The Kevin Sheehan Show - Cooley & Kevin on Haskins' Debut

Episode Date: November 4, 2019

Kevin opens with his recap of the Redskins' loss to Buffalo with his main emphasis on Dwayne Haskins' first start in the NFL. Chris Cooley then called in with his breakdown of the Haskins' debut. Kevin talked about the NFLPA statement about Trent Williams and finished up with some other NFL game recaps. <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. They've yet to convert a third down to them. Haskins throw on targets of Richardson who got the first down. His fourth catch of the game.

What a really nice job by Dwayne Haskins on this. So was that so scary? Was that so awful? I mean, what was everybody worried about? Come on, please. He should have been starting four weeks ago. All right, I'm here. Aaron's here. Cooley is going to join us momentarily after I get through with my game take.

He is looking at the tape, I believe, or maybe looking at the tape. I don't know if he's going to get through it or not before he joins us, but he will join us this morning for 10 to 15 minutes, because I know he's got a family obligation this morning with his daughter's parent-teacher conference. school, but we're going to get to him before he goes into that. Get to the skins in my game take here in a moment. I did want to start, though, Aaron, with Saturday. And even last night with the Nationals at the Caps game, because you got two winners in town who are celebrating together last night. The Nats last night at the Caps game, by the way, doing their best impression of the Caps

from two years ago. Yeah, they did. Shirts off, hammered. They're enjoying being champions as they should. And it looks, by the way, like it's just getting started. But there are two things from last night before we go back to the parade on Saturday. Number one, there's this picture of the two teams together on the ice after the game that is spectacular. It's wonderful. There's so many great pictures. That's absolutely one of them. Yeah.

Like that is a frameable kind of thing with the two teams on the ice together. And then in the locker room afterwards, the two teams, the Nats and the Caps. The Caps, by the way, if you're not following it, have the best record in hockey. They've got 25 points more than anybody else in the sport right now. They beat Calgary last night, four to two. But they started together singing in the Caps locker room, We are the Champions together. And it was not necessarily in tune, but who cares?

But man, that parade Saturday, I was down there for it. You were too, right? So where were you down there? I was. So for the parade, I was down on Constitution and 9th. And for the rally, I moved up to about between like 6th and 7th Street. So a couple of things. Number one, I just loved the whole vibe of the city.

Like, I drove, you know, if you tell me not to drive somewhere, then I'm definitely going to drive somewhere, which is what I did on Saturday. They're like, don't drive. You can't get anywhere near there. I got close enough. But what was really interesting is I'm driving down Massachusetts Avenue in Northwest. And, I mean, you get to, like, Embassy Row, row and people are walking with that

gear. I mean, we're, we're a couple of miles away at that point. And it's like, oh, my God. And then, you know, as I approach DuPont Circle, it's like there are people just everywhere with Nats gear. And then as I get down closer to where I was thinking about parking, I was thinking, if I can get to Chinatown or city center or somewhere around there, find a parking spot, I'll be good, which I did. And it was hordes of people, all in Nats gear. And we're still at that point, six, seven blocks away from the action. And it was just, you know, it was a beautiful fall day. It was a Saturday, which meant that people didn't have to take off work to go down there.

It was awesome. There was just a vibe and a feeling about the city, which is such a better city now than it ever was. I can't tell for you, for those of you that aren't familiar with Washington, that may be, you know, a lot of you are familiar with it, but you haven't been back in a long time because I know a lot of our listeners to the podcast or from outside the market. You're primarily DC sports fans, primarily Redskins fans, I get it. And we're going to get to the Redskins game here momentarily. But, you know, those areas, you know, Chinatown, city center, you know, West End, you know, then you get down to the mall. It's just totally different than it ever was 15, 20 years ago, 25 years ago.

And it was a vibe that a real downtown has in a lot of great cities, which is what Washington is now. And the parade itself was phenomenal. The rally was some of the quotes from. various people up there. They were great too. But the one thing, and I asked Barry's Ruluga this this morning, I actually texted Mark Zuckerman this because he didn't have an answer, and Barry didn't have an answer either. I think the post has gotten out of the business of crowd estimation, you know, after perhaps the last inauguration. I thought, and it felt like a much bigger crowd overall than for the Caps parade, which would, by the way, wouldn't have

been a surprise. It was a Saturday, as I mentioned, people weren't working, and I think baseball's got a bigger reach. Did you feel the same way? It was hard to tell because they did it on Pennsylvania Avenue instead of the mall what they did for the caps. To me, it looked smaller, but it was because I couldn't see quite as much. It wasn't quite as expanded. It went further. Yeah, it was just really hard to tell. I don't think, it's hard to tell. It's hard to compare. It was great atmosphere wherever, you know, for whichever one you were at. You know, I watched the, when I got back, I watched some of the highlights that I missed and stuff.

And I mean, it just looked awesome is what it did. When we got to the rally portion and, you know, Mayor Bowser spoke and then Bob Carpenter did a really nice job. Speaking of Bowser, how about them pushing the 51st state thing? They didn't do that for the Caps parade. I didn't, I don't remember, yeah, I don't remember them doing that for the Caps parade. Carpenter got up and went through all the key moments. He did a really good job.

Mark Lerner got up and had the. line I thought of all of the speeches when he said, you know, during the postseason, he didn't know if Davey was calling for a reliever or a defibrillator, which I thought was very funny. And Davey even laughed and, you know, you just, and he's healthy, thankfully. They, you know, they got hopefully, you know, the stent in and that's what I've heard was, was done and he's well. And Rizzo, you know, Rizzo looked a little bit impacted, to say the least. And then Dave Martinez got up there.

And at some point, at one point he said, you know, you don't, you know, the stay in the fight and then finish the fight. And he said, you don't need to tell me, you know, to stay in the fight. And, you know, that's what he's been up against here for a while. He also referred to the thing that Tommy referred to the other day, the circle of trust that he developed early in the season that maybe people, you know, sort of blew off as corny and hokey. But this is something that Tommy mentioned to us the other day,

the podcast that, you know, sometimes you create these things as a manager or a coach or a leader in an organization. And it's taken to heart and it's, it becomes like a rallying cry. And at 19 and 31, they were all referring to the circle of trust like this sticking together with no backstabbing, no criticizing publicly of anybody and saying and staying supportive and staying positive. And that helped them survive 19 and 31. I don't think there's any doubt about it. The old man, Ted Lerner, said,

you know, from now on, you can call me Grandpa Shark, you know, at the end. And then Trey Turner jumps to the mic

and says, can we bring back Anthony Rendon, which may have created the biggest applause of the thing. But it was, it was really,

I really enjoyed being down there. I actually really enjoyed the Caps Parade too. You know, this one for me a little bit more close to my heart because I just

really amended this baseball team. And like I think a lot of people of a certain age just really thrilled with what we just witnessed over the last month. It was great. Anyway, did you have any last thoughts on the parade? I mean, it was a lot. Here was the one big difference. Because they did it almost in reverse of the caps, where the caps had that 48-hour

binger leading into the parade versus the parade kind of kicking off the binger for the Nats, It had a little bit of different feel to it because, you know, we were expecting the party. A lot of the fans were, I feel like, a lot drunker for the Caps Parade. Yeah. That necessarily this one, though, there were quite a few people getting drunk at the Caps Parade or at the Nets Parade as well. But they definitely rounded into four by the time that Caps game came up. Well, I'll tell you, and I said this because I was on radio Saturday afternoon from down at the parade. There was the aroma of a championship and there was the aroma of a ton of weed downtown.

I mean, I think I got to within two blocks, and you just, it was, you could smell it from, you know, forever. And by the way, a lot of those players, you know, were definitely well on their way to being overserved. You couldn't tell it to begin. It wasn't until the very end that you could kind of tell. And then you started, you know, when they did that, what do they call it, the open talk or open mic? Yeah, it's the open mic thing. They've been doing on team. Going live or whatever it's called.

That's what Trey Turner jumped in and did. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Then you really start to say, oh yeah, these guys have been parting. It was awesome. What a month. What a, what a season. And they're World Series champions. It's still sort of hard to believe. You know, this was the first weekend without baseball for a whole month. Kind of missed it, but Saturday was great.

All right. Let's get to the Redskins game take. Pay attention. Here's Kevin's Game Day. Okay, a 24 to 9 loss in Buffalo. Three and a half games, nearly three and a half games. now without a touchdown. The last team to go three games without a touchdown, Aaron, the 2008 Cleveland Browns. It's really difficult to be close in this league, as they all believe they are out in Nashburn in 2019 NFL when you don't score touchdowns in three plus games. But anyway, the thing that mattered most when it came to yesterday, of course, was Dwayne Haskins. His first start coming because Case Keenham never got out of concussion protocol. And,

here's the headline for me. Nothing to fear. And then the subheading would be not any worse than Keenham or McCoy. And by the way, Dwayne Haskins is the first thing on my list of the things that I liked from the game yesterday. Let me explain. First of all, yesterday was the first day you could legitimately evaluate him. I thought he was fine. I'm not sure what they've been so afraid of. The conditions weren't great in Buffalo. The wind was a factor all day long. made it hard for both teams to throw it deep, especially into the wind. Buffalo's pretty good, their crowd's tough. Overall, I thought his performance was much more encouraging than discouraging.

It's sort of the same thing I said about him after the first preseason game in which he played. I thought there was more there that was encouraging than discouraging, and I'll get to that in a few minutes, but I didn't see anything alarming. You know, they didn't lose that game because of him. There's nothing I saw yesterday that would make me fearful. of playing him the rest of the way, which is what they should have been doing already three, four games ago. And even if they are worried, or even if they don't think he gives them the best chance to win, which, by the way, is totally debatable now after watching him yesterday,

I can't imagine that their chance of winning is that much greater with McCoy or Keenham. But they are a one-and-eight football team. One-and-eighthate. They're terrible. If Bill Callahan or someone above him makes the decision to start Keenham if Keenham's cleared to play against the Jets in two weeks, that person or group of people should have their heads examined. That would be stupidity at the highest level. That would be short-term thinking at the highest level. They're capable of it. We know that.

But anyone that watched yesterday, did anybody watch yesterday and say to themselves, oh my God, he's terrible. Or, oh my God, Case Keenham's so much better. No one said that. Come on. He didn't look afraid. He didn't look overwhelmed. They gave him help with the running game.

He looked fine. And let me get to it in more specifics. All right? Let me start with this. The biggest concern, right? You can't call the plays. He doesn't know the plays. He's not going to get him to the line of scrimmage in time.

It's going to be one delay a game of penalty after another. They're going to have to call all their timeouts before they snap the ball for the first time in the game. not one delay of game penalty, not one time out because he couldn't call the player, get them to the line of scrimmage in time. The management of the game in terms of getting the play in, getting to the line of scrimmage with plenty of time, smooth. It was smooth. Callahan talked about this in his post game. I want you to hear what he said about the Haskins' management of the game.

I saw a lot of positive carryover in his development for a first-start rookie. boy everything we had emphasized in terms of communication being able to enunciate the the verbiage of the plays getting in and out of the huddle without delays i think we're down on the clock maybe once or twice but by and large i thought he managed that aspect of the pre-snap and post-snap really really well and it's a credit to him he put in a lot of time and we had talked earlier in the week you know about that emphasis, and he took it to heart. And I thought it really helped him today. He was very confident last night in the meetings, very confident today on the field.

I mean, there it was. I think Callahan just summed it up. Would anybody disagree with what Callahan just said? It was smooth. The management of the game was a hell of a lot better than most of you expected, but it was smooth. There was nothing wrong with it. I thought he was active in the pocket.

I thought he extended plays. I thought he made some good throws. The throw to Paul Richardson on 3rd and 6, which was the play we came into this show with, under immediate and heavy pressure from Milano, was his best play of the day. He was decisive, he was quick, he knew he was going to take a shot,

he threw it quickly, and he threw it with anticipation. That was a big-time third-down throw. on, by the way, a drive where they had it early in the fourth quarter down 17 to 9. I loved that throw. I thought his release when he did throw it looked quick all day long. Sometimes it was sidearm, but who cares? There were other throws where he proved he can throw with anticipation. And I mentioned that, and I've mentioned that in the past,

because one of the things I'll never forget Mike Shanahan telling me six, seven years ago, something like that, Shanahan told me many years ago, there are things you can teach and coach up, and then there are things that are already there naturally. And throwing with anticipation is one of those things that if a quarterback doesn't have naturally, he said, it can be improved a little bit with good coaching, but it will never be a strength. And it has to be a strength at the NFL level for you to be a really good quarterback. You cannot wait for people to get open at the NFL level. You have to throw it before they get open, and Haskins threw it yesterday with anticipation.

I mentioned the third and six against the blitz to Richardson in the fourth quarter. Two throws in the third quarter. A second and ten on their first drive of the second half to Richardson, who got 13 yards. And then a really good anticipation throw on a second and 13 to Richardson, where he threw it perfectly to Richardson, and it was right on him even before he was coming out of his break. That ball was out. And when he came out of his break, that ball was right on him. Those throws are encouraging.

And by the way, again, go back and look at the third and six early in the fourth quarter with Milano coming untouched, unblocked, free runner. That's not a good throw. That's a great throw by any NFL quarterback, by any NFL standard. If you miss that and you've got the game recorded, you've got the game pass, you go back and watch the third and six early in the fourth quarter. He's got a free runner. He knows he's going to take a shot. That ball is out before Richardson's ever into his break. It's a third down and six.

It is a phenomenal throw. He didn't make one truly awful play all day long. I know the bar's low. I'm sure that's what some of you were thinking, but was there a bad play all day long? He made the most out of some bad situations. The first third down of the game, it's a third and five. The snaps a little bit low.

He didn't try to do too much with it. He ran it for a few yards and punted it. You know, he didn't panic. Get a younger quarterback sometimes. They'll take it. They'll bobble it. They'll drop it. They'll pick it up.

They'll just wing it down the field. I thought the third and two on their first field goal drive of the second quarter. It was third and two in the red zone. They went shotgun. Fake handoff rolled right. He didn't have anything. He didn't force it. He didn't lob it into the end zone.

He ran it. Maybe he could have been more decisive early there. Ended up losing a yard on the play, but they were able to kick the field goal. No bad play there. That, by the way, was one. of the sacks, you know, that rollout where he gets, you know, he decides at the last minute to run and it's a one-yard loss that technically registers as a sack. I thought it was a good decision. He went 15 of 22, and some of his misses were close. The out and up to Richardson in the end zone

was a close play. By the way, a good throw, you know, not in danger of being picked. Only, you know, only had the possibility of being caught by Richardson. I think a throw to McClorian. I think a throw to McLaren over the middle in the first half may have been dropped. I don't know if it was a pure drop, but it was certainly catchable. I thought he made a really good decision to run it on a screen pass that wasn't open in the fourth quarter. If you go back and look at that play, the screen isn't there. He doesn't force it. And then he doesn't throw it because if he does, it's a little bit too late. And he would have been called, they would have been called for ineligibles downfield. He had that third and six scramble where he actually lost the handle.

the ball, then high stepped it for the first down. I thought that was really good feel. I thought he showed feel on the pocket when there was one. I think a few of the sacks he took were, you know, extra man pressures, and perhaps some of those were on him. Maybe he didn't see it. Maybe he didn't pick it up. Maybe he didn't get his protection right.

I'll tell you one thing that's obvious going back to the preseason. He's more mobile than I thought. I thought he showed it at times in the preseason. He showed it yesterday. He's got the ability to extend plays. He's got some wheels. He does. He never showed that at Ohio State. I think he's lost weight. I mentioned that during the preseason. Now, there was an illegal shift penalty or two. I think one got missed that I think probably was his fault. I'll ask coolly about it. But early in the third quarter, they actually called it as a false start, which I don't think it was a false start. I think it was an illegal shift.

But early in the third quarter, Richardson is up on the line of scrimmage and then Sprinkle moves from the left tight end spot to the right, which means, means now that Richardson can't cover him up. So he's got to take a step back off the line of scrimmage, or it'll be in a legal formation. And so when he's moving backwards, Haskins has the ball snapped. And so there's a five-yard penalty. I think that's on Haskins. I think he's got to be more patient and wait for Richardson to get set there. But, you know, I mean, look, this was not a game in which he took a lot of chances. That was the game plan and considering the wind and considering the opponent, I didn't have a problem with it. Some of you were asking me on Twitter why they didn't take more shots and why he didn't throw it more

than 22 times in a game they lost 24 to 9. Look, I don't want to see Dwayne Haskins play to just throw it 40 times a game for the hell of it. I want to see them with him in the game trying to win the game, not just him in the game to get him throws, but to see him manage the game. Managing the is a big part of the position. I thought he did that pretty well. I did have a problem with the second half plan and play calling in particular, which I'm going to get to in a few minutes. But overall, his first start, I'd give him a B-minus. He didn't have any major negative plays. He didn't make a lot of great plays. He certainly didn't put the team on his back and carry them to a win. No, he did not do that. But by the way, that game yesterday,

was another one of those games that they've played here recently that was really fast. Yesterday's game, Aaron, two hours and 40 minutes. The game against Minnesota, I think, was two hours and 39 minutes, and the game against San Francisco was two hours and 36 minutes. I believe they are the three fastest games of the NFL season so far. They only had eight possessions in the game that mattered. The last one came when they were down 24 to 9, you know, at the very end of the game. They only ran 45 offensive plays.

And by the way, before that last drive that didn't matter, I think they had only 38 offensive snaps. No, that's not right. 40 offensive snaps before that last drive that really didn't matter. It's not a lot of chances. Buffalo only had 60 offensive snaps. That's not a ton either. It was the nature of the game.

It was fast played, not a lot of clock stoppages. And so you don't get as many chances. in a game like that. Look, overall, bottom line, I give him a B-minus somewhere around there. I mean, you want to give him a C-plus or you want to give him a B, I'm fine. I'm in the middle there, B-minus. I'd be very disappointed if he didn't start against the Jets after the by-week. He should be getting every rep in practice, every mental rep in team meetings, soaking everything up that a starting quarterback soaks up between now and his next start. This is not that hard, people. I don't want to hear about a different coaching staff that's coming in next year or

different system that he's going to have to learn next year and how that makes the reps he gets this year unimportant. I don't buy that at all. We saw things yesterday that work in any system with any coaching staff. Now, was I convinced of anything yesterday one way or the other? No. And I'm going to live up to my word that I'm going to wait until I've seen him start a lot of games. Eight minimum. I want seven more starts. And then we'll have a better feel. We're not going to learn anything about him if he doesn't start and doesn't prep and doesn't play. I still can't believe that Callahan did not commit to him after the game. I still can't believe that. It makes no sense to me whatsoever. Now, is he going to try to do it for competitive advantages? Come on. They're

playing the Jets. They're 1-8. The Jets have won one game. Name them the starter later today during your press conference for the rest of the season. Please. So we, By the way, so we at least have something to watch and a reason to watch. All right, on my list of things that I liked in addition to Dwayne Haskins, Adrian Peterson. I mean, this dude is ridiculous. Right now at 34 years old, can you name 10 backs in the league that are better? Right now, the way he's playing.

I mean, based on, we're just talking about the past couple weeks, there's no. There's none who, I mean, not none who are better, but not 10. I mean, he's right now close to a top 10 running. back in the league with the way he's playing. He's just exceptional. Nobody runs harder. It's one of the things I've sort of mentioned about Adrian. You all can see it over, you know, last year. He's their best offensive player again. He's their offensive MVP again. He had 100 yards in the first half. First time he's at a 100-yard first half in seven years. The second half was rough. I put that on O'Connell and Callahan. I'll get to that shortly. You know, Kooley and I,

talked about this a few years ago, and I'm much more of a basketball guy than anything else. I played basketball. I've coached basketball. I love basketball. And there's an old saying, you know, about a really good shooter in basketball. Once a shooter, always a shooter. That's something that never leaves you. You know, I could always shoot the basketball. I was not a great defender. I will grant you that. I was not a very interested defender at times, but I could shoot the ball. And if you can shoot, shoot it at 20. If you can shoot it at 15, you can shoot it at 25, you can shoot it at 35, you can shoot it at 45. It's something that you always have. You will always have that stroke. And to me, vision for a

running back is sort of the same thing. You know, once you have it, it's innate. It doesn't leave you. You can see it with Peterson. He's got terrific vision and feel for where the crack is, for where the spaces. He's 34. I'm telling you what. That run, by the way, in the third quarter, when they had about 18 people in the box defensively, and he took Levi Wallace out on the edge and threw him and gained eight yards. It's one of the best runs I've seen all year long. Here's another thing about Peterson. So with Callahan, in the four games that Callahan's coached, He's got 383 yards on 75 carries. He's averaging 5.1 yards per carry since Callahan took over.

In the four games with Jay Gruden that he started after the opener where he was inactive against Philly, 108 yards on 40 carries, 2.7 yards per carry. Now, a lot of you will just jump to the conclusion. What was Jay doing? Well, to be fair, the last four games they've played were actually games. in which they had a chance. You know, the score, the context of the games weren't the same as the four games that Peterson started with Gruden here.

You know, when they were blown out by Chicago in the first half, blown out by the Giants. The Patriots blew them out, you know, not in the first half, but when you got to the second half. Those weren't games where they could afford to stick with the run. Here's the real question, though, about Adrian Peterson. It's not about whether or not he's a really good player right now at 34. years old because he is. He's their offensive player of the year already. You can give him the MVP right now.

The question is, what's the end game with Adrian Peterson? What's he going to be like at 35 years old? He's under contract next year. But what about Darius Geis? What about Bryce Love next year? He could be the guy. Both Geis and Love, though, are injury prone. It certainly Geis is. That's the question. And that's why, even though Peterson is really playing well, we've got to see Geis when he's healthy. Have to see him. Have to see him on first down, have to see him on second down, have to see him on third down.

We've got to see these younger players. You know, we've got to get a sense by the end of this year what the running back plan for 2020 is. Is it going to be AP or is it going to be Geis? Or maybe you just bring, I mean, AP's under contract. So at this point, I'd be surprised if AP doesn't come back next year. Of course, a new coaching staff and a new regime may decide, hey, we're really going to blow it up.

We're really going to go young. We're really going to invest in the future. And 2020 is not going to be a year in which we're competitive either. And by the way, more likely than not, they won't be. A few other players from the game that I liked. I thought Paul Richardson had one of his better games. Clearly, he is a favorite for Dwayne Haskins here in his first start. I think three of his four catches were for first downs.

I thought Troy Apkey showed some really good range. He had that really good 40 time coming out of Penn State, which is why the Redskins drafted him in the fourth round. I think he's shown some ability here when he's gotten the opportunity with Monta Nicholson out. I really like Kelvin Harmon. I think he's going to be a good player. Worst case, he's Ryan Grant because he's a terrific blocker, but I think he's going to be better than that.

Speaking of Ryan's, Ryan Anderson has played better this. year. He's a better player this year than he was last year. He's confident. He's got a big-time motor. He can run, surprisingly for me. I think Cole Holcomb has really flashed in almost every single game this year, and I think Bostick's pretty good, too. And I know the skins got run on in the first half and at the end of the game. I'm just pointing out a couple of players that I thought, you know, I played well at times yesterday. And really, in the case of Anderson and Holcomb and Bostick, It had been pretty good all year at time. It's been more good than bad this year.

So that's it. I guess Hopkins had a good day, three-for-three on field goals. None of them were very long, but in that win to make three, you know, to give him a chance to keep him in that game. You know, he's six for six now in his last two games. Missed one, remember, a short one against the 49ers in the rain. But those are the things I liked. Here's the list of things I didn't like.

That list is perhaps a little bit longer. first of all, the defense, it actually played better in the second half, with the exception of the final Buffalo touchdown drive, but the first half just wasn't good enough. They really struggled with Devin Singletary. I loved him coming out of the draft. They gave up six yards of carry to him. Josh Allen went seven for 10 in the first half.

The bills were four for six on third down in the first half. And here's the thing. I mentioned that the defense, struggle in the first half and somebody tweeted me, well, they only gave up 150 yards or whatever. It's not about yardage. This game, as I mentioned, was a fast-moving game. The bills only had three drives in the first half, just three. And you know what they did with those three? Two touchdowns and a field goal. That's not good defense. You know, you've got to get off the field. You can't let a team go three for three on three drives and score 17 points. Because in a game like

yesterday. You give up 17 points to the bills in the first half on the road with the offense that you have that hasn't scored a touchdown now in three and a half games. It's game over. No, the defense wasn't good enough in the first half. I don't know why that's so hard to figure out. And by the way, at the end of the game, you know, they played much better in the third quarter and most of the fourth quarter. But at the end of the game, the same thing happened to them that happened in Minnesota and at home against the 49ers. The Niners, if you recall, on their final drive of the game, just worked them. Six minutes, 19 seconds, kicked a field goal game over. The Vikings final drive, 14 plays 8 minutes and 16 seconds of the clock, just running the

ball. Game over. And then yesterday, it's 17 to 9. It's still a game. And Buffalo, you know, goes eight plays, three minutes, 34 seconds, scores a touchdown game over. By the way, they converted a third and 18 on that final drive. Minnesota, a week ago last Thursday, they made a third and 19 on their final drive. Defense is the 31st ranked third down defense in the league. So they've improved from where they were earlier in the year, but they're not good enough. They've got talent, I get it, and they were better in the second half. And at times you watch them and you're like, you know, it could be a good defense.

But it's not a good defense, and it hasn't been a good defense. and it hasn't been good enough. And yes, the offense needs to score more. That would help. I get it. But you can't give up 17 points, three scores on three drives in the first half, and claim that you had a good defensive day

because of the yardage gained. This is my biggest bone to pick about yesterday's game. The second half plan offensively, play calling, You know, coming off a first half in which Adrian Peterson was averaging 9.5, 10 yards per carry, they should have been able to go play action on first down to start the second half, knowing that Buffalo was going to load the box and try to stop AP. Instead, five of their first, six first down calls in the second half were Peterson runs.

And on those five runs, he gained five yards. You know, they couldn't run it in the second half. Buffalo walked Micahide into that box, and they made the adjustment to stop Adrian Peterson after he had that big first half. And Callahan and O'Connell should have had a feel for the game. Should have known that at halftime Buffalo is going to come with everybody to try to stop the run because they got run on big time in the first half. And that would have been the opportunity, you know, to keep the offense balanced and to let Dwayne, you know, go a little play action.

Throwing it deep yesterday with the wind was not easy. Josh Allen didn't throw it deep either. But some of those medium chunk plays, some of those digs, some of those crossers off play action, you know, with McLaren or Richardson, I mean, you know, to get a 15-to-18-yard chunk playoff first down to really loosen them up, they never did that. That's not good.

That's not feeling the game the way that I think they should have. And if they say, well, we couldn't throw the ball because of the wind, that's fine. Play action, throw hitches, throw short-patches. throw short passes. But when they tried to line it up in the second half and run the ball into a loaded box, sometimes 10 in the box,

it wasn't going to work. They handed the ball off five times on first down for five yards in the second half. Bad plan in the second half from O'Connell and Callahan. You know, we're judging them, we're certainly judging O'Connell as a play caller here. Also in the things I didn't like list, the first play of the game, the penalty on Bergstrom,

who got called for not reporting as an eligible receiver. Oh, you've got to be kidding me. I mean, Peterson rips off a 10-yard run on the play. That's inexcusable. That is not disciplined football. That is not we have to hold people accountable football. That's not why Bill Callahan made it a point to say, we brought referees into practice, and Jay didn't.

You know, like there's been a lot of subtle, shots at Jay Gruden. I'm not a big Jay Gruden fan, didn't want him to beat a coach this year, wanted him fired last January. Don't think he's a good head coach. But for Callahan, since he's taken over and he's now, you know, one and three, and by the way, the one, the win over the Dolphins, does anybody think that if Ryan Fitzpatrick had started that game that the Redskins would have won it? Aaron, anybody? No. No. I mean, have you seen Ryan Fitzpatrick since he game in against the Redskins? I mean, there's no chance the Redskins would have beaten the Dolphins had Ryan Fitzpatrick

played four quarters. They barely beat him when he played just barely a quarter. But anyway, you can't, on the first play of the game, have a 10-yard run, and you didn't have your eligible offensive lineman wearing number 66. Is that as a number of Berkstrom? Not report in as an eligible receiver. That's just bad. bad,

inexcusable, you know, undisciplined stuff. And the problem with that is when you're on the road, you know, and you've got a rookie quarterback, and he's getting his first start, and now you're behind the chains on the first drive,

so you're going to punt. And by the way, you're going into the wind, so the punt sailed, traveled just 21 yards, and then the bills get great field position, and they score touchdown on their opening drive, and you're down 7-0. These are the kinds of things that don't happen

when you're close. And that's the next thing I want to get to. Bill Callahan. I want you to listen to him after the game. It's just a shame that we just couldn't close out again. You know, it's been frustrating these past few weeks because we're in games against really good teams and we're close, but close doesn't get it in the NFL.

We're close. There it was. I mean, it's amazing. This is clearly something that has permeated the building out in Ashburn. The we're close narrative. They don't know how close we are. Our one in eight record is not representative of who we are and what we think we are. Last year, six and three was we're close. We're much closer.

They're brainwashed. Honestly, this is actually frightening because this is the big picture, right? It's like we're going to sit here and hopefully we're going to get a chance to evaluate Dwayne Haskins over another seven games and we're going to be able to do that. It gives us a reason to watch anyway. And yet, you know, as many of you have pointed out, and I've pointed out to all of you, you know, the big picture is, as long as Dan and Bruce are still here, where's this thing going?

You know, we're close? Close to what? In these games? I mean, technically you've been in these games, but, you know, the dolphins would have smoked you had Fitzpatrick played. The 49er game was played on a field. straight out in 1976. There was no drainage.

It totally impacted the game both sides. Does anybody think that the 49ers on a dry field wouldn't have beaten the Redskins, you know, beating them to a pulp? I mean, it wouldn't have been 9-0. The 49ers are much better than the Redskins. The Vikings were on cruise control. There was nothing about that game

that sort of relayed a sense of urgency for them. They knew the game. The Redskins didn't have a chance. to beat the Vikings. And yesterday, they really didn't have a chance to beat Buffalo. At 17 to 9, I was actually with Dwayne Haskins in the game, hoping that they could make a run back and tie it. Like, I would have loved like a tie and then maybe a loss in overtime.

But in all honesty, I mean, with Dway, there's no reason to root for this team. If you're a Redskins fan, this is my view. And I got into it on Twitter with a couple of people yesterday. And look, we can debate this. And I'm not so close-minded as to think you're an idiot for rooting for them to win, you know, in a season where going 1 in 15 or 2 and 14 could give them the most draft leverage they've ever had as an organization, which could really, really impact their future in a positive way. But I get it.

You know, not everybody can do that. But personally, my view is this. Any game that Dwayne Haskins doesn't start, I don't want them to win. with Dwayne Haskins starting, I want to see what he has, and I want them to game plan to win the game, and I'd love to see him develop into a winning quarterback to give them a legitimate chance to win. If they got a couple of wins down the stretch with Dwayne Haskins,

that's a million times better than getting a couple of wins down the stretch with Case Keenham or Colt McCoy, two guys who are not going to be on your roster next year. But anyway, the close thing is infuriating. I mean, really infuriating. not close to anything. They are an awful, awful football team, and they are one of the top three or four worst organizations in sports. It's really not that debatable. By the way, Paul Richardson after the game said, quote, the message can't keep being, we're close, we're close. So he's hearing it too,

you know, from everybody there. He said, the message can't be, I'm proud of you guys in your effort. Get ready for next week. We have to put points on the board. Put touchdowns on the board. That's what wins at this level. Closed quote. The Redskins haven't scored a touchdown in 13 quarters. They're not close to anything. A couple of final thoughts on the game. I mentioned the time in the game. I think I'm right about this. The Redskins have now been involved in their last three games in the three fastest NFL games of the year. And by the way, for us, It's perfect. I mean, you get, I mean, it's short, compact, it's over quickly,

and then you can sit back and watch the end of the other one o'clock games. And there were some good one o'clock games yesterday, which we'll get to here in a moment. By the way, did Andre Roberts step out of bounds on his kickoff return? I think he may have. I don't know what the yardage difference would have been. How about the Josh Allen? By the way, I like Josh Allen. I think Josh Allen's going to be a good quarterback for Buffalo.

The sneak for the touchdown. late in the second quarter, you know, on the fourth and goal. Did you see Josh Norman celebrating like they got the stop after that? And then when they went to the replay, Josh Norman is staring at Josh Allen with the ball in the end zone for a touchdown. Yet he ran towards the sideline waving his arm like they had just gotten the biggest stop. That was strange. The bills yesterday, and this will tell you the kind of respect that they have for the Redskins, which is zero. They declined a holding penalty against the Redskins instead of taking a second and 20, which almost every team does. They just said, go ahead, make it a third down in 10. That's fine for us.

All right, that's it on my game take. You know, it was, look, it's going to be more interesting moving forward over these final dreadful seven weeks of the NFL season for the Redskins of Dwayne Haskins is starting. and we essentially have a project all of us, and that is to evaluate him and to determine at the end of this season what our gut feel is on whether or not they've got themselves a quarterback moving forward, whether or not they made a mistake or whether or not they made a good pick there. All right, quick word about mybooky.orgie.ag and then we'll get to Cooley.

Mybucky.ag is a place to bet. By the way, the smell test this weekend, boy, it was Saturday ugly. Aaron, 0 and 4 on Saturday with the smell test. And a lot of you were, you know, once again tweeting me and saying, thanks, Sheehan, you know, great pick with Maryland, great pick with Air Force. You know, and that's fine. You know, I appreciate all of the negative feedback when I lose and the very limited feedback when I killed it for the first month and a half of the season.

And still, you've won money with me this year rather than lost money with me. But what I was going to say about that is, thank God I didn't give you all the picks I liked on Saturday, because I personally had another four or five games that I liked that I didn't give out in the smell test, and they all lost too. I mean, UNLV, TCU, Southern Cal, it was a bloodbath on Saturday. Yesterday, big bounceback day. Had the chargers in the smell test, loved them, had the Broncos. Stop telling me about Denver to stop playing Denver.

I'm four and two now against the spread with Denver. Baltimore last night, Pittsburgh earlier in the day, a four-and-one NFL day, to finish four and five for the weekend, which isn't great, but after where I was late Saturday, thank God for Sunday. And I'll tell you what, by far and away, and I was told this by offshore contacts and other people here locally, the biggest decision of the weekend for any bookmaker was Green Bay Chargers late yesterday. Absolutely. The books desperately needed the Chargers to cover.

Not only did they cover, they won the game outright, so they killed anybody that had Green Bay on the money line. They killed anybody that had Green Bay in a teaser because the Chargers won by 15. That was the biggest public play of the weekend, Green Bay, which is why I was on the Chargers late yesterday. All right, so you're not betting yet, but you want to bet. MyBooky.ag, I wouldn't tell you to bet with them if I didn't think and know that they're reliable and fair. And not all of these places are. If you don't have a place, mybooky.ag, fast payouts, great lines. They're as good and as reliable as any other sports book out there, and there are some you have to be careful of.

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You play, you win, you get paid. All right, let's bring in Cooley and find out what he thought about the day yesterday. I have already said that basically netting it out, I was more encouraged than discouraged with the Dwayne Haskins performance. How did you see it? I went back and watched it all over this morning, and I was really pleasantly encouraged by Duane's performance. I thought essentially he took care of the ball.

He made some big throws when he had to make some big throws. He showed his strong arm. He can clearly get the ball out to the edge. Had a big throw late in the game, I think fourth quarter to Paul Richardson, where he had pressure right in his base, and he still got it on an out route. It was good of a play as you're going to see. by a quarterback in this league. So I like that.

Could have done a couple things a little bit better. You know, obviously you had a couple misses. A lot of quarterbacks have misses in games. You know, one I think that I would like to see again as that third and two boot on the first drive. I think if he just pulls it and runs it, attacks the line of scrimmage, he ends up getting it first down there. And that's a situation where you can score.

Miss Trey Quinn on one play action shot. But other than that, man, I don't know. I didn't see a lot risky. I didn't see throws that you said should be a pick throw. I saw a confident kid who's got to make it up to the line of scrimmage, out of the huddle, made some throws, didn't have a ton of opportunities to make as many throws as I'd like to see, which we can probably get to, was maybe a little bit too protected, especially as they went into the second half,

but never panicked, never, never, never blinked. I'm so glad you brought up that third and six on the Blitz, where Milano comes free as a runner, Blitzer unblocked, and he knows he's going to take a bit of a shot there, and he throws it with anticipation to Richardson. It's a perfect throw. And I said earlier, that's not a good throw in this league. That is a great throw in this league. And I thought it was also representative of his other throws where, you know, you and I've had this conversation before, and I've mentioned to you before that Mike Shanahan told me seven years ago, eight years ago,

you have to be able to throw with anticipation at this level, and that's more natural than coached up. And if it's not natural, you know, you'll probably never have it as a strength, which will be a problem. I think it's natural to him. I think there were other throws that you could see where he threw. There was a second and 13 that he threw to Richardson where that ball's coming out before Richardson ever comes close to getting out of his break. Yeah, it clearly sees him in the man. and just drills it on Richardson. By the way, that is a choice route on the other side to Trey Quinn,

and it's so often that second and long you want to take that easy throw and just throw the choice route to the inside receiver, and you get six or seven, maybe eight or nine, steps up, makes a big throw to Paul Richardson. Yeah. You know, Cooley, the other thing, too, I think we saw some of this in the preseason. He's more mobile than he looked at Ohio State,

and I think he's got better feel in the pocket, and he extended some plays yesterday with his legs. Yeah, I thought he made a couple plays. Early in the game of third and five, he didn't get the first down, but Sheriff gets beat very quickly and he gets out of the pocket and gives him a chance to get a first down. He did run for one later in the game where he fumbled the ball in his own hand. Right.

And then I kind of high step to the sideline, but that's man-to-man. Maybe he could have taken a shot to Terry, but he sees the edge collapse, and he just goes and get the first down. I think that was a big play. I can move around a little bit. I think he did a good job avoiding some pressure. It did not look uncomfortable in the pocket.

I mean, what were people so afraid of? I mean, it just, I'm watching this, and it's like, he's managing the game. There are no delay in game penalties. You're not calling timeouts. He's getting them to the huddle, getting the play, called in the huddle, getting to the line of scrimmage with plenty of time. I mean, ultimately, we're going to get to some other portions of this game, but it didn't look any different than I think Case Keenham or Colt McCoy would have

looked yesterday. Am I wrong? Yeah. I don't think you're, you're wrong at all. I think that the concern is that they can't use their verbiage in these excessively wordy plays. And to me, I say, find a way to shorten the play calls. By the way, I'm shorting the play calls if it's Tom Brady. I don't want 22-word play. It doesn't matter who it is. And so, I'm shorting the play. I'm, I'm shortening the play calls. I'm, I don't know. I just see this a lot, and I don't know if Duane is this kind of person or not, but I see coaches over and over and over get enamored with practice quarterback and practice play. And this guy does it right and practice every day. And it's like who steps up on the big stage?

And maybe that's Duane. But there's only one way to find out if that's Duane. You know, this is the week that he's had the most praise from practice. Well, he knows he's playing. He knows he's starting. He's not the practice blood guy. and then you did him in the game, and I think they should have built on what he started doing early in that ball game

and throwing the ball a little bit more against the Bill's team who was playing Micah Hyde at about one yard from the line. Right. Yeah, I mean, that's the other thing I said. I said I had an issue with the second. I didn't have an issue overall with the first half game plan or the play calling. They were in the game. They're running the football well.

They're protecting them. You've got to protect a lot of these quarterbacks in the league and make sure that they're not one-dimensional. but in the second half, there were a couple of plays, especially when they went with their heavy formation, where there were 10 guys at the line of scrimmage. Like, you guys, that's your opportunity to off that first half success to go play action, right?

Or just three-step drop back and throw a hitch outside to, I don't know, Selvin Harmon in their heavy package with old Todd Bergstrom. Tony Bergstrom, I keep forgetting that. Yes. We get it a bunch of times. We get that wrong. Buffalo's adjustment essentially was, man, when they play, in Berg, they're going to run the ball.

I mean, they have very firm, Hensh, Strinkle, and Kelvin Harmon. Where are they going to throw the ball? Let's load the box, and let's stop the run. And so I went back, you go back and look at the runs in the second half. AP had one eight-yard run, and that was where he stiff-armed Wallace on the edge, which is as good a run as you're going to see in the NFL, and takes it to eight yards.

They had one four-yard carry, and other than that, it was zero, zero, zero, zero, minus two or minus three a penalty which was a minus five and another minus run. They had one positive run other than that AP eight yarder and that should have been a two yard carry. You can't just load it loaded up without any weapons

and not go with something to Harmon, some kind of screen, sprinkle on a screen or hensches on something or motions. You can't do it. It's just not you can't do that in the NFL right now. I think that you got too tied up with

some of those plays that AP made in the first half, where honestly a couple of them were unblocked or misblocked and AP made something out of them anyway. It wasn't like you were dominating them at the line of scrimmage to come out in the second half and say, can't stop us. Right. By the way, he is spectacular. That eight-yard run that you referred to, I said earlier, I'm like, he took Wallace and and through him. That's about as good an eight-yard run as you will ever see, because the box is loaded up with like 18 in the box, and he pops it outside, and Wallace is there with

them one-on-one, and he takes him and throws him and gets eight yards. I mean, I'm wondering, and I'm going to come back to Haskins here in a second, but is the 2020 running back plan, and is it crazy to even suggest it? Adrian Peterson? Why is that crazy? It shouldn't? I don't think it should be yet now. I mean, the only thing he lashed is the final breakaway speed that he had in 2009. He's too convicted 20 if it pops. Yeah. He's incredible.

I mean, we're obviously getting him later in his career, but he has had some, yes, the runs, his vision is great. I said something on the radio this morning. I don't know if you heard me, but you and I had this conversation a couple of years ago, and I said to you as a running back's vision sort of equivalent to a shooter in basketball, because to me, if you can shoot the basketball,

all, you can shoot it at 20 years old, 30 years old, 40 years old, 50 years old, you can still shoot it. A running back's vision, you got it at 20, 30, or 40. Like, that's something innate you have, you never lose. Do you agree with that or not? I 100% agree with that. I don't think there's any way you can lose it. And it's funny, you look at the biggest place in this game.

Adrian Peterson over the left guard for 28. Adrian Peterson on a screen pass for 22. Adrian Peterson over the left guard for 19. The top six plays in this game, Adrian Peterson plays Yeah. All right, so... He's the MVP of the team right now. Oh, no doubt.

I know in a one-and-seven season. He's the best player on offense by Miles. Like, it's for the second straight year. So back to Haskins for a moment. I picked up on something telling me if I'm right or wrong. I thought that there were two occasions. One in particular they got flagged for, and you mentioned the one penalty. It was actually called a false start. It was Richardson who was covering up Sprinkle and then had to take a step back off the line of scrimmage, and Haskins started the ball before, snapped the ball before he was set, and he didn't recognize that. There was another play in the first half where I think they got away with one of those. is that on the court? The funny thing is, as I told somebody, I watched that happen in practice, I said,

you're going to get penalized on the flight because they're trying to go quick count off of it. Yes, it is up on the quarterback. And did you hear the way they called it in the game? They called it a false start. Well, they called it on Sprinkle because the Pidon's hand was still moving while the ball was being snapped. He was going from a 2.0.2 to a 3-point stance. They didn't call it. They called the false start on Sprinkle, not a legal formation.

I know, but... They were trying to do that, but then they were trying to quit out of that. Yeah, but Richardson was moving backwards when the ball was snapped. That's why I... But that's not what they called. I know they did. I know they did. I've never heard them call it the way they called it, which is what I thought was in.

Yeah. Yeah, that's... Dewein's got to hold for one more half second there. Right. But they did, they had that, I promise you, that that happened four times in practice this week, where I would have said that the penalty, told someone, it doesn't matter if I told you but I'm sitting there saying like

that's going to get called as a penalty and it did it was a penalty in practice this week so somebody should have thought as well you know something else that got called for a penalty was the first play of the game it's a 10-yard run by Peterson and Bergstrom how do we not report

and Bergstrom didn't report as ineligible I mean Todd's got a he's got a report as ineligible I mean I thought that's where I am Todd Bertstrom Puffa ball 66 I mean Did Larry call him Todd in the game?

No, I have no idea. I have no idea if he did. You and I always call them Todd, and I think Larry called him Todd in the game a few years ago. But you mentioned to me via text during the radio show this morning, they just call them Berg anyway, so it doesn't matter. But it is Tony. Yeah, everyone calls him Berg.

It is Tony. All right. So let's get to the second half. When they've run the ball so effectively in the first half, and now they're trying to run it on first down, two with no success in the second half because Buffalo is walking Micahide up to the line of scrimmage on every first down play and they're stopping the run now except for the play where Peterson threw Wallace off of them. Why don't you adapt to that as a play caller and go early

down play action with that many people up front? Is that on the coaching staff or could Dwayne have checked to something else? No, the runs didn't have very many checks off from, in my opinion, and you can see when you just watch the way and walk up in a heavy set and realize, like, he's not looking around or looking at anything. He's calling it. It's call it and run it. The thing, if you want to continue to run the ball, and this goes back through the last three weeks that I've noticed with either Kevin, Bill, whatever it is, you have to have run diversity and edge run type of place. You can't get into the second half and go, now we're going to go with our duo play over and over and over and

over and over again. Like, they usually have decent run diversity in the first half where they get a toss in there. They get some of those two-back shot inset where they have something different. The weaks that zone stuff where they're letting their tight end sift up to the linebackers. And then they get into the late second quarter, third, in the third quarter, and they go, downhill run. Boom, boom, boom.

Here we go. Show you what we got. We're doing it. If you want to run, you still have to have some toss. You have to have some different action. All right. And then I do think, and I think that you can go run out. action pass in those situations. I think it's hard if you don't have great receivers.

I think it's really hard if you have just Harmon, sprinkle, hensches, and Burrstrom in there as your receivers, as you're eligible in a running back. So I think that at that point, you probably have to get McClorn into your heavy package. And they did into the fourth quarter try to go with a couple run-action shots. They tried to get Trey Quinn on the crosser that was one of Duane's misthroats and they did take another shot where it may have looked like

McClorn was open deep and that was a twin crosser, he wasn't. But I think you've got to change that first intent has to have balance between drop back screen, run,

obviously, and run action. All right, I know you, Coley is running into a parent teacher conference for his brilliant daughter. But I've got three quick ones for you to end it with. Number one, I'm glad to hear that you've looked at the Haskins, you know, the game tape already, and that you sort of feel the same way. But ultimately, what grade would you give Haskins yesterday? I'd give Haskins a B. I think he played at a B level. I mean, he didn't do anything to warrant anything less than that.

Your worst-case grade, if you're really hard on him, it's going to be C-plus. And that's basically because on a dive, the degree of difficulty wasn't very much. Is there any reason whatsoever to do anything organizationally other than to commit to Dwayne Haskins as the starter the rest of the way? Here's my thought on that quickly. If you care about the future of these players and this group and the future of the Washington Erskins, whether or not you know what your future is as a staff member, You're just playing.

It's just time. You don't need to win four games this year. No. No. There's no, really, to me, if I'm in charge of making all the decisions and I'm thinking of keeping anybody, the number one thing I'm thinking about, especially the offense of the ball, is where's my quarterback?

And what are you guys doing with it? Yeah. Versus, hey, you found a way to eat out four wins late in a year when it didn't matter. And they're not going to get four. Yeah. To me, if you care about the future of this team, it's time. And Cooley, like, after watching yesterday, does anybody think that Keen Amandor McCoy, like,

give you so much more of a chance to win? I don't. Don't see why you can't build off of what you just did add a little bit every week. How good was single, Terry? How good is he going to be? That was one of the backs I loved before the draft. He's just, they're basically. He went into the game, Avergeney.

8.3 yards per carry. You average 6 yards per carry in that game. He had that screen pass that was absolutely awesome. You loved him. You got to give you a ton of credit for picking out Dingletary, but they love him in Buffalo, and he's a weapon for them. By the way, one last thing. You know who I think's going to be a really good player for the Redskins on offense? Kelvin Harmon. Yeah, I like Kelvin Harmon a lot. He's got some ability to get down the field. He's a guy, by the way, he could go 50-50 go ball on first and ten to line up in two tight ends. two receivers, have Duane look at the safety, and you got McCorn and Harmon on the outside.

He just throw it up. And he can block. Either get to, either catch the ball or make sure they don't catch it. And he can block. Yeah. No doubt. All right. No doubt.

Go, don't take these parent-teacher conferences. Sloan is how old now? How old Sloan now? This isn't my first. This isn't my first one. This is fine. They're going to tell us, she's. Brilliant.

They're going to give us that Duane Haskins grade. I know, but you can't. At this age, you really can't. can't take him that seriously. I'm really not that working about it. All right. Very good. Thanks for doing this.

I'll talk to you later. I'm good. Chris Cooley, everybody, jumping in here on the podcast. I wanted to get his opinion on Haskins. I did not know that he had already watched the game tape, which is perfect timing. So we now have Cooley's film breakdown, essentially, of Dwayne Haskins. And, yeah, I mean, I felt the same way, as you know. I felt the same way.

There should be absolutely no concern, no fear, no trepidation about moving forward with Dwayne Haskins. I will be incensed if we hear later today or later in the week or next week, Case Keenham is going to start against the Jets. That would absolutely make, that would be insanity and stupidity. Not that they're not capable of those things, but I want to see Haskins for seven more games. I mean, give us a reason to watch the damn game the rest of the way, because if he's not starting, there's no reason to even watch. We've got an app.

If you haven't downloaded our app and you want to, it's right there in the app icon, the app store on your iPhone or the Google store on your Android. It's an easy way to listen to the show. The shows are there every day. You can listen to old shows. You can get my Twitter account. You can get the show's Facebook page, the show's Twitter account as well. And let me know what you think.

So far, the feedback's been great. And you don't have to listen to it via the app. It's just another way to listen to it where it's there every day and it's easy to listen to it. But if you're enjoying listening to it on any of the traditional podcast platforms or on the website, that's fine too. But just wanted to mention to you that we've got an app as well. All right, there was some Trent Williams news yesterday. The NFLPA came out and made a statement, which I'm going to say. to read here momentarily. I will do that in a moment. But I did want to mention real quickly for those

that, you know, haven't been caught up to speed on the Trent Williams situation. Trent Williams had that little press conference at his locker on Thursday where he said that, you know, essentially he had this terrible cancer scare and the Redskins did not, you know, relay a sense of urgency about it. And it went on for six years as it grew, you know, in his scalp and that the redskins were essentially negligent in the way they handled it. The Redskins came out then with the announcement that they are calling for an independent investigation. They want to get to the bottom of this. They want the NFLPA and the NFL to have an independent investigator look into these claims from Trent Williams.

The league came out later Friday and said that the joint investigation will be conducted. Just so you know, this is going to take some time. It's going to take a while. You know, the Scott McLuhan thing took, you know, over a year. You know, Scott McLuhan, a lot of you, you know, really got upset with me when I said, when that whole story broke, that ultimately I do think the Redskins will prevail in firing him with cause, that they were not going to find something through, you know, arbitration where the Redskins would end up paying. Scott McLuhan, I can tell you, a lot of reporters in town, various newspapers, various blogs said, what are you talking about? They're a horrible group of people. They did this guy wrong.

They brought a guy with a problem into a liquor store, basically. It's their fault. And all of that may be true. I just knew. I knew that Scott McLuhan in those dying days did not get fired for any just willy-nilly reason. All right. So now, with that said, I also felt like the Redskins were low rent, low road in anonymously leaking to the post all of these things that Scott McLuhan was. They basically made them out to be a drunkard.

And the truth is this guy needed help. Needed help. And they're not the kind of people to try to help somebody with that. But it didn't make them wrong for firing them with cause. And ultimately, they did prevail. You know, it was sort of underplayed by the time it came out, you know, a year and a half later or however long it took. But the Redskins were fired him with cause, didn't have to pay him. And that was upheld by an independent arbitration.

and investigation. So this is going to take some time on the Trent Williams thing. But here was what was interesting yesterday. The NFLPA came out with a statement. Upon the Trent Williams' little mini-presser on Thursday, and the Redskins calling for an investigation and the league saying, okay, we're going to have an investigation of this. The NFLPA came out with a statement yesterday.

Here's the statement, quote, in our multiple conversations with Trent and his agent, We have considered various options based on the facts. But we also understand that Trent wants to put this all behind him, not relive a painful experience when his life was in danger, and move on with his career. We are also aware of misinformation being repeated on the NFL's own network that is not sourced and is only designed to tarnish Trent's reputation. Our union supports Trent is protecting his rights and continue to continue.

to consider potential action if a campaign against him continues. Closed quote. That's the end of the statement from the NFLPA. There's a lot of things that are interesting about this statement. But first of all, I want to jump to the misinformation being repeated on the NFL's own network. That was in response to Charlie Casserly, who was on the NFL network. It was either late Friday or early Saturday and said this. I'll say this here.

Three years ago, he was advised. to see a specialist. The specialist said, theoretically, we'll say this, that we're not sure, it doesn't look like anything, but we should go in and take a look at it, meaning we should take a look at this thing surgically, okay? Anybody who said anything with skin cancer, it's impossible to tell things from the outside. He never scheduled the appointment three years ago. That's on the player. That's not on anybody else, okay? So that's a fact. That one was ignored in his press conference yesterday there. So, I think this is about money.

I think the medical part, and I know why the Redskins did this, because the Redskins believed that they did all the right things. So get the third party, get all the medical records out there. There are other comments in here, I think that were not only taking out of context, but sometimes doctors shouldn't say certain things if he isn't sure about them. Okay? And I think that was alluded to in the press conference yesterday by Trent Williams. And the other thing is he says that he should have guaranteed money.

He signed a contract and he knew what he signed. How come he didn't know what he signed when he signed it? So to ask for a new contract, he can ask, but that doesn't mean the Redskins have to give it to him. The bottom line is he was advised to go have this thing surgically removed to analyze it three years ago, and he never made the appointment. How about that from Charlie Casterly? Now, to be completely, you know, candid about this, This is sort of what I've implied as well, and others have as well, that there's more to this story than Trent revealed on Thursday.

I was very careful to say that I don't think that Trent's lying. I didn't accuse him of lying. I just said, I think there may be more to this story that perhaps he left out. Charlie seems to think the same thing, and this is what the NFLPA was responding to. They were responding to Charlie Casterly's comments. Charlie essentially accused Trent Williams of leaving out some very important pieces of the story, if not lying about the story. Let me just say this about Charlie Casserly.

He's not a willy-nilly throw shit out there for the hell of it, okay? This is Charlie Casserly. He doesn't care about clicks. He doesn't care about headlines. He doesn't care about being the guy that breaks the story. Charlie Casserly has great sources on this. I guarantee you this is not something that he just heard offhand or third hand or fifth hand and threw out there. Now, where is it coming from?

My guess would be someone within the walls of Ashburn, someone at the team. That's my guess. I don't know that for sure. Charlie is pro-management, always has been. He's been on Trent Williams from the beginning of this holdout saying it was about money. And Trent, by the way, let's be fair. Admitted that it was partially about money. he said he wanted more guaranteed money on his deal the other day.

Now, what's interesting to me is this, this statement, and I don't know if I'm on to something here or if I'm just completely off. Both are in play, okay? When they say in their statement, the NFLPA, in our multiple conversations with Trent and his agent, we've considered various options based on the facts. But, and this is the key but, we also understand that Trent wants to pull this all behind him, not relive a painful experience

when his life was in danger, and move on with his career. That part leads me to believe, or leads me to at least ask the question, are they saying that they'd like to just move on and not have anything else done about this? You know, in our multiple conversations with Trent and his agent, we are considering various options based on the facts. You know, maybe that's a medical malpractice suit. Maybe that is we're all in on this independent investigation. Or maybe it's because we understand that Trent wants to put all of this behind him. Maybe it's dropping it.

And let me just say this. If they drop this, that is the fisciest thing of all time. That is sketchy, fishy, uh, you know, a lot. lot of stuff that you would intuitively come to a conclusion that, hmm, really. So all of these accusations and now we've got a third party investigation going on and you don't want it to happen, he's got to have that go forward. Has to. Reliving it, this is part of it. Okay, sorry. But if you're going to make those accusations, and by the way, he may have a chance to get all the money that he's lost back, right? If the Redskins are proven to have been negligent, there may be a

massive medical malpractice suit ability here. You know, I'd have to go in depth with the, you know, the collective bargaining agreement and what's allowed and what's allowed inside it and what's allowed outside it. But I would think there's a chance maybe Trent could be proven right, you know, and perhaps get some of that money back. But if that statement, yes, Yesterday, if I, I could be way off, okay? I could be completely off. But if part of that is the consideration that because this is a painful experience in his life and he wants to put it all behind him, if they don't move forward or if they decide, nope, no reason for an investigation, fishy as hell. You would agree with that, wouldn't you?

It's, yes. Okay. So let's see what happens here. I'm glad Trent's okay. That's the big takeaway from this. He's healthy. He's got to go get it checked every six months. I mean, God bless him and thank God they caught it just in time.

I also really am just disturbed by the way the Redskins handled this from a roster management standpoint. They should have traded him. And I'm sure they're going to try to trade him in March. At that point, they may not get anywhere near what they could have gotten for him by trading him at the end of training camp or early in the season. But this thing's going to play out. It's going to take some time to play out. But, man, if the next piece of news we hear is the NFLPA saying,

Trent really wants to move on with his life. It was a very traumatic experience. He doesn't want to have to relive any of that. And so we're just going to move on with his career. We appreciate the league approving this third-party investigation, but Trent doesn't want to have to go through that. He doesn't want to have to be questioned or deposed or whatever you call it. That would be very, very strange and weird and would certainly, I would think, raise the antennae for everybody out there. All right, let's go around the NFL.

The biggest place and the clutch moment. It's time to go around the NFL. All right, let's start in Baltimore last night where you had the Patriots and the Ravens. And man, the Patriots schedule, I don't know that an NFL team has ever opened up with more cupcakes on their schedule than the Patriots had. The Steelers with Rafflesberger with basically one arm. The Dolphins, Jets, Bills, Redskins, Giants, Jets, Browns. I mean, come on. There ain't no.

But you had to wonder, right, is it like a legitimate eight, no? Because they were not playing NFL caliber teams for the most part. The Bills game was the toughest game that was the best team they had played, and they needed, in that game, if you recall, they needed a blocked punt return for a touchdown and a couple of interceptions of at that point Matt Barkley, who was in the game for Josh Allen, to survive in Orchard Park. Early in this game, Baltimore is just all over it. And by the way, that place texted back and forth with Gary Williams, who was there last. night. He said the place was electric last night. They were, the Ravens fans were into this game last night. And early on, Lamar Jackson, I mean, he had New England's defense on its heels. It's 17-0-Baldimore. And Al Michaels made the following comment to Chris Collinsworth at 17-0. He said, this for New England is a wake-up call. And it was like, yeah,

They're playing a real NFL team for the first time this year. Buffalo on the road's a real NFL team. They're playing a really good NFL team, and they are getting their ass handed to them. This vaunted defense that's been compared to the 85 bears is getting steamrolled by Baltimore. And then all of a sudden the game shifted, Aaron. There's a fumbled punt return at 17-0,

and the Patriots pick it up, and that's life for the Patriots, and now they go on a 13-0 run to end the first half, and it's 17-13. That game was on the verge of getting sideways for New England. 17-0-0, forced to punt again. All right, it would have been, they opened up with a punt. They would have gone punt, punt, punt, punt.

And instead, it was a fumbled punt return, and they scored a touchdown, and they went 13 straight points, and it's 17-13 at halftime, and then they're on the move to start the second half. And it looks like Baltimore is now on its heels. but a little throw to Edelman, he fumbles, Humphrey picks it up, returns at 70 yards for a touchdown, 24-13 Baltimore. New England got it to within a touchdown after that,

but then Baltimore ran over him the rest of the way. They went at 37 to 20. In the game, as a team, they rushed for 210 yards against the Patriots over five yards per carry. Ingram was great. He went for a buck 15. Jackson rushed for 61. Jackson threw for a buck 63 on 17 of 23.

had a couple of those balls that he throws up there that are nearly picked in near disasters, but he was electrifying, especially in the first half, and the Ravens hang one on the Patriots. The Patriots now go to Philadelphia after they get a buy week this coming week as well. Then they play Dallas at home,

then they go to Houston, and then they get the Chiefs at home on December 8th. Their next four games, and really it's this five-game stretch for them, Ravens, Eagles, Cowboys, Texans, Chiefs, is going to determine in the AFC whether or not they're the number one seed. You know, there's going to be a chance here

for Baltimore to be the number one seed. Houston's going to have a chance to make a run at a number one seed, believe it or not. Kansas City, because they won yesterday. We'll get to that game in a moment. They'll still have a chance to be a number one seed. But we're going to find out about the Patriots here in the next four games. I think we started to see last night

that these are not the 85 bears, okay, and they're not even the 2007 Patriots. Good team. going to win the division. They're going to be a Super Bowl contender. But, you know, this was not going to be a 16-0 team after the eight games that they had won. It was hard to come to that conclusion based on the competition. All right.

Let's go to Arrowhead here for the second game I want to talk about yesterday because I love some of you people. They lose the Vikings due to the Chiefs 2623. I look at Twitter. Kirk choked again. Your boy blew it. First of all, I watched this game. I was watching the Redskins game.

That was first and foremost, but I had the Chiefs, Vikings, and some other NFL games up on another TV. And the list of culprits in the Vikings' loss yesterday would not start with Kirk Cousins. They gave up eight and a half yards per carry to Kansas City in the game yesterday. They gave up catches to Tyree Kill

and Travis Kelsey and Sammy Watkins, who were open all day long for Matt Moore, who went 25 and 35 for 275 yards. They could not run the football themselves for the first time in a while. Dalvin Cook 3.4 yards per carry. Kirk did not have a great game. He didn't. He was off. Kansas City really flustered him a little bit with some coverages.

You could see that. He was off with his accuracy. He still threw for three touchdowns in 220. with no interceptions and no fumbles. Now, the punt at the end of the game was really ultimately what did him in. Kirk had a chance with the offense in a tie game, late in the game, 23-23. Had a first down pass batted down, had a second down screen sniffed out, and then third down, it was a jail break, and he got hit and just threw the ball away.

and then Colquitt came in and punted at 27 yards. I said on Twitter last night, Aaron told to a couple of the dudes that said, you know, Kirk choked. I said, you're right. I said he was not good against the run. He's got to get lower as a tackler. He plays, you know, as a tackler too upright. And then his coverage, honestly, way too much cushion on Tyreek Hill.

It's a guy that, you know, Cousins doesn't have the speed that Tyreek Hill has, so he's got to give him a little cushion there. but Tyreek Hill just torched Kirk, you know, and so did, and I thought his coverage on Kelsey was terrible. And then at the end of the game, he went out there and he punted the ball 27 yards in Kansas City, got it in a tie game in field goal range pretty much already. It was a terrible job by him. He didn't play great. Bottom line, he didn't play great, but the rest of the team was not good at all. That's a huge win for Andy Reed and the Chiefs, huge win without Mahomes.

because here come the Raiders and here come the Chargers and the AFC West. Minnesota, 6 and 3, but the Packers lost two, so they're hanging in there in the NFC North. That's the next game I want to get to. Chargers Packers.

Mentioned biggest decision for books all over the country. They needed the Chargers yesterday to cover. They got more than that. The Chargers rolled. Do you know in the first half at halftime with the Chargers up 9 to nothing, do you know that the Packers didn't even have 50 yards of offense in the first half?

Yeah. They only ran 14 plays, I think it was, in the first half. Here's the thing about the Chargers. So they've lost a lot of close games this year. They're four and five now through nine games, and when did they get their buy? I think it's actually they play Thursday night and then they get a buy. Or maybe no, that's not their buy. I think it's week 11.

Week 11 is a buy. So the Chargers lost the game to Detroit early in the year that they could have won. they lost the game to the Texans. They had a big lead in. They lost a game to the Titans, where they were right there at the end. I mean, three losses could easily be wins, and this could be a seven and two football team. They're talented. Engram and Bosa defensively. When they're healthy and out there, man, they got a pass rush. And now all of a sudden, yesterday against the Packers, they really got Melvin Gordon going. And man, is Austin Eckler, one of the more underrated players in the league? They're a dangerous team.

You know, they're capable the Chargers are. They've got a Thursday night game in Oakland against the Raiders. That's a good Thursday night game this Thursday night. Chargers at Raiders, and you got a chance for them to get right back into this thing. They still play the Chiefs twice. Their rest of the season, very interesting. That was a big win for them over the Packers, who lost for just the second time this year. The game of the day in one of the worst beats of the years, probably Seattle, Tampa.

Tampa jumped out to it. If you had Tampa plus the four plus the five, by the way, a bunch of you asked me why I didn't put Tampa in the smell test. There was sharp money on Seattle on Friday, so I backed off it a little bit. But the line did look a little fishy. You're right. Tampa's up 21-7 and then Seattle roars back. And Seattle's got a chance for a walk-off field goal, which would have meant a Tampa cover. The kick was only from 40 yards out at 34-34. Guy misses the field goal. Only way to lose the game if you had 10. Tampa plus the points is for it to go to overtime. Goes to overtime. And what does Seattle do? They win the toss, which is what you didn't want. And they drive it down the field and they score a touchdown and they win by six in a game where they were favored by four and a half, five, five and a half, wherever you had the number. That's a bad beat in the trade. That's what we call a bad beat. If you were on Tampa, you were pretty much on the right side pretty much all day long. It really felt like it, right? I mean, James Winston had one of those days. You know, Mike Evans had one of those days, 12 catches, 180 yards. By the way, D.K. Metcalf, you know, slipped to the second round,

he looks like a baller. Looks like a real baller. Had a touchdown, had a hundred and 23 yards. He's having a good season. Metcalf now, I think, has approaching like, you know, 30 catches on the season through, what is it, nine games? Are they seven and two or six and two? Seven and two, I think. What are the other games? The Eagles won. They nearly blew a 19-0-0 lead against the Bears who are really struggling. Trebisky is really struggling. The Brow. Browns lost Denver. I mean, what a shit show Cleveland is right now. And there's all kinds of stuff with the cleats that Landry and OBJ were wearing. They were wearing shoes that weren't legal for the NFL's dress code. They had to change them or the NFL threatened that they wouldn't play the second half. And then, after the game, they had their safety. Whitehead was posting stuff on social media, threatening people in the media. that criticized him on social media. God.

Wow, is social media just the cesspool for trolling? And then getting bent out of shape, if you're of a certain age. So this dude apparently was criticized by somebody on the broadcast team, on the radio broadcast team for the Browns. And he went after this dude and basically was threatening this guy, threatening to kill him. It was four or five different people. He tweeted things like that, too.

Yes. So what did the Browns do? Well, first of all, I guess he took the stuff off of social media. Well, Twitter suspended his account. Oh, they did? Because it was threatening. And then the Browns cut him today. Yes.

Boy, social media people, it is not a safe place to play in unless you really have thick skin and you know what you're doing. And by the way, I say that, and I'm knocking on wood. Because one bad tweet could doom me. And some of you as well. Anyway, how about home teams going undefeated against the spread? Yeah, well, that was part of the problem early. You know, you had, first of all, Jacksonville was a loser early. But I had, you know, Pittsburgh was favored, but on Friday they were a dog when I gave them out.

You know, on the show, they were a one-point dog. But yeah, home teams won all of the early games and then all of the late games as well. It was a Sunday in which not one road team won, right? Not one team one and not one road team covered. There you go. Yeah, let me tell you something. Betting home favorites usually is the wrong way to go. Home underdogs, not so bad.

And the home dogs did pretty well, especially late in the day with the Broncos and the Chargers, and then last night with the Ravens. What else was there? Dolphins one? You had a Dolphins one? I mean, that's good for the Redskins. We've got to get the Bengals to lose a game or two. Skins Jets, big game for draft position in 2020.

in a couple of weeks. The Steelers one. I want to mention one thing about the Steelers. You know, Mike Tomlin is doing a hell of a job in Pittsburgh. Seriously. That is a team that lost Ben Rathesberger and lost, doesn't have Antonio Brown, one of the best players in the league. By the way, did you read that story that Seattle nearly signed AB? They looked into it.

Do you also read this story that Pittsburgh nearly traded for Levi-on-Bell? I did see that. That would have been wild. They were interested at the trade deadline and seeing what the Jets would take for Levy on Bell. I think Mike Tomlin's doing one of the better jobs this year. I mean, he's putting it together with scraps here. Now, I think they're pretty good defensively. You know, I think this guy, Edmonds and Minka Fitzpatrick scored a touchdown.

I had a big interception return for a touchdown. Devin Bush looks really good. Hayward's good. You know, Barron, the hybrid linebacker safety is good, you know, from Bama. I think Pittsburgh, you know, they needed to beat Baltimore when they had a chance to do it and lost in overtime. That was their last loss. They've won four out of five. They've got some interesting games coming up.

I think he's doing a really good job. Monday night game tonight. I don't like a side. I know a lot of you are thinking that I would take the Giants. They're getting six and a half at home to the Cowboys. I'm off the game. I'm not going to play it. Anyway, netting out yesterday.

Day, Dwayne Haskins gave him a B. Cooley sort of agreed with it. He did agree with it. And God, please, this afternoon, Callahan, just tell us that he's the quarterback moving forward. It would be insane if it doesn't happen. There were some other things from the weekend. I did not watch Georgia, Florida, because I was down at the parade. I did watch Maryland. I'll tell you this, seriously, and people are going to, they lost 38 to 7. I thought the first half, Maryland actually outplayed Michigan. know that's crazy. I watched the game very closely on Saturday before I left for the parade. I'm telling you right now that Maryland in that first half had Michigan, you know, they outgained

them. They were moving the football. They stopped them, but they gave up a kickoff return for a touchdown. They had an interception. They missed a field goal, and it was 21-0 at half. Obviously, they weren't good enough to beat Michigan, but I actually thought they did some things in the first staff that were encouraging. But whatever, they're three and six, and their season has really, really turned from those early days when they beat Syracuse. Syracuse, it turns out, stinks. God, doesn't this season go by quickly, Aaron? It really does. It seems like it was yesterday we were excited about the win over Syracuse and like, all right, here we go, we're going to Temple. Got to get this one. And then the Penn State game will be big. They are a 42-point underdog

against Ohio State. 42 in Columbus on Saturday. Anyway, the big game Saturday night is Saturday afternoon. It's not a Saturday night game, but LSU is only a five and a half point underdog at Alabama. And the big question all week will be Tua and whether or not he'll play Saturday night. What is by far and away the game of the year in college football?

There are a couple of other big ones coming up here. Penn State plays at Minnesota on Saturday. Two undefeated teams. States a six-point favorite in that one. But anyway, all right, I think that's it for the day. I didn't watch the UFC fight. I saw the highlights of it. My God, Diaz was a mess when they stopped that fight. I'm starting to get into UFC a little bit more. I love the violence, and I love, you know, I'm a boxing guy, and it's reflective probably of my age, and I'm more of a boxing guy than I am a UFC guy, but I do see the entertainment value in it.

Didn't see that fight, though, on Saturday night. Wished I had. You got anything else? Nope. All right, that's it for the day. College basketball starts tomorrow. Yeah, it does. And we'll give you a little preview of that.

And also tomorrow on the show, just remind me to play for you what Lamont Jordan said on the Maryland football broadcast in the postgame show, Aaron. Remind me to do that because he went off on Maryland football. It was really entertaining. And I think spot on to a certain degree, but I thought he was a little bit off on another level. I'm behind Locksley. I mean, I am behind Coach Locke's. He's going to get some players here.

I think he'll turn it around. It's going to take some time. All right, that's it for the day. Enjoy the day. Back tomorrow with Tommy.