The Kevin Sheehan Show - Redskins Win...Told You So

Episode Date: September 24, 2018

Kevin recaps the Redskins win over the Packers and goes through the keys to the big victory. He brings on JP Finlay from NBC Sports Washington to get his thoughts on what went right on Sunday. Then, Steve Sands from the Golf Channel joins to talk about Tiger's big win. Kevin then goes around the NFL and College Football with Weekend DVR where he talks about Buffalo's shocking upset, the rest of the NFC East, Maryland's win over Minnesota, and more. <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. We're at Chatter and Friendship Heights, corner of Wisconsin and Jennifer Streets Northwest. Thanks to Tony. Thanks to Nigel. Thanks to all of the Tony Cornheiser show gang and everybody here at Chatter. The Kevin Sheehan Show podcast is presented by Window Nation. If you're in the market for Windows, call Windonation like I have in the past. Harley and Aaron are the best. call 86690 Nation or wind donation.com and tell them that I told you to call. My friend Steve Sands from the Golf Channel and NBC, he was on the coverage of Tiger Woods winning the tour championship in Atlanta all weekend long. He will join us later on in the show to talk about Tiger winning a tour event in one of the more

incredible sports scenes we've witnessed in a long time, Tiger Woods walking up the 18th yesterday. That is a huge sports story and maybe the number one sports story nationally. But of course, here, it's about the Redskins and their win over the Packers, which I'll get to momentarily. Steve will join us a little bit later on. J.P. Finley from NBC Sports, Washington will be here as well. He was at the game at FedEx yesterday. We'll talk to JP in a little bit. Aaron is here. I start with brief acknowledgement of the smell test this weekend, which was on fire. 4 and 0 yesterday, 9, 3 and 1 for the weekend.

The Redskins were a smell test pick plus the three points, but as predicted here all week long and emphatically on Friday, this just set up so well from my perspective for the Redskins to win this game on Sunday. I thought they would. They did, and it was a good win, which I'm going to get to what I liked and what I didn't like here momentarily. The Colts were a smell test pick yesterday plus the 7. and I said it on Friday, Aaron, I said, this is painful for all of you

because you probably don't even see Buffalo scoring in this game. But you've got to take them plus the 16 and a half, and it went to 17. In fact, it's the first time a 17-point-or-greater underdog in the NFL has won a game outright since 1995, Heath Shuler, and the Redskins in a December game, with Norv coaching in a terrible season, went down to Dallas to face Aikman, Smith, and Irvin, and is a 17 and a half point underdog 124 to 17 in Dallas. That's the last time an outright

winner for a 17 point underdog or greater in the NFL. Now, I think it's 145-15 overall in the Super Bowl era of 17-point or greater underdogs winning outright. So that's only the 15th time. actually happened, but they absolutely stomped on Minnesota. And yes, I got all of your tweets about the Kirk Cousins MVP conversation. Let's keep in mind, all right? What I talked about last week was that he was an odds top five favorite to win the MVP, which, by the way, was a fact. I also said it's ridiculous to talk about this stuff in the first two weeks of an NFL season. With that said, I have always maintained and have for over a year now that Kirk Cousins would at some point. in his new life in Minnesota, become an MVP candidate.

He did not play like one yesterday, nor did the rest of the Minnesota Vikings, much more on the day in the NFL, which was a crazy day in the NFL, from a lot of perspectives, especially with what happened in Minnesota. I'll get to that later on in the show. All right, let's get to my take from Skins Packers. Pay attention. He's Kevin's Game Day. All right. What I liked, what I did, didn't like, and a lot more from the 3117 win over the Packers. J.P. Finley will join us after that

and we'll get his take from being at the stadium yesterday, a stadium that looked more filled on television than it did a week ago. I know there were a lot of Packer fans there. The weather was horrible, but still a crowd that seemed to be a little bit more into it, and the Redskins gave them good reason to be. I'll start with this. The list of what I liked from the game, yesterday is pretty lengthy, as it should be, after a 2117 win over the Green Bay Packers. But there are some things on the list of things that I did not like. But I'll start with this. The first half offense was great. I mean, last week it looked like they were out of sync with no adjustments made to the Colts zone coverage. They didn't use their best players enough last week.

This week, the Redskins took what the Packers gave them with their best players on the field for most of it. Jordan Reed played more in terms of a percentage of snaps than he did a week ago. He was 40 of 61 snaps, 66% of the snaps this week. Last week he was 40 out of 74, so there was an emphasis to put their best player. Yes, Jordan Reed is their best player offensively. Put him on the field and try to get him the football if the defense allows it. And it started with throws to not only read but Vernon Davis, and I talked about that on Friday. I wanted Reed, Davis, Crowder, and Thompson to be the focus offensively. You line up, if they're playing six in the box, you run it. If they're playing seven, eight in the box, you throw it,

and you use Jay Gruden for what Jay Gruden's great at, and that is scheming up mismatches to get Jordan Reed, Vernon Davis, Jameson Crowder in good situations. I thought that the first half was a clinic in offensive football to the tune, by the way, of 28 points and 323 yards of offense in a half. Gruden got Reed and got Davis into mismatch situations. There was very good play action off the runs, good RPO decisions by Smith, and even a bootleg thrown in there. That worked as well. Now, they didn't have the same second half that they had in the first half. Took the pedal off the gas a little bit, not necessarily Jay's fault. They didn't touch the ball until half the third quarter was gone.

They had some penalties that derailed opportunities with the ball in the second half. But the bottom line was what they did in the first half was enough yesterday. The fact that Alex Smith went two for five for six yards in the second half and they won the game probably won't happen very often and it probably will never, more likely than not, will never happen against an Aaron Rogers quarterback team, but it happened yesterday. And my guess is if they had to throw it to win, if they were put in that position, I think they would have been able to do it. Again, did they get a little conservative in the second half? Perhaps a bit. There weren't a ton of chances to be aggressive, but the first half offense was the number one thing I liked. I thought they were in rhythm,

in sync, focused on getting their best players on the field into good situations to take advantage of those situations. I don't want to see the bomb to Richardson. I love the fact that they took the shot. The ball was underthrown. Richardson made a great play on it. The wide receivers, I'll get to them in a moment, are a problem right now.

But yesterday it was about, okay, Jordan Reed's our best player. Let's get him the ball here in the first half. Vernon Davis may be one of our top three targets. Let's get him on the field in the first half. Jordan Reed was really good when they threw it to him. a difference maker, and they need to realize that every single week. Take advantage of the fact that Reed is healthy right now. Now, I did hear Jay Gruden say after the game that they're taking it

easy with Jordan Reed. They're easing him back into it. Okay, that's a reason for why he played nearly half of the snaps last week and nearly two-thirds of the snaps this week. I don't care about Jordan Reed's deficiencies as a blocker. I really don't. I want them on the field. I thought they also did a better job yesterday of not creating the obvious tell of sprinkles on the field. They're going to run it. Reeds on the field, they're going to throw it. They did not do that at all yesterday. In fact, there were a couple of three tight end sets where it looked like they were going to run and they threw it. Adrian Peterson was really good yesterday. He's on my list of things that I liked. One good game in the opener, a bad game last week, and then one great game. He had a great first half, had 87 yards, 7.

3 yards per carry in the first half. And he closed the game out with some big runs on that final offensive drive of the game. The only one that they had in the second half, he finished with a buck 20 on 19 carries. And, you know, there was some discussion last week, and I forget with whom I had the discussion. I think it was on the podcast. It may have been off the podcast about the potential for Peterson not being a good rain outdoor player. You know, if they had rain and. they did. They had rain during the game, and the field seemed to hold up pretty well with slippery

in spots because he was such a, you know, a career dome player. I thought he looked really good yesterday in the rain as a mutter. I thought he looked really good. This is right now the biggest, you know, surprise of the Redskins season offensively is that Adrian Peterson is their prime back, is their number one ball carrier. It was supposed to be Darius, Geis. Peterson was supposed to be done. He's a freak of nature physically. He looks far from done. This is going to be huge for the Redskins moving forward through the rest of this year. Peterson and the ability for him to be a four to four and a half yard per carry guy. Now, it didn't happen last week. It happened in two of the three games and not ironically,

they won both of them. Also on my list of things that I liked. I love. I love. their young defensive front. John Allen, Duran Payne were outstanding yesterday. Matt Ionite is the same. All three are good and they're getting better. There were some gap control issues on runs that looked like throws, you know, formationally. Personally, I'd love, this is where I'd love to have Cooley on this show. I don't understand the width played by Carrigan and Smith in many run-down situations. They seem to be way too wide, creating some of these gaps. That would be a question I would have for the coach had I been there yesterday. It's certainly from Minusky this week. There was a lot of that last year too, and you remember

coolly talking about how they weren't pinching down the two outside linebackers. They were too wide. It was creating too many run gap situations. I saw that yesterday as well, especially when Aaron Jones came into the game for the first time this year for the Packers. The Colts took advantage of some of that. I think they need to tighten that up a little bit. I do love the Redskins inside linebackers. I think Foster and Brown are off to great starts. They're playing well.

They're tackling machines, and Brown's speed is always a factor. Look, in a game like yesterday, and I got into it on Twitter a little bit, not confrontational, just into a discussion on Twitter yesterday. Follow me at Kevin Shee in D.C. on Twitter. More games in the NFL are lost versus one. Now, I'm not putting this game into that category yesterday. The Redskins really won this game with what they did in the first half.

But the Packers certainly helped out during the course of this game. They had a lot of opportunities that they blew with dropped passes to start with. They dropped at least five balls by my. count. Two of them were monster plays in the second half. Randall Cobb had on his own, I think, two to three drops, but none was bigger than the drop that needed replay to prove that he had actually dropped it. The fourth and two late in the third quarter at 2817, when the Redskins are wobbling a little bit at that point. You know, Aaron Rogers took him down the field to make it 2817. They got the ball back on a three and out, and they're on the move again, and they go for it on fourth and two.

And Cobb apparently has the catch. Replay, great challenge by Jay Gruden in that spot, overturns that catch, and the Redskins take over there. By the way, that was shortly before the Clay Matthews Jr. Ruffing the Passer penalty on Alex Smith. But the Packers had 11 penalties for 115 yards. I think there was a penalty on every single punt return of theirs yesterday. And the drops, oh, the second.

drop in the second half that was crucial. Still 2817. And Lance Kendricks has a third and 10 play right in his hands. It would have gone for 50 plus yards. By the way, don't forget the first two drives of the game for the Packers, but those ended on drops too on their down. They did. The Packers lost, you know, a Bulaga during the game. They already had another player out. So I believe that this was an example of the Redskins winning the game more than the Packers losing it. But understand this. And the NFL is about not losing more than it is about winning for most teams. The fine line in NFL games between winning and losing the game, it comes down to the team that makes more mistakes, usually loses, penalties, drop passes, turnovers, etc. They usually lose. The Packers helped out

yesterday. You can't deny that the drop passes didn't have some impact on the game, that the penalties didn't have some impact on the game. Some of those were drawn penalties. Carrigan drew a penalty with it. The Redskins drew a couple of PI penalties in the first half. But the Packers helped out in a big way. Tressway. You know, he had a huge day yesterday after last week having, I think, maybe the worst days of his career against the Colts. You know, his punning and he averaged 47.1 per, along with the Packer penalties, consistent penalties, kept flipping the field, making it much more difficult, much more difficult for the Packers to drive the length of the field

with really a quarterback that made some plays with his legs. I mean, he is amazing. But more times than not seemed a little bit more set up in the pocket and less mobile. And so that's the list of good. Here are a couple of things I didn't like, and then a few observations. The second half offense in the second half, and again, They didn't touch the ball until midway through the third quarter. That was a seven-minute two-second drive to start the third quarter

where the Packers ended up scoring to make a 28-17. The penalties derailed them a little bit. They had multiple penalties on drives. But I also thought they did take their foot off the pedal a little bit. I think Gruden saw the field conditions, saw Rogers, not exactly. saw his defense capable of getting stops. I know that they probably felt like Rogers was on the verge of a comeback like he had on opening night against the Bears.

But I don't put this all on Jay's play calling. The penalties change down in distance. The clock was working against them because the Packers controlled the clock in the second half. They also faced a blitzing Packers defense in the second. half that did get Alex Smith off his game a little bit. So on it in the first half. Two for five and six yards in the second half. I mentioned that earlier. And I thought a lot of that had to do with down in distance. I thought a lot of it had to do with them really not recognizing and taking

advantage of the Packer pressure in the second half. That's something if you're looking down the road, they've got to figure out. Alex Smith has to pick up those blitzes and make people pay for. it. Also in the list of things I didn't like. Their wide receivers right now are a concern. Richardson made a very nice play on the first touchdown pass. I thought he drew a questionable PI penalty on their second touchdown drive. Doxon drew a PI on a third down fade into the end zone that I thought was correctly called, but Doxon also didn't have one catch in the game on just three targets. You know, you're going to hear things about how, and he's out there, by the way, more than any other, past catcher in terms of number of snaps.

You're going to hear things about the way they like what he's doing in the run game. They like other things that he's where he's taking attention away from some of the other players. He had zero catches yesterday on three targets. None of them were real legitimate opportunities for Doxon, but he, to me, continues to be more of a non-factor than a factor in most of these games. They're wide receivers, and if you missed it, they cut Brasad Perriman on Saturday. So they signed him. He probably dropped the first five balls that Alex Smith threw to him in practice.

They cut him. Floyd was inactive yesterday. Quick was up. I don't think Quick even saw the field. Did he see the field yesterday? He was active, wasn't he, Aaron? He was active. If he saw the field, it was very briefly.

Yeah, I'm looking at wide receiver snap counts. Mo Harris was on the field for nine snaps. Quick was out there for one. Bibbs, they re-signed him after they cut Perriman, if you missed that. He was out there for six snaps at running back. He played at the end of the game. But other than the offensive line on the 61 offensive snaps, Doxon had the most at 47.

You know, they had my fault. Because of the injury to Moses and Seki had a bunch of snaps. But Richardson had 45 and then it was Reed at 40. So Reed's percentage of snaps. were up yesterday. There was some confusion in the secondary for a second straight week. That's on my list of things that I didn't love. On the Rogers to Allison touchdown pass, it was apparent that Sweringer and Norman weren't on the same page. Some of the same things, again, that happened last week against the Colts. They got to figure that out because Breeze is next.

You know, Breeze and Mike Williams and Company and Alvin Kamar and company, they're next. there's been, you know, some defensive backfield communication issues in the first three weeks here. All right, a few more observations from the game. First of all, another major clock gaff by a head coach in the NFL. I have no idea what Mike McCarthy was doing at the end of the first half, but he cost his team an opportunity for points. He didn't call timeouts on defense after the play to Vernon Davis that got him down. into first and goal territory.

Should have been calling timeouts when the skins got into that goal-to-go situation with under two minutes to go. But he didn't. He just let the clock run inexplicably, all right? And then they did try to score, and they got a long-field goal attempt that they botched the snap on. It's just amazing to me how you can be an NFL coach and a good one, a good one, and be so deficient in certain areas like this. simple mathematics. You use your timeouts on defense in that particular spot, and you would have had plenty of time to get into field goal range to make it 2813 at halftime instead of 2810.

They got into so-called field, you know, supposed field goal range. What was that attempt going to be? 60 yards? 60 yards. Yeah, so he should have had no less than a full minute of extra clock had he used his timeouts the right way. All right, on the Matthews roughing the passer penalty, I don't really know what to say about this. I've been railing against this stuff for a few years.

I've been talking about how this kind of stuff is going to hurt the NFL and it's going to hurt the interest in the NFL. And that's not really what's hurting interest in the NFL. And interest in the NFL this year apparently is up. I mean, ratings are up. I haven't seen the ratings for yesterday or last night. Last night was the highest week three Sunday night game in four years. There you go.

I mean, the Patriots have something to do with that. I mean, there's no doubt about that, but I just don't really know what to say about what the NFL's doing, other than to say this emphasis on safety has gotten completely carried away, and you've got a game that doesn't resemble, you know, aspects of the game that people really love. You know, we're not even talking about physicality, big hits. We're talking about tackles, tackling a quarterback. You know, what was so funny to me yesterday is what, look to be textbook.

And last week's hit on Cousins looked to be textbook by Matthews Jr. You got Dean Blandino on Fox, who's, you know, the former head of officiating. And he's saying he doesn't think it was a penalty. But Al Riveron in New York immediately says that, you know, per the rule, it's a penalty because you can't land

with most, much, the majority of your weight on a quarterback. And then on Sunday night, they show the rule and show where it says where it's supposed to be like, malicious or violent. Like, that's in the rule. which it clearly wasn't. How is Matthews Jr. Going to avoid landing on a player that he's tackled straight on.

By the way, textbook tackle, no helmet, helmet up, arm tackle, wrapping them up, not driving him into the ground hard, not lifting. I actually thought Duran Payne's sack on Rogers looked like more of a penalty than Matthew's play. look, the NFL has to fix this. And I have a feeling they're going to. I have a feeling that this isn't going to be the norm the rest of the year. The back-to-back weeks of people talking about how,

you know, you've got videos out with a father in the backyard with his young daughter. And it's tweeted out, this is how you have to tackle a quarterback. and he lifts her up and he cradles her in his arms and he lays her down like he's laying her down to go to sleep. And this is a turnoff to people who watch the NFL. And I don't know if it's going to impact the watching of the NFL. I always thought it would.

I thought the big hits and legislating them out of the game would impact the way I watch the game. It really hasn't. I'm still there. Sunday afternoons. Saturday afternoons, watching football, because I love it. It's part of this, you know, autumnal rhythm that we get into a scheduled thing, Saturday, Sundays, Sunday nights, Monday nights. We love it.

But, man, you've got to fix this one. You've got to be able to sack the quarterback. Pressuring an NFL quarterback, a pass rush, is one of the top three things to winning in the NFL. All right, great quarterback play. Great pass rush. You've got to be able to get to the quarterback. And now if you aren't allowed to sack the quarterback, which essentially is what happened yesterday,

Clay Matthews Jr. was told you're not allowed to sack the quarterback or tackle the quarterback. Somehow he was going to have to wrap him up, not tackle him until hopefully he heard the whistle blow. He needed the whistle to blow while he had him wrapped up in his arms, not letting them fall, not tackling him, and hoping the whistle would blow it dead there. We are moving towards the always exaggerated, somewhat cliched,

put a flag on the quarterback, put a yellow jersey on the quarterback. We are moving towards that. They're going to have to say, look, you can't tackle the quarterback. It's not allowed anymore. We'll play two-hand touch on the quarterback, or you've got to grab the flag off his waist. I'm not exaggerating.

here. They're going to have to either do that or they're going to have to come out and they're going to have to say, we're going to start allowing defensive players to sack the quarterback and to tackle the quarterback. And the Clay Matthews calls of the first, of the last two weeks are going to be legislated out. We're not going to make those calls anymore. We're fixing the rulebook. You're allowed to sack the quarterback and land on the quarterback as long as you're not maliciously driving him into the turf trying to hurt him. Did you hear what Jonathan Allen said? He was asked about it.

He asked, how can you avoid that? He threw his hands up and just said, pray to God. It's a tough spot. I've said over the last few years that the toughest position in sports right now is a defensive back in the NFL because you almost have to let a receiver either catch or drop a ball before you tackle him. You can't hit them. and the fines that are being levied are really, really unfair for these particular positions

for some of these plays. A couple of other things on just things that I wanted to mention from the game yesterday. I do want to get to Alex Smith's overall performance, which I'll get to in a moment. It's a great challenge by Gruden on the Cobb, fourth and two drop and the right overturn. Big challenge, big turning point in that game. you know, Cobb and the Packers' receivers had all those drop passes, but that was potentially the biggest one because they're on the move in a 28-17 game still in the third quarter, and you know that they're getting closer to getting right back into this game and making it a one-score game. That was a big play in the game and a great challenge by Gruden. I thought Peterson's second touchdown, I can't believe that that wasn't overturned by replay. That was not a touchdown. At any point, could you see the elbow and ball at the exact same time in the same shot?

I thought that there was no, I thought that there was definitely a way through the multiple angles to sync them up to give them what they needed to overturn that call. He was not in. He wasn't in. And I thought they would be able to put together the one goal line look with the other goal line look, with the end zone look, put them all together to say, hey, he's down. He didn't score. look, they may have scored on the next play, but I didn't think that that was a touchdown. I thought the P.I. calls, I thought the skins benefited from two of the three-pass interference calls. I thought the only one that was really obvious was the one on Doxon on the fade. By the way,

Vernon Davis's taunting penalty. That was a joke. First of all, it wasn't taunting. Secondly, it was Williams, I think, who threw a punch at Davis. Should have been offsetting penalties, worst case. Last thing before we get to J.P. Finley. Alex Smith's performance. He was really good in the first half. 10 for 15, 214 yards, two touchdowns. They had balance in the first half, which really helped the play action. But he was accurate. He was a good decision maker on all the RPO stuff to Crowder. I personally did not think the interception was his fault. And most of you should know by now because of the last quarterback. I don't get worked up by quarterbacks throwing interceptions.

The best ones throw interceptions. Reed didn't really complete that route. I also thought there was some contact on that play on Reed coming out of his break that didn't get called. Alex Smith uses his legs consistently to make plays. He had two scrambles for first downs in the first half. The touchdown throw to Richardson was underthrown, but the defender's backs were turned.

I thought, you know, it was worth the risk. Yeah, he only threw for six yards in the second half under a ton of blitz pressure, and they got to figure out that blitz pressure stuff because they should be able to take advantage of it. I thought he felt some pressure in the second half, missed some things, including Crowder on an option route, on a third downplay where he actually ended up scrambling short of the sticks in the fourth quarter. But you can see he's getting there. You know, they took advantage of some things in the first.

first half. He threw the ball accurately in the first half. The throw to Davis down the sideline towards the end of the first half was a beauty, hitting the RPO stuff on the quick reeds, the quick slants to Crowder. They took those plays yesterday. And some people say, well, they took their shots and that's what really loosened them up. No, they took what the defense gave them. They did force a shot to Richardson, and it worked out. And they forced a couple that drew PI penalties. And if you don't throw the ball down the field, you're not going to get those PI penalties. I like what Alex Smith did yesterday. I'm not turned off by the interception, didn't even think it was his fault. I think we need a couple more games. Him and Jay getting

used to each other. Maybe the buy week comes at a good time. He could really use some help from wide receivers, but they have enough in Reed, Thompson, Crowder, and Davis. They've got enough, if everybody's healthy, to be a pretty good offense, all right, that has some balance, too, Peterson running it so well. All right, let's bring in J.P. Finley from NBC Sports Washington. J.P. was at the game, and J.P. has been nice enough for the first

two games and now a third to join me on Mondays after the game. The most impressive part of the win to you was what? The run game. I think when the Red Kings are able to control the line of scrimmage on offense, they're going to win football games

and they did that against Green Bay. I thought Adrian Peterson was quite impressive. but, you know, one guy that's not going to get a lot of attention, I was also pretty impressed with Tony Bergstrom. You bring a center in, you move Chase Rouye over to guard. Usually when you have kind of that sorts of substitutions, it doesn't go very well. And I thought it did yesterday.

There wasn't a lot of big trouble up to the middle. And I think those guys deserve some credit. You know, Brandon Sherr's playing hurt. Morgan Moses went out with a concussion. Trent Williams, we know, was playing hurt. and still they were able to really control the football, especially in the first half. They were dominant like they were in Arizona. So to me, that's what stands out.

Yeah, the balance in the first half was great. And I was going to ask you about Ruey, a guard and Bergstrom at center. But you've sort of answered it. I thought that the one thing, and, you know, the second half, I think it's an overstatement to say they got conservative. They may have taken their foot off the pedal a little bit, but they didn't touch the ball until. midway through the third quarter. There were some penalties there that derailed the drives. But I also thought JP in the second half that Green Bay brought more pressure and that the Redskins

did not do a great job with some of that pressure. Do you agree or disagree? Yeah, I agree with that. I think a lot of people are getting caught up in the, did they get conservative or not? You said it right there. I think it's important to note that the first drive of the second half, Aaron Rogers, held the ball for about eight minutes. Yeah, 7-02, exactly.

Right. So, I mean, you know, when you control a quarter of the second half on your first drive, it's going to slow things down. Now, Smith didn't throw many passes, but like you said, he didn't get nearly as many chances. The offense, look, at some point they're going to have to string together two good halves of football. They haven't done that yet. And you could look at it in a positive way that, man, if they ever actually do that and play two good halves, this team could be quite good. The other thing I wanted to say, Kevin, I think the most impressive individual performance yesterday,

if it wasn't AP, it was Jonathan Allen. That's finally the guy. This team was hoping to draft. He was really, really good. This is to me, and before this season, and I think we talked about it, this has been one of the single biggest reasons for me to look at this season as glasses half full, is that their front seven was potentially much better. And I thought not only was Allen good, I thought Payne and Ionitis were good.

I thought Foster and Brown were once again impact players. This is, you know, they got run on a little bit, JP, and one of the questions I had, and maybe you can answer it, you'll see Carrigan and Smith in many of rundown situations playing super wide. They did that last year. It sort of creates gaps. understand the point of that. I'm sure they have a point to it. But that front seven is talented and it's going to get better as long as it's on the field. Absolutely. I mean, Matt Ionitis

has three sacks and three games. And no one's really talking about him. Ron Payne had his first sack yesterday. And they got to Aaron Rogers plenty. He definitely finished that game in worse health than he started. Everybody's saying like, you know, oh, you only got Rogers at half strength. But that's because they knocked them around early in that game. There was one play where he got taken down to the ground and got up very clearly limping afterwards. I think the skins, you're never trying to hurt a guy, but they deserve credit from getting to Rogers.

And I would add this, you're still not getting at least the statistical production from Carrigan or Smith yet. If those guys start to figure out their ways to get to the quarterback with what Al and I and I, as pain or doing, it really could start to look good. I agree with you. I thought Zach Brown and Mason-Ponsor played really well yesterday. The one kind of get out of jail free card, though, was Foster was in coverage deep down the

field on the Packers' tight end, Kendricks that dropped that, you know, would have been a 50-yard gain or whatever, maybe more than that. So they dodged a bullet there. It was, you know, the skins played really well in the second half, in the first half, rather, second half, they kind of kept themselves out of trouble. It wasn't nearly an impressive, especially offensive effort in the second half, but still, it was good stuff for the game, and they needed that one bad. Yeah, I mean, when you mentioned that Rogers was, you know, worse for, more worse for the wear after the game, I injected good. Part of that is because on

Friday, one of the keys I thought was they had to bang them around. I mean, you know, you got a guy that's wounded. You know, the best player, one of the three or four best players in the league is wounded. And the Redskins have the capability. I really think of getting to the quarterback and shutting down the run. Now, the run gap control has been a bit of an issue here. Like it was early in the game against the Cardinals when Johnson had a couple of runs. The Colts did it early and the Packers did it, especially when Aaron Jones came into the game. But I also thought defensively, once again, for the second straight week, and, and I don't know if they spoke to this in the locker room afterwards,

there's a bit of confusion on the back end. On that Allison touchdown, clearly Sweringer and Norman were not on the same page. Well, and when Sweringer was asked about that after the game, he said no comment. And usually DJ is a guy that answers every question and is pretty honest where he needs to be. So I agree with you that down the field there's been some inconsistency. I mean, we saw it a lot in that Colts game on all the kind of rub playing.

that the guys didn't know which direction they were supposed to be going, frankly. I don't know what's going on in the secondary because if you look statistically, they're controlling yardage pretty well. They're not giving up. The Allison play was obviously the exception, but outside of that, Rogers didn't get a lot going downfield, but I think if the tight end holds onto that ball, that whole second half looks a lot different.

And it's tough to go back to one play like that, I think the two biggest plays in that second half was probably the tight end, well, the fumble and him dropping that path. And Morrow deserves a lot of credit for making that play on the Randall Cobb fumble. I think much like Kendall Fuller last year, Fabian Morrow has been a real bright spot for the secondary playing that slot corner role. I think Quentin Dunbar has played pretty well. They're going to get beat in spots, but I still wonder, if you remember how Jay

talking about Monte Nicholson. I remember we were at the Combine when he compared Monta Nicholson's value on defense to Jordan Reed's value on offense. I was just like, whoa, that is high praise. We haven't seen Monte play like he did last year.

I think there's still some adjustments or growing pains or whatever you want to say. The Redskins switched last year where Monte and DJ would just be free and strong safety. This year, they're just playing side to the field, left and right.

And both players want to be doing that because it gives them way more versatility. Defenses can't identify which players and which role. But, you know, you've got a young player in Monta Nicholson that's only played eight games in his career, I think, maybe nine, who's still learning a lot and he's learning it on the fly. Yeah, John Allen's sort of in the same boat in terms of the number of games he's played. I like Nicholson. I think we've seen him flashed. There have been a couple of times where you've seen just a flash or a blur watching it on TV,

and it's usually number 35. He's got speed. He and Brown have this speed defensively, which, you know, they've needed on the field here over the last few years. For sure. Until Monta arrived and started playing when Zach Brown was the fastest guy on the field for them, which you never really want your linebacker to be faster than both your corners and your safety. But it's worked out so far, I guess. the Kendrick's drop was big and the Morose strip was big, but I thought the fourth and two

challenged by Jay and them getting in that challenge quickly really was a huge spot in the game because you're wobbling a little bit at that point. 2817, they're on the move in their second drive of the third quarter, and you're thinking at that point when they convert that as a Redskin fan, I'm thinking, you know, we're looking at 2823 with a two-point conversion attempt coming up here in about five minutes. And all the sudden, you know, all the pressures back on them offensively. Speaking of the offense, I think that's the best challenge of Gruden's career. It may be. He credited James Rowe, the assistant VB's coach, for telling him to challenge it.

And that was a very, very well-thrown red flag right there. Hold on for a second. So that didn't come from somebody up in the booth to say challenge it or did it come from the booth? Is James Rowe one of our replay people? No, he's certainly not like a replay official. He's the assistant defensive backs coach. No, no, no. I'm saying for the Redskins, is he in charge of looking at replays? Like, why are they relying on a DB's coach

rather than the person that they've got in the booth looking at all these plays to, you know, to scream down to Jay, throw the flag? Is it still? Because remember last year, it was still a very disorganized operation with Bruce Allen as a part of it? I've hit a big time Kevin Shee and Bugaboo here, I think.

Well, I don't understand why this isn't like, I don't know the answer. I don't know why it's not a uniform. I don't know why it's not a uniform sort of system. Like a, but here's what I'll say, here's what I'll say in regards to yesterday, there was no time.

Eric, an excrimmage to get another playoff. So whatever the uniform system of watching, TV cameras had barely shown any replays before. Rogers was at the line ready to snap that thing. Maybe there is a system that I don't know, but I think that they had to make that kind of a split-second decision there. They didn't have the advantage of watching a few replays.

It happened very fast, at least in the stadium. I will tell you this. I love how I get about that. I will tell you this, watching it on TV, you knew before Rogers was ready to take a snap that they had, because you got a quick replay, and immediately, you know, it was one of those situations, throw the flag, throw the flag, throw the flag, so there was an opportunity. Look, I just, I laugh at some of these things because I can't imagine that the Patriots don't have somebody, you know, a point person in the booth looking at replays, telling the head coach when to

throw the flag. And you and I both know that this has been a process here over the last few years that has been somewhat haphazard. It's been a little bit disres. organized with Bruce Allen actually involved in the process. So whatever. I hear you. I think in that one it was a good challenge. Great challenge. It's actually worth, you got me curious now. I'll try to dig into that a little bit.

I got two weeks, no game this week. Exactly. Yeah. That would be good. What about the wide receiver position for this team? Right now, for me, probably the number one sort of concern area. makes a really nice play on a deep shot that's a little bit underthrown, whatever. It's a good play for the team and a good result.

But their production, really from a pass offense standpoint, to me, is going to come from Crowder, Davis, and Reed and Thompson at this point. I don't have any confidence in their wide receiver situation. Your thoughts? I agree with you, but the only part I'll add is I think that's kind of the plan. I think Jigridden has said multiple times that he wants his offense to run through Jordan Reed as the first primary target. And so I don't know that it's a problem necessarily, I would say, but you'd certainly like to get more out of Josh Doxon. I mean, we're three years in on this thing, and his career high in a game is four catches.

Did he make an impact yesterday? Sure. He drew a couple of pass interference penalties, including one in the end zone. that led to a quick score, but you're not getting a lot there. Paul Richardson, as much as he had the big impact early, that was his only catch in the game. I think I talked to him in postgame afterwards, and he was pretty clear that he wished he got some more balls thrown his way.

But yesterday was also a pretty ugly weather day. They were running the football really well. When they got into the second half, Alex Smith only threw five passes. Two for five, six yards. Two for five, six yards in the second half. They weren't on the field a ton. They ran, they tried to run the ball. But yeah, you know, certainly I think you can look at wide receivers and then what's going on with Kerrigan and Smith.

Why aren't those guys posting sacks? I would say are at the top of your list going into the bottom. Look, your first answer to that to me is the answer that I want to hear. And I know to be true also that they recognize that their best players are Reed, crowd. Davis Thompson. With that said, I mean, Reed, you know, the snap count was up yesterday. Last week, he was not on the field enough. And you still have Doxon and Richardson as the two top sort of playmakers in terms of snap counts. That's my only point. I'd like to see Reed, and I know that Gruden spoke to that they're still easing him back in the whole thing. And that's fair.

Totally understandable. But when you get to, you know, two weeks from tonight, in a game at New Orleans where you're going to probably need to score no less than 28. I hope Reed's on the field for three quarters of the snaps. I don't care if he's out there for rundowns either. Yeah, you know, you talk about, oh, it's a tell if you don't play him in run situations. At some point, so why. You know, especially if it's a clear third and one goal line. I don't know that you need Jordan Reed out there if you're going to line up in a jumbo set

and do those sorts of things. I will say Reed's run blocking has gone from bad to serviceable. I won't say he's good, but he's not necessarily costing you when he's out there in-run formations. That New Orleans game is fascinating to me because that's when their season fell apart last year. No doubt. Literally, I think they were eliminated from the playoffs.

Chris Thompson got hurt. He was their best player last year on offense. and just the nature of giving up that big lead that late in the game. That locker room, in my years of being out of Redskins games and covering it, that's one of the worst locker rooms I ever walked into. That was the only time. I know they had disagreements. That was the only time we really saw Jay and Kirk having a disagreement in front of the media.

I think a lot of it was, if you remember, that crazy intentional grounding call. I think that was, that game was the beginning of the end of a lot of things, or maybe the end of the end, frankly. But it was, it won't mean a lot for Jay Guden to go back down there and try to get a win. I'm very curious to watch that one. But you got to balance that with how bad the Redkins have been on Monday night. Football, a lot of moving parts. It's going to be fun. It is an intriguing matchup and one in which the Redskins offensively should be able to move the

and score points against a Saints defense that looks like it's reverted to 2016, not the 2017. It's crazy how bad they've been all of a sudden. Terrible defensively. Real quickly before I let you run. Any serious injuries like the Moses concussion? Norman, I guess, was he limping at the end of that game? Just update us on some of that stuff real quickly. So Morgan Boggs's concussion, he's going to be in the protocol.

that situation is what it is, right? That's beyond anybody's control. Doctors have to clear him. Josh Norman seemed fine. Talked to him after the game. He said it's a good time for a byweek, but he felt okay. And Adrian Peterson was Olympic coming off the field, but he talked at the podium afterwards.

He seemed okay. I imagine both of those guys will have a long, full week of treatment and recovery. I don't think the skins are going to – the CBA stipulates that, During a by week, a team can hardly practice at all. So I don't, and with the injuries and an early by week like this, just let guys get some rest is how I expect things to go. The media is allowed out there today on Monday.

It wasn't surprised me if we're not out there again the rest of the week until maybe next Monday or next Sunday or next Sunday with a funky week with Monday night football coming up. But I think the Trent Williams situation, I've been told he's going to have a procedure, just kind of a cleanup procedure on that. that's the biggest thing to watch. Jay Jordan will give us an update today,

and we might be able to talk to Trent, but there'll be more information on that. I've known about this for about 10 days. I first heard about it going into the indie game. This stuff from last year is still just a little bit loose. So I think that is by far the biggest thing to watch. I think Ty and Seki can play left tackle, but nobody plays left tackle like Trent Williams.

Thanks, JP. Really appreciate it. I'll talk to you either before the New Orleans game or shortly after. Sounds good, Kevin. Take care, man. All right, J.P. Finley, everybody from NBC Sports, Washington. He and Rich Tamler do a great podcast together. Check that out. Steve Sands coming up, but give me a moment here to say thank you to somebody and tell you that if you've been thinking about new windows, you must consider Window Nation. I'm back doing this podcast off of radio for the first time in 14 years. Harley and Aaron from Window Nation were the first to reach out and support this new venture. Harley's been a good friend for a while, thrilled about Cleveland winning a game last Thursday night. They're huge Cleveland guys.

He and Window Nation were with me on 980 for over a decade, and I can't thank them enough for having my back right now. If your home was built before the year 2000, there's a fact, a couple of facts. Number one, Halloween is next month. Thanksgiving, two months and three months away from Christmas. What does this mean? It means that winter is coming and now is the time you need to start acting when it comes to winterizing your home with brand new window nation windows. If you wait, you may be too late to replace your old drafty windows before the nasty winter hits. So call Windonation today and save 50% off all styles of windows. That's 50% off any style, any size, and any color window.

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We'll get back to the skins and back to the NFL. But Steve Sands, my good friend from the Golf Channel and from NBC Sports, joins us. He was there all weekend long as he usually is, and he was the one that interviewed Tiger right when he was done with his round. I want to start with this. Have you ever, you probably want to start with the win over the Packers, which you weren't able to watch, I'm assuming. But have you ever witnessed a scene like 18 with Tiger walking up to the green yesterday? No, not in golf. I've never seen anything like that. I've never heard anything like that. It was incredible. It was a great atmosphere. It was amazingly loud. The fans were having a great

time. I think Tiger was enjoying it as well. Not outside of the Open Championship, you just don't kind of see the fans on the fairaway walking scene very often. And to see that yesterday in America, to hear them screaming and yelling for Tiger, it was something else, man. It was it was not golf loud, Kevin. It was sports loud. I want to get into some of the particulars, and I want to get your sense of something that he sort of, or his tone. yesterday with you, but backing it up and looking at it as a macro from a story perspective, is there a better, let me rephrase, is there a more improbable story this year in sports

than Tiger Woods not only winning the final tour event at Eastlake, but literally having a chance to win the FedEx Cup when he stepped to the T on 18? Well, it speaks to just how great sports is. I think you can have all the reality shows you want, Kevin, you and I are as big a sports fan as you and I know, and there's nothing like it. To begin the year, outside of 65th in the official World Golf ranking, Justin Jordan Speed, excuse me, was number two in the official world golf ranking.

He didn't make it to East Lake. Tiger earned his way to East Lake. I mean, it's just amazing. And to go against the 29 other best players of the season and to win, not in dominating fashion, but he was pretty comfortable throughout the entire day, wobbled a little bit coming home. But, you know, you're really picking on things there. So in my opinion, based upon where we were 12 months ago, based upon where we were nine months ago, it is by far the most improbable story of the year.

and Tiger's going to add something to his resume that he never thought in his life he ever would. PGA Tour comeback player of the year. It's going to be an odd award for him to get, but he's going to receive it, and he's going to receive it with a smile on his face. I asked you a few weeks ago after Belrieve. I think it was after Belreve. I'm pretty sure it was you interviewed him, or maybe it was after another tournament. I'm forgetting now.

I'm getting the tournaments mixed up. but I asked you if you felt like, you know, Tiger's response to playing super well and having a chance to win was that there was some satisfaction that he took from it, and that was a different take from Tiger after losing and not winning an event. I'm going to ask you the opposite about yesterday. Do you think he was agitated a little bit about his finish? I don't think he was agitated. I think he was kind of soaking up the moment and at the same time trying to finish. And he was not finishing well because it had been so long that, you know, in a very odd way,

the guy who's been the most comfortable in that situation, maybe perhaps more than anybody who's ever played the game, was feeling uncomfortable. and he was trying to get to the finish line. So I don't think he was agitated by the way he played, Kevin. I think, you know, when he tell the – my younger brother called me this morning and asked me when he tapped the putter down on the ground after tapping in for the win, was he doing that because he was angry that he didn't make the birdie putt? I said, no, he was just kind of pounding the ground with a putter to say, I did it.

I'm back. Can you believe it to himself? That kind of stuff. So I don't think he was agitated, Kevin. I don't think he was happy with the way he finished, but he's never been one to care about the aesthetics. I remember at Durrell years ago. He was leading by two, Durow, that famous par 418th with the watered on the left side. He hit iron, laid up with an iron, wedge,

two putted for five, which is a bogey, and one by one. And I remember talking about that afterwards, and he said, it doesn't matter how you get to the finish line. What matters is that you cross the finish line, and I think yesterday would apply. You've been in so many positions with him over the years as a guy that's had him right when he's finished up around, and all this year you've been there for a lot of these events, and they've all been dramatic to a certain degree. Was he different yesterday in any way? No question. That's the most human I've ever heard him sound.

That's the most humble I've ever heard him sound. He was genuinely touched by the fan experience by the adulation. He was receiving, I think he is a much older person now than he was in 2013. And I don't mean just five years older. I just mean he's an older guy. You know, I think you and I, Kevin, are about the same age. We're a lot different than we were, you know, 10, 20 years ago. I think Tiger has evolved into.

a grown man at 42 years of age, or perhaps at, you know, 37 when he was in 2013, tried to make his first real big comeback, he didn't have perhaps the same perspective or context that he has now. He's been through a lot, Kevin. I mean, not his personal life. Forget all that stuff, because that stuff's none of our business. The surgeries, and then the pain pills and the DUI and the public nature of his gritty. and all of the things that go along with the great parts of being Tiger Woods, but then also the negative parts of being that visible. And then thinking that he was never going to be able to play again

because his body wouldn't let him and then coming back, I think yesterday his emotions came out of him that you'd never see before. I think he has the proper perspective of what it took to get back to this point for him. and I think the fan adulation coming down the 18th Fairway surprised him. It surprised everybody, really. And I think that he was just soaking it in. And when we were live on the air, you could tell he was getting emotional. And that's something I've been around him a long time, Kim.

I've never seen that before. Just out of curiosity, why weren't his kids there? You know, I, you know, luckily, you know, you and I are not in this situation, Kevin. And, you know, our families, you know, were intact and stuff. I don't know. You know, maybe it was her turn, her weekend. Maybe they had soccer games. Maybe, you know what I mean?

Like, sure. I think, I think it's a totally fair question. I was just curious, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. People were asking me that last night. Why weren't his kids there? You know what? I mean, you know, maybe Elon had them for the weekend.

Maybe it was her turn. Maybe they went somewhere. Maybe there was a family outing. Maybe they had a soccer game. Maybe who knows what it was. But there was nothing, I can tell you one. There was nothing to look into as far as why they weren't there, if that makes any sense. It wasn't – I mean, I guess I could ask him in France when I see him in a few days at the Ryder Cup.

But I don't – people were asking that, and it's a totally fair question. But it wasn't something that was like sinister or something bad or anything like that. Sure. I mean, those of us who – and I was one of those kids who grew up in a split-up family, there are always those situations where you're here with this parent on the – this weekend and the next weekend it's another one. It's very tricky. I mean, who knows how that works. What has made him one of the greatest frontrunners in the history of sports where he is almost impossible to beat with a lead and at the same time rarely comes from

the back of the pack to win? Why is that? I read something Saturday night after the third round. I was doing some studying for being in the tower in the booth the first few hours on Sunday. I couldn't believe it. This sport does not lend itself to pure domination. It's just not the way it works. And, you know, it's almost like a foregone one out after last night with Detroit, but it's almost a foregone conclusion that, like, New England's going to go 12 and 4. They're going to win a division.

It's just going to, you know, roll along and see what happens. Tiger, going into yesterday, in his career, 23 for 23 in the history of his PGHA career, with a 54-hole lead that was three shots or better. That is astounding. Like crazy, crazy astounding. I am a big believer that is he better than everybody, you know, for the better part of his career? Of course. I also think that the mental edge he had every everybody was much greater than his talent edge.

I think that he and Phil Mickelson, talent-wise, are pretty similar. Tiger's better, obviously, but they're pretty similar. His mental edge over the next best player of his generation, Phil Nicholson, was enormous. And I think that he's just one of those guys. He said it to us yesterday. If you think about what he said yesterday, amongst all the hoopla on the craziness, he's like, you know, I needed to focus on that one last shot because you could blade it out of that sand. Yeah.

I wouldn't say that to you. And then I would have lost my two shot lead. So, you know, he always has that laser focus, those blinders on that no other golfer. in my estimation has ever had, in his generation, certainly. I think that very few people in the sport have ever had that. And it's amazing to watch. He has always been just mentally tougher than the other guys. And I think that's why he's been the greatest frontrunner in the history of the sport.

Two more. And I appreciate the time. And I know you're going to be heading overseas here in a day or two for Ryder Cup. There better be three more, Kevin. They'll give you two more golf, and then we're talking again. Okay, well, then we'll get to the Redskins Packers. And I think anybody that's ever listened to me knows that when we have Steve on, we usually have Steve on because Steve wants to talk about one of the local teams, not golf.

But you know what was surprised? And you're kind of, and you're kind of obliged. It's just taking our text, you know, our text string to the air. That's the only thing it's doing. That's all it is. You know what was surprising yesterday? And maybe it shouldn't be after Augusta. But Rory played it.

so poorly? I was really, really surprised. I was asked Sunday morning, who do you think is going to win? And I said Rory. I think Rory was made for that moment. You did think he was going to win from three back. I did. I thought that Tiger, I thought Justin Rose was in a great spot not having to play with Tiger

in the final group. And I thought that Rory was the guy Tiger didn't want to see in the final group. And here's why. For my money anyway, and not yesterday. but for my money, Rory McElroy is the greatest driver of the golf ball in the game today. And Tiger's weakness is his driving.

So if Rory could have grabbed the T, when you're leading after 54 holes, you have the honor on the first T. If you get a worse score than the next player than the other guy than has the honor, and in my opinion, if Rory could have gotten off to a good start and grabbed an early birdie

and gotten the T or the honor and applied the kind of pressure that Rory can apply to everyone in the world of golf, including Tiger, by blasting 330-yard drives down the middle of the Fairway like he usually does, I think that would have put a lot of pressure on Tiger. You know, Tiger didn't play well coming down the stretch. Almost hit it in the water at 15. Bogeet 16. Missed the green at 17.

Par the par 5-18. You know, it went down to a two-shot lead at that point. He shot one over par, and that's a 71. If anybody would have just shot a 68 or 69, most notably Rory or Justin Rose, then I think that perhaps it would have been a different result. I thought Rory shrunk in a big moment yesterday, and I was shocked. I thought he was ready. However, Kevin, this is fascinating to me, and this is one of the only sports you could possibly do this in. You know, it's not like a young quarterback playing against Tom Brady because you're playing.

against the Patriots defense. In golf, it's mono-e-mono. Rory McElroy grew up idolizing Tiger, Kevin. He had posters of him on his wall as a kid, and yesterday was the first time in their careers that they've ever played in the final group on Sunday at a PGA tour event. They played together before, but never in the final group on the final day. So for Tiger, his laser focus is never going to go away.

For Rory, that may have been too big of a moment for him yesterday. I think he'll be fine the next time, but yesterday, he got spanked. All right. Last one on Tiger. We saw some of the players waiting for him there at the end. Ricky Fowler was there. Justin Rose was waiting for him. Justin Thomas was there.

You get a chance to talk to all these guys. Describe just the reaction from the players. saw a lot of the tweets and stuff. But overall, I mean, how thrilled are they that he's back? I think they are ecstatic that he is back and playing well. And the biggest thing to me is that he has allowed them to get to know him. Unlike Phil, Ernie, V.J. Ratif, David Duvall, he was so busy bludgeoning them to death on a golf course. And with those blinders on just stoning them whenever they were in the same group.

You saw Rory and Tiger talking a lot yesterday in the final round, in the final group, at a big PGA tour event. And that's something that Tiger never used to do. So these kids not only idolized him growing up and admire him greatly now for coming back from where he's come back from, because let's face it, we can talk about it all day, Kevin, but they're the only ones who really know what type of work it takes to get to the point where they're playing at that type of level. And I think they admire his work ethic.

They admire his toughness. And they've gotten to know him as a guy because he's allowed that in this latter stage of his career. And I think that because of that, they don't feel as if they're just playing against him. They feel like they're friends with him as well. And I think that's a massive difference between Tiger now and when Tiger was playing against his contemporaries

who were more his age. NBC's rating, yes, ratings for the final round, up 187%. It did a 4-3 overnight. Now, you know, Tony was talking about earlier on his podcast, you know, it's not going to beat the NFL, and it didn't. I mean, it's not really close to the NFL. No, it's got no chance, of course. But up 187% from a year ago. All right, what do you?

Like, Kevin, hold on. Yeah. If it was next year, it would have been earlier. It would have been the Sunday before Labor Day. Exactly. I think it would have kind of double-digit rating. Yes. I think it would have beaten the Masters like by a mile.

Yeah, for those that don't know, the schedule changes next year, and that final event in Atlanta is Labor Day weekend before the NFL. No, no, the weekend before Labor Day. Oh, I thought it was. Sunday before Labor Day? Oh, the Sunday before Monday being Labor Day? No, the Sunday before Liberty. Oh, I thought it was Labor Day weekend.

No, it's away from college football. started as well. It's literally, I think yesterday had a chance to get a double-digit rating. I don't think there's any question it would have gotten a double-digy rating if it was not going head-to-head against the NFL. But for a final round against the NFL, you know, you're talking about a long day of golf, you know, from 12 to 6 o'clock, you know, to get that type of number is amazing. That guy doesn't move the needle,

Kevin. He is the needle. He is it. Let me tell you, I'll tell you a quick thing real fast. I do that interview with Tiger on the Green. And then we're going to do the ceremony. So I've got to go back to the set on NBC and host for about two or three minutes to kill some time, show some highlights this up before they get ready down on the 18th Green to give out the FedEx Cup trophy to Justin Rose and then the Tour Championship trophy to Tiger Woods. So I didn't have a chance to look at my phone after the interview with Tiger,

run over to do the thing with Peter Jacobson and all those highlights and stuff. I get done with that. Throw down to the 18th Green for the ceremony. In that eight-minute span, I looked at my phone. There were 193 texts. I mean, this guy truly moves the needle. It's amazing what he does in this sport. Well, you know what's funny is that one of my boys was sitting there.

Actually, two of my three sons were home. The Penn State freshman was home for the weekend. And they were watching the Redskins game, first half. and then it was golf. I mean, they were so into it. And towards the end of it, when you were doing the interview, my son Ryan said, that's your friend, right? And I said, yeah, that's Steve.

And he said, because there was a couple of tournaments ago, I texted you during one of your interviews, and you texted me right back. And of course, my kids were like, he texted you right back? And so Ryan said to me, why don't you text him? And I said, I'm not bothering him right now. He's probably getting hundreds of texts right now.

All right, what do you want to know? We sprinted to the airport, and I didn't get a chance to look at my phone because I was driving to catch a flight home. And when I got through security, I then had 403 texts. I can only imagine. It was unbelievable. I was like, and she didn't text. That's amazing. Tell your kid that the fun of being live on the air is getting texts from friends and seeing how quickly you can respond.

That's the beauty of it. Well, what I see, he said, yeah, but you said that he always texted you when you were on radio. And I said, it's actually different. I'm not going to text him in the middle of his interview with Tiger Woods or shortly after. And you know this, and I've said this to you, but you really do an outstanding job. But in those interviews, that's a pressure spot. And you always handle it so well. All right, what do you want to know?

Were you just following the Redskins game on your phone? You weren't able to watch it. What are you kidding? I'm up in the booth, calling the golf, and on the iPad is the first. Sunday ticket. I wouldn't miss a skins game. Are you kids? I'm doing your homework with the TV on. Give me a break. So you're calling golf and you're watching... We've known each other forever. What do you think I'm missing a skins game? No chance. So what did you think?

Tiger for Birdie at two. Oh, nice play. You know, that kind of thing. I thought the skins were very impressive. I liked that they took some shots down field finally. And I also liked that he trusted the running game for the first. I did in week one, I guess, but they went away from it in a week two. But to speak to the nature of the NFL. I think the Packard, I feel terrible for Aaron Rogers. I think Mike McCarthy stinks. And I think that they don't help him enough. And I don't think he'll ever get his due with just one Super Bowl. And I'm afraid that he's going to end his career with only one because I just don't think they're that good. The guys are dropping balls everywhere and he's

running around for his life, and he's injured, he shouldn't be playing anyway, and he's a warrior. I love Aaron Roche. I think he's great.

He's a greatest quarterback I've ever seen. But the skins look good. The defense is good. The defense gets after it. And I think the skins are all right. You know, the biweek and week four,

I don't love that, but that speaks to how bad we were a year ago. Fairly big spot a week from Monday in New Orleans. Yeah. That's a sneaky big spot. You know, you go to three and one, you're playing downhill.

Well, for what we've been, you know, they haven't been three and one since Rex Grossman in 2011. That's how long it's been since they've had a good start. And, you know, Rex Grossman. He actually led them to a three and one start, if you remember that. The real number eight. Yeah, the real number, yeah, right. Actually, Chip Lowe Miller was eight, wasn't he? Yes, he was.

He was eight. Yeah, Chip Lohmiller is the real number eight. Chip Lohmiller has a ring so that he's the real number eight. I think you said something, and I've talked about this for a while now. I think they're really talented. They're young, but I think they're talented in their front seven. Just in defense, I mean, Monti Nicholson's a talent on the back end. This is the reason to view this season with the glass half full.

The offense may be inconsistent at times, but defensively, they're better. They're just better. Oh, they're good. Yeah. Did I read this correctly? I mean, you would know this more than me, but I was reading the game stuff yesterday looking forward to the skins game. That statistically, they're the number one defense in the NFL.

Yeah, yards allowed. Yards allowed. Yep. And that's often a misleading number, as you know, yards allowed. But it's a number, but it's a, you know, look, when you've been through what the skins have been through, what the fans have been through the last couple of decades, you know, give or take a year or two where RG3 went to the New Seattle game, and we lost them a couple years ago against Green Bay in the playoffs.

I don't know. I feel like it's a different vibe around the team. I think they think they're better. I think they know they're better. And I think if they can get a little momentum, just a little bit of momentum, that Indianapolis game was horrific. But if they played well against Indianapolis, the way the NFL works, they probably wouldn't have played so well yesterday.

So it's crazy. I don't know. It does seem like they're playing with more. confidence. I like the steady hand of Alex Smith. I know you were a big Kirk Cousins guy. I think Kirk was a lot of numbers. Not a ton. You got a little Ian Poulter in them. You know, not a ton of substance with that style, in my opinion. I mean, Alex Smith. You've shared that with me over the years. Well, I mean, you were so sold on cousins.

I still am sold on Cousins. But I also like Alex, I like Alex Smith. And here's the thing. Isn't Alex Smith a better Kirk Cousins? No, I don't think so. He's not? No, I don't believe so. But that's beside the point. It's a better team right now. It is a better team.

And the truth is they'll all tell you this out there. They really felt like last year was a 10-win team if the defense had, if the team had stayed healthy, they were ravaged by injuries. But when they started losing players defensively, like John Allen in particular in Matt ionitis. You saw a team that in the first four weeks of the season looked like an NFC playoff team, and then the injuries struck, and they ended up, you know, seven and nine. But at front seven, strong. I agree. I like it. Carrigan and Smith have been a little bit missing in action here in the first three weeks, but I love Foster. I love Zach Brown. And right

now, Ionitis, pain, and Allen, and the rotation of some of these guys, they, they are They are, they have a chance to be so much better defensively. They can reach some havoc. They can get a little bit of push on New Orleans next Monday night. I think they've got a shot down there in the dome. All right. Thank you for doing this. Enjoy Paris.

And we will be watching, and I can tell you, I will be up super early watching because NBC's coverage starts at 2 a.m. on Friday morning, and I think 3 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday morning. It's an early spot over here in the U.S. when the Ryder Cup is played over there. I know. It's perfect because it blends right into the football day after watching golf all morning. Thanks.

I appreciate it. Give your son my number and I will text him immediately after interviewing, whichever guy we're interviewing, I had the Ryder Cup at the time. Should be fun. Good luck with the big AAU game tonight. All right? That's always fun. And I'd like to thank the NFL.

FFL schedule, as it is, it's a lot of fun. I'd like to thank the NFL Schedule Maker, by the way, for giving us week four as a by-week, so I don't miss a game being over for it. It actually worked out well. It worked out well for me, too, because I'm going to watch it. Thanks, Steve. Really appreciate it as always.

Anytime, Kevin. Hey, by the way, their loss, happy for your success. Thank you, very much. I'm having fun. I'm having fun with this thing. You know, I appreciate the thoughts. You deserve everything that comes your way, but I'll talk to you soon. Have a good trip.

All right. Steve Sands, everybody. The Kevin Sheehan Show podcast is presented by Windonation. Tell people about it. It's on iTunes, Stitcher, you know, however you're listening to it today, but tell the people that keep telling you, how do I listen to it? I don't know how to do podcasts. That's the biggest thing I get. I don't know how to do a podcast. Just tell them to go to the Kevin Sheeonshow.com. They can go to a website and there's a big play button right there that they can hit and they can listen to it. way. And if you're listening to it on iTunes, any of the Apple podcast platforms, subscribe. That helps me and rate it as well. That helps also. All right. Let's finish up the show by combining just the NFL and sort of some weekend DVR. All right. The Buffalo Bills were a smell test selection, but I will tell you, I certainly didn't expect them to win the game Outright. They were a 17-point underdog at game time. I gave him out on Friday as a 16-5-point underdog, and it was the third consecutive week I gave out Buffalo as an anti-public play. And yesterday they got it done in a big way, winning the game outright. It was a, look,

it was a horrific game for Kirk Cousins. He fumbled twice, got hit, fumbled twice early, but Minnesota's defense was wretched. I mean, Josh Allen, moved. them up and down the field the entire day against Minnesota's defense. Now, there were some short field opportunities set up by Kirk's gaffs, all right? But Josh Allen was 15 of 22 for 196 yards, and Chris Ivory, who I've always liked, was running around, you know, pretty well. And Alan really scrambled a ton for Buffalo. It was a bad, bad home loss for Minnesota, who's one, one and one now in that division with Green Bay, who's one, one and one. That is, actually, the Bears leave the division now at two and one because they beat Arizona

16 to 14. And in that game, real quickly, I don't know if you saw this, but at the end of the game, final possession, down two, no timeouts left ball at their own 20, they took out Bradford and put in Rosen for his first NFL action. Yeah. Not a great spot to enter a game. Did you see the last play on the presumable Hail Mary? They decided to blitz instead of...

I tweeted that out. It's interesting that you said that. The Bears blitzed. They called the time out and they decided to blitz on a Hail Mary and they got the sack. And I've always wondered why teams sit back there and let them throw it into the end zone. It's the perfect spot because they're sending usually four or five out in the pattern to actually blitz it. The Bears are pretty good on defense. The Cardinals are awful, but they covered yesterday.

That was almost the fifth NFL smell test play. I mentioned it Friday on the show. I said, I really want to play Arizona, but I'm just not going to do it. A couple of other things from the NFL card yesterday. In the division, the Giants basically saved their season by going down to Houston and winning. I think the Giants are really good on defense. I'm going to keep saying that, and they should be better offensively, although that offensive line is a mess.

The Cowboys can't score. This is going to be an issue for them all year long. They are good enough defensively. They are, but they can't score. Prescott basically took it on his own shoulders through two picks in the game. Zeke fumbled as they were driving deep into Seattle territory, trying to get back into the game late. They lose 2413.

And then Carson Wentz back in action for the first time since that Ram game in early December last year, up the torn ACL. He drove them right down the field on their first drive and threw a touchdown pass to Goddardt, the tight end. They needed a late touchdown, though, by Wendell Smallwood to beat the Colts, who were obviously better than people thought they would be. Colts came in here last weekend and won, and they had a chance to beat the Eagles late. I don't know if you caught this.

Andrew Luck was taken out of the game. game for the final Hail Mary throw. I did see that. They put in Jacoby Brissette. The coaching staff said it had nothing to do with the strength of Lux arm that Brissette just throws a better deep ball or has a stronger arm. And Brissette does have a strong arm. Still weird. I mean, I assume that's the case for other starting quarterbacks where their backup has a

good arm, but you never see that. Right. Drew Brees set the NFL record for completions. Right? That was the record he set yesterday for completion. completed passes. 43-37 in overtime and a shootout against the Falcons. I do believe even though Tampa's 2-0 and Carolina is 2-1, both of these teams are lacking something defensively,

but man, are they both so explosive? And a young budding star here in the NFL's Calvin Ridley after three weeks. Seven catches, 146 yards yesterday, and three touchdown catches in the game. And that was before the fourth quarter even started. The rookie from Alabama is having a big year. They just have so many guys with Julio Jones, Ridley, Sunoo, Hooper, the tight end, and then guys like Coleman who can catch it out of the backfield.

Atlanta loses the game at overtime at home. That race in the NFC South. That's the best division top to bottom in football. And of course, the NFC East is playing the NFC. South. The Redskins with their first game against the NFC South next Monday night in New Orleans after the by week. A couple of other quick games, Mahomes, three more touchdown passes. Yesterday for the Chiefs, they beat the 49ers 3827. The big news in that one is it looks like Garoppolo's got a torn ACL. I'm assuming they are going to go to Bethard because

is Bethard actually played okay at times last year? 13 games, though. But there is talk that they may be in the market to trade for a former Kyle Shanahan quarterback, RG3. I definitely threw that out there on Twitter. Oh, you did? Yeah. I think it's been reported, though, that they, you know, they. I think a lot of people are trying to connect the dots and say, well, who's out there that is familiar with Kyle's system?

And Griffin is, although it's really not Kyle's current system. The Ravens have tried to trade him, so we know that they're at least looking to trade him. it's not ridiculous. Yeah, that would be interesting, especially with the way it ended. Right. With Kyle, Mike, and RG3 here in Washington. Last night, another smell test pick, the Lions plus six and a half. You probably got them at plus seven if you played them.

They dominated, and the guy that I loved in the draft at running back more than any other that wasn't named Barclay, Kerry,on Johnson, went over 100 yards last night. I do believe that he was the second best back in the draft. The Redskins, according to Schefter, were going to take him in the second round. But the Lions took them, the pick before the skins, and then the skins traded back and got geis. But carry-on Johnson, already through the preseason in these first three games, especially last night, looks like the real deal. He's got tremendous vision as a runner.

Great feel, great strength, and underrated speed. And he's a very good pass catcher. Collinsworth was talking about it last night that the Detroit staff loves Johnson and thinks that he's much more versatile than a lot of scouts felt he was coming out of college. The Ravens, it's a team that I like. I think they're going to be a playoff team this year. They handled Denver at home 2714 in a game where really Baltimore needed that game last yesterday early on. Tonight's Monday night game really is a good football game.

We didn't see it coming, but I'm excited to watch Steelers and Buccaneers tonight in Monday. night football. A couple of other things real quickly just to talk about from the weekend. Maryland, Maryland, were you at the game? You were at the game. Yeah, I was at the game. So they jumped on Minnesota early. They've, you know, with McFarland and with Ty Johnson, they've got speed at running back. And I think the whole key to Maryland in every game they're in, and look, they're not going to run the ball against Ohio State. They may not be able to run it against Michigan either. but if they're balanced, they're very difficult to stop. It'll be all about the O-line play O-line with some injuries last week,

played really poorly, got dominated by Temple, and this time they dominated Minnesota. They were able to get the running game going. And as you said, they have so many different guys, so many different looks that it confuses the defenses. Old Dominion was a smell test selection, plus 27 and a half. The game went off at plus 28 and a half. They beat the Hokies, 4935, 635 yards of offense.

the quarterback through for 495. It's the biggest FBS underdog outright winner in five years. Georgia Southern beat Florida in 2013. That game was nearly trumped, though, by what would have been the biggest shocker of the year. And that is that Army went to Oklahoma as a 30-point underdog on Saturday night. That game was not on television. It was a pay-per-view game. Army had the ball in a 21-21 game approaching, if not all,

already in field goal range in the final minute of regulation, a chance to pull off what would have been the upset of the year, even more so than O'DU over Virginia Tech. Going into Norman and winning that game would have been the stunner of all stunners. And they threw an interception. They threw the ball on 3rd and 14. It's not what they do is throw the football. They threw it.

Oklahoma picked it off. They went to overtime and Oklahoma won the game 2821. A couple of other college notes. Missouri was a smell test pick. plus the 14. And to be honest with you, if you watch this game, Missouri was right there with Georgia. They turned it over too much. They had a punt blocked.

Missouri is a good football team. And Drew Locke is an NFL quarterback, more likely than not a first or second round type of quarterback. Georgia's defense is terrific. That game ended up pushing. And then Bama over Texas A&M, 4523. in a game in which Nick Saban actually asked the media to write something negative about the team afterwards. I have a quote here somewhere if I can find it. Here it is.

Nick Saban, after the game, in typical Sabin form, we have a good team, but our team needs to do a lot of things to improve, all right? All right? They're not as good as you think. If what our team is accomplished to this point makes them in any way not take into account the kind of teams that we have to play in the future, and they underestimate what we need to do to improve so that we can become a better team.

Don't just take things for granted. We're going to show up because we have an Alabama uniform on and win the game. Well, it's not going to happen that way. It's going to be everyone's choice in the organization. And then he said the following. So I would appreciate it if you would sort of look at some of the things that we didn't do so well, all right?

And write about that. So I can show it to the players and say, look here, man, here's something. you can do better. And you know what's so funny? Isn't Tuscaloosa? I bet the media will oblige him. They'll say, sure, we'll write about all your flaws.

Sabin, man. He's the best ever. He's insufferable in the same way that Pop is sometimes insufferable in San Antonio. But, you know, Gibbs was like that, not in the same obnoxious way, never with the media. Although there's the famous interview with Steve Buckhantz before the 1991 season where Buck made the mistake of telling Joe Gibbs that Playboy magazine had picked the Redskins to win the Super Bowl, and Coach Joe literally went nuts and said, Playboy, what are you talking about? And told Steve about how much they had to work on and how he didn't even think they were a playoff team.

Coach Joe always undersold it, always talked about, you know, not overlooking anybody in the same way that Sabin does it. There's a lot more that, you know, from the weekend that I wanted to get to, the Rams Chargers game was, you know, the Rams right now, to me, look like the best team in the NFL in terms of both sides of the ball. And golf looks terrific right now. Sean McVeigh is doing an incredible job. And that's a big Thursday night game this week.

Vikes Rams. How did that end up? I guess just because it's on Fox, that's how it ended up, because that could be the game of the year. Could be the game of the year. And I'm guessing you're saving Oregon for coaching blunders? Saving Oregon for coaching blunders. A couple of others from the weekend as well, including one in the Redskins game that I mentioned. McCarthy really blew it at the end of the first half.

I want to tell you real quickly that I'm moving into a new studio sometime this week, I think. We're still using Tony's studio from time to time here, chatter. But we want to get the podcast out a little earlier, want to get it done earlier. If you live in the Bethesda, Chevy Chase, Upper Northwest D.C. area and you don't want a long commute and it's too hard to get work done from home, check out new launch workplaces in Bethesda. That's where I'm moving. They have flexible and affordable private office solutions so you can get work done. It's a beautiful new space. It provides fully furnished offices in conference rooms and co-working desks with high-speed internet, complimentary drinks, a cafe, and free parking 24-7. Get more work done today by moving your office to launch workplaces. That's the name of it, Launch Workplaces. You can call today for an exclusive free two-day trial. Call 240-86714 or visitlaunchworkplaces.com today. That's 240, 866714 or Launchworkplaces.com. I'll get to all of the NFL I didn't touch on tomorrow.

Tommy will be with me tomorrow. Talk a lot more about the Redskins win over Green Bay. And they do. They'll have a huge Monday night game coming off the early by week in New Orleans, two weeks from tonight, to get to three and one. Look, it's one game. Just like last week, you can't throw in the towel off that awful performance or put them in the playoffs after the win against Arizona.

The NFL is week to week. It's crazy. Look what happened yesterday. Buffalo winning outright. All of these underdogs covering the Cardinals nearly winning a game when it looked like there was no chance Arizona or Buffalo would ever win a game. And one of them pulled it off on the road in the biggest upset since 1995 in terms of points spread underdog outright winner. And the Cardinals nearly pulled off an upset as well. The NFL is week to week. I've said that for years. If you don't like what you saw this week, just wait a week because it will change, as it will, by the way, with New England. They're not very good defensively. They haven't been very good defensively, but they will, more likely than not, figure it out. Big win for the skins, HTTR, that was a big win to get to two and one because it would have been a gloom and doom atmosphere in this town had they lost and you would have had two weeks to sit on one and two, two and one. feels a lot better. Thanks to Aaron. Thanks to Steve Sands, who joined us, J.P. Finley, who joined us on

the show today. Back tomorrow with Tom. Thanks for listening to the podcast.