The Kevin Sheehan Show - The Rodgers Steal

Episode Date: April 25, 2023

Kevin and Thom today with a full menu of excellent treats including....Hawaii NFL watching, beer can collecting, a major house fire, what Josh Harris shouldn't say, the Aaron Rodgers deal, Jimmy Butler's epic performance, LeBron's finish, Jury Duty, and more. Don't eat before listening.  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 Chean Show. Here's Kevin. Tommy is with me today. And I got this Apple podcast review from Omar D. Longtime listener, Omar D, writes,

even though Kevin is just a minion for SVP. He still manages to put on a great show, L.O.L. Kevin and Tommy are at their best when Tommy is setting the record straight. Anything else, boss? Keep up the good work, fellas, and stop insulting your loyal listeners listening in Hawaii, BTW, by the way. Thank you, Omar D. Omar D referring to when Feinstein said that I was just a minion of Van Peltz. My God, I don't want to go down that path again, but let's just say I don't pay attention much to that person anymore. By the way, I wonder what it's like.

I wonder what it's like to be listening in Hawaii. Well, it's, you know, earlier than most people are listening in the day. Yes, but. Go ahead. I've only been in Hawaii overnight once on the way to, on the way to Nagano, Japan. And I've never really seen the island that much. for the Olympics. I imagine, do you have a villa there?

Have you spent some time there? I don't have a villa there, but I have been to Hawaii a few times, yes. Okay. Okay. Is it nice? Oh, yeah. It's just a long trip. You know, it's just a really long trip for us.

Well, if that's what you call home, it's not a long trip. No, it's not a long trip at all if you called home. So if you're listening in Hawaii, that sounds like a good place to be. I've always had, first of all, Maui has always been one of those places where I, when I am stressed, as much as you can be stressed in the job that we have, the jobs we have, I often think about Maui because we've had some really good trips to Hawaii and Maui in particular and they have been trips that I can remember. as the sun was setting, just kind of sitting on the beach with, you know, a cold cocktail in hand, probably listening to music by myself and just being in a state of total relaxation. Like a Corona beer commercial, right? Yeah, yeah.

One of those Corona beer commercial. A hundred percent. And I think that, you know, probably, I bet a lot of, of people, especially people who have been through kind of relaxation techniques, which I've actually learned a little bit about at various points in my life. But that feeling of being like completely relaxed and just be, and you're like, oh my God, it would be great to live a life like this. Now, the problem with it, if you lived a life like that, eventually that would become stressful too, I'm sure. But one of the

my dreams, and I've never done this before, is to spend like a couple of football weekends in Hawaii where you wake up, grab breakfast and catch the 1 o'clock East Coast games at like 5 a.m. or 6 a.m., whatever it would be. I think it's 6 or 7 hours, right? Maui. I think it's 6 hours. Yeah. So that would be so much fun. And then by the time you get to the end of the 4 o'clock games, you know, it's noon or 1 o'clock in the afternoon and you've got the rest of the day ahead of you.

Now, I have spent time on the West Coast during football season. First of all, many weekends in Vegas for sure. But even being in California many times back before I was in broadcasting and I spent time out there. And that's kind of cool. I mean, I think that would be so much fun as a football fan to have that,

you know, have that early morning wake up. That's kind of like why I love these Europe games. I love waking up on a Sunday and having NFL football on at 9 a.m. It's kind of cool. But anyway, real quickly, though, on his comment about, you know, Minion for Scott, because it reminds me of something that I haven't talked about on the podcast. And Scott and I were talking about the other night, and he said, and I said, I haven't said anything to anybody about what happened.

him. And he said, well, you can because I've now shared it on my podcast, and you know, a lot of people know. But I told you about this, but I haven't told our audience about this. On Easter Sunday night at about 10 o'clock, it was Masters Sunday. I got a call from Scott's wife. And Scott is at the Masters. He's at the Masters. He's in Augusta. He's finishing up, you know, all the stuff that he's got to do, late night sports center, all of that stuff. And, you know, he's going to get onto a plane and fly home that night. And so his wife called me and said, hey, actually, she called me and I was asleep at that point. It was like 10.30 that night.

And so she called Kara. And Kara comes up and said, Scott and Stephanie's house is on fire. And I'm like, what? What are you talking about? And then Scott texts me and he's like, you got to get a. over to my house. And so I get dressed and I'm expecting to go over to their house and like maybe a little bit of smoke somewhere and like a fire engine or two. I didn't know what to expect because they didn't know the extent of what was going on. I get to their house. No, I'm sorry. I get to

within a quarter of a mile of their house and there are fire engines everywhere, lit up like a Christmas tree on the street that crosses, you know, their street. And then I pull onto their street and, you know, they're stopping me. And I said, I'm a friend of the owners. He asked me, oh, that's right. He told us you were coming. And so my car pulls up to the front of their house. There were 75 emergency vehicles called to the scene. Fire department. police, EMT, you know, ambulances, because by the way, even if people aren't home, and I'll, let me cut to the chase here. Nobody was hurt because nobody was home. And their dog wasn't even home. He was in Augusta for the Masters and she was with the kids for Easter in Florida,

with her family. And so the fire had already been put out at that point, but it was just an unbelievable scene. And so I needed to go into the house and I'll just say I needed to go in the house to get something for them. And so they let me into the house. And they told me the fire was in the attic. It spread to the second floor, but that was it. It was just the attic and the second floor. But I walked in through the front door and it was the biggest shit show I have ever seen. because of the water and the smoke. And I've done a lot of like researching this stuff and talking to people who have had fires before about, you know, what it's like. And very often it's the water that does the most damage to the home.

Because they have to use hundreds of thousands of gallons of water to fight the fire and then to make sure that the fire doesn't reignite. and when you do that on an upper floor, it's going to saturate everything in the house. And when I walked in on the first floor, water was coming through the ceilings. I mean, the house was totaled. So I got what it was that I needed to get. And then I'm on the phone.

The fire chief says, look, here's the advice that you should give to them. First of all, they need to contact their insurance company, and he gives me a couple of things. And so Scott's on a plane, and he's not, I'm not able to talk to him. He's on the plane coming back. But at some point, he gets to an altitude level where he texts me and he says, how bad is it? Oh, my gosh. Now, with his wife on the phone, I was trying to be as positive as I could be. because if I had told her that basically the house was damaged to a level that they didn't think it was at that point,

because they had been told, look, the fire was in the attic, it spread to some of the second floor. But I walked into the house and I walked through the house. And so I knew that pretty much without having to be any sort of fire expert, they weren't going to live in this home for a long, long time. Like, that's how much damage was done. And again, a lot of it just the smoke and the water damage. So I had been, you know, more upbeat and more kind of matter of fact telling her, look, you got to get in touch with the insurance company. You got to get in touch with people that can come out tonight to board up the house.

And she's, you know, she said, what do you mean, board up the house? And I said, well, you know, the fire department doesn't know that you aren't in the house when they come. So they've got to break down doors when people aren't answering, you know, the doorbell. And they've got to make sure that every room is cleared of people. Their first job is to save people. And they didn't know anybody wasn't in the house when they got there. Oh, okay. And so you got to get people out here to board up the house.

And, you know, so I'm going through all of that. Well, you know, is it really bad? And I'm like, you know, it could have been a lot worse. I mean, you guys weren't home. Nobody was hurt. That's the best part. Well, when Scott texted me and he said, how bad is it? Now I'm doing the thing with him, you know, my closest friend for 30 plus years.

years where I don't want to lie to him, but I also don't want to make it so alarming. And so he told me the other night because we were out at dinner the other night. And he said, you know, I talked about your text to me on my podcast. And I'm like, yeah, he goes, the worst part of it is when I asked you how bad it was, you were responding, but you weren't, you know, it was like thinking for a while. And he said, I knew that you were trying to think of something to say that, you know, put it in, you know, a place in which I could deal with it until I got back. And that's when I knew I was in big trouble. And I said, really?

Because he said, yeah, because it took you about a minute to respond, but I could see it thinking, you know, your text message thinking. And so I said, well, what exactly did I text back? And he said, it's pretty bad, but it could have been a lot worse. And he said, right when, you know, the delay and you saying it's pretty bad, I knew it was really bad. And so I had, I waited until he got back. And it was like, I don't know, two in the morning, 1.30 in the morning when he got back, whatever it was. And by the way, at that point, all the fire department, all of the fire engines, with the exception of one police chief who waited for him to get back was there. And when he walked into the house, he was in shock, you know, and it was awful.

And I was thinking, you know, the entire time that you just don't really see fires very much anymore. Like people don't smoke as much. That's a big reason. Obviously, we have smoke detectors. When I was a kid, I can remember fire engines coming to the neighborhood once a week. We would chase them and we would go to wherever the fire. fire was. And it would be once a week that a house had a fire. Sometimes

serious, sometimes not so serious. But again, it's because, you know, in the 70s, there weren't smoke detectors and people smoked a lot. So, you know, old grandpa fell asleep on the couch with a cigarette in his hand. You know, and it caused a fire. But you don't see it that much

anymore. And it was bad. They won't be in the house for at least a year. By the way, he relied very much on Mike Breen. You know, the NBA announcer. Oh, yeah. The basketball guy, yeah.

For ESPN and ABC, you know, the top number one, you know, NBA guy for years now. Right. Mike Breen last September's house burnt to the ground in Westchester. And, you know, it was a big story at the time. And he apparently has been incredibly helpful for Scott going through this. But, you know, it's like the great news is nobody got hurt. Nobody was injured. Nobody was home.

But I will tell you, Tommy, it turns your life upside down. I mean, I'm watching it. They have three younger kids, you know. And so the kids are resilient. Like I remember, I said to him like the next day because he was kind of in shock that night. And I said, you know, your kids more likely than not are not going to be the issue if you guys don't see it as a big issue. They're just going to respond to you. And he has said subsequently 100%.

They're totally resilient. But for them, it's like all your clothes are gone. You know, a lot of your things are gone. Now, a lot of the things in their house were salvageable. But, man, it is inconvenience, which is the nice way of putting it at the highest level. Like they're, you know, they're in friends' houses for a while and, you know, Kara's going to find them a rental here soon for a year, but, you know, it's not. the best rental market necessarily right now. But anyway, long story short, when Omar D sent us that

Apple podcast review, and by the way, he gave us five stars. And he said he's just a minion for SVP. It just reminded me that I had not told that story, which was Easter Sunday night. And by the way, it was the first day of my 10 to 1 schedule on radio. Thank God. Because I didn't get home until 3 a.m. or whatever. And it was much of that. easier to do a show starting at 10 a.m. That next morning. Not that my inconvenience would have been any part of the issue.

But man, it was fires. Like I... Well, you're a good friend. You're a good friend that he could rely on you like that. Well, I mean, he would have done that for me in a heartbeat. I mean, you know,

I would... Everybody would have done that for friends. I mean, it was... I didn't do anything. I wasn't holding hoses. but man, it was, I was expecting, you know, all right, there's a little fire in the attic or whatever, and they put it out and whatever. And by the way, it's one of those things where they were very fortunate in that. It was neighbors that saw the smoke and the flames coming from the roof. And it was like at 10 o'clock at night on Easter Sunday night.

If that had started, if that had ignited, you know, two hours later, no one would have seen it more likely than not, and the house would have burnt to the ground. Oh, well, you know what? You can tell Scott, if he wants to, he can give me a call because I have some experience with fires and things burning down. Fraternity houses. And what I went through, you know, the things that I went through. What are you laughing at? You don't think I went to some trauma? Yeah, it's not exactly the same.

You set the fire and burnt down your fraternity house and then had to deal with the consequences of that at the University of Miami. Well, you know, it's funny. I mean, we did it. It was in the middle of the day, like a Saturday afternoon. It was like a football Saturday afternoon. And I remember it sitting in the parking lot of the fraternity house. And the fraternity house next door to us brought,

over a half keg of beer, and we tapped the half keg in the parking lot and basically watched them try to save our fraternity house. It was a show for you. I mean, it was Saturday afternoon entertainment. Yeah, it was. Because I don't think I had the same kind of personal treasures that Scott did. I had my beer can collection. I had my record collection.

I had my three pairs of jeans that I wore all the time. You had your favorite bong? And that was pretty much it. You had a big bong sitting in the room. By the way, you and I have talked about beer can collections before. I had a beer can collection as well. Did you lose the beer can collection in that fire? Well, some of it.

I mean, I continued collecting beer cans until we did the death march, downsizing about eight or nine years ago. And when I got rid of my beer can collection, but I had six, seven hundred beer cans. So did I. From all over the world. You know, I had a great collection. I collected trays and all that, but, you know, I also, he could also ask me for advice,

because I was a fireman as well in East Stroudsford. You were? Yes, it's a volunteer fire company. Yeah, and I was part of the junior fireman for Acme-Hose when I was about, 15, maybe 16. And, you know, the fire whistle would go off in town so the whole town could hear it, and then you'd run to the firehouse to jump on the truck and go to the fire. And if you didn't make it in time, if they left without you, they'd write on a chalkboard where the fire was.

And we never got to fight any fires per se, and we used to have to roll up the hoses at a fire scene, you know, and clean the trucks, although they let us fight grassfires with these Indian tanks, these water tanks you put on your back. But yeah, I was a volunteer fireman. So I'm well-versed in fire damage and things. So I'll be willing to share with him if he wants. I'll throw that out to him. I'm sure he'd love to have a conversation with you about your fighting grassfires back in the day. I think the fraternity house story would be more entertaining. Not as helpful, though. By the way, on beer can collections. Well, let me tell you something. That, you know, that kind of thing, it lives with you for the rest

of your life. Yeah, you know, it's true. For them, fortunately for their kids, they didn't see, you know, or they didn't have the trauma of being exited out of a house that was on fire or having to see it be, you know, burn. So that's a good thing, I guess, for them. But, you know, And it's more of an adventure for them right now, you know, getting new things and living in different places and soon to be hopefully a, you know, a good rental for a year or so. But I'll tell you one thing, Tommy, the insurance companies, man, you know, it is, these are, these are the things that end up being a big part of the hassle, you know, is, you know, they tell you, this is why you have obviously insurance and you have to have insurance for that. but you know when you lose a lot of that stuff and all the sudden every single penny coming out of your pocket is because of this fire whether it's eating out when you didn't expect to or staying in hotels or staying here like it adds up you know much beyond the damage and then you know I'm not going to get into the details of it but there are lots of different you know views on how when you've had this happen to you you should handle it with your insurance company a lot of people end up hiring advocate that are experts in how to make sure that the insurance company ends up handling everything they're supposed to handle.

Because people that aren't experienced in this thing can sometimes be taken advantage of to a certain extent by the insurance company. They don't want to pay out the largest premium possible. They want to make sure that they give you what's fair, but, you know, minimally fair. That's a hard part of it. And then the whole idea of all of your belongings, which are, if they're not damaged by fire, they're damaged by smoke. And they have to be cleaned and cleaned again.

And, you know, there are companies that do that. Real quickly, though, on the beer can collection, because I know we've had this conversation in the past. But do you remember and did you have in your collection any cone top beer cans? I had a cone top that I still have, one of a few cans that I kept. I dug it up Right From the ground

Of a foundation of an old house And it's slightly You know It's slightly rusty But I've managed to preserve it And it's from a cardinal beer Made in Scranton, Pennsylvania Many, many years ago

Wow But yeah, I have one cone top cans Because of the cone tops were so cool And I went Most of my collection I did In college And early work force. So I didn't have money to spend to buy like a cone top. Right. You know, they always

seem so expensive. But yeah, I dug one up and I still have it. They were really expensive. Those were the most valuable cans you could have in the collection because they were super old. And I, like you, had an old cone top. It was a Schlitz cone top that I actually dug up as well. because my best friend in my neighborhood and I were the ones that decided we were going to be beer can collectors. And, you know, we had all of those, you know, old beer cans like Iron City. I remember those, that Pittsburgh beer with all of the Steelers teams, you know, on them. And then what were the, was it old English that had the, you know, the women? Old froffy flush.

That's what it was, yeah. Old proffing flush. Right. With the large-sized pin-up women. Large-sized pin-up women, exactly. But my beer can collection, God, I shouldn't do this. And I may have done it already, but my mother does listen to this podcast every once in a while. And if she doesn't, her husband does.

But basically, it kind of got sold off in a garage sale after we sold a house many, many years ago, as was my baseball card collection in which I had senators' cards from like 1971. Like I had a Denny McLean's senator's card. I bet you you probably had 200 Ed Brinkman cards because everybody in America had 200 Ed Brinkman card. Paul Casanova and Mike Epstein, who was their first. Spaceman. Paul Casanova was their catcher. I think he wore number eight. I think he did.

And then I remember Casey Cox was one of the pitchers. But I do remember Brinkman and I remember Orillo Rodriguez. You've got to understand that this is not, I don't remember these teams. I don't remember really watching these teams. What I do remember is in the final year of the senators in 1971. My dad taking me to see Denny McLean, who had gotten traded from Detroit to Washington, pitch his first game at RFK Stadium. And I do remember that night. I think I've talked about that night because we came out and our car was stolen.

I've told you that story, I think before. And that was a very traumatic experience for me as a young kid. The car had been stolen from the parking lot at RFK. And, you know, the truth of the... the matter is one of the reasons that attendance dropped so significantly. And then Bob Short, right, Tommy? Bob Short. Bob Short moved the team to Texas because the attendance, they were drawing like 5,000 a game, 6,000 a game to RFK Stadium, is post-1968 riots, you know, following the MLK assassination in that, you know, awful summer of spring and summer of 68, this.

city became a very unsafe place in a lot of areas of the city that weren't that unsafe pre-1968. And that's what kept a lot of the fan base away from RFK Stadium. That is why that first George Allen team of Redskins team, that won, I think, their first five games. First five. And, yeah. And the mayor of Washington, Walter Washington, went out. to Redskins Park and gave a talk to the team and told them how important it was to the city

what they were doing. Because it really was, you know, since that 68 year, and I mean, you know, I mean, the city was in sad shape. The country was in turmoil still because of the Vietnam War. You know, the senators left town, like you said. So that's why that Redskins, 72 team was such an important symbol of hope and positive thought for the region at the time. That makes total sense. You know, I've told you before, that's the first Redskins team that I remember. And the 5-0 start, the first game they lost was a game at Kansas City against the Chiefs, against the great Hank Stram, Len Dawson, Otis Taylor, all of those Hall of Famers that you've written about on defense.

and Charlie Taylor broke his leg in that game that ended up being a great game that Washington led but ended up losing. They ended up going to the playoffs that year. They lost to the 49ers as a wildcard team. And you know who was the punter for the 49ers in that game? Steve Spurrier? Yes, you got it. Pretty good guess. When I had Spurrier on a couple of weeks ago, I didn't bring that up to him, but I was just doing, you know, in preparation for him.

I was looking at his football career, which I didn't know a lot about. I do remember when he was a quarterback, a backup quarterback for the 76 expansion Buccaneers. I did not know that he was a punter for the 49ers and a really good punter, and he punted in that playoff game. The 49ers beat the Redskins in that playoff game in 71, and the next year was the year that they went 11 and 3, won the division, you know, went to the Super Bowl and lost to the perfect 72. dolphins. Even though the Super Bowl was played in 1973, if a new team president in Miami starts

thinking about building a shield and calling on all their championship teams. That was, the undefeated 17 and no dolphins were the 72 dolphins, not the 73 dolphins, even though they won the Super Bowl in January 14th, 1973. You know, that's a joke. We joke. We joke. about that, but as we're hoping and watching over a change in ownership for this football team, and if there's one message, well, there's more than one message, but if there was really a message that you could deliver to the new owners that they should pay attention to is making sure they have in their organization, people with inspiration. institutional knowledge.

Yeah, that would be important for sure. You know, I had Zab. Not just talent, but people who know the history of this organization that can keep you from the dozens of mistakes that they've made out there under Jason Wright for the past couple years. Right. Well, I mean, we've talked a lot about that. And, you know, there are many people, and I will tell you, me included, who have offered to help over the years.

And not to say that I'm the only person that could help, but to actually say, look, there are, you know, there are many of us that you could turn to if you're not entirely sure, and we could probably save you a lot of heartache and save you a lot of bad publicity. But usually in recent years, those calls come after the blunder. And at that point, it's too late. I had Zabe on the podcast yesterday. If you missed it, Zabe was great yesterday. We actually recorded before the Aaron Rogers trade,

which we're going to get to here shortly. But Zabe and I were talking about that to a certain extent, and Zabe made a really good point. He said, somebody has to make sure that the new owner understands that when he holds that first press conference, not to thank Dan Snyder, not to say anything positive about Dan Snyder. To which I responded 100% correct, but he should also not say anything negative about Dan Snyder. Because I think that's always when you stoop to that level, that doesn't make you look good either.

But if they don't understand that reading the room accurately means you should, not mention Dan Snyder's name, even in a professional thank you kind of a way. Don't do that because from day one, people will say, are you effing kidding me? You acknowledged how great Dan was for anything, even for the sale, or you were appreciative of? No, don't mention his name. You agree with that, right? Well, here's what I think. First of all, whether I say anything negative depends on how much milk Danny spills in their sweet.

Okay. Yeah, but Josh Harris hasn't... But as far as saying something positive or even acknowledging him, I think that they're going to feel an obligation to do it. They shouldn't. Well, they will. They shouldn't. You know, we should take bets off.

it. We should do poll. Should they mention Dan Snyder's name in their opening press conference? I bet they do. I'll tell you what. If they don't, it will really say a lot as to how with it they are and how in tune with, you know, current and past fans they are. This is the most despised person in the history of our city, as I have said before, that isn't political. There's no close second, none. And no one, when he's gone, ever wants to hear his name again. Certainly not in a positive light. And by the way, if it isn't a positive light, he has to earn it somehow. And selling the team isn't earning it, even though it is a great result.

By the way, yesterday, and we talked a little bit about this, but I want your opinion, what did you make of Steve Apostolopoulopoulos on CNBC? saying that he is still in the hunt and that the process, as he said, in his Canadian accent, is not over yet. Or it's still live and ongoing. I think it's mostly bullshit. You do? And he's done.

Yeah. So what was the point? I just think everybody, I just think, I don't know. I don't know to inflate himself. I mean, I can't get in the mind of billionaires trying to buy billion-dollar products. I just think he's just trying to, he may be trying to inflate himself. He may be trying to maybe attract somebody else to his group if, you know, in that process. But no, I think I think this is a one horse race.

And I think the race is over. I do too. But I think that it's, you know, I think it's another indication of just how awkward, unusual, and difficult. Dan is making this whole process for everybody. This non-exclusive period is apparently unusual. Now, there was this tweet, I think, yesterday from Albert Breer, who tweeted the following. Let me read it.

The commander's sale isn't final, but there is a timeline now for getting the deal done and getting Dan Snyder out of the NFL. Last week, I'm told, the NFL got an outline of the agreement by Snyder to sell the franchise to a group fronted by Sixers and Devils owner, Josh Harris, for $6.05 billion. Now, let me just say, that was reported. You know, that was, you know, we've known that that, you know, Harris actually had to send, you know, kind of the parameters of the deal directly to the league, not by Snyder because Snyder apparently doesn't have, isn't discussing anything with the league. And then he writes, Breer does. And while Snyder hasn't definitely said he's going through with it,

the pieces are in place to complete the sale within about a month. First, the league must complete its examination and background work on the group, a process that will be fast-tracked since the league vetted Harris last year when he was bidding on the Broncos. Part of that will be doing checks on Harris's partner Mitchell Rails, the founder of Danahur, a corporation with an enterprise value of close to a quarter trillion dollars. Rails is widely respected and expected to be approved through the process along with Magic Johnson. While that's going on, the NFL's Finance Committee is scheduled to meet New York on May 10th

as part of a set of committee meetings that week on Park Avenue. That meeting had been on the books before Snyder reached an agreement with Harris, but the expectation, this is according to Albert Breer again, but the expectation is that's where Harris and his group will give the committee an in-depth presentation on the structure of the deal and show they have the financial resources needed. Given the track record of Harrison Rails, it's assumed that that part is a formality,

but it is important to the owners. There's an assumption that the winning bidders will need to come up with billions more to build a new stadium in the D.C. area, especially in an economy in which getting public funding approved would be challenging. This kind of broke up.

He writes, the hope for now is that the vote happens at the league's spring meeting, which will be held at a hotel near the Vikings practice facility in Minnesota from May 22nd to May 24th. Hey, maybe Kirk Cousins can attend. And then the deal should close within three or four business days of the vote, which means by June 1, a new era should be underway in D.C. Wow. And right before, I think there's O.T. TAs that start like June or mini camp or something starts in early June pretty much right away.

I'm looking for it right now. And it is, I can't find it now. But there is something in early June. Okay. All right. Enough of this. I want to get to Aaron Rogers next. And yes, even with Tommy, I'm going to talk about one of the greatest individual

NBA playoff performances of all time. All of that and more coming up right after these words from a few of our sponsors. This segment of the show is brought to you by MyBooky. Go to mybooky.com or MyBooky.orgie. Use my promo code, Kevin D.C. And that'll allow you to cash out after you've wagered your deposit amount one time. Most books don't let you do this. MyBooky is, but you've got to use my promo code, Kevin D.C. And when you go to join my bookie, if there's something already written in the promo code section, erase it and write Kevin D.C. By the way, the Jets right now are the fourth pick in the AFC behind Kansas City, Buffalo and Cincinnati to win the AFC championship. And they are the seventh pick overall to win the Super Bowl after the Aaron Rogers trade was complete.

Those odds were actually pretty similar to that even before the trade because of the expectation that the trade would happen. But go to mybooky.com or my bookie.ag. Use my promo code. This is perfect for the NBA playoffs if you want to get in and get out. It's perfect for triple crown races, Tommy, because they have a horse book, a live racing book at MyBooky. They've got a live casino as well. Go to MyBooky.orgy.org. sign up and use my promo code

Kevin D.C. So, Aaron Rogers was finally traded yesterday to the New York Jets, a franchise that you are very familiar with. In fact, they haven't been to the playoffs. It's the longest

stretch in any professional league now without a playoff appearance. They haven't been to the playoffs since 2010. Sacramento, getting to the playoffs this year, was the longest streak, but now it's the Jets that own the longest stretch of time between playoff appearances. So they haven't been to the playoffs since 2010.

Of course, they haven't been to the Super Bowl since 1968 season into the 69, January 69, the Namath Super Bowl, Super Bowl 3. And since then, the Jets have been kind of, you know, a bottom-feeding franchise. There have been a couple of moments, Tommy. Like, I remember some of those Ken O'Brien years, and I definitely remember the Richard Todd, Mark Gastino team that lost to the dolphins in the mud bath in the Orange Bowl. That was the year in 82, and which had they won the game, they would have played the Redskins in Super Bowl 17. But Miami won it and played the Redskins in Super Bowl 17.

But for the most part, the Jets have stunk. That's when I was still a Jets fan. I might have been the end. Well, actually, I quit them after they left Shea and moved to Jersey. but I was still a big Jets fan in their Richard Todd years. They had a lot of talent on that team. Freeman McNeiloh, running back, Wesley Walker, wide receiver. They had that great defensive line, and Greg Butler from Penn State was one of their linebackers. Right.

They had a lot of talent on that team, and they should have a team. Who was the big tight end? Who was the big tight end on that team? Mickey Schoer. Mickey Schoer. Mickey Schoer from Penn State. Yeah. Yeah. And Bruce Harper, who was a great kick returner. Oh, yeah.

Good running back, too. Good running back. Yes. He was a lot like, he was like a little Dave Meggitt in a way, a small guy from a small college, Kutstown State. You know, Freeman McNeil was a really good back in the NFL for a few years. He was. He was excellent at UCLA, really good NFL back. I want to say that he made multiple Pro Bowls. I'm pretty sure. I'm looking up the 82 Jets right now. That team had a lot of talent. I remember until Richard Todd finally won the job, there was a big debate as to who should be the quarterback, him or Matt Robinson. Was Matt Robinson? Matt Robinson?

Yes. He had some success as well, but eventually Richard Todd won the job. Are you talking about Matt Ryan or Pat Ryan? Matt Robinson. I don't remember Matt Robinson. Wow. The Jets. The story goes that they beat the Raiders in the divisional round.

Remember, that was the 82 season, the strike shortened season, where you had an expanded playoff format to account for, you know, the lost games during the regular season. Washington beat Detroit, Minnesota, Dallas, got to the Super Bowl, beat Miami. The Jets beat the Raiders on the road and then went to Miami for the AFC championship game. And the story about that game is legendary because there were a lot of, There was a lot of rain the day before and the morning of the game, which was on a Sunday.

Washington played Dallas actually on the Saturday before, and Miami didn't put the tarp on the field because the Jets were a quicker, faster team. And Miami didn't put the tarp on the field. And that was a quagmire of a field in that AFC championship game. And the Jets couldn't move the football and the Dolphins. won that game, Tommy, 14 to nothing. They shut him out. Yeah. In that game.

AJ Dewey had three interceptions, I think. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Matt Robinson went to Georgia. He was a ninth round draft pick in 1977, playing the NFL for five years. Interesting. Don't remember Matt Robinson at all.

So the Jets, and I looked this up this morning, it's actually quite remarkable, considering that 4,000 yards passing is really not that big of a deal anymore. I mean, it's a good season, but every team has 4,000-yard passers every once in a while. The Jets have not had a 4,000-yard passing season since Namath in 1967. When the AFL was kind of a wide-open passing league, and name it through for 4,000 plus yards. So it's been 56 years since the Jets had a quarterback that's thrown for 4,000 yards.

To put this in context, considering our pathetic history here in Washington for quarterback play, we've had five 4,000-yard passing seasons with three different quarterbacks in this century. I can name them. Yeah, I'm sure you can. Go ahead. In this century? Yeah.

In this century? No, I'm sorry. Four of the five have been in this centuries. Yes, sorry. Okay. Donovan McNabb? No. No?

No. Okay. I thought that was one of them. Well, Jay Schrader. Jay Schrader, one. Kirk Cousins. How many times for Kirk? Three times?

Well, you've got five total and three different quarterbacks, which is what I told you. Yes, Kirk Cousins has three of them. Right. And then there's one more. And I thought I knew the other one, but I don't. No, Brad Johnson threw for 4,000 5 yards in that 1999 season. Cousins threw for nearly 5,000 in 2016. Cousins threw for 466 in 2015.

Those are the top two. Schrader threw for 4,109 yards in 86. You know, the year that they lost to the Giants in the NFC Championship game, Cousins over 4,000 in 2017, and then Brad Johnson over 4,000 in 1999. So technically two of them weren't this century, my fault. Brad Johnson's was 1999. McNabb, Tommy, threw for 3,377 yards. But remember, he didn't play.

three games, the final three games that year. Right. Yeah, that's right. It would have been tough to get there, but he could have gotten there. I think he averaged that year like 260, 265 yards passing per game. But anyway, back to Rogers. So the trade yesterday, I'm going to try to give you what I believe, this is my opinion, what the real value of the trade is, because I think the conversation is really interesting about this trade.

I find it to be very split. There are people that are convinced that the Jets got fleeced and they're going to rue the day that they made this trade. And there are others that believe the Jets got a great deal and this was a phenomenal move for them. Do you believe that my gauging of kind of the reaction to this is on target here, that it seems to be split or do you have a different sense of it? No, I think you've got a real good read of it. I was surprised to see some of the totally different viewpoints from people on both sides who, who in my mind have credibility on this, you know, to speak to this. I mean, not just, you know, Yahoo fans, but people in the business, totally different viewpoints as to how this unfolded.

Ross Tucker, who's been on this pot. And I think the people, the people who think that the Jets, that the Packers made out, if I'm not mistaken or operating under the premise that Aaron Rogers was not going to play for them again. I don't know if that's true or not. That's a good point, you know, but I think that it's really more about how they feel about Aaron Rogers. So, you know, to sort of emphasize the point, like Ross Tucker, who I've had on this podcast many times, I saw this short snippet video that he put out on Twitter just saying, oh my God, this is one of the worst deals ever. The Jets basically gave up the world for a guy that's going to play one year for them.

I think that's actually a big part of the pushback is that you're talking about a 39-year-old guy that's going to turn 40 and that it's going to be a very short shelf life for Aaron Rogers. And I think a lot of people actually believed what they saw last year in Aaron Rogers, even though he had basically a broken thumb and was playing with one. And on a bad team without his best player from the year before and in the years before, Devante Adams, thought that they saw a guy that had fallen off the cliff last year. But let me just go through the deal for those of you that don't know it. So the Jets got Aaron Rogers.

They got the Packers' fifth round choice this year. and they had to trade two spots back this year with Green Bay, going from 13 to 15, Green Bay going up 15 to 13 in the first round on Thursday night. The Packers got a second rounder from the Jets this year, a sixth rounder from the Jets this year. They move up the two spots this year in the draft, and then they get this conditional pick, which was the choice that a lot of people that are pro, you know, Packers, anti-Jets on this deal, feel like this would have been the deal breaker for them. It's a conditional second-rounder, first-rounder.

If Aaron Rogers takes 65% or more of the snaps next year for the Jets, it becomes a first round pick in 2024, and if it's less than 65% of the snaps, it's a second round pick in 2024. So the math basically nets out to the following. If you consider the two spots to be something, well, that something is negligible, really negligible. It's like a fourth or a fifth round pick on the draft value chart. I think it's like a late fourth round pick, like 100 points or something like that difference, between 13 and 15 in the first round. But, you know, they swapped late round picks this year with the Jets getting a fifth round.

rounder and the Packers getting a sixth rounder. So there's actually sort of a win for the Jets on that side. So what I've done is I've taken the two spots that they are changing, swapping in the first round this year, and the fifth and the sixth round picks that are going back and forth this year and saying, just wash that out, okay? Because that basically evens everything out and that's an even-steven portion of the deal. So now it comes down to the second rounder that the Packers got this year from the Jets and next year's first or second round pick. Well, everybody I think understands that a future pick is devalued to begin with because the player that you end up selecting, you're getting one less year of.

You're not getting that value this year. So whenever you trade a future pick, it is worth less than what the first rounder would be worth this year. Regardless of position, it's devalued. And then you consider the fact that what the Packers will get next year from the Jets if it's a first rounder, and I expect it to be a first rounder unless Rogers gets injured, will be a later first round pick. Really, when you devalue the time that you have to wait until you get the pick, with the fact it's a later pick, it really is the equivalent of a second rounder this year. So for me, the way I would describe what the Packers got back from the Jet,

Jets is two second round picks for Aaron Rogers. Did you follow along with that, Tommy? Yes, I did. Okay. Yes, I did. And I had my staff taken notes so they could explain it to me later. Okay, good. Just in case I lose track.

So. Okay, so what's your conclusion? So think of it as the Jets gave up two second round picks for Aaron Rogers. That's the way I view it. If it ends up being a first rounder next year, again, devalued and probably a late first round pick because it means he took 65% plus of the snaps, which means they probably aren't going to be in the top half of the first round next year. My conclusion is this.

If you have the position that you are dead set against this from a Jets perspective and your position is because you think you saw Aaron Rogers fall off a cliff last year, I don't agree with you, but that's not irrational. Like he is 39 going on 40. And instead of throwing 48 touchdowns with five picks, he threw 26 with 12 picks, with an injured thumb for much of the year and with basically no help on that team. I didn't see that. I concede to you that it's not a crazy opinion because,

he's 39 going on 40 to say that you think he fell off a cliff. I just don't agree with that. If part of your thought is he's a total narcissist, I would just respond by saying, well, once a narcissist, always a narcissist. So when he was throwing for 48 touchdowns and five interceptions, you know, in 2020 and won the MVP. And when he threw for 37 touchdowns and 4,000,

four picks in 2021 and won the MVP. And over a three-year period, his team was 39 and nine in the regular season. He was still a narcissist. And if you think that that's like the reason that it's a terrible trade, I don't agree with you because he's already proven to be pretty self-assured of himself and all of his opinions, but played at the highest levels of almost any quarterback we've ever seen. I mean, he is a debatable top five, top six quarterback of all time. And it was just two years ago that he won the MVP.

And he fell off the cliff throwing for 3,700 yards, 26 touchdowns, 12 interceptions, with essentially a fractured thumb for much of the year and no help around him. So I don't agree with you, but if that's your position, that's fine. My position is really simple. This is an absolute steal for the New York Jets. and it goes beyond just the value of two second round picks for Aaron Rogers. Because if it was a bad team that made that trade, I would question it because I would think, man, now you've got to really spend to build up the team.

What convinces me and what's convinced me all along that this would be a great trade for the Jets, and by the way, a great trade for the skins, if we had woken up this morning and they had made the trade, is that this is one hell of a roster. The Jets finished fifth in overall defense DVOA-wise. This is a young, vicious, growing, already elite defensive football team. They also have terrific offensive weapons in their backfield and at wide receiver on this team. The only thing that this team's been missing is quarterback play. And I don't even think Aaron Rogers needs to be like a top five quarterback, which he's always been, top three.

top two, top one, he doesn't need to be that. If he's just top 10 or 12, this is a playoff team that's going to win 10 or more games and be a Super Bowl contender. The big issue with the Jets, of course, is the conference they are in and the quarterbacks that reside in the AFC. Even the division they're in with Josh Allen and Tua, and by the way, Belichick, who's finally hired an offensive coordinator, it's a vicious division. But this is 100% a move that I completely endorse. And I think it's going to be fascinating to watch them because I saw a lot of the Jet games last year. And one of the reasons I paid attention to them is I considered Washington's roster to kind of mirror the Jets roster.

Great young defense, really good playmakers, just no quarterback. They are terrible at quarterback. And that's why I advocated very much that I would have been going after Aaron Rogers. I'd be going after Lamar Jackson, Aaron Rogers, Moore. If Aaron Rogers, if we woke up in Washington and made that deal, Washington would be the third pick to win the NFC championship next year. And it wouldn't be that far from Philly and San Francisco. It would be much better for Washington than it even would be for the Jets because of the conference Washington's in right now. a far inferior conference than the AFC.

I don't get it for those that don't see that a team that's been in the wilderness quarterback-wise and competitive-wise wouldn't go for it with Aaron Rogers with the team they have. I think the Jets are going to be an outstanding team. Are they going to win the Super Bowl? I have no idea. Mahomes is still the best and the Chiefs are still the best and the Bengals are great. bills are great. But are they going to be in the mix? A hundred percent yes, in my opinion. What do you think? I agree with everything you said. I looked at this and I judged it as if I was a

Washington commanders fan and we could have made this trade, would I have done it? A thousand percent. You know, absolutely 1,000 percent. And the remarkable thing is, There'll be people out there that will say, no. We got our guy. I know. There are people that have said that. Yes. Yes.

I mean, no, I don't want Aaron Rogers. I mean, to me, absolutely. I mean, you know, this is a good deal for the Jets. The Jets needed to make this deal. I mean, the Jets are in a very competitive market up there in terms of attention and, you know, sports attention. and they needed some kind of dramatic move in this case. I mean, and I just think, look, I mean, look what Peyton Manning did for Denver. You know, look what Brady did for Tampa.

It's not worth the one-year shot at maybe getting to the Super Bowl? I think it is for a team that, like you said, has been walking in the wilderness for decades. you know so uh i mean if if you if Washington had been fortunate enough to be in a position to make this trade i certainly would have hoped they would have done it um from richard on twitter because i talked about this on radio this morning but our phone lines were uh there was an issue with it so we couldn't take calls um this is an insane trade from new york standpoint they have a really good team and it's a young team and and they should have been thinking about trading up for their next quarterback,

not going with a guy that has Kevin fallen off the cliff. Look, if the Jets had, you know, used their first round pick and next year's first round pick and moved up and taken, you know, a guy like, you know, C.J. Stroud or Bryce Young, it would have taken more than that to get up that far. And you can't get up to number one. I mean, these teams need quarterbacks too. or they had fallen in love with Anthony Richardson or Levis.

You know, I would have been okay with that to a certain degree. Like if you're really held, at least they would understand they're a quarterback away and you've got to keep swinging. The thing about Rogers is he gives you, and by the way, I think it's going to be more than a year with Rogers. I think that Rogers is going to be, you're going to get Rogers on a little bit of a redemption tour. You know, especially, here's the other point I wanted to make on this. This is a you better be right situation, and it's not from the Jets perspective, because I think this is you absolutely, you know, whether it works or doesn't work, you had every right to do this. It made total sense in the moment. But from Green Bay standpoint, Tommy, and it may be that they've just had it with them or they found out that he didn't want to play for them anymore, but it's their fault that it got to this because their general manager brought. Ryan Guttenkuntz drafted Jordan Love.

This was a beginning of like the end with Aaron Rogers. Why did you do that? This was not what, you know, what they did in 2005 when they drafted Aaron Rogers to replace Brett Far. Aaron Rogers was clearly the number one player on their board. He was a projected number one overall pick. And they just took them because they, and remember, we've, we've, been told they tried to trade that out of that number one pick. They didn't want to pick them, but they felt like they had to be true to their board. They drafted Jordan Love to replace

Aaron Rogers and to say, we kind of see the end with you. You know, before that draft, Aaron Rogers, all he talked about was retiring a Green Bay Packer. You know, he never thought about leaving Lambeau Field and leaving Green Bay. That was a big mistake on Green Bay's part. A big mistake. So you better be right, Brian Guttenkundsen, Mark Murphy, and everybody else there, because you're trading one of the greatest players to ever play the position one year removed, I guess two years by the time we get to the next voting,

removed from his last MVP. I think the Jets, this is a no-brainer from their standpoint. By the way, let me show you another aspect of this that worked great for the Jets. I talked about attention in a town like New York that's as competitive as there can be for attention in sports markets. The Aaron Rogers beat for the Jets will be the number one beat in the NFL this. In other words, if you are a sports news organization, anywhere in a country, a major one, I would assign a reporter to cover Aaron Rogers. I'd send them to New York.

Of course. You'd say, here's your job. You cover Aaron Rogers, and that's it, because it's going to be a daily soap opera drama. Some of it good, some of it bad, but there's going to be, I mean, the Jets are going to be the backpage kings in New York right now. And that, you know, you could say that doesn't mean anything, but it does mean something. It means a lot in terms of financial interests and credibility in a market where you have to earn credibility. So, I mean, like if I'm like about the Post, not far from me to tell the Washington Post what to do,

but with the resources they have, I'm having somebody cover Aaron Rogers. Look, in addition to the cover and the commanders. When we've seen this before, I mean, going back to, I mean, hell, Joe Montana to Kansas City, but, you know, more recently, Brett Farv to the New York Jets. I mean, it was a massive story, you know, the entire time during that training camp and during that season. You know, and by the way, those that are comparing it to Fav because they were both 39 years old when they got, you know, when they went to the Jets. Brett Fav, this is my opinion, and I've always felt that.

this way. I don't really consider Brett Favre to be in the class of Aaron Rogers. I don't. I've never been, I understand Brett Favv's greatness. Don't get me wrong, but he's never been, you know, he's much lower on my list than maybe on some of your lists, or some of yours, the list that many of you have. I just, and, you know, by the way, that Jet team, because I looked that up this morning, he had a Pro Bowl season in his one year in New York, and they went nine and seven. They did not end up making the postseason. And he had 20, by the way, he made the Pro Bowl with 22 touchdowns and 22 picks. There's no Aaron Rodger.

You don't throw 22 picks in the NFL anymore unless you're, unless you're, who threw 30 picks recently? Somebody threw 30 picks recently. What should you call it? The guy from the Saints, James Winston. James Winston, duh. Yeah, the player, the quarterback I love. James Winston threw 30.

But you just don't see things like that anymore. I don't know. I've liked this jet roster, but you can't win people. You cannot win unless you've got outstanding quarterback play. The best chance for outstanding quarterback play next year and the year after, the Jets just got it to go with a great roster. And even if it isn't Mahomes or Josh Allen level or Joe Burrow level or Jalen Hertz level. I mean, he was so good in the Super Bowl.

But Hertz isn't in that class. But come on, man. Like Aaron Rogers is not going to be one of the worst quarterbacks in the NFL. He's not going to be Zach Wilson. He's not going to be, you know, Flacco last year, 40 years old or whatever he was for the Jets. They were, they lost their last Tommy. They were seven and four with a horrible quarterback situation last year. And then they lost their final six games. And in their final six games, they scored 17 or less in five of the six and 10 or less in three of the six. They couldn't score. They were stopping everybody. They couldn't score. Oh, my God. If that had happened here, you're right. There would be half of our audience would be like, oh, no, you did want.

You sent two number twos to the Jets for Aaron Rogers instead of just riding it out with Sam Hal. Sam Hal should have been a first-round pick. I would have gotten a lot of that. It's insane. And I understand that insanity because when you've been beaten down for so long, by deals that may have appeared similar to this, but we're not, that you think every time you pull the trigger on a deal like this, it's going to be a disaster. Yeah, it's true.

Reved up. But remember, the two deals that they wanted big swings, they didn't actually complete for Matt Stafford and Russell Wilson. But revved up tweeted me, and you can tweet me at Kevin CnDC. What you were willing to give up, Kevin, for Rogers, was nuts and would have hated it. But what the Jets gave up doesn't seem so bad. So what he's talking about is, you know, what I talked about last year. Because last year I was all, remember, there was a possibility Aaron Rogers was going to get traded last off season. And yes, I was talking about a lot more than two twos, you know, or two conditional one, which really will be more equivalent to a two, even if it ends up being a one because it's, you know, a future pick, et cetera.

But, yeah, I wouldn't have given that up for Aaron Rogers today. revved up. However, I would have given up a lot more. Yes, I would have given up more than the Jets gave up. I would have. But, you know, the Jets were in an interesting situation, as were the Packers. You know, the Packers had made up their mind, to your point, maybe they didn't think he would play for him. He might retire. They would have been stuck for $60 million. And by the way, that's a big part of this deal. I don't want to minimize that because I didn't bring it up. But the salary cap and how that money gets, you know, accounted for and capped out over the next few years, We'll see how the Jets handle that because, you know, clearly it's not going to be all 31 million.

I don't think on their cap this year, which was what it was going to be for Green Bay, but we'll see. I think one of the incredible, you know, storylines, top three storylines going into next year, Aaron Rogers as a jet, how good will he be next year? And by extension, will it make the Jets an actual contenders? Tough division, tough conference. I get it. But I bet you that they don't win any less than 11 games next year, and they are in the postseason.

Maybe it's, you know, one game less than Buffalo wins in the AFC East, and it's the same as Miami wins or maybe one better than Miami, and they're a wild card, and they're going to have to win on the road to get there. But he gives them a chance. He gives them a chance, and they didn't have any chance without him. because they had a great roster last year and went seven and ten. All right, let's finish it up with some NBA playoff talk when we come back, right after these words from a few of our sponsors.

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Looking forward to that. But before we get to the NBA playoffs, Tommy, you and I were just talking about something during the break, and I want to bring it up because I got a tweet from Cedric, who basically, you know, he was upset that I went after Ron and Martin Mayhew in a sarcastic, with a sarcastic tone yesterday. And let me just tell you what I'm talking about. I mentioned that, you know, Washington and talking about the upcoming draft has the 16th. pick. And last year, remember, they ended up with the 16th pick after trading back with New Orleans from 11 to 16. And they picked up a third and a fourth round pick. And, you know, they took the fourth round pick that they got from New Orleans. And they traded out of that. And I made the point

that for all of the talk about how, you know, they loved Sam Howell and how Ron Rivera, you know, was citing mock drafters that he had talked to during this offseason that had validated their super high grade on Sam before last year's draft. I just had reminded myself in kind of prepping for the draft a little bit this week that Washington, you know, we know didn't take Sam Howell in the first round. They didn't take him in the second round. They didn't take them in the third round. In the fourth round, they didn't take them with their own pick, which was the Percy Butler's selection. And then with the fourth rounder that they had picked up from New Orleans and the trade back, they actually didn't select them with that choice either. They traded out of that

choice. They traded back into the fifth round with Carolina to pick up two fifth round picks and let 24 more picks have a chance at the guy that they thought should have gone in the first or second round. And that's all I'm saying as it relates to that is if they want to tell me that they're really high on him now, okay, I still think the whole last week of the season was weird that Ron didn't want to start them and play them. And if you wanted to play him, he only wanted to play him for a little bit against the Cowboys in a meaningless game for Washington. But if they love the performance and now they're really high on him, whatever, that's fine. But you can't go back and tell me how high you were on Sam Howe in the 2022 draft.

when you literally had opportunities with extra picks that you had picked up in the fourth round, and you decided to chance it and roll the dice that 24 more picks would pass on Sam Hal to, and you'd get him at the top of the fifth round. Like, that's just not believable. It just isn't. No. Here's what you did. You weren't hard on them.

You exposed them. You know? You did. You exposed them. If you really loved him, were you really, and you really had that high of a grade on them, and you figured everybody else did too and you really wanted them, would you have traded out of a late fourth round pick, mid-fourth round pick? Absolutely not. To wait until the fifth round?

If I really wanted a quarterback, I'm not a GM, but if I really wanted a quarterback and I was going to show some patience and hope that he would still be there. By the time I got to the third round, I'm taking that guy. I mean, I know they really wanted a running back, you know, and so they needed a defensive tackle in Phil Mathis because they thought they were going to lose Duran Payne this year. They wanted a running back.

I mean, Ben was all over that, you know, before the draft last year, and we were all like, really, Antonio Gibson's pretty good, but he had the fumbling plot problem, remember, in 2021. And so you took a running back there. But really, when you got to the fourth round, Percy Butler more than the quarterback that you were in love with, and then instead of, you know, picking him with that second fourth round pick, you trade out of that and you trade back? I mean, didn't you think that considering how high of a grade you had on them that there was a bit of a risk that you wouldn't get them if you didn't take them in the fourth round by the time you got to the fifth? Did you really think he was going to be available in the fifth?

Well, I guess you were smart. I mean, he was there. Yeah. He was there. It just doesn't seem believable to me. All right. So, yes, we're going to talk about the NBA playoffs. You, what have you watched since we last had an NBA conversation about the postseason?

Tell me what you've watched. Well, I watched on Sunday the Cavaliers next game. which was fun to watch because of the crowd at Madison's Clubbards. Oh, so good. So good. I mean, they make it fun. It comes through to TV, you know? So that was fun to watch.

And I watched the Sacramento Golden State game Sunday night. By the way, Tommy, you know, I think I told you that I was in New York at the end of last week for much of the weekend. And Friday night, I, with my youngest son, I was looking to see what the tickets were to go to the Friday night game at the garden. I've been to a next game in the playoffs in the garden back in the 90s. And I think I've mentioned this before. I don't know that there are many environments that I've ever been in that had that much energy. And I knew Friday night was going to be insane. And I thought, God, I'd love to be there for that. The tickets were, were so outrageous. I mean, it was the event in New York. I mean, you know New York sports fans

and the Knicks have, you know, a long time loyal fan base, despite the damage that their owner has done over the years, similar to Washington, but New York fans are just different in general. The tickets, like to sit in the upper deck was like $800. To sit in the lower level was 1,500 up to 5,000. I mean, and so I was like, no, we're not doing that. But yeah, the energy level, you could feel it coming through the TV. It was great. Yeah, I enjoyed that.

And the Golden State game, I enjoyed it. Look, I've always said that Steph Curry is a game-changing player. He has changed the NBA. he's one of the elite players of all time. I just don't like the way he's changed it. But there's no denying his impact. Okay. He's a remarkable guy in the way he can shoot the ball.

But, you know, and I'm not going to document every time. But when Seth Curry wasn't shooting the ball, what I saw was guys running the length of the court, basically uncontested for layups. Driving down the court, no defense at all, hardly with layups. I mean, it was pathetic. I don't know what game you think you're watching. Well, just so you know, Sacramento was the worst defensive team in the NBA this year.

So you're picking on a team that's the expectation for them. They were the best offensive team and the worst defensive team in the NBA. I thought you were going to crush the time out that Steph took that they didn't have and say that that would have never happened with Walt Clyde Frazier. Never would have happened. No one had ever said that Steph Curry is not a smart player. Okay, good. He had a brain cramp at the moment, but he's obviously a very smart player.

Yeah. It's funny because I think game one in that series was just probably start to finish one of the most incredible playoff games I've seen in many years, and I talked about that, and that sparked her conversation last time. The game Sunday night, I thought both teams at the end looked a little bit worn out, and it got sloppy, but there were just incredible moments in that game. I mean, you had a game in which Sacramento had 25 of their 48 buckets assisted on. Golden State had 31 assists in the game.

The ball movement, I don't know how you can't sort of acknowledge the spectacular passing that you see in some of these games. But anyway, I want to get to last night. Passing out to the corner is not spectacular. Well, it's passing in a lot of different ways. It's passing to create open shots. I mean, the bottom line is, you know, in open shots, an open shot. And in this day and age, remember, you're talking about a game that you enjoyed that didn't have a three-point line, which is why the goal was to get as close. to the goal as possible. Which is one of my big problems with the game.

Right. We know that. Yes, we do. There's no attraction to me for a guy who drives the lane and kicks it out 25 feet to a guy who's standing in the corner. That's not an attraction to me. Well, how about when the guy from the corner, then passes it to a guy on the wing and then hits a cutter for a dunk?

and five or six passes happened, as it probably happened, ten times during that game for Golden State. Oh, yeah, ten times. Okay, here we go. Here we go. The brilliant NBA, where everybody's smarter and everybody else. And then Draymond Green, the smartest player in the history of the NBA. A genius. Come on. A genius is what I called it. Yeah. I called him a basketball genius. You said he may have been the smartest player in ever to play. I got a little carried away. I got a little carried away. Yeah, you did. A little bit. But there were 31 assists in that game and many hockey assists in that game.

And by the way, Draymond Green struggled offensively, but he was crucial to the final result with his defense and passing. I believe. I'll grant you that. He had a very good defense. He was a force on defense, absolutely. Let's talk about a guy that I know you actually like, and that is Jimmy Butler. Last night, so let me go first and then I'll let you weigh in. I know you didn't watch the game, but I know you've seen the highlights and you've read about the game.

The game last night between Milwaukee and Miami, for those that don't know, first of all, the Bucks were the number one seed overall in these NBA playoffs. They won 58 games. Yana Satintacumpo is obviously one of the greatest players, if not the best player in the game today. The heat were the eight seed. they came through the play-in route. They actually lost their first playing game, won their second playing game.

They're the eight-seed. So they're a prohibitive underdog in this series. But they were up two games to one, in part because Janus hurt his back. And it missed the last two games. And last night through three and a half quarters, it was so obvious to me and I was so dead wrong. I'm a big Jimmy Butler fan, as many of you know. Kauai's my favorite.

Jimmy Butler's in my top three or four favorite players in the game. but I'm like this is such a mismatch with Janice on the floor. The Bucks are going to win tonight. They're going to win the next two in this series will be over. And I actually was thinking watching the Bucks, as long as Gianna stays healthy, I really don't think anybody can beat them four out of seven. They're up, you know, 15, 13.

It's not a game in which if you're watching it, I don't think you could actually say at any point in time that Miami could win the game. Now, Jimmy Butler, in the first quarter, quarter had 22 points in the first quarter and scored 20 consecutively. But by the time you got to the fourth quarter, you realized they couldn't guard him. They couldn't stop them. Brooke Lopez had 36 points. He was amazing. He also had three block shots. He's the shot block leader in the NBA. Yannis is uncheckable. And it's just a mismatch. And there's only one player on the other team that can

score, and his name is Jimmy Butler. So then we get to the fourth quarter, and he sits out the first four minutes, you know, resting because he's exhausted. You're watching him play, and he's exhausted. At one point, he laid down on the floor for like a minute until the refs said, you got to get up. And he comes in at the eight minute and 11 second mark, I think it was. And they're down 13 at that point. No chance, Tommy. No chance they can win the game. He scored 21 points over the final eight minutes and 11 seconds. He ended up with 56 overall. And they came back and they outscored the bucks over that final eight minutes and 11 seconds, 34 to 16. Now, to give Miami some credit, some other players credit, I thought Kyle Lowry's defense was amazing. They got incredible

energy from Caleb Martin, who has provided that to him a lot. But Jimmy Butler went on a role. where he was hitting shots from the mid-range. He was driving by people and scoring. He was hitting step-back threes. He had a dunk, by the way, that capped off a big run that gave him the lead, where he hung on the rim for a while. I don't know. I guess you can hang on the rim now without a technical foul in the NBA.

I actually don't know why he wasn't teed up for that. But it was for me in watching this game. And I didn't want to overreact in the moment, because I didn't even know where it kind of placed on the all-time list points-wise. It was tied for fourth. Tied for fourth, his 56 points. He missed a free throw at the end that would have given him 57. But it tied him for fourth with Charles Barkley, Michael Jordan, and Wilt. He's behind Donovan Mitchell, who did it in the bubble, and behind Elgin Baylor, who went for 61.

And, of course, Michael Jordan's famous game in the Boston Garden when he went for 63. back in 1986 when he was a super young player. But no player in the history of the NBA playoffs has ever scored 56 points on less than 30 shot attempts. Elgin Baylor 61, Tommy, he was 22 of 46. Jimmy Butler shot 67.9% from the floor.

nobody's ever done that in the history of the NBA playoffs, scoring 50 or more points in a playoff game. Not only that, he had to guard Janus for much of the game on defense. And here's the overarching point for why it's got to be considered one of the greatest playoff performances of all time. Because Tommy, there is no chance they could have won that game without him scoring all 56 of those points. Like, I know they won by five, so technically he could have scored 52 and they would have won by one. But the context of the game is he needed all of those points. And he got them somehow.

Now, the big strategic error by Budenholzer, the coach for Milwaukee, and I didn't know this until after the game, I did scream multiple times. How are they not double teaming this guy? This is insane. Nobody else can score except for him. They only double-teamed him in this basketball game four times. That is a massive error by the coaching staff of Milwaukee. There was nobody else that could beat him.

I didn't even think Jimmy Butler could score 56, and if he scored 56, I still didn't think it would be enough. It's one of the single greatest individual postseason performances I've ever seen, and I was hesitant to see. say it's the greatest, and I just, I think I tweeted out after the game, it's on, I don't know where it is on the list, but it's on the list. But after thinking about everything that had to happen and putting it in the context of fourth greatest points-wise, and the only player to ever do it in 30 shot attempts, and less than 30 shot attempts, shooting 67.6% from the floor, and guarding Janus for some of the time on the other end. Brilliant. And at the same time, I'll finish with this.

I don't think they're going to win the series. They're up 3-1, and I think Milwaukee's going to win the series. And by the way, the number on it is plus 125. They're almost even money to win the series down three games to one, because Jimmy Butler can go for 40 or 45, but I think he's going to need 55 again one more time for them to do it. Yeah, I love Jimmy Butler. and I would have loved to have seen him here in Washington as a guy really, truly, that you could build on.

But let me give you another comparable playoff performance. Bernard King, 1984, they faced the Detroit Pistons in the first round. They swept into Pistons won more than 50 games that year. Bernard King averaged 43 points a game in those four games, 60%. shooting for the series. Bernard King was phenomenal in that series. Incredible in that series. 43 points a game, 60% shooting for four games.

It was amazing. It was amazing. They won game five in Detroit, right? It was the best of five first round, I think. Well, they swept them. They won them in four. Oh, I thought that that was the series in which Bernard King went. It was the best of five.

Are you sure? What I'm reading right now is four games. The first round? Oh, no, no. Yeah, it lasted only four games. Well, maybe it was three to one. Maybe it was three to one. No, 84 was five games.

They won the series three games to two. I'm looking at it right now. And he went 36, 46, 46, 46, 46, 41, and 44. in the five games. It was best of five because that was the first round back then. And they won the fifth game at Detroit. I think it was a close game, if my memory serves me correctly. 127, 123 in overtime. In overtime, Bernard King.

I love watching Jimmy Butler play. One of a few players who I love watching play. He's got, he is, as you like to say, so competitive. Love him. Love everything about him. Barkley said the following on the postgame show. He said, quote, the best performance I've ever seen in the playoffs was the night LeBron scored 29 out of 30 in Detroit, 25 straight, 29 out of 30. That's the best game I've seen in the playoffs personally until tonight.

Talking about Jimmy Butler's performance last night, Barclay said that was the best performance I've seen since I've been on television. It was flat out incredible. It was an honor and a privilege to watch it, but man, that guy was not going to let them lose tonight. No, he didn't. And it's crazy, but I just don't think they can win the series. I don't think they can beat the bucks again as long as Janus is healthy. I'm not, trust me, I'm rooting for Butler. I am rooting for Jimmy Butler and I'm rooting for Miami and Spolster is such a great coach. He's one of the true great coaches in the NBA. You know, this is a team that's always played in a different way than a lot of the other NBA teams have played. They haven't relied as much, you know, on the three-point shot over

the years. But anyway, the other game last night, yeah, LeBron was incredible. He was incredible. I stayed up and watched all of it. I've been watching all of this every night. And it's been so good. It really has been. And LeBron last night did something that amazingly he had never done before. He had never had a 20-20 game in the postseason. He finished with 22 and 20, and he made an incredible shot at the end of regulation to tie it. Over Jaron Jackson, who's one of the best shot blocks.

I think he had five or six shot blocks already block shots last night. And he threw it up at the top of the backboard, Tommy, with just the right touch in English to have it fall through. and then he, you know, went at Dylan Brooks in overtime. I mean, Dylan Brooks, by the way, didn't post, I guess, again for the post game. Dude, if you're going to trash talk as much as you have, especially about LeBron, and I'm not a LeBron guy, but you've got to show up and take your medicine afterwards. Yes, you do. I mean, what a coward.

John Morant is hurt. It's unfortunate because he's so spectacular, but he's. He's got, he's got, he's hurt. And as far as the Lakers, can they win the title? I don't think they can. I think Denver's better. I think the Warriors, if we get the Lakers and the Warriors, that's going to be, I mean, by the way, you talk about ratings.

The NBA would love to see Lakers and Warriors in the postseason. And then maybe Lakers' sons, you know, or Warriors' sons. It's been good. All right. LeBron was phenomenal last night. He was great. You know, whatever. I mean, when he got hit, did you see the play where Dylan Brooks hit him in the nuts the other night? No. Oh, you haven't seen that? Yeah.

Were you watching Cojac or Rockford Files? I mean, it was a massive story. Dylan Brooks swiped at LeBron, hit him in the nuts. Nobody stopped me on the street in the past couple of days and asked him. me, did you see when LeBron got hit the nuts? So I guess it wasn't that massive a story. Certainly wasn't in your neighborhood, that's for sure. Okay, let me just ask you, because I asked you to watch this last week. Have you watched jury duty? Yes, I did. I watched five episodes of it. So you haven't finished it yet? I'm not going to finish it. I'll check out.

Boring. Oh, my God. Boring. Really, really disappointed. I gave it five episodes Oh wow That's really a shame I don't even know what to say About that I will tell you that I think Episode 5

I do remember saying I hope it picks up a little bit Because the first two episodes Were so great But God the ending is phenomenal It's great And I would tell you And I

Why wouldn't Why if you know the premise of the show Why wouldn't you just go to the last episode If I know the premise of the show why wouldn't I just go to the last episode? And watch that, yeah. Well, because I guess there's, it was hysterically funny, the first two or three episodes,

and I wanted to continue to entertain myself and not deprive myself. Okay. Well, I checked out. Is that a good enough answer? Whatever. This, the one thing that I would tell you, since you're not going to finish it, is the finale is, incredibly sweet and just so nice.

I loved it, and I know many of you have reached out to say thank you for the recommendation, but I'm surprised, actually, your reaction to this one, because I thought you would absolutely love this one. Not a good post office performance for the office crew, because there's one of the office producers is involved in this AMC show called Lucky Hank. which I watched the first episode of and loved it, and it's been a real disappointment since. Okay.

Well, I guess I should be glad that you made it through five episodes of this. At any point, did you think you'd make it until the end? Yeah, I did. In the beginning, it seemed funny. Then it got tiring. I'd give episode six, seven, and eight. It's just three, it's actually one and a half episodes of Rockford Files or Co-Jet. because they're like 30-minute episodes.

So finish it and just tell me what you think then. Listen, listen, this is like eating meals. How many hours of television do you think I have left in my life? Well, which is more important? Meals or television for you? Well, my point is when somebody says, you should try something new. And I say, oh, how many meals do you think I have left?

Yeah. And I'm going to take a chance on giving up one. One of those meals? No. I'm not. Same with TV viewing. I know. For somebody so progressive, you don't progress much during the course of your life. All right, I will talk to you on Thursday, which will be draft Thursday, and we will do all draft unless there's another epic NBA performance, and then we'll talk a little bit about that. I'll be back tomorrow. Among the guests on the show tomorrow will be Sam 48 from the Washington Post. Sam's really good on the football team and the draft, and there may be one other guest as well. That's it for today. Hey, good job today. You really brought it. I'll talk to you on Thursday.

Take care, boss.