The Kevin Sheehan Show - Tank For Burrow?

Episode Date: November 11, 2019

Kevin opened with the LSU-Alabama game and the ascension of Joe Burrow to the top of the 2020 NFL Draft board. The Redskins have to find out what they have in Dwayne Haskins the rest of the way in the event they are in position to draft Burrow or Tua...Kevin and Aaron discussed that. Ben Standig/The Athletic was a guest on the show to wrap up the Trent Williams news from late Friday. Kevin went Around the NFL, talked MD-Ohio State, Terps-Rhode Island hoops, and the College Football Playoff chase. <p> </p><p>Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices">podcastchoices.com/adchoices</a></p> Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You want it. You need it. It's what everyone's talking about. The Kevin Sheehan Show. Now here's Kevin. I'm here. Aaron's here. No Redskins game to talk about. They had the buy week. They get the Jets coming up next Sunday. Big game for drafting position. The Jets won yesterday. So did the dolphins. What are they doing? And the Falcons as well. Redskins inching up the 2020 draft board. They're number two right now behind Cincinnati. A good day to everybody. happy Veterans Day and thank you to all of you who have served in our armed forces and served in awards. We appreciate all that you do and we think of you on a day like today. Antonio Brown, by the way, was a big part of the conversation on Friday. And I said to you, I'm ready for Antonio Brown. Well, according to Schefter over the weekend, Antonio Brown's not playing for anybody this year. He has not yet been put on the commissioner's exempt list or suspended, but is still being investigated for multiple claims of sexual assault made against him in that civil lawsuit in Florida. And Schefter reported that if somebody decides to sign him,

that he will be immediately placed on the commissioner's exempt list, and he's not going to play football in the NFL this year. So there goes that. Back to the draft position. I mean, what is Miami thinking? Ryan Fitzpatrick is not. now two and two as a starter since coming in in the fourth quarter in that game against the Redskins where he nearly led them to a win after trailing 17 to 3.

He's 2 and 2. In the two games they lost Aaron, they led in both of those games at Buffalo and at Pittsburgh on Monday night. They are really doing a poor job of tanking for Tua or for Burrow, more on that coming up. What are they doing going out and

winning games against good teams on the road? I know Jacoby Brissette didn't play a game, yesterday, but still, that's a good win for Miami to go into Indianapolis and win. I remember when we were talking about, I think it was, I don't know if it was us or at the other show we were talking about win totals around the league. And I said the dolphins might be too low simply because Fitzpatrick was going to screw around and win them a few games. And that's exactly what happened here. No doubt that's happened. They, you know, yesterday the NFL board first of all saw for the first time in 18 years,

a team that had lost six in a row, beat a team that had won six in a row. row coming in. That was Atlanta over New Orleans. Atlanta went off as a 13 and a half, 14 point underdog in that game, and Miami won as an 11 point underdog outright. So unfortunately, those were not the two big underdogs I was on. I was on Cincinnati as a big underdog, and that didn't quite work out. Now, did it. I was also on Carolina, and we're going to get to that game here momentarily. including, by the way, we'll get to the other NFL games and last night's game as well. But, you know, the Redskins didn't play yesterday,

but they did gain ground in this, you know, 20-20 draft positioning situation. The Bengals are 0-8. Right now they would have the number one pick. The number two pick as of today would be the Redskins at 1 and 8. They're the only other team with one win or zero wins. Bengals 0, Redskins won. After that, you got a bunch of teams. right now with two wins.

You have the giants, the dolphins, the Jets, and the Falcons all have two wins. And listen to some of these heavyweight matchups to the rest of the way. All right? Cincinnati still plays the Jets and the Dolphins. The Jets still have the Bengals and the Redskins. The Redskins still have the Giants and the Jets, and the Giants still have the Dolphins and the Redskins. Oh, and the Red Hot Dolphins?

They still have the Giants, Jets, and Bengals. I mean, Ryan Fitzpatrick could really single-handedly take the number one pick potentially, which it looked like Miami would have at one point, and they could end up having very easily the sixth, seventh, eighth pick in the draft, ninth pick in the draft, when all of said and done. It's also thinking about Ryan Fitzpatrick, if the Redskins had signed him instead of Case Keenham in the offseason, first of all, they wouldn't have had to trade for him. Secondly, the Redskins would be at least a three-win team right now with Ryan Fitzpatrick playing. Wouldn't matter.

They'd still suck. They'd be three and five. He would have lost a few games single-handedly, but he would have won one or two single-handedly. No doubt. Yeah, which is always his MO. He's going to win some games for you like he asks for Miami and he'll lose some games for you. But the Redskins, well, he wouldn't have beaten, he would have still beaten Miami as the Redskins starter because he wouldn't have had himself to contend with late in the game.

I wanted to start before we go around the NFL with what we saw on Saturday and what was, you know, another one of these games of the century in college football. We talked a lot about it on Friday. It was a game we were all anticipating, of course, in years past. LSU and Bama never lived up to the billing. You didn't have points. You usually had one-sided games in which Bama had won. Alabama had won eight in a row coming in. They had three shutouts over LSU over the last eight years. You're going back to the last time LSU won in one of these heavyweight late season matchups with Bama, they won nine to six. So it was expected, as we talked about on Friday, to be a much different game because LSU's got Joe Burrow and they've got Joe Brady,

the offensive coordinator that they got from the Saints who had worked with Sean Peyton. And they've been a completely different team, completely different LSU team. You know, the knock against LSU over the years is, They've had as much talent as Alabama and Ohio State, but they just haven't had an offensive scheme or a quarterback to match up with those teams. And that's why they've always sort of come up short, despite putting loads of NFL talent into the league. I mean, they've had, you know, in some cases, better recruiting classes than Alabama and more pros than Alabama. But the quarterback position in offensively is where they've really come up short.

And this year, you sort of knew it early on when they went to Austin and hung 45. on Texas and then they started scoring in the 60s. It was totally unlike LSU teams of the past. When LSU blew out a bad team in the past, it was 37 to 7. You know, maybe it was 45 to 10. It wasn't 65 to 14, 66 to 38. Like they were putting up massive numbers and Joe Burrow was already becoming and had already become after the Texas game, really,

a guy that had gone from, you know, sort of another sort of, of LSU guy last year, not going to amount to much, to a first round consideration in the 2020 draft. And then in recent weeks with his performances against Florida in particular, which is really a great football game, Florida was out, it was without that night, two of its best defensive players. But Burrow went 21 of 24, threw for three touchdowns, had some big runs in the game, and that was like, oh boy, this guy, look at him too, the way he played. he looks like the real deal here. So now, you know, going into the Bama game,

he was pretty much a projected top 10, worst case. Some people had already moved him up to the top spot. After Saturday, he is the prohibitive favorite to win the Heisman trophy and a strong favorite to be the number one pick in the NFL draft. And with the obvious prefacing of this, which is, We don't know that much about evaluating college players. It's a crapshoot. We're wrong all the time.

NFL experts who cover the sport are wrong all the time. And people who get paid to make these picks are wrong all the time. First round quarterbacks are basically like a 25 to 30% hit rate. So with all of that understood, we are still fans of the sport. We still watch and we still have opinion. My opinion about Joe Burrough is he's the next great thing. Like he's the guy that's by the time we get to April and the 2020 draft, he's going to get evaluated in the same way that some of the real great quarterbacks in recent years that we've talked about.

Like Andrew Luck was the recent, you know, can't miss quarterback. Highest, I think, I believe that if you go back and look at the grades on Andrew Luck, he's the highest rated quarterback in recent history. And I think Burroughs going to get to that level. That's my opinion. Could be totally wrong about that. You know, a lot of people have liked other guys. Not as much.

Would you agree? Like, I'm trying to think of all the guys here in recent years. You know, I think a lot of people like James Winston. I think Andrew Luck is the highest rated QB in the last 10 years. Cam Newton sort of, but not to begin with, but by the time we got to the draft, a lot of people have had evaluated differently. A lot of people liked it, but even then, he was still kind of the project. Stafford was rated really high. Stafford was rated high. Coming out. Bradford was rated pretty high. Bradford was rated pretty high coming out. But yeah, luck is definitely the gold standard. I think Burroughs going to be the next luck by the time we get there. Could be completely wrong and it may not even matter.

I mean, as it turns out, luck was really good, just injury prone in a shortened career. But luck was definitely a guy that sort of had, we knew that he was an elite quarterback talent at the NFL level. You know, you can talk about the injuries and you can talk about the shortened career. Andrew Luck, if he had stayed healthy, if he had probably was going to be one of the all-time great NFL quarterbacks. I think Joe Burrow has that in him. To me, Saturday, I felt it going into Saturday, but there's no chance if I had the number one pick in the draft, I would take anybody but Joe Burrow. Unless I already had Aaron Rogers or, you know, if I were in New England, I would take Joe Burrow. But they're not going to have the number one pick in the draft.

Right. But if I'm any of these teams that potentially have the number one pick in the draft, including the two teams that have just drafted quarterbacks in the last two years, the Giants and the Jets, I'm taking Joe Burrow. I am. Well, what about the third team? that took a quarterback recently that should be in the top five? Well, yeah, I'm taking Joe Burrow. Now, that gets me to the conversation that I wanted to have here at the top. And I did it for a while this morning on radio and took calls on this.

And that is that if you weren't sure before Saturday, you are sure now that we got to see Haskins here for seven games. And we got to have this eight-game snapshot. And it may not tell us everything we need to know, but it's got to give us a lien one way or the other. Because if the Redskins are sitting there, you may say Tua, you may feel the same way about Tua Tunga Viola. You might. I think that way about Burrow. I don't think that way about Justin Herbert. I don't think that way about Jake Fromm or Jake Eatsam or Jalen Hertz. I do feel that way about Joe Burrow. What do I like about Joe Burrow? He's got the size. He can make every throw.

He throws with anticipation. He throws accurately from the pocket. He throws accurately on the move. He has great feel in the pocket, great vision in the pocket. Watch him. He looks like a pro quarterback going across the board with his reeds. Looking a safety off, throwing back to the guy he knows he can throw to. He's also very mobile and big and strong as a mobile guy. You know, one of those guys that's very luckish, you know, Andrew Lucklike. I think he's got a lot of Aaron Rogers in him. He's able to create, make throws, extending plays, make plays with his legs, everything about Joe Burrow I like. And yes, I do know that Dwayne Haskins beat him out at Ohio State. I'm very familiar with that. Wouldn't mean anything to me. That's three years ago, right? J.T. Barrett beat both of them out. Okay, so what does that mean?

I mean, Joe, you can't go back and look at the evaluations from two, three years ago. You've got to evaluate him now. What do you see now? I see Aaron Rogers. I see Andrew Luck. I see that kind of talent. That's what I see. Going back to OTAs, mini camp, training camp, early season, midseason, when I've been screaming about wanting to see Dwayne Haskins much sooner rather than later. A big part of it was I knew what was coming in 2020. And I said that over and over again. Some of you thought, oh my, what are you talking about drafting a quarterback in 2020. Well, I hope that they don't have to draft a quarterback in 2020, but I better

damn know what I have before 2020. I need to know what I have. And eight games may not be enough. That's why I wanted him to play 12 games or 13 games or 14 games. What we do know for sure is that they haven't felt like he was very good or very ready to play on a terrible football team. before the ninth week of the season. That's a bit of a red flag, as we've talked about. It certainly is an indication that they overdrafted him, but it doesn't mean that he's not going to end up being great. I actually feel better about him than I did when he came out of the draft.

I think I've expressed that. I was not a fan of him coming out of Ohio State as a first round pick. If you told me I could have gotten Dwayne Haskins in the second round or third round, yes. let's take a flyer on that, not at 15 overall. And the franchise, the Redskins football people, didn't have that grade on him. Dan and Bruce did. Dumb and Dumber did. You know, Kyle Smith and the football people had a second round grade on Haskins.

Maybe late first they would have taken him if they would have traded back up like they did for sweat. They may be wrong on sweat. I think I don't know. It's early on sweat too. I was a big sweat guy, not a big Haskins guy, in terms of their first two. bicks in the first round. I wanted sweat taking at 15. I'm probably going to look bad about that. I may be totally wrong about Haskins. We're all wrong on these things. Nobody's right all the time. You know what a good draft percentage hit rate is in the NFL? 38% in terms of the entirety of

the draft. If you can hit on 38% of them where they become contributors for more than three seasons, that's 38% of the time. You hit on that. That means 6.5%. 62% of the time you get it dead wrong. It's a really hard thing to do to evaluate young people, especially at the quarterback position where the hit rate's like 20, 25%, somewhere in that range, maybe 30. Just go back. I mean, we've done this before, I mean, many times before. The list of the quarterbacks over the years that have been drafted. You know, last year's draft, 2018, how's the draft of Mayfield, Darnold, Josh Allen, Josh Rosen, and the last guy taken in the first round Lamar Jackson looking. Right now it looks like Jackson. I like Darnold. I do like

Allen a little bit. And I did like Rosen. Rosen doesn't look very good. Mayfield, what a punk he is. I mean, they won yesterday. I watched some of that game as they were switching it around on, on Red Zone, Aaron, because I had Cleveland laying two and a half in the smell test three yesterday by the time we got to kick off. He stinks. Who knows, though? Maybe he'll end up being good. I don't know. Trabisky from the year before. Now, Mahomes and Watson have turned out pretty good. Gough is sort of regressing in the moment. Paxton Lynch, Hakenberg, Winston Marriota, Bortles, Mansell, Bridgewater, E.J. Manuel, Luck Griffin. By the way, did you see the backfield yesterday at one point in Baltimore? The Heisman backfield.

Ingram, Jackson, and Griffin lined up as a running back. And they pitched to him. Came down the line on a little option pitch with Jackson. He pitched to Griffin and he got six or seven yards, I think. He then went into the game late and threw an interception. But man, does he tweet after games he plays in? Platitude after platitude. Look, 2012. All right, Luck Griffin-Tanahill-Weeden.

You know who's playing awfully well right now? It may be the best of the group standing, Ryan Tannahill, who in four starts as three-in-one with Tennessee with three comeback wins. Anyway, it's such a crapshoot. But I love Joe Burrow. I think Joe Burrow looks like one of those guys that any fan, any one of us can look at and say, yeah. So going back to last year's draft, remember, they were talking about the draft of 2020 and all the quarterbacks. But no one was talking about Burrow.

It was Tank Fortua. It was Justin Herbert. It was Jake From. It was Jake Eason. It was potentially maybe what Jalen Hertz could be. Nobody's talking about Joe Burrow last year's draft. Burrow, to me, looks like the number one pick overall, and that to me means that it now becomes paramount for the Redskins to do their best to find out what they have in Dwayne Haskins. If Old Man Callahan even suggests at any point in time that Case Keenham is healthy enough to start and we'll make that decision later. I don't think he'll ever say that about Colt McCoy because Colt was Jay's guy and he can't stand Jay and Jay can't stand him. If he says, it mentions Case Keenham as getting a potential

start the rest of the way, I don't, I just, I'll throw up my arms and just say, you guys all deserve each other, which they do already. You have to play Haskins. You got to keep increasing the workload. You got to get them comfortable. We got to see what we have. Now, that begs, the question, will they be able to identify what they have? Are they too stupid? Of course, that's a concern. We all know that. The people doing the evaluating, the people making the decisions. You know, I just am saying from a fan standpoint, don't you want to see eight games? I would have rather seen 12 or 13. We got to see eight so we have at least a sense of what he is. And I think we will. Now, whether or not they'll be able to determine

what they have, that's a different story. Whether or not they'll even consider a quarterback in 2020 if there's the next Andrew Luck or Aaron Rogers at the top of the draft. Or maybe there are two of them with Tua and with Burrow. I don't think they'll make that move. You know, they're the worst at admitting mistakes. They rarely even recognize the mistakes they make as mistakes. So they can't admit them. They're not going to draft a quarterback. This is for our conversation. See Haskins for eight games. So at the end of the year, we can say, hmm, should they draft the quarterback or shouldn't they? I'm not ready to make up my mind on this. I haven't made up my mind. I want to see Haskins. I would much prefer Haskins to show me that

he can be Matt Ryan or Matt Stafford. Like, I don't think Haskins is going to show me that he's Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, or Aaron Rogers, or Philip Rivers, because I love Philip Rivers. I don't think he's going to show me that. What I would like to see is that he can show me that he's Matt Stafford or Matt Ryan, that there's that kind of potential. That would be awesome. It would be great to know that you have that kind of talent. Now, you've got to put teams around those guys.

They're not going to carry you by themselves. Matt Ryan didn't get to that Super Bowl by himself. He got there with a lot of talent, and by the way, a really good offensive coach in Kyle Shanahan. But if we see something like that, then they can leverage their top pick into a slew of additional picks or into Chase Young. Now, if he shows us that he's Matt Ryan or Matt Stafford rather than Matt Schaub the rest of the way, then more likely than not, they may have won a game or two to put him into a different position with respect to the draft board, where they might have number four or five or six, something like that.

I've mentioned this before. It's a bad year to be bad. There's so many bad teams. There's a real competition for those top two, three picks, which are going to be Burrow, Tua, Chase Young. They're going to come with a lot of leverage, you know, a top three pick in this draft. They will. If Haskins ends up developing into the kind of guy that we think could end up being, you know, a top 10 to 12 starter eventually in the league with a good team around him, then I bet he wins a game or two

down the stretch. You know, might beat the Jets, might beat the Giants to get, you know, a two and 14, three and 13 kind of a season. And then you're talking about no chance to catch Cincinnati, no chance probably if you beat the Jets to catch the Jets. I don't know what the Dolphins are doing. I have no idea what the Dolphins are doing. Dolphins, man, you know, if they had run a good two-point play where they were trying against the Redskins or played Fitzpatrick for just one more drive in that game, the Redskins would be sitting there, you know, at 0 and 9 with the number one pick because the Bengals are only 0 and 8. They're only 0 and 8. The game Saturday, what a terrific college football game.

I love Saturdays. Aaron does too. We both are massive college football fans, and I do know that many of you are much more NFL people than college people. I love the NFL. Don't get me wrong. I love the NFL. But I love Saturdays. I've always preferred Saturdays to Sundays. And Saturday was one of those days where you had Penn State, Minnesota early, which was a great football game. Minnesota's

undefeated. I can tell you right now, they're not going undefeated. They're underdogs to Iowa this Saturday. And they also have Wisconsin left. And then to sit back and watch that LSUBAMA game on that glorious CBS high definition with Brad Nessler doing play-by-play, I love Brad. I love Vern Lundquist for all those years. I think Nestler is great. Brad Nestler is great at everything he does. I'm not a Gary Danielson guy, but he is sort of now synonymous with SEC football on CBS. You know, that voice with Vern and now that voice with Nestler. What a game that was. I mean, the two teams, you know, LSU going in there and so aggressive throwing the football, showing them right from the jump. You know, that first drive that two a fumbles,

Alabama's going down the field and two of fumbles without getting hit. And LSU takes over from, you know, what was that first drive? Was that first drive like a 90-plus yard drive? It was inside the 10 where two have fumbled, I think. And they're throwing the ball, aggressive. And they take a 33 to 13 halftime lead. By the way, just as a quick aside, sort of a coaching blunder. You know, in that Super Bowl where New England faced Seattle and they didn't call the time. out at the end of the game to ensure that Brady had more time after Seattle scored. And I said over and over again at the time, some of you remember, most of you probably don't, that's fine. I said, even the great Bill Belichick will make a clock management timeout error.

And he did. And some of you said, well, they ended up with an interception. He didn't pass on calling timeouts because he had a vision of an interception. that particular game was a game in which he had no risk of calling timeouts to ensure that his great quarterback had time with the ball because Seattle was in a position where they would not have been able to stop the clock had they not scored. You had to prepare for the worst in that particular instance, and he made an error. He did. Nick Saban, who's pretty good at this stuff at halftime, he's just letting. LSU run the clock down.

And he's got all these timeouts here. Hasn't used any of them. By the time, LSU scores the touchdown. It was a Clyde Edwards, Allaire, one-yard touchdown run to make it 26 to 13. There are like 15 seconds left in the half, when there should have been like a minute 15 left. Some thinking, well, you know, there was no LSU wasn't going to run out of time in that particular spot.

Some thinking, well, he's just going to go to halftime, down 20. 2613. I don't know why he would do that because LSU gets the ball to start the second half. Why didn't he want more time for his offense? Well, then they get the ball back and they start with 11 seconds to go after the kick return and Tua throws an interception. So they were trying to score with 11 seconds to go. Made a big mistake at the end of the half. Great football game. Burrow was great. Tua on a bad ankle, you know, had his moments. Clyde Edwards Hilar was so great as a 5-foot-8-inch running back had some unbelievable runs in the game.

It was just a great college football game that LSU won 46 to 41. I'm going to get into the college football rankings, ramifications, the playoff ramification issues a little bit later on in the show when we do weekend DVR. But I just, it was such a great game. and Ed Orgeron, who remember when he got named coach, everybody's like, well, this isn't going to last very long, and they'll end up, you know, they'll make a big hire here. And Orgeron, you know, kept the job, the players loved him the whole thing. He now is kicking, you know, everybody's tail, taking names, especially against ranked teams.

And this was him in the locker room after the game, after they had gone into Tuscaloosa, beaten Alabama for the first time in nine years. Listen to how fired up Ed Orgeron is Change the next You understand that? Yes, sir We're going to beat their ass

In recruiting We're going to beat their ass Every time they'd say You understand that Yes sir Ro that one Fuck you Yeah

That was so good That has made the rounds Over and over again And of course On radio I had to bleep it out I could have given you a warning I hope I didn't really upset anybody there. We didn't have to bleep it out there on the podcast. That dude, he is a

motivator. And that intensity and hatred of a rival, God, I wish I had a team like that that one of my teams felt that way about. You know, the Redskins in their NFC East rivals, Maryland and Duke from back in the day. I don't have any of that anymore. That feeling of going in on, and by the way, there's nothing better than, doing it on the road, going in Tuscaloosa and doing what they did to Bama. Recruiting. Roll Tide, what F you! That was awesome. All right, we got a lot to get to. We're going to go around the NFL. We are going to come back, talk about some things that happened over the weekend, and I want to get to the college football playoff rankings. We'll talk about Maryland's

wonderful effort in Columbus against Ohio State, but also Maryland's basketball game Saturday night against Rhode Island, which I thought was a really good win. But before we get to that, we're going to get to some Trent Williams stuff right after I tell you about mybooky.ag. Mybooky.ag is a place where you can rely and be confident that you will be able to bet with reliable points spreads and reliable payouts. It's what you want. You want to feel like if you're giving somebody the money and you win, you're going to get paid.

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And again, you're going to get paid if you win. Here's the deal. Go to my bookie.orgie.org. Use my promo code, Kevin, DC. If you do, they'll double your first deposit when you activate your account at mybooky.ag. Mybooky.orgy.orgia, enter Kevin D.C. Mybooky.orgy today. You play, you win, you get paid. All right, let's bring in Ben Standig. Ben's a good friend from the athletic. Covers the Redskins. Follow him on Twitter at Ben Standig.

Friday, after the show, the news on Trent Williams came out that the Redskins, we knew that he was on the non-football injury list. And what was next was to find out whether or not the team was going to pay him any of his 2019 base salary. And the announcement came out that they were not going to. So here's my first question. I believe that this is a very polarizing issue among fans. One fan will say he told his story, he had cancer, they didn't see it, and furthermore,

they didn't really care very much. And then the next person will say, you know, he signed a contract. He should have been more responsible for his own well-being, and he's the one that held out. Do you agree with me that this has sort of polarized the fan base, this Trent Williams situation? Yeah, no, for sure. I went. I used my Sunday by week to go out and about and watch football at an establishment with like 20 TV, like I did back in the day.

It was kind of fun, and one of my buddies I've always like who I hung out with when I was. I'm around for football, his comment on Trent Williams was very much of the, well, you know what, I don't care if he doesn't get paid, like what you said, he signed the contract, all that stuff. And yet, you know, most of the time I'm hearing people going the other way because they're just anti-sook brousal and the Redskins at this point. I suspect a lot of it is that most people are not, you know, keeping up with it minute by minute, reading all the details, whatever they are, the way you and I are. and therefore they sort of come in with preconceived notions. Guy has a contract, he's holding out, and this is a guy that had a bunch of injuries,

suspension, things like that, and the race against the by him, gave him, made him the highest-paid tackle, now he's holding out, what the heck, and then other people just see, wow, this guy had this, you know, he learned he's got this cancer situation that, you know, it sounds like at one point was potentially pretty serious, and the team, according to the stories we're hearing, you know, was pretty, I don't think, ignored is the right word, but, you know, it didn't seem to do much about it based on what Trent Williams is saying. And so it just depends on, did you come into this situation thinking the Redskins were the enemy, or did you come into the situation thinking Trent Williams,

or basically you're going to live and die with the Redskins almost no matter what happened. It's incredibly weird situation. It's going to be one that gets worse by the minute. I think the Redskins, of course, ultimately do themselves no, favors ever because regardless of whether the facts are on their side ultimately here or not once once we learn more nobody believes anything what they say i mean i think that's just the reality where we're at like it's hard to believe where they're at and and uh like i get it they can't say certain things because of hippo laws and things like that wouldn't that's fine but you know just

even the way brusown has addressed this a little bit over the recent few months it just comes across with minimal sincerity and when you're talking about a cancer situation like this wow And not to mention, I mean, it wouldn't matter who the player was, but we're talking about the guy who's been their best player for a decade, the true Redskinned for life that we all assumed, and that this guy so desperately wants out, it just makes them look so bad. I get why some fans might be the opposite,

but I would imagine most seem to go the other way right now, which is the Redskins are at fault because they're always at fault, because that's the way we're sort of conditioned at this point. Yeah, I tweeted out Saturday after reading and getting caught up to speed on everything that happened later, Friday, including Hoffman's conversation with Trent, your story, Kime's story. You know, we had already had Mike Jones's story from earlier in the day. That, you know, it's really, it just seems very incomplete to me.

That's my reaction is that the best news is that Trent's alive, all right? More than, that's the most important thing. And from a Redskins standpoint, while it didn't cost them anything contractually at this point, they look incompetent and petty and mean-spirited once again. And his side may have holes, and my guess is that it does, but their side is essentially trivial because of their past, like it's meaningless because of their past. The people aren't going to give them the benefit of the doubt.

And so ultimately he's never going to play for them again, and they didn't trade him. They will eventually. they'll probably get less for them than they could have gotten. That'll be open for debate, and maybe we'll never know. And I don't think we'll ever know if we trust their word on it. But it's like, I'm ready to move on. Like, who cares about this anymore?

Unless you really feel like, wow, this is another reflection of just how mean-spirited they are and how little heart they have. This man had cancer. And they were incompetent in diagnosing it. And then they were incredibly dispassionate. and cold-hearted in dealing with it, you know, over the last year. And if you think that that has, like, you know, changed your opinion about the organization in any way,

but not for me it doesn't. I don't know. I'm, like, moved on. Like, it's like, we won't know what they'll get for them until March. They can't trade them until March. And I am interested to know what the facts are, but I don't know that we're ever going to know the facts because there's never going to be an independent investigation to this.

I mean, you know, the thing is, like, go back to what was being said over the course of the, from the point that Trent Williams was first holding out. I mean, Jay Gruden was largely the one speaking, and, you know, I can imagine he was maybe not necessarily saying what Jay Gruden would always want to say. He was speaking on behalf of the organization since Bruce Allen refused to do it. And we caught, and then we did hear from Bruce Allen on rare occasions. But the message that both of them had was that we believe Trent Williams will be back. now it seems impossible it seems unlikely at that time but we didn't know now it seems impossible based on what tren williams has come out and said that he told them no interest in replying for them months ago and we see what he said once he did show up but but by the by the trade deadline so they came out with

this like they you know i they they they didn't state to the degree of tren williams's cancer situation to us and we didn't really know too much until Trent Williams told us, but they seemingly did, which makes it even sort of colder the way the situation was handled. Like they are making, I mean, they're talking with such certainty. I can't tell if they're trying to lie to us to the, to the other teams out there who might be wanting to trade, Trent Williams, or just lying to themselves. But no matter what it was, the whole thing was disingenuous, came across as disingenuous. And here we are where, like, I'm not one of the. people who thought they definitely had to make a trade by the deadline. I think there will be

value for him in the offseason, but regardless, it just looked so bad. And, you know, all the things he said the other day in the locker room never happened if they'd deal him by their deadline for a second round pick or whatever they were going to get. They allowed that to happen. As he said, was silent for months out of respect for Dan Snyder. Why would he, if you believe that, why would he say anything upon getting Trump? traded to Cleveland or New England or whatever. So they messed up from a PR perspective. They haven't already secured anything in the draft at this point.

Like, there's just so much out there that it just boggles my mind. And the way I would look at it always with the Redskins, it's the pride takes over, and they're cool winning the battle and losing the war over and over again. Like they did with Kirk Cousins on some level in other situations. And it's just bad business. But I'd even know in all the specifics of what that would happen here. It's just bad business. They could have had assets by now that wouldn't have had this PR headache by now.

We know it's probably going to get uglier going forward. For what? He made it clear he doesn't want to be here. You've got to know at some point when to hold him and when to fold him as, you know, who was that, Kenny Rogers? One thing, and they just never seem to understand how this works. Yeah, the one. So what makes you think that if they had traded him that we wouldn't have heard his story?

and they wouldn't have asked for the third-party investigation anyway. Well, I mean, when we asked Trent Williams, why have you been silent this whole time? Like, to me, it made no sense that he was quiet the whole time. If you want to trade, you speak out. We speak this over and over again with NBA players. I mean, Jane and Ramsey effectively went down this past, you know, and so on. And so you've got to, you know, that's where you apply the pressure. He never did.

someone asked why he said that was because out of respect for dan schneider to me that suggests like it makes no sense that he also thinks the organization is terrible but dan schneider is cool that that that that that does that also weird but if that's his mentality then i guess i would imagine he would just sort of you know who knows what the other what the other city would be asking him some of these questions for sure but from that city's perspective the story is more about hey this team this guy, Trent Williams, what does that mean? So I don't think they're as focused on it the way that we were. So it'll be a little bit.

He'll say something, but it wouldn't be to that degree, I would imagine. Maybe things eventually come out, you know, whether it's a local reporter or Schuster or somebody. But ultimately, I don't think it comes out like this. And even if it does, the story is already over. I don't really know why. I mean, I guess I don't know what the point of the third party would be at that point, unless the Redskins are just like they want their name cleared, I guess, or something.

if that's the thing. But like I said, Trout and Trump Williams, his comment in the locker room only made it worse in terms of how they're viewed, and that doesn't happen if he's not there. Yeah, I think that someone would have asked him, you know, why? Why, you know, did you want to get traded? I think it would have come out. I think the Redskins would have, yes, for what you just said would have been the answer that they would have felt like they needed to clear their name and they can't do it on their own anymore. and they would have asked for the third party investigation. I think everything that happened, starting with that Thursday presser out there with him, would have happened in a new place. I could be wrong. I just think it all would have happened. I think Trent wanted to tell his story.

And certainly not getting traded, you know, accelerated that. But eventually that was going to come out. And the Redskins were also based on just the, you know, just sort of the indirect implications that there was a medical issue. with Trent Williams that they were probably going to try to figure out a way to clear their name to a certain degree. You know, ultimately for me, and not, you know, I said I'm ready to move on. I guess it's because their arrogance, their incompetence, their low-rent behavior,

isn't anything new. Like, I would have never expected them to have handled this with class and with dignity and with, you know, anybody but themselves. you know, in mind. It's, it's what we've seen over and over again in similar sticky situations, whether it was, you know, throwing Kirk cousins under the bus, you know, after they made that shitty offer and tried to make him look greedy, whether it was the anonymous leaks to the post about McLuhan. You know, this is what they do. This is who they are as people. So that part of it doesn't surprise me. I do really wonder still, and I know that he doesn't want people to lose their

jobs and he doesn't want to throw anybody under the bus, but he had already thrown everybody under the bus with that Thursday press conference and with the additional conversations that he's had. I just think it would have been in his best interest to let that investigation go forward. Ultimately, even if there were major pieces he didn't, you know, elaborate on or didn't even talk about that may have made the team look a little bit better, the bottom line is it would have taken a year plus. He would have been in a new place. People wouldn't have cared anymore. And doesn't matter what comes out in a third-party investigation about this, more people than not are going to say the team was at fault for it. They could be completely cleared like they were

in the McLuhan situation with respect to, you know, pay the remaining money that he was going after because he didn't think he should have been fired with cause. It doesn't matter. People still think McLuhan like they fired him unjustly, even though we had a third-party investigation and an arbitrator who said, no, actually they were justified in firing him with cause. Nobody even remembers that, you know, part of it. It came a year and a half later. That's why I think Trent would have been much better off and the NFLPA should have convinced him to not drop the third-party investigation. And the McLuhan cases, a good example of what I was saying before, if I'd win the battle and losing the war,

That's right. They came out and said, or excuse me, somebody gave the Washington Post, you know, those really rough comments about McLuhan, and that sort of put a pin on that story, one that they ultimately came out, like you said, to be to win, but they were delusers. Like, I've used this before. Hopefully, I've not used this before on your podcast. You know, the difference between the Washington Nationals and the Washington Redsons and how they handle PR is striking,

that the nationals made Bryce Harper a bad offer contractually. However, but when it was initially framed to the public, it was deemed as a total number, whatever it was, 10 for 300 or whatever the exact numbers were, $300 million,

was certainly a reasonable offer and a very good offer for what ultimately he did sign for. So when he did sign with the Phillies, the perception was made, wow, he didn't even take that much more money to go to a division rival. Wow, that guy is greedy as heck,

except that after he took it, oh, by the way, the National's offer was crap. You guys just were told something for weeks on end to create a narrative that makes it look like Bryce Harper was the greedy one. The reaction is the literal opposite. So much of this Trent William situation with some good PR could have easily been framed as Trent Williams' is the issue more on Trent William, especially when you got to things like, wait, you didn't go see a doctor on your own for years? Like that's such an odd dynamic.

We don't know the whole story. He's, you know, we'll see what comes out. But, you know, stuff like that, he's been, he has been injured in the past. They did make him the top tackle. Sure, he's not number one now, but he was. That doesn't sound like an organization that's trying to do him wrong and so on. They could have done so many things, but they, I don't know, they just are very, very bad at these type of element. Same to those Kirk Cousin.

I thought, you know, that Kirk Cousin was disingenuous when he kept coming out. out and saying he really wanted to sign a contract to stay here, but because of the way they had framed it from the beginning of Bruce Allen comes out there and give that mini press conference where he actually gave a statement on camera, where he says that they'd make Kirk Cousin's a great offer to, you know, would make him the highest paid guy or whatever he was saying. He was just like, what? Well, what are we talking about? This doesn't make any sense.

They are just bad at that part of this game. And unfortunately, while a lot of that has nothing to do with wins and losses on the feet. It doesn't have a lot to do with the perception, and then it actually does have something to do with wins and losses because the agents were out there, other free agents are out there. They constantly see the chaos going on. And, you know, if you're down between, like, the Redskins and some other team for a free agent, you've got to be thinking to yourself, wait, do I want to be part of this over and over?

This thing that happens over and over again? Probably not. Let me go somewhere else. So they just do themselves no help by these actions, no matter what a future third party says or anything, it just looks, you know, even if Trent Williams is, I don't say it's fault because of the cancer, but, you know, even if what he was saying was, you know, there's more pushback to come, it doesn't matter. They already are the ones that look bad for reasons he said, and it's so much of it just seems

like unforced errors to me. Yeah. All right. Let's move on from that, because that's really what I wanted to do right from the beginning, but we really can't move on from it because there was so much that was added to the story since we did the podcast on Friday. To me, the rest of the way is about Dwayne Haskins and young players. We talked during the open of this podcast about the LSU Alabama game, Ben,

and Joe Burrow now, in my view, is going to be the number one pick in the draft. Of course, there's a lot of time between now and March for that to change. But it makes it more imperative than ever. I felt that it's been very important anyway to find out what you had in Haskins as much as you could this year because of the potential of one of the best quarterback draft classes in recent memory. What do you think they're thinking the rest of the way? First of all, as it relates to Haskins playing, are we now at the point where we're going to hear later on today from Callahan that he is going to be the starting quarterback for the final seven games?

You'd like to think so. I can't even – I mean, again, this goes sort of to the PR element. Obviously, the development of the way of Haskins goes well beyond PR. They actually need him to start looking like a guy who can handle those duties that they can sort of pencil in to be the starter for next year, even if it's just like, hey, he's still learning, but, like, you know, when we see development, and then, look, I think he was margin of error reasonable against Buffalo,

considering the first career start on the road against a tough defense with some weather, and so on. He did some reasonable things. It's clearly a lot to work on, but, okay, there's something to, you know, some sign of, okay, That was a lot better than those elite performances. If this season ends with Dwayne Haskins, he doesn't have to turn it on the way Baker-Mayfield did at the end of last year

where he becomes a national hero. But, like, he just starts, you know, they can start running the fuller offense by the final games. And, you know, he's throwing the ball down the field and there's some signs of, hey, between him and McCorn and Darius Geis, you know, there's actually some interesting things here. That the season, this one that looks in Chris is an incredible downer right now, could actually end up, you know, with like a little bit of a smile because of that.

And that's why it's so imperative to me that he plays at this point. I have not been pushing for Dwayne Haskins to play, but since they've already thrown him out there to now go backwards, would be nuts, which is what made Callahan's comment the other day just insane, the idea that you wouldn't, I mean, you wouldn't just flat out say that Dwayne Haskins is going to be your starter, and instead you might go back to a guy who hasn't even performed that well and as a free agent at the end of the year. I mean, get out of here.

Like, it's so weird. So whether they, whether he comes out and says Haskins is the start of the year or not, who the heck knows, but logically, that's the only play to make at this point. There are other guys on the team. I'm not just counting their play, and you want to get a good look at everybody,

and Haskins' limitations right now may not allow that, but that doesn't really matter. You have to move forward with him and see what you have, because, like you said, in this draft, they appear poised to be in a position to get, you know, Joe Burrow goes one, that means two of what, hypothetically be sitting there, and that's why everybody walked into this draft thinking about plus Justin Herbert and even some other guys beyond that.

Then you have, you know, Chase Young if they go a different direction. But, you know, a quarterback is sitting there for them in this draft, the likely, and you have to at least consider it until you know for sure what you have with Wayne Askin. Yeah, that's my view. You know I would have played him right from the beginning, right when I realized the season was completely out of control, which would have been going into week four or week five at the worst case.

Because I don't know how, you know, if Case Keenham doesn't get concussed in the Minneapolis and then he's probably the starter in Buffalo. And he might be the starter this week against the Jets still. Who knows? You know, thank God he got into that game in Buffalo because, you know, I mean, I don't wish injury on anybody. But without the concussion, I'm not sure he would have played in Buffalo. and now you'd be entering that situation that I just didn't think made any sense at all,

which is the possibility that you weren't going to learn anything about Dwayne Haskins before what could be the best quarterback draft since 1983. And this goes, by the way, to the point of like the Callahan, you know, sitting there at the interim coach. Like, you know, it boggles the mind to think that the organization would tell an interim coach he could have the job and have total control over the roster and starting lineup. At least, you know, fine, he wants to start, I'm just making this up. He wants to start West Martin instead of Eric Flowers.

Okay, fine, whatever. You want to not start, Blaine Haskins? Get out of here. You have to at some point. No, no, no. You don't get say over that interim coach. So, like, the fact that that's even like a thing that came out the other day, supposedly, like, you know, that would have hurt my brain that the rights

We need to think that way, even if we have sort of low, you know, low estimation of their decision-making. It just seems impossible. But Callahan is so old school, I get it. He's like, you know, wants to show he can win. And having Haskins out there probably precludes him from doing that. Of course, Colt McCoy probably gave him a better chance to win in Buffalo. He didn't go that way, blah, blah, blah. So nothing makes him.

I don't know. After seeing Haskins, I don't think that either one of those two guys gives them, you know, that much of a chance, much better of a chance to win than Haskins does. But what do I know? Thanks, Ben. Appreciate it, as always. Yeah, man. All right, thanks to Ben for jumping on with us.

A lot of reporting on the Trent Williams thing last week. And Trent, you know, became a guy that, you know, was talking, you know, and we heard a lot of details. And I tweeted this out over the weekend. Trent lost lots of money, but much more importantly, he's alive. That's the most important thing. The Redskins' contract cost for his absence probably will amount to nothing, but much more importantly, they look incompetent and petty once again. His side might have holes, their side's trivial because of their past. And now we move on. You know, the next time, really, the Trent Williams story, I think, will become significant is in March when they try to trade him, and we find out what they get for him because he's never playing in this organization again. Now, the other part of

the story could reemerge that the Redskins are trying to get his contract not to accrue and therefore to toll to next year so that he still has two years left and that would become newsworthy as well, because then the Redskins would really be trying to stick it to him moving forward. Look, I've said this a million times. They're not very bright. They make up for it for being arrogant as hell. It's just a terrible combination of two things, of two characteristics in a business or in people. And this is why they continue to wallow in the bottom and play in the bottom pool of professional sports organizations. All right, let's go around the NFL because there were a lot of good games yesterday. The biggest plays and the clutch moment. It's time to go around the NFL.

All right, we've got to start with the Sunday night game. And I'd be totally lying to you if I didn't say that I was sitting there last night watching cousins and the Vikings and rooting like hell for the Vikings. I am. But, you know, for those of you that just like get after me and say, weren't you just move to Minnesota, do a podcast on the Vikings? When Mark Rippin played quarterback for the Cleveland Browns one year when they were in a playoff race, I was rooting so hard for Rippin. when Art Monk was playing for the Jets,

when Gary Clark was playing for the Cardinals, when Dexter Manley was playing for the Cardinals, I rooted for those guys too. Well, they were champions. Yeah, they were. They were champions. But when I have favorite players from my favorite team, and they go on, especially if they go on

when it's not their choice, you know, it wasn't Gary Clark's choice, wasn't Art Monk's choice, wasn't Mark Rippin's choice? You know, wasn't Dexter's choice? Was not Kirk Cousins' choice? The Redskins never made him a legitimate offer to stay? God, that always frustrates me.

I know I've said it before recently. When people say, well, he chose to leave. No, he didn't. They never made him an offer that he could have ever accepted. Yeah, I was rooting for him. last night. He played well. It was not one of his best games. It was a take what the defense gives you kind of a game and they ran the football really well, which is something they didn't do in Kansas City last week. Dalvin Cook's really good, really good. He leads the league in rushing,

and I don't know if you've been following this, Aaron, but this is a big time rushing season for the NFL for some of these big backs. Right now, you've got like five, six, seven backs on pace. for, you know, 1,200 plus yards. Last year, you only had three backs with 1,200 plus yards, Gurley, Barclay, and Elliott. This year, right now, you've got, I mean, Cook at 991 through 10 games. He's going to rush for more than 1,200. McCaffrey at 989 through 9 games.

Chub at 900 plus through 9 games. Derek Henry's at 832 through 10 games. Pretty good chance to run for 1,200 plus. Fournette, the same thing. The rookie in Oakland's over 800 yards rushing through nine games. Elliot's close to 800 yards through nine games. The guy in Indy, Marlon Mack, you got a lot of guys that are going to rush for 1,200 plus yards this year. Unless you get a lot of injuries down the stretch.

Dalvin Cook is really, really good. He runs so hard, exceptionally hard. Really good vision, great pass catcher out of the backfield. I love some of you. Some of you are just so dumb. Seriously. And I'm not very bright. But when you tell me that Kirk threw for 300-something yards a few weeks ago throwing checkdowns, and last night, well, he didn't throw any interceptions because he threw nothing but checkdowns to Dalvin Cook, do you know the difference between a screen pass and a checkdown?

By the way, do you know against zone teams, especially how many quarterbacks throw a lot of checkdowns, because that's what's open. Kirk actually played a really smart football game last night. Didn't make any throws that put him in jeopardy in a tight game. One turnover last night could have really put them in a bind. He made consistent third down throws to move the chains. Hit a couple of big ones to digs. But Dallas was playing zone the whole night.

playing a deep guy or two. It was tough to get anything down field like he had done for four weeks against the Giants, the Eagles, and the Lions, and the Redskins really played. The Redskins couldn't stop the run that night against them. I'll tell you what Minnesota really struggles with, though, sometimes defensively, they don't get off the field very well.

In fact, I think I was looking at their third down numbers. and this is going to hurt them. Their third and long defense is going to hurt them. They gave up four third and 11 or longers last night against the Cowboys. They did the same. There were a couple of big third downs. They gave up against the Chiefs. The Lions did the same thing in their game against them.

The Lions went seven for 11, I think, on third down, and a lot of them were third and longs. This is, you know, something that I've heard Zimmer talk about. They were really good against the run last night. They weren't last week. Gave up eight and a half yards against the Chiefs last week, and then last night against Elliot, they totally shut Zeke Elliott down. But I thought that Dak Prescott played one of the best games

throwing the football I've ever seen Dak Prescott play. He was incredible last night. Threw for 400 yards, three touchdowns. The one interception came on the Hail Mary at the end. It was a really good Sunday night football game. Minnesota wins their 7 and 3. I am still not a believer in Minnesota, just so everybody's clear on this. I was not a believer before the season started.

I'm not a believer now. I think Green Bay is better. I think the Saints are better. I think the 49ers are better. I think the Seahawks are better. I don't think the Vikings are going to make a deep run in the postseason. I think they've got a decent chance of getting there now, and I didn't pick them to be in the playoffs when the season started.

But they still have a brutal schedule. They still play three primetime games. You know, Kirk on prime time. I mean, I think he's 7 and 12 now on prime time. It's not like he's 1 in 19. But they play Seattle on a Monday night game, Green Bay on a Monday night game, and I think they play a Sunday night game

against the Chargers on the road, which will be a Minnesota crowd. Their fans are really traveling this year. Anyway, that was a really good game last night. The game at 1 o'clock between the Titans and the Chiefs was an excellent game. I think I already mentioned this in the podcast. If I'm being repetitive than I'm trying to be, I guess now,

if I think I mentioned it earlier in the podcast. But I can't remember, actually, if I mentioned it on the radio show or not. Did I mention that Ryan Tannahill now has won three or four games, all of them in comeback fashion in the fourth quarter? I don't think you mentioned it on the podcast now. Okay, so I mentioned that on radio. Ryan Tannahill, three for four in his starts, and all three wins have been in the fourth quarter.

He is one of those guys that might, I always kind of like Tannahill, actually, because I liked his mobility. The chiefs had problems with field goal attempts. The guy Harrison Butker had a field goal to make a 35 to 27 that they botched the snap on and went intentional grounding. Colquitt, the punter, through a pass that was called intentional grounding. And then they had the last field goal to force overtime blocked. great block off the edge. Thought it was off sides, but actually the NFL did a really nice job of putting out a video and explaining where the line of scrimmage was and that it was perfectly timed by the outside guy who blocked a field goal.

And man, the AFC is a little bit muddled right now with the exception of Baltimore and New England, I guess. You know, the Chiefs in Mahomes' first game back, which was yesterday, threw for 450 and three touchdowns, by the way, so good. But the Chiefs are six and four, you know. The Raiders in that division are more than alive at 5 and 4. They're in it at 5 and 4. You know, you've got that AFC South now that has the Titans at 5 and 5. The Colts lost yesterday to fall to 5 and 4. The Texans are 6 and 3.

The Steelers now, you know, I think Tomlin, the job he's doing is phenomenal. They beat the Rams. the AFC is just muddled. I'm sort of losing my train of thought. Anyway, you know, Cleveland beat Buffalo. Who are the playoff teams going to be? New England and Baltimore, I think, are givens. After that, I would think Kansas City is a given,

but they're not definitely a given. I mean, if Mahomes throws for 450, they're going to win more of these games than not. They play in Mexico City next Monday night against the Chargers. They have the Raiders at home. They still have to go to Foxborough. They have the bears on the road. That shouldn't be hard for them, right?

Kansas City at the Bears. Anyway, the AFC is interesting. Meantime, the NFC game late, the snow game at Lambo, was awesome. I, however, got so frustrated during that game that I left and went to the movies. And this is the God's honest truth. All right. The play that really sent me into a complete, I would say unusual fit of rage, because I usually don't get that worked up during the games that aren't Redskin games,

but I did bet the Panthers plus five and a half yesterday. And do you know the play I'm talking about? Packers backed up inside their own 10-yard line. Yes. Aaron Rogers gets pressured, almost intentionally grounds the ball. And Gerald McCoy has a textbook hit exactly the way the referees would coach it in a seminar on how to hit a quarterback. Not just a textbook hit, but also spun off as he was going down. Did everything he could to not land on him, not do anything?

And Jerome Boger throws the flag that Aaron Rogers catches before it hits the ground. 15 yards, unnecessary roughness for the exact reason that it wasn't, that it was not landing with full weight on the quarterback. It was textbook by McCoy. And that call just sent me into a, I just can, it drives me nuts watching football on Sunday and seeing these calls. If you're not going to allow the quarterback to get hit, let's change the entirety of the game. Let's make sure that they're not allowed to be hit. That it's two-hand touch or flag.

I think flag's hard, you know, because of the, the, equipment and it gets moved around and you could probably, you know, situated to where it's harder to get to grab the flag. If you're going to, if you're going to legislate hitting the quarterback out of the game, let's do it. So we're not sitting here outraged every Sunday over a totally benign hit, a totally, a hit that it has zero chance if you're reviewing it after the fact of being called unnecessary roughness. and it changed the entire game. It gave Green Bay a first down instead of Carolina first down, probably in Green Bay territory down 1410,

with a chance to take the lead before the end of the first half. Instead, Green Bay got all the way down, and by the way, Carolina, ball don't lie, gets the stop on the final play of the first half. But it just completely changed the game in the moment, and I did watch the end of the first half. I said I was getting up right away to leave. I waited until the end of the first half and then I left. I did watch the game because I recorded it very early this morning and I love the snow at Lambeau Field. And I hate the going for two down 24 to 10.

Some of you tweeted me and I saw that this morning. So here's what the analytics guys say. They say if you're down 14, I've explained this in the past a little bit, but it is a little bit confusing. I understand that. Essentially the analytics people will say, If you are down 14 and you score a touchdown to draw within eight, you should go for two right there, which is what Carolina did. Down 2410, they scored, it's 2416, they went for two.

And a lot of you are like, why are they going for two there? Now they're down eight instead of seven. Well, because the analytics people hate overtime. They view overtime as a coin flip proposition, and they view the two-point conversion as better than a 50-50 proposition. So therefore they view, if you miss it the first time, you'll get it the second time to tie the game in force overtime. But if you make it the first time, then you can kick to win the game when you score the next touchdown. Now, there's a lot of things that aren't considered in all of the analytics conversation. Like, is it really a better than 50-50 proposition, the two-point conversion?

Not for all teams. the context of the game. Did you see the weather? It was bad weather. Now, maybe kicking was a risk in that particular situation as well. I just personally don't believe the two-point conversion for every team is a 50-50 or better proposition. I think it's closer to like a third of the time they make it. It seems to me, what are the two-point numbers this year?

I think I saw it was about 48%. Is it 48%? Yes. That's what I saw on Twitter last night. So anyway, that's what they say. In that particular situation, I would have kicked it with, by the way, a pretty good kicker. And taking my chances that if I scored again, that I would either maybe think about going for the win then or kicking there for overtime. Of course, the analytics people just heard that and said, well, if you're going to go for the win, you should have gone for it the first time.

Right. That's the other part of this is that if you do miss it, then you know what you have to get the second time as opposed to if you go at the second time. Exactly. Exactly. Right. But, you know, the pressure of the. the second one on both the defense and the offense is different than the context, the pressure context of the first one.

For someone like us, though, this is getting interesting. If more teams, and we're seeing this not just in pros but in college, how does that affect the number? How does that affect the spread? It doesn't. Doesn't at all. I mean, we're seeing it affect spreads, though. I do wonder, just like...

Give me an example of where it would affect the spread. Well, I mean, I don't know about... Well, we saw it where someone, instead of just going for the extra point to make it a seven-point game went for two last week. What game was it? Was it the Memphis game? Yeah, but if the two-point conversion is 50-50, it's not going to affect the point spread or the total. Yeah, but if people are...

The fourth down analytics has a better chance of impacting the total. Of course, yes. No, I'm not so much talking about the total. I'm talking about, you know, we think about the seven as the key numbers and stuff, and the more and more people go for two. Oh, well, yes. It's not going to change the point spreads of the games, but it could change where,

where you buy your half points as a better. Yes. And therefore, I guess ultimately it could change. It does change the spread. Yes. Instead of looking at the six and a half. You still have mostly three, sevens, tens, four teams. But I do wonder, as if this does start to get more pervasive,

if it does start to at least a little bit, we start seeing more sixes instead of sevens, that sort of thing. Anyway, good game, Carolina, Green Bay. I think Carolina is a good team. I think they're a really good football team. And then gave him a really good pass rush. I like Kyle Allen a lot. I like their receivers.

You know, McCaffrey is spectacular. He's really, really good. That MVP vote right now is Russell Wilson won McCaffrey 2, right? Are those the odds? I would think those are the odds right now. Who else would be in the mix? Mahomes can't be in the mix right now after missing two or three games. He could get back into it.

It was Wilson and Lamar were well. Oh, Jackson, of course. Yes, we're well ahead. Where is Bo? Do you have something up right now? Are you looking at? Yeah, I'm pulling out. I just had a curiosity. Is Bosa even in the top 10? Of MVP?

Yeah. Right now on, this is according to Fanduals sportsbook, most of the Vegas sites don't have it up until after all the games are played. Lamar Jackson is plus 250 and Russell Wilson is also plus 250. Aaron Rogers is plus 600. Then you go down to Christian McCaffrey, Dak Prescott, and Patrick Mahomes on plus 1,200. Interesting.

I guess Carolina needs to win a little. a little bit more. And you're going to naturally go towards a quarterback. Yeah. What's a lot when, who was the last running back to win the MVP? Was it Tomlinson or Alexander? Or did Peterson win it? Oh, well, Adrian Peterson did win an MVP and that would have been after. Yeah, that would have been after both of them. Yes. Yes. I believe it was Peterson. I will double-check. You probably just hit on the last three running backs to win the MVP.

Yeah, it was, yep, Peterson, Tomlinson, Alexander were the last three running backs. Well done, Aaron. Good job. I'm here for some reason. Other games from yesterday of significance, the Ravens rolled. I mean, we mentioned the backfield at one point in that game. The Browns sort of saved their season, at least in the moment, with a home win, another home loss. And they would, I mean, they were turning on them already. I can't stay in Mayfield.

the way. And how about, you know, the Falcons going to New Orleans and beating the Saints is a big underdog? It's a big win for them. And the Steelers, you know, I've mentioned, I've mentioned Tomlin. He's doing a hell of a job, a hell of a job. And the four, and the Rams can't score an offensive touchdown. How many games now have they not scored touchdowns in? The 49er game, did they score an offensive touchdown? Maybe they did. But my God, they, they, they, they, they They have been hit and miss this year offensively. No offensive touchdowns yesterday. I was thinking that the 49er game was a game in which they didn't score an offensive touchdown,

but I think they did actually, now that I think about it. The Steelers are interesting now. They get the Browns twice in the Bengals. Could they make a little run, the Cardinals? You know, they got a game with the Bills that could be a huge game in the wild card race. Could they get back into the AFC North race? I don't know. The Ravens look awfully tough now.

But the Ravens have some games coming up, man. How about the Ravens 49ers on December 1st? How about that game? That's going to be fun. In Baltimore. Who do the Redskins play on December 1st? It's a 1 o'clock game, I'm sure. I'd love to be able to miss that and go to the Ravens game.

They play at the Panthers on December 1st. All right. If you want to listen to us on our app, we've got an app now. You can get it on your iPhone in the app store or on your Android in the Google store. Let us know what you think. You don't have to listen to the show that way. but you get my Twitter feed, you get the show's Twitter feed, get the show's Facebook feed,

along with the show being right there every day and access to all of the old shows. So we do have an app now. It seems to be really easy. I've got it on my phone. No real issues with the fast forward. Again, if you have any issues, let me know. I've gotten a lot of good feedback,

and only one or two things that we looked into. We weren't getting it out early enough. think we fixed that issue. Listen to us on the app if you want to. It doesn't mean you have to stop listening to us on any of the podcast platforms or on the website if that's just easier for you. It's just giving you another way to listen to the show. All right, let's finish up the show with some weekend DVR. Did you have a busy weekend? Don't worry. We've got you covered. It's time for weekend DVR. All right. Maryland lost to Ohio State on Saturday, 73 to 14. Ohio State kicked an onside kick in the first quarter.

Really cool onside kick, too. They sort of floated it up in the air with a receiver coming down. They caught it. It was almost like a pass. I like Mike Loxley. I'm not going to bail on Michael Oxley. We're a month and a half removed from thinking, oh my God, Maryland beat Syracuse.

They're 2-0. They got a shot to be a really good football team. Maybe two months removed from that. But they've now been outscored. in their two toughest, well, actually throw Minnesota into the mix. Throw Michigan. Penn State beat him 59-0, Minnesota beat him 52 to 10.

Michigan beat him 38 to 7, and Ohio State beat him 73 to 14. And had 705 yards. Locksley comes on the radio show with me, and I asked him on Friday to really sort of describe rather than just saying, hey, you know, the big difference between Ohio State.

Maryland is Ohio State has a lot more talent. But sort of explain where the talent is, what the difference in the talent is from an Ohio state versus, you know, even a team like Indiana or Purdue in the Big Ten. And one of the things he said, he said, look, they have better team speed, but he said, we have good team speed. And Maryland does. They've got some really good athletes and skill position players. They've got some NFL players, you know, at running back and at wide receiver and probably on defense in their secondary. But where he said it really shows up is along the offensive and defensive lines. Size, speed, athleticism, strength. And then where it really shows up is, he said, our number ones, you know,

aren't Ohio State's number ones, but our number ones can hold up against most teams, but we've got to build up our depth. Ohio State, when they lose players, they come back in with more five-star recruits. It's one five-star recruit after another. And if we lose a starter that's a four-star recruit, we may be coming in. And he didn't say this, I'm paraphrasing. We may be coming in with a guy that didn't even have any stars next to his name. So that's where the emphasis is for Mike Loxley.

They lost a big-time recruit during the game. You saw that, right? Yes, I did. You want to tell us about it? I don't know much about him. He was just, I believe he was a four-star recruit. And look, you have a bad season. You're going to lose recruits like that.

And the one thing, if you do want to be alarmed by this season for Loxley, is that the one thing we thought he would be able to do is come in and lock down the DMV and lock down the recruits. And right now, that's not happening. No, it's not. Right now, I think they have like the ninth or tenth best projected recruiting class in the Big Ten. Yes. So if he doesn't get the players from home to stay at home,

it's going to be really, really difficult for Maryland. to compete in the Big Ten. And ultimately it would be his undoing down the road more likely than not. Because I think really when you got Mike Loxley, you were getting a guy that you thought had a chance to be a good football coach. But more importantly, you got a guy that you thought was going to own recruiting in this area. And it's a good football area.

And you were going to start keeping a lot of these guys home and you were going to be able to stack up talent-wise. Maybe not with Ohio State and Penn State. in Michigan, but definitely with Purdue and Indiana, and maybe even Michigan State, who doesn't consistently recruit at the Ohio State-Pen State level. You know, sort of like what they were in the ACC for many years. They weren't Florida State, but they at times were better than Wake and better than NC State and better than North Carolina and better than Georgia Tech.

Right now in the Big Ten, you got to get to the point where you're, recruiting well enough to be better than Indiana, better than Rutgers, on par with Michigan State, better than Illinois, better than Purdue, better than Northwestern, you know, on par occasionally with Iowa and Wisconsin. I don't know if you're ever going to be Ohio State or Penn State. But right now, you're 1 and 6 in the Big 10 and 3 and 7 overall. While we're talking about Ohio State, have you seen the line for the Rutgers game? 52. 52 and a half and the total is 58 and a half.

I'll take Ohio State under. 553 game. I'll take Ohio State in the under. So anyway, bad loss, expected loss. I didn't play the game. I actually thought I almost played Maryland before the kick. Do you know what Maryland does better than anybody? They return kickoffs really well.

Javon Leak almost had another touchdown on a kickoff return in that game. of the two, McFarland and Leak, I think Leak's going to be the better pro. That's just my two cents on the running. I think Javon Leak's going to be a really good NFL pro. Ty Johnson, you know, is playing now in Detroit, especially with Carry On Johnson out. He's their kick returner. He's also getting a lot of time at running back. I think Javon Leak's going to be in the pros as well.

I think McFarland will be a pro too. I think Leake's going to be the better pro. Just a guess on that. While we're at it, Maryland basketball had a really interesting. game Saturday. Did you go? I did not. I did not. I did not. Almost did at the last second, decided not to. We had friends in town. But anyway, they played Rhode Island at home. And when I saw the line, Marilyn was only an 11-point fared. I was like, this might be a tough game. And it was. They ended up winning the game by 18, I think,

but they were down 12 in the first half. They got punched in the mouth physically by a Rhode Island team that had some experience and it had some tough players. Number 10 for them for Rhode Island. Langevine, I think his name is. That dude can play. That is a really good basketball player. Their point guard was really good. I think Rhode Island will be pretty good in the A-10.

Maryland came back. They ran. They've been running here in these first two games, getting easy buckets. Cowan was exceptional in the second half. Morsell defensively was. exceptional in the second half, playing essentially one of the two forward spots. He was really your number four in that small lineup with sticks and Morsell and Wiggins and Cowan and Iala. That's their best lineup, the smaller lineup, I think. He's playing the twins a lot, the Mitchell guys a lot. I thought

there was a really good win for Maryland. I thought they really responded well to a team that came out and tried to bully him a little bit. It's not always been Maryland's best match-up. up against teams that bully them a little bit. I mean, will you ever forget the West Virginia game in the round of 32 in the tournament when they literally beat up mellow? Mellow tremble. It's a good win. I think it's one of those wins that'll look even better down the road.

But Maryland came back and they really did it on defense and they ran better offense and Wiggins got it going. Wiggins had 13 rebounds in the game. It's knocked down a couple threes after missing some threes in the opener. But that was a good win for Maryland. The Caps won again. My God, they are the hottest team. team in the league. They don't lose. The caps do not lose. They've had 18 games, two losses, two regulation losses, 29 points, best record in the league. They beat Vegas at home the other

night. They play Arizona at home tonight. This is one, I mean, look, the NHL, you get to the playoffs, who knows, didn't basically every top seed in the east lose last year and in the West. So you never know when you get to the postseason, but they are. are an exceptional, exceptional team. All right, one more thing before we say goodbye for the day. College football rankings. The Alabama LSU game was huge because I think LSU would have been in still pretty good shape if they had lost the game to potentially snag a playoff spot. But everybody has pointed to the fact that if Bama lost that game going into it, they didn't have the non-conference schedule or even the SEC schedule to beat out other one-lossed teams

and certainly not anybody that finished undefeated. Because they opened with Duke. They played New Mexico State. They had Southern Miss. They have not played a great SEC schedule. They still have Auburn and the Iron Bowl left on the road. Not going to be an easy game for them. But Alabama, I believe, is still in decent shape to get to the playoff if they

win out and they don't participate in the SEC title game because it's going to be LSU versus more likely than not Georgia at this point in the SEC title game. Auburn, by the way, is a very interesting team the rest of the way. They played Georgia this week and they finish with Alabama, both of those games at home. They could literally, as a two-loss team, be in the conversation if they were to win both of those games because the one team that you might consider for that fourth spot, the Pac-12 champion, Oregon at that point, Auburn beat head-to-head. But anyway, more likely than that, not going to happen. Alabama, to me, right now, it comes down to if they run the 10th,000.

table and they win their remaining games, which includes the Iron Bowl at Auburn, they will be put side by side with a one-loss Pack 12 champion, Oregon or Utah, for the fourth spot. That assumes LSU, Ohio State, and Clemson are your first three. Right. Right now, that's the favorite for that. And it would come down to Alabama or Oregon or Alabama or Utah. Oregon, I think, would get it over Alabama. I don't think Utah would get it over Alabama. And my reasoning is that Utah's non-con schedule isn't great either, and their one loss wouldn't be as good as Alabama's one loss to LSU.

And Utah would be a conference champion, I understand that. And by the way, Utah passes the eye test for me. I think they're really good. But Alabama passes the eye test, too. But that's how I think it's going to play out. Penn State obviously could run the table and be in the conversation. You know, Minnesota at 9-0. What about an Oklahoma Big 12 champion?

Nope. Okay. I don't see it. I think I agree with you, but I think that at least needs to be put into play as well. A one lost conference champ going up against an Alabama at large. Look, Oklahoma was lucky to survive the other night, Iowa State. In Iowa, Oklahoma has at times passed the eye test for me. I thought they were much better, and then recently they haven't played very well.

That would include two wins over Baylor and a win over Oklahoma State as well. Baylor's not very good at 9-0-0. They should have lost Saturday. They're 9-0-0. Minnesota's going to be an underdog in two or their three remaining games, even before they get to a potential Big Ten title game. They're underdogs this week at Iowa, and they'll be an underdog to Wisconsin when they play Wisconsin. It was a really good win for them over Penn State.

Really cool to see a team like Minnesota and the excitement in Minneapolis. for that team. But they're not going to... In fact, I'll go out on the limb and tell you that I think Wisconsin's going to be in the Big Ten title game. I think Minnesota loses to Iowa, loses to Wisconsin. Wisconsin gets a tiebreaker

over Minnesota, ends up in the title game against Ohio State, gets beat like a drum. Ohio State's undefeated. LSU, look, LSU Georgia will be a hell of a game in an SEC title game. It will be a great game. But I like LSU, Ohio

State Clemson and then I think it just comes down to the Pac-12 champion. If it's Oregon, I think it's Oregon. If it's Utah, then I think Alabama with one loss would get in, even though I think Utah is an exceptional team too. I think they're really good. And just because of people in the area, yes, if Penn State happened to magically run the table, they would be a factor as well. There'll be a 17-point underdog in Columbus. Yes, I'm just, I was hanging out with a Penn State fan on Saturday who was going through it. And yes, if they magically ran the table, won the Big Ten, they would be in the conversation. No, they would be in.

If they beat Ohio State in Columbus and then they won the Big Ten title, I think they would be in. Over Alabama, yes, but again, if Baylor ran the table, yes, if something weird, if we're going into weird situations here. And it would be better for them to face an undefeated Minnesota in the Big Ten title game. Yes, and erase that loss. Yeah. I think that Auburn's got a shot against Georgia this week at home. And then if that happens, then the conversation is going to turn towards, what if Auburn beats Alabama and the Iron Bowl? Because Auburn is the one team that beat Oregon. And if Oregon ends up as the team, you know, because consider this for a moment. If Auburn ran the table, Georgia would have two losses, Alabama would have two losses, they'd be out, right? If we assume Minnesota is going to lose once or twice down the stretch, they're out. If we assume LSU, Ohio State, and Clemson aren't going to lose, going into, for LSU going into the championship game,

and Auburn would not be in the championship game, but LSU wins the championship. Ohio State wins the Big Ten, Clemson wins the ACC. Then you're talking about potentially it's two teams for one spot. It's Auburn and Oregon. And Oregon would be a conference champion with one loss. Auburn would be a non-conference champion with two losses, but they played head-to-head, and Auburn won.

That would be a really interesting conversation. I like Auburn this week, plus the points at home against Georgia. I think it's a six, six and a half, something like that. All right, we're done for the day. Enjoy the day. Tommy's back with me tomorrow.