The Kevin Sheehan Show - Is RB Still A Possibility?

Episode Date: May 19, 2025

Kevin opened with running back talk. Is Washington interested in adding someone? Who? And why?  Also, the NFL Schedule "Net Rest" numbers are out and the Commanders have the 3rd worst in the league. Nats, NBA Playoffs, NHL Playoffs, and PGA part of the show today as well.   Goldbelly.com, code sheehan, for free shipping and 2% off your first order of food from around the US.  Go To WindowNation.com. Buy 4 windows, get 4 free!Betting on sports? Go to mybookie.ag. Use code KEVINDC for a bonus!  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You don't want it. You don't need it. But you're going to get it anyway. The Kevin Cheon Show. Here's Kevin. Window Nation is the presenting sponsor of this podcast. Call them if you've been thinking about new Windows. 86690 Nation.

You can go to Window Nation.com as well. Mentioned my name. They'll come out and give you an absolute free, no-risk in-home estimate. This from Eric to open up the show. Eric writes, Kevin. I so enjoyed Merrill's interview. He's talking about Merrill Hodge, who was on the last show, and I like Merrill a lot, and I liked having him on the show. Eric writes, although I wish he'd pause and give you more chances for input and questions, I just love his insight.

He's so good at the basics. Watch the film, trust your eyes. I noticed that you didn't ask him about Jacori Kroski Merritt, but I'm guessing it was such a late pick that he's was unlikely to be on Merrill's radar. I still believe Chris Rodriguez is the most natural runner on the team, and I'd love to see him get a shot to be the bell cow with Echler spelling him on third downs. I love Brian Robinson's story, but he has shown a knack for slowing down as the season progresses. Not sure if a seventh rounder Merritt has any real shot of making some noise, any ideas. Yeah, Eric, I, Merrill's great.

Merrill has a very, very good track record on evaluating draft prospects, specifically quarterbacks in recent years. He did not like any of the quarterbacks in the just-completed draft in terms of first rounders. Tyler Shook was the one quarterback. He thought, you know, has a chance to be pretty good. But he was not a big Cam Ward fan, was not, you know, in on Shadur Sanders, certainly not early in the draft.

He thinks Shudur's got some good qualities, but didn't think really any quarterback in this draft was a first round quality. He really likes Ashton Genty a lot. He evaluated the running backs and liked Hampton a bunch too and really thinks Scataboo drafted by the Giants has a chance to be a really good player. But I did ask him about Jacori Kroski Merritt, but he did not have an opinion. He had not watched any of Kroski Merit. You know, he didn't really watch any of Washington's draft picks.

I didn't have him on necessarily to evaluate Washington's draft. I knew that he focused, you know, mostly on quarterbacks and running backs. But, yeah, he's great to have on. And we've had him on, you know, whether it's radio or podcast, We've had him on a number of times in recent years. I like Chris Rodriguez also. I don't know what the deal is with him. I think perhaps there were some issues with him

in terms of his commitment to getting in the best possible shape. But they did bring him back on that restricted free agent tender deal. So I'm guessing, you know, they think he's got a shot to make the team. Remember last year he was active in nine games. none of the playoff games, but he did have a couple of moments. He had the game against Tennessee where Washington blew out the Titans, but he had 13 carries 94 yards and that one, had a good game on the road against the Giants, 11 carries 52 yards, had to go ahead touchdown and the comeback win over Atlanta, which clinched the playoff spot late in the season.

I did notice, and I went back to check on this, I don't think I noticed. in the moment last year. But he got more special team snaps as the season went on later in the season. Look, I think he's got a shot to make the team and maybe get more opportunities. I'd like to see it. I think he's a very good runner in terms of first and 10, second and seven, short yardage. I like Rodriguez. I've liked him since the moment I saw him in preseason. games a few years ago. Now, you know, keeping him and really maybe keeping Brian Robinson, Jr., assumes they don't sign another running back before the season begins.

I still think there's a chance of that happening. Matt Bowen from ESPN to a certain degree thinks there's a chance Washington might be looking running back as well. Today in a story titled Best NFL Team Fits for Remaining Free Agents, both best NFL team fits for remaining free agents and for trade candidates, he wrote that the best free agent fit for Washington was J.K. Dobbins, running back last year with the Chargers. And he wrote, finding an ideal fit for a veteran running back isn't easy.

At this point in the offseason, especially for a veteran running back, a player with Dobbins' rich injury history. He missed four games with an MCL sprain last year, yet he still managed a career high in rushing yards, 905, and tied a career high in rushing touchdowns with nine. In Cliff Kingsbury's offense in Washington, I could see Dobbins providing competition for Brian Robinson Jr. as the early down runner. Dobbins can run between the tackles and has the juice to create big plays on the ground. He took 27 carries for 10 or more yards last season. I mean, I've mentioned Nick Chubb a lot. I have a feeling Chubb is not as attractive as Dobbins, maybe for two reasons. One is age. He's three years older

than Dobbins, two to three years older than Dobbins, and two is maybe his injuries are worse. Chub broke his foot late in the season last year. Last year was also the worst year of his career in terms of average yards per carry when he did play. But look, Dobbins out of a possible 84 regular season games in his career since getting drafted by the Ravens back in 2020, he's played in just 37 of them. So he's missed 47 chances to play football because of injuries. and he's had all of the injuries you can think about, all the biggies like Achilles, ACL, and plenty of others as well. He's talented.

You know, he's 26 years old, and if he's healthy, sure. I mean, either one of those two guys would be interesting, but, you know, the medical would have to be cleared. And then you are looking at a deal that's going to be team friendly. I mean, J.K. Dobbins is not signing a deal for a lot of guarantees. money in multi-years. He's signing a one-year, you know, four to five million dollar years, six million tops, with a lot of it being incentives. And I think Chub's in that same boat. Chub might be in a lesser boat. You know, speaking of running backs, I was thinking about this over the weekend. Somebody asked me, I was at a wedding and just said, you know,

did they get any better on defense? Did Washington get any better on defense this year? And I said, I have no idea. But I do know this. If they don't get better, if they didn't get better on defense, they are in for it again because last year they faced elite running backs all season long, and this year it's going to be the same thing. You know, last year, and I went through this, I think at some point late in the season, they faced, I mean, truly elite running. backs in six games. Three against Barclay, one against Derek Henry, one against Bejohn Robinson, and then one in the playoffs against Jemir Gibbs. Those four running backs in six games rushed for 741 yards and 13 touchdowns against Washington's defense. That's an average of 5.92 yards per.

carry. Barkley, 15 for 118, 29 for 150, 26 for 146. Barclay himself rushed for 414 yards, nearly six yards of carry and seven touchdowns. Derek Henry, 24 for 132, 5 and a half yards per carry two touchdowns. Bejohn Robinson, 17 for 90, two touchdowns, 5.3 yards per carry. And then inexplicably, I mean, we talked about this during the follow-up to the win over the Lions last year. Jemir Gibbs, 14 carries for 105 yards and two touchdowns. How the hell did Detroit only give him the ball 14 times when in that game he was averaging 7.5 yards per carry? He was averaging 10 yards of carry, I think, in the first half. The answer was David Montgomery was back, and I guess they felt compelled to give him some carries.

He was 7 for 28, 4 yards per carry. That's not 7.5 yards per carry. You give Gibbs another 7 carries in that game at 7.5 yards per carry. Okay, I think we can all do that math. You're basically talking about another 5152 yards. and he's sitting there at a buck 56, a buck 57, and probably another touchdown or two. Does it change the outcome of the game? Maybe not.

Does it make it a much tighter game than 45 to 31? Definitely. You know, even looking beyond the, what I would call the truly elite backs that they got absolutely torched by, how about Bucky Irving last year? He in two games against Washington, you know, nine carries 62 yards, 17 carries 77 yards. So he averaged 5.34 yards per carry in two shots. James Connor, I know it was a blowout. He was 18 for 104.

D'Andre Swift was 18 for 129, 7.2 yards per carry. Even Rico Dowdell in two games was 41.4. 158, it's going to have to be a lot better than it was last year because, you know, they open up with Tyrone Tracy, who had a decent game in their second game against him. He didn't really play in the first game against them in the opener as a rookie, or in week two. But they had the guy Scataboo as well. Week two, short week for Josh Jacobs. You could certainly consider him to be right on the edge of elite. Then they get the rookie Ashton Genty, the number six pick in the draft in week three.

Then it's Bejohn Robinson in week four on the road. Then in week five against the Chargers, the Chargers signed Najee Harris, but they also drafted Hampton from North Carolina in the first round. DeAndre Swift after that. Then Dallas has a new. back situation. Kansas City still has Pacheco and Hunt. Seattle, when they're healthy with Walker the 3rd and Charbonnet, Detroit, Gibbs, Miami with their speed, Aaron Jones in Minnesota, and then I haven't even gotten to Berkeley. Barkley twice at the end of the year. The number one thing we have to see if they're really going to contend against what should

be a much tougher schedule. At least it looks that way on paper. And I've just mentioned the running backs. I mean, I've already talked about the quarterback difference from last year. Last year, they got a big break. They didn't face a lot of elite quarterbacks. It's Jordan Love. It's Justin Herbert. It's Dak Prescott twice. Patrick Mahomes. The Detroit offense. The potential of the Chicago offense this year, the Miami speed, the Denver offense, which was so improved. Minnesota, we'll see what J.J. McCarthy is, we don't know. Jalen hurts twice. Prescott already mentioned twice. But, you know, the key, I think, when teams face Washington this coming season will be, if we can run the football and possess the football, we can keep number five,

that high-flying offense off the field. Even more so than last year, because it kind of snuck up on teams. They weren't necessarily prepared early on for Washington to be so good offensively. They will be expecting it for sure this upcoming season. They will know Washington is the real deal offensively, and their best chance to beat Washington is to keep Jaden off the field. And if the defense isn't any better, especially against the run with the backs Washington is facing, it could be another long year against the run. And, you know, then you're in a, you know, another six or seven games that are coming down to the wire.

You hope to be. They got to be better against the run. That is for sure. This from Manny. Manny writes, Kevin, I'm a big fan of the show, but wish you would talk about the nationals occasionally. Maybe after this past weekend you can mention something about the team on Monday's show. Well, it is Monday.

And, Mani, you know, to be fair, the Nats aren't very good. And the percentage of people listening to this podcast in particular that want Nats content is pretty damn low to begin with this time of year. but it's definitely extremely low when they're not a good team. You know, when they were a contending team for those years in that long stretch in the 2010s, a lot of Nat's content, not during football season necessarily, unless they were playoff games, and we did a lot on the playoff games during those years. But over the summer, we talked a lot more. Look, on the radio show today, I had Mark Zuckerman on,

and I have Zuck and others on this show from time to take. time when the Nats, you know, are either, you know, on a bit of a role positively or on a super, you know, negative role. And I've got Tommy on the show. Tommy covers the team, and we do talk about the Nats, especially when Tommy is on, but I'm very familiar with what they did over the weekend in sweeping the horrendous Orioles, which right now I would guess the Orioles are the biggest shocking, you know, disappointment of the season so far. They fired their manager Saturday, but the Nats took all three from the Orioles, five home runs yesterday in the game, first time since 2023 with five homers in a game, two from C.J. Abrams, who is having, you know,

along with James Wood, an all-star season. The Nats have two legitimate all-star candidates. it's right now in Abrams and in James Wood. The Nats put together two games on Saturday and Sunday, 20 runs and 24 hits. So offensively, they've clearly hit for power in a much better way through 48 games at this point they've played. James Woods having a phenomenal year, and his opposite field power has been sensational. By the way, Dylan Cruz smacked a home run and had three R.B. eyes yesterday. But this team has really fallen apart with their starting pitching. Their bullpen

is a disaster minus Kyle Finnegan. And, you know, at 21 and 27, it may not be as bad at various times, but this is a team who's got major, major bullpen issues and major bottom of the order. Offense, offensive issues. But yeah, I like baseball. I follow the Nats. I'm not sitting there watching games every night. I'd be lying if I told you that I did. I don't occasionally. It's on, you know, as sort of background. I did not watch much at all over the weekend, even though they were playing the Orioles. And, you know, their stint with the Orioles this year is up and handed up taking five of six from the lowly Orioles. You know, I think overall the Nats franchise right now, while I know that there are a lot of hardcore Nats fans out there, but I think there's a high level of disappointment with ownership and there's seemingly, you know, lack of interest in spending any real money.

We've seen the superstar players in this organization leave. You know, there's already conversation among Nats fans. James Wood, you know, he's blowing up right now. What does that mean? That means in four years he's not going to be here. It's going to be playing with the Yankees or the Mets or somebody else. Yeah, I think Mike Rizzo does a phenomenal job given the resources that he has, which is not great. And that stinks because the Nats, of course, are owned by a family that is worth many billions of dollars. and I understand their business, the commercial real estate business in particular, has taken a hit since the pandemic. And I know what the Nats would have benefited from financially had they had a real season after their World Series in 2019.

But they didn't. The pandemic struck and couldn't have been a worse time. But, you know, it seems like there are a lot of people just kind of holding on until, you know, the learners decide to sell. and then we'll find out who the new owner is and whether or not that's a better situation. But yeah, look, they've got a tough stretch coming up. They've got, you know, the Braves who have turned it around. They've got the Giants who are playing at a very high level. They also play Seattle, who's a first place team after that.

They get Arizona after that. So they took advantage of the Orioles. but what they have coming up is a brutal stretch of games against literally Atlanta surging, San Francisco, excellent Seattle, a division leader, Arizona playing at a high level, Chicago, the Cubs, a division leader as well. Who do they have after that? Let me just check. They've got Texas after that.

Texas has a winning record, and then the Mets. This is not a playoff contest. team. We understand that. You know, you look around the National League, and I talked to Mark Zuckerman about that today. I mean, look at the Mets, Phillies, now the Braves after their tough start, the Cubs, the Cardinals, and then the NL West. The Dodgers, Padres, Giants, and Arizona are all good, and are all going to contend for playoff spots. And it doesn't look like it's the Dodgers and everybody else necessarily. Not standings-wise. So the National League is loaded.

So the Nats are a long, long way off. But Manny, I appreciate you mentioning it. We just did talk some baseball for a while, and we typically do it more so when Tommy's on the show. And more so when something is happening that is, you know, garnering some attention. But make no mistake. I know what the mass-meas,

majority of you who listen to this podcast and even the radio show to a certain degree, because they're not completely the same audiences, not even close to the same audiences. They are different. I know some of you listen to both. But if we did too much Nats, just like if we did too much caps during the fall during football season, it just wouldn't appeal to enough people. But let's see what happens. James Wood is a story. My eyes are open to what James Wood is doing. And the superstar that he appears to be heading towards becoming. He's having a tremendous season. He's on pace right now for 40 home runs and 100 RBIs. And he's going to be an all-star. And C.J. Abrams has a chance to be an all-star as well. So they are, I think they're more fun to watch this year.

that's for sure. All right. Next, all of that net rest day stuff from the schedule is out. I'll share it with you when we return right after these words from a few of our sponsors. I introduced many of you to Goldbelly a few months back, and I want to keep talking about it today because Goldbelly has the most iconic famous foods from restaurants all across the United States, aggregated on one amazing site, and they ship it free to your door anywhere in the country. They'll ship you iconic Chicago Deep Dish Pizza from Lumal Notties.

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off your first order. Window Nation is a sponsor of this podcast and of this segment specific. today, window nation is the best. They've got the best product. They've got the best customer service. And right now they've got the best deal. 60% off your purchase and you don't have to pay anything for two full years. No down payment, no payments, no interest charged for two full years. If you buy a house full of windows, they'll give you a free entry door. This is a company that's been around a while. They do it right. They've got over 45,000 five-star reviews. They've got a 96% percentage of satisfied customers after the windows are installed.

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Now, before I get started here, let me just explain what it is I'm talking about. I've done it before, but if you haven't heard the explanation before, net rest is the number of days, either extra days you have to prepare for your upcoming opponent, or fewer days that you have to prepare for your upcoming opponent. Most of your games, typically both teams played on a Sunday, they're going to play the next Sunday, and there's no rest day advantage or disadvantage. An example of a rest day edge, okay? Washington has a full seven-day buy week ahead of their game against the Cowboys.

And the Cowboys play on my... Monday night football, which is a short week. What does that mean? That means Washington has a rest edge advantage of eight days. They've got the seven days of the buy week, and then Dallas, then they get another seven days while Dallas only has six days off a Monday night football game, hence an eight-day advantage. Well, after looking at Washington's schedule, I noticed right off the bat because of the buy weeks, they were more likely than not going to have a net rest disadvantage. And they do. It's the third worst in the league in the upcoming season. Vegas has a negative 19-day disadvantage in rest.

New Orleans has a negative 14-day disadvantage when it comes to rest, and Washington has a negative 13-day disadvantage. when it comes to rest. That comes from the following. In week three, they actually have a four-day advantage prior to their game against the Raiders. The reason being, Washington plays the previous Thursday night against Green Bay.

But in week six, they play the Bears coming off a by-week. That's negative seven days. They get the Cowboys the following week where they've got a negative one-day disadvantage because Washington plays Chicago on Monday. night football and Dallas plays on Sunday. Then they get Seattle at home in week nine. Seattle's coming off a by, so it's negative seven days rest there. Then if you fast forward to week 15, the giants are coming off a buy week. It's negative six days there. They get plus one over the

Cowboys on Christmas Day because they play the previous Saturday and Dallas play Sunday. And then they get plus three days of advantage against the Eagles in the season finale because Washington plays on Christmas Day and the Eagles play on that Sunday. In total, what that comes out to is negative 13 days disadvantage, third worst in the league. Now, why is that important? Well, let me just give you the last two years, all right? In 2024 last year, the 11 best net rest day advantages, meaning at least five days of rest advantage for the season or better, seven out of the 11 teams with five days or better as a net rest number, went over their projected season win total. 7 out of 11, led by Baltimore, who had the largest net rest advantage last year.

Five out of the eight worst net rest disadvantaged teams went under their projected 24 win total. So basically, if you look at the teams that had the best net rest, net risk, rest day advantages and the teams that had the worst net rest disadvantages, the overwhelming majority of those teams either outperformed because they were well rested or they underperformed because they weren't rested. In 2023, seven out of ten of the best net rest teams, plus five days or better for the season went over their production. projected win total, and seven out of the 10 worst net rest teams went under their win total.

70% for both. 70% of the teams that had a positive net rest advantage went over their projected win total for the year. 7 out of the 10 with the worst net rest numbers went under their win total. It's obvious. teams that are fresher have a better chance of winning games against teams that aren't as fresh. Now, you know, over the years, the types of rest have sort of varied in terms of, is there a bigger advantage if you've got, if you're coming off a buy week? Because some people might say, well, maybe you're a little stale coming off a buy week.

or is the bigger advantage a less rest day advantage when you're playing a team coming off Monday night football and you played on Sunday? The results have varied since 1990, but in essence, overall, you know, the buy week produces about a 53% win rate for the fresher team, for the team coming off the buy week. That doesn't sound overwhelming, but in a fine line league, that is sizable. But again, if you look at just the last two years, projected wind totals going into the year, the teams that had more rest went significantly over the wind total. The teams with less rest came in significantly under the wind total. So in looking at this year, here's part of the problem. And look, they're going to play the games, and Washington's got a great quarterback.

And I'm not really worried whether they're fresh or not because they're best. player is in his second season. Hopefully he is fresh and ready to go. I'm just giving you what it's been here recently and why people, you know, post these numbers and why many people out there think these numbers can be significant. Last year, as an example, I mean, the 49ers had the worst in the league and the Ravens had the best. The 49ers had the worst ever, by the way, at negative 21 days, and they got absolutely injured and banged up and had a terrible season. So this year, here's the one interesting thing beyond Washington having the third worst disadvantage in terms of rest days, is that the teams with the best rest day advantages are all

contenders in the NFC. Detroit's got plus 13 net rest days. it's number one in the league. The Rams have plus 10, number three in the league. The 49ers plus 9, fourth in the league. Seattle plus 8, fifth in the league. Then it's Arizona at plus 7, then Baltimore. Dallas is at plus 5. The Giants are plus 4.

Phillies plus 4. So every contending team in the NFC in terms of big win totals going into the year with the exception of Green Bay who's at minus two is positive except for Washington. And Washington is significantly in the red at negative 13. Again, they're going to play the games anyway. We got a good team. We got a very good offensive team. But when you look at it, you know, playing the Bears coming off a by week.

Now, the good news about that game is Washington does play the previous Sunday against the Chargers, but they don't play until Monday night against Chicago. So Chicago is going to have, you know, basically, you know, 15 days, Washington's going to have eight. So it will be a seven-day advantage. The problem is then Washington goes into Dallas on the road with six days, while Dallas has a full seven. Then they get the Seahawks at home in week nine. Seahawks coming off a game against a Sunday game the week before.

Washington coming off a Monday night game the week before. Actually, Seattle played the week before on Monday night, and Washington plays on Monday night, so it's negative seven. They're negative six against the Giants late in the season, and then they get a couple of bonuses against the Cowboys and the Eagles. So we'll see and we'll certainly mention and we'll know where they've got the advantage rest-wise going into those games. You know, the good news is they only have a total of four negative rest day games. Now, they're big numbers and three of them, but they only have four games specifically where they're at a rest day games.

disadvantage. There are other teams with more games that they're playing at a disadvantage, even if the total number doesn't add up to Washington. Now, Detroit, interestingly, is going to play the most games, according to Warren Sharp, with a rest advantage than any team since he's been doing this exercise. they've got eight games where they have a net rest advantage. Many of those are plus ones. They're playing teams coming off a Monday night game. The Lions have five games against teams coming off Monday night football. Now, the Lions who play in Washington do not have a net rest advantage when they come to Washington.

So, anyway, there you go. That's the data off of, the schedules being finalized last week. Real quickly to some other NFL news from today, Mike Florio, for whatever it's worth with Florio, you never know from Pro Football Talk, reported that the Bengals offered Trey Hendrickson $28 million a year,

and his view of that is that they got low-balled. I tend to agree with that, because when you look at the salaries for Edge, rushers, past rushers in this league average per year. He's had the most sacks in aggregate the last two years, led the league last year with 17 and a half. At 28 million, if that's what he accepted, and let's just say it's a negotiating number to get to 30. Even at 30, he wouldn't be in the top five after Micah Parsons does his deal. Right now, Miles Garrett's at 40 a year. Deniel Hunters at 35.6 a year. That's the deal he's

signed in Houston last year. He's the same age. He's actually a little bit older than Trey Hendrickson. Max Crosby's at 35.5. Nick Bowes is at 34, and then Micah Parsons is certainly going to come in in the low to mid-30s. You know, you would expect him maybe not to be at Miles Garrett, but to be, you know, in that 35-plus range. Twenty-eight million a year would put him after the Parsons deal at eighth in the league. I can see why he's not willing to sign that deal. And I can see, as I've discussed before, why Hendrickson's going to be looking for, you know, north of 30 a year.

Even at his age, he's going to look for a top five worst case, and that puts him at 34 million plus a year. What does it mean? I don't know if it means anything in terms of his availability. and Washington's current interest level. We know they've had interest level. Do they still have it? Who knows?

All right, we'll finish up with some of the other things that happened from over the weekend, including the game seven in the NBA playoffs yesterday. After these words from a few of our sponsors. This segment of the show is brought you by MyBooky. Go to mybooky.orgie. Go to my bookie.g if you want to bet on sports. Use my promo code, Kevin D.C.

They'll give you a cash bonus when you. you sign up, more money into your account to bet with. They've got everything you need. They've got everything you need for the NBA playoffs. Game one tomorrow night in the Western Conference Finals, Oklahoma City's a seven and a half point favorite over Minnesota. Game one in the Eastern Conference Finals on Wednesday night. The Knicks are four and a half point favorites over Indiana. And then they've got everything you need for the upcoming NFL season. All of the futures, you know, Super Bowl odds, conference championship odds, division odds, over under win totals. And they've got week one up in its entirety, week two up in its entirety. And if you want

to bet today or tonight, the Christmas Day game between Dallas and Washington, they've got that game up and available to be wagered on today. Washington's a four and a half point favorite on Christmas Day over Dallas at MyBooky. Week one, there's seven and a half point favorite over the Giants. Week two against Green Bay on the short week on Thursday night football. They are currently a one and a half point underdog in that game. MyBooky's got it all. Go to mybooky.orgie.orgie.com and use my promo code, Kevin, DC. So I mentioned the Western Conference finals. Oklahoma City is there.

They blew out Denver in game seven. I was pumped up to watch that game yesterday. I knew Denver was hurting going into the game. Aaron Gordon was banged up. He had a hamstring injury in Denver's Thursday night game six win. He played. He was courageous. He played pretty well at eight points and 11 rebounds, but he wasn't himself.

Denver got off to an 11-point lead in the first quarter, and then they made substitutions in God. They were just completely outplayed by Oklahoma City's bench in this series for the most part. Look, Oklahoma City is the better team. I made the call, you know, after round one, I said, I think Oklahoma City is going to win the title. I think they're the best team that I've seen top to bottom. And experience does win in the NBA playoffs, but all of the experience got injured and it's gone.

You know, we had Steph got injured and Golden State got beat by Minnesota. Tatum's out in Boston, the Celtics are done. And then you had Aaron Gordon injured prior to Game 7. Michael Porter's been injured and Denver got outlasted in seven grueling games. Game 7 was easy for Oklahoma City. 125 to 93, a 32-point win. They're just better and deeper. I do have a couple of just specific thoughts on this game if you watched it.

Number one, Oklahoma City beat this shit out of Nicole Yokic. I didn't think the game was officiated very well at all. You can't grab, hold, push, smack, you know, knock around, and not have anything called, really. He did shoot 11 free throws, and a lot of them came in the first. quarter, but they wore him down physically with two and three players at a time, and they just were too much in his space fouling him. I don't mind physical basketball. I prefer it, actually, and you get that in the postseason. I just thought they were fouling him much of the time. Look, Oklahoma City is a great defensive basketball team. They're really, really good,

and it's their defense along with their explosive offense that I think will carry them to an NBA title. Their first. But I don't think it would have made a difference had they called a lot of fouls or many more fouls in the game. Denver shot 22 free throws in the game. Oklahoma City was whistled for 19 fouls. Nobody on Oklahoma City's roster had more than three. Nobody in the starting lineup had, I mean, Dort had three. that was the most. Nobody else had three in their starting lineup.

I just thought they went a little bit overboard in trying to take Yokic out. And Yokic, you know, they didn't have enough shooters around him that were knocking down shots. I mean, they were 10 for 45 from behind the arc. And, you know, when you look at starters, Jamal Marie was 1 for 8. Christian Brown, 2 for 8. Porter Jr., just a disastrous series. you know, with his injured shoulder. O for four.

You know, they came off the bench with the guy the other night, Strother, that came up big. He was 0 for two. Westbrook's a disaster. I mean, I used to love Russell Westbrook. He was one of my favorite players. I still respect the hell out of Russell Westbrook. He is a first ballot Hall of Famer.

I'm not sure the game's ever seen somebody that's played harder for longer than Russell Westbrook. But the playoffs are just, just not for him, because when the game slows down, he can't, period. His plus minus was minus 34. Now, everybody had a big minus yesterday for Denver, understood. He comes into the game, and it's even money he's going to commit a turnover on every possession. He just can't slow down when the game slows down.

And as a shooter, oh my God, when he misses, it's as ugly as ugly gets. I love Westbrook. I love what he's meant to the game. I love the way he's played, his leadership on every team he's been on. He has never been a player built for the postseason because it's like his brain and his body is going 150 miles per hour, and he can't slow down either one. And that works in the regular season.

It doesn't work in the playoffs. You have to be able to slow down. You've got to be able to see things. His IQ in playoff games is super low, his basketball IQ. And I wouldn't say that about the regular season, but the regular season's a completely different game. He's just not very good. He's a net negative in the playoffs.

And he has been for pretty much his entire career. A lot of it anyway. When he was a young player in OKC with, Harden and with Durant. He was very much an alpha, but he still couldn't slow down when the game needed to slow down for him. I'm surprised that Yokic really embraced Westbrook. They've got to go out Denver does, and they've got to add more scoring. They've got to have much more scoring off the bench, and they just have to have smarter

and playoff-style basketball players off their bench. I love Oklahoma City, man. they're good. SGA went for 35 and he looked nervous in the first quarter. Alex Caruso's a beast. He's the champion on their team. He was with the Lakers in their COVID championship, bubble championship. Aaron Wiggins, ex-Turp, man, he's missed a lot of threes in this series, but he knocked down a couple of big ones in the game. But they're just good, Holmgren and Jalen Williams and Dort. God, Dork can defend. God Caruso can end. It's fun to watch Oklahoma City. I was rooting for Denver. I didn't bet the game. The right side was Oklahoma City. They were laying eight and a half. And I told everybody that asked me,

I'm like, if you made me play it, I'd play OKC and I'd lay the number because, you know, Denver has played them super close in every game but game two. Denver should have won game four and game five. And if they had done that, this series may have been over. But it kept going on, and Murray was out of gas, and Porter Jr. was shot, and Aaron Gordon was injured, and Yokic looked worn down, and Westbrook was a mess, and Oklahoma City prevailed. And they were the better team. They've been the better teams. I think they've been the best team in the postseason. I watched the hockey last night, the game seven between Florida and Toronto. I love game sevens regardless of the sport.

Florida crushed Toronto, six to one. So it's Florida and Carolina in Eastern Conference Finals, and it's Dallas and Edmonton in the Western Conference Finals. Dallas knocked out Winnipeg the other night. That is, by the way, the President's Trophy winning Winnipeg Jet Team. that was eliminated. But I wanted to mention the hockey because last night, and I watched the first two periods of this game, the first period of Florida, Toronto was an unbelievably one-sided game. Like, we talked about a couple of the games in which Carolina really tilted the ice and

dominated puck possession and dominated shot attempts. How about this in the first period? At one point, Florida had out attempted Toronto 20 to nothing and had an 8 to nothing shots on goal advantage. But they didn't score. Of course they didn't. It's hockey. And the goal he was standing on his head. And then the goal started to fall in the second period and they took a 3-0 lead. And it was over. I mean, I can't believe Florida, if you watch that game, didn't score in the first period with the way they dominated the action and just dominated, you know, the shots on goal and the shot attempts. It was crazy. I know they're the defending Stanley Cup champs and they've been to the Cup finals two straight years. I don't know who's the favorite in the Eastern Conference finals, Florida or Carolina.

I'm going to guess it's Florida. I think a lot of people think Florida, you know, going into this postseason, had a chance to get back to the Stanley Cup finals and that that would have been a really tough matchup, the Caps made it through the Carolina Hurricanes, of course, they didn't. But the Toronto story continues, man. It's been a long time for them, and that's one of the reasons I turned it on as well. That crowd was incredible, and they haven't won the Cups since 67, and they're not going to win it this year. I'll finish up with this, golf, the PGA, Scotty Sheffler. Once he finished the way he finished on Saturday and took a three-shot lead into the final round,

I thought that it was, you know, a lock. Now, you know, you saw the run by Rom. Rom had the lead and a share of the lead there on the back nine after he birdied 10 and 11. But after that, he missed a lot of putts that were makeable and were right on the edge and then fell apart 16, 17, 18, that, you know, last mile of difficulty at Quail Hollow. Sheffler, third major, you know, he's not exciting. He is machine-like, though. and with a lead, it just seems like he's the dude that's unstoppable. Rory tied for 47th, you know, finished three over.

Denny McCarthy, a top 10 major finish for Denny. I'm really excited for him. He shot one under 70 yesterday, finish four under par, and tied for eighth at the PGA championship. Up next, Oakmont, Western PA for the U.S. Open in June. All right, that's it for the day. Back tomorrow with Tommy. I'm heading to Tommy's event tonight, which is why I've kept the podcast pretty short.

But I'll be back with him tomorrow. We'll be able to talk about what should be a fun night. Cigars and Curveballs, 6 to 8 p.m. at Shelley's 13th and F Streets Northwest. $100 donation, but you get three cigars, you get appetizers, and you get a chance to hang out with all of us. Doc will be down there. I mean, there will be plenty of people down there to visit. and as mentioned on the podcast here recently,

a Sean Taylor signed, authenticated signed, Sean Taylor jersey will be auctioned off among many things. Back tomorrow.