The Kevin Sheehan Show - Have We "Crowned" Jayden Too Early?

Episode Date: July 3, 2025

Kevin and Thom today with plenty of 4th of July memories to start. The guys then answered an email suggesting that after just one rookie season, Commanders' fans have "crowned" Jayden Daniels too early. Cherry bombs, sleep apnea, internship proposals, update on RFK, and lots more on the show too. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You don't want it. You don't need it. But you're going to get it anyway. The Kevin Cheon Show. He is Kevin. Tommy's here. I am here. The show's presenting sponsors, always.

Window Nation, 86690 Nation, or Window Nation. com, if you need new windows. No show tomorrow, July 4th. If you missed the show yesterday, Mark Eind, was on the show. So if you miss that, you can listen to that show tomorrow on July 4th. You know, deal. Big deal.

Ah, that was good. Perfect timing. Because Tommy and I were talking about the importance of guests before we started to record the show. And, you know, he said, hey, that's great. You had the mayor on this week. You had Mark Ein, and I'm like, yeah, but you know this. You know, guests don't really move the needle.

And so once we started recording. And you go, that big deal, Mark Eind. You know what? My audience, this audience, your audience, they'd much prefer that if we're going to do, you know, a big name guest or somebody who's perceived to be kind of a good get, they'd much rather it be Dan Quinn and Adam Peters this week. There's always that.

So no show because tomorrow's July 4th. Yes. Do you look forward to July 4th at all? We talk about this every year. and I've told you, of course, you won't remember, that July 4th was a big deal for me growing up. My grandfather, who passed away many, many, many years ago, would bring to our family 4th of July celebration,

which we would do at our house. He would bring not only fireworks, but he'd bring just packs and packs of firecrackers, including like cherry bombs. You remember the cherry bombs? And everybody would be upset with my grandfather, except for his grandkids, who couldn't wait to see him light a fuse

on a whole pack of firecrackers and toss them out into the yard. But those cherry bombs, man, they were loud. Those things were loud. Yeah, he was the best on 4th of July. And then when I got older, we would go down to the mall every 4th of July. I mean, for many years, the beach boys were a mainstay on July 4th on the mall.

I never did that. Yeah, I did it several times. Yeah. I'm not saying that... My memory from July 4th as a kid was it's the time that my mom almost got arrested by the cops. When we were in Brooklyn, like the people on the block would kind of like get together and shoot off like Roman candles and fireworks and stuff. and stuff like that. And one time,

the cops, this police station was a couple blocks away. The cops walked up to us and started, you know, giving us grief about, you know,

not doing it. And like a block away, my mom pointed out, there were kids up on a roof throwing cherry bombs off the route at people. Yeah. And she'd see how out of the cops,

why don't you go after them? And one cop grabbed her by the arm and said, I'm going to drag you down if you keep mouthing off. So that would have been a memorable July 4th. Mouthing off at people. We now know where it came from with you. But growing up

in Brooklyn, did you with your friends on July 4th, did you guys get involved in a lot of shenanigans and a lot of that got you into trouble? Well, yes. There was, actually, my trip to Brooklyn last week, I showed my family where Al's delicatessen was. And, uh, and, uh, I was. And, uh, One time, I went to throw a firecracker into the store, okay? But it exploded in my hand. Oh, boy. I think you've told me this before. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it didn't cause any damage. Yeah. It was just very sore. It was just one firecracker, not like a whole pack of them. So I paid the price for that. And, you know, that was really a lousy thing to do because I used to deliver

groceries for this guy. You know, I was, I was nine years old, and he used to let me deliver groceries for tips to his customers. And then you're throwing a firecracker into a store to scare all the customers. Remember, I was a bad kid. God. I mean, some bad decisions, bad thoughts, bad deeds, at times from a young Tom Levero in Brooklyn. You know, the other thing that we did when the kids were younger and we actually probably did it up until five or six years ago is at about nine o'clock, we didn't live that far from Key Bridge, you know, Georgetown into Rosalind. And if you timed it well, you could stop your car on the bridge when the fireworks started. So I would drive across the bridge, then drive back towards Maryland. So I had my car pointed.

in the right direction when the fireworks ended. And once they stopped, everybody just stopped their car on the bridge, got out and watched the fireworks. And it's a perfect spot to watch the fireworks. You've got the Kennedy Center. You've got the monument and the backdrop. And, you know, the police didn't do anything. They would just let you sit there parked on the bridge.

And then once they were over, I'd just get in the car and drive home. It always kind of felt like you were getting over on all of the people that had spent all day long. in the heat somewhere down on the mall in their really good position to watch the fireworks. But anyway, we haven't done that in a while. Although maybe I'll do it tomorrow night because I live even closer to Key Bridge

than I used to. Our plan is to go to Baltimore and my son, he's not at his house in Baltimore, but we're going to use it because he has a rooftop deck right in Locust. point. So we're going to go up on the deck and watch the fireworks from there.

That'll be great too. Yeah. Pound some beers. Yeah. A good time. Absolutely. All right. The other day, the conversation of Best of shows and your, you know, your request for intern

proposals. Yes. I mean, seriously. Guys, I can't tell you how. surprised I was, but also how good it made me feel. The inbox was flooded with intern requests to help out on the best of shows with elaborate plans and and real like responses to the request for a proposal. It was, it was really, it was very nice of so many of you.

I can't read all of them, but I did save one in particular because I think this guy's got a pretty good shot of getting the gig. Because, you know, what did I say? I said, it's like one of those things that's like, God, I mean, it's one thing to find Monday shows following a game. I've got dates on those, but I didn't create a catalog with, you know, dates and top, you know, show titles and what we talked about and who was on the show. but this guy Sean sent me an email and he just wrote in the subject heading, I'm your intern, exclamation point, exclamation point. Hey Kevin, long time listener here from Montreal. I'd like to apply for the Cramerica podcast archiving internship.

But I'm not a student. I'm 54 years old, L.O.L. I've been working as a CFO and part owner of a sleep apnea company. By the way, we've got to talk about that, Sean. I was diagnosed with a mild, mild case of sleep apnea like three or four years ago, but I didn't do anything about it. Do you have sleep apnea? I have mild. I actually, you know, I know people don't believe this, but, you know, I lost a lot of weight a few years ago.

That probably helped a lot. And that helped a lot. Yep. So I went from being severe to mild. It's actually pretty good. Yeah. What's interesting is they said, you know, we can give you the whole mask and the whole nine yards, or you can just try to lose 10 pounds and that'll probably help.

And it did. But now, you know, whatever. So anyway, Sean says we recently sold the company and I've got free time on my hands. I've been learning to program in Python. I have no idea what that is. and this would be a great project for me. And then he goes into what he refers to as his game plan, which is an elaborate, you know, technology solution,

probably not elaborate, certainly not elaborate for him, but a technology solution using, by the way, artificial intelligence to create what would turn out to be a database that's very easy to search. you know, trying to find shows that have, you know, certain guests or certain topics. Now, the one thing, Sean, isn't able to create, and I don't think anybody would be able to create this without listening to the shows and having some level of sort of comparable subjectivity with us in terms of how we would rank the shows. Because really what I need to find is I need to find the shows that people would be, excited or at least they'd feel like it was worth it to listen to. And I don't think that technology

can solve that issue. Although we could use all of the data associated with download counts. You know, the problem with that is most of the highest downloaded shows since I started this podcast now seven years ago are game recap shows. you know, Mondays after Skins games. But maybe if we took those out and then put all of the others together, we could go with the highest downloaded shows. Anyway, I'm just thinking out loud here. Sean, great job.

Really, really good job. And I appreciate it. I not only appreciate it from you, but others had, you know, sort of laid out plans for doing this. I'm going to try to read as many of them. as I can and know that if I don't respond to you, I did read it and did appreciate it. And I mean that. It would be great, actually, to run some, you know, some content, some shows when I'm on vacation later this month and in August as well.

It makes sense to do it from our standpoint. But anyway, yeah, very, very nice of all of you to reach out. And, Sean, of all of them that I have read, I will likely be getting in touch with you, at least to discuss your plan in a little bit more detail. It's kind of cool. He's from Montreal. It makes us an international company, although we are a worldwide company with, you know, the awards we've gotten and the ratings we've gotten in places all over the world. Yes, tremendous international appeal this show has. actually in all seriousness,

I was looking at something a couple of weeks ago, and I think I had mentioned this to you maybe three or four months ago, but for some reason there are a few countries where we just consistently rank high among football podcasts on the Apple podcast charts. And a lot of times it's just, you know, it's Americans at an army base, you know, that are living, you know, overseas as part of the military.

But we continue to do very well in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia, we do very well. Bermuda, we still kick ass. The people that are listening to us in Bermuda keep it up. Same with Jordan. We do very well in Jordan. Petra, Tommy. I think we do very well in Petra.

That's in Jordan, isn't it? I think it is. We're still waiting for our Bermuda clan to set up a live podcast for us to do there. Yeah, for sure. This email from Nick, Nick writes, Kev, first time writer and have enjoyed podcast, the podcast for a year plus. You and Tommy would save $1,000 per year if you switch from cable, 20th century technology, to non-cable like YouTube TV, 21st century technology.

technology. Then Tommy can buy every streaming service he wants, and you can keep the 1299 a month no ads on Paramount. Love your show so much, especially with Tommy. Signed Nick. So I do have YouTube TV, Nick, and I still had to, I had the Paramount at $599 with ads, but on YouTube TV, I still had to upgrade to the $1299 to get the no ads. And this is for the show Landman. which I did finish, Tommy, and there is a season two coming. I don't know when it's coming, but season one was great. So you still have cable? Yes, I still have cable, but let me just say,

I wouldn't get Paramount now if you paid me a lot of money. Why? So we can stop that conversation right in it. Why? I mean, because these weasels basically caved, on the 60 Minutes lawsuit and are paying off, paying it off. So I'm done. I wouldn't get the amount.

You mean on the edit, on the Kamala interview? No. No, no, no, no, no. I don't know what 60 Minutes lawsuit you're talking about. Well, there's some kind of lawsuit that they settle. I'd have to go back and look at the details again. But Edward R. Murrow is turning over. in his grave.

Okay. I'm sure he'd be turning over in his grave over a lot that's happened in mainstream media over the last five plus years. But you've got to pick your battles. So you're going to deprive yourself. You choose to deprive yourself a lot.

Yeah, you're depriving yourself. Yes, I do. Because I'm a very disciplined individual. You know that. Yeah, sure you are. I got YouTube TV last, right before the football season last year, and I got the NFL package with it. So I'm there, Nick.

I'm there. I'm with you on YouTube, but I still had to pay the $12.99 to get the no-ad. So maybe I did something wrong. Maybe you can help me with that. All right. Lastly... You know, I like to get these obscure channels. like there's antenna TV.

They have Barney Miller on every nine of God. Well, Anto. Isn't Antenna TV a part of your cable? Yes, it is. Okay. So that's my point. My point is I don't think you can get that streaming. I don't think the streaming networks carry antenna TV.

Oh, my God. Listen to some of the other more obscure one. Listen people to what's on antenna TV here tonight. the show Alice from the 70s uh the Benson Barney Miller Bewitched Barney North

Bewitched uh Elizabeth Montgomery was really very gorgeous okay Elizabeth Montgomery for Barbara Eden for my dream of Jeanne Elizabeth Montgomery Absolutely I'm with you Yeah

Wasn't she Somebody's daughter A big actor's daughter Robert Montgomery Robert Montgomery. And didn't she pass away at a pretty young age? Yeah, she had a volatile life. Yeah. She was controversial because there was a controversial point on TV where she kissed O.J. Simpson in a TV movie. And this is before O. We knew that O.J. was a killer. And I think that was the first time on TV. Network TV, we saw a black, black, man.

Really? That was it? Elizabeth Montgomery and O.J. But I know that was, that was a flashpoint moment. Yes. So when I was home a few weeks ago after the, you know, procedure that I had, I'm going to confess that, you know, at various points during the day, I was just going through lots of different channels.

And I found, I'm assuming, antenna TV, because, Bewitched was on. There may be, it may be on other channels, too. Like, TV land is another channel that shows old, old TV shows, you know. But I have, I want antenna just for Barney Miller. But I have to say in watching, so Bewitched came on and I, she would be gorgeous today. Like, I don't, look, you're of the age where you remember this show being on TV.

I remember it when it was in rerun form. But was she considered to be a haughty for the day? Absolutely. Okay. Absolutely, yes. She died at 62 years old. Uh-huh. Looking it up right now.

I think Barbara Eden is still alive. The father was Robert Montgomery. He was a big star of what, the 40s or something? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so this is This is what you do You're watching

Three's company and match game You know, every night I never watched three companies I'm just listing some of the shows that are on On the TV Father knows best Facts of Life, the Jeffersons Now, all in the family

is on here, so that show still I mean, I can only imagine some of those reruns. It could never be on TV today, right? All in the family? I don't think. I highly doubt it. Man, what a show.

Didn't Norman Lear die like in the last year? He was the creator. He was like in his 90s, I think. That's the way. Yeah. All right. Let's talk some football, and we'll do that. Right after these words from a few of our sponsors.

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Did this on radio today and we took a few calls on it, but I want to get your thoughts on it and I'll share mine as well. Bert wrote, so let me get this straight. After one season, you have concluded that Jaden is better than Lamar and Mahomes, or is their equivalent? Let the kid actually win something before we crown him. Lamar is the perfect example of how hard it is to win the Lombardi. You can be the two-time MVP and still have nothing to show for it.

You know, I did something on yesterday's podcast where somebody reached out and essentially said, you know, Lamar Jackson would be a phenomenal ceiling comp for Jaden. You know, we did that the other day on the show. Right. And, you know, I actually said, you know, a year ago, I was saying the same thing to people who would say, well, I hope he doesn't turn out to be Lamar Jackson. Lamar Jackson can't win a playoff game. And I said, Lamar Jackson's a two-time MVP. You'd take that right now.

But after seeing him play for a year, I actually think his career, when it's all said and done, has a chance to be better than Lamar Jackson's career. Lamar Jackson's great. He's two-time MVP's probably already in the Hall of Fame. We're certainly nearing that status. But this from Bert where he says, let the kid actually win something before we crown him, is the question for you to answer and for me to answer. And that is, have we crowned him too quickly?

You know, have we gotten to that point with him where, you know, one season we feel like is going to be what the rest of his career looks like, if not better. And I think it's an interesting question because I'm at the top of the list of people who are talking about him like he's already an elite quarterback. He's already a top five quarterback. there are probably only four teams, Kansas City, Buffalo, Cincinnati, and Baltimore that wouldn't immediately trade their own quarterback for Jaden Daniels. It's one season. Have we crowned him too early? You know, I was thinking about this.

And I think the best way for me to describe my judgment of Jaden Daniels is, I've been a sports writer since 1992, over 30 years. I've never been as excited about a football player as I am about him. Yeah. Never. Yeah. I mean, I just, I can't. Excited is different than being sure that what you saw with your own eyes last year is sustainable

over the next 10 plus years and will. result in a first ballot Hall of Famer? You know, I remember in the early days of the Cincinnati Bengals, they had a quarterback named Greg Cook that Bill Walsh said would have been the greatest quarterback of all time, but he got hurt early in his career, and his career was pretty much over. So nothing is sure, but I think anything is, like I wrote, in a lead of a column, after week four, I think anything is possible. for this kid, which means there may not be,

which means the seal is what he'll establish, not what others have established. By the way, we all understand. There's the caveat. I mean, if he stays healthy. Right. Injury will, you know, will end it for all. It's interesting because,

first of all, just to be clear on Bert's email, I didn't, and I had some callers the other day, probably say that he's, you know, going to be better than Mahomes or Mahomes's equivalent. I, my comp, ceiling comp was to Steve Young, as was yours. Although, you know, Mahomes isn't out of the question. 99 times out of 100, I would say, this is way too premature. And I would have, you know, I would have put a governor on myself. I would have restrained myself. not said a lot of the things that I've said about this quarterback since the season ended or

really going back towards the part of the season in which it became obvious that they had gotten it right. And, you know, I also think that people like me, not necessarily you, should at least consider that after, you know, all of these years of having nothing to root for and having nothing great on the roster that maybe we're overdoing it just because we haven't been exposed to it as fans. I don't personally think that's it for me. I think I would be able to separate my, you know, lack of having a player that really moved the needle for us for 30 plus years from the season that he had. Look, we did have, we had moments like RG3. Yeah, go ahead. there's all kinds of caveats that go both ways.

He played on what was a very limited team. Okay. Another quarterback, I don't think, could have accomplished, or very few could have accomplished what he did. Okay, he had limited weapons. He had a limited offensive line. He didn't have the support of a good defense, and yet he went to the NFC championship game.

So whatever caveat you can use to put a governor on it, on the enthusiasm about him, I think you have to take into consideration that he lifted them to the place they wound up. Not that he was a part of it. He was the driving force. No doubt. I totally agree.

I mean, 99 out of 100 times, I'd probably be a little bit more restrained and say, well, let's just, let's give it some time. But this was a season unlike any other. I mean, there is what you just described, but there's also, you know, a lot of data and metrics out there. The pro football reference approximate value number had him, his season last year is the greatest rookie quarterbacked. season since 1960 when they started to account for it in this particular way. Passer rating, you know, it's one of the greatest passer rating seasons of all time. You know, so there's plenty to describe numerically, statistically, Jaden's season is the greatest rookie season in NFL history. You know, a lot of the others have happened recently, like RG3s, although it's not that recent

12 years ago now. But also, you know, Russell Wilson's rookie year that year was one of the greatest Dak Prescott. And then Cam Newton's year is number two, according to some of the pro football reference numbers. But what you said is really, you know, there's a lot that you, you know, that is quantifiable. Then there's a lot that is intangible. Like, put it this way.

The fourth downs that he converted, the clutch gene. that he exhibited, the fact that there wasn't a flaw in any part of his game, not one flaw other than maybe not protecting himself enough early in the season. And then you get to Sean King, Ben Rothelisberger,

Joe Flacco, Mark Sanchez, and Brock Purdy were the only other rookie quarterbacks in NFL history to start in an NFC or AFC championship game all of those quarterbacks were not the driving force. They had great defenses. They had, in some cases, phenomenal running games.

Jaden Daniels is the only one that strapped the team to his back and legitimately, almost by himself, led the team to 14 total wins, 12 in the regular season, 2 in the postseason, and to the NFC title game, where they just weren't good enough defensively to match up against a team as good as Philly was in that moment on the road. But it's the greatest rookie quarterback season of all time. I had a bunch of people tweet me because we were talking about this on Radio Tommy and I took a bunch of calls. People were pretty much, you know, I would say the majority, if not the significant majority of people who called said,

I don't think we're overdoing it. I don't think we've crowned him too early. But, you know, a lot of people, and I was just looking at Twitter right before you and I started to record this show, they're like, we said the same thing after 2012. Okay, big differences. Yes, we embraced 2012 in the same way we embraced 2024. Like, he was the savior. Robert Griffin the third had one of the greatest rookie seasons in NFL history. Not as great as Jaden season, but great.

But here were the big differences. Number one, you know, the eye test said he's got weaknesses. He isn't a good passer from the pocket. He is unpolished. He's got a long way to go before he becomes the kind of quarterback. that you really have to be at some point in the NFL on third and nine. Stand in the pocket, make the right reads, get the ball out on time. And you could tell his rookie year, and it's the reason they played football the way they played it in 2012,

is because he was not advanced as a passer. RG3 was super advanced as a passer. And then secondly, let's be honest, the offseason, what did I say? Jaden RG3. Yeah, yeah. Jayden Daniels, of course, was advanced, super advanced as a passer. Massive difference from that standpoint. And then number two is this.

Even before we found out, you know, what was going on behind the scenes with RG3, he was severely injured. So we weren't crowning him in the off-season. We may have crowned him during this season. But I think that there was recognition in the end. the moment that he had a long way to go to be a complete quarterback. Jaden's already a complete quarterback. I think that's really the point here is what doesn't he do well?

Yeah, yeah. I agree. And, you know, in RG3's recovery, which he turned into a marketing campaign, we started to see the glimpses of what was really happening behind the scene. Yeah. I mean, Jane Daniels' off-season, as far as I'm concerned, has been as good as his season. Because other than the appearance at the occasional basketball game here and there

or something like that, it's been a very quiet off-season for Jane Daniels, wouldn't you say? Yeah, and look, I don't care that he shows up at events and is... No, I don't, I don't care about that. Yeah, I hope he takes advantage of every opportunity to make as much money as he can. But it's very clear, at least as of now, that football and the team and getting better is his top life priority or very high on the list. the all-in for week one, once we got a load of that along with the hashtag barrage of that off-season, it was, yeah, there were all of the sudden red flags on a lot of things.

And then, you know, as we got towards the beginning of the next season, we all started to hear how poorly the off-season had gone not only for him, but the reaction to his offseason from the team. You don't hear any of that with this guy. Now, I still have the one concern that I had this time last year. I still think that his frame is, you know, for the lack of a better description, skinny. And he took some shots last year.

He missed the better part of an entire game against Carolina. There were questions about whether or not he should have come back against Chicago and then, you know, the games that followed, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. And that was my number one concern coming into the NFL. Would he could he get broken? Would he be healthy enough? Because he got injured at times in college. And that's still the only concern I have. And any other concern that I may have had or wanted to see he changed.

checked off every box. He checked off every box that you would put in front of him as far as a pocket passer. Every box you put in front of them as far as a playmaker, runner, thrower, etc. You know, the boxes of, you know, winning, playing clutch football in the clutch moments, the clutch gene, the composure. Then we got to the end of the year. And there was one box left to be checked. and it was, let's see how he plays in a really big game,

like a win or go home game, which for them became the postseason, and he had great games at Tampa, at Detroit, and actually played pretty well at Philly in the NFC championship game as well. It was the defense that was the problem, and the turnovers, obviously, from, you know, Diami Brown and Echler and the other people who turned it over,

him. He had a turnover in the game as well. Yeah, I there will be the I told you so crowd that has not said anything that'll come out if he has a step back season and they'll say

I told you so, you shouldn't have gotten so pumped up. This was an aberration. This wasn't who he is. But those people will be lying about I told you so because I haven't talked to one person or answered one tweet or email of somebody saying, this dude is not that.

You'll see. You'll see year two. I've heard people say, you know, there's always concern about the sophomore slump season. Dan Marino didn't have a sophomore slump season. Yeah. Set every NFL record that you could set in his second year.

Yeah, and that's like something that doesn't really, I mean, lump. I mean, you know, you can maybe argue that, you know, defenses and coaching staffs catch up to you, but I don't think there's a soft force. I don't see him having it.

C.J. Stroud is the example they're using, yeah. Right. Again, I see a guy from everything I've read is it puts a lot of investment in preparation. Right. So we didn't see a guy who, who rested on what was the unprecedented rookie year?

I can't imagine that barring injury, that, you know, obviously is the caveat to all of this. You know, he stays healthy. If he stays healthy and upright for 17 games again this year, I can't imagine that he has a major stepback season. Look, they may end up playing a much more difficult schedule, and the numbers may not be exactly, you know, what they were last year.

They might be better. They might be a little worse. But I don't think the eye test is going to be a different, is going to generate a different result. I think we're going to see the same guy, if not better. He's got, you know, at least we think, a better supporting cast, a better offensive line with the addition of Tunsell and maybe even their first round pick. Debo Samuel. They've got to get Terry done, obviously.

I think they will. but yeah, I don't think we've crowned him to her. You have to admit, do you listen to yourself sometimes and think this is a little bit strange? Yes. Okay, yeah. I mean, I listen to myself, and it just doesn't seem normal. No. I have paused on occasion and said, my God, like, am I just, look, because I loved him,

going back to his junior year at LSU and then was all over him the senior year and wanted this team to pick him and when they got in position to do so that this was the guy. Obviously, we always want to be right. So part of me wonders if I've gone a little bit overboard just to emphasize how right I was about his very first season. But it's really not that. I don't think it's that. I think I really believe that what I saw last year is what we're going to get.

And I can't, yeah, but I pause sometimes. I don't think you've done that. You have every right to do that. If it was me, I'd be thump in my chest all the time about what I got right. But I don't think you even have to. I think he does the talking for you in terms of how right he were. but it does sound strange sometimes to talk about a football player with this franchise so glowingly. There's something wrong.

That's not what I thought you were saying. I get that part too. What I was saying is just, yes, sometimes I listen to myself talk about this guy, and I'm like, wait a minute, he only played one season. what are you doing? But that season is the all-time outlier. And again, he lived up to everything I thought he could be. Not in year one, though.

I didn't predict that for year one. I predicted that he would be good and the team would be better because of it. But no one could have predicted that season. And but I just, yeah, I'm convinced that what we saw last year was, it was not Fools Gold. This was not trickery. This is who this dude is. Now, could they break him in half at some point? God, I hope not.

They got to catch him first. And then, you know, is it possible that the supporting cast isn't, you know, good enough. It wasn't good enough last year, and we saw what he did, but let's just say that, you know, they have one of those terrible injury seasons and they lose Terry and they lose Tunsel and they lose Beaudish and, you know, and the defense, you know, we've seen Patrick Mahomes with injuries not look like Patrick Mahomes, even though they keep getting back to Super Bowls. But I think as long as everything is normal, this guy's just going to get better. and I don't know what he really needs to improve significantly on,

but experience alone and supporting cash should, you know, make the results even better. Oh, here's the other thing with this. You know, people did say, you know, Cliff Kingsbury gets a lot of credit for it. Some even implying he's a Cliff Kingsbury creation. That's just not true, in my opinion. If anything, he's getting Cliff Kingsbury, this next opportunity, which probably comes after this upcoming season to be a head coach again, because nobody was predicting that Cliff Kingsbury would be a head coach again before last year. Now, do I think the fits good? Do I think

Kingsbury's good? I do. But there's a lot that Jaden does that has nothing to do with Kingsbury. You know, the composure, the clutch part, the off schedule. Cliff Kingsbury does not coach him to do what he does once the play breaks down. That's Jaden Daniels. Now, as a passer and the scheme, yeah, he gets a lot of credit for, you know, this season that the offense had. And it's a good fit for Jaden. But somebody asked me, would Ron Rivera, if he had been the coach of the team, would Jaden have had that season? And I said, well, even with Eric B. Enemy, I think he would have had a really good season as a rookie. I don't think you could have held him back in any situation from having a good season,

a good rookie season. Would it have been as good? Maybe not. But there are plenty of offensive coordinators around the league that he would have had a massive season with, not just Cliff. All right. I agree. Anything else on this?

No. You know, we haven't even started training. in camp yet. Oh my God. I mean, do you think, I wonder if he'll take any snaps in the preseason. Last year we saw him, you know, take that chance against the Jets when they told him not to Audible

and threw that pass to Diami Brown. I'm sure he'll play a series or two, but we do not need to see him in the preseason. No. Now, Doc would say got to see everybody in the preseason until you've won the Lombardi. It'll be interesting, actually.

There's your first question when training camp opens. What's the plan for Jaden and the starters in the first preseason game? It's always the question. All right. You've got some stuff on the stadium. We've got a little bit more to cover, and we'll do that right after these words

from a few of our sponsors. Tommy, tell us about Well, I know a lot of you will be heading down to D.C. on July 4th for the fireworks, like Kevin said, maybe getting down there at noon to stake out your place on the mall to watch the fireworks. Well, after you do that, once you've staked out your location, you can leave the wife and the kids behind and head to Shelly's back room. It's just a couple blocks away. Yeah, do that. See how that goes over. Oh, man.

Just give them 20 bucks. Tell them to go get some ice cream at one of the trucks, and then you head to Shelly's for a couple hours. Yeah. You know, have a nice smoke. I mean, you know, they have the best cigars you can possibly buy at Shelley's back room, you know, sit outside, have a nice cold beer from their quality selection of draft beers. I'm a Sierra Nevada guy.

pale ale guy every time I go there. But seriously, if you're looking for a break while you're down on the mall, you know, waiting for the evening festivities, consider Shelley's backroom. It's just a couple blocks off the whole Smithsonian Mall at 1331 F Street Northwest in the district. You can find out more at shelley's backroom.com. The other day when we were doing the show, we had the major storm come through and the power went off. And we had to abruptly end the show, I went back after the power came back and sort of edited the end of the show.

But we were going to talk about the latest on the stadium. Mayor Bowser was on the show earlier this week. You had some thoughts on that. You've also written a column. here recently. So let's do that. Although before we do that, you just said something to me

before we started this segment that the commanders are only holding three open training camp practices for the public, and you think that that's not enough? If I understand it, there's three open to the general public,

then there's three that are by invitation only, maybe the special guests, special customers. and it just seems counterproductive for a team that's trying to win back. It's fan base. It would seem like they would go out of their way to have as many open practices as possible. Their neighbors up the street in Baltimore, the Ravens, have 12 open practice. 12?

Yes. Really? Yes, and they have an autograph session after every practice. It's scheduled autographs session. after every practice. And it just seems, I don't know, you know, I'm going to ask the team this at some point, probably in the next day or two.

Is it a football issue? Is it the coaching staff that doesn't want, you know, to have to deal with the crowds? Is it the logistics of the location? Right. You know, the facility, maybe. You know, they don't want to deal with a hassle of having the big crowds show up, you know,

for more than maybe three or four times. But it just seems to go against the idea that this team, even with the great season they had last year, even with the positive momentum surrounding everything with this team, they still have to sell this team. Okay? People are not lining up around the block to see this team play yet. they have three open to the public training camp practices on the 27th, 29th, and August 2nd. It looks like they already sold them out. I don't know what that means.

I don't know how many people are allowed in. I mean, I could guess. And then they've got three more that will be available to season ticket members. They refer to them as. So, yeah, I don't know what the answers to that are. I mean, you know, do they... It doesn't seem like a good policy unless there's a good reason for it.

And I don't know what that's... Is Baltimore the outlier or is Washington the NFL outlier? I don't know the answer to know. I don't know about the other ones, but, you know, if it's a football issue, if I was the owner, I tell the coach we'll learn to live with it. You know, we're trying to get the stands filled with Washington fans, not Giants fans.

So on Sunday, when your team's playing, you'll hear your hometown fans. If it's a facility issue, figure out a way to deal with it. I think they should open it up to more than just three practices for the general public. All right. Well, you're going to try to dig into what the reasons are. Yes. Yeah. Okay.

So we can chat about that next week. Yeah. All right. What did you write about stadium-wise and what do you? want to talk about. Well, I wrote about with the stadium, what Josh Harris had been through in Philly when he was trying to build an arena for his 76ers team in downtown Philly near the Chinatown neighborhood, that turned into like a lengthy, bitter battle.

Okay, it was a two-year process, and in fact, a year from the time they introduced it to the city council, I think, until it finally was voted on. Okay, so I think that eventually what they did in Philly was, ironically, it finally got approved. The arena finally got approved by the city council, and then a couple weeks later, the team said, well, forget it. We're going to build where we are now in South Philly with Comcast. We're going to partner with Comcast to build a new arena at the sports complex for all the facilities. Why? Well, they got a good deal.

They got a good deal with Comcast. And there's some people, I think, the whole Chinatown area gambit was to try to pressure Comcast to get a good cooperative deal with the 76s. I don't think that's the case. But what happened in Philly, they went through a lot in Philly. There was a lot of public debate, okay? And I know the commanders, because I've been told by people with the team, that they're using what happened in Philly as their experience to try to avoid that here in D.C. So that may be why the team is so jumpy about getting this.

one of the reasons why the team is so jumping about getting this thing approved by city council as quickly as possible. They don't want this to degenerate into a big, lengthy, public debate like what happens in Philly. So that, what happened in Philly is certainly affecting their thinking towards the approach at the RFK site. Wouldn't part of the... I don't think it will. He's not a well-like donor in Philadelphia. No. And the support for what he was trying to do wasn't there from the tax base, from the residents.

It's the opposite here. There's a lot of circumstances, a lot of different circumstances. The mayor up there did not jump on board until a couple of months, until more than a half a year into the process. Okay, Bowser is in from the beginning, Mayor Bauer. So there are different circumstances. The location was a much more hot spot location than the RFK site is. But it left them some scars on them. And I think this is why they want to move on this quickly and avoid it turning into, you know,

there are some opponents that want to put this issue on a ballot in D.C. You know, the T doesn't want that to happen. Oh, God. Yeah. So part of the pressure being put forth is to avoid another Philly scenario. There's another part that will come into play. There's something to call the Community Benefits Agreement. Okay.

And this is basically a payoff. This is money that the team will pay different organizations or community services, how much money is the team going to set aside for community benefits in the project? And silly, they wanted opponents of the stadium, wanted the teams put up as much as $300 million. Okay. And at one point, it was down to $100. What does community benefits mean? It's a fund that goes towards benefiting the community, how?

Well, anything from from youth organizations to things like that I mean aren't they aren't they building as part of this a huge sportsplex? Yes. Yeah.

Yeah. But there'll be a community benefits package with this stadium too. That'll come up with a debate at some point. I don't know how much it'll be. In Philly, they finally settled on $60 million. But then now, I don't think they're paying anything in Philly because they decided to build in an area where there is no community.

There's nothing but stadiums down there pretty much in South Philly. But that will come in the play as well, too. Okay. I mean... I think this is going to get done. I don't think it's going to get done exactly on the timeline that they would like. Yeah, the only thing that I, and I had Mark Eind on the show yesterday and asked him about this, and he does not want to get into the politics of it.

You know, I don't think that they are pleased with the pace of play from the city council. And that's why you keep seeing these quotes about, you know, we're willing to lock ourselves into a room for however long it takes to answer any questions. and get this thing hammered out. The mayor said that to me the other day as well. I mean, when I asked her what the holdup was from the city council standpoint, she said, they won't tell me. You know, one of the things that was explained to me,

and maybe you can help me here, is that because they didn't get the budget on time or when they were supposed to, and the stadium was going to be a part of the budget, that that's what sort of push. back the timeline on this for them. With that said, the term sheet was available to all of them when it was signed back in late April, whether it was going to be a part of the 26th budget or not. You would think that they would have spent a lot of time reviewing the deal, you know, and the details of the deal and picked the spots in which they thought the mayor hadn't

negotiated the best on behalf of the city. But, you know, I'm sure there's a lot of stuff I don't know. And maybe the team doesn't even know. I mean, I think it's kind of disingenuous on everybody's part. I mean, like Mark Iinus is no Bavin Woods. He's dealt with government before city government. He knows how things operate. You know, I don't think this has been a surprise to anyone.

I mean, what I don't understand, to be honest with you, you know, they go into recess in the month of August. Yeah. And I don't really understand why if everything is debated and discussed this month, why they can't come back for a special session. I do think this is worthy of that. So I don't really understand what that's going on. But I start, look, this is a city that,

is talking about closing libraries and cutting back library hours. They just had their credit rating dropped by Moody, and they're going to spend more money on a project than they've ever spent in their life in the lifetime of the city. Now, Mayor Bouser would say that's exactly the reason why you have to do this, because we're about the face of financial crisis, and we need an injection of, you know, a taxpayer injection, a tax base injection.

Right. Something like the stadium would bring. So, but it is sort of like that scene in Animal House where, uh, where Dean warmer closes Delta House and they take the bar and everything seems bad. And then what do they do? They go on a road trip. Okay. That's what this is kind of like.

I mean, the city is in a dire financial situation right now. And yet they're going to spend more money than they ever have on a project. I understand the reasoning, but it is kind of ironic. All right, Mr. ironic. You got anything else? I got nothing else for you, boss, except wish to happy Fourth of July to everybody out there. Happy Fourth of July, everybody. Back on Monday, enjoy the extended weekend.

I'll talk to you Tuesday, Tommy. Okay, boss. All 400,000 of you on this beautiful day. We are proud to present the one and only beach boy.