The Kevin Sheehan Show - FitzMagic!

Episode Date: March 16, 2021

Kevin and Thom today talking about Washington's acquisition of Ryan Fitzpatrick. Lots of other WFT thoughts/ideas as well. The boys talked further NFL Free Agency news and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You don't want it. You don't need it. But you're going to get it anyway. The Kevin Cheon Show. Here's Kevin. He's Kevin. 35 with a fresh set of down. Fitzpatrick again. Wattskosicki and he drops it in. Gunslinger, Ryan Fitzpatrick. Gunslinger, Ryan Fitzpatrick. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening to all of you. Tommy's here with me today. Cooley will be with me tomorrow and we will have a full-fled pod tomorrow with Cooley to break down the Ryan Fitzpatrick signing. We're going to have all of our thoughts here in a moment. Hey, Sheehan from Ben on Twitter, Tommy. Ben tweets me a lot on Twitter. I don't think Ben is a real big fan of me.

I don't think Ben's necessarily a big fan of you either, but that's okay. He tweeted me and said, hey, Sheehan, aka Boomer. No tweeting last night on Fitzpatrick. Did that spring forward hurt you a little bit? Were you sleepy? Come on, man. Where's the emergency podcast, especially when you called it on Fitzmagic? Thank you, Ben.

You can tweet me at Kevin Sheen, D.C. You can tweet Tommy at Tom Levero. I'm not saying that Benny doesn't like us. Benny obviously listens to us. first of all Tommy, I was asleep when the news broke. Secondly, if Benny had any sort of brain in his head, he'd know that springing forward doesn't hurt you at night. It hurts you in the morning. Actually, you stay up later at night when you spring forward.

But I would just tell you, like Dwight Shrewt, where I have the ability to lower and raise my cholesterol whenever I want. and for whatever reasons I would want. I can control my body clock. The springing forward complaining never, I just don't personally understand. It sucks to lose an hour of sleep for like an hour. And then it's fine and it's over. I can't stand the people that constantly complain about that stuff. I've never missed work because of the clocks going forward or been late for work of you.

I don't think you have. No. How hard is it to remember? that this happens. It happens twice a year. Once a year is springing forward. Once springing forward, once you're falling back. You've got to fix the clocks again.

Right. So you've got to pay attention to your clock. Look, this is a pet peeve of mine. I have a personal philosophy that it's important to pretty much know what time it is, pretty much all the time. Here's what you'll never hear from me. What time is it? You'll never hear from me.

Whoa, where did this? time go? Yeah, well... You'll never hear that from me. There have been early mornings where I've walked out of a casino in Vegas and been surprised that it was light out. There have been those mornings, but I'm not going to, I'm not going to name any names here, but I read something the other day, and I'm going to paraphrase something like,

no more depressing night of the year than when you lose an hour. I'm just exhausted thinking about it. I'm like, oh my God, how soft are you? But anyway, hey, Benny, when they spring forward, typically that means that you're staying up later. Like 1130 really feels or if this stuff really impacts you, really feels like 1030. And then for me, you know, waking up is the most important thing because I have to wake up very early to do a radio show. not for one second was I concerned that I wasn't going to get up Monday morning because, you know, my body clock was going to think it was, you know,

415 and it was actually going to be 515. I set the alarm, the alarm went off, I got up. So first of all, Benny, you have it sort of backwards. Like, you know, that's if I was sleeping last night. You know, Boomer was sleeping last night. I was sleeping at 11 o'clock last night. I was up. I was up when the news broke.

Well, I will just tell you, not that I'm complaining, but I had to drive. I didn't have to. But we went to New Jersey yesterday right after the podcast. I had to drive up to New Jersey, and then I drove back. We got home at about 10, 10, 15. I literally, you know, did six hours of driving. And so I was a little bit tired. And I jumped in bed.

I turned on the TV. And I'm like, well, nothing's going to happen tonight. They haven't done anything yet. And I woke up to seriously like 40 plus text messages on my phone. You know? And I'm like, oh, my God. Secondly, or thirdly, whatever it is at this point for old Ben, I didn't really call it. All right.

The 980 sent out a tweet, and I love how aggressive our social media team is now, because we haven't been that way in the past. And they said, Sheehan called this like a month ago, called the, if it's past, called the dollar amount, the whole thing. I didn't really call it. To be fair, I suggested that this could be one of the ways they could go if, you know, they didn't hit on the long-term solution, whether that would be, you know, Deshawn Watson, which I, you know, they had gone for Stafford, which I love the fact that they went for Stafford. And I thought if they make another big move on a future, you know, three, five, ten-year solution, darn old possibility.

whatever. You know, that wouldn't surprise me. If they don't, I would prefer that they look at somebody like Fitzpatrick for a year or two rather than some of the other guys they were considering, you know, whether it was Marriota or, you know, people wanted Bresset or Tyrod Taylor or Dalton. Dalton wouldn't have bothered me either. And part of why I felt that way is probably the, I'm going to guess you and I haven't talked, is that, A, it's going to be fun to have Ryan.

Fitzpatrick and quarterback. Two, I think he can play. And I think that he has played really good football in recent years and played very well last year. And I also used, as I've been telling you and everybody else that's listened to the podcast, that one of my guiding principles here in trying to predict what they will do is character, leadership, work ethic, smart, at any position. and Fitzpatrick fits all of that.

You know, he is a leader, he is beloved, people, you know, he can mentor younger players, but I didn't predict that they, or even source, that they were going to sign Fitzpatrick. Don't be modest about this. I am. You did suggest it would be a pretty good outcome for them if they didn't hit big. Yeah, I like Ryan Fitzpatrick. I don't think that because he's 38 or 39 years old, that they're signing somebody at the end of his career that should be only a backup or that this is a give up move on next year or they still have to draft. He played at a pretty high level last year.

And the year before, by the way, his QBR in the last two years is top 10 in the league. He's actually improved as a quarterback. He's also just something we haven't had around here in a while. while at quarterback. A guy with some charisma, a guy that's a gunslinger in the quarterback description. Vernacular, he will go for it.

He's fearless. He is not afraid of failing when it matters. You know, people said, you know. You know what Zabe said on Twitter. I don't know what he said. Rex Grossman 2.0. No, he's out of his mind.

Yeah. Well, but everything you just described, Oh, personality-wise? Personality-wise. The first thing you just described is Rex to a T. Personality-wise, spot-on. In terms of the ability to truly, you know, perform at a super-high level be a playmaker as a quarterback, which Rex was not. Rex had, no, fair.

Personality-wise, fearless, unafraid of making mistakes. You know, Rex would throw, could throw three picks, and he was still chock. it into traffic on the, you know, on the next series, which I loved about Rex. But Fitzpatrick's much more of a playmaking, stylistically a quarterback. He's just different. You know, by the way, I would say that Fitzpatrick probably has a stronger arm, but he's definitely more versatile and more mobile and more of a playmaker. Rex's pocket guy, you know, let's chuck it deep. No, I'm sorry. personality-wise, yes. I agree with that.

Totally agree with that. So you think all this is caused for celebration. I am not unhappy about it. That's not what I asked you. I mean, based on what I've seen on social media, there is a celebration going on. Well, I did a poll this morning, and 75% of the people said thumbs up, 25% said thumbs down. The funny thing is the thumbs down people in their comments, oh, my God, they are. are really dead set against it. Yes, I'm celebrating it. But I just, the one caveat is I am still,

I'm disappointed that they just weren't able to connect on the big swing. But at the same time, I acknowledge that they tried. You know, they obviously tried on Matt Stafford. You know, they may have tried on somebody like Sam Darnold but didn't want to wait on the possibility of him not getting traded or the price being too high. And I do think that there's probably a quarterback or two in this draft that they really like that they'd like to swing big on, but they can't. Because, A, they don't, you know, they'd have to mortgage some of their future to move up. And B, it would require another team passing on that quarterback that Washington wants to make the trade. So, you know, we'll get into, I'm going to get into a list of things that I think.

think that this says or just sort of a reaction. But to answer your question, I'm excited about Ryan Fitzpatrick. I am definitely in the camp of they are better today than they were yesterday as a team. They signed a quarterback who was older than Alex Smith. Right. Older than their offensive coordinator, too. I mean, that's just amazing. Look, I agree with a lot of what you said. I think it'll be fun at times. They certainly are better at quarterback with the three they have now than the two they had before the trade. Okay. And what's most impressive about Ryan Fitzpatrick is his playoff numbers.

Those are very impressive. Did you check those out? That's good. Well done. You know what's really interesting, though, this year had he started all 16 games from Miami? Keep in mind, he did not get benched for performance. Ryan Fitzpatrick got benched because they drafted Tua Tuauaua. And organizationally, they wanted to see what Tua could do now because they didn't consider themselves to be a legitimate, you know, contender for anything.

But you know what? They were. They were three and three in the first three games. The three losses were winnable games against good opponents, by the way, Seattle and Buffalo, two playoff teams, and they were right there with both of those teams. The other loss was the opener against New England. He played exceptionally well. He had a game in San Francisco against the 49ers that was phenomenal, and they were sitting there at three and three, and they decided to go with two of then.

I think if he had started all 16 games, Tommy, I think he would have started his first playoff game. Of course, he got COVID at the end of the year. I forget whether it was COVID or contact tracing, but he couldn't play in that season finale, the game that they had to win to get into the postseason against Buffalo. So Taylor Heineke has more of a playoff record than Ryan Fitzpatrick. Well, Taylor Heineke's playoff record is actually worse than... But he has a record.

He has numbers. He has statistics. Well, yeah. I mean, Ryan Fitzpatrick technically is 500. He's zero and zero. in playoff games. Ryan Fitzpatrick is an upgrade over what they have. I mean, that is what I think.

So you think he's the starter? 100%. 100%. There's going to be a competition? They'll talk about one, but he didn't just sign here yesterday with this team to come in and compete with Taylor Heineke and Kyle Allen. He came in here.

You think that he had an opportunity to start any place else? Yeah, I think that, I think that there were probably better opportunities. Well, no. I think that there were other opportunities. I think Denver could have been a possibility. I think Chicago could have been a possibility. There was one other I had this morning on my mind.

The competition. Denver is going with Drew Locke. Houston would have been an interesting. The competition in Chicago is much tougher for the job than the competition here. He came here because he thinks this is the easiest path, but I still think there's going to be a competition. I think there's every possibility that he may not start. If he doesn't start, I would be absolutely, I mean, barring injury, obviously. If he doesn't start, I would be absolutely floored by it.

I do not think that he signed a $10 million deal with $2 million incentives, not a $4 million deal, with $6 million in incentives, a $10 million base deal with $2 million in incentives. Coming off, you know, debatably the best two years of his career with a chance last year at the very end to get Miami into the postseason with the magical comeback against the Raiders and then he couldn't play against Buffalo. I think that, you know, Ryan Fitzpatrick at this point, may have, to your point, may have selected among the teams that were interested the path that he thought was the no-brainer to starting more than others. But I think there was a conversation that said, look, we want you to start next year. We want your leadership.

We've got a couple of young guys that we like, look, Tommy, let's face facts here. The one big takeaway more than any other takeaway from this offseason, is they're not pleased with what they have. They're not confident in what they have. They tried to trade for Matt Stafford. We've had reports about Marcus Marriota, Jared Goff, Derek Carr, Sam Darnold, interest, expressing interest, Washington's expressed interest, Washington's one of the teams that's reached out. Ron Rivera told me when I asked him on radio last month, he said,

well, we have to go out there and we have to make absolutely. sure. And what he was saying was, you know, we've got two young guys that we do like, that are very inexpensive, that one, we just re-signed for very little committed, guaranteed money, another that's super cheap in Kyle Allen on the tender at $850,000. But we know we can do better and we're going to try to do better. You know, we have to make absolutely sure. This off-season so far, the only thing we know about the their off-season is they've been trying desperately to upgrade a quarterback. If you were going to bring in somebody to compete, I think you'd be bringing in somebody to

compete that also had more of a long-term upside, a guy that you're going to try to fix like Marcus Marriota or Jacoby Brissette. You know, I just think that... Well, you're assuming that A, those guys would be available, and B, that they are available. that they come here. What makes you think they come here? I certainly think a Tyrod Taylor or Jacoby Brissette would. Yeah.

And maybe even an Andy Dalton or maybe even a Marcus Marietta if he gets cut. You know, they did try to go after Marietta. Look, the other thing, one thing is clear, as I said, they've been trying to upgrade a quarterback. They're not confident in their quarterback situation, okay? Whether it's for next year or probably even moving forward. number two is that they what was number two i had it on my and it just slipped my i don't know i'm sure it'll come to you but let me let me just explain something to you here please hold on let me get my

crayon so i can write it down they swung big is what you keep saying staff but they missed yeah they keep missing right why do they keep missing because they're installed offensively because what and now they are stalled quarterback for at least another year. They have no idea who their quarterback is going to be moving forward. Yeah, Ryan Fitzpatrick next year. But beyond that, they have no clue. They are in the same place that they were before the Ryan Fitzpatrick trade.

The Cowboys know who's going to be their quarterback for years to come. The Giants know. Right. Well, the Giants are hoping. But in their mind, they know. They're not shopping for another quarterback. Okay? So, I mean, this, look, I think it's going to be fun.

I think they could be competitive and win some games. But in terms of an organizational move, this is basically like treading water in the middle of the ocean. You just found another board to hang on to while you're treading water in the middle of the ocean. I'm really surprised that you've missed on what I thought might be your big takeaway from this. Your go-to move. He's the polar opposite of Alex Smith? No. But he is.

He's the exact opposite. Oh, he has a player 100%. Yeah. Game manager check down Charlie versus let's sling it to the guy whose defender has his back turned. And I think I can slip it just over his helmet into the tight ends hands. No, your go-to move. What's your go-to move in every one of these conversations? Look, and I have so many go-to-move.

No, you don't. You have one go-to move. I would line up, and I would literally just play you to go left. I'd say, go ahead, brother, because your only move is right. You got no chance. You got one move, and there you'd be fumbling it off your left hand, dribbling it off your leg, and maybe you'd try to shoot it, and then I'd just swat it into the first road. No, your go-to move is they've got to do well next year.

And if they don't do well next year, then the owner, the owner's going to get fidgety. The owner's going to want to get back involved. Ron Rivera can't have a step back year. Can't have a step back year. I'm just trying to judge this on the merits of the football. You never do that, though. But I'm doing that now. Wow.

Because people think this is a great football move. Is that your versatility of moves? I think it's an okay move. Huh? You think it's an okay move? This is me telling you that as I blew by you, you'd say to me when we were done playing, well, you're a lot better than I thought you were. Oh, my God.

Which is what I used to hear all the time. On the playgrounds and the Poconos in East Trousberg. So I want to make one thing clear here. here that I am excited about the move, but when you say it's an okay move, I don't think you're that far from the truth. It's not like they just hit a home run at quarterback and they figured it all out. I'm not saying that. I'm glad that they tried to figure it out and that they went for it with Stafford and maybe they went for it in another thought about going for it in another a couple of ways. I mean, obviously, you know, Russell Wilson's not coming here, and Watson isn't

going to come here, and James Winston, we always presumed, you know, if he was who we thought, if he is what I think he could be, which is a guy that could have a second act to his career, then Sean Peyton's not letting him go, which he didn't. He signed him yesterday. That Dak Prescott wasn't going to be available because Dallas worst case was going to tag him. And, you know, who were we talking about then? We're talking about, do you trade up? If they really liked Marcus Marietta, like they said, like the reports were that they did, he's probably going to be cut according to reports.

Yeah, possibility, yes. You would think they would have waited for their chance, except unless they heard that Marcus Mariotto wouldn't be interested in playing for this team. Well, if they traded a sixth rounder, Marcus Marriota wouldn't have had a choice. And that was the discussion. If they didn't trade, if they decided they were going to wait until he became a free agent and then try to sign him. Yeah. No, that's true. Although I'll tell you, you know, Washington for a guy like him, not for a guy like Deshawn Watson or Russell Wilson or maybe even James Winston or Dak Prescott.

But for a guy like Marriota, it may have been a really good opportunity, you know, to come in to work with a Scott Turner. And they may have this learned through back channels that if he was on the market, one of the teams he would not consider would be Washington football for whatever reason. It's certainly possible. I just remembered the other thing that I was going to say, that we've learned two things during this offseason as it relates to the quarterback position. Number one, they clearly want to upgrade. You agree with that. That's obvious, right? Yes.

They don't have the same feeling. They shouldn't feel good. Whether they, look, here's what I think. I think that Ron Rivera has a lot of faith in Kyle Allen, but he knows you can't look people in the building in the face and go with Kyle Allen and Taylor Heineke as your only two options at quarterback. you've got to have more. Well, who are you talking about looking in the face?

Anybody. Oh, okay. I thought you were going to. I thought you were going right. I thought you were going right again. No, no, no, no. In saying the owner. No, it's Ron Rivera may be saying, I may believe in the guy,

but I understand why everybody else has a lot of questions about him. We can't, we've got to have more to show for the quarterback position than two guys who can't stay healthy for more in a couple of games. at a time. And who have basically not proven themselves at all. It's not like either one of them is a prospect. I thought what you were trying to do there was you were going to put the ball on the floor once with your left hand, but then quickly cross me up and come back to your strength. But you didn't do that. So two things, because I don't want to lose the thought again. It happens more and more these days. They want to upgrade at quarterback. That's what they've been trying to do,

because Taylor Heinecke and Kyle Allen, whether it's because they can't look somebody in the eye or whether in the building or whether it's because they really feel like they need to upgrade. Let's understand something. The chances that Taylor Heineke and or Kyle Allen, based on last year or in the case of Taylor Heineke, any of his three starts can make it through a season is like slim and none. They're both very injury prone, it would appear. But the other thing that definitely the Ryan Fitzpatrick sign, says based on what they've been trying to do is that Ryan Fitzpatrick was not Plan A.

Okay? I don't know what plan he was, you know, but he wasn't Plan A because Plan A was Stafford. Plan B was probably somebody else younger with, you know, an ability to start for them for the next 10 years. You know, whether that was in their mind maybe if Derek Carr became available or if Sam Darnold was truly available or not for a price that they would pay or whatever. And maybe Plan C was, all right, we got some veterans. We got a couple of guys that are a little bit broken, Trubisky, Marietta, et cetera, et cetera. We can fix. And then we got a real veteran and Ryan Fitzpatrick.

This was, Ryan Fitzpatrick was not Plan A, but Plan A was to upgrade at quarterback. And so that's why I believe he is starting. How many times does plan C work usually? I don't know. I think this is a unique plan C or D or B, you know, or B. It's probably at least plan C. It could be plan D or E or F. Tommy, Tommy, there are better.

I think I'm not criticizing the move. They're a better team today than they were yesterday, period. Yes, they are. And for not a lot of money. I'm not criticizing the move. It's not a lot of money. I felt like, like I said, they couldn't really go into the season with Taylor Heineke and Kyle Allen as their only options, no matter how much Ron Rivera likes. A lot of people thought they could.

Well, I didn't. Okay. But my point is that it's nothing to get really two-step about. Okay. Ryan Fitzpatrick last year, okay, nine starts. were taken by Tuatunga Viloa. He was fifth in league in QBR. He was, um, yeah, fifth in overall QBR last year, a pretty good number. In 2020, in 2019, excuse me, remember 2019, Tommy? Was the game in which they, they were trying Josh Rosen, remember,

thought maybe Josh Rosen was the answer and then fit, but they were tanking. Remember, they were tanking And then Fitzpatrick came in against Washington and old coach Cal's first game and would have brought them back to a win if they hadn't, I think, sort of intentionally tried to miss the two-point conversion at the end when they put in a player to run the play that had never practiced it that week. But Fitzpatrick in 2019, in 15 games played overall, was eighth in the league in QBR. He is on paper been better in his last two years than he's been in most years of his career. They're better. Let me go back in time for, you like going back in time. Let me go back in time the previous year. That's the only thing you remember.

In 2018. Yeah. Veterans Day, 2018. Washington versus Tampa. Yeah, right. Alex Smith, 19 of 27, 17, 17. yards. Yep.

One touchdown, no interceptions. Yeah. Ryan Fitzpatrick, 29 of 41 for 4006 yards. Yeah. No touchdowns, two interceptions. Right. He had two receivers that caught over 100 yards passing that day. Right.

You know how many points they scored? I do. Three. Yes. Do you know why I know that? Because it's the only game in NFL history where a team has had 500,000, or more yards in a game, total yards, and only scored three points. But you do remember, you do remember what happened in that game, right?

Do you remember some of the things that happened in that game? Yes. Mistfield goals by Tampa, guys catching balls going into the end zone fumbling. They had more than just his two picks, which, by the way, if I recall, one of them was just a drop that turned into a pick. And by the way, he has a high interception ratio. I know there are going to be games in which it's going to be like, oh, my God, it was first and gold at the six. He got them all the way down there, and he threw the interception and we lost the game.

I understand what he's done over the course of his career. That game was just one of the outliers of all-time outliers in the history of the NFL. It was. He just happened to be the quarterback. He was. You're right. And remember, we came in here the next day because it was just a podcast year. That was the just podcast year.

You had your radio thing on 106-7 with Andy on Saturday mornings. I was just doing a podcast. And I said, that is truly one of the most fortunate wins any team could ever have. Washington could not stop them at all defensively. They moved up and down the field as if it were seven on seven. and their kicker missed two field goals. They fumbled like twice going into the end zone, and Fitzpatrick had a deflected pass picked off,

and Washington couldn't stop him, and Alex Smith, he didn't turn it over, and they won the game 16 to 3. And that was the key in that game, because Tampa basically vomited all over themselves all day. But it was one of those games where I remember watching going, man, that Fitzpatrick, he can just deal. He can deal.

And he can. He's, you know, he has had some spectacular games during the course of his career, and he's had some major flameouts, you know, at the end of games. The night this year, when they beat the Raiders on that Saturday night game that kept them alive for the playoffs and knocked the Raiders out, the incredible, you know, he comes in for Tunga Vailoa at 16 to, you know, three or whatever it was, and he brings him back in the fourth quarter, and he's got the last drive where they're down 25, 23, with 15 seconds to go,

and he hits Hollins on that sideline pass where he got his whole helmet twisted off. Remember there's a 15-yard penalty. They're in field goal range. They hit the field goal. They win in miraculous fashion. And he was just the interview after the game, and then I think he was on with Scott afterwards.

or Sports Center afterwards. And it was the moment of his career. It was the moment because he hadn't been in a playoff game. And the one year where they went 10 and 6 in New York with the Jets, and he had a phenomenal year that year, it ended with a thud. It was a game they had to win in the season finale, and he played poorly in that game.

And they lost and they fell to 10 and 6, and they didn't make the postseason. He had a great year that year, like 30-something touchdown. you know, like 14, 13, 13, 14 interceptions, something like that, that year. And that Saturday night, it was like he was so, he was so happy. And the team, the way they responded as he was being interviewed. And I remember thinking, God, I hope he starts next week and I hope he gets his team into

the postseason because, you know, there are similarities with Miami's team last year and Washington's team. Very young, very young and talented on defense in particular. And that's why while Tua was winning some games, they were winning games really with special teams in defense with Tua. And Fitzpatrick came in, kept him alive, and then he had the COVID-19 issue and couldn't play in the Buffalo game, which, by the way, Brian Faw said that Tua was going to start the game,

but they would have probably had to go to Fitzpatrick. Patrick pretty early there, and, you know, maybe they have a chance to get into the postseason last year. Tommy, he's one of the sites that updates their futures odds immediately based on information. Early this morning, Washington had moved up significantly in the division race odds from like plus 350 or plus 400 to plus 250. Dallas is still the favorite, but the Fitzpatrick signing raised Washington to the clear-cut second pick in the division, where they were right there with the Giants or Eagles, below the Eagles, below the Giants above one of them, depending on it. So I'm telling you, the boys in the desert, they think Washington got better.

Probably not by a lot, but better than Philly. They've got right now the second best quarterback situation that's known in the division, because we don't know what Jalen Hertz is going to be. And the truth is we still don't know what Daniel Jones is going to be. I think the Giants have a better situation. I like Daniel Jones. I think that he's going to prove to be a long-term answer for them. I don't know how good he'll be, but he'll be a top half of the league starter.

And at the same time, I think next year, Washington may have a better situation at quarterback. Now, they've got to get more stuff for him. They got to get more stuff. So let me just go through a couple of notes real quick. that I have here. Number one, I like the move. Okay. I am encouraged and I am excited about the move. It's not, would not have been my first choice. Wouldn't have been my second choice. I'd go like, I'd, I'd go after Deshawn Watson in a way in which I'd give up almost anything and probably would for that kind of answer. And I was all in on Matt Stafford, including what they offered

Detroit for Matt Stafford. But I like him. He's here to start, in my opinion. And by the way, Adam Schaefter reported as much as well that, you know, he will be the starter when camp opens, even though Taylor Heineke and Kyle Allen will be there. And I do think it'll be framed as a competition. But I don't think 10 million, 2 million in incentives at this point in his career, if he didn't have a really good understanding that he was essentially the starter going in, I don't know that he would have signed here. So I think he's here to start. I would be absolutely shocked if he's not the starter opening day unless something happens physically to him.

He's also here to mentor the two young quarterbacks because I do think they like both, but I just don't think they're sure about either one. I love the situation for him because it's a similar situation to the one he was in last year. Good young defense, good young defensive team, a good young team and a well-coached team. and I think he really, like Alex did in his sort of intangibles, I think he brings a lot to the table. He needs weapons. They've got to add another tight end. Hunter Henry, between the time the radio show ended and the time we started this podcast, Hunter Henry to New England.

So they've signed John Hussmith and Hunter Henry, the two best tight ends in free agency. Two things about that real quickly, Tommy. Number one, Bill Belichick does not want to go seven and nine again. number two is Josh McDaniels when they had Grunk and the murder

why am I blanking on his name Aaron Hernandez when they had Hernandez and Grunk Josh McDaniels I'll never forget it was some sort of film thing with I don't know who it was on ESPN

it could have been your guy CoSell and he made a comment that I'll never forget he said when you've got multiple tight ends on the field that can run and catch, you dictate to a defense because they then have to make a big decision about staying in base defense or going to nickel.

And what these teams do and what New England's always believed in is if you can put a bunch of tight ends on the field that can run and catch, you're going to keep that other team in base defense. And then if they do play nickel, you've got tight ends out on the field that can block. so now you can run the ball. So it's one of the, this is what they're going back to. When's the last time a team signed the top two tight end free agents? That's why they did it.

That's what McDaniels believes in. That's what Belichick believes in. So that's going to be really interesting with cam, two tight ends, the ability to dictate base defense. Hey, we're going after you with guys that you can't cover. And in nickel defense, great. We got two guys on the field that can block. And oh, by the way, a quarterback that can run too.

So we're going to run it right down your throat when you're a nickel. That's the New England plan. I'd love to see, I think Washington needs, the tight end thing is interesting because now only Gerald Everett is left. Kyle Pitts won't be there for them in the draft, no chance. And yet Fitzpatrick, if you watch him over the years, he's a fearless down-the-field thrower. but a lot of times those throws are to tight ends. He loves getting tight ends on backers, and he loves with the backers. I mean, how many throws over the years have you watched Fitzpatrick?

That linebacker's head is turned, and that ball goes whizzing over the backer's helmet right into the tight ends hands, down the middle, 18 to 20, you know, two yards, something like that. Now, is Logan Thomas the answer? If they do believe Logan Thomas is the answer here, then they're going to have to extend to Logan Thomas here in this offseason. If they think he's on the verge next year, with Fitzpatrick especially, catching 80 balls and 8, 9, 10 touchdowns,

they better extend him here and not let him get to free agency next year. You know, again, if their vision is Logan Thomas and not another tight end, they got to wrap them up. But they got to give him more weapons. The Gibson is going to be great for him. McKissick's going to be great for him. McClorn obviously would be great for anybody. They still need another receiver, and they need,

if Logan Thomas isn't the star that maybe they think he is, I have no idea if they think that or not, they've got to go get a tight end. And there's none left except for Gerald Everett. And he is second tier compared to Henry and Smith. but I still personally want the big future, but it ain't happening this year. They're not drafting a quarterback at 19,

for those of you thinking, oh, well, we can still draft a quarterback. A lot of you that are negative about this, well, they're still going to draft a quarterback, right? They're still going to be looking for the quarterback of the future. Not at 19 overall, they're not. Now, if somebody slipped... No, but they may draft a quarterback later in the draft.

Yeah, but they... They have three. See, the thing, and I talked about this on the podcast yesterday, about thinking about the other quarterback. Last year, one of the things that Rivera talked about is they couldn't really have a real competition, you know, because of COVID, et cetera. If you're going to have a competition, Tommy, in the NFL in this day and age, with the number of practices you get and the number of real hitting, you don't have a competition with three guys. Nobody goes into camp. I don't understand.

Why couldn't they have a competition because of COVID? Because they didn't get a chance to compete. They didn't have preseason games. They didn't have enough practices. They didn't, you know. Why couldn't you just pick Kyle Allen who knows your offense then? Well, we've already gone up. Why couldn't you just pick Alex Smith?

Here he goes. He's going right again. Well, again. He's going right again. You keep saying that they couldn't have had a competition. I think they couldn't have had a competition because the owner wanted his guy to start. There you go. He just went right.

And I'm sitting there forcing you back to your left. This notion that COVID- I agree. Of the three guys who could play quarterback, the guy who was least prepared to play was the guy they started. Yeah, no, no, no. We're not in disagreement here. We're not in disagreement at all. Don't mean on this COVID-cutch here.

Well, you couldn't have a legitimate competition. without preseason games or without more practices and without more offseason. The bottom line is, I still believe to this day that Rivera and Scott Turner in starting Haskins were in some way sort of deferring to some sort of commitment that Dwayne was going to be given a chance. I believe that with you. I'm with you on that. But the other thing's true, too. They couldn't have the normal competition. But that's not even the point. My point is that rarely do you have a training camp where there's a three-way competition for who's going to start. That's not what these guys are going to do. You don't even have enough reps in these practices in these preseason games to have a three-way competition.

Now, somebody said to me, well, Kyle Allen's only $850,000. Are they going to cut him? Well, not yet. And I don't think they will anyway. But if they were to draft a quarterback that they really liked and thought had a potential future, they're not keeping four. So somebody would have to go. And it's not going to be Ryan Fitzpatrick. And it's probably not going to be Hineke, even though the guaranteed money wasn't so significant

and wouldn't be so hard to swallow. I don't think they're – put it this way. I'd be shocked if they draft a quarterback in the same. first or second round. Shocked. They have too many needs and we're going to get to the derby thing and we're going to get to the linebacker thing here momentarily. But I just think that they signed him last night and they signed him with the expectation and with almost, you know, a commitment to him that he's, you're the frontrunner. You're entering camp as our number one. You're going to be 39 next year, but you're coming off two of the better years of your career.

and you're going to be what Alex was from an intangible standpoint, but a better quarterback, a more capable quarterback for us. So that's what I think. I mean, if he ends up losing a training camp battle to Taylor Heineke or Kyle Allen, I would be so surprised if they've got their backup quarterback or third-string quarterback making $10 million a year. Again, everything invested in the quarterback situation is a phenomenal situation. for them. You know, 12 million bucks or whatever.

You know? It's a really good, you know, equation if Fitzpatrick can give me a year or two. Next year's not going to be easy. And they're now missing some pieces on defense after yesterday. But I am excited about, yeah, I am. I can't wait to see if Ryan Fitzpatrick can play at the level that he's played at the last couple of years. He's going to have, Tommy, with this team in some of the field position, if the defense continues to get, you know, with the young guys get even better,

second year in Turner and Rivera and Del Rio, he's going to have some big games, and there are going to be some games next year. You know, you're like the prisoner who's been behind bars for years with bread and war. order. And all of a sudden the guards come and tell you, you want to know something? We're going to start using butter from now on, too. And you are so happy that you've got butter with your bread that you can't wait to eat it. You're right. You're right. Well, you know, this place has been not only for the players, but for the fans, like a penitentiary. It has been that. I mean, so, yeah, I'm getting privileges that I haven't had for the last few years.

You know what? I'm going to have a chance to be with Brooksie in the library for a while. I'm getting more library privileges. So you're okay with the move, but per usual, per your curmudgeon, you know, usual self, you are just so off put by people who are really excited about it, okay, that are declaring like, oh, we're contenders. That's not me, by the way. And I am very excited about it. I am glad that it's him versus some of the others that I would have been less excited about, but not as excited as I would have been about Stafford or like a big move for Deshawn Watson or,

you know, even Sam Darnold. I'm a believer in Darnold. I think Donald's going to find a place where he can play. I'm not, you know, 100% sure, and I've been wrong a lot on quarterbacks recently. But I think it's going to be fun next year. And I think that they, and by the way, the fit with Scott Turner and Cooley will be on with me tomorrow, so we'll talk more about this and he'll have a feel for it. I think Scott Turner did one thing last year better than I thought he would. I think he really game planned for the opponent. You know, he has a philosophy and things that he likes to do.

But every game was a different game plan. They did throw the ball down the field in games. Taylor Heineke threw the ball down the field against Carolina when he came in, threw the ball down the field in the Tampa Bay game. But with Dwayne against really good defenses like Baltimore and fast defenses, even Kyle Allen faced the Rams, they threw a lot of quick bubbles and got the ball out of the hands of the quarterback real quickly. Fitzpatrick can do all of that.

he's very versatile in his ability to do a lot. The big downside with Ryan Fitzpatrick is he will make the killer mistake. And sometimes it happens right at the end of the game. So anyway, what else you got on Fitzpatrick? That's it. I mean, I agree with some of what you said. I think they are better at quarterback today than they were before they made the move. but I think it's also an indication that they're still miles and miles away from being an organization with a quarterback for the future.

I agree with that. There's no doubt about that, but there are a lot of teams that are in the same boat. Look at Pittsburgh, you know. Pittsburgh thinks they can win. How much more time does Ben really have? You know, Bree's saying... But at least they have the Ben years to keep them warm. warm at night. You know what? That's true, just like the Saints had the breeze years to keep him warm

at night, even though he wasn't necessarily great all the time the last couple of years. But, you know, you have to, you know, there's one other thought I have on this. There's one other thought that I have on this. And I will share that thought with you. And we'll get to some of the other things related to the team, losing Ronald Darby and KPL right after this word from one of our sponsors. All right, I want to get to losing Ronald Darby, more so than losing Kevin Pierre-Lewis. What's next, et cetera? But you just said something to me during the break. I want you to say it again.

Yeah, I wonder if Kyle Allen injury has given Ron Rivera a little bit of pause about his faith in Kyle Allen. I mean, not only just his recovery, which may or may not be timely, but also the fact that he wasn't able to hold up. when he put him out there. I'm just wondering if, I mean, as much as, look, I think his favorite quarterback on the roster is still Kyle Allen, but I think he has questions maybe about his durability. I think that's a really good point because it was made clear to me, and I think this was out there, so that the recovery was longer than they had in

but that he would be ready when they got to camp at the end of July. Worst case. So it wasn't putting him in jeopardy of missing the significant part of the offseason training camp preseason games to get ready for the regular season, but that the ankle surgery and the recovery from that went slower than they thought it would. So I think somebody reported that at some point. So yes, well, not to mention, again, Taylor Heineke has started three games in his NFL career, and he's been injured in all three. Kyle Allen got injured in two games last year.

He got injured in the Giant game at home, the Rams game, which knocked him out, which brought Alex in for that gruesome second half against Aaron Donald and the Rams defense. And then he got injured for good in the Giant game, which brought Alex in as well. By the way, all those people saying, you know, I can't deal with the interceptions that Fitzpatrick throws. You know who threw interceptions last year, people, boys and girls? Your game manager, your don't turn the ball over guy. Alex Smith, he turned the ball over a lot last year. He had eight interceptions in eight games, and it cost them in a couple of those games.

So, anyway, Alex Smith was near the ball. bottom of every statistical category you could think of at the same time intangibles-wise he was invaluable i understand all that fitzpatrick was at the top in the top 10 of a lot of the you know categories um and his intangibles were off the charts last year too they are getting a totally different player in fitzpatrick but they're getting a lot of the same leadership and character and mentor and all the other good stuff that came with alec smith and they're getting a player that plays differently. As long as he doesn't age overnight.

You know what? I thought about that too. When you said you think this is a competition and you wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't start, there's always the possibility that, you know, Ryan Fitzpatrick goes, you know, essentially ended the year as a 38-year-old but starts next year as a 54-year-old and that the arm strength and the physical and whatever. But I'm not counting on it. So here was before we get to Ronald Darby and what's next for them. I think that the long-term quarterback solution, you've always got to be thinking about that.

Always have to, where is our guy? Because if we don't have the guy, then, you know, every year is going to be a scramble to try to put something together to, you know, cobble up nine or ten wins and make the postseason. Every team in the league that doesn't have one of those elite guys is essentially in that same position every year, right? If they're not at the bottom, they're in, can we put something together? Can we get a guy that's just good enough? Can we get a guy that has a year? And we go to the postseason.

So if you can't get that guy, which they're not going to be able to get in, they believe, I think, based on this signing, they're not going to get in this off season. you've got to still try to win next year. It's the NFL. Anything can happen. If you've got, you know, stay healthy and you've got good enough at quarterback and you've got a good defense and you're coached well and you've got good, you know, you've got a good locker room and all those things, you can put together a 9-10 win season and be in the postseason again. You don't just write off 2021 because you didn't get Matt Stafford or there was no chance of. you getting Justin Fields without trading a fortune to go up and get them. You know, you don't write it off.

And I think that the reason they've been going through all this process is that they're worried that if they didn't have somebody this year to sort of keep it together, that they could have a real step-back year with Alan or Heineke. And by the way, I don't know if that's true or not in terms of, do I believe they would have sucked with Allen or Heineke? I don't know. I thought Alan actually played pretty well when he was healthy. I thought Heineke is intriguing.

But I also think what Matt Bowen told me on the radio show last week, and I think Matt does a really good job of evaluating football. He just said they're both really good number twos. They're just not number ones. That's what you have right now. And he actually predicted that they would go for a veteran for this year, and his prediction was Dalton. But he brought up Fitzpatrick, because I brought up Fitzpatrick to him, and he thought that

that was a possibility, but he leaned Dalton. But, you know, maybe what they recognize is one of these two guys could become a number one, but we're not sure. We know for sure they're strong number two's. We got to go get a number one. We got to try to cobble together, nine and seven next year. and be in the division race. And maybe we're going to have to solve the long-term quarterback thing after next year.

Look, if you don't have a real strong feeling about your long-term quarterback guy, you can't punt on a season. You still got to figure it out. Let's say Ryan Fitzpatrick is a really good year next year, and they go nine and seven, and they lose a wild card game again. And then, you know, they sign Ryan Fitzpatrick to another year. Or they have an opportunity. Next year's the year.

We can go get our guy, whoever it is in free agency or whatever or draft or whatever. But maybe that doesn't exist next year and they're going to have to cobble up some other answer. I think this is them saying we're not confident in what we have, but we like a lot about our team. And we built some momentum. And Ryan Fitzpatrick gives us a chance to continue to build and have a competitive season. And I think he does give him that chance. and I feel more confident in him giving them that chance than I do about Heineke or Allen giving them that chance.

But that's just me. So Ronald Darby signs the deal with Denver. This is a loss, Tommy. Ronald Darby played really well last year for them. He was a perfect fit for their system. I think he was their most consistent corner last year. I don't know what they offered him or how aggressive they were. He signed a three-year, $30 million deal with Denver.

I think it's $20 million guaranteed. It's not a bad deal in a year where a lot of people think that the second-tier guys were going to sign one-year deals. Well, Vic Fangio and George Payton, the new GM in Denver, who came from Minnesota, and they had a lot of corners in Minnesota over the years. And Vic Fangio, to me, is one of the two, three, best defensive minds in the game, and one of the best defensive coaches in the game, may not be a good head coach. They saw something in Darby to give them the long-term deal.

And I think they're, you know, I don't know where they go now. I mean, Fabian Moro's a free agent. He got more snaps at the end of last year. Perhaps that's the direction they turned to. Jackson's still out there as a free agent. There aren't a lot of corners in free agency. There could be some corners at 19, but you don't draft a corner at 19 and think, well, we definitely have our answer next year. Not at that position. It can happen. It doesn't always happen. I think they lost something with Darby.

I don't know what their offer was. I'm sure we're going to find out from somebody what they offered Darby and how aggressive they were with Darby. But they lost a guy, and what really confirms in my mind that they lost a really good player, is the team that signed him and the deal that he got signed to. Smart, defensive people, and they gave them multiple years. In a year in which a lot of these guys that are supposedly second tier are going to get much shorter deals. Not that everybody is, I understand that.

Are we still operating under the premise that we trust in Ron? Yes, I am. We believe in Ron. In fact, even more so with the front office. that includes two smart guys like Marty Herney and Martin Mayhew? Yes, I am. That could be even more so. Okay.

Yep. I mean. So even the move that you don't understand or don't agree with, you have to say, but these guys know what they're doing, right? I've been in the penitentiary for 20 years. We just got a new warden, and he just gave me a stick of butter. I mean, yeah, I like him right now. okay okay

so that's fine then I mean I just want to make sure we're clear on that that you know it's been wrong Rivera we trust and now he's got help so there's trust should be even deeper so when they don't get the big names in free agency that people want

and you see players that you fell in love with last year leave it's okay by the way I didn't fall in love with I didn't fall in love with him he was a good player for them. He was a good player. He played well. Yeah. You know who could be coming back? Have you thought about this one? Josh Norman. How about Josh Norman comes back here? You know, Josh Norman had a decent year in Buffalo last year. The best years of his career were with Ron Rivera in a scheme that fit, you know, in Carolina. You know who said some of the nicest things about

Ron Rivera when he got hired, Josh Norman. I'm just throwing it out there. He's available. The Madador returns. He's out there. Well, he'll tackle people. He will tackle people. That's the one thing you know about Josh Norman. He will compete and he'll stick his nose in there and he'll try to knock the ball out. I don't know. I think I asked Jay Gruden about the fit. He really liked, I mean, I remember him telling me, we really like Josh Norman and I liked him as a person. I liked him as a player and maybe it was our fault, you know, in not putting him in the best of positions.

But the other thing he said to me now that I think about it is, I think this was on the air on the podcast. He said, we stunk up front for the, you know, he's like, we were, we just weren't good enough up front. That's why we drafted John Allen. That's why we, you know, ended up drafting Duran Payne. We had to get better up front. Yeah, we know that.

We witnessed it. And so, you know, it's essentially saying it wasn't all Josh Norman. I don't know. Something to keep in mind, Josh Norman. Okay. I like the Madador personally. I've said this a million times about him. I loved interviewing Josh Norman.

I loved sitting in that studio of ours. and I don't think that you and I did it together because I think maybe, well, maybe we did when he first got there. But I think the first day he was signed, you and I were doing the show from the park. He has, there's something to him that's interesting. Like he is, he's not a narrow guy.

Like he's got a lot of different interests. And I think that he is an interesting. Like bull fighting. Yeah, bull fighting. Big soccer fan, big art guy. You know, he would say. He's a media critic, too. He's a media critic. Remember his rant about the medium? Oh, yeah. Well, we've heard that from so many of them. Um, but I remember, you know, there was a conversation with him one day. I think it was Cooney and I and he was like, you know, he'd spent the whole off-season in Europe going from museum to museum. I mean, I'm not trying to make him out to be, you know, the most culturally diverse person, you know, or most eclectic person. But I always always,

thought that there was something to him. He has great personality. But anyway, it didn't work here. I'm just saying this is a different coaching staff, and this is a coaching staff that's totally familiar with him. And they just lost Ronald Darby, and they don't, they really just don't have an answer right now at Corner. I mean, you've got Kendall Fuller, you've got, Jimmy Morland, and that is what's under contract right now. You know, Fabian Moreau, I don't know if there's going to be a market for him. It's not a first-tier market for him, clearly. You know, Danny Johnson, you know, you can always, as a nickel guy, they use Cam Curl at times. They need a corner. They just lost a guy that you could argue was their best and most consistent defensive back last year.

And they lost him. It'll be interesting to see how hard they went after him. But he is going to play for a defense. By the way, they had a need. Denver had a significant need at the position. So they were desperate. Maybe they just offered much more money. The spot rack projection, I think, was nine and a half. So he got 10.

The, you know, that team with Chubb and Miller, you know, and Jackson, that's in Justin Simmons, who they tagged. Remember, they tagged the safety. Simmons, and they are so well coached defensively. God, Vic Fangio, everywhere he's gone, he's done a phenomenal job defensively. I just don't know if he's a head coach. KPL losing Kevin Pierre-L-L-Luice. Remember, he was hurt at the end of the year. His snap count went down at the end of the year. So he got $8 million for two years in Houston. I know they liked him. I'm sure they would have loved to have been able to

to keep them, but, you know, probably couldn't promise him anything and probably couldn't pay him what Houston decided to pay him. But, you know, back to the corner thing, I think Fabian Moreau becomes a little bit interesting now because Moreau's snap count really picked up at the end of the year, if I recall. If I'm wrong about that, somebody can tweet me, but my memory tells me that the snap count really, he went several weeks with barely even playing, and then all of the sudden we started to see more of Moreau, and it wasn't necessarily because of injury. I think everything is going to be just fine. Yeah.

What's next corner? I mean, tight end, wide receiver, Ghaladay is still out there. You know, they got to want to come here too. And, you know, remember Tommy, part of the conversation we've had is, are you going to be able to track free agents with Taylor Heineke and Kyle Allen is your only quarterbacks offensively? And the answer is probably no. And Fitzpatrick, you know, on a one-year deal for somebody to come here or a short-term deal?

He's, you know what he's going to do? He's going to give you a chance to catch a lot of balls. Yes, he will. So what else do you have on football team? And you've got to love that beard, right? You've got to love the beard. Mother of the brush. You got to love his personality.

Everything about him will be. fun. It'll be really interesting. You know what's funny? I mean, there's not many professions where going to Harvard makes you an underdog. It's true. Yeah. But football does. Well, it's just like, yeah, of course. Oh, he played in the Ivy League. Well, I mean, remember if I don't know if I'm being repetitive here because I can't remember if I said it on this podcast or the radio show. His first start of his NFL career came in 2005 in St. Louis with the Rams against your Washington Redskins. They were the Redskins back then. And that turned into the first of five wins in a row at the end of 2005 that led to their last playoff win, which came in Tampa.

Yeah, it's been 15 years since their last playoff win, January of 2006. And the winning streak in Joe Gibbs' second year, they started that winning streak against the St. Louis Rams beating Ryan Fitzpatrick 24 to 9 in his debut as a starter from Harvard. Remember there was that stretch, Tommy, of a couple of years where they could not beat rookie quarterbacks? Oh, yeah. The other thing, Ryan Fitzpatrick was the starter for Buffalo when Washington played Buffalo in Toronto, and they got beat 23 to nothing with John Beck at quarterback. The John Beck game.

That was one of the John Beck games, yeah. That was one of them. man, all warm-up team was John Beck. He looked good in the warm-up suit, going through lay-up lines. That warm-up suit, when he peeled it off, he was soiling himself as he realized he was going to actually have to enter the game and play, which, by the way, is when... Yeah, but the glory of John Beck was how he basically talked, he talked himself into being the starting quarterback

months before camp even opened. You remember, he started a campaign in January publicly, basically declaring he was the starter. And he continued that. He like talked it into existence. He got that first opportunity against Carolina. Okay, it's 2011. you and I are arguing the Beck Rex thing all year long.

Oh, my God. The Beck Rex thing on our show. We should have won some kind of award for that. We should have. We should have. I'm talking about John Beck and Rex Grossman. And you would have thought we were talking about Johnny Unitas and Joe Montana. Right.

Remember, it was a good start to that year because they were, you know, they were three, and one. They lost to Dallas Monday night, 1816 was the score. You know, Rex is playing pretty well. And then they had the game against Philadelphia for like first place in the division. And Rex did not play well in the game, had turnovers. And they came in with John Beck. Four interceptions, right? Yep. And maybe a lot of them in the first half. And then the reason, ultimately, and we didn't know it at the time, we found out after the fact, Rex had pneumonia. And that's why Beck got the start the following week.

Was it against the 49ers when he had all those checkdown throws to the Roy Hulu record? Roy Hulu. Roy Hulu. Roy Hulu. I think he had 14 catches in the game. And he still has the record. He still the record, I think. And averaged, I think, negative 2 yards per catch.

I forget if that was. the first game or not. But the one thing we learned was it wasn't necessarily the Shanahan saying, we're giving up on Rex because we love Beck. Rex had pneumonia and was really sick there for a couple of weeks. And then, you know, they didn't win any of those games. And, you know, if anybody believed in Beck after a couple of starts of watching him, you realized he couldn't do it. and yeah, and then whatever. It was a weird year. That was a strange year because it started so promisingly.

All right. When we come back, a couple of other NFL notes from Free Agency went to weigh in on some of that. Tommy wants to, and I'd like to have the conversation with Tommy about Marvelous Marvin Haggley, wrote a column about it as well. That and a few more things right after this word from one of our sponsors. Tommy's going to weigh in on Marvelous Marvin Hagler. I also want to talk about Archie Miller getting fired in Indiana

because I think it's a real warning sign about a lot of different coaching situations, including one here locally. But I wanted to just, we didn't touch on a lot of the other NFL free agency stuff because it has been a wild, you know, not necessarily for Washington and not for every team, but I wanted to mention, you know, a couple of the deal. that happened. First of all, you know, the one-year deal for Winston in New Orleans with Taysam Hill also restructuring his deal. I'm just telling you right now, for those of you that have asked about, it sounds like it's a competition. Again, I'd be absolutely stunned if James

Winston isn't the starting quarterback in New Orleans next year. That's a really good football team, and that's a really good head coach that knows how to coach quarterbacks and knows how to call plays. I just think that that is actually one of the more intriguing situations to watch next year. Taysam Hill's going to be used as a backup and in all those, you know, packages that he's always been used in. But I would be really surprised, very surprised if James Winston isn't the starter there. We already mentioned the tight end situation and the Patriots going all in on free agency, one deal after another, including Matthew Judon, but they added Hunter Henry and John Hsu Smith today. And as I told Tommy earlier, God, nobody loves multiple tight ends on a field to force defenses

in either base or if they go nickel being able to have blockers on the field to run the football than Josh McDaniels and Bill Belichick. They're going in all big here, Tommy, on free agency. This is what they were waiting for. All the money freed up. They're going big in free agency. The Patriots, you know, the quarterback thing is still a big question mark. With Cam, it'll be interesting to see if they do anything else.

But the Patriots are not, they do not think that they can go another year being seven and nine. There were a couple of other deals that I wanted to mention. Well, clearly the Joe Thune deal to Kansas City. I mean, the kind of money that a guard got, five years, 80 million bucks, with essentially 47 million of it guaranteed as long as he makes it to year two. That is the Brandon Sheriff thing. I don't know what Washington offered in terms of a long-term deal, but we all thought, well, it's got to start with a 15.

Well, apparently it had to start with a 16 in front of it in terms of the average annual. And by the way, it had to be well in excess of 50% of it guaranteed for a guard, as Jay Gruden would say. Bud Dupree to Tennessee, I love him as a player coming off that injury. Oh, well, Aguilar to the Patriots, along with Bourne, along with Jono Smith, along with Hunter Henry. You know, whoever the quarterback is, they're going to give them every shot to be successful. I thought it was really smart for the Rams to retain Leonard Floyd. He had a big year. I would have been surprised had Sean let him go.

He was really good last year. They didn't have any choice on John Johnson, the safety. The Corey Davis, who was a receiver that I thought Washington could target, ended up getting a three-year, $37.5 million deal with the Jets, so over $10 million a year. Yeah, so that's kind of it. And in terms of the guys that are still available, well, Trent Williams is still available, and Kenny Ghaladay is still available,

and Jackson, the corner, is still available, Schuster's still available. So there's still some guys out there. Fuller's still available. What about Patrick Peterson or Josh Norman? Be interesting. Anyway, I still think the team's going to go into free agency and make more noise in free agency,

but it's going to be probably similar to last year, which, by the way, Tommy, they did pretty well last year with McKissick and with Logan Thomas and with Ronald Darby. They did well in free agency last year. year on the second-tier market. They swung big on Amari Cooper, missed, but they ended up doing pretty well. Anyway, do you have any thoughts on free agency? Who do you expect them to go out? Or what position are you expecting news on with respect to Washington here over the next day or two? Well, I think I'm like most of the Washington fans out there. I think they're expecting a wide receiver at some point.

you know, another weapon for Fitzmagic to throw to, especially now since everyone's excited about the quarterback. And there's been this perception all along for two years now that they need receiving help. And we know that they swung and missed on Amari Cooper last year. And I think they're going to be aggressive and land somebody at wide receiver, if not plan A or plan B or plan C, maybe plan F or plan R. Why did you go from F to R? Isn't that the way the alphabet goes? Maybe.

One other quick thing on just the whole NFL and all the movement. Did you see that Pete Carroll apparently really likes Sam Darnold? I think Sam Darnold's got a chance too, but I just don't know why anyone would want to trade Russell Wilson or allow it to happen. I don't, the Russell Wilson. Unless there's something personal going on. You've got to fix that if there is.

That's Russell Wilson. I agree. He is the Seattle Seahawks. He's the reason you've been a sustained winner since 2012 for nine years. He's the reason. How many times have they missed the playoffs in nine years? I mean, maybe once, twice. I'm with you.

I'm actually curious as to how many... And you remain convinced as each day passes that Houston is not going to trade to Sean Watson, right? I had Charlie on the show earlier this week. Charlie thinks they will. Really? Yep. Wow.

So, yeah. Well, that would be a major disappointment. for Washington football fans if they see Deshaun Watson traded. Well, he's got a no trade clause, so he can influence where he goes. Keep that in mind. I know. So, you know, I don't think here is going to be at the top of his list. By the way, Russell Wilson.

That's always the go-to answer, though. That's always the answer. What? I don't think he'd want to come here. I know. Well, I don't think he's already sort of talked about the places he'd like to go. I'm not talking about him. I'm talking about anybody.

In general. Okay. But also, remember this, Washington doesn't have nearly as much ammo to get Deshawn Watson or even Russell Wilson like some of the other teams do. I know. Russell Wilson's – and since Russell Wilson took over in 2012, the season of 2012, they've missed the playoffs once. Once.

2018. I'm sorry, the 2017 season, 2018 postseason. They didn't make it. So that's what a true elite quarterback basically ensures. You're going to the playoffs a lot more than you're not. A great defense means you can go, you know, if you get the right situation, you can win big one year, but you're not going to the playoffs eight out of nine years, you know, without the quarterback, without the really good quarterback.

And by the way, I bet you in that year they didn't go to the postseason. They were nine and seven. It's not like they sucked. They were nine and seven the year they did not go to the postseason, the only year they didn't go to the postseason. I just don't know why if you're a franchise, you would ever allow yourself to be back into the quarterback's searching wilderness. Like, you have one of the guys.

If you really think he's on the verge of deteriorating and you are selling high, you know, at the highest point, and it's all downhill from here for Russell Wilson. Okay. And I know that there were times last year where he struggled. They had offensive line issues. They had a lot of injuries last year. But through the first five games of the year last year,

he was the front runner for the MVP. He had thrown in the first four games of the year last year, first five games of the year last year. Remember the pace he was on? He threw 9, 14, 16. 19 touchdowns, three interceptions in the, five and oh start. He had 19 touchdowns in five games. He was killing it. His past completion percentage was 77 percent in those first five games. I don't know, man. I don't get it. I don't

get even entertaining it. It would be, if I were the owner, and unless they told me, you know, he really's got a shoulder that's going to be an issue, and this is going to be the downfall of his career, and nobody else knows it. We should sell right now, and he wants to leave anyway. If I didn't believe any of that shit about his physical well-being, I would just say, Pete, are you out of your fucking mind? We've missed the playoffs one time because of this dude. And the one year we missed it, we were still nine and seven. You're telling me that you want to trade him to the Jets for Sam Darnold because you think Darnold could be the next Russell Wilson? I've already got Russell Wilson. And he's only 32.

Like, I got five more years of us contending. Yeah, but he doesn't want to be here. He doesn't like us anymore. We'll make him like you. All right? Dress up. Dress differently. Get in shape.

Use different cologne. Make them love you again. I mean, it's so hard. And you know what? Being in the penitentiary that we've been in for 21, forever, without having a quarterback. I'm so jealous at the teams that have had the ability to go into every year with a quarterback where you know if that guy stays upright for 16 games, we're in the playoffs. We're in the playoffs.

We have Tom Brady. We have Aaron Rogers. We have Russell Wilson. You know, we have Patrick Mahomes or we have Josh Allen now. Those guys, Buffalo and Kansas City, they're going to the playoffs four or five out of every six years. And in three of those years, they're going to be like legitimate Super Bowl contenders. Chase Young's really good. He's my favorite player.

I think he's the best, has a chance to be the best pound for pound player Washington's had in a long, long time. Sean Taylor would be the last one we'd even debate. But they're not going to the playoffs if they've got average quarterbacking five out of every six years with a chance to win it, you know, two or three of those years, just because they have Chase Young. Not in today's NFL. Not going to happen.

I just don't understand if, you know, you have one, why you think they're so easy to go get. Oh, we'll just trade him. We'll get somebody else. We'll get somebody else. All right. A couple thoughts on college hoops and Tommy's column on Marvelous Marvin Hagler, right after this word from one of our sponsors. Tim Murray, who was on with me yesterday, Tommy, because we did a lot of bracket in college basketball, NCAA. tournament talk had never seen that fight, had never seen Hearns Hagler. And so I put him on my knee.

I find that so hard to believe. I put him on my knee and Uncle Kevin gave Tim a one job yesterday. And I said, it's 17 minutes, but it'll be worth it. I haven't heard back from him because I'm sure he didn't do it. But I may, I've made all three of my boys watch that fight, which I've probably seen a hundred times over the years. But Hagler-Herns was one of the best ever. You covered him. He passed away at the age of 66. By the way, what did he pass away from?

Do we know yet? Don't know yet. He went into hospital complaining of chest pains. Okay. So go ahead. You wrote a column about him. Well, I wrote a column. I talked to, you know, I mean, in addition to the

Hearns fight. The fight he's known for is the one he lost to Ray Leonard, the one that, you know, that ultimately ended his career when he decided to retire. So I talked to one of Ray's advisors, J.D. Brown, a little bit about that fight. And, you know, everyone knows how bitter Hagler was that, about the decision, the disputed decision. He thought he won the fight. And it may arguably the most disputed result in a fight that we've debated in boxing in our lifetime is the outcome of that fight. I thought Hagler won the fight. Who did you think won the fight? I know we've talked about it, but I forget.

I thought Ray won the fight. Okay. I thought Ray won the fight. It's interesting that both Boston papers, his hometown papers, had Ray winning the fight. Ron Borges had Hagler winning the fight. from the globe. No, the Harold and the Globe. There were two globe guys.

I've got it right here because, as you said, it was one of the most polarizing, you know, decisions in terms of how people saw that fight in boxing history. And the Boston Globes, Ron Borges, had it 115-11-Hagler. And the Boston Globe's Steve Morantz had at 117-11-11 Leonard. And then the Boston Herald had it 116-113 Leonard. Yeah. So two out of the three guys writing, yeah. So I talked to, I talked to J.D. about that, and he told the story about how he had scouted Hagler's training sessions and wore disguise so that he wouldn't be seen.

And even had, you know, and Ray's manager, Mike Trayner said that J.D. had to have pictures taken. to prove that he was there. So J.D. got up when Hagler was signing autograph. Who was J.D. again? I'm sorry. Make it clear who J.D. Brown is one of Sugar Ray Leonard's close friends and advisors. Okay, got it. And has been with him for decades. Okay. And was working with him in the Hagler fight and was scouting Hagler's training sessions in disguise

and got a picture taken with Hagler while Marvin was signing autographs. Marvin, who knew J.D., didn't recognize him. And then they published that picture in Sports Illustrated after the fight. And J.D. said he saw Hagler up in Atlantic City a few years later, and he thought Hagler was going to punch him out. He was so angry. He was really bitter and angry about that. And this was the interesting part.

He said a few years ago up at the Hall of Fame ceremonies in Canistota, Ray sat with Hagler at a luncheon table, and they were very cordial and very nice, and everyone was getting along great. And this was a big step because, I mean, they hadn't talked to each other in years. And Ray was working on something called, you know, George Kimball, who wrote for the Boston Herald, wrote this book called The Four Kings. And that's what Hernes, Tommy Hernes, Ray Leonard, Roberto Duran and Marvin Hagler were called.

The four welterweight middleweight fighters who dominated the 80s. So Ray proposed a Four Kings tour where to basically go around the country and get interviewed and do press conferences and start. And Duran and Hearns were all for it. Agler couldn't do it. He couldn't bring himself to do it. Couldn't stomach it. He was really better.

Yeah, he really was. But I don't think, my point is in the column, I don't think it diminishes Hagler's legacy, the loss. What is Hagler's legacy? I really don't think it does. Well, I think Hagler's legacy is arguably the greatest middleweight champion of all time. I mean, people will argue Sugar Ray Robinson, who was middleweight championship.

But Ray Robinson was probably a better welterweight champion than middleweight champion as he got older. So, I mean, you can make the case, Marvin, who defended his title 12 times successfully, was probably the best middleweight champion that we've ever seen, at least. And I don't think that gets taken away with Leonard's win. I mean, if Marvin won, all he would have done is beaten a smaller man who hadn't fought in three and a half years. it would not have been that great of a victory in the scheme of things it was a no-win situation for Marvin

other than the money that he would make I mean you know if he lost he lost to a guy who hadn't been in the ring in almost four years I know who was smaller than him but but it was the fight that everybody wanted to see and Ray came back for it And Tommy, I think that the odds on that fight going in were really super close.

You know, Hagler was not like a major favorite. I'm looking it up right now to see exactly what the odds on the fight were going in. Well, the odds makers knew. I mean, Ray got everything he wanted before the fight. It was 12 rounds instead of 15 rounds. He got the smaller range. You got the right. So, I mean, the odds makers knew.

everything was, and, you know, Ray was a judge's favorite. But, but, I mean, like I've always said, if you're fighting a guy who hasn't been in the ring that long, who's the smaller guy, you don't leave it up to the judges. That was

always the... You know, I've only had himself to blame. Yeah. You know, the other, the other, you know, thing was, you got to knock out the champ to beat the champ, and it wasn't a knockout. Ray Leonard, won the final 30 seconds of every round after in most of those rounds being beaten for the first two and a half minutes.

There was a real influence late in those rounds. Do you remember? I mean, I've watched that fight so many times where Ray in the last 30 seconds would start flurrying and there was so much activity. And meantime, like for the first two to two and a half minutes of the round, it seemed like Hagler owned him. I just remember that was... I don't think that's the case. I don't think Hagler owned them in the first two and a half minutes. of a lot of those rounds.

Here's another thing that Ray did, and this is what J.D. discovered in the training and just watching their fight films. What Hagler liked to do at the end, at the beginning of every round, he liked to be in the middle of the ring waiting for the guy to come off his stool when the bell rang.

He liked to be there, right? Because that's where he wanted to fight you. Right. You know? He wanted you right there. Well, Ray turned that around. Ray was the guy waiting for Hagler after every round right before the bell rang to start the round. And that unnerved Hagler a little bit, that took him out of his game.

I don't think it was a clear cut, two and a half Hagler and then 30 seconds, Ray. I think Ray won the fight. I just remember way back I haven't seen that fight in a long time, just thinking that Hagler was robbed, that Hagler won that fight. I think it was the ninth round where Hagler really had Leonard in trouble. I thought just he was the aggressor throughout in that fight that he had out pointed him in that fight. I was a huge Leonard fan, but I was also a huge Hagler fan. I remember I bought tickets and watched that on closed circuit at Colfield House Tommy for like 40 bucks.

I think the tickets were 40 bucks to go in to watch that on closed circuit. And it was sold out. Do you know that fight was so big that I want to. want to say that the Capitol Center, Colfield House, and the Patriot Center at Mason, all had sellouts for the closed circuit telecast of that fight. That's how big and anticipated that fight was. Well, I always have said that Ray Leonard was like another sports franchise in this town. He was like Washington or the Capitals or the Wizards. He was his own sports franchise. Uh, from the time he turned pro until he retired.

So, yeah, I can see that. The Hagler-Herns fight, though, as mentioned, I think it's the most exciting and the best first round in championship boxing history. And in terms of the three rounds, there's never been more action packed into a three-round fight like that one. And the ending, when Hagler gets cut and he smells and tastes and sees his own blood, poor Tommy, he didn't have a chance at that point

because he was going to end it. And you know, the thing about Hearns, at one point, the referee came back in the Hagler's corner in between rounds when he was, when, I guess, because he was bleeding. And the referee said, are you okay? And Hagler said, am I missing him? You know, I loved all those fighters of that era.

I loved Hurons. I loved Duran. I loved Hagler. I loved Leonard. You know, I really loved watching Aaron Pryor fight. I thought Alexis Argueo was so much fun to watch. You know, all of those guys from that era. That's the era that I loved boxing and just paid for every fight, you know, went to fights in Vegas,

you know, especially when we got into the late 80s and 90s. But the thing that I loved about Tommy Hearns in that fight is that Hearns, he knew his best chance to beat this guy was to throw everything he had at him early and try to connect. And he did multiple times, but he didn't do much. You know, the irony of that fight with Hearns is, remember, before he lost to Sugar Ray Leonard and the TKO at Caesar's Palace in 1981, he came into that fight as the hitman, having knocked out everybody undefeated, and it was the boxer versus the hitman. Well, that fight turned the, you know, the narrative on Hearns. Hearns was a phenomenal boxer in that fight.

Remember, Leonard nearly knocked him out in the fifth round, and Hearns turned into the boxer and had the big lead, and Leonard had to knock him out and did, you know, at the end to win that fight. And then we recognized Hearns is much more than just a knockout artist. He was a really good boxer. Now, he knocked the hell out of Duran. Remember that knockout of Duran when they fought? But the Hagler thing, he reverted to the hitman.

He's like, I got to take him out, and I got to take him out early, and I'm going to throw everything. I've got it this guy and try to end it early because if it's 12 rounds, I'm in trouble. And he threw everything he had. You know, what's interesting is when Hagler fought Duran, it was a close fight. Right. That was a close. Duran really boxed him. And no one expected that.

Right. And Duran, Ray Leonard was doing the color animal. like analysis for HBO. And Duran leaned over the ropes after the fight and told Ray, you can beat this guy. Yeah. Yeah. That was a decision, right, that he lost, but wasn't, but he was in the fight. He had a chance.

Yes. Yeah. And, I mean, of all those fighters, Duran was the smallest. Oh, yeah. He was the only one who went from lightweight. I mean, Duran was, Duran's legacy. Right. even though people know him when he got bigger

is as the greatest lightweight champion of all time. Right. So, I mean, he was the smallest always of all of those three four fighters. Yeah, that's right. But he was also with Leonard a bully. Like he bullied Leonard around in that first fight in Montreal. And, yeah, I don't think I knew the story you just told, which is really interesting, that Leonard called the Duran Hagel

fight and Durant told Leonard you can beat this guy? Yeah, yeah he did. Wow. Because Durant and Leonard at that, you know, that's still the early 80s. They're not friendly. No, but there's a mutual respect

that that fires get having shit. When people share something like that in the ring, it's a strange relationship that they carry for the rest of their lives. They really do. Some it's good, some it's not good, but it's very unique and different.

And look, now Ray and Duran are best friends. Right. You know, I'm sitting. But Duran's like a teddy bear now. You know, the thing about Duran, he fought everybody. Like, I'm looking through his thing. He fought everybody. Like, you talk about the lightweight guys, like, when he was fighting, you know,

guys like, who was the guy that he fought a couple times early on? I'm forgetting his name. But when you get into that era of the 80s, you know, he fights Leonard twice. He fights Wilford Benitez. He fights Jose Papino Quavis. He fights Davy Moore. He fights Hagler. He fights Hearns.

You know, he then fought Leonard again, remember, which was a terrible fight. I was at that fight at the Mirage. Terrible fight. Yeah, the third fight. People forget. He went up to super middleweight. Well, you gained a lot of weight. They beat Iran Barclay.

He beat Barclay. Exactly. Yes. But Durand more than Leonard fought everybody. Now, none of them, none of them fought Aaron Pryor. They all thought he was crazy. And I still, and I remember during that era, thinking they're all avoiding him because they don't think they can beat him.

Now, I know he was, you know, drugged up half the time and had all of those issues. But Aaron Pryor, you know, knocked out Argueo, what, twice? You know, he had the brutal beating of Argueo to win the title. Did he fight Arguez? I think he fought Arguez twice and knocked him out both times. but then he never as by the way a lightweight champion and then maybe a junior welterweight he he never and he no one ever came down to fight him and he never went up to fight anybody and those would have been massive fights why not a lot of people agree with you absolutely a lot of people agree with me on what that he would have they were that they were afraid of him yeah yeah

they were afraid of them why were they afraid of them why were they afraid of him. He had a very awkward style. You know, he was always sort of off balance, but he, and he clearly, you know, we know that he had drug issues during

that whole period of time. By the way, is, is he dead? Yes. I mean, he became a minister out in Cincinnati. I met Aaron prior and spoke to him at length at one of the fight nights. And,

And it was after Alexis Uruguayo had been found dead. He died. Here it is. He's 60 years old in 2016. Yeah. Wow. And I still have his card, Aaron Pryor's card. He was dabbling and some boxing managing, but he was a minister.

Very nice man to talk to. In December of 85, Pryor was stripped of his titles for failure. He had become consumed by drugs. That could have been part of it as well. but I remember thinking, man, to see like Duran Pryor or Hearns Pryor or Leonard Pryor. Hagler was, you know, Hagler was entrenched as a middleweight. I don't know if Pryor would have been able to go up and fight Hagler in that weight class. That was a couple of leaps for him, but certainly he could have fought Duran, Hearns, or Leonard during that period, but never did.

But the amazing thing is, like, think of what you just said. Duran did that. Yeah, Duran did that. Durand moved up from 135 pounds as a light weight. He looked, I remember him looking fat in that Leonard, in that last Leonard fight. You know, that was... And won the 168-pound title against Irene Barkley. Barclay.

Wow. 168 pounds. Jesus. That's crazy. That's why Durant's my favorite, one of the reasons why Durant's my favorite fighter. Hands of Stone. All right, one last thing to finish up on after this word from one of our sponsors. Archie Miller got fired at Indiana yesterday.

Some big donor bought out $10.3 million worth of remaining contracts. This is what I guess you can do at Indiana when you used to be a blue blood program and you still have some big money people in the program that get frustrated and decide, we got to try somebody else. But to me, this is the warning sign about college basketball because Archie Miller can coach. Archie Miller, you know, took Dayton. You know, when Dayton's got some history, I'm not about to say that they don't. He took Dayton to the NCAA tournament four consecutive years, took him to an elite eight.

They were close to making a final four and then got the Indiana job. He's Sean Miller's younger brother. Archie Miller, I always felt watching him at Dayton, he can coach. He replaced Tom Crean, you know, who took in Indiana to a couple of sweet 16s. but that wasn't good enough for Indiana, right? Crean wasn't good enough. You know, three sweet 16s for Tom Crean at Indiana. Not good enough.

He goes to the NIT in his final year. He gets fired. Archie Miller comes in. He's going to be the new guy. Four years later, Archie Miller's bought out. He doesn't make the tournament once. Now, last year was dicey in terms of their, and this year looked like he was going to be a tournament team,

but he's not. you know Patrick Ewing at four and whatever they are at that one point this year there was discussion about how long Patrick Ewing was going to make it at Georgetown this year and by the way I had Patrick Ewing on the radio show this morning you can go listen to that at the team 980.com

I this is hard for some of you to believe I'm really happy for the Georgetown people that was a lot of fun to watch and Patrick is such a likable guy and I've said, and by the way, they told me, you know, we know what you've been saying about Patrick over the years. And I've said, I watched Georgetown not a lot, and I'm not rooting for Georgetown, but I think he can coach. Watching them, I think they're well coached. And, you know, they, before that COVID pause, they had lost five games in a row this year.

They were three and eight. And what was all the discussion? How long's Patrick going to last, man? How long is he going to last? You know, you really, in this day and age, aren't guaranteed to get something much better at these places where you always believe, well, if we're not in the final four, we're not in Sweet 16s every year or whatever, we got to replace Mark Turgeon. We got to replace Patrick Ewing. We got to replace Archie Miller. Well, Tom Crean got you to Sweet 16s.

It wasn't good enough. You got Archie Miller. Herb Sendek several years ago at NC State was taking you to the tournament every year. And he wasn't good enough for you because we've won two national championships here in Raleigh. May have heard of us here in the ACC. You know, you have to give these guys time if you think they can coach. Archie Miller is a good coach. No one in the profession would say Archie Miller can't coach.

Okay, Richard Petino had eight years at Minnesota. They gave him every chance. They fired him yesterday. That's eight years. Four years with a COVID year in there in between. They were 20 and 12 last year, and I forget, to be honest with you, whether they were a bubble team, worst case, I'd love to see who they're going to go pay now. And whether or not, you know, as long as you got a donor willing to pay it out and the school doesn't have to pay it out,

I guess why not? Let's keep swinging. But, man, Indiana's been out in the wilderness now for a while. And they bail quickly on their guys. All I can say is, it's a good thing Maryland has your team. deep pockets to go into. Well, that's one of the reasons I bring it up, is that Maryland doesn't have that guy. You know, it's not Kevin Plank.

Kevin Plank does it. He's not in the business of buying coaches out if you've been paying attention over the years. There's one guy who has the ability to at Maryland, but he's actually, he likes Turgeon. So I just, Maryland's gone to the tournament. This is now six out of the last seven years. They've been in the NCAA tournament, six out of seven years. And yeah, I understand it hasn't been good enough when they've gotten there. I think last year would have been, but we'll never know.

And this year, overachieved team, who knows, maybe this year they win a couple of games. But be careful what you wish for, because Archie Miller just got bought out. Now the next guy's going to be brought in. And, you know, it may not be better in terms of a coach. And if you think you're getting Chris Beard, I've said this a million times from Texas Tech, He's making $4.5 million bucks a year. You're not getting them. If you think you're getting Nate Oats after this one year at Bama, you're not getting them.

Bama's loaded with cash. They can pay anybody. They've got football that generates ridiculous amounts of money, even if they don't care about basketball there. They care enough. So, I don't know. I mean, I saw that, and I knew Archie Miller was in trouble as they came down the stretch. But you don't take Dayton to,

four consecutive NCAA tournaments, take him to an elite eight, winning 25, 26, 27 games a year. You know, not in the Big Ten or the ACC. I understand in the A-10, still a decent league, you know, where they won it twice outright without being a good coach. You just don't. You don't win. It's not like he had overwhelming talent at Dayton.

So the Big Ten's brutal, man. It is brutal. and a guy like Archie Miller who can coach, I think he can, four years you get in Indiana. And you're done. You're done. But you know what? It could be a lot worse. Here's $10.3 million.

Thank you very much for your services. And you can go do what you want to do. All right. Anyway. Anything else from you? I got nothing else for you, boss. Okay. Back tomorrow with Cooley.

Have a great day. Thank you.