The Kevin Sheehan Show - Gruden is Back And NFL Playoffs

Episode Date: January 7, 2019

Kevin opens the show talking about why Jay Gruden is back for a 6th year and what the ramifications will be with respect to staff and front office. He then recaps all four NFL playoff games before welcoming on Trevor Matich from the site of tonight's Alabama-Clemson title game. Kevin talks Wizards and Bryce Harper with Ben Standig and discusses Maryland's win at Rutgers and Virginia's win over Florida State. He finishes up with some CBS NFL music theme talk. <p> </p><p>Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices">podcastchoices.com/adchoices</a></p> Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You want it. You need it. It's what everyone's talking about. The Kevin Sheehan Show. Now here's Kevin. All right. I'm here. Aaron's here. This show's presented by Window Nation. If you're in the market for Windows, call 86690 Nation or go to Window Nation.com and tell them we told you to call. Oh, poor Cody Parky. You know it got tipped. Did you read about that early this morning? I did see that. Yes. It got tipped at the line of scrimmage. If you miss that, his missed field goal, the double doink. as Collinsworth called it, was tipped at the line of scrimmage by an eagle. I don't think it would have mattered. I think the direction in which the kick was headed. He was playing the wind.

There was no wind at that moment. I don't know that it would have made a difference. One inch would have made a difference. No, one inch. Yeah, but who knows if the tip actually may have pushed it maybe further inward? I don't know. But damn, if I didn't jinx it, Aaron, right before the kick. And I'm talking about after he made the first one with the timeout, and then he was lining up.

I said to those in the room, two of my sons at the time, I said, you know, Chicago is going to play better next week against the Rams. And they're going to have a home field advantage type of feel in the Coliseum because the Bears fans will travel. And they'll get into the Coliseum and it's going to be a home game for them. And one of my boys goes, what are you doing? It's like, you're jigsing it. I'm like, he's going to make this. He's made three already, and he just made that one. And sure enough, he missed it.

And, of course, all of us in the room were rooting for Philadelphia to fail, as we were the night before with the Cowboys. We're going to get to all four playoff games, I promise. We're going to get to the Wizards, too. They won a game in Oklahoma City last night for the first time ever. You talk about a stunner. I had on my notes for the show today in weekend. DVR to talk about

Russell Westbrook and Paul George and the combination of both and how I think Oklahoma City is potentially going to be the team that plays Golden State in the Western Conference Finals, maybe even more so than Houston, because I watched their game late Friday night against Portland. Yes, I was the one watching that. And then the Wizards go in

and smoke the thunder in their own building. The Caps, they snap the three-game losing skid with a win in Detroit, and we'll get to all of that, get to all of the NFL playoff games here shortly as well. But I'm going to start with the news that broke after the show on Friday. J.P. Finley was the first, I believe, to break the news that Jay Gruden had been told that he was coming back for the 2019 season. Now, in recent weeks, that's been my position. Mid-season, I didn't think it would happen if they missed the playoffs.

And before the season, I was convinced it wouldn't happen if they missed the playoffs. But there are a lot of things here. And I think there are four key questions to consider. And the first one is this. And they're all really interlocked and intertwined and tied up in each other. There are four questions. The first is this. Why would a coach with a five-year record of 35, 44, and 1 be asked to come back?

Second, what will the impacts to his staff be? I think that's going to be very significant here over the next few days. Thirdly, what does it say about Bruce Allen's power in the organization? Is it going to change or will it stay the same? And then the fourth question, and this may be the most important of all, what does this say just about the overall state of owner Dan Snyder right now? So I'm going to take each one of those four questions individually and talk about them. And then I'm going to summarize as best as I can.

The first one is this. Why would a coach who's been here five years and is 35, 44, and one with one playoff game, one, a loss, no playoff wins, why is he coming back? There are a few reasons for this. Number one is something we've talked a lot about on this show for this season and on the radio show for a few years before that. Jay Gruden is so likable. everybody likes Jay Gruden and when I say everybody Bruce Allen, Dan Snyder, Doug Williams, Eric Schaefer

any other partial owner or shareholder that Dan talks to, they all like Jay Gruden. He's a really good guy. He's got a great sense of humor. But important to why they really like him is that he himself is so coachable. Jay tends to be a go-along to get-along guy with management.

You know, for the most part, you know, he doesn't make anybody uncomfortable. And as we've talked about many times, when you have a front office like the one the Redskins have, two men in particular who never think they're wrong about anything, they don't want a guy pushing back all the time. And Jay doesn't. He's easy. The second reason Jay's back is they do think he's a good coach that's just had bad luck. You know, in 2015 and 2016, you know, they were good enough to do much more, but they didn't have enough

defensive talent yet in 15 and 16. That was obvious. And they don't put that on Jay. The 2016 team in particular was a team they thought could have easily been a playoff team, if not for one of the, really, one of the worst third-down defenses in the history of modern football. They didn't put that on Jay then. So 15, they went to the playoff. 16, they didn't. All right? And they put that more on personnel in some strange way. They put it on McLuhan for not having enough defensive talent there, you know, in one year. They obviously believe the injuries of the

last two years weren't his fault and a matter of really just bad luck, bad fortune. They also certainly trust me on this. They think Jay having to deal with a Bible thumping quarterback that he couldn't get along with wasn't his fault. And they credit him more than cousins for the numbers they put up together. The fact that he couldn't get along with the son of a preacher who was too much of a teetotaling nerd for that group, for the likes of Jay, Bruce, and Dan, that wasn't Jay's fault. You know, so injuries the last, you know, two years in particular, a personality, Dolt and cousins, they don't blame J4, a few more players on defense. They don't blame Jay for. They basically look at Jay and say, look, you know, if not for a few

things, he'd be 44, 35 and 1, not 35, 44 and 1, with maybe two to three playoff trips. So he's back because they like him a lot. He's easy. And they think he's been the victim of a ton of bad luck. Then there's this. There's the question of whether or not they could do better than Jay. I'm sure they considered it for a moment, but who are the candidates out there? And do they like any of them? And would any of them be interested in coming to Washington? The answer to that is I have no idea if they've even considered or did consider other candidates. As far as the attractiveness of Washington for the better candidates?

No, it's not attractive at all. I don't know that they feel that way. Again, we've talked a lot about this. I don't think they ever believe that their place is what everybody else believes it is. But I do think that it would have been more difficult than perhaps most think to guarantee yourself somebody better than Jay Gruden. And then lastly, Jay's got two years left on his deal. They extended his contract in 2017. He's got two years left, the upcoming season, and then 2020.

And because they like him, and because he's coachable, and because he's been the victim of bad luck, if not, you know, for the bad luck, he'd have a much better record. And because there isn't anybody obvious to them anyway that's better than Jay, they're paying them already. Bring them back. So that's really to me why Jay Gruden is coming back. The second question to consider, what about his coaching staff? I'm hearing, as I have been hearing for a while, that the staff is going to change. I don't think Bill Callahan will be back. You know, Bill Callahan has probably done a decent job in developing some offensive linemen. You know, I'm Morgan Moses, a Brandon Sheriff, a Chase Ruey.

You know, Trent Williams was already full grown developed by the time he got here. But I don't think that Bill Callahan is a guy that everybody on that staff, especially on the offensive side of the staff, thinks is invaluable. And he's paid a lot of money, you know, and he's got a big title, you know, assistant head coach as well as the offensive line coach. coach. I think Callahan's going to be out of here. I don't know if that means Callahan's retiring or he's moving on. I just don't think it has fit here. I don't think it's a good fit between Callahan and Gruden. I think there are other offensive staff change possibilities. All right, I want you to stay tuned for those.

I do think that there are possibilities of other offensive staff changes. And then there's Greg Minnowski. If there's someone out there, they like, who is available and willing to come here. I think Minnowski could be out. Todd Bowles, apparently, will be the number one target for Bruce Ariens if Ariens gets the job in Tampa. That's a shame, because that's the guy I would want. But Todd Bowles has a familiarity with Bruce Ariens having coached for him in Arizona, and that's probably the place he would go. Again, you've got to understand that for some of these longer-term coordinators, head coaches,

going back to coordinators, it's not attractive. They know what this place is. They talk to people. They watch. So if they've got better options, they're going to take those options. All right. Third question topic, if you will, to come out of the news that Jay Gruden is coming back. What does this say about Bruce Allen?

All right. I'm sticking with where I've been. I think Bruce will either be fired, reassigned, to a non-football or more business-oriented position in the organization, or perhaps he'll move on to somewhere else, or maybe he'll retire. That's where I've been. I still believe something is going to happen with Bruce. I do not know anything.

And as I've said for about two weeks now, the people that would know, don't know, or they're not talking. But if Bruce comes back and its status quo, Bruce is team president and Jay is head coach, this would be a real middle finger to what's left to the fan base from the owner. Not that he'd have a problem doing it, all right? But right now it would be an all-time middle finger to a dwindling fan base that wants one thing more than any other thing right now.

And that is for, well, Snyder to sell the team, but they want hashtag fire Bruce Allen. In Les Carpenter's story in the post on Saturday, he reported or mentioned that, perhaps others, and I think others have mentioned this along the way, and maybe even less mentioned this before Saturday, but he reported that NFL agents who are in regular contact with Bruce Allen have suggested that Bruce Allen is moving into a different role,

that the business role is where he's going to end up, the role that Brian Lafamina had, and that Eric Schaefer will be elevated to a larger role. I believe something like that is in play, I also believe that nothing definitive has been determined as of now, all right, with the owner. And one other thing on this, I think bringing back Jay did say one thing about the front office, and that is if there are changes with Bruce Allen, more likely than not, someone from the outside isn't going to be hired to handle the football operation.

It would be more or less Kyle Smith and Eric Schaefer being elevated. That's my guess. possible, but why would you bring somebody in and say, here's your coach? You know, why would you bring somebody in to run your football operation and say, oh, by the way, you've got this coach for another year? That seems to be asked backwards. Anyway, that leads to the fourth and final question or discussion point out of the news on Friday that J.P. Finley broke. First, I believe, that the Redskins are bringing Jay Gruden back. What does this say about the state of owner Dan Snyder right now. This is my guess. Look, the crowd, the fan movement to fire Bruce,

the Eagle crowd last Sunday, it caught him off guard a little bit. I know it doesn't seem possible, but I just don't think he ever thinks it's about them. Bruce, him, the front office, they always think it's someone else. It's bad luck. It's Zorn. It's Shanahan. It's cousins. It's always someone else's fault for their ineptitude. And they never connect the off-the-field stuff to the on-the-field stuff. They don't think things like lying about McLuhan and then submarining him anonymously in the post. They don't think that stuff matters to anybody.

They don't see their stumbling and bumbling off the field as something that would affect the product or the reaction to the product that plays on the field on Sundays. They look out and see. FedEx Field half-filled or filled with Eagle fans, and they think it's totally about the bad luck, the injuries that derailed the season, and the losses that came because of it, and they just think the fans are in brief pullback mode from their product, and that the fans are just disappointed. They're not angry, they're just disappointed. They don't see it as full-fledged fan freefall, you know, or major erosion or anything permanent. They just think fans are disappointed.

that the injuries happened and that their magical playoff season got derailed. So I think the owner, yes, I think he was caught off guard a little the last few weeks. And I don't think he has answers right now. And more importantly, I don't think he knows where to turn to get those answers. So I have no idea about his current state of thinking other than to say what I've said before that he was caught off guard at the reaction of what's left of the fan base. He's trying to figure out what the next move is. He's talking to various people that he trusts.

It's a small group. My guess is he'll do something with Bruce. But as I've said before, the problem with that is Bruce is his security blanket. His voice in league meetings. His voice publicly, although we haven't heard from him in a while. It's a real quandary. If the owner was stunned the last few weeks and wants to do something about it, it's not easy for him to do something about it.

Bruce has been so important to him and his ability to stay in the background on all fronts, league meetings, fan interaction, media interaction. So those are the, I think the big topics off the news about Jay. One last thought on this, on Gruden coming back in particular. I'm not surprised, as mentioned, based on where the tea leaves and some of the conversations. recently was. I am, as I mentioned, though, overall, very surprised, given where I was before this season started. I just didn't think there was a chance in hell that Gruden would get year six with another non-playoff season. I'm not going to chalk this up to extraordinary patience by the

owner. I'm not. I'm chalking it up to delusion about what they have. Gruden's an average coach, people. You know it and I know it. Nothing more, nothing less. He's average. His record is actually much less than average, but I don't put 2014 on him. I throw that out because of the RG3 drama. He was forced to play a quarterback that he knew didn't give him any chance to win a game. It was destructive to that season. So I've always given him a pass on 2014. But 2015 through 2018, four years, I'll use that record of 3, 1, 312, and 1 with one playoff loss and say, that is definition of average. That's who Jay Gruden is.

He's a 500 or so coach. That's what he is. He's good at some things, average at some things, bad at other things. He's a damn good pass offense designer. He's a decent at times play caller. He's subpar as a run game coordinator. game manager, team manager, team motivator, and he's horrible at clock management. The Redskins could do worse, and they could probably do better.

If Gruden is here for another four years, all right, he's going to be somewhere around 31 and 33, 32 and 32, with one playoff game. You know it, I know it. Anyone who has watched him coach, the lack of urgency, the lack of discipline, those things will always keep his better side in check. Does anybody out there really think that he is on the verge of becoming something much different? I don't think so. I think Jay is go along to get along.

He's easy to play for, easy to coach for, easy to have as your coach. But nobody out there, really, nobody out there hates losing enough. One more thing, actually. For those in the organization that think that this season was close to something, we were close. Some of you agree with this notion. A lot of you do, actually, that if not for the injuries, this season would have been special. You know, you've played the what if game for weeks now. Probably played it last night when Philly beat Chicago.

I bet a lot of you were sitting there saying, if not for the injuries, that would have been us. What if Alex Smith hadn't gotten hurt? What if the Redskins didn't end up with 27 players on injured reserve? What if? I mean, so close. It could have been us last night at Soldier Field. Nah, that wasn't going to happen. That wasn't going to be the Redskins last night.

Let's not forget. All right, let's put this in facts, factual context. The Redskins suffered six double-digit losses this year. Six. Only three other teams in the league had more than that. And of the six double-digit losses, four of them, four were true beatdowns, 24-point losses. They had four of them, all right? To the Saints, to the Falcons, to the Giants, and to the Eagles.

Four losses by 24 points. That's a lot. Do you know only one other team had that many in the entire league, the Arizona Cardinals? So when you guys and when Bruce and Dan and others try to convince yourself and yourselves that the skins were somehow close this year, close to what? No one in the history of my family, first of all, and then really not many people in local sports media over the last 15 years have been as optimistic at the worst of times than I. I was called Mr. Playoff scenario at 980. When they were six and, you know, when they were five and eight, can they get in? And I'd be saying, yeah, they can get in. If they can beat this team, this team, and these teams lose, they're in.

They weren't close this year. They had one win over a playoff team this year. One, Dallas at home. The Skins' seven wins this year came against a group of teams. Listen, their seven wins came against a group of teams. Listen, their seven wins came against a group of teams this year that went 41, 70, and 1. They beat one playoff team in Dallas, and just one team with a winning record, Dallas. They were six and three.

They were. They were two games ahead in the NFC East. That is true. You can't deny that. But were they a good team subjectively? Objectively, yes, six and three is a good record. But did your eyes at six and three tell you they were a good team? let's not forget that in the Houston game where they lost Alex Smith,

they were down 17 to 7 when he got hurt, he had thrown two picks. You know, Colt McCoy came into that Houston game, and he started making plays on offense that hadn't been made for the month previous to that. They lost the game, and they would have lost that game with Alex Smith had he stayed healthy. So when we say they were six and three with Alex Smith, actually they were pretty much on the verge of being six and four with Alex. Smith. And it was a six and four, let's not forget, where they got every break in those first 10 games. The Redskins at that point through 10 games led the league in a very important

statistical category. But you didn't know this, Aaron. This was a very important statistical category that the Redskins led the league in through 10 games. They led the league in opponent's missed field goals. That is a huge, huge statistic. It's also an indication of a little bit of luck. and the breaks that were going their way. In that Houston game alone, that guy Fairbairn, he missed two inside of 45 yards. The Tampa kicker missed two. The Dallas kicker missed the one to force overtime.

They were getting all the breaks to be six and four. And yes, what is also true is they were playing sound, old school winning football in their six wins. No turnovers, not too many penalties, no big mistakes, stop the run, run the ball, win close games against really an average to less than average schedule at that point. What were they really? I just can't go along with, hey, Jay did a phenomenal job to get this team to six and three and in first place before the injuries hit. They were so close. Imagine if they had stayed healthy. Okay, let's imagine. How many more games were they really going to win if they had stayed healthy? they weren't going to win the Houston game.

Smith had already thrown two interceptions. One of them was the backbreaking, you know, Justin Reed 1001-yard return that gave Houston a sizable lead. Were they going to sweep Dallas with a win on Thanksgiving Day? Look, Colt's turnovers in that game hurt badly. And Alex Smith really hadn't turned the ball over until the Houston game when they played a good team. But Colt also in that game moved the team offensively

and produced more offense than they had really had in over a month. Let's not forget that either. The offense had been really struggling for four to five games. It was having major difficulty moving the ball and scoring points heading into that Dallas game. The best they had looked offensively was when Colt came into the game against the Texans. It really was. Let's also keep in mind that the defense had already begun taking big steps back from where it was earlier in the season. The defense was much healthier, too, relatively speaking,

to the offense. It's not like they had major losses injury-wise. Was Dallas with Amari Cooper now on the roster and Elliott, they had their way against the Redskins defense in that Thanksgiving Day game. So I don't think they would have beaten Dallas that day had they been healthy. Yes, Colt had back-breaking turnovers, but the defense wasn't good enough. So for me, even if healthy, I think they would have left Dallas six and five. The Philly game is interesting because I think Colt gave them a chance, but once he got hurt, there was really no chance with Sanchez. But the defense made Wentz, remember that night? Wence had the best game he had had all year long. The defense gave up 450 yards, over 50% on third down. They had become at that point one of

the worst third down defenses in the league. That would have been a tough one to win even if they had been healthy. It had become apparent at that point that the defense was crumbling. And the biggest reason that they got to six wins in their first nine games was because they had played well most of the time on defense. So I don't think they beat Philly fully healthy. So that's six and six. What about the giant game? All right, the Mark Sanchez decision was terrible, a decision that the head coach made. If Alex Smith starts that game or Colt McCoy starts that game and they're healthy, for that game. Do they really win that game? Do you guys remember that game? They were down 40 to nothing in the third quarter, having allowed Saquan Barkley to personally violate them in ways that was

really hard to watch. I don't know. On one hand, like, I don't think Joe Montana would have beaten the Giants that day. On the other hand, the game's context would have been totally different had you had a real quarterback in the game. You know, I don't have any. I don't have any doubt that it wouldn't have been 40 to nothing had Alex Smith or Colt McCoy been the quarterback. But can I make the leap to they would have won the game, a game in which they could not stop the Giants to save their life? And 40 to 16 actually wasn't even indicative of how badly they were beaten. That thing could have been 60 to nothing if the Giants really wanted it to be. I mean, if you want to make that leap, go ahead. I don't think so. I think the Giants at the time were playing

well and were actually a more talented team than the Redskins. I think they would have been six and seven had they been fully healthy. They beat Jacksonville with Josh Johnson. And let's not forget they beat Jacksonville with Josh Johnson because he made a lot of plays with his legs that Alex Smith hadn't been making. Colt may have made those plays. I'll give them the Jacksonville win, fully healthy, seven and seven. And then you get to the last two. Would they have beaten Tennessee and Philadelphia to get to nine and seven and to get into the playoffs? I don't think they would have. They would have lost one of those games. They weren't going to beat the Eagles in the final game.

Look, the net of it is this. And obviously, it's all guessing. But those of you that think that we were in the midst of some special season, close to something, you know, somebody told me the other day, come on, man, they were six and three. Let's back off that six and three thing. They were about to become six and four if Alex Smith doesn't get her. hurt. Can we all agree at least on that one that they likely, they had not come back against anybody. They led in every game from start to finish that they had won and they lost every game that

they fell behind in early. So they were down two scores. Were they really with the offense as bad as it had been in the month leading up to that? They were really going to come back? So six and four is really where they were. I think two more wins. I think of the final six games, they get two. And you know, what, if they get three, they don't win the division at 9 and 7, they're a wild card, and they're where Philadelphia was yesterday in Chicago. I just, it just wasn't, look, it was an average team. It was an average team at best, totally healthy. Let's not let them think that it was something so much different. It wasn't. It really wasn't. And heading into next year on paper, it's a team that looks average again, you know, despite all the potential players

coming off injured reserve. Right now, it's a team that needs three to four more starters on defense, seven minimum on offense, all right? Guard, quarterback, wide receiver, tight end. I guess they have their running back situation. Two guards, I meant to say. That's five. Really, two wide receivers too, because who knows where Crowder is going to be. You need six starters minimum on offense. You need at least three to four on defense. It wasn't that close to something this year, guys. It's not close to something next year. I hope to be pleasantly surprised next year. I do. I always do. But let's deal in reality. The six and three was really nice, and they were doing some good things. They were not a good team. They were an average team if they had stayed healthy. They were a team

that was going to go eight and eight and maybe nine and seven. And as we know now, nine and seven wouldn't have won the division unless one of those wins was against the Cowboys. Like they got to nine and seven with a win in Dallas on Thanksgiving. Anyway, the other thing that I saw this on Friday, I did not know this, that during the Snyder era, the Redskins have never had a first team all pro. That's remarkable. That's unbelievable. Has any other team gone that long without having an all pro? I can't imagine that's the case. Even though bad teams had semi-decent players. I mean, we know like Joe Thomas in Cleveland as an example. And yeah, it doesn't seem possible. I mean, because over the 20 years, you know, the bad organizations, Oakland was in a Super Bowl, Tampa was in a Super Bowl,

Cleveland had Joe Thomas. You know, they had to have, I would bet that the Redskins are the only team over a 20-year period that has not had a first-team all-pro. That sounds bright. I'm looking up the bills right now. That would be the only other team I could think of who would be even close to L.C. Would Lashon McCoy have been a first-team all-pro at some point? And we're talking 20 years now? He was never first-team all-pro, but they did have, they had Mario Williams in 2014.

Oh, yeah. They had Brian Mormon the punter in 05 and 06. the punter, by the way, the last person to win it for the Redskins was Turk. Matt Turk? Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Window Nation really likes this podcast.

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Plus, wind donation will pay your heating bill until the new windows are installed. Save today, save tomorrow, save forever. Call 86690 Nation or visit windonation.com. That's 86690 Nation. or shopwindonation.com and tell them that I sent you. All right, let's go around the NFL and talk about these four playoff games. The biggest plays and the clutch moment. It's time to go around the NFL.

All right, start with a few things from the overall weekend, and then I'll get to each game specifically. Three road teams won outright. That's crazy. It's happened before. But I said on Friday, my one smell test pick was Chicago. It didn't win, laying the six and a half. but I gave leans out on the Texans, the Cowboys, the Ravens I was really split.

I'm really happy for Phillip Rivers. I like the Chargers chances next Sunday in Foxborough. By the way, I don't know if anybody's mentioned this. Snow is in the forecast for Foxborough next Sunday, which would be you got lucky in Chicago with a good weather day and in Baltimore with a good weather day in the first round of these playoffs. Three road teams won outright. The three road teams that won had the better and more experienced playoff quarterbacks. Andrew Luck over Deshawn Watson, Philip Rivers obviously over Lamar Jackson,

and then Nick Foles over Mitch Trubisky. The two best defensive teams in football, in my view anyway, the Ravens and the Bears are out. I was rooting for the Chargers, but if the Ravens had won, but I said I thought the Ravens could win. at all. Look, the quarterbacking was just dreadful. And I'm happy for the kid that he put together those two drives. And let me just say this before we get to that game in particular. It would have been the most unlikely comeback in playoff history if they had pulled it off somehow, down 23 to 3 with, I think at the time, minus two yards passing. But it's still not, I don't think, a total takeaway on defensive football yet.

You know, you still have Dallas. They were exceptional defensively. You know, the Chargers are a good defensive team, too. But the Ravens defense, my God, it is so good and so much fun to watch. And it did everything it could possibly do. I was going to say, if it wasn't such a good defense, that game would have been 40-0 real quick. Oh, my God. It would have been, I mean, that defense, watching them,

Last year and this year has been a pleasure, but you got to have more playmakers offensively. And I guess they're going to get there eventually with Lamar Jackson, but obviously he's going to have to learn how to throw from the pocket. Offensive line was really huge this weekend. If you go back, the four teams that won, the Colts have a great offensive line, Andrew Luck sacked zero times. Bowboys have an outstanding offensive line. Dak was sacked one time.

The Chargers have a good offensive line against that defense. Rivers, now, this is a lot on Rivers, too, being able to avoid stuff and check out of stuff and get the ball quickly out of his hands. Sacked one time. And then Nick Foles last night, sacked one time in the game against the Bears. A replay was a big part of the weekend, and we'll get to that as well. Let's start with the games individually, and we'll go in chronological order. The indie game, I was dead wrong about Houston.

They just, Indy took it from them early in the game. Now, they had an opportunity 14-0 with Indy driving, and they got a big deflection and a turnover on an interception, and I thought that was going to turn things around. I thought Bill O'Brien called a strange game. I don't think he ever gave his team a chance in a 14-0-0-0-0-0 to run the football. You know, Lamar Miller had five carries.

Look, they got behind. They were down 21-0-0 at halftime. But I thought once they became one-dimensional, it was a real problem for them. Marlon Mack was outstanding in that game. He's so good. And so was luck. He was so good. You know, the thing about luck, though, that's really interesting is every single game

this year pretty much, he will either throw a pick or there are two to three that should be picked and they can be crushing picks in games but at the same time he gets protected they're balanced they had Houston off balance much of the day you know their third down defense in that game early was exceptional first drive of the game you know they got a third and 12 from their own 23 and they had tried to run the ball on two plays and it was like minus two minus three yards to mac on the first two runs and i'm like man look at look at houston you know you know it's early in the game first drive i'm like look at houston up front man they are they're going to be too quick for them up front and they

completed a third and twelve pass to hilton first down then they got a third and seven and houston starts you know committing penalties and then you know before you know it it's seven nothing um and the next drive. You know, they got a third and seven. They got a, uh, the next drive. It was a third and there was a third and five. There was another third down. They converted. Indy was phenomenal on third down. Nine for 14 in the game on third down against that defense. They were the better football team, period. The better football team. We had to endure the broadcast, you know, God, I can't believe they're bringing that group back for Monday night football. You know, the interesting thing, and I made this point midway through the season,

that I actually think that Witten and Bougar McFarlane give you pretty good information, although Bougar talked about J.J. Watt and his deflecting of passes being, like it was a knock on him being a guy that deflects passes. He's like, he's just got to get to the quarterback. Look, a deflected pass is a pretty good defensive play. Anyway, I'll just mention this. There was a bad coaching blunder in my view late in the game. You know, we won't do this tomorrow.

I'll just do this now for the various games because there's definitely one in the Philadelphia-Chicago game last night. But when it was 21 to 7, there was about 3.48 to go, and Marlon Mac on a third and three, they ran the ball, and I thought he got a very generous spot. And, you know, Houston's going to get back in that game. They actually had a chance on the previous drive. It deepened in indie territory with still about six minutes,

five minutes to go in the game to get it to 2114, but they couldn't do it. But with three, I wrote it down, 347 left. They had one timeout left on Marlon Mack's run on third and third. I thought he got a generous spot. And instead of challenging the spot, Bill O'Brien just used his final timeout. Well, that's stupid, right? You might as well at that point.

Challenge the spot. You're going to use your time out anyway. So lose the time out on a challenge that potentially could go your way, and then you're going to use the time out anyway to stop the clock, even if they put the ball back short of the marker. But you got to, these are the things that drive me nuts because it's so obvious to most of us, right? It's like, don't just use a timeout, dude, challenge the spot.

This is your last chance. Is that maybe he didn't get that first down and you can get the ball back and score and get an onside kick and score again. It wasn't going to happen. Indy, man, how impressive. How impressive if the Colts been. I'll tell you something that's really impressive when you think about watching the Colts.

Two things. One, that they were shut out by Jacksonville a month ago. Jacksonville, I think that's where Flacco ends up. I think it should be where Flacco ends up because Jacksonville's got still all of that talent on the defensive side of the ball. If they can get anything resembling decent quarterbacking, that's a team that could flip it around in a hurry next year. Jacksonville shut Indy out a month ago. I think maybe a little bit more than a month ago. The other impressive thing is that Indianapolis shut Dallas out after watching what Dallas has done. Indianapolis next weekend, you know, they get the, as the sixth seed, they're going to Arrowhead.

I don't think the Chiefs wanted to see the Chargers again. But you know what? They don't want to see this Indy team either right now. It's a five and a half point spread. A one versus a six, it's five and a half. The funny thing about it is I don't think the public's going to bet Kansas City that much. I think Indy is going to be a team that people believe in. It definitely won't get to seven, that's for sure. If it goes up maybe to six, maybe. They're exceptionally well-coached.

And Frank Reich was not their first choice. Josh McDaniels was. Indy at Arrowhead in the first game of the weekend. next Saturday. That's a good one. Let's go to the Saturday night game, Dallas and Seattle. I liked Dallas. I didn't give them out as a smell test pick, and I'm sure most of you know this by now. The game went off at two, two and a half just about everywhere. When the Seahawks lost Janikowski on that kick right before they ended the first half and they were forced to go for two twice after second and a half touchdowns. They made both of them. But that last one was a killer for anybody holding a

Dallas minus two ticket or a two and a half ticket. Because Seattle, in every single case, when you score there, it's 24 to 14, they're going to kick the extra point. I'm actually shocked that they didn't kick the extra point anyway. Like your chances of getting an onside kick and being down 2420 and scoring a touchdown weren't going to be as good as kicking a game tying field goal and overtime forcing field goal. They went for two, they got it, and it was just a killer to anybody holding Dallas tickets. Some of you played Dallas early enough where it was minus one and a half, and if you had that, good on you, because they still covered. Look, first of all, there are a couple things from this game. The Allen Hearns injury was one of the most gruesome ever seen on television.

You know, they didn't come back, they showed it once because they didn't know it was coming on the replay. First of all... That's one of those things where you need to see before you put it on the air, though. Well, I'm not a big believer in keeping all the gross stuff

away from the people who are watching. It's part of the game, and I'm actually interested in seeing it. I mean, call me what you will. But I don't... You know, I'm not... I can be squeamish about some things. Usually, they're more blood-related.

I also hate watching the medical shows where they show operations. I hate that. stuff. But I didn't see it at first. My son said, oh my God, this was before they went to the replay. Look at his foot. Look at his ankle. And it was him lying on the ground. It was completely twisted the opposite way. And then the replay, oh boy, that was, I also thought, and I went back and watched it again, one of my boys was like, no, don't go back and watch it again. But during the break, I went back to watch it again for this reason. I thought it was possible

that Seattle recovered a fumble on that play. Hearns dropped the ball when he went down. He was already down, though. I went back and looked. One of the Seahawks came up with the football and then looked at his ankle and forgot about claiming possession of the ball. There were, look, Dallas is a good football team. And with Philadelphia's win, I think they can actually go to the Coliseum and win for two reasons. One, it's not going to be a true road game for them.

It'll be 70% Cowboys face. It's going to be almost a home game for them. And they're really good defensively. They are really good defensively. I mean, did you see some of the, you know, Demarcus Lawrence and Woods and Crawford, some of the pushing of the offensive line back into the backfield? They're just a good defense.

They're really good. And Pete Carroll made it much easier on them too. I agree. I agree with that. I did not like the way, look, they were hell-bent on trying to run the football. They couldn't run the football. You know, the dude Penny came in and had the one long run. It was the only run they had all day. And he was hell-bent. To me, it was like, this was a game where Russell Wilson had to win it. Yeah. With his legs, with his arm, and they ran some read-option

stuff. You know, they finally, he started keeping it on the read option, and it worked to a certain extent. I thought Tavon Austin was a very underrated part of this win for the Cowboys. First of all, he had the punt return for a touchdown that was on a questionable hold. And then he had another big punt return. In the game, Tavon Austin averaged, I think, 15 yards per punt return, had the 51 yarder that set up an opportunity for them. But he also, you know, in the game, he had a catch or two as well. You know, him being back, along with Cooper, along with Beasley, who was playing hurt, you could see that. You know, and now they're without Hearns, but Gallup is still a deep threat. To go with what they have on the ground, I mean, Elliot went for five and a half yards per carry,

a buck 37 for the game and had the big run, you know, towards the end of the first half that set up the first touchdown of the game. You know, there was a stretch, do you know that you take out the first game in the three games that follows? The Saturday night game and the two Sunday games, there was only one touchdown in the first half of all of those games combined, and it was the late first half touchdown by Dallas. Defense really prevailed this weekend in the NFL playoffs. I think there were three under games too.

I think Dallas went over with the late Seattle touchdown, because I think that number was 42 and a half, 43, and it finished 46. Anyway, you know, Dack is still going to kill you with some terms. Turnovers, man. Still going to kill you. That interception, you can say it was interference. It was a bit of a risky thrown. It was a great play by KJ right in the end zone. That's a 17-14 game. You've got to come away with points in the red zone. You can't turn it over. He's turned it over a bunch. But he then made what I thought was the play of the game. You know, it's 17-14. When they got down there again, it's third and 14, and he keeps it on a quarterback draw, and that was huge, huge play in the game. Yeah, I mean, that was the drop kick on side kick by the punter was just horrendous. Are you going to tell me that he couldn't have put it on a T and tried a normal onside kick?

Anyway, there you go. Dallas advances, and they get the additional break of Philadelphia winning, which means they don't go to New Orleans where I think they would have had, even though they beat New Orleans, I just don't think they would have won or had. a chance to win at New Orleans. Now that they go to a game that may be more like a home game in the Coliseum, they've got a chance to beat the Rams. The Rams, I think, are seven-point favorites. It's about where I thought it would be. They would have been about an eight-and-a-half,

nine-point underdog, I think, at New Orleans. That's what Philly is. I think Philly's getting eight. Dallas would have been right around there, too. Would have been around eight. But, I mean, we're going to have to hold our breath on Saturday night because Dallas is a game away from the NFL title game and help us please if it's Dallas and Philadelphia in the NFC championship game, which it's not going to be. I do not see New Orleans losing to Philadelphia. 48 to 7 was the last time. And yes, Philadelphia is a different team right now. And Nick Foles is doing some magical things, once again. I don't see Philadelphia winning that game. All right, let's go to the Sunday, one o'clock game. The Ravens Chargers. Look, there are a couple of things I thought were interesting.

team never seemed to get for the viewer which direction the wind was impacting the game. Because early, it would have appeared as if the Chargers had not only deferred after winning the toss, but had decided to go into the wind in the first quarter as well. But then when you had Jay Feely on the field for one of the field goals that the Kid Badgley, look, the Chargers have had issues with kickers forever now. And this guy Badgley, you know, was huge for them in Baltimore yesterday on what was a windy day, you know, nice day, but the wind was a factor in that game. And that dude Badgley came in and made one from 53. He had four first half field goals and then made one from 47 or 48 in the second half. But I could never get a read

from anybody in that broadcast. There was conflicting information, I thought. The entire time in that game on the wind. The Ravens had three fumbles in their first eight offensive plays. I mean, you're just not going to win a playoff game with anybody quarterbacking by fumbling three times in your first eight plays. Now, they didn't lose all of them, and the defense did their job to hold the chargers to field goals. The chargers, listen to these drives that gave them their first two scores. Five plays 12 yards field goal, four plays seven, yards field goal. Like it's giving them the short field and they're kicking field goals. You know, even their third field goal was only a 37-yard drive to kick a 40-yard field goal. That was after the

interception, I think. They gave him a 9-0 lead. I thought in this game that there were a couple of key players for the Chargers. One was my guy Rivers. You'll look at him statistically. That's totally misleading. 22 of 32 for 160. five yards per pass completion. He managed the game and did not have a bad play in the entire game. He threw one ball that could have been picked into traffic and it wasn't picked, but he is a maestro man. He is Peyton Manning at the line of scrimmage.

And he was able to get them into the plays that gave them a chance to move the ball just a little bit. They didn't move it a lot. You know, at halftime in that game, they were averaging 3.7 yards per play at half time and had a 12-0 lead. But he said it afterwards. He said, this wasn't a game for me to try to do anything but manage the game against that defense. He said there aren't many people that are going to put up big numbers against that defense. And he was right. They started two of their drives in Baltimore territory in the first half.

Look, the story of this game was, oh, I was going to mention one other player. Desmond King. Desmond King was huge for them. He had a monster punt return that set up points, and then he had a huge kickoff return to start the third quarter that would have set up points. They didn't get points out of that drive because they blocked a field goal. Badgley had that field goal blocked early in the third quarter, but still it flipped the field. immediately. Like Baltimore needed a quick stop, field position, points to get right back into that game at 12-0. Desmond King's been incredible all year. And those of us that are big 10 football people,

we are now part of that group, Aaron. We know Desmond King from how good he was at Iowa. And he had the punt return in Pittsburgh that changed that game in that Sunday night game when the Chargers came from behind and beat the Steelers. Look, the big story in this game. game was, is John Harbaugh going to put Joe Flacco into the game? I mean, Lamar Jackson at one point, at one point they had minus two yards passing in the third quarter. At halftime, they had 69 total yards. He was two for eight for 17 yards. And then there were a couple of negative plays. And it was just, he was sacked seven times. It's the same stuff that we saw with RG3, you know, as a dropback passer. He's going to have to have to learn.

This is not what he did in college. You know, he doesn't have that experience of being a drop-back passer. And in the NFL, as much as Zone Reeds become a part of the game, much to the chagrin of many people who said when it came out, it was a fad, it was the wildcat. Anybody that had a brain that watched college football knew that this was going to become, you know, a portion of offensive football in the NFL. but like Griffin, Jackson didn't have that experience throwing from the pocket.

And that's why he gets sacked so much. I guarantee you that Baltimore would tell you the problem is he doesn't anticipate. He doesn't see pre-snap and then can't anticipate post-snap. Now, hopefully he will evolve. I don't think he's got a bad arm. You know, like Griffin, I thought Griffin had a, and I still think he's got a really good arm. The problem, too, was that the Chargers basically used Derwin James, your NFL rookie of the year, defensive rookie of the year, as a linebacker in this game.

He's such a badass. He is really, really a great player. He has a lot of Sean Taylor in him. And they slowed down the run, you know, and they slowed it down. And the question of Flacco, to me, I was shocked that Harbaugh didn't go to him. I really was surprised because 12-0-0 was not a death sentence at halftime. And I thought, Boomer Asiason to me said, I give Jackson, and Cower pretty much agreed with Osceyson with Boomer. Cowher said the same thing.

You give them one series and if it doesn't work, you've got to come with Flacco. This is your season. You've got no chance of moving the football with Lamar Jackson against a good defensive team. And the problem, too, is that the way they were going to have to move it was going to be through the air. I was shocked that they didn't come with him. And Harbaugh after the game said, No, Lamar Jackson's our future. And, you know, Flacco handled it with such class,

and Harbaugh pointed that out after the game. And Harbaugh really built up. Apparently, their relationship is so, so tight. And, you know, somebody, they came to Harbaugh in the locker room afterwards and asked him about it, and he said, no, no, we're not going there. Lamar did a great job. And I, you know, I talked to him on the sideline,

and he did, you know what? you can call it against a soft defense over the final six or seven minutes if that's what it was but all of a sudden they moved the football got two touchdowns and got the ball back down 2317 it would have been the most improbable comeback ever had they pulled it off you know i kept thinking worst case here is they're going to get a chance at a hail mary into the end zone right for a walk off touchdown and if that happens given what they had done off offensively at 23 to 3 and what Lamar Jackson had looked like. It would have been the most, it would have been the biggest miracle win in the history of the

NFL. Would have been up there for sure. It would have been up there. It would have been way up there. Here's the interesting question. If the Ravens hadn't come out and said John, you know, Harbaugh is our coach next year, does he make a different decision if there isn't that guarantee that he's back next year? You know, it's going to look,

You know, Joe Flacco, I'm a Flacco fan. I've never called him Elite. You know, don't do what you do with me with Cousins, please, and put words into my mouth. I've never said he's an elite quarterback. What I've said about Flacco is that Joe Flacco over the course of his career has played his best games in the biggest moments, which is true. And yesterday would have been one of those big moments. I don't know what would have happened. They were having a difficult time protecting up front against Ingram.

and Bosa and company. They were. I mean, Ingram ended up with two sacks in the game. You know, Bosa ended up with maybe a sack and a half. They were having a difficult time protecting. And, you know, and the truth is that their rush attack wasn't successful with Jackson in the game yesterday. How was it going to be much better with Joe? So maybe it wouldn't have worked. Look, once it got to 20 to 3, it wasn't going to work. I would have thought about it at 12-0 after the turnover. They got the turnover, the one turnover, and they had a short-fear. And they ended up kicking a field goal on that because they went, you know, didn't have a chance of making a first down. I would have put Flacco in there because you needed a touchdown.

If you got a touchdown with Flacco there on a short field and it's 12 to 7, it's game on at that point. And then the Baltimore defense gets, you know, more life. But they're going with Jackson and it's going to be an interesting evolution of offensive football for Baltimore. Because I don't know that next year he's going to be, he'll be better. But they're still going to do a lot of what they did this year offensively with a great defense. And you just don't want to waste what is really maybe one of the better defenses we've seen in the last few years in the NFL. I think they need to get a new O.C. in there. That's the one thing I do think. Morning Wigg, I mean. I don't think he fits Lamar at all.

I think they also dropped them back too much, you know, when they got behind. I think they could have stuck with the run. Whatever. The big replay issue in this particular game was at 12. to, 15 to 3. No, 12 to 3. Yeah, it was 12 to 3 at the time, right? Yeah, the back-to-back plays near the goal line? Yeah, so the 12,

the lawn, this was the best drive that the Chargers had put together all day. Rivers made a great throw and a great play to Gates on a third and 10, where he basically, the ball came out sideways, the opposite direction, but Gates was there and picked it up.

But they had, they had the, the goal to go situation. And you had, first of all, the last play of the third quarter where Rivers throws the ball to the fullback, and he rolls into the end zone or breaks the plane, clearly breaks the plane. It's not called the touchdown. We come back and everybody's looking at that replay going,

well, we're going to have to turn it to a touchdown, go back to the other end of the field because it was still third quarter, and they had to play stand. what could they have possibly seen on that replay to say that that wasn't a touchdown? And then what you had was nearly would have been one of the most controversial moments of the postseason, and in recent post seasons, the next play. Melvin Gordon gets tripped up in the backfield by Weddell. He is called in the end zone for a touchdown.

Clearly he does not score, and he's down by confidence. contact, but the ball also he starts to lose just before going down or right around there. You know, this was a situation where they whistled the play dead with a touchdown ruling. So the fact that Marlon Humphrey picked up a loose ball in the end zone and returned it for a touchdown was never going to stand. But what would have been interesting is if they had called fumble and let the play stand, it would have been almost impossible to overturn, although we, already saw that they'd screwed up the play before using replay.

You never know. At this point with it, when it comes to the NFL, I'm not saying anything's impossible to overturn. Let me give you a situation, though. That was a third and goal from the one. If that play had happened, let's say at the five-yard line, and Gordon hadn't crossed any plane in the referee's mind, which was why the play was whistled dead because he signaled touchdown. They have this now, this inclination of letting the play play out and knowing that to not to not ruin a big return.

If that fumble had happened, let's say, at the five-yard line, they would have let that play go. Humphrey would have scored. It would have been 12 to 10. It would have gone to replay. And I don't know that it would have been conclusive enough to overturn. Would it totally change the game? Instead, they got the call right in my view. He was down by contact short.

And to be honest with you, I was actually a little bit surprised that the Chargers went for the fourth and goal. Because, you know, it started first and goal at the one. And here's the Baltimore defense standing up again. And I thought, take the field goal. It's 15 to 3 at that point. Baltimore can't score in this game. Well, I think that's part of it is they thought they could get a safety out of it. Well, there could have been that too.

They went for it and they scored. at that point, and then they went for two, which was interesting. Instead of taking the 16-point lead, they went for the 17-point lead. I'm sure all of you analytics people will tell me, well, they made it a three-score game. That's what they should have done. Except for the game context was the chargers couldn't, I mean, every yard that they gained was a difficult yard to gain. So they had a two-point play, and it worked.

I thought in context that the chances of them making a two-point conversion when they had just needed four plays to gain one yard was 20%. Like a one in four chance I thought they'd make the two-point conversion, which is why I was really, really intrigued as to why they just didn't kick for a 16-point lead. Context is a lot of this stuff when it comes to going for two or not going for two. Anyway, then they bring him back on two touchdown drives. Amazing. And then the game last night. Look. Oh, one other quick thing from the Baltimore game. I don't know that I've ever seen a team clocked the ball,

spike the ball with three minutes and 21 seconds left. That was weird. I don't think I've ever seen that before. But Jackson made a big play on a scramble with about 321 to go. It was 23 to 10. This was their second touchdown drive. And with three minutes and 21 seconds to go, they spiked it. I think the down is much more important than spiking the ball and stopping the clock at three minutes and 21 seconds.

But I think also with a young quarterback, part of that would be that Harbaugh would say to me or others that criticized it, we needed to get our stuff together here. We're not great in that situation of hurrying up. And look, they went down and they scored anyway. All right. Philly and Chicago. I thought the bears were really tight in this game. to start. I think Philadelphia actually missed out on an opportunity to do more damage in the first

half. They were down six three at halftime, and we'll get to the play at the end of the first half half here in a moment. But I just thought, you know, Chicago's defense has been lights out all year long. And Philadelphia took the opening drive, and they moved the football, and they got a field goal out of it. And then on their third drive, they're moving again. You know, they're driving and they're in Chicago territory again. And that was a drive. that started inside their own 10-yard line. And they're moving the ball again. And then Roquan Smith, who I love to Georgia,

makes a huge interception. And then Philadelphia on their next drive, they're driving the ball again. They're in the red zone. And falls through the interception into the end zone. I thought Philadelphia had a chance to take a much bigger lead in the first half, and I thought Chicago looked tight.

I thought Trubisky looked tight. I thought Nagy and coaching staff looked tight. I thought the players, for a lot of those guys, their first playoff game, they looked tight, and I thought they were really lucky to be up six three at halftime. It felt like Philadelphia was the better team in the first half of that game. Now, the fact that they had survived that first half, and their defense is what it is, and we've seen it all year, and it was great again yesterday. I mean, the results were, you know, they basically held Philadelphia to 16 points.

You know, they should have won the football game with the kick from Cody Ponce. Parker at the end. But I just thought Philly, and Trebisky's numbers ended up looking good, and he made some big throws on that final drive to get into field goal range. Don't get me wrong, and made some big throws later in the game. And he ended up with a 303 yard day, you know, and a touchdown. But I thought he played tight. I also don't think they ran the ball nearly enough early, and I don't think they used one of their best weapons, Tark Cohen, nearly enough. I just think Everybody for Chicago was a little tight. I think the two-point conversion play where they put Khalil Mack into the game was totally unnecessary.

Obviously, it didn't work. So hindsight's 50-50, this old ball coach would say, Steve Spurger. But it's like, you know, they try some trick formation. They got Khalil Mack in the game. Hey, just run a normal two-point play. That's a big two-point conversion in the game. It's massive. And they didn't get it.

And so the 15 to 10 lead could have been 17 to 10. And as the guy laying 6 and a half, I really wanted them to make that two-point conversion. Foles, let me take it again sort of in order here. Because I thought after the 15 to 10 lead, the Bears got a quick stop at 15 to 10. It was a stop, and they got the ball back with less than half of the quarter to go, fourth quarter to go. I want to say right around seven minutes to go. And before that drive, they had really moved the football with some big throws on their touchdown drive to take the lead. Trubisky had a big throw to Gabriel.

He had a big throw to that dude Bellamy and had the touchdown pass to Alan Robinson. And I just thought in that particular spot they had to be aggressive and they could have come out with boot or play action. and they had to flip the field at worst, but really they needed to go down and score again, at least a field goal. And they ran Jordan Howard on first down minus two yards, and right there at second and 12, and the Eagles were going to get the ball back.

And they did, and they got the ball back, and that started a 12-place, 60-yard drive to win the game, and which, you know, it was interesting. I'll get to the coaching blunder here in a moment, but when they had the first and goal on the two, after he completed the ball to Jeffrey for the first down. They ran it twice. I was listening to Doug Peterson's post-game press conference.

He said that they were both kills. They had two plays. And basically, Foles could have killed it to a throw, but they ran Sproles on first down, sprawls on second down, and now you got a third and goal at the two. And yes, after the first and goal, after they picked up the first down,

they should have called timeout there. Matt Nagy should have used his timeouts on defense. He would have ended up with more time on offense to get an even better field goal range. But I said this to somebody who tweeted me, it didn't cost him the game. They got in very NFL makeable field goal range. You know, they did. But yes, if he had called the time out on defense after the third down throw to Jeffrey for the first down,

you would have ended up with 40 more seconds. Philadelphia gets the fourth and goal touchdown. They missed the two-point conversion, which actually I thought it did break the plane on that. It was close, but it was hard to overturn the call in the field. I didn't mention the Anthony Miller play at the end of the first half. Tony Carrente was terrible yesterday, communicating information after replay.

just a horrible communicator. And then Terry McCauley, who is on the game on the NBC broadcast with Collinsworth and Al Michaels, was equally as bad. The play at the end of the half where Anthony Miller makes a catch down the seam and then loses the ball after taking a third step. It's whistled dead. No one, there's no recovery of the fumble. The ball is just sitting there down there at the three-yard line

after he had fumbled it because the ball has. had been whistled, incomplete playover. Nobody went to pick up the ball. And during the explanation, you know, Terry McCauley tells you that it's going to be the Bears ball because there's no clear recovery, but it was a catch. Tony Carenti comes out and says the play is going to stand as called after the replay, but doesn't explain why.

And then you had finally, early in the second half, I think Al Michaels did what their referee expert. couldn't do. Yeah, Pereira and some other people on Twitter had been digging up and posting that on Twitter during halftime and stuff. So they finally had that information. So the rule was when a pass is ruled incomplete, either team can challenge that it was a catch and a fumble. They gain possession of the ball if there's a clear recovery. And then here it is. The replay official can also initiate a review of this play if it occurs after the two minute warning, which it was this play. If there's video, if there's video evidence of a clear recovery by either team, the ball will be awarded to that

team at the spot of the recovery, but no advance will be allowed. And on fourth down or inside two minutes, the ball will be brought back to the spot of the fumble if recovered beyond it. And then here's the key sentence. If there's no video evidence of a clear recovery or the ball going out of bounds, the ruling of incomplete stands. That's stupid. That's a stupid rule. Carenti said there was no clear recovery, it created confusion, he didn't explain the rule. Let me just say this, and I know that this was not the majority opinion. I actually thought it may have been incomplete.

I don't think Miller ever has complete control of that football. The defender's arm is in there trying to jar it out from the moment it hits his hands. So I actually thought that it wouldn't have been unreasonable for that. them to say the ruling on the field stands as an incomplete pass. Then you don't even get into catch and no clear recovery. At first, that's what I thought he was saying. I thought he was just a really bad communicator, and he just meant it was incomplete and said the wrong thing

because the fact that it's a catch, but it's not a catch, makes no sense in any sort of way. I didn't think it did. A hell of a drive by the bears at the end there to get in clear field goal range. You know, did they make the mistake? Yeah, they made the mistake by not calling a time out on defense, which would have given them more time. I did not, let me make this very clear, I did not have a problem after the second and 10 throw to Robinson that got the ball to the Philadelphia 33.

I did not have a problem with Chicago using their final time out there with 33 seconds. I actually think the problem with that play is I think he lost a couple of seconds by not calling it immediately. I think if you go back on that play, he hesitates before calling the time out. If he'd called it immediately, there may have been 35, 36 seconds left. But no, I didn't have a problem with that because you're going to burn the problem with, yeah, you could keep the time out and spike it. I like keeping the down there. Look, you're already in field goal range now at the Philadelphia 33,

with 33 seconds left in the game, okay? So you're not going to run out of time in that spot. You're just not. and you're going to get into field goal range. You could have run it there on first and ten, a draw to get in field goal range. They threw a pass. Once they got to the Philadelphia 25-yard line,

they spiked it, now it's third and two. That was problematic for them. I liked what they did. They took the deep shot to Miller, and he overthrew him in the end zone. But, you know, the one thing I thought of there is, my God, if he decides to run it on third and two, and they get stopped short, it's over.

Because they're not going to be able to get the field goal team out there to kick the field goal. He better not run it. He better throw it. And they did throw it. And they got Parky out there for a 43-yarder. You got to make that kick. Got to make that kick.

I mean, in the game, to that point, he had already kicked three field goals. He was three for three. And yes, as we said at the very beginning, it was apparently tipped. I don't know that it made the difference. The Philadelphia fans boot him coming out. Is it going to be another Bartman situation with Cody Parki in Chicago?

My God, if you have any human empathy. You feel for a guy like that because he's hit the upright so many times this year. They went back and showed all of them in that Detroit game where he hit the upright four times in one game. Bears, it's a disappointing ending to a season. They were 12 and 4. They lost to a 9 and 7 defending champion at home. That's always disappointing. I personally think if they had survived that game and if the kick goes through and they win it 18 to 16,

I think the nerves of having played one playoff game would have, you know, ceased. I thought they had nerves throughout, certainly early. And I think they would have gone to L.A. with a legit chance to win the game there. I think Dallas has a chance, too. I think they've got a chance there too. But I think Chicago would have gone there. It would have been the same situation as Dallas. They would have had a home field advantage environment.

Anyway. They should have lost last week. They should have lost last week. That's what it comes down to. Yeah, they should have lost to Minnesota. If they had lost in Minnesota, they would have beaten the Vikings at home. Minnesota's Philadelphia's offensive line was much better, and Foles is a more experienced playoff quarterback and more clutch

than the other guy who plays for Minnesota, whatever his name is. Yes, too, I'm just reading through my tweets. I did think that... So Philadelphia called a timeout before that fourth down play, the first of three timeouts at the end. Yeah. And if they had missed that fourth down, that would have been a huge timeout to have because they could have gotten a stop and still had a chance. I think, you know, this is one of those situations where Doug Peterson is going to say, yeah, you can criticize me for burning one of my three timeouts in that spot.

But we had to get the fourth down play right. We wanted to talk over the fourth down game winning play with a little bit more time. And they got the play in Golden Tate came through. All right, let me tell you about Ferris Chrysler Dodge Sheep. Oh, real quickly, the point spreads for next week. I mentioned the chiefs are five and a half, the Rams are seven, the Patriots are four and a half, and the Saints are eight. I'll be honest with you.

I thought the Saints might be more than that. I thought that they might be close to double digits. I know it's the Eagles, but God, it was 48 to seven the last time they played. The other lines are pretty tight, I think. I think they make sense. I thought Kansas City coming in under a touchdown was a definite possibility after watching indie. But I would have guessed six, six and a half, not five and a half. Early, you know, my early feel is that not even looking at the lines that I like the Chiefs,

the Rams, the Saints, and the Chargers. But we'll see where the public plays. I think the public's going to be on some of these winners over the weekend. The Chargers in particular, I think will be a public play, which means New England might end up being a smell test play. I think Philly might be a play, which means the Saints laying a big number. I hate playing favorites, which is what I had yesterday. Chicago laying in the six and a half. We had a chance there at 15 to 10 if they go for the two point and they get it, but Philadelphia came down and scored it anyway.

All right, Ferris, Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep in Fairfax. If you're considering something new, Ferris still has a ton of their 2008, inventory on their lot and they're giving it away. You can get a great deal right now if you head out to Farish. They're located in the heart of Fairfax Circle right there in Fairfax. Ask for Ralph Perkins when you get there. Tell him that I sent you. He will put you with their best salesperson. The Jeep Cherokees, the Grand Cherokees, the Wranglers, all three of them, best deal opportunities, highest rebates of the year. Same goes for the RAM pickup. You can find out all you need to know about Farish at Farish Cars.com. They've got their live inventory, live pricing, best deals,

the easiest site in the world to navigate. Kevin Farish and Ralph Perkins are smart. They know what you want. You're going to get a great deal. So if you're thinking about a Chrysler Dodge, Jeep, or a Subaru, head out to Farish and Fairfax and tell them that I told you to call. All right, let's bring in Trevor Madditch. Of course, Trevor does such a great job here. Everybody knows him locally for doing the Redskins Post-game. on NBC Sports Washington, but that's not why we have Trevor on. We have Trevor on to talk college football and the national championship game tonight out in Santa Clara, Clemson and Bama for the fourth time in four years they are going to play here in the postseason. Before we get

to the matchup tonight, in watching all of the bowl games and you watch and consume so much of this sport all season long, and I love it too, do you believe that there was a team outside of the playoff? You know, obviously not Oklahoma. or Notre Dame, but a team outside of the playoff that could have been here tonight. Ohio State. The thing about Ohio State is that at the end of the season, the last three games, they were playing like one of the best four teams in the country. But before that, they were up and down.

At times, their defense disappeared and got torched by big plays. At times, their running game disappeared, and Dwayne Haskins had to carry that offense with his arm. And other times, they, you know, they, you know, They just looked bad altogether, but their opponent wasn't good enough to overcome the athletic superiority. Well, then they got to the last three games, Michigan, Northwestern in the championship game, and then the Rose Bowl, where they really handled Wisconsin, excuse me, Washington, and they look like one of the best four teams in the country in that stretch. The problem is the committee didn't have the Rose Bowl to go on.

So they only had those last two games. And to compare those to the rest of the season, the up and down, Ohio State didn't qualify in their eyes for the playoff. But I think now that all the information is in, you can make the case that Ohio State would have been a worthy team. I guess one of the ways I could have put the question to is if there had been an expanded playoff field this year, would somebody outside the top four have made it? I felt even after watching the Sugar Bowl, Trevor, and watching Georgia lose to Texas, and I thought Texas had all year, you know, since early in the season,

been certainly one of the more impressive defensive teams in that league, anyway. But I still thought Georgia was the one team outside of the top four. And I actually put them in the class of Bam and Clemson and didn't feel that Oklahoma and Notre Dame were, even though I thought Oklahoma and Notre Dame were deserving of being in the playoff field. What was your final thought on Georgia? My final thought on Georgia was that I'm disappointed that they got just dominated by Texas. I thought that would be a fair fight. And Texas made it look like, you know, and not fair fight. I mean, physically Texas hammered them.

And that Georgia would get rocked at first and then come back and hammer Texas in return. But they didn't. Texas looked also like the team with the better execution. And that disappointed me because Georgia prides itself on playing sound fundamental football. So overall, they got largely dominated by the longhorns. But again, we didn't have that information heading into the finals elections for the playoff. The thing that disappointed me about Georgia was that on the offensive and defensive lines, they were okay, but they weren't great. Defensive line has a lot of work to do to get up to national championship level. The offensive line on the right side was playing some young guys who took a long time to kind of develop,

and they still weren't fully developed. It's one of the reasons that Texas was able to dominate that Georgia offensive line with the Blitz and the bowl game. And so I think Georgia still has some work to do in order to get back up to the level that they were last year. Yeah, it almost looked to me, and I know that this is often an experience, for some of the big teams in bowl games. And I hate, I hate it. Like last year, I hated that people, you know, chalked up the Auburn loss to UCF as Auburn not being excited to play. But for Michigan and Georgia in particular, those year-end backbreaking, you know, season-ending losses just seemed to shut down their season because Michigan, I mean, the number of points they gave up in their final two games, you watch them all year. I thought it was a much better defensive team than we ended up seeing against Ohio. Ohio State and Florida not a very good offensive team. Right. And I agree with you. Michigan on defense, it hurt them to lose Rishon, Gary, and some others that skipped the bowl game for the draft. But I thought they had enough

talent elsewhere and enough depth to where they still would be a very, very good defense. What really shocked me was Ohio State. I mean, Ohio State put, what, 62 points on them. Yeah. And in their rivalry game. And so Michigan took a big step back, I think, in everybody's perception. The offense took a step forward overall. I mean, the offense scored 39 points, I think it was, at Ohio State in that rivalry game. And so it was really the defense that completely fell apart, and that's kind of a stunter. Their defensive coordinator, Don Brown, is one of the best in college football, and their personnel is very, very good, and yet they fell apart. And so I think now the perception of Michigan is, yeah, we thought they were close.

We thought they were on the rise. But they got spanked right back down, to the level of also ran. And that's not good for Michigan and Jim Harbaugh. Now, the good news for them is that they are recruiting at a high level still. They're getting really highly regarded playmakers out of high school to come there. So I think the future still looks bright, but the future is still a ways away. All right, let's talk about the game tonight. This is the fourth time, third time in the championship game last year was in the semi-final.

And there's a lot of people, and I know you've heard this too, and a lot of my friends who are big football fans, say it's gotten old. I'm tired of the Clemson-Bama thing. What is your sense? You're out there. How much excitement for this one compared to any of the other three that preceded it? You know what? I think this one should have the most excitement of all of them. I love it. I mean, who in the world is thinking, wow, we've seen these two before and we want to see a different championship? What do you mean? You want to see the best of the best, and that's what these two are. They are clearly, head and shoulders above the rest. And when you talk about the other two teams in the playoff,

Notre Dame and Oklahoma, they didn't get beat in the semis because they were not worthy of being there. I think they were worthy of being there. Three and four got beat because one and two were so dominant, and here they come. So when you look at these two teams, I can make just as good a case that Clemson should win

as Alabama should win. That means that they are so close that whoever wins this thing gets even more glory because of the quality of the opponent. And whoever loses will have even more devastation because they lost. Because both teams can and should win. I can put that all together and it's a perfect championship game. Is it, Trevor, the best that these two have had to offer here over this four-year stretch?

Meaning, is this Dabo's best team and is this Sabin's best team? This is not Sabin's best team. This is Sabin's best offense. Right. The defense isn't up to the level of some of his previous national championships, but his offense is lights out. I mean, it's an all-timer of an offense in college football history, in my opinion. And maybe that does make it one of the best teams because of that.

Clemson is a more rounded all-around team than any other that Davo has brought here. So I think this Clemson team is in a really good position. I mean, you look at the Deshawn Watson team that beat Alabama for the championship two years ago. And that offense with Deshawn Watson was just amazing. I think the defense was very good, but I think this Clemson defense is better. So overall, this is probably the best Clemson team. But Alabama, their defense, I think, is sick and tired of being seen and talked about as the weak link of this team. They're not weak.

They're just not as strong as Bama defenses have been in the past. If there's any vulnerability to them, it's the secondary. I went back and watched that Oklahoma semifinal game and did a breakdown on Sports Center on what lessons Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence can learn from what Oklahoma quarterback, Kyler Murray, did against Alabama a week ago. And, you know, Alabama rocked him early, jumped out to a 28-0 lead early in the second quarter,

but from there, Oklahoma ripped off 34 points. Yeah. And they did it in part because Kyler Murray exploited weaknesses in past coverage and mistakes in matchups downfield. And he knew that Bama defense and anticipated what checks they would do and called the right play to get into something that would work against what he figured that they would do. And that worked. I think one thing to watch for here is Alabama's freshman quarterback number two, Patrick Sertan. Murray went after him over and over again. So Ted's very talented, but there was so many times when that ball came down,

and the Oklahoma receiver was physical and just won the ball over him. And I think Trevor Lawrence will test him, and how he performs will go a long way towards what happens in this game. All right. Last one, and I'll let you run. Who wins? This is tough, Kevin, because it's hard for me to get my brain around which team will win. If I have to separate them, I say Alabama,

by about a field goal. The reason is twofold. One is Quinn and Williams in the middle. The defensive tackle, Heisman finalist, gets pressure up to middle. And that's one thing that Trevor Lawrence hasn't had to really deal with. I mean, since September, the closest game was 20 points. Everybody has been blown out by Clemson.

And Trevor Lawrence, for all of his calm and cool, has not had to throw the ball in the second half with pressure in his face to win a game. Not since September, certainly. So I think this is something that Alabama wants to test, and I think Quinn and Williams is unblockable. Clemson has guys like that, too. But Williams, I think, is a step above. The other thing I see with Alabama is that while Clemson is one of the most physical teams in the country, Alabama takes that to a different level of brutality.

I mean, they're not just physical. They're downright and mean. Bamma plays like they hate you. I mean, they hate you. They want you to suffer, not just to impose their will as a physical football. team, but to harm you, not in a dirty way, but just that's how they play. If these two teams went out in the back alley behind a bar at 2 a.m. We just had a street fight. I think Alabama would come out the victor of that street fight just because of that mean factor. So that's nothing

against Clemson, but I think that those two things separate that. That's a big thing. You know, we always, you know, we always talk about the competitive edge, the competitive difference. And, you the guys that hate losing. And you know, you work with one of them. And I used to work with one of them and Brian Mitchell. It's that, you know, a true pit bull that hates it so much. And often that is the difference in these games when the talent's so, so close. Thank you for this. Thank you for getting up early to do this. I really appreciate it. Enjoy the game tonight. Kevin, thanks, man. I always appreciate when you have me on. Thank you.

Great to catch up with Trevor Matt. It's also, and I didn't say this while I had him on. He did it very early this morning, West Coast time. And that was my fault. I didn't even think about that he was probably at the site of the game in Santa Clara. But I woke him up early, and he is the best dude. And he was like, hey, I'll do it. No worries. So it was great to have him on.

I love his insight on football in general. I think he does a great job on that post game show on NBC Sports Washington with B. Mitch. and Julie and the whole crew there. All right. If you have been thinking about new office space, in particular, you're working at home, somewhere in the Bethesda Chevy Chase, Upper Northwest D.C. area,

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It's a perfect place to get work done in a small office or, you know, at a co-working desk. If you've got kids at home or dogs and you just need a place to come a few days a week to get some work done, consider launch workplaces in Bethesda. 240-667-14 is the phone. number 240 86714. If you mention my name, you'll get an exclusive free two-day trial. You can find out everything you need to know at launchworkplaces.com. All right, let's get to weekend DBR, Aaron. Did you have a busy weekend? Don't worry. We've got you covered. It's time for weekend DBR.

All right, it was a decent sports weekend. And then last night, and I'm talking about locally, and then last night yesterday, it got really good. Except for the fact. that the Eagles and the Cowboys both won over the week, and that wasn't necessarily good for Redskinned fans. But the Wizards won last night at Oklahoma City for the first time ever. And to me, it's one of the more surprising results of the year in the NBA,

not that they won the game, which they did, but that they absolutely hammered the thunder on their home floor, winning by 18 points in a game. And they caught an Oklahoma City team that was playing well coming in. And I actually, and I mentioned this earlier in the show, I believe, and let's bring Ben Stand again from NBC Sports Washington,

who covers the Wizards, among other things for NBC Sports Washington. I wrote down in my notes on late Friday night for Monday show. I just want to mention Oklahoma City in the fact that Westbrook and Paul George is totally working. Because I stayed up late last that night and watched them beat Portland in a game the referees nearly took away from them at the end. But it's just interesting to watch Westbrook with Paul George. It's different because I think they like each other, where he and Durant didn't necessarily get along. And I'm like, this is working. Like Oklahoma City's really good,

and it's working with Russ, because I'm a big Russ fan. Anyway, the Wizards go in there last night and crush them. How the hell did that happen? Yeah, I mean, it's just, when you, you know, just when you're, what's the Godfather three line? Just when you think you're out there. Yeah, they pull you back in. I mean, yeah, I mean, it's stunning considering, you know, where the Wizards have been this year, what O'KC. is doing, you know, no matter how well the wizards are playing to have a result like that on the road and a place, like you said, they have never won would be stunning in it of itself, but the fact that they've been, you know, not great this year, obviously they're short-handed, no John Wall, no Mark Heath Morris, etc. And, you know, it's hard

to believe. But you know what? Here's what I guess I would just say to it. I mean, again, nobody saw this coming. This group of wizards, the players that they have left, Gus is a consumer. It is so much more enjoyable to watch what is happening right now. They are cohesive. They are given consistent effort. And that, I think, is what we saw last night on some level. I don't know what was going on the OKC side. You know, not every night you're going to be perfect. But from the wizard side, they came out and played, you know, the first, minutes weren't so hot, but they generally came out, played very strong, very consistent throughout. They kept their foot on the gas, even when they got up in the second half, obviously,

the pull away. And there's no, again, there's no logic that you're going to blow out that team on their home court. But there's something to be said for what the Wizards have left, who's gone, who's still here, this group, there is something more enjoyable to watch it, and I can only imagine that it feels that way playing the way they're going right now. couple of things stood out from last night. Number one is that Auto Porter's came off the bench last night, had 20 points, six rebounds, five assists, you know, had a couple of block shots in the game as well. And Scott Brooks said afterwards that he isn't opposed to continuing this way with auto Porter coming in off the bench. What do you make of that? So, you know, this is one of those

things, right, where everybody makes a big deal, who starts, who doesn't, and we view it from a respect standpoint, oh, you're not a starter. Just, terms of the pieces that they have left. I don't have any problem with it. In part for this reason, Scott Brooks, obviously, a very good coach. I'm not going to question his abilities, but there are things that he does that drive me crazy. One of them is the consistent desire to use, like, all bench guys simultaneously.

Right now, you can't even use five bench guys because they're so sure with hands and only going with a nine-minute rotation. But he constantly, especially earlier in the year and last year, would always go with, like, a five reserve lineup, and that wouldn't do great. Well, great. Now, Otto Porter's there. He's going to be an anchor for that group, and that's what I wanted all along. Somebody, one of the starters, Otto made a lot of sense to help anchor that second unit.

So now you're guaranteed. I mean, similar to how we constantly talk about, hey, why don't you stagger John Wall and Bradley Beale to some degree now it's happening with John Wall, I start with Bradley Beal Otto Porter. So I don't mind it. As long as he's playing the real minutes and as long, you know, 30 plus minutes, the game, but as long as he's on the court at the end of the game when you need him, I don't care if he starts or not. Jeff Green's been very consistent this year.

Obviously, Trevor Reza gives him a three-man. If they want to go back with Otto or go with Otto and Areza at the Ford and bring Green off the bench, that's fine. But I don't have any issue with Otto coming off the bench. And it works also with a guy like him because he's got such a low ego relative to NBA basketball players, but I don't think he'll see this disrespect. And frankly, you can see how Otto is playing these last two games. he's getting shot,

shot up. Why? Because the ball's in his hand. He's able to do some things. Whereas before, was this constant, wait, why is the Otto getting shot? Why does the auto have the ball? In that situation, he's going to get plenty of looks and, you know, two games into this situation. He's taking advantage of it. I don't think it's an exaggeration. You'll probably mention a game otherwise.

But I thought Jan Maheemee last night had the best game he had, he's had as a wizard. It was, I personally, watching him play this year at times has been so painful because it just looks like he can't play anymore. And then last night he has a game where he has nine points, ten rebounds. You know, there have been games this year where he's had significant minutes and really hasn't rebounded the ball and been the opposite of a rim protector. So that was nice to see. What do they think of Thomas Bryant and his performance since being given the opportunity?

that he has with Dwight Howard out? Well, I mean, Thomas Bryant is definitely, you know, one of the revelations of the year. And it's funny, just like in life, right? If you're around people that are happy and upbeat, they tend to make you happy and upbeat on some level. And Thomas Bryant is all of that. He's a genuinely excited young man to be in this position. It's almost like he's sort of a, you know, a puppy out there playing with the big

dog. He doesn't realize that maybe he isn't at the level. some of these other guys, but he's making big strides. He gives them energy and athleticism inside. I was trying to think about this last night. Like, when's the last time? He made a play last night where he got the ball on the baseline, took a huge step and just flushed it.

And I'm trying to imagine, like, when's the last time the Wizard had a player like that? I guess Javille McGee, but the Javail experience was so, ugh, the whole time that I almost don't view it as positive. But this is, you know, it's exciting to see what, you know, he's doing for them. You know, obviously there's still some, you know, limitations. He gets worked on the boards by a lot of big men, which isn't, which isn't abnormal for the Wizards this year just generally. But, yeah, but he's made big stride. And look, can you, you know, I don't want to compare it to where, you know, when I would say, where would the Redskins have been without

Adrian Peterson? But where would the, where would the Wizards have been if Thomas Bryant hadn't stepped out? Because you mentioned Mahimi, he did play, have a good game last night, but by in large, it's been an incredibly frustrating to, to watch. And obviously no Dwight Howard. Like if Thomas Bryant's not doing at least this, this, I don't even know what would be happening. So it's been huge for them. And, you know, he's still, you know, to say he's only scratching the surface would be an understatement. We don't even have any idea where this thing might go with him.

I was just curious if you've talked to anybody and they feel like they've stumbled on to their future center. I don't know if we've gotten that far, honestly, in part because, you know, it's been a great find. but he is a restricted free agent after this year. We know the Wizards are kind of hosed right now with regards to their options next year. They're already over the salary cap with only five players under contract. He is a restricted free agent, but so is Thomas Sataranski. Can, you know, is it conceivable he hits the open market? And some team decides, you know, especially in a free agency situation next year where a lot of teams have money,

but there won't be tons of players for spend it on, that some team, you know, throw out a, a, a, a, pretty sizable offer sheet. Not saying they will, but it's possible. And at that point, you know, what do the wizards do? So I don't know how far ahead they're looking to the future, but I think right now they're feeling pretty good about where he's at. And certainly he would be a guy you would have to consider as part of that future if they can, you know, figure out a way to retain him.

They play in Philadelphia tomorrow night. And then they have six home games in a row, but they're brutal. I mean, they play Philly. They play Milwaukee. They play Toronto. They play Golden State, you know, during that stretch. You know, you said a few minutes ago, and I'm paraphrasing at this point, but I know what you were thinking, and that is you're enjoying watching this style of basketball. And this is, remember the stretch last year without John and everybody's sharing the ball, everybody eats, that whole thing. And it was fun to watch because it was different. It was, you know, it was actual, you know, at times five-man basketball, but certainly the number of possessions with one person touching the basketball, they don't happen with this particular lineup out there.

And I enjoy watching it too, but it's really limited. I mean, you would agree with that. I mean, in terms of, like, what is, in your view, really the upside the rest of the way with this group? So I think what you're hinting at right here to me is the overriding topic for this franchise right now. Even the short term, their upside of limited almost simply because they don't have bodies. I mean, right now, if you get past their top six guys, the seventh man is what, Sam Decker, who I'm not knocking. I'm just saying, you know, that's not a, Sam Decker, Jason Randall, making me Troy Brent. Doug, that's not a group that in the playoffs is going to work against Toronto or some of these other teams.

And, you know, John Wall is a five-time all-star. You take him out of the lineup and not replace him. That's tough on top of that marquee. Morris is out for a bunch more weeks. So from an upside perspective, you know, it's just hard to see how the Wizards have, you know, can they get into the playoffs? Sure, they're not that far out. Can they advance beyond that? Doesn't seem likely.

But what I think is fascinating is what just means going forward? Because this thing is working. The mentality that this team is using right now and that did last year is working. And we're seeing it work again. They're getting more out of all their players. Like when people say Scott Brooks, oh, frustrating. Ernie Grunfeld is frustrating. I get it.

There's things to knock. But when you see the overall team play like this, you have to look at it and say, well, wait, they actually do have talent. The question is, how do you utilize it? And the reality is, I think with John Wall, in the ball-dominant ways that he is, he's obviously a hell of a player. But I think at times it does limit the other pieces, especially when he is overly ball-dominant, and when he's not going full bore, whether it's the injury or not, he's the tone-setter. they all react to him. Right now they're not reacting to him.

They're reacting to the other guy, Bradley Beale, and this team is playing better two years in a row. So to me, if they kick it to the last 40 games, regardless of whatever else happens, upside, whatever. And Bradley Beal said this to me the other day on the record. He imagines that going forward, even when John comes back, the style is going to change. I don't know if John Wall thinks that,

but that to me is the big question sort of hanging over this team. do find these next 40 games, what happens going forward? Because it seems to me that this style is actually working for them. It's working, but it's limited. It's limited in part because they just don't have enough of what you would call really good to elite players' talent. I mean, I think Beal is a really good player. I don't think he's an elite player. And after that on this roster, you know, where do you turn? I mean, you know my feelings about a and I think already his impact in many ways has been felt. But it's not a win-to series and get to the Eastern Conference Finals roster.

It is potentially, as you said, you know, it's a 39 and 43 or 40-and-42-8 seed, you know, at best. You're talking about the current team right now with that, John Wall. The current team, but where do they go next year with John's contract to find a the piece or pieces that you'd have to add to take a big leap. That's... Well, I mean, yeah. No, I'm with you. Well, obviously, John Wall's physical status is the big unknown.

Sure. So that's a huge question. But let's just assume for argument to take that he comes back in all-star form. Yeah, they are going to be limited with their depth. They'll be in sort of a situation where they can probably put together a pretty solid playoff rotation, but be one injury away from sort of things unraveling. So that'll be a tough spot. But if John Wall comes back but plays to the style that they are playing now, I do think their upside is greater than it's been. I think that's the issue.

I think they get more, I mean, Otto Porter is a perfect example. Again, it's only a few games. I'm not going too crazy. But we also saw this last year with him. When he's in a position to have the ball, to be a bit ball dominant himself to take control. role run the offense. He's a much better player, but he's rarely given an opportunity when he's playing with John Wall and on top of a Bradley Beal. So if you can maximize his abilities, now all of a sudden, I'm not saying they have a big three, but they have three guys who have, you know, sort of all-star level ability. And now if you get you, you hit on the, you know, the right pieces, you add that Thomas Bryant type thing you didn't expect a Sataranki continues to develop whatever, you know,

they're questions next year with the White Howard and so on. Again, I'm not going overly crazy. I just do think there's more here than meets the eye, but it's all about do they know how to maximize the pieces. I don't think they've done a great job of that all the time. But right now, I think they are. But like you said, the upside is just unfortunately limited with only really the one All-Star.

An incredible win, though, last night at Oklahoma City. Really, one of those games that if you're in Oakland, remember last year in the year before when the Wizards would drop games at home to Phoenix or Dallas or, you know, the Lakers, when the Lakers were horrible, and we would say to each other and others, you just can't lose those games at home. That's what OKC fans are probably saying about last night. I think they went off as like an 11-point favorite in that game. Real quickly, before I let you run, is Bryce Harper going to end up with the Nationals?

I mean, it's a weird situation just from the fact that I thought the Nationals were out. The owner basically said it, so I take him at his word. Now it seems like I guess they're back in. I'm staying with my vibe that he's out and that, you know, that's the way things have been trending for some time. Scott Boris is, you know, he's all about getting every dime he possibly can. So in the back of my head, I keep thinking whatever conversations are going on, it's his way of trying to raise, you know, to improve his client's leverage. So I'm going to keep saying he's out. I don't know.

Maybe I'm just over. Maybe I was already like, look, Bryce Harper, it's been fun. It's been real, but, you know, time to go. They have, you know, Soto and some other pieces there. You can spend that money perhaps wiser elsewhere. I don't know. The only thing I could imagine is he's getting to the finish line and in some level, having some sort of fear or regret.

That would be the only thing I could imagine that's changing, that he's like, wait a minute, do I really want to move out of here? This is where I've been. But something tells me it's more of a Scott Boris ploy to, you know, to get whatever he can. But we'll see. I mean, I don't pretend to know the inner workings of that situation. But at the same point, it's definitely gotten a lot more interesting in the last few days, for sure. Ben, thanks. Really appreciate the time, as always. I'll talk to you soon.

Thanks, man. What do you think? You think Bryce Harper, there's your chance he stays here or not? My hunch, here's what I always thought about this. There is more reason for the nationals to pay Bryce Harper than for any other team to pay Bryce Harper. the idea that he is bigger in Washington than he is for any other team. All these other teams that are in plays, the Dodgers, the Cubs, they have stars. The Phillies could use a star, sure, but I don't know if he's that, you know, face of the franchise for the Phillies, that he would be in Washington. So if it comes down to similar. Now, if one of those teams completely blew Washington out of the water,

sure, obviously, you know, he goes to the money. But if it was close, my hunch was always that it made more sense for the learners to be like, okay, yeah, we said we'd only pay 300 over 10, well maybe we'll do 330. We're not letting 3 million a year get in the way of this if he wants to come back here. So the longer this goes, the more I thought, yeah, the nationals actually really do have a chance for this.

I hope he is a national. I hope somehow they get it done. I think that he is part of why they've been so interesting here the last few years. And they've added starting pitching again. And, you know, I keep thinking about him when they've been in the postseason. He's been the one that's been the clutch performer, you know, in big games, typically more times than not. A few more things for weekend DVR,

because we've not mentioned any of the college basketball from the weekend. Maryland actually, to me, had an impressive win Saturday at Rutgers. Why do you say that? Well, a couple of reasons. Number one, they were only a three and a half point favorite, which meant that Rutgers totally fit the smell test on Saturday. And yes, I had a half a penis hedge play Rutgers plus three and a half, hoping that Maryland would win by three or less. What was interesting about this game for you Maryland fans like me and Aaron, and we're both alums too, is that the way it started, I would have bet at that point a lot of dough that that Maryland was going to be involved in either a loss or one of those games in the final

minute that could have gone either way. You know, a 63-62 final minute game. They got, they had seven points in the first 11 minutes of the game. Seven. They were running poor offense. The substitution pattern, I know it drives all of you nuts. And yes, it drives me nuts too. I mean, Bruno Fernando gets a foul at the 18 minute mark or something like that, and he gets pulled with one foul. 18, I just pulled up the play by play, 18 minutes and 15 seconds, a minute 45 into the game. Foul on Bruno Fernando, he's out.

What? Why? I mean, I love Mark, and I've mentioned so many times the reasons why I like him as a person and as a coach. he is a serial subber. Like when the clock stops, if you watch him, he gets up, he looks down his bench, he's got to make a move. He's got to make a substitution. It's almost like he's got some attention deficit stuff where he's like, oh, I got to do something.

But then again, there must be some brilliance to it because I heard his post game with Naki. Naki did a nice job calling the game. Johnny, I guess it was six. So Naki and Troy, Wainwright. were involved in the broadcast. And, you know, and Turgent said that after the Seaton Hall game, he made, you know, a conscious effort. He had to develop a bench.

And he wanted to get these guys and develop a bench and keep people rested and keep people, you know, give these guys that were coming off the bench like Sorrel Smith, some confidence. Although that dude, it doesn't look like he's ever lacked any confidence. Ever. If you old Maryland people remember a dude by the name of Mario Lucas, Mario was on Gary's first really good team at Maryland, or one of the first good teams, and Mario was from Memphis, and Mario was like 6-8 and pigeon-toed,

and he'd come into the game, and the over-under on his first shot attempt was 18 seconds. The first time he touched it, he was looking to jack it. And Sorrel Smith is the same thing. This dude is open when the game begins, and he's at the end of the bench. he has no anxiety issues with respect to his abilities and he played great off the bench

but Ricky Lindo's played really well I like him and God I watched him three or four times in high school because they played my son's team in Summer League and regular season and I remember people telling me you know this dude's a major D1 player I'm like really but I

you know you just coaches know guys that recruit and are out the recruiting trail, they'll always see a guy like Ricky Lindo and they'll say he reminds me of this guy and this is where he's going to be two years from now or three years from now. That's a good recruit right there because he can play and he's got length and he's bouncing and he's active. But anyway, back to the bench thing. There's some clear brilliance in this because he's playing every, I think at some point within the first four or five minutes, I think he had inserted nine, I think nine players had played in the first four or four or five.

five minutes of that game. And, you know, on the road, you know, I understand the mindset of get them in early, get them a couple of minutes here so that when you have to go to them, you know, the anxiety is gone. They're ready to go. But they put it on Rutgers with a 33 to six run to end that first half, and they were up 21 at halftime. Look, Rutgers isn't very good, and they're a team that's going to struggle to score this year. But they had played Seton Hall close. They had beaten Miami. Michigan State went to Rutgers, and in that game, they only were up two at halftime. And it was a relatively close game until late where Michigan State pulled away late.

Rutgers actually, I think, at one point in the first half, early second half, had the lead against Michigan State. So they're not a terrible team. And I'll tell you what, they got some talent on that team, and they're physical. They actually fit the Big Ten a little bit the way they play. It's a good win by Maryland. Road wins are going to be hard to come by. the Big Ten. And you can say, well, beating Rutgers at the rack, and that place is a difficult place to play. It is. It's not easy. And now Maryland's three and one in the Big Ten, 12 and three. I really

wish they had gotten, well, if you gave me the choice right now of Seton Hall or Purdue, I would have taken the Purdue game. Well, no kidding. Yeah, because Purdue was very winnable. And I thought they really, really got outplayed, out executed down the stretch in a game that they had a very good chance of winning. But, you know, if they had had just one of those two would have been great. But they're three and one, and they've got a big game tomorrow night at Minnesota. Minnesota isn't ranked, okay, but Minnesota's won six or seven in a row, and they beat Wisconsin in Madison the other night. They've already beaten Nebraska. I think they got blown out by Ohio State on the road. That's one of their losses, and I forget what their other losses, but this is another veteran team.

We've seen Minnesota here. You know, we've seen Jordan Murphy. We've seen coffee here now for a few years. They're good. You know, they're really, really good players and they're seniors, too. You know, so Minnesota is going to be a tough, tough game. Coffee may not be a senior. Murphy's a senior, I believe. And that's a big game tomorrow night in the Big Ten, a big early game. If Maryland somehow got that one tomorrow night, somebody did text me the other day and said,

you know, Minneapolis is a big market too. They've got traffic issues related to start times. No, I know Minneapolis actually a little bit. My wife actually grew up in Minneapolis until she was 10 or 11 years old and spent some time there for many years. It's a nice city. Don't get me wrong. It's actually very cold, but a really nice city. But it is not the same traffic-wise as our area, not even close.

And a big game for Maryland, especially where you have Indiana and Wisconsin at home the next two games. You know what? I don't think Wisconsin's very good. They're Wisconsin, though. I know. But Maryland should be – Maryland will be a favorite over Indiana. Friday night at home and over Wisconsin a week from tonight at home. They play Friday, Monday, I think it is, right? Yes. I think they'll be a favorite in both of those games like they were

against Nebraska. I'm not saying they're going to be easy wins at all. They'll be very hard. All of these games in the Big Ten are going to be tough. But tomorrow night's huge for Maryland. I wanted to also just mention, man, Virginia, because they beat Florida State. It was a top 10 matchup, Florida State and Virginia. Florida State's ranked ninth in the country. And Virginia won the game. The final score was 65 to 50. but I was flipping back and forth in this game because the playoff game had already started, the Houston indie game had already started. At one point in the second half in this game, Virginia's lead,

and Virginia's lead was 53 to 28. 53 to 28. Florida State had 28 points with like 12 minutes to go in the game. Man, Virginia is good. don't, Maryland's the only team that's actually had a competitive game against them this year. But Florida State is athletic. They got athletes, but God, can this dude coach? He just, his team is so good.

When do they play, they played Duke twice this year? I hope they do. I'm not sure if they do it. I hope they played Duke twice. Whenever that first game is, I would assume that it's coming up. If they play them twice, the first one's coming up soon. That'll be must watch. Georgetown had a chance on Saturday to beat St. John's.

St. John's has a player, Shemori Ponds, who is a pro. He's a first-round pick. He had 37 in the game. He is so much fun to watch. He's got a phenomenal, phenomenal handle. That game went to overtime. I'll be honest with you, I didn't see any of it. I was following it sort of on the phone to see if they could pull off.

That would have been a huge win for the Hoyas at home against St. Johns, who's only lost one game. I think St. John's has only lost one game. It was that controversial ending to Seton Hall. And as an undefeated team, Chris Mullen didn't even have them. They weren't even ranked in the top 25. Anyway, Georgetown, that was a tough loss. But I think in the Big East, the Hoy is, they lost, they beat, didn't they beat Butler?

I think they beat Butler on the road. George Town's one in one. One in the Big East? Okay. Anyway, they lost that game. That's it for weekend DVR. Right? I don't have anything else.

Yeah, I mean, there's some interesting national college stuff with the Kansas Udoca Zabuki out for the year, which is going to change the national title picture, and then Nevada losing for the first time. You know what? I've watched Nevada a couple of times. You know, not like full games. First of all, that didn't shock me that they went to the pit in Albuquerque and got blown out by New Mexico. I don't think this Nevada teams as good as they, they're not. the Nevada team of the last couple years. That's my, that's my guess watching them play. I don't think

they had really beaten anybody either. They didn't have, I think they had some PAC 12 teams in their schedule. They beat, I believe, USC. They beat. Did they, did they play Utah? Yeah, they beat. Okay. Anyway, uh, one quick thing, have you noticed, did you watch any Fox Big Ten games this weekend? Ohio State played Michigan State on Saturday early. I didn't catch any of those. Fox in their Big Ten hoops coverage, they use the old NBA NBC thing. That was something that they debuted that a week or two ago, I want to say.

Yeah, that's it. Yeah. That's what Fox is using on their Big Ten hoops. The NBC, I call it the Michael Jordan era music. Roundball Rock, I think it's called. How do you, you're not allowed to do that. They made a deal. I remember them making a big deal about about a month or so ago the first time they used it.

And they should make a big deal about it. I just don't, I mean, when you have music that is, that just conjures up is synonymous with it, it hits you with, oh, that's NBA, that's Michael Jordan, that's 90s NBA. You can't then use it for Big Ten hoops. Come up with your own thing. I just want it used. I don't care who uses it. I don't care how they use it. as we get this theme back in our lives.

I mean, imagine if some of the great, like, imagine if Fox or ESPN took the NFL today open that we used to live with year and year out, and we're so familiar with from like the 1970s and 1980s. Like, find that real quickly and play the NFL today open, the one that goes, dun, dun, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. That one. Like, if you put that with... ESPN's NFL coverage, you can't do that.

You got that for me? Yeah. You can't steal iconic sports intro music like this, and then put it on another network for another product. I think that is a major, major mistake. Man, some of the, the CBS stuff was always the best. Find some of the CBS NFL game openings from the 70s and 80s. because they had a couple of different ones,

but it all hits you right where it's like it takes you back to Redskins Giants, Redskins Cowboys. See if you got some of those. Let's see what we got here. All right, here we go. You might like this one, Redskins Giants, 1986. Yeah. Give me some Summerall right here.

The Washington Redskins offensive line is one of football's best, but today their reputation will be challenged by Lawrence Taylor and a fired up New York defense. The Giants are confidently riding the crest of a six-game winning streak. And with the right calls from Phil Sims, they hoped to roll a seven today. There was nobody better than some roll in these things. Let it roll. Let it roll.

We're not cutting that off. The Giants also face some stiff challenges today. First, their defense must contain Washington's sleek receivers like Gary Clark. And their unharrowded pass blockers will have to contend with Dexter. Manley, one of the best pass rushers in the NFL. Manley relishes the spotlight, and today it shines brightly in the season's biggest game. This is late 86 for first place. This was for the division at RFK.

Joe Morris ran the Giants to victory in their first meeting, but today's rematches at RFK Stadium where the skims are hard to beat and where tickets are impossible to find. Let it roll. Let it roll. The National Football League, in the United States of Washington, live from RFC Stadium, sold out the seventh consecutive time. Oh, man. And believe me, there is no place to play.

No more enthusiastic setup. Oh, man, the hair standing up on the back of my neck. Jesus, where are those days? I was going to say, we need to just run that clip in front of every highlight reel for this season for FedEx Field. We got, you know what we got to do here in the offseason? every day we got to find an open from a big Redskins game back in the 80s and 90s, 70s, 80s, 80s, that's awesome. Summerall was the absolute greatest because he was so understated, but he had this incredible

simultaneous authoritative tone. He was great, and Madden would have been on that call. That was the 86 Giants, the Giants that won the Super Bowl that year, and that game, they came into RFK and that game was for first place. That was for the division and home field throughout and they throttled the skins that day at RFK. And they ended up playing one more time. They played in the NFC championship game in the Meadowlands later that year. And the Giants, you know, won all three games against the Redskins that year. That was good stuff. All right. We're going to do more of that. Why not? It's a podcast. We can do whatever the

hell we want. The point, though, is that Fox can't take the NBC NBA theme, but they've already done it, I guess. Tommy's back tomorrow. Have a great day. That's awesome.