The Kevin Sheehan Show - Rivera Might Coach Again?

Episode Date: January 18, 2024

Kevin opened with thoughts on the ESPN/John Keim story revealing that Ron Rivera might continue to coach even if it's as a defensive coordinator. More from Kevin on Rivera's first interview since being fired which includes what Rivera regrets about Sam Howell. Kevin had more on the hiring of Adam Peters and then got to an early week visit with Jay Gruden. Jay discussed among many things his Twitter back/forth with RG3, what will make the Adam Peters/new head coach relationship thrive, the just-concluded NFL Wildcard games, and the upcoming Divisional Round games. Jay with an early NFL Playoff "Lock of the Week" as well.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You don't want it. You don't need it. But you're going to get it anyway. The Kevin Sheehan Show. Here's Kevin. The show is always presented by Windonation. Call them at 86690 Nation or go to Windonation.com. Mention my name, Kevin Sheehan.

I promise you they will take really good care of you. Two notes to open up the show. This from Dell. Dell wrote me, Kevin, so you think RG3 is a narcissist? Tell me something I don't know. But the part you missed on is that he's actually mean on Twitter. He took an unnecessary shot at Jay Gruden and then brought along all of his followers for a hit parade on Jay. Gruden was just minding his own business watching a game and making a comment

about it from an expert perspective. Yeah, I don't know about the mean part, Del. Of course he's a narcissist. You know, a narcissist never take accountability because it's never. It's never, their fault. We, you know, saw that with the owner, Dan Snyder for 25 years. It was always someone else's fault. But the part about him being mean, I've never sensed Griffin as a mean person, and I don't think he was intending to be mean. I think his intentions are always to bring attention to himself, which he did. You know, I also looked at some of the follow-up to that back and forth. He took a lot of, you know, hits coming back at him, people kind of supporting Jay. And, you know, typically those are the people that followed the day to day like we all did

and know the real story, that it wasn't just Jay. It was Mike and Kyle. It was Sean. And then it was in Cleveland and then in Baltimore. You know, bottom line is after the Shanahan's schemed up a rookie of the year sensation. And then to be fair to him, he got hurt. without that scheme and without the ability to protect himself. And it was probably after 2012, a compromised version of himself, physically maybe. But he just wasn't any good. He couldn't play the position. It went well beyond the one year, 2014, when he was Jay's starter for a period of time.

The second note comes from Will. Will tweeted, been a big fan, you've never disappointed bringing up the things that sometimes your guests don't want to talk about, expecting you to ask Gruden about the RG3 Twitter beef when he's on with you this week. Will thank you. And guess what? Jay Gruden is on the show today. He will join me in the next two segments, and I will ask him about the hurt. G3 back and forth.

I'm having them on today, not because of that, just so everybody understands. I can't have them on on Friday because I won't have a show tomorrow or Friday. I'm heading out of town to be with family for my father-in-law's funeral up in New Jersey. So no show tomorrow or Friday. And I reached out to Jay and asked him if he would come on today in lieu of Friday. And we'll talk, by the way, mostly football. We'll talk about the Adam Peters hire, the importance of the coach that they hire and the relationship that they need to have with the general manager. And we'll talk a lot of NFL.

And I'll see if he's ready to give us his lock of the week, which didn't win in Wild Card Week. He gave out Philadelphia. I think he wanted to give out the Rams, but he was going back and forth and he gave out Philadelphia. So he's now, what does that make him? 11 and 6 on this show with his lock of the week. But Jay will be on with me today, and yes, Will, I will bring up the RG3 Twitter conversation. I want to start real quickly with this. So John Kime wrote a story on ESPN.com that just hit moments ago.

I'm glad I was looking for any news-related stories as it relates to the things that we're interested in. And he wrote a story on Ron Rivera. John is apparently the first to have a conversation on the record with Ron Rivera since he got fired. And there are a couple of interesting things in this story, including that Ron wants to coach again, even if it's as a defensive coordinator. It's certainly not going to be as a head coach, not in this hiring cycle. I'm not sure if it'll be in any hiring cycle in the future. But he's okay even if he comes back as a defensive coordinator. And he said that he's had conversations with some people and some teams and is waiting to see what happens over the next week or so with coaching vacancies. Here's a quote.

I have several opportunities right now. I just want to make sure it's the right one. Closed quote. that's surprising to me. For those that have been listening to me talk about Ron Rivera's sort of state of mind for the last year, I really contemplated and talked about the idea that Ron had kind of checked out a year ago, that he understood that this was a lame duck season, and that he was ready to move on with the next chapter of his life. Now, he's a competitor, and I didn't want to diminish his competitive spirit, because he's always been a tough kind of alpha male competitor,

but after all that he had been through in Washington, and then with this upcoming season looking like a lame duck season, it just wouldn't have surprised me if perhaps he had decided this was going to be it unless somehow they ended up having a really good team, which obviously didn't happen. So I really thought and felt all season long that this was it for Ron Rivera. But no, he told John that he wants to coach again, even if it's as a defensive coordinator. Now, what's interesting about that is that it's not very typical that somebody coaches for as long as Ron Rivera coached in Carolina and in Washington,

and then they go back and take a lesser position on a staff. In fact, like, there were a couple of names that popped into my mind. Like if he were to go back and let's say take a legitimate like on a staff, I'm not talking about an advisor or a consultant, you know, to a team. I'm talking about if he takes a job as a defensive coordinator or as a linebacker's coach on a staff. But, you know, I don't know if he would actually, you know, go to that level. It's rare. I believe it's rare.

But a couple of names popped into my mind. Ken Wisenhunt was the first one. Because I remember feeling about Ken Wisenhunt that this guy who, by the way, played for the skins for a few years in the late 80s and the early 90s and was sort of a Joe Gibbs kind of disciple in some way, shape, or form. I just remember the opportunities that he took

after being fired. He was the head coach in Arizona for six seasons, took the Cardinals to a Super Bowl, the Super Bowl that they lost to the Steelers in, and then was fired and became the offensive coordinator for the Chargers for a year, and then got another head coaching job with the Titans for two years, or it was actually a year and a half, got fired again, and then once again became the offensive coordinator for the Chargers for four seasons. And that was the name that popped into my mind.

He coached, you know, six years in Arizona, a year and a half in Tennessee, and after both times being fired, he took lesser jobs. I mean, that's a lifer. You know, that's a guy that really loves it. Even today, and I went to look at what he was currently doing, after the Chargers gig ended at the end of the 2019 season, he was an offensive analyst for James Franklin at Penn State for a couple of years. And he was a special assistant this past season to Nick Sabin at Alabama. Who knew? I didn't. And then out of curiosity, I just took a few minutes to try to find other examples like Wisenhunt.

And perhaps like Ron Rivera, if he ends up being a defensive coordinator. Dan Quinn, six years in Atlanta, a Super Bowl trip, a playoff trip after that. and then he became the defensive coordinator in Dallas, you know, a sizable run as a head coach with some, you know, level of success. You know, there are plenty of guys that were just coaches for a year or two or three and then ended up becoming coordinators or something lesser than head coach in other places. But I was kind of looking for the Wisenhunt, you know, Ron Rivera comps. Quinn would be one.

Mike Martz would be another. You know, Martz was the head coach. in St. Louis with the Rams for six seasons following Vermeal, and then ended up being an offensive coordinator in Detroit, San Francisco, and Chicago for a seven-year period after being let go by the Rams. Gary Kubiak's got an interesting story, but his really was more health-related. He was the head coach in Houston for eight years. Kyle Shanahan was his offensive coordinator for part of that time.

And then he left coaching because of health-related issues, came back and was the offensive coordinator for the Baltimore Ravens for a year, and then became the head coach of Denver for two seasons. Remember, winning a Super Bowl with Peyton Manning, a Super Bowl that Denver won over Ron Rivera's Carolina Panthers. and then he had more health-related issues, stepped down, and then came back a few years later as an offensive coordinator in Minnesota. But really the examples are Wisenhunt, Quinn, and Martz.

Those were the ones that I found. I don't think there are a lot of examples of guys that coached for as long as Ron's coached and had some level of success. Look, you rarely get to coach for as long as Ron did without some level of success. And I know that a lot of you think that he was a terrible coach, his entire coaching tenure in both Carolina and Washington, but that wasn't the truth in Carolina anyway. But there were a couple of other things from the story that I thought was interesting. One was this. Rivera kind of regrets the coach-centric model that he was hired to do. He said, quote, I would have loved a different

model just because in hindsight, now you really see how much more time you spend on personnel. And as a coach, that's not necessarily what you want to do. What I really enjoyed more than anything else the last five weeks, meaning after he fired Jack Del Rio, was just being right in the middle of everything. Now your only focus is just that one thing. That's what you do you want to teach. Look, I don't have much sympathy for this as far as Ron's concerned. First of all, the last five weeks didn't go very well either with him involved or more involved than he had been.

This was, you know, according to him, the coach-centric model was really part of the offer and what Snyder wanted. Yeah, Dan was looking for, you know, to hang his hat on happy Thanksgiving. Look at what I've come up with. Coach-centric. You know, not that he hadn't tried that before with sort of Mike Shanahan and certainly with Marty Schoen. But anyway, yeah, I'm sure in hindsight, you know, after four years in the record that was compiled and you being more of a CEO, CEO delegating coach, maybe it would have turned out better had you just been the football coach. It may have. And then there was this, all right? Sam Howell. All right, you ready? I'm just going to read right directly from Kimes story, including Kimes words in a paragraph. leading into a quote about Sam Hal. Rivera said he still believes Sam Hal can be a starting quarterback in the NFL, but he regrets how he handled this situation. Rivera announced last

offseason that Hal would enter the team's workouts as the number one quarterback. Hal ended up starting all 17 games, throwing 21 touchdowns and 21 interceptions. Quote from Rivera, I took a big gamble. I put a lot on Sam, and I probably shouldn't have put as much pressure on him. And I think that was probably one of the mistakes I made this year. He didn't deserve to have that put on him. He's a good young quarterback, has some talent and some ability, and I think that's something I should have backed off on. I should have kept emphasizing he was going to be the guy that got the first opportunity, just phrasing it that way, would have taken a lot of pressure off of him, just kind of that he hadn't been anointed, close

quote. Oh my God. I mean, there's so much here, but I'm going to net it out. First of all, yeah, you're right. You shouldn't have taken that big of a gamble. Secondly, you really didn't do it. You just kind of waffled through it. QB1, the number one guy entering the offseason. You know, there were times there where he actually talked about a competition. Well, we're not just handing it to him. He's got to earn it. But yeah, slapping the QB1, label on him was a big gamble. And it was also for him in the moment, kind of a get out of jail free card in that moment. I mean, I am convinced that Ben Standig had it right from day one. And that is in the aftermath of the end of that season in 2022, the Cleveland game in

particular, where he started Carson Wentz and then at the end of the game, after the game, didn't know that he could be eliminated from the postseason on that particular day. he needed to deflect and he deflected to the guy that we had just seen play okay in a totally meaningless game at the end of the year. You know, I'll remind everybody that in a story with John Kine before the season started, he talked about the ride home after that Dallas game and how he told his wife, oh my God, I had no idea. He was this good. And, you know, it went on and on. He needed, you know, an attention getter that was also a deflection from him. And, hey, what's better than, I think we may have found our guy, people.

I think we may have found him. Didn't you see that 11 for 19 performance against Dallas? You know, I just, and then waffling through it, you know, in the off season, sometimes talking about, well, it's not like he's got to earn it. You know, it's his job to lose kind of a thing. And they signed Jacobi Brissette to the largest contract of any backup quarterback in the league. The whole thing was ill-conceived. It should have been based from day one on competition.

You know, it should have been based on the fact that we like Sam, we saw some things during the course of the year. He played pretty well against Dallas. Instead, it was, oh my God, did you see him against the Cowboys? And let me tell you what some of the people were saying. They hadn't seen a ball zip in there that quickly. Right when I came out of my break, it was there. D.Bs, right when the receivers came out, the ball was there, I couldn't do anything about it. Well, of course not.

Comparing Sam Howell's arm to Taylor Heinekees. It just was a bad idea. Hey, we're looking for a quarterback. Sam showed us a lot of things in that final. We saw some things from him during the course of the year that he got better at in practice. He's going to have a chance. We're going to go out and see what we can do. Ownership situation may hamper us a little bit in this offseason,

but we intend on getting some people in here and having a real competition. But, you know, thinking about it that way now is not what you want from a true leader in a coach-centric model. He should have come up with that answer a year ago. And as far as, you know, keep emphasizing, or as far as putting the pressure, excuse me, on Sam, like it was too much on Sam, all they kept talking about as it related to Sam

in terms of one of the highlights of Sam was his toughness, his resilience. And by the way, I believe them on all of that. So I don't know that Sam really was feeling it so much, and that ultimately was part of the problem. I think Sam played well at times. He played poorly at times. He played poorly more of the time against the better defensive teams. And what was exposed about Sam Howell was what every other team in the league knew on draft day 2022. and that is he's got some flaws that are potentially fatal. He is short, he doesn't process quickly, and he holds on to the ball too long,

and because of that, he takes a lot of sacks. And then when the sack issue started to improve, we realized that it improved because he was bailing from the pocket too quickly, and he was missing too much. Rivera finished, by the way, by saying he really likes Harris. He said the organization is in a very good position. quote, if there's one thing that we can say over the four years, it's that I think the culture is headed in the direction. It needs to be headed. The organization's in a very good position, closed quote.

Okay. That's a bit, I think, of an attempt at, you know, taking some of the credit for where the organization is now. I don't think we're ever going to look back on Ron Rivera's four years and give them a whole hell of a lot of credit for, a lot other than being one hell of a guy who dealt with a lot of crap and a lot of stuff that even he couldn't have predicted and, yeah, and brought some decent people for the most part into the organization. But there's no carryover effect from Ron Rivera into Adam Peters and the new head coach and the new organization. I don't think anybody will ever see it that way. don't. Adam Peters, we talked about, you know, his introductory presser yesterday. I wanted to mention

something real quickly. And that is that, you know, when he got the job as the vice president of player personnel for the 49ers in 2017, the 49ers were coming off a two and 14 season in 2016, and they had the number two pick in the draft. And there was a new general manager, there was a new head coach, and he was part of the brain trust of a team that was in a similar situation. And he talked about that a little bit and said, you know, those were dark years, those early years. But, you know, he learned a lot from it, and he's now kind of in a similar situation. Well, they had the number two pick.

Remember, they traded that pick one spot down to allow Chicago to move one step up, one place up and select Mitch Trubisky in that draft. That was the Patrick Mahomes draft, too, if you're wondering. They took Solomon Thomas, who was a really good player at Stanford, but did not turn out to be a great pro, certainly not with the 49ers. And then remember, at the end of the first round, they selected Ruben Foster, who, you know, Jay told us last week on the podcast. You know, the tape ultimately was just incredible of Rubin Foster. And that was a player that they really coveted as well. But the point here being is that not only were they coming off a bad season with the number two overall pick,

they had a need for quarterback. Colin Kaepernick, they had moved on from after 2016 with the new regime. Lynch and Kyle Shanahan didn't want Colin Kaepernick, or anybody else that had been on the roster the year before on a 2 and 14 football team. And what did they do? They didn't take a quarterback at number two overall or at number three overall. You know, and there were opportunities in that draft. If they had loved Mahomes, they didn't take him.

They didn't evaluate Mahomes as that high. They didn't evaluate Deshaun Watson as a quarterback they should take. And I reminded myself of the reason why they didn't take a quarterback. It's because they thought that Kirk Cousins was going to be their quarterback. They tried to trade for Kirk Cousins. It didn't work out. And when it didn't work out, they were patient. John Lynch was patient.

Kyle Shanahan was patient and said, that's okay, we'll get him next year in free agency. But if you recall, what happened was, well, first of all, Washington wouldn't trade Kirk Cousins to the Shanahan's. Big mistake. They would have gotten number two overall and probably. more for cousins. That was, you know, at the time, as much as I wanted them to sign Kirk to a long-term deal, they just couldn't figure out the market. They were too stupid to figure out that this guy commanded on the open market more than $54 million guaranteed. That was the second time and the last time that they insulted him with an offer that wasn't anywhere near market value. Six months later,

the Jets offered $90 million guaranteed, and he settled on, 80 plus million guaranteed in the first ever fully guaranteed contract in NFL history with the Vikings. We've covered that ground just a few times in the past. But they were hoping that Kirk Cousins was going to be their quarterback. And they offered a lot. It wasn't taken. It wasn't even considered by Washington because of the petulant childlike front office and owner. they weren't going to give Kyle Shanahan who he wanted. By the way, I swear to you, I think Dan

and Bruce actually disliked Kyle a lot more than they disliked Mike, just as a little bit of sort of anecdotal information, if I haven't mentioned that in the past. They didn't like either one of them, but they really didn't like Kyle, and they were not going to give Kyle his, you know, quarterback, which was obviously penny wise, pound foolish. We knew it at the time. We know it even more now. But that's why they didn't take a quarterback at number two overall, or trade back and take a quarterback at number three, or maybe trade back again and take a quarterback. And then when it became apparent in 2017, that Kirk was going to be the prized free agent and that the contract value was going to be in excess of 80 to potentially $90 million.

That's when they decided to trade for Jimmy Garoppolo at the trade deadline in October of 2017, that first year in San Francisco. And they kind of gave up the hope of getting Kirk Cousins after that. So, but interesting, right, that, you know, Adam Peters, number two overall, number two and 17. He wasn't the primary decision maker, understood, but that the situations are so comparable. The only thing that isn't comparable is the head coach that he hires more likely than not won't have a guy that he coached that he hopes to trade for because there's really no quarterback I don't think other than Justin Fields worth trading for. In free agency, ironically,

Kirk Cousins will be the number one free agent quarterback, I think more so than Russell Wilson in terms of being desired by multiple teams. And there will probably be a bit of a bidding war. I think he's going to resign with Minnesota, and I think he will do it for the first time in his career with a level of an eye towards Minnesota's ability to build out the roster and not taking the most amount of money. We'll see. I don't think Washington will pursue Kirk Cousins. I was not about to lead into that. But, you know, like I said yesterday, God, it's going to be fun here to sort of document, you know, each and every move.

And the next big one is head coach, clearly. And the news is that Ben Johnson will be interviewed virtually on Friday, and they will interview Rahim Morris and Dan Quinn virtually on Thursday. I think the Ben Johnson virtual interview on Friday is interesting. is he's getting ready for Detroit's biggest game in 32 years. You know, this 32 years. He's getting ready to potentially lead Detroit as its offensive coordinator into an NFC title game. And he's going to do a virtual interview on Friday, two days before the game. Not that people can't do multiple things at the same time, as I've talked to.

about before as it relates to even this franchise. But I would just think that, you know, those virtual interviews, I mean, we read, as Tommy and I discussed yesterday, about how long the GM interviews were, two and a half hours with the gatekeeper, Spielman, and then two and a half hours with Harris, and then another 90-minute second interview. This first interview, even if it's just for two and a half hours, I would think that that's a significant chunk of a very important day as they get ready for the divisional round game against Tampa Bay. By the way, did you see Todd Bowles, the Tampa Bay coach, get asked about the cold weather in Detroit as a warm weather team, and he had to tell the very nice reporter, yeah, they've had

a dome stadium there for decades. They're playing indoors. I am rooting for Todd Bowles more than anybody else this weekend. God, I would love to see him get his bouquet of flowers finally. I think he's always been an outstanding defensive mind, one of the better defensive minds in the league. He was in New York as a head coach, as we know, never had a quarterback. Last year, they were eight and nine, but that was not a good team. It was a fading Brady, a fading offense.

And, you know, they were not the favorites to win the NFC South this year. New Orleans was a pretty sizable favorite, not to mention. the fact that I think most people had Atlanta as the second pick in the NFC South. A lot of people thought Carolina could be much better than they were. And Tampa Bay won the division at 9 and 8 with Baker Mayfield playing at a high level. The defense now getting healthier and playing better. And I don't think they can beat Detroit. But God, I would love to see that this weekend, I think more than anything else.

Todd Bowles as the head coach in an NFC title game. And I'll just mention this. They played the 49ers pretty tough in San Francisco in the regular season. It was a 13 to 7 game at halftime. They turned the ball over or got stopped on downs five times in the game, four times in the second half as they were approaching the red zone or in the red zone. The final score was 27 to 14. and they did a really good job defensively against that team as well.

McCaffrey in that game, 3.7 yards per carry against Tampa Bay in their regular season game. I think it was one of the worst games of the year other than the Minnesota game on Monday night for McCaffrey all year long. All right. Let's get to Jay Gruden next right after these words from a few of our sponsors. Hey guys, a new sponsor I want to tell you about our new sponsor, and we welcome them, is Lucy. Lucy is upping the nicotine pouch game with Lucy Breakers. Pouches packing a little something extra inside. What are Lucy Breakers? Well, if you know pouches, you know that the nicotine doesn't hit immediately and neither does the flavor.

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and always free shipping. And here comes the fine print. Lucy products are only for adults of legal age and every order is age verified. Warning, this product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical. This segment of the show brought to you by MyBooky. Go to my bookie.orgie.orgie. Use my promo code, Kevin D.C. And you'll get a cash bonus on your initial deposit. Everything's up for the divisional round of the playoffs, the Ravens. Nine-point favorites with a total of 43.5 in the first game on Saturday against Houston. The Saturday night game, the 49ers are nine and a half point favorites over Green Bay. Largest total of any of the four games at 50 and a half. Detroit's minus.

six over Tampa in the first game on Sunday. The total's 48 and a half. And then Buffalo, an injured Buffalo team on defense, that is for sure. They are two and a half point favorites against the Chiefs in Orchard Park. The total is 45 and a half. Everything you need for the upcoming weekend you can find at my bookie.ag. Please use my promo code, Kevin D.C. Don't put in Kevin 980 or Kevin Team 980. It's Kevin, D.C. is the promo code. And that will give you a cash bonus on your initial deposit. All right, as mentioned, I am going to be off for a couple of days. So I reached out to Jay Gruden, who is usually on with me on Fridays to see if he would come on today. And he was willing to do that. So he joins us right now. And obviously, the last couple of days have been some busy days.

for you on social media. How do you like social media these days? Oh, it's exciting. You know, you never know what you're going to get there in some of the comment columns. But yeah, it's fun. In all honesty, is it really exciting or not? No, no, it's not. No, it's quite the trend, though. I'll tell you that. I mean, people take things a lot more seriously than they should, I believe. Well, we'll get to your last comment in the back and forth with RG3. which was clearly sarcasm.

I'm not sure if ever, people that don't know you may have thought you were being serious in apologizing for the staff. But let's just start with, and by the way, I'm having Jay on today so that we can talk about the playoff games. We can talk about Adam Peters and the GM coach set up and all of that stuff.

And we're going to get to that. But your initial tweet just was about what you were seeing in the game. So let's start there. Yeah, yeah, just Anytime you play a guy like Todd Bowles, you know that there's a pretty good strong possibility you're going to get blitzed

and blitzed often, especially if you line up and empty. He has empty automatic blitz. He's got four strong, four weeks blitzes. He's got the whole package, double-a's, he's got a hell of a package old Todd Bulls does. I just feel like, man, he didn't even even know that he was going to blitz.

I mean, these are free runners like everywhere. They're off the edge, right up the middle. And I just didn't give Jaylen a chance or Jalen didn't see it. One of the other. I don't know if it was coaching or if it was all on Jalen, but it just looked like they had no answer for anything. It really didn't look like they had much of an answer for a lot of things over the last month plus. But when you tweeted that out, it was specifically about football.

Were you surprised at the response? Yeah, I was. I didn't think many people followed me, so I didn't think it was that big a deal. But, yeah, I was surprised at a couple of responses. All right. Well, let's talk about the art. RG3 response because that's the one that's gotten the most attention. Yeah, yeah, he just responded like he wasn't prepared, I guess, with his eyeballs,

the little RG3 Emmy or whatever it is, those memes, whatever it is. Yeah. So I just asked, you weren't prepared, Robert? You know, we had pretty good meetings and tried to get you prepared. If you weren't prepared, I said, sorry. So that initial response when you said you weren't prepared was taken maybe, by a lot of people as more of a statement about Robert and more of a criticism about Robert, which maybe some people viewed it that way. But you're saying that what you essentially said was

you weren't prepared, Robert, like it was a question, like you were, you know, questioning whether or not he felt like you had prepared him enough. I put a question mark on there and wondered why he wasn't prepared because I sat in all the meetings and I thought we prepared. You know, we had some issues of protection, too. We're not perfect fighting me. You know, sometimes a tackle gets beat. Sometimes you get beaten, you get sacked. You know, if he did get sacked quite a bit,

I think in the preseason game against Troy, he got sacked five or six times and two series or three series. So, yeah, yeah, man, we had some issues, but the big question was, was you weren't prepared, was the big question. You know, we don't have to spend a lot of time on this, we don't. But I think there's a lot of interested people. I mean, look, yesterday was a day to look forward with the official announcement of the hiring of Adam Peters.

And this fan base, and look, I'm a culprit as well because we didn't have a lot to cheer about in the moment. There was a lot of looking back at, you know, positive and negative alike, sometimes just sort of wallowing in each other's misery in this community of fans. But the Robert era is a 30 for 30. It'll be much more interesting than, you know, the self-produced all in for week one documentary that he did on himself between his rookie year and his second year after the injury in the Seattle game. I mean, this is going to document potentially the meteoric rise like we've never seen before of a rookie quarterback taking the league by storm. and then the epic and very immediate downfall. It'll be a fascinating story whenever it's done. You were there for a lot of it.

What was it like to coach him? Well, you know what I got the job. I was well aware of what he did as a rookie. I was also well aware he had an injury against Seattle. And I was well aware that he wanted to try to transition into being more of a dropback type quarterback. We try to help make that transition smooth. That's why I hired Smooth.

That's why I hired Sean McVeigh because he was with Kyle, and we were able to implement some of the things that Kyle did that were very successful, Robert, and some of the things that I did with Andy Dalton and with my brother that I thought would help a quarterback out, which would make quarterback successful. It helped Andy Dalton a lot. He made a lot of money. So we tried to implement kind of a dual-tight plan for our Robert and try to get him there. Unfortunately, there's a guy named Kirk,

cousins on our roster and Colt McCoy, and they both in practice were throwing a ball extremely well, so we had kind of a competition. But we let Robert have the reins, and unfortunately he got hurt against Jacksonville and gave opportunities those other guys, and all of a sudden more opportunities they got, the better they looked. And we just figured, for the betterment of the football team, Kirk was the best player to help us win. Period.

It was nothing personal. It was just that Kirk was a... of more talented passing quarterback at the time. Right, but you went through the entirety of the 2014 season, that first year, with Kirk and then Colt, after Kirk didn't play well, and his first opportunity to start following RG3's injury. And then when Robert got healthy and came back, he was in there for a few weeks and it didn't go well.

Your effort to develop him into what he wanted, look, he was, When Mike and the Shanahan regime got chased out of town by Dan and Robert, he was hashtagging and trademarking hashtags like you read about. We get to do things the way we want to do them now. Hashtag the movement. Hashtag this, hashtag that. He was excited about you coming in because he was going to get to play quarterback the way that he envisioned himself,

which was more a combination. maybe of Peyton Manning and Aaron Rogers, whatever. When did you realize that that really wasn't going to be something that he would be good at doing? Well, for Robert to have success in the league, you have to be multi-dimensional and be able to run the zone reads and some of the RPOs, which we try to keep in there. But you also have to be able to throw the ball, obviously, because once those dry up, you have to have some form of drop-back passing game, especially with the personnel that we had that year. We had Deshawn Jackson, I think

we had Pierre, we had Jordan Reed, we had Chris Thompson out of the back field, we had some pretty good weapons that built a ball through, so we wanted to get them the ball as well. So the more you practiced and the more you saw them out there, we kind of realize that he wasn't the best passer on our football team. Kirk and Colt were

much better equipped at doing that as far as a drop-back passing game. And it showed on the field. It showed in practice every day. It wasn't just a snap decision that we made. It was a decision that myself and Sean McVeigh and Matt Kavanaugh and Bill Callahan, the entire staff, we saw every day. That's why we made it.

It wasn't, it was nothing personal of all. It was all trying to get the best player on the field at the time. At the time, we went through Kirk. Kirk struggled a little bit. Went back to Colt. Colt got hurt, and then we went back to Robert. And then he struggled a little bit more. And then that offseason through OTAs, it was clear the best passer was Kirk.

And that's why we went and announced Kirk as a starter, so we wouldn't have to go through all these. changing of the guard every single week. If a guy played pulley, we want to announce a starting quarterback, give him the opportunity to have the job without looking over his shoulder, and have the confidence that we were going to play him through thick and thin so he could play and let him loose, and he did. He played very well.

He went to the playoffs at the year. How hard was that on Robert at the time? I'm sure it was hard because he had, like you mentioned, you know, he got a lot of publicity at first year. They won the division, and he did some really good things. He won rookie the year, there's no doubt about it. But as a quarterback, you have to develop, you have to continue to get better every day.

And to transition to the type of quarterback he wanted to be is not easy for a young player who never really went through concepts and audible on the line of scrimmage and reading coverages, reading pure progressions or side of the field, single high, too deep, whatever it might be, protections, getting to the right protection. He's a smart kid. He can handle everything mentally. Just physically, it didn't transition.

quite well enough and took a lot of sacks and just didn't work out. I mean, those guys were better than him at the quarterback position at that time. That's why we made the change. I'd definitely do it to anything else. Well, how... It's clear that it's clear that it was the right decision. I mean, Kirk is still playing at an ultra-high level, right? I mean, it's not like it was a terrible decision.

Jay, everybody that's followed this saga understands what Robert Griffin III's career was and what Kirk Cousin's career was. I mean, nobody that's reasonable thinks that wrong decisions were made. In the moment in 2014, oh, my God, it was a very, very polarizing decision. You remember that because people had remembered 2012, and they made it about a lot of different things, and you were in the middle of it, and you were just playing the best guy. But, you know, that environment back then was incredibly polarizing in this city, National writers picked up the cause, injected into the conversation were racial overtones, too, to a certain degree when Kirk was named starter.

So there was a lot to that. What was Robert like as a teammate once you made that decision? You know, Robert was fine. Obviously, he was frustrated a little bit, but he didn't cause any controversy or he wasn't a pain. He came out to practice and tried to do the best he could. he did the scout team reps and tried to get himself better and make it a competition more of a competition. But, you know, the more the more he solidified himself as a starting quarterback for the

Washington Redskins at the time. But Robert Devere was a problem whatsoever. How was Dan during that time? He was fine. He understood it. I think everybody in the organization, if you just watch the games, you could see that one guy was better than the other guy pretty much. You know, if you just watch again, but we're at practice every day as well, so we all could see it.

But he was okay. I think everybody wanted the best for Robert at the time, but, you know, sometimes somebody else in the building beats you out. That's just the nature of pro football. You have competition every day at every position. It's like that. I mean, we had high expectations for Josh Doxton and Sue Crayvins and all that stuff, but sometimes these guys just come in and don't perform like we anticipated and other guys beat them out. That's just the nature of pro football.

Yeah. All right. Do you anticipate any more back and forth with our G3? I don't. I really don't. I hope you understand. I feel bad. I did the best I could there, Kevin. I really did. But it just didn't work out. It worked out for Kirk in a big way. I mean, he's got a lot of money and he's still playing. And Robert had a chance to go on and play somewhere else. He went to Cleveland. He went to Baltimore and didn't work out there either.

So, you know, so whatever. I think everybody understands the conclusion to the story as it, as it played out. Do you... I just get upset at the fact that, you know, anybody who says they weren't prepared. I mean, I'd like to feel like we put a lot of time, and I had a really good staff.

Sean McVeigh was our office coordinator. He spent a lot of time with those quarterbacks. We had Matt Kavanaugh's a quarterback coach, and we hired Kevin O'Connell is a quarterback coach, and O'Connell is a coordinator, so those guys have pretty much shown the world that they are very good football coaches. And I had Bill Callahan as a line coach,

and West Phillips is a tight-end coach. He's offensive coordinator for the Vikings right now. So we had a pretty good staff. Yes. The staff you had was a pretty good one for offensive players and quarterbacks. And let me just make sure that everybody understands the context. Jay's response to Robert saying to Jay, you told me you didn't know how to coach a quarterbacks. who could throw and run like me.

So looks like you weren't prepared, Jay. And Jay responded, you're right, we didn't have a good enough staff. Sorry, Hope Hall is well with you. That was sarcasm for those of us that know Jay. He wasn't apologizing literally for not having a good enough staff. Robert Griffin, the third, had fantastic coaches. offensive coaches when he was in Washington. And, you know, again, we kind of know the conclusion to this.

And I think most reasonable people that followed the day to day and not even the day to day, just the overall arc to the story, understand that ultimately he was as responsible for the lack of a career as anybody else was. but it's been hard for him to take accountability for those things. I think that's, I think that's, Jay, in some ways, the disappointment for those that were, you know, even the diehards and the dying days that believed that the organization had wronged Robert in some way, shape, or form. I think even for them, they got to a point where it's been hard to not see Robert take more responsibility for, his own demise as a player. But anyway, he's become pretty effective at getting things and getting people riled up on social media. That's for sure. I can't compete with him that. That's why I should

probably let it go because he's got the bigger mic. I think what's frustrating for, you know what, actually, I don't think anything's frustrating. I think we're done with this topic. Let's move on. Let's talk some football. Let's talk about the future rather than the past. And let's start with Adam Peters. Washington hired Adam Peters yesterday. You and I talked a little bit about their final two candidates. You didn't know much about either one of them. So I'll just ask you about the relationship between GM and head coach. It was never a smooth situation here, understood. I think we all understand with Dan as the owner, it was never a situation that was ideal. But what should

the relationship between general manager and head coach be? Well, they have to be on the same page. And obviously, they have to understand who has a final say and communication is critical because they're not always going to agree on everything, but you have to understand that both parties are going to do what they believe is best for the football team period. It's not about personal accolation. Hey, I signed this guy. I did this.

This is my pick. This is mine. This is a team pick. It's a team decision. And as long as everybody's on board with that, then you're not going to be. get your way all the time. That's okay. Just develop the guys that you get, be happy with the guys that you get, and make them the best players that they can become. And don't feel like this is anything personal. It's a team decision. And whoever he hires the head coach, whether he gives

them full control over personnel or not, they split it. That's great. Just make sure they work together and they all have the betterment of the Washington Commander franchise is their number one priority, period. Who should have the finals say? Well, it depends on the guys. A lot of coaches, they want to have final stay just because they want to beat their chest and have the power. But not all coaches want to put the time in to study every college draft pick or free agent or every free agent in the NFL and put the time in the work at. So, yeah, so if you want total control, then you better be ready to get up there early in the morning and grade every player that's coming out in the draft and every college free agent.

And then when free agency hits, you better be ready to know who, you know who, you know. you can afford and who you can't afford in what positions you need to upgrade and who you need to target. So that takes a lot of work. So I personally think if you're going to hire a young coach like a Ben Johnson or somebody like that, I think the GM should have control over personnel and Ben should have control over obviously the play calling and the plays and the 53 man roster and all that stuff. Coaches have their say and their grades and their reports, but the scouting staff and the

GM should have control over personnel. There's not many coaches are willing to put that type of level. work in. Right. You did, though, for the most part, right? Oh, I loved it. That was my favorite part of the job. And I've just, I always believed, I've said it a thousand times that it's not about

the players, it's not about the players. And you look around the league and you look at the AFC, those four best quarterbacks are in the final four, CJ, Mahomes, Josh Allen, and who's the other one? The other one would be Mahomes, Alan, Stroud, and Lamar. and Lamar, obviously. Yeah, and Lamar. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, so you got to, first of all, you got to address that position.

That's the most important position in sports. They have the number two pick. So whatever the GM decides to do, it's all about this number two pick, how we're going to develop this number two pick. Because if this number two pick, if they trade up to one or if they get two, it is a chance for you to solidify your job for the next 15 years and make this team go where it wants to go. And if you strike out a number two pick, you'll be looking for a job in two to three years.

That's just the way it is. So the answer to the following question for you would be number two overall. The question being, what's the most important addition here in the offseason? The GM, the head coach, or who they pick at number two? Do they pick at number two? I don't think it's even close. I think it's they got to address that position. I mean, it's no secret to why these teams, Andy Reed has had so much success.

He had, you know, Donald McAbb at Philadelphia. He's got Patrick Mahomes here, and he's a great football coach. I know it, but he's a better football coach with Patrick Mahomes. And Sean McDermott, you know, he was out of the brink of getting fired. Everybody wanted to get rid of him, and then here comes Josh Allen playing like a monster for the last five weeks. Lamar Jackson, I mean, he's shown that he can do a little bit of everything, and 49ers strike out on the first round pick as quarterback,

but they find a diamond and rough and get Brock Purdy in the seventh round. So you've got to have a quarterback, and coaching matters. I understand that, but quarterback's very important. So whoever they pick, you've got to be able to have it. If they pick a defensive guy, that's fine, but just make sure they have an offensive coordinator that can develop his quarterback. And they pick an offensive guy, you better make sure he's all in on developing this quarterback, and he can do it in a great way.

What was the most normal situation when you were here between sort of front office and head coach? I don't know. I think probably, I don't. was never really crazy abnormal. It's just there's a few circumstances there with free agents and some of the draft picks that we didn't agree with. And it wasn't so much we, like I said before, you know, you're not always going to get your own way, but when the majority of people are one way and then just somebody with more power is the other way and picks that person, it's

frustrating. But for the most part, you know, I think once we announced Kirk, those two years with Kirk, three years with Kirk were normal other than the fact we're going through that contract issue with these franchise tag. We couldn't find them. That wasn't very normal. So it was never really normal because we never really felt like we got a quarterback. Then we got Alex Smith. We were six and three and we were playing pretty good, so it felt like we were back

on track. And then all hell breaks loose with the injuries and all that stuff. So unfortunately, when you don't have that position solidified, it's never going to be normal. It's always going to be, who's going to be our guy moving forward? Because, like I said before, once you solidify

that position, you're solidified. pretty much as a head coach if he could just surround them with good people. I mean, we understand Dan's input in some of the picks over the years, Dwayne Haskins as an example. What was the biggest disagreement you and Bruce ever got into? Oh, we've had a few. Yeah, we, I don't know. I mean, we've had some free agents.

I don't want to talk about the free agents because social media will bust me in a head. Free agents that we signed. And there are some guys that we had to keep that I didn't want to keep. because we signed them as free agents, but they were bad for the football team. Sometimes when you go out and pay a guy, Bill Belichick was famous for it. He went out and signed a bunch of guys that didn't work out, and he cut them after two or three weeks and still paid them the money. And sometimes you have to do that.

You have to take chances with some pre-agents, get them in the building. But once they're in the building, if they don't fit what you're trying to do, then you can't be married to them. You have to make those decisions. And for the betterment of the football team is better for the locker room. those are decisions that have to be made and those decisions I didn't have the power to make. And that was frustrating as well. Well, I'm intrigued by, I mean, I think I know the answer to a couple of them because you've mentioned it before.

But Bruce didn't really mess with anybody on the draft, though, right? No, yeah, he did. He was in all the draft meetings. Bruce at least sat on the meetings with the personnel guys, so I have respect for that. I always mentioned when I was at Cincinnati, Mike Brown had the final say. But I had a ton of respect for him in his background and the work that he put in because he sat in every meeting. And he watched the film and he listened to the scouts. He listened to the coaches' reports.

He listened to the coordinator's reports. And if there was a disagreement, he would step in and use his expertise and what he listened to and what he saw and make the decision. Everybody respected that. And there was no issue with that whatsoever. So, yeah, I mean, that's the most important thing. Personnel is very hard because everybody's going to have their own opinion. what they think is better for your team. A coordinator, say, I want this guy

as a pass rusher. I want this guy as a linebacker. You need to be fast. It needs to be run sideline and sideline. And the scout says, well, he's not big enough. We need a bigger guy. Stop the run. Well, he can't run. He can't cover anybody because it's just spread out league. So you have all kinds of

differences of opinions. But bottom line is you just have to figure out who the best one is for your team. And what that decision is made, you got to develop him as a coach. That's just the way it is. When Scott was there, and it was you doing evaluation, Scott doing evaluation, Bruce is involved, Dan's involved.

Was that at all functional during those two off seasons or not? I think Scott's first year, yeah, we were fine. You know, we didn't always see eye to eye, but I got along good with Scott. I thought he worked hard at it and did some good things. You know, unfortunately, I don't know what happened there with them, but, yeah, I like Scott. I thought Scott was a football guy and worked extremely hard at it. But that obviously didn't work out.

I like Kyle Smith a lot. Kyle Smith was probably my favorite guy to work with because he was really diligent at working hard and getting the reports and studying the film. And, you know, he had his beliefs and what a guy looks like at each position, and as did I. And we'd go head to head sometimes, but I had a ton of respect for why he liked the guy or why he didn't like the guy that I liked or vice versa. And we came to conclusions and made.

decisions and it was great. I had a great work in relationship with Kyle. All right. Let's get to some of the games from the weekend just concluded and the upcoming weekend in the divisional round with Jay. And we'll do that after I tell you about a new premier highline exotic dealership new to the DMV. They specialize in clean, low mile and unique spec vehicles. Every car goes through 110 point in special. and is backed by an extensive warranty. Financing leasing available on all vehicles, and the expert staff at Magdon Motors.com

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And then the ultimate Marty Graw Bash in February. Good times, great eats. That's how they do it down south. And they're bringing it all to D.C. Learn more at DUSouth, DC.com. All right. Let's quickly talk about the games that were just played and then the four division. round games.

Was there a bigger stunner than what happened to Dallas? No, no. Nobody expected that. And it's crazy. So why did it happen? Dallas play. Well, they're too little. They're too little on defense.

You can't stop the run. Buffalo obviously put the blueprint of that. Josh, I don't through the ball eight times or ten times against Dallas. James Cook run for 500 yards or whatever wasn't. And when you put that on film and you don't make any adjustments personnel-wise, and they did that they kept their little linebackers and their little defense alignment and Green Bay just pushed them around.

They took that opening drive when 80 yards and it looked easy. I mean, they're running outside zones and inside zones or play actions and they just gutted them. And then back, I think when that happens, when you see the opening drive, go 875 yards per touchdown pretty easily,

you kind of get a little panic mode and Mike Carthy came out, he tried to run the ball and be physical, and they got the third and eight, threw it in completion, next thing he knows 14 and nothing. And he throws a pick, and then it's 21 nothing. And then you're just panic.

You're in a dead panic, and they could never recover. But I was shocked by it, but I wasn't totally stunned by it because of the way Dallas plays defense. Yeah, I felt like the same way. Like people, we'll talk about DAC here in a moment, but defense was the number one reason by far. They lost the football game. And after that first drive, I actually watching was like.

like, DAC looks tight. They might feel already like they're in a game where every possession. Look, you had that team in 2016. You know, you had a team where every single time the offense came out under the field, you felt like you better hold on to the football, you better score, or you could be in trouble. And that's what it felt like early. And do you think the pressure got to him?

Yeah, I think it did a little bit. That's a stressful situation, man. When you're watching your defense and you're standing on the sideline for eight to ten minutes, while the other team just running down your throat. Then you finally get the ball. You're jumping up and down trying to get loose, and you're forcing the issue. And you're trying to drive balls and spots that you normally probably wouldn't. You might, you know, so that's just a tough situation.

And it was just that they could never get out of the hole. They couldn't get a key stop or a key turnover. They couldn't make a big play on offense, and they just never could catch up. And hats off to Green Bay. Because Jordan Love, he did throw under pressure from time to time, but it didn't face him at all. He was dropping some serious dimes in that game under duress. What an impressive performance by him. I don't think people really – I think a lot of people are saying, wow, Dallas is terrible,

DAC chokes and all that stuff. But at some point you've got to give the Green Bay Packers and Jordan Love's credit. Yeah, definitely. They played great, and he was awesome. But when it comes to Dallas, most people in talking about that team, and they get talked about more than any other team in the league, they focus on their failures. And the two biggest names mentioned coming out of this,

and I agree with you, I thought it was defense number one overall. That's why they lost the game. But what do you, what's your takeaway on DAC after a game like that? You know, it's really hard. He had a really, really, really good year, almost an MVP-type level year. So you have to give them credit for that because, you know,

you're talking 17 games and put themselves in a position to win the division, get a home game in the playoffs. That's not easy to do. So you've got to give them credit for that. And you get in a big game and the most opportune time to really show your progression as a quarterback and as a young man. And you throw two key interceptions that shouldn't have been thrown. I mean, the first one, the Alexander, the ball should have gone to see you lamb right over his head.

I know that concept. It's a flag concept. You have a drag china and you have a deep seven route behind it. And if the corner jumps the drag china, you throw it to the CD land right over his head. And then the other one was a quick theme. We call it a shallow cross and a little slant behind it. And if the Mike linebacker does not chase the shallow cross, you throw it to the shallow cross. And the shallow cross is wide open.

He tried to throw it to the slant, and it was picked six. So those are two decisions that I can't believe that he made. Other than that, he threw for 388 yards and did some good things. But in critical times, your decision-making has to be on point. And for whatever reason, those two plays were critical plays in the game. He wasn't on point, but you have to still say that Back Prescott is a solid quarterback in the National Football League. And I think moving forward, if they did something with Dak, they'd be silly because,

as we all know, there's not many quarterbacks out there that could play like Backhand for that for 17 weeks and put up the numbers that he put up. Right. But therein lies the rub, because you've got to pay him $60 million a year, basically. You've got to make that decision. and he's not elite. He's not Mahomes. He's not Josh Allen.

He's not a top five, top seven quarterback. And you wonder whether or not there is a ceiling that he's already reached. But if you get rid of him, more likely than not, you won't find somebody as good as him. That's kind of where a lot of teams are in this league. A lot of teams are like that. It's called quarterback purgatory. And you have to pay a quarterback. And you can't just go into the offseason bare ass naked without a guy.

You better have a plan if you're going to choose not to resign back. You're going to let that go somewhere else. Let them go to another team in your division. Let them go to another team in your conference. Let them go to another team. But then what are you going to do? What pick do you have? Can you trade up and get a guy?

Is there a free agent that you want to get? Do you want to try to trade for Justin Fields or whatever it might be? Then you have to pay him a lot of money. So the search for that position is. is real. And if you have a guy that's pretty good, I think back is pretty good. I think you still can get over the top with them. But if you pay them that much money, you're going to lose some key players. You might lose your Pro Bowl Guard. You might lose Micah Parsons. You might lose Stefan Gilmore. I mean, these are critical pieces to your football team. So you have to be prepared

for that. How are you going to replace those guys? It's a very tough deal for these teams. That's why Josh Malone and Patrick Mahomes and these guys, you can pay them all you want because you can around them with whatever, and they'll give your team a great chance to win. All right. Some of the other games real quickly. Did the Chiefs prove to you that they can be the Chiefs moving forward through the rest of these playoff games, including at Buffalo on Sunday? Yeah, they've morphed into a more physical football team.

Defensively, they're playing at a very high level. They're number two in defense, so they're going to be in games. And then you give Patrick Mahomes opportunities because your defense is playing well, then yes, you have an opportunity to win every single game. And they're playing more physical up front. I like the fact that they're running between the tackles. They have a powerful offensive line. I love their guards are very good.

Their centers are good. And Pacheco is running a ball physically. And that will open up things for Kelsey as a play action. And I like the fact that they got a number one, a true number one receiver now in Roshie Rice. That's big. So they got Rishie Rice. They got Travis Kelsey. They got Pacheco.

And then maybe get some other guy a ball, Watson, every now and then. But they have the ability to beat you because they have a strong defense. They have an unbelievable quarterback, and they have two legit weapons coming out of the back field and throwing the ball too. I want you to second guess a little bit, or maybe you first guessed it. Sean's decision to punt in Detroit territory, one time out left, about four minutes to go. It's fourth and 14, understood, but there's a chance you never get the ball back against Detroit. Would you have gone for that or would you have punted it? they played really good defense in the second half and they were stopping them pretty good

and it was unfortunate no call and the holding call on both puka and akua and uh you know they got pulled his jersey but uh yeah you know what four minutes to go that's a lot of time and i think that uh he made the right decision fourth and 14 is not an easy down you know most people are going to play sticks and they're going to sit at the sticks with a lot of depths and you're going to have check it down and maybe break a tackle and hopefully get lucky with the 14-yard game but punt in the ball backing them up with one timeout. You assume he might get the ball back and let Matthew do his thing. But I could have gone either way with that decision, but I think punting wasn't terrible.

I thought it was an incredibly well-quarterbacked game. Did you agree? And if so, who was the better of the two quarterbacks in the game? Well, Matthew got beat up. I put a little tweet out there. This is one badass. I mean, he is a tough competitive son of a gun. I love this guy.

Love him. I mean, he is a stud. He's a great competitor, but you can't argue with what Ben Johnson and Jared Golf have done with that offense. They didn't play very well in the second half. They only scored three points. They got out to a nice lead. I'll struggle a little bit offensively in the second half,

but they did enough to win. And Jared Golf has been a true pro and handled the situation like a champ and moved on the next level. Now they play Detroit and they have a chance to play. They play Tampa. Tampa Bay and have a chance to play for the NFC championship. Yeah. The last time they were in the end of the end of the team.

NFC Championship, Jay, was here in Washington against the 91 skins, maybe the best Super Bowl winning team of all time. 41 to 10 was the final, and that was the last time. Washington fans enjoyed glory. Been a long time. All right, let's look at the games this weekend real quickly before we get to your lock of the week. Texans Ravens on Saturday, the first game of divisional round weekend.

C.J. Stroud coming in off of that great. game against Cleveland, Baltimore off the buy week. The Ravens are nine-point favorites. Who do you like? You've got to think Baltimore. Baltimore does not have a weakness. They're able to beat you physically. They can mall you, Gus Edwards and Justice Phil. They can run the ball. And obviously, the design runs for Lamar. And now Lamar can throw it and drop back game. And he can throw all kinds of throws. He's playing at an unbelievable level, not just as a runner, as a passer. I feel like in years past that if you got ahead of Baltimore, they couldn't come back

because they can't throw the ball. Now it's not the case. They can't throw the ball. They got receivers Bateman and obviously Veith Flowers and Odell Beckham and Isaiah likely guys emerges a good tight end threat. So I just think they have too much for Houston.

As much as I've been a Houston fan this whole time and love CJ Stroud and hopefully Tank Dell gets back, but they're fun to watch. And a young football team is going to be to be dealt with for a long time with that group of guys and that coach. I love D'Neico Ryan's and Floak's done an unbelievable job. But I think it'll be a good game, but I think Baltimore just overpowers them.

Do you like them laying the big number? Yeah, I do. I do. You know, the key for Houston is a stay-out-a-third-long. Obviously, it's the key for every team because Baltimore's defense, they really do a great job of coverage, mixing their coverages and confusing quarterbacks are number one on defense and sacks, number one in turnovers or number one in this. And McDonald has a great plan all the time.

He doesn't have to rush five. He doesn't have to rush six. He can rush four. He can rush five. He does a lot of different things. So first second down will be key. Singletary will be key. They've got to maintain possession of football to have a chance.

But I think at the end of the day, Lamar just got too much going for him right now. The only issue I have, they haven't played a meaningful snap since the end of December. Right. And they've had a lot of time off. It might be a little rusty. But if they jump on them early, then I think they cover it easy. How much of a chance do you give Jordan Love? and the Packers at San Francisco?

The way Jordan loves playing, I give them a lot of big chance. And the running game is going well, and the receivers, the young receivers are starting to emerge. And Matt LaFleur does a good job. He knows that defense well. So I give him a good chance, really. I think it would be a heck of a game. But at the end of the day, with the way San Francisco plays on offense or physicality,

I just think they're going to be too much for Green Bay as well. So do you like Green Bay plus the points? No, I still think San Fran. I think San Fran, again, I think with the pass rush, Chase Young and Bosa, if they force them in this and passing situations, I think they'll do enough damage with the pass rush to get the George Love a little bit. And I think San Fran, with the way they can run the ball and throw the ball those weapons that they have, I just think they're too much, too.

I mean, this is where the cream starts to rise in the crop and the upset stop. This is where the best teams win, in my opinion. I think Baltimore and San Francisco are in a collision course to play each other in a Super Bowl. Let's go to Sunday. Todd Bowles clearly had a really good night. We talked about him last week, I think, on the show, maybe two weeks ago, because I've always been kind of a fan of his from afar. I'm kind of rooting for him.

Do you give him a chance at Detroit the Bucks? I love Todd Bulls. He's a great guy and a good man and good football coach. But, no, I don't give him a chance. I think Ben Johnson will have a plan for these blitzes. And I think if Tampa has a weakness, it's a secondary. And I think I'm on there of St. and these guys will get after them pretty good

and La Porta's playing at high level and they'll have a plan for these splits I promise you that and Jared will have a good day and obviously running the football will be key as well. Gibbs and Montgomery are solid they can take and punish.

I just think the Detroit offensive line which not many people talk about is probably one of it's not the best in the NFL and it'll be too much but I do think Tampa will have to assess offensively. I think it'll be a pretty high scoring game and it'll be a fun one to watch

but I think Detroit's a better team though then. All right. Detroit laying six right now in that one. We'll come back to your lock of the week here in a second. Lastly, Buffalo laying two and a half at home against KC. Finally, we get to see Mahomes play a road playoff game. Size that one up for everybody. Yeah, I think this will be a great game, obviously, too,

the best to ever do it at the quarterback spot, and Josh Allen is playing at a high level, and they're getting James Cook involved a lot. I think Brady's done a nice job of really establishing in the run game, which has helped Josh Allen a lot. And they can run the ball a lot of different ways. And obviously, Josh Allen is an unbelievable runner with the football. So that's going to be key for them that keeps Kansas City off the field.

They've got to maintain possession of the ball. Obviously, Josh's got to protect it. Diggs has got to step up in a big way. He's going to have to make some plays for sure. But I think Kansas City right now, the way they're playing offense and the way they're playing defense is going to be too much for Buffalo. And Buffalo has just got too many injuries on defense. I think Patrick Mahomes will make way more,

will make a lot of plays. and Kansas City will do great on defense. I think Kansas City is the play. You liked the Rams last week, but you didn't go with them. You went with Philadelphia instead, so you've lost two in row. You're still 11 and 6 on this podcast for the year, which is pretty good. I apologize about the Eagles, man. I didn't, you know, I watched the last two games of Bucks played,

and they beat Carolina 9 and nothing, and they beat somebody else terrible, or they lost. They just didn't look very good on offense. That's why I took Philadelphia up. thought they'd figured out. I didn't know AJ Brown wasn't playing. I mean, nobody told me that. That was a big deal for sure. That was a sincere apology from Jay, unlike the one that he put out on Twitter, which was more sarcastic. All right, so your lock of the week is what? I'm still going to roll with my... I'm going to go with Kansas City. I think Kansas City on Road, Patrick Mahomes and Patrick, or Andy Reid. I just think it'll be too much for Buffalo.

I'm also leaning towards Detroit. I think Detroit. I think Detroit. and Kansas City are two great picks, but I think Kansas City, just the way they play in big games, Kelsey and the homes, and they've just done it over and over again, and Andy Reid will have a play or two up his sleeve to make a big play, manufacture a big play, and they get it done. I'm going to allow you to do what I do in my picks, which is tell everybody the line's plus two and a half,

but you'll take KC buying the half point. You've got to pay minus 120, or more on that, but you'll take KC plus the... I'll take KC. Moneyline. Plus the three. Oh, you like Casey on the money line? All right. But we've done kind of a point spread thing, but that's a bonus pick. He's got KC plus three as the lock of the week, but he loves KC on the money line as well.

All right. Great job. Appreciate it. We will talk next week before the championship games. All right, thanks, Kevin. Jay Gruden, everybody with me two days early this week because, as I mentioned at the beginning of the show, I am heading out of town. I will not have a show tomorrow or Friday. I will post the smell test to Twitter either late Friday or on Saturday. And I can tell you right now, there will be plays. And there will be Saturday plays, I'm pretty sure. What's trending right now is Green Bay and Houston as massive. public plays. And so it's very possible. I'll wait to see how the rest of the week plays out, but it's very more than possible.

It's likely that I'll have at least Baltimore and San Francisco two big favorites. I hate playing favorites. Hate playing big favorites, especially in the NFL. But I think both of the number one seeds are going to be contrarian anti-public plays by the time we get to the end of the week. But follow me on Twitter at Kevin Sheen, D.C.,

and I'll post the smell test picks Friday or Saturday. They'll also be available at the Team 980.com. All right, that's it for the rest of the week. I'll be back on Monday. Enjoy the rest of the week and the weekend of football.