The Kevin Sheehan Show - Tua at 2?

Episode Date: March 2, 2020

Kevin and Aaron opened with Maryland's loss to Michigan State on Saturday night then got to all of the Redskins news from over the weekend. First, reports that the Redskins are interested in Tua Tagovailoa. Next, the latest on Trent Williams. Also, free agent targets according to reports include Carolina CB James Bradberry and Atlanta TE Austin Hooper. The guys finished up with Tony Romo's $17 million deal to stay at CBS. <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. Oftentimes, it's called a foul. And Winston hits it. They'll check, but that's going to count. Dan, before they went into the locker room in warm-ups, Winston hit a half-bork shot. And then he hits one right before they go in at halftime. How was the flash mob for you on Saturday, Aaron? How about the rappers that came out when we were down 18 in the second half? How'd that work for you? Saturday night at Xfinity Center.

I'm nitpicking. It is a little strange, though, when it seems like a lot of people are there. That was an event Saturday night where I think a lot of people that were at that game were at their first game of the year. It felt a little bit like the World Series game three when people who hadn't been to a baseball game. game all year came out. I'm not comparing to two. It looked like the players that were playing for the first time in a big game. It did. It did. Good morning, afternoon, evening, whenever you're listening to this podcast, a lot of this podcast today is going to deal with all of the Redskins news that came out

after our podcast on Friday. There are multiple reports about Tua Tunga Vailoa to the Redskins, including a detailed report in the South Florida Sun Sentinel. We're going to get to that. There was interesting information about Trent Williams over the weekend, including a follow-up to the JP appearance on our podcast on Friday. Also, you know, if you want to go into James Bradbury and Philip Rivers and a few others, we'll get to all of that. A lot of Redskin News since we last spoke on Friday. We will get to that. Real quickly, kudos to Bradley Beal. You know, I don't believe that Bradley Beal is a top 10 player in the NBA, top, you know, Bede's borderline top 15, but he's having one hell of a scoring season for the Washington

Wizards. They beat Golden State last night, 124 to 110, and Bradley Beale set the franchise record for the most 25 plus point performances in a row. It was his 18th consecutive game of scoring 25 plus points last night. That's really impressive. He's averaging 30.4 points per game right now. That's in the league to James Harden. He's in the midst of potentially the greatest individual scoring season average-wise. In the history of the franchise, since the franchise moved to D.C., Walt Bellamy holds the record when you combine the two cities, Baltimore and Washington. Beal's got a chance of Belamie's record over 31 points per game. He's averaging 30.4. It was very interesting to hear Scott Brooks talk about his performance last night where he said, you know, he's been pretty

good since I've been here and then said, can you imagine if he was actually an All-Star what he'd be doing right now? You know, he's averaging since being snubbed from the All-Star game. He's averaging 36 a game. He's really having quite the stretch. He's shooting it well, too. Last he was 10 for 24, 7 for 9 from behind the arc. So not his best percentage shooting game of the year in overall shooting. But on Friday night, he had 42. He was. He was 17 to 33 from the field. In his two 50-point-plus outings last week, he was over 55% and one of them from the field and over 57% in the other one from the field. He's been playing well.

He also had a career high, five steals last night. Against Golden State, they're terrible. It's strange saying that, that Golden State is the worst team in the NBA. But they are. They're 13 and I think 48. now, and Cleveland is the worst team in the east. So the two teams that faced off for four consecutive NBA finals are now the two worst NBA teams in the league. Actually, there was discussion about Steph Curry's comeback, which is going to happen this year. It was supposed to

happen this month, and that's been delayed a little bit. But he's going to play. If you recall, a couple of years ago when Anthony Davis, you know, got hurt and was looking for the trade and they sat him the rest of the year. Golden State's not going to do that with a true superstar in Steph Curry. I'm not suggesting that Anthony Davis isn't a true superstar. Just a little bit different in my overall opinion of Anthony Davis, who's a great player. And by the way, LeBron James last night without Anthony Davis was able to beat Zion Williamson, who had a career high 35 points. Incredible game for him. Okay. Let's start with Maryland. Oh, quick word about the caps. They won last night. Ovechkin, three points, two goals. And it's really interesting to watch what's going on in the Eastern Conference,

in their division, in particular, the Metropolitan Division, where the caps were only one point ahead of Philadelphia before last night's game. They won the game in Minnesota. They're three points ahead of the Flyers, who are the hottest team in hockey, and they play the caps on Wednesday night. And the team that was on the heels of the caps, Pittsburgh, is actually lost six in a row. Boston, though, pulling away for the best record and the President's Cup trophy for the team with the most points during the regular season. They are having one hell of a season. And really, Boston and Tampa, out of the other division in the Eastern Conference, will likely be the favorites in the Eastern Conference to advance to the Stanley Cup finals. and then you'll have sort of the caps in the mix with the flyers maybe at this point and the penguins.

All right. I want to start with the Maryland game. You were there, Aaron. I was there. It was quite the scene. You know, it was quite the day, ESPN Game Day being there. And, boy, the Maryland people really showed out. I mean, the students packed the wall.

It was a scene. I had Jay Belt Billis on the radio show earlier today. You can listen to that on the Team 980.com or the Team 980 app. He was complimentary. And actually said during the broadcast on Saturday, one of the best ESPN game day environments they've ever been in. Looks fantastic. It looked great on TV.

I wasn't there for that. It looked great on TV. It was really quite the scene. Scott showed up, you know, and when, I'm telling you, man, you know, I don't talk a lot about this. He's, you know, one of my closest friends for 30-plus years. When he shows up at Maryland, you've seen it. Oh, my God.

Whenever he walks into the building for that first time and does that lap around the students. It's like a rock star reception. Trust me, I've been with him a lot of the times. I've probably been with him, you know, half of the times that he's been at a Maryland game over the years, maybe more than half. And it's actually, and I love him dearly. For those of us who are really good friends with him, it's actually just, like it's people are so nice and I think he typically is very nice back to him. I mean, I think he takes every picture that's asked of him. But oh my God, like, you know, we were at

Bentley's before the game and a really good friend of ours and a really good friend of Scott. Scott Nance was going to the game with Scott. I sat in the window, nation suite. By the way, thank you Harley and Aaron. And good to see Eric there on Saturday night at the game with his kids. I was there, by the way, in the suite with CJ and with Doc. Doc had his headphones on during the game. He is just, you know, he walks to the beat of his own drummer, which is why I love him so much. But anyway, great, Window Nation's got basically the best suite in the arena right at midcourt. And it was a nice night to be there.

But, you know, we were at Bentley's before. and the game tipped at, what, 8.05, something like that. And basically, to get to the seats if you're with Scott at a game, you got to leave like 45 minutes before tip because he's going to be mobbed walking in through the arena to the point where, and he takes pictures with every single person. So, you know, anyway, it was, it's the environment that we both expected on Friday. We felt like it was one of those specials. games. You know, Maryland has those, you know, usually you have one a year, not like Saturday

night. That comes once every few years where it feels really big and you know that the ticket demand is over the top and a lot of people that haven't been to a game are going to try to be a part of like the event of Saturday night. And it was quite the scene, raucous as hell, what a pregame it was. And then the game started. And unfortunately, It was one of those games in which Michigan State was just so good from the jump. Cassius Winston, my God, did he control that game? Was a maestro in that game. The way he runs pick and roll and his patience, and they're knocking down threes.

They shot 12 for 28 from behind the arc. Merrill made a run, tied it at 23. That's as loud as it got when sticks on the break through that pass to Dante Scott, who knocked down that three, and it was tied up at 23. 23-23, 23, after falling behind 17 to 5. Michigan State, for those of you, that in-game and after game, and in-game finally got a break, you know, tweeting about how bad Turgeon was, because you've been absolutely silenced all year long with your in-game tweets.

But, you know, for some of you to suggest that this was a coaching loss, you're out of your effing mind. Michigan State played the best game they've played all year, and they had the best player on the floor. And that's true in Cassius Winston. I love Cowan. I love Stick Smith. Cassius Winston was the best player on the floor, and it's probably the best player period on the floor in a game between those two on most nights. He's had, you know, he was the Big Ten player of the year last year. He was the favorite or certainly one of the favorites to be the national player of the year this year. He had a terrible tragedy in his family. lost his brother in November, and he's had sort of an up-and-down year, as the entire Michigan State team has had. You know, they lost a key player in Josh Langford earlier on in the year. But, you know, Izzo doesn't, this is what they do. You know, they get beat by Maryland two weeks ago,

and you knew we were, we said on Friday we're going to get their best, and I was concerned about the point spread at two and a half. Did we have the point spread at that point on the show? because later on in the day when I first got the points spread. Okay, so it wasn't on the podcast. I forget if I communicated that with you or others. But when I saw the line at two and a half, I was a little bit concerned. I was expecting Maryland to be four, four and a half. You know, they won the first game.

They were seven point underdog at Michigan State. But anyway, they got beat by a team that played better with the best player on the floor. And by the way, there were other players were outstanding. And I thought Maryland was a bit hyped for this one. I thought Cowan really pressed. Still hasn't made a three now in about two weeks. And, you know, they got beat on the board. Second chance points were huge in this game.

Michigan State had 19 of them. There were a couple of runs. Maryland got it to 66-57, and they got to stop, but they couldn't get the rebound, and the rebound got kicked to Rocket Watts, the freshman who was really good, and he knocked down a three. I thought their freshman Hall was outstanding.

the other night. And, you know, there's really not a lot to say about the game in general. Michigan State beat Maryland down, start to finish. They were just flat out the better team. Wasn't that Turgeon didn't have his team ready? Wasn't that Turgeon got out exed and owed? You know, there was a little bit change up in the rotation. Lindo played. Hakeem Hart played, although Hart's played in recent games. And Hart, I don't even think, played Aaron in the first half. or if he did, he barely played the first half and had a lot of minutes in the second half. Actually, I thought he played pretty well. But they missed some free throws.

They gave up more threes. You know, they've given up 32 made threes in their last three games at like 42% they're giving in three-point percentage defense. That's not very good. That's hurting them here in their last three games. They've lost two of them to Ohio State and Michigan State could have easily lost the game to Minnesota. there's nothing about this game other than the three-point defense, which I think part of it is just, you know, they've played three teams that have really gotten it going.

Nothing about this game that really impacts the way I feel about Maryland, which is they're a very good team. They've got a very good chance to win the Big Ten regular season title. I still favor them to at least have a share of it. I think tomorrow night's matchup against Rutgers is a tough matchup, but I think they're a very good team that's got a very good chance to go very far. And I think Michigan State, this is what they do in March. They start to turn it around, and I think they're going to be a threat to go pretty deep into March as well. The atmosphere was phenomenal.

It just never got to the point where we know it would have gotten Aaron had Maryland made a run and gotten legitimately close. There were a few times in there where Maryland went on a few mini runs to cut it to 10 to 9 or whatever, where it seemed like, oh man, this could be it. The crowd's getting amped up. And then Michigan State just shut the door. And it's really frustrating because I, I do think you could tell during the anthem that there was something about this crowd, that if it was given any reason, could have come completely unhinged and completely changed

the game. And they were just never given that reason. The one opportunity, Jalen Smith made sort of a jump hook in the lane to make it 66-57. I want to say there was about eight minutes left in the game. And then they missed a shot on the other end and they couldn't grab the rebound. and Xavier Tillman grabbed the rebound offensively, kicked it to Watts in the corner, he knocked down a three, and that seemed to be the real dagger. Because if you come down 66-57 and you make another bucket, you're getting a Michigan state time out, the place is into it, and now you're right where you've been against a lot of teams,

you know? Look, they were down eight to Minnesota with two and a half, two-ten to go. But it wasn't to be. Maryland didn't play, they played far from a Maryland-style game, And Izzo said after the game, he said two things. He said one, that was about as good an atmosphere as they've ever played in. Number two, he said that was their best game of the year. Now, he said he was a little bit frustrated with some of the turnovers,

and Winston, as good as he was, had several turnovers. But he said they really played well. They did. They played excellent basketball. They're a good team. You know, they were the preseason number one team in the country. They've now won three in a row after losing to Maryland in East Lansing. they're a game back of the Terps. I don't love the matchup tomorrow night. I think Rutgers is good.

I think they're desperate. And you know, you can't get into that building for less than $250, 300 bucks now. They are fired up for this game at Rutgers tomorrow night. Some people saying at Rutgers, it's one of their biggest home games in years. You know, part of it is the geography of being near Maryland. Maryland being in the lead in the Big Ten. And Aaron, all of a sudden, You know, Rutgers, I'm not putting them on the bubble necessarily, but in the latest Bracketology, they're down to an 11 seed. You know, they haven't played well recently. They've lost three games in a row.

Good teams, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Penn State. I think tomorrow night's going to be a really tough game. Would not surprise me if the spread tomorrow night is frighteningly low for us. Have you seen an early number on that game? I haven't. But you say frighteningly low. I don't know. How about Rutgers being favored tomorrow?

I was going to shock me. Yeah, I mean, if you look at, let me pull up Ken Palm right now. What was Marilyn favored at home over Rutgers by? I can't remember. I mean, Ken Palm has Rutgers as a one-point favorite. Yeah, so there you go. I mean, you're factoring in home court there? Yeah, I mean, it has a two and a half point.

Yeah. 66, 65 game against Rutgers. Yeah. Yeah, and if they lose that, now you're potentially only playing for a share of the conference title on Sunday against Michigan. Tomorrow night's big, really big, in the same way the Minnesota game was sort of big. I didn't know that they would beat Michigan State, but now tomorrow night, you know, this one's big against Rutgers, and it's going to be a crazy environment up there. The rack's always been a tough place to play when Rutgers has had decent teams.

Maryland was a seven and a half point favorite at home on February 4th. And that was a tough game. They won the game 5651, but Rutgers played him tough. Rutgers has been good. They've got a guy, Gio Baker, who actually comes off the bench, that is one of the real clutch players in the back court in the entire league. So we'll see. By the way, the latest brackatology from Joe Lunardi anyway on ESPN.com,

he still has Maryland as a two-seed. And he has them, I would say, as the number three two-seed. It looks like Seton Hall is the number four-two-seat because they're in the region with Kansas, who I think would be the overall one-seed. Baylor lost again this weekend. They lost the TCU. Yeah, I mean, that whole thing, where they are matters less. It's geographical, but yeah.

I'd say right now, barring completely running the table, the one-seed thought is done for Maryland, just because they've piled up, or they, you know, especially if they take one-year-old. one more loss, they would have just piled up too many losses to get that one seat over a two-lossed or a one-lost Dayton or a one-lost San Diego. If they were to win against Rutgers and Michigan and then win the Big Ten tournament, which would be a five-game win streak, which would put them at 28 and six. Six. I think that would probably do it, but anything less than that, I think, would be tough to make the argument for.

Yeah, and I don't expect them to do that, to be quite honest. Right. It wouldn't surprise me if they split the games this week, end up with a share of the Big Ten title. and, you know, go out. I don't think they're going to go out. I mean, hell, the Big Ten tournament is going to be ridiculous in terms of the teams you're going to have to play. Like Maryland, you know, is pretty safe for the double-by at this point.

You know, they'll end up with a quarter-final game against somebody like Ohio State or Michigan. You know, that's going to be like the quarter-final game. Not going to be very easy to get through the Big Ten. tournament. Ohio State's playing really well right now. They're actually back to playing at a level that they were playing at earlier in the year. They've won, I think now, something like eight out of their last nine. I think it was. They lost to Wisconsin. And I forget who else they lost to. Anyway, crazy scene should be another. Look, the Michigan game on Sunday at noon, it's a noon start.

I understand that's different from the eight o'clock start. There's no game day in town. This is going to be a big game. But this is the one that could clinch the outright Big Ten title. It's actually more important. It could be more important to Maryland than the game on Saturday night. Anyway, whatever. Anything else you got on the game? No, not really.

Turgeon didn't get outmaneuvered, okay? They needed to rebound better. They needed to defend better. And Michigan State played great, and Maryland didn't play great. Didn't miss calling a timeout. there wasn't one glaring X's and O's strategy mistake. I think I may have tried a little bit of zone when they were getting broken down consistently on the ball screen game with Winston, maybe,

but they're shooting it too well from the outside to really think that going to a zone was going to help that much. All right. Let's get to the Redskins right after I tell you about mybooky.g. MyBooky.ag has more prop bet opportunities for March madness coming up than anybody out there. Remember when they had the Super Bowl prop bets and I told you nobody's got more than MyBooky.orgie. And more importantly, if you're looking to bet college basketballs, we are into March now, I want you to consider MyBooky.orgie. They are trustworthy. They are reliable. You get quality lines. You get many ways to wager tread lightly when you're gambling.

but if you're going to gamble and you need a place, consider mybooky.orgie.orgie. If you deposit right now, they'll match your deposit halfway if you use my promo code, Kevin D.C. That's promo code Kevin D.C. That'll give your bankroll a jumpstart. My bookie, play, win, and get paid. All right, lots of Redskins news since we last talk. And I think we're going to have to start with the Tua Tunga Viloa news. First of all, this was Mike Silver on Friday on the NFL network. Mike Silver, if you recall, is the guy that wrote the story about Ron Rivera before Ron Rivera got hired by the Redskins. Silver is close to Rivera, and his reporting on Rivera has been really spot on going back to Rivera getting fired before he had made the decision on

Redskins. This was Mike Silver NFL Network on Friday. Ron Rivera and Dan Snyder had time to have these types of conversations. So they're not going in blind. Whether Dwayne Haskins is viewed as the quarterback of the future there or not was discussed

long before Ron Rivera signed his name to paper. And so, listen, he's one of the straight shooters in our business. We need to take him at face value when he says we're exploring all options. If Tua is In fact, they're at two.

If they are satisfied that he is healthy, which is an evolving thing, they absolutely will consider doing that. And remember, Arizona did that last year, not after a GM regime change. Steve Kime taking a quarterback of the first round two years in a row with Kyla Murray. Ron Rivera now, this is a regime change in terms of personnel. it's pretty understandable that a new coach may see the guy they picked in the first round last year differently than the people who picked him. So that was Mike Silver Friday on all of that. First of all, yes, I believe that Dan Snyder and Ron Rivera have had conversations about the quarterback and had conversations about the quarterback before Ron Rivera took the job or Dan Snyder offered the job.

That's number one. I would hope that that's the case. And I would also hope it wasn't the case where Ron Rivera had to sort of blindly say, I'm all in on Dwayne in the same way that Jay Gruden probably had to say, I'm all in on RG3 to get the job. Rivera had other options, didn't have to come here. Gruden, probably not so much. You know, it didn't take long before Gruden turned quickly on RG3, but he had to say it to lock down the job. I do believe that to a certain degree.

There are a couple of things in Silver's report that I just want to point out, and I like Mike a lot. We had him on the radio show a few weeks ago. We've had him on the podcast, I think, before, and he's a very good reporter. The Cliff Kingsbury, Kyler-Murie situation, you know, is not identical to the Redskins situation for the reason he said. They only had a coaching change. The Redskins have had more of a front office in coaching change, okay, we hope. they have with Bruce Allen being gone and Eric Schaefer being gone and a coach-centric approach, etc.

But the owner's still there. But it's a little bit different. But more importantly, Cliff Kingsbury and Kyler Murray were a fit stylistically. Like Josh Rosen wasn't going to fit the Cliff Kingsbury-style offense, not to mention the Kingsbury, you know, knew Murray. And so, and wanted Murray. And so I, you know, there's no sense that Rivera wants Tua. or has an offense that Scott Turner is going to run that's just better off for Tua.

But that was not really the big report on this over the weekend. That sort of laid the groundwork for what came, I think, the following day, which would have been Saturday. And it came from the South Florida Sun Sentinel, and a reporter, his name is Safid Dean. And he wrote in sort of discussing, you know, the top of the draft. let's keep in mind. Let me just mention this as an aside. You know, the Redskins holding the number two pick in the draft, especially given that the number one pick in the draft right now, most people think will be Joe Burrough. That could change. There's going to be a lot of news and rumors and reports. There always are about the very top of the draft. You know, they haven't

been this high in the draft in a long time. So this is going to come out. You know, you're going to We have a lot of reports, a lot of rumors, a lot of discussion about what the Redskins are doing. Some of it's going to be true. Some of it's not going to be true. But here was the report from the South Florida Sun Sentinel. I'm going to read you the applicable paragraphs here. Quote from the story. The Redskins told Tunga Viloa, they want to bring him to Washington to compete with second-year quarterback to Wayne Haskins.

They told him that during the meeting at the NFL Combine, a source of. tells the South Florida Sun Sentinel. The quote from the source, they felt like Dwayne was not the guy right now. They want to bring in Tua, just get it going and compete, closed quote. So, the reaction to this. Number one, personally, I would not draft Tua Tunga Vailoa. Okay, he's had three surgeries in 22 months. I'm not drafting a guy number two overall that has had, two ankle surgeries and one hip surgery, no matter what my medical people tell me. Number two, I'm just not as much of a fan of Tua as I am Joe Burrow. Joe Burrow is a completely different conversation for me. I would even seriously be interested in whether or not the Redskins,

if they evaluate Joe Burrow to be like the next Aaron Rogers, if they'd be thinking about trading up for him. But put that to the side for a moment. Tua's injury history, and if you're a college football fan, like Aaron and I are. Okay, and you're not just watching the Indy Combine to get your first look at college football players and being wowed by Isaiah Simmons's 40-time. He ran a 4-3-9. But you know what he looks like as a player, too. How many games over the last couple of years? CBS, glorious high-definition television, Brad Nestler, Gary Danielson.

Let's go down to Tracy Wolfson on the field. What's it looking like on his ankle? he's really hobbling around a lot. How many times did we watch Alabama, Aaron, the last couple times, and Tunga Viloa was not 100%. Quite a bit? A lot. A lot.

He got hitting games, got banged up, hung in there, played. I remember one game in particular this year where he came in a blowout and continued to play and he was hobbling around and there was a big story about what's Nick Sabin doing? Pull the guy. He was always hot. hobbling around. Both ankles. Now a hip. Even if the medical people say he's cleared, what's he cleared for? Another opportunity to play football to get hurt again. Too much injury history for me, man. Too much. I'm not taking with Chase Young potentially there at number two.

I'm not rolling the dice on a guy with tremendous talent that's been injured consistently since he got a chance to play college football. I like Burrow better, too. And Greg asked me this morning, my producer, Greg Huff, on the radio show, said, don't you like Tua more as a prospect than Haskins? I don't know that I do. Like, it's not a slam dunk in my mind. And then the injuries come in, and now it's like I'm not rolling the dice on it.

I like Joe Burrow more as a prospect than I do Tua. but, you know, Dwayne Haskins, somebody tweeted in earlier today, your fascination with Haskins and your change on Haskins is just odd. Why is it odd? I didn't really like them, then I watched them play, and I like them a lot more. I mean, that's what it is. It's not that hard, okay? I see a guy that doesn't have elite potential.

I don't see an elite quarterback. although if you told me one day he ended up playing at the level of Ben Rafflesberger for some of his years, I don't think I'm going to write that off. And Ben Rathesberger is elite, but I'm not predicting elite play. I do think the bus potential is super low. And I think that the guy looks to me like he's got a chance, you know, much better chance than I thought a year ago, or even nine months ago or even six months ago. I think he's got a much better chance to be sort of a franchise kind of a quarterback than I did before. From, you know, 8 to 12, 8 to 14, somewhere in that range. You know, that's what I think now.

I love his competitiveness, as you know. I think he's much more mobile and he's a better extend to play quarterback than I thought. I think he throws with anticipation. I think he's tough. Now, the things that we really don't know, you know, and these could, be the things that are bothering Ron Rivera and Scott Turner and some of the others is we don't know how much he's matured from the early sort of narrative on him. We don't know how important football is to him. And all of these guys now, you know, over the last few years, they all want

to know, is football the most important thing in your life? You know, how much do you love playing football? If you don't love football, then you're not going to spend as much time on it, et cetera, et cetera. You're not going to be as good. You're not going to reach your potential. You know, they may think, you know, after spending a lot of time with Dwayne, that his clothing line company and his entrepreneurial efforts are just as important to him. You know, that maybe, you know, they have a sense that his work ethic improved during the course of the year and his commitment improved, but it's still not at a level that they're familiar with what it takes, you know, that he doesn't have what it takes to get to the elite level. Maybe there is concern about that. It's not, that's not going to surprise me, you know, if that is a concern. and that might be a reason to think about another quarterback.

It could also be a reason why you think about, you know, Teddy Bridgewater, not just through the draft. But I don't know, to me, if you told me Tua over Dwayne Haskins and over the ability to draft Chase Young, I would say no. Burrow, yes. I don't think they're going to have a chance at Burrow. Now, on the report itself. So, you know,

there's a lot of reaction, sort of intuitive reaction, right? First of all, you're like, whoa, that's what they think about Dwayne, and you believe it, you know, as written. Others are like, no, this is posturing on their part. They're trying to create the sense that they might take Tua, so Miami or, you know, the chargers or someone else end up offering a lot more than they would have to get up to number two. And they're trying to create, you know, a bigger potential trade opportunity for themselves. My guess would be the following. If you read the report, the Redskins told Tunga Viloa that they want to bring them into Washington to compete with the second year quarterback Dwayne Haskins during their meeting at the NFL Combine. They felt

like Dway was not the right guy now. They want to bring in Tua just to get it going and compete. First of all, I'm going to stick with this premise. The Redskins aren't bringing in Tua or anybody else in the draft at number two as a quarterback to compete. If you'd draft Tua, he's your guy. You've decided that Dwayne's not your guy. You're not spending number two overall on a quarterback that might be your backup. I just don't buy that at all. But more importantly, the context of this could have been as simple as what I'm going to describe here. They're in their meeting, which by the way, J.P. Finley reported that Ron Rivera was not a part of the meeting with Tua Tunga Viloa last week in Indianapolis.

Rivera was in league meetings during the team's sit down with Tua. That's from JP. Okay, so now the report doesn't say that Ron Rivera was in the meeting. It said during their meeting, during the team meeting at the NFL Combine, it never specifically said who was in the meeting from the team. But it could have been something as simple as follows. Tua, if we drafted you at number two overall, would you be up? for competing for the job with the guy we took last year.

And for Tua to sort of, or Tua's agent, okay, his agent would have the motivation to leak something like this, to make sort of other teams believe that Tua could be taken at two. The higher he gets picked, the higher salary he gets, right? So anything, the context of that could have created an answer that led Tua and his agent to believe that the Redskins were seriously considering him. You know, now someone has come out since the end of the radio show today. Let me see if I can find that because I, someone came out and essentially said that the Redskins never brought up and were never critical of Dwayne during this meeting. Let me see if I can find who sent that to me.

I can't find it right now, but somebody sent me something that somebody reported that the Sun Sentinel had some of the report wrong, that the Redskins did not say at any point during this meeting, they felt like Dwayne was not the guy right now. They could have said something about a competition, you know, with Tua to see what his reaction would be. And again, and it could also be what some of you think, which is the Redskins are going to try to leak it out there that they're interested in Tua. Personally, I'd rather not, you know, the team leak out anything negative about Dwayne. I've made myself clear on that.

I just don't think that's the way to go. It's not because I don't think he can handle it. I think he can. I just don't think the situation he was brought in here with all the negativity around it. I think enough is enough. Let's build him up, you know, especially if he's going to be your guy next year. Let's also make sure that we build him up because if he isn't your guy and you want to move on from him, you don't want people to think that you don't like him.

That doesn't help your leverage in a trade of Dwayne Haskins. I don't really believe that this is going to happen. I don't think it should happen. I think the Redskins are going to sign a true backup quarterback, have Alex Smith mentor, you know, Dwayne Haskins, have him be the starter next year, and I think they're going to draft Chase Young. That's what I think is going to happen. Okay, now let's move on to the next topic.

The next topic is Trent Williams. JP was on the podcast with us on Friday. And if you recall, he said, you know, I'm putting together a lot right now. And I got to, you know, I got to have it out through NBC Sports Washington before your podcast. And this is what he said on his podcast shortly after appearing on mine. Trent Williams. That it gets done. Okay.

Trent Williams, I think he's going to get traded. I think it's always been about money and it's always been about other, it was about other things too. Obviously, the cancer, his relationship with Bruce Allen, all of these things. Now it's just about the money. And the money Trent Williams wants is astronomical. And he's a fantastic player. I don't think the Redskins are going to be interested in paying him.

The dollar figure I heard from someone I know and trust is so outrageous that I'm not even saying it publicly because I think it will incite a riot. I don't know if it will incite a riot, but I'll tell you what I believe the Trent Williams camp is looking for and why. It's my understanding that Trent Williams wants 25 million more a year, 25 million or north of 25 million per year,

okay, to play for the Redskins next year. Look, he ain't getting that. And there's a problem with this now, too, because basically the Redskins are not going to give Trent Williams a mega deal that makes up for his lost dollars a year ago. He lost millions last year holding out. That is not their problem. It's his problem.

I bet you Trent's agent suggested to him that a lengthy, costly holdout wouldn't hurt him as much as, you know, others were saying because he could recover it in his next deal. If he said that to him, I think he did his client a disservice. Now, with that said, you know, the importance of the position, his talent, the never-ending league need to fill the left tackle position, there's always a chance of at least one team willing to massively overpay. We've seen it before, you know, but he took a huge risk if this ultimately was more about money than principal. And I think at the very least this was a 50-50 deal. It was made out to be medical. You know, the team butchered the cancer diagnosis and they had no urgency.

And, you know, there's a lot of hurt feelings about this way and a lot of anger, I think, towards the way this was handled. I think Trent now is looking to try to make up for the money he lost. That's not going to happen here. Okay, that's not going to, that is not going to happen here. Now, will he get a top of the market deal, a Lane Johnson or greater deal, or a Laramie Tunsell kind of deal? And Tunsell's out there looking for $18 to $20 million per year as well. Yeah, it's not out of the realm that somebody's going to pay him that.

But that would be sort of a current deal. That's not going to make up for the millions that he lost a year ago. I just don't think the Redskins are going to pay it. And I don't think if he's asking for $25 million or north of $25 million, million per year, he's going to get it. And where it's also going to hurt is it's going to hurt the Redskins' ability to trade him. Because if he's demanding that kind of contract, there just aren't many teams. You've narrowed the field maybe to zero of the teams that are going to be willing to not only trade for him, but then pay him the top salary for a left tackle in the league,

maybe by as much as $5 million more per year is what he's asking for. Okay, I don't think anybody's going to give that to him. But you, you know, this was all in play. This has all been discussed in the past in terms of, I remember having this conversation on the air with, I don't think it was JP, maybe it was another beat reporter. And I suggested that they're going to lose more leverage. The longer this goes on, the less leverage they're going to have, because if he gets to within, you know, basically a year of free agency, which he is now, they're going to have to give them that new contract now. They only have one year left, rather than the two if they had dealt him last summer,

or early in the season or right before the season. And the leverage the Redskins have on this has shrunk. It's been reduced significantly. And now with Trent, you know, having one year left on his deal, maybe last year if he got traded to a place like Houston where maybe he wanted to go, maybe he says to Houston, I'll accept the trade, but I want a long-term deal. you know, and I want more of this money short-term guaranteed, and then I want a long-term deal, you know, to be negotiated next year,

or I'm going to free agency, you know, after, you know, 2020. And he would have had a better chance of working out a deal then, or maybe you would have had a better chance of dealing with Trent. He's going to, you know, right now he's on 12 plus million for next year. That's it. It's getting more and more likely that they're going to trade him. It's getting more and more likely that they're going to trade him for so much less. than what they would have gotten had they acted with a little bit of vision and foresight

when there were teams interested in where they could have gotten something back that would have put them into a much better position in this upcoming draft. The need is still there. I understand that. I understand that the need at left tackle is still there. They filled it with Donald Penn last year. You'd like to fill it with somebody that's more long-term. The other part of trading Trent 2 is it could influence what they do at the top of the draft.

I don't want that to happen. You know, it's not that I don't want Trent traded. It's that I don't want them to be influenced by trading Trent Williams, meaning we don't have a left tackle. Now we're more apt to trade back out of number two, pass on Chase Young, so that we can pick up Isaiah Simmons, and then later in the first round, Andrew Thomas, from Georgia to be our left tackle, hypothetical. You know, in a deal with Miami. You know, Miami, let's just say they're able to get Simmons or the corner from Ohio State, Okuda, but then with the other pick that they might pick up from Miami in the first round,

they're able to get their starting left tackle. I don't want not having Trent Williams to influence that. They're going to have to fill that need without giving up, you know, Chase Young. You know, I don't want them passing on a great player to fill a need. So that's something to keep an eye on as well. Over the weekend, no news on Brandon Sheriff, no news on Quentin Dunbar, no news on Eric Flowers, no real news on Ryan Carrigan. But there were some news stories on other things, including this one from Tony Pauline.

Tony Pauline is the guy that writes for pro football. Pro Football Weekly, is that what it is? Pro Football Weekly, Aaron. Pro Football Network. Pro Football Network, exactly. So Pauline wrote the following. Look for Washington to make a bid for Philip Rivers. That's according to Tony Pauline of Pro Football Network.com.

Now, he said Indianapolis is one of the teams that will be very interested in Philip Rivers. And he said it could take a massive deal to get Rivers. but that Washington would be in the mix for Philip Rivers. Yeah, I would be excited about it, but I want to make sure he's healthy. I want to make sure that he still got the arm strength, which to me looked like it had regressed a bit this year, that he had lost some arm strength this year. Part of the reason that I think Tony Pauline has Rivers to Washington as a possibility is that Ron Rivera has a relationship with Philip Rivers. He was in San Diego for four of Rivers years there. He was on the defensive side of the

ball, but he knows Philip Rivers and knows what kind of quarterback he is. We've talked about Philip Rivers in the past, you know, as a possibility and what it would mean. What it would mean is the Redskins aren't, you know, big believers in Dwayne Haskins immediately in the short term, but they're going to keep him. He's still their long-term play. but they think they can win, and they think they can win 11 games next year, and Philip Rivers comes in for a year or two and takes him to the playoffs with that great roster that they've got and all the free agents that they're going to spend money on in addition to Rivers. They may say we're going to go get Amari Cooper for you.

We're going to put Kenyon Drake into the backfield for you. He's going to look a little bit like Melvin Gordon, and we're going to get Austin Hooper. He's going to look like Hunter Henry, or maybe we'll go out and get Hunter Henry too. and we'll bring in Philip Rivers and we're going to go win 11 games next year. If they sign Philip Rivers, of course I would be interested. I'm a huge Philip Rivers fan. And it would also mean that they're not completely giving up on Dwayne

because Dwayne's going to be there. It's not like they're going to trade Dwayne. Dwayne still could be the quarterback of their future. Anyway, that was one of the things that came out over the weekend. Also from Jeremy Fowler, ESPN, James Bradbury, the cornerback from Carolina, is one of the top corners on the market, Fowler writes. He's aiming for 15 million or more per year and that Washington is among the teams expected to be involved. Byron Jones also, along with Bradbury, they plan to sort of reset the cornerback market.

I think this has been something of a conversation for a while in free agency with Ron Rivera having coached Bradbury, Bradbury, and obviously they're being, you know, a significant need for them. You know, Byron Jones, Bradbury, Chris Harris, who's a little bit older than both of them, Bradley Robey, who's sort of their age, the guy from Houston. These are the guys that are out there, Kendall Fuller's out there. These are the guys, Prince of Mukamara is out there as a free agent, I'm pretty sure. The Vikings have not a lot of cap room and some decisions to make on guys like

Trey Wains and McKenzie Alexander. I really liked Alexander the way he played last year. There are some corners in free agency, and I would expect the Redskins to make a move on a corner. I would. But, you know, Bradbury is going to be at the top of the market. Byron Jones is going to be at the top of the market. We'll see whether or not they decide to go in that direction. And then there was also multiple reports since front.

that Austin Hooper is going to be a target for the Redskins, which is something I had here last week. And really, some of you asked me to sort of clarify some of that. Look, the basis of what I said last week is that the Redskins are planning on being very aggressive in free agency. That I have really good information on. They think that they think that they're closer than most people think they think they're close to like a one-year turnaround that they can contend for something next year. They've got a lot of room in free agency. They've got number two in the draft. They think they can compete for something, and I think they're going to be very, very aggressive in free agency. And some of the names that I've heard are Austin Hooper, Amari Cooper, and Kenyon Drake.

There are going to be more names that I'm going to be hearing, okay? I promise you, there will be more names that I'm hearing. Again, to be clear, unlike other reports I've ever, I've had in the past where things were basically already done and I could report them as fact. This is also projection here. I believe this is what they're doing. I have good sources that tell me they're going to be aggressive in free agency and guys like Hooper and Kenyon, Drake and Amari Cooper are on their board, but those players may never become available. Or if those players do become available, they may choose to sign somewhere else. I'm not reporting that they're going to sign them, but they're going to be aggressive in looking for some of those players. And I think

they're going to be in the free agency market for a corner too. I don't know if Bradbury at $15 million per year is going to fit, but certainly they know Bradbury well. So that's always a possibility. Anyway, that's, I think, all of the Redskins news from the weekend. The two-est stuff is nuts, obviously. If you believe it, I don't. But there's going to be a lot of,

lot more of this. Again, they've got the number two pick in the draft. And they had a, you know, a quarterback last year in Dwayne Haskins, who when he got the opportunity, played and got better, but that, you know, the majority of people out there aren't convinced about. And you've got two potential, at least on paper, really good, you know, quarterbacks in this draft, and the Redskins have a chance to get one of them. Personally, if you told me that Joe Burrow is evaluated at a level where I think a lot of teams may evaluate him at, and you thought he was much better as a prospect than the guy you have, then I'd be aggressive going to get him looking to trade up. You know, nobody's really talked about that, but you could trade up. You know, you could trade

Dwayne Haskins, Trent Williams, and your second to get to number one to take Joe Burrow. You know, some kind of deal could be there if Cincinnati was open to it. But again, my prediction, the Redskins sign, I don't know, Kyle Allen, Matt Moore, somebody like that, and they take Chase Young. I think that's ultimately what will happen. You've got defensive coaches and Ron Rivera and Jack Del Rio that are probably salivating at the opportunity to draft Chase Young. So that's pretty much on the Redskins today. I'm sure there will be a lot more to discuss tomorrow. And we can go over a lot of this stuff when Tommy's in tomorrow. Real quickly, We've got an app for the Kevin Sheehan Show podcast if you want to listen that way. Also, don't forget to tune in 7 to 10 a.m. weekday mornings, Team 980, 95.9 FM, great new FM signal.

Team 980 app and the team 980.com. All right, a couple things to end the show. Tony Romo, $17 million he got from CBS to stay at CBS. 17 million, the highest contract ever given to an analyst. in any sport in the U.S. anyway. I don't know about abroad, but it tops John Madden. I think he was making 12 to 13 million a year when he retired. Something like that may have been a little bit more, but Tony Romo stays at CBS with Jim Nance. The contract is many years, according to several reports, which means essentially the contract will be worth more than $100 million. He'll probably

end up making more money in his broadcasting career than he made in his NFL career, which is quite remarkable, considering that Tony Romo was a starting quarterback for a long period of time in the NFL. I like Tony Romo. I like Tony Romo a lot, and I think he and Nance make a great team. I think people watch football for the football. I would love to see how CBS pencils out this ROI, this return on investment, on paying somebody that much money. Now, ESPN apparently was very aggressive going after him, and they were willing to offer him a lot of money. CBS pays the NFL roughly based on its current deal about a billion dollars, okay, for the rights to televised games. I was reading the other day that basically it costs them roughly $100 million a

year in production to air all of those NFL games. And when you have the Super Bowl, it costs you basically $25 million in costs just to broadcast the Super Bowl. I mean, the amount of money spent to get the rights to spend $100 million to broadcast NFL games is crazy, crazy. And then, you know, of the $100 million in production costs to air every game, that airs on CBS, 17 million of it's going to one guy from this point forward. And that's Tony Romo. I'd love to see how that all pencils out. But anyway, CBS apparently thought that ESPN may have topped that offer.

And so, you know, or top their original offer. And they're in. They're in for, you know, a dime. They're in for, you know, 17 million at this point for Tony Romo, who is good. He's good. You know, what he has done as a broadcaster, sort of looking at the way, you know, everybody lines up the line of scrimmage and then sort of predicting the play before it happens. I mean, look, he's my friend, but I'm going to give him credit. Chris Cooley was doing that on radio when he started doing the Redskins games on radio, and he started doing that, and people

thought it was crazy. Remember locally, I mean, people nationally weren't listening to Cooley call a Redskins radio game. But a lot of you would say, oh my God, have you listened to the broadcast cool, he calls the play out before it happens. It's not because he knew the play. He just had studied, you know, formations and, you know, had a sense more times than not. That was the first time I really had heard anybody do that. Romo's been doing it. You know, some people don't like it. Some people say it ruins the surprise of the play. Weird bit. Yeah. I'll say this about Romo. The one thing that, you know, he can say and that CBS can justify is that

Romo is the one broadcaster and especially the one color guy at this point that you're usually talking about the next day or the leading up to it. You're saying, all right, what's Romo going to say? You're kind of like, oh, look, Romo's on the broadcast. There are very few of those these days

and usually when you're talking about, especially a color analyst, you're talking about it in a negative sense if it's, you know, the Booker McFarland disaster over at ESPN. So in that sense, yeah, Tony Romo, you can question whether he's worth 17 million, but he's valuable to CBS for that reason. I think you're right about that, you know.

I think no one says that about Collinsworth or Aikman. And to be honest with you, it's more about Tessator than Bougar on the Monday night broadcast. Bougar got a lot of hate, especially the playoff game and the last little bit of the run. Which playoff game did they call? The Buffalo Houston game? Might have been that one. I can't remember exactly which one. I think, you know what?

I think you're right about that. I think Romo may be the only guy out there that actually may bring in a few more people because he's calling the game. You know, he is, you know, there's been just a lot of buzz about the broadcasts that he's had. It's a lot of money, man. A lot of money. You know, I heard, I don't know where I was in terms of the XM Series channel. It was late at night, Saturday night it was.

So it was, you know, well after the Maryland game. And I was listening to two guys do a show. I don't know what network it was on. And they were debating whether or not this was wrong, that Tony Romo's making that much money and the players, most players don't. And they were making the case that this is just inappropriate. I'm like, wait a minute.

Tony Romo is not employed. by the NFL. Tony Romo is employed by CBS. He's an entertainer. I guess you can have the feeling that it's wrong that he gets paid more than play. But a lot of broadcasters get paid a lot more than a lot of players. Just so you know, most broadcasters, like, you know, the A teams in any of these sports, get paid more money per year than the majority of players that are playing in the games that they're calling. So that didn't make much sense to me. But I like Romo. Now, here's the, the big question is this. What is Monday night football going to do? Monday night football has Joe Tessator, has Booger McFarland, a much criticized tandem. You know, ESPN has said publicly

here recently that they're coming back to Monday night football. But they, they, say, said the same thing if I recall about Sean McDonough, you know, and Grewden. You know, and I like Sean McDonough a lot. I think he's excellent. ESPN needs to do something differently unless they just decide to go with, you know, sort of somebody believes in Tessetor and Bougar. I actually think Bougar is prepared, really prepared, has a little bit of personality, but I know he got a lot of stuff wrong in that playoff game. He did. Peyton Manning is the only guy.

Yeah, I mean, it'll be interesting to see. You're going. to hear a lot of weird names thrown out there and a lot of money thrown out there because I think ESPN has to, you know, they can't, at this point, everyone knows they went after Romo, they missed out on Romo, they can't just go back, if nothing else than for just the optics. I mean, I'd be personally, I'd be okay with bugger, just change the play-by-play guy. But the, here's the, so here's something just to consider about Peyton Manning. First of all, we did hear that Peyton Manning would have worked with Mike Turrico, that if Tariko were still at ESPN, Peyton would have worked with Terico. So the fact that he has a sense of who he'd work well with or who he really respects, I get it.

He doesn't have to do this. I mean, he doesn't need the money. I also, and Greg and I were talking about this on the radio show, you know, virtually everything Peyton Manning's ever done, which has led us to believe that he is, you know, a national. in front of the camera, that he's funny, that he's, you know, quick, that he, you know, is really entertaining, you know, all the promos, all the commercials over the years. I mean, with the exception of the SNL live thing, but it's still rehearsed. Everything he's ever done has been rehearsed. Right. You know, and so, you know, would it surprise me if Peyton Manning has a sense about himself that he's much better when rehearsed and comes off. And by the way, the expectation of

Peyton might be that he should be funny because the commercials are funny and that he's not super funny in sort of a, you know, a non-rehearsed live environment. Some of that could be true. Some of that could be true. I still think he'd be a great analyst, though. He knows the game. Yeah, he may not come out that polished. He may not, you know, sound that good. Maybe that's what he's worried about is what I'm suggesting. And that might be the case, but yeah, I'd really want to know his information. Yeah, exactly. I hope ESPN changes it up a little bit. Lastly, I had one other thing that I wanted to mention. Oh, Wilder Fury 3 is set for July 18th. So there you go. Deonté Wilder, exercise.

the right for an immediate third fight. Hopefully he'll come in with a different uniform. I was going to say it's only going to be 20 pounds, not 45. It should be zero pounds. It should be whatever he's, his trunks and his gloves, and they can put the gloves on when they get into the ring. Are they allowed to do that anymore? I forget what they do.

Anyway, that's it for the day. Tommy's with us tomorrow. Back then. Thanks.