The Kevin Sheehan Show - Empty Brackets

Episode Date: March 13, 2020

Kevin and Aaron talking about the world wide shut down of sports and the outright cancellation of the NCAA Tournament. Some Redskins and NFL Free Agency talk as well. <p> </p><p>Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices">podcastchoices.com/adchoices</a></p> Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You want it. You need it. It's what everyone's talking about. The Kevin Sheehan Show. Now, here's Kevin. It's that time of year, everybody. Woo! Here we go.

We've got the selection show on Sunday night. Week from today, it'll be the second day of 16 games starting at noon. All right. Not going to happen. this tweet, and I read it on the radio show this morning, because it just cracks me up how stupid people are. Franco tweeted me the following. And it came during yesterday's radio show, I think.

It could have been the podcast. I don't know. Why are you so sure, Sheehan, that the NCAA tournament isn't going to happen? The NBA and NHL had games scheduled immediately. The tournament is next week, you idiot. reporters like you are why we're in this position. You're supposed to report the news, not make it. And then there were like five exclamation points that followed.

I appreciate Franco the tweet. And you can tweet me at Kevin Sheen, D.C., all of you. First of all, Tommy and I have mentioned this many times in the past to people like Franco, when they say, hey, Jackass, just report the news. You know, that's your job. That's actually not the job. just so you understand Franco and others that have said that to people like us before. Like Galby and Zabe and Doc and Brian and Tommy and the people at Tommy Station and me,

we're not reporters. It's actually our job description, if we actually had one, would say the exact opposite. You know, do not report opine. That's the job. But anyway, Adam Schaefter, Franco is a reporter. John Kime is a reporter. J.P. Finley is a reporter. what we do is far different.

We're asked to give opinions and talk to you and others and lots more, but reporting is not part of it. Franco, first of all, Tommy, you know, if you had sent this in during the Wednesday podcast, when Tommy was the first one to say to all of us, NCAA tournament, that ain't happening. It's not happening. And I said, no, no, no, I think if one player gets,

sick, you know, they'll just forfeit the team. Tommy said, it's not happening. And then that night, the NBA suspended the season. And yesterday, after the podcast, the NCAA officially shut down the tournament. But if you thought yesterday that it wasn't likely that it was going to be shut down, then you, sir, are the idiot. Anyway, it got real yesterday. Again, another one of those crazy-ass days, Aaron, where just every,

Everything, you know, everything's canceled. I mean, March Madness wasn't postponed. It was canceled, all right? That was heartbreaking. We have no sports right now, nothing. And we have no idea, really, when we'll get them back. The latest was just moments ago. The Masters said, uh-uh, not happening, postponed.

In fact, there's some discussion. It may be postponed until October. October. See, you remember, I mentioned this this morning on radio, you remember the, because you're a big office fan too. I know we quote the office a lot, but I love the show. It's a very quotable show. It is a very quotable show. Remember the episode where Jim and Pam are staying at Dwight's Beat Farm overnight, you know, in the agriculture room or whatever it was?

And Pam gets up in the middle of the night, she looks out the window and she sees Moes taking a seat in the outhouse. and she turns around and she says, what century is this? I mean, what century is this right now that we're living in? It is surreal. And, you know, the master's postponing with some discussion about October. Okay? The NCAA just shutting down the tournament all together, you know, not postponing it.

I mean, I think it's sort of intuitive to think that these large gathering event institutions, leagues, are being told by the health experts, this isn't days or weeks. This is months. This is months. We have no sports. Sports have completely shut down.

The Premier League shut down this morning. NASCAR, as far as what I know, is the only thing that's actually now running, apparently their next two events, they're going to go ahead and run those events, which seems crazy to me. But, yeah, it's a real weird time right now. You know, we're reminded, aren't we, by those of us

that we care about and that are in our lives, that aren't sports fans, we're reminded by those people all the time that say, you know, we're too emotionally invested in sports. say, it's only sports, Kevin. Come on. I mean, the people that aren't emotionally invested in it, they'll say it. But you know what? It is only sports when you think about it. We have gone this week, Aaron. We've gone from Monday, you know, talking about Maryland's big win over Michigan. We were both there. The importance of the upcoming postseason for Mark Turgeon, the optimism,

the excitement that we have over what we believe is the best team they've had in a long, long time. and the chance that they could make a run. You know, in here on Monday talking about the Caps, big win over Pittsburgh, you know, there was Redskins discussion and news that came out from over the weekend. The Wizards, not so much. But we had sports to discuss,

and lots of it coming up. You know, we went from that on Monday to then the discussion about games being played in front of empty, you know, arenas with no fans, to by the end of yesterday, sports basically being shut down completely. I guess LeBron James was right after all when he said he ain't playing if the fans aren't there.

The whole thing just escalated so quickly. It's almost impossible to believe that we're in the spot that we are today. I mean, I mentioned yesterday our lives have changed, and we all hope and believe they'll change back to the way they were at some point. We're the United States of America. We've been through a lot worse, and we've made it through with, you know, a work ethic and an entrepreneurial spirit. And, you know, hopefully, you know, after the hand washing and the social distancing and the stocking up on soap and sanitizer and lots of other things and the staying at home to work and hopefully not getting sick or, you know, seriously sick.

You know, hopefully we've got people out there or smart people figuring out, you know, the vaccine, you know, figuring out how to build hospitals and test. centers and getting the testing kits. You know, and having the testing kits be complete, which the California governor one day is saying, hey, the federal government's really doing its job and they're complimentary, and then they find out they get all these kits sent to them, and they're not even complete. We'll figure it out. We really don't know what's coming next. You know, some of us believe that less government in our lives is better than more government

in our lives. I talked about that yesterday, and Tommy said this, and it's true, until we actually really need it. Until we actually really need it. But we can't rely on it. I know some of you believe that the reaction to all of this is overrated. Some of you think that this is not something to be alarmed at. Some of you blame the media. Some of you blame the Democrats.

Some of you blame just people who are being way too hysterical. I don't, you know, I'm not alarmed, but I have no level of medical expertise to know whether or not this is an overreaction or overrated. I don't think it is. We may, six months from now, look back on it and say, you know what, the reaction was really overdone. But we don't know that now. But you know what? If we say that six months, it's probably because what we're doing now will help that. It could be.

You know, right now it would appear that even the highest level of medical people aren't. entirely sure. You know, it is good to hear that even if you get it, that more likely than not, you're not going to suffer much more than when you do when you get a cold, that's good news. You know, even for elderly people, which are much more at risk, it's still a long shot that they're going to die from this. That's good news. You know, the bad news is it spreads easily, according to everything you're reading and hearing. It's going to be around for a while. It may peak, retreat, and then come back again next year for another, you know, another visit. You know, just as bad as what it's doing to our economy right now, you know, it's more than just

the stock market. It's, you know, it's businesses, you know, especially retail businesses that aren't going to recover from what's being lost now. You know, many won't make it. You know, I feel, I feel sorry for those that have recently decided to launch a new business. You know, obviously you can't, timing is everything, and this is the worst timing of all time. The XFL shutting down after five weeks. They're saying, Aaron, that they'll be back next year, but what a brutal break for a new football league. But it's just weird right now.

Our lives have been managed, and I speak to you as sports fans. That's who listens to this podcast, and we're all sort of the same way, and we're different in many ways, fortunately, but we all sort of have this love of sports, which essentially we've managed our lives and our calendar around. You know, this time of year is March Madness. You know, it's opening day in a few weeks. It's the Masters.

You know, NFL free agency, we will have that next year. My God, the NFL is going to own the sports conversation. It usually does anyway. You know, but, you know, I would say that the NFL should be worried a little bit about how it might look next week. Personally, I wouldn't be offended. Okay? Personally, I hope they don't delay free agency.

But I think some people are certainly going to say, really? He just got a five-year deal for $120 million and people are losing their jobs and getting sick right now. You know, there is an optics part of that. Yeah, there is. That's no question about it. Tom Brady might sign, you know, a $100 million deal with Tennessee or Tampa this week. Well, people are, you know, getting sick and there aren't enough hospital. But, you know, I'm sure they're thinking about that.

you know for right now we're obsessed with the news and the information about the virus but that's going to get old you know next week no brackets to fill out no debating you know who got in and who didn't and who shouldn't have gotten in and who shouldn't have and who should have and who should have you know i'll tell you what for the players the seniors in particular anthony cowen junior you know Lamar stevens penn state i'm thinking about the senior players i personally think they should be given another year of eligibility if they want it. I think Anthony Cowen should be given another year of eligibility if he wants to come back and play a senior year.

I'd love it. I, you know, not just Anthony Cowan, but especially for, you know, I was thinking about it like these mid-majors who are going for the first time ever, the seniors who have worked so hard to get this, to get the auto bid, and to play, you know, Hofstra. I don't know if you can go back and put those teams into a tournament, but I think you can give those players a chance to take another swing at it. I'm saying is like, you know, I feel awful for Anthony Cowan, but at least Anthony Cowan got to

experience a tournament. There are a lot of players who have worked four years to try to get in, got in, and won't be able to play in the tournament. What if you're a Rutgers basketball fan? Yes. You know, they haven't been to the tournament in like 20, 30 years, something like that. How about if you're a Dayton fan? Dayton fan. Dayton had a chance to win the whole thing. Yeah. You know, Penn State, you know, they're not into basketball, really. You know, we understand that Penn State is, you know, a football school and then a spring football second. Probably no spring games this year. No.

You know, the postponement, to me, the cancellation to me said they just know a lot more. You know, I had John Oran from Sports Business Journal on the radio show this morning. I think John's great, and he's a great follow, too, especially if you're interested in sports and the business of sports and smart guy, local guy, big Maryland basketball fan, big local sports fan in general. But, you know, he said, there were two things that actually came out of the conversation, actually many things, but two things that I'll mention now. He said that the NCAAs actually, you know, was concerned about, you know, if they were going to play this thing in May with like, and he said, don't roll your eyes on this, but you know the NCAA, they'll tell you this anyway.

You know, it's graduation time. It's, you know, you got schools, you know, it's a big time of the year for the students. Like, this is, they paid $8 to $9 billion for this tournament. You know, if it could be played in May, I think they would have figured out a way to play it in May. I think they've just heard from the people, this is not going to be played in April. It's not going to be played in May. If you want to postpone it until July, maybe. I don't know that. I thought it was weird that it got postponed, that it got canceled, not postponed. The other thing that I talked to, I talked to John about that I thought was a little bit interesting is, you know, if this really does go on for a while, let's say months, you know, will we find out as a sports, you know, that you know what,

we found something else to do. We figured out how to, you know, come up with new things. And because it is an addiction, in many ways it's an addiction. And, Imagine, imagine had this happened in August right before football season. You talk about withdrawal symptoms. I'll never forget 1982 that strike. In 87, they went with the replacement players, so there were still games. It sucked, but there were still games. In 82, you had no football for seven to eight weeks.

I mean, it was like you were coming off a major addiction in having all the withdrawal negatives that come out of that. Adam Silver said yesterday, I thought it was interesting where he said, said the NBA will take a 30-day hiatus and then use the time to further discuss whether the league can resume play and how it can do so. If you watched it on TNT, you got the sense from him that he doesn't think that there's a chance. He's hopeful that it's 30 days, but he's very much resigned to it potentially being much longer. Anyway, nobody seems to know how long this is going to last. If it turns out to be months instead of weeks, you know, we're going to adapt somehow.

And again, you know, the football would have been the real test. March madness, missing it really stinks. You know, missing opening day, especially for the Nats this year is going to suck. Maybe missing a big chunk of the baseball season, missing the NBA and NHL playoffs in their normal spots. You know, that would, that's not going to be great. But, you know, the NFL really should be able to execute and make available and continue NFL free agency and then eventually the draft. Now, I don't see the draft being held in Las Vegas with an outdoor crowd. I think it'll be, you know, the ESPN, Berman, Kuiper, you know, McShea and the NFL network doing it with their crew like they did before we went to live venues.

I think I used to be a huge, I still am a big baseball fan, but I used to be back in high school a huge, huge baseball nerd. Yeah. So they would have a live stream of the draft, and you could hear like the GM or the director of scouting, go into a conference call, we select this. I want that for the NFL draft. I want to hear Dan Snyder come to a telephone and say. Hopefully it's not him.

No, you know what? They could get more creative. They could go XFL for the NFL draft, you know? half the teams in the league are restricting coach and scout travel due to the virus. The Redskins are one of those teams. They're not allowing their people to travel and for players to come in and meet at the facility. You know, the draft is still, what, six weeks away? I mean, I have a hard time believing like they're going to just postpone the draft.

Like, you can execute the draft without a large gathering of people, you know? Now, I guess some teams would say, well, you know, we didn't have the pro day. We need more time. Look, the tape. Okay, you got plenty of tape. You can do interviews over Skype. You can Skype on the interviews. By the way, as a quick aside, the Redskins were supposed to hold a press conference in Richmond today or yesterday.

They were supposed to hold it yesterday, excuse me. And they canceled it and Ron Rivera was going to be there. I was thinking about this. If I didn't say this yesterday with Tommy, if I did say it, bear with me, because I'm being repetitive, I understand that. But it had to have something to do with Richmond training camp, right? You don't hold a press conference in Richmond if you're the Redskins unless it's about training camp. And you don't hold a press conference in Richmond if you're canceling your deal or if you're not extending your deal. Personally, that deal was not a good deal for Richmond. all right, and it was a great deal monetarily for the Redskins.

It was not a good deal from a football standpoint for the Redskins. They had to cancel practices when it rained too much. But I digress. We didn't hear the announcement, but I would guess that there's going to be some sort of contract extension with Richmond. But look, the sports conversations are going to be much different. Yes, I just did cough. I don't have Corona. I have allergies right now.

The pollen is thick early in the year here. I've been sneezing and coughing a little bit. It's all, I believe, I believe allergy-related. Aaron is more than six feet away from me. We are practicing very much so in this studio, social distancing. But the next few weeks, look, no hoops, you know, no sports, but there will be NFL talk. There will be NFL free agency.

I think is going to start their calendar next week, and we're going to have a lot of free agency to discuss. But as you said, I do wonder more and more about the optics. Yeah, I mean, but you know, yes, could they delay it for a week? Yeah, but they're not going to cancel NFL free agents. They might push it back to like. And even if they don't start it next week, we'll still be talking about it next week. J.P. Finley, just as a heads-up, will be on the podcast on Monday.

I will unveil a Redskins free agency plan on Monday. So, you know, a lot of you always say anyway, dude, can you talk about something other than the redskins in the NFL? Well, unfortunately, we're not going to be able to do that, you know, for a certain period of time here. We do a lot of redskins in NFL, as you know, anyway. So, you know, for now, you know, until, you know, people get sick of watching the news and the latest on the virus and the economy and the sickening politics that surround all of this, You know, it's going to be, once you get through all that, we're going to be talking about NFL free agency here. And hopefully at some point, some horn goes off that says all clear. You know, I would think that that day will come at some point, but you don't have to look much

further than Italy to see what it's done to a country. You know, sports have shut down completely across the board. Think about this. The last two to three days, completely shut down. Completely shut down. No sports. No games. No scores. No recaps. No press conferences. No locker room interviews. No point spreads, Aaron. No standings, you know, to look at. The standings are frozen right now in the NBA and NHL. The standings and rankings in college basketball are not only frozen. They're final. So what are you going to do? What are you going to do to fill the void? Last night when I went home, I noticed that they were running a marathon of old conference championship games on ESPNU. And I sat down and I watched, it was the Georgia Arkansas game from the Tornado SEC tournament.

So I watched some of that. Oh, I remember that. Yeah. Yeah. That was not that long. No, I mean, it wasn't old old. Yeah. They were showing, this one obviously was 2008.

I think they had shown one from 2011 right before. By the way, just watching a conference tournament from 2011, the broad. of it. Oh my God, it looks like it was from the 90s. Well, the stuff that is from the 90s now looks like it was the 1930s compared to now. But I wouldn't think that something that long ago looked. You know what? Oh, the other thing I learned from Oran this morning, did you know that ESPN Classic basically has very few games anymore? Yeah. Because the rights of those games went back to the conferences. And when the conferences started their own networks, they owned that content. I don't watch ESPN Classic because it's not a high-depth channel.

And actually, I don't even know if it's on my default package, so I don't even know if I have ESPN or if it's just farther away from the ESPN so I never notice it. But yeah, that's what ESPNU is doing right now. They're just running marathons of old conference. And you know what? It was basketball, so I had to watch a little bit of it. I had my father-in-law, I had a conversation with him last night,

and he did not know about the NCAA tournament or the conference tournament shutting down. And he was watching, I guess they were. were running St. John's Creighton the first half? Or maybe it was Butler. Well, St. John's Clayton, they played. They played the first half. Whatever they were running last night, he's like, yeah, I'm waiting for the Seaton Hall game. I thought the Seaton Hall game was supposed to start now.

He's a Seton Hall alum. Oh, no. And a Seton Hall fan from West Orange, New Jersey, my father-in-law. And I said, yeah, they moved. And I told him, I said, yeah, they moved the Seaton Hall game to tomorrow. They're going to play it at 8 a.m. tomorrow morning. And he goes, what? And I said, yeah, apparently they had some problem with the arena,

and they got to change the whole schedule around. I said, you're going to have to get up early, but they'll have the game on at 8 a.m. tomorrow morning. And he just said, damn, it's like, that's unbelievable. And then I finally fessed up and told him that college basketball was canceled for the entire season. Anyway, yeah, I mean, we're going to fill the void with, you know, on this show with a lot of NFL free agency Redskins talk for sure and anything else that's

happening in the world. And as far as filling the void, no games at night, it's tough, man, it's tough. You know what I'm going to focus on? I'm going to focus on catching up on shows. I told you yesterday, Better Call Saul season three is on my list. And I'm going to get back on the Peloton because I have, in the last month or two, veered away from Peloton. And it was good for me.

It was good for me, and not being on it the last month or two has not been good for me. So I'll have time to do that. I'll have time to do that. All right, a quick word about my bookie.ag. Look, there's not March Madness going on. There aren't games going on. But MyBooky's easy to use. They pay fast when you win, and they'll let you bet on anything, not just games.

So they'll have, you know, certainly election odds and different things like that. Free agency odds. More likely than not, I'm sure they're odds on, you know, where Brady's going to land. there's still some things you can bet on. You know, if you're a TV watcher, you know, I don't watch the, did The Bachelor end this week, or is it like coming down to the end? I don't watch that show, but, you know, I'm sure they have odds on different show endings, etc. MyBooky.ag, easy to use.

They pay fast. They'll let you bet on anything. Go to MyBooky.ag. Use my promo code, Kevin, D.C., and you'll get a 50% bonus when you sign up. At MyBooky, you play, you win. you get paid. First and second round matchups in Jacksonville, Florida on Thursday and Saturday. The number six seed in the east, the Terrapins of Maryland out of the Big Ten.

Coach Mark Turgeon has the fourth youngest team in Division I. They will play the winner of the first four game in Dayton, Ohio on Tuesday, between Belmont, the Bruins from the Ohio Valley, and from the American Athletic Conference. That was last year. That was last year. Greg Gumbull, Selection Show Sunday. I think I said to Tommy and you yesterday,

why don't they just run Selection Sunday? So we have a bracket to talk about. I was really hoping they would do that. Well, if they had postponed instead of canceled, maybe they would have done selection Sunday. Right, and that's what I was kind of hoping, is that you do Selection Sunday, you hope for the best, and then you do it.

Right. Selection Sundays is amazing. It's such a good. Well, it's always amazing if you've got your team, you know, ready. to go to the dance. And, you know, Maryland last year, so Belmont played Temple in that first four game, won that game, and then remember, Maryland had a tussle with Belmont in a 6-11 game in Jacksonville.

You remember Dylan Wendler for Belmont going off had 35 points. Placed for the Cavaliers, by the way. It was a first-round pick in the NBA draft. And Maryland, you know, got saved by a good defense. play by Darrell Morsell at the end and a big win they ended up getting over Belmont. And then losing that second round game to LSU where they took the lead late and then Tremaine Waters had the drive and the bank shot with one second to go to eliminate Maryland. They would have been on to face Michigan State in the Sweet 16 at Capital One Arena.

So anyway, a lot of people in sort of the cottage industry that is brackatology, continuing to put out all of their brackets as they would have seen the brackets without the conference championship weekend to sort of use in terms of data. But Joe Lenardi, Joey Brackets, put out his final bracket and actually created a whole first round, you know, times of games, point spreads of games. Then he had to actually amend it. Like this morning when I was looking through it on the radio show,

he had Maryland playing Vermont in Greensboro. Maryland is a four-seed is an eight-point favorite over Vermont. But you said that he updated that, right? Yeah, because what happened was he had Louisville and Akron playing in Tampa, but Louisville and Akron played during the season, which is a no-no when it comes to the tournament. So he had to flip Akron and Vermont, so Maryland now facing Akron. Maryland now facing Akron in the first round.

So that's his updated bracket? Yeah. Okay, oh, here it is. So the updated was Maryland would have been a four-seed in the East region, with Dayton is the one. They would have played Akron, the Mid-American regular season champion, and then would have played the winner of Butler against either Texas or Richmond. They would have been the 12 seats playing in a first four game.

Marilyn Butler, remember, Marilyn played Butler in a second round game. In Buffalo, it was Buffalo, right? Yes. It was after they beat Steph Curry in Davidson in the first round. Curry had 34, I think, in that game, but Maryland won with Vasquez, Hayes, Landon Milbourne that team, and then lost a butler. Mike Jones missed a three at the buzzer. And I remember after the game, and Gary never said anything about it. None of the players said anything about it, but it was like a year or two later, Gary told me, he said, do you know

how sick we were for that game? DJ Strawberry was sick with the flu. Think about this. And in what we're talking about here, like they had guys with the flu playing in that game, you know, in 2008. That was 2008. 2006, 2007. Oh, that's right. Because 2008 was the year that they played Memphis in the second reign. No, that was 2009. That was 2009.

They missed the tournament. Anyway, so 09 was Memphis and then 10 was obviously Michigan State and Corey Lucius. Man, obviously this bracket, you know, if the conference tournaments had been played, wouldn't be this bracket. But people would be looking at this region and just looking their lips. Like Dayton is a legit team. It would have been hard to get past. But Florida State is the two, Villanova as the three, in Madison Square Garden. They would have, Maryland fans would have been losing their minds over this.

But remember, if the tournament had proceeded, it would have proceeded without fans. Right. Yeah, but if we're going back to, you know, the world pre-March 10th or March 9th or whatever. Pre-Rudy Gobert. Yeah, pre-Rudy. Well, actually, you know, I was thinking about that yesterday. Rudy Gobert obviously accelerated the process. Yes.

But there was going to be a Rudy Go-Ber. Oh, yes. You know, somebody was going to test positive and shut this down. in the next few days. Maybe they would have gotten through conference championship weekend with empty arenas. If no one had tested positive, we'd still be running not completely normally,

but relatively normally. Games would have been played if it wasn't for Rudy Gover. Maybe. Maybe. You know, we don't know that the health organizations wouldn't have said, look, the Ivy League canceled everything on Monday. You know, the Ivy League said, and again, and I think we mentioned this yesterday,

the Ivy League does not have, obviously, the revenue, you know, upside that these other leagues have. It's not a huge event for the Ivy League, so they had less to lose by canceling. But, you know, this was inevitable. It's just so funny how it's changed so much, because I remember coming in here on Monday and sharing with you, remember I said, you know, I had this weird thought just, you know, yesterday about what if like one player on one NCAA tournament team test positive for this thing? Won't they forfeit? And, you know, we debated it. Like, you know, I don't know, maybe they'd just quarantine.

And I said, yeah, but the incubation period's five to six days. They're not going to know on the other players. They're going to forfeit that team. And then Tommy comes in and says, the whole tournament's going to be shut down. That's what's going to happen. And he was right. He was right. So NFL free agency, you know, as of now, the NFL calendar, new calendar starts on Wednesday.

But, you know, the period of being able to start the discussion and the reporting on on all of the free agency stuff will start to happen early in the week. The 2020 free agent period actually opens Monday with what they call a three-day negotiating period for players, you know, with expiring contracts. And then the deals are actually formalized beginning Wednesday at 4 p.m. Don't ask me why they do it this way and why we have before the official start a free agency, the reporting of all of the free agent commitments. I don't know why there's just not.

a single time on a single day that says, this is when we're starting, and everything's live. But anyway, I'm sure there's a legitimate reason for that. But, you know, I was thinking about the Redskins that the Dan Snyder era can really be separated free agency-wise into two completely different, you know, 10-year periods. That first 10 years was all about making a splash. You know, the Redskins were the splash team in March. They owned Mark. And that was really more important to him, you know, was selling tickets and marketing and merchandising the team and the new, and the team's new players. Like it was important for him to have something new every year. You know, Dionne Sanders and Bruce Smith and Jeff George and Adam Archelette and Antoine Randallel L and Albert Hainsworth.

And the list goes on and on and on. I mean, if you pull up any list of the worst free agent signings in NFL history, the Redskins have basically, two to three players, maybe four on the top ten. And that was what it was all about. It was a marketing play. It was, let's get everybody all ginned up in March. They're going to buy tickets, are going to buy product, they're going to buy the new jerseys and the new players. And, you know, I'm not saying that he didn't think it would equate to wins in the fall, but we all know that that's not the way to build a team. It's not a way to build a culture. It's not a way to compete for meaningful things in January and February, and it never worked. It never worked. And so Bruce Allen came in,

you know, in 2010. Now, Mike was really in charge very much so in 2010 through 2013, you know. And, you know, they did pretty well. They, you know, Pierre Garsohn was a really good signing, you know, in that first free agency year. They didn't spend a lot in some of the other years, but I'm trying to think that there were guys like Barry Cofield who played really well, and Chris Chester ended up being a starter for a few years. Josh Wilson played well. I'm just trying to think of the names. Obviously, that first year in Free Agency, you know, they brought in Jamal Brown,

who got injured. Carricker was different, you know, okay. That was the year they obviously traded for McNabb. But it was the Bruce Allen era without much. that really made it obvious that it was a new day. Like, Dan was not spending. Dan was not making the Redskins front and center of attention in March. The Bruce Allen era was all about Dan.

That didn't work. Let me handle free agency. I will get you the best deals you've ever seen. And, you know, I'm sure he said, agents hate negotiating with me because I always get every night. nickel and every dime and every penny out of every deal. And that's what we saw with Bruce Allen in charge. And we saw basically, you know, him strutting around Redskin Park talking about the great contracts that he got, you know, with guys like, you know, Mike McGlynn and Terrell

Pryor. Remember the Terrell year of Terrell Pryor and Terrell McLean? And then you had Stacey McGee that year. You know, great phenomenal deals with these dudes. But it was constantly great deals on subpar players. Stephen Paya, Terranes. Knight and Chris Culliver, Deshawn Goldson, Geron Johnson. You know, the list goes on and on. There were a couple of good ones. I mean, Vernon Davis was really good, but in that same year with Vernon Davis, was Kendall Reyes. He couldn't play. Greg Toller and David Bruton. You know, the great deals for those guys, none of them could play. You know, there are very few big splashes until last year. Last year was the first Bruce Allen big splash free agency signing

in March, and that was Landon Collins. I actually liked the deal. But I said, last year on the podcast. Look, this is an indication that they better win now. You know, Landon Collins, this was completely out of the ordinary for Bruce Allen. This is feeling it, man. They feel the pressure. They got to make it happen now. I like the signing of Landon Collins, and I think with a good coaching staff, he's going to be a good player for the Redskins. I do. It was a lot of money for a safety. There was a lot of money for a safety. But I think we are now going to enter a new era. You know, and it's not necessarily going to look like the first one with Dan and Vinny, you know, calling the shots. And it's not

going to look like the Bruce Allen, you know, let me show you what kind of deal I can get on a very average to subpar player. I think, you know, this year, you've got a guy in Ron Rivera that took the job because he believes that the roster is set up for a quick turnaround, especially if they can add some key pieces via free agency and the draft, Chase Young being a big part of maybe that draft plan. I think Dan, one of the reasons he hired Ron, as Ron said, You know, this isn't a five-year plan. You got some talent here. I can turn this thing around quickly.

And especially given how much cap space we're going to have. You know, there's been nothing new on Trent Williams, all right? Nothing new on Brandon Sheriff quite yet. I think that'll happen here. The league is still scheduled to have that vote deadline be Saturday night. So we may get a new CBA by the time. We may have a new CBA by the time we're in here on Monday. But I think we're entering a period where Ron Rivera is going to, you know,

be aggressive and free agency, but hopefully sign players that are entering their prime. You know, one of the things the Redskins did do with the likes of, you know, Torell McLean and Terrell Pryor and Kendall Reyes and Chris Chester, and they weren't signing older players for the most part. You know, the splashes were Josh Norman and Deshawn Jackson, which were really odd splashes, and then Alex Smith, the trade. Everything else was, you know, basically a guy 25 to 27 years old, you know, on their second deal. You know, Garsohn, when they signed him, was 26, I think. And they got some really good years at a Pierre Garsohn, you know, on a five-year,

$40 million deal, something like that back then. But I think they're going to be aggressive. I think they're going to be aggressive. I think, you know, we're going to see, especially if they do trade Trent, we're going to see, you know, a Jake Conklin be a target. I've already mentioned Amari Cooper and Kenyon Drake and Austin Hooper. that assumes they make it to free agency. It's going to be, I think it's going to be a fun week if it starts next week.

And then there will be obviously the build-up to the draft, but I think this free agency period, the Redskins are going to try to add players that can step in and have an impact, like day one, you know, not players that are on great deals that are going to be plug-and-play special teams guys. You know, they're not going out to get E.J. Biggers in free agents. There may be an E.J. Biggers type or a Tracy Porter type or a Geron Johnson type, but there's going to be more of a landing Collins times three, is my guess.

You know, three significant contributors added through free agency, you know, over the next, you know, week if free agency starts on time. So it'll be an interesting time because they are going to add to a roster that they think has potential now. But they're going to add weapons, I think, definitely for Dwayne on offense. and I think ultimately it'll culminate with a draft that'll add Chase Young. That's still my belief is that we'll see Chase Young and we will see three significant names and contracts in free agency. That's what I think we've got coming up. All right, quick word about stamps.com.

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That's been canceled. And reading the statement from Chairman Fred R. Ridley, quote, considering the latest information and expert analysis, we've decided at this time to postpone the Masters. You know, it's a tournament like the Masters where I guarantee you the, you know, they've got some members in there that have real access to real information. And when he says, you know, considering the latest information and expert analysis, they're postponing this thing. I've read a couple of things on Twitter where they're talking about maybe not until October. I'm telling you, this is why the NCAA tournament just canceled.

This is why Adam Silver said, hey, man, we've got 30 days and then we'll just look at it. This is months people. What the shutdown of sports is telling you is, you know, if you're reading between the lines, and again, I can be completely wrong, is this isn't like a couple of weeks we're coming back and playing NBA games and NHL games. That's not happening. You know, we're talking about months. Now, of course, the golf calendar, you know, has very few opportunities to sort of just insert the masters for a tournament that's already being played. You know, in October would probably be the first opportunity to play it on an open weekend, I'm guessing.

You know, that might have something to do with it as well. But it's definitely, it's definitely, and it's, it's, it's in it's, it's in, it's, an evolving situation. Okay? It's a dynamic situation, as it will be probably for the next few weeks. I wonder if we will get anybody that will tell us, look, you know, for now, it's social distancing, it's self-quarantining, it's working from home, it's, you know, being smart, and we'll give you the horn that says all's clear. We'll give that to you. We don't know when it can, when it'll happen. We're hoping in a couple of months, but we'll give you the, we'll give you the all-clear. horn. I don't know if there will be an all clear horn. There may be a, hey, you can now go back to the

office. You can now, you know, congregate in large gatherings because we've got a vaccine. Maybe that'll be what it is. Maybe we've got to wait until we get a vaccine on this thing. Maybe we need to wait until we get more hospital beds and more equipment to handle all this. Who the hell knows? The betting public isn't there anymore. There's nothing to bet on. I had Eric Zimney from Charlestown sports book on the show this morning. And, you know, basically, he said, this is the biggest event. You know, this March Madness is the biggest, that first weekend is bigger than the Super Bowl.

You know, it's a month-long event. You know, it's a massive hit to sports books. I asked him about, you know, some of the futures. That's, first of all, everybody gets refunded on an event that gets canceled. But he said Kansas was, you know, like a five-to-one favorite, which is a pretty hefty favorite. He said, and I asked him about some of these, you know, the fact that it was a weird year, you know, with not, with a lot of the Blue Bloods not being top seats. There wasn't a true, you know, Kansas was a favorite, but even they, there wasn't like a Duke last year. That was a prohibitive thing.

Right, although he said, you know, Kansas was turning into a hefty favorite at this point. But the point being that you had the San Diego States and the Dayton's and, you know, and that the Blue Bloods, he said, Kentucky was really, they had a huge liability on Kentucky. Kentucky's recent run, if it continued definitely in the SEC tournament, that people were still betting the Blue Bloods. They were still betting Kentucky. They were still betting Duke. They were still betting Michigan State over, you know, Dayton and San Diego State. I think was the second favorite by, you know, 48 hours ago.

Who was? Michigan State. Were they? I didn't realize that. I also asked them if they were starting to contemplate how to handicap games without crowds. You know, what would go into that? We talked to a couple people this week about that on my afternoon show. Yeah, he said that they were starting to consider it.

And he thought, I sort of said to him what I said to you yesterday, which is, you know, the lower-seated teams in these arenas, unless it's Duke playing in Greensboro, would always have the significant majority of the crowd rooting them on to pull off the upset. And he said that's true, which would have created real interesting in-game betting. You know, had a lower-seated team had a chance, maybe then you would have really had a chance on the favorite without the crowd sort of bringing them home, so to speak. Anyway, we're just rambling at this point, you know? But that's what, you know, it's kind of what's going through our heads right now. It's the, you know, our heads are constantly on sports.

And now it's just like, oh, going home tonight, I'm going to be, you know, finding something to watch with my wife and finding something to stream. And I don't know what I'm going to do for the next month. I mean, I don't, you know, I was just, you know, I had built up my bankroll for March Madness and betting. And now it's like, oh, I'm going down my book. And the only thing other than NFL free agency, which I do see more and more odds are coming out on NFL free agency. So that's going to be a big thing for gambling is I've seen even the Vegas books and started to put out lines on, you know, where Tom Brady's going to end up. It wouldn't surprise me if you see all of the book, like the big books. I'm not talking about the, you know, some of the offshore, put up lines for Bridgewater, for Philip Rivers, for any notable.

I think you get a lot of that stuff anyway. I don't know that you get it in Vegas necessarily. Yeah, you're probably right. I mean, the NFL has an opportunity to completely own sports. You know, and they typically are a big part of our offseason anyway with free agency in the draft. I mean, the draft outrates anything that's opposite of it. Usually the NBA in the NHL playoffs. But free agency this year was going to go right up against March Madness.

It always does. I think usually it's earlier. It's a conference championship weeks. Usually it's a little bit earlier. That's true. Yeah. So this week it was going to go right up against March Madness. So there would have been the split now.

Yeah. If it does go on next week, they're going to own. sports for the next month. Yeah, there's no doubt. It was weird last night because usually, like, I, you know, after dinner and after whatever, I'll go into my office and I've got a TV in there and I've got my desktop there in front of me and, you know, I typically will open up, you know, NBA scores or, you know, NCAA men's, you know, college basketball scores and, you know, I'm watching something, you know, whether it's a, you know, whether it's a political program or a game and then

following a lot of the scores. And last night, just everything. Cancel, cancel, cancel, cancel. No scores. Again, standings frozen. Scores zero. I mean, there's nothing going on. So there you go. Next week, though, when we come back on Monday, we'll have NFL free agency to talk about. And maybe some NFL news over the weekend. I would not surprise me if we get a ton of Redskins news maybe related to Trent Williams or Brandon Sheriff over the weekend. That's it for the day. today. Stay healthy. And we'll all get through this. I mean, we always have back on Monday. Tommy will be with us next week as well. Enjoy the weekend as much as you can.