The Kevin Sheehan Show - Annoying Aiyuk Talk

Episode Date: April 30, 2026

Kevin and Thom today addressed those that think the Brandon Aiyuk discussion is already too much and annoying. Kevin had some interesting info on Commanders' center Nick Allegretti. The boys talked John Wall, the Nats, Ravens' owner Steve Bisciotti's draft pick, and a Muhammad Ali fight that took place in Landover 50 years ago.   For all your football betting needs: DCRELOAD at MyBookie for a 50% Deposit Match   Ready to do your own spring reset? Join Thrive Market with my link www.ThriveMarket.com/SHEEHAN for $20 off your first three orders plus you’ll get a FREE $60 gift. 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 Sheehan Show. He is Kevin. Tommy's here. I am here. The show's presenting sponsor is always Window Nation.

86690 Nation, Window Nation.com if you need new windows. Just a reminder that if the show for whatever reason gets hung up on Apple, that's been an issue here and there, not regularly, and I know a lot of you listen on Apple. Just remember the show is always available and up pretty much when it is completed, edited, and placed on the platform immediately at the Kevin Sheehan Show.com. So it's always there at the Kevin Sheeonshow.com, even if it's slow in getting up on Apple. You can also listen on Spotify. It's typically up really quickly on Span.

Spotify. But occasionally with the podcasters out there, and Apple, you know, has the majority of listeners, sometimes it's just a little bit slow in distribution. And I think last night briefly, for whatever reason, yesterday's show, I'm sorry, Tuesday's show with Tommy ran briefly. We're not sure how that happened. But just remember, you know, if it's not, you know, there, look for it at the Kevin Sheehan Show.com because that's where it will post first. But I'm not telling you not to listen on Apple or listen on Spotify. I actually listen to the show on Apple and Spotify primarily. All right, Tommy, this from Patrick. And Patrick's not alone in his sentiments here. Patrick writes, Kevin, enough of Brandon Ayyuk. This is worse than the terror.

conversation from last off season. It's overkill. DKC writes, this is no knock on you personally, but last summer, I thought nothing could possibly be more annoying than every show on every station spending half the airtime on Terry's contract situation. But I think the Ayuk talk is already neck and neck, and it's only April. By the way, I think it was more than half the airtime on Terry's contract. It certainly was, you know, in July because what else are you going to talk about in July? Good news is this year we've got World Cup to talk about, your favorite. Oh, boy.

Yeah, I know you can't wait for it. But, you know, are you annoyed with this right now? Because we've talked about it, I think, on our last two shows together here. No, I'm not particularly because I understand that this is a very unusual situation. You have what you have described, and I agree with you, when he's at his best, he's one of the best receivers in the NFL. But he hasn't been on a football field for, what, a year and a half now? Yeah, 24. In October of 24 is when he got injured. Yeah. So, I mean, he's, and he's literally disappeared off the face of the earth.

He's become a mysterious figure. Yeah. The person is just as much of a story as the player. And I think that adds a lot of intrigue and I think makes for good drama, you know, because we really don't know if this guy is up in a cave on, you know, on Mount Hood somewhere. Mount Hood. You know, with Aaron Rogers.

Uh-huh. You know, doing chatting together or something like that. We don't know where he is. Nobody seems to know where he is. Why did you mention Mount Hood? Why did you mention Mount Hood? Well, I'm... Because that's in Washington.

It's actually in Oregon. I have a relative in Washington. I go out there a lot. Yeah. That's why. Yeah, it's actually in Oregon. How about Mount Pocado? How's that?

That's better. But the reason, when you said Mount Hood, for several years in the 90s, I spent a lot of time in Portland, Oregon. Safeway was one of our biggest accounts, and they had a division in Portland. Their offices were in Clackamas. I remember very much how to get there from the airport. I could probably even do it today. But from Portland, Oregon, from anywhere in the Portland area, you can look up and you

can see Mount Hood. And Mount Hood is snow covered at the very peak pretty much year round. I mean, it would be in June. I think maybe if you got into the real dog days of July and August, but there are no real dog days in the Pacific Northwest. The climate is spectacular, other than the rain. But I drove up to Mount Hood a couple of times. Tommy, I mean, you'll laugh at me, but chasing kind of some big snow events. Like when I was in Portland, a couple of times during the winter, there were like, you know,

big snow events and even avalanche warnings and all this stuff. And, you know, at night, rather than going back to the hotel, it was only about an hour drive to get up to, you know, 5,000, 6,000 feet where the snows were really coming down. You couldn't get, you know, much higher than that. But it's, it was beautiful. Oregon and Washington, they're beautiful places.

The young innocence of Kevin Sheehan. Yes. Yeah. I chased a hurricane once out to the boughs of Eastern Long Island with my brother-in-law. We did that once, but it was not, you know, it was a category one hurricane. I think if I didn't do what I'm doing now, I'd probably be involved in some sort of, sort of business or company. But if I had the means and I had the time, I would definitely go on one of those tornado chasing,

you know, excursions. That would interest me to see a big tornado up close. I might be a tornado chaser for a spring. I think you should give it a try. You do? I don't really have the ability to do it. I guess I could do the podcast from, you know, the road in Oklahoma and Alabama and Missouri in Nebraska. Anyway, how did we get on this?

Mount Hood. Mount Hood is beautiful. Portland, Oregon was a strange city for a lot of reasons, but physically beautiful. And that Columbia River. Williamette River, right? The Willamette, yep. Yeah. And the reason I mentioned that was because, you know, I'm trying to picture this player, you know,

undergoing some kind of like mental metamorphosis somewhere. Brandon, I think that. We're back to him, yes. That's what makes this different than Terry. Terry, we've seen before he was a relatively normal human being. His agent was a wild card. But this guy, I mean, this guy, we don't know where he is on this earth right now. Right.

Or if he walks his earth. So let me just respond specifically to the annoyance of Brandon Ayuk talk, but even more specifically to DKC comparing it to Terry. I don't disagree that, as I have planned for shows here, over the last few days in particular, especially now that we're in that post-draft mode. I mean, we are now into that abyss of no more draft and no real football talk until the games begin, but at least we get training camp and, you know, the conversation. OTAs. I know, but...

That generates some. Let me peel the curtain back a little bit for some of you. And for some of you, you're not going to be surprised. Tommy and I have been doing this for a long, long time. This is, and included in this is mini-camps, O-TAs, and even training camp in pre-season. This is low season. High season is the regular season start. so post Labor Day through the draft.

Now, do I have, does Tommy have, do we have collectively on this podcast, a lot of listeners that really get in to the granular of granular detail when it comes to OTA days and mini camps and then the training camp and the preseason games? We do. But it is, believe it or. not a bubble when it comes to the people who are really into this. Most Skins fans, most NFL fans, and certainly the casual fans, they are now off until week one. They'll tune in a little bit to the preseason just to see who's happening, see if anybody got injured, see if there were

any trades, see if there's any buzz about some young player. You know, they'll watch five minutes of a preseason game, but it's really the high season for a town like ours, week one of the NFL season through the draft. And what I would say about Terry's contract situation compared to Brandon Iuk. Yeah, I'm getting a little bit tired of the Brandon Iuke conversation, but there isn't really you know anything else that's as pressing. We are on Brandon Iuke watch because pretty much the entire league believes he's going to end up playing in Washington. But the reason that they are not similar is twofold. One, you know, Terry was on the roster and Terry was never not going

to play for this team last year. It was whether it was going to be with an extension or without one, but he was under contract and he was going to play. I do remember, and I remember pushing back on those that would describe the Terry's situation as, you know, don't, you know what, so what? You know, let them walk or you can't let him walk. It was never about walking. He was going to play last year in 2025 because he was under contract, and it would have been insanely stupid if he had held out of the regular season at his age if he was hoping for a big deal.

So he was always going to play. So that's one big difference. The other big difference is Ayuk is this wild card whose presence on the team, if he lands on the team, could be a season changer. Could be an absolute season-changing move.

Now, it could also be an utter nothing burger. You know, but if the team handles it, the right way. If it's a nothing burger, it doesn't cost him anything. And I want to make one thing clear because many people do not agree with my position, and I think you agreed with me the other day, that they should absolutely sign him. If, if they have the information that says he's healthy physically, he is fit mentally, and you get him in a low risk, one year, short-term, highly incentivized deal so that if it turns out

that he's really not that good anymore or he's a problem child, you just get rid of him. You just cut him. But there's a deadline for this, right? Yeah. I mean, I asked Jay Gruden the question

you asked me the other day. What's the deadline before you're ready to move on to something else? And I said the beginning of training camp, Jay said, look, if he came in a week before the regular season started, the guy's been in Kyle's offense. You don't think he can learn this offense? He'd be fine. He'd be fine, and he'd be up to speed pretty quickly.

He wouldn't, Jay wouldn't have a concern about that. But Jay never fully appreciated the damage that. malcontent can create. Jay never, when he was a coach, I mean, the only guy that seemed to bother him was the quarterback. And DJs, and DJ Swaranger. And DJ Swaranger.

Yeah, that's true. But, I mean, he let the Sean Jackson pinch his death for crying out. You know what? When you just said that, I just was sitting here nodding. Yeah, Jay just one. Jay is such a good guy, is such a kind of players coach. And he kind of gets along with anybody unless they're total A-holes,

which DJ Swaranger was and RG3 was, you know, a pain in the ass. But in terms of personalities, if you can play, Jay wanted you. Yeah. Yeah, he didn't pay much attention to personality conflicts. But this is, this, you have to admit, this potential. is a huge personality fit. I mean, you've said this. What the 49ers are doing to him is unprecedented, and he has no allies to fight back.

Well, what he's done to himself is unprecedented. I mean, his personal coaches, like T.J. Hushman Zata, and the guy that I had on a few months back, Dante Wittner, basically seem like they're not in his camp right now. You know, they're basically saying, be warned. But this is a very unusual personality situation. Yeah.

To take into your locker room. I don't want that guy if that guy is that guy. And I'm trusting that Adam Peters would be able to evaluate the person or their front office and their their psychiatrists that they have employed or would contract with. would be able to say he's okay before they went and signed him. I'm not advocating that they just bring them in, that they bring in a crazy person or an idiot because he's talented. I'm advocating that they bring in the guy that wasn't a problem for the 49ers, was popular within their locker room, was, you know, an overall good guy and an exceptional player that was ascending.

That's the guy that I want. I don't want the guy that literally walked away from between $30 and $40 million. But if he was that guy, 49ers would be keeping him. Well, unless the reason that this has come to what it's come to is that there's a massive, you know, fracture in the relationship. Something happened, and there's a story behind this, and he doesn't want to play for the, them and he behaved immaturely when he decided he didn't want to play for them and it's

costly to him the way he behaved but it could be just you know hey first marriage went south that second marriage though kind of we kind of like her sure the guy the guy that you want to welcome in exists

maybe and if he doesn't I don't want him but we're not going to be able to make that judgment if it's real different This is real different from the Terry conversation, right? Totally. Yes. Yeah.

It doesn't mean you're any less nauseous over the, you know, obsession over it, but it's not similar to the Terry situation. Edward 44, you know, kind of just said what you said. He writes, She and is Levero says, Ayuk isn't a juice that's worth the squeeze. You've overrated his upside. he benefited in Kyle's offense. Everybody benefits in Kyle's offense.

There's no doubt about that. Anybody, if that's going to be the case. Yeah, exactly. No, at 18 yards per reception, I don't think I overrated what he was in 2023. I don't. This from Wizards 6th Man, lazy take by Sheehan when I said that I wanted him.

this guy has a 5 to 10% chance of returning to elite status ever, ever in capital letters. I'd say 55% chance he's done and to team cancer, 35% chance he's okay, but not the same as a contributor. This sounds like a guy that should be hosting a show with all those percentages. Yeah. You know? Yeah, he's got it figured out. He's got the whole thing figured out. 5 to 10% chance of returning to elite status ever.

He's 28. How would you? Maybe. I don't know. I don't have enough information to know. I know. I know we don't, but he would argue that based on the fact that we're seeing unprecedented

behavior by an NFL player, and based on the reality of what he actually did in the last couple of years, It's reasonable, the odds are against him returning to elite status. They are? Yeah, because. I mean, the unprecedented discussion isn't. He can switch on the, you know, the good and the bad, Brandon Ayuk. Well, the, I mean, we've seen players have issues in other places and be great in their next place.

We just saw it last year with George Pickens and going to Dallas. Yeah, but the unprecedented you're talking about, you're under the... You keep saying it's unprecedented. Yeah, but it's not for, you know, it's for bad judgment. It's not for deterioration of talent.

I know that. The unprecedented nature of what he did was walk away from $30 to $40 million, which was guaranteed for, injury that got voided because he couldn't simply show up at the facility one to two times a month so that they could look at his knee. It's terrible judgment, but it also may be a reflection of just how severely fractured the relationship and damage the relationship had become. Now, Kyle says in his 22 years of being in the league, he's never seen anything like it.

But I'm not talking about his talent. I'm not talking about what he would be like in another place. I'm not saying we shouldn't be concerned. Good God, we're going on and on about IUC again, aren't we? This guy, this guy, now teaching the righted email saying stop talking about him. Yeah, don't do that again. Bad idea. It does seem, though, that every day there is something new on IUC or somebody,

I mean, it's not like it's just in Washington or just in San Francisco. I mean, you just plug in Brandon Ayuk into Google, and it's like six stories pop up from all over the country about him. And, you know, six ideas or six projections. But he is right now, in terms of the availables, he's number one. In terms of, you know, free agents that haven't signed. He's not a free agent. but in terms of the potential available players that could be added to teams between now and opening day, he's number one unless you think George Pickens is number one and Dallas is going to trade him.

I guess A.J. Brown is number one, but I think we all have a sense that he's going to get traded and probably to New England. Not in the division. Certainly. The Eagles are not going to do that. But here's the thing, and this is sort of like a J.J. Swaranger situation. in one aspect. If this guy is so angry at his team, wouldn't the best way to punish the team to take every penny you can out from them and not do any work for it?

It's bad judgment. Terrible. I mean, yeah, of course. I mean, but beyond that, how about just collecting the money that is in your contract? contract guaranteed. Yes.

You know? I mean, right now it's sitting in a bank in Santa Clara somewhere. I mean, there are other things, right? You know, there was the him taking video of himself speeding around the stadium in Santa Claire at 110 miles per hour. There are some behavioral concerns, certainly. And he lacks maturity at the very least, and perhaps he lacks even more than that. and if that's true, well then Adam Peters is sitting back going, yeah, this isn't going to happen.

But I thought the Nikki Javala and Matt Barrow's from the athletic yesterday, they're reporting, you know, certainly suggests that Washington is considering it, but only in the environment and in the setting that we talked about, which is they're not trading for them. And it would be a one-year, very short-term, highly incentivized deal. man, it's like the three receivers that can be difference makers, who knows if they will be next year or beyond, but they've all got issues.

Iuke, Stefan Diggs, and Tyreek Hill. All three of them are available. All three of them have issues. But that's typically the way it goes. If you didn't have issues, you probably would be either with your current team or signed with a new team. Yeah. All right.

I don't think there's any other football team news. Oh, I wanted to mention just something that kind of came up in a random conversation that I wasn't expecting it to come up in. And I was kind of told that Nick Allegretti is not a concern for the people in Ashburn, including the players in that offensive wine room. They actually really think that Allegretti is capable of being a starting Center. And one of the specific things that I was told is that he's a very good communicator at the line of scrimmage and maybe even better than Beattish. And that while, you know,

it wasn't Plan A, I think Tyler Linderbaum was certainly Plan A. And that fell through because of the money. And I don't know, maybe getting somebody earlier in the draft in the, you know, with their fifth round pick because that center from Alabama went the pick right. before Washington selected Joseph's, the past rusher from Tennessee. Maybe Jordan Brailsford, the center from Alabama was the target. But in bringing up in a conversation the center concern, it doesn't seem like they're, you know, alarmed about it. They feel like he can do it.

I'm very skeptical of that. All right. Because they've already made their decision. So, of course, they're not going to be alarmed. Well, you only make the decision you make if you feel like your plan B, if that's what he was, or plan C, is better than moving forward with Biotish. You know, we'll see if they're right about it. We don't know that they're right about it. I'm just telling you that apparently he's a very good communicator at the line of scrimmage, and that was perhaps some of the issue with Biotish. I think that's been reported, though.

I don't think that's new. That that was one of the perhaps issues that they had. Anyway, all right, we've got other things to get to. We'll start doing that right after these words from a few of our sponsors. Hey, guys, I introduced you recently to Thrive Market. I told you it's a product that I use that I think you should use too. Now I want to tell you why membership makes a lot of sense. Markets a membership-based grocery service where you can shop from wherever you are, you simply

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this news on John Wall today, Tommy? Well, before we get to John Wall, Kevin. Yes. This is a rough year for local media. John Kime just posted that Jim DeSabella died Oh wow Jim Dusabella Richmond, Norfolk Yeah Yeah

He had been sick I've been following it on Facebook A terrific guy Great writer And he covered the team from 87 to 07 Tommy He was He was

for its Hall of Fame. The first job I had out of college was working, as I've said many times, for Steve Buckhance, for Ernie Bauer, Channel 5, and Jim Deuceabello was on the beat covering the team back then.

And he was the best dude. Great guy. Now, over the years, I mean, obviously I went away from this business for a long period of time before coming back to it, but I just remember him being such a good guy, and he would occasionally appear as a guest on the show that

Channel 5 had that Ernie Bauer, you know, created and Buck hosted on Monday nights during football season where, you know, it was really one of the first shows that brought writers together on a show, and Duceabella would occasionally make an appearance on that show. That's sad. How old was he, Tommy? It really is. I don't know how old he was. Okay. But he welcomed me, him and Paul Woody from the Virginia, from the Richmond Times Dispatch.

They welcomed me when I was on the Redskins beat in 92. Had a lot of dinners with those guys up in Carlisle out during training camp. Yeah. I actually helped him. He wrote a golf book about this. It's a great golf book. The only golf book I've ever read. I was going to say you didn't read it.

Yes, I did. Okay. Yes, I did because it's an easy read, and it's about this guy that did this publicity thing where he played so many holes of golf around the country within a certain amount of time. Let me see if I can find it. But it's a terrific book, and would make a great movie. and I recommend to anybody, not just golfers, Google Jim Dusabella book and read it.

It's very entertaining. You know how much I hate golf. Yeah, yeah. The sport where you're right around in a cart, drink beers, smoke cigars, and yuck it up with friends. It's amazing how much you hate things like that. Well, that's sad. I certainly remember him from way back in the day,

day. I have not seen him in, you know, years. But that's sad. Yeah. It's been a tough. The great King of Clubs, the great golf marathon of 1938. Okay. Go read that book. Yes. I started to say that John Wall, you saw this story about John Wall this morning? Yes, that he's going to oversee Howard University basketball, right? John Wall is now the president of basketball operations at Howard. What will this entail? Apparently he had already kind of taken a hands-on role at Howard as a consultant, but he's essentially going to run basketball operations,

which I am going to be interested to see what that entails. Is it just recruiting, transfer portal, NIL money, you know, the management. You know, we've seen a GM role in college sports now, you know, develop because of NIL money and now because there's a legitimate salary cap in these major conferences. You know, Howard's gone to the tournament three out of the last four years, and they just won their first tournament game. They won that 16 versus 16 game against UMBC. But like I have had John on the show, this podcast, a few times now over the last two years.

I actually texted back and forth with him this morning congratulating him in and trying to get him on the show this week. He's actually being honored for something in Raleigh, North Carolina today, and he said next week would be better. so hopefully we'll get him on the podcast next week. But I've said this about him going back to, I remember the first time I had him on, I was really impressed. He is so much better as a media personality than I ever thought he would be based on how he was as a player. But we had some incredible conversations, and the thing that was so obvious is what an absolute basketball job. junkie, he is. An incredible memory, a real sense of the history of the game. And then just everything

about today's game and today's players. I mean, he's really into it. He's very good on the NBA network, you know, analyzing games as part of, you know, the crew that does that. He's in and out. He's not always there. But for me, and I've asked him this question before, I'd have to go back and find what the answer was. I remember it to a certain degree. but I said, do you have any aspirations to coach? And at the time, he's like, I still want to play again. I still think I can play again. He said that up until about a year ago.

But I actually think he'd be a good coach. He's really a basketball, I don't want to say savant. I've heard other people describe him as that, as they've gotten to know him post career. But I'm happy for him. I wonder if this will evolve into, you know, getting involved in coaching. Now, they've got a good coaching Kenny Blackney, who's, you know, led Howard to the tournament three out of four years. But I'm happy for John. It'll put him back in the area, I guess, permanently. I mean, if you're going to be the head of basketball operations at Howard, you're back here living here permanently, right?

Congratulations to John Wall. Congratulations to Howard. Yeah. Big get for them. It is a big debt for them. because like he said, I think there'll be more interest in Howard University because of the name John Wall. Yeah. I saw this pop up on social media over the weekend. It was the nine-year anniversary of his best playoff game, which was Game 6 against Atlanta in 2017.

I remember coming in the next day after that game and saying, And that's going to go down as one of the greatest playoff performances in franchise history. And I'll stop you before you joke about it. I understand there aren't many to choose from. And you've got to go way back to find them. But that night in that close-out game on the road against the Hawks, 42 points, eight assists in that game. And he scored 17 of the team's final 19 points.

points to, you know, take what was a deficit and turn it into a 16 point win. And it was just a breathtaking performance. He had the block, I think, on Schrooter, on a breakaway as well. And then the next series was the last real playoff series. They were involved in now nine years ago where they lost to Boston in a seventh and deciding game. Following a game six in which he hit that three at the buzzer to force a seventh in deciding game.

But that game he played against the Hawks. Man, if he doesn't get hurt against the Hawks, the previous time they played him in that round, they would have been in the Eastern Conference Finals. They had some chances during those years. They were never going to win a title, not with LeBron in the conference. And they just weren't good enough.

But that's all we had there for a few years. It's all we had. All right. Good luck to John. We've got more after these words from a few of our sponsors. Tommy, tell us about Shelly's. Well, Shelly's backroom at 1331 S Street, Northwest, is winding up into D.C. Graze mode.

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They put out a great spread of appetizers, a very generous spread of appetizers. They have their help that makes sure your drinks are always filled. So please come out and support the grades, but also come out to see for yourself what a great place Shelley's Backroom is. You can find out more at shelley's backroom.com. Can't wait for that. And they do big events really well. So the Nats did it again last night, Tommy.

14 runs, 15 hits. They're the second highest scoring team in baseball behind the Braves. Through now 31 games. It's still a relatively small sample size. But are you encouraged with some of their weapons offensively? And this doesn't even include Dylan Cruz, who I think is starting to hit a little bit in AAA. I don't know if he's starting to hit or not.

but I mean encouraged I mean I give them credit for being such an offensive powerhouse and all these players I might want to point out are all Mike Rizzo draft choices or trade subjects right that we're dealing with right now like Brady House at the Grand Slam home run in yesterday's game but he's not having a great year per se so he's hitting about 225. And that was only his fourth home run. I think they're playing today and James Wood at a home run. Look, I am impressed with the job that Paul Tabani and Blake Butera have done so far.

And they've been able to pull off what they set out to do so far. It's going to be tough to sustain it over 162 games. but so far I give them both A's for the way they've got this team playing and the personnel they've put on the field. Yeah, I'm looking at it too because they're playing early today, and as we are recording this, they're up 3-0 in the third inning in New York right now. I mean, the Mets are horrible.

They've got to fire their manager and hire Alex Quartz. and pay them no matter, whatever they could pay him. Right. Yeah, through three. But yeah, like Kate Cavali yesterday, had his second outstanding act. Yeah. I told you at beginning of the year,

he's legitimate if he can stay healthy. He's an ace. Yeah. The front number one pitcher. I mean, you know, they're approaching, if they were to win today and they've got a three-nothing lead, they're actually approaching 500.

and they play the brewers who they swept. This sweep over the brewers two weeks ago or whatever it was kind of started this. You know, I feel like when it comes to this team... But remember, before you get too excited... Right. I mean, they're going to trade C.J. Abrams at the trading center. I understand that. It's too bad because he's really good for them.

Yes. They don't have to trade him. There's nothing in the rules that says that they have to trade him. I mean, he was three for four last night with two RBIs. He's hitting 286. He's going to be making too much money for these owners. For these owners. That's a problem.

It's a big problem. It's not a problem if you read the children who are covering the team these days. Oh, boy, here we go. You know, the Wall Street Journal did a big story, the Athletic. I mean, it's like a mouth, a house organ for, for, the national. It is? Oh, my God. It's unbelievable.

Okay. So, but they're not going to pay CJ Abrams. They're going to trade them to get more prospects. I'll probably get some good prospects, because he's a very tradable commodity. I wanted to finish

up the show. You've got a column that you want to talk about here in a moment, but I wanted to mention real quickly a story that you sent me yesterday and I thought was kind of interesting, especially if you think about it from our perspective, if it had happened with our owner, the past owner. But Steve Boshadhi, the owner of the Baltimore Ravens, apparently is really into the draft.

Like he's a bit of a draft geek. And he asked a few months ago, the general manager, Eric Dacosta, if he could make a pick in this past weekend's draft. The Ravens had four fifth round picks, and he said, can I make one of those picks for us? I'll do the homework, I'll study, I'll prep, and I'll make the pick. And DeCosta, I mean, this is the owner asking the guy that works for him if it's okay.

But DeCosta said, sure, we got a lot of picks, you can make that pick. and Bishadhi went to work. He actually had an assistant as he prepped for this pick. It was Eric DeCosta's 15-year-old son, Jackson, whom apparently he's hit it off with in the past, sitting with him and hanging out with him in the draft room on draft days. So Bishadhi did the work, and essentially he ended up picking

the player that they had both decided on, DeCosta's son and Bashati had decided on, Adam Randall, a running back from Clemson, who by the way is 6.3.2.30. We talked a little bit about him before the draft as a real pounder and maybe somebody Washington would be interested in. But they selected him with number 174, their final pick in the fifth round.

What was interesting about it is that the race, also had the pick right before it at 173. And Bashati had not told Eric DeCosta who he was going to pick. So Bashati was worried that DeCosta was going to take Randall at 173, and he'd have to go to whatever his fallback plan was, whatever his plan B or plan C was. He had a board for this thing. But he didn't.

DeCosta took an Alabama tight end, and then Bashati took his player, Adam Randall. And he said, he said that, man, this shit is hard. He said that the nerves were unbelievable when he was on the clock. He said, I haven't felt anxiety like that in a long, a long time. But he said it was fun. He said it was a beautiful thing. It was fun.

Can you imagine? Now, Snyder never asked. I mean, it was his team, and Snyder would butt in to the draft process for a player that he liked whenever it suited him. The last, you know, famous, you know, famous situation was the 2020 draft when, you know, the Washington front office brass did not want to take Dwayne Haskins. They did not see him as a first round grade. They wanted to take a few other players, including mine. contest sweat, who they eventually traded back up into the first run and selected. But Snyder, you know, busted in and said, this is who we're taking. So it's, I mean, but can you imagine reading a story like, you know, before the draft or after the draft, Snyder's going to be making one of the picks for the team.

That would not have been good public relations for the team. What about Harris is going to make one of the picks for the team? God, I hope that doesn't happen. I mean, don't you have to have a couple of Super Bowls under your belt in decades of owning the team? Yeah, I don't think he's going to do it. I think he knows it would be a bad look. And particularly for this organization, it would just conjure up all the horrible memories. Yeah, no.

But don't you think that you could make a draft pick in the later round? as you know, I think I could definitely do it much better for an NBA team. I would feel confident if I put in the work and learned really what goes into, you know, the development of your board. Because, you know, I'm just watching games. There's a lot more that goes into it. But I feel like I would be better than at basketball than football. But do I think, I bet a lot of us, you know, a lot of you listening. If we were trained to do it and really put in the work, sure.

And again, it's the draft. I mean, it's kind of like, you know, picking an NCAA bracket. Like the person with the least amount of information usually wins the bracket. In the NFL draft, it is that much of a crapshoot. Now, you don't want to pick a player that, you know, just, you know, fell off a motorcycle and has, you know, two broken legs. Um, you've got to have that kind of information, but the chances that he got it wrong with his pick versus DeCosta's picks is probably there's no difference. The, the chances are the same. I agree. So, look it, I'm, I'm basking in the glow of my 2013 Travis Kelsey recommendation.

Yeah, yeah. I'm sure you are. For those that missed it, Tommy found something that popped up on his phone reminding him of how, you know, what an absolute genius he was in the 2013 lead-up to the draft saying that he thought Washington should take Travis Kelsey. They took Jordan Reed instead in that draft. All right. I think I could do it. I think I could do it. Yeah, but we can all do it. The draft, you know, again, you just have to have all the information so you don't pick somebody that's in ICU somewhere. Let's ask Adam Peters if we can do it sometimes. Sure.

Maybe we can go up on the stage next year and announce the pick that we made together. That's it. All right, tell me about your column. Well, 50 years ago today, April 30th, 1976, Muhammad Ali defended his title for the first time in Washington, D.C. at the Capitol Center

against pretty much an unheralded Philadelphia heavyweight named Jimmy Young. And, you know, he was lightly regarded, certainly lightly regarded by Ali. We didn't train that hard and came in at his heaviest 230 for that fight. You know, I pointed out in the column that he was campaigning with Jerry Brown

the morning of the fight, you know, and he made a mistake. Because Jimmy Young, who was a very difficult fighter defensively to deal with. Who was he? Who did you say he was? Jerry Brown. Jerry Brown is in the governor of California? Yeah, it was a presidential campaign.

Yeah. Oh, got it. It was the Maryland primary. Oh, okay. And Ali made a campaign appearance for them. Got it. The morning of the fight. Yeah.

Not very worried. No, Ali... My father went to this fight. My father went to this fight at the Capitol Center, yes. And most people thought that Ali won a unanimous decision. Yeah. But some ridiculous scores by the judges. But I know the New York Times had Jimmy Young winning.

Most of the writers had Jimmy Young winning. And the crowd loudly booed the decision when it was announced. And for a guy as popular as Ali was, that was pretty stunning. Right. Yeah, I mean, this was, you mean, you talked about, we talked about the Norton fights, you know, the broken jaw fight a few weeks ago, or maybe a month or so ago. I mean, that was 71, but the 76 fight against Norton at Yankee Stadium, which, what, followed this or preceded it? Which actually, in between that, he went, the next month, he went to Europe and fought a heavyweight named Richard Dunn. He was a Sith, but he still fought him. The next month, he went to Japan and fought this wrestler, Antonio Inoki.

I think that was on wide world of sports. Yeah, it was a horrific disaster. Yeah. But all this guy did was lay on the mat and kick Ali in the shins for 15 rounds. And Ali wound up suffering blood clot. Oh, Jesus. As a result. I mean, I'm looking, listen to this, listen to this schedule, people.

people. He fought the Manila fight, the thrill in Manila against Joe Frazier, October 1, 1975. Then a few months later, a few... That was such a damaging fight. He should have sat out for a year. A year, which would clearly have happened in today's, you know, boxing or even 30 years ago boxing. 40 years ago, boxing. Not 50, though. John Pierre Coopman, he fought in February of So we're talking about November, December, January, literally four months later. And then two months after that, he fights Jimmy Young at the Capitol Center. And then the following month, as you said, he fights Richard Dunn in West Germany.

And then, okay, big break, three months until he fights Ken Norton at Yankee Stadium in late September of 1976. A fight that he, everybody thought he lost, but he got the decision. Tommy, it was one 15-round fight after another until he finally lost his spinks. Like, he wasn't knocking anybody out, you know? No, he came back and fought at the cap center in, I think, March of 77, fought out for the evangelicalista. Yeah. And that he won a 15-round decision, I think, in that.

But, yeah, it was a wild year, but that was the first time he ever defended his title here in Washington. All right, go read Tommy's column. I'm retweeting it. I will talk to you next week. Enjoy the rest of your week. You too, boss.