The Kevin Sheehan Show - Sam Howell To Start

Episode Date: January 4, 2023

Kevin solo today on Sam Howell getting his first start Sunday against Dallas. Plenty of other Commanders' discussion including an interesting answer from Ron Rivera on his evaluation of the season. Factor 60% off your first box at factor75.com/KevinDC60 Rocket Money Cancel unwanted subscriptions – and manage your expenses the easy way – by going to RocketMoney.com/KevinDCChime Start your credit journey with Chime at chime.com/KevinDC EVPN Get 3 months free with a one-year package at expressvpn.com/KevinDC 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 Chean Show. Here's Kevin. Our plans is we're going to start with Sam. You know, I spoke with the coaches, talked to some of the team leaders, and talked with some others about it.

And we feel that this is an opportunity for us to give Sam a chance to show us what he's capable of. I think that, you know, the opportunity is going to be a good one. for him to go out and play football and, you know, just kind of show us. I mean, you know, we're not going to judge everything on Sam based on just one game. We are going to get an opportunity to see him and see how he prepares and gives himself the opportunity to play. That was Ron Rivera moments ago announcing that Sam Howell is going to start the season finale against the Cowboys Sunday in Landover. That announcement came after a report earlier in the day from Jeremy Fowler at ESPN, that Taylor Heineke would start the game, but Sam Howell would play

in the game. You're going to hear a lot of what Ron Rivera said in the next segment, but in listening to his press conference, it does appear as if he changed his mind today, that he first wanted to start Taylor, but after talking to various people, he had his mind changed. I mean, I don't know. To me, it seemed pretty easy in terms of what the decision was. Maybe his mind was changed when somebody actually reminded him that his team was eliminated from postseason play, that that actually happened on Sunday when they lost to the

Browns and the Packers and the Lions both won. Maybe they said, hey, Ron, remember, we've been eliminated. The game against Dallas is meaningless. Anyway, it does appear, though, that he waffled a bit on this decision. In my opinion, and I have a much stronger opinion about this quarterback decision than I did a week ago, Sandy. Sandy wrote in his or her review of the podcast, by the way, thank you very much, giving us five stars. Sandy suggested that I had waffled a lot last week on the show leading up to the game against the Browns. By the way, just a reminder, as we always do, or we usually do, like Sandy did, if you have an opportunity to rate and review the show, especially on Apple and Spotify or any other place you're listening to this podcast that allows you to rate us and review us.

It's really helpful if you do it. We're actually, like we're top 15. Somebody sent this to me earlier this morning. Top 15 this week of all football podcasts in the U.S. on the Apple podcast charts. Pretty much the only non-national show ranked that high. And, you know, I appreciate that so much. Tom does coolly, does coolly, by the way, not on today's show. Hopefully tomorrow's show or Friday's show.

I know that we've been consistently one of the highest ranked shows on the Apple charts, you know, as, you know, for our sort of category of more of a local show than a national show, you know, we're typically ranked very high in the football category, and we're typically ranked really high for the kind of podcast we are on the overall sports rankings. And you're listening, of course, is a big driver of that. You know, the results we've gotten are really a combination of two things. They're a combination of the number of people that are listening to the podcast, and we have a very, very healthy-sized audience, and we appreciate that.

But it also comes from the ratings and reviews. They're huge, too. So for advertisers, you know, they want to say, a certain audience size, which we definitely have. And then they want to see that the listeners are, you know, loyal to the show. And that's what really drives a lot of, you know, the advertising opportunities that we get and we hopefully deliver on. Anyway, I didn't mean to get sidetracked on that. But keep the ratings and reviews coming. We know from the number of ratings and reviews that we get or that we've gotten, that it's still a small fraction of the normal listening

audience. So if you do have time and you can do it, it's greatly appreciated. Anyway, back to Sandy's review. Sandy wrote Kevin, Levera was much more, much more confident and adamant that he was right about thinking Carson Wentz last week was the wrong decision. You waffled in capital letters. I need more Shean smell test confidence. L.O.L. Love the show. Thank you, Sandy. I guess I would say that my confidence last week was in the thought that I really wasn't confident, that it wasn't really going to make much of a difference.

You know, I think I called it, you know, hardly a four seasons versus Ritz Carlton decision. It was more like a Hampton-in versus Dazen, you know, decision. but I did know, you're right, I did not have a strong feeling one way or the other. I did say that I was fine with Wentz because I knew for sure that the coaching staff had been wanting to make the change for a while. So, yeah, I sort of went with that to a certain degree. But I'm usually not a fake enthusiasm, fake side taker for the purposes of being. better banter or better conversation, sometimes I know I don't have a super strong opinion. But yes, the smell test I'm usually pretty confident about and have been this year,

although that's not true either. There have been many times with the smell test that I have zero clarity and zero confidence. But anyway, the game is meaningless Sunday. It would be much better for Sam Howell to have the opportunity for a number of reasons. Let me start with this. Number one, did you know that their draft position right now at 14 could go as high as 10 if they lose and teams in front of them win? It could go as low as 21 if they win the game and certain things happen below them. Lose the game, please.

There's no carryover of momentum from one season to another. That's an old school theory. You know, Joe Gibbs in 1981 went 0 and 5, went 8 of his final 11. They figured out kind of a formula, which was Rigo in a running game and the hogs, and they carried that over and they won the Super Bowl next year. You know, I think if you have, if you're starting a rookie quarterback and they go 0 and 7 or 1 in 6, but they finish strong and they win three out of their final five and start playing great football, those are the kinds of things that can carry over.

But for most teams, it is, as I've said for years, this is a week-to-week league. It's not a year-to-year league. Lose the game on Sunday. Get the better draft position. You're not going to get players in the game not to try, not to, you know, to try to lose the game. Obviously, I'm not suggesting that. But by the, you know, decisions you make with respect to the personnel that plays in the game, you can certainly influence the outcome.

They should not be playing all of their starters with the intent of trying to knock the Cowboys out of a chance of winning the division. Who cares? But Sam How is really the only answer anyway. You know, draft position and, you know, aside. Logan Thomas, Logan Paulson, who I love dearly, and I think his insight is outstanding. and I love when we have them on the podcast or on the radio show.

He actually had said on the Craig Hoffman show, which is on my radio station, the Team 980, he said that he had heard that Sam Hal just wasn't ready and he didn't think that they would start him. This was yesterday or the day before. And that you can't start a guy who's literally not ready to play in the NFL. You know, it makes it hard to evaluate other players, et cetera, et cetera. I get that. I do understand that. I remember Cooley very clearly.

Remember in 2013, 2014, talking about how Robert Griffin the third's play wasn't allowing the coaching staff to properly evaluate the other players because it was so horrendous. So you don't want that. But for me, it's like, look, he was the backup for what was it, seven to eight weeks, something like that. So he was going to have to go into the game had Taylor Heineke gotten hurt. we've seen a lot of quarterbacks, second, third on the depth chart, rookie, you know, young veteran play. I mean, look at what Brock Purdy's doing, obviously. We saw Sam Ealinger earlier this year play pretty well in his first ever NFL start against Washington.

He actually did play pretty well in that game. I mean, I understand that if he can't, you know, if he doesn't understand the playbook, if he can't take the play in through his helmet, recite it in the huddle, and then get the snap off before zero second. are left on the play clock. Well, you can't play them. But they had them as the backup, ready to go. So I think it's the only decision. This has to be now about evaluation for the future. And by the way, hoping really and truly that he plays well, looks great, but you lose the game in overtime. And you get an extra period to evaluate him and some of the other players,

which Ron Rivera said, Chris Paul's one of those players at Guard they'd like to see. a couple of defensive linemen, young defensive linemen, et cetera. Anyway, I'm going to play a lot of what Ron said in the second segment of the show. But there was actually something that he said during the presser, a question that Scott Abraham asked him, that to me was actually more interesting than any of the Sam Hal stuff. I want you to listen to the Q&A from Scott Abraham from Channel 7, and then Ron Rivera's answer.

Before the season started, Ron, you said this year three was going to be a big year for this franchise for this team that you wanted to see growth. You wanted to see that next step. I'm sure you're in the process of the self-reflection, self-evaluation as the finality comes up here on Sunday. Do you feel like this team has met your expectations and taken those next steps that you wanted to see, as you mentioned in the off-season going in? I'd like to believe we did. I think we did some really good things. there was a point where, what, we were six in the whole playoff hunt. We got ourselves there.

We played some pretty good football, and some things happened that we just couldn't sustain. You know, we went through a period with some injuries and lost some guys for the season that we didn't have available. We've played several games that way. We didn't have the running backs from the very beginning. We finally got that together, and as things came together, we showed what we could do, and then some unfortunate situations. So do I think we step forward? do. Do I think we show we have a pretty good core of young guys? Yes, I think so. And do we have

enough young guys, our veteran guys around those young guys? I think we do. But I do think there's a couple of positions that we can shore up, that we need to shore up. And again, it comes back to the one question that's looming over everybody, and that's the quarterback position. I was kind of hoping that, you know, we had found a solution, and who knows, we may not, we may have. We'll find out on Sunday how we feel about it coming out of it. But do I feel good enough? Yeah, I do. I really do. I mean, we did some good things you'd like to believe. Now, we had some opportunities we didn't capitalize, and that's on us, that's on me.

But at the end of the day, I feel good about it. So that was an interesting answer from Ron Rivera, and I want to address it more specifically here in a moment. But I had one thought in listening to him. I think sometimes, a lot of times, coaches know much more than we know whether or not they did a good job. And the final record is often telling, but many times it's not. Sometimes, and coaches will tell you this. They do their best coaching jobs when they don't necessarily end up with the most wins. And I specifically remember Gary Williams in the first year that he didn't make the tournament after a long run of making the tournament and going to Sweet 16s and two final fours and winning a national championship.

And even after the national championship season, they went to the Sweet 16. The next year they were within a whisker of going back to the Elite 8. Two years after the national championship, they lost a heartbreaker at the buzzer to Syracuse and the round of 32. And that next season, which would have been the 0405 season, 0405, he did. make the tournament. And, you know, I think their record was something, I mean, they won 20 games, or they maybe was 18 and 13. I forget specifically what their record was. But I remember the team, and I remember thinking as a fan, I think Gary Williams just did one of the best coaching jobs he's ever done. He lost Chris McCray, a key player to a ridiculous academic violation that every other

school in America probably would have figured out a solution for, you know, have him take a retake of an exam. I forget specifically what it was about, but I remember it was absurd. And they had a team that was a little bit in flux coming off, you know, the championship team and then the team that still had Steve Blake on it. And, you know, this was the team that had, you know, Gilchristin's junior year, but there were some issues, you know, I think with Gilchristin, you know, sort of the attitude in some of that stuff. Anyway, you know, they beat Duke that year on the road. They had some big wins that year. And I remember thinking at the end of the year, he didn't go to the tournament.

But my God, that season, and again, I forget the final record. I want to say that they won maybe 19 games and just barely missed the tournament. And ultimately ended up, you know, losing an ACC tournament game in the first ACC tournament that was played in D.C. Remember that? They played the ACC tournament in D.C. at Capital One Arena or MCI Center, whatever it was called at the time. And they lost in the first round.

Everybody was excited. Finally, Maryland's going to get to play a tournament with Gary Williams in the area. And they lost in the first round of Clemson. And they ended up playing in the NIT for the first time and forever. But I remember talking to him as a very new media member. And one of my responsibilities was to actually cover Maryland sports. And I was out there and I asked him, I said, What kind of coaching job did you do this year?

And I'll never forget this. He got kind of choked up to a certain degree. And he said, I think I did a really, really good coaching job. And I remember saying to him several years later, and I reminded him of the conversation, he didn't remember specifically having the conversation. But I remember saying to him, I thought that was one of the best jobs that you had ever.

done. I really thought that you way overachieved with that team. You beat Duke on the road. You had a couple of big wins and you needed to do well in the ACC tournament. You didn't, but you ended up, you know, I think going to the final four in Madison Square Garden in the NIT. And I just, he said, that was one of the best coaching jobs of my entire career. And they didn't make the tournament. And I think, you know, a lot of the discussion about Ron Rivera. you know, in recent years and especially these last few days, you know, about the losing seasons that he's had, you know, and the fact that, you know, he hasn't had a winning season since 2017. And, you know, he's only in his, what is it, three, six, nine, going back 12, right, 12 seasons.

He's only had, you know, four winning seasons out of 12, eight losing seasons or whatever it is. And I bet you he would tell you that a couple of the losing seasons that he had in Carolina, and maybe even the season that he had in 2020 here, where they did make the playoffs, but they had a losing record, were among his best coaching jobs. And that 15 and 1 when they went to the Super Bowl was easy, you know, because he had so much. I'm not about to make a defense for Ron Rivera. Let me just say that. I'm just telling you that you can't just, of course, wins and losses mean everything,

and if you lose too much, you're not going to get many opportunities. But people who are coaches know when a guy's done a good job or a bad job, regardless of what the record says. And so I'm not saying he did a good job this year. I'm just saying that coaches know. And some of those losing seasons he's had. You can point to a couple of them in Carolina. I think I may have already mentioned this season where he won the division with the 7, 8, and 1 record.

Yep, another losing season that he had. Yeah, but they won the division. They had a banged up quarterback most of the way. They made a late run. They won the division and they won a playoff game. And then we're competitive in a divisional round loss at Seattle. I think that was the season. I just don't think he's a horrible coach.

and I know so many of you do. And I'm not going to come off of that. I don't think he's a great coach. I don't think he's an elite coach. But I think people in the profession would tell you that Ron Rivera is a pretty decent coach. And then you would say to them, yeah, but he's had only four winning seasons in the 12 that he's coached. And I think they would be like totally surprised at that. And they would say, oh.

I didn't know that. I mean, he has coached five teams to the postseason in his 12 seasons. He does have an overall winning record as a head coach. He's got a three and five postseason mark, okay? You know, all of the postseason wins coming, well, two of them coming in the Super Bowl year. The other one coming in that year that they won a playoff game after going seven, eight, and one and winning a division. Anyway, I'll move off of that. What I heard specifically from him was I heard some excuse making with the injuries.

I heard a guy that seemed pleased that they were sixth in the NFC playoff picture at one point in the season. In what was thought to be a weakened NFC this year, certainly was not a weakened NFC East, as it turned out. You know, that was not the case. They were in a much tougher division than we all thought it would be before the season started, which is why you should never play the schedule game before it comes out. You should only predict the schedule like I do every year. I heard a guy that, you know, does feel like he got a lot more maybe out of this group than maybe some of us did. And I think, you know, at 7, 5, and 1, I mean, everybody was singing his.

his praises at 7-5-1. Everybody was singing Jack Del Rios praises at 7-5-1. I think that the problem is, you know, and he did say, you know, take a little bit of accountability, did talk about the quarterback. Look, quarterback is number one priority again, unless they think that Sam Howell's the answer, and you heard him mention there at the end, unless they find out something this week, they're not going to find out something in one game. They would have known Sam Howell was the answer long before he was.

plays one meaningless game at the end of the year, even though it's not meaningless for Dallas. And don't get me wrong, I want to see him play. It's ridiculous to see at this point Taylor Heineckee or Carson Wentz play. Let's see the guy that we haven't seen yet. I just think specific to what he said, I think he needed to take a little bit more accountability for the finish. because again, the bottom line is there was a point, you know, only about a month ago that we thought they're doing a hell of a job. He's doing a hell of a job. Bouncing back from one and forward. Man, that defense, which by the way, he's more involved with than any other part of the team, and Del Rio's job, that defense has become, you know,

that defense is a top 10 defense. It's a top five defense in the NFC, which it was pretty much all year, maybe higher. than that. But they went out with a whimper. And sure, they had some issues at center. And that was a big deal, by the way, losing Tyler Larson and then having to go to Nick Martin briefly before Schweitzer. Not having Cameron Curl for a couple of games, huge. You know, big loss. Not having Benjamin St. Juice healthy, big deal. Sunday, not having both of them for the first time and then losing John Allen, massive deal. All right? But it was still the Giants and the Browns. Two opponents, three games, 02 and 1.

You have to come through in those games. You can't hand the ball off 12 times to a guy averaging 7.4 yards per gary in one of the biggest games of the year on Sunday night football against the New York Giants. When you are struggling to score and now you have found in this game a way to move the football, which is giving it to number 8. You can't give the ball to number 24 and fourth in goal from the 1. You can't give the ball to 41.

Jonathan Williams on fourth and one with Brian Robinson on the bench. We could go on and on. They were not, you know, in these games outmatched. They just weren't against the Giants and the Browns. And yet they didn't get one win in those three games. And the bottom line is the quarterback decision, all of the eggs into the Carson Wentz basket, failed miserably on.

And they overpaid for him. And they looked foolish overpaying for him. It's not easy to find a starting quarterback, and they will be in search for one again here in this upcoming off season. I don't know what to expect from these things in terms of, you know, how did you do this season, especially when you said it was going to be much better. You know, he can't completely fall on a sword to the point where management agrees with him and says, hey, you pretty much admitted that you failed miserably this year. we're going to move on from you in normal situations.

But I heard a guy that I think was a little bit delusional about the way it ended. Sam Howell is going to start on Sunday against Dallas. You're going to hear everything Rivera said about that, including whether or not the owner was involved in the decision. That's next right after these words from a few of our sponsors. Among the people you talked to, did ownership get involved in this, or was it strictly coaches? This is, this is, this is, this is, this is, this is, this is done by everybody in that office, uh, in that facility. And, um, a couple of special people that I, I rely on for, for, for, for their input.

That was Ron Rivera answering a question from Nikki Javala from the Washington Post about whether or not Dan Snyder was involved in making the decision on Sam Howell. I, I, I, uh, I, I believe Ron on that. I don't think the Snyders are much involved right now. Uh, Tommy may feel differently. And he can certainly weigh in. that tomorrow on the show. I wanted you to hear Ron talk about sort of the decision-making process. I think this is interesting. Like, you know, we heard very much last week was a big-time consensus build. You know, Ron talked about I got to talk to the team leaders. I got to talk to people in the locker room. I got to talk to the coaches before deciding on Carson Wentz. And he, I guess,

did the same thing after initially thinking that Taylor Heineke would be the right guy to start. I mentioned earlier Jeremy Fowler from ESPN had a report early this morning that Taylor Heineke was going to start, but that Sam Howell would play. So here are, I think, two or three sound bites in a row of Ron Rivera kind of walking through why he kind of was in favor or thought Taylor was the right move, but then decided, No, let's give the job to Sam this Sunday. Here he is. Well, I will say this.

My initial was, like I said earlier, to Ben's question, was I had thought about going with Taylor and actually talked to him about that. And then after having an opportunity to rethink and talk with some other folks about it, talked to some of the team leaders and other players. And coaches, for that matter, it really came down to finding out about the young man.

So when I sat down with him, we talked about it, he was excited. And just, you said you mentioned you kind of slept on it. After thinking Hineke, was there someone in particular that changed your mind or made a point to you that was like, oh, that resonated with you? There were several people I talked to that gave me some ideas and some thoughts. and I really, you know, I just wanted to make sure I was weighing all the options and opportunities and reasons why. I mean, there's enough reasons why to start him and enough reasons why not to. And it's just a matter of at the end of the day, he's going to get an opportunity to play. Why not just start from the beginning more so than anything else?

So whomever was responsible or whichever group was responsible for convincing Ron to start Carson Wentz, good on them or good on him, because that's the right decision. I'm surprised it wasn't that obvious. But again, I will hold out, you know, on the one explanation that Logan Paulson gave, which, you know, if he wasn't good enough or ready enough, and you weren't going to be able to evaluate other players, and you weren't going to be able to call a play in the huddle, and you weren't going to be able to get a snap off before the play clock, you know, wound down to understood. But the truth of the matter is, as Ron likes to say, the truth of the matter is

that if Sam Howell didn't start and play in this season finale, start the game and play the whole game, assuming health, it would have been a bigger indictment on the selection of Sam Hal or the coaching staff's preparation of Sam Hal, coaching of Sam Hal. Look, he was the backup for what, six weeks, seven weeks, whatever it was. If he was, if he, didn't start this season finale. Imagine what a disaster probably would have been had they been forced to put him into a game if Taylor Heineke had gotten hurt. I mean, you know, I just think that this, you got to see him. We know what Carson Wentz is. He's not going to be on the roster. We know what Taylor Heineke is going to be. He's not your starting quarterback. Unless you draft a kid

and Taylor starts the early portion of the season and then becomes the backup. You know, a Mitch Trubisky to Kenny Pickett situation. By the way, Kenny Pickett looks pretty good. I wonder if at some point down the road will say we could have picked Kenny Pickett, just like we could have selected Justin Herbert. But they came to the right decision. This was Ron in talking about, you know, what they see in Sam, you know, what they're excited about with respect to his ability.

Well, you know, like one thing we've always felt was he has a live arm. You know, he really does in quick decision making. And he took pretty good command early on right from the beginning. He stepped in the huddle, and it was really crisp, broke the huddle real well. I think on the fourth play, there was somebody had made a mistake in formation and motion, and he stopped it and got back in the huddle and started it all over again. So he was willing to step up and take command. What specifically will you look for from Sam to tell if his progress that he made on the practice field is translating?

Well, first and foremost, there's a lot of little details we talked about that was footwork. You know, what's his footwork like? Second thing is his decision-making, you know, a couple of times in the preseason, the thing that he got stuck on was when that first or second guy that he had gone to wasn't there, he waited, he waited, and then he got hit. And what he's got to understand is when it's live situation, and as Scott mentioned, it's completely different preseason practice in real time. So he can't sit there and wait for that guy to open.

He's got to either get to the next one or get rid of the ball or get out of the pocket. I think Dallas as an opponent for him in a game that they have to win is a great measuring stick for your first game. You know, how ready are you for the NFL? He's going to go against a fierce pass rush led by Micah Parsons against a team that has to win the game to have a chance at winning the division. Now, keep in mind, you know, the Giants and the Eagles will be playing simultaneously. The Eagles are 14-point favorites over the Giants.

So it is possible that at halftime, you know, the Eagles have a 21-0 lead because the Giants have nothing to play for. They are penciled in as the 6-E. They could be resting everybody. And the Cowboys see the score and then rest their starters in the second half, knowing at that point they have no chance to win the division. But you're going to get a full half. of Dallas trying to win the game with their best players on the field defensively. And I think it's going to be a really interesting watch. This makes Sunday much more interesting to watch than if we had Carson Wentz or Taylor Heineke starting the game.

Actually, maybe it wouldn't have been totally boring if we'd seen Carson Wentz out there against the Cowboys after the dreadful performance against the Browns. although that would have been almost mean-spirited to put him out there. Speaking of Carson Wentz, he was asked twice about Wentz. Here's what he said. Was there any consideration going back to Carson, or was there a particular reason? No, we talked about all our options and opportunities. And like I said, initially my first thought was Taylor. But again, as we continue to talk about this and work through this and on up today,

you know, like I said, last night I had an idea. I had a thought and this morning came in and talked again and talked some more. And really just felt that, you know, if we're going to do it, now is the chance, let's do it. You know, I don't want to put it, you know, just kind of get it over with, but, you know, to go through it, go through the process and see how he handles it. You've talked about the need for QB1 and even right there you alluded to it. And have you had any conversations with Carson? How is that gone?

They've been good, you know. And I think going forward, we've got a lot more evaluating to do. Did you need to talk to him about making a change this week or after the Browns games that kind of understood? I think it was kind of understood, but I talked with them in the morning, this morning to the quarterback. So I went from there. I think if you didn't take out of those answers about Carson Wentz,

that if Ron Rivera's back, Carson Wentz isn't going to be, by the way, he's not going to be regardless of who the coach. which is you weren't reading the room tone at that point. And maybe it helped to watch Ron kind of answer those questions. By the way, Sam Hal just had his press conference, and he said, quote, this game is the most important game of my life, and it should be the most important game of everybody on the team's life,

closed quote. So we will see Sam Hal on Sunday. When we come back, you're going to hear what he said about Taylor Heineke's prospects of being on the team next year. We'll get to that right after these words from a few of our sponsors. With Heineke, did you have a conversation with him and then, you know, longer term, would you like to keep him around? Well, we'll get into what we want to do going forward with personnel

once the season's over. But my conversation with him was terrific. He's a heck of a young man, and he really helped me through this in terms of decision-making. So that was Ron Rivera answering a two-fold question again from Nikki Jabala from the Washington Post. And you heard what he said with respect to, you know, the evaluation, would he like him back next year? And those evaluations will wait until the end of the year. But the last thing he said about, you know, Heineke being helpful in the process. Jeremy Fowler, who I've referenced a couple of times on the show today already, he was the one initially that put out the tweet early this morning that Taylor Heineke was going to start the game and Sam Howell would play. Well, he just tweeted out the following.

The expectation about which quarterback would start for Washington shifted from Taylor Heineke to Sam Howell late this morning per sources. Heineke, who had received indications that he was in line to start believed Hal was deserving of a full game and relayed that to coaches, closed quote. So basically, Taylor Heineke was one of those people that Ron consulted or spoke to about it. And Taylor said, I don't want to start the game and play a half and then have him come in. Let him play the whole game. By the way, pretty shrewd move by Taylor Heineke because two of the worst games that Taylor Heineke is played were against the Dallas Cowboys last year. Now, one of them really wasn't his fault.

You know, it was the short week after having to play the game against the Eagles on, you know, what was it, a Tuesday afternoon or whatever it was, and then turn around and play the Cowboys on a Sunday night, and they lost 56 to 14, and it was a disaster. But the first game that he started against the Cowboys last year was that game coming off the four-game winning streak, and that game was a disaster. He ended up, you know, getting benched. Kyle Allen came into the game and it was one of the worst starts of his, you know, 25 game run as a starter. Look, Heineke's put enough on tape for everybody to see. He doesn't need to play the Cowboys with, by the way, some backup players more likely than

not playing because they want to evaluate other positions. You know, to have Micah Parsons bearing down on you in the first quarter and end up having a horrific game potentially without all of the weapons out there, if they, you know, sit a lot of people in this finale. I think they'll play enough of them, you know, with Sam Howell. It was probably a shrewd move by Heineke. Heineke's going to get an opportunity to certainly be a backup quarterback in the NFL. He's going to get a contract to be a backup somewhere. You know, it's not out of the realm that if a team drafts a young quarterback somewhere, maybe in Washington, that he is signed, you know, to a low money deal to start, you know, a few games until that young quarterback is ready. And

then become the backup for the young quarterback. He's got a career in the NFL. I mean, he has earned that with his play. By the way, when Sam Hal takes the field as the starting quarterback on Sunday afternoon against the Cowboys, he will become the 35th starting quarterback for this franchise in the last 31 seasons. Mark Rippins' 1991 Super Bowl glory team. He started that entire season, and then after that, it's been a parade of quarterbacks. Sam Howell will be the 35th in 31 seasons to start at quarterback. And I'm not going to sit here and name them all, but really after Rip, you had Brad Johnson's big year in 99. You had a few big years from Kirk Cousins, and you had RG3 in 2012. That's the list. Everybody else, pretty much average to much less than average.

Yeah, I mean, Brunel had a couple of big-time games, and, you know, Gus Verrett had a couple of really nice games, and Jason Campbell did a little here and there. But really, I mean, think about the quarterback wilderness that they've been in. Sam Hal will be the 35th. By the way, with this group, the eighth quarterback to start a game. Dwayne Haskins, right? Kyle Allen, Alex Smith in 2020. Taylor Heineke, at the end of 2020 in the playoff game. That's four. Ryan Fitzpatrick is five. Carson Wentz is six, Sam Hal is seven, and don't forget, Garrett Gilbert started a game last year for them. And by the way, if they could get Garrett Gilbert, was it Garrett or Gail? Gilbert, I forget. If they could get him ready in three days, they can get Sam Hal ready

when Sam Hal's been here since April. And they swore that they stole him in the fifth round, that they would have taken him much earlier had they not signed Wentz. Man, though, the quarterback situation they have been in for a long period of time. Just dreadful. And obviously the results reflect that. A couple of quick things. things to end the show. First of all, Janus Atentacompo last night went for 55 against the Wizards. The Wizards were in the game, though, down 95-93, and that snapped, I don't know if any of you know this, that snapped a five-game winning streak for the Wizards. They had won five in a row. Now, I know they had beaten the Bucks without Janus in the last game on New Year's Day, and they beat, you know,

Devin Booker, a Devin-Booker-Less Phoenix Sun's team. But they've been playing better. Bradley Beale got hurt again last night, hamstring, I think, again. But they lost to the Bucks, their five-game winning street came to an end, and they lost to the Bucks 123-13. It was an all-time career high for Janus when he went for 55. I mean, that comes off the night, the other night where Donovan Mitchell went for 71 for the Cavs. And Luca had that game where he went for 60 and 21, and then he backed that up with a 51-point outing. I mean, the number of, like, 40-point games now are like not a big deal. I mean, it's like every other night somebody's going for 50 plus or 60, or in the case of Donovan Mitchell, 71.

The Caps lost last night. Their second loss in this run of playing really well in overtime, so they at least get a point out of it. And the news on Demart Hamlin, I guess, is positive. You know, there has been some positive news coming out of the hospital, from his marketing manager, from the uncle. And, you know, the NFL right now is kind of on hold with respect to the future schedule here. You know, we talked a little bit about this on the show yesterday. I think it's a very interesting logistical issue that they have here.

You know, they're not playing Buffalo Cincinnati this week, so when do they play it? if that game is an important game deemed too important not to play by the NFL, meaning that they're not just going to hand Kansas City the one seed when Buffalo may have earned it with a win, with two more wins. They're not going to just hand Cincinnati the three seed when they had a chance for the one or two seed. How do you play that game? Well, there's only one way to play that game. The only way to play that game is to play it next week, either after the regular season ends or by pushing the regular season back. As of now, Week 18's on is scheduled, and right now Buffalo's scheduled to play New England and Cincinnati's scheduled to play Baltimore. But if they're going to make that game up, when do you make it up?

I've seen a lot of, you know, different formulas. You know, I've seen one where, well, then the following week, they'll play the NFC playoffs, the wild card round games, and the Bengals-Bills resumption at 7 to 3. And then the next week, the AFC playoffs will start, and the NFC playoffs will be a round ahead, and the AFC will just lose out on the two weeks between the Super Bowl and the championship game while the NFC champion has the full two weeks. I don't see any of that happening. I see one of two things happening. I see them not playing the game. They're not resuming the Cincinnati Buffalo game and them going with winning percentage.

And I don't think that, you know, I've also read some people say, well, Kansas City, if they beat the Raiders, would end up with the better record. But since Buffalo beat them head-to-head, they could hand Buffalo the number one seed. I don't see them doing that without Buffalo playing a full schedule. I think there's one of two options here.

One, Buffalo and Cincinnati play 16 games, and it comes down to winning percentage. And it's just going to be, we're really sorry. Kansas City is going to end up with the one seed. Buffalo, you're not going to get a first round by. You're going to have to play on wild card weekend. Then you're going to have to play Cincinnati in the divisional round. And then if you make it through that, you'll have to play at Arrowhead, even though you beat the Chiefs and you were headed potentially to the number one seed.

Now, if Cincinnati had won the game, against Buffalo on Monday night, well, then Kansas City would have been in position to clinch the number one seed based on finishing 14 and 3, and the best the bills could have done was 13 and 4. So I see one of two things. One, them just going with winning percentage with the Bills and Bengals playing just 16 games. Or two, pushing back week 18, the upcoming weekend, or playing week 18 and pushing back the start of the playoffs. that would actually be three options, right? But really, my point being, they'd play the Buffalo and Cincinnati game,

but they would play it after week 18. So if you have week 18, they play the Patriots and the Ravens, respectively. And then the following weekend, it's just Bengals Bills in the resumption and no playoffs until the weekend after that. And you only end up with one week between the championship games and the Super Bowl. I think those are the two leading possibilities. Kansas City and Buffalo and Cincinnati only play 16 games, and it comes down to winning percentage for seeding,

meaning Kansas City beats the Raiders, which by the way, won't be super easy. The Raiders nearly just beat the 49ers. But the Chiefs would certainly have the inside track on the number one overall seed, which would really, from a competitive standpoint, put Buffalo into a difficult position when they had a chance at the number one seed by winning their final two. But they were trailing in the game Monday night.

And Cincinnati looked like a team that could win that game and knock Buffalo into the two spot anyway, or the three spot, because Cincinnati had a chance to gain that two spot and home field advantage over Buffalo. But it's either winning percentage, and those two teams play 16 games, or it's play the game, you know, after week 18,

or you move week 18 back, but you end up playing the game and pushing the playoffs back. by a week. I think those are the two options. We'll see what the NFL comes up with. They're going to have to come up with something soon, I would imagine. I guess they could go ahead and just play week 18 and figure it out on Sunday night, but I would imagine something will be announced before the end of the week. That would be my guess. All right, that's it for the show today, back tomorrow.