The Kevin Sheehan Show - Cooley & Kevin On Names & Games

Episode Date: February 1, 2022

Cooley in with Kevin today. Their reaction to the expected "Washington Commanders" announcement tomorrow. Also, Cooley's recaps of both the NFC and AFC Championship games plus an early thought or two on the Super Bowl match-up between the Rams and Bengals. The boys also discussed Albert Breer's SI.com story about Washington going all in on one of the big-name QBs via trade.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You don't want it. You don't need it. But you're going to get it anyway. The Kevin Chean Show. Here's Kevin. Just a reminder to subscribe to the podcast if you haven't already. Rate us and review us, please, especially on Apple and Spotify. It's a real big help on Apple if you just take 30 seconds, rate us five stars and write a one-sentence review telling Apple how much you love.

This podcast, it helps on Spotify as well. with me today is not Tommy per usual on Tuesday he'll join us tomorrow cooley is with me today and it was one of those deals where we were having this conversation and i just said stop stop stop let's have this conversation on the podcast so i said to him i said do you know what today is and you said what I said, I don't know what today is for you, but I said, I know that on February 1st, sometime around 1790, it was the first day that the Senate met ever in New York City because my kid's robot told us that this morning when she asked if we wanted to know a fact. Okay, but that's really interesting. Today's February 1st, and do you know what the significance of tomorrow is February 2nd? Why don't you? I'm sure it's you, so it's got to do with sport. Yeah, it has to do with D.C. Sports.

It's a pretty significant day tomorrow. Is it the anniversary of the 1991 Super Bowl? No, that was actually last week. And I had, and it was a great show. Jacoby was on with me. Brad Edwards was on on radio. I had Ripon and Bostic and Frank Herzog and Charlie Casserly. You actually did an anniversary show.

Oh, everybody did. Yeah, it was a big, I mean, look, we don't have much to talk about when it comes to this football team. That's super positive. So there was a big celebration and a big, you know, go-down memory lane of 30 years ago, January 26th, which was last week, which was the Cooley, not only the Super Bowl win over Buffalo, but by many metrics, the greatest team in Super Bowl era of the Super Bowl era, the 1991 Washington Redskins are considered by many. many football outsiders, USA Today, and others to be the greatest Super Bowl winner at all time. And all of them that were part of that team. All of them. And all of them what? They think they're the greatest.

And all of the team will proclaim that they are the greatest team of all time. Yeah. Now, some of those guys were on all of the Super Bowl teams. And so you get this pushback when it comes to some of the other Super Bowl winners. And the pushback you get most often is actually to the 1983 team. which lost to the Raiders in the Super Bowl, which was a phenomenal offensive team. And by the way, did you know that that team finished with a turnover margin coolly of plus 42 for the season, the 1983 Redskins? That has to be some kind of record.

It is a record. Kevin, of course they know that. I thought for a second that you're right. Well, I don't know what you know and what you don't know. I love that it's now been almost two years that I haven't lived there. And you're asking if I know about the 1983 Super Bowl team. Okay. Well, I didn't know the significance of today, so I'm sorry.

And honestly, the dates to any of these things will matter. It wouldn't matter if I would have won the Super Bowl. It's not actually the significance of today. It's the significance of tomorrow. There's going to be a big announcement. I get you today. There's going to be a huge announcement tomorrow. Oh, the admirals are coming in to town.

Oh, you think it's the admirals? I have no idea what it is. Real quickly. I don't care. Real quickly. I really don't care what it is. Real quickly in the 91 team, Joe Gibbs held a huge Zoom party, I guess, for all the players. And he was, according to many, decked out in nothing.

but Redskins garb. So good for him. Yeah, tomorrow, tomorrow. That was, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. That was his team. I know. You can't take that from him. Oh, I don't want to take that from him. It's not a team now. I'm thrilled. It wasn't considered offensive team in 1983 or 1991, or for that matter, until very recently. I know that. I'm so happy that he didn't, you know, succumb to some sort of pressure of not wearing Redskins stuff. I'm thrilled about it. What if you'd have had Admiral Steph on? How would you have thought about that? Well, I'm going to get to something here in a moment.

So tomorrow is what they've been billing is 2-22. Tomorrow morning on the Today Show on NBC, the announcement's going to come. Now, the particulars with respect to this announcement are still kind of vague. I'm expecting somehow it to get botched in a major way, just like they botch everything. But I'm thinking that Jason Wright will be on. on the set with, you know, Hoda Kotby and Savannah Guthrie. And Dan and Tanya, along with the media and I think former players, including Joe Thysman, who I'll tell you about what he did yesterday here in a moment, are going to be at FedEx Field.

Now, there isn't a specific time about the announcement. And like, I keep thinking, like, what could go wrong? Well, I mean, Russia could invade Ukraine, you know, tonight. And it could be breaking news and this thing could get bumped from the Today Show. It doesn't mean that they won't announce it. But to make a long story short, that's what tomorrow is. I'm not really interested in it. It's not been something that's been moving the needle for me, but it's what everybody's talking about.

I started this podcast with, do I know the significance of tomorrow? So you clearly are interested in tomorrow. Well, I've had to be, I had to talk about it. Me saying I'm not interested, is proven by me saying, No, I don't know what tomorrow's significance is. Okay, well, how about this one? I don't care that they're the commanders. So, you just looked that up.

Yeah, that's what everybody thinks it's going to be. So Joe Thysman yesterday on a CBS sports radio show yesterday morning, spilled the beans. This is what he said. I'm going to be at the kickoff. I'll be there Wednesday morning when we kick off at FedEx Field. So I haven't seen it like everybody else online. I've seen some pictures, but I haven't seen it up close and personal.

And, you know, I think the commanders is a name that, you know, is going to be hopefully one that people will talk about going forward. Commander, basically, it's Washington, D.C. A lot of commanders in Washington, D.C. in the Pentagon and a lot of different branches of the service. And so to me, that's sort of the way I'm looking at it as a positions of leadership. So Joe Thaisman, either Cooley, by saying what he said, I think the commanders is a name that's going to be, hopefully, people like going forward. You know, there were so many different options, but once again, it's a, you know, a lot of those other options are trademark infringement, getting approval from different people. If you choose a name, is there a group out there that isn't going to like it?

A lot of commanders in Washington, D.C. in the Pentagon and a lot of different branches of the service. So to me, that's the way I'm looking at it as positions of leadership when it comes to the new name. So, you know, there's a lot of discussion about Joe accidentally spilling the beans on the sports radio, CBS Sports Radio, yesterday morning. He came back later in the day and told Matthew Paris from the Washington Times, no, I'm not actually completely sure what the new name is. No one's told me, like you, I'll find out on Wednesday. But it sounds like he knew what it was. And some people are suggesting that this is part of some kind of ruse. Like, you know, they're fooling people and they're going to, you know,

tomorrow it's going to be the Red Tails or the Red Wolves or something else other than commanders. I don't know why they would do that. You know, there's also been... They're actually still testing the water. Oh, really? Yeah, they don't have it. It's still. Lead commanders for fun.

let's see what the response is. If it's bad, we'll go back to Red Wolf at the last second. He would know. He would know. Joe would know. I know that Joe would know. You know, they did that with Jim Fossil, you know, before they hired Zorn. You know that, right?

I mean, you were on the team. Yeah. They floated Jim Fossil out there. Fossil's the one that hired Zorn. He's the one that told him to hire Zorn as his offensive coordinator. And then when they let it out there that Fossil was, you know, the leading candidate and going to land the job. Fans and media revolted.

They're like, we don't want fossil. And so they backed off. Vinny and Dan backed off. And then there was nobody to hire because Spagnulu didn't want the job. And so they gave it to Zorn. But anyway, so my point is they've done that before. That's not what they've done here, obviously. And I don't think that Joe was part of some sort of set up.

First of all, why would they do that? Secondly, why would they use Joe? And thirdly, there have been some indications over the last, you know, several weeks. There was the video in which, you know, NBC Sports Washington actually you could see the commander's, you know, kind of logo and name as Jason right handed it to Ron Rivera. It was supposed to be blurred out and it wasn't. And that's more like them. They're into blunders. They're not into clever, you know, ruses.

This isn't what they do as very well. So I think it's the commander. So I wanted to say to you that you said, I care. I don't care. And I got an email from somebody early this morning that said, why didn't you ask Joe when you had him on the show last week what he thought the name was? Because maybe he would have slipped it to you. And the reason was it didn't even occur to me to ask Joe about the name because I don't really give a shit about it.

Now, I think tomorrow is going to be a traumatic day for a lot of people, and I'll get to that. But I want to ask you, what's your reaction to no longer Washington Redskins, no longer Washington football team or, you know, Washington. But starting next year, Washington commanders with new uniforms, with a new logo, new helmet, same color scheme, apparently, burgundy and gold. As a former player and a very popular player, and one of the greatest. tight ends in the history of this franchise. What do you think? I won't have a reaction to it, much like I didn't initially to the Washington football team, until I start staying. If that makes any sense to you, there's nothing that they've proposed that I like. And I've told you what I wish would have happened. In hindsight, I wish I could,

but I wish I could have helped it, but I didn't really even think of that at the time. I wish they would just change it to skin and kept the imagery. But, and I can, and I think there was a way to do that. But the last year and a half has went on or two years of football, I've gotten used to just say in Washington. I just say Washington. So for right now, I can't imagine that I won't just say Washington. I kind of like the FC, the football club. I don't even, I just don't quite realize the purpose of a mascot. I don't know if you do, really. Not really at all. Especially in professional sports. for sure. I mean, I understand. I've watched like the college football all the way back to whoever it was, Harvard or Yale that had the dog, the Bulldogs. They had the Yale had a bulldog. That was the first mascot.

Yeah, their bulldogs are awesome. And everyone had a mascots. Then they all, then everybody had to have a mascot. I don't really understand why we need to be called something. We just be Washington. How is that? So for me, I don't, I don't. I don't. won't have a strong opinion. I'm not that interested in mascots in general. I mean, it was, like, who's better because of their mascot? None of it matters to me.

And it really didn't when I was playing. Man, it's going to be tough because these guys, they're cowboys. So, they're tough. I think, well, let me follow up on that. How are you going? If I get used to saying it,

I guess I'll get used to it and I'll say whatever it is. How are you going to feel when they start selling number 47 jerseys, number 47 commanders' jerseys? How are you going to feel about that? That'll be interesting. Will they do that with the former players' jerseys? Don't you think they will? I don't care. I'll start getting checks from that and I'll take that money.

Right. What's the financial deal on that? How much do you get for every jersey sold? I don't even read. It's not a lot for every jersey sold, but when they sell a lot of jerseys, you get a lot of money. What's a lot of money? In my best year, I think, of jersey sales, I made like 800 grand. Oh, my God.

I think you've told me that before, but clearly my reaction to what you just said is maybe that you haven't told me that before. So in the best year of jersey sales, of Redskin 47 jerseys, you made $800,000. something like that. I made a lot. It was a lot of money. What did you make last year? I mean, there was a couple years where it was zero. They don't sell my jersey. They don't sell your jersey. Why? They haven't sold my jersey since I've been retired. I don't run the store. Okay. Do they sell other retired players jerseys? I'm not a jersey buyer, but can I buy a Sonny Jurgensen or a Daryl Green jersey right now online from their store?

I don't know. I'm sure you could buy Riggins. I'm sure you could buy Sean Taylor. They've sold Sean Taylor's forever. Right. But could you buy... I don't think you can buy mine, no. I think you'd have to go some random place to get it.

But then it would be used. Yeah, I'm looking at the jerseys right now available on the NFL shop, you know, for Washington's... jerseys, and they do have, you know, the first ones I see are Chase Young, Terry McClure, and Sean Taylor. Now, there is a category called throwback. Let me see what pops up for that. Darrell Green's jerseys available for me to purchase.

So that's it, it looks like. To me, it would be a money-making opportunity. Look, the jerseys that you still see in the stadium with the few people that go to games, there are just as many 944, 28, 47 jerseys as there are 99 and, you know, Chase Young jerseys. I mean, it's not like they've had any stars here recently that people are clamoring for. I don't know the answer to that, but they'd be nuts not to because it would be a huge opportunity. But then again, see, here's my theory on the reaction, okay? Here's my guess on the reaction.

So a lot of people have been out on the team, obviously, for a long time, even before the name was lost. Then there were a lot of people that when the name was lost, shit said, I'm done. And we've been living in this interim stage for everybody else, whether there are people like me that have lost passion, a certain level of passion for the team, don't feel as strongly about it because of the losing and the behavior. and, you know, I'm on board with until Dan's gone, I don't think I could ever summon up the same level of passion that I used to have. And then you've got a lot of young people out there that don't really remember anything. And, you know, they're more football fans living in the area, and they'd love to see a really good team.

And I think they're going to be targeted with this new name. And what, to me, is like almost the reintroduction of a new football team. It's going to feel like a new entity. And at the same time, when this comes out tomorrow, because we've been living in this interim two-year period of Washington being the primary part of the brand, which, you know, isn't jarring. When they lost Redskins, you know, it was bad. But when starting tomorrow, 24 hours from now, when people are referring to them as the Washington commanders, and they've got a different jersey and a different logo and a different helmet, thank God they're going to keep the color scheme, I guess. But at this point, to me, it's very much it has the feel of an expansion team.

Like it's the reintroduction or the introduction of a new team to a big market. And they're not going to be targeting people like me anymore. We're not, you know, a lot for a lot of people tomorrow is going to be a very jarring day. It's going to be a slap in the face. It's going to be like, oh my God, I've been living in this interim period. today, I actually officially lost my beloved team. And for, I would

think that they probably... Really? Yeah. Really? You feel that way. I do. I think a lot of people have already felt that way. I don't feel like there's any change. Yeah, because you've never been a fan. You were a player. Dude, come on. And worked there. I was there involved for 17 years

and in every one besides the last couple got a little different watching everything that went on. But I wanted them to win for 17 years, I think more than almost anybody. I think that qualifies. It doesn't. It's not in your DNA like it is with me and a lot of people that have lived their whole life rooting for this team. And by the way, lived through the best of times. you know, when this organization was a competent organization and something to be proud of.

You played for an organization that wasn't something to be proud of. I got you, but you have to understand from my side of this. Whether or not there's some apathy for me at this point doesn't mean that I'm not incredibly proud of the teams I played with, played on, played for, and what that organization did do for my life. I'm not denying that. That organization did for my life in a lot of way.

I'm not denying that. But I don't associate with, look, I understand the loss of the name is something, but as far as the Maska identity of a team, it's not the identity team to me. I know it isn't. I'm not saying that that's not how you feel. Obviously, I can't say that. But I know that a lot of people tomorrow, when there's, this new name rather than the two-year interim name, that it's going to be the death of it

for them. Yes. I mean, people have told me that. Callers have told me that on the show, that tomorrow's the day that it ends officially for them. Here's why I have a hard time believing that. Because whether or not, and maybe I'm different because I played, but I've watched a lot of football over the last two years. I can assure you of one thing, unless my children played, or my child played for a professional team, I don't have another team.

So you're choosing to not have a team. It's just impossible to really care deeply about an NFL team and then just switch to another team because you're upset at your team. Like, I won't have another team ever. Right. But that's already happened with a lot of people. This is, who?

Can you imagine yourself having another team? No. But I can imagine myself feeling the, well, it's not even imagine. I could have never imagined myself not having this team as my team. Could have never imagined that. But I'm not. It's going to be your team. You'll find a way to wander back into it.

But I'm, but I'm, you know this about me. You know that the, the, the rooting passion that I used to have has, that flame is barely flickering compared to the raging fire that it used to be. It's just, it's not the same. Cooley, they had the worst attendance of anybody in the league. And most of the

attendance, half of it anyway, or 40% of it, were fans of the other team. I did the math for you. I think I did the math for you. They average, they're like 25,000 people that went to games, that were Redskins fans.

Right, I got you, but I don't understand, for me personally, I'm not suggesting that I know how you feel. The change of the name doesn't mean that that team is gone. I still Washington. Yeah, I mean, most, well, branding people will tell you that it's the emotional attachment that becomes a detachment when you change significant parts of what they were attached to. and the only way to keep those people is to win and to win right away. And if you don't win right away, then they're lost forever. But I think that we've already lost a lot of people forever,

even before the name was lost, which is true. You saw it. Now, I think with those people, a winner would have brought a lot of those people back. But I think without the other parts of the brand, the name, the uniforms, the fight song, the everything, I think they will officially be done. Officially be done. I don't know how I'm going to feel when the season starts next year, especially if they pull off a trade for Aaron Rogers or Russell Wilson,

which we're going to get to here shortly. So this is like this is the signing of the divorce papers for you. You've been separated and you're potentially ready to move on. You're thinking about looking elsewhere, but this is the official signing of the divorce paper. you can now go out and find yourself something else. Is that what you're saying? Nope.

I'm not saying that about me. I'm saying that about a lot of other people. I'm saying I still have kids from this marriage and I have a family from this and I'm just not getting married again. Whether or not they sign the divorce papers or this is their next marriage. Maybe the divorce papers are already signed and they're getting married again. They're marrying the commander. Well, hold on for a second. Number one.

I don't form that emotional attachment. I know you don't. I know you don't. And that's why I'm saying that your reaction to this is going to be different than a lot of people who are emotionally attached in a way for a longer period of time. And by the way, through the period of time when this organization was something to be super proud of. And when I say that, I always feel badly saying about that, saying that to you because you're

my friend. And the truth is the Gibbs teams that you played on, we were proud of and we were into them. And even some of the teams, you know, the Shanahan teams, as bad as some of those teams were, but you know how people feel about Dan. People do not want to be associated with this team anymore until he is gone. And so you're just adding more reasons for them to be gone. But let me just say with respect to your, you know, your separation divorce analogy. I don't even know if I'm separated, but I'll concede that the less passion, let me just say this, there's less passion in the marriage right now than there's ever been. Okay. And so it's probably leading to some sort of separation or maybe should have. But, you know, we're hanging on for the kids right now, I guess.

but what I don't know how I'm going to feel tomorrow, but what I was doing was I was projecting how, well, not just projecting people have told me this and people have called in and said this. And that is it's going to be the moment where it becomes reality that I really have. I've been leaning in that direction all along. I've been fading away.

The relationship has really, it just isn't the same anymore. But, you know, I'm hanging on. because every once in a while we get together with the family at dinner and it's like old times. And usually, by the way, that's like opening weekend. Like, hey, maybe we'll go have ourselves a season. But then four or five weeks into it, it's the same old shit. And, you know, we're not even talking anymore really that much. So why not get separated and then get divorced?

But your analogy to remarrying, I can't see that. I've never understood the people who, I mean, let's admit this. Lots of Redskins fans decided many, many years ago to become Ravens fans because they were so disgusted with the way the organization was going. I could never do that. I'll never stop being a football fan, but I could never adopt like another team as my favorite team. Never. No, the Ravens are on a lot.

appealing to me. But I could separate and or divorce from my current team, but we'll see. I mean, you know, somebody brought this to my attention. They're like, the Bengals, they were sitting there celebrating. It had been, you know,

34 years from the last time they had gone to the Super Bowl, and the fans and the city went nuts. Imagine that's Washington next year, and they're on the stage, the NFC championship stage, and

it's like congratulations the Washington commanders are going to the Super Bowl that's a tough thing to swallow just doesn't seem the same that's why it feels very much like an introduction I mean I've said this several times I forget if I've told you this either on the podcast

or when we've talked I would be much much better off if Dan if they forced him to move the team to St. Louis and we got an expansion team. You know, now that we've lost the name, get the expansion team, keep the colors, keep the records, keep the history, but get an expansion team with a new owner. My God, I would pay for that.

I don't know. But that's what tomorrow kind of feels like in many ways is the introduction of this new expansion team in a big market. Big market. They used to have this team way back in the day with some really cool players. now they're getting an expansion team. That's what it kind of feels like. But the problem is the expansion teams usually come with new owners,

and this one doesn't. So, do you think Thysman blew it? Or do you think it's part of some sort of, you know, okey-dokes? I have a hard thing. It's part of an okey-doke. And if Thysman did know, I know that it would be legit that he knew.

I bet you Thaisman does know Then he knows And I think he spilled the beans accidentally Somebody said he spilled the beans accidentally Because he's still pissed about Snyder giving Haskins is number seven That's not Okay All right

Anything else that we need to discuss on the name We'll know what it is tomorrow I think it's commanders I reported six months ago it's not going to be Washington football team or Washington FC or FC Washington and it's going to be plural. But I've had no idea which name they're going to choose. It certainly seems like it's going to be the commanders. Personally, I mean, if I were invested in this, I think it sounds like a name from a movie. Like I played on the radio show this morning, the famous, the Pacino Inches speech from any given Sunday, which is so good.

Like it seems like it should be the name of a football team in a movie, the commanders with Al Pacino coaching it. Yeah, the one with, like it might be. Is that the one with Keanu Reeves? What one was that one? What Keanu Reeves? I think there were commanders in that? No, that's the replacements.

The replacement. Yeah, Al. It seems like that's a replacement name. Yeah, it's kind of a replacement names. No, any given Sundays with Pacino and Cameron Diaz and Dennis Quaid and Jamie Fox. You've never watched any given Sunday? Yeah, I love any given Sunday.

Okay. But I was thinking of the replacement. But that's what it kind of sounds to me. Just like in the past, Cooley, when the fans apparently, at least younger fans, really loved Red Wolves. To me, that sounded like a CYO

basketball team name, something that kids would come up with. But they ruled that out because of, trademark issues. I did put up a poll, a Twitter poll this morning for the radio show. Do you like commanders? Yes or no? Simple question. 4,000 votes in, 73% say no and 27% say yes. And there's a lot of people. What would you want? I've been talking about this for months. There's nothing I would want. None of these names really, again, I'm not that interested in this. Okay, well, you,

Let's just say you have to come up with a name. I would have gone FC Washington or Washington FC. Let's say you have to come up with it. Let's say the NFL says, you can't be FC. It's not good for the brand. It's not good for the league. We all have a mascot. We're not going to do the soccer thing.

You can't. You can't. We won't allow that. So pick another one. What else would you pick? Skins. But it wasn't an option. You want me to pick from the options?

I think there was a route for that. Eight years ago. I mean, the final eight apparently were Armada Brigade, commanders, defenders, I hated the final eight. Presidents, Red Hogs, Red Wolves. Out of those, if you made me pick one, I mean, Washington football team was there, but I would have rather just kept with Washington being the primary part of the brand. I guess, believe it or not, I probably would have said Red Hogs.

It's stupid, but it's got red and it's got hogs in it. I don't know. I don't care about any of these. I don't like any of them. You said I had to pick one. I'm not saying, no, no, I'm not saying you had to pick one. I'm saying, let's put you in this room. And you're sitting there with the owner.

And what are you going to suggest here? I would tell them. I would say, if we can't have redskins, which we can't, then let's make Washington the part of the brink. brand that we're focused on and you can go Washington Football Club or Washington or or you know FC Washington football club Washington and by the way I think it would be kind of I just I know what you just said you can't you can't you can't but I don't have another one I'm I'm playing Roger Goodale and I said no I don't have another one I don't I don't want another one you're fired okay I would have been

fired a long time I would have been fired a long time ago because I would have told him things that he wouldn't want to hear. So I would have been gone a long time ago. Let's step off of this thing. What else do you like? Let's go with Seminels. Can you imagine? You know, the name I would not have minded, actually,

is Warriors, which is what Dan wanted and what they had initially marked, but they forgot to renew the mark on it and somebody else wanted too much money for it. Typical them, but I would have preferred, Warriors would not have been the worst thing in the world.

No, it wouldn't have. So, okay. New name tomorrow. Can we talk some football? We'll find out in the morning. I want to talk some football with you. And then I want to talk about Albert Breer's story, which essentially was a sales pitch that he wrote on behalf of the Washington

commander's search for a quarterback. We'll do that starting right after these messages from a few of our sponsors. So before the show, I asked Chris what the significance of February 2nd was, and then we brought that to the show. And you heard that in the opening segment. And he finally figured it out, and we had the conversation about the name. I also asked him, did you watch any of the football from over the weekend? And you did watch some of it, but not all of it, right? Do I have that correct?

No, I watched it all. You have now watched it all, because you hadn't watched it all a lot. No, I had, it was nice here on Sunday. And so we went and did, my daughter does, we bought a horse and we were going to get it to our property next year. But right now she's doing horseback riding lessons. So we went, we had to go see her horse yesterday afternoon. And so I watched the first half of the Bengals cheese game at home. And then we went to see the horse.

And then my son just started wrestling. And so we went and wrestled a little bit. And then I got home. Or we went, we had dinner as I watched a lot of the ranch. games game and got home and finished the Rams game. So I went back, per your request, spend extra time to watch the second half of the Bengals

cheese game. Well, first of all, I did watch it all. Before we get to that, I mean, Bode's wrestling, which you told me about a couple of weeks ago, and you said he's a pretty good wrestler already, but so you're going to buy a horse. The whole horseback riding

thing helped me with this, because my niece did it, and my brother-in-law and sister-in-law, and when she was younger, she was into horseback riding and had a horse and, you know, had to, you know, put the horse in a stable. It's not cheap, is it? Well, and the horses are like anything right now. A horse four years ago cost half of what a horse costs now. No, it's not incredibly cheap, but it's also not the worst.

I mean, we're going to build a little stable deal and a couple stalls, and we have plenty of property for it as well. So I can keep it at my house. But no, for the time being, it's not necessarily cheap. But me, we had to find a good horse for a seven-year-old girl. That was our thing, was I'm not just going to go get a horse. I want a trained horse or a horse that's comfortable around kids and that's been ridden a lot because I don't really want my daughter getting bucked off. Right.

But I say that, and I just acquired my second four-wheeler, and I'm like, hey, go ride the four-wheelers out in the back, see you. Does she like it? She loves the horse, yeah. Did Maddie ride horses? No. She's never been on a horse. She won't get on it.

Like, at some point, you're going to have to do this. Your daughter is doing it. What about you? No. Yeah, I grew up with horses. You can get on a horse and ride horses? I've told you this story. Yeah, second-right horses.

I grew up with at least seven horses all the time. Wow. I don't think you have told them. Actually. I have, because I've told you this story, my dad would catch the wild... Oh, you did tell me about that. Yes, your dad would... Which is now, obviously, completely frowned upon. It was different in 1982, I think.

Right. Okay, so... So, anyways, the horse is fun. Wrestling is really quick. We are going to touch football. This is just so funny. I have... I went with and wrestled with the high school kids, which is fun.

And even watching my daughter when we go and you try to show them something at seven, she's very capable of doing the things. I'm not sure with the four and five-year-old. And we go to practice where there's 24 or five and six-year-olds. I'm not sure you can teach them anything really seriously. Yeah, six-year-old maybe. But you're like, okay, let's demonstrate. straight a double leg.

And then you turn around before you even start and like nine kids are rolling around on the ground, whopping on each other. Right. Like, okay. Hey, listen. Everybody. Everybody. Everybody.

Everybody. Everybody. And then, okay. So look. Wait. Johnny. You, listen up. It's impossible.

Like, what we've been trying to do is just through there, three or four of us. We just get the kids together and just go, okay. Get them down. I don't know how you could coach a four-year-old to wrestle besides just have them wrestle. Yeah. They're not quite ready to learn moves. Teach them their stance and you teach them what they need to do. You've got to get him down and you've got to get on top of him.

It's hilarious. But so when you said he's a good wrestler, no, he will be a good wrestler. He loves it. But right now it's four, none of them are. They're like blocked. Yeah. That's an age in which, you know, really? You think you can line them up and have them do, you know, passing drills, you know, for basketball?

I don't think so. Throw the ball out there and make sure they're having fun and try to be, you know, try to be fun and have some sort of game. I think I've told you this story, and it's not exactly like the perfect segue from your story, but it just reminded me of it when my middle son was, you know, the first. sport the kids played around here. Organized sport was t-ball. That was, by the way, not the first sport I played as a kid. When we started playing sports, we played baseball, we played football, we played basketball. There was no tee ball back in the day. But t-ball was like the first sport when they're in pre-K, you know, they're five years old, and they're going out there and the balls

on the tee, and they hit it in the whole thing. And then, you know, when they're six or seven, you get to coach pitch and then eventually, I forget what age it is now, I don't know, nine or ten when it gets to kid pitch. But when my middle son, it may not have been T-ball, but it could have been T-ball. It might have been coach pitch. He was out in center field and he starts waving towards my wife and I. And so actually it was coach pitch because I remember this guy, Eric Goldberg. Eric was a great dude.

And I haven't talked to Eric in a while, but I think he does listen. to this podcast. Eric, how are you if you are? But Eric was pitching and Eric saw my son Corbyn waving for, you know, one of us to come out there. And he goes, yeah, just going out. You know, let's see what he wants. So my wife goes out there and then she starts waving for me to come out. And I said, okay, what hell's going on? Corbyn's question at six or seven years old in center field in the middle of a game was the following. Which of the two planets, Jupiter or Saturn, has the rings? So help me God.

That was the question he asked. But the best part about it is my wife didn't know the answer. That's why she waved me out. So I did tell him, let me get that. Yeah, so I did tell him it was. that had the rings. And then he was like, oh, okay, good, thanks. And Eric, I'll never... You didn't realize in that moment she could yell anything. Oh, she could have said anything. It didn't matter. But she wanted to give him the right answer.

God bless her. And so Eric was listening to the whole thing, and he was in tears. And for many years, like whenever I ran into him, we would always tell the story about Corbyn being in Centerfield, stopping the game to ask whether or not Saturn or Jupiter was the planet with the rings. But the point is that when they're at that age, I mean, they're not thinking about the game, most of them. But the one or two kids that are thinking about the game and are into the game, they're getting all the results, I can tell you that, by far. Okay. What did you think about the games?

Let's start with Cincinnati, Kansas City. thought that Kansas City was a clear winner in that game. I think what Mahomes did in the first half, continuing to attack underneath and make throws and Kelsey's

getting into it and that the McKinnon is a stud. I know you loved him. The way they're running was balanced. And I thought Burrough did a phenomenal job, taking him down the field at the end of the half to get 10 on the board. And that they blew it completely

with five seconds left at the end of the half to not just kick the bill go. That changes that game, in my opinion, to score to be up 24-10 going into half. Right. I've watched that whole sequence twice now as I went back and I rewatch, I just re-watched the entire game. That's a massive difference of three points in terms of how the leads managed. and the play before, I think, started with nine seconds, and Mahomes dumped it off immediately, and they got themselves enough for five seconds.

And I don't know if I hate the decision if you're a read, because do you trust Mahomes? Yes. And you say, hey, look, it's one look to the end zone now, and if you don't have it, it's out. It's gone. Right, right. Four seconds.

And they're as good as anybody within, that realm of the five-yard line. And I know he knows. And he just got greedy. And he took that shot to Tree Kill in the flat, and they made the Bengals a phenomenal job coming up and tackling. But that was a crucial turning point in that game. And then, but then you get into the second half,

and the Bengals defense was outstanding. They were fortunate another couple of plays. But I thought Burrough was phenomenal. The first scramble he had where he gets out and then gets to the ball that Jamar Chase, I think for the first time in that game, changed the momentum entirely for them. And they go down and score.

It just, what a stud Joe Burrow is. What an absolute stud. What great understanding of the game. And that was unbelievable. I would say that I watched the end of the game on my phone before I watched it at home, and so I didn't have volume. I did like that,

Bengals should have let the Chiefs score a touchdown to lose the leave. Just what Tommy Romo said. Yeah, right. Can you believe that? I, I, if you had been watching it live and had paid attention to Twitter, it was, it was remarkable how many people agreed with him. I'm like, I tweeted it out. I'm like, no, you can't, you're up three, you dummy.

Can't let him score a touchdown. You've got to try to hold him to a field goal. But he, you know, whatever. I mean, I heard from a lot of you after the podcast. We can talk about him after the game. Okay. After we talk about the game. But, no, I mean, like, the Bengals, look, momentum was changed, I think at the end of the half.

Momentum was changed again by Burrow making a couple. Absolutely phenomenal plays, the one where he gets away from Jones. Oh, God. And then he steps away from Jones and takes off and runs. And how good Joe Burrow was on third and seven, second and ten, second and ten. second and nine. The Bengals stayed, I mean, they stayed resilient in terms of trying to run the ball. Yeah, they did. And I thought it was hysterical because, like, every, Tony's the whole game, like, hey, Jim, right, they need to throw the ball on first down. Jim, Jim, Jim, just the

chance to throw the ball on first. I'd be like, you can't just throw the ball every first down. Like, you're trying to set up some play action or run action. That's what your team does, and that's how you're going to get Kansas City. You just drop back, and they're going to give you every coverage and fun of bliss is like we have to maintain balance. And Jack Taylor did a phenomenal job of maintaining balance, even down, even knowing he wasn't going to run the ball effectively, kept the idea of run, and they just battled and battled and battled and ended up making some play.

They also got incredibly fortunate on two plays. The screen pass that they pick off, I mean, the Chiefs are one of the best screen teams in the league. That's a great play by, who was it? The Bengals of the line is a step. It was a, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was Hill, Hill, the defensive lineman Hill. That was a great. Yeah, was that it? That's a phenomenal play. And then the pick in overtime is as lucky as you're going to get. Right, but that was third

down. They were going to get the ball back anyway. Yeah, well, still, it's like it feels different, in my opinion, when that happens. How about Eli Apple dropping the pick six on the second down in overtime? Oh, that's insanity. Well, how about the chief linebacker dropping the pick on the sideline that would have given him a game. The burrow threw away. The throwaway, yeah. If he catches it, I don't know if he stays in bounds, but yes, it was not a good throwaway. Yeah, his body, his body was hitting with the ball in his chest. He was in bounce.

I mean, the thing is, and the Bengals did have a couple chances early and did make a couple catches, but they got the fortunate plays in that game. And I was just really, really impressed by their head coach and by their quarterback, and their ability to stay resilient in their game plan and what they were doing and never quit on it, and that defense stepping up and making plays. I'm amazed that the Chief didn't just stick with running the ball more and get the ball to McKinnon more, and I say that in so much that I know what they have. Like, I understand it.

That's the McKinnon was taken like seven yards of carry. I know. What is, you know, I mean, like, and have they scored to go up 14 points, they might have stayed with that a little bit, a little bit more. What did the Bengals do in the second half defensively that made it so that Tarek Hill didn't have one catch in the second half after having seven in the first half? What did they do? They bracketed him from either side. If he crossed the field, they bracketed him with the safety.

There's a big play made in the first half where the safety came down, and they played a single high. The safety on the other side of Hill's crossing should cut him and pick him up on the deeper cross. and he got his eyes stuck on Burrow, and they threw it right over his head to Hill for like 25, 30, or whatever it was. And I think in the second half, they're like, dude, this guy does not get behind us. We'll just bracket him the whole game. Kelsey will make some plays, and he's going to be good run after the catch. But we just cannot give up that big play, and they didn't do that.

How much of this? Well, too. How much of the second half inept Kansas City offense, which was shocking to watch, was on Mahomes? I think he, I think some of it. I do. I think some of it. I think that he knew that a lot of the time he was seen soft coverage. And I think he missed some opportunities to maybe not throw the ball vertically down the field, but to not throw, instead of throwing the flat to throw the shallow crosser or the route in front of him. Or potentially Kevin to run more. I think that he just really got into this.

They're not going to beat us. Just don't lose the game here. Take what they give me instead of be who he was. I mean, I do think he was. I think a lot of it was on him. Yeah, I do. Yeah. I mean, he was 8 of 18 for 55 yards and two interceptions and took three sacks in the second

half. So I wanted to throw this. There are a couple of things I want to circle back to. Both interceptions were like, are they? truly on him. A D-Linman magically picks a screen and a batted ball pick on third and long, throwing it down the field. Yeah, but he should. They're not like egregious. They're not egregious picks. Yeah, it's funny, though, because I think he's had a lot of those screens where he's kind of willy-nilly throwing him out there and they've gotten picked this year. He's been,

he's had a lot of careless plays this year. And so one of my early season theories when they were two and three is I said, to me watching Patrick Mahomes, he looks bored. Like he looks like he's a little bit bored. He knows how good he is. He knows how good they are. And he's trying to extend plays even longer than they need to be extended, twirling around, making people miss,

and then making some very careless throws. And he's been doing that all year long, you know, actually. But they obviously got into a rhythm here recently and what they did against Buffalo with the offense last week was so impressive. But I thought that at the end of the first half, I too did not have an issue with them trying with five seconds left because you can do something really quickly and it's a four second play. And then, by the way, who's to say they would have kicked the field goal? Maybe they then would have tried to go for it and run the ball potentially because on a third goal from the one with one second left, then run becomes an option for them too. But they probably would have kicked the field goal had they missed.

but I thought what was surprising is that Mahomes is screaming for a timeout at the end of the play when Hill got tackled. How didn't he know that he didn't have a timeout left? Because not knowing that you had a time, if you didn't know that you didn't have any timeouts left, the ball would have gone quickly into the end zone. So I think that there was... I don't think he had time for a timeout anyway.

I think he was tackled. No, you're right. You're 100% right. But the fact that he... But you have to know more than that. You have to know that if you throw the ball on the flat, it's got a score. If he gets tackled, it will eat the five seconds.

Even if he scores, it's going to eat the five seconds. He's not going to catch it in the field of play. No, yeah, no. Yes, but if he scores, he scores, and you're great. Of course. Yeah, I understand. I understand. Either way, you throw the ball on the flat, it's taking the five seconds.

I just think that they got a little bit full of themselves. They were up 21, 3. it's 2110. There wasn't anything in watching the game live that indicated to anybody watching the game live that Cincinnati could win the game. And it was very clear that Kansas City felt the same way, which is why they were kind of fucking around with the last five seconds. Why not? I mean, let's try one more play. If it doesn't work, who can't, I mean, 2410. I mean, they certainly weren't trying to come away with no points. I'm not suggesting that. But even when they failed there at the end of the first half. The only people that were thrilled about it were people like me

who had the under for the game. I didn't think Cincinnati was going to win the game. There was no indication after Mahomes was 18 of 21 for 220 and three touchdowns in the first half that they weren't going to score another 21 points in the second half. But they didn't. They didn't score until the very end on the field goal that forced overtime. And I think they went from being bored to panicking. And I thought they got looked like they got really tight when Cincinnati came back and tied the game. And in particular, Mahomes became very inaccurate, Chris.

He's running around. He did. You're right. And then he became inaccurate. He was throwing high. He was missing people from, you know, the first pass and overtime is high. The inaccurate. The second one should have been a pick six to end the game, throwing behind the

receiver, and then the third one he throws to Hill in double coverage. I think he choked. I got to, I'm with you on this, but I want to circle back to, and this might have been the start of it. I think you're on to something that he's bored. And it's not that he's bored with football. He's bored with throwing the ball underneath over and over and over again. But that's when you start looking at the best quarterback, you're like, man, this guy's

going to get the ball out in 2.7 seconds every single. single time, and we're going to have to come up and tackle, and we're going to have to hope they fumble or make a play. But you're the chief, just get the ball out. Get the ball on the hands of your dudes and let them make play. It doesn't have to be you. He's bored with being a distributor. He's bored with being a playmaker. Yeah. He's bored with being a distributor. There might be something to that because everybody playing that team is going to say, you challenge him and he's so good he will beat you over the top you really put pressure on your back end and he'll get out of the pocket and he'll throw touchdown passes and quarter of the end zone

on the run like we have to play soft and hope he gets bored yeah and then when it got tight because his boredness cost them dearly um he he kind of choked i mean i don't think i've ever seen Mahomes choke before, but I thought that the throws all the sudden became errant. And the two sacks that he took at the end were sacks where he looked very unsure of letting the ball go. I mean, he took a sack and fumbled. And they recovered it before the game tying field goal. But my God, can you imagine if the game had ended on him running around for nine seconds, getting sacked for a 16-yard loss, and fumbling. it was weird.

I mean, amazingly, as I can, because I've seen that happen. I see him do that as well. You start to scramble, do the Houdini thing, turn, pivot, go backwards, run into traffic, turn pivot, go backwards again. I know. And then he's dead, and he's done that. He's done that. He's done that.

Josh Allen is a guy that's done that. Like, that's a young quarterback thing where, and I mean, Burrough did it a couple times in this game and made a couple incredible plays with it. At some point, that's not really what you want to do. Yeah, but it's the, look, what you're saying, it's so funny because it's like as he's doing that, as you're watching the play, it's Patrick Mahomes, you're pretty much expecting it to end favorably for them. He's going to throw to somebody who's wide, Kelsey's wide open now.

After he ran around and the defensive players were falling all over themselves as he twirled and he went one way and back the other. and now he comes and it's an easy pitch and catch to Kelsey or it's an easy run into the end zone. But on those plays, it didn't happen. And it was, they were catastrophic, near catastrophic play on the last one. But yeah, no, I get it. And by the way, in the red zone, extending plays gives you a much better chance of being a good red zone touchdown scoring team. Because rarely on a condensed field is the, you know, unless you're running the ball, is option one open.

Exactly. Especially when you don't have to play like, you know, when Tariq Hill can't beat you for an 80-yard bomb, he can only beat you 11 yards or 9 yards or 5 yards from the 5-yard line. It's a lot easier to play them, right? It changes it dynamically, and I think that's why all year you've seen this Chiefs offense do really fun. exciting stuff from inside the five yard line.

Like, I've been so impressed with their operation inside the five, and it's different than any NFL team. Right. It's all kinds of stuff. All kinds of stuff. And then if they do want it to be to Hill, it's like he's going this way, that way, this way in motion, and all of a sudden you lose him, which is crazy,

but you lose him, and he's so fast. Yeah. Or they do that and draw it up, and now you're watching him entirely, and here comes Kelsey on a shovel pass. They've been excellent at essentially trick play. he's inside the five. Right. By the way, what do you make of that?

Like, it's so creative, and Andy reads, like, the little underhand pitch to Kelsey on the shovel, or, you know, all the creativity, is it required, look, there are a lot of teams that struggle on a condensed field in the red zone. Is it just creativity that every NFL team's got to come up with? Or do the chiefs see, do they even need it? Well, obviously they believe they need it, and they're excellent at scoring inside the five. It's just something that you have to practice a lot. You can't just – those are new gadget plays every week. You can't just draw them up.

They've got to run through those a lot. They're going to practice them. And I think you need a guy like Mahomes, and you need a guy like Kelsey and Hill, and people that understand that offense, or you're going to spend more time practicing the install of Wednesday on first and second down. Like they can abort some of their basic, like they can walk through a lot of their offense and spend more time practicing that stuff

because they have guys that understand it. Maybe. I think he's great. I think the Chiefs are great. There's no way that Chief should have lost this game. And I actually like the idea that Mahomes gets a little bored. Especially up, especially when he's,

up 21 to 3, 21 to 10, and he's just making dink throw, dink throw, dingthrow, he's like, let me find, let me make the big throw here. I'm the guy that makes the splash play. Let me make the splash play. And then he watched Burrow make a couple splash plays. He's like, let's go, I'm going to do this instead of just distributing. Well, look, something, the fact that he didn't know they didn't have any timeouts on the final play of the half speaks to some level of him not being totally in totally paying attention. I mean, he's like, as you were describing all the practice and all the gadget plays, maybe that's Reed's way of keeping Mahomes interested.

You know, maybe these gadget plays, which work, and I'm not suggesting that they're just gadgets for the sake of gadgets, but it's probably really exciting. I mean, Mahomes just strikes me, and I have no idea if I'm right about this, but the fact that he didn't know that they had a time out. He needs to be like a child because he's very bright and he's gifted and he's, you know, like you got to send him upstairs to Mrs. Jones's third grade reading class. He's a first grader, but he's got to go to the third grade reading class because he's too smart for everybody else. I mean, you can't just read those kiddie books.

You got to entertain him. You got to keep him busy. You got to challenge him. I mean, I thought it was strange that he didn't know that they didn't have any timeouts at the end of the half. So before we get to the Rams game, I thought, by the way, the other comment you made about Cincinnati sticking with the run, I felt the same way. I'm like, yeah, but you don't want to get into a shootout. You don't want the clock stopping after incomplete passes.

You need to figure out a way to shorten this game. You need, by the way, they have a terrible offensive line. You can't keep dropping Joe Burrow back over and over again. saw what happened last week when Tennessee sacked him nine times in a game. And I kind of liked what they did with that. So before we get to Rams 49ers, just tell me whatever you were going to say about Romo. Well, you called me, or we talked yesterday, and you said, I don't think he's preparing. That's what I think. Well, he's certainly not calling plays. He's certainly not predicting the way he was predicting plays, which I told you from

being able to go to a team's practice every day or being able to watch a Friday practice, if you really want to put in the time and study some of those formations on a Friday practice and understand what they're checking to, which they would tell him, it's just work. It's not magic. It's just work. You're essentially acting as the quarterback of that team before the ball snapped. And you see the same thing when they discuss defenses. I thought, I think he spends way too much time.

joking back and forth with Nance about what someone should do or shouldn't do and about who this guy, hey, Jim, yeah, you're too, talk to, is like, could you just call the game? I don't care about the buddy-buddy thing with you with Jim right now. And I honestly don't care if Jim Nance thinks they should run it or throw it on first down. I just don't give a shit. Right. Let him just call and lay out the game. And you tell me what you see from the game.

It's not the same Tony Romo. and I think you said to me, you think he'll just get by on charisma. It's not just that. It just gets hard, I'm sure, when you do it 20 weeks in a row to really prepare like you were a quarterback. And in the first year, in the second year, it's easy to prepare like you were playing because that's all you know. When you get to year three, four, you got kids gone, you've got your gone every weekend. And you really want to study that hard on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday? Right.

I'm with, I just think it's probably not a lack of preparation because I still think he understands what's going on. And he's good at designing and drawing and showing. But he's not pre-p predicting, and he doesn't quite know what teams are going to do the way he does. So I'm sure he's preparing less. How about the suggestion? I did not like him calling the game. Sorry, let me finish it up with. I'm starting to dislike listening to him call again.

Yeah, I felt, I mean, when he got to the end and they butchered, he suggested the letting him score thing. I'm like, oh my God, you didn't just say that, did you? Do you know that they're up three? Like, are you really suggesting that you go down four and that you give your quarterback no timeouts, and now he's got to go in a minute 20, he's got to go 75 yards to win the game when they've got a chance to hold them to a field goal and force overtime.

Please tell me that you don't really believe that that's an option here. I mean, my question to that is, and I understand. There are times when I didn't manage exactly what the score was the way I should. And in this game, I don't know if it's that hard. But you get busy calling the game. Did he think they were down four? Or did he think they were, like, I don't know. No, didn't you mean, did he think, no, because the only, well, not down four, obviously.

But it would have been, if you're, you don't, you're, whenever you're in that situation, you're just protecting from a walk-off field goal to beat you, you know, so that's a tie game, or being up one or two. No, I'm with you. Yeah. Or, you know, but. Like, he's proposed the entire game that the Bengals offensive line is terrible. And we all know that a straight drop-back.

situation is not the best case for the Bengals to be in. Right. So you're really contradicting what you think is best for Cincinnati by saying that. I don't know. I'll give anyone like that the benefit of it. Yeah, that's on a boneheaded thing. I agree. But I wanted to ask you about the overtime because I don't think we talked about this. In the overtime, on the mix and run that got him down to the 12-yard line for chip shot, you know, game-winning field goal at 24, 24 and overtime. if you watch that play closely, and I did not ask you to go back and watch this play, so I don't know if you did. But Mixon went down, left the ball on the ground, got up, celebrated the big run, but he had not been touched by a chief.

He got tripped up by his own player. And so there was a delay after that play. Andy Reid was talking to the referees, and Jim and Tony decided. to speculate on what Reed was asking about, and they suggested that he was challenging in a legal formation penalty on that play. First of all, in overtime, you can't challenge anything. Everything's a booth review in overtime. Secondly, in what world as football fans, does anybody, has anybody ever seen an illegal formation challenged? You know you can't do that. What they missed completely on and never got is that Mixon went down without contact, left the ball on the ground, and Sorensen, I think it was Sorensen, immediately saw it, picked up the ball and recovered it.

So there was an immediate recovery. And Reed was asking the referees if they were reviewing that. And the referees told him, and by the way, I thought this would be the answer. He gave himself up. And if you give yourself up and you show no immediate attempt to get back up and start running, the play's dead. And so Reed said, okay, I got it. He gave himself up.

But that was never pointed out by Nancy Romo what was going on there. It was written about the day after about how it was not discussed by them. But that's lack of preparation too. And to think that you can challenge an illegal formation penalty or that you shouldn't you know that you can't challenge in overtime anyway? It's the preparation thing. I think, and I felt this way in watching Romo all year long, that I was such a big fan, and I love his enthusiasm,

and I love the, all right, Jim, here we go, Jim. You know, all that was kind of funny and cool to listen to, and he was predicting plays like you were. You were the pioneer of that on radio. But in watching him this year, there were times when it was like, I don't think he was very prepared. And then you're right with the joking with Jim. Now, they had some bad games this year.

They had a couple of blowout games that they had to call this year. And so, like, I remember, I think it was the Kansas City Pittsburgh game that they had during the regular season that was just a beatdown. I think it was that game. And, like, Pittsburgh finally scored and he starts joking around. Do you think they should go for two here? You know, if they get four more touchdowns with four two-point conversions, and that's not exactly what it was. but I just didn't think that he, I actually thought Troy Aitman was outstanding on Sunday as an analyst. The funny thing is, I was going to say, I don't know if it was the Romo thing that changed in Troy where he's going to prepare and understand game plans and know better, but shoot, I thought Troy was awesome.

Tell me about that game. What were your thoughts about Rams 2049ers 17? Well, I think I was surprised that San Francisco couldn't find a way to truly stay balanced and run the ball in the second half. I'm like, you know the Rams, my opinion, you know the Rams are going to score. I know that Kyle beat Sean six in a row and that they've held them. But to think, I told you what, a week ago, that team's dynamically different with just O'Dell-Bet. You picked them. You picked them before the playoffs started. You said they're going to get to the Super Bowl.

and I did not agree with you. That's fine, but I said I don't think Cincinnati would get there if they had to play Kansas City, so I was very wrong on that. I still think Cincinnati and Kansas City played 10 times in the playoffs, and Kansas City beats them eight out of ten times. But that didn't happen. The interesting thing with that game was, is, well, I thought the Rams were excellent on defense.

I thought they made huge plays. I thought McVeigh was awful. The challenges. The challenges. were ridiculous. Like that challenge on the Stafford Sneak? Oh my God. There was no possible. Was it close?

Yes. Was there any possible angle? No. Right. And that call in that situation, I hated. There were a couple third down calls. There was one, I think that Sean shows him, say like, my bad, my bad. Like, what are you

trying to accomplish here? Like, I think they overcame Sean McVeigh. If they had lost that game, I mean, people all week would have been talking about how McVeigh had an awful day and that he cost them the game. Especially if it had come down to like they didn't have any timeouts to get the ball back, you know, down three or something like that. I mean, that second challenge on the use check fumble, that was awful. Who told them to do that? Well, and that's the thing is most of these cases, there's somebody up there.

Why would you do that? That is horrible. It was so bad. Maybe just, I know I'm not going to get the third challenge. I don't know what he's doing. I don't know. I still think the Rams are going to be incredibly tough. Cooper Cup is just absolutely awesome.

And you add Odell Beckham into the mix. and Matt Stafford is, hmm, see what happens when you get a good quarterback. I think Matt Stafford's really done a tremendous job. I don't know. I think the Rams are a really, really good football team. I think they're really good on defense. I think they have too much talent. And talent just wins.

Most of the, if you can get talent to be somewhat cohesive, it's hard to beat. You told me last week, I forget if it was on the podcast or not. You just said having OBJ on that team, Cup isn't the guy to threaten over the top. And now that you've got a guy to threaten over the top, it's like a totally different team. Yeah.

And by no means, I'm saying Cup can't get vertical down the field. But I'm saying when he's the number one, he can't beat us deep, then he's not. He's a guy that's going to create anywhere from five, to 20 yards and he's going to be open and he's going to find a way. And I don't think there's anyone better in the league right now. Finding a niche or Kelsey would be one of those guys.

But Kelsey has Treek Hill. Yeah. Shoot, that's so funny. I say that. Like, I go back to thinking about my second year. And when Santana Moss came and started making plays down the field, got it got easier. Right.

How about Jordan Reed with Deshaun? Jackson out there. Exactly. And so you add those guys and then you have the ability to run the ball. I just think they're a really good offense. I think they're really well-rounded. I'm not saying, I'm saying that they overcame Sean McBain in terms of some play calls and some things.

But still, he prepared to be a very good football team in the 49ers. And they did a good job. Rahe Morris did a phenomenal job. You love him. As well. Were the Rams not great on defense? They were. I mean, I think that, I mean, I'm surprised you haven't said this.

I know you said that they couldn't run it in the first half. It was eight carries for 19 yards in the first half. If you stopped the 49ers from running the football, which they did, well, the 49ers aren't the 49ers. It was 20 carries for 50 yards. So you had to ask, and they had a lead, too. They had a 10-point lead in the second half, three-point lead at halftime, 10-point lead going into the fourth quarter and they couldn't run the football. But they could get it to Debo Samuel

on little bubbles. And Cooley, how great is he? How great is Debo Samuel? He's one of my favorite players to watch right now with the versatility. I love like it really makes you rethink and I love that Kyle does this. And he has the ability to rethink what he's

doing on offense and change to his personnel. He proved that with Robert, obviously. for obvious reasons, as Mike would say. But now, Debo Samuel is a guy that has anywhere from four to eight carries or ten carries in a game,

and then he's going to catch two or three screens, and he still got the ability to get vertical down the field. It's so much fun to see how you use Debo Samuel. I am super impressed with him. But it's basically saying, in my opinion, okay, we got to get this guy 12 to 15 touches a game. That's what our offense has to be. Can we do it just throwing him the ball?

No. So let's hand it to him. Yeah. The creativity in Sean and Kyle and Andy Reed and it's just, it's really, I mean, I love football because there are so many different ways to have success. but you've just seen so many more creative ways offensively in recent years with, you know, running game with Kyle Shanahan, motion and cadence and everything with McVeigh, Reed with gadget plays. It's just, it's been just kind of a cool league to watch Evolve.

Oh, do you know Zach Taylor? I don't know if I've ever asked you this. Do you know Zach Taylor or not? I don't. No, I don't. I think it's pretty awesome for Sean. to be in the Super Bowl playing against a former offensive coordinator. I mean, also knowing that his former offensive coordinator was who he had to beat to get into the Super Bowl,

who beat another one of Sean's former offense coordinators. Pretty good tree there, the Shanahan tree. Pretty good tree, the Shanahan tree. But, you know, Kevin O'Connell looks like he, it looks like Kevin O'Connell's going to get a head coaching job. He is apparently interviewing and very impressive interviewing with Minnesota and with Jacksonville and with somebody else, I forget. But a lot of people think Kevin O'Connell now. I mean, Sean McVeigh's already got a coaching tree.

I mean, it's crazy at 36 years old. Nuts. It's a sanity. I mean, I'm surprised about Kevin O'Connell. It looks like he's going to get a head job. Are you surprised about that or not? I think Kevin O'Connell is really smart. I'll say that.

And knowing Kevin, I think he understands. I think he loves ball. I think he's really smart. I haven't been around Kevin enough to know if he's the type of leader that I saw in Sean. I would, if I was interviewing Kevin O'Connell today for a coaching job, I wouldn't ask him anything about football besides who are you hiring for your staff. I would spend all my time on his ability to lead a team and lead a coaching staff. that would be my biggest question on Kevin O'Connell.

Can he lead? Okay. Real quickly, your first... By the way, can I just say this to one more thing about the RAM? Of course. I don't know if it's all Sean, but they did some... They've done something that almost nobody's done in the last, however long, in free agency, in the NFL. They just aborted the first round and potentially the second round.

And they said, we don't care. about first round dudes and we'll figure out the cap as we go. But, I mean, can you imagine, like, with what they have, you're saying in this year they acquire a top 10 quarterback, two years ago you would have said, if not number one, the top three or four receiver, and two years ago you would have said the number one delinement in a year. Pass rusher, yeah.

And the year before, what most people would almost, everyone would agree is the best man-to-man corner. I do remember that you were not as big of... It's incredible to get... It's incredible to get those four guys in a year, in a year span. I know. You were not the biggest Jalen Ramsey fan when he was in Jacksonville. I remember those conversations with you. I remember those conversations.

No, it wasn't Jalen Ramsey. It was the... uh-uh. It was the other dude, Peters, who went to Baltimore that I wasn't well. No, you were not a big fan of Jalen Ramsey. You and I got in these arguments. I remember getting into these arguments. with you. Don't recall that. I think I would, I would say it's hard to say I'm a massive fan of giving up what they had to give up to get Jaylen Ramsey.

I think they gave up a lot to get Jaylin Ramsey. That defense had, that defense had Miles Jack. I'm talking about the Jacksonville defense that got to the AFC title game. They had in Gokway. They were, yeah. They had the guy Smith, the linebacker. Ramsey, Dante Fowler,

who am I forgetting? Who was the other corner that was... Bousie Bougier. A.J. Bouier. Right. I mean, that, you know, they were close to beating Brady. They were close to beating Brady in that AFC championship game.

Jacksonville was. Well, they did it without a quarterback. They did it with Blake Bortles. But Leonard Fournette, was really getting rolling. All right. Oh, I want to talk about something else real quickly in a moment. After we take a quick commercial break.

But I just wanted to ask you, is there anything about the Rams Bengals Super Bowl right now that you see that makes you believe that one team definitely has a better chance of winning? It's a four-point line. The Rams are minus four. in the Super Bowl. And the total's like 50. I think it's down to like 49 now. But the Rams are a four-point favorite

because there's something that I believe is a mismatch in this game going into it. I'm curious as to what your first take is on this game. Let me do it now? Yes. That's why I'm asking you now. I think that the Rams are a massive mismatch because I think they can take out Jamar Chase

with Jalen Ramsey, which is something that the Chief couldn't necessarily do. They had to commit safety help to Jamar Chase. I don't see the Bengals being able to run on this Rams defense. They lost their tight end, which also the Rams did as well. But I just don't see the Bengals being able to score 24. I just, I mean, Burrow would be the answer if you'll have to make those plays. But you have Von Miller and you have. have Aaron Donald and is he going to get out of the pocket?

Do they even really have to rush more than four to get to the quarterback? I don't see the, I just don't see the balance that Cincinnati is going to be able to have offensively, and they barely had enough against the Chiefs. I just don't, I don't quite get it. I think the Ramsey thing, I didn't think about that, but that's huge. obviously, but with Chase. I just think that up front, the Rams are going to absolutely smash Cincinnati's offensive line, and that the Rams are totally different than what the Chiefs are.

And the Chiefs were tough. Look, Tennessee really defensively, I mean, Burrow, in the plays he made after being sacked and pummeled the way he was, and then they stuck with the run, and Mixing came back with the touchdown run. But what they did to San Francisco's rush attack. And by the way, it's interesting because I went back before the game the other day, and I looked at Cincinnati's results recently when they were kind of handled offensively. And there was a game that they played very tight game against a good defensive team in Denver.

And they struggled against Denver to run the football because they got manhandled up front. They got manhandled up front against the Chargers and got beat pretty badly. And I just think that the Rams right now, watching how fast and athletic Aaron Donald and Miller and that group was, and then I would just throw on what you said, Jalen Ramsey being able to take Jamar Chase and you're not going to need safety help, I just don't see the Bengals being able to score enough. And I love Joe Burrow. and I really love their team, and I love Burrow in particular, and Chase. But I just think that the Rams are the right side here.

I think they're going to win big. Yeah, that's the thing that's weird is when you look at the line, I don't see how they're just four-point favorite. Well, I do. I thought that would be the line. But I think there's some value in taking the Rams and laying the four. Not to mention they've got a lot of players that lost. I would absolutely do that.

But it's scary because I would absolutely do that. Yeah, let's hope that. The only thing I don't like the line. No, no, no. No, I think you're going to get a lot of Cincinnati action from the public. I haven't even looked at what the reaction to the line is. I guess that it would be three, three and a half that came out as four. I don't think you can make it much higher.

Cincinnati just went to Arrowhead and won. I mean, you know, they beat the number one seat on their home field, Tennessee, and went to Arrowhead and came back from 213. So there's going to be a lot of public action on Cincinnati. Not to mention they're kind of a little bit of a darling right now. Like people love that they're there. It's a great story. By the way, it's more than a great story.

This is a good football team that's going to be good for a long time. All right. I want to read to you what Albert Breer wrote and get your thoughts on this, right after these words from a few of our sponsors. This segment brought to you by MyBooky. Go to mybooky.orgie.com. using my promo code, Kevin D.C. They'll double your first deposit all the way up to $1,000.

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So Cooley, the focus after tomorrow, the name thing, and then by the way, there's a congressional roundtable with some of the women that were harassed in the organization, Congress getting involved. That's on Thursday. But this is going to be a big offseason. And Rivera has already, you know, said quarterback, it's a big priority. And my position has been, you've got to take the big swing. You've got to go for Aaron Rogers, Russell Wilson, Deshawn Watson. I'm going to exclude Deshawn Watson from this conversation because we just don't know what the state of his eligibility, his lawsuits, anything is. But last year I wanted them to go big on Deshawn Watson.

I think you did too, Aaron Rogers, et cetera. And they tried for Stafford. You know, they tried for Matt Stafford and they got beat by Sean McVeigh. So Albert Breer wrote a story last night on SI.com. And I'm going to read it to you. It's pretty short. We've got another team for you that'll be all the way into the 20th. 22 quarterback derby.

Albert Breer writes, the Washington football team is preparing to take a big swing at quarterback this offseason per team sources. So just understand as I read the rest of this to you, people, that this is coming from the team. All right, everything that Albert Breer is getting is from the team. The team has just one quarterback veteran Taylor Heineke under contract for next year, more than 40 million of cap space to work with in the 11th pick in the draft

to potentially dangle in a trade. Last year, Washington threw its hat into the ring on Matt Stafford, initially offering a first rounder and a third rounder for him, then upping its offer. This is actually news because we thought it was just a first and a third. Breer writes, they upped their offer, but talks stalled when the Lions asked for players in return. And Rivera had mentioned that,

that they did not want to part with players. Anyway, the Rams got more aggressive. They ended up landing Stafford. From there, Albert Breer continues, Washington turned to Plan B, signing Ryan Fitzpatrick to a one-year deal. Fitzpatrick suffered a season ending hip injury in week one and Heineke took over from there. As to the effort to find its next franchise quarterback, with big names like Aaron Rogers, Russell Wilson, and Deshawn Watson potentially out there, Washington feels like it has plenty to pitch such a veteran. So understand that Breer right now is going to give you the pitch on behalf of the team for Aaron Rogers, Russell Wilson, and Deshawn Watson. Okay? Here it goes. While Brandon Sheriff's free agency looms and Washington will be open-minded approaching a new contract, Washington had the NFL's sixth ranked offensive line per pro football focus last year, and its depth was proven through significant absences that led to the NFL's sixth ranked offensive line per pro football focus last year,

and its depth was proven through significant absences that led to the coaches going to their fourth center, fourth tackle, and fourth and fifth guards. Washington's also got a 1,000-yard receiver in Terry McLaren, a 1,000-yard rusher in Antonio Gibson and other weapons on the offensive side of the ball, like Logan Thomas and Curtis Samuel returning from injury. And the defense is a good foundation in its still young defensive line, particularly with Chase Young coming back from ACL surgery. Then there are the intangible factors, getting to live in the D.C. area, and being on the front end of a team rebrand that will be unveiled on Wednesday. And the fact that the cap flexibility would give a quarterback a shot to bring a piece or two with him. So if you put it all together, there's reason to

pay attention to Washington as the football team again throws its hat in the ring. There's no guarantee, of course, that Ron Rivera, Martin Mayhew and Marty Herney reel in their big fish, March or April. And the failed pursuit of Stafford is proof. But if they don't land one, it sure won't be because their line isn't in the water. So, look, I'm not telling you that I disagree with anything that Albert Breer is writing about the pitch that he's made. And I'm not even suggesting that Albert Breer was like, oh, I'll make the pitch for you. I think he's got to believe it to write it. But this came from the team. It's a second time it's happened. Ron Rivera, the Mike Silver story, essentially was a pitch to these quarterbacks about Washington being a pretty good opportunity.

Great offensive line, playmakers, lots of cap space. And by the way, you can bring someone with you like Devante Adams, Mr. Rogers. We got enough cap space. You can bring Devante Adams with you. So a couple of things, and then I want Cooley to react. Number one, for those of you still out there hanging on to like the Taylor Heineke should be the starter thing. Stop. Okay? They tried to trade for Matt Stafford last year. They expressed interest in Mitch Tribusky before the trade deadline.

And they're out there actively getting people to pitch what a great opportunity it is to be the quarterback in Washington. They want a quarterback and they want to swing big. That's number two. They're going to swing big again. And they took a pretty good size cut last year on Matt Stafford. But two firsts, a second, and Jared Gough was just a much better offer. And by the way, I think Detroit wanted to do right by Matt Stafford and send him to an area and a team that he wanted to go to, which was L.A. and Sean McVeigh.

Thirdly, many of you last year pushed back on me when I said, I'd give up three ones and Chase Young for Deshawn Watson or Aaron Rogers. I'd give up three ones and, you know, Duran Payne, where John Senn has, or Matt Ionitis for Russell Wilson. I'd give up a first and a second and, you know, maybe a player for Matt Stafford. And you guys, a lot of you laughed at me and you said, why would you want to do that? Why would you want to mortgage your future? They're doing the right thing. They've got a defense. They're going to, they've got to add some offensive linemen. You can go get the quarterback later, like there's a store that you go to to get the real good

quarterback. I hope that most of you now, after watching another season of Washington football and NFL football know that their only way, their only future is to land one of these three guys, or I would say one of the two, because I don't think Deshawn Watson's in play for Washington. I could be wrong. I think because I don't, I think Tanya would say no chance with what's gone on. But I could be wrong. And by the way, I wouldn't be against it. But I'm all in three ones and Chase Young, three ones in Duran Payne. whatever it takes to get Aaron Rogers and then going out and signing Devante Adams, I'm all in on.

Because that's your future if you want it to be positive, unless, of course, they land the next Justin Herbert or Joe Burrow or Patrick Mahomes or Josh Allen at number 11 with, you know, Kenny Pickett or Malik Willis or something like that. That's the only other way it'll happen. And, you know, that's the lottery. That's hitting the lottery when it comes to quarterbacks. So I love the fact that it's confirmed.

It's not a big reveal that they're going to swing big. And I just hope that this is what they end up doing because it's got to coincide with them understanding and Dan understanding that this rebrand that we talked about in the opening segment, you better win and you better win big and you better shift the attention to like Aaron Rogers and Devante Adams if you want to start selling tickets in a business. big way and winning in a big way. Washington would be the co-favorite next year to represent the

NFC and the Super Bowl. Understand this with the Rams now that Brady's retired if they landed Aaron Rogers and Devante Adams. The co-favorite. Maybe the Rams would be a slight favorite as a defending champion if they win the Super Bowl, but or as the defending NFC champion, but Washington would be right there. Okay. React, Cooley. So, first of all, per the idea of the pitch from Albert Breer, I don't think you throw Deshaun Watson out because you're trying to make a pitch, and right now Washington wasn't on one of the teams he wanted to go to, or wasn't part of the list of the teams he wanted to go to.

If the pitch is good enough, that's interesting. Secondly, when you say bring a piece or two with you, if I was Aaron Rogers, the first piece I would want to bring with me is my own offensive coordinator. My first pitch to Washington would be, I don't care what you do with Scott Turner, and he may end up being great, but right now I want a guy that I trust, that I talk to, and he has authority to run my office. Unfortunately, he's the head coach in Denver now, Nathaniel Hackett. I said Scott Turner I didn't say Nathaniel Hackett Aaron Rogers'

offensive coordinator is the head coach in Denver now yeah Nathaniel Hackett's great too that was Nathaniel Hackett by the way was the guy when we talked about Jacksonville almost making it to the Super Bowl that took Bortles almost to the Super Bowl I've loved Nathanielacket I know but what I'm suggesting is

if I am a quarterback especially Aaron Rogers late in my career where I just don't want to do deal with any of the coach politics, bull crap, you tell me how we're going to do things. And I'm saying to whatever organization, or especially Washington,

I want my guy there. Ron, you are going to promise that you're going to run the team and manage the defense, stay out of my business as a quarterback. I got my guy. We're doing my thing. Well, who's his guy? That's my point. Is his guy's in Denver now?

I'm not suggested. I don't know his guy. He's had a lot of guys. He could have a, it could be the tight ends coach for Greenback Row. Okay, so he's going to bring his, a guy he's comfortable with. Okay, got it. But what I'm suggesting is in that pitch to that quarterback, we'll get, if you wanted that, and I would want that later in my career, I would want that. I'm getting my guy.

And Aaron Rogers is definitely one of those guys that will clash if you don't let him do things the way he wants to do things. Right. And I'm sure they would say, yeah, Scott will do what you want to. do. But I would want my guy. If you were able to bring Devante Adams, terrific. If I'm Green Bay, that's a joke. I'm not giving you DeVonte Adams. He's a free. He's a free agent, so you think they'll franchise him? That's true. So, yeah, but they could franchise him. Yes, I would franchise him. Yeah, I'm not letting Devante Adams leave Green Bay. No chance, no way. They do. I tried to, I did this with you last week. They just don't. They're in a terrible

cap situation. That's the problem with Green Bay, which is why if Rogers goes, Adams probably, they're going to rebuild and Adams is probably going to go with him. But go ahead. Right. And I'm going to fight if I'm Green Bay to not do that, but I understand where you're coming from. The pitch is there, though, in terms of offensive opportunity. And we did this last week and you said it's not, but I think it is. And here's another, like, Samaday-P. Rine's great with the quarterback. My God. You know, Jay always loves, he always loves Somaget.

Samajai P.R.N. went the wrong way on a screen. I know he did. Did you think he, did you think Samajie was any good when he was here? No. I didn't think he was great. No. And I don't, I don't think he's great now, but he made a couple plays for sure. He's had a decent year. The line's okay. I don't care about what football focus created them. I like flowers where he's at. If Brandon Sheriff stayed, Cosme, before he was hurt, seemed like he was coming on a little bit.

They're okay up front. But Terry McCloran is one of the top ten receivers in the league. So for any quarterback, you do have a number one. Is Diommy Brown going to be anything? I don't know. I like Adam Humphreys. He's a bailout to any quarterback. I think that's a positive.

He's a free agent. He's an unrestricted free agent. He's unrestricted. You could keep him, though. Your quarterback is a good, let's go get Humphreys again. Curtis Samuel should be a dude for you. Curtis Samuel should be with a dude. He's that guy that could be the dude in San Francisco he just talked about.

They're the same player. You know why they're not the same player? I want to interrupt you right there. Because Debo Samuel has extraordinary strength. He's a tackle breaker. He breaks tackles of defensive linemen and linebackers. That's not Curtis Samuel. Curtis Samuel is still a guy that when they played against Carolina, what, two years ago, broke one off for 50.

I'm not saying that he's not versatile. I think he's got the same versatility. But Debo Samuel is a physical runner. Curtis Samuel's 510 and 190. Like, Debo Samuel's just stronger. I got it, but you have some versatility at receiver and you got a good back. I agree. I agree with that.

It's not a good quarterback could make. just enough. I agree. So you're not proposing come and rebuild in Washington. I do think it's interesting with would I like an opportunity to win in the next few years with Aaron Rogers? Yes. How long am I getting Aaron Rogers for? I don't know.

Is he going to do Jeopardy when he doesn't like it in two years? Maybe. If I get Aaron Rogers, I'm not going to have any opportunity to be drafting a quarterback unless I'm so good in the draft that I know I can get a dude in the second round or third round because I gave up all my first. We're punting on getting a quarterback in the next four years, which means four years from now we're starting over, but essentially any coaching staff and management at this point, they've got

to win now. They just do. And so I get it like you're going to swing big or no, we're all gone. So they would try to make that trade for Rogers. But in the total long-term rebuild, is it Rogers? I don't know if Deshawn Watson were cleared of everything, he's got real longevity. Right. So I would be pushing, like if I own the team, I would be pushing for real longevity.

Well. I would want 10 years out of a dude to make to trade away three first. No way. Not four. I need, Aaron Rogers has one year left on his deal, but obviously I've got to be, I've got to sign him to a four-year contract extension. I want him playing the rest of his final three, four years here. Okay, that's first of all. Secondly, it's totally worth it to me if he plays three more years and you've got three years of winning, you know, 11, 12, 13 games a year, you know, finishing in the top two or

three in the NFC and having a legitimate chance to win a Super Bowl over the next three years. Even after three years at 41, he decides I'm done. I'm not playing my final year. I'm going to go host Jeopardy, which, by the way, he's not good enough to host Jeopardy. But it's totally worth it. Three ones, a two. He was a rookie. What? He was a rookie.

Here's the only reason if I own the team, I think it's totally worth it. I need to sell tickets. Yeah. And I know I have to, like, Aaron Rogers would sell some tickets, but you win 11 games two years in a row, and now you're back to selling tickets in your rebrand. 11 games. You're going to win 12 or 13 games with Aaron Rogers and DeVante Adams in that team. Sorry, there's an extra game. Yes, you're going to win 12 or 13.

You're really paying attention to the NFL. You forgot it was a 17 game schedule. What about Russell Wilson? I think Russell Wilson's really interesting. I think that, you know, I've talked about Russell Wilson. he's a playmaker that isn't truly like the going to operate in an offense kind of guy all the time. And I have come to the pure conclusion that it's not necessarily that he can't or that he's not, it's that he doesn't see it as much. Like those short dudes are tough. And his first inclination is to go back.

So he's going to have to run around make plays. I don't know. He's been so good, and then this year he just wasn't, but he was hurt. He's five years younger than Rodgers just so you know. I do know that. I do know that. I would, yes, I would go get Russell Wilson. If I could go, if that was one of the guys, I would go get Russell Wilson.

And a lot of it also depends on how you want to, what you want to do. The one thing that's interesting with Wilson and Roger, is they both kind of transcended the team in terms of who they are as dudes. Like, when you look at them both, they're like, these are celebrities. Yeah. I feel that way about both of them. And that's why Sean Watson is sort of infamous right now. But if you were cleared of all that, he didn't, although he did want to be the GM.

They all want that. Let's just go get Joe Burrow, man. Let me just mention Like I don't I mean I love Like all these guys are going to make you better There's no doubt about it All of them are going to give you a chance to win

So it's so tough No The three guys that we're talking about Are going to make you an instant contender When you get to the next tier of quarterbacks Derek Carr who by the way Josh McDaniel says he loves So he's not going to be traded

You know They're not you know, these aren't the guys that are, you know, Jimmy, you know, you don't want Jimmy Garapolo, right? He's going to be available. You don't want. Okay. So there are three guys that are going to make you an instant contender for the next three to five years or longer, if it were Deshaun Watson, and will change your franchise potentially. Now, many of you will say, Sheehan, do you know the franchise they're coming into?

I mean, somehow Snyder will fuck the whole thing up. He'll get too close to him and he'll mess the whole thing up and get in the middle of him, whatever. The only chance you have of being a good football team, a contending football team, of winning 12, 13 games a year going into a season being thought of as one of the top two or three teams in your conference, is to get one of those three or to end up hitting it big in the draft and getting the next Joe Burrow, Josh Allen, Justin Herbert, you know, Patrick Mahon. and then you're still two years away, but you know you'll be trending in that direction.

But yeah, the only way you know for sure is if you trade for these guys. Now, let me just make this really clear. I don't think there's a chance in hell that they're going to get any one of those three guys. I think it's a nice pitch that the team is making. And by the way, I would whatever they need to do, I'd pitch everything and I would swing big and I'd offer more than anybody else. this is their way out. And it's a timely thing with the new branding and needing to sell tickets and get people interested.

But more than that, it would make them a good football team next year and the year after that. So I would give up three ones and Chase Young if that's what it took. I need them signed to an extended contract for sure. But Aaron Rogers isn't coming here. Russell Wilson's not coming here. Deshawn Watson's not coming here. In all seriousness. Rogers is going to be in Green Bay or Denver, in my opinion.

I think Russell Wilson's staying in Seattle. And I don't know what the hell is going to happen with Watson. Watson may be the one that you might be able to pull off because he's going to be off the table for several teams. You know, I mean, already, like there have been a couple of owners. I think it was John Mara said, no, we would not bring Deshaun Watson into our organization. And Washington would be the one team you'd think that they can't do it. because of what they've been dealing with over the last two years.

But I don't think Rogers is coming here. I don't think Russell Wilson. I'm just saying that they better go for it. I was happy to see that they went for Matt Stafford last year, and they should really go for Aaron Rogers, Russell Wilson, Deshawn Watson, in this offseason. After that, you're just, you know, it's Trubisky and a draft choice. Yeah.

I love that Stafford took take. their M's the Super Bowl and we find out the next day that, oh, yeah, we did offer more. Yeah, a little bit more than we thought. Yeah, who knows if that's right. I mean, they should have, they, yeah, who cares? Last thing for you, Brady officially retired this morning. He posted on Instagram that he's not going to make that competitive commitment anymore. quote, I've always believed the sport of football is an all-in proposition.

If 100% competitive commitment isn't there, you won't succeed. And success is what I love so much about our game. There's a physical, mental, and emotional challenge every single day that has allowed me to maximize my highest potential. And I've tried my very best these past 22 years. There are no shortcuts to success on the field or in life. It went on and on. But he says, right now it's best I leave the field of play to the next general.

generation of dedicated and committed athletes, closed quote. I believe he's the greatest of all time. Do you disagree with that? No, I would completely agree with it. I think he's absolutely incredible. Everybody knows what he is, everybody knows who he is, what he's done. The longevity is fascinating. It's incredible to me.

there's a lot of, there's been a lot of good players. And what he's continued to do over and over proves he's the best for that long. I mean, he's got accomplished. It's hard to say different. He's got accomplishments that I don't think will ever be matched. I don't think that any quarterback's going to win seven Super Bowls and go to 10. I just don't see that happening. I don't know that any quarterback's ever going to be a five-time Super Bowl MVP.

he's got 35 playoff wins. 35. That's 19 more than number two, which is Joe Montana with 16. It's unbelievable. You know, the passing yard numbers, the touchdowns, all of those could be passed potentially. But the winning... It's tough, even with an extra game as long as he played,

it'll still be tough. The winning, the playoff success, I don't think is ever going to be matched. You know, I've thought of you many times about a lot of different things. Obviously, we've been friends. But, like, I think I've said to you before, can you imagine if the Patriots had drafted you? You know, or like a really good team had drafted you. Like, even the Steelers. Like, you would have been a legend in those places.

Because quarterbacks like Brady or Rathuston. would have loved you, don't you think? I would guess so. Yeah, I would believe so. I mean, you were better than Dallas Clark and Peyton Manning loved him. Yeah, I wasn't, though. I know.

I know. You got drafted by the wrong team. Yes and no. I mean, here's the other thing, Kev, is I got drafted by it. I was a third-round pick out of Utah State and had great success in a year and a half in college football. And there could have been 20 other teams at the time that would have drafted me that had a player at that position.

I got drafted by a team that had a coach that had a vision for me. And, you know, for two years, no one even knew if I was a fullbacker tight end, but who cared? Joe helped me make something out of my career early where I had an opportunity to do some awesome things. had I left in free agency after year four? That's the question. I was so pumped to sign a deal and continue to play for Joe and be a part of Washington, and then he was immediately gone, and then it was a door.

I wouldn't redo it, if you're asking, if that's a thought, I wouldn't redo it. But had I not signed that contract, had a Pro Bowl year the next year, then drop franchised and went through that, Yeah, I might have played another five or six years for somebody else for a quarterback that was incredible. But my last four were, look them up, you know, and not to say I didn't like those guys. Right. But they weren't, it wasn't Peyton Manning and wasn't Tom Brady and it wasn't Drew Breeze. Right.

I would have loved that. Do you know what your love to have? I would have loved to have one of the, let's put it this way. I would have loved to have a quarterback come to Washington in my second or third year and have had great success and had a coaching staff that would have been there for a long time or an offense that would have been in place for a long time. That would have been great, too. But I didn't.

So, bad. I learned a lot of football, though. I know you did. And I made a lot of good relations. How big of a free agent market would there have been for you? It would have been massive. Yeah. Like, well, I remember there was, it was the Patriot type and Daniel Graham signed a bigger

free agent contract to me. But when you go to free agency and it's different. But you also risk a lot, you know? Yeah. And looking back on my career at that time, I think I still wasn't 100% confident as to who I was as a dude. You know, it came off a change year without Sanders or I still had a really good year. and I felt good about where I was.

Two years later, I knew who I was as a player, or a year later, it would have been easy. So, I think after year three, I was like, man, this is still, what if I have a down year? You know, and again, looking back on it, knowing Al and knowing Joe, and was I going to? No, I was going to have to be hurt to have it down here. So I probably would have been a big deal. all right thanks for doing this today um good luck with the horse and wrestling and keeping them interested uh i will be back tomorrow with tommy and we will be doing a podcast uh mostly about whatever the new name is we will know by the time we get to the next show all right uh i'll talk to you later thanks yeah you're welcome buddy

that's fun because in either game life or football the margin for error is so small I mean, one half a step too late or too early, and you don't quite make it. One half second, too slow, too fast, you don't quite catch it. The inches we need are everywhere around us. They're in every break of the game, every minute, every second. On this team, we fight for that inch. On this team, we tear ourselves and every single. everyone else around us to pieces for that inch.

We claw with our fingernails for that inch. Because we know when we add up all those inches, that's gonna make the fucking difference between winning and losing.