The Kevin Sheehan Show - Jordan Rules; Redskins News

Episode Date: April 20, 2020

Kevin opens with a recap of episodes 1 & 2 of "The Last Dance"...the Jordan/Bulls documentary. Albert Breer had some news on the Redskins that Kevin discussed. Charley Casserly had some Skins' and NFL Draft news too that he explained on Kevin's radio show this morning. Casserly and Scot McCloughan appeared on Kevin's radio show on The Team 980 this morning. Both had thoughts on Chase Young that Kevin shared. Tim Murray/NBC Sports Washington was a guest talking NFL Draft. <p> </p><p>Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices">podcastchoices.com/adchoices</a></p> Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You want it. You need it. It's what everyone's talking about. The Kevin Sheehan Show. Now here's Kevin. All right. Mostly me today. Tim Murray's going to jump on with us in a little while. Talk some NFL draft and see if he watched the Jordan documentary last night, which I'm going to start with here in a moment. Aaron's still at home. We're still socially distancing ourselves by miles rather than feet in this very small studio. Let me set the menu for you, if I may for the week. Tomorrow, Tommy will be on Cooley due to be on on Wednesday, and then Tommy will be with me on Thursday the day of the draft, and then Friday we'll have all of the round one draft recap on the show. If you miss the radio show this morning on the Team 980, which you can listen to on the Team 980.com or the Team 980 app or on Dlexa or Google Home,

I had Scott McLuhan on the show this morning for about 25 minutes and Charlie Casserly on the show as well, both of whom said that Chase Young is among the best prospects they have ever evaluated. In fact, McLuhan saying the best defensive end prospect, he's evaluated in 28 years of scouting. I'm going to play some of that back for you in a little bit on the show. But I want to start with the last dance, which was the documentary that began airing last night on ESPN on Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls of the 90s. In particular, the lead-up to the 97-98 season, and we're going to get a lot of the 97-98 season for the rest of this series. Last night, what aired last night were the first two parts, the first two episodes. There are eight more to go.

over the next month. I would imagine that it had a massive audience tuned in last night. It really sort of lit up social media. I wasn't paying attention as I was watching both parts last night, but saw it this morning when I woke up very early. And a lot of, let me just start with this. Incredibly well done so far. I mean, a documentary that is 20-something years in the making,

This was exclusive footage which the Bulls had to agree to. Michael Jordan had to agree to back in the 1997 time frame before what would become the sixth and final championship series of those great Bulls teams of the 90s. Michael Jordan had say so as to when this footage would be usable and it's been 20-something years. He agreed to the documentary two years ago. They've been putting this together. It was scheduled to air at the end of the NBA season this year in June. But obviously they pushed it up because we don't have sports right now. We don't have live sports. And, you know, there was a lot of buildup to this, maybe in part because of the environment

and the world that we're living in right now and not having a ton of options sports-wise. I think if the NBA playoffs were going on right now, which they would have been, and they were to air this doc during the NBA playoffs, which wasn't their plan. It wouldn't get nearly the attention it is now. But it's very well done, at least the first two episodes, and there's just a lot there from the first two episodes. And I'm going to go through some of the highlights for me on the first two nights, and I'm going to go back and watch it again,

because what else are we going to do these days? because I'm sure I missed some things, but I really enjoyed the first two episodes. And in fact, at the end of the second episode last night, it was late for me. But if they had aired the third and fourth, I think I would have stayed up for it. I mean, this is one of those where, you know,

it would be nice to be able to binge all 10 episodes over the course of a day, day and a half. Anyway, episode one was sort of setting the table. First of all, taking you back through, you know, Jordan's career in college and how we, you know, got to Chicago and the state of the Bulls when Jordan got there and sort of the state of the NBA to a certain degree. But really, the state of the Bulls and where Jordan was and then interspersing it with, you know, sort of what would become 13 years later prior to the 97-98 season, which was going to be

their last in explaining essentially why it turned out to be the last year of my. Michael Jordan's Bulls with Phil Jackson and Scotty Pippin, et cetera. And the reason is Jerry Krauss, which I'll get to in a moment here. But it was really well done. And just sort of going back to when they were going back to sort of the early to mid-80s and then take you through it sort of chronologically, some of the things that were interesting. First of all, I mean, for someone my age who really remembers Jordan's North Carolina career, Jordan, you know, participated as a sought-after high school phenom in the Capitol Classic at the Capitol Center.

But Jordan, you know, those years at North Carolina and how he went from, you know, sort of a guy that grew a little bit in his freshman year to hitting the game winner in his freshman year in the championship game against Georgetown to absolutely exploding as a sophomore and junior in Chapel Hill. You know, they had so many games in the ACC. You know, I can't remember missing many ACC games that were on television back then. Obviously, all of the Maryland games. One of his iconic college dunks, maybe the iconic college dunk during Jordan's career at North Carolina, took place in a matchup between two top 10 teams in College Park, Len Bias' Maryland team, Len bias Adrian Branch, against Jordan's North Carolina team. And that's the famous sort of rock the boat where he took it, cradle that went back and forth and dunked it.

That's the first time he had done that dunk. It happened at the very end of the game at Cole Fieldhouse in 1984. I was already up walking out of the arena because Carolina had just iced the game maybe a minute or two earlier. And you just heard this roar and sort of groan. And you look down and Jordan's running back down on the air. other end of the floor, I would see the highlights after the fact. But seeing Jordan at North Carolina and hearing James Worthy tell the story about how he was the best player, you know, when Michael Jordan arrived in Chapel Hill for two weeks, James Worthy said. For about two weeks,

he was the best player. And then it became clear that Jordan was the best player. Listening to Roy Williams talk about Jordan in Chapel Hill was really interesting. There were different stories about Jordan at North Carolina. One of the best stories actually of the entire first episode and of the night was Michael Jordan's mother, Dolores Jordan, reading a letter that she had saved from Michael Jordan and his freshman year at North Carolina. He wrote home, and he said, Mom, and by the way, during this, and many of you have already seen it, Michael Jordan is sitting in presumably his house or a house that maybe he owns in a very comfortable chair with a cigar and, you know, in hearing some of these stories as part of the documentary. Anyway, he's watching his mother describe the letter that she received from him and she's reading it.

It was priceless. You know, she says that, you know, Michael's written home to say that he's down to his last $20 and he needs some deposit. He needs some money into his bank account. and he apologizes for the phone bill and then asks his mother to please send stamps, you know, and that was great. You see video of Michael Jordan in Chapel Hill riding his bike. You know, it's really the guys that didn't go to college or maybe only even went for one year, you know, Michael Jordan is a North Carolina man, you know, he's a tar heel.

He's forever connected, forever bonded to that North Carolina family and the North Carolina alum and the North Carolina basketball thing with Dean and Roy and, et cetera. And, you know, I was listening to Doc Walker this morning, open up his show with Galdi on our station. And Doc really laid it out. He said, you know, Kobe and LeBron and everybody's done it sort of their own way. But the guys that didn't go to college and experience it for a few years, really missed out on sort of a well-rounding life experience. And you see that with Jordan. You know, you see, you know, as his mother read the letter,

you see him riding his bicycle around campus. You know, he's Michael Jordan for crying out loud, but he's also a student athlete. Now, we know some of the classes, you know, many years later we find out that some of the classes that some of the basketball players in Chapel Hill took were sort of sham classes. But we all know that the college experience,

is not just an academic one. In fact, it's probably much more in its totality than an academic experience. You're living on your own for the first time. You're living with people that you don't know occasionally. And you can see that that experience at North Carolina really was valuable for Jordan. You know, when Jordan came out, it was a tough decision to leave after his junior year. And the documentary sort of spells that out, that it wasn't the easiest decision in the world. He loved Chapel Hill. He loved North Carolina. But Dean Smith told him, it's time for you to go. You're going to be a top pick. You're going to be a top three pick. And so he ended up going pro. Now, everybody that is a basketball fan and even a sports fan, you know, knows the 1984 draft. This was the draft in which the Rockets

picked Hakeem Elijah won at the top of the draft. And then Portland with the number two pick made one of the all-time greatest mistakes. They took Sam Bowie. And back then, you know, basketball was different. You know, there was this sense that you needed the center. You had to have the big guy, you know, if you were going to win. It wasn't positionless basketball, which is essentially what it is today to a certain degree.

You know, so many, you put your best five out there. And if you have a center, that's fine. If you don't, that's fine, too. You know, and they took Sam Bowie because they had Clyde Drexler in point. Portland. And so they already had a shooting guard. And they passed on Jordan for that reason. And then Jordan went to the Bulls who in 1984 were a mess. The Bulls were number four in Chicago in 1984. The Bears were getting ready for their run. They were coming off a playoff win in 1984 or getting ready for a season that would end up in a playoff win. The Blackhawks were more popular. The White Sox and the Cubs were more

popular. The franchise was in big trouble. Jerry Reinsdorf had just bought it. He was the White Sox owner. And they were in big trouble. No one was going to their games and they drafted Jordan. And it all changed. But it didn't change right away. Like what's really interesting, and I do remember this, Jordan was certainly thought to be a guy that was going into the NBA that had a chance to be great. You know, he was, you know, a guy that was a national player of the year. He had led North Carolina to a title in 82 as a freshman, or he had been a part of that team that won the title in 82 with James Worthy and Sam Perkins, etc. Matt Doherty, Jimmy Black. But he was going to be a star, but I don't think anybody realized the level of star that he would become.

And one of the interesting things about going back to the draft, and this was pointed out, in this particular episode last night is that the 84 Olympics, which were in L.A. and Bobby Knight coached the team, there's thought that if the draft hadn't happened before the Olympics, that Jordan probably would have gone number one because he blew up at the Olympics. He had an unbelievable Olympics. In fact, one of the really good quotes was from Bobby Knight last night, which was actually shortened from the episode. But I went back and found the full Bobby Knight sound bite, talking about Michael Jordan. He called him the best player he had ever seen.

Here's what he said after the Olympics in 84. The kid is just an absolutely great kid. If I were going to pick the three or four best athletes I've ever seen play basketball, he'd be one of them. I think he's the best athlete I've ever seen play basketball, bar none. If I were going to pick people with the best ability I'd ever seen play the game, he'd be one of them. If I'm going to pick the best competitors,

that I'd ever seen play. He'd be one of them. So in the categories, competitiveness, ability, skill, and then athletic ability, he's the best athlete, he's one of the best competitors, is one of the most skilled players.

And that, to me, makes him the best basketball player that I've ever seen play. That's Bobby Knight. You know, Bobby Knight, just lavishing praise on Michael Jordan, like you would never hear Bobby Knight do back then. And, you know, So if the Olympics had happened before the NBA draft, Jordan may have been picked number one overall.

Anyway, he arrives in Chicago, and it's dead as an NBA town. And Jordan, you know, initially, you know, in the first, like, training camp practice, there are quotes from people saying it became very apparent. Rod Thorne was the GM at that point, and it made the pick. And Kraus was going to be coming shortly thereafter hired by Reinsdorf. But Rod Thorne tells the story about how he gets a call essentially from, I think it was Kevin Lockery, who was the coach at the time. And he says, well, you got this one right. And this is after one practice in training camp.

And Thorne says, what are you talking about? He said, this kid can play. And it was noticeable to everybody early on. Rod Higgins was a player in that team. He was one of the talking heads during this documentary talking about that it didn't take long to realize that Jordan was the best player. on the team. The third game of his rookie season, they played the Milwaukee Bucks, they're down nine at the end of the third quarter. In previous years, the Bulls teams would just quit. Jordan said, hey, we can still win this game. Jordan went off in the fourth quarter, ended up with 37 points. They beat the bucks. And at that moment, it was clear to everybody that he was by far and away the best player on the team. That led to another story, which was really interesting. The Bulls prior to Jordan getting there were called the cocaine circus, the Chicago Cocaine Circus. Jordan tells the story about being on the road, and forgive me, I don't know if it was during training camp, a preseason game or an early regular season game, but they're in a hotel and he goes and knocks on the hotel room looking for all the guys, and he hears behind the door, hey, keep it quiet, keep it quiet.

And he knocks on the door again, and then finally somebody says, who's there? And he said, it's MJ. So they opened the door, and he walks into the hotel room. And in one corner of the room is the cocaine, you know, lines laid out on the table. Another corner of the room are a bunch of the pot smokers, the weed smokers. They're women in the room. And it's the team. And Jordan immediately says, this isn't for me, turns around and walks out.

Think about that for a moment. He walks out of that hotel room. He's a rookie player, okay? he's a rookie. And all of these veteran players are in there. And the veteran players, you know, at least according to Jordan's account of the story, didn't pressure him into Stang. And Jordan knew that it was not for him to be there.

And he said, I was worried if they, you know, if they came in and busted that thing up, I would have been in there and I would have been guilty by association. He had a maturity about him. He had great parents, obviously. And that's, you know, been sort of laid out over the, years and obviously went and played for one of the greatest coaches in the history of basketball. College pro doesn't matter in Dean Smith. And he got the hell out of there. And, you know, when you think about it, it's like probably they looked at it and said, yeah, Mike, you need to get out of

here. You're different from all of us. You go get your sleep. We need you to, you know, we need 40 from you tomorrow night. I thought that that was such a reflection of sort of his maturity and his, you know, his drive and understanding that he was not going to be a follower in life. He was going to be a leader in life. But anyway, that was an interesting story as well. But what you really get early on is you get this understanding of the dynamic in the Chicago Bulls organization. First of all, the owner Jerry Reinsdorf, essentially says that Jerry Krause, who was a scout with the White Sox, said, hey, I want to be the general manager of the Bulls, and Reinsdorf said, okay.

Like that was basically it. There wasn't a search. There weren't a bunch of interviews. You know, Reinsdorf did say, he said, I asked around the league and everybody I talked to said, don't touch this guy. And Jerry, he said, had a way of alienating people. But he said, I wasn't hiring somebody to win a personality contest. I wanted somebody who truly believed in building a team the way I wanted to, and Kraus was the guy.

But Kraus, you know, if you watch this, he becomes the problem, you know, in 1997, 1998. Jerry Krauss was the guy that always had crumbs on his shirt. He was short. He was odd. He was not an athlete. At the same time, one of the things it's very clear is that Jerry Krauss gets credit from almost everybody in this documentary for building the team around Michael, you know, about going out and getting cart right, eventually getting, you know, Scotty Pippen, and, you know,

Horace Grant and putting the right pieces around Jordan to capture those first run of titles. You know, obviously, you know, Phil Jackson being hired as the coach, and Pippin was the big one, right? Pippin became clearly the Robin to Jordan's Batman and one of the great one, two combinations of all time. And one of the things that comes out of these first two episodes is just reminders of how great Scottie Pippen was, how great he was. He was just incredible. But Kraus was a major problem. And going into that 97-98 season, he didn't want Phil Jackson. He wanted to trade Scotty Pip, and he wanted to break up a team that had won five titles in seven years.

And the only two years they didn't win it was when Jordan was playing baseball. I mean, he's crazy. You know, Reinsdorf had to put his foot down, which he didn't do very often. That's another thing you learn about the Reinsdorf-Krauss relationship is that Reinsdorf was, you know, almost deferential to Krause, his general manager. But he did go and keep Phil Jackson with a one-year deal worth $6 million to bring him back for that 97-98 season. They had won the previous two years. They were going for their second three-peat.

And Kraus wanted to break it up. And Kraus, who is deceased, he passed away in 2017, I think it was. You know, one of the quotes is, I'm the general manager of the Chicago Bulls. I have to have the future in mind. And, you know, I'm always thinking about, you know, the best thing for the organization. And there's this famous quote from Jerry Krause, which gets played up and was played up in, you know, back in the day where he said, you know, essentially players don't win championships, organizations do. He wanted credit. He wanted his due.

And it's not really the way it works when you have a player like Michael Jordan. And he couldn't really get past it. And so he, after Rinesdor flies out and signs Jackson to a one-year deal worth $6 million, Jerry Krause walks into Phil Jackson's office and says, this is your last year. You could go 82 and O this year and win another title, and it doesn't matter. This is your last year. That's crazy. Phil Jackson said, okay, and Phil Jackson obviously had issues with Krause as well.

But that's insane. You have a team that's won five titles in seven years, and first of all, you want to break it up before it's got a chance for its second three, Pete, and then you're going to cut off the possibility of if they win it again, bringing it back to try to win a fourth in a row. The tension going into that 97-98 season was all stemmed from Jerry Krause, his turnoff quote, which turned off Jackson, Pippen, Jordan, the not wanting to be. to break it up. The attempt to trade Pippin. By the way, one of the stories that came out I read early this morning is that one of the trades that apparently the Bulls were thinking about making was Pippin for Tracy McGrady before that year. And Jordan nixed it. Jordan made it very clear to Rinesdorf and everybody. If Phil goes, I go. If Pippin goes, I'm gone. You know, this is our group. We have, you know, we've earned the right to defend this title. But he goes into Jackson before the season

starts and says you could go 82 and oh and win another title and this is it. This is your final year here. And it set the stage for what we haven't even heard all about because we'll get that through the next eight episodes is a very tumultuous and tension-filled championship season in 97 and 98 that was documented, you know, with all of this footage that we're going to be able to see. It was really, I mean, I can't wait to watch. I the rest of it. One of the things that they went into, two more points from the first two episodes, number one is the first playoff series in 86 that the Bulls were involved in. Michael Jordan had broken his ankle or broken his foot early in the season. He only played in 13 games

that year, only started seven. He came back late in the year. They didn't want him to come back. They said he was putting his future at risk by coming back off that injury. They didn't need him. They weren't going to the postseason. And Jordan said, uh-uh, I'm playing. And by the way, we can still make the playoffs. And he played great, and he basically carried his team to a 30 and 52 record. That was the record. But they qualified for the eight-seat in the East in the 1986 NBA playoffs, where they matched up against that great 86 Celtics team,

the team with Bird and Aange and DJ and Parrish and Mikhail and Walton, you know, an incredible one of the great teams. Maybe, you know, some people will argue that that's the greatest. NBA championship team of all time. And they played the Bulls in the first round. And back then, the first round was the best of five. And Jordan in game one put 49 up on the Celtics, and they lost by, you know, 16, 17 points, something like that. By the way, one quick note. They posted like a snapshot of the standings, the final standings of the 1986, 8586 season, showing the Bulls with a 30 and 52 record as the eight seed in the east.

And in that rundown of the Eastern Conference teams, it shows the Wizards at 39 and 43 as the six seed. They were in the playoffs that year. Somebody photoshop that in. Somebody changed that because they weren't the Wizards in 1986. They were the bullets. So I don't know why they even did that. It wasn't really important.

But I picked up on that. And by the way, I picked up also the Keith Booth. The Maryland player was drafted by the Bulls in the first round prior to that 97-98 season. And you see Keith Booth in some of the footage. We haven't heard from him yet. And I don't know if we will or not, but he was on that team in 97-98. But anyway, back to the 86 Bulls. He scores 49 in game one.

And then that famous game two in Boston Garden, a Sunday afternoon on CBS. And he goes for 63 and a double overtime loss. where Byrd said about his performance that Michael Jordan, that God was dressed as Michael Jordan on that particular day. He was incredible, and he was doing it. The context of it is they shouldn't have been in the postseason. He shouldn't have come back and played, but he willed them to the postseason

and did so with great risk, at least according to this documentary, with the injury and returning from it that early. But it's one of the great individual playoff performances of all time. And then came a really incredible anecdote from that series. He and Danny Age between games one and games two played golf together. Okay, Danny Angel and Jordan went out after Jordan's 49 point game one loss and the day before game two, so it was a Saturday, game two was on a Sunday. Before game two, they had a day off between the games and Jordan and Danny Aange go out and play golf together.

I mean, a lot of people tweeting about, you know, don't want to hear about, you know, today's players being buddy, buddy, and back in the day, they didn't even, well, back in the day, Jordan and Aange played golf the day before the game two of a best of five opening round playoff series in which Jordan went out and hung 63 on Aange and DJ and anybody else that guarded him. But anyway, really interesting stuff. A lot of stuff about the Pippin, you know, Pippin was just grossly underpaid. It was really, really pathetic. In that particular season, he was making $2.8 million. Jordan was making $33 million in the 97-98 season. Pippin had signed a deal that was really a bad deal that he signed. It was an ill-advised deal that he signed in 1991. And by the time they got to the 97-98 season, he was the 122nd highest-paid player in the game. It's crazy.

And so he had a problem with Jerry Krause. And between Jordan and Pippin, they berated and belittled Kraus on team buss, you know, on buses and on planes. And, you know, they openly, you know, roasted, you know, Kraus. And Phil Jackson, you know, even said it got to the point where it was over the top with Pippin in particular. And yet, you know, I was thinking to myself, well, you were the head coach. Why didn't you stop that? If it was so uncomfortable, why didn't you stop it?

But he didn't like Kraus either. The other thing, you know, and I mentioned this before, is you just find that Reinsdorf as an owner, you know, he got involved when it made sense to sort of get involved, I guess. But at the same time, Krause was really in charge. And he was sort of deferring to Kraus in Kraus's expert. But anyway, you hear about how, you know, and you see some of it with Jordan saying, hey, where did, you know, he said something, and I'm paraphrasing here, where do you get those pills, those short, those pills that make you so short, you know, they did not like Krause,

and it had to be terribly uncomfortable. In fact, one of the big takeaways from night one of this documentary is everybody on Twitter saying, oh my God, Jerry Krause, what a horrible guy. At the same time, there's some credit given to him for putting this thing together. And I would say, you know, where were the adults in the room during all this? Why didn't Phil Jackson stop the belittling of him? Where was Jerry Reinstorff to say, are you kidding me? We're not breaking this team up.

You know, Jerry Reinsdorf wouldn't give Scotty Pippen a new deal. That's crazy. You know, I know things were different back then, and you signed a deal, And, you know, Jerry Reinsdorf said, you know, he's never going to renegotiate a deal. Well, Pippin was exactly the guy that you would want to keep, wouldn't you? And you'd want to be happy. And anyway, it was just well done, really well done, really compelling stuff. You know, you remember a lot of the stuff, but a lot of the context around it you don't remember.

And some of the stories are obviously brand new. but episode three this next Sunday night is going to be on Dennis Rodman. So that'll be interesting. And then, you know, we'll go from there. The last thought was, you know, I did notice on social media how many people said, oh, please, LeBron. After watching this, it's like an eye-opener for a whole new generation to say that Michael's the greatest of all time.

Look, I think Michael and Magic, in terms of the non-center conversation, they've always been to me, you know, it's those. two and then, you know, whatever comes after that, Kobe, LeBron, Bird, you know, whatever, Oscar, put the list together. But it's magic and Michael one in one A. That's always been it for me. But, you know, I was thinking about all of the sort of snapback on LeBron that I was reading on Twitter like, oh my God, LeBron really, you know, it really is Michael, you know. And you got to remember there's a big difference between what Michael generated. and was able to accomplish and what LeBron's been able to accomplish.

You know, Michael obviously is a greater champion, and I think ultimately a better player and a much better competitor in my view. I'm not a big LeBron guy. With that said, what LeBron's accomplished in his career with the kind of teams that he played on and the way he elevated certain teams, like how about that team in Cleveland the second go-round that he got to the finals and lost in six games to the Warriors, where you had Timothy Mosgov and Amman Shumpert and J.R. Smith, no Kyrie Irving who got hurt.

I mean, come on, man. The teams early on that he elevated in Cleveland to 60 win teams and got one of those teams to the finals and was in the Eastern Conference Finals a couple times. Michael may have done that before Pippen and got to the Eastern Conference finals and couldn't get through Detroit and all of that. I don't know that Michael really ever had to play on some of the teams that LeBron had to play on. Again, don't get me wrong. It's Michael and Magic for me.

And then we get to the next part of the conversation of non-centers, which LeBron's a part of. But to completely discount LeBron after watching last night, that 2014-2015 team, was that the first one back in Cleveland, 2014-15, when he just was spectacular in leading that Cleveland team into the NBA-fifference. finals against a Golden State team that was so much better, so much better. And somehow he was able to, you know, keep them alive, keep them in that series, get him to that series with the likes of the players that he was playing with. I mean, think about, you know, going back, Larry Hughes and Elgouskas, you know, back to the first run in Cleveland. I mean, LeBron has had a spectacular career and is a spectacular all-time player. There's a lot about LeBron personally that I find to be, you know, a bit phony and a bit needy and all of that stuff.

With that said, you know, to totally discount him just after last night's first two episodes I found was interesting. But again, you know, not to sound contradictory here, Michael and Magic to me are a notch above LeBron in the all-time conversation. I believe that. But when LeBron's accomplished can't be diminished that much. All right. Team 980, 95.9 FM. I'm now 6 to 9 a.m. on weekdays. Tune in. As I mentioned to you, Scott McLuhan was on the show this morning. Charlie Casserly was on the show this morning. I'm going to play a couple of the McLuhan bites for you here momentarily. And you can listen to that, you know, if you're at home and hunkering down on Alexa or Google Home by just asking, you know, for the Kevin Sheehan Show or the Team 980. Now, if you ask for the Kevin Sheehan show, Sometimes you'll get the podcast, but if you want to listen to the live radio show, you can between 6 and 9 a.m. now started that new schedule last week. All right, before we get to Tim Murray, who's going to join us here on the show in a moment or two, a couple of Redskins-related items. First of all, Albert Breer this morning, MMQB, essentially said that one of the reasons the Redskins were, you know, sort of interviewing and,

and scouting the quarterbacks in this draft is what we've talked about here on the podcast before, and that is that the Redskins wanted to know what these quarterbacks were about. He wanted to, the Redskins wanted to be sure that if somebody were coming up to take, you know, one of these quarterbacks, that the Redskins knew what they were coming up to get so they could put proper value on them. So that always made sense to me. Now, you know, part of it early on was, well, maybe they are interested into it. Maybe they are interested, you know, in a quarterback. Maybe they're not sold on Dwayne Haskins.

But Breer essentially said that he still expects the Redskins to take Chase Young, but said that they were doing their due diligence to make sure that if somebody came up for and made an offer that the skins knew exactly what they were going for and could, you know, could value the trade, you know, proper. By the way, Charlie Casserly, who was on with me this morning, made it clear that there hasn't been an offer yet to either the Redskins, Lions, or Giants from teams below trying to get up into that two, three, and four spot. He doesn't think there will be more likely than not offers for the Redskins to consider. There's been nothing there for the Redskins to consider. He mentioned Casserly did that Chase Young's one of the best defense events he's ever evaluated. and so did Scott McLuhan.

McLuhan said this this morning on my show. I'll just say this. He's the best player I saw this year, offence defense. He's one of the best defensive end in my 28 years I've scouted. From the standpoint of size, upside with size,

pure talent, initial quickness, initial step, and use the ability to have an innate second counter move that a lot of guys don't have coming out of college. He has it. It's natural. He's got a chance to be special, really special. He's not the only person who believes that Chase Young is a star and is one of the highest evaluations ever given to a defensive player.

Defensive end, as he said, Charlie Casserly, defense of end, one of the best defensive ends he's ever evaluated. Casserly's quote this morning, exactly from my show was he's one of the best defensive events I've ever scouted, Matt from Casserly. And Casterly pointed out, look, it's not just he's a great pass rusher. He's very good against the run as well. I think it's clear, especially when you consider that teams below probably aren't going to make a big offer to the Redskins that they might consider. I think it's now really a very safe bet. The skins are going to take Chase Young.

You know, I don't think that there's any other place to go. He's number one on most boys. He's one of the highest evaluated defensive players in recent memory. If Joe Burrow is number one on their board, they won't have a chance to take him, so he's no worse than number two on their board, more likely than not. It's either young or Burrow is the number one player on boards. And if two is up there, he's got an asterisk next to his name because of the injury issues, not just the hip, but as we've talked about, knees, ankles, etc. I think it's really would be an absolute shocker if Thursday night the Redskins don't take Chase Young. I think that's who they're going to take. I think it's who they should take.

Also, by the way, Scott McLuhan also had this thing to say about this particular draft. I asked him if, you know, in the world that we're living in, which will prevent teams from doing pro days and face-to-face interviews and up close, you know, with their own doctor, medical kinds of evaluations, you know, if that's a big deal or not. And here's what he said. Yes, yes, they will miss out. I think we look back in two to three years from now, probably three years from now, this draft compared to the last 10 to 15 years will have more mistakes made because not just from sitting down individually and you don't bring a 30 guys in, you know, for your physician coach to talk to him,

your scout to him, whoever you want, your owner talked to them, but you get him for a full 24 hours. you get to learn quite a bit in that time and your environment, not their environment, which is excellent. But that definitely hurts, not being able to find the red flag. You know, good guys are good guys. And you get scout knows them,

you meet them at the Combine. Okay, good, everything's positive. But it's always a handful that are good players that have some issues that you've got to identify and talk about and you can't do that this year. And then the more important thing, in my opinion, is the medical. You know, the guys that are non-combine and Vitees,

you can't get a medical grade on them. And, you know, we call it in the NFL. When you've got a medical grade, you call it a hard grade or a soft grade. And the hard grade means he's up the combine or he brought him in or you have another NFL team doctor that gave you a medical grade so you can trust it. A soft grade is when it comes from the college. Comes from the trainer, comes from the area of stout, thinking, okay, well, he twists his ankle and 18, missed two gangs, boom, boom.

But you don't know the severity of it because he hasn't put your hands on him yet. That's what's going to hurt team because you're going to start drafting guys, you know, perfect example this year would be Tua. Everybody wanted to come back to the recheck, a month later, see how his hips developed, you know, from the month before

when they did the scan on it, and they're all excited to see how much it had healed. Now that didn't happen, you know, so everybody's like, son of it. Again, we're talking about top five, top ten pick here, and you've got to tell the owner, you're investing almost 30 million guaranteed in signing that he's our franchise guy.

Well, you don't know that. He has not played since the hip surgery. So it's 50-50. I don't care. what a doctor on the outside of the NFL tells you, they don't understand the NFL, and what the NFL doctors understand with football-related injuries

and how it affects guys in different manners and different positions. So I think the medical is going to be more important that's going to be missed than it is sitting down and just conversing with them, but they're both highly important, highly important. More mistakes than any in recent drafts. You know, Charlie Casserly essentially echoed the same thing that this is going to be one of those drafts where because you're not able to do the medical with your own medical people,

that you may be more conservative. Instead of in the fourth round taking a guy that you think would have had a first round grade on, if not for the injury that he suffered last year, well, now you're not sure that he's going to recover from that injury. You don't know what the state of that injury is. So you may pass on a player like that and take a player that hasn't had the same injury history. Casserly also very adamant on this is the way it used to be done, you know, without the pro days and without the combine and without the face-to-face interviews

and without the medical evaluations by your own doctors. And it was all about the tape and all about pure scouting and making calls and finding out. And he thinks it's going to be interesting, but he certainly sounded in the same way McLuhan did that there is a risk on these players with an injury history, and they both sort of dialed in on the Tuist situation as high risk. Both of those interviews, the Team 980.com, the Team 980 app. It was good to catch up with McLuhan. McClellan also talked about, and you can hear it if you go listen to it on the Team 980 app or the Team 980.com, you can hear, I tweeted out some of that interview with McLuhan as well

this morning at Kevin Sheen, D.C. He talks about the mistakes, the biggest mistakes he made. here and he said the doxin and the Cravens picks were the two biggest mistakes. He said he wasn't able to, you know, he didn't do enough on the personal side and the medical side. They both ended up having medical issues here and injury issues. Said the best pick he made while he was here was the Kendall Fuller pick. And he said the best player he's ever evaluated ever as a scout was Patrick Willis who he picked in San Francisco. One last thing real quickly before we get to Tim Murray. Urban Meyer was on J.P.'s podcast, the Redskins Talk podcast, late last week.

And JP asked him about social media and Dwayne Haskins. And Urban Meyer said, quote, Dwayne likes the social media. He's all over the social media. I worry about that a little bit. I like the Tom Brady approach. Just focus on your team, closed quote. You know, that isn't coming, from a sports talk radio host or a blogger or a columnist for all of you people that whenever we've talked about, Tommy's ever talked about, you know, the concerns with Haskins on social media and that it's a red flag. Well, his college coach, who knows him better than anybody else, said, quote, I worry about that a little bit, close quote.

All right. He also spoke to sort of a maturity thing also in this podcast as it relates to Dwayne that, you know, he needs to mature a little bit, but he thinks he did at the end of last year and actually said, he elevated, and I'm paraphrasing at this point, he elevated a very bad football team last year. But this got headlines on Friday everywhere, Ohio State World, Redskins, NFL, everywhere, that Urban Meyer slightly concerned about Dwayne Haskins' social media habits. Okay? So the next time, you know, you tweet Tommy or you tweet me when we have these conversations,

and say, okay, Boomer, or you guys are so out of touch, well, then his college coach, who knows him probably better than anybody else in the Redskins organization right now, all right? He's concerned. Personally, I'm not going to get overly worked up, as I've said before, about this. I think there was some immaturity last year early. I think there's still a little bit of immaturity. I liked what I saw on the field.

Hopefully he can grow out of some of this other stuff. By the way, there's also the possibility that he continues to be, you know, sort of sensitive and, you know, sort of self-promotional on social media and still ends up being a great quarterback. That can happen to. That could probably happen to. Not probably, but that could happen to. But yeah, there are flags on Dwayne. Come on. You know, most of you understand that taking a selfie while there's still a snap left in a game, you know, taking the number seven. from Joe without much concern. You know, having a clothing line and a marketing company before you've ever taken a snap. You know, the early days, I know that it was dysfunctional in the organization with Dwayne. I completely agree with that. But still, you know, there was probably some truth to him not being completely prepared early on when he wasn't the starter, not understanding the commitment needed. I like what I've seen from Dwayne on the field.

I think, you know, hopefully there's a maturity that takes place here with some of the other stuff as well. I'm excited to see him play next year. But this was not radio talk show host, podcast host, blogger, columnist. This was his college coach, a legendary Hall of Fame college coach, who said about Dwayne Haskins, he's the best player, best quarterback in Ohio State football history, the one season that he had. But he also says, you know, last week he talked about you put talent around, Dwayne'll be great.

If you don't, he won't. And now the concern about Dwayne on social media. It's not a shocker to anybody that this could be potentially an issue, and his former college coach thinks that it could be in issue. So there you go. All right, let's bring in my good friend Tim Murray, who is at NBC Sports Washington. And Murray's not only a gambling expert,

which we've spent many hours over many years talking about. But he's my closest confidant when it comes to talking college football in the business that we're in. I mean, we've mentioned this many times in the past, but when Murray and I were together at 980, we were the only two in the building. I mean, I'll do respect to everybody else because everybody had their own areas of expertise, but we were the two massive college football fans in the building. And we would spend most of our time either talking about gambling or gambling. college football, one or the other. And this is a big week, obviously, with the NFL draft coming up.

And so I thought it would be great to have Tim on. First of all, and I've mentioned this about Cooley and those of my friends that have super young kids right now. This is hardest on you guys. Seriously. I have older boys. They're all home right now, but it's easy. You know, it's not that difficult. How are you guys doing? We're hanging in there. I'm doing a lot of dad duty. My wife is still working. She works in the school system in Howard County. So, I mean, the issue is, and you probably know this when your kids were young, my son likes my wife a lot more than me. So I'll try to play with him, and then he'll just want to go to mom, and she's trying to work. So, you know, everyone's dealing with their own challenges. It's been interesting. I laugh at, you know, my co-host,

Michael Jenkins, he doesn't have kids. So I just kind of text him all the time. I'm like, What are you doing right now? Because I have been chasing around the little kid for the longest time. But, you know, like everybody, we're hanging in there. We're trying to stay busy. And last night was a breath of fresh air having the Jordan documentary. And then we got the draft on Thursday, Friday, Saturday. So at least we've had some things to look forward to, Kevin, with the documentary and now the draft.

So I don't know what we're going to do after the draft because, I mean, I always like the draft, but this year certainly even more so. Before we get to that, so I've already spent, I don't know, 15, 20 minutes talking about the documentary. Maybe it was a little bit longer, I don't know. I loved it last night. What did you think? Oh, yeah. I was amazing. You know, I'm 32, so the first three-peat was a little hazy to me, but, you know, I grew up just loving sports.

So really one of the first true sports memories that I have, is the Paxon three against the Sons, and then I was all in on the second three feet. I loved those teams, and we were fortunate in the D.C. area and people all over the country, you got WGN, so you had that, you know, that iconic warm-up music and the animatronic bowl running through Chicago. But last night was excellent, and I didn't really know how they were going to do it, Kevin. I don't know how much you got into it, of the specifics of, you know, how are we going to do 10 episodes on one season?

But the way that they're weaving, you know, they're going back in time. I think it's really well done. The 30 for 30s are great. You know, I think for me, you know, being at the age that I am, a lot of my friends are Jordan guys, you know, Jordan, you know, the greatest of all time, all that stuff. But I don't think we fully grasp the greatness of him in the 80s. You know, we remember him as the champion.

but I really enjoyed watching those highlights. I didn't really know much about the 85-86 season where he was out pretty much the entire year. He was begging to get back in, and then he goes crazy in the playoffs. And the series, they get swept by an eventual champion in the Celtics. So for me, I really enjoyed learning more about how iconic he was and how prolific of a school.

I mean, look, I knew all the records and all the point totals, but watching those highlights and seeing Bill Walton, lose his crap on on some players. I mean, watching the highlight from game two of the 86 first round against the Celtics was really fascinating to me to watch that. I'll never forget watching that game. I think the 86 Celtics are very debatably the greatest NBA championship team of all time. And I'll never forget. That game was on a Sunday afternoon on CBS and you're just sitting there mesmerized by Jordan. You know, the funny thing, and I talked about this, is that, you know, we sort of learned last

night, and I remember this a bit. I mean, look, as a Maryland guy, as an ACC guy, I probably saw every single one of Jordan's games, you know, at Carolina. And so, you know, I knew how great he was, and I think I always felt like, oh, my God, he's going to be great. But I don't know that anybody thought in the moment when he was taken third overall, and this was sort of spelled out last night, even Dean Smith wasn't sure how great, you know, he would become new.

He was great. But nobody said in the moment Michael Jordan's going to become the greatest basketball player of all time. If people knew that, then Houston would have taken number one overall. You know, he went third, you know. So now, it's funny the reason he went third because people felt like they needed centers. You know, so Elijah won goes one. And nobody, you know, even Rod Thorne said, I had Elijah one as the number one player. But Portland takes Sam Bowie because they felt they needed a center and they already had a shooting guard in Clyde Drexler.

That's crazy when you consider today's game, which is almost positionless, you know? Well, and then you got the clips of Walt Frazier and then I think it was Mark Eaton, both centers, talking about, yeah, well, he's not seven foot. And didn't they even say in Jordan's introductory press conference, well, we wish you was seven foot. Yes. You know, it's so funny to think back at like, wow. And then, you know, true or not, you know, the Bulls said if the draft had happened after the 84 Olympics, they believe Jordan probably would have went number one because he went off in the 84 Olympics and Los Angeles and led the U.S. to gold.

I played earlier in the podcast the full Bobby Knight quote on Jordan, because you You got like a snippet of it last night and went back and found the full 40 seconds of what he said about Jordan after coaching him in the 84 Olympics. And for Bobby Knight, the incredible praise that he lavished on Jordan was really out of character for Knight in many ways. And it's reflective of just the impression that Jordan made on him, you know, during that. Yeah, I love that. I can't wait for, for now. It's one of those things that you'd love to be able to binge all 10 episodes, you know, over the next two days. But we'll get to learn more about, you know, Dennis Rodman, I guess, is episode three.

And, you know, just all of those. Everything about it was really well done. It really is, though, ultimately, to me, incredible that the Chicago Bulls won, you know, three titles from 91 through, you know, 93, and then won three more. And they broke the team up after a three-peat. It's crazy. And I don't remember, once again, again, because I was in middle school, and we didn't have what we have now, which everyone

knows everything, you know, Jerry Krauss coming out and saying, this will be Phil Jackson's last year, having Kim Floyd, the guy who eventually replaced Phil Jackson, around the team in 97, 98. Yeah, I forgot to mention that. It kind of reminds me of that story when didn't Mike Shanahan, you know, get introduced to Jim Zorn, like, during Zorn's second season. This guy's going to replace you pretty much. Jordan was 34 at the end of that 97-98 season, and Pippin was 32. Like, that's crazy.

And what's really interesting to me, and I think, like, I found myself asking this question last night, and I mentioned it earlier, you know, Jerry Reinsdorf, why was he so deferential to Krauss? Now, he went out and got, you know, Phil Jackson's sign. to a $6 million one-year deal prior to that season, but why was he letting Krauss break this thing up? It doesn't make any sense. He was the owner. You don't break up a team that's won three consecutive NBA championships six and eight years when your two best players are 34 and 32 years old.

It's crazy. It really is. I mean, it would never happen, I don't think, nowadays. And you had to win six titles in eight years and then say, yeah, we're good here. And everyone, I mean, I would. trying to, I didn't go back and look at it, but the only person who was getting interviewed last night that I noticed was on the 99 bowls, I think was Bill Wennington. Everybody else was done at 98. You know, they were all gone. Everyone was gone. Yeah. By the way,

you mentioned Paxon is one of your first memories. That didn't even look like Jim Paxon or John Paxon last night. Didn't even look like him. I didn't know this, Kevin. I was, you know, I obviously I knew Danny Ains was a hell of a basketball player. And that was an interesting story of them playing golf together before the 63-point game. But seeing Rick Carlisle out there, I'm like, whoa, I didn't know Rick Carlisle was on the 86 Celtics. Oh, yeah, yeah, he was. You know, I mean, you know, those 80, that 86 Celtics team has to be one of the greatest teams. See, 86, I was going to say in modern basketball.

It's not modern era anymore. obviously, but I don't know that I've ever think about it in, you know, in anyway, late 20th century through the 21st century, there's never been a team that great with that many white dudes on one team. There's no way. I mean, they had, their team was Bird, Aange, McHale, okay, Parrish and DJ were your starters. You had, you know, guys like Carlisle, Walton, Kite, Scott Wedman may have been on that team. All the guys that played off the bench, they were all white dudes, and you had three of them in the starting lineup.

It's crazy. But that team really was so good. And I went back, Kevin, and I know this game happened before I was born. But I went back, and I was fascinated by it because I always knew that, you know, the 63-point game. And I think I just assumed that the Bulls won that game, you know, hearing about the 63-point playoff game. But, you know, looking at that box score for the Celtics, I mean, Larry Bird had 36 points in that game.

Kevin McHale at 24, Danielle at 27, Ains at 24. And then also, what's amazing is the Chicago Bulls attempted a total of two three-pointers in that game. Yeah. Well, that's the mid-80s. And Jordan didn't attempt one. How many did the Celtics attempt in the game? The Celtics shot a grand total of nine. Larry Bird went two for five, and Danny Ains went one for three.

What about a guy? Did Wedman? Oh, so that, well, you just, that was it. Somebody else shot one. Yeah, DJ shot one off the first. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, because Wedman would fire three.

off of that team. And there was a guy Jerry C. Sting that was on one of those Celtics teams. I forget whether or not he was on that team. I can't remember. Just remembering all the white dudes, and he'd fire up some threes. You know who played five minutes off the bench

for the Bulls in that game was the Iceman, George Gerson? Oh, my God. He was on the Bulls. You know, he was on the Bulls in 86. It was last year. And he played in that game, huh? Yeah. Oh my God, yeah, because he played the final year of his career, I think, was with the Bulls after all of those years as a San Antonio Spurring.

You know, Gervyn started his career in the ABA with the Virginia Squires playing with Dr. J. I mean, the two of them were on the same team in the ABA. Wow, I forgot about Gervyn. Did he score? No, I don't think so. He started, I'm looking at his stats, so he averaged 16 points a game. because Jordan didn't play pretty much the entire year. Jordan missed most of the year, yeah.

Yeah, so he only played five minutes, Gervind did, in that game, despite starting 75 of the 82 regular season games. You know what? I just pulled up the box score as we're sitting here, and here's something else I don't remember. It's really interesting, is that Kyle Macy was on that Chicago Bulls team as a starter, and Charles Oakley was on the team,

and we heard about, you know, part of, you know, trading Oakley to bring in Cartwright and, you know, and by the way, as much as Krause is belittled and, you know, torn up in this particular, in the first two episodes, he's also given credit for, you know, creating the team around Jordan, you know, which, but John Paxson, when I was a kid, John Paxson, I was a Maryland guy, first and foremost, but I also, like you, and I've told you this before. Notre Dame. I was always sort of a closet Notre Dame guy, and Paxson played for Notre Dame, and I loved Paxon's game. And Paxon and Macy had very similar games. Kyle Macy was a really good

player and point guard at Kentucky. I want to say that he played on the Kentucky team that beat Duke in the championship game. I could be wrong about that. But I think Kyle Macy, Duke made it to a final four into a championship game, and Jack Givens scored 41 in the title game, and I'm pretty sure that was in a win over Duke in 78. I think Macy was the starting point guard. Whatever. I could be mixing up teams.

But I just pulled up that box score. Macy was on that Bulls team. I don't remember that. Woolridge had 24. Corzine, who was this big lummix of a center, who had played at DePaul. I'm pretty sure he played at DePaul for Ray Meyer. was a big dude, and Oakley, Macy, Paxon. Gene Banks was on that team.

Gene Banks was a phenomenal player at Duke. Sidney Green was a UNLV guy. I remember all these guys by their colleges. But yeah, I really enjoyed it. If they had had another two episodes, even though I go to bed rarely, you know, pretty fairly early now, I would have stayed up until two in the morning to watch, you know, a couple of other episodes. It was great. It was great.

I mean, the ratings, and I know you. love ratings. I mean, they're going to be through the roof. Yeah, I haven't seen anything yet, have you? I haven't seen anything either, but they're going to be astronomical. And everybody was just starving for it, and it paid off. And now, you know, the ratings and betting handle for the draft are going to be crazy. And then we're going to get another two episodes next Sunday night. And I mean, I love that Van Pelt, basically his sports center was breaking it down as if it was the national championship. I watched it. I sat there and watched it. I sat there and watched it afterwards. Yeah, I mean, you know, it's content. But, you know, like, if this thing had aired in June after the NBA finals, which I think it was originally scheduled to air, it would have gotten a big number. Not like now, but it would have been something that we would have all been talking about at that time of the year. By the way, Kyle Macy was a starter on the 1978 National Championship Kentucky Wildcats who beat Duke in the final. So I had that right.

All right, let's talk some NFL draft. I had Scott McLuhan on the show this morning. I had Charlie Casserly on the show this morning. Both of them said, McClellan said that Chase Young's the best defensive end he's evaluated in 28 years of scouting the draft. Casserly said he's probably the best defensive player, one of the best defensive players he's ever evaluated in the draft. do you put Chase Young at that level?

I would defer to those two guys, but from what I saw this year, I mean, this year he was just pulverizing teams. And at the end of the year, teams are just throwing three, four bodies at him. But he's incredible. And I haven't found really anybody who says that he's not the best player in this draft. I really like Joe Burrow, but I think talent-wise, you've got to go Chase Young, you know, early on and in the whole process, just because the Redskins roster is depleted and void of talent and they don't have a second-round pick, so you're going number two and then not picking until whatever it is, 63 or whatever. If they got their doors blowing off, the Redskins, I'd say I would be intrigued about a trade. But, you know, at this point in time, just go get the dude that's going to wreak some havoc.

and make plays and be a contributor day one. You know, I don't know if he's as good as the Bosa brothers, if he's better than the Bosa brothers, but regardless, if you're getting a comparable talent, you've got to go get him. So, you know, it was interesting to, you know, here debate for a while, but, you know, if you just watch what he did at Ohio State,

I mean, he's an absolute monster. And I feel like the Redskins have, I mean, you would know this more so than I, Kev, but, I mean, the Redskins have, have lacked those, I forget what McClellan used to call him, what, blue chip type players or whatever he had. Blue chips. Yeah, I mean, they have lacked those types of players for a long time.

So to get him a no-doubter who you stick in and get rolling, you know, it would be nice to have a second round pick, but it's also nice to have a guy like Chase Young come in and have, and teams are going to have the game plan to slow him down, I think, very early on it career. Yeah, I agree with that. Do you like Burrow or Tua more? If Tua weren't, it didn't bring this injury situation in, who would you like more?

Good question. Probably Tua slightly, just because he did it longer. But, I mean, that all being said, look at what Burrow did this year, the teams that they beat. Now, you know, both of these players were playing with incredible talent. I mean, the receivers that Tua was going to were absolutely ridiculous. But I think the thing for me with Joe Burrow is that they just, everybody in there, I mean, they played so many damn good teams this year, and they beat them all,

relatively handily. You know, they played Texas when Texas, wasn't falling apart. That was a good Texas team at that time, and they went into Austin and threw up 45 points. I mean, they scored, and I know, I think it was a late touchdown that got the cover, but they scored 42 against Florida. I mean, that Florida defense was the real deal. Awesome. And they threw up a ton of points against them. Alabama could do nothing to slow them down. Clemson early on, and then they made tweaks. They destroyed Georgia in the SEC championship team,

I mean, SEC championship. So I think the fact that he threw up these prolific numbers, it is weird that he didn't do it. His, you know, redshirt junior year. But everything that you look at with him, I mean, this dude was so, so talented. I do, you know, the interesting question is, and I'm, you know, I know you've talked about the durability and how two has always been nicked up, which is an absolutely fair thing to bring up. I just, I don't, I don't get this Justin Herbert, love. I really don't.

Me neither. I know he's got a, I know he's got a good arm. And people, Kevin, and I want to throw it your way, because I remember watching the Rose Bowl, and I was very unimpressed. I mean, he's a tough dude. He scored three rushing touchdowns in that game, but I thought he was kind of erratic all over the place. He, you know, he's, I don't, I don't understand outside of durability, which is understandable. But, I mean, talent alone, if you're going to draft a quarterback that high,

I would rather roll the dice with a guy like two. You know, I'm not saying one. I mean, one I go with, you know, with everything, you go burrow. But I just don't get this love for Justin Herbert. I really don't. I mean, I'm more intrigued by the raw potential of a guy like Jordan Love than I am Justin Herbert. You know who I like?

I like Jalen Hertz. I think if Hertz gets with the right staff and the right situation, that game, that comeback against Baylor, totally, convinced me. Now, all year, I would say about a Jalen Hertz performance, good God, he's so casual sometimes with the ball, and he'll throw a bad ball, he'll fumble in traffic a lot. You know, one of those things that maybe, you know, he can grow out of a little bit and become, but I love the way he competes. I love the, you know, sort of he never gets rattled, never. And in this day and age, with the right coaching staff, making him into a dual thing.

threat guy. I think Hertz is going to, if he gets in the right situation, has a chance. I completely agree with you on Herbert. I saw a guy that was inaccurate, wildly inaccurate, in pressure moments didn't always deliver. By the way, going back to what you said about Burrough against Florida's defense, remember that was the day Florida was missing key pieces defensively. They were missing Greenard and a couple of other guys defensively in that game, you know, in Baton Rouge. And that was a close game. That was 21, 21 at halftime. And I think at one point, you know, it was 28, 28 before LSU sort of pulled away. That was the game in which Kyle Trask, you know, pretty much solidified himself as the guy. And by the way, the guy coming back next year for Florida. But I-

LSU was minus 13 and a half in that game. And they scored touchdown. I do remember. I do remember. I had Florida. And I remember the number was big, which scared us a little bit. But I, but I, I bought Florida to plus 14 and pushed it. But the, I don't know, I like Burrow. I've liked Burrow, you know, going back to, I don't know, November. You did. You liked Burrow early. I know.

He liked his toughness in his red shirt, his first year in LSU, which I was not in on Burrow, his first year at LSU. But, I mean, it's everything he did this year. There's just really no flaw. I, you know, so we'll see. You've got to pick them if you're Cincinnati. If I were Miami, I mean, here's my thing with Miami. You know, you're sitting there at five. There's question marks about Tua.

But this is a franchise that has just missed time after time on quarterbacks, and you're really going to go and roll the dice and Justin Herbert, who is incredibly inaccurate. So that's the thing for me with a team like Miami. You know, another guy that I think will have an intriguing career is Jake Fromm. He doesn't have any, you know, in a big arm, but anytime you hear people talk about him, it's that he just gets it. I mean, this is a guy that went in, Jacob Ethan gets hurt, he takes over that job.

Yeah. Ethan has to transfer. Justin Field transferred out because of Jake Fromm. Yeah. So I think Jake Fromm is one of those guys who gets drafted in the third round, and he's your backup, up, and then I wouldn't be surprised, you know, Kirk Cousins-esque style if Jake Fromm's a quality, not great, but a quality starter in the NFL for five to seven years. I think you say the Kirk Cousins thing in the same way that I would say it in that he's a system guy, he's not a playmaker. I just don't think he's got the arm and can throw the way Kirk can personally.

By the way, just back to Burrough for a moment, because I did this with my son like two weeks ago. Because my son said to me, you know, why did you like Burrow that first year that he was there? And I said, well, I'm not going to give myself any credit for that because basically it was more of a comparative thing. I just said that he's the best quarterback that LSU's had in a while. And that's not saying much. You know, they just had not had a quarterback. And I was like, this guy can throw the football. He can make plays at least.

And there's an urgency to him that we hadn't seen. Now, Brady came in from the Saints and it changed all around. I went back to that 2018 season that Burrow had, and there were a couple of really, I mean, he had a couple of standout games. The game that was really remarkable, though, that I found was, do you remember that 74, 72, like 6-7 overtime game against A&M? In that game, he threw for like 303 touchdowns, but he had 29 carries for over 100 yards in the game. and three rushing touchdowns. Now, a lot of those probably came in the overtime, period. And he wasn't any good against Alabama.

Remember, they couldn't score against Bama like, you know, per usual. And they lost a game against Florida in the swamp where he wasn't very good in that game. But he had a couple of really good games, including a great bowl game against UCF. Yeah. A lot of people attribute that to kind of his turnaround, Kevin, was that bowl game. Yeah. They play UCF. He throws an early pick, and then he just, after that, turned it on and was spectacular. I mean, he threw four touchdowns, almost through 400 yards.

I think he threw his pick early in the first quarter and then completely turned it around. You know, you bring up Joe Brady, and that's why I can't, I'm very curious to see Teddy Bridgewater next year in Carolina. Now, they need to get more pieces, but, you know, is Joe, you know, was it, you know, people talk about Belichick and Brady, right? who needed more, who needed who more. You know, the jump statistically for Brough are wild. I mean, just completion percentage. He got 19% better, completion percentage-wise. He went from 57.8 to 76.3 this year.

So I'm curious to see that. But, no, I mean, I like Burrow that's what's not the like. but yeah i still think miami should go get toa um maybe that i i still you know as you know kevin i mean there's a lot of smoke out there for for everybody um but i i feel like miami ultimately doesn't want to trade up they would like to stay put at five and they're hoping that twoa is there at five so they can get him and keeps 18 and 26 and they're two second rounders and they're i mean they have six of the first 70 pick so they don't need to trade up. They're hoping not to trade up. And I think at the end of the day, if it goes shock

that two is there at five, then I think Miami, even though he's got the injury concerns, I think they would be dumb to pass him up for Herbert. As mentioned to Charlie Casterly told me I mentioned this earlier in the podcast, Casserly told me on the radio show this morning that he understands that not one offer has been made to move up in the draft to either two, three, or for either Washington, Detroit, or the Giants, which leads you to believe that both Miami and the Chargers believe that they can stand pat and get, you know, one of the two guys. By the way, just as another quick note, that bowl game that we were talking about when LSU beat UCF, I was curious and I just was looking it up as you were talking.

That was that was the first UCF loss in two years. You know, they had gone undefeated and beaten Auburn the year before in a bowl game, and they were 12 and 0 going into that bowl game when Joe Burroughs threw. Now they didn't have, they didn't have the head. He broke his leg. Exactly, broke his leg. Yep. He broke his leg in the conference championship game, I think, wouldn't it?

He was either a conference championship game or the last game of the right. I think it was conference championship game. Early on, I think. Yeah. Yeah. But Burrow threw four touchdowns and for nearly 400 yards in that bowl game. And that was after the 2018 season. All right.

Give me the players that you have, a draft crush on. I'll give you a wide receiver. I love Michael Pittman, Jr. Out of USC. I think he's just a badass. I think he's tough. Father played in the league.

And I think he's one of those guys that comes in day one and is your second best receiver. He's going to run great routes. And I really, really like Michael Pittman, Jr. I think he's a guy that is just going to come in and be a stud. Now, look, I love Jerry Judy.

I think Jerry Judy is the best receiver in this class and should be the number of the top wide receiver selected. But if we're going a little bit further down, because this, I mean, this draft class, I'm sure you've talked about it, Kevin, wide receiver-wise, it's ridiculous, the talent you can get laid on in this draft. I mean, these, if you even are a casual college football fan, you know, a guy like T. Higgins is maybe a late first, early second guy, KJ Hamler from Penn State.

I love him. Chase Claypool, who obviously I'm a Notre Dame fan, so I like Claypool, but he's just a freak of nature size and speed-wise. You know, Devin Duvernay from Texas is a solid wide receiver. So there's dudes, but I think whoever gets Michael Pittman, Jr., whether it be in the second or third round, he'll be a Friday night pick. I think you're getting a starter, you know, right from the jump. Running back-wise, you know, I think,

and Cam Acres from Florida State has the chance to be a really good running back. I don't know, you know, maybe a third round pick, but talent-wise, I mean, if you follow recruiting, he was a five-star monster, and Florida State sucked when he was there, but it wasn't because of him. I mean, he was always good.

I felt like they didn't give him a ball enough. So he's a guy who can catch the ball to backfield. I think Cam Acres comes in as a, you know, fantasy, football-wise. I think he's a running back. He's a starting running back, in my opinion, very early on. So, you know, I don't know what round he's projected to go. He's certainly not in the first

round or first-round discussion or top couple backs discussion, but I think Cam Acres is a guy that's coming in and he's going to be great. So he's, yeah, probably, what do you think? Third round? Second round? Late second? Yeah, I like him a lot too. He's also one of those guys that has such great vision and decisiveness.

And his versatile too. I like A.J. Dillan. a lot on the running back side. To me, there's some Derek Henry and A.J. Dillon. I get worried. The only thing I get worried, Kevin, about guys like him, Jonathan Taylor, is they just, they were the offense for the team that they played for. So, AJ Dillon at Boston College.

You're right. I'm going to look it up now. A.J. Dillon, he had 845 carries over his college career. 300, 227, 318. Yeah. No, he got. He got. Jonathan.

And what did Taylor's, what do his carries look like, Jesus? 926 carries in three years. 299, 307, 320. By the way, the dude ran for 1,977 yards of the true freshman, 2,194, and the 2003 last year. I mean, he's, I mean, to me, he's another, you know, one of those Wisconsin backs that has a really good chance to be a good back. You might be right. maybe there's a lot of, you know, tread on the tire. I personally think that...

Clyde Edwards-Alair, Kevin? He's great. He's been getting a lot of buzz. He can catch the ball, man. Well, he's so powerful. He had 55 receptions last year. Go watch that game where they, you know, every time Bama got close and they came back,

either Burrow or Edwards-Helair made a play. And there are a couple of third-down runs where he's just basically carrying people at like 5-7, 5-8, something like this. that, you know, 200 pounds or whatever he is. He was so strong with such great leverage. I think Dobbins is going to be a star. I like him more than Swift, actually. Me too. And I like Edwards-Zalier, maybe as much as any of them. I like Zach Moss, too. I think that he's a good back. There's some good backs. You mentioned the receivers. I love Hamler. Hamler to me, every time I watched him, and I watched a lot of Penn State over the last

couple of years, every time I watched him, you know, first of all, they struggled at quarterback, you know this year a little bit, but he looks like Deshawn Jackson, you know, the separation, the explosiveness, the speed, the playmaking ability, you know, and I know he led the big ten and drops or whatever. I actually would have never guessed that until I saw that. I love Justin Jefferson, too. What about your guy, Cole Commett? Is he a starting tight end? I think so. He dealt with some injuries, you know, last year prior to the season. He's just a beast. just a big dude. I think he'll probably be overdrafted though, just because it's such a weak tight end

class, and I think he's either him or Troutman from Dayton are probably going to be the first tight end to go. It'll be a second round pick. I do think he's a starting tight end from day one. Real quickly, though, another guy, and I know you you've seen him. Lynn Bowden, Jr. Yeah, the guy that played quarterback for Kentucky. He's just an athlete, man. And

that's the type of guy that He gets, I don't know where he's going to get picked, you know, whether it be late Friday, early Saturday. But I feel like that's another one of those dudes that he needs to get polished, but he's just got incredible athletic ability. And what was he able to do? I mean, I remember that bowl game. Exactly, exactly. It was the Belk Bowl where he ran every single, he just ran every 10. And he still won.

I mean, he just ran the ball every time. Yeah, he ran. I had them. I had them. against Virginia Tech, and that was a phenomenal bowl game. And he had, you know, understand that Lynn Bowden, Jr. was a receiver. Okay, he was a wide receiver who had to play quarterback for Kentucky. And, you know, basically was no threat to throw the football until they needed it on a couple of

those plays, if you recall. Didn't he throw like a two-point conversion or something like that? Yeah, had a two-point conversion and had a big fourth down throw for conversion on that game-winning drive. but he was in that game he rushed. I just remember it was over 200 yards as a quarterback rushing for the game. I don't know what he threw for. He may not have completed more than three passes in the game, but they were all big ones.

It was a crazy game, that bowl game against Virginia Tech. And this is just my love for the wide receiver position. But another guy who I think might be an immediate slot dude is if you have ever watched AAC football, James Prochay. He's just a productive. He's just a tiny slot receiver was at SMU for a long time, and he was really, really productive. So there's a tons of tons of dudes that if you were a college football fan that he saw. But yeah, Bowden Jr., I'm fascinated to see him.

Hopefully someone with a creative mind gets a hold of him and gets to accentuate his talents, because I think he could be pretty special. You know, we had, back to the receiver thing, because you mentioned one, and I talked to, who was I talking to last week about this guy? Oh, Smoot. I had Smoot on. I love Tyler Johnson. Like, if you want to look at a receiver that just was flat out productive.

Minnesota, dude, yeah. And is big and has, and catches everything and gets open when you don't necessarily think that he can get open. and he was 6-2, 6-3, something like that. And he was just, you know, Minnesota had one of those incredible seasons this year. Remember, they were 7-0 or 8-0 when they had that game at Iowa after beating Penn State at home.

And then he had a phenomenal bowl game against Auburn. 12 catches, 204 yards, two touchdowns, including like a 78-yard game winner in the fourth quarter. Like, I asked somebody last week who was on with me, I'm like, where is he projected? And they said, you know, fourth round. That's the kind of guy. This is going to be an interesting wide receiver class.

Now, Cassarly told me this morning, I said, tell me who you, tell me the receivers you like. And he said, it's Jerry, Judy, and C.D. Lamb, and then you draw a line before you get to the next sort of category of receivers. He's like, it's a deep wide receiver draft, but Judy and Lamb, he has a cut above the rest. Yeah, I think that's fair. I mean, I think I made a, bet earlier in this, you know, a couple weeks ago at 4 to 1 that Ruggs would be the first wide receiver pick solely on he's got speed, you know, he's got a 4-27 speed. So I was like, maybe someone falls in love with him. I don't think it's happening. I think it will be one of the two. I think ultimately it'll be Judy. But yeah, I agree. I mean, but, you know,

Justin Jefferson, you mentioned him. I mean, he's rising up boards. He'll be a first-round pick, no doubt. I mean, you've got the kid A, Iuke from Arizona State. I mean, Jalen Rieger from PCU. I mean, I know you, you probably watch the PC football. He's a beef. Playmaker, yeah. He's a beef. So, I mean, you just go down a list, and if you watch college football, you're like, well, I mean, Quintes Cephys is probably going to be like a fifth or sixth round pick. And he's not the most athletic dude, but he can go up and get catches. I mean, so there's just guys that you know. Lawrence Cager, who is, I think George's go-to receiver probably like a six- or seventh-round pick. So there's a lot of guys out there. So what

So what draft bets have you made so far? I've just been kind of dabbling here and there. I'm going to be wrong, but early on, Kevin, I was very much in on the two is going to go third train. I just, I thought that Miami would trade up, and I guess they could. Let's see, I've got, so I went in on rugs at 4 to 1 to be the first wide receiver that probably won't happen, but I just like the odds.

I took Jordan Love under 19 and a half, so under 19 and a half selection, so he'll be one through 19, which I still think it happened. You know, a guy we haven't talked about, Kevin, is Isaiah Simmons. Maybe one of my favorite players last year to watch, and I don't think he falls in the top six, just because if you play it out, you've got Burrow going one, Young going to, you have Detroit either trading out or staying Pat and getting Akuta, and you've got the Giants at four, and then the Dolphins and Chargers five, six, where does Simmons go?

I just can't see all the buzz right now is either Will's or Worf, the offensive linemen, likely going to the Giants at four. So I think Simmons has a bit of a drop just because, you know, sometimes when you're that versatile, it's not that of a positive thing. I mean, he's a freak of nature, so Carolina gets a hold of them at seven. But I got some plus money on him being outside of the top six. And I feel pretty good about that. Yeah, you know, I mentioned this last week that people forget that the Lions last year when Stafford was healthy. He was, you know, having one of his best seasons off to an incredible start.

And they were actually, you know, a potential playoff contending team. And then they lost him and they started, you know, all those different guys that they ended up starting, including the Purdue guy late in the year that almost beat Green Bay in that final game. The Lions to me are always sort of closer than we think because I think Stafford's good. You know, maybe I'm completely off and I've overvalued him. I just think Stafford's a good quarterback, and I think the Lions, you know, healthy, you know, have had some talent, you know, and last year, remember they drafted Hawkinson, and, you know, they've got Ghaladay who's turned into a really good player, and I loved Kerryon Johnson. He just hasn't been able to stay healthy. I just don't, I don't know why they would take a corner. I think corners are hit and miss. I can't tell you how many drafts it seems like. And I know in recent drafts, people have been right about the corners, but I think they'd be crazy to pass. Simmons at three, you know, on a real defensive playmaker, a real impact player defensively. And they lost, you know, Slay and they have a huge need at Corner.

I understand that. And then if I'm the Giants, I don't know how they pass on Simmons for, you know, a tackle. And at this point, Bechton looks like he's going to drop because some of these off-the-field concerns in testing, apparently. And Bechton was kind of one of those dudes that was, you know, despite the marijuana, whatever it was, people were more enamored by his size and athletic ability, but it seemed like Will's from Alabama and Worf's from Iowa were the two offensive linemen that you kind of knew would come in and be good right away.

So I agree. I mean, I love Isaiah Simmons. I did a write-up at NBC Sports Washington about, you know, avoid him going top six, just because I felt like there was a small window for him to land, but I love him. I mean, he's 6-4, 240 runs of 4-4. I mean, he's an absolute freak of nature, and if you watch him anywhere, I mean, he can line up on slot receivers, he can line up on tight ends, you can rush the passer. He does it all, but I just, I feel like he's a guy that could potentially drop

if the lions go with Akuta at 3, which seems like the safe bet right now. I just pulled up some of the props on one of my sites, and they have Giants' first-round pick, and Wills is actually a heavy favorite of minus 110 with Simmons a plus 250. All right. We could sit here and do this for another hour and a half. Jaylen Hertz going in the second round is another bet. I'll give you that.

That's my last one. I think that's now the favorite, but I got it like plus 140. So Haley Hurts going second round. What were, I mean, what was that, what were the, what was the favorite? When I made the bet, I think third round was the favorite, but now second round has stepped up. Yeah, he's not going on the third round. I bet you, and I think you're safe there. If, you know, and that assumes it somebody doesn't fall in love with them even more

and take him at the end of the first or trade into the end of the first. Green Bay ended the first round. Green Bay is interesting. You know, Green Bay, some people think that they could go get Jordan Love. I think you'd have to trade up if you're Green Bay to go get Jordan Love. I think, and another bet, the long-shot bet that I made, and this is my last one, is that Jordan Love goes with the Raiders. There hasn't really been much buzz there,

but I just think they got two first-round picks. At 12, they can get CD-Lam or Jerry Judy potentially, and then can't you see John Gruden entering year three, entering a new city in Las Vegas? He doesn't like Derek Carr. They sign Marriota, but Marriota's off the books next year. They can get off of both their conscience. X easily. So you go get a raw high-feeling guy like Jordan Love at 19. You sit him for the year.

You try to mold him. And then you unleash him come 2021. So I like Jordan Love going to the Raiders. It's kind of a long shot. Yeah, I think that that makes sense. I think Kuiper actually mocked Love to the Raiders on that second first round pick in his last one, or maybe it was the one before I forget. I think, I think Jacksonville is going to try to get a quarterback in this draft too, and they've got two first rounders, you know, to play with. And so, you know, we'll see. I mean, I... There's been some movement that Tua to go to Jacksonville.

I think Jacksonville is trying to crack the bed and, you know, go for either Lawrence or Fields next year. But, you know, some teams don't like to wait that long. See what they got in Garner-Minchu. And then next year, go get either Fields or Lawrence. By the way, one last thing, too, with the Giants and the Lions. I don't, to me, in a lot of drafts, Derek Brown would be a top three, top two pick. He's a dominant playmaking, you know, interior defensive linemen.

And I don't know why personally Okuda would be the pick over him. Like, to me, Derek Brown would be a higher-ranked player on the board. and Detroit, you know, Detroit's got some players, but they don't have Derek Brown on their interior. So it wouldn't surprise me if we got a Derek Brown pick higher than what's being projected to at the last minute. Well, and I'll say, you know, at 7, you've got a new head coach who I love in that rule, taking over the Carolina Panthers. And in all likelihood, Kevin, they're going to have an opportunity to draft either Isaiah Simper, or Derek Brown, not a bad building block there for the Carolina Panthers as they try to rebuild that organization.

Exactly. All right. Thanks. Stay well. Stay healthy. Best to you and your family. We'll talk soon. All right.

All right. That's it for the day. Sorry we're getting it out so late. Got a late start today. Tommy with me tomorrow. Cooley scheduled for Wednesday. Have a great day.