The Kevin Sheehan Show - Rivera's Commitment To Howell

Episode Date: October 24, 2023

Kevin and Thom today on Ron Rivera touting the future of Sam Howell and the plethora of great talent assembled while also hesitating to guarantee Sam Howell the rest of the season. Lots on Eric Bieniemy, Chase Young, Montez Sweat, trade reports, Kirk Cousins, the MLB Playoffs, and the start of the NBA season.  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 Cheehan Show. Here's Kevin. Tommy's here. I am here. The show today presented by Window Nation.

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or lower your energy bills, make your home look better with new windows, 86690 Nation or windownation.com. So, Tommy wrote a column that I just read before we started to record this podcast. He took some of Ron Rivera's postgame comments from Sunday and said, we have 10 games left to go. You never know what's going to happen. You have to take them one at a time. Tommy wrote that those comments were an insult to a fan base that knows all too well what's going to happen. They've taken them one at a time for nearly 400 games since the horror began in 1999, and everyone knows damn well what's going to happen.

And then his final line in the column, if Ron Rivera truly understood the frustration of commanders fans, he would quit. you don't really think that he should quit, do you? Well, then don't just sit there and flippantly say, I understand their frustration. Stop you saying that. Stop using that because you don't. No, that was in response to his quote. I understand their frustration.

He said that multiple times over the years now, you know. And it's bullshit. Because if he really understood deep down their frustration, he wouldn't put them through it anymore. He quit. Well, I mean, he's not going to quit. That's not going to happen. Of course he's not going to quit.

You know, I said something today. If Jim Zorn didn't quit, if Jim Zorn didn't quit, nobody's going to quit. Well, Jim Zorn had never made any money in his life as a coach. Right. I mean, his wife said, you go in there and you comply. You make sure those checks keep coming. I don't care what they bring in in the form of a bingo caller. Just comply and bring that money home. On the radio show this morning, in response to, and after a conversation about some of the comments that Ron Rivera made yesterday, which we will get to, I did say, I'm like, look, this poor guy, first of all, he looks like he wants it to end at this point.

And I do, you know, when I say that, I cringe a little bit inside because I know that Ron Rivera is a professional athlete and is a longtime head coach is a competitive person. He's a competitor. He's a fighter. He wants to, you know, the truth of the matter, as he likes to say, is he wants to beat Philadelphia and stick all of this conversation about him up everybody's backside. But there is a part of me, as I've told you all off season, where it's like, I think this guy's going to be so thrilled when this thing ends. But I used your line this morning, and I just said, you know, this poor guy, when he got here, he took the job with already an existing surgeon general's warning. I mean, and he read it. It was right there on the box. He saw that this job was, you know, harmful potentially to anybody that was involved. involved in it during the Snyder regime.

The truth of the matter, I'm going to say that a lot today because he said it like five times in his pressure yesterday. The truth of the matter is when he does leave at the end of this year, and it'll be at the end of this year. He's not going to quit now. Is that we're not going to think that much differently of him than we did any of these other coaches that Snyder had. The record isn't going to be much different than anybody else's.

In fact, it might be better than a few of them. And, you know, he's not going to be remembered or vindicated. As he said to John Kine before the season started when he said, you know, I'm paraphrasing because I don't have it in front of me. 8-8 and 1, if we do that and I get fired, the 40 out of the 53 players that I brought in and the quarterback that I brought in, I'll be vindicated. You can send me my Super Bowl ring, which really is one of the most outrageous. comments before a season. It really, I mean, I know we made a big deal of it at the time, but even looking back at that, like, who says that?

Who says, look, we're probably not going to do well this year and I'm going to get fired, but, you know, I just want you guys to remember what I left you. And yesterday's presser was about that as well, and we'll get to that in a moment. But, yeah, he's been through all. Ron Rivera's success in the NFL rests on two players, Cam Newton and Luke Kinkley. He had the best offensive player in the league for a couple years, an MVP, and he had the best defensive player in the league as well. That's where the 15-1 record came from. That's where the other double-digit win season came from.

and the rest of it has been, you know, no better or no worse than most runner-to-mill coaches. Like I said, I mean, we've talked about this plenty of times. He's coached for what? How many years? 13 years? He's got three winning seasons. Yet he has a 500 coaching record. So, I mean, basically, he's got better.

He's got better than a 500 coaching record just as an FOIA. He's seven games over five. Better than a five-five. He's got over 500 coaching record, despite 10 losing seasons. And he benefited from an NFL MVP at offense and an NFL MVP at defense. Yeah, I mean, I don't think Cam Newton was ever the best quarterback in the game, even though he did win an MVP the year they went 15 and 1. But he certainly was for a few year period when he was healthy, a guy that you could win with.

I don't want to go back and do the Carolina thing because I've done it a bunch of times. I think that he's a completely different type of coach here than he was at Carolina. He's a CEO coach. He's obviously got two jobs here. He's the head of football operations, you know, the de facto, you know, personnel guy and the head coach. He admitted to me two years ago that he's a different coach here. And it's not worked out for him. I think, you know, Ron Rivera, the general manager, has kind of failed.

Ron Rivera the head coach, and I think also you could make the case vice versa to a certain degree. I think he was a good coach. I don't think he was a great coach at Carolina, but I think he was a good coach at Carolina. And I understand that technically he had more losing seasons and winning seasons, but the first two years were drafting a quarterback number one overall and going from six and ten to seven and nine, which is pretty typical of a team that starts over with a rookie. quarterback and then, you know, they won, they went to the playoffs four out of five years in a row, including going to a Super Bowl and having a 15-1 season. And then when his quarterback got banged up and was healthy, the record slipped. But other than what I just did, which was kind of go back and give you the Carolina story, he's just a different coach here. He, it's everything's different. And look, we cannot ignore the organization that he came into. And that,

that no one was ever able to succeed in this organization. Hall of Fame pedigree and Hall of Fame coach. Mike Shanahan and Joe Gibbs weren't really successful here, both of them leaving with losing records. But there's no doubt this is over, Tommy. This is over. And they might beat Philadelphia on Sunday. In fact, I'm going to tell you right now,

it's going to be in Washington's going to be in the smell test on Friday. It sets up perfectly for this to be a very competitive game Sunday at FedEx Field. And, you know, they might get to five and five or six and six, but it's going to end the same way. It's going to end. That's what I said in the call. Yes, you did. That's what I said. They could beat Philly.

They almost beat them a couple of weeks ago. Right. And so we know now where this ends for sure. Like there's no more discussion about, well, you know, if they win 12 games and they win a playoff game or two, Ron could be back. that is not going to happen. The NFL is nuts and things change dramatically, as we know. But they're just average to maybe a little bit less than average as a football team. So we're headed towards the end of the Ron Rivera era.

Speaking of Philly, if I can drive the car off the road for a second. I was in Philly this weekend, the whole weekend. Oh, for the playoff games. Well, no, no, no, no, no. I was there for family stuff. Oh, oh, right, because the playoff game was last night. A play Saturday night that my brother-in-law was in, went to a family party Sunday. And Sunday night, when we got back to the hotel, like about 8 o'clock, I said to my wife, I said, look, I got to go find a bar and watch the Sunday night game because they were Eagle fans all over town that night, you know. Yeah.

So I found a bar to watch the Eagles, Dolphin Sunday. the night game. And, you know, I have no particular act to grind against Eagles fans. There's one way or the other against Philly fans in particular. And this bar was packed, and the place was nuts. I mean, the whole bar would erupt every time they'd score and then they'd start saying, E-A-G-L-E-S, and it was kind of cool to see that kind of level of enthusiasm. Now, they have a reason to be enthusiastic. I mean, their baseball teams

in the championship series, and their football team looks like they're heading back to the Super Bowl. But I just want to mention I had a lot of fun

hanging out with Eagles fans Sunday night. I made a few friends. And that was the way that's when you mentioned Philadelphia, that just reminds me

where I was. And I also, I just wanted to mention, you ever hear of Paul Robeson? Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think so. That name sounds familiar. Well, he was one of the most remarkable figures of the 20th century. He was an African-American lawyer, singer, performer, civil rights activists, and played in the NFL in the early 1920s. Wow.

Just an absolutely remarkable life. Is he one of your new friends? I would assume that he's not alive. no no he died i think in seventy one or something like that uh but uh he lived in philadelphia for a few years and his house has been turned into like a something to honor his memory so i took a tour of the paul robinson house and it was pretty cool uh and if you ever got a chance to read anything or hear anything about paul roberts and i think you'll be surprised at what he accomplished accomplished and how little he's known for it. Wow.

So that's it. You can put the car back on the road. No, I'm looking at his Wikipedia page. How about this? Born 1898 in Princeton, New Jersey, died in 76 in Philadelphia. Rutgers undergrad. Brunswick University, BA. NYU, Columbia University, University of London.

So we're talking about this kind of education for a black man in the early 1900s. Wow. Yes. And he was a tremendous athlete, too. Just an absolute stud. Two-time consensus All-American at Rutgers in 1917 and 1918. and then played for the Akron pros in the Milwaukee Badgers. Tommy, what league was that in?

I think that was the early NFL, whatever it was called then. He was also valedictorian of his class at Rutgers while he was a two-time All-American. Now, the thing with Paul Robeson is he was an outspoken supporter of not just African-American rights, but workers' rights, union rights. And later on in the years, he grew very close to, he became a, he was a communist, and he was very close to what was going on in the Soviet Union. And one of the drawbacks, one of his blind spots, and it's a big blind spot, is he became close to Stalin.

And that's not necessary. How did that happen? Well, because he toured the world. world speaking for workers' rights. And the idea of socialism. He was a communist? But he was a socialist, really, right? He was a socialist, I think.

I mean, that was socialism back then. But he was, you know, he believed in the socialist ideal. And, you know, he thought that, you know, the Soviet Union was going to be built on that. And like a lot of people who had supported that in the early part of the 20th century, they were sadly mistaken with the way it turned out as a corrupted brutal regime under Stalin. But it's an interesting life. So that's what I did on Monday. You know, you had a lot of that, you know, in that movie Oppenheimer, you know, from that period of time.

Yeah, I'm reading right now. I mean, he was a blacklisted guy in the 50s, and part of it looks like. I'm just looking at a headline here, part of the McCarthy hearings. Wow. Man, what a life he lived just looking through kind of the headlines of everything here.

Yes. That wasn't the Paul Robeson that I thought you were referring to. I don't know why. Or maybe it was because of the football. peace. So that's it. We can get back on track now. That's fine.

We can talk about Ron Rivera again. We can talk about Ron Rivera again because that's so exciting. As he would say, the conversation that we just had was more important than interesting, I would say. Now we'll go back to just things that are interesting rather than important, which would be Ron Rivera's stuff. Yeah, so I want to get to some of the things that he said yesterday Because, you know, one of my favorite Galdi sayings Galdi was on my podcast like, you know, over the summer, I think And he referred to, you know, Ron's pressers as,

You need to be fluent in Ronnie's. You know, it's like a completely different language. And, you know, the twists and turns of his pressers, are just fascinating. And yesterday, there was an attempt by him. I don't know if it was planned, because I don't think any of these press conferences are planned. I think they're all, he wings everything.

And then, you know, in the same press conference, he can forget what his answer was just a few minutes earlier. But he was asked about what makes him believe things will go differently for the rest of the season compared to years past, and here's what he said. I think we have found a young quarterback that gives us an opportunity. You know, we were in that game yesterday who had every chance to win, and unfortunately we didn't do it. And I understand our fans' frustration.

Hell, I hear it too. Okay, and I respect them. We're trying to play the best football we can, and at the same time grow a football team. You know, we're not going to go around cutting a bunch of people, training for a whole bunch of people, trying to hire a whole bunch of people. We're trying to develop a young football. team to be a very good football team for the future. And that's what we're going to continue to work on.

So Tommy, Ron goes with the, you know, we're young with the young quarterback thing. It's like, don't look at me now. Look at me later. You know, he didn't stick with this theme for the entirety, the press conference, and I'm going to play something where it almost seems like he forgot what he just said. But this is about, hey, we lost to the Giants and the Bears were three and four, but don't you guys understand that's not what this season is about. We have a young quarterback. We've got a young football team. We're developing that football team. And, you know, he's speaking to the fans. He's speaking to ownership, I think, on some level there. You know, when you just lose to the bears and the giants who had had a combined one win heading into those games, you got some

explaining to do. And so this is the explanation, at least in the moment. Hey, it's not about, you know, now, it's about the future, you know, which goes back to that quote, you know, that he had before the season started about, look, I'm leaving you guys with a roster and a quarterback that will likely win a Super Bowl at some point. Can't you guys see what we're doing here? Yeah. Yeah. So, So I just found it fascinating because of what he comes back with in a little bit later on in the presser. But let me just quickly play this next soundbite where he's asked if this point in the season feels any different than seven, than after seven games last year. Here's what he said. It does because, you know, again, with the young quarterback, Sam, I really think there's hope.

There's an opportunity. I mean, the young man has given us opportunities to win some of these games that a lot of people I know felt we couldn't. But at the same time, we've been in a lot of games, you know. We were in the Philadelphia game. We were in yesterday's game at the end. We had a chance to win. We did.

And who knows, a couple things go our way in those two games, and we've got a completely different conversation going. But that's not the truth of the matter. That's not where we are right now. And I get that. But as long as we have that young quarterback, he's growing and developing, and we as a team play consistent, complimentary football, you know, we have a chance. But the truth of the matter, he says, that's not where we are right now. And I get that. But as long as we have that young quarterback and he's growing and developing and we as a team play consistent complementary football, we've got a chance.

I mean, this is how many times in those two answers did he? say we've got a young quarterback, we've got a young quarterback that's growing and developing. I mean, this is what he's attempting to do yesterday is to frame the season on sort of the back of the idea that, well, no, you know, the losses to the bears and the Eagles are unfortunate, but that's not what we're doing here. We're developing this young quarterback and this young team. By the way, I looked it up, FYI for everybody. They're not the youngest team in the last. league. They're right in the middle of the pack. They're the 15th youngest team out of 32. That was as of the cut down date on August 29th or whatever that date was. But Tommy almost as if he had forgotten

the theme to yesterday's presser, which is it's not about today or what just happened in the Meadowlands on Sunday. It's about Sam and it's about the future of this young growing and developing football team. Ben was listening to this, Ben Standing. And he asked, Ron, okay, well, does that mean you're committed to starting how the rest of the season? And this is what he said. Well, I will tell you this. I'm committed to him. Ben, we'll see how things go, Ben.

But, you know, I can't predict the future. And the only thing I'm going to do is I'm going to focus in on one game at a time because the truth of matter is that's the only thing that matters right now. And that's getting ready for Philadelphia. Once I get done with this conversation with all you guys, it'll be on to Philadelphia. I can't predict the future. we'll see how things go. But right now, the truth of the matter is the only thing that matters right now,

and that's getting ready for Philadelphia. I thought the only thing that mattered was the young quarterback. That's what I thought. I mean, if he had remembered what he had said four or five answers earlier, he would have said, of course, I'm committed to Sam Hal the rest of the season. That's a no-brainer. Weren't you listening to the earlier answers? because I can remember what I said earlier.

No, he couldn't. And that is, we are committed to this young quarterback and this young team and developing and growing with this young quarterback. These are answers that a first or a second year coach for a team give. Not a fourth year.

Not in their fourth year. These are not fourth year answers from a coach. he sees the writing on the wall. He's trying to, you know, I think what he's focused on because basically anybody in that battle for the most part, and I'm not talking about the front office, but coaches and players, that last statement of the truth of the matter is that the only thing that matters right now, and that's getting ready for Philadelphia, that is actually. actually what matters to him right now. Because he wants to beat Philly and then go to New England and beat New England and be five and four and stick it up everybody's ass.

That's what he wants to do. That's really what matters to him. But when you are embarrassed like they were in the Meadowlands on Sunday or against the Bears two and a half weeks ago, you've got a... he's trying to frame it as if we understand what happened against the bears and the giants. But, you know, we did. By the way, when he said we did kind of have chances in those games, they did. They didn't deserve them. And if they had played decent teams in those games, they would have lost 31 to 10.

They could have stolen both games. And yeah, they'd be five and two. And the conversation might be a little bit different had they stolen both of those. But they were also very lucky to beat Eric. Arizona and kind of lucky to beat Denver, you know, after trailing 21 to 3. So it's just the way the NFL goes. Most of these games are actually winnable at some point. But I don't know, I just found in listening to him yesterday that he fell into this thing early on with, hey, I got a chance to kind of divert everybody away from the giant and the bear game. And I can kind of ride Sam's

back here a little bit and just say, look, you know, because remember, with a lot of the fan base, Sam's popular. There are a lot of fans that believe that he's the answer. And by the way, there are a lot of fans that might be in my category, which is he's done enough to see more. So if he can sell the fact that this year's all about Sam Howe and developing around Sam Howe and it's about the future, maybe he feels. like that's something that he can

sell right now. It really comes off as pretty used car pitchy, but anyway, go ahead. If I have this right, if he's on the sidelines up at the Meadowlands

was past Sunday, and you know, it's clear they need a spark and somebody may be whispers in this ear. You know, it may be time to, you know, to sit down how and play Jacoby just for this game, just so we could try to win this game, you know? Does he think, no, though?

That's not what we're trying to do. We're trying to develop all young quarterback. I mean, it's, it's such a screwed up situation in that if he did put reset in there to win just one game, does that mean it's the end for Sam Howe? It certainly wouldn't be consistent with what he said early in his press conference yesterday. No, it wouldn't be. No, it would not be, but it seems foolish. I mean, because really, he should be about winning games.

That should be the primary focus at this point, at this stage of his time in Washington. It's not roster building anymore. And if they were five and two, all of the answers would be about we're focused on the next game. We were five and two. We're tied. We're a game behind Philadelphia. This game's for first place. But no, they're three and four.

And two of the four losses are, you know, at least perception-wise, really bad losses. You know, in the eyes of ownership, too. I mean, magic, you know, in his tweets about these games. God, he is the master of the obvious with these tweets. actually sent me something that says, Magic does not handle his own Twitter account, that he's got somebody that tweets for him. But whatever. The, you know, if they weren't three and four, he wouldn't be, yeah. That that does not absolve you from your Twitter account. Well, I didn't say it did. It's your name on it. Everyone just remember that. The point is, at three and four with the two

losses he had, it's a much better answer for him to say, we're trying to develop a young football team to be a very good football team for the future because they're not a very good football team in the present. So let's try to sell everybody in the future. And he's got something in a quarterback that gives him sort of that avenue to say we're in development right now. But then he won't say what he should have said when Ben asked him the question, which is, were you not listening, Ben, earlier to my answers? We are committed to this young quarterback. We are committed to the future. And we've got a guy that we think gives us an opportunity. So of course I'm committed to him for the final, you know, 10 games of this season as a starter. We're not,

Jacoby's there in the event that, you know, we ended up having an injury, which, you know, we certainly hope we don't have. We never, from the... See, this is where they got themselves in a twist here. When four days after the season ended last year, and in the midst of people just the scrutiny, but really the vilification of Ron's ending to that season, the Cleveland Games,

not knowing that they could be eliminated after that loss on that particular day. He and they wanted to change the conversation. And Sam had played just well enough in a meaningless season finale to sort of ride his back through the offseason. And so, you know, and then to Sam's credit, he didn't let him down by shitting the bed. because it could have happened that way because they didn't have any clue really as to what Sam was going to be. Ron told Albert Breer that.

You know, that coming back from the Dallas game, he told his wife I had no idea. I mean, he had to be convinced to play him in that season finale. And I know others have written, like Kime has written that, you know, there were people in the organization that were really paying attention

to his growth during the season, but nobody out there thought for sure. but, you know, Sam made sort of the off-season conversation about riding him in 2023. He made it hold up because he looked good in practices. He looked good in the couple of days with the Ravens. He looked fine in the preseason games. And through seven games of this season, he's had some moments where he looks like an NFL starting quarterback. He's also had moments that make him look anything but a starting NFL quarterback.

But he's able to continue to ride this Sam thing that he started back in January after the season ended. And he's going to ride this thing. And by the way, when he gets fired at the end of this season and somebody comes in and says, you know, yeah, we're going to go in a different direction at quarterback. We're really looking at the draft very hard. By the way, we're looking at, you know who, the quarterback that used to be here that's in Minnesota, who's a free agent. This is upsetting to people. This is upsetting to people, especially the timing of it.

I'll have more on that game a little bit later on in the podcast. But when that new group, Ronald will sit back in his cart on the golf course and somebody will ask him, he'll be on somebody's podcast. and he'll say, I don't know what they're looking at. I mean, look, they get to do what they want to do. We had Sam trending towards, you know, a big-time NFL starting quarterback, and he'll hang on that until Sam Colt McCoy's way out of the league 10 years from now. The quarterback, the quarterback whisperer. I mean, every quarterback he's touched has basically disappeared from the league almost.

Right. I mean, it's just, I mean, one brutal decision after the other. If anybody's the quarterback whisper with Sam Hal, if it turns out to be that he really can do it, it's Taylor Heineke. Taylor was the guy. So, anyway, Ronnie's, I mean, apparently they're offering classes Thursday night at Georgetown and Ronnie's right next to the journalism class that Tommy teaches. So go down and take Ronnie's 101 and then head over and sit in on one of Tommy's journalism classes.

If you can get into, maybe can people just audit the courses? Do you have to be a student to audit the courses? I think you do, right? That's a good question. I don't know. I don't know. I don't want to know. I don't want people coming in off the street sitting in my class.

I, for whatever reason, like, I have memories of being in college and having, in my class, like, you know, guys who were like 40 or 45 years old. Like, they were so much older. Now, they were probably in college, I'm sure. But I remember, wasn't there a thing where you could audit a class, where you could go take a class, but it wasn't for credit? You know, you were probably hungover, and they'd been there all here. He's just didn't recognize them. That's possible. That is definitely possible.

All right. By the way, talk about the Ronis, and we've talked about this before. And this is a bad thing if your ownership, the face of the franchise is the coach. He's the guy who comes out every day almost and talks about the team. Okay. People, I think that you've got a. band base that's tired of looking at him folding his arms on the sideline and they're tired of hearing of them it's become almost painful to listen to for people and to watch and that's a bad

thing for ownership you know it's funny i got this um i'm looking for it right now as you started to say that and i got to find it and i'm probably going to have to paraphrase it because i didn't plan on using it but basically somebody sent me a tweet and said you were really hard on ron rivera yesterday and I was hard on Ron Rivera yesterday for Sunday's game and I haven't even gotten your reaction to Sunday's game yet which we'll do in the next segment but I was truly like beside myself when more than anything

when they let the clock tick down to zero and took a delay of game penalty on third and five and he seemed to be completely oblivious as to what was going on in the game. Now, obviously, I'm projecting. I mean, maybe he knew exactly what he was doing. Maybe he's like, I'm not burning a timeout. F them. Eric, get your play in faster. Now you got third and ten. You know, now I'm looking into the future because I'm also developing a young offensive coordinator here. You're going to have to get the play. Who knows? But that frustrated me. to no end.

And I did say, I'm like, wake the F up. Get engaged in the game. You know, almost every game that you see with a coach that's really engaged. And this guy's not the offensive coordinator. He's not the defensive coordinator. He is the overseer of all the game management stuff

during a game. You got an offense that generated zero. And you got to generate something. you're down 14-0. Third and 10 for that team on Sunday was literally like, you know, trying to hit a 10-team parlay. Third and five, at least you had a chance. And he just let the clock roll off, no time out.

And then at the end of the half to let the final 23 seconds roll off without forcing them to punt. When the punt before, Kaleek Hudson almost blocked it, I just thought he looked completely disengaged. and I know people have said that for a while about him with the arms crossed and the whole thing and I think others have been more frustrated with that kind of demeanor than I have in the past but in that moment I was pissed I was like what are you doing if you really are checked out then check out you know and let somebody else you know handle this now like I said

quit yeah but he's not but he's not going to quit I think somebody needs to kick him in the ass to say, you know, because I said the same thing at the end of the first half against Chicago. He didn't, you know, use his timeouts properly because he was disgusted. And by the way, he said as much. He said, I had seen enough. And I just wanted to get to the locker room and regroup. Okay. All right. But, yeah, I mean, I guess, you know, I did. I questioned whether or not he really had his heart in it on Sunday. And then, you know, he erupted on the sideline in the second half on that intentional grounding call. It was nice to see him get, you know, a little bit into it. But I think some of

the little things in managing the game that is a head coach that doesn't have play-calling responsibilities on either side, that's where you got to be super sharp. You got to be into it. But to be honest with you, and I still can't find the tweet, but I know I was really tough on him, but I thought I was tough on everybody. I think I was really tough on Eric B. Enemy, who had, I still think, you know, even after watching some of the game again, I just still cannot for the life of me, whether this pressure was offensive line related or quarterback related. And as I said yesterday, my sense of it was watching it that there was a lot of offensive line issues on Sunday, more so than in the previous games. But I just don't know why when you've got

O line issues and quarterback issues in previous games and you're playing a guy that's going to blitch you a lot, why you would call that much dropback with or without, you know, extra protection. Just don't do that anymore. And they, you know, Terry McClorn had a very very interesting comment. I'm going to paraphrase it here. I played it on radio this morning, but basically I hadn't heard it until today, and after the game, he basically said something to the effect of, I wish we had reacted to what they were doing earlier. That's, you know, that is a little bit of an indictment of the play calling on Sunday. Yeah. Yeah. And I, everyone knows, wink, wink, What's his name, Wink Martindale?

Yeah. I mean, he just was ahead of Eric Biedermy every step of the way. Yeah. And there was no answer. Now, you know, I also was very, very emphatic yesterday in my recap to say, you know, I'm not pulling play-calling duties from him. He's kind of learning on the job as well. And like Sam, he's had some good moments this year. he's had some really good moments.

So, you know, they're going to be, you know, he's admitted to kind of learning a little bit, you know, in some of those incredibly lengthy answers where you don't say a lot. But he's actually been a little bit, you know, self-aware in the fact that he hasn't had this level of responsibility as an offensive coordinator before. But, yeah, no, it was not a great day. anytime you have the ball eight times and a half, eight times. It's so hard to have the ball eight times and a half. And you generate zero first downs and you punt seven times and throw an interception and total 46 yards, that's ineptitude offensively at the highest level. It's one thing to have zero points and 46 yards on four drives.

but to have eight chances at the football and punt seven times. Tommy, I don't know if you know this. Tressway punted seven times in the first half for 354 yards. It's an all-time record for him. I mean, if Scott Turner had had a half like that, I mean, he would have been eviscerated. And I'm not backing off, you know, just, I acknowledge. he is figuring it out as he goes. And I want to see him figure it out. I do.

I'm not pulling the plug on him. I certainly am pulling on the plug for those people who said they would take him as the head coach over Bill Belichick last week. That's so laughable. Well, it was laughable in the moment. We didn't need Sunday to know that it was laughable. Not that Eric Vienemy can't become at some point a head coach or a really good offensive coordinator.

but you couldn't have made that choice last week. Okay. We got other things to get to, including the Major League Baseball playoffs. Josina Anderson just reported something about Chase Young and Montez Sweat. I'll read that for you. And a lot more coming up. Let me just tell you that Wind Donation's deal, buy two, get too free, no money down, no payments, and no interest for two full years.

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Tommy, I gave out Minnesota last night plus the seven. and went 10, 1, and 1 over the weekend on the smell test. By the way, I personally bet Minnesota on the money line as well. Washington, by the way, is just a six and a half point underdog at my bookie against Philadelphia on Sunday. Philadelphia will be one of the most heavily bet teams of the upcoming football weekend by the public, which tells you right now that I am pretty sure I will have Washington in the smell test. on Friday as I had the Giants in the Smell Test last Friday. My Bookie is the best, one of the best sports books out there, and it's fair.

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So they're a decent favorite tonight in Game 7. More on that coming up. MyBooky.ag promo code Kevin D.C. Josina Anderson, shortly after my radio show ended, this morning. Quote, meanwhile, Josina Anderson with, you know, CBS sports and long-time NFL reporter, who clearly Tommy, and I have no idea what the connection is, and I'm not trying to get into her sources, but I just, she didn't ever cover the team, did she?

At any point, she seems to have, yeah. I do think there's a chance before I got to the radio station years ago. She may have been an intern at 980 a long time ago. I may have her confused with somebody else. Anyway, irrelevant. Quote, meanwhile, it is my understanding that there are several identifiable teams that have both interest in trading for

either Commander's Defense Evans Montesweet or Chase Young and are willing to offer either one of them a long-term deal ahead of free agency. This is going to I don't care. I wouldn't trade Chey Shang. I would not trade Cheeshung.

Oh, I would. I wouldn't. I would in a second. Why? Well, because he's unpredictable and, from what I've heard, difficult to control sometimes. You don't need a headache. He's not Nick Bosa.

and he's not going to be. He has his own agenda. He's got a much better chance of becoming Nick Bosa than Montes-Sweddust. Doesn't mean he's going to, and I do think there's a difference between Miles Garrett. There actually may be a difference period between Miles Garrett and everybody else. There might be a, the groupings may go Miles Garrett, and then you've got, you know, T.J. Watt and Nick Bosa and Micah Parsons. Mike and Parsons.

Yeah, and then you've got maybe the next group. and, you know, whatever. I don't know. I just, he had a really good game Sunday. He has played pretty well. He looks healthy again. He was playing an offensive line where guys were pulled off their couches. I get it.

And like Doc said yesterday to me, he's like, he played okay. And I'm like, just okay. And he said, well, I mean, to your point, they're playing it, he's playing a terrible offensive line. Like, that's a game where if you are Miles Garrett, you win the game. single-handedly. You go take the ball from Tyrod Taylor over the guy that was, just got off the street to play, you know, left guard or left tackle or right tackle. You know, left tackle for him. But yeah, I get that. I don't know. There's so much talent there, though. So much talent.

You don't, look, if you're the new owners and you have a saying this. Everybody's tradable, except for the guys who are under contract, long-term contract. Everybody else is tradable. You know, it would be so funny. I mean, Ron said we're not trading for anybody. We're not in the next few days. Is if, you know, in the next few days, you know, all of the young players that we're building around for the future,

Chase Young, Antonio Gibson, Cameron, Curl, Montes, they all get traded. So much for. the future with all the, well, then you could say, yeah, but you, I got all these draft choices for you. You should have seen what I would have done with those draft choices may be different than what these new guys do. Sending my ring in 10 years. 10 years. But you bring up something interesting, and that is, this is the first moment, I think. Some would disagree and say that Josh Harris should already have gotten involved after losses to

the Bears and Giants. I don't agree with that. I don't agree with that either. I think he's already involved. I think he is identifying the people that he wants to come in and run his football, you know, a team. And that that will be the first hire, you know, when the season ends. There will be a general manager. He'll come from the 49ers organization or he'll come from the Ravens organization or he'll come from the Eagles. He's somebody who will have worked for, you know, John Lynch or Howie Roseman or something like that. And that guy will spearhead the coach search, etc. But you have an opportunity as an organization here

where you do have some tradable assets that teams will be interested in and may, may especially if they feel that they can get them signed to a long-term deal, overpay for them. What if somebody came to you and said, I'll give you a first for Chase Young? Or I'll give you a second for some. sweat or I'll give you a fifth and a conditional for Antonio Gibson. By the way, Gibson's a no-brainer

at this point. He's one of my favorite players in terms of his talent, but it's clear that Chris Rodriguez is in their plans. No doubt he is in their plans. I'm not so sure we won't see some games upcoming where Rodriguez gets the ball even more than Brian Robinson, Jr. But I don't think I would trade Chase Young. I just if I own the team right now, I would be involved here. I'd be saying, what are you thinking? What do you think? You know, I'd be

gathering information. I'd want to know whether or not Chase Young is somebody that you, with this group or with another group, is somebody that's going to fit in, thrive, and ultimately become what we thought he was going to become. Because he's shown

some signs of life here this year. More. than just signs. He's been here. This will be his fourth year, and he hasn't even been Brian or Rockpo yet. Well, he's missed a lot of games, obviously.

Isn't that part of the job to play? Yes, it is, but he had a serious knee injury. Okay. Very serious in the injury. But, yeah, you know. Okay. That's all on that. I mean, the owners

have to address this. Josh Harris have to come in. You know, if it's, maybe he's got somebody that's consulting him on the side that can kind of walk him through this. But this is an opportunity, Tommy, to, you know, get some compensation back versus no compensation back. I mean, right now, more. I tell you why this would be great for him to do.

Because next to actually winning the next best thing for fans, are draft picks. They love draft picks. You get a pile of draft picks for these guys, and people will just be off the hook looking forward to next year's draft with under new ownership. Right. You get them all juiced up. You get a number one pick for Chase Young. People will just love it. They'll get all juiced up. Two number one picks in next year's draft? I don't honestly I doubt you get a first round pick because unless the team knows that you can that you're going to sign him to a long-term deal you know yeah well that's what I'm figuring but but even then because of his injury history I think it's probably a second and I think sweat actually is probably close to us like I was thinking about teams for both of them like Kansas City would make sense you know potentially even a team team like somebody like Buffalo.

I mean, I know Von Miller is back, but to add somebody on the other side, just like, you know, if you added a Chase Young or a Montez sweat to go with a Chris Jones in Kansas City, and those are the types of teams that are going to pull the trigger on something like this. It's going to be teams that actually think now this guy gives us an even better chance to win. And there is a favorable opinion of some of Washington's players, I think, around the league. I do. I mean, I could be wrong about that. You know, there's a very favorable opinion after last night of, you know who. My second Galdi reference of the show, because I love Galdi. When we were talking about Kirk on my podcast a while back, he just referred to him as

you know who. He's like, and he's right. We can't say his name sometimes because it gets people so upset. But you know who is the quarterback if you're not sure who you know who is. You know who is the quarterback of the Minnesota Vikings. He was really, really outstanding last night. And that was the 10th winner on a really good smell test weekend. And again, I had the money line on Minnesota last night. I just wanted to read this from Evan. Yesterday, when I gave the Vikings out on the radio show,

because I saw this tweet even before I recorded the podcast, I saw this tweet from Evan. It was actually an email, excuse me. Evan emailed me. He said, You're really going to give me the Vikings as a pick tonight? Your boy Kirk can't win in prime time. And then in parentheses, he wrote 1 in 21. Like, that's what his record is in prime time.

No thanks. I'm taking the 49ers, but thanks for the excellent picks over the weekend. By the way, rate us and review us on Apple and Spotify. Subscribe to the podcast. Follow us on both Apple and Spotify. It's a huge help. We've gotten great reviews and great ratings from some of you. Some of you clearly haven't rated and reviewed us. If you don't want to do it, don't do it. But if you can take 30 to 60 seconds, even pausing right now,

because all we're going to do here for the next 30 to 60 seconds is talk about you know who. So if you want to pause it and rate us and review us, that would be very nice of you. But, you know, this is like this is where I just, I think this ends up kind of being a part of a lot of different conversations. But it's like the truth will do. So why go to the extent of exaggerating it beyond even recognition? His record, I'm not sure where you got one in 21 from. I do think that that's the impression like Kirk's never won a primetime game or he's barely ever won a prime time game. It's like they exaggerate so much to make their point that, you know, it's like it doesn't resemble the truth, which would have been fine because Kirk actually doesn't have.

have a great prime time record. But the actual record going into last night, Evan, was 12 and 21. So he had 11 more wins in prime time than you gave him credit for. And after last night, he's now 13 and 21. Not great, but far from the way it kind of gets described by everybody. He's just so polarizing. 35 of 45 last night, 378 yards, two touchdowns, one pick. I think it's one of those games, sometimes you watch a Kirk game and you see the numbers and it's like they don't necessarily tell the story for a negative reason. Last night they don't even tell the story for a positive reason. The guy was just phenomenal all night long and he had helped. The offensive line did as good a job as it's ever done. Jordan Addison, the rookie from, who by the way, Tommy is from Frederick Maryland,

went to Tuscarora before he went to Pitt. That's right. You know, was Kenny Pickett's number one wide receiver and then went to SC and, you know, with Lincoln Riley and Caleb Williams and was their first round pick. He was great last night. But Cousins last night on third down, nine of 12 for 183 yards and two touchdowns. Like against that defense, it's really hard to do. The Vikings defensively under Brian Flores are totally different than they were a year ago. It's not a great defense, but it's a playmaking defense. But what's really interesting about the game beyond the fact that, you know, Cousins has really, somebody said to me today on the air, no, it wasn't on the air. It was during a break.

Somebody was in studio and said to me, do you think he's actually just getting better? Like he's actually coming into the best years of his career. And I'm like, no, he's going to be 36 years old. And the reason is people are thinking, well, he's going to be a free agent. Like, what if the new general manager and the new coach wanted to sign Kirk and bring him back here and team him with Terry McCorn and Dotson, et cetera. I actually think he's going to end up back in Minnesota. That's what I think.

But anyway, I don't think that. I think people on a night like last night, they're like, oh, my God, he's really good. He's had games like that many times. And many times he's had games like that where it's just gone back and forth and the kicker missed a field goal at the end. Or the defense gave up, you know, a fourth-down touchdown pass, which happened many times. Or he closed an interception.

Yeah, that doesn't, except that really hasn't happened much. You know, that's just part of the narrative on him. What did you say? But it has happened. Yeah, it happened against the Giants, the year that they were trying to make the playoffs, yeah, when he was here. But I don't know, he's going to be 36. And he's not today. Go ahead.

Do you think that, given the fact that he was going to, against Kyle. And we all know that there's a real strong love affair between those two. And Kyle Shanahan will retire someday with a pit in his stomach for not ever being able to actually have Kirk Cousins as his quarterback. Do you think that it was sweeter? It's sweeter for Kirk because it was Kyle? Last night? Oh, yeah. Yeah, because the last time they played the nine, was in the playoffs and they got absolutely obliterated. That was the last time they played the Niners and they were punked and Kirk was under siege and sacked four times and they got blown out. That was the year that San Francisco lost to Kansas City in the Super Bowl.

You know, they blew out Green Bay the following week, went to the Super Bowl and lost the big lead, lost the 10 point lead in the Super Bowl. Yeah, I think that there, I mean, I have, I listen and read Kyle a lot about what he says about a lot of things, because I think they just do it right. And he was asked a lot last week about cousins, and he's past that, you know, he loves him. I know. And Mike loves him, obviously, as well.

And they've got a relationship with them, but they don't, you know, they both talked about that you're not allowed to really talk a lot because it's, technically it's like tampering. But look, the bottom line is, this organization here, which we're most focused on, missed out on an opportunity to get the number two pick in a draft, and maybe more than that, because of complete and utter pettiness. It still boggles the mind as to what they did. And, you know, by the way, this is kind of the same, it's not the same thing.

They didn't get much back for Kirk. They didn't get much back for Trent Williams. And that's why you've got to make sure between today and a week. from today that you don't lose somebody like Chey Chung or Montez Sweat to Free Agency for a compensatory pick when you could have gotten more. You know, good organizations don't give players or just let players walk. And so if this is going to be a better organization now that Dan's gone, it's going to be interesting.

But let me just say real quickly what the other storyline was coming out of this game last night is the 49ers. like two weeks ago, there is no person on earth that follows the NFL that would have said that the 49ers weren't the best team in the league. And here we are two weeks later. They've lost two games. It's amazing this league. It's just, you cannot predict it. The narratives change so quickly you look so foolish for declaring anything in a given way. week. I've got my arm raised up in the air. Happens to me all the time. I was talking Detroit up all last week.

They were down 35 to nothing against the Ravens. I know. I mean, four teams, four teams that were one in five, one games on Sunday. It just, this league is so, look, I still think the 49ers are great. But Brock Purdy threw two interceptions in the fourth quarter, too. And so who knows? Who the hell knows about this league, man? But you know who was fabulous last night.

Had a lot of help too. And most of the time he doesn't have a lot of help. But he did it last night without the best player on the team who's still out in Justin Jefferson. By the way, beware, because now everybody's talking about how the Vikings are back in the playoff mix. They are a one and a half point favorite. That's it at Lambo against the Packer. I think I'm going to have the Packers on Friday. All right, let's finish it up with some baseball talk,

and Tommy's favorite, the NBA, gets underway tonight. We'll do that right after these words from a few of our sponsors. Tommy, what about Shelley's tonight for the Phillies and the Diamondbacks game seven? Oh, that'd be a great atmosphere to watch. I have a great cigar, great drink, have a great meal. They've got eight high-definition, big screen teams. TVs all around the different, the two rooms they've got, they've got two rooms. So lots of space for all those sports fans that come down to watch sports,

and there's always many of them. I was at Shelley's last Thursday night, and I made an executive decision. When I've been at Shelly's in the past, for the past couple years, I've been drinking Amstel White. Okay, that's kind of a weak beer. but I started drinking it because I read that it was the only major beer out there that did not use genetically modified organisms in making the beer. You know, there's no GMOs in Amstallite. And apparently a lot of beers there are.

So I thought, well, this might be good for my health. But it just occurred to me recently that I'm saying, 69 years old, I said, you know, I mean, I really don't have to worry about this point. If a genetically magnified organism inside me, it's going to grow 10 years from now or 15 years from now. Right. Okay? Yeah. So I said, screw it.

And I started drinking what I have last week. I had Sierra Nevada pale ale draft. Oh, and it was so good. And they've got such a great selection of beers. They've got fat tire. You like fat tire? Is flat tire a local beer? No, it's out of Colorado.

Is it the IPA? It's an IPA, right? It's an amber ale. Oh, it's an amber ale. Because I think I've had a flat tire IPA before. Maybe not. I mean, they have such a great selection of beers, you know, to pick from. you know, they've got the Seckys.

They've got Newcastle Brown ale. They've got something called Orval Trappist ale. I'm tempted to try that because I'm figuring it was made by Trappist monks. But just like every other menu at Shelly's, the drink menu is Shelly's, and particularly the beer menu, is first class. Shelly's Backroom. You can find out more at shelley's backroom.com. I'm looking at their menu right now, their drink menu. and yeah, they've got some, you know, they've got some really good draft beers, too.

You said you had, did you drink the Sierra Nevada draft? The pale ale? Yes, I did. The pale ale draft. Yeah, that looks good. Yeah. You know. I'm going to have a fat tire next time.

I like fat tire, too. Kime was on radio with me today, and I can't even tell you how we got into this conversation. You know, Kime went to Ohio State, and I was asking him something about, you know, what it was like on High Street back in the day when he was at Ohio State. And he said it was very dirty and slimy and grimy. And I'm like, well, that's exactly what Route 1 was like when I was at Maryland, you know. But we loved it that way. But somehow it morphed into a conversation about cheap beer. We may have had this conversation before.

In fact, as I'm talking about it with you, for whatever. reason, I think we have had this conversation. What was your, when you were younger, what was your go-to cheap beer as a young person? Do you remember? Was it Valentine? Was it Valentine? In Florida, Peels, Real Draft. Peel's beer.

I remember Beals. Yeah. And they sold Peels Real Draft in cans, and you could get a six-pack for $1.20. You know? Yeah. And we used to get that at the... you totem, like the local 7-Eleven. Yeah.

So in Florida, that was my band. Pennsylvania, our go-to beers were Schmits out of Philadelphia or Stagmire out of Wilkeshire. Yeah. What about Rolling Rock? Those were to go-to-cheat beers. Rolling Rock, yes. I should conclude rolling rock. But, you know, I wasn't that into the whole Rolling Rock, you know,

all our thing with the 33 on the bottom of a bottle and all that. And really, actually, at some point, I switched over to Genesee Creamail, which is like the nectar of gods. The reason I mentioned Ballantyne is my father-in-law, having grown up in West Orange, he drove a Ballantyne truck when he was really young. And I just figured that, you know, maybe when you were, you know, but you had moved by the time you became of that age. For me, it was Milwaukee's Best and Bush. those were not only two good those were not only two cheap beers

but they were actually good beers like I still I think I don't drink a lot of cheap beer in fact that the cheap beer that my boys and their friends like this natural light I don't know how you guys drink that some I bet there are a lot of fathers and maybe even mothers listening right now

that have gone into their you know refrigerator at some point maybe the refrigerator you might have somewhere else in the house and seeing, you know, these cases of natural light, try to drink one of those things. It is bad. But it is cheap. But Milwaukee's best, which we referred to as the Beast, and Bush were good, cheap beers. But anyway, all right.

You know, you mentioned your dad drove a beer truck? Yeah. Your father-in-law? Yes. Okay. my great-grandfather died when he was hit by a runaway beer card. I know. I know.

You told me that story. Didn't you share with me? Wasn't there a story that you share with me? A newspaper clip? Yeah. A short little newspaper story. He was like 30 years old. Right.

And he was killed by a runaway beer cart. It's not a great way to go, I can imagine. So, first of all, you know, the tech, I had Texas Houston on, I was watching the baseball. I was watching the football. Football turned out to be on the main screen because you know who was quarterbacking. So I had to watch that on the main screen. But how about Bruce Boci? I mean, we talked about him last week.

But this guy's three years out of the game. He comes back. He takes over Texas. They were a bad team last year, and he's in the World Series again. I mean, what makes him so great? Do you have an answer for that? I don't. I don't know a lot about him, except he's beloved by writers and players alike.

And you're right. He's on the brink of winning possibly his fourth World Series. Yeah, I mean. The Giants. He was beloved. You know, Buster only reported last night that Ochi got a text during a day from Madison Bumgardner. Yeah. Asking if he needed him to pitch in Game 7. You know, I've heard him interviewed on Mad Dog before, and he's really likable. He also lived for a time. I remember one of those interviews, and I'm, I can't tell you specific.

where he lived, but he lived in this area at some point. He lived in Northern Virginia. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, he lived in Northern Virginia. That's where it was. I knew it was in D.C. somewhere. But incredible, but what was really incredible about the Rangers' performance was the performance of this, you know, Adolice Garcia, who set the all-time postseason series mark with 15 RBIs in the series. He had five homers, 15 RBIs. And in game seven last night in Houston, two homers, four hits, five RBIs. I mean, what a effing performance by this guy. Max Scherzer did not pitch well last night.

He got the start. He did not pitch well, but they just had so much offense, and they scored 18 runs in their last two games. And Tommy, you know, Scherzscher pitched game seven in Houston in 2019 in a series identical to this one in which the road team won every game. Every game in this series was won by the road team. And after the Altovae home run on Friday night, which was just incredible, there is no chance when they took a three two series lead.

No chance in my mind's eye that Texas was going to win two in Houston. But they did. Right. I agree. Yeah, they did. It's just remarkable. and you can be sure that Fox officials have hid all the sharp objects in their houses. If Philly manages to lose tonight to Arizona, and you've got an Arizona Diamondbacks, Texas Rangers World Series.

Yeah, I mean, a Texas-Arizona World Series would be death for Fox. Look, the Diamondbacks are good. I didn't know much about them, but they've got a lot of talent, and they're going to be there for a while. So last night, because, you know, I'm a big Harper guy, I'm a big Trey Turner guy, I'm rooting for Schwerber, all of them. The bottom line is those three guys went 0 for 9. There were three walks, struck out four times in game six. Now, you could see, especially that starter, Merrill Kelly, who was great for Arizona, they were pitching around Harper and Schwerber in particular, but those guys weren't patient. You know, they swung at pitches out of the strike zone, very unlike them. Turner, Turner went down on three pitches, second at bat.

Yeah, it was terrible. And they were all balls. All of them. They were all balls, every one of them. Yeah. It was terrible. Yeah. Terrible at that.

So tonight, you know, just like I didn't think Houston, there was a chance that they were going to lose coming back home at 3-2. I didn't think Philly could lose. You know, last night what was interesting, and I think I mentioned it on the podcast. I know Denton, my radio producer and I talked about this on the radio show, that Houston was just a slight favorite in Game 7, which surprised me a little bit. And I kind of like Texas, even though I was like, man, do I really want to put money on Shurzer? So I actually didn't bet it, but I thought that, you know, Houston would be the public play. Tonight, the Phillies are a pretty

good favorite at minus 175 I'm looking at right now. So we'll see. I mean, look, Harper, Schwaber, Castiano. But, you know, of all of them, Harper has delivered in every big moment for every big game that they've had. And so I expect he'll deliver tonight. Here's the thing. Yeah. Here's the thing. The Phillies, it's been clear, and we celebrate it, and we love it. But if they're going to win, they're going to slug their way to a win.

They're not going to manufacture runs. True. And they need it to manufacture runs. last night. Yeah. They're not capable of that. The other thing is, the other news out of this is the Atlantic reported that Dusty Baker's probably going to retire.

I did see that that was a possibility for today. Yeah. You know, he was 0 for 4 in game 7s. But he got the World Series. That's all that matters. Yeah, he got the World Series. He's going to walk into the Hall fame. Both these managers, both those managers, him and Bochy, will be in the

Hall of Fame together. And the game is not as rich without Dusty Around. I can tell you that. One of the most likable, great people beloved in the industry. Just absolutely beloved. During players, by writers, by competing managers, except for Tony Larissa. I haven't Tonya Rousseau always had his thing.

But nobody like Larissa. The interviews, the in-game interviews with Dusty during this postseason and the last postseason, like I would try to make sure that I didn't miss them. You know, so good. Yeah, it's such a likable guy. Remember when you, do you remember this? You took me into his office and we sat there and we had a conversation with him in his office one day. We were in, I forget what we were there doing.

It was probably interviewing Harper or somebody. maybe a bit, Strasbourg, for the show. Because remember a couple times we had to go out there, they wouldn't put them on with us. It's like, seriously, like nobody cares about your team. No, no offense during football season. No, you're right. And it's like, you just, you know, we'll record it with you.

But no, they made us come out. But you took me into Dusty's office, and you guys were sitting there yucking it up, and I did a little bit with them. But, yeah, so likable. So likable. Anyway, did you know that the Phillies tonight are playing their first ever game seven in franchise history? I didn't know that until it was reported, I think, by Jason Stark initially.

Yeah. Anyway. Nothing like a game seven in any sport. Hockey, basketball, baseball, game sevens are great. Game sevens are phenomenal. And last night, it never was close. And there was not the tension that you have. had, you know, over the weekend.

Because the game, the game's Friday night, the Diamondbacks comeback went over the Phillies and the Altuve three-run shot in the top of the ninth. That was as good as it gets on any given baseball night. It was so good that night. So hopefully tonight we get a dramatic, tense-filled game seven. All right, Tommy. One more thing real quickly. The NBA opens up tonight.

The Wizards open up tomorrow night. And just a quick recommendation. I had Kyle Kuzma on the radio show today. And he was really, really good. Very smart, very thoughtful, interesting. I enjoyed having them on. I think I've had him on once before. But you can find that at the Team 980.com.

Have you interviewed any Wizards recently? I don't think you have. Maybe Beal? No, I have not interviewed any wizards recently, but I got a call running into Mars, Washington Times that mentions that, you know, for the first time and a long time, I'm pretty curious about the Wizards this year, and that's because of the kids that they got France's 19-year-old kid. Coolabali. Who I'm really interested in.

Callipoli? Cullipoli. Is that you a way he pronounced his name? Kulabali, yeah. Bilalculabali. Louis. I mean, you know, he's got like 11 blocks in four games. It's got tremendous composure.

I talked to an NBA scout, I know, who said they were interested in drafting him, and he said they were impressed with his presence, like he owned the room when he was there. So I'm curious about the Wizards. I don't know what that means, if it means the same 30 and 35 wins. limbo that they've been in. I'm not sure that's a good thing unless they can turn around at some point and trade a guy like Kuzma or Jordan Poole to a contender for a number one draft picks. I don't know what the season's going to mean because it was everyone expected when Beal got traded there was going to be this massive rebuild a tanking. And what they've got now is not

that. This team's not going to lose, you know, not going to win just 20 games. It depends. I mean, it depends on what the point of resigning and dealing for pool were. Are they just trade chips for the trade deadline, which, you know, everybody believes is a pretty good bet. I, yeah, I don't know. He did say about Kula Bali, though, he said he's got some genius.

to his game. And I said specifically how? And he said defensively. He has incredible hands. He's got incredible feet. He's got incredible length. He's got incredible smarts and anticipation.

He went on and on about Kulabali's genius defensively. And the other thing... Well, they need defense. Yeah. And the other thing he said is, he said, we're going to be hell in transition. He said, we're going to be able to run and score. And I think that's what everybody that's looking at the

Wizards realize is that they've got some scores in Jordan Pool and Kyle Kuzma for sure. But anyway, all right, anything else? Nothing for you, boss. I'll be back tomorrow.