The Kevin Sheehan Show - Indy Combine and Antonio Brown To Skins?

Episode Date: February 26, 2019

Kevin opened the show with a Netflix documentary recommendation. He talked about Kyle Smith's importance and why the Redskins should be careful about a QB at 15. Thom called in to talk the latest on Bryce Harper. JP Finlay called in from the Indy Combine to talk Skins' priorities and the possibility of a trade for Antonio Brown. <p> </p><p>Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices">podcastchoices.com/adchoices</a></p> Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You want it. You need it. It's what everyone's talking about. The Kevin Sheehan Show. Now, here's Kevin. All right. Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening, everybody. I'm here. Aaron is here. Tom will join us from Florida in a few minutes. This show is presented by Window Nation if you're in the market for Windows. Call 86690 Nation or go to windownation.com and tell them that we told you to call. I'm excited to give out a recommendation about something. And I don't want to go deep in. into the details of this, but just to tell you, Aaron, you said that you haven't seen it, and anybody else out there that hasn't seen it. But watch the documentary on Avici.

It's a Netflix documentary. You don't have to be an EDM guy or a house guy, or you don't even need to know who Avichy was. All right, that's really important, because I know a lot of you probably don't. Just watch it. It is one of the best documentaries I have ever seen with footage going back to the very beginning.

I mean the very beginning, the root of his musical genius, if you want to consider him to be that, and some do. But the root of the whole beginning of the creativity from how he got started in Stockholm and Sweden and where he ended up, which, by the way, it ends,

the documentary ends, and the footage ends, about a year short of his suicide, which was just, about a year ago, right around a year ago. But watch it. It's quick, too. It's maybe an hour and a half. Last night was a good night to watch something other than sports or anything else.

We didn't have a lot happening politically. I mean, we don't have the Mueller report yet. Cohen goes today. Trump was still on his way to Vietnam. I get into all that stuff on many nights, but there was nothing going on last night. Kansas State was a blowout. The NBA wasn't very good.

There you go. the documentary on Avici, I give it five stars. Anyway, to start this show, I wanted to read this quick tweet from Nile on Twitter. Kevin, is Kyle Smith the silver bullet for this organization? And he attached an article that was from the athletic that I think Grant Paulson wrote. Yes. And he said, everybody seems to be so high on him, is he the silver bullet? Well, the Indy Combine begins today, for those of you that don't know.

The skins have nine picks upcoming in the April-May draft. And Kyle Smith is the head of college scouting. He's the 34-year-old head of college scouting. And I have no idea if Kyle Smith is the silver bullet. My guess would be that the Redskins, as currently constructed, don't have a magical answer to their complex problems. you know, the complex problems being the rest of the organization is destructive, it's got self-destructive tendencies, it has during the Dan Snyder era, think of a way a franchise could do things the wrong way and the Redskins have done all of those and more that you

haven't even thought of. Kyle Smith was brought in by Bruce and Mike, all right, ask anyone, all right, and they will all tell you that he is smart, works hard, can spot talent. In that story that Grant wrote, he had a couple of quotes from Mike Shanahan. I've talked to Mike in the past about Kyle. He likes him. Cool he loves him. He's the son of a long-time NFL GM, AJ Smith, who is a good friend of Bruce Allen's, and Kyle was brought in as an intern, you know, back in 2010 and just recently replaced Scott Campbell last year as the head of college scouting. His path, especially given, you know, where he comes from, his path would seemingly be headed towards being a general manager at some

point one day. Whether or not that'll happen here is a different story. We've been here done that before, you know, with the Kyle Smiths of the world. You know, we were told that Scott Campbell was a talent, that Morocco Brown was a talent, that, you know, on a different level in terms of the responsibility within the organization, but that Eric Schaefer's been this terrific talent. Scott McCloughan, obviously was quite a talent and sought after, but had, you know, obviously many personal demons that he wasn't able to work through while he was here. You've got to go back to John Schneider and Trent Balke to find two guys in the organization in the front office that ended up ascending towards, you know, high levels in the NFL, general manager positions in the NFL, ascending

to greater heights. They didn't do it here, you know, they didn't do it here. Kyle Smith, I'm sure, is good at what he does. I don't think that this organization produces Silver Bullet answers. The organization hasn't hit on that answer, that talent, that person that can take it over and run it, because for the first 10 years it was all about Dan and Vinny's ego, and for the last 10 years, it's been about Bruce's ego. There's a ceiling for talent in this organization, because there's too much ego and insecurity for a real talent to flourish here. That's my view. I'm sure he is gifted and talented and really, really good. And if he is, he will probably end up succeeding as a general manager somewhere else.

More likely than not. That's what history would tell us. Can I be optimistic and hope that they step aside and give Kyle Smith the football operation reigns at some point if he's capable of doing that? sure, I can be optimistic and hope that that will happen, but realistically, it won't. It won't. This other tweet real quickly from Glenn on Twitter, you're going to watch these quarterbacks at the Combine? We've got to get a quarterback at 15. Combine starts today, and the whole NFL world is buzzing about, you know, how tall will Kyler Murray be?

I am going to say what I've always said when it comes to the draft, especially for teams like Washington, who are, you know, very rarely picking at the end of the first round. And, you know, more recently you've been picking right in the middle of the first round. Teams that are deplete of first-rate talent, of real star talent, of, you know, blue chip five-star players on a scale of one to five stars, five being the best, you have to draft the best. You have to draft the best available player. It is a strategy. that I wholeheartedly have always believed in. You know, Charlie Casserly, Bobby Betherd, over the years, they've all said,

you get in trouble when you draft for position. Now, that doesn't mean that if you have a massive need at a specific position, let's say wide receiver. And there is a great wide receiver at 15, but you have a guard that is a slightly higher rated player on your board. And when I say slightly, I mean just slightly, Like one player is in 92 and the other players in 93? Well, you know, context, people, all right?

Context. But when you have a player on your board that is significantly higher rated than any other player on your board, and that player doesn't fit your number one, number two, or number three positions of need, you don't worry about that when you are a team that is hungry. hungers for stars, for difference makers. The Redskins cannot reach for a quarterback.

They have too many needs. I don't think they will. I don't know that Bruce thinks big. I think he's always thought small. And thinking big would be thinking quarterback at 15. Dan thinks big. Maybe that'll get in the way in this particular draft. but I want them to draft based on the best player available at 15,

and they better love the quarterback. There better be consensus-wide, you know, thumbs up if they're going to take a quarterback on 15 at 15, and Jay Gruden would be the number one resource for me on this. He would be. If not, you're going to risk ending up with Christian Ponder, or Blaine Gabbard, or Jake Lange. Locker or Ryan Tannehill or Gino Smith or E.J. Manuel or Blake Bortles.

Okay, you get the point. Paxton Lynch. This is what can happen. More times than not, the quarterback in the first round doesn't work out. You want to go through the list here? 2010. Let's just go through the last 10 drafts. Actually, we'll go back to 2009 draft. All right. Josh Freeman, 17th overall. How'd that work out? Mark Sanchez, Matt Stafford was one overall. All right, one for three. 2010, Bradford, one overall, Tebow, 25th in the first round, two first round picks. That one worked, but not great. Bradford wasn't great, but at least he started. Then in 2011, it was Newton followed by Locker, Gabbard, Ponder. in the first round in 2012, it was Luck and then Griffin, and then Tannahill, and then Whedon.

All right, 2013, E.J. Manuel was the only quarterback taken in the first round. 2014, Bortles, Mansell, Bridgewater, 2015, Winston Marriota. They're still starting in the league. 2016, Goff, Wentz, Paxton Lynch. All right, and then last year, I'm sorry, 2017, looks like the winner of all winners. Tribisky, Mahomes, Deshawn Watson. We didn't go through one draft before that

that had all hits. Most of the drafts that I went through were misses. The Redskins have to be very careful. You cannot reach with number 15 overall for someone who ends up being Jake Locker or Blaine Gabbert or Ryan Tannahill. Not if you've got a dominant pass rusher sitting there at 15, or a safety, or a corner, or, yes, even a wide, game-changing wide receiver. All right, let's bring in Tommy.

Tommy is still down in Florida, now on vacation, right, after spending last week at spring training. Yes, I'm back up in the Panhandle here in lovely Destin on the Gulf Coast. This is where you and your lovely wife Liz. enjoy vacationing. I mean, it's sometimes without you, which I'm sure is more, I mean, I could probably have a long conversation with your wife that it's probably a better vacation at times without you there. Listen, let me use the language that your people use. I'm wintering in Florida. You're wintering in Florida that's pretty funny. All right. What the hell is going on with Bryce Harper? I mean, now there's a possibility of a shorter-term deal with the Dodgers.

The Phillies apparently haven't offered more than $300 million for 10 years. Tommy, he and Scott Boris have, there's got to be at least some level of embarrassment with the way this whole thing is played out. Nobody really wants him that badly. it really I mean back here back at national camp the feeling

is that this thing spun out of control it has not turned out to be what Bright Harper hoped it would be and if he had a do-over he would stay in Washington he would have taken the deal and stay in Washington but he had this notion

that he wanted to be recruited he wanted to see what it was like And the recruitment certainly has not turned out the way he thought. But on the other hand, look at what we're talking about now. The Dodgers, most people close to the situation thought the Dodgers were where he would wind up. And now the Dodgers are suddenly involved in it. I just saw a report today that the Yankees are looking to get involved now. It's almost like a bell has rung among all the high spenders say, well, they're going to get in.

we're going to take a look too. I guess the option of the shorter-term deal has opened the door for some other bidders, which maybe is what Boris wanted to do. Maybe because what he had to do, because they didn't have many bidders. You know, it's almost like in the after-ticket market when you get a really hot event, and, you know, early on, the tickets are outrageously priced, so people are backing off and they're waiting and they're hoping for something to happen. and they're hoping for one of the two teams to hit a losing skid before the game

or, you know, a big storm or some bad weather to hit right before the game for the market to drop. It's really, for Harper, it just feels like, and I don't know what deal he'll end up with, but whatever deal he ends up with now, it's going to feel so anticlimactic. And borderline for him, an embarrassing circumstance that, you, You're right. Had he accepted the nationals offer, he wouldn't have put himself through this. That's easy in hindsight. But there was no real expectation that the market for him would ever dry up. No.

No, there wasn't. But, you know, I guess smarter people, and I would not include me in that category, should have seen that if the Yankees, without with the Stanton contract, weren't going to get involved, The Dodgers under their general manager who abhors those long-term contracts weren't going to be involved. And the Cubs had made it clear that they weren't going to be involved. And you knew the Red Sox weren't because they're going to have to pay mokey bets next year. So without the big spenders being involved, it was awfully hard to have the bidding war that you foresaw. And, you know, Borers should have seen that coming, and maybe it did.

knows. I mean, who knows who's pushing this? Is it Boris or is it Harper or is it a mutual thing? I mean, we don't really know. But it would be ironic if he wound up with the Dodgers, which everyone sort of agrees is where he wanted to go in the first place. You know, at this point, he's risked, there's a lot here that he's risked. And all of that can be overcome by just playing great, you know, and becoming the star and having an MVP type of season. and all of this will be forgotten to a certain extent. But if he signs with the Phillies, you know, making them wait like he's done is not going to make anybody happy. Again, the whole thing for him, for the fans that end up getting him in their market, for the media,

the whole thing has rung anticlimactic in so many ways. Like the excitement level when this gets done won't be very high for anybody involved. It's the worst possible way. it could have developed for him. If he signs a $300 million deal, the deal that was offered by the Nats to play in Philadelphia, I mean, that is, just that alone will make him look awful because basically he told the Nats I'm worth a lot more.

Yeah, yeah, and I think the Nats thought he'd wind up getting a lot more. You do? When all this was over, yeah, I think they did. I think they thought, like, look, when Mark Lerner and initially talked about the $300 million offer. And while he said, you know, that offer didn't exist, but, you know, the door would still be open to listen. He also said by the time this thing was all over, he'd probably be getting a lot more money than they'd be willing to put up. Well, that doesn't look like it's going to be the case now.

You're right. Wherever he goes, like if he came back to Washington now, let's just say that happened. it would be an awkward situation in that clubhouse. They've moved on. They have moved on without him in that clubhouse. The clubhouse, and again, this is not necessarily saying Bryce Harper is a bad guy. I'm just saying that that clubhouse feels livelier and better than it's been in a long time. And his return would cause a lot of internal issues.

Well, the team that he ends up with, if it's not Washington, they're going to be sitting there saying, come on, dude, are you with us or not? We're already into spring training here. We're already playing games. And, you know, you're haggling over, you know, what could amount to, you know, a couple million dollars a year. I mean, in baseball terms, it's, you know, it's peanuts. I mean, this deal, this short-term deal that the Dodgers reportedly are willing to offer Harper would be, you know, an annual record-setting deal. You know, but it would only be a short-term deal.

in the neighborhood of two, three, four years, something like that. I mean, I almost think from his standpoint now that I know he didn't want to sign a short-term deal, or at least that's what I thought. Correct me if I'm wrong. But, you know, to sign a $40 million annual contract for three years or whatever, with the Dodgers, that should be his move. Because if it ends up being $300 million over 10 with the Phillies, or maybe a little bit more than $300 million over 10 with the Phillies,

he's going to look bad. I mean, maybe he doesn't. Maybe he doesn't care. And like, think about the conversation we're having. He could sign a 10-million, a 10-year, $315 million deal, and he's going to look bad. I mean, I'd like to look bad like that, and we all would, and he'll be laughing all the way to the bank. But still, you know, the competitive nature of these athletes, he wanted to be courted. He wanted a bidding war.

They thought they would get one, and they didn't. The opposite has happened. It's amazing. And I think, you know, I mean, again, he really wanted to wind up in the Dodgers. The Dodgers, you know, check a lot of boxes for him. A premier tradition-rich organization, a team close to where he lives in Las Vegas, management he knows in Stan Kasten, one of the owners and team presidents. and, you know, if Bryce Harper is as confident as we think he is,

why not keep betting on yourself? Why not take a three-year, four-year deal, figuring that in three or four years somebody's going to have to pay me even more. So I think you're right. I think you'd be better off taking the Dodgers deal than the – and there would be a level of embarrassment to taking pretty much the same amount of money he turned down with Washington to play in Philadelphia, where here in Washington, at Nat's training camp, the people who know Bryce said he didn't want to play in Philly.

Right. Yeah. The L.A. thing, which, by the way, was your first guess before when no one said the Dodgers were even going to be a player in this, it was your first guess. Then they traded Puege and Kemp, which made it seem like obvious. They were clearing the way and the path for Harper. And then all of a sudden they weren't in on Harper. But if they, I mean, you know this better than I do, but the Dodgers just seem to be the perfect fit. Los Angeles, they've got a need at the position, right?

If he were to play right field, they've got to need the position. It's a national league team. It's not a team that you're going to face the Nats in division. And if you end up signing a shorter-term deal, but for a record-setting annual amount, a little less egg on the face and he ends up in a place where he wants to. end up. I mean, I'm starting to think based on just this conversation alone with you and some of the things that you have said, that makes the most sense for him. If the Dodgers are legitimately offering, you know, two, three, three, four years somewhere in that neighborhood for, you know, the 35 to 40

million annually. He should do that. Yeah. And, you know, I mean, if the players are smart, well, you know, I guess most of these players get an opt-out where they can decide if they want to leave or not. This would not be this. This would be basically a, not an opt-out, but literally a short-term deal where it would end after four years. So this would benefit the team as well to, you know, not to, look, it's all about payroll flexibility, like I told you. Nobody wants to sign a player to a 10-year deal because it limits the amount of flexibility you have. I agree. What else do you have for me today?

You want me on vacation? Yeah, to bring some content. Yeah, I want you to bring some content. You should bring some content to the show. You excited about the combine? You know, I read something from, you know Dan Hatman? He runs a scouting academy. I've heard the name.

He's a former scout. I follow him on social media. Interesting guy. He was flying to the combine. I guess he was, must have been out of BWI, maybe. he was on the flight with the Ravens staff on the Southwest Airlines staff. And he took note of this, the general manager, the new general manager for the Ravens, and John Harbaugh, the coach, and all the staff, they pretty much flew together in coach on Southwest.

And he thought that was an interesting dynamic and speaks to the level of the level. function to Indianapolis. Oh, so the trip to Indy. Well, I mean, Baltimore, I mean, Southwest, obviously, in BWI, big hub for Southwest, and there are cheap flights, and it's an hour and 10 minute flight to Indianapolis, right? Hour 15 minutes? Did you want him all the... Huh? Do you think Bruce Allen is flying

to Indy on Southwest? No, I don't. All right. I don't think he is. And I it's actually interesting that even the Ravens could be flying coach you know to Indianapolis on Southwest Airlines but what he brought up was here's a general manager and the coach not separating themselves

from the rest of the support staff right you know I'm not flying on a private jet provided by the owner or something like that I mean the private jet that could be provided by the owner could probably fit the staff. Yeah, I know. No, you know, it's funny because the last couple of years, a lot of Redskinned fans, hardcore Redskinned fans, have occasionally gotten upset with me at me really sort of, you know, pumping up the Ravens organization. I don't like the Ravens. I'll

never root for the Baltimore Ravens, but they have been, for me, Tommy, there are a couple of them, but the Ravens just have been everything the Redskins are not the Ravens are. You know, everything about them, they're tough, they're hard nose, they're smart, they're, you know, at least on the outside, from the outside looking in, they appear to be ego less, and maybe not without total ego, but compared to other organizations, it's, it reminds me so much of the way that the Redskins were. You know, the Patriots, the way they are run, reminds me of the way the Redskins were. I always prefer these organizations that are successful, but don't tell you that they're successful.

They just show you year and year out. And they prefer to be like under the radar. They prefer not to be talked about in lofty, you know, ways. And they like being under the radar and being surprising. That was always Gibbs. You know, Gibbs was Jack Ken Cook probably. would have had things differently had he been sort of the face of the organization. But Gibbs and Bethard were, and then Gibbs and Casserly.

And they always wanted to sort of sneak up on you, you know? They knew they were confident, but they weren't about to tell everybody else how confident they were. They just showed you. No. No, they didn't feel to show off their process. They didn't feel the need to do that. And the Redskins have been the opposite for years. We've said this to each other for years.

They've overpromised always and underdelivered. And the Redskins of Joe Gibbs underpromised. I mean, went out of their way to under promise and always overdelivered. Like even years in which they didn't go to the playoffs, they were 10 and 6. You know, it was just whatever. So that's what, and I know the Ravens missed the playoffs for three straight years, and they haven't been the best organization in the NFL. I understand that, but I think the way that that organization's been run with certainly the owner and Ozzie and De Costa and Harbaugh,

it's set them up for the best chance to win and to be competitive year and year out. Well, but the Redskins are about to embark on that kind of error because they have this golden child in the front office who's going to change everything, don't they? Who, Kyle Smith? Yes. Yeah, I talked about him in the open. today. Yeah, somebody, somebody tweeted me and said, is Kyle Smith the silver bullet answer? And the athletic, Grant, Paulson, had actually written a story in the athletic that the guy, that the guy linked me to. And I just, you know, my feeling, you know, overall Tommy on all of this

is that, you know, this is an organization basically that has a ceiling for talent in terms of how high it can go because of ego and insecurity. So it makes it hard for real talent to flourish here. But I don't even know, I know this. Cooley has loved Kyle Smith. Mike likes Kyle Smith a lot, Shanahan. But, you know, we've heard similar things about, you know, Scott Campbell and Morocco Brown and obviously McLuhan, but, you know, their circumstances there. And this organization to me doesn't, I mean, I would hope, I would love for there to be a silver bullet answer. If Kyle Smith is this diamond in the rough, he's the next great NFL general manager, I just fear that he'll never get to that level here.

Not with Bruce here, he won't. No, no, he won't. But again, that's, you know, that's to be expected. That's the way business is done. Are you excited about the combine? No, to me, it's the most overrated event of the year. Now, if we were taken inside the meeting rooms with cameras and interviews with teams, that to me is much more revealing than, you know, the underwear Olympics. I just, I've always been with Doc on this. I watch college football and a lot of it, you know, as much college football as I do the NFL.

To me, I want my NFL team's evaluators to determine the upside or the down side. side of these players based on the way they played. But the interview portion of it, I'm sure, is super, super insightful and valuable. But we don't get to see that. We get to see these players interviewed by guys from the NFL network, but I think it would be cool to be inside the meeting room with a team and a prospect. That's more than anything, especially, I'll tell you what, this quarterback thing, of course they want measurements, they want to know how tall Kyler Murray is. They want to see him make all the throws. but they can see them make all the throws on their pro day

or by watching their college tape. But what they really want to do, I would think, is they want to get into a room and see if they could actually, you know, understand an offense, call an offense, and lead a team. You know, the things that Gruden did with his quarterback camp on ESPN for years,

you know, it's not going to be that dissimilar to the way that teams handle some of these interviews. A lot of what he did on those broadcasts, which I thought were very well done, are part of the interview with these teams, or at least it should be. Oh, yeah. And I think an important part of, look, let's face it, I mean, the combine gets juiced up a little bit more like everything is going to be this offseason

because of the presence of Kyle or Murray. And the first thing, when you do the interview with Kyle or Murray, is hope that he doesn't need a booster seat to do the interview. Can you imagine? Come here, Kyler. Come here, Kyler. Hold on. Let us put this seat up here. All right. Get up, big boy. Good job. All right. You know, in all... That was bad. I shouldn't have to... He does have to... Look, if I'm sitting down with him as an organization, I'm not going to take the Dan Patrick interview, and I'm going to do it based on the way he handles himself with me as the team's GM or the team's head coach or whatever. I'm not going to worry about that. you know, him crumbling and being evasive and being, you know, borderline strange in that. Well, that's a bit of a mistake if you don't ask him what went wrong there. No, you do,

you do, but I'm going to judge it based on how he handles himself with me, you know. But it will be interesting because the NFL network, which will be carrying hours upon hours of this, we'll interview him. So we'll see how he does. He never did poorly during the season. You know, he was never a bad interview. He was never, you know, you know, You didn't walk away from any interview before or after an Oklahoma game or on a feature piece by ESPN thinking, oh, that's scary. He doesn't seem totally wicked.

So it just may have been a bad moment. And here's the other thing that you might want to judge. How far away is the father from the room you're doing the interview? If he's not even in your sight, then you're okay. if he walks them into the room, then I'd be concerned. Yeah. All right. Did you see, by the way, just one last thing.

Did you see what Doc Rivers did last night for Dirk Novitsky? Yes, I did. Yes, I did. I hope you liked it because I liked it. Yeah. Actually, I mean, I loved what happened with Dirk during the All-Star game. How excited both benches got when he came into the game and knocked down three-threes. But Doc Rivers basically, you know, with nine seconds to go in the game, he grabbed the mic, the public address announcer's mic, and basically saluted Dirk Novitsky.

And he got a standing ovation in Los Angeles. Dallas was there last night. That's pretty classy. Now, you know, in his final stops the rest of the season, Doc Rivers just sort of set the bar, you know. But Doc Rivers also has been around for a long, long time. Interesting. I thought it was classy. In fact, you probably missed this, and I mentioned this yesterday. But you know what Mark Turgeon did on Saturday during the Maryland-Ohio State game? Did you read about that? No. Gary came to the game. Gary Williams was at the game. And before the game started, Turgeon told all of his players to go down and shake the hand of a Hall of Famer. Gary got choked. Yeah, Gary got choked up a little bit. But it was a nice moment. All right. I'm done with you. Okay, boss. I'll talk to you on Thursday and then you'll be back in next week, right?

Absolutely. Face to face, you and me. And then another vacation, I'm sure, a few weeks after that. All right, I'll talk to you later, thanks. We're planning on one. I know. I'll talk to you later, thanks. All right, bye.

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the NFL Combine, getting underway, and he's going to be doing a lot from out there. Listen to the Redskins Talk podcast. J.P. is going to be, you're going to be doing some live stuff from there, right? Yes, sir. Same thing we did in Atlanta, where we do. live shows each day in our My Teams app, and then they chop them up and put them on our TV channel later in the day. So it went really well at the Super Bowl. I think it's going to be pretty cool in Indy, too. All right. I just had Tommy on, and Tommy and I were talking about the combine.

I'll be perfectly honest with you. I find the whole event unwatchable at times over the years. I think it's incredibly overrated for NFL fans, but I also recognize that it's a very subjective thing and I have a lot of friends of mine that will literally watch it, you know, multiple hours every day this week. And I just, you know, I think you're the same. You're a big college football fan. I'm a big college football fan. So we watch a lot of these players actually play games. So the rest of it to me is, is really, to me, it's worthless unless we were in the rooms of these interviews, which to me would be the most intriguing thing to see and here, but you'll get to talk to some of these players, I presume, right?

Yeah, every player that's here does like a 15, maybe 20-minute podium session. You don't really get the opportunity to do many one-on-ones unless you kind of set something up through an agent or a lot of it. One thing that's cool about the combine is that Indies a pretty small city in that like downtown Indy is really pretty centralized. maybe eight, ten square blocks. So you just bump into people all the time. And I think for me, like as a reporter, there's more value in just kind of walking around and seeing people and having conversations than, like, I mean, Kevin, you know me well enough.

I'm not going to break down anybody's hand measurements or three cone drill. That's just not what I'm going to do. But I think acquiring information about free agency plans and about, and about, you know, draft. The draft is so nebulous, but like kind of getting an idea of what teams are really thinking. And for me, it's the skins and trying to catch up with folks inside, outside, around the organization. And it's a really good opportunity for that this week. Yeah, I went one year. And you're right. And Indianapolis is not a bad town. I've heard people say it's a bad town. It's not actually that bad. If I were you personally, I'd drive to Bloomington, Bloomington,

tonight and go to Assembly Hall if you've never been. They're playing Wisconsin there tonight. That would actually be fun. How far is that? From Indianapolis, I think it's like an hour and a half. I think that's about right. I know. Plus it's never been.

I'd like to see it. Plus, it's a nine o'clock tip. So, you know, is it East Coast time there right now or Central? So this is the one. It's the farthest west of East. On East Coast time. But I don't think they do daylight savings time. so it ends up becoming, I don't know, I forget how that works in area.

Parts of Indiana are central standard time, parts of it, during portions of the year. Whatever. You should take advantage and you should go. Assembly Hall is the best venue in the Big Ten. I mean, we both love Xfinity for a big game, and it's great. But it's also probably the number one place in the Big Ten before we. we got into it and most would say it's historical. It's historic. It's historic too.

I mean, all the great teams. Whereas Xenity is not anymore. Right. You know, Cole certainly was, but Xfinity isn't. All right. What do you think the Redskins' primary goals are this week at Indianapolis? What will they be looking, what do they need to accomplish?

Well, I think I don't believe there's going to be a trade for a veteran quarterback. Regardless of what level of tire kicking happened with Joe Flacco. I just don't think they have the financial wherewithal to pull that off or really any of these other trades.

I don't know if you saw the Peter King, I guess report where he listed the skins as one of the teams to watch for Antonio Brown. And I get that the Redskins are desperate for a playmaker at receiver. And I get that they're desperate for, you know, something flashy for the fan base. But I just don't see that they have the draft capital. or the money, you know, the salary cap space to make that move. But this week, you'll kind of get to hear a little bit if the skins are trying to make roster moves that aren't draft related.

I also want to find out, I wrote this for our website earlier in the week. I think the skin's number one priority right now should be trying to get a deal done with Brandon Sheriff. And if you can get that done, I mean, it's obviously a priority for the team, right? There's no way they want to let him get the free agency in a year. And if you can get it done now before the new league year opens, you can convert some of his. So right now he's $12.5 million on the books against the cap.

You can maybe convert some of that to signing bonus over the course of a five, six year deal, which is what the Cowboys did for Zach Martin last year. And in turn, you might be able to free up two or three million bucks against the cap. That's right. I mean, in their situation, they need any. cap relief they can get. And I'm just, I'm going to try to track some folks down and see if that's in the works. I know that there are general conversations about getting a sharefield done, but I don't

know if there's any real urgency to it where I think maybe there should be. And then it's trying to figure out, if I had to guess, Gruden, particularly leading, you know, I believe last year he led all the player interviews here, I think they're going to want to really try to get to know guys like Daniel Jones and Drew Locke. Because I think Kyler Murray is going to be long gone by 15. I think Dwayne Haskins is going to be gone. And I think those are guys that might be realistic targets for them. And then other quarterbacks later in the draft.

I mean, maybe they have a meeting with a guy like Ryan Finley who's, you know, I think he could generate some buzz this week. Maybe they like him. And I got to talk to him at Mobile and certainly liked his attitude and he throws a nice ball. or other tubis will pop for them. And then, you know, what pass rusher do they like? What corners do they like? Because they need to be prepared for all that stuff.

I want to go back to Antonio Brown for a second because I think it's interesting and I haven't personally given it a lot of thought. One of the reasons I haven't given it a lot of thought is because one of the things the Redskins have been pretty consistent in doing other than last year with Alex Smith, is that free agents they sign

or, you know, trades they make tend to be for players entering or in their prime, not potentially approaching the end of their prime years. And Antonio Brown's going to turn 31 before the season starts next year. And that really, with the exception of Alex Smith, has not been the last nine, ten years, MO. For many years, as we know, they sign players who were 28, 29, 30, 31 years old. But that's not been the move. And I think that it would, surprise me if Bruce decided to go in that direction. But here's the thing that we could be, or I could be, with respect to this conversation, under rating a little bit.

And that is, they say they're close. What they don't say, and what we don't really know is do they feel any sense of desperation, you know, based on fan base erosion, all that's gone on, you know, tickets, everything that it's leading to from a business standpoint. and Antonio Brown would be one of those jolts to the offseason if they were to make the deal. So on one level, I don't see it. I do think they have enough draft capital, JP. I think they've got four picks in the top 100.

I mean, they have plenty of draft capital to get Antonio Brown, in my view. The issue is, and by the way, Antonio Brown would probably be good God, please, not Washington. Who's going to throw me the football? But to me it would come down, if they made that move, it would really speak to some level of legitimate desperation to jolt the franchise with a big name. I mean, Alex Smith in many ways, don't you think Alex Smith in many ways was, yes, a guy that they felt they needed to have because they were close with all of the players coming off injured reserve last year, but also they needed an answer to losing Kirk. certainly it was an answer to losing Kirk and you know I think they would tell you they thought they were close and adding Alex was the piece they needed but um kind of going back to the beginning of what you said in the Bruce Allen era for all and there's plenty of negative you can say about decisions made during that era but they haven't really spent big money on aging veterans like they used to they haven't really made flashy decisions the Robert Griffin the third trade certainly was a big flashy decision. But you can argue that that came from ownership or wherever it came from.

And Jackson and Norman were big moves, but they were more opportunistic that came out of nowhere, you know? Exactly. They came late in the, they were late additions to the free agent market. And Bruce just talked about wanting to leave money available to be able to sign guys like that late in the process. So I'm with you. I think really the conversation around Brown, to me, is a long. shot. And I'm saying 15 to 1 at best, probably 25 to 1. But if you just look at a few of the factors, they do have draft capital. And the Steelers are trying to really limit where they want

to trade Brown. They wouldn't blink an eye to trade him to the skins, I imagine. I don't think they would view the skins as a Super Bowl threat with Antonio Brown. I think there's no way they can give up a first round pick, period, end of conversation. But if a second and a third and maybe, you know, where they do have extra picks, could maybe move the needle, I feel like you and I've talked about this, Kevin, particularly with the Kirk situation where they didn't seem to shop them,

I think they should at least be considering all their options. And if that's a phone call that results in, hey, there's no chance it's going to happen, that's fine. I don't think they can really do the maneuvers needed on the salary cap to bring him in. And then we haven't even addressed that, like, he might be crazy to demand the trade from a great situation. I mean, the guy hasn't had less than 100 catches or 1,200 yards in the last six years. And almost all of that is a tribute to the player he is and his work ethic and his athleticism and everything else.

But on some level, you also have a pretty good offense in Pittsburgh that you want out of. And I know Rottesberger probably has some pretty questionable, personable characteristics, but he's a good quarterback. He lets his receivers make plays, gives them opportunities. Colt McCoy, a rookie, Josh Johnson, you're not going to be playing with a guy like Penn Rothesberger. And I think there might be some grass is always greener that comes to reality for Antonio Brown this fall when he's elsewhere. Yeah, part of it, though, too, is that the Redskins do have a need for a difference maker at that position. You know that I did the math on this for the story I wrote.

Antonio Brown last year outproduced the Redskins' top three receivers combined. The skin's top three receivers were Doxon, Crowder, and Mo Harris. And Antonio Brown had 15 touchdowns. The combination of those three guys had four touchdowns. They had less catches and less yards combined than Brown did. You know, it'd be interesting to see, like, I would not want them to give up number 15 overall for Antonio Brown for a lot of reasons. Number one, I don't think he's the difference between, you know, a double-digit loss season and, you know, the NFC championship game. You know, I don't.

So my preference would be the blow-up strategy anyway. I've said that for a couple of months running, but I... But that's not coming, you know? That's not what they're going to do. Understood. So if they were to make this deal, I wonder what the fans that are into this stuff, how many ever, how many are left, would want to give up a first. If you told me it was a combination of a second and a fourth, you know, or a second and a third, maybe. But again, like, there are so many different things to consider.

You know, we could debate that topic for a while. I'm with you. To me, there are, I mean, off the top of my head, San Francisco, Denver, Oakland, the Jets, you know, just thinking about teams that would make a lot of sense. Now, they really do and would prefer to deal him to an NFC team. They made that very clear. You know, Arizona potentially, I'm just thinking of some teams that just would make more sense and probably would be able to be in a position to probably. give up more as well. Tampa also, right. I think eventually he goes for a first round pick. I think the skins cannot do that. But if you could package a second, a third, and a fifth, they have an

extra third, they have two extra fifth. And your first three rounds, you come away with rookie quarterback, call Antonio Brown your second round pick, and then you still get to draft somebody in the third round. I think people in Ashburn and I think Redskins fans all over will be doing backflips. All of that said, I don't think it's going to happen. I don't either. Okay, a couple of things about the Redskins here at the Indy Combine. Who was sent and how do they handle it? Who is, you know, who's down there? I mean, what do you know about the way the Redskins handle the Indy Combine and the key people involved? I mean, they send just about everybody. It's funny, we flew out of BWI this morning and the entire Ravens, I would say, coaching staff and front office.

We're on. Yeah, I heard about that. I heard about that. Yeah. Barbaugh and Eric DeCosta, which I found pretty remarkable. But if you're in Baltimore, BWI, you know, Southwest is a big airline in BWI. Maybe that's what you do. I think the skins will have, when I, when we were getting in a cab at the airport, I saw

two of the Redskins IT guys. So if they're bringing out their IT guys, I bet just about everybody's coming out here. There's also, there's a couple big league leading. type things that go on the first couple days. And I know that there's going to be some availability with Gruden, with Doug, and I believe with Bruce. Every member of the coaching stats here, every scout is here. This is where every NFL team, you know how for state of the union one dude has to stay

back just in case something terrible happens when you need somebody to run the government? I don't think that's the situation with the combine. I think everyone is here. Well, be careful about disclosing all. that information. All right. So Kyle Smith is the college guy. When we get to the interviews of quarterbacks, and let's just say they're going to sit

down with Kyler Murray and Daniel Jones and Drew Locke and, you know, a couple of others. Who's conducting that interview? Do you know? Who's the lead? I believe last year it was Gruden. It was Jay. Okay. I'll try to look that up and text you, but I feel like I remember them saying that.

I would think, especially with the quarterbacks, it would be Jay again. But there's a lot of folks in the room. I don't think it's like a one-on-one interrogation type thing. You know what was funny is last year when we were here, I remembered, so they do, all the interviews happen at night in this old, I think it was like the old railroad, where they stowed the railroad cars. And every night I would see, or two nights in a row anyway, I would see Jay Gruden, John Gruden, and Sean McVey all walking to the interviews together. And it was just, it always was interesting to me that those three are still like very close

despite all being in different locations. And I think that was kind of the genesis of McVeigh as the third Gruden brother, that like nickname. But it's my understanding that it's Jay that runs the player interviews. And I think they're, you know, they're solid 15-minute sessions. with players and really trying to get to know the person and then get to know, I think a lot of it is kind of how quick-witted they can be and responding to kind of adverse scenarios, stuff like that.

What's on their priority list here in terms of players? And I did five minutes at the top of this podcast on a couple of things. One, just sort of answering to somebody who suggested that Kyle Smith is, is a silver bullet in the organization. I don't know if this organization really is, you know, it behaves in a way that wouldn't let, you know, sort of a silver bullet, you know, emerge or flourish. What does that mean?

That he's this magical solution to all of their problems, that he's the talent. They're keeping him and he's going to end up running the organization, and it's going to be great for everybody that roots for the burgundy and gold. But anyway, I, the other thing I talked about was, I, you know, I've had so many conversations over the years with whether it's Charlie or

Bethard for many years. I talk to him all the time. Mike, obviously, I just they better be sure if they draft a quarterback at 15, that this is the guy, you know, and they have to evaluate

it right, because the odds are it won't be, and they need so much more than just a quarterback, and there is really good talent, and I bet there's less of a crap shoot, on a couple of the players on the defensive side of the ball in particular in this draft. Right now, your guess, quarterback, you know, percent chance that they take a quarterback at 15 is what?

You know, it's funny, Kevin, is I'm with you all the way. I think if you can get Murray or Haskins, you do that. And I wouldn't even be adverse to moving up if you have to get, if one of those guys gets to 11 or 12, and you can move up and use that extra third round pick you got from the Kirk Cousins compensation. How fitting would it be if Kirk Cousins lands them a rookie quarterback? But I think you just don't – Drew Locke is not the guy for me. Maybe I'll be swayed. I don't know.

I'm also not paid to be a talent evaluator, but he's just inaccurate and inconsistent. Daniel Jones getting to meet him and talk to him for a little bit. It seemed like he's a little bit away from being able to step into an NFL huddle and have the command of grown men making millions of dollars. I think the defensive talent that's going to be available there, I look at Devin White, the LSU linebacker, and just see a guy that could almost immediately transform that skin defense. The guy can stay on the field in all situations,

tackling machine can make big plays. Look at what Darius Leonard did for the Colts. Definitely. And that's just the guy to me. I love Devin White. I mean, he's just such a good player. And not only that, he fills a need, and you can say, well, Ruben Foster's there. Well, they really need two.

You know, they need two inside backers on this team. And Ruben Foster is going to be suspended. Yeah. But I think you can get a corner. You can get an edge rusher, which they're desperately. I mean, there's so much they need there that I don't think you can't go into this thing thinking you have to have a quarterback at 15. If there are guys you really like, swing for it.

But don't force it. Yeah. So I don't know if I answer your question. percentage chance. I think it's higher than it probably should be. I think it's 50%. I've, 40%, 40%. Yeah, I don't, I would guess it's slightly less than 50. I would say the chances are better that they don't end up taking the quarterback. But the reason I would say that is that more likely than not, they won't trade up and the guys that they would want are going to be gone. You know, Haskins is going to be gone. Murray's going to be gone.

Locke or Joan. I mean, I don't know. I, you know, I watched Missouri enough to, I just remember my impressions of Drew Locke saying when I would watch Missouri, that's an NFL quarterback. You know, when you're watching games, you're like, that dude looks like an NFL quarterback. And he does look the part because he's big and he's a presence in the pocket. But you're right. I mean, we don't evaluate this position for, for money, but they're going to have to do it. What do you have a sense of with respect to Jay Gruden's input on the draft choices this year? Will Jay Gruden be a voice and a significant voice and an influential voice on this Redskins draft, especially if they draft a quarterback? I believe he will. As much as Bruce Allen is pretty

much single-handedly in charge of trades, I do believe that it's a collective. I do believe that it's a voice making the draft board. And I think Jay certainly has a big role in that. I think a lot of the evaluation side of things in Ashburn really is collaborative between Kyle Smith and Jay and Doug and Scouts and Bruce. I think sometimes the execution level is more of a one-man band. But I think it would be premature to assume that because Jay only has two years left on his deal or maybe he's entering a lame duck year that he's less involved in the QB process.

Now, maybe Kevin O'Connell has a more increased role, especially because Gruden wasn't in Mobile and O'Connell was. But what we know now is that Jay really was kind of overhauling his coaching staff and in turn needed to be an aspirin to get all those interviews done and judge whatever needed to be judged in that capacity. I just, I sort of feel my gut tells me that if Jay really had the final say-so on quarterback that Colt McCoy would be starting week one next year and he would say we can go get this done. Let's fill out the rest of the roster. Get me some speed at wide receiver so we can actually, you know, we can get people open. Give me a blocking tight end. Give me a starting guard. Give me a safety. I just think ultimately if they take a quarterback at 15,

it speaks to more of what Bruce wanted than what Jay wanted. I mean, I know that's overly simple. That's oversimplification, but I just have to... I think it depends on who's there. But I don't know that you're wrong. I mean, we don't know enough yet. I think Jay certainly has a deep faith in cult. We've known that for a while.

I reported two years ago before the second franchise tag for Kirk that there were some in Ashburn that thought They should just go with Colt then and not pay at $24 million for Kirk. You know? So there hasn't been significant change in those two years as far as, you know, what's happening there. So there are certainly folks, and Jay hasn't really been bashful about how much. The thing that I think so many people forget is that Colt, Colt had beat Kirk out in 2014. Colt was the starter after Robert was not the starter and then Colt hurt his neck, you know.

there's always been a butt-pult got hurt whenever he's had his chance. I don't think, I don't know that he's leading you to 10 and 6 next year, but I also don't know that he's going to play 16 games. Cold is a great person. I've gotten to know him. I really like him, but there is a body of evidence to suggest you're not going to get, you know, even double-digit games in a row, let alone 16. Ultimately, in 2015, though, they picked cousins.

And I think, you know, I think they made the right decision. And I don't know that Jay wouldn't have been okay with Colton at that point, but I think they all agreed consensus-wise before they approached the owner about RG3 can't be our starter if we want to compete, that they all were on board with cousins. Agreed. By the way, we have- I also don't think they could have sold Colt. I don't think you could go to ownership and say, we've got to bench RG3 for Colt McCoy. I think you could go to ownership and say, we got a bench RG3 for Kirk.

We believe in his potential. You know what I mean? You and Tommy are on the same page on that. That's never made a lot of sense to me because the owner was not a big cousin's fan. You know, he was not necessarily, you know, that impressed with Kirk either. And the last we had seen of Kirk, he had looked worse than Colt the year before. But anyway, that's a longer conversation. I wanted to mention just one other thing, and that is, while, you know,

we're all sort of locked in potentially to the Redskins' consideration of a quarterback at 15 overall in the names, you know, like Murray and Locke and Jones and Haskins. Haskins isn't going to make it there. By the way, personally, I'm not a massive Haskins fan. But then again, yeah, I'm just not. But there are other guys. Like, I was all, like, Jared Stidham is going to be a quarterback you can get in the third round. And I think they'd like him, too. Oh, really?

I think there's a lot to like with Sidham. Now, that's a brief conversation from Mobile, and there's more to investigate there. But I think lots of, I think, especially considering that Sidham was a guy that was at Baylor, you know, he bounced around. He's shown a lot of arm talent. He didn't have the best season, but that Auburn offense was not the best set up. No, it wasn't.

I think Sidham could have a good week here in Indy. He had a disappointing season this year. Auburn had a disappointed, disappointing season. season after the season they had a year ago. They were missing a key cog. Obviously, Kerry-on-Johnson was such a big part of that offense in 2017. But Stidham was really good in 2017. And to me, he looks like a Jay Gruden fit. He's mobile. He throws on the run well, West Coast, quick release, the whole thing. All right. What else? I mean, you're going to be there all the week. Maybe we can check in with you at the end of the week or early next week, just to

recap. Let's talk Friday. Yeah, whatever works. I'll call you. I can finally try and come in next week. I'd love you to do that. So we'll catch up at the end of the week. And seriously, you know what? I think I could be wrong, but I think Bloomington's only an hour and a half tops from Indianapolis. And here's the good news. Indiana stinks right now. Those tickets will be cheap, I bet. I bet you want up to pay much to get in there. I'm walking with Mitch Tishler. Mitch, Bloomington, Indiana is 90 minutes away and they're playing Wisconsin tonight at Assembly Hall. He's intrigued. He's intrigued. We've got to rent a car. Hope NBC Sports Washington's all right with that.

All right. Have fun. Thanks. Thanks, Jeff. Talk soon. All right. J.P. Finley, everybody, NBC Sports Washington and also listen to his Redskins talk podcast. He's going to be doing a live show also from the comments. Combine all this week from noon to one each day. Real quickly on launch workplaces. Somebody tweeted me yesterday said, what's the name of that place again? You mentioned? Launch workplaces. All right. It is one of those, you know, fully furnished shared offices. You can get your own office. You can get a co-working desk that you can lease out. But it's really for people who are

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dot com today they've got other facilities throughout the market so go to launchworkplaces dot com and you'll see all of their other facilities as well but the the location in bethest is beautiful, brand new. And if you're looking for something, you know, to get out of the house or you've been looking for space anyway, stop by, give them a call. You can get an exclusive free two-day trial if you mention my name. 240-86714, launchworkplaces.com. A few things that I want to mention. First of all, congratulations to Gonzaga, the Gonzaga boys, also the St. John's girls, all right, the WCAC Championship games last night at AU. The Gonzaga boys took out St. John's in the final 60 to 56. I mean, the two semifinal games I heard were just off the charts.

I think this is the first year I have not been to either semifinal Sunday or final Monday night. I just couldn't get there either day at AU, but I heard the semi-final games on Saturday were ridiculous and that the game last night was great. But Gonzaga beat Paul the sixth in the semifinals and St. John's beat Demathus. You're talking about two teams, I think, that were ranked in the national top 15, top 20. Gonzaga's been on a role, and it ended up being, you know, these long-time Catholic school rivals, Gensagin and St. John's playing in the finals at A.U last night, and St. John's, Gonzaga won at 60 to 56. So congratulations to Steve Turner and his team for winning the WCAC title.

A couple of other things to get to. You mentioned this to me before the show, that Jim Zorn is back in coaching. He's going to coach in the XFL for the Seattle entry. He is the head coach and GM, since all the head coaches are also GMs of the Seattle team in the XFL. Look, it makes sense.

You're going to need, I mean, your hires are going to be marketing hires. Yes. And Jim Zorn is a hero. He's an iconic. you know, figure in Seattle's, in the Seattle's sports, in Seattle's sports history. So that makes a lot of sense. I mean, it's really funny, though.

I have a lot of friends out in Seattle, and I kind of message them about it, about, you know, kind of joking, oh, you're going to interview him. And they were all excited to get the chance to interview him. They were? Well, because he's a hero out there. Yeah, sure he is. He is. And, I mean, I've told Zorn stories so many times.

He could not. The best way to describe him is the way that Tommy always described him. Jim Zorn, he'd make a great neighbor. And that's the truth. Not a head coach for an NFL franchise, but a great neighbor. He couldn't have been nicer. He was quirky. He was strange.

He was curious. You know, I didn't consider him to be overly brilliant, but he was one of those guys that was curious and interested. And, you know, at times could be interesting. But, you know, a head football coach, and it just didn't ever seem to fit. But I used to enjoy his company when we would do the Jim Zorn show once a week during the 2008 and 2009 seasons out at the park. And Tommy and I would sit there and we would do the 20-minute interview with Zorn, and then he would just stay. He would stay and hang out and listen to the rest of the show. He didn't do it every week, but he did it a lot of weeks.

But he was a kind man. So that's great for him. The Kraft story had more detail to it yesterday. One of the visits to the spa where he was charged with soliciting prostitution was one of the visits was on the day of the AFC championship game. And he pulled up, he was chauffured to the place in a Bentley. All right, so you've got this 77-year-old billionaire, you know, pulling up in one of these strip malls, probably, probably like with a chicken place and a Winn-Dixie, you know, and I mean, it's just, it's mind-boggling that this guy was chauffered in a Bentley to this place on AFC Championship Sunday, went in, by the way, only spent about 15 minutes in there, and then jumped on his, you know, jumped back into Bentley, went to the private airport, and flew to Kansas City for the ANC Championship game. He had an active day, had a very active day.

It's obviously, and for those of you that thought that we were treating this story too flippantly or without the serious tone that it deserves, look, let me make this really clear. If he were involved somehow in human trafficking, they should lock him up. All right. If he was just a customer, then it's not going to be a significant penalty. I mean, I saw the potential of what he, you know, up to a year in jail, a multi-thousand-dollar fine, etc., etc. He's not going to do jail time unless somehow he was funding this place and funding the effort to bring these women in from China and South Korea to essentially be enslaved prostitutes at a massage park. You know, if he were involved from that level, obviously, and it's a horrible, horrible thing, this human trafficking.

I certainly was not treating that aspect of the story lightly, nor would I. All right. The last thing is we guessed yesterday that Maryland would be 17 or 18. They came in at 17 in the Associated Press. They've got Penn State tomorrow night. I'm actually, I was going to go to the game now. I'm not going to the game. My son's got pneumonia. He's going to be fine.

But he can't go to the game now, so I'm not going up to the game. Anyway, they get Penn State tomorrow night. I mean, that's going to be one of those games. You and I will be sitting there late tonight trying to see what the point spread is. I'm going to guess that Maryland's no more than a three-point favorite tomorrow night at Penn State. Penn State's playing awfully well. This is one of those major trap games. They could easily lose at Penn State tomorrow night.

And I guarantee you Turgeon's warning them of that. Look, they had a tough time with Penn State the first time they played them in December. That was their second Big Ten game, right? Or their first Big Ten game. Maybe in their second Big Ten game after Purdue. Yeah, Purdue, I think was first. No, Purdue was second. It was Penn State first.

But Penn State's got some talent. I think Chambers does a pretty good job. That game's tomorrow night. Maybe we'll get knocking on or something like that tomorrow to talk about it. By the way, in the rankings, it's a big one. That's a quad-one game since they are a top 75 team and it's on the road. That's big for those sort of things. Yeah, absolutely.

And, you know, if they can get that one, it sets up, which it already is the game Sunday at home against Michigan, is right now we're building towards one of the biggest home games that Maryland's had since they've been in the Big Ten. They, you know, when they were in the ACC, we had, it seemed like we had two to three of these a year, you know, at least two of these a year. You know, big tilts, anticipated matchups. We haven't had a lot of them. I mean, Maryland's been decent. You know, they've been to the tournament. They weren't in it last year, but they went three straight years. They had that game against Wisconsin that first year where Wisconsin was either two or three in the country.

Remember that one, Aaron? That first year in the Big Ten, Maryland was, I don't know what they were ranked that night going into the game, maybe 15th, 16th, something like that. And they beat Wisconsin, whatever it was. You know, they've had some big games against Michigan State at home. They had that big game against Iowa that first year or the second year maybe. when Iowa was ranked I think third in the country, fourth in the country. But this game Sunday against Michigan, you know, sold out.

It's going to be, you know, I hope it's one of those color-coded games. Is it a gold out or a red out or a whiteout? I'm not sure if it's any of those. I assume it's the flash mob game because we haven't had that yet this season from the students. So students will be fired up for that. It's on a Sunday.

So they have nothing better to do. You've got to expect they'll be packing it in well. And, you know, does usually create good environments. Feels like a big one. feels like one that I know, look, they're in the tournament, and one of the reasons I brought up Maryland here is because Joe Lannardi, who was on television last night, God, after I watched that documentary, the Evichi documentary,

which I would recommend everybody, I flipped on the ESPN, the Kansas game was a blowout. Then I think it was Oklahoma and Iowa State on ESPN 2. And you know what pops up is Joe Lannardi. As the game's going on in the background, they got Joe Lennardi's mug talking to me about his latest brackatology, which the reason I brought this subject up is Marilyn's up to a four on his, in his bracket. And Lenardi has been doing this for 25 years.

He was the pioneer of this, but he's terrible on television. Just one viewer's suggestion. And they do this every year this time. Like if that's my game, if that's my team playing in that game, and they're popping Joe Lenardi up while the game's going on telling me about bracketology, look, I can get his bracketology on the phone during the commercials. I want to watch the game. I don't want to hear from him.

He does a phenomenal job. He's a pioneer of this cottage industry of brackatology. He spawned hundreds of people that do this now, including Patrick Stevens, who is great at it. Patrick was on the show yesterday. If you miss that, I would urge you to listen to it. Patrick does such a good job with his brackatology, but just covering the sport in general. But I get him. It's bad programming.

to have Lunardi up there. It's just to have him in a little, you know, quad box talking to me while a game's going on in the background is bad programming in my view. But anyway, Marilyn moved up to the four line. And Sunday's game against Michigan, they've got to get through Penn State, not going to be easy, as mentioned. It does feel like, and I know that some of you are going to say, Maryland's had much bigger games than Michigan at home over the years. I know that. But in the big 10, this one's a big one. You know, Michigan, this is, this has, has seating, this has standings, this has, you know, a little bit of revenge. Michigan's pummeled Maryland the last few times they played them. You know, they beat them by 13 last week. They beat

them in their building last year at the end of the season by 30. When's the lot? I mean, Merrill should have beaten Michigan at Michigan last year. That was the game where they gave up, you know, they fouled Rachman at the buzzer, basically, and he hit two free throws to win it. but I like to beat Michigan. You know, I'd like to win this game. I mean, it's not like, you know, this deep-seated hatred for, because I don't have that for any of these Big Ten teams yet. But they've become a little bit annoying, you know,

and their fan base can be annoying and a little bit, you know, duke-ish, pompous, you know, we're Michigan. Yeah, I mean, I said going into the Big Ten that if everything falls into place, Michigan could very well just based on the fan base. and, you know, it is a good college school. And, you know, their alumni will tell you that how good of a school it is. They could be very, they could be the replacement for Duke in some way. And, you know, on one hand, and I think you said this to me before the show, the Michigan games in no loose situation,

because they're not going to lose seating if they lose the game. But you know what? It's beyond that. You know, Turgent needs a couple of these on his resume. Haven't had a lot of them. He's had some of them. But, you know, Maryland, if you're looking at the going into the seating, they don't have that one really, really good win. And this, that's what this would be.

have some good wins, but nothing excellent. What's the best? Is Purdue at home their best one of the year? Yeah. Right? Yeah. Which is a good win, which is a very good win. But this would be, if they're looking at trying to break into that three seed, they need another really good win. And this is the chance of it. Yeah. I just look, there were years when Maryland was good, which was a lot of them, a lot of those years, you know, in the 90s and the 2000s, where, you know, you'd be playing the number one team in your building, Duke or North Carolina or maybe they were number two or number three. And there was an expectation that you were going to win that game because it was at home. There was an expectation that Gary and his band of non-McDonnells high school All-Americans would win the game. We felt that

way. And I don't know that we feel that way as a fan base, that Michigan's coming in here as a top 10 team, as a team that potentially could win the Big 10 regular season. They've pummeled us the last couple of times they've played us. And, you know, I'll be honest with you. I think they're the worst, they've been the worst matchup for Maryland here in recent years. They defend so well in our stuff, the stuff that we like to run, just doesn't seem to work as much against them. They're so well-coached.

B-line is outstanding. And he's got good players, too. But this is one of those games, you know, if we're, put it this way, Aaron. And I know that it won't hurt the seating, and I know that it's not going to impact Maryland's ability to go into the tournament and play well. But if they can win this, if they can win both of these this week, it would be really telling it as to what type of team this is. Because the team that they thought was a Final Four type of team that at one point was ranked two in the country in 2015,

2015? Yes. With Diamond Stone and Mellow Trimble and the whole gang, Robert Carter Jr., etc. they lost some of these games. They didn't win these games. Go beat Penn State, beat Michigan this week. You know, prove something to us that you've taken a step to the next level. And also send a message to the rest of the league that, you know,

college park's not a place in this team's not to be trifled with this year when we go to the Big Ten tournament. I don't, I've said this for a few weeks running. I want Maryland to start taking it to people, not, you know, having it play out. and we're going to out-execute and out-stratage the whole thing. Take it to somebody. That building Sunday will be great, and they should take it to Michigan. Michigan's beatable, all right? Penn State beat them badly in state college.

They've lost games. They got beat at home on Sunday by a team Michigan State who's without two key players. You know, they've lost games here, so it's not, you know, it's not a long shot. One last thing. Somebody asked me yesterday how you rate and rate. review the podcast. Apple podcasts, iTunes, almost all of them, when you actually subscribe or asked to subscribe to the show, they'll ask you to rate and review it. It should be right there when you, you know, search Kevin Sheehan Show.com on iTunes or on, you know, your purple icon,

iPhone podcast icon. A lot of people don't know that. If you've got an iPhone, you've got a purple podcast icon. If you just go to that icon and search Kevin Sheehan's show, the podcast will pull up. You'll be able to rate and review it and subscribe to it. So that always helps us if you do that. I know I've mentioned that a lot recently, but it definitely is something that's important for us. So if you can do it, that would be great. Have a great day. Tomorrow, Cooley will be on the show. I'm pretty sure, pretty sure that he'll be on this show. Got to follow up with them later on this afternoon, but he said he thought he would be available to do it tomorrow. All right, have a great day.