The Kevin Sheehan Show - Skins' QB 2?

Episode Date: February 18, 2020

Thom joined the show by phone from Nats' Spring Training in West Palm Beach. The guys talked Astros cheating, Daytona 500 crash, along with plenty on the Redskins. Assuming Alex Smith doesn't come back, who should the Redskins add at quarterback? Mike Tomlin defended Mason Rudolph and the Terps with a game tonight to keep their Big 10 lead. <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. I'm here. Aaron's here. Tommy is down at spring training in West Palm Beach, Florida, where the Astros and the Nationals are right next door to each other. And he's joining us by phone. So many times over the years, Tommy will be a little. little bit more insistent on me reading one of his columns, Aaron. You know, he always emails me his columns. When he's written a column, I'm just part of an email list, right? You send the column that you've just written out to a big list of friends and people that you know, right? Is that? No. I just send it to you. Really? Yeah. Is that true? Yes. I just figured I... Does that make you feel work? No, I just thought I was part of a list. Anyway, over the years, You've been sending me your columns for many years now. I thought it was part of a larger list, which is fine.

But I appreciate you sending them to me because it makes it easier to read your columns. And typically, you know, you won't say anything. And if I read the column and bring it up on the podcast as an example, you know, more times and not you're surprised or I'll tell you right before, hey, I want to do something about your column. Or you might say, hey, did you read my column? And I'll be like, no, I'll go ahead and read it right now. Maybe we can do something on that too. But this particular column that you wrote on Sunday, February 16th, or at least that's when it was issued by the times.

You probably wrote it on Saturday, I'm guessing, at some point. You have emailed me, you have texted me, and then you texted me again about whether or not I have read your column. And I had not read it until moments ago. and now I realize why you were insistent on me reading this column, because I think you believe, and I will back this up, that it is a great column. It is a great column. Tommy wrote a column.

Astro's villainy, Nat's Virtue, are facility flip sides. And he opens it up by saying, I'm heading to a place where heaven and hell share the same space, where the sun shines on one side of the building, while storms cover the other. Where in Florida am I going? Question mark. Which is a great start to the column. And you write, sure, I get that the destination I'm describing could be almost any place in this sociopath state. By the way, there's an edit miss there.

And I've noticed that about some of your columns. I mean, maybe if you'd like, you should send them to me and have me edit. them before you send them to your editor. I think I could help out a little bit. You have to read them first. I like reading your columns. But it really is an exceptional column where Tommy essentially compares the Nats and the Astros, which he essentially says, you know, is the late, is the crime family of Major League

Baseball, where he says it's like Al Capone and Elliot Ness Living Neck. door to each other. And it's like the White House and the Kremlin being next door to each other. And then you say, well, never mind. But the best part is the end of the column where you describe Florida man. Where everybody knows that reads news, it's like you know that pretty much every other day there's going to be a story about a Florida man who allegedly fooled his family into believing that his murdered wife, was still alive. Or the Florida man who denies that syringes found in his rectum are his.

Like, those are the kinds of headlines you get about Florida man and you write. And you just Google in your birthday with the Florida man and you're going to come up with some bizarre headlines. Well, there are several websites dedicated to Florida man headlines. But anyway, you describe at the end of this column how Jim Crane, the, Houston Astros owner became Florida man. You're pretty proud of this column, and you should be. It was very, very well done. It's funny and it's true for the most part.

I wouldn't waste your time if I didn't think it was good. I know when I've written something that's pretty good and when I've written something that filled the space. And I knew this was pretty good. I knew I hit a lot of notes. Is this award-winning good? it depends it depends on who the judges

if they have a sense of humor you never know I usually do pretty good in those contests though we'll see I think that you're I mean first of all your columns

are often filled with you know funny witty sense of humor things which makes the columns I mean you know this about me I'm a big fan of yours as a columnist

and I've always been that and sometimes you you have lines in your columns that make me laugh out loud. And you have more of those lines, by the way, in your columns than you do on this podcast. I'm kidding. You have some of those on the podcast, too. But, you know, when you have time and you sit down and you have an idea,

you're really good at putting it together. And in short order, took me all of about three minutes to read this. It was great. There you go. It's perfect. Yeah. So you recommend it to everybody out. there, right? I'm going to recommend it. I'm going to retweet it. In fact, I promise you, hold on,

let me make a note. Because, you know, sometimes I retweet these things and sometimes I forget to retweet your stuff. Usually when I forget to retweet it, it isn't forgetting. It's that I either didn't think it was nearly as good as you thought it was, or the timing of retweeting it just sort of gets in the middle of other stuff that I'm tweeting about, which you understand. Okay. I understand. Yeah. But this one's really, really good. Jim Crane really did embarrass himself last week, didn't he? Oh, my gosh. I mean, he made, he held a press conference to repair damage, and it's like he tore down the rest of the house. It was unbelievable. And now, I mean, the whole thing, it's, look, I'm here in the nationals part of the building.

And I feel like an idiot being here and not over-out. at the Astros part of the building, because that's where all the action is. Right. And that's where this stuff is happening. But I'm here to write about the nationals. People in Washington want to read about the national. But I'm sitting here, you know, a few hundred feet away from the Astros complex, and I know stuff that's going on every day.

So I'm hoping to make it over there tomorrow. If nothing else, just to say hello to Dusty. Well, did you see this story just came out? Braves Outfielder Nick Markechakis basically said that every single guy over there, referring to Houston Astros, needs a beating. He says, it's anger. I feel like every single guy over there needs a beating. It's wrong. They're messing with people's careers.

William Hill Sportsbooks set an over-under of 83 and a half for Houston being hit by pitches in 2020, a number that would rank as one of the 10 highest in the previous five years. Do you think people are going to try to get sort of revenge by going after some of the people that they really suspect were the significant cheaters for them by going after them with pitchers? Yes. Yes, I do. And I think when it does happen early, Rob Manfred will be forced to come down with some harsh penalties. So here you're going to have a situation. The irony is, is the only players who are going to wind up getting penalized in this whole thing are the ones who are trying to punish the players who did this. Well, it's always the second guy that gets caught.

Yes, it is. Yes, that's what they tell you at school. You know, it's always the guy who hits back. So, yeah, I think there will be, and I think it will be just part of, season-long Estorm for baseball. Rob Manfred, I don't know what he could have done differently

in punishing players or not, but what he came up with and his reaction to his sin has been a real misstep in leadership. I mean, this, look, the commissioner is there for two things. The commissioner is there because he worked for the owners. That's his primary job. He's a malice for the owners. He works for the owners.

But he's also supposed to exhibit a level of leadership of the industry. And Manfred's just the opposite. His quote the other day about people make it a big deal about the World Series trophy, that it's a bunch of just a bunch of medal. I mean, it's his trophy. It's the commissioner's trophy. I mean, it was absurd. You know, you see the pictures of everybody in Washington. who got their picture taken with that trophy, it's not just a hunk of metal. So Manfred just made things worse. I don't know what the solutions would have been, but I know what he's done has been very ineffective and detrimental to the game.

Yeah, it's, you know, Al-Tuve essentially revealed this unfinished tattoo, which he claims was the reason he didn't want the shirt lifted up after the walk-off home run to beat the Yankees in game six of the ALCS in October. Manfred sort of doubled down on the buzzers, the buzzer issue, saying that there's absolutely no proof, no corroboration of that. Carlos Correa didn't make things better for the Astros over the weekend, you know, claiming that El Tuvae was not one of the guys that actually cheated. And him also saying, and I'm paraphrasing at this point,

but basically saying that, you know, this didn't, you know, this didn't, basically, this wasn't responsible for us winning the World Series. You know, it wasn't the advantage that people, you know, think it was. Crain to me, Tommy, like after listening to that whole thing last week, and I think I may have talked about this a little bit yesterday in the podcast, but, like, if you really believe that this thing has been exaggerated, that the overall, description of the level of cheating's been exaggerated, if the overall reaction to the impact it had, then be defiant. You know, come out and lay it all out. Sort of like what Belichick did with

Deflategate. Remember, Belichick came out that press conference. It was a remarkable press conference, if you recall. And he laid out everything, including the science and the ideal gas law and all of those different things. Like he was so prepared. And, you know, it really, actually, I remember being influenced by that press conference thinking, man, there's a lot here that makes sense. And then when you eventually got the entire report back, it was like a joke. Deflategate really was an absolute joke. There was no proof that this happened.

But this guy either should have come out, been defiant with a lot of proof and laid it out Belichick style, or really been remorseful. Like, there's no in-between. The in-between was always going to be the wrong way to go. you're absolutely right I don't think he could be defiant because I think they're very culpable in this thing and

he could be defiant if he thinks that it's overblown and exaggerated in terms of the impact he could have been but yeah he could have been obviously he doesn't he doesn't think so I think of anything the impact continuously by the Astros

has been undervalued and underestimated in terms of how it helped them. Why do you say that? What backs that up? Well, because the differential in a lot of instances between, you know, when they were on the road, except for, you know, 2019 in the World Series, and when they were home are significant, particularly for Al-Tube. You know, I mean, this Al-Tube is, I think, the most, remarkable figure in this whole thing, because he was so respected and beloved in baseball,

and now he's become a pariah among other players. I mean, the Astros have lost. It really doesn't matter if there were buzzers or not now. I mean, you know, Al-Tube might have, might have, might have wore a neon sign while, you know, running, running around the bases. they've lost the privilege of credibility. No one is going to believe them at this point, no matter what they say. So that ship has sailed.

And Altuve, you know, I've been intrigued by him because this is a very religious guy who made a real point of expressing his faith in God over the years and what it meant to him. And I'm thinking on two levels. How did he cope with that? If he did become a willing participant and see him, how does he live with that based on his professions of faith? And the other thing is, if he didn't cheat but let it go on,

how does he feel and how does he come the grips with that? I even reached out to the Astro's team chaplain to see if I could talk to him about, you know, how he's been dealing with this with players on the team like El Tuvain others, and he said he can't really talk about it. You know, but, and then Al-Tube is a guy who has a fight to get to the major league. Guys like that who usually have to scrape and scrap to get where they are, they're willing to do anything, usually.

I mean, those guys like that are always have the feeling, even when they're an MVP, that they're the 25th guy on the roster, and they have to get any edge they can to make sure they don't lose their job. So I suspect that Al-Tuvae was heavily involved in this thing. And I suspect personally he's probably suffering the most. Yeah, I mean, I've read a little bit here and there about the statistical differences between, say, 2016 and 2017. and I do think that the impression from people that haven't read through some of that stuff

is that there was this overwhelming massive difference between the two years and that it was obvious that this cheating had major impact offensively on Houston. In the same way, by the way, the people that never read the Ted Wells, right? It was his report, the Wells report. The same people that didn't read. the Wells report on DeFlategate had the impression that Brady cheated. But if you read the report, you realized there's no way he cheated. Like it's so ridiculously, it was a seventh grade science project that Wells put together. It was so ridiculously under, you know, the proof was

underwhelming. But, you know, in 2016, the Astros scored 17% more runs on the road than they did at home. In 2017, they brought the center field fence in by more than 20 feet, which was a significant change to the ballpark dimensions. And their run total did go up, but they still produced more away from home than they did at home. But you could attribute some of the run increase, which went from 334 at home to 395 at home, to the dimensions of the ballpark changing as well. Like there's a lot of data out there. Like if you read, you know, various people trying to make the case that the impact was minimal and others trying to make the case that the impact was maximum,

just the fact that there is a debate means that I sort of have this sense that Houston's coming from the following perspective. We cheated. It was wrong that we cheated. But the overwhelming impact of the cheating was, first of all, the cheating wasn't made out to what it was. what you think it was. It was, yeah, banging and steel signing, but it wasn't buzzers, et cetera. It wasn't that elaborate. And then, two, the ultimate impact was much less than what most people think.

That doesn't change the fact that their intention was for it to have significant impact, and they did cheat to try to achieve that intention. You know, so there should have been... But here's the kicker in this. The reaction from players on other teams is so severe. It really is. Yeah. Indicates to me that this was a dramatic impact.

That they're thinking, if we had this information, what we could have been able to do ourselves, if we cheated like the Astros cheated, what a difference it would have made for us. And I think that's the underlying thing throughout the industry. Howie Kendrick said, you know, today, I mean, basically we didn't rip them like Nick Marcakis did, but he was critical of them. You know, Ryan Zimmerman was critical yesterday.

And these are guys that would never do that about anybody. So I think the industry reaction from other players shows that in the game of baseball, they see that as a tremendous, tremendous advantage for the actress, no matter what the numbers say. So what should Manfred have done, netted out, that he didn't do? Well, probably punish the franchise more. There's other ways to punish the players. Yeah, I mean, $5 million fine. That's nothing to them. They took away four draft picks.

He could have banned Astros players from appearing in the next two All-Star games. I mean, you know, there were things, symbolic things he could have done and taken, literally stripped them of the 2017 World Series championship. In 1994, there was no World Series. Right. So what's the difference? Well, there is a difference. Stripping somebody versus no World Series being played because of a strike. Right.

But the point is, it looked back on the history books and people say, well, there was no World Champion in 2017. There was one. but then they got stripped of the title. I'm not saying you turn around and give it to the Dodgers. What does that really do, though? I mean, baseball fans are going to remember the 2017 World Series. Well, what it does, it's a punishment. I think it's a punishment.

I mean, I think it has an impact. What did they win? What was the financial reward for that World Series? I don't know. What do you win for winning a World Series of player? Well, you went over $300,000 a player. Okay. So that should have been taking.

But I don't know what the loser, but the loser wins close to that as well. I mean, 200-some thousand. Right, right. The players share. Well, maybe you give them a lot. The Astros players, the full share was $438,000. There you go. Well, that should be taken away.

It's a big chunk of change. 438 times 40, right? Well, what you could do is if they make any, future. If they make any post-seasons in the next two years, you could say they get no, they get no postseason shares. In the future, I think you can control it easier than stepping back in the past. Yeah, I hear you. I think something you said is really true, and it sort of makes it seem severe to me. I mean, I'm always sort of open-minded to the possibility that, you know, the media and others have exaggerated something. But it's the player's reaction to all

of this. And it's every kind of player. It's a starting player. It's a backup player. It's a star player. It's a player that doesn't talk very much. They're all incensed by this. And they're absolutely convinced, by the way, that it not only happened in severe fashion in 2017, But it definitely happened in 2018 and 2019, which makes sense to anybody. Like, if it worked in 2017, why would they then just stop in 2018 and 2019? I think Cody Bellinger, you know, was one of those that really went after them for, you know, those press conferences last week where you saw this theme from player to owner to others where they said they kept on emphasizing in 2017, you know, that they broke the rules. They didn't use the word cheat, and they didn't mention 2018 or 2019,

because the only thing that was proven was 2017. Right. No, I mean, again, the player reaction is like nothing I've ever seen before in terms of anything. And, you know, look, Saturday night, the first exhibition game, Astros Nationals right here at West Palm Beach. Oh, that's Saturday night? Yeah. Will that be on Masson? That'll be on Masson, right?

I don't know. I doubt it. I don't know. They do a lot of the spring training games. They always have. Yeah, they do. I don't know if they do the first one usually, but maybe they will. I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know where it's going to be available. I mean, it's not dramatic and it's not interesting because of the defending world champions. It's interesting because of the opponent. Right. And the national... That will be on TV, by the way. Massen or MLB Network?

Masson. 605. Just think about what would have happened if the nationals had lost this World Series. I know. Think about the X storm then how bad this would be.

But you know what? Beyond that, making this more local and personal because it would have been an outrage from, you know, the baseball world, obviously. But it would have been so disappointing to find out that in our first world series since 1933, we lost because the team we played was more likely than not cheating us out of it. It would have been horrible to be a part of that rather than just a normal world series.

And you can view now 2019 as a normal world series because the Astros didn't win. Right. it would it might have been the end of the dc sports fan as we know it they might have just said okay that's it we can't we can't win right we can't what do here we get a team they win the other they're playing in the world series and then the other team ever it would have it would have reinforced every conspiracy that dc sports fans have about anything to do with sports of course you know what you would say

if you were a Houston fan is, look, we scored all of our runs on the road. You know, we won the three road games, and we couldn't generate any offense at home until maybe the seventh game that we won two to one or whatever. Because even in the seventh game, it was Zach Granky in a two, you know, in a two one game. Yes. So that was still such a mistake, I think, pulling Granky. Oh, my God, it was a huge mistake. Yeah.

Everybody refers to that. I mean, I forget which national player was interviewed a couple weeks ago. Yeah, it was just a couple weeks ago, right? Yeah, and they said, you know, when did you think you were going to win? And they said when they took Granky out of the game. Yeah, exactly. Hey, Tommy, I know obviously we kind of know the answer to this, but has anyone directly asked Strasbourg the pitch-tipping thing in game six?

Was that about the sign stealing? No, I don't think anyone ever did, and no one has here, because, I mean, pitch tipping is different. Exactly. Did I do this on the podcast yesterday? I don't think you did this on the podcast. Then it was on the radio show. So one of the things that I wanted clarification on, and somebody tweeted me clarification on this, and it sounds to me like you have the answer as well.

And that is, you know, when Paul Menhardt essentially said, you know, I went out there and I told Strauss after he gave up, you know, two hits and two runs that he was tipping his pitches. And then, of course, you know, he comes up with this legendary performance the rest of the way, going into the ninth inning in game six, you know, down three, two in the series. I didn't know if tipping his pitches meant that for whatever reason they were able to steal the signs, you know, in a way that maybe they were cheating doing it or what? So why don't you, somebody responded to me on Twitter that this is, this was not a sign stealing. thing. Explain to those that don't understand what it meant, because I didn't understand this,

what it meant when they determined that he was tipping his pitches in the first inning. Okay, I'm not solid on this, because like I said, I haven't asked him about it. But I will tell you that my impression is tipping your pitchers is like a tell when you're playing poker. They picked up a tell on Strasbourg. Like when he threw certain pitches, he did a certain thing. I think that's what tipping your pitches is. You do a certain motion, you do a certain movement whenever you're throwing a certain pitch. That's my impression of what they meant by tipping his pitches.

You know, you put your glove down by your right-hand side, or you put it here, or something like that. You know, they, like the a Astros had found out somehow that he does this every time he's throwing a change-up or something like that. Again, I don't know the details of it because I haven't pursued it. Yeah, that's definitely what normally is. Go ahead.

I was going to say, that's what normally is. Obviously, these are different circumstances, though. So I was curious about that. I'm looking for the tweet because it was a lengthy tweet that explained exactly what it was and it essentially had nothing to do with sign stealing. It was more of what you described. I'll just leave it. I can't find the tweet.

But anyway, well, fortunately, he didn't tip. his pitches for the final seven and a third innings and was dominant as they won the World Series. All right. Great column. Good conversation about the Astros and you're going to be there Saturday night, right? So you can tell us about it next Tuesday.

Yes, I am. Yes, I am. All right. A couple of things before we get to some Redskins-related topics. First of all, that crashed last night at Daytona. My God. I mean, I was not watching it. And by the time I sort of picked up on this via Twitter and a couple of text messages, Fox was on the air. But I saw, obviously, immediately the crash. And, you know, it was in that area of not knowing what the result was, not knowing his condition in sort of the same way.

It's not completely apples to apples. But remember the conversation we had a couple of weeks ago about, you know, the reporting during the Kobe day, you know, about people sort of jumping to conclude. and including other people. And there was a lot going on on Twitter last night about his condition, you know, some grave descriptions of sort of the track and people who were at the track, witnessing what was going on. They had put black screens around the crash site so that people couldn't see what they were working on.

They told all media to leave the track. You know, there was a real sense there for a couple of hours that he may not have survived the crash. I mean, everybody was thinking the same. thing when you see a crash like that and you start hearing some of these descriptions is that there's a chance that this is a fatality. You know? Fortunately, two hours later, you know, it was described by NASCAR as non-life-threatening injuries, but he is in serious condition.

I have not seen an updated report on this today. I've been looking for it today on Ryan Newman. I mean, serious condition means, you know, he had some injuries clearly, but, you know, you're happy that they're not non-life-threatening, you just don't know if they're career-threatening, because they still could be from that standpoint. But anyway. It's a hell of a way to make a living. Oh, my God.

Right? It really is. That car went airborne twice. That thing was that inside of that vehicle you could see was sprayed with fire. It was, I mean, it's amazing in that particular sport. In a lot of those sports, and a lot of the motor sports or a lot of the high-risk sports, in general. You know, how many times you see something and you're like, oh, my God, how could any person survive that? And then they just sort of walk away from it unscathed. You know, it happens all the time.

One of the great leads that a sports columnist ever wrote was the great Jim Murray for the Los Angeles time covering the Indianapolis 500. And his lead once was, gentlemen, start your coffins. It's dangerous. Tommy, remember, I mean, ABC Wide World of Sports was such a big deal for me when I was growing up, you know, Saturdays with Jim McKay and Chris Shankill and, you know, all the ABC guys. And I remember as a kid, a very young kid, loving those demolition derbies. You know, those, basically a demolition derby was like cars intentionally trying to go after each other and crash each other. You remember those? things? Yes, yes. Were they outlawed? No, they have the county fairs all the time. They do still?

I bet you they have one at, I know they have one at the Frederick County Fair. I bet you they have one at the Montgomery County Fair. Those demolition derbies are still very active. It's not like people die in these demolitions. You want to see something bizarre. Super 8. school bus racing. In Florida?

Yes, on a track. That's basically an eight. So they cross each other's paths from time to time. And they race school buses. Not with kids in the buses. You know, there's no kids in the buses. But super eight school bus racing.

That's the most bizarre I've ever seen him when it came to racing. And dangerous, I thought. Are you, um, So, look, I am far from, you know, a participant in any of these things. But I have probably, I don't know, a dozen times, maybe two dozen times, even as an adult, I've done some of those go-karts things in some of those indoor tracks. I love that stuff. I just never have had access to it, have never really had it as a major interest or hobby.

But whenever I've had, you know, opportunities to get into, I never rode bikes. I never, you know, I would, I would absolutely do this thing that they have down in Richmond and a couple of other places where you can get into a race car, you know, on an empty track. I would like to do that. I think that would be. I've done the cart racing. It's a lot of fun. A lot of fun.

One thing I did was up in a Poconos years ago, they opened up the sea. You know what an alpine slide is? Yeah. It's basically, yeah, one of these, like, concrete slides that come down the mountain and you ride a sled down, you know, down the slide. And you can control the speed with a handle however fast you want to go. And they opened one in a Poconos, and I was there for it, and I was doing pretty good at it. So, like the third or fourth time I went to the top, the guy told me what the record was for the quick. gets down because I was real close to it.

He said, you should try for it. So I did. I tried for it. And at one point, I went airborne. And when I came down, I came down on, and it's an asbestos-covered track, I think. I came down on the track. The sled was gone.

And I'm rolling down the track, and I'm tearing up pieces of my arm. And my pants, my polyester pants start smoking like they're on fire. Your polyester pants. What a mess. Yeah. What an absolute mess. Yeah, that is. I, you know, when I was out in Utah last weekend, we went by, I think I told you, we went by the Olympic Park and you could see the bobsled and the luge runs. Like, I think that would be kind of fun. Obviously, you'd want some

control over your speed. The thing that I've done, I don't know, two or three times, and it's actually really cool. It's out, I forget the name of it, but it's basically an indoor you know, go-kart, you know, race course. It's out near Dulles somewhere. And I've done that a couple of times. That's a lot of fun, a lot of fun. But anyway, whatever. Yeah, they have one in Howard County, too, like that. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So I wanted to get to a couple of Redskins-related things, and then we can circle back to some other things that happened last night, including the caps, maybe get Tommy's view in the NBA All-Star game. I have no idea if you saw it or not. So yesterday on the radio show, I had this guy, Chad Forbes, who is an NFL analyst for NFL

draft bites. His Twitter handles that NFL draft bites. And he basically said to me, he thinks Teddy Bridgewater is going to end up in Washington. And he thinks Teddy Bridgewater is going end up in Washington on like an $8 to $10 million per year deal. And then yesterday, Jeremy Fowler from ESPN said he thinks Teddy Bridgewater could get a $30 million per year deal to start somewhere, whether it's Indianapolis or Carolina or somewhere, Tampa, wherever. And so there's a big obvious divide between the two opinions there. My personal opinion is that Teddy Bridgewater is going to start at quarterback for somebody next year and that he's going to get a real deal. Like he's going to get, you know, 15, 16, 17, maybe as much as $20 million per year to start somewhere.

But it got me to thinking about the following conversation, which we had this morning on radio and I took calls for a little while on it. And boy, the answers were really very, very mixed. Because, of course, it has to do with how you feel about Dwayne Haskins. But basically, I went with the following assumption. The assumption being that Alex Smith can't play football next year, which is the odds on favorite. You know, the odds right now would tilt towards Alex Smith is not going to play football anymore. So if we assume... I would agree with that. So if we assume that to be true, the Redskins have to go get a quarterback this offseason. And so the question I'll ask you and myself and even Aaron, all right? I didn't mean to say

even Aaron, but Aaron's not a Redskin fan. And neither are you, Tommy. But, you know, both of you follow it very closely. But what kind of quarterback do you want the Redskins to go get? And I basically had four options for answers. I mean, you can go outside these parameters, but option number one was like the true backup quarterback to Dwayne Haskins, like Matt Moore or A.J. McCarran or Chase Daniel or Brett Hundley, somebody like that, that you go out and you sign to a couple of million bucks a year tops, and you're bringing them in to truly back up the guy that you believe is going to be your starter next year and beyond.

That's option one. Option two is that the quarterback, the Redskins go out and get, that you want them to go out and get, is like the veteran short-term starter. So Philip Rivers, Ryan Fitzpatrick, would fit that sort of description. The guy that's going to come in and play for a year, maybe two with Haskins still remaining the long-term option that you believe in,

but you think if you bring in Phillip Rivers, you've got a chance to win next year. That's option number two. Option number three is where you bring in the veteran guy that is a true not only competitor to Haskins, but more likely than not, the starter if you make a move for this particular guy. Examples, Teddy Bridgewater, maybe trading for a guy like Darry. at Carr. And then the last option would be the draft at number two. You go for Tua and

you say that you just think flat out Tua is a better option than Haskins. So they've got to go get a quarterback if you assume Alex Smith isn't going to play, right? So what direction would you prefer that they

go in? The true backup? The veteran short-term starter? The veteran competitor? The veteran competitor, if not default starter, like a Bridgewater, or the draft? I've got an answer. I'll let the two of you answer first. Let me speak to

you in grocery store terms that you can understand. Okay. I think you've got some of the products in the wrong place and mislabel here. Okay. I don't see Phil Rivers and Ryan Fitzpatrick as the same option.

I see Phil Rivers as coming to a place where he's not going to compete, but he's going to start. Well, that's the category. Ryan Fitzpatrick is the perennial backup who pushes the guy who's starting and eventually takes over for him. Okay. That's different. I think that's, I don't, I'm not going to totally argue with that.

The only problem with that is the way he played last year, I think Fitzpatrick wants to start next year and is going to find a place somewhere where he's going to be the starter week one. He played too well last year, initially coming in to backup Josh Rosen and sort of the same thing that you just described, right? But ultimately prove that this guy can still start in the NFL. But that's fine. If you want to take Fitzpatrick out of that category, that's fine. And we'll leave Philip Rivers as the one to two year starter, veteran. and short-term starter.

Or Drew Brees. If we do that, then Ryan Fitzpatrick is the guy that fits your needs on the Redskins. If you are really trying to bring in a guy who will push this kid, even though you still believe in the kid. You believe in the kid, but you want him push. Chase Daniels or Matt Moore aren't going to do that. He's not going to fear those guys. He's going to fear Ryan Fitzpatrick.

that's the guy I like what you've done here I like what you've done and I think that the other guy that you would throw into that is Marcus Marriota yes you know that that maybe not as high profile but yes

that maybe I missed on a fifth option which is the veteran the veteran backup that could the veteran backup that pushes Haskins and could start if Haskins isn't the guy. And that might be Fitzpatrick and or...

And that's the direction that you would go in. I mean, I think, look, I just don't... I gotta believe there's a kernel of truth to this notion that they like Dwayne, but they want to see him earn this still. I think there's a kernel of truth to all that. Well, if that's the case, you need to bring in somebody that, that, you know, that pushes him, that he feels the needs outwork. That's not going to be Matt Moore.

No, no, the first option is we're all in on Dwayne Haskins. We're bringing in a guy that's been a backup, and that's going to be the backup. The second option is Philip Rivers, where Philip Rivers is going to come in and start for us next year because we think we can win next year, and we don't think Dwayne's ready, but we think Dwayne will be ready down the road. The third option is the one you just created, which is we want the veteran guy that's going to push Dwayne and could start if Dwayne buckles during the competition. And that's Fitzpatrick or Marietta. And then the next option is the Teddy Bridgewater, Derek Carr.

You sign one of those guys or you trade for Derek Carr. They're coming in to be the starter. Absolutely. And then the last one would be, you know, you're going. and you're going to draft Tua because you believe Tua, which Nick Saban said yesterday, is Drew Breeze and Aaron Rogers. That's what Nick Saban said about Tua. Now, here's my answer. My answer is that if Joe Burrow is there at number two, I'm taking Joe Burrow. And I believe in Dwayne Haskins. I'm actually optimistic about Dwayne Haskins, as you know, much more so than I was this time

last year. And if it's not Joe Burrow, then you may have talked to me into your option. I just don't know if that option's actually feasible because I think Fitzpatrick's going to have a chance to start somewhere next year as, you know, without having to necessarily really compete for the job. Although I think Marietta, Marietta would be a guy that might push him, but more likely than not is going to be the backup. See, I don't think there's going to be a musical chair left for Fitzpatrick that you think there's going to be. There's a lot of quarterback floating around.

Well, it depends on what Miami does in the draft. I mean, he may be the starter in Miami next year. That may be his best option. I mean, what's going to happen to James Winston? You know, there's a lot of quarterback floating around out there with uncertain futures that are probably ahead of Ryan Fitzpatrick. I think James Winston, yesterday, I think I said this, if you tell him to go out and get LASIC surgery, more likely than not, you're telling him to get LASIC surgery because you want him back. Yeah.

I think he's going to end up in Tampa. Don't you agree with that, Aaron? You think that, right? Yeah, I think one way. The tricky thing is whether they're willing to use. And actually, this might have to do with whether they can get something done with Shaq Barrett pretty quickly. But whether or not, if they had the franchise tag available, I think they slap the tag on him. I think it becomes interesting if they have to use that tag on Shaq Barrett.

I think Fitzpatrick, I'm just thinking this through, if Miami stays at five and let's just say they draft Justin Herbert because two is gone and Burroughs gone, then Fitzpatrick is going to stay in Miami and start for a year or two. And that's going to be his situation where it's going to be much more clear that he's going to start next year. Because I personally don't think Herbert's ready. Maybe they will, and maybe they'll go with the young guy, but the way Fitzpatrick played last year,

they may draft Herbert for 2021 and beyond and go with Fitzpatrick one more year. There's also, I mean, there's so many possibilities for some of these teams that are even thinking about drafting quarterbacks. The Chargers have Tyrod Taylor. The Dolphins don't have Fitzpatrick but potentially could keep them. There's also guys like Derek Carr and Andy Dalton floating around as trade possibilities to start for a team. team that drafts a quarterback, a young quarterback that doesn't think that they want to play them in the first year. You know, Miami is a team with Fitzpatrick last year was pretty damn competitive, you know, from the time he took over the reins late in that fourth quarter against

the Redskins. You know, they remember they went from full tank mode, losing games by giving up 50 plus points a game early in the season, to winning five games last year. They don't win five games if they don't play Ryan Fitzpatrick. You're right. You're right. Actually, when you just think about Miami, I don't think we've talked about this. It really is one of the odd NFL seasons. You know, tanking for Tua or ultimately tanking for Burrow, it's clear that they're tanking early. Even in that Redskine game, running that two-point conversion play that didn't have much of a chance

with a guy who hadn't practiced it all week, they clearly were in the mode of losing. and then they put Fitzpatrick into the game, and he starts to play really well, and they start to win games, and they're like, well, what the hell? Let's just try to win these games. Even the games they lost, they were in a lot of those games with Fitzpatrick, right? I remember they lost a game to the Jets that they shouldn't have lost. And, you know, they beat the Patriots. They knocked the Patriots out of the two C at Foxborough.

What would that have meant to their draft position? because they finished five and 11. Did that mean anything to their draft position in that moment, Aaron? I'd sort of forget. Because they're picking fifth, right? And in front of them is the Giants. What were the Giants? I mean, assuming just make Miami 4 and 12 time with the Giants,

Giants were 4 and 12. Yeah, I don't know. Strength of schedule. Miami would have had, it wouldn't have mattered. It wouldn't have mattered. The Giants would have kept four? Yeah. Okay.

But they didn't know what the Giants were doing in that final. Right. At the time they didn't know. Anyway. Again, the quarterback thing is so bizarre in terms of musical chairs. What's Tom Brady going to do? What are the Cowboys going to do with Jack Prescott? They're going to franchise them? Or they're going to turn around and sign a free agent quarterback and tell Jack goodbye.

I mean, all these are options. I mean, we sort of did this last week. I think we did. But to me, real quickly, Brady stays. Bengals draft Borough. Tanna Hills the quarterback in Tennessee. I think there's going to be a lot less change in people think. I think Bridgewater ends up in Indy.

I think that Carr stays in Oakland because Brady doesn't go there. I think Tribisky remains in Chicago. Stafford remains in Detroit. The Panthers, that Winston ends up in Tampa, and the Saints, that's a big one, because if Drew Breeze wants to play next year, they potentially lose Taysam Hill. And I think they're going to lose Bridgewater, too. It's my belief, Aaron, that they are, they would go with, if Breeze retires, it's hill that they're going to sign to a long-term deal, not Bridgewater.

That's what they are saying right now. least. That's all the indications. Yeah. So then Carolina... Who is Kaysom Hills? PR people. That's who you need to hire. No, Tommy, he's got some talent. He's got real talent.

There's a lot of Lamar Jackson in him, man. A lot. He has emerged as this can't miss. 30-year-old quarterback. He is. He's going to be 30 next year at a BYU. You're right. Tommy's right, though. There's something going on.

where you have guys like Florio talking about him as legitimately the best player on the field in the playoff game. Well, Florio's an idiot. He was the second best quarterback in that game. But he's getting that for himself. Like he's being fed these things that's being repeated elsewhere. This is, there is PR people, his agents are doing a really good job this offseason. Remarkable thing. What's happened to this.

He's a novelty act to this point. Yeah, yeah. but, you know, it's one of those things. You just, like, if you're a football fan and you've watched the novelty act, you know, and you've watched the plays, you can, in your own mind, project to him doing a lot of the same stuff as a full-time quarterback that Lamar Jackson's done. You can. But what you don't know is how he will react to a four-interception game. You don't know that.

No. So I'm just saying that I'm not ready to crown this kid as the next great big thing. If Drew Brees wants to come back and play, then in my mind, you let him come back and play. And if you lose a couple of quarterbacks in the process, go get some others. Man, you know. You're Sean Payton. Breeze may not have had a good playoff game against the Vikings, against a team that was playing very good defense at the time.

but the dude had another phenomenal year, even though he missed five games. I mean, I don't know what his touchdown to interception ratio was last year, but it was a whole lot of touchdowns to very few interceptions, and he missed five games. And the five games, Teddy Bridgewater played really well. But anyway, whatever. I think that the Redskins, this is the direction I think they're going to go in. I believe that the Redskins are going to sign

for a couple, you know, a million bucks, two million bucks a year, whatever it takes, very little money on a true backup quarterback, not someone that can compete. I think that they are going to give Haskins a huge opportunity to prove to them in 2021, 2020, that he is the guy for the future, and if they have to address it next off season, in what will be a less competitive marketplace, maybe, for quarterbacks, than maybe they'll do it next year. So I see the Matt Moors, the Brett Hundley's, the, you know, one name just to keep in mind, you know, Kyle Allen, who started all those games for Carolina this year, Aaron, with Cam Newton out, he's a restricted free agent. He knows Rivera well, and he knows Scott Turner well,

and he actually at times played pretty well, I thought, threw a lot of picks, as it turned out, in his first action. And remember, they drafted Will Greer. So they may be inclined to, if they're going to move away from Cam Newton, give Will Greer more of a shot in year two, and Kyle Allen could be available to be a backup, possibly. The impression is that the owner down there, David Tepper, wants to make a big splash. He wants to make a big impact. I don't see them going with Kyle Allen or Will Greer quarterback next year. Some free agents, big-name free agents, going to sign to play quarterback for the Panthers.

Yeah, I mean, it could be somebody like Bridgewater or Taysam Hill. Yeah. So, anyway, you know, Cardell Jones could end up being the back of quarterback in Washington. There's your quarterback. There's your quarterback, XFL guys. Oh, we haven't had the who's the better former Ohio State quarterback in D.C. conversation. There's a reason Cardell Jones is in the XFL right now. And who knows, maybe Dwayne Haskins will be in the XFL in two years,

the XFL still exists. Real quickly on Jordan Reed. Well, he's not going to be a red skin anymore. We all understand that. And I think that that was pretty obvious, you know, going into this thing. There is like conflicting sort of reporting on this. And I'm going to have J.I. Hallsell on the radio show tomorrow. And I probably could have done more research before the podcast today.

But the two reports, one came from Kareem Copeland of the Post, and the other one came from J.P. Finley. yesterday. Copeland basically said that Reed will be released once he's cleared and said Reed would need to be removed from concussion protocol before being released or else he and the team would need to reach an injury settlement, which is unlikely when dealing with concussions. And then J.P. Finley yesterday tweeted out the following. He tweeted out, where is it? get it here in a second. Checked in with some folks about Jordan Reed status,

even in concussion protocol, Redskins can release him. Reed could be eligible for the CBA's injury protection benefit of $1.2 million if he isn't cleared to play in 2020. His contract also might contain some injury guarantees. So a couple things here. Number one, there's no clarification on whether he can or can't be released if he's still in concussion protocol. But number two and more importantly is, you know, I want him to be healthy, obviously.

Beyond that, is what kind of salary cap impact? Right now, if he weren't injured, they could release him, and it'd be an $8.5 million salary cap savings for Jordan Reed. If there is some sort of salary cap ramification because he is injured and he's going to get paid some sort of injury protection benefit or maybe some guarantees that are in his contract for injury, injury. What I don't know, and I don't have the answer on, and it wasn't provided by anybody yesterday, is whether or not that impacts the cap savings. So, TBD on that, figure it out, I'll

have an answer for you tomorrow. You don't have an answer, so I'm not even going to ask you. No. I want to... I just remember Jake's student's comments in August. Jordan Reed will be fine. He'll be fine. He did say that. Yes, he did. Jordan Reed will be fine. That was in August. And, you know, I think, I think, you know, it's amazing how the media up there, out there got it up. Jay Groo.

He was a terrible head coach. Really was. I don't know that he was a terrible head coach. He wasn't a good one, though. That's for sure. Okay, he wasn't as good as they made him out to be. Who's they? Who made him out to be a really good coach?

The people who covered a team. Really? Who? Oh, my God, yeah. Jay was a smart coach, a good coach. Absolutely. The best code they've had, they would defend his record every time they, you know, they were pressed to. Defend his record?

What record? I don't. Well, you know, with all the injuries, you'd always hear with all the injury. Okay. Jay Gruden was a middling. coach at best, at best, who did understand the pass offense in the NFL and design a pretty decent one. But that's what he should be.

He should be an offensive coordinator, which he's going to be in Jacksonville. In Jacksonville. But you're right. He did say, Jay Gruden says Redskins are quite confident that Jordan Reed will be fine, and the coach likes their depth at tight end with J.P. Holtz. who I don't think ever amounted to much. Hopefully Jordan Reed's going to be fine. I'll say what, seriously, and I was talking about this earlier,

he was quite a talent. You know, he really, you know, I told this story on radio, and I think you'll remember Mike telling us this, because I'm pretty sure he told us this on our radio show, if not the first time, the second time that he was on, that Griffin, you know, at the height of, you know, owner empowerment in 2013 before that draft, bugged Mike and the scouts leading up to that draft about Terrence Newman, the receiver,

not Terrence Newman, Terrence Williams, the receiver from Baylor, who the Cowboys ended up drafting, and he was begging them to pick Terrence Williams. And they ignored him, and they took Jordan Reed, and Terrence Williams didn't turn out to, I mean, what kind of careers Terrence Williams really had, not a Sterling career by any stretch of the imagination. But, you know, he certainly felt good enough to bother them about that. Maybe that's normal, too. I guarantee you, Clinton Portis bothered a lot of Vinnie Serato and Dan Snyder about a lot of, you know, Miami guys over the years. But Jordan Reed was really a tremendous talent, just never available, unfortunately. But that breakout year in 2015 that he had,

that year, I'm pretty sure, Aaron, he was voted by his. peers in that top 100 list. I think he was on that top 100 list heading into the 2016 season as one of the 100 best players in the league. Most people had him right there after Gronk in a conversation with Kelsey as the best pass catching titan. Am I right about that? Yeah, he was number 77. Yeah, that was prior to 2016. And 2017. He was number 65. So, you know, his peers are telling you how talented and gifted, you know, he was as a receiver. just a shame, man. I mean, six, seven concussions.

Hopefully he's going to be healthy long term. But he probably shouldn't play. No, he shouldn't play. He was a smart player, a kid who played quarterback converted into tight end. So he had the quarterback brains to go along with the talent to play tight end with a smart offensive player. And there were two draft choices that Mike had. I think it was the same year that if both of them had been able to stay healthy, would have been tremendous offensive talent.

The other was Chris Thompson. Was he drafted the same year? Thompson was picked earlier than 2013, I think. I don't think that. You might be right. It might have been the 2013 draft. Yeah, and another guy who went healthy, those two guys. Yeah, you're right, fifth round 2013.

When they were healthy. The two of them together, but neither of them could stay healthy. That's right. None of them could stay healthy. You know, about Jordan Reed, I remember Mike telling me, and I think this may have been on the air, it may not have been, I forget, but he just said, when you get a guy like that who was recruited to be a quarterback at Florida, played quarterback in high school, was a tremendous basketball player too.

And you can see Jordan Reed sort of athletic, you know, style and ability. He looks like a basketball player, you know, out there. And he had great hands. He had great feet. We knew he would be coachable. Talent, man, a true talent. But unfortunately, could never stay healthy. And the concussions were, you know, a significant part of it.

But there were other injuries as well during the course of his career. It's too bad. because he looked like the real deal, man. He was uncheckable at times in 2015 and 2016. No one could cover that guy. No one could. What does Doc always say the most important ability is? Availability.

Yeah. Yeah. Set the record for tight ends for Redskins in 2015 with 87 catches for 952 yards, 11 touchdowns in just 14 games. Then in the 12 games he played in 2016, 66 catches, 186 yards, six touchdowns. And, you know, he didn't have one season where he played all 16. Remember, prior to every season, basically going into 2016 was, or 2015, was, well, if Jordan Reed stays healthy. And you can't, you can't continue to count on that.

I wanted to get to this Miles Garrett, Mike Tomlin thing. Mike Tomlin yesterday. Miles Garrett, for those of you who missed this, last week was reinstated by the league. He then did a sit-down interview with Josina Anderson from ESPN, I believe. And he doubled down on his accusations that Mason Rudolph called him the N-word. In fact, he says he called him it twice, you know, in that melee that broke out at the end of the Steelers' Browns game in November that led to his six-game suspension. And the suspension of others, including Pouncey from Pittsburgh. Mike Tomlin yesterday was on ESPN's first take. I want you to listen to what he said.

These accusations are serious, not only in terms of Mason Rudolph's character, but his professional pursuits. Nobody on that field, as a member of the Cleveland Browns or the Pittsburgh Steelers corroborated what was said by Miles Garrett. That was founded by us and the National Football League, and at no point during that piece this weekend, that was stated. I've been in the National Football League for a long time. I know when situations come up, I know the approach that they take in terms of peeling back to layers, whether there's interviews or research. I wasn't directly involved in it. Like I said, during the course of the season, we have to continually move on, and that's what it is that we do. We received word from those guys, and we took them at their word that a thorough

investigation was done, and no evidence was founded. He went on to say two on first take yesterday. he can't stand the people that have presented this as a he said he said situation. He said when you have an investigation by the league and by us, and there's no corroboration whatsoever of this, it's not he said he said. It's been determined, essentially. So, you know, Mike Tomlin's accusing Miles Garrett of being a liar in this particular situation.

What did you make of Tomlin's defense of Mason Rudolph? I thought it was pretty good. I thought he was right when he said there was no mention in the report of the investigation and what it found. You know, you never saw any of Miles Garrett's Pittsburgh teammates slinch in defense of him in any way, shape, or form. You know, I just don't know why Miles Garrett would then turn around and stick with something like this.

If it wasn't true, though, what's the value in it? I mean, if you're Miles Garrett, you want to put this behind you, don't you? Yeah, the whole thing is, you know, Miles Garrett, even though he has been a player that is played on the edge, you know, he, by all accounts, you know, after that incident, there were a lot of nice things said about him in terms of his character, in terms of the kind of person he is, in terms of how bright he is, a lot of different things. You know, I would tend to believe Mike Tomlin and would tend to believe that Miles Garrett is lying, you know, and that, you know, this is not necessarily a Jesse Smollett situation, you know, where he staged a hate crime, but that he's accusing, you know, of someone a racial slur to justify his behavior. And at the same time, Tommy, how many times have we been burned, you know, in a situation like this where after a Mike Tomlin who is, you know, very respected, you know, not to mention the fact that he's also an African American head coach coming to the defense of Mason Rudolph in this particular situation, don't, you know, minimize that impact, you know, in the influence that has on someone's opinion of this situation, you know. So at the same time, it's like if you absolutely say right today, Miles Garrett's a liar, we've seen so many times in the past where somebody's going to come out in two days who was on the field and said, you know, I didn't want to speak up, but I sort of heard what Miles Garrett heard too.

You know, and then the whole thing changes. But I would lean certainly in the direction at this point based on the information we have that Miles Garrett either in his own mind heard something that was never said and isn't lying necessarily but was just, you know, misinterpreted, misinterpreted Rudolph, or he's lying because of his behavior and he wanted a reason for the behavior. Like I said, the inexplicable part is no matter what any of those scenarios, why push it? Well, because... You're getting reinstated.

you're getting reinstated. You know? You can put this behind you. Why give it legs? Under any circumstances. Do you think if the league, why wouldn't the league, if they did their own investigation,

if you listen to Mike Tomlin, why wouldn't they come down on him for doubling down on the same accusation? Why wouldn't they, Do you think he's in danger of being punished further for this interview? No. Why not? No, I don't.

If they're absolutely convinced that he's lying. Well, they can't be convinced that he's flying. Nobody knows except the people who are on the field. And do you really want to start going after African-American players who think they were racially attacked and accuse them of making, it up, even if you believe that? Is that something, again, is that something you want to do if you're the league? You've got to

figure out another way to deal with this. I mean, if you're Miles Garrett, you should have left it alone, and if Miles Garrett is going to pursue this, you can't the league can't go after him for it. Yeah, it's interesting.

You know, it reminds me of in 2017, the Redskins signed Terrell Prior. Remember that training camp. Oh, Terrell Pryor looks great. Wow. Remember all the balls he was catching from the machine that throws? Yes, yes. And the one hand they had that game on Monday night in week four, I think it was, at Arrowhead against the Chiefs. And remember after that game, he accused the Chiefs fans in the crowd

of hurling a racial slur at him in the Redskins bench. And nothing. ever came out of that. Nothing ever came out of that, which I always found really interesting, because in this day and age, you know, from a crowd, if racial slurs are being hurled in the direction of African American players on the opposing bench or any bench, for that matter, there's a league investigation, you know, they're going to find out who these people were, and they're going to take their season ticket, nothing out of that. And I remember being told very early, early on. Terrell's a little bit off and nobody believed him and nobody heard, you know, anything resembling that. And in this particular case, it's sort of the same thing. There was an

investigation, clearly, this was a national television game. It was an ugly incident that ended, you know, they came at the end of the game. And there was a serious accusation made. And so there was an investigation. He was suspended for six games. He was reinstated and the League never found. And, you know, Miles Garrett's the only one that said it at this point. Yeah. You're right. Look, I mean, it's still rattle around in my old brain here. But wasn't there a situation where Trent William accused an African-American referee of making a racial, calling him a racial name?

I don't remember that. I think there was. Maybe if Aaron can Google that. I think Trent Williams had accused, I think, an African-American referee of using racial comments. Here it is. I got it. November 17, 2013. Apparently, the referees in Sunday's Week 11 game between the Redskins and Eagles had some pointed opinions on Redskins' offensive tackle Trent Williams. Williams went on an expletive-laced tirade ripping into officials for what he felt was disrespectful behavior. According to Williams, the referees made multiple derogatory references to his weight.

Oh, his weight. Supposedly it was Trent who used the racial slur. Okay. Towards the ref. Okay. Somebody did. Yeah. I mean, nothing ever came of that.

No. No disciplinary action against Williams for what he went back at the referees with. Yeah. There was more on this. God, I didn't remember this. Williams singled out umpire Roy Ellison in particular. Michael Phillips of the Richmond Times Dispatch reported that Ellison called Williams a garbage asshole, disrespectful

mother effer. Veteran lineman Corey Lichtensteiger. Remember how important Lichtenstiger was to the team? Backed up his teammates' claims and indicated that the scene was unlike anything he'd ever experienced. There was no word on possible inciting incident

that could have drawn Ellison's ire. You know, whatever. Ellison is African American. And William said that he never directed any direction. argument toward any referee. He was accused of a racial slur towards Ellison. Right. That's what it was. Right. There we go. We finally got to the... Like Michael Scott would say. Why can't we like the Reverend... No, that the Reverend Rodney King said,

why can't we all get along? Yeah. All right. Thursday, I think we should talk about Fury Wilder. Are you going to watch that fight Saturday night? No, I'm not going to watch that. Why? But we can talk about it. Because I've seen heavyweight boxing. I've seen great heavyweight championship boxing. Their first fight was pretty damn good, Tommy.

That was a pretty entertaining fight. Look, if two guys who aren't very good fight a competitive fight, that's not a good fight. It's just water-finding its level. Yeah, I probably am with you on that. I'm sorry? One guy can't punch and the other guy can't fight. I watched this E-60 thing on Fury and his depression that he's been battling pretty much for a lifetime. Really interesting guy.

Last thing, last topic for the day, unless you've got something else. Actually, two more. Did you watch the NBA All-Star Game Sunday night? No, I did not. I was flying down to Florida. All right. Did you hear about how exciting the fourth? quarter was? I heard the fourth quarter was great, and I believe it. I'm sure it was. Yeah, it was

all right. People were going nuts. I saw that happen when the game was in D.C. When Iverson State had tremendous comeback in that game, when that game was in D.C. It has the potential to be that way from time to time. Sure. All right. The last topic here for the day. Did you see the information on the Wizards local TV ratings? No. Are they moving up? They're down 55% from where they were last year. Last year, their average rating on NBC Sports Washington for the regular season, which

they didn't play in the playoffs last year, was a 1.19 rating. I mean, that is just insignificant. This year, it's 55% off from there, making it a 0.1.4. 5.4. Basically, you, I mean, we could put the people watching a wizard's game into this studio. We could fit them all in here because nobody's watching. And so the question is, well, why? Well, obviously they stink, even though they're only three games out in the East. Secondly, and they stunk. It's not that they stink. They stunk. And they stunk. And they stunk. And they stunk. And they stunk. And they stunk.

They stunk and they stink and they probably will stink more next year, maybe. I don't know. But, you know, a lot of people are saying, well, that's what happens when you take Buck and Phil off. Well, Buck and Phil have been off. Buck was taken off this year. You know, I guarantee you that there are some people that would have stuck with games longer or maybe even tuned in for a game if Buck and Phil were calling it. Absolutely.

You know, there's no doubt. Absolutely. No doubt. I don't think this guy Justin Coucher's terrible, though. I mean, Buck's a friend of mine, and I'll never, ever want anybody but him and Phil on the broadcast. And I thought Carra did a nice job. But, you know, I've heard a lot of people say that Coutcher's terrible. He's not terrible. I've watched enough to know that he's not terrible.

Now, is he Buck? Not even close. But anyway. You know, it's amazing. What's amazing? how everything that transparent head touches turns to gold. You know, the Wizards, NBC Sports Washington, the arena football league. I think he could do a better job helping, you know, Brooks coach the team.

He's right there, you know, I'm sure he's lobbing some ideas from the bench towards Scott during the game. He's probably, he should, if he's going to sit there, he might as well, you know, add some value. I just think it's interesting in looking at the Wizards ratings to know that, you know, like the Nats last year, they did five times what the Wizards are doing, but still only a 2.52 rating in the regular season. They were bad ratings. They got outrated by the Orioles. The caps, I think, are only doing something in the twos on average locally. And then, you know, the conversation always, as it does with us and others, steers towards the Redskins and this massive erroneous. of the fan base, which is true. But at the same time, they had their lowest rated game on record this past season when they played at Carolina, ironically, when they did an 11.7 locally for that

game, in 11.7. And you look at the ratings of the other teams locally, like they're not comparable. Like they're not even close to comparable. Now, I know a regular season NFL game carries more weight because they're only 16 of them. But when people say to you or me or anybody else, man, dude, no one cares about the Redskins. You just got to stop. I love when I get that. Really?

Actually, they care a lot about the conversation of the team. They may not watch as much. They may not go to the games as much as they used to. But they care about the conversation. And when it comes to watching many more people watch Redskins games than watch the other teams in town, many more. But anyway, you got anything else for me? I got nothing else.

I got to head back to the clubhouse. I think the workouts are almost done here. So I have to go in and do my job. What did you, hey, did you, what did you think of the Maryland game Saturday night? Well, I didn't watch it. But from what I've read, Maryland is pretty impressive. They've got a great big man and they've got a great point guard. That's a pretty good formula right.

there. 14 and a half point favorites tonight over Northwestern. I think they're going to kill Northwestern tonight, Aaron. I think the Nebraska game last week was like a warning. I think Maryland destroys Northwestern tonight. And that sets up Ohio State this weekend in Columbus for a big one. All right. I'm sorry, what else were you talking about when I interrupted you there? Well, I got a column in today's paper about Juan Soto, and I'll have a column tomorrow about the guy who's going to replace Anthony Rendon, Carter Keyboom. Okay. All right.

You go to Washington Times.com, click on sports. And read Tommy's column about the Astros and the Nats being side by side. And some of the things that he tells you South Floridians or just Floridians, excuse me, in general, are afraid of these days. That's pretty funny, too. Because I didn't know this, but iguanas, when it gets cold, they fall from trees and people eat them, calling them the chickens of the trees. It's like rattlesnake.

Taste like chicken. Aguana, tastes like chicken. All right. See you. Thanks. All right. I'll see you, bud. All right.

Listen to us on our app if you want. Website, the kevincien Show.com. Don't forget stamps.com. If you're small business, much easier, big discounts, time saving. And also mybooky. a g if you want to wager on sports lots of college basketball tonight aaron Maryland actually is down to a 14 point favorite they were 14 and a half and the public's playing maryland I might back off that a little bit and a half right now 13 30

13 30 and I got 14 on my site right now I still like maryland to bounce back and be ready when I say bounce back have a better performance than they did last week in in sort of that proverbial trap game that they had against nebraska I think they're going to win this game handily to get to 12 and 3 in league play. And if you're a Maryland fan, big game early tonight at 630, Penn State hosting Illinois. And the key in that game is whether or not DeSumos back or not for Illinois. If he is, I think he's questionable tonight. If he is, you know, it'd be a big spot for Illinois who's lost, I think, three or four in a row.

Yeah, Illinois definitely needs this. And I assume you're on Dayton today. Or I mean, on VCU. Yeah, I like VCU plus the, uh, the short number against Dayton who continues to roll. I mean, Dayton is a really good team with a great player in Obie Top, and they are just a three-point favorite tonight in Richmond against VCU. You know, Mason went to VCU last week and won there. VCU's not been great. VCU was getting killed by Rhode Island. They are not the team we're used to them being.

They may not be, but they're only a three-point dog tonight at home against the number five team in the country, the Dayton Flyers. I had a really good friend of mine, Ted, if you're listening, and he does listen to the podcast, who went to Dayton his freshman year, then transferred to Maryland. And I remember just hearing about how Dayton had this great basketball tradition, which it does.

People are really into it. I got a friend of mine, Jim Crowley, who went to Dayton. He's a huge Dayton fan. And back in the day, they went to the elite eight and lost to Georgetown. the Georgetown team that won the NCAA title. Pretty sure that was the year. And they had a player by the name of Roosevelt Chapman, who is, I think, Dayton, most people will consider Dayton's best player in history.

And they got all the way to the Elite 8. I mean, they got to the Elite 8 a few years ago against Wisconsin. Yeah, that was the Archie. Yeah, the Archie Miller team. By the way, before we go real quick, Drew Breeze, officially returning. Officially returning, so that means Taysom Hill and Teddy Bridgewater going elsewhere. more likely than that. All right, have a great day.

Back tomorrow.