The Kevin Sheehan Show - Mea Culpa, Cooley, & Caps

Episode Date: October 12, 2022

Kevin opened with thoughts on Ron's mea culpa. Cooley jumped on with his thoughts on the Rivera "quarterback" headling along with his "film" breakdown of the Tennessee game. Caps' long-time play-by-play voice Joe Beninati was a guest previewing the upcoming 2022-2023 Washington Capitals season.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You don't want it. You don't need it. But you're going to get it anyway. The Kevin Cheon Show. Here's Kevin. At the end of the day, I spoke to my team this morning. You know, I basically told them that I said some things that were misconstrued. I didn't present it properly.

And that's on me. So I took accountability. Told the guys that, you know, I should know better. And I had a bad day. So I figured, you know, feeling better today. Let's move forward. So to me, as far as I'm concerned, it's really now about the most important thing. that's getting ready for football.

That was Ron Rivera yesterday trying to clean up the mess that he created on Monday. I actually think he did a pretty good job yesterday. More on that coming up here shortly. Cooley's going to jump on with us. I'm not exactly sure what Cooley has. I gave him a short list of things to look at for the Tennessee game, and I told him to be prepared to talk about the Bears because the game's tomorrow night. We'll see what he has.

He's going to join us next. Then Joe Beninati will be on the show, longtime voice of the Capitals on NBC Sports Washington, with Craig Lachlan. The Caps open up their season tonight against the Bruins. So we will talk to Joe B at the end of the show. I start the show with this tweet from Jason. Kevin, you and many other reporters in town

really went to bat for Ron yesterday. Seemed like you guys were all in cahoots. seemed like a stretch to me. He said what he said, and it's not like Wentz has been so good this year that it wasn't believable. Thank you, Jason, for tweeting me. No, the other reporters in town, at least with me,

I'm not in cahoots with any of them. I like them all. I think all of them do a pretty good job. And by the way, you know, just pet peeve, and I've mentioned this in the past, I'm not a reporter. Do I report things every once in a while, every once in a blue moon?

I do. I get my hands on some information, and I know it's solid enough to go with it. And, you know, whenever I've done that, I'm pretty much, you know, batting like 98% on all that stuff. But I'm not a reporter, you know, I'm like you. I'm just a fan who has this platform for expressing opinions. That's the job. The job is actually the opposite of reporting, as I've mentioned to several of you in the past, who really get upset when we start expressing opinions on these shows.

and you're like, just report the news. No, it's actually not the job description. The opposite is the job description. It's to do what you guys do, which is have opinions and express them about the various teams in town and beyond. But, yeah, Jason, I guess I went to bat for Ron from this perspective. Being someone, like all of the beat reporters and all of you as well, that have been in this position of really following this team

and listening to his press conferences and interviews. And, you know, I had the opportunity last year to have them on once a week on the radio show during the season. And you just get to know sort of the, you know, the rhythms and the cadence and the thought process, you know, as you're watching somebody as much as we have for the last two plus years. and you have a sense of what he's trying to say. And I think Ron, as I said yesterday, is not the smoothest or the most consistent of communicators. I don't think he's super quick on his feet. Maybe it's because he doesn't care that much about these particular situations,

which, you know, doesn't bother me. You know, I think for a lot of coaches, this is a nuisance, you know, the Belichicks of the world. And so it's not like they're preparing for it. But, you know, I think when I watched it, I felt like he wasn't really crushing Carson once. That's not really what he was saying. What he was saying was, you know, it's another quarterback situation here where it's brand new for us and it's not for the other teams. Now, that argument's a little bit illogical because Cooper Rush has led the Cowboys to a four-on-one record. Really, it's been their defense.

but Cooper Rush is a backup quarterback, but he's been there for five years. And Daniel Jones and Jalen Hertz were question marks coming into this season in terms of whether or not they would be the quarterbacks after this upcoming season. But I don't think he was thinking a lot about that. I think he was thinking more about, hey, we tried last year and the guy got hurt in the first quarter. We've tried this year and it's brand new and we need time to acclimate. It's the most important position in the league. I think that's what he was saying. I don't think he was saying, you know, quarterback, as in my guy

sucks and the rest of the division is great at quarterback, because that's just not true. Tommy's column this morning, by the way, had a great opening paragraph. I'll read it to you. Quote, what was funny about the latest predicament that Washington commanders coach Ron Rivera found himself buried in, and let's face it, this franchise is a Don Rickle stand-up routine 24-7, was that it didn't happen as a result of one of his wordy drawn-out answers to a press conference question. It happened because he gave a one-word answer, quarterback. He might as well have stood up in a movie theater and shouted fire. I mean, I know Tom said some of those things on the podcast yesterday, and yeah, it is kind of ironic, you know, that the sort of discombobulated

answer that sometimes comes in long drawn-out form actually came with one word, quarterback. But yeah, to Jason's tweet, I didn't think that Ron meant that, intended for people to think that he was bashing Carson Wentz and saying that I got the worst quarterback in the division and everybody else's quarterback is great. I don't think that's what he meant. I'm pretty sure that's not what meant those that are reporters beat reporters that are there every day. None of them felt that way either, which is why they gave him chances throughout to sort of clarify his position, which he didn't do smoothly. But what I did say is whether or not he meant to say that or intended to, you know, crush Carson Wentz or not, which I don't think he did, the result was that Carson Wentz ended up

under the bus. And the national media who doesn't follow the day-to-day press conferences and interviews that Ron Rivera does and doesn't understand and couldn't sort of read through the lines and understand what he was trying to say, they crushed him. We played the Alex Smith stuff yesterday. And then I saw this, and maybe Tommy mentioned this to me yesterday and we didn't read this. But I read this last night. RG3 also killed. him. Alex Smith did, and we know that Alex Smith does not have a great relationship with Rivera. It did not end on good terms.

It didn't end on good terms with the organization. And I'll say again what I've said in the past. I'm not privy to everything that's happened between Alex Smith and the organization. But, you know, a lot of the criticism that came out in that story, and I forget

what magazine it was in, when it was clear that he was not happy with his departure from the franchise. from a team standpoint, I could understand. I could understand why they didn't think he would ever come back. I could understand that when it became sort of a thing that he might be able to come back, that they would be concerned. And then when he was cleared, I can understand why that would have been a surprise

and that there would have been some hesitance to put him out there, especially for this franchise. Robert Griffin III's tweet yesterday, you never do this to your quarterback. never in capital letters. The difference between Washington and the rest of the division is coaching. Daniel Jones has a first time head coach

and they look the best they have in years in capital letters. The Cowboys have gone undefeated with their in capital letters. Back up QB. Coaching matters. I mean, Griffin, like Alex Smith, turned it back on Ron, like it's time for you to take accountability for this thing. Again, I think their reaction was based on something that wasn't in terms of what the coach said.

But to Griffin's point, coaching is part of this issue right now. And accountability and taking accountability, as I started to say a couple of weeks ago after the loss of Philadelphia, I don't want to hear about adhering to the scheme, being more mature, doing what we say. The schemes are fine. The players have to play better, even if that's true. You know, it's a buck stops here time because you're the one that picked all these players. You're the one that told us this was going to be a step forward year. You're the one that now has changed and moved the goalposts on some of this stuff.

So even if it's true that it's going to be hard to get this thing together and the players aren't, you know, the kind of players that are following the scheme, you can't say that anymore. You're the guy in this coach-centric system. take responsibility, which is actually what I think he did yesterday. I think Ron Rivera held a press conference yesterday. You heard that first part where he was in the mode, and I don't know how he got to this point. Maybe it was a good job by the PR department. It could have been his family for all we know. I don't know why he ended up here.

But Rivera ended up talking more about his accountability, what he has to do better, that he made a mistake on Monday that he apologized to the team for, more than any other press conference we've heard from him since he took the job. I mean, there was a change yesterday in Rivera. Will it be a long-lasting change? I have no idea. There's an end of the press conference yesterday part that I want to play for you as well, because I also think that this was another opportunity for,

him to say, you know, it was on me. But there was also a moment at the very end of kind of self deprecation as well. He was asked about if any of the players had reacted to his comments on Monday about quarterback. And this is what he said. There was no reaction to it. I think, you know, for the most part, we just tried to make sure it was clarified yesterday, last night. And then today I had an opportunity to speak to the players. And I was very, you know, up front and just told him, Hey, that's on me. I should know better. Me of all people should know better, to be honest. I mean, I've been doing this quite some time.

And for me not to finish my thought completely, I messed up. And so I just told the guys, it's on me, it won't happen. I was very upfront, and I just told them, hey, man, that's on me. I should know better. Me of all people should know better. To be honest, I mean, I've been doing this for quite some time and for me not to finish my thought completely. I messed up.

And so I just told the guys that it was me and it won't happen again. And then you could hear him, and I don't know if you could hear it there, he said, I hope, and he smiled. So it was, look, this was a press conference yesterday in which Ron Rivera, I think, you know, understood. Maybe somebody helped him get there.

This can't be anybody else's fault. You know, Monday wasn't anybody else's fault. It was mine. We're at one and four. And if I'm going to keep the team together, like I have kept teams together in the past after bad starts. You know, after a day like yesterday, I got to fall on my sword a little bit. And I think he did that.

Now, back to RG3 here for just a moment. That tweet, I think, comes from a place of knowing what it's like to be run over by a bus. Because while I don't think Ron Rivera, you know, ran the bus over Carson Wentz on Monday, clearly many in the national media, including two former quarterbacks, Alex Smith and Robert Griffin III, think he did. Now, from RG3's perspective, let's remember this. Jay Gruden in 2014, November of 2014, in an interview with Albert Breer, who at the time was working for NFL Network and NFL.com, through his starting quarterback under the bus more than I have ever seen any coach do, ever. We talked to Jay about that, you know, a year and a half ago or whenever Jay came on the podcast

for the first time. And, you know, he kind of said he was at a point where it was incredibly frustrating to be in that situation with Robert. But I pulled up that story from November 21st, 2014. And it really is some of the quotes from Gruden about Griffin that year are really incredible. You know, Breer writes, the first year head coach isn't sugarcoating it. They're three and seven. It's a problem. And the quarterback position is a part of it. And then here are some of the quotes about Griffin. Gruden, Gruden. Consistency, just consistency. Since the preseason and the games that he's played in, our production from an offensive standpoint has been awful. I think five touchdowns in all the drives that he's played in, for whatever reason, that's not good. We're still trying to figure that out.

At that point, Breer wrote, Griffin had directed 33 full Redskin possessions in 2014, excluding a kneel down and a Hail Mary. The results were 14 punts, six turnovers, five touchdowns, four field goal attempts, two missed, two turnovers, along with one drive that was stopped at the end of the half and another that finished. at the end of the game. Gruden said, we have a guy behind him that played pretty well, and people are looking, okay, he's 2-0. He's talking about Colt McCoy.

There's always pressure on the quarterback to perform, and if you don't perform like any other position, somebody's behind you, pushing you. Then he said, look, hold on, where is it? He said, it's a production-based business. We haven't won many games. lately with him. We got to figure out a way to get in the end zone. We just have to score. I don't care how we do it. If it's running the zone read, I don't care. Quarterback sneaks. I don't give a

damn. We got to find a way to utilize him where we can get productive drives and stay away from negative plays and have some consistency. They, and he was talking about the Shanahan's, did a great job with him that first year. They had the element of surprise with the zone read, the pitches off of it. did everything to utilize him, but then he got hurt, and they weren't able to do a lot of that stuff. And now, okay, you got to do more dropback concepts, and he struggles. And then he had the injury, they shut him down, and then I came. And then this one, the biggest thing is he's been coddled for so long. I mean, that's unbelievable. And then he, you know, he quickly says, it's not a negative. He's just been so good.

hasn't had a lot of negative publicity. Everybody's loved him. Some adversity is striking hard at him now and how he reacts to that off the field, his mental state of mind, how it affects his confidence. Hopefully it's not in a negative way. And then he said, finally, he's auditioned long enough. Clock's ticking. He's got to play. I mean, it was really remarkable. There was no nuance. there. There was nobody in the media that was following Jay Gruden's every press conference in 2014 that that misunderstood the intent of that one. And Griffin's tweet really does come from that place of having had his head coach, by the way, just a few months after it was, you know, hashtag we get to do what we want. You know, hashtag whatever, it was a, it was an offseason of one hashtag

after another, thank God the wicked witch, Mike Shanahan, and all of the little witches are gone. Now we got a coach. It's going to let us, you know, it's going to let us breathe, let us, you know, operate, let us do what we need to do. And it wasn't long before they realized that Griffin was not the answer. And then the frustration of all of the surrounding drama, which he self-created through all of the, you know, lecturing via social media. It was too much for Jay. And he broke. He just broke in his first year.

It was funny. When I read that tweet last night, I'm like, oh, my God. I mean, he knows. He knows what it's like to be publicly run over by his head coach. But that's not what Ron Rivera did, in my opinion. But, you know, there was consequences to it regardless. and I think he owned up to it yesterday. We'll see what happens.

All this is meaningless because they are tomorrow night against Chicago in a code red, Jay Gruden, code red situation. This is a not what I said two weeks ago against Dallas, have to play well game. This is a have to win game. At one in five, the season really is over at that point, given the competitive landscape this year in the division. And really in the NFC as a whole.

One in five, it's over, and then we start looking in that long week leading up to the next game, if any, hammers fall. I don't think one will fall on the head coach. Could there be a scapegoat, a fall guy in the interim, a Marty Herney or somebody like that? Maybe, I don't know. Will they make a switch of quarterback? Doubt it. But, you know, if he throws three picks and they lose 37 to 7 tomorrow night, that could be a problem. But tomorrow nights must win.

And I will mention real quickly, and hopefully Cooley will have some thoughts on Chicago as well. This is not, you know, this is not a should-win game. There are no games on the schedule that are should-win games for Washington. There are plenty of teams that are playing Washington that look at Washington as a should-win. Chicago shouldn't be doing that. These teams are even. Chicago is definitely coming off the best, offensive performance of the season for them.

I watched that game yesterday, the condensed version, yes. Justin Fields, I still think has a chance to become a good player, and he can really hurt you off schedule. And Darnell Mooney is going to be a problem. And the guy that is going to be asked to cover him is Richard Wild Goose, who came in and played slot corner for St. Juice when St. Juice moved to the outside. to replace William Jackson, who I would not be surprised if he's inactive tomorrow night against Chicago. The Wild Goose Mooney matchup, a big one in the game tomorrow night.

I know that you look at Chicago probably and say, they're not very good, they're two and three. They can't score. They've got a good offensive line. They have a very good running back situation with Herbert and with Montgomery back and healthy. Mooney's a problem, especially when he's in the slot. They are decent defensively. Robert Quinn's still out there. Roquan Smith is out there. Eberfluse is a good defensive coach. They've had chances even in the games that they lost. They led Minnesota in the fourth quarter before Cousins does what he did the other day,

which is another fourth quarter comeback, another fourth quarter late game drive to win a game. But no, Chicago beat San Francisco on a terrible field in the Oval. opener, was actually in the game late against Green Bay, beat the Texans, was close against the Giants, and then had a fourth quarter lead against Minnesota last week. They're a one-point favorite right now. So this is one, though, you got to get, because this is right now for Washington, I do believe, the weakest team so far on their schedule. The Lions were pretty explosive offensively. Jacksonville's proven to be much better than they were allowed. year, Eagles, Cowboys, Titans, all better than the Bears.

So, must win. Code Red tomorrow night, whatever you want to call it. This is not a must play well. This is a must win. They've got to be two and five heading into that long stretch before Green Bay comes to town. And then you're looking at, you know, a schedule where maybe they can't beat the Packers, but they got a game against the Colts. They've got the Vikings at home. They have games in November against the Texans and Falcons. none of these games or gimmies, obviously. Again, no game on the schedule is they should win game. But if they're going to have a chance, and I don't think they have a chance,

but if they're going to stay in contention for a competitive season where maybe a couple of these games in mid to late November means something, you know, and it wouldn't be, oh, if they win, they're, you know, the seventh seed. It would be if they win, maybe they have a chance to get back into the conversation of being the seven seed. I don't think that's going to happen, by the way. I'm not predicting that. I don't think they're a very good team.

But if that's a possibility, they have to beat the Bears tomorrow night. Have to beat the Bears tomorrow night. By the way, in all of these updated power rankings, Washington's between 30 and 32. 32, I think, on CBS Sports, 31 on ESPN and I think 30 on NFL.com. I mean, there are very few teams in the league this year. that you can identify as teams that truly are awful. But after Thursday night, if Washington wins,

it's time to look in the mirror and say, there's one truly awful team in the NFL this year, and it's the commanders. I will have my thoughts on the game, some of them with Cooley, and most of them tomorrow with Tommy. All right, Cooley up next, right after these words from a few of our sponsors.

All right, let's bring in Cooley. Cooley in this segment presented by MyBooky. Go to my bookie.orgie.orgie. Use my promo code Kevin D.C. And your first deposit will be doubled, dollar for dollar, all the way up to $1,000 to get your first deposit match, dollar for dollar.

You have to use my promo code, Kevin D.C. Just out of curiosity, have you looked at the point spreads for this week, Christopher? Not one. Okay. So I'm going to ask you what you think.

Buffalo at Kansas City, the rematch of one of the greatest playoff games of all time. Buffalo at Kansas City, at Arrowhead, the Bills 4-1, the Chiefs 4-1, what do you think that number should be? You've become really good at this in recent years. I just threw out a guess, six and a half Buffalo. Really? Oh, my God. Oh, yeah, we're totally on different.

different wavelengths here. The line is actually Buffalo minus three at MyBooky right now. That wasn't that far off. I guess six and a half. No, no, no, no. I'm going to tell you something here in a second. Buffalo's minus three at MyBooky, minus 110. That's important, by the way, people. Some of those other sites are going to charge you minus 125, minus 30. MyBooky's got real Vigs, all right? Real point spreads. Real pricing. You're not going to overpay. Go to my bookie.org. Use my promo code, Kevin D.C. I'll bet Buffalo is a public favorite at three. I haven't gotten my initial stuff that I usually get by now.

I'll bet you at three. They're a big public favorite. Well, let me just tell you that when Sunday night, when the Monday night game was over, my son and I do this, my son's become really good at this as well. And he said, what do you think Chief's Bills is going to be next week? And I said, pick them. maybe Buffalo minus one. It's at Arrowhead.

The Chiefs are really good. You know, I just, I can't see Buffalo being more than like a one-point favorite or Pickham. And I said to him, I can't see Kansas City being favored. So you were closer than I was. Actually, we were equally close. You know, I said Pickham. You said minus six. I just didn't think, as far as the public, I don't know, I think it'll be split.

In some ways, I think Kansas City will be bet. I haven't seen any of the numbers. Are you looking at something? You and I are in completely different wavelength. We are. No, I think, I'll bet you Buffalo is a public favorite. It's hard to get people off either team. That's the interesting thing.

They are the two public darlings right now and have been, well, Kansas City has been for a few years now, and now Buffalo is. Yeah, it's just Yeah, it's like Buffalo looks really The thing is, Alan looks so good against the Pittsburgh defense and I know Pittsburgh golf, their offensive struggle, but Allen's looked so good

since the comeback against Baltimore or not the comeback, the drive down the field and in the rain and then the game against Pittsburgh and even some of the players against Miami, I think they should have probably won that game too, but he destroyed Tennessee, they destroyed the Rams.

The Chiefs are, like the Chiefs are, I don't know, though. You watch the Chiefs play Tampa Bay. Right. But then Monday night, they could have easily lost that game. God, we have not talked about, though. Did you watch the Monday night game? I didn't. I wanted to.

I was exhausted Monday, and I couldn't. And it was early here, and I just didn't get it on. There were a lot of, you know, what happened in the game. I've seen the game. Yeah, a lot of analytics, you know, two-point decisions, et cetera. But let me just mention this because Schaefter tweeted this out earlier. For the first time in his career, Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes is a home underdog. Mahomes had been favored in his first 41 home starts, including the playoffs, the longest streak to begin a career in the Super Bowl era.

So the first time, and I would imagine that he hasn't been a dog on the road that much either. But he is an underdog at home for the first time in his career. Pretty amazing. How great he is. He's amazing. He really is. He's so good. So good.

He's so good. Yeah, so. Anyway, don't forget to rate us and review us, especially on Apple and Spotify. This came from Chet Gillespie via Apple Podcast. Love the show. Welcome back, Cooley.

I never felt like Cooley was gone. He just didn't do the same thing last year that he's doing this year, or he had done in previous years, but you're still on every once in a while. Here's where I am as a fan. Feel free to use these, Kevin. Just read on the pod.

Hashtag horrible for hooker. That means Hendon Hooker, the quarterback from Tennessee. Hashtag bad for Bryce. That's Bryce Young, the quarterback at Alabama. By the way, they play each other this Saturday in the biggest college game of the year. Hashtag lose for Levis. Will Levis is the quarterback at Kentucky. He is expected to be a first rounder as well.

And hashtag stink for Stroud. He is the quarterback at Ohio State. This is going to be a heavy first round of quarterbacks when we get to the draft. And yes, I will commit right now, without even asking him, I will commit Cooley to doing film breakdowns of all of the first round quarterbacks before the draft. So we have plenty of time. And that'll be probably after my trip to Wyoming. We might not be actually.

We can do it together. Okay, so tomorrow night, you don't have a lot on Chicago. You've already told me that, but you'll be here Friday to help us do the is and the ums on Friday after the game. But before you get to your film breakdown of the Tennessee loss, I know you wanted to speak about the Rivera stuff from the last couple of days. Well, we both wanted to speak of the Rivera. You wanted to talk about it.

I've been talking about it on the phone before we started a podcast. I already did some in the open, and I did it yesterday with Tommy. I've been doing it every day this week. So this is for you to weigh in. This actually plays in really well with your guys' hashtags. So you start in 2020 and you tell the owner, we can figure it out with Dwayne Haskin to get a job. And then you have Kyle Allen, and then you have Alex Smith,

and then you have Heineke. And then you run through this litany of not great quarterbacks. And then you sign Wendt and said finding a way to get to, I guess a better step is Garoppolo. You don't draft and you don't acquire. And three years in, you blame quarterback. I'm taking out of equation right now what that meant to Carson Wentz. And you've explained to me that you think Rivera really did intend to say quarterback over the last. three seasons.

Not just Wentz right now. And it is in part Wentz right now. He is implying that Wentz is not helping that Winn football game. That is correct. And that is where he misspoke a little bit. But where I understand is Wentz is in his first year and a new often.

And you've had to go out and get another quarterback. The thing is, and I look at this all the time. If I'm going to take a job, as a head coach, I want to know that I got a chance to work with somebody right now that I at least believe in. There's no way he believed in Dwayne Askin. No. When he took the job, and there was no direction on what he was going to do with quarterback, because Alex Smith wasn't realistic when he took the job. No. And so he just took a job not having a quarterback.

Also understanding, I think he probably believes a big part of the struggles in Carolina were Cam. when they were winning in Carolina. Yeah. And so what it's funny is, if you're going to lose, what's the H word, I don't know, horrible, do you just start with a new coach at that point? Because when you start with another new quarterback that you've drafted next year, it's another bad year, most cases.

Yep. it's another sort of down year, or it's a year where maybe they're not ready and your plane went more because maybe Wendt sums on a little bit late in the season. So it's another meh year. And now we're talking about four meh years with that coach. And so do you then fire the coach, or do you just say at some point, he's just going to be our guy through the run of the next quarterback? We don't care what happens.

but if you draft a quarterback in the first round and then fire the coach at the end of the year because it's another four-win year, five-win year, or not playoff year, then that quarterback immediately changes to an entire new staff and an entire new system. I guess the point I'm making is for those new head coaches

or head coaches taking on new jobs with new teams in any capacity, make sure you got a fucking question. quarterback. Let's not wait three years and then blame quarterback position. You're the Rivera's the GM. Rivera runs the show. Rivera's made the choices at quarterback.

Poor choices at quarterback, I would find suitable. I've made poor choices at quarterback we believe in Wentz going forward as of right now. But I'm not, are we really going to say or blame Haskins, Heineke, Allen, and Smith? Are we going to blame the guy that brought them in and the way they ran it around them? You know, you're reminding me and others. First of all, that is, everything you said is true. And even though I don't think he was intentionally throwing once under the bus, which I've explained 50 times, and even Tommy agreed with that.

It doesn't matter. The result was everybody thought you had crushed your quarterback, and that's not good. So he took responsibility. I talked about that in the open. and whatever, we move on. But the bigger picture is what you've addressed here. And he's not going to get a chance, in my opinion, now to pick the next quarterback.

I think if this season starts to go really badly, which it could tomorrow night, I think there's going to be a mutual parting of the ways. And I think Dan and Tanya will bring in some young offensive coordinator who doesn't have a lot of options because nobody's coming here with options, who is somewhat cheap. He's an offensive guy. They'll keep Martin Mayhew and they'll pick a quarterback in the draft. But back to 2020, if Ron really had his eyes wide open and didn't, and he claims, and I asked him this,

I said, did you have to commit to Dwayne Haskins, the first time I interviewed him, did you have to commit to Dan on keeping and developing Dwayne Haskins to get this job? And he said, absolutely not. Well, nobody believes that. You have to commit to, I'll bet you you have to commit to trying. Yeah, okay. You know what? That's fair because that's actually the conclusion that I came to at the time. He had to say to Dan, which by the way for him in the moment was like, eh, we'll give him a chance. We're not going to be good in 2020. But here's the problem with that. If he knew instinctively and everybody there knew, except for Dan, which is usually the case, that Dwayne was not going to be the long-term answer, then he should have seriously thought about Tua or. more importantly, Justin Herbert. Now, I'm not going to go back and backtrack.

I wanted Chase Young. I still think Chase Young is an incredible talent, a generational talent, and will prove to be hopefully a great defensive player in this league. But, and I also want to mention I didn't want Tua because he had that serious hip injury. And there were a lot of questions there. And so, but, and I didn't love Herbert. but clearly that's not my job. Their job was, sorry Dan, no on Dwayne.

We have a chance here with the number two overall pick that we may never have a chance with again. We have to be really aggressive if burrows our guy to try to trade up one spot with Cincinnati, including giving up the kitchen sink. And if they don't do it, we have to choose between Tua and Justin Herbert. That's what we're going to do. And we've got to do it realistically.

We probably have to do it. at number two because we don't know, like, Tua's going to go pretty early. Maybe we could trade back to five. But if we really didn't like Tua, it's Herbert, and we might have to take Herbert at two. Yeah. Well, they would have looked brilliant in hindsight. He might go. And if you trade back and don't get your quarterback, you are dead in the water.

Yeah. So that was, that was in hindsight, and I didn't call for it at the time. And I loved Chase Young. I wanted him to lose that game in 2019 to the Giants to ensure that they got Chase Young in the number two overall pick. But then you brought in Kyle Allen because you legitimately thought you were going to need Kyle Allen in that first year because it wasn't going to work out with Dwayne, which ultimately is the direction in which you went. And then all of a sudden Alex was available, which we've been through that whole thing.

And then look, in 2021, they went hard after Matt Stafford. They offered Detroit a shitload for Matt Stafford. And the bottom line was Stafford wanted to play in Southern California. He wanted to be on a team and with an organization that was much brighter in not only potential but overall, you know, organizational structure. And Detroit did him a favor that he had been a trooper for all those years and they dealt him. And by the way, McVeigh came in at the last second with a deal that ultimately trumped Washington's deal, which made it easier. And then before this past season, he didn't want Wence. That wasn't their plan.

Their plan was Russell Wilson. And they offered, you know, Seattle a boatload for Russell Wilson. But Wilson and John Schneider eventually it was because he liked Drew Locke, and Pete Carroll wanted him dealt to an AFC team. And so they dealt him to Denver. But they did try. But the problem is trying to swing big in this organization is going to be hard. You're going to have to draft the quarterback.

because nobody really wants to come here. If you've got options which Carson Wentz did not have, and by the way, that's why you had to trade for Carson Wentz. Carson Wentz would have been released by Indy, and then you would have had to compete with other teams for Carson Wentz, potentially for nothing on the waiver wire or as a free agent. Instead, you gave up a second, a conditional third, which could become a second if he plays more than 70% of the snaps this year,

And you switch spots in the second and, you know, and you picked up his entire contract. But what you didn't do is you didn't restructure that deal. And we talked about that all during the off season. For those people that were calling me in the off season say, they got their answer. No, they don't. They don't think they have their answer. They are. They're telling you they're the ones that are going to resuscitate his career.

Look, this is Carson Wentz we're talking about. Yeah, but there was a reason they didn't restructure his deal. because one year was a hope and a prayer on once, and if it doesn't work out, they can turn them loose at the end of this year with no dead cap money, which is far different than what Philadelphia had to deal with, with the biggest cap penalty in the history of the league at the time

when they traded him to Indianapolis. Anyway, they've had chances. They've gone for it, is my point. But yes, ultimately, the quarterback situation here is the responsibility of coach-centric Ron. No doubt. here's one thing we do know moving forward in the draft, though, is if they were to part ways.

And by the way, do you mean part ways like next week? No. No, no, no, no, no, no. End of the year. Here's why, Cooley, because you can't, after his January 6 comments and in fining him $100,000, you can't name Del Rio the interim coach. That's not going to happen. No, I think at the end of the year.

And you really can't. Assuming they win four or five. games, six games, which is kind of what they're on track to do. Well, right now they're on track to win like three, but... I would have also traded up for Justin Fields. I want to make sure... I also was very much in favor of trading up for Justin Fields. That may not be something that works out.

I wasn't. I know you weren't. But, you know, they could have been aggressive in the 21 draft as well, you know, with Fields or Trey Lance or... Zach Wilson, whatever. Who am I forgetting the quarterbacks? Well, Trevor Lawrence. Oh, the number one overall pick in Jacksonville.

Trevor Lawrence, yeah. But we do know this for sure. If they were to part ways, I would ask Dan for a list of quarterbacks. I would say, take these five quarterbacks that are going to be first rounders. And then I would go, whatever he put his number five would be the guy I would draft.

Yeah. We've learned that his evaluation is actually spot on. It's just spot on exactly wrong. Right. So if he's dead, if he's set on a guy, we're not taking him. Yeah. It's probably what people are doing with me and my smell test here. She and's smell test very valuable.

Valuable information. Yeah, your smell test is not good. You've got to, I'm going to just give you, even though sometimes Washington fits the bill. You have too many feelings. I don't. I don't. I took Jacksonville against them in week one.

You just got to exclude. Here, I'm going to just tell everyone that's listening. Kevin's going to continue to take them more weeks than any other team. I usually don't. You do not listen to that pick. They look right. They look right tomorrow night. They always look right to you.

No, they don't. That's not true. That is not true. They have the last two weeks, though. I did pick up the cover. I think I said 21-20. I was going to go nuts if Washington somehow kicked a field goal to make it 21-20 and it ended that way.

I know. That I picked the score. By the way, you need the score. If you hold someone to 21, you need to win that game. It's been lower scoring across the league this year. Yep. For sure. We talked about that a week ago.

But when you hold some, even the Gibbs, even the Gibbs, if we can hold, if we can hold to 21, we can win a ballgame. We've got to score 24 weeks. I find a way to get 24. What do you got in the Tennessee game? Well, you wanted to go through Wintz.

You wanted to go through the past rush and some of the defensive stuff and then the final drive. Yeah, the final drive. So actually sat and charted the final drive. And I think a couple interesting things would come up in the final drive. As you go through, it's second and one to start the drive, like at the

24. Yeah. You just run the ball there. Well, Gibson dropped the pass. No, not on the first second one. Okay. Oh, yeah, no, Gibson, yes. Gibson dropped the pass. That's fine.

They're trying to take a shot of the slant and go. You know you're going to get out coverage. They're going like slug-o in a theme on the other side. Flanton go is slug-o, almost any language in the NFL. That one has stayed. You just run the ball. I know that he throws the check down to Gibson, and it should have converted, but he just run the ball.

They end up getting to fourth and one, and they run the ball. Yeah. The crazy thing is, is in the third and one, if anybody's watching that game again, he takes a shot with not too much pressure moving backwards to Sims. It's a pretty darn good ball to Sims that he doesn't come down with. Right. Well, yeah. Terry McCorn, they're running crossers.

Terry McCorn scores. If he lets that ball go, essentially, close to the same timing as Sims. Terry's coming from the other side running a deeper crosser. If he lets that ball go in between the hash and numbers, Terry's beat his dude one-on-one. There's nobody behind them. There's no safety back. If he lets that ball go a touch where Terry can catch it on the run, it's a touchdown. And where I think this is really interesting, and I've said this with Wentz, and we'll talk about it, I think he gets stuck too much on one read. He's got Sims. He never looked at Terry.

And he's got to throw it over two backers, a safety almost, and another backer and float that with perfect touch. But frankly, he does do it. It's a pretty good throw. Man, you've got to see the field. The one thing that I would ask you on the third and one is I do see that Terry's open, obviously. But he is getting, 77, that would be Charles, is getting absolutely taken to the cleaners by the interior pass rush.

which is why he's backing up. He's going to have to plant, step, and throw to Terry. Does he get it off? The touch throw really is almost the only throw he can make. You remember looking back, all of those under pressure, Tom Brady, let it go high and far, high enough that your receiver has time to run under it, grows that he's made all the time. And the throw can come out even almost quicker than it does to Tim to Terry.

Fair enough. You're right. And also, this is a two-man show. Yeah. This isn't a deep end of progression kind of read. You're reading the mesh between the two. This is an easy read. Just a one, what way does that free safety go?

And who's got more separation on my third step out of the drop? If the free safety sluffs and hangs back one way, then it's in the, you're working the other way. The safety's sucked up at the line of scrimmage. They're both going to win. But Terry wins big. Yeah. Should have been an easy touchdown. Okay.

It should have been an easy completion and a potential to be a touchdown. Okay. But, but. But Terry's got the field. I mean, you're thrown into the boundary to Sims. Terry's got the field side. You got more room to let that ball float out there. It would be nice, though, if, if Sadiq Charles could at least keep, and I can't see if this is Simmons or not,

because Simmons just was a havoc wreak girl all day. It'd just be nice if he could drop back on third and one, a running down, and have just a little bit of opportunity for a pocket. And then it is a touchdown. But I see what you're saying. If he recognizes that the pressure, the interior pressure is coming, you just unload that thing to a spot with some air under it and Terry runs under it. Period.

What did you think about the challenge? Did you know that he challenged? when you're... What's that? He challenged the Sims catch and lost a time out. Because it wasn't a catch. Obviously, they came back on the fourth and one. You're watching the old 22. The ball clearly hits the ground. I mean, the ball clearly hits the ground. They call it. You know what I mean? They call it no catch.

Yeah, it was a hard one to overturn. Personally, I don't love those because I do think it's a catch. Yeah. But by the rule, it isn't a catch. Right. I thought he... So, I don't like the challenge at all. And where it's crazy is if you have

any time out from the back end of that, you've got a chance to run the ball on first and two. Or at least you can stay balanced and they can't just play past. Of course. Anyway, I mean, I just don't think that's a hard throw for a quarterback.

Okay. I don't think it's a tough read. I don't think it's a tough throw. I think he missed it. He was under pressure the entire fourth quarter. really. Once you get into the fourth quarter, he's under pressure. Dude, I'm watching this again, though. You look at this, and I get that there's pressure,

but he never even looks at Terry. You know what I mean? And then I'm going to go one step further and say, not to dismiss Tam Sims, but I'm going to go one step further and say, if you had your choice, who are you throwing to? Well, I'm throwing to Terry. The reason he's throwing Sims, in my opinion, is because it's a shorter throw. He's throwing it off his back foot. Sims is running a 10-yard over. Terry's essentially run in the the deeper post over. Whatever. I mean, it's still,

it's a hell of a throw. And I think it's a heck of a play by Sim to come up with it. I just understand the rule, which I, which I, we've talked about a lot. I don't love that rule. Yeah. I don't know. Did you watch it enough times? Yeah, I mean, I think what I said

was, and what I thought at the time, which is why I said it, I thought that it was going to be really hard to overturn, but it's hard for me to kill Rivera. because you're facing a fourth and one, not a third and one. You're coming back fourth and one. And now you're going to have to make the decision with four minutes to go

as to whether or not you're going to go for it from deep in your own territory down for or punt it. You don't want to make that decision. You'd like to hope that maybe, because I do think he has control of the ball, but the ball also kind of hit the ground. And I didn't think it was going to be overturned. But it was hard for me to kill Rivera for taking a short. shot at it and with somebody up in the booth saying it's really, really close. And him saying, well, then let's go for it.

And the truth is, that one timeout shouldn't have killed him because there's another spot on this drive that cost them 13 seconds, and that's really what hurt him. But yeah, it would have been nice to have the timeout. I'm not saying it wouldn't have. But go ahead. So you get the fourth and one run. It's a nice cut. First and ten, you fumble a snap.

You get to a checkdown. It works out okay. Well, hold on for a second. You don't fumble a snap. It's the third time in the game that the balls come back almost rolling to him. He had that issue with the center all day. There were like two of them that were legitimately hit the ground before they got to Wentz, and that one was super low.

Yeah, it's low. It left me. Yeah. Bad snap. By the way, it's beyond me to think that an NFL center can't just snap it to the core. Well, this guy struggled all day. I understand. but it's beyond me.

If I'm an NFL center and I'm missing the quarterback three times in a game, I don't even need to go practice with the quarterback. I am going home and I'm just throwing at the wall a thousand times. My wife's going to say, hey, you want to go practice your hiking? Yeah. I would like to go do some hike. Hey, I would like to go do some heights. I don't care if you catch them or not.

Just tell me if it lands below your knees. All right. So he ends up making a good choice on the second one to run. It's a hook outside, the baits, it's good. Really, I'm not going to go through this. It becomes methodical, and they're playing soft cover four or cover three. I thought it was interesting that when they went into some of the soft three looks, they were playing hard overhangs on the slots,

and even on the outside players. And those are outside overhangs in cover three. Explain. So you're really trying to take away sidelines, flat throws, anything widen to the outside as Washington goes from about the 30 to the 30. Attack the middle of the field when you see three. They had a ton of concepts where they went, like a post corner, and then on the backside, like a 14-yard in.

Throw the in. They're giving you the inside and the middle of the field at that intermediate. media range. Against three, it was easy to see overhangs from that defense. So I think they could have not had six-yard gain, eight-yard gain, run,

check-down. You know, I think they have some throws available. I would say, like, there are times, though, where it's tough. Like, do I really want to do I really have time to do it? But if you got an overhanging, you believe you're going to get the inn on the back side, just give a token

look to the front side and throw the throw the in. So they move the ball. I mean, he ends up making some pretty good throws, you know. He hits Terry on a first and 10 short, and it's a great run after the catch, get out of bounds, and now they're down to the 29-yard line

with 53 seconds left. Yeah. But the next... Seems like it to me. But then they go backwards a little bit again. You know, they overcame a first in 20, and then they overcame a first in 15, but yeah. So he throws a flat out.

to Samuel for a one-yard gain after the Fall Star, right? Yes, it's first and 15 after the Fall Star. I know what I want to ask you. On the False Start play, okay? 53 seconds to go there at the 29-yard line. They're in decent shape here. Decent shape. What was the snap?

Was it intended to go back to Carson? or was it intended to go to the motion man, Samuel. This was another, they're lucky it was a false start here. Let me pull it up. Samuel ends up taking the snap off a bounce. It bounces off his hands. He picks it up, but they had already whistled to play dead because of the false start. It was this, well, obviously the false start was on the center, duh.

He snapped it too early. It was not intended to go back to Samuel, of course. The center fucked it up again. He had a bad day. Yeah, and you can see Winsis pissed at that point. It should be. You're marching the ball. I think it's interesting, though, when this happens, snap the ball.

So the play to Sam. No, it says to the false start on the right tackle. Is it a right tackle, false start? Yeah, it's the right tackle. He goes early. So what was the play? We never get into running the play, but. it's no he's not snapping it to samuel you're right Lucas was called for it yeah

no they're past protecting it's not a fly suite well the ball hit Samuel on the snap I understand that but I think you live in the chaos of whatever happens with the whistle and you feel guys moving the same right just snap it fine fair enough you know what I mean he sent the tackle moved and he probably tried to keep him on the same page and step the ball so let's go to the next play the throw to Samuel where his forward progress is stopped, the referee goes down, and Rivera's waiting to see whether or not the play is going to be marked out of bounds, and the clock is going to stop, or if he's going to roll his arm with the clock rolling. That's a big play.

13 seconds, 49 seconds that play ends. Their next snap comes at 36 seconds. Yeah, I feel like that other official running in has got to be able to make a call. You know, I know he's not a sideline judge, he's got to make that call. I don't think Samuel got out of bounds. More so than that, the problem I have more than this is you're tied in, Cole Turner's wide open over the ball.

Like on an OTP, you're right on the hash. Like, why are we going to throw this flat into coverage? Oh, yeah, he is wide open. On a second and 15. First and 15. Sorry, a first and 15. Yeah. Like, why do we, I mean, you're throwing a flat into coverage.

Cole Turner's. They actually went Tampa 2 here. They went to a Tampa 2 look. They haven't showed it much, but it's probably because of the down and distance. But he throws the flat route into a cover 2 corner. My old offensive coordinator, Bob Cole at Utah State would have said to the quarterback, what you want to strap you to a goalpost and get a baseball bat

and beat the shit out of you because that's what you just did to your receiver. Yeah, he did. Hung him out to dry. I mean, hung him out to dry. That said he totally redeems himself the next play. He's under absolute pressure and somehow gets the ball out on the checkdown. Yeah, to McKissick. I mean, there was some pressures in this game.

In the third and fourth quarter, you're like, oh, my God. The right tackle who jumped off the side could beat immediately. Somebody gets it out in McKissick. Right. And they end up getting a chance. And then he comes back, he throws another out route to Samuel and a good timing on an out route. You got a corner in and out and soft coverage. He hits the out, and Samuel does a good job, and he gets out of bounds.

And then you get the DPI down to the two-yard line. And I'm not sure if he knew he was going to get DPI, we'd he let that go, but his receiver's not open. So whatever, he still gets DPI. I mean, no, this is the dumbest DPI of all time. He's letting his ball go with Terry on the four-yard line, and he's running a post-corner, and the cornerback is just like, nah, I got help inside.

I'm going to hang out out here. This was a bad choice. It should have been a pick. Yeah, bad throw. And I even think the DPI was a bit questionable. No. It's not. Get your hands off of them.

You can't touch him down there. Okay. You got to turn and run. You've got to go play the ball. It's DPI, for sure. All right. First and goal at the two 19 seconds left. No timeouts.

So let's talk about, you know, strategy here before we get to the plays. You can't run. So I'm actually listening to this because I was working. Okay. Let's do talk about strategy. So I'm listening to the broadcast on the radio. Okay. And somebody brings up, so do you think you can run the ball here?

I'm like, seriously? London Pletcher said, no, I don't think you can run the ball here. You think you can run the ball. Yeah, I mean, you'll get two left plays if you run the ball. You could. Right. I mean, you're going to get two total plays. You run the ball, you're going to get one more playoff.

Yep. I mean, you, it's ballsy. You take a loss on her on your street, but let's just say, like, quarterback sneak, quarterback, sneak, boom, boom. Run the ball. Run the ball. Run the ball. Two, one-yard games, touchdown. Boy, can I tell you something, seriously?

So, of course, with 19 seconds left and no timeouts, we've all watched enough football to know that you, if you want your full allotment of opportunities, four downs, to have to throw it on the first three. And then you've got a run pass option on fourth down if you don't get it in on the first three. But here's what, because our very good friend, Richard Doc Walker, said that he would have just lined it up and ran and he would have sent Brian Robinson, Jr. behind Norwell and have him leap over the pile on first and goal. And I said, no, no, you can't do

that on first down. Because if he doesn't get in, which he's not going to, leaping behind the one guy that's getting blown up all day long, although they all were, then you're, you're going to only going to get one more snap, maybe. And so, but here's what I, and I want to have this. You can run that little shovel pass play that they ran last week. What I would do, if it's dead, if it's dead, you ground, like if it's not immediately available to score, the quarterback throws it into the ground. And it's incomplete. Okay, that's one option. But, but that's, that's, that's, that's not slobber knocker run the football behind a big offense. A lot of run it in. But here's what I want to say. I think when you get to third down,

It's still a down in which the defense is playing pass because of the game situation with no timeouts left. And I think at that point, you have to assess the probability of scoring on two plays against a defense that is expecting pass or surprising them with a third down run and having the game either won there or lost there. because a quarterback draw or with the field spread or a quick shotgun handoff against a three down lineman has a chance

a really good chance to score and maybe the chances to win the game are better on one play than they are on two that's the only thing I would I think I would consider that I would agree with you and I think in those situations and it's something you definitely have to prepare for and you definitely have to understand

but in those situations, you can have a run check where you get the perfect look to get two yards, we're just going to check it. So the third down look was a good look to run the ball. Right. And like going back to my broadcast booth, like Sonny Jurgensen would have been calling quarterback

draw all day. Right. Like, oh, we could get a quarterback draw. But essentially, you're just doing a box count and you're taking the inventory of the defenders within the space where your offensive line is. And if you're saying, you know, we have five to block five, although I'd probably want two to block 98. Yeah.

Like, if we have numbers, let's take a shot. Two yards. So go through each one of these plays. So back to the first and two. Yeah. What's that? Let's go through each one of the first, the three places. Back to the first and two, the first and two is really not good by when.

I mean, if you watch this, really, if you watch kind of end zone form, so they're running these crossers, and Bates sort of stumbles coming out of the line of scrimmage. But if Wents, instead of just forcing the throwaway, when he forces the throwaway, keeps his eyes up, he can throw it into Bates, he's open. Like, he doesn't like the right side, and he kind of panics, but he's got no pressure. It's a three-man rush. he has no pressure on him and he just drifts and throws it away what's the design of the play what's the design of the play it's crossers

where's his first where's his first read Terry McLaren is trying to come underneath baits on a pick so first of all he's going to start on the right side okay this is the way he's going to work he's going to start on the right side and he's going to see if he's got the flat or the corner immediately I actually think he's got a shot to throw the flat

but I don't like that because the flat route is not running depth into the end zone. And situationally, if you have 20 seconds left, you should make sure your flat route gets into the end zone, no matter what the score. You're not getting tackled on the one. That's McKittick. And that McKittick flattens too early. I don't think it's an open throw, so he immediately comes off it. Now he's going to see if he's got this dig, and he's going to work this dig to crossries.

The dig's dead, and he does not then high-low the cross-street. Everyone runs with Terry. Bates is open. Bates is scoring. Wences drifting back, throwing this high lob out of bounds, which, by the way, does not go out of bounds. No. This is a pick.

This is 46 for Tennessee, it's game over. If you're going to drift and throw it out of bounds, throw it into the fucking stand. This should have been a pick. This was an easy pick. I know. He, instead of just standing where he was and jumping, tries to make this falling diving catch and drag his toes.

He didn't even have to move. He could just stand there and caught the ball. That would have been, by the way, a really tough one to swallow for Carson. Oh, my God, I talked about that. If that first throw, all three throws could have been picked, but it was the first one. If that one had been picked,

that would have been really, really difficult because he's drifting backwards with a three-man rush. Now, I understand three-man rushes against this team. They've been getting home a lot. And maybe he is spooked by any kind of rush. But he's drifting back to the 15-yard line and not throwing the ball out of bounds. And maybe he's thinking I could get a grounding here because I'm in the pocket. But the bottom line is 100%.

If that's picked off there with nobody around, I think he's throwing to Sims. I think he thinks Sims is going to keep going. And Sims breaks off his round. Oh, you think he's actually throwing the Sims? He's throwing it out of the back of the end. I think he thinks Sims is going to be in the general vicinity, though. No, he's throwing out of the back of the end zone. Okay, well, whatever, he didn't do a good job of it.

No, he didn't. But if you look at it again, I bet you can see this on a TV copy. What are you doing for? I know. So we get to the second and two. And he's really on the right side. got the same thing, he's got a corner and a flat. The flat route is Diami Brown.

He looks right first. If he really looks at how they're playing this, the corner, they really, they in and out this. The wider corner takes the outside guy, but he plays with way outside leverage. The flat route isn't Diami Brown. It's Curtis Samuel. Is it Samuel? I thought it too. Yeah, it's Curtis Samuel. If he throws this ball right away on Curtis Samuel's back hip,

it's a touchdown. I thought so too. And then after he threw in a way that should have been a pick, he tries to sidearm fit one into McKissick that I thought was really, really risky. It might not score even if he catches it. He might not be in the end zone. He's going to score. McKess did a good enough job getting his body into the end zone.

Okay. It's close. I think McIthick does a good enough job getting his body at least into the end zone. but I don't like me I don't like that that's the one I put out of fouls in the corner so you think

on the Samuel flat route if he just if he just gets it out immediately that corner Samuel's going to get either he's going to either score by physically getting in after the contact or he's going to outrun him to the

to the to the to the pylon no so if you freeze frame this at the top of winters drop They're in a corner and a flat. There's essentially a triangle of coverage over the top of them. It's three men covering two. Right.

But the inside of the three playing short, the inside of the three playing short, somehow falls back inside, just leaves it alone. Yeah. He says, you got it, you're good. He does not continue to go into the flat. Now if Wentz, just back hips, not leads to the pylon.

He's getting, getting killed, leading the pylon or picked. if he just back hip, Samuel, he falls into the end zone. Okay, back hips him over his right hip. This is not an untama throw. It's tough, but... No, I know. I know the three you're talking about. And you think he scores. I do too. I think the other funny thing about this play is when you watch this play finish, Norwell's guy drops. Oh, my God, yeah, I saw this. And Norwell's fucking standing there at the one.

one and a half yard run. Like, blocking the, like, go find work to do. You're not going to catch the ball. You're not going to block for anyone in the end zone. Like, my God, what is Norwell doing? He's just standing there, too. The ball almost hits him in the arm. So I said on Monday, my God,

Norwell almost blocks the throw. Now, when I got the all 22, you can see there's actually space between him and McKissick. There's more space. But what is Norwell doing? it easier. No, he's not. This isn't hockey where we're going to just try to deflection. We're trying to get the deflection off the

off one of our guys that's just planting there in the crease. Well, my guy dropped. I guess I got nothing to do here, so I'll just stand here and get the way. So, and then you get to the third downplay before I get to my final thoughts on this. The third down play, they're trying to run a shallow cross with Terry McLaurin and then Engle route behind it was McKittickett.

The way this is essentially, read out is Terry McClorin is trying to take the first inside defender with him. Turn his head, get him out of the play. You're counting on McKissick to beat the outside guy. One, McKethick runs this way too shallow. You've got to push for depth to push that outside guy off and give the inside guy a chance to maybe think about taking Terry. This route should break on the angle in at the goal line. This is a two yards, two yards of depth route past the line of scrimmage. He breaks this off at the three-yard line. He's three-yard short on his route. Push for depth for your angle route to push them off. Which one is he pushing off? The outside defender or the guy that

knocks Terry? He's pushing off the outside defender. He's making it look like he is running a rail or a go down the sideline. You have got to push this route for depth on this angle route. You cannot run this behind the line of scrimmage. He breaks this off at three yards. It's not a good route by McKessick. That said, Wents' only real read on this, you are counting on McKissick to win against the outside corner when you're breaking in. You're counting on him to win and shield. His only read is, does Terry collect the first inside player? Like we called that route, the collector route. Does he collect the inside player? By no means does he collect the inside player? No. And Wentz let it go. Like, I have to let this go like I don't have fourth down. And

it's a pick. So to summarize all these, we talked about this Shanna, or Gruden or Shanna or something with Kirk Cousins. Sometimes you have got to extend a play in the red zone. Sometimes your immediate play isn't there. Tennessee rushed three on first and second down and showed a clear and defined three-man rush on third down. You got all goddamn day to extend this play. Make something happen on script.

Period. like forcing throws to McKissick and forcing throws, those are the three worst plays of the day, in my opinion. Right. It sucks for them because it's a bad play all the way around, all three of them are. But nine times out of ten, that linebacker long, makes a really good pass breakup but doesn't intercept the ball.

Eight times out of ten. And then I would ask you, after watching the first three plays into eight-man coverage, where you're going to convert on fourth down. Just so you know, just so you know, I'm smart. In me rethinking this, if you want to run the ball, it's on third down.

Yeah, definitely. They're not going to play soft. They're not going to bring, they're going to rush four, and they're going to play a little bit, but more gap down, because they know fourth down to rest. On four down, on fourth down, they have to play run as a possible option, yes.

So third down is the down to run on. Agreed. Yeah. What would the fourth down play, have been. Well, it's shovels, shoveled the tight end. They just showed that last week. I don't know.

I mean, they ran variations across her all day, so I'm sure it's some variation across her. Here's what I think's crazy about this third down call and the thing I don't like about this third down call. You really, the way most teams want to do this, where you're trying to get the angle route to the back,

is you need to take the tight end in walking where Terry is. And then they bring one less DB potentially. They'll shade the linebackers to the receiver strength. They overhung more to Terry side because it's Terry. Right. And that's what a lot of teams do, you know, it helps when you have, like Jay used to do with Jordan Reed all the time,

and you get Chris Thompson in the flat and a lot of those Red Zone stuff, and the Chiefs do with Kelsey and Pallaire. I mean, if you have a decent tight end, and Bates was making some plays. Or you go with 85? I mean, I just don't like putting Terry. Like, here's the guy we want to throw it to over here, and then we're going to use him, and we're going to still throw it.

I think I would have taken 85 turner and at least thrown one fade to him. He's 6'6. I don't hate that. I think I would have given 17 maybe a chance on a fade. I think we're getting, offensively, I think they're getting too enamored with crossers and teams understand. Anytime you have some kind of go-to, you're going to run corner Omaha or corner out on the backside and run some form of crossers. Like basic cross or you got too much.

You know what I'd run? I'd run the play they caught to Sam. They threw the Samuel in week one with the diamond formation look. Right. That was the one he worked all the season on. You know what you do? You go at that diamond formation and you put Turner out by himself on the other side. And you say, we're throwing a fade if you don't put two to him.

Bingo. He worked on that all off season. Scott did. Good job. You and I came up with it. Congratulations. We're the best. You did.

All right. Overall, just tell me, because we were going to be short today because you needed to be short. We are. I'm going to go fast. I'm going to go fast. I'm going to go fast with this. The positives from Went. And these are just as my notes go, since we're going shorter.

He fumbles a snap, like on the second play, which is obviously a bad snap. but it worked out like a zone read. It's like, maybe we should have him run a little bit on some of the zone read stuff. You know, he hasn't told it all year. Well, he's not very mobile anymore. There are a couple runs he had this game that weren't terrible. He got four yards. Four yards now holds the backside defensive end.

And we can run. They were labored. They were labored. They were labored those runs. Yeah. Shit, the Steelers read it a couple times with Rafa spurt. It's true. It's just you can do it.

You know, you're looking for us to get three and keep them honest. Big time throwing a crosser to Curtis Samuel. The only place he could catch it, really good throw. It was not great separation, and he dropped it. Yeah. Great ball deep to Samuel a little bit later. Wait a minute. Was that Samuel or Terry?

You're talking about that first third down? Was it Terry? I thought it was. Somehow this film in these jerseys for whatever. a reason, it's not that easy to see numbers. You're right. No, you're right. It is Curtis Samuel.

I said earlier in the week it was Terry. You're right. It's Curtis Samuel. That was my bad. That was a catchable ball on third and two. All right. Continue. Great ball deep to Samuel and a run action a little bit later.

Big play. Awesome throw to Diami Brown. Post. He had quarters covered. bridge and the only about really good run by as far as getting through to the corner great ball perfect in timing and rhythm i like the design of it too because we've talked about some of those quarter stuff where sometimes they'll back up the backside corner safety to cover that post over the top so the corner on the other side can drift into that post but they run two 12 yard ends on the backside that holds the backside safety and it holds the backside corner and so there's it really makes a walk with the front side corner on the post yeah so i like to the design of that. Good shot right there. Third quarter,

a couple good completions throughout the game, threw in a Terry where you end up like really tight coverage, like the first play of the third quarter. Like, I mean, risky throw and tight window thrown. I don't even know if that's where I want to put that ball. I put there.

Terry comes down with it. Yeah. He ends up scrambling on a run-action screen the next play and it makes a pretty good play on that. How the hell of a blow? on a Robinson run that didn't really work out. It lays out 51. A couple other good, really good inside seam throw

to the Yami Brown again for a touchdown, which was awesome. I thought that was his best throw. That was an audible. The post for 75 is pretty good. That was an audible. They gave him some freedom at the line of scrimmage this week. Ooh, fun.

Mm-hmm. Fun. The negatives, still late, late with the ball, still holding, taking extra hitches, holding the ball too long to a lot of things. Like, one of the first plays in the game early, they're, I think it's an incompletion on a five-yard spot route to the receiver, and he looks at the running back too long and said,

what are you trying to see here? I'm not sure. Like, once, if the running back's running that wide, arced outside route, and the DB starts to run or so Weinbecker starts to go with him he's going with him. Throw the spot route. If DB or linebacker doesn't run hard,

throw the Y drop. Understand, but stop process. The stop processing on this is not going well for him through any of the year. This is a really, this is a really simple basic concept. I don't understand spatially

ways not seeing that. Okay. A couple fumbled snaps. I mean, they're not always on him, but you'd like to make sure even at your knee that you get it. He's playing the second quarter where he climbs the pocket. He does a pretty good job trying to step up and run, and he can't outrun 98. I understand he's a good player.

Okay, I get that. But what you will. Okay. And then I really wrote, when he steps up, if he just gets his eyes up instead of deciding to run, he's got a dig in the middle of the field of that play that he could just step up and throw the dig for 50 and then throw there's a third and 15 right after that

he's laid on a comeback route to Terry and it's like Terry's taking six chop steps to come back like you know he's coming out of it throw the ball you can't wait until he turns on a comeback ball's got to be thrown at the back of his head not into his chest it's too late in the tie um again a lot of these are just late stuff you know uh there's a fourth and five

where the covered throw that they didn't convert he's got a move and create. That's man coverage. He could run there if he needs to run. That one hurt him. It came after a third and five where he had a wide open crossing around the middle of the field, tenured in that ball gets batted.

I mean, I wrote, like, you've got to find a way to, you've got to find a passing lane there. But I did say, like, hell of a play to get your hand up and bathe. They had the fourth and five heard him. Yeah. The couple of sacks in the fourth quarter really, no chance. The left guard, both of the ones,

him nor will, and he had another false start in the midst of that, was just absolutely destroyed. And then they missed a sim shot down the field. They faked a little screen, and he threw it high and kind of out of bounds of Sims. He missed that shot, but I thought he had. You know, I mean, all in all, I thought Went to played a lot better in this game. Yeah. I thought he did make some good throws. I thought the last drive, he survived the fun in the pocket with some saddical.

I mean, I just, I think it's coming along for him. This game, he looked more comfortable. We're out of time, and you're out of time. Before defense, just quickly, here, we'll do defense. My other note, special teams is not good. You almost had two punts blocked. You had a terrible second punt. You had a holding on a punt return that they were at the 40 that put them back to the 15.

You had a muffed or a non-fielded punt that put them back again. Special teams really did not help them at all in this game. Had they won the special teams battle, When you win two out of the three, you win the game. Well, they lost specialty. Yeah, they were terrible. Tress Away had one of his worst days. I mean, he had short punts.

But yes. All right, what about defense? And then I'll make this really fast defensively. I loved the pressures throughout the entire game. I thought a lot more in this game. They did a really good job of creating one-on-one rushes. Montez Sweat was so much better. It's so funny that we talked about him.

He was so much better, although he had two false starts. I know. I told you he was getting close. Yeah, and you were super right. But, I mean, it's funny. Like, I've hold this. This film comes up. The first play of the game, I wrote this down, you end up getting some pressure. It's straight quarters.

This is a touch on a first play game. Only the rest is going to cover. They see her running down the field. Oh, really? On the play where sweat, sweat, drug, to tie. And it's no more play of the game should have been touch on Tennessee. I promise you, though.

look at that, be like, oh my God, it's touchdowns. Start the game. They did some good jobs with some stunt in run situations where they'd stunt and bring pressure out the edge. I mean, I'm fine with the way they played Henry. I know Henry's going to get run. He did not absolutely kill them. Right. Agreed. You know, I heard him on that first scoring drive where they went back-to-back screen that the safeties really did nothing on either of them. They weren't great coverage calls for that, and they got back-to-back screens that hurt them. But, yeah, the pressure was great throughout the they, really, they played a, they reacted to run past situations a lot more, like with a fake

handoff, they reacted up, filled a lot better. They never let him boot. They always played the quarterback in the boot situation. So when they went, run away, the D-end would not play, he would play the outside D-Gap, and they'd have someone else fit inside the D-Gap, so the quarterback could never get outside of the pocket on any of the boot thing. That was really good. I don't know, I mean, I've made a couple thoughts about really reading through all these.

is I just, I think that, and they made the change. I think St. Juice is much better outside. I still don't think Kendall Fuller is a very good outside corner. I think that he struggles quite a bit. I think in safety play, Camcourles helping them, but they don't have a deep middle of the field safety. And when they're in the lines, not just dominating, which they can because Allen and Payne can wreck plays and wreck games,

they are, they're really average defense. They're really average defense. I mean, sweat's got some juice to them. Their line. Without their line. Yeah. You said Payne and Allen only. Yeah, but right.

No, I agree. Their D-lines, you know, they've got some talent. By the way, I think Smith Williams and Two-Hill played really well, too. I think Two-Hill and Smith-Williams generate a lot of pressure in one-on-one situations. I think Two-Hill did a great job. I think, I think, too, and here's the other thing that I'm really surprised about. I wrote this down.

They went down into the red zone when they made it 21 to 17, and they were like, what, first and 15 and bounce back, and they get to a third and five, right? And you've had great rush all day, and they put a tight end to Fuller's side, and Fuller's plane outside zone stuff.

He runs a five-yard-in-round and get seven. Yeah. But to me, and then, because I read this too, like William Jackson early in him. Why are we so soft in quarters outside? I know that's the way they're playing it, but why are we playing that with a manned corner? Lock him and play them tight and make them beat you

because your pressure is going to get there, especially once it's been getting there. Lock your fucking corners on the outside, especially when a goddamn tight end walks out there. Right. If Fuller can't play tight to a tight end and get a pass break up on a five-yard end on a third and five, then what the hell are we doing?

I hate to say this again because it's the third straight week, and I don't always say this, as most of you know. I pick against them a lot and have. I think they're going to play well and have a chance to win tomorrow night. I mean, Chicago's the worst team they face this year, and Chicago's probably just as good as they are. Tennessee's not very good. Derek Henry and Jeffrey Simmons are really good.

Both of those players are elite players. Okay. Well, yeah, I mean, everyone has good players. Tennessee is really average football team right now. And they have really not that many threats of the receiver position or tight end position to complement Henry. Right, well, they were hurt. And they have an average quarterback.

All right, I got to get this show out. I will talk to you on Friday. Thanks. Later. All right, bye. All right, we'll finish up the show with Joe Ben and Addi next right after these words from a few of our sponsors. Tonight, the Capitals open up their season.

their 2022-2020-20-23 season against Boston at home. That game's on TNT, so you won't get the benefit of Joe Beninati and Craig Lachlan on the call. That'll start tomorrow night when they go to Toronto to face the Maple Leafs. But Joe B is with us right now. Always so much fun to catch up with Joe B, one of my favorite guests, talking about hockey. I think we could do anything. We've talked about lacrosse. We've talked about your college career at various points in time.

By the way, why don't I just start off by asking you? We're not limited, Kevin. We can go any direction if you'd like. Let's talk wine. You know what I was going to say? When I used to do the show with Cooley, the radio show, and we would have you on or we would have, you know, Locker on or somebody,

Cooley would say, like, during the break, should we just open up by asking, you know, asking Joe B, what he thought about the third and four call from Jay Gruden on Sunday? something like that. And I don't think we ever did that necessarily with you. But by the way, you are, I mean, Joe's called every single sport, including lots of football. What do you make of Washington so far through five games? Great call. So to me, when I watch the commanders, I just, they seem like a team that's stuck in the mud the same way every year. And I know there's a lot going on now. I know there's a lot of back. peddling going on after quarterback comments and all those good things. I just, there's always that appreciation, that anticipation at the start of the season,

and I wish for commanders fans that for once they'd get off to a four-in-one start, not a one-and-four start. I kept hearing, gosh, the schedule was just right. It's prime for them to get off to maybe a five-and-one start. And then I look in there one-and-four, and I just, I feel badly for the fans. I feel badly for you and for those in the media who have to cover the team year after year and day after day. I wish that you'd have a winner to talk about and get some sort of turnaround success there. And maybe it'll come.

I know Ron's teams tend to get better as the season goes along, but I wish they wouldn't fall out of the gate. You know, there's this notion, and I've heard Ted say this before and others. I remember Stan Kasten used to say this all the time when he was in Washington. and, you know, the old, you know, rising tide lifts all boats. And, you know, all teams in town want the other teams to succeed because it makes it a better sports town, et cetera. I don't know personally if I buy that. I think there's competition in most of these towns between these teams. But don't you think in all seriousness that all of the other teams, including the team that you have, you know, called games for now for a long period of time,

and have been the most consistently winning team in town. Haven't they all benefited from Washington being such a disaster in football? It's a great question. I just, from someone who covers a team that's on the other side, Kevin, honestly, there's an envy to what the commanders have. There is a, from sunrise to sunset discussion about commanders, commanders, commanders. I'm just speaking for myself now. I'm saying that I envy the amount of attention the franchise gets,

and I've been here since the mid-90s, and they've never truly been any good. Right. So you envy the attention that they get and the incredible fan base, the amount of numbers and support and ratings that they will get when they're on television, and you just sit there and you go, well, imagine if they were the three Super Bowl-winning type franchise that they used to be, and that I remember, you know, in my time going up in the sport, I just, I root for it to happen.

But, yeah, are you going to sit there and say, well, because the NFL team has not been good, more attention's been placed upon capital's hockey or net baseball or was it basketball. I guess so, but to a degree, we're all envious of what the commanders have had and have deserved for a long, long time. I just wish they'd back it up on the field every once in a while. We're going to get to the hockey conversation. I promise all of you. That's why Joe B is on, but many times with Joe B, we end up talking about a lot of other things. You know, I've always thought, and I'm curious as to what you think,

because you've been here since the mid-90s now. And you know what a great basketball town this is, you know, in terms of the high school and the youth level basketball and the two major college programs in Maryland and Georgetown. and by the way, other really good college programs, I've always said if the Wizards ever became a true championship contender, where they were playing games in May and June with a chance to win an NBA title, that this would become a juggernaut in this city. Like with all due respect to the Caps, they won a Stanley Cup,

all due respect to the Nats, they won a World Series, that this would become a massive deal and bigger if they were to win an NBA championship than the World Series and the Stanley Cup titles. What do you think? I'll say it in one word, passion. There's a passion for basketball in this community, and if you were to ever generate that type of team that could go deep, that could win at the NBA level, I agree with you a thousand percent, Kevin,

that in many ways that passion would almost dwarf some of the other sports. I just see it that way. I've watched it whenever I've been lucky enough to do basketball on the collegiate level or when I've been lucky enough to fill in on the NBA level, there's an amazing passion for the sport here. And again, it's been rocky road for a long, long time for them to go through and to travel over. And I know that they're trying like heck to put together the right combination, that can do it. If they do, when they do, it will be, you'll see it. It'll be obvious,

just how passionate the city is and the community is about basketball. Yeah, I mean, at the college level, we have certainly seen it, you know, when Maryland and Georgetown have been really good, it has been a massive, massive deal in this town. You know, certainly when Maryland's been good, given the number of alum that live in the area. I, you know. Help me. Help me, Kevin. Was it 2002? Has it really been that long? 20 years. Yeah.

My God. In April, we did a whole 20-year kind of look back on that championship. And, you know, look, the town has changed. That's the other thing. Like, this city has changed even from 2002. I mean, the city itself, I mean, it's such a younger city. I think it's a better city than it's ever been. more neighborhoods and more places to go to.

And we're always going to be a very transient city, even though there are a lot of people like me. And I think sometimes those of us that are born and raised in this area are kind of overlooked because it's got this label of being the most transient city in America. But there are a lot of people that are from here. And there are a lot of people, by the way, who move here, Joe, who stay here because it's such a great area to live in. I agree.

And I'll say this, too. they love a frontrunner. You know, when the Nats and the caps struck gold in back-to-back seasons, you saw how, to borrow Tony's term, you saw how people love to jump on the bandwagon. And more sincerely, during the Capitals 2018, I can tell you that the players who were dressed in red, white, and blue, were blown away when they saw the amount of people on the city streets,

the amount of people surrounding Capitol One Arena, the amount of people who went inside Capitol one arena to just watch TV. Again, I'm going to come back to passionate, how passionate they were about that team's pursuit of a title. And yes, gosh, if the commanders and wizards were to ever get there, you would feel it and feel it, you know, on the Richter scale. Yeah. Now, I think this city, I think it's always been kind of a frontrunner town with the exception of the football team, Maybe even now that gets thrown into the bandwagon jumping category as well. I mean, you grew up in New York, you grew up on Long Island. You grew up in a true sports market.

That's not what this is. You know, D.C. has never been a great sports town. You know, there is incredible basketball at many levels. And by the way, you call lacrosse and you love lacrosse and you played lacrosse. You know, it's got, it's a hotbed for, you know, youth in high school lacrosse as well. I mean, this area along with Baltimore probably feeds 30% to 40% of the college players, you know, across America here and probably Long Island, right? And maybe Philly. Those would be the areas.

At the division one level, at the top level for both boys and girls, absolutely. Yeah. All right. Let's talk about the hockey team. So I want to just start with this. I feel like, and maybe I'm wrong in describing it this way, but that the last couple of years, there have been people, maybe on the national level, that have said,

this is it. This is the year that the Caps finally, you know, take a step back. They're not a playoff team. Ovechkin's getting older, you know, obviously this year with the Baxterm injury and the Wilson injury. And I, you know, in reading a little bit over the weekend, just, you know, about the upcoming season, knowing that I was going to have you on and others on this week,

it seems like some people are there again. Do they get written off just because it's been such a long run? Am I right about that or not? Kevin, this is the worst of the write-ups leading up to a season since 2018. There are some people who project the capitals to be sixth in the metro. and can I understand why they're handicapping and prognosticating that way? Sure, I can understand that. I'll give you one stat, one trend. I believe there's close to, if not 14 guys who are 30 years plus of eight years of age in the lineup tonight.

And the thought is, you know, that's bound to catch up to you. I say there's no substitute for experience, but okay, fine. I can understand where you're saying that the caps are getting an R long in the tooth, understandable for sure. And I can see where people are excited by what's going on in Columbus or in New Jersey. It is obvious that those teams are coming on strong, that they are full of young tigers and that they have talent and that they're gaining ground quickly. I just believe you're underselling a Capitals team that still were it to get into the tournament, like it has done, I believe, eight straight years and 14 of the last 15. If the Capitals get in the tournament, nobody will want to play them because of the remaining guys

who are on the team who've been there, done that, and climb the mountain, and because still their skill set is excellent. They can scare you. You don't want to be in a best of seven with them, and now I will sit here and tell you. you, we can go through the lineup, I'm sure you will. I think this past off season, Vice President GM Brian McClellan did a wonderful job of patching some of the holes in the lineup, knowing that Tom Wilson wasn't going to be around at the start of the season, not knowing when Nicholas Baxter would return, if at all, during the regular season. I think he went out and made some very,

very shrewd moves. He fortified and improved the goaltending in a huge way, in my opinion. Now, I realize they haven't played a game yet. But I think both of those guys are improvements over Sam Stoomoff and Vanichick, and that's not to poo-poo on them. But we can go through chapter and verse why I think Washington is still competitive, and yet I will tell you, I understand why, yeah, maybe it's time for Washington to fall out. Yeah, you've been saying that for a long, long time, and they prove you wrong, and I'm hoping that that'll happen again. All right, let's start with Kemper. You've kind of already touched on it. He's an upgrade, but how much of an upgrade is this going to be a difference maker in the season

and then if they get to the postseason of postseason best of seven? Kevin, what's that term? Wins above replacement? I'm not much of an analytics guy, but like to me, Darcy Kemper on his own may be worth six wins. Honestly. Compared to last year's team. Correct. Yeah.

Correct. I think both of the guys. I think both Kemper and Lindgren, and Lindren's going to play a lot because Darcy has some injuries on his resume that tend to crop up. He hasn't been extremely durable in his career. So the likelihood is you're looking at a probably, you know, 55 start, 27 start kind of split between the two. So Charlie's going to have to play and play well. And I watch him in preseason. I watch him daily in practice.

I think he's fantastic. Kemper is the lead dog. There's no doubt about it. He comes with the Stanley Cup ring. That's awesome. But I think he actually played better behind a really crappy Arizona team than he did in Colorado. Colorado is a machine. Arizona for years was not a good team.

And Darcy would keep them in every game. In the last five years, Kevin, I don't believe there's a goal in the NHL with a better save percentage. That includes Fazaleski, who's the best on the planet right there with Sirkin. Kemper has better say percentage numbers. I'm not saying in the Metro, Darcy's not an all-star. If you're only going to pick two goalies, you're going to take probably Shisterkin for the Rangers,

Seroquen for the Islanders. He's not an all-star in his own division. Yet, I'm telling you, he is a very, very good netminder, and I think a significant upgrade from what was going on in the past couple of seasons. And I think both of them are, and I think that automatically gives you more faith in what Washington can do.

All right. How are they early in this season without Wilson and without Baxter going to handle that? And then really, I guess the bigger question mark in terms of any kind of return would be Baxter, what's your guess on him? So here's a deal. We've been told not to put any recipes and time tables and all that good stuff on either of those guys. I'll hedge my bet a little bit on Tom and tell you, I think it's probably closer to New Year. I don't think it's before Thanksgiving. It's more likely around the Christmas holiday and closer to New Year, but then, again, that as soon as it comes out of my mouth, this is Tom Wilson. This is a tremendous athlete who is rehabbing like a demon and has the

best of care, and maybe they're ahead of schedule, but you don't want to rush that with this player who means so incredibly much. I understand, again, why people sit there and go, boy, the caps are going to miss Baxter and Wilson a great deal. I understand that, and they will. And Tom Wilson love him or hate him, and we love him in this area. Tom Wilson is an extraordinary player who means a lot to Peter Labile's team in a bunch of different areas. He's hard to replace.

There are 31 other teams in the league who would kill to have Tom Wilson in their stable. Baxter is the one that is worrisome with regard to the hip resurfacing procedure. There have not been very many athletes who have been able to. come back after that kind of a surgery and rise to Nicholas's kind of elite level. So we're hoping that that's the case. Kevin, I watched him limp around for about a month and a half at the end of last season. He could barely walk. I didn't understand how he was able to play NHL-level hockey on that hip.

So it had to be done. He's much more comfortable. I know I see him around the rink. But to sit here and tell you that he's definitely going to play in the regular season, I don't know. I don't know that. And while his $9.2 million salary is on the LTI list, I mean, you get relief from that salary that gave Brian McClellan some wiggle room to bring in the guys I think we're going to try and fill in the gaps. So let's start there.

Connor Brown on the top line. Kevin, I think this is a really shrewd move. Connor Brown's played with a lot of star talent. He's been in Toronto. He's been in the big media hockey media market crush. He's played with really up-and-coming great young puppies in Ottawa. Now he's coming to a veteran-laden team. He can do so many different things in that he can play first-line heavy minutes.

I think he's going to start there tonight with Kuznetz-off and Ovetkin. And he can be a spot-duty fourth-line penalty killer. He'll do everything in between. So the flexibility, the versatility he gives you, I think that's an incredibly good, shrewd move. Dylan Strom, second-line center. You're talking about replacing Baxter. You're going to do it with kids. Strom is still young.

Connor McMichael, Hendricks LePierre, who's in the American League, and I'm hoping is going to do really, really well there and blossom into somebody who's like, I can't keep him off my NHL list. Right now you can't get Hendricks LePier into your NHL list, but in time you will. There's going to be a time where McMichael and LePier are likely one and two down the middle, but that time is not now. You're going to do it with young guys, and that's going to make your step faster and a little bit hungrier than we've been in the past. And that I believe is going to give. Peter Labelette the kind of flexibility and attack an approach that he wants. He's building a team that he wants to, that will fight for each other. This group is incredibly tight-knit and still has all of that Ovechkin, Kuznetsov-type pedigree with a skill set and talent that sometimes is really, really difficult to defend. For players that have played against Ovechkin and against the veteran core of the capitals and then come to join them, and we've seen that happen in recent years.

Is Ovechkin in that group really easy to work with and adapt with? I mean, I imagine when you played against a star like Ovechkin, and then all of a sudden you're on his team, it's an adjustment. How have those adjustments gone in the past? It's a great question, Kevin, and I'll give you an example, or three of them. Connor Brown, Dylan Strom, Connor Sherry, Sherry, who would have been in

a lot of those heated Washington-Pittsburgh rivalry-type games. They all come in and say the same thing. Oh, they call him O. O is a great guy. Oh, is wonderful to be around. Alex is just his energy and his love for the game is infectious. They all say the same thing.

And for Brown and Strom have only been here a month or so, it's kind of neat to hear that. Sherry, who would have worked a lot against Alex in those big rivalry matchups, has said it for the time that he's been a cap, about how much he enjoys playing with Alex and watching Alex help to lead this group. It hasn't had to be all Alex from a leadership standpoint. Kevin, yeah, he wears the captain C,

but this group has a really experienced core, right? So there's a veteran leadership council. on this team. And they get it done, I think, by community rather than just by the captain running up everybody's locker room stall and saying, hey, I need more from you and grabbing you around the throat. Alex is a very welcoming, engaging personality. I think what we see is not necessarily what's behind closed doors where it gets even more animated. I've seen him in places where, obviously, the hockey community, the fans don't. This is a player who still at age 37, Kevin, loves the game. And that's what a lot of his teammates appreciate the most about him.

Let's talk about him. I mean, an amazing season last year, 50 goals, 90 points, and 77 games. And this year is going to be certainly, there's going to be a big storyline. For those of you that don't know and aren't paying, you know, attention, he's 22 goals away from becoming the number two all-time goal scorer in the history of the sport passing Gordie Howe. And the countdown to that, and let's just, you know, predicts. somewhere in, you know, January time frame, whatever, midseason. This is going to be a massive story, not only locally, it's going to be a massive sports story. Now, it's not going to be the story when he passes Gretzky in 2024, 2025, hopefully, whenever that comes. But, you know, I had Ben Rabie on radio this morning, and he just made the comment, I thought about it. It's like, we should really appreciate these days. And you know, I'm not a massive hockey guy.

But he's going to go down on the Mount Rushmore list of the greatest DC athletes of all time. And he's still incredibly productive. And there is this chase for the all-time goal score, you know, ascending to eventually, hopefully, pass Gretzky. So will this become a big part of the first half of the season in terms of a storyline? and by the way, do you think he'll eventually get to Gretzky? Okay, we're going to make it a big part of the storyline, right? We as media members, and because the numbers are just so incredibly attractive, they're eye-popping.

Alex doesn't want it to be part of the storyline. He wants it to be about team. He wants it to be about winning. I've said this to you, and I've said this to others. I've used this line. The number that really matters to him is two, as in Stanley Cup. He wants that second Stanley Cup championship. He wants to play in the Fountains again.

And that's just the truth. He will sit there, and his teammates will tell you, his teammates will say to you, this really does mean a great deal to Alex, and I know it does. And he does a great job of trying to deflect it. It's more about teammates. It's more about getting the young guys ready. It's more about me showing, you know, leading by example.

Okay, we understand that, and you want to win, and we understand that, but there is this magical, historical perspective to remember. And all the while, I've been a part of it from a really unique soundtrack sort of way, and I sit there and go, do you understand how lucky you are? And I will have this conversation with myself from time to time, because while we're doing it, while we're in the heat of it, while we're in the moment of it, maybe it doesn't register. but when my microphone is put down, I don't know that I'm ever going to be retiring anytime soon, or at all. I don't know what to say when you start talking about passing Gordy Howl.

I mean, that's Mr. Hockey. And you're talking about eventually, please, knock on wood, stay healthy enough to pass Wayne Gretzky. It's astounding. You're talking about, you know, Ruthian, Babe Ruthian-type numbers. and historical perspective. I understand where hockey lives in the culture. I understand that. For me, it's my number one,

and for a lot of fans, it's their number one. But we know it's not the be-all and all that pigskin is. But this is that kind of immense, record-breaking possibility that I think it's impossible to turn an eye away from. And yes, we will be keeping count every time. he gets an inch closer to Gordy, we'll make a, we'll make a point of it. And you'll see a pretty stylized graphic of it on NBC Sports Washington. Every time he gets closer and closer. He deserves it. And his talent is extraordinary, and it won't slow down. And I pray that it won't slow down until he does

reach 895. Yeah. All right, let's talk about the team and what you expect. So you said at the top, A lot of people are predicting doom for them this year. They've been picked to finish dead last or sixth in the Metropolitan. You've got to be in the top three in the Metropolitan to guarantee yourself a spot. And the top eight with the next two wild card spots when you include the other division in the Eastern Conference. So do you think this is a playoff team when we get to April? Yes or no? Kevin, I still do.

I'll say this about that because you mentioned the lay of the land and how you get those eight spots. I'm not going to argue with anybody who says, you know, Carolina and the Rangers won two in either combination. I think those two teams are there. I really do. I think they'll be knocking on the door of the Eastern Conference final, both of those teams. Incredibly well-coached, well put together, made some interesting moves in the off-season. In the Rangers' case, they're backed up by as good a goaltender as you'll find right there

with Azalevsky. So he means that much. Shostirkin does. I understand why you have Caroline and the Rangers one, two. Okay, fine. I don't understand necessarily why people are still bullish or more bullish than Washington about Pittsburgh. Yes, you kept the band together with Latang, Crosby, Malkin, but the caps had a better off-season, and the caps improved their goaltending, and I'm not going to sit here and tell you that I don't think Tristan Jari is very good. I do. I think he's a good goalie. I don't think he's Darcy Kemper. I think the cap should be right there with Pittsburgh in that three-four combination.

I don't know why all of a sudden, perhaps it's just related to missing Wilson, perhaps for half the season, missing backstrom for maybe all the season. That's not something to easily dismiss. I'm not dismissing that. Those are two incredibly important top six guys. I'm not dismissing that. But to lump them and push them down past Columbus or the Islanders, I know where Columbus is headed. I really like what they're doing there.

know that they they grabbed the pick of the free agent litter and Johnny Goddrow. I know why they're high on that team. That doesn't necessarily mean they're going to beat Washington over the course of 82 games, but I understand if you think that. I understand if you think that the Islanders could not possibly be as bad as they were last season. Kevin, there's a number of reasons why, whether it be schedule, whether it be they couldn't play in their own building for the first month, whether it be COVID, whether it be that they played 18 games in March,

which is a joke, but that's just what happened. people think that they're going to, what's the opposite of regress? They're going to progress, I guess, up the standings and past Washington. I don't know about that. I love Jersey. I think Jersey's team from a forward complex, from the way they play up front with their talented kids, I think they're on the rise, too. So I don't know why you didn't put Jersey above Columbus or the Islanders or Washington, for that matter.

I guess what I'm saying is it's a really competitive division, and it wouldn't surprise me. It wouldn't surprise me at all if you snuck five teams from the Metro in there in the double wild card scenario. But everybody's getting better, and most people feel like the Pittsburgh's and Washington's are aging out. But for whatever reason, in the national landscape, Pittsburgh keeps still getting the love, the playoff love, and Washington isn't getting it nearly as much. Can Tampa make it back to a fourth Stanley Cup final? I mean, I know they lost some pieces, but overall in the East, you've given me the Metropolitan Division breakdown. What about in the East overall?

Hockey isn't basketball. Kevin, I know when you have three incredible basketball players on the same team, you're in really good shape. But I'm going to make that comparison to the Tampa Bay Lightning, and I'll tell you that they have three of the best players in the world on their team. And if you want to go, like three of the best top ten players in the world are on Tampa. And as long as they have these three, they can do anything. They have arguably the best goalie on the planet in Vasilisky. They have a defenseman who everybody would

kill four in Victor Hedman, who I know is 31, but doesn't really show signs of aging. And Nikita Kuturoff is an amazing, amazing 100-plus point talent. Still three of the best players on the planet. And I didn't mention Braden Point or Stephen Stamco. They're incredible. And a great coaching staff with John Cooper and former Cap Jeff Halpern leading the way. They're excellent. They'll be there. Toronto, go to the capsule play tomorrow.

It's got to happen one of these days for Toronto. Toronto needs, will Sam Sownoff and Murray be the goalie answer to them? 2004, Joe, 2004? Is that the last? Yeah, right? the last series time they won a playoff series? Oh my God, yeah. And just flaming out year after year in the first round.

But if you look at their forwards and you look at that quote top six, top nine, wow. They can do it. So every year at this time they're super excited in Toronto. I can see why. I can see why. Yeah. All right.

Well, you will be there for all of it. And it's the best part about watching the games on NBC Sports Washington. you and Locker together. Have a great season. I know we'll be talking at some point soon. You don't get tonight's game. You get tomorrow night's game in Toronto. Enjoy the trip. I'll talk to you soon. Catch up whenever you like, Kevin. Thanks very much. The great Joe Beninati, everybody. God, everything he does, he does so well, including being a guest on radio shows and podcasts. That was fun. All right, we are done for the day. Back tomorrow, Tommy will be with me. We will preview. Washington at Chicago.