The Kevin Sheehan Show - "How Stupid Can You Be"

Episode Date: July 12, 2023

Kevin and Thom today on the Don Van Natta/Seth Wickersham ESPN story on how the Jon Gruden email leaks doomed Dan Snyder. As the boys have surmised since late 2021, Snyder's probable self-sabotaging leaks of the Gruden emails to the Wall Street Journal and the NY Times was the beginning of the end for his ownership. The guys reacted to the story blow-by-blow. They also discussed the Commanders' twitter direct message to another twitter account about its name (Washington Redskins) and handle (@washredskinsnfl). The boys talked some MLB All-Star game, followed up on Kevin's conversation yesterday with Jay Gruden, and celebrated Joe Jacoby's presence as an NFL Hall of Fame Senior Committee Semi-finalist.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices 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. Here's Kevin. I'm here. Tommy is here. Let me begin by just suggesting that if you haven't listened to yesterday's podcast with Jay Gruden,

it's definitely worth the listen. Jay's really a good guest. He's excellent. And he's got really good insight, but he's also very good. a very good communicator. He had a lot to say about Duran Payne and John Allen, which is a conversation we've had for a while and a lot to say about the upcoming season, Sam Hal, et cetera. Actually, I think the most interesting part, Tommy, of the conversation, because I played some of it back on radio this morning as well, is just talking about the NFL in this day and age on whether or not

you can win a Super Bowl with just a great defense. and a less than average quarterback in offense. And he believes you can. Now, he started to point back to Trent Dilfer and the Ravens and his brother's Buccaneers team. But his brother's Buccaneers team had Brad Johnson a quarterback. You know. Yeah, and let's point out that's almost a generation.

That's a generation ago. A hundred percent right. And I pointed that out to him. I'm like, that's a long time ago. But he said he's still convinced a dominant defense. And the reason for bringing it up is there is a chance. that Washington's defense could be a dominant defense this upcoming season. And, you know, it was top 10 last year.

What if it took another jump and it became kind of a top fiveish defense? Look, the Jets defense last year was off the charts. And they had a shitty quarterback situation. And after starting seven and four basically lost the rest of their games. And that's why they went out and dealt for, you know, Aaron Rogers. But, you know, when you think about it, I mean, it's almost like the 100-year flood. I mean, the instances where that have happened have not just been dominant defenses. They've been historic defenses.

No doubt. I mean, well, look, the 49ers have had, I wouldn't call it historic here in recent years, but it's been as good as we've seen in a long, long time. And they got close. They had a 10-point lead on the Chiefs in the Super Bowl with Jimmy Garoppolo at quarterback. But I almost think like this is the Kyle Shanahan run scheme outlier that you can be really average at quarterback, but they were dominant as a rush offense. I think you can't be subpar offensively altogether and win a Super Bowl.

I just don't, I think offense wins now in the NFL. Now, I don't know if it wins absent of defense. The league is built that way. Yeah. I don't know if it wins absent of defense overall. I mean, I think you almost have to go back to that Colts team and even the Saints team that won Super Bowls and look at defenses that just weren't that good. Because recently, you know, the Chiefs just won the Super Bowl. That defense was good enough.

the Rams were really good defensively. Tampa was exceptional on defense. I can't remember, like I'm just looking back through here the recent list. I mean, Seattle was dominant defensively. You know, the funny thing about Baltimore Super Bowl win in 2012 over San Francisco is that was not a great Baltimore defense. It was a good Baltimore defense, but they were led by their offense in the postseason. The Giants were obviously outstanding defensively in their two wins over the Patriots. The Saints were not a great defensive team the year they beat the Colts. And the Colts weren't a great defensive team the year they beat the Bears, even though that Colts team was bad defensively for a big part of the year,

but they got Frini and Mathis who were unhealthy back late in that year and in the postseason. and then ended up being really good in the postseason. And wasn't that, didn't they also get the Bob Sanders back? Actually, did they get Sanders back or did they miss Sanders altogether? I think you might be right about that, actually. That's a really good pool on Sanders. He was a big impact player. Oh, major impact player.

But anyway, Jay was great on that conversation because, you know, he coached with Marvin Lewis in Cincinnati, with Andy Dalton at quarterback, and really good defensive teams in Cincinnati. Coach by, by the way, Mike Zimmer, who regardless of what you think of Mike Zimmer as a head coach, has been one of the real outstanding defensive minds in football during his time in football.

But Andy Dalton was an average quarterback. Actually, maybe a little bit better than average those years. He had A.J. Green and Tyler Eifert and Giovanni Bernard. They had some weapons. You know, and I said to Jay, I go, look, you know, no offense, but the Houston teams that basically knocked you guys out of the playoffs on two different occasions, those were teams that had bad offenses with T.J. Yates at quarterback and some of the likes of what they had, but they had dominant defenses, but they couldn't win more than one playoff game.

Anyway, good conversation with Jay Gruden yesterday, and it's worth the listen. I want to mention, as I did yesterday, that we have a new sponsor, the podcast. It is the Circa Resort Casino in Sportsbook out in Vegas. And the Circa is the sports book now out in Las Vegas. It's where our good friends, Tim Murray and the producer of this podcast, Aaron Oster, both work. And the Circa has their Circa Million contest and their Circa Survivor pool. And these are two, you know, incredible contests slash pools that you can be a part of. You know, you, in the circa million, you win a million bucks if you win this pool at the end of the year. It's a thousand dollar entry. You are allowed up to five entries, and you pick five games a week versus the

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So it seems a little complicated, but it really isn't, especially if you're planning a trip to Vegas. I would encourage you to go to the Circa or any of the Circa properties and sign up for the Circa Million or the Circa Survivor Pool, which is your typical survivor pool. You pick, you know, a winner, no point spread each week can only pick the same team once during the year. and the actual winner is going to win $8 million for $1,000 entry. The Circa Million and the Circa Survivor Pool, totally worth it. It's Circusports.com to find out more information. I actually need to take a trip to Vegas.

I haven't been to Vegas in a few years now. You know, I think we got a road trip coming to Circa. We got a lot We got a lot that we're trying to plan here. I mean, the other day you had us on a road trip, you had us on something else that you were trying to put together at the end, and now it's a Vegas trip. Tommy and I and the Sports Fix podcast here

would be up for a sponsored weekend in Vegas to the Circa. By the way, the circle would put us up. We would have no problems with hotel, you know, for a very good rate. We've got Aaron working for the Circa. We got Tim Murray doing a show from the Circa. And now they're a sponsor on the podcast. So we could, the hotel part would be taking care of.

We just got to figure out, you know, the rest of it. We can do that on our own. Well, I figured somebody listening somewhere will step up. I doubt it. So, Tom, there were two interesting. This is, actually, I want to start with this. I watched the first three or so innings of the All-Star game last night. Josiah Gray pitched great, by the way.

And that's when I pretty much turned it off after he went one, two, three, perfect, clean slate in the inning that he pitched. But my God, and I think this was smart, and I think it's been smart by Major League Baseball with these All-Star games. And by the way, the NFL has done it for that stupid Pro Bowl thing that they, you know, used to have. And that is they're micing up, you know, so many different players. but last night, and tell me if you think I'm wrong about this, they miced up Nathan Avaldi, the pitcher for the Rangers, who was pitching. You had a mic'd-up pitcher while he was pitching. It's not uncommon to have conversations with outfielders

as they're just standing around waiting that maybe something will happen on a given pitch and have a conversation or with a first baseman. But I don't think I had ever seen a pitcher miced up. Did you watch this? Yes, I watched all nine innings of the game, by the way. They also had miced up Josh Hader as well. I miss that. And I don't like that.

I don't like them micing up the pitchers. I don't mind them micing up the outfielder. Why? And I get it, you know, because I like the pitchers to concentrate. I agree. I agree with that. I don't like my pitcher to be worried about a voice inside his head. He has enough voices inside his head, telling him what to throw or what not to throw.

So I don't particularly like that, but, you know, it's an exhibition game. And, you know, Fox is paying a lot of money, and you kind of hand it over to the TV people. And, you know, they try to get creative with it. I don't like it, but I certainly understand it. It's not that big of a deal to me because it is an exhibition game. But you know, the one thing about baseball, as opposed to the other sports, is for some reason, it's a game that even when that's going on, the players seem to take seriously in the moment.

You know, what Craig Kimball in the ninth inning with two runners on and two outs. He was feeling the pressure, okay? The National League had won since 2012, and we're ahead three to two, and he was having a problem getting guys out. You could tell he was feeling the pressure. So maybe it's the nature of the sport that allows you to be able to step into a moment of pressure and then step away from it, you know, and relax. But I think that's still why it's the best of all the All-Star games,

because it has the appearance of credibility while it's going on. It was a good game through all nine innings. Well, bless your heart for hanging in there for nine innings of the All-Star game. I mean, I remember there was a time when I would do that. That time has passed. But with respect to micing up the pitcher, I totally agree with you that it was distracting to the pitcher. You could tell. Like, he did it, and it's something that they want to do, and it provides more entertainment for sure for the viewer.

But you could tell that, you know, the last thing I think he really wanted, given that these players, and I agree with you also, sorry I'm agreeing with you a lot today, but I think that when they get there, it's like they want to play well. I mean, it's an All-Star game. They don't want to be the guy that gives up two home runs. They don't want to be the guy that has an error. They don't want to be the guy that strikes out twice and they're two at bats with all of their superstar contemporaries in the game with them. And you could tell he was distracted still.

as a viewer, it was fascinating. And when he faced, he faced Carol, he faced the kid from Arizona that came up at one point. And the batter, he was miced up too. So the two of them, pitcher and batter and broadcasters are all having a conversation as, you know, as we're going through a pitch in an attempt at a hit. he grounded out, by the way, hard. He ripped one down the first baseline, but right to, I think it was Freddie Freeman who was there on first base. And that ended the inning.

Yeah, Freddie Freeman was that first. Yeah. I think that was it. Yeah, that was it. That was probably it. And anyway, I thought that that was interesting and made it an interesting watch for a few winnings. You know, I'm so tired of David Ortiz, too. I'm so over him.

He's such a big blowheart. He really is. Yeah. I'm not a big fan. You know, Jim Palmer? Jim Palmer at one time last night. Because, again, we'll get to this in a minute. He says, might Fox tell us who Perdomo plays for?

Just walked. Wait, what? Jim Palmer wasn't. He wasn't on the broadcast. What are you talking about? No, he tweeted this. Oh. Jim Palmer tweeted

Like Fox tell us Uperdamo plays for Just walked Okay Which speaks to the uniforms Because They wear these stupid Why aren't they wearing their team

Why don't they wear their team's uniforms Anymore? I don't understand that They could sell these Somehow and make some money But they really caught a lot of grief for it last night Oh well they were They were so bland

I mean, I guess they were the Mariners' team colors, right? Is that what they went for? Or I don't know. That's what it seemed like to me. The National League, their pants look like the kind of pants you'd buy in an Army-Navy store. They're unbelievable. They look like cork pants. But here's what Jim Palmer also tweeted.

And do I have to listen to David Ortiz anymore? Oh, really? Wow. I mean, you know, A-Rod looks like a car salesman. You know, David Ortiz is just so impressed with everything he says. I've really, I mean, I have no use for the Fox crew. Yeah. Except for Kenny Rosenthal.

Who is doing play-by-play for them? He's good. Why am I blanking? Is it Bernhard? Or Kevin Burkehart? No, Joe Davis. Joe Davis is good. He's very good

He's the guy that replaced Joe Buck When Joe Buck went with Aitman to Monday Night Football And I'm a little tired of John Smoltz But I can live with John Smoltz Is good though Tommy during these playoff games I always think Smoltz is great You don't?

I think Darling is better I like the TBS crew I think Joe Davis is good I'm looking up Joe Davis Because he is a young dude But it was a good broadcast overall, and it was 35 years old. It was, well. Oh, okay, yeah, it is pretty young for broadcasting.

And I like you, I was glad to see Josiah Gray get through his inning, one, two, three, a nice clean inning. You don't know when he'll be back there again. And you're right. You don't want to have that all-star memory be a nightmare for you. I mean, on baseball reference.com, when they list your career records, there's a separate entry for All-Star Parents. There really is? Yes. So you don't want that to be like a 6.22 ERA for your one time in the game.

You know, so I was happy for him. So Joe Davis replaced Joe Buck as the number one, not the number one guy in Fox, but the number one guy. but the number one guy, the number one baseball guy on Fox, because he called the World Series games, he called the All-Star games, and he called one of the NFL divisional playoff games in the playoffs. The other guy I've noticed recently, and I can't remember where I just watched him,

it could have been, it could have been, oh, I know where. I was watching a rerun of an NFL network. NFL game from last year is Ion Eagle's son, Noah Eagle, who is very good as well. He's 25 years old, and he's calling NFL games. And I think right now, yeah, he did some Big Ten network, does some NBC stuff. He's excellent, too. I think Joe Davis does a good job. I think he's good.

But Ortiz bothers me too. Like enough of him. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I guess I mentioned the All-Star game because, you know, tonight is the quietest night on the sports calendar of the year. You know, we've talked about this particular night for many years now. This is the one night.

I think it's the one night. There may be another one at some point. But it's the one night that we know every year is not. not going to include at least one major league baseball game, one NFL game, one NHL game, one NBA game, one college football game, one college basketball game. You know, the six most watched, you know, sports, the four major pro sports, and then among, you know, the college sports that are most watched. And usually, you know, Andy Poland, our good friend Andy, you know, once said about, you know, somebody who said, hey, you know, I could do that in talking about, you know, sports talk radio and Andy's answer was, well, anybody can do one show, but trying to try to do the show on the day after the All-Star game when there's nothing going on. But we got some things going on.

We had a story from Don Vanatta this morning, which was very interesting and had a lot of new information. new information on Dan Snyder and the Gruden emails. We also had, and I mentioned this to you before we started to record, and you already knew about it and had already talked about it apparently on social media, but we had a site that resembled a Washington football team team site, get a note from the team. and that generated a big response. So we will get to those things and a lot more right after these words from a few of our sponsors.

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By the way, that reminds me of a story that I'm going to tell in the final segment of the show today. It's not a story that I'm going to tell. It's a story that I'm going to read that was written by Pat 40, long time, you know, writer for various outlets, Tommy. You can probably name them, but he's been writing for Sports Illustrated here recently. And he had all of the information on this incident that happened in college baseball betting back in April, which led to the firing of Alabama's baseball coach. And it's an all-time story of stupidity. But this segment will focus on Dan Snyder's stupidity, because there's always plenty of that to go around.

So Don Van Nata and Seth Wickersham wrote a story today titled, He was Free and Clear how the leak of John Gruden's email led to the fall of commander's owner Dan Snyder, which, by the way, I won't break our arms patting ourselves on the back, but it's something that Tommy and I together have been talking about for well over, a year, if not longer, and that is Snyder, you know, I've referred to it as Snyder's self-sabotage, you know, essentially, this is what he does, he boomerangs himself. Like he just, and he just never sees it coming because he's incapable of thinking strategically. And we've talked about how the Gruden emails, whoever leaked it, and there's a lot of evidence that Dan Snyder was

certainly a likely leaker of many of these emails, that it got him. This, you know, I always use your line and credit you, you know, the passage of time would have undone him anyway. The passage of time never benefits Snyder, and he would have done something else stupid. But the thing had died down. He was as this title describes, he was free and clear. And so the story basically goes through how these Gruden emails, which were leaked first to the Wall Street Journal in October of 2021, and then a few days later to the New York Times, basically undid Snyder. Snyder was, you know, the Beth Wilkinson investigation had died down, the punishment,

no matter how, you know, insignificant it was and no matter how stupid he was to protest it, was, you know, had died down for the most part. And this is what got Congress to open up their investigation, which led to Tiffany Johnston, Jason Friedman, and everything else, eventually culminating in another investigation, which was the Mary Joe White investigation, which we still don't have the reports, and really pushed the league to do what they had always wanted to do, and that was to run Dan and force him to sell. And he did it to himself.

Again, let me emphasize, eventually he was going to do something. something again that would have been stupid. But this was for the moment what resurrected the push to get them out. You're right. I mean, it really was. Everything you said, I agree with 100% in that, you know, this was what generated the congressional interest. This is what the NFL emails broadened the scope of it to include the league which gave the congressional

committee a chance to create this bigger picture that they were looking into a league-wide problem when they were really actually going after Dan Snyder. Yeah. But their entree was that there's a league problem. There's a problem

in the NFL now. That's what the emails gave them an entree to do, to broaden the scope of what they caught, what they were going to have hearings about, and, you know, to more legitimize what they, what they would do. So you're right. I mean, without the email leaks, again, I've always thought that Snyder, you know, the aura of self-destruction, but for now, he's out of it. You know, he's still in charge.

There's no Josh Harris. There's none of this right now. Yeah, I mean, and that's essentially what Van Nata and Seth Wickersham report is that, you know, without this, Dan Snyder would still likely be the owner of the team. So there are a couple of the, I thought there was a lot of new in this story, you know, things that we didn't know. First of all, let me just tell you that, like, the overarching, you know, theme to this story is, who leaked the emails? Was it the league? Because they had incentive to do it.

And we'll get into that. Was it DeMora Smith, the head of the NFLPA? Well, he was coming up for a vote. He had incentive to do it. Or was it Dan Snyder or somebody close to Dan Snyder? Because there's clearly circumstantial evidence that Snyder would have been, maybe not circumstantial evidence, but there was certainly enough out there that indicates,

that Snyder had the motivation to do it as well. And, you know, again, regardless of who leaked it, and that's a big part of this story, the bottom line is, without the leaks, Snyder's probably still the owner because you don't get what you got, which was the congressional investigation and inquiry, which led to that roundtable in February of 2022, which produced Jason Friedman and Tiffany Johnston, and ultimately led to the Mary Joe White investigation. and finally the league had had enough and Dan had enough and everybody had enough and Dan decided to sell the team.

But I wanted to start with, there's a section of the story titled Dictating His Punishment. And I found this particular section to be revealing because I don't think we knew a lot about this. And just so incredible when it comes to, you know, the way Dan behaved. when he was backed into a corner. And I'm just going to read from this particular section. In June of 2021, Dan Snyder's legal team and select league executives gathered at NFL headquarters in Manhattan.

In survival mode, Snyder's team of lawyers prepared a defense against the findings from attorney Beth Wilkinson's investigation into the franchise. The previous summer, he had hired Wilkinson to look into the team, a move to keep the league office at arm's distance, but the league quickly had assumed control of Wilkinson's inquiry and quietly struck in accord with Snyder's team, something called, we know about this, a common interest agreement that the owner in the league would share all evidence and material collected and that neither the NFL nor Snyder would release any information from the inquiry without the other's consent. Although it appeared to owners and executives that the league and Snyder had worked

together to minimize the investigation's impact. Palpable tension existed. In league circles, Goodell appeared to be growing weary of Snyder. During the pandemic, it became a running joke among some owners and executives that when Snyder spoke on video conference calls, Gidell looked irritated or distracted. But now Snyder moved beyond simply annoying the league office to causing serious problems. When Snyder's lawyers, famed defense attorney Joe Tachapina, who by the way, Tommy, correct me if I'm wrong, but he's represented Trump before, assisted by Reed Smith partners, Jordan C. Versaev, and James McCarroll, they began to show a series of slides. Those in the room were stunned, according to sources. What was presented was not a defense against.

any of the Wilkinson's, Wilkinson findings made against Snyder. It was a series of screenshots of potentially embarrassing emails and texts from several top league executives, including Goodell's top lieutenant, Jeff Pash, you know, a counsel to the league and Goodell's right-hand man. The rationale, according to a source with first-hand knowledge, was to argue the hypocrisy of league officials judging Snyder. The tactics were so ruthless that some attorneys felt uncomfortable, although none of the content was sexist, anti-gay, or graphic. The signal was clear.

If Goodell didn't do what Snyder wanted in terms of handling the Wilkinson report and punishment, these emails in texts would be leaked. it became known in league circles as the quote blackmail PowerPoint closed quote and so keep in mind June of 2021 the Wilkinson report is done now it's about discussing what sort of direction Goodell is going to take in the aftermath of this now they have this common interest agreement which has led a lot of people to believe, well, that thing was never coming out, which may be true. But this allowed this blackmail PowerPoint from Snyder and Snyder's attorneys clearly spooked the league enough, according to Van Nata and Wickersham, that they basically, as our good friend Jim Zorn would say,

complied because league executives and others involved in the case were angry, with Snyder's tactics. But by late that month, late June, Snyder was basically, according to this story, dictating his punishment down to every detail, according to a source with knowledge of the deliberations. Legal sources said that Snyder and his lawyers were consulted by NFL executives

in the drafting of the news release, with Snyder weighing in on word choices. It was an atypical and collaborative processes compared with the way the league typically meets out punishment, notably in the one-sided judgments after Bounty Gate and Deflate Gate. Snyder and his team were pleased with the results, later bragging that the discipline was surprisingly late. As we know from that time period, we know that the team was fine, $10 million, and that Dan agreed to allow Tanya to step in as the acting CEO.

But recall from that time period, there was no discussion ever of a suspension of Snyder. And people like Tom, I never got a call, but others in the market got calls from, do you remember, by the way, which attorney called you? No, I don't. Tom got a call and others got calls from Snyder's attorneys saying, just so you know, and to be clear, Dan wasn't suspended. The team was. Dan wasn't fined. The team was. And Dan was not suspended. And remember, my takeaway and yours as well from that moment was just how fucking stupid. is he? Like, he should be begging for a strict and severe punishment. So it looks like this was

taken seriously and that there was teeth to the punishment. And that, you know, by doing that, people weren't going to really question and push for the actual report to be released. Now, I'm not saying that, you know, the Lisa Banks clients and all of the various people, some of whom I've had on the show, weren't going to continue to push, but there wasn't going to be, if he was actually punished, if he could actually read the room and take accountability, it would have actually accelerated this going away, which it eventually did anyway by the time we got to the fall of 2021. But he, because of these emails and the threat to Goodell and the exposure of these emails to the league, was able to dictate the punishment.

It was funny, I had Don Van Nata on the show this morning, Tommy, and he said, I'm surprised people haven't taken away. The biggest takeaway was Dan actually was involved in writing the press release. And I said to him, I said, you know, the press release was actually the one thing that had some teeth in it. Because Goodell actually really did in that press release, and I could pull it up here, but I'll paraphrase. he talked about how the culture was very toxic and how there was harassment and how it was a toxic workplace. And remember, he used the word bullying multiple times. I still think that if you were to ask all of them what the real result of the Wilkinson investigation was,

it was that Dan was just a, you know, a tyrant and a bully and treated people very poorly, which we had always heard about, you know, his style of management. the bottom line is Tommy we never saw the Wilkinson investigation because Snyder with this threat with this PowerPoint threat ensured that we were never going to see it and we'll probably never see it no I mean I think that ship sailed a while back now it's funny because I but now yeah go ahead but you would think once he was out of the picture maybe somebody who has information from that investigation would leak it, because I'm sure there's more than two or three people that have the knowledge and details of that investigation,

but they would risk, you know, a breach of, you know, a breaking of their agreement, since they had this agreement, that one would not release the information without approval from the other. they would surely be sued. Well, also remember, there was that report that the junkies had, that Jason had from the junkies, that he had somebody tell him that part of Beth Wilkinson's recommendations was to force Dan Snyder to sell the team. Now, you know, all due respect to the junkies, and Jason is a friend of mine, and I like Jason a lot. he also had the Brian Davis stuff, you know, about Brian Davis being a legitimate buyer, potential buyer of the team. But I actually do believe what they had back then.

I do believe that Beth Wilkinson, part of her recommendations were that Dan sell the team or Dan be voted out, one or the other. However, that Dan not continue to own the team. Yeah. Because I think that Beth Wilkinson reports much more damning. This is a guess. I think it's much more damning than the Mary Joe White investigation. Well, it's much bigger in scope. True.

Although we don't know how Mary Joe White broadened the scope. Right. Will we know that? Goodell has never backed off that the report will be released. I asked Van Nat, I said, could some of the, remember all the stuff about indemnification and Snyder was trying to get indemnified by the league before he agreed to sell the team. I wonder if some of that indemnification has to do with any, well, we've always suggested

it might have something to do with Mary Jo White. But whether it has to do with Wilkinson report in the future or if it has to do with, because I think that section that I just read was to me really entertaining for our purposes. You know, there were other parts to it, including the fact that John Gruden's not giving up on this thing. He's pushing forward. He wants to know who leaked this stuff and who, you know, basically came after him. And whether or not it was coming after him or he was just potentially collateral damage to Dan going after Bruce Allen. Because we've surmised that the reason, look, there, and Dan Van Van,

added in Wickersham do a great job. One of the things you learn from reading this story is that, you know, they circle back to the Andrew Beaton story, which, you know, I remember the day that you said when these leaked emails came out and said, Andrew Beaton, that's the guy that wrote the embarrassing puff piece on Snyder a few months ago. And it's like, let's connect the dots here. Who leaked this stuff to Andrew Beaten at the Wall Street Journal? Yeah.

And remember, Will Missilebrook, who they had just hired, as I forget what his title was, some kind of media. Chief Creative Marketing, Chief Creative Officer, Chief Creative Officer. He worked for Dow Jones. Yeah. He worked for the Wall Street Journal Company. And let's not forget that they were working with Rock Nation at that point, JZ's PR company. And there were significant, you know, ties to the New York Times and leaking. stuff to the New York Times, which was the second batch of emails that got linked. But, you know, Van

Adda does a good job of basically, you know, saying, look, Demora Smith almost admitted that he was potentially one of the leakers of some of these emails. Because in the moment, people thought, if they could make Demora Smith into a sympathetic figure, then he would be voted, you know, as the president of the NFLPA again, because the voting for that was going on simultaneously. and he was in trouble of losing that vote. He eventually barely won the vote. The league, one of the things you learn is just this antagonistic relationship between Goodell and Gruden.

I didn't know it was that antagonistic. Gruden hated Goodell, and Goodell hated Gruden. And so there was some potential incentive there by the league. But for Dan, he had the relationship with the Wall Street Journal. He had the relationship with the New York Times. By the way, the fact that this was leaked to the journal in the Times and not the Washington Post is also another clear indication that it could have been Snyder. The fact that none of these emails that were leaked made Dan look bad was another reason to think that Dan leaked these emails. Because none of these emails had anything to do with Dan.

They all had to do with Bruden and also making Bruce look like the bad guy. You know, so all of that kind of added up to, in this story written by Van Nata, this investigative piece written by Van Nata and Wickersham, as Dan was certainly motivated to leak these emails. Keep in mind, as we know, there was always this attempt to make Bruce look like the problem, that the toxic workplace was Bruce, even though we pointed out and have pointed out for several years now, going back to the initial reports. Dan, most of these allegations were pre-Brus even getting here, you dummy?

Yes. But, you know, this has always been their mode, like they don't think about those things, or they just figure we're all too stupid, you know, too stupid to do the calendar math on all of this. But it's a really good story with a lot of interesting stuff. And I know a lot of you are saying, hey, it's going to be over here in a week and a half. Who cares? It's July 12th. This was another really good piece.

And I still care about this. I would like to see how this Gruden case, Gruden's holding the league right now by the you know what's because apparently there's something referred to as Pash's, as in Jeff Pash's stash or something like that. Maybe I'm, it's such a long story. I took notes here and I can't find. but there's just a lot of Pash's black box it's called.

And so there's a lot of stuff in there, apparently on Pash and others, that the league would not like to see part of discovery. They want this Gruden case. The NFL is hoping to, the NFL, and they've lost so far at every step of the way, is trying to get this put into arbitration, where it'll be kept secret as opposed to the court. room where the discovery documents will be made public. Yeah.

So anyway. There's so much interesting in this. I mean, nothing to do with the commanders, but the animosity between the Raiders and the League from the Al Davis Day still goes on. Oh, yeah. The Raiders still are still convinced. They get screwed over by the league all the time. No doubt.

And they have reason to believe that. I think that the one section detailing like the Gruden-Gedell thing, and I'm looking for it right now because that's a perfect segue into this, because I totally agree with you. I thought that stuff was riveting to read. Here it is. Gruden's enemies list. This is one section of this story, as in John Gruden.

Gruden had his reasons to believe Gidel in the league office. had it out for him. The reasons were planted by Al Davis who taught Gruden to hate the NFL office from the moment he hired the coach in 1998. Eight years, by the way, before Gadel became commissioner, because Tagliabu was commissioner at that point. Davis often told Gruden that the executives at 345 Park Avenue played favorites, classic Raiders paranoia. But it also stemmed from Davis suing the league for antitrust violations. You know, they get into the whole Pete Roselle stuff, etc. John L. Way, you know, they had a trade for John Elway in the league. you know, refuse to let that trade go through, whatever.

But after becoming one of the game's best and most celebrated coaches, Gruden saw examples that the old man was right. He talks about the tuck rule game, you know, the Patriots game, and the Raiders being screwed in that one. He had never heard of the tuck rule before that night. But this is the part that I thought was interesting. Gruden, in calling Monday Night Football from the booth, started to get frustrated with a lot of the referee calls, you know,

and the legislation of the physical part out of the game. And his frustration came to a boil during a December 2011 Monday night game between the Falcons and the Saints. Atlanta linebacker Curtis Lofton delivered a helmet-to-helmet hit on receiver Marcus Colston over the middle and was flagged for unnecessary roughness. To a national TV audience, Gruden stated his displeasure with the call. I just don't understand how games are being officiated, Gruden said.

Gruden's commentary earned him a call from the league's Park Avenue headquarters. Over the phone, Goodell asked Gruden to come to the league office to meet with John Madden and Jeff Fisher. The purpose, as the commissioner explained, was for Gruden to get a lesson on player safety. Gruden told Goodell, you got to be fucking kidding me. No, I'm sorry, you got to be shitting me is what's written. Gruden thought it was a joke. He said, he needed a player safety lesson from Madden and Fisher, two coaches whose players delivered some of the ugliest hits in NFL history.

I mean, it's so true, right? Madden and the Raiders of the 70s and Fisher with, you know, the, the hits and the, I mean, Gruden later told friends he felt that Goodell was treating him like a stooge who had never coached in the league. Like I don't study football day in and day out. Gruden never went to the league office for that meeting. And the only time he ever met Gidell was years later. He went to the league office to promote a youth football clinic, one of Gruden's passions. He expected to sit down with Goodell and plan a way to increase participation rates. Instead, Gruden met with an assistant of the commissioner. At the end of the session,

Goodell entered a conference room, thanked Gruden for coming and left. Gruden fumed after the brief meeting, and he never spoke with Goodell again. I thought that was pretty funny, though, Madden and Fisher. Like, John Gruden knows enough about NFL history. Yeah, yeah, I mean, George Atkins Jack Tatum. A defensive, George Axon,

who played defensive back for the Raiders. Chuck Knoll, the Steelers coach, basically called him a criminal, and George Atkinson wound up suing him in court for it. The Raiders were a motorcycle gang back then. By the way, Gruden got fined for some pandemic,

COVID-19 violations. The Raiders did. And Gruden, And Gruden got fined, the team got fined $350,000. Gruden got fined $150,000, I think it was. And Mark Davis, the owner of the Raiders, offered to pay Gruden's $150,000 fine. But the league insisted Gruden pay it personally. Livid, Gruden appealed the fines, but ended up writing the checks.

After he did, his friend Sean Payton, then the Saints coach, who had also, also been fine for COVID-19 violations, called him and laughed, saying to Gruden, quote, I never paid the fine. Other coaches refused to pay. You're the only dumb motherfucker that paid the fine. There's just some really good stuff in this story. But I'll tell you. Yeah. Here's one particular line. It's just in the middle of it. You know? In quiet moments, Gruden had designs on one day becoming commissioner. Commissioner.

Yeah. Right. These guys are all crazy. All of them. By the way, how about Gruden basically begging Andrew Beaton not to write the story and saying it was going to destroy lives? Well, I've been on the end of that before. I know what that's funny. Yeah, I bet you do.

and beaten basically saying, sorry, this is the tip of the iceberg. Yeah. Sorry, Danny told me to. Yeah. There's other stuff in here on Snyder, just about how the, you know, oh, this is my, this is my favorite. Gruden's legal team went as far as to research prior work by the reporters who received the leaks and found what it saw as favorable stories previously written by. written about Dan and Tanya Snyder and Rock Nation, JZ's PR firm.

The New York Times, Rossman, I think her name was Catherine Rossman, who was in on the piece with Ken Belson about the leaked emails, wrote a piece in February 2020 about Rock Nation's partnership with the NFL. The journals beaten wrote in June of 2021, which we were talking about before, and we talked about many times in the past, about Dan and Tanya Snyder's efforts to reform the team's culture, including a rare on the Rick. record interview with Dan Snyder, which we spent an entire show talking about how this guy clearly was embarrassing the Wall Street Journal with this story. But here's a quote and follow-up to this paragraph of, you know, all these favorable stories written about the team in Snyder and the Times and in the Wall Street Journal. A source close to Snyder, who was aware of all of these previous stories done by reporters said, quote, how stupid can you be? They left a trail in the dirt, closed quotes. I mean, and that's what we've been saying for a year. Like, it's so obvious that this was you.

And it's so obvious that this is what caused you to sell the team. Like you just could never, for somebody who people have told me is so innately bright and intelligent, and I'm not disputing that. You know, there can be innate intelligence. It doesn't mean you're smart all the time. He did so many stupid things, and this was near the top of the list. I still think firing Marty was at the top of the list. But this was, this got him. One other part that is absolutely hilarious.

when Gruden was trying to figure out why Snyder had it in for him. He knew that Snyder hated Bruce Allen and all that stuff. Here's the exchange part. Gruden thought back to an exchange with Snyder years earlier when he had bumped into Snyder at a restaurant. Gruden believed Snyder was drunk, and he and Gruden started playfully trash-talking

with Snyder calling Gruden fat and Gruden saying he might dribble his head into the asphalt. Right, but both men laughed, but Gruden wondered if Snyder had taken offense. Of course he took offense. Of course he did. I mean, because, you know, it's not only is it, you know, like, I'll kick your ass, it's I'll kick your short little ass because I can just dribble your head into the asphalt,

you short person, which might be the root cause of all of this. Yeah. You know, look, Snyder thought that, ironically, in this piece sort of points this out, that believe it or not, the leaked emails might help Goodell in his desire to see Gruden take a big hit. But it's also clear because this is what we dealt with, you know, during these last several years is that Dan, thought that this would make Bruce look like the guy that was behind the whole toxic workplace. You know, this is what was going through his mind during this period is how do I pin all of this on Bruce? This wasn't me. I didn't, I'm not wrong. This was Bruce's fault. And as we've said for years, for Dan, that's been a big part of the problem is it's always been somebody else's fault. And in

trying to prove that it was somebody else's fault. He lost his team. Something else would have happened. And I still believe that the family had been pushing for this. And certainly in recent years, really was pushing for this for him to sell the team. But this thing was dead at the time. Do you know, I don't know where I read this after I saw this story this morning. So forgive me if I'm reading somebody's tweet that I can't remember whose tweet I'm reading.

But somebody who had some of the women on apparently had asked, you know, one of these women, you know, with Elisa Banks, et cetera, victims and alleged victims. And I've had some of them on the show as well over the last few years. Had asked, you know, at the, you know, a couple of months removed from the Wilkinson investigation if they thought the whole thing was over. and they said they did. You know, so even the people that were continuing, you know, kind of hashtag release the report, they all thought it was over. You know why? Because it was.

That part of the Dan Snyder, you know, issues was over. And it wasn't going to cost him his team. Even though Van Nata told me this morning, by the way, Tommy at the end, he said, one thing that is that's very clear and it's been clear to us for for a long period of time but really you know when you talk to owners and people in the league they are just so so happy that Snyder is on his way out that this guy has just been such a problem for them and they are so excited to see Josh Harris and the new group come in you know a week from tomorrow uh you know is when the vote will be taken. Yeah, be interesting if somebody like Mark Davis just said, no, I'm not voting for him. I want Dan to stay.

Let's get to the other thing that was an interesting story related to the team, not having anything to do with football, but with the way the organization behaves. We'll get to that right after these words from a few of our sponsors. All right, Tommy, tell us about Shelley's. You know, Shelly's backroom obviously has a well-earned reputation as being one of the premier cigar bars in the country. Yeah. Its reputation is coast to coast.

And that is because, you know, we have a lot of outsiders who come to Washington to do business. And they wind up going to shelley's, you know, after their business is done. And they bring the word back to home, saying whenever you go to Washington, make sure you stop the Shelly's. Now, that, you know, they get that reputation for a lot of reasons, including their great selection of cigars. But what really is underrated is the remarkable selection of drinks that they have at Shelly's. You know, I'm not a whiskey guy. Are you a whiskey guy? I don't mind whiskey, no. I don't mind it at all. Yeah, I don't mind it, but I don't go out of my way to drink it.

Shelly's has over 100 different types of whiskey. But they got some good Jameson. Yeah. I don't know anything about whiskey that much. I know Johnny Walker is a big name. They have Johnny Walker blue. They have black. They have double black. They have gold. They have green. They have Johnny Walker King George Platinum. I imagine Johnny Walker platinum is pretty good. What do you think? Well, of course it's pretty good. But I'm not a, I'm not a hard liquor expert in any way, shape, or form. I'm not a cigar expert. I don't even, I drink beer, I drink

hard liquor, I drink wine. I'm not an expert in any of these areas, but I don't need to be if I'm at Shelly's because they got the experts there to help you out. Exactly. That's exactly right. Irish whiskey. They've got Jamison, Jameson, Jameson, Gold. They've got Bushmills. I mean, they've got Crown Royal, Crown Royal Reserve. It's just, it's so much more. And I've got, and I've got, told you about the food already. The food is, it's like, it's a, it's like a five-tool player in baseball. Right. That's what Shelly's is, you know? I mean, they've got it all. Shelly's Backroom 1331 F Street, Northwest in the district. You can find out more by going to shelley's backroom.com. I will tell you this, I was given a gift at Christmas last year. And it was Whistlepig, whiskey and it was phenomenal.

Phenomenal. And I looked up what the price was and it was pretty damn expensive. But that was a very kind gift. Don't forget to rate us and review us whenever you have a chance. Follow us as well, especially on Spotify and on Apple Podcasts.

The follow button for apples in the upper right-hand corner for Spotify, it's down the left side. But man, Tommy, lots of five-star reviews, ratings and reviews to catch up on here. This one, I'm almost embarrassed to admit the impact you guys have had on my life. Five stars from Church 76. Kevin, Tom, you were literally almost considered family in my house.

I grew up in Fairfax, I went to Robinson High School, and was beaten by a field goal in the state semis by a freshman from Pulaski named Shane Graham, we remember him. Kevin, I've listened to you since the Rigo show and have continued to follow your career and have benefited from your shows exponentially. Tom, your laugh is magnetic and has brought a smile to my face numerous times.

I just recently inherited my family's beach house in Manasquan and have relocated. Kevin, I was blown away when you mentioned the Parker House in Spring Lake. Life is crazy. Thank you both. Sorry it took me so long to review, but I am retired and completely selfish. Ha ha, ha. Keep it going, guys. Yeah, my brother-in-law lives in Manuskwan.

And all of my in-laws were in that, you know, Monmouth County, Spring Lake, Belmar, Avon, all of those areas up there, which I've spent lots of time in those areas over the years and love that part of Jersey, which Tommy is further north from where you're going, which is Wildwood. and where you typically go. But thank you for that, Church 76. That means a lot, and a lot of you sent some really good ones. Let me just pull up another one. Five stars, as usual, from Sean. Can't wait for you guys to come back from a much-deserved vacation to hear some stories about it in the first segment

to go along with the normal first segment banter, as usual, love the show. Oh, this from Lucas, from Laplace. later. Kevin, I'm not sure if it was ever brought up again, but did you end up getting ACL surgery for your pup? Love the show. Yes. In fact, when I got back last week, the following morning after I got back on Thursday, was taking my beautiful dog in for, it's actually CCL surgery. It's not the, it's not called the ACL in a dog, but it's the same thing. And she had surgery. And, I will tell you, it's been a lot of work at home the last few days, Tommy.

Because, you know, you have to, you know, constantly, you know, lots of meds and lots of, you know, starting rehab, lots of compresses, cold, hot, lots of bandage, you know, watching. And you have to keep her in an area where she can't run, jump, and jump. So we had to cordon off this one area in the house. And she has to wear the end of the cone so that she doesn't go after the stitches. And you can tell she's not very happy with us. Dogs are smart. Like when we picked her up from this thing, she just was not happy with us at all that we put her through that. But she's doing much better now.

And it's just, I'll tell you, man, these, I love dogs. but I kind of understand the people that don't do pets because they end up being incredibly time-consuming. I mean, all for the right reasons. It's a financial and personal commitment. It is. And Bulldogs and Lainey, my English bulldog, they are known for having issues, health and other. and we didn't know that actually when we purchased her, but it's funny, and I'll just tell this story real quickly.

A really good friend of mine, she, from high school, she's a big-time vet and a rehab vet in the area. And I called her initially just to say, what do you think we should do? And she said, what kind of dog do you have? And I said, an English bulldog. And she just said, oh, Kevin, that was the response. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, I know.

And she's like, you're just in for it. They're the greatest dogs, but they just have lots of issues over the course of their life. And anyway, long story short, because she's only three and a half, this was like a necessary surgery. If she had been nine or ten, we probably wouldn't have done it. Okay. Enough on my dog. This was from Tom and Central PA. I rarely watch or listen to sports anymore since the demise of the Redskins, but I enjoy listening to Kevin.

and Tom, always entertaining. P.S. liked your take on the Carson Wentz bear hunt picture. I'm not a fan of grip and grins shared with the public, but as a hunter myself, it was good to hear a common sense take on it. Thank you very much. Write us, rate us and review us on Apple and Spotify in particular. It's very helpful. So let's get to this thing that you saw, I guess, yesterday. And it was from a Twitter account titled Washington Redskins, a blue check Twitter account, which means they purchased. It's a purchased blue check account. The handle is at Wash Redskins NFL.

And it's a fan site that had, as of last night, about 1,000 followers. And it's been, you know, it's a site that reads, you know, Hail to the Redskins, and it's a fan site, and they do a lot of, you know, old videos of, you know, big wins. And this person, whoever it is, is a fan of the team. So this person sent out and tweeted out a note that they got from the team, all right, via direct message. And they wrote, hey, guys, the commanders want me to change my name. What do you think? meaning change the name of their Twitter account,

which again looks kind of official Washington Redskins, although that's not their team name anymore, I think, at Wash Redskins NFL. And the team wrote to them and said the following, quote, we love your enthusiasm for our team history and your account and all the throwback highlights you've been churning out.

Really awesome stuff. And the fans have been loving it. We wanted to reach out, though, to ask you to add something to your, Twitter names so it doesn't appear solely as Washington Redskins, i.e. adding unofficial or fan in order to avoid fans thinking your account is an official account of ours. If you'd rather talk about this further offline, we're happy to as well. Just let us know where we, where and how we can reach out. So that was the team reaching out to this site that looks kind of like a team site, but there are a lot of

sites that look like team sites, no offense to this guy. And the team reached out to suggest, I think nicely, that he had like unofficial or fan account so that it was distinguished from the team's Twitter account. This guy now has approaching 6,000 followers and I think approaching like 3 million views to this actual account. There's a new account up. Have you seen this? This is why I couldn't find it, Tommy.

Let's go through the rest of this, and then I'll update the situation because maybe, just maybe, he complied. But anyway, what was your reaction to seeing this? Well, I saw this. Somebody sent it to me, be a direct messenger you're on Twitter. And I retweeted

a screenshot of it with a comment at the top this team is exhausting. What I meant by that was, and my position on this would be, it's a very nice message. They weren't mean.

Right. They didn't seem like they were trying to strong arm him in any way, shape, or form. And they may have a point. But why do that? this. Right.

Why? Yes. You know, why poke the bear? Now, the name has become a huge source of debate again. The old name, not the new name. The old name now, Redskins, has become a big source of debate on social media between the fans who, and there's a lot of them, you know. It may make you angry, but there's a lot of people who don't think the name should have

been changed, you know? So you have basically fired up the debate about the old name again and reminded everybody and once again how stupid the new name is. Just let this way. Yes. It's not like he couldn't have been reaping rewards from this thing. It's not like he was robbing the team blind. Right?

Of course. This is exactly, this was. So this is a rare. show for the two of us. We are agreeing way too much. When I saw this, the first thing I thought of was what are you doing? I said the same thing. Let let sleeping dogs lie. Like wait till you're nine and three in November and then go after this guy. With a new owner. Yeah, with a new owner. Now look, it's very possible that the new ownership told them to do this for all we know. Or it's

very possible that somebody within the organization is trying to impress new ownership by doing this, because maybe this is something Josh Harris' teams have done in Philly or New Jersey. I doubt it too. The transition team of Josh Harris has this on the list.

But to your point, first of all, I had two sort of parallel thoughts. one was, oh God, if I were in that meeting to discuss whether or not to do this, I would have said absolutely not. And I would have used your, you know, your expression. The juice just ain't worth the squeeze, guys. The team's being sold next week.

Like, this is not going to generate a great reaction. It doesn't matter how nice you present it. Like, everything we tweet out from the account, it's more negative in response than positive, even when we're saying something nice about a good player. So I would have not done this. I would have suggested, no, we can't do this. And if like legal people said, yeah, but we got to protect this. Like we actually still own this trademark and it can be confusing. And what if these people decided to put out something racist or something horrible and people thought it was us?

Then we're battling, you know, that at that moment. And I'm like, well, look at it. This guy's just a big fan. I mean, it doesn't look like he's going to do anything. And look, there, I understand. they have the right and they should be trying to protect. By the way, it's interesting that they're trying to protect the old name, but they still have that marked. But what they're really trying to protect is that anybody gets confused with this account with their own. By the way, your point about bringing up the old name again didn't actually immediately come to mind for me. I was thinking more about if you can read the room. At this point, you have to be able to read the room. Please, you're going to look at. like no matter how nice you put this that you are trying to bully this guy off of Twitter. And I love the way they wrote it.

Like it was very non-threatening, you know? Now, look, there's an implication here that we'd really like you to do this. And maybe the next step might be lawyers. I mean, I would read it that way if I was him. But they didn't really, they weren't bullying. They weren't antagonistic, you know. And they have the right to protect these things. I understand that concern, but it's like, you know, right now, no, no, because I can predict what the reaction's going to be.

The reaction's going to be more negative than positive about leave this guy the fuck alone. And to you, boy, we're dropping a lot of F bombs on the show today, or I am. This show is probably going to be not designated as clean. but we were quoting before. That was not a quote. I just wouldn't have done it now. I agree with you. Like, what can possibly happen between, let the new guy to handle this stuff?

Yeah. Once the new guy's in. Yeah. And I can tell you the reaction I got to my tweet on social, on Twitter, and also I posted it on Facebook. Yeah. It ignited a debate between the fans that would like them to still be called Redskins and the fans who think it's racist.

Oh, God. Okay? So the debate started all over again. No, it's a great point. I read, look, I did read like the first 25 or so because I wanted, because I knew it was going to be more, you know, anti-team than anti-this guy. this guy was trying to get some attention, which worked. Okay, it worked. He, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he had, as of this morning when I was doing the radio show, and I can't find it anymore, two point two million views and thousands of, of, of responses to this, which by the way, is, exactly the proof that the advice to the team to let this just slide for right now is the reaction

it got. Like, stop. You don't need people to be anti you right now. And they're going to be. I can predict this. So we agree on this. Now, again, again, I understand the team's position, and I'm sure they're lawyers. Yes, I do as well. But here's the other point, Tommy. I do 100%. Here's the other point. You're going to chase down all these sites? Do you know how many Twitter accounts there are with the team's name in it? The current name, the old name, the WTF. Notre Dame, and I know this because, you know, I am kind of a closet Notre Dame fan,

there are so many Twitter handles. And I would assume the same for the Cowboys and for the Yankees and for the Lakers. and there are so many Twitter accounts that you can easily get confused, look like sort of team accounts that don't say, you know, fan accounts. So what are you going to do? Chase down all of them? Look, this one does look like, you know, a T. I could see how some people get confused.

And Denton, my producer, made a really good point. He said, maybe it's the blue check that got them to go after this one a little bit because it really looks official with the blue check, even though they paid for it. Maybe that's true. But here's an update to the story. And I just realized this as we got into this. Go to at Wash Redskins NFL now. The old Twitter account taken down.

A new one joined July of 2023 because the old one was joined in 2010. This one just joined this morning. Washington Redskins, no blue check mark. At Wash Redskins NFL. Hail to the Redskins. hail victory. So this person took down the blue check and opened up a new site. And maybe that was the agreement with the team.

Maybe he got something for taking the blue check off of it. Are you seeing this? Yeah. I'm looking at it. Yeah, he just opened it up. 54 followers now, not 6,000. and that tweet from yesterday is not up. The first two tweets are 70 Chip, Rigo, fourth, and one,

and the NFC championship game that preceded it a week earlier, the Dexter Manly Tip and the Daryl Grant touchdown, which are two glorious moments. Okay. Somebody, you won out there in Ashburn? Well, they got what you wanted. Well, they kind of did. If it was just the blue check that was bothering them,

He still has it titled Washington Redskins. Yeah. Yeah, they got what they wanted, but they paid a price for it. I mean, I don't know. I mean, it should be numb to that by now. I guess. Really? I mean, it should be actually numb to being hated, you know,

numb to being criticized. It's just, that's a day that ends with a why for this organization until July 20th. it's well what you tweeted out it is exhausting it's exhausting you know what else is exhausting as part of this is just the constant people i just this is this has become a real um a real thing for me i don't understand why and i know so many of you are out there in your daily lives preaching tolerance you know tolerance and open thought. And you just want to shut down everybody that feels attached to the old name. Stop it. It's the way they feel. I feel that way. Now, it doesn't preclude me from also thinking that the top priority for Josh Harris should be getting in like a really good general manager

and football person to start winning. Like you can do more than one thing at a time, but this lecturing on people who still are attached to the name is, I mean, I am totally fine with you not having an issue with the new name or being removed from the old name and being fine with that. But my God, this is an emotional attachment for a lifetime. This is a real deal for the majority of people that have cared at what. one time or another about this team. And this ownership group knows it. I don't know what they'll be able to do about it, but they are sensitive to it. Now, we're going to know a week from today, not a week from today, but a day or two after

they are voted and the thing closes, et cetera, and the money's wired. Because there's going to be, I would assume, I would hope, an introductory presser with Josh Harris, don't you think? I would think so. I wonder if Magic Johnson will be there. I would think that you would want him there if you're Josh Harris. I wonder if Mitchell Rails, who's been described as kind of reclusive and private, would be there. But yeah, I would think that there'd have to be some kind of introductory press conference.

Absolutely. Yeah, and there will be a lot of questions. I mean, Jason Wright's going to be part of that conversation, for sure. You know, one of the things I forget, if you and I talked about this, I think we did talk about this. the other day, just the report that Jason writes coming back. We never talked about that. Okay, I did in the show on Friday. If you want to talk about it real quickly, I mean,

I kind of viewed it as something that just didn't seem permanent. I just viewed it as, okay, whatever, this is hardly permanent. They're just taking their time. You pointed this out numerous times, and you're right. Most fans don't even know who their team president is. No, but I'd like to get back to those days. That would be nice. Right.

And it's an issue here, and it will continue to be an issue as long as he's in that job. And I would just think that if I was a fan, I would think this is just until he finds a way to ease himself out. Yeah, I mean, there's, look, I said the other day, and I'll say it with you, I, there's a lot we don't know, okay? know what these people out there do every day. What we do know is what is public facing. You know, we know about the Sean Taylor disaster of his retirement, you know, of his Jersey retirement weekend. You know, we know about the team name and the, you know, the less than enthusiastic, you know, rollout and execution of the new name and branding, you know, along with the messed up, you know, crest, which, you know, I think I was a big part of getting changed to something that turned

in to be the right crest. I mean, things like what you reported on, you know, the cruise thing and the debacle there and, you know, the raffle checks being bounced and all of these things that have been public facing. The team website, the Take Command website that had all the spelling errors and all the dates that were, just the sloppiness of everything that they've, you know, done, I'm talking about the new group that we see, but there's a lot that we don't see. And the bottom line is the timing of the takeover of this franchise just isn't conducive to, you know, coming in and cleaning house. You just can't do that at the end of July when you were three weeks away, seven days away from training camp and two and a half a weeks,

or three weeks away from a preseason game. You know, you're going to take your time. And I made this point too, Tommy. And I think it's, relevant. The first thing you're not going to do is fire the first ever black team president in NFL history. It's not going to be your first move. Now, they may learn that Jason Wright offers a lot. And, you know, the HR department is a beacon in business and companies from all over the globe are coming to see what they did with their HR department, which is what he is suggested in the past. There may be some really good, you know, salespeople and market. people and business people in the organization.

I mean, we may find that there's a lot we don't know about the great job that we've done. That's why it's hard for me to get to where you got, which is he's got to go. But what I do think is happening and what Howard's told us many times, this is a group that's not going to do what Dan did, which is be impulsive. They're not going to come in and just start shooting everybody. They're going to take their time. They're going to figure this thing out. And if you believe what I think is to be true, which is they've had no access,

the league hasn't allowed it and won't allow it until they actually are owners of the team. I want them to take their time on this stuff and get it right. Anyway. It's a full plate of stuff here, boss. You know, I don't like to eat so much in the summer. It is for the quietest day on the sports calendar. That is, I mean, we got presented with a buffet with some real high-end meat. I mean, we got fillet, we got Chateaubriand, we got some good stuff up here.

All right, what else you got? Anything? Oh, I was going to do this thing about Pat 40's story, but I'll save that for next time. Okay, one last thing. The Pro Football Hall Fame made their announcement about semifinalists for senior committee selections, and Joe Chalby and Larry Brown are semi-finalists on the seniors list. I didn't see that. I'm so happy. And coaches and contributors, both Mike Shanahan and Marty Schottenheimer, are on that list as well.

As they should be. That's good news. Because I do think that Jake's eventually going to get in via the senior route. It might be this year. You know, if that happens, then we have to have a road trip to campus. But I would love to do that because I've never been to camp. Who else is on that list? You said Larry Brown's on that list. Larry Browns, I just looked at the ones from the Washington team.

Right. That's awesome. We're not talking about Dallas's Larry Brown, right? No, I don't think so. Okay. The DB? No, I don't think so. We're not talking about that.

He had a Super Bowl touchdown. didn't he have a Super Bowl touchdown for the Cowboys against the Steelers? I don't think he was MVP of the league. No, he was not MVP of the league. But wasn't he the Super Bowl MVP? Maybe not. Who was that Super Bowl? Look, I'm going to assume that reasonable people put Larry Brown the running back on that list.

I would like to think that it's that Larry Brown, too. Is B. Mitch on the list? I didn't see him. Is Ken Anderson on the list? He's the one that I always... Ken Anderson is... Ken Anderson is on the list. Yeah.

Carl Banks, Rady Gratashar, Joe Chicovy, Billy White Shoes Johnson, Jim Marshall, Otis Taylor's on the list. Otis Taylor. We thought he was in the Hall of Fame. Well, you did. I didn't. Well, you knew.

You're an expert on the Chiefs. And I'm being serious about those 60s and 70s Chiefs teams. All right, we're done for the day. Tommy's done for the week. He'll be back with me on Tuesday. I'll be back tomorrow.