The Kevin Sheehan Show - Diggs Speaks

Episode Date: August 8, 2026

Kevin opened with his reaction to Stefon Diggs' first practice and introductory press conference. Barry Svrluga/The Athletic joined Kevin to talk Jayden Daniels, the Commanders upcoming season, and some Nats. And then, Kevin was joined by a 1997 Jeopardy 4-day winning contestant (Peter Scott) who talked about his experience from nearly 30 years ago and his latest role as a writer on Disney+/Hulu's "ESPN Jeopardy!"   For all your football betting needs: DCRELOAD at MyBookie for a 50% Deposit Match   Chime is not just smarter banking, it is the most rewarding way to bank. Head to www.Chime.com/SHEEHAN. It only takes a few minutes to sign up.   New Cash App customers can earn $10 if they use code FAMILY10 in their profile at signup and send $5 to a friend within 14 days. Terms apply. 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 Cheehan Show. He is Kevin. My family's here. My support system is here. You know, I love everything about home in the organization. You know, they take care of the players, some good people over here.

Some existing relationships from guys that were in Houston. So some carry over there. They got a great young quarterback. You know what I'm saying? I'm familiar with young quarterbacks. He's a star. He's a superstar. I'm excited for him.

I'm excited for this team. You know, it's on my first day out, FDL, first day out. So, you know, still getting to know everybody. And, you know, I'm a little late in the game. They started camp already, but I'm trying to get used to it and not speed up the process, just do it organically. There he was earlier this morning, Stefan Diggs holding his first press conference as a Washington player. That came moments after he practiced for the first time and a few hours after he signed his contract.

You'll hear more of what he said in the opening segment of today. today's show. The show's presenting sponsor, as always, Windonation, 86690 Nation. If you need new windows, you can also go to Windonation.com. mention that you heard about Window Nation from this show. They'll take really good care of you. It starts with an in-home estimate free of charge. Barry's Verluga will join me on today's show. And if you're a Jeopardy fan, you will enjoy the final segment of today's show. This from E.J. E.J. writes, everybody is all in on digs except the markets.

He means the betting markets, if you were wondering. The commander's win total for the season hasn't changed. Calm the jets, Kevin. E.J.'s right. Washington's season win total is still seven and a half at my bookie. The price on the overall, I'll get into the weeds here just a bit. The price on the over is still high. It's at minus 128.

As a comparison, the other teams with over-unders for the season at seven and a half, the price to play the over is minus 111 and minus 114. So it's expensive to play the over if you want to play over seven and a half wins with Washington, which is essentially a way. to describe that Washington's seven and a half is probably the closest of the seven and a halves to moving to eight and a half. Although I think it'll stay at seven and a half and they'll just try to keep as much underaction in play as overaction. If you didn't follow that, don't worry about it. The bottom line is Washington's over under number of seven and a half.

wins for the season did not change because they acquired Stefan Diggs. But E.J., nobody, including me, said that the addition of Diggs would change the number. Anybody that follows this stuff knows that Stefan Diggs isn't going to change an over-under-win total for this season. Very few, if any, non-quarterbacks move the markets at all. I mean, there are a few players in the league that aren't quarterbacks that'll move the point spread slightly that might impact a season total. But Stefan Diggs isn't going to do that. Stefan Diggs at this point in his career is, you know, maybe a number one receiver for many teams, but he's not Jemar Chase. He's not Justin Jefferson.

Those two might move the number a bit. But quarterbacks are the number movers. You know, when it comes to point spreads, futures betting, quarterbacks are the ones that the bookmakers take into consideration. I mean, a Miles Garrett, a Jamar Chase, a Justin Jefferson, a Bijon Robinson. I mean, maybe a little bit, but no, it's quarterbacks. So you're not really proving any sort of point. It's interesting to me how many of you have reached out to try and, I guess, minimize

the dig signing. Maybe it's more accurate to say that many of you believe that those of us who really liked the signing are overreacting to it, maybe overestimating what, you know, the impact of digs will be. For me, you know, I'm excited about it. You know, I talked about this yesterday. He's still good. You know, he's an experienced professional and he is an alpha competitor. That was something that Quinn said over and over again this morning when he was asked about adding digs.

And the team needed, you know, they needed badly, I think, at least one more offensive player with those qualities. You know, maybe the one missing quality that they were looking for is, you know, a true down-the-field speed threat. but they needed somebody other than Terry McClure on offense that they could be confident about entering this season. I said yesterday until they added digs, you know, Terry was the offensive skill position player that was a known entity, you know, other than Jaden Daniels, of course,

you know, where the team can, you know, check the box and say, all right, we're good. We're good with Terry McClure, number 17, as one of the receivers, but everybody else was a maybe and is a maybe. You know, maybe Burks can be a good, you know, number two wide receiver. Maybe Diami, maybe McCaffrey, maybe Van Jefferson. Diggs is not a maybe.

He's a known quantity. I feel good about him being on the roster. I really do. By the way, Van Jefferson is the guy for me. and I know that you'll probably hear some of the beat reporters suggest that he could be the odd man out. They like Jefferson. I know they do.

He is a true professional, and he's played well at times in his career. He's not a known entity in terms of, okay, we're good at the number two receiver spot. I'm going to be surprised if he gets released. It's early. we've got a long way to go. But I'll just say that right now,

that when it comes to Van Jefferson, I'd be surprised if he's the one that ends up being the odd man out. It's kind of hard to figure out who the odd man out will be. I mean, I suggested the other day. Maybe they'll trade somebody, maybe a McCaffrey to San Francisco. One thing was clear about Diggs and the addition of him to the wide receiver room. Quinn must have mentioned at least two to three times that he'll be working mostly on the inside, mostly from the slot.

If that's the case, and it makes sense to me at this point in his career, you still need another outside receiver to go with Terry if he's going to be working mostly from the slot. So, you know, the list of babies, Burks, Diami, Van Jefferson, somebody will probably come from that group when they go 11 personnel with three wide receivers on the field. Now, Chigacanquo could end up lining up outside with Terry on the other side and Diggs in the slot. And Diggs isn't going to be exclusively in the slot. He'll line up on the outside as well. Lots to learn, certainly, about how David Blow, will scheme it up.

We probably won't know for sure what it's going to look like until the opener in Philadelphia. So Diggs met with the media outside the practice field. By the way, with bugs and bees flying around. He was having fun with that. He had a good sense of humor throughout. He's always been, as an interview, very upbeat, very lively, very, you know, honest. I mean, he tells you what he's thinking. I ran the press conference actually live on radio today

because it happened during the radio show, but I also watched it on the team's YouTube channel. I thought he was really good. You know, I thought he came off as genuine, a veteran, for sure, comfortable in the spot that he's in. And he revealed some things about his current mindset of landing here in Washington and his value.

that he brings to this situation. I'm going to play a few of his sound bites here so you can get a feel for him, at least on day one. This was him answering a question about how he's matured, how he's grown over the years, and what he brings to his new team. I mean, I've been around the game for a long time. I've been productive. You know, I kind of know my way around the field a little bit.

So I come with like a little bit of experience, I would say. then leadership. I know everybody's led differently. I'm new here. So just trying to earn my keeping. Earn a respect to my teammates. Earned respect to my coaches. Most importantly right now, learn the playbook. I'm a little late in the game. But I'm handling it the right way, be a professional, and I'm just excited to be at work. I always had a little bit of a long offseason. So what were his first impressions of the other receivers on the team? Here's what he said. They got talent. They got a lot of talent. Brown, you know, he's been in a, he's been to a couple of teams, but this is his first team he was at. I see that he has a lot of

potential. He's made some plays. Terry, obviously, Trey Berks, you know, he was in Tennessee. You know, he's been in a league for a little while, too. So, and then you got the young guys, 14 can hoop a little bit. You know, young guys don't get a name in the beginning, just calling about a number. But he can hoop a little bit. He got some game, and, you know, hopefully I can be a piece in their process that can kind of build this team and lead this team in the right direction, because at the end of day, I just want to win, man. Winning is the main thing for me. We had a little bit of that last year, a lot of bit of that last year. And I kind of want that to just carry over.

And all I can bring is my experience and the things that I've done and my leadership. I love the way he referred to Antonio Williams as 14, saying that young guys don't get a name in the beginning. Diggs has a reputation of elevating quarterback play when he gets to a new team. He was asked about that. Here's what he said. Just communication, transparency. you know, I try not to go into things aggressive. You know what I'm saying?

Like, that's not this game. Like, this game is aggressive enough. And quarterback's got a lot on their place. So I kind of just bring it down a notch and talk to them in a way. Hey, how are you doing? Talk to them. Talk to them in a way as if brother to brother. Like, it's football.

We're playing football. But at the same time, like, just tell me what you're thinking. Communicate, open line of communication. Communication rule of the nation. That's what I say. And with young quarterbacks, you know, they got a lot on their place. So making plays for them give them confidence. You know what I'm saying?

That put a battery in their back to feel like, man, I could do anything out here. Like, that's how I try to help them just by playing well. That's the biggest thing. All the chatter and it's good to have here and there, you know what I'm saying? People have a bad play. Your next play, your best play, little reminders like that. But the biggest thing, Bart Nye, go make plays from them. You make plays for them, that's how they look good.

That's how they build confidence. That's how they become, you know, they already have the talent. Jayne has proved he's, my opinion, superstar. You know what I'm saying? Just carrying that on and continue their MVP type. type of time. That's what I think. Quarterbacks have a lot on their plate, he said. So he brings it down a notch and talks to them in a way like it's brother to brother.

He tries not to go into it aggressively. That sounds like a 32-year-old version of Stefan Diggs. Maybe not a 25 or 26-year-old version of Stefan Diggs. He's come a long way, that's for sure. This was him responding to a reminder that a few weeks back he had said that he was and would be the best number two wide receiver in the NFL. Does he stand by that? This was his response. I would have said one.

I mean, that's just my personal feelings. But I kind of take it with a grain and so I give people to the benefit of the doubt. You know what I'm saying? If people kind of feel away about that, like in this profession and this job, you've got to lose confidence. You know what I can't I can't go into anything saying something else like I said it I said two on camera But in my heart you know I'm gonna say one, I'm saying, but humbly I would I like to give people You know the benefit of it out, you know what I'm saying? But you know what I'm saying? People have favorite players, but my numbers have always spoke for

Their self no matter who you like or what you say the production has been there if you put my production to my production ever any production you'm saying I think I was the number 14th receiver last year And I was playing 52% of the snaps you're saying numbers wise I mean I'm not no mathematician but you I just try to leave that right there. But I say that humbly. I say that from the space of I've worked extremely hard. I've always been productive. It's easy to say, oh, well, this guy's better and that's got better.

Well, it's personal opinion. What were they great and what was the numbers? You know what I'm saying? Everything is situational. I went into a situation all coming off at ACL, you know what I'm saying? Coming off ACL with a team that went, I don't know what the record was, you know what was. So to have that success and coming off of ACL, not a lot of people bounced back.

Not a lot of people have success coming off of ACL that fast. So I'm speaking with confidence just off the work that I put in. And I say that humbly, I don't want to rub anybody the wrong way or be abrasive in any way. But I say that from confidence and the amount of work I put it in the success I had last year, being around the right group of guys and playing well. And, you know, that's not easy. You know what I'm saying? People might act like it's easy.

But if it was easy, everybody would be doing it. So forgive me if I'll rub anybody wrong with me. Stefan Diggs from earlier today. I thought overall he did a great job. And really, it sounded like a veteran play. Introductory press conference in a new place. He did a good job. There was one more soundbite that I carved out from the press conference.

I will tag it to the very end of the show. But he was asked about growing up in the area and playing for various teams as a kid, and it led into a longer, more thoughtful answer about being home and the opportunity that he has. Real quickly, before I get to Barry's Verluga, how about the first preseason game of the year last night? 33 to 30, with over 800 yards of offense. Carolina won it on a walk-off touchdown. Haynes King, who came from Georgia Tech, was quite the college quarterback if you didn't see him play college football. very much a dual threat college quarterback.

But on the final play of the game, Dave Canales, the head coach of Carolina, opted not to kick an overtime forcing fuel goal. Nobody wants that in the preseason. So from the five or six yard line, they ran one last play with two seconds to go, and Haynes King scrambled and got over the goal line. The Panthers won the game,

33 to 30. You don't take much out of these games, people. Nobody that's going to play front line in the regular season played in this game. I will say this, though, my guy Carson Beck, who I liked all year long, and I really thought going into this draft, he was going to be an NFL quarterback at some point and a starting quarterback. He looked really good for a preseason game, 15 and 19, and 88 yards in a touchdown. He is one of those guys that's played a lot of college football and really plays with great anticipation. That's why I've always liked him.

Anyway, 33 to 30, second highest Hall of Fame game in NFL history. All right. Barry's Verluga next, after these words from a few of our sponsors. Summer can really add up when it comes to how much money you spend, and it adds up pretty quickly. You know, a trip here, a dinner there, a couple of outdoor concerts later, and it should have you wondering if you're getting the most out of your money. Well, that's where Chime comes in. Chime is changing the way people bank.

They're not like traditional old banks who charge fees and gatekeep perks and rewards. Chime offers the most rewarding fee-free banking, all with no overdraft fees, no monthly fees, and no minimum balance fees. You get 5% cash back on a chimed card in a category of choice like gas or groceries, all the while building credit through regular everyday spending with no credit check. You can also grow your money faster with a savings rate that's nine times the national average. And if you're ever in a pinch, Spot Me, part of Chime Service, let you overdraft up to $200 fee-free. Join the millions who are already banking fee-free with America's number one choice for banking.

Head to chime.com slash sheen. That's chime.com slash sheen. Sign up now. It only takes a few minutes. Chime is a fintech, not a bank. Banking services and Chime card provided by Chim's bank partners. Qualifying direct deposits are required. Terms and limits apply. Go to chime.com slash disclosures for details. All right. Joining me right now, Barry's Reluga. I think most of you know this, but Barry's been writing for the Athletic for a few months now

after the post sports section went away after all of those years as one of the top columnists at the post. First of all, real quickly, because I don't think I've had you on the show since you joined the Athletic. Maybe I had joined radio, but how's it going? so far? It's great. I mean, it's a great landing spot. I never would have wished for what happened to one of the great sports sections in the history of the country. But if it had to happen,

I'm in the right spot covering stuff that I'm familiar with, tons of commanders, tons of naps, a bunch of Ovi retirement stuff, keeping my hand in the Olympics. So feel familiar. It's good. Barry can be followed on X at Barry's Verluga, S-V-R-L-U-G-A. And the reason I reached out to Barry is he wrote a column that appeared today titled, The NFL thinks Jaden Daniels is the 13th best quarterback in 2026. He'll be way better than that. This is off of that Mike Sando quarterback tier rankings that we talk. about the other day. So why is Jaden Daniels going to be much better than that in 2026?

Well, first of all, I would like to say that I wouldn't write this kind of take off of any kind of poll. I mean, the summer is filled with lists about the upcoming NFL season because we all need stuff to talk about. But Sandow's rankings is deeply reported. I mean, 50 people from across the league, coaches, defensive coordinators, GMs, that kind of. kind of thing. So I think it's a very, very respectful list on which Jaden landed 13th. And I just feel like he was sixth the year before. The drop in rankings was as much about availability, which is the biggest question. Availability is a tool. It matters. It matters most. But if you get this guy 15 to 17 games, and I understand that's the biggest if imaginable,

But if you get him 15 to 17 games, I can't imagine a world in which he's more, you know, he's more like the quarterback of 2024 than he is the disjointed seven game, two and five record in the games he started last year. I just think there's a lot of elements that go into it. One, Terry McCorn was available all offseason as opposed to none of the offseason. That's not just from day one at camp. That's through all the OTAs and mini-camp. The connection that they had in 2024 was in some ways established on the fly because Jaden was a rookie,

and they never got back in rhythm. Neither of them got fully back healthy in 2025. So that's number one. Number two, I do think that David Blow's offense is going to be designed to protect. protect Jaden from himself, not just from a scheme standpoint, but from a, like, you're not going to see more than eight to 12 RPO's all year, I don't think. I think the undercenter stuff is real. I think they're going to have him getting rid of the ball to multiple personnel groups that are moving all over the place. I think he's going to put himself in harm's way less.

So I think those are the two major points that I did, and also, I guess Kevin, the last thing I'd say is like I was out there the first six days of camp and after a little bit of a slow start on day one, he has looked on point. He just puts balls in places where no one else can catch him but the intended receiver. He is smart about learning this offense. He seems really zeroed in. So I guess that's a three-pronged long-winded answer to your question. Yeah, you know, when I read your column early this morning and reached out to you, you know, part of me just, I, I, You've already said it, but it's out of sight out of mind. There's so much recency bias, even with, you know, a survey that's as credible as this one.

You know, there's been a major sort of knit that I've been picking since the end of last year. And I, in reading your column, I think that you would probably agree with this. I am shocked when I hear people who cover the sport, who write or talk about the sport, talk about a Jaden Daniels regression season. I'm like, what are you talking about? He didn't play. He played in four games start to finish, and actually only three games start to finish healthy,

because Green Bay, he did play start to finish, but he got injured in the second half in that game. And you talked about the Terry McCorn connection. It's not just that Terry wasn't there. we actually never had a chance to see if Terry's absence would have impacted this season. My guess is it would have, but they only played in two games together, you know, out of 17. It just was one of those seasons that NFL teams have where you not only lose a lot of players, you lose your best player.

And for them, the best players, for them, their best player is him, and he barely played football. And that right there is like the starting point, like you said, for if he stays healthy, why wouldn't he be higher up on next year's tiers or rankings for Sando? I think it, I mean, it almost would happen naturally. I mean, some of the people, you know, Brock Purdy's ahead of him. And I understand that Kyle Shanahan is a great coach. But I mean, Jayden's physical tools are just so much better. I also think, Kevin, and I'm sure you've talked about this ad nauseum,

like the Diggs edition was very, very important. If you look at what the commanders did in the offseason, in large, you know, they spent their money on defense. They needed to. The defense was terrible. It's been terrible for two years of Quinn and Peters, and they needed people on that side of the ball. That made sense, but they, you know,

you can't just not address a receiver room in which camp opened and the candidates to be number two, the number two receiver behind McLaren were Traylon Burks who played, who had 10 catches last year, and Luke McCaffrey, like that was not acceptable. So I feel like that addition,

you know, in Diggs' first practice was, was today, is enormous. But, you know, I can't get out of my head the, oh my God plays that Daniels made as a rookie that they just don't,

go away. Now, he did not have that many of them, even in the herky-jurkey time that he played in those seven games last year. But I just feel like it's not just that the physical ability is there. I feel like he's got a little bit of a chip on his shoulder about 2025 and all the questions that have arisen because of it. And if he can protect himself and they can protect him, because they know how important that is and how important he is, that it's just almost by, you know, kind of naturally he's going to ascend again. Yeah, I'm with you completely. And I, look, I've got my fingers crossed and more than that when it comes to him

because I really want him to have a big year. Because it feels like, again, the conversation's been more about a sophomore slump season, rather than the reality that he didn't actually have a legitimate sophomore season. But look, I'll be bothered by that until they start to play games. With that said, though, Barry, you know, the one legitimate concern, even though he played 52 of 54 games in college, there was still, you know, this one nagging thing in the evaluation of him coming out about his slender frame and whether or not that would lead to more risk injury-wise.

And we did see that that played a bit of a role. And by the way, more quarterbacks get seriously injured inside the pocket than outside of it. But beyond that, I do think that that's a legitimate concern for people to have, even though last year was the aberration, but to consider that maybe he's going to have a career like Lamar Jackson, who gets hurt all the time, or Joe Burrow, who gets hurt all the time. It's not unreasonable to think that going into this season, right? No, not at all.

I mean, it's an issue until it's not an issue. And right now he's coming off a seven-game season. I mean, you know, he played 17 games as a rookie. And it's going to be one or the help. He played 20 because of the three playoff games. Yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah. And without a hit, I mean, whatever.

He had a half that he missed, right? So I just think it's absolutely legitimate questions about is he going to be a durable guy, and we can't know until he either does or doesn't make it through the 2020s season fully intact with, again, it doesn't have to be 17 games. But I think you're durable if you're playing north of 15 games as a quarterback, particularly one that does use his feet and has that as part of. of his, the reason he's so, so dangerous. And I would say, Kevin, too, I mean, I've been told that, like, it's not like he's not

going to run, because plays are going to break down, and he's extremely fast, and he's agile, and he can, he's shifting, he can get away from people, but they're not, they're just not going to be that many designed runs. So I think if it's four or five times a game, that's not unreasonable and he's got to be smart about when he goes down and you know we've talked about him in sliding since his first his first camp but I'm not I'm not like

mad or disappointed that there are questions about whether he should be a top 10 a top 8 of pick a number top 6 quarterback like he was in his rankings after his rookie year I just have a belief that

he is smart and engaged and cares and is focused on doing what he needs to do to get through a season intact like he did as a rookie. Yeah, I think it's important with something you said because I think, you know, there are a lot of fans that will think, okay, one of the things that they decided to do going away from Cliff to David Blow is essentially stop him from taking so many hits, stop him from running as much. You know, Dan Quinn loves to use that term, superpower.

him running is one of his superpowers. So they're not going to want to take that away. What they'll probably take away is, you know, you won't see these quarterback counters and these quarterback powers that Cliff ran. That's just running them into a pile. That just doesn't make sense. But, yeah, he's still going to, I mean, hell, in some instances, it will be preventative from injury for him to get the hell out of the pocket and make a problem.

play with his legs. All right. So I had Logan Paulson on the show earlier this week, and I just said, if I told you they had a great season, what was, you know, why more than anything else did they have it? I expected him to say Jaden Daniels played 17 games, and he corrected himself afterwards and said, I should have said that. But he said the performance of both coordinators, you know, both of them are brand new. What have you seen? What have you heard? What have you observed about David Blow and Durante Jones? Are you confident that they'll be ready to go on September 13th? I guess if it's a binary thing, I would say yes, I am. I think they are both fascinating in their own right. I mean, David Blow is so close to his playing career. It's hard to imagine that

that he's going to be taken over, not just calling plays, but essentially designing an offense from scratch as a whatever he is, 30-year-old. And I have been impressed by how different it is. I mean, you know, not to pick on Cliff, who had, you know, after the 2024 season, he was looked at as a legitimate head coaching candidate again. They had been explosive. and we weren't talking about how Harry McCloren lined up to the left every single time he was out there. But I will say that it's been cool to see all the pre-snap motion to see Chigacroquo out wide sometimes to see double tight ends,

to see all different personnel matchups to see Jaden under center to see him in the gun, to see him with an empty backfield, you know, all the stuff that you can imagine that, And as McCorn has said, they can both run the same plays from different formations and run different plays from the same formations, which has to make it a little more stressful on a defense. So I'm excited to see how that plays out. I would also say, and I'm just going to plug this piece, because if you get the athletic, you can find this piece.

I spent a lot of time with Durante Jones, who's just a fascinating. story because he's been a coach for 26 years. He grew up in P.G. County, in Landover Hills and Capitol Heights, went to Bishop McNamara. He has moved 14 times in his 26-year career. Coached in Hawaii, coached in Montreal and the CFL, coached at Bowie State, coached at LSU, coached in the pros, has been everywhere and done everything. And after all that time, He's come home to coach the team that he rooted for. Literally, like, we spent three hours driving around Prince George's County earlier this summer, just going back to his old haunt.

So that has nothing to do with football, but I think it's a really cool story. In talking about the football part, I mean, I got up with Brian Flores, who was his boss in Minnesota, and obviously is a really well-respected defensive mind, former assistant to Belichick with the Patriots, former head coach in Miami. And he didn't know Durante Jones when he inherited him on the Viking staff. And, you know, they talked about how they used each other as sounding boards. And Durante said, like, look, people talk about thinking outside the box.

We didn't have a box. Like, they are going to be very, very creative. They obviously, you've heard a lot of the talk about blitzes, they disguise, coverages they disguise. The way it was described to me was particularly if you're not a divisional opponent, if you're a team that only

sees this once a year, you become very, very difficult to prepare for, but it's actually not that difficult for the team that's learning this system to pull it off. So, if I take the question you asked Logan

and I say, yes, Jaden Daniels played 17 games, is right. I would say if this is a league average defense and maybe even a little bit better, like 14th, 13th, somewhere in there, then they're going to make huge strides forward because they've got better personnel and I think they've got a better, more sophisticated system. By the way, I would encourage all of you if you're not an athletic subscriber like I am to subscribe. And if you are a subscriber to read the column that Barry wrote about Durante Jones, because it's interesting that you went right to sort of all of the stops along the way.

It's a subject that comes up occasionally with me. I'm always fascinated to look at these lifers in coaching and to see how many places they've lived. And for short period of times, I mean, Dan Quinn's resume is forever, you know, starting at William and Mary and being on the West Coast and being on the East Coast and being in the southeast. I remember asking him, I think it was before the 24 season, you know, how hard that was. And did he have a favorite place? And these coaches, man, the lifestyle, especially if they are married with kids, my God, it's quite the commitment from everybody involved. I always find those resumes. And you know, you're a huge college basketball guy like I am. Some of those resumes

before a guy actually gets even a D-1 job at a low level, they've been in like 11 markets, 11 different places. You know, a lot of college towns across the United States. For sure. And I mean, Durante said, you know, there were times when he just, he never got around to unpacking boxes and wherever he was staying because it always felt like the next move he was preparing for the next job. And this one, I mean, not to be a spoiler alert, but they've unpacked here.

Like, he moved into McLean and he and his wife have set up shop, and it feels like a real homecoming. But I also think Kevin, like, he's also a big believer in traveling. He wants to leave the country twice a year. He told me he went to Tokyo this past off season, even as he was, you know, preparing for his first season with the commanders. and I think, and I asked them this, it's not like a leap or connecting dots that shouldn't be connected to say that there's a link between his traveling and his adventurousness and his open-mindedness to trying different things football-wise. He's a curious, very smart person. Quinn has said, you know, most defensive coaches are, including Dan Quinn himself, are the fiery

MF guys that are like screaming at their charges and like, you know, whooping them up in the huddle. Durante is very low-key. He's very flat line. He's kind of soft-spoken. And I think there's everything about him, including the resume, says that he's prepared for this task. That's an interesting anecdote, too, just that he tries to travel outside the country

one or two times a year. I've had this conversation a lot with people over the years, but the college basketball players that didn't make it in the NBA, but ended up having a long international career. And there are a couple of guys that I know that live in town and still are in coaching, but they had, you know, double-digit careers internationally, where they lived in six, seven, eight countries, you know. and the life experience they got.

And by the way, the money wasn't bad in a lot of these spots. It wasn't NBA money, but some of these guys were making a half million to a million a year and having all of their expenses covered, living expenses, car expenses, et cetera. But the experience, the worldly experience that they got is just completely different than the guy that goes right into the NBA and plays in the NBA for 12 years. For sure, for sure. And that's, I mean, to appreciate that rather than thinking you've been banished to that life is important. I mean, the guy that Durante Jones got this advice from was Norm Chow, who was a famous offensive coordinator at USC with Pete Carroll and was Philip Rivers' offensive coordinator at NC State and was the head coach at BYU and at, or maybe it was just a coordinator at BYU.

you, but he hired Durante at Hawaii, and he said, Durante, like, spend your money not on material things, spend it on experiences. You're already halfway to Asia here. Why don't you, like, spend time traveling that way? You know, he went to Europe. He spent Africa. He went to Jerusalem. Like, this is real stuff, and it impacts him as a person.

I'm not going to tell you that that makes the commander's defense. better in 2020. I just think that people should understand that, like, these guys are more than just people with chalk and a chalkboard or, you know, a marker and a whiteboard with X's and O's only flowing through their heads. Like, they're people who have lives to live, and I, there's no more respect from Brian Flores who said, you know, Durante is the guy that got me to travel. Like, I take my family out of the country now, and I've had experiences that I would never have had if I hadn't met Durante Jones, which I just think is really cool. Yeah, it really is. But like you said, it doesn't mean anything in terms of what will happen on the field this year. But if it

happens and it happens at a high level, they may have set down, you know, roots here or, you know, back home and expecting to stay for a while. But he, we know how this league works. If you take basically what was the worst defense in the league over the final 10 weeks of the season, and it jumps into say the top third of the league, he's going to be a guy who's getting talked about, you know, when the season ends. So, per usual, we get sidetracked on other things. But let me just get back to kind of an exit question on the football team. If you believe that Jaden Daniels is going to be in tier one next year, then you have to believe that they're going to have a very good season. So quantify that for me.

Yeah, and you know what makes it difficult is something we've talked about all off season is the schedule. And those first three games, just taking that as a block, but also throwing in the difficult London, San Francisco stuff. And, you know, it's just a monster of a schedule that almost seems unfair. But the way I've kind of thought about it is it wasn't just, it wasn't just, that last year was 5 and 12. It was, last year was a non-competitive 5-12. If you think about some of those losses, like at Dallas and home to Seattle and, you know, all of that stuff, but just games that teams did whatever they wanted against the defense

and were over by half-time, like, it's possible they could go 0-3 in those first three at Philly, at Dallas, and home to Seattle, but they lose them in a 28, 27, 24, 21 kind of fashion that they're right in it and whatever. Somebody made a play at the end that they didn't make, and you might feel like, okay, they're going to be better this year. Now it's hard to come back from O and three. But anyway, I can't say that Jane Daniels was going to have an outstanding season and predict that they're going to go six and 11, right?

Like, I would think that, you know, the over-under, if I'm, I haven't even seen what they're over-on. Seven and a half. Okay, so I'd go over. I mean, I was going to set my own personal over-under at nine and a half, eight-and-a-half, nine-and-a-half, right in there. And, you know, I'm in the more 10-and-7 camp because I do think there's squishy parts of the schedule. And if I'm, I'm not going to say that Jaden is going to have an awesome season. and then, you know, somehow say they're going to go 6 and 11 because I think that those two things are so tied together. So maybe I'm seeing the world through Burgundy and Gold colored glasses,

and maybe it's only because I've been to one training camp and seeing him look good and because I'm kind of all in on the Durante train because, you know, I'm really interested in that story and because I do think that some of the stuff that David Blow is doing is smart, not just smart football-wise for any team, but smart football-wise for the personnel that he has. That I, you know, I just feel like the over is the smart play, particularly if it's at seven and a half. Look, after the 24 years that we all went through, it's okay to actually not suspend the reality of they can't win because they actually can win now. And there's always reason, you know, unless you had what we dealt with for 24 years to believe in the NFL, because it changes so much. You know, you were talking about the schedule, and I talk about this all the time, is that the NFL schedule game is a dangerous game because this league changes so much year to year, and it's not really who you play.

It's when you play them. And obviously, anybody that had Washington on the schedule last year looked at it and said that's going to be a really difficult game. and yet they lost most of their players. And it was, yeah, like you said, some of those games were non-competitive. I went through the other day, the Detroit game last year, Barry. Detroit, and I remembered this,

and I remember talking about it, you know, in great detail on the Monday morning following it. But it was almost unprecedented what happened to the defense that day. Detroit scored eight for eight on their first eight drives, and then ran out the clock and took knees on the ninth drive. And it was so easy.

Everything was so easy. God, the defense was horrible. I'm, by the way, now rooting even more so for Durante Jones than I was before. One last question, actually, for real. Is Quinn's seat, describe it from a temperature standpoint heading into this year. Cool, warm, hot. I mean, medium warm, for sure. Like, you cannot back up five and 12 with a disastrous defense as a defense.

head coach with a repeat of that. I think the more interesting question is like, and I don't think Adam Peters is in trouble at, you know, six and 11 or whatever, but that would make next year extremely, extremely warm for Peters because, you know, presumably there'd be a new coach. I mean, I just, I'm not, I'm predicting that they're going to play well and be

competitive and Daniels is going to be good and Quinn will be fine, but if the season goes south, I think he's in deep trouble. All right. Switch subjects quickly. What did you make of the last week and a half, Nats-wise? Because a week and a half ago, I was sitting here saying, you know, if they can take two of four in Atlanta, they'll be, you know, a little bit hesitant at the trade deadline, and they're legitimately going to be a contender down the stretch for one of those wild card spots. and here we are a week and a half later and the season's over.

It's over. And there's no real juice to it at all when there was juice to it a week and a half ago. What happened and how did you sort of view everything that they did? So I'd start with the first move that Curtis Meade for Connerly early, the lefty who hasn't pitched yet. And I just give that one like super duper thumbs up. that is asset management at its best that Curtis Meade started the season on the White Sox. They traded for him for nothing after the season started. They turned him into an outstanding half of a platoon, and they got a controllable left-handed pitcher that they'll have for six more years that is exactly the case.

He's not a one or a two, but he's a three or four, and it fills a big, big need and checks a box going forward. If you go into that Atlanta series where I agree with you, they needed to split it to make it interesting headed to the trade deadline. Foster Griffin started that Friday night, and I was endorsing them to really pursue an extension talk with Foster Griffin going into that starter going into the trade deadline because that would have solved another piece in the rotation for the next – I had him, you know, three years at times 14 million bucks a year or something like that. he's a guy who'd been to Japan, like maybe the security at age 31 would have been appealing

to him. So I was disappointed that I don't know which side couldn't get it done. I know they had some talks, but that they didn't get that done and they traded him away. Now, the return there, I think people were disappointed in. Rental players just don't get much in return unless your Tarek schoolball and people in Detroit were kind of disappointed in that return. Right. So I get that.

And then Garcia, I'm a little bit frustrated that people are frustrated in the return from the Yankees there when they got four pitchers for a guy that, let's be honest, guys, was never part of the future. No one was talking about an extension for a guy who came into his own this year, but really only hits right-handed pitching, has no defensive position, is poor at first base, is worse at second. So, I mean, I love what Louis Garcia Jr. did this year for the Nats. And I think it's a plus that they turned them into four pitchers. Two of them have big league experience. And the two in the minors, one can be a starter. And the other is having about the best, the Gravel kid is having about the best season of a reliever in minor league baseball. And probably it will be up by the end of the year.

So that is probably more than you asked for. But I understand it. and I simultaneously understand fans kind of distaste for it and impatience about all of this. Paul Toboni has not been here for the last seven years of losing. He has to handle the present, and I think he did a pretty good job of handling the present. Tommy pointed this out, and I totally agree with him on this, and I'm curious as to what you think. The statement that they put out after all the trades and the deadly,

line was here and gone when he said, quote, I think every baseball fan that's really, really into it, understands it, closed quote. I didn't like that. I'm not saying he's wrong. He's probably right, but I don't think you should say that to your fan base. You say what? You know, I kind of understand it. And I'm not trying to take his side. It's like what he's trying to build is not about 2026. And I think taking an honest assessment of what they had, particularly

you know, after that lost weekend in Atlanta, when you're not only looking at how far behind you are, but how many teams are around and what's going to have to happen for you to make it, I get it and I get what you're saying that it could sound dismissive

of fans, and let's be honest, most baseball fans are more casual. They like to go to a handful of games over the course of the summer. It's a backdrop for your summer evenings, and they're not going through prospect rankings and, like, you know, really digging in on that. But I also understand that it's a way for him to say, we're not doing this arbitrarily. We're not doing this based on, completely based on one weekend. We're doing this because we want to build a winner, not just in 2007 or 2028, but in 27, 28, 29, 30, and maybe 27 is even too quick to say that they're going to be a real contender then. But I, you know, I think this whole operation, Kevin,

to me, and we've probably gone too long on this topic, but to me it becomes, okay, it looks like the president of baseball ops and his staff and the manager and his staff know what they're doing, know how to develop players at the major league level, are getting results in the minor leagues. It's going to come back to ownership and what did they do in the off season to am, you know, to augment the base that they've already built. Do you think they'll be willing to do that in this upcoming off season? I don't know. I don't know. I do. not know, and I would be, I will say that, I mean, I'm going to be banging the kettle for,

you know, whatever it is off-season in a row to say, can you just do what you used to do, which was when the time was right, field a top 10 payroll every year, please. Because what did that get you? That got you a period from 2012. Eight years, five playoff years. Yeah. And the second most regular season wins. To the Dodgers. To the Dodgers in the sport. Let's go for it, boys. It's time. Thank you for doing this. I know you're on your way out of town on vacation. I appreciate it.

Anytime, Kevin. Appreciate it. Barry's Verluga, everybody. Up next, if you are a fan of Jeopardy, you'll want to hear my next guest. We'll get to him after these words from a few of our sponsors. Have you ever fallen for a scam or know someone who has? Not all deals are what they appear. Scammers are getting more creative to trick people into sharing their payment information through methods like fake shopping sites and giveaways that are too good to be true. Luckily, cash apps 24-7 fraud monitoring helps detect and alert you for unusual card activity

should someone gain access to your card so you can act fast if, something seems off. You can also lock or unlock your cash app card instantly right in the app for extra control and peace of mind. Stay one step ahead of scams this season and keep your money secure with cash app. New cash app customers can earn $10 if they use code family 10 in their profile at sign up and send $5 to a friend within 14 days. Terms apply. Download cash app today and sponsor your visit our link in bio. Cash app is a financial services platform, not a bank. Banking services provided by Cash App's bank partners,

prepaid debit cards issued by Sutton Bank member FDIC. Cash App Visa debit flex cards issued by Sutton Bank member FDIC and the Bank Corps Bank, N.A., pursuant to a license from Visa USA, Inc. See terms and conditions for the Sutton prepaid cards, Sutton Debit Flex card, and Bank Core Debit Flex Card. Savings provided by Cash app, a Block Inc brand. Visit Cash.app slash legal slash podcast

for full disclosures. This segment of the show is watching by Window Nation. Wind donations offering during the month of August, all windows and all doors. Yes, they sell doors as well. For half price, 50% off of everything they sell. Add to that, no money down, no monthly payments, and no interest charged for two years.

It's a really good deal if you've been thinking about new windows or even new doors. And if you've been thinking about either one of those two things, all I ask is just give Windonation a chance to come out and give you an absolute free of charge in-home estimate. One which will take an hour or less. You'll find out actually which windows and which doors need to be replaced. They'll leave you with a quote, and then they'll leave you alone. You make the call. No obligation, no pressure. You let them know if you want to move forward with them. If you do move forward with Window Nation, you'll be working with a company that has over 45,000 five-star reviews on social media. That's hard to get. You'll be working with a company that has a 96% satisfaction rating. Ninety-six percent of their installs require no follow-up service. They install windows indoors in a day or less, and they leave. your home cleaner than when they arrived.

Call them at 86690 Nation or head to windownation.com. Joining me right now for what I think will be an interesting conversation, which may end embarrassingly for me, is someone who is in the shared space that I am in, where I have my studio, where I do the radio show every day, where I do the podcast every day. His name is Peter Scott. Peter was a four-day Jeopardy Champion back in 1997. He won his first four days, lost on his fifth day, but has been in a lot of different careers,

advertising and marketing guy. But he approached me not that long ago to tell me what he was working on. And I said, well, when it comes out, we have to sit down and have a conversation on the pie. about what you and many others put together here, and that is ESPN's Sports Jeopardy, which you've written a lot of the clues for as a former Jeopardy champion. I'll have you explain it in a moment, but the show, just so everybody knows, is out on Disney Plus and Hulu right now.

Joe Buck hosts it. A bunch of ESPN sports people are playing as contestants. And the grand prize is a half million dollars that'll go to the charity of choice. So just so you know, this is out there right now. I have not watched one episode because Peter is going to give me a category from the show to see how I do. I have a feeling he's picked a favorable category for me. But with that said, Peter, quickly about you, your background, the Jeopardy experience

you had when, by the way, I saw a picture of you. on Jeopardy? You look like a child, actually, in 1997. That is way back when. I just moved to, I moved to D.C. in 1995, but yeah, that was, that was a long time ago. So how did you get on Jeopardy in 1997? Well, I, I remember reading in the Washington Post that there were Jeopardy auditions in Bethesda. And this must have been maybe, I moved here in 95. So I'm guessing it's 96 or something like that. And I, um, I kind of looked into it. And back then you to be invited to go and take the quiz. You had to go through a process. And they would do it. This is pre-internet, of course. Like now, anyone can take the anytime test online. This is how long ago this was.

I took it not like maybe two years ago. Obviously, I did not take it well enough because I didn't get invited. I'm sure you just missed by one. No, I doubt it. They don't, they don't publish the, the, the, people tend to think it's 35 out of 50 is what you have to get on that test. But that's not official. That's what I've sort of heard. That'd be 70%. Right. 70% to what? Then get invited to get to the show or to then actually be interviewed. And it's a multi-step process. So anyway, I at the time still had an apartment in New York in Greenwich Village. And they did these contestant searches regionally. So I was watching the show one night. And at the conclusion, it said, contestant search New York City, such and such a date. And believe it or not, I think they said either send self-address stamped

envelope and or postcard. Again, this is pre, this is the analog pre digital era. So I had a New York address and I still would go up to New York quite frequently. I worked for Fortune Magazine in the Time Life Building. Went up there pretty frequently. So I applied as a New Yorker, even though I was living in Washington, to take the test. And, you know, you forget about it. You know, I sent it in. And then I got this notice and it said, you're approved. because you have to be, you have to show a credential, a document to get into the Sheridan Hotel Ballroom. So it's right by the Letterman studio, the old Letterman studio on Broadway there in the, you know, mid-50s, I guess. And I walk into this, I walk into this Sheridan ballroom.

And it was a bizarre scene. I mean, because people, I mean, people are really into jeopardy. And you can tell these people, some of them had these stacks of books and ominacs and stuff like that, which is absolutely the wrong way to study for Jeopardy. You really want to look at kids' books and very basic stuff. I mean, that's the way to get ready for Jeopardy. I know that in retrospect. But anyway, I go in there. I take this test.

I think there about 100 people there, and it's a TV screen with Alex reading you questions. So I take the test. I'm sitting there, and I thought that was pretty easy. I mean, I thought I missed a handful of questions. And then I'm listening to people around me, and they're giving their answers and they're chattering and stuff like that. And I think, well, I didn't have that answer. I didn't have that.

So I thought, I bombed this thing. And then someone comes out and reads the names of the people who can stay in the room. Everyone else has to leave. And so, you know, I'm guessing 100 people were there. I think there were 12 of us left after the call through. And then you hang around. And, again, this is very low tech. They just want to make sure that you're, you know, you can articulate, that you have a voice.

You know, they don't want you melting down on television. So you go through this little, I mean, I'm not kidding. They wrote with a magic marker, like really basic questions. And I would, just like we're sitting here almost. And we played this game where instead of a buzzer, I would clap and I'd give an answer. And I think I got them all wrong, tell you the truth. I remember thinking that was the worst part of the day. And so you leave and it's sort of like, don't call us, we'll call you.

And a significant amount of time goes by. And then my sister was picking up my mail in New York in that apartment that I was subletting, I guess. And she said, hey, you got something from Jeopardy here. And I had honestly, I had completely forgotten about the whole experience. So I, well, you must not have gotten everything wrong. Oh, well, the last two or three questions, I mean, I think I got one out of three or four. But clearly, I passed the test. And a lot of those people sitting around.

me, you know, they were giving their, I was, I was thinking, wow, I really bombed. You know, I didn't have any of those answers. So anyway, you, you used to go into a ballroom and, and in a hotel setting, take a 50 question test, then do a little mini audition. And then you wait for not the phone to ring. It was, um, it was an actual document. So how much longer before your sister saw that you were actually invited to be on the show? Okay. I'm going to say it was, um, months. I'd certainly wasn't think, I honestly hadn't given it. It got to the point where I completely forgot.

So what did the letter say? You've been invited to appear on the show? Yeah. Fly out to Burbank or wherever it's done? Right. It's Culver City. And, you know, a lot of legalese. I mean, it's a big operation and it's a contract. And they do not pay your way out there. I mean, you're on your own dime, lodging and everything. And so, anyway, I, I read through this thing and you have to call this number and you talk to one of the, there's a couple of guys who are assigned to the contestants who become your,

almost your buddies. Right. You know what I mean? Because there's so much security on the set that they lead you everywhere you go as a group to the commissary. You know, they're just, because of the quiz show scandals, the security on the Jeopardy set. And to this day, this is true. it's pretty intense. I mean, they're not messing around.

And just a footnote, you might know this, but the reason Jeopardy is in that question and answer format is Merv Griffin and his wife. I mean, TV producers love quiz shows. They're incredibly profitable, okay? But after the quiz show scandals. You're talking about the quiz show scandals from like the 50s with what's his face, the prominent family.

Charles Van Doren, yeah. So what happened? Who was played by Ralph Fines? Correct. Yeah. In the Redford movie. Yeah. So, um.

Tertura was great in that movie. Yes. Yes, he was. Um. Herb Stemple. Very good. Thank you. Very good.

So yeah, after that, clearly there was a, you know, there's a, uh, no one's producing quiz shows. And so Merv Griffin's wife had suggested to him, well, why don't you give them the answers? And then the show can be the question. Right. Right. So it's a, that's how they got produced or to say, hey, we don't have to be under this black cloud of quiz shows, we're giving you the answers. You just have to come up with the questions.

So that's really how Jeopardy came about. Interesting. Never knew that. So, and so Merv was married at the time and his wife and they wrote out a bunch of cards on their dining room table in a New York apartment. And they eventually got, I don't know, a network or syndicator to bite on it. What year was that? Gosh, that would, I'm guessing early 60s, early mid-60s. So that would have led to the Art Fleming version of the show. Yeah. Way back when. All right.

So you get out there. Yeah. And I think I've read this before. Maybe it wasn't the case then. But you do a lot of recordings. There are multiple competitions you play in in one day. Correct. Yeah.

So for instance, Jeopardy only tapes two days a week. So if you see someone who's winning Monday through Friday, I mean, they say the Monday air date and they'll reference it. that that Monday through Friday those five games are taped on the same day right so um I remember when I went out there it was actually the weekend that Princess Diana died yeah and I was at a party that's that's August of 97 correct so very good it says that you appeared on the show in October of 97 right oh that's when it aired correct so there's a six-week gap I think between tape date so I go out there at this party and oddly enough the bulk of the people there were from the LA Bureau of People Magazine because I worked for Time Inc.

I worked for Fortune. I knew people out there. I was staying with people who were Time Inkers. And so you can imagine when I was at a party, the news breaks. People Magazine and Princess Die. I mean, that's their cover girl, every other issue. And so that party cleared out pretty quickly. But yeah, I went to the studio the first day and didn't get called.

It's a lot like jury duty. You know, it's a lot of hurry up and wait. You're moving around in a group. You don't know if your name will be called. And then I went the second day, and I got called to play the first game. And so. And you won. I was very lucky to win, too, because I played ridiculously.

Really? Played ridiculously. I was not in first place at the end. And the other, the guy was leading just kind of, I think he either just, he either, have he just wagered poorly. I don't even know if I beat him necessarily on the question. I can't remember. But.

You don't remember what the final? Jeopardy question was? Oh, I do. I do remember the question. It was, um, the answer was, uh, Carrie, the, the Stephen King book. Yep. And I think it was originally titled, uh, a girl with a special power or something like that. It says that on your first show, you won $7,300. So, so obviously the leader got it wrong. You got it right. Do you remember how, was that a doubling of the money? Were you at 36.50 going into the... No, it was a close, it was a close game. Yeah. And also just back then, the prize money since the board is twice as valuable now as it was back then. Right. I wish I'd played after the few years later. But yeah, it was very, the first one was a very close game. And again, I was not in

first place. And I think either he wagered, got it right and wagered wrong, or he got it wrong. I can't remember which. And then I won the next three. I'm not going to say, I'm not going to say, crush these people or anything, but I mean, I kind of won them without incident. So did you get to, the next three games, did you get to the point where you didn't have to worry about Final Jeopardy? I never had a runaway. I never had a runaway. Is that what they call a runaway when you have won before going into Final Jeopardy? Is that what it's called? I've never heard it referred to. You know what? There is an official term that's embarrassing. I believe it is runaway. You know, the interesting part of that, I've always thought about Final Jeopardy when, you know, you've got a player that can't lose unless they're an idiot and wager too much.

It really doesn't matter to the viewer. The viewer wants to stick around for the question and answer. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. All right. So the night two, you won, or this was all done in one day, you won $9,001. Okay.

Then it was $15,301. and do you remember what you want on your fourth day? I think it was $13,000? $13,201 for a cumulative because you lost on your final show. Right. And the cumulative was $44,803, which in 1997, not bad for one day's work.

Hey, it's like being, you know, it's like being Pablo Escobar. Well, I mean, yeah. Fortunately, yeah. You're earning that in 22 minutes. I mean, you're earning $15,000. in 22 minutes. That's that's pretty good, pretty good money. You got invited back, though, for the tournament of champions, right? Right. That total qualified me as a wild card.

As a wild card. Correct. At the end of the year. The next, the, my episodes aired in October and I believe I went out there in February the following year. Got it. Did they pay for that? Yes. They do pay for you to go. Once for the tournament of January. Right. And back then, Merv Griffin owned the Beverly Hilton. So that was pretty cool i mean you go out there the we flew out there um and uh my wife and i we both knew some people in los angeles yeah uh and um but you stay at the beverly hilton and um yeah those are long tape days but um it it was a fun trip as opposed to the when you are just playing regular jeopardy i mean uh some of these people were from places that were hard to get to l a

i mean they obviously took multiple flights they were staying at the red lion in or something like that right on their own done And then, you know, imagine you don't get on that first day. You've got to stay over. I mean, it's expensive undertaking. And face it, most people are won and done. I mean, very few people actually win anything. So anyway, I was very lucky and it was a lot of fun.

How did you do in the tournament of champions? You've told me before, but I forget. So I made the semis in the first round on final jeopardy, because I think I was in third place, I got Final Jeopardy right. And the other two guys got it wrong. Wow. And so I make the semis. And then in the semis, I had, and, you know, everyone's seen this, I think, to various contestants.

But I had one of those games where I just could not buzz in. And honestly, mentally, I just kind of, I mean, I got my butt kicked. I mean, this guy was on fire. But in fact, he was the last guy to make it in. Because you have the winners advance, but you have to have the next four score to round out the field. he snuck in at the last second. And I remember this guy had been, he wasn't faking.

I think he was sick that first day. So I come back and play him the second morning. And I mean, he was crushing. He was really good on the buzzer. He's a good player. You've got to be really good on the buzzer. I've read that before.

It's unbelievably important. Real quickly, just talk about that, what that means. Sure. Well, and I was terrible at the buzzer. I mean,

it was terrible. So you go out there and you, everyone gets a little mini rehearsal. Okay. They throw out, I don't know. I don't know. You essentially, everyone gets a chance to buzz and answer multiple times in a little dry run. I mean, it's not a full board. But they want to teach you just how to react and what to say and that sort of thing. So they give you this buzzer. You can't see this on TV, but to the side of the boards, the Jeopardy boards, there's a row of lights, a vertical row of lights. And so what they tell you is don't buzz before the light goes on. or you will be locked out for a half second. Okay? There's a lock. They call it the lockout device.

All right. And this is plagued contestants from my era to today. Right. So you get on this and I witnessed it at ESPN Jeopardy as well. Kyle Brandt, in fact, has- When does that light come on? Okay. At what point during the read.

Here's what I ended up doing. I started to get better and get buzzed in more when I decided I'm going to time my buzz to Alex's voice. and not the lights. So I, because I clearly was not timing it right on the, on the light thing. So, and a lot of people I've heard do the same thing. So ultimately, Alex is reading the clue, but you've already read it. You know what I mean?

You're looking at the board. You read faster than Alex can talk. So when he finishes, the minute he finished, that's when I started to bus. And so is that typically when the light comes on? Right. Correct. Correct. So the light doesn't come on.

And it's manually operated. I feel like that people have buzzed in before Ken Jennings is finished reading the clue. I don't think so. I don't think that would ever be. Because, you know, some of these shows, friends, you know, the quiz show around here, it's academic, the high school quiz show. Those kids can buzz in. Right.

That's true. Maybe I'm thinking about it. She could say, in ancient Greece, you can buzz. Yeah, right. But in jeopardy, you can't, you'd be locked out. Yeah. The other thing about the buzzer and it's your instinct. is to squeeze it and hold it down.

Is it just a quick hit? What were you really need, for instance, the guy that mop the floor with me was really good on the buzzer. And what he told me was he used this thing where he would put it on the surface and use his index finger like this, like clicking a ballpoint pen. Whereas I would squeeze and you hold it down, you get locked out. So, and imagine trying to learn that in real time. Would you have done well in that particular game in the semis? I really like the boards in the first half. And then honestly, again, in retrospect, a huge mistake. I just mentally just was kind of a humiliated, B, just felt overwhelmed. All the monies in the second half, right? You know, you can end the first half in negative territory and win. And win quite easily. But I really didn't know the game all that well. What have you seen as a viewer of Jeopardy that's changed in the way the game is played from years ago?

Sure. Well, clearly now people hunt daily doubles. 100%. Which they should. Yeah. And they play from the bottom up, okay? Which, in retrospect, I, and in fact, when they walked us through all this stuff, I'm not accusing anything. But they encouraged you not to go in order.

Correct. And they made, historically, there's a very famous play. player named Chuck Forrest, and they called it the Forest Bounce, because most people play Jeopardy like Corn and the Cobb. I mean, go up and down rows. And Chuck Forrest shows up, and I think it was a law student at the time and played really well. He was a good, legendary player.

And he would bounce around tick-tac-toe all over the board. I think his theory, though, was really by moving it around, I have an advantage on the buzzer. I think that's now, clearly what people do is you pretty much, and certainly a tournament play, you have to have to find the daily doubles, and you have to be aggressive. I mean, there's no reason not to bet at all on that first half daily double. Right. I mean, you should. I mean, because you can come back in the second round.

Yeah, I was going to say that the thing that's been noticeable over the years is the hunting for those daily doubles. Oh, yeah. Because they'll immediately go, and it seems like more often than not, they are in the, you know, three highest priced areas. it that's what it seems to me, that it's usually not in the 200 or 400 level. Well, you'll never have it in the 200. You never have it up top. Right. I don't think it's ever been up top.

You certainly can have it in that second row, but it does move around. And, you know, in the roundtables, when we went through our, the scripts that we wrote, the questions we wrote, it was very open to, they'd say, who wants to suggest, which, you know, okay, we've gone through the round. What do you think should be the Daily Double? No. And you'd be throw out your idea. So your questions. would think about what's going to be a good one, which is kind of cool. It's kind of fun how that process works. But yeah, and also the players now, as you probably know, in this day and age, to get it,

to even apply to college, you have to have 15 approved activities, right? Well, Quiz Bowl, I mean, I didn't play any Quiz Bowl in high school. A lot of players now have played competitive academic quiz bowl organized tournaments in high school and college. Ken Jennings did when he went to BYU. He was part of a competitive team. And, uh, So now, I mean, the players obviously are better. They've started playing competitive trivia earlier. Right. And they're well-schooled.

And, yeah, I think especially since James Holzhauer. Well, that's what I was going to ask you about Holzheimer. Yeah, he clearly set the people looked at that and thought, I mean, his phenomenal player, there's only one James Holzheimer. But I think people saw the way how aggressively he bet. Yeah. And that became certainly in tournament play. Well, he was going for knockout punches and to try to win as much money.

Oh, yeah. Not just win the game. He was a sensation player. What was his highest amount in a win? Did he, in a single game? In a single game. I think he got into the, he might, did he break 100? It seems to me that it was in the 70s or 80s, but it could have been 100.

Certainly up there. Yeah, his career, the highest all-time earners, including tournaments. Right. He's actually third behind Brad Rudder and Ken Jennings. Holeshauser earned $2.9 million, basically, on the show and had a run of 32 games. The longest run, any Jeopardy fan knows is Ken Jennings. Sure. 74 and a row.

Right. And I think to that point with Ken, I think if you're looking at Jeopardy historically, you can divide it into pre-Ken and post-Kent. Yeah. Because Ken put the show on the map. Even if I'd won my fifth game, that would have been my last game, okay? They had a limit on it back then. You didn't advance. You told me that.

I did not know that. So I think 2003 or four was the first year that they took the, and it was a brilliant move. Of course. So then Ken becomes it's like the lotto continuing to climb. Exactly. It becomes people pay attention, casual fans. And you had the internet and social media and Ken goes on this tear. And Jeopardy had fans, of course, and loyal fans, but then Jeopardy blew up.

Yeah. And that's, that streak of Ken's was what really put Jeopardy on the map. And that's the modern era of Jeopardy begins with Ken's streak. Do you like him as a host? Yes, very much. Yeah. I think he's phenomenal.

I think he's, I think he does a good job. Yeah, no, he's great. I mean, he's, he's incredibly fast. And, I mean, honestly, he's,

I think he does a phenomenal job. I really do. Yeah. All right. Tell everybody about ESPN, sports jeopardy and what if they tune into Hulu or if they if they right watch it what are they going to see right so they dropped all 10 episodes um on july 31st so you can stream it at your your leisure um and uh it's a charity tournament so it's structured like those celebrity tournaments

so it's three rounds there have been some really good celebrity players right who's the best celebrity player of all time you know um Andy richter was very good i meana kimes very recently is is, you know, considered one of the better celebrity players. Yeah. Yeah. I saw a recent show with her and Katie Nolan on it, and both of them were pretty good. Katie Nolan and Mina are both Big Jeopardy fans. Yeah.

So they're really into it. And, yeah, they're both pretty good. Mina won the most recent celebrity tournament. So Andy Richter is very good. Ike Barronholz, he actually, they now have it. So the winner of the celebrity tournament goes into the pool for that tournament of champions, which never used to have. And they actually acquit themselves pretty well. I mean, I certainly, I think Ike made the semis or something. I mean, that's a big deal. Right. So yeah, he was no joke. He was very good. So yeah, Mina, Ike, Andy Richter was considered good. Michael McCain, the guy who was in spinal tap. Oh, sure. Yep. Is it McKeon? Michael McKean, right? I think it's MCK-E-A-N. He is an extremely good player. So, yeah, there's certainly some pretty decent celebrity players. But the structure is that three rounds versus two.

and it's a longer show. So anyway, they dropped all the episodes on the 31st. There's one celebrity game, which I highly recommend that people watch. There's a lot of trash talking. That's John Hamm, very good player. Keegan Michael Key. John Hamm was a good player. John Ham was a good player.

Keegan Michael Key, also a very good player, very knowledgeable about sports. And the third guy who definitely knew some sports as Adam Pally, the comedian. Okay. Big New Yorker, New York Knicks fans, like that. So that those guys, of course, you can tell them, you could go out there and say, okay, here's how we play and here's. They didn't care. They played, they were trash talking. And John Hamm and Joe Buck are boyhood friends. They knew each other in St. Louis in middle school. Yeah.

So they're very, very good pals. And so they're giving each other all sorts of grief. And Adam Pally's very disruptive but very funny. So the celebrity game, which I think is game number three, I would imagine there's a lot of post editing of. the celebrity games just to get it to within the 22 minutes. Right. And you'd have to even Ken, I haven't seen Ken tape a show on the set, but after you do these things, and this is true of Alex Trebek too, the producers would be feeding Joe info in his earpiece and clues and things have to be reread. I mean, it just does not happen perfectly. Right. So yes, there is a lot of, the show is completely legitimate. Nothing is altered, but there's a lot of cosmetic surgery after the fact.

Post-production is pretty intense. When contestants have to, you know, say something about themselves. Right. I mean, it's the awkward part of the show at times. But do you remember what was said to you? Like, you had to have a story that was personal, but also wasn't going to bore the tears off of everybody? Well, again, going back to, I think that little episode of the Sheridan, after the ballroom was, it was a big ballroom. after it is empty. It's cavernously empty. I mean, our voices are echoing in there.

I think along with my little silly clap for when you want to answer game, which took about 30 seconds, they gave you an index card and said, hey, write down five. If you make it on the show, write down five. I'm sure this has changed. I'm sure this is all digital now. Write down five anecdotes that if you get on the show, you will, you will share with Alex or something like that. But what's funny about it is, of course, you forget about it. There's that gap between, when you audition and when you get a call. So, and Alex walks over and he kind of looms over you. He's got a card, but you don't know, which, they don't prepare you for what he's going.

And he picks one that he wants. And you've written this months ago. Right. So tell us about that, you know, youth league soccer game when you scored seven goals. Correct, correct. Also had to host the post game party. All right. Exactly.

All right. So Joe Bucks the host of this. So they came to you to ask you to be part of the team that wrote the clues for the show. Well, I initiated the process. I raised my hand. You did? I did. So how many former Jeopardy champions ended up in this process?

Was it all? In the writer's room? Yeah. No, nobody. In fact, I think people told me that I don't think a Jeopardy champion. How did you find out about it? Well, what happened was this. I mean, Michael Davies, and I think you and I discussed, the, the,

British guy. He's the executive producer of Jeopardy, but he really got famous when he, he's the guy who wants to be a millionaire, which was a big smash hit in England. He's a British guy from London. He basically got the rights to bring it over to the USA. And he had worked for Merv Griffin. He'd been in TV a long time, but that was his big thing. And that was a huge, huge success. So that's how Michael became a game show Titan and reality television titan. So he was publishing a substack last year that he called SQI sports quiz international. Okay. And it was just it was I saw it on Instagram and I decided to follow it and it said subscribe to the substack and he had this little he would send out a preview of the weekend activity sports on the sports calendar and global

stuff like it would include cricket. It would include you know rugby but but also the big four here in the USA. So he'd preview the weekend then on Sunday he'd send out a little quiz which is not a big It was like four or five questions. And the prize was kind of a joke. It was like a book from his personal sports library. And then on Tuesday, he'd published the results. And he was really encouraging people, all the readers of the substack, to participate and get involved. Like communicate, write in and stuff like that.

So he published, it was Memorial Day weekend. And I wrote in a thing saying, hey, I love the weekend preview. But you guys did not say about the national lacrosse championships. The NCAA lacrosse championships are going to be up. at Gillette Stadium. And I said, hey, they'll draw over the course of the weekend, because it's multiple D3, D1, women's. I said, I said something.

I wasn't being, you know, a school marmer. I just said, hey, over the course of the weekend, this is a pretty big deal, 40, 50,000 people. And then I think I said Bill Belichick and his teenage girlfriend are likely to be there, something like that. And so I wrote this thing into him, and I signed it Pedro. Okay. And I thought it, because his Instagram's right there.

I didn't think twice about it. And on Monday, I open the next newsletter. And it says, here's a great letter from Peter Scott of Washington, D.C. And he goes, he says, I love the sign-off, you know, because he thought the Pedro's sign-off was about to the international global component of the newsletter. I'm not even sure if I did that intentionally. But he picked up on that. So he published my note.

And then I think I sent him another note thanking him or something like that. And he was encouraging people to be actively engaged. And I started submitting, I'd find stuff that was, I thought, amusing, like Hugh Grant falling asleep at Wimbledon and just weird stuff. I mean, anything that I thought was kind of quirky but sports related. And I developed a correspondence with Michael. And I knew exactly what he did for a living. I mean, this was not an accident. Did he know that you were a former champion during this?

I think within the first couple, I think we shared something like, I can't remember exactly how it came up, but I did say something like I had been on the show in. in the 90s. So anyway, he and I are exchanging all these notes and I'd say maybe once or twice a month. And in December of last year, he sent a note to me in response to one of mine saying, hey, I just want you to know I have to discontinue SQI because we just got an order for ESPN Jeopardy. And so then I thought, okay, I want in on this, but it's Christmas. I'm going to wait a little bit. So I waited for the holidays to go by. And then I sent him a note. And I just said, hey, you know, I know this is out of left field, but I think I could contribute to the show. And within three seconds, he said, yes, with a big exclamation part, point.

But I didn't know what happened next. And there was a fairly rigorous submission process. So it took a while. It wasn't just like, hey, you were on Jeopardy, start writing questions. So I, he kept asking me, have I received the submission form or something like that? And I said, no, because really what he had done is he'd gone to the people who were actually producing the show, the line producers. And he said, you should look at this guy.

And they said, what? Yeah. What? Are you out of your mind? So, because I had no game show writing credentials whatsoever. I'd publish some stuff, but, so anyway, finally, I sent them just, finally, I put together every clip I could find that I had published and I sent it into them. And I thought maybe that's what they were waiting for.

And they said, no, no, no, no, no. So finally, I get this thing where it's a, you know, a, you know, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a form, a standardized form, write X number of questions on these three categories, make up three categories of your own, and submit three final jeopardy. So you're essentially creating a jeopardy board with the finals. So I had to do that, you know, in a vacuum. Sports. Yeah, this was focused on sports. Right. So I did that all on sports and I submitted it. And then they asked me to do a Zoom with the head writer and the woman who was actually producing the show. So I had to interview. So, it wasn't a slam dunk, but my relationship with Michael certainly got me in the room. And honestly,

the other writers, the full-time writers, were pretty stunned that that came about. That was not, that is not normal. How many writers were there for this? Okay, they brought in three rookies or contract writers. Billy the headwriters, that's four. Tracy had done it. The year period. So I guess eight, eight or nine. How many clues for this show did you write? Do you know? I don't. I mean, Well, I'm not asking how many got put into the show. How many did you end up writing? All right. So I think you have to write seven for each category because they need a safety in case something happens.

So you don't come up with the categories. Oh, no. I made all my own categories. But I think there's a software program that used to write. So I'm going to think I wrote 60 categories. With seven questions. I think I probably submitted. I probably submitted 420 questions.

All right. So how many do you, I mean, do you know how many made it? into the show? You know, I think they spread it out pretty evenly among the writers. And I don't know that's intentional or how that all came up. But I would say I had multiple categories in most games. So I'm going to guess I wrote, I'm going to say at least 10% of the show. Okay. I mean, maybe a little bit more. All right. I would say not more than 15, not less than 10. And at least one category that you wrote, you're going to actually give to me. I'm going to challenge you. And we will do that right after these words from a few.

of our sponsors. It's the rate to review this podcast and you haven't done it already. Much appreciation if you do it. It takes all of like 20 seconds to click on the star count. Five stars is best for us. If you think the show deserves five stars, give us five stars, especially on Apple and Spotify.

Following the podcast is a big deal as well. Just hit the plus button or the follow button. Peter Scott was one of the writers of ESPN's Sports Jeopardy. He was also a Jeopardy champion on four consecutive nights back in 1997. So we've gone through a lot of your history, personal history with Jeopardy and how this process came about, this ESPN Sports Jeopardy, which again is airing on Hulu and Disney Plus right now every single episode. So you picked one of the categories that you wrote with seven clues. Actually, this one only has six. Okay, only six.

And so you're going to, did this make the show? Yes, this is. This made the show. Yes, this is an episode seven. I have not watched the show, I promise you. And the only reason I'm, I pick this one is, like I told you, this is somewhat legitimate in that they asked us for their substack, their social media to pick the clues, the category we enjoyed writing. And I picked this one. So these are, well, let me.

So tell me the name of the category. The name of the category is Dan Snyder fired him, part one. Dan Snyder fired him part one. Now, Peter's a big skins fan, right? Actually, I've lived in D.C. a long time. I thought you were a fan of the team. That would be untrue. That would be untrue.

I watched an amazement during the whole Snyder era. It's just hard to process. It was so crazy. Are you a fan of a team? My daughters are living in Philadelphia right now, and they really are into the birds. So to some degree, I'm following. But you're a massive sports fan. Big, big, big, big sports fan.

Okay. Big sports fan. All right. Go ahead. All right. This would be, this is a video clue, but you won't need the video. Winner of two Super Bowls in Denver, this coach. Mike Shanahan.

Yes, very good. Want to hear the whole clue? No, I do. Hold on. I jumped the gun. No. And by the way, I would have gotten frozen out on that. You might have.

You might have jumped in too early. Yeah. Yeah. But you do get another chance at the, you know, read the whole clue. Winner of two Super Bowls in Denver, this coach and his son got the Snyder treatment family style in December 2013. So who is Mike Shannon? That was a video clue, actually. Okay.

Okay. This one I don't think actually made the show looking at it. So I said, before firing this former Seahawks QB, Dan yanked his play calling duties and replaced him with a bingo caller. Who was Jim Zorn? See, I knew you'd ace this category. The bingo caller, by the way, was one Sherm Lewis. Exactly. And the stories about him are, that could be a category.

You know what? I'm glad you told me that. Maybe because if they do another version of this, I'll have to look into that. Here we go. Dan gave a mid-season pink slip to coach Norv Turner, who once called plays for this team's triplets. That would be the Dallas Cowboys. Who are the Dallas Cowboys? Correct.

Dan got a twofer in 2002 by axing Marty Schottenheimer and this personnel exec who recently won it all with Seattle. Oh, John, who is John Schneider? Correct. Yeah. Video clue. In a 2019 carmic masterstroke, Dan fired this GM whose father George took Washington to its first Super Bowl in 1973. Who was Bruce Allen. Right.

Yeah. And the spare. And again, you will have no trouble with this if I can find it. Before Dan whacked him, Jay Gruden lasted five full seasons exceeding by two years his previous gig as OC for this AFC team. who are the Cincinnati Bengals. So, you know, what's interesting is you said something early in our conversation that people were walking into that Sheridan with like encyclopedias. Right.

And that's not the way to prepare. And I have noticed over the years, like the, when you really are into a certain category, they're not that hard. They're not that hard. Correct. It's when you don't know anything about the category. They seem so hard. Correct.

But you don't legitimately read kids' books, but your point is it's really the elementary stuff of a lot of different categories. Right. In fact, a great expression I heard from that guy who trounced me in the tournament was think World Book, not Britannica. Okay. Yeah, sure. And Holzhauer was quite well known. He said this publicly a lot that he did read. He would read books written sort of at the sixth or eighth grade level. you know, learn about whatever category he had mastered. But to your point, a lot of these things, for instance, you may be freaked out that it's opera or ballet. But the way the clue is phrased, it might be just be asking for the capital of...

Of course. A capital of Egypt or something like that. Exactly. So, you know, there are certainly going to be questions where you actually surprise yourself how you will fare in that category. Well, as a fan of the show and not someone who could qualify to be on this show, but there are nights when the category, the stars align. Right, right. And, you know, my wife's sitting there going, how did you know all that?

Right. I'm like, because I'm deep, but in just a few categories. Right. And that's not good for Jeopardy. Right. You want to, you want to know a little bit about a lot of things. A little bit about a lot of things. And that's, that's the way Jeopardy works.

But I knew that would be a piece of cake for you, that category. Thank you for doing this. Congrats. And I'm going to watch it. I mean, it's, you can knock it out in, and probably an hour. and a half, two hours. Yeah, I mean, you know, there's some commercial. I don't get the, I don't have the deluxe Hulu, so I had a lot of commercials. But there's some pretty entertaining games. And, you know, you get down to the semis and the final, these people can really play. Well, what's next?

Have they said, why don't you come back and write clues for the regular show? I was asked to submit material for the syndicated show, but I think they have one position. So that, I mean, you obviously enjoy doing this. Hey, compared to, you know, Cube Farm or sales or something like that. My God, yeah, it was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun. All right. Thanks, Peter. Very much. Thank you.

It was fun. Peter Scott, everybody. A four-day Jeopardy Champion 29 years ago, and then a tournament of champions' semifinalist. And the guy that wrote 10% roughly of the clues, questions, and answers on the current ESPN Jeopardy, airing on Disney Plus and Hulu. All right. That'll do it for the show.

the show. I will leave you with that one soundbite that I didn't play in the opening segment. It was the final question asked of Stefan Diggs earlier today. Have a good weekend back on Monday. Stefan, I want to take your way back with this one. I think of back to the days of the Montgomery Village Chiefs. If that kid knew that he'd be wearing Burgundy and Gold now, I'm just curious how he would feel at this moment. I got a little chills now. I play for him. I play for a couple of teams actually, the Alexandra, the Alexandria Raiders or Titans. You knew that? And I played for White Oak and I play for NV. So I had a couple of teams. I want to show them awesome love. So I don't know, man, I can't write a better story.

You know, at this point in my career and what I want to do and being able to be healthy and coming off ACL, having success and going to your hometown team and want to shine for them. And, you know, I want to put on for my city. I'm always going to want to do that. You know what I did it when I was away and I wanted to do it when I'm home. So it definitely means a lot to me, you know what I'm saying, pulling your heartstrings a little bit. But, you know, I know the city behind me. I know I got a support system here. And I know I got a lot of love here.

So all I want to do is make people proud, you know what I'm saying, make the city proud. And the best way you can do that is go far, you know what I'm not going to say where. You don't want to jinx it or nothing, but I want to go far and I want to be consistent and be a puzzle piece to this team in a positive way. Thank you. Have a good one, all right?