The Kevin Sheehan Show - Cooley Plays GM

Episode Date: February 15, 2019

Chris Cooley joins the show, and he puts on his GM hat to break down what the Redskins should do in this offseason. Kevin takes a look at Maryland/Michigan and the rest of the college slate this weekend. Andy Pollin joins for a look back in history. <p> </p><p>Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices">podcastchoices.com/adchoices</a></p> Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You want it. You need it. It's what everyone's talking about. The Kevin Chean Show. Now here's Kevin. All right, I am here. Aaron is here. This show's presented by Window Nation. If you're in the market for Windows, call 86690 Nation or go to Window Nation.com and tell them that we told you to call. Coolie's going to be on the show. He's coming up in a matter of minutes. Andy Poland a little bit later on as well. Do a Maryland-Michigan preview too. That's a huge game for the Terps. Big game in the Big Ten. tomorrow. Good win for the caps last night in San Jose. I actually watched some of it. I don't watch a lot of regular season hockey, but it was a late game. I was up. Watch some of it, and they were impressive last night. In fact, I was going back through the season that they have had, especially over the last couple of months. That may have been their most impressive win of the season to date. I mean, that five-to-one win at San Jose is, first of all, the most comfortable win.

that they've had in a long time. The Caps have played nothing but, you know, one-goal games, basically, unless they were losing games, you know, for a while now. And you had a team in San Jose, who's one of the best teams in hockey coming into that, playing on their home ice, and a team that had won six in a row going into the game last night. And by the way, not only had San Jose won six in a row going into the game last night, they had been killing people.

They had beaten Vancouver 7 to 2. They had beaten the Caps, remember, just a few weeks ago, 7 to 6, you know, in a shootout. So the Caps getting a win and Ovechkin scoring in his NHL leading 39th goal, but getting a 5-1 win in San Jose was an impressive win. And I would say, and I'm not the expert on this, and I know Aaron isn't either, but I would say that it's certainly the most impressive win they've had in the new year here at this point, maybe even before that. Basketball last night, Russell Westbrook extended his triple double streak to 11. Record triple double streak to 11. He's really an amazing player to watch.

Last night he did it with really one of the best offensive nights he's had all season. He went for 44, had 14 rebounds, 11 assists. They lost to New Orleans, who sat Anthony Davis out last night with a shoulder contusion. Really? The Pelicans GM today, Del Demp, fired. You know, that is, that's this stretch for New Orleans, and most of you aren't following it, but it is really an unfortunate stretch for a franchise where they have to react to their star player who is under contract dictating a trade publicly. The NBA's got to figure that thing out. They've got to figure that out. I actually have I have legitimate

legitimate sympathy for the Pelicans and what they've gone through here. It's NBA All-Star weekend. Just being honest, I have very little interest in it. I have minimal interest in all of the non-game stuff. I can't even imagine

that I'm going to watch a lot of it. The game when it's on, Sunday night, I'm assuming Sunday night, you know, I'll probably watch some of that game. But really, this weekend for me, sports-wise, is about Maryland, Michigan tomorrow and Tennessee, Kentucky tomorrow night. There's some really good college basketball this weekend, and I'm going to get into Maryland, Michigan in more detail and preview that game in a little bit. But let's bring in Chris

Cooley and talk to Cooley. It's been a while. All right, let's bring in Cooley here on a Friday heading into the weekend, and I think you're getting ready to go out to play golf. And I think basically anybody that plays golf and enjoys golf, today it's a Friday and it's going to be 62 degrees. How many people do you think are going out to play golf for the first time in about three months today? Oh, I think thousands. I don't know. Thousands. You know, I didn't call you to play golf, so I can't say anything, but you didn't call me either. And you used the perfect excuse.

Oh, a couple other guys called me and asked me to. go. It's true. That's why. You couldn't just say like, oh, dude, I'm sorry. I forgot about you. It's not an excuse. You had an excuse.

I actually was not planning on playing because I wasn't going to record the podcast until a little bit later. And therefore, I was thinking, God, if I get out there by 2 o'clock, I'm not even going to be able to get 18 in before it gets dark. Maybe. Twilight. You play fast. But I was, yes, I didn't think about you for golf today.

It sounds like you didn't think about me for golf either. So enjoy your day when we get done with this. I will tell you this, just so you know. Obviously, you remind me when I'm doing your show, and you text me yesterday. But I did do this little workout this morning, and I got to Lansdown today, and the golf pro Scott said, and I really miss your show with Kevin. And I said, oh, thanks so much. I appreciate it.

You know, I miss it too. And I went down to shower, and I got through the shower. a light bulb. Oh yeah, I do have the show with Kevin today. So I'm pushing my tea time back a little bit for you, pal. Well, I appreciate that. Because if I called you at the time that we agreed to call... I'd be on number one.

And then I'd be on number one. You've actually listened to me, do interviews on the golf course on my phone. You've been with me when I've had to do that. But I knew not to do that. I knew to text you last night to remind you because you would have forgotten. So there we go. Did you use Eastern Standard Time or Central? That was one of my all-time favorite Greg Huff situations when he was like, it was 8 a.

I did it. It was 8 a.m. No, you didn't do this. It was 8 a.m. I did it. Eastern Standard Time. And we were talking about Central Standard Time. And he goes, well, does that mean that it's 830 Central time right now?

I didn't realize what time it was. And I'm like, no, no. No, no, no, I go, it's 8 a.m. here. No, 751, Greg. He didn't realize how that all worked. But anyway, all right, I'm going to ask you to start here. The question that everybody wanted me to ask you last time, but I just avoided because I knew you didn't have any answers,

and you probably don't even have an answer right now, but I'm just going to ask you, so, Chris, what are you doing with your life these days? man i am you should see this composite wood floor that i just put in my movie theater room i did it in a day the cuts perfect you know i had chop saw skill saw they had to had to get my table saw out for a little couple cuts it is the best work i've done in the house you would not believe it i actually uh our mudroom i put up uh wayne's coating from floor to ceiling and built a shoe rack across that was awesome. My wife even said, and she's so critical. She even said, that looks really good.

I said, when you say it looks good, I know I did a good job. Is she tough? But no, honestly, I'm working for the Redskins. I'm doing my podcast, and I took a couple days off because we were trying to finish up the house and get a bunch of stuff settled. And we sold our gallery, and I had a bunch of stuff going on with getting that thing cleared out and taking care of. And that's a happy moment, by the way. I think I talked about that with you, but we just couldn't run it with kids and respect the artists that were in it the way we wanted to. I had a bunch of when the season ended. Things that Brian Kozlowski and I used to say, we'll get done on Monday.

You know, we'll take care of that on Monday. You know, Monday was always the day off. But I had a lot of Mondays built up, so I took a couple weeks there. So I probably had it and started doing a podcast here next week. All right. So I'm starting to do the podcast again. So that's good. So we'll tune in to that.

And you can get Cooley's podcast when he starts to do it again, all the ways that you get a podcast. Plus, I think you can just go to Redskins. com and get it as a world just like you get your podcast man i get updates every day the kevin sheean show new update available and then i listen perfect um i even i let alerts go off for your podcast you know that that's how much i like listening to you and i'm not kidding i listen to it every day um all right most days i i got this so yesterday um we had we had a conversation Tommy and i did about the redskins and i for whatever reason for a brief moment i guess i got optimistic and i i painted a

very, in brief form, the picture of the possibility of them being competitive next year. And buddy on Twitter, my good buddy buddy on Twitter said, you know, listening to the show today, Kev you crack me up, I'm sure you're going to be the one to spin straw into gold and have the skins going. Nine and seven or ten and six come training camp, you are the true Homer. Exclamation point. Thank you, buddy, for sending that tweet. because I have not been very optimistic at all in this offseason, and I'm not optimistic at all. Hold on one second. You know why buddy's hysterical?

Because he called gold, 9 and 7. Exactly. You know what, though? It would be. It would be. 9 and 7 or 10 and 6 would be gold. If it's 9 and 7 without the playoffs, it's silver at best. Well, no playoffs at 9 and 7 is silver.

Silver. So I thought we could start by being optimistic for a moment. And then we can turn back to reality afterwards. What you're going to call pessimism, right? Well, I don't think reality right now would be, yeah, I think it would be pessimistic about next year and, you know, the short-term future anyway. And most people would say as long as Dan owns the team and Bruce is around, you know, all futures are compensated. But beyond that, paint the best picture right now for 2019. Let's try to create, you know, a somewhat realistic, if they hit on everything, if everything went right, you know, they could be a

competitive team. They could be an eight and eight, nine, and seven, ten, and six type team in a, in a good luck kind of a season. But what would they have to do to position themselves for that? and you start at the quarterback position. What is the best solution for them at quarterback? If 2019 is to be a competitive, you know, in the playoff hunt kind of season. Okay. Well, Bruce Allen's still holding his breath that Alex Smith is going to be back. I know.

But he's not going to. Alex Smith is touched by Jesus and he makes this amazing recovery and he's just Alex Smith again. But now, seriously. I mean, I think your best case scenario was eight-week pop, and that's still amazing, an amazing recovery for his injury. So let's just say you get Colt McCoy. And right now, I think everyone's asking the question, is there going to be a young quarterback? Is it going to be a draft pick?

He can't afford much at the position, so it is going to be Colt McCoy. I think even if you were to draft somebody in the first round, it's still going to be Colt McCoy. and there's a lot of instances where if you were to draft someone and have a lot of pieces that you could plug them and you could have some success. I think even like Cleveland last year with all the weapons they acquired in the offseason, you could plug Baker Mayfield and he's got talent around him so he can excel in that environment. There's just no talent at the skill positions. So if you draft a young guy, you're going to depend heavily on the run game,

and then he's going to struggle in some third down situations. and I don't like him getting behind. Colt knows the offense. He's very close with Jay. Everyone understands that. Jay tries to downplay it, but it's very true. So Jay's really, I'm sure, excited for Colt. And he stays healthy, which is the one thing that is the biggest concern with Cole

is that he's not going to stay healthy. I think it's hard because he's not a pocket passer, and he's been fragile outside of the pocket. But, you know, he gets in rhythm. He has a whole off-season and a whole training camp with the starting unit. and he stays healthy and he's productive at the position. He probably would be best suited to get to some quick game stuff and alter your run game enough so you can boot with him

and get him on the edge, changes his location from where he's throwing the ball. But, you know, he's productive, and you're a middle of the pack offense with a better running game with Geis at least. Thompson's there. Maybe you resign Adrian Peterson. I think your best case is, you know, middle of the pack offensively. You need a receiver, by the way, is which you want to go forward. Yeah, I do, but I want to stick with the quarterback for a moment. First of all, the Alex Smith, that he's all healthy, I mean, I'm going with the obvious,

which is he's not going to be available for, you know, at least the first half of 2019, and more likely than not the majority of 2019. So that would lead you. Go ahead. Just stop at that. Let's just say he's somewhat healthy through eight weeks. the only way you are going to think about playing him is if you really needed him, and that means the teams probably already have the playoffs are not good enough,

so you wouldn't risk it. And if the team happened to be five and three or six and two, you wouldn't take it away from Colt McCoy, so Alex Smith's not playing next year. Yeah, I think that that makes the most sense. So you think that Colt McCoy is the most obvious solution. What about Josh Johnson? Do you think that they will sign him?

And if they do, would he have a legitimate chance to compete for the starting job. No, I don't think he'll have a legitimate chance. I think that he did an exceptional job coming in in a week and in learning. And I like him as a second quarterback. I really do. But I think he's the odd man out again. You probably end up keeping three, though, even if you draft one,

because if Colt were to get hurt early and you weren't sure about the draft pick, you'd want Josh there. I like him as a backup because he's a guy that can get outside of the pocket. He can move. He can make things happen. It doesn't all have to be rhythm and timing. He showed some leadership. He shows resilience.

He's tough. I like everything about Josh. I think he makes the team next year, even if you were to draft a guy in the first round. But I think he ends up having another one of those years where you go, well, we had to move forward. And he probably doesn't end up playing much unless Colt were to get hurt in the first four weeks. On the rookie quarterback, first of all, do you think if there's somebody there at 15 that they really like,

they should take them. Two, would you trade up for a quarterback that they really like that they think they can't get at 15? Yes, and yes. I think if there's somebody there at 15, then you're so happy that you've got a guy that you like and you take him without any reservation. And two, if the quarterback started to come off the board early, I don't know if I'm in the business of trading up from 15 to more than 10, you know, the draft point scale and all that stuff. I don't want to give away everything as you're still in a little bit of a rebuild offensively. So I don't want to give away next year's picks or whatever it is.

But keeping that in mind, you know, my opinion is that the quarterback's worth three positions. I really believe that. If you don't have a quarterback, you really don't have an offense. It's just tough in today's NFL to operate without that guy. And so if you had to trade up to even seven or eight, because that was a lot of, you know, you're only thought of getting your guy, then that's what you do. But you figure out how the draft board plays out, and you see who needs

quarterbacks and who might take quarterbacks and who's there. And, you know, you don't immediately have to have that trade in place. Have you looked at the quarterback's yet? I haven't looked at them enough. No, I should. I should be doing that. I haven't. I spent a bunch of time watching the Super Bowl and Redskins, the Redskins season and

rerun, but not the young quarterback. I mean, do you have any thoughts on Kyler Murray? Yeah, I do have a lot of thoughts on Kyle and Murray. He doesn't seem like he wants to play football. And so I don't want Kyler Murray. I don't want a guy that could change and go play baseball in a year if he wanted to do that. I don't – did you watch his Dan Patrick interview? I did.

Where Dan Patrick had to basically coach him what to say. It's embarrassing. He was like, hey, if you want to play football, get an agent and act like you want to play football. I think he's an exceptional talent. I love a guy that can make every throw. I love the way he plays. But at that position, they have to be all in, all in. It's double the amount of time of any other position to get a quarterback to play at the level you need them to play.

Double. One last thing on the quarterback. So part of what you're saying is that there's no way Jake Rudin's going to want to think about another veteran quarterback is a starter like a Teddy Bridgewater or a Ryan Fitzpatrick or another potential, you know, comparable, if not better, starter than Colt McCoy because he loves Colt and he wants to see Colt get a shot at starting and completing a season. Well, I'll answer the question as you asked it. No, Jay Gruden is not going to want to do that. That doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Okay, so, okay, so with that understood, do you think it still is in play because Bruce will decide that he wants a better quarterback than Colt McCourt.

So I think it's not in play until you get through the draft. I think that there's going to be a very conscious effort to get through. Look, I'm saying this like I know. I'm just using deductive reasoning here to say, I'm going to make it through the draft to see if I get my guy. And if I don't, then I can start entertaining a trade. Yeah, the problem with free agencies is it comes before the draft. and if you wanted, if Bruce decided he wanted a veteran quarterback, like a Teddy Bridgewater,

you know, instead of a Colt McCoy starting, he'd probably have to move on that in advance of the draft. Understand, but Teddy Bridgewater is not likely to just sign somewhere to be a starting quarterback. Everyone's throwing it out like he's going to be coveted as a starting quarterback. He isn't. He's probably going to sign again as a two somewhere or best competing. and so it's not that unreasonable to think that if you were to sign as a two somewhere that you couldn't acquire him be a trade. I think there are places where Teddy Bridgewater would sign to start. Where?

Miami. Cincinnati, possibly, depending on what they do with Dalton. Jacksonville. But if they don't do something with Dalton. But Dalton will take up that next spot. I think it's not that likely that Bridgewater is just given a starting job. I mean, if he doesn't get a starting job somewhere, he should just stay and resign in New Orleans and be breezes back up.

I know, it's just for how long. Like how long's Drew going to play? One last thing on that. Well, I won't put you on the spot with that. I just don't want to pay a quarterback a lot of money because I don't have any money, and I want to move forward with the guy that I think is going to be my future as soon as possible.

and if they really thought that Teddy Bridgewater is their future, then that's a different story. I don't think that he's your future. All right. So we're staying with the how do we make them competitive next year, you know, mindset. Because my mindset is I'd blow the whole thing up and I would cut Alex Smith right now and I would take all the pain in 2019 and I would make all the necessary cuts to get, you know, well, you know, into a much better salary cap position starting next year. and I would trade players that I could get draft choices back for. That's to me the right thing to do with this franchise right now, but that's not what we're doing here.

We're going through the exercise of trying to create a roster that gives them a chance next year if everything goes well. Right, but it's also not what they're doing. I mean, the president told you that they're close. No, I understand. That they've been close and that they are close, and that means he believes that they are close, so they're not blowing up the roster that Bruce built.

Bruce is trying to add to his roster. No, I understand the reality. And he likes Jay, and he believes. believes in Jay, and so he's not going to handcuff Jay and say, you're screwed in the last year they're here. I'm going to dog you. Understood. Exactly. So I know they're not doing that. I know they're not going to move in that direction because they do believe they're close. So let's go through this exercise. Adrian Peterson for next year, is he the best option? Would you sign Adrian Peterson and bring him back? Or would you hope Geis is ready to go and maybe draft another guy? We

that he, you know, we do know that Jay likes a couple of the young running backs that he's had, like Byron Marshall as an example. Would you re-sign Adrian Peterson for a year or two? It depends how competitive the market for Adrian Peterson is. And I've said this all along. If I was

Adrian Peterson right now, and the Redskins told me that I would be a starting back or I would be given a certain amount of carries, then I would truly consider it. But if AP is just coming in to help guys, I would do exactly what he did last year, make it through camp until another back got hurt and say, here I am.

Because I think Adrian Peterson at this time obviously doesn't care that much about the money. And everyone cares about it, but it's more important to him to go be a productive back somewhere. So he'll make a decision on where he's going to get the most carries, and that might be week four of training camp before he ends up making that decision. So for all the Redskins fans that want him back, don't count him out even if you're into camp. As long as he hasn't signed somewhere, they'll still consider him. All right, let's go to why.

Also, veterans like AP, you saw the way he ran in the first week of camp. He knows the offense, or in the first preseason game that he's back. You know the shape that keeps himself in. He doesn't need training camp. Not at all. Not one bit. Does he need training camp? It'd be better for him to not show up to training camp for an extra month because that's

a month left on his body. So the Redskins can go through this. Now, if the market gets competitive and there's a really good deal out there, Adrian Peterson might take it right away. But I think that really good deal is going to be him being a starter more than it is of money, but the money will dictate that he's a starter. And I don't think you can compete with someone offer him a bunch of money. Can't afford more money in that position.

All right, let's go to wide receiver. How do you fix wide receiver? You got to go get a guy, a Trude X, like Kyle Shanahan always described. You got to get a G or a dog. G, you get that, right? Yeah, I get it. You got to get a guy that can take the top off. You got to get a guy that can run, you know, those shake routes down the field and play action where you go almost a three move set, where you go post-corner-post or the opposite, and he's got to be able to step on a safety or DB's toes and scare you down the field to open it up.

And he's got to be able to win sometimes. So without that true speed at that position with the ability to go get the ball, I just think that you're in a little bit of trouble. So that's a start, and then I wouldn't be opposed to drafting another guy you believe in. I don't know if they'll end up re-signing Jameson. I like Trey a lot. You know I love Trey Cuiquine's dad as much as I've supported him. That's what it seems like. But I like him even more getting to know him watching him play, watching him work.

I think he's your slot. And then you've got a couple guys in Richardson and Doxon as a Z. So I think your ex is your single-side guy that's got to be able to win one-on-one, got to be able to take the top off. I don't think you just go out and draft a guy like that. They're hard to just draft that guy. So I think if you're going to spend any money in free agency, that's the guy you get. The problem is, who do you get in free agency?

Well, here are the guys. You ready? Demarius Thomas is available. Yeah, they're Demarius Thomas available. Right. Yeah. Randall Cobb. Mm-hmm.

Golden Tate, Dante Moncrief. I mean, it's not a... Dishon? I'm sorry? Deshawn? And, well, Deshawn Jackson is... He's not a... They would trade him for very little.

He's not an unrestricted free agent. I know, but they would trade him for very little. Right. So what's very little? A fifth? You think you could get Deshaun Jackson back here for a fifth? Yeah. And then what kind of contract do you have to extend him with?

You don't have to do anything with his contract. If he's not unrestricted, you assume his contract. What if he doesn't want to play here? Well, then that's a little bit tougher. Do you think he'd want to play here? When you get traded, you have a choice to play or to pay money back. But we also know that he's temperamental, and I wouldn't want the team to trade a fifth or a fourth for Deshaun Jackson if he didn't want to be here. Understood, but we also know that he made big plays with Jay Gruden as a play caller and head coach.

Well, Sean, but he was productive here. So we could bring Pierre back too. Pierre can't take the top off. I understand that. You're not going to bring people. I'm not going to bring. I understand he can't take top off. I was just saying we could have the two guys that we let go two years ago.

I mean, if you're being Pierre back, you may as well just resign Santana Moss. Hey, you know what? You'd have a quality guy in your receiver room. Cobb's interesting. But you need a guy with speed that can get over the top. That's what you need. And here's the problem. I hope that they don't just rely on it being Paul Richardson.

I think that Paul Richardson's capable, but go back to the Coleman. McCoy syndrome, is he going to be healthy? I don't, I think you need a real, legit dude at that position. Right. And Paul's a great two, and Doxin can produce as a two as well. Yeah. But there's really not a one available in free agency. I get that. You need it. Well, I understand that. It's just not going to be easy to get unless you want to draft Marquis Brown from Oklahoma in the first round of 15. Yeah, you did that. We needed. Yeah. All right, you need a guard, obviously. And then what would you do at tight end real quickly?

You need a Y tight end. My favorite guy right now is Boyle. I have watched a bunch of free agent tight ends. I love this kid Boyle out of Baltimore. I heard they were going to try to resign them, but they just drafted two guys in the first and second round last year. And they drafted Max Williams in the first round four years ago, and he's a free agent as well.

And Boyle was this FCS dude that they think they took in the fourth but he's like 270, 265, he's got a little quickness in his route, so he's not just that blocking white, but he does block his butt off, man. I love that kid, Boyle. If I were us, I'd go sign him tomorrow. He can't sign him tomorrow,

but that'd be my number one guy right now. Nick Boyle, who's in Baltimore and played at Delaware. All right. He is, you know he had 100 catches in your year at Delaware. I did not know that. I mean, I'm just saying, I promise you that that guy's a good white-tight end, and he's not a tendency guy.

You don't have to take him out the field because it's passed. All right now. What are your feelings on Preston Smith and the team's desire to try to re-sign him? I think that Preston and the team should probably agree to a one-to-two-year deal, maybe a two-year deal. If you look at that position right now, Preston Smith is in the worst spot he could possibly be. Coming off a non-productive year with 15 guys on the board that are probably higher-rate

guys than him. Maybe not 15, but there's at least 10 at that position. That is loaded in free agency. Right. Clownie, Ford, the kid from Baltimore, Smith. Who else? There are a lot of those three, four outside linebackers that are available in free agency. Preston Smith. There's like 10 guys. I mean, I could look in Rattlemore. That's all. But so... So I think Preston would probably be best suited to take a one to two-year deal where he knows he's going to get 100. percent of the reps. The Redskins would have a good fit there with Preston not having a huge cap number. It would be another kind of show me opportunity for, even if it were a year deal, you know, a year deal with a lot of incentives might be the best case scenario for Preston.

I think you end up getting him back. And look, I'd be all about going out and signing one of these big time guys, but you'll have money. So maybe you can find a guy in a draft, maybe Pernel McPhee steps up. So I do like McPhee. He had a, pretty productive year in a limited role. His problem was that he'd been hurt a lot over his career, but I thought he showed some good stuff off the edge, and I like Casanova McKenzie as well. I think if you could resign Preston,

you just stay where you're at there. And I just don't see Preston dictating a boatload of money right now. All right. What do you do at inside lineback? Are you going to lose Zach Brown? Yeah, you're going to lose Zach Brown, for sure. And you have potentially Mason Foster as a backup with Ruben Foster, and Dionne, Sean Dionne Hamilton.

I liked what he showed last year. He was a little bit slow, but he's coming off that injury. He's instinctual. He's physical, tough. He'll be better. I think Ruben Foster and Sean Dionne Hamilton are two really good inside linebackers. Your front seven, if you reset in present, it's actually pretty good. You've got to keep Josh Norman at this point.

If next year is a year about competing and trying to create the best roster, do you keep Josh Norman or do you take the cap savings and let him go? and try to get somebody else or hope that Fabian Moreau and Quentin Dunbar are healthy enough, and they're your corners. I can't pay him what his number is for his production. I really can't do that. And I think that you should ask him to restructure because I do like him. The thing is, he's his own corner.

So if you're going to play him, you've got to play him in zone. I really think that more and more. I know he wants to be a man-to-man corner. Like one example. You line up a guy in a semi-tight split, maybe inside the numbers, what you call it, minus two or minus three, inside the numbers. And he runs a shallow cross on third down. And Josh can't keep up with that.

He gives up a lot of end-breaking routes because he's playing a little soft with vision, and he just can't recover. A legit number-one man corner, the way he's getting paid, has to be able to lock that up. And he can't. He just doesn't. So I like what he provides. I want him here.

I just don't want him here at that price. So you ask him to restructure. I don't know if he gets paid anywhere else, so it might be in his best interest to restructures. Well, he's been smart with how he's handled it, too, in terms of saying he believes we're close, and I think he wants to be here. Yeah, him saying that.

Maybe he just wants to be here with his money, though. Yeah, he'd like to collect a $1 million. I would want that money. Yeah, 11 million bucks next year. And then at safety, you know, they sent a fourth, the Green Bay for Haha Clinton Dix. Was it you or was I having a conversation with someone else who was convinced that Haha Clinton Dix had really improved significantly over the final few games and that they're

going to want him back? The only thing he lacks is any tackling ability when he has to come up and make tackles. I think his coverage ability is actually just fine. Right. So if you're playing him deep and high at free safety more than not, you really don't have to ask him to make that many tackles, I don't want to pay him. I think he's pretty average free safety. He's like a C plus B minus free safety.

He's not as bad as everyone made him out to be. The mistackles were glaring. Obviously, we understand that. But there's a couple guys. I mean, I like Adrian Amos out of Chicago. I don't think you're going to get Landon Collins. Earl Thomas is really interesting, and I think he's from this area, right? Earl Thomas is from this area?

I think so. Where's Earl Thomas from? I have no idea. I didn't know he was from this area. I had no idea. At 30, he's interesting. Yeah, but it seems destined for Dallas to me, where he's sort of always wanted to play,

and they've always wanted him. I mean, you do have the Honey Badgers available in Free Agency, right? I think I was looking at that day. He is awesome. I would love to sign the Honey Badger, but I don't think he comes here. And, no, Earl Thomas is from Texas. What am I talking about?

Yeah, I didn't think he was from. My bad. I didn't think he was from here. All right. You got some market safety You probably need two safeties You got to sign a strong safety too, don't you? Yeah

Yeah, because I think the one that they had didn't hear anymore He mouthed off a little bit too much So they sent him packing Even though he played pretty well But we both agreed with the move You need a strong safety in free agency A free safety You got to redo Josh's contract if you can

If not, you probably need another corner. Oh, here, I left this out. You need a legit slot corner, nickel corner. You do. In this NFL, it's just as important as the outside corner. You need a guy that can flip sides that can show blitz, come back. You need a smart player at slot and nickel. You do.

You mean you have to, it? Like Kendall Fuller? I don't think we have that in the roster. You mean like Kendall Fuller was. Okay. Well, they did, they liked that Adonis Alexander. Can he play a slot or not? not? He's not a slot corner. What about Stroman? I think he struggled when he moved into

the slot. He struggled early outside. They moved him inside. He didn't play well in the slot. He's young. I like Steroman a lot. I like him as a developmental player, but he's not ready to be a starting. Okay. The slot corner, unless he makes massive improvements. Get a couple of safeties, get a legit number one wide receiver, get a guard, and we're ready to go. You need two or three. You're You need like two other offensive linemen that... To provide some depth. I mean, a couple guys that could...

Yeah, you need some depth, too. Right. Well, I understand. You should draft depth in the third and fourth round. Yeah, understood. I mean, I'm not saying that we just solved the whole problem, but you're going to draft some offensive linemen. You're going to probably look at, you know, some D.Bs,

some corners and safeties in the draft and maybe even some depth at inside linebacker. Because they, if Sean Dionne Hamilton and Ruben Foster are your starters and Zach Brown and Mason Fawkes, or gone, who are you left with? Well, Vice Mason's not a huge cap number. Right. You can keep Mason. Okay.

What did you make of the stadium situation with Maryland, at least outwardly backing out as of now? Everything's so political when it comes to that, and I don't understand exactly how those negotiations go. Does Maryland back out to say, for now, because, because they want a better deal later. Do they understand something happening in D.C. or Virginia? I've told you this before. I'm going to say it again now.

I just have a hard time believing that someone doesn't want a stadium. I think if I had an opportunity to build the stadium, and I could sell the stadium for what it was, I would put it right in D.C., right in the RFK site, and I would sell suites as, like, your office, for your business for the year. If you wanted to conduct business out of that stadium every single day of the year in that suite,

then you have people in that stadium every day. The problem of stadiums is a complete underuse. I'd find a way to use it year-round. I think that D.C. site would provide an opportunity to consistently use it, to consistently have people in and out of the area. And I think that's the best place for it. I think the fans obviously associate the team there

for whatever it's worth. But it is interesting. Everyone brings up FedEx and how bad it is. FedEx didn't suck that bad when RG3 was winning in 2012, did it? People showed up and people parked and people paid and people came. And they would have... And they cheered. And they would have all along had there been a winning product.

I don't think that that's debatable. It still doesn't change the fact that it's never been a convenient stadium. and it's never had a game day, full game day environment like a lot of stadiums have now, which you could get potentially at the RFK site with... But in all fairness, you go to almost every single Maryland basketball game. You're not going to even start to tell me that's convenient. I don't go to every single Maryland basketball game. You go to a lot of them, though.

It's awful to get in there. I go to about a half dozen a year, and the ones that start weeknights early are impossible to get to. There's no doubt about it. Uh, the, do you have any sense as to whether or not Dan's first choice is DC? I did. I thought I did, but I don't. I have no sense. And I guess I didn't think because of any reason other than it seems so simple. To me, it seems like, put it where the most people want it. But it's not that simple. But it's not that simple. I get, trust me, I get that it's, there's a lot that goes into it, but. All right. I would push hard to do that.

that. I haven't talked to you since before the Super Bowl. You were on the day before the Friday before the Super Bowl. What did you think of it? Look, here's my thing with the Super Bowl. Because everyone said it was slow, it was boring, and it was, and good defense is hard to see on TV. And ultimately, my thought was, in terms of just the appeal of the game, when you have three and outs and short possessions, you have so many commercials, you just get no flow of a game as a fan. And I think that's, as I watched it, that's what you lost a little bit. was any sustained drives, anything you really could follow, get into is just commercials. And the commercials sucked.

But as far as the game played out, Sean Setti got out coached. I mean, you give Bill Belichick two weeks to prepare for what you do, and I know you say we're going to do what we do. But I think you've got to throw them something different to start the game. I thought that they should have came out when a quick game and got golf rhythm early. a young player seemed to have to have a lot of anxiety throughout, that they should have just settled him down with a couple easy throws, quick outs, slant flats, got him in a little rhythm.

You get a guy, you know, four for five, five for seven kind of deal, where he's spinning it a little bit, and then you start to build, and you get them off balance. They knew they were going to come out and run it a couple times and go play action. That's what the Rams do every time. I can't tell you how amazed I am at Tom Burr, Brady at any moment. And this goes back to the championship game and then the Super Bowl. At any moment where the moment's big, they always show his face.

It's like, he's not scared. He knows what's going to happen here. He's amazing, man. The Patriots are amazing. So I'm proud of him. I'm proud of that team. I'm not sick of them. I wish the Redskins were that, but I'm not sick of watching greatness in the way they do it. Yeah, I feel. And they deserve it. I feel. I do think this, though. I got really sick of the narrative that they were underdogs or that they were underrated. And they use it. They believe it.

They convinced themselves of it. That's great for them. For all the media that says they're sick of it, like stop telling them they're not good enough. It drives them. Tell them they're amazing all year. Tony Romo said on the first drive of the game, you know, that he basically got sucked into the whole thing and called him the underdog when they were the favorite. They had 19 games this year. They were the favorite in 18 of them.

So they were never an underdog, and no one, look, going into the end of the season, there was a sense that they were vulnerable. But once they got that two seed, when Houston sort of lost that two seed to New England, and New England was going to have one home game before an AFC title game, did anybody, you know, count them out? No, no one ever counts them out. No, the only thing about them was they lost five, I think they said this in the Super Bowl. All five of their losses were the teams that didn't,

make the playoffs. And some of them were blowouts. I mean, they got beat this year, you know, beat down a couple of times. I mean, Tennessee blew them out and somebody else did who I'm forgetting right now. I can't remember, but they went to 11 and 5, and they really, they were really, they were really 12 and 4 because the Miami game were drunk back there playing safety on trick play. That happens one in a thousand times. They won the game. I completely agree with you. I have not gotten sick of it at all, especially watching the intellectual

advantage that they have with their coaching staff and just the organization as a whole. I mean, everybody always talks about culture in sports franchise discussions and company discussions, and, you know, I don't even know if I can define or

describe what their culture is, but whatever it is, it is the all-time model for sustained success in a sport that is actually designed to prevent it, which is really amazing. It's the greatest NFL dynasty of all time. And we've had this conversation before, but I don't want to hear about the division that they play in. I don't want to hear about, you know, different gates over the years. None of that explains what they've done in the postseason over the years. And what you said, the look in Brady's eyes at third.

31, 24 late in the AFC championship game and then on the first drive of overtime and what he does and how he does it. It's just always amazing. It really is. It was amazing. Oh, here, we didn't talk about this. This is your clock management, time management. I thought it was interesting at the end of the game where Sean declined the penalty to save 35 seconds or 40 seconds or whatever it was, essentially putting the Patriots in Philgo range.

I mean, if you hold them to three and out where it was, take the penalty, you're getting the ball with like 35 seconds inside the 10. It's pretty impossible to score. But it's also pretty impossible to score twice with the minute left. I thought that was a mistake. I thought he should. And Tony kept talking about, the Romo kept saying, if you take the penalty, you save that time. Or if you decline it, you save the time. I'm like, yeah, I know that, but if you take it, you push him out of field goal range.

I want to keep it a one-score game. I call it the six-and-one-half-dousand-the-other. I don't think there was a wrong answer there. And I actually ultimately said that if I were going to lean in that situation, not every situation has a definitive right situation. That was a very gray, very debatable issue, because you're basically weighing the probability of being able to score inside your own 25 with 30 seconds to go in no timeouts and needing a touchdown.

So essentially needing a Hail Mary versus them missing a chip shot field goal. And you know what? I lean towards, you know what, the odds are probably better that they would have missed the chip shot field goal because he had actually missed one earlier in the game from 45 yards. That's the thing you had to have because every time they punted, they punted him inside the 10. So it's like a 90-yard drive at 30 seconds. You're basically baking on and making the field goal. And here's the thing. Like you say, you take the penalty back.

What's the likelihood that two plays later, Edelman's catching another one over the middle for 15? That's right. Exactly. And they're in field goal range anyway. So one last one, and I'll let you get out to the golf course. What did you think of the Flacco trade? Do you think that Denver has a chance with Flacco? Do you view it the way I think everybody seems to view it, which is why would they do that?

I think that it's interesting to admit that you made a mistake on K. Skeenum as fast as you did. You give them a year with a new offense and a new offensive coordinator, and you say, ah, not the guy. I think they may have pulled the trigger a little bit too quick on Kiskeenum. and take a lot and trade for flaco. I mean, look, I think Flacco's been dealt a little bit of an unfair hand over the last five or six years. All the offensive coordinators and all the switches in Baltimore, not having weapons. Look, there's another thing with Joe that he can win in the playoffs.

He's got a little ice water in his vein. January Joe, they call him in Baltimore. January Joe, it's just he better get him to January. That's going to look real bad for John Elway. God, it will look bad for him. I mean, if... How can the best quarterback, one of the best three quarterbacks ever, not find a quarterback? Well, it's the thing that people say all the time.

Sometimes the greatest players make the worst coaches or worst, you know, talent evaluators. Look at Michael Jordan, you know, over the years in similar positions. But, you know, if not for Peyton Manning, you know, coming there right when L.A. took over and they didn't win really because of Peyton when they finally got it done. but that first year there was spectacular. I actually like Denver's roster. I think they're really good defensively. I was a big Philip Lindsay fan from the first time I saw him last year.

Oh, yeah, that's an awesome story. Great story. And, you know, they just have to find some speed, you know, at wide receiver. You know, another Cortland Sutton can play. Emmanuel Sanders is still there. I like the kid from Penn State, Deshawn Hamilton. I think they like him too. And you've got to give Joe a pass-catching type.

end somewhere. He's got to have a legit, you know, Fumagalli's there. Didn't you like him a lot? And didn't you like Jake? I love Fumagalli. Yeah. And didn't you like the kid from Michigan? Jake But, because he's on that roster too. I think he was the year before, but I did like him a little bit out of Michigan. Yeah, he's a Y. Yeah. All right. Thanks. All right, buddy. Hit him straight. Always fun. Great catching up with Cooley. And we're going to try to do that, continue to do that at least once a week. Wind donation, I want to tell you about Wind Donation and the opportunity that they are offering right now through the end of this weekend. Smart shoppers know the best deals are always in the off season. You know, if you want to buy a cold weather product, you don't want to do it during the

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All right. Andy will join us here in a little bit. I'm not even sure what we're going to talk about today because there's no, I don't think there's any significant anniversary dates, but perhaps Andy has one, but we'll talk to him in a little bit. I actually have something for him when he joins us. But I wanted to talk about Maryland, Michigan, which is tomorrow noon on, is the game on Fox tomorrow? I'm assuming the game's on Fox tomorrow. I didn't even look that up yet. It's not a big, that can't be a Big Ten network game. Can it be?

That's got to be a Fox game on Saturday, I would think. It is. I just found it. Maryland, Michigan tomorrow, high noon from Ann Arbor. Michigan lost at Penn State the other night in a store. stunner. Now, Penn State's got some talent. In fact, the freshman Miles Dredd who played at Gonzaga locally had five threes for them. Man, that Gonzaga team last year, last two years, the two years ago team with Chris Likes. You want to watch an entertaining college basketball player.

Miami's not that good this year, but Chris Likes is so entertaining. He's all of about five foot five. He was this starting point guard at Gonzaga two years ago when they were just loaded. You know, with seven or eight division one players, you know, on the team, if not more. But Penn State beat Michigan. You know, I mentioned this on Twitter to somebody yesterday, or maybe I mentioned on the show and somebody took exception to it. I can't remember exactly how it played out because it was yesterday, you know, it was a long time ago.

So I can't really remember that far back. But somebody mentioned that, you know, the Big Ten's not as good as I think it is. It is. It is the best league top to bottom. I'm not suggesting that the teams at the top of the ACC aren't better than the teams at the top of the Big Ten. Virginia and Duke are probably better than anybody at the top of the Big Ten right now, although I would certainly give Michigan State and Michigan and Purdue, and yes, Maryland, I'd give them chances in games against Virginia and Duke.

Maryland played Virginia about as tough as anybody did this year, except for Duke, twice. But top to bottom, I mean, Penn State's got two wins. They're at the bottom of the Big Ten. They beat Virginia Tech earlier this year. They have played teams tough and they knocked off Michigan last night. So they've beaten two top ten teams this year. Penn State has, and they're the worst team in the Big Ten. Right now, the Big Ten's bottom four teams include Indiana and Nebraska, two teams that were ranked, earlier this year and were considered tournament teams up until the last week or two. Indiana is still a legitimate bubble team at this point. Penn State beat Michigan. By the way, last night,

Illinois beat Ohio State. The Big Ten. Illinois's been on a roll since they went over Maryland. They have been. They've won four in a row and five out of their last six. They play a style that is different for the Big Ten. It's a very frenetic uptempo. And I actually like the way they play and they've got some talent too. There's not a night off in the Big Ten. That was more the point I was trying to make yesterday. If it was yesterday, if it was on Twitter, I forget. The ACC, you got a couple of nights off, all right? Pit is a night off. Wake Forest is a night off. BC is a night off. You know who's a pretty, is not a very difficult team to beat this year? Notre Dame. Notre Dame's not very good at all. Miami has played well recently and Georgia Tech's had a moment or two,

but these teams right now at the bottom of the ACC, if you put them into the Big Ten, there would be a big sigh of relief from the teams at the top of the Big Ten because there is no night off in the Big Ten. At Penn State's tough, Northwestern's not easy, at Nebraska, a team that's been ranked, Indiana. Rutgers has talent, Illinois's got talent. It's a loaded league, top to bottom, the best, in my view, top to bottom.

Overall, all right, maybe not the heavyweights, but not too far off either. I mean, is anybody going to be surprised if Michigan State or Michigan are playing in the national championship game? If Purdue makes a final four for the first time under Matt Painter, which I'd love to see because I'm a big fan of him, and I think Maryland is a legitimate, a legitimate deep into the tournament contender. Now, the Michigan matchup. Michigan's very beatable. They've been ranked as high as two this year. They are 22 and 3 over all. they just dropped their third Big Ten game of the year, so they are tied for first in the Big Ten. They have a brutal schedule the rest of the way in the Big Ten because they play Maryland twice and Michigan State twice.

That's not easy. They've got six games left in the Big Ten, two are against Maryland and two are against Michigan State. So they're going to play four games against the top four in the league over their final six. A couple of things about Michigan. They're as fine a coach team as there is in the country. This league has a lot of great coaches. The ACC does too. B-Line is just flat out a top 10 coach easy. I think some would argue a top five coach. I think the league's got a lot of them.

I mean, Izzo is a top three or four coach in the country. Matt Painter is wildly underrated as a coach nationally. But to me, he is a top 10 coach in the country. They are so well-coached. They are going to play great defense. not with great athleticism necessarily or length, even though Teske, their center is going to be a big time shot blocker at 7 feet or 7-1, whatever he is, Aaron.

But between Poole and Matthews, they've got good defenders, but they just are so smart defensively. I want Maryland to try to run and play up-tempo basketball. You can't do it against Michigan. Nobody gets back on defense and gets set up defensively better than Michigan does, except for Virginia. You know, in terms of teams, there are a few teams like that. Hard to run.

You know, winning against Michigan is winning a 64, 62 game, you know, 59, 56 game. You know, maybe if both teams are shooting well against good defense, you get a 70 to 68 game. Maryland's last two wins, all right, where, by the way, they've made more of an emphasis on trying to play up-tempo. 60 points at Nebraska and 70 points against Purdue. They're not scoring a lot, but they held Nebraska to 45 and Purdue to 56. Maryland is a very good defensive team right now. Maryland is a very good rebounding team as well. Now, they had the most difficult time they've had all season long rebounding against Purdue,

especially first half, you know, first part of the second half. Purdue ended up missing so many shots that I think the rebound numbers ended up being pretty close. Maryland's got to rebound against Michigan. They've got to keep the ball in front of them against Michigan. They're not going to get easy buckets, which means they're going to have to run really good half-court offense, which I think they have. I think Bruno's a tough matchup. Michigan will probably double him. Everybody else has. I think B-Line will mix it up and they'll double the post. and Maryland's offense should start. This is going to be one of those games where you're going to play half-court offense for the majority of it.

Michigan's not going to turn the ball over. There aren't going to be loose ball turnovers that create fast break opportunities. You're not taking it off the glass and throwing it to Cowan, and all of a sudden you're in a three-on-one, three-on-two fast-break opportunity. Michigan gets back too well. It's going to be a half-court game. Maryland's going to have to run exceptional half-court offense. And for them this year, that means running it through Bruno,

Fernando. Primarily in the post, sometimes at the elbow, but I would like to see Bruno on the post in this game. Look, you know, Ethan Hap is probably the best big man they have faced in the league this year. They beat him once. They lost him a second time, even though that game in Madison was a winnable game for Maryland. Tessky's a big-time shot blocker. He's the biggest dude I think they faced, right? I can't think of anyone bigger. I mean, Teske's a solid, he's a seven-footer if it's 7-1. I think personally their best player when I watch Michigan play is their senior Charles Matthews. He is a legitimate pro, legitimate All-American candidate type. I don't even know where he ranks statistically because Michigan is always so balanced as a team, you know, in terms of

their scoring. Matthews is a guy that they're going to have to guard, and I would expect to see a Darryl Morsell on Matthews in that matchup. Cowan on their point guard, Xavier Simpson, who can go off a little bit as well. I just pulled up their stats because I hadn't even looked at them. And per usual, you know, they've got Brasdicus, their forward, averaging 14.6, and then Matthews is second at 13.2, and then pulls at 13, and Simpsons at 9, and Teske's at 9.

You can't take one person away from me. That is the point. Yeah, they're always such a balanced team. They get it from everywhere. Teske's not a good free throw shooter. Something to keep in mind. You know, Maryland, you know, you can't get in foul trouble in these games with your bigs. But it's one of those games.

Like, you can say a lot of things. You can say you can't turn it over against Michigan. That's true. You know, you can't have the game that Maryland had a few weeks back against Illinois that they lost in a game in which, you know, they turned it over 21 times, I think, in a game that was a grinded out game for, or maybe that was the Michigan State game, I forget, can't turn it over against Michigan, you can't give them additional possessions, it's going to be a lower possession game to start with, you must rebound, and you're going to have to run really good

solid half-court offense to give you looks. You're not going to get a lot of looks, which means some playmaking ability, you know, by Cowan, by, you know, Wiggins, by Morsell, you know, more Marcel can be, he was a difference maker the other night. Somebody sent me a tweet saying, you've been on Morsell's jock all year, and the other night was the first non-terrible game he's played. That's not true. If you watch Morsell, he gives you a lot sometimes, even when he can be, and I admit it, he can be sloppy offensively. But he's got length, he's got toughness. He's the most competitive kid on the team. I mean, Fernando's a competitor, too. He's, Turgeon's got a good group here.

They get Michigan twice. This is the first of two matchups. They get them at home on March 3rd. The last time Maryland played Michigan was the finale last year at Comcast Center. I was at the game, and it was one of those games. It was Maryland's, was it Maryland's finale or next to last game, whatever it was. I think it was the finale. That sounds right.

Maryland got blown out by Michigan in a way that Michigan doesn't blow out. anybody. And I remember walking out of that game shortly after half time because they were down 30 at halftime, if my memory serves me correctly. They gave up 50-something in the first half to Michigan, a team that sometimes doesn't score more than 55, 56 in a game, 65 in a game. And I remember saying this team is going to be difficult to deal with in March or in the next few weeks. And they were. They got all the way to the finals last year. Maryland lost a game. and Ann Arbor last year where they gave up a late, if you recall, this was the game in which Maryland did not cover and didn't guard the inbound's play in the second half, late in the

game with a one-point lead. And, you know, I think it was somewhere around three seconds, three and a half seconds. And they let Abdur Rahman, I think it was, get to the free throw line where they, you know, on a play, which was unfortunate. And they ended up losing 68, 67. I like Maryland's chances tomorrow. I have no idea what the line is. It's not out yet. I'm going to guess they're going to be a solid six point dog somewhere around there. Maybe could be seven. I was going to say seven would probably be my guess. You know, they're probably going to look at this and say Michigan and Maryland twice, you know, Maryland will have a chance on their home floor against Michigan, not as much on the road. But I like Marilyn's chances tomorrow, the way they

played the other night. If they can defend that way and make it difficult for Michigan, they're going to get defended too. And they've got to protect the ball. And here's the other thing, too against Michigan. And I know that it goes almost against the grain or against what might be logical. And someone would say, you know, you can't get rushed by Michigan. You got to work your offense. You got to make them work. You know, I would not pass on early open shots early in the shot clock. I think one of the mistakes sometimes made by teams, especially against good defensive teams is you want to work your offense, you want to get the best possible shot. But sometimes against Michigan, the worst position to be in is under 10 seconds to go on the

shot clock because then your chances of truly getting something good are slim and none. If you get something off of that first down screen with Wiggins coming off of it or the first, post pass from Fernando being doubled, if you get something that's open, even if it's deep, even if it's not one of your better shooters, and I'll point to Darrell Morsell, as an example, you've got to take those shots. If you've got open shots against the team like Michigan, even if it's early in the shot clock, you take them. Anyway, I'm looking forward to that. I'm looking forward to watching Tennessee and Kentucky tomorrow night as well. It's the first of their two games. These are two national championship contenders. I'm a believer in Tennessee and in Rick Barnes.

Grant Williams in particular. I just think he's a fun player to watch. And that SEC champion, you know, is going to be more likely than not a one seed somewhere. Tennessee can win the national championship. I know people, you don't think of Tennessee in that way. They are good enough to win the national championship. Tennessee is the safest team in the tournament. They're a team that I think if I had to pick one team to make the second weekend, it would be Tennessee.

There's no way they're losing to an inferior team. I think that's right. I mean, I don't, I mean, I would say that about, you know, I would see, I could see, I could see, I could see, you know, obviously Virginia can lose in the first weekend. I know, but I wouldn't, you know, if we didn't have last year, if we didn't have UMBC, I would say there's no chance, like I said last year, that Virginia is going to drop one of the first two games. The thing about teams that play that way and you haven't seen it all year and will defend you in that way. And this is why I think the Big Ten's got a chance to have a pretty good tournament because it's been a very good defensive league this year. And sometimes some of these teams coming out of the Pack 12 and the Big 12 and some of the teams that haven't seen the kind of defense every night aren't used to it. And in a one and done, it's tough to deal with it. That's what I think about Virginia too, but it happened last year. So anyway, yeah, so tomorrow, you know, you got Maryland and Michigan, one of the biggest games of the day, end of, the weekend, really, with Tennessee, Kentucky, tomorrow night. So I'm looking forward to some good

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All right, let's bring Andy in for a few minutes to finish up the show. We don't have any, you know, significant anniversary dates here. But I wanted to bring something up to you that probably most of the audience won't care about, but there are five or ten of you. you out there that might actually care about it. And I saved this for you. A friend of mine and I were having a conversation the other day, and he was talking about, you know, the evolution of the game and, you know, how many, it's a long story on how we got to it, but basically he said, you know, the games, remember the days when any play that went out of bounds stopped the clock,

and the clock wouldn't start until the next snap. And I said, yeah, that was, you know, the 70s and the 80s. And he said, there was so much more game then. said, no, there actually wasn't. There wasn't more game then because teams went slower and there was no, the play clock was an arbitrary 25 second play clock after the ball got spotted. You rarely saw delay a game penalties. In fact, if crowds got too loud, the referees would stop the snap and allow the crowd to die down before the opponent snapped the ball. Anyway, we're having this conversation. And I said, if you go back and you look at some of the box scores from some of the games in the 70s and 80s, or even early 80s, there were fewer plays.

Teams go faster now. And because they throw the ball more, there are more opportunities for drops and the clock to stop. Back then, teams just ran it a lot more. And so I pulled up this box score from Pro Football Reference.com because he suggested that I go look at it. Super Bowl 8 was the Super Bowl after the Redskins played the Dolphins in January of 73. So this was January of 1974. And the Dolphins are in their third consecutive Super Bowl going for their second straight Super Bowl win. And they're playing Fran Tarkington and the Minnesota Vikings.

They won the game 24 to 7. All right, by the way, played outdoors in Houston in 43-degree rainy weather. All right. You'd never At a stadium. Yeah, Rice Stadium. The final stat line for the winning quarterback in the game, Bob Greasy, six of seven for 73 yards.

No touchdowns, no interceptions. The winning quarterback threw seven times in the game. Well, that was the year in a 14-game schedule that you had Larry Zonka and Mercury Morris. that's right run for over a thousand yards. I think Paul Warfield was their leading receiver that year

with something like 38 catches. He had that year, in 1974, actually the 73 season, Paul Warfield led the team with 29 receptions. 29.

29. I overshot it. Yeah. I mean, but the most jarring is that the winning Super Bowl quarterback threw the ball seven times.

Now, to your point, Zonka, 33 carries 145 yards, Mercury Morris, 11 carries 34 yards, and Jim Kick was still on the team, seven carries 10 yards. So they had 51 snaps, I'm sorry, they had 58 total snaps and ran it on 51 of them. You would not be able to win a football game

in this day and age against anybody throwing the ball seven times. Well, also, realize this, that the coach was Don Shula, who later had Dan Marino, who was slinging it all over the place. And, you know, the great coaches adapt to their personnel. Do you know what? Until Belichick, I always had Don Shula as my number one, number one. Now, I love Gibbs, and Gibbs is obviously in the conversation. But because of what you just said, Shula won, like Gibbs, in the same.

same way, one with so many different styles and different rosters and in different places. And I think that's one of the things that made him so great. And for a while was, well, is he still the winningest coach of all time in terms of wins? Yeah, I think he retired with the most. And the Super Bowl that they lost to the Redskins, Super Bowl 17, David Woodley and Don Strach? Don Strach. Are you kidding me? Woodley was the starter. That's, Woodley was a starter, and Stroke was the passer. I don't think there were, I think, you know, the quarterbacks that we think of that were not great Super Bowl quarterbacks, that duo is clearly the worst, don't you think? Oh, the worst in terms of a Super Bowl starter?

I mean, Trent Dilfer won a Super Bowl, you know, as a starter. Trent Dilfer was okay. I thought Dilfer was better than both of them. Probably. We'd have to go back through the list, but I just pulled up the list. Shula's got 347 wins. Hallis is second on the list at 324, and Belichick's now third on the list at 292.

Belichick would need another 56 wins to eclipse Shula, which theoretically could come in four to five years, you know, if they had a great four or five year run. But, yeah, I mean, that, you know, that Super Bowl that they lost Super Bowl 17 to the Redskins with Woodley and Supper. Strach. It was two years later that they opened up with the Redskins in the 84 season at RFK with Dan Marino starting and throwing five touchdown passes and winning 35 to 17.

You remember that the opening into that season where they got beat by Miami badly at home and then went to San Francisco for a rematch of the controversial NFC championship game on a Monday night in week two. and were getting blown out but came back late to close it to like 3731, I think was the final score. And the Redskins started that season, O and 2. They would still go on to have a good season and win the division that year. But it was a rough start to that season, and it started with the Marino game. And Gibbs said about the two games to start the season, the league clearly doesn't want us back.

Because as you know, as you know, those two teams played for the Super Bowl. later that season. They did. That's right. Yeah. So they were the best teams, obviously. Yeah, but you didn't know it about Miami to start the season. You didn't, because Marino at that point, that's year two for Marino, right? So that's Marino's second year.

The rookie season that he had, he didn't even start, you know, that season. He came on, you know, I think he ended up starting half the games for Miami in his rookie year, but the 84 season started what became at that point the most prolific quarterback season in the history of the league where he threw, I think it was 48 touchdowns, and for over 5,000 yards, the first quarterback to do that with the Marks brothers. But you didn't know that in the opener against the Redskins. I mean, I would bet, and I'm going to go find that, I would bet that the Redskins would have

been a big favorite in the opener because they're coming off back-to-back Super Bowl trips, you know? Yeah, I would think so. Yeah. Riggins was still an effective runner that year. I think he had over a thousand yards. Here it. Yeah, Redskins, in the opener, the Redskins were a four and a half point favorite at home

against the Dolphins in that opener in 84. I would have actually thought they would have been bigger. And that day, Marino threw five touchdown passes, was 21 of 28 for 311 yards. And that started, that was the beginning of what turned out to be by far in a way, the most prolific quarterback season in NFL history. And then the next week they got Montana in Candlestick on a Monday night. Yeah, there's some footage that you probably see from time to time of NFL films of Verino getting ready for the Super Bowl. He's got his baseball hat on backwards. He clearly looks like a kid and he's laughing and he's having a good time.

And the feeling is, this is the first of many. We thought this was going to be what we basically seen from Brady. I mean, after that season, when you see, see a guy throw 48 touchdown passes with a Hall of Fame coach, you got to figure, okay, that's the team we're going to be seeing on a regular basis in the Super Bowl. They never got back. You know what's really interesting about that conversation is Marino is a very debated quarterback. Those that believe you have to win Super Bowls to be considered, you know, Mount Rushmore, you know, caliber, you know, discount Marino. And I always have felt this way. It's like this is the most dependent sport. There is. It's not basketball. It's not baseball. It's not even hockey.

And Marino, if you watched Marino and you don't think he's one of the greatest four, five, six quarterbacks you've ever watched, then I discount your ability to know football. Because Marino was unbelievable to watch play the position throughout his career. And he never had a defense. He never had a running game. It was all. Marino that made that team, you know, a legitimate Super Bowl contender for a lot of his career. It's not like he didn't play, you know, in a lot of playoff games. They were in the playoffs a ton. I think I looked this up when we were going through the Brady stuff because Brady just, you know, finished his 39th playoff game. And, and I think Marino, you know, was at 18 or 19 in Montana's right around there as well. I mean, Marino started 18 or 19 playoff games. They just never had a great

defense, you know, or a great running game to go with him. I would say this about the running game, and this is what I've heard, that they did have some backs, but Marino was a very instinctive quarterback. He was not a tactician. It wasn't a guy who studied a lot of film, and he liked to chuck it down the field. He had a lot of Brett Barvin. So it's possible he was audiblying out of a lot of runs. He wasn't necessarily approaching the game in the cerebral way that some of the great quarterbacks do. As a passer, you know, he's right there. He's maybe better than sunny. But as a total quarterback, he might not measure up to some of the greats. That's the way I might look at it. I don't see that. I see that

I've always thought Marino is one of the four or five greatest I've ever watched. And he's the one out of the four or five that I mentioned that doesn't have a Super Bowl. And I just, I don't know, I guess I know that there's some cowboy fans and friends of mine that are going to say, oh, you always said it was important with Romo. Well, that was to basically mock my friends who are cowboy fans. But it's important, but in that sport, it's much more about just the body of work. And the subjective of watching the guy play. Marino, to me, is right there with Elway, with Peyton, with Brady,

obviously, of the greatest quarterbacks I've ever seen. I always felt like Steve Young was way underrated in terms of, you know, the all-time great conversation, because I think Young was ridiculously good. But anyway, I don't know, we just turned it into a throwback conversation somehow. Somehow we got there starting with Bob Greasy six for seven in a Super Bowl. That's really, you know, when you go back and you look at some of these old box scores from way back you know, even the Redskins, you know, when they were good with George Allen in the 70s, and George Allen was such a conservative, you know, coach. And if you go back to some of those playoff games, you know, the Green Bay, the first one, Andy,

you know, in 72 at home. I know they played the 49ers a year before. But Kilmer in the win over Green Bay was 7 of 14 for 100 yards. Yeah, with Charlie Taylor, who was retired as the number one receiver of all time. Jerry Smith, one of the great pass-catching tight-end. Roy Jefferson. Roy Jefferson was an outstanding receiver. Right. He had all that. But the name of the game for Alan was to run the ball, shorten the game, and let his defense win it. And they would often win it with turnovers. That's another thing about what's happened to the game is when they changed the rules for defensive backs,

interceptions became fewer. Like Paul Krause retired, I think, with like 81 interceptions. I don't think anybody's going to touch that because they just don't have. happen as frequently as before. So Allen's idea was, let's shorten the game, let's run the ball offensively, and sooner or later my defense is going to make some plays and get some turnovers and we're going to win the game. And I think that that philosophy, it works somewhat for Bill Parcells. It worked for others.

I don't know how well it works today. I really don't. Yeah, you're right about all of that. And there were just many more turnovers in general, you know, when you go back to the, you to the 70s and 80s in the NFL. And one of the reasons for that is I know it was important, and I know that teams and coaching staffs understood the importance of protecting the football. But it wasn't really, I don't think, known in the 70s that if you lose the turnover battle,

you're more likely than not to lose the game. You know, I don't know that we'd come that far at that point and really getting into, you know, key statistical categories in numbers in football. Because there were games, I remember, where you'd have each team committing five, six turnovers. It was not totally uncommon to have a double-digit turnover game in aggregate between both teams. You never see that anymore, ever. No, no.

The premium is protecting the football. And, you know, the game has evolved in a way that that's the way it's place. late today, but the games that we watched as kids, we never thought about these things. We never thought about all these different statistical categories. Whoever won the game? You know, Richie Pettibone's first game is a redskin, and he was into his 30s. He would try to control his weight, but he really didn't do a great job. But he was an overweight safety.

He had three interceptions. In a game. Because he would go to the place where the ball was supposed to be. And he'd wait for it. Yeah. Yeah, the other thing, too, is just how imprecise the sport was. Sports in general, you know, you didn't have tenths of seconds of a clock. You know, if you go back, I mean, this is actually a fun thing to do for football fans,

like to go to YouTube and watch a game from the 1970s. Watch the clock, and first of all, the clock's not even up on the screen. The score isn't either. So you have to wait for a commercial to get the kairon of the score and the clock. But if you get to the final two minutes and they've got the clock, watch the coach screaming for time out, and then watch another seven seconds run off the clock before the referee, you know, says, all right, I acknowledge that you've just asked for a timeout. They don't go, they didn't go back and put the time back on the clock. You know, it was very, it was not precise at all back then.

And you know what? We didn't care. We did not care. No replay, no tenths of seconds. And now everything is so, so precise. It's got to be perfect. Anyway, all right, you have anything else for me? No, I always enjoy talking to, though.

And I'll up at the Terps. Now, Tom wrote a column. Our buddy Tom doesn't go to many Maryland games, but he came away from the Purdue games. He's got them in the Sweet 16. Do you buy that? Yeah, I think he was on with me yesterday, and he was really blown away, impressed with seeing them for the first time this year up

close. I mean, Aaron knows this. I mean, going back to, you know, November, December, I thought they had the talent to be a second weekend team this year, and I was going to be disappointed if the team didn't develop into that kind of a threat. And they have. They are unique in that they've got two bigs, not one. Most teams don't even have one. They've got two. Both of them are really good players and they're versatile. They've got a point guard. They've got shooters, and they will defend. You know, matchups are everything when we get to a one-and-done tournament, but if they get a good draw, not a great draw, but a good draw, there isn't anybody they can't beat.

I mean, I think it's, I said this to Aaron yesterday and Tommy. I think this is the best Maryland team we've seen since 2010, the Vasquez Senior Year team, which really was a team very close, very close to going to a final four, if not for Cory Lucius. you know, in a buzzer-beater. Would it be blasphemy to say that Smith and Fernandez are as close to Baxter and Wilcox as anything they've had since the national championship? Yeah, Fernando.

No, not at all. In fact, talent-wise, these are two Locke-N-B-A players, whereas Wilcox was the Locke-N-B-A player. You knew that the first time you saw Wilcox his freshman year that he wasn't lasting four years. And I think last year, even though he was raw early, if you saw Bruno Fernando up close, you knew he was going to be in the NBA. You knew he was going to be in the NBA. And Jalen Smith is so skilled for a size. Now, I don't think he should go this year. I think Bruno Fernando hopefully taught him a lesson that if he comes back and he plays next year and he makes the jump that Bruno made from last year to this year, that he's a potential lottery pick in the

20-20 draft, Jalen Smith is. Bruno's the lottery pick this year, although, you know, the mocks are all over the place with him. I'd be surprised by the time we get to June if he's not a top 15, worst-case, top 20 pick. Yeah, I mean, a lot of it depends on the camps and, you know, all the things that, look at how they lost their top player from last year. The guy with the Hawks was named. Yeah, Kevin Herder.

You heard her, yeah. I mean, I didn't think he was a pro the first time I saw him. But at this point, the last year, one year ago today, no one would have said Kevin Herger's going pro and he's going to be a top, you know, 20 pick. But that's how quickly some of these things change. By the way, the comparison to 2002, that's the comparison or the bigs. This is a better duo talent-wise than Baxter and Wilcox. Obviously, they're not that accomplished yet. But the big difference in the two teams is they had Maryland's all-time, you know, well, one of the top two all-time players.

players. And bias to me is one, but Dixon's two, and then you drop off from there. You know, Juan Dixon was a killer and was a great college basketball player, and Steve Blake was too. But I like him. Well, Drew, Drew Nicholas on this team would be a starter and would have, you know, 13, 14 points a game. So he was the third guard on that team. But I'll tell you, Andy, there's the Maryland's got pros on this team, and Wiggins is going to be a pro. Like this time next year, Wiggins is going to, next year Wiggins is going to average 17, 18 a game. And, you know, he's going to end up blowing up in being a pro. He'll be, he'll be drafted.

They've just got, they got a lot of talent on this team. This is Turgeon's best team. I don't even think it's debatable anymore. And I think Maryland fans will be very disappointed if they're not playing in the second weekend of this tournament in March. I mean, before we get to then, I mean, They got a shot to make a run here at the end of the year and potentially contend for a Big Ten title. Yeah, which would be cool. They, you know, the team that got all the hype was mellow and stone, but obviously there were many issues behind the scenes. This one looks like it's a pretty, and Turgie keeps talking about how much he likes this team. I don't remember him talking about that team in the same way.

There were issues with that team, especially with Diamond Stone in particular. The guys that were looking forward to, you know, getting out of school and, and, and, and, and, and, getting drafted. Bruno apparently is a completely different type of kid. He's great. I mean, you're a Maryland basketball fan. I'm a Maryland basketball fan and an alum, and we're watching one of the greatest big men in the history of the program.

I mean, we really are. He's that good. But anyway. Saying something, Big Mellan and Elmore, who are both outstanding, All-American. The best big man in Maryland basketball history is Buck Williams. He's the best. Yeah. Buck Williams was great. Joe Smith was a great big thing. Joe Smith was great, too. He was.

All right, thanks, Andy. By the way, you and Tommy are on later today, right in Chad's spot on 1067. So that starts at 2 o'clock. And then the weekend, our regular 9 o'clock starts on Saturday and Sunday. All right, perfect. We will be tuning in. Thanks. Thanks. Appreciate it. Have a good weekend. Thank you. All right. Thanks to Andy. By the way, are you? betting any AAAF games this weekend? Are there AAF games? Oh, yes, there are. There are. And actually, I think they're all televised. They've staggered him. So there's one Saturday afternoon, one Saturday night, one Sunday afternoon, one Sunday night. I haven't looked, but I think my

strategy for the rest of the season is bet against Christian Hakenberg. He's terrible, isn't he? Even in that league? Is he terrible? Oh, yeah. It was like three for 10 in the first half of his first game or something. I don't know. He's been bad. Do you know, you talk about like just they drop in stock. Remember after the number one pick? The number one pick after, I think it was his sophomore year. He was going to be the number one pick in the draft and then ended up, he was the second round pick. Was he a second round pick or was he a second or early third? One of the two. It was the second day pick. Did you see the story about Kaepernick that he wanted, that the AAF wanted him to play for one of their teams, but he wanted 20 million dollars for a season

to play. I don't know what I think about that, actually. I sort of understand it. Like, he wants to play in the NFL. Right. And he doesn't want to play. I think all of the contracts are like, there were three-year deals.

It's like $600,000 the first year, $800,000 the second year and like $900,000 to third year. I get him not wanting to play for that money. Okay. Don't know about $20 million, though. Yeah. Here it is. Here's the lineup for this weekend.

Two games. Saturday, Salt Lake at Birmingham, Arizona, at Memphis, Orlando at San Antonio, and Atlanta at San Diego on Sunday. Those are the latter two on Sunday. Man, you get some football this weekend if you want to watch it. Yeah. Do me a favor. If there's an on-side kick situation in a fourth and 12, just text me if you're watching it and tell me what network it's on, because I won't even know what network it's on. Is it on CBS Sports Network?

They're on all-sort. They're on like TNT, TBS, NFL Network. Really? Yeah. Doesn't TNT have all the NBA All-Star stuff this weekend? ESPN. I mean, but they might have it on like Saturday afternoon or something like that. Enough about that. Have a great weekend. If you're off Monday, we'll do a podcast Monday. We're not off on Monday. So we'll be in here and we'll do one on Monday. And as far as now, as far as the forecast goes, for those of you interested, I don't think we're getting much snow this weekend. I think the base, the storm that we thought we were going to get is basically going to stay to our south. As of now, of course. this all could change. Have a great weekend.