The Kevin Sheehan Show - Trent for OBJ?

Episode Date: April 16, 2020

Sports Fix today with Kevin and Thom. When and how does sports return? Also, would you be okay with the Redskins trading Trent Williams for Odell Beckham Jr. straight up? That was discussed along with some Rivera-Snyder relationship predictions and a quick thought on the Michael Jordan documentary airing Sunday night. <p> </p><p>Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices">podcastchoices.com/adchoices</a></p> Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You want it. You need it. It's what everyone's talking about. The Kevin Sheehan Show. Now here's Kevin. You're listening to The Sports Fix. That's right. It is a Sports Fix Thursday, Tommy by phone. I'm in studio. Aaron will be handling all of the post-recording production from his home. Tommy's got a column we're going to get to today. How about Odell Beckham Jr? apparently potentially being on. the trade market, so a lot going on in this world right now as it relates to sports. And I think one of the big pieces of news that came out of yesterday, Tommy, is that even Dr. Fauci thinks we can have sports as long as there are no fans in the stands and teams sort of sequester themselves in hotels with proper testing available. Do you believe we'll see sports this summer, which is what Dr. Fauci actually, you know, suggested could happen? No, I don't.

No, I don't. And I love the good doctor, but there's more to putting on a sporting event than the actual athletes. I imagine we're going to sequester the TV people who are involved in producing the telecast. the stadium workers who get the stadium ready, I imagine they'll be sequestered too. That's not going to happen. I mean, this has always been the argument. It's more than the athletes involved.

And if you believe what I've read from credible sources, we're due for a blowback on this once we do start emerging in some kind of social distancing normalcy, that, you know, there's another wave of this coming. And, again, all it's going to take is one athlete to test positive for this or to get it to throw, you know, the whole plan into array again. So until you can, I don't see the difference between guaranteeing the safety of the athlete or guaranteeing the safety of the fad in the stand.

I don't see the difference. I agree with that. I mean, it's sort of what we've talked about here. In the absence of a vaccine or a medical, you know, prescription drug that keeps people from getting seriously ill, then people are going to continue to test positive. and when they do in team sports anyway, it is going to incapacitate everybody that's come in contact with that person, which would mean the rest of the team,

the team they just played, the team that that team just played, for two weeks, even with the testing. Yeah. Even remember, you've got an incubation period too. Like, even if you, you know, let's just say that you got to September. and the NFL season opens on September 10th. And it's the Chiefs at Arrowhead on Thursday night against,

oh God, I had their opponent and I forget who it was. I think it's the Packers. I think they play the Packers. No, it's not the Packers. I forget who it is. But anyway, the Chiefs all of a sudden come out of that game, you know, 35, 31 winners, and everybody's so excited. We got an NFL game.

Now, there was nobody at Arrowhead. Okay. But still, you know, it was the NBC Sunday night game. game and, you know, a Thursday night opener, and it was Patrick Mahomes throwing for 375 and four touchdowns, and it was 35, 31, and it's like, oh my God, thank God. Okay, we've got football. We've got football for this year. And, you know, it was different. It was definitely different to watch this game, you know, without fans in the stands. But look at what we got coming up on Sunday, Tommy, week one. And then all of a sudden, after the game, Travis Kelsey's

not feeling well. And they take his temperature and it's 101.5 and he gets tested and he tests positive for the virus. The chiefs are done. The chiefs are done. The team they played, which was the Broncos, they're done. And now we get to the first weekend. And oh, by the way, in that one preseason game they had in the short and preseason, the chiefs played the Panthers, you know, and now the Panthers are done for week one, and their opponent's done for week one. And by the way, the Panthers opponent, the preseason game that they played a week ago, they're done.

And it just snowballs. This is the part where I think it's totally logical to just say if there's no remedy, you know, medication-wise, then we are one positive test of one player in a team sport from shutting down the league again. So how do you even go into that? This is why, I mean, one of the reasons way back when that I suggested that, you know, there was not going to be an NCAA final four because all took is one positive test

to throw everything into disarray. Now, I have an idea. Now, you've got to help me out with this because I should know this, but I don't. Are there any conditions where a person is immune? to this disease right now. I mean, there certainly seems to be, you know, a lot of information, right? That once you get it, that you've built up some immunity to it. And the only problem with that is I've also read stories out of South Korea

where people are getting it for a second time, but not with serious symptom potential. You know, the influenza, you don't build up a total immunity to it. You can get it next year. If you get it in January of this year, you can get it January of next year too. The other thing, too, that we're not completely sure of other than just sort of the possibility of the southern hemisphere being slow to sort of spread when it first came out there at the tail end of their summer. And so there is some evidence in Australia, New Zealand and maybe even Africa to a certain degree that maybe warm weather helps. But they're not convinced about that either. They're not completely convinced that warm weather will.

The only thing I think everybody's convinced about is that what we've been doing, mitigation, social distancing has slowed what this, has slowed the spread of this virus significantly. And if we hadn't done that, then it would have spread to many more people, maybe millions of people, and there may be, you know, three to four times a number of deaths at this point. And that's why this whole reopening of America, which I guess our president is going to lay out the plan for later today, there are a lot of people concerned that with that will come.

And, you know, as you said, I think, a wave two. If you have certain antibodies, are you immune from it? Well, I mean, first of all, there's no antibody test right now. They said that that's a very important thing that they're, you know, they're trying to develop to find out who's had it. And then the presumption would be if you can identify who's had it, okay, if they don't have symptoms anymore, then they're through it. And the hope is that they've got some immunity. So with respect to sports, if you're going in that direction, you could take all of the players that test positive for the antibody. Okay, so they've had it, and now they're immune to it, and they can play.

But again, that assumes that you build up an immunity where you can't get it again. And by the way, even if you get it again and you're not seriously threatened by it by getting it for a second time, it doesn't mean that you can't transmit it to somebody else. Okay. I don't have the answer to these questions, by the way. I'm just talking them through based on what seems to be logical. Yeah, I was leaning towards the idea of having a CFL, a Corona Free League, where if you pass a certain test, okay, you can play. and anybody who didn't pass the test can't play,

and you make up third. And this would give an opportunity for everyone who wanted to play professional sports to get in line and say, well, you don't have enough players. You know, I can play. I've got the antibody. Let me play cornerback this weekend. Or let me play third base for the nationals this week. I was going to suggest that if the president can,

and claim to open up whatever he wants. As far as I know, it's still going to be a state-by-state decision. But right now, if conditions the way they are, if things were, quote, opened up, would you change any of your behavior? No, because I'm already working. And I would all, and I think for the time being, without, you know, the things we've talked about, I'm going to be more on the cautious side.

And I know some people say you're getting up, you're leaving the house, you're going to work. You have no idea how safe this is, like for me. I mean, I walk around with hand wipes, you know, drenched in rubbing alcohol, using them to touch every door handle, coming into a studio that no one's allowed to come into.

I don't let the trash pickup people come in. I do that. So I'm in a different position, I think, as I continue to work than some people who are considered to be essential that are coming in probably putting themselves at greater risk going to work. So I'm going to – let's say they open up restaurants. I'm not going to a restaurant right now. No, I'll continue to do carry out and curbside pickup. No, I'm not going to go to a large gathering event. Neither am I.

Nobody in their right mind is going to do that right now. I know that. Well, there's lots of people not in their right mind. I understand that. You know what, a quick cost. I would, it'd be easy for me not to change my behavior. Yeah. I mean, it'd just be easy for me.

Like my oldest son said, a couple, when this first started, this is a catastrophe that's built for Levera. Yeah. I mean, we were made for this. Well, she really was. Shelly's misses you. Yeah, I know that. But, I mean, sitting around and doing nothing and just being able to reach the remote and work it, this is right up our alley. I mean, yeah, I understand.

I mean, we talked about this last week. I think that there are many people that this has actually worked for, you know, to a certain degree. Like, they were socially distancing themselves already, and now they've got an excuse to do it. They don't have to make an excuse to anybody for. blowing them off, you know, going out or going to some place for dinner or whatever. But, you know, it's really, I think really, you know, this is far from a political discussion, what I'm about to mention. Regardless of the person responsible for making these decisions, Republican, Democrat, any administration,

the challenge right now, you know, of trying to figure out and balance the risk of not opening up our economy versus, you know, opening it up, is really, I mean, I can only imagine the challenge right now in that. It's like on one hand, if you open it up, many more people are going to die. On the other hand, if you don't, many people are probably going to die. Because you know what kills people, Tommy? Poverty and depression and all of those things that we're leading. I mean, I've seen some of the pictures. of three quarters of this country lives paycheck to paycheck. There are people where the government cannot support them with, you know, the monthly check they're going to get here and their families

and food's going to become an issue. And these are these are challenging times, man. I mean, I, you know, you can think whatever you want to think about the person responsible for making these decisions, but regardless of whoever that person was, is, or could have been, you been it's a real logistical, you know, it is an emotional. The challenge of trying to figure this thing out has to feel overwhelming. And by the way, probably getting advice both sides from lots of smart people, like lots of smart people saying, if you don't reopen this economy, we're going to have much bigger issues three, four, five months down the road than what this virus can create. And then medical people saying, if you open up this economy and you send people

out there, millions of people potentially could die. It's a real, it's a real challenge. Yeah, it is a real challenge. You know, what, I think the best way to describe it is picture yourself being the mayor of Amity in Dawes. During Jaws. Yeah. And think of that mayor. That's the guy. That's the model right there. He opened up the beaches. And then you saw him after the beaches were open and there were more, more shark, you know, more shark attack. He was mumbling to himself after that. I mean, that's the model right there, the mayor of Amity. You know, Matt, Matt Hooper, you know, Richard Dreyfuss, he tried to tell him. He tried to tell him. He pointed to the picture of that funny picture and he said, actually the proportions are pretty close to accurate.

And he tried to tell old mayor, whatever his name was from. Mammany Highland, you got to close the beaches. And old Chief Brody, he didn't know what to do. But he tried to convince him too. And then, of course, we had the poor little boy with the mother in all black that came up and smacked Chief Brody right in the face after losing her son on his boogie board. Do you remember when you saw that movie? Oh, my God, yeah. Tommy, I saw that movie. 15 times, and I'll tell you why I saw it so much.

The old Jennifer Cinema in Upper Northwest, do you remember that movie theater? It's before my time. Okay, on Jennifer Street, Northwest, it's right where WMAL is, right there, right across the street from Chadwick's in Chatter. Okay, okay. It used to be in a building that had a bank that essentially was sort of at the mid-level, of the theater for some reason. Like if you walked in through the bank, you actually could walk into the theater below where they took tickets. So my friends and I, and we were young, but we, my friends when I was a young kid in a child of the 70s, we were, we certainly got into

our fair share of trouble. I mean, honest, you know, really trouble that didn't really impact people other than, you know, throwing crab apples of cars and nearly causing accidents and things like that. But we snuck into Jaws. And then I think it was the next summer we snuck into Bad News Bears, the original one with Walter Mathau and Tatum O'Neill. Yeah, because Jaws came out in the summer 75. 75. And I think the next summer was bad news bears. And that summer, that summer, that summer of Jaws, I think we snuck in through that bank below that ticket taker 10 times over like a three week period to watch Jaws. I think maybe we paid for it the first time and that was it.

It was amazing. They never figured out how all these kids were sneaking into the theater. But yeah, I mean that movie, that movie did scare. I was a, I love the beach and I always, and I still to this day love being in the water at the beach. But I remember that summer who was a bit different. Yes, absolutely.

Same with me too. I went, at the end of the summer, I went with my wife, then my girlfriend's family, did it to Wildwood for the first time for two weeks. And I remember everybody on the beach. All they could talk about

was jaws and the fear of going in the water at that time. Yeah. I absolutely remember that. And then I remember reading the book. I actually read the book later on. and they didn't have this in the movie, that Hooper has an affair with the Chief's wife.

Oh, that's in, Peter Benchley wrote the book, right? Yeah. You're telling me, and I never read the book, you're telling me that Matt Hooper has an affair with Chief Brody's wife? Yeah, yeah. Really? Yes. Oh, that double.

I don't remember much else, but I remember that saying, wow, there was no inkling of that in the movie. No. didn't need it. I mean, the movie was almost perfect. The movie was perfect. The movie was perfect. But your analogy to the mayor and what's going, it's like, do we open up the beaches and potentially, you know, risk lives, but, but, you know, not risk business? Or do we shut down the business and we lose, you know, all of our summer revenue? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, on a smaller scale, but it's, it's the right analogy. It is tough right now.

I mean, I can only imagine the information that our leader and leaders are getting right now. I certainly hope that the right decisions are made, but I don't know what they are. And in so many ways, and I know that we've gotten repetitive saying this, but in so many ways, I'm not sure how they really know. I mean, like I was talking to my CDC neighbor yesterday. Actually, first time I've talked to him in a couple of weeks. We sat outside with our dogs and, you know, six, seven feet away from each other and had a 30 to 40 minute conversation.

And, you know, he repeated something to me that he had told me like a month ago that SARS and MERS both died out, but there's no medical explanation from anybody as to why. These viruses are so incredibly unpredictable. And I said, well, is it possible that this one? could just die out, you know, for whatever reason. And he said, of course that's possible. He said, the big difference is this one spreads so easily. It's so contagious. It spreads so easily that the potential for a longer life cycle without a vaccine is greater. You know, and he agrees, too, that the medical answer comes before the vaccine answer. But ultimately, he said, to

eradicate something like this, you need a vaccine, you know, and, and by the way, then you need everybody to take the vaccine. You can't have the anti-vacciner people say, I'm not taking this vaccine, like they've done with things like polio and chickenpox and measles over the years, you know, it's funny that when you talk to medical people about those people, they really get upset, you know, and they essentially say there's nothing more selfish than that. There's nothing you know, no matter what your beliefs are, you're putting so many people at risk when you don't take a vaccine that's been proven safe and is helping to eradicate a deadly disease. How about the information that came out last night from various government sources about how this

whole thing got started in that Wuhan lab? Did you read that? I read glimpses of that about how it may have started in the lab. In a lab where, you know, by the way, most countries have labs like this where they're studying, you know, very dangerous medical viruses. Listen, I live within a mile of Fort D.D.D.C. That's what they do up here. They do? Fort D. D.D.R. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. Bial biological warfare and things like that. That's what they study up here. I mean, Fort D. D. D. D. D. It is one of the most dangerous places in the United States. States. Yeah, that's what they do up here. I didn't know that. Had no idea. That's interesting. I know of a facility out in Gatorsburg

that does a lot of sort of bio and, you know, virus-related work, you know, because really that Rockville corridor is very much the biotech corridor of this area. You know, know for many years now. Obviously, I think most people know that. It's like you've had the tech corridor out in Virginia and sort of the biotech corridor out in upper Montgomery County. And I, when I was in a past business, we had an office out in Gatorsburg. And it was right across the street where people were telling stories about what was going to be, you know, going on in the buildings behind these, you know, very tall fences and the kind of testing that was going on. And I always found that that to be really interesting.

But anyway, for those that miss... Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. No, you go ahead. Well, I'm pretty sure that in the Americans, there's a couple of episodes where the Russians try to steal something from Fort Diedrich.

And I think they pretty much mentioned Fort Diedrich in one of the Americans' episodes. So, yeah, this is... I mean, that's what they do up here. It's just like a mile or two from where I live in my fortress of solitude. Well, the net of this story, and, you know, which I guess, you know, is sourced from various government officials. So, you know, believe what you want to believe.

But it's gotten a lot of traction here in the last 24 to 36 hours, I think, is that basically this Wuhan virology, you know, virology lab was not, you know, probably didn't have the same safety measures in place that ours do in Fort Detrick and other places. an intern basically was exposed to this coronavirus. He infected a girlfriend. They traveled and all hell broke loose. And of course, once he got it... He didn't eat a bat or anything like that? Well, apparently they went to a wet market and maybe potentially, you know, I don't know. Basically, that's how it started.

An intern was accidentally infected. And then, of course, it being China and hardly tried. transparent and helpful at this point. They tried to shut it down, but it got out and it spread from there. You know, I think everybody knows at this point that it's a pretty damn good bet that this thing originated in China, you know? Yeah. And the dangers of something like this, you know, originating in a country like that.

You know, obviously... Do you know anyone who's gotten this? Yes, I do now. Okay. They're healthy. it's actually more than one person. It's a family, and they're healthy, and they're going to be okay, but several people in the same house tested positive for it. Well, I just found out yesterday, last night, that my best friend growing up in Brooklyn, New York, just died from the coronavirus.

Is this the guy that you mentioned last week or the week before? No. No, no, no, no. No. This is a, guy that I grew up with in Brooklyn, who I hadn't seen or talked to probably since I was 13 or 14. But I just found out from his brother's Facebook page that he died yesterday from the coronavirus. Now, he was in, his name was Tommy Lent. He was in a nursing home in New Jersey because he had suffered a stroke a few years earlier. So he was already, you know, he was susceptible to this. But he passed away.

This is the first person I know or I know of who had the coronavirus. That's too bad. And, I mean, we were inseparable when we were kids growing up in Brooklyn. I mean, it was me, Tommy Lentie? Was this the person that you walked home and you walked by the Chinese laundromat? I don't want to implicate him in that crime. Okay. I don't know if he was part of that crime or not.

Do you want to refresh everybody's memory as to what that crime was? No, no. I've said too much about that as it is. All right. You know? But this was a guy I used to, you know, play stickball with, punchball with, used to flip baseball cards with, used to argue about baseball with, used to go to Mets games with,

until we left Brooklyn when I was 11 years old. And even then, he came up to visit me in the Poconos once, and I came back to New York to stay with him once. But by the time we were 13, 14, we just lost contact, period. Now, I connected a couple years ago with the third Tommy, another friend of ours, Tommy Ternan, who was in D.C. and we got together for dinner, and we correspond back and forth.

It was all Irish and Italian, wasn't it? Yes, it was. That was pretty much it. Tommy Taryn and Tommy Lentie and Tommy Levera. The three Tommies. This Tommy Lentie was a kid I smoked with when I was eight years old. Cigarettes or weed? No, cigarette.

Cigarettes. I always tell people I started smoking when I was eight, and I quit when I was 12. cigarettes. And there was this time where, let me just share this with you. We, there were like bigger kids. They were like the little kids like us. And then there were the bigger kids, like the juvenile delinquents, who kind of ran the block. You know, and, you know, at once, I guess they found out, I don't know how they found it out. Maybe somebody's mother told them, but they found out Tommy Lenton.

and I were smoking. So we're walking down the street one day, and these older kids from the neighborhood, pull up in a car, jump out, grab us, throw us in the car, and take off. And for 45 minutes, they scared us to death that if they ever caught us smoking, that we would wind up in the harbor. Smoking? Smoking. Smoking cigarettes. Now, we're talking. about guys who were in and out at juvenile hall, whatever that was back then. We're talking about... And they were just basically, you know, they were just trying to scare you. This was...

Yeah. How much older were they than you? 15, 16. We were like 8, 9. You know, so they were about seven or eight years older than us. They were scary guys. I mean, these were guys that got into... into gang fights and stuff like that back then. But I find it like funny that they watched out for us

and tried to do this scare straight thing with us about smoking cigarettes. It didn't work. We'd have smoking. But I always wondered if one of our moms didn't say something to them. Or some, I just don't know. It was like this moment where they found something in their heart to watch out for these kids in between committing, crime. That's hysterical.

Yeah. You know, like smoking, I remember, I definitely smoked cigarettes before I smoked pot, but, you know, again, like my neighborhood is a kid. I think you and I actually are similar in our childhoods, just the scenery was different, you know, you growing up in Brooklyn and me growing up sort of in suburban Washington, but we had, I think, sort of the same kind of of shenanigan friends, you know, mischievous friends. I mean, my best friend through high school, we got in, we got in a lot of, you know, innocent trouble, but I've told you the story about, you know, stealing the golf cart and using that to deliver newspapers for like a month

straight. And, and we, you know, we owned a car at 14 years old. My friend Mike and I, we bought a car when we were 14. We had it for, you know, basically, you know, three, four months. But, Cigarettes, by the way, hated cigarettes the first time I smoked cigarettes and still to this day, never been a cigarette smoker. I just haven't. But I do remember the first time I smoked weed. It was a girl in the neighborhood who was older and she babysat all of us when we were younger. And she was the one that basically bought weed and introduced it to all of us who were like, you know, 12, 13 years old in the neighborhood.

And so, and I wasn't a big weed guy at all, not at all. I mean, I was always the guy that if somebody had it, I would smoke it maybe through college. But then after that, not at all. I mean, I'm thinking about smoking it now or certainly trying, you know, trying some sort of CBD answer these days. Right. But, yeah, it was just, you know, it was typical, you know, pre, teen shenanigans, you know, all of it.

Yeah. And, well, I didn't, I mean, we didn't come along. I mean, when you did that, I was 18 the first time I smoked weed. And I was up in a poke. I was at a party up in the Poconos. I wasn't going to college yet. And I liked it. I mean, you know, there were kids my age who had smoked earlier.

I remember there were some kids in high school who smoked, and I was scared the death as it was then. so I didn't do it. But then when I went to school, Miami, the wheels came off. That was it. I mean, that was it. The wheels just came off. It was a much more regular occurrence for a while after that.

Yeah. Whatever. I don't even know how we got into this because your friend passed away. That's sad. Yeah. It is sad. I wish I had connected with him. at some point over those years.

You know, I'm just thinking back to my young, you know, 70s neighborhood friends. I don't think, I think on Facebook several years ago, I connected with this guy, Tommy, who was lived across the street from me and was probably my best friend when I was, you know, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 years old. But they moved and didn't go to the same high school, so lost touch with them. It's funny because actually one particular person I heard from on Facebook, you were talking about the guy that you would argue sports with all the time. So there was this guy, Andy, who lived in the neighborhood.

His sister, by the way, was my age, and he was two years older. His sister, Laura, was the only. person in the neighborhood that could challenge me at basketball. She was really, really good. She was a great basketball player. And there was this hoop in this one family's backyard where we lived all the time playing hoops. And Laura was a really, she was a really good athlete, but she was one of those girls got to high school, didn't want to be an athlete. She should have been because she, she would have been a really good high school athlete. Anyway, this guy, Andy, who was two years old, older than me. Tommy, do you remember the Sports Illustrated Board of?

football games? No. Oh, my God. They were great. Basically, Sports Illustrated produced these board games for NFL and college football. I'm Googling it right now

so I can get the exact name of the game. Let's see, it's got to be here somewhere. Here it is. It's on eBay. They've got it available. Sports Illustrated, Pro Football, Pay Dirt College Football Bowl game.

and then there was the NFL game as well. And basically they would give you sheets offensive and defensive for the teams for the previous year. So, you know, strengths and weaknesses and you would have play calls and you would roll some dice on a play you called, and then your opponent would call a defensive play, and it would end up with like, you know, a net three-yard gain or a net, you know, whatever it would end up with. And this guy, Andy, who had moved into the neighborhood, he was the only guy in the neighborhood. who loves sports as much as I did. We would sit there for hours and play this Sports Illustrated pro football game. And they had moved in from Michigan.

So he was a big Lions fan and I was a big Redskins fan. But what I really remember, I'm sorry, he didn't move in from Michigan. He moved in from New York, the people that were in the house before came in from Michigan. He was a big Mets fan. They lived in Bergen County, Northern New Jersey before they moved down here. Right. And what we would do is in the backyard, we would play one-on-one wiffle ball where we would play a World Series the Mets against the A's. The A's for whatever reason after the Senators left became my favorite team because I was a bandwagon jumper, really.

I loved Vita Blue. I loved Reggie Jackson. You know, I loved Catfish Hunter and Holtzman and all those guys on those great A's teams of the mid-70s. and we would play out, you know, basically an entire series, Mets versus A's World Series, where, you know, we would have various areas, if you hit the ball to this area, it was a single, if you hit it to this area, it was a double, this area triple, this area home run, you know, this area is a ground out, you know, or whatever, and we would sit there and play the whole games, and he knew more about baseball than anybody, and I knew more about football and basketball,

and the two of us would just sit there and play these games and then argue for hours of on hours about sports. I think every sports fan who was a kid had another kid in the neighborhood that they argued with about sports. So do you know where this guy is now? No, I have no idea. I heard from him and his sister, I think, on Facebook

a few years back. Laura was my age. We went to high school together, and I think probably I've run into her at like a reunion or something and asked about him, but I think he and I exchanged messages on Facebook. Facebook and we, you know, like five, six years ago when I was actually on Facebook and talked

about these, you know, who, you know, who won the Mets A's Whiffle Ball World Series in 1977, you know, our 1978. Yeah. Those were all, you know what? That was back when you pretty much didn't have any other option but to create your own fun. Yes, absolutely. There were no video games then.

No. I'm surprised you don't remember the sports. Illustrated football game. What was the big baseball board game? Well, there were a couple. One was APBA. It was called a card game with boards and stuff. But I didn't do a lot of that. I really didn't play a lot of board games in general, non-sports board games, because I did. Played a lot of monopoly in college in particular. We played cutthroat monopoly in college, where people got into fights. I mean, I mean, I can remember playing on Monopoly board with bloodstains on it.

So we played a lot of, like, all-night monopoly games, making up the rules that you go along. And I played, I mean, my dad taught me how to play chess, you know, when I was growing up, and I played a lot of chess a couple summers. At the park, we used to go to one time everybody was into playing chess. So I played a lot of chess. But not a big board guy. I didn't play life or Partizzi. Yotsi and Monopoly were our big games. And if we were at the beach, that was a constant, you know, every day, every night thing. We've been talking now for about 30 minutes about anything but sports. Sorry about that, by the way.

But, you know, these are unique times we're living in. And everybody is talking about other things as well. let's get to some sports. Would you like to? Absolutely. By the way, what started this was, are we going to have sports or not? Fauci says maybe without crowds, etc. Your prediction is no sports until when?

Until people can have a reasonably safe feeling that they're not going to risk their lives by going out. And look, I think, from what everything I've heard, whoever, you know, the people that are calling the shots in California, from the governor on down to local officials, seem to have a pretty good handle on reality here in terms of what to expect. Nobody knows for sure anything. but everything, you know, if our culture starts in California and moves east, I'm going to figure that the coronavirus decisions do as well. So they've been pretty cautious in California. I think you might not see NFL football.

You might not see any sport the rest of the year, period, not even NFL football in 2020. You know, Mark Masking and Dave Shining had a story in the post last. night about the NFL's contingency plans. They're creating tons of contingency plans for, you know, no crowds, partial crowds, a start to the season on time, a delayed start to the season. In fact, you know, my favorite time of year, mock schedule time a year, and I'll have my mock schedule out in a few weeks. The NFL schedules do out May 9th. One of the things that came out of that story was that when the NFL releases the schedule, they may have a contingency schedule that they release also that would account for a delayed start to the season, which I think

is pretty interesting. Like, I mean, how can you, I mean, you can have a contingency plan, but there's got to be a contingency to the contingency at this point. But when we get the actual NFL 2020 schedule in roughly three weeks, we are going to have apparently not just the schedule if everything goes well, but the contingency schedule. So I promise you with my mock schedule, I'll only subject you to the pain of one mock schedule. Not a contingency schedule as well. I'm not going to do that to you.

But, yeah, they, yeah, I mean, look, the NFL in Maskey and Shine had pointed this out in the story. They're really in an advantageous situation, right? Because they get to sit back and see what happens with other leagues. They didn't have to make the first call on this. And by the way, at this point, the free agency continuing and the draft, which is a week from tonight, it certainly doesn't feel inappropriate or wrong that the NFL's continued to operate their business. I think, you know, some of that's been, a lot of that's been exaggerated. I can't wait for the draft.

Imagine what the ratings are going to be next Thursday night for the NFL draft. But what comes after that, Kevin? I know. Well, Tommy. That's the cliff. That's the cliff. Yeah. Well, I got a list of 25, you know, July ideas that we're going to have to basically roll out in early May, it looks like.

Yeah, but the NFL, the point is the NFL doesn't have to make a decision. decision right now. They've got plenty of time. Well, I think I read a quote or heard a quote from an unnamed NFL official that basically said the other leagues need to go first. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. They've got to go first.

You know, the only sport that's really been aggressive and it makes sense is golf. I mean, they are now planning a resumption of their tour schedule, you know, at Colonial in Fort Worth, which, by the way, is literally an eighth of a mile, quarter of a mile from TCU's campus. in Fort Worth. But they're going to resume with the colonial Charles Schwab on July 11th through the 14th. Just no spectators. You know, and that makes sense to me that golf can can play. You don't have to be within six feet of anybody playing a golf round. And with no fans there and only television cameras, et cetera, they should be able to pull it off. They've revamped their entire

schedule. They're going to start playing. The PGA tour is going to start playing on June 11th through 14th, and they, you know, have a full summer slate now planned out going into, you know, the first of three majors this year, which will be the PGA in early August, and then they're going to have the U.S. Open in mid-S. Open and then the Masters in November. I know you don't care about that, but I have to tell you, I swear to you, if I have golf to look forward to each weekend, it'll be a difference maker for me. I can see that. I love watching golf. I'm in golf pools, and it'll be live sporting event, live competition.

The bottom line is with respect to no crowds. It's not that big of a deal anyway. There's a lot of golf that you watch on the weekend where golfers will be on certain holes where there aren't a lot of fans lining the fairway. I think that'll be nice to see. So you're not going to miss people screaming out from the crowd. You're the man. Yeah, no, I'm not going to miss that at all.

You know, I think, you know, especially if tigers playing in some of these tournaments, you know, you're going to see, you know, just an incredible number of, certainly golf fans aren't going to miss it. And then sports fans are going to be like, oh, Tigers playing. It's a live sporting event. I might as well tune in because they do anyone. Yeah, you're probably right. But, yes, the NFL definitely has an advantage.

College football, Jack Swarbuck, the AD at Notre Dame, said, if campuses are closed, there are no sports. at college sports. Personally, my impression is college football, they've determined that they need crowds more than the NFL does. I don't know why they would feel like they need them more than the NFL does.

I mean, I understand that there are larger crowds. There are more, you know, sort of invested crowds sometimes at college games than pro games in a lot of college places. But, you know, there are a lot of college games that are played on the weekends that are played before half-empty. too. You know, that 12 o'clock kickoff in, you know, in the Mac, you know, it's not like you're playing, you know, in front of a packed house. College football to me would be great for this country to have that back to. I don't know why it's tied. Of course, I understand why, because it's

all about these are student athletes, but let's be real here for a moment. You know, even if campuses aren't back on campus and these students are taking online classes in the fall. I don't know why. If the NFL moves forward without crowds, college football couldn't. I'm not sure why either, but that's been the position that I've read from people in college football in the business of college football. It's big TV money. You know, you're pushing off and maybe never get back.

Maybe never get back. Let me just quickly mention to everybody, and I've been mentioning this on the podcast all week. My radio show now is 6 a.m to 9 a.m. on 980, also 95.9 FM. Also, download the Team 980 app. It's easy to listen to the shows that way. Also at the Team 980.com. Same thing. If you're in your home with Alexa or Google Home, just tell Alexa that you want to Team 980. I'm on from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. yesterday, if you're If you missed it, I had Mike Loxley on the show. He was excellent. You know, he's basically either familiar with by coaching or by recruiting almost all of the players that are in the

first round, projected first round of this draft. You know, at Alabama, at Maryland, in all the places, he's been such a master recruiter and he's so familiar with so many of these guys. It was a really good conversation with him. And you can go back and listen to that at the team 980.com or the Team 980 app. So what's the deal? Okay, speaking of radio shows, what's the deal with you and Chris Russell? What is this stuff I'm reading on Twitter?

Is there some kind of feud between you and Russell going on? No, no, no, no, there's no feud. Really? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Why, is anybody, are people saying that there's a feud between Russell and I? That's not true. I don't know. There's a lot of back and forth.

You insulted him or something like that? Oh, no, no, no, no, no. In fact, he texted me and he says, he goes, I love you. And by the way, just Russell, you and I, you've worked with him at the other station, too, but we both had a chance to work very closely with Chris Russell at 980. And I love Chris. And I've always loved Chris. Let me just tell you something about Chris Russell, regardless of what you think about him. Russell was a great teammate.

Okay, he was, you know, not everybody in this business, you know, is helpful. And, you know, a lot, and we were lucky. We had a lot of good people at 980, and I'm sure you felt the same way about the other station. I'm not going to ask you to comment on that. But at 980, we all really, it was sort of like a club, especially when we were in Rockville. And we were all in there every day. And there was definitely sort of a club feature. feeling to it and almost a fraternity aspect to it. And Russell, Russell was incredibly team-oriented.

You know, Russell would do anything. He would come in and work any shift. If you asked him to do something like, hey, you're going to be at the park tomorrow. Will you get me such and such to be on the show tomorrow? He would go do it. I just always, I always liked Chris. And Chris on the air, you know, is a character. He is a character. And so, and by the way, I think he always, always did a really good job as a beat reporter for our station. He's an underrated reporter. Yes. I've had this conversation with him on the air when we've done shows together,

and I've tried to counsel him when he'd be under attack. I would always say to him that sometimes your bluster gets in the way of people recognizing your talent, that you're a very good reporter. He is a good reporter. He breaks stories. He does a good job, but what gets in the way is the Ruthermania. Right. That's what gets in the way.

Yes. The whole, you know, woe is me. I hate traffic. What am I supposed to do next? I know, I know. The whole discombobulated act. Tommy, I had that conversation with him in my office at 980 many, many years ago. I'm like, you know, you're good.

If you stay away from all of the stuff that you just described, like, oh, my God, it took me hours to get in here. Nobody cares about that stuff. Focus on the stuff that you're really good at because it's really good. And anyway, the net of it is I always liked Chris. I still like Chris. You know, I consider Chris to be a friend. And I've had him on the podcast before. I love Russell.

But the other day, this is classic Chris Russell. And it was brilliant. And it was actually, I understand that in some ways I was making fun of him, but in many ways I was complimenting him. So somebody sent me this story. Russell writes for Sports Illustrated. Did you know that? Or whatever the new iteration of Sports Illustrated is? Yeah.

He's like the Sports Illustrated editor in charge of Redskins coverage. Right. So I read this story. And the headline of the story is, Snyder, New Redskins GM, question mark. Basically, Tommy, the USA Today, in sort of their draft preview snapshot, you know, where they take all 32 teams and they're like, Washington Redskins, the head coach is Ron Rivera, their 2019 record was 3 and 13, they hold the number two pick in the draft, their general manager, and they wrote next to general manager, Dan Snyder. in the little snapshot thing on USA Today. Yeah.

All right. So obviously it's an error, right? Like they, even though in the, look, we all would probably have some inclination to believe that Dan Snyder would love to have the general manager title, but we know he's not the general manager. So Russell takes that little snapshot error and turns it into this whole big thing where he says, hold on, let me pull the thing up. I've checked, and I've been told repeatedly that Snyder is not interfering. So he turns this little snapshot error into a story about whether or not Snyder is actually the Redskins' GM and then breaks news on it. For himself, he breaks news that he's essentially checked with his sources,

and his sources are telling him that Snyder's not actually the GM. I thought it was brilliant. It was perfect Russell. And by the way, for this day and age right now, it's good content. You know, it's a great way to suck people into a story. I just was cracking up reading it because I'm like, this is, this is perfect. This is a Beatrice.

You know, this is taking something and turning it into something. That's what it was. And Russell sent me a text after I talked about it on radio and he said, you know, he was laughing and it was funny. And I said, you know, it's meant in, you know, with the best of intentions and all, you know, with the best of fun. And I love Russell. And he wasn't, trust me, he was not offended at all. Others may have thought that it was something that it wasn't, that he didn't think it was either. Okay.

Now I have an idea of what was going on. Look, Russell had the big beast that he has to feed every day. That Sports Illustrated thing that he's got going? Yeah. That's a beast that requires feeding every single day. Does he have to write every day? I don't know if he has to write every day, but there's a lot of demand for content on that,

that he's in charge of. So, yeah, I could see him doing that. I could see him writing two or three stories about that. You know, even a story about asking Redskins fans, would you like Dan Snyder to be your general manager? Look, we all make it up. I mean, trust me, nobody, you know, you know, makes up and wings it with, you know, when you don't have a lot going on,

more than you do and more than I do. You've got to write a column, and you and I used to do a radio station every day, and we know what June and July were like, where we'd have to sit down and really be sort of creative to come up with something that we could make people, you know, at least partially care about. I just thought it was funny. Yeah, basically the measuring stick was to stay away from

should Pete Rose be in the hall thing. Exactly. That was the measuring. Right. Or stay away from that one. Which record will never be broken? Yes. You know, if you were a commissioner for one day, what would you change, you know, all of those things.

Like that, you know, which by the way can turn into interesting conversations, but they're sort of, you know, as my good friend Zabe would say, they're very cliche. I don't do the cliche stuff. They'll leave that for everybody else. But I just thought this was hysterical because Russell basically. took an error, a printing error, turned it in to him breaking a story and, you know, breaking news on Dan Snyder, not being the GM. I thought it was brilliant. So that's where that came from. Listen, I love Russell, too. I've done a lot of shows with him over at 106-7, and he's great to do a show with, and I'm a big fan. You know, anybody, and I remember this, you know, any,

how many times would we get a call or a tweet or an email that involves something about Russell, either positive or negative? You know what? That means that he was certainly and has always made an impression, you know? And that's, there's a talent in that. And to your point, you know, he was a good reporter. And what I said about him was 100% true. Chris was always a great teammate, you know, always.

willing to help, always willing to do anything you asked him to do. And I always appreciated that about him. Anyway, there was a story yesterday that floated around about Odell Beckham Jr. being traded to the Vikings. And the Vikings were going to give up a second and a fifth rounder. And basically Mary Kay Cabot out of Cleveland squashed it and said, you know, her sources say that it was completely false, et cetera. First of all, it would just be hysterical if Stefan Diggs, leaves and O'Dell Beckham Jr. comes in. Yes. I mean, if, you know, by the way, Diggs had some very nice things to say about Kirk Cousins in his so long to Minnesota, hello Buffalo column in the Players Tribune.

Look, it's probably true that Diggs was very frustrated at times, and it's probably very true that everybody was frustrated with Diggs and his behavior at times in Minnesota. But my God, I mean, if you're going to trade digs to make sure there's no disruption and you're going to trade for OBJ, imagine when Cousins throws the check down to Dalvin Cook with OBJ screaming on the far sideline that he was open. But anyway, I was thinking this morning about, okay, so O'Dell Beckham Jr, maybe it's true. Look, he wanted to get traded. He was not, you know, he was a continuing diva in Cleveland. you know, argued with that, you know, lummocks of a coach, Freddie Kitchens,

multiple times on the sideline. You got taken the task on Twitter for calling him a diva, didn't you? Would you say? You got taken the task by somebody on Twitter for referring to him as a diva. Oh, yes, I did. I did.

Yeah, so you read that. Yeah, because, well, I'll read it to you. Where is it? Hold on here for a second. It was so absurd. If you looked up a diva in the dictionary, you'd see his pictures would be one of them next to it. Yeah.

Stan on Twitter. This morning I basically said, I'm going to get to what we got to this morning on radio with you. Okay. Because I think I know what your answer will be, and it's going to be fun to listen to it. But basically, if Odell Beckham Jr. is available to be traded, why not just trade Trent Williams to Cleveland for Odell Beckham Jr.? You know, they're essentially the same value. But anyway, yeah, this guy tweeted me this morning.

if Odell is available, Redskins should trade Trent to the Browns. OBJ just has one year left and guaranteed cash, could lose Trent for nothing. I don't recall OBJ having legit teammate issues in Cleveland. Lastly, please stop with the diva tag. Very disrespectful. And yeah, that one got my attention. And I just responded to him, disrespectful, more like obvious. And he did.

Like he argued, there were several moments last year where you see him throwing his helmet off and arguing with Freddie Kitchens, who was a complete nutter lummix, you know, of a coach. He based, there's a report out there that in game last year, he told opponents and told opponents coaches trade for me. I want to get out of here. He's the definition of an NFL wide receiver diva. Exactly. I mean, give me a break. If you don't know that, then you've not been paying attention. But back to him to Minnesota, I mean, you know what I think of Kirk.

And I just think Minnesota has better options and more reliable options long term in the draft. They've got two first round picks. But don't mistake that for OBJ Tommy is one of the most gifted wide receivers of all time. That is not really that debatable. In terms of his overall talent, it is elite, elite. I mean, there's no reason why if he weren't a normal human being, that he wouldn't be one of the great receivers, if not the best receiver of this era. Even with all the bad teams he's been on, with the dysfunctional situations he's put himself in,

and he's been a part of, you know, in Cleveland, he's still been incredibly productive. He's a great talent. So, back, I don't see him getting traded to Minnesota. I just don't think they got rid of digs to then bring in Odell Beckham Jr. That's my personal opinion. On the Redskins front, would you, as a Redskins fan, and I will ask Tommy as a non-redskinned fan, would you trade Trent Williams straight up for Odell Beckham Jr? Basically, you know, Trent, the Redskins won a second for Trent,

and the report was a second and a fifth for O'Dell Beckham Jr. So they're pretty close in terms of trade value. Would you do it? Okay. I have to split my personality here, the two answers. As a media member, I would love to see O'Dell Beckham here with the Redskins. Absolutely. And we could put Des Bryant on the other side of them, too. I would love to have that combination.

to write about. I think it would be gold, Jerry. As they say, pure gold, Jerry. If I was a Redskins fan, why do I want a loser like that on my team? He's a loser. Like Des Bryant was a loser. Like Terrell Owens was a loser.

He's a loser, no doubt. You're not going to win with those guys. You're just not going to win. They're not going to be there when you need them. when the things are tough for everybody on the team. He's going to be the loudest, he's going to be the loudest squeaky wheel when you need all the wheels to be moving in the same direction.

And you can't win with those guys. You just can't. I mean, he may be a great talent, but, you know, I mean, the point is, the point is to win a championship. That's the idea. And he'll never win one. but if he wins one, it will be at the end of his career when he's half the player he is now.

So you're right. He's a loser, okay? I mean, he signs this massive deal, which was a massive mistake by the Giants. And then he wants out basically, you know, before the ink's even dry on the contract. With that said, so he's. He had an absolute, you know, joke of a head coach in Cleveland in Freddie Kitchens. He had to play for the likes of Pat Schumer and Ben McAdoe in New York. Now, he started his career, and by the way, two incredibly productive seasons with Tom Coughlin in New York,

in Coughlin's final two seasons. He's going to turn 28 years old. This would be third team in three years. And he would be playing for a guy that, you know, I don't know if this is true or not, but I would certainly walk out on the limb of saying that Ron Rivera's a higher quality manager of players and personalities than Freddie Kitchens and Ben McAdoo are. I think that's a reasonable conclusion.

So he would be playing for his first real coach since Coughlin. He's an outrageous talent. There's no denying that. he certainly would, you know, elevate, the Redskins were in the market to upgrade the wide receiver position looking at Amari Cooper. A lot of people think they're going to take one in the draft. And by the way, a lot of people say, well, why are they looking for a receiver? They had three great rookies last year. Well, they had one great rookie last year.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, come on. Yeah, I mean, let's not crowned Sims and all these guys. They haven't done anything. Exactly. I mean, I really like Terrible. McClearn. He looks like a real number one NFL wide receiver, but I'm not about to say that Terry

McLaren's going to be an elite wide receiver, game changer, a Julio Jones, you know, kind of guy. Although he's really talented. You know, McLaren, and by the way, McLaren is really, according to everybody, smart, thoughtful, great teammate, class act to go with, you know, 4344 speed and decent size and great route running ability. I'm really bullish on McLaren. I really like Kelvin Harmon, but he's a number two. I like Steven Sims Jr. as a slot receiver. I even like Trey Quinn a little bit as a slot receiver. But beyond that, bottom line is the team thinks they need to upgrade weapons for Dwayne. And there's no denying that if you brought in O'Dell Beckham Jr., there's nobody on the roster that would have his talent other than maybe Chase Young

if you draft him, you know? I mean, he's got that kind of talent. Now, would I do it, I would, for the same reasons you said, I think it would be really intriguing. And then I would consider it more seriously with Ron Rivera as the head coach. And by the way, not a bad sort of, hey, let's trade Trent Williams. We got to get rid of him anyway. And this could be a one-year deal with Beckham Jr. If it doesn't work, we can try to trade him next year, you know, and pick up whatever we can. I mean, his trade value at that point, if it's a fourth team in four years, isn't going to be very high. But my opinion as to what the team would think about it is absolutely not. There is no chance that they will do this. They've gotten rid of Josh Norman. They got

rid of Quentin Dunbar who ran his mouth. They want Trent Williams out of Dodge. There's no way that in this current mode of trying to change the culture, which is what Ron Reve, Vera is really focused on that he's going to bring an Odell Beckham Jr. for Dwayne Haskins' eighth start. There's no way that there's no chance. Exactly. Exactly. I mean, you know, the last thing this quarterback needs is a wide receiver screaming at him on the sideline. That's the last thing Dwayne Haskins needs. Hey, Tommy. For this year. Dwayne Haskins just tweeted out a picture of him throwing to Odell Beckham Jr. in a

skin uniform. Of course. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Now, would it surprise you? No, it wouldn't surprise me. I'd stop paying attention to Dwayne's Twitter account. I mean, I've just stopped.

Apparently, a couple weeks ago, maybe not long ago, he retweeted the selfie picture or Instagram. He did. Oh, you just reminded me of something about that. Yeah. I don't know. I didn't pay attention to it. I just saw somebody reference it. I don't know why he felt the need to do that. You know, but he did that. So he must be pretty proud of it. I'm going back to find it because you just reminded me of something. Somebody tweeted something to me. Where is that picture that he tweeted out? Yeah, he retweeted a picture of himself taking the selfie out. the Detroit game.

And there was something written there, and I'm forgetting what it was now, so I apologize. Yeah, I mean, I didn't even, I barely paid attention to it. Yeah, so a lot of people, a lot of people are like, why would he do that? Like, you know, this is, does he not, and I'm, and I brought it up, I think on the radio show, maybe not here. But I just wanted to mention that somebody got into it on Twitter with me. They were relentless. I don't even think I responded, because I was going to respond on the podcast or on the

radio show, and I don't think I have, and said, that's not the Detroit game. And I'm telling you, there's a picture in the background of the scoreboard, the thin scoreboard that goes around the stadium at the mid-level that says Redskins versus Lions on it. So it was the Detroit game. It was the selfie he took after the Lion game. And I can't, I don't have an explanation as to why he would retweet that. I don't. You know, I'm done trying to keep up with, you know, the social media, you know, lives of these athletes and what they really mean and how insecure it really makes them.

I know what my impression is. It never matches up with everybody's impression. So I think it really is, it's almost like it's almost like an age thing with, the social media. I had Sean Springs on the show last week, Tommy, and I asked him about Dwayne on social media, and does he ever, you know, talk to him about it? Because Sean Springs is a real mentor to Haskins and has been since he was 12 years old and a friend of the families. And Sean Springs, and it's true, if you follow Sean Springs on Twitter, he's just not active. Sean Springs isn't active on social media. He goes, I don't really even know what you're talking about. I don't really follow

him on social media. And he said, but I have told him that, you know, the best, you know, sort of expression you can make is with your play on the field. But it's generational. I know, but that doesn't make it right, you know. But it also doesn't make it harmful. No, well, you don't know what it translates to inside a locker room. That's what we don't know, one way or the other. I mean, we don't know how other Redskins wide receivers, you know, would feel about their quarterback Instagramming photos of him playing with another, with a wide receiver who's not on the team, you know? So we don't know how that translates in the locker

room. He did that with Stefan. I mean, if they're human beings, I would think it's not translating very well. But again, I don't care anymore. I don't care. Yeah, I mean. So if he tweets out a picture of him and Odell Beckham or Instagram said, I could care less. But, you know, you're forgetting. We did this, you know, a month ago when he sent the picture out with him throwing to digs in a Redskins uniform. And we both agreed that how would, you know, I gave you the example. I said, how would he feel if Terry McClorn Instagramed out a picture of James Winston throwing McLorn a pass in a redskin uniform?

and people, you know, people that you sort of snap back. First of all, there's a big difference between receivers and quarterbacks. There's only one quarterback. There are multiple receivers. Secondly, this is what they do. You know, they want the team to be better. They're all about team. I'm like, okay, well, how about just win some games first?

You know, how about produce on the field for a couple of years? And then we can Instagram out, you know, recruiting letters or recruiting, you know, social media posts. it's not his job to play GM in the first place but whatever it bothers us it doesn't bother a lot of people I'm sort of over it now to a certain degree I'm sure he'll do something or somebody will do something in the next month or so that we'll just will be all over but it really

it does get old and it really is a matter of perspective in terms of how you you know how you react to these things yes that said what's right is right and what's not it's not and you know that that selfie picture should be a moment of shame and embarrassment for him not one to glorify was his first win yes it was so why not a picture of him bleeding the drive down the field that led to the game winning field goal he said the game winning field goal with such condescension he actually you know i thought he played great in that game at the end i thought he did too i thought he did too yeah

I did. So, um, I mean, come on. Yeah. By the way, so I'm forgetting if we did this on Tuesday. I don't think we did. Have you seen anything out there that talks about Ron Rivera's contract in terms of how much money he's earning per year? Not a, not a word. I haven't either.

I haven't either. Now, we know Jay Gruden made $4 million, $5 million a year. I thought Gruden was five-minute. Because I thought it was a five-year, $20 million deal, which is $4 million a year. Yeah, but when they gave them the extension, didn't it bump up a little bit or not? Maybe you could be right. I don't know. Okay, let's assume $5 million a year.

So you've got to figure Rivera is making more than that, right? Definitely. Maybe $7 million a year? You're right, by the way. The original contract was $5 million, $20 million. and then the extension was still at $4 million per year. Okay, so everybody in the top 10 basically makes close to $8 million a year in the NFL. Yeah.

No, it's got to be between maybe $7 million. And how long? Do we know how long? Well, yeah, that's been reported that it's a five-year deal. Okay. Is it a true five-year deal, an absolute 100% five-year deal? I can't imagine it's not. I can't imagine that Ron Rivera, yeah.

I mean, Matt, Matt, people forget, Zorn was a five-year deal, but it really wasn't. Yeah, it was like, when they announced Dorn, it was a five-year deal. Matt Rule's contract is going to pay him $8.5 million per year. He's in the top 10 of NFL head coaches as a first time out of college head coach in Charlotte. There's no chance that Rivera is making less than $8 million a year. It's got to be. I think you're right. I think it's got to be.

I think it's got to be in that area of like, you know, I think Belichick, Carol, and Gruden are all like $10 million or north of $10 million. And maybe Peyton is too. It's got to be just below that, barely below that. Yeah. You're right. I think you're right. It's got to be $8 million or more.

So I went back yesterday and just talked about the comments that he had about Dan Snyder just over a week ago in that press conference where, you know, he said, you know, basically he's updating Dan on a daily basis or every other day that Dan doesn't want to be laissez-faire. He doesn't want to be hands-off anymore like he was, you know, essentially having convinced Rivera that basically Bruce was running the organization for the last 10 years, and it was Bruce's fault, you know, which is essentially what he did during that introductory press conference when he introduced Ron Rivera is, you know, culture change, you know, essentially Bruce's fault. And with Bruce, you know, it's like Jay's fault. You know, it's never their fault. Nobody's fault, but someone else's. Like all that time, all that drinking time that Bruce Allen and Dan Snyder spent together, what were they talking about? TV shows? Yeah. So, but then there was a question and follow-up to him saying, and, you know, Rivera said, you know, Dan just wants to be kept in the loop. And, you know, he's giving us all the tools we need to win, you know, which is what every single coach has ever said about Snyder. He wants to win so desperately. He's going to give us everything we need to win.

really well nobody was able to make it work but then the follow-up question to that had to do with you know a timeline for turning it around and the question specifically dealt with you know addressing the fans as to the timeline and um you know and and his answer was quote um i do know that it's got to happen soon i can tell you that much i understand i get that part of it closed quote. So my question would be, how long does he get? Like, by the way, just as a quick aside on the conversation about Snyder, you know what, I'm totally fine with Snyder getting daily updates, Snyder being in the loop. As long as somehow I could be assured as a fan that Dan is not going to get involved in any football decision, that it's Ron's decision that stands. You know,

if there's a debate among the football people, whatever Ron says is what we're doing. You know, get your updates to Snyder, make him feel good that you've kept him in the loop, but, you know, and make sure that he's totally supportive of everything you do. And I want that for a minimum of three years, a minimum of three, you know, and I don't know if Dan can do it, especially if they're not winning, but I think, you know, you got to give, from if you're an owner's standpoint, you've got to stay the hell out of this thing. and hopefully he had the Come to Jesus moment sitting in his stadium that was four-fifths empty for most of the year. But how long does Rivera get?

What's a legitimate amount of time before they have to be, let's just say for the purposes of this conversation, a playoff team? Okay, who are you talking about? The fans or Snyder? I'm talking about Snyder, really, because the fans don't have a say in it. he's got to, I give him a year. Oh, come on. No, a year. You think Dan's only going to give him one year? Before he starts meddling?

Yeah, and that's the, and by the way, you just said it. Make sure I'm clear on this. It's not about firing him. It's about before Dan decides, oh, Jesus, I got to get involved again. You think only a year. A year. Listen, I wrote this column. When Rivera got hired, his only path to success with Snyder is the Joe Torrey's George Steinbrenner path.

Right. Where Joe Tori became so, won a World Series his first year and became so powerful and so popular that Steinbrenner couldn't interfere with him. That Steinbrenner became the less powerful person in the public eye. and Joe had the power of public opinion behind him, which was real important. Did the Yankees ever sink to the depths of what this Redskin organization is sunk to? Well, listen, they didn't go to a playoff from 1981 to 1995, 95, they went to the wild card. 14 years for the Yankees, I mean, I think that might be the longest fan they ever went. I mean, they were in the World Series in 64, and they went again in 76.

So that's 12 years. I don't think there was a span. So the Yankees, under Steinbrenner, had their longest stretch. What about fan support, though, Tommy? What about fan support? Fan support would be more generous and more reasonable. Playoff team. You mean not comparable to what the falloff for the Redskins has been?

Right. Okay. Right. Because it's really important to point out. It's not just the four-fifths empty stadium. It's the fact that on television locally, this team has been abandoned for all intents and purposes over the last couple of years. Snyder's felt this worse than I think Steinbrenner felt it. Well, Steinbrenner, I mean, we talk about Snyder and how competitive he is.

and that's just ridiculous how competitive he is. Steinbrenner was competitive. Steinbrenner was a football coach owning a baseball team. Okay? I don't care how competitive Snyder is in business. He never had the competitive fever that Steinbrenner had. So, I mean, there's two different animals in that sense. I think fans would, I think, you know, after two years,

I think you've got to make the playoffs if you're, fan. If you're Snyder, you've got to make it after one year. Or else, you know, I don't want you messing with my quarterback anymore. Or I think we should take this guy. No, I like this guy, and we should sign this guy. I think Rivera has a year, a year to, of great. Why is that unreasonable? It's not. I'm not saying it's unreasonable. It's just not my prediction. It's not unreasonable. I can't say that it's unreasonable because there is a context where that happens. And the context is this. They go four and 12, Dwayne is horrible, but so is the rest of the team. And Rivera says, Dwayne can't do it. He can't do it. We've got to get ourselves a quarterback. If we had had

a quarterback last year, we would have been an eight and eight football team. And Snyder says, no, that wasn't your problem. The problem was your defense with Jack Del Rio with all that talent, that Bruce and I gave to you from the last few years of the draft wasn't good enough, you know? And so that starts a big thing. And all of a sudden, Rivera can't, you know, play the quarterback he wants. You know, I know some of this seems crazy to some of you. It seems extreme. It's, it's probably not, I actually think it's extreme after a year. But could I see him, you know, being disappointed? And, you know, because look, the fans aren't coming back until until, and who knows if the fans are going to be able to come back at all anyway in terms of live gate.

But if there is a live gate opportunity, they're not coming back until this team puts together a win streak. They're not coming back just for Ron Rivera. The Redskins, I don't believe, have sold a bunch of new tickets because they hired Ron Rivera, even though, by the way, Tommy, if you talk to people in the organization, you know, going back to January and February, oh, my God, how about Dan pulling off that coup of being able to get. Ron Rivera, and I like Ron Rivera, but I mean, it's, you know, a lot of the reaction from people in the organization is the typical backslapping of each other about how they've just, you know, they've just pulled off an incredible feat that didn't have anything to do with games during the football season. I know, but he did, look, he did come up with maybe the best coach out there available. I mean, you got to give them credit for being able to pull that off. I do.

and it sounds like Joe Gibbs was the main reason that that happened, that Joe Gibbs gave the selling sales pitch to Ron Rivera. I wonder if Ron Rivera will hate Joe Gibbs a year from now. Not if he's making $9, $10 million a year. You know, I mean, who knows? For all we know, and maybe that's why we haven't heard about the money, Tommy? I'm very intrigued about the money. Because if it's like at the top of the list,

well, there's another reason he took the job. Yes. You know, if it's a lot more than the Giants would have offered or the Cowboys would have offered, you know, he can say I like the roster and, you know, Gibbs and the whole thing. And I think there's some truth to that. I'm not minimizing that.

But if you hear that he's making $10 million bucks, year, which is the Gruden contract, although that was for 10 years, the John Gruden contract in Oakland slash Vegas, then that would probably, you know, be at near the top of the list as to why Dan was able to, you know, get a Ron Rivera. And, you know, and they did get them. They overachieved on the hire. I would love to know what the money is. I'd love to know what the money is. Yeah, last thing. Sunday night, the Michael Jordan documentary, the last dance. debuts, 9 o'clock Sunday night on ESPN. I think it's a 10-part series called The Last Dance.

You're looking forward to this or not? Not that much. Look, I'm curious, what's your golden era of pro basketball? Magic Bird, 80s. Yeah. I mean, my golden era are the next of the 70s. You know, I mean, Michael Jordan, as great as he was, It's just not the era I was most excited about the NBA.

I was excited about the NBA. I love the NBA when Jordan ruled. But in terms of my height of my interest, it's not my wheelhouse. You know, so I'll watch it. I'll be intrigued by it. And I'm not saying that what we accomplished wasn't great. It just didn't mean as much for me as for another generation. that grew up with Michael Jordan as NBA basketball.

So I'm looking forward to it. I'll be watching it, but not like I would, like when they did Magic Bird, or not like I would if they talked about those Knicks teams of the 70s, it wouldn't have the same impact for me because at certain stages of your life, things have a bigger impact on you. You know, you could, I mean, it's just a different error from me. Yeah, I mean, it's funny because if you asked me about, you know, an era in football, I'm going to give you the error in which my favorite team was winning and contending for Super Bowls. And I just gave you the 80s where my favorite team was irrelevant, you know, and they were irrelevant for a long period of time. But I loved the NBA. Let me just tell you that college basketball in the 80s, that was the best era for college basketball. It was an incredible era. You know, the 80s in general for basketball was phenomenal. You had incredible college basketball. College basketball was flat out.

more popular than the NBA, really in the 80s, 90s, probably, you know, the early 2000s. And now the NBA, and it's been the LeBron era, really, that's sort of elevated the NBA to a level above college basketball. There's a lot of other reasons for it. We've gotten into those in the past. But I loved the NBA in the 80s. Magic was my guy. And I loved staying up in watching those Laker games during the postseason, you know, the

late-night games on CBS or, you know, or the other networks to see those playoff games, to see magic and worthy and Kareem and Coop and Rambus. And, you know, it wasn't even just the Lakers and the Celtics. I love those Moses Malone, 76ers teams. Of course, yes. I love those Eliza won Rockets Keys. Well, the 80s are this. Well, you know, the 80s you had Samson and Elijah one, but Elijah won those two titles.

in the two Jordan baseball years. Right, right. And the baseball, but I love, I thought there were a lot of great teams in the 80s and I loved watching besides the Lakers and the Celtics. No doubt. No, you're right. And, you know, you ended up with basically, you know, Lakers versus Celtics or Lakers versus Sixers with the rockets in there a couple of times in 81 against the Celtics

and Larry Bird's first title year and then against the Great 86 Celtics. when that Rockets team, when Ralph Samson actually hit a shot at the buzzer in game five in the forum to pull off what was a huge upset that year to get the rockets into the NBA finals against the Celtics. But it was the same group of teams until the Pistons emerged in the east, you know, and in the West, really it ended up sort of being a hodgepodge going into the 90s after Kareem retired, even though the Lakers made a title and got to the five. finals with, you know, with, with, with, with, with, uh, with magic and AC green in some of those

teams. But the, you know, in the east, it was Sixers or Celtics pretty much for the entire decade of the 80s. The Bucks were always good with, you know, junior Bridgman and Sidney Moncrief and, and those teams, but they never made the finals ever. I think, I might be right about this. I think in the 1980s, um, only the Celtics and the Sixth made the NBA finals out of the East. Am I right about that? Oh, the Pistons did eventually at the end of the decade. I think so.

That was a slow reaction there. I'm pulling it up here for a second because I actually want to see if I'm right about that. 80 was Lakers Sixers. That, of course, is the magic for Kareem in Game 6 in the Spectrum where he played center and scored 42. Then it was Celtics Rockets. Then it was Lakers Sixers, and then it was Lakers, again, the Moses Malone year when the Sixers won it. Then it was Celtics, Lakers, Lakers, Lakers, Celtics, Celtics Rockets, Lakers, and then the Pistons in 88 and 89.

So, yeah, it was the 76ers and the Celtics for the first eight NBA finals of the 80s, and then the Pistons snuck in there. And then, of course, you know, the Pistons essentially replaced the Celtics, and then the Bulls replaced the Pistons. and by the way, I had Scott Brooks on the radio show on Monday maybe, or maybe last Friday. I can't remember now. And I just talked to him about his playing career. He was on the 94 Rockets title team, you know, and he said, I mean, those were the two years, obviously Jordan was playing baseball, and Hakeem Elijah won, you know, and company led that team to a title.

And he was a part of that team, you know, he wasn't a big contributor in the post. season. But, you know, that team with Elijah Juan and Kenny Smith and, you know, Ori and Ellie and Cassell. He said Sam Cassell and Vernon Maxwell were characters on the team, but he said Elijah one was just incredible. I've always felt Elijah one is brutally underrated when it comes to the center conversation. You know, like you would put Willis Reed ahead of them. I don't even think Willis Reed is in the same category of Elijah one. You're right. Eliza Juan is not in the same category as Woolo Street.

Yeah, I know. What else you got? You sound like you're running out of gas. Yeah, I am, boss. All right. Actually, what I'm going to do today, this is the first time I've done this. We're going to get together with our oldest son for a social distance walking afternoon. That sounds like a nice day.

We haven't seen them since the second week of March. so we're going to get together for that. Otherwise, I mean, we really haven't interacted with anybody at all. That's what makes these appearances on the podcast so important. All right, thanks. Have a good weekend, and I will talk to you next week. All right, boss. Take care.

All right, that's it for the day. We've got nothing left. We'll focus more on the draft, obviously, when we get to next week. So tune in for that. Stay safe. Stay healthy. Enjoy your day back tomorrow.