The Kevin Sheehan Show - Haskins: 39th out of 40?

Episode Date: May 26, 2020

Chris Simms/Pro Football Talk ranked Dwayne Haskins 39th out of 40 QBs in the NFL. Thom and Kevin got to it late in the show but they discussed. Iwo Jima, Dogs, and the sports take you'll never back off from makes up most of the remainder of the show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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You're listening to The Sports Fix. Yep, it's a sports fix Tuesday after a long holiday weekend. I don't know if it felt like a holiday weekend to anybody out there. But Tommy by phone, me in studio, Aaron's somewhere out there, We'll take care of all of the post-show mess that Tommy and I typically create. Happy Tuesday to you. I hear birds chirping. Where are you right now?

Well, it's such a beautiful day. I mean, it's already about 70 degrees and sunny. And I decided to do the show sitting on my outdoor patio out here. Memorial Day. Was it different for you? Did it seem different for you? Well, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you about a story from yesterday here in a moment. Did it feel differently? Well, we weren't away, but we aren't always away. In fact, in recent years, we've been home primarily. I played golf all weekend long. I played golf yesterday. and I had the day off.

And so because I've been working, and I've mentioned this before, and I feel fortunate to be working, I understand that many of you aren't or are working differently. It was nice to not have to get up at 4 a.m., but I will tell you that I got up at 5 a.m., and I'll explain why here momentarily, but I can understand why it may not have felt like, you know, a holiday to a lot of people who have been on holiday for two and a half months.

Not holiday is in vacation, but, you know, have been out of work or working differently and have been home anyway. You know, it didn't feel different for me, Memorial. It was just basically the same day that I've been living since the middle of March. And I'm still okay with that. I'm satisfied with that. You know, I mean, I do the little writing. I do some walking, watch some TV.

I'm okay. I mean, what is it? It's at least two months since I've been in lockdown, and I'm not going crazy. You know, at least I don't know what I'll be like two months from now if it's still last. But I wanted to share my Memorial Day story with you from when I was a little kid. By the way, before you get started, you know, not that you are at the age technically of, I don't even know what technically means anymore. I don't even know what the age of retirement is.

But you are sort of partially retired in many ways in living the life as someone who's partially retired. Well, I guess you can look. I'm still writing for the paper, but I'm writing once a week instead of three times a week. Right. You're doing this dumb podcast twice a week. I'm doing the podcast twice a week. I am making an appearance with Sad, Duke, I 106-7 a fan, but it's only a segment as opposed to a couple of hours.

Right. So I am in reduced workload, but if it all came back tomorrow, I'd probably be right back at it. Sure, and it might. With all of it, yeah. So Memorial Day was no different. for me, but it always reminds me of when I was a little kid, I guess pretty young.

And my parents went out to the cemetery on Memorial Day to visit their, you know, their fathers, their relatives, things like that. And I'm pretty little kid,

and I sort of like went off on my own. And while they were, you know, at the grave sites of their family members. And I noticed on all the graves, there were all these little American flags

like on the graves. And I thought, wow, this is really cool. I said, so I started walking by the grave and picking the American flag. Oh, boy. Yeah. Off the grave. And I ran over to my parents after about 15 minutes

with a fistful flag and say, Mom, Dad, look what I They were so mortified. Oh, boy. I mean, come after the embarrassment level. I mean, they had to sit there. Part of the problem was you were 15 at the time. I mean, you should have known better.

Yeah. Yeah. So that's the best I could do with Memorial Day. We usually don't do anything on Memorial Day. July 4th, there's a big family picnic up into Poconos. labor day is usually right around my wife's first day, but Memorial Day is not that big of a holiday for me at all usually. I mean, I recognize the significance of it.

You know, remember the people who have lost their lives in defense of this country. And, I mean, I recognize that. But as far as an event, a kickoff for the summer, it usually doesn't feel that way to me. It's always felt like the kickoff to summer for me. I mean, it's always felt that way, but we've done so many different things. It definitely always ends in a meal, you know, a barbecue meal, but we've been barbecuing out for basically five nights a week during the last two and a half months anyway. I wanted to tell you about my morning yesterday because even though I didn't do a radio show yesterday

and didn't do a podcast yesterday. It started very early, and it started early because my son, my oldest son, had a flight out to L.A. You know, I told you that his girlfriend was here, she was here for a month and a half. You know, she lives in L.A. And she got here basically a day before the whole shutdown started. And she stayed for a month and a half, and it was great to have her. And he's heading out there. He's working from home.

He can work from out there. Their office is not reopened. He's still working virtually. And so he's going to head out there for a while. And so I got up yesterday to take him to the airport. He had a 7 a.m. flight, I think it was. And so I was up at 5, 515. We left 5.30.

But two things. One, the airport was empty. Now, I know it's a holiday, and it's early in the morning. But when I tell you that I pulled into Reagan National Airport, and as I was driving in, there wasn't another car. There wasn't another car passing me heading out or going in, and I pulled up to the American Departures Terminal, and when we pulled up to that,

there was one other car in front of us by about, I don't know, 30 yards, and it was pulling away. It had just dropped somebody off, and I could see that person walking in, you know, the set of doors that was one set up, one set of doors up and there was my son. That was it. Now I have read, I read it, you know, during the first month that most flights were basically empty. But I thought in recent weeks there was increase in terms of air travel, if not for personal travel, business travel. Anyway,

that's really not what I wanted to get to. That's just, that's just, that was just the experience at the airport. He did tell me that there were roughly 40 to 50 people he felt on his flight by the time he got on his flight. But anyway, as I was driving back, Tommy, you know, the way I get to, I live in Bethesda. So the way I get to Reagan National is I, you know, go down Canal Road. I cross key bridge. I drive by the Arlington Cemetery. And, you know, and I go right into National. And it's, you know, it's a pretty drive the whole thing. On the way back, I'm like, God, it's a memorial day. That's Arlington Cemetery. I'll pull in. What the hell? I haven't been there in years. In years.

Actually, when I was driving back, I didn't pull into Arlington Cemetery. I thought I was, but I was actually pulling into the Marine Corps War Memorial, which is right next to Arlington Cemetery. There were a couple of people there. It was early. It was 6 a.m. basically. I parked the car. I got out, and the Iwo Jima statues were.

right there in front of me. I haven't seen that in years. I haven't gone in Arlington Cemetery in years. I haven't seen the Iwo Jima statue in years. And I walked over to it and I walked around it. And then I just started reading everything about the Marine Corps. It sent me on, you know, about an hour to two hours of just reading about the history of the Marine Corps, which my father-in-law is an ex-marine. My brother-in-law is an ex-marine. My brother-in-law was a Marine. And one of my favorite all-time subjects

and one of my favorite all-time documentaries is the Pacific, you know, from World War II, which was the Hank Spielberg follow-up to Band of Brothers. Band of Brothers, you watched both of those, didn't you, or not? I forget. Yes. Yeah. Band of Brothers was the European

Theater, and the Pacific was obviously the Pacific Theater of World War II, which was the part of World War II, which was the part of World War II. that was fought primarily by U.S. Marines in terms of the Allied fight against the Japanese. And all of these, you know, all of those horrible, you know, islands of the Pacific, Guadalcanal and Peleleu and Iwoe and Iwojima and Okinawa, all those places were just, you know, the Marshall Islands, all those different things, Midway,

all of those battles of the Pacific between, you know, 41 and 45, which, you know, you know, were really, really difficult because the Japanese and the terrain and the weather and the disease and all of that made it just much different than the European theater. You know, I remember one of the scenes from the Pacific is one of the Marines coming back home to their home in New Jersey. And they are getting dropped off by a taxi cab driver at his home in Jersey. And the cab driver says you don't have to pay anything. He said, we had it rough in France, but nothing like what you Marines had in the Pacific. And, you know, and that is, I think the general impression of World War II from the U.S. standpoint is just how difficult the Japanese were, the weather,

the terrain, the disease, all that went into what was just hell on earth. But anyway, that was my first portion of the day yesterday, and then I played golf after that. Anyway, and so the only thing I thought of yesterday was potentially instead of playing golf, but I was already committed to it, was going back and watching that wonderful series in the last two episodes in particular. The ninth episode out of the 10 is one of the most incredibly moving episodes. of any miniseries that I've ever, ever watched. And it was episodes 9 and 10, when the war ends, and then when Robert Lecky in particular,

who was one of the two main characters of the documentary, when he returns home and he's with his family who haven't been where he's been in some of those conversations about TV being invented and, you know, union strikes, and people are all wrapped up into, different things and this guy just came back from hell on earth. I love Band of Brothers. I love the Pacific more. You know who was in that Pacific? And I think it may have been his first role was

Rami Malik. You know, the guy that played Freddie Mercury in the Queen movie a year and a half ago. He was Snafu, who was one of the Marine soldiers who becomes close with Sledge was his last name, you know, one of the other two main characters. Anyway, I don't know, we get, that, that was my day yesterday. That was my day yesterday. Well, you had, I mean, you had, uh, you had a real Memorial Day, at least half of it. Uh, well, I mean, and a half hours of it, yes. That's pretty impressive. I don't know if it, but, but it wasn't, it wasn't planned. It would have been more impressive if I had said, this is what I'm going to do on this memorial day as a way to pay tribute. It was totally sort of coincidental because,

I passed it on my way back from the airport. And it was six in the morning, and I had nothing else to do. And also thought that there would be nobody there. But, yeah, I mean, God, man, you know. You know, one of the writers and producers of the Pacific is the guy from D.C., George Pelicanos. I didn't know that. Yeah, who worked on the wire.

And the deuce with David Simon, he does a lot of work with Simon. Yeah, he was one of the main guys on the Pacific, one of the main riders. Did you agree with me that the Pacific was better than Band of Brothers or not? Yeah, I do. I think that is a contrarian opinion. I think Band of Brothers, first of all, did better in terms of ratings, et cetera, and in, you know, post-sales. And I think it's generally viewed, you know, it was the first as the better of the two.

I enjoyed the latter, which came out, I don't know how many, it probably came out 10 years after Banda Brothers at least, maybe more than that. Because the Pacific is not more than a decade old. I would say that it came out seven, eight years ago, something like that? I think a little bit longer. You do? Band of Brothers was, I want to, I mean, that was like 1999, 2000, somewhere around. Yeah, that was pretty far back. And that was excellent, too. Excellent.

I didn't have such a Memorial Day weekend, very uneventful. Just taking care of my son's dog. We're dog sitting. Your dog sitting? Yes. Really? And I'm a dog guy. I like dogs.

We had dogs most of our lives. What kind of dogs did you have? When I was a little kid, we had a Russian wolfhound. And then I had a black lab for a while. Black Lab, his name was outrageous. This was you, this was married you with a black lab with kids? No, before married. Okay.

And then when we were first married, when we moved to Maryland, I got a Jack Russell Terrier, whose name was Astra. He was a great dog. Had him for 17 years. He was a terrific dog. Yeah. Perfect with, you know, when we had kids and stuff. Then we got a beagle to replace him, a dog from hell named Toby.

Oh, really? Oh, my God. This dog was terrible. And, you know, I blame the weasels at the animal shelter because they, you know, we brought our, a big mistake was bringing out kids there. And he looked so cute. and, you know, they gave us the hard sell like they were selling us a car, and it turned out he had been brought back by three other houses.

No, it's like as unmanageable. So we took him home, and once you got him home with the kids, you know, you're done. You can't say, oh, I'm sorry, we're taking him back. Right. But he was a miserable dog, and the best thing that happened to us was when, I think a Beagle won the Westminster Kennel Club show one year. Then everybody wanted Beagles, so we were able to foist him on a no-kill shelter who then turned around and gave him to some family.

And he's probably, he's probably been passed around about six times since then. But my son, he doesn't do anything simple. He lives in Baltimore, maybe two blocks from the animal shelter, when he wanted a dog, he got one from Kuwait. Why? You know? Why? Well, because he wanted to do something different.

And there are rescue groups that rescue dogs from the Middle East. And he spent a fortune getting this dog shipped over here from Kuwait. And I'm telling you, the dog has PTSD. He really does. The dog, he doesn't respond. Sometimes he stands there and just stands for like 10 minutes, like he's thinking, who am I and what am I doing here? He doesn't respond like other dogs.

He's easy to take care of. He's remarkably easy to take care of. Maybe he recognizes something about the caretaker right now. Maybe he realizes that the caretaker is limited and he's got to behave a little bit more. If I was as limited at this dog, I couldn't have this conversation with you. Okay? And the dog's name, by the way, is Coach Act. I named them.

Of course it is. Oh, God, that just reminds me. What did I tweet, the retweet of yours this weekend, I forget. Oh, and somebody from 106-7, they were, they were, they were talk about Game of Thrones. And I asked. Oh, right, right. Oh, that was somebody from 1060. Yeah.

Yeah, they were going to wear costumes. Right, right. And then I said, you know, the problem, I said, you're stubborn, you know, called you cojack or something and said, turn cojack off and give it a shot. This is a blind spot for you. I can't help you with that. At least I'm willing to watch the wire, and I want to watch the wire, and I intend on watching the wire. But you haven't watched the wire.

I know, but it's different from your situation. You say you will never watch Game of Thrones, and you try to pass it off. in the same way Van Pelt does, which is some sort of, you know, dress-up costume, you know, fantasy show, which it isn't. One is based on reality, and the other is based on a Dungeon and Dragons episode. It isn't a Dungeon and Dragons episode. That's the thing. It's all about the characters. I'm not going to do this again with you. I love dogs. I'm definitely a dog person, not a cat person. But I didn't always love dogs. We had a dog, you know, multiple times growing up, but I wasn't the guy that became a single, was single out on my own that the first thing I thought of was to have a dog, although one of my roommates had a crazy dog, totally ripped up our townhouse one year,

and he had to give the dog to somebody else, I forget. It was costing us a fortune. but I didn't want a dog when we were married or the kids were super young because I just thought it was going to be like having another kid. And the very first dog we got, which was a cocker spaniel, Sailor was his name, and he was such a great dog. But I was against it. My wife went out and got the dog anyway. I said, you know, she had been talking about a dog and the kids were really young. And they were all under the age of six, five. at that point, five or six. And I was like, we need to give it a couple more years. And I came home

one day and the dog was there. And I was very angry, but it turned out to be a great dog. And Sailor was a great dog. And then we've had for a while this little dog, this King Cavalier half Bishon dog. She's crazy. I'm not a big fan of hers, nor are any of the boys. But I told you that eight months ago, we got an English bulldog puppy, and she is the best. She is spectacular. She's my favorite living thing in my house right now. Easily. Easily. Right now. It goes both ways. I think that everybody's just as sick of me as I am probably of them, and they're also leaning on the dog. She's a lot of fun. She's been great. What kind of different pets have you had with your kids growing up?

Oh, man. Well, we've had the dogs. So this is dog number three. We have had fish. We have had turtles. We have had, you know, not a lot. I'm sure there was a hamster along the way there somewhere. I don't think there was a rabbit. I definitely remember the turtles, and we had this huge turtle cage thing, aquarium-like thing. And turtles, by the way, are spreaders of viruses and disease. I didn't want the turtles.

That's, I think we had a bird or two. That's probably it. I may be missing something. We've had giant reptiles. Tarantulas. Why a tarantula? I have no idea why one of my sons wanted a tarantula. We didn't know he had it for a while.

Did he get it at a pet store or have to order it? I have no idea. I don't know. I don't know how he got it. We had hamsters. Yeah. We had guinea pigs. We had a rabbit.

pet rabbit. We've had birds, fish, and dogs. I think that's it. Yeah. And my wife didn't like any of them. I don't...

My wife's goal is to get rid of every living thing in her house, and I'm the last thing to go. Including you. I'm not big into all of the other things. I like dogs now, and I didn't always love dogs, even though we always had a dog.

You know, but I love dogs now. All right, we're going to get to some sports here in a moment. First, a quick word about hydrant. Top performers in business and sports often attribute their success to their morning routine, whether it's waking up early, setting their goals for the day, exercise, or meditation. Something that Tommy practices on a daily basis, all of those things, I think. But not everyone's got the time to do it. With hydrant, you can jumpstart your mornings. Did you know that 75% of us are walking around everyday life chronically dehydrated?

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slash Sheehan. All right, a couple of football things, Tommy, to get to. First of all, I wanted to say that if you did not listen to Saturday's podcast, I had this guy, Sam Monson from Pro Football Focus on. He was excellent. I went back and listened to that again. A lot of you sent me tweet. saying how much you enjoyed that. I did too, not only in the moment, but after the fact. In fact, I played a lot of it back on the radio show this morning. The pro football focus story is really a very interesting story because, you know, analytics, you know, Tommy and I probably have a similar feeling about analytics. First of all, it's just a fancy word for advanced statistics. You know, more statistics than you used to have is basically it.

But, you know, everybody is sports fans. that baseball is, you know, heavy on analytics. And one of the reasons there's so much data and it's perceived to be valuable is almost everything on a baseball field in terms of the result is measurable. Whereas in a football game with 22 guys and not knowing players' responsibilities and not knowing whether it was truly a good block or a bad block or good coverage or bad coverage. It's just harder, but they've gotten better, and the conversation was a lot about that, you know, about the challenge of grading every single player on every single play to come up with a grade for the game and then a grade for the season, et cetera. Well, 32 teams have contracted

with pro football focus. 32 and over 70 college teams and like three or four CFL teams as well. Chris Collinsworth purchased the majority stake in this company a few years back. And Sam was great. I would urge you to listen to that if you haven't already. He talked about why NFL teams are using pro football focus, all 32 of them, paying for their premium service. And I thought it was very interesting, not to mention the fact that Sam is Irish. Like he just came to the States in 2017, but he's been a lot of,

a huge NFL fan and obviously sort of a stats and probability guy for a long time as well. So one of the things we didn't talk about on Thursday because I think the news came out on Friday, Tommy, is that the NFL is going to vote later this week. The owners are going to vote on a few things. But one of the things that they're going to vote on is the fourth and 15 rule to be used in lieu of the onside kick. Do you like that? Have you read about it? Do you know how it works?

Because I'll explain it to everybody, but I'm curious as to whether or not you have followed anything about this. I've followed it. I'm not a big fan of it. But I don't get that riled up about change in these sports, particularly the NFL, which tinkers with its product almost every year. I typically am a traditionalist when it comes down to this. It's funny, you're like, you don't mind change, but you don't really, you don't like this rule, which is fine.

I love this idea, and we saw it play out a little bit in that AAFL and then the XFL as well. And this was something that they tested in the Pro Bowl, not that any of you watched it. But the reason that this rule is being considered isn't because the XFL or the AAF or whatever that Alliance of American Football, I think that's what it was called. It wasn't because they tried it. They've been talking about this for about a year and a half now, in part because the rule changes, not in part, but primarily, if not all due to the changes in the onside kick rule that came into play in 2018 where teams. it couldn't change their formation, they couldn't overload the formation, they couldn't get a running start, and that has really impacted the percentage of successful on side kicks. You know, it was in single digits in 2018, and it was like 12.7% last year, it was 8 of 63 were

converted, and that is way lower than what the percentage of success was prior to, the rule changes. They were in the 21.2% range. So basically one in five of every onside kick was recovered. And now it's really hard to recover an onside kick. And we've seen that. So if you're down to scores without any timeouts left, your chances of winning the game are next to nothing. Whereas at least there used to be a chance. You're saying there's a chance. There's a chance. There used to be a chance. Well, I like the fourth and 15. The fourth and 15 is almost equivalent to the old In terms of the fourth and 15 data that's out there, it's almost equivalent. It's a little bit higher, but if you take out the fourth and 15s for late game situations where games are already over,

it's almost equivalent to what the old conversion rate was for onside kicks prior to the new rules, which were safety-driven. It's a fourth and 15 play, one play from your own 25-yard line. You can only use it twice in a game. You can use it at any point in the game that you want. And it plays out. So fourth and 15, if you convert, you keep the ball, and it's first and 10 from wherever you've converted. You may throw a touchdown pass on that, and that'll count.

You can't score, you know, you've never been able to score on an onside kick because you can't advance the onside kick. You can only recover it. But on fourth and 15, if you get stopped, that team takes over from wherever you got stopped. So if you picked up seven yards from the 25-yard line, it's the other team's ball first-and-10 at your 32. If there's a penalty, the penalty comes into play, just like any other fourth and 15 play. I love this rule, and I hope they vote it into existence, because I think the lack of any hope if you're rooting for a team that's down two scores at the end without enough timeouts, is there was always a chance.

And in the last two seasons, there really hasn't been a chance at all, even though one of the great comebacks in the history of the game happened last year between, I think the dolphins and the Bengals, where one of those two teams, it may have been the dolphins recovered like consecutive on sidekicks. But I like the rule. So why don't you like it? I don't think that worked up about it one way or the other.

It's not a problem for me. I just didn't feel the need for it. I mean, I didn't feel like there was a void that needs. needed to be filled. But it is intriguing. I wonder if now coaches will have, will build their rosters to include maybe one or two players or a couple of players who are just built for that fourth and 15 moment, or if those are the same skills that you would use throughout the whole game. I don't, I don't think there is a different skill set there. I mean, you're faced with third and 15th, you know, third and 15, you're going to punt after, so you've got to convert it.

One of the reasons I think that, you know, it doesn't and hasn't necessarily impacted you watching these games is, one, you're not a fan of a particular team. So you haven't been in that position of hoping that your team's down points or up points and you're worried about an on-side kick or you won an on-side kick. But it definitely means that you're not a gambler. because I can tell you that gamblers are very familiar with the percentage of onside kick conversions in the last two years versus what they used to be because whether if you were winning the bet, you'd still have to worry about an onside kick. And in the last two years, you haven't had to worry about it really. It's like it's over.

No one can recover an onside kick. Or if you were losing the bet, it's like we're done. We got no shot because we need two scores and they're not going to. to get them. I think this is going to pass. I have a feeling this is going to pass, and we're going to have this as an option for teams to use starting in 2020. I could be wrong, but it makes too much sense, and the league's not going to change the on-side kick rules back to something that they deem to be unsafe, you know, for the purposes of giving, you know, creating more excitement at the end for a team that's down to scores or needs an on-side kick.

conversion. That's not going to happen. But I do think that this has a chance to pass. There's no other option on this. I also hope that they reconsider, and I think they are, extending the overtime back to 15 minutes. Ten minutes is dumb. One thing that Troy Vincent came out and said, and he actually said it with Brian and Scott on Brian Mitchell's show in 980 last week, he acknowledged that this ability to challenge pass interference, both called and not called, both offensive and defensive pass interference. He said, quote, failed miserably. And it did.

You know, when he took the blame for it, Troy Vincent's actually a really impressive guy. I listened to that interview last week with Scott and Brian. And he's an impressive guy. He played for the Redskins, obviously for the Eagles forever, but had one of the more famous plays in Reds, in recent Redskins' memory, that blocked field goal that he blocked that Sean Taylor picked up against the Cowboys and returned. And then there was a face mask, and Nick Novak came out and booted the game winner with no time left. But Troy Vincent took all the blame. He said, this failed miserably.

We saw a year ago when the pass interference rule, you know, played out that the outcomes were not good for pro football. And they played out publicly. we didn't do enough due diligence. And the last thing that people should be talking about is the way the game is officiated. Well, they're never going to stop talking about that. But remember that that was added in last year because of just the grotesque reaction from Sean Peyton and the Saints fan base and people in Louisiana and in New Orleans who were threatening to sue everybody in the NFL over what happened in that NFC championship game against the Rams.

It failed miserably. Grotesque? Wait a minute. Grotesque? They're like the villains here? Yeah, they were, they were insufferable to listen to. Please. Oh, my God. What whiners. What whiners. What you don't do is this is so absurd.

You have a perfectly good technologically sit down system in play. The problem is how they executed it. You know, they make replay too difficult. I know they're talking about, aren't they talking about having an eye in the sky, a judge? That's what I was going to get to, the sky judge. Okay. Okay. Yeah.

I mean, this should be a simple process. I mean, basically, when the guys on the field need to go up to the judge, that should be the final, say. And it should take him a few minutes to be able to figure it, a few seconds to be able to figure this out. So the process was wrong, not the technology. It's way too hard to allow coaches to – well, there were a couple of problems with it. Number one, it's the most subjective call, or certainly one of the most subjective calls in football, pass interference or not pass interference. Except when it's not.

Yeah, but that's part of the problem is determining except when it's not. And, you know, the other issue was just, you know, coaches trying to save some of those challenges, and then having calls that were and should have been in the final two minutes not even looked at. Look, the game that Kirk Cousins won in the playoffs on the touchdown pass and overtime to Kyle Rudolph, that's a pretty egregious push-off for pass interference. Now, it's not the Saints' Rams situation where the guy was basically, you know, gang-tackled. you know, tackled before the ball got there, but it was clearly past interference, and they barely even looked at it for three seconds. I agree that it was not administered properly, but I

thought it was going to be a hard administration process to begin with. This sky judge concept of having a referee in the booth that they can go to or that he can ring down, rather than going to New York, rather than relying on coaches to challenge to say, hey, this is a massive miss. And you've got to fix this one. This is obvious to everybody. I don't have a problem with that necessarily. But, oh, my God, the whining from New Orleans after that game. I mean, when you think about all of the games in NFL history that have names attached to them

because of miss calls or bad calls that ended up almost in. the sport and the sports legacy. I couldn't take it, man. I mean, you had people in New Orleans suing over a sports result. Give me a break. If that was the Redskins, you would have hunted those officials down. I would not have. I would have been really pissed.

And just like the Jim Hart to Mel Gray thing, it would have forever been known as the Mel Gray catch. And I was, as a very young kid, I couldn't have been more angry. than I was than in 1975 when they ruled Mel Grace catch a catch after calling it a no catch in St. Louis. But those

things, those calls and miscalls are part of the game, man. I mean, Houston probably feels that they lost an AFC championship game at Three Rivers because of it. You know, the Vikings think they lost a playoff game because of a Hail Mary push-off by Drew Pearson and the list goes on and on

the tuck roll. All of them. What a wonderful business where things that go wrong enhance it. Is there any other business that you can say that about? Weather predicting. Weather predicting. I have no problem with them trying to fix it in an easier way. And at the same time, I have a problem with all the whining.

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And that is, we could have taken calls on this for three hours if we had started it earlier. But basically the question is, what is the hottest personal sports take that you'll never back down from? And I think part of the reason that you didn't have an answer to this is the adjective hottest. What is the personal sports opinion you have that you'll never back down from? is probably a better way to take it because your answer, a better way to sort of digest it,

because you said to me, I've never had a hot sports take. That's not what I do. I don't do hot take. But you have strong opinions and not all of them fall in line with everybody else's. Yeah, but they're usually based on reasonable data and reasonable evidence. That's fine. They could turn out to be wrong. That's fine.

Well, that's not a hot take. Okay, you're right. It's not necessarily a hot take. take. It's the personal sports opinion you have that you just don't think you'll ever have to back down from. I mean, for you, it's Willis Reed's a top, what do you have? Top 10 player of all time? Top five center. Top five center of all time. No one else right would have Willis Reed on the top five list of greatest centers, would they? Willis would. No, he wouldn't. No, nobody else would. Yeah. So there you go. That's yours.

That wasn't so hard, was it? No. Because... No, it wasn't so hard. Because Russell, Wilt, Kareem, Elygwan, and Shaq are easily your top five. Wilt's nowhere near that group. I'd probably have... I'd probably have Moses and Walton's a tough one, as we know, for obvious reasons.

I'd have Moses before him. I'd have... If we're going to consider Duncan as a center, I'll clearly have Duncan before him. before I ever get into the Willis Reed conference. I'd probably have artists in West Unseld and Artis Gilmore before Willis Reed. Oh, well, you wouldn't have West Unseld before Willis Reed. Let me just say two numbers for you. 36 points, 36 rebounds.

Lewis Reed against West Unseld in a playoff game in 1970. That's unbelievable, that box score. Yeah. That really is. That's an third, I mean, only Wilt had that kind of of box score ever, right?

And that's against West. Yeah. That's amazing. I think you mentioned that to me recently, and I think I gave you, hold on, I'm going to go find it again. That was the 1970s season when the Knicks won it all, right?

Yeah. And they, what did they beat the bullets in the Eastern Conference finals? Yeah, they always had to go through the bullets to get to where they wanted to go. I mean, those playoffs between the bullets and the Knicks were legendary. Yeah, they actually

beat the bucks that year in the Eastern Conference finals. They beat the bullets in the first series. Are you saying that that was game seven that he had 36 and 36? I don't remember which game it was. He had 36 and 36.

It wasn't game seven. It wasn't game six. Let me see if I can find it here. I do want, here it is, 36 points in game five. In a 2-2 series, Game 5, Willis Street, 36 points and 36 rebounds in a basketball game. That's honestly, that's honestly ridiculous.

By the way, you want to hear this? How about this one? In the same game, Walt Frazier had 16 points and 16 rebounds. Frazier had 16 and 16. Wow, what was Gus Johnson doing that day? Gus Johnson had seven points, 10 rebounds, and wasn't in foul trouble, it says. But was one for 14 from the floor. Let me just drive the car off the road for a second, because somebody posted this in a graphic on social media, and it just stands out.

Will Chamberlain, in one game, March 18th, 1968, 53 points, 32 rebounds. 14 assists, 24 blocks. What? 11 steals. What? 24 blocks. That's what this says. 53 points, 32 rebounds,

14 assists, 24 blocks, 11 steals. Here it is. March 18th, 1968, allegedly put up this stat. That's unbelievable. That would be the all-time game. I still don't know how those guys put up those numbers and how they were accounted for. Well, 11 steals. They didn't make up, I don't even think, they may have recorded that for that game,

but I don't think they kept steel statistics over the course of a season back then. I don't think it was a statistical measure. I don't think block shots were either, were they? No, they weren't. But somehow somebody got the numbers for this one. That's crazy. That is, that's nuts. All right, so I had a couple of them in terms of sports opinions that I'll never back off of.

Now, this one I don't think is, it's certainly not a hot take because I think a lot of people would agree with me, but I've always been surprised over the years at how many of the guys that played on another team vehemently disagree. I think the 91 Redskins are clearly the greatest Redskins team of all time. I don't think it's close. I think they're much better than the 82 team that won the Super Bowl, better than the 87 team that won the Super Bowl, and better than the 83 team that may have been the best offensive team the Redskins ever had, but they lost that Super Bowl to the Raiders.

And a lot of guys on that team over the years, whether it was Thaisman or Rigo or Jake or Doc, you know, all the guys that we know and have known over the years, they all think that's the greatest team they ever played on, was the team that lost to the Raiders in the Super Bowl. Right. And it was a phenomenal offensive football team. You know, they set the- That's the year that Thaisman won the MVP, right?

Theizman won the MVP in 83. They were unstoppable offensively. I think they set the record for points in a season that particular year in the NFL. the problem was that team, even though they had a ridiculous plus 43 turnover margin, the best in NFL history. Their defense was very good at creating turnovers and getting turnovers, but the defense, when it wasn't creating turnovers, was getting torched. And that's why their secondary had the nickname the Pearl Harbor crew.

They had Darrell Green as a rookie, but they had Anthony Washington, Washington, Washington, and Vernon Dean and Curtis Jordan. I mean, they got torched. Green Bay put up 48 points against them in what was the highest scoring Monday night game in history until that Rams Chiefs game from a few years ago. They got beat in the Super Bowl. They gave up 38 in the Super Bowl. They gave up 37 to the – 35 to the Raiders in another regular season game.

gave up 31 to the Cowboys. It wasn't a great defensive team. The 91 team is a dominant defensive team. Dominant. They shut out three of their first five opponents. Four of their first six didn't score more than seven in a game. They had per football outsiders, whatever you want to think of it, that DVOA defensive value above adjusted, above replacement number. They were number one on defense, number one on offense, and number one on special teams in 1991. I think it's the greatest Super Bowl team of all time.

That's more of what I would call a hot take. Now, there have been, you know, USA Today did a thing years back on the best Super Bowl winners of all time, and they had the 91 Redskins. Football outsiders had the Redskins as the number one team of all time. And there are other great teams. You know, the 78 Steelers were phenomenal. The 85 Bears, the 84-49ers. Those 2007 Patriots that didn't win the Super Bowl were great.

But no, the 91 Redskins, the biggest Tommy argument against the 91 Redskins was this, that they didn't have a difficult NFC postseason gauntlet to go through. They beat the Falcons, they beat the Lions. You know, the run-and-shoot Falcons and the run-and-shoot lions both at home before they absolutely demolished Buffalo in the Super Bowl in Minneapolis. A really good offensive team that they completely demolished. You know, that final score has never really been indicative of just how much the Reds... It was 37-24 was the final.

I think the Redskins were up 37 to 10 in that game and 31-3. I mean, that was a dominant beat down in the Super Bowl. Now, I know, you know, we tend to think that the world began when ESPN started, but I would put the 70 chiefs on that list. I would put the 75 dealers on that list and the 68 Packers on that list as well. I know you've really educated me on that 7.5. Chiefs team with all of those Hall of Famers on the defense. On defense. Which is amazing. Big Hall of Famers. Yeah, which is amazing. You wrote a column about

that before the Chiefs in the Super Bowl this year, if I recall. Right. And, and Glenn Dawson at quarterback and Otis Taylor. Yeah. At wide receiver. Yeah. And Hank Stram coaching it. So I, you know, I don't remember that Chiefs team in terms of watching them, but I can appreciate that team and how great it was. Even though they were 13-point underdogs in the Super Bowl against the NFL Vikings. That was the second, you know, that was back-to-back, massive upsets with the Jets in Super Bowl 3 and then the Chiefs over the Vikings in Super Bowl 4. I think the 78 Steelers are better than the 75 Steelers.

I think generally people in terms of the rankings have it there. I also think that the 77-Calmers. Cowboys are really, really good. The team that demolished everybody, including Denver and the Super Bowl, the 85 Bears have to be on that list. Have to be on that list. And the 84-9ers were incredible, as were the 89-9ers. Look, and I'm not going to argue with you about those 91 Redskins.

I mean, I think it's a perfectly legitimate position. Absolutely. By the way, again, I think the 07 Patriots were well on their way to becoming the greatest team ever until they lost to the Giants in the Super Bowl, which just seemed impossible in the moment. The other one that I had, I had actually had two others. One is, and this isn't a hot take for D.C. sports fans. But Joe Jacoby is a Hall of Famer, period. End of conversation. People around the league don't know it like we know.

know it, but it's a joke. You'll never get me to change my mind on Joe Jacoby being a Hall of Famer. And this one... Well, listen, I agree with you on that. Everybody's got one about Hall of Fame. For me, in baseball, it's Gil Hodges. Gil Hodges, people still don't believe that Gil Hodges is not in the Hall of Fame, but he's not. And, I mean, I will debate, you know, until the cows come home that Gil Hodges, who, you know, should be in Hall Fame at as a player and manager. Yeah, I am. All the fame debates.

I mean, you're not going to, you're always going to find people that you're convinced should be in. Coby should be in, yeah. But here's the one that's probably, you know, I don't know if it's in conflict with most opinion. I think that most people disagree with this. But I think Marvin Hagler beat Sugar Ray Leonard, and you're never going to get me to change my mind on that.

I watched that fight in 1987 at Colfield House on closed circuit TV. I've watched that fight, I don't know, 20 times since. It was the fight that sent Hagler into retirement. And I was rooting for Ray Leonard. I mean, I was a Sugar Ray Leonard fan, and I still to this day cannot believe that he won a split decision in that fight. I thought Hagler was the better fighter. I thought he was the fighter that took it to Ray throughout,

and Leonard seemed to steal like the last 10, 15 seconds of each round, which I think really ultimately influenced some of the judges. Just watching that fight, I remember when I was younger and I was a big boxing guy, I'd go round by round. I'd count them up. I'd be like, come on, man, not even close. Hagler won that round, and this judge gave it to Leonard. but I think Hagler beat Leonard that night in Las Vegas.

Well, I mean, that's, look, the writers who were ringsides were divided pretty much. A lot of people thought Hagler won. I thought, my philosophy was this. I thought it was close, and it shouldn't have been close. I'm Marvin Hagler's fighting the guy who had, who he's bigger than, who hasn't fought in over three years. You can't make that a close fight. You've got to dominate that fight.

Yeah. You know, I mean... But it was Ray Leonard. I mean, it wasn't like, you know... And I know he hadn't fought in a couple of years, but this was the match everybody wanted. It wasn't like, you know... You're saying that what, Hagler needed to make it more obvious

that he was clearly the better fighter, because he had fought more, you know. Yeah. I think a lot of people had high hopes for Ray going into that fight. Anyway. Tell me if this is a hot take, okay? Yeah. Hang on a second.

Apparently this morning, maybe it was this morning, maybe it was yesterday, Chris Sims came out with the ranking of the top, his ranking of the top 40 quarterbacks in the NFL. Yeah. Blaine Haskins is 39th. Really? Chris Sims? The only guy behind him is Tua.

At 40. So Burroughs ahead of him? He's got Mitch Trubeski ahead of him. I want to pull this thing up here. This is what Chris Simms said on Twitter. Really don't know how to sum up his rookie season. Some nice moments and throws that make you see why he's the number one pick. Others, where you shake your head and realize how raw but talent he still is.

Big question about how the new staff will embrace him. That's pretty accurate in the way he's what he just said. Yeah. Last year, he had Robert Griffin the third ranked ahead of him, but he hadn't taken a snap yet. What's he ranking? How many backups does he rank? I can't, for what reason I can't find this list right now?

Well, I mean, I think you posted it on Twitter. I think he ranked them all separately. I don't know if like Sims' top 40 quarterback is where you would look on Twitter. Yeah, I keep getting last year's. He did it last year, too. I keep getting last year's list. So what do you think? Oh, that's because the list isn't completely out.

He's doing it one at a time, sort of. And he's just gone. Yeah, he's just gone. 40 to 39. Okay. Forties to a 39 is Askins. Is that how it's happening here? I don't even know where Trubiski is.

I can't help you on this because I can't find an Fing list here if the whole list has been put out. I mean, it's not an easy link from his Twitter account. I see that the 39, oh, okay, so he's just gone 40, 39, 38. It looks like to me. So 40s, 20s, 29's Dwayne, and, 38's Mitch Trubisky. Sorry for that, everybody. But really don't know how to sum up his rookie season, which is what you just read.

I don't, you know, I don't, I can imagine who he's got, he's got 38 guys in front of him, including Mitch Trubisky. I mean, that means that there are a bunch of backup quarterbacks that are in front of Dwayne Haskins. That's ridiculous. I wonder if Kyle Allen's ahead of him. Oh, boy. Now we got a subject for Thursday. I bet he's not. I bet you Kyle Allen's not on the list. He started more games than Haskins last year, didn't he?

Well, if two is behind him, that means burrows in front of him more likely than not. Yeah. You know, so a guy that's never taken an NFL snap is going to be in front of him. Tribusky, who has been replaced by Foles, its Foles is going to be in front of him. If he had Griffin on the list last year, maybe he's got Griffin on the list again with Jackson this year. You know, just going down the list, it means that a lot of quarterbacks, well, he's got Daniel Jones ahead of him. That's obvious. Wouldn't you put Daniel Jones ahead of Dwayne Haskins?

Based on last year? It's really close, but maybe by a smidge, maybe? he's got Kyleor Murray he's got look the bottom line is if he's ranking 40 he's got eight backups on that list so

you know help me with that I guess we'll have to wait to see the list I guess we will 39 for Dwayne Haskins on a list of 40 is really a slight I mean it's almost as if he didn't see the last you know two three games you know and he

judging based off the giant relief appearance or maybe, you know, the game he had against the Jets. And I don't know, Daniel Jones was a fumbling turnover machine all year. I think Dwayne's got potential. You know what I think of him. I know. And so do I. I think he does too. You know, you know what, Simba, use this for fuel.

Yeah, use this for fuel. Use this for fuel, Simba. Do you think he'll put it on his Twitter account? I wouldn't be surprised if he already has. I don't follow him on Twitter, but I'm going to just see if we can, I can still find his account here. I mean, it came out pretty, this has only been out for, I think, since this morning, so maybe he doesn't know about it yet. He doesn't know about it yet because he hasn't tweeted at all today. It doesn't look like.

Okay. I would not, there's going to be, you know, there's going to be, what was that hashtag? Don't be a fan later. That's probably what you'll get at some point today with some sort of, you know, quizzical looking emoji. An emoji with a quizzical look on its face. I think there's an option for that.

I don't blame him for being upset about this. It's pretty damning. Even if you think it's true, it's pretty damning. I mean, you know, use it as fuel. That's awesome. That's awesome. I mean, who does Chris Sims even work for? I think pro football talk, I think he does.

Is it pro football? I think he works with Mike Floreo. Oh, boy. I actually have heard Sims before as an analyst, and maybe that's where I've heard it before, and I actually think that he's a decent analyst. I think that's what I think, but I'm not entirely sure.