The Kevin Sheehan Show - Rams!

Episode Date: February 14, 2022

Kevin with his Super Bowl recap, thoughts on the Mike Florio/Pro Football Talk report on Dan Snyder, and what about Kyler Murray to Washington?  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You don't want it. You don't need it. But you're going to get it anyway. The Kevin Cheon Show. Here's Kevin. There he was. The best player on the field last night, Aaron Donald,

deserving of the MVP, although he did not get it. What a finish for him. I don't have a major issue with Cooper Cup getting the MVP. Aaron Donald was just as deserving of it, stopping Somaget P. Rine on third and one. and then sacking Joe Burrow on the Bengals' last opportunity at midfield,

securing a 2320 Super Bowl win for the Los Angeles Rams. I'm solo today. We're having issues with our phone lines, so I'm unable to record Cooley. We'll get him on Wednesday of this week. Tommy will be with me tomorrow. I'm going to recap the Super Bowl here in the first segment. We're going to get to the Florio.

comments yesterday. Boy, there was a lot of news being made prior to kick off last night. League-wide, but the Florio comments, Pro Football Talks, Mike Floreo, talking about what the league may be getting closer to doing with Dan Snyder. We will get to those comments in the second segment, and then a couple of things from the rest of the weekend from sports in the final segment. Look, this was a good Super Bowl. This was a good game. On a scale of 1 to 10, I would put this at a 7 or an 8. It's certainly not the greatest Super Bowl of all time. You know, we've seen some classics here in recent years.

Obviously, the Eagles Patriots Super Bowl, the Patriots Falcons overtime Super Bowl, the Patriots Seahawks Super Bowl seven years ago. We've seen some really good Super Bowls. And this was another one. I mean, it wasn't the perfectly played game. There were mistakes made, but the Rams, I thought, were the better team. Now, obviously, I am frustrated that the Rams did not cover in the game. I had them laying four.

There was a missed extra point. It was Johnny Hecker, the holder's fault. There was a perfect snap. Hecker just botched it. Who knows? If he makes the extra point at that point, and it's 14 to 3, then it was. would have been 14 to 10 at halftime, and then it would have been 17, 14, 20 to 14. And it probably would not have changed significantly the rest of the game, that one missed extra

point. Remember, that's a dead play. It's not like it's going to impact the next play. Sometimes it can impact the strategy based on the score. I don't think this would have. I would have really loved a 24-20 final instead of a 23 to 20 final. I did think really that the Rams were the better team. I think that they were outstanding defensively in the second half. That was a dominant performance after the Bengals got what really should not have been a touchdown on the first play from scrimmage to open up the second half. That was a clear offensive pass interference penalty on T. Higgins. He grabbed Jalen Ramsey's face mask and twisted it.

And that allowed him to make the catch Ramsey to not know what the hell was going on, nor should he have. That was really an egregious miss. Not at the level of what the Rams got in the form of a break at the end of the championship game in New Orleans a few years ago. I'll concede that. But that was an offensive pass interference penalty. That touchdown should have never counted. I really thought the Rams were the better team.

They won the game. They didn't win the game by as many as I thought they would win it by. But the smell test overall, 2-1 and 1 on the four selections. I got the under in the first half, the under for the game, pushed the first half Rams minus 3 and lost Rams minus 4 for the game. What a performance by Aaron Donald? What a performance by Cooper Cup? What a clutch final.

drive from Matt Stafford considering what he was working with in the moment. I thought Joe Burrow played as well as he could have played. I mean, this guy is going to be the quarterback if he stays healthy of a competing team, of a contending team in the next five to ten years with him at the quarterback's spot. They need to upgrade their offensive line. There's no doubt about that. I didn't love the play calling from Zach Taylor there at the end. But there's a lot to get to as far as the game goes. Overall, I'm not going to do a whole thing on the commercials or halftime. I enjoyed the halftime a lot.

Very subjective thing, but I thought it was really well done. I'm a huge Mary J. Blyge fan. I thought everything about it, Dre and Eminem. The whole thing was well done. Very good halftime. Don't ever try to put it, in my opinion. in the class of Prince's halftime in Miami back in 2007. That's the all-time halftime show and the all-time halftime show finale ever.

But the commercials, they were okay. I didn't watch all of them. I loved the Meadow A.J. Sopranos ad on the, I think it was a Silverado. I thought the Larry David ad was pretty good, the FTX ad. Apparently there's a longer version of it. I haven't checked it out. Coinbase was the most hysterical thing. $14 million worth of ad purchases and their website crashed.

It was hysterical to watch the QR code. Very office-like should probably say that conversation for Tommy, but that's a cold open from the office, not with an actual QR code. But anyway, the commercials were fine. I'm not, I sat there. It's like the first quarter, you're intent, you're watching them, and then as the game's going on, you use some of those breaks to get up and move around.

I do anyway. I thought the game was a good football game. I thought it was intense. I thought it was close. I thought there were fine lines in the game between Cincinnati having a much better chance of winning the game and the Rams, you know, obviously having a chance to lose the game. The referee at the end of the game was certainly tiki-tack and questionable. We will get to that.

So with that, let's get to my Super Bowl. Recap my game take. Pay attention. Here's Kevin's Game Take. One final game take for the 2021 NFL season recapping yesterday's 2320 Rams win over the Bengals. I want to start with the list of things from the game that I liked. I liked Matt Stafford.

You know, Matt Stafford had no run game yesterday at all. He loses OBJ early in the game after OBJ was clearly going. to be a significant factor in the game. He was already working without his starting tight end. And Stafford came through big time. 26 of 40, 283 yards, three touchdowns, two interceptions. One of those interceptions really not his fault. It was Scoronic, the receiver who had it in his hands and lifted it up into the air on that first Rams play of the second half. The first interception, not a good interception. The throw on first and gold at Jefferson at the end of the game that he airmailed, not a great throw. But overall, Matt Stafford completed an incredible

run in this postseason with a really solid Super Bowl win. Let's not forget that Matt Stafford, going back to the divisional round against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, engineered a game-winning drive with the score tied at 27-27 that led to the walk-off field goal. In San Francisco, three big-time drives, scoring drives, to end the game after they had fallen behind 17 to 7 to win the game 20 to 17. And then in last night's game, I certainly wouldn't put it in the category of Chris Collinsworth

saying it's the greatest drive in Super Bowl history. My God, he's annoying. It was certainly an incredible drive, though. I think, you know, Eli's drive where he threw it to Plaxico, Burris to beat the Patriots was a pretty damn. good drive. You know, Brady had a couple of them to beat the Rams, to beat the Panthers. There's a lot of them. It was not the greatest drive in the history of the Super Bowl, as he said. But it was a big time drive. All right, 15 plays, 79 yards, four minutes and 48 seconds. He was seven for 12 on the drive. Did he get a break on the third goal on the hold against cup?

Yeah, I think he did. I don't think that was, I thought that was a very, tick-tack call on a really good player, by the way, in Logan Wilson. What a player he's turned into in Cincinnati. But this is a guy that came up so big. We talked about before that first playoff weekend that the Cowboys had a lot of pressure on them in their game against the 49ers, and the Rams and Matt Stafford specifically had a lot of pressure on him. Stafford did not end the regular season very well. You know, he threw seven interceptions in the last three regular season games. They ended up winning the division, the courtesy of the Cardinals losing at home to the Seahawks, and they blasted the Cardinals. By the way, Kyler Murray had some comments apparently over the weekend

that Chris Mortensen reported on. We'll get to that a little bit later on in the show. But during the course of this postseason, Matt Stafford was outstanding, leading them to wins with the game on the line in the fourth quarter of the divisional round against Tampa, the championship game against the 49ers, and in the Super Bowl against the Cincinnati Bengals, they ended up with three straight three-point wins, and they are Super Bowl champions. He had a quarterback ratings in his four playoff games of 80, 62.7, 67.8, 61.9, and a 60.8 QBR in the Super Bowl yesterday. Matt Stafford, on the list of things that I liked, I think he proved what many of us said this time last year, and many disagreed. I'm

going to sit here and spend a lot of time with self-congratulation, but you cannot make, you a winning percentage, win-loss record, something that you judge a quarterback on solely. Is it important? I don't know how important it is. He was with a franchise, really, and a team much of the time in Detroit that was not sort of elevatable, if you will. We talk about the great quarterbacks elevate bad franchises or bad teams like Aaron Rogers, et cetera.

And then you, you know, so you view a quarterback and say, well, if he's that great, why I wasn't able to elevate Detroit. And sometimes it's the franchise that just doesn't let you elevate it. You know, he had a pretty good situation in L.A. I'm not going to debate that. But the Rams aren't going to be in this Super Bowl with Jared Gough. I know they got to one a few years ago. And last year, they didn't get anywhere near it.

They lost in the divisional round, you know, with Jared Gough at Lambeau. Matt Stafford has been throughout his career, if you've watched him and not focused solely on how bad the lions were and how many games they lost, Matt Stafford has been a very good quarterback. Elite? No. Is he the Aaron Rogers, Russell Wilson's, Pat Mahomes, Tom Brady? Has he been in that category? No. But many of you just thought, no way would I want him in Washington. He's got a losing record. Has he ever done anything in Detroit? he needed to be with a better franchise. And, you know, it's fair to say that if he'd come to Washington, he would have been in a worse franchise than the one he was in Detroit. But I was happy for Matt Stafford. I thought he looked shaky at the end of the regular season, but he proved he is a big-time quarterback, a franchise quarterback,

and now a Super Bowl quarterback, who, by the way, forget his record, you know, the numbers that he's put together over the course of his career and now to have three, you know, big-time fourth quarter performances in three straight playoff games. He is a guy that will be talked about as a Hall of Fame type of quarterback, and obviously he's not done. He's got, you know, he's age 34. I mean, he could have six, seven, eight years left in this league.

But I was happy for Matt Stafford. He's on the list of things that I like. Also on the list of things that I like from, by the way, Matt Stafford still, still right now, okay? You know, if you're just going to be the person that judges quarterbacks on one loss record, he still has an 86, 95, and one record. He's nine games below 500. You wouldn't want him now because of his record? It's ridiculous. If you've watched Matt Stafford play, Stafford's been a very good quarterback, very good quarterback, and that's why I advocated a year ago for Washington to be super aggressive and to go after Stafford, which they were, you know, aggressive, not aggressive,

enough. I don't know if it would have helped anyway because I think L.A. was always going to be kind of the destination. Okay. A couple of other things that I liked from the game. I really thought the Bengals were outstanding against the run. This would have been the number one reason Cincinnati won the game had they held on. to the 20 to 13 lead and then the 20 to 16 lead. They completely shut down the run.

I mean, you know, the Rams can run the football. Cincinnati's been run on in the postseason. So it was a bit surprising to see, I thought, Cincinnati so effective against the run in this particular game, but they completely shut down the Rams in the run. running game. The Rams could not run with their running backs to save their life. The final numbers, 23 carries, 43 yards, 1.9 yards per carry. Cincinnati's run defense was outstanding in this game. They made the Rams totally one-dimensional, and yet the Rams were able to overcome it,

in part because Stafford was so outstanding along with Cup on that final drive in particular. Pretty good early in the game as well as the Bengals were kind of establishing the fact that they were going to be outstanding against the run. But Cincinnati's run defense on the list of things that I loved. Also, on the list of things that I liked, the Rams defense. Wow, what a defensive performance in the second half in particular. after the T. Higgins touchdown pass that should have never been allowed. And then the interception by Stafford, which Scoronic just dropped and flipped up into the air, that started an unbelievable stretch that really ended up being, I think, as crucial as anything with respect to the outcome of this game.

Cincinnati, after that turnover up 17, 13, 3rd and 3 at the Rams 11, they're threatening to go up by two scores. with the 17-13 lead early in the third quarter, and Burrow gets sacked by Aaron Donald, the first of what would become six second-half sacks. And after the Bengals kicked the field goal on that second drive of the third quarter, they went three and out minus three yards punt, three plays five yards punt,

five plays minus two yards punt, seven plays a total of 24 yards and punt. and then got stopped on the third and one and fourth and one to end the game. Six second half sacks by the Rams. Utter domination on third down, holding the Bengals to one for eight on third down in the second half. Obviously, they held the Bengals on that fourth down stop as well. The Bengals did get one fourth down conversion, the Burroughs scramble on fourth down.

but the LA defense was lights out, especially in the second half in this football game. This is where I thought they really had an advantage. Ernest Jones was outstanding. A. Sean Robinson dominant. Cooley and I talked about kind of X factors in this game. I gave you A. Sean Robinson on Friday. Leonard Floyd was good. Donald was, of course, dominant, and I thought deserving of the MVP.

Von Miller, I mean, go watch some of the pass rush. by Vaughn Miller in the second half. He got home twice, but he was so close on another two to three of them. It was a dominant performance in the second half by the Rams defense. You know, if not for that interception, if not for the lucky touchdown pass that should have been overruled by a penalty, I don't think Cincinnati would have scored in the second half. And this would have been, you know, I don't know, I mean, the Bengals defense was really good too. Don't get me wrong. the Rams defense just totally dominant in this football game. Three of 14, total on third down for Sinci, seven sacks, six of them in the second half, constant pressure, and Aaron Donald,

amazing with the game on the line. Stopping P. Ryan, I'll get to that in a moment, and then the fourth and one sack on Burrow, not a sack. That was not a sack, because Burrow got the ball out of his hands, but just a dominant second half performance defensively from the Rams. Also on the list of things that I liked, Cooper Cup was outstanding, especially on that final drivery at four catches. Yes, I think the hold on Logan Wilson on the third goal was tickey tack, especially with the way the game had been officiated. But Cups eight catches, 92 yards, two touchdowns, a couple of big time clutch receptions. He gets the MVP. You knew it was. between Cup and Donald.

It wasn't going to be Stafford because of the two interceptions. And those were really the two contenders. I haven't seen an actual vote count. I am curious as to how close Donald was to winning it because I had a prop bet on Aaron Donald to win the MVP. But, you know, it's not like I have a major problem with Cooper Cup of being the MVP in the game. I really thought that Aaron Donald was at the very least equally deserving.

Couple of other performances in this game. Henderson and Hopkins for the Rams, okay? The Rams were having all these issues running the football, right? Daryl Henderson ends up being one of the three backs that got a lot of snaps, Acres and Sony, Michelle, the other. And then how about Bryson Hopkins? Number 88, four catches, 40, yards. This dude, just so everybody understands, during the course of the season, only had one

reception for nine yards. With Higby out, with OBJ going out, they needed to go deep into their depth chart, and Bryson Hopkins, a six four, 250 pound player who was drafted in the fourth round in 2020 at a Purdue, came up with some big-time. catches, you know, to keep drives alive, to, you know, especially with all of the attention on Cup, not that it mattered as much, but I thought Hopkins and Henderson, Henderson had a couple of big catches, one of them on a big third down, but the two of them, Hopkins and Henderson, combined seven catches, 90 yards for the Rams on just nine targets. It was outstanding for them. also want to mention on the list of things that I liked. I thought Joe Mixon was outstanding. I think

Joe Mixon's a really good back. I mean, kind of underrated, maybe, and maybe even underutilized to a certain degree. You know, he did end up with 1,205 yards on the season. And 15 carries yesterday, 72 yards, you know, nearly 4.8 yards per carry, had five receptions. in the game, not for a lot of yardage. But I thought Joe Mixon was really outstanding. I thought he was really outstanding pretty much throughout the postseason, had some big runs there, you know, in overtime of the Kansas City game, had a couple of big time runs, including that touchdown run in the win over Tennessee.

I thought Mixon was really good for Cincinnati. All right, that's the list of things that I liked. Let me get to the list of things that I did not like. Number one, Johnny Hecker. Come on, man, it's a Super Bowl. You can't botch a perfect snap on a big extra point that really almost came back to haunt them. Imagine it's third and goal at the eight, and that penalty doesn't get called at the end on Logan Wilson against Cooper Cup. And you've got to go for the fourth and goal instead of kicking a field goal potentially to win to tie the game.

Secondly, man, I don't get why Mixon isn't used in short yardage for Cincinnati, and instead it's Samajai P. Rine. I think I know the answer. It's what they've done all year long. Samajey P. Rine's been more of a short yardage back more so than Mixon's been. But Samajie P. Rine's a bit too soft for me, man. I mean, to go, they went with him on third and one on the opening drive of the game before they missed on fourth and one. And they went with him on third and one there sitting at the Rams 49 yard line, plenty of time, 48 seconds or whatever left, plenty of time to get McPherson range or even better. And he gets, look, it's a great play by Aaron Donald.

But I guess I'm just surprised that Zach Taylor uses and relies on Somaget P-Rine in that spot. not Joe Mixon. And then on fourth and one, look, I don't have a problem with them choosing to throw the football. A lot of people are like, come on, let's play, you know, let's play slobber knocker. You know, you can't get a yard on the ground you don't deserve to win. Well, you got Joe Burrow, and he's converted a bunch of fourth and short throws already during this postseason. He converted that third and two throw to Chris Evans on that one play, but was more of a quick release,

you know, moving in that direction. They dropped him back. I mean, they couldn't protect him the entire half. He was getting absolutely bum rushed. They could not block Miller. They could not block Donald. I mean, they couldn't block Aishon Robinson when he was in the game. But to drop him back on fourth and one,

instead of running some sort of sprint out with, you know, Higgins against the opposite corner, not named Ramsey, or Chase, or Boyd, or somebody, or Evans again, I thought dropping him straight back into the pocket was really risky. Did not like that play calling at all in that particular spot for Cincinnati. Look, I was happy. I had the under. And 2323 meant the game was not only going over, but more likely than not, I was going to lose the Rams minus four, although that was the only way to get Rams

minus four. But I was going to take the under at that point at 2320. But I didn't think that that was really what they do well. And in that particular context, dropping Burrow back on fourth and one against that pass rush at that point. And let me just mention, too, the P-Rine criticism. You know, I put some of that, obviously, on the Bengals play calling. But on the fourth and one, I mean, Joe Burrow gets rid of the ball. and Pyrine looks like he could potentially make a play on the fluttering ball

as Aaron Donald's bringing Burrow to the turf. And he doesn't really seem to be very urgent in going for it. Wasn't that kind of catchable? It may have been really tough, but he didn't even make a move in the direction of it. Also in the list of things that I didn't like, I thought it was a tough day for Van Jefferson, a player that I really like a lot. First of all, he could have caught the go-ahead touchdown pass.

He was wide open on that first and goal after the penalties. And Stafford just overshot him. But there was a big third down where Stafford laid it right in Jefferson's basket. And Jefferson tried to one-hand it. I thought Jefferson, who I really, really like his receiver, and I like their, you know, obviously OBJ losing him was big, but the Cup Beckham Jr. Van Jefferson combination is a good one. I thought Van Jefferson just looked a little bit off.

Now, I do understand afterwards he rushed to the hospital where his wife, I think, had gone into labor during the game. But, yeah, so now we get to the point that I really didn't like. I thought, you know, the officiating was, for the most part, fine. Okay? I think, you know, I love the way they let them play. I mean, you only had six penalties called in the game, but there were a couple of things that just didn't make any sense to me.

Let's take them chronologically. At the end of the first half, did you guys notice that the refs were rolling the clock on plays that went clearly out of bounds when Cincinnati had the ball at the end of the first half. Cincinnati got the ball back after the interception by Stafford. That was a terrible throw. You got to check that down and take four or five yards and get your field goal team out there. They still had a chance at a field goal.

The ball was at the Cincinnati 43 on that third and super long. And Stafford threw it deep for Jefferson and it got picked off in the end zone by Bates. And Stafford, I think, could have run for three or four yards or certainly there had to be some sort of checkdown. for short of the sticks, which would have been fine because you could have kicked the field goal at that point. But Cincinnati takes over at their own 10-yard line. By the way, after this was going to be one of my other observations, after Vernon Hargraves in Civis,

because he was inactive for the game, sprints out on the field after the interception. That was a bit of a mistake. Big mistake in that particular spot. And that cost them, you know, a penalty there, and they started from their own 10-yard line. But there were back-to-back throws where it looked like the receiver clearly was not stopped forward progress-wise in bounds. And they didn't stop the clock. They rolled the clock. That was a bad job. It

almost looked like the refs had the first half under in the game. And then you get to the Higgins call that they clearly blew on the first play from scrimmage in the second half. And then you get to the end of the game. I just think that that third and goal at the 8 was not a penalty the way they had been officiating the game on Logan Wilson. I didn't think it was. I thought that that was one that we'd seen throughout the game, and if they were going to be consistent, you let that call go. That is not, you know, that's not a call you make there. It would have set up fourth and goal from the 8.

And by the way, an interesting situation, of course they would have gone for it. They had three timeouts left there. But, you know, given that Cincinnati, you know, had been pretty good defensively all day, but, you know, some people would have suggested, I think maybe Tony Romo last week, hey, how about kicking the field goal and making it 20 to 19? I think also Romo may have insisted on Cincinnati letting the Rams score up for in that particular spot to get the ball back. That would have been a horrible idea. Cincinnati still had their three timeouts.

The goal was to stop them and win the game right there. And if they didn't, they were going to be able to use all their timeouts, had it gotten down to a fourth and goal. And they still would have had over a minute to go down three. But I thought, you know, for a game where they really let them play, for the most part, you know, pretty much they missed on the Higgins call. It was odd at the end of the first half, how they rolled the clock on plays that were clearly not forward progress stopped in bounds.

And I really thought that they got a little bit flag-happy at the end. Look, the one hold on cup that created the first and goal was an okay call, but I did not think that the third and goal from the eight was a good call on Wilson, not the way the game had been officiated. I wanted to mention one last thing. You know, this was a fine line game, you know, even though the Rams, were dominant defensively in the second half. And Cincinnati showed no signs of really being able to do anything offensively.

Outside of really that one throw to chase to start their final drive, which Ramsey gambled on, I, Cincinnati was still very close to being in a really good position to win the game. Look, they had the lead. Obviously, the Rams needed to score a touchdown. But on their possession up 20 to 16, before the Rams' long drive possession, Tyler Boyd had a ball right in his hands on third and nine and dropped it. Now, it would have been close as to whether or not he would have been able to catch it and get the first down really close.

Worst case, it would have been at midfield with a fourth and inches opportunity for Cincinnati to continue that drive, eat up more clock and potentially maybe, you know, pick up another first down and get to McPherson range for at least a seven point lead. But that boy drop was a big, big drop in the game. All right. That's kind of it on the game. I'm sure I missed something along the way. I'm just looking at my notes. What an ending to the game. Aaron Donald winning a Super Bowl. He really is. is the greatest defensive player of this more recent generation of NFL defensive players. Yeah, that's it. That's it.

All right. Let's get to what Mike Floreo said yesterday pregame, right after these words from a few of our sponsors. Rapid allegations of sexual harassment and other workplace misconduct within the Washington Commanders Organization resulted in a 10-month investigation conducted by attorney Beth Wilkinson on July 1 of last. Last year, the league issued sanctions, but the league has kept the results of that investigation completely secret.

In fact, the league didn't even ask Attorney Beth Wilkinson to prepare a written report. I'm told that if she had, one of her recommendations would have indeed been that owner Daniel Snyder be required to sell the team. More recently, Congress has been pushing the league and the team to provide more information publicly. In fact, earlier this week, the league and the team were squabbling over which documents would be given to Congress. And 10 days ago, a former employee named Tiffany Johnston spoke to Congress and made allegations directly against owner Daniel Snyder.

New allegations that hadn't previously been investigated. The league is now going to investigate those. And I'm told for the first time ever, there is a sense among ownership that the time may have come for Daniel Snyder to move on. That was Mike Floreo yesterday at some point during all of the pregame activity on Super Bowl Sunday. parroting the report from the junkies, which he, by the way, last week gave them credit for and said that there's a good chance that this report is true. But there's no doubt that there seems to be some momentum right now.

You know, you had the league last week distancing itself more than they've ever done before from Snyder, you know, emasculating him by pulling that, you know, idea that he was going to conduct an investigation into himself back from him, talking about him being responsible for Congress not having some of the key information because of some third-party vendor, whether true or not. We haven't really seen the league snap back and distance itself publicly from Snyder like we've seen here recently.

Look, I tweeted this out yesterday before the game. I mean, it'd be great to get the Beth Wilkinson report. But if the Beth Wilkinson report or if any new allegation doesn't include something worse than, I don't know, some of the owners have done, okay? It's going to take the path or the road of going down and saying, we need him out because he's terrible for business. It's not that we're forcing him out because he sexually harassed or sexually assaulted or conducted or committed some sort of sexual misconduct at some point. It's because he's just so bad for business, which is true.

But once you go down that road of trying to oust him, you are going to have vindictive rain down on you for years to come by this guy. He will go scorched earth, vindictive, and litigiousness. And they know that, and it will be years before it gets resolved. Look, he's terrible for business. Goodell doesn't want them. Most of these owners don't want them, and we know how we feel. You know, 98, 99% of the fan base would parade.

In recent months, it's definitely gotten worse and worse for him. I mean, just this year, DEA raid, leaked emails to the journal and the Times, bringing this whole Beth Wilkinson report back to the front burner when it had been backburnered. Reports of hush money, reports of obstruction, reports of, you know, new allegations, et cetera, not to mention the embarrassment of the Sean Taylor, Jersey retirement, or the 2-2-22. I mean, it's just one thing after another. I mean, you know, for all of you that say, man, can we just talk about football? Yeah, we could if he didn't own the team, because it's always something. He keeps advancing the story. This isn't a media-created thing. This is his behavior.

This is him bringing this stuff to the four. didn't call the DEA and tell him to raid the building. The media did not tell him to announce to Schefter that he's going to launch an investigation into himself. The media didn't create this Sean Taylor weekend debacle. Look, I feel like we're closer than we've ever been, but I also feel like it's going to have to be that they all decide we're going to bite the bullet. fight this guy, even though some stuff may come out about us, even though this guy will have

PIs and he'll be telling stories and leaking stories about various stories he's heard about various owners. I mean, this guy will go full after him in a big way. If you were to ask me, would I wager that he's going to lose the team or that they're going to move on him? You know, at some point, let's just say over the next year, I'd say it's 50-50. I would have said, you know, 10% chance, maybe a couple of months ago. But it feels more like he's just so awful for business, and it's such a big time market, and it's such a lucrative opportunity that they are blowing.

They get embarrassed every time a game is shown from FedEx Field. You got a new stadium that's going to have to be built here and committed to here shortly. And this franchise can't find their ass with both hands, ever, no matter who comes into it and it all stems from the top. They know how bad he is. The problem is he doesn't know how bad he is.

And that's why they fear like he's not able to be reasoned with. Hey man, you've ruined one of our best markets and one of our best fan bases. We have terrible attendance in D.C. We have terrible television ratings in D.C. We're missing out on federal government money left and right. You've got to go. You're bad for business. He doesn't see it that way, though.

And therefore, they would be in for one hell of a fight. Do they have the stomach for it? Really, do the owners who probably have some skeletons of their own, do they have the stomach for it? They would be cheered from everywhere except for the Snyder residents. finish up with a couple of other things from the weekend when we come back right after these words from a few of our sponsors. So somebody sent me a picture of some sort of display out in L.A. for the Super Bowl of the Washington Commander stuff. And the crest of the patch,

there were Roman numerals for the Super Bowl years. I don't know if that's official or not. But I would applaud Jason Wright in particular. I would think he would get and deserve the credit for that. I would applaud that if they made the change that quickly. Secondly, did you see the Kyler Murray news? Chris Mortensen yesterday on one of the pregame shows reporting that Kyler Murray is said to be frustrated,

felt like he was set up for embarrassment in the playoff game against the Rams, and there are people in the organization, including some of his teammates, that believe he's immature, lacks leadership, and we'll throw them under the bus, we'll blame others for his failures. And now all of a sudden, there's a discussion as to whether or not Kyler Murray could be traded.

So you would add him to the list of potential franchise quarterbacks, Aaron Rogers, Russell Wilson, Deshawn Watson, Kyler Murray would be, I think, in that conversation. First of all, there was a report that the Packers are going to do whatever it takes. to pay Aaron Rogers. Secondly, I still don't think Russell Wilson will get traded since they brought Pete Carroll back. Again, let me repeat what I said last week. I think if they were to trade him, Washington would not be off his list.

This would not be a place he would say, don't trade me to. Washington would be in play. But I still think he ends up in Seattle. I don't know what the Deshaun Watson situation is. With respect to Kyler Murray, first of all, he had a terrible playoff game against the Rams. He and Kingsbury both looked overwhelmed. And Murray had one of truly the worst games you'll ever watch a quarterback play in that playoff loss to the Rams. Really good defense, obviously.

And but, but Kyler Murray has been an all, has been a Pro Bowl quarterback. Kyler Murray led this team to the best record at one point through eight weeks, nine weeks of the season, and to a playoff birth and a near division title. and he's just completed his third year and they have control over him, including picking up the fifth year option. If they decided to move on from Kyler Murray, don't you think that would be a bit of a red flag? Even if you don't trust the Cardinals organization

or Kingsbury or Steve Kime or anybody there, don't you think moving on from a franchise quarterback that you drafted number one overall after three years would be a red flag, especially with the reports about, maturity and leadership? I think it would be. I think it'd be a major red flag.

But he's certainly on the field, talent-wise, would be an upgrade. It's funny, I'm not as big of a Kyler-Murie fan as I used to be. I think sometimes when I watch him, he just looks so tiny, and he's always moving backwards. And yet other times I watch him, I'm like, oh, my God, I wish we had him. I don't know what to make of him. I certainly would prefer Rogers or Wilson over Murray and definitely Watson if the Watson situation was clean, rehabilitated, not going to be suspended for more than a year, you know, et cetera. I don't know how Maryland almost beat Purdue yesterday.

I don't know what inspired them off of one of the worst performances they've ever had, giving up 110 points and a loss at home to Iowa on Thursday night. and then on the road on Super Bowl Sunday against the number three team in the country, Purdue, in a very hostile environment. But they played one of the best games they played all year, and Fats Russell put on one of the best performances by any player in the Big Ten this year. 24 points, nine rebounds, six assists, three steals.

Should have had about seven steals in the game. He was so great in this game, and they did it without Eric Ayala, and they nearly pulled off a shocker. Now, the end of the game was crazy, and I'll just explain it, and most of you didn't watch this. This is for the Maryland fans that are watching. Okay, the referees botched the ending of that game. It started with the clock running before Jaden Ivy caught the in-bounce pass after Fats Russell's second free throw that made it 62-61.

So the clock went too early. They could have put Ivy at the free throw line and just adjusted the clock, or they could have put the full time back on the clock, which would have been 8.1 seconds, and let Purdue inbounds the ball again. Well, they did say Purdue, you're going to inbounds the ball again, but they reset the clock at 7.8 seconds, which was the wrong time. And then for whatever reason, they didn't give Purdue the whole baseline

to throw the ball in, meaning you can run the baseline, or you can pass it on the baseline, which is what they did. and they called it a violation and gave Marilyn one last chance to upset Purdue with the ball. Look, I thought Maryland got the short end of the stick on the whistle all day long, but the bottom line is Purdue nearly got screwed out of a win there or an opportunity to win the game. I did not think Dante Scott got fouled necessarily. I certainly didn't think that it was a call that typically will get made at the end of a game. but man, what a performance by Marilyn.

I congratulate them on really bouncing back with a phenomenal effort, maybe the best effort of the year, and what would have been a shocking upset. They were 16.5 point underdogs. Also, one last thing. Did you see LeBron set the mark this weekend for the most combined regular season and postseason points, passing Kareem of all time?

It was barely mentioned, I felt like. And I know it was Super Bowl weekend. and I know the trade deadline from the NBA, you know, generated a lot more conversation. But look, LeBron's unbelievable. He's still behind Carl Malone and Kareem on the regular season list, and he's played in a lot of playoff games, obviously, because they've had more times than not the extra series that Kareem didn't have for much of his career. But LeBron, not known for scoring, I guess, some people were saying.

He's kind of known for a scoring, but he's also been known as a great facilitator over the years as well. Anyway, that's it for the day. Back tomorrow with Tommy. Cooley will be with us on Wednesday.