The Kevin Sheehan Show - Daron Payne & Breaking Commanders FA News

Episode Date: March 13, 2023

Kevin with quick reaction to the moves Washington has made so far today. Then it's Cooley and Kevin on the surprising Daron Payne contract extension from over the weekend. They also talked in-depth about the Bears' trading of the #1 overall pick to the Panthers on Friday. Plenty more from Cooley including thoughts on Chase Young's situation. Kevin talked Terps and NCAA Tournament. And then J.I. Halsell/Salary Cap Expert jumped on to talk about the Daron Payne deal and more.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I was just about to get the show out to all of you. Coolies on the show today. You're going to hear it coming up. J.I. Hallsells on the show. You're going to hear that. I've got thoughts on the bracket, on the Terps, all of that coming up here in a minute or so. But just as I was about to publish and get the show out to you,

there was lots of news related to Washington as this legal tampering period for free agency is underway. Let me just quickly summarize everything. There's big NFL news, and I'll get to a lot of this stuff. on tomorrow's show. But Washington's made three moves as of now. Number one, they've re-signed cornerback Danny Johnson, two years, $2.75 million, according to reports. Look, they love Danny Johnson. I like Danny Johnson. I think Danny Johnson's played well. They have a need for depth at corner. He's a good fourth or fifth corner. My God, when he gets done, by the way, he will have worn more jerseys, different numbers, than any player.

in team history. It seems like he gets cut and every time he gets cut and comes back, somebody else has the jersey number that he had worn the year before. But they've re-signed Danny Johnson, two years, $2.75 million depth at corner. They have also signed Andrew Wiley to a three-year $24 million deal. Andrew Wiley played for the Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs. He was their starting right tackle in the Super Bowl. This is an Eric Bianami special. The chiefs wanted Wiley. They have gone out and replaced him with another big deal. But Wiley comes to Washington because of Eric B. Enemy. He plays tackle. He can also play guard. What will be interesting about Wiley is to see how they shake out the Cosmi Andrew Wiley situation.

Look, we knew that they needed offensive linemen. Wiley's familiar with the B. Enemy system. Wiley played at not a super high level, had a PFF grade right around average for 2022, but he's versatile. Is Cosmey the guard, is Wiley the tackle, or is it vice versa? Or are they both tackles or are they both guards? We shall see. But Andrew Wiley, three-year, $24 million, $8 million guaranteed. And then the last player that Washington has reportedly come to. terms with is Giants offensive linemen center, really, Nick Gates. If you remember, Gates was

the player who fractured his fibula against Washington back in 2021 had many surgeries and missed some of this year and then played center for the Giants down the stretch and into their playoff games. Look, they're signing him to replace Chase Rue. I don't think this is a backup center spot. It's a three-year deal reportedly worth $18 million. Nick Gates had a PFF grade this year at 60, which is average for PFF. But look, Washington's got a need for offensive linemen that can play, they can come in and start. And they just got, I think, on the first day of legal tampering, two starters in Gates and in Wiley.

Wiley definitely a starter, and I would imagine Gates is as well. So those are the moves. There are other NFL moves. By the way, Philadelphia loses Javon Hargrave to the 49ers. I mean, like they need more defensive help. But the Eagles losing some key pieces. And by the way, he gets a little bit less than Duran Payne. He's also a little bit older.

He is approaching 30, if not 30 already. Anyway, all right, now let me get to the show. which will feature, yes, not teasing it, but Chris Cooley will be with me from the jump. 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. The show today presented by MyBooky, go to MyBooky.orgie.

Use my promo code, Kevin, D.C. All you have to do is wager your deposit amount one time and you're eligible to cash out immediately. It's perfect for March Madness. and my bookie has everything you need for betting these March Madness NCAA tournament games. They've got a $150,000 March Madness bracket that you can participate in. And then, of course, they've got all the point spreads on all of the first round games. Coolies, Utah State team is a two-point favorite as a 10-seat over Missouri.

Maryland right now is a two-point underdog against West Virginia in what will be the first game. of the first round of the tournament Thursday at 1215 in Birmingham, Alabama. Virginia is a five and a half point favorite against Furman and Howard's a 21 point underdog against Kansas. You can find all of your March Madness needs at my bookie.ag. Use my promo code, Kevin D.C. Cooney is with us today, and I'm excited about that. I'm not teasing that he's coming up or that he's going to be with us tomorrow. He's with us right now.

And we're going to talk a lot of football from over the weekend. I have no idea what he's followed and what he hasn't followed. Don't forget to follow us on Apple and on Spotify. Yeah, there's a follow button in the upper right-hand corner on Apple Podcasts. If you can follow us, that is helpful. Rating and reviewing us is helpful. and then on Spotify, that follow button is on the left-hand side of your podcast screen, left-middle-ish. So if you can follow us, that's super helpful as well.

How'd the trappers do Northwest Wyoming Junior College in the Nationals in, was it Council Cliffs, Iowa or something like that? Council Bluffs? Council Bluffs. It's just across the Missouri from Omaha. It's just across, no, Missouri? Council Bluffs Missouri or is it Council Bluffs Iowa? It's just across the Missouri River. Oh, oh, okay, got it.

From Omaha, Nebraska. No your geography. Well, you said, you said, I thought you were saying into Missouri. And I was like, no, I don't think Nebraska actually borders Missouri. I don't think it does. Pretty sure it doesn't. No. It's kind of close.

It's kind of close. Actually, I'm pulling up a map right now. I stand corrected. Does it border it on the southern end? Yeah, on the very south-eastern end, it borders Missouri, the upper northwest portion of Missouri. I got to know my geography. Omaha's actually really close.

It's right there on the bottom. border of Iowa and Nebraska, and it's not that far away south. I mean, I would guess that this is probably 60 miles to the Missouri border. Stan corrected. How did you guys make out? We did well. We had four All-Americans. We had one national champion. He was awesome. He didn't lose a match out of year. He's from Uzbekistan. I was going to say, was it the Uzbekistani? Aziz. He was terrific.

It was really cool. You know, we went through the whole tournament. We ended up 10th as a team, which is really good for us. This is kind of a two years of the program's been rebuilding a lot, and we'll be good next year. But, yeah, we, the champ, Aziz, it was so much fun to go through the tournament, and he's so unbelievably talented as a wrestler. He just flows. A lot of times you think of just this brute strength,

and people try to wrestle him that way, but he's just naturally fluid, and he's quick and smooth. What's his weight class? 174. And, you know, he got to the finals, and it's cool. They set up, the tournament's got 10 mats, and then you get to the finals, and they've limited it down.

They built up a, stage and it's one mat and so coach and I get to go stand out there on the stage with disease and it's lit and there's a big stream that shows it all it was a lot of fun and it came down to he was losing

by one, four to three nine seconds left and he got up and the guy wrestling him is holding his ankle which is in college wrestling for sure in high school as well

but they don't call it much in high school. If you're not trying to take him back down or make a move, you can't just hold the ankle for more than five seconds. It's stalling. And the guy he's wrestling, had a stalling warning and a stalling point, so a stalling's another point. As he's got up with six seconds left,

and he's holding his ankle. He doesn't get away. He's very close at the end of getting the weight. You match in. You throw a challenge brick. We had two challenges through the tournament. If you lose a challenge, you lose your card, just like football. We had won one challenge.

We had two challenges going into the final. We throw the challenge. They go and they look at it forever. And at first, like, I mean, we're watching the match. It's hard to know. It felt like five seconds. And so about eight minutes go by, and they come back, and they hand us our challenge card back, and we go to overtime.

and he takes him down in about 20 seconds and overtime, and he won. So really, really cool there. Our heavyweight ended up taking fifth, the guy that I've been wrestling with at Todd. One of the kids that got attacked by a grizzly bear, which, by the way, the story from that, the ESPN just did an article on our kids that were part of the bear attack, and it's an ESPN the magazine, which is now only online. You can read their whole story in ESPN the magazine, and it's a great story. Are they going to come on the podcast?

Yeah, he will come on the podcast. Okay. Oh, here's this story. They'd only wrestled, he'd only wrestled five matches coming back this year. And he'd lost four of the five matches, but he won one at regionals, and when you go through the regional tournament, there's about six wild cards that your region gets to pick. The coaches in your region get a pick,

and we got him in as a wild card because he'd been an all-American before. By the way, they both look great. Yeah, yeah, they're doing great. Anyway, he got to the semifinal and was actually winning 8-1 to the semi-final. finals and had the kid pinned and they didn't call it and it was close I mean then he ended up I think I don't know he got tired he's just on a really a really good kid that he's against there and kid was a kid was a mauler I heard he ended up he ended up giving an 8 to 1 lead up yeah but he ended up being fifth which is an all-American as well so we had we did well um there's a lot of

Did you go to the Harris? My voice is lost because last weekend we had a little-kid wrestling tournament. I'm coaching the little kids as well. My kids are both wrestling. My daughter and son are both wrestling. So it's funny, trying to scream at little kids so they can hear you in there on the mat. I mean, you're not screaming at them, but you're... Sloan is wrestling?

I'm yelling the whole time. My daughter, yeah, I'm Sloan is wrestling. Wow. You know, it's fun. This is the first year that... The junior college had the girls as a part of the national tournament. So there was a girls tournament simultaneously running with our tournament. So they were on the match at the same time.

And the finals was a men's match and then a women's match, and then a men's match, then a men's match, then a women's match. It was awesome. It's great wrestling. It's so much fun to see the young women really are good wrestlers and really are going to help the sport a ton. So it's awesome. It's growing fast.

And it's a huge part in credit too. the women that are wrestling. They're doing a great job. Did you get to Harrah's and counsel, Bluffs, and Gamble a little bit? No, I didn't. We were busy with the kids. I was the van driver. I drove the van everywhere, which is hysterical. You stayed in Omaha. You liked Omaha, didn't you? Yeah, we did. I liked Omaha. It was a fun city. I'd never been to Omaha. So it was a really clean town, cool place to be, cool place to have a tournament. And it was good.

We're back. We're recruiting, man. I'm making recruiting calls. I'm calling kids. I'm watching wrestling matches, high school wrestling matches on the internet. So at this event, you said you finished 10th. How many teams were there? Because you guys were ranked in the top 10 in the country.

64. Okay. Secondly, do you get recognized at this thing? Do people come up to you and try to talk football with you? Not much. Okay. No, I'm just as assistant coach, and we don't say, I don't, it's not really advertised. A few coaches, I think, by the end, you know.

Most times I stand up and they go, wow, you're a big boy. You're a big dude. Yeah. Or where do you wrestle? Hey, where did you wrestle? Logan High School. somebody figured it out though I would imagine

I don't know I'm sure I'm sure by next year I'm sure most people will figure it out and have an idea I mean nobody came up to you and said I love you on Sheehan's podcast did they not a single soul yeah that's a shocker um as you've been talking I've been listening but I've also been checking out this whole area of the country I've been

been to Omaha, but it was a long time ago. And I remember it as you just described it, and you described it to me, I think last week when we talked, as just an incredibly sharp and clean city. I mean, the home of Warren Buffett, Creighton University is in downtown Omaha. Creton's in the tournament. There's six seed. And that area of the country, I didn't realize Council Bluffs, Iowa was literally part of the metro area. I mean, Council Bluffs, Iowa is right over, as describe the Missouri River, which is, correct me if I'm wrong, because I think you told me this once. It's one of the only rivers that runs south to north. The Missouri River does not run south to north.

I thought you told me that. I told you about a river in Montana that we fished that a year ago that does. So I'm thinking of something else. Okay. The Missouri River doesn't flow south to north. Now the Missouri River flows north to south, which then goes into the Mississippi River and out the Gulf of Mexico. Right. Okay, and it starts somewhere in Colorado maybe?

The Missouri River? Yeah. Starts in Montana. Got it. Okay. Yellowstone River flows into Missouri River. I'm following the Missouri right now on the map. Yeah.

It goes all the way to Montana. It starts in Montana. Yeah. Way up there in Montana. Yeah. All right. What have you been following, if anything? I've been watching a lot of videos on drywalling and how you skip trial.

I've been following quite a bit of spray foam insulation on Facebook. There's a great spray foam insulation. I've been following along with the stuff you want. I didn't watch a guy. I meant to watch a guy. We had a wrestling tournament with the kids all weekend. Saturday, I just didn't get to your guy, your quarterback yesterday. I wanted you to watch Anthony Richardson, just the indie combine workout.

We got time. We got time to do it. We got time to do it. We had plenty of time. Friday, you texted me and you said, look, I don't have much time. I have a technician in town helping me with my spray foam trailer. So that was why you didn't come on on Friday, but it's great to have you here. So let me update you on a lot of different things and get your reaction to a lot of different things. First of all, I will get to the NCAA tournament bracket. That is something I will do in the next segment, and then J.I. Hallsell will join us at the end of the show to talk about the Duran Payne contract in more detail. But let me just start with

something that happened after the podcast on Friday that was a massive trade in the NFL, and that was the Bears and Panthers trade, which, the number one overall pick, which Chicago held, to Carolina, for two ones, two-toes, and DJ Moore. So the bears are sticking with Justin Fields, and they get two-ones, two-toes, and DJ Moore. And in reading about this deal, Cooley, basically, there were other teams willing to offer, you know, almost as much as Chicago, even with a better first-round pick. whether it was Indy or Seattle or somebody like that. But they really wanted DJ more. They wanted the proven star wide receiver to go with two ones and two-toes.

And so now Carolina's on the clock at number one, and they'll decide whether or not to take Bryce Young, C.J. Stroud, or there's a lot of discussion out there that they may take Anthony Richardson, number one overall. Or they might trade down. with potentially Houston or maybe even Indy if Richardson's their guy, and they don't think anybody else will take Richardson. But overall, my take is this on the Bears trade.

I think the Bears did pretty well. And one of the reasons I think they did pretty well is that Carolina with a rookie quarterback next year isn't going to be a playoff team. You know, it's very rare that you bring in a rookie quarterback, like a Bryce Young, no matter how great they end up being down the road, and end up being a winning team. So next year, the Bears are going to probably have from Carolina a top 10-ish kind of pick for next year as well. By the way, that's also, you know, the draft with Caleb Williams and Drake May,

if it turns out that Justin Fields isn't the guy. I kind of like that the Bears are sticking with Justin Fields. I'm a big Bryce Young fan, and I think Anthony. Richardson's the most gifted of all these quarterbacks, but also has a massive, you know, bust potential. But I think I like Justin Fields and putting weapons around them and, you know, stockpiling picks, and you still have the number nine picking the draft. The thing the Bears will miss out on is the best defensive player in the draft more likely than not, unless Jalen Carter falls to nine because of what happened at the Combine. And we'll see. But I think the Bears did

pretty well. And I also think Carolina did pretty well because they have to have a quarterback and they don't have one. And now this guarantees that they get one. What do you think of the deal? This may be the first time you're heard of it. No, it's not the first time I've heard of it, but I think it's a great deal for both teams. Because

of what you said, first of all, with Carolina, and it's what we've talked about with a bunch of teams over the last five or six years or ten years, and that's what we've talked about with Washington. you've got to go get your guy and you have to take risk to go get your guy and I'm sure that they know who they want

out of the three guys I'm sure they know where they want to go or they wouldn't have made the trade they didn't I doubt they made the trade to go evaluate the three guys at the number one spot to me that doesn't make sense exactly but if you have the guy that you like and you say this is the kind of guy we want to build around

then you go get him. And that's a risk I think you have to take in the NFL right now. You just can't win without a quarterback. So as the Bears go, yeah, they took Fields two years ago and you've got to find a way to try to build around those guys. I don't think Fields is done. I didn't love Fields coming out. You and I talked about him quite a bit,

but there were enough plays that he made, And there's enough plays that he makes with his legs that you go, okay, we can develop and we can create around this guy. And I think that he can build into a guy that can throw the ball more than he has over the last couple years and understand an offense at a little bit higher level than it seems that he has over the last couple years. But you had to have someone around him. And DJ Moore is a proven dude. What DJ have, like, almost 70 receptions or something last year? With a team with the bad quarterbacks?

I think it may have been more than that. I think it was more than that. I'm going to look it up right now. DJ Moore last year. I know he had a bow load in 201. He had the year before that. He had 63 last year. You're right.

63 last year. And the year before that, he had 93 receptions. And this year, Caroline, obviously, struggled offensively. And had quarterback issues all year long. Even though they were very much in the hunt. They were very much in the hunt, you know, until, I mean, if they had beaten Tampa, I mean, there are two teams in that division. New Orleans and Tampa.

New Orleans and Carolina both had chances to beat Tampa Bay. They had them on the ropes, two touchdown leads, blew them, and that's why Tampa won the division. And I think New Orleans and Carolina both would have either team, but New Orleans in particular, would have given Dallas a better game in the postseason. But whatever. Justin Fields hasn't had anything to work.

No, we haven't had anything to work with. I like Justin Fields. I think I like Bryce Young more in terms of, you know... I like Breisjong more. But I like Justin Fields. I think if you, you know, if they didn't have the first overall pick and they didn't have this option, to me, I wouldn't have really ever thought about like trading up or moving into a position to take somebody other than trying to make it work with Justin Fields.

The guy rushed for 1143 yards last year. I mean, and produced 25 touchdowns. Their issue is he had nobody to throw to, except for that little kid, Mooney, who was pretty good. Now you put DJ Moore. I mean, what does their situation look like? They got Claypool. And Claypool, exactly.

Claypool, Mooney, and Moore. Yeah, now you got some guys. And honestly, that's, If you're going to compare, because they're rushing quarterbacks with Lamar, Baltimore's had a great tight end in Andrews, and they try to get one big-time receiver, but they've never surrounded Lamar with four dudes. And the thing is, is with the rookie quarterback in field,

you can go pay those dudes. Now, the other side is once you pay Lamar, if you pay Lamar what he wants, you can't go pay those dudes. you got to build with young talent around those guys. What's what happened with Aaron Rogers this year in Green Bay? Sometimes the young talent doesn't match their half the season. So, yeah, I think when you get that top pick quarterback, it's not the $250 million deal,

or it's not the $200 million deal, or even $150, which is a massive deal on your cap. So you can't go afford DJ more or any of these big-time receivers. It's a weird thing. So you've got to have that quarterback develop over those first five years, so then we can kind of phase out the money at the skill position. Yeah. David Montgomery, who I like a lot, is a free agent in their backfield.

I really like him, so they could be down a back. And you always loved Cole come at the tight end. Yeah, I like him a lot coming out of Notre Dame. And I think in a different world, not going to blame the bear's quarterback. he's growing, but you put KMAT with any of the top 15 quarterbacks, and I think he's a 70-plus reception guy a year. You know, it's interesting. He had the last couple years.

Again, there weren't a lot of, you know, there weren't necessarily a lot of completed balls. I mean, Fields, they gained yards offensively and scored points because of Fields' his legs. The last year, Cole Commet. 50 receptions. He's at 60 and 50 in the last. In 21 he had 60 and 22, he had 50 reception.

Yeah. Yeah, he's a 70-plus guy if they get the quarterback on track. I think there's something to keep an eye on for next year. Even as more likely than not, and maybe the news comes as you're listening to this podcast or it's already happened, if Aaron Rogers gets dealt to the Jets, the NFC North is just a totally different division because Detroit everybody loved the way they finished up the year and everybody loves what they have coming back and what Dan Campbell's done.

Chicago now looks like a team that could take a big jump in terms of wins from three wins last year. Minnesota's completely reshaping their roster. They've got to build basically from the ground up on defense and they're cutting contracts because they're way over the cap. And Green Bay with Jordan Lerner, love next year, more likely than not. I mean, it could be a division that's fought out between Detroit and Chicago.

I mean, you talk about flipping a division in essentially a couple of years. Detroit and Chicago could be, look, cousins and Jefferson, and if they keep Dalvin Cook, they should still be good offensively, Minnesota. But they've got to shed a lot of dollars, and they're going to have to get some young players and drafted players to really step up. But that would be interesting in that division if it ends up being a battle between Detroit and Chicago. You know, two teams that just haven't been very good recently,

even though Detroit looked a lot better last year. All right, so that's the other thing I just wanted to mention with that trade, is it now guarantees for all intents and purposes that all four quarterbacks are going to be gone by seven. All right, that's the Raiders selection. So the Panthers at one will take a quarterback, the Texans at two will take a quarterback. Indy, whether they're at three or four, depending on a trade,

they're going to take a quarterback, and then the Raiders are going to take a quarterback. So Richardson, Levis, Stroud, and Young will all be gone by seven. So if Washington, just using our team here, if they really loved a quarterback and they wanted to be aggressive and trade up, they're going to have to go to six to get one. and that'll be awfully expensive to do that. So Sam Howl and a veteran quarterback has been, you know, the odds on, you know, off-season to begin with. And I think that trade even made that even more of a lock.

Of the off-season veteran, of the free agent veteran quarterbacks, I'm going to give you three right now and you pick one for Washington. Andy Dalton, Teddy Bridgewater, Jacoby Brissette, pick one of them, one-year deal, $4 million next year, to be in the quarterback room with Sam Hal. Sam Hal. I don't want any of them. You don't. None of them.

Right now, Sam Hal is the only quarterback under contract. You've got to add a quarterback. No, I understand that. You have to add a quarterback. Okay, Case Keenham. Case Keenum. Now, I'll throw him into the mix. I'll throw Taylor Heineke.

I'll throw Taylor Heineke into the mix. Heineke. I don't know. You're not, it's so hard. These guys bounce around. There's a reason they bounce around. All of the weird one, because you just, there's been a couple games.

watching he's good and then you watch some of the stuff and it's just not I don't know what I'm getting out of the old red rifle Bridgewater is interesting you know if you're consistent and run the ball

and do some things I think Bridgewater is probably a better fit the stretch he went on what two years ago with New Orleans was a really good stretch for him Dalton would be my number one Brissette. Dalton would be your number one.

Brissette is just, Brissette, what, had a decent team in Indy, and it was a six-game winner, had talent and a decent team in Chicago, or in Cleveland, and he's a five, six-game winner. I think he's a smart quarterback. I just don't think he has,

I just don't think the talent's there. I think he's a really smart. I think he's a really smart quarterback. I think he, like, if you told me it's Brissette or Dalton one year four million, I'm actually going to feel like either one of those two guys will be the best quarterback that's been on the roster since Cousins. And I hate saying that with Alex Smith in 2018, but he wasn't very good.

That offense was not very good with Alex Smith. But, you know, the truth is, Alex Smith did a lot of things that contributed to winning. But he was not a dynamic quarterback before his leg injury that year in 2018. I think Dalton or Brissette would be massive, not massive. They'd be obvious upgrades over what they've had since Cousins. I like Dalton sometimes. Sometimes I watch Dalton and I'm like,

you can win 10 games with Dalton if you've got a really good team around him. You win eight. You can win eight? Wow. Let's put it at nine. Eight and a half. Gosh, dang, there is no, I mean, Marriota, Mayfield, Donald.

Yeah, I mean, Darnold Mayfield or others, but I don't think that's one year, three and a half for a million. Maybe it is for Darnold. I think Mayfield, I think Sean's going to want Mayfield. I mean, apparently they're looking to deal Stafford. He must be done. That UCL must, I mean, he must not be able to throw the football anymore. They traded Jalen Ramsey to Miami. By the way, look out for the dolphins now.

God, the AFC is loaded next year. And if Rogers goes to the Jets, I mean, you've got the Jets, bills, and dolphins in the AFC East. You've got the Bengals, and if Lamar goes back to Baltimore, and the Ravens in the AFC North, you've got a Jacksonville team on the rise, and then you've got the Chiefs and the Chargers, and who knows what the Broncos will look like with Sean Payton there next year.

But the dolphins, you know, for a guy that's kind of been a headache, Jalen Ramsey always is sought out by other teams when he's available. It's because he's a legit man-to-man corner. Yeah. And you can do a lot of things with that. Gosh, the Rams are just, and I knew this was going to happen, but they just are purging. Purging.

Had to. It was the only matter of time, and they built a Super Bowl winner with it. But, man, no draft picks and all free agents, and big names, and they just, it caught up this year. They had to make these moves. The dolphins are going to be tough. That is crazy, though. I was looking at that, too.

The dolphins are going to be a really good team. I mean, it depends on Tua, obviously. That's the big question, Mark. You know, can he play a whole season? Can he be healthy? Meantime, news that broke this morning, the Browns restructured Deshawn Watson's deal and cleared $36 million in cap space.

I would imagine that by the time we get to like year three or year four of his deal, he's going to count like 35% of the salary cap if they keep pushing money back. Seriously. I talked about this on Friday. They restructured Dak Prescott's deal. His cap number for next year is $59 million. All right. Let's get to Duran Payne.

I wanted to talk about Duran Payne now. So this was a shocker, I think, a lot of us that Washington signed him to a long-term deal yesterday. Four years, $90 million for Duran Payne, $60 million guaranteed. The details of his contract are out there. He's going to get $28 million as a signing bonus, $46.0 million guaranteed in the first two years, and there's more to that. But I want to just start with a couple of things, then I want your reaction. as well. So number one on Duran Payne, okay, before we get to, you know, the money and the timing of it, etc. He's one of the best three players on the team, and I'm in favor of keeping your best three

players on your team. We know what the franchise tag is. We know where it leads. You know, we've seen it here with Sheriff and with cousins. And I know you can make an argument that his best season was in a contract year. But this is a player that they know. It's not Albert Haynesworth coming from another team. This is a player they know he's 25, going to be 26 years old when the season starts next year. It's not like he was a bad player before his contract year. I think he was a good player, inconsistent, but a good player. But to me, he may have been your best player on the team last year. You could make the case that Duran Payne was the best player on the team last year. Certainly he's in the top three with Terry McClure and with John Allen.

So I've been a fan of Duran Payne. I think that the combination of Payne and Allen together is the best interior defensive tackle combo in the league. It's the strength of your football team. It's the reason more than any other that you had a chance late in the season to go to the postseason. they were a top 10 defense last year. To me, Duran Payne, I would bet more likely that he is ascending coming into his prime and is going to be an A player for the next four years rather than we learn after the fact he was in a contract year and had a career year in 2022.

I understand that position that many of you have. I do. And I don't know how it will play. out. I'm just giving you my hunch that Duran Payne, who by the way has been available to, he's missed one game in his career. Out of 82 potential games, he's played in 81 of them. I love that they are keeping one of the best two to three players on their team, and I love the fact that it's he and Allen together. Number two, they're ahead of the market on this one, because Quinn and Williams and Jeffrey Simmons and Hargrave and Dexter Lawrence.

You know, his deal right now is number two all time behind Aaron Donald's deal for a defensive tackle, but in a few weeks to a few months, it's not going to be. And so I like the fact that they are ahead of the market on this, and some people think that they've overpaid Duran Payne. We've been talking about this for a while, and Ben Standing wrote a whole story about this like three months ago, that talking to agents, they said, this off season and perhaps next year as well is going to be the year that defensive tackles get paid. It's been wide receivers here recently. This is going to be the year of

interior defensive tackles and Duran Payne will be the first. Thirdly, he was on the non-exclusive tag. It is possible that they thought teams were going to come after him starting this week and that they were going to have to negotiate, you know, give him even more money than what Washington gave them, and they would have had to not match and then negotiate terms of a trade. It wouldn't have been two first rounders. Fourthly, they save about $9.5 million roughly in salary cap space for this year. Also, I do think that the timing of it is interesting. So let me just real quickly, coolly.

So a lot of people, a lot of you reached out to say, Sheehan, looks like, you know, Snyder does have the money. You know, you've been talking for a while now. A lot of us have about how while this ownership thing's going on, they're not going to spend any money because they're not going to put any money into escrow. They're not going to put a lot of money into players. They're going to let the next owner decide that. Well, stay tuned because when J.I. Hallsell jumps on with me, he'll explain the escrow thing, which I'm just going to tell you flat out, I was dead wrong on.

I thought that they had to put all of the guaranteed money into escrow when they signed the deal. The net of it is because of the scheduling of escrow money on Duran Payne, they're not going to have to worry about putting any money towards escrow, an escrow account for him and guaranteed money until next year. So, and I'll let J.I. explain that a little bit more later on. Now, what's next? What's next is the decision on Montez Sweat and Chase Young. Do you pick up the fifth-year option on Chase Young in May? And do you let Montez Sweat go? into his fifth year option year without an extension. And the answer on Montez Sweat is, well, you let pain do it, but you didn't think you

were going to keep pain. And that's where I would say, they could have done this last year. They could have saved a lot of money with pain, but they didn't think pain was going to be here. That's why they drafted Mathis in the second round. They planned to move on without pain. But he had a dominant season last year. And they were close to that dominant season. They know the player.

I'm not saying that we should trust them blindly. I don't. But remember that Sam Mills, that defensive line coach, who they cut loose in training camp, was a big problem for the defensive line room. And he had his best year when Mills was cut loose. I like keeping Duran pain. And I think this is actually a really good thing for the team,

and I think it's a good thing for Duran. And as far as what it means for free agency, does that mean that Dan now can start spending big because he doesn't have to put any money in escrow? No. They're not going to pay Lamar Jackson $200 million and at signing have, you know, $100 million due. This was at signing roughly $28 million was due.

So it's a different deal. But I like the keeping of pain. and I actually, you know, I'm not super complimentary of the way they do things a lot, but I actually think they're a little bit ahead of the market, and I think they're keeping a player that ultimately it will prove out to be that this was the right thing to do. What did you think after hearing about Duran Payne signing a long-term deal versus playing on the franchise tag?

So it's a great deal for Duran Payne. I don't think they overpaid pain in any way. I think it's a good deal for the team. I think he's a guy. First of all, he deserved it. He is an exceptional interior defensive lineman. He can arrest the passer.

He can put pressure on the quarterback with just bowling the pocket. He plays on the other side of the line of scrimmage more times than not. He has the ability to shed and get rid of guys at the line of scrimmage. He makes a ton of plays in the run game. He makes a ton of impactful plays.

He makes a ton of impactful plays. You know, big players make big big plays in a big moment. Like that's Duran Payne. Almost every game he comes up with a big play that changes games. He's been really good at that. He's been good at that over the last couple years. I know this has been his best year, but he's been able to make plays over the last

couple years. The other thing, when you look at the, it's almost not fair to some guys on the interior defensive line contract. He's not a 3-4, interior defensive lineman. He's not a hole plugger. you guys get mixed into that and it's almost different as far as the position goes I think the comp contract the two comps of this would be

John Allen and probably Chris Jones in Kansas City who's got an $80 million contract a couple years ago those are the comp players yeah maybe I mean maybe you know de Force Buckner

but they're on pain is whatever you want him to be in the interior defensive line he's He can play a shade, he can play that one technique. He can play the three. They move those guys around and they switch those guys around. And the combination of both John Allen and Durampin is massive for the defense. You've seen it, and everyone's seen it over the past five, six, seven years.

Having the interior presence that really started a flash with Aaron Donald, having that massive interior presence is huge. It allows the rush to get into the lap of the quarterback, and a lot of these quarterbacks are getting a ball. in two seconds. Just a quick throw, the RPO stuff, some of the change in the run game stuff. Without a big time detackle, you're really open to offenses doing a lot more that they want with a lot of the run action or RPO or zone read.

You've got to have a defensive end, stay home for a quarterback. That means that backside detackle better be big time. And you better eat that double team so a linebacker can fill. and Payne and Allen are capable of doing that. And as the NFL evolves more and more, you're going to see more of these guys getting paid. You're going to see more of that type of play in college and those guys building them that way.

So I think it's awesome. I love that you draft a guy in the first round in pain, and it's a position that, in my opinion, you can draft in no in four or five years we're comfortable paying this position. We always talk about that with Brandon Sheriff. I love Brandon Sheriff. He's a phenomenal player.

I don't want to pay a guard $100 million or whatever. You know what I mean? When you look at guards, top to bottom through the league, starters are anywhere from the first round to undrafted free agents that are starting across the board in any given fashion. And it's just a position where you can help them. You tackle is not a position where you can really get help. You've got to have dudes.

And Dr.on paid the dude, and they knew that. He's also another guy, like you mentioned, you've only missed a game. And John Allen's a stud, and he doesn't miss games. He gets banged up a little bit more. Drum pain's almost never hurt either. Right, never. We don't talk about Drum Payne being hurt much either. You got out that works his butt off every single day,

he does exactly what you want, and then he makes big place. It's a great signing. It's big time for them. I love it for Drum Payne. I think he's earned it. I think overall, it's perfect. I think if you do anything else, other teams are going to make offers for pain. He's going to get a deal.

he's that good. Everyone wants it. There are a couple of other interesting things just about this. Number one is, you know, we've emphasized this in the past, but the best players on this team aren't players that this regime acquired. And we're now entering the fourth year of this regime. It's not unusual to say in the first year of a regime or the second year of the regime that the best players were here when they got here.

I mean, they've only had two off seasons. They've had three full off seasons, and the best players on the team are Terry McClure, John Allen, and Duran Payne, all three of which have been extended. I mean, smart for them to recognize that they're the best players on the team and extend them. Montez Sweat might be the fourth best player on the team. They didn't acquire him either. So anyway, that's one thing. Number two is, I do understand the idea that they may have burned. earned a second round pick last year.

But I don't really think that that's true because, remember, they lost Settle and Ionitis. You know, so they needed depth. I mean, their depth last year at tackle was that guy Ridgeway, basically. You know, it was John Ridgeway, who came in and played pretty well. I like him. I like Ridgeway. Yeah, except for the penalty that he got called on in the Minnesota game that allowed the walk-off field goal in special teams.

But, but yeah, I think that. the Mathis thing was, don't get me wrong, I think it was a draft choice to replace eventually Duran Payne because they did not think that they would end up franchise tagging him or extending him because if they did, they would have done it last year. They would have tried to do it last year. But they still need that depth at that position. And in terms of what's next, the Chase Young thing is, look, if they pick up the option or they don't pick up, up the option. It's going to be very telling. If they don't pick it up, that is massively telling as to what they think of Chase Young. And I don't think it's got anything to do with

his talent. But we'll see. We've got until May to get that figured out. Sweat personally, I know that you are now talking about four first round picks and this was always going to be the problem. But by the way, the two, Alan and Payne are the two best of the four. And they've lock them up. I mean, you cannot make the argument that sweat or young are better than Allen and Payne. Out of the four first rounders, Alan and Payne have been the most productive. But I do like Montez Sweat and I hope that, you know, he has one of those years this year, which gives them an opportunity at some point to extend him. I don't know what'll happen with Chase Young. I think what's next for, you know, free agency, which legal tampering has already started here

on this Monday is they'll look to extend Cameron Curl. He's very important to that defense. He's a good player. And they don't want him to get too unrestricted free agency at the end of next year. I also think Antonio Gibson is a possibility to be extended here. Because running backs are cheap in general. But yeah, I think you try to keep great players. or potentially great players.

And Dron Payne was great last year, and he's 25 years old going on 26. And boy, the two of them together are the best part of the football team and have been the last, you know, a couple of years. Oh, I agree. I just don't know how you keep four guys up front that are first round picks that are all,

you know, if you're going to pay sweat, you got to pay sweat. I don't know how you pay Chase Young. Like, maybe you trade Chase Young and move up. really, I don't know how you pay all four of them. Well, it helps if you have a rookie quarterback contract, and you're not paying the quarterback position, anything. That always helps.

Well, I understand that. I mean, I completely get that, but at the same time, like, is there a way that you don't need all four of them? Because you need a quarterback. You need to draft a quarterback. The thing is, you probably got to get up to seven to draft a quarterback. So where can they get with Chishong?

Can they get from 16 to 7 with Chishong? I mean, that's an interesting debate. I mean, the problem is that, you know, Ron Rivera in his comments about Chase Young a month ago when he indicated that they aren't sure they're going to pick up that fifth year option, as I said at the time. Here's all you want to know. Here's all I want to know about Chishong. Here's all I want to know about. I don't give a shit what Ron Rivera said about Chishong if I'm somewhere else.

I might think about it, but I would do more research than that. Is he healthy? Is he back? That's the only thing I want to know. Because he's the guy that hasn't played as much as I'd like to see him play, but I know what he did at Ohio State, and I know who he was, and I know what kind of player he is. He can fit my system, my stuff.

And right now I don't care about some of the read-between-the-lines. We've got to have everyone on the same page stuff. I just don't. Why? Why? Why don't you care about that? Because I just don't know if this one staff and him have a problem. I don't think he's been a massive problem. Do you think he's been a massive problem? Or you think it's one of those things where he came in and he was young and Ron wanted to rush.

And they're trying to fit him into the system. But he is a guy that can just rush. He's a guy. And you stud as much as me. He's a guy that's a monster against the run. I agree with that. I remember last year saying sometimes there are certain players with certain talent that you don't worry about whether or not they're adhering to the scheme. They're not adhering to the scheme guys. You turn them loose like Lawrence Taylor. All right. You know, which, you know, Parcells and Belichick finally said, no, we'll just let him do what he should do. And I think Chase Young has just ridiculous, ridiculous talent. But now, The combination of what's his health and then was he, is he easy to coach would be things that I'd want to know for sure.

So I wouldn't dismiss that part of it the way you seem willing to do. No, Kevin, I don't think you just dismiss all of it. But I also don't think that through one staff where they got rid of their line coach in training camp in Mills, that he's not coachable. I find another way to coach guys like that. Like special, unbelievable talents. We've got to find another way to get through to you. And I'm going to say, I can do that.

I'll get through to him. We'll make it work. He is a freak talent. I think that he's got a ton of upside. I think that he's going to be a phenomenal player for a long time. I'm just proposing this idea in the fashion that we've paid talent, you've paid pain. If you want to pay sweat,

and that's another guy you're going to have to pay a bunch of money too. How are you going to pay Chase Young? I don't think his value's down right now, is all I'm saying. I don't think his values down. I also think it's really interesting in a year where can you win a Super Bowl with Howell or Bridgewater? No. Or Case Keenham? No.

So are we going to get to the end of this deal where we don't have value? But at the same time, they also need to win this year. So I doubt they move him. I doubt they do anything with him. Just on the basis, they want to win football games. They're going to keep all their best players. Try it. Try it a lot to do it.

Sound and drop pain. We've got to win right now. Staff that wants to win right now. They need to. And getting into the playoffs is going to be a big deal for them. Well, I mean, he was on the tag. So he was going to play in this must-win year anyway. But I think the larger point is that on the pain extension,

you know, part of the reason they may have come to the conclusion last off season not to give pain an extension is what we're talking about now, sweat and young. You can't pay all of them and they were going to choose to perhaps move on without pain. He was going to be the one. But it's clear a year later. Maybe it's Chase Young that they think they might move on from. Exactly. And that's why they paid pain. Exactly.

So what are they going to do with Young? I don't know, but I can't imagine that the number two overall pick in the draft with this serious injury, but looking like himself, I thought over those final few games, I thought he looked pretty athletic and pretty good. I can't imagine that you don't pick up that fifth year option. I can't imagine that you don't. But I'm not suggesting that if they feel like he's not going to be what he was athletically

and they've got issues with him, that, you know, it might not be, but again, back to the way Ron handled it, and you said you wouldn't give a shit about what he said. To me, if I wanted to trade him, then I would be publicly building him up. I wouldn't have said what Ron said a month and a half ago when he said, we kind of need him, you know, we need to incent him to play well. And we need to find out, you know, where he is health-wise. And we're not sure about picking up the fifth-year option on a play who we picked number two overall. If I were going to trade him,

I would say we love the way he looked. He really looked like himself those last couple of games. We're excited to see what we got in him. And, of course, he was the number two picking the draft. Of course, we're going to pick up the fifth year option. You can go and work for Ron if you want to do that because it's every month that we hear something that probably shouldn't have said.

I mean, the quarterback stuff with wins. I mean, just go on it. I know. Sometimes he just says things. Yes. It's true. I mean, we don't want to really throw the ball anymore. We're a run team now.

Okay. Cool. It's going to be 20, 23 in the NFL. So, I mean, good luck. You don't even have an offensive line that can dominantly run the ball. But yeah, just go for that. All right. What else you got?

You got, I know you got to run. Oh, I don't. I have a whole hell of a lot else. Got to watch your guy. I'm actually excited to watch Richardson. I mean, I'd love to. You know, we are a month and a half away from the draft. I obviously, and everybody here would agree with me that's listening.

We'd love you to look at the quarterbacks. We'd love you to look at the offensive linemen that might be there at 16. The corners, because almost every mock draft seems to have Washington taking a corner or an offensive lineman. But I am curious to see what you think of Anthony Richardson, a guy who blew away the combine. who has moved up every board, who's probably going to be taken in the top seven, and whether or not any of these guys are worth trading a boatload to get up to try to take,

which I think it's too late now with the Chicago deal, because you're going to have to go up to six to get one of the four quarterbacks more likely than not in front of the Raiders. All right, good job. Yeah, I think you've got to go up to six. Tell you what I do got, though. what I am excited about.

What? I'm excited about Utah State basketball. Yeah, they're in the tournament. They lost in the conference final the other night. I watched some of that game, but they're a good team. You haven't been watching them. I just see the social stuff. Yeah, they play Missouri.

They're 10 seed. They play Missouri in the first round on Thursday. I really feel about the same way with college basketball. basketball as I do hockey. We'll talk about them when they're in the tournament. I mean, I actually like college basketball a little bit more, so we'll talk about them when they're in the tournament, not when they're in the finals. Do you remember who the coach was when you were there?

Stu Moore. Yes, Stu Moore. Good, Merrill. Maryland beat them one year that I think it was one of the years that you were at Utah State. Maryland beat them in the first round. No, it's actually before you got to Utah State. It was before. but Stu Morrill was the coach.

They've all, you know, Utah State's been to the tournament a lot. I mean, they've had some really good teams. Like I'm looking at Stu Morrill's career at Utah State right now. He was there forever. He started there in 1998-99. And it was in 2009-2000, 99-2000, Maryland played them, or it may have been 2000-2001. Maryland played him and beat him in the first round.

But he went to the tournament one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight times. when he was there. It's hard to do when they were in the Big West. Yeah, the Big West Conference. The Big West, not there, right. Yeah. All right, thanks for doing this. Thanks for having me on.

Thanks for having me. All right, up next, my thoughts on the NCAA tournament bracket, and then we'll finish up with J.I. Hallsell on the Duran Payne contract. We'll get to both of those things right after these words from a few of our sponsors. You know that theme song. That means it.

It is time for March Madness. The NCAA men's basketball tournament field is set. So is the women's basketball tournament field. That's set as well. Lady Terps a two seed. They are in the bracket, however, with South Carolina as the one seed. The Maryland men, which I care about more than anything else in this tournament. And eight seed, they will play West Virginia in the first game of the first round

on Thursday at 1215 in Birmingham, Alabama. The winner of that game will play Alabama in the second round because they get a 16 seat as the number one overall seed in the tournament. Real quickly, by the way, because I just literally before this segment started, I just popped up ESPN.com. The Raiders have signed Jimmy Garoppolo. I still think that means they'll draft a quarterback at seven. But who knows?

Maybe Garoppolo's their guy, and they didn't like the quarterback that would likely be there at seven. We shall see. But today's a busy day with the free agency tampering period, legal tampering period, underway. So there will be some news throughout the day that may trump what you hear on this podcast, but we'll get to those things tomorrow. But to the NCAA tournament, the field has been set. Let me just start with the Terps and their Big Ten performance from over the weekend, losing to Indiana on Friday night. That was one high-level game on Friday night in the first half.

And then Indiana pulled away in the second half. Maryland couldn't make buckets. And they couldn't get some stops. And there was foul trouble there. Actually, you know, not to second-guess Kevin Willard, who's done a phenomenal job this year. He really has. And I'm going to play some sound from Kevin Willard here in a moment. The one complaint I would have about Friday night's loss to Indiana is I thought with the foul trouble to Reese and to Emilian,

I thought he'd play more zone because he's played so much zone this year. I mean, they have switched defenses so much this year. It's actually been really fun to watch them defensively with their 221 full court pressure, which sometimes is aggressive, sometimes it's not. They fall back sometimes just into straight man-to-man. Sometimes they fall back into a two-three zone, and then they'll switch to man-to-man as the possession sort of proceeds. They're a tough team to plan for and a tough team to run offense against

because you're never quite sure what they're in defensively. Willard's done a phenomenal job, but I thought watching Friday night, it was such a great first half in that game. I just thought with some of the foul trouble, I thought he would play more zone in the second half, which he didn't. I think really the biggest issue for them early on was I thought Indiana was the first team to really, I shouldn't say the first team.

The first team in a while to take their pressure and make them pay for it. They threw over top of the pressure. Marilyn did not do a good job getting back on defense out of their pressure. and Indiana got a lot of looks and scored a lot of points early and took a lead and then Maryland, you know, came back. Maryland shot the three well in the first half. Was not a great Big Ten tournament for Jemir Young. Ultimately, Young in his two Big Ten tournament games ended up shooting six for 28 from the field. So it was a rough time for him in the game. He did other things well. A lot of teams, especially in the Big Ten, really trying to force him to go right

where he's not nearly as effective. But I'll tell you what, somehow he always gets back to his left. But Maryland's out in the quarterfinal round of the Big Ten tournament. Penn State made a run to the finals. What a near miraculous comeback. They pulled off against Purdue in the final yesterday. But you know, Maryland finishes with three losses in their final four games. I think they played well. You know, maybe not so much at Ohio State, but they certainly had a chance, should have beaten Penn State, had a chance against Indiana in the quarterfinals after beating Minnesota. And really what it cost them was at least one seed line, if not two. They end up an eight seed in this tournament bracket. And, you know, in the South region, they'll play in Birmingham

against West Virginia. I'll get to that matchup here in a moment. But the finish for the Terps, losing to Ohio State, Penn State, and Indiana with their only win over their final four games being an easy win over the worst team in the Big Ten Minnesota, their third win over Minnesota. The Terps cost themselves some seeding here. And unfortunately, that means as an eight seed, they're going to get matched up against a very tough first-round opponent in West Virginia. They're an underdog, a two-point underdog to West Virginia. And then if they were to get by that game, they'd face the number one overall seed in the tournament in Birmingham, Alabama, the University of Alabama. And they are super athletic.

And Maryland faced them. Remember two years ago after beating Yukon as a 10 seed in the first round in 21. And that game was not competitive at all. Would have been better had they figured out a way to win a game, you know, the Penn State game in particular. And maybe they would have been a seven, maybe even a seven. six, who knows. And that's just a different situation to be in a 7-10 game and then get a two or a three if you were a six-seed. But whatever, it is what it is. And they get West Virginia and Bobby Huggins. And I love West Virginia. Have loved watching him coach over the years. They are physical.

They're nasty. They try to muck up the game. These are two excellent defensive teams. This will be a physical basketball game. Maryland met West Virginia in the tournament back in 2015, in Columbus in the second round. Mellow Trimble got banged up, got concussed. Maryland ended up losing that game in that second round. And man, if you remember, Huggins's daughters in particular, they trolled Maryland fans there for about a year, year and a half. I have no idea. I would imagine they're much older now, eight years older. But that's one nasty team in West Virginia that finished seven and 11 in what was probably the best league in American. the Big 12. They got eight teams in. Actually, the SEC got eight teams in. So did the Big Ten. But West Virginia had enough quad one wins to qualify as a nine seed. And that really is one of

the best first round games of the tournament, Maryland and West Virginia on Thursday. The first game of the tournament, the last time, I think, and maybe the only time, Maryland played the first game on that Thursday was in 94 Gary's first tournament team with Joe Smith, Keith, Booth, Dwayne Simpkins, ex-re hip, Johnny Rhodes, and they played St. Louis in the first round beat St. Louis, then as a 10-seed beat the two-seed UMass. That was the team with Marcus Camby and John Calipari coached that team. And then Marilyn went on to lose to Michigan in the Sweet 16 that year. The last vestiges of the Fab Five team with Juan Howard still left and Jimmy King and Jalen Rose, Weber had moved on at that point.

But I'll never forget that game against St. Louis. It was a 12-15 Thursday game, first game of the tournament. And I remember where I was watching it at T-Bones in Bethesda. Great Neighborhood Bar, Carl McCarty, and Gary was an investor, Jimmy Patsos, lots of different people involved in that. Very, very good restaurant bar in Bethes. The place was packed that day for the Terps in St. Louis on a beautiful Thursday afternoon back in 1994. So they'll play the first game of the tournament on Thursday against West Virginia.

It's a Nance Grant Hill, Bill Raftery, CBS game. One of the best first round games, no doubt. And they'll have a chance to win that game. You know, they've got to defend, they've got to rebound, they've got to handle their pressure. They've got to turn West Virginia over with their pressure. Everybody's assuming a very low-scoring game because, These are two defensive teams, but you never know. Maryland has been shooting the three much better recently.

Big game, though, to get through that. Now, I wanted to mention before I just got to some overall thoughts on the bracket, and we'll get much more into it the rest of the week. Kevin Willard, I have watched a lot of his press conferences this year. I think he's done a hell of a job. A hell of a job. He has gotten the most out of this team. It's been fun watching him, coach.

There were a lot of people that were skeptical about the hire, thinks, you know, a lot of people thought Maryland could do a lot better. Kevin Wilder was a hell of a coach at Seton Hall. Now, he has not had the March results as a head coach, and hopefully he will change that around here at Maryland. But watching his press conferences this year, and we've had him on the podcast, we've had him on the radio show several times, hoping to get him on one of the other this week before the tournament starts. he is he's an East Coast guy he's got a quick sense of humor he is sarcastic and you know it plays well I think with the media but on Friday night after they lost to Indiana there was this following exchange at the end of the press conference that I want you to listen to he had already

basically dismissed a question from somebody earlier in the press conference. And I have to say, the question was completely nonsensical. And he essentially just looked at the person who asked the question and said, yeah, next question. But this is what the final question and answer of the Friday press conference after their loss to Indiana sounded like. You mentioned how you were pleased with how your squad kind of entered this week after that Penn State loss refocusing. Does anything kind of change with the timeline ahead of the national tournament trying to regroup after this and or do you want to see a similar reaction? I guess my last three losses are two teams that have won.

One teams won eight out of nine. The other team is one, six out of seven, and we just played Indiana on the road after playing last night. I love my team. I don't know what I have to refocus. We've won 21 games. Like, you can go refocus. Maybe you should. because I'm proud of this team and this team's pretty damn good.

Maybe you should refocus, he said. He was not overly thrilled with the question. And I've gotten a kick out of some of these exchanges. And I don't know that there's been one as kind of director, as caustic as that one was. I personally love his honesty. I love his sense of humor. You know, I will tell you that, you know, when you're in a media room for a college basketball game,

even a high-level program like Maryland's, you'll get, you know, during the regular season, sometimes there are only a few people there. You know, you've got the person from the post who covers the team, and then you got, you know, basically some bloggers and Jeff Irman and a few other people. He writes, you know, probably the most successful and most red sort of Maryland online site. We've had Jeff on the show many times. And a lot of times these reporters are super young and sometimes nervous. And I have no idea who that person was who asked that question. Here's what I would say, though. I love it. And I love how he has a lot of what I think is a better match

personality-wise with the fan base. You know, the fan base is New York, New Jersey, Philly, D.C., Baltimore. You know, that is the Maryland fan base. It's always, it's been a very, you know, very involved, very passionate, but very East Coast, you know, critical, harsh fan base. And I think his personality fits the fan base perfectly. However, I know one thing about this fan base. if you're going to be sarcastic and you're going to be quick-witted, which I love.

And on occasion, you're going to come off as a little bit, you know, aggressive in your response to a reporter's question, you better win. You know, you better win and you better win in March. Not this March, this is grace period. He's already gotten more than enough out of this team. I don't want it to end on Thursday, obviously. I'd like to beat this shit out of West Virginia. I'm not fond of, I love watching Huggins coach,

but I'm not fond of sort of the, you know, the very mini rivalry that, you know, Maryland's had with West Virginia fans over the years. So I'd like to see this, you know, end in a Maryland victory. Maryland beat West Virginia in the tournament years ago and then lost to them. They blew them out in 85, 84. I think 84 was the year they blew them.

out after winning the ACC tournament. They beat him by like 30 in a second round game. And then they lost in 2015 in Columbus in that game that I referenced earlier. But the bottom line is all of that stuff is fun, funny, and totally fine with the fan base as long as you're winning with a fan base like this one. And I think he's going to win. I don't think they're going to make a run this year personally. I would love to see it.

But he's got a top 12 recruiting class coming. in. And that will be next year, and that'll put them in position, I think, to be really good for a while. Real quickly, on the tournament bracket, congrats to Howard. Great news. They won the Miak. They're in the tournament for the first time in 92. They get Kansas, and they didn't have to play a 16 versus 16 playing game. Virginia gets a tough first-round game against Furman as a four-seed. Overall, I think the biggest snub. I think Rutgers got snubbed a little bit, but I thought Clemson in particular got snubbed. I know many people think Oklahoma State was the biggest snub. Clemson, you know, they didn't get in out of the ACC and NC State did. Now, if both of them

were excluded for other teams, I would have been fine with that. I don't know how you put NC State in before you put Clemson in. Clemson's quad one record was four and four. NC states was one and six. Clemson finished third in the ACC going 14 and 6 in the league. NC State finished 6th in the league going 12 and 8. But here's the most amazing thing. Clemson beat NC State not once, not twice, but thrice. They beat them three times this year by 14, 25, and 26 points, including in the ACC tournament over the weekend.

And NC State got in as an 11, and Clemson was left out. NC State didn't even have to play in a first four game, which was amazing. They're an 11-seed playing Creighton. I watched Clemson this year. I always thought they were pretty good. I think Brownell's done a good job there for years, even though they really haven't been to the tournament much over the years. But I thought that was ridiculous.

Rutgers, unfortunately, losing to Minnesota. big lead about a week and a half ago. That killed them. I had no problem with Houston being the number two seed and relegating Kansas to the overall number three seed, which means Kansas has to play the regionals in Las Vegas versus Kansas City. I think that's fair, and I think it's fair because Kansas got blown out a bunch of times this year. And Houston, while not nearly the quad one record of Kansas, which was incredible, 17 and 1. Houston lost three games this year, once without their best player in the conference tournament final yesterday, once by one point to Temple, and they lost to Alabama by six points early in the year. Kansas, I think, got blown out too many times.

I had no problem with Houston being the number two overall seed in the draw. I thought A&M was underseated as a seven. I thought Duke was underseated as a five. I thought Duke should have been at least a four. And in terms of like, you know, draws and matchups, really looking forward to Iowa Auburn in an eight-nine game, really looking forward to Texas A&M Penn State in a 7-10 game in the first round. Arkansas, Illinois should be a great game. Virginia Furman's going to be a very interesting first round game.

And in terms of teams, like outside of the top four seeds in each draw, that I could making, you know, a decent run. I never, ever think that Izzo doesn't have a chance. It's not one of his better teams for sure. But they play USC and then they play Marquette and then they would get like K-State or Kentucky. So I could see Michigan State making a run, you know, to the Sweet 16 or further. They also could lose to somebody. The Big Ten is going to be an interesting story. And they Purdue is one of those teams to watch out for if you're trying to pick them all the way to the final because it's not a game that typically in tournament play is conducive for teams that run their offense through a big guy, through a true center, which Zach Edie is. I'm kind of rooting

for them to do well, though, but I think we could see a Purdue Duke Sweet 16 game, which would be really interesting. And then I'm kind of interested to see. see Houston in particular. I think Kelvin Samson is great. I root for him, and I love the way they play. I love the way they guard. They're a one seed understood, but I think a lot of people think that, you know, an Iowa or an Auburn could knock them off, that Indiana could knock them off, or a Texas, or, you know, a Texas A&M down the road could knock them off. I'm not so sure about that. I think they're pretty damn good. But overall, that's it on the brackets.

That's it on Maryland. Can't wait for Thursday. Can't wait for the tournament to start. We get the first four games tomorrow night and Wednesday. And Tommy and I will pick brackets. We will before the tournament goes off for real on Thursday. All right. Up next, J.I. Hallsell on the whole Duran Payne contract and how Washington was able to pull

it off. And all of the details related to kind of. escrowing money. J.I. was very instructive to me yesterday, and he'll explain it all to you next, right after these words from a few of our sponsors. All right, as promised to finish up the show today, our good friend, J.I. Hallsell at Salary Cap 101.

J.I. was a salary cap analyst in the NFL for this team here in Washington. He's an NFL agent right now, and he is a Gonzaga Purple. Eagle as well from the area living out in beautiful Arizona now and joining us to talk about the Duran Payne signing. I'm glad I called you yesterday and I ended up tweeting out what you had told me because I'll just tell you and I probably told you this yesterday. I guess we've been going on let me just put myself into this boat by myself. I've been going on the understanding that when you signed a deal, all of that guaranteed money had to go into escrow.

So we've had this belief that the Snyder situation with selling the team, which I think he's going to go through with it, and we'll find out here in the coming weeks, maybe the coming months, hopefully the coming weeks, that he has moved forward with selling the team, that he probably was going to stand Pat in this offseason, not do much because he wouldn't want to write a big check to put into escrow or to even make, you know, a big investment into, you know, a signing, you know, the money do it signing. And you explain to me, and I want you to walk through it with everybody else, how this actually works. And I'd like you to use the Duran Payne example, because I'm assuming you have the details of his deal now. Yeah, I've seen, I've seen

And the probably most important, or at least immediately speaking, piece of this is, you know, the signing bonus. And I believe it's being reported it's $28 million. Right. Right. You know, and we'll start from there in terms of how does that impact from a funding rule, which is the escrow that you're alluding to. When we talk about the funding rule, there are two dates that are important, right? January 31st and March 31st. those are the two dates that the January 31st date specifically is when the league takes a snapshot

of all contracts and what monies are due to a player that a team cannot get out of by March 31st so let's put some years on there so here in 2023 we're obviously beyond January 31st we're approaching the March 31st date that review is has already happened for the escrow deposits, if you will, for 2023. So when we think about whether it's a Duron Payne contract or any of these big money free agent deals across the league that you'll be reported today and over the next couple of days, those dollars will not need to go into the league's escrow account this year. So fast forward, when we get to January 31st of 2024. The league will look at Duran Payne's contract and say, well, how much of his contract dollars

are truly guaranteed that Washington cannot get out of or avoid paying by March 31st of 2024? Based upon whatever that number is, then those dollars will need to go into the league's escrow account by March 31st. Now, how do you apply that to the only? situation in Washington. Well, we think that, you know, there's a reasonable chance that there will be a new owner in place by March 31st of 2024. Therefore, Dan Snyder won't be fitting that. He won't be paying that bill. It will be the new owner paying that bill and having to put the money into the escrow account at that point in time. So it doesn't impact Dan necessarily here in the near term. It will likely impact a potential new owner a year from now.

So two things. One, when Duran Payne, and let's just say, you know, over the weekend, he signed this four-year $90 million contract, a $28 million signing bonus, $60 million in total guarantees, $46 million guaranteed its signing. What did they have to pay him? Let's just say the deal got signed yesterday. How much money did they have to wire into his account yesterday? Yeah.

So from a cash flow standpoint, so when I worked with an organization, we were a cash-rich team. So if we were structuring the cash flows of a $28 million signing bonus, you might say, okay, we're going to pay you $14 million within seven days of execution of the deal. another, and then the other 14 million will be paid on, say, December 31st of that same year. Given the ownership uncertainty, given, you know, it's plausible that Dan may want to just kind of not have to pay all of this cash of this stuff in regard to this particular signing bonus, he could say, look, you know, and obviously the agents would have to agree to this, that of the $28 million signing bonus, we're going to write out the cash flow in the contract is we'll do $7 million here within seven days. We'll use that example.

Seven million within seven days of execution. Another $7 million on December 31st of 2023. And then the remaining $14 million on March 31st of 2024. So effectively just deferring the cash for as long as it's possible. possibly takes for a new owner to come on board and thus removing Dan's obligation to paying that signing bonus. So that $28 million signing bonus doesn't mean that he was cut a check yesterday for $28 million. Correct. There could be terms on that. There could be, like you just said, $7 million yesterday, $7 million December 31st, and another $14 spread out over the rest of it along

with the other guaranteed money. All right. So that answers that. So, you know, if this team is what we believe it to be, which is not in the best of cash flow situations compared to, you know, their market size, then this is one of the reasons they were able to do a deal with Duran Payne and not have to have a lot of money up front at signature or put into escrow.

However, my second question, would be, what about the big deal they signed last year with Terry McClorn? Three years, $68.5 million, $28 million signing bonus, $53.1 million guaranteed. I would guess that by March 31st, end of this month, there's a lot of guaranteed money still left in the Terry McLaren contract that needs to go into escrow. That is correct. Yep. So what do they have to put? into escrow for him at the end of this month. Do you have any idea? Yeah, so of that $53 million, $28 million of it was paid in the signing bonus, right? So we've already said that, you know, that does not need to go into the escrow because it comes

in the signing bonus, which now leaves us with the other, say, $25 million of guaranteed dollars that needs to be reviewed to see how much of that needs to go into the escrow account here in 2023. So when you look at his 2023 compensation in particular, when you take that snapshot on January 31st, look at his compensation in his contract, you see that here in 2023, he has $1.28 million of his base salary that is guaranteed for feel injuring cap, meaning Washington cannot get out of that obligation by March 31st. He also has a roster bonus that became truly guaranteed last year. So Washington cannot get out of that obligation.

So now you're $3.8 million. And then he has a $500,000 workout bonus that is also truly guaranteed, meaning Washington cannot get out of that obligation. So in total, that's $4.3 million here in 2023. Now you have to look at the next year of the contract, 2024. Does he have any money that Washington,

when we look at, when we view it on January 31st, that Washington cannot escape their obligation. So when you look at his 2024 compensation, he has a $15 million base salary that is guaranteed when it was signed for injury only. That $15 million becomes truly guaranteed on the third day of the 2023 league year, so the third day of free agency, which this year is... It's not guaranteed when he signs the deal. So when we get that $53.1 million guaranteed, that's not really truly guaranteed.

It's not truly guaranteed. But it was guaranteed for injury so you can sell it as being guaranteed. But we know that these contracts get terminated all the time for skill. It's very rare that a contract gets terminated due to an injury. As a matter of fact, in the 20 years that I've been around player contract, There's only a handful that I can think of that we're terminated for injury. So you don't have to put into escrow the guaranteed money for injury, only for injury, skill, and cap. Exactly. And that's a great clarification, Kevin, because if I'm Washington, I can get out of that $15 million obligation in 2024 by cutting him for skill purposes before it's quote unquote theft.

Therefore, because I was going to say, because I could take conceivably, I could terminate Terry McClure by March 31st of 2023 and I would escape that $15 million in 2024. I don't need to put that money in escrow. Therefore, the net net is Washington and Daniel Snyder only need to put $4.3 million into escrow this year. Wow. As a result of the Terry McCloy concept. That's fascinating. is like such a real this is so so educational as it relates to this because you know what you've

essentially said look Terry McCorn is not getting cut before the 2024 season or probably the 2025 season he's going to eventually get all of the money in this contract but from an escrow standpoint because it's only guaranteed for injury and not for injury skill and cap purposes it's not escrowable if that's even the word a word um and that's that's clears up a lot. This is why they actually have much more flexibility. The dates that you've given us, the key dates of January 31st, and they've already done it for, you know, 2023. So no matter who they sign in free agency, you know, look, they're not going to go sign Lamar Jackson, okay, for $200 plus million, because there's going to be a lot of money due upon the execution of that agreement. Whereas with Duran Payne,

Assuming he gets a fully guaranteed contract like to speak. Right. Exactly. You know, he wants a fully guaranteed deal. So that's not going to happen with him. With Duran Payne, you know, they basically probably only came out of pocket yesterday over the weekend, maybe $7 million. And on the McLaren deal, another $4 million from last year's extension. So he may have had to lay out like somewhere between $10 and $12 million, bucks as it relates to Payne and McLaurin.

And, you know, with respect to other free agents, you know, maybe not, you know, or perhaps not the biggest offensive linemen out there or Lamar Jackson or taking on Aaron Rogers deal, which we don't think is going to happen. They still may operate like an NFL team otherwise, you know, filling some holes along the offensive line, adding a veteran quarterback like an Andy Dalton or somebody like that for $4 million one year. which would be all base salary anyway. Not all of it, but most of it.

And this is, this, what else, what else haven't I asked you that's important for people to know? No, I think you hit the nail on the head just now and that, you know, this is not, the ownership uncertainty from a cap management and even a cash budget management standpoint, does not preclude them from executing their free agency roster building strategy. They're going to go out there and based upon their pro scouting, you know, reports go get the talent or at least attempt to get the talent that they want. They'll structure the contracts accordingly. The whole deferred cash of a signing bonus or what I call rolling guarantees, that was the whole thing we just talked about with that $15 million for Terry McCorn. Those aren't new mechanisms.

You see these mechanisms in player contracts all of the time. and it's so that clubs can navigate the funding rule. It is so that clubs can manage their cash budget. So this isn't unique to Washington, and so it kind of supports the notion that Washington will go about their free agency business and their roster building strategy, just as any other club would.

All right, so I do have one final question. As somebody who follows this team and is somebody who represents other players around the league, did you think of the Duran Payne extension from both sides? Yeah, I mean, I think from a pure roster building standpoint, if you look at where we were last summer in talking about Duran Payne and his future with Washington, at that point back then, we were saying,

he'd probably playing his last year, if he even played with him because they might try to trade them. And what the thing about NFL clubs is, they want to keep as many options on the table for as long as possible. And so that's how they played it. And you saw Durand Payne, he got it done on the field this year. So he went from a player who maybe didn't have a future in Washington last summer to a guy who got tagged and then ultimately got an extension.

So it just goes to show that, you know, while we like to think that things happen very quickly in the NFL, sell, they often don't. Like, these things are methodical. These things are well thought out. Even when we talk about the cash flows on contract, you know, the average fan thinks that, oh, Geron Payne's going to get a $28 million check. Not really. It could be 7.714.

You know, these things take time. As far as the actual value of the deal and the fact that they got it done, look, he couldn't go to the market. Franchise tag players very rarely receive offer sheet. and, you know, he probably feels some level of comfort by being in Washington, and it's a deal that right now is the number two detackle deal on the market, but will surely be surpassed, and again, that's not unique to detackle. That's just the way the market works.

So, and from a roster building philosophy standpoint, it shows guys in your locker room that we are willing to reward our homegrown players, even if the guy plays the same position. position is Jonathan Allen. We're willing to commit to two guys at the same position. And, you know, if you should prove to be a core member of the organization, we're going to extend you as well. If you represented John Allen, what would you be thinking right now? Because his deal was four for 72, 18 million a year with 35 million guaranteed. You know, I've been part of negotiations where, you know, a guy at the same position, we're

trying to, we're representing the younger guy at the same position and the team, we can't pay him more than the older guy. Well, the fact of the matter is the player's market value is there market value, regardless of who's on the team and what position those other guys play. If you're John Allen, you know, you did your deal. That was your market value a year or two ago. This is Duran Payne's market value. Fast forward.

The market continues to move. If you want to, you know, be able to take advantage of, you know, the movement in the market will find a shorter deal, sign a two-year deal. And increasingly you have seen more extensions being of the three- and four-year variety as opposed to the five- and six-year variety. It's because agents and players want to be able to get that bite at the apple. Another bite at the apple. Thanks for clearing all that up. That was really

helpful and interesting. Appreciate it as always. Hope you're well. Hey, thanks, Kevin. Really interesting stuff from J.I. Hallsell on how all of this works. The bottom line is, at least according to J.I.'s math, they're not laying out a lot of cash here in this, you know, time frame between now and the end of March or really beyond. So if he gets the team sold, the bigger cash outlays or escrow outlays will be handled by new ownership next year. All right. That's it. For the day, I'll be back tomorrow with Tommy.