The Kevin Sheehan Show - Thom on Ernie; Scot McCloughan Speaks

Episode Date: April 4, 2019

Thom with arms raised in a V buried Ernie Grunfeld for good. He and Kevin talked about Scot McCloughan's interview on John Keim's podcast. Some Nats discussion and thoughts on Russell Wilson too. <p> </p><p>Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices">podcastchoices.com/adchoices</a></p> Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You want it. You need it. It's what everyone's talking about. The Kevin Sheehan Show. Now here's Kevin. You're listening to The Sports Fix. All right, I am here. Aaron's here. Tom is in. The show's presented by Window Nation. If you're in the market for Windows, call 86690 Nation or go to Window Nation.com and tell them we told you to call. Before I allow you to celebrate, you've been waiting for the day, you've been waiting for Ernie to be fired for years. years. I did want to just mention that we got a lot of feedback on the conversation yesterday with Tim Legler, and I appreciated a lot of it. And some of you were really, really interested in found Tim's push to be recognized as a potential coaching candidate or front office candidate as very interesting and compelling. And others of you found it to be, you know, not something that you wanted to listen to. You just wanted his thought. on Grunfeld and the Wizards and the position.

That's the great thing about a podcast. You don't have to, like on radio, sit there through the first 25, 30 minutes of an interview. And we had Tim on for a long time. And I appreciate that because he's always generous with his time. And I actually mentioned to somebody yesterday who said, do you think he's really serious? And I said, here's what I know about Tim Legler, because everybody that knows him says the same thing.

He is of high intellect, and he works his ass off, and he's highly competitive. And I think he's just at that point in his life where he's thinking to himself, I should be coaching somewhere, or I should be running a team somewhere, and you get to that point where he is, I'm guessing in his early 50s, and it's like if he doesn't make the move now, it'll never happen. But he is qualified, when I say qualified, I believe that he would be phenomenal as a coach. as a college coach in particular.

I know a lot of guys that coached against him on the AAU circuit, and Tim was known as a very good basketball coach. And that's why I've always enjoyed having them on the show. Even the show we did together, we always had Tim on, because I don't think personally there's anybody that analyzes an NBA game better than Tim. And I know why I feel that way. It's because I know that he's current.

He coaches. He's coaching this stuff every day and sees it. And a lot of the guys that are analysts, you know, if they played it was many years ago, they weren't sort of that kind of person to think in the way a coach thinks anyway. But anyway, that's beside the point. If you enjoyed it, great. If you didn't enjoy it, you just fast forward to the parts that you want. But yes, I am serious about thinking that he would be a very good coach.

probably a terrific front office guy as well, but it will take teams or athletic departments to think outside the box, you know, sort of in the same way that John Lynch got hired in San Francisco, right out of the broadcast booth and into the general manager's position with no experience in running an NFL front office. It would take, you know, people to think that way. And, you know, Tim made the point. And it's true, these executive search firms, that's not the way they're thinking. They're looking for resumes. Yeah. They're looking for, you know, bona fide resumes and records so that when they recommend somebody, there's not a lot of risk in the recommendation. But anyway, for those of you that

enjoyed it, I enjoyed it. I know it was long, but I enjoyed it. He was very passionate about it. And, you know, we did get around to talking basketball, and I'll, you know, I'll have them on before the NBA playoffs. Let me just point out that I don't know if Tim could. be a good coach or a good GM. But I do feel confident saying that he would be a better coach than the guy that coaches the Wizards now. And he certainly would have been a better GM than the person who is now departed from that position. So let's start there. I guess we're not starting there because we just talked about yesterday's interview. If you didn't hear the interview, listen to it if you get a chance. I mean, there are a lot of people, including friends of mine,

who are in the basketball scene in town that texted me and said, wow, that was impressive. And somebody specifically said, Ted should just go listen to Tim Legler for 30 minutes, talk about how he would think about the job, because that's his interview right there. But anyway, this was a day that you have begged for for many years. and you finally got it. So I guess my question to start and we'll have a conversation about this is, you know, did it feel as good as you thought it would when it finally happened? Well, I don't know if you remember, but in the months leading up to this,

I pointed out that we had gotten to the situation that Ted would eventually have to fire Ernie. That was going to happen. I mean, because it was inevitable. Yeah, I think we both had a sense that it was probably going to happen soon. But I think the feeling, and I think there's a segment of the fan base that feels this way, when that happens, is a sense of anger as well as being happy that he's not there anymore. Here's the column. Well, no, no, no, no, that's not the column. It's not the column?

No. Is the column self-congratulatory? No, the column's not self-congratulatory. The column is reminding everybody about what this deceitful general manager did to. some of his coaches while he was in Washington. Okay? That's the common. Oh, okay.

Right. But my point is. Eddie Jordan in particular. And, and, and Randy? And Flip Saunders. Oh, God rest his soul. Yeah, God rest is. He can't speak on his own behalf about this.

But fortunately, for us, he spoke to us on our show on 980. He did. He did. Okay. My point is, there's a sense of anger, I think, at least with me, that when you say, look at Ted, you say, why did it take so long? Why did you waste eight years? of your ownership doing this.

Why stand up there and apologize now for not doing what should have been the first thing you did when you took over this franchise? Did anybody ask him that at the press conference yesterday? I don't know. I mean, the media in this town, I'm telling you, it is, it's a joke. It's an absolute joke.

I'm embarrassed for my profession when I see somebody's press conferences. I don't know what they asked them. I did not listen to the press. conference. I read some of the long-winded quotes from Ted with a lot of the corporate speak in it. But he apologized. He apologized. He apologized. Yeah, he apologized. You know, my bad. You know, like the player from Michigan State. My bad. Yeah. You're embarrassed for the local media in these situations. Well, I mean, when you're asking me, did they ask him that question? What do you think? I would probably guess that, you know, I...

Why did you think anyone ask them, why did it take so long for you to come to its conclusion? You know what he said? He said this was not a cumulative effect. He said, no words, we didn't make the decision based on all the years he screwed up just this year. Yeah, I talked about that yesterday. That's utterly disingenuous. There is zero chance that last week when the Wizards were eliminated from the playoffs, that it occurred to him for the first time that maybe it wasn't working.

I mean, seriously. You know, it's like the gambling stuff. He is one of these guys. He's so pompous. He is so fond of listening to himself speak. And he thinks he's the smartest guy in the room that to say that is insulting, actually. And I talked about it a little bit on the podcast yesterday. To suggest that this wasn't cumulative, that somehow he just came to the decision because of the rough season.

First of all, this is the one season. that you could look at and say, what are they going to do? They lost John Waldow with serious injury. I mean, when you lose your Supermax player and you don't qualify for the playoffs, that is one of the reasons. Well, you know what? But wait, but the point is, like you said, if you just took this season isolated by itself, you'd be able to explain the poor performance.

That's what I'm saying. Yes. That's why I'm saying it's totally disingenuous. Yes. Because if you were just talking about, you know, the corporate goals that we laid out before the season, wins and playoffs and, you know, I'm sure a bunch of analytics in there as well, you would have said if we're looking just, if you were so thrilled with the job that he had done through the end of the 2018 season,

you wouldn't have fired him because of what happened this year. I mean, come on. That's disingenuous. You're absolutely right. Well, it's also, it's him because he's convinced that. that when he speaks, he can say something in a way that everyone will buy it. But they will. Well, come on.

You're being hard on your people that you work with in the media, and that I work with in the media. How many columnists in this town? The question. Over last eight years, wrote columns saying Ernie Grunfeld should be fired. What took you so long should have been a question? Yes. Absolutely should have been a question. And maybe it was asked.

I read the quotes that I, you know, from, I didn't read the entire transcript. I read some of the key quotes. I know that he thinks this is a very attractive job, in part because of him. You did hear that part, right? It's a very attractive job because of very strong and visionary ownership. Yes, I know. Now, we have agreed that Washington should be a destination spot in the NBA. This is a great city to live in.

Yes. Okay, if you're a young African-American basketball player, it's a tremendous place to want to come to. The reason free agents didn't want to come here was because of the organization, not because of the location. But here, so I want you to have your full say on Ernie, but you just, you brought up something right here that is sort of my big, overall big takeaway. On any NBA opening, and this is a league that is so much different. in any other sports league. In that if you don't have a top five player, you can't win the championship.

If you don't have a top five player and a top 15 player, you can't contend to get to the NBA finals. And that's why Milwaukee, and Legler pointed this out yesterday and I brought up Oklahoma City, these weren't destinations either. The winning has to come first

before your place is a destination for a prized free agent. And the only way the winning can come first is if you get, and I would categorize it on some level this way, lucky. You know, the Greek freak, you have no idea what he's really going to turn into. And he's there available in the middle portion, you know, of the first round, in the same way Kauai Leonard was, you know, for San Antonio. and OKC in a couple of years got Durant, Hardin, and Westbrook. And if the Wizards had somehow stumbled,

then you'll say it's because Ernie, he can't identify talent, and he drafted poorly, if they had somehow stumbled along the way into Hardin or Curry, and they had a chance to take Curry when they traded for Randy Foie and Mike Miller, or a Tenacompo, or Leonard, that the franchise would be in a much different place. So no matter who they hire, that person's going to have to end up figuring out a way to draft a top five player. It's really hard to predict that.

Oh, yes, it is. Yes, it is. Because, I mean, when you miss, it sets your franchise back. It's not, well, it's the opportunity for teams that aren't natural destinations, meaning a traditional market, warm weather market, a tax haven state, you know, uh, you know, we know what we're talking about. We're talking about the Miami's and the

L.A's and you know, and with some tradition in Boston. If you're not one of those places, we've always said it. We've had this conversation for years. D.C. should be a great place for a free agent. Great place to raise a family. As you mentioned, for a young African

American, a phenomenal town. It has basketball rich tradition, not at the pro level, but at the high school and at the college level in particular, people love the sport in this town, and it's a sleeping giant. We've always felt that way about the Wizards to a certain extent. I think me more so than you. But the winning has to come first. Yes. It has to. Yes, it does. I agree with you. Now, I've read a lot, and I heard from you a lot of, you know, backing, backing the truck slowly out of the driveway, instead of driving it forward over Ernie,

I've read and heard a lot of backing the truck up instead saying, well, you know, he did this and he did that. And, you know, they got to the playoffs a lot. Get to the point. Okay. My point is his record is indefensible. Right. And they're 12 guys in the league right now with a worse record. Right.

And nobody should care about that. Right. I didn't ask you to care. You only care about the guy who's in charge of your team. His record is indefensible, but for me, what has always stuck in my throat was how he kneecap two of his coaches. I mean, to me, the unforgivable sin for him was how he basically backstabbed two coaches who tried to change,

who at least attempted to change the culture of this team. And by doing one of these situations, I would say that Ernie Grunfeld is an unindicted co-conspirator in the Gilbert Arena's gun incident. You've always felt that way. Have I ever really disagreed with you on that? I don't remember. With respect to the coaches. Okay.

Which surprises me because you're a coach and I don't understand why that wouldn't outrage you to the point where you just said it's unacceptable. My position for three, four years now, I'm not going to let you turn it into. something that it hasn't been for three or four years. I have said going back three years, four years when you and I were still doing a show, I'm fine if Bernie gets fired. His record sucks. He's had ample time to develop and build something better. But my position simultaneously has been, but don't think for a moment that all of these people that claim him to be the worst general manager in the sport, the worst general manager in the history of this organization, that that's true, because it's not. Ernie's not an incompetent basketball person. He's always been a middling,

with the Wizards, a middling general manager, and I would always say to you, better have a much better solution. But in the last couple of years, I'm fine with it. I am totally fine with it. It's completely justified that he's gone. And it would have been justified three or four years ago that he's gone. My one position that you've had a problem with and others have had a problem with, is I'm just not going to sit here and tell you that Ernie Grunfeld doesn't know anything about basketball, and somehow he's at the level that Vinnie Serrato was, a total moronic incompetent. He's not, and no one in basketball would ever say that about Ernie Grunfeld. But two things.

One, what you're talking about in the way that some of these coaching situations evolved, not good, and two, and I felt this way for a while, Ernie really just never hit on the character thing when it came to drafting, or free agency, for that matter. He was always too wowed by measurables and talent. Well, there is a quote, and I can't, I found it, and it'll be in my column, but I can't call it up right now in a story where he's quoted directly that basically he said, I'm going to paraphrase it, that, you know, players, are forgiven when they play well.

And that's what he, that was his philosophy. Yeah, he was, he was too easy. Yeah. He was too much, he was too good of a guy, which I don't know if you feel the same way. I don't know, people said he's your friend on Twitter. I'm like, Ernie Grunfeld's not my friend. I don't know Ernie that well. You know, the only person in media that I know that actually has a, a relationship with Ernie, Scott, Jackson,

Scott's been friendly with Ernie forever. Have I had some conversations with Ernie off the air over the years every once and a while? Yes, but very few. Like, I have a much better relationship with somebody like Mike Shanahan than I've ever had with Ernie Grunfeld. I'm not backing him because he's a friend or something like that. I do like him, though. I do think he is a good guy, and I think he knows basketball. Like, that's the part that's frustrated me is a bunch of people who don't watch any game.

ever. They'll try to convince me that he's totally incompetent. That's not true. But Kevin, Kevin, his record speaks for itself. He had to go. You understand the human nature of overreaction to something so unbelievable that's happening in front of their eyes that they can't believe it. In other words, you have people just stunned that he's still in the job. So of course, they're going to overstate and they're going to overreact as to how bad he is because they just can't fathom what they're seeing. That's human nature. I totally understand that. On the podcast yesterday, when I said what I just said, which is people who don't even watch the team that never watch a game and they're going to tell me that Ernie Grunfeld doesn't know anything about basketball, but I made the point, maybe they're not watching because of Ernie Grunfeld and because of the product that's been put out there.

Look, he's gone. He deserved to go. Now they've got to make a good hire, but back to my original point on the NBA, I don't know that it even matters. If you hire a decent basketball guy, now we just have to have the next Kauai Leonard or the next Steph Curry be there at number five.

You got to get lucky. And you got to pick them. Like you said, you have to have some luck involved. Ernie inherited a, Eddie Jordan. I want to point that out. He didn't hire Eddie Jordan. Eddie Jordan was at the point with Gilbert Arenas, who Ernie had brought here as a free agent.

Which, by the way, bringing him here as a free agent worked. Oh, yeah, it worked to an extent. Yeah, I mean, but it was always a playoff team. It was always a limited amount of success. And he was a star. But there was always a limited amount of success with Gilbert. That was inevitable. but Gilbert was not an irrational human being.

He had some mental issues. Like, flipped a coin to decide to come here. So, I mean, so Eddie Jordan trying to change the culture and trying to get Gilbert under control, benched him. And then the next day, he wasn't benched. Because Ernie Grunfeld told Eddie Jordan that you can't bench Gilbert Arenas. From that point on, Gilbert Arenas knew he was the most powerful guy in that building. If he wanted to have a teammates car stolen, RG3. Fine.

If he wanted to put shit in some teammates' shoe, fine. If he wanted to bring guns in the locker room, who's going to stop me? I'm Gilbert Arenas. Here's what Eddie Jordan said in a story about coaching in the NBA a few years ago. It's not a fair fight. whether it's against the this is specifically about coaching in the NBA

it's not a fair fight whether it's against the bully or whoever you want a fair fight you don't want to fight the guy and the guy behind you trips you up and you didn't see him a fair fight for me was when I could sit down

with a pole in one on one and I could tell him the state of the team and how I felt in my plan that was a fair fight. That's when I felt good. That's when I felt everything was in place. But I didn't have it after a certain amount of years. I mean, we know he's talking about Ernie. Now, let's get to the other guy who said this on our show on the sports fix. Flipp's on ESPN 980, because I asked him directly. Ernie was in, Ernie had gone through the purge of the knuckleheads. You know,

Nick Young, Javelle McGee, Andre Blas. Right. Okay. And I asked Flip what he, you know, if he thought was he supportive of that? There's what Flip Saunders said. I was a proponent from day one of changing that whole atmosphere, day one. From the moment he arrived, he knew this place was a disaster. Okay.

When I left and had meetings with Ted Leonces, I pretty much said the same thing, that the team is not going to take any steps until you clean out some of that knuckleheads, the knucklehead factor, and get everyone more on the same page. It was Ted who told Ernie to get rid of the knuckleheads. And that didn't happen until Flip Saunders had a conversation with Ted on his way out, his quote, exit interview. And remember, Flip Saunders was the guy who tried to do the same thing that Eddie Jordan did. He tried to bench Andre Blotch.

you know, because he was uncontrollable as well and was told the next day that he was, that he announced the media the next day, Blotch was not benched. It was an organizational decision. To me, those two are the worst things that Ernie Grunfield did, despite all the other mistakes that he made in picking talent. To me, this speaks to who he is. And to me, that, to me, that's bothersome.

Um, Gino Oriama, the Yukon women's coach, uh, there was an interview that I read yesterday, maybe the day before. And he said that coaches in this day and age are afraid of their players. It's, it's a terrible situation, you know, they're, they're afraid of their players. The players have so much control. Players can make accusations about coaching abuse, et cetera, et cetera. Um, they're impossible. Uh, you know, a lot of these teams are impossible to coach. The players come entitled, coddled, the whole thing. And what you just described is a general manager who was afraid of his players in many ways. Like Ernie, now Ernie had something invested in those players.

He had made the decision on, you know, he was wowed by Blotches' talent and measurables, you know, and wow, second rounder. And this guy could be an NBA All-Star. And so he didn't want to see his guy not continue to get the opportunities to grow in that way. So, yeah, I agree with you. I mean, that's a terrible position to put your coach in. You know, as you described, you're kneecapping your coach. It's the same thing that, you know, happened to Mike Shanahan with RG3.

Yes, it is. I mean, the owner basically kneecapped him and took away his ability to coach Griffin. You've empowered the player to feel like he runs the team. And what's always, what always makes it even worse is when the owner and or general manager does that with a player, that the rest of the locker room understands shouldn't be given that kind of latitude, whether it's playing time or, you know, his behavior, because then you lose the whole team, you know, on top of that. And that's, yeah, and I, look, he's, he was far from perfect.

He was not a good general manager here. At the same time, the success that the organization had before he got here was much worse. Oh, I know that. I know that. But I know what you're... You know what I'm going to say. Yes. Because we've had this conversation before.

And in this town, what we settle for for success is so unbelievable. I know you're right. And you know what? No one got more excited about that first Beal Wall team that went to the postseason with my guy Trevor Reeves on the team and Neyne, who played so well that year and in the postseason. And they went to Chicago. And Neyne was one of his good deals.

Yeah. Good deals. Well, yeah, because of what he got, what he unloaded to get Neney, which was Nick Young and Javale McGee. Yes. But the, you know, I did think in 2014, you know, five years ago that we were on the verge of seeing a team that would be in the playoffs for the next 10 years and would contend, depending on LeBron's presence, Eastern Conference or wherever a retirement, would at some point contend for. an Eastern Conference Championship. I'm not saying they would win it, but they'd be in the Eastern Conference Finals. And again, like I asked Legler yesterday, and it's really an interesting conversation when it comes to the NBA. And if you're an owner or a general manager, you're

running one of these teams, what are realistic expectations? Like in the East, in recent years, what were your realistic expectations? A title? No. No, but to make it to the Eastern Conference final. Okay. So, but isn't that odd that your goal isn't to win a championship? Well, your goal is you have your goal and then you have your realistic goal. Okay. I mean, what you hold people. You have the goal and then you have what you hold people accountable for. In the NBA for 24 to 27 teams, they've got no chance of winning a championship.

You're right. You're right. More than any other league, the NBA is like that. Oh, it's totally different than any other league. And over a seven game series, over the NBA playoffs, the best teams win. teams win and in the NBA, the NBA is a game in which if you've got the best player or players, you're going to win. And let me just point out one other thing when it comes to Ernie selecting talent.

And this speaks to the glorious playoff teams of Gilbert and Karan and Jameson. That team was a horrific defensive team. Awful. And again, we know even today in the NBA playoffs, you have to play defense. Yeah, well, this year is going to be interesting. Yeah, it will be. This regular season's been interesting just because of the scoring. But no doubt.

I mean, I want you to lecture me more because I'm feeling like you're letting me off the hook far too easily. But when he mentioned in 2006, I think it was, and the Wizards were headed towards, you know, the best record in Eastern Conference at the All-Star break. if you recall, and then the injuries started to Karan and Gil and the whole thing, and they ended up going out meekly in the first round to Cleveland in six games, I think. That may have been the year they were swept. I forget. Remember, the first year they went to the playoffs with Larry Hughes and Arenas and that team, they won a series over Chicago, and then they played Miami, the Shaquille O'Neal,

Miami team, and they got swept in the Eastern Conference semifinals. But in that moment, given that it had been at that point, that was two, Listen, I was on the Ernie Gravy train then. It had been since 1982 that they had even won a series. I'm with you then. But that team with Karan, Gil, Jameson, you know, Deshawn Stevenson, and everybody else. Brendan Haywood. Yeah, they were so bad defensively.

And Ernie crowed about we would have been a 50-win team. We may have been the number one seed in the east. But anybody watching that team knew that it wasn't a championship team because it was so bad. But you see, not anyone did. I mean, maybe you did. I did. I remember feeling like, oh, God, they're so bad defensively. They can't really go that far.

But remember, after years and years, and this has been one of my favorite teams, I grew up with all of those bullet teams, years and years of being totally irrelevant. I mean, the Clippers and the bullets, the Clippers, bullets slash wizards, two worst organizations in the NBA. two of the worst organizations in all of sports. And then here you are. You're going to the playoffs for three or five straight years. I understand that. And I was excited about that too, except I saw, you know, early on that, you know, it was a bit of an illusion. Remember two at the beginning.

And maybe, you know, this is part of it. God, you're, you're let me off the hook. But at the beginning, not only were they winning games and then they won that playoff series against the Bulls with Gil's, you know, incredible game five shot in Chicago to win game five. But Ernie had just pulled off heist after heist with trades. He had traded, you know, he'd gotten rid of Kwamey Brown for Karan Butler. I know. That was a major league heist. He sent Stackhouse and Leitner to get Antoine Jameson. I mean, two horrible contracts, two players that weren't very good. And he got Jameson.

and all of a sudden you had Butler and he signed Gilbert Arenas. Just like that, an organization that couldn't win 25 games ever, hadn't qualified for the playoffs in forever, hadn't won a series in 20-something years, it was looking like, wow, he turned it around. So, again, the body of work, 16 years, plenty of time to build something much better and he never did. And he was horrible at drafting, horrible at drafting.

Now you just pointed out the fire that he put. put out. But as we know, he was an arsonous fireman. He was, but he had some help. You're right about the coaching stuff. He did have some help on that Gill contract in that fire. And the help came from

the owner. I get that. But, but, you know, when you read, and I wrote this years ago, when you read Ernie's bio in the Wizards Media Guide and you read about him crowing about signing Gilbert Arenas, I didn't see Abe Poland's name.

in that bio. What, the original signing or the extension? The original signing. Yeah, the original signing's fine. That's fair. But you know, and Abe knew he had a limited time left, and he didn't want to reboot. Right. He didn't want to reboot.

And he told Ernie, we're not rebooting. We got to bring Gil back. Maybe he wanted it, too. But I think at that point, even Ernie thought that Gil had a few loose screws. Maybe. I don't know. Look, I'm not going to, I'm not going to rake you over to Cole. I want you to.

I don't, because I get it. You were right on this, okay? When I was still supportive of Ernie, obviously I was proven wrong because he never got the team over the hump. But it's not like over the last, that I've been defending him here in recent years. My only, the only case I can make, it's a weak one is to just push back on the people

that think he's some sort of moron when it comes to basketball, which he's not. He drafted poorly, though. I mean, Jan Vesely, and I gave you credit for actually, remembering one thing that I got right because usually you only remember the things you get right. But I was easier because there's so many of them. I was all over Kauai Leonard.

Yes, you are. And I told you Steph Curry would have been up. Either Rubio or Curry would have been fine instead of the trade for Foy and Miller, which really was the worst, one of the worst three deals ever. Yeah. You can say the coaching stuff's the worst stuff. In terms of transactions, you know, the resigning of Blatch was ridiculous. the FOI and Miller trade, that made no sense.

And drafting Jan Vessaly, I mean, he was wowed by measurables and talent and athleticism. Because Jan was an athlete. Yes, yes, he was. And now he's an athlete in another continent. I think part of the problem in this town, and again, you can count the columnists who wrote for years that Ernie Grunfeld should be fired on one finger in this town. Hold on. Let me think who that might have been. You're a columnist.

And part of what's going on here, and while Ernie wasn't your friend, your close friend, you have to admit what Ernie did was he knew how to schmooze the reporters. He called all of them. Oh, he would call. He used to call me. Oh, he, well, then that stopped, didn't it? That stopped. Because I do remember him once saying, no, I listen, I just don't like your partner.

But there was some of that. And that was smart on his part because it's human nature. It's a lot harder to rip a guy you like. So you have a relationship with it. Was Ernie a better player than a GM? Yes. Oh, yes. A much better Nick.

In college or with the Knicks? A much better Nick than he was a general manager. And again, I don't even have to go to the transactions. To me, what's the most disturbing, what's most. indictable is what he did to at least, at least two of his coaches. And we don't know what he did to Randy Whitman. I mean, I can't. Randy should not have been fired because the guy who replaced them is not a better coach than Randy Whitman. The problem was, no, he's not. No. In that, I'll, I'll, I can't tell you how many people, you know, thought I was completely insane when Randy Whitman got

fired and Scott Brooks got hired. And I said, that is not an upgrade. You didn't like, you didn't think you didn't think that when Scott Brooks was in Oklahoma City. I didn't. I'll grant you another thing that you got right. And by the way, Scott is really nice. Yes again. And by the way, and I can totally see why one part of the coaching responsibility, and that is to really have a relationship with your players and have the players have trust in you, he's good at that stuff. He's not, look, there's so many, being an NBA coach is like, what goes into being a great NBA coach is having a great player or two, period. Yeah, that's it.

And he did have that in O KC, and he got to the NBA finals. Yes. You know, so, but in terms of X's and O's, oh, my God, Randy Whitman, far beyond. Yeah, I agree. I agree with you. And as far as great relationships with his players, from what you and I heard, or at least from what I heard, he didn't have such a great relationship with at least one of his players early in the season. Who were you talking about?

Brooks. Brooks. Oh, yeah, no, I know. Well, clearly, and this goes to just sort of the dysfunction of their two cornerstone players to a certain degree. And, you know, they were so convinced when they got rid of old Marsh that everything would be so much better because Marsian Gortat was the problem. No, he wasn't the problem either. And they actually missed him on the floor this year. But hey, you know what?

If Ted had just hung on and gotten Dwight Howard back next year, all would have been fine. You know what? Dwight Howard can come back. next year because it's his option. It's a player option. It's a player option. Oh, my back. My back. My back. Yeah. The job itself is, I mean, Ted can describe it in any way he wants to describe it. I do, and I'm probably, I don't know that I'm right anymore on this. I don't know what our city is anymore in terms of a sports town because really you've got so much dysfunction with the football team. We've seen so much exodus, mass exodus, in terms of interest in the

apathy level. Even when the Wizards had a couple of those teams here over the last couple of years that won a series and you're like, you know what, they got a shot and let's face it, if John Wald doesn't get hurt in that series against Atlanta, they're in the Eastern Conference finals that year. But the, you know, they didn't sell out all of those games and, you know, the game seven, the Boston series, which was a really entertaining series, that they had a legitimate chance to win. Yeah. You know, they really did have a chance to win.

Beal was terrible in game two and then phenomenal in game seven, but Wall disappeared in game seven, but they had a chance to get to the Eastern Conference finals and that season two. That Boston series was the first time, like, the television ratings and the crowds, you know, for the games that year. I mean, I think that game seven did a ridiculous rating. But they never got it to the next level. They needed to bust through once to the Eastern Conference Finals and play LeBron, and it would have been massive.

This is why I said that the first thing Ted needed to do when he bought the team was changed the front office because what you're talking about is the cumulative effect that Ted doesn't want to acknowledge of years and years before Ernie even got there, of damage done to this fan base. It's not going to change in a couple of playoff appearances. What is the Wizards fan base? You know, the basketball, people who love basketball in this city and love the NBA, they've had favorite teams and favorite players from outside this market for years.

I mean, that's why, like, I'm questioning my belief that the Wizards are like this sleeping giant. The NBA's big. It's become massively popular. with young people in particular. And my sense is if you had a winning NBA team, a team that was contending for a title with a star or two, that it would be a big deal in a city like Washington. I think it would be.

I think it would be. But what's remarkable, and like I've pointed this out, you've had the Bird Magic era, the Jordan era, the Shaq Kobe era, and we're on the tail end, getting to the tail end of the LeBron era. The NBA has enjoyed all this success in all those years, and the Wizards having eaten from that table once. I know, but you know what, Tommy,

a lot of teams haven't eaten from that table over the years. It's the nature of the league, you know, the Atlanta Hawks, the Knicks, the Nicks, the Nuggets. No, the NICS went to an NBA final during that period. They ate from the table. But that's, yes. Well, to find going back from all of those tables set and the Wizards weren't the only team not invited to any table. But it's a short list. Phoenix.

Well, Phoenix was in the NBA Finals. You know, it's a short list. Dallas won a title. Hold on. Memphis, but they've only been an organization for not as long New Orleans, Minnesota, Sacramento. Sacramento was at least in the Western Conference finals with the Weber teams. The Clippers haven't. No, they haven't.

You know, the Blazers did. You know, they not only won, they were in finals. Yeah, they played against Michael. The Nuggets, the Nuggets haven't been able to sit at that table, ever. Okay. Like I said, it's a short list, Kevin. I know, but going through every one of those eras, yes, the list is shorter. But if you just take it back through a couple of the eras, the list is pretty long.

It's hard. the Wizards, they can hire Tim Connolly, they can promote Tommy Shepard, they can hire Tim Legler. If wherever they pick in this year's draft or next year's draft doesn't produce a top five player, a guy that within five years becomes like six, seven years, five years anyway, becomes a top five player in the league, then we're going to be on to the next guy in 16 years. Yes, probably in 16 years because Ted's so loyal. But I guess my point is, sure, it's a fine job. But again, it's only going to be a successful job.

Somebody's only going to have success if they're able to figure it out. Because a new general manager is not going to all of a sudden attract free agents. Ted isn't attracting free agents. No, I'm sure. He thinks he can. Yeah. You know, I mean, I'm sure the whole Durant thing was about Ted selling it. And that certainly didn't work.

Where's the quote about him in talking about the job? And he did say, because I'm paraphrasing and I'm looking for the quote, he did say, you know, one of the reasons it's a great job is because of the incredible and supportive and visionary ownership. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, I know. I'm glad he said it his ownership because he wasn't clearly just talking about himself. All of his investors and other minority owners.

One last addendum to this, something that you just talked about. When they took Boston the seven games in the semifinals, it was a great series. You could lay that at Ernie Grunfeld's doorstep, because what you had was you had a guard in John Wall, who was totally exhausted. He had played the fifth most minutes of anybody in the NBA coming off of knee surgery at that point. Remember the season started, they were going to ease him in.

they were going to limit his playing time, and then they went 2 and 8, and then Scott Brooks said, we got to play John Wall all the time. So by the time, the Celtics even talked about it after that seventh game. Part of their strategy was they knew Wall was guest, and there was no option on the bench all year to spell John Wall.

And you could argue that one of the worst things that Ernie Grunfeld did was supplement the players who were effective. I mean, his benches were horrible. Yeah, I mean, that was the year that they tried to play Brandon Jennings, basically, as Wall's backup. And they, you know, they signed McDonovitch during that year. And he ended up actually being very helpful off the bench. But that's, I mean, the seventh game, it came to, you could argue it came down the wall just being exhausted. Well, he, yeah, he shot something horrific in that seventh and deciding game.

It was like, you know, eight for 25 or something. something and 0 for six, his last six, whatever it was. I mean, that, that series was, John Wall was actually exceptional in those playoffs. Yes, he was. He had, he had one of the games in franchise history in the game six closeout in Atlanta in the first round of that series when he went for like 42 and it was something ridiculous. Hold on. I'm going to find it's because I want the exact final numbers from that. that game six because I thought it was honestly up there among the top five performances in franchise history and said it at the time. 42 points, eight assists, four steals, and he scored, I think it was

18 of the team's final 22 points to close out Atlanta when they trailed, you know, late in the second half. But yeah, he was terrible in that game seven. It hurt him just like Beal's awful series early on in Boston when they had a chance to to really take over the series, hurt him too. I just, this job, by the way, forget what it is from an ownership and a city and all of that. You're coming into an organization, or if it's Tommy Shepard, in his case,

you're staying in an organization whose highest paid player may not have a future because of his injuries. You cannot deal him because of the contract and the injuries. you only have four or five players under contract for next year to start with. It's not a great destination. You did clear up potentially some space because Parker's deal will go away at the end of this year. But who are you going to really attract? And this is my view.

I think Bradley Beale is a really good, you know, score. An elite score. He is not an elite player, though. Not in my view. you have to trade them, right, before you have to pay him a max contract. Or you have to draft, you know, Zion Williamson. I mean, that, if you want to, if you want to turn the organization around and it would have nothing to do with the general manager in three months, it would be somehow win the draft

lottery and get to pick Zion Williamson. Yeah, that would work. Yeah, that would do it. That would probably do it. And you know what? You might even end up being wrong about Zion, because Walt, you know, has not lived up to what everybody thought they were getting in Wall, which was this next great superstar. John Wall, at his best and healthiest, has been a borderline top 10 to 12 player.

So they've never had a – Tommy, you have to have a top five player. You have to, or you can't win the title. I know. You can't even get there. I agree with you. The last team to do it was that Maverick team. The Maverick team and – Well, they had a top five.

In that moment, you could have argued that Dirk was just outside the top five. He wasn't a consensus top five, but he was great. He was great. By the way, that's a really good story to read on ESPN.com, the story of how Dirk Novitsky, how the NBA and Dallas, Donnie Nelson, the son of Don Nelson, became aware of Dirk Novitsky. I think I read it yesterday on ESPN.com. It's the whole Dirk story on how he got recognized from playing in Germany's second division, in second tier league is where he came from to an NBA first round pick.

Anyway, let me do a quick read. I think I got off pretty easy so far today. Really? I do. I mean, I think I made my point pretty clearly. I know what your points were going to be, and I'm thrilled, but I'm not like really excited about who they're going to hire. I just don't know what it's going to produce.

This franchise is in a difficult spot right now. You know, I mean. And the owner doesn't seem to recognize that. No, he doesn't recognize it. And I think Ted does a lot of really good things as an owner. Like the consumer experience in his arena is first rate. But let's be fair here. The Caps underachieved for years until last year.

And they got lucky in that they had the first pick in the draft, the year one of the greatest talents in the history of the sport. It was available. Yeah. All right, let me get to Windonation here quickly. Harley, Aaron, Eric, they're great, great company, great entrepreneurs. They've built the fifth largest window company in America. And right now, they've got their annual spring cleaning sales event.

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Hurry, these offseason savings won't last long. Call 86690 Nation or visit windownation.com. All right, let's, I want to get to an interview here shortly that John Kime did on his podcast with Scott McLuhan yesterday. McLuhan had some interesting things to say about RG3, about Kirk Cousins, and a few other things. John's got a podcast, so listen to that too. But I did want to get your impressions, because we have it. talked and I don't know if you wrote about it about Harper's return. Did you write about it? Oh yeah. Yeah, I wrote about it. I haven't read it. I'm sorry. Well, that's just typical of you.

Is it out? Did you send it email it to me? No, I didn't email it to you. Well, you, I usually I read it when you email it to me. Can you email it to me? Can you email it to me? I read them. Immediately, because it only takes about two minutes to read, which is the best part. What did you think? About what? Bryce Harper's return. the other night. I thought it couldn't, it would be hard to go much worse for the nationals than it did. Now that said, I loved the booing. Yeah, I thought it was impressive. I mean, it was an impressive show of passion for a fan base that generally doesn't show that. One of the things I kept, I was on Philly radio that morning. Right, you told me. And I said, you know, I don't expect much, you know,

I think probably a very civil reaction because the fan base isn't really passionate. You know, they may be loyal, but they're not passionate. And they showed me something. I mean, look, and for people, for the altar boys who were offended by the booing. Who was offended? Oh, my gosh. There were some people saying it was low rent.

It made the Nationals fan base look bad. I mean, my God. Seriously? Yes, there was a lot of that. I think there was a small badge of honor there because I wasn't expecting that level of booing. And he plays for, all right, I think it's ridiculous to consider him to be a traitor. I think that's just missing the actual facts of what happened here. But he plays for Philadelphia now.

Yeah. And he was the superstar and he didn't stay here. And he may have wanted to stay here. We'll never know for sure, unless you believe every word. of Barry's Verluga's column. But I thought it was an impressive display because, you know, it was also not surprising to me that, you know, after his third at bat, everybody started to exit the stadium in the fifth inning because everybody said it was the sixth. I went back, shot for shot on the crowd shots. You could see after his third at bat and he got a base hit,

the place, it was cold. And that fans don't want to be cold. That's for sure. It was a pretty miserable night. And I know it was. And the Phillies fans basically were out there shirtless. Well, they had a bus. They couldn't go anywhere. Well, true. So they were bused down from Philly. But ultimately, the night did turn out to be, it's a 2-0-0 game you're leaving the ballpark. Yeah.

And Bryce Harper sticks it up your backside. Yeah. Now, part of what happened in that game is illustrative of what's happening with the Nationals right now is in the first inning, Brian Dozier failed to turn a double play on a ground ball. Everyone reached base safely. Shurzer wound up throwing 20 pils. pitches that inning to get out of the inning. That meant you knew they were going to be in the bullpen earlier than they should have been. This bullpen's a problem.

Yes. And because of that, you knew that Bryce Harper, when he got a shot at the bullpen, was going to feast on it. So the fundamentals, the very thing the national spent all spring working on has basically destroyed their early sea. They're lucky to have won the two games they won. I mean, they've had base running errors, they've had fielding errors, they're giving away outs, they're, you know, everything that they profess not to do that they were not going to do anymore. Be a better base running team. They've done just the opposite.

Manage the bullpen better, have a better bullpen. Well, again, and as far as the bullpen, I don't know what's going on with Trevor Rosenthal, because I was in spring training. He can't get anybody out and hasn't yet. And is that, that's right. Is that accurate? He hasn't gotten one person out. No.

So I asked Aaron yesterday. At what point, so they won yesterday, I actually watched the game. And first of all, there was a terrible, a very inconsistent strike zone in that game yesterday for the Nats relievers, including Rosenthal, by the way. I thought he got robbed on a couple of pitches that looked good. But they come back and they win that game. And Martinez afterwards, you know, he basically, he was pissed. And he should have been pissed.

We won the game, but we're not playing well. They were lucky to win that game. They were lucky to win that game. What happened was the Phillies bullpen may be just as bad as the nationals. So before yesterday they were one and three. They're two and three now. But I said to Aaron, let's just say you get three more of these one and threes and your three and nine. What's the level in which Martinez is legitimately in trouble?

I don't think he's in trouble until May at the very earliest. That's what Aaron said, May. At the very earliest, I just don't think they're going to pull the trigger. on somebody. Is he a good manager or not? I don't know. I think he is. Like I said, I've told you,

I thought what he did last year was remarkable because I thought that team was a lot worse than everyone thought it to be since two of their starters played on one leg, you know, the entire season. So the win, 82 games, I thought was kind of surprising. But I don't know if he's a good manager. I tell you what he, the two most important thing a manager does is manage the bullpen

and manage the clubhouse. He's very good at managing the clubhouse. The bullpen is certainly up for debate. But right now, so is the guy who put the bullpen together, Mike Rizzo. I mean, the manager, it's just like Jay Gruden. I'll just coach the players. They put on the dang field for me. The manager can only bring in who the general manager put together for the bullpen.

The bullpen was not a huge question mark going into the season, but it was a bit of a question mark. Bullpens, I've told you numerous times, are very organic, and they can evolve over the course of a season. Not usually in the first week. Usually in the first week, you don't think, oh, my God, what are we going to do without bullpen? They've got a big Trevor Rosenthal problem.

Because they can't, I don't think they can afford to have him get right here on the major league level, because they play all these division games, which are so important. These three games with the Mets, they're going to play this weekend. They're important games. These are not just April games.

By the way, did you watch the last at bat with this rookie knoll? Yeah, no, who's a spitting image of Ryan Zimmerman. Yeah, it looks just like him. But he was shaky. Like he was shaking. It was such a nerve. You could see how nervous he was,

but it was Robertson who could not find the strike zone. And so all he had to do is sit there and not swing the bat and he was okay. Well, you know what was funny. I was watching. I was going on with Chad Dukes on 106-7 a fan after the game. And we were watching it together. And Noel goes up there. And this guy, and Robertson had barely proven he could throw a strike so far.

Right. You know? So Noel goes up there. I think he's 2 and O on him. I don't remember the exact count. And then he swings the bat. And I'm screaming at the TV. Are you nuts?

I mean, this is why I've said some guys are better off going up to the plate without a bat in their hands. Because this pitcher has not proven to you he could throw a strike and you're swinging. I get it. It's your first major league at bat and you're really eager to take a shot. But the only thing you needed to do was keep that bat on your shoulder and you were going to drive in the winning run. So it got me a little bit nuts that he kept swinging. and it got to a three and two count. By the way, back to Rosenthal for a moment,

because I just pulled up the play-by-play, because I wanted to see if I remembered it correctly from yesterday. He really did. He didn't throw poorly. He had multiple pitches that were in the strike zone that got called balls. He walked back-to-back guys. Franco and Kingery,

walked both of those guys back-to-back. And if you go with that pitch diagram, He had in those two at-bats, four pitches in the strike zone called balls. And even Carpenter and FP weren't going nuts, but they're like, man, that looks good to me. And they looked good. He's a guy who could have used a little help. He needed some help yesterday. And then the guy with the long name that barely fits on his jersey came in.

Bearclaw. And promptly gave up a shot to McCutcheon. He pronounced that Bearclaw. Bearclaw. I mean, that's not what you would think if you read it. Bearclaw. Bearclaw. Yeah, Bear Claw.

Yeah, no, I know how to pronounce it. I'm just saying if you look at the spelling, which barely fits on his uniform, you would think Bear Claw. Yeah. Now, again, that's a guy with a tremendous track record. And that's what you have to go by. You have to go by what a pitcher's track record is. The question mark on Rosenthal is his track record is he hasn't pitched in a major league game since 2017 and didn't pitch at all last year because he was recovering from Tommy John surgery.

So his track record's really up in the air Because, I mean, basically you have to establish one post-Tommy John And look, in spring training, first day of spring training, He's throwing 100 miles an hour And can't wait to get out there and throw the ball. All right, let's get to these Scott McLuhan comments. But a quick word for scent bird. Sent bird's a luxury fragrance subscription service.

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on his show yesterday. And there are a couple of things. I'm going to play a couple of the sound bites that I think most of the audience will be interested in hearing, and that is on Kirk Cousins and on RG3. And if we have time, I'll play the one, if we have time. We've got as much time as we want. But maybe we'll get to what he said about Jay Gruden as well. But he did say at the beginning that he has his college scouting service, which multiple NFL teams are using. So he's still working. He is still evaluating players. He lives in Denver or outside of Denver, evaluating players, and making a business around his evaluation eye, which teams still believe in with Scott.

He also implied something, Tommy, that I just wanted to mention because I found it to. to be interesting, that John asked him if he misses working for an organization or if he thinks he's ever going to work for an organization again. And he said he's had multiple opportunities for front office positions. But he said he implied that the stress of that isn't, might not be worth it. He likes what he's doing, working for himself, living in Colorado. His wife helps him with the business as well and not having that day-to-day pressure of being in an organization, being a voice in an organization. And he didn't say this.

So I may be reaching in terms of what I heard, but what I heard was a guy that we know has had a lot of personal demons. And the pressure of these jobs just gets to them and it ends poorly. You know, there are a lot of people and you probably know these people and I know these people that sometimes are just better off as lone rangers. Yeah. Without the pressure of reporting to somebody, being evaluated by people, that kind of thing. I think he's probably better off, hopefully, you know, he's healthy and doing well.

Look, I don't want to, I don't want to derail the train. I want to keep the train on the track. But, and I, again, on a show with Chad recently, I had this argument where I called Bruce Allen evil. And Chad, they said, that's ridiculous. How do you know he's evil? What do you mean evil? And he called me on it.

And he said, what's he done that's evil? And I'd say, okay, let's look at the Scott McLuhan hiring and firing. First of all, the quote, the anonymous quote that was planted in the Washington Post story, the hatchet job on McLuhan, was evil enough. But I contend hiring him in the first place was evil. Because I think Bruce Allen knew everything that you just talked about. and pressure to hire a general manager after his infamous were winning off the field postseason speech. Felt pressure to bring somebody in.

Yes. And I think he brought in a general manager he knew in that atmosphere would personally fail. I think he knew the ending to this before McClure even walked into the building. I don't think you're crazy. I do not think that that's crazy. I think it's a stretch. It is a stretch. I think it's a stretch, but Bruce Allen never wanted to bring anybody in.

He felt pressure to do so because of the winning off the field and that terrible, you know, early January press conference. And he felt like, and remember, the autonomy and the decision-making power that McLuhan, we were led to believe that he was going to have. He never had. He was essentially, for all intents and purposes, the lead guy on the drive. draft more than anything else. Not the lead guy on trades, not the lead guy in free agency, a participant, but the lead guy on the draft. Remember, we had Bruce Allen on the show from the park. You and I, I believe was you and I. Maybe, do you remember this? It was after

the Scott McLuhan press conference. Bruce walked into the studio, sat down with us, and I said, Will he have authority over the coaching staff? Will he be able to bring in a new coach if you ever get to that point? And Bruce Allen did say absolutely not on that. That's me. That's me. Yeah, I remember that. Like, and he was a little bit offended by the question.

It was almost the beginning, not that we were the beginning, but the questions for Bruce at the beginning, I don't think he realized that people wanted somebody other than him so badly. And it started to irk him. Like he was like, oh my God, this guy's going to get all the credit, you know, and no, he's not. I do believe, though. I don't know if that was intentional. I don't think it's a reach in terms of the hire and the expectation that it would fail. I definitely believe this to be true.

That they had somebody in the organization. Well, we know it was an anonymous senior executive in the organization that smeared Scott McLuhan in that post story about in in his lower rent way as you can ever imagine this is a guy that was troubled had issues you know they weren't making up that part i know that personally they weren't making up the fact that this guy had major issues there for that last year you know in terms of staying sober but to smear him the way they did in that post story really was an indication of just how mean-spirited and insecure they were because they didn't want to look like they had failed. I know.

They wanted to make sure that everybody knew that it was his fault, that he was a drunk and he was showing up to work drunk and showing up to games, you know, loaded, and they wanted everybody to know it when they could have just kept their mouths shut and said, and by the way, helped him. Yes. Gotten him help. Yes.

But that's not the kind of people they are. No. They're not helpful. So let's get back to McLuhan's interview with John. So anyway, I did want to point that out that I thought it was interesting, that he talked about, you know, I don't want that pressure, you know. Because to me, that speaks to perhaps one of the root causes or a cause for the problems that he's had in every place he's been.

All right. This first piece of sound, I'm going to, we're just going to play it. I'm going to let you comment on it and then I will as well. but John asked him, he had made this comment earlier in the interview about how Kirk was Jay's kind of guy. Kirk was. They were talking about Rosen in particular, and then it led into Kirk was his kind of guy, which by the way, we've been told here for the last year that Jay and Kirk had a terrible relationship at the end, and Jay wanted him gone, and I do know that their relationship soured,

but I also believe that Jay did like Kirk. And anyway, so he's asked about Kirk by John again to follow up about why it didn't work out for Kirk Cousins in Washington. And here's what McClellan said. And going back to what you were saying about how, you know, the kind of quarterback's Jay likes and a little bit like Kirk. And I know it's not all of the Kirk package because there were obviously frustrations. Are you surprised that it didn't work out differently here with him? And that he let it, yeah, that he was able to go. Well, personally, when I was a GM, I want to keep them.

I want to do a long-term deal and have been housed because, again, the whole package. Is he a pretty poor-border? Probably not. But he's good enough to win with. You know, we did same thing Seattle with Hasselbath. He's good enough to win with. You know, and the team of Kirk that was so great, was his personality. He's so humble.

but he's so competitive. And the players respected him. You know, and that's so important to the locker room. That's so important on the practice field. You know, and it's, you know, to him what he got was great, you know. But, yeah, I wish, if I was still there, I would be my quarterback.

So that was McClellan talking about Kirk. Let me, you're hesitating. Well, because nothing surprises me there. here's what surprises me. It doesn't surprise me, but I'm glad he said it because we just talked about the smear campaign that the organization put forth on McLuhan on his way out of town. They tried to do the same thing to Cousins on the way out to talk about how bad of a teammate he was and how no one respected him. And yet, and I pointed this out multiple times, you know, last summer and early in the year, that, you know, the team captain, the leader on the team, Trent William,

multiple times went out of his way to say that should be our quarterback, that's the guy we have to bring back. God, we, you know, I hope he comes back. And I'm sure that Kirk, like other quarterbacks, had some issues with people like Pierre Garcone along the way. But remember, Pierre Pierre, Pierre wanted Kirk over RG3, desperately lobbied for it. And Deshawn Jackson probably had some issues with Kirk. He also had issues with RG3. But I was always under the impression when Kirk was here that he was respected in the locker room. He may not have been a natural leader necessarily, but that he was respected and that people thought that he could do the job. And what you got when he, you know, was no longer a part of the potential future is you got a mini smear campaign. There was a

story that came out, and I forget, I can't even remember where it came out, that Kirk had demanded that the cheerleader's skirts be not as short as they were. I don't believe that at all. I think that was part of a mini-smear campaign. It was out, you know, it places like the Hall of Fame discussion for Jacoby. The Kirk was a terrible teammate,

not respected at all. I don't think that that was true. I'm sure there were probably players that had an issue with him, but it was not an overriding problem. in their locker room as they wanted to make you believe that. And I think McLuhan, you know, look, I don't know if we take McLuhan at his word, but I think he had a sense, too, of what Kirk was in that locker room.

He was respected more than he wasn't. Yeah, I think you're right. I think you're right on all counts. And people forget that Kirk built up relationships inside that locker room and a lot of respect for the way he handled himself publicly with the RG3 stuff. I mean, look, I had conversations with Chris Thompson who talked about how Kirk would stay after practice and work with Jameson Crowder, work with Chris Thompson when he wasn't the starting quarterback. You know, so he had built up a reservoir of respect before he even took over as a starter. Now, has he become a bit insufferable himself on social media here over the last year in Minnesota?

Yeah, he has. I'm not going to deny that at all. But, you know, and I think the other thing that would surprise people is that Scott essentially said that Kirk was Jay's kind of guy, especially when he said competitive, humble and competitive. I think a lot of people felt like he wasn't competitive enough. He was humble. He was plenty humble as the quarterback here. But again, whatever.

It's almost like the Bryce Hart. Harper thing. It's like I, it's revisionist history for people to like, view him as someone who didn't, you know, chose to go elsewhere. He didn't have a choice to stay here. I'm not saying he would have with Sean McVay gone. Once he was gone, I think the die had been cast, but they never made him an offer that he could accept. That's the, that's the part of, you know, the after Kirk left story that I just don't understand why it's such a disconnect for people. It's so, connected. He was offered $35 million less than he got eight months later on the open market. Why would you possibly have an issue with somebody saying, you know what, I can get a lot more

from an organization who, by the way, is going to embrace me a bit more. But anyway, that was an interesting part of it. And then how about this? What he said, John Kime asked him about Robert Griffin the 3rd. And Robert Griffin the 3rd recently said it may have been yesterday that the Jags tried to trade for him twice. Did you see this story? No. RG3 yesterday said that I guess he wants to compete for a starting job. Yes. Which he's not going to have the opportunity to do. That's not why Baltimore signed him to a two-year deal. They signed him to a two-year deal to back up Lamar Jackson because he is a Lamar Jackson type of player. Right. And so they don't have to change the offense for their backup. But RG3 said yesterday that Jacksonville tried to trade for him twice.

No one's backed up that story necessarily. He said that they tried to trade for him twice last year during the preseason and right before the trade deadline. But it turned out that they went after Nick Foles in the offseason instead of me, RG3. Anyway, getting back to McLuhan. Time asks him about whether or not he thinks RG3 will ever start, will ever be a starter in the NFL again. Another former Redskins quarterback was here when you got here signed back with Baltimore, RG3. Do you think he could be a starter again? No. Why not?

Anticipation, instincts, leadership. Is that good enough? Is that good enough? So that was... What about penmanship? Yeah, that was McClain on RG3. Oh my gosh. Yeah.

I mean, that's... That's an F on three out of five boxes. Well, I mean, apparently Jacksonville wanted him to be a starter and tried to trade for him twice to either back up Bordles or compete with Bortles last year. The last thing that he said that I wanted to play is his comments about Jay Gruden. He was asked whether or not he thinks Jay Gruden is a good coach by John. Going back to Jay Gruden, can this team win with Jay as the head coach? Yes.

Jay is a good head coach. Why do you say that? Because I was around him every day pretty much. I don't know what I was pretty much every day. Right. He gets the idea not just the standpoint of coaching. He's really good at the players, but he also is tough enough to get after him when he wants to. he's a really good evaluator.

He's the best I've been around. I've been around Holmgren, Pete Carroll, you know, Mike Nolan, Mike Singletary. He's the best I've been around because it's important to him. He understands. No, but they can definitely win him with him. Interesting what he said about Jay Gruden as an evaluator, the best he's been around.

He wasn't saying the best coach he's been around when he compared him to Holmgren and some of the others. He said from an evaluating standpoint is what he was saying. And I've heard people say about Jay, he's a very good evaluator of talent. The problem is... That would explain how his voice is so diminished now. When it comes to picking talent, it's barely heard. Well, I mean, I'm not sure what to believe anymore.

I think he's more involved this offseason than he's been. But, you know, as it relates to, you know, almost any position, but certainly quarterback, I'd much rather have Jay Gruden in that organization right now making the decision on quarterback than Bruce Allen. Much, much more. And that's not the way it's actually worked. You know what's interesting. Another thing that McLuhan said is that he has the ability to be tough on the players.

I think if you as DJ Swearinger, he might have a different opinion about how tough Jay Gruden is on the players. Took him seven, you know, threats before he backed it up. By the way, real quickly, he mentioned Josh Doxon. He's still a believer in Josh Doxon. he thinks the money for Landon Collins was not smart money, thinks it was too much for his safety, what he calls it in the box safety.

And he said in this particular draft, there's only one quarterback worthy. And he wouldn't say specifically because he's selling that information. But basically, if you had listened to the conversation, it's Kyler Murray. He believes in Kyler Murray. That's it. He likes Josh Rosen, liked him a lot coming out, and thinks he would be a good fit for Jay Gruden's offense.

Listen to the whole interview on John Kimes' podcast, which you can get anywhere that you get a podcast. It was well done. And it was probably, I don't know, 35 minutes in length, Aaron, something like that. 40 minutes. 40 minutes in length. Bram produces it and Bram participates in it as well. Sort of like a drop in a bucket compared to this podcast. Yeah.

One other thing that I wanted to talk about. And actually, McLuhan was asked by John about it as well. and that is this Russell Wilson ultimatum of getting a new deal by April 15th. I will tell you that McClellan said that he's a big Russell Wilson fan, obviously he was in Seattle, but he said it's wrong. Like, as great a guy as Russell Wilson is,

the organization right now is dialed in on the draft, he's under contract, they can franchise him, he can't just leave, you know, when his contract runs out, but he said he was very surprised, and disappointed that somebody like Russell Wilson would put that ultimatum on the team right now. And I wonder, like, where is it coming from? He didn't necessarily know. He was very surprised.

Where is it coming from? Does he want to get dealt? This apparently wasn't out of nowhere. Apparently, this is just getting reported now, but this is something that he had said months ago. What does he want, though, out of this? Does he want that, he wants the new deal now, or does he want to get dealt? What's the motivation behind the current deadline? because by the way, these deadlines.

So if they come to him on July 1st and say, hey, we're going to give you the biggest deal on the history, is he not going to accept it? Nope, I'm sorry, too late. Bit artificial. Yeah, I mean, look, if the Seahawks are smart, they call his bluff on this deadline thing. I guess.

Yeah. That's probably how they should handle it. Yeah, but I would want to, if I would seehawks, and like you said, they can extend this for a while, I'd want to keep Russell Wilson. Oh, God, yes. Okay. That said, I'd want to keep him.

Yeah, I mean, this guy is a baller winner, period. He has to be in your organization. It may cost you a lot of money, but he will make people around him better. Yeah, I'm sure he wants, you know, the biggest deal in the history of the league, that kind of thing. Do you know what the franchise tag would be, and I believe it would be 2020? I think it's 30 million. I think it's more than that for him. Is it more than that?

I thought I saw somebody tweet out that it was a $30 million. If Kirk had played with the Redskins last year. He's going to be 25 something, 26. I think 25 or 26 million would have been for Kirk last year. Yeah. No, maybe more. Kirk's going to make $30 million in 2020. That's where you start with Russell.

Wilson. Yeah, I mean, yeah, the contract, what was the Matt Ryan deal? Here are the contracts. Here are the recent contracts. All right. Aaron Rogers, the deal he signed, the $134 million deal was for an average annual of 33.5 per year. Matt Ryan was at 30, and that was shortly after Kirk signed the deal that averages out to be 28. So you're going to have to get Russell, Wilson, a deal that tops Rogers' deal. I'm guessing that it's going to have to be a deal that's somewhere in the neighborhood of $33 to $35 million per year. It's going to have to be a record setting deal, even if that record lasts for just five minutes, which they only seem to do these days in the NFL. The other portion of that that will be important to him, I'm sure, is Matt Ryan's fully guaranteed part of his deal is the most ever at $94.5 million. So you're probably going to have to guarantee Russell Wilson more than 94.5. But to your point, I know that there seems to be this recent infatuation with rookie quarterback contract deals.

That's great. It's awesome. If you can find the rookie quarterback deal or the young quarterback on a rookie deal that can win a Super Bowl that is a real difference maker, that's great. The problem is one out of every four is even serviceable. Yeah. Three out of the four that are on rookie deals aren't worth anything, more times than not. So if you have a guy like Russell Wilson and you got to pay Russell Wilson, he's a difference maker.

I think you do. He's a difference maker too in a way in which like Joe Flacco when he got his big deal after a Super Bowl isn't. Russell Wilson literally can run around and make plays that win games. Yes. You know, with an average supporting cast. Flacco in Baltimore needed the supporting cast, which he really didn't have the last few years,

including changeover in coaching staff, you know, in the offensive coordinator front, talent, etc. You know, if you've got a guy like Russell Wilson, you pay him. I can't imagine that somebody would be thinking so far outside the box to think, you know what, we're not going to tie up that much cap space in Russell Wilson. and we loved him on his rookie deal. We loved him on this last deal. I think we can find another one in the draft and pay him very little.

That's crazy talk. But that goes against the trend. I mean, the trend is to let these guys walk. The discussion trend is to, hey, you know, let's draft three or four guys or draft two or three and have one of them be the guy on a rookie deal. Right. Okay, well, you still got a hit on the guy. Yeah.

That's the problem. That position is much more missed than hit. So if you've already hit what you did, you got to pay him. I think, I don't know, the way... My inclination is to pay the man. I think you pay Russell Wilson. I think you pay him. What else do you have for me today?

I got nothing else for you, boss. Nothing? No. Nothing boss. Don't call me boss anymore because we know who the real boss is in this relationship. I do what I'm told. All right. it. The

Wizards tried to win another game last night, which is mind-boggling to me. Stop doing that. Just lose it. Because really, the only answer is Zion Williamson. Yes. That is the only... Wouldn't that be amazing? Be unbelievable. They have a chance. They're going to be in the lottery. I'd like him to lose

more games to increase their odds. I think they've got like a 5% chance at this point. Oh, I didn't ask you about the AAF. Weren't you into it a little bit or not? You know, here's the thing. I'd like new leagues that start up. I love Maverick new leagues.

So I like the idea, but I thought it was incredibly arrogant to think that you can start a new football league in the atmosphere we're in right now in terms of the sport of football. I think Vince McMahon, the XFL is Vince McMahon's Moabee Dick. It's his white whale. I mean, I think he's going to go down with it like Ahab

for the second time. Just sold another 200 million in stock. I know, but I compared starting a football league now to deciding tomorrow you've got 100 acres of land in Virginia, I'm going to be a tobacco farmer. Right. So I thought it was destined to fail, and I thought it was just a little bit arrogant to think that you could start one that's successful. And ironically, this is the second failed league for an Ebersoll family member. Dick Ebersoll was partners in the first XFL with Vince. with Vince McMahon.

And his son Charlie was the guy behind the AAF. I wish it would have succeeded. You know, a lot of people, I think it's cool when you have new leagues. I think it's the more sports options, the better, I say. I know, but it also just speaks to this incredible, you know, stranglehold that the NFL has,

and college football, too, to a certain degree, has over sports fans in this country. But let me tell you something, as Ted Leones is with, say, watch out for that arena football league, buddy. It's growing. But it was also way too presumptuous to think that the legalization of sports betting would somehow be, you know, the launch pad for a new football league.

It just isn't. I mean, I think the legalization of sports betting in so many ways is so overrated. It presumes that you haven't been able to bet on sports. It's crazy. But anyway, the NFL and the rhythm of the NFL, and the rhythm of the NBA. NFL in the fall, and then the off-season rhythm that you get into with free agency and the draft, and then you get a couple of months off before you get geared up. It's what everybody seems to be satisfied and happy with. You know, like, I don't really need to watch games in March. I'm

watching Free Agency in March. I don't need to see games in April because the draft is coming up in April. And I know the ratings weren't terrible necessarily. I was going to I was there was fan interest. A little bit, but it's not enough. It's not enough to sustain what is an incredibly expensive operation. A very expensive operation. On the other hand, Steve Spurrier got to coach against and should win a championship. They should award them a post.

Were they undefeated? They were undefeated? Yeah. What, what were four and oh? Three and a nine, how many weeks? Seven and oh or something. Did they get seven weeks of this? They got seven weeks.

I didn't watch one minute of it. And I don't know that there are a lot of people dissimilar for me. I mean, I'm the biggest football fan there is. I had zero interest in following this thing. And Tommy, the USFL, I bet it like crazy. Like I do remember being in college, the USFL had Herschel Walker. I know, and Doug Flutie and Kelvin Bryant and stars. And it still wasn't like you were watching every game.

But if you were like me and college. with a gambling problem. You bet the hell out of the L.A. Express with Steve Young every once in a while. All right. You got a final four pick? Because by the time you get back here, it'll be champion. I'm going to say Virginia.

To win it all. That against two, who are they going to play? Michigan State or Texas Tech. Texas Tech. Okay, Virginia over Texas Tech. All right. See you. All right.

Thanks, Aaron. Thanks to Tommy. Have a great day.