The Kevin Sheehan Show - Nats' Blown Chance & Bruce Allen's Last Stand

Episode Date: June 24, 2019

Kevin opens with the Nats' rough weekend then gets to why tonight's winner of the NBA MVP means nothing to him. Then it's on to why he thinks 2019 will be Bruce Allen's last stand as Redskins' team president. He finishes up with why John Riggins, not Max Scherzer is the greatest free agent acquisition in DC sports history. <p> </p><p>Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices">podcastchoices.com/adchoices</a></p> Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You want it. You need it. It's what everyone's talking about. The Kevin Sheehan Show. Now, here's Kevin. All right, I am here. Aaron is here. This show is presented by Window Nation. If you're in the market for Windows, please call 86699 Nation and give them a shot. Windonation.com as well. Tell them we told you to call. Just so everyone knows, we're doing a show today and tomorrow. Then I'm taking a few days off some vacation time. Aaron, I'm going to take some time off in July and August. I'm not sure exactly. when the days will be, but when the NFL season starts every day, Monday through Friday. And we're working on some things that we'll do over the weekends when football season starts. At the very least, some sort of quick post-game show following Redskins games, maybe a half hour to 45 minutes, and then we'll do the full-fledged post game and full-fledged show on Mondays following the games. By the way, almost every game is a Sunday game this year, right?

They have the Monday night game against Chicago, and then that's it, right? Every other game this year is scheduled for 1 o'clock. I think that's right. They have a Thursday game, right? Oh, they have a Thursday night game against Minnesota. That's right. That's right in late October. But every other game scheduled for 1 o'clock on Sunday this coming season.

Today's show is going to be on the shorter side. I had a guest scheduled, and he had to bail right before the day. show started. We'll try to get him back later in the, not later in the week, but sometime next week. But we're good. It's Aaron and I. And a few things to discuss. We'll start with the nationals. They lost two of three to Atlanta over the weekend. A lost opportunity, really, I thought, to gain ground because Saturday night's game was, you know, a winnable game. They were up eight four before the bullpen completely imploded. By the way, Trevor Rosenthal, his final appearance as a national, he just walked three dudes.

Through 15 pitches, 12 of them were balls, walked three dudes, and then the Nats decided after the game to cut him, or Sunday morning, I guess, to cut him. That's a cost to the team of somewhere in the neighborhood of $7 to $8 million. He pitched six and a third's innings. Obviously, he pitched more,

but sometimes he didn't get out and made $7 million. Six and a third innings, Aaron, where he walked 15, allowed eight hits, 16 earned runs, his ERA was 22.74, one of the worst brief appearances in Major League Baseball history. He's gone. It was a bad purchase. No relief, by the way, on what they owe him. None. By the way, he wasn't the only one over the weekend. Tanner Rainey, who started off so well for the Nats, has now been roughed up in, I think, four of his last five appearances. And then on Saturday night, Joe Ross and Matt Grace were terrible in relief. The Nats bullpen on Saturday night after being up 8-4 gave up nine runs over the final three innings, and they lost that game 13 to 9.

And then yesterday it was rainy again in the 10th. He gives up a two-run homer, and the Nats lose four to three. So two of three in their weekend set with the Braves, they lose two of the three games. They had a chance, and it looked like, you know, late Saturday night, it looked like, wow, they're going to be five and a half back with a chance to get to four and a half back, you know, at the end of Sunday, and instead they're eight and a half back. It's only June, though. It's only June.

But, you know, I don't know if I've talked about this on the podcast, but the Trevor Rosenthal situation is such a, it's looking back on it, like that signing was where the bullpen went wrong almost because they sign Trevor Rosenthal, they signed him as the eighth inning guy. It was going to be Rosenthal in the eighth and then Doolittle in the ninth. And then everything else was made with that in mind to kind of get the one outs here. You could experiment with guys because they're going to be the sixth inning guy, the seventh inning guy, the one battered lugi. The problem was you couldn't count on Rosen, there was no reason to believe Rosenthal could be that guy because of the injuries. Right. He missed the whole season last year after Tommy John. So when I

I say things like, you know, this was fundamentally flawed the idea behind the bullpen. That's really what I'm talking about is that this bullpen was built around Trevor Rosenthal on the 8th and that was a fundamentally flawed idea. Now, do you blame Rizzo for that or do you blame the learners for not giving him enough money to build the bullpen? You know, blame can go both ways. But that decision, as much as anything, really set the tone for this season. Yeah, I mean, there's no doubt about that. I mean, we are, it's only June. And by the way, during this homestand, they did go six and four, this all-important homestand. They went six and four. They were supposed to play 11 one of the games with the Phillies was rained out. They do have,

by the way, and I was looking at their schedule, they've got 12 games before the All-Star break against the Marlins, Tigers, and Royals. So a real chance against some bad teams, I know the Marlins just swept the Phillies over the weekend. In fact, I want to say that the last time the Nats played the Marlins, they were in the midst of like a four or five game winning streak as well. And then the Nats swept them. Yes. But there's lots of schedule left, 85 games, including 14 against the Braves.

But to your point, this season's been about one thing and one thing only. And it probably will play out the rest of the way. It's about the bullpen. And the bullpen not delivering. It's failed them too many times. in the first, you know, 71 games of the year, whatever it's been. Something like that, right? 85, 60. 77 games.

Right, 85, 77 would be 162. And there's nothing that we've seen that will, you know, basically change unless they make a lot of moves and they become buyers at the trade deadline. But right now, the bullpen appears to be the thing that will prevent them from being a legitimate contender for a division title or even a wild card in the National League. And it's a shame because they do have a decent team. You know, they've got decent starting pitching. They've got offense.

Soto missed an opportunity yesterday in the bottom of the ninth to get it done for the Nats. But the – was at the bottom of the ninth or bottom of the tenth. I was listening to the game. I was in my car listening to the game, listening to the broadcast. And it was – I'm trying to think – in the – The bottom of the 10th, Soto was the last out of the game, right? Yeah. Yeah.

He grounded out to shortstop with two on. They were threatening there, and they got to run in to make it four or three. In the bottom of the ninth, I think they, I think Kendrick walked and then stole second, and then it was Parra who ended up striking out to end the ninth. Anyway, yeah, it's the bullpen. It's the bullpen that's going to prevent them from more likely than not being a postseason team. The one thing they have going for them, though, is the Phillies and Mets are imploding before our eyes right now. It's amazing to see just how badly, you know, got the Phillies won for their last 10,

and then the Mets are having players going after reporters in the locker room. Yeah, saw that. So if nothing else, outside of the Braves, they have a path in front of them. We'll just see if, you know, the bullpen allows them to exploit it. meantime, Aaron, the Wizards don't have a GM with the start of free agency less than a week away. Stephen A. Smith this morning, I was listening to him. He was actually talking like there was still a chance that Missai Ujiri could come to Washington. He implored Ted Leonis to pay up, said this is no time to be cheap.

I'm paraphrasing on the word cheap. I forget what he said. But he said something like, the Wizards are one of those organizations that have produced so little. that they should be willing to overpay for someone like Ujiri. Leading me to believe, actually, that Stephen A had some information that Ted had perhaps not offered anywhere near what was reported by ESPN, the night that the Raptors won the title, that the Wizards were going to offer Ujiri $10 million plus a piece of ownership.

It led me to believe that. I don't know if that's true or not. By the way, did you see this story? TMZ got Adam Silver on camera saying that the NBA, is moved away from using the word owner to describe team owners in the NBA? I did see that, yes. So I'll read to you what Adam Silver said. He basically said that the league is phased out the term owner to describe individuals

with controlling interests in its teams amid concerns that the title is racially insensitive in a league where the majority of players are African American. He said, quote, I don't want to overreact to the team. term because people end up twisting themselves into knots avoiding the use of the word owner, but we moved away from that term years ago with the league. We call our team owners governors of the team and alternate governors, I guess for minority interest minority equity holders in teams. He said players have gone both ways with this. Quote, I think a few players have actually spoken out and said the greatest thing that ever happened was when Michael Jordan was able to call

himself owner. But of course, Draymond Green has been very public about the fact that we should be moving away from the term. And I completely respect that close quote. This is the stuff that, you know, I get it on some level. You know, I'm not an idiot. I know what the word owner meant in the 1800s, you know, before the NBA was formed, before any professional sports league was formed. I guess baseball started in the 1800s, late 1800s. But does it really mean the same thing today? I mean, Governor Leonis, that's team governor. Ted Leonis, the team governor, it doesn't really make sense to me. And someone will soon take issue with governor because they'll bring up the fact that we've had governors recently, like Ralph Northam, with Blackface

in his college yearbook. And George Wallace, you know, was a governor as well. Well, look, these are always sensitive topics. I understand that some of you are going to say, you know, will say stay in your lane. You're a middle-aged white guy. But I just, to me, some of this stuff is just commonsensical. It's not apples to apples with the Redskins team nickname necessarily. But I've always said, you know, about the term Redskins. First of all, there should be a non-pejorative definition.

You know, Redskins noun. the football team that plays in Washington, D.C., I mean, no one hears that two Redskins just walked into a restaurant and said, oh, two Native Americans just walked into a restaurant. Nobody says that. Who says that? Nobody thinks Native Americans. You think, you know, did Dwayne Haskins just walk in with, you know,

Josh Norman? That's what it is now. Anyway, I'll stay in my lane on this one. I just don't, I don't, I don't, understand the sensitivity in 2019. I mean, there are owners of primarily African-American employed businesses in this country, and the person that owns the business might have a title of CEO or president, but he may also have owner in the title.

Are we going to drop that from all of those? Perhaps we will. I don't know. Anyway, back to the Wizards here for a moment. I don't think Missai Ujiri is coming to Washington. That's my personal belief. I don't know why anyone would want this job. I know that Ted believes it's the most attractive available GM job in all of sports,

but there's nothing attractive about it. You know, there's just not a lot that's attractive about it. You've got, you know, the franchise point guard who's going to miss all of next year and may never be the same, but is eating up massive amounts of cap space. You know, you do have a star two guard, but you had the ninth pick and you picked a player that, you know, who knows? By the way, on Hachamur, did you see this on Friday? He never, he said, he said, nobody from the team ever spoke to him. And it was surprising to him that they selected him, number nine overall, because he never met with the team and never spoke to anyone from the team. That's interesting. Now, I know. I know. know that you can end up drafting players that, I mean, no, it wasn't like it was a massive surprise that Hachamura was there at nine. Right. Did they just not have the opportunity to meet with him? You always have the opportunity to speak with him, even if you don't meet with him in person.

Or did they just like him so much that they felt they didn't need to, uh, didn't need to speak to him and didn't need to alert people to the fact that they were thinking about it? I guess. The, the press conference, introductory press conference for Hachamura the other day. 41 reporters showed up for it, 17 Japanese reporters, some who flew all night long Thursday night to be there in time on Friday for his introduction to Washington. By the way, I read this too. Japan treated the selection of Hachamura by the Wizards as breaking news.

They had bulletin crawling across television sets all over. over the country. A Japanese reporter was asked about that on Friday that was here, and she said that it was treated similarly to like an earthquake or a tsunami hitting Japan. That that's how big it was. You saw the wizards tweeted out, you know, something in Japanese welcoming to the team. Yes, yeah. The single most, here it is, the most interaction of any tweet in the team's social media history. Seriously. Yes. Like how many likes? I don't know. I just saw the Steinberg tweet about that. I haven't read the article yet, but uh, yeah. Well, don't tell me that old governor Leonis didn't see huge international dollar

signs when they took Hachemur the other night. Um, anyway, uh, tonight the NBA awards, uh, all of the awards are going to be announced. I, I will tell you, I will not watch it. I have no interest in watching it. I don't really care about it. Again, beating a dead. horse. I love the sport. I love the games. I love what just concluded, you know, a week and a half ago. I know some of you love this, and we'll be debating amongst yourselves about whether or not it should be Janus or Hardin as the MVP. In my view, we saw the best the NBA has to offer right now. His name's Kauai Leonard, all right? Kauai Leonard is your true NBA MVP. I understand there's a playoff MVP and there's a regular season MVP, but regular season MVP. But regular season

in the NBA is as meaningless an award as there is for an MVP. I'm not saying that, by the way, the regular season MVP hasn't matched up to the playoff MVP in the past. It has. But the playoff MVP is the real measure of how good guys are in this sport. It's how they play in the postseason when everyone is invested in winning the games every night. When everyone is dialed in defensively, when nobody has an advantage because of the schedule, teams aren't resting players on a back-to-back, no sport is as different in the postseason versus the regular season as the NBA is. I guess the NHL is far different as well, but the NBA with the disadvantages of back-to-backs and the resting of players and, you know,

the defensive effort and the strategic effort. It's a completely different game. Kauai Leonard was the best player in the NBA this year because he was the best player in the games that actually measure something. By the way, Kevin Durant would be my number two. He's the second best because before he got hurt, he was having an all-time playoff run through the mid-partion of the conference semifinals. And then Damian Lillard and James Hardin would be in consideration. Steph Curry as well. not even in the top five. I mean, we saw what he was in the postseason when you had a team that figured out a strategy to stop him. He's not in the class of Leonard or Durant or Hardin or

Curry. He's not in that, he's nowhere near that right now. Until he does it in games that actually matter, then you cannot measure him. You cannot give out an award like that. The NBA, again, I get it. It's a regular season award. I just don't think they should have one. It's misleading. We'll look back and we'll see that Janus was the 2019 MVP. And that MVP, there's real marquee value attached to this particular award in the minds of sports fans and NBA fans in particular. Janice is not a top five player in this game right now. He may become that. And I would guess that he probably will become that.

But he may walk home with the MVP tonight. And he's not a top five player in this game. Just isn't. Okay. Windonation. Quick word about them. And then we'll get to some Redskins conversation. Ran into a friend of mine over the weekend, Jason,

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call. So we barely got to this on Friday, Aaron, and that was the interview that Alex Smith did with Angie Goff from Fox 5 News here locally in D.C. It's the first time that Alex Smith, I believe, has spoken since the injury last November in the game against Houston. I listened to the interview. We read some of the quotes, and then over the weekend I went back and listened to it. He's not playing anymore. You know, he talks about hopefully having a chance to play football anymore. I listen to the tone of his answers and the context in which he was delivering the answers. In my view, what I heard was a guy that is going to be very happy to be able to walk and run without much impact, to have a, to be able to live a lifestyle where that broken leg, that horrible broken leg injury doesn't

impact his ability to walk freely and even run freely, that the NFL is a long shot for him. And I think we already discussed on Friday that the Redskins are not going to be an option for him. You know, I mean, they've got the quarterback. They drafted the quarterback of the future in Dwayne Haskins. They traded for the veteran for a potential short-term stopgap between, you know, Haskins being ready or not being ready, and then Haskins being ready. There's not going to be a place for Alex Smith on the roster as a as a quarterback in Washington. And I don't think there's going to be a place for Alex Smith ever again. It's sad. It was a, I think it will ultimately prove to be a career ending injury. And this happens all the time in that league. But you hate to see it. And that's why

you really can't begrudge these guys for getting every dollar they can possibly get because their careers on average are so short. And very, very, often they lead to, you know, a life after football that isn't totally comfortable and it's certainly not pain free. But it, but listening to that made me think about his very brief career here in Washington one more time. But it really made me think about Bruce Allen and what is coming next. And I'll get to that in a moment. On Alex, you know, the bottom line is, and I know we're being repetitive here, and I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this. I want to spend more time on what it made me think about with respect to Bruce Allen. But, you know, Alex Smith just wasn't a very good

quarterback here. I mean, that's what I'll remember. He was a bad fit for Gruden. He never got comfortable in J's system. You know, maybe it was on the verge of, you know, coming around. But nothing we saw really indicated that. In fact, his final game before he got injured was one of his worst. You know, he had two picks. He took three sacks in just over a half. I'm not going to spend much more time documenting, you know, his season. You know how I feel. It just never seemed to be a good fit. And it wasn't a very good performance. The record was good and he didn't turn the ball over. All of that is fine. I think personally, as I've said before, the record was heading for eight and eight in the non-playoff season, maybe nine and seven, possibly seven and nine, the same record they ended up with. And I'm also not

going to spend a lot of time documenting the front office decisions related to the quarterback position over the last seven years. Because needless to say, the trade for Alex Smith and the huge contract extension didn't work out for the team. Even without the injury, I don't think it was likely going to work out. Bruce Allen got it wrong. He didn't trade cousins, got that wrong, felt the pressure of botching that situation, felt the pressure to come up with an answer. He's a stubborn guy. He doesn't like to admit when he's wrong. He made a bad trait. You know, it's the single biggest weakness, by the way, of Snyder and Allen as a pairing and individually is never thinking they're wrong, being stubborn, being arrogant, never thinking they're wrong.

But what we saw Dan Snyder do on draft day two months ago, for me, is an indication that Bruce and his merrymen are on thin ice. And listening to Alex Smith just reminded, me that his career is over and how short-lived it was here and how it really didn't work out and how Bruce orchestrated that whole trade. Bruce Allen is an ineffective NFL front office executive. Ineffective. His record here is abysmal. Franchise embarrassment under his watch hasn't improved. You could argue it's gotten worse. The fan base has mostly checked out. If he were the CEO or president of a publicly traded company with shareholders, public shareholders, they would have demanded his ouster and they

likely would have gotten it if by, you know, if at a minimum just to get a short-term stock bounce out of it. He's had very few moments that have impressed anybody. I mean, really, very few, and so many more that have left everyone, fans, media, people in his own building, yes, shaking their heads, heads. I think Snyder shook his head this year. I really believe that Alan is entering his final season here. The only thing that would save him, Aaron, would be a magical season. They haven't had one of those in 27 years. Alex Smith is symbolic of the Allen era disaster. Andy Reed got him once with McNabb and went right back to the well when he was done with Alex Smith. Bruce Allen was a mark for Andy Reid. Alex Smith needed weapons and the right fit with his

offensive head coach to be successful. And the Redskins didn't have either. Of course, Alan didn't know that because he doesn't have vision on those things on football-related things. He still thinks the team is close. He thought it was close last year. It wasn't. He still thinks it's close. It probably isn't. I know many of you think I'm wrong and I was dead wrong last year. I thought that that would be it for him last year. I thought it was going to be it for him and Jay. And then I thought, well, maybe it's just going to be it for Jay. And they're both back. But I swear to God, as we sit here today, and I don't know why that interview with Alex Smith made me just think about it one more time, but I really feel strongly that if 2019 is another disappointing season or a bad season,

it's Alan's last. I know a lot of people that disagree with that. I know a lot of people that will tell me that, nope, you don't understand the relationship he has with Dan. He goes when he says he goes. I just am not buying it. This is a franchise that has lost too much under his watch. Not like the Vinny era, you didn't lose a lot as well,

but you were still at that point closer to, the success and the fan base had you know had eroded but not to the extent that it has now this is a business decision for Snyder if they don't do well this year he can't afford to have bruce allen back he's got to treat it as if it's a publicly traded company it is a public trust in many ways and the shareholders the consumers of the product aren't buying the product anymore they They aren't, they're selling it short and they're dumping their stock and they don't want any part of it anymore. You have to shake it up.

And he tried on his own here in this offseason to shake it up. I thought that that was predictable. He went after Landon Collins, got him, big free agent signing, the biggest free agent signing they've had in that first part of free agency during the Bruce Allen era. They went after Antonio Brown. They went after Golden Tate. They went after C.J. Mosley. They went after Todd Bowles and Greg Williams.

They didn't close the deal on any of those with the exception of landing Collins. But they were trying. And then when we got to the draft, they got to Dwayne Haskins and the league done messed up. Haskins said it and I think Snyder felt it. And I just think that this is, it for Bruce Allen unless there is a magical season. And by the way, if it's a magical season led by Dwayne Haskins, Dan Snyder's pick, that may be another reason it could be over for Bruce Allen. I know we circle back to this conversation a lot, but in listening to Alex Smith, it was just a

reminder that this was another big botched situation by Bruce. I don't think Jay was thrilled with Alex. I don't think he was against it because I think Jay is just, you know, like I've said before, go along to get along. But that fit wasn't right. The contract extension was unnecessary. And I just believe it may be more gut than anything else, but I think this is. it for Alan. 2019 is it unless somehow they strike gold, they hit an inside straight, and some of these players that were drafted, maybe it's Case Keenham, who he liked a lot, that ends up being a big part of it, I think it's going to be his last year. I don't think most agree with me. Would you, I think most think that Alan is here until he wants to go. I don't think that that's true.

Yeah, I think most people, if nothing else, just on sheer cynicism, believe he's here for the long haul. Yeah. There was no other Redskins news, really, over the weekend, except for you mentioned this to me this morning. There was like a rumored trade again. Tell me what it was. Yeah. I'm not familiar with it. Yeah, so I don't know where exactly it came from.

It came from some fake account or something, or something, which people said was fake right away. way, but people still ran with it. I think more out of hope than anything that Josh Doxon was going to be traded for Marvin Jones. Detroit? Yeah, Marvin Jones on Detroit, which if you think about for two seconds, it doesn't make a lick of sense for Detroit, but people ran with it. How did this get out there? This wasn't Stefan Diggs's brother again, was it? I think it was just some fake account on Twitter, like some fake whatever, some fake insider or something, and people ran with it. That's stupid. Who would ever trade for Josh Doxon? right now. You can have him as a free agent at the end of this year if he shows any life to his career.

Give a conditional seventh round pick maybe, but not Marvin Jones. No, not Marvin Jones. And people bought that like they bought the Stefan Diggs thing. Yeah, I think it was, there are rumors that he's having trouble with Patricia and that the Lions might be looking to move him. So people tried to justify it that way. But even if you believe that the Lions are looking to trade Jones, they're getting a lot more than Josh Doxon for him. Yeah, I would certainly think that. He has two years on his deal for, I think, seven million a year.

And he's like, you know, over 1,000-yard receiver. Yeah, that's ridiculous. That's major hijinks by whoever put it out there. They knew the answer to this one. The Stefan Diggs thing, I remember when it came out, and it was like, well, it's his brother. I mean, he must know something. And I'm like, but there's no.

nothing that makes sense about this. Why would Minnesota ever trade Stefan Diggs a year after giving him the big contract extension? And the reason was is that they wouldn't and didn't. I wanted to mention one other thing. On Friday, Scott Allen from the Post wrote a story following Max Scher's Black Eye performance last week, saying that Max Scherzer is the greatest free agent signing in D.C. sports history. Signed a seven-year, $210 million deal with the Nats in 2015, and, you know, we are, you know, in the midst of, you know, I mean, he was not a Hall of Famer when he got here at

that point. Was he, Aaron? He's now a Hall of Fame, a Locke Hall of Famer. Yeah, he wasn't. I think people could have seen it. He certainly was a great pitcher, a top-tier pitcher. But no, he was, if his career had ended for whatever reason right then, he wasn't a Hall of Famer. In four years, that. He's won two Sy Young Awards. He's thrown two no-hitters, and he's tied the Major League Baseball record for most strikeouts in a nine-inning game when he struck out 20, and he struck out 300 batters in a season, which he accomplished last year. So clearly, Scherzer's free agent signing by a D.C. professional sports team is on a short list of the greatest free agent signings in D.C. sports history, and Scott Allen contends that it's number one. Now, Scott Allen,

does point out the others that you would be in contention, and that would be John Riggins, and I'll get to him in a moment, in Gilbert Arenas, which really, I think unlike Riggins and Scherzor, Gill was a second round pick. Gil had some potential, I don't think anybody saw what Gilbert Arinas would be in Washington when the Wizards signed him, when Ernie Grunfeld signed him. Also, by the way, mentions Wayne Rooney. I can't speak to Wayne Rooney's time here in Washington. Matt Niskinan, who had, you know, was crucial to them winning a cup. And he also mentions Daniel Murphy, who actually, you know, was a clutch performer here in the postseason as well when he was here. And I saw some of the follow-up to this. A lot of you tweeted

me this story on Friday, I think, and had your own suggestions. A lot of you, you know, said Bobby Dandrich is the greatest free agent signing, knowing that I'm a Bullets fan. And that was huge. The The Bullets would not have an NBA title. They're one NBA title in Washington without the signing of Bobby D. He was that instrumental, that good, was an all-star, and was phenomenal in the clutch as a player. Others mentioned some Redskins like London, Fletcher, and Wilbur Marshall. I wouldn't put either one of those two in the category of Scherzer or Rigo. I wouldn't even put them in the category of Bobby Dandrich, for that matter.

But to me, Riggins is the answer to this question, the greatest free agent signing in NFL history. And the irony is that it was this brief window in 1976, this brief NFL free agency window where the Redskins took advantage of it and signed John Riggins, who was a well-known running back in the NFL, not just because of his antics and his Mohawk haircut. but he had some really good years with the Jets, you know, playing with Joe Namath in New York. And he was coming off a 1,000-yard season, which, by the way, you need to understand in 1976, they only played 14 regular season games,

and rushing for 1,000-plus yards was a big deal. So Riggins at the time was still, by the way, 25 or 26 years old. And this was a big contract signing. This short window of, free agency. I think it had something to do with the collective bargaining agreement at that point in time that created this very brief window of NFL free agency and the Redskins pounced on it. And they signed Rigo to a five-year deal worth a million and a half dollars, which was a lot of money

in 1976 in the NFL. And so Rigo had basically, you know, pushed the jets into a corner wanting, you know, to be paid a much bigger salary than he was making at the time. He wanted to be paid almost on the level, I think, of Joe Namath. But he came to Washington and had, you know, a nine-year career that's legendary, legendary. You know, there were years for Rigo in Washington that you can look back on and you can say, well, he didn't produce that much in that particular year, and that's true. Riggins, you know, when George Allen was the head coach and they made this big free agent signing, George Allen brought him here and made him play fullback. Had him as a blocking back for Mike Thomas, who was the

1975 NFC rookie of the year. One of the few in Redskins history. In fact, it was shocking because George Allen had few draft choices to begin with. He traded them all away. But in 1975, out of UNLV in the fifth round, they took Mike Thomas and he ended up being the rookie of the year in 75. So when Rigo came in in 76, he was Mike Thomas' blocking back. He started all 14 games, and fullbacks back then got a lot of carries,

but Rigo rushed for like 500 plus yards. That was it. That was it in 76. In 77, he got hurt. In 78, he was still a fullback, and Mike Thomas was still on that team, and they had others as well. And Riggins did in 1978 rush for. over 1,000 yards with the Redskins.

Had a couple of big games for them as well, clutch games for them in 1978. The Redskins in 78, that was the first season of Jack Pardee, started off 6 and 0, finished 8 and 8, unfortunately. But Rigo had it going early in that season and had a couple of big touchdown runs late in the season in a game that they lost against the Falcons.

I remember that. That was the one that pretty much knocked them out of playoff contention, I think in the next to last week of the season. But then came 1979, and Riggins was, had an incredible year. He was 30 years old, too. Rushed for 1,153 yards, 9 touchdowns, had 28 receptions and 3 touchdowns catching the football, and led the Redskins to within, you know, two minutes of the number one seed in the NFC East.

And that was, you know, the year that the Redskins lost. of the Cowboys 35 to 34 in the final game of the regular season. A game that I've said many times on the radio show and even on the podcast goes down as one of the greatest regular season NFL games in history and the Redskins lost the game and with it a chance to potentially go to the Super Bowl, they didn't even go to the playoffs. By losing that game, they lost the number one seed and fell completely out of the playoffs and Rigo was so devastated by that loss coming off at that point. The best year of his career, he sat out in 1980. And then came back famously in 1981 and said, I'm bored, broke, and I'm back.

And that was with Joe Gibbs in his first year. And then the rest is history, right? The playoff run in 1982, which led to a Super Bowl MVP in the most iconic play in franchise history. And then he rushed for 1,347 yards, and a record at the time, 24 touchdowns in 1983, and then another 1,239 yards and 14 touchdowns in 1980. 84 before being replaced really, you know, was a co-runningback shared position with George Rogers in 85, but 85 turned out to be Rigo's final year. But I know what Max Scherzer is doing for the Nats, and I know his production, and based on production, you could say, best free agent

signing in DC sports history, but nobody provided what Riggins provided, in my view. Rigo is the single greatest acquisition in D.C. sports history. Trade or otherwise. Rigo led this franchise to its first Super Bowl and never won an NFL MVP. And the thing about Rigo is he only has one official all-pro season. If you can believe that, as great as he was, just one official all-pro season. But he was a first ballot Hall of Famer, as he should have been. And to me, he's number one, I think, on the list of the all-time greatest players in D.C. sports history.

I think Gibbs probably in terms of figures would be number one, but Rigo, in terms of players. Anyway, that's a subjective thing. That's my view. And I understand that the argument for Scherzer, and it's a good one. Scher's incredible. And what would really, really make this a true debate is if Scher could get into the postseason and deliver in the postseason like Rigo did in the postseason in the most important games. And the truth is that Scherzer has not in the postseason. But anyway, I wanted to mention that.

There was one other thing I had on the list. Oh, Yukon, leaving the Big East. Leaving the American to join the Big East, Aaron, because you know what they realized? They're a basketball school. and the Big East is a basketball conference and they're going to be a part of that beginning in 2020. What does that mean with respect to football?

Will they drop a level in football? Will Randy Edsel take them from essentially 1A to Division 1 and now back to 1 AA again? Well, right now they're trying to stay alive. Apparently the plan right now is to work as an independent. They already have home and homes lined up that they had made out of conference before so they can hopefully expand that. my guess is either they're going to end up,

they're going to try to join a conference like the Mac, which, by the way, just kicked out UMass for being football only. So I don't know why necessarily they would take on Yukon. But who knows, maybe they do it and that would save them. Otherwise, they might end up, yeah, back at the FCS level. Yeah, I, look, I would never want Maryland. Maryland has never been in the position that Yukon was. Maryland's always been in a power conference in football and in basketball.

But I do think before Maryland moved to the Big Ten, if more thought had been given to what we really are as Maryland sports, and that is a basketball first school, I think maybe cooler heads would have prevailed and they would have stayed in the ACC. And by the way, many of you have pointed out when I've had this conversation before that they were never going to turn down the money of the Big Ten. but the exercise that they went through to go to the Big Ten was not an open process. And the ACC was caught off guard. And I still believe that if Maryland had gone to the ACC and said, we're in trouble financially, we need help, that the ACC would have been there to help them out, to bail them out,

and to provide them with a huge upside in the future of the ACC network, which, by the way, correct me, if I'm wrong, launches at the end of this summer. Correct. without what would have been their biggest markets, Washington and Baltimore. I know Syracuse has, you know, the New York markets, but they're not a New York team. They're not a New York metropolitan team. Will the ACC Network air in New York? I don't know for sure.

I'm guessing it'll be a... And it'll air in Boston because of BC. Right. But certainly the Washington-Baldmore market, you know, both of them would have been huge for the ACC network. as the Big Ten Network is. You know what? I'll tell you what. I mean, you know, I was never a fan of going to the Big Ten,

but the best thing about being in the Big Ten is the Big Ten Network. Yep. It's really well done. Everything that they do on the Big Ten Network. And a lot of their broadcasters are excellent as well. All right. Don't forget to rate us and review us if you're listening on iTunes. Also mention to people that want to listen to the podcast that don't know how to listen

to a podcast that they can just go to the Kevin Sheeonshow.com and listen there. Back tomorrow with Tommy, enjoy the day.