The Kevin Sheehan Show - Kiper Likes Daniels In DC
Episode Date: January 23, 2024Kevin and Thom today with Ben Johnson discussion as it appears as if Washington is the front-runner to land the Lions' OC. The boys discussed the type of NFL coaching hire that's worked more in recent... years than others. The guys responded to Mel Kiper's first NFL Mock Draft which has the Commanders selecting LSU QB/Heisman Trophy winner Jayden Daniels at #2 overall. Plenty on the historic NBA performances by Joel Embiid and Karl Anthony-Towns last night. Thom revealed his MLB Hall of Fame ballot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Transcript
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You don't want it.
You don't need it.
But you're going to get it anyway.
The Kevin Chean Show.
Here's Kevin.
Tommy's here.
I'm here.
We haven't been together for a full week, but we are back together and better than ever.
By the way, this is from VT Bird via Apple podcast reviews.
VT. Bird gives us five stars.
Titles at Great Show.
Tom and Kevin are a national treasure and provide a welcome escape, a highlight of sports in the D.C. area.
Thank you for this excellent free content.
Thank you, VT. Bird, for a great review and a short and simple review.
I don't know about the national treasure, but we do provide a welcome escape.
You know, Kevin what?
I got to ask you, you know, since we get a lot of five,
star reviews. Don't you think it's time because of our excellence that they expanded to six stars?
It's not an option on Apple, but I can put in the request for our show to allow for six stars.
Yeah. I mean, I think it should. Yeah. I mean, I think we're contained. We shouldn't be
constrained by Apple's measure of excellence since we, I think, go beyond that. I know, but I don't
think it's just Apple. I think any time you use stars,
to review anything or to rate anything,
there seems to be a universal five-star scale, wouldn't you say?
Not that we have to stick with the norm, because this show is abnormal.
We're off the scale.
We're off the scale.
In any way.
Yes, we are.
This comes from 30302.
Your show is great.
I miss Cooley.
We need to hear from him more.
He's really sick.
I don't know what he has.
He has a terrible flu bug because I talked to him briefly over the weekend.
He'll get better.
He's young.
He's strong.
He'll survive.
I have been waiting to leave a review for a while.
I'm not sure what the process is in which you review these, but I hope you see this.
I know you have Jay, as in Jay Gruden on every Friday.
It's time to let it all out.
Ask Jay to spill the beans on RG3.
Everyone from the team organization is gone except for maybe Doug Williams.
RG3 had some tough words on his podcast for Jay.
We want to know where the bodies are buried.
Not exposing anyone else, but the drama between the two are worth a 60-minute special on CBS.
If he declines, I understand, because he may want to get back into coaching,
but I would love to hear, and I'm sure this would be huge.
Jay was on with me on the last day last week before I went out of town on Wednesday,
and we did 15 minutes on the RG3 back and forth with Jay.
Now, there was more that came out after that day from Griffin and Jay going back at it again.
I personally believe that Jay is done with this, but he will be on the show on Friday.
And I'll ask him if he wants to talk about it anymore.
I would bet that he is done with this.
I got to tell you, Kevin.
I think they're both done with it as of right now.
They should be.
That's my perception.
They are done.
But Jay landed the knockout blow when he told RG3 to go race a pigeon.
When he told him to do what?
There's a video of Robert Griffin III racing a pigeon.
Oh, you mean the night that he raced the – was it a pigeon or was it –
Or some kind of bird.
Yeah, no, he once again, of course, as he does on every show,
he makes himself the center of attention.
And he raced a bird, a Seahawk, I guess, or a hawk.
I think it was a hawk in the Monday night game.
We talked about that, yeah.
Right.
Well, Jay said to him, go race a pigeon.
That, to me, is an all-time comeback.
That's funny.
And plus, we're going to get the real lowdown from RG3 when his book comes out, right?
Of course.
Yeah, but I think that that's been on hold.
Oh, wait a minute.
It's been on hold for a while.
Oh, that's right.
It's not coming out.
I mean, it might come out one day.
Who knows?
Who knows?
Maybe we'll be in the book.
You know what?
We should make sure that there's not a documentary.
or a 30 for 30 or anything like that, that does not include us.
I mean, because I'm sorry, I mean, any 30 for 30 or documentary that doesn't include us is an incomplete people.
I just found this tweet because I was just scrolling through his Twitter,
because I really was kind of checked out for the last few days.
When it came to this, I do remember, I think, after I had recorded with Jay last Wednesday,
There was a little bit more in the back and forth.
And RG3 did do some sort of podcast or something where he talked about,
now it's coming back to me.
After I recorded with Jay last Wednesday, and Jay did talk about RG3,
so go back and listen to the show from January 16th if you want to hear the early sort of perspective from Jay
on the RG3, Jay Gruden back and forth.
Remember, it started with J.
Jay very innocently making a comment about the protection in the Monday night game for Jalen Hertz
and how they couldn't pick up a blitz at any point.
And then it got started.
But Griffin referred to Jay throwing them under the bus with the media.
Now, I will never forget this because I was very critical of Jay at the time.
I've talked to Jay about this before on this podcast when we've, you know, weaved our way off the current road and gone down back roads to the past.
And I said that you in that 2014 season, you got to the point where you were so frustrated with him, you went public against him.
And the catalyst for it, or what prompted Jay to go public, was when Jay threw his teammates under the bus and said,
I can't be Peyton Manning or Aaron Rogers or Tom Brady.
When RG3 threw his teammates through his teammates.
That's what I meant.
When RG3 threw his teammates under the bus after a game, I think it was against Philadelphia, if I remember correctly.
And he said, I can't be Peyton Manning, Aaron Rogers, or Tom Brady if my guys around me don't do their job, basically.
I mean, and he had been awful, and Jay had had it.
But Griffin says Jay told him to say that.
So that's where I'm going with this.
So first of all, back then, Jay then went ballistic and did something that was really unprecedented.
I remember saying it at the time.
I don't remember a coach being that publicly negative about his starting quarterback.
He talked about, we just have to do.
do whatever we need to get a yard. He's been coddled. He's been entitled. And, you know,
he takes three-step drops when he's supposed to take five-step drops, takes five-step drops when
he's supposed to take three-step drops. You know, it was, I think it could have been Albert Breer.
I'm forgetting now, but it was an NFL.com, I think, story. But anyway, Griffin clearly
remembers that. And in that, he said that Jay told him to throw his teammates under the
bus in essence. Well, why would he ever do that? Honestly, that seems completely unbelievable to me
and revisionist history. Like, what would Jay gain from telling Robert to, you know, throw his
teammates under the bus other than, then he could go off on Robert and bench him, I guess,
but I doubt it happened that way. But I do remember taking Griffin's side, not from a performance
standpoint or from a behavioral standpoint with him throwing his teammate under
the bus, but saying, and Tommy, I'll never forget this.
You and I must have been doing the show together.
It was 2014.
And I said, you should never, ever be that critical of any of your players publicly,
especially, you know, a quarterback.
And Coach Thompson, who did the show after our show every day for many.
many years, who we love dearly, texted me because he was listening to our show on his way in,
and he said, you're a hundred percent right, motherfucker, as he called all of us.
And he said, he should never have done that.
And then he came in and we were talking to him in the bullpen and he said,
I can only imagine how frustrated Gruden was, but he should have never done that.
But they were all frustrated out there with, you know.
Yeah. But anyway, but Griffin tweeted this. This is what I just found. This was from January 19th, which meant this would have been Saturday. Friday. Friday or Saturday, whatever. No more back and forth. We all make mistakes, and the lessons learned from our past mistakes helps us all grow and become better. As they say in life, it's not about what happens to you. It's about how you respond. So thank God for it all.
Show invite still stands at Coach Jay Gruden.
So it sounds like it's over for him for now, too.
Yeah, it does.
Look, I mean, the idea, I agree with the idea that Jay,
what would be the motivation for Jay to tell that to Robert would be for a coach to light a fire under his team?
Sometimes they use the media to do that.
But as I got it, at that point,
Robert and Jay were not close enough that Jay would confide and Robert do this for me,
you know, go ahead and say this.
I don't think they had that kind of relationship.
I don't think Jay would have trusted Robert at that point to do something like that.
So it's very unlikely that it happened the way Robert remembers it.
Yeah, I found the story.
since the preseason and the games that he's played, our production from an offensive standpoint has been awful.
I think five touchdowns and all the drives he's played, for whatever reason, that's not good.
And then later on, we've got a guy behind him that played pretty well, and people are looking,
okay, he's 2 and O of Colt McCoy.
There's always pressure on the quarterback to perform, and if you don't perform like any other position,
somebody behind you is pushing you.
on the Shanahan's, he said he's a very raw quarterback, very, very raw.
On the Shanahan's, they did a great job with him in the first year.
They had that element of surprise with the zone read, the pitches off of it.
They did everything to utilize him, but then he got hurt and they weren't able to do a lot of that stuff.
And now, okay, you got to do more dropback concepts, and he struggled.
And then they shut him down, and then I came.
It's a production-based business.
We haven't won many games lately with him.
We've got to figure out a way to get in the end zone.
We just have to score.
I don't care how we do it.
If it's running the zone read, I don't care.
Quarterback sneaks.
I don't give a damn.
We've got to find a way to utilize him
where we can get productive drives
and stay away from negative plays
and have some consistency.
His biggest thing is he's been coddled for so long.
It's not a negative.
He's just been so good.
He just hasn't had a lot of negative publicity.
everybody's loved him. Some adversity is striking hard at him now and how he reacts to that off the field,
his mental state of mind, how it affects his confidence. Hopefully it's not in a negative way.
The big thing is he's just got so many negative plays, way too many. He's auditioned long enough,
clocks ticking. He's got to play. We'll see. We want Robert to excel. We really do.
but the last two games, it hasn't been very good anywhere.
We've got to play better around them.
And the biggest thing for us, play callers, and for him,
we just have to come together and gel.
But we don't have a lot of time.
Where's the thing about the three-step drop, five-step drop?
I remember that specifically.
It could have been from another story.
This is a long story.
But that's okay.
Let's move on to.
Yeah, let us move on to.
Let us.
It was Albert Breer.
Jay Gruden offers honest assessment of Robert Griffin the third's play.
Yeah, it was bad.
I mean, we all watched it.
It was bad.
But thank you for the reviews.
Thank you for the reviews and ratings.
And keep them coming.
You can pause the podcast for 30 seconds.
Give us a five-star review on Apple and write something nice in one to two sentences.
And it just really does.
help us a lot. The other thing that helps a lot is if you subscribe to the podcast, and if you
follow us on Apple Podcasts and on Spotify, those are the things that if you take literally 60 seconds to do,
it just puts us in a much better position to monetize the podcast, which allows us to do it every day.
How have you been? How was your last week? I missed you.
It was nice. It was nice. The weather like up there, the weather has.
have been great down here, but it's still been better.
You know, pretty uneventful.
Swimming, walking, smoking cigars.
That's pretty much my daily life and still writing columns.
And still writing columns.
Good for you.
There is news on the Washington coach front.
It looks like, according to Tom Pellasaro and now others in our media are confirming it,
that Washington is going to go see Detroit offensive coordinator Ben Johnson next week.
Here's the tweet from Pellasarro from just a little while ago.
The commanders and Falcons are both expected to send a contingent to Detroit next week
to conduct second interviews, second interviews with Lions OC Ben Johnson
and defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn presources.
No more interviews are permitted with coaches still in the playoffs
until after Sunday's games.
By the way, just so everybody understands the timeline,
if Detroit were to beat San Francisco,
if Baltimore beats Kansas City,
the four candidates that have been virtually interviewed by Washington,
they can then formally interview them on Monday,
but they can't hire them.
until after the Super Bowl.
And I understand why they don't want Ben Johnson to be hired by Washington
as he's trying to put together a game plan for the Detroit Lions in the Super Bowl.
You know, it's almost like the coaches in college that take the jobs and leave and don't coach in the bowl games.
They're not going to allow that to happen.
But it does put the teams that wait until after the Super Bowl,
to hire their coach, it can, let me say, it can put them at a disadvantage as it relates to that
new coach hiring a staff and being a little bit behind, like not being able to go to the senior
bowl next week as an example.
Hopefully, hopefully, the search committee will be able to find Ben Johnson, you know, wherever
he is in Detroit for that interview.
Why would it be hard to find him?
Well, I mean, because they're a search committee.
They're searching.
Yeah.
Well, they're not searching for a missing person.
They know where he is.
They're searching for their next head coach.
By the way, when you think back to your whole...
Yeah.
Go ahead.
Such a difficult task, you know, because Ben Johnson was pretty much unknown
until the search committee started.
Well, he wasn't.
But sometimes it's really hard for a search committee to find an unknown person.
I mean, you need a couple of, you at least need to have a name or a description to find him.
Yes.
Your take.
If they read The Athletic, where Randy Mueller wrote,
this is hiring Adam Peters was a no-brainer.
Right.
Thank you, Bob Myers.
for helping to get that done.
Oh, yes. Thanks for that local phone call.
I'm serious. I think that that was a big deal.
And Josh Harris, who didn't necessarily know Adam Peters.
He's not going to take Josh Harris's phone call.
Well, it was more of Bob Myers.
I'm a part of this, and we'd like you to be a part of it.
Good job by Josh Harris to use Bob Myers for the hiring of Adam Peters.
Good job by Josh Harris to use Rick Spielman to potentially ink Ben Johnson.
Rick Spielman's brother, Chris Spielman, works in the front office as an advisor to ownership in the Lions organization.
So that was smart to hire those guys as part of the search committee.
Are you, can you at least look back and say maybe, just maybe they were helpful and they certainly couldn't have been hurtful?
Okay, the latter, they certainly could have been, couldn't have been hurtful.
okay, I'll grant you that.
But nobody, again, since you and I both thought this was an attractive job to begin with,
and nobody was not going to take Josh Harris' phone calls for this job,
their help in landing Adam Peters or landing the next coach is a show.
I just find it humorous.
It may have been very easy for Josh Harris to contact Bob Myers, to contact Rick Spielman,
to even have conversations with both of them.
But maybe Bob Myers and Rick Spielman, because of their relationships with some of these people,
sold it better.
Maybe they were better at selling the opportunity than Josh Harris was.
What would Bob Myers know about the opportunity?
He spent time with Josh Harris, learned about the opportunity, had a relationship with Adam Peters,
and it just was a little bit more, you know, sellable for Adam Peters.
We're going to see a big story in the Washington Post when all this is over about the great impact of the search committee.
I guarantee it'll be a 50-inch takeout.
The search committee got it done.
Yes.
Yes.
That story is coming.
I think as we sit here on Tuesday afternoon, I really think at this point, it's like 75% if not higher that Ben Johnson's going to become the new head coach.
And look at what's left here at this point.
You know, as you go down the list of the coaches that are available, the opportunities that are available.
It looks like the Chargers are getting close to Harbaugh here.
It looks like Atlanta's getting close to Belichick.
So you already have the Raiders Patriots, the Titans hired Brian Callahan.
So what you have left after the Chargers and Falcons hire Harbaugh and Belichick is you've got the Panthers, the Seahawks, and you've got Washington.
Seattle seems potentially interested in neither Dan Quinn or Vrable,
and Carolina is nowhere near the opportunity with David Tepper as their owner that Washington is.
There may be only one spot for Ben Johnson.
I know that he has been, and Atlanta's going there, Per Pellasaro,
to interview him in person as well.
And he's got, you know, and potentially has had more options.
Maybe some of those are about to close up on him.
but I think it's really, really safe at this point to say that Ben Johnson is going to be the next Washington head coach.
I'm upset that Vrable isn't apparently a serious candidate, that there hasn't been, per any reports, doesn't mean it hasn't happened, that there hasn't been an interview with Vrable.
I just think that that is an absolute known in terms of what kind of.
kind of head coach he is, top 10, worst case, head coach in the NFL. And Ben Johnson is an
outstanding coordinator and, by all accounts, an outstanding person, et cetera. But I'm just surprised
with everybody that they've interviewed virtually and otherwise that they did not interview
Mike Rable. Okay. Again, I'm not a Washington fan, so I have no horse in this race. And I would
want the coach that Adam Peters wants to hire.
If I was a fan, that's my coaching candidate.
I got you.
I'm taking that out of the equation.
I got you.
I got you.
I'm with you.
I'm all in on whatever they do in sitting back for a couple of years and just evaluating
the results.
We haven't been able to do that with adults.
Let's set that aside.
If I was a fan, I'd be extremely disappointed that they weren't in on Harbaugh.
I mean, I think he's that good of a coach.
Right.
I'd be very disappointed.
I'd be a little disappointed about Brable as well, like you.
And I'm curious about Raheim Morris,
because if we're talking about leadership,
from everything I've read, this guy is off the charts as a leader.
I know.
And he's got the Shanahan stamp of approval.
Yeah.
You know, he's close to the Shanahan.
He worked for the Shanahan's.
And to me, since we always talk about all the great coaches who worked for the Shannan who left here,
you have a chance to bring one back now.
He wasn't as successful as the other guys, but maybe he will be the second time.
People call them retreads, but I tend to think that a lot of people, when they get a chance to do the same job the second time,
do it better because they learn from their mistakes.
Like Ron Rivera?
Well, no.
It's not like Ron Rivera.
Not everybody.
I said some people.
I agree with you on Harbaugh.
I'm curious about Rahe-Morce as well.
But again, the bottom line is if Adam Peters wants Ben Johnson, that's who he gets.
Yeah, but I want to just mention, I'm with you on Harbaugh too.
And when I'm disappointed that they're not considering Rabel and Harbaugh.
And by the way, I would have considered Belichick as well.
But Belichick is probably not going to look at this as an opportunity
because he wants the roster a little bit further along.
And I think in Atlanta, he's going to have a chance to either trade for Justin Fields,
potentially move up in the draft, not move up in the draft,
potentially sign Kirk Cousins, depending on what Minnesota does.
And it's a pretty good roster in Atlanta in a very bad division.
least as it stands now. Those things change, too. There's been a lot of discussion about, you know,
the AFC South will be like the A, the NFC South will be like the AFC East was for years.
Divisions change quickly. I mean, things happen and turnarounds happen pretty quickly. But I,
I'm not, I'm certainly not going to be critical of Adam Peters a week into the job that he's not
interviewing Vrable, Harbaugh, or Belichick. He's got an idea about what he wants. And here's,
some interesting information, and I read this on the radio show this morning because somebody
sent this to me right before the show began, or during the show, I forget. But it's a story
that Hogshaven did. They looked at five years, the last five years of coaching hires.
In the last five years, Tommy, 35 head coaches have been hired. All right. Now, that's not a
large sample size five years when you think about it because it takes more time for the guys
end up being successful sometimes, but a lot of times they don't make it to that.
But anyway, 35 head coaches have been hired.
16 have been fired.
Now, the Jets, Texans, and Broncos lead the pack with nine of those 16 firings and hirings.
They've done that three times already.
But here was the most, I thought, interesting information that about the 35 hires over the last five years.
The former head coaches that were hired, guys like Rivera, Reich, McCarthy, Adam Gase, Sean Payton just for one year, the collective NFL winning percentage in their new places, sub 500 at 489.
College coaches, disastrous. Urban Meyer, Matt Ruhle, Cliff Kingsbury, 353 collective NFL winning percentage.
and all three of those are gone.
And in fact, if you take Harbaugh out of the equation because he coached in the NFL,
there are no, by my count, no college coaches in contention this year for any of these openings.
That may be a reason.
And then the other two categories are defensive coordinators and offensive coordinators.
defensive coordinators hired have a 415 win percentage.
Offensive coordinators hired in the last five years, by far and away, the best overall win
percentage, 542.
And we're talking about guys like, as an example, guys that weren't, you know, previously
head coaches, Shane Steichen, one year, he's nine and eight.
Brian Daibel, he's 15, 18, and one, but they,
won that first year in New York and went to the playoffs.
Kevin O'Connell's 20 and 14.
Mike McDaniels, 20 and 14.
Josh McDaniels, 9 and 16.
Nathaniel Hackett 4 and 11.
But then you have Nick Siriani, 34 and 17.
He was the Colts OC.
Arthur Smith was 21 and 30.
Kevin Stefansky, 37 and 30.
And then there was one more here.
Matt LaFleur, 56 and 27.
He was the Titans OC in 2019.
So small sample size, I get it, but the most successful hires over the last five years
have been offensive coordinators who have never been head coaches before.
Well, I'm not going to dismiss that, you know.
That is a small sample size, but it is something to consider.
Yeah.
And again, you know, if you asked me three years ago, would I hire somebody from the Detroit
reminds head coach.
The system that be your head coach, I'd say you're insane.
And there's a little bit of that in the back of my head.
But that just made me long-time bias.
And I've seen, and again, it's just anecdotal.
And in all sports, I've seen great coordinators
fold under the pressure of being a head coach.
It's a different job.
Okay.
Now, you know, obviously great coaches have to come from somewhere.
Joe Gibbs was an offensive coordinator.
So, again, we all, you know, going around circles, go around circles,
if Adam Peters tells Josh Harris, I want Ben Johnson, that's the guy they got to get.
I had Nikki Javala on radio with me this morning,
and she's been in Detroit the last two weeks for the Post covering the two Detroit playoff games.
First of all, she said the environment was unlike any she's ever been in.
And you could sense that watching the games.
But part of the reason for Nikki covering the two Lions playoff games was to learn more about Ben Johnson and Aaron Glenn.
And the one thing that she said about Ben Johnson, she said every single person that she discussed Ben Johnson with said,
the one thing that is just a hundred percent true is that he is a clear communicator.
You know, you don't get any sort of mixed messaging.
You understand exactly where he's coming from.
And the other thing she said is he's definitely a collaborative.
You know, he's collaborative.
And so, you know, hiring a staff is a big part of this.
When he pitches Washington next week in person and Washington sending a contingent to see him,
A big part of any of these interviews with prospective new coaches is tell me about the staff that you envision putting together.
And with that, she had mentioned that Hank Frailey, who's on the staff in Detroit right now, would likely go with Ben Johnson to be the offensive coordinator wherever Ben lands.
Ben will call the plays, though.
He'll be the play caller.
but Hank Frailey is the offensive line coach in Detroit,
and Detroit's offensive line is awesome.
I mean, they've got Penae Sewell and a lot of talent up front,
but it is a great offensive line.
So anyway, I think...
You're exciting times.
I think we're on our way to Ben Johnson.
You're a Washington fan, right?
Yeah, it's exciting.
I mean, you're not being sarcastic.
I know you're not.
No, I'm not.
I'm not being sarcastic.
I know you're not.
I mean, there's real movement.
There's real movement going on right now.
I think what's exciting is that the number one front office exec, you know, candidate in this hiring cycle was Adam Peters.
And he came here.
And the number one coordinator anyway, not previous head coach, coordinator anyway in this hiring cycle,
is Ben Johnson, and it looks like there's a really good chance that Ben Johnson is going to come here.
There was reporting over the weekend by CBS Sports that said Washington is the frontrunner.
Nikki told me this morning she feels like he is very much the frontrunner,
and there's now a lot of people out there that believe that, you know,
Ben Johnson is going to land in Washington.
And I think that it just speaks to the fact that it's, like,
like we talked about really when Dan sold the team,
but even more so when Rivera was fired and this season ended,
it's just a new day.
Like there's a chance.
We don't have to suspend reality in our discussions anymore.
We can actually think as a fan base, which I'm a part of,
you're not, that we've got a chance to develop something that, you know,
becomes worthwhile.
And that chance didn't exist for,
many, many years, even though it took us
a while to figure it out.
Slow to the punch on some of that.
But we eventually figured it out, and we talked about
the team anyway, but we had to
do so with the suspension
of reality hanging over
and being suspended above our heads.
But we, you know what, we did a
pretty good job with reality
suspension conversation about this
team.
There were struggles at
some point.
I remember going on the radio
a couple of times, not with you, but with other people, and saying, you know, I could take my
stupid pills before I do this appearance, and I could talk about the team that way, if you like.
Yeah, well, we did that. It was a struggle sometimes.
All right. When we come back, I want to talk about Mel Kuyper's first mock draft and who he
has Washington taking at number two. When Donation is the presenting Spitz.
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So, Mel Kuiper, who I consider to be the mock draft godfather, I still love Mel.
I love Mel on TV.
I love Mel on radio.
He's the best.
But he came out with his first mock draft this morning.
He does have the Bears taking Caleb Williams number one overall.
So they're going to move on from Justin Fields, he believes.
And then at number two, he has Washington selecting.
Jaden Daniels, quarterback LSU, Heisman Trophy winner.
You know, Mel's not really doing anything with respect to information
about what the team believes they're going to do because the team's front office isn't
even put together at this point. He doesn't have his head coach at this point.
You've got two general managers on the website for crying out loud. Who does that? I'm kidding.
I loved watching Jaden Daniels this year.
I know I've said this for several months now,
but other than the offense that LSU had with Joe Burrow
when they won the national championship a few years ago,
this was the best offensive college team I've seen.
And it was just an electrifying week-by-week performance.
And going back to October, I'm like,
there's no way this guy isn't.
a first round pick. And that's when he was being projected to be taken after the first round.
I'm like, this guy's going to be top half of the first round by the time we get to draft day.
And when he had the performance against Alabama and he got hurt in that game, but he had put up
about 400 yards of offense in the first half of the game, they lost it. I'm like,
this guy's the best player in America. It's just not even close anymore. And then the all-time
college performance was the 700 plus yards that he put up, I'm sorry, the 600 and 8 yards that he put up in
one game against Florida. Florida was a terrible defensive team. I understand that. LSU was a bad
defensive team. It's the reason that they weren't a contender for a national title. They just were
so bad defensively. But when he went against Florida in a shootout game,
And he put up 372 passing yards and three touchdowns,
while also rushing for 234 yards and two touchdowns,
608 yards, five touchdowns in total.
It's like, to me, he was the best player in American,
and he should win the Heisman Trophy.
And there was no guarantee at that point.
There were a lot of people still at that point,
suggesting other players, including J.J. McCarthy, Pennix Jr., Bo Nix, et cetera.
He's 6'4, he's 205, 210 pounds. My biggest concern about Jaden Daniels is his body type.
He is a lean body type. But Tommy, he plays like a combination of Lamar Jackson,
Randall Cunningham, Michael Vick, but at the same time can throw the deep ball as well as anybody in the sport when he gets into it.
He just is a little bit lean, and I just wonder whether or not his frame will hold up.
That would be my one concern, but I like him more than I like Drake May.
But I like Drake May, and that's really, I think, what the choice will be, although I'm not discounting the podcast.
possibility that Caleb Williams doesn't go number one overall. I think there's a lot of due diligence
between now and draft night in April that Chicago will do, and it's possible they'll select
May or Daniels, leaving the other two to Washington. But man, I've heard great things about his
character, about his leadership, about his work ethic, but those are the things we don't know
anything about, really. They're going to have to, you know, vet that out. They're going to have to do
a great job of vetting it out. There was nothing worse about the previous ownership and the previous
front office than their ability to vet out, you know, prospects, whether it be draft or trades
or free agent signings. I mean, they constantly, consistently picked the wrong person,
even if the player was talented.
But we put up a poll, and 40% of the respondents on our Twitter poll said, actually 42% now, sorry, said Jaden Daniels, 36.8% said May, and 21.1% said trade back.
I think we'll talk.
Don't you think you have a big influence on that poll?
And these people listen to you.
They've heard about Jay and Daniels.
That's who I've heard about from you.
you. I was on last week with Doc. When you were out, I was on the show with Doc, and they asked
me, who did I like among the quarterbacks in college? And I deferred to you. I said, I don't
see these guys that often. I said, to coach like Shane Daniels, so I like Jane Daniels, too.
The coach. It's not surprising your poll would have Jane Daniels, because you've been
counting him for quite some time. I don't know that there's been a more electrified.
player in college football in recent memory than Jaden Daniels. And I've said this a million times,
just go watch his highlight reel from this season. Go watch the Florida game. Go watch the
Bama game. Go watch the Missouri game. Go watch the Ole Miss game. I mean, these games, it was a show.
I mean, it was an absolute show almost every week. And, you know, Pauley, who, Paulie, the 7-5
47, Polly, long-time listener of both this and the radio show, he called in today and he said,
I like Drake May more. And I said, why? And he said, because when I watched Jaden Daniels,
I saw a guy that just kind of the default was always he's looking to run. And I thought about it,
and there's some truth in that. Now, LSU has two NFL wide receivers. They've got,
Malik Neighbors may be the second wide receiver picked.
He could go as high as five or six in the upcoming draft.
Their other receiver is going to potentially go late first round.
And these guys were open a lot.
But there was a lot of, in watching Jaden Daniels,
read one, read two, read three is to just start moving around
and trying to create a big play with his legs.
Now, that may be Brian Kelly's coaching.
it may have been part of the scheme.
Maybe he's able to sit in the pocket and go through progressions and hang in there and create more time in the pocket.
He's got a big arm.
And I think an accurate arm.
I'd like to see more data on that on tight window throws because there weren't a lot of them at LSU.
People were open a lot.
But I do, I thought that that was a really good observation about him, that,
he wants to make a big play with his legs, and he did it often at LSU.
And maybe that's not the healthiest way to do it at the next level.
It probably isn't.
You've got to be dual threat.
You've got to be able to create off schedule now in the NFL for the most part.
And he's that.
But you don't want the guy that automatically is looking to run rather than make the right play.
and that is a throw to an open receiver in the right progression.
I think we saw some of that from Anthony Richardson early on in the season,
the Florida quarterback, who's bigger and stronger,
and there are similarities between the two.
But he got hurt multiple times and then got hurt for the season
because it looked like he was more interested at times in taking off.
That's also part and parcel to a rookie quarterback, too.
It takes some time to get used to the NFL game.
I'm not comparing Daniels to Richardson.
Richardson had a Cam Newton body.
I mean, he was 250 pounds, but also ran 4344.
But this guy as a runner is Vic with his vision.
He's Lamar Jackson with the speed.
It's just that he looks more breakable than those guys,
certainly more than Lamar Jackson.
But it's going to be fun.
You asked about, aren't you excited about all of this?
This is part of the excitement, the number two pick in the draft with a need at quarterback
and three of them in this draft that look like they should be drafted in the top five.
You know, this isn't the Kenny Pickett, Desmond Ritter, the guy from Liberty who got drafted by Tennessee,
Malik Willis draft, you know, which by the way was also the draft that Sam Hal was selected in the fifth round.
Let's not forget that Sam Hal not only went in the fifth round,
he went in the fifth round of what appears to be the worst quarterback draft in recent memory.
But I still liked some of the things Sam Hal did.
I don't think that there's even a chance that they are going to go with Sam Hal and build around them.
But I do think there's a chance, maybe slim, that they don't love any of the quarterbacks,
and then they trade back and maybe get another quarterback some other way,
whether it's a trade for Justin Fields or a cousin signing in free agency,
or sliding back, picking up a lot of picks and taking Bo Nix or Michael Penix
or J.J. McCarthy, who I'm not a huge fan of.
But this is part of the fun, Tommy.
This, and this is maybe the most important thing of all the things.
Of all the change, they've got to get that right.
Really have to get that right.
Yes, they do.
They definitely have to get that right.
The number two pick of the draft doesn't come along very often.
They didn't get it right.
The last time they had the number two pick in the draft,
but that was under the Dan Snyder era,
and there was just the aura of self-destruction surrounded everything.
This time they have to get right,
and you're talking about players now,
who it really comes down to, players.
Players.
Got to get good players.
They got to get players like the Ravens have.
They've got to really handle it like Baltimore's handle it for years.
Wasn't that your column for this morning?
Well, my column was how, you know, Washington fans should have been happy about the Ravens win on Saturday
because according to Albert Breer, the Ravens,
are Josh Harris's role model for an organization.
Nothing wrong with that.
No.
No, and I pointed out how throughout the years,
they are never far away from winning.
You know, they just never far, even in their down years,
they're not far away from winning again.
You know, they've had, I think, eight losing seasons
since they came to Baltimore in 19th.
96. Washington has had
16.
And that's because
you know, they're built
with,
two general managers,
three coaches.
I just pointed out in the column
that, yeah, that this is
Josh Harris's role model,
but they don't seem to be
very interested in
Mike McDonald as a head coach, so,
do they?
Well, they're going to interview
him next week as well,
formally, after they play their
championship game. They should be
interested in him.
I talked about this yesterday on the show.
When you look at Baltimore and Mike McDonald's defenses this year and last year,
I mean, what they've done, I mean, they held Detroit to six points.
They smothered Houston twice.
Houston didn't have an offensive touchdown in two games against Baltimore's defense.
They beat that crap out of San Francisco in Miami.
They beat teams who were playing well at the time in
and didn't allow them to score.
Teams like the Chargers and the Jags and the Seahawks.
Last year with Tyler Huntley,
Mike McDonald's defense literally got Baltimore into the postseason
and nearly beat Cincinnati on the road.
Yes.
Very super-impressed.
And, you know, I used the quote from Jim Nagy,
the head of the senior bowl,
who used to be an NFL scout in the column.
he posts on social media last week.
The organization is so deep and rich in tradition
that when they come to the senior bowl looking for players,
they talk about Ravens type of players,
players who would fit the way the Ravens do business.
And you can do that when you've established a tradition
like that organization has.
You don't have to have a different conversation
every couple years about that with all new people.
So, yeah, that's a pretty good role model.
God, as you were saying that, I can just hear just Dan, you know, introducing some player, he's a redskin.
We knew from the beginning he was a redskin.
Remember for all those years, you know, he's a redskin.
Oh, yeah.
And we finally started to say, what does that mean?
Does that mean he's going to lose 12 games this year?
Yeah.
But the Ravens have done it right with Ozzy Newsom and Eric Dacosta and Steve Bishol.
Shottie is the owner and Dick Cass and, you know, that whole group.
And they've had Harbaugh there forever.
I may be wrong about this.
And I want to look this up.
Have Harbaugh and Andy Reed gone head to head in the postseason?
I don't think they have.
I don't know.
Maybe they did.
Maybe they did.
Or maybe it was Billix Ravens.
I want to look this up real quickly.
In the Harbaugh era, have they played the Chiefs?
No.
And they obviously, you know, he never coached against Philadelphia as a head coach in Baltimore.
I know.
But this game, more than any game, as much as any game, is about the players, not about the coaches.
They're both great coaches.
but, you know, I mean, we can start talking about this game
where we could wait until Thursday.
But to me, it's the players on the field
that are going to be the dramatic difference
in winning and losing this game.
Andy Reid, well, I agree with that,
but these are two excellent coaches.
And, you know, and Andy Reid, if he wins another Super Bowl,
I mean, we're going to start to talk about him,
you know, not in the Belichick mode,
but in, you know, the Shula,
and others that come in that next tier, I guess.
I put Shula in the first tier.
Reed is 5-0 against his former assistants.
Harbaugh was an assistant for Andy Reid.
Remember, as a special teams coach in Philadelphia,
but he's never faced Harbaugh in the post season.
Here's something, Tommy, that I found surprising,
and I think you will too.
did you know that this is the first time in Baltimore football, I'm sorry,
first time since 1970 that Baltimore's football team, whether it be the Colts or the Ravens,
will host an AFC championship game.
Yes, I did know that.
You did know that?
Yes.
Okay.
Yeah.
As many championship games, I mean, Super Bowl's championship games.
the whole thing, and all of those games have been on the road.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, you remember the whole Joe Flacco story was how he won on the road.
Yeah, 100%.
Didn't this year.
Yeah, in 1970, they hosted Oakland in the AFC championship game
before beating the Cowboys in Super Bowl 5.
which was, by the way, the only Super Bowl, I believe,
where a losing player was voted MVP, Chuck Howley.
I think that's true.
Yeah.
I think it's still true, right?
Yeah.
Reminds me, I've got to get Super Bowl trivia ready here in a couple of weeks.
Oh, my God.
A rich tradition, like no other.
Yeah, like none other.
Maybe one that needs to die soon.
because remember, I've threatened to shelve the mock schedule because everybody's doing it.
Super Bowl trivia, maybe I'll shelve that.
It's a lot of work to put it together, to be honest with you.
I wanted to mention, because I talked about this on the show yesterday,
about what happened at the end of the Detroit Tampa Bay game.
Are you familiar with the bizarre ending to that game?
with the whole Todd Ball's decision.
Yeah.
So there's something that I learned about this
that I did not know when I was talking about this yesterday.
And it's not about whether or not they had the timeout.
They did have the timeout.
Many of you tweeted me to say,
they didn't have a timeout.
Yes, they did.
They gave that one time out back to Tampa Bay
because there was a penalty,
and it was under five minutes,
So the penalty automatically stopped the clock.
But here's something I didn't know.
That Michael Badgley, the Lions kicker, was a 38% kicker on kicks for his career over 48 yards.
He was only a 68% kicker on kicks over 40 yards.
This one would have been a 48 to 49-yard kick.
So for those that would say, well, he's probably going to make the field goal anyway, well, it wasn't a 29-yarder.
It would have been a 49 or 48-yarder, and he wasn't a very good career long-distance kicker.
I found that to be interesting.
By the way, Dan Campbell completely took the blame for how they handled it.
He said, we didn't handle that thing well at all.
I'll be the first to admit it.
We knew they had a timeout left, and I could tell he wasn't going to call it,
and so that's just how it ended.
And then Todd Bowles yesterday doubled down by saying, yeah, they were going to line up
to kick the field goal with 12 seconds.
The game was virtually over anyway.
It wasn't 12 seconds.
It was 36 seconds left, and it wasn't an absolute lock that they would make a field goal.
It's still stunning to me that this happened.
in today's day and age.
It was a weird end because you could tell how devastated they were at the interception.
And then because Campbell really messed up the kneel down situation,
which you don't expect them to mess up the kneel down situation.
But clearly Tampa wasn't paying attention.
And they may have missed out on a chance to get the ball back with 33 seconds to go near midfield.
down eight points.
Here's what I hope.
Here's what I hope.
I hope Ben Johnson did mess up the kneel down situation.
Yeah, me too.
I hope it wasn't Ben Johnson in charge of the kneel down situation.
If he's as clear a communicator as we've been told,
hopefully it wasn't him because anybody would have communicated,
hey, take those knees with one second left on the play clock.
All right.
There were some NBA individual performances last night that we've got to talk about,
and I know that you want to talk about Hall of Fame baseball ballot time.
We'll do both of those things and probably a little bit more right after these words from a few of our sponsors.
All right, Tommy.
Tell us about Shelley's.
You know, Kevin, I've mentioned before how hard it's been to find a place to smoke down here indoors
when the weather is bad.
And I finally found a place.
It took me 40 minutes to drive there.
But I finally found an indoor place.
It was decent.
It was nice.
They do a good job.
But, you know, every place I go to smoke a cigar like this, I always compare to Shelley's.
And it's like comparing, you know, it's like comparing a nice four-bedroom house to the top.
Mahal. Okay? It's just, nothing ever adds up. I mean, it was a great place for amateurs,
but if you're a serious cigar smoker, I mean, there's really, there's no place like Shelley's
back room at 1331 F Street. If you're a serious cigar smoker, you'll want to take good care of your
cigars, and Shelley's has the opportunity to do that. They have over 200 humidor's available
for annual lease. They're along the walls of both dining rooms.
Shelly's has two dining rooms.
They have the new dining room where the humidor's there are a little bit larger than the ones in the original dining room.
And you can find out more information about how to lease a humidor at shelley's backroom.com,
and you can even download the lease.
Download the lease contract and do it right online, right there.
And I want to mention something about, you know, the smaller and the new dining room is, you know,
We usually have our cigar and curveballs fundraiser for the D.C. Grays in the new dining room every year.
But last year, it was so successful, and there was such a crowd that Shelley has agreed to give us the entire place, both dining rooms.
Wow.
For our cigar and serve and curveballs functioned.
Well, we were overflowing last year in that room.
Yes.
we're going to have run of the whole place, and there's a tentative scheduled date.
Put this on your calendar.
Monday, May 6th.
All righty.
It's the tentative schedule date for cigars and curveballs at Shelley's backroom, who have been out generous hosts since we began.
Love it.
Put down May 6th already.
Can't wait for the date.
I want to tell everybody about a night that I'd love you to come out and join me.
for, and that is on February 2nd, Friday night, 8 p.m. in Bethesda, at the Bethesda Theater,
we are doing a radio, Team 980 and 1067 the fan, joint event. We'll be on stage,
discussing things, telling behind-the-scenes stories, answering questions, but more importantly,
getting a chance to hang out with a lot of you that I haven't met or I haven't seen in a while.
It's presented by Main Street Bank, cheer local, bank local, put their team in your office.
Visit M Streetbank.com for more information.
But you get tickets at Bethesda Theatre.com.
That's Bethesda Theatre.com.
February 2nd, 8 p.m. Friday night.
So last night in the NBA, we had two incredible scoring nights.
First of all, I know you're not following it and you don't really care, but I think that
I mentioned this periodically.
We don't do a lot of NBA on this show.
But just that the scoring night in and night out this season is just off the charts.
The shot making, nobody seems to miss a shot ever.
But last night in the Sixers Spurs game, Joel Embed scored 70 points in 37 minutes.
He was 24 or 41 from the field, 21 of 23 from the free throw line, had 18 rebounds, had
five assists, had a steel, had a block shot, made just one three-pointer, only shot two of them,
and he set the 76ers' all-time individual scoring mark in a game, breaking Wilts mark of 68 when
Wilk played for the Philadelphia Warriors back in 1967.
No, no, Philadelphia, 76ers. I'm sorry. Okay, it was the 76ers. I'm sorry. Okay,
that was the number for, because Wilts scored 100 with the Warriors.
Right. Okay. Sorry.
But when he was with the Sixers, he had 68.
Got it.
And now is the team record.
Of course, because the team record would be 100 if it was Philadelphia, and that was Philadelphia.
So I saw this, that Joelle Embed became the third center in NBA history to score 70 or more.
David Robinson scored 71 in a game.
And Wille did it six times.
he had 70 or more six times in a game.
But he's not the greatest player
had ever played basketball.
You know, it's that when they interviewed Joel
before, they're after the game,
and they told him he had the team record.
His first response was,
you mean Will doesn't have it?
He did?
Yes.
Well, at least...
That was his response.
Well, that's good recognition for a young fellow.
Yes, it is.
It doesn't surprise me with Embed, by the way.
He's impressive.
He's the reigning MVP.
I personally think Yokic is the best player in the game,
but he won the MVP last year, and I think he earned it.
You know, it's a regular season award.
But 70 last night for him.
And then, by the way, he had 24 in the first quarter alone.
and had 59 through three quarters.
And then in Minnesota last night, Carl Anthony Towns,
and Minnesota, by the way, is the number one team in the West right now.
Most people don't know that.
Carl Anthony Towns went for 62 in a franchise record for the Timberwolves,
not a franchise for as long as Philadelphia's had a franchise.
He had 44 in the first half.
He had 58 going into the fourth quarter,
but went two for 10 in the fourth quarter,
scored only four points in his team blew an 18-point lead,
and his coach was not very happy about the performance altogether.
Well, it was an absolute disgusting performance of defense
and immature basketball all the way through the game.
This is what happens when you have this type of approach.
Well, let me just tell you, I am not a Carl-Lant.
Towns fan. There's just so much about him that I don't like. He's a whiner. He is a guy that
certainly has big nights, you know, it's scoring-wise, but he's a guy that doesn't necessarily
give it to you all the time every single night. I do love Embedde. M. Bedeed's a special
player and a great player and one of the best three or four players in the game today. But it's the
points, I think four times in NBA history, there have been two players to go for 60 or more on the same night.
And the first time that happened, Tommy, was the night that David Thompson and George Gervin were battling for the scoring title.
And David Thompson went out early and got 73. And Gervin needed like 58, something like that, and got 63 in the final game of the regular season to retain the scoring title.
I was thinking about
Do you know what the record for the Bullets Wizards franchise is for points in the game?
Does Gilbert have it?
When I was thinking about it this morning, I'm like, well, Gil has it.
He had that 60-point night in LA against the Lakers.
It was a great game.
Went to overtime.
He had 60.
But Beal tied it a couple of years ago against Philadelphia.
He had 60.
Bradley Beale, in looking at the list,
of all-time individual performances.
I don't think I realize this.
I didn't realize it.
I knew he had a lot of big nights.
I didn't know that he had five career games of 50 points or more.
Five.
Nobody's close in franchise history.
Gilbert's got three of 50 or more.
He's got five.
By the way, he's also all of a sudden playing very well in Phoenix.
He's gotten healthy,
and his return has marked a winning streak for them.
He had 37 the other night.
He had 25 the night after that.
Durant had 43 last night and they won,
but Beals all of a sudden healthy and playing really well.
And he's actually in the right role for him.
He's not the go-to guy.
He's the third option for them after Booker and Durant.
But, yeah, big nights in the NBA.
You have anything to say about all the scoring
and about those performances?
The NBA, it's fantastic.
Tonight, LeBron, load management, taking the night off
against the in-town clippers, cross-down clippers,
same arena clippers for right now,
and the clippers are one of the hottest teams in the league right now.
I did put a wager on that a few weeks ago to win the west.
Yeah.
There is a clause on the MVP award.
that you have to play at least 65 games to win.
Yeah, you do.
You do.
And he's missed a few games.
He's only got a seven-game window left.
Yeah, it looks like he's missed nine games of the 41 that they played.
Yeah.
By the way, he gets hurt?
Nine of the 42, excuse me.
No MVP for him.
Right.
The Bucks just fired their coach, Adrian Griffin,
after a 30 and 13 start.
All right.
What else did we have to get to here to close the show?
Oh, you have the Baseball Hall of Fame ballot.
Yes, go ahead.
Yeah, but before that, let me bring some news that the Washington Post has broke.
The Nationals have actually signed a ball player, a free agent.
They did?
Who?
You know, they haven't done anything so far this winter, basically, you know, signing a
couple of spare parts here and there. Well, they signed Joey Gallo, a home run hitting
outfield, their first basement from the Minnesota Twins to a one-year, $5 million deal.
Again, this is still shopping at the thrift shop while your competition, you know,
shops in regular stores. But Joey Gallo is a home run hitter. Okay.
Okay. Last year he had 21 homers and 111 games with the twins.
But he also struck out 142 times and batted only 177.
He has a career batting average of 197.
Okay.
So this big $5 million one-year deal for a guy that, you know.
I mean, it really should be ashamed of themselves the way they do business.
All right.
So you're part of the baseball.
Writers Association of America.
Oh, is there another Nat story?
No, no.
Go ahead.
No, I was setting you up.
The Baseball Writers Association of America,
which you are a member.
You're a Hall of Fame voter.
We get the Hall of Fame
names announced when.
Is it tonight or tomorrow night?
Tonight.
Okay, tonight.
So tell me about the ballot.
Yeah.
Okay, the ballot?
What's interesting is it's not the ballot of past years.
There's no torches, no pitchforks, you know, no victims really on the ballot.
Barry Bonds and Roger Clements have disappeared.
You know, after 10 years, they're off the ballots now.
Okay, so it's not as emotional as it's been in the past.
What about Arod?
Yeah, but he's such a loser.
He's a two-time admitted loser, you know, such a fraud.
I mean, he got caught so much.
He was suspended for a full season that even the steroid geeks can't get worked up enough to defend Arod and Mani Ramirez.
They both got 30-some percent of the vote last year.
And they're not getting in, ever.
And there's no outrage about these guys because, I mean, there's no question.
about them. These are multiple, you know, guys who have been suspended and or failed tests multiple times.
And Gary Sheffield, this is his last year on the ballot, and he was named in the Mitchell report
as receiving steroids from the Balco Labs. This is his last shot. He may have a chance to get in tonight. I don't think he's going to.
But I've filed my ballot, and I'll tell you who I voted for.
Okay.
Okay.
Yep.
I voted for Billy Wagner, relief pitcher.
You know, 422 career saves.
He had 12 seasons with 20 plus saves, nine seasons with 30 or more.
Adrian Beltray, third basement.
That's a log, right?
He's a lock.
That's a lock.
Yeah.
He's got over 3,000 hits.
He's, you know, multiple, five-time goal glove winner.
Yeah, he's a lock.
And here's the other lock.
Joe Maurer, who was a catcher with the Minnesota Twins.
He won three batting titles.
Wow.
Catchers do not win batting titles.
Joe Maurer won three of them.
Is this his first time on the ballot?
Yes, it's his first time on the ballot.
Yeah, because it didn't seem like he was, he's been out that long.
All right. So, Mallor, Wagner, Beltray.
Right. I voted for Chase Sutley. Now, this is not, this is another first-timer. And this guy is open for debate.
I can understand how people might not think he's a hallfamer. He's only got like 1,800 career hits.
But as a second basement, he was a good power hitter, drove in 100 runs four times, had 20-plus home runs.
five times.
He was a six-time All-Star, and basically the epitome of those Phillies teams that went to
the playoffs and eventually won the World Series in 2008.
He was a real leader, recognized leader, and I saw enough of Chase Utley on the field
to recognize that I think he's a hallfamer.
But if you don't, I certainly can understand that.
He's not a lock, and he probably won't get in at least this time around.
And then I changed a vote on a guy, Todd Helton.
This is Todd Helton, six here on the ballot, the Colorado Rockies' first baseman slugger.
And I had been affected, I had been influenced by the whole notion that, you know,
Coors Field is such an advantage offensively.
But his numbers are so overwhelming.
And I've come off that.
I think there's different ballparks off for different events.
advantages and disadvantages.
And Helton batted 316 in his career with 1,400 run scored, 1,400 RBI.
He was a five-time All-Star.
So I've changed my position on Todd Helton, and I voted for him.
Those are my guys I voted for.
I'm looking at Helton.
He had a stretch of it looks like six seasons where he hit close to three,
50, average somewhere around 36 or 37 home runs, and average close to 120 RBIs per season
over a six-year stretch.
99 to 2004.
He dealt with the course field bias, but I think he's going to get past that and I think
he's going to wind up getting elected.
You said he's been on the ballot for how many years, Helton has?
This is the sixth year on the ballot.
How close has he been?
I don't know.
I don't have the percentage in front of me.
So I can't help you with that.
So you changed from not voting for him to voting for him now, and you're not holding
Coorsfield against him.
Right.
And sometimes it depends on who else is on a ballot as to how you vote.
You know, and like I've told people, ultimately, it's my ballot.
I'll decide who I want to vote for.
and when you get a ballot,
you can vote for whoever you want to vote for.
What about Beltran?
He's iffy.
I didn't vote for him.
It doesn't mean I can't change my mind about Beltran,
about Krod,
Francisco Rodriguez.
You know,
I could be swayed, you know.
I mean, it happens.
I voted against Tim Raines until I voted for Tim Raines, and he got in.
So it happens.
When do you get the ballot?
I got the ballot a couple months ago, like in December.
How much information do they provide to you on the candidates on who's on the ballot?
Well, they give you a pretty good write-up of each candidate.
But you've got to do more research than that, you know, if you're a responsible voter.
But they give you a decent write-up about each candidate to tell you,
the highlights of their career, why they should be considered for the Hall of Fame.
Wagner, Beltray, Mower, Utley, and Helton are your selections.
You're not limited to, you don't have to vote for anybody if you don't want to, right?
No, you don't, but you're limited to 10 votes, 10 people to vote for.
You can vote for more than 10.
All right.
Well, so we'll see how it plays out, and we will talk about it.
How that comes out tonight.
Yeah, we'll talk about it on Thursday.
We'll talk about the two games in detail.
on Thursday. Do you have anything else?
I've got nothing else for you today, boss. Good to hear your voice again.
It's good to be back. I'll be back tomorrow.
Daniels now starts to run. Runs right past one, splits two more, gets the sideline.
Jayon Daniels is a sudden special.
Caleb Jackson is his running back, and Daniels pulls it, takes it himself. He's got to
Florida drops into his zone. Daniel is trying to run.
Get some space. What a month!
