The Kevin Sheehan Show - Cooley & Kevin's Top 5 Current Redskins

Episode Date: May 20, 2020

Cooley joined Kevin today on the show and they each picked their current top 5 Redskins based on current production and future potential. Cooley watched "The Last Dance" and he considered whether he ever played with anyone near as competitive as Michael Jordan. Kevin talked Cody Latimer, Dexter Manley, and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Before we get started today, guys, I want to find out how working from home has been going for you. If it's been going well, great. If not, remarkably remote from GoToMeeting will help you succeed in today's new normal. In just three minutes or less, we'll share simple but helpful tips to keep you on track, from managing your motivation, workload, and relationships to hosting and attending virtual events that keep you connected with your clients and colleagues. So check out remarkably remote on your first. favorite podcasting platform or head to go tomeeting.com slash tips. You want it. You need it. It's what everyone's talking about. The Kevin Sheehan show. Now here's Kevin. All right. Today, Cooley is with me. So it's a Cooley and Kevin show, at least for 40, 45 minutes, something like that. And then I've got a few things I want to get to. But Cooley's here

with us at the top. And you were going to come on with me on Monday because I know you have been enjoying the last dance. And Tommy and I spent a lot of time talking about it yesterday as well, but you hadn't watched those final two episodes, but you went back here in the last day or two, and you watched the final two episodes. And I think something that not everybody knows about you is that you were a bit of an NBA fan, and you were a Utah Jazz fan, and both the 97 and 98 finals are featured heavily in these final two episodes. What were your takeaways from it? I thought the entire thing was amazing. I mean, absolutely incredible.

And I thought the last two were really well done. I remember those games because I was in high school at that point. I was a sophomore junior in high school. And so I remember sitting at a friend's house and watching the jazz run through the playoffs against the rockets and trying to overcome that. And then the Bulls, and especially the second year, thinking the way Stockton and Malone were playing, and Hornacek and Russell and Ostrathag,

and I thought they would win. And obviously everyone understood what Michael Jordan was. I thought the Jazz would win. And, you know, you go back and you watch this series and you just realize getting to know Michael Jordan better, The way I'm sure a lot of people do. The jazz weren't going to win. Nobody was going to beat Michael Jordan in either of those two years.

And it didn't even matter if they poisoned them in Utah. I did think one thing was interesting, and then I'll go a little bit. The Delta Center and the Utah Jazz environment was one of the hostile environments. I mean, you're talking about 30,000 Mormons back in a marina. I'm not quite sure it was as brutal as they made it out to be. Oh, really? I went to some jazz games. It's pretty benign.

Now, maybe those finals were completely different, but that, to me, seemed a little bit crazy. When Jordan's kids came on and said, yeah, Mom wouldn't let us go, and no order to hurt Jordan's kids in Salt Lake City. I'm just telling you right now, although apparently they poisoned to Michael Jordan's teeth. Yeah, well, there was a follow-up to that story yesterday, which if you haven't heard about, I'll tell you in about the moment. You know, Utah in Salt Lake, they've had a reputation over the years of being very hostile. And by the way, vicious with, you know, plenty of racial, you know, overtones to their viciousness over the years.

I mean, it's been a thing at Utah Jazz Home Games. But when you were there, you said you did go to some Utah Jazz games. Did you ever, did you go to any of those finals games? No, no. I would have. I've had the money to go to those finals games. And I'm not going to truly speak for the Delta Center. I just went to a lot of college football games in Utah and played a lot of college football games in Utah and went to jazz games.

I'm not going to say if anything was or wasn't said, but I'm just going to say it's not Philly. Yeah, right. Right. Of course, like, I think when people hear about how difficult and how NBA players view, view the Utah home court advantage. And there's been plenty said by players over the years. I mean, you know, Russell Westbrook recently, you know, had an issue with a fan at a jazz game and sort of went off on the Utah fan experience over the years. But you're right. Like most sports fans, when they think about hostile environments, aren't going to think about Salt Lake City, Utah jazz

fans. They're going to think about, you know, Philadelphia Eagle fans or, you know, some sort of East Coast fan base more times than not than Salt Lake. But overall, you enjoyed it. I enjoyed it. Tommy and I spent 30 minutes talking about it yesterday. I did it on Monday. But, you know, what was your favorite part of the whole 10-part documentary? My favorite. It's hard for me to say that there's an individual favorite part, but I love the absolute asshole Jordan could be to win. He didn't care. he was going to treat everyone like shit unless they stepped up. I thought some of the Kerr stuff was interesting in the last ones were, you know,

Kerr learned from Paxon. You've got to prove yourself to Michael Jordan. And who's the other dude that Michael Jordan berated the entire time? That was hysterical. Scotty Burrell. Yeah. Yeah, Borell. And you could see the guys as they talked about Mike.

You could see Scotty's love for Michael Jordan, but it's also. was understanding of, yeah, it was hard to play with Michael Jordan, but that's why we won. I was there with Phil and Michael Jordan, and that's why we won. Who is the most? People aren't that competitive. I played in a, played professional sports. I played college sports. I don't know anybody like that. Nobody. Well, maybe that's one of the reasons the teams you were on never won big. Oh, and I will tell you, maybe my favorite part was, I think, almost the last line.

And discussing the Bulls organization and saying all you needed was a match. And how did you not think about the last 25 years of the Redskins organization when you hear all you needed was one match stick? And it was Michael Jordan, and he changed an organization. Football is a little different because you got 11 players on the field and 11 players on defense. Michael Jordan can't do just that. But that I thought was a really impactful line by Jordan. It's a lot different. In basketball, one player can truly turn a franchise, you know,

and even a bad franchise at that because the Bulls were a bad franchise when he got there and he turned it around and turned it into, you know, a dynasty. But so, you know, you didn't answer my question, though, because maybe one of the reasons, and this isn't your fault, it would be the fault of those that were picking the players. is that you didn't have players like Jordan who despised losing even more than he enjoyed winning. I'll never forget Gary Clark once talking about his competitiveness during the Redskins championship years, and he said we had a lot of guys on the team that hated losing even more than they enjoyed winning.

And he really felt that that was like an attribute, a characteristic of what, you know, the organization, would look for in key players on the team. And maybe that's what was lacking at times. I mean, I think Clinton Portis was super competitive on the field. Who was the most competitive? Nobody was Jordan, but who was like to the point where they were annoying as a competitor that you played with? Anybody.

Nobody. Well, if you want to be Michael Jordan and take it to that competitive level, you practice at that competitive level. And as much as I love Clinton, we're not knowing in. Clinton won't, is no one's going to pretend that he worked like that every day. And so to hold people accountable the way Jordan held people accountable means not only have to be as talented as he is, but you have to work constantly to be that talented. And he proved every day and talk shit in practice and did anything he could do to win every single day.

He just did it, and he loved it. I hated the end, though. I hated the... I hated the... I guess the mix-up of... Phil wasn't going to say, but then Mike saying he would have stayed, and everybody saying, well, yeah, we could have done it again. I hated that.

And I hated Michael Jordan saying it killed him to not try to go for a seventh championship. That ate me up. Why didn't we do this? Why did that not happen? The politics of it is what sucks about pro-sports. work. Yeah, I mean, there's no doubt that that was for me going back to episode one. Like, how did any responsible adult let this end that had some decision-making authority? You know, back then, you know, Jordan, unlike LeBron James, wasn't owner, general manager, coach, and star player.

I mean, Jordan wasn't even consulted on the first coaching change when they, when they fired Doug Collins and hired, and hired Phil Jackson. But this was a result of an owner who basically deferred to a general manager who felt like he wasn't getting enough credit and was insecure about that. And that's what really started the balls rolling towards the end of this thing. I mean, what general manager with a five-time championship coach goes to the coach before a season and says, you could go 82 and 0 this year and win it again. This is your final year. I mean, how completely outrageous is that?

But beyond that, it's outrageous that the owner of the team didn't say, wait a minute, you're fired, Phil's coming back, and as Michael described, we're going to sign all these people to one-year deals and we're going for seven. Like, it's crazy that that didn't happen. It speaks to some, you know, it speaks to a fault that Reinsdorf had. in a blind spot. No, I'm totally with you on that.

And you know what? Maybe you can't pay everybody, but honestly, I saw Jordan's eye, and I'm just going to play psychic here, that if they would have brought him back with four new dudes, he would have won. I swear to you, it looked like Jordan just sat there and went, I don't want with anybody.

It didn't matter. I don't want with anybody. And, I mean, look at the impact of George. Jordan. Like Stern's talking about, we had, what, 50 countries when he started in 82, and we were in over 250 countries when he was done in 98. All of the things that went around Michael Jordan, how did they just decide to let that end? It's absolutely fascinating. It really is. You know, you just reminded me of that scene in the final episode,

I think it was the final episode, where Stern is presenting Jordan with his most valuable player trophy, and I'm assuming that was either a playoff game or a late season, it would have been a playoff game because it would have happened at that point. And Jordan accepts it. And Stern just looks at him and he says, thank you. Because Jordan, look, Magic and Bird saved the NBA. The NBA was flailing and was in big trouble, you know, in 1979, which is, by the way, the last year that the Washington professional basketball team was relevant. It was in 1979. They played in the finals, it was their fourth finals of the decade, and they were trying to defend their title. But when Magic got drafted in the draft in 1980, he and Byrd basically changed the league,

you know, but Jordan took it to another level. Jordan became, you know, one of the five, six, seven most recognizable faces on the planet. I actually thought, and I mentioned this to Tommy yesterday, that one of the takeaways for me was that something Steve Kerr said, Cooley, which was, you know, we never really got to know Michael. He was living, essentially, I'm paraphrasing, living a completely different life than we were. You know, the demands on his time were totally different. And you could see that. You know, in many ways, and I said this to Tom, in many ways, Jordan got along with older people better than he did his teammates, which, but, but, but anyway, I thought the whole thing was, that made total sense to me. So much. That made total sense to me.

many of the things, to me, not living any kind of a life like Michael Jordan, but seeing what I saw. And I only played nine years, but seven, eight years in, you realize that players come and go. And I'm sure Michael was close with Scotty, but not as close as the people that lived around him and had to be around him every day. And his security team and his best friends and some of those people, it was those relationships were the ones that were going to stay. player Steve Kerr he could have made friends with Steve Kerr

but they weren't going to be able to pay for Steve Kerr next year so he was going to leave you know I just that made sense to me in my first three or four years I was close to a lot of the players

I think Jordan was as well they traded somebody early Charles Oakley Charles Oakley that was Jordan's guy yeah and you start to sense that as a player

like shit they just got rid of my guy and then you just you just you protect yourself from making those bonds sometimes with the players. Players are reliable. And Jordan, I think, understood that, maybe even just subconsciously, and you make friends with the people that are.

Back to the fact that you didn't play with anybody that resembled Jordan, not Jordan, the player, Jordan, the competitor. And my statement to you, which is, well, maybe that's a reason, at least in Washington, that you were never part of a winner. You know, I just started thinking, I mean, this has been the problem. You know, well, this is a symptom, but it's the chasing the wrong kind of people, you know, in players, you know, Jeff George, Bruce Smith, Albert Hainsworth, like, you know, the owner's infatuation over the years with straight losers, you know, at the end of their careers or just losers in general.

and not understanding the sort of personality flaws that some of these players they've signed over the years and how that was destructive or certainly didn't allow for winning to develop and flourish. You know, this is the key to any business, any sports team is picking the right people. And more than anything else over the 20 years of Dan Snyder, more times than not, he's picked the wrong people. I don't like that talent versus morals argument, but you've got to have a couple guys with talent and morals. And morals, I don't mean necessarily not going to do anything, not going to drink a beer, but going to show up and work their guts out every day. But those players have to be talented.

They have to be your best players. I played with guys at practice hard. James Fresh worked the way Michael Jordan worked. He just wasn't. Michael Jordan. He just didn't have that talent. I mean, there were guys that taught me how to work, and there were guys that worked hard. And Brian Cosbowski, my friend, practice as hard as anybody. This wasn't Michael Jordan.

It was Bill Cartwright. He was that best a role guy. So your best player has to push people. You know what else I thought was a little interesting is just the film. the Phil Jackson method. You would have loved to have played for somebody like that, right? Oh, yeah. I would have been all into some of that center yourself stuff,

and I'm not into that in real life, but I would have thought that would have been fun. And look, you get Michael Jordan to buy into what you do and Scotty, and then you get Kobe and Shaq. The way he did things, I'm just interested Well, Steve Kerr did it to some extent But I'm interested in how well that works now

But it's also interesting why I couldn't do it in New York Maybe he was just older and jaded at that point But Well, you know, the other part of that is You know, he had Look, there's something about Phil Jackson That was a big part of winning As a coach

I don't think there's any doubt about it Yes, he had Michael Jordan. Yes, he had Kobe Bryant and Shaq. And in New York, he wasn't a coach in New York, but he, this is where there was something that he enabled him to sort of put it all together and manage people. You know, I mentioned yesterday that the best thing that happened to Dennis Rodman in his life was to luck in to Chuck Daly and Phil Jackson as coaches. And the reason that I would think that you would have loved Phil Jackson, I think some of the stuff you would have rolled your eyes. eyes at. But I think you would have loved the fact that he was always sort of thinking and willing to sort of think outside the norms. I mean, Steve Kerr's statement about that final team meeting,

Cooley, where he's got the tin can and the flame, and he asks everybody to write stories. And, you know, he says about Jordan's poem that he didn't think Michael could go that deep emotionally. And then he takes all of those handwritten things and turns the lights off and lights the flame and walks out. And walks out, and Steve Kerr called it one of the most powerful moments he's ever been a part of. You know, there was something about Jackson that, you know, just enabled him to lead people. I'm sorry? He didn't need to do. That wasn't about the Bulls ever winning again.

Right. That's who he was. And when you have a bunch of egotomaniacs, which any professional organization is, you better be able to think out of the box a little bit. Because they're not all going to be on the same. You've got to be a little bit odd. I think so. Yeah, maybe. Maybe you do, like, it's almost that charisma thing, you know, that intangible when they say, you know, they call it the it factor, whatever.

Like Phil Jackson had, there was something about him that other people, bigger stars than him, looked at and said, man, he's got something figured out that we don't. Like, he's... How about... Go ahead. No, I just, I think in life, whether it's in sports or in business, business. There are certain people that have that, and, you know, people follow them sometimes blindly. How about the episode where he had Tony Kukotch take the final shot to the Scotty?

Well, this is part of the conversation about Pippin here after the fact. Pippin's very upset about the way he was portrayed. He didn't like this. And it's funny because at the end of this, I love Scotty Pippen, maybe even more than I did going into it. But they don't do. But there were incidents. You know, you knew it at the time, and Jordan said it at the time, that basically, first of all, the hesitation to get that off-season surgery, where he was in no rush to come back for the 97 season. Jordan was critical of that. Obviously, the stain on his legacy is that he quit on his team in a playoff game with one and a half seconds left. and there was a lot of criticism about his contract and maybe some embarrassment about his contract.

But overall, I think what you learned about Pippin, if you didn't know this, is A, he's one of the great players of all time, you know, in terms of combination, offensive and defensive. And he was a good dude. He was the one that was well liked and his teammates knew in terms of the two superstars. Everybody knew and liked Scotty Pippen. I liked him more. I didn't know as much about Scottie, but I just learned what an incredible teammate he was and how impactful he was to Michael Jordan.

I get where he could be upset. I mean, there's a couple times where it didn't. Scotty Pippenlook, at least compared to Michael Jordan, soft. You know, having to go in and get massages on the back and the last run. The early where he had a migraine and sat out And I don't know.

But I can tell you this, when you know you're as good as Scotty, and they were because they almost made it to the finals without Jordan the next year. And what, 95, 96? Yeah, I mean, they made it to the conference semifinals. They won 55 games, and Pippin was a phenomenal player. But Jordan didn't win without Pippin. And Pippin, obviously, in that one year, completely without Jordan, didn't win. Well, he can be mad all he wants.

were about, this thing was about Jordan and the Bulls were Jordan. That's what it was. Yeah, agree. There's no dynasty, there's no ten-part series that everyone in America watches.

It's nothing without Michael Jordan. And you just can't, like, he wasn't Michael Jordan. So, after we got done talking about the last dance yesterday, I did this on radio and then Tommy and I did it. Give me the 10-part D.C. sports doc

idea that you would have. And to me, the first one, and Tommy disagreed, and I'll tell you what he said in a moment, but to me, the rise and fall of RG3 and D.C. would fill up 10 episodes. I mean, the Seattle game alone is an episode. The Baltimore and Cleveland games alone, you know, an episode. The all-in for week one off season is an episode. You know, the relationship, the meeting, the relationship, how it deteriorated with the coaching staff, how it was enabled by the owner. I think it would be, especially if people were on record and were interviewed and were totally honest and forthright about what happened, I think it would be unbelievable. And by the way, not just for DC sports fans, for all sports fans, it would be great. Yeah, and you've been

pitching this to me, and I don't think it's a 10-part series. Tommy said the same thing. How many parts is it? The way they did the Jordan stuff, I just don't think you're getting more than four to keep it really fascinating and really interesting. I've been thinking about it because I said, you know, one thing that to me is really interesting is the rise of the Shanahan staff and where they came from. But I don't know if that's a 10-part series.

What I do think... It doesn't have to be 10 parts. It has to be more than a 30-for-30. What I think you could get 10 out of, if you could get true honesty, and this person would sit down and talk would be what happened over the last 27 years to Washington Red P. Well, that's what Tommy said. It's not 27. You know what? Basically, the title of it would be,

you know, Dan Snyder's 20-year reign of terror. You know, that, you know, how, how one... We can't call it that. I mean... Well, you could. Well, is he going to do that? Well, I don't know. I mean, do you have to tell him what the title is? He's got to be Michael Jordan in this series, and I don't mean the success story. I mean, the main character. Yeah, but, okay, that's fine, but for him to be the main character, there has to be some self-awareness about what happened to this franchise under his stewardship. No, I understand that, and I'm also well aware that this isn't going to happen.

Right. But because when you watch the Jordan series, everything Jordan says, they go find a teammate, and they're like, yep, that's exactly what happened. Yep. Uh-huh. Yep. Yep. Yep.

Yep. Yep. Jordan, one, his recall of all of this is unbelievable. Yeah. His recall of how he was going to play somebody in 1992 is beyond. I, I, it's insane. And then his recall of all of the events that happened and all of the players and the personalities and why he did and said certain things,

certain people in certain moments is insanity. That's crazy. You would have to have that level of truthfulness, which I think is going to be hard. But if you could get it, it'd be really interesting to see why it went the way it did and how it changed every couple years to why it then went that way.

You know what I'm saying? Oh, yeah. I mean, you know, and it's funny, because some of the ideas I had for lengthy documentaries would just basically be folded into this 10-parter. You know, like how Jack Kent Cook, you know, why Jack Kent Cook didn't leave his son the team. You know, how Dan Snyder raised, you know, all of that capital, because he didn't have $800 million, how he raised all that capital as a 34-year-old to buy the team and become the youngest owner in NFL history. to the RG3 era would be part of that documentary.

Look, you could do it without him, but you're right, it would be much better with him. But it is, and I've said this many times, and I don't know if I've said it to you necessarily, I probably have. But it is one of the more remarkable falls of a sports franchise in the 21st century. because at the turn of the century, the Redskins had one of the most fiercely loyal fan bases of any team in all of sports. And two decades later, they've got 12,000 people showing up for a game, and half of them, if not more than half, are rooting for the opponent. It's really an amazing deterioration of such a great consumer product

with a tremendously loyal following. So it would be, and we know that there are so many stories that led to this and so many events that led to it. It would be great. I think it would be beyond just a Redskin fan-based thing. I think NFL fans who obviously have seen the fall of the Redskins over the last two decades would be very interested in it. You're right. And Tommy's right. That's the one.

That's the 10-part, you know, D.C. sports documentary where you can work in all of the other stuff as part of it. That's to me what it is. And ultimately, when I look at it and I have a close seat, I've looked at it sitting back, the fan thing is part of it, but in my world of being an athlete, how you don't fall into winning 11 games one time in that entire, and you might not win a Super Bowl, that's hard to do. You might not make it to a championship game. You might make it to only one.

But how you don't fall into winning 11 games, in any given year. There's a lot of luck that goes into schedules and football and who gets hurt when you're playing them. It's how one of those years, you don't win 11 games. Yeah, it's incredible. It's hard. It's hard to do.

It's not luck. It's not tying it together the right way. And why and how, to me, because there's a why and how. You know what I mean? There was reasoning behind a lot of what went on, whether it obviously it wasn't the right reasoning, but there was reasoning, you know, I want to hear it. Yeah, I mean, the funny thing is, you know, the league is designed for bad teams to have that one really good season, and the Redskins have never had that really one good season under Dan Snyder.

They haven't had it. Every other organization's pretty much had, I think, a better-than-10-win season except for the Redskins, those two decades, and they've only won one playoff game. I mean, if you want to count the 99 season, which was his first as owner, you know, with, it hadn't put his fingerprints on the franchise yet. You know, it's two playoff wins. But, you know, there, there is some bad luck involved in it. Now, you know, you make your own good luck and you sort of, you know,

you sort of make your own bad luck too. But, you know, they were close to winning more than one playoff game in January of 2000. and you guys were certainly close to winning more than one playoff game in 2005, had a legitimate shot. There was probably one move, you know, you could probably pick out a season like 2016 or 2015 or 2012 and say, you know, if Griffin doesn't get hurt in 2012, that's a potential, you know, two playoff win postseason. if you added a better defensive coordinator in 2016,

maybe you're able to win 10-plus games with how good the offense was that year. There were a couple of very closest, but they never got over the hump. Right. And you never won 11 games. One year, you've got to have a good enough team, at least in the season.

And you've got to find a way to play teams to have their starting quarterback hurt in one season to win 11 games once? Well, not only that, the two 10-win seasons required ridiculous winning streaks at the end just to get to 10. Like, you know, in 2005 and in 2012, which are the two-10-win seasons. Now, in 99, they were a 10-win team as well, but whatever. I almost don't count that as a Snyder year, but it was. He was technically the owner at that point. But in 2005, you guys had to win five in a row to get to 10, and in 2012, seven in a row to get to 10.

But no five, I think we lost the Chargers in overtime at home. We lost to Tampa when we should win with the all-stop play that we shouldn't lost to Tampa on the road in the season. There was some bad luck that year to not have that be in the 11 wins team. We've had a tough game with the Raiders that we should have won at home. Like, there were games we should have won that year. It wasn't, we'd beat badly a bunch of times. There was no game that we couldn't have won that year. We could have won any game that year.

I don't even recall, oh, the Wellington Mera game was the one game that year. I think that was that year that you got beat badly, but that was it. When Wellington Mera died right before the Redskins went to the Meadowlands and played the Giants, and I think you lost like 39-0 or something. But other than that, you know, every loss, if I recall, was super close. Super close. you also came back from 13 nothing down against the Cowboys in that Monday Night miracle. So I wanted to get to something next.

And then that is something that Ben Standing did on the athletic, and I did it on the radio this morning. He basically came up with a way to identify the best players on the Redskins roster currently. And his way was to consider upside, current production, and then expansion draft mentality. Like if you were an expansion team and you got to pick, you know, one player off of the Redskins roster, who would it be? And so that's what I sort of went with this morning. It's like presently good but also future going to be really good too. Who would you pick? And I had a top five that I counted down from five to one.

Do you want to hear it? I mean, I do want to hear it. I'm just wondering if it's sway. Yeah, go first. Well, I didn't know if you were ready. If you're ready, I'll let you go first. But I was willing to go first so that you could think about it, because I'm hitting this with you without giving you any preparation time.

No, I'll let you go. Okay. So number five on my list of if I were picking players off the Redskins roster as like an expansion team, is Landon Collins. I don't think Landon Collins got enough credit last year for the kind of player he turned into. I hated the offseason, the preseason. and stuff of constantly talking about Dave Gettleman and his former team and the obsession he had with it. Bottom line is he was really good. And I think, you know, you made the point

that, you know, people are saying that he's a versatile safety and that's great. But what he really excels at is around the line of scrimmage. And we saw that. Like, I think we saw a really good in the box safety. He's number five on my list. Number four was Terry McLaren. And, and And I've thought a lot about what you've told me about McLaurin on the podcast in the past, which is he's definitely a number two. And who knows? He'd be a number one for a lot of teams, including this team. But everything about him reeks of sort of the kind of player the Redskins haven't had in a while,

like truly gifted in terms of speed and route running ability and everything else. But then beyond that, you know, a real pro at a young age, you know, this guy, is smart, he's professional, he's had some success early, he's going to be a good teammate, he's going to be a leader. I put McLaurin at four. I put John Allen at three, and the two players that I had ahead of him, at number two, I had Duran Payne. I think you're going to disagree with me on this, but to me, Duran Payne is the most, has the biggest upside other than my number one player of the defensive players. He is super athletic. He is big, he's strong, he's only 22 years old, and I just have a feeling that he could potentially turn into a star. I don't know if he's got the

same commitment level that John Allen and Matt Ionitis have as examples of the other, you know, really good young interior defensive linemen, but I love the way Duran paint flashes. Like he, His flash is bigger than Allen or Ionitis's. And then I had Chase Young number one. Like I just, there isn't a player on the roster, even though he hasn't played a down in the NFL that has more potential than Chase Young. So that was my top five. Yeah, that's a good top five.

I'm going to go about this without looking at it in terms of position as much, not contract this year and Michael Jordan factor because that just changed how I look at everything um Chase Young's number one that's just

I think that's an easy one I think number two, three, four I'll get a little bit skewed but I'm going to take John Allen at number two he does have that badass I'm going to call you out I'm going to challenge you I'm going to work hard I don't

I need to see a year where he's a little more like Aaron Donald to really believe that he would be a number two on a lot of teams or number three on a lot of teams talent-wise. But he's got that. To get three, I'd take Brandon Sheriff. I just, I've watched him practice every day last year. And I didn't, you know I didn't love the system scheme that they were in. And I think Brandon did like it. but I think if you wanted a menacing guard

who could just absolutely crush people in the run game and he started running some more stretch stuff and coached a little different he can do whatever he wanted to do and he's a badass I think at four I'd take Terry and a lot of that comes from

who he is as a guy knowing who he is as a guy what he stands for how he works so much better he's going to be and can I give a guy the ball when it truly matters. Yes, absolutely. And then I'm going to just throw a coin between Payne and Landry. Collins, you mean?

Or call, yeah, Landry. Payne and Collins. If you had to make me pick, I'd pick Landon, I think, just because I think Landon is more of a, we got to win kind of guy. I'm not saying to run, isn't it? But I just want to see it daily. Am I right about Payne, though, that in terms of talent, I mean, you said Allen, but that Payne's talent is pretty, you know, that his upsides huge? You'll see it 100% mission of 4-3 defense. Payne's not a nose. You don't think he, well, he's more of a nose than any other player they've had since 2010.

Yeah, that's because that's how good he is. Right. and that honestly and he's a hard worker he's a good teammate good player this is coming off the Jordan thing but I'm factoring Jordan factor

and John Allen has that um pain could be a big time dude this year because he's not a nose he's not best suited at nose yeah we both left to Matt Ionitis out of our top five

is that a mistake what's going to be in your top eight I mean, the truth of the matter is of those three interior young defensive linemen, ionitis has been the most productive. Oh, I'm well aware. Why is he so good? He works hard. Is he the strongest player on the team?

I don't know. He's stronger than Durant Payne. Drum Payne's pretty strong. He also got to play, like, if you put ionitis at nose last year, and Duron at end, they, it might have been a little different. But myonitis does get a lot of sacks in passing situations and does put pocket passing situations as well as any of them.

All right. Last thing, because I know you've got to run. Complete this following sentence. The most random thing you've done during this last two and a half months of this pandemic is what? Two baby raccoons in my garage. Well, found three. Tried to get the mom to take them back. she wouldn't.

So you're fathering baby raccoons in your house. You're being a parent, too. No, they both died. Oh, my God, they did. And then having to explain that to my daughter and burying them. Honestly, I don't know a lot about that. And you can't have them in Virginia, but what am I going to do? What are you going to do with two day old baby raccoons at the mom?

We found them in the barn the next day. We were trying to take them back to the mom. They were freezing. They went home and bought kid milk and tried to save them. I don't know what any normal person's supposed to do. So we bottle fed him. One died after a couple days, and the other one made it like 27 days. It hadn't opened his eyes.

It had been coughing. Maybe I should have taken it to a vet. I didn't know if it was sick or not, to be honest with you, because I just don't know what it's 20-year-old raccoon. How would you take a wild raccoon to a vet? I don't know. I thought it was fun. And then, like, it was really weird.

They both died within a matter of hours. Like, both of them went from being fine to a matter of hours, us staying up late, trying to do everything. I don't know, man. It was a weird deal. It was really random. It was really sad. We tried our best.

Tried really hard. Well, you know what? The fact that you tried and you did the right thing, I think. I think. Should I just left them? I don't know. Would the mother have come back and gotten them? No, we left them for 24 hours.

I mean, we left them. It didn't come. It didn't. They left them on the floor of my barn. I found them in. And if you had put them out like into the woods or whatever, they would have obviously been, you know. Well, they wouldn't have made it then. Yeah, they wouldn't have made it then either.

So you did the right thing, and that's what you tell your two kids, is that you guys really tried. And it's sad. It's, you know, an unusual situation to be put into, but you did your best. And you did the right thing. Well, and they understand that, you know. Yeah. They were cute, though. You sent me pictures. I mean, again, it's not every day that I talk to somebody that, you know, has pet raccoons. And you've had legitimate pet raccoons living in your house before you started to have kids, which was odd. But what we found, my dad has found one worldwide. All right. You're breaking up because I know you have to go somewhere. Thanks for doing this. I'll talk to you. I'll talk to you later.

All right. See you, buddy. See you. All right, good to catch up with Cooley. I know his phone was getting a little bit dicey there at the end. If you were to guess on average how many days people in the U.S. have to wait to see a doctor, what would you say a week maybe? Actually, on average, people have to wait around 29 days to see a doctor in major U.S. cities, basically a month. If you're dealing with a condition like erectile dysfunction, you want treatment ASAP. That's why our friends at Roman have spent years building a digital platform that can connect you with a doctor licensed in your state all from the comfort of your home. Roman makes it convenient to get the

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All right, I want to get to the Cody Latimer story as it continues to develop. It is interesting from the perspective of what the Redskins should do and how they should handle it. Cody Latimer, for those of you that are just hearing about the story for the first time or haven't heard the updated details, was a receiver who played New York last year. the Redskins signed him as a free agent. They signed him to a very minimal deal. One year, just over a million dollars, you know, like $138,000 guaranteed. You know, going into this, Latimer given, you know, Terry McLaren and Kelvin Harmon and what they drafted, you know, there's the possibility.

Cody Latimer might not even make the team. But he's a veteran and he's 27 years old and he's played six years in the league and he's played for the Broncos and the Giants. and he hasn't had, you know, the true breakout year, but somebody likes something about Cody Latimer, whether it was Kyle Smith or Ron Rivera or Scott Turner. Somebody, you know, saw something in Cody Latimer that made sense. He was a veteran wide receiver. They've got a bunch of young wide receivers on the team.

And he was signed. Well, over the weekend, many of you know, he was arrested in Colorado for weapons and assault charges. At the time the story broke, there was minimal information, and then the information started to come out and get more detailed. The details included that Latimer got into an altercation and fired a gun after a poker game, according to the report, or according to some reports, at the house of his best friend. Now, his attorney had a very interesting statement that came, I guess it was Monday at the hearing.

Latimer's attorney Harvey Steinberg told the court that he has been contacted or he had been contacted by law enforcement concerning an investigation of a sexual assault of Latimer's four-year-old son that was allegedly perpetrated by one of the individuals at the poker game on the night in question. Latimer was arrested at 3.15 a.m. Saturday morning he's been ordered to return for a July 24th court date. He's facing charges of assault in the second degree, menacing, a legal discharge of a firearm, and prohibited use of weapons and reckless endangerment. Steinberg, his attorney, told the court that the allegations concerning the shooting incident occurred at about the same time and location as the alleged sexual assault. So obviously, there's a lot more coming in this case, and we will likely hear either more before July 20. or we will certainly hear a lot more about it on July 24th at the next court date regarding this incident. But there's more to this story.

And I indicated a little bit about the more to the story yesterday on the podcast, but I want to play for you. Something that appeared recently, it's a video on YouTube that was forwarded to me. It was Cody Latimer three days before the Redskins signed Cody Latimer. It's a YouTube meeting between him and his pastor at his church. And Latimer describes a situation about, you know, taking his own life the night before, talking about his relationship with God, talking about being, you'll hear it. He's a confused young man. He talks about how he nearly took his life the night before, but he called his pastor.

his pastor showed up, was able to help him. This is about a minute and a half from about a six to seven minute rambling from Cody Latimer. Again, this is three days before the Redskins actually signed him. I doubt that they saw this video at the time, and maybe they didn't know about the condition that he was in mentally at that point. But listen to it. You'll hear a very confused young man who, you know, is struggling. with, you know, his relationship with God, struggling with, you know, probably depression. I'm projecting there because he doesn't say it, but the fact that he was on the verge,

potentially at least he says he was on the verge the night before this particular discussion with his pastor took place and was videotaped. You know, he appears to be a guy that's hurting right now, or certainly was when this video was taken. Here it is. It's kind of weird telling him. it is, but last night, I had an episode of wild breakdown. You know, like I said, this is a shell. You know, emotionally inside, it's so much that's going on. And like I said, my faith was tested.

You know, last night I was sitting, sitting around just thinking about sad, taking, you know, done it multiple times, take him all life. And it's weird at this moment. You know, I drove to the church down the street from the hotel. I'm saying that, you know, and, you know, I didn't know what to do. I got on my knees, pray, surrender, you know, because the times are rough. I have a problem with when everything going good, I'm praising him. I praised him. But when things are going bad, I just seem to forget about it and let it go. And that's not the right way. And I was blessed last night, you know, sitting there in a church parking lot. I'm over this life. There's too much going on. I don't know what I'm going to do. You know, something told me to text you,

faster. And it's kind of crazy. It wasn't at this church. I was at another church sitting in the parking lot. And he, you know, pastor rushed over to sit and come from me and talk with me and be with me and give me words of wisdom, you know, and I, you know, cried to him, probably, you know, it's a lot of crying, and I just told him, I think I'm just lost. I don't know my purpose anymore. I've never figured out my purpose. What is my purpose that God wants for me? You know, I'm so dependent on my life as being a football player athlete, but it's like, what am I doing after? What, is this really my life? That's who I am, that, I'm classified by God, I know, like just an athlete. I'm like, no, no, that ain't

it, you know, so I prayed and asked him for, like, and asked you, like, you know, can you help me find my purpose? It goes on and on. It didn't stop there. It went on for another three, four minutes or so. That was recorded with his pastor at presumably the pastor's church in Colorado on March 22nd. In fact, the name of the church was Edge Church. First service, it says, on the YouTube heading. And it was recorded on 3220. So March 22nd, 2020. It was 3.2nd, 2020. It was 3. days later that the Redskins announced the signing of Cody Latimer in free agency. And the Redskins, you know, as part of the story after they signed him, you know,

they discussed that Cody Latimer's experience would provide some leadership and experience for their young receiving corps. And that's one of the reasons that they signed him. He had played with the Giants and played with the Broncos, had not played with the Panthers. so there wasn't any direct experience with Ron Rivera or Scott Turner with Cody Latimer. But anyway, three days following this admission that he was considering taking his own life in the parking lot of a church, the Redskins signed him. So it's obviously a sensitive subject, and then you have this incident from over the weekend in Colorado. And boy, you know, if his four-year-old son was sexually assaulted and those are the allies. allegations, his attorney has made an allegation that law enforcement is investigating that that

that may have happened. Obviously, any of us, especially parents, but you don't even have to be a parent. I don't know, you know, almost, almost anything at that point would be justifiable. I think a lot of people feel that way. So this is a young man who's got a lot of issues in his life right now. I I don't think there's any doubt about that. He's 27 years old. And, you know, he's been a football player and he played at the University of Indiana. And, you know, where I want to take this in terms of the conversation is what the Redskins should do. You know, the Redskins are not one of these on solid ground franchises.

You know, we know that there is a culture change that has to take place, that Ron Rivera is, you know, attempting to, you know, he's undergoing it right now. He's attempting to change the culture of the organization from very bad to something much better. And, you know, Cody Latimer, there's, I'm sure, significant sympathy for Cody Latimer. And I think Ron Rivera, one of the reasons he's respected and one of the reasons he gets along with most of his players and has is that he is an empathetic guy. He does understand, you know, difficult situations and works through them with players. But Cody Latimer has not even been in a practice yet. I don't even know if he's passed his physical yet.

You know, remember, some of these free agent signings aren't official until a physical is passed. But assuming that, you know, he's on the team, what do you do if you're the Redskins? You know, like you've got so many issues. You've got so many things to solve, so many problems to solve, so many things to change. This was a guy that, at best, was a fringe player on your roster, may not have major roster. And I understand right now during the time that we're living in, you know, the publicity, I don't think it's hurting the Redskins right now. They've got a new group.

You certainly want this young man to get help. You certainly want him to be represented by the best of the best. especially if this allegation about his four-year-old son is true, you know, cutting him and then finding out that he was innocent of the charges. And one of the reasons he was innocent of the charges is that there was a sexual assault of a four-year-old son, his four-year-old son, you know, wouldn't make the team look that great if they cut him loose. You know, but at the same time, you know, this really, as selfish as it sounds,

I'm sure the team wishes it weren't their issue right now with all of the other fish they have to fry. But I'm wondering if there's a way to support him but not have him on the roster. Like to release him but to simultaneously say, hey, we want to help you in any way we can. If you need great representation, if you need help, you know, if you need a psychiatrist, if you need a psychologist, if you need a psychologist, if you need therapy, if you're not getting that. We want to help you. But it's a complex situation that they don't really need on their plate right now. They got enough of them.

They definitely, right, definitely didn't know about this videotape and about this admission three days before they signed him. They didn't know about this before they signed them. They wouldn't do that. They wouldn't have signed him if they knew that this young man was troubled in the moment. You wish the best for him. You want them to get the best representation legally.

You want them to get the best help psychologically. And at the same time, being completely honest, you really wish it weren't your organization's issue right now. There are other organizations in better position to sort of take this on as a closer to front burner issue. The Redskins have too many of them right now. I mean, I know it's harsh, but I would certainly think and certainly understand if they're thinking behind the scenes, God, why did we sign him? Why didn't we know about this before? You know, I'm not saying the Redskins are the only team that wouldn't have picked up on this before.

You know, who knows? I mean, you do the best you can in due diligence before you sign somebody, including, talking to him, but it's a difficult situation for them right now, the Latimer situation. It'll be interesting to see how they handle it. I think right now it'd be hard for them to cut them loose prior to that July 24th court hearing to find out how this court case proceeds. Now, maybe there's a way with the physical of getting out of the contract commitment. It's not the $138,000 guaranteed money that they're concerned about, hopefully. Hopefully they're concerned about getting him help, but at the same time, you know, making sure that a roster spot is available

to somebody that they think has a better chance of being ready to play for them. Anyway, that's the update to that particular story. There were a few other stories that broke Redskins-related. Number one, and it was Burgundy blog, I think, who broke this story first. I saw it on J.P.'s Twitter timeline here moments ago that Antonio Gandy Golden, the Redskins' fourth round pick, tested positive for COVID-19. But he's been self-quarantined and asymptomatic, according to sources. JP credits Burgundy blog for being out in front of this story on his podcast. Basically, I guess this was found out because Jerry Falwell, who's the head of Liberty University,

where Gandy Golden played, basically outed Gandy Golden on Fox News, but talked about somebody, an athlete at Liberty, who had left school early to prepare for the NFL draft, testing positive. Well, the Liberty player that I guess was picked in the NFL draft was Antonio Gandy Golden. So JP was able to confirm that information. So Gandy Golden becomes, right, the first Redskin known. Redskin to test positive for COVID-19. He's not the first NFL player to test positive for COVID-19, but is the first

Redskin player to test positive for COVID-19. That leads me into this conversation, and the report yesterday that came out from the league's chief medical officer about where the NFL is on testing in COVID-19 and a plan to deal with this. And it is interesting. And Tommy and I talked about it yesterday, and I said, you know, all of these leagues have to have a plan to move forward with positive tests. You know, you cannot go into restarting a season or starting a season from scratch

thinking that a positive test could shut down a team or the league overall. That's not going to work. So the chief medical officer of the NFL Alan Sills basically said that he acknowledged, and the league acknowledges that more likely than not, they're going to have positive cases that will arise. And he said, quote, we fully expect that we will have positive cases. It won't be a surprise when we get new positive cases that arise. Our challenge is to identify them as quickly as possible and prevent spread. to any other participants. We're working very diligently on that,

and we'll have some detailed plans at a later time. Now, part of what Alan Sills, the NFL's chief medical officer, said is that they don't want to be the business or the sports league that takes up tests that should be earmarked for health care workers or for people who are more at risk than maybe a younger NFL player. And the availability of testing is going to be a huge key to their plan. You know, we heard Dr. Fauci a few weeks back say, look, when it comes to the NFL,

he thinks that they should be tested on Saturday and then on Sunday morning before the game. And if somebody tests positive, they've got to sit out. They've got to self-quarantine. Well, that's a lot of tests, you know, for, For one team, 53 players, count another 20 coaches, count probably another 25 to 30 essential personnel. Let's just put the number at 100 plus getting tested twice per weekend

on Saturday before the game and on Sunday morning before the game. Now all of a sudden you need 200 tests times 32 teams. And that's for one week of play. And that doesn't include potentially in-week testing. And Sills acknowledged that they don't want to be the business or the sports league that takes up tests that should be dedicated towards more significant people in our world right now, health care workers, testing available for people who are more vulnerable. So it seems to be that there are two things at work here with respect to the NFL and other leagues. One, the widespread availability of testing that shouldn't be, you know, earmarked for another group of people versus, you know, what you would call non-essential people, which would be athletes in sports leagues.

Number two is having a true protocol and a true process for what happens when there's a positive case. Clearly, they're not going to start playing until they've got a plan to deal with the positive cases that will inevitably arise, as Dr. Sills said. You know, what that plan is, they said they're still working on it, and they're working with other leagues, you know, which will face similar issues. And they've got to come up with something, and they will have a detailed plan at a later time. But, you know, baseball is going to have a detailed plan before the NFL is going to need a detailed plan. And basketball will too, will need a detailed plan and probably hockey as well,

before the NFL. The NFL will be able to, as they have already, be able to sit back and learn. You know, the NFL wasn't pressed into making significant decisions with respect to playing games based on the calendar and when this thing broke. Anyway, interesting stuff there. As was, by the way, since we're talking about the NFL, something that we haven't really spent any time talking about. on the podcast this week. And that is this proposal that the owners floated out last Friday

about minority head coach and general manager hirings. What they floated out on Friday, essentially, was a plan that would incent owners to hire minority coaches and general managers. And the incentive would deal with an improved position in the NFL draft. If you miss this, listen to this. If this was the plan that was being considered was floated out for the purposes, by the way, of gauging reaction, as we've now found out. And I'll explain that in a moment. But basically, the plan that was floated out there would be that a team, if they hired a minority head coach, would get their third round pick improved by six spots.

So they'd move up six spots in the third round with their next third round. round pick in the draft. And if they hired a minority general manager, they'd improve their position in the third round by 10 spots. Now, yesterday, they pulled that proposal off the table. And they're saying they're looking, you know, Goodell said, we're looking into, you know, other possible steps that the lead can take to improve minority hiring. You know, from a coach's standpoint, two years ago, eight out of the 32 NFL coaches were minorities. Going into 2020, four are. So they're looking at this trend, which isn't a good trend.

In 2016, 17, and 18, 25% of the head coaches were minority head coaches. That's a significant percentage compared to the past. So it was trending in the right direction. This year, four are minorities. By the way, one of them being Ron Rivera. and only two of the 32 general managers or minorities, they want that changed. Now, with respect to the plan that they floated out on Friday, ridiculous. Like, I mean, first of all, it was not received well,

especially by African American or minority writers, media members, and fans. They thought it was insulting that, you know, you'd have to incent an owner with draft positioning to hire a minority. Most of the people that I read or heard said it should be based on merit. I agree. It's also ridiculous to think that an owner would be incented to hire a minority coach or minority general manager based on improved draft positioning in the third round of the draft. Like, how wasn't that vetted better?

didn't they know that would go over like a lead balloon seriously? I mean, that's ridiculous. Would you really hire? I mean, think of this hypothetical. An owner says to himself, let me hire a lesser candidate that's a minority, but I get six positions better in the third round of the next draft. That'll do it. Or let's just say, I've got two equal candidates.

One's a minority, one's a nine. non-minority. I'll hire the minority because I'm going to get six spots higher in the draft in the third round. I think it's a very complex discussion. You know, you've got many owners who have hired minorities. You've also had owners who have given up too quickly on a minority. Just recently, Arizona and the bidwells gave up too quickly on Steve Wilkes. One year, Steve Wilkes. One year, Steve Wilkes got to be the head coach. You know, it's not that we haven't seen non-minority head coaches get fired after a year. Marty Schottenheimer got fired after one year here.

But the point is that there should be more time allotted to almost any coach, really, minority or non-minority. Now, one of the things that they are working on with respect to the Rooney Rule is increasing the number of interviews required before hiring a new head coach or new general manager. Instead of one minority interview candidate from outside the organization or inside the organization, they want to increase that to two. Well, I think that's something that everybody should agree on. Is that going to make the difference? Who knows? But from the jump, it was about giving minorities more access to the owners, allowing them to interview for jobs that they weren't even being interviewed for before. And it has made a difference to a certain degree,

maybe not at the level that most would want, but requiring two interviews doubles that interview output. I mean, let's get more interviews, more exposure, not only for the interviewees, getting more experience in the process, but more exposure to owners who could be predisposed to not hiring a minority. Not an easy answer there.

really overall, unless you're going to force minority hiring, which you're not going to do in a private industry. There was some good news, Redskins-related. I can't believe it took me this long to get to it. But Dexter Manley, according to Rigo, in Rigo's podcast, which you can hear on Redskins.com, Rigo the Diesel podcast. Riggins reported on this podcast yesterday that Dexter is doing much better. If you miss this story, Dexter Manley has been suffering from COVID-19, from the coronavirus. He was hospitalized on May 2nd. There was sort of some, you know, discouraging news as it related to Manley over the weekend.

Darrell Grant and even his kids, you know, talked about, you know, the alarm of having his father, having their father be sick and having COVID-19. Rigo said on his podcast yesterday, quote, he's doing much better. I'm not sure he was ever really that ill, but his oxygen. levels were a little low. They put him on oxygen. He was never on a ventilator. All of this stuff is improving as we speak. He's slowly but steadily making a recovery against the virus that's been ravaging the entire world closed, quote, that from Riggins. So that was really, really good news. By the way, I would encourage everybody to listen to Diana Rusini,

who was on the radio show with me this morning. At the Team 980.com. At the Team 980 on Twitter, the Team 980.com, the Team 980 app. You can listen to it. It's right there in its entirety. You don't have to get to it today. But I like Diana. Diana is a hustler, man.

She is a really good reporter who's broken a lot of news here in D.C. when she was on Channel 4 and also at ESPN. But she told a story that I wanted to share with everybody. and that is her big break. You know, she was here as a reporter. Dan Helly was at Channel 4. Carol Maloney, others were at Channel 4 at the time. And she was a reporter, and she was at training camp,

and she really hadn't gotten comfortable covering the Redskins and covering a football team, which is something that she had, you know, minimal experience doing. And she got a call from DeAngelo Hall one day. and DeAngelo Hall called her to encourage her. He had recognized her and recognized that, you know, she was just, you know, figuring it out. And he saw something in her and her, you know, Diana's a hustler, man. She's a tough Jersey girl who gets after it, which is one of the reasons I've always liked Diane and respected her work over the years and have had her on the podcast and have had her on the radio show a bunch.

But she, DeAngelo Hall recognized something in her, and he called her up and he said, stay at it, you know, you've got the right instincts, basically. And then he gave her a story. He gave her the story of him signing a new contract. You know, and those new contract stories are always news when it comes to the Redskins or a big professional sports team. He gave her the details of the contract, and that was her, first story that she broke. And she sent it back to the station and she wasn't even sure what she had. That's how inexperienced she was at the time. But it came, I think, in 2014 that he signed a new four-year

contract. It was a four-year, $17 million contract. I looked it up. He had all the details, gave it to Diana, and Diana broke the story. And NBC4 put it on their, you know, I guess at the time, maybe their social media account, and they had the news that night on their sports cast, and they were the first to break it. And she said that that was the beginning for her. And that's where she sort of found her niche, really, as a reporter and one who, you know, got scoop and broke news. And there's another story she told about Tim Tebow prior to going to ESPN.

She was being considered by ESPN to be a reporter. and they decided at the last minute not to hire her because she had reported that Tim Tebow was going to sign a deal with the Philadelphia Eagles. And he hadn't done that. And get this, Adam Schaefter, the godfather of ESPN NFL News, said internally not attempting to embarrass Diana publicly by tweeting this, but he sent out, I guess, an email to everybody at ESPN saying, this is not true. This is not an accurate story. And ESPN backed off in the moment hiring Diana.

Well, Diana stuck to her guns. She called her source with the Philadelphia Eagles. And they said, just relax. It's going to happen. And it wasn't happening as fast as she had hoped it would happen. And to make a long story short, a week later, the Eagles announced that that they had signed Tim Tebow to a one-year deal. This was in 2015. And when it happened, ESPN changed their mind and hired Diana and said, good work. And I said to her, that must have been a tough week. And she said, it was really tough.

Because, you know, and Tommy will tell you this. And I've had limited experience with this as well. Sometimes you have news and you break the news, but it's news about something that's about. to happen or will happen. And in the moment, that news is true based on the source. But it could change. You know, the Eagles could have changed their mind or, you know, perhaps right before Tebow signed the deal, there was something in the contract and that led to something else and the deal fell apart. You know, it doesn't mean that she didn't have it dead on in the moment. But in that particular

case, if Tim Tebow didn't sign a contract with the Eagles, she would have never been hired by ESPN. and Adam Schaefter would have been right. She spent 35 minutes with me on the radio this morning and talked a lot about herself personally, and that's what we've been doing in some of these interviews recently on radio. There are no games to talk about, but she was a prolific, prolific high school athlete in Bergen County, New Jersey,

and she talked a lot about that as well. By the way, one other thing, too. I had Gary Williams on the radio show yesterday, and I may have told Tommy this yesterday, I forget. But DeMatha, it's funny, tweeted this out earlier today. Gary said to me that his biggest recruiting regret was not recruiting Victor Oladipo out of Dematha. I think he had told me that before personally,

but never on the air. But he told me that on the radio show yesterday. But in 2010, if you recall, Oladipo was a senior at Dematha. That was the year Maryland won the ACC regular season title. Gravis Vasquez's senior year. Landon, Milbourne, Eric Hayes, their senior year. They got to the second round, lost that heartbreaker to Cory Lucius in Michigan State.

If not, that may have been a final four team. It was a great second round game. And Cory Lucius had a ridiculous buzzer-beater to knock Maryland out in the second round of the tournament. Gary said that he was in a gym at Dematho one day, and Shoshchevsky was there and Tom Crean was there and I think he said JT3 was there and others were there and Ola Depot didn't play well, didn't shoot it well, and he didn't look like a very good shooter.

And Gary Williams didn't offer Ola Depot a scholarship. And the only person in the gym that day that did was Tom Crean, the coach at Indiana. And Gary said it was basically his biggest recruiting mistake and regret. And he said the reason why is that he shouldn't have been influenced by Oladipo not being a good shooter. Because Oladipo was clearly a great competitor and a good player and a tremendous athlete. But one of the things Gary prided himself on was identifying the competitor, the Juan Dixon, the Steve Blake, the Gravis Vasquez. and those players we know were perfect for Gary Williams.

He got the most out of those guys. And Oladipo would have been the perfect Gary Williams player. He would have been. And Gary recognized it sort of after the fact. And he sort of beats himself up for not recruiting Oladipo because he sort of knew that Oladipo was the perfect type of player for him, but he let something that really had nothing to do with the kind of player that Gary Williams developed shooting. He let that influence him.

Anyway, that was an interesting conversation yesterday, too. You know, the funny thing about that is that meant that Oladipo would have been a freshman in 2011, which was Gary's final year at Maryland. He had Jordan Williams playing for him at center, and Jordan Williams was a sophomore, and was a tremendous talent. tremendous talent. Or actually, Jordan Williams would have been a junior that year. It would have been his junior year. And Jordan Williams left after his junior year, which was ridiculous. He shouldn't have. Actually, no, that was Jordan Williams' sophomore year. My fault, that was

his sophomore year. His freshman year was the year was 2010, Gravis' senior year. And he was a tremendous player, if you recall, as a freshman. What hands he had as a basketball player, tremendous hands and feet and a volume rebounder. He had a chance to become a great college basketball player had he stayed all four years. One of the reasons he never made it in the NBA, he had short arms. It was a physical limitation, but he's a great, great, had a chance to be a great college basketball player. But Oladipo and Jordan Williams together, you know, with Sean Mosley, you know, they had a chance.

They had a chance to be really good moving forward. And Gary may have continued to coach had he recruited Oladipo. In fact, I bet he would have. Had he had Oladipo as a freshman, he would have recognized how great they could have been with Oladipo, even if he lost Jordan Williams, maybe he stays on. Lastly, before we roll for the day, I wanted to read this tweet, which I thought was an interesting tweet and sort of a recap in many ways of the Jordan documentary. The tweet came from a guy by the name of Scott McGee.

Scott McGee is a baseball coach at Willard High School. I think it's Willard High School in Missouri. He's only got 1,000 followers, less than 1,000 followers. But his tweet the other night got incredible traction for a guy with 900-something followers on Twitter. It came after the last dance's final episode, and he tweeted something that, you know, obviously, by the way, I'm looking at it right now, had close to 50,000 likes, 8,200 retweets in 222 responses. That is a pretty significant tweet for somebody with less than a thousand followers in terms of the response. It basically, for his intents and purposes, went viral. This is what he tweeted after the last dance. Michael Jordan played J.V. as a sophomore. Pippin started college as a manager. Rodman didn't play high school basketball. Steve Kerr had no offers until after a senior year. Meanwhile, we have people trying to commit as eighth graders, worrying about exposure and constantly comparing young age groups. Just get better.

What a great tweet. And great, great lesson and so instructive for young people and parents. of young athletes. If your kid isn't on the freshman team, didn't make the freshman team, it doesn't mean that he is done or she is done. If they're not getting the scholarship offers, you think they deserve to get, it's not over. Everybody develops at their own speed, at their own pace. It really is true. You know, nobody, none of these young people should be discouraged at a young age if they don't make a team or if they're not a starter or if they're not a leading score. None of that matters in eighth grade or in ninth grade or in tenth grade. And in some cases it doesn't even matter when they're seniors in high school.

Love that tweet from Scott McGee, a baseball coach in Missouri. All right, we're done for the day. Back tomorrow with Tommy.