The Kevin Sheehan Show - Nats On The Ropes; Trade Ryan Kerrigan!

Episode Date: October 28, 2019

Thom joins Kevin today...they recapped Game 5 and the brutal home World Series weekend for the Nats. Skins' talk too including reports that teams are interested in Ryan Kerrigan. Also, a lot of reporting on Dwayne Haskins over the weekend. The boys reacted to that. <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. You're listening to The Sports Fix. Aaron is here. I am here. Tommy is on the phone. He is going to be heading to Houston, so he's going to do the show with us today. We're going to get to the Nats and their game five loss last night. But I wanted to start the show with maybe the funniest thing that I read all weekend. It's not the funniest thing that I read all weekend. It's the thing that made me laugh the most. this weekend was Jason Lock and Forrest's story about the Redskins' trade stance on guys like Trent Williams and Ryan Carrigan. He quoted an AFC general manager saying, quote, it's not like you're dealing with a normal team, closed quote. Then the guy went on to say, the only sensible thing to do with Trent Williams is to trade him, but they don't even want to listen. It's crazy. And I don't think that's going to change by Tuesday. Tommy, how are you? I'm doing great.

Look, that's my Surgeon General's warning for the Redskins. Right. Remember, this is not a real NFL franchise. It doesn't matter who owns the team, who coaches the team, or who plays quarterback. So, yeah, I mean, they're not, they don't operate like a real NFL franchise. No, they don't. All right, let's get to the franchises that does operate like a real sports franchise, and that would be the Washington Nationals.

I was there Friday night. I was not there Saturday night or Sunday night. you were there for all three. I would just say to those that are ready to basically throw in the towel or have already thrown in the towel after what was a brutal weekend, that this is baseball. And Stephen Strasbourg is pitching on Tuesday night. And he has a really good chance of winning on Tuesday night,

which would force a seventh and deciding game in which, I don't know if this is true or not. I think the reports are varied now as they've been sort of coming out through the morning, but that there's a chance anyway, maybe not a great chance, but a chance that Max Scher could pitch the seventh game for you. They're still in this. This series isn't over, despite what happened this weekend. What do you think?

Look, you're absolutely right. I mean, if you're going down to a game of survival in game six, you couldn't have anybody better pitching for you than Stephen Strasbourg if you're at a nationals who's 3-0 this postseason and has become a post-season pitching icon with his track record. But I think people are more concerned about the lack of hitting more than the lack of pitching. I mean, three runs in three days.

It was a devastating weekend in some ways, you know, because, I mean, people came to the ballpark, and the most fun they had was before the game every single night. Well, that in Baby Shark sing-along. Yeah. And, I mean, if you spent thousands of dollars on tickets, and this is what you got, I mean, it's, look, you came to a World Series game that hasn't been won in 86 years here in town,

and if they do lose when time fades, it won't be as painful. but it was a disappointment for a lot of fans. But you're right. I mean, they could be setting up with a game 6 win with Strasbourg, and then you have Max Scherzer, maybe a repeat of the Kurt Schilling bloody sock, except this time you have the spasm back. Yeah, I mean, Bob Carpenter was on with me on the radio earlier,

and, you know, he sort of indicated that there are two stories that he's going to pitch, but then, you know, some in the organization are very concerned. When you hear, you know, neck spasms and you hear that kind of injury, you know that it's dicey. Like, you know, you don't know that he's going to be better by Wednesday. If this were the regular season, for all we know, he'd be immediately on the IL and maybe, you know, projected to be on it for a while. I mean, it's, you know, the one thing that's so interesting about the news that came out yesterday, and I'm sure there was somebody that had a different reaction, but I would bet that 99% of the people who are Nats fans had the exact same

reaction. It wasn't a reaction of, oh, come on, man, it's game 5-2-2-pivotal game. Get out there and pitch. No, not with Max Scherzer. The reaction is, oh my God, he must really be hurt. You know, for him not to pitch. And by the way, I think that's a great compliment when somebody has that reaction about you. You know, like I, you know, I've said this to you before, I never liked my kids to stay home from school if they had the sniffles. I wanted them to be legit sick if they missed school. So if somebody said, hey, if that Shan kid isn't at school, he must be really sick.

That's a compliment for me and for them. And so for Scherzer, is there anybody that knows this guy that said anything and had any other reaction other than, oh boy, he must really be hurting. And by the way, that's what would indicate to me, Tommy, that there's a chance he's not going to be ready for Wednesday night if there is a Wednesday night, and I think there might be. I think there might be as well. You know, the Nats have taken the attitude, and it's the only attitude to take at this point. You know, this is where we've been all year. We've had, you know, we've been coming back and fighting back since the beginning of May.

Now, I understand that, but that doesn't mean you wouldn't prefer to be in control of the series rather than fighting for survival. But in the clubhouse last night, I didn't get any sense that the players were down or discouraged at all. I think they're confused and frustrated by their lack of ability to create offense now after they were like a motorcycle. gang running through the postseason with their batting.

I mean, they scored 17 runs the first two games in Houston. They scored three in these three games here. But look, Scherzer obviously everyone knows his reputation as a hard-nosed competitor, a crazy competitor. So no one would be doubting that if he can pitch, he'll pitch. And, you know, Cortisone is one of the. the wonder drugs, baby. I mean, if they relax, what's the spasm? Yeah. Then what's, I mean, that's basically what he's dealing with. Yeah. Spasms. And if they can relax that, he'll make a go of it.

Yeah, this shot doesn't always work, though. That's the problem. But yes, I mean, of course there's a chance. They've got to get there first. And we've got games from over the weekend, including last night, to talk about before we jump ahead, even though we've done that already. But I, look, there was a lot of bitching and screaming about Lance Barksdale behind the plate last night, and I think for good reason. I think that he really was inconsistent, and there were a couple of calls that were total head scratchers. But this series didn't come down, you know, last night's game didn't come down to a couple of missed ball and strike calls. I mean, when you get beat seven to one, you know, there are circumstances where you're like, oh, you know what, it was a one-one game, and the bases were loaded, and there was nobody out,

and he gave strike three on a call that was clearly ball four, and it should have given. No, it was four to one when he rung Robles up on a pitch that was clearly out of the strike zone, clearly out of the strike zone. And all that would have done would have put Robles on first, brought Jan Goams to the plate as the tying run, and given what the Nats have done with runners in scoring position in this series, one for 21, so they would have moved somebody, I forget who it was, maybe Zimmerman to scoring position.

Does anybody think that that was like a lock? Like that cost him the game. What cost him the game was another game in which they could not generate enough offense. They couldn't generate enough offense. And Tommy, the other thing too, because I heard a lot of people really raving about Joe Ross's performance last night. And look, it was a tough spot. He's put it in that spot at the last second.

Joe Ross was okay. He gave up two, two run homers. in five innings. He gave up four earned runs, and you can say, wow, you know, I'm not sure you would have even gotten that performance out of an injured Max Scherge, or whatever. It's not a great pitching performance when you give up four earned runs in five innings. It's not. It's not. But, yeah, I mean, that's fans, look, I mean, they're still, they're still so nuts sometimes. You know, I mean, the Corbyn game, I basically, I basically, pointed out in my column that this guy keeps saying how much he loves and looked forward to

pitching in the postseason. And I wondered why, because he's not very good at it. And I got some pushback on it. And I pointed out to people, he's given up 15 earned runs in 20 innings pitch this postseason. I don't care how you paint that. That's not good. So yeah, Joe Ross's performance, it wasn't terrible. But here's what you wanted from Joe Ross. Six-inings. three runs given up. That would have been a quality start for him. If he had lasted six innings and given up a total of three runs, that's what you would expect.

That's what you would hope for. That's right. The brutal weekend can be chalked up to three runs, going one for 21 with runners in scoring position, hitting 175, having one home run and that was Soto's home run down 4 to 1, while giving up to the Astros 11 for 28 with runners in scoring position and 6 home runs and 19 runs.

They got outscored 19 to 3, got out, hit 34 to 17, and in home runs 6 to 1. That's all you need to talk about in terms of what went wrong this weekend. Did Lance Barksdale get a couple of key pitches wrong last night? No doubt. I thought Correa could have easily been rung up before his two-run-homer on the 0-2 pitch from Ross. I thought that could have easily been called a strike. But it wasn't anywhere close to the bad break that Robles got because that was definitely not strike three.

That should have been ball four, Robles is on, two runners on, two out, with gomes coming to the plate in a four-one game. Umpiring to me can cost you a lot of games, and umpiring can be bad, in a game that you didn't have a chance really to win, and I think last night was more of the latter. I think that the umpiring was bad, but it was in a game where the Nats were completely outplayed, as they were pretty much in all three games. Yeah, look, Ryan Zimmerman said it in the locker room last night. Yes, he did. The umpire didn't beat as Garrett Cole beat.

Right. And he was right. That said the bad calls were so dramatically bad that I think, you're going to see the effort to have electronic strike zones. Oh, okay. I think that you'll see that movement. I think this will help fuel that movement because it's a narrative that that is, you know, out there the game, you know, after game five of the World Series. And for people who want to do it, this is the fuel that they'll need to do that.

It didn't impact the NACs winning or losing, but it may wind up impacting baseball. I think that's coming, and I think it's going to come quicker because of what you saw last night. Now, Aaron, correct me if I'm wrong, and maybe you don't know the answer to this, but there is a report, and I saw something on the Friday night game that we were at on Saturday about the umpiring job that was done in the game. They come out with something late in the day, right, that sort of evaluates every single ball strike call. Yeah, there's a Twitter account and a website, umpire auditor. Right.

But it's not an official. It's not official. Has umpire audit come out with anything on last night? They don't, they usually do it in the middle of the day. They did say last night, basically umpire landspark sale is keeping me very busy tonight. Yeah, but let me just say in watching that game and you have a much better view, you know, watching it on television and listening to it and seeing the box. and the whole thing, obviously, then you do at the game,

which, by the way, always surprises me. You're at the game, and you're nowhere near being able to see the strike zone, and you're screaming at ball calls when your pitcher's on the mound, like you could actually see it. But the bottom line is Cole had some pitches that didn't go his way either. I did think, though, that last night that the report will come out, and I know it's not official, that the Nats probably got burned more last night than did. the Astros. And what I thought you were about to say, Tommy, was that maybe it'll circle back

and they'll give, they'll loosen up the strike zone for Strasbourg on Tuesday night and maybe tighten it up a little bit for Verlander, you know, as a way to sort of even it up if they were way off on last night, if they were. I don't know. I thought that's what you were going to say. I don't know if that'll happen. By the way, here was something that was really interesting because you were alive for this. Do you know that this was the first time in World Series, in the first time in the World Series, in 70 years, that a team at home for three games never had the lead

in any of the three games at home. The last team had happened to, the 1949 Brooklyn Dodgers. Oh, yeah, I remember that, man. Brooklyn fans, they were, so depressed. They were so dejected about that. I remember that. That was the beginning. Were you at, were you at that series? You know what? Yes, I was. I was at that series. I was with Hilda Chester and the Dodger Symphony band sitting in the stands. Absolutely. And we were ready to roast the umpires then. They were lucky to get out of Ebbets Field with their lives. I was just going to say,

what was Ebbets field like, you know, during October of 1949? I mean, that's just, it must have been really cool to be there. Do you, who did you, so did you go to all three games or just one of them? Do you remember? No, we weren't a rich family, Kevin. World Series tickets were expensive back then. Right. We got tickets, you know, because my uncle Rocco used to drive the Dodgers in the

parades that they had. You know, they used to have parades before the season started to welcome the team back. from spring training. Right. So my Uncle Rocco got us some tickets, and we went to one at a game. Uncle Rocco got you some tickets. Sure he did. You know, in that series, the Yankees won the series four games to one.

The final three games were in Brooklyn, and some big names. DiMaggio had a home run for the Yankees in the fifth and deciding game. Don Newcomb was the losing pitcher in game four. Pee-Wee Reese had a big game in game three. Ralph Branca was the losing. pitcher, I mean, all your guys from way back in the day. Anyway, you know, ultimately this weekend, really the fact that the Nats never had the lead one time in the entire series. And the truth is, they never really came close to having the lead at any point during any of the three games. Last

night's best opportunity came in the second inning when you had Soto and Kendrick lead off the inning with singles. And you had runners on first and third with nobody out against Garret Cole in a two-nothing game. That was the real missed opportunity, I think, of the night. Zimmerman struck out and then Robles grounded into a double play to end that inning. But they really didn't give what would have been, you know, one of those lights out, memorable, raucous crowds that, you know, every one of my boys that have gone to every single game this postseason said nothing, nothing comes close to the. wild card game and the raucous frenzied atmosphere of that game. But that was because down 3-1,

they rallied to win it in the bottom of the eighth inning. They never gave anybody a real shot, except for when Parra came to bat and everybody got involved in the Baby Shark sing-along, which was really cute during the weekend. And people were ready. They were ready. I mean, they came to the hill park ready to do that. The crowds were still terrific in terms of of their intensity and the atmosphere that they created. But, I mean, you're right. I mean, it was a rough weekend if you invested money in those World Series games. The price came down last night.

The most fun you had was probably at the bullpener on Half Street before the game. Yeah, unless you were the guy that got punched by the security guy. Have you seen that video yet? Yes, I have. The Astros led for 25 of the 27 innings. Huh? 25 of the 27 innings at home, the Astros led. And the other two innings, it was nothing, nothing.

Yes, it was the first inning in Game 1 and 5. Or game 3 and 5. Yeah. I mean, there was never, and by the way, there weren't any, like, potential rallies. There were on Friday night. That's not true. The Nats stranded 10 runners on Friday night. All right?

So they had a legitimate shot on Friday night a couple of times. But, you know, Saturday night, I mean, some of those. home runs two over the weekend. It Houston hit. They hit six of them. We're absolute no doubters. How about this dude Alvarez? Like, they can't get him out. And now you're going to get him twice in these final two games.

Like, you know, they... Yeah, because now they get back to using the DH again. I was listening to Hinch's post game. He said that Alvarez, you know, they put him out there in left field, and they were, you know, they're very concerned about him as a fielder. But they put him out there last night in left field. and for the entire night only one ball got hit to him and he made the catch and he said the whole dugout was celebrating when he made the catch. They're really good.

That's one thing. The Astros are really good. Really good. They're a really good team. Yes. They won 100 games three years in a row. Yeah. They're really good and it's going to be really difficult.

But you know, you're the one that when the Nats lost to San Francisco and generated no offense. You're the one that blamed it on the pitching. And you said that they, in the postseason, you need lights out and better pitching than they got. Well, this is your opportunity here, down three games to two. Strasbourg can make the lack of offense basically meaningless by going out there like he didn't Wrigley two years ago now. It's two years. And pitching seven innings, 12 strikeouts, no earned runs, two hits, you know, and maybe get an eighth inning in there as well. it over to Doolittle or Hudson in a 1-0-0-0-0 game. That's what he can do.

You don't need a lot of offense if you can get Strasbourg and Scher to go back-to-back lights out performances, like Cole did last night. Yeah, and I think that the Nats, they should, although who knows what they're thinking right now the way they're hitting, I think they have a much better chance of getting the Verlander than they do coal. Oh, yeah, and Verlander's 0 for five in his World Series starts in terms of wins. He's 0 and 5, which is crazy. What else do we have from the game?

Just looking through, we talked about the ball. You know, the other thing, too, is this is going to be huge, I think, tomorrow night, is, you know, if Strasbourg can hang zeros up there for the first three, four innings, and legitimately go through their lineup like a knife through worm butter. You know, the Nats have to get something on the board early. They have been down two to nothing. Now, in four of the five games, super early. Game one in the first inning, game three by the third inning,

game four in the first inning, game five last night in the second inning. They're down two nothing. You know, in game three the other night, you know, Houston sort of grounded out a little bit, getting to that two nothing lead over three innings, But it hurt when they were down 2-0-0 in the first on Saturday night. And last night, when Alvarez went deep and it was 2-0-0, and Joe Ross is out there against Garrett Cole, it didn't feel very good.

Like the win probability was not very high at that moment. So tomorrow night, even if Strasbourg's putting up zeros, you can't get to the point where you got nothing on the board and it's the fifth inning, and you're basically saying to Strasbourg, no, there is no room for error. None. Yeah. Because... They have to generate offense.

From key guys, Tommy. From key guys, Rendon's three for 12 over the weekend, no RBI. Zimmerman was one for nine. Turner was one for 14 over the weekend. That's the guy who has to get things going. They've got to get Trey Turner on first base and have him steal in a non-second before the Astros can even blink. Yeah.

That's what they need. I agree with that. By the way, listen, there are a couple things last night. I got into some battles on social media last night because of some stuff I posted. And it became a political battle. What did you post? Because of President Trump coming to the game last night. I mean, I posted a photo of a framed jersey the Nats have hanging in their offices of Obama.

an autographed jersey of President Obama with the number one on the back. And I posted it because the president of the United States was coming to the ballpark, and this was the only other president who ever came to Nat's Park, and they have his jersey hanging up. I mean, it was a relevance post. It wasn't a political post. If it was W that had his jersey hanging in the hallway, I would have done the same thing.

But I got roasted from the, you know, the MAGA people who just thought, you know, I was just, you know, being an Obama support. That wasn't the case. It was a presidential visit to the ballpark, and I was tweeting out a relevant piece of information that the Nats have the last president's jersey hanging up. I don't know if they gave Trump a jersey or not, probably not. And the other thing was, I pointed out, that in 2017, when the Cubs came to the White House to visit the White House for the World Series, you know, celebrate their World Series victory, one of the Cubs owners said, you know, we'll probably play the Natch in the playoffs this year, and they'll probably crumble. To which Trump said, you're probably right.

Well, I thought that was relevant since he was in Natch Park at a Natch World Series game. I mean, he dissed the next. The only other time I ever remember Donald Trump talking about the nationals. So I posted that, too. It was a relevance post. It wasn't a political post. If he had said something nice about the nationals in that exchange, I would have posted that as well. But, I mean, I just couldn't get it through the people that, trust me, this is only because of the circumstances of the president being.

at the ballpark and nothing else. I'm curious about what you think. Well, Aaron wanted to say something. What did you want to say? I was going to say, you said that Obama was the only other one. Didn't George W. Bush throw out the first pitch at Nationals Park? I don't think so. That was 2008.

I don't think he did. I think he threw out the first pitch of that first game at Nationals Park. Yeah, because 2008 would have been April, 2008. The election was in November of 2008. I think, yeah, that would have made sense. Okay. Well, there's no jurisdiction. jersey of W hanging in the hallways at the Nats Park offices. So I just want to tell everybody that I

don't post politics on my social media. I don't. Why do I do that? I'm looking at your tweet right now. No, no, I'm not talking about the past. I'm looking at your tweet right now. President Trump's scheduled to be here at Nationals Park for the World Series game five tonight. This hangs in the hallway of the team offices here. If I had just seen you post that last night, which I didn't live, I would have thought you are attempting to say the learners are Obama, they're Democrats, they're Obama people, and I would have thought that there was something political in your tweet. If you're asking me what I think, that's what I would have thought after looking at the tweet. Well, I just want to assure everybody it was because of the

relevance of the moment. It cares what anybody else. And not because of anything else. Did you really get into it? Oh, God. Here comes all your replies. Oh, my God. I love when you get into it on Twitter with some of these people with three followers. Did you block anybody last night? Oh, I blocked a couple of people because they got down and dirty. And like one guy said, you're really, you're super dumb. And I pointed out not as dumb as you. You're God. Oh, great. Did that make you feel better? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. There are a lot of lost souls in the purgatory of blocked Tom Levero followers. You know, I know I think I've asked both of you this before. I've never blocked anybody on Twitter, but didn't, was it you, Aaron, who told me there's a way to mute people, so I don't get anything from them, but they don't know that I'm not getting it from them.

I need to learn how to do that. It can't be very hard. I've never looked into it. I'm sure. I can figure it out. It's the same thing as block only you go to mute. There are two or three people. I couldn't really give a shit about what they're tweeting me. I just don't feel like watching it pop up in my timeline because they're so stupid. You know, there's some people that are so stupid that they're just cluttering up your notification timeline. So I may want to- I get that. I get that. But listen, it's a privilege to follow me.

Yes, apparently so. It's my Twitter account. Nobody else is. That's true. I'll decide who's on it and who's not. You want to go through a couple of these Dave Martinez decisions from the weekend with me? Sure. Go ahead, Bob.

Okay. So on Friday night, there is an opportunity there down to one in the fourth inning with Zimmerman on and Robles having tripled in Zimmerman to make it two to one. And Robles is sitting there on third with one out, and you got Sanchez up. And I know what you're going to say, and it's not unreasonable, all right? And I completely understand that. But it is a debatable question as to whether or not Dave Martinez should have pinched it for Sanchez in that spot. You know, it's the bottom of the... Of course it's debatable. Okay. Okay. I thought you were going to say, have you seen the bullpen? By the way, just as a quick aside for both of you, I don't want to see Fernando Rodney anywhere near the field. And I

Personally, I think Swero's got the best stuff of all of the guys not named Hudson, Doolittle, or any starter that you're going to bring out of the bullpen. Am I wrong about that? Like, every time I watch... No, you're wrong? You're right about Swero. He's got a live arm. He's got the best stuff in the bullpen out there.

But he's no more reliable than Lodney. I was going to say, he's very... But you know Rodney's not... You know Rodney's not reliable. I just would... Actually, he's remarkably, he's still remarkably effective for a guy his age. That doesn't mean I'd want to see him out there. I mean, he has, I'm trying to think who to compare him to. When a coach or a manager is in love with a player that, you know, they keep putting out there and they keep just, you know, putting them in bed.

I agree with you. I wonder who you're thinking of. I agree with you. I mean, it really is. It's Jake Bruden and Colt McCoy, this Dave Martinez and Fernando Rodney thing. It really is. He needs to stay away from him. I agree 100%.

That's not the guy you want to see in there. You can debate. Certainly, it's worthy debating the Sanchez, you know, allowing him to bat. I understood the idea that you don't want to go to the bullpen that early. And at that point, that's Friday night. you still have confidence. But Granky was not pitching great. No, I guess that is the context that's totally relevant is you're up to nothing,

you're down two to one, you're not thinking that you're not going to be able to generate any more offense the rest of the weekend. It's Granky, you know, he's got all these issues, and, you know, you're going to get to him. But still, you know, when a runner's sitting there on third with one out, you're down to one, and he's already pitched four innings, and he's been okay. Nothing great. He was okay. Yeah, I mean, I think it's time. I think you've got to get that run in at that spot. Saturday night, you know, I think we know more now about Saturday than we did in the moment on Saturday night.

He knew there was a chance that Scherzer wasn't going to pitch, and he knew on Saturday night that there was a chance that he was going to need Hudson and Doolittle for a longer period of time on Sunday night, because Scherzer more likely than not wasn't going to pitch. We didn't know that in the moment when he tried. frauded Fernando Rodney out there in a 4-1 game, you know, where, you know, you still have nine outs left offensively. And Aaron, pay attention. Get out of your phone like you usually are at this point. I want you to pay attention to me because I heard all of the explanation about not, you know, pitching Hudson and not pitching do little. And I heard, you know, it's four to one and you're not chasing the game, Dave Martinez said. And if it's four to three or you've got

a lead. It's a different, you know, context. For me in the World Series, the way I would be thinking about it, is I got nine outs offensively. It's a three-run lead, not a 10-run lead. There is a chance, and I, you know, I have had some live bats in this series so far. And oh, by the way, you know, I'm not going to face, you know, he's already taken or Kiti, who had the best start of the whole series until Cole last night. He's already, but he's already out. You We're facing their bullpen, Hudson and Doolittle having pitched since game one, I would at least pitch them, even if I don't want to overpitch him. I pitch one in the seventh, I pitch one in the eighth, and if we didn't cut into the lead,

then I can pitch Rodney in the ninth. Why don't they think about it that way? I've never heard somebody explain it that way in context saying, you know what? I'm not going to overpitch him. If I have to, I'll use Rodney in the ninth. I'll use Rainey in the ninth, but I'm going to give my offense a chance by using my best pitchers in this, you know, perceived high leverage situation right now. But, I mean, there's more to, there's more to the wear and tear on the arm than just one

inning. You have to get them up, get them ready. Once you commit to them, even if it's for one inning, you really diminish the chances of using them again the next day if you want to. So I don't necessarily, I mean, I don't know what else he had to do. I just wouldn't go to Rodney. It's just, it's just offensive to the eyes at this point. And I know they, for some reason, they love him. I had a more problem last night with how much he pitched last night, how much he pitched Hudson last night. Yeah, because Hudson wasn't great last night.

Aaron, what were you going to say? He gave up a home run. That was a bigger issue where the hitting for me for Hudson last night because, you know, look, I mean, they're going to need him. And they get the day's rest today, but I had more of an issue with how much. much Hudson was out there last night. Yeah, I was going to say on Saturday, I definitely felt the same thing you did. I thought that, you know, that was the game right there.

That was the highest leverage situation, and you should have your best pitcher going there. Obviously, we know now that they felt they needed to save them. So I get it from there. But yes, in the moment, the absolute right move, if you weren't thinking, oh, God, we might have to do a bullpen game tomorrow, is that Hudson probably should have been in that game. Yeah, I mean, he knew what we didn't know, which was that, you know, last night, was a potential Joe Ross for three, four, five innings, and the rest of it, Hudson, and Doolittle. But we didn't know that in the moment. And I just, I don't know, I just felt like

that was still at four to one, especially after Soto, you know, they had missed on that opportunity with Soto and Kendrick. Soto grounded out, but, you know, scored that one run. You needed them to come up with something more there. And then... Oh, by the way, Aaron, if I were you, after that shot that Kevin gave you, I would sabotage his podcast if I were you. Yeah, I thought about it, but I would do that. I would, I would like put something in there that he didn't say or something because he doesn't realize how much control you have.

He's got a lot of control. I'm very fearful of it, but he knows I'm kidding. But there are many times when I look at P. Aaron as, you know, almost a son rather than a work, a work cohort. And he does what my boys are doing. When I'm talking, they're just sitting there staring at their phones. I'm listening, though. I just am multitasking. You've got to get them for that.

I'm excited about tomorrow night. I don't think this series is over. I'll tell you what, though. I mean, Vegas thinks it's over. Verlander is a minus 180 favorite over Strasbourg tomorrow night. I mean, they've been, do you know that on Saturday night with Arkiti and this supposed bullpen start for Houston, that game went off at even money. I mean, you couldn't even get, you know, you could. couldn't even get Corbin to be favored in that game. Vegas has loved Houston throughout. They loved him at the beginning. They love them now.

They don't think the Nats are going to win this series. But I don't know, it would be awesome to see Strasbourg go out and do what he's done and really have one of those legendary performances like he did at Wrigley two years ago. Because that was, and remember the context of that with Dusty calling him out and him being sick and potentially not pitching. Tomorrow night is, it's going to be interesting to see how he deals with that moment, because I have a sense that he will deal with it very well. I think he will too.

I think he's passed the idea of not. Like I said, he's become like the Buddha of the National Clubhouse. Last night they were asking him before the game, did he give any, was he going to give any advice to Joe, Ross before he went out there. And basically he said, you know, well, Joe's in his pre-pitching game mode, and you don't really bother a guy, you know, when the day he's pitching to go out to pitch. And then he ended it with, that's his journey.

I mean, that's just so new age. I mean, he really has become so relaxed and so at ease with himself and the national. So I don't think Strasbourg is, you know, is going to come up short in terms of, you know, the tenseness of the moment. You've fallen in love with Strasbourg, haven't you? Yeah, I really have. But, you know, there are a couple of players that I've really liked on this team for a few years. I really like Bryce Harper, and I am much, I do not agree with most that this team wouldn't have been this good and wouldn't have been competing for. what they're competing for now if Bryce Harper had been here. I don't know the dynamics of the

locker room you do. Harper was a great player. And by the way, had a really good year this year in Philadelphia when all was said and done. But I really like Strasbourg. I really like Anthony Rendon. There are times when Rendon almost looks too Zen-like relaxed. And I love Howie Kendrick. And I love Cabrera. And I like Sanchez on this team. I like older guys that use, you know, baseball is one of those sports where age doesn't matter that much. You know, it's not a physically over, you know, you can't get physically overmatched. You can by great pitching. But to see like some a Cabreras at bats in this series, to see how he Kendrick's at bats, you know, in these playoffs. And still, to me, the most riveting pitching performance for the Nats in this postseason was

Annabelle Sanchez in game one at St. Louis. That was so cool to watch a guy work his craft over so many years of sort of honing it and developing it and not using physical tools. It was all mental. You know, it was all psychological. It was crafty, and I loved it. I was hopeful that we'd see another one on Friday night, but you knew going into that that Houston just has too much. offense and St. Louis didn't. You know, big difference in the

two teams. You know, as great as Anthony Rendon is, one of the things I reported was that during the winter when that's had some discussions with Boris about a, you know, a new contract for Rendon.

Boris is also Altuve's agents. And he used Altuvei's as a comparable to, use Redone as a comparable to Altuve. Oh, that's not the case. That's not have nobody like Jose Altuve. He is such a dynamic force on the field.

The actual feed off him so much that as great as Rendon is, Jose Altuve is, you know, one of the two or three best players in baseball. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, last night, I think he hit one of the big, big plays early in the game, you know, with Ross, you know, walking Springer, by the way, after getting ahead, you know, O2, was Altuvee grounding into that double play, you know, on one pitch. That was such a big thing for Ross, because I kept thinking, oh God, he just, you know, he was ahead of Springer and he walked him. Here comes Altuve. They can't get Brantley out. Nobody can get Brantley out. And finally last night, they got him out. But he got through that first inning, and I was like, wow, that was big. You know, that's one of those moments you could look back on and say, that was Jose Altuve who took, you know, Ross's first pitch and hit into a double play when maybe it could have been

the beginning of a, and by the way, at the end of that Springer at bat, he couldn't find the strike zone. You know, he started off finding it, and then all of a sudden he walked him and maybe Ross was rattled a little bit. I don't know. Ross seems so calm too. He's got that Northern California thing going on, you know, having grown up there. I don't think he gets rattled by a whole lot either. I was going to say something else before we moved on, and now I forgot what it was. Well, maybe if you weren't looking at your phone all the time, you'd remember. Easy there, Grandpa. I don't know what I was going to say. I can't wait for tomorrow night. It's been such, you know, this series, you know, from a national television rating standpoint,

hasn't done well. And if you're going to compare it to Boston Dodgers a year ago, I mean, come on. You know, you're talking about too far, you know, two teams that are from a brand standpoint are just inferior. But this has been a compelling series. I mean, you had, the first two games were awesome, even though the second game ended up 12.3, it was still a tense game going into the seventh inning. You didn't have some of those truly tense moments in these last three games, but you had a road. team come in and just take out a can of whoopass and put it on the home team and its fans, which, you know, was brutal to take. But if you're watching that as an objective viewer, you're like, wow, Houston was down and out, and they just came in and completely, completely

shit on the home team when the home team was expecting to celebrate a World Series title over the weekend. Maybe the Nats can go do it to them in Houston. I think they can definitely force the seventh game. I don't know if I used the word compelling. I don't think it was very compelling. Maybe it's just because I'm so into this one versus other years where last night I would have been watching football instead of the game five of the World Series. I think you can say the series has been compelling, but without necessarily the individual games being compelling. Yes. Game one was compelling. Game two up until the seventh inning. It was it. It was It was a lot of tense drama.

But yes, the last three nights, there wasn't any of that great postseason late-inning drama. We didn't have it at any point, really. So the series is compelling, but the games aren't. That's like saying this pie tastes good, but the ingredients really stink. No, the first two games were really good games. And by the way, you know, you had a road team win with all of the, you know, all of the historical anecdotes. to go with it and stats and facts and figures and all of that.

And then Houston coming back to win three on the road, you know, I think makes it a compelling series going to game six and game seven potentially. But yes, you did not have a good game in the last three. The first two were really good games. Hold on, hold on. You can say a streak or something is compelling. You could say that the Patriots back in 07. None of their games were competitive, but watching them, you know, run on an undefeated streak

was compelling to see, even though pretty much. none of the games were compelling in it. And I can kind of say the same thing here. Overall, you look at it, none of the home teams have defended. You go down 0-2, you come back 3-0. That's compelling, even if individually none of the games have been particularly compelling. I don't quite understand the math. Okay, whatever.

You know what? By the way, you're entitled to your opinion and we're entitled to ours. Maybe it'll turn compelling for you with a Strasbourg, eight innings, two-hills. hits, no earned runs, 15 strikeouts, no walks, Nats win, one nothing on a Howie Kendrick eighth inning solo shot. How's that for you? That would be compelling. That would be historic. By the way, here's how I know they're not compelling. I haven't had to write three different versions of a story for any of these three games. Well, you did for game two until you know, you said you had a multiple, or maybe that was another game. I don't know. Who cares? Let me read what I have to read here.

These were easy to write. MyBooky.ag, if you want to bet the series or bet football, the Nats are a big underdog in game six. I can't believe how big of an underdog they are in game six. MyBooky.orgie.orgie.g is the place to go, guys. It is really hard to find a place that's reliable, that has the right lines, fair lines, has all the bets that you want to make available. fast payouts and by the way a really compelling offer yes I said compelling offer my bookie dot AG will double your first deposit if you mention my promo code Kevin DC use K-Ev I N-D-C where it says to enter the promo code and they will double your first deposit wouldn't tell

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paid. All right, let's do so. Let me just one last thing. Speaking of compelling, you can read my compelling writing in the Washington Times. You go to Washington Times.com slash sports. Yes.

You do, and I love your columns, and I love reading them. It's much easier when I'm in front of a desktop to read your columns than it is on my phone because of all the pop-up ads. I'm just telling you that. Okay, okay, Grandpa. No, you've heard this complaint before by a lot of people. Don't act like I'm the only one. Okay, fine. The Washington Times website is so great.

It's so easy. It's compelling. It really is. Thank you. Thank you. Tommy's columns are too. All right, let's do some Redskins. There was so much over the weekend that came out. I mentioned at the very top, the Jason Lock and Forra stuff. Lockinforra basically had a story. You know, I like Jason a lot. I think Jason did a phenomenal job as a beat reporter for this team. I think he was fearless. The guys that have done that beat, they've been few in far between. Mike Jones is another one. Jason hasn't been right all the time on the Redskins, but he has a lot of stuff on the Redskins over the years. And his story yesterday morning was that

there are several teams interested in Ryan Kerrigan, Baltimore and Indianapolis, among the teams, but that teams aren't getting a sense from Washington that they're looking to move Kerrigan at all in the same way that they're not willing to trade Trent Williams. And I read that quote from an AFC GM general manager in Lock and Forrest's story. I'll read it again. Quote, it's not like you're dealing with the normal team. The only sensible thing to do with Trent Williams is to trade him, but they don't even want to do that. They don't even want to listen. It's crazy. And I don't think that's going to change by Tuesday, closed quote, Tuesday, tomorrow afternoon, 4 p.m. is the trade deadline. I actually was very interested, Tommy, as to what fans thought about Ryan Carragan and the

prospect of trading Ryan Carragon. So I did one of my Twitter polls that occasionally I do, and I put this Twitter poll out yesterday. I said, according to reports, there are several teams interested in trading for Ryan Carrigan. The Redskins likely wouldn't get a first rounder, but in my opinion, just my opinion, I think somebody would offer a second for Ryan Carragon. Would you want them to do it. Over 3,000 votes, 86% yes on Ryan Carrigan. I do believe that the fan base is at a point where obviously the organization is not, and that is they are ready for the reboot. I wanted to trade Ryan Carrigan last January. I would definitely trade him right now for a second. And if Muhammad Sunu could bring a second back, Ryan Carrigan as a pass rusher and a perceived

very good pass rusher for a team that needs one right now. that's in contention, I think the Redskins would get a second. I think they might get a second plus for Ryan Carrigan. We know that more likely than not, there's a first out there for Trent Williams from Cleveland, although the more they let Cleveland lose and get out of it, you know, the less interested they're going to be. But anyway, the trade deadlines tomorrow. Josh Norman, according to Ian Rappaport, is on the trade block. I don't know what they can get back for Josh Norman. Probably not a lot. You know, a conditional fifth rounder is my guess on somebody like him.

Ha-ha Clinton Dix was much younger last year when the Redskins gave up before. Some of you were saying, could they get a fourth back for him? I don't think so. I think it's a later round pick for Norman. Anyway, other things came out over the weekend, including what you referenced, which was the Dwayne Haskins tweet, or I think you referenced it. I know you wrote about it.

And just to give everybody a... I wrote about it in my column. In my other column, I wrote two columns. one, the game column from the Natch game, and the other for the print edition, the Redskins column about Dwayne Haskins. Yeah, so Mike Garifolo from the NFL Network on Saturday, had a report that Adrian Peterson had told Dwayne Haskins after the Minnesota game on Thursday night, it's time to dig into the playbook and get it down pat.

That essentially, you know, you, you know, you're basically, you're basically, letting this narrative play out by your play, you've got to get in there and learn the playbook. Well, Adrian Peterson responded to this report on Twitter. Adrian Peterson responded, if you didn't hear something direct from me, please don't attribute it to me. I believe in Dwayne and his potential with more time, support, and commitment. He says grown. He can grow like any other rookie player. What did you call that in your column?

A non-denial denial. Yes, that's exactly what it is. Yeah, basically he tried to give the illusion that he was shooting it down, but he never said he didn't say those things. Right. He never said that. He just said, get him from me. To which, Dwayne Haskins on Twitter,

retweeted Adrian Peterson's response to Mike Garifolo's report with the following written on his Twitter account. Please don't involve me in this BS. media narrative. Go ahead. So basically, he's admonishing Adrian Peterson for talking about him on social media. Not really. That's not what his intent is. That's not what his intent is. Look, intent doesn't matter. It's what it is. Basically, he's saying, he's saying, don't bring me into this.

Yeah, I don't think he's going after Adrian Peterson. I think he's really just going after the media. He's going up to the media. I understand what he said. Yeah. Okay. Go ahead. What else you got on this? I mean, that basically what he...

The narrative about Dwayne Haskins is disturbing at this point. The fact that he's not out there playing at this point, and that you have the offensive coordinator a couple weeks ago pointing out about, like, he's practicing now with more of a sense of urgency, and, you know, he's doing... He's working harder. I mean, these shouldn't have been issues for a rookie quarterback who's trying to get on the field. He's working harder now. That means he wasn't working as hard before.

If he has more of a sense of urgency now, that's because he wasn't very urgent before. These are not good things for a rookie quarterback to have. and I mean, I, he should, he should, I wrote that he should follow RG3's advice. You know, he should read what RG3 posts, like almost every day on his social media account and live by those words. Oh, God, you're so sarcastic. Why? Because the last person he should learn from is RG3. The RG3 still is out there on social media.

Those are inspirational, powerful words that he posts every day, and that's what Dwayne Haskins needs. Hold on. Let's see what he's tweeted out recently. I love following Robert Griffin III. He really is inspirational. Just a few hours ago, don't live imprisoned by what others think. Yeah, there you go. Perfect.

Yeah. That's perfect advice. Two days ago, people will show you who they are. Don't ignore it because you want them to be who you. want them to be. A few days back, life is full of fake people. I called it the book of RG3, and that's the book he should pay more attention to than the playbook.

Still, we talked about this before. There's an interim head coach now. There's nothing that would even possibly stand in Dan Snyder's way of telling them, play my guy. If he's not given that order at this point, you've got to wonder if Dan Snyder has come to the conclusion that he can't play. Oh, I doubt that's the case. So, all right, a couple of things. Number one, my big picture thought on the Dwayne Haskin situation is this, and I'm going to try to hold myself to this.

You know I was not a fan of his coming out of the draft before the Redskins. even picked him or had a chance to pick him. I just was not, you know, but what do I know? I love Josh Doxon, okay? And by the way, what do a lot of scouts know? It's like a 35% hit rate on draft picks. You know, the ones that you think you're just sort of rolling the dice on end up being great, and the ones that you're convinced are going to be great, end up, you know, not being very good. So, you know, at this point, though, whether he's working hard enough or not, you know, working hard enough or coachable or not coachable or too engaged in social media or you know not advocating enough on his own behalf you know i just want to see him play i want to see him play

with a coaching effort that puts him at the top of the priority list gives him a chance to perform well, makes him comfortable, and makes the rest of this season, the final eight weeks, not just about Dwayne Haskins, but more about Dwayne Haskins than anybody else. More about Dwayne Haskins than coming up with a strategy or playing players to win the game, more about an emphasis on really trying to evaluate Montez Sweat or a free agent, like a free agent to be like Brandon Sheriff. I want to know if the quarterback, who is the most important position, plays the most important position on the field that they spent the 15th overall pick in the draft on, I want to know if

he can play. And I'm not going to make a definitive opinion on him, even though I had one coming into the draft, but I'm not going to make a definitive evaluation on him from my standpoint as a football fan and as a Redskine fan until I see him start to play games as a starter. Eight weeks of preparation, eight weeks of first team reps, eight weeks of meetings as the first team quarterback, eight weeks of starting games and finishing games. And then at the end of that, I'll have an opinion, fans will have an opinion, and hopefully the organization will have learned something. And if it turns out that he can't do it, and it's obvious that he can't do it, and there's

no hope, then you've learned that just in time to do something about it next year in April, when there are a lot of quarterbacks that you could potentially, you know, leverage into extra picks, trading down, getting the guy you want, who knows? But, you know, I've heard that he's a nice kid. I've heard that he's overwhelmed right now, but by what he has to know just to get to the line of scrimmage. That's frustrating to me, Tommy. That's coaching to me. Now, if he is... Kevin, Kevin, you think Bill Callahan has this intricate playbook? What is he doing? Hiding it when they go the game day? Have you seen the plays that are called? Have you seen this offense and what they run? You think he can't run that? Well, yes, I know what's involved in the play calls. I know

that it's not easy. I know that it's complicated for a young player that had no exposure to something like that in college. This guy looked over to the sideline, saw a picture, clap three times, and through 50 touchdown passes. Okay? With a lot of talent around him, I understand that. I watched every Ohio State game last year. I know that half of his passes were behind the line of scrimmage. But what I'm hearing is that right now he is overwhelmed by just calling the plays. You saw that on Thursday night when they had the illegal shift. That was him in the huddle. Trey Quinn, not knowing where to go, not knowing where to line up. They need to fix that first and foremost. They need to get him to the point where he can call a play and then

actually participate in the play without worrying whether or not he got the play called right. You know, he's also, I'm hearing, overwhelmed by some of this negative attention, which, you know, that's too bad, you know, because that's what comes with being the 15th pick in the draft and being a quarterback in almost any NFL city, let alone an NFL city like Washington. But they've got to do a better job of getting him ready. But here's the problem, Tommy. That's not their priority right now. It's not their priority. And we can speculate on why it's not their priority. but did you listen to the Bill Callahan conference call on Friday?

Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. I read the transcript, yeah. So for those that haven't caught it, and those that didn't hear me play a lot of it on the radio show, I'm not going to sit here and play all of it. First of all, let me just start with this. This guy continues to take subtle shots at the last guy.

He is so impressed with how organized he is compared to the last guy and how more professionally things are run. and they are just as bad as they were before. About Haskins, first of all, you know, Case Keenham is going to be the starter Sunday in Buffalo if he's healthy. Everybody needs to understand that. Secondly, he said about Haskins being thrust into the game. I'm sorry, he said about what he wants to see about Haskins,

what he wants to see Haskins become and how he wants him to respond to the Minnesota game. And he said, the big thing is situational awareness, and knowing where we are on the field. You know, the trajectory of throws, fundamental techniques, those rotations and follow-through, we don't really want the ball to be sprayed into a coverage like that. I think you can learn some really invaluable things coming off the tape in terms of management, clock management,

formational management. When I'm talking about the clock, I'm talking about the 42nd clock, getting in and getting out of the huddle, really working the offense at an upbeat tempo where we can have time at the line of scrimmage. Sometimes just not letting the clock, run down on him. It's our responsibility as coaches to do a better job of getting the plays into him quicker and faster. Of course, his responsibility is to echo those calls into the huddle,

get to the line, and execute them as fast and quickly as possible. So he's telling you right there what the major problem is. The guy cannot take the play that's called from the sideline and spit it out accurately in the huddle. And then all hell goes to a handbucket, all hell goes to a handbucket after that, right? So you can see, you saw it multiple times in the Minnesota game. Then he said the following, Tommy. This is the one that really got me. And if he feels there is a time when Haskin should start to progress,

he says, I think everything is based on circumstances. You don't really want to address the hypothetical. All I can do is go back to the experiences of the Green Bay quarterback when Aaron Rogers was behind Brett Farve or the Sanford. Oh, yeah. or the San Francisco situation when Young was behind Montana. It's about learning and growing so that when their time came, they had tempo and execution.

They understood the reeds and were ready to step in and make the execution seamless. Okay, first of all, he's taking that answer and giving you another window into what Dwayne isn't doing. But this is what bothers me a lot about just the Redskins organizationally. They think we're stupid. Like, they've always thought we were stupid. Going back to, you know, when Bruce, you know, tried to tell us,

us that the contract offered to Kirk Cousins was the greatest contract in the history of football when we all knew it was $30 million short of where it needed to be. They're stuck in time warps. They don't realize, I don't even think Bruce knows what the Internet exists. And what we are doing here on a daily basis is a fan base, as media people and the conversations we're having, which are much more in depth with information than they were in 1978 where Bruce is still stuck. But Callahan telling us that Dwayne Haskins is basically in the situation Aaron Rogers and Steve Young were in is insanity.

Rogers back up. Kevin, you mean Case Keenham is in Joe Montana? I mean, it's really unbelievably insulting. You know, like I would have, I mean, I absolutely, I wish I've asked them, you know, I've asked their PR people to have them on the show. show multiple times. They ignore everything I ask them. But that's one of those, hey Bill, you know, Aaron Rogers was backing up a Hall of Famer. Steve Young was backing up a Hall of Famer. By the way, Steve Young played in the USFL and started in the USFL. A lot of those players are in the league. And oh, by the way, those teams that they were on were Super Bowl contenders.

Your team stinks to high heaven. You could argue it's the worst team in the league because you only beat the Dolphins by a point when they handed it to you with a BS two-point conversion play. Your team stinks, and the quarterbacks he's playing behind stink. So there's nothing about Young Montana Rogers, Brett Farr, that is a comp. You know, by the way, he also broke out Peyton Manning as a comp and said, Peyton Manning really struggled, yeah, but you know what? Peyton Manning played from the jump and struggled mightily and then got better.

Then he said the thing that we heard from Brian Arakpo back in 2013. He said on three different occasions, we went toe to toe with Minnesota and San Francisco. I know. Remember when Arakpo said that after they lost to Seattle? Yeah, I remember that Monday night game against Seattle, yeah. So this is where they are coming from. They are still playing to win games. Bill Callahan may be playing to give himself a chance to be the head coach next year, or coaching with a chance to be the head coach next year.

This is nothing. They're looking at Dwayne. If there wasn't media following this team, they would just be saying, we're not playing this dude. He's nowhere near ready. And we're playing well. I mean, Case really operated the offense at Minnesota. Minnesota's on a role.

Did you see what San Francisco did to Carolina yesterday? we nearly beat them last week. You know, thank God Philadelphia won at Buffalo. I think if they had lost at Buffalo, they would have said, we're only two games back of the Eagles, and they got a tough schedule, and Dallas has a tough schedule. I'm serious. They are still playing to win games here.

That's why Trent Williams hasn't been traded. That's why Ryan Kerrigan's not going to be traded, and that's why this quarterback, Dwayne Haskins, isn't going to start anytime soon. They're going to have to be mathematically eliminated before he gets a full week of reps. Kevin, the offense, I think, over the past five games, I think is averaging seven points a game.

I mean, let me ask you a question. Can you fire an interim head coach? He should be fired. He should have been fired after the Miami game. I mean, it should be easier to fire an interim head coach than a permanent head coach, shouldn't it? Has an interim head coach ever been fired? I don't think they have.

Tommy? He may be a candidate to be the head coach here next year. I'm being serious. I'm being serious. No. Oh, yeah. And here's the thing. I said this on the radio show.

If he's the head coach next year, they need to go to the mystics to ask for some sort of co-marketing program where if you buy Mystics tickets, you get a free ticket to a Redskins game. There will be the least amount of interest heading into a season of all time if Bill Callahan is hired to be the head coach. Ian Rappaport, he gets it wrong a lot, but he said that Callahan's in the running for this thing. I don't see how that could happen.

That's Bruce Allen. Bruce loves him. I don't think Snyder would let that happen. These guys are... Too enamored with big names. He's got to pay somebody. big to take this job. Who's going to take the job that's big?

I don't know. Somebody who was once big and is not big anymore. Can you imagine if Callahan's the head coach? This guy honestly is apparently a super nice person. All right. I've heard that from multiple people who know him well. He is so annoying with these, you know, itinerary listing press conferences.

is he's trying so hard to make you believe that he's so much smarter and so much more professionally organized than the last guy. And all that keeps happening is they keep committing the same penalties and they keep scoring the same amount of points. None. They stink. His team stinks. God, I wish they had lost to Miami.

Maybe that would have been a reality check. This Miami win combined with playing the 49ers and the Vikings close, I'm telling you, Tommy, out there, and especially after the 49ers destroyed Carolina yesterday, they think they've got a decent team and they want to go out and prove it. And remember, for Bruce, if he could get this thing back to 6 and 10, you know, if somehow they were able to win five of their final eight games, finish up 5 and 3 in the second half, you don't think in his own mind he believes he can sell that? And Snyder... Yeah, you're probably right. You're probably right. You're probably right. It's unbelievable.

They're not going to get to six and ten, no. No, they're not going to get to six and ten. But I'm saying what they're thinking right now. This is what they're thinking right now. Nobody intelligent is thinking that right now. I mean, were they better on defense for a couple of quarters? And were they okay, you know, the week before that on defense for a couple of quarters? Yeah. Oh, my God. The missed opportunity of not playing Haskins. But I don't know, maybe they'll go on a big eight-game win streak, go nine and seven, backdoor their way into the playoffs, and Case Keenham's going to become the Super Bowl MVP. They're believing a lot that can happen in the second half of the season is what I'm trying to say to you. They really believe that. I get that. I get that. But when your offensive coordinator and one of your star

players basically calls you out for not working hard enough. That's a huge red flag. The red flag is that he hasn't played yet, that he hasn't started a game yet. And they're not even making plans to start him against Buffalo more likely than not. I hate to say this, because I hope Case Keenum's fine, but I would love him to be just injured enough, not a concussion, just injured enough where he can't play. But then I'd be fearful that he'd trot Colt McCoy out there, but I don't think he likes McCoy. That would be almost admitting that Jay Gruden, you know, was right about something if you put Colt McCoy out there.

Anyway, what else do you have on the Redskins? Did we miss anything? Did we miss anything from the weekend? I wanted to quickly mention that we have an app now. You can listen to us on the app. You can download the app from the app store if you've got an iPhone from the Google store, if you've got Android. Give us some feedback on the app.

It's another easy way to listen to the show. It's not cumbersome at all. It's very easy. I'm using it as a way to listen to the show, and I know other people have been doing it as well, but I would love the feedback at Kevin Sheehan, D.C. And I did get from many of you that it wasn't out early enough. Apparently that is going to change this week.

They'll be putting that the show out on the app right when we're done, and we've got it up on the other platforms. Also, if you do use the app, rate us, review us. It helps us. It doesn't cost you a thing. Do the same, by the way, if you're listening to us on any of the other podcast platforms that allow you to rate and review the podcast. Real quickly. Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. I just want to remind everybody that you can hear me on 106-7 the fan with Nick Ashley's Saturday mornings, 9 and noon, and typically Wednesday afternoons with Chad Dukes as well. Exactly. So there are a couple of other things. First of all, real quickly on the NFL, and we're just going to do this real quickly. We don't have, I just wanted, there were a couple games yesterday that I wanted to comment on. I didn't see any of the Packers Chiefs game because it was going on during the playoff game, during the World Series game last night. But I did watch the Browns and the Patriots yesterday. This guy, Freddy Kitchens, is a moron. He has no business being an NFL head coach. It's too bad.

bad because the Browns do have a lot of talent. John Dorsey essentially just succumbed to Baker Mayfield's request, the Freddie Kitchens, who is not a bad play caller, you know, and not a bad, you know, guy, but Mayfield wanted him to be the coach. He's the coach, and the two of them are now two and five collectively. They commit way too many penalties. They had 13 yesterday, and they had three turnovers in the game, two fumbles by Bradley Chubb, Bradley Chubb, Nick Chub, in the first half, one on a play in which he was about to score on. But here was the thing that I wanted to share with you about Freddie Kitchens. I don't know if you saw this situation, Aaron, yesterday during this game or not. But it's an all-time sort of dumb-dum head coaching move. I mean, I could have done this

on coaching blunders this week, but it seems with all the baseball, we haven't done coaching blunders here in a while. So Freddie Kitchens did something in the game yesterday at the end that Tracy Wilson actually reported on the sideline after it happened and everybody said, no, Tracy, she's got this wrong. It's not exactly what happened. But it turned out that it was exactly the way Tracy Wilson described it, and I'll get to it here. So what happened was it's 24 to 10. It's midway through the fourth quarter, about seven and a half to go, six and a half to go, something like that in the game. And they're at their own 25-yard line. And it was third and 11 in completion. He sends the punting team out there to

punt the ball. And then he changes his mind. And he said, you know what, I want to go for this. We got to go for this. So he tells the, he's got a timeout left. Instead of calling a timeout and sending his offense out there to run a fourth and 11 play, he tells his punt team to false intentionally so that he can get his offense back out there and not have to use his time out. Now, when the offense went back out there, false start, by the way, is a five-yard penalty. It's now fourth and 16 from his own 19-yard line. He was asked about it afterwards. He said, yeah, that's exactly what I did. I didn't want to use that last time out. So he won't a fourth and 16. By the way, he didn't have to false start. He could have taken a delay a game.

would have been the same result. This guy's so overwhelmed as a head coach. It's unbelievable. They have talent. They got a lot of talent on defense. A lot of talent. Miles Garrett right now is having a defensive MVP kind of season. And their schedule apparently gets a little bit easier.

I saw some people pointing to their schedule saying, you know, they still have a shot in a division to get it going. The schedule gets to Denver. Buffalo's not, you know, not easy. They still have Pittsburgh twice. They have Miami. They've got Cincinnati. They've got Arizona.

They've got Cincinnati again. So, you know, they're an underdog this coming weekend at Denver. By the way, Denver was a smell test winner. All of you on Friday that said, no, don't give me Denver again. I gave them to you. And they won. I'm three and two now in the Broncos in the smell test. And by the way, I'll probably have them Sunday.

They're favorite against the Browns at home. But they'll be favored in a lot of these games the rest of the way. But God, they are poorly coached. Poorly coached. Some people need to be coordinators and some people can be head coaches. Freddie Kitchens was the wrong hire for Cleveland. And they do have talent on that team. They do.

J.J. Watts out for the year. That's a crushing blow to Houston who has, I think, one of the most exciting players in the league in Deshawn Watson. The Eagles, you know, they won a game they had to win. I mean, three and five at the halfway mark would have been really difficult. Instead, they go into Buffalo and they win their four and four. They're right back into it. The bears are reeling offensively.

Tribisky's terrible. The kicker missed a 41-yard field goal at the gun to beat the Chargers. What else happened yesterday? I'm just going through it real quickly. The 49ers destroyed the Panthers. The 49ers defense is so good. so good. And they rushed for another 200 plus yards on the day. So anyway, that was basically it. Tiger won, Tommy, tied Sam Sneeds Market 82.

I know you're thrilled about that. College football, Maryland got crushed at Minnesota and Michigan. They were favored for a reason, fellas. They went out and destroyed Notre Dame. And that's it. What else do we have? Tommy, you got anything else? I got nothing else for you, boss. Do you see the women trying to get Garrett Cole's attention last night sitting behind home play? Yes, I did, and it's being reported that MLB has banned them from ballparks now. Oh, that's a shame. That's not the right thing to do.

There could have been a better way to address that. All right, I'm done, we're done. Back tomorrow. Ben Standing's going to join us. We'll do more football tomorrow, plus we'll get you ready for game seven. Tommy, have a good flight to Houston. All right, boss. All right, that's it.

Enjoy the day back tomorrow.