The Kevin Sheehan Show - Enshrine Mahomes Now!

Episode Date: October 2, 2018

Thom is in for a Sports Fix Tuesday. They talk about the Monday Night Football game and if people are getting a bit ahead of things by already reserving a place in Canton for Patrick Mahomes. Exactly how good are the Chiefs is discussed. They transition by taking the Chiefs QB situation and comparing that to what the Redskins have done with quarterbacks lately. Thom gives his take on Doug Williams' comments on Adrian Peterson's workout. Thom talks about what a great day it was for baseball on Monday with both of the Game 163s. And they both give their thoughts on HBO leaving the boxing game. Finally, Kevin wraps up by discussing some of the latest on the DJ Durkin situation. <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. You're listening to The SportsFix. Yeah, Tommy's here. Aaron's here. The show is presented by Window Nation. If you're in the market for Windows Call now, call before Sunday. And you'll save Big 86690 Nation or WindowNation.com and tell them that I told you to call. Oh my God, Tommy. Did you see last night John Elway, Joe Montana, and Dan Morrano. Marino all rolled into one. Oh, my God. I mean, Patrick Mahomes put him in the Hall of Fame already. Have they done the 30 for 30 yet on them? Oh, my God.

Last night, I thought Joe Tessator was going to get down on his knees in front of Mahomes and do things that we can't really describe, although actually we can if we want on this podcast. And by the way, it might be better than the actual telecast on Monday Night Football if he did. I talked about this last week or the week before. for it's a terrible broadcast, although I will amend one quick thing. Jason Witten and Bougar McFarland's analysis of what's going on in the game, if you can get by the fact that Witten's sort of soft-spoken and, you know, Tessator is just over the top, exaggerated all the time about everything.

The analysis is actually okay, but these guys should be on the C team on CBS or Fox. Isn't it hard to believe that that's where we are on Monday night football? That's the best that you can come up with. Well, Monday night football isn't what used to be either, but still, ESPN is the gold standard for sports broadcasting. You would think you could do better than that crew. I'm going to tell you Tommy last night watching that game. And we'll get to the game because it was a good game. And Mahomes, he's got talent.

I'm not suggesting that he's not talented. I'm not suggesting that he wasn't really good over those final two drives. drives. But what an embarrassment. The elevating this guy's stature in his fourth start to being like the greatest quarterback that we've ever seen play. He throws a pass on the final drive with his left hand. Honestly, you would have thought he was parting the seas. We've seen quarterbacks throw with their opposite hand. Farve has done it. Elway's done it. I remember Montana doing it from the, I mean, a Marino doing it from the pocket. Montana doing it.

Listen. Oh my God. It was disgusting to listen to this broadcast last night with Mahomes. He's a good player. But let's not, he's not a Hall of Fame yet. Can he play a few more games before we put him into Canton? Good God. I threw with my left hand at J.M. Hill playing Sandlot football.

So it has been done. That's because you were amphibious. Yes, I was. Look, this is the ultimate. proof that we live in the age of immediacy. I mean, what's happening right in front of us is the greatest thing in the world. Ever. And what happened, you know, I used to argue like anything that happened before ESPN started,

people don't care about. Now it's five minutes ago. I mean, so that's, look, he has done, he's thrown more, he started out throwing more touchdowns, I think, than any quarterback in history at this point. I understand that. I mean, so. But touchdowns in passing and everything is way up through the first. I know it is. It's like home runs during a stereo.

It feels like it. It feels like something's wrong. They're messing around with the ball air pressure or something like that. That's possible. There should be an investigation. It should be. But seriously, I'll be the first to say this, Tommy. After watching the Chiefs for the first time last night start to finish, I'll be the first to say this because apparently nobody at ESPN as a part of that broadcast was going to say anything other than this is the most dynamic, the most creative, the most incredible team, and the greatest quarterback we have ever seen in the history of the league.

But I'll say this right now. They're not winning the Super Bowl. No chance will the Chiefs win the Super Bowl. Their defense is bad, really bad. No defense that bad wins the Super Bowl. And number two, I'll just say this now. Mahomes, he's not going to be an MVP this year. He has talent.

he is creative, he extends plays, he's got a gun for an arm, I mean, and a quick release. He's got all the... You know, he's a former major week pitcher. I know. You can see the talent that he has, but he's going to have some games like most rookies have. He was terrible for the first three quarters last night. He was inaccurate. He was late.

He wasn't reading the field. He was rattled. And then with the game on the line, I will concede he was outstanding, although they got away with a huge third down conversion on the game-winning drive, with the play clock having been at zero for like a full second and a half, and it didn't get called. Should have been a delay of the game before a huge third-down conversion. The NFL admitted the mistake after the game. They don't usually do that, but that one was right there.

ESPN had the play clock down to zero. The ball hadn't been snapped. But I don't know. Come on. I mean, he's not. This so far looks like a young, promising, talented quarterback. Like in the last few years, we've had several of them.

Andrew Luck, who had injuries. RG3 was a transformational player. Mahomes has a lot that I like a lot. But the over-the-top, you know, his nickname, he's got a nickname already. Really? Showtime. I didn't know it before last night, did you? It didn't exist before.

That was entirely created by the ESPN Brockess. I don't think it's catching on based on Twitter reaction. Showtime Mahomes. This was Tessetor all night long. He's an embarrassment. He really is. Oh, my God. He is just...

I'm waiting for him to say at some point mine eyes have seen the glory, you know? It's a tough, tough listen. You know what? Let's, for a second, he's a terrific young quarterback. He's not yet Montana or Elway for a second. But let's just bring it for a second

and compare it. I know we don't like to compare the Redskins to other franchises because it's embarrassing to do so. But let's compare the two Native American-related franchises here, the Chiefs. They're Native American-related? And the Redskins. Okay, I didn't know that.

So they're in the same family with the Braves? Yeah. Okay. Let's look at how they handle the transition at quarterback over the last two years and how they prepared for it and how Andy Reid prepared for it as opposed to Bruce down. I mean, look what the Chiefs did. The Chiefs had Alex Smith. This is a column. I can feel

it. It's a good one. In his coming off his career year. Yes. His career. But had a kid that they drafted the year before. They traded up to draft. They traded up the draft. They knew who they wanted. They went and got them. They had a quarterback in place that they knew was

going to be expensive at some point, but they had somebody that they were grooming. So they let, they traded the quarterback coming off his career year, okay, and got a third round pick and a starting cornerback and made way for this young quarterback who is now, you know, the preemptive MVP at a league already. I mean, compare that to what the Redskins did. Compare that to...

You mean paid a guy, a franchise tag for two straight years and then got nothing in return for them? Yes, nothing in return. And then to replace him. Then to replace him had to give up a third. their best young defensive back and tear up the guy's contract and give him a contract extension. Actually, they didn't tear it up. They just gave them an extension.

Yes, it would, putting the two side by side makes one look really smart and the other look really dumb. Yes. By the way, that's accurate. And they look really dumb, even though they were lucky to get Alex Smith. Yes. And they still look really dumb. No, you know, it's a really good point because I've had this.

conversation with people before that say you were so adamant that they were doing the wrong thing, but then you also basically complimented them for the Alex Smith trade. And I said, yes, both things can be true. Yes. I mean, they're not mutually exclusive of one another. The Redskins completely botched the Kirk Cousins' handling. No matter what you think, even if you're absolutely convinced that they were right, that they shouldn't want a long-term relationship with this guy, then they should have traded him when they could have gotten something back for him. And then maybe they could have drafted Deshawn Watson or Patrick Mahomes or perhaps this year Baker Mayfield or somebody else.

It wouldn't have been Baker Mayfield. But they could have potentially had the 49ers first round pick from this past April. The point is, is Tommy is 100% right. The Chiefs handle this. And let me also just throw this one thing in that benefited the Chief's situation. And people don't like to hear this, but it's true. The Kansas City fan base was not clamoring for Alex Smith to be their long-term quarterback, even after last year.

They all felt that there was a limited, that there was a ceiling to Alex Smith, the playoffs. That was the ceiling. All of their fan base. So they were ready for something new. They were ready for something new. You know, Tommy, when that trade happened, there was no. Not much of a fight put up by the Kansas City media base or fan base. Just the opposite.

I agree. I mean, they think that they got over on the Redskins. Completely. Like the Eagles did with McNabb. And that doesn't mean the Redskins didn't get a good quarterback. No. In fact, so let me finish the one thought that I had. The reason the Redskins trade for Alex Smith was a good trade in my view is, first of all,

I had gotten to the point where I did not want to pay Kirk Cousins $30 million a year. and by the way he accepted 28 from Minnesota. He would not have accepted more likely than not 28 from here. He didn't want to be here. He didn't want to be in an organization that was, he felt wasn't a good organization, didn't want him, and offered him basically, you know,

30 million less than the market dictated. But what I was going to say is this. They do have talent on this roster. We've talked about this. They are positioned here to potentially, if things go right and certain things don't, get in the way, which they typically do here, to make a decent two, three, four year run of being a playoff kind of contender with the defensive talent that they have in particular, but they would

have not been in that position this year or next, in my view, without a legitimate top half of the league's starting quarterback, and Alex Smith is that. So that's why I felt like, this is a good trade. You had to give up a lot. You're paying an aging guy, but he's the kind of guy that doesn't look like he's really aging. He's still very athletic. I felt, not, you didn't feel this way. I just felt that if they had gone into this year starting over from scratch with, or it's starting with Colt McCoy for a couple of years, that that was a losing proposition. The argument you could have made is I would, if somebody said to me, I would have preferred that they had used their trade bait, Kendall Fuller, and a third to move up in the first round and take one of the young

quarterbacks and invest in the future at the position. And I would have said, okay, that's fair, but understand this, with a talented roster, not an overly talented roster, but a growing in talent roster, you probably wouldn't have been able to make any sort of serious headway this year or next with a rookie quarterback. Well, yes and no. I mean, we're only talking about a talented roster on one side of the ball. You still have a talented offensive line.

Okay, I know that. And you've got Chris Thompson and Jordan Reed. I mean, you have some, they're not void of talent. They're breakable. They're breakable. Okay, but they're not totally void of offense. I mean, they have no talent on offense that you can look forward and say, oh, boy, the next two or three years, those guys are going to be really good.

I mean, the one guy to have is Darius Geis and he's hurt and he's going to have to come back from an injury, and we still haven't seen him play in a real NFL game yet. So I think the argument, the same argument, why they can be competitive this year with Alex Smith is the same argument why they, I think they could have been competitive with Colt McCoy at quarterback because they don't need much offensively. If the defense is as good as we think it is, they don't need much offensively. Yes, they do.

No, they don't. The only time they do. It's not the best defense in the long time. I know it's not the best defense. It's just much better than it's been. But the limitations are the same. They can't fall behind, whether it's Alex Smith or Colt McCoy, they can't fall. He said him a much better chance than Colt McCoy would have given him.

I don't think it's a much better chance. Well, I'm not going to get into that. My point is this talent you're talking about to me is on one side of the ball. It's why they'll stay competitive, but in any game, they can't fall behind by two touchdowns. Speaking of talent on one side of the ball, just getting back to what started this conversation, the Chiefs are just loaded on offense. But they're the opposite of the Redskins. Oh, I know.

Kareem Hunt. Well, look, let's not turn the Redskins defense at this point into the 85 bears because they're not. What they are is they're so much better than they've been, which is why you'll see significant improvement in performance, statistically, et cetera. And they're young, so the idea here is that they're going to continue to get better. And they can add pieces to the defense, but they're not ready to win 12 games. No, they're not. Like Jacksonville did last year with a defense only. No, I know that.

I know that. But I'm saying, I mean, if you have that Redskins defense from last year with this offense this year, you're 4 and 12. Say that again? If you combine the Redskins defense from last year with the Redskins offense from this year, you're 4 and 12. I don't disagree with that. I think if the Redskins had stayed healthy defensively last year and they wouldn't have had Duran pain as part of the mix, they would have been a playoff team. would have been a nine.

The difference in wins would have been two to three games if their defense had stayed healthy last year. You mean they might have won that important Giants game at the end of the year to go eight and eight? Well, it may have been a meaningful game and maybe they would have blown that one because, of course, you know, Kirk, the only thing he does is to make mistakes at the end of big games. But the point is, is that once they had these crushing injuries defensively, they couldn't overcome what was then ordained, which was they were going to be a bad.

bad defensive football team without some key pieces. Offensively, at times, they were still able to overcome all of those injuries. But that was mostly because of the quarterback. Mostly because of the quarterback. People don't want to say that. They hate saying that. But it was a lot because of the quarterback. And also, I give Jay Gruden some credit. Jay Gruden, you know, that's the one thing he can do. He can scheme up some offense, you know, out of not a lot of things. Yeah. You know, but Kansas City with Hunt and Hill and Kelsey and De Anthony Thomas, you know, Aaron from Oregon, his speed. And, Andy Reed to me, is also limited. Like he, to me, is just never, for whatever reason, he's going to bungle something in a big game in the postseason and they're going to lose a game that they shouldn't lose.

It happens to him every year in the postseason going back to Philadelphia, except for the one. year that they made it to the Super Bowl and lost. But they are exceptionally talented at the skill position players. I don't know if there's a more difficult player in the NFL right now to defend than Tyree Kill. And it's funny, Tommy, because he's tiny, you know, and he's a receiver, but he's also a running back. Last night, Andy Reid was doing things I've never seen done. He had plays where he had four players. going in motion pre-snap.

It was crazy what he was doing. He is very creative and innovative. And I would take him as my coach right now tomorrow versus Jay Gruden. But I also know that Andy Reid's going to do something stupid with timeouts or with the clock or with the score and cost his team late. Or right now his defense is suspect at best. It's going to hurt him. And their next two games are going to really Jacksonville at home this week at Arrowhead. That's a good AFC game.

Yes, it is. And then they're at New England the following week. Oh, wow. Those are good games. Look, the one complaint that you've read, and I've read about Andy Reed, is one I think is similar with Jay Gruden. Andy Reed is supposedly great at the 15-play script. Once you get past those 15 plays, the opening script, like second half in particular, not quite as good. Well, that was always the complaint about Norv.

Right. Like Norve had the best opening script of any coach offensive mind in history. Well, I think you can make the case that Jay Gruden suffers from the same disease. I mean, particularly given the second half offensive woes of this Redskins team so far. Andy Reed is a cut above, two cuts above Jay Gruden, even when it comes to offense and creativity and innovativeness. You know, Andy Reid's a really good quarterback coach, a really good offensive mom. He really is. And, you know, when you hear people that played for him, like Brian Mitchell played for him, they all really liked him and respected him. Yeah, but they all like Jay.

Yeah. They all like Jay. That's no measure of me. You haven't heard anybody describe Jay as some sort of offensive genius. Oh, I don't know. I think I have. Some media people, perhaps. I don't know if the players, have we heard that from players? Okay, let me ask you a question. I think Jay's a good offensive guy. Let's put this to a test. You got to have a chance to hire a head coach, and it's between Todd Bowles and Andy Reed. Who are you going to hire? Well, you know I'm a Todd Bowles fan, but I think I would probably hire Andy Reid. Knowing that you don't know the limitations on Todd Bowles yet. You do know the limitations on Andy Reed.

You're not getting to the Super Bowl with Andy Reed. Well, then I don't want to hire either one of them. I mean, but, you know, if you're without, if you've got a vacancy, And Belichick's not available, and Sean McVeigh's not available. But I just, last night... Come on, you know you'd hire Mike Shanahan and Elverall, both of them. I would. I know you would.

As long as he brought Kyle with him and had that whole mix. I mean, I don't think we ever had a chance to see the best of the Shanahan's. Like typically is the case here, you don't get a chance to see the best of anybody right here. I mean, it's sort of the way it's gone. The final thought on just the Chiefs last night is that they are really explosive offensively. They may be the most explosive offensive team in the league, although really I don't know if there's that much difference between them and New Orleans and even Atlanta offensively. Atlanta's got weapons too.

I mean, Ridley, Jones, Freeman, Coleman, it's sort of the same thing, and their defense is bad. But I just, watching that last night, I would have never turned it off, and I don't turn down the sound. I don't do that. And the Denver crowd was into it, which made it sort of exciting. But from the start, the whole night was about Showtime Mahomes. And they wanted you to believe. And maybe it's just, this is, you know, the promotion of the league rate. Now, the ratings are up, Tommy across the board.

I know. You know, they just. just wanted you to believe that we were watching the next Unitas or Elway or or Peyton Manning. I see a talent, but let's just let's put the brakes on for a moment. You can't do that. You know who wouldn't do that? If you're going to be taken seriously, Al Michaels wouldn't have done that. Would not have done that. Not a veteran guy. He wouldn't have done that. Summerall wouldn't have done it. No. You know, Enberg wouldn't have done it. The greats wouldn't have done it. And this guy, Tessitator was down on his knees.

in front of Mahomes before he threw it. And there was no acknowledgement or really none, although Witten said it at one point that he's really off with Kelsey and he's off a little bit. But through the first three quarters, if you're watching this game, you're like, he's all right. I mean, Denver's defense is the best defense they faced. Next week, Jacksonville and Kansas City,

that's a one o'clock game. That should be more of a prime spot game at this point in the year. Now, even though you thought that, you know, that my home stuff was overblown, you'd take him over Alex Smith, wouldn't you? Oh, yeah. I see the, oh, the potential. Don't misread what I'm saying. It was more about the broadcast and the elevation of him to.

Who hasn't won anything yet? Hall of Fame status after four starts, after three starts, because it started before the game last. I guess he started one game at the end of last year. But he's got a gun. He's got creativity. He's got the ability to make plays. He's a playmaker.

But he's not there yet. Let's give it some time. I want to talk to you about the Doug Williams story with... What Doug Williams story? The interview that he did with Doc, maybe like 10 minutes after you declared here, that Dan Snyder was no longer really seriously involved with the day-to-day operations? I could have been a little bit premature. I want to tell you about Window Nation.

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and they'll pay your utility bills until those new windows are installed. 86690 Nation or WindowNation.com and tell them that I told you to call. All right, so shortly after our Thursday show. Actually, I think it was sometime Friday, whatever, it doesn't matter. Doug Williams was on the air with Doc at 980. You know, I put in a call to Doug, and I said, you need to go on the air and spill the beans, you know, because my partner, Kevin Sheen, is under the illusion

that things are done a certain way at Redskins Park. I've just been told so many times, and you're right, and this is why I've really missed you in my life here the last couple years of you to just say, hold on there. You know, you're all, you're filled with spitting vinegar, ready to go, but hold on here. I got a little experience.

No, it was, so this is what happened. So Doug Williams, in an interview with Doc Walker, said that he brought in Adrian Peterson for a workout without telling anybody. And he said to Doc, quote, he got in trouble for it, and he said, quote, if my mama was the president when we signed Adrian Peterson,

I would have caught a whooping because we brought Adrian here and the owner didn't even know we was bringing him in. He got caught off guard, so I had to go to the principal's office. If that had been my mama back in the day, I knew what would have happened in the principal's office because you don't do things without her knowing. That's the way this thing is set up.

Everybody got a lane to stay in, and it's best to stay in your lane. At times you can speed, it's all right, the highway's clear, but if you get a red light, you need to stay in. stop. Close quote. You know, this is what I like so much about Doug

Williams because he may be immune from the infection of Redskins Park where, you know, you basically lie through your teeth about everything, and that he can't stop himself from telling the truth. He couldn't stop himself from saying

that Bruce Allen told him not to answer the phone the night of the biggest trade the team has made in five years. And he couldn't stop himself by saying the owner was mad at him for bringing in a running back for a tryout. So I will tell you that, you know, in reading the quote here for a second straight day, something just hit me that it didn't really sit with me yesterday or didn't move me yesterday. I think Doug is trying to get a message out through Doc.

You know, Doug is go along to get along most of the time, but I think he's telling you, this is wrong to bring me into the principal's office for this. I don't think he's that political. You don't? No, I just think it's just his nature just to tell you what happened. You know, that's just his general idea is to tell people the truth. That's the way this thing is set up, he says. That's the way this thing is set up. everybody got a lane to stay in and it's best to stay in your lane.

He is the EVP of football operations. I know. He is the de facto general manager. He's the personnel guy, the guy in charge of the players on the roster. Now, I think all of us know to a certain degree, not to, it would be really condescending to refer to it as a figurehead, you know, position or an elevated, you know, title that doesn't match the responsibility. But I think most people that are that really are in the day-to-day covering of the team know that Doug Williams does not have the final say on personnel. That's not what he has in this organization. That Bruce has the final say on all of this stuff and that Eric Schaefer

is intimately involved almost at Doug's level when it comes to this stuff. But I don't, so what does it mean? So it means that the owner is involved. He's always been involved. He's always going to be involved. This is a guy who is never going to change. We'll never change the way he does business, which is petty, which is small-minded, which is mean. And this is why the whole second team of business guys that they brought in, you know, Brian Lafamemina and company in the off-season, all of them should be renting. Because in two years, none of them will be here. because this organization, as long as Dan Snyder is the owner,

is not going to change the fundamental way they do business. And the fundamental way they do business is Dan Snyder's involved in personnel on the football field. I think it's funny what you say about Brian, because you know we've had conversations with him. I've had conversations, multiple conversations with him, met with him last week. I like him. I think he totally gets what's gone on here. Oh, I'm not sure he does. I think every day, I think every day is a revelation for him.

Let me back up from that statement. I think he has a sense of what the personality of the organization was and what the default was, which was to go low most of the time. And so that he wants to completely turn around because he recognizes that that is not what a service business should feel like from the consumer standpoint. but yes, you are right. I think every day he probably learns something else that is a revelation of sorts. But when you said what you just said about they should be renting, he's a qualified guy. I think he has the right sort of disposition to get this organization back on the right footing from a business standpoint first,

because they got sponsors that have walked away from them. They've got a ticket selling issue. That is a major priority. They have a massive ticket selling issue. And it's important to remember with all that said, the landscape for sports, the competition for sports marketing, sports fans has changed dramatically. Because of the last. And then that's over the last 10 years. I mean, we're talking about entities that weren't a factor before.

So, but to your point, I mean, it will only take a couple of things before it's, No, I don't like the way things are going now. I want to go back and do it this way, in my way. You know, the only thing that might change that is how much power does Lafamina have from the league? I know. We both said this, that we think he was placed here by the league. We think so. It's just speculation. I have no proof or inside information otherwise. But if that is true, if that line of thinking is true, how much power does he have if the league is behind him to exert that over? here because I really do think that there's a lot there have been a line of people waiting out

his office since he got hired here. You know, each with a pile of crap that they bring into his office and the guy probably says, oh, I'm glad I'm done with that. And then there's a bigger pile of crap the next day with a different guy. But maybe the league office will give him the power to basically wait it out or to basically I just think either Bruce Allen or Brian Lafamina is not going to be here in two years, one or two. just as sort of a related topic, but not really.

Did you see the press release that they put out this morning about their new relationship with Entercom with JFK? Well, with my station, 1067, the fan. It's me and the Redskins back together again. Let me tell you what all of us that have been at 980 for the last couple of years all sort of set in unison. Yeah, of course. They've been sleeping with JFK for two years behind this marriage and name only, you know,

wife, and now they've decided to marry the person. and they've been sleeping with. It's hysterical. You know, it's hysterical to all of us to think that JFK was somehow at a disadvantage because 980 was the rights holder. 980, you have no idea. One day we'll share some of the stories, but it was really incredible,

the stuff that was sort of not provided to us and was provided to the competitor. And I might want to point out that you can hear me talking about the Redskins on 106-7 fans. Yes, with Chad. With Chad Dukes. on Wednesday afternoon. Tomorrow afternoon. No baseball because the Nats aren't in the postseason.

No postseason. And then Saturday mornings from 9 and noon with Andy Paul. There you go. Two baseball games yesterday. It was a great day. Do you like what they do with the one game, you know, tiebreaker for the divisions now that there is a wild card? Because I actually have a feeling on this, but I want you to answer first.

Yeah, I do like it because when you play that wild card game, that's a, that's why I like. the change they made in the wild card because you don't want to beat a team that loses that one-game tiebreaker and has to play that wild card, that one-game wild card. So, yeah, it's an important, dramatic game. I thought it was a great day for baseball to have those games on like this. And the idea of tie-breaker games goes back in decades, goes back years. They've been doing that for years. The Red Sock Yankee game, the Giants and Dodgers. The Giants and Dodgers was a three-game playoff.

to decide a tiebreaker back in... Bobby Thompson. Yeah, Bobby Thompson. Look at you. I'm very impressed. Come up. I'm a sports fan. Every sports fan knows that.

I know. So I like it. I like the idea. I like the games. And I love the one game wild card, too, that now exists. People will say, well, you played a whole season, you win 90-some games, and it comes down to one game. We'll win the division. I mean, it puts a tremendous value on.

winning the division. I don't have a problem with the wild card. I actually like the wild card. And it also helps at the end of the regular season where you're in the running. My question to you, though, was really about yesterday could have been determined with just a simple head-to-head tiebreaker. And yesterday was not as devastating for the loser as it could have been. You could have had one of these division one game playoffs with the loser being out altogether. Yes. And not qualifying for the wild card. Yeah. So it was very very. unique. And I know that they've done this forever, but now with the wild card, what I find is that, and I went back and looked this up last night, the Dodgers took 12 of 19 games head to head with the Rockies.

If they had been in position, and yesterday's not a good example of it, but if they had been in position of yesterday having to win that game to be in the postseason or lose and you're out, the tiebreaker would have gone to them easily. They dominated Colorado. during the course of the regular season. I just think now, I mean, I watch some of the games. I think you're reaching here, Kevin. You're reaching for a reason not to like what happened yesterday. Every other sport has a tiebreaker to determine playoff teams and division champions.

But no other sport plays 162 games over the course of a year. I got it. But by the way, with 162 games, that should determine that's a better sample size, much better than one game. It's better than a best of seven. And all I'm saying is they played 19 games head to head. The Dodgers and the Rockies did. I get that.

But the Dodgers... The Rockies, in September and August, were a different team than the Rockies in April and May. Okay. Look, it's not... Whatever. I was just curious. It was a great day for sports. I'm sitting up in quartermaster's.

My cigar place up in Frederick, watching the game, having a couple of beers eating some Roy Rogers fried chicken on a Monday afternoon. It was great. In the cigar bar eating Roy Rogers? No, it's not a cigar bar. It's a cigar store. Okay. Is it right next to Roy Rogers?

No, no, no. I went and got. You brought your Roy Rogers in. I brought my Roy Rogers fried chicken and my three Miller High Life's with me. That's good. And I sat there watching the game. And I'm thinking it's a Monday afternoon and I'm watching a playoff baseball game. I'm eating fried chicken, drinking beer, smoking a cigar.

What a great day. Roy Rogers still is, I mean, for those of us that grew up with it, still great. I love the roast beef and I love their fried chicken and their double R burgers the best. Yes, I love their fried, but their roast beef is, nobody else can do what they do with rose bean. It's that good. Agreed. So the caps open up

tomorrow night. I'll be there. They're defending champion, Stanley Cup champion season. In fact, Chad Show, I'll be on Chad Show tomorrow night. It's from Clydes right around the corner. Oh, good. So they are starting this season as a Stanley Cup

champions. It's really it's amazing that it actually happened. It was really fun to watch. You know me. I'm not a massive Caps fan. I'm just not. And I'm not a massive hockey fan, even though I love playoff hockey.

But I did get caught up into rooting for Alex Ovechkin in particular. And I think the celebration, on the ice in Vegas, after the game ended, his unleashing of like these years and years of pressure to win it all, to get to live up to sort of the billing. And then the celebration that ensued over the next couple of weeks was one of the most likable things we've seen in recent sports history.

Like people that weren't even paying attention fell in love with Alex Ovechkin in the celebration of that. What are we, tomorrow night's going to be a big night. It will be a big night. I'm wondering if there will be the same. sort of crowds in the street outside that we saw in the postseason. I don't know if we'll see that for the opener. They did say there was going to be an outside viewing party. So you're going to have that.

You won't have those crowds, but you'll have a big crowd down there. So for the moment, for the first time ever, it's going to, for a brief moment, hockey in October is going to take the attention of the sports viewer in this town. Yeah. That's never happened in October before ever. Now, look, it's great. I don't know if you are familiar you with this, but when I was on Chad's show during the playoffs last June,

and they lost the first game to Vegas, I think it was six to four. And didn't you declare it over? I said it was over. I said the series was over. I said, if you score four goals against Flurry in his house and lose, you lost your opportunity. and I didn't say how long it would take,

but I said when the caps lose this series, they're going to look back on game one. So you were rooting for them to lose. No. To be right. Yes, you were. Well, yes, because I do like to be right. Right. You know, because I'm not used to being wrong.

You will. So they proceeded to win the next four games. And I was as wrong as wrong can be. And the reaction, and look, I took my medicine. I wrote a column, actually, I wrote a column saying the series was over, then I wrote a column saying when an idiot I was. for saying that. That said, the reaction that I thought was so amusing was I was supposed to

apologize for being wrong. It's not enough to say you were wrong. I owed somebody an apology for being wrong. Think about the concept of that. How would anybody ever argue anything if they had to apologize for being wrong all the time? I don't want to put myself into a position where I'm going to have to apologize. I apologize for being wrong. How stupid that was. Two things about Wednesday night and the raising of the Stanley Cup banner. That should take away from it.

One, to me, I know Caps fans have already deluded themselves and they're thinking that everything's going to be fine with Reards as the new coach. Reards. But the coach who won the Stanley Cup, the only coach who won a Stanley Cup is on the history, it's not going to be there because he left to go coach another team. I mean, a Stanley Cup will cover everything that happens this year. I mean, it's the ultimate house money season. I mean, I think the caps are going to be good.

I think they're going to be competitive. But whatever they do is what they do. I mean, this Stanley Cup euphoria is going to last a long time. Oh, this just bought all of them. Yeah, it did. Well, it bought, it bought Ovechkin a lifetime. Oh, yes, absolutely. A lifetime.

I'm never having to answer that question. You never has to answer that question. You know, but, I mean, I think it's diminished a little bit because the coach isn't there. I think it's going to be diminished a little bit because Tom Wilson, one of the biggest contributors to that Stanley Cup, a guy who can't seem to get out of his own way is probably going to be suspended for the first four to six games in season because of a preseason game, a meaningless preseason game hit. He's not probably going to be on the ice tomorrow night. He's going to be watching the press box with me.

Why can't the hearing, he's requested a hearing, right? Yeah. And that'll happen the day of the opener. He's going to get suspended. Oh, whether it's four games or six games, it'll be one of those. I don't know if that puts a – that doesn't diminish anything or put a damper on it. I mean, you'd like to have them as part of the celebration. Well, I tell you what, people will write about the fact that the guy's not on the ice.

And, I mean, on a day where you shouldn't have any negative storylines, they'll be one or two. They may be small stories, but they'll be one or two. It should be 100 percent parade down Pennsylvania Avenue, celebration. Nobody feels bad about anything. This is what I'm interested in. And you could guess this is if I gave you time, but I'm not going to. I'm interested to see what the effect of the Stanley Cup is. I'm very interested in. I want to see if all of the sudden the capitals in games in October, November, and December and January, during football season in particular, regular season games against Columbus and, you know, in the island, well, the rematch,

the islanders, the head-to-head with Barry Trots might be something. If these games are going to rate much higher in terms of interest, if there's going to be pent-up demand night in and night out to watch the caps, if we're going to have much more coverage of regular season hockey, if on sports radio it's going to be, they're going to, hosts are going to spend more time talking about it, not because they won the Stanley Cup, but because consumers are demanding,

that they talk more about it. And you and I know what that means. We have a sense and we've had a sense of what the right things to talk about are. And hockey in October was a non-starter. Hockey in November, December, and January and February was a non-starter if you wanted an audience of any significant size.

I'm wondering if that'll change. I personally don't think it will change that much. I think this is what we saw was this incredible confluence of without a championship in any sport for so many years, the Alex Ovechkin story knocking off the penguins finally to winning a series, and a young, hungry, you know, demo in town that lives downtown now, Tommy, much more so than they did 10 years ago.

They live in Logan. They live in Petworth. They live in Shaw. They live in Columbia Heights. They live in Chinatown. You didn't have that 15 years ago. years ago. And all of it came together and there was this massive sort of celebration that was great for the city. But what does it mean during the number one sports season in this country

with still the number one team, no matter what you think of the Redskins, they still draw the most eyeballs by miles. That game that everybody was talking about against the Indianapolis Colts that did a 17.8 locally television ratings wise eclipsed most of the most of of the Stanley Cup finals games that the caps were involved in. So, but I am interested to see what will happen. Tomorrow night is going to be this one-off, this aberration. But what happens in a couple of weeks when they're playing the, you know, not the lightning, because the lightning are good.

They're playing the Panthers on a Wednesday night in the middle of December. Will anybody, will you get bigger than a three or four TV rating locally? Will people start to watch these games? Well, here's, I know you like to use this as a measurement, but the TV ratings have never been less reliable as a measurement than they are now. TV rating combined with stream, combined with mobile, and all that stuff. And they can't measure that stuff. Oh, no, they're not accurately.

The streams are measured now. Not accurately. They're guessing. Okay. They're guessing. So, I mean, I don't use that as a measurement anymore because the people in the business have no idea who's really watching and who isn't. I think if you go back and look in cities where hockey wasn't big and then they won a Stanley

Cup in places like that, like Tampa and other places like that, I think you see a dramatic jump in interest that lasts. I think you'll see a jump. How dramatic I don't know. I think this will be a real thing. For one thing, I think it's going to change the way sports business has done in town because I think people are going to want to be with the caps and the more people are going to want to do business with the caps, the more people are going to want to watch

the caps. So I think it will be more of a thing moving forward than it's been. I think the Stanley Cup has that kind of impact. I don't know what the answer is and now you're telling me that there will be no way to measure it. So I, you know... I mean, it's one part of it, but it can't be your basis anymore. sport itself is a postseason sport primarily. In most cities, even cities that have had longstanding

winning hockey teams. You know, if you take the Pittsburghs and the Chicago's and the New York's and obviously the Canadian city teams out of it, it is a postseason sport everywhere else. Hell, it's a postseason sport in New York. I mean, I'm not saying that the Rangers and the Islanders and the Devils, clearly the Rangers haven't drawn well, but people really don't get into it until the postseason. Look, the NBA is not that much dissimilar. I know. Look, I know that. You know that. When you play that many games. I just think as a daily staple of conversation in this town, the level's going to be raised. Okay. So that's my, that's, that's, that's an educated opinion. Um, as, as I might point out, a professor of the business of sports media at Georgetown

University sports, uh, management program. Give me a moment again to thank somebody else and tell you that if you've been thinking about a new vehicle, please consider Ferrisch Chrysler Dodge Jeep in Fairfax. I've been friends with Ralph Perkins and Kevin Farish, like with Windonation, for like 10 years. They advertised on 980. They were the title sponsor for Redskins at 8 when I was doing the show with Cooley. And Tommy, as you know, Redskins at 1, Ferris was the sponsor for all seven years for Redskins at 1. They followed us here, are supporting this podcast.

venture, not just out of the goodness of their heart, they realize that we've got a good audience already and it's growing and they want to be a part of it. But if you like this show and you're thinking about buying something new when it comes to a vehicle, I give you my word that you'll be so happy if you go out to Farish, Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep in Fairfax and ask for Ralph Perkins. Yes, he's there in the store every day. They've got plenty of inventory, great deals right now. any Jeep right now you will save big on. They're located right there in Fairfax Circle. Ask for Ralph when you get there.

Tell them that I sent you. You can find out everything Farish has right now, including live pricing, live inventory, by going to ferrish cars.com. Kevin, I did want to add something to the euphoria of yesterday. In addition to watching baseball all day and then some of the Monday night football game. And it was just a great day to be a sports game.

fan. The best part of it was the backdrop of the pain and the suffering of golf fans over the rider cuff. That was the best part. That was like, that was like, you know, in the background, and you'd see on the crawl, you know, Patrick Reed complaining about, about his pairing. And, and I'd read on Twitter, all the angst and all the suffering and all the shame to USA for losing the Ryder Cup so embarrassingly. And that was just like, icing on the cake for me. Why are you so anti-golf? Because it's such an elitist sport. It hasn't been for a long time. Oh, it is

too. No, it hasn't been for a long time. Let's you owe me go up to Burning Tree and pound a few beers down. Actually, I can't take you to Burning Tree. Yeah, I know that. All right, so that's out of the question. But it's not been an elitist sport in the way you view it for a long time now. Tommy, just because you don't play golf and you don't enjoy golf doesn't mean that people, that everybody that likes

golf is of means. It's not true. It's not true at all. And it hasn't been true for a long time. Well, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's a rich man's sport. You're going to deny that. It isn't, it hasn't been for a long time. It is too. You're thinking of, you know, a period in which the only chance you could play golf is if you belong. You to a country club. Did you see... That's not true anymore. I'm sitting in a bar.

90% of the golf is played publicly. I'm sitting in a bar Thursday night. I know it's hard to leave sitting in a bar Thursday night. And I'm watching the Thursday night football game. But the sound is off on the other TV and it's the, I guess, the opening ceremonies for the Ryder Cup.

And I'm looking at like... I know. Hundreds. Somebody sent me your tweet. Of white guys in blueboard Blame. sitting there politely clapping after another white guy says something in front of a microphone.

And I'm thinking this is the most prep school crap I've ever seen in my entire life. Well, I will concede that the whole Ryder Cup thing is very sort of elitist in feel. That's true. It has this feel to it that is very elitist. And I don't even know if it's that necessary. but it's like any of these sort of international events. They all have something that resembles that. I mean...

They don't do it in billiards. Well, they probably don't do it in billiards. Okay. Yeah. There's a spittoon that they use in the international opening ceremonies in billions. Do you know why I missed much of the Ryder Cup? Why? Because I went to Penn State, Ohio State.

Oh, that's right. Yeah, I went to the Penn State Ohio State game. I was in State College, right? Went up Friday night, came back early. Sunday morning. I talked about it on the podcast yesterday. It was a top five, top six, top seven sporting event

I've ever attended. Really? Oh, it was incredible. You've been to a lot of events. I know, as you have. But did you watch the game? Did you see the spectacle? I was watching my event Saturday night at Strathmore. Right. Oh, that's right. You saw the... On the waterfront with the National Thermonautical. Which lost a Marty in 195. Well, actually, that was wrong.

That was wrong. It was 1954, and then they won best picture. Oh, but Marty was the answer for quiz show that they forced John Totoro to answer Marty when he knew it was on the waterfront, right? No, no, no, no, no. On the waterfront won best picture in 54. Right. We had the wrong year. We were talking 55. Okay, but when John Totoro was forced to give the wrong answer, he gave Marty is the answer for 1954.

No, no, he gave the answer when the answer should have been Marty. Okay. Whatever. Let's not... All right. Let's get... Tell me about Penn State and Ohio State. That was a great movie, though. I'll just keep it short because I went on for a while yesterday, and if you missed it, you can just listen to it on yesterday's podcast. All of the podcasts are just there. Like, you can go listen to any show... And how do you find them? The Kevin Sheeonshow.com.

Kevin Sheeonshow.com. iTunes, Stitcher, tune in, any of the Apple podcast platforms, rate us, subscribe. We are on Google Pletons. now. I forget what else we're on. We're not on Spotify yet. Somebody said we've got to get on Spotify, but it's not easy. So I'll work on that,

among other things. But it was just, it was, Tommy, you know how people have referred to Penn State football and because of all of the things that happened,

the very tragic things that happened, you know, it was referred to even more during that stretch with the Sandusky thing is like cultish. Yeah. There is a bit of that.

Like, this football team means the world to 70% of the people that were in that stadium and in state college. Look, I grew up in Pennsylvania. East Troussburg. Penn State is the state school. I know. I mean, everybody I knew was a Penn State fan, even though most of them never set foot in state college. Well, what I was going to say is you remember the year I went to the LSU Alabama game down in Baton Rouge.

Right. And I told you that 100,000 were in the stadium. but an estimated 150,000 were outside the stadium that didn't go to the game, but they just showed up for the party. You had a lot of that in state college, too, because you couldn't even walk around downtown state college Friday night or Saturday during the day. It was in everybody's in Penn State gear. And then it was a whiteout game.

So for the game, you know, in big cities, you can't get fans to, you know, all put the T-shirts on so that everybody's wearing the same college. Because usually you have smarter people in big cities that can't be talked into wearing uniforms. I know. Exactly. That's my point. It doesn't really happen in the bigger cities. In Oklahoma City, for a Thunder game, they're all decked out.

And State College is this incredible small town in the middle of nowhere that has Tommy a more Midwestern feel to it. Yes, it does. You know, it does, in my view. Not a northeastern type of town. Even though a lot of the kids there are northeastern. Eastern kids from Philadelphia. D.C.'s got a big contingent in Penn State, New York as well. But anyway, it was just a great couple of days, a spectacle to be there among 111,000 people. And it was loud. And it was in unison. And it was the students, 20,000 students get tickets to those games.

Aaron, how many students get tickets to a Maryland football game? When I went to it was 10,000, based on the way they've kind of moved the section around, my guess is less right now. 20,000. And they, I mean. And the stadium seats 100,000? 111,000. It was a record crowd the other night. And anyway, I, basically 20,000 means one out of every two students was at that game, because it's a 40,000 undergrad number at State College.

Without you, now, your son goes to school. Freshman, yeah. Right. Did he go to the game? Of course he did. Yeah, he got a ticket. I think he got the season student tickets. But you didn't sit with him, right?

He didn't want to have any part of us. You didn't party with your son? Tommy, swear to God. I was going to go to this game because my other son, who's at Maryland, when Ryan got into Penn State, the first thing we did was look at Penn State football schedule because we were like, we're going to have to go to a game. And we saw the Ohio State game and we said, we're going to that game come hell or high water, whether he wants us there or not.

we, my, Kara went with us, my wife went with us as well, we got up there and we saw him once and it's because we just accidentally ran into him. You know, he was given the, uh, I'm at this fraternity party. Can we meet tomorrow morning? And then he didn't answer his phone because he didn't wake up until noon, you know, and then he was at one tailgate after another. And then we just accidentally ran into him. But we had a lot of friends up there and it was, it was a lot of fun. But it was a, it was a terrific game, too. Really good football game. I want to get to this story.

HBO, dropping boxing. I know you talked about it with Andy on 1067 on your Saturday morning show with Andy. This broadcast over the years, boxing on HBO. HBO sports in general

has just always for me done everything at the highest levels. But HBO's boxing coverage over the years Tommy was so first-rate, was so great to watch, even if you didn't have a massive interest in the particular fight on a Saturday night, because to listen to Lampley and to listen to that crew call a fight and their production of the event and the way they made every event seems so big, why are they getting out of the business of boxing?

Well, the people who run HBO don't have the same. passion for boxing anymore that all the guys who saw it become so big, guys like Ross Greenberg and others, they're long gone. You know, the landscape is so much more competitive now with mixed martial arts as well. So does it say something about boxing? Well, yeah, it does. But yes, it does. I mean, if boxing was a big thing and HBO had this tradition of it, they wouldn't be getting out of the business. So it's not as big as it used to be. That said, and this is somebody who grew up with, you know, covering boxing during the HBO era, you know, through much of it. It's kind of funny that we're nostalgic about it because this is what, like, a whole generation grew up with.

But when boxing went to HBO, it was considered a bad thing. I know. And because it means that less boxing on free TV and more boxing that you'd have to pay. to see. Right, because you actually grew up with Friday night fights. Yeah, well, not that far back. That's, that's in the 50s. Okay, what did you grow up with? But I grew up with, I mean, I watched, you know, I watched Muhammad Ali fight Cleveland Williams on network TV. Wide World of Sports probably. Yeah, I watched, you know, I watched those fights on

network TV. Most of the big fights were on ABC or CBS through, through the early 80s even, up until then. And, uh, that's true. That's true. except for the ones that were on closed circuit. Right, except for the mega fights you had to pay by going somewhere where it was televised on closed circuit TV. If there was a big light heavyweight title fight between Matthew Sod Mohammed and Dwight Braxton, that was on a Saturday afternoon on TV and you could watch it. So the fact that it went to TV that you had to pay to watch,

and I'm talking like the monthly HBO subscription fee, was not a great development. And if anything now, we should be happy that Boxing will probably become more and more available on what we call regular cable TV now. Top rank. ESPN's had boxing for years. I know that, but top rank made a big investment with ESPN about a year ago, Bob Aram's company, to put boxing, to basically walk away from, you know, HBO and Showtime and just do boxing on ESPN.

So while we're nostalgic about it, I think this is good for boxing in that it will get a lot of a lot more exposure. Because while we loved the HBO era, it limited the audience. I just would like to watch fights with Lampley, Roy Jones, and even Kellerman. And I don't know what you think of Kellerman,

but whatever. I actually think he does a decent job on the HBO boxing coverage with Lampley. He's a cable access boob. I think he's been good over the years doing fights. Look, George Foreman, Larry Merchant trio.

That's the money trio right there. That was the money trio. Right. And Roy Jones is just as boring as an analyst. With Harold Letterman doing the update of the points. Roy Jones is just as boring as an analyst as he was as a fighter. He was a boring fighter. Oh, my gosh. Absolutely. He was an artist. He just didn't like to get any paint on when he was painting. Do you feel the same way about Mayweather?

No. No, no, no, no. Floyd was different than Roy Jones when it came to be in a defensive fighter. Not a lot of memorable fights. There's a difference between... During the course of his career, give me the mega fight that lived up to its billing. What, for Floyd? Yeah, give me the Mayweather fight that you couldn't take your eyes off of

unless you were really into the art of boxing. Diego Corales, he fought a lot of fights at lightweight before he moved up to welter rate that were really worse. You know, Jorge Castillo, he fought a lot of tough fights when people weren't paying much attention to him. And then when he moved up to Welterweight and barely beat Oscar Day La Jolla, I mean, that's sort of when he got into the more defensive of you. But I might want to point out a couple years ago, he boxed the ears off of Canello Alvarez,

gave him a 12-round boxing lesson. So, I mean, it's a different, like Pernell Whitaker was a great defensive fighter. Floyd Jones was not necessarily the same kind of defensive fight. I just have a distaste for, I think, because people are infatuated with Roy Jones. I think his status in boxing. is inflated, but Foreman, Larry Merchant, who really gave it a credibility to the broadcast, and Lampley, who's probably, you know, because he hasn't done anything else for years, people don't realize what a great play-by-play and announcer Jim Lampley is.

Oh, he's incredible. I mean, yeah, he could pretty much do anything. Yeah. So I'm not crying the blues over HBO getting out of business. Do you know what I didn't know, and I don't know if you knew this, do you know what the first fight televised on HBO was? I think I do. What? Not pay-per-view.

Larry Holmes, Mike Weaver. No. What's given credit for the first HBO fight is Foreman's knockout of Joe Frazier. Down goes Frazier, down goes Frazier, down goes Frasier, down goes Frasier, down goes Frasier. In 1973, it launched the modern

pay-per-view era, which was TV-K-O, which became HBO PPV. Right. But the first actual real HBO fight was Larry Holmes versus Mike Weaver because the networks weren't bidding much money

on it because it was thought to be... So what year was that? 78? I think it was thought to be a nothing fight and HBO bid $150,000 to put it on there and it turned out to be a great fight. Weaver almost beat Holmes in that fight. I think that's the first real HBO fight.

But you're right. The Fraser Foreman, was the first pay-for-usell called that fight. Yes, he did. Yes, he did. But he didn't call the HBO fights. Never called an HBO fight. But that's why I was confused when it said that this was the first. Well, it's tough to differentiate. Yeah, it was.

Well, you know, HBO, when it really launched when it had sports, you know, the other sport that it covered, that was a big deal then, it was boxing and tennis. HBO was a big broadcaster of Wimbledon at the very beginning. tennis was actually somewhat popular in this country. What else do you have for me today? You know, news came out, thanks to TMZ, the street sweepers of the media, I call TMZ. They're the ones that clean all the trash out of the streets when everybody's left the party.

They've reported that a ring of honor member for the Washington Nationals, Jason Worth, got arrested for DUI in Arizona in April. and basically tried to play the, Don't You Know Who I Am card with the cops. They've got the video where he gives him of this card, you know, to say who he is and say, you know, we do a lot of work with you cops and all this. Then he was arguing about taking the breathalyzer.

And this all happened in April. And in September, he was inducted into the Nationals Ring of Honor. I've been told this morning that the organization did not know about the April arrest for DUI. They were unaware of it. I thought it was absurd to put Jason Worth in the Ring of Honor five minutes after he was done playing baseball. I would agree with that, but I would also agree that a DUI, if he was worthy of the Ring of Honor, shouldn't have been something that would have prevented them from putting him in.

You know what? It should have given him pause. I mean, because this is a guy who I might point out spent five days in jail a couple years ago. For going 160. So, I mean, you think that would be? a learning experience? Maybe not, I guess. I just think, look, the beat writers got it up this guy as some kind of icon. He was a very important player. Well, he has the most memorable moment. He has the most memorable moment in Washington baseball in probably almost 100 years. That said,

and he was important to the organization inside the clubhouse in terms of telling the organization how they should do business, forcing the organization to spend more money on facilities, on food, weightlifting, things like that. So he had an impact. But for these people who think he was some kind of great team leader, the nationals didn't get past the first round with Jason Worth all those years. The nationals were considered a soft team around baseball

and were punked by one team after another with Jason Worth on the roster. So he wasn't this great, you know, charismatic, tough guy leader. They were still the nationals with Jason Werr. But you could say that then about Ryan Zimmerman? You could say that about Bryce Harper? Yes, I would say. Harper in the bigger games always came up big. And so did Jason Worth to a certain degree.

And I'm not just talking about the home running game four that kept the series alive against the Cardinals. You know, in the Dodgers series two years ago when they were down, they were down 2-1 going into game four. It was 1-1 game 3 had a couple of. of big hits. He had some big moments. I know that. I get that, but there have been other players who have big moments

too. And he was just, he's been inflated as this mythical figure in this town. Look, you had to have somebody other than Frank Howard, Bucky Harris, and Walter Johnson in the Ring of Honor. I guess so. I mean, no, no, he shouldn't be in a ring

of honor. And he shouldn't be five minutes after he's done. And it just speaks to the arrogance and the learners. The same arrogance that told Dusty Baker, he wasn't coming back. One last thing before we wrap up the show for today. Rick Jackalich is an attorney as part of the Rick Jacklach Law Group, I believe, and he's a big Maryland supporter. I'm assuming he's a Maryland alum. I've heard that name many years over, many times over the years associated with Maryland Sports as an advertiser. Yeah, he's a member of the Champions

Club, which is the big group of boosters. Donors to the school. And there's this quote from him about the whole situation that Aaron gave me before the show. Now, where was this quote from? Where did he say it? Do you know? I know he has a podcast that he said at least one of those quotes on. I'm not sure where the one... But we know that this is an actual quote from Rick Jacklach. Yes. As it relates to the Jordan McNair tragedy. Yes. Quote, as much as we hate to say this, Jordan didn't do what Jordan was supposed to do. A trainer like Wes Robinson thinks a kid's properly hydrated and runs a drill set up for kids that are properly hydrated. And when the kid didn't drink the gallon, he knew he had to drink. That's going to send the wrong signal to the person running the drill.

Closed quote. He also had another quote. As big of a tragedy is what happened to Jordan McNair is to me it is just as much of a tragedy that the president of our university. through DJ Durkin overboard at the first sign of trouble. Close quote. Well, at least we know one thing, and we've known this for a long time, that money doesn't buy intelligence.

How can you, I mean, that first quote is essentially laying blame to Jordan McNair for his own passing. Yeah, it's his fault. I mean, but this guy buying into the Champions Club, I guess he thinks he has the right. to be able to pontificate on something like this. To dig a deeper hole for the program.

Let me just say that it's not impossible that he's wrong, but that is an insensitive comment and totally unnecessary given what the final result of this was. And that stories that are still coming out about the culture of the organization, you know, showing films of animals ripping each other apart to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to players for motivation. I mean, look, I mean, you're talking about the Rick Mace and Roman Stubb story that was in the post on Sunday, I believe, and does paint sort of dueling pictures. One picture, look, this was just tough love coach stuff that you get from anybody at any program at any level.

And another picture of that it was completely overboard, and there were warning signs, one of which was provided by the mother, who's a preacher of two Maryland players, two sons of hers, that were really impacted in a negative way by this tough love. And she had given the university and the coaching staff warning that this was going on and that something bad could happen. I'm paraphrasing because I don't have the story in front of me, but I read this story, start to finish. And it really does sort of paint these two different pictures.

You know what? I think you can finally say that Maryland football has become a Big Ten program. Based on the way that they ran it inside the organization, that's every bit as noxious as Ohio State or Michigan State. Here's the thing, though, going back to Rick Jacklich's comments. Like, first of all, I mean, I'm not going to advise anybody on what to say and what not to say. That, however, is a rough thing to say, even by the way, if you are correct, and I don't know that he is. What is now apparently factual based on the investigation of the actual day in question, the day that Jordan McNair passed away, is that Maryland's trainers and doctors were negligent. They were negligent.

They did not do what they should have done when they should have done it. And if they had, this death would have been prevented more likely than not. They didn't take his temperature. They didn't take his vital signs. If they had, they would have put him in an ice tub much quicker. They would have called 911 much faster. And that's the whole, you know, all of this other stuff, whether Durkan stays or go, whether there was a toxic culture or not, should be completely overshadowed by,

the fact that this kid died and didn't need to. It was preventable. Yes. As a parent, I'm telling you, Tommy, and I, you know, I love Maryland. I am an alum. I love it. And I've, you know, I've spent more of my disposable income on Maryland-related sporting events than anything in my lifetime. when it comes to sort of disposable sports dollar, you know, income, dollars.

But my God, like all this other stuff means very little to the fact that this, you know, some people jump to the gun, jump the gun on this as to whether or not it was negligence. And based on what I read and based on what the president of the university said, it seemed like it was negligence. But the investigation proved that it was. how do you let a kid in this day and age knowing what we know about being hydrated, about the signs of stress,

the signs of being in a health situation, a stressful health situation, how could they not take his vital signs or his temperature and prevent this thing? If I were the parent of this kid, the fact that this was a preventable death would haunt me to my dying day and I would make everybody pay for it.

Yeah, and I think that's what's going to happen with Billy Murphy as their attorney. I think I read in the Diamondback newspaper, and this was something that I raised the first week. Diamondback is the school newspaper. Yes, the school newspaper. This is something I raised the question of in the first week. The Prince George's County State's Attorney's Office said they are leaving open the possibility for considering criminal negligent charges once all the investigation. are complete. Well, the investigation of the death is complete. Okay? It made it very clear that the trainers and

doctors did not act appropriately. And if they had, his death would have been preventable. So that ship has sailed at this point, unless there are further investigations. The investigation that's ongoing right now is to determine whether or not there is some sort of toxic, inappropriate football culture. And that's where this story by Rick Mace and Roman Stubbs, who is the Maryland beat reporter, I don't know if he, is he still? No, there's, he's now just a general sport, but because he was tied into Maryland, they've been having him work a lot on this stuff. Now that, that story to me, and I will admit that it's hard for me to be completely objective because I don't want them to find that there was this toxic culture in the program. I don't want the program to be, you know, to be hurting like it's hurting. I don't.

But it painted two different pictures. It painted the picture of this is typical football, tough guy, tough love stuff. And the other picture being that they go over the top on a continual basis and this is not appropriate anymore in this day and age. You know, football people, long time football people will tell you it doesn't appear to them that anything out of the norm was going on there. Which can't be the standard anymore. Again, not to beat a dead horse, but that whole part of it should be masked by the fact that a young man died and he didn't need to die. According to that investigation, that that it was preventable. Maybe it, they didn't do the things they should have done when he was clearly in distress.

Yes. It's amazing to me that in this day and age, knowing what we know about heat and heat stroke and the risk, of football players, you know, during, you know, spring ball. And I know that this was a time of the year. It wasn't even that hot of a day. I get it. But that you could have this happen. And it does happen still, you know, you read about it at the high school level and at the lower,

you know, aged level where they don't, where they're not set up necessarily with trainers and doctors to recognize, you know, these sorts of symptoms and act on them. But anyway, man, I mean, you can't, you can't sort of blame the kids. for his death. No. You can't do that. Bad form. What else do you got?

I got nothing else, baby. All right, we've gone long enough. Enjoy the day, everybody. Tommy, you'll be back with me on Thursdays with me every Tuesday. I'll be at the Caps game Wednesday night. So we'll talk about that on Thursday. I'm going to have one or two people on the show tomorrow to talk about the beginning of the Caps season, and we'll do a lot of football tomorrow as well.

Redskins have a big game Monday night. It's a big game. beating the Packers made this a game on Monday night that for Redskins fans, for hopeful Redskins, this is the game. You win that game and all of a sudden the season is on. Yes. If you go into New Orleans and win that game. Thanks to Aaron. Thanks to all of you. Thanks to launch workplaces in Bethesda. If you are looking to get out of your home, all right, and not work from home. And you're looking for a place with all of the accommodations, office space, work spaces, 24-7s, parking and it's free.

High speed internet, all of it. Launchworkplaces.com in Bethesda is the place to go to. It's where we're moving our studio into, and it's a great spot. So give them a look-see at launchworkplaces.com, and I'm getting the phone number here. It's 240-86714, 240-860-86714, or again, launchworkplaces.com. Have a great day.