The Kevin Sheehan Show - MNF Booth...Really?

Episode Date: September 19, 2018

Kevin starts the show by giving his thoughts on the Monday Night Football booth, and what he thinks has gone wrong in the broadcast in the first two weeks of the NFL season. Barry Svrluga from The Washington Post joins to talk about the lack of fans at the Redskins home opener and why it happened at this point, and also discusses the big announcement from Congressional that the PGA Championship and the Ryder Cup are coming to the area. NFL Buy or Sell is next, where Kevin buys an aspect of the Cowboys, but isn't as bullish on the Bengals as some are. Finally, is DC going to legalize sports gambling? All that and more on today's show. <p> </p><p>Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices">podcastchoices.com/adchoices</a></p> Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You want it. You need it. It's what everyone's talking about. The Kevin Sheehan Show. Now here's Kevin. And the Kevin Cheehan Show is presented by Windonation. Aaron is here, Barry's Verluga from the Post in a few minutes. We're at Chatter in Friendship Heights, Tony's podcast studio. Thanks to him, Nigel, Michael, the whole gang, everybody here. Come to Chatter. It's at Wisconsin and Jennifer Streets Northwest. Great food, lots of high-deaf screens to watch games. and the best bartenders in town. I want to start the show with this tweet from Rob. Rob tweeted me yesterday after listening to the podcast with Tom. Tom's on Tuesdays and Thursdays with me.

He wrote, you and Tom missed the number one reason the home opener was attended by so few. Many of the fans, Kevin, have been with you all the way on Kirk Cousins. It's the minority of fans that have just been screaming last. The handling of the Kirk Cousins situation was the final straw for many of us. He said, reasonable people can disagree about whether or not he was a franchise quarterback, but the handling of the situation by Bruce Allen and the organization was, as Tom would put it, devious. Thank you, Rob, for the tweet. And you can tweet me at Kevin Sheehan, D.C., or you can tweet the Sheehan podcast, which is the

Twitter page. And Aaron, don't we have a Facebook page now? We do. We have Facebook and Instagram that we've put up in the past 24 hours. Look for the Kevin Sheehan show on Facebook. And if you have any questions, if you have any comments, if you want any entries you want to have read out, you can put it there, as you said, Twitter, and we'll figure out what to do with Instagram. There we go. We're figuring it all out. We're taking advice from everybody that says you've got to be in all these places and you've got to promote from all these places. And already, you know, and I mentioned this yesterday on the show, we're so So thankful for the response that we've gotten so far.

Tell people about it, please. And for those people that say, I don't listen to a podcast or I don't know how to do a podcast, just tell them to go to the Kevin Sheeonshow.com. All right, and they can listen to it right there. All right, on Rob's tweet, I actually disagree with the tweet. I don't think that the Kirk Cousins handling or Kirk Cousins situation really was anywhere near the number one reason FedEx Field wasn't filled on Sunday for the home. opener. For me,

what Rob tweeted, that's just added to the reasons of how lacking in foresight the Redskins have been when it comes to most things involved in their football operation. In the NFL, when it comes to the quarterback position in particular, you've got to have the ability to evaluate and move quickly. Or you're going to be in a

position of overpaying or missing out. I have friends that invest in a lot of things and they have this theory, it's called the FOMO theory, FOMO, afraid of missing out. And sometimes that will drive a decision, like because they're afraid of missing out on a big opportunity. You know, some smart investors, entrepreneurs will often recognize something instinctually, intuitively, and they'll act, even if they aren't sure, because they'll fear missing out on an opportunity. It doesn't always work. But the NFL does not afford the opportunity. to wait on the quarterback position.

If you have one of those guys that is top half of the league as a starter and you don't have an obvious solution that's better, you can't wait. You've got to have some vision, you've got to have some balls, and you've got to act. The Redskins didn't, and it cost them.

It cost them. It did dearly. It cost them two years of a franchise tag to the tune of $44 million, when if they had done a deal at the end of 2015, they could have paid 44 and guaranteed over four or five years. And it costs them when they chose to lose him for nothing rather than getting value back for him and trading him after the 2016 season, the 2017 off season.

That was the move then. Somebody, me, among others, advocated that they do that once I recognized and they knew that they were never going to sign him to a long-term deal. And then it costs them their best young defensive back in Kendall Fuller and a third round pick, and a new expensive contract extension to replace him with an older player who's good, but not better than what you had. That's my opinion anyway. So to the extent that it was another glaring example of a bad football operation decision, yeah, it was. We've hammered that home for multiple years in a row. But the truth about the cousin's situation, really, and this is why

I disagree with Rob who tweeted me and said it was the handling of the cousin's situation. that was at the top of the list of why the crowd was so meek and so feeble and so sparse on Sunday. The truth is the cousin's situation got so toxic at the end that most people just wanted it to end. They did. You know, he wasn't Brady, he wasn't Breeze, he wasn't Rogers, so enough of the drama, let's just end this thing and move on. So Sunday's empty seat situation was really a result of the things I've talked about this week. And that is, it was, by the way, not something that just happened.

It's been building. It's too much losing, too much dysfunction, too much embarrassment over the years associated with, and by the way, contributing to the losing. A stadium that nobody likes and isn't very convenient. And there may have been some last week that were scared away by the dire forecasts of Hurricane Florence and what it was going to be on Sunday around here. It didn't pan out. I'm not really sure about this. I've heard this and this may have contributed to Sunday. But the Redskins effort to keep tickets away from the aftermarket brokers and sell directly to Redskins fans or people interested in buying Redskins tickets may have limited the number of truly inexpensive tickets that have been available in recent years.

But anyway, those are the reasons. Those are the reasons. Those are the reasons more than anything else that you didn't have a big crowd there. And with Barry's Verluga in a bit, I am going to talk about whether or not this is, you know, a trend or an aberration or this is sort of reflective of something much bigger, and that being that the Redskins are no longer the number one team in town. We'll do that with Barry in a little bit. I wanted to talk about the Monday night football booth. I mentioned that yesterday and said I would get into it in more detail.

today. Monday night football ratings are down. NFL ratings, by the way, for the first two weeks are actually up NBC's Sunday night football's up 10% or the Sunday night game this year, Giants Cowboys was up 10% versus a year ago. The ratings for CBS and Fox are slightly up after two weeks, but Monday night football's ratings are down. Now, they've had some dog games. You know, they had Jets, Lions, Rams, Raiders to open up the season, and then they had Bears Seahawks on Monday night. But it's more than that, people. It's more than that.

Now, let me, let me back up. The games matter more than the booth. I get it. I have always felt that way as a fan. It's not, you know, it's not CoSell, Meredith, and Gifford in the 70s. All right? We don't have that anymore. People aren't tuning in for the broadcast booth.

The broadcast booth, however, can be disruptive and can be a bit of a turnoff if the game isn't a really good game. But you've had three, you know, ho-hum matchups. I mean, Jets Lions, come on, Sam Darnold's debut, nobody was into that. Nobody was into the Lions. The Rams Raiders was a late game on the East Coast in week one. And then you had Bears Seahawks on Monday night. And Seattle's been a bit of a draw in recent years. in Chicago looks like a better team. That's not a big draw.

And I don't think Seattle's a draw this year. I think Khalil Mack was literally the only draw in that game. Yeah, I agree with that. But the numbers are down. And the numbers are down because of the games. Yes. But how about that booth? What in God's name was ESPN thinking? Joe Tessator, Jason Witten, Bougar McFarland, and Lisa Salters. Now, I will start with the positive.

Farrland is actually pretty good. You know, and I would not, I would make a bet right now that before the end of this first season, that Witten ends up being supplanted by McFarlane in the booth, or they just bring McFarlane into the booth to be a part of it, because he's a much better personality than Jason Witten. And he appears to be much better at analyzing what he's watching than Jason Witten. I don't know what they thought Jason Whitten would be. Remember with Romo, we heard there was a lot of testing, you know, a lot of testing by multiple networks of Romo.

And it was like instant reaction of, oh man, he's going to be a star. He's going to be really, really good at this. So putting him on the number one team, there was some R&D that went into it. There was some testing that went into it. I don't know if they tested Witten or not, but if they did test Witten and they thought he was good enough to be an analyst on Monday night football, all right, ESPN's number one product, play by play product.

Well, it was a bad evaluation. He's shy, he's soft-spoken, he doesn't talk a lot, and then when he does, it's not very instructive, entertaining, provocative, or any of the things that you'd like your game analyst to be. Now, maybe he's just getting used to it, and maybe he will develop into some. something really good. But he should have been developing on ESPN's college football Friday night game or as the fifth crew, fifth analyst on CBS or Fox's Sunday coverage. That's where Witten should have been.

Just because he was a former cowboy didn't mean he was going to be great. Just because he was a former cowboy didn't mean he was going to draw eyeballs to the television. It's a terrible booth. terrible booth. But let me get to the biggest problem I have with the booth. I'm just not a Joe Tessator fan. I've never been a Joe Tessitore fan. I'm sure he's a fine guy.

He's an overly energetic huckster. He's always come off as that. He has been way too energetic, way too over the top in moments that don't call for it. and he's always sort of selling. There's a really good story in the Simmons wrote, where it was on the ringer about Tessitore. He's always, apparently this is who he is in real life.

He's always selling. Oh, the prosciutto is the best you've ever had. You've got to taste it. Oh, the Vino here. He's constantly that guy. You can't have that guy on Monday night football. All right. Joe Tessator a few years ago was calling Friday night

games in Boise. You know, he is now the lead play-by-play announcer on Monday night football. They tried him in Reese Davis's spot on the college football final show, the one that Reese Davis did with Lou Holtz and with Mark May. If you recall, he was the replacement for Reese Davis when Reese took over College Game Day because Fowler decided to move on from College Game Day. And Fowler and Reese Davis and Scott, to me, are the three bests that ESP has, you know.

And I think they would, and Tony and Mike, of course. You know, Tony and Mike being the PTI show. But in terms of the ESPN guys, you know, that you see doing games, it's Fowler in Davis as hosts and play-by-play guys. They're the best. So I would have immediately gone to one of the two of them. You know, they could still, Reese Davis could still do college game day and do. Monday night football.

You know, he, I don't know why, if they considered that. And Reese Davis may be a college guy, but who cares? He's a great play-by-play guy. Fowler's a great play-by-play guy. Maybe Fowler wouldn't have done it. I don't know. He's, you know, he does a lot of things and he does the college football Saturday night game.

But why not him on Monday night? Maybe it's too much for him. But there are other people, but Tessator and Witten together in that booth. is, I mean, they've hit the iceberg. There's a hole in this booth and it is sinking fast. Whoever put this thing together was off. I was a big Sean McDonough fan and I continue to be a big Sean McDonough fan. And I know that McDonough, and I've heard this,

is apparently not the easiest guy in the world in a booth. But who cares? He is an elite, great A, top tier, play by play guy. he is he and gruden didn't get along apparently mcdon is not that easy to get along with i don't know him i've had him on my shows before he's been a terrific guest he is a pros pro a pros pro but they've got him back on key college games but i would have left mcduna in the play by play chair there are other people they could have put in that play by play chair i mean you know i mentioned to scott um the other day. He probably would not want me to say what he, his thoughts on the Monday night

football booth because these are people he works with. So I won't. But I said, why couldn't you have done it? And he's like, this is not a training wheels job. I don't do play by play. And I'm like, okay, that's a good answer. I would have thought outside the box with somebody like Scott. But here are the people that I would, I would have definitely thought of after Davis and Fowler. In terms of the ESPN group, Steve Levy calls a very good game. He may not be a big personality, but either is Tessitore, but Levy calls a really good game. I would have thought about hiring Brad Nessler, but I think he'd just sign that big deal with CBS to do the SEC games. I think Adnan Verk is good at everything

he does. I don't know if he's great at play-by-play, but he's much better at hosting that college football final show than Tessitore was. I would have brought back Brent Musburger in a heartbeat. I don't know if Brent would do it anymore, but Musburger calling Monday night football would have been fabulous. But it is a train wreck of a Monday night football booth. And by the way, there are other analysts that would have been better choices on the ESPN payroll. I would have actually thought about Galloway or Herb Street. I don't care about whether or not they have college football sort of, you know, labels. You just need a good answer. You just need a good analysts. These guys watch the NFL. And I, well, clearly I would have paid Peyton Manning, you know,

millions to do it. But he apparently is not interested in doing this. I did find something out yesterday that I did not know. And I'm just going to mention this as an aside. But I, and it's not that I would recommend this particular person. But I was here after recording the show yesterday and a bunch of guys were here for lunch. Buck was here. Steve Buck Hans and Ernie Bauer. And a lot of people were here, Al Koken. And Buck said to me that he said, I think it was Buck, said, Marty Aronoff was here, the great statistician of all time. It may have been Marty who said to me, what did you think of Archiletta on Sunday? And I said, what game did he do? He said, did the Redskins game. And I said, oh my God. I said, I actually, and I'll have the radio next to me. I like listening to Kooley and Doc.

Larry. I do. I like listening to the broadcast. I think you learn a lot from those guys. But I always have the TV call up too. And I remember saying at one point to my son watching the game, this is a pretty good broadcast. I didn't even think about who it was. I said, the analyst is excellent. He's doing a really good job. It was Adam Archeletta. Adam Archelette was doing the game. I thought he did a good job. And Marty Aronoff and or Buck yesterday said, you know, Archilette is really good. He's an up-and-comer. Now, I'm not suggesting that he would have been the guy

to put into the Monday night booth. Not a big enough name. Yeah, but, hey, Tessator is not a big enough name either. Well, but the analyst. Yeah, the analyst was in Witten. But anyway, that's, there are a lot of guys. I can't imagine that ESPN didn't consider that would have been better.

I have no idea why they went with the booth. They went with other than what Aaron just said. Witten's a big name. and somebody at ESPN really likes Tessitore. And let me just say this. I don't think he's terrible at what he does. But I think Friday night in Reno for the University of Nevada against San Diego State, that's where you've got Tessator.

You got him on the ESPN U games. You got him on not in prime time, not in your number one product. That's my view. I don't know the man. I know somebody there clearly likes him. He's not awful, awful, but he's not Monday night football booth caliber. And so the games matter the most. They do, but the booth is not helping in this particular situation.

Give me some time right now just to say thank you to Windonation. They have been behind me for years at 980, and they were the first to reach out to me when I started this podcast a week. and a half ago. Harley and Aaron are good friends, and if you're thinking about new windows, I urge you to go to Window Nation. I talk to Harley three times a week minimum, and that is sincere. And most of the time, it is discussing point spreads in games. He likes to dabble in sports betting like I do, and we've had a great relationship over the years. I want you to go to Windon Nation if you've been thinking about new windows or a new roof. Window Nation's back-to-school

sale right now is in full effect. You get one free window, one free window for every window you buy, wood or vinyl styles. If you buy four, you get four free. You buy eight, you get eight free. There's no limit. You'll get an A plus in savings and receive zero percent interest for five full years. That's like a free ride until 2023. You can use it towards your kids' books, clothes, backpack, shoes, or even treat yourself. Call Windonation now if you've been thinking about windows. 866.9 Nation. That's 866. 690 Nation, or you can go to windownation.com and tell them that Kevin Sheehan sent you. Let's welcome in Barry's Verluga from the Washington Post, and Barry wrote a column yesterday

and tweeted it out, and the first line of his tweet was, there's no pretense about the Redskins anymore. They are a damaged franchise with work to do to win back the fans they lost, and the empty seats on Sunday were the evidence. I want to start with this. why do you think people didn't show up for the home opener? We know what the crowds have been like at the end of the season when they've been out of it, when there's been some bad weather.

But why this home opener was there such a sparse crowd? That's the only real piece in this whole thing that I find kind of completely mystifying. What about this particular game? Now, if they had gone to Arizona in the first thing, week one and been on the other side of a 24 to 6 score and and Alex Spence hadn't played well and Adrian Peterson looked washed up and the defense didn't make a couple plays. Then I think you would have had the perfect storm and you would have been like, oh, $57,000,

like this team has been rotting away at Sandbase for one time and they came off a stinker in week one and there's nothing to get excited about. But the opposite of that happened. And so I kind of thought they had avoided the perfect storm. I think all the other conditions that you have talked about for years that we've written about for years, about the erosion in faith, trust, confidence, however you want to put it, put all of them together, in the leadership, ownership, and direction of this franchise, those all, existed whether they won or lost in Arizona or not. And I think the conditions were in place for there to be lousy crowds later in the year

if the season didn't go well. But that's why it wasn't just kind of a slightly off crowd of 70,000 or something where you go, you know, people thought the hurricane was coming or whatever. It was huge chunks of seats that were not. filled, tickets that were not sold to see a 1-0 team with a new quarterback and a Hall of Fame running back. That was the surprising part that it all kind of coalesced there on one Sunday. Yeah, it was almost as if it were a protest because there were so many empty seats at the game. And I'm not using the description protest with anything specific in mind. But that's the only

disconnect for me too. I know and you know, and we've both talked about it and written about it over the years that, you know, if you keep, you know, if you keep doing what you're doing and doing embarrassing things and dysfunctional things, and it coincides with losing consistently over and over again, and by the way, you put it into a stadium that nobody likes that's inconvenient, you know, there's going to be this erosion, and we've seen that, but all of a sudden it just jumped up in the form of a home-over. opener like we've never seen before. And so there must be something else to it. I actually think that the whole selling tickets directly via Redskins.com and keeping them away for the most part from the aftermarket brokers may have had something to do with that. I don't know that for fact,

but it was, it was an odd circumstance. Let me move to my second question, which is this. Do you think that they have entered, it's been building, but they have now entered new territory We're based Barry on reasonable measurables, TV ratings, merchandise, ticket demand, whatever you want to put into that reasonable measurable, you know, list, that they aren't the number one team in town anymore. That is a tough, tough thing for me to go out on a limb and say just because as much as I believe that CPE and long-term health will have an impact on football, at some point down the road. And as much as I have heard from readers who say, hey, you're forgetting one thing, I don't go because of the anthem protests.

And as much as the NFL is maybe slightly dinged or diminished from, you know, the kind of behemoth that it has been for the past quarter of a century, the Redskins had such a huge, huge weed in this town. in terms of just buzz and interest and day-to-day discourse. Like, you've done this long enough, Kevin and been here forever. You know that even when the Caps and their pre-Stanley Cup winning days would have a big meaningful X, Y, or Z going on, a playoff game,

it would not generate the phone calls and the interest that a discussion in June on who the backup quarterback should be. So I think this franchise is in a really dangerous position, and I think it is a shadow of what it once was. But it's hard for me to believe that the big data point we have from Sunday means that there aren't a ton of people in this town who, well, are frustrated and angry and may not have the blind face, they once did, they're still pretty interested in, you know, Mason Foster and Trent Williams

and the inner workings of how they're either going to get this done or not get this done. I tend to think you are right. In fact, I think my gut is that it's far from being supplanted as the number one in all of like the reasonable measurables you would use. But the thing that was surprising to me, I know a lot of people that just don't like going to games anymore because of the cost, because of the inconvenience of the stadium, etc. But they're going to watch and they're going to obsess in discussion pre and post game about what they watched. But, you know, the TV number locally for Sunday was not very good.

It was a 17.8 locally for an opener. Now, we've seen numbers like that late in the season when they've been out of it. But that was one of those things that made me take a step back, Barry, and say, it's one thing if they're not in FedEx field. It's another with a meaningful game. It's week two, and to your point, they look good in week one. If people, if the same number of people, and basically I think we're talking about a 40% decrease in television number from what would have been normal for an opener, that was startling to me. Well, I think what we get to, Kevin, is a point where, you know, we,

I think we all pay attention to, as you said, the measurables. Now, these data points, attendance, local TV ratings, you know, to the extent that we can get merchandise sales and that kind of thing, they're going to start to add up to something that's a little more meaningful if they keep going in this direction. I think that the club has certainly had a wake-up call. And, you know, one thing we haven't addressed is the first. fundamental changes that they have made.

They admitted that there is no longer a waiting list for season tickets. They now, while they won't say that the 50-year sellout streak was fictitious at the end, they are acknowledging that that's not the case. So all the mythology that went into kind of romanticizing this present by, you know, this franchise is present by tying it into, the three Super Bowl trophies that sit in the lobby out at Redskins Park, that's been stripped away. And internally, in part because they've hired a new executive to run business operations, they are admitting that we cannot just prop the thing up based on old loyalties and worn out

fandom and talking about Rigo and the hugs, every time things go wrong, there has to be honest assessment of where the franchise is, not just on the field week to week, but in the minds and hearts of their fans week to week. And so that's some of that kind of goes into why this is all jarring, because you see that number of fans and all those empty seats and you say, whoa. But I think the franchise has kind of been preparing for this moment internally. And while it might be hard to take or difficult for Dan Snyder to admit that he has a damaged product, there are people there working there every day who understand that and know they have a big repair job on their hand.

Yes, but apparently Bruce Allen doesn't because he went on TOP, you know, essentially guaranteeing a sellout and talking about how pumped up the fans were for the game. And, you know, I say that with smirking, but at the same time, you know, Barry, this is the thing where I agree with you. I've talked to Brian several times. I know what they're trying to do. I think it's the right strategy to come clean with your customers and to not, you know, not engage in this one-sided, arrogant relationship where you've essentially tried to make FedEx Field Augusta National over the years in terms of perception. I think it's the right strategy, but everybody's got to be on the same page. I mean, it's those kinds of appearances and those kinds of comments that make people roll their eyes. Well, I think, I mean, that's on Bruce. I mean, that's just flat out on Bruce.

And if he, you know, wants to live in the fantasy world that, you know, his father is part of creating, then that's fine. I mean, the reality is Brian Lofmaner was brought in from the league to correct a lot of things about a franchise that should be a pillar in the league, and instead has been a shell of itself. And Bruce Allen has been stripped of some of the duties that he used to have because they brought in another executive. So, you know, Bruce is the one who said they were winning off the field, right? I don't think his message has resonated with fans at all. And I think we're going to get to a point where you start wondering about what his role in the organization or future with the organization is. No one lasts around there forever. Bruce Allen goes back to the last year of Jim Zorn and has been there through the Shanahan and RG3 and Scott McLuhan.

debacles. I'm not sure if I were a fan as much I would trust that Bruce Allen had to say. Do you think that the league pushed the hiring of Brian Lafamina? Do you think the league said this has been a storied franchise with a great history and it has eroded here and its fan base is eroding to a certain extent? We got to push somebody in there that knows how to turn this thing around. Do you think that that hire of Brian Lafamina as the team's chief operating officer essentially? I think that's his title. Do you think that was pushed by the league? So his title, I think it's chief business operator.

I'm sorry, it's chief business officer, but whatever. It's the same. CBOCO, yeah. Yeah, exactly. I do not, I will be clear. I do not know. I will be also clear that that is exactly what I suspect, that I, I suspect the league said Washington has been trending in the wrong direction for a very long time.

It had been a franchise that we relied on to deliver consistently with our top performers in the league, both in everything, all the measurables, ratings, loyalty, attendance, merchandise sales, sponsorships, all that stuff. And it no longer does, and it's not even close. We have someone in-house here who has dealt with sponsorship, marketing, fan surveys for all 32 teams for eight years. And we think it's more important for him to go help fix this one franchise than it is to have his fingers into 32. different franchises at the same time. I don't know it can, but man, does that logically line up to me?

Where would you leave a top job within the league office when you went to Rutgers and you grew up in New York to go to Washington unless the league said, Hey, we really need you there and we'll make it work your while? All right, I want to switch subjects. I agree with you on that, too. I just think that that makes sense. And I also think sometimes there's like a disconnect in Ashburn with reality, with what's reality and the league perhaps saw it. But whatever, I don't know that for fact either.

A couple of things. First of all, it's a long way away. But, you know, the congressional members certainly didn't want the Tiger tournament. But now they've got a PGA and then a Rider Cup. I was curious as to your reaction to that. And that's big news for a town that has a lot of golfers and a golf population that's significant, but doesn't have a tour event. So I think, I mean, my initial reaction was, man, this will be wildly successful.

I mean, it's a worthy venue. It really is a better fit for major championships and rider cups than it is for a yearly tour stop. because, quite frankly, it's just too hard. I mean, the guys, I've heard this a million times that, you know, these guys get ground into the ground at majors and at a select few tour stops over the course of the year, and they want their regular weeks to be there to make birdies. So as great a course as congressional is,

it was never a great fit as just a regular tourist stop, even when Tiger was headlining the thing. I will say that it's great for Washington Golf to have a major on the calendar, even if it's, you know, whatever it is, 13 years out. And a wider cup, which I just think will be a bonanza here, as long as that event continues to trend the way it's trended for 20, 25 years. You and I will both be putting in our false beef and grabbing our pain. I've thought about that.

Cover the thing. But it's really fitting. I also would say, you know, it does represent a shift for congressional from working with the USDA and getting another U.S. open to having, I think, five or six events with the PGA of America, that wins both the PGA championship and Ryder Cup as well. It'll get a couple of women's PGA championships, which I think will be really fun as well. So I was excited as a golf guy who's disappointed the tour is no longer here. I was excited about the announcement.

Yeah, and for those that may have responded to you and if you did to me as well about, hey, you know, it's August in Washington. No, no, no. The PGA championship now is in May. Is in May. Yeah, so that'll be different. May and September, September for the Ryder Cup. So those, you could argue, those are the two best months for golf around here. Exactly. The other thing that I read about early this morning was the FedEx Cup changes for next year. For those that don't get it, basically the FedEx Cup, it concludes this weekend in Georgia.

And the winner of the FedEx Cup won't necessarily be the winner of this tournament. It's sort of an aggregate number of FedEx points. Well, next year, Barry, explain what they're going to do and tell me whether or not you think it'll work. Well, you know, I'll be honest, Kevin. I have not processed, I saw initially that they're going to wait it differently. but I think it's a measure of how much I care and regular golf fans, I think,

care about the FedEx Cup is, I was kind of like, well, tell me what the changes are when they are when they come next year. I am kind of like... So let me tell you then. Let me tell you, so if it were in place this weekend,

Bryson D. Chambot would start the tournament 10 under par. That's right. That's right. Okay. So when he tees off on Thursday, he's already 10 under par. So essentially he's getting strokes from the field. It'll be a bit...

And then it just tiers down based on your point total. So who's second? Justin Rose right now, he would be at 9 under par. And so on and so on. So it basically would... I think there would be no more than a 10-shot difference between the 30th player in this tournament, which is the last place

player entering this final FedEx Cup event. And the first place points leader, but it just, it'll be different. It'll be weird. You'll tune in on Thursday, and it'll be 10.30 in the morning, and D. Shambo is going to be at 10 under par and hasn't even teed off. Okay. So, yes, I had, I had seen that, but that was going to happen a couple weeks ago and filed it into a part of my brain that I can't access. What I would, what I would say is, and I don't mean to be overly negative about this, because I do enjoy watching you know, whatever the tournament is that week.

And I enjoy, I will enjoy watching an Eastlake. There's only 30 players left this year. But in doing that, the tour is essentially admitting, we have not gotten this playoff thing right yet. We have not generated the amount of interest that we think we can and should. And so we're doing something kind of radical to overhaul it. Basically, if it wasn't broken, they wouldn't have fixed it. So what can we take from it?

They must have thought internally that it was broken. As a consumer, I'm not sure I can put myself in a place to know how I would feel when I turn on the TV on the Thursday morning of the final event and see a guy who hasn't teed off already up by 10 strokes. I know, me neither. Yeah, it's just, I mean, you can look at it a couple ways. Give them credit for trying, but definitely understand that they don't have this playoff thing right yet. They're not getting the viewers and the numbers that they had hoped, and so they're trying

something pretty radical. Do you know what, Barry, seriously, I think for a lot of people this year, all this weekend is is another chance to watch Tiger try to win a tournament. That's a thousand percent. That's the reason I've, I'll tell you what, as a golf fan, I have not. not been a FedEx Cup follower over the years, but this year was the first year because of Tiger and where he was in the standings and whether or not he could make it to the final event, which he has, which, by the way, as a story, as a sports story this year, is really one of

the most, it's not the best sports story of the year, but it may be the most improbable of the year. Do you agree? It's remarkable. Yo, for sure. I mean, and, you know, I, I take him at his word, and I believe it to be true, that, you know, last November, December, whatever it was, he had trouble getting out of bed. And that he has said that over and over and over again. And if you know about disc surgeries, that's had two of them. Yep. Okay, so there you go. To get to the point where he could swing a club to,

compete in a tournament, and I know people will, like, say, well, I mean, walking four rounds of a tournament, I'll physically demand and that is that. Well, it's not nothing when you couldn't get out of bed in the previous months. And then, I mean, I'll just take, you know, I walked with him at Avenil when he did have his tournament here on the Friday, and it was very clear that day. I think he shot 65 or 66. Obviously he didn't win the tournament. But he has all the shots. He has all the shots again.

He's now been back up at the top of a leaderboard in a major. Again, hasn't closed the deal. But I don't, I think it's a good reminder how far he's come in really what's a short amount of time. And then exactly what you said, Kevin, he is a driver of. of viewers and of buzz, like no one else in the game, and it's not close. And it's just... In sports, Barry, in sports, there's no bigger, you know, needle mover than Tiger Woods right now in all of sports.

Which is amazing because he's not 27 and ascendant anymore. He's 43 and trying to fight for a scrap of something he once was. It's just a fun thing to watch. I now believe he'll win again. I think Augusta next year will be fascinating again. And it's just amazing the impact of one person, but also then if you look at that one person's story, you can't just dismiss and say, well, he's Tiger.

Of course he's back. No, this was in real doubt for a long time, and it's fun to watch. Barry, thanks. I always appreciate it, and I always love having conversations with you about a lot of different things. Thanks so much. Thanks, Kevin. Kevin, Kevin Chian Show podcast is presented by Windon Nation. Tell people about it. Also, on iTunes, if you're listening to this on iTunes or any other platform that you might be using, subscribe. It's better for us. It's free to subscribe. Rate it, too, if you have time. That's a good thing for us. It helps us get ranked on the iTunes list. list for sports podcasts, which always helps. And we were pretty high in that list, actually, in the first week. And I'm not exactly sure how that works, Aaron. But subscribe, listen.

And if you know people who tell you, they don't know anything about podcasts, just tell them to go to the Kevin Sheehan Show.com, and they can listen to it there. Let's get to NFL Buy or Sell. Are you buying or are you selling NFL Buy or Sell? I usually in the past when we did these segments, you know, we would buy things that were sort of thought to be priced low or undervalued and then you'd sell things at their height. But really early in the season, I'm just going to buy things that I think are good and are going to be good throughout and sell something that may be bad right now or maybe on the verge of being bad. But I'm not going to tie it to like a price.

Like, oh, it's really priced high. let's sell or it's really priced low, let's buy. I'm going to start with this. I'd buy the Dallas defense. I think the Dallas defense is good. If you think about it in the first two weeks, they've allowed 16 and 13 points to the Panthers and the Giants. The longest run from scrimmage so far, Cam Newton on a scramble ran for 29 yards. They held Saquan Barkley to 28 yards rushing. The team, the entire giant team, to 35 yards rushing. They've got nine sacks already, which was tops in the league, I think, until the

Bears got to their 10th or 11th, I think, in Monday night against Seattle. But they had six sacks of Eli Manning on Sunday night by six different pass rushers. You know, you've obviously got to Marcus Lawrence there, Taco Charlton's a beast. Rod Marinelli's blitzing a little bit more, taking more chances. But this defense is good. Dallas's defense is good. The giant defense is pretty good also. Now, I think both of these teams are going to struggle at times offensively. I mean, Dak Prescott, I think it's becoming clear you cannot put a game on his back and ask him to throw the football and have it turn out well. But if they run the football and they use him in a lot,

A lot of read option, RPO stuff, play action stuff, traditional play action stuff. With that defense, I know it looked ugly in week one at Carolina because they couldn't score. They really struggled to score. But they're a good defensive team. I would buy Dallas's defense right now, and I think it will hold up, you know, barring injuries. I think it will hold up as one of the better defenses in the league throughout the season. and I mentioned the Giants defense too. I would buy that defense also. I think both of those teams right now are going to be a work in progress offensively,

and Dallas, I think, is more limited offensively than the Giants are. But I really like the Dallas defense. I am also buying at this point Patrick Mahomes. Now, he's on pace right now, I think, to throw 80 touchdowns, which would shatter Peyton Manning's single season mark of 50. That's not going to happen, but really, if you do the math here, Peyton's streak because of his start of 10 touchdown passes in the first two weeks. We're going to be watching this here early to see if he continues on pace to break that record. It's not going to throw 80.

He might throw 60, but here's why I'm buying him. If you watch him, he can throw every single ball. He throws the out. He throws the checkdown with precision and with touchdown. and he can really throw the deep ball. He throws the deep crossers well, the short crossers well. He's got a stature about him. He's got a presence about him in the pocket,

and he can also make plays. You know, Andy Reid rarely missteps offensively, unless you're talking about clock management or score management. He's terrible at that. But there was a reason he felt comfortable moving on from Alex Smith after one season. He knew what he had in Mahomes. Remember, he traded up to get Mahomes in the 2017 draft. I'm buying Mahomes here early. Maybe that's not much of a reach, but a lot of people are sort of downplaying it to a certain degree and saying, you know, we got to see more. I've seen enough in terms of

the way he throws the football and the way he handles the pocket. You see the talent. You know, he may have some bad games here along the way as he's in his first full year is starting in the NFL. But he looks like the real deal to me. I am also buying, and this is an easy buy at this point, but there's no way James Winston

gets his starting job back. Ryan Fitzpatrick, with those weapons around him, is going to continue to be the starter even when Winston comes off suspension. And he should. Deshawn Jackson gave him an endorsement the other day. He said there's no way that they can sit Ryan Fitzpatrick. You know, there is something about this position where the more and the longer,

the more you play, the longer you're around, the more you figure it out. He may not have all the physical tools, but he's got all the mental tools. He sees the field. He knows the offense. And right now they are the biggest surprise in the NFL. I will also, and there's one other thing I wanted to sell too. I'm selling the Cincinnati Bengals as this like favorite to win the see North at this point. I'm not buying it. I think the Steelers will, they got a big game Monday night. That's a hell of a Monday night game. Pittsburgh at Tampa, 2 and O Tampa against the 0, 1-1 Steelers. All right? So you've got almost a must-win situation in week three for Pittsburgh against a Tampa team that's 2-0. That's a great Monday night game. Well, especially you get

Ryan Fitzpatricking that offense going against how bad the Steelers defense looked. That could be over-under 100-point game on Monday night. I mean, think about the bucks here in the first two weeks. The Eagles and the Saints, I mean, you're talking about the defending Super Bowl champions and a team that was nearly in the NFC championship game a year ago, and they've hung 48 and then 27 and a lot of offense up against the Eagles. Putting up 27 against the Eagles. I know.

Just put an extra 20 to what the Steelers did. The Eagles defense is great. The Steelers defense, not so much right now. that's a really good Monday night game. I actually have another thing to sell. I guess I've got more to sell this week than to buy. I'm selling the 10-minute overtime rule. I think we'll see a change in that, actually.

We may not. The safety emphasis may prevent it from changing. But the 10-minute overtime rule, really, what are we talking about? 15 minutes or 10 minutes, the difference of five minutes. Do you know how many overtime games went beyond 10 minutes the year before? they changed the rule. I think it was like 4% of the overtime games went beyond the 10-minute mark anyway. But now that you have a 10-minute mark, you have increased the possibility and the probability of more ties. It didn't happen last year. You've got two in the first two weeks. I just don't want, I don't want six ties in the NFL this year.

I think it's not a big deal to move it back to the 15-minute mark. One other point real quickly with the 10-minute overtime rule. They should give each team three timeouts, not two. And the reason for that is, you know, if you're in the midst of a long drive, you know, the opening drive, let's say of overtime, or let's say you get a stop on the opening drive and now it's your first drive and it's a nine-minute drive that you've got going on or an eight-minute drive, you've got to give the other team the ability to use timeouts to potentially get that ball back, especially if the team hasn't touched it yet in overtime. with plenty of time left. Look, there are plenty of six and seven minute drives, you know,

that end up in a missed field goal. You know, you've got to give the other team more than two or three minutes to move the ball back down field to get into field goal range at that point to win the game. All right, I want to move to another topic here, and that is sports betting in D.C. So the story came out yesterday. DC Council member Jack Evans proposed a bill that would let residents and visitors place wagers on sports in D.C. It has not happened in Virginia yet. It hasn't happened in neighboring Maryland yet. It's not even on the ballot for Maryland this November, which means in Maryland, even though you've got casinos in Maryland, sports betting won't be legal until the earliest 2020, which is crazy because neighboring states like West Virginia and Delaware

have it. New Jersey has it. Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania has it. And now DC among the DMV, three, looks like it's going to be the first to really push to get it. And, you know, in one of the quotes, I've got to find the quote that Jack Evans said, but he basically said, we're missing out on an opportunity here because people who want to bet on sports are leaving our city, leaving tax, potential tax, behind and going elsewhere. So this is why you do it. You know, the legalization of sports gaming, the decision by the Supreme Court gave all the states and the District of Columbia the ability to do it.

And now it's a matter of, you know, how quickly, you know, you get to it to start realizing some of the tax revenue that will be associated with people when they bet in your state or in your district. And many of the states have moved quickly and others have moved quickly. and others have been very slow to move. And D.C., Maryland and Virginia have been slow to move, but it looks like D.C. is going to change that. So between Maryland, Virginia, and D.C.,

it looks like D.C. is going to get it first. There was another story that came out the other day, and this is what I wanted to get to. And that is that West Virginia, which right now has sports betting, is being pushed by the NBA, major league baseball, and the PGA tour

among others, to pay what these sports leagues are calling integrity fees. Integrity fees, the sports believe, are something they should get from people who bet on their sports as a way to protect the integrity of the game. Now, West Virginia says they're not doing it. In fact, there's a quote from one of the West Virginia lottery commission people or the sports gaming commission people that says we can handle the integrity of the betting in our states. We're not about to push a fee out to the leagues who are going to benefit from the increased interest already in their games to protect these games.

We manage the betting. We'll manage the integrity of it. Most states have not given in on this integrity fee. And it'd be, let me just say that professional in college sports fought the legalization of sports betting for years, even though it was benefiting them significantly. And now they want a piece of the action. Now that it's legal, they actually want a piece of the action. There's some hypocrisy there.

You know, their quest for these integrity fees is hypocritical to a certain degree. But here's what you should know. You should know that these sports leagues never asked the state of Nevada for an integrity fee. Sports betting's been legal in Nevada for multiple decades now. And the leagues never asked Nevada for an integrity fee. In fact, there was recognition among college and professional sports that Nevada and the sports gaming authority in Nevada actually was a real good protector of the integrity of their games. games, college and pro games, even though we have had scandals along the way, you know, Boston College, Tulane, Arizona State, professional scandals at times, Tim Donagy's

allegations about NBA games being fixed. For the most part, whenever there's been irregular betting in Nevada, there's been a shutdown and there's been an investigation on behalf of not only the gaming authority, the sports book, to make sure that they weren't being had, but to make sure that the integrity of these games was there and was upheld. The leagues have benefited from Nevada being involved in somewhat managing the integrity of the games through legal sports betting in Las Vegas and throughout the state of Nevada. But now that it's legal, these sports see this as, hey, we got to get a piece of the action. But here's the problem with them getting a piece of the action. A, they don't deserve it.

They don't. B, whatever they would get if they got it and I don't think they will, would be passed on to you, the consumer, you the better, in the form of higher VIGs, higher percentages of lost bets. You know, most sports books you walk in, you lose $100 bet, you lose $110. Okay, it's called the vigorous. It's 10%. It's the interest on a loss. That's how a sports book makes its money primarily. If they get $100 bet on the Eagles and $100 bet on the Buccaneers last Sunday, the person that bet on the Eagles and lost pays $110, and then the book pays out the $100 to the winner and they keep the $10 as a fee. Well, if they start paying an integrity fee to the NBA, to the NFL, to Major League Baseball, the PGA, etc., now instead of paying $10 on a loss, you're going to pay.

$12 on a loss or $15 on a loss. It would get passed on to the consumer. You don't want that. The books don't want that. And the leagues don't deserve it. The leagues will benefit enough from the increased interest in their sports. More people will start betting on sports. By the way, if you take a step back, already these leagues have benefited in meaningful ways,

in so many ways, fantasy, but gambling for years. have been a big driver of the interest in the NFL, in the NBA, in college football. They'll benefit from that. That's their fee. Their fee is it's legal. More people are going to bet on it. More people are going to watch it. More people are going to be interested in it. That's their fee. They don't deserve anything else. One quick betting note. A New Jersey sports better. the other day, bet $100 to lose $110 on a... It was actually, I'm sorry, it was a $100 bet on a long-shot play in-game waging. Okay, let me explain.

Let me take a step back, because I'll start over. So the Broncos are playing the Raiders. Most of you don't know this, so I have to recognize that. You can actually bet in-game, like during the game that you're watching in the middle of the third quarter, you can actually place a wager on who's going to win the game. The odds have changed from the beginning of the game based on who's winning, who's losing, and what's happening in the game, but you can actually place a wager in the middle of a game on who's going to win the game. And in the middle of the Oakland Denver game on Sunday,

with Oakland leading the game 1917, one of the sports books at a casino in New Jersey mistakenly put up 750 to 1 odds on Denver winning the game. It was a mistake. The odds at 19 to 17 would be more like even money, somewhere around even money. Probably plus 175, something like that. Exactly. I mean, Denver might be a slight underdog, but they're not going to be a seven and a half. Excuse me, we don't have cough buttons in the podcast world, do we?

I don't think we do. Yeah, there's one right under that. I missed it. There it is. They would have never been a seven and a half to one underdog. Okay, so basically, the gentleman placed a bet, saw the mistaken line, placed a bet, and he had the opportunity if Denver won the game to win $82,000 based on the bet that he placed. Okay? He won the bet because Denver won the game.

He went to collect, and the sports. sports book, the bookmaker, said, uh-uh, we can't pay that out. It was the wrong odds line that you bet. Sorry for the mistake. And he is threatening to sue. These things have happened in the past in Nevada. And typically they are sort of arbitrated by the gaming enforcement division of the state and usually rule in favor of the actual sports book. You can't, If they put up, like this Sunday, let's just say if just for a brief moment, you saw that Green Bay was a 30-point favorite, not a three-point favorite. And it was clearly just a mistake. It was a zero added to the three because they're a three-point favorite.

And you jumped on it. And you put $100,000 on the Redskins plus 30. They would not pay that bet out to you. So that happened in New Jersey this weekend. And these are the things that you're going to start reading about more and more, as more novel. begin to bet and see things and more people get involved and trying to take advantage of the system, you know, of potential technology flaws in the distribution of point spreads or odds on games. It is interesting, though, that that happened at a physical casino.

Normally when you hear about it, it's because of something online. That was a physical bet play. So that's, again, just kind of growing pains there. I hope everybody understood that because it's basically in-game bet, the wrong odds posted on Denver. Somebody tried to take advantage of it. They won $82,000, except it was the wrong number that was posted, so he's not going to actually win that bet.

There you go. I could have said it that way from the beginning. Well, we'll see if they're not, you know, New Jersey could rule it differently than Vegas does. Bryce Harper last night walked five times in five at bats, and not one of them was an intentional walk. The Nats are six and a half games out with 10 to play. Six and a half out with 10 to play. Anyway, thanks to Aaron today.

Thanks to Barry's Verluga, who joined the show today. Thanks to chatter, as always. And to Windonation, the presenting sponsor of the Kevin Sheehan Show podcast.