The Kevin Sheehan Show - Redskins Free Agency Plan: Aggressive

Episode Date: February 26, 2020

Kevin had some Redskins news about their plans in free agency to start the show. He recapped Skins' VP of Player Personnel Kyle Smith's press conference from yesterday at the NFL Scouting Combine. The boys finished up with Duke's loss and the impact it could have on Maryland's NCAA Tournament seeding. <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. Aaron's here. I'm here. Maybe a guest during the show today. There's a lot to get to, including this coronavirus, which yesterday, the CDC director, Aaron, came out and said, quote, it's not so much a question of if this will happen anymore, but rather more a question of exactly when this will happen. happen and how many people in this country will have severe illness. We are asking the American public to work with us to prepare in the expectation that this could be bad, closed quote. That was from Dr. Nancy Messonet, Messonet, the director of Centers of Disease Control. I have, I don't know if I've mentioned this or not on the podcast. If I am mentioning it for a second time and being repetitive, I apologize. But next-door neighbors of ours both work for the CDC, husband and wife. They just moved up from Atlanta year, year and a half ago. That's where the CDC is based, but there's a CDC office up here as well. They moved up to D.C. He's an expert in malaria, spends a lot of time in Africa. And a week ago,

I think it was like right around a week ago, maybe a little bit longer than that. I was out walking the dog, ran into him, and I said, hey, what's the deal with this coronavirus? And he just looked at me and he said, have you gotten your flu shot yet? Like that's so much more important than the coronavirus. He's like, influenza is going to kill a lot more people than the coronavirus. You should get your flu shot, which, by the way, I don't get a flu shot. I've never gotten a flu shot. Do you get a flu shot?

Not generally. I have in the past, but not every year. I probably should begin, you know, getting a flu shot as I am starting to reach what I would call middle age. So the risks go a little bit higher. I've never had a flu shot before. But essentially he was saying, don't get worked up over the coronavirus. You know, influenza is much more dangerous. With that said, I'd like to have that conversation with him today.

Now that the death toll continues to climb and that there are now 60-some cases in the U.S. And the CDC director is essentially saying it could be bad. There's only a 3% roughly a 3% death rate with this. For sports fans, you heard the big news regarding that yesterday. The Olympics? Yeah. What would they do in Japan and Tokyo? Well, so Dick Pound, IOC senior member, said that if this isn't under control by May,

there's a very real chance that the Olympics would get canceled. Canceled or just postponed? He said canceled. I mean, think about the money that is spent to... That's the thing. I can't imagine it happening because... Well, why wouldn't you just push it to next summer? I mean, I guess hypothetically you could push it.

Right. But yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think we're going to see, you know, the markets certainly have felt the sting of the news coming out of the CDC yesterday, although markets reacting favorably today after a massive sell-off the last two days. Let's stick with non-sports here for a second and talk real quickly about the Democratic debate last night. You didn't watch it, did you? No. That surprises me. I thought you watched last week, right?

I honestly, I don't watch. I'll flip around if it's really interesting. Yesterday's didn't seem all that interesting to me, so I just, I was watching college basketball all night. Well, okay. Then we won't talk about it because I watched it. I watched last week. I forget how much of it we talked about on the podcast.

It was just a train wreck last night. I mean, I thought it was embarrassing. I think the biggest issue with the Dems right now is you just don't have a star. You know, Obama was a star. star. Obama was a communicator. Obama inspired. Bill Clinton was a communicator. He was a salesman. He inspired. There's nobody up on that stage. It has three percent of what either one of those two people had. And the problem with that, Aaron, as we go a little bit political here, is if you don't have somebody that can sell, you know, democratic policies, you know, especially on the fiscal side,

they're not overwhelmingly, you know, sort of majority backed their, their policy. And and ideas. So you've got to have a terrific communicator and salesman and star. You know, somebody that comes off is extraordinarily bright and with it. I'm watching for the second straight week. Nobody's quick-witted. Nobody's quick to the punch. Everybody struggles up there communicating. Communicating. I don't, I guess, you know, Bernie's to the point. I'll give him that. Like, he's consistent and he's to the point. I mean, I don't look. agree with anything that he agrees with necessarily. But I sort of understand why he at least inspires some. You know, he's probably the best of the, in terms of communicating. Actually, I think Amy Klobuchar

can communicate a little bit, but she's not going to get the nomination. Oh, my God, Bloomberg. He's trying to tell jokes last night. Rehearsed jokes that he then struggled to deliver. I did see his slip up on talking about all the Congress people. He bought, I mean, Oh, my God. Anyway, enough on that. Let's talk about some sports. The Caps barely won last night. They had a 3-0 lead, blew it, and then needed a shootout to win.

You know what is interesting about the Capitals right now is that, you know, that division is the best division in hockey, the Metropolitan. And as they've been sort of floundering around, you know, playing basically 500 hockey here over the last month, month and a half, the whole divisions gain significant ground. Nobody more so than Philadelphia, who they've been rolling. The Flyers won again last night. They are now in third place, a point behind Pittsburgh, five points behind the caps. The caps needed those two points last night. And then you've got the Islanders sitting there with 77 points, so they're only seven back of the caps.

The blue jackets, they're only eight back. Carolina's 10 back. I mean, you still have 20 games left in this season. they're going to make the playoffs. I'm not trying to alarm people about their playoff potential. They're going to make the playoffs. But man, it is the next to last place team in the division. The Rangers have 72 points and have won four games in a row.

And in some divisions would be in the top five in their division. They'd be in the top four of the Atlantic tied for fourth, you know, very much in playoff contention. But I don't know. I watched the late third period overtime shootout, flipping back and forth with that in the debate and some of the college hoops last night. Did you see the pregame ceremony for OV's 700? I missed that. That was really, really good.

I heard it was very good. Yeah. I heard it was really, really good. And then Ovi had his son in his arms. Like they would show it. They showed it on the TV and then had a box on him and his son. And just that was really cool. Yeah.

Yeah, I did see the video of that with him and his son in particular. There was some news very early this morning. 1.41 a.m. came the press release or the Twitter release from the NFL Players Association announcing that the NFLPA Board of Player Representatives had voted to send the proposed collective bargaining agreement to the full player membership for a vote. All right. So if you're keeping track here, the NFL approved their version of the CBA. sent to the Players Association. The Players Association has two steps. One is getting two-thirds approval from their player rep group. So there are 32 player reps. They needed two-thirds vote

among the player reps. They got that at 141 a.m. this morning. And now it gets sent to all of the players. Well, they didn't get two-thirds, but they decided to send it on anyways. What do you mean? I thought it required two-thirds. It doesn't require. Apparently, it doesn't require. That's what we were told last week, but then we were told, even if they voted down, they might send it to the players anyways. It was a 17-14 vote. Well, that's not two-thirds. Right. So they sent it on anyways. How does that work? Last week that we were told that the NFL PA has a process where two-thirds of the reps have to approve it before it gets sent to the players. Apparently, there was an agreement to send it on it, because there was a talk, because remember

last week it sounded like they were going to vote for it just outright no, and there was talk even then that they would just send it on to the players. Well, so, yeah, so I have no idea what this exact board is for. I didn't know that. So now that you said that, I'm pulling up it actually an updated story from the story that I read this morning that has what you just described, which is the 1714 vote. And it says that, you know, it's simple majority of the players must accept the agreement for it to go into effect. So it's still simple majority.

so they need just over 50% for that to happen. Again, and I've said this so many times, I don't understand what player or who from the NFLPA would be against this and for what reasons. Do you understand what is in this proposal? I read through all of it. I think the simple thing is they want, it's still the lowest percentage for the players

amongst the four major sports leagues, so I think they just want 50. Yeah, but all of this right now hinges on the quid pro quo, all right, for the 17th game, for the 17 game schedule. What are the players getting back? Here's what they're getting back from the NFL. They are getting an increase in overall revenue share, okay, from 48% to 48.5%. Keep in mind, too, with the 17th game, overall revenue is going to go up significantly. So even if their revenue share percentage stated,

48. They'd still be making a lot more money, but not only are they making more money because of the 17th game, they're also getting a bigger piece of the additional revenue that comes in with the new TV deals based on a 17 game schedule, and we believe an expanded playoff format. But the players are getting so much from this that to me really speaks to a lot of their concerns. First of all, the money alone, to me, if I were a player, I would say, I'm all for it. It's one extra game. Are you kidding me? Here's a study that I would have liked to have seen done by somebody. Take the Patriots as an example. Somebody should have done a study because the Patriots have played essentially more than 16 games for 20 years now, you know, for the most part,

because they've been in the playoffs every year and they play sometimes 17, 18, 19 games during the course of the year. And tell us how much it increased, you know, injuries by playing those extra games. You know, you can take one team that's been consistently playing more than 16 games over a long period of time, and you can tell us exactly what the difference between that team that's played 17 plus every year. And the team, you know, then you could take like the Redskins on the other end, who basically play 16 a year, and that's it. And you could compare. the two and say, well, what is the likelihood of significant increase in injury? My sense of it is it wouldn't be that great. But beyond that, for one extra game, they are getting all of the new

revenue that comes with the new TV deals, a higher percentage of the additional revenue. They are getting upgraded pensions for former players. They're going to get a shortened preseason from four games to three games. They're going to get more roster spots. The rosters are going to expand from 53 to 55 players, with 48 players being able to dress for games rather than the current 46. I don't know why they don't dress all 53 now or all 55 in the future. That one has never made sense to me. Actually, I heard it because I saw that going back and forth. I actually saw a pretty good argument. Is it revenue related? No, it's not revenue. It's strictly that, well, then if you have a team that has a ton of injuries, they're put in a massive disadvantage if one team is

playing with 55 and another is playing with 48. Okay, but they're not going to play all 55. No, but just having the 55, it does make it, that's at least, I can understand that from a just practical standpoint. It makes sense. Well, here's the, here's the thing. Both teams are going to end up with 46 or now 48, because you'd go out and sign players that week that you'd activate if you, no one's ever not dressed 46. Well, so if you have 55 total, And you go out there and one team has 55 and the other one has, you know, during the course of the week, three that might be out. You know, I guess what you're saying is that that additional non-active keeps the players eligible on the roster. Yes, you don't have to go out and sign three others.

Okay, that makes a little more sense, actually. Practice squads are going to go from 10 players to 12 and eventually to 14, according to this proposed new CBA. training camp padded practices are going to be reduced from 28 now to 16, okay, nearly cut in half, the training camp padded practices. Plus, there's going to be a required five-day acclimation period preceding the padded practices. So training camp's going to start with five easy days before you get to the padded days. Plus, during training camp, the previous CBE, they were allowed to take five days off.

Now they're eight days off in the new agreement. There will not be an extra buy week in the regular season. However, the three-week pre-season will end two weeks before the regular season starts. So in essence, when the pre-season's over, they've got another two full weeks to rest up for the regular season. You know, these are the kinds of things like to me, it's a lot in exchange for playing one more game. why the players would have an issue with this is a tough sell for me. It's one extra game. When you add up the preseason game reduction, the 12 fewer padded practices, the additional roster spots, the additional active players, the extra days off during training camp, the extra week during preseason before the regular season, you add up all that. I think they basically will hit less with a 17 game schedule than they may have with a 16 game.

It seems to me the biggest no-brainer of all times. Here's the simple reason why, at least largely, I think they're against it. NHL gets a 50-50, NHLPA gets a 50-50 split. NBA players guaranteed 49 up to 51%. MLB, we don't know for whatever reason. I don't know why, but it's between 48 and 52. So even with a 40A raised to 48%, the NFL still has the lowest percentage split amongst major sports.

And you know what I would say to that is you are participating in, a league that does $8.1 billion a year in revenue. And the others have a higher split because the revenue is significantly less. So I would much rather have a slightly smaller piece of a much bigger pie than a bigger piece of a much smaller pie. But they think they should get a bigger piece of a bigger pie. I would look at hard dollars and say you are, you know, and again, the big difference between the NFL and, I mean, you know what's interesting.

is there's nothing in there about guaranteed deals. Right, right. And the NFL, that's a non-starter. Exactly, because it's a non-bar with them. I also read where... Another reason why they want more money now. Yeah. But again, it's still ultimately the opportunity to be a bigger piece. Now it's fewer players, too. I mean, it's more players, too, compared to fewer players in the early. So another reason why they think they should get more.

Yeah. The other thing that I did read is part of why they had a delay in moving this to the overall full membership vote was because they were trying to continue to negotiate. And the NFL basically said there's no more negotiation. We're done. This is your offer. And get it through. If not, we'll see you next year, you know, next March essentially. They took that seven, that week 17 cap we had mentioned the, they took that away.

So it'll just be. Yeah, the week 17 cap, they did take away. And they apparently committed to a cap on. a number of international games. They're going to keep it very similar to what it is now so that teams aren't making, you know, other than perhaps Jacksonville or others that they commit to it, you know, a guaranteed international trip. Well, there's been buzz that they might use that 17, you know, that extra game is like every

team plays internationally once. Doesn't look like it's going to happen. I actually am very surprised based on the way the scheduling would work with a, you know, a same week one start date calendar. wise, which would be the weekend following Labor Day, that they didn't add an extra buy week in the regular season. That would give them, you know, with 17 games, that would give them a 19 week regular season. That's another television weekend of football. Not to mention it actually works better in trying to get the Super Bowl to President's Day weekend. So I don't know why they

decided on no extra buy week. To me, it seems like more money to have the extra buy. Sure. TVs, you know the TV deals would love that. Yeah, nobody, nobody cares about the teams that are on their second buy week. They just care. TV just cares that there are, you know, 12 games being played. Yeah, now we get 18 weeks of TV instead of, or I guess. Well, now we're going to get 18 instead of 17, but we could, you know, with an extra

buy week, you would have gotten 19 instead of 17. Anyway, so that's that. I've got some Redskins information. All right, I'll just call it information. Sort of came about it late last night. bit early this morning. It deals with free agency, and I'll just lay it out for you. The Redskins are planning on being very aggressive in free agency. They have space. Right now, roughly $61 million, if you take their top 51 contracts, could be more, depending on what happens with guys like

Trent Williams, in particular, and Brandon Sheriff, could be a little bit less, too, depending on what happens with a guy like Brandon Sheriff in particular, and even Eric Flowers. But they've got significant cap space. And the bottom line is that organizationally, and when I say organizationally, Ron Rivera and Dan Snyder in particular, they think they can create a quick turnaround, one-year turnaround in 2020. You know, they can go from 3 and 13 to contending. You know, contending for what? Well, contending for the playoffs. You know, I think one of the reasons, you know, we heard Ron Rivera in his introductory press conference say that he doesn't really do five year plans. He's not looking at a five-year plan towards contending. Dan Snyder hired Rivera, in part,

because Ron Rivera said he likes the roster and thinks a quick turnaround is possible. So Ron Rivera took this job in part because he really liked the roster. He would have had other opportunities. We learned that from Mike Silver, if you recall. In the interview that I did with him on radio, Mike Silver essentially saying Ron Rivera had choices. He chose the Redskins in part because he really thinks the roster is attractive. Snyder really liked Rivera in part because Rivera said he really likes the roster and thinks he can turn it around quickly. And so because they believe that they are close, as he puts air quotes around it,

and because they have significant salary cap room, they're going to be a, and they have some very obvious needs. They're going to be aggressive in free agency. And there are three names that I have heard that they will target if these three people are available in free agency. It's very possible that all three could be franchised tagged or re-signed by their own team. But if these three make it to free agency, the Redskins have these three names on a list of potential free. agent targets. Austin Hooper's number one, the tight end from Atlanta. A lot of us have had the conversation about Hooper, the need for a tight end, the fact that Norv Turner, Scott Turner, the Turner

offensive system relies on a tight end, that they need a better tight end situation. And Austin Hooper is going to get top end of the market money. Now, the Falcons could franchise them, although they gave indication yesterday that they may not. If Hooper becomes a free agent, the Redskins will be a suitor. The Redskins will be one of the teams that aggressively go after Austin Hooper. Doesn't mean that he'll sign here, you know? I mean, we've seen in years past that the Redskins aren't necessarily a great destination for anybody. And part of, you know, an offensive player, skill position player, what they're going to look at is they're going to look at who's the quarterback, you know, so are they going to be confident in Haskins?

Are they going to be confident in Scott Turner, you know, as the offensive coordinator? So there's a lot. That. It's a two-way. street. But the Redskins will, if Austin Hooper makes it to free agency, be interested in Austin Hooper. They will also be interested in Kenyon Drake, the running back that was with the Dolphins that got traded to the Arizona Cardinals mid-season and tore it up with the Cardinals. He played eight games with the Cardinals, had three games of over 100 yards per game, averaged nearly six yards per carry. Also caught, you know, on average of about four balls per game. Kenyon Drake is actually an Alabama guy, as we know. We know what the Redskins, you know, think about Alabama guys.

26 years old, right, coming off his rookie deal, you know, was picked in the third round of the 2016 draft by the Dolphins. Personally, I would be very surprised that the Cardinals don't make a significant push to keep him. either using the tag or resigning him because he and Murray together were pretty good. He had a two-game stretch in December where he went 22 carries 137 yards, four touchdowns against Cleveland in a win. And then the following week at Seattle, 24 carries, 166 yards and two touchdowns. That's not a bad two-week stretch. 26 carries, 303 yards, and six touchdowns, 6.5 yards per carry.

Kenyon Drake can do it all. Now you say, you might say, why are running back? Well, because Geis has been injury prone, because Love had two surgeries, because Adrian Peterson probably will play his final season this year, and they're looking towards the future, and they're looking for an impact guy now. Kenyon Drake will be a guy they will target if he makes it to free agency. And the last name is a big one, Amari Cooper. If Amari Cooper makes it to free agency, the Redskins will pursue him.

Now, we talked about it Monday, maybe, or Friday, I forget. Because I said that I was thinking about the wide receiver position, and I said on this podcast, I'd be surprised if the Redskins aren't in the market for a veteran wide receiver that can start. I'm not talking about a veteran that ends up being sort of a wrong. role player. I'm talking about a veteran that can start opposite Terry McLaren. They've got great young receivers in McLaren and Harmon and Stephen Sims Jr. And it looks promising. But if you think you are close, we use that word a lot in the last couple of years. But remember, this is a different coaching staff, a different front office, the number two pick overall, a lot of salary cap space. They

can make a big difference. They can change their roster significantly or upgrade their roster significantly if they choose to go that route. I think they should be in the market for a veteran wide receiver that can start. I wasn't thinking about Amari Cooper, to be honest with you, but I have heard that the Redskins, if he makes it to free agency, would be he would be a target. Now, again, it doesn't mean that these guys are going to end up here. They have to make it to free agency, which is a big if with all three of them.

All three of them can be tagged. all three of them could be resigned by their current teams. And then if they hit free agency, there's going to be a lot of competition for all three of these guys. And maybe much better situations for all three of these guys. The overall message here is that I have heard and learned that they really think they can turn this thing around quickly. And with all of the salary cap space available to them and a fairly attractive free agent market, they're going to go after some players. They're going to try to create some opportunities offensively for Dwayne

at the skill position players, at the skill position spots. They feel like they've got some pretty good talent defensively. They've got a chance to take a guy like Chase Young. There are other people that they will be targeting along the offensive line in a corner, I'm sure. But anyway, you know, for any of you that thought, and I thought that this was a possibility that they were going to dip their toes,

they were going to build, by the way, all three of these players, keep in mind, are young, too. It's not like they're older players. They're young players. They're staying young if they were to sign one of these players or two of these players or, you know, whatever. They're not signing aging, you know,

aging stars past their prime for big money like they did in the first 10 years of Dan Snyder's ownership. I just think that they're not looking at 2020 as, hey, Dwayne's going to make progress. We're going to add a couple of pieces here in the offseason. We're going to develop our young players. We're going to put our system into place. We think we can get a lot better, you know, seven and nine, eight and eight, maybe, you know, if we're lucky nine and seven and contend for that seventh playoff spot in the NFC, you know.

But really, we've got more of a long-term vision on all of this. I don't think so. I think their vision is we can do something starting now. You know, you can have both, right? You can be building for the long term. If you're adding players that help you win now, but those players are young, you're also building for the future simultaneously.

So they think, and this is part of why Ron Rivera is here, why he wanted to come here, why he chose here, why Dan Snyder accepted him here, because they both look at what they have and they think there's a quick turnaround. You know, that's very possible in 2020. And, man, you've got to think that Snyder goes home and says, all right, you know, now we've got a real coaching staff. Man, Bruce really screwed up with the coaches, with Jay and the defensive coordinators.

We got Ron Rivera. We got Jack Del Rio. We got a real staff. We've got Jonathan Allen entering his fourth season, Duran Payne entering his third season, Matt Ionitis is a comer, Montes Sweat coming into his second year. Ryan Anderson really came out, you know, last year and played well for the first time. We got Landon Collins. He's a star.

We got to add a corner or two. We could add Chase Young to this thing in the same way the 49ers added Nick Bosa. You know, we have a chance. We got a legit chance to turn this thing around in our hurry. But we do have to get Dwayne some weapons. We love Terry. We like Kelvin as sort of a number two. Stephen Sims, you know, slot guy with Trey Quinn. You know, Sims Jr. could be a star.

We got to fix the offensive line. We got to get Dwayne, you know, rolling and make sure he's the right guy. But we could be 10 and 6 next year. We could be the big turner. We could be the 49ers next year. So anyway, that is what I learned. Take it for what it's worth. I don't do this a lot.

When I have done it in the past, more times than not, I've been right. That's not slapping myself on the back. It's just factual. But I have it on decent sort of sourcing that they really are thinking about next year being competitive and being a team that could be one of those big turnaround teams next year. and they've got the ability with the cap space and with the number two pick and some of the existing talent. If it's coached up right, they really think they're in position to do that. You know, I'm not sitting here going to, I'm not going to debate the possibility. I'm not going to say it's

definitely not possible. I think as I look at their roster right now and it's up in front of me, I see a team that defensively, we think, is talented, but ended up being one of the worst defenses in the NFL last year. So you have to be careful on Allen and pain and ionitis and sweat and Holcomb and Carrigan and Bostic and Collins. You know, we've got to be a little bit careful when we think, oh, with coaching, it's going to make this massive jump. With coaching with Chase Young, it's going to go from the worst defense on third down in the last eight years or seven years. to a defense that can win games and dominate. I'm sure there's some thought we could be the 49ers next year on defense if we had Chase Young to this mix.

But remember what it was last year. The coaching was a big part of it. It was a big part of it. I sat here last August and said, the talent looks good. They should be improved, but let's not forget they tried to replace their defensive coordinator and run successful in doing it.

So that's an awkward situation with a guy that's not really a good defensive coordinator to begin with, and oh, by the way, they tried to replace him at the end of 2018. Offensively, man, that offensive line right now, who knows? I think they want to sign Trent Williams. I think they want Brandon Sheriff back, you know, and that would obviously solve a lot of your upfront issues, but what if you don't get Trent Williams re-signed? What if you decide to move on from them and trade them? Then what about Eric Flowers?

What about Brandon Sheriff? And yeah, yeah, you do need more weapons. I mean, it was encouraging McLaren and Harmon and Stephen Sims, Jr. They're second-year players. You could use a true starter that's a veteran, you know, that has more, I'm not talking about an old guy, you know, if Cooper is a target for them, I don't think they'll get Cooper, but bringing Cooper in and putting them opposite Terry McLaurin, you know, you just basically are going Ohio State Alabama the rest of the way.

I don't know what they could do next year. It's the NFL. It changes so dramatically. Well-coached, functioning front office, a little bit of talent, some breaks. We've all seen it before. We've seen quick turnarounds. Quick word about stamps.com. With stamps.com, you can do anything you do at the post office right from your computer.

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You never have to go to the post office again. All right. Kyle Smith addressed the media yesterday in Indianapolis at the scouting combine. Today it's going to be Ron Rivera, so we'll be able to talk about Rivera tomorrow. But I watched it. I didn't watch it live. I watched it after the fact. Kyle Smith's impressive. He's smart.

Everybody that I know that knows Kyle Smith always said he's the keeper. He's the guy in the group that is the keeper. His title, if you recall, was elevated to vice president of player personnel. My feeling at the time was that they weren't going to hire somebody higher than him. If you think about the org chart right now for the Redskins, the organizational chart, It's Snyder, then a line down is Rivera. And then off of Rivera, you basically have three senior VPs. You have Kyle Smith, who is the vice president of player personnel.

He's not a senior VP. He's got a VP title. You have Doug Williams, who is the senior vice president of player development. And you have Rob Rogers, who's essentially the Eric Schaefer equivalent. He's the vice president, senior vice president. I forget which title he has of administration. Okay, so those are the three branches off of, you know, Ron Rivera. And then off of Kyle Smith, you've got the scouts and Alex Santos and Tim Gribble in the scouting group. And off of Rob Rogers, you have other people that are handling, you know, contracts, etc.

And with Doug Williams, I don't know who's in Doug Williams' department, but Doug's sort of got this, you know, senior VP of player development role, very much sort of a, you know, a mentor, hopefully to a lot of the part. players. And then obviously after that, below that is Rivera's whole coaching staff, right? So that's sort of the way it works. There's nobody in between Rivera and those three VPs, senior VPs, you know, and there's been talk that maybe they would bring in somebody who would have a team president GM role. You know, Rick Smith, you know, was a guy that met with Snyder before they even hired Rivera. You know, the names of Marty Herney, of Morocco Brown, other names. You know,

have been mentioned in connection with the GM. My feeling at the time when Kyle Smith was elevated to VP of player personnel, and my feeling now is that that's not the way they'll go, that I think eventually what will happen is Kyle Smith will become the general manager, will get general manager into his title, which he doesn't have now. Most NFL teams have somebody higher than the player personnel, director or VP that does have a GM title. For years, Kevin Colbert and Pittsburgh did not have a general manager next to his title. And yet he was the number one football decision maker on

the personnel side. He has that title now. And I think that's what Kyle Smith is heading towards. I could be wrong. But that's my guess is that Kyle Smith will eventually become maybe after this next draft or prior to the 2021 season, you know, sort of vice. president of player personnel, you know, comma general manager, or, you know, general manager, comma, VP of player personnel, or whatever. You know, that's, but he is the de facto GM right now. I don't think there's any doubt that that's really who he is. In fact, if you look, you know, at a list of the NFL front offices, after Dan Snyder, Kyle Smith is the second name mentioned. I haven't checked it on their website, to be honest with you. I probably should.

I'm actually interested because their website sometimes gives you an indication of who they are. Front Office. All right, Snyder's one, and then the ownership group of Robert Rothman, Dwight Schar, Fred Smith. And then Doug Williams and Rob Rogers are listed. And then you get further down as Kyle Smith, right? But I don't think this is listed. This would not be the true organizational chart. They're just listing it by listing these things by category.

So it's not really well done on their website. Well done for the purposes of what I was trying to learn. Kyle Smith is the de facto GM right now. It doesn't have the title, but there's nobody above him that has the title either. So anyway, he spoke yesterday. You know, in previous years at this Indy Combine, you know, you've had like Bruce Allen holding sort of a, you know, a quickly put together. together, you know, grab with a couple of local media people, and that's been it. He hasn't been

at a podium answering questions, and the coaches haven't done that either. I mean, I think they've done it a couple times, but not recently. This year, you're getting Kyle Smith at the podium, addressing media, and then today you're going to get Ron Rivera. So I wanted to play some of what Kyle Smith said yesterday. And I wanted to start with just him explaining sort of the structure and the process as it relates to, you know, the draft. You know, it's different under Ron Rivera, or maybe we assume it's different, but maybe it's not that much different. Here's his explanation. It's been pretty similar, to be honest with you, as far as the draft process, you know, I've said the college scouts came in on the 31st, and we met till the 13th. That meeting is the

same as last year. I run those meetings as far as setting the board. We get together, we sign value. The things that have changed is kind of the grading chart. We're transitioning to more of a color-coded system, keeping numeric value on the college side, but so that we're all speaking the same language. Coach Rivera now will take a step in. Once that board was set, we'll give him all of the players that we want him to evaluate as long as the coaching staff. And then in April, we'll all get together as a coaching staff and a personnel staff and make the decision. Coach and I will sit down at the end of the day when it comes to free agents that we're signing, guys that we're going to draft, and we'll make that decision together.

So, you know, basic, look, Kyle Smith's had a pretty good system. going here the last couple of years until the very end. They've had a good system. They've put together the draft board. And then unfortunately, you know, the owner and the team president stepped in and said, ah, we like your draft board, but we like ours better. You know, so I think he is hopeful that he's able to put together this draft board. He's going to color-cote it this year, I guess, instead of whatever, Rivera's given him the autonomy to do the draft process the way he's done it before. Then they're going to involve the coaches. And then he and Ron are going to say, it down together. And what we hope as fans is that when they come up with their draft board this

year, that you don't have the owner come in on draft day and say, hey, there's this guy that used to play at Bullis. My son knew him. We're taking him. You know, you can't have that anymore. And I think it won't happen that way anymore. I don't think we're going to see that anymore. I can't imagine that Ron Rivera, you know, in this coach-centric, you know, a concept, is going to let Dan Snyder come in with his own board and say, no, I got a different idea. I don't see that happening. But he's talking about essentially putting together the draft board in the same way that he's put together the draft board in recent years. And let's not forget that, you know, I think it's way too early to say that they've had brilliant drafts,

you know, but there's some promise with the recent drafts. You know, in fact, really the drafts that you don't have much promise with are the drafts under Scott McLuhan, the Josh Doxon Sue a Craven's draft was terrible. They got ionitis out of it. They used Kendall Fuller as a chip. But Doxon and Cravens, my God, that was terrible. Since McLuhan left, you know, Alan, Anderson, Moreau, Sprinkle, Rue is your starting center. That came out of the 2017 draft. Sprinkles's in that draft. Nicholson's in that draft. He can play some problems. 18. Pain can play. Geis can definitely play. just about his health. And that may have been a mistake.

Dionne Hamilton can play, settle can play. And then last year, sweat came on late. Haskins is your quarterback, McLaurin. You know, McLaurin may be in terms of the round he was picked. You know, the best value picked the Redskins have had in years. Could turn out that way. We've only seen one year of Terry McLorn, but it looks good. So Rivera obviously came in and felt good about what Kyle Smith had done,

and he's letting him do the same thing again. and they'll get the coaches involved and Rivera involved and they'll figure this thing out. The next spite I'm going to play is Kyle Smith talking about free agency more and who will have final say in free agency. It's a collaborative deal. It really is. It's between coach and I.

I know coach talked about it in his opening press conference. It truly will be a collaborative effort. I wish I had something to tell you that as far as the draft process, we're going to set the board and we're going to be sitting there and then coach is going to come in and grab whatever board and we not know what we're going to do and say this is who we're taking, or vice versa, me doing that. It's not that way.

We're going to have the meetings, let the process unfold. We believe in our process. We're going to talk through everything, coaches, value, all those things. We'll set the board together in there in April. There is a preliminary board as far as the draft right now and free agency. But once the coaches come in in April, we will sit in there and literally go through each scenario and set it together. So everybody's on the same page and everybody's working together.

Okay, so, you know, there's more of sort of a collaboration now. And remember, you got the head coach involved in this collaboration. What was the biggest complaint from Jay Gruden at the end of the 2018 season? You know, the coaching staff and the personnel people need to be sort of connected, need to be more on the same page. And that was an issue of obviously leadership, you know, with the team president, not figuring out how to make that happen. That's why they ended up, you know, signing a guy like Josh Norman who didn't fit the defensive scheme. That's why they traded for Alex Smith, who really probably wasn't the best fit for Jay Gruden's system. So there's more sort of collaboration here. This is what Kyle Smith said about things now compared to what they were. He was essentially asked, are things running better now? I love the way things are running. I mean, it's very smooth. Like I said, our relationship and working relationship has been out.

outstanding. You know, he's really taking a step back as far as the draft was concerned and just said, listen, do your thing with setting the board. Run your meetings, how you've been doing it. Do the changes that you wanted to make as far as the grading and the color coded system that I mentioned. Do all that thing and do your thing there. Once the coaches come in and we have that, the coaches evaluate, then he and I will then sit down and figure out, okay, what direction are we going to go? What do you think the color codes are? Like, what would be your color, for your players that are A players. Let's just say that the colors equate to A players, B players, C players, D players, and then F and below.

Would blue be your A? Yeah, I was trying, like I was thinking green kind of, you know, like the go. Like go? Yeah. So maybe like some players are green, some players are yellow and some players are red. Yeah. Cool we used to have this thing, you know, basically blue chips, red chips, white chips. Yeah.

You know, I don't know. wouldn't surprise me if Blue is an A player. Wouldn't shock me. But we don't have to spend a lot more time on that. Fortunately, he was asked about this number two overall pick and the potential of perhaps dealing it in trading back. This is what he said. Talking about trade.

Yeah, well, trade scenarios, we'll talk through all that stuff. I mean, that's part of, you know, those three, four, five days leading up to the draft. We'll go through every scenario. Obviously, we're the second pick in the draft. We're the first of 32 teams that has three potential hours. moving up, going back, or taking a pick, taking the guy that we want. But we will go through every scenario of, you know, how far back would we go if that scenario came or what if this guy or this team called? What do they have available?

So we'll go through all those scenarios so that draft night, when those opportunities come, we'll be ready to roll. Yeah. And, you know, one of the things that we, as fans, I think, should want is for them to evaluate everybody that could be taken number two overall, whether you're in attention is to take them or not, you need to understand what a team trading up to number two wants, what that player is really worth. You need to understand that value. You know, plus, you may find, you know what, Joe Burrow, Tua, they're actually better than the guy we have. I think the Redskins will do a lot of evaluating of the top, you know, 10, 15 guys on this

board. I'm talking about medicals and interviews and sit downs and the whole thing. Um, you You wanted to say something? I just found it interesting. Obviously, he was just saying this because it's true, but pointing out that they're the first team that can also trade up is interesting. Yep, they are the first team that can trade up. Yep, they could. They could trade up.

And if they trade it up, it would probably be for Joe Burrow, ladies and gentlemen. At least that's the way it looks now. Who knows? Maybe Cincinnati says, uh-uh, we can't pass on Chase Young. And the Redskins are like, oh, my God, Chase Young is much higher evaluated on our board than Joe Burrow or Tua or Okuda or any of the other. Isaiah Simmons, any of them. We want to trade up to get Chase Young.

Who knows what's going to happen between now and that? Speaking of Chase Young, this was Kyle Smith yesterday on Chase Young. Yeah, with Chase, you know, I've done the school call on all these guys. Obviously, as a college director, I've been on the road most of the year. So I made school calls on a lot of these guys, him included. I've seen him live. I've seen him in person, watch his tape, talk to the coaches, all the deal. I've done the whole background stuff and I've heard great things about him.

They talk highly of him there. But he is obviously one of a lot of players that are, it's a good draft now. I mean, there's a lot of really good players and that'll be in consideration. What's being taught about him with a cross time? I think everything. You know, I mean, he's got measurables. He's got production. It plays hard.

You know, so those are all good qualities to have as a pass rush. Chase Young. The Chase Young's being measured this week. He's doing medicals and he's doing interviews. He's not doing anything else at the Combine this week in Indianapolis. All right. The next soundbite I wanted to play sort of circles back to the conversation that I was having about, you know, the general manager title. This is what he said about wanting to be a GM.

Well, yeah, you know, GM's always been, I mean, if you're a scout and you get into this league as a scout, your ultimate goal is to become a GM. It's no different than a coach who's an OC or a quality control. Your quality control coach, your goal is to become a head coach. That is the ultimate goal, but right now I've got a tremendous responsibility and opportunity in my role as it is now, and I plan on attacking that. As I mentioned with my dad, he taught me a long time ago when I was young. He said put a chip on your shoulder and let that thing grow and don't let anybody knock it out.

You've got to work like that. you've got to attack everything that you do. As a player, that's how I was, and as an intern, that's how I was, college director, area scout, and I plan on attacking this role as well. And if that opportunity comes as a GM, then it comes. If it does and it doesn't, it doesn't. You know what I mean? I'm not worried about that right now.

Yeah, because really, for all intents and purposes right now, you are the GM. You know, or at least at the very worst, you're a co-GM with Ron Rivera. His father, obviously, A.J. Smith, the longtime general manager in the NFL with, you know, more often than not the Chargers. where he and, you know, very famously, he and Marty Schottenheimer, didn't really get along very well to strong personalities. All right. What about Dwayne Haskins?

Here's what he said about the quarterback. Yeah, no, I'm really excited about Dwayne. And obviously, as everybody has seen, he kind of ascended as the season went on. Or he played in, what, six games, I think it was. And he kept improving. And I just had a conversation with him the other day. I'm excited, man. He's smiling, walking around the building.

He's excited. He's energized. All she needs his time. I mean, he's a young kid, man. I mean, you know, he played one year at Ohio State, and he came here, and he's played six games for us, and he's got the right stuff. He's a good kid.

He works hard. We're all excited about Duane. We've heard a lot about his kind of workout. He's going to stay in the building, that's off-season, that sort of thing. So what did he make in his workout? Yeah, no, like I said, I'm excited about Duane. He's ready to go.

Right now, obviously, at this point, there's not a ton, you know, there are rules and regulations as far as how much, you know, coaches can't even give him a playbook, you know, and all that kind of stuff. But he's ready to do everything that he possibly can. He's getting ready. The other days telling me he's bringing the guys down to Florida to throw with him and do the things that he can do. He's doing all the extra stuff that we expect of him, and he's got a bright future, man.

I loved all that about Dwayne Haskins from Kyle Smith. And I loved all of that because going back to early in the year, you know, I hated publicly some of the negative comments or the negative implications about Dwayne Haskins. I thought it was stupid. You took a guy 15 overall publicly. It should have always been positive. I mean, really, how much negative could there have been in just a few months? And yet we had leaks coming out of the building. We had coaches saying that he wasn't anywhere near ready.

even Bill Callahan when he first got the interim coaching position said even Dwayne knows that he's got a long way to go, that he's not ready probably to play this year. It'll be more likely next year. Why say that when other young quarterbacks are playing and starting, including one in his own division, you know, in Daniel Jones. I just, I hated that. You know, I think that the public reveal on a young player that's picked in the first round at that position should be positive. You know, behind closed doors, you're making them earn it. Okay, behind closed doors, if he's not doing what you say, what you're telling him to do, you should be all over him. You know, you should be coaching him. But publicly, man, I thought just the whole nature of all this stuff that was coming out last fall, early in the fall. It was just ridiculous. It started on draft night.

You know, it started on draft night with the reports, and this is what happens when you're in a dysfunctional organization. And the owner and the team presidents say, you know what? Football people, we don't agree with you. This is what we're going to do. You know, and then we get all the reporting about how the football people were at odds with the owner, that the owner made the pick. And now he's coming into that situation. And then you got a head coach who really didn't want him. And yet you brought back the head coach. And then all the leaking starts.

And then the head coach is telling you he's nowhere near. ready. And then the interim head coach is telling you he's nowhere near ready. You know, it was just too much negative for me with a young person, you know, publicly. Hopefully that changes. You know, maybe, you know, Doug had some comments the other day, but I think that they, you know, they weren't negative and they could have been really interpreted in many different ways. And Ron Rivera's talked about leadership and, you know, Joe Gibbs did not give him a ringing endorsement on the radio show with me a couple of weeks back. But Joe Gibbs also is a in the organization.

But I would much rather hear about this particular player, unless you're ready to move on from them. But by the way, even then, you should be even more positive to make sure that if you're going to try to move them, teams think you're really high on them. Like there's no upside to being negative publicly about a player in his position. Young, you know, I think he's tough.

I think he is a guy you don't rattle much. but in this day and age with social media and how influential and how sensitive people are to it it was unnecessary so I really loved Kyle Smith being positive publicly

building them up publicly you know making sure that there wasn't anything you could have come out of that Kyle Smith discussion about Dwayne Haskins thinking anything other than okay you know the number

three guy in the organization here is really positive in saying nice things about him. If they don't feel that way behind closed doors, they'll deal with that. But they shouldn't be letting, just from a pure devaluing standpoint, you don't want public negativity towards him. I hated that early in the season, especially with a guy that I was watching that I was like, this guy can compete. This guy's got some talent. You know, and the organization was effing it up big time.

Well, they got a new organization now, and hopefully things will be handled differently. So that was Kyle Smith yesterday. There were some other stuff in there. But overall, I thought he was pretty impressive. As everybody who knows him has always said he is. So there you go. Tomorrow, obviously, and Tommy will be on the show tomorrow, we'll have what Ron Rivera says today. If I were there today, I would want to ask Ron Rivera, you know, publicly, because it's a public setting.

I would like to know what their plans are at quarterback because right now they only have one under contract that you know can play next year. Alex Smith more likely than not won't play next year. So, you know, and Rivera should say, well, we've got Dwayne under contract and Dwayne's doing well and he should be positive. But yes, there's the, you know, the distinct possibility we're going to be. looking to add a quarterback. You cannot go into the NFL season with one quarterback, and that is a possibility. Now, maybe we'll have two with Alex, but even if we have two with Alex, we'll need a third for training camp. Like, he can answer it that way. But I would like to see how he answers the question about, you know, a quarterback. That is a position where they have one guy right now that

you know can play next year, and that's it. Can't go into a season with one guy that can play at the most important position. All right. Listen to me on radio 7 to 10 a.m. Weekdays on the Team 980, the Team 980 app, also the Team 980.com. 980 a.m. in D.C., also 95.9 FM in D.C. Having a good time doing radio again. Now, we've got a couple of more things to touch on.

Number one is I'm going to the Wizards game tonight. Why you ask, Aaron? Well, because the Windon Nation guys are going, and they got good seats, and they called me up, and they said, do you want to go? And I said to Harley, I said, yeah, yeah, let's go. Let's have some dinner. I did tell him, look, I might be bolting early in the second half

to get back for the Maryland game, which starts at nine. It's a late start tonight. Maryland is a one-point underdog tonight at Minnesota. Not good. You playing it? I've played against Maryland. I played against the Redskins. I've played against my favorite teams.

It may be a happiness hedge play, yeah. I might go happiness hedge tonight and play Minnesota laying the one and root for the Terps. Root to lose money. That's why we call it the happiness hedge. Either result ends up perfect. You're trying to buy a win. Yeah, what you don't want is you don't want Minnesota at that point to win by a point. That's why you just play the money line.

Yeah, you push on the bet. And yeah, that's why you play this one on the money line. But my God, the public actions all over, ninth ranked Maryland at Minnesota, who's a 500 team overall in Minnesota's favorite. You know, Daniel Latouro can really play. They're decent. Nobody in the Big Ten really stinks. Seriously, nobody is just butt-awful. Even Northwestern. You know, they've been capable and they've been close at times. And Minnesota's probably looking at this game as their last gasp to get back into tournament contention. 100%. You know, so with, they're 13 and 13 overall. They're seven and nine in league play. You know, so they've got four league games. left. And Maryland is the biggest one they've got left. They got Wisconsin, Indiana, and Nebraska after that. So this is pretty much a must win for them to stay in tournament contention,

which may be the reason they're a one-point favorite. It certainly contributes to it. But for Maryland, it's a huge game for us, particularly after Duke lost. If they win this game, because since Michigan State beat Iowa last night, it puts them in a position where they virtually win the Big Ten if they win the next two games. Yeah. And then, you know, they're already ahead of Duke after Duke lost there. All of a sudden, all those things we talked about. Duke in terms of bracket seed.

Madison Square Garden. Yes. Greensboro, you know, being a two-seed or a one-seed, you know, everything opened up for them. San Diego State was down last night. I came back and won that game. You know, and they remain on the one line right now for a lot of bracketologists, you know, because Maryland didn't beat Ohio State. They won't be a one-suit.

Yeah, Maryland, you mentioned Duke. They lost for the second time in a week to an unranked ACC team. You know, they lost on the road against Danny Manning and Wake Forest. Actually, Randolph Childress's son, if you remember the great Randolph Childress from one of the great tournament runs, ACC tournament runs. His son, Brandon, is a player at Wake Forest, and he came up really big at the end of that game. I think he was 0 for 10 to start and then finished like 6 for 20.

So, you know, so he went 6 for 10 in his final 10 field goal attempts. and really played well down the stretch. And, I mean, Duke gave up 113 points. It's double overtime. I understand that. They were up eight with like a minute and a half to go in that game. Right. And blew the lead. Shishvsky's, the 113 is the most points ever scored against a coach K team.

It's not shocking. Yeah. I think 113 would be the most points scored against a lot of teams. Probably true. But to your point, what it opens up for Maryland now is, Go win the Big Ten, all right. Duke's not going to be an ACC champion now, more likely than not. Did you know this?

Did I read this correctly that they have not won the ACC regular season championship since they split it with Maryland in 2010? I didn't know that. I know it's been a while because Virginia went on a run. North Carolina had a few. Yeah. Who else? Just Virginia and Carolina for 10 years?

No, I think. Did Louisville win a regular season? I think Florida State might have won one, maybe. Wow. I'd like to see, I'm going to look it up real quickly, because list of, yeah, here we go. Yeah, here we go. So from 2010 was Duke in Maryland, North Carolina, Miami? Yeah. Oh, that's right. Yeah. That's that good Miami team. Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, and then last year, Virginia and North Carolina shared the regular season. That's a pretty amazing thing. I mean, let that sink in. Now they've won a national. championship, you know, between 2010. How many national championships have they won over that span? Is it just one or two?

Yeah, just 2010 in that span. Just 2010. So still, it's a, they won the national championship in 2010. They have not won a regular season ACC title since. Even though I would bet they've been either a one or a two seat a couple of times. They've definitely been a one or two seed. They won a couple. They won in last year they won in 2017, the conference.

tournament, but not regular season. Okay, so the significance of Duke losing twice there is that Duke was sort of earmarked. The NCAA tournament would love to have Duke in New York for the regionals at Madison Square Garden. Now Maryland becomes more of a likelihood for New York, which would be huge for them to play, you know, you got to get through the first weekend. I understand that, okay? I'm not putting them into the Sweet 16. They're a lock to make the Sweet 16. But if they were to make the Sweet 16 and you put them in New York as a one or a two seed, that's going to be a big advantage for them over the other regionals, which are Indy, Houston, and L.A. First of all, you have a lot of Maryland alum in the New York metropolitan area.

But more importantly, it's a three and a half hour train ride, okay? And a four and a half hour drive, depending on when you leave. I've made it to the GW Bridge. This is true. leaving very early in the morning. I've made it to the GW Bridge in two hours and 45 minutes. Wow. Okay. I thought you were going to say two hours. No. And two hours and 45 minutes before.

So the point is, is New York would be really good for Maryland. There would be thousands, okay, of Maryland fans in Madison Square Garden for a sweet 16 game and hopefully in Elite 8 game as well. When they played in New York in the past, whether it was at MSG or in Brooklyn, You know, they've always had a huge Maryland contingent of fans. And beyond the simple New York, because there are some randomness factors that go into that just based on who goes where. And there's a lot of weird things that could happen. But I'd say that if Duke had won out, if Duke had won the regular season and won the conference tournament,

they probably, whether you think they deserved it or not, would have gotten that one seed. Now I think it's Dayton, Florida State, Maryland for that final one seed. What about Florida State? As a date in Florida State and Maryland. Oh, you said what about Louisville? I get Florida State just beat them, right? Yeah, I mean, Louisville is, I think, pretty far off. And Duke, yes, could come back.

If they went out from here, it's possible. But I think it's those three teams have the inside track right now for that final spot. Yeah, that's probably right. Because, you know, and then if all of those teams, including Maryland, if they lose multiple games, then San Diego State's back in the picture. Right. But I'm potentially as a one-lost team. I just think that all those teams are going to get enough quality.

Aud 1 wins down the stretch that San Diego State is going to get knocked out. Yeah, that makes sense. So we're talking about the number one seeds being Kansas, Baylor, Gonzaga, and then a group of San Diego State, Florida State, Dayton, I mean, and Maryland. Yeah. Yeah, because no other Big Ten champion is going to have a chance at a number one. Only Maryland at this point. I guess if Penn State ran the table from...

No, they've had multiple losses here recently. Yeah, but they're scheduled down the street. They'll play Michigan. That would be Michigan State if they beat Maryland in the tournament. If they be, you know, there would be a slight chance there. Who's going to be the Big East champion? Seton Hall or Villanova? Probably Villanova, maybe.

One of the two, either Villanova or Seton Hall. Villanova's overall record, because they've actually been playing really well recently, right? Yeah, they've won four games in a row. And they've got St. John's Providence, Seton Hall, and George. Yeah, they can't get there. And Seton Hall can't get there either. Although, I'll tell you what, they're really, they're good. Seton Hall's really good with a player that absolutely could carry them to a national championship.

They're one of those teams that they could go out early, but you could see Miles Powell just carry them to the title. Same with Marcus Howard and Marquette. Yeah, more so Miles Powell. Marcus Howard's more of a, I mean, he's a phenomenal, Miles Powell is a, Powell is a creator. and tough and a grinder and he's going to get you buckets when you need him. Seton Hall is... Seaton Hall is a better team. Seton Hall right now, are they projected two or three seed?

Three. Okay. They could easily move up to a two. Yes. With a big run here. All right. What else did I have? That's it, you know?

George Mason, do you know, they were only down two against Dayton with like a minute to go last night? I was staring at that line. I didn't end up playing it, but it was only 12. I thought that. What do you mean only 12? I thought it was too high. Not that I would have played Dayton because it was too high. I looked at it to see, can I get Mason tonight plus seven plus eight at home?

Seven would have been a push. People were on Dayton. Yeah. But Mason played them really tough. They actually were, you know, I think it was like a two-point game with like a minute and a half to go or something like that. They had a legitimate chance late in that game. It was 57-55 with a minute 18 left in the game. So they were really close.

Obie Topin is really good for Dayton. Dayton's really good and well-coached, and they're going to be really, they're going to be a threat in this tournament. They're 26 and 2, 15 and 0. They have not lost in the A-10, which, you know, the A-10, there are a couple of teams that are okay. You know, Richmond's decent, Rhode Island. You know, Maryland saw them early, and Maryland had a tough game with them before pulling away late. They won by 18, as it turned out. And there's another good team in that league. St. Bonaventure is decent. this year in that league. But Dayton's the class. That's it. We're done for the day. Enjoy the day back tomorrow with Tommy.