The Kevin Sheehan Show - Redskins: Trade #2 Or Not?

Episode Date: January 29, 2020

Kevin opened with Peter King's comment that the Redskins could get a huge haul for the #2 pick in the NFL Draft. Kevin made the case for/case against trading the pick. He talked about "TNT's Inside the NBA" show last night where there were moving comments from Shaq and Jerry West and dramatic details from Rick Fox on what Sunday was like for him. Kevin and Aaron finished up with Coach K going off last night, the Wizards, and something to consider when thinking about the Skins' 2021 schedule. <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 am here. It's going to be a show today with just a lot of different things because there's not really an obvious topic of sorts today. Although, you know, there are what I would call when we used to do this in plan for the show, because we don't plan for it as much as we used to, to be honest. because now with the radio thing, the radio sort of sets the table because I've got a much better idea of what's going on on any given day. But we used to sort of plan the day before

and I'd sketch some things out. Today's one of those days where I would say you have a lot of B topics, not an A topic. And the Super Bowl should be in A topic this week. But man, the Kobe death has really sort of kept that in the background a little bit, but I think here is the final day's As we get closer to Super Bowl Sunday, we will ramp up the Super Bowl talk.

I will mention this. So for those of you that have also listened to the radio show for years, you know that I've always done. Tommy and I did it, and then Kooley and I did it. We did Super Bowl Week a Super Bowl trivia contest where we would put together a list of questions that were hard, extremely hard, and then diabolically hard. And if somebody could run the table with three correct answers in a row, we would give away a prize. And Aaron, for many years, Tommy and I would offer up $500 in cash to the winner.

And that is not something the station would back. It was backed by us. We were the insurance payout, premium payout guys. if somebody hit on hitting three questions in a row. And I don't know, for like the first five or six years, nobody won. People got very close. And part of the fun of doing it is Tommy would be like, you know, having a heart attack in the process because he didn't want to come up with 250 bucks

and that made it more fun. And then finally somebody won it. Well, I started Super Bowl trivia up again on radio. You have to do it on radio because you've got to, you know, accept calls. We didn't do any Super Bowl trivia last year in the podcast, right? No. So yesterday nobody won anything. And today, the very lot last caller at 9.54 a.m.

And it had to be a quick segment because we were up against as Aaron knows what we call in the trade a hard out because you get the next show coming up at 10. And so I got to be out by 1056. You know, that's essentially at 105550. I got to be out so that we can clear all the spots and have the next show start on time. So, you know, we got this last caller. His name was Fred. He called in and basically had two, two and a half minutes to get through this thing.

I didn't think he would win it. I thought I had a very difficult third question and a very difficult second question. But basically it started with a Super Bowl entry-level question, or what I call hard and then second level, extremely hard, and the third level is sort of wickedly hard. The first question was name the Redskins three Super Bowl MVP's. I really, that's an easy one, especially if you're a Redskin fan, and he got that one right, John Riggins, Doug Williams, and Mark Rippin.

Then we went on to the second question, which I had already asked of previous callers, but I was sort of hoping that maybe he could get to the third level for a chance for one of these callers today to get to the last level question because the first several callers did And the question was, and I'll give this to you, Aaron, let's see if you can get it. You ready? Who was the last quarterback to play FCS-level football and start in the Super Bowl prior to this week, Jimmy Garoppolo starting as a graduate, as a player at Eastern Illinois University? The last player to play at the FCS level.

Any player? Last quarterback. I'm sorry, last quarterback to play at the FCS level and start in a Super Bowl. Didn't have to be the winning Super Bowl quarterback. Had to start at quarterback. Was Flacco FCS? There you go. So that was the second question.

Now, this guy had the advantage of being prepared for it because he had heard me ask it earlier. And by the way, I had given out a hint, and the hint was he's been one of my favorite players. Favorite quarterbacks? That's a good hint right there. Over the last 10 years. And then we got to the last question, which, you know, I try on the very last question. to create questions that are going to be hard for them to look up and answer within 20 seconds. Of course.

You know, in this one, unless he was listening to the podcast yesterday and listening to us talk about Tommy's column, which he was not, I thought was going to be a pretty hard one to get in 20 seconds. And the question was, name the six Hall of Famers that played on the Chief's last Super Bowl defense. Yeah. I mean, all you got to do is remember from yesterday. Exactly. And I can tell you, I can't think of all six. And it's hard. And that's one of those things.

I mean, you might be able to Google Six Hall of Famers 70 Chiefs team. Maybe it's going to pop up. I think I tried that and it didn't. But this guy started to rip him off. He said, Willie Lanier, Buck Buchanan, Bobby Bell. And I'm like, oh, my God, he might get this. And then he's like, Emmett Thomas, Johnny Robinson, Curly Culp. I'm like, you got it. He won.

And the prize is like two Maryland tickets in parking. and a chance to come in and listen to the radio show live. So it'll continue. I love that sort of play along, but I am not happy with myself for getting beat on day two. So I have a couple of other very difficult level three questions, and I'm going to review them with various people here to make sure that they are super hard to get,

because that one probably not the hardest of my level three questions. one here that's there's no chance. And a lot of them deal with, you know, jersey numbers and math. You know, it's like come up with this, the number of players that started at this position, add up their jersey numbers and divide by three. Something like that. Anyway, that was what started my day off or ended the beginning of my day on the radio show. If you don't remember this, or you don't know this, I am back on radio at 9-80, 7 to 10 a.m. day mornings. Listen, this podcast, really because I've got Tommy on twice a week and Cooley comes on a bunch, he's not going to be able to come on this week. As an aside, he is buried in stuff and can't come on this

week. But, you know, often the podcast is much different than the radio show. I want to mention that this radio show today is brought to you by mybooky.ag. If you enjoy football and you've got a heartbeat, then you know it's coming. It's the time of year, plan a party, get the snacks ready, get your wagers locked in because the Super Bowl is finally here. You've got a feeling perhaps about who's going to bring home the Lombardi trophy. You don't want to miss out on your last chance to get your bets in before the NFL season ends. And it does.

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Right. You know, and you have those sort of prop bets available. I am strictly looking at the game and looking at the wagering pattern and trying to come up with whether or not there's a side. I think right now the most obvious play, if you're a contrarian handicapper, is the under on Sunday. Of course. And that would be under 54 right now. I'll have an official play on Friday. That seems to be where books...

See, when people are playing the over at the rate that they're playing the over for a game, and you see that number over the last several days, just stand pat. It's just right there at 54, and they're not budging... It's like they keep inviting more overaction. Like, go ahead, keep playing the over.

We're okay with that. That's when you got a... That's when an alarm bell should go off in your head to say, why do they keep taking all of this overaction without increasing the number? Why aren't we up to 55, 55, and a half, 56 at this point? Well, they're inviting it. You know, the boys in Vegas and the boys offshore are telling you, we don't care that you keep playing the over.

We're fine needing the decision, needing a decision on the under in this particular game. So I will more likely than not have the under as possible. part of the smell test on Friday. Okay, several things to get to, as mentioned. I would call it several B-to-B plus topics and maybe even a C topic on this show today. I want to start with this. Peter King was a guest with J.P. Finley and Brian Mitchell on NBC Sports Washington yesterday. Peter King was asked by J.P. You'll hear the question about what the Redskins should do at number two. Listen to Peter King's answer. What do you think happens with the number two pick for the skins?

I'll tell you right now, I had somebody who was at the Senior Bowl, told me flat out that the Washington Redskins could remake their franchise this year by dealing the second pick in the draft. Wow. Now, maybe, maybe, and look, if you believe that Chase Young is Lawrence Taylor, you're not trading that pick. You're swallowing hard and taking the pick. But just imagine if it is, if it is basically kind of the RG3 trade in reverse. Can you imagine if you go down to number five or number seven and get three ones? Yeah. I mean, let's say you go down, let's say you go down to five,

but, but then you get two additional ones. I mean, that might be hard. to refuse. Yeah. So there are a couple of things from that. First of all, did you catch him calling the team that plays football in Washington, the Washington Redskins? Peter King just mentioned. You can play it back, play back the beginning of that so we can hear, if you missed it,

Peter King referring to the Redskins, something he said he would never do as the Redskins. Slipped up, I think. What do you think happened with the number two pick for the skin? I'll tell you right now, I had to say, somebody who was at the Senior Bowl told me flat out that the Washington Redskins could remake

their franchise. Peter King I mean, when I heard this live, not live, when I heard it, Greg, my producer on radio, played it this morning and I did not pick it up when I heard it him play it before the show. I was like, whoa, wait a minute. Did Peter King

change his position on the name? Because Peter King, you know, a Hall of Fame voter and, you know, One of the reasons that for many years, I think Art Monk was not in the Hall of Fame was Peter King's influence over the Hall of Fame committee. He did not believe Art Monk was a Hall of Famer until he was sort of convinced by various people, including Joe Gibbs, that he was. But Peter King, you know, seven years ago in 2013, made an announcement. Like, he's such an important guy that he came out with an announcement in a column that he wrote that he was not going to use. Washington's team nickname anymore.

He said, you won't see me use it anymore in print. You won't hear me speak it. And he went into the reasons why, saying he's been uneasy about it and thinks that the nickname is a slur and went on and on and on and on. So, you know, he was on a show on the station, I think with Zabe or Doc and coach and and Brian Mitchell, it wasn't with me. a few years later after that Washington Post poll came out that indicated 9 out of 10 Native Americans did not find it to be insensitive

and he still wouldn't change his position on the name. He's fine with the Atlanta Braves fans mocking Native Americans openly with a Tomahawk chop chant. Same thing with Chiefs fans. I really do get a kick out of it. We're watching the NFL playoffs in an Arrowhead, a great home field advantage, great fan base, loyal fan base. And they're doing the Tomahawk chop, which really is openly mocking Native Americans in unison.

You know, 80,000 in unison. And somehow no one talks about that. Peter King, Bob Costas, nobody seems to have a problem with that. But they focus in on the Redskins team nickname, which Native Americans don't find, you know, overwhelmingly. pejorative or insensitive or a slur. Anyway, I thought that was interesting. I've not seen or read anything that he has changed his position on the name. I'm guessing that it was a slip. So let's get to the football part of what he said. First of all, on the three number ones. Remember, you're not necessarily really getting three number ones. What you're getting is a swap of first rounders in this year's

draft if you were to trade back five or six spots with say the dolphins or the chargers for three four spots chargers would be the one but we'll get to that yeah so you would be swapping picks and then you would be giving up an additional two when people said the redskins got rg three for three number ones and two number twos and you know and in a fifth um i think that was the deal ultimately um it really wasn't three number ones it was two number ones i mean you you were swapping ones and then you got two additional number ones. Anyway, whatever. I don't know that you're going to get that much for that pick. You could potentially. But I think really the issue here is, you know, when it comes to a case being made to trade number two or a case being made to keep number two and take

Chase Young, it comes down to your evaluation of Chase Young. It's that simple. Or potentially your evaluation of Tuatunga Viola or Justin Herbert if you are not a believer in Haskins. And we can't take that off the table. If you're a Redskine fan, you cannot just automatically agree with me and think that that's what the team's going to do, that Dwayne Haskins progressed significantly. The downside's very low and the upside is fairly high and that there's some optimism about him. You can't take that as the way they feel about him. We don't know how they feel about him.

And even if they feel the same way, it doesn't mean that they won't feel much differently and much more optimistically about one of the young quarterbacks in the draft. They can like Dwayne Haskins and possibly think that TWA is one of the best, you know, is the best quarterback to come out since Andrew Luck. That's right. And what do you do then? Well, you know what you do then? If you like Dwayne Haskins and you think Tua is, you know, the highest evaluated quarterback you've had since luck, you take Tua. because it's the quarterback position. So all of that is still in play.

But when it comes to sort of Chase Young or the prospect of trading it down, the bottom line is if you've got a player at number two who's a quarterback or a pass rusher, and you have them evaluated at a super high level, you take that player. Like if you believe Chase Young is going to be Von Miller, Khalil Mack, Nick Bosa,

You know, going back to the great pass rushers of the day, like you think for the next 10 years, teams are going to have to every single week start their offensive game plan with how do we deal with Chase Young? You take him. Do you know what the Rams got out of that big deal with the Redskins? Nothing.

Michael Brockers, Janoris Jenkins, Isaiah Peed, Rocavius Watkins, Alec Ogletry, Stedman Bailey. Stop me when you hear about an all-time great player. So if you think Chase Young is going to be Nick Bosa, Von Miller, Khalil Mack, you take him because you need A-plus players. You know, people will make the case. You have so many needs, many needs, you know, players, depth, positions to fill.

All of that's true. But if you're filling those needs with B players and you're giving up on an A-plus player, you're not giving yourself the best chance to go deep into January. You need more A-pl players, more A-plus players. Who are they on the team right now? The punter, Tressaway? I think we're hopeful that John Allen and Duran Payne and Terry McLorn,

and if Trent Williams comes back, he was, they're pretty much their only A-player, along with the punter in recent years. You need more A-players. you don't need three B's to give up on an A plus. Let's just say you got five additional picks in this thing, and you got three solid B plus players, and the other two didn't work out, because more likely than not, some of those players aren't going to work out.

But you gave up on a game-changing A-plus player for the next 10 years at one of the game's two most important positions. You lose. You lose on that deal, in my view. So it just comes down to this. Do you have them evaluated as an elite player at a very important position, quarterback or pass rusher? If you do, you take them.

You take that player and you listen to every deal that comes your way. You don't do what Bruce did. You don't not answer calls and not listen. That's foolish. Somebody may get really desperate and may give you four or five number ones and then you start thinking about it. Because the A-plus player that you've got evaluated, it's not a lock he's going to be an A-plus player.

He could tear his knee in training camp next year. You know, volume of picks is always a better strategy than one pick, but not at a key position if you have him evaluated at an elite level. I mean, nothing would be worse, right, than five years from now, looking back at number two, and as an organization you debated Chase Young, who you thought had a really good chance to be a really, really good player, but you weren't convinced was an A-plus player. And you got five picks for him,

and the five picks were all B players and a couple of C players, and one that didn't work out at all. Never made, and didn't, was out of the league in two years. And Chase Young is in New York playing for the Giants, wreaking havoc like LT did for all of those years. That'll suck. You need A players. Chase Young, more likely than not, is going to be evaluated at A-plus. The five players you'll get in a trade, you know, the additional picks, you better be sure there's another A plus in that group at the same position or impactful position. You know, people are going to say Jeff Okuda, the corner from Ohio State, you know, A plus a player, okay, but A plus a corner is not the same as a plus a pass rusher. Because give me some Bs and two A plus pass rushers in Chase Young and

Montez sweat, and I'll take my chances with some Bs in the secondary. Some Bs and Cs. in the secondary. One other thing that Peter King said yesterday about Bruce Allen. I want you to hear this. I'm not saying I was surprised that Daniel Snyder got rid of one of his best friends in the world, Bruce Allen, but it was long overdue. I like Bruce Allen, but it was ridiculous that he continued to hold that job. It was just ridiculous.

And I think any person in football understands that if you go through, three or four very lean years. Not only are you in danger of losing your job, you probably should lose your job, but with Washington it was 10 years. And you just say, why in the world, is there an adult in the room here? And there wasn't. And finally, in this situation, they finally did the right thing and got rid of them. And look, we'll see.

I mean, I like Ron Rivera. I think he's a good coach. I think he commands a room well. And he is basically, I think, doing what he went with the people he knew. He went with Scott Turner to run his offense. He went with Jack Del Rio to run his defense. These are guys he knows who he's familiar with and who he's had relationships with. All right.

So that was Peter King on that. I played it because you just can never ever, you know, forget that this last 10 years should have been much less than that. There isn't an owner in football, an owner in sports, a business owner that would have put up with that level of incompetence and that level of losing and that level of simultaneous arrogance in one person with that much power for that long. It is remarkable that somebody with his record, 6297 and 1 or whatever it was, with the missteps along the way with the public embarrassments, that he would stay in that position for that long.

And I mentioned this a few weeks ago. On the positive side, I said, look, let's not forget down the road, whether it works out for Rivera or not. That Dan Snyder actually outkicked the coverage with the hire. Down the road, when we review it, let's not forget that, based on the conditions at the time, he overachieved on the higher.

You know, Joe Gibbs helped out a lot. Let's also not forget if the Redskins have a quick turnaround next year or the year after. Let's also not forget, or let's not do the following. Give Bruce Allen any credit for it. He doesn't deserve it. Because the players that are here, there are some good young players that are here, but they would have never won with the level of dysfunction that would have continued, had Bruce Allen stayed on his team president.

He didn't do everything wrong. There were different things over the course of 10 years he did right. I loved the fact that we finally had some fiscal discipline in the organization after 10 years of being undisciplined fiscally. I liked what he brought with that. Now, it got to the point where it was too much. It was too much about getting a good deal rather than getting a good player. you know, that was one of his big errors in terms of personnel.

He was so self-impressed with the contracts that he got on various players forgetting the fact that he was getting usually in most cases a less than average player that wasn't going to help him win. But if the Redskins turn it around and go 9 and 7 this year and threaten a six-seed in the playoffs and you're like, whoa! And you for a moment say, hey, you know what, Bruce Allen got some pretty damn good players in here. No, got to give him some credit. No, no, because they would have never succeeded had he stayed here in that position.

Never. He should have been gone several years ago. The organization might be in a different spot today. If Dan Snyder had felt the desperation that wasn't far different than it was this past year, a couple of years ago, then maybe they would be already well, you know, very very, very, very much on their way to being competitive in this league. And maybe even would have been coming off a competitive season last year if Snyder had done it earlier.

Anyway, that's enough on the Redskins today. So last night I'm watching Inside the NBA. The best studio show and all of sports television is the TNT, you know, pregame show, halftime, post-game show, Ernie Johnson, Kenny Smith, Shaquille O'Neal, Charles Barkley. like D. Wade, Dwayne Wade's going to get added to that group this year. So last night was supposed to be Clippers and Lakers, and they postponed that game. And just as an aside, if I didn't say this with Tommy yesterday, I don't have much of a problem with any of the stuff

that's going on, you know, like playing on Sunday or not playing on Sunday, wearing number 24s or number eights or not wearing number 24s or number eights, you know, none of that stuff. But you know, bothers me. People are grieving and they're emotionally off and their reactions to it can, no matter what they are, you know, to me, it's really hard to be critical of them. I'm not a big fan of at this point getting aggressive on changing the logo. I think that's a wait and see kind of a thing. I am a fan of what's been brought up of the NBA All-Star game having like the East wearing number eights in the West wearing number 24 or vice versa. I love that idea.

It's a, it's that sport. It's a way to honor him. It's the All-Star game. It's, you know, within a few weeks of his passing, so everybody's still grieving. And it would be a nice thing. The logo thing, if you haven't seen it, there's been, you know, a social media push to change the logo into Kobe's image from Jerry West's image, which has been the logo for years. I think that's a wait and see. I think we sit back and let time pass on things like that.

Anyway, last night was really, really moving. First of all, these are people you want to hear from. You want to hear from Shaquille O'Neal. You know, I don't know. I'm a Barclay fan. I want to hear from Barclay. I want to see Ernie Johnson be sort of the moderator in the Q&A, you know, the guy that's going to fire questions

and move the thing along and set people up. He's the best. They had multiple people come in, Jerry West. I'm going to play for you what Jerry West said, some of what Jerry West said in a moment. And then Rick Fox, and Derek Fisher joined, and that may have been the most incredible moment of the night. Get to that in a little bit.

It was really moving, but I think that the person that I think a lot of people watch that show for last night, which was done at the Staples Center, an empty Staples Center in L.A., is they wanted to hear Shaq. We had seen what he had tweeted out on Sunday, and we wanted to hear Shaq. This is, you know, the Shaquille O'Neal Kobe Bryant relationship in Los Angeles is one of the all-time, interesting sports duos in sports history. First of all, it's one of the greatest duos, and you could argue the greatest duo, sports duo of all time. I mean, that's a great topic for a show. And I'm glad I just thought of it, because I think I'll do that tomorrow on the show.

But their relationship, which was not close and antagonistic and confrontational and led to Shaquille O'Neal being dealt and led to then, wow, will Kobe be able to win without Shaq? And it didn't happen for a while. And Shaq went on to win elsewhere, you know, in Miami with Dwayne Wade in 2006. And so, you know, I mentioned yesterday with Tommy, it was very crucial, I think, for Kobe Bryant's legacy that he win the titles that he won two of them without Shaq. We would have thought much differently about him, much differently about his playing career. if he hadn't gotten those additional titles, you know, and they were close. So that relationship's always been fascinating. On Sunday, I think I mentioned this on Monday.

He was the guy I wanted to hear from, Shaquille O'Neal. It didn't care about hearing from Michael or LeBron or anybody else. I mean, I was taking all of it in, consuming all of it, but I really wanted to hear from Shaquille O'Neal. And so last night, Shaquille sort of opened up the discussion, and here's what he said. felt the pain that sharp in a while. 47 years old, lost two grandmothers,

lost to serge, lost my sister, and now I lost a little brother. We, our names will be attached together for what we did. You know, it just makes me think that in life,

sometimes instead of holding back certain things we should just do. We up here, we work a lot. And I think a lot of times we take stuff for granted. Like, I don't talk to you guys as much as I need to. The fact that we're not going to be able to joke at his Hall of Fame ceremony. We're not going to be able to say, I got five, you got four. The fact that we're not going to be able to say, if we would stay together, we could have got 10.

Those are the things you can't get back. And with the loss of my father, my sister, and my thing, that's the only day I wish I could just say something to him again. Last time I talked to him was when we were here and I asked him to get 50 and he got 60. The last time I spoke to him. And I just wish I could have, you know, so it definitely changes me. That was really, really moving to watch, you know, Shaquille O'Neal, all seven foot two of him and just could not hold it together, but did hold it together enough. And is such a unique person to begin with, you know, in sports over a long period of time.

I mean, Shaquille O'Neal is truly like just a unique guy and I think one of the more likable players ever. I was going to say one of the most, like, you can't find anyone who hates that. No. And, you know, how about the fact that he talked about the last time he talked to Kobe was Kobe's final game? It's three years ago. Coming up on four years ago. This was not a relationship that was very close. It was a relationship that was repaired and became much better, you know, after many years of dislike.

But even, you know, last night admitted that he had not talked to Kobe since. The final game he played remembered Staples Center against Utah when he asked for 50 and he got 60. You know, that was April of 2016. So it's coming up on four years. The night continued last night on TNT on this show. Jerry West came on and sat with all of these guys, and he couldn't keep it together. Jerry West engineered the trade that brought Kobe Bryant to Los Angeles. He talked a lot about, you know, workouts that Kobe had in front of him before that draft.

He brought Michael Cooper, the great Michael Cooper, one of the great defensive players in the history of the game, and an all-time defender for the Lakers in to go one-on-one with Kobe. Kobe shredded him. And at that point, you know, West was like, oh, my God, this is the real deal. This was some of Jerry West from last night. I had a special relationship with him. No one knows the intimate talk I had with him. No one knows. Even people who are close to him, they don't know the conversations I had with him.

They don't know the conversations I had with him in Memphis when I was working in Memphis. We still communicated. He also, Jerry West, talked about the time that Kobe was so upset with management in L.A. that he said he was going to go play for the Clippers, and Jerry West said this to him. I never really mentioned this to anyone. He was going to come and sign with the Clippers who I'm now involved. with as a consultant. And I told him, Kobe, under no circumstances, can you do this? And he was mad at every one of the Lakers, the owner, everyone else. I said, Kobe, you can't go play with the

Clippers. You can't play for that owner, period. We had two conversations about it. And he supposedly made a commitment to the Clippers. And after the last one, we talked last time. But there's so many things that we talked about as he was just seeking information. His parents were with him for a while. And honestly, I felt like he's fathered for two years. I don't know if I can get over this. I remember it. It was some tough stuff watching Jerry West last night.

And how about that? You're not playing for this owner, that owner being Donald Sterling at the time. And then to me, the moment of the night came when Rick Fox and Derek Fisher joined the guys, joined Ernie Johnson, Kenny Smith, Shaquille O'Neill, Charles Barkley, and D. Wade. Dwayne Wade was sitting as part of the group as well. If you recall on Saturday, the reporting, the erroneous reporting in the hours that followed included that for, I don't know, an hour or so that Rick Fox, one of Kobe Bryant's best friends, Rick Fox who had played on those Laker teams with Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant,

that Rick Fox was also on the helicopter and had perished in the crash. And Rick Fox was asked by Ernie Johnson, and if you watch this, you can see that Rick Fox, I don't want to say that he's reluctant to answer this, but he did not, there was not an attempt on his part to make it about himself, you know. But at the same time, Ernie Johnson sort of set it up in a way in which, you know, he said, look, we're here for Kobe, but this was a big part of what was going on on Sunday, the erroneous reporting, the chase to be first to report some of this stuff. And people got it wrong. And when you get it wrong on somebody who's alive,

who you've now reported is dead, it impacts a lot of people. You'll hear what he said about it. It joins sort of the answer midway through, but it gets to the part that's really remarkable, and that is that his former college teammate, King Rice, who's a coach at Monmouth University, King Rice part of the Tar Heel family with Kenny Smith and Rick Fox. I'm telling you, the North Carolina basketball thing and the Duke basketball family thing, it really is remarkable. We've all, as longtime ACC fans, seen it up close,

to see what those guys think of their experience with Dean Smith, with Roy Williams, and with Shoshchewski, and how close that alum group is. So he starts to talk about how, you know, he was with his kids consuming the whole Kobe Bryant has died and been killed on a helicopter crash, not knowing at that point that it's also being reported that he was on the helicopter. King Rice, you'll hear him start with this, is trying to reach Rick Fox. Listen to how he describes what happened after that. How do you tell the people that you need to know the most? not true. Moment to moment. Moment to moment. I don't wish it on anyone. This moment is,

has been overwhelming for all of us. First and foremost to the families that were lost. Obviously, their lives have been turned upside down to our brother, Kobe and his family, Vanessa and Natalia, Bianca, Capri. We send our prayers and condolences. My family went through in the midst of all of this, something I couldn't have imagined them experiencing. I spent time talking to my kids for about 45 minutes as this was all happening. And our colleague, Jared Greenberg, brought to me the news that morning. And he asked my text if I had heard of the story. And I said, oh, the shoes that Kobe gave LeBron and Kobe passed him last night.

And he said, no. He said, this is, you know, you. you need to sit down. And he texted me the article. And I just, I went into full-blown denial. And fortunately, you know, one of my daughter's greatest fears is finding out that a parent or one of her parents would be lost through social media instead of from a, you know, a loved one or a family member. And, you know, she fortunately called me and we just were talking and crying about the news of Kobe. and my son.

And then we started, you know, so we were talking. I was talking to my kids just trying to spend the time with them, and then the phone just started going off. And I'm thinking to myself, everybody wants to talk about Kobe. And I right now want to be with my kids and my family. And then all of a sudden, my best friend, King Rice, who was a basketball coach. You know King Kenny.

I'll tell you the story between King King. He walked off the court at Iona and somebody apparently told him that I may have been on the helicopter. And he started calling. So I'm seeing King's number, you know, repeatedly going and going and going and going. And I think he's worried about me. So I said, I'm going to talk to my best friend. And I answered it.

And I said, hey, man, this is crazy about Kobe? And he just was bawling. And I started crying. And he was like, you're alive. And I'm thinking, well, yeah, like, what do you mean? And he, and it was in that moment that my phone just started going. And my mom and my sister and my brother. And so, look, this has been.

This has been a lot to the process for all of us. Quite frankly, we're blessed to have had the time we had with Kobe. A city is mourning, a family's mourning, but we're all mourning. And I don't, you know, I'm glad that's over with. But it was hard to deal with because it shook a lot of people in my life. That was Rick Fox. And that part about King Rice calling him, and him expecting to pick up the phone to talk about Kobe Bryant with him

and King Rice starts bawling because it's like now he's heard Rick Fox's voice and he's alive. It was amazing. And then Kenny Smith actually jumped in and said that when he heard about Kobe, he was a passenger in a car and he was having a difficult time dealing with just the fact that Kobe had passed away. And then he got the news that Rick Fox may have been, you know, a former tar heel. And Rick Fox says to Kenny Smith, he said, you were my brother, you raised me. And Kenny Smith said he used to spend time with me when I was in Sacramento as a player. And he was at North Carolina.

And Kenny Smith said that he reached out to King Rice to find out about Rick Fox. And King Rice didn't get back to him. And so he decided to text Rick Fox himself. Kenny Smith, I sent Rick a text message praying that he would respond, but not expecting it because of the reports that Rick Fox was on the helicopter. And he texted him and he said, just shoot back to me, you know, a hey. And he did. And Kenny Smith got the text back from Rick Fox.

And Kenny Smith then broke up, couldn't continue to talk there briefly. And he said he couldn't believe it. You know, he thought he was texting a dead person. And then Rick Fox got back to him with a text message, you know, thinking like he was with King Rice that he was just reaching out in this terrible day of Kobe Bryant tragically passing. What a day, man. What a day. You know, I know that there's, you know, we talked about this yesterday with Tommy, lots of criticism, you know, of TMZ. I don't, I agree with Tommy. This is their business. This is what they do. They got it right. And in terms of the people that got it, you know,

look, if they had gotten it wrong, it's an all time wrong, you know. They haven't gotten a lot wrong in recent years. Those that did get Rick Fox wrong or that four daughters, Kobe's four daughters were in the helicopter, those people that got that wrong, I can't name them right now. I don't know who it was that broke the Rick Fox News. I would just say, obviously, it's terrible. But on a day like that, similar to days, you know, again, I'm not comparing 9-11 to Sunday, but 9-11 was one of those surreal news days and things are happening and news is breaking.

and news is breaking and things are going on. And this is before social media, too. This is before Twitter. You know, this is before Instagram. This is before Facebook, you know, in 2001, right? Facebook came along a couple of years after that. Yeah. And I guarantee you that if you go back on 9-11,

there was a lot of erroneous reporting in the hours after the World Trade Centers and the Pentagon. You know, I remember living here. and, you know, thinking for a good 30 to 45 minutes that there was a rogue aircraft headed for Washington, D.C., and just looking up at the skies with all of the fighter jets circling our city in the hours after 9-11. That is still, honestly, one of the crazy... It's the day of my lifetime in terms of the, you know,

where I was, what I was doing, remembering everything, you know, as it was for John F. Kennedy's assassination for people who are older. But to look up into the sky at 1030, 11.30 in the morning, 1130 in the morning, and seeing fighter jets, you know, flying overhead and reports of a rogue aircraft. Now, that rogue aircraft probably was Flight 93 that ended up, you know, being taken down by the passengers in Shanksville, PA with an incredible act of heroism. But anyway, my point is this, I guess. You know, there was erroneous reporting, and it's probably happened a lot on days like that in the past with a lot of media.

You don't want to get it wrong, and you don't want to get it wrong where it impacts somebody and his friends and family the way it did there. But, you know, people that are harshly critical of those people that were rushing to get it first and got it wrong, Remember, they're not the first ones and they won't be the last ones. It's a competitive business. You know, journalism, news, it's a very competitive business.

And that was a swing and a miss. The Rick Fick Fox stuff was a swing and a miss. And I thought that part about King Rice. King Rice was coaching a basketball game and left the basketball game, all right, to start calling Rick Fox when he heard that Rick Fox was on the helicopter. Okay. I wanted to get to a couple of other things, including what happened last night at Duke. You saw this, Aaron, right?

Oh, yeah. That was weird. So last night, Duke's playing, you know, a traditional ACC matchup against Pitt last night at Cameron Indoor, you know, those traditional ACC matchups. Hot rivalry there. Duke Pitt. Pitt's actually decent this year. I think didn't Pitt sweep North Carolina? I mean, everybody's beaten North Carolina.

North Carolina's now won two in a row. Yes, they have. They've won two in a row. I bet against them the other day. Oh, you did? The NC State game? Yeah. But Pitts actually played pretty well, and they're at Duke last night.

And at the end of the half of that game, the Duke Cameron Crazes start chanting at Jeff Capel, who is the head coach at Pitt. Jeff Capel played at Duke. Coached at Duke as an assistant, part of the Duke family. They started chanting at Jeff Capel, come. sit with us. It was a playful chant because it was saying, hey, you're not one of them. You're one of us. Come sit with us. Well, Shashefsky went nuts. He went absolutely nuts. He stood up, walked across the court, and started telling the students to shut up and to say, he's one of us. Shut up. He's one of us. He was screaming it. I mean, the rat was

in rare form. I haven't seen him that angry with anybody but his players in a long, long time. He lost it, completely lost it. And he didn't know what they were chanting. He assumed that they were chanting something because they do at times chant things that are derogatory and, you know, they think they're clever and sometimes they are and sometimes they really miss the mark. And sometimes they're very playful and, you know, harmless. And sometimes they really get after somebody, an opposing player, an opposing coach in a mean-spirited way. They have over the years. And he thought that they were chanting something

that was more mean-spirited towards Cable, and he's screaming at them to shut up and that he's one of us. And afterwards, when he found out that the chant wasn't really what he thought it was, he sort of apologized. Sort of. He said,

it was a mistake on my part, but I'd rather make a mistake in protection of my guy. I went at the end of the half and said, look, he's our guy, and that's, and that said. So I apologize, let's think of a different cheer, like defense. Or let's go Duke. Or let's go Duke. That's not what they do, Coach.

They do a lot of that, but they got a whole sheet. I don't know if you're familiar with this. They got a whole sheet of chance for every game. It's the worst. Singling out people. I remember there was a group of Maryland fans who tried to start doing cheer shoots, and that got shut down real quickly. Oh, man, please.

Yeah, we don't need to be them. never have needed to be them but you know he also as part of his post game presser spoke a lot about Kobe Bryant who he coached obviously in the Olympics and you know

and went out of his way to say you know these last couple of days have been really emotional Kobe was one of my players I coached him on three different teams he was my leader we had special moments private and public he was amazing with my grandkids so anyway

maybe everybody is sort of forgiven for anything in the aftermath of the Sunday tragedy, especially if you have direct experience and our friends and no Kobe Bryant. But anyway, that was funny to watch Kay completely lose his mind. Even Cable said afterwards, and I'm paraphrasing at this point, that was sort of a nice cheer. It certainly wasn't something that was, antagonistic or mean-spirited. Duke won the game, 79-67. Georgetown lost last night, and they are, you know, they're getting towards that point now where they're not a tournament team. And they had a stretch there where they certainly were building a decent resume to be included in the tournament.

And I always say this every year about the tournament. You start discounting or you start eliminating teams from contention. and you can't do that on January 29th. That's a mistake. So I'll admit that up front because the field of 68, they got to fill the whole thing out. There are going to be a lot of teams that you think aren't deserving that are going to be right there in the bubble and have a chance. But Georgetown's now lost three in a row.

And, you know, two of those games were at home against Marquette and Butler, and they had a double-digit lead last night. They're going to have to win some big games. They have opportunities. You know, they play Villanova, they play Seton Hall, they play Butler again, You know, they play Creighton again. You know, the Big East is pretty damn good. You know, they've got a chance to make a run,

but they needed that game last night against a ranked Butler team, which would have given them their second win in about a week and a half over ranked teams. Instead, they've lost three in a row and four of their last five. And then in the NBA last night, how about your Washington Wizards

and what they did last night? The Wizards last night lost to the Bucks, 151 to 131. In that game, Chris Middleton, who played for Mark Turgeon at Texas A&M and is an All-Star, went for a career high 51 points. Chris Middleton, 16 of 26 from the field, 7 of 10 from behind the arc, 12 of 12 from the free throw line. He had 51. Eric Bledsoe was the second leading score with 34, and you're asking yourself,

well, what about Janus? Where's Janus at 10-N-Compo? Where is the Greek freak? Well, he didn't play last night. shoulder, and they still scored 151 points against the Wizards. The Wizards are terrible defensively, terrible defensively, all-time bad defensively, headed towards one of the worst defensive seasons in NBA history. Now, Beale had 47, all right?

That's a second straight 40-plus point game for him. They trailed at halftime 88 to 63. The Bucks scored 88 points in the first half. a franchise record for them and a franchise worst in terms of most points allowed for the bullets slash wizards. The Wizards have now given up 140 or more in six games the most since the 1990 Paul Westhead led Denver Nuggets. The Nuggets that year had six games in which they allowed 140 plus points in 82 games. The Wizards have allowed 140 plus points in 82 games. The Wizards have allowed 140 points. plus in 46 games.

They've allowed 150 plus four times this year, including the last two games. I mean, like if you see, like there was a day, and it's not that long ago, where if somebody gave up a buck 25, it's like, whoa, that's a bad defensive night. Buck, you know, they're giving up a buck 50 plus in back-to-back games. They're horrendous on defense. It's a It's They can score

They certainly can score points But if you look at like the last two games Don't forget They scored 133 and 131 in the last two games in part Because their opponent Didn't think that there was any chance in hell They would lose the game So they were okay

Getting into a summer league up and down You know let's score as many points as we can Kind of a game That's enough on them All right, we'll finish up with the following. Aaron brought this to my attention yesterday. I've not been paying attention to the FedEx Field concert schedule, but Aaron has been, and he thinks it may potentially impact the Redskins' early season schedule next year.

The FedEx Field's got a bunch of stuff going on this summer. It starts Wednesday, May 27th with the BTS World Tour. What is that, Aaron? A K-pop band is super popular, apparently. Unfamiliar with them. Not really familiar. Then Saturday, June 6th, they've got a monster jam truck show at FedEx Field. That'll mess up the field pretty good, won't it?

Yeah. Friday, August 21st, Justin Bieber at FedEx Field. And then Thursday, August 27th, Ramstein, right? Yeah, they're a German head pedal band. I'm halfway, a little bit familiar with them. So FedEx Field's going to get torn up. And when that last concert takes place on August 27th, according to the reports, the Redskins will take what at that point will be more likely than not a damaged field, and they will replace that field. Yes.

Now, the NFL season next year is going to be a late NFL season in terms of the calendar. Week one, Labor Day is late this year, and that's the reason for that, because the NFL schedule pretty much comes off of, you know, Labor Day weekend. Labor Day next September is on Monday, September 7th, which is the latest you can have Labor Day, which means the NFL season will kick off Thursday night, September 10th, and the first Sunday will be September 13th. Pretty much the latest you can start in NFL season. I would have thought that it was earlier, but yeah, I didn't realize Labor Day was that late. Just so everybody knows, that means that the final week of the season next year will be January 3rd. So it'll be Sunday, January 3rd, 2021 will be the final week of the NFL season.

So anyway, if August 27th is the day that they have their last big event and then on the 28th, they begin to replace the field, will it be ready for a home opener on September 13th? I don't know. I don't know that time of year. And I'm not, you know, this isn't my area. of expertise. But I would bet that what it will lead to more likely than not is a request for more time for the field to sort of grow in, to settle in, and that means the Redskins more likely

than that are going to open on the road. That's my guess. And so when I do my mock schedule in April. This is the first nugget on the mock schedule. Yeah, I will certainly have this as the first sort of, hey, this is a consideration here. That's why I'm going on the road for the Redskins to open up the season. Remember, last year they opened up the season on the road at Philadelphia, and in 2018, they opened up the season on the road in Arizona.

And I think I predicted both of those. I believe so because they had had multiple years in a row of opening at home. They had opened against Philadelphia, I think, at 2017. They had the back-to-back home games against the Steelers on a Monday night and the Cowboys in 2016. I think 2015 started with two home games. That was the first year of Kirk starting with Miami and St. Louis at home. And I think it was at Houston before they went on the road at Arizona,

which had been the last time they had opened up a season on the road. And that was the Jay Gruden season number one. That is on memory there. Are you following along with me? Am I right about that? 2014 was at Houston. 2015 was the combination of Miami and Rams in Kirk's first two games. to open up the season.

2016 was Pittsburgh, Dallas. They started 0-2. Right. 2017 was Philly at home. That was that game that was really close, and they lost it towards the end. There was a backdoor last, you know, fumble return on the final play of the game. Yeah, yes, yes. And then so 2018, you know, I predicted they're going to play on the road because they had played so many home openers.

And then even last year, I think my mock schedule, I could be wrong. I think I had them opening up on the road. So will it be three? straight years on the road? Maybe based on the summer schedule at FedEx Field. There's a couple of fun facts to know and tell your friends about the potential Redskins

2020 schedule early in the season. Maybe a road game. Hold on. Let's take this a step further. Here we go. We'll just start to do a little bit of the Redskins schedule for 2020. The Redskins

on the road in 2020 play their division games. games, and then they also play Cleveland and Pittsburgh from the AFC, San Francisco, Arizona, and Detroit. They opened last year with Philadelphia on the roads. That's probably not going to happen this year. At Arizona was... At Arizona was two years ago, so that's probably not going to happen. At Cleveland feels like a possibility. I think it'll be a division game. At Giants or...

The problem with the Cowboys is that the Cowboys have been in that Sunday night spot. lot or a Monday. They're not doing cowboy. That's not going to happen. So I'll go with that Giants right now. That's my 2021 Redskins opening day game. I remember I had thrown out earlier because they have Carolina on the schedule at home that maybe Carolina is a week one

opponent at FedEx Field. We might have to wait for a week two for that. All right, that's it for the show today. Thanks to Aaron. Thanks to all of you. Tommy, you'll be with me tomorrow. Lots of Super Bowl talk tomorrow and Friday. Enjoy the day.