The Kevin Sheehan Show - The Mess At Maryland

Episode Date: November 1, 2018

Kevin and Thom discuss the Maryland mess in detail. They also discuss the Redskins' co-favorite odds to win the NFC East. They do their NFL Power Poll and talk Derrick Rose's 50-point performance last night. <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. That's right. It's a Sports Fix Thursday.

Tommy's here. Aaron's here. Happy November, everybody. How was your Halloween, Tommy? Did you get to hand out candy? Well, you know. In the home? Here was the problem.

I was on with Chad Dukes last night yesterday afternoon from 4 to 6 on on 1067 a fan. So I knew I wouldn't get home in time for trick-or-treaters. So what we generally do when that happens, we leave a bowl of cigars outside the door for kids because it's become a tradition. Well, that's for the grandparents. We're taking them around the home.

No, that's for the kids. They're visiting their grandparents on Halloween, visiting each room. They stop by your room and the cigars are for the fathers, the grandfathers. No, it's for the kids. I'm known as a cigar man among the kids in a neighborhood. You're known as a lot of other things.

It's become a tradition. Great. And there were quite a few gone. Senting kids with cigars to like you, I guess. Yeah. Troubling. Thanksgiving is three weeks from today. Three weeks from today is Thanksgiving.

Guess what's happening on Thanksgiving? The Redskins play the Cowboys. Yes. Boy, that was a lot of fun about in 2012, wasn't it? Well, that was in 2012. It wasn't as fun in 2016. No. But that 2016 Thanksgiving Day game was the biggest,

head-to-head matchup between the Redskins and the Cowboys in years. You know, going back to the season end during 2012, but in terms of the aggregate record of the two teams in that one, the Cowboys were 10 and 1, the Redskins were 6, 3 in 1, I think. Maybe they hadn't had their by week. I forget how that worked out. Maybe the Cowboys were 9 in 1. And the aggregate record of the two teams was the best since like the 90s. That makes sense.

And if you remember, that stadium, that, that stadium, that, day for Dallas having the great season that they were having with DAC and with Zeke as rookies. That was a phenomenal atmosphere. I don't know if we'll have the same thing this year. The Redskins right now are on track to have a much better record than the Cowboys on Thanksgiving. Yes, the Cowboys would have to change direction in order for it to be comparable at this point. The Redskins just have to keep going in their direction. A lot of Cowboy fans were upset yesterday that I said that they, you know, it's clear now that the Cowboys clearly overpay. for Amari Cooper. It was clear to begin with. But it's really clear now. It was clear to begin with.

I mean, it's a subjective thing. If you really love the player and you think you have to have the player and the team that's trading him isn't giving them up unless you give them a first round pick, you know, that's your price. But to me, it seemed like too much for the player in the moment. Now, after the fact, you know, maybe they could have gotten him for something less. Look, I hope Amari Cooper is the answer that you're all looking for. But I really don't hope that. And I don't think he really will be. I do think the Cowboys are very good on defense, though.

I think they're a really good defensive team, and I think it's going to keep them in the hunt here over the last 10, 11 games, or in their case, nine or 10 games, eight or nine games, I guess it would be for them. The show today, presented by, as it is every day, Window Nation. Can't begin to thank them enough for their support. If you're in the market for Windows, call 866-90 Nation, or go towindonation.com and tell them we told you to call.

So I was planning on starting our conversation with Maryland and talking about your column and the reinstatement of DJ Durkin, which I talked about yesterday. Everything I said yesterday about a university that in the past, Tommy, had shot first and asked questions later. You know, they've been very impulsive in these situations in the past. And one of the things I said to you is the length of time this was taking wasn't a problem to me. I wanted them to get it right. I wanted them to have all of the facts and make a decision that they wouldn't regret the next day after they made it.

But whoops, they changed ground or the president of the school, Wallace Lowe changed ground and fired DJ Durkin last night at about 630, or it was reported at 630. You know, what was amazing, I had just walked in the shelley's. after leaving the radio station. And from the time I left the radio station, until the time I got in the show, he said, I look up at the TV, and it says, DJ Durkin fired.

And, you know, everybody sort of looked up at the same time in the bar, and people started laughing in the bar. I mean, they just couldn't believe it. Well, it is. It's a clown show. The last two days have been an utter circus,

and really an embarrassment, Tommy. An embarrassment. You know, I'll be honest with you. I feel bad for you because I know how much you care about the school. I do care about the school. And one of the things I had on my list of things to talk about is I wanted to talk to you about Sally's column. And then I just read your column, which is basically a duplicate.

Actually, she copied me. Well, she probably did. And we both love Sally. And I love reading her, even though I don't always agree with her. But I really thought in many ways that she implicated the entire university in a way that was unfair in her column. But I'll get to that in a moment. But yeah, it's like one day this dude James Brady says that DJ Durkin has been unfairly blamed for the dysfunction in the athletic department.

And the next day, the school president, after deciding to agree or go along with the board the day before, maybe reluctantly, changes his mind and fires Durkan, citing serious concerns allegedly expressed by numerous persons. Well, the governor is one of those persons. Well, once the governor weighed in, the governor who is close to Brady. I mean, Brady was on his transition team. He's been appointed by Hogan. And Hogan, while he's probably going to win re-election, is a week away from an election. And who needs this kind of heavy lifting a week away from people going to the ballots? You think it would have made the race closer?

No. No one was blaming Hogan for what was going on at Maryland. I don't. Okay. But, I mean, you can be sure. And it wouldn't have made a difference. But like, I mean, like, you know, if you're the governor, you're saying, I need this a week from, you know, from running for governor again. And from the guy I put in.

So once the governor gave Wallace Lowe the cover he needed, he was able to say, okay, go ahead, fire me. I'm going to get rid of the guy. Go ahead and get rid of me and put somebody else back in who will reinstate him again. I mean, what a total shit show. Seriously. I mean, you know what it reminds me of? Because I, you and I both love this particular sitcom. It reminds me of the dinner party episode of the office where Michael and Jan are sitting there in the foyer.

And they're talking, he's talking about his multiple vasectomies and reversals of vasectomies. And he goes, snip, snap, snip, snap. And he's like, you have no idea, Jan, the toll this takes. Look, this is how bad it's gotten. And, I mean, there's all kinds of ways to measure how bad it's gotten. This was a tweet at 7.30, 743 a.m. this morning from Randy Edsel. Randy Edsel, who must probably get bonuses for tweets, I'm figuring, you know, since he gets bonuses for everything else. He tweeted a quote from Bill Belichick.

When you're the head coach, you're the head coach 24-7, no matter what, it's on your watch. and to a degree, it's your problem. The nerve of this guy to comment on anything at Maryland, and it's obvious what he's doing here when he says that, but it shows how bad it is because if you're Maryland,

you got to eat this. What are you going to do? Fire back at Randy Edsel? I mean, that's how bad. That's how, that's how defensive you are right now is the school, that Randy Edsel can take shots at you. That's really bad. I mean, you know what I think of Edsel.

Once he took the shots he took at Ralph Regian in his first, you know, season, talking about how he had to fix things and things were loose everywhere, and it was really done poorly by the last guy. Yeah, the last guy went to 10 bowl games and won seven of them. I'm sorry, went to bowl games in seven of ten years and won five of them. You know, that was, you know this. I was so against the firing of Ralph. He just won the ACC coach of the year.

And here's why he got fired people. The reason he got fired is he wasn't great at these dinners held in sort of, you know, thanks to the donors in the program. He wasn't a rubber chicken circuit guy. He didn't like doing that. He liked studying film. He likes splicing up things and creating third and six packages. That's what he liked to do.

He liked to stay and literally until all hours of the night, pizzas were being brought in all hours of the night and study and get his team ready. He was an exceptional football coach. Plus, he understood Maryland. He understood Maryland. He was an alum. And he had coached under one of the other two coaches that had won at Maryland, Bobby Ross, and knew that this wasn't a school as a football second school, which it is.

It's a basketball first school. Ralph always knew that he wasn't going to have consistent top 20 recruiting classes. Right. That the kids, even locally, who have come to Maryland in the last two years to play for Durkan, Durkan's done something really that a lot of other Maryland coaches haven't been able to do. He's kept more players at home. But for a long period of time, those kids were going to Notre Dame. They were going to Bama. They were going to Virginia Tech.

They were going to North Carolina. They were going to UVA. and UVA didn't even have anywhere near the success in football that Maryland had had in the 70s and the 80s. And yet these kids were leaving. And Ralph knew what anybody knew watching Maryland football over a long period of time. You had to coach them up. You had to get more out of less because you weren't going to be at the same level talent-wise as Clemson or Florida State when they came into the league. Or when Virginia Tech came in the league.

You weren't going to have that same level of talent, but Ralph was able to beat a lot of them a lot of the time and hammer the other teams to get that team. And I know he had a couple of rough years. Whatever. We're going too long on Ralph. I just think that the downfall, football-wise, started when Wallace, when Kevin Anderson as the AD decided that he needed somebody that would go out and be more sort of extroverted with the donors. and as a media person, and what he didn't realize is Ralph was the perfect coach for Maryland. He was the perfect example of a guy that consistently got more out of less.

And the last two coaches, we're not sure about Durkin. He actually has some talent, and we're seeing it on the field this year. We're seeing it in a five and three football team who has a chance to become bowl eligible this weekend against Michigan State. But, you know, Edsel, come on. What was his overall record at Maryland? I mean, it was, the point is, 22 and 34. I mean, when Randy Edsel is taking shots at you and you got to take it, it just shows how bad things are. I mean, Maryland, and I'm not going to say two days or a week or a couple of weeks has like totally torn the school down.

But Maryland had written. You sort of wrote that. Well, not the whole thing. Well, you and Sally both, I mean, left people after reading your columns thinking that the whole story. school is garbage. And I think personally that's over the top. And I'm defensive. Actually, I only talk about the Board of Regents in my column.

No, I've got your, you just sent me your column. Yeah. I got your line here. Hold on here. Where is it? I mean, I'm pretty sure I did. I listed these names in a Monday column so you would know the men and women who were charged with speaking for Jordan McNair and what kind of school the University of Maryland

would be moving forward. Right. Moving forward. Well, I mean, there's nothing wrong. with that that's not an indictment of of what will happen to the school as a result of this i'm saying i mean they've built up the the the reputation of that school uh probably called it a salvage yard you see i didn't do not a campus okay i mean and and i didn't take any shots like that since the since the national championship building on those shoulders that school has built itself up to uh

to an elite school on some levels very good yes yes it's a wonderful university. But, but in a couple, in a week, it's turned into a national joke. I know, but you know what, Tommy and I said this yesterday. Um, you know, the predictions of doom, university doom football program, doom in a situation that was really in many ways, just as heinous as it gets, Penn State, they didn't prove to be accurate. Uh, you know, Michigan State went through what they've gone through over the last year. they're going to survive. The school's going to survive. The football program, the basketball program, the athletic department's going to survive. So I think sometimes people like you, the people who moralize sometimes, you know,

ad nauseum with, without all of the facts and information, you predict these things of doom, and it's way too premature and usually not accurate. Well, I didn't predict that Penn State would suffer gloom and doom. I said they should. In fact,

I said they should shut down the football for a season, at Penn State because everyone's forgotten what pretty much happened there. But to compare Penn State and Michigan State to Maryland football, that's apples and grapes, buddy. That's not even apples and oranges. None of these are very good comparisons. I mean, Penn State had basically an era of one coach molesting young boys. No, but my point is in terms of football success. Oh, yes.

Maryland football, no, no, no. Maryland football barely registered as it was. And so in other words, Maryland football was always having to look up. Yes. Now they have to look up a lot farther. You know what? That's fair. The difference between the programs allowed those programs to sort of bounce back faster,

the stature of those programs, the tradition of those programs. The expectations. The expectations. But the predictions weren't just about football programs. They were about the school, too, that people would avoid the school. school like the plague because of this incredible reputation hit. And I hope that doesn't happen. My guess is it won't happen.

You know, it didn't happen at Notre Dame when the kid fell from the, you know, the lift at the practice that Brian Kelly made him go out and film practice from and 50 mile an hour wins. Listen, Brian Kelly shouldn't have a job either. Well, I mean, look, I do feel badly for the university. but at the same time, I recognize what a complete circus the last few days have been. It's really, it's like the university is taking this massive hit as a whole, and it's being lumped into the complete cluster, you know what, that this Board of Regents and all the other leaders out there created over the last two days. Because it is a great university, and its reputation is taking a big hit.

I mean, look, you're in a situation where, I mean, you know, me, I want heads to roll everywhere. I know, that's your thing. And I would love to see the whole Board of Regents just, you know, kicked out the door onto US 1, but you know that's not going to happen. So I'll settle. You'll just keep listing them by name in every column you're right. So I'll like, here's my column about Ha Ha,

Clinton Dix. Do you know the names of each of the members of the Maryland Board of Regents? So I'll settle. I'll just settle for the head guy, who became the face of this farce. And that was James Brady. the chairman of the Board of Regents, who went public to try to explain why they were keeping DJ Durkan

and basically said, there'll be no third chances. I know. That's what you call horrible public relations delivery. That's a bad idea. Whoever came up with that when they were right in his opening remarks, no, you're right. I mean, this is why during this process, you know, I was like, because initially remember, there was a lot of reaction and it's like, all right, well, you know, we're taking full responsibility.

But let's remember. There was not initially a lot of reaction. The only reaction came after the ESPN story. That's right. Jordan McNair had been dead. That's true. For a while and nothing happened. And then what happened were two investigations, one that reported or investigated the circumstances,

surrounding his death that day on the practice field. And then the second investigation was examining sort of the culture of the Maryland football program. And that was the investigations, the investigation which the results were released last week. Yes. And then all, then the ball was sort of in motion to do what they thought they would do. And I think it is important still, even after yesterday, to point out, and you may not think it's a big deal. I find this stuff interesting, actually. The decision to fire him yesterday was still without cause.

Without cause. But you've talked about this, how difficult it is to fire somebody with cause. It is very difficult, typically, for an employer to fire an employee with cause. The burden of proof is on the employer, and it's a very steep burden of proof in most situations. I don't know the state by state. I'm not an employment lawyer. But I do want, you know, it's important. important, if you haven't read the investigation, and I talked about this yesterday is sort of having read the Cliff's Notes version, and I went back and read a lot more of it last night. Not all of it. I haven't read the whole thing. It's 200 pages. It's 200 pages. But, you know, the bottom line is, Tommy, the university wanted to get to the bottom of it. Let's take them at their word. But I'm sure there was a lot of thought that it would be great if this investigation turned up evidence that made it very easy for,

us to fire him with cause. Oh, I don't... You would agree with that, right? I don't know if that's true. I think that Brady was in love with Durkin and the whole Big Ten image that Durkan brought with him. And I think that he was going to protect that. I'm talking about the investigation. I know that.

But who was in charge? Who appointed the people for the investigation? Okay. If you're saying that Brady wanted something different from the report, I just suggested, that's fine. It's neither one of these investigations technically are. I bet you Wallace Lowe would have preferred a with cause evidence trail. Neither one of these investigations technically are independent because they were both generated

by the school or by the Board of Regents. An independent investigation would be somebody from the outside appointing people to investigate. So technically both of these, neither of these were independent investigations. I blame to me, this is a real question, and maybe I'm just missing it. Like it's the NFL deflategate thing, right? Like, you know, people were like, well, it's an NFL-led investigation. Ted Wells, you know, is being picked by the NFL to head up this investigation. And by the way, when it comes to investigations, we know that sometimes investigations are massively flawed.

Like Ted Wells' deflategate investigation, which basically had no idea there was something called the ideal gas law. But the, but if Maryland is going to make the decision to investigate these things. See, they can't make that decision. That's got, you have to have a layer beyond that. But so how does that layer happen? That's got to be the governor. That's got to be the governor. The governor has, but the governor didn't do that. No, he didn't. So what I'm saying is, so should they have asked the governor to spearhead the investigations? Well, no, the governor should have stepped in. But I guess he thought his guy, his guy, Jim Brady, wouldn't embarrass him like he did. I'm just pointing out that if you're looking for agendas and you're looking for conflicts,

the fact that it was the school that created both investigations leaves open the possibility that there was an agenda on both of them. Okay, I'm just, you may be right about Brady's desire on this particular investigation. I'm just saying, that the school would have benefited significantly if the investigation produced a result that allowed them to fire him with cause. Would have saved him, what, $5 million? It would have been done.

They would have fired him. It would have saved him $5.1 million. And they would have been able to move on, hey, we investigated this thing. We did find wrongdoing, and we fired him with cause. But not only did they not fire him with cause because clearly the evidence didn't produce it or the Board of Regents just said to hell with the evidence.

The evidence is very mixed, Tommy. There are things in there, and I mentioned this yesterday, and I think you and I were talking about this before the show. Look, a reasonable person reading about trash cans filled with vomit being tossed across training rooms and players being shamed into eating candy because of weight issues, reasonable people can just say that's demeaning, that's intimidating, that's inappropriate. But you can also be reasonable in some. say, but it probably does exist at a lot of these major schools.

Yeah, I know, but what if is the worst argument you can make? What about? I'm not suggesting that. What I'm saying is that to me, that is a separate thing. Because unless you can actually take that and tie it, as you would say, connecting the dots, like you always say, to DJ Durkin being solely responsible for McNair's death because of the culture that was created, personally, I think that's a real reach. Well, it is.

I think it's a reach. It is a reach, but responsible people can come to a conclusion, whether it's a conclusion that you could get away with not paying DJ Durkin with his money is a different story. But I think reasonable people would conclude that Rick Court was operating with DJ Durkin's blessing. I mean, he's the guy who brought him here. He's been described as his lieutenant. So I think Rick Court was operating, the strength coach.

It was basically ground zero for all this. I agree with you. I would just say, because I don't want to lose this thought, that it's ridiculous to me that the CEO of football, not to agree with Randy Edsel, but I guess I'm agreeing with Randy Edsel, that the CEO of football, DJ Durkin, doesn't know the tactics that his strength and conditioning coach is employing.

At the same time, I think there are a lot of Rick Courts at a lot of major football programs throughout the country. And I think if a kid had died at another 50 universities, I'm throwing out a random number, all right, that we would have potentially seen the same type of fallout at that specific university. It just may have been handled better than it's been handled by Maryland. I'm not sure that you would have seen it at Maryland before the Big Ten transition. You want to get to that? Because you track all of this back to their decision to move to the Big Ten.

Well, I said, I mean, if you really want to see what Aaron and I are waiting for. We want to hear why we should have never going to. gone to the Big Ten because we agree with you. Before we move on from the Board of Regions, though, we just got another report. The Board of Regions apparently said the whole athletic training staff should be retained.

Including the trainers and the doctors, the West guy and the other guy? Yes. Steve Nordwell and West Robinson should be retained. See, this is an arrogance pissing match now. Hold on. Hold on for a second. I would like to know on that specific thing, why

they believe that the two guys or the group of people that were directly responsible for Jordan McNair's death, how the hell do you have a person in distress in this day and age in football at a big institution with trained trainers and doctors not take someone's temperature or check their vital signs? I called it Tommy yesterday acute negligence. It's like in the moment negligence. It was, this is why I have a hard time like tracking it, you know, connecting it back to some sort of culture that was created. If you're a doctor there and you see the kid in distress, no culture is going to stop you from taking the kid's temperature and putting him in an ice bath. This was, this was gross negligence, clearly.

What is the reason that the board recommended that they stay? Because you know what? That implies that they're blaming the kid for his own death. Well, I mean, we had a booster who publicly came out and said that. Again, you know... Why would they possibly think that these... Because now it's turned into an arrogance pissing match. Basically, you know, basically everyone is carving out their own ground.

And this is another reason why Brady has to go. I mean, he's become the face of this. He's an embarrassment to the university. He's an embarrassment to the governor. And there has to be a massive, a massive change. I mean, you know, Damon Evans apparently has an onerous contract that will, at some point, will eventually force them to fire him at some point. But he needs to go.

He's just an empty suit who was backstabbing apparently everybody left and right in the program while he was there. I mean, they need to have a new face for Maryland sports. There's one face that everybody would take. One. I know. It's one face. But I wouldn't wish this on here. him. No, I wouldn't either. And I've had conversations with him about it. And he is, he is a great life right now.

But there's one person. And it's not just because of the trust and the love and the warmth that the alum have for Gary Williams. It's because he always does the right thing. He's competent and he's competitive. And he would, he would never stop until it was right. Right. But it might almost. Yeah. I mean, I wouldn't. This is, this is a remarkable undertaking. I mean, you, I mean, you would have to really come up with the right.

But I don't even know. Do we even know what's involved in the undertaking? This is one of those things. You need to change. Change what? You need to change a narrative about the University of Maryland. Yeah. That's what you need to do.

Look, if anything, in the last 24 hours, should, all the Neanderthals out there, it's a different world right now. And media, social media, all media matter a lot. When people used to say it's a media controversy, I'd say, well, then it's a controversy. I tell, I've told general managers of sports, I say, if you're smart, you include, you hire good PR people and you include them in getting their input on major. decisions involving personnel, baseball, football, everything to see what the reaction will be. Gage the reaction because the reaction may force you to do something you don't want to do.

And it last 24 hours, basically it's the reaction that has changed everything. That's the age we live in right now. The governor, Leverro, and Jenkins basically prompted this change of heart by the president of the university. So you've got to be, however this tasteful it is, you have got to be aware of the implications publicly of your decision making. You can't just say, I don't care. I'm going to do things my way.

That's the way I ran my business. That's the way I operated as Secretary of Agriculture or whatever he was, economic secretary or something like that. Those days are gone because you're going to pay the price. I'm just going to say this. And I know what you're, I know what you're. saying is right. I do know what you're saying is right. That if it's a media controversy, it's a controversy. I get it in this day and age. I just think reasonable people can push back

a little bit and say, I'm not pointing to you or Sally in this particular instance at all. I'm just thinking in general. You know, don't moralize. Don't be outrageously and morally offended when you don't have the whole story. And I think personally, in most of these cases, those of us that speak on it, write about it, don't always have all the information. And in this particular case, there's a lot of information out there. But you can almost create, like I said yesterday about the university, you know, after, you know, all of the columns and the outraged media members move on to the next thing, they're going to be stuck with the consequences. And the consequences, because they brought him back, the consequences had they fired him,

they ended up firing him. But I said yesterday, had they ended up firing them, and please the masses, please the media masses, they would have been stuck with the consequences, Tommy. And the consequences would have been economic potential, a massive negative economic impact. The decision to bring him back initially to me was economic driven. Well, again, it is they didn't want to pay him off. They didn't want to pay Damon Evans off. They didn't want to have to deal with hiring a new coach and a new coaching staff and paying them. They didn't want to deal with costs succeeding revenues, a budget shortfall, and then having to cut programs

and fire people because they would have been left with that turd. And I'm not saying that it was the right thing, that doing the right thing and paying the economic consequences wouldn't have been the better thing. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that more goes into these decisions than just some of, in some cases, what people write about. I think most people who wrote about this recognize that what they did is put a dollar value on Jordan McNair's death.

That's what they did. They said, this is the cost of doing business at the University of Maryland. I think that's the wrong way of describing it. No, I think that's a very cynical way of describing it. I think that's the exact way to describe it. And here's the only fact out of facts that you need to know. A player died because of negligence. Everything else is noise.

Absolutely. And it's the only, it's the tragedy in this thing. And by the way, that's another big payment the university is going to have to make. Oh, yes. I give you credit for always bringing that up. But that's, I mean, everything else is noise. In other words, anybody within the. neighborhood of that noise is fair game. Anybody.

That's why really the strategy, and it's always easy in hindsight, but to your point to have really sharp people who can sort of see the future and see the media frenzy and fallout. Yes. If you do this, this is what's going to happen. Yeah, you got to have. And I don't know if anyone could have predicted this kind of fallout. Look, really in hindsight, the best thing to do would have been to say, Jordan McNair died and didn't have to die, and we're going to pay a deer price for that because we were at fault.

And this is not necessarily part of our culture here at the university, but still, in this particular instance, we are going to have an investigation, and if we find other people other than the trainers and doctors who are clearly at fault, well, after that investigation, heads will roll. We will fire those people.

And once they have, I still think you have to wait these things out. I know that it doesn't necessarily lend itself to like a safe PR strategy, but sometimes acting too quickly without all the information will get you in bigger trouble down the road. Yeah, well, but two investigations and acting quickly after those investigations produce the results and understanding, hey, they could have said, DJ Durkan, we don't believe that DJ Durkan killed Jordan McNair, but that doesn't matter. He got caught up into this thing, and there were some things here that weren't appropriate.

We don't believe that we don't think are appropriate for our university, and we're doing a reboot of this football program, period. That would have worked. That probably would have worked. You know, I mean, basically, I mean, that would have worked. So when they wound up losing DJ Durkin anyway and costing the school millions of dollars in public relations embarrassment, at this point. I mean, geez, I mean, I can't, I don't know, I don't know how James Brady remains as the chairman of the Board of Regents. He has become the face of all this, certainly the

voice of all this with some of his stupid comments that he's made. The third chance thing was stupid. And, you know, I mean, he talked about, and DJ Durkin may be a great guy, you know, and he talked about, you know, what a great man he is. I'm just happy that they were able to fire DJ Durkan before they built a statue for him so they don't have to tear that down. Look, let me just say this because I spend time out there

and I have a son who's in school out there. For those of you that, you know, this is your first exposure to the University of Maryland, let me just tell you that it is a wonderful university. It has an incredible journalism school led by George Solomon. Yes, it does.

It's got a high, ranked first-rate engineering program. It has a, I mean, a top-15 business school in the Smith Business School. Is it ranked higher than Top 15 now? I think, Aaron, it might be a top-10 business school. It is a great university, and by the way, has become impossible to get into it. I know. For in-state students in particular.

I know. And they have great bars in college bar. Well, they certainly have a couple of them. I mean, R.J. Bentley's can be a lot of fun pre-and-post game. No longer is the rendezvous in. there, aka the Voo. But it's a great university. And the one thing, and you know I love reading Sally,

and I think she's smart and provocative and all of that. And I think you and Sally actually have a lot in common in the way you write, although she uses words that I need a dictionary for. A lot of them yesterday, there were at least three or four. I'm like, I don't know what that means. But I really sort of felt like she made this a place that was life threatening to anybody that showed up. And I thought that was a bit over the top.

You know, it wasn't just about the football program. She called the university a salvage yard because she couldn't come to calling it a campus and basically implied that if you go there, your life will be threatened. Listen. I just, okay, I get that, but sometimes to make a point, you have to go over the top. If you want people to understand, I mean, the message you're sending, you sometimes have to go over to top. I mean, again, it's a subjective message, Kevin.

Can I just tell you, it is a subjective message, but can I just tell you what my subjective response was to it? What? I thought that she was so angry and so passionate about this. And I've seen many times when I've agreed with her on various things, I love it when she gets after it like that. And I don't disagree.

with her column. I mean, you know, she points out a lot of things that I totally agreed with. I mean, obviously, this kid died, you know, needlessly. She points that out. It's 100% true. When she writes about this third chance, you know, from Brady, that's a joke. And I completely agree with her. I just, you know, I just sort of felt after reading it, I'm like, she went so hard that she wanted to make sure that her column was the column. And I, and I, and I, and I, I don't, I don't see Sally as being that. I know. And I don't necessarily feel that she's that type of person,

but I think that this one struck a nerve so hard that she wrote to be the column on this thing. The definitive column. And I'll tell you, it was wickedly written. Yes, it was. As only she can do. Now, ironically, this gives you a little inside baseball in the business on this.

That column never made print. Why? Well, because by the time it would have been printed. Everything had changed. Durkin had been fired. So it had to be pulled. So while it was online, that column never made the actual newspaper. Yeah.

Why would it? Yeah, they had to pull it. Yeah, because after Durkin got fired, everything changed. I may be one of the only people left that watches the nightly news every once in a while. And, you know, NBC's Nightly News, in this market runs at 7 o'clock. Yes, it runs in most markets at 6.30. So,

who's the guy? Well, Lester Holt hosted, but the guy that did the report is the guy that lives here and does a lot of, you know, airline stuff and transportation stuff. His name's escaping me right now. But anyway, he was the reporter. No, no, no, no, for network. Okay. For the network.

But he, they had to run a Chiron on the 7 o'clock broadcast here locally. saying DJ Durkin was fired, even though they were running the story that was now outdated from a half hour ago. Because it happened right around 630. Yes. The news broke. Yes. So, yeah. So, and, and, you know, again, I don't know what the recovery is for this.

I don't know who you. I don't think, look, it's not my school. I don't think you can just hire a football coach to coach that football team. You've got to hire somebody with a little bit more smarts than just a football coach. You need a, you know, you need an, oh, God, the athletic director position, you know, Zabe once said that these are glorified, you know, ex-P.E teachers, you know, that wanted to be coaches. And, you know, it's too, Tommy, this may be, this may be off base. It's just sort of a feeling that I've always had about some of these universities that,

But in the world of sort of academia, there is high IQ but not high emotional IQ in some cases. And that's why they screw up a lot of this PR stuff. It's like they don't have a sense of how people will react emotionally, you know, and they're... Listen, there's nobody more insulated than academics and instructors. Being an instructor myself. Well, but you're outside of that. I mean, you don't really instruct. You just show up.

That's true. But my point is, I mean, you know, it's funny. The smartest people, you know, like it in academia when, you know, they speak out against these injustices. But if it's their ox being gourd, they don't like that. Right. They don't like that. They don't like open up the sunshine then when it's their ox. So I know what you mean.

Well, it's also, you know, and I've told you this before, you know, my sort of life before broadcasting and business, when, you know, we would have sort of these very idealistic, you know, Harvard Business School people come in, you know, that are working for, you know, Arthur Anderson or big consulting firms to consult on our business. And it was like this world of theoretical that just didn't have enough practical in it. And multiple times, I think I've told you a couple of these stories, but multiple times, we would get pitched, you know, our board would say, or our investors would say, hey, we got to have this group in just to look at the business.

They can help in a couple of areas. And they'd say, okay. And they would come in. And after three months, they'd sit down and they'd provide this big report. And someone would immediately say, yeah, but this doesn't make any sense because this is actually how it happens. This isn't whiteboard theoretical. This is like real world practical. And I think some of that is in play here.

I think they just miss the sort of the practical. and the emotional and the people part of it sometimes. Last thing I'm going to say is, and this was my point when I was talking about this, and I know it sounds very new age, but they need to hire a group of healers. Healers? I mean, no, people, I don't mean literally healers. I mean, people who recognize that healing needs to be done. I mean, you can't just hire a football coach.

Should they go to the Catholic Church for it? I'm just saying, I mean, they need to, they need to. hire people with personalities that recognize that. Let me just tell you this, all right, and this is a practical response. This, too, shall pass. It always does. In the moment, it always seems much bigger and much worse than it really is. They will be...

Len bias has never passed. No, Len bias has never passed in part because there was a legend around Len bias, too, as a player. Len bias will I mean I think his legend almost out sizes the reality although the reality was incredible a little premature to think that this is going to pass I think this is something different well what do you think the long lasting ramifications are

I think you've got to they're going to lose applications to the university in the short term I think they are okay so it becomes a less you know it becomes goes from being a highly selective sort of highly you know you know, ranked school to something in the middle, that's not going to happen. I think it will.

I think, I mean, every conversation you have about marijuana, at least for the foreseeable future, we'll have the name Jordan McNair in it. Listen, all due respect to him and his family, because this is, as I've said, and I don't need any credit for it because this is the obvious takeaway. This is the tragedy, and it's terrible because it was so preventable. And anybody with kids, and you don't even have to have kids, knows how absolutely horrible this is because it wasn't like this needed to happen. It happened needlessly.

That's what's so sad and so tragic about this. But all due respect to that, Jordan McNair is not going to carry with that name and this period of time what happened when Len Byest died of a cocaine overdose. And by the way, the national ramifications of Len Bias' cocaine overdose. Unless on the fight on the war on drugs.

Jordan McNair becomes the face of the pushback on college football where where basically this is, I mean, because I mean, these deaths have come. He's not the first kid to die from a college, from a workout playing college football or high school football for that matter. It's remarkable the amount of kids that die in practices and games from high school football. People are shocked when they find out the amount. And this may be the one, this may be the one to say, hey, we need to really examine what we do here with this sport. I'm not saying it will, but this could be, he could be in his own way how Lent bias was nationally in the debate about drugs.

And, you know, I mentioned earlier to sort of add to your point, that would be a good result of that. I mean, that would be a good thing if it really pushed sort of change in the place. is where it's over the top. Yes. And I think if you read through that investigation report, there's a lot in there that even, and I said this yesterday, Tommy, even the old football salts would say, yeah, that's a little bit much, you know, and they don't want to concede anything on this front. But I said earlier that you could probably find another 50 programs where there is a,

you know, the same kind of strength and conditioning coach doing a lot of the same stuff. and if that's true, and even if it isn't 50, if it's 15, and this whole incident sort of influences and prompts change in those places, that would be a good thing. You can be tough and you can get players in shape to take on this very difficult and rugged sport, you know, with a chance of succeeding without the demeaning part of it. Yes, you can. Yes, you can. I mean, you can sell them. on that goal without having to tear them apart. That's right. And, you know, what you point out, if it's true, and I think it may be in terms of other programs,

if you're a smart athletic director or school president at this point, what you're doing is you're doing a self-examination of your own athletic program. You're saying, you know, is this going on here under our nose and we don't know about it? That would be a smart thing to do. Well, of course, whenever you have these incidents. I guarantee you nobody was getting up on a 50-foot lift in 50-mile-an-hour winds after Declan-Sullivan, you know, fell to his death. This one would be more difficult because there'd be a lot of political pushback. If a school president of, let's say, I don't know, let's say Georgia decided that, you know, we need to do our own internal investigation to see if something like this is going on here.

He's going to get pushback from donors. He's going to get push back from the coaches. he's going to get pushback. So I'm just pointing out that it wouldn't be a bad idea to everyone to undertake an old self-examination to see if there's any Rick Courts running around your program. One last thing, just because it's now, you know, you said, what's next? Well, what's next is they've got to hire a football coach. Now they have an interim coach in Matt Canada who will clearly finish out this season.

And he's done a pretty good job. And there one win away from bowl eligibility. and the point spread, by the way, in the Michigan State game, Aaron, I don't know if you saw this. Maryland was a one-point dog. When they reinstated them, and all hell was sort of breaking loose. Michigan State went to a three-point favorite, and now somebody tweeted me this morning, it's back to one again with Matt Canada in charge. But Bruce Feldman, you know, who I love from CBS, well, Fox now, does Fox put out the list for the very vacancy. And there's one name on here that's actually surprising to me. But Matt Canada, the interim

coach is a potential candidate. Syracuse coach, Dino Babers, who's doing a phenomenal job at Syracuse. And my first reaction to that is, why would he leave Syracuse to come to Maryland? It would be, you know, it would be a lateral move. And then he's coming into the program with all of this stuff going on. But the answer is that Maryland still is viewed by people in the business as a place that has underachieved in football because of the talent pool that is here. Right. And, you know, Durkin really has started to make inroads as a recruiter in this market like no

other Maryland coach has. And it's one of the reasons if you've watched Maryland and not many people have watched them this year, but they have legitimate skill position talent. I mean, they've got a ton of speed. And, you know, they're building actually from a talent. standpoint, a roster standpoint, they're building to something, not Ohio State, Michigan, or Penn State, but they're building towards this, you know, territory of seven, eight, nine wins a year and consistent, you know, sort of bowl games with the talent. And so that's why if you saw the same

thing I saw and had the same reaction, well, why would Babers leave Syracuse for Maryland? It's because of this natural fertile recruiting area. You know, we know what kind of area it is for basketball. It's the number one. You take Baltimore and Washington combined. It's certainly if not number one top three in the country for basketball talent. Well, the football talent is really up there too. I mean, the WCAC as a basketball league is the best basketball league in the country. As a football league, it's close to one of the best leagues in the country. Good counsel, Dematha, Gonzaga, St. John's, Powerhouse. Powerhouse. football programs too.

Now, with incredible Division I 1 and NFL talent coming out of there. The other names were Troy University's Neil Brown, Appalachian States, Scott Satterfield, who's doing a phenomenal job there. Temples, Jeff Collins, this is from Bruce Feldman,

and Coach Ken from Navy. Now, I will just tell you that I can't see Maryland hiring a guy that would run the triple option in the Big Ten. Now, I know Georgia Tech's had some success, in the ACC. I don't think that he's...

If you're looking for the personality, though, that healer, that guy who can unite the community, that would be the type of guy. Above reproach. He is. He's a first-rate guy, according to everybody, and they're having a difficult season this year. Yes, they are.

But I just don't know from a football standpoint if you want to be running the triple option. I get that. I get that. Because I think you end up being very competitive, but I think you have a limit. Okay, Tori Smith put this out, and I've heard this name floated out there,

Mike Loxley. That's the name every, you know, he's going to be the top of list. He was the runner up last time. Look, I know a lot of people that... I think you need to do something better than Mike Loxley. I know a lot of people that know him. I don't really know him at all.

So I just know that people that know him, love him, and apparently, and we know this, he can recruit. Yes, he can. He can recruit, and he can recruit this area probably better than anybody. He's at Alabama right now. Yeah. He was the OC, you know, here recently.

You know, that's for other people to make a decision on. At this point, to be honest with you, Tommy, it's like they just got to get through the next few months. Yes, they do. They don't have to hire a football coach until the end of this season. And Matt Canada is proving that certainly as an offensive, guy. If he can get some big offensive linemen to compete in the big 10, you know, I don't know. You know, hire whoever you want to hire. Great journalism school, incredible engineering program, great business school. It's a great university. Don't be afraid to have your kids apply.

Pay no attention to the people who are running it. All right. Let's get to some other stuff. Maybe some other stuff. That was almost a show right there. First of all, Window Nation, Harley and Aaron from Window Nation are big believers in this podcast. I want you to give them a chance. Wind Donation is my favorite window company. I've used them over and over again, and I think it should be yours too. Temperatures are falling fast. It's a great reminder that you're, although temperatures aren't falling fast today,

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Start enjoying all the benefits of new windows today. That's windonation.com or call 86690 Nation. All right, let's get to some Redskins discussion. I wanted to start with this. Actually, you wanted to start with something you tweeted out today. Go ahead. Well, basically, Jim Zorn, who I didn't even know was on Twitter, somebody had retweeted this.

You know, the Seattle, the first Seattle Seahawks coach, his football coach, Jack Paterra, passed away. Now, Aaron knows this. He's the brother of former wrestling great Ken Paterra, professional wrestling great. This is what Jim Zorn tweeted out in terms of Coach Patera. My favorite memories of Coach Patera are one, if you call him coach, he would call you back player. He liked to go by Jack.

He came up with the greatest fake field goals of all time. We had one ready every game to use. Really? Now we know where the swinging gate came from. Yeah. Oh, man. That's so funny. Jim Zorn and Swinging Gate. Well, it didn't work first. It didn't work the first time.

They got the timeout in before the first one, or was it delay a game? I can't even remember now. And he went back after showing it to him and ran it again against the Giants on a Monday night. I've said this to you before. Jim Zorn, along with Steve Largent, he's a legend in Seattle. Oh, yeah. You know, part of those first teams, and Jim Zorn was a fun quarter. He was a left-handed gunslinger.

And a big-time runner and running, he was the left-handed version there for a few years of Fran Tarkington. Yes, he was. He really was. I had, I liked him as a player. And I like him as a neighbor. Well, that's Tommy's all-time line about Jim Zorn. You know, this is what I would say about Jim Zorn.

He'd make a great neighbor. Not much of a football coach, but a great neighbor. You know who just can't stand him still and will take shots at him on a regular basis? Clinton for us. I know. Clinton thinks he was a joker, said it was just a, even Clinton says at six and two, he didn't think it was real with Jim Zorn.

I know, but there's a little bit of both being right there because he wanted Clinton to practice. Yes. And Clinton was not interested in practicing, and that's not really a good trait. I know. For an NFL football player, I give Gibbs credit for recognizing that Clinton may have driven

even give nuts Monday through Saturday, but he loved them on Sunday. Right. So real quickly, before I get to what I want to get to for Redskins, on the acquisition of Ha Ha, ha, Clinton Dicks yesterday. Wait a minute. You're not really going to use that name, are you? Ha, ha. That's his name.

Oh, come on. I don't care if it's its name. I mean, come on. You can't call a grown man. Ha ha. If his mother and father gave him that name, I'm going to call him by his name. Stop it. He's a grown man.

What do you want me to call him then? Just Clinton Dix? When you shake his hand if you meet him, you're going to say, ha ha ha, how you doing? Ha, ha, Clinton Dix on the acquisition of Ha ha Clinton Dix. This is what Jay Gruden said yesterday. He said, yeah, it was an opportunity, quote, yes, it was an opportunity to get a great player. Ha ha has proven the fact that he's a good player, great player, actually, over the course of his career and came available to us. Bruce in the front office pulled the trigger and got him here.

Now it's our job to get him acclimated to the defense and add him to the mix of a good safety group. Close quote. So Bruce pulled the trigger on this. Yes. I'm still fascinated as to who's making what decisions in there. Like Doug Williams has this very lofty title, you know, executive vice president of football operations. But it's not general manager, is it? No, it's higher than general manager.

But it's not general manager. But it implies the same thing since he was when we got the announcement of, of this new title, it was right after Scott McLuhan had left. So I know that you've said this before to me, and you're right, it's not the same title, but the job that he came in and took or was elevated to, even though they gave him a different title for it, was supposed to be basically the Scott McLuhan replacement. Am I right about that or not? Here's the thing.

They call them general managers every place else. No, they don't. Almost every place else. No, Vice President of Football Operations in Pittsburgh. There are various titles for general management. I'll bet you that guy has a general manager title on his name too. I'll go look this up. There are plenty of people who make the decisions, the roster decisions,

that don't have general manager in their title. I'll prove that to you before the end of this show. Implies the person in charge of football. I mean, basically what it implies. And Bruce Allen, like I told you my whole theory about Scott McLuhan. I mean, I think Bruce Allen never wanted a general manager, so he hired an unhireable general manager knowing he would screw up at some point, and Bruce would be back in charge as the general manager.

Do you think he feels the same way about Doug? No, I don't think he thinks. Is that what you're saying? I think that he has a relationship with Doug. But again, based on the fact that he told Doug not to answer the phone when the Redskins made the biggest trade that they've made in years to get Alex Smith, shows you what he really thinks maybe of Doug Williams as the guy in charge of personnel. and it shows you the pushback that Doug Williams must have had

when he brought in Adrian Peterson without telling Bruce Allen or Dan Snyder. Doug, I think Doug recognizes this sort of like struggle he's involved in here in the front office as to who's in charge. Right. Look, there are some organizations like Cincinnati, and you'll just say, well, the Browns run everything. but, you know, Paul Brown, Mike Jr., I know,

but Paul Brown Jr. And Duke Tobin have VP of player personnel and director of player personnel titles. No general manager in the title. Mike Brown, the owner, has general manager in his title. Why would he do that? I don't think,

Ozzie Newsom was an EVP. Why would Mike Brown do that? Because it means something. It carries the connotation the guy in charge of football personnel. I'm going through the list. I want to find out if the Redskins are the only team. That's not, you know, that's irreverent, irrelevant, and your honor, inconsequential.

Let's move on to what your point is about the Redskins. It's not really a point. I was just curious as it's like, look, we know Jay's very honest, right? I mean, he. Not as honest as he used to be. Okay. Well, he tells you in these interviews basically what happened a lot of the times. Bruce pulled the trigger on the trade.

He said, look, we got this guy available, we can get him for a fourth, let's do it, and then basically said, Jay, here's your player. There wasn't a discussion about whether or not Doug was involved or Eric was involved or anybody else was involved, then maybe they were involved. I don't really care, because right now, you know what, here recently, they've gotten some good players. Yes. They've gotten some really good players. I am now consumed with finding another organization that doesn't have general manager.

It's not very funny. Okay. I know you probably talked about this yesterday. What did you think of the trade? You liked it, right? Yeah, I think for a fourth rounder, it's low risk, high reward. Yeah.

But, and you'll understand this, whenever the Redskins make a trade, my default now is to always say, hmm, what was the other team? What was in it for the other team? What was wrong with this player? How did the Redskins potentially get the short end of the stick again in a deal? I always think of it that way.

That's reasonable. What's the agenda for? Green Bay. That's right, because they're in a playoff race too. And they don't have an obvious replacement for them. So, and the reports out of Green Bay is that his play had been very inconsistent. Yes. You know, so. Still, he had three interceptions this year. Yeah. And I also don't live and die with pro football focus as numbers. Right. That rank him the number two safety. And a guy like that who was a pro bowl player in 2016, who's

be playing for his contract next year in a new place with a change of atmosphere surrounded by guys like DJ Sweeringer. I'm thinking you're going to get the best of Mr. Dix for the rest of the year. Is that what we're going to call him?

I'm not calling a grown man. Ha ha. So I think you're going to get the best of him. I think it's a good deal. You're right. At the very worst, if he walks away, they wind up maybe with a compensation pick that could be the fourth rounder they gave up just like a year from now. And it strengthens their strength on the defense.

What's curious, though, is the argument about not trading for a wide receiver. And there's one school of thought about not trading for a receiver that says, what's the point? We don't have a quarterback who can find them anyway. I know. I just, I do think that the passing offense, improve. I do. But it's not a strength of the football team. And it's clearly not a reason for them being five and two. The quarterbacks play other than the contribution of not turning the ball over,

which I recognize, yes, is a big contribution. Let me just real quickly, because I've been half listening to you and half searching all of the front office. Hold on. No. Hold on. No. You're almost right. You're almost right. Right now, the only other organization in the league that I can find without a general manager in the title with anybody is Philadelphia. The Redskins do not have anybody with general manager in their title. Doug Williams is senior vice president, not executive vice president, of player personnel. And in Philadelphia, Howie Roseman is the executive vice president of football operations. And then Joe Douglas is the VP of player personnel.

And they've got a director of player personnel, but no GM in the title. And Baltimore doesn't have. But everybody else has a GM in the title. It carries a certain kind of weight with it. I guess. But my point all along is that Doug was sort of given that elevated title right after McLuhan was fired. So in essence, the implication was he was replacing the general manager to become the general manager, but just didn't want that in the title.

But whatever, I don't care. Let me get to what I want to get to. The Redskins odds updated odds after last week to win the division. They are now the co-favorites. Now, you'll read things. I've said this before. You'll read things in various articles. you know, unless you have an actual guy where you can actually place futures bets,

those are the real numbers where you can actually play it. Sometimes they get a little bit off or they're too early and you end up reading an old point spread or an old, you know, futures money line. And it's outdated. Right now, you know, on the sites that I frequent, pretty much across the board, the Redskins and the Eagles are co-favorites to win the NFC East at Plus. 130. The Cowboys are plus 400 and the Giants are, you know, 30,000 plus 30,000. So the Eagles and Redskins are co-favorits to win the NFC East. Now for the NFC championship, there are seven teams

ahead of the Redskins. Now you only get six teams in the playoff field. So there are seven in the NFC that have better odds, much better odds of winning the NFC championship, which I understand why there would be two to three teams that would have much better odds. I think I told you the other day that I'd put at least five or six teams ahead of them. The teams are the Rams. The Rams are still the favorite to win the NFC championship. The Saints are the second favorite. The Vikings are still the third favorite at 8 to 1.

The Rams are basically plus 150, all right? The Saints are plus 280, and the Vikings are at plus 800. So the Rams are 1 and a half to 1. the Saints are 2.8 to 1 and the Vikings are 8 to 1 to win the NFC championship. Then the Eagles, Tommy. The Eagles are the fourth favorite to win the NFC championship, even though they are co-favorits to win the division. If you're wondering, well, that doesn't make sense. Well, yeah, it does because they just feel like if the Eagles won the NFC East, they've got a better chance, a much better chance of winning the NFC championship than the Redskins do.

The Panthers have better odds. The Packers have better odds. and the bears have better odds of winning the NFC championship than the Redskins do. Redskins are 22 to 1 to win the NFC championship. But I want to get back to the division. Do you think that that is a fair money line on winning the NFC East, that the Redskins and Eagles are both co-favorites right now to win the NFC East? I think it's absolutely fair. I think people are expecting the Eagles.

to improve as the season goes on. They're defending Super Bowl champions. That gives them a certain amount of faith and respect moving forward. And I think a lot of people have bought in to the Redskins formula to think that they won't totally collapse and look at their schedule. So, yeah, to answer your question, I think that it's a fair assessment. Yeah, I mean, like I was thinking about what I would find when I went to look for it. And I was actually thinking, and the reason I went to look for it, is I was thinking,

hmm, I wonder if the Redskins are now favored to win the division. So that, just that feeling means that as a co-favorant, it's within the realm of what I think is right and reflective of where things are. I actually think that the Eagles, and I didn't feel this way a week ago, and maybe, you know, next week I'll feel differently too. But I think the Eagles certainly have a more difficult schedule, and right now they have a worse record. They're four and four. The Redskins are five and two. The Eagles are in their by week.

And the Eagles have a tougher schedule coming out of their by week. And the Redskins will after this Sunday. Let's just say the Redskins lost to the Falcons and we're five and three. The Eagles four and four. Redskins have an easier schedule on paper. These things change.

We understand that week to week. The Eagles have a more difficult schedule. But the Eagles and the Redskins play each other twice. And they play each other twice in December. And I, like if you told me, you got to bet on one of these two co-favorits. I think I would bet the Eagles. Even though the Eagles have a tougher schedule,

the Eagles are right now one and a half games behind the Redskins, I think the Eagles have more. I think they're a better team on paper than the Redskins are. I think they are too. But look, they could be a better team on paper and lose this division. And the reason being, even though they've got two head-to-head with the Redskins, They've got to play at New Orleans. They've got to play at Los Angeles against the Rams.

You know, so that's, you could, if you chalk both of those games up as losses, they're at six now losses. The Redskins are only at two that you know of moving forward. So, you know, you could do the math and say, even if they got swept by the Eagles, they could still conceivably win the division. Yes, they could. I want to rewind the tape for a minute and get back to something else. Okay.

the quarterback. You said, and everybody at Redskins Park says things will improve. The passing game will get better. In order for that to happen, the quarterback has to be better. Why do you think the quarterback will be better? Is it because of what he's done before he got here? Is there anything that you've seen from him since he's been here that would make you think he's going to be better? It is in part because of what I've seen him do in Kansas City. It's also in part because I think there's actually been small, small incremental improvement week to week. I think he was better last week than he was against Dallas.

I thought he was more patient in the pocket. I thought he didn't bail on plays as quickly as he did in the Dallas and Carolina games. And I think there is this sort of adjustment to a new system into new receivers that you have to sort of account for. I do. I mean, you know, the third and one missed to Jordan Reed was alarming. It's like, how much adjustment do you really need to make that throw? So I understand if people are thinking that it's not going to get any better

from certain plays that you could look at and say, that was so ugly. He's got so much ground to cover to get to where it's competent. But I've seen incremental improvement, small. I'll grant you that. But I've also seen a quarterback in the past that hasn't been this inaccurate. That has been, you know, calmer in the pocket to make plays, throws to try. Look, he had better weapons, too, understood. Oh, yeah.

Okay, much better weapons in Kansas City in particular. But, yeah, I think, and I, by the way, Tommy, I think he's smart. and I think that he'll figure it out and I think it'll be better but there's no doubt that this year right now as it stands is about defense and a run game that's what it is it's about defense and then hey offense

run the ball and don't screw it up which is why and I want to get this in before we get done here today which is why I think come the end of the day Sunday they're going to be six and two I think they're going to beat the Falcons because the Falcons can't stop the run and the Redskins will just run the ball down the trail.

But generally they can't. So I just think that the Falcons are a perfect matchup for the Redskins as long as they continue their formula of field position and not turning the ball over. I have sort of a similar feeling. I think the Redskins can definitely win. this game. Now, I thought going into the New Orleans game, it was sort of a measuring stick game to a

certain degree. And I was a little bit more optimistic about what they could be defensively in that game. And I also thought that offensively, it would be sort of a, you know, what the Packers' first half was, that it would be more consistent because the New Orleans defense had been struggling at that point. Atlanta's got some players on defense, but they're also missing pieces on defense. I think that they can move the football against Atlanta. Yeah, I think they can. And move it in the way that they like to move it. You know, little chunks at a time, eating up eight, nine minutes at a clock.

I am definitely, to me, this game really is a chance to see the second ranked rush defense in the NFL. It's amazing to say that. The Redskins have been so consistently awful, defensively as a whole, but against the run recently. They were 32nd last year. Now, they would have been much better had their players stayed healthy, and we've pointed that out a lot on this podcast over the course of this season, but they're second in the league in rush defense. Second. I know. They're averaging, you know, they're only allowing 80.1 yards per game, and the most impressive game was the game against Dallas.

Now, Atlanta can move the, Atlanta's more throw it than pass it. But I like Taven Coleman, and I like their run game, and they're going to face a different style of sort of run game. with Atlanta's, with a lot of, you know, the zone stuff, a lot of the boots off the zone stuff, a lot of the play action off the zone run scheme. But this is to me, Tommy, the first chance since the New Orleans game to see what this defense has become. Because statistically, and the eye test over the last three games would tell you it's not only a much improved defense, which is an easy, you know, sort of conclusion from a year ago, it's a good defense. Yeah, and maybe better than good.

But New Orleans, it wasn't good. And we'll find out against the first team they've played that can really throw the football. Yes. Really throw it. We'll find out what it is Sunday. But I have this feeling, too, that they're going to win. Yeah. And you know what?

If they win Sunday, now for all of the people saying, yeah, well, it was Carolina. And Carolina's pretty good. It's Dallas and there's a dreadful giant team. But they just beat the Falcons who've won two in a row. Now, some people... And that would have been four in a row wins. You've got to pay attention to a team that wins four games in a row. You do.

Yes. Especially this team. Yeah. Because it hasn't happened much. And six and two hasn't happened since Jim Zorn. Since Jim Zorn had fake field goals lined up for every game. But anyway, I would, you know, as someone who wagers in every once in a while, I will play futures. And I will tell you this.

And I'm sure you'll laugh because I may be stuck on this feeling about the Ravens that I've had from the beginning of the year. But I was able not to get the price that I thought I could get on the Ravens. I thought I might be able to get three to one, three and a half to one, four to one. It was basically, you know, somewhere around two and a half to one on the Ravens. They're still the second favorite to win that division, even though the Bengals are ahead of them in the standings. I think there's still a lot of people in, you know, a lot of the Vegas odds makers still sort of believe in that team turning it around as I do. A couple of other things we'll get to.

I want to talk about the performance last night from Derek Rose here in a minute. But first, let me talk about Ferris, Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, and Fairfax. Ferris should be on your list if you're considering something new. First of all, you can go to their website right now and see all of their inventory, live pricing. It's an easy-to-navigate website, and I put that sort of next to the thought that I've had about Ferris for a while, and that is that they're just smart and they get the customer. It's easy to find what you're looking for, and if you go to Farish,

it's easy to find what you're looking for, and they'll give you salespeople that have been there for 20 years plus. Ferris is the best. I've known Ralph Perkins and Kevin Farish for over a decade plus. They get their customers, and I promise you that if you give them a chance, they won't disappoint. Plenty of inventory on their lot right now.

Whatever you're looking for, you'll likely find it in the make, model, in color and be able to drive it off the lot. Lots of jeeps, the compass sport, the compass latitude, Jeep renegades, and great deals right now in just about anything Jeep, the Cherokees, Grand Cherokees, and Wranglers, too. Plenty of minivans. If you're thinking about a minivan, the Chrysler Pacifica is right now the best deal that Ferris has offered all year long. So if you've got a growing family and you're looking for a minivan for the first time, go to Ferris and look at their Chrysler Pacificas.

The deals are as good as you'll get all year long. They're located right there in Fairfax Circle. Ask for Ralph when you get there. He's in the store every day. He'll put you in touch with one of their best salespeople. And if you want to check them out before you head out there, just go to ferrishcars.com, live inventory, live pricing. You'll see everything they have on their lot right now.

We're going to get to your favorite segment of the week, which is the NFL PowerPole here shortly. I was hoping you forgot about it. I'm not going to forget about it. But did you see what Derek Rose did last night? 50 points. It wasn't, it was 50 points. Derek Rose had 50 points last night and hit every big bucket down the stretch for the T. Wolves at home last night against Utah.

But he was so emotional, Tommy. Yeah, I saw that. So emotional. Like the emotions at the end of the game when he was hitting big shots and he hit, he got hit a couple of free throws to give them a three-point. lead to get to the 50 point mark. And the reaction from his teammates after those free throws, because Utah call the time out, I mean, he started to tear up then on the floor and there was still, you know, game

left to play. I, you know, I didn't know what to make of Derek Rose over the years. Remember he had those silly comments about, you know, being able to be healthy enough to attend, you know, his children's teacher meetings, remember that? Oh, yeah. As to why he wasn't pushing himself physically to get back out on the floor when some people in the Bulls organization felt like he should have been. But, you know, Coach Tibbs, who coached him in Chicago, is now coaching him, said some of

the nicest things about him, said he's one of the toughest people, he's persevered. You know, every single time there was a chance for him to sort of bail on this career. He kept working out. he kept, you know, trying to fight his way back into a situation like this. I didn't think we'd ever see the Derek Rose of 2011 again. Never. This was a shock to me last night. And I didn't see any of the game.

I just saw all the sports center. I saw it on Twitter as it started to come out. I had no idea that Derek Rose. I didn't even know really that he was playing enough minutes for the Timberwolves to have a game like he had last night. But they were without Butler last night who, took a night off to rest last night. And Rose goes for 50.

I just thought that the reaction from his teammates in particular said a lot. Well, you know, you talk about that fight, you talk about that perseverance and all that. It reminds me a lot of the wizards. You know, it reminds me of John Wall. We weren't going to do wizards today. No, we're not. We're just going to take a shot and walk away because they don't deserve much more than a shot. Not right now they don't.

So not right now they don't. I don't even. Let's get to the power pole, baby. You know, Dwight Howard's going to make his debut. I know. Wow, is that going to be exciting? And guess who's going to be there? You?

Yep. Oh, my gosh. I will be there Friday night. I always like to go to the Russell Westbrook game. I don't think I've missed O.K.C. in town for maybe once out of the last five or six years. That's one of the games I always try to get to because you know I'm a huge Russell. Westbrook fan. Yes. All right, let's get to the NFL PowerPole. Rinkum, 1 to 5. It's time for our weekly NFL Power Poll. All right. I'm assuming you don't have

it ready. I'm ready. Go ahead then. Okay, I'm going to go with number five, the Los Angeles Chargers. The charges, you know, they've got to go on the road to win, but I think they've won like 12 out of their last 13 games or something like that, dating back to last season. I think there's two losses in there. Okay, well, it's a remarkable run for this team. Yeah, it's two losses because they lost it. They lost to the Chiefs at the end of last year, and they've lost two games this year,

so it's actually three out of whatever. Yeah, they're five and two this year. They're number five team. I'm going to put the Saints at number four, even though they're six and one. The defense came up big against Minnesota, but they're still not ranked very high. I'm going to put the Patriots at number three

because they're patriots I mean Bill Belichick has them rolling and they'll be there at the end this is easy the Chiefs at number two and the Los Angeles Rams at number one one and two is easy all right

right it's easy isn't it one and two no it's not easy no it's easy no it's not easy yes it is easy no it's not well for intelligent people it's easy okay well I'm not at number five remember last week I had the tie for fifth between Baltimore and the Chargers. I guess you're going to force me to take Baltimore out there.

I still believe in them, and they got blown out. I think they're going to win three games in a row at home and be seven and four in first place in three weeks. But I won't put them in there right now because I guess the Chargers right now, I believe in a little bit more. So I've got the Chargers at five. You know, the Chargers, what's interesting about the Chargers is that, during this stretch against the best teams they've faced, they really haven't been close.

You know, twice against the Chiefs, including last year at Arrowhead, when they had a game basically to take control of the AFC West and get to the playoffs, and they lost to the chiefs in the opener this year, and they lost to the Rams, and those are those three losses during that stretch. I mean, this year, they've beaten Buffalo, San Francisco, Oakland, Cleveland, and Tennessee. I love Philip Rivers. Those of you that have listened to me forever know that I'm a massive Philip Rivers fan. I think he's a Hall of Fame quarterback, and I want him to have this postseason success at some point.

I do have some doubts. I want to see it against a really good team, and this week, Tommy, they go to Seattle. And Seattle may be a little bit under the radar as a good football team right now. And they play at Seattle. The last time I think Seattle was at home, they nearly beat the Rams. and they're the only team to really have that shot until Green Bay this past weekend. But they play Seattle this weekend,

and then we got to wait until they play Pittsburgh in December, Kansas City in December, and Baltimore in December to see them play a team that should give them a hard time. Right now, if they can somehow get a win in Seattle, they should be nine and two going to Pittsburgh first weekend of December. Number four, I've got, Kansas City.

Really? I'm just not a believer in the Chiefs. I'm sorry. I'm not a believer in that team. I think New England would beat him in a playoff game. I think there are other teams in the AFC that could beat them in the playoffs. Yes, I do believe the Baltimore Ravens could travel to Arrowhead in January and give the Chiefs a very difficult time.

But their defense is going to keep me off of them in terms of the top two. I know how great they are offensively. Look, Denver played them tough on Sunday. and move the ball on them on Sunday. They're just not very good defensively. I don't see Kansas City in the Super Bowl. I don't. I don't think a defense that bad ends up in the Super Bowl.

Number three for me is New England, and they were not impressive Monday night. They should have never covered in that game. I had Buffalo plus the 14. I guess it serves me right, betting on Derek Anderson. This week, they've got Peterman back at the helm. I wonder how that's going to go again. the Bears. But the Patriots, I like the Patriots, and I would bet the Patriots right now

money line against the Chiefs, whatever it is in a playoff game. The Saints to me right now are the second best team in the league. They're also just keeping, this game Sunday is going to be incredible. Saints and Rams. And then followed by Packers and Patriots, another incredible 425 into the Sunday night game, like we've had for a few weeks. So it'll be a great great test for the Saints because my top two teams are the Rams and the Saints. And so we get to see that game on Sunday. I think there's the Saints have something this year, Tommy. They're on a mission because I think they feel like there's this window with Drew Breeze, although I don't know why you'd think his play is going to diminish that much next year or the year after. But they, they were in trouble

at Minnesota at the end of the first half and they got a big play. They got an unexpected play. Adam Thielen fumbling and the big return set them up for the lead at halftime instead of being down two scores at halftime. And, you know, that was a big thing. But they are really dynamic offensively. And we know that they can throw the football, but damn, they can run the football with either one of the two guys, Ingram or Camara. The Saints are number two and the Rams are number one. I actually like the Saints this weekend. I think they can win this game at home against the Rams, and maybe we'll have a different top five next week. The teams that I would urge you to keep an eye on, you know what? Last week it was Houston. I'm just going to tell you

that I don't love Houston on Sunday against Denver. I think that this is a spot where they could lose this game against the Broncos on the road, but I still like Houston overall as a team that if they get to the postseason as the AFC South champ would be a difficult out because of their defense and because they do have some playmakers and now they've added Demarius Thomas. So I'd say keep an eye on them. If you're still looking for sort of a bad team, I still like the Jets Tommy. I think the Jets and I know that they got run on Sunday by the Bears, but they're really good defensively. They are really good. Buffalo's really good defensively. If you're looking for bad teams that can sort of hang around and be a problem for a good team in a given week. The Jets are one of those

teams. So that's who I would tell you to keep an eye on. Okay. You got anything else for me or not? No, the Seahawks. Yeah, this game Sunday is interesting to see Seattle at home against the Chargers. They've got a couple of interesting games. They've got the rematch with the Rams coming up on the road. They play the Packers, the Panthers, the Vikings. I mean, Seattle's got. They play the Chiefs. Seattle plays the Chiefs on Christmas weekend. Are the games on Christmas? They're not on Christmas Eve, right, like they've been in the last few years. No, I think 23rd is. Right now, penciled in for the 23rds, December 23rd Sunday night game is Seahawks at Chiefs. Listen to this, and I just pulled it up. The Seahawks, Chargers this week, at Rams next week.

Packers the following week on a Thursday night. So short week into the Packers. Then they play the Panthers on the road. Then they get the Niners. Then they've got the Vikings at home. And then they've got the Chiefs in late December. So we may like the Seahawks, but they're going to earn it for sure if they get there. What else do we have?

That's it. Do you have anything else? I got nothing else, boss. I got to go right about the Maryland Board of Regents for the third time. This week. Is this going to be your thing like Ernie Grunfeld? Are you going to just name the Board of Regents in every tweet you send out? I don't think I can.

Like you mentioned Ernie's record? I don't think I can list their names again for a third time. You like the Redskins Sunday, though? Yes, I do. I like the Redskins Sunday. They're favored. You know that, right? 2317.

2317 Redskins. All right. Tomorrow, obviously, a full football Friday. We will do everything. Redskins beat Falcons. If we'll have smell test picks, Friday football, quick picks. And Scott's going to be on. with us tomorrow. Scott Van Pelt will be on with us tomorrow and we will get to the Maryland

thing with him tomorrow. We did so much of the Maryland thing together today. I just thought it would be better if we pushed him to tomorrow and we'll do a bunch of, you know, of picks, you know, football picks as well. So enjoy the day, everybody. Back tomorrow. Again, thanks to Aaron. Thanks to Tommy. Enjoy the day. Take care.