The Kevin Sheehan Show - How Will Alex Be Remembered Here?

Episode Date: March 2, 2021

Kevin and Thom today with a discussion about Alex Smith's time in DC and how he will be remembered. Also, plenty on the latest on Snyder, Deshaun Watson, and the craziest stat line you've ever heard of. Kevin also with a further defense of Turgeon's Terps.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You don't want it. You don't need it. But you're going to get it anyway. The Kevin Cheyenne Show. Here's Kevin. All right, Tommy's here. I'm here. Lots to get to, and we will do it starting with this.

John McLean, who writes for the Houston Chronicle. It has covered Houston Sports for 45 years. You know, a lot happens sometimes between the end of the radio show and the time that we get together and we're getting together late to. Today, it's because of me. I had shit to do, and I kept you waiting, and so I apologize for that. You've been, let me just, I didn't plan on doing this. Let me just tell everybody that for someone who has, for the most part, during the roughly 15 years that I've known him, someone who's typically not very patient, he's been really patient with me on this podcast when he's been in Florida.

because I'll tell him, hey, let's start recording at 10, and then I'm not there at 10, and I'm like I'm running a few minutes late. And you've been great. I just want to acknowledge that and tell you just how accommodating you've been and how patient you've been, because it's not one of your great strengths to be super patient, but you have been with me. So I appreciate that. Well, this just shows how little you know about me. I have this hidden side.

That's very patient. Actually, today, we have moved the Fortress of Solitude to Sarasota yesterday. We drove from Destin to Sarasota, so we're in Sarasota this week. I love Sarasota. You told me that you were going to Sarasota. It's where, and I think I said this to Cooley on the podcast, if I didn't tell you on the podcast last week, I know you know this. my father's been in the hospital for several days down near Sarasota.

You can stop by and visit him now that you've been vaccinated. You've got to be vaccinated to go see him. He's doing well, by the way. But I love that area. I love that area. That circle, that, you know, that Armand or Armand Circle area and, you know, heading out to Longboat Key. It's beautiful down there.

Yeah, it is. We got in about 530. six o'clock and there's about four or five bars and restaurants within walking distance of a really nice old school motel we're staying in there's a heated pool right outside our door the beach is just a short walk away so it's all good life is so what how could i not be patient life is good well yeah i mean i guess you've got you've you've really chilled out as we've spent the winter up here in February was sort of a cold month. But are the bars that you have gone to in that Armand's circle area?

No, no. They're right in Siesta Key. Oh, God, beautiful, beautiful. Yeah, and one in them, actually I had pretzels and beer trees last night with a couple of stella's. You know, and then went night's women. Are you staying in Siesta Key? Yes.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong. I may be wrong about this, but I think that the thing that's Siesta Key and Longboat Key to a lesser extent, that they're known for having just the whitest and the powdery softest sand of any beaches in Florida. Did you know that? Well, I didn't know that. I haven't gotten a chance to see the sand yet. That's where we're heading this afternoon, right down the road. Oh, so you went swimming, you went night swimming.

swimming in a pool last night. In the heated pool right outside our door. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty down there, definitely. All right, well, good. That's a nice spot, and hopefully you'll have a good time. So anyway, I started with, you know, sometimes when the radio show ends and the podcast

starts, there's some news, and I thought this news was rather interesting. Do you know this guy, McLean from the Houston Chronicle? Yeah, he's a legend. I mean, not only is the legend in sports writing, you know, he's been in about 30 or 40 movies. He has been why? He has. I don't know why, but he's been in, and I'm not talking about the Bruce Willis, John McLean character. I mean, but he has literally been in a bunch of movies as an extra small speaking roles.

And I don't know how that's come to pass, but I do know that about him. He reported this morning that five teams have called the Houston Texans about quarterback to Sean Watson, but Washington is not one of them. So Washington, we know, made an offer to Detroit for Matt Stafford. We believe based on reporting that Washington is expressed to the Raiders' interest in Marcus Marietta, and perhaps there have even been conversations about Marcus Marietta. but they have not reached out or they're not one of the five teams that have reached out about Deshawn Watson. Now, two things struck me about this news. Number one is that it's only five teams.

Number two is that Washington wasn't one of them. But when I put the two together, what I figure is this. Most teams realize that he's not going to be available. That it's like a waste of time to go down that pattern. because he's not going to be made available, which, by the way... Are you sticking with that? Yeah, definitely. Because John McLean says, like, they got to trade him.

I know what he says, but what they do, he's not saying that they will trade him. He's saying that he thinks they should trade him. Am I right about that or wrong? I don't know. I didn't hear the interview. I just know the excerpts that were posted on social media. and I mean the excerpt that was posted, whether it's accurate or not, where he said they've got to trade him. You know, it's funny, I'm reading one of his columns right now,

and at the end, it says, McLean can be heard six times on the Texans flagship sports radio station, Sports Radio 610. He also does a weekly sports talk show in Nashville, Knoxville, Waco, Austin, and San Antonio. McLean has also appeared in eight movies. I know it. I mean, I go out with 30 or 40, but he's got this little... You want me to make the list?

You want the list of movies? Sure. Can you name any of them? No, I can't off the top of my head. They're not good buddies or anything. The rookie? He was in the rookie. He was in the longest yard.

I'm going to assume it's the second version of the longest yard, the Adam Sandler version. Spring Breakers, Secretariat, Invincible, Cook County, the game plan, and make it rain. Eight movies for John McLean. You know, that's seven more movies than I've been in. He's also a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame Selection Committee,

and he is in the Texas Sports Hall of Fame. There you go. He has had quite a career, and he's still kicking ass and taking names from what I gather. The five teams seems like a low number of teams, which leads me to believe that the teams that haven't reached out to Houston are teams that believe, A, either he's not really available, or B, the price is just going to be too high for them. I would think there's a lot of B. I mean, you know, I'm the kind of guy that if I know something, it's going to be too expensive. I'm not even going to try to make a call on anything.

You know? Right. You know, when there's something that you really want that you think is too expensive, call me and I'll help you, I'll help you haggle that deal maybe down to a number that you can live with. See, I knew you would be the opposite. I'm definitely going to, I would be your best. You know what? I actually would be a very good agent for you.

And for some of the people that we've worked. worked with, but that's not my job. Because sometimes, and I say that, and I'm being serious here for a moment, and I'm not saying it specific to me, sometimes I think that some of the people that we've worked with over the years don't advocate enough on their own behalf or don't have somebody that advocates well on their behalf. I've never had an agent. You don't have an agent, but a lot of the people that we work with have agents.

I'm not knocking Go ahead Here's the mistake that people make you know advocating for yourself and I've been guilty of this as much as anybody is some people think their good work

will speak for itself and it won't I'm not really talking about a self-promotional thing I'm talking about No that's not even No I'm talking about with your own employer

with with you know with negotiating Yeah, but somebody people think their good work speaks for itself and it doesn't usually. But see, that's the mistake. The mistake is never to ask for what you want to ask for based on what you've done. It's always about what you are going to do and what you are going to provide. You know, that that's a mistake that I think probably a lot of people make is when you go in to negotiate a new deal, a contract extension or an employment deal or whatever,

you know, obviously you get to a certain point and it's about what you've done to a certain extent. But an employer with somebody who, you know, it's a real negotiation, and by the way, the employer isn't necessarily concerned about potentially losing them if they don't agree to the same number. It's about what you're going to do for them. You've already done what you've done. They've already paid you for that. you know, they want to know that you're going to do that plus more. It's advice I got a long, long time ago. And it's always worked out when I've approached it that way.

But back to just the agents, like I've never, I mean, I'm not going to mention anybody by name, but there are a lot of people that we've worked with or people who are in the same business. I would say most everybody we work with has an agent, right? Am I right or wrong about that? I don't even know. I think so. I've never had an agent. I've never had an agent. Now, I can understand having an agent potentially if you are constantly looking for a new gig and maybe outside of the market, you know, and maybe that person can, you know, hey, bring you a deal.

Bring you, you know, a deal from a station or a newspaper or something that you would have never thought about. but being here locally, knowing that I'm never going to move to do this. This was a second professional career for me anyway. I mean, I sort of know all the players, right? So unless I'm uncomfortable. I've had a literary agent when I was writing books a lot. What do they do? What do they do?

Well, I mean, a lot of times publishers won't talk. to directly to writers. Like if you're a writer and you have a book idea, I mean, the way the system works, or at least the way it worked when I did it a lot, is you've got to get an agent because they're not going to, the publishers are not going to take your calls.

Got it. They'll listen to an agent because they figure an agent is not going to waste their time because an agent is not going to waste their own time on a project that they're not going to get paid on. Right. That makes sense. Yeah, so, I mean, you needed agents to open the doors, and that agent brought me some books out of the blue that I never would have thought of.

Right. Some of the books were my ideas, like the book about Extreme Championship Wrestling, that wasn't my idea. That was W.W.E was looking for a writer to write this book. Yeah, well, that makes sense. My agency came to me on that, yeah. Yeah, I mean, and for, you know, take Sports Talk Radio. There are a lot of guys that have gone from job to job market to market, and they've got an agent that's saying, oh, you know what, your deal here is about to end. I got you a deal in Cleveland that's going to pay you 30% more if you want to move there and do it.

You know, that just was never, in fact, it's funny, I think most of the top markets, you know, if you take, say, the top 10 markets for what we do, more times than not, the people, People that do it are either from there or they've been there so long, like in your case, or they're former athletes from that town that are involved in it. And there's actually a link between sort of having a real true understanding of the market and the teams, et cetera, and being able to do it to a level in which you can attract an audience. you know, if you bring somebody in from a different market to do a DC sports talk show, and he doesn't know anything about the skins or wizards or caps or gnats,

and he's starting from scratch, you know, that's hard. It's a hard thing. Just like if you and I went to Houston, be a hard thing. But anyway, I've always felt like, you know, look, the contracts, to be honest with you are so boilerplate. Secondly, the negotiation typically isn't that complex. So why would I want to give four, five, six percent of it to somebody else who probably can't pitch me the way I can pitch me? I don't know. It, you know what? It works differently for everybody, I guess. And people have a certain comfort level and others, you know, are uncomfortable doing that, would rather have somebody else,

you know, sort of an intermediary, and I'm sure that's worked out. Maybe it would have worked out better for me, who knows? I don't know. But anyway, the... So if you were a GM and you knew the price for Deshaun Watson was high, and you knew you weren't going to pay that high price, you would still call about him. Yeah. First of all, I would talk to anybody about anything to learn and use it as, you know, a way to have

as much information about anything as I could possibly have. but you know if they weren't if they're not interested they don't call if they think there's zero chance but they're interested i would call okay i would i'd find i'd want to know what it was going for because i'd want to be able to compare it to anything else now you know the dischawn watson thing really is going to be such a unique thing i mean it will Tommy if he is traded it will be one of the all-time unique trades a top five quarterback at 25 years old. Top five, top six elite quarterback at 25 years old,

who by the way just signed a long-term deal, so you've got him under contract. Yeah, it's not like he's near the end of his deal. Yeah. He's assigned to stay there. Anyway, all right. So let's start with Alex Smith. It's not official yet, as far as I.

can tell. I think it could be official here in the next 24 hours or certainly by the end of the week. Alex Smith isn't going to be here. For those of you who have said, do you think there's any chance they would re-sign him after they release them? I don't. I personally don't. I think they're going to move on from him. I guess Ian Rappaport had the news first yesterday that Washington was going to move on. But Jeremy Fowler was on with me on Friday and suggested that Alex and the team would be meeting this week or his representatives and their representatives would be meeting this week and that, you know, a resolution. And I said, well, what do you think that resolution will be? And he said, I think they're going to release him. This, you know, shouldn't come as a surprise to anybody. There was no way on earth that at $24.4 million, he was going to be here on that deal.

But I think, you know, I think Washington's going to move on. And I would ask you, you know, what I asked actually my callers this morning. and I'll answer it after you do. But the question is, you know, how will Alex Smith be remembered for his time here? First comeback. For his personal comeback, that's it. That's big. I mean, you know, but that's it. I mean, you know, there are people who, I swear, did not watch this team play football

who are convinced that Alex Smith, if he was the quarterback for the Washington football team, they'd win double-digit seasons every year, double-digit wins. Because his one loss record, that's the way we're judging it, is like 11 and 5 or something like that. You know, but it's such a misleading number that is not an accurate reflection of his very, value at quarterback for this team. So I think ultimately he'll be remembered as a terrific guy who had the country rooting for him and therefore Washington football with his comeback. And then once the comeback was over, he's of no use to you anymore.

Now he's just another quarterback. I think we totally agree. I mean, whether it's a year from now, two years from now, 20 years from now, he's going to be remembered for the comeback. He's going to be remembered for the injury and then the comeback from the injury. Yeah. You know, that's it. You know, that's what he's going to be remembered for. I mean, one of my –

And you can't take that away from him. That's tremendous. Coach Thompson, you know, used to have this expression. You know, it's this guy and then you count five steps to get to the next guy. You know, I remember him specifically saying that about several people. but Elgin Baylor in particular. Greatest high school basketball player in the history of D.C., coach Thompson said, it's Elgin Baylor and then you count five steps to get to whoever, whomever is number two.

Same thing with this. It's the injury and the comeback from the injury, and then you count five steps to get to whatever else you're going to think of. Because try to think of an actual on-field moment that was memorable with Alex Smith in his 16 games. You know, I would say that I'll remember them stopping. Pittsburgh's 11-0 start on a weird Monday afternoon in late November, you know, where he started and they were down and he led him back and he had a really good game in the second half and they won that game. And, you know, I'm going to remember that game. I'm also going to remember that

game for the deflection and the interception by Montez Sweat at the end. He doesn't have, he's got the memorable game that he played in was the game that he got injured. in, you know, and that's not to say that he didn't do things here that should be and are appreciated by many of you and me too. You know, he was influential, you know, on the field. He was influential in the locker room. It's a very interesting conversation, Alex Smith in Washington is, you know, because on one hand, I think at this point, and I don't know if we would have definitely said this before this year. But there was a leadership, an intangible locker room influence, positive influence that he had that was important to them winning some games to finish

seven and nine and, you know, luckily being in a terrible division, qualify for the postseason. But if you were watching him play in 2018 or this year, there wasn't at any point, even if you were the biggest Alex Smith fan that you could have said to yourself, wow, he's really good. Wow, they are, they're really good offensively. They got a chance to go to the Super Bowl, or they got a chance to go deep into the playoffs. Not one game that he played before the injury or after.

Would I ever say they were, that he was dynamic or the offense was great with him? Jake Ruden told me, Tommy, on the podcast. He said, you know, what we got was, first of all, great guy, tough guy, you know, a terrific game manager. You know, nothing dynamic, game managing quarterback. Don't turn it over and he didn't that year. And they got up to a six and four start. They were six and four. I say six and four.

Did you notice that? Yes, that's right. Everybody says six and three, but I think if he hadn't gotten hurt, it was six and four. Who knows where it was going? They were down, what? They were down, what, 12 points in that game or something like that? six or 177, something like that. He threw the pick six at the end of the half.

Wasn't one of his better games. But Revere, I mean, look, Alex Smith is a very likable guy. We can assume that. We don't know him, but he seems very likable. From all accounts, he was very important in the locker room. He was, in many ways,

he was a coach's dream. There's no reason for Ron Rivera to disrespect Alex Smith in any way, shape, or form. He probably loved him for a lot of reasons. Yet Ron Rivera came out and said that Kyle Allen could have done the same thing. Okay?

So there you go. That's what the coach thinks of what Ron Rivera really accomplished this year on the field. Yeah, you know, the way you said it, it sounds, I think, more harsh than it really is, but I've referred to it many times, too. Like it was certainly something to, you know, sit up for and say, whoa, because he wasn't asked a question about Kyle Allen. He threw it in there, you know.

He didn't need to. And so, and at the same time, after the first half against the Rams in which, if you had held a vote of the fan base, should he play again, 99.999% of the fans would say, please God, no. And Ron Rivera said, you know, we've seen a lot in practice that leads us to believe that Alex can play. And so he's going to remain the backup. And sure enough, when he came back in against the Giants, played pretty well and then, you know, continued to play pretty well. So again, I go back to the conversation we had the other day. Ultimately, they didn't have to give him the chance. They were taking a risk in giving him a chance.

They gave him a chance in part because they didn't have many options. also in part because Ron Rivera saw something in practice, so did Scott Turner, that they thought he might be able to do this even though they were taking a big risk. And so it benefited both parties. It benefited both of them. And what was really beneficial to both is that he didn't get seriously hurt again. Do you think he'll start someplace? No. Neither do I. And is he going to sign as a backup somewhere? I mean, if he wants to play, then you don't go to Jacksonville with Urban Meyer and back up Trevor Lawrence, even though that seems like an obvious destination because of their relationship. You go to, you hope that Matt Nagy, who

coached you when you were in Kansas City as part of Andy Reed staff, wants you in Chicago and gives you a chance to compete with Nick Foles and anybody else they bring in. You know, I don't see a lot of options for Alex Smith. But I'm also, I would also say this. I don't, I'm not going to, I would never. wager against him starting next year because I would have already lost a ton of money. And I, you know, fool me once, shame on you, fill me twice, shame on me. I hope he gets what he wants. I think it's, I think personally, and my personal opinion about Alex Smith handles his life, it means nothing. I don't know what he's trying to accomplish

at this point. I mean, what he's, what he's been through, um, and everything he went through and to get back on the field, I would take my hand, fold it up, and leave the game. If I really thought I could still play, and at 37 years old, looked around the league and saw these guys playing into their 40s and at a high level, and I thought that, you know, the doctors are telling me I'm getting healthier, healthier and healthier,

and that really next year it's going to be a marked difference between my health this year and, you know, next year and I really love the game and I really love being a part of it. I don't know. I can understand that to a certain degree, I think. I mean, not because of personal experience, but, you know, he's a competitor and he loves it clearly and he likes being a part of the team and he likes contributing to a team. And, you know, look, Tommy, 37 is still really a young person. You know, it's not in sports, but he's a really young person.

And like, you know, is he ready to become a broadcaster or a media guy? By the way, did you see this comment that he made after the GQ story where they took him to YouTube and they opened him up for questions from fans and somebody asked him about the football team being the name? Did you see what he said to that? It was something critical of the old name, right? He read a comment on YouTube and then said, football team is the best name ever. He was being sarcastic. Even if you are sober, you sound like a drunk when you scream football team. And then he said, well, it's better to sound like a drunk than a racist.

Actually, let me clarify that. He was reading a comment on YouTube. The comment was, football team is the best ever. Even if you are sober, you sound like a drunk when you scream football team. and then his response with a chuckle was, quote, well, it's better to sound like a drunk than a racist, closed quote. And then he said, don't know really where to go with this one. I actually listened to it. There was a little bit of a laugh, but it's also clear that, you know, he thinks the name is a racist name,

which I thought of about just him hanging out with Dan Snyder as much as he did over, you know, the last year and a half. and, you know, prior to the name, prior to them losing the name, you know, Dan obviously didn't want to get rid of it. And then given that Alex and Dan became sort of close, I guess, I wonder if Alex had any input on this. Yeah, I wonder too. I highly doubt it. You know, it should be noted. He played for the Chief for a couple years before he came to play for Washington.

It's not like he played for one of the golden teams of, you know, the name. controversy. Yeah, hey, Alex, what did you think? What did you think about the Tomahawk shop? The open 80,000 at Arrowhead, openly mocking Native Americans. How did you feel about that? Whatever. I don't want to get back to just one thing that you talked about, how he'll be, you know,

37, he's very competitive. He still thinks he can play. But nobody, there may be one or two people. in our lifetime, I should be more open to the danger of the game than Alex Smith. Nobody should be more open to what can happen to you playing this game than Alex Smith. And I think to continue that risk based on his knowledge is foolish. you you take this path a lot and by the way i'm not saying that it's not sound advice you know if he were to come to you as an advisor and by the way he's intelligent enough to be able to understand

what you're saying like hey no one should know more than you about the dangers of this game look at how much money you've made why would you want to take that risk but i just think you you you miss on what got these guys to this position to begin with. They're just not, they're addicted to it. It's a rush. I know that. I look at, I covered boxing. I've seen boxers go through this all the time.

Boxers have to be dragged out of the ring. Even when they retire, they all come back and have to look. Nobody knows this better than me. What they should do and what they will do, two different things. Yeah, I think boxing is different than football, though. I think... You're talking about the same idea that people are addicted to it. Yeah, no, that's fair. But what I'm saying to you

is that I think he, you know, I think he likes just being around it. He likes being a part of a team. He likes contributing in a lot of ways, more so on the field than anywhere else. But he wants to continue to be a part of this. Whereas a fighter... So then he'll have no problem being a backup someplace then? Maybe not.

Maybe not. I don't know. I have no idea whether or not he's thinking, hey, I'm going to be better next year and I'm going to be healthier next year. I played pretty well last year, not at 100%. If I'm at 100%, I can be back where I was. The problem with where he was in 2018 is that, you know, this again, sounds overly critical, but he was never a difference maker as a quarterback. He was never a

threat to take a team to a Super Bowl. I know he quarterbacked, you know, in San Francisco and an NFC championship game. And then the next year, the head coach thought it was better that Colin Kaepernick ended up starting. And Kaepernick took that team to the Super Bowl. Alex Smith lost his job when he got injured, never got it back. You know, Alex Smith has been pre-injury. He was a quarterback in that 14 to 18 range. Top, you know, right around the midway point of the league is a starting quarterback. I didn't have a problem when they traded for him, but I did have a problem with the contract extension. That was my position at the time.

I, you know, you and I talked a lot about this. I do think that this was a move made by Bruce Allen, you know, and by the way, we have found out over the years, including a couple of weeks ago with Jay Gruden, that it was made without any sort of consultation with, you know, a Super Bowl MVP quarterback in Doug Williams or a head coach who also was if he had, he had flaws, but one of his strengths was offensive football and quarterbacking. And so, you know, this was made because he was trying to make people forget about how badly they fucked up the Kirk Cousin situation. And again, for those of you that are going to roll your eyes and say, here he goes again, I'm not talking about whether or not you believe Kirk was the right answer or the wrong answer at quarterback.

He fucked it up because he didn't trade him after he franchised him and then offered him 30 million less. He should have traded him when he decided to lowball him for a second time and he realized that Kirk wasn't going to stay. He could have gotten a first round pick from the 49ers. and so when he bungled that, and by the way, was surprised that people in the media were calling him out on it. He was, Tommy, and angry about it, just so you know, angry that people were saying $54 million isn't even close. You're way off. And if you're going to offer that, just trade him. And when you did offer it and then you threw him under the bus, please trade him.

he had to do something in that offseason with or without the, you know, approval of Doug Williams or Jay Gruden to say, hey, don't worry about that other guy. He, you know, I know, he's getting way overpaid. Look who we got. We got Alex Smith. Yeah, you got him for a third and Kendall Fuller, and then you gave him $94 million. Well, apparently, maybe through that whole time with Kirk Cousins, Ruth was busy on the phone calling one of his buddies or texting,

because based on the John Moe conversation, he must do that all the time. Hey, he must be like a 13-year-old girl on the phone with his friends all the time, texting, calling. Well, maybe he wasn't paying attention. John Skipper? Did John Skipper call? Oh, my goodness. That was an all-timer.

We don't know. We don't know if it was him or not. Well, it could have been some... Oh, yeah. It could have been somebody certainly associated with him. For those of you, that is very inside. But there was a certain show that launched on our station several years ago. And it wasn't a show that...

Hallelujah. It wasn't a show that many people were bullish about because there was a lot of an experience, good guys, a lot of an experience. And there was a famous story where the C.E. of the radio station at the time claimed that John Skipper, the head of ESPN, called and said, you can't have this show. And John Skipper claims he never made that call. So there is a lot of thought that maybe somebody within the football organization could have made that call and fooled, let's be honest, a guy that was pretty foolable.

Anyway, that's going to be in the book. That'll be in Andy's book or your column. about 980. You can never... I guarantee that'll be in there. You know, just the chapter is the call. I'll never forget when he asked me.

And I said, I don't know if it was him or not, but you should choose the opportunity. Anyway, he was making a lot of calls back then, maybe. I mean, Andy... I'll tell you who he loved... I'll tell you who loved to have conversations with him. Andy Reid. Andy Reid loved the conversations with Bruce. We got Alex on the books for how much? Yeah, we got to, we're going to, we got to trade them.

Who should we call? Oh, yeah, they just fucked up the cousin's situation. He's going to be looking to cover his ass. We did it with McNabb. Let's do it again. Hey, Bruce, it's Andy. How you doing? Hey, I'm telling you, cousins, I wouldn't worry about that. Alex Smith can play that position, man. He can do it. You guys are, by the way, you guys are close. You're really close. You're close to something there. You got something going on. And you take this veteran quarterback.

What do you need? Well, we, you know, we'll give you a third for Alex. Yeah, we need that good guy, that rookie that played really well. Kendall Fuller. Ah, okay. By the way, because we like Alex here in Kansas City, you should probably give him a big contract extension too. Yeah.

Yeah. Oh, my God. You know, it's funny is that, I mean, that, look, I'm assuming that the whole Bruce Allen, John Moog thing, where they were either texting or on the phone for hours at a time, that that was not abnormal for Bruce. I think that's a reasonable assumption. I think that's the way he is. So it's so ironic that he told Doug Williams not to answer his phone. That is so true. Remember Doug's, Doug said it. He said, I was told not to answer my phone. Yeah, that's because Bruce didn't want anyone interfering with his phone calls.

No. You know, I actually wonder, and I should have asked Jay this, I think I sort of did, though, if you had been consulted, which you weren't, what would you have said? And I think I did, because he said, I liked Alex. I always liked. liked Alex. But, you know, he then went into, but Andy Reid, you know, got the better part of that deal because a lot of people felt there was a chance that Alex Smith would be released. You know, it's the same situation. I've explained this before with Marcus Marriota and with the Raiders. Mariotta's got this contract that the Raiders can't afford, so teams know that. But if there's more than one team interested to ensure that you get them, you're going to have to give up something. Now, the issue I think Jay had is, you know, they can't, you know, they can't. keep him. We have the leverage in the negotiation, which is something that certainly Dan was never good at. Dan didn't even want to think about leverage. Dan wanted to eliminate all competitors by overpaying by a lot, and that's what they did for the first 10 years. And then Bruce actually went the other way. Bruce, you know, offered a lot less, at least on free agents for, you know, bad players. But I don't know. The bottom line is, you know, it wasn't the greatest of fit, you know,

Alex and Jay. No, it wasn't. Just like Josh Norman wasn't the greatest to fit, but I asked Jay about that, and he said, yeah, but we desperately needed a corner. We needed defense. That was one of the other things that we didn't talk about, and Cooley and I didn't talk about it either. Him just really, like I said, what about

Wade Phillips, like instead of Joe Barry? And he basically said, look, we were aging, we were really, really bad on defense. We didn't have anything on defense. He's like, no coach were you going to bring in that was going to really fix the fact that we just didn't have any talent, you know, and that's one of the reasons they

did make the move for Josh Norman. And even though it may not have been the best fit, you know, they needed some talent. And that's, and he said, that's why, you know, John Allen, Duran Payne, back-to-back drafts, more defensive players, we needed to get younger and better on defense because, you know, as he admitted basically, if we had had, you know, an average defense in 2015, 2016, we would have been, you know, pretty damn good team. And they would have been. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, look, Alex Smith, we'll never forget what you came back from. And it is an incredible story, an incredible story to cite with, you know, parents who are telling young people or whatever it is, you know, the resilience thing, the bouncing back thing, the never giving up thing,

all of the cliches that fit what Alex Smith did. But beyond that, I would just say, I was absolutely floored at what you were able to do this year. That, I mean, I was dead wrong, so were so many others, obviously. But you played well. You know, that Detroit game was a good game. The Pittsburgh second half, good game, the Thanksgiving Day game against Cowboys. These aren't memorable games, but, you know, you were a big part of, you know, a seven and nine season that ended up with a playoff game. And look, given the frequency of playoff games, you know, with this franchise, we can name them all, you know, over the last 20 years because they're just haven't hardly been, there hardly been any of them. So if it's another five years before they go back to the postseason, hopefully that's not true, we're going to. going to remember that they, you know, it was Taylor Heineke against Tampa, but, you know,

that team went seven and nine and went to the postseason. Now, real quickly, Tommy, I had several people say that there was a conversation, I think it was on our station, about whether or not Alex Smith is a ring of fame guy. The answer to that is absolutely not. I mean, he didn't, he wasn't, he was here for a cup of coffee, basically. He played in 16 games. No, no, no, no. It's ridiculous. Alex Smith is not a ring of fame guy because he came back from the injury? That's an incredible story. But Alex Smith, I mean, come on.

I mean, does anybody actually get, okay, his overall record of 11 and 5 or 11 and 6 or whatever it was in the games he played in, yeah, comparative to the quarterbacks that have been here under the Snyder era, it's great. How do we do? How many playoff games did we win? Let's put Todd Collins in there while we're at it. He has a pretty good one-loss record. Todd Collins, won four-and-a-half games, basically, in relief.

And, you know, they had a chance late in that playoff game against Seattle. Yeah. So, yeah, let's put Todd Collins in. I think Cousins will be in the ring of fame, wouldn't they? He owns seven franchise passing records. That's true. That's amazing. And that will never happen.

That'll never happen as long as Snyder's the owner. That will never happen. Never. Never happened. Uh-uh. Uh-uh. I wanted to get to your column. I also wanted to share with you a Wilk Chamberlain statistic that I don't know that you've heard about.

And we will do that right after this word from one of our sponsors. So first of all, Tommy, did you know that it was exactly, um, 59 years ago that Wilk Chamberlain had 100 points in Hershey, Pennsylvania. 59 years ago to the day, March 2nd. I'm going to tell you that I did not know that. I stumbled onto it this morning because I sort of got down the rabbit hole, went down the rabbit hole of Wilk Chamberlain statistics. And the reason I did that is because my son sent me this story,

that there was a game that he played on March 18, 1968. I think it was against the Knicks. And somebody went back, and there was a complete highlight film of that game. And back then, steals and block shots were not a statistic that were kept. And so on that particular night, actually, I'm sorry, it was against the Lakers. They went back, and they believed that the first ever recorded quintuple double was found. that on that particular night against the Lakers, the Philadelphia is 76ers at the time. Well, Chamberlain was playing for the 76ers, had 53 points, 32 rebounds, 14 assists, 11 steals,

and 24 block shots. 24! In 48 minutes. I mean, this is a guy who I try to tell people, there's no other athlete like him in our lifetime. 24 block shots? Are you kidding me? A good night for a team is like seven block shots. You've heard the story that when he was 43 playing a pickup game that Magic Johnson was in,

at one point Magic drove on him and managed his score. and I guess there were some, you know, back and forth trash talking, and they will announce to the whole court that nobody else was going to be making a shot down at his end of the bathroom. And nobody did. He blocked every single, well, he blocked every one of magic shots after that. Now, some of them may have been goaltending, you know, under the rules, but no one made it. And he was 43 when he did this.

Yeah. It's ridiculous. I've never heard of 24 block shots by a player. But that was a quintuple double on March 18, 1968. You know, the other thing is we've done this before with Wilt in particular because I don't know that there's any sport, team sport, where the statistics of one player are so much different than the rest of every player that's ever played the sport like there is with Wills. built in everybody else in NBA history. I mean, most of you know, you know, he averaged 50 and 25 one year. He averaged 50 and 25. That was his average, 50.4 points per game, 25.7 rebounds a game. And it appears as if they had been keeping steals and blocked shots,

that he may have averaged double-digit block shots and double-digit steals as well. I mean, this guy is the... His numbers are so astounding that I think sometimes they're dismissed, you know, because of the era. And I point out to people, because I did the research on this, he played against 14 Hall of Fame centers during his career. 14 guys who played center wound up in Naismith Hall of Fame who played against Wiltz. Anyway, somehow I started to go down this path. after reading that thing about the quintuble double and found that it was the anniversary of the hundred point game, which we both know because Sunny told us, Sunny was there that night.

Sonny Jurgensen was there that night. He had played a charity game prior to the game that they played that night against the Knicks. You were not on that Knicks team, but they beat the Knicks that night in Hershey, Pennsylvania, the night that Wilt scored 100 on March 2nd. 1962. Wow. And Sunny was playing for the Eagles charity team at that point. Exactly. Chamberlain in that game had 25 rebounds too. And he was 36 of 63 from the field. So he shot 57% from the field. He was also, for him, this was an aberration. He was 28 of 32 from the free throw line. I was mentioning this morning that if Chamberlain hadn't been such a horrific free throw shooter for his career, he was a 51% free throw shooter for his career. That if he had been just a bad free throw shooter, he would have probably averaged 52 or 53 that year, that he average 50.

It's amazing to look at that stuff. Anyway, you wrote a column. Tell everybody about it. Well, I wrote a column, and, you know, we discussed this a little bit. Yeah, we did. In the previous podcast. And rightfully so, I'll tell you, like, a lot of my ideas I get for writing columns come out of conversations with you that we've had on the radio show and the podcast. I've noticed over the years, but you've never actually acknowledged that. Okay, well, it's no shame in acknowledging it.

I mean, you know, not a lot. Then why is this the first time that you've acknowledged it? I've noticed that over the years. I have said to you, especially when we've been together, that's a column. And I could see you were just sitting over there, you know, typing into your thing. And by the way, to be fair, many of your columns and many of your conversations have then led to topics on the radio show. I would say it's at least a half dozen times a week. I reference you or something you said and an idea that you gave.

But what's interesting is you've never done that for me, and you've never acknowledged it, even though I have read a lot of your columns. And I've said, yep, he got that one when we were talking yesterday. Not a big deal. I'm happy to help. Oh, anyway, go ahead. It must be, it just must be the atmosphere I'm in right now.

Feeling so laid back and generous. Right. But the column is about the Beth Wilkinson report, and last week there was a letter written by the attorney representing a group of the women who have accused the Washington football team of sexual harassment while they were employed there. The woman, the attorney, wrote a letter to Roger Goodell, basically saying, you need to make this report public when it's, when it's, when it's, done. You know, you can't, you can't hide it. It's got to be released to the public. And I pointed out, if it's not, then Jason Wright and Ron Rivera should be the first ones to speak up and say, hey, Roger, this isn't right. You need to make this public because we came in under the cloak of transparency and values and accountability. And we sang those words to anyone who would listen.

And this is none of those. Holding, you know, not releasing that report, it's not accountability, it's not transparency, it's not good values. So I just point, I basically squeeze their, squeeze them a little bit for, you know, for what they, what they proclaimed when they first took over here in Washington. Now, Ron Rivera, he, I mean, I feel bad for him because he didn't sign on for this kind of thing. I mean, this all broke while he was, you know, after he had been hired as a head coach. But Rivera, his public comments made it clear that, you know, people need to be held accountable. And he talked about, quote I use, that he wouldn't put, you know, his daughter works for the team, and he wouldn't put up with something like this when it came to his daughter.

and I pointed out, well, all these women are somebody's daughter. And I just, obviously, do I think they would? Do I think that they would turn around and say, Roger, you're wrong, this needs to be made public? No, I don't. But I just wanted to squeeze them a little bit for what they had proclaimed earlier in case they have to actually defend it. Yeah, I think, you know, we talked about this the other day,

but there may be something that prevents them from being transparent. There may be something that prevents them from making it public, and it may be those women who were, you know, asked to, you know, to be interviewed by Beth Wilkinson, who said, I'll do it on the condition of anonymity, or I'll do it on the condition that my name's redacted, or I'll do it on the condition that this is not made public. I mean, there may be some of that involved. There's many of the women that want it to be made public and transparent, including some of the women who wouldn't mind their names being in the report and becoming public if we don't know them already. There are probably some that want to be protected from that.

It has nothing to do with releasing the public content from the report. I mean, basically you can get around that. And I would think that it would be a very small amount that wouldn't want that report public. Well, I don't know if it would be a small amount or not. I would agree with what you said. there should be a way to get around it. Like, you know, essentially referring to the person who said whatever she said as a Jane Doe, as an example. You know, having non-identifying information in there.

You know, but I don't know. I mean, I understand. It's a league investigation. It's Beth Wilkinson. You pointed it out the other day. You pointed it out in your story about how she's worked for the league before and that you are very skeptical about what you're. going to get from the league and from her even though she has been described as like a first rate investigator attorney, et cetera, by a lot of people out there. But I understand what you're

saying, and I'm not dismissing it at all. If they don't make it public, it'll just be interesting to see what the explanation as to why they can't make it public. Because if it's not a good explanation, then there will be massive demand for it. And I, and I, maybe I'm wrong. And this would obviously be for, you know, lawyers to answer. But I don't know why they couldn't make it public with just non-identifying information. Referring to women who don't want their names made public is Jane Doe No. 1. Jane Doe No. 2, et cetera. I would agree.

I would agree there's a way to do it. And, you know, we have no indication that they won't make it public. But obviously, yes, we do. Yes, we do. That story. Yeah, that story with those women is an indication that they have a sense that it's not going to be made public. Right, right. They have a fear and they felt the need to put pressure on the NFL because they have a fear and a concern that it won't be made public.

You're right. That's true. I mean, I'm sure that didn't come out of thin air that there's a reason for that. Gloria Allred Lisa Banks, all these attorneys, they understand what's going on and they wanted that story out there to try to almost jump. jump, you know, them, you know, announcing that it's not going to be made public. Yes. I think you're right. And I think that was smarter than to do. Because it puts pressure back on the NFL. I don't know if the NFL actually feels that kind of pressure, but it does put the pressure back on them.

Yeah. You did see the Adam Schaefter comment the other day on the Michael Kay Show, right, that he says that Snyder is, there's no chance he will sell the team. on his own volition. Right, but he also did point out, he also did bring up the fact that the NFL, he also brought the Jerry Richardson case as a case where the owner was basically forced to sell. He didn't discount that.

Right. You know, there's so much going on because there's like this culture thing going on over here. First of all, as we, I think we mentioned before, it does seem like the football operation is moving along and that this is not necessarily a distraction to the football situation. Although, to let's be clear here, it may be a distraction to potential free agents and their agents. Agents could be telling, you know, Kenny Goliday as an example. You know, there's a lot of uncertainty on the other side of that building there.

Ron's a great guy. They got a great defense and, you know, they just traded for Sam Darnold or whatever. Or they just, you know, added, you know, Marcus Marriota, or they just moved up to, whatever. But I still think that there's a stigma, you know, associated with it. And I think agents understand that. Like, agents can say to their clients, there's a lot of stuff going on here. And, you know, I don't know if you want to be in an organization where the ownership is squabbling, you know. And there's these investigations about the culture. Like, it may just be cleaner to go here, you know.

So I do think that the two can blend and the two, you know, the, all the best. bad stuff can influence the football stuff. With that said, so the Wilkinson thing is one, you know, and the culture and whatever comes out of that is a big deal. But I still find that this, you know, relationship deterioration between Snyder and the three minority owners and the accusations about a smear campaign are really the most fascinating. to follow. You know, here are all these, you know, billionaires, if not, you know, hundreds of millionaire. I don't know what Rothman and Schar are. Fred Smith and Dan are obviously billionaires. Dan, a billionaire from an overall standpoint, not liquidity standpoint, which I think is an

interesting part of this whole story that we are underestimating. And that is the lack of liquidity that I've been told he has and how he cannot borrow. He can't afford to pay his minority shared holders and he can't borrow to buy them out because he's already reached the point in which the league allows you to finance a certain level of your ownership. But I do think

that the whole Dwight Schar and now Bruce Allen and the Moog thing and the Indian company like this is if Dwight Schar and Bruce Allen participated in a smear campaign where they made up a lot

and used an intermediary and funded this through this company in India, they're going to be in a lot of trouble. Whether it's a civil case or a criminal case, they're going to be in a lot of trouble. Look, at FC Barcelona, it's going through a similar situation where, I mean, their former team president just got arrested, and I'm hoping I get this right, because it is soccer, and I barely recognize it. existed. But they were using their social media account to make up stuff about players who had fallen out of favor with them or, you know, other issues. So they had engineered a smear campaign

against players that is part of the reason they're in big trouble over there. You know, the ironic thing is, and this would be so Washington football. And, And this would be so frustrating for fans that want whatever the end game of all this is they want Snyder out. Okay. This would be, though, the Washington football part that's so bizarre. He could be the victim in this. Exactly. Exactly.

That's my point is that if Shar and Bruce Allen, if they are actually guilty of what he's accusing them of, he's going to win big. Maybe it's some sort of settlement or some sort of civil case, but this is going to be the thing where he says, look what they were trying to do to me. And by the way, all the while we've been making all these changes to fix the culture, and I hired Ron Rivera. What a great man.

And Jason Wright, and we are the, by the way, we are the most diverse organization at high levels of this organization than any in the league. It's... On the other hand, on the other hand, I know we joke about this, but I'm not so sure how far-fetched this is as a defense. How can you defame such a lowly respected individual? By mentioning Jeffrey Epstein in the same sentence with you. Well, I... I mean, that's how. To suggest that you were a sex trafficker.

to suggest that you're running drugs and drug parties and sex parties, which, by the way, is the least amount. Sex trafficking. Jeffrey Epstein ties. Come on, Tom. Here's a question for your next poll, okay? If you knew that a smear campaign would get rid of Dan Snyder, would you approve of it?

If you're a Washington football fan... I think the answer would be yes. Absolutely. Here's another question for you. If they knew that all this resulted. Here's another question. It's not, here's another question for you. Let's say the Wilkinson report doesn't produce a smoking gun, doesn't produce a bombshell.

And there's some discussion about what the organization's been doing since July and Jason Wright and, you know, all of those things. And, you know, maybe they find the organization and maybe they, I don't know, docket at a, of, a, of, a, of, a, of, a, of, a, of, a, of, a. fifth round pick in 2023 or something, whatever. And Dan continues to proceed against the minority owners, specifically Dwight Schar and the company in India and Bruce Allen now. And this produces, you know, the result that you suggested that, you know, they prove in a court of law that these guys set out to fund a campaign to smear him with misinformation. And then let's also say that that case sort of resolves at the same time that Ron Rivera's team next year is 10 and 6, and they've just won a playoff game.

Is there any possibility, at any point for any reason, down the road, where you could see a fan base tolerate him? I'm not saying embrace him or like him, but tolerate him. I have faith in the aura of self-destruction. I have faith that just around the corner, there is a whole new screw-up that we haven't even thought of yet involving this owner and this football organization that will keep anybody from moving on and putting the dark history of this team behind it. You're always one step away with this guy from the next scandal.

So I have full confidence that that will not happen because he will screw up again. Yeah. I mean, no one was ever going to love any of the Ursaes, regardless of the Colts' success. They were never going to get credit for it, right? And really, that's the example, you know, right? Am I wrong or am I missing one? The example of the Bidwell's. The sun is a different, the sun is a different case than the old man.

True. The old man was just a mean-spirited, just, you know. He was, I mean, he had some, well, he picked up a team and moved it from a city that loved it in the middle of the night. You know, without looking anybody in the face and doing it. Bill Bidwell was one cheap-ass owner. But his son, who, by the way, is a Georgetown prep grad here, So was the father. But his son appears to be a decent owner,

and the Cardinals have had some success over the years. But I think also the Arizona fan base, if they had been in St. Louis forever, you know, then they didn't like the bidwills. Nobody did, right? But I don't know, I don't know that there's ever been an owner in football that's been as despised as Dan Snyder.

Angeloos may be at the same level for Orioles fans. And Dolan And Dolan for the Knicks fans Even though the Knicks are playing well Yeah And Steinbrenner was more polarizing Wouldn't you agree or not? Yeah, the Steinbrenner

That's Steinbrenner won a World Series Right Two World Series within the first five or six years He owned the team Right So I mean Cowboy fans don't love Jerry People put up with him

Ah Most cowboy fans Can't stand Jerry They think he's ruined it for them Yeah well they're right. He brought it to him and then he took it away with the whole falling out with Jimmy Johnson.

But are you mean to tell me that Washington fans have to wait until Dan Snyder's son gets old enough to own the team? I don't know, maybe. You know the one story? You know what he's going to do? He's going to hire Dwayne Haskins as a head coach. Boy, you know, sometimes when we have these conversations, even though sometimes there's information that furthers the story,

I sometimes just wonder, like, it's always going to be something to your point. And really, I don't know, this is the off-season, but it's that point in which we're going to start talking about the football team, free agency, the draft leading up to the draft. And, you know, I don't know. Like, I was thinking about, you know, somebody called me at the end of the show that I do with Cooley yesterday,

and said, you know, don't forget about this $1.6 million settlement. You know, that was with the incident on Snyder's private plane coming back from the country music awards in Las Vegas. You know, there was an allegation of sexual misconduct against him specifically from this female employee that was on the plane. The team had it investigated. Remember, inside and outside the organization, the investigation basically said there was no wrongdoing by Snyder.

but they settled it anyway. You know, I'm sure that you get to a point where, you know, even if the results are positive based on an investigation, it's better that it doesn't come out and it's worth $1.6 million to, you know, somebody who's worth billions, I guess. I know that, but that's a hefty price tag for a case, you know, you're innocent. Yeah.

And that's the one that involved David Donovan and, you know, these are, like, these are the stories that I'd like more clarification on. I would think that Wilkinson's trying to get to the bottom of it. I don't know if you can get to the bottom of the settled case, you know, where there is confidentiality, you know, which is part of that agreement, I'm sure. You're not giving somebody $1.6 million without confidentiality, whether you were right or wrong.

Yeah, but if the league is doing the investigation, you would think that they'd be able to pressure Snyder to allow people involved in the settlement to speak. Right. It's all, it's, oh my gosh, I think I'm telling you. It's exhausting in a way. All right, I want to finish up the show with just a couple of thoughts on some hoops. We'll do that right after this word from one of our sponsors.

So I had Phil Schneer on the show this morning, Tommy. I would urge you all if you just go to the radio.com app or the team 980.com and listen to it. I think he's one of the nicest people that we've ever had on or we've had on individually. I just love having a conversation with Phil Schneer. It for me ends up being part of sort of when he played because I remember those teams. The first teams I remember. But I really enjoyed that. You know what he'd be good at?

he'd be good at doing an analysis of Wizards games. He'd be pretty good at that. Yeah. I don't know. I think he's been good at that. Anyway, I was going to mention that the Wizards, go listen to that. Also, by the way, a reminder, if you haven't subscribed, subscribed to the podcast, if you haven't rated or reviewed us, if you could do that as well.

I hear all the time from our group who is helping us, you know, sell the advertising, which we clearly need, that it really helps when you rate and review it on iTunes in particular, if that's where you're listening to it, because that's what essentially drives the ranking, and that helps them sell. So if you could do that, I'd really appreciate it. I know a lot of you did that from the very beginning, and I appreciate it, and if you've already done it, understood, you know, you don't have to do it again. But if you haven't done it, you can take literally 30 seconds and hit five stars,

on the rating and write a quick review that says, love the show, that would be helpful. So I wanted to mention real quickly. So the Wizards, I talked about this with Cooley yesterday, Tommy. They were the wrong side Saturday against Minnesota when they were just a four-point favorite against one of the worst teams in the NBA, if not the worst teams. And they overcame that. They whipped Minnesota. They were a seven-point dog at Boston without Jalen Brown playing. They looked totally to me, like the wrong side, because they shouldn't have been getting that many points. The contrarian in me said, I thought Boston was going to win big. They didn't. They won by a point. Tonight at home against Memphis, they're an underdog. Memphis, who's a 500 team, is a one-point favorite,

and they did beat the Clippers recently, and they ran by the rockets recently. But the whole world's betting the Wizards again. Like the Wizards on Saturday night and then against the Celtics were the public play and they covered. They're the public play again tonight by a lot. And I don't know if the public can win three straight times on a team. I might have Memphis tonight laying the point. And I hate doing that because I'm actually really starting to get excited about this Wizards team in watching it. But boy, Memphis looks right. That little, what I would call strong lean is brought to you by MyBooky at MyBooky.ag. Go to my

bookie.orgie.orgie. Use my promo code Kevin, D.C, and they will match your deposit halfway up to $1,000. I would get on MyBooky right now, especially with March Madness right around the corner, even if you have a site already. You get the free money to play with, and you get a place where you can comparison shop. MyBooky.org, use my promo code, Kevin, D.C. Also just wanted to mention, I know I did this on the podcast a couple of weeks ago. I'm going to read to you real quickly a text from a friend of mine who was close to the Maryland program for years.

And he just, he wrote, look, the Turgeon conversation is fascinating right now. I know you like him a lot, but would you extend him based on regular season success? At the end of the day, it's a March sport, and after 10 seasons, March, Mark has a 2-and-5 record in the Big Ten tournament and a 4-and-4 record in the NCAA tournament, and that can't be overlooked. And then I texted him back saying, yes, and I'll elaborate on that. What about if a guy like John Beeline was available? No, I want Mark Turgeon extended.

I want Damon Evans to extend Mark Turgeon now. I think he should have done it last year. Mark Turgeon, I can say two things and mean both of them. One of them is obvious. He hasn't had enough success in March. For a basketball program like Maryland, one sweet 16 in nine seasons isn't enough. I concede that.

The Big Ten tournament results, to be honest with you, I don't really care about those as much. I think it's fun to watch the big tournament. I want them to do well. The NCAA tournament is what matters. And he's been to the Sweet 16 one time and beat Hawaii to get there. Because Hawaii had a first round upset. And so they were playing, you know, a 14 seed, I think it was, in the second round to get to the Sweet 16 where they lost to Kansas.

I agree that it's not been enough in March. But I also believe this. He's a good coach. and he's a coach that's improving. And last year was a team that I think would have had at least a sweet 16 result, if not further. And right now, he's about to get to the tournament for the sixth time in seven years. Six out of seven. And by the way, the one year they didn't make it, they were within a game.

They needed to win a game to get in, and they lost to Northwestern in that quarterfinal round at the Verizon Center, actually, in the first round of that tournament, and that caused them to miss the only time they've missed in seven years. They're going to make the tournament this year. Even going beyond the fact that this might be his best coaching job, he's a good coach, Tom. He's a good coach. I would extend him, and I would also remind everybody that Gary Williams did not get to his first final four until his 11th season in Maryland 10th. Didn't win the national championship until his 10th or 11th season at Maryland. So I don't know.

I think you can always do worse. I know basketball. I love sports. There's no sport that we talk about on this podcast or on the radio show that I actually am super familiar with how it works. Because I've coached it for 30 years. He's a good college basketball coach, really good right now. and getting better. So no.

And then the last thing I would say, and I forget if I said this yesterday to Cooley, but I would say it to you because I do feel this. I think that sometimes the journey to the tournament, these games like the game Sunday against Michigan State Tommy that was super intense to watch if you're a fan and that win and the win last week against Rutgers and the win against Purdue

and the win against Wisconsin and Illinois, that the casual fan tunes in in March, but somebody like me has really enjoyed the regular seasons. You know, the tournament's won and done. We see upsets in this thing all the time. And who knows, maybe they're the team that's going to pull off an upset or two when they get there, because they're good enough and playing well enough to win a couple of games if the draw breaks right for them. But I love the journey, and I think it's underappreciated, these big games that this coach and this program plays year in and year out in a great league.

And I think it just goes way underappreciated. And sometimes I'm like, just sit back and enjoy it. Last year, winning at Illinois on a Friday night for first place on national TV, winning at the buzzer against Indiana, you know, winning that game in East Lansing when Cowan had three threes in the final two minutes and they beat Michigan State on the road. you know, beating Michigan to clinch the regular season share of the Big Ten title. Like, I don't know, I enjoy that. I want March success too. I want it badly.

And I want it for him. I want it for me. I want it for everybody. But you're just not going to change my mind about him as a coach. I talk to too many coaches who say things like, what is wrong with some of your fans? Do they have any idea what coaches? think of him? He's so well respected.

Let me ask you this. Now, look, I defer to you on this because I've watched marijuana once this year, and you're much more invested in this and much more knowledgeable about it than I am. I would just ask you this. What if you could get somebody better? That's a bit... So I'll indulge that conversation with anybody, and I'll say, so who are you going to get? If you run him, who are you going to get? And you start looking at it. Are you going to get Chris Beard from Texas Tech? Nope. He makes $4.5 million a year at Texas Tech after taking that team to the NCAA finals two years ago in that overtime loss to Virginia. Is he an excellent coach? Excellent. You know what? If Chris Beard said he was coming here, I would certainly consider it. I think he's

great and he's young and the whole thing. John Beeline, is he coming here? You know what? Beeline might want this job if he wants back into college coaching. It's the league he's been in. It's a massive big-time basketball program job. It's important. But how old is John Beeline? How many years do you have left with John Beeline being your coach? You know, are you going to go get Nate Oates from Alabama? Nope, because they're going to tear up his contract and give him a big one too. You know, here's the problem with Maryland. It is a big-time basketball job, Tommy. But, you know, as we've gotten through the last 10 years of the football playoff system,

the amount of dollars that football is generating at football schools allows them to overpay their basketball coaches if they really like them. At Texas Tech, you don't think Maryland's a better basketball school than Texas Tech. But do you think that Damon Evans can offer Chris Beard four and a half million? in a year. He can't. Turgent doesn't make anywhere near that. Where's all that Big Ten money? Yeah, well, it's you know, you got to have a

Big Ten football program like Ohio State. And somebody's mentioned to me, Thad Mata. I don't want Thad Mata over Mark Turgeon. No way. What did he win at Ohio State? Oh, well, he got, he did get to a championship game. He did. He did get to a championship game.

Did he get to more than a championship game? I don't know if he did. or not. I just pulled up his overall record at Ohio State. Missed the tournament his last two years, which is why he ended up leaving. He got to the final four in 2011, 2012, and was the runner-up to Florida, right? They lost to Florida in 2006-2007 with the big dude at center that ended up having the busted up foot. It didn't allow him. Greg Odom.

Greg Odom, thank you. Good job. That's a pretty good record, though. Yeah. I don't want him. I don't want Thadmada. How old's Thadmada? You know, I've heard from various people that there are a lot of people, you know, and names like Thad Mata that would jump at the chance to coach at Maryland. I just don't think that's an upgrade at all. I don't think Mata is. B-Line was always one of my favorite coaches, but, you know, are you going to hire, I mean, how old is John B-Line? He's got to be in his 70s now, doesn't he?

I don't know. He's 60s. years old. What a mistake that was for him to go to Cleveland. For not even a full year, right? Did he even last the full year? I don't even, I forget. I don't recall. He got paid though, but he was getting paid at Michigan, too. I'm happy to have that conversation. I just think when you get down to what's realistic. It's also different, Tommy, than it used to be, because coaches in places where they're comfortable are getting paid. And I'm talking about smaller places. You know, we saw it with Shaka Smart at VCU before he eventually took massive money to go to Texas, right? We've seen it, you know, in places where coaches

are like, yeah, that's a bigger basketball program and a better league, but, you know, they've taken good care of me. And I'm living in, you know, whatever small town with half the cost of living of, you know, Washington, D.C., and they're paying me two million bucks a year. So we've seen less of that over the years where the up-and-comer just automatically jumps at the first gig. You know, and I don't know. Like, I always use NC State as the as my, as my, be careful of what you wish for. Because NC State's basketball fans are very similar to Maryland. You know, they've won two national championships.

They really believe that their program, you know, is, you know, not, it's not a blue blood, it's like in that next tier or it should be in that next tier and it should be competing for, you know, final fours every once in a while and going to the tournament every year. And, you know, they've been, they've been in a period of time where it's been rough for them. I mean, really rough for them. You know, you had Mark Gottfried that got that team to some tournaments and Kevin Keats actually, who's there right now is a decent coach. And I think they're on the bubble right now. But Turgeon's about to take the team to the tournament for the sixth time in seven years. To me, what I want, I want every five years to be in the tournament four minimum.

You can miss one out of every five years. Be in the tournament four out of five years. And at least one of those five, four times, I want us to have a legit final four national championship chance. I think Maryland should be at least that. You know, a team that has the, a team that has the, the talent and has the overall record and seating, you know, and you had that with Gary for a long period of time, even when he was coming up short. You know, Maryland was always one of those teams,

the Steve Francis team, lost in the Sweet 16, but they were one of the two or three teams picked before that tournament to win the whole thing. You know, so you got to have, like last year, Maryland was one of the eight, nine, ten teams thought to be a team that could win the whole thing, and they didn't get a chance to do it, which was unfortunate. But I think, you know, what I I would like is every five years I want to be in the tournament for four out of the five, which by the way, he's doing right now. And one out of every four of those four years at a minute, I want to have a chance to legitimately get to the final four and win a national championship.

And last year, he had that team. So he's actually sort of, you know, doing it right now. He's doing it. And I would not be surprised at all if this team overachieves when they get to the NCAA tournament. It's playing awfully well right now. But matchups are everything. You know, if they end up being an eight-seed, nine-seed, and, you know, they have a tough first-round game. And even if they were to win, they have to play Gonzaga in the second round.

That could be a problem. Gonzaga and Michigan are so good. So good. Michigan, by the way, plays Illinois tonight, Tommy. Top five matchup, another one in the Big Ten. We've had many of them here recently. Illinois just the other day smoked, who did they beat the other day? They smoked somebody the other day.

Wisconsin. They went to Wisconsin without DeSumo, their best player, and won. They play Michigan tonight, and they're an eight and a half point underdog. Actually, I just pulled it up. It's down to seven. It was eight, eight and a half, down to seven. But that tells you just how good they think Michigan is. Illinois's ranked fourth, Michigan's ranked second,

and they're a seven-point favorite right now over Illinois. Wouldn't surprise me if they roll tonight. They're really unstoppable. God, another good Big Ten game tonight, Purdue and Wisconsin. You know what? Scott and I were talking last night, and he said, we're Big Ten people now, aren't we? And I said, yeah, I think we are.

I think we are. What's made it easier is that the Big Ten is much better than the ACC and has been the last couple of years. That's made it easier. Because if I was sitting there in a bad league, you know, I would be, God, in the ACC was the dominant league, I would miss those days. But it's been, it's been interesting. I asked Turgent yesterday on the radio show, Tommy, I said, you know, does the Michigan State game feel different for you and the players? Because it does. it's starting to feel that way for me. Like I really want to beat Michigan State.

And he said, yeah. He said, it's funny. He said there are a couple of teams. Wisconsin, the teams that have been really good since he's gotten into the league, and he's been one of them. You know, he's the second most winning. He's the second winningest coach right now in the Big Ten behind Izzo. You know, B-line would be if he were still there.

And I think Painter's probably third. I'm guessing Painter's third. But, you know, The Michigan State, they don't have a rival yet. They don't. But they've had some big games, man, here over the last several years. Big games. And Sunday's game really felt big, even though both of the teams aren't having the years they had last year.

But it felt big. And watching that game, and I mentioned this yesterday to Cooley, I don't care what the rankings say. And Maryland's just outside the top 25 now. they've worked their way back up into, you know, like the top 30. I think they got nine or ten votes in the AP. If they win both their games this week, wouldn't be shocked if they're in the top 25 next week. But watching those two teams, I can't, I can tell you right now it's going to be, it would be hard for me to name 15, 20 teams that are definitely better.

That's how well both of them were playing going into it. Anyway, I've gone on long enough about this because there are only a few people who care, but I'm glad you stuck with me. What else you got? I got nothing else. I just want to remind people if they want to read my column, you can go to Washington Times.com, click on sports, or you can find it on my Twitter account or my Facebook page.

And actually, I just wanted to let you know that Alvin Walton again has shared my column on Facebook. That's awesome. Really, if I get a kick out of it. That is awesome. Alvin, if you're just reading Tommy, great. If you're listening to the podcast, man, could you hit? You were flying up and you were hitting people. And God, Coach Joe and Richie loved you.

All right. Back tomorrow. And I'm sure we'll have a lot to talk about. I just don't know what yet. Enjoy the day.