Yes, Buffalo is a very good defensive team. So it'll be interesting to see what happens when they play a team that isn't that great on defense,

although they don't have many of those on the schedule. They play Miami tomorrow night. They have to play at Denver, and now the Redskins on the schedule is a good defensive team. You know, they still have the Eagles, Jacksonville, the Jets. It's going to be very interesting to watch Houston the rest of the year because they play a lot of good defensive teams, which may hide the fact that they're pretty good on offense, and they've got talent on offense. You know, Lamar Miller is a good back.

DeAndre Hopkins is a top three wide receiver in the NFL, and Deshawn Watson is a playmaker. They have some talent offensively, but they're just playing very good defensive teams right now, but they're really good defensively too. And I think Houston right now is, and I don't know if they are odds-wise, but I would personally make them the favorite now to win the AFC South.

They've got the best defense in the division, although Jacksonville's close. They've got better playmakers on offense and a much better quarterback on offense than Jacksonville does. And at this point, they've already beaten Jacksonville on the road. I think Houston's going to be a playoff team, and I think they're going to be a very difficult to deal with playoff team when we get to January because defense travels, and if they are in a traveling, situation when we get to the playoffs. They're going to be a tough out. So I'm buying Jacksonville. I am going to sell for right now. I'm going to sell the Philadelphia Eagles for right now.

And I am not selling their defense, which I still think is a very good defense when it's healthy, when it's completely healthy. But something's not right. That giant game on Thursday night was a bit misleading. They got some early turnovers in that game, got off to a quick start, and that's really the only time they've been able to do that in any of their games. And they're playing also a team

that's talented, but is struggling as well. There's something about Philly, and I'm telling you right now, I think they could very easily lose Sunday in London to Jacksonville. They're only a three-point favorite against a Jacksonville team that has

not been very good. so far this year, especially on offense. I think they're going to start Blake Bordels again. I actually think that's the right decision for them. But I think Philly, if they lose this game, if the Eagles lose and they play the first half of their schedule at 3 and 5, with, by the way, the second half of the schedule, including at New Orleans, at the Rams,

two games against the Redskins, which maybe at the beginning of the season for Philadelphia looked like those aren't going to be very difficult. games. That should be an easy December stretch playing the Redskins twice. They still have to play the Texans. They still have to play at Dallas and home against Dallas. I mean, Philadelphia is teetering right now. This game for them on Sunday is massive. If they fall to three and five, and let's just say the Redskins go to the Meadowlands and win, and they're five and two, they got some ground to cover to get back into the race at that point. There's something about them that's missing.

It's missing offensively. It's missing from clearly, you know, a running game standpoint. And I know that they don't have JHAA, but they've struggled to run the ball. They couldn't run it at all against Carolina. Not at all. I do like them defensively, but with the game on the line, they gave up three consecutive long drives to Cam Newton and company. and lost that game 21 to 17. I think Wence is getting better, but that throw that Eric Reed intercepted that should have been called an interception

or should have been upheld by replay, I feel anyway, that's a terrible throw. A terrible throw in a clutch moment. I'm selling the Eagles. What am I selling them as? I guess I'm selling them as a potential non-playoff team as the defending Super Bowl champions. And I guess by default,

you would think, well, then you've got the Redskins winning the NFC East. Well, I've said that I think they've got a chance to win the NFC East. They're right now a game and a half in front of the Eagles and the Cowboys. I want to buy one more thing, and that is I'm going to buy the Detroit Lions. I know I do this a lot, and I've done it over the years, and I even did it earlier this year at 0 and 2 or 1 and 2 after they beat the Patriots on that Sunday night. They were a smell test pick that night against the bats.

they're just there's something about Detroit and Matt Stafford that I just like I think they're really, really good offensively. I know it's not consistently good, but now that they've added a true threat at running back and carry on Johnson, who went for 158 yards on Sunday the most since 1999 for a Detroit running back, Matt Stafford is playing very good foot right now. Do you know the other day, and they were running the football, all right? They ran it for 248 yards. It was the 248, excuse me, that was the biggest rush offense day for Detroit since 1999, not the 158 from Kerry on, Carrion Johnson, although that is up there. But Stafford only threw it 22 times. He was 18 of 22 at Miami on Sunday for 217 yards, took one sack that was it,

had a passer rating of 138.1 and a QBR of 92.4. He is now in his 10th year, you know, at 30 years old. Remember, he was young when he came out from Georgia. These are his prime years. I think he's a really good quarterback. I've always felt that way about Matt Stafford, and I think the Lions are a dangerous team, and I think that that whole division is really up for grabs.

Minnesota, you know, they're able to throw the football at will with their receivers and their quarterback. They can't run it. Their defense isn't as good as it was last year, although it's getting better. Then you've got Aaron Rogers, then you've got the lines, and then you've got the darling, early season darling, which were the Bears. What a division the NFC North is. Right now, if you told me any one of the four teams ended up winning it, I wouldn't be floored. Chicago would be the biggest surprise. But Minnesota, Green Bay, Detroit, one of those three teams or any of those three teams, I would not be surprised if either one of those three teams won the division, and that includes the Lions.

Now, the Lions have this stretch of Seattle this weekend, then at Minnesota, at Chicago, the Panthers, the Bears, the Rams. So this is the part of their schedule that's pretty much going to decide who they are. Seattle at home, at Minnesota, at Chicago, Carolina at home, then the Bears again. They get the Bears on Thanksgiving Day. So they get the Bears basically twice in 11 days, and then they get the Rams.

So these next six games, somehow, I think if they get three of them, they're in a playoff hunt in December with teams like Arizona and Buffalo on the schedule, and if they were to get four of them somehow, I think they're in the hunt for the division. I like the Lions. I just do. That's a team I like. That's your NFL buyer sell for the week.

I just want to remind everybody that you can listen to the show or tell people that they can listen to the show at the Kevin Sheehan Show.com. I sent out a tweet yesterday, which some people made fun of, but I was trying to keep it really simple. And I said, because I get this all the time, and Aaron gets it all the time. and all of you who listen to podcasts, you will get occasionally from friends or someone that say,

I don't do podcasts or I don't know how to do podcasts. And it's a, for whatever reason, it's like this intimidating thing. I had a conversation with Buck after we finished the interview today. And he's asking me about the podcast. I'm like, look, why? He goes,

I don't listen to podcasts. And I said, it's intimidating, right? To you, is that what? He's like, yeah, I don't know what it means. I'm like,

All it means is just go to the website and listen. He said, what do you mean? I said, I have a website. You can just go there. There's a big blue button with an arrow in it. And if you push that button with your mouse, you can listen to it. And what I sent out yesterday was for those that say I don't do or know how to do podcasts, click what I had attached to it, which is my website, the Kevin Sheehan Show.com.

Everybody knows how to go to a website. I mean, some people only use the internet for porn, but at least they know how to use the internet. So they can put in the Kevin Sheehan Show.com, click the round blue button with the arrow in it, and turn up the volume. That's what you can say to them. It's not that hard. Also, if you're listening on iTunes or any other podcast platform, rate it if you haven't. It helps me a lot if you rate it and review it and subscribe to it. And again, subscribe does not mean you pay.

It's free. Thanks so much to launch workplaces. If you are looking for an office, an office space in the Bethesda, Chevy Chase, Upper Northwest D.C. area, I want you to go to launchworkplaces.com or call 240, 86714. It's a beautiful new space, fully furnished offices, conference rooms, co-working desks, high-speed internet, complimentary drinks, a cafe, 24-7 access and free parking. If you're one of those people that lives in the area and you're working from home and you can't get everything you want to get done at home because of the dogs or the kids or whatever, launchworkplaces.com is a great spot here in Bethesda. And it's been great for us and I'm pretty sure it'll work out for you too. If you've got one of those issues of wanting to get out of the home.

Launchworkplaces.com or 240800. 6714. Thanks to Aaron, thanks to Cooley, thanks to Buck. We're back tomorrow. I will watch the World Series in Golden State, Washington tonight. I'm going to stay up and definitely watch that tonight. Hopefully they'll keep it close, keep it interesting, and we'll certainly get you ready over the final two days of the week for the football weekend and for Skins' Giants. Enjoy the day, everybody. Appreciate it.