The Kevin Sheehan Show - Jayden Looking Good For Seattle

Episode Date: October 28, 2025

Kevin and Thom with the latest on Jayden Daniels for the Seattle game on Sunday. Kevin had a lot more on last night's Commanders' loss to the Chiefs in Kansas City including a slightly amended grade on Marcus Mariota's performance. He also had an answer for why Dan Quinn didn't challenge the 4th and 6 spot on the Ertz catch. The boys talked about Indiana head coach Curt Cignetti's comments about Maryland in advance of #2's visit to College Park on Saturday. Carson Wentz and Thom's answer to the NBA "gambling" problem were part of the show today as well. For all your football betting needs: DCRELOAD at MyBookie for a 50% Deposit Match Want to spruce up your lawn? FastGrowingTrees.com 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 Cheehan Show. Here's Kevin. Tommy's here. I am here. The show's presenting sponsor is always,

Window Nation. 86690 Nation for Window Nation.com if you need new windows. God, so much has happened since the end of last night's game. And I want to talk to you about so many of these things. I want to get your thoughts on the game. I did put out a post-game podcast. I didn't get it out until very, very early this morning.

Because Tommy, I was sitting here in my studio watching World Series Game 3, one of the most epic baseball games and actually just games in general from any sport. Yes. I think I've ever watched in every single time. I was getting ready to just start to record the postgame podcast, something dramatic would happen. And I'm like, no, I want to watch this. I mean, I'm not sure that there was any more dramatic moment than when Clayton Kershaw came in with the bases loaded in extra innings and two outs to get one batter. And it's all of his recent history as a relief pitcher in the post.

season. It did not go well for him earlier in the playoffs. And of course, his previous relief appearance prior to this year was game five against the Nats in 2019. And I don't know why I like Kershaw so much. There's just something about him that's very, his pitching style. There's something I've always been into when it comes to Kershaw. He's one of the all-time greats. And yet he's got this postseason history that's a bit troubling. He's had problems. He's had some moments, but more bad moments than not. And I'm just sitting there going, oh, my God, this is going terrible, terrible if he gets lit up here. Yeah. And you could feel every baseball fan that was watching this moment when he came in, it was, by the way, it was the top of the 12, bases loaded,

two outs. You know, it's five to five. The game's already at that point, four and a half hours old, ended up being six and a half hours. And he comes in and the count goes full. And there's two foul balls. And you're just,

every pitch is just, and then finally there's this slow grounder back to second. And man, it was out by a whisker. And I think everybody and every baseball fan in America, except if you were a Toronto fan, took a deep breath and just said, thank God. Thank God he didn't give it. They showed his wife in the stands. And I think that's what she did.

She basically jumped for joy. Oh, you know. It was such a moment. It was. Yes. And then you still had another six innings of baseball after that. I know. I think that is, I mean, look, there's lots of opportunities that Toronto had to take the lead.

Yeah. But that was, that was the moment because this guy swung at ball four. He did swing. I mean, it was high. It was up. No, no. It was almost in the dirt. Oh, wait.

Oh, that, the last pitch, he swung one of the balls that he fouled off, I thought, was way high. and one of those two foul. Yeah. But he went with the sinker. He went with the sinker again. Yeah. Yeah. And it was ball four.

Absolutely ball four. Yeah. And I'm thinking, you know, look. It was close. It was close. I wasn't close. I didn't think as much as the foul ball, either the first or the second, that was way up in the zone. And I thought was ball four.

Wasn't close. Even small said, you know, it was obviously ball four. Oh, man. And all I'm thinking is, you know this guy. You must know his postseason history. He's coming in cold to face one batter. You know, if you just take it and it's strike three, the game's not over.

You're not the last out of the game. No, you're not. So why would you feel the need to swing at that? that, you know, the guy, it was Nathan Luke. Yeah, Luke's. Yeah. And it was, to me, that was Toronto's best chance right there. That would have been 6'5 as he walked in a run,

and Blue Jays probably would have gone on to win the game. Shohay Otani went up to bat nine times in the game and reached base nine times. Now, one intentional walk after another, but two homers in the game. he pitches tonight. Like I was wondering since the game went six hours and 39 minutes, I was thinking is it possible

that they're going to reconsider the decision to pitch him tonight, but they're not. They're pitching him. Did you see the video? And the post game talked Dave Roberts talking to his team. He said, he said, now you've got to get ready because

we're playing another game today. You know, like we're in a few hours, and Otani goes into his pitching motion and starts throwing. He did. I missed that. In the locker room. Yeah, in the clubhouse. Just amazing. It really was.

It's been a great postseason. It's been a good world series so far in three games. But last night was a historic sports moment. Historic. I mean, it went beyond baseball. And of course it was Freeman home. Yes, of course. You know, Mr. Walkoff.

postseason walk off himself. So, but yeah, it was, and I think that's got to take the wind out of the blue chase. That game was their shot. Maybe, I mean, who knows? I mean, an incredible sporting event. They don't have, like Springer may be hurt. I don't know if he's playing the night. Yeah, he exited early.

There was an MRI, I think, scheduled for today. I have not seen the results of it. The set hasn't been able to stay healthy enough to stay in the lineup. Those two guys, along with Guerrero, are their three best hitters. Yeah, I know. Look at the rest of the lineup. It's not much very impressive. No.

Tonight is must watch just to see how Otani pitches. Yes. Well, he's now become must watch. I mean, you know, I can't imagine a hotter ticket in baseball in our lifetime than any time showy Otani takes the field next year for the Dodgers, especially when he's pitching. So I ended up, you know, right when the game was over, then I recorded the podcast and got it up.

So there is, you know, my post game with, you know, overall thoughts, my game take. I'm going to go back to some of it in our conversation today because I've got some updates to it. But then the other thing that I wanted to tell you is so, you know, I went home and I got, I don't know, three hours of sleep, four hours of sleep, came in to do the radio show. And in the middle of the radio show, there is like this explosion outside of my studio window. I'm like, oh my God, what was that? We were in a commercial break, actually. And I said to my producer, Max, did you hear that?

He goes, I heard it. What was it? So I walked out and I walked to the main area and they go, we didn't hear anything. I'm like, how did you not hear that? And then it happened again about 10 minutes later. It was the blue angels flying over my studio. And I immediately like went to, you know, Twitter to see, you know, know, and did WTOP to see if in Bethesda, which is where my studio is, if there was any explosion,

and the Blue Angels did a super low flyover. And where my studio is is almost, you know, parallel with the Potomac River. And I guess they flew down, you know, in this general area towards D.C. And they were flying at an extremely low level. And it was so loud, it sounded like an explosion. they did two passovers. So that's why I heard it twice. The second time it happened, the power went off. Oh my gosh. And so I'm like, that can happen with, you know, that number of jets and all of them flying at such a low level, the sound or whatever. And I did read that glass can

break. I did not read anything about a power outage, but the entire building lost power. I was actually knocked off the air for three minutes until we could power back up. And I, I mean, it was just, it was wild. And they did leave a message on their way over. The message was, hey, hang in there. The season's not over yet. Jaden's coming back. And so that made me feel much better. That's the news this afternoon. Dan Quinn initially saying he was not going to talk about any injuries until tomorrow. And then Kime said, well, what about Jaden? Because he was not an injury from last night. And he said, Jaden had a good rehab session on Sunday. And the plan is for him to be a part of practice tomorrow ahead of the Seattle game. I would imagine that that's a very good sign.

because Adam Schaefter reported last night that it could be, you know, another game that Jaden misses before coming back. You know, Tommy, I do actually still believe in this season and I want to get your thoughts here in a moment. But there's no chance without Jaden Daniels on the field. No, absolutely none. And I like Marcus Mariotta.

I like him a lot. I mean, I thought he played well last night. And I'm going to talk about the grade that I gave him in the post game in the next segment because there was a player or two that I think I probably would have downgraded him more for in the moment if I had seen the All-22 immediately. But I thought he played well. And they just got a bit unlucky. You know, the interception on the opening drive, the two fourth downs aren't necessarily.

a lack of luck. But there is a question about one of the fourth downs, which I'm going to get to here in the opening segment. But he's just not someone capable of doing what Jaden Daniels is capable of doing. And they need Jaden Daniels from last year if they're going to get back into this thing. And for that to happen, it's got to happen now. And he's got to be healthy when he walks out there, hopefully, against Seattle, on Sunday. Let me just read this real quick email before I get to your thoughts on the game.

It comes from Andy. Andy writes, was Quinn sleeping on the challenge with Ertz on 4th Down? Because I actually suggested this in my post game, and I was wrong, and I'll tell you why in a moment. Andy writes, watching the game, the Ertz catch on 4th and 6 seemed like a bad spot. And then they went to the virtual measurement, and he was short. why didn't Quinn challenge the spot? If you look at Reddit, our friends there show the play an angle where he seems to clearly make the line to gain. I'm shocked Quinn didn't challenge what say you.

Yeah, I said that. I said I thought that Ertz got the line to gain as well. And just so everybody understands, the virtual measurement has nothing to do with the spot of the ball. The ball's already been spotted. The virtual measurement is so that they don't have to bring the chains out to measure. They virtually measure based on where the referee spotted the ball. And I said last night, Quinn should have challenged the spot.

I thought he should have challenged the spot unless they told him with replay assist that, you know, it wasn't going to work. But no, there was a rule added to replay review back in 2023, and I did not know this. on failed fourth down conversions, that is automatically reviewed by the booth, just like turnovers and touchdowns. So you can't challenge Andy that play. I did not know that. That was a rule that was part of several rule changes back in 2023. All unsuccessful fourth down conversions are now,

under automatic booth reviews similar to turnovers and touchdowns. So there you go. That's why Quinn didn't challenge it. I'm still surprised that they reviewed it and said the spot was accurate or maybe there wasn't enough video proof to give them a better spot. But I thought too that Ertz had reached the line to game. I did think that. And that was one of the two fourth down misses in the first half.

The other one, I'm going to spend a little bit of time. time on in the next segment. But let me get to your thoughts on last night's 28 to 7 loss. Well, you know, especially in the first half, Washington, I thought they showed a lot of heart. You know, they came to play. Yeah. I thought that the defense holding,

holding Kansas City to seven points in the half, I thought the offense looked crisper than it had before but you know eventually there was an inevitability

about the game to me you know I mean that this is the the greatest quarterback I've ever seen play Pat Mahome unbelievable and you know he's going to beat you

sooner or later if you're not up to the task and they just weren't they just, you know, they also, the problem was for Washington, they brought their hearts, but they also brought their talent, and their talent's not very good. Yeah. So, but I give, I give the defense credit. I don't think they, they wound up losing 20, what, 28 to 7?

Because they're defensive necessarily. I think the offense let them down more than the defense in this game. I think the playmakers the ones who are on the field except for for Terry McCorn whose catches are so amazing

the referees can't believe it yeah it seems like he has a lot of overturns on on catches that are called non-catches on the field two of them last night of the three yes but I thought the offense

let them down you know you can't you can't like you mentioned before the game. You got to at least fight even the time of possession, and they got pummeled in the second half on time of possession. Oh my God, yeah. So, I mean, I just think that, you know, their playmakers, Debo, he may be struggling still with his heel injury. He was not an impact player. Their running games certainly was not

impactful. The passing, and there may be a purpose to it, but their horizontal passing game wasn't getting them anywhere in the second half. So I thought it was a valiant effort. I thought they showed some spirit. I thought they take up beat by a team that's much better than them in so many ways. And it showed that in order to make that more competitive, you needed Jaydon Daniels in there. to cover up the mistakes.

And I'm not sure. And, you know, let's face it, he hasn't played that great this year. So I'm not sure he would have made that much of a difference. But it was too much to ask Mariotta. So basically, I mean, you know, Mario, I don't know what half of their, I mean, they rush for 60 yards,

Marioita had half of them. Yeah. Jaden, just so we're clear in this, Jaden hasn't played to the level he played at last year. year. Yes. But he's played well this year. Relative to other quarterbacks in the NFL, he's played well. Right. But he hasn't played well enough for this team. To carry a team by himself over a team like the chiefs. Yeah, I agree with that. So, where do I start on some of the things you said? You know, I'll start with this.

This is what I really felt more than anything else, and I expressed this last night on the post game. I was much more encouraged coming out of the game than probably many of you would have thought when you lose by three touchdowns to another team. But there's no doubt that they came to play. There's nobody that has watched football for any length of time that could say last night about Washington, oh, they weren't ready.

The coaches did a terrible job of preparing them. They came out flat. No, that's not what happened. They came out and they played the best defensive half of the season by far, by far against the Kansas City Chiefs at Arrowhead. They played well offensively. the first half, with the exception of not being able to produce more points because of three unfortunate plays. And so I'm encouraged that, you know, I think actually under Quinn going

back to last year, I think this is a try hard team. You know, I know that everybody thinks, well, that's a, you know, that's a given with professional athletes, but it isn't. You know, we've seen teams that go through the motions. We've seen teams that don't respond. in these kinds of situations. Quinn's team, and it's part of the culture building and the kind of players they want in their locker room, this team gives supreme effort. I thought last week was a bit listless at times, for sure,

especially when the game got out of hand. But they're just limited. They just are very limited. And this year, more than anything else, this year is about injuries. That's not an excuse. for those that would say, stop making excuses. It's a reality.

They're one of the most injured teams in the league. Last year they weren't. Injured teams more times than not have their seasons impacted in a very negative way. And not only as... They lost their two best pass rushers and an important guy in their defensive backfield in Will Harris. Yeah, they lost probably their best pass rusher in Dorrance Armstrong. They lost their best edge setting defensive end in Dietrich Wise. They lost Will Harris.

They haven't had their quarterback now for three games. The best player on their team. They didn't have their best receiver on the team for multiple games. They didn't have, you know, 1A, if that's the way you want to put them in order, Debo Samuel for a game last week. They've just been ravaged. And look, it's not just, you know, part-time players. It's been their star players.

that have been missing in action. And that's a problem. And it's the reason they're three and five more than anything else. I'm not discounting the roster, the age of the roster, the limitations of the roster, etc. But I'm here to tell you that without all of these injuries, I think they'd at least be four and four, at the very least four and four. Yeah, I agree with that. But last night was encouraging because, you know, not because I thought the defense all of a sudden is going to be a good defense. I love the effort.

I loved what they gave in the game. And I thought sitting right where I'm sitting right now in my studio watching this game at halftime, I'm like, they got a legit chance in this game. I will tell you this, I definitely thought they had a chance to cover. And I thought they were definitely going to cover. and I played them last night. Plus 11 was the number I played them at. There were a lot of tens and 10 and a halfs. I found an 11 and played it at plus 11.

And I thought for sure that I was going to cover. But they still had 30 minutes left in the game. And what happened in the second 30 minutes of the game is what Tommy alluded to. They got Mahomes. I mean, this guy, I've got a next-gen stat for you. I talked, you know, in my post game, like, that was vintage Mahomes in the final 30 minutes. In the second half, over those final 30 minutes, 7-7-half-time score, Patrick Mahomes just took the game over. Vintage Mahomes, 17 of 19, for 210 yards and three touchdowns.

And I said last night, it seemed like almost. the majority of the yards and the majority of the completions in the second half were all Mahomes-esque plays where, you know, first option's not open, second option's not open, he gets pressured, and then all a sudden he starts to improvise and he creates all of this extra time and then you can't cover for that long. You just can't when you've got somebody like Mahomes. It's the thing that Quinn refers to as, you know, when he talked about Jaden all last year, it's a lot. It's a thing that It's the second part of the play where Jaden just destroys you. And that's what Mahomes has been doing for years.

How about this next-gen stat? How good was Mahomes at extending plays? He was eight for nine in the second half extending passes for 149 yards and all three touchdowns. He had on those throws more than four seconds on all of them to throw, meaning he extended the time. to greater than four seconds. It was the first game in his career that he's had at least three touchdowns on extended plays, where there are four seconds or more to throw it. He was brilliant.

He was brilliant. And we've seen the best of teams, the Baltimore's, the Buffaloes, get beat by Mahomes doing what he did to Washington in the second half. Washington couldn't, you know, they couldn't handle the best of Mahomes for 30 minutes. And that's why they went on three drives in the second half and totaling 29 plays. And in those 29 plays, they put up 21 points and 249 yards of offense. Game over. You know, Ben was on with me this morning and he used the word you used, which is, it kind of felt inevitable.

And it was kind of big brother, little brother in the second half. It's like nice try, nice, you know, nice effort. That's what it seemed like to make. You know, nice effort. But, you know, we've got Mahomes and this is going to happen to your defense. And the defense just isn't good enough. But with that said, even the plays he made, the fact that he had to make that many, you know, kind of off schedule to create those big plays, they had a fourth and goal. You know, they had another play where the ball.

ball was on the ground and Latimore didn't jump on it. He tried to pick it up. There were opportunities for them, but it was just one back-breaking, brilliant play by Mahomes after another, and it would have happened almost any team. It doesn't... I know that. Yeah. It doesn't diminish. I'm sorry, it doesn't increase the, you know, the viability moving forward of this defense. It's a bad defense. It's bad. But they also, you know, last night got more Mahomes than they did, you know, oh, by the way, we're a sieve. You can just go through us like you did in Dallas and like Chicago did the week before.

But the way to beat that is for him not to have the ball in his hands. Yeah, and there were opportunities. The offense, you know, didn't give the defense that. The defense was on the field way too much. in that second half, again, I thought Cliff Kingsbury didn't really respond in the second half with some of the play call. I thought the first half, you know, they had a good game plan. I think, you know, whatever Kansas City did in the second half, I don't think they responded offensively to that. Washington had four drives in the first half and drove it into Kansas City territory all four times.

The reason they only had seven points is there was a. kind of a bad interception, not on Mario-Dar-Dar-Ded at all, on Debo Samuel. And they missed on two fourth downs, and I'm going to talk about the second fourth-down miss, the fourth and one, already talked about the fourth and six. And I'll get to that

in the next segment. And then in the second half, you know, they take over down 14-7 after Kansas City has the ball, and Jalen Lane makes a terrible mistake on the kickoff return. And they got to start at the one-and-a-half-yard line. They still pushed it out

to near the 30. But then on 3rd and 5, Jalen Lane has a chance to make up for the blunder, and it's a tough catch, and he's stumbling, but he's got to kind of pull that one in. So I don't put any of that on Cliff. And then the next drive, you had the 3rd, you know, they're into Kansas City territory again with that incredible catch by Terry. They're down to the Kansas City 36-yard line, and on 3rd and 11, there was a, a, a, bad miscommunication. I think I've learned it was on Connerley Jr. You know, the line slid

one way. He slid the other. It let the free rusher nail Marioada. And I'm not sure that you can really put that on cliff there. They were moving the football again. And then when they get it back after that, it's 28 to 7. So it's game over. So the offense wasn't necessarily the issue with time of possession in the second half. That was more on the defense. I mean, eight plays 80 yards, eight plays 75 yards, 13 plays 94 yards. I mean, that's what the Chiefs did. 29 plays, you know, 249 yards. And by the way, they only faced two third downs on those 29 plays. So the defense ended up succumbing to it a lot more in the second half than they did in the first half. And Mahomes obviously stepped up his game in a major way. There's

a lot of discussion too about, you know, Joe Witt Jr. didn't make adjustments. And then others say, well, he went to too much zone in the second half after man in the first half. They played some zone in the first half. I don't have the breakdown, but I watched enough of it. You know, the 27-yard big play in the first half was zone coverage. There were a couple of others that were zone coverage plays in the first half. They just got, you know, they're not very good and then Mahomes went Mahomes in the second half. You're just not going to beat that team in that stadium when he plays like that even if you are scoring on offense. Even if they had taken, let's just say, a 17 to 7 halftime lead, which was certainly there for the taking, you know,

because they moved the ball deep into Kansas City territory multiple times. It's probably far from over. I mean, Mahomes still is more likely than not going to bring them back. I said last night, Tommy, the Chiefs won the game 28 to 7, but the margin of victory was about Mahomes. The 21-point victory was Mahomes. Washington deserved a better fate, maybe even a covering fate, last night with the effort they gave. But anyway, yeah, I do have on that fourth and one a couple of thoughts and a new grade on Mario Yoda, which I want to get to. But what else? Do you have anything else on this? They're three and five. They're playing Seattle coming off a bye week, and they're in that short week, you know, heading into this game.

Yes, and another prime time game. I'll bet you the programmers are saying, you know, this is the one. he had mine when we put the commanders in all these prime time spots. No. But if they get Jaden back, it'll be great. And Sunday night, remember, they're bringing back the old look, which will be nice. All right. We've got more to go. We'll start to get to it after these words from a few of our sponsors.

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key moments in the first half, obviously, where, and I think Quinn talked about this after the game. I had not heard his post game last night when I did my post game, but I heard it early this morning before the radio show. And he talked about the missed opportunities

that, you know, things were going according to plan, basically, and they were. You know, but they didn't get the points. The Debo play is a bad play by Debo Samuel. No, the ball's not high. The ball's not hot. He just took his eyes off of it and looked down field.

You know, and that kind of play, too, for them, you know, when people say, you know, horizontal, a lot of the horizontal stuff is really just the extension of their run game. It's really what they're doing against a loaded box. It's their check or it's, you know, sometimes it's even an RPO. But, you know, it's really, Debo Samuel is a weapon. They want him to touch the ball. And they think on a play like that, he can get five, six, seven yards. And that's a more productive play than giving it to Kroski Merritt.

Not to mention, you make those big defensive linemen move. You know, the horizontal offense, which was, you know, Chip Kelly and, you know, Hal Mummy and Mike Leach and, you know, all the air rate. stuff and all that stuff from back then and, you know, constantly throwing the ball and extending, you know, defenses was to get defenses gassed all of those horizontal throws. And for them, it's really an extension of the run game. That is, that's just a bad play by Debo. And they're at the Kansas City 18-yard line. You know, they're going to get three at least. And then, you know, on the second, you know, opportunity, they're at the Kansas City 40 and it's fourth and six. And

Mario da took a sack on the play before that, and I'll get to that in a moment. But the fourth and six we've talked about, and that was, you know, the play to Ertz and the inability to challenge, and apparently the booth review that produced, hey, we can't do anything with the spot. This spot was fine. Then we go to the fourth and one, okay? Their third drive of the game. They have driven it now into Kansas City territory to their 18, and they had the ball intercepted. To the Kansas City 40, they get stopped on 4th and 6.

And now they're at the Kansas City 28-yard line, and it's 4th and 1. I had no problem with them going for this. It's still a nothing-nothing game. You know, we are now 10 minutes to go in the second quarter, and it's nothing to nothing. The Chiefs have, you know, turned it over twice on their first two drives. And Washington's moved the ball down the field, you know, Mario daughter running the throat of Bates, and they've got a fourth and one.

And that's the play in which I think Marioita makes a big mistake. Now, I don't know if it's pre-snap that he doesn't recognize the zero coverage blitz, but they're coming with everybody and they're leaving foreign coverage, man across the board, four eligibles, four men and men and, coverage, seven coming after him, and Ertz has to be the read. He's got Ertz for what should be an easy pitch and catch, move the chains. Now, if you want to run the ball in fourth and one against zero coverage blitz, you know, have at it. I, you know, I'm not against running the ball against loaded boxes. You know, it happens in the NFL. It's not really who Washington is. And Kroski

Merritt, you know, all due respect to him, because I think he's fine. He's not turned in to the next Emmett Smith quite yet. And so, you know, they got, you know, what they wanted. I don't know if Mario dao knew it, but the shot he takes to Terry on a slower developing, you know, basically he's going double move and he never gets the double move off. The ball sails over his head. That can't be the throw on fourth and one. I dinged Mariota for that.

I don't know if Souter will do the same thing. but Ertz is open. If he knows they're coming with the house, he's got to go to Ertz, and it's moved the chains, and he didn't do that. So that's a devastating play in that moment, you know, because you're now, oh for three.

You've moved the ball three times into their territory, three times, and you have no points to show for it. That's painful, no doubt. And yeah, for me, and I'll get to another plate here shortly, but I just can't believe that this team got seven points in the first half with four drives that went into Kansas City territory. I know. It's just really too bad.

You know, the play you talk about with Debo, you said at least they might have gotten three. Let's just take a moment to say goodbye to match. Matthew Wright, who was released this afternoon. The kicker, they signed about five hours before the game, came in and kicked one extra point. So at the end of the year, when they have all the stats for the team, you'll see Matthew Wright, one point. Yeah. For sure. One point.

One P.A.T. Yep. So real quickly, before the fourth and six in the first quarter, you know, that first, you know, turnover on downs, Mariotta took a sack. And he's got Debo. And I'm surprised he didn't throw it. And instead, he took a three-yard loss on a sack. Debo wins, you know, almost immediately.

And that should, you know, there's, he's clearing through, you know, one of the zones. and that ball should be out and into Debo's hands immediately. And I think you not only have a first down, you've got a big play because it's him against the safety. And it's possible he scores on this play. So, you know, Mario Di gave a, you know, B plus two. I think it was more of kind of a B minus game because there were some missed opportunities.

Still, though, for a backup quarterback and the system fits him, you know, he played well enough against most teams to, you know, give him a chance to be in the game. And, you know, it didn't help him that Debo had that play early. But the play before the fourth and six missed to Ertz and the, you know, non-challengeable, you know, spot. God, third and three, it's quick to Debo if he fires that, you know, on third and three. and Debo may score on the play. There is just not the willingness to pull the trigger, and instead he steps up to the pocket and gets sacked

and dump for a three-yard loss. Yeah, so that's, I think that's all I have. One thing I didn't notice last night, Rishie Rice's return for Kansas City is huge for them. I mean, Rishie Rice now in two games after coming back after the six-game suspension. He's been targeted 19 times and has 16 catches. You know, last night, nine targets, nine receptions,

and I got to tell you, you know, no one's near him on a lot of these catches. I also thought there was one other observation I wanted to make. They just don't have scary receivers, Washington. You know, this is going to come off as, anti-Terry. It's not. Stop it, okay? They don't have big separation winners consistently, even with Debo and Terry on the field. And that's part of the problem for the quarterbacks is you don't, you know, unless you're playing zone and they're sitting down, but against man coverage, and they didn't face man coverage, you know, a ton. They did in some of those blitz situations. But

they don't have true separation guys. You know, they just don't. They have a great contested catch guy in Terry McLorn. He's one of the best, if not the best in the league at contested catches. And then, by the way, getting feet down and staying in bounds. He's exceptional at that. But there were a bunch of plays where I'm like, where's he going to throw? What's he going to do here?

I mean, there's just nobody getting open. Kansas City's good defensively. I mean, McDuffie is a great player. But back to Rishi Rice, the chiefs are going to be awfully tough. I don't know who beats them. You know, if they stay healthy. They didn't have two of their offensive linemen last night. One of them's been out for a while. I know. I know. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. I mean, look, look at, you know, I mean, the contending teams are the Bills and the Ravens, or maybe even the Patriots. Well, the Ravens, you do know the Ravens are two and five. Yeah, I know that, but people, I think odds makers still have the win in the division.

They are back as the favorite to win the division at my bookie right now, all right? My bookie, by the way, offering a 50% cash bonus to all of my listeners on this show. I'm looking at the odds right now because I did look at these yesterday. Hold on. I'm going to give this to you in a second. Baltimore, yeah, here it is. Baltimore currently a minus 114 favorite to win the AFC North. They're two and five. Pittsburgh is four and three. Pittsburgh went back to being a favorite last week, but Baltimore is the favorite. I think, you know, the Ravens, they have an easier schedule coming up and they're getting, they've gotten healthier.

Yeah. So I think that, look, I mean, I watched the Ravens. game on Sunday. And all I could think of, as great as it was, a great win for Baltimore, you know, Tyler Huntley had a great game as the backup. And I don't know all the circumstances behind it, but it kind of makes the front office look foolish because this guy was already on your team. This guy should be your perennial backup quarterback.

You know? This guy should be Don Strach for the Raven. He shouldn't be good. There's a good name. He shouldn't go anywhere. You know, instead of flirting with Cooper, what's his name? Cooper Rush?

Yeah. I get, I can make sure I don't see. Cooper Rush. Cooper Rush, who actually played some decent football for Dallas, but yes, he's not. Yes, but he hasn't in Baltimore.

It's not a good fit. And Tata Huntley clearly is. Yeah. A good fit for that. He almost won a playoff game against the Bengals. So that's the one thing. It was a great win, but I'm thinking that it makes the front office look forward.

to have let this guy leave. You know, I think the most foolish-looking move this year is Dallas trading Micah Parsons because he is right now playing at a ridiculously high level, and it makes the Packers a clear, you know, when I say clear, not the clear favorite, but they certainly are among the favorites to represent the NFC in the Super Bowl. By the way, something else at my bookie, and I just saw it, and I want to mention it. So the updated season win totals, Washington's number at the beginning of the season, was nine and a half. Right now, it is seven and a half.

Do they win more than seven and a half or less than seven and a half? Seven wins or less, eight wins or more, Tommy. Oh, they win more than seven and a half. Really? I'm not failing on them. Okay. I'm not failing on them. I had to win an 11 this year.

I think they can get to 9. Okay. Well, to get to 9, they only have 9 left, and they only have 3 wins. So you got them going 6 and 3 over their last 9? Yes. It depends on the quarterback. Right. As long as Jayden's healthy.

I'd go over to. The only thing, so there are two things that bother me, okay? Number one is this. Sometimes when you have this kind of injury, you know, bug, it just never stops. I don't know if there's any reasonable explanation for it, but it just doesn't stop. You're sitting there waiting all season for it to get better and you're like, oh, well, he'll come back. Jaden will come back. Terry and deep, I mean, Terry got hurt again.

It looks like he might be okay. And it looks like, by the way, Kinlaw and Tunsell have a chance. or Kenlaw definitely has a chance. So if that continues to happen, I mean, they could win five games if that continues to happen. The other thing, too, is this is the critical stretch of the season, and it starts Sunday. And, you know, I hate to give this guy much credit

because he can certainly be a pain in the ass as a caller and as a social media. Oh, don't do it. Don't do it. he sent me something today, Ian did, and it's true. Oh, God. It's true.

You know, sometimes when you have the kind of effort you had last night, win or lose, but especially after a loss, there's a bit of kind of emptiness in the next game. You kind of spend it all. And when you have a short turnaround and you're playing a team off of a bye week, this is a tough ask on Sunday. And yet, it's a critical, critical game. Now, Jaden didn't play Monday night.

So if they were keeping him out of Monday night because they wanted him to be fresh and ready to go and fully healthy, and it was an AFC game versus how crucial this NFC game is, good for them. I'm fine with that. But they have to win three of the next four. They have to win three of the next four. In this case, in the case of yesterday's game, the Monday night game against Kansas City. I don't think I's hypothesis holds up.

Because, look, you're even suggesting they wanted him to, you know, maybe be fresh for the Seattle game. You know, maybe they even weighed their chances of actually being competitive against the chiefs. And these guys, they're human beings. You know, these players, I know they're very competitive individuals. and they don't go into a game thinking they're going to lose, but they're not stupid.

They know who they're playing. So while the effort, while putting out a maximum effort without something to show for it in terms of a win or a loss, if you were playing a more competitive team, a more competitive game against an equal opponent, yeah. But I'll bet you there's some players that feel good about their performance. I know. I'm just saying it's not unusual.

And this from somebody who pays attention to this stuff, because often it goes into the thinking, and it goes into the thinking of odds makers, I can tell you that. When you sort of empty the tank, the emotional tank like they did in the first half last night, you can be emotionally flat in your next game, especially when you don't have much of a turnaround. We'll see. The good news again is that Jaden didn't play. so it's not like he emptied his tank, although he was awfully active on a lot of the cutaways. He seemed giddy and happy and, you know, jovial and very, you know, a lot of things seem to crack him up on the sideline in that game.

Take it easy. Take it easy. What? What? What are you coming? You're ripping him for it? No, not at all. I'm saying that to me it's an indication that he's good to go.

that, you know, because I, now, when they're getting their ass kicked in the second half, it's probably best if, you know, you look a little bit less happy about everything that's going on. But no, for me, maybe it's more of an indication that, hey, I'm good, I'm ready to go Sunday against the Seahawks. At least that's what I'm hoping. By the way, what? By the way, if your theory of spent tank is accurate, the blue jays have no shot tonight. Yeah. I think baseball's different, though. Isn't it? Maybe not. Because they're used to playing every day.

I don't know. Yes, they are. I have no. That was a famous Earl Weaver quote. What? That this ain't football. We do this every day. Yeah. All right, we got a few other things to get to to finish up. We'll do that right after these words from a few of our sponsors. So with holiday season approaching, it's usually about fit,

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All right, Tommy, tell us about Shelly's. Well, one of my, you know, some of my favorite things about Shelly's backroom at 1331 F Street, Northwest in the district. Make no mistake about it. My favorite things are going to Shelley's, having one of their great menu items, you know, some custom blend beef on a great big cheeseburger, having a Sierra Nevada draft, and getting a cigar from, you know, one of the top 25 cigar-oficionado brands that they have for sale at Shelly's. But besides that, my other favorite part is to read on social media from satisfied customers who hear me talking about it on the Kevin Sheehan show and make the effort to go find out for themselves what's so great about Shelly's. And I got one on Sunday night from Judd R.T.99 on X, who wrote, made the 66-mile trip from my house to Shelly's. with my wife this evening to try one of their custom blend burgers. It did not disappoint.

It never does. This is to you, actually. He sent this to you on X. Thanks to you and Tom Laverro for the recommendation. I finished dinner with a cigar and rye whiskey. Their selection is great. Another satisfied customer. They keep coming.

And if you're in the same situation, please let me know because we'd like to hear these things because we're staring you in the right direction. Okay, we're not giving you a bump steer. We're giving you excellent information here, okay, to make your life better. And that's what Shelley's Backroom will do. You can find out more at shelley's backroom.com. I love just custom blend as part of the description of, you know, a burger. You rarely hear that, but it's a custom blend of some fine, fine, brisket, you know, ground beef, whatever the custom blend is, it tastes great.

I've had the burger there several times. All right, I've got a couple of things here to finish up the show with, including Tommy's column, which was excellent. Did you see the Carson Wentz story from the last 24 hours? He's going to have certain. his season is over. So on Friday, after they lost to the Chargers on Thursday night football, I came in here, and I love Kevin O'Connell. But I came in here and I said, that seemed awfully strange that they would continue to put this

dude back out there after he's like screaming in pain. It happened a half dozen times after he got hit, after he walked off the field. He's holding his non-throwing shoulder, and it's like, they got to put the other guy in, especially when the game got a bit out of control. And they did finally put in Max Brosmer, I think, in the final, you know, drive of the game. But he is going to undergo season-ending surgery to repair the left shoulder injury, which he originally suffered on October 5th. So he played on October 23rd. he played in a few games for the Vikings, and he was injured the entire time.

Look, Carson Wentz, I don't feel sorry for Carson Wentz, because he was not the best dude here. You know, right. I mean, look, whatever. I mean, and he clearly wasn't very good here. It's hard for me to take it seriously because the whole Carson Wentz chapter that took place. But, but Tommy. But Tommy, I did kind of consider the possibility he's just being dramatic.

And Kevin O'Connell and the coaches are like, he's fine. He's just dramatic. But as it turns out, no, he's been injured. And he basically went out there and played with that injury for multiple games. And I'm just telling you, that game Thursday night against the Chargers was difficult to watch. That's why I brought it up. I'm like, if he's actually hurt and he's in that much, much pain. Why does he keep going back out there? Well, let's let's run, run through the possible

scenarios. Yeah. Okay. The coaching staff wasn't paying attention. That can't be possible because he was screaming, you know, carrying his shoulder off the field, as if it was detached from his body. Okay. They didn't have anyone else to put in there. Well, that's what people are surmised. is that J.J. McCarthy, they just didn't want to put him in yet. They didn't want to put him in yet. And they're terrified to put him back in after how bad he looked. He played eight quarters, and seven of them looked like he had never played football before. You know, but he's young. So you think that's a plausible scenario? Yeah. I read something where Kevin O'Connell, I guess, today said something that they were told by the medical experts that he couldn't make it worse.

and Oh, is that, that's familiar, isn't it? Yeah, yes. Thank you, Dr. Beanie. You know, that actually reminds me of something. You know, when you tear an ACL, you can't do any more damage than has already been done. Now, you can walk around with a torn ACL.

You can walk, you just, it's the lateral movements that you can't make, but you can walk straight or run straight. and just can't move laterally. But you can't apparently, and I know some orthopedic is going to say she and, who told you that? This is what I understand from, you know, situations where people have had torn ACLs. And I'm going to tell this quick story. And I'll leave the identifying information out because these are actual friends of mine. And I actually coached the kid in basketball for several years.

He was a hell of a basketball player. But this was a kid who played for a local public school. big-time wide-receiver prospect, ended up playing college basketball, D-1 college basketball. I coached him when he was a sixth, seventh, and eighth-grader. And by the way, had 41 in a game for me as a seventh grader. 41.

But that aside, he tore his ACL. He was a big-time wide receiver, tore his ACL, and his father was the coach. And they played a game in which at the end, of the game, they were down, you know, down for the balls at midfield and they have to throw a Hail Mary. And the only kid on the team that can throw the ball that far into the end zone was this kid who's over on the sideline, you know, with his game jersey on, no pads, and crutches

because his ACL surgery is a few days away. He had torn the ACL the week before or two weeks before or whatever it was. So the father knowing that he can't do anything to the ACL if he's out there and also knowing he's the only kid on the team, including the quarterback, capable of throwing the ball that far, told him to put some pads on getting the game and throw the Hail Mary. Well, parents went nuts. They went nuts over it. And the coach is like, first of all, I'm his father.

Secondly, you don't know anything about anything. There's no damage that he could have done to his ACL by being out there and just throwing a pass from the shotgun to the end zone. Where he got a running start, straight line, no lateral, and through it. Now, I'm not going to end with, oh my God, he completed the Hail Mary. He did not. He got it to the end zone, but it was incomplete and they lost the game. but you can't do anything to an ACL. And Kevin O'Connell apparently said today

that the medical people told him that he couldn't make it worse by playing the shoulder. And that Wences... They didn't mention anything about pain, though, did they? But Wence told O'Connell, I want to do this because you don't have anybody else that you can put out there right now. And I want to do this. Oh, this sounds all so noble. Four or five days after the event.

Yeah. They're weaving a tale of courage and nobility. The Willis Reed of the Minnesota Vikings. Yeah, Carson Wentz. Here he comes. He's coming out to throw one pass, and then he's checking out of the game, except that he didn't throw one pass. He kept dropping back, and he kept getting hit on that shoulder over and over again.

I found this quote from Kevin O'Connell. When a guy is so committed and so all in and does not want to be taken off the field, you have to honor that. Boy, that does sound kind of familiar, doesn't it? Yes, it does. We won't go back 13 years. We don't need to do that right now. Before we get to your column to finish up the show,

so Maryland in football this week hosts number two, Indiana. in College Park. Undefeated, the number two team in America, the Indiana Hoosiers, coming to College Park. They are 21 and a half point favorites against Maryland. I'll tell you what, guys, seriously, I was surprised the line was that high. Maryland's a good defensive team. I think they have a chance to cover the number on Saturday, but we'll get into that more on Friday. But Kurt Signetti, the coach of Indiana, who was the James Madison coach before he went to Indiana. We have a lot of JM, you know, a lot of Duke's listeners to this podcast. He is, you know, he's a tough swallow at times.

But in his weekly press conference yesterday, man, he sounded like Joe Gibbs building up the Arizona Cardinals. You know, when Gibbs would say about the Cardinals, the St. Louis or the Arizona or the Phoenix Cardinals, you know, the skins would be 17-point favorites. if we don't have all 55,000, if we're not ready to play this game, we can't possibly beat these Cardinals. I mean, Neil Lomax and Roy Green, these guys are unbelievable. So here's Kurt Signetti talking about Maryland. Really impressed with them as a football team.

I mean, they're in the top 10 in the country and turnover ratio, which they are. They've got a new defensive coordinator that's been in the NFL for 16 years, was linebacker coach for the Ravens, two Super Bowls there. They have 14 interceptions, 22 sacks. They're giving up 17 points a game. Their offense is only giving up two sacks, which is true. Maryland's given up the fewest sacks of any team in the Big Ten and I think the second fewest in the country. And they're outscoring people, Tommy, in the first three quarters, 175 to 50.

He doesn't mention anything about the fourth quarter. He says, and then they got an excellent. punter. They got an excellent field goal kicker, a really good short snapper and an excellent long snapper. They're doing a lot of good things. Freshman quarterback 6'5, 230 pounds, really has a strong arm and can run, and wide receivers are very talented. So is the tight end. The line is huge. They got off to a 4-0 start and they had Washington 20 to nothing with three minutes to go in the third quarter for win number five. Went into the four. leading Nebraska, who's a six and two football team tied with UCLA with 33 seconds to go.

Three tough losses. I love the I love the snapper situation. You know, they got a great short snapper. They got a great long snapper. They're 21 and a half point favorites, and they are really good. I mean, I think they are totally. legit. I honestly, I think Ohio State and Indiana, the number one and number two teams in the country right now, I think they're the best teams in the country. They don't play in the regular

season. They'll play in the Big Ten title game if they both get there. And then they could play again, you know, in the playoff at some point. But Indiana, man, Indiana, Vanderbilt. I mean, listen to these teams that are ranked high and undefeated. Indiana. right Georgia Tech Vanderbilt there's one other you know

true basketball kind of school yeah I'm forgetting but you know now in college football with this playoff I think it makes

the regular season so much better and then obviously you've got an exciting postseason and it does open up and avail itself to you know

teams that would never have that opportunity with just four teams. Now, Indiana is really good, but, you know, a Vanderbilt's got a legit shot to make the playoff. Imagine Vandy and Indiana are in the playoff this year. Crazy. Yeah. Look, I like it. I like New Blood.

All right. Let's finish up with your column. We'll do that right after these words from a few of our sponsors. Rate us and review us if you haven't done it already, and you can spare a minute to do you. so it's really helpful for us, especially when you do it on Apple and Spotify. You can rate us up to five stars. If you think we deserve it, you can write a quick one to two sentence review on Apple.

All of those things are very helpful for us, as is following the podcast. Just hit the plus button or the follow button. Typically, it's one or the other wherever you're listening to the podcast. I thank all of you that have done it. It's been a big help. And as I've mentioned before, we know exactly how many, you know, people listen to the podcast. And I would say still about 70 to 75 percent of you haven't rated it. I know it's annoying every time I ask and everybody's busy.

And you may have intended to do it and it may have slipped your mind. But if you pause right now, you could do it real quickly in 30 seconds or less and then get right back to what we're going to talk about. If you do it, much appreciated. And if you don't, it's still much appreciated that you listen as much as you do. So Tommy wrote a column on all of this gambling stuff, the Chauncey Billop stuff, the Terry Rozier stuff, the Damon Jones stuff. You actually, in your column, this is a really good column, by the way, Tommy. Really good. It's like, you know, your best columns are, you know, I learn something and I laugh two to three times minimum.

And you've got a couple of lines in here that are beauties. But tell everybody what you wrote about and what you think the NBA has to come up with to somehow make this problem go away. Well, the gist of it is that the NBA needs their own version of Judge Landis. Judge Kenneth Fall Mountain Landis, who was the baseball commissioner more than a hundred years ago, he wasn't the commissioner when the Black Sox scandal took place. They named him commissioner during that whole controversy when the 1919 White Sox

through the World Series to the Cincinnati Reds. They went to Landis and they asked him to become commissioner. to basically be an iron fist to stop this kind of gambling. Because, I mean, gambling had been going on in the early part of the 20th century with a lot of baseball teams. There was a lot of rumors and speculation about throwing games before the White Sox had their World Series thing. But they went to Landis asking him to be the Iron Fist, and he was.

look, he was also a racist. I also point out, just leave that part out and get your own version. A guy who makes, who creates a culture of fear of throwing a game at basketball,

the toughest because it's the easiest to fix. Or something like that. To make it part of the culture that it's a price that you won't be willing to pay. There's, I point out in baseball, you know, you can snort Coke, you can beat your wife. You can stick yourself up with all kinds of juice and still have a job after you're punished. Baseball, if you're betting on baseball, if you're in the game and you're caught, you're banned for life.

Okay, so they did the NBA and Adam Silver can't be this guy. He's a guy that opened the door. You know, he's the guy who wrote the column in the op-ed piece in the Times 10 years ago saying, hey, but let's let's you know let's legalize sports betting now i'm not against legalized sports betting just the opposite i think that people should be allowed to do it but with with that with more than ever it means that they need to be uh vigilant against abuses because the nba has a credibility problem i point out this out in the column people automatically assume things are fixed in the nb a already.

Yeah, because you know, everyone thinks the draft lottery is fixed. Right. You know, I mean, they're players. I talk about Rashid Wallace, thinks that the referees email each other about, you know, how to fix certain games. So if your players and your fans already believe that your product is suspect, you've got a big problem, and they need somebody to change that culture, I don't know who it can be. and it will require some hard choices

and there'll be some collateral damage I mean those black socks those eight players who were banned for life for the white socks you know there was questions that to how much they were involved in it they were all found not guilty in a court of law so there may be there may be some

you know collateral damage people get swept up in this but the NBA needs to step in been and change and make sure that what has allegedly happened with Chauncey Billups and Terry Rozier connected to basketball is so abhorrent that no one's willing to pay the price for it. Yeah, look, the Chauncey Billups piece, and I'm going to read from the paragraph that you wrote, that was something that I did not know and had not read yet about it, and I'll get to that in a moment. But the Chauncey Billups rigged poker game part of this is really not necessarily an NBA issue.

You know, look. Well, here's where it is, though. It opens you up to blackmail. Well, and of course it does. Just like betting on other sports, people think, well, why can't they bet on other sports? Well, because if they get into a hole, now they've got an easy way out with their own sport. By the way, total separate attached conversation, but did you see what the NCAA approved

literally the day after this? Yes. Yes. Unbelievable. The NCAA last week, literally after the Chauncey Billups and Rozier story broke, the NCAA they approved a rule change that now

allows athletes and athletic department members to bet on professional sports, not college sports, but pro sports. The naivetee with this is amazing to me. Going back to when our own Ace Rothstein decided that this was going to be the greatest thing of all time for DC when they attach the sports book to Capital One Arena, I don't think it's disingenuous, that they're being disingenuous. I think it's naivete. I really do. But back to what you wrote, because this is something that I had no idea about.

You wrote, Billups was charged with participating in a conspiracy to fix high-stakes card games tied to the mafia, allegedly cheating gamblers out of at least $7 million, according to authorities. But an unidentified co-conspirator in the Rozier indictment matches the description of Billups telling another man that Portland planned to intentionally lose a 2023 game against the Chicago Bulls, they bet $100,000 that the trailblazers would lose, which they did. I did not hear about that part. Now, it's a description matching Chauncey Billups telling somebody else, but I had not heard that part of the story.

ESPN reported it. The Athletic has reported. Numerous outlets have reported that part. Yeah. Of the story. You know, in reading a lot, you know, in the moment after last week, you know, what really, there are two things for me. Number one, well, the college story that I just read, it just, it blows me away how people

don't understand. If you are a professional or a college athlete, it needs to be uniform. You're not allowed to gamble in sports, period. You're not allowed to gamble in sports, period. That's the only real solution to take all of the risk out of it. But the other part of it was, is that, you know, the Rozier part is interesting to me because it's, you know, it deals with prop bets. And basketball is the easiest thing to rig. We talked about that last week.

Why? Because there are the fewest number of players involved. And, you know, one player can have a massive impact on the outcome of a game. whether that's the score or the total. And then all of these personal prop bets, because you touch the ball so much more in that sport and are guaranteed to touch it versus, you know, other sports. I mean, you can control your baseball numbers, offensive numbers. But the prop bet thing is the problem right now.

It's just too easy to nail an under, you know, under points, under rebounds, under assists. And that's the weak link here. I think, you know, they have to somehow get, they won't do it because they're huge profit margin areas for a sports book. And I've told you guys for years, you know, bet teasers and parleyes and profit's all you want. But you know what they call them? Profit margin. The thing where you've got the best odds is just betting a straight bet with points or, you know, a money line bet, you know, whether it's the game. or the total. You know, it's just like in a casino, you see all the, the, the slot

pullers and the in, and the roulette players. No, the best odds in the house are in other games, but whatever. It's those prop bets where, you know, a player is, it's so easy to control the under on that game. I'm just going to, you know, I'm going to check myself out with, you know, a fake injury. Also, the other thing real quickly, the biggest thing that came out of that, as it relates to the NBA, is the information about injuries, that seemed to take up most of the, you know, the FBI indictments, is that there's a problem with the information being sold about players who are going to play or not play. They should be able to fix that.

You just have to require the teams to announce early in the day who's in and who's out, and then you can't change your mind, you know? And I understand that there are certain players you're not going to know until game time, but more times than not Tommy, they know in the morning shoot around who's playing and who isn't. And so, but to your point, they need some sort of czar that makes gambling something that essentially ruins your life if you get caught as an NBA player. Yes. And it has to be part of the culture. I mean, it has to be part of the culture of basketball.

I point out that 1990 Black Sox scandal happened over 100 years ago, and people are still making movies and writing books about it. Yeah. Your paragraph in here about our own, you know, Ted Leonis, aka Ace Rothstein, Tommy writes, remember how League Commissioner Adam Silver's High Priest of Sports Betting, wizard's owner Ted Leonis, the ace Rothstein of the NBA celebrated bringing the first sports book into a sports arena.

And you had this quote that I don't remember from Ted. We'll look back at it one day and I think kind of laugh to say, geez, remember when we would think of sports betting as, you know, like the movie casino and people smoking cigarettes and being up all night? That's not what this is going to be. I mean, I love you, Ted. I do. But God, that whole era of pushing this, you know, you're talking to somebody here, Tommy, as you know, that has been through the school of gambling hard knocks. I've got, you know, I am top of my class with my friends when it comes to the bullets and getting run over year after year doing this.

And like I've said before, and we had this conversation a couple of weeks ago, I get all my son's friends and my sons, who do you like? Who do you like? And I say all the time, what I'd like is for you not to bet because you're not going to win. Okay? Yeah. There's nobody that is, you know, if people are convincing you that somehow there's enough data out there and they're really smart guys with their analytics, like I said,

five, six years ago, my friends and I will stand in line to take their bets. All of them. We'll book everything that they want to play with all of their analytics and all of their information. With that said, like you've said before, this has happened for years and years and years in many other countries, and it can happen here. But like with everything in life, moderation is the key, Tommy. Moderation.

There was a time where I struggled with moderation. I'm much better with it now. All right, you got anything else? It's a good column, people. Right. I just retweeted it if you want to read it that way. What else do you have? There's one thing I wanted to say.

I wanted to thank you for coming to talk throughout business of sports media class via Zoom last Thursday night. You know, you've done this multiple years. like last like always you were a big hit and I want you know I really appreciate it well that's very nice I like doing it it is Georgetown you know um you know I do have a bit of an issue with Georgetown I'm kidding I know but I will have an issue with Georgetown in let's see 10 days Maryland and Georgetown a week from this coming Friday night in college park I don't know how they didn't get this game to start at 8 p.m. instead of 6 p.m. That's a different story altogether.

Buzz's team had a scrimmage last night against UMBC and barely beat them. The Terps under Buzz Williams right now, a little bit injured to start the season. But I think he's going to do a great job there. All right, you got anything else? Nothing else for you, boss. Me neither. I'll be back tomorrow. I think Steve will have a film breakdown ready to go. See you.

Hey, thanks. Thank you. Bye.