The Kevin Sheehan Show - Snyder vs Mary Jo

Episode Date: February 21, 2022

Kevin looks into the new investigation the NFL has launched into the latest Dan Snyder allegation(s) with Howard Gutman (long-time DC attorney/former Ambassador to Belgium). Also, some really good intel/conversation on the Brian Flores racial discrimination lawsuit against the NFL and whether or not Stephen Ross (Dolphins owner) could be in big trouble if it's proven he offered $100k to Flores to lose games. Chris Knoche was on the show as well to talk about the Juwan Howard-Greg Gard incident yesterday. Kevin and Chris also on the college hoops season and the Terps.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You don't want it. You don't need it. But you're going to get it anyway. The Kevin Cheehan Show. Here's Kevin. Happy President's Day to everybody. I had the day off from radio today, which was nice to sleep in a little bit anyway. But I'm not taking the day off from the podcast today.

Too much going on. We had another legendary Redskin passaway over the weekend. My thoughts on one of my all-time favorites as a kid. Charlie Taylor coming up in the last segment of the show today. We've got two guests on the show today. Chris knocking in a few minutes will join me. We will talk about several topics, but certainly we will get to the Juan Howard Greg Gard thing from yesterday's Michigan-Wisconsin game.

And then Howard Gutman, our good friend, will be on the show to let us know everything we need to know about the latest on the investigation into Dan Snyder's. alleged behavior with Tiffany Johnston from several years ago. That was the hand on the thigh at the business meeting underneath the table and then the attempted push into his limo. This tweet from Samuel, which I got, which by the way wasn't that much different from another three to four dozen tweets that I got over the weekend on the news that Mary Joe White was going to lead.

the investigation into this Tiffany Johnston allegation for the league. Samuel wrote, Kevin, this is it. Mary Joe Wright is going to give us our team back. Dan didn't get his person. The league used her against Jerry Richardson and Carolina. They're coming for Snyder now. Got a lot of that from a lot of you. So I want to start here because even though it's not football,

related. It is football related because any of these investigations, this one, the last one, a future one, all give us hope that any of these investigations could lead somehow to the removal of Dan Snyder, Dan and Tanya Snyder, as owners of this football team, and we could finally get our team back, even though the team wouldn't really feel the same anymore, but I digress. So the league announced that Mary Joe White will handle the investigation. That is the Mary Joe White who investigated Panthers owner Jerry Richardson and found the sexual harassment and racial remark allegations that were levied against him, that he had sexually harassed for women and made a racial remark to a team scout,

a black team scout. She did, after investigating, she found those allegations to be true. keep in mind for those that seemed giddy, like Samuel, all of you that seemed giddy over the Mary Jo White announcement as she was going to lead this investigation into Snyder, that the Richardson and Snyder situations aren't that similar. I went over this one on one of last week's shows. Maybe it was Friday's show. Jerry Richardson was selling his team voluntarily. He was out regardless of what Mary Joe White was. investigated and either found or didn't find. He was 81.

He was ready to sell. The league never had to take a vote on him to force him out. He went willingly and was likely planning on selling long before the allegations even came out against him. Snyder is 57 years old and as of now is not thinking about selling. He's only interested in staying and fighting. So for those of you that seemed so sure that the League appointing Mary Joe White as the lead investigator on the new allegations against Snyder, because of her history of finding these allegations against Jerry Richardson to be true, which, by the way, she subsequently recommended in the league invoked a $2.75 million fine against Richardson.

none of what she did actually influence the league in regards to Richardson. Richardson had already made up his mind. He was already out voluntarily when Mary Joe White found those allegations through her investigation to be true. And he accepted and paid the $2.75 million fine, even though he wasn't going to be an owner anymore. But there's more for all of you out there who are convinced that, Mary Joe White's going to be the person that takes down Dan. She might be. You know, she might be the right person, and she might not be.

She might be the person who does, who does to Dan what the dude in the 50s did to Senator McCarthy when he shut down McCarthyism saying, have you no decency, sir? Maybe she'll be that guy. What was the name of that guy? Somebody helped me with that. Walsh, I think it was. Something like that. kids look up McCarthyism if you don't know anything about the 1950s and the red scare and senator Joe McCarthy

I don't even know why I'm going in this direction maybe I should have used adlea stevenson um as the comparison actually none of these people compare I'll ask Howard gutman who was the guy that said have you no decency sir to Joe McCarthy stood up told senator Joe McCarthy in the 1950s. I don't remember who that person was. My memory. I think it's sleep deprivation that makes me struggle occasionally now

to come up with names. Used to be really good at names, especially names from a long time ago. Sometimes I struggle more with names from yesterday. I don't know if some of you have the same issue. Anyway, Howard Gutman is a historian. I mean, hell, he was an ambassador to Belgium. for many years. He should know the answer to that. Anyway, I'm sidetracked. Mary Joe White,

back to her. She led the investigation into Urban Myers' denials of knowing about domestic violence committed by one of his assistant coaches, Zach Smith when he was at Ohio State. That was Mary Joe White who led that investigation. Meyer lied about his knowledge of Smith's longtime domestic abuse and everyone saw the messages to prove he'd been covering for his assistant for years. Ohio State hired Mary Joe White. The result? A three-game suspension when a lot of people thought it should have been much more severe. Many people thought it would lead to Urban Meyer being fired.

This was the quote, by the way, from Mary Joe White in response to the Meyer punishment. And by the way, Myers' continuing public denial that he had any knowledge of Smith's, the assistant coach, any knowledge of his behavior. When according to the actual report, he actually did know about the behavior and continued to employ him. But anyway, this is what Mary Joe White said after the investigation was over. Quote, while the denials were plainly not accurate, meaning his denials, Urban Myers. She said Coach Meyer did not, in our view, deliberately lie. Coach Meyer impressed us with his sincere commitment to the respect for women core value that he espouses and tries to instill in his players. Closed quote.

Her report actually included information that he knew about the abuse for years and asked for advice on how to get rid of text messages. that would have proved that he knew, that did prove that he knew. I'm not sure exactly what Mary Joe White was impressed with. I'm just saying, do some research before you crack the champagne and celebrate that Mary Joe White's somehow going to finally rid us of Dan Snyder. This investigation, according to the league, will be made public. This one is going to be made public, unlike the Beth Wilkinson report, because the league says the allegations were brought in an open forum with no expectation of anonymity.

They're talking about Tiffany Johnston's allegations to Congress, which were, you know, live streamed on YouTube. So what was Dan Snyder's reaction to Mary Joe White being named as the lead investigator on Friday? The team had a statement, all right? It was a Dan statement. Maybe it was a Dan and Tanya statement. I don't know. Remember that, you know, the context for this. The context for this is that the league basically snatched this investigation from Dan choosing to investigate himself.

You know, the league takes it over. They named Mary Joe White as the lead investigator, and this is what the Snyder said to it. You know, they didn't say, hey, you know, we're pissed off. We should be doing this investigation. They said, quote, the Washington Command, are pleased that the NFL is appointed Mary Joe White to look into the recent allegations made by Tiffany Johnston. The commanders have always been intent on having a full and fair investigation of this matter conducted and to releasing the results of that investigation. Given the team's confidence in Ms. White's ability to conduct such a full and fair investigation,

the commanders will not separately pursue an investigation and will cooperate fully with Miss White, closed quote. Could it be that Dan is thrilled, that the Snyders are thrilled with the choice of Mary Jo White? I have no idea for real. I mean, here's the statement from Lisa Banks, you know, the attorney who, along with, what's the other woman's name, Katz, Deborah Katz.

Here's the statement from Lisa Banks, who with Deborah Katz, and maybe another attorney, I'm forgetting all the attorneys represents at least, you know, 40 plus Washington employees, including Tiffany Johnston. They said in a statement that they were here, hold on, where is it? Here it is. Banks said, quote, having a new investigator with no such prior knowledge of the Beth Wilkinson investigation she was referring to assess Ms. Johnston.

allegations and Mr. Snyder's denials in a vacuum makes no sense at all. That said, we will discuss with Ms. Johnston her willingness to participate and are pleased that the NFL has agreed to make the results public. On behalf of our many other clients, we urge Commissioner Giddell to make the same decision with respect to Ms. Wilkinson's investigation. Certainly the results of that comprehensive investigation would provide an important blueprint for the new investigator to to conduct her work, closed quote. So Lisa Banks is essentially saying, why would they use Mary Joe White,

who has no background on all of the other stuff that's been investigated by Beth Wilkinson? Why wouldn't they just use Wilkinson again? Look, my guess right now on this latest investigation, and of course at this point, we'd all be crazy to think that this is the last one. But as of today, on this one, the Tiffany Johnston,

the latest investigation led by Mary Joe White. My prediction as of today, Feb 21, 2022, my prediction is whatever they find, whatever she finds, leads to a suspension, not a forcing out. And for what it's worth, it would be a bit naive not to consider that there's at least a chance that this specific investigation by Mary Joe White into the Tiffany Johnson allegation

could lead to some level of exoneration for Snyder. It could. They seem certainly excited for this to happen this time. You know, from my standpoint, the truth in these situations, it's pretty important. You know, this is a super serious allegation. You know, whether it's what we, you know, want out of this investigation, or it's not, you know, the bottom line is if there's a victim of sexual assault,

then the perpetrator should pay the price. But if the truth is the opposite of that, that there wasn't a sexual assault as alleged or that it's not provable leaving some room for doubt, I think that that's important too. I have no idea what the truth is. When it comes to this organization and the way it behaved for all of those years, you know, courtesy of the Washington Post stories and even basically what the league said in its statement when they find the team $10 million per the results of the Wilkinson investigation. Bottom line is the 42 women coming forward and alleging a toxic, misogynistic workplace culture with

sexual harassment. That's not a he said she said in my mind. Too much smoke for there not to be something legitimate causing it. And the league again, again, again, acknowledged that with their statement the day they find the organization 10 million bucks. I mean, we didn't get the results of the Wilkinson investigation, but we did get a rather, you know, a rather damning statement from the league that day, which was what, back in June or July. But the specific new allegation by Tiffany Johnston, you know, was not a Beth Wilkinson report item. And it was the first true accusation that Snyder didn't just over foresee a bad culture as the team owner, but may have committed something approximating a crime.

So it'll be investigated and we'll see what it turns up. I'm not predicting what this is going to turn up, although I guess I did kind of predict the punishment. I mean, my gut tells me that this is going to lead to a suspension. That's what my gut tells me. I don't know why. It just tells me that this is the league. They're, you know, they're annoyed by this dude, they're pissed off, and that she's going to come up with something and maybe not something, you know, that definitively ties him to anything. I mean, look, this is a hard allegation, I think, to prove. Maybe it's the reason he's so eager for it to be investigated, an unwanted hand on a thigh

underneath a table. You know, this perhaps is the reason he wanted to investigate it himself and wanted to make the results public and doesn't care that the results will be made public because they're so hard to prove. Whatever she turns up, I bet you it lands on suspension. And the league just says, dude, you're just annoying the hell out of us. Just go sit in a corner for six months and just let's hope that nothing new comes out. Okay, let's see if we can turn this spicket off on this thing once and for all. But I don't know if that'll happen. But we'll see. We'll see. We'll see. see. Anyway, that's it on that. Chris Nocki next, after a few words from some of our favorite sponsors.

Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast. Rate us on Apple and Spotify, if you don't mind. That helps, as always. My friend Chris Naki is a guest on the show with us right now, and you were the person that I thought to call. Of course, I would have loved to have had TURG weigh in on this, but I think it's in his best interest to stay out of the, Juan Howard thing, but I wanted to talk about the Juan Howard Greg Gardt thing with you. And we can talk about a few other things as well. But let's start with us. For those that did not see it yesterday, Michigan played Wisconsin

in college basketball. Wisconsin kicked their ass, winning the game 77 to 63. They had a really good second half. I think the game was tied at halftime. I actually was watching this game. I did not watch it live when at the end, but I went back and saw the whole thing as it happened. I'll net it out for everybody. Wisconsin put their scrubs, actually some walk-ons into the game, as many teams do when it's a blowout game for the last minute of the game.

Juan Howard kept some of his starters in the game. He coaches Michigan. They full court pressed Wisconsin, turned them over, and Wisconsin called a time out with 15 seconds to go in the game because they couldn't get the ball in bounds. Well, Joanne was not happy that Greg Gard used a timeout up by 16 points with 15 seconds to go in the game. But Guard wanted his players who were being full court pressed by Joanne's players to be able to get the ball in bounds. And then after the game going through the handshake line, Joanne Howard appeared to want to walk right by guard.

Guard put his hands on Joanne. Joanne put his hands on guard. You can talk about and debate till you're blue in the face, who started what and who initiated what. But it escalated and Juan Howard open-fisted, all right, not close-fisted, open-fisted, slapped an assistant coach from Wisconsin on the head as he took a shot at him. And now the issue is it escalated beyond, you know, players got involved, it became, you know, a borderline melee. If you missed it, it doesn't take long to find it. But here we are today. Juan didn't apologize after the game.

Guard really didn't say much other than he thinks his timeout started it after Joanne was pressing him. I've not expressed, Nakke, my view on this yet. I want to hear yours first. What should happen to Joanne Howard? What should happen to Greg Gard? Well, I'll tell you what. that Jowan most likely would be done for the year, and I think it's going to, the way it's going to work

out is that I believe the way the Big Ten bylaws read, Kevin, the most that the conference can give Jowan is a two-game suspension and a pretty hefty fine. Now, there are extraordinary circumstances where they can do more than that, but my guess is the Big Ten conference is going to put this in the lap of the University of Michigan. Now, keep in mind it's sort of a backdrop. to that, that shortly after the game was over yesterday, the athletic director from Michigan called, directly called the athletic director from Wisconsin and apologized for Jawan and his actions. In addition, the chancellor from the University of Michigan did the same to the president of the University of Wisconsin. So you've already got that acknowledgement in place as who was wrong

in this whole situation. I'm also going to take exception to sort of the characterization. The guard put his hands on Jouan. What happened was, Juan said, you know, I'm going to remember that shit. That's what he said.

As he came up to guard, and guard wanted to explain himself. He didn't put his hands on anything more than Juan's elbow, is just to say, wait, wait, wait, let's talk about that. And that's when it escalated Juan actually grabbed the

you know the zipper portion of the quarter zip the guard was wearing things completely escalated from that point led to the punch or whatever you want to call that it was an open hand punch I totally

agree with your characterization I don't know in terms of how you deal with Greg Guard on this I suppose for some semblance for whatever reason for fairness or whatever I suppose maybe you, I don't know, I don't know what you do to Greg Gart,

but I think the hammer has to come down on Joanne, if for no other reason. He did, this is completely unacceptable. You teach your kids that you coach on any level about accountability and responsibility. And this is not his first, his first go-round either. When you keep in mind what he, you know, all the, the, the multiple part fracas with TURG last year at Maryland. you know, I think you have no choice but to make sure that he fits down for the rest of the season. Now, you also, while he did not apologize yesterday, Kevin, I got to believe that apology is going to be forthcoming in the next 24 hours. You cannot have that guy represent your school, do what he did, and not apologize for what he did.

It's just, it's completely unacceptable. So you think he should be suspended for the rest of the year? There's been a lot of discussion. People think he should be fired. Would you go to that level of punishment? No, I wouldn't. Okay. I wouldn't.

I would just make sure he's done for the year. So I think then we're probably pretty much in agreement. I, the way I, and I just, I waited, I waited until after the press conferences, you know, people were tweeting their asses off. This thing was happening. And I had already flipped it to another game, so I went back and I'm like, all right, well, let's see what each of them says. You know, chronologically, the first thing I would say is coach your own damn team. Don't coach your opponent, period.

Okay. If you're going to press a bunch of walk-ons at the end of the game, you're entitled to, but then the other coach is totally entitled to gather them after a timeout to help them against. your full court press. Hell, you know what, it's good work for the kids to face full court pressure. Keep it coming. I can remember, I swear to God, this is going to enter into the youth coaching discussion here briefly. I remember we were getting our ass kicked in a game and the coach called off a press and it was really early to call it off. And I actually said to him, I said, you don't have to call it off that early. It's really good work for us. And I knew the guy. Look, Greg Gard could use it as a teaching example.

This is how we're going to break the press. You guys haven't seen it. Seen it against, by the way, some of Michigan starters. And then he, so he has 100% the right to call a timeout. Now, the best way for those games to end is for Joanne to recognize that he got his ass kicked in the game in the second half, that they've put in all of their reserves with 45 seconds to go. There's no way he can win the game down 16, with 30 seconds to go and to call off the dogs instead of pressing.

And then none of this would have happened, in my opinion. All right? The timeout wouldn't have happened. The game would have ended. They would have gone through the line. You know, they would have shook hands. Boom. So chronologically, you know, you have the right to do this, but then don't act like a bitch

if the other guy calls a time out. Okay, number one. Number two is, I think what happened in that line, you know, the way you describe it, I think, is probably fair. But if people want to debate as to what the tone was or, you know, Joanne has the right to try to walk by him and say, you know, something under his breath or, you know, guard has the right to, whatever. The bottom line is all of that is a distant second behind Joanne Howard taking a swipe

and knocking an assistant coach on top of his head, creating a complete melee. He absolutely should be suspended. for that. And as we both know, there's history for it. And I think Kevin Warren was very soft a year ago at the Big Ten tournament, not coming down harder on Joanne Howard for threatening to kill Mark Turgeon out loud. Now, you can scoff at that all you want, but he charged, you know, in the direction of Turgeon. And this all stemmed from two events that happened in their previous two meetings where basically Juan Howard allowed one of his players to basically behave inappropriately in two different games against Maryland, a player that Maryland actually recruited for some reason the kid said he wasn't

recruited by Maryland. Hunter Dickinson, I'm referring to. And Turgent had warned the league, he's not putting up with this shit anymore, with Jowan shit anymore. And they didn't do anything about it. And then when it happened again, the fact that Kevin Warren was so soft as to not suspend. He should have been suspended for the next game, minimum. And so now you have a situation where Kevin Warren better act, all right, and better not turn the cheek on this. He absolutely deserves to be suspended for just the swipe. Forget about all the other stuff. You cannot do that as a coach, period. But at the same time, I don't think he should be fired. I think that this should be the lesson that should have been taught last year or the warning that should have been given last

year to Joanne that wasn't. Now you give them a legitimate suspension. The rest of the year, which is what, four games, sounds fine to me. Might cost him the tournament. They're pretty much, you know, an NIT team right now anyway, underachieving team this year by Miles. But when you have guys, and I know that this is not an apples to apples, but when you have guys like Will Wade still coaching in college sports, guys that are on a wiretap, paying offering money to players and we're in this we got a lot of major league cheaters that are coaching i'm not firing joan howard for this i think that that's a way way over the top well and also as an aside that's the same will wade who when the ncdbill a said we would like to interview you

he said uh no yeah no just no okay so so in terms of kevin in terms of kevin warren you know um The moral of the story is if you don't address an issue, like what amounts to a bully, if you don't address it, in a sense, you become an enabler. And because it wasn't addressed last year when it first happened, and maybe it's because you've got a rookie commissioner, I don't believe that Jim Dillin would have allowed that to continue on at all. But maybe because you got a rookie commissioner, he's like, well, let's just let it play out. let's just let it unfold.

Effectively, you help to create this problem. Now, the ironic thing is that, as I said, I don't know that they could do more than two games. I think that he's going to, I think he's going to pressure Michigan to do their dirty work for him and to make sure that this is one of those things that stands for way longer than those two games without question. Hey, Kevin, as it applies to the way the game play, out. You know, it actually, it was going along the way it was supposed to go along. Okay, so Wisconsin rules in the second half, just drills them in the second half. You teach both teams on both sides. You're teaching the kids the same thing. You teach them to play 40, you know, to play the

whole game out. Right. And so to that point, Michigan is pressing, trying to, you know, trying to make something happen. On the other side, think, put yourself in Greg Gards' shoes. You have a game on national TV. You're up, you know, comfortably. You want to get these guys some burns, some visuals on national TV. So you put them in. So, you know, and so Joanne keeps pressing, which he's certainly well within his rights to do. But it's not a lesson where only one team can play 40 minutes. You know, Greg's got the same charge to his kids. We're going to play 40. So like you said, if he chooses to take a timeout with 15 seconds left, you got to say, hey, good on you. We're pressing your ass. You know, if you need to take a time out, you take a time out.

It just, it screams. I mean, I don't know if the frustration over this season had gotten to Juan, but that is such a bullshit Mickey Mouse explanation that he was upset over the timeout. Well, if you're upset over the time out, pull your guys back, put your own walk-ons in, let the game play out, shake hands, and move on. Right. You know? Exactly. So you can't have it both ways. Yeah, I mean, I just, I mean, I don't know what there is to gain when you're down 17 with 30 seconds to go in the game to pressing a bunch of walk-ons with some of your starters in the game.

but if he thought that there was something to game by playing the whole 40 minutes, well, then you should understand that the other guy is going to make sure that his walk-ons don't look terrible throwing the ball back to your team again on an inbound pass. I mean, it's really not that hard. I mean, now, what's interesting is, I don't, Juan Howard, when he was, first of all, you mentioned the word enabler, you know, when it came to not disciplining him that last year. Look, that's the same shit that I'm not comparing Joanne Howard to Bobby Knight.

Trust me. But what happened for years is that there were just enabler after enabler when it came to Bobby Knight and his behavior, you know, for years. But anyway, I'm not comparing Juan Howard in his, you know, quick fuse to Bobby Knight's quick fuse. Nor, by the way, would I compare Juan Howard as a coach to Bobby Knight as a coach either? Yeah. But, Juan, as a player, just was always, like, kind of a cool demeanor guy, you know. And here in two years, you know, we got a team that went to the Elite 8 last year, you know, and who'd they lose to? Who'd they lose to in the Elite 8?

Was it UCLA? But they were good. Yes, I think it was. I think it was UCLA. And they were good enough. Yeah. Yeah. And I totally agree.

And he, you know what, he looked like a guy with such great command on the bench. Now, obviously, having the players he had, I mean, we're seeing how good, you know, some of these guys were because they've, you know, some of them are NBA players at this point in time. But, yeah, he seemed to have such command and in such control. And to see him do this yesterday was just, you know, stunning to see it. Hey, the other thing is, man, there is a code, and it's unwritten, written, whatever you want to say. In college basketball, the coaches are part of a fraternity. I mean, they've all got the same, you know, bomber jacket, basically. And you don't, you don't fuck with guys like that.

That's not cricket. You know, that's not the way business is handled. Business is handled, you know, and I saw a little, I happened to be watching a game earlier this weekend. This makes me nerdy. I get it. Utah State is playing Boise State. Mountain West is one of the best conferences. And Ryan Hottom is a head coach.

Yeah, Ryan Odom, the head coach at Utah State, calls it 30-second time out. And one of the players from Boise State gets into his huddle. So now he starts John as a kid at Boise State. Turns out the Boise State player is the son of the Boise State coach, Rice. And so at any rate, Ryan was incensed that this kid came into a puddle. Afterwards, those guys had words at Halfcourt, but they moved on. This is something you take off the table.

You can discuss at a later date. But you don't air your laundry like that, you know, at Halfcourt, especially national TV. What an embarrassment. CBS game is a week, and you're pulling that stuff, you know, at the end of the game. I mean, we've seen, like, yesterday's thing was unique in that, actual, you know, physical attempt to, you know, swat at somebody. And he connected. You know, he didn't knock the dude out. You know, I'm not going to sit. I'm not going to sit here and act like we haven't seen worse. But we've seen coaches go after it. I mean, hell, the all-timer was

it was Calipari and Cheney in the press conference. But we've seen, you know, a lot of this stuff over the years. I mean, and there's a lot of stuff that we don't see. I mean, you know this. I mean, old Danny Hurley going through the, the, uh, hand, shake line after Maryland beat him by 30. I mean, using, you know, one epitaph after another. You know, in Cancun. Yeah, in Cancun. You know, so this stuff happens a lot and there's tension and it's a competition.

And competitive people who have competed before understand that this stuff happens. But you can't take a swing at an opposing coach. And you can't take a swing at an opposing coach because, he called a time out with 15 seconds to go and it piss you off after you were pressing his walk-ons for crying out loud. I mean, get some perspective there. But I think a multi-game suspension is totally appropriate. I think firing him and the talk of it is ridiculous when we consider the actual criminals that are coaching some college basketball programs right now. All right.

Let's go ahead. I just think it's whatever happens, Kevin. We're doing this less than 24 hours after the event. My guess is we're going to know by the end of close the business today. I think whatever happens will be swift, whatever is decided. Yeah, I hope it is because nothing happened last year other than, you know. And here's the other thing. He was completely detached.

from sort of reality in the press conference. Like you can say I didn't like the timeout. I didn't like the way he approached me in the line, but I was out of order to throw a punch. I mean, you got to be able to acknowledge that that part of it was the number one headline from what happened afterwards. So two things, Kevin. First of all, the lack of contrition is always going to be a problem.

Right. when you clearly are on the wrong side and there's a complete lack of contrition. Here's the other thing is that I look at his two dance partners, Mark Turgeon and Greg guard. I mean, is Dave Odom next? Oh, what do you mean? Maybe he'll go after B-line. He's approaching 80, isn't he?

Turg is feisty, though. I don't know about Guard. Yeah, well, I mean, Guard's a nice guy. I don't really know him that well. You think he would have gotten his ass kicked, is what you're saying. I think both of them would have gotten their ass kicked, to be honest with you. But I just, you know, I don't see him. I find his choice of dance partners to be really interesting.

that's all Yeah. All right, a couple of other things. We'll switch subjects. Who do you like in college basketball this year? We're approaching the last few games of conference play. We're a couple of weeks away from conference tournaments. We're a month away from the NCAA tournament.

Who are your favorite teams? Who do you think has legit chances to get to the final four and win the whole thing? I love Auburn because I love their four and five. I think those are, you know, one is a great defender, and Kessler, and then Jabari Smith. He's just so, so good. I mean, it's him, and I mean, Holmgren's got to be one of those guys.

You know, I've got to tell you, Kevin, Gonzaga with what they've got, and I know they're skating through it through a really lame conference slate, but somebody's going to have to play pretty good, pretty well to knock those guys out. M.R. is a very good guard, and then Holgren is way better than I thought he was at the start of the season. Timmy, of course, is an all-American, you know.

So in terms of the usual suspect, I like those two teams a lot. I think the teams that can hurt people, they can surprise. It's funny you mentioned early because I think Yukon is one of those teams with the size that they've got, how hard they play. I think that's a team that, you know, is a surprise sort of, outside the box kind of a team. But this is unprecedented parity. And let me just give you this as an example.

You know, we're sort of big tent-centric here, right? Because we follow the Terps and we see all these teams through here. How about the fact that Rutgers has been so good at home? With the exception of Maryland, who strangely enough went up then and owned the game from start to finish, they've laid waste to a list of conference opponents. that includes, you know, Purdue, Ohio State, you know, Michigan State, all the teams that they've beaten up there

on their own court at the rack. That's the same Rutgers team, by the way, that lost an overtime to Lafayette in December. And lost to UMass. I mean, yeah. I don't think UMass is terrible, but, yeah. It's college hoops, you know. I mean, it's just, it's crazy.

And that to your question, honestly, I think there are 20, teams, maybe more than that, that are capable of getting to the final four and win it at all. I really do. It is a lot. I'm just like looking at teams like, you know, like you mentioned. By the way, we've talked about this before. You like Pichael too, don't you?

The Rutgers coach? Yeah, a lot. Me too. I think he does such a great job. And I think that team, first of all, last year, they're up six with like two minutes to go to knock out Kelvin Sampson and Houston in the second round. Houston went to the final four, as everybody knows. I thought Rutgers was good last year. I think the team they had, you know, in the year that COVID canceled the tournament was a team that could have done some damage. And even though they got

beat yesterday at Purdue, they actually put up a pretty good fight. The end of the first half was tough for them. But they're a tough team. They're not even ranked. Okay. Marquette's not even ranked. You know, there are teams that I've watched this year that could easily win two games that aren't even close to being ranked. You know, if Virginia's a bubble team, if they got in, they could win two games easily. But then, you know, some of the teams, I love Houston. That game against Wichita State, did you watch any of that game yesterday? I did. I saw some of it, yeah, yeah.

Great game. That's a good league, there. Yeah. Missouri. You know, I watched SMU beat. Memphis, yes. The ECMU's been off my radar screen. Yeah.

They are very good. They are very good. Now they're, I think they're 10 and 3 in that league. And just behind Houston in that league, they're good. Memphis is a bit of an enigmatic team to me. I mean, they've got all the size and talent in the world. It looks like they didn't feel like playing yesterday in that SMU game. That league, you know, without Yukon in it anymore, is still a good league.

Temple's good this year. UCF is competitive. Cincinnati's competitive. Wichita State has beaten some people. Should have won you. I don't know how they gave up that layup at the buzzer. And Houston, you know, Kelvin Sampson is, have you ever just looked at his overall record? Like, not only does he win everywhere he goes, he wins big. Like, when you think about what he got ousted for at Indiana, I mean, wouldn't Indiana love to have had Kelvin Sampson for the last 16 years? instead of running him. He's a great coach. And consistent as could be. You know, he's a, I had a chance to meet him a few times and talk to him.

There's a lot to like about the guy himself. And you're right, his production is overall record, speaks volumes. His guys play like a bunch of, I mean, they go after rebounds, like, very big teams in America. Do you, like, of the big teams, do you, like, of the big teams, 10 teams because this is our league. I mean, you and I both love Matt Painter as a coach. I watch them a lot. I've seen a lot of Purdue.

I know you have. I still can't believe Maryland played the game. They played last Sunday at Purdue and had a legit shot to win in their building. Well, by the way, it was Super Bowl Sunday. It was national TV. And that building for Maryland, who's not good this year, still looked incredible. Best atmosphere in the Big Ten. Them in Indiana, but far. I mean, and everything is choreographed. It's very homespun. It's also, it's funny, man, they're the most polite fans I've ever heard. Right. You know, you don't hear a whole lot of, you don't hear a whole lot of cursing or anything like that. It's just really well done.

Are they good enough defensively? No. I don't think they are. They fall in love with their ability to score points. They run a lot of great stuff, a lot of great sets. They have some skill players. Jayden Ivy's, you know, next stop will be somewhere in the NBA, obviously. But I just don't think that they're committed that much defensively. Before that Maryland game, I'm watching them work out an hour before the game. Guys just going through individual stuff.

And they were clearly on cruise control. They were no more ready to play than I was, you know, in that game. You know, they just, I think they thought that they were just going to mail it. in and smoke the Terps by 25 or 30. And that kind of attitude scares me a little bit, but I watch them play. The game, they keep teams in games. And that will cost you in the tournament, man. You let a team sneak around and stay around.

And all of a sudden, they're burying a three, back-to-back threes, and you're down four, you know, in a game going right down to the wire. Yeah, back to Auburn real quickly. I think Jabari Smith is the number one pick in the draft. He would be my pick if I were picking. you like Holmgren. I'm not blown away by Bancaro. And by the way, I think Duke's pretty good.

And I know a lot of Duke fans think that they're not good enough. It wouldn't surprise me. I think they're tough at times in watching them. But Javari Smith, to me, looks like, I don't want to say the next Kevin Durant, but he plays like Kevin Durant. And I could see five years from now this guy averaging 28 a game easily in the league. You know, I think the reason he doesn't get big numbers now is the Auburn guards forget about him. I don't know how he doesn't get more shots that he gets.

He's getting more as the seasons going on. But I like Van Carrow, too. I like Duke. I mean, I don't like Duke. But in terms of their ability to make noise in the tournament, they're absolutely good enough. They've got five first-rout picks on that team. But do you like Banerro? it's Smith, Bancaro, and Holmgren right now

as the number one pick. To me, Bancarro is three. Yeah, for sure. For sure, three. And I, depending on who I am picking, and you know, I mean, where, which team is picking. I mean, I'd have to look at Holmgren because the thing I like about Holmgren, Kevin, he likes to play. He's not out there going through the motions because he's a big, long kid. He's incredibly skilled. And, like, he's got a little mean to him, too. He'll He blocks shots. He plays hard defensively. I worry about the physique like anybody would worry about the physique, but there's a lot to like about his attitude and his skill set for sure.

Yeah. I like him, too. He's so skilled. He's also like, is he even 200 pounds at seven feet? I doubt it. I doubt it. Yeah. I doubt it. All right. Lastly, actually, two things to finish up. I've had this argument with a couple of my friends. And basically, I'll just say it the way I say it to them as they tell me how bad Maryland is. And my response is, you know what? They actually don't stink. I'm like, they don't suck because I still am watching every single game. It's obviously a weird year.

It feels very interim as we wait for whatever happens after the year. But they have, like, Fats Russell is a good player. You know, they nearly knocked off Purdue without Eric Ayala. They had a chance to beat Michigan State. They had a chance to beat Wisconsin. I mean, they're one of the only teams to beat Rutgers at Rutgers this year in the Big Ten. Maybe the only team in the Big Ten to win at Rutgers this year. I just think that they've actually, I'm not saying that I don't think they're a very good defensive team.

That's the biggest issue I have. I think they're horrible defensively, and I think their scout defensively sucks in a lot of these games. But I don't think they suck. Like, I think they're capable on any given night of beating almost anybody in the league. Some of those things are sort of tied together here for me. For instance, like IA is back now. I honestly think, and I, you know, nobody's calling me to solicit my opinions on this,

the guys that really matter. I think that they'd be better served by starting the lineup. They're starting now with Xavier Green rather than, and using IAlla as your sixth man off the bench. I think Green is far more serious about defending than Eric is. And I think Eric gives you a boost coming off that bench. You can still get the same minute he plays. But I think that's a better look for them to start games. It is a weird year, very strange.

And my friends asked me all the time about there was that blurb. You might have seen it. A little bit of clickbait where Danny Manning had come out and said he really wants the job. He wants to – he would love to have the job for next year. I just don't know what people expect him to say. You know, when he's asked that question. He's supposed to say that. I mean, are you supposed to say, no, I'm actually looking for property in Florida.

You know, that's not the answer. But he's not getting the job. No, probably not. I mean, you have to make an insane run. You have to start this week. You need to win three games this week. You need to win the tournament. You need to win games in the NCAA tournament just to be on the radar, I would think, in a situation like that.

So, yeah, it's strange. They continue to fight. I have mad love for Sats Russell and the time of year he's having. And to that point, too, where I got back to Ayala coming off the beach. bench. When I was on the floor to start games with fats, Fats is too deferential. I like Fats in cheap mode, you know, where he's just basically raising hell, trying to get to the rim, pushing the ball up the court at every opportunity. And that makes it more entertaining, I think, more formidable to play against. So I guess, you know, the way I started the conversation was,

I say to my buddies, they don't suck. And then my second part to that is, and I know that this pisses a lot of people off, but I don't give a shit. I think if Mark were coaching this team, they would, you know, they'd be on the bubble. We'd be talking about a, you know, a team that would be fighting for 500 or maybe a tiny bit better in the Big 10. They'd have more wins, and they'd be better defensively. And I'm not saying that it was the team that we thought it was before the season when they were a preseason ranked team. It's not that team. It's not as good as we thought it was going to be before the season started, fully concede on that point. But I think that he would have figured it out with this group, as he often did, like last year, and that they would have,

you know, been in the hunt for a tournament bid this year. And a lot of my buddies think that I'm absolutely off my rocker. What do you think? No, I think, honestly, I think the turge had a way figuring out how to win close games. And one of the things we've seen down the stretch of the You think about some of the close ones they have not one. Michigan State here, the Wisconsin game here where you battle back in the end of you go five or six points. The Purdue game the other night. Now, I think there were three or four horrific calls in that game that also hurt the Terps, but that's all part of being on the road in a Power Five conference.

So I completely agree with you, and I don't care what anybody says. All I can tell you is I watch that guy coached the last 10 years. if people have problem with the scheduling and the style, that's one thing, but he did win close games. He won his share of close games, and we don't seem to really be winning our share of close games right now. No. So I agree with you. Yeah, I just, and I think we would have been, put it this way, there's no chance Iowa would have hung 110 in our building against us. There's no chance that would have ever happened.

Right. And I think some of these close games would have gone our way. I agree with you. Now, the calls at Purdue, you're right, there were some terrible calls, including the tech against Fats at the end of the first half, but they got a break to get the ball at the end of the game. That should never have happened to Purdue at the end of the game. They should have had the baseline.

They should have had the baseline to throw it in. No, because when they took the three-tenths of a second off the clock, they shouldn't have, though. That was a mistake. Okay, well, one of the three-tenths of a second. State did so. Right. They told Sopanovich that he did not have the baseline, and they told Matt Painter that he

didn't have the baseline. And it didn't really register with that. Right. And so that's the rule that did explain it. It is strange, you know, I've been doing these games and I've been coaching forever. I have never seen that one. I've never seen a game quite unfold like that in the last 10 seconds. But, yeah, it happens.

Like I said, that's not why they lost that. the game the officials calls. I just think, you know, for a team with no margin for error, those things like those are killers. You know, when you, you know, you get a tech called on you with two seconds left in the first half and things like that are just, those are things that are hard to come back. I want to just, because you're right, right, because they took three tenths off the clock and they said you don't have the baseline. I guess what I was saying, just to be clear, is there shouldn't have been three tenths of a second off the clock. They should have put, I think it was 8.1 versus 7.8.

I think that's what it was. Right. Because they went back to adjust the clock because it didn't, it started to run before Fats, before Ivy, I'm sorry, caught the in-bounds pass. So they went back to adjusted. They should have put it back to 8.1 and given Purdue the baseline again to throw it in and just redone it. Or they should have put Ivy at the free throw line and adjusted the clock accordingly. But what they did is they adjust it.

of the clock incorrectly and then took away their baseline thing. And to me, if I were the coach of the other team, I too would have been like, wait a minute, you're telling us we get to inbound the ball again. Well, then, and it wouldn't have, even if I had been told, it would have been like, no, they didn't really mean that. Of course we had the baseline. But whatever, it doesn't matter. Who's going to be the coach next year?

Give me your guess right now. I'm putting you on the spot. Because I don't. You know what? I'll give you this. Yeah. I don't have a name. But here's the stats tell you that Power 5 guys don't move from one Power 5 job to another.

Rarely happens. Chris Beard did it, Texas Tech to Texas. Buzz Williams did it, Virginia Tech to Texas, A&M. But I want to tell you like 30 of the last 35 Power 5 hires have been guys who ascended from mid-major coaching jobs. And when guys are flirting with a Power 5 job who are actually sitting Power 5 coaches, normally they just basically do it to sweeten their, you know, the position that they already have. So I have a feeling it's going to be a mid-major guy. It's a guy who right now is not on your radar screen, but is a guy who's being looked at you know, search committees

and by, you know, by the firms that you hire to help with these kinds of things. I don't know that, you know, the Nate Oates and, you know, guys like that, muscle and, you guys like that. I just don't know that those guys are in play like a lot of. Maryland fans hope they would be. Last one. Commanders, do you like it or not? I don't really give a damn anymore. The worst kept secret in America, they'll always be, you know, the Redskins to me. You know, I guess I'll learn to live with it, and I, that makes me a very apathetic fan.

I get it. I just, I'm so not into this franchise at all at this juncture. Maybe if they find a quarterback and, you know, if it gets competitive, maybe I'll have a rekindled interest. But I guess it's, you know, I give it a solid D plus. How about that? No, I know how you feel, and it's the way a lot of us feel. It's just, for me, it's even before the name change, it started to lose the same. I don't have the same passion level, period.

Everybody that listens knows that. Yeah. All right. At X Coach Naki on Twitter, when's your next podcast or what's the most recent podcast people can go and listen to? D.C. Coaches to Ask About a podcast. We had Bruce Pearl on last week. Wow. He was great.

You know, he was excellent. And he said, I've only got 10 minutes and 30 minutes later. He was still talking. He was very, very good. And there's a cool Big East history lesson. and he and Gary Williams were at Boston College, kind of of at that same era back in the early 80s. For Tom Davis.

Bruce Pearl was a manager there. And, yeah, for Tom Davis, Tom Davis then left for Stanford, and Pearl became an assistant coach for him. But one of the nuggets that they give you a quick history nugget, they told the story that Boston College had turned down a spot in the Big East. They didn't want to write a check for $50,000 to, join the Big East.

Oh, my God. And the Big East, you know who the Big East went after for that last spot? As they went after Holy Cross to be in the Big East. Oh, wow. So then what happened was a BC alum and businessman stroked the check for 50 large so that Boston College could get on the ground floor of the Big East. Oh, my God. Can you imagine you're not going to stroke a check for 50 grand?

to be a part of that. That would have been one of the all-time sports business whiffs ever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good story, though, and that's just a part of kind of what we were talking about on the pod this upcoming week, Seth Greenberg, this upcoming week. Awesome. It's such a great podcast. He does it with Gary.

He does it with, you know, Jimmy Pee and who am I forgetting? Eddie Tapp. Eddie Taps, Scott, Gordon, yeah, and Gordon, Austin. And they have great coaches on. All right. Thanks. I'll talk to you soon. All right, Jeff. Thanks. All right. Up next, Howard Gutman will join me on the show. We'll talk about the Mary Joe White investigation into the latest allegation on Dan Snyder.

We'll also talk about Brian Flores' racial discrimination lawsuit against the NFL and the allegation that he made is part of that lawsuit that Stephen Ross, the owner of the Dolphins offered him 100 grand to lose games. That's next right after these words from a few of our sponsors. All right, let's bring on my friend Howard Gutman, Howard, longtime D.C. attorney and of course the ambassador to Belgium during the Obama years. He has been such a help in recent times walking us through what is a consistent theme when it comes to the Washington commanders.

It's hard for me to say it, Howard. The Washington commanders, the Washington football team, and that is investigations. And we've got another one. We've got the investigation into the Tiffany Johnston thing. And Howard, you and I had talked literally a week and a half ago, and it was almost an hour after we got done with our discussion that the league said to Dan,

Dan, you're not doing this investigation yourself. No, no, no. We'll be handling that. And then on Friday, they announced Mary Joe White that she will lead this investigation, and they announced that the results of her investigation into this Tiffany Johnston allegation would be made public. So there were a lot of people, and I talked about this in the open to the show, a lot of people reaching out to me and probably everybody in town saying, this is it, Sheehan, this is it. And I said in my open, I wouldn't necessarily bet on this being it.

I'm curious as to what you think. So first of all, the NFL is clearly on a full employment program for former U.S. attorneys because Dan Snyder keeps them going all the time. But seriously, it turns on the issue we talked about that week and a half ago. What does Mary Joe White now have as her authorization? to investigate. So if Mary Joe White is simply going to investigate that Tiffany Johnson allegations, Dan Snyder got a holiday because it doesn't matter who investigates allegations that say we were

sitting at a dinner and his hand went on my thigh under the table and I pushed it off in a second. And later he put his hand on my back to kind of steer me into his car to give me a ride to my car. No matter what Mary Joe White is able to do on that narrow confines, nobody gets thrown out of a league on that basis. She'll come out with, there's some reasons to believe it happened, but it's a he said, she said, and nobody says it went past it. But if Mary Joe White says to understand what was really happening here, is this a predator? Is this someone who offered a sexual risk to employees and is a threat to the league.

And is Tiffany Johnson a credible person, is her story supported, then Mary Joie could say, so I have to look at others. And the first thing she would do in that context is talk to Beth Wilkinson and talk to the Beth Wilkinson interviewees and the witnesses. And so Mary Jo White's mandate is broad enough to cover the background of the Dan Snyder

and the credibility of Tiffany Johnson. So she, in fact, is the way that we have that prior joint cooperation agreement, but yet all of Beth Wilkinson's findings come out, then Dan could be in real trouble. So this is something we talked about a week and a half ago when he announced that he was going to investigate himself.

And we said, could he actually be setting a trap for himself? Because the investigators might take the Tiffany Johnston stuff and say, well, to find out more about Tiffany Johnston, we have to find out more from some of these other things that have been going on. Do you think that this investigation for Mary Jo White will set some parameters that say, here are the people you can talk to? How does that work? How do they keep it from going to where you said could get him in trouble? So that's the key to the NFL taking it over because in Danny's engagement of his credible former U.S. attorney, I have no doubt either Gibson done, the people selected by Danny, or Mary Joe at Debevoise, the people selected by the league. They will do their job honestly and thoroughly.

job, the definition of their job would matter. So when the Danny selected the investigator, he may have negotiated the parameters. I would like you to look into the Tiffany Johnson allegations about the evening of blank and blank. We're not requesting any review of events before that. That's fully been covered by the league. Please don't get into the league's jurisdiction and area that's closed, but here's your task to do it, look at the Tiffany Johnson allegations. If that's what the Danny's retainer letter would have said, that would have protected the Danny fully. Now the question is what agreement does Jeff Pash, the general counsel of the NFL and a former classmate and current still buddy of mine, a former classmate of Harvard 40 years

ago, but still a buddy. What is his retainer? What is he said to Mary Joe? And by the way, I saw today that Cynthia Hogan has left Biden's staff. Cynthia Hogan is a former litigator in Washington and gone back to be an assistant to Goodell. And I know Cynthia very well from my days of practicing law. So maybe she'll help as well. And the question is, what is have they talked to Mary Jo about the scope of her assignment? And that's the question Michael Phillips should ask, or J.P. Finley, or anybody at a press conference with Goodell, has Mary Joe, does Mary Joe have the right to review the history to understand the current allegations in which she re-recovering the Belk Wilkinson grounds? If not, this is meaningless because I don't know whether his hand brushed her thigh, touched her thigh, was scratching his knee, and whether he felt bad that she got upset.

offered her a ride to her car or he pushed her into the car, but neither one alone is going to be enough to get the Danny. So which of these two directives do you think Mary Jo White's gotten from the league or, you know, or from Jeff Pash? What's your guess? I would guess that she has the door open enough to it and kind of summarize it, but probably not enough to retake the depositions of the Deborah Katz witnesses and to interview each of the Deborah Katz witnesses, but that's anyone's guess. It's got to be

enough, I would hope, that the league doesn't just subjecting itself to criticism that in effect they've protected the Danny again, and yet the league certainly doesn't want to throw this wide open to having full investigations of everyone. If you remember

when we talked last week, the reason we said the reason I said the reason I don't think anybody, no matter how much they dislike Danny in the ownership, that anyone is looking to throw them out and make a huge issue over these allegations, is they undoubtedly exist in any clubs. And of course, we saw the Dallas Cowboys have issues of keeping Tom's taking photos in their locker room. Now, I know you said that's not endemic, that that's just one person so it's distinguishable.

We have no idea who else was seeing those photos, what the laugh is about walking in on the cheerleaders, and the rest of the misogynistic environment. But I can guess that NFL clubs 10 and 20 years ago were a lot more like college fraternities than they were like businesses run with decorum. Right. Tell us about Mary Joe White. What should we know about Mary Joe White? I made everybody aware that she investigated the urban minds.

thing that led to a three-game suspension when he knew that Zach Smith, who was on his staff, had a history of sexual, of domestic violence, excuse me, and kept him on his staff. And I even read the quotes. I found these quotes, which were amazing to me, because somebody had basically said, look up Mary Joe White's history. You know, it's not as if, you know, she's coming for Snyder because she's gotten all these other people. The Jerry Richardson thing, you and I both understand, Jerry Richardson voluntarily sold the team. He wasn't forced out.

Her investigation of Jerry Richardson almost came after the fact. But she said about Urban Meyer, she said, while his denials were plainly not accurate, Coach Meyer did not, in our view, deliberately lie. Coach Meyer impressed us with a sincere commitment to the respect for women core value that he espouses and tries to instill in his players closed quote. A lot of people, if you recall at the time, thought Urban Meyer was going to get severely punished. He got three games early in a season, two of which were cupcakes on the schedule. So tell us what we should know about Mary Joe White.

So Mary Jo, to quote the song, has looked at life from both sides now. She had a career as a prosecutor. She was the former U.S. Attorney in New York. that's a position that no matter what happens gives you notoriety, whether it's Rudy Giuliani or Mary Joe White or Lorette or Lynch, who is now representing the NFL and the Brian Ross in the Brian Forrest case. So she's a former U.S. attorney that's the chief prosecutor in New York. She's a former head of the FCC for enforcement of securities fraud, but she's also at a firm where she's represented corporations for years. done internal investigations, and yet also done the defense. And so she'll call it like she sees it. This is not like the plaintiff's lawyers, the Debra Kett, the Katz, or Lynn. These are not the ones who are

lawyers. They're sworn to do their job, but they're on contingency to see, and they always represent a particular side of the story and a cause. Mary Jo's a real litigate. They're all real litigators, but Mary Jo is a real respected attorney who will get the facts out and try to assess credibility. Remember, there's one other massive stumbling block to Dan losing control here, and that's Tanya Snyder. Because no matter what happens with the Dan, they could ban Dan from the league. It's awfully hard to see how they rest control from the Snyders, because are you going to, punish the wife if she had no allegation. If you take the club away from a woman for misogyny, what could be greater misogyny than that? I've thought about that, and I've talked about that

before, but, you know, wouldn't, like, what do you think the equity structure looks like in terms of ownership. Like, does all of the equity, does Dan have, you know, 95% of the equity and his wife has 4% of it and his sister has 1% of it? Like, what percentage of equity does Tanya have? And what kind of voting rights does she have? Is she a legitimate co-owner? Would be my question to you. Well, there's a couple of issues. One, what is it now? And two, what would they arrange it to be? because ultimately the truth is, I believe this is about his children. I believe Dan would like to keep the club in his family. Now, state taxes is always a problem,

but I suspect he's been addressing that. If you remember, that's what happened with the cooks. But I believe that Dan would like, it starts with his father, who he admired, and he's a very good parent, and I suspect the Snyders are trying to keep this in the family. And so even if Dan had to go, unlike Jerry Richardson, where he would say, I'm going to go and leave, he would probably sell 40%. The clear-rate guys, the minority entrepreneurs from Princeton,

who were around last time, are probably going to be in the Denver buyout group now, but he will sell a minority interest to get the money, but keep the majority control among Tanya the kids and him. Yeah, I mean, that seems plausible. I don't think that that's a bad runner-up to the Snyder's being completely forced out. If there is this feeling that we never ever have to look at him, hear from him, or, you know, obviously as long as he's married to, the owner of the team, then, you know, everybody will always talk about his potential influence.

But it wouldn't be the worst runner-up prize to be, it's him being completely forced out. Okay. I'll reserve judgment. All I can tell you is it's been a long time since we've won, and it doesn't seem like that time would be getting that much closer. I'm not disagreeing with that. I'm not disagreeing with that. And I'm not saying that I would be pleased if Tanya Snyder was the owner of the team and a 60% majority equity holder with minority shareholders that maybe we even liked. And by the way, I think that the group of minority shareholders would be a group of minorities, actually.

I think the league would probably really push that. I'm not saying it would be a great situation. but just the thought of his name not being first and his name not being, you know, labeled, you know, chairman of the board wouldn't be the worst. It'd be a hell of a lot better than it continuing as is. Because my gut feeling, by the way, just as a quick aside, as you were talking about Mary Jo White, I actually just Wikipediaed her page, and I was perusing through it real quickly. I should have done this before the show.

Do you know that she represented the Sackler family, the Purdue Farma family? Yes. Yeah. I mean, just have you seen dope sick? I haven't seen it, but I know the case well. Well, it's a great. It's a Netflix series. I'm sorry, it's a Hulu series.

It's excellent. It's all about, you know, it's all about OxyContin and Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family and the whole thing. But she represented members of, it says, the Sackler family and Purdue Pharma in litigation brought by victims of the opioid epidemic. Um, anyway, um, Kevin, that's why I said that the, that when you talk to Mary Joe, when you talk about Mary Joe White, that the song I've looked at light from both sides now comes up. Yeah. She's a prosecutor and a defense attorney. Okay. Um, do you have a prediction on this? Uh, I have a prediction that says, uh, the league will get some criticism, but minimize it this way, but we will still have the damn.

standing, and if you shoot for the king and miss, you might have weakened them a little bit, but you might have emboldened them. Yeah, I mean, my prediction was some sort of they find something and they suspend them, like legitimately suspend them. But I also mentioned, you know, that there is a possibility, right, as you go into this, because they seem to be thrilled with the choice and thrilled that it's going to be made public. They're almost too thrilled with this whole process.

I guess you have to consider the possibility, and you'd be naive not to, that this could lead to some level of exoneration for him as it relates to this one allegation. That's exactly what we were worried about. Again, if it's just, we started this conversation with, if it's curtailed to Tiffany Johnson, he's going to get vindicated by the, did I put my hand under the table on her? thigh or I don't remember. That's an easy one. I don't remember ever doing it. I don't know what she felt. And she'll say, I do. And that's that one.

And then did I steer it to my car? Yes, that's common for me to give people rides to their car because my limo is right outside the venue, particularly if she's upset or particularly, I didn't even know she upset. She was the guest next to me. I offered her a ride to my car. And the lawyer who supposedly said, Danny, Danny, this isn't a good idea. He's going to say, I don't remember that.

Maybe Mr. Snyder offered a ride to the car. And I don't think that lawyer would necessarily be lying in any way. It isn't that odd for Snyder to offer someone to go in their limo to take a ride to their car. Yeah, and if that is the result, these people will peacock around. to the point of making us all get sick to our stomachs because they're delusional enough to think that we're so dumb that we'll believe that this exoneration, if it were to happen,

or some level of exoneration, can just easily be extrapolated to the Beth Wilkinson investigation. You know, now you know what was in the Beth Wilkinson investigation. No, we actually don't know what was in the Beth Wilkinson investigation. But my God, the insufferable peacocking, that will be done if that's the result of this, because they're stupid enough to do that. They're stupid enough to raise their arms in a V like it's over.

And I think that's what he's envisioning on some level. It may be among he and his friends. I think Jason Wright and Ron Rivera have more and more... Agreed. More and more outward focus, and they are quality people. And I think they will try to finally turn the concept. conversation to the new stadium, to a new quarterback from my mouth to God's ears, and possibly moving forward.

And I think Dan might have some cigars on his yacht where he's the Admiral and the commander with some friends and saying I beat that one. But I do think Jason Wright and Rivera will make sure enough of this. Now let's be able to attract some free agents who don't think we're a buffoon organization. By the way, just so everybody understands this about Howard, he would much rather right now be talking about, you know, the quarterback pursuit, much rather be talking about the quarterback pursuit of his favorite football team. All right, there were two other things that we didn't get to the last time you were on that I said we will get to the next time you are on. and the first one is actually just quickly, before we get to the Brian Flores, Stephen Ross,

you know, racial discrimination, paying for losses story. By the way, Brian Flores taking a job in Pittsburgh since we last spoke. You have a theory as to why they landed on commanders as the name. Go ahead and share it with everybody. So real quickly, as we know, the only two serious last finalists, and they may have been the only two serious candidates with commanders and admirals. Now, I don't care about the name. Frankly, they're all not good,

or they're all great, or whatever you decide about the name. But it tells us a little bit about the same issue you've just been talking about. What was the motivation and who was the source behind the pick of the name? And if, in fact, the... the serious focus had been on things that related to the team history or to the alumni or to the fan base, let's say Red Wolves because of the Hodge or Red Hogs because of the Hodge or Red Hogs. If that had been serious other than dismissed as there's too much IT issues, too much patent protection issues for which that's just an excuse that's not true, if those had really been

down to the finalists, it would have told us that the decision in the name was being named, was being made by the organization, by Jason, by the organization as a whole, trying to be responsive to the fan base. But if the two last names were as they were, commanders and admirals, it sort of fairly clearly indicates that the name was picked by the owner for the name he wanted for his team. Danny has always seen himself as the commander-in-chief. And if you'll remember, in 2019, he sold his 244-foot yacht for a 300-foot yacht. And we hear about this 300-foot yacht all the time. And if I were a betting man, I would bet that on the yacht, he has his guest call him Admiral. So the only thing I'm happy about is that the team is not in Hawaii because we would

have been the Kahunas and he would have been the big Kahuna. Okay. Well, that's good news. All right. Your theory on commanders and admirals and Snyder being the one that actually picked it. By the way, real quickly, before we get to this last topic, which is very interesting to me, do you have a guess on all of this stadium? Talks. in Prince William County, Loudoun County, everything Virginia is doing to kind of clear the way to make it possible to build the stadium in Virginia. Do you have a thought on that?

Do you think D.C. and Maryland are dead? They're dead. Glenn Yonkin is a businessman. Glenn Yonkin, like Danny, were, you know, fairly right in the same political mode. You know, Kevin, I do a morning political talk show. I don't do sports. I do a political talk show out of Richmond

and on the Odyssey afternoon. just like you. And they are, Glenn's a good, solid businessman, having come from Carlisle. He comes from the Danny's world. There is money to be made, despite the Danny.

There's money to be made by the jurisdiction that brings the business there based on tax revenue and what develops around. And the stumbling block was politically, it looked not achievable

to give a guy as hated as Dan Snyder, a billion dollars of breaks. Well, Glenn Yonkin's base is not going to be bothered. He's going to say I'm bringing jobs to Virginia. His base is not bothered by allegations by Deborah Katz about how women were called or their names. And so this is a business deal to bring a sports team to a state that doesn't have one. And the downside to Glenn Yonkin isn't particularly great

from dealing with the Danny, whereas Muriel Bowser has a way different world. And if Tom Perez ended up as governor of Maryland or Peter Francho or Doug Gansler, they can't possibly give money out to Dan Snyder. So this is now a no-brainer. It's going to Virginia. It'll be subsidized by the citizens of Virginia, but there's a good business case for it. And if you don't have to hold your nose for who you're dealing with, which politically they don't in Virginia, for Glenn, the deal will be cut.

And I'm sure, now, by the way, the deal would have been cut in Terry, Terry McCallis won as well. He's a businessman. Right. It just would have had a little more distance to it. All right. Let's get to this last topic that I know that you want to discuss, and I'm very interested in your thoughts,

because while all the Snyder stuff has been going on, the league's also been dealing, well, as you mentioned, they're now dealing with the Cowboys situation. But they've been dealing with the Brian Flores' allegation. of racial discrimination, of sham interviews from minority coaching candidates, etc. Rooney rule stuff. And, by the way, as part of his overall accusations, he also stated that Dolphins owner Stephen Ross offered him $100,000 for each loss back in 2019.

I know you have some strong thoughts on both. Let's start with the racial discrimination piece to this. Right. So my reaction comes from really smart. people, you and Neil from Rockville, Peter King, everyone's saying, well, compared to Snyder, Ross is dead in the water if they prove these allegations, and just legally it is off. So let's talk first about the racial discrimination allegations. First, there is no question there's a history of racial discrimination in the league. That's not an issue that we've talked about

many times through Colin Kaepernick and the like. And the 70-page complaint focuses on that a great deal, and no one's disputing that. There is also no doubt that there are some terrible individual racist and bigots. You just have to look at the John Gruden email. I mean, he's also calling Joe Biden of pussy, and he calls people the F word if they're gay, and he's throwing everyone the P word if you're a Democrat or if you're gay, and he's no better on black. And he's, you know, that's who he is.

He's a bigot. you know, that's who's there. He looks to be a bigot. I haven't reached a judgment. I don't want any defamation here or the like. But from what I see, it shows pretty bad. But there's no doubt about that. The question is, in the treatment now, in the hiring of coaches, do we have a league problem?

And the allegations and the analysis are so misguided. And the reason it's important, Kevin, is not because we ought to give the NFL, we ought to give the NFL a good name to defend it, but because racial discrimination law matters. And it's important, let's say, this same week Tesla had a claim of racial discrimination, where people on the assembly line were largely black and the dirty jobs, the job no one wants, but then of the people who get promoted from that line to be supervisor, they're the whites.

And that's important to preserve that doctrine. So let's see what the plaintiffs tried to do in the NFL. They have just so many non-sequiters there. First, they argue that the reason you know there's racial discrimination in the picking of coaches, GMs, and coordinators, is that although the player base is 70% black, the GM's, coaches, and coordinators are roughly 20% black. Now, remember, blacks are roughly 14% of the population. So if you were just picking any job and you wanted to see if the good jobs were under 14% significantly versus, but what they say is no, no, no, no. The pool is the 70% player pool.

And so 70% of the players are black, but they pretend that as you then get promoted to defensive coordinator or you get promoted to coach. where you get promoted to GM, discrimination hits in. That has two massive non-sequiters there. First, the 70% black in the league isn't because those are dirty, horrible jobs, entry-level jobs from which people are trying to get promoted to be coordinator and coach, like on the Tesla assembly line, where you're taking minimum wage jobs, and then who's getting promoted? The minimum wage jobs of 70%,

but the promotions then turn out to be 70% white. That's where race discrimination law is important. Those 70% black jobs are the most sought-after jobs in our world. For every NFL player, black, white, Latino, or Chilean who gets a job, there are tens and hundreds of thousands of whites, blacks, and Chileans and Latinos who have gone to camps all their summer for football and worked on passing schools, and the like, and they can't get in the league. So those jobs, the average income is $2 million a year. There's 34 players making $20 million a year. Those are not assembly line jobs and Tesla.

But more importantly, the fact that 70% of the workers, quote unquote, are black, and only 20% of management, is because you don't get promoted from the assembly line through the head of the assembly line. Coaches, particularly today, but really ever, don't come from the pool of players. You're not limited to the pool of players, so let's take a look at the leading coaches today. First, we've got, well, Sean McVeigh. How many years did Sean McVeigh play in the NFL? Sean McVeigh never played in the NFL? Let's go to his opposition. Zach Taylor of Cincinnati. Zach Taylor, I believe, played for the Omaha Rough Riders in some week.

He never was in the NFL. Kyle Shanahan never got to the NFL. Matt LaFourer never got to the NFL. Mike McDaniel, who was just hired at Miami for the Brian Forrest position, he's 5'9, 175 pounds. He is black, by the way. His father's black. He qualifies his minor higher.

but he went to Yale and didn't get to go on the field at Yale. Andy Reid never played in the NFL. Brian Dable, who got the job in New York, played for the Rochester at college, never went near the NFL. Nick Siriani played for the Canton Legends of the Indoor Football League. Mike McCarthy never played. Lovie Smith, black or white. They don't come from the players.

Lovie Smith never played. Vince Lombardi never played. He was on the Brooklyn Eagles. So it's meaningless to say, it's like saying 70% of the NFL players are black, but only 20% of nurses are black. So it's a complete non-so you know nothing from it to find out if there's racial discrimination today. In the hiring of Mike McDaniel, for example, you have to look if whites and blacks are applying for the starting jobs. for the quality control guys or the interns. Now, we happen to know, you know personally,

and everyone your fans knows, two people, they would say, you know, there might be some discrimination in getting jobs in this league, because you believe the smartest football person that you know, and all your fans believe that the smartest football person they know, he tried to get a quality control internship. His name is Chris Cooley. And he couldn't get, he told us all, he couldn't get an interview for a quality control position, let alone a tight end coach.

Now, if Cooley was black, you'd say it must be racial discrimination. No, it's a very limited who you know and what they think of unique. So when Mike McDaniel, who is black and graduated from Yale got his job, did he get it over blacks or whites? and when quality control guys get hired today and work up their system, whether they are Matt LaFleur or Kyle Shanahan or Zach Taylor, are they getting it instead of black? That could tell you whether there's racial discrimination. But the essence of the plaintiff's suit,

that 70% of the workforce are black, but 20% of that makes no sense. Wow. So, you know, you really approached it from such, a logical way based on the way that you're saying that this discrimination suit

is based on. Because really, at the end of the day, it's almost like should we say that there's discrimination against non-Blacks for the NFL's best jobs, which are the jobs of being a player? Because you've essentially,

you know, I'm sitting here as I'm listening to you. I'm like, being a player is a better job than being a coordinator, pays better. It's a better job than being a, You know, a GM in many cases pays much better than a GM job. And in many cases, it pays much better than a coach's job. The highest paid employees in the sport are players. So to base it on that really doesn't make a lot of sense.

Now, you still could go the route of saying and not tying it to the percentage of the, you know, the base players. you said, comparing them to like an assembly line worker is a joke because the best jobs in this particular company or business are actually the jobs that make up that 70% of non-whites have in the business. So they're getting the best jobs right now, the highest paying jobs. I'm pretty sure that that's true. Being a player on average is a higher paying job than being a coach. or certainly being a coordinator and probably even being a general manager. With that said, it doesn't address directly that blacks aren't getting hired as coaches as much as many people think. It shouldn't be tied.

You've made total sense. It shouldn't be tied based on the percentage of the workplace, of the lowly workers, who actually in this particular business have the best jobs. highest paying jobs. But the Rooney Rule has produced, to me, intuitively, a sham process. Let's turn to two things there, Kevin. First, it doesn't address that blacks aren't getting hired in the percentages people think. It's because of the myth of the 70 percent. The fact that 34 percent of defensive coordinators are black in a society where 14 percent of males are black. To me, it's surprising that it's that high because you don't have to run of 40.

You don't have to bench press. You don't have to have on-field reaction times to be a defensive coordinator. You can be a nerd from Bronx Science that had no football team and be a fabulous defensive coordinator. It's just the myth of the 70% worker that gets there. Second the Rooney Rule. Let's turn to the Rooney Rule. Brian Forres is absolutely, absolutely correct that he got, they're not called sham interviews. I would call them pro forma interviews. They are interviews that say, I'm David Shane, I just got hired from Buffalo, and I had in my mind all the time that when I get a GM job and finally go from assistant

GM of Buffalo to GM at the Giants, I'm going to hire Brian Daebel. I've known him forever. Right. So that's how this league works, black, white, or Latino. But 20 years ago, the Rooney. the people on the Rooney Committee, which was the Committee of the Leading Black, and made a great deal of sense,

said, you know, we get that. We can't tell a David Chain he shouldn't hire Brian Daebel, who he's worked with for years and the like, but that leads to a problem, which is no one gets to know the quality black potential coaching candidates. And those candidates get no experience

interviewing. Right. So even if you know you're going to hire a Brian Daibel, you should talk to a couple of blacks to get to know them. Maybe they'll become the coordinator, or maybe you'll think of them down the line, and they'll get some experience. Fast forward 20 years later, where there are quality blacks being fought for for coaches, where Mike McDaniel, a black out of Yale, basically zooms.

He goes from, you know, quality control intern. He's a brilliant guy. He's the Sean McVeigh mode. He zooms to the head coaching job right away in that world. in the world where Lovie Smith comes back and gets there in that world, if you called Lovie Smith and said, do you want a pro-former interview? He doesn't need a pro-former interview,

but if you call Chris Cooley and said, look, I'm likely hiring Brian Dable for, I'm David Chain, I'm the new general manager of the Giants. I'm almost certainly hiring Brian Dable. I've worked with him for years, but I'd be happy to give you a pro-former interview, hear what you think about the Giants, give you some experience interviewing for head coaching, would you be interested?

Cooley would say, what the heck, I can use the experience and he gets to know me. Sure. That was the Rooney Rule for Black. But when you would apply it to a Brian Forres, don't waste my time. I've got my own credentials. It's like asking Belichick to do it. No, I don't need that. When you have a serious job, call me.

But the point is, the Rooney Rule requires them to do it. Right. So the Rooney Rule needs to be changed. Yeah, that's where I was going with it, because Leslie Frazier, in a lot of the pro forma slash, you know, check a box interviews are ridiculous because these are known people. These are known resumes. These are people who have interviewed before. So how would you fix the Rooney Rule? So I would say that people ought to disclose here's where I'm thinking. So if it's Eric by enemy, what I would tell him is, You were fascinating. You're unbelievably successful. I'd love to get to know you.

I suspect my general manager is leaning towards Brian Daibel, but I'm going to keep an open mind. You may not get it, but I'm going to keep an open mind. Or I would tell him, look, we're hiring Daible this time, but I've got an opening, and it would be tampering to talk to you another time. Well, before I had the opening, I'd love to get to know you. I'm not sure whether Dable works out. I'm not sure about our offensive coordinator,

but this is the only time I'm allowed to talk without tampering. Would you do it? Or the third call would be there's a Rooney rule. This is going to be pro forma, but I fly you out, and it's always nice to know you. And then the Eric by enemy could make a rational choice. What you need. So that's the Rooney rule is outlived its usefulness. People ought to be more clear.

but I believe now that if Mike McDaniel succeeds, he'll be a hot coach, and I believe Ryan Flores would likely have gotten another coaching job this year or next. But we talked the other person you know so well that you would think, huh, is Jay Gruny. Jay is a smart offensive mind. He was on your show. He's a smart offensive mind. He's known it in the league. He's come close a bunch of times, but not.

gotten back yet, but Jay will get a job. That's how these jobs are, and that's true whether it's Jay or Brian. I think most of the owners, I can't say if there's a bigot or two in the crowd or five. They might not hire Democrats. They might not hire Jews. They might not hire gay, they might not hire Black. But I think most will hire someone if they know they will go to the Super Bowl. They're looking for the winner. And I think Brian Forres and Jay Grun will get their shot that way without the Rooney Rule. Are you surprised real quickly, because I want to move to the other allegation about Stephen Ross.

Are you surprised that Pittsburgh and Mike Tomlin and that organization offered Brian Flores a job, and that Flores accepted that job? No, I'm not. Here's the only problem. I was hoping that Rivera would call and say, look, Del Rio hasn't exactly been performing great. Okay.

You're right. Come on as a special assistant for us. And if it doesn't work out with Del Rio, you'll get the defense next year. And by the way, I'll be in your four. You're likely to get a head coaching job. I would have done that. Why? Because I'd love to have Brian Forres fixing our defense.

So it makes total sense. Here's the only problem with it. If I do bring them on, I want a coach focused 100% on our team, not distracted by litigation. I want, look, I so wish you hadn't brought it not because I care if you're a plaintiff or not, not because you shouldn't excise your rights. It's just because whatever happens with the league, I want you, I'm hoping you end up our head coach, because I'm hoping our defense improves to number one next year that you figure out how to get Montez-swet and Chase Young to have facts without letting quarterback scramble.

I'm hoping to do it, and if you do, the problem is before you get to be our head coach, someone else will snatch you. So Tomlin knows talent. Tomlin makes sense. The Roonies are fabulous people. So they would bend over backwards to fix it, but any team that was smart would have brought Flores on to help with their defense if he'd take it. Is there a little bit

of a statement here that says like just comparing it to the Colin Kaepernick situation from this standpoint. Brian Flores, when he filed this lawsuit, you know, essentially people said, well, he'll be blackballed from this point moving forward. He'll never ever get an

NFL job again. Colin Kaepernick never got a job again. I'm not so sure that Colin Kaepernick really wanted a job at some point. At some point it became probably as valuable not to be an NFL quarterback as it was to be an NFL quarterback, but that the league essentially is going to hire people who are super high quality and that can really help them. And that happened with Flores despite most people saying that he'd never get a job in the league again. See, I don't think he'd be blackballed because he went after the league. In fact, I honestly believe they say Goodell's in the complaint is patronizing, and when he said, you know, we were wrong about Kaepernick after George Floyd.

He was just, he's being disingenuous. I actually believe the league felt bad for Flores, and I actually believe they know his quality. The only issue would be not the nerve of that guy he sued the league, but will this distract it all from fixing our defense? So I think it made good business sense. It made sense for lots of teams. Sure, some might say, not in my organization.

But that just depends on the quality of your leadership and your ownership. And that starts with either Baltimore or Pittsburgh is the best there are. Meantime, it does not impact his ongoing discrimination suit at all, that he's working for the business that he is suing. Not at all. Yeah, I didn't think so. Not at all. They don't make it better. Right.

Okay. So I want to hear your thoughts, per usual with you. We end up going much longer than I had anticipated or you had anticipated, but I hope you don't mind. What about the allegation that Stephen Ross offered him 100 grand to lose a football game? That's the one I think is most important to address. It's the one that Peter King says gets Ross kicked out of the league or it perhaps indicted. There's conversations about that.

And for you and Neil to say, boy, that one's serious, here's where I come down first. you have to separate it in your mind. The reason of thinking gets skewed is you're confusing it implicitly with the case where someone offers a player or a coach money to lose because the person offering the bribe has financial economic incentive. They've made a bet, and they're fixing the game. That case is clearly illegal, and that case has absolutely nothing to do what was happening. happening here. No one's alleging that Ross wanted to lose because he's betting on the side to make money. So that's the first one. Separate that case. That case is illegal.

By the way, I understand that completely. And I've never really tied Stephen Ross's offer or alleged offer to Brian Flores to lose football games to the fact that he had the other team laying six points at all. But it goes to the tanking issue. So go ahead. But that's where even the pick of the word tanking as opposed to strategic losing. So let's look at it next. Second, once you get past that first case, there is no rule in the NFL, no statement at all about whether you have to try to win every game or whether you can strategically not put your best effort, whether you win or lose. Right. So, for example, The problem now is the owner goes back to Jeff Pash.

You need to adopt a rule today. If you want to claim that what Stephen Ross was alleged to have done is wrong, you need to have a rule today, but it's not going to be so easy. So, for example, if you've already clinched your playoff position and you've got a game or two left, can you rest your starters? Yes. Okay. So if you can rest your starters then, then you were saying it's perfect.

perfectly acceptable in the league, not to try to win, do everything you can to win every game. That's where you're there. Second, if you're eliminated, if you're eliminated, can you play your young people because you're trying to find out strategically in the long term what they've got and what's best for your team? Right. And you're going to give me a yes again. Yeah. These are all things we as football fans understand happen.

And what you're saying is, you can put the strategic long-term interests of the team, the fans, and the city ahead of winning. Right. Once you join me there, Kevin, once you join me that it's proper to put the strategic long-term interests of the team, the fans, and the city ahead of winning the game, then where you are right at is the next hypo that gets us there.

If you believe, and it happens to be that you would be right, If you believe that if you lose the most games in a year, you will get Joe Burrow. And then your team, your shareholders, your fans, and your city will be transformed from 30 years of losers, from people like Jason Campbell and John Bex and Rexy Sexy and all of that, to the New England Patriots, to the dominant team because you've got the dominant quarterback, You'll be joining Kansas City and the Packers as long as Rogers every year in the equation. Right. Cincinnati's the third favorite.

If you believe that's true, yes. Do you have the right? I'm going to go the next step. Do you have the fiduciary duty to try to achieve that for your shareholders, your fans, your city? And can you do that? And if you've already agreed, you can put the strategic long-term interests of the team, the fans in the city over winning a particular game, that should be a yes.

The answer is yes, but the problem then becomes you are now admitting that not all of your games have competitive integrity. And once you go down that path of, and you're right, I mean, by the way, I don't know if you're right or not, I'm guessing that as, you know, one of 32 that you still have a fiduciary responsibility to your owners, to your investors of your specific team, to your fan base, to your customers to do your best to try to win the Super Bowl, which may be, and the answer may fall, and it certainly could, the best chance we have is to lose every single game or lose almost all of them and get the number one pick. I'm not disagreeing with that. What I think the issue becomes,

especially now more than ever, not that the league was never. you know, influenced and enhanced by gambling is that there is the expectation from the customer that there is competitive integrity, not in every game, because you pointed out a couple of examples what we all know. End of the year, you're resting your starters before playoffs. We understand that the competitive integrity of that particular game has been compromised, or a team at the end of the year that's playing young players. But if you try to do that for 17 consecutive games start to finish, even though it may be in the

best interest of you, how do you then sell that to the largesse of your customer base, that some of these games will not have competitive integrity? Kevin, so we now know what you are. We're just trying to figure out the price. So let's go through this and we'll be there. Let's talk about the winners and the victims of this strategy, and you'll see it's a perfectly illegal strategy. So the winners we've already established, if you're going to be the Patriots for the next 10 years versus what the Bengals were for the last 10 years or the Redskins,

the winners long-term are your team, your shareholders, your fan, and your city. They all win. So let's see who the potential losers are. Is there something wrong with this system, with the tanking to get burrowed to become that, with regard to betters? But you've already admitted that part of betting, part of setting the line and part of placing your bets is understanding not just who is the fastest and strongest players, but the motivation in that game. So the betting line will vary if a coach is expected to rest his start-ins in the next to last game or the last game. Yes. The betting line. We understand that. We understand what happens in specific, in a couple of, you know, unique situations?

Well, it's not that unique. So if, and also people bet on the exhibition games. Okay. Some coaches admit they won't play a starter all year. Right. So now the question is not protecting the betters, but having the betters do a better job of understanding motivation. Is Miami going to try to tank the season to get burrow?

Now, as this has gotten to making up some nonsense, we know the exact same situation exists and has existed for years in the NBA. That's the reason the NBA had to put a lottery in. People bet on the NBA games. I know where you're going with this, and I'm not about to dispute the legality of it. What I'm saying is, is it a good thing for the customer? Put the betting aside. Take the betting part of it and the point spread creation aside. Is it better for the overall NFL customer to watch a product in September and October

where you've got multiple teams that are essentially tanking? But it's in the best interest of their own franchise. It's the right thing to do from a fiduciary standpoint for everybody invested in that club and every fan and every element of their city. But is it the right thing for the overall league to sort of allow that to happen? And by the way, if it is okay, well, then Stephen Ross doesn't have to pay Brian Flores 100 grand to lose games. He can just order it. No, so let's go talk about it.

I said we would cover who are the beneficiaries and the victims of the strategy. We agree that the beneficiaries long term are the shareholders, the city, and the fans. All right, who are the victims? The fans that you have to take care of. The fans that season, the fans that season could say, I paid good money to watch a competitive game. Sure. I don't want to pay. I don't want to pay for a year where you're just losing, to which I say you may well be obligated to do one or two things.

You can offer the fans for that year a complete refund, but when you get Burrow and are going to the Super Bowl the next year, in favor the next year and in the equation for the following 10 years, you're going to sell their season ticket to someone else if they took the refund. So they can decide, they get to have full knowledge. You can't fool them. They should get full knowledge. Do they want to invest with you on the long term? And if they say no, they're entitled to their money back, but they haven't invested so they don't get the benefits of the investment. That's the one class. It's a let's make a deal which door do you want. But go ahead.

Who else are the victims? Players who have incentive clauses for that year, every player incentive clause in the NFL and in the NBA, ought to say if the club's strategic and tactical interests have interfered with earning my bonus, then I get my bonus anyway. That's the second one, and that should be there, not there's anything wrong with deciding I'm benching my best players.

John Wall sat the full year. Not that there's anything wrong that says I'm benching my best players. It's just that by doing so for a proper strategic long-term interest of the team, you've hurt my compensation. That ought to be handled in the contracts themselves. And the third victim is the coach. The coach says, I only have five years. and if you put on my resume, O'N17, for gosh sake, after you and Galdi are screaming at Rivera,

don't win this last game because that could have cost us Malik Willis. Probably cost us a second round draft pick. We're going to have to trade up to six or something to get Willis because you won that last game. Right. Okay. So coach players, incentives, fans, season ticket holders, any other victims? Here's what you do with the coach. You extend, you say, I'll either pay you $100,000 a game to compensate you for your losses.

That sounds familiar. Or I would offer him a one-year extension and say, would you rather have five years of eight and nine or one year of 0 and 16 and then Joe Burrow is your quarterback and we're at the Super Bowl and you are now Zach Taylor who had a terrible record and is now the toast of the week. Okay. Any other victims? That's it. So I'll just, here's my, I followed all of it.

Hopefully everybody else did as well. Here's the problem with it. You've got an entertainment business, and that's not very entertaining, period. It's not good for the customer. It's not good for the customer to tune in and get excited about their team in any given year for September and October games and find out that it's perfectly acceptable. We know it's legal. It's perfectly acceptable for coaches and players and fans themselves to be incented with losing.

It's just not entertaining. You'll call tomorrow, Kevin. Would you have preferred that the Redskins went, Owen 16, two years ago? And the-and-gut and Joe Burrow. Yes. Joe Burrow, we would have been in the play. But by the way, that's a hindsight question. And the other part of this with the NFL is tanking doesn't guarantee anything.

I mean, as we know, the greatest players in the history of the game aren't necessarily picked at number one or number two overall consistently. It's the way the league's also set up this fine line of parity where you're really never that far off from competing for something. But I get— Let's amend your poll. Let's amend your poll tomorrow. because we'll take the Kevin situation. We had a number one draft pick last year for whom the jury was out, Trevor Lawrence. So would you have been willing to go, Owen 16, two years ago?

I'm going to vote, yes. You're asking me, and I don't believe that, by the way, any of the... And if the Stephen Ross situation gets resolved this way, you know, by the way you laid it out, all right like there's nothing that legally says we can't you know try to lose football games because it's actually in the best interest and look at all of the beneficiaries of this and by the way we're going to compensate all of the victims for for for for what they're enduring as we go through this if they actually go down that path and resolve it that way I will I mean I don't know how much would be worth it in a bet but there's no

way it gets resolved that way. So how do you think it gets resolved? I know. So last question on the Stephen Ross thing. How do you think it gets resolved? I think it gets resolved. I mean, the NBA tried to legislate it out and finally they had to adopt the lottery because everyone was tanking because the NBA is different. The NBA is clear. If you know LeBron James is coming out next year, and you get LeBron James or Dimwitty is number two, everybody tries to tank. And if you don't tank, the sports radio lines would be going nuts, saying, how could you not try to get, well, Brown James will be a dominant equivalent forever. Sure, of course.

Well, that's right. So the way I think Pash has to ultimately handle it is the competition committee has to pass a rule that will probably say, except in the case at the end of the year where your playoff status is set and you're trying to rest starters. or after you've been eliminated from any chance of the playoffs and you're trying to see your young players, that you have an obligation to try to win every game by the use of players and strategies that most maximize your chance of actually winning the game.

Right. That's where I think they have to come out, even though without it, that doesn't, it is not the smartest move for an owner of a team. Now, I'm not saying Ross actually did it. I'm saying Ross's defenses. I never said it. If those words came out, that was a joke.

We ought to pay you to lose so we could get Burrough. I'm not saying he said it, but I'm saying it doesn't matter because the analysis by everyone that it would be so terrible is 100% backwards. You know, the funny thing about their 2019 season is they weren't really tanking for Burrough. They were tanking for the guy they ultimately got. because at the beginning of the 2019 season, nobody was talking about tanking for Burrow. Nobody even knew who Burrow was, you know, at the beginning of that season.

They were tanking for Tua. They ultimately got Tua, not the right quarterback. We don't think at this point, certainly. But what is interesting about that season is that their first like seven games were lost by like an average, except for the Washington game, which was a one-point loss on a weird two-point play. where they had a chance with Fitzpatrick. But before Fitzpatrick came in,

I think they had lost four or five in a row by like an average of like 25 points a game. Like it was clear early on. They were playing the players that really didn't give them much of a chance to be competitive. But that's the other part of it too. You know, when people think of tanking, and I'm not saying you feel this way or think this way.

But when people think of tanking, they think of the players themselves as actually, you know, missing an open shot or dropping a pass or whatever. The players that are in the game now, even at the end of the year, in a game in which they've been eliminated or they're resting for the playoffs, they're trying their best because it's their chance. It's their chance to impress somebody and maybe get another contract.

So they're not trying to lose. It's more about the strategies and the players that actually play in the games. And through your victim and beneficiary lists, essentially the victims are getting paid to be even more victims, you know, when they get in there and play. So you don't think it'll get resolved this way, but I do really, really appreciate and find fascinating the way you laid it all out because, of course, it makes a lot of sense. And I actually don't know the answer to one thing. I wonder if there is something in the real. rulebook or in the bylaws somewhere that says, you know, to every single owner, you have an obligation to try to win, you know, every game you play. I wonder if there is something in there already. If that were true, every single person who wrecked their starters. I know, would be in

violation of it, but it could be overlooked. The Eagles pulled out Jay and Hurd. I know. So they So they could tag to get Devonthe Smith at seven. They traded back and got him at 12. I know, I know. Well, it wasn't seven, yeah, it was nine or ten and whatever. But I get it. Yeah, but I bet you, I'm not betting you. I wouldn't be shocked if there is something somewhere that speaks to avoiding this scenario

that Stephen Ross may have paid Brian Flores to create. I don't know. If it exists, I've looked, I don't see it. I don't see it. And moreover, that would be a problem of enforcement in the league because you can't tell me that it's okay to do it to rest your starters or to play your young people to see them when you're eliminated without saying it's okay to put the strategic long-term interests of your team

above every particular win. And that's all Stephen Ross would have done if he tanks for Burrough. This is always so much fun, and it's a great conversation. I appreciate it so much. Hope you're well. Kevin, my pleasure. Howard Gutman, everybody. God, I love talking to Howard.

Very interesting, thought-provoking, all of those things. I thought the Brian Flores stuff was fascinating. Less so on the Stephen Ross 100 grand to lose games, although it's the way he went down the path of who are the beneficiaries, who are the victims, is this legal to do it? all of that is so interesting. But I think the whole way in which he said, essentially they're going about it the wrong way

on the racial discrimination lawsuit to kind of base it on, you know, percentage of coaches, don't match up to the percentage of players in the league that are black. There was a lot that made sense to me on that. Anyway, I promised to finish up the show with Charlie Taylor remembrance. Charlie Taylor was one of my favorite players as a kid. Now, I don't remember any of the 60s Washington Redskins stuff.

I just wasn't alive for some of it, and I don't remember any of it. The first year of Washington Redskins football that I have in my memory is the George Allen 1971 season. I'm going to save most of the Charlie Taylor discussion because this podcast has gone on far too long already today to do with Tommy tomorrow. But I'm just going to tell you that there are two games that I remember. The game in 71 when they were 5-0, they played at Arrowhead against the great Kansas City chief teams, the Super Bowl 4 championship team.

They weren't the defending champions in 71. They were two years removed from their Super Bowl in 71. But man, those Chiefs teams were famous with all of the Hall of Famers on defense, with Len Dawson and Otis Taylor on offense, with Hank Stram, et cetera. Washington was 5-0 in George Allen's first. year, and they were up 17 to 6 at Arrowhead, and Charlie Taylor broke his leg. He broke his leg, I think, on a touchdown catch. And Washington went on to have a really good season, a playoff season, but they were not the threat they would have been had Charlie Taylor been healthy. They lost that game, by the way, 27 to 20. And then the next year, Charlie Taylor's NFC championship

game on New Year's Eve, 1972 against the Cowboys at RFK, two touchdown catches, including the big one in the fourth quarter with Mark Washington hanging on to Taylor as he pulled in a Billy Kilmer touchdown pass, 45 yards out. They took a 17 to 3 lead. They never looked back. They won the NFC title game. Charlie Taylor was a great, great player. And a big part of this organization for so many years. But as a player, and the one thing Tommy and I will spend some time on tomorrow, you could argue and you wouldn't be that far off. off. In fact, I haven't even given it a lot of thought, but Charlie Taylor may be, other than Sammy Baugh, the greatest offensive player in the history of the franchise, certainly the greatest

offensive skill position player in franchise history. You could make that argument, I believe. A lot more on Charlie Taylor with Tommy tomorrow. Thanks to Nakke, thanks to Howard, back tomorrow.