The Kevin Sheehan Show - Latest Redskins Rock Bottom

Episode Date: November 18, 2019

Kevin opened with his reaction to the Redskins-Jets game and an update to the Bruce Allen situation. He went Around the NFL, talked College Football, and ended with his thoughts on the Colin Kapernick circus on Saturday. <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. Donald starts the game three for three. Bunch formation this time to the left side. From the 20-yard line of the Redskins.

Arnold, moving to his left. Now he falls to the end zone touchdown. Daniel Brown. We're getting used to this. Another one of those moments. If you watched it, And many of you didn't. The Redskins lost to the Jets, 34 to 17.

If you watch the beginning of it or if you were there for some of it, if you were one of the few splattered across the stadium yesterday with your own section of seats available to you for like $6. The score was actually 34 to 3 with 10 minutes left in the game. This was a team in the Jets that came into the game yesterday. with 22 players on their injured list. I'm here, Aaron's here, that's it for the day, lots to get to, including the state of this football team. The game was a blowout, it was a massacre, it was a bloodbath beat down.

The Redskins were annihilated, I mean, slaughtered by a horrifyingly atrocious football team, the JETS Jets, Jets, Jets. This was a loss uglier than any other this year, I think. There's several to choose from, but it's a loss that once again has brought us to a new, as we've called it in the past, rock bottom. There is some good news, Aaron. There's some good news. Bill Callahan admitted after the game that they weren't close yesterday. You know, that's an encouraging sign because maybe it means Bill and the rest of those idiots out in Ashburn have finally come to their senses and maybe had a come-to-Jesus moment. You know, the moment where they realize that a woodshed beating by the jets isn't close.

You know, it is, it's Perth, Australia to Washington, D.C. All right. It's a 24-hour round trip. I haven't done Perth. I've done Sydney. 24 hours door-to-door. Longest trip have ever taken. Love Sydney, Australia.

Totally worth it. I want you to listen to what you just said. It's a good sign that they admitted they're bad. Yeah. That's where we're at right now. That's the bar. Yeah, well, you know, you need for an organization that lacks self-awareness, you want to hear every once in a while an indication that they realize what reality is. They can read, Aaron. One in nine is the way it reads. You know, I would hope that they now realize after 10 games that the laughter they've been hearing

is actually directed towards them, that they're not participating it at the expense of somebody else. It's them. You know, I don't know. They are in my view right now the worst team in the NFL. It's debatable I know with the Bengals. I watch some of the Raiders Bengals game on Red Zone. And I think the Bengals are probably better. You know, not record-wise, but I think they would beat the Redskins.

I think they have more talent. Yeah, I do. I do too. I've got a game recap, you know, which we will get to. I know that we've said this multiple times this year. It's like, what's the point? Well, you know, we don't want to get out of practice. the game recap will include, you know, more of a detailed breakdown of Dwayne Haskins.

I'm going to stick with my promise of not bailing on Haskins until I've seen more games. Yesterday, however, was not a good day for him. That's for sure. He wasn't the worst of the skins problems yesterday, but he sure wasn't really set up. It didn't appear to be part of any solution either. You know, he looked uncomfortable. He looked slow. He looked sure for much of the game, but there were other things in the game that were just as bad. But more on that coming up when I get to my game recap. The big picture, though, is what I'm going to talk about here at the beginning. And I know that it gets repetitive after a while.

You know, when we do these, the organization sucks, the culture's terrible things. During one of these rock bottom moments, a lot of you have always enjoyed it. A lot of you that aren't even watching the games enjoy this. stuff more than the games themselves. I understand that to a certain degree. It's the rubbernecking, you know, uh, theory, you know, that you just love to see a train wreck and hear, you know, people describe the train wreck and watch the whole thing from afar. Um, but I, I know it gets repetitive. But remember, the root cause of this, the game is just the symptom. The root cause of all of this, uh, you know, this sickness is an organization that just can't do it. You know, an owner that

just doesn't know how to do it. You know, you know, you know, the game is just doesn't know how to do it. Yesterday was one of those organizational losses. You know, we've had dozens of them over the years, but it was one of those losses that you just watch and realize once again that we've reached another one of those, you know, rock bottom moments again. Each one comes with the feeling that it's never been worse, you know, and yesterday is the worst. You know, it's no different than the last time we felt this way.

It seems like a new low. This one, given the actual outcome of the game, like a terrible team, just slapping you down so easily. And then also in light of recent claims of being close or having a damn good culture, that context just hammers home once again how clueless they are. Bruce has to go, okay? I think he will. It's coming true this time. I was wrong last year.

Most of you, most of my media people and friends insist that I will be wrong again. But his mere presence here means you cannot attract high-quality people to take jobs to help turn this thing around. Let me repeat this because I want to make sure it's emphasized, but I also want to make clear that I'm not reporting this, okay? I have a very strong hunch that Bruce Allen's in the final few months with this organization. organization. It's a hunch based on, yes, some conversations that I've had. It's far from a lock, but I believe that it's going to happen. We'll see. And I'm not saying that Dan by himself is better off than Dan with Bruce, but I actually do believe that Dan's got a better chance of getting somebody to come here without Bruce here. Nobody decent is coming here to try to fix this mess

with Bruce Allen here. That's not going to happen. The sell the team chance at the stadium yesterday, we've seen these before. Dan's not selling the team, and as long as he owns it, we're going to have these rock bottom moments to discuss in future years. Maybe the next one comes, I don't know,

maybe they lose to the Giants late in the year, 47 to 10, something like that. That could be a rock bottom. The next one, next year, you know, at 0 and 5, and they lose to a bad team. I don't know. It's coming again. I mean, it's predictable. He's already proven Dan has over a long enough period of time that he can't do this. You know, he's just not good at this. I don't know what he's good at this. He's tried everything. You know, give him credit for trying everything. You know, big names like Schottenheimer and Shanahan, up-and-comers like Zorn and Gruden. I don't even know of Zorn really should be called an up-and-comer.

the famous college coach in Spurrier, the former Hall of Fame glory days coach Joe Gibbs. You know, he's overspent on free agents, not emphasized the draft, underspent on free agents with more focus on the draft. That didn't work. He had a yes man in Vinnie Serrato, a troubled but talented Scott McLuhan,

who they really didn't give much say-so to. And of course, Bruce, 60, 96, and 1 now. That's the record since he got here. That god-awful record accompanied by his off-putting style that has made him enemy 1A. The organization was a clown show in 2009 when he got here. It wasn't very good. It's worse now because it feels so much lower rent than it was then.

There's nothing likable about them. That's why some of you aren't even hoping for a turnaround. You're actually rooting for it to get worse. and it's getting there. This season more than any other of these rock bottom seasons has a chance, a good chance, to be the worst ever. They've never been one and 15 before. They've never been 2 and 14 before.

3 and 13 is the worst it's ever gotten. It's pretty clear that 1 and 15 is not only in play, but it may be as likely as 2 and 14 with anything better than 2 and 14 being a long. shot. The telltale on just how hated this organization is by so many of you that used to call yourselves fans is that you're rooting for one in 15 and not just for draft positioning. You want to see these bastards pay for what they've done to the thing that we loved so long. They've ruined it. He's ruined it. And you want to see him pay for it. What he's done is hard to do. I've mentioned this before, Aaron, about, you know, HBS or Wharton should do a case study on this franchise.

You know, 20 years ago, he inherited a massively loyal customer base. That was large. And because of incompetence, he has not only chased them away, but he's made them hate the team in the process. It's not an easy thing to do. This tweet I got from Denny earlier today. this show you're doing is a repeat. I enjoy it, but how do you feel, Kevin? How do you summon up the energy to do it over and over and over again? You know what, Denny? It's how I feel this morning. That's what you're hearing. Or today, whenever you're listening to this. I may get to the point where they lose to a terrible team and a terrible season, and it's clearly an offshoot of the culture they've created, and maybe I won't care. Maybe I'll do something else. But I do,

still have this desire to have a team that I've rooted for my whole life be in meaningful games in November and December and January. There was nothing better. I read this tweet on the air earlier and I mentioned that I am overly nostalgic at times when it comes to things like this. It's a, I guess it's a personal flaw to a certain degree. I am, I am, I am, sickened by what Dan Snyder's done to this. You know, a sacred trust, a community galvanizer, you know, arguably the most important thing in this very, very interesting and unique city for so long. The feeling, the excitement of, you know, a late November game at, you know, RFK or on the road,

you know, in the Meadowlands against the Giants or Texas Stadium against the Cowboys with huge stakes. It was nothing better. Nothing better. The erosion of this fan base has accelerated, as I've pointed out, the last two years. It is accelerated for a lot of reasons. One of the main reasons is that I think people have finally, over the last few years, gotten to the point where they cannot find any light at the end of the tunnel.

Like, it's over. It's over. and they hate him and they hate them for it. All right, let's get to the Game Take. Pay attention is Kevin's Game Take. All right, there are a few things that I liked and a lot that I didn't like. I'll start with the things that I liked. You know, some of you I know are sitting there going,

are you really going to go through yesterday's game? Sure, why not? You know, they're young players. We want to assess their play and assess the chances that they're worth keeping moving forward. Darius Geis, I think we saw some good signs from Geis yesterday. First, he didn't get hurt. Second, he runs with a really good vision and power. Third, he catches the ball. He's versatile. You know, his numbers weren't, you know, great,

but he took a screen 45 yards for a touchdown, had a decent eight, nine yard run, and there were a couple of like one to two yard runs that looked like they should have been losses. Those were good signs. You know, it's a long way to go on him. It's just his second regular season game, but he showed a lot of promise. In the same way that Terry McLaurin continues to show a lot of promise, I think we can safely say now that McLaurin's not going to be a guy two to three years from now. We say, remember Terry McLaren and what a great start.

God, how'd that work out for you? Now, I think this guy can play. You know, he had the long one called back in the first half, still had three catches for 69 yards, including the one late that set up the final meaningless touchdown. He is the bright spot on this very dim season. I like Kelvin Harmon. I liked him coming out of NC State. I've liked him in the limited times we've seen him this year,

and I liked him yesterday for the most part. He catches, and he blocks. He's going to be a good player. You never know if it's here or not, but my guess is he's going to be a good player in the NFL for a long time. Ryan Carrigan had two sons. Sacks. Landon Collins is good in the run game. I don't know if he's good anywhere else. Duran Payne, I think, is my favorite player. I think he's the one that has the most potential

defensively. The things that I didn't like. Well, we'll start with this. That was a poorly prepared football team yesterday, poorly coached, poorly prepared. Two weeks to get ready for a bad team in the New York Jets, and the Redskins seemed utterly unprepared for any phase of the game. Bill Callahan or Jim Zorn, that's a tough call at this point. Really is. You know, an interim coach I don't think has ever been fired. If I were the owner, I'd consider it. But really, what's the point?

But for those of you who thought getting rid of Jay Gruden would solve all the problems, because that's what they thought. Obviously, you were wrong. You know, Jay Gruden's not very good either. Callahan's worse. And what makes him so insufferable is his constant belief that he's so much more qualified than the last guy, which is laughable. That team came out after two weeks against a horrible football team and promptly gave up a seven-play, 75-yard touchdown drive,

two penalties, wide-open receivers everywhere, pathetic. The Jets were dead last in offense coming in. They didn't face one-third down on that drive. And I mentioned this this morning, Aaron, when they scored early and missed the extra point, you know how as a football fan you'll say, that might come back to haunt them when they miss an early extra point? Did anybody in the moment think that that missed extra point was going to come back to haunt them?

My sense at that point was game over. Now, the game really was over by halftime. And remember when Callahan talked about all the good first halves they played all year long and they just needed closers, they need to finish? Well, A, that wasn't true. They got blown out in the first half by the Giants, by the Bears. But B, there was nothing to finish yesterday.

That game was over at halftime. The Jets in the first half, a horrible offensive football team, had scored 20 points, gained 262 yards, and had 16 first downs. Sam Darnold threw three touchdowns in the first. half. And here's the other thing about that first half. The Redskins won the turnover battle. Donald had a wretched throw, I mean a gift-wrapped interception that he threw on a screen that wasn't there and he threw it up over the screen right to John Bostic. The Redskins won the turnover battle in the first half, plus two, all right? And they're down 20 to three. That's really

difficult to do. The team was outwitted, out-schemed, out-prepared, out-efforded. Towards the end of the first half, something that really bothered me is that Haskins had his first, you know, decent throw, legal decent throw, because the first one to McLaren that got called back was a great play. But he had a 20-yard completion to Terry McClurin moving the ball out to the 45-yard line. The Redskins had timeouts left. The play ended at 18, 19 seconds, and Callahan didn't call timeout until there were 13 seconds left. I mean, so instead of having 18 or 19 seconds with the ball at the 45-yard line first and 10, his team had 13 seconds. And I mentioned this morning, he was probably just, you know, thinking more about what he was going to say in his post-game press conference, because

there is nobody that has enjoyed these press conferences more than Coach Callahan. Yesterday's post-game presser, Aaron, was 16 minutes and 49 seconds, nearly 17 minutes long. I need you to understand this, people out there. The press conference after a game for the losing coach is on average half that much time. Half. He just loves these pressers. There was a question at the end of the press conference, the very final question that I want to play for you, because when I heard it, I smiled, laughed out loud because I talked about this last week.

I talked about how Callahan, after these games, has described some of the team's poor play as uncharacteristic. And I said last week, that's laughable. It's very characteristic. I mean, these mistakes that they keep making happen all the time. And so I want you to listen to this final question from a press conference that literally went on and on and on. I guarantee you that he had the longest post-game press conference in the league yesterday for a losing coach. But listen to the way this question is phrased and then listen to the answer. A couple of times today you mentioned the team being uncharacteristic in terms of the mistakes and the breakdowns and the blown coverages.

I'm just wondering, why do you consider that to be uncharacteristic at the point we are now when it seems to be more like the norm? One of the uncharacteristic points was in the last four weeks, I think we improved our penalty play in the last four weeks. There's somewhere in the area of top five, top eight in the league. And I don't know the exact fact, but it was really a substantial upgrade in our penalty play. We had limited penalties. And today, I think we have 11 today, I believe. And that to me is uncharacteristic. When you have a load of penalties like we had and it puts you back and puts you to change.

You can cut it off right there, Aaron, because it goes on for like another seven minutes. Not that long. I'm exaggerating, but another two minutes. See, this is what has made me really, really like in the mode of mocking him. Because first of all, he exaggerated the improvement. The first game he coached against the dolphins, they had six penalties for 56 yards. Second game he coached against the Niners, they had seven penalties. So I don't think the numbers he threw at are actually true.

Secondly, this answer is another attempt by him to make Gruden look so insignificant, to make him look like a boob, you know, to slap down Gruden and elevate himself. You know, the problem for him is that the team might actually see. stink worse with him than it even did with Gruden. Gruden faced a brutal schedule to start. This guy Callahan was lucky to beat the dolphins, lucky, and got blown out by the New York Jets. Anyway, the question was beautiful when he says when it's actually the norm. Bottom line is this team is just as poorly coached as it was before, if not worse. It is. Number one thing I didn't like is this team after two weeks, about to face eight, another bottom feeding team, was utterly unprepared and poorly coached and outschemed and outwitted and everything else.

Next on the list was the defense. I'll get to Haskins here in a moment. The Jets were the worst offensive team in the league coming into the game yesterday. I know that they've been better with Darnold and that he missed some games with mononuclear. eclosis earlier in the year, and that's why their numbers may be totally at the bottom. But this is a team that has struggled to move the ball, especially on the ground. They were the lowest, I think 67 yards rushing coming in. It was either 31st or 32nd in the league. They got 115 yesterday, 76 in the first half averaging 4.6 yards per carry.

They couldn't stop that dude Powell on that one drive. They couldn't cover anybody. They rolled up 400 yards and 34 points, this terrible offensive team. You know, the Redskins defense is just terrible. The tight ends were wide open all day. James and Crowder came back and put a foot up there behind with five catches for 76 yards. You know, the biggest disappointment of the season is the defense, once again, nowhere near good enough. I do think there's some players that are decent.

Their performance this year as a group has been absolutely horrendous, horrendous. and you just go back to, you know, I love every year when I focus in on some of the overpromising and, you know, in training camp, you know, the Rob Ryan, we're top five talented defense, the Landon Collins consumed with his former team, and Landon Collins actually sang in the preseason he's so lucky, so lucky to be here rather than in New York. This is a much better situation, you know, and how great the defense is going to be. It's just, It's all laughable. It's a culture that doesn't slap that kind of talk down.

It invites it. This is what they've lived off of. And nobody's buying it. Nobody's been buying it for years now. But this constant move of, you know, let's tell everybody how great we are. Let's let everybody run their mouths about how great we are. We're not going to back it up. We'll try our best to, but maybe we can sell some tickets in the preseason

and get some people excited. God, the defense has been such a disarmament. appointment. I told you guys in training camp, those of you that were telling me that this was a top five defense. It wasn't going to be top five. It wasn't going to be top ten. With that said, I was expecting it to be improved. There was the caveat that I gave, which is, will it be coached well because they tried to replace Mnuski? I mean, they desperately tried to replace him. And it's obvious why. He's not very good at coordinating or scheming up a defense. Really disappointing. All right, let's get to the house.

Haskins performance. So I'm going to say what I said two weeks ago when he got his first start. I'm giving this thing eight games, you know, the eight games that he will start before I really commit to, you know, either saying, yep, it's worth it to move forward with him or no, it's not worth it to move forward with him. I will also say, as I've said before, my hunch is we're going to get to the end here, and I'm going to believe that it's not going to make sense to move forward with him. I was not a big Haskins fan coming out, did not think he was worthy of a first-round pick, as many of the football people did in the organization.

However, after watching him a couple times in preseason and the start against Buffalo, there are some things that he has that are good. And you saw some of those things yesterday. He looked uncomfortable early. My guess is that he was confused as to what Greg Williams was throwing at him. Remember this about Greg Williams. In 2005, when he was,

was the defensive coordinator for the Redskins. They faced Alex Smith and Alex Smith's second start as a pro in San Francisco. Alex Smith threw for 92 yards and an interception in a 52 to 17 loss. Greg Williams is dangerous to young quarterbacks. I didn't want to sit them. I think this is a good experience. But you could see that Dwayne didn't know who was coming and when, didn't know if they were in man or zone, didn't pick up the blitz. He was sacked six times, three of them by all-world safety, Jamal Adams. He made some bad throws. The pick into double coverage when he was trying to throw to Quinn was bad from this standpoint.

He stared him down and threw into double coverage. Should Quinn have sat it down at the spot where he threw it? Maybe. That wasn't where to throw the football, though. I hated in particular the end of the first half. when you need a chunk play for field goal range, and he throws a little dink three yards to Quinn. Didn't make much sense to me.

The first half was awful. You know, 52 yards passing, four sacks, 0 for 6 on third down, the one really nice play he made, the deep shot after getting out of the pocket to McLaurin got called back for the holding on Sheriff, and then the unsportsman-like on Sheriff with Donald Penn going nuts. Side note, Sheriff hasn't been very good this year.

Really hasn't. for Haskins, it got better in the second half. I loved the third down throw to McLaren early in the third quarter. I liked the third and 18 throw to Kelvin Harmon, which was a good throw. Harmon should have caught it. It would have been short by a yard,

but I thought it was a good throw. The third and 13 to Sprinkle, where he fitted in there just barely on the low side and Sprinkle made a really good catch, but I like that throw. The long one to McLaren late, And my favorite throw of the day, Aaron, I am not kidding about this. My favorite throw of the day after the one to McLaurin in the first half that got called back

was the two-point conversion throw to Trey Quinn following the Geist touchdown, which also was a good throw, that little flick of a wrist screen pass to Geis. The two-point play was a professional quarterback play. He in the pocket maneuvers to extend the play, which he does well, and then realizes by extending it and giving his receiver's time to get to the spot that he was going to come back across and throw to a wide open Trey Quinn. I thought that was really professional looking. My guess is that much of his trouble started with pre-snap stuff.

That's an issue. Many, if not most rookie quarterbacks have in their first several starts. I gave Haskins a D for the game. Can't do much better than that. His raw QBR number was 12.1, you know, on a scale of 0 to 100. It could have been worse than a D given that number. But again, like in the Buffalo game, there were glimpses. Here's where I would really be absolutely dead set soul that it is not going to work.

If I didn't see his ability to sort of extend a play and escape a little bit and make throws. I think we've seen some of that. And a lot of the yardage, I understand, and the two touchdowns came late in garbage time, down 34 to 3. I get that. Anyway, we'll see what happens next week against Detroit.

Josh Norman, he can't do it anymore, period. The special teams had a terrible day. They were lucky they didn't have two punts blocked. They roughed a kicker on a field goal that gave the Jets a first down and eventually a touchdown. Dustin Hopkins missed a 29-yard field goal. That's not good. there's your list of things I didn't like.

Other observations, I think, Aaron, you texted me the picture of Stubhub. I had already seen it. You could have gotten into the stadium yesterday for $6 people, six. An upper deck seat for $6. And by the way, what I would have done is paid for the $6 upper deck seat if I wanted to go. And then I would have just walked down to the lower level and sat wherever I wanted because there were sections that were empty. Of course, if you wanted to go to the lower level legally,

you could get a nice 25-yard-line seat for about 15 bucks. You could get lower level for 15. You could get club level at the 50-yard line for $25. The announced crowd was 56,000 plus. Those that were there that I know were there, and the list of people that are getting back to me after being at the game is getting shorter and shorter. But most people guessed the stadium was half full,

which you know you put that at 37,000, something like that, and that half of those fans were jet fans. So call it 40 means 20,000 Redskins fans showed up. That is horrendous. There were a couple of other quick observations. One, I am assuming that most of you saw the social media video of Dwayne Haskins on the sideline imploring his offensive linemen with the following question,

what do I have to do to help you? He was animated, he was worked up, he was urgent, he was trying to find out what he could do better, he was talking to his offensive line on the sideline, and those of you that have watched the video, most of you would come to the conclusion that the offensive linemen were not very responsive in that video. They just weren't.

Here's what Dwayne Haskins said about that situation after the game. Just the biggest thing with that was just trying to figure out urgency. I played a game with some passion. What do I need to do? Let me know. And got some things that were said to me and try to apply it to the game and we made some changes and score some points at then. So it was good.

I watched his press conference, not live, because there were good NFL games going on. There were a few good NFL games going on. I thought he handled himself fine. You know, I think that this is, you know, I said this before. I'm not a massive Dwayne Haskins, you know, potential guy. I don't see him being a franchise quarterback more likely than not. I think he was overdrafted.

I think he can play quarterback in this league, you know. I don't know at what level, but man, did he get drafted by the wrong team and the wrong situation? You know, that's really not that hard to see now. He got drafted by an organization that was split on him, maybe not even split. one-sided against drafting him at 15 overall, but the owner didn't care. He comes into an organization with a lame duck head coach who didn't want him to be here. He then is coached by an interim head coach who really is limited, very limited as a head coach or as an offensive mind. You know, he's in a place where there's plenty of backbiting and leaking and, you know, other, you know,

controversies going on simultaneously. He doesn't have enough talent offensive. He came from a situation where he had super talent and a brilliant head coach in offensive mind in Urban Meyer. And he's thrown into this cesspool with very little talent, not good coaching, horrible, you know, support. And this is a tough situation for him. A lot of young quarterbacks, you know, are put into this situation. And sometimes it's the situation they get drafted in that ultimately tells the tale on them. That maybe if they had gotten drafted by somebody else, you know, a more stable organization with better offensive coaches,

with people who really believed in him and believed in him, it could work out better. And maybe that opportunity will come somewhere else. I'm not going to bail on this. He's got six games left. I'm glad he got the experience of facing Greg Williams. He now gets Detroit. Dak Prescott just threw for 44 yards against the Lions yesterday.

You know, it's going to be another opportunity to grow and to improve. He does some things naturally that really would, if you were really totally bought in on him, you would point to the fact that he can make every throw, that he's got big size, that he's much more mobile, he's got good feel in the pocket, all of those things. So we got six more games to watch this thing. He was not the worst of the issue, the worst of the day yesterday. The defense was terrible. The coaching staff, just embarrassingly awful.

You know, he wasn't good, but he was far from the worst thing about the day yesterday. You almost felt bad for him in that moment because it does seem, you know, sometimes you see rookie quarterbacks and they're just so focused on what they're doing. They don't, I don't want to say they don't care when or lose, but, you know, they're definitely a little more aloof. He cares. He wants this to work out one way or another, and he just, this team can't support it working out. I think that's true.

And, you know, I'm going to keep. coming back to something that I've heard from my sources out at Redskins Park, you know, during this entire season. They say that Dwayne is a good kid, that he's smart, and that, you know, the situation's not a great situation. You know, I think there's some questions that people in the organization have about what his true upside is, you know, but no one says he's a bad kid. Nobody.

Nobody says that he can't, you know, he can't process things. and learn and get better. That's not the criticism. If there's a criticism, it's maybe that he's got to learn how to be a pro from a work ethic standpoint and that clearly he's going to have to advance and progress when it comes to reading defenses. He got a lesson yesterday in it from Greg Williams, and Greg Williams has done that many times before to young quarterbacks.

It's a bad situation, obviously, with this team right now. We have hit a new low point. I do believe that. The lion game, I mean, if you had 30 to 40,000 at the stadium for the Jets, what are you going to have for the Lions? I mean, you probably had 20,000 jet fans there. You can have 20,000 lion fans? Probably not.

It was cold yesterday. I don't know what the forecast is for next Sunday, but if the weather's not good, it will be, I think, Sunday the all-time low in terms of attendance. Be very surprised if they get half the stadium filled Sunday against Detroit. This is an organization where, as most of you know, you needed a gun and a mask to get a ticket years ago. I mean, that's the only way you could get it.

They were impossible to get. It was one of the toughest tickets, not just in this town, in all of sports. and now it is about as easy as it gets. And I think, you know, if you ask, I think they might pay you to show up. It could be an opportunity. I did find this, and I mentioned to you after the show on Friday,

and I finally did get confirmed. On Redskins.com, you can get free tickets for donating blood. That's true for real. That's true for real. Wow. As Michael Scott once said, how often can you donate blood? How much blood do you really have?

So, the other, you know, a huge event yesterday was they scored a touchdown, finally. After 16 quarters, they finally got one. I did not think when they got to the fourth quarter they were going to get one. All right, quick word about my bookie.ag. I apologize for the smell test, guys. I'm doing my best. It's been a rough road. I ran into a friend of mine on Friday.

and let's just say that this friend of mine, you know, dabbles in sort of the taking of bets business. And I ran into him, you know, completely unexpectedly. And the first thing he said to me, he goes, you got to be struggling here over the last month, right? And I said, oh, it's been a bloodbath. And he said, yeah, it's been a bloodbath for us too. Said the public has killed it for about a month and a half now. I mean, then again, it was a great start to the season. I mean, September, early October, great.

The second half of October and all of November, terrible. It's a two and seven smell test right now with the chargers pending tonight. All right. So if you maybe want to catch me on my next heater and you want to bet, use my bookie.ag. It's an important thing for you to play with a place that's reliable. Mybooky.orgie.org is reliable. If you go to my bookie.ag and you use my promo code, Kevin D.C., they'll double your first deposit. You need to understand something about this because I continue to occasionally get tweets from you that say,

I went, I put your promo code in, I got my deposit doubled, and then I couldn't take my money out. Well, they're not going to let you double your deposit and then just take your money out. There is going to be a commitment to playing at a certain level for a certain period of time before you can take that money out. Now, if you don't want to take advantage of the offer and you're just going to deposit your own money without taking advantage of the offer to double your first deposit, then you can take your money out whenever you want.

But if you're going to use this offer to double your first deposit, you're going to have to follow the rules. And the rules are the same there that they are anywhere else when they've got a promotion like this. You're going to have to play a certain play-through before you're able to withdraw money from the account. But look, you've got the rest of the football season. Why are you trying to pull it out so quickly anyway?

That sounded awful. Enter my promo code, Kevin D.C., K-EV-I-N-D-C, my bookie.ag. Today you play you when you get paid. Let's go around the NFL. The biggest plays and the clutch moment. It's time to go around the NFL. All right.

One of my favorite things has become interacting with some of you on Twitter as it relates to Kirk Cousins. Because when he's playing poorly, boy, you guys rip me on Twitter, which is fair. I'm a big fan of Kirk Cousins. I think he's a good quarterback. You're never going to change my mind on that. I'm never going to believe that he's an elite quarterback, although he's getting a lot closer to elite this year than he ever has. But I'm always going to believe what Mike Shanahan and others have said, about him and what I've always felt intuitively, and that is you put him with a good coaching

staff that coaches up to his talents with some good players around him, you can win with Kirk Cousins. You can do a lot worse. And trust me, I have thought about many times the last couple of years. If Kyle Shanahan were here as the head coach with Kirk Cousins as the quarterback, do you think this team would be one and nine? Do you think this organization would be in this spot? I don't, but whatever. I could be wrong. I'm sure it would have been somehow messed up by Dan and Bruce anyway. But the interaction started, you know, I got on Twitter at halftime of the Redskins game, and I just see all these people saying, Kurt, hashtag K-U-R-T.

How about your boy? Denver. First of all, let me just say this. Aaron, who did I give out on Friday as a smell test pick? You gave out Denver. Plus the 10. What else did I say about Denver? You thought they could win outright.

I thought they would win outright. I bet him on the money line. I told you guys on Friday this is a bad matchup for Minnesota. Vic Fangio had their number last year in the two games that he was the defensive coordinator with Chicago. And Denver's got excellent talent on defense. I thought it was going to be a very tough game for Minnesota. And it was. They were down 20 to nothing at the end of the first half.

I thought my money line bet on the Broncos was as safe as any bet I made all year long. And then Kirk Cousins authored something that hasn't happened in 40 years in the NFL. A team down 20-0-0-0-0-more at halftime coming out and scoring four touchdowns on four drives and winning the game in the second half. That's what they did. They scored on every second-half possession. Four possessions, four touchdowns. Cousins in the second half was 18 to 23 for. 261 and three touchdowns over the final 30 minutes.

He finished 29 and 35 for 319 yards, three touchdowns. The Vikings had no running game. It's hard to run against Denver. Their defense gave up huge big plays to Cortland Sutton, who's turning in Aaron to a star in this league. He's becoming a big-time stud-wide receiver. And the Vikings won the game with the incredible, on the incredible arm of Kirk Cousins.

They went hurry up, and he led them to this victory, a victory in which Stefan Diggs afterwards said, give Kirk Cousins the credit. You guys bash him all the time when he doesn't play well. He was phenomenal. And they're 8 and 3. They got a buy week. They play Seattle when they come back.

Could have been a really hurtful loss in their playoff hunt. This was the equivalent of the you like that game. He was asked about that in the post-game press. conference. Had he ever been a part of a game like that? And he said, yeah, you like that game. And he remembered it very well. He said, we actually scored right before the half, and it was 24 to 7. We were down 24 to nothing to the Buccaneers in that code red game in 2016, or 2015. And he said, this was similar against a much better defense, though, a much better coach defense as well. One quick word on Minnesota that I'm continuing to stick with, I'm not. I'm not.

buying into them as like a deep into the playoffs team. I'm not. I didn't pick them to make the playoffs before the year started. They still have a really, really difficult schedule the rest of the way. They play Seattle after their by week, super late by week. They still have the chargers on the road. They still have the Packers. You know, they're not a lock to make the playoffs. I think they probably will at this point. They've won six of their last seven. But I think they are more vulnerable than people think defensively. They give up a lot of plays defensively. They are leading the league

in defensive pass play penalties, defensive holds and PIs. Mike Zimmer is one of my favorite coaches. Great defensive mind, but his defense is struggling a little bit. And when they play really good defensive teams, they really struggle to protect. They went two minutes to change

the whole game when they were down 20 to nothing to start the second half. Anyway, Denver, on the other hand, I know I picked them to be the AFC in the AFC championship game before the season started. I know a lot of you have hated me giving out Denver as much as I have. I think I'm four and two or five and two now on Denver ATS in the smell test, Aaron. That's a lot of, that's a lot of Denver in the smell test this year. But they fit that smell test a ton of times. They're going to fit it again this week. I can tell you that. I've already looked ahead to the lines. They play Buffalo on the road and they're only getting four and a half. Vegas loves Denver. They recognize what I recognize preseason. Their defense is phenomenal. Okay, Fangio is a great defensive mind.

And, you know, the issue was they hadn't had a quarterback, and they've lost four games in the final 20 seconds of the game. They're 3 and 7. They could very easily be 7 and 3. Yeah, I'm telling you right now, I will have Denver, hopefully for a winner again. They are plus four and a half at Buffalo on Sunday. Three and seven at seven and three.

And already I'm looking at it, the public is all over the bills. Denver will be, let me give it out right now. Denver plus the four and a half. Baltimore. Oh my God. How good are the Ravens?

This was another annihilation yesterday against a good football team. I mean 232 yards total for Houston. Their defense, Baltimore's defense, has stepped up. 263 yards rushing for the Ravens. Over seven yards per carry. Lamar Jackson threw four touchdown passes. Their average right now of 203 yards rushing is going to set the NFL record if it stays right where it is.

It's been a long time since a team is like 1978, the Patriots, were anywhere near where the Ravens are right now. The Ravens on offense are averaging 203.8 yards rushing per game, 5.7 yards per carry. Wow. Can they run the football? And can Jackson throw it? I don't care what you want to say about. He's got one read and then the checkdown is him just trying to make a play. You know what? Him trying to make a play is one of the most exciting things in football right now. And he doesn't always make the play by running. He makes the play by extending and then throwing bullets, darts, on the money. They're so good. It's going to be interesting because they get the NFC West for the next two weeks, the Rams next Monday night, and then the 49ers in Baltimore

the week after that. And then they play a game at Buffalo. This is a two-horse race in the AFC between New England and Baltimore for the number one seat. And it'll be crucial, I think, for Baltimore to get that home game, although they've played well in the Baltimore era in Foxborough. I was going to say, you could make the case it's more crucial for the Patriots to get that one seed. I think that's definitely right. I don't think they come to Baltimore and win an AFC title game. I agree with you on that. Speaking of New England, so I've wanted to see them prove it against somebody good. You know, they started off with that eight-n-nose start against nobody. You know, they had the dolphins, the redskins, the giants, the jets twice, you know,

and they then got blown out by Baltimore. And Philadelphia jumped out to a 10-0 lead. What was really impressive about New England yesterday is that their defense was for real. Do you know that Carson Wentz, I mean, he had truly one of the worst days he's ever had. He was 20 of 40. He only completed 50% of his passes for 20. 214 yards, a lot of that yardage coming on that final drive where they actually had a chance at the end. On a fourth and 10, he threw a ball up to the back of the end zone against a zero cover, all-out blitz.

And Aguilar had a chance to pull it in. Was Aguilar, right? Or was it Jordan Matthews? Believe it was Aguilar. I think it was Aguilar. Yes. Had a chance to pull it in. It would have been a phenomenal catch. Didn't pull it in, and they lose 17 to 10.

The Patriots couldn't move the ball again. against the Eagles either. You know, their touchdown pass, their only touchdown came on a, on a, on a, on a, on a, on a, uh, on a tricky number. Third and 11, backwards pass to Edelman and he throws the touchdown pass to a wide open receiver. I think it was Dorset. Um, and that, and then they went for two and I had Philadelphia plus the five and they made the two pointer. And, you know, if they had been held to a field goal in that spot on third and in, you know, third and 11 at like the 12 yard line or whatever, That may have been the final score, 12 to 10,

or the Eagles would have had a kick on that fourth down to make it 13.12. I had the context of the game would have been different. Whatever. Neither team could move the ball. It was not a pleasant game to watch. There were 16 punts and the two teams combined for 8 of 29 on third down. New England's defense is really good. The Eagles defense is pretty good.

Neither team has enough weapons. You may say it's Brady. I think it's the lack of real weapons. How about Dallas? How about Dak Prescott? 44 yards, three touchdowns, in a 35 to 27 win over the Lions. A win that came with the Lions down 3521

doing the analytics thing, going for two on that first touchdown. That hurt a little bit if you had Detroit plus the seven. Unless, of course, they made it, then it would have been like, all right, good job. But they didn't. So they were down eight. they lost by eight.

Dak Prescott has now thrown for the most yards in a two-game span in Cowboys history, 841 yards in two games. I mentioned last week about the Minnesota game last Sunday night that I had never seen Dak Prescott throw the ball better. And apparently he did it even better yesterday. He's playing at an MVP level right now. He is. It's Jackson, it's Wilson.

Obviously, those are the two that have separated them. selves. In that next tier, I haven't looked at this, Aaron. We can pull it up right now, but I would bet Dak Prescott's gotten into the next tier of MVP. He's not quite in the next tier. What do you got? I don't have him. I put out the top four. It was Lamar at plus 170, Russell at plus 200, and then Rogers and Watson both at plus 900. Watson struggled yesterday. I love Deshaun Watson. The Baltimore defense that I thought lost too much in the offseason is really, really now very good. Who else is after that? Where's Prescott? Here we go. So we have Patrick Mahomes at plus 1,200 and then Dak Prescott at

plus 1,400. Where's Kirk right now? Kirk is plus 3,300 behind those guys and then McCaffrey, Cook, and Brady. It's a two-horse race. I mean, Wilson and or Jackson would have to really crater over the last six, seven games of this season for not to be one of those two. Probably though if Mahomes goes off and you can kind of write off the injury, if he like really, really goes off, you can make

a case for him. But yes, I think it's... I don't think Jackson's going to is going to take a step back here at the end of the regular season. I think Seattle has an interesting set up schedule-wise at Philly, Minnesota at home, at Rams, at Panthers.

They have the 49ers at home to finish the season where they could lose some games here. And Wilson, he's playing it too high of a level. It's going to be one of those two. It's got to be. How about the San Francisco, Arizona ending? Oh, boy. I texted you immediately after this. You had the Cardinals, obviously. What was your number? I had at 11, so I was okay. Well, you played that early. Yeah. Because the game went off at nine and a half, 10. Yes. If you missed this, first of all, Jimmy Garoppolo, had the best game of his career. Four touchdowns, 424 yards. Did throw two picks. All right. San Francisco down 16, nothing early. They roar back, bounce back off that Monday night

lost to Seattle, win the game with a Gropolo to Jeff Wilson touchdown late. That gave him a 30-26 lead. By the way, San Francisco did something that I just, I think is maddening to me. they were down 19 to 17 early in the fourth quarter and they scored and they went for two. That's not an analytics go for two. It may be, it shouldn't be. You do not, a six point lead versus a five point lead just isn't much different. You know, you can say, well, the extra point now is so dicey in Arizona, whatever. I don't know anything about their kicker, Zane Gonzalez, and if he's missed a bunch of BATs, maybe that played into it, I don't know.

but you want a five-point lead at that point. Why? Because a five-point lead means if they come back and score, they'll have to go for two to make it three. If they miss, it's one. And if it's one, you're kicking a field goal to win the game at the end. Rather than at 2319, if they score, you're down three. Now you're kicking a field goal to tie. You know, you could still be kicking a field goal to tie,

but they're going to have to make a two-point conversion for that to happen. So anyway, they went up 23-point. to 19, they went for two, they missed it. Arizona comes back, scores. They're up 26, 23. And now the 49ers are driving late, and they're in range for a field goal to tie the game to force overtime. But they scored on a beautiful play by Garoppolo facing an all-out blitz, and he finds Jeff Wilson. He scores, Wilson's become sort of a touchdown guy for them. And then the play of the day for betters. You know, it's one of those plays. It's happened many times in the past. Trust me, this is not a unique thing. I've lost and won on this point.

play many times before. I was not involved in the game yesterday. Aaron was. But again, the 11 number wasn't going to be an issue for you because they weren't going to kick the extra point. But if you had Arizona plus 10 and you're winning the entire game and they're down four, they do one of those numbers from their own 20-yard line where they throw it and they're going to start lateraling the ball around backwards. We're going to try to make some crazy play. And then the ball gets loose on the ground and their offensive lineman goes down and in one fell swoop takes his big hand on the ball and throws it backwards like 20 yards in the air. It's picked up by a 49er running to the end zone for a touchdown. And now they don't kick that extra point when it's not necessary

when the clocks run out. 3626 finals. So if you had them plus 10, you pushed. If God forbid you had them plus nine and a half and you didn't buy the half point, you lost. a game that was, you were winning the entire way. You were the right side there. The entire way. The Sunday night game last night, I had the bears and the smell test. You know, it's one of those. I'll be honest with you. I thought it was right. I thought it was right even after watching the first half and they're down 10, nothing at a half time. They were the more physical team, but they had some turnovers. They got turnovers early and missed two field goals. Eddie Pinero missed two field goals.

It should have been up 6-0 in this game. Would have probably provided a completely different context for the game, I believe. But the Rams ran the ball. They were physical. It was actually one of those games. I know 17-7 doesn't seem like a good game. Aaron said to me he didn't think it was a very good game. It was a physical football game.

There was some big time hitting in the game last night. You know, the Bears are really good defensively. And if you didn't know this, Aaron Donald's pretty damn good. Like unblockable. But anyway, I enjoyed the football game last night. I did. I thought that that was a good game. And I thought I was going to win it until Trubisky got benched at the end and Chase Daniel came in.

And the reason for his benching seems to be unclear. I don't know if you picked up on that at all. Yeah, I was wondering that was that a legit benching? Are we going forward with Chase Daniel? Daniel or was that just that? I don't know yet. I haven't followed up on that today, but the reporting was that, you know, they didn't like his sense of urgency on the drive before. So I don't know. I don't know what the answer to that is. The Bears are done, though, at 4 and 6. They are officially done, even though they are a good defensive team, a really good defensive team.

The Rams are hanging in there at 6 and 4. They're just a completely different team now. you know, if you've noticed that, they're just so different than they've been. They've been predicated on lots of throwing the football, early down play action, boot. I actually thought golf was pretty good last night. He threw the ball 18 times in the game. 18. Yeah. And they won 17 to 7.

This is like another, I mean, the points that they've been scoring, remember last year they're putting up, you know, on their regular 40 plus. And here are the Rams, okay, in their last three games, 24, 12, and 17. You know, they did have that game against the Buccaneers that they lost 55 to 40, but it's a different Rams team. I don't think it's a good enough team. They play the Ravens next Monday night in the Coliseum. Oh, that could get ugly.

Could be entertaining. It could be entertaining, but it could also be very good. It really does, you know, it's the easiest thing to point to, but Todd Gurley, even though he looked good this week, has not been Todd Gurley this year. And even at the end of last year, when you saw the Rams offense start to take a step back, and you wonder just how much of that offense was Todd Gurley? And did we, you know, as much as we were talking about golf and as much as we were talking about the design, how much of it was just Gurley was in this unstoppable force who was no longer an unstoppable force.

He ran well and hard last night. He had fumble early, but he ended up with nearly 100 yards against that defense. I think it was like 95 or something like that. One last thing. In the NFL PowerPole on Thursday when I did it with Tommy, you know, we always do keep an eye on another team. And I said, and I said, keep an eye on Atlanta. They're a live dog the rest of the way.

And this is always that time of year where you look for a team that is very capable on offense in particular, team that can really score. Now, I did not throw them out this week. I didn't even bet him this week because I didn't like them on the road against the Panthers with the Panthers coming off that lost to Green Bay. But I think the Falcons, as I mentioned on Thursday, are a team that is going to get on to a bit of a roll here.

They're going to be scoring points. They're going to be putting up yards. The Panthers are a good defensive team. And yesterday, like, they only gave up three points to the Panthers. They only gave up nine to the Saints the week before. This is going to be one of those teams. going to look at at the end of the year and they're going to finish, you know, seven and nine. You know, I don't know if they can make a run back to eight and eight or not, but you're going

to be like, wow, what a waste of a season because what happened early in that season? They're too good offensively to be three and seven, way too good offensively. They got, I mean, Ridley and Jones, you know, they've got real players that you can throw the ball to. And Kenyon Barner, the kid from Oregon, who's been in the league now for, I don't know, four or five year, something like that, Aaron, every bit of it. He had a punt return for a touchdown. Like a lot of these Oregon guys, they're just, you know, those backs that, especially the ones that played for Chip Kelly and the guy that followed Kelly, whose name is escaping me right now.

But anyway, they always had speed on that team. Always had speed. All right, that's it for the NFL. I want to go to the Kaepernick and some other things that happened over the weekend. We'll get to weekend DVR here in a moment. I want to mention to everybody that if you're listening to us on any of the podcast platforms that allow you to rate or review the show, do so if you don't mind, it really helps us. And if you can subscribe, that helps us as well. We also have an app now, and you can get that app in the app store on your iPhone or the Google store on your Android. Also, quick word about stamps.com. I've mentioned to you before that if you, you're in a small business and you're not using Stamps.com, you should be because anything you can do

at a post office, you can do at Stamps.com, but Stamps.com saves you money and saves you time. It brings all of the services of the U.S. Postal Service right to your computer, whether you're a small office sending invoices or an online seller shipping out products or even a warehouse, sending thousands of packages a day. Stamps.com handles it all with ease. You simply use your computer, to print official U.S. postage, 24 hours a day, seven days a week for any letter, any package, any class of mail, anywhere you want to send it. Once your mail is ready, just hand it to your mail carrier

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sign up for stamps.com instead. There's no risk, and with my promo code, Kevin D.C. You get a special offer that includes a four-week trial plus free postage and a digital scale. No long-term commitments or contracts required. Go to Stamps.com, click on the microphone at the top of the homepage and type in K-E-V-I-N-D-C, Kevin D.C. That's Stamps.com, Kevin D.C. Never go to the post office again. Did you have a busy weekend? Don't worry. Got you covered. It's time for weekend DBR. All right, I'll finish up with my thoughts on the Colin Kaepernick fiasco from this weekend. But a couple of things real quickly. One, the injury to two at Tunga Viola is so awful. God, I mean, you just want as a human being for him not to have this Bo Jackson situation.

You know, it's so much money that he will have lost if he's not, you know, an NFL quarterback one day. And not just the money, but, I mean, for what? three years now we've been waiting for this draft, we've been waiting to see him in the NFL to not be able to see him or to see him, you know, not at 100%. It would just be a real bummer for as a sports fan. That's for us. For him, it's the money.

No, for him, it's the career, the money. It's wanting to play in the NFL. It's beyond the money, though. It's lifetime money that could be nothing at this point and looked like it was going to be so much. I hope they had some sort of Lloyd's of London insurance policy on it. Most of these

most of these top draft picks do. To your point, though, we've been looking forward to the Tua draft. We've been looking forward to, in the Redskins situation, then being able to leverage a position in the draft because Tua and Joe Burrow would be at the top of it, and that's going to change next April significantly without him in this draft. Other college football really quickly,

I really enjoyed the Oklahoma comeback against Baylor. Why? Because Jalen Hertz was awesome. after really not being very good in putting his team into a 28-3 deficit. Here's the thing about Jalen Hertz. I'm going to tell you right now as an NFL prospect. He's got real skill and real ability, and he's got a poise to him that's really,

it's almost charismatic like this can't, you know, can't rattle him. He doesn't, he looks so in control and so smooth and so unrattle. that it's almost attractive to watch. With that said, he's incredibly casual with the football. He has turnovers every week that just shouldn't be turnovers, fumbles that shouldn't be fumbles, picks that shouldn't be picks. But in the second half, he played one of the better games I've seen him play at Bama or Oklahoma. That team, I don't think they're going to make the playoff, okay?

I don't. But they stayed alive for it because of him. In the second half, it was. was all him. Every single play was either him running the ball or throwing the football. He was gutty. It was tough for a guy that's so smooth. He was taking people on physically. He finished with four touchdown passes. He ran for 114 yards on 27 carries. Jalen Hertz ran the ball 27 times in that game. In the second half, it was unbelievable how Oklahoma dominated the time of possession.

In the game, Oklahoma had the ball for 41 minutes, 11 seconds, and Baylor had it for 18 minutes and 49 seconds. That was it. Baylor had, I think, 50 plays. Oklahoma had 95 plays in the game. It's a crazy football game. I didn't think Baylor was very good. I did regret, however, not giving them out as a smell test pick because I got some information

after Friday that said, we're going to need Baylor. And this was from an offshore contact that people were playing Oklahoma in the game. But anyway, I ended up playing Baylor personally and won it. But I didn't think Baylor was very good. They showed me a lot in that game, Aaron. So did Oklahoma. Neither one of them is going to the playoff in my view, but that was a hell of a football game. Really entertaining football game.

They could meet again in the Big 12 title game. Iowa beat Minnesota. It was one of the smell test winners this weekend. We told you they were favored. They shouldn't have been favored. Good comeback by Minnesota. But their chances are now done. And Oregon and Utah are both really, really good.

Utah is really good. I think Utah can beat Oregon. in the Pac-12 championship game. And if Alabama without Tua goes to Auburn and loses and LSU beats Georgia in the SEC title game, that guarantees now that the Oregon-U-T Utah winner would get there. How about Utah in the 14th playoff? It's very possible. Oh, very possible now.

Now the thing for Oregon and Utah now, now that Alabama, I'm not counting them out, but the committee may view Alabama differently. Although if they go to Auburn and win big, you know, in the Iron Bowl, then people are going to say, well, you know, they're just as good even without Tua. But Oregon and Utah get in as long as Georgia loses the SEC title game. That's my guess right now. I think Oklahoma is really on the outside looking in. They need, you know, they need the Pack 12 champion to have two losses.

They need Georgia to lose, and they need Bama to lose to Auburn for them to get in. Real quick thing on the Wizards, because you know that I've been a big fan of most. Wagner going back to Michigan. When the Lakers drafted him, I said he's going to be a good NBA player. When the Wizards got him in the trade, I'm like, I'm really excited about Mo Wagner. On Friday night, Mo Wagner, in a win that the Wizards had over the Timberwolves, he had 30 points and 15 rebounds in 25 minutes of that game. This guy, I'm telling you, can play.

I've told all of you this before. I don't know a lot about anything. I do know basketball. All right, Mo Wagner can play. He's got a relentless motor. He drew another three charges in that game. He leads the league in charge taking. He's going to be, you know, a good NBA player.

I hope it's here because if John comes back, and I mentioned this too to Tommy the other day, the Wizards are better than they think they are. They lost last night at Orlando, 125, 12121. There's just so bad defensively. I wish they'd give more effort defensively. Beal, by the way, is just on a roll. I mean, where is he in the scoring lead right now?

He's got to be up. I mean, obviously it's Hardin. Hardin's number one at 39.5 points per game. Where is Beal right now? Beal's second in the league in scoring. I didn't realize he was second in the league in scoring. I knew it was up there because he went 44 in back-to-back nights last week. He went 44 against Boston and then 44 against Minnesota,

had 34 last night in the loss of Orlando. How about that? Bradley Beale is second in the league in scoring. He's averaging 30.1 points per game. The caps are incredible beating Boston after losing to Montreal. Maryland got a win in basketball over Oakland. Man, I don't even know what his best starting lineup is. He's got so many players that can play. They should have an easy week this week,

knock on wood, Fairfield, and George Mason. Some big games coming down the road for sure. I'm going to finish up the show with my thoughts about Colin Kaepernick. This is what I'd say about the Kaepernick NFL fiasco late last week into Saturday. If you missed it, Colin Kaepernick didn't show up for the league's scheduled workout at the Falcons facility on Saturday, and he instead scheduled his own workout an hour later and an hour away from the Falcons facility. He let everybody know that he was changing the time in the venue of his interview and workout 30 minutes before it started at 2.30. Why did he do it?

Well, you know, if you take him and his agent at their word, they wanted media presence, and the league said no, they wanted media at the workout so that there was no, you know, that what they said that there was no doubt that this was a transparent process, and they didn't trust the league or any of the teams to tell the truth about his workout. You know, that's why he wanted the media people there, so that the truth would be told about how good he still is. There was a complaint about a waiver that the league wanted. wanted him to sign, but almost all of the reporting, or at least a lot of the reporting

indicates that the waiver, while it may have been slightly different, wasn't something that most players in his position wouldn't sign. They have a different version of it. Mike Jones's reporting on this was really good for USA Today. He essentially said, you know, for you pro-Capernic people, do not get hung up on this waiver thing. It wasn't significantly different. And if it was, it was maybe a little bit different considering the risk that they considered him to be in terms of a potential legal risk if he didn't get signed and they were trying to protect themselves from that. That doesn't mean that he shouldn't have signed it if he really wanted to play. I'll get to that in a moment. Also, just so everybody understands, I'm not sure everybody does understand that.

Kaepernick and the NFL have already settled their collusion grievance. That happened last March. He and Eric Reed got, you know, much less than what the experts thought they would get. They reportedly split basically an amount of like somewhere just short of 10 million. I don't know if it was a 50-50 split. I would assume that it wasn't. I would assume that Kaepernick got more, but I don't know. But anyway, Kaepernick changed the venue and the time of the workout 30 minutes before it was supposed to start because he, you know, wasn't comfortable and he wanted it transparent. He wanted the media there. And, you know, for those of you that said on Twitter, and I was following this thing on Saturday on Twitter for a while, some of you that said,

well, why is the NFL balking at media being there? It's there for the Indy Combine. Well, you know, a typical veteran free agent working out for a team does not have that workout televised or covered by the media, just so everybody knows. It's not an apples-to-apples thing. With that said, if I were the league, I would have allowed it. I would have just said, sure, why not? I mean, I don't know why they resisted.

But again, you know, there were a lot of demands apparently made sort of have been the last minute. I personally, if I were the league or if I had been consulting the league, I would have said, look, if we're doing this on the up and up, and we got 25 scouts or 24 scouts from teams, whatever, let the media come in and covered if that's what he wants. I wouldn't have viewed that to be a big deal. I mean, that's the whole thing about it, is that Kaepernick very clearly didn't handle it well, but this whole thing was weird from the get-go between the, you know, no, we have to have it on this day. to it has to be in this location to the fact that I guess Kaepernick had never met the wide receivers they were using before and they wouldn't let him, you know, even meet the wide receivers.

Well, there's a lot of weirdness around it on both sides. I'll get to that. I'll get to that. Because there are a couple things that I want to say before I get to sort of three, two to three concrete thoughts on this. Number one, Mike Jones wrote in USA Today yesterday about this. Very well. And Mike's a favorite of mine. he's a good friend of mine. I think he's just, I think he's one of the best beat reporters

the Redskins have ever had at the post, and he's a very good columnist for USA today. Mike said that there were, you know, 20 plus NFL scouts that had already set up shop at the Falcons headquarters, then suddenly had to figure out how or if they should make the hour plus long trip to Kaepernick's new workout venue. He said a handful did go. The reporting was that there were like six to eight teams that actually ended up showing up instead of the 20 to 24 that were at the Falcons facility. One of those teams was the Redskins that showed up. But Jones wrote that the majority just bagged their plans and headed home. Hugh Jackson, remember him, was supposed to run the workout. He left the Falcons facility

and flew back home. He was annoyed by the change of venue and time. Jones also reported that multiple people within the league told him that in their opinion, Kaepernick cared more about showcasing his skills to his supporters, then he did potential employers. And Mike Jones made it a report to say that this was coming from people on multiple different levels and branches of the league who wanted to see Kaepernick back in the league. The league statement at 2.45 p.m. Saturday after Kaepernick changed all the venue and the time, they essentially made a statement that said they went out of their way to give Kaepernick nearly everything he wanted and were disappointed that he didn't show up for the scheduled

workout. The whole thing was a total S show. And I personally have no idea, nor do you, what or who to believe. Okay. I have a couple of thoughts, which I'm going to share, but as is the case with most of these things, there's typically his side, their side, and the truth. And I don't know the truth, and you don't either. I don't know if he's a total fraud or a victim of the league being totally disingenuous last week. I don't. I really don't know that for sure. But I do have these simple thoughts on this that I do believe in.

Number one, if you're given a chance to interview for a job that you really, really, really want, desperately want, it is better to show up where and when the interviewers tell you to rather than to let them know, 30 minutes before it starts, that you're changing the venue and the start time. Seems to me to be a bad idea in general. If you really want the job, that's just me. Second point, the NFL should have never done this. They didn't have to do this. They shouldn't have made the offer they made last week. Say whatever you want about it. It may have been a total BS offer. It could have been a setup for all I know. I don't know. You know, people saying it should have been on a Tuesday rather than a Saturday. Joe Banner, former Philadelphia Eagles team president, Cleveland Brown's team president, said,

actually in this particular situation at this point in the season, Saturday was a much better opportunity for him to get that many teams there. Others said that too, but whatever. The bottom line is this was a stupid thing for the NFL to do. They didn't have to do it, and they shouldn't have done it. Some of you say that it proved Kaepernick to be the complete fraud that you thought he was and that this turned out good for the league. I don't buy that because I don't think everybody feels that way. Nothing that happened Saturday changed the mind of Kaepernick supporters. Nothing changed the mind of people who think that he's been wronged for three years.

This was bad for the NFL because nobody was talking about him. Nobody was talking about the anthem issue. This Kaepernick Anthem topic has been way down the list for me. most football fans this year. Ratings are up. Fans have been back to complaining about the things they normally complain about. Referees, replay. The pass interference rule. Yeah. God, that was bad. We didn't talk about that. I know in the Baltimore game. And for some reason, the league brought on themselves self-inflicted a four to five-day news cycle of Colin Kaepernick. It wasn't good for them. It's not a disaster for the league. Just like the Miles Gare thing is not going to be a disaster.

for the league. I thought it was very interesting as a quick digression here to listen to all the pregame shows yesterday and a lot of the former players in particular saying what I said on Friday about it. And that is the guy lost his mind. It was a terrible thing. It could have turned out much worse, but it was far from the worst thing that they've ever seen. The Fox crew with Strahan and Howie Long and Bradshaw and Jimmy Johnson, they really got after the people that overreacted to this on Friday. That was my reaction. I understand it was bad. I think six games was appropriate. I think it was a terrible thing that he did. I think he put the Rudolph into Great Jeopardy. I also felt that Rudolph sort of initiated the whole thing, but I did not think it was the

worst thing that I'd ever seen in football. All right? It just wasn't. But anyway, I digress from that. Saturday and last week was one of those decisions that the NFL had to be regretting during that Saturday afternoon circus. It was their fault. They brought it on themselves. The whole thing was more likely than not, totally unnecessary. And those are the mistakes, right? Don't we all know this? The mistakes that you make that you never had to make in the first place, like you didn't even have to do the thing that you ended up making a mistake on, like it was totally unnecessary. those are always the most frustrating things. And that's what the league's got to be regretting. It's like, oh my God, we did not have to do this.

No one was talking about this thing. And not only that, now the guy is going to have a Nike commercial made about this, and it's somehow going to come back and backfire on us. The actual workout, which looked and felt very much like it would and will be made into a Nike commercial, generated mixed reviews. if you were following this, Aaron. Initially, everybody was raving about it. And then you saw some of the scouts on the condition of anonymity saying he's still got the big arm, but he's still consistently inaccurate. My personal opinion is nobody's going to sign him after that fiasco on Saturday. One of the

things that probably got confirmed on Saturday, if teams didn't know it already, is that with him comes a ton of extra stuff. So you better be sure. that he's going to start for you, or it's not worth it. That's what I think got resolved on Saturday. That's my guess, that unless somebody believes he can start for them, maybe next year, it's definitely not worth to bring him in to be a backup. All right, we're done with the show. Yes, you mentioned the thing about the PI thing.

because I did want to mention real quickly. I'm a big fan of Kevin Seifert at ESPN. I follow him on Twitter. He always has a lot of really good information, and he wrote a story about this play that got totally botched in the Baltimore game. It was the pass interference, clear pass interference on DeAndre Hopkins by Marlon Humphrey in the end zone. Houston challenged it, and the call on the field, which was no call, was upheld. And Seafurt had all the data.

32 of the last 33 pass interference challenges dating back to the start of week four, unsuccessful, you know, a 3% success rate. And he wrote the following, which I thought was exactly the way I felt. So I'm going to just read what he wrote. He said, it's clear that the NFL decided against attempting to establish what the standard would look like. So it stopped trying altogether, a shameful abdication of the responsibility it took on when owners approved this rule in March. And that's, they've made the situation worse than it was before.

This was predictable, I thought, before the season started. This is a rule that's got to be taken back when the season ends. Al Riveron, who's making these decisions in the final two minutes and other decisions, you know, when something gets challenged from New York is getting called out by D'Andre Hopkins and by Bill O'Brien and others. This is stupid. This is another one of those things. Like the Kaepernick thing to a certain degree was unnecessary.

Didn't need it. The New Orleans play, you know what? We got it wrong. Just like we got a lot of calls wrong in big games in the past. We're not going to kowow to Sean Payton and New Orleans fans and all of the people in New Orleans who were whining so much and then started to actually file lawsuits against the NFL, which are bogus. They're never going to make any headway with them.

you had an error in the NFC championship game probably cost the Saints a trip to the Super Bowl. We've seen that. Houston had a Super Bowl taken away from them in Pittsburgh in the late 1970s. We've seen a lot of these games over the years. I predict they pull this rule back in the offseason, and this is the one and only year that you can challenge pass interference called or uncalled. All right, that's it. Just Aaron and I. of a guest tomorrow. Well, Tommy will be in tomorrow. What am I talking about? Tommy will be in tomorrow. We'll have a good show tomorrow. I know he's really excited about the Redskins performance yesterday. So that ought to be fun. Enjoy the day.