The Kevin Sheehan Show - Impressed For A Day

Episode Date: December 2, 2019

Kevin opened with the Redskins win over the Panthers. He recapped the entire game then brought on JP Finlay/NBC Sports Washington to discuss the game and weekend reports about Bruce Allen. Kevin went Around The NFL and talked Terps-Marquette, Alabama-Auburn too. <p> </p><p>Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices">podcastchoices.com/adchoices</a></p> Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You want it. You need it. It's what everyone's talking about. The Kevin Sheehan Show. Now here's Kevin. A Washington team looking for its second straight win and third of the season. There goes McCaffrey in motion to the far side. Alan. Dancing, looking, under pressure, going the wrong way, lost the football. Washington has it. You know, in listening to that play coming into the start of this show, this podcast on a Monday, December 2nd, can't believe December's already here, I just picked something up from Greg Gumble calling the play. He referred to the Washington team there before the snap. Then said Washington again, how often do you say the Dallas team or the Oakland team? Not very often for an announcer.

Greg Gumble, maybe I'm missing something. Maybe call them the Redskins 15 times during the game, but I bet you he didn't. I bet you he didn't. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, whenever you're listening to this show. I hope everybody had a great holiday weekend. I am going to, perhaps at times, sound a bit loopy during this show. Right before the show began, Aaron and I were treated in the kitchen, in this shared office space where we have our studio to some pastries.

The new management team came in, laid out some pastries in the kitchen, and we walked in there, and I grabbed what appeared to be like an apple raisin something, not croissant, whatever it was. It was apple raisin. A turnover. Exactly. And what I didn't realize is I took, you know, multiple bites quickly is that there were walnuts in it. And I am allergic to walnuts. My wife doesn't believe me.

She has occasionally thrown them into a salad just to test it out on me over the years. And when I, she hasn't done it intentionally. We joke that she's done it intentionally. But I am allergic to walnuts. This kind of a nut is a highly allergic nut. I don't have a lot of knock on wood medical related stuff, but I have allergies to walnuts. and so after taking three bites, hefty bites, from this apple raisin turnover, I realized that I was chewing on something hard and swallowing it, and they were walnuts.

So, first of all, to confirm that they were walnuts, I walked downstairs to the bakery downstairs because it came from the bakery that is below us and went right to the counter where I saw apple-wallnut, apple-razen walnut, you know, turnover. I forget what they actually called it in the Frenchmen. bakery. And then I realized I better get some Benadryl in me because my throat was itching up and swelling up, Aaron. But I'm good to go because two Benadryl later, I'm starting to feel a little groggy. I'm not having the allergic reaction anymore. Drink a lot of water. Had some coffee real quickly to go with the Benadryl to see if I could stay awake for the whole podcast. I'll be

fine, people. I will be fine. Could be an interesting podcast, though. So buckle in. It is interesting, though. I swear to God, for the first, I don't know, five years of my marriage to my beautiful wife, who I love so dearly, she just didn't buy into me being allergic to walnuts. For whatever reason, she was very skeptical. And there was one night where I do think that she may have thrown them into the salad, not even thinking about it. And I ate the salad, and they were cut very thin. I couldn't see them. And I said to her, like, five minutes into it, are there walnuts in the salad?

And she goes, oh my God, yeah, I did put walnuts, but you're not allergic. And I said, well, how do you think I know there are walnuts in this salad? My throat is starting to itch, and I may need an epipen injection here shortly. And so had some Benadryl in the house. If you didn't know that, that Benadryl always typically works for those kinds of things. And if it doesn't, you might need a little bit more. But anyway, we're good to go here on a Monday following another Redskin win. two in a row. Credit where credit is due on this particular Monday. And the credit goes to

the Redskins. And the Redskins coaching staff for what happened yesterday. We'll get to the big picture, as we typically do on this show. And J.P. Finley is going to join us on some of the reporting from over the weekend. It started with Mike Garifolo about Bruce Allen potentially being in trouble. A lot of the stuff that we've been talking about here on the podcast. for the last month. But you can look at yesterday and say, wow, they're down 14-0-0 in a blink. It looked like it was going to be another game,

like the jet game from a couple of weeks ago, several games this year, where they weren't going to have a chance that they were going to be beaten to a pulp. There was no indication after the first two drives of that game, down 14-0, that the Redskins had any chance or were even interested in getting back into that game. But they did.

It turned out to be the best game for the Redskins in over a year, at least over a year. Maybe the Dallas game from a year ago at home. The giant game they played in the Meadowlands late October last year, whenever it was, to get to 5 and 2 was a pretty dominant performance, even though score-wise it wasn't. The Redskins won the game yesterday for several reasons, but the number one reason for me is they did it on defense. You know, without the stops when they were down 14-0-14-3,

they would have never had a chance to win this game. The defense, and I'm going to get more into depth on the defense when we get to the game recap, the defense got it started and it turned out to be the best defensive day in a long, long time. Then the offense, the rushing offense, in particular, the running game, the offensive line, not just the offensive line, the tight ends, the receivers, the fullback, they all blocked well.

Dwayne Haskins wasn't perfect, but like last week he made plays, he made key plays, much more on his performance coming up. I even have a grade for his performance. Darius Geis, oh boy, I mean, how impressive did Darius Geis look yesterday? I've had him on my list of very good things the last couple of weeks, even though the numbers weren't necessarily there. You could see in Geist that he had something. Adrian Peterson, how about his performance yesterday? Much more on both of them coming up in short order.

And then we get to what is the mess that is the NFC East. A legitimate mess of a division, the worst division in football. Not even close this year, actually. What division is even close to as bad as the NFC East? There isn't one. The NFC East has a 500 division leader, and then they've got the – in the Cowboys, and then the Eagles are 5 and 7,

the skins are 3 and 9, and the Giants are 2 and 10. There's no division that's anywhere near this bad. I saw that they have a chance to set a new record for worst non-division record in NFL history, or at least since moving to the 8-1-7. So out-of-division games? Yes. Meaning?

Wow. So it's a terrible division, and some of you may be expecting me to spend some time on playoff scenarios. I'm not going to do that. If you didn't know, with four games left, the Redskins are not in the last place. They're in third place in the division, a game ahead of the Giants. They are just two games out of second, and they are three games out of first. I'm going to leave it at that because the conversation, could get crazy right now if I wanted it to get crazy.

But I will save the crazy talk. I will save the crazy talk for next Monday if the Cowboys lose to the Bears on Thursday night football and the Redskins somehow beat the Packers at Lambo. I cannot come up or manage or muster up the level of delusion required to talk about playoff chances for a 3-9 football team, which is still a bad. football team. Even after yesterday, they're a bad team. If you're looking for a change in my mind

because they beat Kyle Allen, no, you're not going to get it. After beating Josh Rosen, Jeff Driscoll and Kyle Allen, you know, they get Aaron Rogers next week. Let me be really clear here for a second. If you are listening to me right now thinking that I'm itching to talk about this team today like it's different than it was a week ago or the week before that, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to recap the game. We're going to talk about some individual performances that were excellent. I'm going to give Bill Callahan and his staff credit, which I'm doing right now for winning a game where they looked dead to right early in the first quarter.

But do not expect me to have any change in my overarching thoughts on this franchise. Don't think that all of a sudden I'm thinking, hmm, maybe they're building something here with this group of coaches in front office. I'm not thinking that way at all. Their wins this year have been close calls against the dolphins and lions, and they did have an impressive win over a 5-and-6 Carolina team

with Kyle Allen at quarterback yesterday, but it was an impressive win because Carolina coming in was a team that turned people over and really got after the quarterback and made things happen, and the Redskins handled all of that. What most of us believe should happen

when this season ends, a complete overhaul of the front office and coaching staff should still happen, regardless of what we saw yesterday. If you're starting to believe differently than you did last week because they beat Kyle Allen and the Panthers, you really should have your head examined. And also understand this. If the owner starts to believe the same thing, then we're going to have the same conversation a year from now when they are four and eight or, you know, three and nine, definitely sub-500 in December. There's no way this team, first of all, even with a massive change, is going to be that much better next year

because they still have a long way to go. But if you somehow get another winner to and the owner's convinced that it's good to bring old Bill and old Bruce back, we'll be having the same conversation a year from today. There was reporting, as mentioned, on the organization by Mike Garifolo on Saturday. Part of it was that Bruce will be among those in the organization who will be evaluated at the end of the year. He also sort of implied that Bruce could be in trouble. We're going to get to that in more detail with J.P. Finley in about 25 minutes or so. If you've been listening to this podcast or listening to the radio show, you know that I've been saying for over a month now that I believe Bruce is going to be done at the end of the year.

Now, I said the same thing last year, and I admitted that, you know, there's probably a good reason to not believe me. But I've had a hunch, sort of an informed hunch, that this could happen. And a lot of, you know, my media friends have sort of suggested to me that I'm nuts, that, you know, regardless of some of the people that I do talk to that are pretty familiar with the thinking inside that organization, they're like they're hearing complete different. things and I said, okay. And what I've revealed to all of you is that I've heard that the relationship between Dan and Bruce isn't quite the same as it used to be and that there are some in the organization. And J.P. Finley wrote this over the weekend, but we talked about it about, you know, two weeks ago, we did a call segment on the radio show that there are people in the organization that believe that they could get a huge revenue boost if they fired Bruce Allen, that people would start

flocking to the Redskins for season tickets. I don't think they will, but I do think there would be a huge social media reaction to Bruce being gone, very positive, very euphoric, very excited, and even optimistic, even though Dan would still be there. Spending money on tickets if he exits at the end of the season? I don't know that it does that. But we'll do more on this with J.P. Finley, and we'll find out what some of his sources are telling him as a well. But they won a football game yesterday. We have not quit on doing game takes, game recaps, despite how bad this season's gotten. So we're certainly not going to quit after they

had their most impressive win of the year. Let's get to the game take. Pay attention. He's Kevin's Game Take. All right. Things I liked, things I didn't like, and then a few more observations before we get to JP Finley. The things I liked list is probably, well, it is. It's the longest of the year for me. And I'm going to start with the defense after the first two drives. It was 14 to nothing in a flash,

and then all of a sudden, the Redskins played dominant, dominant defense for the rest of the game. The Panthers scored 14 points and rolled up 130 yards on their first two drives. After that, Carolina's next nine possessions ended in zero points, four three and outs, 70 total yards on their next nine drives, 70 total yards on 38 offensive plays.

That is less than two yards per play. That is dominant defense. Dominant defense. It was as good as they've been defensively in a long, long time. It's what we thought was possible back in August, but never materialized during this. season. Well, it did yesterday down 14-0. And without it, they've got no chance to win that game. It was the best defensive performance of the year, and there's not even a close second,

and it's the best defensive performance we've seen probably since last October. I'm saying October 2018. They held Christian McCaffrey to 44 yards. They sacked Kyle Allen seven times. They had one interception in the game. It could have easily, and probably should have easily, been three or four interceptions. They had that final sack and forced fumble on Allen on their final offensive snap. Carolina's final offensive snap of the game. They had offensive coordinator and former Redskins head coach, Norv Turner, completely out of sync, completely mystified, completely bamboozled. And remember this about Norv Turner, because we all know Norv Turner very well. coached here for seven years, and what did we always say about North Turner? A lot of people

said about North Turner. Nobody schemes up the first 15 better than Norv Turner. That first drive or first two drives, they're going to move it down the field, they're going to score, and then after that, he doesn't make great adjustments. He doesn't feel the game well. I think that was sort of an overly exaggerated critique of Norv Turner. But yesterday, first two drives, 14-0-0 after that completely outwitted by Greg Minnusky. They had Kyle Allen running for his life for three and a half quarters of that game. We'll get to what they did on offense here in a moment, but the defense was the reason for the win in Charlotte yesterday more than anything else, specifically up front, completely dominant. Pain, Allen, Ionitis really were great. The run stop

all day long, outstanding. The immediate pressure they got from the interior, great. And then behind them, Montez Sweat played well before getting hurt, probably the best half of his season so far with a sack and a half. And then there were the two replacements for Ryan Carrigan who sat out, Ryan Anderson, who was thrown out. We'll get to that later. Montez Sweat, who was hurt. Nate Orchard and Chris Odom. None of you had even heard of either one of them. They got signed last week. Orchard's got some speed.

The two of them combined for three sacks and three tackles for loss. And on that final drive, with Carolina having a first and goal at the one after the pass to DJ Moore, which nearly scored, Orchard had a stop on McCaffrey in the backfield for a one-yard loss on second and goal, and then on fourth and goal, Odom got the sack on a back peddling Allen, and Orchard was there too, and then he recovered the fumble. On the back end,

Quentin Dunbar should have had two picks, was in position for three, didn't end up with any. Moreau and his second consecutive start sort of on the outside had his third interception in two weeks. Should have had another. The first one set up the skin's touchdown in a game that made it 14 to 12.

It was actually ruled a touchdown initially overturned by replay. They marked it at the one yard line. He also had the one in the end zone that was called a pick on the field and overturned by replay. Collins, Landon Collins, active in the box, man, when he's there. He had some blitz pressure too. I think what we found out about Landon Collins in his first 75% of games for the Redskins is he is as billed as an in-the-box around the line of scrimmings. safety. I don't think he's terrible in coverage. He just hasn't made a lot of plays in coverage.

I don't know that he hurts you in coverage, but one thing's clear, is that he is aggressive, he times things well, he anticipates well, he tackles well, and he's really good at the line of scrimmage. He is, despite the money. The key to the comeback yesterday, down 14-0, was the defense. Incredible stand-out individual performances, which we, we just, we've just went through and as a team, just incredible, how dominant they were after the first two drives of the game. Next thing on my list of things that I liked, the rush offense, 248 yards on 30 carries, 8.3 yards per carry. On any other day, we would be talking endlessly about Darius Geis because of how good he was yesterday. But that would be dismissing Adrian Peterson's,

Adrian Peterson's incredible day too. Because he had 99 yards on 13 carries with a touchdown, while Geis had 129 yards on 10 carries and two touchdowns. Geis has exceptional vision, patience, he's got quick feet, and my God, is he powerful. How many yards does he get after contact? A lot of yards after contact. He's been very impressive the last two weeks. He had the 60-yard run on their first.

scoring drive yesterday. His best run and best stretch of running came on the best drive of the day, and maybe on the team's best offensive drive all season long. It's 15 to 14 early fourth quarter. They take over on their own 33-yard line. First of all, Haskins on a third and two, third, and three scrambles and slides away from the blitz to pick up a first down, really good play by him. And then it's the Geist Show. First and 10 at the 46 breaks a tackle at the line of scrimmage, and then absolutely runs over a safety for nine yards. Then on second and one, he breaks another tackle at the line of scrimmage and gets eight yards. And then the next play was his best run as a pro.

It was the best run for Redskin this year. First and 10 at the Carolina 38, 15 to 14, this is what Darius Geis did. Geis with 91 yards rushing today. going to try to add to it here and does to the 30 stiff arm 20 10 inside the five and goes out of bounds short of the low line what a run what a run indeed he got a great block from his tight end henchis he's number 88 he's been with the team for several weeks now he sealed the edge then you get this incredible block by the fullback number 45 burton if he didn't know who he was Mike Burton, and then he stiff arms, not some slump, but he stiff arms Shaq Thompson, and then carries the DB nearly into the end zone. They called it a touchdown on the field. The review came back.

They marked it at the one-yard line. He scored on the next play. 22 to 14. Felt like the game was over at that point because Carolina couldn't move the football. Geis is getting the chance to play, and he's making the team look pretty damn good. Pretty damn good for picking him. You know, I was not a guy that really thought that Geis should be the guy in that second round. There were backs that I liked. Carrey-on Johnson, you know, Barclay, obviously.

I loved Carri-on Johnson, and there were reports that the Redskins were going to select Carri-on-Johnson, but the Lions picked them right before the Redskins pick early in the second round. Then the Redskins traded back and got Geist. There were other backs I liked. Somebody tweeted, oh, you're wrong about Geis, too. just like you are about Haskins. No, I was not a Haskins fan coming out of Ohio State. With Geis, it was just a matter of I liked five or six guys more.

I liked Chubb more. I liked Michelle more. I liked Barclay more. I liked Kerry on Johnson more. I liked the kid from Northwestern, Justin Jackson more. And there was maybe another one or two, not Penny. I didn't like Penny more than Geis. Ronald Jones went before him.

Ronald Jones went before him. I was not a huge Ronald Jones guy either. coming out of that draft. Cooley and I did all those shows, and we talked about Geis, and I said, you know, first of all, he's injury prone. Secondly, he's just not as good as these other guys. If they got him in the third or fourth round, I wouldn't hate it. They got him at the end of the second, which, you know, was decent value for Geis.

A lot of people thought Geis could be one of the top three or four backs picked in that draft. What did he end up being, he ended up being like the fifth or six. back. Like, he went well. I mean, there were other teams that felt the same way, you know. And let me find that real quickly. Well, part of it was also the all the draft day stuff with Geis. Yeah, right.

Remind me of what that was again. There was. Yeah, there was talk about him getting into a fight. There was a lot of off-fields of it. And some people were actually reporting it, and it turned out that almost none of it was true. So six running back. were taken before Geis. And there was a moment leading up to that draft where Geis was thought to be

potentially the second back after Barclay. So other teams saw them drop too. And the Redskins again, Adam Schefter reported this on draft night. Carry on Johnson went to the Lions, the pick before the Redskins had. And then the Redskins didn't get Johnson. They wanted Johnson, according to Schefter. They traded back. They got Geist. And they really did let you know that they thought they had stolen somebody. And you know what? Maybe they'll be right. But just to be clear, it wasn't that I didn't like Geis. I just liked other guys more.

With Haskins coming out of the draft, I didn't think he was a first-round guy, and I was not a fan of the Redskins drafting him. I've changed my tune on that one to a certain degree. We'll get to Haskins' performance. But my God, Geis, wow. I mean, really, he is really starting to look like somebody who texted me and said, please don't use my name because a lot of people out there know him, but I really respect his opinion. And he said he's got some Marshawn Lynch in him. And you know what he does? He's low,

powerful from sort of the waist down. You can see it. He's got incredible leverage. He gets three, four yards when he should get nothing. He gets two yards when he should get minus two. We've talked about that the last couple of weeks. If you want to get excited about anything next year and beyond. You know, he's got to stay healthy and that's a big, big if. But if he does, Darius Geis can play. That position running back for most of us, you don't have to be full-on expert to have an opinion on that. Most of you would agree watching as much football as you have over the years. This guy looks the part so far. A big part of the success of running the football yesterday was the offensive line, especially the interior, where Eric Flowers is quietly,

not even quietly anymore. He's arguably their best offensive lineman this year at guard. You could maybe make the case for Chase Rurie. Did I ask Cooley this? I think I did, you know, either the last time he was on or the time before. Flowers, you could make the case. They need to resign this dude and bring him back. The tight ends blocked well in their heavy package, Bergstrom blocked well, the wide receivers block, and then you got the fullback out there for, I don't know how many snaps he was out there. Whenever he was out there, he blocked. What a day running the football for the Redskins. When they ran it late, it really was one of those situations late in that game where they're running it at Carolina, and Carolina knows it's coming,

and there's nothing they can do about it. They have taken the will of the Panthers defense, and they are shoving that ball in the running game right down their throats. It's the kind of football Bill Callahan wants to play. I'm going to give him some credit the last month and a half for making it a priority and sticking with that run yesterday even down 14 to nothing. Last thing on my list of things that I like the list. Tressway. Oh my God. He had a 79-yard pump late in the third quarter, Aaron.

talked to Larry this morning. He said the wind was swirling a little bit so it wasn't into the wind. It was an unbelievable boot that they let sort of go bounce at the 20. It ended up bouncing into the end zone for a 79-yard punt. It's only the second touchback of the year for Tressaway. That's it, too. And one of them came on a 79-yard punt. Who thinks in that moment punning from your own 10-yard line? or wherever he was standing, that you're going to actually end up kicking it in the end zone. He is, to me, the best punter in the league. He's not leading the Pro Bowl voting. Morsted is out of New Orleans.

He should be the Pro Bowl, or he should be an All-Pro. He leads the league in average. He leads the league in net. There's nobody close to him this year as a punter. And if he does not get named All-Pro, the Pro Bowl is different. if he does not get named all pro, there is a bias out there on the Redskins. I'm sorry. There's nobody close to this dude this year as a punner. Certainly not in the NFC. All right, the list of things I didn't like. I didn't think that the pass protection was very consistent.

There was immediate pressure early in the game. I don't know how much of that was pre-snap, you know, Haskins' responsibility versus Chase Ruehier, you know, responsible. I really don't know. I just know that there was too much pressure on Haskins on many of the called pass plays. Now, I'm going to do the Haskins thing in a little bit. I did think that he bailed out of the pocket on a couple where he was protected well, but I think some of the early pressure in particular may have influenced that behavior. He got sacked five times in the game. The first one coming on the first offensive drive of the game, it was the second snap offensively for the Redskins, and Adrian Peterson just completely whiffed on Eric Reed,

who was blitzing. That play resulted in an eight-yard loss, and I think maybe he felt the early pressure, and that's what forced him to react at times during the rest of the game with sort of get out of the pocket maybe faster than he needed to, which may have cost him some really good plays. But the pass protection at the very best was inconsistent yesterday. Special teams other than Tressway were not very good. And that comes a week after they had a great day against the Lions. But they had a field goal blocked at the end of the first half. And then the Redskins just cannot return a punt very well. They are second to last in punt return average this year. The longest punt return of the season for the Redskins is 15-year.

guards. That's it. Sims is better and more capable, I think, than Trey Quinn is, who's really not very good as a punt returner. Quinn got knocked out of the game, and that leads me to the next thing on my list of things that I didn't like. Ryan Anderson getting tossed out of the game for his hit on Greg Olson, while D'Andre White's helmet-to-helmet, brutal hit on Trey Quinn on the punt return. Defenceless was a joke. How D'Andre White didn't get tossed, but Ryan Anderson did, was ridiculous. Ryan Anderson tried to avoid helmet-to-helmet on his hit on Olson. Olson ducked his head, making the head-to-head contact inevitable.

And Anderson got tossed? Really? I don't have a problem with Anderson getting flagged and penalized 15 yards. Getting thrown out and D'Andre White for his brutal hit on Trey Quinn. He doesn't get tossed? That was a joke. The officiating wasn't the worst I've ever seen. However, the worst and most disgraceful performance by an officiating crew this year was Scott Novak and his crew in Charlotte because of the following.

Every single call that had complications to it, you know, we got to check to make sure we got that one right, that we enforce the rules right. Every single one of those plays, and there were several in the game, led to a three to five minute conversation. They were unclear on penalties called, unc cleared on certain touchdown calls, and then they huddled and huddled and huddled. That game lasted three hours and 32 minutes. If it had gone to overtime, we were looking at four hours plus for that game. It was all due to an absolute amateur job by Scott Novak and his crew.

not the calls. They had some bad calls. Don't get me wrong. But it was when they were trying to get things right and figure things out, it took them way too long to do it. Callahan's clock management at the end of the first half was not very well done. First of all, the Redskins had an opportunity. When McCaffrey got stopped with about two minutes and 30 seconds to go on a third and 18, and he had a three-yard catch and it immediately tackled. Callahan had a chance right there to call his first time out, which would have given the Redskins 30 seconds or so, 25 seconds or so, before the two-minute warning to drive and potentially get a touchdown out of the drive. And they did ultimately get a field goal attempt. But, you know, Callahan looked confused. If you're watching him on the sideline, this is, you know, God, bless his heart.

I mean, this is not something he's done in a long time, and he's not very good at it. We saw that last week kicking a field goal with 20. seconds after calling a time out with 20 seconds against Detroit. You can see the confusion on his face. You can see almost the regret that he's got to figure something out clockwise at the end here at the half. I don't know why he doesn't have somebody just making the call for him on this stuff, but he's clearly lost. And, you know, if he said to me, hey, I heard your criticism of the end of half, but I just want you to know that we just were not very confident in our offense.

you know, sustaining a drive at the end of the half. And I thought it was better to get to the two-minute warning and take a couple of chances. And if it worked out, we would go for it. If not, we would rather the half, you know, we'd rather the clock run in the first half. So Carolina didn't have another opportunity. If he said that, I would say, hey, that's a good explanation. I appreciate that. But my sense of it was he just didn't know what to do.

Redskins got the ball back. They did drive it. They ultimately had, you know, the end. ended up using all of their timeouts on offense, but they should have had more time to really go for it. There was also a time in that final moments of the first half where Haskins got sacked by Bruce Irvin and Ruey recovered the fumble. And, you know, old man Callahan just sat there and watched the clock, you know, burned five, six seconds before calling a timeout before what was a second and 18 play. So he cost himself some time there. Ultimately, they have,

had, you know, an OPI on Sprinkle, which knocked them back even further. So they're going to end up kicking a field goal, which they did and it got blocked. But he seems uncomfortable with the clock management at the end of the half in games so far here. All right, a couple of things real quickly before I get to Haskins. Number one, that was the longest first half of the year for Redskins game. May have been one of the longest halves of the year in the NFL. The halftime came at 248 p.m. Usually half times come at 220, 225 p.m. 230, 2.3 p.m., 2. 48. Longest first half. It may have been the longest first half in the NFL all season. I enjoyed seeing Chris Thompson back on the field. I know some of you don't want to see Chris Thompson on the field because you don't

think he's going to be back next year. He could be back next year. Remember this. He's had injury issues. He's not going to be like super sought after by other teams. That's my guess. But I get it. If you'd prefer to see Geiss or even Smallwood, who was inactive, that's fine. I just like Chris Thompson. I like him personally. I like him as a player.

I'm glad he was healthy and back on the field. All right, on Haskins. So let me sum it up this way. He made progress. He took another step forward. The discussion about him early in the season being unready, you know, being, you know, slow to learn the playbook. and, you know, all of the concerns and angst over how a game wouldn't be managed properly

and how, you know, he would be embarrassed and the team would be embarrassed if he were out there and that his psyche was so fragile. And, you know, we had all of the talk from the national media about what damage the Redskins had done to this guy by playing him against the Giants as the backup quarterback. I mean, please, all of the former players, Clinton, Smoot, Santana, all of them saying, Joe Thaisman, say, no, got to say. sit him for the whole year. Well, I mean, I think we know enough now to know that that that was silly, really silly. Should have been in there back in September against the Giants after the Chicago game.

And he'd be further along at this point. This dude, his makeup is not, I play poorly and I'm going to lose all my confidence. That's not him. I think we've seen that. You know, I had people tell me last week Jason Campbell's a good comp. No, he isn't. You would have to be. You would have only think Jason Campbell is a good comp if you've never competed in your own life at anything. This guy is a competitor. He's got an edge to him. He's got some confidence. Some of it could be lacking in self-awareness kind of confidence. It could be exaggerated. But this guy doesn't have a fragile psyche. That's not him. And he last week, I thought, played better than almost anybody else thought. He was very good in the final two drives. Let him to two field goals,

ultimately to the win. I thought he was better than people thought leading up to that. Didn't think he was great. And really, where I am right now is I am much more intrigued than I was before the draft, after they drafted him, before training camp started. Most of you have gotten that sense from me. I am intrigued by him. I think there are things he does well that would contribute to him potentially being a much better quarterback than I ever thought. He's more mobile. He's got much better pocket awareness. He's a good extend the play quarterback. He's good off schedule. He competes his ass off. He faces adversity pretty well. He has an urgency to him as the starting quarterback that isn't necessarily reflected in his personality when he's just speaking at a press

conference. You know, I mean, he has managed these games well. All of the concern of they're going to look like, you know, an amateur high school offense because he's not. not going to be able to call the plays and they're not going to get snaps off and they're going to take delay game penalties and they're going to use up all their timeouts. None of that has happened. None of it is materialized. All of the fear over that was unfounded. He should have been playing much earlier, period.

Now, what he did well yesterday is, you know, he had a day statistically that people are going to say, oh, look at his numbers. Look at his numbers. I don't look at numbers only. I look at numbers, don't get me wrong. But I look at the eye test for me more than anything else in any of these sports. Dwayne Haskins had a 9.7 QBR. How many balls were just flat out dropped?

McLaurin dropped a deep one. That's a 40-yard plus play. Kelvin Harmon tried to one arm or one hand to catch that was ridiculous for him to do that. It was right there. He had a good throw to sprinkle that was dropped. He had at least four drops that would have put. potentially ended up in a day where he went 17 of 25 for like 200 and something yards. If people are really hung up on that.

I thought he managed the game well. I thought he really extended the play well. I thought he was very good under duress most of the time. He had some very good throws and big plays on the few third downs that they converted. Didn't convert a lot of third downs. Could have converted more had the receivers bailed him out. Remember last week the receivers bailed him out against Detroit. on some inaccurate throws.

Well, yesterday, he was accurate most of the day, and the receivers didn't help him out. The two criticisms that I would have of him yesterday is, number one, I thought he bailed from the pocket too quickly at times, and I think it was because he was under duress on a lot of plays, and I think it influenced his thinking. And I think any time he thought he had gone past the time allotted, he immediately started to look to run from the pocket,

and I thought there were opportunities in the second half or if he had hung in the pocket, he had a big play opportunity. I also think he looked off receivers that were open too often yesterday at times. There was a play in the red zone where Sims was wide open. He looked it off. He should have thrown it. But that happens with all quarterbacks. I like the progress he's making.

I feel confident in his confidence. He's not a guy that is going to wilt. you know, he's not a guy that's going to walk off the field after, you know, a bad series or two thinking that he can't do it. He's making progress. I'm still in that mode that I was in before the Buffalo game, which is I predicted that I would be intrigued at times, but also that I would learn enough or watch enough to be intrigued but not convinced. I'm still in that mode, but you guys are missing.

It's noticing it if you don't see that he does certain things well that are crucial to being a good quarterback. And many of those things he does naturally. It is just his 19th start, I think it is, since high school. I am continuing to look forward to each and every one of his next football games to see how much he progresses. It was a step further game, a step ahead of where he was last week game. I give him a B-minus on the game yesterday. I don't look at the numbers you can. That's your prerogative.

I look at the performance. I saw a guy that made more progress, is getting more confident, plays with a sense of urgency, plays with real compete. And is he going to be a franchise quarterback? I don't know. I'd still probably bet against it, but there's a lot more. to this kid a lot more than I thought there was last April. All right, quick word about my bookie.ag.

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You can't rely on anybody. Don't forget where you bet is very. very much as important as who you're betting on. MyBooky.ag is one of the best in the business. I wouldn't recommend them if they weren't reliable. Go to MyBooky.orgie.org, use my promo code, Kevin, D.C., they will double your first deposit. MyBooky.org, my promo code, Kevin, D.C., they'll double your first deposit. You play, you win, you get paid at mybooky. at g. All right, let's bring in J.P. Finley, who covers the team, of course, for NBC Sports

Washington. First of all, before we get to the Garofolo stuff from Saturday and some of your stuff, some of the stuff we've both been talking about for a month now, what did you make of the game? You know, I think that was by far the Redskins' best game of the 2019 season under either head coach. I know that there are always going to be fans that are worried about the draft pick and they shouldn't win game. But I think that win has real value for the organization, for young players that are learning how to be professionals. I think, you know, they were on the road and down two touchdown. They were down 14-0 in the blink of an eye. And they stuck with

their game plan. The defense made some adjustments, started to play much better. The Panthers very stupidly got away from running Christian McCaffrey. I don't understand that, but that helped the skins, too. And I think that win yesterday really holds importance for Dwayne Haskins, for Terry McCorren, for Darius Geis, for, you know, Fabian Moreau. And I think if you wanted to be mad after the Lions win where the team didn't look very good, the other team was worse, that's one thing. But yesterday, I said it on my podcast. Like, Skin fans should smile this. week. They played well. Their young guys that they're counting on looked good. Yeah, I mean,

I don't disagree with that. I'm not going to get carried away here and talk about it being a roster so attractive that, you know, people are going to fight over each other to become the new general manager and new head coach. I don't think it's that. But the young players that we've all wanted to see, I've wanted to see Haskins for a much longer period of time. I think all of the discussion, JP, early in the season and all of the angst and, you know, was clearly unfounded. It was exaggerated, some of the, you know, some of the things that we were hearing about his unreadiness. You know, it's been no less professional in terms of the operation than it was before he started games. And we're learning a lot about him, you know, each week. So, yeah, I mean, you

There's that. I would, at one in nine, I was hoping for one in 15 in the number one overall pick and turning it into, you know, basically Fort Knox in terms of what you could bring back for the picks if you decided not to use it. But one of the things I've been pretty consistent on is if they do win games, it better be with their young people playing. You know, it better not be with people who aren't going to be here next year. And they've won two in a row, you know, yesterday very impressive last week, you know,

against Jeff Driscoll. but they're doing it with a lot of their young people. And I think that, you know, there's no reason not to be encouraged by that. And I think that that's not a terrible thing. Yeah, I'm with you. I think, like, I won't even entertain the playoff scenario discussion. I think all of that is crazy. But I think, you know, football season are long grind, and it goes for months.

And I think the players needed that. I think Dwayne Haskins, I'm not sure he's good, but, you know, I wrote a story on NBC Sports, Washington, that if you look at Dwayne's performance against the Panthers yesterday, don't look up Alex Smith box score from a week five win in 2018 against the Panthers. They threw for almost the exact same amount of yards. I think Smith finished with 160 and Haskins finished with 150. If you look, I mean, Haskins for a few. few weeks now, I've been talking about what an important mentor and role model Alex Smith

is becoming for him. So consider that. Consider that Haskins is kind of doing the Alex Smith role right now where he's just trying to manage the game, not turn it over. You know, the passing off wasn't very explosive yesterday, but they were so good on the ground and the defense played so well that Haskins gave them the exact performance they needed. And That's what Alex Smith did last year when everybody was, at least everybody in Ashburn was celebrating the six and three start. It's interesting. I didn't even think about the Carolina game from a year ago.

And what I remember from the game is that Carolina had a ton of turnovers in that game. And it was a one-sided turnover match, as was a lot of that, you know, six-and-three start. Like every break, you know, sort of went their way. And I remember, you know, Cam has. having them on the doorstep of taking the lead very late in that game after the Redskins had built, you know, a sizable lead in that game. But I didn't think about it in terms of Alex Smith. But, you know, the interesting thing is if you think about Alex Smith, it took him a while and he wasn't even there when he got hurt to get comfortable. You know, he never did get comfortable.

So, yeah, I just pulled up the box where. I just pulled it up. 21 to 3600. 163 yards, two touchdowns. He was sacked three times. And obviously, Haskins didn't have the TV, so that's a big hole. But they were running the wall. I don't care about that. They had three rushing. That game was three turnovers.

Carolina had three turnovers. The Redskins didn't have any in that game. And still the Redskins were hanging on for dear life, you know, at the end of that game. I mean, I think it's funny the 2018 season. I mean, my opinion in the moment and it hasn't changed is they weren't anywhere near as close as they thought they were. They were hitting that inside straight through seven, eight, nine games. Sure. I mean, they were on pace to be the playoff team wild card weekend that you are thrilled to bet against and make some cash.

You know what I mean? No doubt. No doubt. That's a great way to put it. Like every wild card weekend in January, there's a team that's in there that all of us, us know from watching them all year, they can't win a game in the postseason and you short the hell out of them. And the Redskins would have been that team had they even made it. I still think it would have been really difficult with the schedule that they had with Dallas coming up on Thanksgiving,

Philly after that. I still think it would have been very difficult for them to even have made it. I don't know. I think they were at six wins already. They got one with Josh Johnson playing in Jacksonville. It was down to the wire in Nashville. I, I don't know. I, I think wasn't there an awful Giants performance in New York? I think it could have looked a little different. But, I mean, who cares now? Yeah, I mean, it's beside the point. But they were six and four, really, you know, after the Houston game because Alex was

in the midst of a terrible game. I don't know. I think they would have gone to Dallas and Philadelphia and lost him in six and six. And maybe they win three of those final four. Maybe. I mean, they were down 40 to nothing to the Giants. So you probably lose that game. But maybe you beat Jacksonville, Tennessee and close with a win over Philadelphia.

for you to get to 9 and 7 and close them out. I don't know. It doesn't matter. They weren't doing anything. Sure. But the only, that Giants game, and I feel like I probably said this to you, that team 100% quit on the field as soon as Mark Sanchez threw that pick six. They

knew they had no chance of winning with Sanchez on the field. I think that would have been very different even if they just had Colt. When you quit, you're down 20 to nothing in the third quarter, when you're going to lose that game, period, no matter what happened, you're down 40 to nothing at the beginning of the third quarter.

The Giants were playing well, if you recall, at that point, you know, last year. They had started to sort of put it together. It's one of the reasons I sort of were, I had this sense that the Giants might actually be decent this year, you know, because they had won, in fact, I just pulled up their schedule from last year. That was their fourth win in five games. They had just beaten the Bears who were really good last year. So they were playing well. were better than the Redskins at that point. But yeah, probably would have been different than it was

with Sanchez because Sanchez was just terrible. But anyway, let's get to this Garifolo stuff. And then your follow-up reporting. You and I have had multiple conversations over the last month. You know my position. I have had this feeling, this sort of informed hunch that it was going to end for Bruce this year. I was dead wrong last year. And I, you know, and I may still end up being dead wrong this year. Garifolo came out and sort of implied that he's in trouble, implied there's going to be this evaluation, et cetera. Tell me your thoughts, your reporting where you are today on all of this. Yeah, I'm kind of with you. I think it's important to point out that this top-to-bottom evaluation happens every year.

Happens every year, right? And it probably happens across all 32 teams, frankly. But for years and years, Bruce has not been – he's been – the one kind of doing the evaluation rather than getting evaluated. And I think that's going to be very different this year. I think a lot of it is on the business side of thing, Kevin, just that they can't get anybody in FedEx Field. I mean, you can't get fans in the stands.

They can't post a picture of various guys on Instagram without getting the hashtag. You know what I mean? Like, it's just, it's gotten to, I might think, a breaking point. And last year, whether real or perceived, they did at one point have a six and three, six and four record. They were in first place in the NFD East. And that was something you could say, hey, I don't know why they're, I don't get why everybody's mad. We're in first place. This year, I mean, fired ahead coach, you're three and nine.

At best, I think they're going to go five and eleven. And I just think there's just two. much has happened for Bruce to remain kind of bulletproof like he has in the Scott McClellan situation, the end of the Shanahan era, you know, hiring J. Gruden, firing J. Gruden, all of these things. I also think the way the Trump William situation has gone and just how awful it all shook out, I think that's a big factor. I think there's just too much stuff going on to be ignored or to be talked around and I just wonder if it's if here's the thing and I've talked to people right I've talked to informed people but I've never talked to Dan I don't know what Dan Sider thing directly on this

thing so ultimately it can be his call I know that there are minority partners you know business partners of his that are frustrated with Bruce but it's Dan's call and unless you know somebody talking directly to Dan, you don't know exactly what's going to happen. But I think there is a greater chance of Bruce Allen's departure than ever. Yeah, I do too. I think that the notion that somehow it's going to result in a revenue boost is wishful thinking, but I do think it would result in a huge social media reaction that would be euphoric and would feel satisfied, satisfying for the fan base. It is incredible to think that maybe Dan, you know, on December 2019, is just sort of being clued into how much his fan base considers Bruce Allen to be

enemy number one. I mean, it's been that way for several years running. It really would seem impossible to believe that, and I don't believe that. But, you know, to your point, it's one thing for Philadelphia fans to take over the park at the end of this season. It's one thing for your opener to have 50,000 against the Colts last year, or to have a half-filled stadium as a six-and-three team against the Texans. It's even, but it's worse to have basically 10,000 people there that are your fans with tickets being sold on the aftermarket for $3.00. You know, so, a lot of that, and I think the Trent Williams thing had something to do with this, too. Not that McLuhan shouldn't have had something to do with it, or La La Famina, or the handling of the cousin's situation,

or the winning off the field comments, or the damn good culture comments, or the hiring of Jay Gruden, or the keeping of Jay Gruden, or the Alex Smith contract extension, we could go on and on. Or, by the way, just the record, 6296 and one. You know, a 395 winning percentage. All of that should have been, like, major. major, you know, reasons for Snyder to have moved on a long time ago from Bruce. But you forgot to me what is number one on that list, zero playoff wins. Zero playoff wins in a decade. Yeah, two playoff games in the decade, you know, two. Yeah, I think it's coming too. I've had that

hunch. I know you have sort of had a similar hunch as well. I think a lot of our media friends have heard from a lot of them that say, you're nuts. It ain't going to happen. Who are you talking to. But anyway, despite that, I won't believe it until I see it. Because one of the things that you still have in play here is four more games that they're going to play. And God forbid, they win two or three of them. And Geis and Haskins and McLaurin and the defense all a sudden start looking really good. And Dan says, all right, let's roll them all back one more time. I think we can make a run with this group because that's in play too. I think it could be.

I don't think those results are likely. Well, of course. You know what I? Yeah. But that said, to your point earlier about, you know, I don't think there would really be a business bump. Here's my scenario. You get to the end of the year.

Let's say they get one more wins to finish four and 12. They're picking third or fourth in the draft. You bring in a new GM. got Haskins, Geis, McCorrin, all these reasons to be excited. I absolutely think people will be buying tickets again. I don't know what type of jump that would be, but the euphoria, if Brouselan is dismissed, is going to be significant. I mean, not to sound ridiculous, but I think the reaction in town will be similar,

not to, like, the caps and the Nats winning at all, but to everything but that. Like, you know, we talk about Wizards' second round playoff success, those sorts of things. Like, the Bruce Allen reaction would be bigger than that. It'd be bigger than everything in D.C. except for the captain that's winning the World Series of Stanley Cup. And I think that would have a tangible effect. Yeah, we can agree to disagree on that. I agree that the reaction is going to be euphoric and it's going to feel satisfying.

I disagree that it's going to translate into some meaningful, you know, incremental jump in ticket sales. I think that people are so over the experience, the team. It's going to be winning's going to produce increased revenue. But, you know, something like a hiring of a real GM, a promise from the owner to turn over contractual authority, you know, via a contract turnover authority and autonomy to a football person will get people intrigued again and we'll have them paying attention. and more people will watch the games beginning in the beginning of the year. And I'm not saying that they're not going to sell 10 more tickets or a thousand more tickets, but you're not going to see a sold-out stadium of season ticket holders for 2020 just because Bruce Allen gets fired.

Sure. I'm not saying that this is going to be 94 and RFK or anything. But I think you could see a 5-10-percent bump relatively easily. And that, I mean, you're talking millions and millions of dollars. Does that matter? Yeah, 5%. Again, I don't even know where their season ticket base is now. That would be really an interesting number to know how many.

To get those real numbers, man, I don't even know who I would try to get them from, you know? They'd get the real actual numbers. If you got them, it would be based on somebody violating a non-compete internally. because as a privately held organization and league, the league reports sort of top line numbers and even you can find some profitability numbers. You cannot find line item stuff. You can't find how much of their...

Isn't it the Packers that kind of blow it up that everybody's able to see the books? You can't on the Packers. You can't on anybody else. I've looked for those season ticket numbers multiple times. think that their season ticket base in terms of people that actually have tickets is somewhere in the 40,000 to 50,000 range now. And none of them are going anymore. But I would think that they're 20,000 minimum short of having a sold-out season ticket base minimum.

That sounds not right to me. All right. Yeah, I'm glad you brought up the playoff thing because I started off the show and did it on radio this morning. As much as I love talking about playoff scenarios and possibilities, and I've been the king of that at 980 for over 15 years now, they'd be, you know, four and eight, hey, if they run the table, eight and eight gets them in, I can't do it at three and nine. Even though they are playing in one of the worst divisions in the history of the regular season in the NFL, I think Dallas is so capable, though. They are the bigger disappointment than Philadelphia. They have talent.

sure i think the cowboys have defensive talent and it doesn't deliver consistently i think they're getting you know poor coaching um i still think dallas wins the division i uh i think i think the skins aren't going to come in last place in division i think the giants struggled the skins and the giants are on different you know arrows on different vectors to finish the season and the sudden philly is weird it's it's worth paying attention to just how poorly they're playing as well. Yeah, weird. Redskins right now, according to Tankathon,

I have the third pick in the draft right now, ahead of the Dolphins. What else am I missing from bringing up with you? That's it, I think, unless you got any... Oh, I did think, you know, another thing, too, that, you know, could be influential at times is just the way their social media gets handled. You mentioned the guy stuff.

How about the Terrell prior tweet from over the weekend from the team, wishing him the best after he got stabbed in an incident? And at one point was reported that he was in critical condition. Go look at that notification timeline to that tweet. It is harsh, man. People couldn't care less about Terrell. prior. They wanted Bruce Allen to be the one that was in critical condition. It's horrible. I'm not saying, but the reaction just tells you how much this fan base has it out for one particular person more

than anything else. For sure. Well, and the other thing, I haven't seen this Perrell-Pryor thing, so I'm looking for it. But I believe he was also charged for the soul, right? He was. Yeah, I think he was charge for something, yes. I think generally that's kind of a stay away unless you're just going to report the straight news of it all, which I doubt that's what they're looking to do, you know? Yeah. All right. I mean, I saw that on Twitter.

That's a ridiculous. You just, you hope everybody's okay and whatever happened gets adjudicated correctly because I got nothing on that one. Yeah, I mean, it's just funny to watch the Redskins can tweet out the most sympathetic things to people who have injured or sick, and the only thing the fan base wants to do is use that opportunity to try to get the message across to Dan Snyder that he better fire Bruce Allen. Oh, my gosh, dude, I haven't looked at these in a while. So I just, I randomly clicked on Adrian Peterson is now 13th in all scrimmage yards, and all of the replies are fire brousal.

Yeah, it's what happened at the end of last year, too. Yeah. I know what I wanted to say to you. Yeah, go ahead. 2 and 0 since benching Josh Norman. 1-0 without Ryan Carrigan. Yeah, that's true.

And you know what's funny is that Moreau has played way better on the outside than he wasn't slot. Now, I also think Moro has faced Jeff Driscoll and Kyle Allen, which helps. But Montez Sweat before he got hurt looked good playing on Ryan's side of the ball. He did.

He did. It was the best half of the year for him. Is he, what were What were the serious injuries out of the game yesterday? I really didn't. What's his injury? I talked to him afterwards. He said rest and treatment.

He thinks he'll be fine for Green Bay. He was one bit pretty good, but I think that was also a pretty fresh wound, for lack of a matter of word. There was that. Obviously that Trey Quinn concussion, I don't know. I would expect him to miss at least the Packers game. Morgan Moses left with a back injury, and I don't think he returned in the game.

But I haven't heard one way or another. We'll talk to Bill Callahan here this afternoon. Top of my head, that might be it. Monter, Ryan Anderson got ejected. He wasn't heard. How about Nate Orchard and Chris Odom? How remarkable story was that? Incredible.

Did you see? I mean. I got Orchard on post game, and he started crying. I don't know if you saw that. I did not see that. You know, this time of year in these horrible seasons, I think a lot of people that follow the team will tune in for the game and we'll start saying, who's number 50? Who's number 50?

Who's number 54? Who are these people? And, you know, it's not unusual even for people like me who aren't covering the team on a day-to-day basis like you are to be like, I got to look that one up because that's not anybody I'm familiar with And here's the thing about Orchard. Orchard liked to me, what's his face? Fifty-eight in the preseason. McKinsey. Kastanova McKinsey. Has this burst in this quick-twitch speed that's so noticeable. And you wonder a lot of times about these guys. It's like they have to get in the right spot to sort of have it viewed in a regular season game. But he had a motor and he had quick-twitch speed.

Yeah. Well, and the play that nobody's talking about with him is, I think it was second and down when the Panthers were at the goal line. McCaffrey. The tackle on McAfee, that's six if he doesn't make that play. Yeah. I thought that was really impressive. You got to find the video. I tweeted it out. We were talking on the post-game show, and I just, I'm like, you know, how emotional is this for you? Last week you weren't out of the league, and then you play the whole second half and make the game-winning sad.

at the end of the game. And he got, he started crying and teared up and talking about his family. It was a really pretty cool moment. That's great. That is awesome. I mean, it really, I mean, I can only imagine for a guy, you know, who these people that get bounced around and they're on practice squads and they get signed. And then yesterday was the perfect storm for both of them because Carrigan was out,

sweat gets hurt, Anderson gets booted, and they got nobody else. and they ended up delivering. You know, that has to feel so great for people like that who have hung in there and tried to turn this into a career, and he turned some heads yesterday. I don't think there's any doubt about it in the opportunity he got. Absolutely. But my only other thing is the injection.

I'm okay with Anderson getting ejected. It was disgraceful, disgraceful. Because Olten dipped his head? Well, two reasons. One, we see that play all the time, and it's really on both of them. I know Anderson should have gone in with his chin up a little bit more, but Olson turns into him ducking the head, and it's a tough, it's an unavoidable situation at that moment for Anderson. But what's really disgusting is that DeAndre White had one of the more brutal, defenseless hits on Trey Quinn we've seen all year long. And that's a hit. You should, get booted for. And the fact that he wasn't booted and Ryan Anderson was makes those that believe that the league's out to get the Redskins, it gives them more evidence. Because not to mention that this guy, Scott Novak, the whole day he and his crew, were just

an abomination with the huddles and the three to five minute discussions. It was just terrible. You know, it's bad enough you got to watch these games with better games going on, but you can't turn them into three and a half hour affairs because you got. low-rent, you know, inexperienced officiating crews that can't figure out what the rules are. It was unbelievable. So the consistency is what bothers me most. White has to be ejected.

If you ejected White, then I'm okay with Anderson being ejected. Whatever the decision is has to be consistent. And what White did wasn't even in the field of play. You got to have waiting to return a punt. Anderson was live action of bang-bang play as it was going down. So I legitimately think the NFL has to like reprimand these referees in some way. It was also, I am so sick and tired. Watch all these refs now.

They don't make the call on the field to just wait for replay to do it. There was a, I don't even know what they called it a fumble or something early on in that game that was so obviously an incomplete pass. And the reps standing right there just held his whistle, didn't do anything, and let it go to replay. That just adds 10, 15 minutes. It was 3 o'clock before the second game started. I think, and I... You are hemorrhaging viewers.

Nobody, no 13-year-old kids are going to watch that, period. What are you doing? I mentioned the same thing, that the first half ended at 248 p.m. That it had to be close to the longest half in the NFL this year. And it had to do it with a lot of what you just described. Look, the Moreau Interception that got overturned. by replay. You know, that's another example. They're letting it just go

just in the event that they got it wrong and it ends up taking up a lot of time, you know, and that ball hit the ground. I mean, that one was a closer call. Your example was more obvious. But yeah, it was painful after a while.

The only thing was when they got that onside kick, it was interesting. And the Redskins came up really big after that DJ Moore played down to the one-yard line to stop them on four plays. They really did. The defense, we didn't talk about this together. I mentioned it at the beginning of the podcast, JP.

The defense put on a performance like we thought after the first two drives that we thought they were capable of putting together back in August, but they hadn't done it all year. They dominated that game after the first two drives, dominated it. And it was supposed to, that's what the plan was for this team, was to run the ball, play. good defense and kind of grind out some wins. That was the recipe. And they never got to it. It only took until December 1st to kind of feel of work. All right. I've kept you too long. Appreciate it as always. J.P. Finley, at J.P. Finley, NBCS on Twitter. Redskins Talk podcast. Obviously, all the stuff. He's there on the post-game show on Sundays on NBC Sports, Washington.

You got all that stuff going on. I appreciate it. We'll talk soon. Thanks, Kevin. Take care, man. J.P. Finley, everybody. The biggest plays and the clutch moment. It's time to go around the NFL. All right. We talked about, you know, leading up to yesterday, one of the games of the year, San Francisco at Baltimore, Justin Tucker won it with a walk-off field goal. I did not see any of this game.

I haven't recorded. I'm going to try to get to it this week. Marilyn Marquette was going on at the same time with the Redskins Panthers. You know, it's hard to make it three things you're trying to follow simultaneously. I had the Maryland game on my desktop in my office with the Redskine game on the TV, and I had another computer open to the Ravens 49ers. It was being streamed off of Reddit. Sorry for that admission.

But anyway, to make it a long story short, apparently it was a hell of a football game in terrible weather conditions. and the 49ers, if you listen to a lot of the talk coming out of that game, Aaron, they gained a lot of respect and a loss. You know, they held Lamar Jackson to 105 yards passing. He got 101 rushing, you know. So Lamar Jackson now rushing yards on the season is now at 977. So approaching 1,000 yards here with still four games left.

What it did for Baltimore, especially combined with the Patriots law, last night in Houston is it gave them as we stand right now the number one seed in the AFC. Sticking with the AFC, the Chiefs pounded the Raiders 40 to 9. It was not a big day for Patrick Mahomes, but the Chiefs now sit there at 8 and 4, two full games ahead of the Oakland Raiders with the sweep of the Raiders. So they pretty much now guaranteed the AFC West for themselves. And now they're just battling it out for the possibility of trying to get into the state.

the top two seeds. They play the Patriots next week in Foxborough. If they were to beat them, they would own wins over the Ravens and the Patriots. So the Chiefs still capable. It was just an odd way in which they did it yesterday. There was no Mahomes 400-yard four touchdown performance. He barely threw for, I forget what the numbers were now. I want to say it was like 160 yards. You know, no touchdowns, I don't think, or maybe one touchdown in the game. There were three big turnovers, I think, for the Raiders that really was, yeah, Mahomes, 170. 75 yards, 15 of 29, one touchdown. That's not a Mahomes-like performance at all. The Raiders had three turnovers in that game. The Chiefs didn't have any, and that sort of told the tale. The Raiders are

flailing now after being shocked last week by the Jets, blown out by the Jets 34 to 3 at the Meadowlands and getting absolutely crushed yesterday at Arrowhead. They've been outscored 74 to 12 in their last two games. Also in the AFC mentioned last night the Texans jumped out to a big lead held on at the end. Boy, did Brady look average, man. Sub-average. You know, Edelman's his only guy. Really is his only guy. At one point, he was seven for 21. He finished 24-47 for 3-26 through three touchdowns and had them in an opportunity if they had recovered that last onside kick to have a chance to win miraculously. but Deshawn Watson was outstanding, and the Houston Texans now are eight and four, battling with the Chiefs for that number three spot in the AFC, which I think would be preferable if Baltimore ends up being the one. I think if you're Kansas City or Houston, you'd rather, if you win a game wildcard weekend, you'd rather play New England, even if it's in Foxborough than the Ravens in Baltimore.

I really believe that. flipping it over to the NFC and the games there. By the way, one more note about the AFC. Titans beat the Colts, 3117. The Titans now with Ryan Tannahill are five up, one down. Five and one, he is as a starter. They are now seven and five. They are very much in the race for the division,

a game behind Houston. If you didn't know this, how about this, Aaron, if you haven't looked at the schedule. Tennessee is a game behind Houston. Houston. Houston's eight and four, Tennessee is seven to five. Tennessee and Houston play twice in the final three weeks of the season. Scheduling quirk for sure to play a division opponent two times in the last three weeks. I've seen, you know, a late November or an early December followed by a final game of the year in the division. They're playing twice in 14 days.

Now the Titans have the Saints sandwiched in between. That won't be. easy. The Texans, meantime, have a game against the Broncos. They also have a road game against the Buccaneers. It looks like Houston's got the advantage to win the division, but Tennessee's got a legit shot to grab a wild card. All right, in the NFC, oh my God, the Eagles. What is going on with the Eagles? Yesterday, it's hard to blame it on the offense. You know, they rolled up like over 400 yards of offense and 31 points, and their defense could not get Ryan Fitzpatrick and that team off the field. One of the best plays you'll see all year came late in the third quarter, I believe it was. It may have been the, no, second quarter, my fault. Miami down 13-7,

they line up on a fourth and goal at the one-yard line, and the kicker takes the snap and shoves, pushes forward the ball to the punter, Matt Hack, in the end zone on an odd formation with four players split way out to both sides with the punter in the slot and the kicker taking the direct snap. It was crazy. Miami's been an entertaining team to watch with Ryan Fitzpatrick. They really have been entertaining to watch. And they are blowing all of that draft capital, that draft position capital by winning some of these games. But the Eagles are in free fall. And I know they have the Giants and the Redskins coming up,

but based on watching them the last three weeks, do you believe they can beat anybody or that they should be a team that can beat anybody? They get the Giants on a Monday night game. The Cowboys play on Thursday night. Cowboys are full game ahead, but the Cowboys have a tougher schedule. They got to play at the Bears. They got to play the Rams at home, and then they have to play that game with Philadelphia in Philly. I don't know who's going to win the NFC East.

I can tell you this. The Redskins aren't winning the NFC East. Okay, stop. We'll have that conversation next week if they win and if Dallas and Philly both lose. I did want to go back to the AFC for a moment because the end of the Chargers Broncos game was terrible. Terrible. Okay, I love the fact that the Broncos did the smart thing from their own 28-yard line nine seconds to go not taking a knee. You've got a chance to make a throw to midfield, get out of bounds and throw a Hail Mary.

Or get a pass interference. Or in this case, get a pass interference on Hayward, which, really was a bogus, bogus call. You got to let that one go at the end of the game. They didn't. They flagged it, and McManus came out and booted a 53-yard field goal. The Chargers are four and eight, all eight losses by seven points or less. The Broncos are four and eight. They were my team, as everybody knows early in the year. And man, I think out of their eight losses, five of them, five of them were utterly winnable at the end of the games. They finally got one that was close in the win over the Chargers there at the end.

All right, real quickly on the rest of the weekend, Maryland was so impressive against Marquette. Really impressive. It was a phenomenal performance from Daryl Morsell, in particular on Marcus Howard, who had come into the game yesterday in Orlando with 91 points in two games, including 51 in the semifinals.

It was impressive. Maryland shut him down, held him to six points, in the game, Aaron. And they got great performances, not only from Morsell, who was outstanding, but from Wiggins, who I thought had one of his better offensive games, also played well defensively, and Anthony Cowan, Jr., who had quite a three-day, or, you know, three-game run in Orlando, went for 30 in the opener over Temple, had 20 in the win over Harvard, and had 22, six rebounds, four assists and three steals in the final against Marquette. Terps looked really good.

That was their best game of the year. And they are officially right now, number three in the country. They did move up to number three? Yes. Wow. Now, we were number two with Diamond Stone early in that year, right? I believe so, yes. Maryland's been ranked number two more than any team in the history of college basketball

that's never been ranked number one during the regular season. Obviously, when they won the national championship, they were ranked number one at the end. But Maryland, so they did move them ahead of Duke, huh? Yeah. All right. There you go. They get Notre Dame Wednesday night at home against a fighting Irish team that I think only has one loss on the year. And that was to North Carolina in the opener.

Speaking of the poll, the number four team, Michigan. What? They went from unranked to four? Yeah. Come on. I mean, they have right now one of the best resumes in the country. I've never heard of anything like that. Michigan wasn't ranked last week.

They beat North Carolina and Gonzaga in the same week. That doesn't normally happen on ranked teams. It has to be the biggest entry, the highest level in the first entry into the poll of all time. I can't imagine that anybody's ever been ranked higher after not being ranked. I actually looked into this a little bit. There was, you know, before it started being an every week thing when they didn't put out the second, like the first in-season poll for a few weeks. There were a couple teams actually that moved from unranked into the top five, but it was like this week. November 27th was the first in-season poll, but yes. Wow. They beat

Iowa State, North Carolina, and Gonzaga in that tournament in the Bahamas. Yes. And it's Joanne Howard. All right. It's not John Beeline. It's Joanne Howard. John Beeline's coaching the Cavaliers. Juan Howard's back at his alma mater, and he's got them ranked fourth in the country after being unranked. That's unbelievable. The Terps are third. Maryland's got their Big Ten opener, you know, two on Saturday at home against Illinois. That won't be easy. Illinois's decent as well. The Notre Dame game when they announced the Big Ten ACC matchups, of course I'm not excited about playing Notre Dame.

I want to play a real ACC team, you know. But Notre Dame, and they weren't supposed to be very good coming into the state. season. But Notre Dame is sitting there at six and one. They haven't really beaten anybody. Their only loss came in the opener against North Carolina by 11. But I think Wednesday night with the third-ranked team in the country, undefeated, I think we could see our first, you know, filled up, you know, arena and raucous, you know, sort of environments for that ACCC Big Ten thing on Wednesday night. One other quick thing before we run, God was the Auburn, Alabama game so good. on Saturday. It was great. And Nick Saban at the end complaining about the officiating and being

whistled, being flagged, I'm sorry, for the five-yard illegal substitution. He just got outwitted in that moment by Gus Malzahn, who in a fourth down and four needing to punt in that spot would have given Bama the ball back down three with a chance to tie it and force overtime. Gus Malzahn had his punter and his quarterback out on the field. And Alabama was completely, clueless as to what to do. They didn't have any timeouts left. They got called for an illegal substitution. Malzon went nuts.

Saban went nuts in a negative way. They're out. Alabama is now with their second loss. I do think Saban had a point at the end of the first half, Aaron. Them going back and putting that one second back on the clock, you saw that, right? That was not the right way to handle that situation because if the clock had been managed the correct way, they would have never gotten a field goal attempt off because they would have gone up and tried to clock it, spike it to stop the clock, and the final second would have gone off

the clock. But they went back after lots of discussion and replay, and they put a second back out, put a second back on the clock, and Auburn lined up with their field goal team and booted a field goal to close the first half to a four-point game. That last five minutes of the first half was the most exciting college football, most exciting football I've seen all year. It looks like Utah, Georgia, or Oklahoma now for that last spot. I hope it's Utah. but if Georgia beats LSU, obviously, Georgia is going to get that for a spot. I think Clemson has any chance or Virginia has any chance against Clemson? No, but you know what's going to be hilarious when it's Alabama, Clemson in the Orange Bowl?

I mean, not Alabama, Virginia, I mean. I was going to say. No, not Alabama, Clemson's, Alabama, Virginia. Oh, yeah, I was going to say, wait a minute. Are you thinking Clemson's going to lose? You just said you didn't think they were going to. Alabama, Virginia in the Orange Bowl. It's plausible.

Yeah, Virginia got their first win over Virginia Tech in a long, long time on Friday afternoon. Ohio State destroyed Michigan. The game started off competitively. I don't know who's going to beat Ohio State. Boy, Ohio State LSU has incredible championship game potential. Clemson may have something to say about that. Maybe Utah will too. We'll see.

That's it for the day. Enjoy the day. Back tomorrow with Tommy.