The Kevin Sheehan Show - Skins' 2016 Draft Busted

Episode Date: September 3, 2019

Kevin and Thom opened the show talking about the Redskins' roster maneuvers from the weekend which included the release of their 2016 first-round pick Josh Doctson. Thom did his Skins' season "best-case/worst-case". They also talked about omitting Sean Taylor last week in a conversation about Skins' retired/protected jerseys. Then it was Nats, Terps, and Kevin's "Coaching Blunders" from the weekend. <p> </p><p>Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices">podcastchoices.com/adchoices</a></p> Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You want it. You need it. It's what everyone's talking about. The Kevin Sheehan Show. Now here's Kevin. You're listening to The Sports Fix. All right, Tommy's here by phone. Aaron is here. It's football season for real as the countdown to the NFL opener has begun. Thursday night, it's Bears Packers in the NFL season opener as it celebrates its 100th season. And then Sunday, the Redskins are the biggest. underdog on the board right now. Nine and a half point dogs at Philadelphia in the opener. Their roster is down to 53. There were some big trades in the NFL over the weekend. Lots to get to Tommy joining us by phone. I want to read to you a text from a mutual friend and let you respond to it.

I won't mention who that friend was, but he said, Kevin, did that steroid that Tommy's been taking for that chest infection make him angrier than usual? He's killing the Redskins on your. show and on his weekend radio show, the most critical of the Redskins I've ever heard him. Is that true? Well, that's not true. It's very consistent with the criticism I'm having. I've had of the team in the past.

I think compared to this time of year, I think, for Redskins fan, is a time when they can talk themselves in the hope before they ever play a game. and I think if you're a Redskins fan, you can convince yourself, well, you know, maybe if this happens and that happens and all this. So I think when you contrast it to that brief window of the opportunity of hope that Redskins fans have, the criticism seems harsh. But it's consistent 100%. You know, they're not an NFL franchise.

They don't operate like an NFL franchise. And nothing has been done, you know, nothing has changed to indicate that. They're going into the season with a new quarterback and a wide receiving core that has barely, if any, caught a pass in the NFL. Do you think I've been guilty in years past of, you know, on the doorstep on the eve of a new season, getting overly optimistic about what might happen? I think within reason, yeah. I mean, I don't think it's been unintelligent. I think it's been reasonable. But, yeah, I think, you know, you've come down on the side of hope

and what could go right instead of what could go wrong, not anymore. Well, yeah, I mean, I'm less enthused this year, but it's the NFL. Things can happen. I will point out to all of those who I hear from about Tommy. negativity. Two things. One, he picked the Redskins to go 9 and 7 last year and thought that they were going to be a good team and a playoff team. Number two, Tommy's shows recently when he's really been in Bash the Redskins mode have been some of our biggest downloaded podcasts of the summer. So I just want to point that out as well. Oh, they love hearing that. Because it's always been my

feeling, and you know I feel this way, is that there is an element of entertainment with you. But there's sincerity as well. I think you and I have both said many, many times, and we feel the same way that if you're not honest in this format, you got no shot. If people sniff you out as fraudulent and not saying what you really feel, you have no chance. But I have also had this feeling over the years, and I've said it on the podcast, that while there's a large segment of people that are clearly less interested in the team and the games it plays, those same people are interested in the heated, emotional, poking, you know, the conversation about the team is still something that they enjoy. I don't know what that means. I think it's this,

I've tried to explain it before, and you'll probably do it better, but the whole sports talk radio format is this like community of, you know, wallowing in misery together, which I guess people take some warmth from somehow. And when your favorite teams have some limited success in this town, it's very limited, sharing in those joys together. Like they, they, I know that winning would be better for the podcast. It would be better for the radio show. It would be better for your radio show. It would be better for the column. If they, one big, but for whatever reason, people continue to, I think, embrace the conversation even when the team stinks. Do you agree with me? Yeah, I do. Look, there is, it's hard to deny a passion

that you grew up with. What's more likely is that passion turns from love to hate, but it's still passion. You're still interested. You still care in the way that you, you know, not that you want to see them fail, but if they fail, you want to be there to have a front row seat. I mean, you know, people who didn't care that much about the team when they were good, they don't easily turn them off. But people who cared a lot when they were good, they still care, but in a negative way. All right. Let's, get to a lot of what happened over the weekend, this holiday weekend. The Redskins cut their roster down to 53. In doing so, they let Josh Doxon loose. They cut him. They waited Tommy as long

as they could try to get something for him, which, you know, Bruce actually at times has been pretty good at doing, you know, extracting some value for a player they don't want. But no one was interested in even giving them a conditional late rounder. He actually signed, I think, last night with Minnesota one-year deal reuniting Kirk and Doxon, because that was such a highly productive relationship for the one year that they played together, because really he didn't play at all his rookie season, if you recall, didn't play at all his rookie season. And remember, you know, when Kirk left, when the team didn't want him back and he left from Minnesota, one of the comments before the 2018 season before last year from Jay Gruden was, you know, Alex is

going to give Josh more of a shot. It was a swipe at Kirk at not giving Josh Doxon the 50-50 balls that he's so richly deserved. Well, we didn't see many of those last year from Alex either, and the teams moved on from him, and the roster is set. I think, you know, ultimately, and I mentioned this on the radio show this morning, that the 2016 draft for the Redskins is really one of these warnings, there should be a case study done to provide to not only, you know, teams, but media members like me who get so excited about a specific draft choice, which I do about. You were very excited about Josh. You and I were on the air together draft night, and I predicted, I wanted them to take them, and then I predicted, you know, that night probably a half an hour before they took them

that they would take them. But you know what it is, Tommy? Like all strong, you know, opinions on the draft. You just, you don't know because you don't get a chance, and this is the team's responsibility, to do the due diligence on the player, you know, to know whether or not this player is a player that loves football, whether or not this player has immaturity, whether or not this player is a good teammate,

whether this guy's going to love football and work at it. Those are the things we don't know. And the team's responsible for finding that out. And the 2016 draft was Josh Doxon and Sue Cravens at the top of the draft. Josh Doxon, you know, right from the jump, remember we were hearing he doesn't love football, he may be a bit homesick. Suea Cravens, when he went AWOL on the Redskins, the Redskins acted like they didn't know he had a history of it at Southern Cal. Yeah. And so the net of it for me is taking a chance in the fifth round.

sixth round, seventh round, even the fourth round, on a player that has an injury history or some issues off the field, isn't as devastating to your franchise as taking your top two picks and rolling the dice on players you're not sure of in terms of the off-the-field stuff. Yeah, and for fans, and I've preached this all the time, and people get sick of it, you need to realize what you don't know. the most important knowledge you have is what you don't know and recognize that. In other words, look, you're perfectly fine to make judgments about players based on what you've seen

and the statistical information available. But there's always got to be a caveat about what you don't know about the player. And, you know, some fans never get that. And some sports broadcasters never get that either. But some do. I mean, again, but listen, 2016, that's the Scott McLuhan draft. That's got to be considered a disaster. Yeah, I want to get to that in a moment.

I wanted to make this other comment because, you know, the interesting thing about the NFL, like Doxon ultimately, I think what people would tell you if they did it off the record is that they would tell you he didn't love football enough, didn't have the passion for the game. with Sue of Cravens, obviously there may have been a screw loose there. It's like the NFL will forgive for all, by the way, Cravens got cut from Denver this weekend. It's like the NFL will forgive you for almost anything if you've got talent. But once you get the rep of not caring enough, not working hard enough,

more times than not, you're done. Like you're better off having domestic violence allegations hanging off of you than having the rep of not caring enough about football. Because that really is over the years, and I've learned that, and I've learned that a lot from Chris over the years, because he's got this ability to sort of get to know some of these players and know who's really into it and passionate about it

and will work at it and improve versus those that don't. And I think teams have to find guys that really, you know, if you've got a serious talent and he doesn't love football, you can't take a top two pick, a top two round pick, and wasted on that player. It's fine to do it later in the draft for a talent, but not the top two. But anyway, you... But the irony is that Scott McLuhan always preached football players,

guys who love playing football. That was his giant mantra. That's what he talked about all the time. And he looks badly on this one. Yeah, Brandon Sheriff was a football player. Josh Doxon and Sue Cravens were not. So, you know, it does bring into the whole, you know, conversation, you know, Scott McLuhan's state of mind heading into that 2016 draft.

Or maybe even his lack of influence over the 2016 draft, I don't know. I mean, the only way we can look back at it is to say he had the 2015 draft, he had the 2016 draft. And if we believe, you know, that he, His board was the board used in 2017, which is what he has said. Then maybe the 2017 draft is his as well, even though he wasn't around to execute it. The big takeaway, though, from this particular draft is no matter how great your scouting is when it comes to, you know, watching tape and evaluating games, your scouts and key evaluators have to go deep on all the other stuff, character, personal reputation, work ethic.

those are the things that really matter almost as much as the tape. You know, Doxon didn't love football. Cravens was a bit off. And the McLuhan, you know, the McLuhan legacy is he gave us Brandon Sheriff, basically. And if you want to take the 2017 draft is his, he gave us, you know, hopefully John Allen too. Because apparently they used his board, even though he was gone. But he gave us Cravens. He gave us Doxon. He gave us Matt Jones. He gave us some duds, too, man. It was not... But Tommy, here's one more thing, and then I'll let you respond to it.

This relationship with McLuhan, I don't know how we got off in this subject, but this relationship with McLuhan was in some ways doomed from the start because the reasons Bruce and Dan wanted to hire him weren't reasons of improving the football operation. his hiring came, as you remember, off the heels of Bruce's infamous winning off the field comments at that press conference following the 2014 season. This was the first moment in the Bruce Allen era where the fans started to make it clear that they didn't want him back. So what did they do? They went sort of sleight of hand. They said, don't look at Bruce over here. look over here at the guy we hired Scott McLuhan as if to say Bruce's football decision decision making powers have been reduced.

You know, they did the same thing when they gave Doug Williams the lofty title and the same thing for different reasons when they hired Brian Lafamina. It's unbelievable how hard the organization has to work to make it appear as if he's not that influential. Yeah, it really is. You know, look, Bruce Allen. You're right. It was doomed from the start because you're absolutely right. They hired a general manager to take the heat off the criticism of Brutes Allen.

But just to show you what a control freak this guy is, if you don't want a general manager, but you have to hire a general manager, why not hire a general manager who's self-destructive? Why not hire a general manager who you know will not last in the job? Well, I mean... I think they hired McClewins and knew that he was set up to fail right from the start. You know, there were people that early on felt that that was a possibility. I did not. I did not feel that that was a possibility.

But there were some people that felt that way. But remember, it's not like he could escape the stink if McLuhan, you know, fell off the wagon. and, you know, and sort of created, you know, a self-demized situation, which is what happened. Like, that doesn't make them look good for hiring them. And by the way, of course, they handled it so poorly on the way out in such a loathsome way, you know, with the leaks to the Washington Post that it's not like, you know, Bruce looked better because of McClune's self-destruction. but the attention was on McLuhan. It wasn't on Bruce.

The attention, the fan attention then for at least two years was on McLuhan. And, you know, people chalked up their dysfunction to McLuhan more than they did Bruce Allen at that point. It just basically gave another scapegoat. It doesn't make Bruce Allen blow in the dark, but it gave them another scapegoat to share, to share in the misery. All right. I want to get to the trade from over the weekend. There were two major trades in the NFL. Judavian Clowny went to Seattle for a couple of players in a third round pick. The bottom line with that deal, one of the players actually has some decent upside. He's the defensive end, Jacob Martin. But part of that deal, I don't know if you read this, included

Houston picking up $7 million of Clowney's 2019 salary, and that was so that he would sign the tender because he was a franchised player to allow the trade to go through. The Seahawks not only get Clowny for essentially a third and two players, one of whom may turn out to be somebody, the other one they were getting ready to apparently cut anyway, but they get them for half the cost in 2019. Now, they did have to commit to Clowny that they would not franchise him next year. So they have to either sign him to a long-term deal or potentially lose him to free agency. But Seattle got much better with Clowny.

They also remember signed Ziggy Ansah in the offseason. So they've got two guys to replace Frank Clark, who they lost to the Chiefs and traded to the Chiefs when the season was over. John Schneider is a great general manager. For those that don't remember, he was here with Marty Schwarz. Schottenheimer in 2001. Again, another reason to look back at that 2001 season, as I have very often over the years, and say that that was the single biggest mistake of the Snyder era, was running Marty and all of the people that Marty had here with them,

one of whom was John Schneider, because they weren't having enough fun, Dan and Drasner and all of them. And it marked the return of Vinny after that. Vinny came back. Vinnie got back in the building. Yeah, with Spurrier. Yeah, so there was that trade. And then there was this trade, which brings us closer to home because of the Trent Williams situation.

Houston was in dire need of a left tackle. They, I believe that they were one of those teams that reached out to the Redskins at some point over the last month to find out whether or not Trent Williams was available. They traded two first round picks and a second round pick to Miami for Laramie Tunsell and Kenny Stills, the wide receiver in Miami. Now, Miami also got a special teamer and a backup offensive lineman and Houston got a couple of mid-round picks. But basically, Houston traded two first rounders and a second rounder for Tunsell and Stills. So most of that is Tunsell. For those of you that don't remember,

Tunsel was the guy on draft night in 2016, the Doxon draft night, who, moments before the draft started, there were Twitter pictures sent out with him in a gas mask and smoking from a bong. Yeah. And his stock actually dropped because he was supposed to be the top left tackle in the draft.

Now, he apparently has, you know, under the radar in Miami, of course, been a good player getting better, and there's a lot of upside to Tunsell as a left tackle. Some people think he's already approaching sort of top five territory. He's only 25 years old, but, you know, Houston needed a left tackle because they've got Deshawn Watson and they've got Hopkins, and they've got playoff aspirations, and they needed to protect, you know, Deshawn Watson this year. Is Tunsell Trent Williams? Most would say not yet in terms of the player. He's all. also six years younger. So that brings you to... And more affordable. And more affordable right now on the

current contract. So that brings you to that situation where you then try to figure out, well, if Houston reached out to Washington, what would they have been willing to offer the Redskins for Trent Williams? I think no less than at least one of those first rounders, no less than that, and probably a little bit more, which would have equated to perception-wise, a blockbuster offer and deal that the Redskins made out pretty well on. However, to make a package or make a deal like that, you've got to be open to trading him. And I think right now Bruce Allen's got his heels dug in, Tommy, like he did with cousins, you know, when he offered him $54 million and guaranteed, which ended up being $30 million, not $5 million.

not $10 million, $30 million less than what was his market value seven months later. And if you remember, when he did it, he made cousins out to be an ingrate for not taking it. It made his agent and Kirk out to be completely delusional as to what his market value was. Bruce is stubborn, he's hardheaded, like the owner, he never thinks he's wrong. This Trent Williams thing has him seething and his less carpenter wrote a few weeks back, we may be in the process of him trying to make Trent bleed to death by not getting paid to play football. And that would be unfortunate because sometimes that makes sense. Sometimes you cut bait, especially if you've got a big deal out there that Houston may have been willing to offer.

And that's conjecture, obviously. I know, but the only reasonable conclusion based on the Miami-Yustin deal. and that Trent Williams was available, at least we believe that Houston would have been interested in Trent Williams. Is you're right, Bruce Allen is not going to trade Trent Williams. That seems pretty obvious. At this point. At this point. Yeah.

I mean, that's what, if anything, that's what the trade tells you. And I think you're right. Look, we've talked about this before. I think the Trent Williams holdout is different. for both sides, because I think it's deeply personal for both sides. I think for Trent Williams, whatever you think of the charges that have been levied through intermediaries and various reports, if Trent Williams believes those things, then it's a personal thing for him. If you're the Redskins and you recognize the damage done by Trent Williams' charges

and you think they're unfounded, it's really personal for the Redskins. I mean, it's hard to believe they've made, I mean, it's hard to believe they've made the Redskins look bad, worse, but they did. And I'm sure Bruce Allen and Dan Snyder and most people in that building are very angry at Trent and want to see him suffer for what he's been through. And this is why I don't see how Trent Williams can come back. I don't see how he can come back. This is not a whole, your typical holdout. I don't know how you repair that on either side. Yeah, I know what you're saying.

And by the way, I think, you know, to use your, you know, statement from earlier, sometimes we've got to be careful because we don't know. And there's a lot about this situation that we really don't know because he hasn't spoken. His agent hasn't spoken. We've heard from various people that may have been speaking on his behalf, but we don't even know that for sure. We haven't heard the team say anything specific to the situation or the reasons why. So it's really, there's a lot of unknown here, but I will say this, that, you know, the allegations, the discussion that's out there about Trent not trusting the organization because of some medical issue.

If the organization thinks that that is just way off, I can understand. Part of me understands why Bruce and Dan and the front office would be extremely upset about this. Not to mention the fact, and I've mentioned this before, and this is, I'm going to take the organization's side if this is true, if the medical thing's been blown out of proportion and that this is really about money. This is an organization that supported Trent despite two suspensions, including one, where Trent missed four games at the end of the 2016 season when they were trying to make the postseason. They were in a battle to make the playoffs, and he's gone for four games for suspension, and yet they paid him anyway. They supported him, and he's let them down more often than they've let him down over the years. And so if that's part of the context to this, like, my God, you sign this deal, you've got two years left on it.

We have been overly accommodating when it's come to you and your situation, and we paid you the best deal when we extended you a few years back. I can understand their position and why they'd be so upset. With that said, if he ain't coming back, you've got to figure out a way to maximize his value and get something for him rather than trying to bleed him. And ultimately, you'll end up looking petty, small, and limited in the process. It's the cousin's situation. They got pissed about what Kirk and his agent thought they were worth. They were dead wrong about the market. Dead wrong.

I mean, not even close in terms of what Kirk ended up getting. they were $30 million off in guaranteed money, and they didn't get anything back other than the compensatory pick for him. And they look stupid for holding, you know, hard and fast on not paying him what the market demanded. All that said, I think even if Trent comes back, I think the damage is already done. Like I said, I think it's going to be a very ugly situation. If it when trend comes back. The best thing, the most important thing, an owner or a team president should ask themselves every day, what's the best thing for the organization? That's the question you need to answer every day with everything you do. What's best for the organization? And you

need to let your petty personal feelings aside, even if you think you're right, 100% right in feeling that way and decide what's best for the organization. What's best for the organization was to have traded Trent Williams, get the most you could out of them, and leave this another, yet another ugly page of Redskins history behind. I mean, we're speculating on the Houston thing, but if Houston were willing to give them a first and a third, you know, which would have been far less than they gave up for Tunsell. And the Redskins didn't want to have anything to do with it. That's malpractice. That is organizational roster malpractice. Now, with that said, I think what you just said and what, you know, on the heels of what I said,

is true. I'm guessing it's true. I don't know for sure. They're really angry and they feel like their position is the right position. And if they give in, if they succumb to Trent's demand to move on from him and trade him, that somehow that will be. be a horrible, you know, precedent set by the organization that others can take advantage of in the future. I personally don't see it that way because I think this is a one-off. I don't think Kerrigan's going to have the same juice that, you know, Trent Williams has right now. I just don't see it many comps to Trent Williams on the current roster or something coming up that would, you know, put the organization into a difficult position if they give in on Trent. I don't see it

that way, but maybe they do. I don't see it that way either, and there's one way to avoid that. Trade the player before you're put in that situation. Yeah. Yeah, well, yeah, they would have had to have the, you know, the vision and foresight that this was going to be a situation and trade them in January, which I would have done anyway as part of an overall reboot. Right.

Yeah. So anyway, one other quick thing, we're not going to sit here and spend time on the last few roster spots. I've got a couple of thoughts. Let me just... Yeah, go ahead. Let me just say something about how people get obsessed with these last roster, the last five or six guys picked on the team. When you

think about it, this is gym class, and you're picking sides, and these are the last five guys that nobody wanted. These are the last five. Stand it, okay, I'll take him, I'll take him. I mean, people get so excited about the end of the roster.

Okay. Laverro, Tommy, come on, you're on my team. Come on over here. Exactly. I know. I remember years ago I would do like this 53 man roster projection, and I remember doing it thinking, who cares about this? Because I didn't even care about it. You know, Cooley basically told me a few years ago, he goes, 48 of the 53 spots are accounted for when you arrive at training camp. You know, so really the training camp, you know, assuming no injuries, which you always end up with some, you're essentially got a bunch of dudes fighting it out for the bottom five spots.

And, you know, once those bottom five spots are earned, they're turned over more often than not pretty quickly. Like we saw the other day, Byron Marshall makes the team, Somaget P. Ryan cut, oh, there goes Byron Marshall. He's gone too because they just signed Wendell-S-Wood. You know, so you get all of those things that happen. And so God bless the people that obsess over this. I just don't know that there's a big market for it personally, but there might be. I did think that the statement that Jay Gruden made yesterday was the most interesting thing to come out of the weekend when it came to, you know,

the depth chart anyway. He said about Darius Geis, we have faith in him to carry the ball. We drafted him for a reason. We feel like he can be a first, second, and even third down back if needed. I think the offense carries-wise will probably go through him pretty much. Obviously, Chris Thompson, we like special team guy. We just had to have another guy like Smallwood that can contribute on punts and do things on third down as well. We feel good about the guys we kept. Obviously, AP, Adrian Peterson is still here.

He can run the ball as good as anybody. We're good at running back. But he basically said Darius Geis is our starter, and Adrian Peterson is our backup. I'm not sure that we saw that coming, and we definitely didn't see it coming when Geis wasn't playing, and we were told that he hadn't been cleared yet. No, I don't think we did. Look, we've seen Adrian Peterson when he's not getting the carries he thinks he wants or needs. It's not a happy Adrian Peterson. Mm-hmm.

Okay? And Adrian Peterson needs carries, because Adrian Peterson needs money. It's been reported that he's in deep financial problem. And I would think that his contract, whatever it is with the Redskins, includes incentives based on carries and yardage and all those things like that. So I think this is going to wind up. Could be, and maybe it won't be. You know, maybe he'll rise above it.

But I think if Adrian Peterson feels he's on the odd man out, it's going to affect him in his wallet. and I think you're going to see an issue within the locker room. You know, it's interesting. If you didn't have Adrian Peterson on the roster and you didn't have Donald Penn because Trent Williams were here, the Redskins would have one of the younger rosters in the NFL. You know, I guess one of the things I would look at from over the weekend is you take a position like wide receiver and they kept all of their young unproven guys with the exception of Paul Richardson.

Not like they had a lot of options there. I mean, Doxon and Brian Quick would have been sort of the two players with experience. And Paul Richardson's hardly a proven guy. I mean, they gave him a lot of money last year, and he's got a lot of talent, but he's been injured a lot. Other than that, they kept Trey Quinn, Robert Davis, Kelvin Harmon, Terry McLaurin, and the guy that really does look like an explosive talent, Stephen Sims Jr. By the way, just as a side note, and Aaron knows this, had John Allen on the podcast a month or so ago, Aaron, and I asked him, give me one player on the roster that nobody's thinking about,

that you think's going to have a significant season, a major contributing season. And he said, Cam Sims. So, of course, I'm watching Cam Sims all preseason long, thinking he's going to make this team. And I didn't even think the drops in the fourth preseason game would doom him. And I don't know that they did, but he didn't make the team. Like even the players don't have any idea when it comes to, these roster spots at the end. You're right.

You're right. Steven Sims. He was a fan favorite, though. He was a guy. Look, I think most fans were very happy with the wide receiving cuts and the finished product, even though, like I said, hardly any of them have caught passes in the NFL on a regular basis. I think if it was up to the fans, Brian Quick would have been gone and Josh Doxon would have been

gone. Yeah. I actually like Brian Quick, and I know Jay did too, but there's just not a spot. I guess the overarching theme is they went, you know, when in doubt, they kind of went young. I mean, they had to keep Donald Penn, obviously, because they don't have an answer at left tackle. But it is a young roster, and this was not a reboot year. If they were rebooting, they would have already traded Trent Williams for, you know, what could have been perhaps a huge deal from the Texans.

and they may have traded, you know, somebody like Ryan Carrigan as well and gone super young and done what sort of Miami is starting to do, you know, in a weird way. Now, they did sign Ryan Fitzpatrick, and apparently they're going to start Ryan Fitzpatrick over Josh Rosen, but, you know, trading a young player like Tunsell for all of those picks, and they've had a couple of other moves for picks as well. But anyway, you know, the players that they kept... Yeah, go ahead. Let me just ask you something about the wide receiving court.

Yeah. I can't tell you much. I know. You have a first year quarterback with the team in Case Keenham. Okay. And I'm assuming he's still, and maybe I'm wrong, just a little bit on a learning curve since they haven't played a regular season game yet under Jay Gruden's system. Who is his security blanket?

Well, there's only one guy we know of that could be, maybe two. Jordan Reed and Vernon Davis, and we don't know that Jordan Reed's even going to play. Right. So let's take Jordan Reed out of the equation right now. And we know how quarterbacks, we've seen it here a lot, quarterbacks like that security bank, but the one guy they know they can count on to go to where they're in trouble.

We don't know if he's got one. No, we don't. Nobody has proven that they can be that consistent guy who will be available for the quarterback when he's running for his life. Yeah, I mean That's a problem Their plan is going to be To try to run the football

And play great defense There was another There was another quote from Jay The other day that I did want to read Here it is Jay said yesterday We've got our lineup set the way we want With one exception

And he was referring to Trent Williams We've got a great group of guys here That are ready to work I feel really good about our defensive editions Really Montez, Landon, John Bostic defensively, I think we've got a chance to be special. We're very encouraged by them.

Obviously, our kicking games intact with Tress and Hopkins and Nate Sundberg is the long snapper and the rest of the guys. Offensively, we just have to find a way to mesh. Find a way to hit some big plays, protect the football, and do some things. Might be a little different here or there. If you have to win 1713, we'll win 1713 with a great defense. Just getting case comfortable, getting the receipts. receivers random comfortable, finding out the status of Jordan, obviously, is going to be important to us. Remember he said this about the Griffin year? Yes, he did. That's the first thing that came to mind.

That was stunning when he said it then. Oh, my God, that was shocking because that was before the season started. And he said, well, you know, we may have to win some games 1310 with some defense and special teams. Yeah. They are going to have a good defense, don't you think? Yes, I'm optimistic about the defense. I think our fan base exaggerates it and thinks that it's going to be a dominant defense. I don't see that. I see a defense that will be improved and will push the upper half of the league in defenses and maybe into sort of a top 10 defense.

Joe was on with me on Friday, Thaisman, and said he thinks this is a top five defense. there are a lot of really good defensive teams in the league. I mean, some really good defensive teams in the league. But yeah, that's the strength of the team, clearly. You know, if they're going to be competitive, if they're going to have a chance to win six, seven, eight games, it's going to be because the defense keeps a minute. And there are players on defense that I'm really excited, Tommy, about.

And I think number one, I mean, I was really excited about Montez Sweat, so I'm going to continue to be excited about him, even though Smoot sort of indicated to me last week that he may not be 100%, which is why he didn't play a lot, and when he did, he looked a little stiff. But anyway, I'm really interested in what Duran Payne is this year. John Allen is steady, he's good, he's getting better, he's got a chance to be a pro bowler somewhere down the road. Duran pain to me in the preseason, I know it's the preseason, but it's just an individual evaluation, looked so much more athletic than he did a year ago.

And he could be the guy that ends up being a real problem for other teams to deal with. I'm actually very, very excited to watch him play early in the season. It gets some very good offensive lines. You know, the Eagles offensive line and the Cowboys offensive line, two great offensive lines to open up the season against. Yeah. No, you're right. I'm going to love watching the defensive line matchups because my guy, Matt Ionitis, is in there as well. I've always been a big fan of his.

Here's the issue, and this is what they avoided last year, at least with Alex Smith at quarterback, and decent special teams. The defense won't help them if the offense is operating at bad field position the whole time. field position was a big key to their six and three start last year and the good defense won't matter if this offense turns the ball over or is buried in their own territory by the other team's defense and can never get out of there yeah no i i think all of it goes hand in hand if you if you're stopping the run if you're getting them off the field you know early in drives and you're playing decent special teams and you're not turning the ball over, you're going to have more times than not

have field position advantages. And that can lead to sort of, you know, points. Even without great offense, if you stop somebody from inside their own 20 and you get a bad punt, then you're, you know, sometimes you're one first down away from field goal range. So these are the things that they did well in the first seven games last year. All right. The last thing, actually two more things on the Redskins today. One thing that I want to circle back to, we started the conversation last week, and I'll get to that in a moment. But on Friday, and you weren't here, I talked to you on Thursday, Friday on the radio show and on the podcast, I did sort of a best case, worst case segment. Not the final prediction. We'll save that for Thursday when you're on, the actual

final season record prediction. But on Thursday, on Friday, I did you know, best case, worst case. Like, what's the best case for the Redskins in 2019? What's the worst case record for the Redskins in 2019? And my best case, Tommy, was 9 and 7. And I essentially said, you know, that is like hitting an inside straight. That assumes really good defense. That assumes that, you know, the coaching staff doesn't make blunders that cost them games.

That assumes staying relatively healthy, winning the turnover battle, winning the field position battles, you just mentioned, not beating themselves on offense or special teams. And, you know, if they have a high level defense and the offense doesn't lose games, nine and seven can happen. It's the NFL. We've seen this before. However, just for those that say, oh, they're going to have a great defense, so, you know, maybe it's even higher. Last year, Buffalo and Denver had two very good defenses. Denver was number five in V-O-A, Buffalo was number two, both teams went six and ten. It is a time in football where the dominant defense can't carry you alone to nine, ten, eleven wins in a playoff season. You've got to have

something offensively in this day and age. So you could be really good on defense and still go six and ten. But nine and seven was my best case. Three and thirteen was my worst case. And to me, that's a reflection of a roster that, you know, is C level, not a 3 and 13 roster, but a C level roster where, let's say they get hit by the injury bug again. Let's say that the early season schedule is as daunting as it may appear. And they start off 0 and 4 or 1 and 5. In an organization with no culture, you know, without a strong culture, it could snowball, it could crash and burn, and 3 and 13 was my worst case. What's your best case?

What's your worst case? Well, I'm going to give a very optimistic viewpoint of my worst case. I'm going to say 4 and 12. Oh, that's a better worst case than mine. Yes, yes. So for all those people who think I'm so negative. This is a setup. Let's remember.

Let's remember who came in at 4 and 12 on worst case. Not seeing Leverro did. All right, so let's get, by the way, before we get to, what you're setting up, which is not a very good best case. I'm just curious why you wouldn't take the same position that I'm taking, knowing how fragile what a house of cards this organization is. And if they start 0 and 5 with Jay Gruden as a lame duck with a defensive coordinator, they tried to fire in the offseason, without a quarterback potentially,

you know, what if Haskins comes in and is not very good right off the bat, why you wouldn't think that, you know, something really awful could happen this year? Well, I've come up with a formula that means absolutely nothing and makes no sense whatsoever. Okay. Okay, I'm going to write it down anyway. I mean, I think Vegas has projected them for six wins, right? Yes, six, six and a half is the overrunner. Okay.

So I'm going to say if that's where people think they are, worst case would be two wins less. best case would be two wins more. Eight and eight. I figure you got a two-game window in the NFL between where people expect you to finish and where your worst case is and where your best case is. You see how I did that through science? I did. I did.

Now, if the number is actually six and a half, you needed to say four and a half and eleven and a half. But I'm gearing it towards six minutes. Yeah, I know. I know. Four and twelve is your worst case. Eight and eight is your best case. I can tell you that I took calls on this on the radio on Friday and I, there weren't many optimistic people. I mean, many of the calls. Best case, five and eleven, six and ten, worst case two and fourteen, three and thirteen. I don't think, I think what happens, you know, and you and I've talked about this before, you know, social media is such a small reflection of what, you know, people really think. So, you know, the people that, you know, say, oh, you guys are insane or you're delusional or you're too negative, I actually think that if you were able to pull the majority of the fan base, the average best case would be seven and nine, eight and eight, and the average worst case would be like three and thirteen, two and fourteen, something like that. I think this is the least amount of juice, least amount of hope.

entering a season since maybe 2014, you know, off the hiring of Jay Gruden. And, you know, although I think people still, there was still a lot of, you know, hope that Griffin would be able to turn it around. Do you think that the hope and the juice would be much higher if Dwayne Haskins was the starter going into the season? No, but I think the curiosity factor in the interest in the season would be much higher. And you still think he should be, right? I don't know if, again, I don't know what I don't know. And what I don't know is what the coaches really think of him.

I only know what I saw and what I think of Case Keenham and Colt McCoy. And I also know that if the season goes south in a hurry and he doesn't play, that will be the most telling thing. That's the one thing that you could tell me, well, you don't know for sure. And I would tell you if they're three and seven, or 3 and 8, and he's still not playing, that is a bad sign. That is an indication that they done messed up. That the league didn't done messed up, they done messed up.

And they're going to be finding a whole new coaching staff, Dan Will, to try to make this guy work. But I think we're going to see him. I think we're going to see him before the end of the first month of the season. I think we might see him in the opener in a package or a series. I know. You keep saying that like you know something. I don't know anything. I promise you. I swear to you, I don't. Okay. I believe that. And by the way, just so we're clear on this, my position is that the quarterback who finishes the season for the team isn't even on the roster.

Yes. That they're going to break every quarterback who goes behind center. Right. Every one. All right. This is the other Redskins thing I wanted to get to because we had this conversation last week, and it sort of developed, you know, with spontaneity, it wasn't planned. Somehow we got to the Haskins jersey and the, you know, jersey number seven, Thaisman's number. And we talked about, you know, maybe the best thing for the organization at some point is just to commit to retiring jerseys.

And I mentioned to you that I thought I, you know, first of all, I think I should be consulted if they ever decide to do this. I would not trust Dan Snyder to do it by himself. I actually would feel better about Bruce Allen being in the conversation. I think he has a very good sense of the organization's history. But I mentioned to you that there were essentially seven jerseys that would not be debated. You know, that if the team decided to retire jerseys, there are seven of them that would not be debated. We would say these seven are retired. Now let's get to the jerseys that are debaters.

And the seven that I mentioned to you were Sonny Jurgensen's number nine, Darrell Green's number 28, Sammy Baugh's number 33, Charlie Taylor's number 42, Rigo's number 44, Bobby Mitchell's 49, and Art Monks, 81. Those are the seven that I would immediately retire, and then I'd move on to the conversation about the jerseys that I think would be deserving of debate. Now, some of those jerseys, I would retire, but I think they would be more in the category of debatable. Well, I got a lot of response about not mentioning Sean Taylor at all. And to be honest with you, I completely whiffed on that, as did you in the conversation, in that we didn't even discuss him as a debatable jersey to be retired.

And I just wanted to say to those of you that responded to me and how, you know, upset you were that Taylor wasn't in the conversation. it was a total whiff because I have talked about Sean Taylor with respect to Jersey retirement in the past. Landon Collins wanted to wear 21. They didn't give him the 21. They did give, you know, Haskins the number 7. As you pointed out, that's the owner's guy. But my position on Sean Taylor is that his career is not Jersey, you know, retired Jersey category, Not anything that he didn't do. Obviously, it was ended too quickly, you know, quickly. Tragically. And nothing of his fault. It's still to this day, one of the saddest days in franchise history. And I'll still never forget that Buffalo game. And you could hear a pin drop the moment of silence the few days after he passed. But what I've said is if Dan Snyder, because of his relationship with Sean Taylor and the tragic circumstances surrounding his death and understanding that he was a really good. player that probably would have gone on to a great career, maybe a Hall of Fame career, that I have no problem if they retire number 21, none at all.

Well, I agree. That was a whiff on both our parts. He didn't come into our minds when we were discussing that. I don't think it's debatable. I think his number should be retired because of what he means to the fan base. And so, you know, I was wrong by not mentioning him. His number should be retired. And there's not much more to say about that.

I mean, I'm 100% in support of retiring number 21. Let me just say that I'm not 100% in support of retiring number 21 or 100% against it. What I'm saying is I do believe that it's one of those numbers that is worthy of debate. but ultimately I would defer to the organization, in particular, the relationship that Dan and a lot of the players of the last, you know, of that of that group felt about him and the unusual and very tragic circumstances surrounding the end of his career. So I wouldn't have a problem with it. The debatable numbers to me are seven, and by the way, I would retire Joe's jersey. Just so you know, I would retire, but I think it would be one of those that we would debate. If you and I and four other redskinned people who really understand Redskins history were sitting around a table,

928, 33, 42, 44, 49, and 81 would be off the table. They're retired. And then it would be 7, 21, 27. Tommy explained to me, and when I was going through this as a follow-up on the radio show and then with you today. I don't understand over the years how Ken Houston's jersey wasn't a protected jersey. I don't understand that. That's a good point. Look, he played half his career with years. More than half year. Yes, more than half year.

And what's interesting, ESPN, about two weeks ago, came up with a great list after like interviewing 200 people and polling 200 people about the greatest players in the history of the game at each position. Yeah. and Kenny Houston came in as the greatest safety. There you go. You know what? I did see that list, and I've seen others where he's been ranked no worse than the fifth greatest safety in the history of the game.

In fact, the Redskins only have two players in their history that would be ranked in the top five at their specific position. And one of them's Ken Houston, and the other one's probably Sammy Ball, maybe. But that would be it. Houston's the only lock in that conversation. and yet guys like Walt Harris have worn the number over the years. The number's never been protected. And to me, 27 would be retired. I'm with you. A hundred percent. He played, Tommy, he played eight years here and he played six in Houston in his 14-year career. He was a 12-time pro bowler,

a two-time first-team all-pro, both of those times in Washington in 1975 and 1978, a 10-time second-team all-pro, and several of those were when he was in Washington. He's on the NFL 75th anniversary all-time team. As you mentioned this list, which I did see, and I had on my list of things that we could do on a slow day one day, the all-time NFL team, he was picked as one of the two safeties. Like, his numbers should be retired. I can't believe it hasn't been protected over the years. I agree with you.

I don't know why we haven't had that conversation in the past. I don't think that we have. have and I'm just forgetting it. You know, I would love to do that list with you someday because I think what I have is a very unique take on that list. I think that would be worthy of tremendous debate. I look forward to it. I mean, the list that I put together, and when we decide to do that, you know, for a longer period of time, is the no debate list, which is Sunny, Darrell, Sammy, Charlie, Rigo, Bobby, Art. And then the debatable list is Joe T, Sean Taylor,

Ken Houston, Larry Brown, Chris Hamburger, Joe Jacoby, Russ Grimm, and Sam Huff. And then just barely off the debatable list would be 17, which he would not be on my debate list, 30, Mitchell, Pat Fisher, Monty Coleman, Dave Butts,

Dexter Manley, Gary Clark, and Jerry Smith. That's the list I put together. Those would not be on the debated list, but they just barely missed being a jersey that would be debated. Yeah, and let me just make clear. The list I want to talk about is the ESPN all-time greatest list. Oh, yeah, yeah, no, I'm sorry. I thought you were talking about this. Oh, we definitely will do that.

We'll definitely do that on another show down the road if we don't forget about it. And I'll try not to forget about it. Real quickly, if you're listening to us on iTunes, rate us and review us. It really helps from an advertising standpoint. Also, don't forget to mention to people who haven't heard the podcast that want to listen to the podcast, that you can get it at the Kevin Shan Show.com. Also, for those of you that don't know and are tuning back in now that it's post-Labor Day and you took the summer off, I'm back on radio, I'm on 980,

I'm doing mornings from 7 to 10, but we are continuing. with the podcast. Tommy's going to continue to be with me on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Cooley will join us periodically as well on the podcast. And I've got some announcements on the podcast coming up hopefully later in the week or early next week. Tommy's continuing on 1067 the fan on weekends, no longer with Andy. But if you miss that from over the summer, he's doing it now with Nick Ashoe, right? Saturday and Sunday mornings. Yes. Yes. By the way, Kevin, full disclosure. Yes.

Not all of us, you know, not all of us are done taking the summer off. Where else are you going for crying out loud? You've had seven vacations this summer. Let me just point out that the reason I'm not in studio today is I'm in Rojovith Beach. You know what? That's what all of the old people do. They go down to the beach once everyone else has left the beach and come back to go to school. Good for you.

Are you there for the whole deal? We were on the beach. No, no, no. We got there Sunday night. We spent the day on the beach Monday. We're coming back Wednesday night because I'll be in studio Thursday with you. Okay, good. Well, you don't have to come back.

You can call in if you and Liz want to stay down there. No, I got to teach Thursday. I got to show up for my six other jobs. You know, when the kids were really young, like super young, and I wasn't in broadcast. yet. This was the week that we would go down to the beach. You know, I'm talking about when they were, you know, when they were really young and before school, they went to school. This, to me, the beach in mid-September, from mid-September through like mid-October is the best time to be down there. Oh, yeah. When all the crowds have left. Absolutely. And by the way, they still have your picture on a wanted poster down here for your little episode down here for Hobbit. You remember that. Yes, I do. What Tommy's... Yes, I do.

Your criminal career. Yeah, well, yeah, this was one of the incidents I've been involved in, but that one was a, was certainly one among my friend group, high school friend group, that I'll never forget. We were down in Rojoboth. We were 18, I think, years old, banged up beyond recognition, had been drinking all day, all night. and I went to relieve myself on the side of, I guess, a hotel off the boardwalk. And another friend was with me, and we heard police freeze. And with that, we did the opposite.

We zipped up and started running down the boardwalk, ultimately taking a right back towards a neighborhood. And five cop cars pulled up with sirens on. We got taken down, cuffed, and brought in for peeing. And by the way, it was considered to be in a, it was a misdemeanor, but it was a sexual misdemeanor. So we actually had our mugshots in those books for anybody, you know, for any poor, you know, person that, a female that had a situation where they'd need to check to see if they recognized anybody, but I think we got that taken out after a while. I think, you know, somebody's

father had a lawyer or something and figured it out, but we were there in front of the judge at about 2.30 in the morning had to call friends to come down and bail us out. There you go. Good memory. Yeah. I remember when my partners get arrested. Yes. All right, a little college football. Maryland beat Howard in the opener, Tommy, 79 to nothing. Yes, I saw that. I mean, that's a little college football right there. That is very little college football. I've got a little bit more college football because I wanted to mention a couple of things to you.

First of all, I'm assuming you didn't see the game, right? And I'm assuming a lot of people that are listening didn't see the game. No, I did not. Okay. The Howard punter, Aaron, Isaiah Moore, punted, first of, of all 13 times in the game. That's a lot of punts, 13 punts in a game. His first punt traveled 14 yards. His second punt went 72 yards. Quite the disparity from punt one to punt two. A little stage fright, the first one? I'm sorry? A little stage fright, maybe the first time?

Could have been a little stage fright. The third punt, he dropped the snap and fumbled it back to Maryland. and then his fourth punt went three yards. Oh my God. 1472 fumbled snap, three yard punt. That was quite the day from Isaiah Moore, the Howard punter. A couple of things. First of all, and I tweeted this out, I was convinced they were going to go to a running clock in the second half,

Aaron. We've seen that in college football a couple of times over the last several seasons. One of those games, I think, involved Howard against Georgia Tech a few years ago. I think it was 56-0-0 at halftime in that game. Marilyn was up 56-0 at halftime. They were up 72-0, and there were still like six or seven minutes left in the third quarter. They could have easily gotten 100 had they wanted to, but they didn't go to the running clock. I thought they would.

We've seen that in college football. The other thing that came out of it is this. They are, you don't learn anything from a game like that. You know, God bless Howard and the program they have, and best of luck to them. but that's probably not the opener. Locksley is going to want to schedule in the future. The schedule wasn't his. I don't know when Loxley gets his own schedule.

I don't think it's next year. Maybe it's the year after. But now they go into week two and a game against Syracuse, ranked 22nd in the country. And Syracuse is only laying, now, I checked it right before the show, a point and a half, Aaron. They're only a one and a half point favorite over Maryland

on Saturday in College Park as the 22nd ranked team in the country. That one stinks. That right now, I can almost guarantee you will be on the smell test. Smell test one and two this weekend in the first weekend. Looking forward to that, though,

to see Marilyn play a ranked team in week two. They got talent. They got some talent. Anyway, what else you got? I'm going to do my coaching blunders here. in a moment and a couple of other things. You can stick around, or if you want to go back to the beach, go back to the beach. I got nothing else, boss.

I want to go back to the beach. Go back to the beach. The Nats played in front of a road crowd yesterday at home. You saw that, right? Yeah. That became a big subject of debate online about now the attendance has become a big issue. And I maintain all along like I've maintained before. When it was important for these owners to establish a foundation of a fan base, once they took over the team, they wasted it.

They basically just were willing to put up with bad teams, 100 lost teams, and they don't have baseball for 33 years, and you acquire a team that in 2005 got everybody excited with the way they played, you've got to take advantage of that. They did nothing. And basically, you know, it's a lack of creativity, a lack of leadership, poor marketing. Just, I mean, look, how much would it affect it? I think it would affect it significantly. They've just done nothing to basically market this team. And they've had a discussion with people in the organizations.

They've had this opportunity while the Redskins have stunk to try to take advantage of that. And they've done nothing extraordinary off the field to take advantage of that. So this is where they are. I've maintained all along that they have a core fan base that's not that strong because they didn't do anything to build it up until 2012 when they started winning. Yeah, I think you know how I feel. First of all, we're still a very young baseball town. It's been back for 15 seasons, right?

At this point, came back in 2005. So we don't have this long, you know, history of baseball in this city. I think there's definitely a core group of Nats fans. It's probably equal to what the Caps have as a strong core. I think the upside for the Nats is bigger than anything in this town other than the Redskins. We talk about the fan erosion for the Redskins. But really, if you're using, you know, attendance, television, ratings, the Redskins still dwarf every other team in this area, despite all of the fan erosion.

You've probably hit on something that there's been an opportunity for everybody to make inroads in this town. But really, when we talk about inroads, it's not a road to number one. It's a road to a number two position and distancing yourself from number three. That's really what we're talking about in this city. I don't think, despite ownership, despite their failure year after year, despite all of the erosion, the NFL is still king. And if you're in a place like Washington where the NFL team's been there forever, it's hard, really hard to supplant that football team. I know there are a couple of markets where you have it, but that's because the tradition of those particular sports is so deep and so story. Right. You have it in Chicago.

You have it in New York. You have it in St. Louis. You could argue that you have it in L.A. You know, since the Rams are still a new team, and the Dodgers are still draw like four million fans a year. And you had it in Boston, but I think the Patriots are number one now in Boston. I mean, you know, yes, the St. Louis thing,

I mentioned St. Louis. They don't have the NFL anymore. But when they did, you know, That really is a unique town when it comes to baseball. I mean, when I say unique, there are a couple of them like it. But, you know, a non-northeastern Boston, you know, New York situation where, you know, baseball really is king in St. Louis. I hope that, you know, the fan base and the casual D.C. sports fan jumps on this pennant race

and jumps on this team. I will tell you, I have probably watched over the last month, you know, 80% of the Nats games, not start to finish, but the majority of those games, I'm into it, I'm following it. I think this is a team that actually could really do some damage in the postseason. They're more likely than not going to get there. As a wildcard team, worst case, I mean, God, you know, the Nats have won 16 of their last 20. the Braves of won 13 of 15. I know.

They just keep rolling along. But, you know, there could be a really dramatic, you know, series against Atlanta this weekend, another one here at home next weekend. I still haven't heard back from your boy, by the way, on the tickets. So you may have to, you know, reach out for me on that. And then how about a one-game wild card against the Cubs or even better against the Phillies? That would be really Scherzer against. Bryce in a one-game playoff at Nats Park to advance to a series against the Dodgers would be there's some exciting baseball here over the final month with the Nats.

Yes, there is. The only problem with the one-game wildcard playoff, however exciting it may be, if it comes crashing down, in one day you're out of the playoffs and Anthony Rendon is no longer a Washington national. So I wanted, actually, you just reminded me of something that I do want to mention to you before we go. Because you and I had this argument about Bryce Harper and some of the comments he made about D.C. as a sports town. And you really, you minimized it. You didn't think it was that big of a deal. I had Zuckerman today on the radio show and he sent me this, the very end of the interview with him. He said, you know, Anthony Rendon has been critical of the baseball market as well as recently as Sunday.

and he's like, keep an eye on that. Basically, I'm paraphrasing. He sent me the quote, Sunday after they beat Miami, Anthony Rendon said, quote, we feed off the energy. We've been saying it for many years now. Fans bring a lot to it. They may not understand it because they're not in our position.

They're not in the dugout with 30,000 people on top of us. It's a huge boost, and we feel it when we're in other stadiums when a home team rallies against us. And we're like, dang, this is what it feels like for a lot, lot of people to be cheering against us. So we want to put that pressure on the other team, closed quote. I mean, I know you'll probably, you know, tell me I'm nuts if they lose Rendon, but Rendon

just told you that he wants this fan base to be more passionate like others. If they lose Rendon, they're going to lose him because Scott Boris will have convinced one owner, and that's all it takes as one owner to overpay him an exorbitant amount of money. And that could likely be the Texas Rangers who are moving into a new ballpark next year. I got news for you. The baseball crowd for Ranger games, they're the same as a national. Right. Yeah, it's the same type of town.

Cowboys first. I mean, it's almost like a carbon copy what you have there. That's true. I mean, if he's looking for that Cubs, Red Sox, Yankees, Met's passion, there's only a couple of places you can find that. That's probably true. Real quickly, what is your guess right now? Because you've told me or others have told me that Rendon is a home body. He is reluctant to be the star and the focal point.

He's reluctant to change. He's comfortable here. And that's sort of stuck in the back of my mind during this whole thing that, you know, the Nats will get to a number with him that will be acceptable and he'll stay. Do you believe that? No, I think he's gone. Wow. I think he's gone.

I think once they get the free agency, like I said, look what Boris did with Harper. Eventually, he got one team, one owner, not team, an owner, because that's what Boris does. He works the owners. He got one owner in Philadelphia to give them the money that they wanted, and that's all they need is one. And Boris will take the whole off season to do it.

Well, why can't that one team be the nationals? Why can't that one team that overpays him be the nationals? Why wouldn't they have done that when they had him under control? Well, that's going to be what they're hung on if they lose him, is that they didn't have the vision to get it done early. But it doesn't mean that they can't correct that mistake. Doesn't mean they can't correct that mistake? No, it doesn't.

But I have faith in the incompetence of the learner family. By the way, you know, he's now leading the, National League in batting average, hitting 337. His OPS is, I think, second right now in the National League behind Yelich and Bellinger. I'm sorry, third behind Yelich and Bellinger. I know it's been a Bellinger, you know, MVP. He's been the guy to beat for much of the year. Is Rendon closing the gap here late? A little bit. Not enough. A little bit. There'd have to be a little bit of a collapse by a guy like Bellinger for that to happen.

But one thing, you know, you know, I don't like to do this. I don't like to basically pat myself on the back when I'm right about something that much. But years ago, I predicted that Anthony Rendon would win a batting title. There you go. He's got a chance to. Yeah, hopefully he will

and make me look good. I don't know. I'm trying to think, and this is beyond, I have to look it up. I'm sure a Washington senator won a batting title along the way at some point. I'm just not sure where. I don't know if it was Mickey Vernon or Sam Rice or somebody like that. Bryce Harper was close in 2015 because he hit like 3.30 or 340. Was it 3.30?

Yeah. Did he win a batting title in 2015? No, I don't think so. No. He was close. I thought he was really close in 2015. No Washington player has ever won a batting towel. Where did Harper finish in 2015? He finished behind D. Gordon. D. Gordon won it in 2015. Let me see exactly where. So he finished second?

I'm looking now. By the way, as Aaron's looking that up? You know that Harper right now, he just hit his 30th home run yesterday, I think. He's got 99 RBIs. he's right now on pace to have his best RBI season as a professional baseball player and to more likely than not end up with the second most home runs he's ever had in a season. Like he has really gotten it together here over the last month. And his season, when all said and done, which looked like a disaster for, you know, April, May, June, and much of July is ultimately going to be, you know, a top three season for him. Harper was second. He was 3.30 and Gordon was 333.

Harper was second in 2013. So he lost by three one-hundredths of a point. So he was close, really close. You were close, Kevin. You were close. All right. See you. Enjoy the beach. All right, boss. Bad play calls. Clock management gaffes. Missed opportunities. It's Coach Ian's blunders of the week.

All right, because we had a football weekend, a college football weekend. There was a chance for coaches to mess it up, Aaron, and they did in two different occasions. And by the way, please tweet me when you see stuff, especially on Saturdays, because I'm not seeing all of these games on Saturdays. But there were two that I've got to mention. One came from the North Carolina South Carolina game, which was played in Charlotte on Saturday. North Carolina won the game 24 to 20. It marked the return of Mack Brown to college football as a coach.

He's 68 years old. also marked his return to Chapel Hill, where he had so much success before going on to Texas for that long run in Austin. So Carolina is up 2420 at the end of the game. They've got a fourth down and 14 at midfield with 11 seconds to go. He took a knee. He had the quarterback take a knee. Clock stops, change of possession in South Carolina now has the ball at midfield

with a chance to throw a Hail Mary. That is a major blunder. Now, I'll get to the finish here. South Carolina's Jake Bentley got sacked trying to throw the Hail Mary, and North Carolina won the game. That's not the point, though. The point is you cannot take a knee. You can, if you want to run a play, if you don't feel confident, your punter, but punting is the play there.

You go max protect on punt protection, you snap it to your punter, and you tell them to kick it quickly, to kick it quickly. to kick it very quickly and eight, nine seconds run off the clock and tell them to angle for the sideline and maybe South Carolina gets the ball back deep in their own territory with one second left. That's the move. Now people will say, well, what about Michigan, Michigan State? And the fumbled punt snap that Michigan State picked up in the big house and returned a few years back. One of my all-time favorite Sean McDonough calls, by the way. Well, he has trouble with the snap and the board. And he... I love that Sean McDonough call. That was truly one of the most shocking end-of-game plays in football history.

But you don't take a knee at midfield because not enough clock's going to run off when you take a knee. And you're going to give them a chance really at two plays. Like South Carolina could have thrown, I think they had a time, they didn't have timeouts left, but they could have thrown a play to the sideline 20, 25 yards, and now you're first in 10 at their 25. You know, with one play left with a chance to throw it into the end zone. That was a major mistake. But Carolina survived.

They won the game. Now we get to the game of the weekend, which I thought was Auburn, Oregon. The game Saturday night, which featured the only matchup among ranked teams on the college football weekend. And it really was a very good football game, an entertaining football game, a game really that Oregon early looked like the much better team. They missed out on opportunities to score to build a much bigger lead. By the way, I thought Justin Herbert looked really good, but they missed a field goal. They fumbled in the red zone, and they just, they had a chance to really blow Auburn out.

They didn't. Auburn hung around. Auburn down 21-6 in the fourth quarter, and they start coming back. And they really ran the football well in the second half, got really physical, SEC, nasty physical. And they took the lead. I'm sorry, first of all, they cut the lead from 2113 to 2119. on a touchdown with about nine minutes to go in the game. Gus Malzahn, the Auburn coach, Aaron, decides to go for two, which is the right play. There's a false start on the two-point conversion.

They get moved back five yards, and he decides to kick the extra point at that point. Now, the way the game was going, personally, I think he probably thought there's going to be another chance for me to go for two. We're going to score again. Oregon might score again, so there's going to be another opportunity. I don't want to ruin the opportunity from seven or eight yards away. I'll do it the next time. And so I'm okay with that. Personally, I think with nine minutes to go, you're down eight.

Even after a five-yard penalty, you're probably better off going for two in that spot. But that's not the major error. The major error comes when they took the lead with nine seconds to go in the game. They score a touchdown. Bo Nix, the freshman quarterback, the true freshman quarterback, actually wasn't very good for most of the game and then got very good late. This was the game of the weekend. They score a touchdown, and he throws a touchdown pass with nine seconds to go.

And Gus Malzan loses his mind. Like he forgets what the score is, and he sends his PAT team out to kick the extra point. 27-21. You have to go for two there. Like, this is not one of those ocean. Have you ever played the game, man? What are you talking about? No, we do know what we're talking about.

You have to go for two when you're up 26, 21 with nine seconds to go in the game. And in this particular instance, they nearly, nearly paid for that decision. They kicked a squib kick, and Oregon returned it to Auburn's 36-yard line with still time on the clock. They got a chance to throw a Hail Mary, and it's not even a Hail Mary from the 36-yard line. got a chance to throw a regular pass and Herbert overthrew everybody and went out of the end zone and Auburn won the game. But it was only, I'm sure,

at that moment that Malzon looked at the scoreboard and said, oh my God, they're going to throw a pass into the end zone with a chance to beat us instead of tie us. You got to go for two in that situation. Everybody knows that. Anybody that's ever played,

Xbox Madden football, anybody that's ever watched football for any period of time, And yet these coaches who are paid millions, they either lose their minds in the moment or they just can't do the math. They could have lost that game 28, 27. Now, there's no guarantee they're going to make the two-point conversion, and the score could have been 26-21, but you've got to go for two to make it 28-21. That's it for coaching blunders. I just wanted to mention a couple of other quick things from the weekend.

Number one is that Jalen Hertz in one game in one weekend became the high. Heisman frontrunner. The football game that he played Sunday night against Houston was an all-timer. In fact, it's only happened twice in the history of college football. He threw for over 300 and three touchdowns and he rushed for 176 and rushed for three touchdowns. There's only one time in the history of college football that that's happened and it happened when Johnny Mansell did it a few years ago. Jalen Hertz was awesome in that football game. By the way, he was, He was 20 of 23 throwing the football. 332, 3 touchdowns.

16 carries 176 yards rushing and three touchdowns in the game. By the way, the smell test over the weekend was the other thing I wanted to mention, Aaron. I had Rice as a winner. Oregon State should have pushed. They missed two extra points and lost by 16 instead of 14. And then I had Liberty against Syracuse, catching 17 and a half. Actually, the game went off at 19 and a half. they were in the red zone like three times and didn't come away with points in any of those

situations their defense was good and as we mentioned with tomions here comes syracuse into college park is a one and a half point favorite only and one last thing on this aaron did you watch game day saturday any of it i did not have a chance i was out of the maryland game so they were doing a lot of the you know previewing of the season and when they got to syracuse they said syracuse has a huge game on September 14th, they play at home against number one Clemson. Last year, they nearly beat Clemson in Death Valley. Two years ago, they beat them in the Carrier Dome. And they said about this game, man, you know, they got liberty tonight. They'll win that game, but boy, they got to be careful not to look past Maryland. This is a total trap game. This is a look-ahead game to Clemson.

And I just thought to myself, I understand they've got Clemson the following week. But it's Syracuse. It's Syracuse football. Are you kidding me? like they're going to look past Maryland. They've got a trap game. Maryland's their trap game. Be careful not to overlook Maryland with Clemson coming up. Again, I get the Clemson. But Syracuse, what are they in football?

They're nothing in football. Their history of football is that much better because they had Jim Brown than Maryland's history in football? I'll look that up. To me, they seem pretty comparable. But if I'm Coach Locksley, I'm putting some of those comments up about how Syracuse is looking past Maryland and looking forward to that Clemson game.

I don't think I'm going to go Saturday. I can't go Saturday for a reason I committed to something a long time ago, but I can't wait for that game now Saturday. How about if Maryland starts off 2-0 with a win over the 22nd ranked team in the country? Here's what I'm looking at, and I'm obviously not looking that far. If Maryland's 3-0 going into that Friday night Penn State game, that environment's going to be really cool. Crazy. And there are going to be a lot of Penn State people who have already gotten tickets. Of course. For that game. But yes, they play Temple. That's a very loseable game as well. Is Temple as good this year as they've been in recent years?

They're decent. They're not a great team. But that's going to be another low line game, just like this one. Temple's been well coached. They've had some good talent here in recent years. They've gone to bowl games in recent years. Blue Maryland out in College Park last year. Blue them out last year in College Park. Like 42 to 14 or something like. that. It was ugly. All right. That's it. I don't think I have anything else. This week on the show, we're going to do a lot of predictions, you know, division by division predictions, redskins season prediction stuff.

Record, you know, our skins record prediction will do probably on Thursday. Show I'll do that with Tommy. All right. Have a great day. Back tomorrow.