The Kevin Sheehan Show - Redskins-Eagles Recap with Cooley

Episode Date: September 9, 2019

Cooley and Kevin recap the Redskins 32-20 loss to the Eagles. They discussed Adrian Peterson being inactive as well. Kevin went "Around the NFL", talked Nats, Antonio Brown, and Maryland's 63-20 win over Syracuse which has them now ranked 21st in the country. <p> </p><p>Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices">podcastchoices.com/adchoices</a></p> Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You want it. You need it. It's what everyone's talking about. The Kevin Sheehan Show. Now here's Kevin. All right. It's just one game. And I promised everybody on Friday that I wouldn't make too much out of the week one results. I'm going to try to stick to my promise. Redskins 32 to 27 losers in the opener at Philadelphia. Christopher Coole is with us to start the show today. He was there. He was on the call. Let's do sort of of you want to do our game take together and go back and forth like we used to? Yeah, you've already had some practice this morning. I have. Did you listen? I did listen for a while, driving in. Okay. All right, well, let's get to the game take.

Pay attention. Here's Kevin's Game Day. And Coolie's Game Take together here on the Kevin Sheehan Show podcast. I mean, we can create a new open if you'll be with me every Monday following the games. And coolies games. Overall. Whenever I come on, just let me chime that in next time. Yeah, okay. You get to do it next time.

Overall, like, what did you... Look, I actually want to start with this. Before we get into, you know, what we liked and what we didn't like are your us and ums. Were you as shocked as I was with the pass offense in the first half? I was shocked with as good as Case was in the first half, as well as they protected case in the first half. And I was pleased that while on the play action,

I thought mirrored some of the run stuff that they do, as opposed to stretch zone play action, which they never run. So I thought they did a pretty good job matching those up and putting those together. I thought they had really good balance in the first half. You know, I liked the way it was scripted out. Everything looked the same. Formationally, motion-wise, they were messing with the Eagles defense. I don't think Philly had any idea of really what was coming.

and then they made some plays, you know. They overcame some things in some situations that in the past they haven't. They had third down conversions. You know, they had a couple big plays. So, yeah, I was, it's the first game, but it's also the first look at Harry McLaren or Kelvin Harmon, for the most part, you haven't seen much of Trey Quinn, and Paul Richardson's been hurt, and they all was really, really good. So I was impressed by that.

Yeah, I mean, so that's where I would start overall. I would just start with just their pass offense as a whole. You know, in the first half, I don't think we saw anything like we saw in the first half last year at any point. Receivers running wide open, getting separation, stretching the field with speed. I mean, this is the first time, really, we've had a chance to see McLaurin in a game. And his defense, his speed is going to make defenses really worry. and then Richardson can run and Vernon is just incredible

after the catch as he's always been and Quinn seems to be a difficult cover in the slot Harmon was out there for 15, 16 snaps and had two three catches in the game Thompson out of the backfield and then Case Cooley really looked decisive

like the ball was coming out quickly it seemed like he had it all figured out as to where it should go and you know people can look at the second half they had three possessions before that final possession and they had a deep bomb wide open to McLaurin that Keenham overthrew and then they had some drop balls and some penalties. Other than that, I thought the second half, you know, was a matter of, you know, not having it enough and just missing on a couple of things that could have kept

drives going and could have ended up, you know, producing another productive half. Overall, I was blown away and I know it's just the opener, but I was really encouraged by the overall offensive pass attack and how aggressive they were, too. I loved that part of the game yesterday. No, I love that part of the game. And it's not like they lost that aggressive nature. They came out and took a shot in the second half. The first drive, they had to run to guys, and I think they had a false start by Moses,

and then you have to try to get a draw to guys. I probably would have put in Chris Thompson to run with draw right there, and Fletcher Cox blows it up in the backfield, and you're done with your drive. Right. The next drive, they take that deep shot to McLaurin. He's wide open, man, and you're down at that point. Like, here's the crazy thing, right? You finish and a half, because we're going to get to the defense, I'm sure.

You're up 20 to 7. You have run three plays on offense before you're down 21 to 20. Exactly. Yeah. Three plays, and now you're down 20 to 20. So let's not pretend they weren't aggressive. And then they took a shot to Ter McClorin and missed it. And, you know, you had a number.

a couple penalties on the third drive that I think really hurt you. I don't know what to say. You know, you had a chop block called on the backside of a tossed away that the most erroneous call of all time on that fourth, on that third drive. They had a first down run on that. So you're saying the chop block was a bad call? Chris Thompson. And then, you don't know, I haven't fully looked at it. But I will promise you this.

That block, if it was illegal, it's illegal. It's illegal. It's a legal. It's a legal. I get that. but that block had zero impact on that play. It was the backside tackling guard away from toss away. There's no chance.

Now, there was a hold on that call on that play, too. There was a call by more, yeah, and I talked to Morgan about it, and he said the guy that, it was a call out way he pulled, and he was out in front of the run, said the guy that fell down, got up and said, man, that was bull. They gave you one there. They gave us one there. That's what Morgan said the guy said to him.

Look. So the whole thing, there was a hold early in the game on Morgan that was insane. That was not a good call. There was a whole late on Donald Penn where he's standing out in the middle of the field next to the official pointing at the Jumbotron, like, look at the Jumbotron, watch the replay.

There's no way it's holding. So we're, you can talk about cleaning up the penalties, but we're getting targeted. Our players are currently being targeted for holding penalties. The first hold on Morgan, not a hold. No way. The couple ones, I didn't, I haven't seen the one close enough with 77.

Come on. Flowers. I haven't taken that one close enough. I'm going to sit down and watch a lot of the film, but some of the holds were bad. And by the way, they got a touchdown called back that was a hold that wasn't a hold, where Josh Norman flopped.

So it's not, it wasn't just us, but. Hold on for you. You said they're being targeted. What do you mean by that? Come on. They're not being targeted. Yeah, no, there's no way. We led the league in holds last year.

There were holds called that we shouldn't have been holds. We got holds called in this game. Look, I'm going to, I'm not, I'm going to tell you if it's a hole, Kev. You know, I'm not going to lie to you. A couple of those weren't holds. So we get more than anybody else, and we're calling penalties that aren't penalties. I don't know. Did we lead the league last year? We led the league last year and holding penalties? And false start penalties. Really? Yeah. If we didn't lead the league, we were, we were second. We led the league going into the last couple games. Really? Think of last year all the holds called.

There were holds where Brandon Sheriff's panicking people 20 yards down field and they're calling holds on screen. Crazy. Yeah, I mean, you're not talking now, so I know you're typing. No, no, no, no. I am looking for last year's numbers. And the Redskins... Tied for the lead with the Colts for most holds. Chris was right Yeah Okay well

Yeah and Morgan Moses last year Led the League in Penalties Yes I knew that Here's the other thing when you look at that Those officials make cutups Of all the things they're calling When you're leading the league in penalties You're on that cut up tape

And so now every official that's watching that cut up tape It's going Man that's 76 or the Redskins is a holder He hold we can call him Anytime we want He'll hold Morgan Moses last year 14 penalties to lead the league

two, by the way, he had on him that were declined. Eight were holding, seven were false start. I would suggest to you, unless you're going to tell me that all 14 were bad calls, that at some point, if he's not accountable and he's not made accountable and there's no discipline, meaning he doesn't play, that someone else gets a shot, well, that's coaching. I'll show you the holds. I mean, you can say accountable if you want to say accountable, or you can say he's doing his job and someone's making a bad call.

Whatever you want to say there. You know what? I don't want to get bogged down in this because what started this conversation was a point you were making, which is a good one, which is this notion that somehow Jay Gruden got conservative or didn't try to run the ball where the offense fell apart in the second half after having a really good first half is just wrong. That's not what happened. They had three opportunities with the ball before the final drive. And on the first one, there was a false start. And that first drive did not go. going anywhere. And you can say, all right, the first drive, you know, they didn't get any yards. They were in a third and 20 situation after the fall start and the, in the draw run to Geis. But the second drive, they take the bomb shot to McLaurin, which is the absolute single play in the game that could have changed the outcome. I'm not saying it would have. It certainly would have changed the context of the game. It would have 100% been 26 to 21 if he makes that catch. Minimum.

a chance to go for two. Right. And whether or not he would have or not with five minutes to go in the third quarter, who knows. And then on the third drive, they had, you know, the chop block and the holding, you know, the chop block was enforced. And they're, you know, all the sudden behind the chains there. By the way, after throwing the ball on first down and picking up the first down on the play that they got the penalty on, anyway. So that leads us to this. You know, and we can come back to the offense in a second. In my view, they lost the game because their defense was god-awful, and especially in the second half. I know in the first half, you know, they got stops. I don't know how much that was Philadelphia Rust.

I don't know how much that was, you know, John Allen being in the game for some of that. But in the second half, Philadelphia scored on every single possession, had 302 yards of offense and scored 25 points, and went 8 for 10 on 3rd down, four of those being third and longs. Yeah, they got gashed. And I don't know if the first half was dynamically better.

They just found ways to get off the field. Like the first drive where they call a penalty on Deshaun Jackson, on which would have been a third and two. And based on the outcome of third and twos throughout the day, there's no way we were stopping them on third and two. That could have just as well went on Dunbar. And then they have a third and 17 and you get off the field. The next drive, they end up going 12 plays all the way down the field.

They call that little draw play on third, and you know you're going to go for it on fourth, so you're fine. and then we get a batted ball on fourth and two, you get off the field. We were getting, they were moving the ball against us. We never had pressure. We never created turnovers. And we didn't, in my opinion, make proper adjustments after John went out and you started getting gashed. Yeah, you can say they're going nickel and we're going to go four down and I'm fighting with that.

But if you're not stopping people in a four down situation, you've got to start bringing some blitzes. You got to start stunting. you got to manipulate your front. You've got to change what you're doing up front to get those stops. The Eagles were not really complicated with what they were doing on offense. And then when you do get them in third down situations, and they had them in the same half. You've had to Sean Jackson touch down early and say that was a third and ten,

on a blown coverage. The first one was a third and ten. Right, right. The first one was a third. You can't give up third and ten. You can't let Carson Went outside of the pocket. I think both of those were to decide that. sweat was on and again, you go back and look at those and say maybe he was on a son.

I don't know if that's what it was. But you still can't let Carson went out of the pocket. And so he's making plays on third and ten. So when you do have chances to get off the field, it would have really benefited them to get off the field in third and ten. But they got gashed. I mean, they gave up 24 rushing yards in the first half. They gave Oprah over 100 in the second half. You have to readjust. So some of those adjustments, stunting, blitzing, I don't know how often they sent an additional pass rusher in obvious past situations. You know, you may know at this point,

but it didn't seem like there was a lot of extra pressure on pass on third and long. How about the first third and ten that Deshaun Jackson scored on? That was a three-man rush. Exactly. And by the way, if you look at that play, Kerrigan on the three-man rush, actually, that may have been as close as he got all day. Look, I know that they have good right and left tackles,

and I know that their centers of pro bowl. but we have to get some pressure. We have to get some pressure. You have to find a way to create some pressure. And maybe you went into that game thinking John and Duran and Ryan and now we got Montez, and we're going to get after them. And we don't need to blitz these guys. We can four-man rush them, but you weren't.

And so at some point in that game, you needed to do something different to get pressure. Yeah, I mean, so this leads to, we know they tried to replace the defensive coordinator in the offseason. And Jay, I found it very interesting to watch his press conference and listen to some of the locker room stuff. He was frustrated with the defense more than anything else. Did I read that right or not? Who was not frustrated with the defense?

I understand that, but he in particular was like, we got to get pass. We got to get him off the field. We only had three opportunities with the ball in the second half before that final drive. Yeah, I think he showed a little too much frustration. the defense to be completely honest with you. And I understand it because he is not in charge. Overall, the overall well-being of his team is his responsibility. And the overall cause of his defense is his responsibility.

But he is game planning for offense. And he's sitting there thinking to himself and anyone would be. Man, I put up 20 in the first half. Could you please get me the ball? Could you please give me the ball back? Yeah. He's not calling defenses. I'm not trying to alleviate Jay Gruden from any of this.

responsibility because his defense and his defensive calls, that's what a head coach is responsible for. So if he needs to be a part of making those adjustments and he doesn't see them happening, then he's responsible to step in and say, these are the calls I want you to start making. Trust me, he knows what the calls are. He knows what they're doing on defense. He knows the terminology. He knows the scheme.

He knows what he wants to see. And by the way, he knows as well as anybody what's hard to protect and what's hard to block up. So if he wanted to make some adjustments, he can make a lot of. He's a head coach. The season that they had last year where for whatever reason there's been a lot of revisionist history on from our fans and maybe even some in the media

that the defense was really good last year and it had a chance to be dominant top five and the players are telling you how great the defense is going to be. Josh Norman saying it could be all time. Landon Collins predicting Super Bowls, plural, and the whole thing. Bottom line is that defense last year was just okay. It was good early when they were,

They were dominating time of possession and they were running the football on offense. But even against the good offensive teams last year early in the year, Atlanta, New Orleans, torched. Green Bay had a one-legged quarterback when they came in here, and that was a good effort. But all season long, it was not a great defense. What I don't know is how much of that is talent versus scheme and play calling and coaching. But they tried to replace the dude in the offseason and were unable to do it. So I think that's a storyline to watch here early in the season with the talent they think they have defensively, Chris. If they don't produce, somebody's going to pay the price for that, I would think.

Well, when you have coaches coming in and saying that we have a top 10 or a top five defense talent, right? Yeah. Which has happened. Yeah, Rob Ryan. You better have some games where you're stopping some people. And you can't have games where you look back. Even if they've gotten a couple stops in the second half, you can't have games where you look back and you go,

we're a great defense. We got beat on three big plays, four big plays. And we lost the game 28 to whatever. Those four plays count. That first play to D-Jax, that counted. We were up 17-0 when you gave up that 50-plus-yard bomb to D-Jat. Because you blew coverage. What happened on that coverage?

Nicholson was the only guy back there. I don't know. I'm going to go look. at it. But here's what I do know is I don't understand quite how Sean Dionne Hamilton is the deepest player in the middle of the field outside of Josh Norman and coverage

on DJX. You had no safety in the middle of the field. I'm assuming what I'm assuming is they went with this coverage that they call Orlando, which is a form of Tampa, right? Tampa 2. And they call it Orlando because it's a different version of Tampa 2, where your corners or your deep halves and your

safety comes in place to Tampa Middle Linebacker. But where was the safety on the opposite side of the field in the deep middle. Like he should have been back too because Dechanan ended up being almost to the middle of the field. Like there was blown coverage there somewhere. I'll figure it out. But. Yeah, because Monti had to choose between two guys basically attacking him. Well, that was the second one.

That was the first one too. The first one was Josh Norman. Oh, right. First one was Norman. Second one was Nicholson. Yeah. So I think there's some aspect of blown coverages in both of those. Because the one that Monti had to choose on, if Monti would have chose Deshaun Jackson, they had two vertical routes, one crossing the field deep in the middle. Monti held on that a little bit too long.

If he had chosen straight to Sean Jackson, there ain't nobody that was going to cover the next crossing route inside. Nobody. He is way behind Landon Collins before that ball storm. So choose, but either way it was death for Monta. that situation. Anybody defensively impress you? Yeah. Cole Holcomb.

Yeah. The dude was all over the freaking field. He was making plays on special teams. He was making tackles across the board on defense. Now you're looking at it and you're like, this defense is going to be so good. We got Duran Payne. We got John Allen. We got Montes Sweat.

Ryan Kerrigan's back. You know, look at the guy. And the fifth round pick that's a rookie is the most impressive player. Yeah, he can run. He is fast. He really did. impressed me, though. I was really impressed with Holcomb. I don't think he missed a tackle in the game. I thought he was fairly consistent throughout? You know, you always go back and say, was he as good?

Did he make plays downfield because he didn't, because he was out of place early, but I was really impressed by Cole. Cole was the guy that Gruden really liked when he saw him, right? Yeah, everybody really liked Cole. I think everybody's liked Cole going back to watching college him. I liked Cole when I went back and watched his college film. He was a good player. Carolina. Offensively, was anybody more impressive than McClorn? Case? Yeah. And to be honest, you know who else? I was pretty impressed by. I was pretty impressed by Donald Penn. Case had time to throw. Offensive line was, there was some concerns there for me going into that game. I was pretty impressed up front by the offensive line.

All the receivers look good. The offensive line in the past protection in the first half was outstanding. It was fine in the second half. It held up. except when there were penalties. But they had plenty, he had plenty of time in the first half. I was impressed with that as well. And McLaren and Richardson on the field at the same time with, you know, Vernon and potentially Jordan down the road and Chris Thompson. I mean, one game, you've got to be careful about these opening games,

but we didn't see any of these players actually play in a game until yesterday. and they have a completely different capability throwing the football with the group they have this year versus last year, and that includes the quarterback. Yeah, I think there's no doubt about it. And the thing that I really liked about, Case, was I think he was throughout the game looking deep first and really trying to get the ball down the field versus just, let's just take it, we got something short. I think he was really trying to press the ball down the field. I thought you saw him buying time in the pocket and eyes down the field and receivers that can win down the field. Like, we've been doing stuff together for a long time, and I've told you over and over,

going back to D.JX, like, how important it is to have a guy that can take the top off downfield. And that clearly is going to be Terry McLauran. And Paul Richardson's got some speed, too. So you've got two guys that you've got to worry about deep. I was impressed by the offense in general. I mean, the second half was not what you want. And if they were elite, like, you're telling me that Tom Brady wouldn't have led one drive

in the second half of that ballgame or the pay. Patriots or someone, you know, they would have. But that was way, tell me anybody wasn't impressed by what happened offensively. You can't. I totally agree with you. And you're right. Of course, Tom Brady or somebody else would have taken one of those three drives before the final drive and made the team pay, you know, the other team pay for getting back into the game or, you know, understanding that they've got to do something with that drive. But that's not what this team is. It hasn't been that, and it's probably not that offensively, but still, you get out to a 17-0 lead, a 20-7 halftime lead. You score, you had 10 drives in the game, you scored on five of

them, and really, you know, the other five were penalties, drops, or, you know, the missed big one to McLaren. I came away very impressed with them offensively. I want to get to a couple of other things before, I know you've got to run here, but just give me your thoughts on Adrian Peterson, being inactive. It's a surprise to me. It's a surprise. And it was almost going to be a non-story there at the end of the first half. And I don't want to make a story because Darius guys rushed for 1.8 yards. Because we can talk about the run game and what happened and why he only got 1.8 yards for carry. I think that's something that you can absolutely discuss. But in my opinion, you either cut him, trade him, don't sign him. He's a day one,

of Famer. Walk in first ballot Hall of Famer. He's one of the hardest workers. He's one of the best dudes on the team. He's, look, he's a guy that you either activate or you can't be on this team. And you have to be transparent. And he's earned the respect from anybody in this league to tell him exactly where he stands and where he belongs. And so I think that's really frustrating. Now, on the flip side of it, I don't want to hear the players tell me. or tell someone that they're going to go talk to people or that they're mad about it. It's not their business. Their business is to find the best possible chemistry in that locker room and to move past things

as fast as they possibly can. And I think Adrian's handle it really well. What I was really interested in, not just the pregame lead-up, like why Jay had to say we're going to run it through Darius Geis on Monday. We didn't even really need to say that. No, we didn't. But afterwards, Jay saying, man, you know, it was the, decision we made and you know if there's a game where i think we can carry the ball 55 times in the

i formation is because darius can handle whatever that that's that that was almost weird well well who's that a shot like is that a shot at apie yeah i mean let let's play that that sound bite right now i think it'll be week to week you know i think uh you know we'll have to wait to see numbers wise really you know he's a first second down back you know So is Darius. So really, what do we have about 20 first towns a game? And probably eight of those are passes. 12 of those might be runs.

And Darius can handle those 12. So if we have a game where we think we can run the ball 55 times in a game in I formation, then sure I'll get them up. Yeah, I mean, that's Jay Gruden. You know, this is what I would read into it. I would read into it. First of all, we know that Adrian Peterson doesn't love to run out of the gun and is preferred more of a quarterback under.

center eye formation attack anyway. We also know that Jay, you know, based on some reporting, you know, apparently didn't want to move forward with Adrian last week. And probably if he had his way, at least according to the junkies report, would have released him last week. And he sort of made it a point there, I think saying, I think it's a shot maybe at Adrian and maybe at management saying, look, you know, we're trying to win a game. The game plan yesterday, by the way, was to throw the football. There was no balance to their attack first half or second half. They threw it 22 times, ran it 10 times in the first half, 45 to 13 for the game.

You know, a lot of that, obviously, the last drive really, you know, makes it look even more unbalanced. But, yeah, it's a bit of... I don't care if it's balanced, though, you know? I don't either. But I don't... like, here's where I care if you had balance. Do you have balance in first and ten situations or second and six situations? And I think they did. I think on those first two drives, they had balance in run situations.

That's all the balance that I want. Is there a believable aspect to run at any point in the game? It's all I really want to have. It's just an NFL or unless you're dominant running the ball, which they're not going to be this year. I just don't see that. Then you're going to throw the ball more. And who cares what balances?

Balances, can you deceive the defense, in my opinion? So I don't care about that. I just think it's really interesting and I just wish to some extent in these situations, whether it be right or wrong that Jay just say, I did what I thought was best for the team. I'll evaluate next week what I think is best for the team, period. Done. I don't need to know that anyone's going to run through guys.

I don't need to know why. I don't need to know how as a fan, as anybody else outside of the organization. If you're going to make that move, I think you tell Adrian Peterson early and you have a discussion with him and you move forward and no one needs to know anything else. I don't think anything else needs to be said.

I'm totally... And I don't think any players need to say anything. I don't think anyone needs to say anything, but I do think Adrian deserves their respect to know what's going on. And I don't know when he knew or if he knew, but I'm assuming they probably did tell him before game. Like he didn't go to Philly walking the locker room and not see pads. Because that happens to a lot of guys that are inactive.

They go in the locker and they're like, oh, I'll pass today. Okay, I'm betting on he knew before that moment. Do you think if he had been active and started that it would have made a difference? No. Me neither. Do I think it could have? Obviously, yes. it could have potentially, but do I think it would have?

I just don't. I don't. They didn't get enough carries in the second half to have any. No, I don't think it would. They wanted to throw the football yesterday. The other thing you said to, I just want to add to, the pregame reports that some veteran players were upset by this, honestly, you know, it's not their job, as you said, that's the coach's job.

It's not their job to worry about this stuff. And no offense, but we got a bunch of. veteran players that have never won anything. So they don't know if this is right or wrong. They can have their own opinion, but, you know, the Belichick saying, do your job. It's not their position to come up with the list of who's active and who's inactive. That's the stuff that drives me crazy in this organization is just the presumption, the presumption that they're going to be great on defense, the presumption that they're going

to be Hogs 2.0, the presumption that they know better than the coach on who's active and who's inactive with a bunch of dudes that have never won anything, you know, absent of Josh Norman and Vernon Davis, and they did it on other teams. Belichick sat his starting cornerback in a Super Bowl, all right? Jay Gruden has the right to do what he wants to do to give the team the best chance to win, and his players should never second-guess him publicly. Not that they did, but the pre-game reports were that some players were very upset by this.

that's their problem. Go do your job and try to beat the Eagles. It drives me nuts. And by the way, I respect what you said about treating Adrian Peterson the right way. My only sense of this is now the season started, it's too late. You've got to do what you need to do to win games. They should have handled that in the off season or they should have handled that last weekend with the final cuts. Yeah, I think you're 100% right on that. How did Geis do? As far as the running game goes, I don't think Geis was, I don't think there's anything wrong with Darius Guys.

I think it was fine. Where I think this is really interesting is when you start looking at what they did for Darius Geis, first of all, let's not forget that everything that went into this week in AP being inactive added pressure to guys in his debut as a running back. He's never played a game in the NFL. It added pressure. But they ran the first six or seven. plays, different run schemes, essentially, or different style run play.

Like they ran their pound draw on the first play. They ran a weak side zone play. Then they ran a trap play. Then they ran an RPO play where you have two pulling offensive linemen that they call a force play. Then they went to another trap play. Then they went to a full toss outside sweep play. Then an inside counter, which is like power.

And then it's like if you want to get to me personally, if you want to get your back going and really not just your back, your offensive line, getting a feel for what they're doing in the run game. You've got to be more simplistic, at least early in the run game. You've got to get your guys a feel. And I'm saying this, Kevin, as somebody that was part of a big-time zone scheme for my entire career, Gipps, and Mike Shanahan, and for the most part when Zorn was here was Joe Buegel, so it was zone as well, inside outside zone. And then you had compliment plays off of that.

But the other thing is when you start adding counter power, toss, and you're practicing all those plays all week. So how many looks at those runs as Derry is getting throughout the week anyway versus set up a zone run, set up and push to set up linebackers? I think it does make it hard on everybody involved. Now, I'm not saying that those plays aren't coached well. I'm not saying that those plays aren't schemed well. I'm not saying that we're unprepared as a staff to install those plays.

I just think it's a lot for an offensive line in the back in the first game. I tend to agree with you. I just don't know how you would evaluate Geish yesterday. I actually thought he looked pretty energetic early, and that's a team that's difficult to run on, has been difficult to run on, and they did the right thing by trying to be aggressive and throw the ball down the field against the weakness on that defense,

which is the secondary. By the way, as we're sitting here. Let me put it this way. I don't think he missed anything. He didn't make any big plays or anyone really truly missed, but he tried to get downhill when he had opportunities to get downhill. And outside of that, I thought he was good in protecting the passer on a couple situations. Like the first McLaurin touchdown pass, I thought he did a heck of a job stepping up.

And I thought he made some plays in the past game when he was asked to when he was the checkdown player. So I was fine with Darius guys. He didn't impact the game, but he didn't have that many opportunities to impact the game. I thought he was fine. Back to Adrian Peterson here because I'm just reading this for the first time. JP wrote a story this morning. Actually, I'm reading it on JP's Twitter feed. Morgan Moses was on with the junkies this morning and said the following.

Quote, anytime you've got a Hall of Fame guy that doesn't dress, it's a slap in the face, closed quote. Morgan Moses needs to shut the hell up and stop committing all those penalties and stop leading the league in penalties. This is what we were just talking about. And this, typical of this organization, somebody better squash this very quickly. Somebody, and I don't think it's Jay because this is not. his personality. Somebody needs to get that team together and say, you don't do your jobs,

you're going to be inactive on Sunday. I mean, who the hell is Morgan Moses to talk about a slap in the face to a Hall of Famer? Somebody's got to get this under control, Cooley, because you are right. I'm not saying that you treat him the way that they've treated him, but it's not the other players, it's not for the other players to weigh in publicly or have it affect their jobs.

Yeah, I'm not going to go after Moria Moses. I'm just going to say again in general, I think that this is something that we don't discuss as a group of players. You just go play. And also, I'm not going to chime in and say, you need to do this instead of do that. You've got to get holding under control before you say it. The thing is, the right thing to do for the group of players is just to not say anything. that's it everyone's going to ever we the holding thing's the holding thing it's a different

situation so sorry i hate that because when i was playing it was like you need to focus on playing versus do radio interviews or do this or you need to do well i think when you're when you're a lot easier to come from the position of strength and right now his position is not strength morgan moses after committing all the penalties he committed yesterday and last year i said the first i said the first run penalty the first penalty on morgan moses wasn't a hold I think it's old. I'm watching it again. He's got his hands outside.

He's pulling. It's hard. I mean, it's like my definition. Backtracking on the team being targeted. Yeah, I just, I wanted to clear up. I think he's got his hands outside. I'm just sitting here watching it right now as we speak. But by the way,

but I'm not, I'm not going to, like, look, my point is this. It doesn't benefit you as a player to say anything. It just doesn't. And it doesn't help your team. He says it's something we need to correct because he's a hell of a football player.

And then he told the junkies this morning that he intends to speak with the coaching staff about getting Peterson back on the field and that he would be very surprised if Peterson is inactive next week. I just, you know, in my organization, what happens in the building is going to stay in the building. That's just, that's the way

that's the way the best professional organizations do it. And I know that Morgan clearly feels very strongly about it. And, you know, a lot of people do because a lot of people really love Adrian. But you got to know your role in your organization. Is any of this, do you think, you know, anti-Gyce? No, no. I think that's a hard thing is I don't think any of this has to do with Darius.

I think everyone likes Darius. It's just AP is AP. He's Adrian Peterson. Yeah. And it's not this veteran that go back to the past forever, that Dan Snyder signed these veteran players. He's not that guy, man. He works his butt off. He is everything you want in a veteran player. Now, again, I don't know what's happening if he's having conversations with coaches. If he's telling, I don't know.

He was their best offensive player last year. He was their best player. Let me put it to you this. Let's do this for a second. If he's going in and saying, let's just hypothetically say, he's going in and say, man, if you can give me an eye formation and give me some weak side zones with a fullback in front of me, that's where I'm my best. I think that a player has every right to go in and say, this is what I think we'd be best at doing. We're playing teams when I was playing, and let's say you're blocking zone plays, and I've got a big guy outside of me where I can't get out and block him. I'd go into coach and say, hey, look, it's going to really help this offense

if I can go in motion and get outside on him head up versus have to step all the way out to get my butt kicked into the hole. Like it was within my right to go in and say, this is what I think is best because this is what I agree with that I don't have a problem with AP going into a coaching staff you may win you may lose and there was a lot of times that I didn't win and they said look granted we love that you want to do that but this is the way we're going to do it this week and then you say okay and to be honest Adrian had said okay at the end of the day he's done whatever they've asked him to do he hasn't I haven't seen him not run hard because he had to run through 25 times a game

I don't know. I would be surprised if somebody like Adrian Peterson wouldn't be listened to if he came in and said, look, I've got a couple of ideas. Take them for what they're worth. You know, if you throw in a couple of these plays, I think I'd be more effective, but, you know, I'm here to do what you want me to do, but I just want to throw out some ideas for you. I'd be surprised if they didn't listen. Do you want to do me a favor? And when you see Jay next time, tell them that at the end of a game, when he's got a timeout left and he's going to need a score and an onside kick and another score to not take that time out with him to the locker room because that was just beyond stupid. If they had recovered that onside kick, they had four seconds left. And he could have saved 15, 20 seconds by using that final timeout. When did they use, go through when we used all three of the timeout three of the second half.

Hold on, I've got the play by play. Because when I talked to you last night and you said, are you sure they didn't, have they had a timeout? No, I didn't say, I didn't say, sure. I said I wasn't paying attention to where the timeouts were called. All right. Here they are. You ready? And I know that they didn't have to use the last timeout. Here they are. With 3 34 left, Jordan Howard up the middle at the Redskins 10-yard line. The Redskins called a timeout after that play.

Then second and seven, Jordan Howard up the middle of Washington for five yards, but there was a penalty on Philly, which stopped the clock. Then went to Howard for six yards. Redskins used their second timeout. and that got the ball down to the Redskins 11-yard line. It was third and 11. They had just taken their second time out with 318 left when Wentz threw a ball to Sproles. He got pushed out of bounds. Clock stopped.

So that was the last time out on the play before that. They'd never used one offensively on that final drive. They spiked the ball. They killed it down with 42 seconds to go. The previous play ended at about 56, so there's about 14 seconds there. They had a pass to Thompson over the middle, and they didn't take their neck snap until there were 23 seconds left.

There was about a 19-second opportunity, or maybe like a 15-second opportunity there. For those that didn't hear me go off on the radio show, he had a timeout on the final drive offensively, and you may say, well, who cares? They weren't going to recover an on-side kick. Well, if they had recovered an on-side kick... I'm not going to say that.

I know you're not. if they had recovered an on-side kick, they would have had about three to four seconds to run one Hail Mary, by the way from, you know, beyond the 50-yard line, more likely than not, instead of potentially having 20 seconds to run a couple of plays. No, I'm with you. And I think that there's a moment where you're sitting there thinking to yourself,

I want to save this time out if we do get an onset kick, that I can throw a ball into the middle of the film, an opportunity to get up, call time out, and get maybe a couple more plays. But I think that moment is it about the 39-yard line with a minute 57 left as that starts to eclipse short to Trey Quinn, now you're to a minute 34. Now, incomplete to Thompson, minute 30. Then complete to Thompson on third and 12. After the fourth and 12 play, now that one out of bounds.

Yeah, right about a minute 30 is when you've got to call that time out because that's when you're going to save yourself the extra 20 seconds. even at 56 seconds left. Yeah, 56. Pass to Harmon for 10 yards, and they took the time to get the offense set so they could spike the ball. 14 seconds. I'm also going to say this.

I'm just utterly fascinated, and I don't know why this is so hard. I know it doesn't take a long time, Kevin, to call a play at the line of scrimmage for a quarterback in a two-minute drill. But when Chris Thompson gets a first down and goes out of bounds, why can't we call two plays in a row? Like, why can't we go trips right both times and call two plays in a row? Nobody does it, but I don't understand why we can't do it. Well, is it because...

You know why I don't understand that? Because I remember we used to do that in freaking high school. Yeah, it makes sense to me. You don't know what I mean? Like, hey, let's go two plays in a row here. Let's go dancer, and then we'll follow it up with America's Cup. We're going to go two jet on both of them. So we'll go trips ride, two gen, dance, or trips right, two jet, American.

Like, here we go, boom, boom, two plays. Well, hold on, hold on. And after the first boom, I'm coming back saying, what was that second play? What was the other one? No chance. But I bet some people in the huddle will be. Or some people that aren't. Here, let's simplify this for everybody but four players.

Because the back and all the offensive line is going to know we're going to run the same exact protection out of the same exact look. There we go. The quarterback is definitely not going to be confused. So we got four receivers, four of them. Can we get four guys on the same page for two plays? Anyways, I don't know. That's the thing. All right.

On to Dallas. Can I ask you one question? Yes. Completely aside of all of this, since I don't do any radio show and I'm not going to do this at all today. I just, you and I were talking last night, and you were play-by-playing the Cardinals game as I was driving home. And it was an amazing comeback that Kyler Murray led. It was absolutely amazing. I think it's fascinating the decision.

that a first time NFL coach has, never even coached in the NFL, fourth and seven, at the Detroit 46 in overtime, a minute and 10 left. Yeah. Do you play for a tie or do you play for a win? Because the second you punt, you say to yourself, best case scenario is a tie. Now, Matt Stafford threw a ball that should have been picked. I know. That would have been an amazing end to that game and into that story.

But essentially, you punt there, and you're saying, let's tie in the first ball game. Do you punt it? So we were watching that together. in the moment, I think, or maybe, no, you had already gotten home at that point. So, yeah, look, it's fourth and seven. If it's fourth and four or less, fourth and five or less, I'm probably going for the win there. But you also have to consider what's Detroit going to do when I punt it to you? Because they could, you know, with a minute left.

And by the way, at that point, the Cardinals had no timeouts left, which is why Coolly's saying there in overtime, when they decide to punt, they're basically saying, we're going to for the tie here. But Detroit might throw three straight in completions and be forced to punt. You know, you don't know how that's going to play out from their end. And yeah, they did throw a should have been picked off in field goal range, you know, play at the end there. But I don't want to lose in the opener after I just fought all the way back and it's fourth and seven. Oh, a tie's a win in that. Like a tie was a win for Arizona. Yeah. Fourth and seven is a less than 50-50 conversely.

version play. And if you don't convince it. That is one of the toughest decisions that a coach has to make in general in the NFL. No doubt. Make it in this first game. Very good point. Because you're basically choosing not to lose versus

to give yourself a chance to win. But it's probability in that point. Like fourth and four and it's better than 50-50 that I'm going to make it. I'm going for it. I'm going for the win. Fourth and seven or longer, what I'm doing there is I'm saying the probability is if I go for it, I'm going to lose the game. That's the probability. So you're now really,

you're going against the odds there. The odds aren't with you on fourth and seven or longer. Now, they were rolling offensively in context. I'm totally with you. But you're also saying to your team and your offense and your organization, I believe 100% in this quarterback. And I believe in guys like Larry Fitzgerald. We're going to get it. And we're going to go to, we're here to win a game.

We came back. It's like you're sitting in Vegas and you just, you got down to your last freaking chip. And all of a sudden, you're even. And you got one hand to play. Do you walk? Because you don't. I promise Kevin Sheehan doesn't walk. Let's go.

I was down to 25 bucks left. Now I'm back up to the grand I started with. It's a thousand or, or it's 2000 or zero. let's go one hand. Oh, trust of me. I lost that final hand many times and had to run the tolls on the way home in the New Jersey turnpike. We should both punt.

But by the way, did you see Cliff Kingsbury? By the way, again, just for those that are hearing this for the first time, the game's in overtime, there's a minute left in overtime. Arizona, in a 27-27 situation in overtime, has the ball at midfield facing fourth and seven with no timeouts. If they go for it, they've got a chance to win. the game, if they pun it, you're pretty much saying, we're going to settle for the tie. We're okay with the tie.

I just think that ultimately the fourth and seven makes me pun it, because I don't want to lose that game. Yeah, I'm with you. I think it's a tougher decision. By the way, when Detroit- I know that you should pun it. Trust me, I know that you should pun it. But it's also, they were making all of those plays.

They were down the stretch. True. Context is they had been rolling. And you're, you don't, you never leave a heater. You never leave a heater. You know what? My brother, my brother sent me this note. And my brother is, is very familiar with gambling.

I'll just leave it at that. But he said about Jay yesterday, he said the thing that just bothers him about Jay more than anything is he gets on a hot dice table and he doesn't press. Like, he doesn't know when to press. And I disagreed with them yesterday because I said, I didn't see him become less aggressive. I just didn't. That's not my takeaway from yesterday's game. That, you know, because they didn't score, you know, they didn't score in their first three drives of the second half, that it was somehow a different mindset.

They took this shot to McLaurin. And by the way, that's when the Eagles have taken the lead. All of a sudden, your 17-point lead is now a one-point deficit. And Cooley, I didn't tell you this last night, but I tweeted. but I tweeted during that commercial break, you've got to be aggressive and throw the ball right here. And that is exactly what he did. He came out on first down and he took a big shot and it was wide open.

And he would have looked so good had Keenham not overthrown McLaren. And it's a shame because Keenham, you know, he had the one ball that could have been picked in the first half. But for the most part, he was really good most of the day, inaccurate a couple times, but, you know, under pressure in some of those throws. But I don't. But yeah, you get on a hot dice table

and you're not pressing those numbers, you're missing out of an opportunity. If you win, you know, four or five hands in a row and you're not pressing that dealer in that table, you're missing out. We're going to go home even. We're going to go home even. You can't leave.

No, I'm with you. You have two opportunities to be aggressive as a coach goes that I think he could have taken. But the first one's the four. and one in the first half that ended up not having any impact on the game. And you're at your own 34, and to go forward on fourth and one is tough. I mean, do you... Well, I mean, the other coach did.

If your fillies and the quarterback sneak it and you're... Well, yeah, but Carson went behind Kelsey's a guaranteed yard every single time. It's like, you know it's coming. You can't stop it. I don't know if we have that. And the next one for Jay, and I'm probably going to punt this here too. And in hindsight, I'm still going to probably punt it. But contact is incredibly important. And as I was calling the game, I thought this.

You had a chance down 29-20 with 12-16 to go forward on a fourth and six. And trust me, I know the risk of this. Like you are, what, you're at your own 25-yard line? I think they're at their own 25. Right. But you're down two scores with 12 minutes. And Philly's controlled the entire second half. How many more possessions are you going to get?

because realistically at that moment you are only going to get two more possessions. It means you're going to have to score in your next two possession. And you're going to have to stop them. Fourth and six, 1216 left, own 25-yard line. You know, you get into that situation. If you really think the game is lost by punning it back, well, then you go for it. Because what's the downside? Them scoring sooner rather than later to take a 36 to 20.

lead. I mean, you know, that just gives you more time to come back from two, you know, you're still going to need two scores there with two-point conversions. But it's feel like it's where you think about it. A head coach probably is going to believe in his team and believe in his defense and believe in his players at any moment. But in the moment they punted, I said you lost the, I thought you just lost the game. Watching it from, from the way I had seen, the way Philly was moving the ball, the way their offensive line was moving our defensive line. They weren't getting lucky runs, lucky plays.

they had 124 yards rushing they didn't have the longest rush was 19 yards they were just eating up yards that will and they were converting on third downs and you weren't getting pressure that's the other thing like if you seen your D-line

getting pressure and said you know maybe because of some of this pressure we'd get a turnover we'd get a big player we get a sack but we weren't getting any of those things we were just making tackles to not get huge gashes in the run game six seven yards down field

I just think the context of this game may have said, look, I can lose the game now or I can lose the game later. What was really frustrating, and it's got to be the single biggest frustration point for Jay yesterday, not that he would have ever thought about going for fourth and six from his own 25 with 12, 15 left. And I, you know, you and I think that way and think more aggressively and think about those situations without the ramifications of missing and it being 36 to 20 on the next play. But when he punted it, which was another,

spectacular punt from from from from from from from way they had him in third and 15 on their own 17 yard line and he hit hurts for 16 yards against you know against dunbar and it's like on that drive they made a third and 15 then they made the third and one on that really short throw was i think that was an rpo to ertz then they made a third and seven to jeffrey then they made a number a third and one with went sneaking it it was just painful painful pain I don't know. Going back to what I thought was a really very important situation in play was the first drive of the second half. They are moving the ball. They're gashing the Redskins. Miles Sanders had that 19-yard run to the Redskin three-yard line. And on the play, DRC,

Rogers Cromartie got hurt. And when he got hurt, it gave the defense a breather. And I was like, when they came back out, Philadelphia, if you notice, the next two plays, were poorly run plays that were stopped, and it created third and goal from the five. And right before that third and goal play, I'm like that, and I made the note, I'm like, the DRC injury save them four points because they're going to kick a field goal here if they get a stop. Because the defense, if DRC doesn't get hurt and the defense doesn't grab a breath there, the Eagles probably score on the first and goal from the three. But they ended up getting stopped in first down, second down.

They've got the third and goal from the five, and Wents is like boxed in, and then he makes a really, he made some really good plays in the second half. He's a good player. Really good player. And he was off a little bit in the first half, and Rusty, and that may have been the reason that the defense looked better in the first half is it had more to do with Philadelphia's offense. To your point, which is a good one, and I didn't make it on the radio show this morning,

it's not like the defense was completely shutting the Eagles down in the first half. you had a fourth and two batted ball after a 12-play drive. You had the, so the Eagles went for it there. And the first three drives, they had a five-play drive, a 12-play drive, and then there was a three-and-out, and then they had their touchdown on a third and ten. Yeah, and the first drive was essentially stopped by a penalty that it could have been called on the Redskins just as much as it could have been called on. Yeah, the Jackson Dunbar thing, where Dunbar started it, but Jackson got caught.

Exactly. And that was the 15-yarder that, you know, based on what we ended up seeing the rest of the day, third and two probably would have been a make in Philadelphia would have continued to move the football. All right. All right. I mean, you know, in terms of the other things that happened around the league, Dallas really looks good, but, you know, they're only a five-point favorite here. And the public's going to be all over the Cowboys, which they already are.

I actually think I would give the Redskins a fighting chance now that I've seen them offensively. more than I felt going into the game yesterday. To me, the biggest takeaway is their pass offense is going to be completely different than it was a year ago. If they're healthy. If they're healthy. Yeah, I would agree with you. I would agree with you. They got a big one coming up, though. You can't go too down in the division. It's going to hurt them bad. All right. Thanks for doing this.

All right. I'll talk to you. Hey, buddy. Chris Cooley, everybody. Quick word about stamps.com. Stamps.com brings all of the amazing services of the U.S. post office right to your computer, whether you're a small office like ours, sending invoices or an online seller shipping out products, or even a warehouse sending thousands of packages a day. Stamps.com handles it all with ease. Here's how you use Stamps.com. You print U.S. postage right from your computer for any letter, any package, any class of mail, anywhere you want to send it.

Once your mail is ready, hand it to your mail carrier or drop it in a mailbox, it's that simple. So with Stamps.com, you save time, but you save money as well. Here's what's happening with our business here at the Kevin Sheehan Show, which we do have Stamps.com. We're saving five cents off every first class stamp and 40% off priority mail. It's a no-brainer, saves you time and money. 700,000 plus small businesses, including ours, is already using Stamps.com. Right now, my listeners get a special offer that includes a four-week trial plus free postage and a digital scale without any long-term commitment.

Just go to Stamps.com, click on the mic at the top of the homepage, type in Kevin D-C, that Stamps.com, enter K-E-V-I-N-D-C. All right, thanks to Cooley for doing that. And really, with Cooley, what I did is I went through pretty much my entire game take. You know, I didn't miss much in my game take. You know, I was impressed offensively with Terry McLorne, with their pass catchers. really with the offense as a whole. I was very impressed with it. To me, they lost that game yesterday

because of a defense that could not get off the field in the second half. When you put up 20 points on a team as good as Philadelphia in a half with nearly 300 yards of offense yourself in a half, you shouldn't be down to scores with 12 minutes to go or five minutes to go in the game. It shouldn't be that way, unless you're turning the ball over, which they didn't. You know, they had drops, they had penalties, but they also didn't have enough opportunities in the second half. They scored on four of their first six drives in the first half. They ended up scoring on five of the 10 drives they had in the entire game. The offense did its part yesterday. Could it have done more? Of course. Could it have committed fewer penalties? Yes. Could it have avoided dropping passes?

Yes. Could Keenham have thrown the ball to McLaurin when he was wide open for a touchdown? Of course. They did enough, though, in this game. Did enough in this game. The Eagles, over the final half, had the ball for 21 minutes, ran 43 plays to the Redskins 10 before that final drive, and rolled up 302 yards of offense and 25 points on 8 of 10 on third down. That is a defense is the reason you lost the game. You had a 17-point lead at one point, a 13-point halftime lead, and you got run over. By the way, a very good football team. Philadelphia is a good football team. They have very good receivers. Clearly, they have good receivers in Deshawn Jackson, who would appear to be totally back. He was uncheckable. There were coverage mix-ups

as well. Alshan Jeffrey's very good. Zach Ertz came alive in the second half, and their quarterbacks exceptional. And by the way, their running backs are pretty damn good too. And how about Darren Sproles at 75 years old? He's a threat still. So they're a good team. I'm not suggesting that, you know, they got run over by a bad team. But I was, I warned everybody during the summer. This, you know, overpromising and under-delivering is a franchise given. It's their. culture. Josh Norman, all-time great defense. Rob Ryan, top five defense to out in the NFL. Landing Collins. This is one of the best defenses I've been a part of. We're going to win not one Super Bowl, Super Bowls. And I can't wait to get to the Giants. You know,

week one overreaction, I'm going to try to avoid that. But it's so typical, man, of the NFL, isn't it, that once you think you've got something coming, like really good defense and bad offense, the opposite happens. The opposite happens. Anyway, the final sort of summary of the game is the first half was awesome. The second half sucked, period. And last, on Friday, I said I wouldn't overreact to week one, and I'm not, I am encouraged by what I saw offensively. And I'm not about to throw in the towel on the defense, on the defense with respect to its talent. I still think it's got talent. I do think Greg Minnowski, better be careful. If the defense doesn't perform here early in the season, even though they're playing good teams, Philadelphia,

Dallas this week, they put up 35 and a 400-yard Dak Prescott performance yesterday. Chicago in week three, the Patriots in week five, if they are getting out schemed in the eyes of management and even the head coach, if they aren't performing well, they already tried to replace some once. They'll try to do it again. Probably with somebody on the staff like Tom Sula or Rob Ryan. Good God. Rob Ryan is the defensive coordinator. But I would think that that would be a storyline moving forward. All right. In terms of the rest of the league, I'll get to that in a moment, but I did want to weigh in two other things real quickly. Actually, three other things real quickly. First of all, the Nats are out of it in the National League East. They lost the first three.

to the Braves. They won one yesterday. They're out of the division. There's no division race to be had here. The games, they needed to win three or four, and they lost three of four. They're nine back. They were ten back before yesterday. They're not going to win the division. And with, at this point, 20 games left, nine back, impossible to win the division, still, though, in very good shape for the wild card. Shurzer pitched well yesterday. That was encouraging. But they're three up on the Cubs for that first wildcard spot and four and a half up on Arizona. who's actually been playing well for that second wild card spot. The only thing I would just warn as it relates to the Nationals

is the Cubs and Diamondbacks have much easier schedules down the stretch here than the Nats have. The Nats have a brutal schedule the rest of the way. They play Minnesota, the American League Central Leader. Then they've got three with the Braves. Then they are at the NL Central Leader in St. Louis. Then they get the one break they have. Miami on the road for three before Philadelphia for five games. and Cleveland for five games. Cleveland fighting for a wild card spot in the American League.

They have a brutal schedule. So while their wild card lead right now with 20 games left is three games over the Cubs and four and a half over Arizona, the Cubs in Arizona have a much easier schedule than do the Nats the rest of the way. You know, the Nats after the incredible stretch that they had, after this weekend, they have now lost five of their last seven games. So, yeah, they played the Mets and the Braves, but they've lost five of seven. They really needed that one yesterday. And now they get, you know, a stretch of nine games against the twins, Braves, and Cardinals, three division leaders over the next nine games starting tomorrow night.

Second thing that I wanted to mention before we get to the around the NFL. and that is Maryland. How about the Terps on Saturday? I'm so happy for Mike Loxley. He comes on the radio show, by the way, every Friday. So listen to him. He's really a good dude. Aaron, you were there.

That was an unbelievable avalanche of offense in the second half, and even their defense against Syracuse's offense. They completely, completely embanked. embarrassed the number 21 team in the country. It was awesome to watch. I mean, you know, we had talked about it how the line was fishy, how Maryland could possible. No one expected that. No one expected them to come out and just, I mean, they made Syracuse look like Howard.

They made them look like Howard. Yeah. Maryland is averaging 71 points a game in the first two games. 71. They're the number four offense in the country in yards at 637 yards per game on average. I think what's really interesting, and this is something we talked about before the year. is they have had for a few years now some very high talented

skill position players on offense in particular. We know about Anthony McFarland. Javan Leak, let me just mention this. Hold on. We're my notes because I wrote this down. The Redskins, the Redskins, the Terps right now have a minimum of three pros, potentially two first round picks on offense. All right. Their receiver, Demis, number seven,

Dante Demas Jr., he is a future for round pick. He is 6364. He can run. He's the guy that Loxley told me before the season started. That's the guy you got to watch. He's a pro. Anthony McFarland's a pro. He may go after this year, and Javan Leak is a pro running back. I would not be shocked if two of those three players are future first round picks. By the way, they have Teon Fleet Davis who can also run, but what's making the difference for them. And Mabry, the tight end transfer from Buffalo, looks like a pro too. The big difference is the quarterback play that they're getting.

Josh Jackson was outstanding the other day. He was finding windows that Terps quarterback's quarterbacks haven't found since Scott McBrion. The RPO stuff in his reads, it's just got everybody off balance. It was 42 to 13 at halftime. Maryland had 400 yards of offense in the first half. against Syracuse, a team that was thought to be really strong defensively. It's two games, it's Howard, it's Syracuse. We may find out that Syracuse stinks, but Maryland is ranked.

They are in the polls for the first time in six years. The last time they were ranked was 2013. Maryland football is now in a position where they could potentially, with a win over Temple have the biggest home game they've had since the Frigian era. You know, there were a couple of those games late in this season. They had a game against Florida State one year, Wake Forest once to get into the ACC championship game. That won't feel anything like Maryland Penn State on Friday, September 27th if both of those teams are undefeated.

That would be the biggest football game in College Park in a long, long time. And the fact that it would be a Friday night game on national TV would really make it interesting. Temple's good. They go to Temple this week. Temple has been good in recent years. They've only played one game. They opened up with Bucknell. They had a buy this last week. The Terps are seven-point favorites at Temple. It won't be easy. Temple came in here and smoked them last year, but there's something about this Maryland team that, you know, I don't know if it's this year that they end up winning eight, nine games and competing for something. It certainly seems like it would be way too early for that to happen. That would be one of the most miraculous turnarounds in recent college football history

if they go from what they were last year to an eight or nine win team this year. You know, and some people have suggested to me on Twitter because there's tweeting during this game, oh, these are Durkan's players. These transfers aren't Durkins players. No. Okay. Have you seen some of the transfers? Oh, first of all, Tyler Mabry is an offensive, is a transfer.

Josh Jackson is not a Durkin player. Kandre Jones is not a Durkan's. player. All right, Shaq, they did this, by the way, without Shaq Smith and without Jones on offense, right? I'm pretty sure Jones got hurt and then Shaq Smith got hurt. Was Jack Smith hurt before the game or did he get hurt on that first drive? No, he got hurt.

He was, yeah, he got hurt before the game. Big win for the Terps. Congrats to them. That's a big win. All right. The last thing I want to get to before we go to around the NFL is the Antonio Brown thing from over the weekend. one of honestly the craziest, most bizarre, most self-indulgent sagas I think we have ever, ever seen in sports.

I want to recap this thing over the last month in particular, all right, just so everybody has a sense of just the lunacy. And by the way, really ultimately the drama, if not sitcom nature of what we've been watching. he arrived at training camp in a hot air balloon. That's how he arrived at training camp in a hot air balloon. By the way, all the while knowing that he couldn't participate in training camp because he had nearly frozen his feet off in a cryotherapy session in France. Then came the helmet issue. The helmet that he's been using isn't on the approved NFL helmet list anymore,

so he threatens to retire. Then he walks out of training camp. Remember that day he walked out of training camp and then the Raiders are like, you know, are you in or are you are you out? And Rosenhaus, he's shameful agent, made it totally minimize. It's not a big deal that he walked out. Not a big deal at all. And I remember saying on the podcast and the radio show, if I'm a father of a recruit who gets drafted in the NFL, that comment by that agent, I'm striking him off my list. I do not want, I want my son's agent to be totally supportive of my son.

I also want to make sure that he's not making excuses for him when my son makes a big mistake by going AWOL on his team. All right. Then things really got interesting last week. First of all, he's officially informed in writing by the team about the fines for missing all of the practices and the meetings. So he responds by posting the team's letter on social media with this rambling nonsensical, incoherent attempt at writing some sort of proverb. If you've read what he wrote over that fine letter and you can figure out what it means, please let me know. It was unintelligible or it was like intentionally secret cryptic something, but read it and tell me that you understand it.

Then came Thursday with him threatening the general manager Mike Mayock, screaming at him and screaming, find me, which by the way, way the team went ahead and did again. Then on Friday after we left here, Aaron, all right, he fake apologized to the team, remember? And then the team incredibly accepted the apology and said he was going to play against the Broncos tonight. Then Friday night, this wing nut puts up a video with his coach secretly recorded a telephone conversation with Brown, which, by the way, California is a two-consent state.

you have to get consent on recording a telephone conversation. They could actually press charges. Gruden could press charges against Antonio Brown. Then Saturday morning comes. And if you're following along with this thing, he Instagrams his desire to be released 24 hours after the fake apology to the team and the team accepts him back. And the Raiders then accommodate that request, release him,

and then a few hours after that he's got a new deal with the Patriots. My God, was that an entertaining 48 hours last week? It ranks up there, honestly, with some of the all-time, unstable, schizophrenic, simultaneously, outrageously selfish behaviors in the history of the league. I don't know if it was harmful to the league. I don't know if it was benign. Obviously, by the way, nobody's going to compare this idiot's behavior to, like, Ray Corrid. Ruth's or Ray Rice. Take that shit off the table. Or Aaron Hernandez. Anything without legal issues.

Exactly. All right. Those are different conversations completely. But what played out over the last month or so is the kind of thing that I think is really off-putting to many who love the league, in part because it did not end with some sort of commensurate punishment for the behavior. Instead, it ended up with him basically getting his way, getting out of Oakland, ending up with the gold standard team in the league, the Patriots. You know, even though he lost potentially, you know, $21 million, we've not seen the details of the contract yet. It does include a 2020 option for $20 million. Okay, but what we haven't seen, the reports on this contract are what that says. They are reports.

It doesn't get signed until today. and then you will see the actual contract and contract language. What we do know is that he lost by this entire charade and exercise, he's going to lose somewhere more likely than not this year between $21 and $30 million. Okay, somewhere in that neighborhood. By the way, don't let that get in the way of the perception that he won this. But most adult fans, I think don't like to see this.

behavior get at least from a perception standpoint, you know, rewarded. You know, the Patriot thing, by the way, we talked about this. It was somewhat predictable. We talked about the possibility on the show Friday that he could end up with the Patriots. I don't think it's good for the league that it ended this way. I don't. I bet there was some hope in the league offices in New York that no one would sign him. With that said, I'm not taking the Raiders completely off the hook.

You know, the Raiders got what they deserved in many ways. lot of people, you know, warned, you know, the Raiders that this guy, this is a guy that is, you know, egomaniacal, that he's deranged to a certain degree. And, you know, that deal that they signed him to started the wheels in motion on what turned out to be this incredible saga over the summer. The league's bulletproof. All right, we know that. All right. This is just going to turn out to be one of those side shows that, you know, has already sort of been backseated because the games have started to a certain degree. I personally wouldn't bet one way or the other, how it turns out in New England.

It's the one team that could potentially make this work. I think he needs meds. I think he needs psychiatric mental health care. I really do. And maybe the Patriots are the team that's going to find that for him. At the same time, you know, there is all this reporting post-haste that he consulted with a social media expert, Aaron, to help find a way to get out of Oakland. Now, I'm not, I know you are, or you were yesterday, because you and I were texting back and forth. I am not subscribing to this

theory that this was the part of the grandmaster plan from the beginning. I'm kind of halfway between. I do think, I think that the last few things, I think it was him trying to get out. The last few days, yes. Yes. Yeah, no, I don't mean from back in August. Okay, a lot of people think that this was somehow orchestrated, you know, that New England couldn't trade for him. The Raiders were the only one willing to give up, whatever. Pittsburgh wasn't willing to trade him to New England because New England reportedly offered Kevin Colbert a first round pick. That somehow all of this behavior was leading up to an eventual situation

where he knew he'd end up in New England. First of all, if New England tampered in this situation last week, I hope they get nailed to the cross for it. But I don't think this was part of a long-term grand plan for him. I just don't think it is. First of all, the grand plan turned out to cost him, you know, somewhere in the neighborhood at minimum, $21 million. Yeah. You know, in the short term anyway.

I guess for me, it's did it start with the posting the letter? Was that the beginning or was it just the slightly more reasons? I think that as soon as the posting the letter, that was him trying to get out. Oh, I think that's what we learned is that the consulting on the social media thing was led to him posting that nonsensical, incoherent message. on the fine letter. But then, you know, the video of the secretly recorded, here's the other thing about this. You know, John Gruden, you know,

going back to accepting the apology, laughing off the recording saying, that may have been, what's his face? Frank Calliando. Frank Calliando. To taking the major high road on Saturday, when he said about Antonio Brown after it was all over, and he had been released.

Brown's misunderstood. He's a great guy. He wishes him well. I'll be honest with you. I would not have faulted the Raiders if he had taken a different path in that situation and really tried to protect his team's interests.

I had Joel Corey, the former agent, CBS Sports contract cap expert on the radio show this morning. He said the Raiders could have done multiple things that would have kept him away from landing with any other team and kept him from getting paid. They could have put him on the reserve, non-reported Pupp list. I think personally, I think the Raiders could have pushed Roger Goodell to consider

a suspension for Brown for violating the personal conduct policy. I'm not sure why the Raiders took the high road here. You know, they get nothing out of it. When I say they got nothing out of it, he ends up with a, an AFC competitor for nothing, essentially, as we know. I mean, we'll see what the contract is. They didn't have to give up picks or trade for him. The Raiders were disrupted to the, you know,

the nth degree over the summer because of this guy's behavior. They paid him some money already. According to Corey, because he was on the roster last Tuesday, they may have to pay him for week one, which would be no way in hell. Would he ever get that money for me? There's no way. The options they had in lieu of cutting him

perhaps could have made it more painful for him and protected their interests against him landing with another team. I don't know. Personally, I thought it was really a dangerous ultimate precedent that he set. Now, he is a whack job, and he is also simultaneously great as a player. Not good. The best of the last eight to ten years, certainly top two or three. A massive impact, game-changing player. But I don't know. I hate to see ultimately him, you know,

rewarded's the wrong word. In the moment he got out of a situation he didn't want to be in, but it cost him a lot of money. He had 30 million guaranteed. He ain't getting 30 million guaranteed. He ain't getting 30 million guaranteed right now. He's going to be on a year-to-year situation. Now, he may get some signing bonus money from the Patriots. We'll find out when we see the contract. But I didn't, it was entertaining to watch. It was cringeworthy at times. It's also, you know, I don't think personally a great thing for the league, ultimately. And I think he needs help, serious help. I do not think that this was some sort of genius on his part. But how about the last video he put i don't even know what he's posted since i stopped paying attention to it once the game

started on sunday but that video of him talking to his reading the adam shepter tweet that the patriots had signed him and he's got his grandmother on the phone and he's running out in the yard celebrating my god what a whack you know whack job completely and apparently he's living in tom brady's house right now brady wants this there you go let's finish up the show with a little around the NFL the biggest blaze and the clutch moment it's time to go on Around the NFL. All right, let me just touch on a few of the games from yesterday. First of all, in the division, the Cowboys absolutely rolled past the Giants, 3517.

Dak Prescott was 25 to 32 for 405 yards and four touchdowns. Zeke Elliott looked like Zeke Elliott. 13 carries 53 yards a touchdown. Jason Witten was back, caught a touchdown pass. At wide receiver, if you didn't know where Randall Cobb was, he's in Dallas. four catches 69 yards. Michael Gallup, the guy that they started to really like last year, who was that deep threat, seven catches a buck 58, and Amari Cooper, six catches, 106 yards. Dallas in Philadelphia, on paper, are the classes of the division.

You can talk up the Redskins' defensive talent all you want or the Giants' running back situation all you want. Sequin Barclay's brilliant. He was over 100 yards yesterday. Dallas and Philadelphia, if they stay healthy, should be the cream of the division top by far. Impressive week one performance. Cowboys come here as five-point favorites. I can tell you already, I am almost positive. I will be on the Redskins plus the five in the smell test.

I did not give the Redskins out plus the 10 in the smell test on Friday, but I told you I liked them. And in fact, my final score prediction of 2217 was only 10 points off on each side. It was a five-point eagle win. And it was 32 to 27 instead of 22 to 17. How about the Ravens yesterday and what they did? I don't, I'd love to see it against somebody else other than Miami, but Lamar Jackson threw five touchdown passes.

He was 17 of 20. And then RG3 came in the game, went six for six and threw a touchdown pass. They were still throwing the ball up 52 to 10, by the way. Well, they ran a fake punt up 40 or whatever it was. Did they really? Oh, yeah, it was like 35-0 and they ran a fake pun at midfield. Wow. Wow. But that's first half because they had 42 at half time.

Yeah, no, it was still first half, but it was, I think, 35-0-0, and they ran it leading to that 42-second score. Wow. I did not know that. I didn't know that they faked a punt. Here it is, direct snap up 40. They were up 42 to 3. Okay. No, no, no, up 35-3. My fault. They were up 35 to 3, and they faked a punt with 256 to go. It's still first half. I don't have a problem with that. Yeah, no problem with it. It's just amazing.

that they were piling it on like that. Clinton Portis told me Thursday night when I was with him for the Channel 4 thing. He said Lamar Jackson's going to have a massive year. He's got him as his fantasy player. He thinks he could be an MVP candidate. And remember John Harbaugh said before the year, you're never going to see an offense like this, but we thought it meant Lamar Jackson running a bunch.

He didn't run a lot yesterday. What they do have, though, is they've got Mark Engram on their team now. And by the way, Hollywood Brown. And his debut four catches, 147 yards of two touchdowns. If it wasn't for Kyler's, comeback yesterday. He'd be the rookie story of the weekend. Yeah. And you know what? With that, I'll go to that because I watched the end of this game. The Kyler Murray comeback in his first game as the number one overall pick in the draft in Arizona

against the Lions was unbelievable. Kyler Murray through the first three quarters was horrible. The offense in Arizona, horrible. Murray after the third quarter went 15 of 19 for 154 yards. and two touchdowns as he rallied Arizona from a 24-6 deficit to a 24-24-tie-tie-tie- and overtime. Kingsbury said after the game, and even Murray said they were just awful offensively through the first three quarters. It all changed in the fourth quarter. There was a very difficult play for the Lions late in regulation, up 24 to 16. and Arizona being out of timeouts.

They ran a play that was a first down on a third and five. They would have been in position to run the clock out. But before the snap, Darryl Bevel, their assistant coach, was calling for a timeout. He's not even allowed to call for a timeout. It has to be the head coach. And they gave him the timeout before the snap. Stafford was really upset.

He kept saying, trust me, trust me, I know what I'm doing. and he had completed the pass for a first down, would have ended the game. Instead, next play, incomplete. They punted, had the punt blocked, Arizona scored, went for two, forced overtime. And then a really interesting situation, which Cooley and I talked about earlier in the show, is Arizona in a 27-27 overtime game with a minute to go. Fourth and seven, they decided to punt. Ultimately, they had a chance with a dropped pick interception in field goal range.

But that's a crazy game. too, and I have not read this, Aaron. Three hours and 58 minutes was the length of that football game. I don't know this to be a fact, but I would think it's up there among the longest regular season games in NFL history. See that in college all the time? Rarely in the pros. Last night, the Steelers performance was the most gutless of the day. I don't know what they were doing.

They looked completely out of it. Maybe it's no Antonio Brown. Maybe it's Antonio Brown going to the Patriots. But my God, were they awful? Nothing indicated, you know, soft and gutless more than the opening drive of the second half. They're down 20 to nothing at halftime. They drive it all the way down to the New England one-yard line. And on fourth and goal from the one, they kick a field goal.

Unbelievable. Kick to field goal on fourth and goal from the one down 20 to nothing. That doesn't even sound like Mike Tomlin or Ben Rothesberger. Does it? It's like the opposite of the Steelers last night. It was weird. What wasn't weird was that. We're the Patriots.

I mean, when you watch them, how is it that, you know, Edelman is wide open on that little slant, that delayed slant every single time? Or Burkhead, you know, runs, you know, and makes people miss and runs people over. It's unbelievable watching that team. It really is. And they've got deep threats like Josh Gordon and Philip Dorset had two touchdowns in the game. 33 to 3. The final score in that game. A couple of other notes, the Browns got absolutely crushed in the over.

opener. I actually bet Tennessee. Didn't give them out as a smell test pick, but liked them right before kickoff. And Derek Henry is really good. The Vikings won in their opener with the oddest box score of the day. They blew out the Falcons. They were up 28-0. At one point, they ended up winning 28 to 12. Kirk Cousins in the game, Aaron, he threw 10 passes. 8 for 10, 98 yards a touchdown, a 140.8 passer rating, a 76.3 QBR. Now, he had multiple throws that resulted in either PIs or defensive holdings that don't get counted as a pass attempt. And there were pass attempts that were called back because of offensive penalties. But what they did yesterday is they ran the football 38 times and threw it 10 and Dalvin Cook had over

hundred yards. And they didn't really have many snaps, period. 48 total plays. They had more snaps than that because they had a bunch of penalties. But they dominated Atlanta, start to finish, and one going away, 28 to 12 in that game. Rams beat the Panthers. Smeltest Pick falls there. I had the Panthers plus one and a half. And I had the Jags plus three and a half against Kansas City. And Nick Foles got hurt early in the game. And Gardner Minshu, the quarterback from Washington State. Rookie quarterback came in and completed his first 13 passes in that game and went 22 for 25. He was a guy coolly really liked in the draft when he was evaluating quarterbacks. And he came in and played really well. But good God, it was Patrick Mahomes good, good,

for over 300 yards in the first half alone. The Jags did just trade for Josh Dobbs to back up Minshue going forward. Oh, they did? Okay. So they're going to be without foals for a while. About half the season at least, it seems like. So there you go. They've, got their backup for for Gardner Minshue moving forward in Jacksonville. Other than that, I mean, the Bengals were close at Seattle, had chances there. I mean, Andy Dalton had, I think, the biggest day he's ever had is a pro 35 of 51, 418 yards. And my God, James Winston had the ball back down a touchdown and threw a terrible, terrible

interception. And he threw three of them on the day. I've been a James Winston fan. I don't know that it's ever going to happen. And it's too bad because he is talented. very talented. All right, last thing I'll leave you with is this. I mentioned on Friday to everybody that that 10-3 Green Bay game

and everybody's saying, you know, defense way ahead of offense and everybody's trying to sound so smart. And I said, no, that's really not what it's been in week one in the NFL. Team score yesterday, nine of the 13 NFL winners scored 30 or more. Two teams scored 40 plus and one team, the Ravens, scored 59. The average points for the winning team yesterday, 32.7. The average points in the game, 51.3 in the games yesterday. So next year, remember after that Thursday night opener, and it's 17, 12,

and all of the pundits start telling you how smart they are about defenses or way ahead of offenses this time of year, just say, well, wait a minute, it's actually not what's happened here the last several years. Lots of points scored on opening day yesterday. and the Redskins got the backdoor cover at the end. So good for them. Tomorrow, Tommy will be here. We'll get his thoughts on everything

and we'll work our way through the rest of the week towards Dallas on Sunday. Thanks to Cooley for joining us. Thanks to Aaron. Don't forget iTunes, rate us, review us, subscribe, doesn't cost you anything and tell people that the show is also available at the Kevin Sheehan Show.com.