The Kevin Sheehan Show - Trade Dunbar

Episode Date: February 21, 2020

Kevin and Thom open with Thom's trip yesterday to Urgent Care. They got to the Redskins' news of the day which includes Jordan Reed's release and Quinton Dunbar once again asking for a trade or release. They discussed the all time Redskin "What Ifs". Also, what Davey Johnson told Thom about the Astros cheating scandal. Some Fury-Wilder 2 talk followed by Aaron and Kevin previewing a big college hoops weekend finished up the show. <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. Tommy's here today by phone from down in West Palm Beach, Florida, where there's a big game tomorrow night. The Astros and the Nats will face off in the first spring training game. And most of the attention will be on the Astros. We'll get to that later on. I want to remind people, if they missed the show yesterday, Cooley had some. some really interesting thoughts on Quentin Dunbar, and there was some news on Quentin Dunbar, actually after the podcast yesterday, Ryan Carrigan, and Joe Burrow also. So go back and listen to Cooley, who sat in for an hour with me yesterday with Tommy out. But Tommy's back. So he's here on a Friday, and you were out yesterday, and I didn't really go into the detail because I didn't know what the detail was when I was recording the podcast yesterday. I just know that you, Once again, found yourself in an urgent care facility.

Are you okay? You know, Kevin, I got to tell you, you know, you might want to look in the crystal ball. You might not want to look in your crystal ball and see what your life is going to be like when you're 65, 66, but it ain't pretty. I mean, again, last week I was in the hospital emergency. This week I went to urgent care. urgent care luckily for me is literally right across the street from my hotel but i was in such bad shape uh with pain in my right foot that it took me a half hour to probably walk 50 yards you didn't have me to drive you across the street no no this this was this was a very painful

situation. My right foot started hurting me on Tuesday night, and all day, Wednesday, it hurt, but it was manageable. I just felt, you know, I had broken in new sneakers a couple weeks ago, and I thought, well, maybe that's it. But I walk a lot on Wednesday. I was walking all over the place. So Thursday morning when I woke up, oh, my God, it was as severe a pain as I've ever had in that right foot. And it took me so long to move to get ready to do anything. And it turns out it plants are fasciitis. Right. But I've never had it before. You haven't had prior fasciitis before. You had the elbow thing, the elbow, whatever it was displacement or whatever from last week. And you got really, you got really testy with me because I just wanted

to know the painkillers that you were taking. And maybe, you know, maybe you should, just you should have just told me what you were taking because maybe you know this set it up for another painkiller situation and now you're going to have to tell me what they they prescribed to you. That's it. That's it. You know, I, Tommy sent me yesterday, yesterday morning, a text that is incredibly long and I'm not going to read it to everybody. But there was one. I had lots of time. I had lots of time. The text, yes. I know. And the one line in here was, I couldn't walk. My foot was on fire. And then, you know, after the show, I said, you know, I texted you and I said, are you okay? And, you know, you got into all the stuff and what was going on. But my favorite part of it, which I think I can read, I don't think I need to ask you to read this.

No, go ahead. Um, you said that, you know, the pain level was so significant that it was the first time that you, when the, you said, it's the first time ever. When they ask you, you know, to assess your level of pain and they give you the scale of one to ten on how bad the pain is, it's the first time you've ever blurted out, 10. Yeah. And I can just hear you, 10! I mean, I can only imagine how high your voice got when you said that. And I texted you back, you know, and by the way, I think all of us probably have been in that position where you've got, you know, on a scale of 1 to 10 assess your pain. And I'm always trying to be the badass and say, oh, it's just a 2 or a 3.

But for you to say it was a 10, you must have really been in pain. Oh, you know, like you say, you struggle with that because, you know, there's something that says, You don't want to make a big deal out of something that maybe isn't. But you want to give them a good enough number so they give you something that'll help. Yeah, you want them to know how much pain you really are in so they don't just, like, give you an aspirin and tell you to leave. So it's always a difficult number to come up with. This time, it was the easiest it's ever been. That's funny.

And I'm telling you, I said to the doctor, I said, I'm sure I've been in this kind of pain before. I just can't remember when. Yeah. And you may have been in that pain before, but it was probably masked by some liquid that you were drinking at the time. So you had mentioned to me that the first thing I thought of, you know, as you know, I like to play, you know, I like to play doctor on radio every once in a while.

The first thing I thought of is they're going to put you on like a pretty strong steroid to get rid of this. you're probably going to have some pain medication as well. You said this morning you texted me, you're like, oh, my God, I'm like a different person. You feel so much better. What did it? Was it the painkiller or the steroid that's starting to take effect? Oh, it's got to be the steroid.

Yeah. I mean, this is such a remarkable drug. I mean, I just got off steroids right out for the elbow. I mean, I tell you what, now I should be able to hit a ball 500 feet with all the stairplies I've been on the past couple of weeks. But the steroids did it. I took, you know, they give you six one day, five the next day. So I couldn't wait to take the six that they prescribed for me yesterday. And I know that did it.

I mean, it's 70% 80% better than it was yesterday. I don't need crutches. I can walk around just with a little discomfort. They shot me with a painkiller in my rear end yesterday. I wouldn't have cared at that point where they gave me. Yeah, you're going to stuck it in your eye and you would have been fine with it. Because... I don't know.

I don't even know what that was. And then they gave me an ointment that they have now, a cream that is used for arthritis and pain like this. It's something relatively new. it's like a steroid cream in a way that they're able to give you. And you put that on three or four times a day. And then they gave me the steroid medicine. And that has changed everything. So God only knows what damage is doing.

Maybe I'll have temples and want to back at some point. Well, I mean, steroids I'm taken. You know, this is something that, you know, a lot of runners get, I think. athletes get it a lot. We've heard, you know, we've heard that over the years. Ryan Zimmerman. Right. And it's painful. Yeah. I mean, now I know it. Right. Now you and Ryan have a conversation. But beyond this medication, which will obviously, you know, certainly, you know, take it away for a while,

is there a risk of now that you've had it once of having it over and over again or not? What's the prognosis beyond, you know, once you're off of this steroid? for six days? Well, the prognosis is it lasts a long time. It's not something that just goes away. Right. Are they saying to limit the number of podcasts you do? No, no, they're not.

Okay, good. No, they're not. You say that, but I don't. So here's the deal, and it's the kind of thing where rest doesn't help it. It's the opposite. The more you want, like in the morning is when it's worse. because that's after you've rested all night. And then as you walk throughout the day, it supposedly gets better.

Yeah. So it's a very strange, and it could last for months. My wife had it, and she had to deal with it for about seven or eight months. Eventually it went away. Some people have it so severe. I know someone who had an operation to get rid of it. I'm hoping it's just because I can live with a certain level of pain. hell, I lived with pain in my knees for 10 years.

But, so I don't know what the prognosis will be. I don't know if I'm in for some long-term discomfort, light discomfort. It'll go away maybe six months or not. But it's not a whole lot you can do. I'm glad you're feeling better, and I'm glad they took good care of you. I'm glad that urgent care place was close because... Right next door. Yeah.

I could see it from my hotel. window. Yeah, that could have been a problem. It was either that or hooters, which is right I know planter fasciitis isn't the same thing as planter warts. Have you, did you ever get warts? Aaron, have you ever had warts? No. When I was in my like 1920, maybe 18, 1920, I'd get some warts sometimes on my hand. And that was it. I put whatever the medicine was on them. I forget what the medicine was.

Yeah, there was a medicine, but that medicine would just reduce them, you know. You either had to get them frozen off or cut out if they were really bad. So for whatever reason, I got warts all the time. I still have one on my finger. That is completely insignificant. It doesn't bother me. I don't need to have it taken care of. But Tommy, it was probably 20 years.

ago, I had a wart on my heel that I couldn't, it got so thick and, it sort of ingrained and it became so painful to walk on. I couldn't, after a while, I couldn't get shoes on, and I had to go get that thing cut out, which wasn't pleasant, by the way. I mean, they numb you up and whatever, but I didn't know if, I actually don't know even to this day if a lot of people get warts like planter warts but i used to get them all the time on hands feet and elsewhere but i'll never forget the one that i had on my heel couldn't walk for like a week until i got to cut out um and you're right i mean look at your hands and your feet are the most painful place to get shot i mean or to get any kind of surgery or operation or something like that but your nerve endings

are most sensitive there so i'll bet it hurt a little bit of lot to get it taken out. Yeah, I, uh, the, the, um, I've gotten cortisone shots in my, my hand recently. I've had like three of them over the last four years because I've had this, what they call trigger finger. You ever heard of that? Yes, I do. You do know what trigger finger is? Yeah, I do. A friend of mine had an operation about them. Well, it's, about five years ago. So basically, a trigger finger, I don't know why we're doing this. We do this, this too. much, but maybe people are, you know, have had the same things. Trigger finger is literally when you've got a finger that gets caught and you can't extend it

without it like, sort of almost like you have to take your other hand and unfold it with your other hand and it hurts a little bit, but it gets stuck in a spot. And they call it trigger finger where your finger is literally stuck in sort of a trigger mode like you're pulling a trigger and you can't get it extended. I've had three cortisone shots to fix it. Mine, I'm positive, comes from the last like four or five, six years of playing more golf than I've ever played. I'm pretty sure it comes from that. But the orthopedic essentially told me that's it on the cortisone shots.

If this happens again, you're going to have to get surgery on it, which it hasn't happened now in over a year. I hope it doesn't happen again. Because there is like this limit on cortisone shots, I guess. Yeah, I know that. I used to get them in my knees until I can't. It doesn't work at some point. At some point, I guess it just doesn't work. I think that's more of it right than it becomes, it's not that it becomes unhealthy to have.

Right. Here's something. You said, you shouldn't get cortisone injections more than every six weeks and usually not more than three or four times per year. It doesn't say why. But whatever. Maybe somebody can answer that. My friend, the friend who had the operation was a guitar player. So that's where he got his from.

And it worked for him. I mean, the operation was a great success. And he's 68 years old and playing in a band in Germany. So he's doing fine. All right. Well, I'm glad. But what I was going to say about a cortisone shot is it is painful in a hand. I can tell you that.

Now, it's quick, and it's pain for just about a half second, but it is painful when they, you know, because they take that thing. Yeah, they take that thing and they pound it down, you know, a cortisone shot. You know, it's not a slow injection. Anyway, all right, let's get to some things. I actually have a lot of things, including your column, which I actually referenced this morning with Mark Zuckerman on the radio show, because I thought Davey Johnson's quotes to you were really actually very interesting.

And it opens up almost a whole completely different, conversation about the Astro's sign-stealing cheating scandal, which I think is actually an interesting one. So we can get to that a little bit later. I did want to start with the Redskins news from yesterday because there was a lot of it. Now, none of it's that unexpected, with the exception of the new Quentin Dunbar stuff. Jordan Reed was released. He cleared concussion protocol finally. They released him. I think the team, you know, I think the team basically was like, look, we're not releasing you while you're on concussion protocol because it could cost us some cap space if we do it. And Cooley made the point yesterday, too. He's like, look, once he went on injured reserve,

there's not like any sense of urgency to get him cleared from the concussion protocol. You know, if there was an urgency to continue to look at him with respect to clearing him, he would have been, you know, available to play. Once he went on injured reserve, you know, they didn't get to it until the end of the year. But anyway, Jordan Reed gone, $8.5 million in salary cap savings. John Kime reporting yesterday, as I mentioned on the podcast yesterday, that Jordan still wants to play. Like he is planning on playing the rest of his career. The other news that came out yesterday was this Josina Anderson report on Quentin Dunbar.

Now, let me give you a little bit of the chronological, you know, Quentin Dunbar story here over the last week and a half before I get to what Josina Anderson reported on Twitter yesterday. First of all, there was the J.P. Finley stuff about him wanting to be traded or released because of the contract. He wants a significant contract extension. He's due to earn $3.25 million right around there in 2020. He wants an extension. He probably deserves an extension. I think most teams probably would have extended him at this point. But he went public with that. And then a couple of days later, he called Doc. He called Doc Walker and said, look, man, I've talked to Ron Rivera, and I'm not, you know, I'm not looking at a trade or a release anymore. But a week after he called Doc to tell him that came this yesterday from Josina Anderson. Quote, sources close to Redskins cornerback Quentin Dunbar tell me that he had reached out to the team to discuss a reasonable contract restructure,

but the club declined the conversation. Dunbar remains resolute in his desire to be released or traded, closed quote. That from Josina Anderson. It's gone public now, you know, three times in a week and a half. Yes. I think it's time to move on from Quentin Dunbar. Cooley said yesterday on the podcast, because I asked him about Dunbar before this latest thing. He said, you can't give Dunbar an elite corner contract.

He's not a number one corner. And I think a lot of us have gotten caught up here with Quentin Dunbar, you know, being the receiver that turned into a corner on a team that was bad, that didn't have good corners. And he's probably been the best corner. But Cooley pointed out, look, he's been a number two corner for us. No matter what you think about Josh Norman, Norman got the number one responsibilities more than Dunbar did.

The team realizes that Dunbar is a good player. He's a number two corner. He's a starter. but he's not, you know, and I'm sure they're interested in extending him, but probably not at the level of like what a number one corner gets. And, you know, 3.25 million may not be enough, but, you know, 12 million a year is way too much. So it's somewhere in between. But beside that, this dude's gone public three times in a week and a half. If it's me, and I'm trying to create a new culture, and we had a conversation a week and a half ago,

and, you know, he's continuing to go public. See ya. I'm done. I'm moving on. I'm trying to trade him. I agree with everything you said. He's, we got caught up in the Quentin Dunbar, you know, reversal project from wide receiver to a cornerback. And everyone loves those kind of things because it illustrates that somebody somewhere had a good enough eye to see that this guy had talent and was willing.

to experiment and take a chance on something. And we always like that. I mean, we always like to think the people that run our football team, however bizarre thought this may be, sometimes are smart enough to have vision. And somebody somewhere was smart enough to have that vision with Clinton Dunbar. But you're right, he's a good corner, he's not an elite corner, does not deserve elite money.

And as far as, you know, like, look, this is separate. but tied to the argument that, and I felt more strongly about this than you did, that the first thing Ron Rivera should have done after he had his press conference and found his office would start reaching out to all the players that he already decided he was interested in, and apparently he didn't do that. No, I agreed with you on that. I didn't. I felt just as strongly. My question was, you can be doing all this.

stuff you're doing, hiring a coaching staff, evaluating players, but you should probably reach out to Trent Williams, you know, day one. Yeah. But he didn't, and whatever, and it still may work out with him. And I would have thought, if you're running the team, again, from afar, you would like Quentin Dunbar on your team, but again, you're right, he's a number two, because you don't have any other corners right now, really to speak of that you can count on. So you would like him on your team.

I would have reached out to him. and stop this from happening in the first place. Now, maybe he wouldn't have liked what you had to say when it came time to talk about money, and he would have gone public anyway, and then you move on. If that's what's going on, then that's fine. The bottom line is everybody who claims to be a Redskins fan, if they haven't signed the Ron Rivera Pledge, they need to sign it now.

anything that Ron Rivera wants to do at this point is okay with them. I'm going to go with it. I'm going to hope that he's making all these decisions and it's new and it's improved and he's a quality guy and he's a respected coach, so let's let him do what he wants to do. Dunbar, though, I would imagine if you're trying to change the culture of an organization, which this organization needs drastic and significant overhaul and culture, that a guy that goes public with wanting to be released and traded three different times with three different stories, I'm saying that's not the kind of culture we're going to have around here.

You're going to have to be patient. You're going to have to recognize your value. We're going to make you an offer at some point. You can turn it down at that point and play next year at $3.25 million and then become a free agent. That's the way this works. If you're going to continue to go public with this stuff, we think we can get a fourth rounder for you. So we're going to move on or whatever it would be. I agree.

I agree with you 100%. All right. The next thing on it. So I wanted to circle back to Jordan Reed for a moment because I did this thing on radio today and could have taken calls the entire show on it. And it basically was, you know, Jordan Reed will be for Redskin fans one of those big what-ifs. You know, what if he had stayed healthy? What if he had been healthy? Because we saw the talent.

And when he was healthy, he was elite as a pass-catching tight end. He really was. He was an elite talent that if he had stayed healthy, had been available more than unavailable, you know, would have been in all-time great for the Redskins at the position. I do believe that. The biggest what-if in Redskins history is Sean Taylor. I don't know. You might decide to debate me on.

that. I think most Redskin fans, the significant majority of Redskin fans, would say the biggest what if in Redskins history is what if Sean Taylor had lived. He would have been the greatest safety in franchise history, one of the greatest safeties in NFL history. Some think the goat he would have turned into Hall of Famer, you know, given the circumstances, given the kind of player he was, given the kind of play that he was starting to exhibit into 2007, that to me is number one on the list of the biggest what-ifs in Redskins history. But I came up with a long list of many of them. And you're going to remember as a Redskins author and historian,

and you're going to remember a lot of them as well. I think there's a clear-cut number two on this list. But before I get to mine, first of all, do you agree with me on Sean Taylor? And then if you do or if you don't, what is the first one other than him that comes to mind? Well, he's not even in my top five. I knew. I knew you'd be somewhere in that area. All right, go ahead.

Can I guess what your number one is? Sure. Lombardi. Yes. That was my number two. Lombardi dying. Lombardi dying. Lombardi, who loved Sonny Jurgensen, and it was a mutual love and got the most out of him.

And after 15 years of losing seasons, turn the Redskins into a winner with a 7-5-and-2 record on the brink of talk about a culture change. There was a culture change coming, and probably for the next three or four years, would have gotten the best out of Sonny Jurgensen, Larry Brown, although George Allen did get the best set of Larry Brown. Charlie Taylor and that all and Jerry Smith. Yes. He would have taken that offense and then put a defense behind it. That could have, I mean, that would not have, I mean, eventually George Allen got the Redskins to the playoff. But from 68 to 72, Lombardi could have been making those maybe championship seasons.

So Lombardi dying to me is the biggest what-if. Sean Taylor, come on. Don't tell me he's not in your top five. Quickly, give me your other four that are bigger what-ifs in Redskins history. He might be fifth. The other one is the Redskins lose into the Cowboys, 35 to 34. Oh, my God. Good for you.

I had that one this morning, too, and I tried to explain to everybody what that meant. You're right. That's up there. Yeah. If the Redskins win that game, the Redskins had a good team that year. They would have been the number one seed in that postseason in the N.C. And Jack Pardee is the coach, and they win that game, and they have any playoff success at all, then there's no Joe Gibbs.

Of course. Jack Pardee is not getting fired the next year. Riggins doesn't retire in 1980. Right. There's no Joe Gibbs. I mean, there's no Joe Gibbs. what are we really talking about here then? Well, look, we might be talking about Jack Pardee's

1979 Redskins going to the Super Bowl and losing to the Steelers. And then maybe, you know, being really good the next few years. Because a lot of those players ended up being the foundation of Gibbs' team. Yes. You know, Stark, Thysman, Rigo, you know, Monty Coleman? Even though a lot of guys,

didn't like Fardy. I know that. He wasn't, he wasn't, he wasn't very well liked as a coach. Right. Dave, but, Dave, but hated him. I mean, would have patched him. So, okay, I can keep going. Go ahead. Number three, Joe Gibbs and Sam Grossman not getting the bid to buy the Redskins. Okay, you whiffed on a big one that comes before that.

Okay. but and the reason I say that is because they're sort of tied together. Jack Kent Cook's handling of his estate not making it easy and allowable for John Ken Cook to keep the team is in that is my number three after Lombardi

and Sean. I mean, John Ken Cook was not a good owner. We don't know that. We know that the father wasn't comfortable with him, but we know this, Tommy. He would have been a hell of a lot better than Dan Snyder. And we wouldn't have had the last 21 years. No, but let's make it even better than that

and having Joe Gibbs as the owner of the team starting in 1999. That would have been much better than John Kent Cook owning the team. I guess that's true. I mean, I guess it's true. I don't know anything about Sam Grossman. He's the Arizona guy. The Gibbs is, you know, was teamed up with in a bid, you know,

against all the other people that were involved, including the learners at one point very early on. Yes. But, you know, I still, to this day, does anybody ever been able to explain why Jack Kent Cook forced his son to sell the team rather than leaving it to him? Did he really think that he'd F it up badly?

There's only been speculation. Nobody knows for sure. I would suspect it's a little bit of he didn't have faith in him as an owner to carry on his name. And he wanted to create a legacy for himself with the Jack Kent Cook Foundation, which is still, to this day, giving out scholarships to kids in Washington, D.C. And the foundation has done a lot of good. And as crazy as Cook could be sometimes, he always thought about his legacy. He wanted to live forever, literally.

So the foundation gave him a chance to live forever. Imagine what would happen to the Cook name if his son, you know, diminished it by continuous failure. I don't think Jack would have liked that. Look, the last thing Jack Kent Cook left us two things. He left us FedEx Field and Dan Snyder essentially, or the opportunity for Dan Snyder. You're right.

You're right. And the FedEx field, look, he couldn't predict who would, you know, own the team. And maybe he did think, look, anybody's going to be better than my dopey son. He may have thought that. Of course, it turns out that he was probably wrong about that. But that stadium was rushed. There was, you know, there was a lot of ill will with Sharon Pratt Kelly and with the district. And he decided he's going to land over.

and he built a dump because he wanted to see that thing before he died. Yeah. Well, like we discussed before, and by the way, you did see the Washington Post story last week about how FedEx Field, Ghost Town Field, is now the leading candidate for the new stadium. Yeah, I thought we talked about that. Maybe I talked about it without you. I'm sorry. Yeah.

But look, Cook went to Landover because, like you said, he was running out of time, and he had no choice. Yeah. I mean, the district thing, everyone talks about, you know, the bad feelings with him and Kelly, that started when Cook started looking for a stadium in the district in 87. So he had issues with Marion Barry early on that got in the way as well. And then he went to Virginia and held a press conference with the governor standing right next to him, Doug Wilder, and couldn't get it done in Virginia either. This is why I say to people, if Cook couldn't get it, what makes people think Snyder's going to be able to get it?

So, yeah, FedEx Field has been a stain on the Cook legacy, and I'm sure somewhere, wherever Jack Kent Cook is in his heaven, or wherever it is, he's probably saying, at least they don't have my name on it anymore. Right. And then, okay, I've got one more. You got one more before you get to Sean. What's your one more? Right. The Redskins don't make the RG3 trade. Yeah.

They don't make the RG3 trade. They keep those draft picks, which they need, which days later, they get hit with a $36 million salary cap penalty. And this time, instead of waiting to the third round to draft Russell Wilson, Mike Shanahan draft them earlier. and Russell Wilson is your quarterback moving forward. Yeah, I had that on my list. So we have, of your list, I didn't have the Gibbs Grossman thing, but that's true.

I mean, clearly the what-if is they had to come up with a lot more money, right? Yeah. Because I would assume that Paul Tagliaboo and the rest of the owners would have preferred a bid with Joe Gibbs involved if it had been for, you know, $800 million or north of that as, you know, whatever the Snyder-Milstein bid ended up being. So, first of all, Jordan Reed is a really good what-if in Redskins history. It's not in the top 10, okay? I mean, it's not. Sean Taylor, you know, is, I think, part because of circumstance.

But that was my number one. And certainly Lombardi was, you know, a close number two. You know, the thing that you said just a couple of years, I think when Lombardi won in 69, when the Redskins went 7, 5, and 2, which was their first winning season since I think 45 or whatever it was, and they had lost with Sonny Jurgensen and Charlie Taylor and Bobby Mitchell, but had been exciting through the 60s. I think, you know, people thought after that season the Redskins were on the verge of being the Packers of the 70s. Yes, they weren't.

Yeah. That's what people thought. Absolutely. So, you know, that's a huge... And what I meant, I meant for the next couple of years, the Redskins wouldn't have been an elite NFC team. Yeah. Absolutely.

And, and of course, you know, George Allen didn't just take the Redskins to the playoffs. He took him to a Super Bowl in 1972. I know that. I'm not diminishing that. I'm just saying that what could have been, particularly with Sonny Jurgensen, what we could have seen out of Sonny Jurgents, for those next couple of years, I mean, this would have been great.

Well, I mean, that'll leave me back to Sunny here in a moment. But next on the list was my Jack Kent Cook estate, you know, and not leaving the team to John. It certainly would have meant that we didn't get the two decades of Dan Snyder. Marty Schottenheimer is way up there for me on the list. If Schottinheimer stays as the head coach, Snyder's probably viewed as a different owner. And the Redskins probably win, you know, several division titles,

go to the playoffs, multiple times, have many double-digit win seasons. And by the way, as sort of an adjunct to that, I think LeVar Arrington turns out to be a star NFL player with a big-time Redskin career under Marty Schottenheimer. Schottenheimer's departure with Kent Graham and Tony Banks, a quarterback going eight and three over those final 11 games, is still the dumbest, the number one dumbest thing of all time done by, during the Snyder ownership era. And that's way up there on the list of what-ifs. I had the 79 Cowboys Redskins game on my list, too, Tommy.

And, you know, I waited for a caller to get to it. I didn't think they would. That game really is. First of all, and I've mentioned this many times in the past, it's one of the great regular season games in NFL history. If you've never seen it, it's available on YouTube. If you just Google Redskins Cowboys 1979, the actual CBS call of that game with Pat Sumerall and I think Tom Brookshire doing the game is there.

It's one of the great all-time regular season games. The game was played in the final NFL week of the season. It's the rivalry at its height, and the Cowboys and the Redskins are playing a game for not only the NFC East division title, but the number one seed in the NFC playoffs that year. The winner of the game is going to be the favorite to go to the Super Bowl. If the Cowboys lose, they're still in as a wild card, but the Redskins had to win. If they lost the game, they were out completely because earlier that day, the Bears beat the Cardinals by 44 points or something like that. And it came down to point differential between the Bears and the Redskins for the wild card spot.

And the Bears went. So the Redskins knew it kickoff that. they win, they're the number one seed, they lose, they're out. It's one of the most devastating losses in franchise history. It cost, Rigo retired because of how painful that loss was. He sat out in 1980. Jack Pardee's team slumped the following year to six and ten. The game's circumstances, the Redskins had a 13 point lead with two minutes to go in the game. 13. And they lost, or 13 point lead with three minutes to go in the game. They lost the game 35-34, after being up 34-21, an incredible game from Rigo, went well over 100 yards,

had a 66-yard touchdown run, and Stauback brought him back. You know, in Staubeck fashion, threw a touchdown pass to Tony Hill. Redskins had the ball late. We're in field goal range, and two seconds rolled off the clock with the Redskins screaming for a timeout. Back then, the timing of games wasn't so precise. You know, there wasn't a replay ability to go back and say, wait a minute, there were two seconds left in the clock when they completed this pass and he was touchdown. And you would have had a Mosley 58-yard field goal attempt to win the game there at the end, and he had the leg for it. But anyway, you went six and ten the next year, Pardee gets fired, and Gibbs gets hired. If they hold on to a 13-point lead, they're in the

playoffs. Even if they don't win the Super Bowl or even go to the Super Bowl, parties probably getting his contract extended. Riggins is back the next year. And they're not six and ten the following year. And so that is really a significant what if, because without Gibbs, who knows what Pardee would have been, you know, Pardee had other chances to coach. He coached the Oilers, you know, after the Redskins in the 80s. He had coached the Bears before coming to the Redskins in the mid-70s. And it, by the way, had gone to the playoffs a number of times as a head coach, Jack Pardee did.

He may not have been well-liked, but he had a lot of success as a head coach. So the other things I had on the list, you know, Sonny Jurgensen, George Allen's first year, 1971. All right, the Lombardi had passed away a year and a half earlier. Bill Austin took the job as sort of an interim one-year deal in 1970. They hired George Allen in 71. Sunny's going to be the starting quarterback. They traded for Billy Kilmer, but Sonny's your number one quarterback going into the 71 season. And in the fifth preseason game, Tommy, they played six back then, as you know.

They played six preseason games. Aaron, can you believe that? Six preseason games in the 70s in the NFL. In the fifth preseason game, in the third quarter, Sonny Jurgensen, Sonny's one of the, he's one of the three or four best quarterbacks in the league, and he's your starter, and they got him in there playing in the third quarter of the fifth preseason game. He throws an interception to the great Dick Anderson, Hall of Famer Dick Anderson, chases him down and separates his shoulder.

He's out six weeks. Billy Kilmer starts the season. They go five and oh, and George Allen never looks back. Billy's his guy. And so a big what-if is if Sonny hadn't been in that game, they would have been not only a playoff team in 71, they may have been much better offensively. And then 72 Tommy, Sunny is getting the opportunity because Billy's banged up and then he tears his Achilles at Yankee Stadium. And he's gone for the year.

And that was the year the Redskins did go to the Super Bowl, lost to the Dolphins in 72, the perfect dolphins, the 17 and no dolphins. But to this day, I think a lot of Redskins fans believe that if Sonny Jurgensen had been healthy, the Redskins would have been Super Bowl champs that year. although the dolphins were really good. So some of the sunny stuff is on my what-if, the two injuries in those back-to-back ears. And then I got a couple of obscure ones for you. The 2000 season, what if Dan Snyder didn't sign Jeff George,

be enamored with Jeff George? Because Brad Johnson was a pretty damn good quarterback. Went on to win a Super Bowl a couple of years later. He brought in Jeff George. He forced North Turner to play Jeff George. that effed up the whole season. But the thing that really messed up that whole season was they didn't have a kicker that can make a kick. They lost three games because of their field goal kicker. And two years prior to that, they had David Acres in the building. David Acres was a Redskin in

1998, and the Redskins cut David Acres. David Acres went on to have, you know, an unbelievable career in Philadelphia, and then in San Francisco was a kicker. He was a seven-time pro bowler, a three-time all-pro as a kicker. If the Redskins had had David Acres in 2000, they would have gone to the playoffs, even with the dysfunction. And Norve doesn't get fired. And Norve doesn't get fired.

Yeah. Now that's a good one. And then Marty doesn't get hired. And then Marty doesn't get hired. But they would have gone to the playoffs with just a decent kicker, even though they had a lot of the turmoil. And look, Norv had had it with Dan. You know, Dan forced him to play Jeff George.

Nor basically was saying, you know, George is a loser, which remember the following year in Marty's first year. You know, it's 2,000, you know, it's 9-11, which after week one, you get a whole week without NFL football following 9-11. And the first game back for the Redskins is a Monday night game. The first Monday night game following 9-11 was Redskins at Lambeau Field against the Packers. And they got absolutely blown out by the Packers. George had played in the game, and it was after that game that Marty basically said to Dan, I don't care what you think about Jeff George. I have control. He's out of here. He's a loser. And he cut Jeff George after the second week of the season. And of course, then, even though

the rest of the season, he was stuck with Tony Banks and Kent Graham, he figured, you know, he, by the way, Marty, the all time in, Dan, you got to have a culture change around here. And I'm the guy, to do it, which he was, but Dan wouldn't have any fun. And then lastly on my list was, oh, yeah, the RG3 thing. And here's what I would say about the RG3 thing in 2012. I had basically it laid out the same way you did, but I mentioned one thing. What if the NFL had come to the Redskins earlier and told them about the salary cap penalty that they were going to incur? Because remember John Mara, who was behind that significantly, essentially the league, I think, based on Mara's direction, stuck it to the Redskins and told them the day before free agency was to start about the

$36 million salary cap penalty. If they had told the Redskins a month earlier, Shanahan told us this. They would have never made the trade with the Rams to get up to number two. And, you know, number two wasn't necessarily just RG3, it was either luck or RG3. Remember, there was still a debate there for a little while, but they figured whichever one they got was going to be good enough. And if they don't, if they, if the league tells them

about the salary cap penalty, there's no trade with the Rams and the Redskins end up taking Russell Wilson no later than the second round. Not to mention they have all of those other picks. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I agree with that. Absolutely. Now, you've got

to remember, they also did the same thing to the Cowboys, not as much money. And the Saints, too. The Saints had a minor penalty. The Cowboys was like 10 million. The Redskins was 36 million. But it was all, I mean, if you think the timing of it was to screw the Redskins, well, they did the same thing to the Cowboys. Yeah, I know, but the Redskins, right. That's true. But John Mara, too, Redskins Cowboys in their division. Look, I'm not going to argue with your number one, Sean Taylor, because that's like the third rail for Redskins fans and anything you say about Sean Taylor.

You sound so condescending and really, I mean, like antagonistic in saying that. This bothers you. Go ahead. If you don't want them in the top five or barely in the top five, stick with it. You're now getting cold feet. Or maybe warm feet with that steroid you're taking. How much change would it have been to the team if Sean Taylor had played and lived. You know what? When you said that 20 minutes ago or whatever, you don't have to back off it.

You're going to get some heat from people. You don't have to back off it. Oh, I'm not back and off. I'm not backing off. I'm just pointing out that people are not clear thinking sometimes when it comes to Sean Taylor. He might have been great, and the Redskins would still probably have sunk. Yeah. No, I mean, I think that you, look, if we're talking about ultimately the what if this happened, they would have

won, which wasn't the 79 Cowboys Redskins game, right? It was a what if happened. If they had won a game, it would have turned out worse for the franchise. It's just a what if. What if Sean Taylor had lived? He may have become the greatest safety of all time. But to your point, Lombardi and For me, you know, Schottenheimer, the what if on both of them probably translates to a lot more wins. If Lombardy lives and Schottenheimer stays. Yeah, I agree with you on Schottenheimer. Absolutely. Well, you agree with me on Lombardy, too.

Yes, I do. Chattonheimer didn't come to mind for me. Yeah, and it should have. I knew Lombardy would be your number one. But, you know, George Allen did win. And, you know, but. Yes, he did. There was a success.

There was a lot of success. It was sort of the beginning of, I've said this before. I think you dispute this, but for me, because I don't remember the 60s, all right? I don't remember the sunny Charlie Taylor, Bobby Mitchell, high-flying Redskins that, you know, basically lost every game they played, 42 to 37. I think that the importance of this football team to this city really started in 1971. That's when they started to win. Well, I know. I agree. Oh, you do agree.

I agree. I always point. Oh, no, no, I agree that you think that. Oh, okay. The point is that the Redskins, the Redskins' remarkable record of sellout started, I think, in 67. I think it was 66. I think it was 66, actually. I think it was 67. And that's so the Redskins were pretty important to the team, to the city already. But you're right.

And to defend what you say, Mayor Walter Washington came out to Redskins Park after the team returned from a 5-0 start and gave a speech to the team telling them how important what they were doing was to the city at the time. So you're right about that.

Well, beyond that, even before that 5-0 start in 71, they went to the Cotton Bowl and beat the Cowboys in a rainstorm and came home in thousands of people. people were there to greet him at Dulles Airport. Yes. Yeah. You know, because, I mean, the big difference was they were winning. Like, they, they hadn't won in the 60s. You didn't have the, you had entertainment, perhaps, but you didn't have winning that went

with it. Anyway, I was, I'm looking for when the sellout streak began because it ended, it ended, Tommy, in 2018 with the opener against the Colts officially, even though we know it really ended long before that. And if I recall, what did I just pull up here? SB Daily, and one of my tweets is quoted in the story. But anyway, it was after the Colt game. And it says it was a 50-year sellout streak.

So if that's 2018, that means it started in 68. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. We were both from. Yeah. All right. Quick mention, stamps.com.

If you're a small business and you want to save time and money, go to stamps.com and use my promo code, Kevin D.C. It saves you time, saves your money, $0.5.5 off every stamp, 40% off priority mail, and some savings additional on that with no long-term contract commitments if you use my promo code, Kevin DC. That's Stamps.com. So yesterday I spent some time on the Schefter report about the playoff format potentially changing as early as next year in the NFL, even if they don't have a 17-game schedule. But Sheffter did report yesterday that the CBA, would have to be ratified. Well, Mark Maskey, who I actually think does a good job covering the

league. I don't know if you think that or not. He always has stuff in his stories on league stuff like this that go beyond what you typically get on Twitter. And I read a story this morning, and there were a couple of interesting things that I wanted to share with everybody listening out there and with Tommy, if you haven't seen it already. So this 14-game playoff format, which we spent a lot of time on yesterday, basically Masky is saying they're just, doesn't need to be a ratified CBA according to the league or a person familiar with this situation. The league believes that based on the CBA that's in place right now, they have the right to go ahead and expand the playoff field without the players' approval on it. Now,

the players aren't sure that that's true, but I think essentially the takeaway from yesterday and today is that next season, 2020, there's an additional play. playoff team per conference. We're going to seven per conference with a top seed getting the first round by, and we're going to have a triple header on wild, a wild card weekend on Saturday, and a triple header during that first weekend on Sunday as well. That seems to me to be a lock at this point, whether or not there's a CBA ratified or not, and regardless of when a 17 game schedule potentially starts or not. Next season, get ready for, you. You know, seven playoff teams each conference, more teams being in the hunt late in the season.

You know, now you might be sitting there at five and seven after Thanksgiving weekend, you know, three quarters of the season done, but still be very much in the hunt. Because, Aaron, my guess is that is that seventh team more times than not is going to be, you know, right around eight and eight, nine, and seven each year. More, almost always. Yeah, I think I looked at it since 2012. I think it was six or seven times that it was a 10-win team. Six or seven since what year? So 2003 since this new format. So out of, I guess that would be about 34 teams, I think six or seven were 10 wins.

So that means everybody else was eight, nine or less. Yes. Yeah. So you're going to have more teams involved. Here's the other thing, too. Do you want to weigh in on that? I know you don't care so much about this stuff in playoff format, but do you care one way or the other?

It'll be 14 out of the 30. teams. That'll end up being in the playoffs instead of 12 out of 32. I think when you change things like this, I think initially, even from traditionalists, they don't particularly like it. And then within a year, fan base is level. They go nuts over. I like it. I'm fine with it. The big thing that I've said for years when this conversation has come up, I just would recede after all seven teams are qualified. and Maskey did not have anything in there about seating. The last time I read anything about seating,

it was that the league was against it. It'll be the four division winners, seated one through four, and then the three wildcard teams seated five through seven. Even if that fourth division winner is seven and nine, and the five seat is 12 and four, it won't matter. I think that's stupid. I think it's competitively unfair. I would switch that around, but I went through that yesterday.

But here's the other part of this story that I think interesting. So what have we heard about the players pushback on the 17 game season over and over again over the years? What's the number one thing they're concerned about? Yeah, of course. So in this story, basically Maskey outlines what the quid pro quo is for the 17 game season, all right, from the players' perspective. By the way, the league announced yesterday, I'm sorry, that the owners had approved their proposal for a new collective bargaining agreement. The NFLPA, their 32 player reps, two-thirds of them have to vote it, and that vote could happen today or tomorrow,

and then a majority, 50.1% of the NFL players then have to approve it. But here's what Maskey outlined is essentially the quid pro quo for the 17 games. First of all, it's about revenue share percentage, you know, going from 48% to 48.5%. So not only will revenues go up because you've got a 17th regular season game and potentially two more weekends of football, if they throw a second buy week in there, which was not in this story, they also want a higher percentage of the take. So that's number one. They're going to go up to 48.5% of league revenue instead of 48%. Next up is they do want, you know, they did want the, they want drug policies and player disciplines to be modified in ways that are more favorable to the players.

They just don't want the commissioner to really be able to lower the boom on player discipline issues or drug issues. And with respect to marijuana, in particular, they want significantly less punishment for marijuana offenses. Next on the list of things that they want back for a 17th game. They want increased minimum salaries for players and improvements to players' pensions and benefits. Are you following this? Essentially, this is a money grab, not a safety grab at this point. Right. Okay? Then you get get to further restrictions placed on teams off-season workout schedules and on the amount of practice field hitting. So you're going to see less OTAs basically or less mandatory

mini-camps and you're going to see less hitting on the practice field. So that's the first and only mention of anything having to do with safety in exchange. for the 17-game season. Here's what's sort of, to me, interesting based on its absence from this conversation. Number one would be nothing mentioned about increased roster sizes, which to me I would think that the players would want. But remember, if the players get that, especially for the players that are playing now, now they're sharing all of those revenues with more players.

Right? So increased roster sizes may help from a safety standpoint. but it'll mean less money because there are more players on the payroll. Number two is no mention of a second buy. And there's no mention of, remember some of the people that discussed, oh, there should be a requirement in a 17-game schedule for safety reasons for a player in addition to the buy weeks to have to sit out one other game. None of that.

None of that is a part of this new CBA, as it's written and described by Maski in this story. The players, the 17th game safety thing has been bullshit from the beginning. I don't think it has been bullshit. Maybe for the players here, and you're right, everything you pointed out is right. In addition, more players on the roster means more competition for your job. Well, there's that. There's that, there's that too.

It's also less of a take. Yes, I agree with that. And everything you point out is true. But here's the reality. What's not bullshit is they're talking about trading a preseason game for the 17th game. Okay. But one less preseason game in addition to extend the season to a 17th game. And the last preseason game, and they're using that as a defense for safety,

saying that, well, we're going to have one less preseason game, so they're not really going to be playing any more games. Well, that's bullshit, because nobody plays in that last preseason game who's going to be there for week 17. So trading a preseason game for another regular season game is not an equitable trade safety-wise. In fact, you could almost make the argument, and we'll see how teams handle this. But because there are only three of these things, that some of these players may end up playing more in that third preseason, the third final preseason game than they did in the fourth, which is when they didn't play at all. Look, I've done the math on this a million times.

Basically, giving up one preseason game for one regular season game meant on average if they treat the preseason the same way, like an additional two. two and a half to three quarters of football. Like, it's not, come on, an additional two to three, two and a half to three quarters of football is not like going to make a massive difference in injuries. It just isn't. And if they were that concerned about it, they'd be asking for the second buy, which I'm not sure isn't something that won't be included anyway, but it's not a requirement or it's not, you know, it might be one of those things that the league has the ability to do that

if it makes sense, and the increased roster sizes were supposed to be a part of the safety thing, and certainly some of those cockamamie, you know, sort of requirements to sit out every player one additional game. That was never going to happen. Of course it wasn't, but it was something the players were thrown out there. People were throwing it out there. I don't think I ever heard that really seriously talked about. I guess here's the other question that we need to ask.

How much do the players have real input into this one? Because you have a lot of players really pushing back against the CBA right now on social media. If they're really pushing back on it, then their player reps aren't going to approve it. And by the way, if it doesn't get approved, you know, before the league calendar starts on March 18th, it's not that it can't get done between March 18th and the end of next year. It could, but you've increased exponentially the possibility of some labor issues here, you know, after the 2020 season. I think everybody wants this done before March 18th. In fact, just a small footnote here.

You know, next Tuesday, this coming Tuesday is the first day of the franchise tag, transition tag ability for teams. And the new CBA, part of it is going to be reducing the ability to use two tags per year, franchise and transition, to being able to just used one per year, either franchise or transition. obviously that's a benefit to the players. These tags are more of sort of a team thing, although in some cases you can...

Except for the Redskins, right. And there are other examples as well. But I think what I read was that as of now, Tuesday is under the existing CBA, which is the teams can use both franchise tags, both the franchise and transition. And the example that Maski wrote about, you know, the Cowboys have a lot of off-season issues going on on their roster with quarterback and with Amari Cooper. And, you know, the plan in Dallas, some believe, is to franchise DAC and to transition Amari.

You know, and if they only have one of those on Tuesday because the CBA gets ratified, you know, one of those players is going to become available. But just as an aside, I just can't imagine that they're going to move on from Dak Prescott. He's a good quarterback. It's hard to find these good quarterbacks. He's a good quarterback. They need to get a deal done with him. If I'm a cowboy fan, that's what I would be rooting for. I would agree.

I, um, anyway, that was a lot of the stuff that came out of all this stuff. It certainly would appear that this new playoff format's happening regardless. You know, you're going to get two additional teams. Oh, the other thing, Tommy, did you know, did I say this yesterday on the podcast, Aaron, that, you know, playoff money, you know, when you make the playoffs, players get a money for making the playoffs and then for each round they advance in the playoffs. Only if they play the game. Only if they play the game.

Yes. That's going to change apparently. Tommy, did you know that the teams that had buys in the playoffs during at least the this CBA? I'm assuming it goes way back before that. That, you know, if you had a first round buy, you did not get playoff money for that first round. So if you were a wild car team, you actually had the potential.

to earn more as a player playing in the postseason than you did if you were the team that got a buy. I didn't know that. How did somebody not pick up on that before this year? Because Schaefter had that in his story and I'm like, that's strange. Like that's so unfair. I think that's something that we've heard a little bit in the past. I've never heard that. It sounds vaguely familiar, but it's something that doesn't really get brought up. By the way, the other money interesting thing that came out with this new CBA, did you hear because obviously players have contracts in place. Even if you had the extra game, you're not going to, you know, you can't renegotiate the contract

for this next season if it goes into place or whenever that 17th game. Did you see what the, they decided, or at least the owners decided on the compensation? You can pay them. Hold on for a second. A player has, a player's contract gets divided into 16 game checks right now. Yes. So a player's contract, if you go to 17 games and that contract's still enforced because it had multi-years, is now going to have that divided by 17 games. They will add up to 250,000 to the game.

So if you had, let's say, a huge contract, let's say you're Jimmy G, you have a $25 million contract or whatever, you get paid $250,000 for that last game even when you normally get paid $1.5 million per game. That doesn't seem necessary from an owner's standpoint from my perspective. It's a 17-game season. You're dividing the paychecks by 17 instead of 16. They're playing an extra game. They're also getting the opportunity here with this new CBA with the next contract to get even more. You don't think they should have to be paid for that 17th game? I don't know. I'd have to think about that. I mean, the, probably, probably you've got to get paid for that 17-year, but is it a flat 250K? It can't be. It's.

It's got to be player contract-driven. Well, it would be, no, it would be capped at 250. Oh, yeah. Okay, capped at 250. Yeah. Okay. So there was a lot of interesting comments about that as well. Right.

Anyway, that's enough on that. I want to talk about your column because I actually referenced it this morning. So Tommy wrote a column about, you know, the cheating scandal, another one about the cheating scandal. But this one had Davey Johnson sort of is featured. or the manager of the longtime manager, including the manager of the Nats, and one of your favorites, I know, and a guy that you know really well. And I read the following quote. So Tommy writes a column in which, you know, Davy Johnson essentially says,

you know, this cheating's been going on a long time and goes back and talks about Mike Scott, the great pitcher for the Astros, who in that 86 playoff series against the Mets, one of the more memorable playoff series ever, especially that fourth, fourth game before Mike Scott would have pitched in the game five, that seven to six, it was game six. Game six of game seven. That's right. It was the divisional round.

That everybody knew he was scuffing up the ball and cheating in the whole thing. And it leads to this particular quote from Davy Johnson about the Astros situation and the way Rob Manfred handled it when he suspended, you know, both A.J. Hinch. and Jeff Luhnell, the general manager. He says, quote, I hate the way the commissioners handled this and the way everyone has handled this. It is human nature in baseball to try to get an edge, whether you are pitching or hitting.

They've been trying to steal signs forever. Different ballparks. This is nothing new. This is what you expect. I thought the commissioner overreacted. Everyone has been trying to get an edge since I can remember in every aspect of the game. And then he describes the following in 1986 in the World Series between the Red Sox and the Mets in 86.

He says, quote, in 1986 in Boston, we knew the scorekeeper had binoculars behind the wall, behind the green monster. We knew he could look in on the catchers, and they had ways to send that information into the hitters what they were. But all you had to do was change signs. closed quote. So I think this story is really fascinating. We've talked a lot about it. We've talked about it. I wonder whether or not you believe

there are other longtime baseball people who feel the same way Davy Johnson does in sort of the face of one of the most you know, one of the most overwhelming responses from players about it. scandal that we've ever seen? I'll bet there are.

I'll bet there's more like Davy out there who are more inclined saying, what's the big deal? You just change the sign. I mean, you sort of expect that somebody is trying to steal them. You don't be naive enough to think that and that should be part of your pre-series preparation.

Like Davy said, they knew what the Red Sox did. I mean, that's what that's what pre- game scouting is for. One of the things is figure out what the other team is doing. So I suspect there are some. And, you know, bottom line is he's right. Well, that's what I was going to ask you. Do you think he's right?

Well, you do what the nationals did? You change your signs. I mean, the nationals, you know, they were told that the Astros were still cheating in 2019. Whether you believe it or not, the nationals prepared as if their signs were going to be

deal to this elaborate scheme and adjusted to it. So, and bottom line is, I think the anger is in part from a lot of players who feel it cost them money. Why didn't they react the same way to the PEDs? The PDE players cost people money? Yes, yes, it did, because it could be a teammate right next to them on PED. They could be damaging a teammate in the locker right next to them if they were outraged about PEDs. This way, they can attack from afar

the villain. And I pointed out that Davey, I said, you know, part of what's going on here, too, is everyone hated the Astros before this happened. They were considered the villains of the league in the industry before because they were so arrogant in this idea that they recreated a way to win when all they did was pretty much, you know, signed. And Davy said, well, everyone hated the mess, too. When we came in the town. We were the most hated team in 86. That shouldn't matter.

So I thought he brought up some interesting points here. I do think that the commissioner has mishandled it, not the way David had said, but if he was going to punish him, he should have punished, he should have had a more satisfying punishment for his critics. But I think that part of what you see from Cody Bellinger from Aaron Judge is I think they think they got screwed out of money. Yeah, I mean, did you ask him, like, he's the kind of, by the way, it's a good column, another really good column from Tommy. But did you ask him if he thinks that the sign stealing basically won the Astros of World Series? Did they win the World Series because of cheating?

Because, God, man, that's some of the most interesting reading out there. Because it goes so many different ways. There's really not true concrete evidence, and it's almost unknowable, that the Astros won a World Series because of cheating. We know they cheated. It's wrong. But does he think they won the World Series because they cheated? Yeah, I don't know.

I didn't ask them that. But you're right. It is almost unknowable. They won the AL West in 2017 by 21 games. Yeah. They were a good team. But over the course of the year, there is proof that the cheating helped them win. Over the course of the season, the cheating did help them win.

Whether it helped them win the World Series, you might be able to argue it helped them get to the World Series. I don't know if it was a 21 game or 20-game dramatic difference, but I think this comes down to money, Kevin. I think I just think that people are outraged because they think, they got money stolen out of her pocket by the actress. Yeah. There's a lot of different view. There's a lot of different.

There's a lot of different. Yeah. All that stuff. That's money. There's definitely a lot out there that, you know, debates how much it really helped them. You know, they had center field moved in 20 feet between 2016 and 2017. That may have had a lot to do with the offensive differences.

They also, you know, during stretching, were better on the road than they were at home during different stretches of play. There's just a lot out there that's very interesting about all of it. I think a couple of things. Number one, I am interested, and you gave a reasonable answer, as to why all of the outrage now and less of it over a situation in which clearly performance-enhancing drugs were taking money out of people's pockets who weren't using them. You know, it's, it was, I mean, in many ways you can almost say that had more of a factor on me, you know, not earning a certain amount of money than a sign stealing thing. And I think your answer is that they, you know, they were sitting next to people that were doing it. I also think social media has a lot to do with it. I think it's different now. And, you know, there's a lot of that too. And you might also be right about just there was this disdain for the Astros to begin with. I do wonder,

whether or not the reaction, you know, with the Red Sox and Mets having already fired their managers, all right, both of whom were involved in the scheme. You know, and the Red Sox currently under investigation right now, right? The Red Sox are still under investigation. And they won the World Series in 2018. You know, will the reaction, if the Red Sox, if this investigation reveals a similar thing, is the reaction going to be the same towards them? It should be.

it probably won't but it should be look and here's the one answer to you know as to whether or not you argue how much did it really help them win the world series and this is a pretty simple question but i think it goes to the essence of of that answer why would they do it if it didn't help them Yeah, I mean, and I think it's totally illogical to think that they weren't doing it in 2018 and 2019 if it did work and it did help them in 2017. And they thought it helped them so much that they refused to listen to their own manager if you believe that story, who wanted them to stop. Yeah. The other thing, too, we may have talked about this the other day, but, you know, we did talk about obviously the Astros owner Jim Crane and the, you know, sort of, you know, sort of. tone deafness to that press conference. You know, I mean, it really was, it really was like so stupid

in terms of a strategy to go out there and essentially be non-plussed by the whole thing. In some ways, you know, whether you think, you know, there should have been significant punishment or more punishment, Manfred messed up on that or not. You know what they should have done? They should have anticipated how important that particular press conference was, which it was like a week ago today, right? Week ago or maybe nine, ten days ago. And the league should have been there to help them. Baseball should have been there and said,

this is how this is going to get handled. And they didn't. They let the Astros handle it on their own. But that's what baseball does. I've told you before. As a corporate entity, they're terrible at public relations. And they leave public relations up to each individual team. And that's part of the marketing.

problem with baseball compared to the NFL. The NFL is more headquarter-centric. Baseball lets the franchises make their decisions. So are you going to be there tomorrow night? Yeah, I think I'll be there. I mean, I'm feeling good enough that I probably will be there. That'll be my last day here in spring. Who's pitching tomorrow night? I don't even know who's pitching tomorrow night. Well, who do you think is pitching? Is it Scherzer? Of course. Okay, so you think he's going to throw it to anybody? No, that's not the way he does business.

And do you think that... I think for Matt Scherzer, his style is, I'm going to strike these assholes out and then stomp around the mouth. That will show them. Yeah. All right, good for him. All right, a couple of things to finish up the show with. Tomorrow night, you're going to be at the baseball game when it's over.

Are you going to find a place to watch the fight or not? probably not why aren't you into this like you're such a boxing guy and i'm actually into it now okay have you looked at the records of either of these guys look at their go to box wreck well dante wilder's you know 42 zero and one with 41 knockouts okay tell me how many fighters you've heard of on those that's not the point because the heavy way that is the point we haven't fought anyone because there is no one to fight. I understand that. He's the only two guys that anyone has ever really heard of besides Joshua. And the only reason we're interested is because it was such an interesting first fight.

Yes. It has nothing to do with whether or not they are good fighters. They're not. Well, you don't know that they're not good just because the competitive landscape. Why? You don't know. I do. I watch that first fight and I think I've seen Fury fight once or two, maybe one or two other times. So I don't have a real strong opinion on what kind of fighter they are. But you haven't been paying attention to boxing. How do you know that this is at the beginning of a two to three-year stretch of incredible fights with other young fighters that are going to come up and create an interesting division? Because they're not good fighters.

Did you see Fury in his first fight back from the laws of the wilder? He fought this guy named Otto Wildland. Right. was lucky to get out of that fight alive, basically got a brutal cut, I think, over his right eye that could become a problem in this fight tomorrow night, by the way. But he fought some guy named Otto, some German. Who cares what his name is? He was Swedish, by the way. Whatever. When's the last great Swedish heavyweight?

He's hiding more Johannes. Yeah, Johansen. Yeah. So my point is, one guy can't. Bjorn Borg was really good, too. One guy can't fight and the other guy can't punch. One guy can punch, though. Yes, and that guy can punch. That makes him Ernie Savers.

Yeah. Okay. All right. But look, have at it. Everyone's very excited about it. I mean, but... I would love boxing to become more popular again, I guess. I know that, but this is not going to, because there's no other heavyweight.

There's none coming. I mean, Wilder is the perfect example of what I wrote, I think I wrote this 10 or 12 years ago, basically. The next heavyweight champion is going to be some football player off the street who basically couldn't play the game at the next level and become start boxing when he's 20 years old. That's pretty much Wilder's story. He was a high school football player. No, basketball player. Basketball player.

Yeah, but Wilder was a basketball player. Okay, who came off the street and started boxing when he was 20. You know, I mean, when we're talking about, like, a heavy, when we watch heavyweight, some of them had fought a hundredth amateur fight before they ever became a heavyweight fighter, a professional fighter. So I'm sorry, I can't, I can't take, like that redskinned stupid pill that I have to take sometimes. time and do away with what I know. You know, Wilder's story, and I was reading about this last night, both of them have very interesting stories.

You know, Tyson Fury has really struggled with depression his whole life. But Deontay Wilder, you nailed it. Like, he was a high school basketball player. He had a child. He dropped out of high school, was trying desperately to make ends meet. He was driving a beer truck for a local beer. distributor. He was working at an eye hop, and he put a 40 caliber pistol, you know, basically in his lap and considered killing himself at 19, 20 years old because he couldn't take the pressure

and decided, you know, I'm sorry, I'm not going to take that way out. I've got a daughter, and he was, you know, he was having issues with the daughter's mother. And there was a boxing gym on his beer distributor route. And one day he just walked in there, and the rest is history. You know, I mean, because he's a big strapping athlete. And to your point, like, I have thought, you know, we've probably had this conversation before, just how especially basketball players in particular, it's always been my feeling, that basketball players are the best all-around athletes, and it translates to so many other sports.

I mean, we've seen so many great football players, tight ends in particular, be former basketball players. And boxing, you know, it doesn't surprise me that the, well, Buster Douglas was a football player, right? No, he was a basketball player, too. I think Buster Douglas was a basketball player, too. I don't know. I think I'm going to pay $79.99 for it. It'll probably be an entertaining fight.

I can't deny the first one wasn't entertaining, tremendously entertaining. But I can't suspend belief. I just can't suspend belief on what I'm watching. I'll tell you when we talk early next week on what you missed. A good street fight can be entertaining. That doesn't mean they're good fighters. And they're cheap, too. You've got to find them.

You've got to search them out unless you're going to be involved in initiating them. Well, those days are gone. Yeah. You know, I had Tim Dahlberg. He's an Associated Press writer. Do you know him? Tim's a great friend of mine. Oh, I wish I had known that because I recorded the interview with him,

and I had a chance to talk to him before I didn't know that. But anyway, we ran the interview back this morning, and, you know, he's very excited about it. I know you. And he says Vegas is buzzing. And anyway, I asked him about the pay-per-view numbers, and he said, you know, this is probably going to be a top 10, you know. But he did, he mentioned to me the following. He said, there's never in the history of a heavyweight title fight been this much promotion and marketing of the fight leading into it. He's like, he goes, and he said, he said, if you're.

not, if you're a sports fan and you don't know that this fight is happening Saturday night, like you just, you haven't been listening because the amount of spent money on promoting and marketing this fight is apparently all time. Bob Aram said the same thing. Now, I don't know if that is because of the cost of advertising and marketing, but anyway, they are trying like hell to revive the sport through this fight. Well, Timmy would know that better than anybody. He's very plugged into that. He works out of Vegas. He covered boxing for years before he became a general columnist for AP.

So I'm sure Tim's right when he says that. And, you know, ESPN now has a partnership with boxing more of a commitment than they used to have in the past. There's more network connections with boxing like we used to have when we were growing up. So I have no doubt that that's true. I mean, weren't there ad-cernis? Super Bowl for this fight? Yes. They spent money during the Super Bowl for the fight.

Part of that was because this is being co-promoted by ESPN and Fox Sports. Right. There you go. That's part of the reason why there's so much promotions going on. Yeah. And look, Tyler, Tyson Fury makes it easy to promote.

He's a very good showman. Yeah. Anyway, well, I'll tell you about it early next week. I mean, I can't remember you, I mean, you'll be able to remember this. I mean, I can't remember the last heavy weight fight that has had this much buzz about it. I mean, you almost have to go back to Lennox Lewis and Tyson.

Lewis Tyson. Yeah. That's the last one. Where was that fight? Was that in Nashville? Memphis, Memphis, Memphis. Memphis. Memphis.

And I was, by the way, that's one of the stories where I beat the Post like a drum. The Post kept writing it was going to be in Washington, D.C. And I remember going to Memphis and going to a party that the, uh, Tourism Commission had for us, and one guy introducing himself to me and told me how much they used to laugh every day when they read the post stories and my stories about where the fight was going to be. But Memphis treated us like kings. It's the single greatest free fight week I've ever had. They couldn't do enough for it.

It was as good as any week I've ever had in Vegas. So you had good parking? You had good parking? I had good part. But they closed. They had parties for us on Deal Street every night. And part of it was going on was this was

a co-promotion between HBO and Showtime, because Showtime was a Tyson fighter. Right. And Lewis was an and this always got in the way. But now this was Tyson's last fight on Showtime under the contract and their last chance to make any

money with them. So they agreed to this. So Showtime had a big party, HBO had a big, I mean, it was a great week. And the fight was very boring. Yeah, the fight that I remember with Lewis, I remember that fight. It was not a good fight. The fight that was Lewis, man, you know, I think Lennox Lewis was very underrated as a heavyweight champion personally. I think he was, too, because I tell you what, it's one thing to win the heavyweight championship, and this is the Riddick-Bow story, it's another thing to

stay heavyweight champion. And Lennox Lewis stayed heavyweight champion and fought everybody. Fought everybody. Fought, and that last fight I remember was against Clitchco. And I don't even remember what year that was. And I don't even know if that was the fight after the Tyson fight. 2003. I remember he fought Haseem Rahman like two or three times. I had seen Rockman get knocked out by Holyfield, right? Or no, who did Rockman knock out to win the title? I was at that fight. Was it Lewis? No.

No. You weren't at that fight. He was in South Africa when he knocked out Lewis. Who did Rachman knock somebody out in two rounds in Vegas? I don't know. But he beat Lennox Lewis in South Africa to win the title. Got it. Shocked the world.

Who did I see him? Now Oliver McCall knocked out Lennox. Lewis did the same thing. Knocked him out in a couple rounds to beat Lennox Lewis too. Lewis had those two devastating losses by knockout. With the right punch, he could go down.

Shannon Briggs almost knocked out Lennox Lewis in Atlantic City in 1997, but Lewis survived and came back to win the fight. Right. Where did he win? When did Rachman win the title? Who did he beat to win the title? He beat South Africa. How many times

do I got to tell you? He beat Lewis to win the title in South Africa. Then what fight am I remembering? I don't know. You know, maybe you're a little punch drunk. I just remember being in Vegas, and he knocks somebody out in two rounds to win the title, I thought. But maybe not.

That was that stretch, Tommy, where I was in Vegas probably too much for my own good. Let me give you my Hachim Rockman Bonap. fight here. Okay. I saw Hachim Rockman before he ever fought his first professional fight. He was working with Jenks Morton, added a Sugar Ray Leonard boxing gym. And Morton at the time

was training Lennox Lewis. This is before he knocked out Razor Ruddick in 93, I forget what year was, 92. He knocked out Razor Rudd before he was champion. And so Lewis was there, and I went to interview Lewis for the fight for a story. And Lewis was very gracious, tremendous interview, very nice guy. And this is back in 92.

But Rockman was there as well, and he was training for its first professional fight as well. So I met Rockman and saw him train before he ever fought a fight, and I knew that he had the potential to be heavyweight champion. I knew how good he could be. So I just figured it out. I saw him lose in, I saw him get knocked out by Lennox Lewis in the rematch at Mandalay Bay. That's what I was there for. In fact, I was in that building with you, buddy. I was there and I'll just tell you, I'll tell you what I remember about it.

First of all, my friend Billy Mack and I were out there. And we were, I think we flew in on like a Thursday night. It was when sort of, I was in that mode at that point of going to Vegas. I don't know, four or five times a year minimum with a bunch of dudes. And this was sort of a last second trip, and we went out there. And we weren't even planning on going to the fight. It was the Saturday, I'll never forget, where Maryland clinched the ACC football title with Ralph Friesian. And we watched that in the Mandalay Bay Sports Book, which, by the way, was always a great sports book back in the day.

I don't know if it still is or not. And they clinched that win over NC State down in Raleigh. It was the week, Aaron, if you remember this, they'd beaten four. Clemson in College Park with an overflow crowd. They went to NC State and then clinched it. That was Freedgen's first year. That was 2001. And then we went to the fight right after because it was in Mandalay Bay. And I remember there were a bunch of dudes, including friends and people that I knew that knew Rachman, because he was from either D.C. or Baltimore, right? Baltimore. He's a Baltimore guy. Right. Okay. So there were people out there that we knew that knew him.

We had great seats for that fight. Phenomenal seats for that fight. I think that was more because we had been playing at a certain level for a long time rather than just friends that we knew that knew him. But here's what I remember about that weekend now. The Sunday night game that particular weekend in the NFL was Patriots Rams. And the Patriots were getting seven or even more than that. And I bet them on the money line.

and they won the game, pretty sure they won the game, and that ended up being that year's Super Bowl. Okay. I love when you do that. Okay. There you go. That's what I remember about that. I'm just going to look it up to make sure I'm right that that was that weekend.

Yeah. While you're looking that up, while you're looking that up, let me just point out that that's one of my... Hold on for a second. I was wrong. I had the Patriots plus the points. And they covered. They did not win the game, but that was the game that ended up being the Super Bowl in 2001. The Patriots beating the Rams in the Superdome.

All right. What else do you want to tell me? One last thing, real quick, because I know we got to go. Yeah. For that second fight, the Rockman Lewis second fight, if you remember after he won the first fight, they came back to Baltimore Hero, and they had a parade for him back in Baltimore. I don't remember any of that. I don't even remember him winning the title, you know, from Lewis.

And he was riding in a convertible that was going too fast, and he literally fell out of the convertible onto the street, and they had to take him to the hospital. I don't remember that. So my lead, when he got knocked out by Lennox Lewis was, I forget the first two paragraphs, but by the third paragraph I wrote, by the fourth round, Hassine Rockman felt like he was riding in a convertible,

in a parade in the city of Baltimore. There you go. All right. Enjoy the weekend. Feel better. And I'll talk to you early next week. All right, guys. Thanks a lot.

Thanks. That was going down, you know, boxing early 2000s, Lane, with a lot of, you know, real clear memory and a lot of mixed up memory, which happens when you get to a certain age. And when those memories happen in Vegas. Yeah. I do remember that weekend. I looked it up. I had the Patriots Rams score wrong, but it was that particular Sunday night. God, that was a fun weekend. I do remember that. I remember a lot of those weekends were always fun.

Being in Vegas for a big fight and a football weekend was always the best. Although, you know, first two rounds of the NCAA tournament fun, fun to be out there for the Super Bowl. Fun to be out there in May when there's a fight and there is NBA, NHL, and the derby. That's always a good weekend, too. I've always kind of looked at derby weekend as a possibility. That's always a fun weekend, too. Maryland plays Sunday. Can't wait for that game.

Can they win five in a row on the road? Ohio State lost last night. They've got a two-game lead in the Big Ten. Here's the way I look at the next two. First of all, I'm not discounting any possibility with the way they're playing. I think Ohio State struggles to score. So I think they could go in and win that game. They've got to win one of the next two.

Ohio State or at Minnesota. Minnesota is sort of falling apart here a little bit late. And then you've got maybe one of the college basketball games of the year, Saturday at noon, Baylor hosting Kansas, number one against number three. Baylor's won 23 games in a row. That will be a hell of a game tomorrow at noon. There's probably not a line out on the game. Remember, Baylor won at Allen Fieldhouse already this year. I mean, Baylor's been number one now for a while. You know, they've won 23 games in a row. I forget exactly when they took over the number one spot.

But defensively, they're legit. So is Kansas defensively. They're very good defensively as well. I think, and you and I were talking about this before the show, that right now it's Baylor, Kansas, San Diego State, and Gonzaga, Gonzaga, for the number one seats. San Diego State if they lose one game, which I don't know who they're going to lose to. I mean, they could lose to Nevada here down the stretch.

They could lose in their tournament. If they don't lose, they're going to get a number one seed. If they lose once, they're going to be a number two seed. Yes. You know, they're not sticking as a number one if they lose one game. Gonzaga, on the other hand, might have to lose one or two, might have to lose two to drop from a number one seed. Kansas and Baylor, if Baylor loses this game tomorrow, they're still. still going to be a number one seed if they continue to win after this. Kansas is in a little bit

more jeopardy. The point here is that the ACC champion or the Big Ten champion to get a number one seed, more likely than not, is going to need San Diego State to lose a game or Gonzaga to lose two. Because I think Kansas and Baylor have really, unless they lose other games, but if they play each other two more times tomorrow and then in the Big 12 championship game, and they don't lose to anybody else. They're both going to have a chance to stick at number one. Yeah, I think that the, you may also have to see a double champ out of ACC or Big Ten to jump into the one, a regular season and tournament. Obviously, it depends who they play, who they beat. Double champ, meaning regular season and tournament. Yes.

Because the other thing is if Dayton becomes a double champ, I wouldn't see it. But if you have a situation where, you know, a regular season champ loses in the first round of their both regular season champs in the ACC and Big Ten lose in the first round of the tournament, and you have a double champ in Dayton, that could be interesting at least. Yeah. How many teams are the A-10 is going to get Dayton in Rhode Island. Who else are they getting? Maybe VCU if they turn things around.

Maybe. Let me see if Lannardi's got a new, because usually now he's at that point in the year where it's every two weeks, every two days. Yep, he's got his new one out. Three teams in the A-10 he's got. So maybe he did have VCU as that other team. No, Richmond. Richmond's the third team he's got in there as a 12 seed.

He's got 10 from the Big Ten, six from the Big East. Georgetown now is – Georgetown just fell to the first four out with Providence. So Georgetown's still sitting there. Purdue, which would be the 11th Big Ten team, is the number one team on the first four out for the tournament. He's still got Maryland as a two-seed, and the ones are Baylor, Kansas,

Diego State and Gonzaga, Duke, Dayton, Maryland, and Seton Hall are the two seeds. Dayton, God, when's the last time they lost a game? They haven't lost in forever. Yeah, I mean, it's been since December 21st, they lost against Colorado, who's a good team, and they lost to Kansas in the year. That's the thing. Dayton doesn't have any bad losses at all. You're right. Like, if they run the table and their games are against Duquesne, Mason, Davidson, Rhode Island, and GW. So Rhode Island's the big game for them. on March 4th. You beat Rhode Island twice, once there, once in the tournament.

And you win the tournament. They're definitely going to be in the conversation for a one seed. I just don't know how if Maryland were to run the table, win the Big Ten with a 17 and three record, and then win the Big Ten tournament. That's what I'm saying, double champ in there. How could you keep them, how would you keep an undefeated San Diego State as a one over Maryland at that point? They're undefeated. I think, I mean, that would, if it gets to that point, I could see them potentially dropping,

again, depending on what happens in the Big 12. Let's say Kansas loses to Baylor and Kansas loses again in the tour. You know, if Kansas loses a couple times from here, I could see them dropping, potentially. Duke's lost to NC State hurts them a little bit. Louisville's lost twice in the last two weeks. But still, like if Duke or Louisville went on a run

and won, you know, didn't lose in the rest of the regular season and then won the ACC tournament, they'll have a great case too. It's just that the ACC is really nowhere near the Big Ten in terms of their power ranking. Anyway, all right, that's it for the day. Don't forget, I'm on radio on the Team 980, the Team 980 app, the Team 980.com, live on radio 7 to 10 a.m. Weekday mornings. Tune in for that. And thanks for the week.

Enjoy the weekend back on Monday.