The Kevin Sheehan Show - Kirk, Philly, and Clinton Portis

Episode Date: November 26, 2018

Kevin recaps the NFL games yesterday including the Vikings win over the Packers and the Eagles win over the Giants in detail. Clinton Portis joined the show and talked Redskins, NFL playoff picture, and some College Football. Kevin then went through the weekend of college football games, Tiger vs Phil, and some Wizards and Terps too. <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, I'm here. Aaron's here. This show's presented by Window Nation. If you're in the market for Windows, call 86690 Nation or go to Window Nation.com and tell them we told you to call. The best sports week, Aaron, best sports weekend and week of the year is over. And it was highlighted by one of the all-time football games. and I stayed up for the entirety of it. Texas A&M, LSU on Saturday night, seven overtimes, with LSU basically having it taken from them at multiple points during the fourth quarter and during the overtime period. We're going to get to that a little bit later on, I promise, and I'll document each time that LSU basically had the game won, and it was then taken from them by horrible officiating in most cases.

Dwight Howard reportedly was or is involved in a relationship that has gone sideways. The nature of that relationship nearly blew up Twitter on Saturday night. I think we're going to get to that at some point during this show, or I may save it to have that conversation with Tommy when he's here tomorrow. Of course, we're going to have to spend a lot of time with Tommy on Colt McCoy, his son's performance on Thanksgiving Day. Clinton Portis is going to be with us on the show today. That's coming up in about 15, 20 minutes or so.

You know, last week, Aaron, I barely mentioned that I went 7 and 1 on last weekend's smell test. You know, my pops always told me act like you've been there before. Stay humble. Stay humble. Especially in that trade, you better stay humble. But really, the reason I didn't mention it much is because we were in a short, week and we had a lot going on last week and I really never got around to it. Well, this week, we got plenty of time to talk about my smell test from over the weekend. A 13 and 4 weekend, 10 and 2 on

Saturday, 10 and 2 on Saturday. Then 3 and 2 yesterday and last night. Had the Vikings, so I was glad that the Packers kicked that field goal on 4th and 1 late in the game down 2414. That's 20 and 5 over the last two weeks. And if you go back to two Sundays, ago. Remember, I was 3 and 0 that Sunday. So it's 23 and 5 on the last 28 picks. That's like 82%. I have the Titans going tonight. I took the Titans on Friday's line plus six. That line's now down to three and a half four, but that's the way we do it. We do it based on Friday's lines, unless I give it out on a Monday, but I gave it out on a Friday plus the six. I had the Jets Friday plus 10. That number went to 13, so it doesn't always work out for me. That could have cost me

but it didn't actually because the Patriots won by 14, even though the Jets had a first and goal situation at the end to get the back door cover and couldn't punch it in. But the smell test is on fire. Interesting that this run started, Aaron, after that disastrous NFL Sunday three weeks ago, when many of the Vegas sports books were quoted as saying that they took one of their biggest losses ever on an NFL Sunday.

That was the Sunday when Kansas City was a big favor to Cleveland, and they're not big enough, and the public was all over Kansas City, and they routed Cleveland. It was the day the Vikings beat the Lions in the Houston-Denver game. Everybody was on Houston, and Denver missed a field goal at the end for the push. It was like the biggest winning day for public betters ever, according to many of the sports books. Remember that VP of sports gaming at, I forget where it was, Westgate or one of those places. And he said, and this was such a telling quote, you know, after explaining how badly they had been beaten. the day before he said, quote, but we're going to be open tomorrow anyway, if you were wondering.

They've had a few good weeks, and how do I know that? Because I've had a few good weeks. That's the way the smell test works. It's essentially, you know, contrarian anti-public philosophy. Not completely that, but, you know, here's what makes, you know, me different than guys that Ted Leonis believes can take, you know, can completely take down Vegas with analytics and predictive modeling as if sports betting is like investing in the stock market, which it is not. I know that 23 and 5 won't continue. I've had some really good years, but never an 82% year. I'm not 82% for the year. I think I'm 56% on the year right now. 79 and 63, I think overall. My best year over the last 13, I've been doing this for 13 years,

12 years going into the season had won eight of the 12, and it looks like I'm headed towards, you know, there's a lot of football left. I could still take a bath here over the last, you know, five weeks of the season with bowl games and playoffs and all of it. But nine out of 13, if I end up winning again this year, it's pretty good. The worst year I've ever had, somebody asked me that in Twitter

or last week or the week before, I think it was 48%. And my best year was like 64.5%. I think I went one year. Here's what I know for almost a hundred, 100% sure. My bookmaker, were the few that I have, because I have a few, they're going to be open tomorrow, and they're going to continue to take my action. And those guys, Leonys believes, can beat Vegas with analytics and predictive modeling. My guys would stand in line for their business, because they are truly the marks, truly the marks. My action, they're going to take my action.

They're not going to stop my action from being put down. just because I'm 23 and 5. Now, I will tell you, Aaron, I have been limited before by various places offshore in particular. Not in football, though. Not in football. Football's hard. College hoops I've been limited to over the years. Never cut off completely, but limited.

Anyway, go Titans tonight. Let's get a 14 and 4 weekend. No Redskins game yesterday. So if you missed the recap of the Cowboys game, We did that on Friday show. If you're not a subscriber and you don't have all the shows automatically downloaded and cataloged, you can always go to the Kevin Sheehan Show.com, just click past episodes. And you can listen to every show we've done since the beginning. We're two and a half months into this thing.

And some of you have just found the podcast. The response we've gotten, the number of downloads we've gotten, you know, is well over seven figures now. So according to all the people that understand this podcast thing, it's apparently doing well. I'm happy about that because when the 980 thing ended, I had no idea what I was going to do. I definitely didn't want to stop doing this. Now, I think I mentioned, you know, when we first started this podcast that we put together a group and we tried to buy a radio station in town to put Cooley and me on the air together and Tommy on the air again and Andy and Tony and Scott Jackson and a lot of others potentially.

We just, we didn't get it done. The seller became very difficult right before the possible or the potential closing of it. But we continue to look for those things. But I'll tell you what, this podcast thing, I like it. I like it a lot. I love more than anything doing two days a week with Tommy. I love doing that. I love that Cooley's able to come on the show occasionally.

He's been coming on on average about once a week. Many of you have asked me, do you really miss radio? I do. I do miss radio. I miss doing that show with Chris. But the new owners, they had other ideas. The investor group and I were going to continue to look for other opportunities. But right now, this podcast thing is better than what I would have expected. And for you, many of you have said it's better, too, because it's no difficult, you know, AM signal to deal with. And you can listen when you want, how you want.

So anyway, I don't know how we got on that topic. Oh, I know how we got on that topic. I was telling you to, if you miss episodes like, you know, the Friday show because it was the day after Thanksgiving, just go to the Kevin Sheehan Show.com, upper right-hand corner, click past episodes, and every show is there. And I think if you listen on Apple Podcasts or iTunes, if you subscribe, they should be cataloged and saved in your podcast icon. They are for me. And again, subscribe doesn't mean that costs you anything. It's free. So subscribe and rate it and review it if you haven't already.

That always helps. All right, enough of that stuff. Let's go to last night. Let's go to the whole NFL Sunday. But we'll start with last night. The biggest plays and the clutch moment. It's time to go around the NFL. All right, yeah, let's start in Minneapolis.

Look, for all of you that come for me, every time Kirk plays poorly, have the balls to give him credit when he plays well. All of you, you know who you are. You're all major front runners. Some dude tweeted me late last night, and I responded this morning. Dude, you know, your Twitter was working last Sunday night when he threw two picks in Chicago.

Yeah, it was. And I acknowledged that he played very poorly in Chicago and talked about that on this podcast last Monday. I have so many of you, and I love all you guys, because this is always fun. And it's a great conversation, and it has been over the years. Oh, O is a good friend of mine.

I love O. We see each other at high school basketball games around the city all the time. He sent me a text last Sunday night, Aaron, when Kirk threw the pick six at Chicago and said, let me just ask, how are you going to talk about how cousins didn't screw it up? And I said, well, you did hear it. I said he had a poor game. What else do you want me to say? He played poorly last Sunday night.

But at the same time, if you watch that game and your objective, he faced a very good defense on the road and soldier field with a running game that managed 17 yards on 13 carries by his running backs. Zero health from the running game. He did not play well last Sunday night. But I promise you, if you're being objective and you know anything about football and you watch that game. Almost every quarterback in the league

not named Rogers, Breeze, Brady. I don't know, maybe Mahomes now. They all would have had the same game at Chicago last week. Do you know that Chicago's pass rush last week? They said this on the broadcast last week, and I think they said it in the pregame show last night. The Bears pass rush last Sunday night against the Vikings was the quickest of the year in any NFL game.

The fastest pass rush. of the year in terms of how long after the snap it took to get to the quarterback. Yet somehow, my boy, O, J. Funds, Roe Chaser, all of you. And I love the conversation. But that loss, according to all of you, was solely a Kirk Cousin's loss. Seriously. Come on, they want you to disown your son every time he has a bad game. I mean, I watched that game too, and he did not play well,

and he could not overcome the rest of the team that did not play well. He wasn't good. give you that. But most quarterbacks in the league wouldn't be good when they had 10 runs of zero or negative yardage against the Bears. Be fair. Last night they weren't playing the Bears. They were playing a banged up Packers team at home. Huge game. Yes, a big time stakes game, a game with major playoff implications. So of course, he was going to throw three picks in that game. But it wasn't the Bears on the road with no running game. They didn't have much of a running game last night either, but the circumstances were different. I told my buddy O. last Tuesday, I said,

when he lights up the Packers on Sunday night, please text me to acknowledge how well he played. Let me know, you know, like, let me know that you're not just a total front runner. Of course, he hasn't texted me. Nothing from any of you. It's painful for some of you, Jay Funs, Roe Chaser. None of you that ever have anything to say when he plays well, which by the way is a healthy of the games that he starts. I'll come in here after a game like last week and say he didn't play well. You won't do the same when he does play well. You're all wishing you can be right on this, but you're not.

He's a good quarterback. Not great, good quarterback, and when he has help, a running game, which he never had here, and he doesn't really have in Minnesota right now, he can be a very good quarterback, a franchise quarterback, one of 15 or so in the league. The Redskins don't have a franchise. quarterback. They did. They don't now. But again, just to be fair and clear, I wouldn't have paid him $28 million either. I just would have paid him $19. Last night was a good football game. Minnesota's

two running backs averaged less than three yards per carry, but man was cousins on. He killed the Blitz last night throughout. That's what he's done better than anything else since he's been a starter in the NFL. He's one of the best quarterbacks against the Blitz. Last night, he was 29 to 38 for 346 yards, three touchdowns, no picks, big throws two in the fourth quarter that ate the clock on a big drive when they were up 10, kept the ball out of Aaron Rogers' hands, a third and six to Thielen for 20 yards, a third and one to the fullback to move the chains, a third and six with two minutes left up 24 to 17. I was surprised, I'll tell you what, I was actually surprised that the Packers kicked the onside kick with 220 left in a timeout. I thought they could have kicked

deep and they would have had two timeouts in essence the two minute warning and the one timeout they had and that would have given Aaron Rogers the ballback had they gotten a stop with about a minute 20 left in 2417. They kicked an onside kick, which doesn't work anymore in the NFL because the new alignment rules. I mean, I don't know what the numbers are this year on onsides kicks, but I haven't seen one even remotely close to being recovered. I just pulled it up. It looks like there have been three successful in the end. NFL. Out of how many?

Coming into, it looks like coming into this week, it was three of 34. Why don't they just bunch everybody up in the middle? It's got to be equal side, like five on each side. Why don't they just bunch everybody up in the middle and try the onside kick right down the middle with the hop instead of to one side where you only have five guys? I don't know. I thought Green Bay could have kicked it deep there. But then I was actually a bit surprised.

I was happy that Zimmer put the game. Kirk's hands in that spot on the third and six at the two-minute warning. Because if they didn't get it there, they were still going to have to punt and he was going to get the ball back, but they took a risk. And I'll tell you what, it was one of Kirk's worst throws of the game. Yep. But Diggs made a great catch and the game ended on that play. Minnesota's kicker issues, it's unbelievable. It is unbelievable. Minnesota and San Diego, can't find kickers. But Minnesota's had more big kicks missed. You know, the Blair Walsh play off miss. You know, they had Daniel Carlson. Minnesota has missed five field goals against one team

this year, the Packers. Five, three in the first game. Two more last night. Dan Bailey missed a 47-yarder. Then he made a 51-yarder, but there was a bad, incorrect false start penalty on Minnesota that took that off the board, pushed it back five yards, and then he missed from 56. So there's no shame in missing from 56. By the way, he got roughed on that. on that field goal. No penalty called. Bottom line from the game last night, Cousins was excellent, so were his receivers.

Look, they don't have a good offensive line. They've got a terrible offensive line right now. It played well last night. The running game hasn't been good this year because of the offensive line issues. It's not because Dalvin Cook missed some games. Latavius Murray's fine.

But what they do have is they've got a quarterback that gets it out quickly and they've got Diggs and Thielen. and man, are they good? And now the defense is playing much better than it did early in the year with Everson Griffin back. Best third down defense in all of football right now, Minnesota's. So they come away with the 24 to 17 win, a huge win for them

because their schedule, listen to this, at New England Sunday, then at Seattle. And they still have to play Chicago one more time. They had to get a win last night to get to 6'4-1. They did lose a very important player. Xavier Rhodes late in that game, one of the better corners in the league. It looked like it was a hamstring issue. That would be a devastating injury to that defense, which is really starting to play well. The Packers, man, Aaron Rogers didn't look right all night.

They got to them. They're four, six, and one. I wouldn't count them out completely. You know, one of the things in watching Green Bay is they should be better offensively right now because they can run the football. You know, they haven't been able to run the football in research. years. They can run it with Aaron Jones. I wouldn't count them out.

They've got the Cardinals, the Jets, the Lions left. They have Atlanta at home, and they have one game that looks very difficult, and they'll have to run the table to get to 9, 6, and 1. Aaron Rogers went through the whole thing last night during his press conference. He was looking at the schedule. He's like, we've got to beat the Cardinals,

got to beat the Jets, got to go to Chicago and win. Do you know they haven't lost? They've won eight in a row in Chicago. So I don't think they're dead yet. I know a lot of people basically buried them last night. I think the Packers are still alive. How about Philadelphia yesterday staying alive?

The Eagles now essentially control their own path to the NFC East title. They're still not playing great, though. If you watch this game, and I watched a lot of this game, I was flipping back and forth between Red Zone, but I really wanted to see Giants and Eagles. They're missing so many pieces defensively in the secondary. They're playing backups for the most. part. The Giants had a really good chance. They were up 19 to 3 in this game. I don't know if you

if you guys heard this or not. Seguan Barkley in the first half had 20 touches for 120 total yards and two touchdowns and he got five touches in the second half. Unbelievable. Sometimes coaches in the NFL, you just question what they're doing. This guy Pat Shermer is really off to a horrific, you know, first year. He said this. after the game. Quote, we were going to spell them a little bit as we went. It had nothing to do with the outcome of the game. I begged to differ. I think it absolutely had something to do with the outcome of the game. So here we go. Skins at Philadelphia, a week from tonight, Eagles are six and a half point favorites. The Eagles are banged up defensively, most of it in their secondary, but

you know, they've given up some yards on the run recently, six yards per carry in their last four games. So maybe the Redskins can run it Monday night. But then again, the Redskins haven't been able to run the ball against teams that aren't very good at stopping the run like Atlanta and Tampa. This game is near must for Philly. And we'll know by Monday night where the Cowboys are that they're going to lose to New Orleans. They are seven and a half point underdogs at home Thursday night. There's a decent chance we'll be sitting here late Monday night a week from today with three teams at 6 and 6 in the NFC East with 4 to go. I think the skins have a shot at Philadelphia. I do. The Eagles are not great. It's obvious.

You know, I don't believe that they're all of the sudden getting it together now for a big run down the stretch. They were behind in that game 19 to 3. There was no indication down 19 to 3 in the first half that the Eagles are like putting together a big late season run. They won the game against the Giants coming from behind when the Giants head coach refused to give the ball or throw the ball to the guy that had carried them to a 16-point lead in the second quarter. How about the Giants, though? Three and eight, six of their eight losses this year by a touchdown or less. How about the Panthers and the Seahawks yesterday? Russell Wilson threw a 35-yard touchdown pass to David Moore on a fourth and three to tie the game, and then he led a drive

that finished with a Janakowski walk-off game-winning field goal from 31 yards out to give Seattle a monster 30 to 27 win over Carolina, a big win in the NFC wildcard race. The Panthers are reeling three straight losses. Graham Ganoe missed a 52-yard field goal with a minute 40 left in the game. That ended a 41 made field goal stretch for Ganoe at home. He hadn't missed in his last 41 attempts at home. This game featured one of, you know, a group of just budding superstars. Christian McCaffrey is a superstar, man. 237 yards from scrimmage. 17 carries a buck 25, 111 catches for 112 yards, and two more touchdowns. First Carolina player in history to surpass 100 yards and both receiving and rushing in the same game.

And then on the other side, it was Russell Wilson, 339 yards passing, two touchdown passes. Seattle now has the edge on Carolina for a wild card spot. And Carolina, you know, after being six and two and me putting them into my Power 5 rankings and being mocked by Tommy, appropriately so, Carolina's lost three in a row, and they lose tiebreakers to a lot of teams, you know, that could be there tied with them. them at the end of the year, including the Redskins. The Redskins, as I mentioned on Friday, they're very much in the wild card race too. So are the Cowboys and so are the Eagles. Like this notion that the NFC East, you know, it's a weak division, it may be, but it still

may produce two playoff teams. That's not out of the question. The Seahawks, the Carolina Panthers now lose tiebreakers to Seattle and Washington, although they win tiebreakers with Philly and Dallas. How about this for Ceehawks? Seattle, though, six and five. Four of their final five games are at home. One road game for the Seahawks down the stretch, and the road game is at San Francisco. And they get the Niners at home, and the Cardinals also at home. Now, they also play Minnesota and Kansas City. Both of those games, however, are in the toughest home environment and football. Seattle's in a really good spot to get to nine, maybe 10 wins. They're a good bet right now for one of the wild cards.

when we get there. I mean, they can't win the division because the Rams have run away with that. How about a few of the other games real quickly? Pittsburgh, Denver. Oh, my God. I mean, probably the, I mean, one of the games of the day. I mean, that was a smell test pick, Denver was, you can't, look, it's really simple. If you looked at that game, Ben Rathesberger had 452 yards passing in the game. 42 of 58. But the Steelers had four turnovers and Denver had none. That's it. That's the game right there. And they needed basically all four of them to pull it off. Rafflesberger has them at the doorstep late in the game to tie it up. I was actually interested to see if, you know, and I thought

I was expecting them to score there. And you know Tomlin and Pittsburgh. I thought in hell they might go for two. But they, but Rathusberger threw the worst interception I think I've ever seen him throw. It was terrible. He got quick pressure at the three-yard line, dumped it over the middle, and the defensive tackle dropped back in coverage and picked it off easily. And if he hadn't picked it off, it would have been picked off anyway. Yep. Pittsburgh now, you know, they were on this role and last week they were down 16-0 at Jacksonville, and then they lose to Denver. They still have the Chargers. That's the Sunday night game.

The Chargers in Pittsburgh. They still have to play the Patriots. They still have to play the Saints. You know, that NFC North, which looked two weeks ago to be a lock, or even last week, to be a lock. Now, Baltimore's got a brutal schedule also. And I don't know what Harbaugh is going to do this week, because Lamar Jackson's been dynamic in so many ways,

but also very limited in so many ways. And they were lucky they'd play. the Bengals who are basically tanking right now and the Raiders in back-to-back weeks. And now, you know, is Lamar Jackson going to go to Atlanta in Kansas City the next two weeks and win one of those two, which is what really Baltimore has to do? Tough decision for Harbaugh. I'm very interested. I'm sorry? I mean, I think there's a big question right now.

That's what I'm saying. You know, it's a big decision. Harbaugh wouldn't answer it yesterday. they still have road games in Atlanta. Atlanta's 4 and 7 record. I mean, we know that how capable they are offensively. They've got to play at Arrowhead. They've got to play in Los Angeles against the Chargers. So, you know, theoretically, the division is still alive for Baltimore, but realistically, even though Pittsburgh's got tough games left and they aren't playing as well as they were, I still think that that is Pittsburgh's division. You know who played well yesterday? I really thought Case Keenham. I don't think the numbers will sort of reflect how good he was in that game. And he hasn't been very good in a lot of these games. He was 15 of 28 for a buck 97, but he really managed the game. And let me just tell you right now, because I should have bought this guy two weeks ago in NFL buyer's cell when I first saw him. Philip Lindsay, who was an undrafted running back out of Colorado, is going to be. an NFL star. His speed, his yards after contact, this dude, how did he not get drafted? 14 carries 110 yards for Lindsay yesterday against the Steelers. He has become in recent weeks

the go-to guy for Denver. He's averaging on the season now near six yards per carry. He's small too. If you haven't seen Philip Lindsay, check him out. And here's the deal in the AFC with Denver who got to 5 and 6 with that win. They play the Bengals, the Niners, the Raiders. Now they play the Browns. That's at home. The Browns aren't easy right now. And then they'll play the Chargers at the end of the year. And the Chargers at that point, they may already have the wild card locked up, their position locked up. Who knows, watch out for Denver making a run here late in the AFC. The Ravens mentioned them briefly.

They get the win over the Raiders yesterday. They scored on special teams. They scored on defense in the game. Lamar Jackson, though, I mean, I watched enough of this. You know, he's certainly not so comfortable yet as a drop-back passer, but he doesn't look like RG3 did at times as a drop-back guy. He looks better to me. I actually think he throws a nice touch ball.

Gus Edwards, where the hell that he come from? 118 yards. Jackson also, after going 27 carries a week ago, only carried it 11 times in this game for 71 yards. And the Ravens win 3417. And again, and I mentioned, they have the Falcons and the Chiefs on the road next two weeks. And then they have Tampa at home before they have to play the Chargers on the road. The AFC playoff race is very interesting. There's so many teams in the hunt right now in the AFC. Miami went to Indianapolis. They had a 24-14 fourth quarter lead,

and this was a game to really put the dolphins in contention. This was a game overall that you, you know, two five and five teams to stay in contention. Indies really got a really good track now towards either a division or a wild card spot in the AFC because they play, I mean they play the Jags, they play the Giants. Now they also have games against the Texans and Titans,

but both of those games are on the road. They do have the Cowboys now at home. That's going to be a big game for both of those teams. But the win over the Dolphins was an Andrew Luck led win late, down 2414, drove him to a field goal, then got it back after a three and out, drove him to a touchdown to tie the game, and then the final drive got him in field goal range for a walk-off field goal by Vinatieri. So they scored 13 points on their final three possessions,

and they get the big win over the dolphins in that game. Luck ended up 30 to 37, 343 yards, two interceptions. Two of them came, I think both of them were at the end of the first half. I like their running back situation. I like Marlon Mack. I like Heinz. You know, Hopefully Max okay. Yeah, I like Wilkins. They've got a good situation there. Man, has Eric Ebron found a home in Indianapolis with Andrew Luck after being basically boot out of Detroit, the first round pick from North Carolina several years back?

He had two more touchdowns on the year. They've got weapons with Hilton and Ebron. Ryan Grant, I think if you were wondering, early on in the season, I think he was a real factor for them. But I think recently he's basically been nothing. for them. Other games real quickly, if you missed it, Philip Rivers broke the NFL record, 25 consecutive completions to start the game against the Cardinals. In the AFC, I am rooting for him and the Chargers more than anybody else. He's a Hall of Famer in my eyes, a locked Hall of Famer in my eyes. I'd love to see him get the playoff success to go with it. The Patriots beat the

Jets, not overly impressive in that game, but they won the game. And the Browns all of a sudden have put two wins back to back together. They hammered the Bengals. They were a smell test pick. The Browns were yesterday. They were at 35-7 in that game. And I don't know if you saw this after the game, but Baker Mayfield was asked about Hugh Jackson and what he said.

Hugh Jackson searched out Baker Mayfield on the field after the game, and Mayfield basically blew him off and said, you know, you leave here, you tell us we're a family, and you go to Cincinnati, a team we played twice in our division. I don't think either one of them, certainly not from Baker-Mayfield standpoint. I don't think they're having any holiday dinners or hangouts together. But Mayfield, all of a sudden, putting together a decent rookie season, four touchdown passes yesterday, no interceptions, a 96.7 QBR in that game, 19 of 26.

And then Nick Chubb is outstanding as well. But for Mayfield, all of a sudden, the Browns, theoretically, not theoretically. mathematically are in the hunt in the AFC. I'm just saying, you know, they are actually in the hunt. But Mayfield now over the last two weeks, seven touchdowns, no picks. And he's completing like 80% of his passes over the last two weeks. Let me look at the Brown's schedule real quickly because they're four, six and one. Could they get to nine six and one? They play at Houston, Carolina at Denver, Cincinnati at Ravens now. Is nine six and one even going to do it? Would you say? I don't know if nine six and one. Nine six and one, do it in the AFC. It could. Yeah, it may. The AFC picture right now, the two wildcards are both six and five. I mean, the second wild card spot is six and five, which is Baltimore. The chargers are at eight and three. So there's going to be a race between Baltimore, Indy, Tennessee, Denver is now alive, you know, at five and six for that last wild card position. All right, let's bring in Clinton Portis, who joins us now on the podcast.

Clinton has a podcast that you can get anywhere you get a podcast, you know, iTunes, Apple Podcasts, Google, Play, Spotify. You can also get it at Redskins.com. It's a good listen, talks, you know, all skins and, you know, breaking down games and players and situations. He does it well, and he's going to join us here right now. And there's a lot to talk about. And I actually want to start with sort of the state of the team because DJ Swaranger had

some comments after the game. on Thanksgiving Day, where he sort of called out some teammates for taking the loss a bit too lightly. And Charlie Casserly, and I wanted to read this to you, Charlie Casserly,

longtime NFL general manager now, Redskins' GM, Houston Texan's GM, tweeted out the following, Clinton. He said, bad move by DJ Swarendger calling out teammates after the game. Never criticize your teammates in public.

That is divisive. Just do your... job and let coaches do the talking. Corrections should be made in private. You don't see this from the Patriots and they win more than anybody else. Do you have a problem with DJ Swaranger calling out as teammates or not? I don't. If you're in the locker room full of guys that just get over losses, I mean, we've all heard it in the last few weeks where guys just over a loss as soon as it happened. We know in football it doesn't happen that question. quick. Now, you got to have a sharp memory and be able to move on, but it doesn't happen.

As soon as the game is over, you're on to the next opponent, you know. So for me, the only thing I have about that is when you're addressing a teammate, you have to address that teammate. You can't say it as a general statement because some of the guys that are hustling or giving their all begins to question that. You know, you look at Charlie who's been on a lot of locker rooms, and the Patriots way is totally different from everyone else. And, you know, the Patriots have internal stuff. It just never really leaked to the media.

Maybe that's a good job by their media of not causing and staring anything up. But we know in D.C., that's totally different. So for me, I just feel like DJ should address the player. Say his name, let him know that's who you're talking to. But you can do it behind closed doors or whatnot. You can't leave it on the coaches because obviously these coaches aren't those type of coaches that's in your face or that's willing to call out guys or push guys to the max. You know, these coaches are kind of laid back and cool. And it's like, oh, yeah, I need you to do this.

If you do it, cool, if you don't. So be it. But they're not fiery coaches like, oh, you're going to be benched or snatch you out of the game. You know, so it's totally different. I just think DJ should address his. teaming. All right, let's just get then to sort of your overall feelings right now about a team that's lost two in a row, lost its starting quarterback, is reeling a little bit, has a massive game a week from tonight in Philadelphia as far as playoff implications. What's your confidence level

in the Redskins' ability to get it together over these final five games and make the postseason? My confidence is tough, man. When you look at the team, you. say, well, if they can get to 10 at 6, they win the division, you know, and it could be one at 9 and 7. So, I mean, you have one slip-up over the next five weeks. So to see this team go on a four-game win the street, it's tough, you know, and you want to believe in the team, you want to cheer for the team, you want to root for the team, you want to see them pull it off.

But with the injuries at all your key positions, and every week you lose guys, you lose players, the attitude of the team. You've got to have that hunger. You've got to have that killer instinct when you're two games up. You're two games up and they fought, but you come up short.

And that's like the story. You know, you go to Dallas, you get Houston. And, you know, the refs, they've had some bad calls. Some really bad calls. So you can't say the team not performing. It's just they need a killer instinct.

to get through these next five games. And with no breaks, you know, this week, you had the Thanksgiving game and you get a break in between, which is great for the team. But you don't really have breaks. You're not going to be able to go out and acquire new people. I think the offensive line is doing a great job. Coach Callahan is doing a great job with the O line. But every other position continuously lose players, you know.

And you look at Vernon Davis. a couple drops that he had in a two-week span. Those drops turn out to be huge because their game changes. When you missed the pass, Alex missed the past, and he had a big drop. So that's totally different. You look at the running game, being able to get that back going. That's what you wanted to lean on and feed off of.

And all of a sudden, your lineman going down. Sheriff has really missed because it changes the running game. Trent, being back on the field, Mario Moses is staying healthy. You got to have somebody step up for coat. Coat was under a lot of pressure in his first game. Although it's a short week, you're on the road, tough game plan to get ready for a tough team to prepare for.

But you've got to get it done. You can't really have excuses. And then the defense, which we relied so heavily on, all of a sudden, being gashed or look slow, look fatigue. If guys are still having missed assignments, week 12, week 13, that's tough. You know, you're playing the same covers throughout. It's not like you're going to change your defense, right?

So guys having missed assignments and missed tackles. We've seen a lot of bad tackling the last couple weeks. So if you don't get that fix, it doesn't really get any easier. You know, you got division games against. the Eagles, the Jags, at some point, got it for the end. They just fired their offensive coordinator. So by the time we played the Jags, they got to have something going. So when you look at this schedule, the Giants gave the Eagles a fight on Sunday.

They were up early and went away from Sequin. So being able to stop him, you got to figure out of the way to win four games. And, well, you got to figure out of the way to win three games, not four. if you can win three out of five, you've got a chance. Yeah, I think that's right. I think nine and seven, especially if you split with Philadelphia and beat the Giants at home to get those two division wins and also NFC wins, whether it's the division or potentially still the wild card, that's still in play for this team. But there's a bigger picture here, CP, you know, and that is the feeling of whether or not this thing is heading in the right.

direction. You got a quarterback that got hurt, and you don't really know what his future is. Obviously, he didn't play to the level that you wanted him to play at when he was healthy. You've got a fan base that's a bit apathetic right now. And I'm wondering, I thought before the season started, that it was a playoff or bust situation for Bruce Allen and for Jay Gruden. And now I'm thinking, you know, they may make the playoffs, but they're not going to, they're not beating the Rams of the Saints. I mean, it's one of those years. You don't have that every year when you get to the postseason, but this year they can't go on the road and win in the Superdome.

They can't go to the Coliseum and beat the Rams, even though that's not a big home field advantage. And I'm just wondering what you think, where this all will sort of flush out when this season is over. And what happens next? You're talking about the Rams and the Saints. There's not a lot of teams in the NFL that can beat the Rams. I agree.

Right now. But you've got to look at where they would go. if they end up in the wild card and that's going through Chicago, that's going to be tough. Chicago, a home game in January, and it's freezing at Soldier Field, this team, the make of this team, you're going to have to catch some hard balls,

some bricks being thrown at you. You're going to have to make some plays in that defense, really not giving anything up. When you look offensively, you got a guy like to recone that could be a problem for our defense. the match up that they can pose that their offense pose to our defense. So our defense is the team speed, man, when you get into this time of year and you see Amari Cooper, a guy that's 4-4-4-5 pulling away from our players, our defenders, by five

and six shorts, all of a sudden, you're looking like, hey, we can't even, a guy catch a slant and taking the distance on us, and the flip side, we catch a slant. slant and it's a five-yard throw or a four-yard catch, you know. We're not even moving to chains, but guys catching slits and taking the distance it makes it tough because you can put

Mason Foster in space and it's a mismatch. Although you won't Mason Foster calling the defense, I think you got to put Josh Harvey Clinton's on the field on third down alone with Zach Brown. And she won them downhill, sit one of his own and hope he makes a plate. But Mason Foster,

a liability in covers. Every third down, they put Mason Foster in the mismatch, and they go at it, and Mason Foster's playing his blood off. He's a good player, but he just don't have the speed that you need to cover some of these guys. And then you look in the secondary, you know, you look at Josh, and you want to lock down the corner, the guy who can travel and do everything.

But it seems like Josh is in a lot of situations that I feel like DJ talking to. And then when you look at Dunny, Dunny just didn't look healthy. So, you know, do you bring on the strongman a guy that's proven to, you know, have a short memory and tough fighting type guy? You got to put him on the field. You know, you look at pain, ionitis, Allen, and Settle, who I think been playing pretty good. When he gets a change, you need these guys. You need everybody to step on, Pressing Smith and Carrigan, always something alive. and making plays, but is it enough?

You know, at this time, you need some turnovers for touchdowns. You need to create some short fields. Coat, what coat will you get? You know, you can't have three turnovers, and that's why Alex was doing a great job at. You got to get AP involved in the game, Chris Thompson. When we see him again, that's your spark, that's your playmaker, and he's unavailable. So it's tough. It's hard.

I mean, you mentioned Dunbar. I mean, he shouldn't have been on the field there when you got to the second half. He couldn't run. That was a big mistake. So what's your, right now, if you had to place a futures wager on the division, who would you bet on? Well, I mean, the cowboys are trending up. You know, you look at that, and now you go back and you think about when we had the root for the Cowboys and hoping they beat the Eagles, because we can take care of the Cowboys,

that might have been a bad decision. You know, the Eagles really just didn't look good. I think the Giants gave that game away by taking Sequin out. They went away from Sequin, who was having a dominant first half, one of the best first half of all the time. And all of a sudden, I think you give them two or three touches. Out of the backfield, the man had 11-carriage 4,100 yards. Are you kidding?

So when you look at the Cowboys, it seems like they're starting to have fun. They're starting to figure it out. You got Zeke, you got Amari, and you got Dak, who's gaining confidence week in and week out. And then that the line they have over there, I mean, those guys create havoc, and you're going to get Sean Lee back soon.

They're about to start getting guys coming back from injuries to fill in with the guys they already have. So I really look at the Cowboys in a different light now, with Amari Cooper, watching Amari Cooper destroy us and seeing, you know what, They got a three-way go. You got to stop Z. You got to stop Amari, and you got to stop that.

And Amari has given them that, hey, this guy can catch a five or six short slant and take it the distance. Let's get him the ball early instead of trying to develop plays downfield. He's running routes. Great. Right now, the Cowboys are minus 225 to win the division. The Eagles are plus 300 and the Redskins are plus 500 to win the division. So that tells you stuff, no one believes in the race game is right now. Nobody is.

Although I do think they can win three of the final five. I mean, I think they can split with Philly. The Giants at home is not going to be easy, but I think they can win that game. And then I think, you know, between the Jacksonville and Tennessee road trips, they can steal one of those and finish nine and seven. And they, you know, they win tiebreakers over Carolina in head-to-head wild card race. I mean, they'd still have a shot at the wildcard. The NFC's, you know, everybody's talking about how bad the NFC East is,

and it's not a great division, but you could still potentially get two playoff teams out of it. Yeah, well, you get into a wildcard situation. Oh, I know. I'm not saying it's going to lead to anything. I'm just, I'm with you on that. They're not going to go to Minnesota and win. They're not going to go to Chicago and win. You know, they're not going, look, if they ended up being the sixth seed,

it's possible or the, well, they're not going to be. be more likely than, well, they could. They could potentially be the five seed. They could have a playoff matchup in Dallas. That's not, you know, it's not completely out of the realm of possibility, but I'm with you. They're not going to beat any of these teams in the postseason. Does anybody in the NFC have a chance in L.A. or in New Orleans in that divisional round to to mess up what appears to be a lock Rams Saints NFL title game? Well, I mean, if any team has the chance, it will be Minnesota, you know, looking at Minnesota and them getting Dalvin cooked back, starting to get guys back, starting to get, you know, starting to look like the defense that

they had last year. So that would help, but can Minnesota score enough points to beat the Rams or New Orleans? I don't think so. Defensively, that's the only team that I would say have a shot. And the Bears, you know, if the Bears, if you had to go through Chicago, that defense is, really good and they create havoc for any quarterback. It's just offensively, you know, for them, they're not a, they put up some points and they have some playmakers, but they're going to have to travel with.

If a team had to come through Chicago, I would think it would be tough. But being that they're going to have to go to the dome or go to L.A., I don't see them winning that. Yeah, Minnesota's better defensively since they got Griffin, but if they lost Xavier Rhodes last night, that hurts. They can't run the football, though. Their offensive line is terrible. It's not good enough right now.

I mean, they got Kirk and they got Diggs and they got Thielen, and that's the only way they've moved the football this year. So to your point, they don't have enough offensively to go into New Orleans or L.A. Because they already went to L.A. And they put up 500 yards and 31 points, and it wasn't enough. So. Yeah. I mean, that's what make it tough.

When you look at those two teams, it's just like the AFC, you know, teams, who would you root for an AFC? Kansas City, you know Kansas City is a problem. New England is always active. But the way the charges are playing is hard to root against the charges, and especially Kansas City and the charges. That's a divisional game. That would be their third matchup. That game could go anyway. So if you can get to Kansas City, San Diego, I mean, Kansas City and the charges, that's a tough matchup.

You know, and if these teams were to face off, Kansas City in New Orleans or Kansas City and the Rams or San Diego, I mean, it's a high-power. It's a high-spooring game. Yeah, to me, the AFC defenses, whether it's Baltimore's or Houston's or the Chargers, if they're healthy, they've got a better chance to go. go on the road and beat Kansas City or beat New England than Minnesota or Chicago does against the Rams and the Saints. First of all, the Saints have turned into a pretty good defensive team themselves with some of their young players, whether it's Latimore or Davenport. I mean, their defense is better than I think we thought it was going to be. Well, I mean, it's easy to take pressure off of your players if you tell them, hey, guys, we just need

you to get one stop. Exactly. You can get us one stop. It's so true. entire game we can win. Except if you get us one side. Just give a year. No one can stop that offense.

Do you know what that is? No one can stop that offense. That is so true. I mean, if you're in New Orleans right now, all you got to say to that defense, and the defense has played pretty well is make them, just make them punt twice. If they punt twice, we're going to win by two scores because we're not going to be stopped. Exactly. I think it's going to be really interesting in the AFC. I'm actually really Who do you think Baltimore should start?

They have, so look, they played, so Lamar Jackson starts last week against a Bengals team that is a mess, against a Raiders team that is a mess, and they win both games. They had a special team's touchdown, and Suggs got a fumble return for a touchdown yesterday. Would you start Flacco in this next stretch at Atlanta, at Arrowhead,

or would you start Jackson? I think I would start Jackson, just for the simple fact he gives you, the threat of being a runner and teams have to prepare for that. So you've seen with Jackson, just due to his athletic ability, that if he could go out and have two turnovers and you all can, like the Ravens can still win, whereas with Flatfield, if he has two turnovers, it put the Ravens in a bad position.

But with Jackson, with his scrambling ability, being able to run, also being able to throw gaining confidence and making plays downfield. He gives you that big playability that Flacco doesn't give you. And if you could just hit, even for the Ravens, they only got to score three touchdowns, and that defense is going to stop somebody. They're coming. So I like Jackson option.

You know, you look at Flacco, and if it's a hip, everyone knows. A hip, you're not mobile. Yeah. I can come to your aim. It kind of changes your game plan, whereas with Jackson, your playbook wide open. If he is really hurting, you can't play him. If he's healthy again, and I know people don't like Flacco, and I understand what his flaws are, but he's won a lot of big road games in the postseason where he's played very well for that franchise over the years.

They've got some big road games. Their schedule, they play, you know, they play at it. Atlanta this week, which, I mean, say what you want about the Falcons. We know they can score. They got to go to Arrowhead the following week. And then three weeks, or at the end of December, they got to go to Los Angeles to play the Chargers. They got to win probably two of those three, definitely one of them. I just don't know if Jackson can do it right now. But he is fun to watch. Hey, did you watch Ohio State, Michigan? Yeah, I watched Ohio State, Michigan.

Ohio State dump Michigan. I really thought Michigan would come out and win that game. Me too. The way you've seen Ohio State wire receivers attack Michigan DBs, it exposed Michigan because their DBs are slow, they're holding. On every plate they're holding, they're pulling or locking arms. And Ohio State DV, I mean, wire receivers just wanted it more. You know, when you look at Ohio State that struggled the week before against Maryland,

gave up all kind of running lanes, they were coming downhill, hid Michigan. They weren't intimidated by Michigan. They got the quarterback rattle early, and he was just off target. So when you look at Ohio State, their gain a momentum. And it was just that we're going to have a good game. We're going to put together a complete game. And it came at the perfect time. It came at the perfect time.

Couldn't come at a better time. It was their best game of the year. I'm with you. I thought Michigan's defense was good. I thought they finally had a bit of a playmaker, a quarterback. I thought they could run the ball against Ohio State, and I thought they were going to go into Columbus and win. The question now is, if Bama beats Georgia, you think they will, right?

Yeah, I think they will. But if it go the other way, it's hard to keep Bama out. You know, you look at this makeup with Notre Dame and, Clemson. What is, what's the one, two, three? It's, well, Bama, Clemson, Notre Dame right now, and Georgia's, Georgia will be four, but obviously they play Bama on Saturday.

Yeah, so it's kind of tough to screw Georgia, win or lose, and it's tough to screw Alabama's and Clemson. So if one of these teams were to slip up, it's hard to say, well, you know what, let's take them out when they've been so consistent all season long. And who do you put in?

You know, who scouts? Ohio State sitting there, Ohio State and Oklahoma are sitting there right now waiting to take one of those spots if they're upsets this weekend. But I'm sort of- Oklahoma defense is horrible bad, man. Like Oklahoma defense, it's kind of like I would get them the same speech that I give the same defense. Hey, guys, if y'all can go out and get two stops and we can win this game. I just need y'all to make two plays in this entire game,

and I will blitz you every down. other than that. Just give me two stops. After we get two stops, I blitz every down. That defense is really bad, but offensively, they score when they get ready. Yeah, I mean, I think that they, I think it's a worst defense, Power 5 defense I've seen in a long, long time. They don't even look interested in playing defense. And Ohio State's been pretty bad defensively all year long as well until Sunday. I'm sort of with you. I think if Alabama loses a Saturday, I don't know how you keep them out. And so that would be, that would mean Alabama, Clemson, Notre Dame, Georgia. I don't know how you put Oklahoma in over Alabama or Ohio State

in over Alabama if Bama loses to Georgia. Now, if they got blown out and they got exposed somehow, like we haven't seen anybody else expose them, um, maybe we would have a different feeling, but, I mean, Oklahoma plays Texas. Ohio State plays northwestern. Bambah. Bama's got Georgia in the SEC title game. If they lose, they're still in. Some people think if Georgia loses a close game to Bama, they should be in over Oklahoma and Ohio State. I don't personally think that would happen,

but I'll tell you what, Clinton, I think Georgia's better than Oklahoma and Ohio State. I think LSU's better than Oklahoma and Ohio State, but they obviously don't have a shot after they lost that seven overtime game. What else you got going on? I'm just telling man, and join sports. You look at LSU, LSU, let the

game slip away seven oversime. 74 to 72, that's like impossible, the highest scoring game that I've seen. It's the highest scoring game ever. That's crazy. But, you know what? That's what they want. They've taken

defenses out of games with all these targeting and personal files, and you can't hear. somebody. A lot of the players run up to the pile and kind of stop and then you have someone break away and it's like, oh, well, he could have made that chopper, well, he could have got

kicked out of the game at the same time. Right. So much thinking in football. Even when you look at around the NFL, it's the same way. You know, you look at the skins against the Cowboys, three guys around and know why the hits. And then all of a sudden he's scary. He scoched

for 90 yards. You know, when you look at plays like that, man, it just comes from everyone thinking about the penalty or you overrun plays and you let the quarterback, you can't hit the quarterback, you know, you look at that, um, the play that Dack made where he running through our alignment, you know, it's like, oh, well, okay, he got him down. I'm not going to jump on the power. Oh, no, he let him go. Now here I come and I miss the tackle.

It's hard. He throws the ball into the end zone. Yeah, it's really hard for defenses. You can say, well, no one is playing defense anymore. But the defense got so much thinking to do in the midst of a play, trying to stay on the hill, trying not to get fined, trying not to get kicked out of the game. College and NFL, it's just totally different.

You know, you look at how everything is set up for the offense to go out and be spectacular. And the defense just got to kind of hope. You know what? If we can hold them to 30, we can win. Well, the good news is the last few years in the Post-Sense, season, NFL postseason. I think they've let them play a little bit. I hope they do the same thing when we get to January. 26 minutes with Clinton Portis. That's the name of his podcast. You can listen to it wherever you get podcasts, and you can go to Redskins.com and listen to it as

well. I appreciate the time. As always, I'll see you later this week. All right, man. No problem. Catch you later. Okay. Wind Donation. 321. All right. Let me tell you about Wind Donation. They enjoy this podcast, Harley, Aaron, Eric, listen all the time. Eric went down for the game Thanksgiving Day in Dallas. If you've been thinking about new windows, I promise you, as someone who has had Windon Nation install windows in my home, you can't go wrong by giving them a call. Time is running out on Window Nation's deal of the year. This week is the final week for buy two windows, get two windows free, by four, get four free, by six, get six free with no limit. plus zero percent financing for five full years. Save that well-earned money to splurge on your family, friends, yourself this holiday.

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save forever. Call 86690 Nation or visitwindonation.com and tell them I told you to call. All right, a couple of quick thoughts just on the skins from the other day. First of all, I mentioned the other day that it's been 26 seasons since we did that. The Redskins, right now they will enter December with a share of the lead in the NFC East. They have only had the share or the outright lead entering December now three times. This is the third time in the last 27 seasons. I said 26 on Friday.

It's 27 seasons. Assuming it does happen. Thursday could give the Cowboys the outright lead. That is the 30th. That is true. You know what? That is a fair point because they're playing on Thursday. But if they lose, then the Redskins have the outright lead.

Yeah, and they're going to lose. Right. So there you go. But anyway, I wasn't, you know, some of you accused me of getting overly excited about this, about their position on Friday. And that's fair. I am definitely a Redskin fan that, you know, has every year sort of year year yearns for, you know, big games in December, like meaningful games, not this bullshit that we've experienced. too often over the last 27 years where you get to December and basically football for the team you're rooting for is over. I mean, it's just happened way too much. You know, the truth of the matter

is the last, including this year, we're now into a four-year stretch of some of the most productive football that this organization's had in a quarter century. You know, they were nine and seven, won the division in 2015, eight, seven and one, seven and nine last year, and they're six, and five right now entering December. Do you know how many Decembers have been much worse than the last four, at least entering them? But yeah, it's not that I'm overly excited, and that's what I wanted to sort of get to, because it's like, where is all of this heading? You know, where is it heading? I am excited that they are going to play a big Monday night game, a meaningful Monday night game in Philadelphia, you know, for the outright division lead more likely than not if the Cowboys lose to

the Saints. And then they've got, you know, a game against the Giants that'll be big, not for the Giants, but it's a division game. It'll be big. And then there's the prospect of a season-ending game at home against Philadelphia for potentially the division or a wild card spot or something. I agree that Dallas should be the favorite. They should be a heavy favorite right now to win the division. I mean, the Cowboys, you know, they're going to lose to the Saints, but then they get the Eagles at home, they get the Buccaneers at home, they'll finish on the road in the Meadowlands against the Giants. Those are three games more likely than not they'll be favored in. They do have a game at Indy on December 16th. But if they get three out of their last five, that's nine and seven.

You know, if their wins are the right wins over the Eagles and the Giants, which would complete the sweep over the Eagles, it would complete the sweep over the Giants. It'd have the split with the Redskins. If the Redskins, you know, split with the Eagles, they'd have to complete with the Eagles. They'd have a better division record, Dallas would. But the prospect of playing a close-out game is, I don't know. I guess that's what I wanted to say, is that where is all of this heading? Because I sense for many of you that you're not nearly as excited for this. And I get it. There's a recognition by reasonable people. And I put myself into this group that they're not going anywhere if they get to the postseason.

This is not one of those years where you say, hey, you know, if they get to 9 and 7 and just get in, it's wide open in the NFC. It's not wide open in the NFC. It could be in five weeks with serious injuries to people like Jared Gophe and Drew Brees. That has happened before. But right now, as it stands,

the Redskins are not one of the NFC teams that have even a prayer of winning against either one of those two teams. on the road at home or anywhere else. Nobody's beating them, certainly not these Redskins. So I get that there is that reasonable view. But it's more than that too, right? Because look, if they win 10, what if they win for the final 5,

then win a playoff game at home and lose in New Orleans, it would be a place that they haven't been in 12 years. But it's still, I don't think, would excite us. lot of you. And for me, I would understand that what is the future? You know, what are we buying into, even if they make that sort of run? The Smith trade hasn't panned out. I thought it would pan out better than it has. I did, but it may never pan out. Adam Schaefter reported over the weekend, and I've got to find the story. I'll just paraphrase what it was. It was one of those stories that read like his career may be in jeopardy,

that the injuries were serious and the surgery was serious, but at the same time he may come back healthy. So who knows? But the headline was like, you know, Alex Smith's leg injury could be career threatening. But all of that goes into it, right? It's not just the fact that that injury could be career threatening. It's the fact that he didn't play very well through most of the year when we saw him.

So you look at him and you say, well, the future quarterback doesn't look great. and that's always a big part of any sort of futuristic thinking about your favorite football team. Not to mention that the Alex Smith deal is going to be a lot of guaranteed money tied up salary cap-wise. Then there's more than just that. It's the lack of confidence, which I also have, in Bruce Allen and in Jay Gruden, to be the two lead faces for this organization. You know, I think everybody understood, at least I understood, that this season was a playoff or bust season coming in. Now the prospect out there is that they could go to the playoffs, but you're going to still end up with this feeling of, is the arrow pointed in the right direction?

You know, you have a lot of things going on here with Dan Snyder. He's going to have some big decisions to make. You know, there's been unprecedented fan apathy. Unprecedented. That Indianapolis home opener, there's never. been anything like that. The Houston game was a good home crowd environment, but it was far from a sellout. You haven't had one legitimate sellout game this year, not one. And they've been good, record-wise. So you've got all these things that work. So I do sort of understand when someone says,

great, there are meaningful games, but where is this going? Yeah, I understand that. I do. There's no path right now to sustain success. There may never be with Dan Snyder as the owner. I think everybody understands that to a certain degree. But when it comes to just sort of the football roster, they're young and improved on defense. There's hope there. But you got a quarterback situation that's very much up in the air now. And you've got a head coach that really most of the fan base doesn't believe in. And for me, I've said it for three years running. He's a middle of the pack coach. He is, you know, there are 12, 13, 14 guys he's better than, but there are definitely 12, 13, you know, guys that he's nowhere near are certainly not better than. I mean,

he's in the middle of the pack. And, you know, it's a loose atmosphere with Jay and he does some things really well. He designs a really good pass offense, but, you know, he doesn't have a quarterback right now to run it. We don't think. Anyway, next Monday night, a week from tonight is a big game. It's a big game. It's a divisional game against the defending Super Bowl champions. We're trying to keep their season alive, a season that's been very disappointing for them

against a Redskins team that will start Colt McCoy with actual practice leading up to this game, so maybe he will play better than he did in Dallas. I can tell you this, he can't turn the ball over three times. If he does, they're going to get whooped badly. Okay, let me tell you about Ferris, Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep in Fairfax, Virginia. Ralph Perkins, Kevin Ferris, they're the best. They understand their customers better than any dealership in town.

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If you've been thinking about a Jeep right now, Cherokees, Grand Cherokees, Ranglers, great time to buy. They're located right there. Fairfax Circle. Ask for Ralph Perkins when you get there. Tell him, I told you to come in and say hello. He'll put you in touch with their best salesperson. Find out everything you need to know right now at ferrishcars.com. All right. Let's get to weekend DVR. Did you have a busy weekend? Don't worry. We've got you covered. It's time for weekend DVR. All right, a couple of these things that we've already touched on, or I did with Clinton. The Ohio State Michigan game. I mean,

I didn't see that coming. I didn't. I thought Michigan's defense was legit. They got absolutely torched by Ohio State's athletes, and Haskins had the best game. I think I've seen him play, and their defense played by far and away, and that was probably the key more than anything else in that game, is that defensively, Ohio State's been pretty bad at times this year. Nebraska moved the ball up and down the field against them. Maryland did the same. Purdue, you know, they couldn't stop Purdue. You know, they couldn't really stop Penn State in that game. They couldn't stop TCU, remember, early in the year.

Hell, Oregon State. Remember when they opened this season Labor Day weekend with one of the worst college football programs in America, and Oregon State scored in the 30s against Ohio State's defense? But Ohio State's defense, and I know they gave up 39. Ultimately, they gave up 39 points, but a lot of it was in the fourth quarter. Michigan scored 20 points in the fourth quarter when the game. was completely out of hand. But man, Haskins was great in this game. He was really good in this

game. 20 to 31, nearly 400 yards. I think the final number was 396. Six touchdowns. And look, he's got athletes. I mean, Paris Campbell, that dude's got ridiculous speed, KJ Hill, all of them. I mean, they're really good. And then they got the running back tandem of Dobbins and Weber. We didn't even see Weber. I never heard the story as to why Weber didn't play at Maryland. Was he suspended for that game? But Michigan couldn't do anything in this game. That's not true. They got back into the game right before the end of the first half. It was 24 to 19 at halftime. Their tight end dropped two passes that were crucial early in the third quarter when they were down one score and had a chance to move the ball and tie the game. And geez, you got a hard ball going for two every time. I don't know what

the hell he was thinking about. These analytics people, they're driving these coaches nuts. But Ohio State dominated. I mean, they played the best game of the year, both sides of the ball, not even close. Michigan hadn't played an offensive team like Ohio State. I did mention that on Friday, but I still thought they were really good defensively. A couple of other things. Did you see Urban Meyer, Aaron, on the sideline? He picked up a 15-yard penalty early for arguing. you know, he's got this cyst thing on his brain, and it's benign, but it's a condition that causes him severe headaches when he gets very stress. And there have been a couple times in recent weeks where he's been bent over on the sideline.

Oh, yeah, the entire game against Maryland. It's like the Roy Williams situation for North Carolina. We've seen Roy. He apparently gets dizzy spells, stress-related dizzy spells, and he'll go down on one knee on the sideline, and you're like, Good God, are you going to live? Urban Meyer, I mean, he looks like a guy that is about to bust. But his team was really, really good.

There's one thing he did. I can't stand these coaches when they have a quarterback that is absolutely killing it, and they get into a first and goal situation, and they put the backup quarterback in for some special red zone package. And this number 18, the quarterback for Ohio State, they went first and goal to a field goal attempt. I'm like, why would you do that? Game was still competitive first half.

Haskins just moved you down the field. I think sometimes these college coaches, they promise some of these recruits playing time as freshmen, and it's like, oh, we'll work some packages up for you, your freshman year. Now, you're playing Michigan. Don't put number 18 into the game on first and goal from the three. They got nothing and had to kick a field goal.

Auburn, Alabama. that game was a game at halftime. It was a legit game. It wasn't a game as it turned out. They won 52 to 21. It was 17 to 14 at halftime. And I want to point out one situation from that game because it gets to the CBS broadcast crew.

I love Brad Nestler and I loved Vern who did the CBS SEC games for years. I just cannot listen to Gary Danielson anymore. You know, I mentioned during the LSU game when they had Devin White out in suspended for the first half, how he was talking in this very submissive way about just get to halftime, you know, so you can get Devin Whiteback. Don't do anything crazy. Don't take any chances. You just got to get there down 10. We did the same thing with Auburn at the end of the first half. They get the ball back. They've got momentum. They had blocked a punt, scored a touchdown on a, on a halfback, you know, on a trick play to get it to 17, 14. Then they hold BAM and a three and out.

Get the punt back. And they've got it. First and 10 at their own 30 with a minute 20 left. And Gary Danielson starts talking about, don't do anything, run the clock out, take some knees and get to the halftime. I mean, it's 17-14. Wouldn't you take that before the game started? You can't play that way against Bama. Are you kidding me?

I mean, you talk about submissive and soft. And guess what? Gus Malz-on. basically ran the clock out at the end of the half. And many of you, I tweeted something, and many of you didn't get what I was saying. It was more of a direct criticism of Danielson and Malzahn, Gus Malzon to a certain extent.

They said, what's the difference? Bama won the game 52 to 21. The difference is they could have potentially had the lead or been tied at the half. They actually had some momentum there at the end of the first half. They were playing good defense. Bama punted, I think, three times in the first. half. When has that happened? I just can't, I cannot stand. I love Brad Nestler. I hope that CBS

replaces Danielson next year. I mean, no wonder he was such a bad NFL quarterback. I mean, he plays not to lose more than anybody I've ever heard broadcast a game in terms of the way he calls a game. Bama won these. 52 to 21. They dominated the second half. And There are 13 and a half point favorite over Georgia in the SEC title game. I thought it was going to be more. I think Georgia is going to be a smell test pick. I can't guarantee that. Look, Bama is, in recent weeks, what you've seen is if you are physical

and you are tricky a little bit in the run game, you can actually run it a little bit. Auburn did in the first half with that guy Whitlow, who looks like a pro to me. And, you know, if you're physical with them, if you've got a defense like Georgia does, like Mississippi State does, like Auburn does, you can bang them up a little bit. You know, they weren't dominant offensively in that game until, you know, some of the turnovers started to come. Anyway, 13 and a half in the SEC title game. Notre Dame SC was a smell test pick.

I really like J.T. Daniels. I think he's going to be a pro quarterback one day, SC's freshman quarterback. He missed a couple games because he was injured. You can see some baller in him, and they've got talent. They're going to replace Clay Helton. I don't know who's going to get that job. I saw Kevin Sumlin's name floated. Are you kidding me?

Why would SC want Sumlin? And then the other part of that, why would Chris Peterson leave Washington? for Southern Cow. I saw that too. You know, Washington's a pretty good job with a crazy home field advantage and very rabid fan base too. Why would he want to be in L.A.? And of course, it's money. Dino Babers, that's a guy they should want, the Syracuse coach. But anyway, Notre Dame came back. You know, they showed some resolve there. They won the game. They're going to be in the playoff. They finished the regular season. unbeaten. They were down 10-0 in that game. There were other opportunities for SC to

score, and they just couldn't get over the hump like they haven't been able to all year long. And then there was one of the craziest games in NFL history. It was not a game that had any playoff implications, Texas A&M and LSU. It was a game. I talked a little bit about this game on Friday because A&M was a three-point favorite, and I thought it, you know, Somebody tweeted me, A&M's going to be in your smell test. And I said, you know what? I checked and the action was split, but I could understand why this guy thought I would put A&M in the smell test. I thought it was surprising, too, that they were a three-point favorite.

But it wasn't. It wasn't. But I will tell you, I personally had Texas A&M laying three. And they won by two. So I wanted another overtime. I wanted an eighth overtime. And it should have happened. It was terrible what happened to LSU in this game.

They had a game-winning interception at the end of the game overturned. They gave Ed Ogeron the Gatorade Bath on the sideline. Game was over. Interception by Delpit, their safety, who's going to be in the NFL. And the quarterback had taken a snap and had put a knee down. So that got overturned. There was a fourth and 18 late where the A&M receiver clearly came up short, and they gave him a first down.

The play was not reviewed. have ended the game. There was a game winning fumble ruled incomplete that was never reviewed. And then the worst of all of them, in the seventh overtime, you have to go for two beginning in the third overtime. For those of you that don't know the college football playoff rule, and I'm going to get to that also in a moment. It went back and forth. There wasn't one overtime period in this game where there was a stop. The game went to overtime, by the way, on the last play of regular violation. Texas A&M got to play, spike the ball. The clock I think got hung up there. I think it should have run out, but they went back and put a second on the clock, and they threw a touchdown

pass on the final play of the game. Goes to overtime. It was first overtime, two field goals. Second overtime, two touchdowns with two regular PATs. Third overtime, both teams score. Both teams make two point conversions. Fourth overtime, two field goals. Fifth overtime, both teams score touchdowns missed the two-point conversions. Sixth overtime, both teams score touchdowns and both make two-point conversions. And then in the seventh overtime, LSU got it first. Joe Burrough scores, he had a hell of a game for LSU, their quarterback. They missed the PAT.

So they've got a 72-66 lead. And this was one of those situations in the seventh overtime where it got nutty, because none of these teams were really pressed at all with defense in the overtime. Let me just say this. There were about seven occasions during the end of fourth quarter and overtimes where the win probability for one team over the other was 95% plus, and it didn't work out. There were long shots after long shots that came through.

And then in the seventh overtime with LSU up 6, 7266, finally, there is an actual big defensive play, and there's like a second in 15 and a third in 15. And on third and 15, they throw a pass that is, they throw a touchdown pass, and it's 72, 72. And then what happens is just the worst,

one of the worst calls you'll ever see. And I think what happened was the referees just got to the point where they want, wanted it to end. It was a really odd and weird feel to this game. The crowd had sort of emptied a little bit up top, but you could see it in the upper, upper decks. I mean, this, there's a game, this game lasted five hours. And the crowd that was left was very subdued. I mean, they were exhausted. And so on the PAT attempt, down 74, 72, there's a throw that's way over the head of the receiver. There's no contact. And the flag comes up.

out interference. There was no contact at all. None. And then what made it worse was that it was their really good corner, greedy Williams, that was called for the pass interference. He gets pissed and yells at the referee and the referee throws his hat as a second flag. And so they move the ball to the one and now they've got a chance to complete, to go for two again. and they complete a pass for the two-point conversion and the win. 74-72 final, the highest scoring football game in FBS history. I don't know that there's ever been a higher scoring game, period. I mean, in terms of the NFL or college football, major college football in the last century.

Maybe one double A or division two, something like that. 74 to 72 was the final score. LSU got completely hosed in this game. Completely hosed. and I was rooting for A&M to cover. So I needed an eighth overtime where A&M would have gotten the ball first, and I needed one of those where they scored, got the two-point conversion, or didn't,

and then stopped LSU. But nobody could stop anybody in the game. In the game, Texas A&M ran the number of plays. Hold on, I just had it a second ago. They ended up running in the game, 107 plays they ran in the game. 107. LSU ran 90 plays in the game. And that'll just get me to this.

I've never liked the college overtime rule. I think it's gimmicky. It's like you don't have special teams. You don't force a team to drive the football. To me, it's always been a gimmicky way to decide a football game that was played in a much different way through the first 60 minutes. So I've always hated it.

But I'll tell you this, if safety is an issue in college football, which it is like it is in the NFL, they're going to have to do something because these players were exhausted. They couldn't, it was so obvious that it was dangerous from an injury standpoint. I don't know how they would decide it other than, I mean, personally, I would love to just see the old, not the old. the recent NFL rule at 15 minutes. Each team gets a shot unless you score a touchdown on the opening drive. And in college football, that may be, you know, you may want to give each team a chance even if there is a touchdown scored on the opening drive.

But I want to see real football played. I want to see special teams played. Look, if you love the college football rule, that's fine. Have at it. I'm not here to argue it. I just personally don't love it. Other things from the weekend. I did pay for Tiger Phil on Friday.

Did you get a refund? Yeah, apparently everybody's going to get a refund. I don't know how that works, how they're going to give everybody a refund because I guess they had technical glitches, and in some areas the country people got it for free. How are they going to pay? Phil, his $9 million. The advertising money, perhaps.

I mean, Capital One was a big sponsor of the thing. Let me just say this. It wasn't that good. It just wasn't that good. I felt like it was just so, you know, it was strange because at the beginning of the broadcast, They're showing the course, which is a spectacular course. I have not played Shadow Creek.

I know people that have out in Vegas, and they say it's spectacular. But they kept talking about how the 17th, the par 317th, is the signature hole. And I'm thinking, well, they may not get to the 17th. This is matchplay. They knew they were getting to the 17th. And the 17th provided the most drama, which couldn't have been fixed because Tiger chipped in from off the green, to basically push it to an 18th and final hole. Of course, it wasn't the final hole.

because they went to one playoff hole after the other. It was finally decided on the 22nd hole with Mickelson winning, and that's because they were giving each other like four and five foot putts, which was just the whole thing. Let me just say this, I'll never buy it again. And they're talking about, ooh, the next one's going to be Justin Thomas and Jordan Speeith. I guarantee you I'm not paying for that. I will not pay for a tiger versus anybody in the future.

And it was only 1995. It wasn't like it was super expensive, and it looks like I'm going to get it for free. I'll say this. I was following some people who were at various sports books or whatever while this was going on. I bet that would have been fun. It would have been fun there, but if you had Phil and he's given Tiger five-foot putts to say, I don't want it to end this way, I just didn't, the whole thing. The broadcast wasn't great either.

I mean, Barclay was on it. He was fine. Pat Perez was like the big star that they were trying to promote. as part of the broadcast? I don't know. I wouldn't do it again. The Wizards had a weekend. Actually, let me just say this. The caps are on a roll. The Caps beat the Rangers and the Red Wings, I think, since we last did a show. They were behind in that Rangers game, and they rolled back in the third period to win that game five to three. So they just went from being next to last in the Metropolitan they're now in first in the Metropolitan.

So good weekend for them. I paid more attention, as I normally do, to the Wizards, who really sort of laid an egg on Friday night against Toronto. Okay, I mean, but Wall was just a turnover machine. It was painful to watch him on Friday night. And they played Toronto. Okay, they played Toronto. Kauai Leonard went for like 27 and 10 and had a bunch of steams.

and was really good in the game. And then they came back against a Pelicans team without Anthony Davis playing, all right, and beat the Pelicans 1-24 to 114. And in that particular game, again, no Anthony Davis playing. All right, that's a rather big deal. They really won it in the fourth quarter. And I'll tell you who I just, I did not like him in Los Angeles, but Austin Rivers can play.

He can really play, and he is a point guard that can create his own offense. John can't rely on his jump shot. Austin Rivers can. Rivers was really good in the game. I don't know how many points he ended up with, but he was knocking down shots left and right. He got to the rim a couple times and finished in that game, and the Wizards beat the Pelicans.

They're seven and 12. And they play the Rockets tonight. So James Hardens in town, if you want to go watch him. I'll save the Dwight Howard stuff for Tommy tomorrow. Oh, I did want to mention Maryland had a game on Friday night against Marshall, who was undefeated. They were a tournament team last year, and they won a game in the tournament. They beat West Virginia in the tournament last year to get to that weekend, first weekend. and they've got most of their players back.

They're predicted to do very well in their league. Maryland beat them 104 to 67, and at one point in the second half, they were up 50 on Marshall. They had 90 points Maryland did, and there were still six and a half minutes left in the game, and then they went with a bunch of substitutions. I think they could have scored 115, 120 if they had wanted to. It was the most points scored in the Turgeon era.

That's really, 104 is the most in the Turgeon era? Yes. I actually can believe that. They have a huge game. I'm assuming, Aaron, they're going to be ranked today. It'll be close. It'll be very close. I think they're going to be 25 or 26.

I saw one person published their ballot wasn't on there. So it'll be right there. Obviously, they haven't really, it depends how you view that win. Was it just them beating a subpar team or was it them beating a decent team? All right. Gonzaga, I think, well, I don't know if they're going to leapfrog Kansas, because Kansas came back and beat Tennessee in overtime, and Tennessee is a fifth-ranked team in the country.

Tennessee blew a lead in that game. But Maryland's got Virginia in the ACCC Big Ten on Wednesday night at Xfinity. I'll be there looking forward to it. I think I'm going to go with Scott. I think that's what I'm going to do. And the reason I'll probably do that is because his seats are always really good. They give me good seats if I, I ask, but they give him the best seats, which is what they should do. But I'm looking forward to

that. I mean, that's, you know, Marilyn played a team that played him in man to man essentially for the first time this year. And you saw Bruno Fernando, who is really, really growing. I mean, for all of you guys that say, oh, Turgeon doesn't develop players, Bruno Fernando's gotten a lot better since he got here, a lot better. And they do have guys that can shoot, even though it didn't look like that in the first few games. It'll be interesting. I mean, a big test. And then they open up Big Ten play this coming weekend. Right? They have Penn State, and then they go on the road against Purdue, I think, the following week. So some big tests coming up for Maryland who is undefeated, and we'll find out later on today whether or not they are ranked.

I did want to mention one other thing real quickly, too. I keep saying one other thing, one other thing. What does it take for a roughing the punter call now? When's the last time, seriously, as a football fan, you watched a game and you saw roughing the punter, 15 yards called versus running into the kicker, the five-yard variety. Because Marilyn's punter weighed lease on Saturday in the game against Penn State. They got blown out at Penn State so they don't go to a bowl game. He got roughed in a way that was truly like dangerous to his health, the leg extended, and he gets barreled into. And they call the five-yard running into the kicker.

and I was back and forth, you know, I had the Maryland game on one, actually on my computer screen and I had Auburn, Alabama on the main TV. I just, it seems like we never get a roughing the punter anymore. Congrats overall, though, to the Maryland kids who had about as much drama and tragedy as any team this year in college football had. They won five games and they nearly won a sixth last. week against Ohio State. And that would have knocked Ohio State completely out of the playoff picture. So it wouldn't have mattered that they beat Michigan on Saturday if Piggy could have just thrown to a wide open receiver. But I give those kids and I give Matt Canada a lot of credit because they were a competitive outfit this year. And it didn't look

like at the beginning of the year with everything that was going on that they had a chance to win five or six games. They didn't get to five, six, and bowl eligibility. You know, the bowl situation is interesting. There are 78 bowl spots, and there are now, I think, 81 or 82 bowl eligible teams. So there are some teams that aren't going to go to a bowl game. Personally, I'll just finish this up. I think Alabama will beat Georgia. Clemson's not losing to pit.

Notre Dame's in. And I think Ohio State with a win over Northwestern is going to be the fourth team. I think the win over Michigan was so impressive. And if they follow that up with another impressive win, over Northwestern, even though it's not a great team they're going to beat. I think Ohio State's going to be the fourth team. Unless Georgia loses like some controversial game, Pitt's not beating Clemson.

To me, there are two locks right now. Clemson and Notre Dame are in. And Bama has their toughest game of the year. They do. And it's going to be, you know, that crowd, it'll be interesting in Atlanta. Could be a Georgia crowd. Can't wait for that game. That's about the only championship game that's worth looking forward to on Saturday.

All right. Thanks to Clinton Portis for joining us on the show. Thanks to Aaron for producing the show. Tommy's with me tomorrow. Lots to get to, including the Colt McCoy performance. I know he will want to weigh in on that. And maybe we'll get to the Dwight Howard stuff as well. Have a great day.