The Kevin Sheehan Show - The Commander Cruise Fiasco

Episode Date: January 26, 2023

Kevin and Thom today on the news Thom broke about the 'Commanders' Fan Cruise' being cancelled. The boys talked about Nathaniel Hackett's move to the Jets as OC and the obvious link to a potential Aaron Rodgers trade to NY. There was discussion about Andy Dalton, the wins last night by the Wizards and Terps, Thom's take on Scott Rolen over Jeff Kent for the HOF, and Thom's picks for the NFC and AFC Championship games. Also, a surprise at the end of the show in memory of 31 years ago today.  LinkedIn Jobs helps you find the qualified candidates you want to talk to, faster. Post your job for free at linkedin.com/kevindc Cancel unwanted subscriptions – and manage your expenses the easy way – by going to rocketmoney.com/kevindc Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You don't want it. You don't need it. But you're going to get it anyway. The Kevin Cheyenne Show. Here's Kevin. Tommy's here with me today. Lots of you are really responding with the reviews and ratings, and it's much appreciated.

This one comes from SF 2002 via Apple Podcast reviews. Gave us five stars, titled it Coolie's appearances are awesome. They are. He was not on with me yesterday. I think he'll be on tomorrow. We'll see. Kevin's refusal to pronounce the G in the word strength is hilarious. Anyone else would sound dumb.

Isn't the G in strength a silent G? Yeah, there's no G. It's not squint. There's no G there. I didn't think there was. I've never heard somebody say strength. Where part of the country is he from? Maybe that's where they pronounce it.

SF 2002, maybe he's from the Bay Area. Who knows? Yes, that's a big. From Skins 33 and counting, this podcast is the best Washington football resource. Tommy on the podcast is must listen on Tuesdays and Thursdays. And I would just add to that today, as a newsbreaking Thursday.

Tommy's got a column out that is newsbreaking, and that's what we're going to start with. And I'll let you get started. By the way, don't forget to rate us and review us, especially on Apple and Spotify. And those that haven't, just take 30 seconds, pause, and write us a quick one to two sentence review. Rate us five stars.

It just really helps us on the revenue generation part of what we're doing here. You told me that you typically do as we got ready to record this. Did you read my column? And I said, no, I haven't read your column yet. I sent it to you. I said it to you. I'm like, well, you did. And as it turns out, you sent it to me at 7.25 a.m.

You know, I am in the middle at 7.25 a.m. I'm in the middle of doing a radio show from 6 to 9. You read stuff while you're on the air all the time. I really don't give me that. Not emails. Not emails. You know what? I have to fix my email situation.

Because when you told me to go find the column, which I just did 10 minutes ago, since I cleaned out and trashed and, you know, whatever, opened up emails at 4 this morning, I got another 50 emails. I get so much bullshit spam. It doesn't go to spam. And so many times, Tommy, over the last many years,

I go in and I go through that process of trying to stop getting emails from various places, but it never works. It never works. Okay. There's a solution, you know, Mr. Solutions. Create a separate email just for the show that you and I and anyone else connected with the show would have. Well, I do have that, you know, through our website email, and I get a lot of shows. show emails through that, which are very nice, and I read many of them.

No, I mean, I mean, who are connected business-wise through the podcast. What you want to, you and I sharing a Kevin Sheeonshow podcast.com. AOL account or Gmail account? Your account is still an AOL. Whatever you want to call it. By the way, I have a Yahoo account, you've got an AOL account. How old are we? I have a Yahoo account, too. Ted Leones once told me that my AOL name was my name on my email was the favorite one he ever saw.

Now that was when he used to like that. That's when one time you and I were pulling into Capital One and we heard a Sheehan, Laverro, and we turned around and it was Ted is screaming at us. So anyway, okay, we'll discuss that another time. Your column is a news breaking column. That's correct, right? No one else has this? That's correct. Okay.

Now, let me just give everybody some warning not to downplay it at all. It's not that Tommy has figured out who the new OC is going to be or the moves they're going to make it quarterback or who's going to buy the team. But it is a piece of news that has something to do with the team. I'll let you explain it. I just read the column. I have several questions, but go. Well, it turns out the commanders, first ever fan cruise that they announced in August,

as I said in the column, sunk before it's even left of the port. There is no cruise. It's over before it ever start. Well, remind everybody what the cruise is, because I didn't remember what the cruise was until I just read your column. Yeah, it was a fan cruise. They made a big announcement in August. of Doug Williams, Joe Zizman, and numerous other alumni that were going to go on this fan cruise. I mean, you know, they have cruises for all kinds of things like this now.

Yeah, bands do it all the time. I'm surprised, we don't organize more. I was just, I just wrote down a note. Why don't we do a podcast cruise? Can I just tell you something that I hate cruises? I hate them. I've never been on one. Oh, my God, they're the worst.

And now I'm afraid to go on one because I'm convinced that more people that the ship comes back with less people than when they go out. Well, you know, that's... And I don't want to be that. Well, hold on. That's my thing with Tony. You know, years ago, on Tony's show when I was doing the news, you know, 15 years ago, I was doing some cruise story, you know, as part of the news. And I said to him, I said, look, this is not new. typically cruises go out and fewer people return and there's all kinds of mysteries.

And he's like, what are you talking about? And then that became a running theme. Every time there was a cruise ship story where it came back with a missing person, I would do that story. And finally, he was forced to believe me. But yes. But that's not why I hate cruises, although it would be a good reason to hate a cruise. When they made this announcement, okay, look, the cruise operator business,

the cruise ship business, the cruise operator, that's operating putting together these things. It's a red flag business, okay? I mean, I knew it was something I should pay attention to and watch, because I knew there was a 50-50 chance. It would be a screw-up, okay? And that's not even the team. And that's not even the team doing it.

Like, if the team had actually put it together, we know it would have been a screw-up. But this is a third-party that puts this together. Yeah, it's just that kind of business, okay? And you would think that they would know, intelligent people in the marketing business would have felt the same similar red flag. And it's some examination of this guy, the first-class cruises that they were going to do business with. But apparently, like every other lack of due diligence in the building, C. Carson Wentz, they did not. and so I've been checking on it and doing research along the way

and the other day when I clicked on the link it was gone. It just disappeared. There was no more link. So I called their customer service. That's just like a guy off the street saying, I want to find out some information about the cruise. And they had no clue what I was talking about and it had no way to help me.

This is when you called the team. Yes. Their customer service phone number. By the way, try calling that sometimes. I can only imagine. Well, I bet every NFL team's customer service hotline isn't the most responsive because it's just people calling, are you kidding me? You went for that fourth and one?

But go ahead. So I finally contacted team officially through their public relations department, and I got the statement saying that there will be no crews because of changes that were made, they said, by the cruise operator, whatever they were talking about, they've decided to abandon ship, and the cruise is off. So there is no cruise. They're going to try to do something to make the fans happy with the alumni. I don't know if that's tried to run another cruise or some other kind of event.

they did say that they will refund all the money, which I pointed out, this organization doesn't have a great track record with refunding fans' money. And the reason I had asked that was because this same operator in Philadelphia a couple years ago, first-class cruises, had made a deal with the Eagles to do a fan cruise. And now to be fair, they got hit by COVID. Okay? COVID hit every and the crews had to be canceled. But people weren't getting their money back.

Right. You know, and then while we went to have to the local TV station up there, Channel 10, and had to go on the air with a story about fans saying what a nightmare it was trying to get their money back. And eventually, after the Channel 10 and Philly story aired, they started getting their money back, and the Eagles told me it was a cooperative effort between them and first-class cruises, the company,

but I was told by sources, the Eagles refunded all the money. Okay, they bit the bullet on this thing rather than continue with the bad press. So that's why I asked about the commanders, are they going to refund the money? They assure me that anyone who put up deposit money will be refunded.

So that's where it's that. So, you know, I had been gathering some string about this company. You know, the various complaints by the Better Business Bureau. I think there were like three dozen of them. They had it. Okay. No, let me tell you that's it. First Class Cruises was a company started in 2019 by a guy named Jeffrey Nehom.

And that's who the commanders were doing business with. Okay. He also has a company called First Class Vacations that has been around a long time. That company has a long track record of Better Business Bureau complaints. They have an F rating with the Better Business Bureau. They've got numerous court actions and lawsuits against them. They're based out of Florida. The owner, Jeff Neholm, says they haven't been based out of Florida.

Florida recently they were based in Nevada. That's why they didn't have a license in Florida. This was his story. At least, their license expired in Florida for both these companies. The Florida License Department had at least three dozen complaints against them as

well that have been unresolved. And there's just a long string. You know, I'll go all the way back to 2018 where a woman out in Kansas had to go to the local TV station there to get to complain about the treatment they got, how they had signed up for a cruise, put up $3,600 for the cruise,

and three weeks before the cruise, they called a cruise company, and the company said they had no record of any, you know, the cruise ship line, they had no record at all of their reservation. Right. So that's, but that's the business. You know, you've got to be aware of that if you're going to business with these guys. and the commander's just like everything else, just like everything they touch. They just screwed it up.

So that's the story. All right. So first of all, I'm more intrigued with this than I thought I would be after reading your column 15 minutes ago. I mean, when you said, have you read my column, and there's some news and nobody else has this, I mean, I would have preferred something having to do with, you know, ownership or offensive coordinator rather than their fan crews being canceled.

But I say that because after listening to you and reading the column, I'm intrigued. I have questions, and I'm very impressed with one thing in particular. you really felt in your gut when they announced this, and you said they announced this in August? Yes. That something was going to go wrong with it, and you've been tracking it ever since? Yes. Again, it's that kind of business. It's like, you know, the red flags.

Look, remember junkets? I know. But it's. Right. Right. It used to be airplane junkets used to be a big deal. in the 80s in particular, well, haven't ever run by the mob? Okay, so I knew, I knew.

It's the nature of the business. Okay, well, I mean, that's a real. You have a reporter's note. Yeah, you've got a reporter's perspective, and you had a hunch. I just think it's interesting that a fan crew, like, here's the first thing I thought of. Okay, that's impressive to me. The first thing I thought of was, before I got down to some of the details in your column, is nobody signed up.

That's why they canceled it. Do you have any idea how many people actually had signed up for this cruise? No, I don't. No, I don't. But, I mean, I'm assuming since they say they're giving refunds, they must have gotten some. Well, I mean, they could say they're giving refunds, and it could be to, like, six people.

I mean, I could. Again, I write what people say. Right. I don't write. I mean, I have no way of knowing how many people signed up. I'm curious as to why you didn't ask that question, or did you and they didn't give you an answer? I didn't ask that question.

Because don't you think that would have been, don't you think that's kind of an interesting part of the story? Like, I mean, I bet they would not give you a number because I can't imagine, when I read this, I'm like, I kind of remember this, vaguely remember this. I just can't imagine that anybody was signing up, other than, by the way, the part of the fan base, you and I've been hammering here the last couple of shows.

the, let's just say, limited part of the fan base that basically still thinks they don't do anything wrong. I mean, who would go on this thing? I understand. I understand, and here's why. Understand what? You're not going, you're not going on a cruise ship with Carson Wentz or Taylor Heineke. You're going with Doug Williams. You're going with Joe Seisman. I know, but what's the audience for that now, Tommy?

Seriously, what is the real audience for that now? I enough to put together a cruise, I'll bet you. Okay. So that was one question I thought of. And then the second one is, because the Eagles had been screwed by this provider, and again, it was COVID-related, but still, the Eagles fans, which I bet they had many more sign-ups for their fan crews than the- Oh, this was post-super.

Right, right. It could have been post-anything compared to this franchise. But I'm shocked that the NFL wouldn't have put out a memo to all 32 of their teams saying, hey, if you're thinking about a fan cruise, do not work with this person. But I'm assuming they didn't, or maybe they did in this organization, which, as we know, is also limited, maybe just ignored or didn't see it. I don't think the NFL did. I don't think it would be high priority for them.

Yeah. I also am reminded, and I could be wrong about this, but I think one of Dan Snyder's first business ventures, entrepreneurial ventures, was some sort of spring break junket organizer. I think that that was one of his first businesses. Does that ring a bell for you or not? Nothing in particular, no.

Yeah. I know he, I mean, I don't know, I don't recall a lot about Skipper Dan's early days, except that his dad used to run this company where they did these ad, ad boards in offices and bathrooms and stuff. Remember when you go in a doctor's office? Yeah, that would be like a story. Yeah, that was a big. Illustrations. That was, yeah, I remember that. That was the business.

That was his dad's business. Yeah, well, that was a big part of their business. They were guerrilla marketers in the pharmaceutical industry, and they were in doctors' offices, you know, pitching on behalf of pharmaceutical companies, everything that, you know, yes. Yeah. So that's the only thing I recall about its early days. Yeah. I mean, it's, that's so interesting that, you know, the minute you saw this, you have been, so you've literally for months now been following up to see where it would go. Yes. I mean, not every day.

Right. But, you know, I have a punch list. Yeah, you've got a punch list. I have a punch list of things to check on, to, you know, make calls about, to look into. So my advice about, listen, if you're going to plan an event, stop doing it yourself, hire some experts or outsource it to an expert, let them do it, and it still got fucked up. So they still can't get anything right. Well, okay. I can't imagine, honestly, that this affected a lot of people.

I just, I mean, I don't know anybody. It probably didn't. Yeah, I don't know anybody that signed up to go on the team fan crews. But it's a, it was, it's a, one thing, it was important for the team because it's the first time they've done this. Right. Okay. Yeah, I've seen a lot of bands. I've seen a big deal about it. I've seen a lot of bands do this.

Like bands in their later years, they put these things together. They must be huge money makers for the providers. No, I'm not talking about like the broker, which they make money off of this thing. But, I mean, because this is kind of a pain in the ass thing to put together. And then to go out and recruit, you know, Dexter and Gary Clark and Joe Thaisman and Jordan Reed and Doug Williams to go on one of these things because they got to get paid. You know, you've got to pay them to go on one of these things. And then you've got to obviously have the response to this thing that makes it worthwhile. The team, I don't think, is doing it just for, you know, fan appreciation.

I mean, it would be, I mean, but I wonder truly what the response was to all of this. Well, you know, you're not doing a lot of positive talking that would lead to our cruise for the Kevin Sheehan Show podcast. I'll be honest with you. I don't think that we could make money on a Kevin Sheehan Show podcast cruise. Someone would have to really... What if we just did a three-hour on the Potomac? That's different, you know. But getting people to commit to several days.

On a, first of all, one of the reasons I hate cruises is one of the cruises I went on, and it's the last one I went on, was a cruise to Alaska. I've told you about this cruise before, where it was 44, 45 degrees and raining sideways every single day in August. Now, there was, we went for my, at the time, my father-in-law's 70th, so it was 10, 12 years, more than that, probably like 14 years ago, 15 years ago. And it was a lot of fun to be with family, but the weather was shitty. And really, as my brother-in-law dubbed it, it's, cruises are floating food prisons. You know, you can't go anywhere unless you do these excursions, which we did a bunch of the excursions, but the weather was horrible. I'll tell you, I was on a puddle jumper for a salmon fishing trip with my father-in-law and my two brother-in-laws, brothers-in-law. And it was horrible weather, pouring fog, and I was convinced we were not going to get to where we were headed.

That was a terrifying white knuckler of a flight. I'll tell you what, we caught some massive king salmon. But it just, it was like, it was like, you know, every 30 minutes it seemed like the bell was ringing for the next buffet, you know, and it was just, I could not wait to get off that ship. But anyway, we'll look into it. We'll look into it. I think a one day or on the Potomac would be, that's more doable for people, you know. Here's what we need. We need somebody to organize it and do it for us and just pay us our money and we'll show up. Yeah, but we don't want them to screw our listeners. We have to pick the right person because at the end of the day, we want it to work out for our listeners as much as we wanted to work out for ourselves.

See, that's where you and I differ a little bit. You just want it to work out for you. I'd like our listeners to be taken care of as well, and I don't want us to get our. off the boat that day and find out that, you know, they had been charged twice as much as they thought they were charged, and then they're chasing their money on this thing. By the way, to your overarching theme, of course the team should have done more due diligence on this provider. Given the track record he had, why would you have to look into this thing? I'm sure he probably sent, you know, a form letter out to every sports team in America saying that he does.

done this very successful thing with the Eagles, and then the team's like, oh, this sounds like a good idea and did no research and ended up hooking up with a, you know, a crook for all intents and purposes. It would be just like them to actually choose to outsource something and then pick the wrong guy to outsource it to. But I bet you, I bet you a missing part of this story. I'm not trying to do the work for you, is that there wasn't enough. of a response to make it worthwhile for anybody involved. I bet you that's part of this story. That may be.

I mean, think about it. What would make them think when they can't even fill the smallest stadium in the league up? And not only that, when they come close to filling it up, it's filled with the other team's fans. Do you think on this... Look, I'm going to do what you like to do. What? I'm going to compare fruit, okay, which is something you like to do.

I compare fruit? This is apples and... Oh, apples and oranges. Oh, apples and oranges. Okay. Yeah. You know? Okay.

This is apples and bananas. Okay. A handful of devoted fans who considered these guys, their heroes, are not the ones that are coming out to the stadium. They're exactly the opposite. one. They're the ones that are sitting at home complaining about how screwed up the team is, and why can't we have it like it used to be, and let's have it like it used to be, except I'm going to be sitting and having dinner with Joe Dism.

Okay. Absolutely, I think it would attract people. Okay. I mean, Gary Clark, I mean, you could get all the stories. You know how people love these stories. Looking at it from the side of the banana, I understand what you're saying. don't think. My guess is it's not a massive audience. I don't think they were over-subscribed for this. That would be my guess. They may not have been. I could be totally wrong. Even if this was a

break-even proposition, it still served, it still would have, it's done right, it would have served a good purpose for the team. Okay. Put it this way. When we did our lunch with a legend series over, you know, several years. And on this list, we had Dexter Manley, if you recall, for one of them. That thing was oversubscribed to come down and see Dexter Manly at Ruth Chris's, at Mortons, excuse me, at Mortons on Connecticut Avenue downtown. Actually, a lot of ours were oversubscribed. But we weren't, you know, I don't even know what the capacity of one of these things

would be on a cruise, a fan cruise thing. I don't know. I can tell you this. I did not look into being a passenger on that fan cruise. How much did it cost? Do you know? Do you know what the cost was? That's a good question.

I should have asked. I mean, I'm going to guess that it's... I'm going to guess it's about $4,000. Ooh, okay. I would have guessed half that. You know, but you might be right. I don't know. Where was it going?

Where was it supposed to go? you mentioned Costa Rica is one place. Yeah, three or four different stops. Okay. So you've never been on a cruise? No. That actually surprises me. Why not?

I would imagine you and Liz would have gone on a cruise. Does Liz want to go on a cruise? No, Liz, Liz, Liz gets C-6, so she doesn't want to go on a cruise. Oh, okay. Well, there you go. I don't get C-6. Yeah. I like being on boats, but we just never had the opportunity to be on a cruise.

And as I grew older and realized that there's a chance I may never see my home again once they get on the ship, they didn't seem as interesting to me. We're still looking for Leverro. We're still looking for Leverro. The ship has exited. Everybody's off. Where's Leverro? Oh, I think he fell off back in Cozumel.

By the way, I get seasick too, but big cruise ships, you don't get CISC. Well, I guess you can if the weather gets bad and it gets rocky and the whole thing. But I can't stand being on a small boat. I don't do well on smaller boats, especially when they're not moving. Huh? Yeah. That doesn't bother me. Yeah.

Okay. Good job. Excellent job. It seems like there may be more to come on this. There could be more to come on this story. There could be. Especially when they try to do it. next year. I bet the new owner comes in and says no fan cruises for a few years.

Let's focus on winning a Super Bowl. But, you know, this goes hand in hand, Tommy, because I talked about this yesterday on my podcast, on my podcast, on my podcast, on this podcast, our podcast, when Tommy is on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The guy Will Misselbrook left the franchise a few days ago. And it reminded me of that quote that we had hammered on, you know, months back, you know, the quote where he had said, hold on, let me find it. It was about essentially picking the name so that it could tie into, you know, things that had nothing to do with football. Here it is. Will Misselbrook, you know, was asked about the new name at some point in the offseason. And he said, well, you know, the name had to, you know, connote something more than just a football team. If your team name is

an animal you're kind of restricted. The name commanders allowed us to go into a much bigger space, media, food, fashion, pop culture, music, and fan cruises. No, he didn't say that. But he did say media, food, fashion, pop culture, and music. And I remember reading that. I was just, I vomited in my mouth. And I said, my God, how about we just focus on winning a Super Bowl?

And that's when I put together my list, my top 10 list. of what I wanted my new owner. Number one was I don't want the brand, I don't want people in my organization to be concerned about media, food, fashion, pop culture, and music when it comes to the brand. I want them to focus on the brand being about winning Super Bowls.

And I want my new owner when Will Missilebrook brings this up in the team branding session to laugh at him and say, no. Well, and don't ever, ever, let me read that you This is a quote from you. We suck and our fan base wants us to win games. That's what we need to be talking about. By the way, you know, this guy was very instrumental, a significant, you know, person in the new name and the branding.

And the new branding of the team, you know. But remember, this is the guy who I connected as the leak link. Yeah. Remember, this guy worked for. Dow Jones. Right. Which owns the Wall Street Journal. Before he got, I mean, before he came to work for the commanders.

And it was shortly after that that the glowing tribute to Dan Snyder appeared in the Wall Street Journal. Exactly. That was probably his biggest accomplishment to get that story written for Dan. Yes. And it was in the Wall Street Journal where the first set of leaks about John Gruy's. and Jeff Pash came out. The New York Times had the second set. And my conjecture, what I think most people do,

I mean, I connected the dots on the commander's situation where I put it at the first league at their doorstep. You did. Since those hearings, most people have bought into that. And I think the New York Times League was done by the NFL because of the damage done to John Gruden from the Wall Street Journal League, they wanted to make sure that Gruden was unhirable at that point. And they could use that in the lawsuit if you want, if John wants to do that.

Well, yeah, I mean, you were the first to say these leaks in the Wall Street Journal, Andrew Beaton wrote the story. He's the guy that wrote that embarrassing puff piece about Snyder a few months ago. I mean, it could it be that Dan leaked these emails to try to bury Bruce? Look, we've talked about this. It was a boomerang. This is the irony of everything that's happening right now is he was pretty much on the way for the time being anyway. As you say, the passage of time never really helps Dan Snyder, which is true.

So something else would have come up, you know, in, you know, this year, next year, the year after. But they were pretty much in the clear until the email leaks to the journal and then to the Times. And then we got the House Oversight and Reform Committee. And then that led to the Mary Joe White investigation. And that led to lawsuit after lawsuit and criminal investigation after criminal investigation. And finally, the other 31 owners throwing their arms up in the air and saying, it's enough. We can't do this anymore. And this is what, you know, This story of the 2020 toxic culture, toxic workplace, sexual harassment, that had started, you know, I'm not saying, you know, reasonably so at all. There were still victims and alleged victims from that, and they still wanted, and they were still going to push for the Beth Wilkinson report to be made public.

But the bottom line is it had kind of died down. And once those emails leaked... This gave it new life. Oh. It gave it much. It absolutely gave it new life. It gave it the House Oversight Reform Committee investigation, which led to everything else that we're still talking about that is essentially. Yeah, because remember, the House Oversight Reform Committee, while it became a part of their investigation, this was the, like you said, this was the impetus for them to say, well, this is a bigger thing than just the command.

Right. It led to Jason Freeman. It led to all that stuff. This is a league-wide problem. Yes. You know, that was the impetus for the hearing. Yeah. Was that you had the Raiders coach and an NFL, top-ranked NFL official exchanging these emails.

Yeah. That put it beyond the boundaries of the commanders. And again. And that was just a way to get into the commander's thing. But you're right. That had the exact opposite impact. Which it always does with him. because he's never been able to think beyond the emotion of the moment and what the ramifications are.

Like, okay, we do this, what happens next? And even if he had people in the room saying, don't do this, this is going to resurrect this thing, and it could lead to the, and none of that has ever mattered with him from what I've been told over the years. It just doesn't matter. When he makes up his mind and he's acting on impulse, it happens. And look, I've said this a million times now over the last couple of years. there are a lot of things out there about Dan Snyder over the last several years that weren't true. We know that all of the Jeffrey Epstein things, that smear campaign wasn't true.

And there were probably things out there even from the House Oversight and Reform Committee and various investigations that he is still sitting back going, it's not true. I'm not who that investigation says I am. We didn't do those things. But it doesn't matter. Like I've said for months now, the big picture is, He has to go. It doesn't matter if he's not, you know, culpable for every single allegation. He's got to go.

The market isn't viable. They can't even sell out a fan cruise. I don't know if that's true or not. But I've got something else to share with you that I talked about yesterday that I actually want your thoughts on. Dealing with Aaron Rogers, I got a lot of feedback off of yesterday's show, which I very much appreciate. Some of it was, I'm completely out of my mind, and some of it was actually very instructive.

And I will share that with everybody and Tom right after these words from a few of our sponsors. This segment of the show brought to you by MyBooky. Go to MyBooky.orgie. Use my promo code, Kevin D.C., and they'll double your first deposit all the way up to a thousand bucks. The point spread in the Kansas City Cincinnati game has just been, you know, fascinating, watch all week. Right now at my bookie, Kansas City once again is the favorite. They're now a one and a half point favorite over the Bengals. This is all Patrick Mahomes driven. The chiefs opened at two and a half. It came down to like even, then went to Cincinnati minus two,

and now is back to Kansas City minus one and a half after the report yesterday that Patrick Mahomes participated fully in that practice and is. good to go and looked good in practice. But it's been interesting to watch one player in the news related to this one player move the line as much as it's been moved. Somebody out there is holding a Chiefs plus two and a Cincinnati plus two tickets.

That's a pretty good middle, nice little four-point middle on the game on Sunday. But right now, Kansas City, one and a half point favorite. at my bookie. Philly's still remaining at two and a half. And, you know, the public's really playing Cincinnati and they are, the game's a little bit more mixed on the 49ers and Eagles. I know a lot of you have told me that the action's all on San Francisco. It's not. I've gotten some information during the course of the week. But definitely the public action. The public action is on Cincinnati. The sharp action has gone back and forth here,

based on the Mahomes information. I'm looking forward, Tommy, to these two games. And I'll actually get your picks on these two games before the end of the show. But go to mybooky.orgie.ag, use my promo code, Kevin, D.C. Again, I've mentioned this, and they want me to mention it to you. If there is something in the promo code already written, you have to erase it and then write Kevin, D.C. All right. So there's some news in the NFL that's just broken.

Nathaniel Hackett hired by the New York Football Jets to be their offensive coordinator, replacing Mike LaFleur. This is significant because this is going to really increase the speculation about an Aaron Rogers trade to the Jets, which we talked about yesterday as a team that's very similar to Washington, in that they have an outstanding young defense. They've got playmakers. They've got Garrett Wilson and Elijah Moore. And then they've got Brees Hall and Michael Carter in the backfield, but they've been without a quarterback.

Tommy, this is from Stephen, who reached out to me on Twitter. After yesterday, and I'll just update you real quickly, I suggested that Washington trading for Aaron Rogers actually might increase the value of the franchise that's being. sold right now. And I said at the very least, you acquire Aaron Rogers and you're going to sell out your fan crews, that's for sure. No, I didn't say that. But I did say if you acquire Aaron Rogers, Bank of America is going to have to tell every bidder to tear up the three to five year budget forecast that they have, especially the revenue forecast, because they got a new one coming.

because Aaron Rogers would immediately increase and totally change the short term, if not the long-term revenue forecast for this team. And I don't know what that would mean in terms of valuation increase. It would increase it something. But, you know, I don't know. I don't really know how selling an NFL team works. I'm more familiar with selling a regular company and how that works, but an NFL team's far different.

But anyway, I just suggested that, first of all, you become an immediate NFC content. tender. Your profile is elevated significantly, and you get immediate revenue increase on ticket sales and everything that comes off ticket sales and sponsorships, et cetera, et cetera. Anyway, Stephen on Twitter sent me, Kevin, I'm involved in a lot of M&A work for a major bank, listen to you all the time. Aaron Rogers would definitely increase the value of the team. by how much question mark, as you mentioned, the revenue forecast would immediately be updated by Bank of America by B of A. B.O.A. Now, the Jets are going to be the team that it's speculated he'll get traded to. That's a good young team. That's a football team with Aaron Rogers on it this year would have been in the postseason. The Jets had a shit. And where do you think the NFL would rather have?

Aaron Rogers if he's not going to stay in Green Bay. Yeah, New York would be a pretty good spot. Yeah, with a team, by the way, that they'd love to see elevated once again. By the way, also... The Jets, I'm shocked at this. The Jets draw big time. You're one of the top attendance teams in the NFL, and I'm just shocked at that.

But I haven't been to a Jets game as a reporter in a long time, but when I have occasionally, I mean, the stands have always been empty, you know? But, I mean, I look at their recent attendance, and it's pretty high. It's like top four or five. Really? Is it really? Yeah.

The Jets, huh? I think so. Yeah. I'm going to look that up because I actually, NFL attendance 2022. Jesus, you're right. The Jets are number two. They're ahead of the Giants. That's just stunning to me.

The Cowboys average 93,465 fans. They're number one. The Jets were number two at 78,09 fans. Now, there was a lot of excitement about the Jets early in this season. You know, they started off really well. And, I mean, weren't they? They were like five and one at some point, I think, something like that. And then, you know, they, and there was still, you know, some interest, I think,

or some excitement, perhaps, in their young quarterback who was clearly misguided and Zach Wilson. Mike White came in. But, you know, they lost a lot of games, you know, that were close games that with Aaron Rogers, they would have won. I mean, they would have been in the postseason. And for those of you that pushed back and said, Washington would not have made the playoffs with Aaron Rogers this year.

You guys are insane. Fortunately, I think there was only two people that tweeted that. Like, what planet are you on? They went 8, 8, 8, and 1 with Carson Wentz and Taylor Heineke. And Sam Howe, and by the way, Sam Howe won one of those games. Those same people would tell you that if Sam Hal had been starting earlier, they would have made the playoffs. No, actually, I think they want you to know that Aaron Rogers is not the answer. Sam Howe is the answer.

Yes, that's what I mean. Oh, yeah, no, no, no, you're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. Yes, yes, yes. Yeah, the same people who would say Aaron Rogers wouldn't have made the playoffs would tell you that Sam Howell would have. Exactly. And you know what? Maybe he would have. Who knows? Because I don't know anything about Sam Hal.

And nor do you. Nor do any of you. Tommy, the Jets were second. The Giants were third. Now, Washington, I think most of you know, was not only dead last in attendance with an average of 58,106. they were also dead last in the percentage of capacity. Like that wasn't even close. They were at 85.9% of capacity. And the next lowest was the Giants at 92.7%. Interestingly. Yeah.

And you know, the team will tell you their attendance went up from last year. I know. It did. Yes. and went up by about an average of $5,000 a game. Yeah. Well, this was the first year they finally acknowledged. Their new capacity, which was, now I'm forgetting what it was. I think it's $62,000 and change.

It's 62 something. Yeah, something like that. Yeah. So, well, 85%, 58. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So between 62,000 and 63,000.

is where they were in capacity this year. But they were dead last in those categories as well. I wonder if we could get a listing on Pro Football reference on fan crew's attendance percentage. Anyway, I don't, I still believe, I do, although the Nathaniel Hackett thing may change it a little bit. Wasn't Nathaniel Hackett at one point with the Jets? I don't know.

I mean, the whole reason, supposedly the Broncos hired him was to get Aaron Rogers to come there. He's never been with the Jets. Okay, my fault. Maybe Paul Hackett his father was. I don't know. Anyway, I just, I thought that, I thought that, I just had that thought that, you know, By the way, Paul Hackett was the Jets offensive coordinator from 2001 to 2004. Okay.

Let's get back to the Aaron Rogers raised the value of the team. Yeah. Question. Yes. Okay. That doesn't take into account the ego of the new owner. Okay. Who's going to sit back and say, I wanted to pick the quarterback.

I wanted to decide who was going to be our quarterback. Yeah. Well, what I mean... Look, I know what I'm... I know on baseball teams, and unfortunately, the learners have subscribed to this theory, there's a theory that you want to clear out as much payroll as possible. Now, baseball's different than football to make it more attractive to sell, okay, to give the new owner all the options on personnel decisions.

You're taking the most important personnel decision on the table decision on the team out of the new owner's hand. Yeah, no, I understand that, but what I'm also doing is I'm handing him Aaron Rogers in a season ticket base that is double what it was when he first looked at the book about buying the team. I can't imagine a new owner is going to say, yeah, don't give me a contender and a significantly increased interest level in the team in year one. Now, the thing that you have to pair it with, I mean, first of all, again, hypothetical.

fantasy land understood. Okay. And those of you that reached out to tell me, what are you doing that for? I acknowledge this is hypothetical fantasy land. But the reason that it was a subject is because Aaron Rogers spoke about it on the Pat McAfee show and Ian Rappaport and Adam Schaefter reported it over the weekend is that a trade was actually possible.

And by the way, if this were Jess Snyder without selling the team, I'd be all in on it because this is the only way to mask all of the dysfunction is to have a great quarterback. And those of you that suggest he's in decline, we can just agree to disagree on that. He's going to be in a state of decline at some point. I don't think that just over a year removed from his second MVP in three years.

I saw some bad games this year. I also saw a bad team. Washington would have won 11 games with Aaron Rogers this year as their quarterback minimum. That's my view. But anyway, I hear what you're saying, but really it's the combination of what would excite and would totally resuscitate and rejuvenate a dormant fan base is the idea of Dan's gone and Aaron Rogers is going to quarterback our team in the first year without him.

And I can't imagine you'd lose a lot of bidders because they weren't able to make the trade for Aaron Rogers themselves. I think it would be actually it would increase. the value of the team. I do. By what you know, you know, you would as the guy that mentioned, that tweeted me, he's like, you're 100% right, you would have to rip up the five-year forecast, the revenue forecast

and hand it back out and say, we're much more bullish on not only current revenue, but future revenue, now that we've traded for Aaron Rogers. But whatever. It's not going to happen. It's, you know. I still think it's Green Bay, but this Nathaniel Hackett thing is obviously very interesting.

Very interesting. I think he could wind up with the Jets. Yeah. Yeah, I think he really could. Sure. Which I might want to point out, in my days of fandom, was my team, and I'd be very excited if I was still a Jets fan, and Aaron Rogers was my quarterback. Well, think about it.

Absolutely. Two former Hall of Fame Green Bay Passes. or quarterbacks in New York. I mean, they had the one year with FARV, which didn't go, you know, spectacularly well. Washington reached out to Anthony, Anthony Lynn, you know, the former Chargers head coach, who's out in San Francisco.

There's still, as far as, you know, the recording of this podcast, there's still really not a lot of information on the OC search. I think I mentioned this yesterday, Ben Standig. Well, I didn't mention it. Ben mentioned it on the podcast yesterday. I thought it was very interesting that Ben connected the dots on Ken Zampesee and Andy Dalton. Zampesey and Dalton are very good friends. I think Zampeze was in Dalton's wedding. Zampeze coach Dalton in Cincinnati when he was the OC, when Jay was, you know, after Jay was there,

and is the quarterback's coach when Jay was there, Andy Dalton would be the perfect for me. Look, if you're not going to get Aaron Roger, would be the perfect veteran to bring in. But I had somebody... They'd be lucky to get... They'd be lucky to get him to come in here. I think that's true. Among the mediocre to average filling guys, you know,

the guys to get you through a period, he's the best one out there. Yeah, no. Dalton, for, you know, the, you know, kind of the $2 to $4 million veteran backup quarterbacks or potentially quarterbacks that would need to start on a team that's, you know, pretty decent, I think would be about as good as they could do. I agree with that.

I had somebody on from New Orleans this morning on the radio show, you know, because I wanted to ask about Sean Peyton and what the situation is. Because, you know, New Orleans is kind of hanging by a threat on this Sean Peyton stuff because if Sean Payton lands somewhere, the Saints are going to get a first round. pick, maybe more, you know, as compensation for Sean Peyton. Meantime, he hasn't landed anywhere. That's a subject for another day.

But I asked him about Andy Dalton, and this guy said, you know, he played well. The Saints were one of those teams. I picked the Saints before the season started, Tommy, to go to the Super Bowl out of the NFC to beat the Eagles in the NFC championship game. Obviously, you know, not even close, except for it was a good team at times. They just had a lot of injuries, and they were really close. to making a run there at the end. But anyway, I think New Orleans might want to re-sign Andy Dalton,

and Andy Dalton might want to stay in New Orleans where I think he would be the frontrunner to start unless they're able to pull off a trade for somebody like Derek Carr. And, you know, J.I. Hallsell was on with us yesterday. J.I. brought up something really interesting about Derek Carr. This is going to be fascinating. I bet you don't know about this. I don't know.

You could have been following it from the beginning of the year once it was announced that the fan crews was going to happen. And maybe you've been waiting to talk about this. No, this was interesting from J.I. yesterday. J.I. said that three days or a couple of days after the Super Bowl ends, the Raiders are on the hook for a lot of money and guaranteed dollars to Derek Carr. So if they don't get him traded in the next couple of weeks, they're going to cut him. and therefore when we see the trade value for Derek Carr,

if he actually gets traded, it's not going to be very much because the Raiders have like no leverage, which is one of the reasons they sort of started down this process with Carr earlier than, you know, the end of the season. We'll see what happens with Carr, but it's going to be funny if Derek Carr goes for like a fifth rounder or like a conditional fourth rounder to somebody. and Washington in a similar situation with Carson Wentz, a lesser quarterback, who was also going to be released, gave up, you know, a second, a third, switch spots in the second, almost gave up two-toes, and, you know, picked up his whole salary, which, you know, somebody's going to have to do if he gets cut anyway.

Anyway, I'm rambling. Off of Dalton, yeah, I would, if Zampeze, he's the guy, if that's the way they go, because he's in-house, he's cheap, you know, he's a known entity, he's been, working with Sam Howell for a year. If they end up going that route, just remember what Ben said yesterday. There's a real relationship between Zampese and Dalton, and there aren't a lot of options out there for a veteran quarterback. No, there's not. Or for an offensive coordinator, for that matter.

Yeah, that too. And there's a lot of competition for not a lot of OC talent out there. Yeah, Anthony Lynn. What do you think that conversation between Kyle Shanahan and Anthony Lynn, it's like, about him coming for an interview in Washington. Oh, my God, good point. Good point. Hey, Anthony.

I mean, Anthony, Lynn, is the assistant head coach there. It's title. Yeah, well. It's assistant head coach. Well, yeah, for a lot of these, yeah, I mean, well, he was, you know, the head coached for three or four years. I know. I know.

Yeah. You know, he coached the Chargers into that postseason where, with Rivers, where they, they actually, I thought they're. were going to do some damage because they had beaten Casey late. Well, they beat the Ravens. They beat the Ravens that one year in the wildcard game. That was the game, by the way, that Lamar Jackson came in for Joe Flacko, and eventually that was it.

That was the beginning of the Lamar Jackson era. But in, was it, 2017 or 2018, where the Chargers, I thought had a legitimate chance. No, you might be right. It might have been the 2018 season. They beat Baltimore, and then they lost. to New England. And remember, a lot of people thought they had a chance to go into Foxborough and win. Yeah, that was it. Because they had beaten the Chiefs at Arrowhead late in the year in a Thursday night game that was just a spectacular football game. And then they played

Baltimore. I'm looking at their schedule from that year. They played Baltimore in a game the following week that if they had won, they would have perhaps won the AFC West and had a better track to the Super Bowl. I was following them back then because I was a big Philibald. Phillip Rivers fan, as many of you know and make fun of me for. I don't know why you make fun of me for being a Phillip Rivers fan. He's a Hall of Famer. That's not even a debate. First ballot? Okay, maybe not.

But he's going to be a Hall of Famer. Can we talk about the Washington Wizards when we come back? Because we crush them for the Hatchamura trade the other day. But they're on a four-game winning streak. I also want to recap the Terps win over Wisconsin. We'll finish up that way when we come back. right after these words from a few of our sponsors. All right, this segment of the show brought to you, Tommy,

by our good friends down at Shelley's backroom. Yeah, this Sunday I'm looking forward to the NFC and AFC playoff games. And I enjoy watching football with my brother-in-law here at the condo, who we share the condo with down here in Miramar Beach. I just wish we were sitting in Shelley's background, watching it because it's a great place to watch football. It's a great place to watch sports. You know, it's not a sports bar, but it's a great place to watch sports.

They have, I think, six or seven TVs all over the place in both rooms. That's the one thing about showy. They have a second room. Yeah, right. You know, they have the main room, and then they have the side room, and it's usually, you know, great seating available, great views of the screens. There's great bar food in addition to quality, you know, menu items. My favorite are the chicken tenders because they have, I mean, you know, sometimes you have

chicken tenders and, you know, it's like they got them out of, you know, the Purdue bag. It's not chicken breast tenders. It's like chicken, you know, knuckles as fingers. yeah, and they're grotesque, of course. Everybody understands the difference between a really good chicken nugget and a chicken nugget that was put together with parts. Well, these are chicken tenders that are a real deal. I mean, that you all enjoy.

And it's my favorite there. So even though I'm going to be enjoying the game Sunday, my heart's going to be at Shelly's, smoking a stogie, drinking an Amstale light, and eating some chicken tenders. If I can't be there, you should be there. Shelly's back room, 1331 F Street, northwest in the district. You know, Tommy, you stumbled on to a pretty good slogan.

You know, we're not a sports bar, but we're a great place to come watch sports. I actually much prefer a place like Shelly's to hang out and watch sports than an actual sports bar. I'd much rather be at a bar with TVs watching sports that isn't a sports I've always felt that way. Sports bars, you can have them. I don't like to be in a place with a bunch of dudes with, what was Carson Wentz's jersey number this year? Number 11, Kevin.

Yeah, so a commander's jersey number 11 with instead of Wentz on the back, they've got, you know, Murdoch on the back. By the way, I brought up Murdoch, because I was watching the initial statements of this Alec Murdoch trial. Did you, have you followed any of this? Do you know that? Very, very little. Oh, my God. This thing is... I know it's some kind of doctor who made up the death of his wife or something like.

He's a lawyer who's a prosecutor in South Carolina. It appears as if he murdered his wife and his son. But there's so much more to this story that's fascinating. This is one of those things I might get caught up in this trial. We might be doing Alec Murdoch trial updates on the podcast. But anyway, do you like going to a sports? Bar? I don't like sports bars that much. They don't bother me. I'll just tell you this, since we're still in the Shelley's.

The quality of a conversation that you have with the guy next to you at Shelley's back room, it's going to be a little bit better in a quality of conversation you have with the guy wearing a jersey at the sports bar. No doubt. And we've had some great conversations with, by the way, many of our listeners at Shelly's when you've had your event before, which is always nice. Yes. All right, Shelly's backroom, 13th and F Streets Northwest. I wanted to, I want to talk a little basketball here, but then I also want to ask you about Scott Rowland, and I want to get your championship game prediction

since you're not going to be on the show tomorrow. So the Wizards have now won four games in a row. I know they beat the worst team in the NBA last night, but it was a back-to-back, and they didn't have Monta-Morris, and there's no poor Zingis still, and, you know, there's no Hachamura anymore. And they came, by the way, from 10 down. And Kyle Kuzama is, he's having just a great season.

Like, he's proving every time I watch him to me anyway, this guy is a star player. You know, he's not an elite top 10, top 15 player. But this guy along with Bradley Beal and Porzingis is a really good, three, group of three, that you should be able to win 47, 48, 49 games with. You really should. He's that good. He had 20 in the fourth quarter, and they came back and they won a game they needed to win. I say needed to win. My preference would be that, you know,

they tank and they get into the lottery. But they've won four in a row, and they haven't been fully healthy. And the two games they lost during this stretch were winnable games against the Warriors and the Knicks. Patrick Nunn, by the way, had a really good game for them last night in his first game. He had like in 20 minutes or 22 minutes. He had 12 points and four assists. He looked really good. It's really interesting.

The Wizards and the franchise, okay, they suck. We know that. You can post Tommy Shepard's record starting next week if you want to. But this team is actually a team with some pretty good players on the team. they have some good players on the team. If they were to get into the postseason as, you know, a playing seven seed, are they going to beat Brooklyn? Are they going to beat Milwaukee?

Are they going to beat Boston? No, no, they're not. But I think they have the capability of getting into a best of seven series this year. But not if they keep losing players left to the right. Everybody out there is listening. I know we've got a lot of listeners. Here it comes. If you believe in prayer, say a prayer.

For me? Okay. How many times have you, yes. Because how many times have you all of us heard Kevin do this? I know. You know, as if he has like a basketball in his brain that blocks the intelligence and memory part of it sometimes. I mean, it's the same conversation that goes nowhere down. It's like, let's, it's like a choice of.

eight different one-way roads with dead end, and you're happy to drive down everyone. It's just unbelievable. I am willing to do that with this franchise. You're right. I have been willing to do that with this franchise. I know the story. I know the ending. You know, I mean, Bradley Beale.

I mean, it's a bit disgusting that he's the highest paid athlete in the history of D.C. sports. It really is. Okay, that's true, and it's also true that he is, you know, you could come up with a much worse ambassador for your franchise than Bradley Beal. And he's a good player. He's a top 25 player in the NBA when he's healthy. You're right. Okay, so I do. Let's start giving him. I do this too much.

I mean, let's start giving him. You know, he's a great ambassador. Let's change the name to the ambassadors. Nobody likes the wizard. No. Let's call them the ambassador. And then let's call the football team the Wizards. I understand I've done this before, and I understand that more times than not I've been totally wrong.

I think, by the way, I was right, though, about Wall and Beal and that team with Gortot and Ney and Trevor Areza and some of those teams. I think I was right that if they had stayed the course. The Randy Whitman coached. If they had stayed the course that they would have eventually played at least in an Eastern conference finals. But whatever. They weren't going to win a championship. This team's actually fun to watch. Kyle Kuzma is a fun player to watch.

He's a really good player. Daniel Gafford is fun to watch. Corey Kisperts are starting to shoot the ball pretty well. They don't have an elite player. Oh, he's a stiff. Who, Corey Kisper? He's a stiff. He's a stiff.

Just like every try. Just like, hey, where's their number? number one draft pick. He's in the G-League. Corey Kispert is a role player. Stiff is the wrong word. Stiff is the wrong word. He's a role player.

He's a three-point shooting role player. Okay, 6-6. He was the number one pick, wasn't he? He was a first-round pick. Yes, he was. Yeah. Yeah, first round pick. Right.

Well, he's not out of the league, is he? It's unbelievable. No, he's not. He's still in the league. Okay. And he shoots, and I love how to use it. The last thing the NBA is is fun. Actually, the last thing.

Actually, the NBA can be fun on nights. Like last night, Dame Lillard had 60. He scored 20 consecutive points in the game. Just like I used to watch at the Y in Strouc. By the way, there was a guy Tommy Imani Bates, who was a super high recruit by Memphis by Penny, Hardaway a couple years ago, and he ended up transferring to eastern Michigan.

The other night in a college basketball game and a 40-minute college basketball game, he had 43 points, but that's not the story. He scored 29 consecutive points for his team to end the first half. And I read that, and I'm like, that has to be a record, but it's not. Some dude in 1957 in a college game playing for Temple scored 54 consecutive points. I mean, they may have been playing half-court with peach baskets. But still, I thought, my God, 29 consecutive points. That's pretty damn impressive.

All right, I'll move off the NBA and the Wizards. Thankfully, I'm sure. Maryland had a really impressive game last night. They beat the shit out of Wisconsin. The game got close briefly in the first half. It was 3228 at halftime. But if you were watching this game, Maryland was the better team. They were the team with more energy from the jump.

It's a game they really needed. They're starting to really play well. It's very obvious now as we are nine games into their 20-game Big Ten schedule, what Maryland has to be. They have to defend every night, which they really do. Kevin Willard's done a really good job, and this was a strength of Turgeon, too. Maryland was always a strong defensive team. They appear to be that under Willard. They've really struggled offensively in a lot of the games that they've lost and been blown out in.

and it's been mostly on the road. They took it on the chin to UCLA at home back in December. But they have really, over the last couple of weeks, they beat Ohio State at home, they played Iowa better than the score indicated, they beat Michigan at home, and then they went to the very end with Purdue, the number one team in the country, in West Lafayette on Sunday, and an incredible game, a game I think they were completely hosed by the officiating. We talked about that, Scott and I talked about that on Monday.

Last night, I thought, was their best game since early in the season. They were outstanding. Everybody contributed. I personally was most impressed with Hakeem Hart's aggressiveness on offense. I've been wanting more of that. He is 6-8. He's a guard. He's long-armed.

There are matchups that are mismatches with him. But they got out and ran last night. How did they get out and run? because they made shots so they were able to get into their press. And when shots were missed, they rebounded them. And if they run, if they're out playing fast, they can be a very good team. And Jemir Young Tommy, the transfer from Charlotte, just ended up going for 20 plus for the fourth time in the last five games. He's got a stretch of 30, 20, 26, and he had 10 in the second half at Purdue, 22 last night.

And right now, he is pushing the upper echelon of the Big Ten. He's not going to be the player of the year. Eighty is the player of the year. And, you know, the big guy in Indiana, Trace Jackson is going to be probably the runner-up. Okay. But he's got a chance to be an all-Big Ten first team player with the way he's playing. He has been outstanding. Maryland is playing well. Willard's figuring out the Big Ten. He's figuring out what his team needs to do to win games, preferably continue to defend and then play faster. More possessions in the game certainly help them. And knocking down a few threes help him as well. Very impressive when Dante Scott played well. Resed another good game, but he was in foul trouble. Really like what the Terps have done here over the last week. They've got a game Saturday against an

If they win that, they're back at 500 in the Big Ten. And they are on their way. I mean, they're basically in every bracketologist field right now. They could play their way out of it. But they've got a chance in his first year, and this was not the expectation at the beginning of the year, to be a tournament team, which would be great. So there you go. That's my Maryland recap. Any questions?

I have no question. Are you paying attention? Yes, I am. You are? How many points did Juan Dixon have last night? Tell me why Scott Rowland got in over Jeff Kent to the Hall of Fame. You know, that's a real good question. Jeff Kent, I voted for Jeff Kent almost every year he's been on the ballot.

Okay, he's the best hitting second baseman, save for Roger Hornstead, of course, in the history of baseball. ball. Okay. He's had eight hundred plus RBI seasons in his career. He was the NL MVP in 2000, and he's been a five-time All-Star. Okay. I don't, I mean, I think he got overshadowed by Barry Bonds. I think people didn't give him to credit because Bonds was in a lineup with him. He's a very unlikable guy. He was. writers, but I've always point out to people that there was nobody more unlikable than Eddie Murray, and he got in first ballot.

Right. All of fame. So I don't think the writers necessarily hold this against guys, maybe a handful to, but I think if you've got to production, they vote you in on that, this is not how you treated them as reporters. I think Jeff Kent will get in, now he's off the ballot. Right. He's off the ballot.

This isn't this last year. Yeah. Well, that's wrong, and I think the Veterans Committee will fix that. What was your ballot? That's one that the – my ballot, I voted for three guys. I voted for Jeff Kent. I voted for Billy Wagner, who is sixth all-time in saves, but had a 2.31 ERA and almost 1,200 strikeouts. It's one of the most dominant – probably the most dominant left-handed reliever.

closure of all time. And I voted for Roland. You know, I think Rowland was overlooked. I mean, you know, here, Rowland has benefited getting in on a pretty weak ballot. Okay, the ballots have been stronger for much of the time that Rowland was on the ballot. And there's a lot of voters who don't like to vote for a lot of guys. I didn't vote for Rowland that much until the last couple years. But I was on board with him this time around. You know, he's seven-time All-Star, eight-time gold glove winner, was probably the best third basement of his era.

And, I mean, if you can say that, then I think you're a Hall-famer. You know, and I think that Roland can do that. What's interesting, he won eight gold gloves. Yeah. That's half the amount that Brooks Robinson won. That's unbelievable. Was Roland a better defensive third baseman than Kent was a second baseman? Yeah.

Yeah, Kent's not a strong defensive second baseman, but he wouldn't kill you. But his numbers kind of dwarfed Roland? Yes. I mean, well, rolling was that, again, again, third base, you know, people have brought up, but what about Don Maddenley? Why isn't Keith Hernandez in the Hall fame? in a lot of ways they have better numbers than rolling. They played first base.

And look, Keith Hernandez is the greatest first baseman defensively I've ever seen. I always said he played first base like a middle linebacker, but it's still first base. And look at all the great first baseman that they've been in history with 500 plus home runs and things like that. It's hard to get in because people consider position.

Third base, after shortstop, third base is the most of the demanding position on the infield. Okay. So I think people are going to judge Scott Rowan's defensive skills more than they would Keith Hernandez's defensive skills at first base. Your boy, Dusty Baker said about Jeff Kent. He said, this cat should be in the hall. Jeff Kent was one of the best clutch men I ever had that played for me. I love Jeff Kent. He should be in the Hall of Fame, period.

Baker managed him for six years in San Francisco. He's got no red flags to keep him out. I think he'll get in. All right. A-Rod's numbers were down low. Manny Ramirez's numbers were down low. That made me feel good. So I don't think those guys are ever.

getting in. All right. Give me your predictions on the two championships games. Philadelphia, San Francisco first. I like Philly in this. I like Philly in a 22 to 17 game. All right. What about Casey and Cincinnati?

I'm riding with the Bengals, baby. I'm riding with Smokey Joe. Smokey Joe, Burrow. Light up at cigar, baby. Bengals win. 35 to 28. Well, maybe he'll go to a Waffle House after the wind. All right, good show.

Thanks. I'll talk to you next week. Enjoy the weekend. Okay, boss, you too. All right, that's it for the day. I'll be back tomorrow, but I'm going to leave you with something here for you longtime Washington Redskin fans.

31 years ago today, January 26th, 1992, Super Bowl 26th, that the Minneapolis Metrodome, Washington 37, Buffalo 24, capping off what I think is the greatest season in franchise history. I don't really think it's debatable. And what many think, and I don't think that this is that much of a reach, the greatest season by any Super Bowl team during the Super Bowl era. Yeah, there are analyses out there like football outsiders

and their DVOA metric that ranks the 91 skins as the greatest Super Bowl winner of all time. USA Today, a few years ago, named the 1991 skins as the greatest Super Bowl champion of all time. It was their most complete team. It was their most dominant team. They won that Super Bowl 31 years ago today. Imagine if we were told 31 years ago, for those of us that remember it, I was there. I was there with the person who would become a few years later, my wife. We were there as boyfriend and girlfriend for a weekend.

My brother came along. It was a wonderful trip, actually. Minneapolis you wouldn't think would make for a great Super Bowl venue. And it was cold. But man, the parties, the bars. You walked on these skyways in downtown Minneapolis to get from one place to another. It snowed the entire time. and then the game, of course, was glorious.

But if we were told 31 years ago that that was going to be it, we would have obviously told that person that told us that they were insane. But it was true. 31 years later, we're still looking for just a Super Bowl to sniff, just to get within a few weeks of the Super Bowl would be nice. Winning a playoff game at this point would be nice. I'm going to leave you, though, with, how the CBS broadcast with Pat Summerall and John Madden opened that Super Bowl 26 day.

Today, the dream is reality as grown men become little boys again, living out their fantasy in front of the entire world. The Buffalo Bills, again the AFC's best team, make their second straight Super Bowl appearance, loaded with all sorts of offensive weaponry. The hogs are the heart and soul of the Washington Redskins, paving the way for football's highest scoring team. It's a dream matchup, the two best teams in football,

on a day made for dreams. The Metro Dome in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, the Washington Redskins, the Buffalo Bill. Super Bowl number 26.