Random Rumblings: April 20th

RIP Pearl

We randomly rumble on a sad day as we found out this morning that Dwayne "Pearl" Washington has passed away at the age of 52. The Syracuse basketball legend might be the most important player in program history. It's either him or Carmelo Anthony. That's it. That's the list.

In the early 80's as The Big East began, Pearl was one of the stars. The league's success can be directly tied to TV (and ESPN specifically) and that success can be drawn back to the star players. The bigger than life coaches, such as Jim Boeheim, John Thompson and Rollie Massimino all had major roles, but they had to have players to make the product worth watching.

Washington was not only an outstanding player, but he was a showman. He played with uncommon flair. I was watching "With A Kiss" yesterday, the documentary on CBS analyst Bill Raftery, who coached in the early 80's in the Big East at Seton Hall. Jim Boeheim was featured in talking about the Big East, and he told a story about a trip to the west coast. He landed at LAX and was waiting at baggage claim when someone shouted at him "Hey! You're Pearl's coach!" This was in the early 1980's in Los Angeles about a player in The Big East! That was the power of Pearl. He was the first recruit in Boeheim's best stretch of coaching success until the last six years.

There was no better guy and there’s nobody who has meant more to our basketball program than Dwayne Washington.#CuseFamily

— Jim Boeheim (@therealboeheim) April 20, 2016

I can't sum it up better than Boeheim. RIP Pearl, a true legend.

Will you shut up about RGIII? No.

The relationship between Robert Griffin III and Redskins fans is endlessly interesting to me. To start to understand the dynamic, you have to understand that there are numerous segments of the Redskins fanbase. There is a segment that is actually more RGIII fans than they are fans of the team. There's another group that despises Griffin. There's another group that just wishes anything about Griffin would go away. There's another group that's more rational and doesn't really care about Griffin, but understands why he's a story. Note: that is the rational group. It is likely larger than you think, but silent so we don't hear from them very often.

Smh, why are we talking about a Browns QB in DC ? I am missing something here. https://t.co/FgXXvvcAqq

— Ricky Jean Francois (@Freakyjean99) April 19, 2016

To Ricky, the rest of the fanbase and anyone else interested in the story, I'd like to explain media to you as succinctly as I can. First, our job isn't to help the team. It's STUNNING to me how many players and fans think that's our job. "Why aren't you more supportive?" Because that's not my job? I'm not paid (when I'm being paid...#HireMe) to bash the team either. I'm paid to say what I see and talk about what's interesting, without taking into consideration how it may effect the team. It's simply not a concern.

Secondly, just like whatever you do for a living, we are trying to make money. We make money by talking about the things that are interesting to you so that you'll listen. For a website like CSN, an article about Griffin's first mini-camp for the Browns will do well. You can call it "click-bait" but it's also good business, and it's really not that cheap. There is genuine interest in Griffin in DC because he's one of the most significant athletes to come through this market in 25 years. He's gone, but that doesn't mean the interest is. That's okay! In fact, it's completely normal.

Right now in Chicago, there's still an immense amount of talk about Tom Thibodeau. The former Bulls coach has been gone for a year. Where he goes next is one of the biggest topics on talk radio. The feud between him and the team was the number one underlying story of the Bulls' season. There's still an obsession with Phil Jackson in LA. There's still an obsession with Jeff Van Gundy in New York. LeBron is a topic of conversation in Miami constantly, although, much like Griffin, he's a topic of conversation everywhere.

The most interesting thing about Griffin and the DC market is how unique the DC market thinks it is. I've always laughed at this notion that the Redskins are a bigger mess than say the Jets or the Raiders, or that Griffin is getting some special treatment unseen before in the history of earth.

The point is these things happen. A star player, especially one with the star power of Griffin, leaves and people talk about him because he mattered to them significantly. I understand why some fans want to move on. I understand why players really want to move on. However it's the media's job to serve the largest portion of their audience, which does have some interest in that player. If you're not in that group, don't click! That's all. That's how you send your message. When the clicks/listens/views stop rolling in, we'll stop producing the content. Just don't click. Or change the channel. Whining about it actually makes it worse because you keep the name in the news. It proves that there is interest.

In our business the opposite of hate is not love and the opposite of love is not hate. The opposite of both is apathy. Voice your concerns accordingly.

Reads of the Day:

ESPN's Ramona Shelburne with a masterclass on how to use access after she spent the day after retirement (and more) with Kobe Bryant: http://espn.go.com/espn/feature/story/_/page/undefeated-kobe160419/former-lakers-star-kobe-bryant-left-nba-just-getting-started

"An Unbelievable Story of Rape" will mess up your day, leave you feeling sick and is 100% worth your time. From ProPublica: https://www.propublica.org/article/false-rape-accusations-an-unbelievable-story

Syracuse coach Mike Hopkins tweets his tales about Pearl Washington: https://storify.com/CraigHoffman/mike-hopkins-on-pearl-washington

Random Rumblings: April 19th

After some travel time, I've returned to rumble randomly. The travel was to my alma mater, Syracuse University, for the chance to work with the next generation of media superstars. Joe Lee, GM of WAER, invited me to work with his sports talk department and it turned into an incredible 48 hours on the hill.

It's hard to accurately describe what the student media, both WAER and Z89, mean to and have meant to my career. The shortest version of an attempt is merely saying that I would've gotten nowhere without them. The reason those places are so special is because the alums are so generous in giving back. Not only have some of the best and brightest in our industry established and passed down a standard of excellence when they were students, but they've also made sure to continue to go back and ensure that standard is upheld.

The fact that Joe reached out and specifically targeted me to come back and work with his staff is an honor. I was more than happy to make the trip. What I found, not shockingly, is an incredibly talented and driven group that craved the feedback and want to get better and continue the tradition. There's a reason there are so many Syracuse alums in this industry and there's a reason we're obnoxious about where we went to school. It's worth being proud of and it was abundantly clear to me after last week that the next generation understands that and will continue to live up to the expectations of being "one of those Syracuse guys" (or gals!) in every corner of media.

Kobe

I left for Syracuse at 6 am on Thursday morning, making it an unwise decision to stay up and watch Kobe's final game Wednesday night. So I didn't. I watched the first six minutes, in which he didn't hit a shot, and went to bed knowing it was on DVR for me to consume later.

I woke up Thursday morning bleary eyed and looked at my phone AND KOBE DID WHAT?! No amount of coffee or IV dripped caffeine could've had me come to attention faster than seeing that Bryant scored 60 on his final night. I immediately went to the box score and saw he shot fifty times, but he still scored sixty points!!! However as I started to read some of the reaction from Twitter the night before, then listen as I hit the road, I understood that this wasn't some chuck-fest. This was an all-time moment.

I finally got to watch this morning and it was pure magic. Were there some bad shots? Sure. He shot fifty times. You think they were all awesome? However there were also glimpses of a Bryant we all, including Kobe himself, thought was long gone. Snakes to the rim, ending in crafty finishes accounted for a solid percentage of his points. The pull-up jumper that made him the NBA's best player for a solid stretch of the early 00's looked as sure as it ever had. I'd use another word, but magic is the proper description.

For a player whose reputation as a closer was typically overstated (his percentages in clutch situation were terrible), this close was literally perfect. While he often forced shots and missed, there was no denying that Bryant always wanted to take the final shot. He thought it was his duty, and he had no fear of failure. That's admirable for an athlete, even if at times he should've played the percentages better. Wednesday night wasn't a time to play the percentages. Wednesday night was time to put on a show. He did, in the most unimaginable way possible.

He's inarguably one of the best fifteen players ever. He's almost inarguably one of the best twelve. He's arguably one of the best ten. He's done things few others have done in the modern era and some (his 81 point game) that none have done. From a pure sporting context, it doesn't get much better than  his performance on Wednesday. Also, Mike Tirico said "fo shizzle" late in the game going to break as the telecast showed Snoop dancing which is as all-time of a moment as anything Kobe did.

However in an age where we know more about our athletes than ever before, I'd feel like a total hypocrite if I didn't at least mention that Bryant was charged with rape in 2004. It was largely not mentioned during the Kobe farewell tour until the final few days as I saw it appear a few times on social media. I was pretty young during the trial, so I went back and looked at some of the reporting from the time and it's certainly damning of Bryant. At absolute best, Bryant committed rape amidst confusion about consent. This is directly from Bryant's statement after the charges were dismissed:

"Although I truly believe this encounter between us was consensual, I recognize now that she did not and does not view this incident the same way I did. After months of reviewing discovery, listening to her attorney, and even her testimony in person, I now understand how she feels that she did not consent to this encounter."

It takes two to have consent. The woman not believing she had consented constitutes rape, even if Bryant was under some other impression. Other accounts paint a much darker picture in which there's no confusion at all, and that there may have been other similar instances with other women that went unreported. We have a legal system that often fails victims of domestic and sexual violence. There are no winners in any of this. The charges against Bryant were dropped after his legal team engaged in horrifying victim blaming.

There's no good way to make all this into some grand conclusion. It feels like there's grey area here. Bryant rehabbed his image in part by doing an extremely high amount of charity work. He saw hundreds of Make-a-Wish kids, never denying one of their requests. His work with the homeless of LA is awe-inspiring. Does any of that make what he was alleged to do okay? Of course not. I don't know what the "right" response to all of this is. Watching his final game gave me great joy as a sports fan. Writing the last two paragraphs about a horrifying thing he is alleged to have done makes me feel really guilty about that joy. That's really all I've got.

Trade That Pick!

Making as hard of a left turn as we can, the Browns should trade the number two overall pick in the upcoming NFL draft and they shouldn't think twice about it. It's pretty clear the Rams are taking one of the top two quarterbacks in the draft, either Jared Goff or Carson Wentz at number one after trading with the Titans last week. That leaves any other team who wants one of those quarterbacks needing to trade with Cleveland to ensure they get their man.

The Browns don't need either if they're committed to Robert Griffin III at quarterback. Even if they're not, they should trade the pick anyway unless they believe one of them is truly special. The reality is the Browns stink. They're not winning this year with anyone they can possibly acquire at quarterback. They need a lot of players. The only way to get a lot of good players is to draft a lot of players. The way to draft a lot of players is to have a lot of picks, which you can acquire in a trade for the number two overall pick pretty easily.

NFL Draft picks, no matter where they are, are like lottery tickets. The higher the draft pick, the better chance that ticket is a winner, but the real goal is to get as many tickets as you can. If you go 50% on your picks, but only have six picks, you've only developed three players. If you have 12 picks? Now you've got six NFL caliber players and are making headway towards becoming good again.

Since multiple teams are likely to want in on whichever QB is left (multiple reports say it will be Wentz stating that the Rams like Goff), the Browns can probably get a great return for their pick. Making a deal is all about leverage. The Browns have it. They should use it, and then be patient as their stable of players develops and maybe, just maybe, they'll have a winner in Cleveland a few years down the road.

Reads of the day:

This Seth Wickersham piece for ESPN The Mag on Robert Nkemdiche is great. It shines a light on one of the draft's bigger question marks and how questionable the draft process is: http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/15159447/should-teams-worry-robert-nkemdic-nfl-future

NBA Player Wayne Ellington writes about his father's impact on his life and his cold-blooded murder for The Player's Tribune: http://www.theplayerstribune.com/wayne-ellington-nets-father/

If you want some great Kobe stories, Baxter Holmes has written some remarkable stuff for ESPN LA the past few weeks. This, on his shooting routine, is one of my favorites: http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/15179469/kobe-bryant-famous-pregame-shooting-routine

Thanks For The Stability

When Scot McCloughan took over as general manager of the Washington Redskins, he was charged with changing the culture of the franchise. The culture when he arrived screamed circus. Just a year later, players being told they're not welcome back are taking to social media to say that the Redskins are a first class organization.

World class organization! Scott McCloughan called me and i have nothing but respect. Didn't have to call me. Nothin but respect!

— Terrance Knighton (@MisterRoast98) March 7, 2016

How did this happen? That part is easy. McCloughan brought in a number of veteran players to help establish a culture of accountability. Those veterans set the tone every day of workouts, training camp and the season to lead the Redskins to the playoffs.

So why just a year later is the need for those players gone? In fact, it's probably fair to ask if it's gone.

No player embodied this more than DaShon Goldson. He was a solid player, but an amazing leader. Skins assistant Aubrey Pleasant described Goldson's leadership style to me as "leadership by democracy." The veteran safety made sure every player felt invested in the team's success. That helped lead to accountability because everyone felt responsible for themselves and others.

Knighton was the same kind of player. His production wasn't what the Redskins were looking for, and his role diminished as the season went on. Through that time though, he was a consistent voice in the locker room who had gravitas. He'd played in a Super Bowl. He'd been on winning teams.

For so many young teams in any sport, learning how to win is a process, and it requires people who know how to teach the younger generation. Despite veterans like Jason Hatcher, Knighton and Goldson, the Redskins are a very young roster, but they have emerging talent. Bashaud Breeland proved he could become a Pro Bowler, but also showed previously unseen leadership qualities. Will Compton emerged as a solid middle linebacker, along with Mason Foster. Homegrown talents Ryan Kerrigan and Trent Williams continue to play at high levels and grow as leaders.

With all the younger leaders emerging, McCloughan and the coaching staff clearly have determined that they don't need the guidance of the older players anymore, or at least as much of it. They learned, in one short year, what it takes to win in the NFL. Combine that with the expensive price tags and underwhelming performance and the team decided to move on not only from imports like Goldson and Knighton, but in-house good guys such as Darrel Young and Alfred Morris.

Put a different, and perhaps cruel, way - these guys are getting let go because they did their jobs. The franchise is now stable. A year ago, Jay Gruden was the Vegas favorite to be the first coach fired in the '15-16 season. Robert Griffin III was the starting quarterback, but inside the organization, no one felt good about it. The locker room was fractured after a miserable season.

Bringing in players from the outside helped stabilize everything, because they weren't a part of the previous chaos. The professional sports world moves fast. It doesn't look back. So as the new players came in, they got to work. The younger players followed. Griffin was replaced with Kirk Cousins. The chaos subsided. Cousins played well. The team won. It all works in concert. The result is the franchise is in an extraordinarily different place now than a year ago.

McCloughan can afford to let these players walk because he doesn't need them to stabilize anything. Now he can move on to the next phase of the rebuild, which is finding players who can play at a value he sees fit.

The Talk Radio Host's Guide to RGIII

Part of hunting for talk radio jobs is doing research, meaning listening to talk radio from around the country. That allows me to stay current on what's going on in markets around the country (specifically ones that there are openings in), and it's a nice chance to do some research on the craft. When you're working, you don't get to listen to other stations other places. You've got to be locked in on what's happening in your market. Being able to listen to other stations is beneficial not just to stay in tune with what's happening in other places, it's a chance to study how others do the job.

However, no matter where I turn, or how hosts are presenting their material, there seems to be one thing in common: they're all talking about RGIII! It's unbelievable. I can't escape!

What's more unbelievable than a country full of football obsessed people talking about a formerly effective, high-profile quarterback who is about to be a free agent though, is how consistently wrong they are about basic facts of Griffin's time in Washington.

I pause here, momentarily, to establish that I rather like Robert Griffin III as a human being. I've gotten to talk to him quite a bit, even though he was completely off limits to the media the entire year. None of those conversations were on the record and almost none of them were about the Redskins.

We often talked about college football. When Syracuse hired Dino Babers, who was with Griffin at Baylor, Robert found me and said "man, you just got a great coach!"

I really like Robert. I hope he succeeds, and there's a reason that's the near unanimous chorus amongst media members in Washington. He's an incredibly personable human being who takes a genuine interest in conversation. That's a refreshing change from many star athletes who see any media member's presence as a total nuisance.

On the field, he inarguably provided the most electrifying run in Washington sports since the Redskins last Super Bowl, however what's happened since 2012 seems to have not made it that far outside the beltway.

So with that, we come to "The Talk Show Host's Guide to RGIII," which you can bookmark, reference and cite as often as you'd like!

First and foremost, Robert Griffin III lost his starting job in Washington because of performance, not injury. In fact, whether Griffin was even injured or not is up for debate. His camp says he was never concussed after being blasted by the Lions in week 2 of the preseason. The Redskins and the league obviously disagree, as they put him in the concussion protocol and deemed him concussed. For about two weeks, Jay Gruden didn't know what the hell was going on and I can assure you he never wants to hear the words "independent neuropsychologist" again.

However whether Griffin was concussed or not, he was getting benched.

Gruden said that whether Griffin was available or not, Kirk Cousins was going to get some starter's reps in the 3rd preseason game. Griffin wound up being unavailable, giving all the starters reps to Cousins. When Gruden revealed this in a press conference, I asked him to elaborate on what the split would have been and who would've started. He declined to expand, saying it was in the past and there was no real benefit for him to divulge more. For his sake, that was correct. For ours? Meh.

Given that there was now the green light for an open competition, Cousins was going to win the job. He was miles better than Griffin during the off-season program and in training camp. The Redskins coaching staff touted Griffin's progress because they had to. Going into the season saying "we're screwed" at quarterback doesn't do anything publicly, and they had to convince themselves privately so they didn't go to work every day with a defeatist attitude. It was true that Griffin was getting better, but not by much, and he still couldn't operate basic plays in the offense as late as August.

Despite those worries, Griffin had the job because he wasn't allowed not to have it. Eventually, ownership allowed the football staff to put whoever they wanted in place, and Cousins was awarded the job on merit. Also note that Griffin wasn't just demoted to being the backup, he was demoted to third string. While that may have had something to do with his $16 million injury option, he was also their third best quarterback.

However the misremembering of Griffin's history goes back beyond the 2015 preseason. I've heard praise for how Griffin closed the 2014 season, with a 336 yard performance against the Cowboys.

He threw two interceptions in that game and in which Washington lost 44-17. But hey, he threw for a ton of yards.

Earlier in that season was the low point of Griffin's time in Washington, as the Redskins got beaten badly by Tampa Bay. After the game Griffin commented that everyone had to play better, which rubbed many the wrong way. My former co-worker Chris Cooley, who watches tape weekly and grades players, was unable to grade the offense that week because Griffin operated at such a low level. He said the coaches had to completely abandon the gameplan and return to "Day 1 of training camp offense" to try and get anything going. He was that gun shy. His ability to decipher what to do with the football was that low on that given day.

That, in the end, is the fatal flaw for Griffin in a pro style offense, unless he made a completely remarkable jump while on the bench last year. He hasn't shown the ability to read a defense, because prior to being in the NFL, he didn't have to.

Bryce Petty, who played in the same system at Baylor that Griffin did, described the learning curve to The Wall Street Journal:

Petty admits to grappling with tasks such as hearing and calling the play, identifying defensive backs in coverage and identifying which player in the defensive backfield was the “mike” linebacker, the central part of the defense whose location teams base their offensive line protections on. “As crazy as it sounds, at Baylor, we did not point out the ‘mike’ linebacker,” Petty said. 

Petty was unfamiliar with making adjustments to the play or the formation before the snap. 

“Honestly, I wish I’d done a little bit more as far as being proactive to get into a pro style [offense],” he said, singling out the need to decipher fronts or coverages. “It was things I have never seen before.”

Those are basic, elementary tasks in a pro offense. So how did Griffin succeed in 2012? Two things.

First, Mike and Kyle Shanahan created a hybrid offense that had elements of Griffin's old system in it. This was the definition of putting a player in a position to succeed. The results were solid early, as Washington started 3-3. The third win was sealed with this play:

A coach, who was with the team at the time, told me that play changed changed how defenses attacked Griffin, which leads to the second factor of his rookie success.

Teams started playing very basic defenses, not wanting to risk giving up a similar big play. Griffin saw the same few, easily identifiable defenses for the rest of the season and never really had to concern himself with setting up protections and deciphering pre-snap disguises. Like at Baylor, it was line up and play. Washington lost the next 3 games, and then went on a seven game win streak to close the year. Griffin was great, won rookie of the year and then got hurt in the playoff game.

Before the 2013 season, Griffin told the Shanahans he didn't want to run anymore. His dad even said publicly that any quarterback that wants to run more than pass is a loser. Tension was at an all-time high. You probably know about all that.

With Griffin returning from injury and less likely to run, teams started mixing coverages. He struggled, as defenders were doing things he'd never seen before. His interception numbers sky-rocketed. He was sacked constantly. The team went 3-10 with him as a starter. The Shanahans were fired.

We've now almost come full-circle. Jay Gruden was hired after his stellar work with Andy Dalton in Cincinnati. Gruden and Griffin had some public moments they'd both rather have back. Griffin didn't perform well in Gruden's system. Gruden knew he was not giving his team the best chance to win as better options sat on the bench. Griffin got hurt again. Those better options didn't do much as they hadn't gotten much practice time. Griffin came back. He wasn't good. He got benched. The team stunk, but hey he had that 336 yard game to close the year against Dallas! Now we've finished the circle.

Reviews were mixed behind closed doors of how Griffin handled this season. I can attest to the fact that he wanted to stay quiet and lay low, which he did. He absolutely could've spent the season leaking complaints and keeping himself relevant. He intentionally did not as to not be a distraction. He didn't have a whole lot of ground to stand on because of how well Kirk Cousins was playing, but there was some space early in the year before Cousins turned it up. We didn't hear a peep.

I talked to many of his teammates who said Griffin was a great teammate. I also heard rumblings that he wasn't as happy for Cousins' success as Colt McCoy was, even though McCoy had every right to complain as well. He was the only quarterback not to be benched for performance in 2014, then lost the starting job before he even knew it was available.

Side-note: no one knew it was available until it was. Not McCoy, not Cousins, not Griffin and not even the coaches. The old "compete/prepare like you're the starter" adage was never more relevant than this year in Washington. McCoy absolutely did. He just got beat, but you can understand his frustration. He handled it like the pro's pro he is, publicly and privately.

Griffin absolutely did his job as a scout team quarterback too. Jay Gruden told a story the week of the playoff game about Griffin running around, simulating Aaron Rodgers, before chucking a ball 70 yards down field. He brought the same energy to practice he did as a starter. I talked to one teammate who said he was always engaged as well, showing progress in reading and deciphering coverages from the sideline as Cousins was on the field.

Doing it from the sideline and doing it from on the field are completely different stories though, and that's the question for Griffin moving forward. He has supreme physical talent as a straight line runner, and he has a terrific arm. However a quarterback's success is more reliant on his ability to read and react than it is his physical talent.

If I were in a market with a team looking at Griffin, I wouldn't endorse him as a lone option. I'd love him as a backup with potential, so long that I knew he was on board with that idea, dedicated to learning the system and the starter was entrenched so there would be no controversy. If he were to be brought in to compete for a starting job, I'd want another option. I'd want him to have to earn it. I'd want him to know that nothing is guaranteed.

I'd also know that he very well might lose that job to someone who is far less famous. Griffin is still young. He's only 26. He's completely healthy and has been for nearly a year. Saying "I'd take the risk on him" isn't some moronic opinion.

Just realize what the risk is, how we've gotten to this point and why a player who once looked like the future of the NFL is now going to be available after his rookie contract. Which you do. Because you've made it to the end.

The end.