The Kevin Sheehan Show - The Bucket Of Dumb

Episode Date: November 29, 2018

Kevin and Thom continue to talk about the Reuben Foster situation, and how the Redskins handled everything on Wednesday. They talk about Maryland's loss to Virginia, and was it actually an encouraging loss? They discuss the Wizards and everything going on around Dwight Howard. Why isn't that getting more coverage locally? Plus, NFL Buy or Sell and a look at Thursday night's game. <p> </p><p>Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices">podcastchoices.com/adchoices</a></p> Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You want it. You need it. It's what everyone's talking about. The Kevin Sheehan Show. Now here's Kevin. You're listening to The Sports Fix. All right. I'm here. Tommy's here. Aaron's here. This show's presented by Window Nation. If you're in the market for Windows, call 86690 Nation or go to Window Nation.com and tell them we told you to call. So remember Tommy the old days, the radio days. You still do radio. You're still a radio star. But remember so. of those days, like on certain days, when we would start planning for next day's show, and we didn't have a lot. You know, we'd be like sitting around trying to figure something out, and those days rarely, if ever, happened during football season. But we would sit around some days and say, well, you know what, there's always a chance that the Redskins will do something stupid before the end of the day or before this show starts tomorrow. And how many times did they come through? Oh, absolutely. I mean, time and time, again, they came through. Absolutely. I mean, again, you know, the aura of self-destruction, just when you think you've

come clear of it, something just drops in your lap. You should write a book, and I had this idea after yesterday's show, and I started reading through some of my Twitter reaction to the show yesterday, because I referred to the Ruben Foster signing as another thing you can just put in the Redskins bucket of dumb. You know, it's just they've got this bucket of just dumb that we've been just throwing things into the bucket for year after year after year. And people liked the way that I described it as the bucket of dumb. And I thought, that's Tommy's next book. Now, you've got a lot of books out there, all of which you can acquire or purchase for less than a dollar on Amazon.com right now, which is pretty much true.

How many books have you written? 11 books. 11 books. 11 books. You've written 11 books. How many of them could I actually right now go on Amazon and purchase? Well, you couldn't. I wrote one Redskins book, which is like a coffee table book, and that's hard to come by.

So you can't do that. And the Negro League Encyclopedia, that's like a 50 or $75 book. Other than that, you can pretty much buy the rest of them. For how much? Well, probably a penny. Or 50 cents or a dollar or something like that. There's no book available for a penny. I don't know.

You know what? If they were $5,000, I wouldn't get a dime of it. Okay? So it really doesn't matter. So I saw your column today. It was on DJ Sweringer. Well, that was my column from yesterday. I just retweeted it today.

Okay. I got it. That was my column for Wednesday's paper. I write Monday, Wednesday, Friday paper. Okay. So tomorrow I'll have a column, and I'm not sure what I'm going to write. I might write about maybe the latest bucket of dumb thing that was thrown in there. You know, it's so ridiculous.

I had a conversation with someone at ESPN late yesterday, not Scott, who I was with last night at the Maryland game, and I'll get to that in a few minutes. Someone else who reached out to ask if I had any information on how the decision to sign Ruben Foster was reached. And I said, I don't really have any insight information on that at all. But this person just said to me, you know, the league isn't very happy. And I thought about this after the show yesterday. I don't think I mentioned this on the show yesterday.

But, you know, when a player is claimed off waivers, you never hear about the number of teams, specifically the other teams, whom put in claims. You know, a player gets claimed off waivers. Hey, you know, Harry Popadopoulos got picked up by the 49ers off waivers, you know, after the Giants cut him. You don't hear that 17 teams put in claims and which teams they were. But in this particular situation, the information that it was just the Redskins got out. Yes, it did. And the fact that that information got out may be an indication, Tommy, that the league wanted everyone to know. Hey, we only had one team in our league of 32 teams that wanted a player that just got charged with domestic assault.

Just one. It's not reflective of the reasonable majority of our clubs who did not pursue a player 72 hours after he was arrested for his second domestic assault incident in less than a year. We just want all NFL fans to know just one team did it. And we knew you'd be debating as to whether or not it was the Raiders, Browns, or Redskins. So we just wanted you to know it was actually the Redskins. Seriously, that never, when do you ever hear about the number of teams that put? put in claims. You know, pro football talk at one point during the afternoon said, it's taken a long time when everyone knew a team had put in a claim,

but it was taking a while for it to come out, who claimed them. And pro football talk tweeted out, this is kind of unusual. I mean, for it to take this long for that team, for the information to come out, that which team claimed him. So it was a murky process from the beginning. I just, I could be wrong, and someone may tweet this afternoon all of the examples of players being picked up off waivers with information from teams or league. The league is the entity that has that information. It's got to go through the league where you get a list of the teams that put in a claim for said player.

I just don't remember that being the norm. No. It happens every now and then when there's a player that seems to be clearly. connected with somebody and like a team before them puts it in that you'll hear oh yeah well the eagles or whoever did actually want them just didn't quite get to them but that's usually the case you know what that's true you will hear that you know uh especially if if you're following a specific team in a specific market and it's a big name player you may hear that yeah your team was one of the teams that put in a claim and maybe that's the team that tries to get that information out

yeah to defend themselves for not getting perhaps perhaps uh perhaps uh You know, the other thing I wanted to mention before I get your thoughts on all of this, and I'm sure you were, you've shared those thoughts. I know you were on radio yesterday. I didn't get a chance to hear you, but I was planning on trying to hear you yesterday on JFK in the afternoon. But something happened. Something actually did come up. Oh, okay.

But I wanted to listen to you and Chad yesterday talk about this. But, you know, something also just to remember that the team that released him, the team that's actually been with him and knows him for, two years or a year and a half. Team that drafted them in the first round. Yeah, the 49ers. This is hardly what you would call in recent years a banner NFL franchise. Right.

You know, or a team that has so much talent that they could just get rid of a player, you know, oozing with talent and taking the risk. That was the team that cut him. And, you know, the skins, somebody mentioned to me, the skins just want to try to one up Kyle Shanahan. You know, if we're in this game, which I don't think they are, There was, wait a minute, there was something in the last year that the Redskins did something

in the discussion about Kyle Shanahan, trying to want up Kyle Shanahan. I don't think this would fall into that category. I don't think so either. I mean, this is, this is cutting off your face despite your face, not just your nose. Right. If you're trying to get back at Kyle Shanahan or something like that. No, I think, I don't think there's any conspiracy here. I think it's just sheer stupidity.

All right. Tell me your overall thoughts in this. Well, yeah, again, my first thought, and you know, I've talked about this a lot, was, you know, there's a scene in the usual suspects where Kevin Spacey talks about Kaiser Sousa. And he says about when the criminals killed Suzai, you know, had Susie's family as hostage and threatened to kill them. and then Kevin Spacey says Susay showed these Hungarians or whatever what real power was and he killed his own family

Bruce Allen showed Brian Lafamina yesterday what real power is that's what he did I know I talked about that Tommy that you know when you the reports came out about the decision not being unanimous I said yesterday in the podcast

like, you know, and I referenced you, you know, about, hey, Brian, rent, don't buy, you know, in September, that, you know, this guy was brought in for many reasons. One was presumably to keep the Redskins from tripping over their own, you know what, time and time again, from a PR standpoint, to keep those incidents to a minimum. So either they didn't share with him what they were doing, or they did share with it and they ignored him. Because I can't, imagine that he was in favor of this. Nobody with any credibility or intelligence in a marketing public relations business is going to sign off on this. Nobody. I mean, it's just impossible. And let's even take it beyond that. Let's say you don't sign off on it, but it's out of your control,

which this clearly was. Then the next step is, if you're the guy in charge of this, okay, if you're going to shoot yourself, let's at least have a reasonable plan to explain it. Let's come up with a strategy to present this in the best life. You didn't like the Doug Williams presser, the press statement? The Doug Williams press statement, look, the cowardness of Bruce Allen and the owner, Dan Snyder, not to own this publicly, not to come out and talk. I can't think of a franchise, you know, I'm sure there are, but most good franchises on a case like this. the owner is going to speak to it. And Dan Snyder, whose wife, you know, attended a rally at FedEx Field a few years ago

against domestic violence. He's a particular coward. I mean, because this, you just can't let Jay Gruden stand up there like wimpy in Popeye and take all the bullets for something like this. You can't do it. So it was, it was a stupid decision followed by an, a close. Lumsy presentation that only served to make them look back. And then, and then, you know, in the press release,

Doug Williams, when they finally spelled his name right the second time, talked about how they consulted with Alabama players. And then reporters went into the locker room looking for the Alabama players. They consulted with, and then they couldn't find any. Jonathan Allen said, no one talked to me. Ha-ha-Dixon. Clinton Dick's. Clinton Dick said no one talked to me.

And at some point, the players, of court, look, Even if anyone did talk to the players, the last thing these guys want is their name attached to this if it goes south. They don't want to be the ones who publicly vouched for this guy. So the whole, the decision was stupid and then the presentation was stupid. And again, it's, it's people, I heard people on 1067, the fan calling it a good business decision. It's a terrible business decision. You might think it's a good football decision, and that's up in the air, but it's a terrible business decision when you're trying to change the image and perception of a franchise that just a couple months ago was ground zero for the NFL's cheerleading scandal that's going on right now. And then you bring in this guy.

You know, you just, the whole, remember when Scott McLuhan wasn't allowed to speak and, Bruce Allen referenced the grandmother who had just passed away in the funeral that he was attending out in California, as if no one would Google the grandmother's name and find out when she actually passed away, and it was several months prior to that. How is it that they put out that they consulted with some of their own players, Alabama players, players that knew Rubin Foster? Did they not think people would ask, Ha Ha, Clinton Dicks, or John Allen? This is where you call it clumsy.

it's incompetence. It's incompetence and arrogance all tied together, which is the worst of combinations. And this is where you've got to have someone in the organization at some point, an adult that says, no, no, no, we can't put this on John Allen and Ha Ha Clinton Dix and shove Doug out there if we actually didn't consult them. We live in a town, and by the way, that town could be produced,

Kentucky, because someone's going to ask John Allen what they said or what he said to the team about Rubin Foster because the team indicated that John Allen endorsed this. It's really incredible to me, how stupid and clumsy. Clumsy is a kind way to put it. As far as Doug Williams getting pushed out there, Tommy Coward is the way to describe it, but Bruce Allen, there is some recognition internally that you can't stick the owner. out there. He's so despised. You can't put Bruce Allen out there. He's Satan right now in the eyes of Redskins fans. The Prince of Darkness. And Doug Williams is the only positive connection from

the front office to the fan base. And, you know, it's a shame because I feel badly for Doug. He's got to go out there with basically a statement that someone else wrote that he's going to read. I didn't think he, you know, I don't think this, he didn't go out there and read it. They put it out there. I just put it out there. And I personally didn't understand the mocking of that particular press statement. I'll make another suggestion to you too. I actually didn't think Jay Gruden was that bad. I watched Jay Gruden and I watched that, not live.

He had no answers, Kevin. But you know what? Jay's another, you know, compared to Bruce and Dan, Jay's actually, he comes off as likable. I think he came off as trying to give the best answers that he gave. He didn't give answers. that pleased anybody, but he made an attempt to do it. But putting him in that position is wrong.

Yes, exactly. Unless he's the one who really fought for this. Here's how you said they had to have a plan. The plan should have been for Bruce Allen to walk out before Jay Gruden did yesterday, or the day before, and say, look, our head coach isn't taking questions on this. My senior VP, Doug Williams, isn't taking any questions on this. I'm making the statement and taking the questions on this. The buck stops with me on this move.

I pushed for it for one reason and one reason only. He's talented and we're trying to win. If the charges stand, he'll never play for us. If they don't and the legal system clears him and the NFL says he's eligible, then he will. This isn't a move that means we condone domestic violence. If you feel that way, it's your right to feel that way, but I disagree. And then he could list all of the different things. Tanya Snyder and the organization, you know, that they've done charitable, wise and otherwise

against domestic violence and all the, you know, the different things that the organization has done that are positive. And a lot of that's been led by the owner's wife. He can go through that list and then he can say, look, the PR ramifications to this were considered. But the truth is, we know we're not the favorite of any of you out there right now. We're damned if we do, damned if we don't. People don't like us. They don't respect us, but our goal right now is to win, and to win, we need talented players, and Ruben Foster is talented. We liked him as a player and a person coming out when we met him at the scouting combine in 2017. If we misjudged on the type of person he was, then he won't play for us. But we'll let the legal system and our league review

lead the way on this, and we will respond accordingly. Questions? That's how it should. should have been handled. How's that? Well, listen, Kevin. Go ahead, pick that apart. I'm sure you will. There's no, I mean, there's no good, once you made this decision, there's no real good way to handle it, but there's better ways to handle it than what you did than what they did. Absolutely. Here's the thing.

Bruce Allen would rather stick needles in his eyes than say, you don't like us. I mean, this is the guy who before the opening game, like I think 24 hours before the home opener basically went on WTOP and said we're close to a sellout. And there were like 25,000 no-shut and empty seats in the stadium. You just reminded us of another reason that Lafamina can't be, like there's clearly, that was remember we said, what the hell? I mean, you got a guy out here pushing for tickets to be sold and saying, hey, you know, and I remember Lafamina's line in August? he said, we just kind of felt like if we had tickets available, we should tell people. Yeah, yeah.

Like it's not that hard. And Bruce is telling people we don't have tickets available when they had $25,000 available. So, I mean, he, again, he'd rather chew broken glass than come up with a statement like this. But Brian Lafamina, I mean, I feel more confident than ever. I'm doubling down on the fact he has, he supposedly has, I don't know if he still does, he's probably wiped it off, on his whiteboard in his office, some kind of motto that says, do one right thing a day for a thousand days.

Well, you know what? He's not going to see 500 days, let alone a thousand. I mean, because, look, he was, when he was first brought in. You've been saying that since the beginning. Well, it was a conflict. I mean, you had him and an army of suits

that were brought in to do business in a way that was foreign to the way they've done business there ever since Dan Snyder's own the team. So there was inevitably going to be this clash. I mean, it's not like, you know, like all of a sudden there was going to be this transformation to transparency, you know, that that they were in this was inevitable. I mean, again, I think in part the league kind of like pushed these guys on Snyder. I think that's a real possibility.

I do too. I mean, I feel that way. I think they said, Dan, I mean, you're one of our, this is one of our premier franchises and you're running an internet. ground. You know, you need some help. And we're going to ship these guys down, you know, in various ways, shape, and forms to help you. But I mean, when he met with the press in that in that boardroom, and I'm sitting there thinking, my God, you know, this, this poor guy, he doesn't, he hasn't know what he's in for. I'm sure he thinks he does. But, uh, this was inevitable. Bruce Allen does not do things transparently. He does not like to operate in the light. He likes to

operate in the dark. That's why I call him the Prince of Darkness. And you have an owner who just will self-destruct and destroy his own product. So, and if you don't, here's the thing. It's the 21st century and a good organization or really bad organization that's trying to be good is going to consider, it's going to consider the public relations outcry on every move they make. everything they do. It doesn't mean it will dictate what they do, but they will consider it and take it seriously. And this organization, again,

the one that where you've got empty seats at the stadium, you know, home game after home game, when they have a six and three record, this organization clearly does not. They're still stuck in, well, for Bruce Allen, they're still stuck in 1972, as it turns out. And, you know, I've had people, say to me, well, the core

Redskins fan, they don't particularly care about this stuff. Well, the core Redskins fan, they're at the stadium now. You're seeing the core. The problem is the outsiders, the fringe, the casual fans. And that's an NFL problem, too.

But that's a particular Redskins problem. If you drive away the casual fan, then you're killing yourself. I'm not talking about the core Redskins fan that's going to say, I don't care what he did, as long he can help us win. Yeah, you know, I, there are a lot of people that feel that way, the way you just described

it. Who cares? He can play, you know, damned to everything else. We need talent on the field. That's great. But you know what? That's a significant minority, Tommy. And I know callers, you know, on 980 yesterday, and I was listening to some of the

callers calling. And it seemed like to me listening for a while that the majority actually said, this is a great move. But I find that the problem with. this is that a lot of the reasonable fans, and I'm not saying that you're totally unreasonable to have that view. I mean, you may have legitimate reasons for having

that view, and it's a debatable topic on the football side anyway. Yes. But the problem they have is the erosion of the majority of their fans that you just don't see reflected in the stadium on Sunday.

You see it reflected in all of the other ways. You see it reflected in their merchandising dollars and their TV ratings are down. The TV ratings, etc. And you had a season. You know, I said this to you a few weeks ago that, because

I think you made the comment to me, look, this is just a continuation, it's the same old, same old. And I said, of course it is, but there was one event this year that should have been the single biggest red flag that the organization who is delusional at times about you know, how their fan base

has eroded to a certain degree and what people really feel about them because you and I have talked about this before but the Harvest Fest crowd is not the majority of their fans it's a very tiny percentage these are the people that will spend every disposable dollar on the organization and never think that the organization does anything wrong but the single you know biggest red flag event in years is that you had a home opener in September following a win on the road with a brand new quarterback that everybody was

excited about and a running back, a Hall of Fame running back that went over 100 yards, and you had 25,000 minimum empty seats for opening day. Yes. That has never happened. We've seen half-filled FedEx in December and even late November, you know, when the season's lost and they're bad and they're going nowhere. We've never seen that on opening day. No.

Ever. Absolutely not. You mentioned the quarterback. Let me get to the quarterback for a minute, Alex Smith. Because people will say, you know, you don't mix football decisions with public relations decisions. And I would say to you that the whole, that not, I would say to you, a significant percentage of the decision the trade for Alex Smith was about image and public relations. Fair point. I mean, they had a quarterback, a pro ball quarterback who walked out the door with nothing to show for it.

And they felt that they could not go into this next season and sell tickets with a rookie quarterback and Colt McCoy, if they drafted a rookie quarterback in this draft. They felt in order to save face, they had to do something. And they got a lot of credit initially for the Alex Smith trade for doing just that. People said, wow, you know, they screwed up the Kirk Cousins things, but they rebounded well. That's about image. That's about perception. The best out of a bad situation that they had created.

Yes. So that's about perception. So the Alex Smith trade, in part, I'm not saying that the majority, in part was made because of perception. There is no doubt, no doubt. And I love the way that you looked at that. It's the same way that you looked at, you know, sort of the Redskins name situation. You know, what would be worse, changing it or not changing it?

Changing it is potentially a lot worse than people don't look at it from that standpoint with respect to the lost fans because of that. But looking at it from that perspective, there is no doubt that in the moment Bruce Allen had some heat on him. Yes. You know, even the owner, even the owner at the very end said, what are we doing? Like this guy, we've waited forever for a guy that could actually be a franchise quarterback. why are we dicking around with this? And he needed a solution. He needed a solution because they had to have some,

they had to have some juice coming into this season. They also needed a quarterback because they had some talent coming back off of injured reserve. That's the legitimate football part. He couldn't trot out Colt McCoy. No. You know what? If he trotted out Colt McCoy,

they might have had 25,000 no-shows at the home opener. Yeah, I mean, imagine that. If they had started a cold and 25,000 people didn't show up. I've got a question for you. What's worse? The organization consulting 22, 23, 24-year-old Alabama players about what to do about Ruben Foster, or lying about the fact that they consulted with these players.

Well, I'm always going to come down on the side of lying. Because what they did there is they, obviously these players were caught unaware, and they put the players, not only did they lie, but they put the players in a bad situation. Doug in the players. Yes.

Yeah, and you know, look, I wrote about this when Doug was first installed as the point man for them. We saw this happen with Wes Unsil, and we saw this happen with the late Mike Flanagan in Baltimore, where guys who were heroes for the franchise as players. When they go to the front office,

for whatever reasons and they fail, they become, their star diminishes within the history of the franchise. For a generation, Wes Unselled meant failure for the bullets. You know, Mike Flanagan

was a great starting pitcher and he was seen as the Inept General Manager for the Baltimore Orioles. And Doug Williams is in danger of having his, elite status, well-deserved elite status within this franchise. Tarnished. Tarnished, but just by being in the building.

Just being associated with the other people. Yes. That's not, you know, look, I think that will come down to age. I think for some of us, we're never going to let. Of course not. Like, I never let the fact that Wes Unseld was basically, you know, a Poland's, you know, puppet out there making, you know, horrible moves. and running a horrible franchise for many years.

It never made me think any less of Wes Unseld as one of the greatest bullets of all time. And what a class act he was, too, as a player. I agree. And Doug is almost in the exact same category. Doug's not a Hall of Fame player, and Wes Unseld was. But I'm never going to think of Doug in any way other than, you know, leading them to a Super Bowl victory. and by the way, representing the organization in a real positive way consistently.

I'm talking about the generation now. Yeah, a younger generation. Who didn't see Doug Williams have one of the greatest quarters in the history of Super Bowl. Maybe, no, actually the greatest quarter in the history of the Super Bowl. The greatest quarter in the history of the Super Bowl and a lot of significance to the performance he had beyond football in 1980. So, I mean, look, as usual, with the aura of self-destruction, there's a lot of casualties. There's a lot of casualties from this. So I had Thysman on the show yesterday, and we both love Joe, but we also know that Joe, his default, is to be very protective of the organization.

Yes, it is. Even Joe said yesterday, this one's a head scratcher. This one is a head scratcher. And, you know, then he moved on to talking about the team, and I tried to come back to it. I'm like, Joe, you don't like this move, do you? You don't think this is the right thing to do. And he referred to it as a head scratcher. For Joe, that's about as much criticism as you'll ever get.

He couldn't come up with a defense. He couldn't come up with a defense. Yeah. Because even he recognizes, on one hand, you can say, F everybody, we're trying to win here. And this guy's talented and we liked him. but to your point, you know, for this organization in this moment, there's always context to everything and timing to everything. And there have been moments where I've said, you know, damn the torpedoes. Who cares what you think about Des Bryant?

Who cares what you think about Michael Vick? Let's get him in. I didn't feel that way about Michael Vick at the time. But I'm just saying the Eagles took a shot on Vic because of talent and they took the PR head. But this organization right now with the credibility issues that it has and its own marketplace, you know, let alone, you know, a league-wide, at a stage in which, you know, it's very tenuous. They have to know from a business standpoint that this season has been, if they didn't know it before this season, they've got to know it now, don't they?

That they've had an erosion, a significant erosion of their fan base. You know, if they're as delusional as you think they are, maybe not. Well, so the guy that reached out to me from ESPN said, to me, I don't think, and I'm going to look for it here, he said, I don't think that they understood what the reaction would be. He said, this is, the problem is that they don't have anybody in the organization that understands what the ramifications. Well, they do.

They do. He's the new COO. But they don't listen to him. That they don't listen to. They were on all three network nightly news last night for this, ABC, CBS, and NBC. He said it's been for too long, too much old school thinking in a new age world. That's my point, exactly. And it's in the 21st century, you don't operate in a vacuum anymore.

Whether you like it or not, perception impacts your product across the board. Look, it might not be a great comparison, but we saw what happened with the University of Maryland Board of Regents in a 24-hour period where their decision. was to bring back DJ Durkan and within 24 hours later Durkan was fired again was fired and the chairman of the board of Regents had to resign that was all because of public perception and their inability which we've heard in different reports they did not expect that kind of blowback so I mean you've got to be prepared for that in this day and age when you're making decisions about personnel that you think have nothing to do with public relations, you've got to be prepared for blowback and perception

and impact. That's new age. Yeah, I would tend to agree that they way underestimated what the backlash would be. I don't think that they completely, you know, whiffed on that. I don't think that they thought, oh, no one will care. I mean, it's possible. It's possible with them. I'm not going to put it past And there is part of this thinking that, my God, people can't stand this anyway. How much worse can it think? That's what I said yesterday. And that's why that I would have suggested Bruce come out and handle this on his own the way I just suggested it, which is to acknowledge, hey, you know what, from a PR standpoint, honestly, can it get any worse? I mean, we have to focus on the only thing that will help build our fan base once again. And that's winning. And we're not going to. to play this guy if he gets char if he's convicted of this thing or if the league says he can't play but we're going to let it play out here which is also why they could have waited and there was nobody else that they could have waited part of this problem is the timing it was it i mean he was in jail on saturday night you know i mean when people say no one else put a claim in on them

well the hillsbury county sheriff's office put a claim in on them as well so part of of this is, I mean, the rawness of the timing. And, you know, this has nothing to do with what's fair or what's not fair for Ruben Foster and innocent until proven guilty. And I can't tell you how many. I agree with that. That's not what we're talking about here. That's not what we're talking about.

We're talking about it from the team standpoint and the context of where the team is right now as an organization and whether or not, as you always say, the juice was worth the squeeze. It's not. I mean, I can't, I think I said this yesterday. I just can't imagine that meeting on Monday or Tuesday when you're sitting around as an organization potentially discussing it, or maybe that's not how it happened. Maybe this was a unilateral decision by Bruce Allen. But you say, look, we got a major ticket selling problem. We've got a major credibility problem when it comes to almost anything we do.

Almost anything we do, we've got a credibility and a trust issue. within our market. There's this guy that just got arrested the other night for domestic violence, his second one. Who's up for signing him? It's like a Saturday Night Live skit. It's unbelievable to me. It probably will be a Saturday night live skips.

It's unbelievable. Here's what I think we can say. The era of goodwill for the Washington Redskins is over. You know the one that started with Brian Lafamina? That ended with the signing, with the claiming of Ruben Foster. That's over. That ship is sailed.

And again, we're back to the old aura of self-destruction. How did you feel about those that used this particular claim of a player to talk about Colin Kaepernick not being signed by the organization when they had a quarterback issue? To me, it has nothing to do with it whatsoever.

I mean, they're conveniently trying to shoehorn. Look, the Colin Kaepernick thing is a very complicated thing. Very complicated. In a way, Dan Snyder could legitimately make the case that it would be bad business for him to sign Colin Kaepernick. No doubt. I mean, because this is what apparently, according to the ESPN report about the meeting a year ago at the owners about the national anthem policy, basically he made the case, I've got defense and military contractors in my fan base that, that, are not going to react to this.

So whether you think that that's, what do you think that that's wrong, unfair or what? I mean, it wouldn't be good business for him. But again, that's one of the many layers in what's a complicated issue for Kyle, but it has nothing to do with Ruben Foster. Yeah, I thought it was positioned poorly for those that brought it up.

I see, on one level, it's very complex, because you have those issues where it's bad, business in certain markets to go down the path of Colin Kaepernick. But on another hand, it's pretty simplistic. You know, this is not a starting quarterback in the NFL. The last time he played, he got benched for Blaine Gabbard. So you're not going to sign a backup quarterback and have that kind of backlash as a possibility. You know, again, juice ain't worth the squeeze for anybody really, especially in certain markets. This would be one of them for the reasons that you just mentioned. I mean, why would you, why would you, they're apples and oranges.

Ruben Foster and Colin Kaepardt. They're not even close. But, you know what's, but again, when you make a move like Ruben Foster, you become the target for everything. So you open yourself up to, uh, to these kind of arguments. And, and it's tough to do. defend it. It's tough to have a rational defense of anything the Redskins do anymore. I mean, because people, I mean, it's like people just won't listen. They don't care. You know, the other thing too, Tommy, I think I mentioned this yesterday. I can't remember. But, you know, part of what makes what happened this week just even dumber is they are gearing up for one of their biggest games in years, a Monday night game in Philadelphia for more, more, most,

likely, the division lead. Why would you want this disruption and distraction this week? I don't, why would you put your players into a position where they've got to answer these questions? Some players who were told by the team, or the team told the media were consulted on this. Like, why? The timing's bad too. For those of you that say, to hell with the PR is a great player, we got to think about talent, we got to think about the future. Why this week? I mean, you are in a division race. Are people even considering that anymore? I am. I'm looking forward to Monday night.

I want them to go to Philadelphia and win. I think they've got a chance to go to Philadelphia and win. I would actually, even though I know they can't go to the Super Bowl this year, because nobody's going to beat New Orleans in the Superdome, and the Redskins, even though they probably have a hell of a lot of fans in the Coliseum, if they played a playoff game out there. Envision they have a home game against, well, Minnesota would be the most intriguing, but let's just say they have a home game against Seattle, and they win that game, and they go to the Coliseum to play a divisional round game. That's not going to be a massive home field disadvantage. There would be a ton of Redskinned fans in that stadium. They can't beat the Rams. I'm not suggesting

that. So I know that there's a massive limitation on what they can do. I'd still like to see them play postseason football this year. And here we are in the lead-up to what is a massive December game with huge stakes on Monday night football. And they went and did this. Why in that discussion, or at least in the discussion with himself, the Bruce conversation with himself, didn't he say, you know what, I don't want to take the attention off this big game Monday night?

Yeah. Or maybe he did because he knows they're going to lose. I actually think they have a chance to win. Well, I think they have a chance to win too. But here's the other thing that speaks directly to this as they're preparing to play this game. Jay Gruden's going to have to stand before the media again. If the media does its job out there, they're going to ask him, Jay, we talk to these players from Alabama. And they said, you know, no one consulted.

Tony Wiley's going to scream up. No more questions about Rubin Foster. And you see. Did you hear that yesterday? Yeah, I know that. This is what the media can't do. I've told this time and time again. Go ahead.

Give him a lecture. is they can't tell you what you can and can't ask. They can end the press conference. They can end it right away, but they can't tell you what you can ask and what you can. Only you can. You can decide what you want to ask. And if they want to end the press conference,

don't be their puppets. Let them end the press conference, because it will do you no good otherwise. Look, these are more your contemporaries, your colleagues because you're a writer. But I don't recognize the business anymore, Kevin. I really don't. You haven't in a while.

Let's not forget. Let me get my point out. Okay, go ahead. Yesterday, and I didn't watch it live, I watched it on Redskins.com, the J. Gruden press conference, and I could hear Tony Wiley. I'm assuming it was Tony Wiley, shouting from the background. That's it on Ruben Foster. Can you imagine if that was a press conference in New York or Philadelphia or in other

markets. They would have looked at Tony and told him to shut the F up. We'll ask whatever the F we want to ask. You didn't put your owner out here. You didn't put your team president out here. You put your coach out here as the sacrificial lamb. And yesterday in a press statement, Doug Williams out here, if you're not going to put the right people out here for us to have this conversation with and for us to ask questions to, then it's going to be your coach. You put him in this position. We didn't. And It went immediately to something about James and Crowder's injury. Did you hear that? Aaron, were you there?

I wasn't there. I couldn't make it out on time. But now I'm assuming this, Jay Gruden probably already did his, maybe he still has his conference call. Now, they asked him a lot of questions. I don't want to minimize. They got a lot of questions to Jay Gruden. But Jay Gruden, I think, still may have his conference call with Philadelphia reporters.

So he's going to have to answer questions there. The post game on Monday night, particularly if they lose, There'll be more questions about this. How about the pre-games stuff that we're going to have to be leading up to it? I, yeah, I feel just real quickly. I feel like I was, and maybe collectively, and I know you don't care. I don't want to be overly critical of our media yesterday. I'm just because they got in eight, nine, ten questions about Ruben Foster.

I think it was 10 minutes. Yeah, I mean, it was a solid amount of time and they did a great job. Yes, they did. But here's what you can't. I mean, when their PR person comes in, after screwing this up from a PR standpoint, seven ways to Sunday and tells you it's over, there are a lot of markets where it's not over. Right. And it shouldn't be over.

Right. Now, maybe it was over. Maybe they had exhausted everything they were going to ask because there were a lot of questions and a lot of good questions. But there's more questions to be asked now, apparently. I wanted to get to one other quick thing before we get to the Maryland, Virginia. game. Yesterday, the Sean Taylor, the Sean Taylor doll, commemorative doll thing that I talked about. After the show, many of you tweeted this to me, and I appreciate it, they were available prior to the 11-year anniversary of his death. And so thanks to everybody who got back to me

on that yesterday. That's an important distinction, and it was for me. You know, if they had rolled these things out on the anniversary date, you know, that's distaste. If it was an item that had been out there for a while, totally different situation. You know, Deadspin didn't point that out in their story, which I think made the accusation of in poor taste a bit unfair. So I retract my feelings yesterday on that, although I said if the doll had been available for a while, I have a different view. I also have a much different view, too, and some of you pointed this out, that some of, if not, the majority of proceeds from the sale of that Sean Taylor commemorative doll went to the Taylor family and has been going to the Taylor family over the years.

Well, you know, if Dan Snyder really wanted to help the Taylor family with a doll, he'd have them produce a doll of himself with a set of pins. That would sell. You think that would be a top mover? I think that'd be under a lot of Christmas trees, baby. Well, those have to exist anyway. Somebody's got to make that, don't they? But can you imagine, you know, if he did that and they sold those,

that would be self-deprecation, it would be great for him. That would humanize him so much more than he's capable of being humanized. I don't think they're capable of doing that. Window Nation loves this podcast. Harley, Aaron, Eric, listen all the time. If you've been thinking about new windows, I promise you as someone who has had Windows, Nation install windows twice over the last decade. You can't go wrong by giving them a call. Time is running out on Window Nation's deal of the year. This week is the final week for buy two windows,

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Well, he liked, like everybody else who sees this kid play. He loves Bruno. You know, everybody was really positive about the Maryland loss, the loss last night. Really positive. Are you being serious? Yeah, I'm being very serious. Well, I thought, I thought they quitted themselves very. well against the number 14 in the country.

I think they showed a lot of heart coming back. I mean, they made mistakes. They come out in the second half. They're down by nine. They have a chance to cut it to seven and they miss a layup. And then all of a sudden, they're down by 14 before you know it. But I like the way they play. And I love watching Bruno.

I love watching an old school big man. This is probably outdated. But we're Maryland basketball. We don't lose to Virginia at home. You know, there aren't moral victories, but there are now, apparently. So I'll start with that. You know, I wanted to win the goddamn game last night, and it was a winnable game against a very good team,

and those are the games you've got to start winning at some point. You know, they're number four in the country, whatever. Gary used to take number one to the woodshed on an annual basis in that building. I will say this, though. I thought they played well. I did think they played well. Virginia had two turnovers on the road in that environment, and they weren't loose ball turnovers. They were two offensive fouls. Those were the two turnovers. Do you know how hard that is to do on the road in a tough environment where you've got

a team that's good in Maryland and a crowd that's revved up? And you don't turn the ball over one time loose ball turnover. The two, again, the two turnovers were not, oh, we had a steal or we threw a bad pass. They were two offensive fouls. Offensive fouls count as turnovers. That's amazing. That is really amazing. Tony Bennett, Tommy, is one of, if not the best, period.

Hands down. His teams, they can't get rushed. They can't get sped up. They protect the ball. they run the best half-court offense of any college basketball team out there. His teams are the best when it comes to half-court defense and transition defense. You can't beat them down the court for an easy bucket in transition. On the other hand, they lost to a 16 seat.

They did. They were chanting that last night. I mean, how good a coach could he be? That's great. We couldn't beat you, but our satellite campus, you know, beat you last year. That's, that's awesome. It's not a satellite campus, really. And by the way, you want to.

UMBC's a really, it's a good school. It's a really good school. It's a very good school. I know it is. I know it is. Yes. And by the way, when you really want to win these games is, well, unfortunately, you don't play these games anymore because you don't play in the ACC. And yesterday's a reminder of what you miss.

Yeah. By not doing that. But you want, you want Turgent. teams to start winning these games in February. I mean, again, that's, you know, I mean, you should be encouraged about the way Marilyn played, but I think there's still questions about how much better Turgeon teams get over the course of a season. Let me just address what you said before that, and we'll circle back to Turgeon and the

team. When you just said, you talked about, you know, an ACC matchup, I mean, you know, everybody focuses on Duke in Carolina. as a longtime lifelong Maryland person, I love beating the hell out of Virginia. You know, there's a lot of snobbery at UVA. There's a lot of looking down. Oh, they think they're at Harvard of the Mid-Atlantic?

You know, there's a lot of reference to Maryland as an ag school when you talk to UVA people. And like, it's really, really condescending. And it has been over the years. And by the way, you know, the position Maryland had in the ACC for so many years was sort of that northern red-headed stepchild. You know, and the outlier, which we were a charter member of the ACC, and the third winningest program in the history of that league behind North Carolina and Duke

well ahead of Virginia. Virginia does not have a national championship. I'll remind all Virginia fans of that. So, you know, when you mention that, it's like, I don't have that feeling for anybody in the Big Ten. No. The feeling I had last night of I wanted to beat UVA. And UVA, you know, their fans, they had some fans there behind their bench. There's always that, you know, road visiting fan section.

But I know a lot of Virginia fans, they look down on coming out to college park to a game because it's just a bit too, you know, violent, you know. We don't want to get hit by batteries. We don't want people to throw things at us. You know, like that happens every time you're in college park, which it does not. Look, the crowd can be a little over the time. top at times. But I've gone to the vet before. I've been to the vet two or three times for Redskins Eagles games. I'm not afraid to go in there. Now, I never wore colors in there, but it was

fun to be there. But I, God, it would have been good to beat them last night. It would have been really good to beat them last night. So to your Maryland thing, a couple of things about this team. They are good. I say that a lot at this time of year, and I have over the past several years, sometimes I'm too optimistic, but I think they're going to be really good. They never quit down 17 and understand this about Virginia. Virginia clubs you when they have a 17 point lead. They win by 35 usually when they get up 17. They bludgeon people to death into submission over and over again. It's nearly impossible to come back on Virginia down 17 and Maryland had a legitimate chance. Yes, they did. You know, late in the game. They are young, but they're their young players

are good players. Jalen Smith is a really good player. He's an NBA first rounder. Aaron Wiggins is a future NBA player in my view. But Maryland will be able to enjoy his growth over the next two to three years. Eric Iala, hell, he's basically their point guard.

He plays point more than Cowan does. They're talented and they're ready. You know, you're not going to have to wait on these guys to sort of come up to the level of play. They're ready for this level of play. Maryland's going to be a good team. when we get to February and March. They should be.

They should be a good team. They should be a good team. Their freshmen are good. They don't appear to need a lot of time to adapt to this level. They have legitimate, legitimate interior size. Fernando and Smith are both NBA first rounders. Bruno Fernando is about as large a human being on a college level that you'll see up close. They're also very skilled.

Fernando's a beast defensively as a shot blocker and a rebounder. Jaylen Smith still needs some bulk. You can see, though, this skill. They struggled offensively last night. It was very interesting. They struggled offensively when both of them were in the game together. So Turgeon went small, pulling one of them out and going with a slightly smaller lineup.

But they're not always going to struggle offensively with both of them in the game. Virginia is a tough matchup. But I'd be very surprised if Maryland isn't a tournament team that plays into the second weekend. I'd be surprised too. I think they have that kind of talent and ability. I can't tell you how heartwarming it is

to watch a player like Bruno play under the basket and not run 25 feet away from the basket. Well, he can. But he doesn't. He generally doesn't do it. And you know what? I'm sitting in the bar.

I came to maybe a realization as to why I hate the way the game has changed so much in part. When I played basketball, you know, in Y leagues, summer leagues. No, this is legit. When I played, I was not a great shooter. My game was that I could, if you were going to, if you were going to cut to the basket, I'd give you to, you'd find, you'd get the ball. I bet you set some really good screens.

Well, no, I mean, it's just a good screen, but you're going to make the pass. You're going to make a great pass. And, you know, that's disappeared. That's disappeared from a lot of the game because there's no one, everyone's running away from the basket. No one's running to the basket anymore. So I think I'm sitting there thinking, let me ask you a question. You still play, you know, San Lot basketball.

There's no three-point shot when you play. No, no, not in. Okay. So, well, no, no, hold on. Let me back up. There are a couple of games over the years and recent years that I play in where there is a three-point line. And yes, they'll count the threes. But in the game that I play that you would enjoy with a lot of older dudes, I mean, no vertical, no real athleticism in the game anymore.

But everybody knows how to play. It's only two's. So, but generally, I mean, we count them as a one. Isn't that the case generally that in most playgrounds and sand lots across America, no one's counting the three points. No, in some places they are. It depends. When you're playing indoors in a gym that's. got the three-point line out there.

Like, I've mentioned Bethesda Sport and Health so many times over the years because for many years I played three, four days a week there. And there's a three-point line and you count the threes. Really? Yep. That's disappointing. I know. I know.

It is. But the, um... So that's, that's one of the reasons why I like watching Maryland play. They've got two bigs. Yeah. They do. But let me just tell you, because you haven't seen it yet. Jalen Smith can shoot the three.

Fernando can shoot the three and at the next level and last night after the game I was there with Scott so a lot of the NBA guys that were there wanted to hanging out with him talking to him and Lawrence Franks

was we were having a conversation with him and Paul Hewitt they're both now remember Lawrence Franks coach the Nets and Paul Hew was the Georgia Tech and then Mason but really at Georgia Tech is where he had the big run in Sienna before that but I spent some time talking to both of them

afterwards and what you're going to see at Maryland games all year long is a ton of NBA scouts. There were 22 there yesterday. Yeah, and it's going to be filled with NBA scouts at these games because of Smith and Fernando and really, you know, Wiggins. They've got NBA. You see, Turgeon's had talent, but I don't think he's had, Aaron, am I right? I don't think he's had this much NBA talent on his team. I mean, you could argue the Diamond Stone year, but it didn't pan out, but at the time at the beginning, there were a ton of scouts at those early season games. That team that was ranked number two preseason had a lot of

perceived NBA talent. And maybe this will be, I don't know, Fernando's going to have an NBA career. Now, these guys, these guys play the game right and play the game hard. But anyway, in talking to these guys, there was, you know, one of them said they're five or six NBA players on the floor tonight, both teams. Virginia's Kyle Guy and Ty Jerome are just deadly.

Just incredible. And they, yeah, look, Marilyn's got a chance to be really good. And I'm glad last night, though, was an opportunity. You know, the challenge and the competition for, you know, eyeballs in a big market like D.C. With all of the sports teams that we have. And, you know, Maryland used to be a given. They were going to get followed. They were going to sell out the building every night.

They were going to be huge TV ratings. It's not that way anymore. You know, last night was the first legitimate, you know, sold-out game they've had this year. This is what I've been trying to tell people. There is a lot more competition for sponsorship, advertising, attention, everything in the sports market here in Washington. Then there was 15 years ago, 20 years ago. Which is why I would say, yes, they are a good team and they played well last night against the number four team in America. And Turgent spoke glowingly about the opponent and about his team too.

but I look at it also as if they had won that game, that's a lost opportunity because nobody's getting fired up for a five-point loss to Virginia in terms of trying to get those additional eyeballs back on Maryland basketball. They have a home game Saturday night. It's the Big Ten opener. It's against Penn State. The building won't be anywhere near what it was last night. Now part of that is you've got Alabama, Georgia on TV at the same time. It's Saturday. But, you know, I just, I wanted last night. I wanted them to get last night. I actually thought they were going to win the game going in.

They were only, the game went off at two and a half. They were two and a half point underdog at tip-off. And Aaron watched my reaction last night because it was 7671 with two seconds left. Marilyn threw it into Daryl Morsell, and he launched one from half court for the cover. And it went off the backboard, hit the front of the rim, and nearly went in. And it was, I mean, it was really funny because right when he missed, there were like three dudes standing behind me going, Sheehan, that was for the cover. I'm like, I know. I'm like, the reaction from the crowd, everybody was like, awe, but just an awe.

Meanwhile, Kevin's basically doubling over. Yeah, I think Scott had, we both had Maryland last night, plus the three. We got it at a favorable number. And that would have been a 76-74 final winner. But, you know, overall, like I did walk out of there. Disappointed on one hand, but also encouraged about their first real game of the year, a really good opponent, a national championship final four type of team they played last night, although we thought that of Virginia last year.

And I think Maryland, they played 20 big 10 games this year. They're in the 20 game, you know, season this year. I think they got a chance to win 14, 15, Big 10 games and contend for a potential Big 10, you know, certainly a top three status and be a second weekend in March team. That team I saw last night. That should be a team that plays into the tournament in March. Should be. We'll see.

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The team 980 has tweeted out in the past. 20 minutes. Redskins Vice President Doug Williams with our guy, Rick Doc Walker, on talking to Alabama players on the team about Ruben Foster. Quote from Doug Williams, we didn't hold

a convention. It wasn't like we talked to all five. The ones we did talk to knew him very well. It doesn't say which ones they talked to. And heaven forbid, when you're doing homework on this guy, you would talk to everybody on the team who knew him.

You know, like that was some kind of like extraordinary effort to try to do that. They're only in the same building. What else should they have done? Well, they should have contacted the Tampa Police. Which they did not according to reports. According to reports, the Eagles were the only ones that did that, apparently. That's a good place to start right there, the Tampa Police. And his past, they should have contacted and made sure they had copies of the police reports for the other two times he was.

arrested in the past 12 months. What about the 49ers? Do you do you, do you, I'm thinking they don't talk. Okay, but what about the league? Do they talk to somebody at the league and they say, we are considering doing this? Is there something we should know from San Francisco that isn't out there publicly? I don't know if they'd ask that question because I don't think they'd want to know the answer, to be honest with you. I'm not saying that they'll ask these questions. I'm saying what questions should be asked by a reasonable smart organization. Yes. Yeah, that should be a question. What about a conversation with the league? I mean, doesn't, in this particular situation with, you know, in the Me Too era, in the domestic

violence, you know, era of it being so prominently talked about and being such an issue in our society. And the team being round zero. Right. About the true eating scandal that I heard the NFL this year. do when the Redskins put the claimant, other than just release the fact that we had one team, one dummy did it, and it was them. I mean, is there a pushback from the commissioner, from anybody? I don't know. I don't know either.

But in an, you know, I understand that these clubs, that these teams, you know, are 1 32nd of the league, and they operate at times very independently, but it's a $10 billion, you know, business in aggregate. where all of these 32 are under the umbrella of the shield, and they all want what's best for the league. In this particular situation, on some level, like I'm just thinking about this,

and maybe I'm off here, the league should have prevented anybody from signing him or claiming him. Well, actually, that's legitimate. They should have put him on the commissioner's list the minute he was cut by the 49ers. I don't know if that would have prevented a claim off waivers. I think it would. But the league should have prevented any of the,

of their teams from signing this player. I guess they thought nobody would be stupid enough. But am I right? Yes, they should have. They should have prevented this. On the other hand, you know, because I'm one of them, they're probably thinking, well, if a team's going to pick them up, thank goodness it's the Redskins. You know?

Not that it's a team that we care about or that picked them up or something like that. Thank goodness it's the Redskins. Yeah, but the league doesn't want the three stories on the three network newses last night. they don't want their partner ESPN to do what they're going to have to do Monday night and the pregame lead up and talk about this and talk about how it came about. They don't want this. So I'm going to basically, I've got a new opinion on this. This is the league's fault on some level.

Yes, it is. It really is. They have to prevent their dummies from doing dumb things in situations that are this sensitive. They really should have Tommy. off the hook. Yeah, no, I think you're right. Don't allow them to do it. And look, it's a big, still a big issue for the league.

I mean, they're still reeling from the Ray Rice handling. They're not reeling from that anymore. Yes, they, listen, internally? But they are. Kevin. Internally how? Explain that to me. Who got hired as Director of Security for the NFL about 18 months ago?

Right. Kathy Lanier. Yep. The woman. The very impressive former D.C. Head of police. Who's a woman. Yep.

And what happened right after that? that, Ezekiel Elliott got suspended for six games by the Dallas Cowboys, even though he was never convicted of a crime in the domestic violence case that he was involved in. So, yes, they still feel the effects of that. Yeah, I'll take your word on it. I'm talking about with respect to just fans in general. You know, when you're, I mean, that's the other thing, too. I've heard people try to equate this to Adrian Peterson's signing and you should be just as outrage. There are significant differences, you know, between Adrian Peterson and claiming Rubin Foster off of, off of waivers. And I'm not going to go into depth on this, Tommy, but there are, there are a lot of cultural and generational

differences in raising children. I'm not saying striking a child is ever a good thing. Trust me, it's not with the pictures that we saw of Adrian Peterson's child. But, you know, time has passed. He had played for two different teams. He was eligible to play. You know, it was in August that they signed him after their second round prized, you know, draft choice went down, geist to injury. It's not apples to apples. He had been with two teams since that, yes. Was there an echo in here? I just said that. Well, you know, my headphones aren't working. Yeah, he had been with two teams already. It's just not a comparable situation. So when I've heard people say, well, if you're outraged at this, you should have been super outraged at Adrian Peterson.

No, they're just, they're not real comparable situations for a lot of different reasons. Listen, this is stupid on its own. It doesn't need any comparables. I know. It doesn't. All right. One, we didn't mention. We didn't get to Dwight Howard. Well, let's start with the Wizards last night. Well, you didn't expect them to beat New Orleans with Anthony Davis on the road. No, but I didn't expect. No, I didn't.

told you that there's nothing about what's happened in this big six out of nine stretch that leads me to believe that something good's going to happen. I didn't see any of the game last night because I was at the Maryland game. But, you know, Wall and Beal apparently, you know, combined for seven turnovers in the first half. And there was a lot of disinterest in the game. They were down early. They were down, I think, what were they down? 20 at half time? I think it was 20 at halftime. And they were playing a better team than the team that they played the other night and came back on. The other team, they played the other night.

It's a good team, but that team's been playing poorly. And that team didn't have, what? Didn't have Chris Paul. Right, didn't have Chris Paul. And when they did beat the Pelicans the night before, they didn't have Anthony Davis. All right. So on the Dwight Howard thing, I have a simple question for you. You should know the answer more than I would know the answer.

Why hasn't there been any reporting on this? No reporting on this. Now, maybe I've missed it. Maybe Candice Butner and whoever does the beat on your paper, do you have a Wizards Beat reporter? Yes, we do. Okay. Maybe I've missed it, but very little reporting on what came out about Dwight Howard over the weekend, TMZ, various other places, about his relationship with a transgendered person and the threats that apparently he made via his pastor towards this person. if they didn't keep this relationship quiet.

The physical threats made. Why hasn't there been any reporting on this? Well, look, for one thing, it's very awkward and distasteful. So what? The second thing is, Kevin, this is what happens when people say media. They lump everyone together. I guarantee you that most credible media do not consider TMZ to be credible media. On the other hand, even a National Enquirer gets stuff right sometimes.

Well, TMZ seems to get things right all the time. Well, we don't know. I mean, how do we know? We don't know. We don't know. There are tapes. Have you listened to the recordings? Yes, I get that.

I get that. But, you know, the Washington Post doesn't have those tapes. The Washington Times doesn't have those tapes. There's a reluctance to take TMZ as a credible news source. Beyond that, he's not playing for the team right now. It's reported as an injury. By the way, of the two things that we were talking about, the relationship with the transgender gendered person and the physical threat.

The physical threat. Can we all in 2018 admit that that's actually much worse, that that's a much more serious charge? So why hasn't there been anything? Do you think that they're still doing research? Do you think that there's activity on the reporting front from our local media on whether or not Dwight Howard's been involved in something that could be criminal? I can't say, Kevin.

What's your guess, Tommy? No? No. There's no, there's no research into this. There's no making calls. There's no trying to figure out if there's a story here. Maybe there is. I don't know.

What is your problem with this? I don't know. Why are you so uncomfortable with this conversation? Well, because, because again, it's, it's, it's icky stuff. You know, it's icky personal stuff. Okay, just take the other part of it. take the the potential

the possibility that there was some sort of threat towards this person if they went public with this information hello where's the reporting you know what when a police department charges them

then I'll pay attention okay how's that when a credible organization besides TMZ comes up with something then I'll pay attention to it but I tell you one

he's not going to be playing for this team for a long time because of injury or because of something else? Well, now we don't know. We don't know. And he may never play for this team. Okay. So I think that's a possibility to us off of this.

I mean, I have a source, a good source, who told me he's not coming back for a while, a long while. And did your source say it was because of injury or because of this other thing? They said it was because of injury, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's true. Okay. I don't know anything about this. I would disagree with you on this. I would disagree with you. I can't imagine.

that Candace Buckner in the Post and other people who report on this team. I'm talking about the beat reporters on this team or investigative reporters for various outlets that they're not paying attention in trying to find out if there's a story there. And maybe the fact that there has been no reporting means there isn't a story there. Maybe there isn't. But man, this thing nearly blew up Twitter Saturday night. I know that, Kevin, but that doesn't mean anything. It means that there should be some follow-up to see if any of it's true.

Don't be like Pavlov's dog. The bell rings and you answer it. I think there's been some investigating into whether or not these allegations are true. There's not enough thought in the media where they say, I'm not, you know, that's not credible to me. I'm having nothing to do it. There's not enough of that right now. There's too much of, you know, the social media bell rings and everybody jumps for it.

Okay. Listen, Dwight Howard, I mean, if he ever does wind up playing for this team, we'll have more than enough dysfunction to write about besides threatening people he's had relationships with. Okay. So much for Dwight Howard in Washington. Yes. You know what? Maybe Ted Leonesis think this is a media creation, like he did the whole Dwight Howard as the team cancer reports.

You know, he's the guy who said that's a media creation, Dwight Howard being a problem with organizations. I think I read, and Andy Pollan, my partner on 106. What do you think he thinks now? Yeah, I know. I mean, well, what I think I thinks now, I think he thinks, boy, I got a great GM, don't I? Andy on our show 1067 a fan

Paul and Leverro Saturday mornings 9 to 12 pointed out that I think Sean Devaney for sporting news wrote a story and I'm probably messing this up that every team Dwight Howard was with the last year he was there their record was worse and every single place he's been. Oh yeah that's true. Every place he's been.

That is true. Yeah, I knew that. I just want to come back to this one more time. my God. I just find it really interesting that nobody has even glanced in the direction of this story. Well, what are you doing? That's not my job. My job is to read the reporting and then have an opinion about it unless I get something that's really good. But I just, what does it say about what you just described is icky? That I, here's something, Tommy. Has anybody even asked Dwight Howard for a comment? Do you think...

Well, he hasn't been around. Oh, come on. His agents around somewhere. And he was at the game the other night. Ralph Wesley, who's the PA announcer and a good friend of both of ours, we love Ralph. Ralph, because I said, I wonder if he was even at the game. And Ralph texted me and said, no, he was at the game. Has anybody asked him to comment on these allegations, this story?

The fact that his representatives, according to some of the reporting, supporting threatened this particular person for their silence to stay silent. You know what? Maybe you should call up your good buddy Scott Hall with the Wizards and ask him directly about this. And then see if there's any parking for you for the next game. And drop a few personal threats for me while you're on the phone with him. Scott's a good guy. Oh, yeah.

Salted ear. No, Scott, look. Salted ear. There are PR people in this town that's just that let's just say are limited, including, you know, the main story we've been talking about here the last two days, major limitations from a public relations standpoint, Scott does an excellent job. Yeah,

he's wonderful. An excellent job. Yeah, he's on my list of favorite people. Yeah, I know, because he didn't give you the kind of parking you wanted as a media member. It's a little bit more complicated than that. Yes,

it is. Oh, Do we have to get into it? No, we don't. Okay. I just want to point out, maybe you should call your buddy and ask him about what's going on with this.

Why don't, will you tell me afterwards? What? You've never told me that there's anything more than you were always off put by the fact that they wouldn't give you proper parking. Okay, I'll tell you right now. Okay, here we go. Opening game a few years ago, I sent a request for a credential and for parking. And this is when I was still dealing with bad knees, and parking was a real issue.

And you didn't have me to drop you off in front. Right, exactly. And he said, we don't have. enough parking for you. You know, you're not going to have that. So I said, okay, you know, that's fine. So next year, opening game again rolls around. I do the same thing again. He sends me an email back saying, no, there's no parking for you. We don't have enough parking for you. Well, do other media members get parking? Yes. Yeah, because I've gotten parking from them before. I find out later, uh, I find out later that Zach Bono, who was working for,

Scott Hall then. He had left the Wizards and then come back. What? Zach went back to the Wizards? Yes. Yes. He had a period to the Redskins and then to Maryland and now to Mason. He had a period where he had, he had been the PR guy at the Wizards left. Okay. And then came back. All right. So what happened? So Scott, so, so Zach goes to to Scott and says, look, this guy's been covering sports in this town for 20 years. You know, you really should give him parking. So he had a purpose. So he had a person. personal plea from someone who knows this town who's worked in public relations, who works for it, worked for him at the time. And he still said after that, no. I'm going to ask him the next time

I talk to him. Why? I'm going to ask him because maybe you did something to him. There are people that you've done things to, you know? There are people that, you know, there are people that, deserve it. There are people that have you on their list. None that didn't deserve. You know, Tommy's got this list he keeps of people who, uh, you know, you know, you know, there are people that. You know, will never, ever be anything but... Dead to me. Dead to me. Dead to him.

But there are others in this town that have you on their list. I find that hard to believe. I'm such a likable guy. I find it hard to believe, too. So I'll tell Scott what a great guy you are. I think I've said that to him before. Yeah. But I didn't really...

Give him my best. I just thought it was a parking issue only. You see, this is why I don't go to Wizards games. You don't. Because I'm afraid I just may go off on him. You could. You could. It has nothing to do.

with Ernie. We're going to do Scott tomorrow. By the way, I heard that Ernie said to Scott Hall, of all guys not to get parking, why didn't she give it to him? Yeah. It wouldn't surprise me. It wouldn't surprise me. And Ted likes you too. Well, no, he liked me. He did like you. Now, when Ted sees me, he looks at me like John Gotti looked at Sammy de Bull Gravano when they saw each other in the prison yard. Yes. All right, let's finish up the show with a little NFL power pole. Look at Tom scrambling. Oh, God. Are you not ready for this?

Yes, I'm ready for it. Of course I'm ready for it. Rinkum, one to five. It's time for our weekly NFL Power Bowl. All right. It's really not that hard right now. Do you think it is? No, I don't think it's hard.

Go ahead. Give me your top five. Okay. My top five are the Los Angeles Chargers. I still have such a hard time saying that. We all do. It's tough keeping the Houston Texans out of there right now, but Los Angeles Chargers.

Look, I'm just going to run through this. I mean, because I got to tell you, Kevin, this really does nothing for me at all. I mean, zero for me. Understood. That's why we're going to keep doing. New England Patriots, Kansas City Chiefs number three, Los Angeles Rams number two,

and the New Orleans Saints at number one. There, there's my NFL PowerPole. And for the reasons... Repeat that again. For the reasons... Repeat. You went through that much too quickly. Well, you know.

Number five was what? Number five were the Los Angeles Chargers. Yeah. New England Patriots, Kansas City Chiefs, Los Angeles Rams. Oh, you're not writing this down. New Orleans Saints. No, no, we tweet it out every week. No, you don't.

You don't tweet this out? The only difference I have is I've got New England three in Kansas City four. I've got the Chargers five, New Orleans, one, Rams two. New Orleans would be one and maybe two, three, and three. four before you get to five. You know what? This is like, this is like running one of the fastest heats ever in the 400 meters and then five yards before the finish line, tripping. That's what we just did here on this podcast. I know, but it's always been an entree for us into more discussion about where the league is right now. Guess what? We've talked enough today.

What? Are you going to invoice me for the additional time? I would tell, I'll tell you this, that to me, Chicago is nearing the top five. Yes. A potential top five team. Yes, they look pretty good, and they may have a coach of the year. Him or Frank Wright, maybe to coach the year. Houston is definitely near the top five. Yes.

You could have easily debated Houston as a top five team. I considered them for my five spot instead of the Chargers, but I didn't want to get mocked today for not having the Chargers in the top five because I'm actually, you know, rooting for the Chargers and Phillip Rivers to do well. What about tonight's game? Dallas hosting New Orleans. Do you give the Cowboys a chance? No, no chance.

I do. I give them a really good chance. And in fact, let me just tell everybody right now. That is a smell test pick. Whoa. The first one of the weekend. Whoa. The Dallas Cowboys tonight plus the seven at home against the Saints is a smell test selection.

The last two weeks, Tommy, two and a half weeks, 23 and six. Really? Yeah. No wonder you're so giddy. I had the Titans Monday night, so maybe that's the beginning of a losing streak. But Dallas plus the seven, you ask, how do they keep it close? Well, first of all, for the Cowboys, they are a good defensive team. This is a really good defensive team.

And in recent games, when the Saints have really rolled up points and a lot of offense, they played Atlanta on Thanksgiving night, Philadelphia, who's crippled in their secondary, and Cincinnati. Those are the last three. Now, they put up 45 on the Rams, too. And the Rams have given up points this year. Defensively, I still don't, it's a disconnect for me on their talent and their results.

But I think this is going to be the best defensive team New Orleans has faced in a while. It's their first legitimate road game since the Minnesota game, because at Cincinnati was not much of a road environment. Dallas is playing well. And Dallas, Tommy, can run the football stay balanced and win the time of possession, keep the ball out of Drew Brees's hands,

and I think they've got a chance to win the game tonight. Outright, Dallas, but plus the seven, the smell test. In coaching, this is like Vince Lombardi versus Pee-Wee Herman. I mean, Jason Garrett doesn't stand a chance. Shouldn't even be on the same field with Sean Taylor. That should be a consideration. Yes. I'll concede that point.

But the line There's your smell test. The line tells me all I need to know is that it's sticking at seven and the public is heavily on New Orleans. One other quick thing about the Saints, I was thinking about this last night.

Drew Breeze, who before this they played the Saints this year, I think I made this case with you. I don't know if I did it on one of the days you weren't in, but I said, look, Drew Breeze is a, you know, he's a Hall of Famer. Lock first ballot, all of that. But let's not confuse Drew Breeze

with the Mount Rushmore of quarterbacks, or those that would be considered for the Mount Rushmore of quarterbacks, the Montana's, the Marinos, the Elways, the Mannings, the Brady's, etc. Because he's not in that category. No, he's not. And I think most NFL fans would agree. But I was thinking about last night, if they go through the rest of this season, they win a Super Bowl,

he's the MVP, it would be his second Super Bowl, it would be, I believe, his second MVP, right? I thought I didn't look that up because I just assumed that he had won an MVP. But it would be his second Super Bowl. And you know how a lot of people say when they're evaluating quarterbacks. It's about the Super Bowls, which I disagree with, which is I still have Marino. I've got Marino on my Mount Rushmore. Marino is one of the greatest four or five quarterbacks I have ever watched.

I would agree with that. I remind everybody that Jim Plunkett won two Super Bowl. Yes. He has never won an MVP. So he's never won an MVP. All right. So he's going to, right now, he is the clear frontrunner to win the MVP. I'm sorry, Pat Mahomes.

If Drew Brees goes on to have the season that he's had and they're a 14 and 2 or 15 and one team and they're in the Super Bowl, he's your MVP. Yes. Maybe Drew Brees with a second Lombardi trophy. I don't think so. Maybe people start to think of him in that class. Who's he going to knock off? It's not that he knocks off anybody.

Then you have to explain. And Mount Rushmore. Well, I'm talking about the quarterbacks that you consider to be Mount Rushmore worthy. He joins that group potentially. I'm not saying that I feel that way. I'm just wondering if he wins a second Super Bowl, if people will change, NFL fans will change the way they think of Drew Brees. And they will put him in that elite group. What if the Steelers win and Ben wins a third Super Bowl?

Ben Rafflesberger, who never gets the credit that he deserves, never gets mentioned among elite. quarterback. There's a big difference, and the difference is that Drew Breeze is the all-time passing yardage leader. He's also going to go down, I think, is the all-time completion percentage

leader. He's going to be in some of those passing categories, the all-time of all-time. Yes. So, I don't see me changing my view of Drew Breeze if he goes on to win the Super Bowl. Give me Marino. Give me Hellway, give me Manning, give me Brady, give me Steve Young.

I mean, you know, there are other guys. But he's all, you know, and I said this before the Redskins played him. He's in that second group, you know, pushing the third group. He's in that top 10 range. He's in that top 10 range. But maybe others will start. Is he head of Brett Farv? Yes.

He's ahead of Brett Farv. Okay. Yeah. Now, don't you consider the fact that he played half of his NFL games or more than half? in an indoor stadium? I don't. Peyton Manning did the same thing. That's true. Just want to point that out. I'm just throwing it out there that I think maybe people,

the perception of Breeze from NFL fans will change if he wins the MVP and he has another Super Bowl ring added to his already one Super Bowl ring. And, God, they are a good team. I mean, this is a team we are watching right now that over the final five games and a postseason has a chance to be viewed as one of the greatest teams of all time. Yeah, it does. Because they may not lose. Right.

They may not lose again. Yeah. Although I think they've got a chance to be in a close game tonight. But 15 and 1, 18 and 1 if they run the table in the postseason, and their one loss came on opening day. So it would have been an 18-game win streak to end the season, putting up historic numbers offensively, and being a relatively decent defensive team when we didn't think that was the Ace early in the season, but they've got playmakers on defense. Yeah, they do. So anyway,

I, I'm not, because I gave out Dallas as a smell test pick tonight, and I suggested they have a chance to win the game tonight, the Saints are still, to me, and should be, the prohibitive favorite to win the Super Bowl. And I don't see much of a chance that they don't come out of the NFC. I guess the Rams could go in there and beat them. They're the only team that could go into the Superdome and give them a game. But I think this is a Drew Breeze Saints kind of, of a year. Tonight should be an entertaining game, though. I think it's going to be a competitive game.

Yes. By the way, we won't do the podcast again before the Monday night game. Correct. So give me your pick. Eagles 37, Redskins, 21. So you're not giving them much of a chance, even though you said earlier in the show that I give the Redskins a chance. Yeah.

But you don't. Not much of a chance. Not much of a chance, apparently. 37 to 21. All right. Thank you very much. Glad we got into the Dwight Havis. Howard thing today. Thanks to Aaron. Thanks to all of you. Are you going to stop and get your

National Inquirer down at Safeway on your way out? I might. I might. And maybe weekly world news? I think Martians landed somewhere in Bethesda. I'm not sure. Coolly will be on the show tomorrow. Van Pelt will be on the show tomorrow. It'll be a football Friday without the, you know, the Redskins Eagles in detail preview. We'll save that for Monday. Have a great day.