The Kevin Sheehan Show - Curious About The Kicker Situation

Episode Date: November 28, 2024

Kevin opened with the news that came late yesterday that kicker Austin Seibert was placed on injured reserve with a new groin injury. Kevin talked more about the "Kliff Cliff" narrative on Kingsbury's teams/offenses. He played some of his interview with ESPN's Bill Barnwell from his radio show yesterday. He finished up with a Thanksgiving Day "Smell Test" and remembered Sean Taylor who passed away 17 years ago.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You don't want it. You don't need it, but you're going to get it anyway. The Kevin Sheehan Show. Here's Kevin. Window Nation is the presenting sponsor of this podcast. I thank them from the bottom of my heart for their ongoing support over the years. And I wish everybody out there a happy Thanksgiving. And I'd ask all of you, if you're thinking about new windows,

just give them a chance to come out and give you a free estimate. call them at 86690 Nation or head to windonation.com. I also wish all of you a happy and healthy Thanksgiving and thank you for your support over the years. It's been now six plus years that we've been doing the podcast. We launched it in September of 2018 and there's no chance I'd still be doing this without all of you listening to it and listening to it so regularly. which has been great. And your ratings and reviews, awesome. We've had a bunch of them come in just in the last week. And if you haven't rated or reviewed the show and you don't mind doing it, especially on Apple and Spotify, it's a big help. But happy Thanksgiving to all of you. I hope you have a great holiday. I will have a show out tomorrow. As I mentioned yesterday, and I've already recorded it with Billy Kilmer, going back and remembering 50 years ago tomorrow, the Clint Longley game, probably the most famous Thanksgiving Day game in NFL history. Not probably, it is. It ends up being kind of ranked number one on every NFL Thanksgiving Day game list.

And it's 50 years ago tomorrow that it happened. So I'll have that out pretty early tomorrow. And it'll be short. It'll be an hour or less with Billy Kilmer. I've already recorded the interview with Billy. He was great. He's got a phenomenal memory. We talked about that game, but we talked about other things, too.

And he weighed in on this year's team and Jaden Daniels. So that'll be out tomorrow. By the way, the kicker situation got a lot more interesting yesterday after we recorded the podcast. The team put Austin Cybert on injured reserve. this, of course, following the game on Sunday that we'd all like to forget, including him. He missed a field goal. He missed two extra points. He missed the critical PAT following the miracle touchdown pass to Terry with 21 seconds to go. And he was clearly unable to kick the ball deep into or out of the end zone in a spot in which the last thing you would have been wanting

to do is kick to Turpin to Cavante Turpin. And of course, course we know what the outcome of that was. So just about an hour ago, Dan Quinn in his press conference today prior to practice was asked by Ben Standing about the Cybert situation. Here's how that exchange went. And with the, I guess the kicking situation, I guess one was with Austin Cyber, what was the reason to put him on IR? On the obvious, I guess he's hurt. But then secondly, with regards to the kickoffs, you said the other day, it's not that easy to get touchbacks or kick it out of the end zone. But you guys are like pretty much at the bottom of the league at that.

I'm just wondering how much is that the strategy versus not his bag. Sure. Let's start at the top first. And so regarding the injury. So Austin reported the injury on Monday then and he was evaluated and he's got a groin injury, which is different than what he had previously. And so that'll knock him out for. a few weeks, so that was the decision to put them on to IR.

And then as far as like kicking and kicking off and that, like we do love the cover kick. So there is times when you say, okay, I want to knock it out of the end zone or do that and, you know, create a touchback. And that's what I'm referred to. There's times when you can, you know, and there's also times when you won't be able to do due to weather and wind as that goes. So I hope that answers besides that. It kind of answered the question, not entirely.

Quinn didn't say in that answer that Cyberg wasn't capable of kicking it into or out of the end zone a touchback kick because he didn't have the leg to do it on Sunday. He talked more about the weather, and let's be real here, the weather was not a major factor on Sunday. Maybe there was some wind, but it wasn't a major factor on Sunday. Let me just take a few minutes to delve into this kicker situation, if you don't mind. And the reason I want to do it is I am a little bit suspicious. Maybe suspicious isn't the right way to describe it. Maybe I'm just a little stitious, as Michael Scott would say. No, maybe I'm just curious here.

Intrigued. And I'll start with this, and this is not a big deal, but I'm going to mention it anyway. Dan Quinn, when he answered the question that I just played for you, he was looking at notes. He was looking at prepared notes, which, by the way, is the PR department's responsibility to prepare him for questions that may be asked. And I know I've mentioned this in the last few years, but Washington's PR department is great now. I mean, they do a phenomenal job. Sean and his team are outstanding. it used to be a complete and utter shit show of the highest order. But in the last few years, they have gotten it together.

And they are excellent at what they do. And he had Quinn, they had Quinn prepared for this. But I would just say that if it was a groin injury that landed him on IR, this new injury, wouldn't that be a no need for notes situation? He hurt the groin. happened during the game. It's not good. We put him on IR. So, look, I mean, it's very possible that he was just reading from the notes as a reminder. He's got a lot on his mind. I get it. And, you know, he just wanted to make sure he got groin right.

So we're all on the same page here before I get into a couple of ideas that I have. I just want us all on the same page as it relates to kind of the chronological timeline of events here. Cyber, you know, comes onto the scene week two, seven for seven against the Giants, goes 25 of 27 through the second Giants game, and then has this hip injury, and that keeps him out of the Pittsburgh and Philadelphia games. They sign Zane Gonzalez. He doesn't miss a kick in the Pittsburgh. and Philadelphia games. And the kicking situation has been outstanding all season long since

Cade York missed two kicks in the opener against Tampa Bay. Last week, Cybert was cleared of the hip injury back on Sunday, kicking against Dallas. So that implies, right, that he hurt his groin during the game on Sunday. You know, no way they activated him with a new injury. Of course not. You know, the new injury, the groin, happened during the game, and it was bad enough to land him on injured reserve, they say. I guess it is possible that it happened after they made their inactive list on Sunday and before kickoff, you know, the giant situation in week two. Now, they knew about Graham Gano's injury the day before. They were stupid not to have another kicker up. So I guess it's

possible it happened between inactivs and the actual game beginning, but more likely than not, if indeed he injured his groin badly enough to land him on IR, it happened during the game. So I went back and I watched every single kick and every single kickoff during the game. There is no moment where you say, oh, that's where he got hurt. Now, of course, you know, it's of course entirely possible that he got hurt and it just isn't something you could see visually watching it. But let's add, there was no working on him on the sideline during the game that we know of. There was no sideline report that I know of. If somebody, you know, had heard something and that I didn't, you know, let me know.

But I don't think there was a sideline report of any new injury to, cyber, you know, groin injury. So, you know, if he injured his groin during the game, wouldn't you think that he would have gotten some treatment at some point during the game? You know, it's possibly he didn't tell anybody. I'm wondering when it happened. You know, when did he hurt his groin? He did appear to slip or roll his non-kicking left ankle when he.

missed that first 51-yard field goal at the end of the first quarter. He had already made a field goal, and then he missed that 51-yarder. The first field goal, he made no issues at all. After the second 51-yarder, where it does appear that he may have rolled his ankle a bit, he jogged off the field, didn't show anything resembling in injury. If he got hurt on that kick, and they knew it, I mean, why would they let him kick from 51 yards out with a minute 40 left in the game on second down, right? So I think you almost jump to the 51-yard field goal on second down with a minute 40 left in the game to say there's no way he injured his groin before that kick.

And if he did, then he didn't tell anybody about it because that would have been a bad decision to send him out there with a minute 40 left to kick a field goal to cut the lead from 2717 to 27 to 20 with a hurt groin after he had missed a PAT and had already missed from 51 yards out earlier in the game. Right. So it happened either on that kick or it happened on the onside kick that followed. Or it happened on the extra point that Quinn put him out there to kick after the Terry McClawn miracle touchdown.

Or it happened on the on-side kick after he missed the extra point that Quinn put him out there to kick. Because, again, if he injured his groin and they knew about it, no way do they kick from 51 yards out with a minute 40 to go. Remember, that followed the Turpin return. So, you know, if he had been injured before and they'd. they knew about it, that may explain why he couldn't kick it out of the end zone and Turpin had the kickoff return. But, you know, when it's 2717 and there's a minute 40 left, you're not

putting a compromised kicker out there that's already missed his previous two kicks to kick a 51-yarder. He made that kick. It wasn't pretty. He made that kick. And then they tried the onside kick that followed, and that wasn't the one return for a touchdown. That on-side kick, Dallas then had the ball and Washington used their timeouts, and then they got it back, and Terry scores, and then he goes out there for the extra point. If they knew he was injured on the 51-yard kick or the on-side kick that followed, why would they kick the extra point? They would have gone for two.

I know it's closer, you know, much closer, talking about 32 yards instead of 51 and maybe they felt good about it. But after, and he had made the 51-yarder, so there is that. So it's possible that he injured his groin on the 51-yard kick or the onside kick that followed. And then Quinn felt good about, you know, his health enough for him to kick from much closer on the PAT. You know, there's just a lot there. I think that there are a few possibilities here. Let me present possibility number one. He didn't injure his groin on Sunday.

And they're saying that he injured his groin and putting him on injured reserve because two things. One, they had him kick Sunday and he was totally healthy. and he just had an awful day, you know, which, of course, he did. And it's possible that he went out there healthy, stayed healthy, had an awful day. And because Gonzalez was really good in the two games that he kicked in, and by the way, he has a slightly stronger leg, they just decided that instead of making it look bad for him,

and by the way, because he was a really good kicker before Sunday, 25 of 27 before Sunday. And so they don't want to get rid of them. They don't want to release him. But they just decided we're going to put them on injured reserve to keep them around in case Gonzalez goes bad. We could bring them back at the end of the year. But right now we just feel more comfortable with Gonzalez. Okay?

That would be a possibility if you don't believe the groin injury. The other possibility, if you don't believe the groin injury, is that you know, he didn't kick well because he wasn't totally healthy on Sunday. They brought him back anyway, and it doesn't look good that they brought him back compromised, considering that he, in many ways, cost them the game. So, you know, just throwing out the possibilities. Of course, you know, you just can't put anybody on injured reserve without him, you know, being injured, but maybe, you know, they came up with the groin injury,

or maybe it was still the hip injury. You know, if you don't believe the groin injury, then he was totally healthy, had an awful day, and they decided they don't want him to be the kicker moving forward. But at the same time, they don't want to make him look bad because he was 25 of 27. And in the case, you have to break glass on Gonzalez, you might have a chance to bring him back at the end of the year.

Or he came into the game and wasn't as healthy as it was reported that he was, and you don't want to admit that now because having him in that game compromised cost you the game. You know, it cost you the game and the two missed PATs and the miss field goal, but it really costs you on the kickoff to Turpin.

You know, the other possibility is, of course, the groin injury is real. It did happen. It happened during the game. and either, you know, they didn't know it or they did know it, but they put him out there anyway to kick a 51-yarder, or it happened after the 51-yarder at some point. You know, or, again, maybe it happened right before kickoff, and they knew that it was an issue. But again, if it happened before the 51-yard field goal with a minute 40 left,

then that's a terrible decision, terrible decision to have put him out there. I understood the clock and the timeout situation. We talked about that earlier in the week. I don't know. F fishy. The whole thing's fishy. Cybert, you know, after the game, took full blame for the miss, said it wasn't the snap, and he also indicated that he felt fine,

and he was asked specifically about the hip injury, and he said, quote, that's why I made the decision to play, and here we are, I was fine. but that's about the hip. Quinn said he looked good last week. You know, my guess to all this, I guess in summary, I'll just summarize it, because I'm kind of riffing here, but I am wondering what the hell's going on out there with the kicker situation.

I bet that they just trusted him that, you know, he said he was ready and he hadn't shown any ill effects from the hip during the week. and he'd been great for them all year. And they just said, eh, he's ready to go. And he had a really, really bad day. And the bad day may have been because he wasn't quite ready for that game. And, you know, it was a mistake to call him up for that game.

And now, you know, after watching what happened on Sunday, and by the way, knowing that, you know, if you have to kick it out of the end zone. We need somebody that can do that because, you know, you look at what they have coming up. Jaquan Jackson is the returner for the Titans. He averages 26.6 yards per return on kickoffs. They have the Saints coming off the by week. Taysam Hill isn't their regular kickoff returner, Rashid Chaheed is, but he's out for the year. So they've used Taysam Hill a few times. He's dangerous as a returner. You know, they're going to have to face Dallas again at the end of the year.

You know, I think that they just, they trusted him, they brought him back. It was really bad. They got another guy that they trust as much and even more so on kickoffs and they handled it this way. That's my guess. All right. I've got more on the show today coming up. It's just me solo today.

Everybody's traveling. You know, you don't want to bother people on the day before thanks. So up next, I'm going to talk about the cliff effect again. We talked a little bit about it yesterday on the show, but I'm going to play for you what Bill Barnwell from ESPN told me on radio yesterday. I want you to hear it because he did the homework on this thing. I've got a smell test as well for the three Thanksgiving Day games tomorrow. So that and a lot more after these words from a few of our sponsors.

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Restrictions apply. See website for full details and important safety information. Is there anything better when you're a football fan than this time of year? It seems like there are games on around the clock. It's a changing time of year. The weather gets chillier. The leaves start to change color. And then those leaves, they fall. from those trees, and they clog up your gutters. Don't miss the game because you're climbing a ladder to clean out your gutters. You know, whether you're tired of unclogging gutters or you don't even know what your gutters look like, it's time for a permanent solution you can depend on with leaf filter. Right now, you can save up to 30% off your entire purchase at leaffilter.com slash Kevin. I'm not a big do-it-yourself guy, in part because doing something wrong like cleaning

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Act now before the offer ends. Schedule your fast in-home free estimate right now at 86690 Nation or head towindonation.com. So I wanted to play something for you guys. I talked about it a little bit yesterday on the show with Tommy. I had Bill Barnwell from ESPN on the radio. show yesterday. And I had him on because he had written extensively the other day about the Cliff Kingsbury, you know, fade, you know, the start fast, fade late narrative, which by the way, from the standpoint of the jobs that he's had as a head coach at Texas Tech and with the Cardinals

in the NFL, it is indisputably true that every single one of his teams started with a great record and ended with a poor record. First half of the season, great record, second half of the season, a big decline. But the narrative sort of took on a life of its own to include that the reason that his teams faded late when he was a head coach were because of his offenses getting figured out.

And I've been saying back to, you know, the moment they hired him, that this narrative may be a little bit, you know, inaccurate in that defenses on the teams that he coached really fell apart in the second half of the season, that there were some key injuries along the way as well. Well, you know, Bill Barnwell, who writes these very long, in-depth, very well-researched pieces for ESPN, he did the homework. He went in to each one of these seasons and looked at them in detail to sort of dispel or prove that Cliff's offenses fell off in the second half of the season. And so I wanted you to hear that portion of my

conversation with him, which is about five to six minutes long. Here it is. You went and you did the homework per usual, Bill, because this is, you do this so well. So tell everybody what you learned about the, you know, the narrative of Cliff Kingsbury's offenses, okay, start fast, fade late. Yeah, okay, so let's split this up a little bit. Let's start with the college side of things because I've seen a lot of evidence people saying, hey, it's not just a Cardinals thing, it's also go back to Texas Tech, and he's had problems there. Well, yes, the offense has declined from the first half of the season to the second half of the season, the records declines. But if you pay attention to college football, you can probably think about why that might

be the case. It's scheduling. First half of the year, Texas Tech was playing, you know, all these small schools in Texas, the San Houston, the Uteps, you know, schools they were dropping 60 on, and they weren't playing their Big 12 schedule. And when you got the second half of the year, they were playing all big 12 teams. So understandably, their record got worse, and they were scoring fewer points. When I take that out, when you take out the, you know, the independent teams, the D2 teams,

all that stuff. There is an effect. They were worse in the second half, but it was mostly the defense. The offense declined by about two points per game, defense declined by 10 points per game, which makes sense. You're playing tougher competition, and that was never a school. That was investing a lot on the defensive side of the football. They were playing at a crazy pace, probably more defensive injuries,

all reasons to think, okay, there might be factors here, but it's not like kids are figuring out Cliff Kingsbury scheme in the second half of his seasons in Texas Tech. And then you go to Arizona, go to the Cardinals. Okay, first year. record did decline in the second half, but the offense got better. They scored more points for a game. That's kind of a tough argument.

Next couple years, one year you have Kylo-Merry, Terr's ACL. So Kyler Murray misses basically the entire second half of the season. I think he played one full game, second half of the year. Another year, D'Andre Hopkins, their star receiver, plays the entire first half of the season. They get that Hail Mary to beat the bills. Kyle is an MVP favorite. Yeah, yeah, DeAndjadry Hopkins plays two games the rest of the way, I believe, or one in the half games the rest of the way.

He's not healthy. or your best player maybe on offense or defense the second half of the season there. So could you say Cliff Kingsbury is maybe putting his players at risk? I don't think I'm qualified to say. But what I can say is, do I think there's something about Cliff Kingsbury's scheme? You know, the offense he's running that people are figuring out? I don't think so. And the other thing I would say, Kevin, this is also comes into play here when it comes to the evaluation process.

Okay, let's say Cliff Kingsbury was running a very simple scheme that teams were able to figure out. It was really easy. first half of the year he's great. Okay, Team Serbian out second half of the year he struggles. Okay, why would they be good the first half of the following year? It felt like you forget what the tape is. It felt like, you know, it felt like you suddenly like, oh, you're not a men in black situation, you know, wipe your memory.

Like all the stuff you learn from the first half of the tape, you would still have. So I don't think Cliff is, you know, bringing in a brand new offense, the first half each year. You're making changes, of course, during the off season. You're adding some wrinkles here and there. But it's just tough to me to find a through line that makes sense. sense here in terms of Cliff Kingsbury scheme. There's other factors here, I think, that explain why there's been a second half to climb.

Yeah, that's really well done. And the last point, such a good one. If he was so predictable and so easy to figure out in the second half of seasons, why didn't that carry over to the first part of the next season? Why didn't they learn from the previous seasons? And just to give even more detail to the Texas Tech argument, which you wrote about, you know, in the second halves of seasons after they had played the Sam Houston's and the U-Teps and the Stephen F. Austens and hung, you know, 59, 69, et cetera on them to really build up,

you know, incredible offensive-looking numbers early in the year. What I noticed immediately when I looked at Texas Tech is, I mean, they were given up, like you pointed out, they gave up 32.4 points per contest defensively in the first half of his seasons and 41.9 points per game afterward. And so, by the way, that just by definition means your offense isn't getting the same number of opportunities, which is one of the reasons your scoring might be down as well. But their offenses never slowed down or got figured out. Their defenses, I mean, they gave up 82 in a game to TCU. you and 70, you know, in 60s, regularly in some of those big 12 games.

But I think the injuries are really a big part of the Arizona narrative, for sure. Yeah. And again, like, I don't want to rule anything out here. If you want to say Cliff as a smaller playbook than other teams, or maybe he's slow to react to other teams, or maybe he doesn't have the, you know, the plan Bs, the plan C's other teams have, I'm willing to believe that's a possibility. But I just think this argument of, oh, you know, he gets figured out and it's too simple. I don't, that's just too simplistic of an argument for me.

There's too many holes in that thing. I think, you know, the argument is more than just a table with his records and the points per game. That is just too simplistic of a way to analyze football. And I just don't think it does anyone any justice, including this year's commanders. Bill Barnwell from radio with me yesterday. He was excellent. And I would just mention that even when you disprove,

a past narrative, it doesn't mean that it's, you know, predictive of the future. Like, you know, this could become a self-fulfilling prophecy with Kingsbury. There's nothing that says that his offenses won't get figured out at the NFL level starting this year with him as an offensive coordinator. But I think it is important for everybody to understand because I think people have gotten carried away with this. So many of you have, you know, mentioned this. over and over again. Yes, it's true. His team's records were worse in the second half of the season than they were in the first half of the season. But no, it wasn't because of people figuring out his offenses. And I thought the other point that Barnwell made just, you know, if they figured it out once, why didn't they employ those same strategies at the beginning of the following seasons? Anyway, good job by him. Real quickly, Washington announced, Quinn announced today that Lattimore was practicing today. So by the time you listen to this, you may find out more about Lattimore in the day that he had because we'll get the first injury report later today. He also mentioned that Brian Robinson Jr. was going to practice. That's good news. They did resign Chris Rodriguez yesterday. Andrew Wiley and Austin Echler are in concussion protocol.

I'm expecting Echler to be out. I mean, based on him being knocked out, you know, on that kickoff return on Sunday, I'm expecting that this being the second concussion of the year that Echler may be out. Echler's been phenomenal for this team. And did not have him maybe for a period of time moving forward, if that's how it works out, will be hurtful to this offense. You know, not having a healthy Andrew Wiley could be hurtful. Not having Brian Robinson Jr.

Healthy will be hurtful. Let's hope Brian Robinson Jr. is back. You know, I mentioned something to Tommy yesterday. I think I did. That when we start talking in the offseason about needs, I think running back one is going to be in the conversation. Not because I don't believe in Brian Robinson Jr. As a running back one as an RB1, I do.

But his availability has been, you know, iffy at times. And he's not an elite back. He's a good back. He's not an elite back. And despite sort of the minimization, if you will, of the position in recent years, if you find the Saquan Barclay of the world or the Derek Henry or the Christian McCaffrey, majorly impactful. So that could be a need. Real quickly on the Tennessee game Sunday, and I'll have much more on this on Friday's show. they are a five and a half point favorite over the Titans Sunday for a reason. Tennessee is much better than Dallas's.

They were an 11 point favorite over the Cowboys. Sure, losing to the Cowboys had something to do with the point spread, as did Tennessee upsetting Houston on the road. But I told you last week that Tennessee was a much different opponent than Dallas. They are very good defensively. They are number two in the league, traditional yards allowed. that statistic, but they're number two in the league in defense behind Philadelphia. They're number 10 in DVOA. So their top 10 defense. Jeffrey Simmons is a monster, you know him. Harold Landry,

big time. They are well coached defensively, and while they have, yes, a three and eight record, the reason for their three and eight record is their quarterback in turnovers. They are next to last in turnover margin at minus 12. The Raiders, by the way, are minus 17. They're next to last in giveaways. They've turned the ball over 21 times. The Raiders have turned it over 22 times. This is the reason more than any other that they are a 3 and 8 football team because they're not lacking in talent. They are lacking at the quarterback position primarily where Will Levis in his second year is a bit of a turnover machine. Now, he's played better here in recent weeks, and he does have a huge arm. I mean, he's a big dude, and he can move around, but he's not

accurate, and he's a bad decision maker. But they have good defense, they've got a running game with Tony Pollard, and if they don't turn the ball over, and Washington's not been a team that's taken it away a lot, they're going to be in this game. And that's why Washington at home, a 7 and 5 football team is just a 5.5 point favorite over a 3 and 8 football team. Keep in mind, they're coached by Brian Callahan, his father, Bill Callahan. We know Coach Callahan. Bill Callahan has always been a phenomenal offensive line coach, and he is his son's offensive line coach. I'm sure he wouldn't mind coming back to D.C. and getting a win. Randy Jordan is the running backs coach. after being here for years, he's coaching Tony Pollard and that group in Tennessee.

This is going to be a dog fight. I hope I'm wrong like I was about the Dallas game, but this is going to be a battle, and the odds makers see it that way. Tennessee, you know, maybe they get a little bit big for their britches after the big upset win in Houston, which, by the way, required Santos to miss a 28-yard, not Santos, Fairbairn to miss a 28-yard field goal with under two minutes to go that would have tied the game. Doesn't mean Tennessee wouldn't have won after that. But yeah, this is a battle.

And this is a bit of a code red game for Washington, right? I mean, a four-game losing skid heading into the buy week would not feel good at all. And I view this as, you know, a have-to-have game. It's not a should-win game. It's not a, you know, get-right game. That was the one they failed in on Sunday against Dallas. But man, this is a really need to get game because right now, as far as the playoffs go, I'll take a minute here just to update everybody if you don't know.

Washington's essentially in a battle with four NFC West teams and maybe one to two NFC South teams for the seven seed in the NFC playoffs as a wild card. Philadelphia has got a three-game lead in the lost column on Washington, and they still have the Giants, Cowboys, and Panthers at home. Yeah, they play Pittsburgh, they play Baltimore, and they play Washington. But if they get three more wins, that's 12. Washington's not getting 12. They're not going to win five out of the last six.

At least as we view it right now, I view it right now. I want them to get on a roll again, and there are certainly games that on paper a few weeks ago, would say, yeah, that's going to be a win. But right now, you don't feel as strongly about it. But they're really battling for the seven seed. And I say the seven seed, because the two teams in the NFC North that don't win the division, let's assume it's Detroit and Minnesota and Green Bay are next, they're likely to snag the five and the six seed.

So it's Washington. It's three teams in the NFC West that don't win the division. it's a team or two in the NFC South that don't win the division there because Tampa's coming. New Orleans, the game that looked like a few weeks ago, that should be a win at the Superdome. Well, the Saints have won two in a row. They have the Rams at home Sunday and then they play the Giants.

What if they won two in a row? And they were sitting there at six and seven with Washington coming to the Superdome on December 15th. That would be a high-stakes wild card ramification. game. So, you know how these schedules go. You can't, you know, the Saints game looked easy a few weeks ago. It may not be when we get there. Tennessee is huge, man. You got to get it to get to eight and five. Ten wins, I think is good enough for the seven seed. Nine wins, you're in a battle and probably in a tie-breaking situation with one or two other teams. Root for Arizona to not

win the division because that's the one team right now you have a head to head against. I haven't gone deep into the other tiebreaker tie breaking criteria. We can do that a little bit later in the season. All right. Let's finish up with a Thanksgiving Day smell test and remembering Sean Taylor, who passed away 17 years ago today. We'll get to that after these words from a few of our sponsors. Euro step around that hot take and make a play today with Robin Hood. With a 3% boost on your annual IRA contributions with Robin Hood gold, your money starts working for you.

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Kevin looks where the John Q Public is putting their cash and does the opposite. It's time for the smell test. This is a first time on a smell test on a Wednesday prior to Thanksgiving. I'm going to be giving you six selections on 3,000. three games. Three sides and three totals coming up in this smell test. Of course, Friday show will have the rest of the weekend's picks, including some of the Friday college games. And there's a Friday pro game as well, the Black Friday game between the Chiefs and the Raiders. The smell test, as always, is presented by our good friends at My Booky. When you use my promo code, Kevin D.C.,

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But don't forget, tomorrow, Thanksgiving Day, this is a reason to just sign up at MyBooky right now. And anytime Devon A-Chain touchdown, tomorrow night's Dolphins Packers game. If it happens, you win. If it doesn't, you don't lose. All right, five straight winning weekends with the smell test. Last week was seven and six. And again, the rest of the weekend's picks will be on Friday's show.

This is for tomorrow only. And it's just the NFL games. There is a college game tomorrow, but the picks are all on the three NFL games. And this is a first time. The public loves overs and they love favorites on standalone games. You know, Monday night games, Thursday night games, Sunday night games, Thanksgiving Day games. I went back and looked. The last six Thanksgiving Day games have all gone over the total.

Public pounded the man, the last few Thanksgiving's playing totals. I'll take all three unders. I'll take under 49 in the Chicago Detroit game tomorrow. I'll take under 37 in the Dallas Giant game. 37 is the number there. And under 48 in the Miami Green Bay game. Three unders tomorrow. Under 49, Chicago, Detroit.

Under 37 Giants Cowboys. Under 48, Dolphins Packers tomorrow night. And then, because the public's loaded up, not only on the overs tomorrow, but on all the favorites, I'll take all of the dogs. I'll take Chicago plus the 10 against the lions. I'll take the Giants plus the three and a half against the Cowboys. And I'll take the dolphins tomorrow night plus the three against the Packers. Six plays on Thanksgiving Day.

All right, let's finish up with this being November 27. It's a day that if you are connected at all to this fan base, you know the significance of this date. You don't have to be reminded that now 17 years ago, Sean Taylor passed away, shot in his home by intruders, fought like hell, but eventually succumbed on November 27, 2007, and died at 24 years old. An unspeakable tragedy. one that if you live through it as a fan, I live through it as not only a fan, but as a broadcaster, and remember so many of those hours

after we first got report of him being shot until the moment that he passed away. But you're just, you know, you're reminded of so many things, the football part, a big part of it, but that, you know, he had a fiancé that lost her soon-to-be husband, And he had a daughter, Jackie, who, you know, recently as a University of North Carolina volleyball player, it's amazing to see the pictures of her.

She wears number 21 in honor of her father. But she lost a father, you know, a community in multiple locations, multiple communities in South Florida and here in Washington lost, you know, a friend. It was terrible. And all of those things are the human part. of the tragedy, the loss associated with the tragedy. And we all know what we lost in terms of what he was on the verge of becoming. It is interesting, and I think I mention this every time we have in-depth conversations about Sean Taylor, that he was very polarizing in the first few years of his career.

You know, he wasn't a disciplined player those first few years. He would overrun guys. He would go for the big hit and miss. There was that incident with Gibbs where Gibbs spoke out loud that he had been trying to reach Sean and just couldn't get called back by Sean during the offseason. But man, when he got to year three and year four, especially year four, which was the year that he passed away in 2007, he had become already a great player. You know, he was on his way to his second Pro Bowl in 2007.

he was on his way to an all-pro spot. He ended up making all-pro second team, even though he obviously didn't complete that season. But he was hitting that moment in his career where it was the beginning of his prime years. It was his fourth year in the NFL. He had five interceptions. He had already proven himself to be at 6-2-2-35-2-40

to be the safety in the league. that was the biggest hitter and had the greatest range. He was incredible as that deep center field safety in covering that field. I remember that Green Bay game, which was one of his last games in 2007 where he had two interceptions of Brett Farv, and it could have been like three or four in that game that they ended up losing. But he was entering the prime years of his career. And there is no question in my mind.

And when I get into this debate with some of you who say, no, he wasn't consistent enough, he wasn't disciplined enough. You're talking about his first two years in the league. Okay, you're not talking about 2006 and then 2007. He had been coached up well by Greg Williams. Ryan Clark was a significant factor in his development playing side by side with him. There were other players, certainly his University of Miami crew with Clinton and Santana, et cetera. He was great in 2007.

He was a pro bowler and only played in nine games. He was a second team all pro and only played in nine games. He was leading the league in interceptions. He was a big hitter. He was disciplined then. And we missed what would have been. you know, age 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, you know, the next six, seven years of his career, which would have been prime years, that I feel confident, you know, assuming health on the field,

that he would have been a Hall of Fame safety and one of the greatest in the history of the franchise. My God, what a physical freak he was. to be that big and to run the way he ran, and he had such great instincts. We remember Sean Taylor every year on November 27th. It doesn't seem like 17 years, but it has been. All right, that's it. Happy Thanksgiving again to you all.

Thanks so much for the support. I'll be back tomorrow with the show on the Clint Longley game with Billy Kilmer, and then I'll have a show Friday out, I think, reasonable time. I'll put the smell test picks up on Friday on Twitter as well in case you get the show late. But have a great holiday. Stay safe. Five. James Jones, the intended receiver, it is intercepted by Sean Taylor. Watch Sean Taylor. I mean, he is so deep.

It's amazing that he was able to, from where he was, get back, because when Brett Farr have turned down on loose, it looked like it was going to be an easy completion and probably a touchdown there to James Jones and Sean Taylor does a great job of keeping his speed in and showing you the range that he has there from center field.