The Kevin Sheehan Show - Where Was WFT On Russell Wilson's List?

Episode Date: February 26, 2021

Kevin and Thom today with 1) more on Alex Smith including JP Finlay's reporting, 2) Russell Wilson's "trade" list which didn't include Washington, 3) the latest on the Wilkenson Report, and 4) Michigan State suddenly rolling into College Park this weekend. Also, if you have time, help us out and complete this survey--The Athletic Podcast Network audience survey Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You don't want it. You don't need it, but you're going to get it anyway. The Kevin Cheon Show. Here's Kevin. All right, Tommy's with me today, Cooley yesterday. Tommy got the second part of his vaccine shot yesterday. How did it go? Oh, it went great.

We were in and out pretty quick. I'm not feeling any after effects, no soreness, no achiness, anything like that. And I feel like I've got the blood of Superman flowing through my veins. today. Well, the blood of Superman, you know, it is literally, Tommy, think about it. It's just less than a year ago, all right, that, well, just more than a year ago, excuse me. No, just less than a year ago. Just less than a year ago in early March that you declared two things. You declared that the NCAA tournament was over before anybody was talking about it, which you were 100% correct. about. And the other thing that you declared is that this thing, this thing's coming for me.

Well, guess what? It didn't get you. It didn't get you. Good for you. It didn't. Look, I've always been very elusive. It's tough to nail me down. You really are better alone than you are with somebody. And if you are going to be with somebody, it's got to be like this. All right, we're going to get to a couple of things real quickly. We're getting the podcast out a little bit late this morning. I had a family-related thing that I had to deal with. So we're going to rip through a couple of topics here and call it a day.

I am going to do a podcast tomorrow, and I am efforting, if you will, to get, I think, a very good guest on. So hopefully I'll have that done tomorrow. morning and out by early tomorrow afternoon. We'll see. All right. I wanted to start with the Alex Smith thing, because there's actually an update to the Alex Smith story that I'll share with everybody here in a moment. But you heard, if you listened to the podcast yesterday, you heard what Cooley thought, you heard what I thought, and I will repeat it for Tommy here momentarily. But I want to start with Tom's response to the Alex Smith comments and the GQ story. What did you think? Well, from reading it, and obviously, you know, I'm not there, so I don't know exactly how it was

delivered, but Alex Smith is a very media savvy person. He appears to be, and he always appears to be very guarded in what he says. I mean, he seems to say the right thing at the right moments and is very careful about his feelings with the media, not difficult, but careful. I think this was an unguarded moment for Alex Smith doing a GQ interview. And in his mind, he carries a little bit of frustration, if nothing else, about the way he was treated by the organization when he came back to play this year. One of the mysteries, look, we wrote them off, rightfully so at that point. That seemed like the logical thing to do is,

write him off. But one of the mysteries to me about this past year was Ron Rivera said there would be a quarterback competition. The day he was hired, the day he traded for Kyle Allen, and the day training camp opened. I'm thinking Alex Smith thought there was going to be a

quarterback competition too, but there wasn't. Well, he wasn't cleared until, you know... He was cleared in training camp. He was cleared, but not cleared for anything other than the seven-on-seven. You know, he was cleared to go out and resume football-related activities.

Right. And I guess in his mind, he thought that that should have put him in the mix over a rookie quarterback who didn't show up for work sometimes. Well, he just showed up, you know, with his own hours. So I think there was a level of frustration in that what it took for him to get on the field, filing. He had to be the third quarterback on the field when they had no one else to go to.

They went to Alex Smith. I think he was frustrated by that. So whose side do you take on this? Based on his comments and based on your feeling, do you feel that the team wronged him in some way? No. I do. I do if

Ron Rivera had told Alex that you'll have a chance to compete for the job and that he didn't. That's wrong. and Rivera's lack of a quarterback competition is a glaring omission to me. But otherwise, look, I mean, I was on that side. I was on the side. I've seen this guy even when he's good.

I don't need to see him again. I don't think he's that good of a quarterback. I know he was six and three two years ago, and now he wound up five and one with him this year. But come on, I know, I mean, you're not going to get to where you want to go most of the time with Alex Smith as quarterback. So I don't blame the team for necessarily being reluctant to put him on the field. You could make the case that, you know, when they put Dwayne Haskins on the field instead of

Alex Smith, I could see some, I could understand his resentment about that. But I don't necessarily think that the team was wrong and thinking, you know, We can't move forward with Alex Smith because we really don't know what to expect. And what if he gets hurt? Yeah, good. In front of us. Good. I'm glad we almost totally agree.

There's one part I think that we disagree on. But the parts that we agree on, first of all, I would say, of course the team planned to move forward without him. Nobody thought he was going to play. Nobody thought he was going to play. thought he was going to play. And of course they should have planned as if they were going to move forward without him. And then I would also add to that, and this is something that I told you last summer, you know, in August and then even when we got into the possibility of him playing,

of him actually playing, is that this is the one organization, more than any other in the league, given their recent history of, you know, medical, you know, and training and Trent Williams and all that shit. this is the one franchise that has major risk in putting him out onto the field. Because if something happens to him again, oh my God, the incompetence, I mean, they killed him. You know, they took his leg from him or whatever it would have been. So I always had a feeling back then. This team wasn't the team that should put him back on the field if he was going to be back on the field.

So I totally got that they planned without them, as they should have, and I also get that they were very, very hesitant and worried, and they should have been to put them out there. The area in which I think I disagree with you, and I'm going to read some of what J.P. Finley had and talking to various sources associated with Alex Smith, my first reaction after reading it, Tommy, and you would understand this more than anybody else, being a writer and writing what people say is that what was missing from that was the obvious tone. And I just guessed, I guessed that if we had heard the comments rather than just read them, that they would have come off as less critical, less antagonistic. And that was just a guess. I wasn't sure of that. But I just, I sort of had a hard time believing that Alex Smith wasn't smart enough to realize why the team would be shocked that he was cleared to play, why the team would have planned to move forward without him, why in many ways he was sort of a wrench in their plans coming back because they had planned to move on without him, and that the team wouldn't have felt this incredible sort of risk and, you know, angst over actually putting him on the field.

I think he's smart enough to have realized that. And I think I thought what he was doing was really emphasizing just how improbable it was. His comeback was. Remember, at the beginning of that story, the beginning of that story, he says, you know, I got this big round of imaging done. And all the doctors, the military doctors, all my doctors here in D.C. were like, you're good to go. And he goes, I never thought I'd hear those words.

Well, no one did, including the team. So that's what I thought, but I didn't know that for sure. Well, here is some of, after talking to a source close to Alex Smith, this is what J.P. Finley reported yesterday. One thing they want to make clear, the Alex Smith, the people around Alex Smith, is that Alex was talking to a reporter that didn't know anything about football. And if you go back, the first story that came out had to be edited because Alex said, I are as an injured reserve.

and the reporter thought that meant high arm. This is not a dude that knows football, and that's not a shot. I don't know lifestyle. I couldn't go write a fashion piece. I could write about football because that's my lane. The message from the source I talked to close to Alex is that, listen, there's no animosity at all towards the organization. None of those comments were meant to make anybody mad.

He was simply telling the story of what happened. And then there was something else. Tell me when you're done. To his credit, Smith isn't trying to say that he didn't say what he said. He presumably meant it. He just didn't mean for it to be interpreted as criticism of the team. That's from the source with Alex Smith. And that was my first.

That's my first guess. I am shocked that J.P. Finley wrote a story saying it wasn't as bad as it was made out to be. everything's okay people I'm shocked at that well he didn't write this no no no no not okay he's quoting he has a source that said that yeah I know that he's not saying that

he has a source that's saying it I know that why not Alex Smith what do you mean why not Alex Smith why can't Alex Smith say those things good you know good point because one of the things I said to Cooley yesterday is I'd actually like to have and hear Alex Smith say you know what the way

it read isn't really how I, it's true, I felt that way, but I didn't mean to be critical of the team and actually I'm very grateful that the team even gave me a chance. They didn't have to, because that's the way I feel. I feel that the team certainly didn't owe it to him. You're giving him way too much credit for being smart enough to recognize the team's position. Well, your position right in the beginning is how smart he is. But this is different. The passion that drove that athlete to come back and play, he didn't give a shit what anyone else thought.

Sure. I mean, you don't just sit there and do what he did and say, oh, I understand. I understand why you don't want to play. I didn't say that he should say that. But that's what you're saying. You're saying he understood the team's position. No, no, no, no, no. I'm saying he didn't care about the team's position.

I agree with that. I agree that he didn't care about the team's position as a competitor and wanting to get out on the field. It doesn't mean that he couldn't. It doesn't mean that he didn't intellectually understand the team's position. You can understand where they're coming from and then still say, too bad. I want to fucking play. Well, then you don't understand the position. What do you mean?

I mean, understanding it is, I mean, if you're talking the basic level of understanding, yes, you understood the language that they may have had. position? No, I don't think he understood it. I thought that he, I'm ready to play. I was the guy you traded for. You're starting to stiff in front of me. I want to play. I think that's all he understood. And here's the other thing I'll bet pissed him off. Once the team put on the field and he played well, they turned it into a marketing machine. They put out all kinds of social media, the Alex Smith story, the comeback story. And I'm sure he's sitting there thinking, you motherfuckers,

you didn't want to even put me out there on the field. And now you're using this to market this organization? No, I think he was pissed. You can be both, though. You can be pissed that they're not giving you the shake that you think you deserve now that you've been cleared, but you can also intellectually understand why they were moving on without you. I mean, he said it.

I don't think you can. He said it. I never thought I'd hear those words. Why would he think they would hear those words? You can. But they heard the words. And once they heard the words, it was game over. Yeah.

In his mind. Oh, and now all of a sudden he's going to step in and start? What about just the angst that everybody in his life had? He felt the angst. You don't think that he could have processed that the team felt the angst, too, about putting him back on the field? Why was that angst any different when they put him on the field against the 49ers? What do you mean the 49ers?

Wasn't that the same angst? What? What? What? What? The 49ers, what? Oh, the Rams. I mean, the Rams.

Oh, my God. It was terrible angst. Are you kidding me? Didn't you? We all felt it. But they put him out there. They did. Ultimately, you know what?

They gave him a chance. They rolled the dice. They took a risk, Tommy. Now, part of that risk, part of that risk, was because they didn't have many choices. Kyle Allen was hurt, and they certainly didn't want to turn to the guy that didn't even post for work, as you described.

And they gave them a chance, but you don't think they were holding their collective breath when Aaron Donald jumped on his back? We all were. I think that what you read in GQ was the way Alex Smith felt and anything after that is just carrying water for the organization. The carrying water makes no sense as it relates to JP. JP was relaying what the source close to Alex said.

I get that. Well, you don't apparently get that. Because you're attributing the feeling and the words in the article to JP. I'm reading you the quotes from a source. I think Alex Smith people felt they needed to do some repair, and they found a friendly reporter to do it. Why? Why did they need to do repair? Because there was such pushback.

If he's so... About Alex Smith's comment. Actually, there was pushback both ways. Because he is very immediate careful. A lot of people blame the team for being the team again. There they go again. I know that. And he does not want to create that kind of ripple.

But when he said that, he meant that. Okay. So, but, but since he's somebody who says what he means, And then when he doesn't want to say what he means, he's very, very, you know, private, or however you described it early on, he decided to put out some sort of fake narrative yesterday through his source to JP. I didn't say it was a fake narrative. I said it was a repair job. Okay. But that does not mean that he didn't mean what he said when he said it.

I think he did mean what he said when he said it. I didn't say that he didn't mean what he said, but what I said is I think that if we had heard it, I would not have interpreted it to be super critical of the team. It would have been more in the context of it was a miracle that I was able to play again. I obviously surprised them too. I surprised myself, which he admitted, they had made plans to move forward without me.

And they didn't want me back. They didn't care if I came back. They were moving on. And as a competitor, there I was cleared, shockingly cleared, even to him. And then it was like, you know what? I came all the way back, and now I want a chance. Look, if you read through that whole... I think that's a big leap, a big leap to think that his tone would have been...

Why? Oh, you know, I was upset because it's not, I mean, because people don't make those kind of comments. With a calm tone, I mean, he, look, again, he's... careful about what he said. If he didn't want that out there, it wouldn't be out there. And there was nothing positive about that. There was nothing positive about the quotes. That is true.

Right. There's nothing positive except when he essentially took the new regime off the hook. You know, by saying, and I'll find it, mind you, it's a whole new regime. They came in. I'm like the leftovers. I'm hurt and I'm this liability. You know, so he did, to a certain degree, try to take the new regime off the hook for it.

Okay. Well, I mean, is that how you would read that or not? Not necessarily. I think it was a little bit, I think it was a little bit of him being careful because he, look, this is very out of character for Alex Smith. Okay. So he was careful. It wasn't just him really speaking.

his mind. No, I think people will speak their mind, and then in the course of the interview, we'll say, maybe I better back off that a little bit because that's not going to sound good. Yeah. He cares about how things sound. I would be really... What does it matter? He's not playing quarterback for you next year.

Why even write something like this? Yeah, right. I don't know. he did an article with GQ. No, I mean the follow-up. Why bother? What do you mean, why bother? Alex Smith didn't mean to criticize the organization.

What's the point of writing that? So in the wake of this, which generated a lot of attention, not just locally but nationally, you had all the talk shows talking about Alex Smith, you know, did Alex Smith get totally screwed by the Washington football team. Did the Washington football team screw up again? Or was Alex, you know, some people actually more than I thought actually really for the first time in a while thought that it was unfair, taking him literally. Because what, you know, like we both agree on, why would the team have thought that he was going to play? So if you had been contacted, let's just say by an Alex Smith source to say, hey, I want it out there that Alex

really wasn't super critical of the team, that it wasn't exactly what he was saying. He stands by his words, but hold on, none of the comments were meant to make anybody mad. Where's the other part? He just didn't mean for it to be interpreted as criticism of the team. So if that had come to you,

you wouldn't have taken it and done something with it? I would have said I want to talk to Alex. And then what if they said no? Well, then I would have written anything. I would have written how stupid it was that his team of handlers or whoever they are is trying to do damage repair for his, I would have written the exact opposite. That they're backped on because, you know, they're worried about his image. It came off bad and they're trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube.

The thing is it doesn't, it didn't come off badly to everybody. It was very, I'm always hesitant to sort of gauge based on the response of our listeners because I know that a lot of them are hardcore football fans. But I would say there were more people that were sort of defending the team, not by an overwhelming amount, maybe by a bit of a surprising amount, considering that in the recent years, it's been always, it's their fault. Whatever it is, don't care what it is, it's their fault. You know, like the Trent Williams thing, a lot of people thought that was the team's fault.

I actually did not. I am very skeptical as to how truthful Trent Williams was about everything that happened. But I do know this. I know how I felt in the moment, which was I wouldn't put him out there. and if he can go miraculously, this shouldn't be the team that puts him out there. With that said, they did put him out there, which was a risk. It worked out for both parties. He played well.

He helped the team. Nobody got hurt. He wasn't injured again other than the injury late in the season. And it worked out well. Great. It is time to move on, though. It is time to move on. And I think they will very shortly.

Well, look, like the coach said, you know, and I'm sure this didn't have anything to do with Alex Smith comments to Q. Like the coach said, we could have done the same thing with Kyle Allen that we did with Alex Smith. Yes. Yeah. He did say that. Maybe that's the comment that really pissed him. Maybe that's the comment that really pissed him off. It would have pissed me off.

If I was Alex Smith at 13 years in the NFL, yeah. Yeah. A couple of people got mad at me yesterday for saying that I felt like he should be grateful. I'm not coming off that. They didn't have to play him. They didn't owe him anything, Tommy. Do you agree with that or not? I don't know.

What do you mean? That one's a little bit. This is the first time I've had to deal with that question. That's something I'm not going to give a quick answer about because, I mean, he's under contract to them. He lost his job because of an injury, and that's, you know, that's gray area. Can you lose your job because of an injury? Yes, that injury, yes. Two years ago, yeah.

Of course you can. I know that. That's sort of a silly question. Well, I just think that's, he didn't get benched three weeks ago. That's not a cut and dry thing as to what you ask me. Well, your injury explanation is you can't lose a job because of injury. That's silly. two years later. I know that. That's a general consensus, even though it's broken all the time.

Okay. People get lose their jobs because of injuries all the time. But there's always this, this code among players and coaches that you can't lose your job because of an injury. Yeah, but we're not talking about somebody who lost his job two years ago to a catastrophic injury that he miraculously came back from. He came back and he was ready to play. Okay, well, great. You know what? They paid him. You don't think the alternative that they put out there didn't piss him off? That's actually not even relevant to this conversation. It's not because at the beginning, I think he knew that Dwayne was a complete and an utter, you know, dead end anyway. But I think the whole notion of him playing was shocking to everybody,

and everybody in the moment was dealing with, oh my God, They cleared him. He can actually potentially play in an NFL game. But your question was, did they owe him? And I'm saying I'm not sure. Okay. Well, think about it a little bit more because the only thing they owed him was the money that they contractually promised to pay him, which they did.

And it's in excess now of like $80 million. So he was, I mean, not that he wasn't. generationally wealthy before. He obviously was paid. By the way, and I think I brought this up yesterday, and I think it's actually an interesting part of this story, is that remember, there was going to be some benefit to the team had the injury truly been career ending,

which, by the way, it was like a 99% probability that it would be. And the benefit was, A, that contract, you know, they wouldn't have owed the rest on the contract, and B, they had an insurance policy on a catastrophic injury from a cap, you know, a cap relief standpoint and also a cash relief standpoint. Not a lot. I think it was between $10 million and $12 million. But they, you know, they certainly did not owe it to him to wait two years that there would be the, you know, one-tenth of one percent chance that he'd be able to play in the NFL and hold his spot for him to come back. On the other hand, after two years, when he came back ready to play, they had, in his

mind, they had not moved on. They had nothing worth a clap. Fair, fair point. That's fine. And by the way, he's the one in the quarterback room. He knew. He knew much before anybody knew what a disaster the Haskins thing was, because he's a pro. All right. But I, but I'm not so sure. I don't know what he felt about Kyle Allen. Remember, they turned to Kyle Allen first. He had been cleared a month earlier. They turned to Kyle Allen first and they were going to stick with Kyle Allen. And by the way, Tommy, one last piece to this. I think we talked about this yesterday. If we didn't, whatever. At the end of that Rams game, that second half of the Rams game, if I had been the organization, and he had survived that half, one of the worst halves of any.

quarterback performance anybody's ever seen. And the fact that he survived being sacked six times and a half and hit another seven times by the likes of that defense. And he kept getting up, thankfully, because what if he didn't, I would not have played him again. But I didn't know what he looked like in practice. I didn't know what he sounded and appeared to be in the meeting rooms. And Ron Rivera did. Whatever hesitation there was, he was not deterred. after the Rams game because he said we've seen a lot different in practice. We are confident that Alex can do it. We've seen a completely different Alex in practice than we saw in the game.

And he basically blamed that Rams half on Rust. And remember Tommy, he didn't pull him, but Kyle Allen could have played. And he said that we were worried about putting Kyle back in the game. Yes, about him getting hurt. Yeah. So they changed their tune on Alex and they became more confident about taking the risk. And ultimately, obviously, you know, they put him out there in the final game of the season when he wasn't even 100% to play that game against the Eagles to get him into the postseason. I don't know. It's probably a lot to do about nothing. I have a hard time believing that he'd be really angry at the organization.

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about Windows, at least give them a chance to give you a free estimate. 86690 Nation, windownation.com slash home show. All right, a couple of other things that I wanted to get to, Tommy. I do want to provide that update on the Beth Wilkinson report. For those of you that missed it, stay tuned. We'll get to that here momentarily. I did want to talk about real quickly Russell Wilson. And yesterday, the discussion that Russell Wilson is okay staying in Seattle. However, he's provided the Seahawks with four teams that he will be happy to be traded to, the Cowboys, the Saints, the Raiders, and the Bears.

A strange list. A strange list? The Bears? Yeah, I don't know why it would be the Bears. I'm trying to think. You know, I saw somebody posted on Twitter, the list of the greatest quarterbacks in Chicago Bears history, and Russell Wilson wanting to play for the Bears came in fourth.

Yeah, the Bears thing I don't get. The others I get, I mean, it's the. I know, but the Bears just stands out. Yeah, the thing about the bear, but truly the bears have been one of those teams the last few years that with better quarterback play would have been really good because they've had a really good defense. But there's nothing at the coaching staff that indicate that you want to play there as a quarterback.

Well, except that, you know, it's sort of an Andy Reid disciple and I don't know. So, you know, a couple of things here. Number one is this. These two situations, the Watson and the Wilson situation, are completely different for those that want to try to compare them. Watson is 25 years old for starters and just signed a deal five months ago that made him the second highest paid player in the history of the game. And, you know, according to all sources, was actually promised some input into the general manager and the coaching hire in Houston. You know, Cal McNair, the owner, and, you know, in my mind's eye, Tommy, I forget how many times we've discussed this, I think made the mistake of over-promising and under-delivering. I would have done it differently.

I would have never promised anything, but I would have gone to him and said, hey, we're bringing in Nick Casario. He's from the Patriots. We're thinking about him as a GM. I'd really love if you had a half an hour just to sit in, talk to him, and I just want to get your thoughts on him. Something like that may have worked much better. There are other issues in the Houston organization, obviously, including this guy Easterby, who appears to be a big problem. But Russell Wilson wasn't promised anything necessarily. Russell Wilson's been complaining about the lack of pass protection, and he wants a bigger say in personnel.

And so not to mention that he's older, and his contract is a 2019 contract. That was a big contract extension, but it's two years ago that he signed his. Anyway, here's the other thought I had about it. You know, he's from Richmond, and apparently, you know, was sort of a Washington football fan. He grew up in Richmond. I actually have a really close friend of mine who has lived in Richmond now for 25 years plus. I was the best man in his wedding, in fact. We were very good friends in high school.

And his kids went to the same high school. that Russell Wilson went. They're much younger than Wilson, but went to the same high school that Russell Wilson went to. Wilson's like a legend in Richmond from this high school, and everybody in Richmond's followed his career, and apparently, you know, Wilson always was sort of a Washington football fan. We will notice that Washington wasn't on the list of teams that he would have been traded to, and Washington, as a football operation right now, isn't as bleak as it was a year ago or two, years ago. But the point that I'm going to make is it's still not on the list of destinations for anybody. Amari Cooper didn't want to come here a year ago. Deshawn Watson would probably

nix a trade to hear. Matt Stafford wouldn't have been pleased, apparently according to reports being traded to Washington. And, you know, so the answer to all of you that are saying, yeah, but Kevin, Kevin, it's Ron Rivera. It's different now. They got Chase Young. And I do think that it's the perception is starting to change. And by the way, Tommy, I think Chase Young is the number one reason for that, among players. They look at Chase Young and they think he's going to be a monster and that defense is going to be great and the whole thing. But you have to understand this too. These players, they look at Washington as like almost a non-football market.

When they've played here recently, it's been the third full. You know, 15,000 people, 30,000 people, maybe half full. Like, you go and play in road games. in the NFL, and you know which cities, based on the stadiums and the environment and the noise, which you have this perception as a player in the league today of which cities really are big-time football cities, NFL cities. You know what the perception of most people in the NFL is? Washington's not one of those places.

It's not a place you're going to go win. It's not a place you're going to go and be a part of something really cool. You know, money talks more often than not, understood. Opportunity talks. But, God, it's so far down the list among people in the game, younger people, players in the game, of being a place that they even think about. They don't think about Washington.

In fact, it's immediately, no, I don't want to go there. I do not want to go there. More people go to Jacksonville games and go to Washington games. Anyway, those are the things. that struck me. And I'll add this last thing before I let you have at it. There's no chance if I'm Seattle. I trade Russell Wilson. Zero chance. It's the same feeling I have about Houston. You have one of the top six or seven quarterbacks in the game, maybe top five. You do not trade that player, period. He is the Seattle Seahawks. He's the reason you've been able to be what you've been for eight years now.

a contender every single year. No way I would trade. And not just that. I mean, he's an important part of that community. Yes. I mean, you know, what did he just win the Walter Payton Award for the end of the year? You know, and you're going to trade him. And I think he's got a point about the beating he's taken and, you know, the lack of protection.

And I think in part he looks at what Tom Brady has done in Tampa, you know, 43, 44 years old, not getting his uniform dirty most games and thinks that that's what I want my career to be. I think Brady winning the Super Bowl has had a ripple effect around the league. You know, I think it's maybe

had an effect on Alex Smith saying he wants to keep playing. He looks at Tom Brady and he says, I can do that. I've got a new leg. However, it's manufactured. I can go out there and play. You know, but I agree with you. You got to figure out a way to keep Russell Wilson.

You know, and the other thing is you're spot on about the perception of the Washington Football Organization. It's going to take time to change that. Look, they just overhauled their whole front office weeks ago. Okay? I mean, agents look at that. They say there's a lot of uncertainty still going on in Washington. I'm not steering my clients there. when they can go someplace else where there's been more stability.

It may be changing, but most people who don't have an emotional investment are going to say, I need to see a little bit more of a track record of change. I think it's always about money and opportunity more than anything else, but I do think that we don't understand the level to which they have dropped perception-wise among players and executives and other teams, fan bases. I mean, you have to be a certain age now to think of Washington as a great NFL city, you know, a passionate fan base. You really do.

Like if you're 30 or younger, you don't even know that. You don't know what it used to be. You don't know what it can be, which I still think it can be that again. You know, so you're now reliant on more recent impressions like they just played, we just played there two weeks ago, and there were 12. 12,000 people in the stadium. We haven't played in front of fewer people in any place all season long, or we just played there on Sunday.

We had more of our fans there than they did of their own. You know, a lot of that stuff is, that stuff sticks and gets talked about a lot among players. I do think, though, I want to make sure I'm clear on this to those of you that are thinking, oh, there they go again. They're being totally negative. I do think that it's changed in the last year. It's massively different than it was a year ago coming off 3 and 13 and all the turmoil.

Ron Rivera is respected around the league. And I think Chase Young is perceived to be the next defensive superstar. And I do think that there's this impression that Washington's a team on the rise. So whether or not it's true or not, I don't know. But I do think that the perception is different than it was. But still, potential for instability. I mean, again, I like the move that Ron Rivera has made in the front office, but Martin Mayhew and Marty Herney have been here a couple weeks.

Okay. You know, I mean, that's not exactly a settled situation. There needs to be more proof that Washington is an NFL franchise. I think also, you know, I think it's more than what you just said. I think you would reference, I think you referenced, or maybe I just was thinking you referenced this, that these players rely on their agents to really give them direction. And their agents are going to say, look, this is the worst-owned NFL team in the league. And yes, they appear to be getting their act together on the football side,

but there's a lot of stuff going on there, a lot of stuff going on. And we have to see how it flushes out. but, you know, yeah, agents know. Agents know what, you know, what Dan Snyder is capable of. And so that's always going to be a bit of, they may never, ever be able to, like, the first 10 years of Dan and Vinny were, oh, my God, look at what they pay. I mean, they pay 25% more than anybody does. And they're signing all these big names.

Well, it was very much like, woo, that's the place. to go get paid. But the last 10 years is that's the place to go and die. You know, that's the place where you're going to go and you're going to be a part of a dysfunctional outfit playing in front of 30,000 people, half of whom will be rooting for the opponent. So they got to turn that around. That's part of the whole culture change for Ron. You know, the culture change starts with better people, better players, you know, a better discipline. You know, I loved what he said to me on radio a few weeks ago. My best players have to be my best workers. You start doing that. You go to the playoffs a couple of times in a row, and now all of a sudden it becomes more of a desired product.

And then, you know, all of it starts to snowball as long as the owner doesn't get in the middle of it. All true. So there was this story in the post this morning. Ex-Washington football team employees pressure NFL to make harassment probe public. We're talking about the Beth Wilkinson investigation. And there were 20 former employees of the Washington football team who say they witnessed or endured sexual harassment by team executives. And yesterday they demanded that the NFL make public its investigation by Beth Wilkinson into the team's culture, the investigation that's been going on now since August or September, whenever it started. These 20 former employees with their attorneys,

wrote a letter to Roger Goodell saying that the Wilkinson report must be made public so that Daniel Snyder's held accountable for what they described as a sexually hostile work environment. Now, I asked a couple of people this morning about whether or not we'll ever see this Wilkinson report, and there is a belief among a couple of attorneys that this thing is done by the league, for the league, and for the team, and that they may be able to stand behind a lot of privacy issues and concerns and not release this investigation to the public. Well, that may be, and this may be something that comes out in court someday, in court documents, because there will be lawsuits. I can guarantee you that.

but they may be able to hide behind privacy to keep it a lot of it quiet. But if that happens, then everything that new team president, Jason Wright, said, and everything that Ron Rivera said about this issue and being transparent and changing that culture in the organization rings hollow. It's hollow, all of it. You can't be transparent and hide. Transparency means you open up to what you did. In order to move on, you need to come forward and admit what you've done.

And if they're going to, if the NFL and the Washington football team are going to be hide behind privacy, we still don't know about whether or not Snyder let everybody go from the nondisclosure agreements that he had people sign, I haven't heard yet if that has ever been resolved or not. my point is everything, this whole facade was the recent settlement with many of them, but not all of them. No, not all of them. The whole facade that Jason Wright, and I went back and looked at his words, and he's the word being transparent. It rings hollow if this report is not public. Well, it may not be, it's not their report.

I still get that, but they'll have it. They can choose, they can choose. It doesn't matter if it's their report or not. what they said will be worthless. Not if they can stand behind true legal, you know, legalities that prevent them from doing it. And what would they be? Well, I guess these privacy concerns that the people named in this report

don't want it to be made public. Of course they don't want it to be made public. Yeah. So do they have rights to keep it from going public? if they spoke to Beth Wilkinson on the condition of anonymity, on the condition that this wouldn't be released to the public, and they made that promise to these people in an effort to get to the bottom of this situation, that it's not for the league or the team.

I mean, ultimately... Then the whole thing's useless. That it's a useless report that means nothing. It's useless. And again, it doesn't change their words. Look, I want to read it too. I want to read it too. They promised transparency.

And if that doesn't happen, whether they can release it or not, their words are worthless. Okay. But again, I'm not following your logic here if legally they're not able to make it public. And I'm questioning that they would not be able to... Okay. If there's a way for them to make it public, if there's a way to redact all the names... I want to know what they're hiding behind. If there's a way that legally they're allowed to redact all of the names, is that the way you say it?

You know, pull all of the names. That's not what I'm talking about. If Beth Wilkinson did an investigation and... You're missing what I'm saying. I'm saying if there's a way that the people that are demanding privacy, those people whose names will be in this report, if there's a way that their names can be redacted and they are referring to. to as, you know, without name, not identifying information, and therefore the report can be made public, then and the team still doesn't do it, then I'm with you. And maybe that would be the case.

What are we talking about here? Are we talking about culprits or witnesses? Witnesses. Well, that's different. That's what I'm talking about. That's why I think that. What about the culprits? What about the people, the culprits? Well, I don't have, I don't have any sympathy for their names being a part of this. I'm talking about maybe there's a disconnect in our conversation. I think it's going to be held up from going public or being made public because the witnesses don't want it to be made public. And I think, you know what?

Or some of them don't. That may be. Some of them do. That's what this story's about. Yeah. Yeah. I think no matter what the NFL wants, a document like this, it'll be made public. Somebody said to me, the Ray Rice stuff was all made public.

Do you think that that's in apples to apples? No. Yeah, I don't either. This will get leaked. But Tommy, it'll get out there. Let's just say that it doesn't get out there. We're going to know a lot. We're not going to know everything.

We're going to know a lot by how the league handles the findings. Do you think because it's not going to to be made... That's putting faith in the league. It is, you're right. I mean, you can't do that. Why would you trust the NFL? Well, because of this, because you just said eventually it's going to get out.

So if it's eventually going to get out, do you think the league's not going to punish the team if they deserve to be punished? I have no idea if they do what they'll do. Okay. I think the NFL's capable of anything. I guess I was just very very... ill-informed, I just assumed that this investigation would be made public from the beginning. I don't know why I felt that way. I'm sure I should have given it more thought and

understood that a lot of the witnesses, a lot of the people that are being interviewed and going, you know, on the record per this investigation with Beth Wilkinson, are not going to want to be identified, even though this story by Mark Maskey and Beth Reinhardt in the Post this morning say that 20 former employees who say they witnessed or endured sexual harassment want it to be public, made public. They clearly have this sense that it's not going to be made public, but they want it to be. Look, I want it to be made public.

I want to know what they found, because all I've heard about Beth Wilkinson is what a complete pro she is and how this is going to be done the right way. You didn't read my column when they hired her. It's probably behind the paywall. She's a good NFL soldier. This is the woman who represented the league during a concussion ceremony. You did tell me that.

You did tell me that. Lawsuits. Yeah. And stood before reporters and said NFL owners did nothing to hide the damage caused by concussions. So this is the woman in charge of the investigation. Right. She's a good soldier. Well, he'll do what the NFL tells them, tells her to do.

And this whole thing still is so. Interesting. I think there's just, I think the Post in the New York Times and, you know, maybe the Washington Times behind the paywall are perhaps, you know, waiting with a lot of additional information. Look, you know, the Post may have all of the information that the Wilkinson report is going to produce privately. And so we'll get to, you know, we'll have access to it anyway. I don't know. It's a big question mark for me. don't know if whatever happens is going to happen with a big, oh, I thought it was going to be much more than that. Or, wow, a couple of new bombshells. Have no idea. Bruce Allen's going to get a copy of it and leak it to John Moe. It's good buddy. And then it's going to come out in one of their hour-long phone conversations. How do you think that?

I mean, can you imagine how Dan's fuming that when he found out that, or at least alleges that Bruce was also behind this smear campaign? I mean, the two of them were thick as thieves. But remember towards the end of last year, you know who you saw with Dan more than anybody else? Alex Smith. So I can't wait for him to turn on the owner because everybody else has. everybody else has. Well, listen, you don't operate the way Dan Snyder does and not have a lot of enemies. Even people who are nice and decent who are high profile in businesses like the NFL have enemies.

Right. Somebody like Snyder, they could fill FedEx Coast Town Field with his enemies. All right, I want you to think about this question, and I want you to answer it, and I will as well. It's a question that I asked callers this morning, and I'll tell you what prompted this question when we come back. But the question is this, give me a team or a franchise, college or pro, that isn't one of your personal favorites, and you don't have a lot of personal favorites anyway, but that you've always really respected from afar. I'm much more of a fan of teams than you are. But there were a lot of answers that I thought you'd find interesting as well. We'll get to that right after this word from one of our sponsors.

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It still is. I'm not suggesting it's not a winnable game. But Michigan State was just having the worst regular season Michigan State's had in a long time. Now, they had a COVID issue and a break and missed some games because of COVID, but they lost to Rutgers by 30. And not just 30. The final score was 67 to 37. That was only a month ago. They lost to Iowa by 30 two weeks ago. and then they got on a roll here recently. They beat Indiana. They came from behind. They were down 12 to Indiana, came back in one on Saturday. And then in the last three nights, they beat the number five team in the country, Illinois,

and they beat the number four team in the country last night, Ohio State. So Michigan State was, you know, one of the teams that one of the storylines of college basketball this year, at least early on, is that Duke, North Carolina, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan State. of them are any good this year. It's crazy. They're all bad for the, you know, there were those stories that I think there was like 30, 40 or 50 years that went by where Kentucky, Duke, in North Carolina, all three of them, that not, that at least one of them wasn't in the top 25. And there were several weeks without any of them in the top 25. And Michigan State, you know,

I don't know if they're the true blue bloods like I mentioned, but they were having a poor season as well. And Tom iso as coached Michigan State, you know, going back to 19, He's taken Michigan State to the tournament 22 consecutive years. And six days ago, it looked like there was zero chance that Michigan State was going to make the tournament in this incredible run of 22 straight years, which by the way includes nine final fours. Isos taken Michigan State to nine final fours? I'm sorry, eight final fours. I think last year they would have been in the final four. I think last year they were peaking heading into the tournament. Eight Final Four is one national championship, but it looked like they weren't going to make the tournament. Now they've won these games, and they're now squarely on the bubble, huge game against Maryland and College Park.

Bigger for Michigan State than it is Maryland. Maryland has really solidified their tournament standing right now, not that they can't play their way out of it. But I've seen Maryland as high as a seven seed now in some bracketologies, and I've seen them as low as, you know, the last four in, you know, is like an 11 seed. They have three more games left. They play Northwestern and Penn State next week. But this game Sunday, National TV, CBS 2pm between Michigan State and Maryland, is a big game. But anyway, this prompted the following thought. I think you know this.

Maybe you don't know this about me. I've just always been a massive Tomizzo fan and a massive Michigan state, like, respect, mad respect for the way he coaches, the way his teams play, the consistency year and year out of playing the highest level of competition early and never caring if they lose to Kansas or lose to Duke or lose to Kentucky, but almost every year at the end of the year,

he's got that team playing its best basketball of the year. And he was counted out for the first time and a long time this year, and here they are surging towards maybe another NCAA tournament bid. And I got news for you, if they get in, they're going to be held to deal with if they get into the field. And I just thought, like, I'm not a Michigan State fan because Maryland competes with him now in the Big Ten. But I'm a huge Tom Mizo fan, and I have a lot of respect for that program and what he's done, that team, you know, over now a long period of time.

And so I asked the question this morning, you know, and we took calls and I got hundreds of Twitter responses, you know, to sort of name a team or franchise that isn't a favorite of yours in terms of it being your favorite team that you really respect from afar. That's the number one team for me. Number two are the Ravens. I've always respected the Ravens. They have an identity about them. They're really smart.

Bashaddy, Ozzie Newsom, Eric Dacosta, the whole franchise, even though they miss the playoffs every once in a while. I'm not a Ravens fan by any stretch of the imagination, but I've always had this respect for them as an organization. Does anybody come to mind for you? One team in baseball, the Dodgers, the Dodgers always have. Look, I grew up in a household in Brooklyn where we were taught to hate the Los Angeles Dodgers because that was the team that left Brooklyn, New York, abandoned Brooklyn, and went to Los Angeles. So I I grew up hating the Los Angeles Dodgers. But I used to grudgingly admire them tremendously in the early 60s with Kofax and Drysdale and Mory Wills,

you know, winning a couple of World Series. The 70s with Steve Garvey, Dusty Baker, Ron Seh, and those teams. the 80s with Oral Hersheiser and that group, all the way to the team that's there now. And what really brought it home for me was visiting Dodgers Stadium when the Nationals played the division series there for the first time. And looking at all the memorabilia and Dodger monuments and just how much respect they have for their own, organization and how much they've accomplished. It's different than the Yankees. The Yankees always seem sorted and rooted for U.S. Steel, as they used to say.

But what the Dodgers, year, you know, decade after decade, and I know it took a while for them to win another world series after 88, but they're always competing. I just have a grudging admiration for the legacy that they've built. the tradition that they've built. What did that expression mean, rooted in steel? I don't know, I've heard it before. Here's the thing.

U.S. steel back in the 40s and 50s, from the 50s, I would think, was a powerhouse, a juggernaut, a major corporation. You know, one of the most powerful companies in the country. Yeah. So if you rooted for the Yankees, you were, it was like rooting for U.S. Steel. It was easy. I thought you said rooted in U.S. steel. No, rooting for you As you. Okay, got it.

That's an old saying about the Yankees. Okay. Because how hard was it to be a Yankee fan when they were winning the World Series every year? Right. You know? So, whereas being a Brooklyn Dodger fan, they were going to the World Series every year and losing to the Yankees. Yeah, I get that and actually several people tweeted me, the Dodgers, and just the consistency of success.

But more people said, you know, said, you know, like the Oakland A's or the Tampa Bay raise, like teams with lower budgets without the cash that have consistently, you know, won. The answer that I thought I was going to get overwhelmingly, and nobody called in with the answer, but several people tweeted the answer, the San Antonio Spurs.

I mean, how could you not respect the Spurs from afar? small market team, and for basically 20 years, they won five titles, and they were always a factor year in and year out, smarter than most of the rest of the NBA. By the way, I thought that, and I forget what prompted this thought, but I'll just share the thought with you without telling you where it was rooted. I think if people were doing this in other cities and they were thinking about teams from the past, the Joe Gibbs Redskins would be one of those teams that people respected from afar, even if they wasn't their favorite team. Absolutely.

Absolutely would be. They would have been at the time. They're sort of similar to the Spurs. Yes. I mean, the way they operated, I mean, from afar, Washington always seemed like a classy organization. And thanks in part, it was good. part to their coach, Joe Gibbs.

And on TV, the atmosphere at RFK, I mean, it just came right through the TV. It just seemed like such a rabid fan base. It just seemed like they were doing everything right, and they were. So, yeah, I could see Washington during the Gibbs era, even if you were a giant fan, having a grudging admiration for the way Washington did business. A lot of people, other baseball teams, like a lot of people said the St. Louis Cardinals, their consistency and how important it's been and how there's this reverence in that city for that team and how they usually deliver more times than not. That's a good one. That's absolutely a good

one. You know, like the other teams I've rooted for growing up, like, you know, the Jets, they've been a disaster. The Knicks had a great legacy back in the 70s. That's been a disaster. the Mets have had their moments, but still they've been embarrassing. None of the teams I've rooted for have had the kind of legacy that the Dodgers have had. Right. And, yeah, I mean, I guess I also picked a couple of winners as well, not as much of a winner as the Dodgers over the course of time. It's funny about Izzo.

You know, I've heard, you know, the stories and watch some, some of the, you know, drills that he does during practice. You know, there are drills that he does in practice that don't even really involve a basketball. He's very much a football coach coaching basketball. I've always loved that about his teams. They're just always, you know, tough, gritty. And I don't know.

I think one of the things that, for me anyway, in evaluating how I feel about a coach, is I tend to think that the coaches that have less, they get more out of less are better coaches. That isn't necessarily the case. Look, in college sports recruiting is a big part of coaching. But I'm talking about actually coaching the games. But one of the telltale signs I always feel of a well-coached team is does that team just improve during the course of the season?

Does it keep getting better? Does it keep learning and does it keep adapting? And then by the end of the year, is it playing its best? and that he's the number one example of that in almost any sport there isn't a guy that starts off typically caring less about you know November and December college basketball but has his team peaking at the end of the year like iso has and with that said Tommy he's only won one national title he's been to the final four so many times and beaten higher seated teams with you know more talented teams along the way, but has lost a ton in the final four when he's gotten to that point. But anyway, I appreciate the one dude that has consistently just off of my question this morning on radio sent me all that he respects about the Stark family from Game of Thrones. Yes, I respect the Stark's too.

They survived. They were survivors. Well, not all of the Stark's. Not Ned. Not Rob. not Rick on, not Caitlin, but Sonsa and Ari and Bran and John Snow, they all survived. Nerd on nerd. One of these days, Tommy, you're going to be like, yeah, you know what I got around to?

You were right. I had no idea. One of these days, you'll give it a shot. And one of these days, and it's stupid that I haven't, because I know you're right about this one. I still have not watched the wire. I will get around to that one day. You, however, will do everything in your power not to watch Game of Thrones. Anything else? I got nothing else for you, boss. All right. Have a good weekend. I'm glad you're all vaccinated up, and I'll be back hopefully tomorrow, and if not, we will be back on Monday. Have a good weekend.