Laremy Tunsil goes down

In this episode, I break down the Laremy Tunsil injury and what it could mean for the Commanders' upcoming season. I also discuss the Wizards missing out on the newly released prime-time schedule, as well as the new Nats' bullpen showing early promise.

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Welcome to the Overreacting Since Kickoff podcast, your place for DMV sports conversations and discussions about all things DMV sports. In today's episode, we'll talk about the injuries that are piling up for the commanders, a little bit of wizards news, and we'll wrap it up with some Nats discussion. Bullpin seems to be better. Let's start with the commanders. Once again, we have some injuries that have been popping up for the commanders, just like we saw last year. Let's buckle up everybody. The biggest thing that happened, of course, is the Laramie Tunsil. If you don't already know, he tore his triceps over the weekend. He's having surgery. He's done for the year. I know they say four to seven months, but even four months puts it in December. I can't imagine him come rushing him back. It's just the season's over for him. And I know there's been a lot of doom and gloom from people. I know some of my friends have been saying season's already over. It's done. Let's pack it in. I'm more of hold on on that one. Yes, I know Larry Tunsell is a quality player. You can argue he's on a Hall of Fame trajectory. He's at least top five of left tackles in the league. I definitely challenge some of the people that I was talking to. Can they name five other offensive linemen? Can they name five other left tackles? And no, they couldn't. I couldn't either. I think I could probably name a couple, but realistically, no, I cannot. And yes, I know it's that position's important, but I will point out two things to anybody who's dooming and glooming this whole Laramie Tunsil's injured, the season's over, no playoffs. None of that. Last year, Laramie Tunsil did play. They didn't win very many games when Laramie Tunsil was playing. Two years ago, Laramie Tunsil wasn't on the team. They did pretty well. They made it all the way to the NFC Championship. Now the left tackle they had when they made it to the NBA NBA. The left tackle when they made it to the NFC Championship was Brendan Coleman, who is now the new left tackle. So they did pretty well with him being the left tackle two years ago. So I'm not dooming and glooming the entire season. I think he'll be fine. Now I do know that last year Brendan Coleman was benched. He played two games. They benched him. He did come back, of course, when they moved him. He was benched. But he ne he wasn't necessarily benched due to poor play. He was benched from what I've heard, what I've seen, other people talk about, is that he was benched because he wasn't in the greatest shape. And I don't want to call him a baby, but he wouldn't play injured. He kind of took himself out of games and things like that. And so that's the narrative that I've been hearing on why he was benched. That's to me, that's a maturity thing, which I think you can work on with that. I think now I'm sure they've sat down and spoken to him and let him know this is a big opportunity for him. And also he saw what happened. They moved on from him pretty much. Obviously, he did play. He did finish the last four games when Larry Tunsil was injured for that. And he played fine. Like I understand the big difference between a Brendan Coleman and his current iteration and Larry Tunsil is that when Larry Tunsil's playing, you don't have to worry about the left side. He's got it. You don't need, do we need to double team? Do we need a chip? Do we need no, you don't really need to do that because you're pretty confident that he's going to handle whoever comes at him. Now you're in a situation in which now you might have to worry about, okay, who do we need to send to help Brandon Coleman? Do we need to send somebody to chip? Do we need to have a tight end move over and block? So now you have to game plan the left and the right side. Whereas before you only had to really gameplay the right side, you're fairly confident that Larry Tunsil will take care of Job no matter who it was coming at him. So I do understand that there's big differences in the game planning, but I'm not the one to really think that this is the end game for the commanders this year. If you were to ask me the most important player, I'm going to ignore Jaden Daniels, because yes, if Jaden Daniels gets injured, the season is pretty much done. So we're going to ignore Jaden Daniels. But if you were to ask me who was more important, it's going to be the wide receiver room. It's going to be Stefan Diggs. It's going to be Terry McLaurin. Injuring having an injury with one of those two receivers is far more detrimental to the team's success than Larry Tunsell. There's nobody you can plug in play for wide receiver that could cover Terry McLaurin or now Stefan Diggs who they've signed. And I'll actually talk a little bit about my feelings on that in a second. That's more detrimental having one of those two players out than it is the offensive linemen. Now, yes, offensive linemen are important, of course, but I don't think they're as important as an offensive weapon like a wide receiver, Terry McLaurin in this case, or even Stefan Diggs, or even a running back if they had a top-tier running back right now. So yes, this is bad. Yes, you would rather have Laramie Tunsil play, but I don't think it's going to alter their trajectory at all. Thankfully, the injury happened earlier. I think it might have been a little bit more detrimental if this happened in week one than it did at the beginning of training camp. So I'm still not changing how I feel about the commanders. I still don't think they're going to do more than eight wins. Maybe ten. That's it. I don't think the Laramie Tunsell injury really changes it. I it just doesn't. If Jaden Daniels plays the way we think he's going to play, if he's able to master under center, get the ball out, if the running backs can do their jobs, the tight ends can do their jobs, you now have two pretty good wide receivers. You might have some fours and fives that you can bring in as wide receivers. Don't know about Antonio Williams. Maybe he'll be good. We don't know. Like that's more important. If you get the ball out, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter who's blocking. They're not going to get to Jaden Daniels in time for it. So I'm putting the brakes on the doom and gloom about losing Laramie Tunsil for the year. Yes, it's a big injury. Yes, it would be a lot better if he was still playing. Yes, it changes the game planning that David Blau and crew have to do. But as I've mentioned before, the biggest faltering of the commanders last year was nobody stepped up. Nobody took it upon themselves when they saw the injury to take over a game. And so I'm assuming, I'm hoping that the coaching staff is a little bit better this year and that they're able to turn Brendan Coleman into a serviceable offensive lineman, a serviceable left tackle. And I think they should be able to do it. You I couldn't really name too many offensive linemen. Like who's the left tackle of the Seahawks? I don't even know. They won the Super Bowl. I don't even know. Like I can name a few of them, Trent Williams, uh Penny Sewell. Like I can name a few of the really good ones, but I can't name it on any the Patriots, I couldn't name it. You know, so I I think these positions are important, but I also don't think they're as game-defining as some of the reporters are making it out to be. I really don't. Same thing with the center position. I couldn't name any centers. Yeah, it's problematic that Nick Allegrady's not playing. It's problematic that he's injured. That's a bigger thing. But again, I don't think it's as big of a deal as it would be losing Terry McLaurin. Losing at this point, Stefan Diggs. I think those are the more important positions. You there's a reason why you see journeyman offensive linemen come into games and they do well. You know, Chris Paul from last year, he played very well. Everybody was saying it's gonna be a shame that we're gonna have to lose Chris Paul. He's a free agent. There's no way we're gonna be able to sign him. Somebody's gonna swoop in, pay him way more money than the commanders want to pay him. And guess what? Nobody did. He played very well. Nobody paid for him. So he's back with the commanders. Um, Eric Flowers, when he was with the Redskins, I was listening to Kevin Chin podcast. They were talking about Eric Flowers. He played incredibly well. He wanted too much money, nobody paid him. So he pretty much his career fizzled out. I know I think the Dolphins signed him, and then somehow he was traded back to the. I don't know if they were the Redskins of the football team, it doesn't matter. We are overvaluing some of these players. And I think part of the reason why the Texans were willing to trade him is because we, as the commanders, overvalued Laramie Tunsil than the Texans. The Texans decided, hey, we're going to young players, boom. And you know what? Didn't really hamper the Texans. They still made the playoffs. The reason the Texans didn't advance in the playoffs is because CJ Stroud just, I don't know what happened in that playoff game. He just blew the game. And that was bad coaching. They didn't, you know, make adjustments at halftime to stop throwing the ball, but that's a different story. But the fact of the matter is they did pretty well without having this vaunted Laramie Tunsil as their left tackle. So obviously you would want to have Laramie Tunsel, but you're not going to lose the Super Bowl or lose the ability to make the playoffs because Laramie Tunsil is injured. So I'm thinking, as I said before, I think we, Adam Peters, overvalued certain positions because I don't know. And so we made a big trade and we signed him. So now we're sort of in this sunk cost fallacy of him. I'm not saying get rid of him or any of that, but we paid a heavy price in the draft, which I'm fine with. I mean, he's he's a great player, and we paid him money. So now he's out. So obviously, if we invested so many draft picks for him and we invested so much money in him, clearly losing him is going to end the season. And that's just, I don't believe that's going to happen. Unless Brandon Coleman is horrific, which I don't think he is, unless the coaching staff is horrific, can't coach him up, can't game plan to help him if he needs help. I don't think we're I don't think this changes anything with the commander's outlook. I still think the commander's outlook comes into two things. Jaden Daniels play and the defense not being horrific. If the defense is mediocre to average and Jaden Daniels plays close to 2024, they're making the playoffs. Everybody's going to be happy in DC. If one of those two things doesn't happen, that's going to be a problem. You can game plan if your offensive line is not great. They have plenty of players that can block. Yeah, it'll change the offense a little bit. It'll make it a little bit more kind of predictable, more dinking and dunking because you have to invest more to block assistance on the left side. But again, it's Jaden Daniels or bust. If he doesn't play well, it doesn't matter who's blocking on the offensive line. It's not going to make a difference. You know, last thing I'll say about this is I believe the Browns had Joe Thomas considered one of the best offensive linemen. They didn't win anything with him for 10 years when he was playing. Okay? Offensive line is important, obviously, but it is not make or break. What is make or break is your offensive weapons. Quarterback, wide receiver. You can easily chip. You can easily add assistance and double team. You can do that. And so it's not doom and gloom. I'm still not changing any of my projections. I still think they're an eight to ten win team. And it's really predicated on the two things I mentioned before: Jaden Daniels' play and the uh the defense not being a dumpster fire. Those two things are more important than Larry Tunsil. So I know we want to talk about, I know some of the reporters have been saying, oh my god, the offensive line plays terrible. Looks like they lost their best player. Yes, they did lose their best player, but I'm not super concerned about it. Alright, I'm just not Jane Daniels, David Blau will figure out how to help Brandon Coleman if he needs help. Alright, he played fine two years ago. It's not his play that got him benched. And so if he learned his learned his lesson, if he if he matured a little bit, we'll be fine. So the other big thing was, of course, the Stefan Diggs, and I'm on record saying I didn't want them to sign him. And the reason I didn't want them to sign him is his off-the-field issues and his toxicity in the locker room. He's a great wide receiver, but you know what? It's a huge red flag for how many teams he's been on with the talent level he has. Because he's toxic in the locker room if things don't go well. I'm concerned if a game goes poorly, he doesn't get the ball as much. I'm concerned about that. The off-the-field issues I am concerned about as well. But his talent is undeniable. He's a very good wide receiver. He's an excellent wide receiver. But if he's such an excellent wide receiver, why the Patriots let him go? Why the Texans let him go? Why the Bills let him go? Why did the Vikings let him go? Like there's like a pattern here. And so I know it's a one-year deal. It's not a big deal in terms of money. And so I'm I, you know, overall I'm fine with it. I I know I I personally probably wouldn't have signed him, but clearly Adam Peters felt, probably rightfully so, that the offense is missing a couple weapons. Like we don't know how the running game's going to be, we don't know how the tight end room's going to be, and we know that there's deficiencies in the offense, the wide receiver room. So yeah, adding Stefan Diggs to a cheap one-year deal is great. I just worry that if his off-the-field issues continue, and I worry if he's going to be a toxic influence if a game goes poorly for him, if he's not throwing the ball, if he's not on the field as much as he thinks, if he's not running the routes and the plays that he thinks he should be running. That's what concerns me. Not his talent. His talent is undeniable. He's a he's a top-tier wide receiver, but the toxicity and that could just ruin everything. So that's my concern. I think they're a far better offense now that they have him. The other good thing about having Stefan Diggs on the roster, it should end the Brendan Ayuk stuff. That's done. Brendan Ayuk overplayed his hand. Well, Brendan Ayuk is an idiot. Like, go show up, ask to be reinstated, throw on the pads, run out on the field, start practicing, you're going to get released. He didn't do it. So he sort of overplayed his hands. I'm not really sure what he was thinking, but I don't know. So it's good signing. I think the offense is far better, uh, obviously with Stefan Diggs. I'm I'm more hopeful for them. You know, maybe this adds a couple more, maybe he's worth two wins. I don't know. Um, I'm still pessimistic, as I said, with the Lamarie Tunsil stuff that I was talking about. Still an eight to ten win team. I don't trust Dan Quinn as much as I should. I know it sort of sounds contradictory that I was just talking about, oh, the coaching staff can get Brandon Coleman. So the two things on that one is the hope is that Dan Quinn finally has hired quality coaches in David Blau and Durante Jones, who have then hired better assistants that can help coach and teach and develop players because that's the important thing. That's going to get the next man up mentality that you need to have in the NFL. And so I'm banking on that. I'm banking on being wrong, and that Dan Quinn is going to step aside and these other assistants are going to step up. That's my hope. And that's if that's the case, that pushes them to 10 wins. That pushes them into maybe making the wild card, and everybody should be happy about that. I'm just a little pessimistic. That's all on that. So overall, as I said, do not worry about the Laramie Tunsell injury. It's not going to change, dramatically change their outcome. It's just not. All right. Stefan Diggs, great signing. It's off-the-field-ish stuff, his on-the-field toxicity concerns me. But well, we'll see if Jaden Daniels is a leader. We'll see what other leaders we have, if they could stop it before it happens. Hopefully he understands that he's not the number one Terry McLaurin is. I know talent-wise, he's the number one wide receiver. So we'll see. Some other news. We saw some of the uh Wizards not get any primetime games for some of the early beginning of the season primetime games, the Christmas Day games, nothing. So all the teams that got those primetime games, those are the teams that are allowed to sort of win. The other teams aren't. I was a little disappointed and a little surprised that they didn't get a primetime game, just one. It doesn't have to be the Christmas game, but none of them. They got none of the early. You got the number one pick. You couldn't throw them against the Knicks at some point in Madison Square Garden with AJ DeBonzo in a nationally televised game. You couldn't schedule that. I think that's kind of crazy. But uh it goes to back goes back to what I've been saying about the Wizards. They're just nobody wants, you know, nobody wants to cover these quote-unquote poverty franchises. The Wizards are, and the only way that'll change that is for them to unfortunately win 50 games in an NBA championship, and that might change some of it. We also have some more rankings of the worst contracts in NBA, and of course, Trey Young is sitting there. Like they could have given Trey Young $30, and they would still say it was the worst signing of the year. It's not the worst signing, okay? It's not. It's not going to impact whatsoever who they're going to be able to re-sign of their young players. Again, it goes back to what I've been saying. There is this big disconnect between the national reporters and the wizards. They always say they should have signed somebody else. And what I would say is no, they couldn't have. Because no free agent is coming here. They are not. Any of the good quality free agents are not coming to Washington. They're not. They're just full stop, they're not. And so you're sort of left with two things trade and develop. And the players that you trade for, that's who you're going to have to try to resign if you want. And so that's where the Trey Young is. Do they overpay? Yes. Does it matter? No. I also I think I saw, I want to say it was the ringer, ranked uh Washington as the 13th team in the East, which I think is stupid. But again, they don't respect Washington. They never will, and that's fine. It's fine. Also, they questioned basically they said that the Wizards offseason was a D or an F, but it's a B because of A.J. Devansa. And so they pointed out the Trey Young signing. They also pointed out keeping Brian Keefe. Again, two things with keeping Brian Keefe. One, we don't know what type of coach he is. Again, these national reporters either are dumb or they're not paying attention. Brian Keefe was hired and he was told to do two things. Develop the players, but make sure you lose 80% of your games. And you know what Brian Keefe did? Exactly that. The players developed to a point, but they still lost 80% of the games. He did what he was asked to do. So we don't know if he's a good coach or a bad coach. I don't know. The other thing I will say about this, I am positive. Will Dawkins and crew reached out to other prospective coaches, at least unofficially, and they were told no. My client, if they reached out to the agents, are not interested, or they reached out to the coaches themselves and they were told we're not interested. Nobody wants to come here as a free agent, so why would a coach want to come here? So they're sort of stuck with Brian Keefe. He is a big unknown. He the one thing to keep in mind, he is in the Greg Popovich tree. So if Greg Popovich is this wonderful coach, the greatest coach, then surely his assistants will be good coaches too, right? That's a bigger thing about your legacy. Are your assistants good? It's the one thing I always point to anybody who talks about Bill Belichick being the greatest coach of all time. And I say no, I know his records and all that say that. That's Tom Brady. Without Tom Brady, he's nothing. But none of Bill Belichick's assistants really have done anything. The best you can give me is what Nick Saban? That's a college coach. College is very different than the NFL. None of them have done anything. None of them have become these great coaches in the NFL. So if Popovich is this wonderful coach, great coach, great development, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, all that stuff that they say about Popovich, then surely his assistant should be. Keefe was one of them. So I'm willing to give Brian Keith this opportunity. But obviously, if he comes out and they're flat and it's nearing the all star break and they're struggling to even get near 500, then yeah, you Can replace them and try to find somebody else. But again, nobody wants to come to Washington as a free agent. Why would any coach want to come here? So you're sort of stuck with somebody like Brian Keefe, an unknown, or a massive retread. I don't want a massive retread. So I'm hoping that Brian Keefe is up to the task. We'll see. We'll see if he is. And so the last bit I want to talk about today, good friends, the Nats. Had a good series against Cincinnati, swept Cincinnati. They beat a bad team. They did what they're supposed to. The bullpen looked pretty good. Some of the players, Dion, who they got in their trades, with Luis Garcia and Foster Griffin, they look pretty good, the few. So I'm a little hopeful the bullpen might be slightly better. I know they didn't play well against the Cubs last night. That's okay. Cubs are a much better team. I think this was the Cubs' 70th win. And um they did make a move. They DFA'd Miles Michaelis. He came in last night, pitched fine. They're bringing in uh another pitcher, Kent, who's going to get a start, I think, today. So I think they're doing the smart thing. Just keep throwing stuff on the wall and I hope it sticks. Again, with the Nationals, it's really coming down to this offseason. Are they going to spend money? I don't know. I really hope they spend money a little bit. But you never know with the owners. They they're just not baseball, they're not baseball people, they're not sports owners. They don't understand the way they do business is not I don't think it's smart. Obviously, they've been kind of successful, so maybe they know what they're doing, but when it comes to sports, I don't think of them as they're I don't think they're fans of the team. They don't care about their success. They just care about making money, which you can make money and be successful. So I think a team like the Nats with their current ownership would benefit greatly with a salary cap and a salary floor. I think it would really help. So when it comes to them, this the season is kind of lost. It was an opportunity. They blew the opportunity by not making some minor moves in the offseason to get some pitching. They didn't do it. They didn't make some moves in the trade deadline to help them today. You can argue that's a good thing. I kind of do, but it really comes down to the offseason. Are they going to spend money? If they don't spend money this offseason, they never will. And the team will never be good. It just won't be. So enjoy the the Nats as a baseball fan, but know that they're not going to make a run for the second, third, or they're not making a run for the wild card. It's not. They're not capable of this. They're not set up to be capable of it. It is what it is. We got to hope in the offseason that somebody wakes up and they start spending money. Wrap up, a little short show today. Again, with the Larry Tunsil news, it's not the end of the world. I'm not changing my projections on the commanders. Again, it comes down to Jaden Daniels. Jaden Daniels in a mediocre offense, you can make the playoffs and you can make some damage. Larry Tunsil does not change that at all. Brandon Coleman, if he's up to the task, he'll do fine. He will. Again, as I mentioned before, if Lamry Tunsil is the greatest player of all time, the Texans were pretty happy to get rid of him, and they did. But I do understand we gave up a lot of draft picks for him. I think it was four or five draft picks for him, and we signed him to a short extension, which we burned half of it because he's not playing this year. So those two things make it look like it's a terrible doom and gloom situation. I'm not there. It's Jaden Daniels. If he plays well, who cares who's the left tackle for that one? It just is. Other news, the Wizards, they're still the Wizards. They get no respect from anybody. Maybe that's a good thing. We'll see. I'm I'm more hopeful on the Wizards than I am on any of the other local teams moving forward. And of course, the Nats, they're still the Nats, but I think some of the trades they made, some of the bullpen arms that they've acquired, have actually made the bullpen a little bit better. The biggest problem is they don't have a starter. That's where it is. Like Cade Cavale is the only starter they really have. So it's a lost season. The bigger thing with the Nats is going to come in the offseason. Are they willing to spend money? If they are a little bit, yeah, they can make a run and be a decent team. If they don't spend money, they're going to trade CJ Abons, they're going to trade James Wood, and then just this endless cycle of trading players for a haul, developing those players that got in a hall, then trading them for another haul, and basically being a quadruple A franchise for the Padres, the Dodgers, the Yankees, any of the other non quote unquote poverty teams. So time will tell on that one. But so that that about wraps it up. Hope you all have a great rest of your day. Until next time. Take care, all.