The Kevin Sheehan Show - Fitz Admits

Episode Date: July 20, 2021

Kevin and Thom opened with the Adam Schefter story that Aaron Rodgers turned down a Packers offer that would've made him the highest paid player in the NFL. The guys got to the Wes Unseld Jr. hiring in the 2nd segment of the show and dug into Ted Leonsis' comments that seemed to be criticism directed towards Scott Brooks. They finished up the show with what Ryan Fitzpatrick admitted to an ESPN podcast.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You don't want it. You don't need it. But you're going to get it anyway. The Kevin Cheehan Show. He is Kevin. Tommy's here today. I'm here today. I want to tell you that the podcast today is presented by MyBooky.

Go to MyBooky.orgie. Use my bonus code, Kevin D.C. And they will match your deposit halfway all the way up to $1,000. There are some big events. Obviously, the NBA Game 6. tonight with Milwaukee having a chance to close out. The Suns, that game tonight, is something that you could get a bonus on and bet on, and maybe there will be a game seven. I don't know if I like a side in this game tonight. And then there are big fights coming up in August. UFC 265 takes place the

first week of August. And then you get Manny Pachiaw in mid-August in a fight. So my bookie will have all that stuff for you, leading you right into the NFL season, where all of the week one lines are already up and plenty of prop bets, as we discussed the other day, are up as well. Go to MyBooky at mybooky.mogie.com. Use my promo code, Kevin D.C. They'll match your deposit halfway, halfway, up to $1,000. There was some news, as there typically is after the radio show ended. this morning, Tommy. And I do want to get to how you're feeling, because I know you have a bit of a cold. But I wanted to start with some NFL news. Adam Schaefter reported because we are close now. We've got teams where rookies are reporting today in Dallas Veterans Report tomorrow.

So over the next week, we will have training camps open. And Aaron Rogers, according to Schefter, turn down a two-year contract extension offer during the off season. The deal would have tied Rogers to the Packers for five more seasons and made him the highest paid quarterback and player in football. And according to Schefter, Rogers turned it down. So the team has, you know, according to Schefter, officially they have done their part on the money. end to try to satisfy him with the highest paid contract offer in the league. And he turned it down.

You know, the only reasonable conclusion I think you can come to at this point is what I think most reasonable people have already come to the conclusion on, and that is he doesn't want to play there. He's pissed. He thinks he was wronged last offseason. when they trade it up to draft Jordan Love and didn't let him know. He wants to play somewhere else. I don't know whether or not he will play in Green Bay this year if he'll show up for training camp when it starts here in a few days. But it's clear that it was not money, this wasn't sort of leverage, this wasn't bargaining.

He doesn't want to play there. You know, considering we don't really know anything about what Aaron Rogers is thinking, let me just speculate this. I mean, because I understand why he would be offended that they drafted what he perceived as his replacement without even letting him know they were going to do it or something like that. They have no obligation to do that.

But it would be smart business to keep your most important player informed about the position that he plays. But, I mean, in terms of transgressions, this is not a huge transgression. I mean, the kind of thing that you think a year, like a year later, you think you would get over. You don't say, okay, they did it, you know,

I'm going to keep that guy in the bench for the next five years, you know. So, I mean, at some point, you move past that. What I think could possibly happen is what has happened is I think he saw what Tom Brady did. I think he saw Brady left his comfort. zone and went someplace else dictated his terms, you know, and won someplace else and is more revered than ever now for what he's done. And I think Aaron Rogers, it's taken a page from Tom Brady and saying, you know, this looks like a plan. Well, Brady did it on a torn MCL the entire season too. Yes, of all things. I mean, you know, we never give that guy enough credit. I know,

It's hard to believe because he's Tom Brady. And people, you know, they look at them as the goody two shoes, the pretty boy married to the model. I mean, but his toughness is legendary. Oh, my God, yeah. I mean, look, I'm not the expert to say what it's like to play on a torn MCL. I do know that, you know, laterally, there are issues and, you know, there's risk with a torn MCL where there isn't necessarily with a torn ACL, but you have no lateral movement ability with a torn ACL. I don't know what the...

I just know this. A torn MCL typically keeps even the toughest of football players out for many, many weeks, sometimes a season after surgery. So he played on a torn MCL in a new place for the first time and played great, and they went to the Super Bowl and won it. you are right on Brady real quickly because I'm going to move it back to Rogers in a moment. Right. But I do think, and part of it is just my perspective, because my perspective is lots of conversations with, you know, my sons and a lot of their friends.

And for several years, you know, my boys were like, no, no, no, no, no. Aaron Rogers is the greatest. I mean, come on, Patrick Mahomes, you know, in recent years. It's not Brady. We watched the games. Brady's benefited from being. with Belichick and being on great teams and yada, yada, yada. I do think that there are a lot of people that watch Brady and say to themselves, you know, the way he does it isn't the way that Mahomes does it or Rogers does it or Elway did it or,

you know, even to a certain extent not the way Montana or Marino did it. You know, similar to what the way Peyton did it or, you know, for you, Unitas did it. But I do think sometimes, I think you're right, I think sometimes a conversation that at this point shouldn't be debatable is always debated. He's the greatest quarterback in the history of the league. Not only that. I mean, what he did in Tampa changes the entire. It always changed. When you can do what you've done someplace else,

replicate your success, to me, that speaks to you. That speaks to your value. Right. And what he did, to me, I mean, puts him over the top as the greatest football player of all time. Montana didn't do it. Peyton did do it, but Peyton really doesn't get enough credit for doing it. And by the way, I think that that's reasonable. I think Denver's defense was largely responsible for that season and the win. I think if you go back and you look at the playoff games that Brady, that Manning had that year, they were pretty decent. You know, he wasn't terrible, you know, in leading them to that Super Bowl.

But, yeah, I mean, look, it's one conversation for sure there's no debate on. The greatest winner of all time is Tom Brady. That's not debatable. In terms of the greatest quarterback of all time, I don't know. I think we've gotten to the point where it really is a conversation. that's silly to have. I mean, it's not silly because it's fun to have, and everybody has strong opinions, especially about this position and about the players they loved. And for years, I was adamant, you know, and I'm talking about until maybe three, four, five years ago before Brady won

his fifth or whatever it was, that Elway was my number one, number one of all time. And it didn't matter to me whether or not, you know, somebody had more Super Bowl wins like Montana or not. I watched Elway and I've watched all these guys and all the guys I've watched Elway was the guy, but eventually I was like, wait a minute, I can't, you can't do this anymore. This guy, the evidence is too overwhelming at some point. He's a seven-time Super Bowl champion and let's just say that in at least five of the seven probably, he was instrumental, if not absolutely, you know, paramount and the number one reason that they won it. And remember, they lost a couple, too.

You know, on, yeah. On huge big plays. Yeah. He could have easily been a nine-time Super Bowl winner. I'm sorry, they lost three of them. What am I talking about? They lost the Philly and the Giants. You know, he's been, he started at quarterback in 10 Super Bowl games. Ten.

And what he did in this? So, I mean, so what I've done is, I mean, Jim Brown, has always been the number one, number one football player for me. I put Tom Brady ahead of him now. The best player in a history of the league, I think. I'll tell you what, playing on a torn MCL for an entire season and winning the Super Bowl is pretty damn impressive. Like, it's just another data point to add to it.

But back to Rogers for a moment, because what you said, like he saw what Brady did, and maybe he wants to do it somewhere else, is your point, right? Well, I just think, you know, maybe he saw that, you know, people always say the grass isn't greener on the other side. Right. Well, sometimes it is. Yeah. Well, sometimes it's made out of gold.

And there's a Super Bowl trophy in the middle of the grass somewhere. You know? Yeah. So, I mean, but the idea is, you know, be happy where you are. You don't know if you'll be happy someplace else. That's the common advice that's given. Brady blew that up. Look, the thing with Aaron Rogers is, you know, at this point, it's so obvious that he does not want to play for the Packers.

Now, that may end up happening anyway because they refuse to trade him and he wants to play football and maybe some how he's just like, okay, I'm going to get to the end of this contract and then I'm going to move on. but he's coming off with Matt LaFleur, remember as the head coach the last two seasons. They are 20. Washington's football assistant. They are, everybody knows that. They are 26 and 6, and they've lost in back-to-back NFC championship games. They were in the final four the last two years. Aaron Rogers was last year's MVP.

So the football situation in terms of the team, the coaching staff, his teammates, the success of the team. This isn't a guy that wants to move on to a much better team. This isn't a guy that wants to move on to a place where he's got a chance to win a Super Bowl. He's in a place that has a chance to win it all. And by the way, he's in one of the truly unique hotbed football situations of all time. He hates the people that he works for. I'm not talking about the coaching staff, Guten, Koonston, Murphy.

He hates them. He does not trust them. I'm projecting here. But clearly, I think the fact that he turned that down is another indication, if you didn't know already, he doesn't want to be a Packer anymore. So I don't know how what happens here, you know, over the next how many days before he's got a report. It's going to be fascinating to see, you know, if he reports when he's supposed to report. You know, it's almost too late. It's never too late.

I mean, we've seen Wentz recently, you know, not Wentz. What's his face? The Oklahoma quarterback, the number one picking the draft was with the Rams, and Wentz got hurt, and the Eagles traded for him. Nick Foles. No, not Nick Foles. No. Oh, Sam Bradford. Sam Bradford.

God damn, thank you. Sam Bradford got traded, you know, in the middle of training camp or right before training camp started. I forgot exactly. So it could happen. He could get traded to Denver. You know, Denver's pretty much the only team. I mean, actually, that's a stupid statement. Almost every team in the league should want to trade for Aaron Rogers if they don't have one of the other two or three guys that are better than, that are debatably at his level, or maybe three or four guys that are just below his level. Everybody else should be in the market. But Denver has been the one most talked about because they need a quarterback and they're a decent team and they're in the

AFC. I don't know, man. This is a weird thing. Oh, I know what I wanted to. I wanted to respond to what you said because I, maybe this is going to be another one of those rare days where we agree on things. I guess if it's all about what the Packers did a year ago, not telling him and that and then trading up and drafting his eventual, or at least the point was,

to draft his eventual successor, get over it. Yes. It's really not the worst thing that an employer has ever done to an employee. Now, I do understand that, like, this year alone, you know, Andy Dalton was consulted before the Bears drafted Justin Fields. He just got there. Kirk Cousins was consulted and told that they were going to try to, draft a quarterback and they drafted Kellan Mond. They should have gone to Aaron Rogers.

You know, for those of you that are hard asses and you're like, look, there's an organizational chart and he, he's not the CEO. He's not the team president. He's not the general manager. They get to do, they have a job responsibility. They don't have to include them. No, they don't have to. But they should have. Just like in any, you know, organization, if you are making a big hire and let's just say it's in the sales area of your company and you've got a star salesman you know and he or she is you know generating 50% of the revenue in your company and you're going to make a big hire yeah I think you'd probably want to go to that person and say hey I'd like you like you to join a meeting tomorrow with you know a person that we're potentially going to hire as

the co-o of the company is the chief operating officer of the company would love to get your opinion. You know, it's what they didn't do with Deshawn Watson, and he doesn't deserve it nearly as much clearly as Aaron Rogers. But it would have been the smart move. But yeah, like, okay, they fucked up. Did they apologize? They should sort of apologize and say, we really should have included you. But if they did or if they, you know, made some sort of overture to try to make things right, yeah, it's time to get over it. Yeah. It's not the worst, like you said, it's not the worst grievance. And you can control.

You can have your revenge by keeping that guy on the bench. Yeah. You know? Yeah. It was stupid, though, that they did what they did. Yes, it was. I mean, it's not the way I would do business. Yeah.

Not in that sport with those kinds of egos where you do have one player that essentially is the face of your franchise, but more importantly, you know, the guy that influences the outcome more than anybody else in your franchise. Yeah, it's a smart business to make that guy feel like he's a part of the power structure, even if he isn't. Yeah, and, you know, and then really what they did, Mark Murphy's been pretty stupid, his public comments over the summer, too. I mean, he... Which is really stunning. Mon Murphy was a labor leader in the NFL players association.

Right. He was a player advocate. It's just so amazing that he's done this. Yeah. The Packers, by the way, they report... Hmm, where is it? I had it here a second ago and now I don't have it. I'll find it.

Anyway, there you go. That's the latest on Aaron Rogers. By the way, there was also another story this morning from the NFL. It's not, you know, a massive story, but it's one of my, you know, it's one of my favorite young running backs in the league. Rams running back Cam Acres ruptured his Achilles while working out, and he's out for the upcoming season. You know, I really think Acres, first of all, had a really good playoff game at Lambo last year in that game,

where the Rams were actually legitimately in that game. I never thought they were going to win the game necessarily. But Acres was really good in that game. And, you know, the Rams with Matt Stafford and, you know, and that defense, they're considered to be, you know, a legitimate Super Bowl contender this year. And I think Acres was going to be a big part of what the Rams did this year. And I'm trying to think of who they have behind him.

They've got the kid that played with Antonio Gibson at Memphis, Henderson. But I don't know who else they have. That's a big loss for the Rams. Big loss for them. Sean loves to run the football, loves to be balanced. Stafford having a running game will really help, and them losing acres for the season is a big loss. All right. We've got Ryan Fitzpatrick stuff to get to.

We have Wes Unsel Jr. And something Ted Leonis said in his press conference when they introduced Wes Unsell Jr. yesterday, I had Tommy Shepard, Tommy Lever. I had Tommy Shepard on the show today, the radio show. He was great. He's really, I like Tommy a lot. I like Tommy a lot too. And so you can go listen to that on the team 980.com.

Just want to remind everybody to subscribe to this podcast. If you haven't subscribed, it doesn't cost you anything. And then rate us and review us when you get a chance. Somebody sent me a lot of recent reviews and ratings, and I really, really appreciate it. Even those of you who had not the nicest. things to say. But really, it helps us if you rate it at five stars and you write up a one or two sentence thing. And if it's going to be negative, I'd prefer that you not do it. But you're listening

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If you've already done it, don't do that. You're good to go. Are you feeling all right? You said you had a cold for the first time in a while. Yeah, I mean, you know, a couple years ago in August, I think it was 2018, I had a really bad summer cold that developed into a terrible cough and ultimately bronchitis. Yeah, I remember that. and I wound up in a hospital for a couple of days. And, you know, I'm kind of freaking out here because I'm supposed to go to the beach Wednesday for 10 days.

And since Saturday, I've had this call, but I seem to be holding it off. It doesn't seem to be getting any worse. I'm able to function. It's not really slowing me down at all, but it's just worrisome at this point. And I'm hoping, you know, that I'm fighting it off enough that I'll get through the tail end of it. Okay. But it was just a little bit unnerving to be sick in the COVID era. This is the first time I've been sick at all in the era of COVID.

So, and one of the things I was sneezing a lot. And, well, the worst thing you can do is go online and look for medical advice. You know, it's horrible. Of course. I mean, it's terrible, you know? You did that? Well, I did. And apparently when you're vaccinated, if you get COVID, sometimes sneezing a lot is a symptom of having COVID.

And I'm fully vaccinated with the Moderna vaccine. Doesn't mean you can't get it. Right. It doesn't mean I can't get it. But I kept saying to myself, you know, 90% success rate on this thing. You know, I mean, I don't win a lottery when I buy a lottery ticket. Why do I think I'll be the guy that will win the COVID lottery in this case? But still, I went to CBS and I bought a COVID rapid test.

And I did that at home. And it came up negative. Do you know? No, that was a bit of relief, not just for me, but for the people I'll be in touch with for the next few days. Do you know, I didn't, when you said you got a rapid test, it was a self-rapid test? Yes. Self-rapid test, it's amazing that, you know, they give you the swab that you have to put up in your nose, and they have some liquid that you mix in a jar with it, and then you put a couple of drops in that jar into a, like,

a flat container that's right next to your phone. First, you have to connect with an app on your phone to them. And then you put this right next to your phone, so there's a connection. Sure. And then they take 15 minutes to test it until you get the result. And they literally do a countdown, and then at the end of 15 minutes, negative pops up. And to 15 minutes. You're pregnant. Yes.

All right. That kind of thing is a lot like that. I'm glad you're, I'm glad you are not, you know, the good news, of course, if you, you know, if you've been fully vaccinated, is that even if you get COVID, the chances of getting, you know, severely ill are even reduced from the odds, which were long shot, you know, before if you're fully vaccinated. I forget. We did talk about Bradley Beal in the Olympics, right? We've already talked about that together. About how dumb he is? You know what?

He's stupid enough to play for the Washington football team. Yeah, I mean, it's one of the, I asked Tommy Shepard, I said, you know, how's Brad doing? And he said, he's doing great. No symptoms, you know, that's, you know, that's great news. And I just said, I asked him, I said, was he vaccinated or not? Obviously, I think we all know he wasn't vaccinated, but I didn't think he'd answer the question, and he didn't. It's a privacy thing. But it's still amazing to me, and I said this to you last week, that they went down the path of putting an unvaccinated player on this team.

I'm sure he's not the only one. Well, it's stupid because it could cost them. You know, it's the same conversation. A lot of, there are a lot of athletes I've read about who are competing over in Japan, who are going to compete in Japan, let's not speak too soon, who are going to compete in Japan who say they haven't been vaccinated because they worried that their logic was the side effects of the vaccination could mess them up. Well, if they got it.

As opposed to the COVID messing them up. You know, COVID just knocking them out of the games, totally. Look, none of those people, you know, the odds of any of those athletes getting sick even if they get COVID are such a long shot. Everybody understands that. That's not the point. The point is you're on a team and you're participating and it hurts the team if you end up, you know, getting booted because you either test positive or you're in contact tracing. So it just doesn't make any sense to me why this. This is not an obvious thing if you're part of a team.

But apparently it isn't, you know, witness the rates of the Washington football team in terms of their vaccination rates. All right. Yeah, which is reportedly below 50%. It was as of last week. Maybe it's changed. And you mentioned the Cowboys who are reporting for camp. Yeah. When?

Tomorrow. Yeah, tomorrow. A source says nearly 70% of Cowboys players are fully vaccinated, according to the Dallas Morning News. Right. So the Cowboys seem to have gotten a message. Well, there are 13 teams that have reached the 85% NFL threshold, which is what they want. And then the Cowboys are not one of them. And then there are just two teams.

This was the Associated Press reporting from last week, which now, you know, might be updated, significantly if people have gotten fully. That could have been not fully vaccinated or still one shot left. Who knows what the status is now. But as of a week ago, the point being, there were only two teams that were below 50%. And the average for the league was roughly 73%. So there you go. All right, we have some things to get to.

I want to talk about the introduction of West Sunsell Jr. in something that Ted Leonis, the owner of the Washington, Washington Wizard said. Also, Ryan Fitzpatrick was on a podcast yesterday. He's really optimistic about the season to come, and I think he confirmed something for the first time. We'll get to those things right after these words from a few of our sponsors. Yesterday, the Wizards held a press conference to introduce Wes Unsell Jr. as their next head coach. Again, I had Tommy Shepard on the show this morning. He told me a couple of things, which I will weave in to this conversation, but I wanted to start with the owner of the Washington Wizards, Ted Leonis,

and a comment he made during the introduction of Wes Unsell Jr. Here's the quote, Tommy. I'm going to read the whole thing, but you'll pick up very quickly the important part of it. He says, quote, what I'll say is that the NBA is in great, great hands. Every single person that we met and talked to was outstanding. And you've seen that a lot of assistant coaches are taking the next step, especially this summer. I think there's a reason for that. This is a very, very demanding job.

And sometimes when you're a head coach, a second and third time head coach, I don't think you work as hard. I think you rely on your assistant coaches. And what I found with interviews, especially in talking with Wes, how they do the game planning, they know the players, they know the tendencies. and they have to work really, really, really work hard to prepare for each and every game. I looked at our team and there were times when I thought we lost games that we shouldn't have lost. Yes, defensively, meaning defensively, as in we were bad defensively, but I just think having a work ethic and a demanding style will be a really, really good point of differentiation for us.

players all in the exit interviews when we talked to them about what we were lacking and how we can improve. They talked about the little things. They talked about defensive intensity. They talked about communications. We talked to Wes, what's the key to have better defense? It's hard work, game planning, communications, and we watched some film together. It's really fascinating in talking to the assistant coaches, the iron detail where everyone is positioned on the floor and what they were doing right and what they were doing wrong. that's what we want to be known for. We'd like to have great talent. We'd like to have great talent, but we'd have to have great organization that's very professional, very thorough, and demands the best out of everyone in the organization. Closed quote. That sound you hear is the bus rolling over Scott Brooks and him just sitting there going, what did I do? Well, apparently you didn't work very hard.

work ethic, Tommy, and demanding style. And, you know, coaches and their head coaches in their second and third time, they just don't work as hard. Wow. I actually asked Tommy Shepard about this. And he said, well, I didn't really hear. That's not what I took from what Ted said. Well, of course, he's, you know, going to protect his owner. That is, that's quite the shot at an outgoing, at your coach that you went out and hired and paid $7 million a year.

for for five years. And what, you just learned that he doesn't have a great work ethic? You just learned that he doesn't have a demanding style. You just learned that, you know, guys that come in for their second or third time as a head coach don't work as hard. You just learned from the player exit interviews that there was communication issues, which, by the way, I think the players were probably talking specifically about communicating and talking on. defense, for those of you that know basketball a little bit. You play defense low, you play it with your feet, and you talk on defense. But anyway, what took so long?

I'll tell you what took so long, Tommy. They weren't going to just pay two coaches simultaneously. They were going to let this contract run out. Not that they were paying $7 million here. I'm sure Ted probably thought, you know, for what I got from my $35 million, dollars, I'm entitled to a pound of flesh. Okay. Yeah, I mean, it's a...

That's what you probably thought. I pay $35 million, and look what I got to show for it. I'm taking my shot. Just think if he paid 70, he could have gotten two pounds worth of flesh. Seriously, though. I mean, you know, the thing is, that's fine. If you really, if you really are serious about that, and I don't know that you are. that $35 million later you're entitled a shot or two at the outgoing guy.

But you're also, you know, basically you're criticizing yourself. You're bringing criticism on yourself for not doing something about it earlier, for not noticing it earlier. You mean he didn't notice it when he was sitting on the bench right next to him? I mean, he's right there. He's right there every game. there's not one owner in sports that is closer to the action than Ted is with his basketball team. Mark Cuban is a row or two rows behind.

The guy in Atlanta, the Falcons, Arthur Blank, comes down and hangs around on the sidelines, usually in the second half. Ted sits on his team's bench every night for every game. So, do you know, that just reminded me that I'm going to ask Scott at some point. I'm going to say, be honest with me. What was it like to coach a basketball team and have the owner of that team sitting on your bench hearing every single thing that you say and how you coach and being right there in it with you?

I can't imagine that he loved it. But then again, if he was just sort of go along to get along for $7 million a year and didn't really work that hard and, you know, has, you know, not a demanding style or a great work ethic. Maybe he didn't care. Well, you know, I mean, that would totally conflict with what his star player, Russell Westbrook, said about Scott Brooks. What did he say? Russell Westbrook, well, raves about Scott Brooks.

Right. What a great coach he was. Yeah. You know, so the owner is in direct conflict with his team leader in terms of, what Scott Brooks gave to the team. It's, you know, this idea and fans have it to. That you can work harder to succeed. I mean, I understand, like, in a lot of avenues of life, that is true.

But sometimes the other guy is better than you, you know? And you can work harder, as much harder as you want, as hard as you can. and it's still not going to be enough. This is why to really complicate this. I'm going to go down the road here and say, this is why God is so popular among athletes, because he explains the unexplainable. I mean, athletes need to know, I worked so hard.

I did everything I had to do. I worked. Nobody outworked me, and I still didn't win. There's got to be a reason. You know? So you can't outwork. It's not always just a man. matter of outworking the other guy. And to be honest with you, I don't know, you didn't read my column,

right? No. Of course. You say it with the proper level of contrite. I might want to point out. I know, I know you sent it to me, and when you said it, I'm like, oh, damn it, I forgot to read it. Well, that's okay. You addressed it correctly right there. I could address it. I could literally read it right now as we're sitting here. That's how, easily consumable your columns are? Well, it's interesting because I talked to Matt Williams, who was the PR guy for the Wizards and Bullets for years, and who was very close to the Unsell family about West Jr.

And because West Jr. intern for him in the PR department many years ago, before he wound up being an assistant coach. And one of the things Matt Williams pointed out, and you heard this in the Washington Post story by Michael Lee, who talked to people who had worked with Wes as an assistant coach, was his work ethic. So, I mean, that is a common theme with Wes on Selt Jr. It is.

I mean, it's work ethic. I mean, that's probably legitimate. And, you know, people have different ideas of how hard you should work and stuff. But to basically say to coach that, you know, In fact, you just paid $35 million, but it didn't work hard enough. You're right. It's an indictment on you. Yeah, I, um, everything that I've heard about West Sunsell Jr. is incredibly positive, okay?

But, you know, I'll, I'll net it out. First of all, while I liked Scott Brooks personally and everybody that got to know him did, um, you know, a lot of the same stuff that I said about him at Oklahoma City, I said over the last few years. I just, it's a coach that has no plan offensively or defensively when the game's on the line or when the game slows down and you see a team that's totally unstructured and relies just on players to make plays. I can't stand that. It's just not my cup of tea. I don't like the teams that are near the top of the league in iso ball, especially when you don't have like Kevin Durant and James Harden as your ISO ball. players. So I've never thought Scott Brooks was a great coach. I think that his strength was,

you know, being a guy that players sort of liked playing for because he wasn't that demanding, probably more than anything else. You know, there were things that I thought Scott Brooks did well. I thought always they had something coming out of a timeout that was planned and a little bit more structured and they executed a lot. But, you know, that team this year for people to get all excited about this team that made the postseason. And, you know, when you saw that series against Philadelphia and Joel and B. doesn't even play in the fifth and deciding game, and they get their ass kicked. They're so far away from a title. You know, they're two years away from being two years away from a title, Tommy, that old saying. And the only thing that changes that

is a superstar top five player. And we've seen that in the NBA over and over again. If you don't have an obvious top five player, you're not going to win the NBA championship. The last team to do it was the 2004 Pistons. And maybe late tonight, you know, we will see another top five player win a title because Janus is a top five player in the league. And the Wizards don't have one. They don't have one that, they don't even have a guy that's close. Bradley Beal's not close to top five.

He's top 15-ish. You know, if you want to push him close to 10, do it. I'm not. I mentioned this yesterday on the radio show I don't think I did on the podcast. Damian Lillard once, you know, there was this report last week, which he refuted. But for a moment, there was, you know, it was out there that he wanted to be traded. Now, he doesn't want to get traded here because for whatever reason nobody wants to get traded here. But it's like when Kauai Leonard became available, Tommy, you know, via trade before the one year.

And I said I would trade the entire franchise for Kauai Leonard, and I was serious about it. If Damian Lillard's available, I would essentially trade everybody but Beal. And I'd like to keep Hachamura as well and Gafford. But I would take Russell Westbrook and the next three years of every draft choice I have and a couple of other players and throw it together and send it to Portland, for Damian Lillard. Because Lillard and Beal, you still don't have a top five player, but then with Hachamura, if he continues to develop, you have a team that could be a legitimate top four kind of a team. And look, Shepard said this to me this morning, because I said, look, bottom line is right, your NBA coaches just can't influence the outcome like the players can.

And he said, no, it's a players league. But if you have good players, a good coach can take you from that, you know, 48 to 55 or from that 53 to 60 wins a year and put you in the mix with a really good coach. God, I would love to see Damian Lillard here. And you know what? That would take a lot of pressure off Beale as well. Not that he doesn't need, he doesn't excel with some of the pressure, the scoring pressure. I think he's done great with that. But for whatever reason, Washington's never a place, Tommy, anybody wants to come to. And that is simply because of the franchise. It's not the city.

This is a major market. It's an attractive place to live, particularly if you're a young African-American athlete. Okay? So this is not Indianapolis or anything like that. It's not the city. It's the history of the franchise and the first thing, And what people think of is losing team, losing organization, you know, don't want any, you know, a half-ass operation, and they don't want anything to do with it. And it's going to take years to overcome that.

I mean, Ted's wasted the first 10 years of his ownership, not changing that at all. You know, he has not, he did not change the culture in his first 10 years of ownership. Yeah, you know, and the irony of that is he took. ownership of the Capitol so that he could get ownership of the Wizards. That's what a lot of people don't understand. Ted's first love is basketball. He's a Brooklyn guy. He loves basketball. I mean, obviously, he's come to love hockey, and he's, you know, they got Ovechkin. You know, this is another conversation for another day, because the truth is we've already had this conversation in previous days. But every owner in this town gets an incredible break with Dan Snyder.

this town as an owner because nobody, nobody looks. Let me rephrase, everybody looks like a superstar when placed next to Snyder. And Ted's not a superstar owner. He's not. He's not a bad owner, and he's a better owner than Dan. I want to make sure I'm clear on that. But he's gotten a free pass, and they won the Stanley Cup, you know, and that's huge. And he's always had a product that's great for customers in terms of the live product.

You know, fine. The NBA thing has been a disaster. Too much so. And the fact that he was in there watching film with Wes Unsell Jr. doesn't really make me, like, confident. But I am confident in Tommy Shepard. I think Tommy really knows ball. You know, he didn't say what film they were watching.

They could have been watching the godfather. Could have. It didn't say basketball film. Yeah. I'll tell you what, though, Tommy did tell me, so I told you I'd weave a couple of things in from the conversation. Let me just real quickly mention. They interviewed 18 candidates initially, 18, all by Zoom,

and then they started to bring in the people that they liked for live meetings. They did not interview Becky Hammond. And they did interview other female candidates. it's, but he wouldn't tell me who they were. So they, what else was it? I tend to think, I tend to think that Becky Hammond's going to be the next head coach for the San I think that's probably right.

I think that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, I think that's what's going to happen there. And for all the people they interviewed, there were eight NBA coaching vacancies at the end of the season. West got the last job that was open. Yeah, I asked him, I said, did you ever feel like by, you know, this deliberative process, this lengthy process that you could potentially lose, you know, he said, no, that our Canada pool was so deep. We were going to get, you know, he was our, he was our guy. And I said, when did you really realize it? Thinking that he might say, oh, pretty much the first time we met him, well, why didn't you just hire him right away then?

He said they really came to the conclusion. It was, you know, on Saturday that Wes Jr. was the guy. I don't know anything about West Jr. as a coach. He's apparently a very good tactician defensively from Malone's teams in Denver. He was the defensive guy. They improved significantly on defense when he took that over. Denver's got better players than the Wizards have, too. Let's not forget that.

They've got a guy. I wish him all the luck in the world. From everything I've heard about him, look, you know, it's amazing. because his father was a rival of the team that I rooted for, the Knicks. And yet you loved him. And I loved Wes Hunt. I know you did. Loved him.

And not just the way he played, but his whole demeanor, you know, I mean, his work ethic was legendary. So I wish nothing but good things for West Jr. Oh, me too. Me too. I mean, I certainly remember Wes Unseld, and I remember those bullets teams so fondly and went to so many of those games. And Wes was basically as a player, he was the badass in the NBA. He may have been the most feared man in the NBA if Maurice Lucas wasn't.

Would you say that that's, right, the two of them? That's pretty accurate. That's pretty accurate. But it wasn't because he was demonstrative or because, because he was dirty. He set the most physical pick. He was the most physical player. And there was just, there was a calmness about him as he played, too.

He was a great, great player. You know, I don't want to get into this, but I still think Elvin Hayes is probably the greatest player in franchise history. But I think Wes Unseld's the all-time face of the franchise. If Abe Poland isn't. Okay. Let's get to this Ryan Fitzpatrick stuff right after these words from a few of our sponsors. So Ryan Fitzpatrick yesterday did Pablo Torres' ESPN The Daily podcast.

And he was asked... One of their big stars, Pablo Torres. Is he? Are you being serious? I think so. Okay. No, he is. I mean, he used to be on the Levittar show. you know, whatever that was, highly questionable.

And I think he's been a regular member on Around the Horn. So he wanted a big star. I'm Googling him to see if I even recognize him. Oh, yeah, I recognize him. Yeah. I recognize him. I would not have suggested that he is one of ESPN's big stars. But I'll be the first to tell you, even though probably one of my old

closest friends and best friends is one of the, if not, you know, the top four or five big names at ESPN. I don't watch a lot of ESPN. I watch games on ESPN and I watch Scott Sports Center and occasionally if I'm in the house and it's on, I'll watch PTI. That's it. Even though I do like Stephen A. Smith. I really do. I really like Stephen A. And so, but I'm never, ever, ever, like I'll have that on here in the studio occasionally, but it's usually volume down, so I'm not watching it. Anyway, whatever. Let me get to Ryan Fitzpatrick on what he said on the star Pablo Tori ESPN, The Daily podcast. He has the following quote when asked about heading into his 17th season, does he feel that he's finally found the ideal landing spot?

And he said, quote, this is the best situation I've ever been in or the best situation that I've ever gone into as the guy. I signed to be the starter in Houston. I signed to be the starter in Miami. So this is now the third team that I've signed to come in and be the starter for. I'm going to stop right there. I believe that this is the first time that either he or somebody like Ron Rivera or Scott Turner in the organization has admitted that he signed here to be the starter. Because, you know, we've heard all this talk about competition and the whole thing.

And he even said, you know, took the company line early on about, well, you know, I'm just, I'm here to compete. I'm here to compete. No, he signed a $10 million deal here to be the starter in 2021. And he admitted it here because it was part of an answer he couldn't get out of, I guess, once he started down the path. But I do believe, correct me if I'm wrong, that this is the first time that either side has admitted that.

I think you're correct on that. I think you're correct on that. And look, I'm always interested, like everybody else, but I know particularly I am, by quarterback intrigue. And I'm sure I'm making a mountain out of a molehill. but I don't understand the Kyle Allen's story. I don't either.

I have no answer to that. Unless he was truly limited when they were in OTAs and mini-camp, and that's why he wasn't top of mind for Ron Rivera. That's got to be the reason, because this is the guy Rivera traded for. This is a guy who Rivera basically dissed Alex Smith about when he said that Kyle Allen could have done the same thing that Alex

Smith did last year. Right. You know? So obviously he thinks very highly of Kyle Allen, and he's not even in the conversation now. Zip. It's got to be his injury. But it's not going to surprise me at all if three weeks from now, because they'll be in training

camp a week from now, if three weeks from now, like, you know, Ron Rivera gets asked, so talk about the quarterbacks. Well, Ryan's really, you know, taken a stranglehold. You know, he's what a leader. He's picked up the offense. I mean, really looks good. And Kyle's really now looking super sharp.

He's back. He's totally healthy. And of course, Kyle had the advantage of knowing this offense all along. And Taylor looks good, too, man. He's a baller. He's a gamer. So we feel really good. Like, it's not going to surprise me if we hear good things about Kyle Allen.

even though I can't explain other than to say that maybe out of sight, out of mind because he wasn't completely healthy. Although everybody said he was getting close to being completely healthy. Let me read the rest of the Fitzpatrick quote. So he says this is the best situation I've been in or at least the best situation that I've ever gone into as the guy. I signed to be the starter in Houston. I signed to be the starter in Miami. So this is now the 13 that I've signed to come in and be the starter for. I just feel like the way that I'm playing the last four years, kind of the progression of my career.

It doesn't really make a whole lot of sense that 17 years in, that physically I feel great, mentally, emotionally, but I am in the right spot. I just think I am set up for success this year and really looking forward to it. Now, part of obviously that answer is that, you know, he's already spoken to the weapons that he has, right? You read that quote from NBC Sports Washington, whatever he did last week. How close if they're going to be. Yeah. Yeah. So it's funny because today Bill Barnwell did one of his long, exhausting read stories.

This one is ranking the teams 1 through 32 in terms of their offensive weapons. You know, it's the best, from the best to the worst offensive arsenals. for their quarterbacks. And he writes, you know, this is about only 20-21 performance. We're not considering a player's contract status or cap-hit or long. We want to field the best possible group of weapons for a 17-game season in 2021. He says wide receivers are weighted more heavily than running backs or tight ends in this research in deep dive for him. and then he starts to rank them.

So obviously we've heard that Washington has really upgraded their offensive weaponry. You know, they're loaded, Tommy. They got Terry McCorn, they got Curtis Samuel. They added Adam Humphreys, Diami Brown, to go with Antonio Gibson in year two, Logan Thomas. We all know what it is. So where did they come in on the list of teams 1 through 32 in terms of offensive weaponry? They came in 24th. Now, last year, they were ranked 32nd.

This is a Barnwell thing with, you know, whatever, you know, feedback from people that he's using. But they were ranked 24th in offensive weaponry. And what is written here is, quote, there were signs of life around Terry McLaren last season. At running back, Antonio Gibson was a week one starter and proved to be an effective player despite his lack of experience, averaging 4.7 yards per carry while finishing sixth in the league in DVOA. The other surprising seasons weren't quite as impressive. J.D. McKissick's 80-catch effort was mostly a product of Alex Smith tossing the former Seahawks' tailback checkdowns. While Logan Thomas ranked 35th among tight ends in yards per target, they were both more effective in fantasy football than the real thing. All of those players returned to the fold,

though Washington supplemented this group by bringing in Curtis Samuel, et cetera, et cetera. So 24th. Now, in the division, who has a worse offensive weaponry in the division around their quarterback? Well, the Eagles do. They're ranked 29th. Even though they added Devante Smith in the trade, and they've got Jalen Rager coming back, and they've got Miles Sanders coming back, and they still have a pretty good tight end in Dallas Goddard. And we don't know what the status of Zach Hertz is. He hasn't signed anywhere. Where are the Giants and the Cowboys?

I think this is interesting. The Giants are eight spots ahead of Washington. The 16th best offensive arsenal in the league. And the Cowboys, the Cowboys offensive Arsenal and the rankings in the NFL, number two behind Tampa Bay. Wow. Holy mackerel. C.D. Lamb.

Mari Cooper, Michael Gallup, Zeke Elliott. They do have a lot of talent offensively. There is no doubt about it. Up front, they've got to be healthy. They weren't healthy last year. And obviously the quarterback is, you know, the reason the division was so bad last year is every single team went through multiple quarterbacks. Anyway. Well, if you look at Ryan Fitzpatrick hit the nail on the head.

in his comments when he said, I know it doesn't make sense that I'm getting better at this stage of my career. Yeah. That's pretty much what he said. Yes. I mean, this is why, while you can argue that the numbers would dictate that, that there's a cliff that can show up at any moment.

And I think the odds, as every day passes by, as Ryan Fitzpatrick gets older day by day, that that cliff is getting closer and closer. Yeah, I just think that... He logically said that. He's a Hartford guy, so he's not stupid. He knows it doesn't make much sense. I know, but it's true.

He's played his best football here over the last couple of years. I know that. I know he has. You know, and things are weird in the NFL, these days guys playing older and Brady winning the Super Bowl at 43. and, you know, hell, Kurt Warner was right there at 40, and he started late. There was one other thing that I wanted to just share with everybody

because somebody sent this to me, and in reading his Barnwell's thing, it just reminded me of it. Basically, Seth Walder, who does all of the analytics for ESPN and ESPN.com, somebody sent me the link to this. The top, so they have a study, it's a next-gen stats. It's a next-gen stat. Last year, the percentage of throws short of the sticks on third down, okay? So what percentage of the quarterback's throws were short of the sticks on third down?

Alex Smith had the highest number, 80% of his throws on third down, were short of the sticks on third down. The next worst, or the next most, if you will, short of the sticks, was Teddy Bridgewater at 63%. Alex Smith's number was so outrageously high. It was almost unbelievable. Now, the lowest in the league, or the highest of, the lowest of throws short of the sticks, meaning they threw beyond the sticks more often than not. Mahomes was won, and Fitzpatrick was. was two. So the takeaway here, first of all, just so you know, this would be my belief. I'd like to know what the average third down short of the stick throw for the guys that did it often versus those. I mean, Kansas City doesn't have a lot of third and longs. So they've got third and makeables.

It's a lot easier to throw beyond the sticks. The, you know, the Panthers and the skins offensively last year weren't good teams. So they were in third and long a lot. A lot of times third and long. is a bubble screen. A lot of times third and long is, you know, throw the checkdown and see if we can get six yards and punt. But, to be fair, Alex Smith, they created a stat at Pro Football Focus for Alex Smith. It was the Alex Smith checkdown. Nobody's checked down. And I said this to everybody when they traded for him, even though I was in favor of it. I mean, I remember so many of our fans that only watch our team, oh, well, at least we got Alex Smith and we're going to throw the ball down the field instead of Kirk. who just throws the checkdown. No, Kirk doesn't just throw the check down.

Kirk's been among the air yard's leaders at times. Alex Smith has been the checkdown king. And look, he couldn't create last year because he wasn't as mobile, and they weren't very good offensively. But they do have a quarterback right now that does take more risks, that throws tight window throws, that will take, you know, a third and 12 and give his receiver a chance, and who, by the way, also creates more off schedule

than Alex Smith could last year, or even in 2018, he still had some ability. But I thought that those numbers were, again, it's a little bit, it could be deceiving. 80% is too high for anything to be that deceiving. But, you know, you need to know what the average distance on third down was before you really understand what those numbers mean. But I think by watching these quarterbacks over the years, we know

that Ryan Fitzpatrick has some, you know, let's just throw it down the field and see what happens in him. And Alex Smith did not, ever. And, you know, it was a bad offensive team around Alex Smith, to be fair, last year as well. Okay. Last thing on the show, unless you have something. Did you see this Peyton Manning, Eli Manning's story, Tommy? That they're going to do the Monday night football broadcast on ESPN 2 for some of the games? Yeah. Ten games a year. Well, who's going to watch ESPN?

When these two guys are doing it on ESPN too. All right. So this is interesting to me. For those that don't know, there was an announcement. Yesterday by ESPN that Peyton Manning and Eli Manning are going to call Monday night football games for ESPN 2. Remember, ESPN has the Monday night football property. And it is broadcast on ESPN with Steve Levy, Brian Greasy, and Lewis Riddick and Lisa Salters as the team, the main team. Last year was their first year together. I thought they were okay. I thought it was a big improvement from Tessator and Witten and Bougar McFarland.

Actually, I didn't mind Bougar that much. Witten was terrible, and I'm just not a Tessator guy. I never have been. I think Steve Levy's fine. He's solid. It was just okay. It was just okay. And, you know, it's another example of a broadcast team where if the game's a good game, I'm

going to watch. I'm certainly not going to watch because of the broadcast team. And I think that's a lot of NFL games now. for the most part. So Eli and Peyton Manning are going to be a part of what they're going to call Monday Night Football Megacast. If you've watched the college football NCAA college football championship game, you know, every January on that Monday night, like every ESPN outlet has a different way to watch the game. They've got a stat cast.

They've got a coach's round table. They've got the radio announcers from one team and the radio announcement. from the other team. And then you've got the normal broadcast, which is Chris Fowler and Kirk Hervistreet, calling the National Championship game on ESPN. So they are adding to Monday Night football another distribution of the game through ESPN 2. Both Peyton and Eli Manning will not be at the games. They will be calling these games from a remote location. And right now, the plan is to have what they call a host, not a play-by-play guy. They're calling it a host, round out the, you know, the off-site booth, if you will. So to your initial response, mine was that, like, no way am I

watching the ESPN broadcast. I'm going to watch Peyton and Eli. And then number two is, well, who's going to be there with them? Who's going to be there calling the game? Who's the play-by-play guy? Well, they're actually referring to this person as a host. I think that person's going to be very important. I think that person will be important and who they pick will be important.

They're only going to do 10 of the 17 Monday night games. I don't know why. 30 are scheduled over the next 30 years. The bottom line is Peyton Manning is wildly popular. You know, the Peyton Place thing that he did for ESPN Plus, wildly popular for the ESPN Plus property. Peyton has been offered Tommy how many of these jobs since he retired? He could have had any one of these chairs.

Any one of them, yes. Any job he wanted. So you, it's not even close for you. You will tune into ESPN too. Right. I mean, I agree with you 100% on this. I find the ESPN. crew, and sometimes, I'm not a big

Bougar McFarland fan ever since he shit all over himself raising Bruce Allen when they were here, you know, doing a Washington football game. He's not on the broadcast anymore. Right. This crew doesn't offend me. I mean, they don't make a difference in how I watch it, when I watch it, you know. But I'd go out of my way to watch Peyton and Eli. You know, maybe there'll be a bus, but Peyton just seems,

Peyton seems like a natural for this kind of stuff. It'll be interesting to see how they do it. You know, are they going to call the game conventionally with a play-by-play guy, and these are the two analysts, or is it going to be, like we've seen, you know, during the college championship game, sort of a roundtable, table discussion, like the two of them are sitting there watching the game together, and they're having a conversation, and we're eavesdropping essentially on their conversation about the game.

You know, I don't know what the format will be. I think there are a couple of interesting things. Number one is that I've always been curious as to why Peyton Manning hasn't taken one of these big jobs. I've suggested, I think, to you in the past that, you know, he could be one of these people that just is so self-aware. and he knows that in a 30-second or 60-second commercial that's scripted and rehearsed and edited, that he's great and he's funny and he's self-deprecating and he comes off as geniusly funny. Not geniusly funny, but funny.

And maybe in a live setting, he doesn't feel as confident about, you know, how he'll be perceived. You know, maybe he likes the scripted recorded more than the live. I don't know. I mean, certainly he rose to every single live occasion that he ever had in life as a football player. But I think it's odd that he hasn't just taken a normal analyst chair. I think the second thing is, yeah, I'm certainly going to watch on ESPN too. The ESPN broadcast just doesn't do enough for me. And there isn't a hook there to keep me there.

They're obviously competing with one another, you know, but they own the product. It doesn't matter if the rating comes from two or from ESPN. It'll be a combined, I think, overall rating that they'll benefit from. So this is going to benefit them. I do think, however, these things are always overrated when you initially say, well, nobody's going to watch ESPN. That's not going to happen, you know, because whenever the college football game has had all of these other things going. The other things barely even get any, you know, nobody watches the other

things. It's such a small number. Now, this is different because it's Peyton Manning, and I have no idea if Peyton or if Eli will be any good. But people are certainly going to give it a chance. And to be fair, Steve Levy, Brian Greasy and Lewis Riddick are no Chris Fowler-Kirk-Hirb Street. That's a first-rate team, Fowler and Herb Street, whatever they do. So I think ESPN2 is going to get a big number. I would bet you that it doesn't trump or beat the ESPN number at least early on.

Unless it turns out that Peyton and Eli are phenomenal and it just sort of becomes something of a buzz and everybody's got to watch it. You know, it becomes like Barclay on the TNT pregame show. I think it'll beat them. I mean, it's still,

it's not network versus cable. No. It's just another cable channel. It is. I think It's not that difficult to watch ESPN, too, as opposed to ESPN. So I think it will thump those numbers. And I'm wondering if ESPN just said to Peyton, tell us whatever you want to do, however you want to do it, and we'll do it. Because Peyton probably doesn't want to travel.

Doesn't want the weekly travel that comes with the job. That seems to be the case. if you base this on the fact that they're doing it from a studio and not from the actual location of the games, which is worrisome because this is the way that business is going. One of the things about COVID is it woke up broadcasters to the idea that we don't have to send out broadcasters on the road to get away with doing play-by-play.

And this is going to be a problem within the industry. But neither here or there. I just think that the F. Pants just said, okay, we can't convince you to come on Monday night football. Tell us what you would like to do and we'll figure out a way to do it. They're doing only 10 games here. I don't know the reason for that, 10 out of the 17. They are doing the first three of the season. They're doing the opening Monday night game of the year, which is Baltimore at Vegas. They're doing the second game of the year, which is Detroit at Green Bay,

and they're doing the third Monday night game of the year, which is Philly at Dallas. So 10 out of the 17 a year. You know, just I know you actually follow this probably even more closely or closer than I do. Viewing habits have changed so much. And, you know, the networks and what they're getting for their primetime programming from advertisers is just, you know, a shell of what it used to be because of, the way people are consuming media. But there's still one thing left that works on traditional television.

You know, whether it's traditional over-the-air broadcast or even cable, and that is live sports. It's keeping TV alive, traditional TV alive, to be honest with you. Yeah, it really is. It really is without live sports. And really the NFL, as much as anything. Yeah. You know, these networks would be in big trouble.

Like, you have to have the NFL. Amazon doesn't need to have the NFL. Netflix doesn't need to have the NFL. But CBS, Fox, ABC, NBC need to have the NFL. Pretty much. Or they've got to have a lot of live sports programming. Anything else? Did I forget anything for the day?

I got nothing else for you, boss. Okay. I think that's it for the day. back tomorrow and have a great day. Tommy, feel better. Thanks.