The Kevin Sheehan Show - Kevin's Dream Pick At #7

Episode Date: February 27, 2026

Kevin with Thom playing hurt today but somehow they managed a complete menu of excellence. The show opened with some WTEM-980 olden times stories including the day that a Christopher Walken admission about Natalie Wood's death went viral. Then it was Jayden Daniels talk time. Did Jayden's major drop in 2025 to a 44.7 QBR reflect a regression in play? Plenty of discussion on that. Also, NFLPA report cards, the Commanders hosting in London, more 4-pt FG talk, Mayweather-Pacquiao II, and Kevin finished up with his dream pick for Washington at #7 overall in the NFL Draft.   For all your football betting needs: DCRELOAD at MyBookie for a 50% Deposit Match Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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

As always, Window Nation. 86690 Nation, windownation.com. If you need new windows. Tommy is still not feeling well, but I got to give it to you, man. You show up for work. You think you're going to make it? Well, you know something? Here's the fact.

Okay. Got to get all spolcy or anything. But I like doing this podcast. I know you do. So, of course, I'm going to show up for work. It's not work. You know? So I like doing the podcast.

But, yeah, I mean, I'm in probably a two-week, the fifth day of a two-week stretch of a real debilitating cold, the fifth day. If I didn't like having you on this podcast twice a week, and sometimes less, sometimes more, then I wouldn't have called you. I would have given you the day off, but I actually think there's some character here

that is involved in your showing up. And, you know, that's pretty rare for somebody who lives on Laverro Island all by himself. So I'm glad to have been able to attract you today to the podcast. I think this might make you feel better. This might be, you know, soup for your soul, a show for your soul.

Wow, listen to you. Well, you're really dishing it out here. I'll tell you what, that couple of week period, right around the holidays, it was rough. I was hitting that cough button on radio every 10 seconds, and it was not pleasant. But you know what? I've been sleeping in a recliner every night because if I lay down, I wind up coughing more. How loud are you snoring sitting up in that recliner? I can only imagine.

I don't snore as loud. as I used to. Uh-huh. Really? I don't store that loud anymore, yeah. What, what's, I mean, what about the drooling? What does the drooling look like? Has Liz described the, the mess you make?

I'm awake. Oh, you only drool when you're awake. That's why you carry around that drool bucket with you. Yes. Yeah. You know, your generation, my generation, we show up for work. That's what we do. Now, do you know that, you know, I've learned so much here over the last.

couple of years, post-pandemic in particular, just, you know, with the younger generation, the 20-somethings, the 30-somethings, and, you know, when they're, you know, applying for a job or when they're, you know, deciding on offers, on compensation offers between companies, if they're so lucky. And, you know, remote working is a thing now. Like, this was never a thing pre-pandemic, and it certainly wasn't a thing. Had there been a pandemic 30 or 40 years ago, it probably wouldn't have been a thing post-pandemic. But, you know, basically remote working or a hybrid of remote in office or office or like the three different options and remote working is considered to be pretty attractive to most workers.

And, you know, they'll take the job if the compensation is equal, the one that lets you work from anywhere. you know, remotely. And I just find that I'm sure it is not a big limiter in a lot of businesses, but I would, I just think face to face and being around people is important in work, especially when you're young. I think so. I think so. There's a lot of things that are formed in a work environment when you're young.

I know, look, like I said before, there's no place better than a newspaper newsroom, you know, to really learn things and enjoy what you do and feel the passion of it. But I haven't worked in a newsroom in, you know, 30 years. I mean, once I came to sports, you know, and started covering sports, and, you know, they give you a laptop and then you go out and cover events. You don't really work in a newsroom anymore. But the first 15 years in my life, every day was in a newsroom.

You know, I was an editor or a reporter. I went to the office. You know, I went out to these stories, but I came back to the office of these stories. But, yeah, I would agree with you that when you're young, the workplace atmosphere is something that they're missing out on. Well, there's a level of communication that you have both professionally and socially, that you don't get if you're not face to face. I mean, look, I essentially, you know, met my wife at work. A lot of people that happens.

I mean, I knew her actually before we started to work together. But in terms of us beginning to date, it was when we were working together. I would bet you that a third of all marriages are people that work together at some point. Maybe that's high. Maybe it's a quarter. I don't know. but it's how to, you know, then again, the numbers say younger people aren't dating as much. They're not marrying as much.

They're certainly not having children as much. But yeah, I mean, look, you're right about your situation. And my situation has mirrored yours here in recent years because when the pandemic started, if you recall, I found this studio that I was in because I didn't want to do. the show from home. A lot of the guys were doing the shows from home. And I didn't want to do the show from home. I wanted to get, I wanted to leave the house, get out of the house. You know, we had a dog that back then that barked all the time. And I wanted to leave and get out and, you know, have something approaching normal. And when I build out the studio that I'm in right now, I've remained here. And I mean,

look, it's part of one of those shared office deals. Um, and, and, And, you know, there are people in here that I've gotten to know that are, you know, have office space here that do other things. But I don't work with anybody, you know, here that that is part of the radio station. The radio station is down in southeast, you know, in Navy Yard next to the ballpark. I don't go in there. And I haven't since the radio station got bought by, you know, at that time it was entercom. Now it's Odyssey. And I don't go in there.

I come into my own studio. I do the radio show. I do three hours of radio every day. Then we do the podcast afterwards. And the interaction and the face-to-face, I miss that. Now, what we had at 9-80 was pretty special and pretty cool. Yes, it was. Don't you think?

Yes. Absolutely it was. I mean, look, we're there with Doc. You know, we're there with Dave. We're there with Coach, you know, Coach Thompson. Tony Kornhiker, Tony's in there. You were never in when Tony was in, or you came in as he was leaving. But yeah, we had Tony, we had coach.

We had Doc and Brian and Cooley and you and me and Zabe and Scott and Andy and C.J. and Jackson and, you know, the whole group. And it really was, I know we've talked about this before, but it really was a borderline fraternity house at times. I mean, the bullpen was, I mean, Stern used to say this all the time, Mark Stern. He said, this is like we could potentially pitch this to HBO, you know, and he even came up with the name. It was off mic, because what happened outside of our studio was very often much better than what happened inside the studio. And I do, I miss those days. You mentioned Stern. I miss Stern.

He's the best. I talk to him every once in a while, and we got together just after the holidays. David Aldridge, Torrey, all of the Tony show people. We all got together.

Of course, Tony wasn't there. Of course he wasn't. But everybody else was there, so I saw Mark then, and he and I, we stay in touch. We talk every once in a while. I don't know why this popped into my head.

I mean, he did so many characters, but the one character he used to do that I thought was hilarious, and he would do it for Doc and coach and Al, the 900 gambling guy. Johnny something or another, I forget what the name was. That was so good. He was so good at that.

So good. And it popped into my head recently, and I missed that. Well, I mean, of course, he became. And I mean, not everybody knew that it wasn't Christopher Walken joining us during football season. But Mark did an unbelievable. He did great impersonations in general, but he did a great Christopher Walken. And I don't know how we came up with this, but we had him on, we had Christopher Walken on the show every Friday during football season, making fantasy football picks. And he was phenomenal.

and he, you know, he acted as if he was a Redskins fan. So he had all the Redskins matchups and the whole thing, and he was always driving the Winnebago to the next game, whether it was Road or at home. And then, of course, this is something you can still find on, you know, if you can Google it, you can find it on the Internet. He came on and did that bit once where I asked him, there was like some news out there about Natalie Wood.

Natalie Wood, you know, famously, you know, died in like a boat accident. What, Tommy, early 80s, mid-80s, something like that? Something like that. With Dennis Wilson from the Beach Boys and some other. I thought it was Robert Wagner. And Christopher Walker. Was Dennis Wilson? I bet he, wow, because he ended up dying too at a pretty young age.

Yeah. Anyway, he came on and in the Christopher Walken voice said, as if he was a little bit tipsy, said, and I'm going to mangle this, but I'll do my best. But he essentially said, you know, that night there was a lot of Zambuca, there was a lot of shouting, and then tragedy. And, you know, the particulars around her death have never really been solved. In fact, you know, nobody, right, for Natalie Wood? And sorry, I'm forgetting the AP writer that, um... Joe, Joseph. Joe White.

Joe White. Joe White. Bless his whole. Bless his heart. Yeah, start, yeah. Joe White was listening to the show. And he thought it was really Christopher Walken. And he wrote an associated press story saying that Christopher Walken was on a radio show

in Washington, D.C. on the team 980 or ESPN 980 and said the following about Natalie Woods death. Zambucaa, lots of shouting, tragedy. I'm pretty sure that was it or something resembling that. And it went viral. We had every major network calling the radio station, CNN, Fox, MSNBC, NBC, CBS, ABC, they're all calling.

to find out what Christopher Walken said. Could they get the recording? Could they get the tape? Could they get a number for walking? Could they talk to the producer? Could they talk to Tommy? Could they talk to me about it? And Chuck, who was the program director, had to tell everybody, yeah, that's just a dude

that does an impersonation of Christopher Walken. That was not Christopher Walken. And, you know, I missed all that. I was away. Oh, you were? I was on a Wyoming. Ah. When that happened.

Here it is. I just found it. I just found the, I found the story, Paul Farhey from the post. That was unbelievable. Christopher Walken impression on DC Radio gets connected to Natalie Wood case. I mean,

by the way, I just put you, all you got to do is put it Natalie Wood, Christopher Walkin and ESPN 980 and all the stories from them. I mean, here's one from the Hollywood reporter. It was November 18th. 2011.

On Friday, news report saying that Christopher Walkin had called into a Washington, D.C. sports radio station, ESPN 980, to comment on the case of actress Natalie Woods' 1981 death being reopened, quickly went viral.

And then they write, only he didn't. The station is aired a weekly segment with Wauken. Let's see if we can find the actual quote anywhere. Like if there's a story, Associated Press duped by Christopher Walker. Christopher Walking Impersonator who fooled

the Associated Press. Poor Joe. Poor Joe, because he's such a good guy. He got completely fooled. Can't write that story. You can't? Why? Because you have to, you have to confirm it. Yeah, you got to check it out. Yeah.

Yeah. Let's see. I don't see, I'm looking for the Zambuga. Zambuca. shouting and tragedy or whatever the quote was. And it looks like almost everything I'm reading is the follow-up to it. I don't know if I can find the original Associated Press story. But yeah, that was, I mean, it's all over.

It went completely viral as much as it could in 2011. Crazy. But anyway, what started this part of the conversation was remote working. So many people do it. I just looked it up. It's like 18% of the workforce now works remotely. I don't know what it was pre-pandemic. But, yeah.

And basically, I work remotely. You work remotely. A lot of people work remotely. I mean, I could do... It's okay. I think it's a comfortable thing when you banked years of experience. But if you do it when you're young, you are missing out. I think so.

I definitely think so. Yeah. Oh, here's the line. I found it. Here it was. Christopher Walken, this is from the Atlantic, from November 18th, 2011. Christopher Walken says he went to bed on a yacht. He was on with actress Natalie Wood and Robert Wagner 30 years ago and awoke to learn that she died. Walkin tells Washington, D.C. Sports Talk radio station ESPN 980 on Friday that there was drinking and she, shouting on the boat and then there was tragedy.

I almost had it right. I had it mostly right. Yeah. Oh my God. That was hysterical. That was a lot of fun those days. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. I think my best and most fondest memories honestly is coach Thompson because there he was

every single day when you and I walked out of the studio in the bullpen waiting to walk in sometimes very angry at me for something I'd said and we would sit there and we would talk and we would argue and he'd miss the first 10 minutes of his show you know Doc and Al or Doc and Brian would be in there just waiting for him

he was really something else you know what a That's one of the gift. That was a gift. And it's just... You have known him like we did. It's ironic because I just hated Georgetown so much as a young person.

Because I was a Maryland fan. So... All right. Got this from Stan. Stan writes, Kevin. The four-point field goal would make it even more exciting because teams would go for two points. when they're up to.

Well, yeah, I get it, but yes, the team that scores up to would be going for two to try to make it a four-point lead, and then if they miss, they're only up two so they could lose to a field goal. So what Stan is talking about is we talked about these rule changes in the UFL. It's the Spring League, which I guess starts here shortly. They have added a four-point field goal, one of the three rules changes. The other two, by the way, are the tush push is banned.

And you also are not allowed to punt when you go, when you go into the other team's territory. So when you cross the 50-yard line, you can't punt. But four-point field goals for 60-yard field goals or longer is the rule. And Stan, you know, finishes it off by saying, I love this rule the NFL should consider. No, they shouldn't stand. they absolutely shouldn't.

I'm not giving a field goal kicker another point for a longer field goal. You know, I was thinking about this after reading Stan's thing even more than we talked about it the other day. The kicker, Tommy, in today's NFL, has outgrown the length of the football field. and I think what should be considered here, rather than seeing these ridiculously long field goals, is I think they should move the goalposts back another 10 yards. They don't need to extend the end zone another 10 yards, but you just move the actual fuel goal, you know,

post and uprights back another 10 yards. You're not making the field an extra, 20 yards longer. You're just putting the post with the uprights. You're moving it back another 10 yards. The game is now, it's too easy to score. The challenge of scoring this past season because of the new kickoff rules, if you've got Brandon Aubrey as your kicker in Dallas, if you start at the 35-yard line, you're literally barely more than a first down away. from field goal range. You know, once you get to the 50, you're 15 yards away

and not every first down goes 10 yards. So if you make a first down and it's 15 yards in total, you're in field goal range. I want that field goal starting soon to be a 77-yard field goal. Move the goalposts back 10 yards. You know what? They did that. Remember the goalpost used to be at the goal line before 1974.

I think 73 was the last season. And they moved him back from the goal. line because people were getting hurt. Remember, you had those collisions with the goal post. Yeah. Because it was at the goal line. I remember that.

Giving another point for a fuel goal, the longer fuel goal is, now you're going to try to start going backwards on offense. Like I said the other day, you'll take you'll take intentional, you know, delay a game penalties on third and long, you know,

on fourth and long to get into four point range with kickers, and then the other team will decline it. The whole thing seems absurd. I mean... I don't want to see field goal kickers have more power. Exactly. Yeah, I don't want that. And I want...

It's funny because I think the whole going for a fourth down and not taking the three points has gotten out of hand. Right. But on the other hand, I don't like fuel goals. You know, I don't like the game coming down to a little guy in a foot with his foot. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you know,

it's so funny because you and a lot of people, and even I felt the same way at times, it's like, kick the field goal already for crying out loud, three points or three points. Like it's fourth and five. You know, the other team's 15-yard line and you're going for it

over and over again. Take the points. And by the way, in the Super Bowl, Mike McDonald did over and over again because he knew his defense. was good enough to stop the other team. Yeah. No thank you for a four-point fuel goal. Yeah.

I really am surprised, super surprised that the NFL is not, that there's no new proposal to vote on for the Tush push. I can't believe that we're going to have the Tush Push be a legal play again next year. I honestly cannot believe that. It just makes no sense to me at all. I mean, we were in week, two, week three of this past season, and the momentum was so, so strong and overwhelming, I thought they might vote on banning it mid-season. Well, obviously, the people who want to ban it don't feel they have the votes. Yeah. They feel they don't have the vote. It seemed like as the season went on this year, that there was a lot of.

I read the results the other day. Basically, the number of attempts went up, the number of successful attempts dropped a little bit. The bottom line is I think as the season went on, people saw a couple of big stops, and they're like, all right, the defense is figuring it out. We don't have to worry about it anymore. I don't know about that.

By the way, speaking of just the NFL and news, I don't know if you guys saw this, but the NFL last year, Troy Vincent, who is the VP of Operations, senior VP of Operations for the league. Troy Vincent famously for our team blocked a field goal against the Cowboys in 2006 that Sean Taylor picked up, ran around, got face masked. They ended up having Nick Novak on an untimed final play of the game kick a field goal to beat the Cowboys in one of the wildest Cowboy Redskin games ever.

But Troy Vincent's been in this spot for a while, and he released some information yesterday that ended up backfiring to a certain degree. He talked about how there were 171 replay reviews or replay assists last year in total during the 282 regular season 17-week or 17-game season. And that only five of them would they like to have back. So essentially saying they got them right 166 at 171 times. But what was interesting is of the five that they didn't get right, four of them were during games in the 1 p.m. Eastern window.

And he said that he believes that the, you know, 80% of the mistakes made were in the 1 p.m. window. It was because there were more games during that window. To which the likes of Sean Payton and Mike Rable said, wait a minute here. You're telling us that there's a better chance of a mistake in the 1 p.m. window

than the 4 p.m. window or the standalones on Sunday night, Monday night, Thursday night. And apparently there is because they're not staffed well enough. When you have a standalone game, they got everything ready to roll. They got more than one person in charge.

There's no excuse for that. None. For the NFL. their credibility should be the most important thing. I mean, you know, they have to defend their credibility constantly. So in order to do that, you don't want to skimp on staff, you know, when it comes to determining the credibility of the league. I mean, that's mind-boggling.

I mean, do the math with like an extra two people per game in the one, you know, in the 1 p.m. window, it's nothing. I mean, both Rable and Sean Peyton said, these are issues. We can't allow this. Peyton said we should never have a work shortage in replay. He said, now, fortunately, I'm in Denver. I get to play mostly 4 p.m. games. But that really is absurd.

We didn't do a show yesterday. I didn't do a show yesterday. and so have not talked on the podcast yet about the international game. Washington's going to play in London next year. We knew they were going to play an international game. And as the announcements kept coming, it was becoming more and more likely that it was going to be a London game. They'll play at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London. Almost all the London games previously have been in the month of October.

this will be the third international game for Washington in the regular season. They played Cincinnati 10 years ago in the 2016 season. That was the famous Dustin Hopkins missed a short field goal in overtime to win the game. And they ended up tying the game. It felt like a loss because they had played so well offensively. And then, of course, they played in Madrid last year. In both those two games, they were the road team. They're the host team in this game.

So it'll probably be in October. They'll be the host team, which means they lose a home game. They'll play eight home games instead of nine. And I think I have narrowed down their home game list to three potential opponents. And, you know, I'll go through sort of the deductive reasoning here, if you care about this, you probably don't. Dallas is already playing in an international game, so it won't be Dallas. Typically, it's not a division team anyway.

Very few examples of these international games being division matchups. There is one this year because the Rams and the 49ers play in Melbourne. So I don't think it'll be a division matchup. So that knocks off the Giants and Eagles, as well as the Cowboys for sure. The other home opponents they have, they have the Rams at home, but the Rams are playing in an international game already. So I've crossed them off the list. They have the Falcons on their schedule. The Falcons played against the Indianapolis Colts, who are also on Washington's home schedule,

in an international game last year in Munich. So are they going to play two straight ears? Washington did. It's possible it could be into your Atlanta. But I crossed them off the list, leaving three teams, Cincinnati, Houston, and Seattle, the defending world champions. Out of the nine opponents, I think that the London opponent will come from that list. Now, somebody tweeted me and said, you said that it was obvious that there were going to be two West Coast teams that played in Melbourne, and you were right. what makes you think that the league will make Seattle go to London in the other direction?

Well, West Coast teams have played in Europe many times, including last year when the Broncos and Rams both played in London. The flight from Seattle to London, I look this up, Tommy, is nine hours in 40 minutes. The flight from just say D.C. to Melbourne is 22 hours. So there's a big difference in travel. So it could be Seattle, I think Seattle, Houston, or Cincinnati in the international game. It was at this point last year, or shortly thereafter, when we found out that they were going to play in Madrid, where we swore to each other we were going to that game. We did not go to that game.

And let's be honest, I'm glad we didn't go to the game because they sucked by the time they got to Madrid to play the dolphins. I mean, it would have been a fun trip. The momentum of enthusiasm for that game leaned as each game went on this season. Yes. But this game, more likely than not, would be in October at some point. So maybe two, three, maybe even four weeks earlier, it could be. And so what's that mean for you? I don't know.

Anything? I don't know. Should we just say we're going to go again? No. No, let's not see. I'll tell you what. I'm going to say this. I'm not going unless you pay all my expenses. Well, I think I could do that because it would be, you know, an expense that we could write off as part of the podcast.

My issue and the reason, and I don't know if I really belly ached about this as much, I know I did to you. I don't think I did it on the show. But the reason I didn't go is because the radio station didn't want anybody to go. and they weren't paying for anybody to go. And if I had gone, I had to be back Monday to do the show. They were actually upset with somebody who did go and didn't get back until Tuesday or Wednesday of the following week. And that was their concern because during football season, it's important that you're there doing the show on the day after a game.

And so they weren't picking up any of the expense, associated with it and I just I could tell that they weren't necessarily enthused at the idea of me doing it for the podcast and that meant I would have had to leave on Friday anyway after the radio show so yeah yeah so

that doesn't sound like it would have been fun well maybe it would have been fun maybe it would have been I think once we were there it would have been fun probably yeah um Okay. The Indy Combines going on. Wow, that's so exciting. I have a question about Jaden Daniels based on something that was tweeted to me today.

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86690 Nation window nation.com. So I saw this. Somebody tweeted me the following and then they showed me what Chris Russell did on radio today. And I don't blame Chris for doing this because these are good topics this time a year to drive a lot of callers. But ESPN discussed that Jaden Daniels' QBR dropped from 67.7 in 2024 to 44.4.4.7 in 2025, which would have ranked 23rd in the league had he actually played enough to qualify.

It prompts the question Chris wrote, and then he took calls. on it, I'm assuming, was 2025 an outlier, or was it 2024? Now, again, I'm not knocking Chris. You come up with, you take some of that stuff and there was an article, I guess, written about, you know, QBR's and a Jaden's dropping. But all you have to read from that report is that he didn't play enough to even qualify for a statistical QBR, number. He played in four games, people. Start to finish. I can't tell you how many people

have said to me since the season ended. Well, it was clearly a season in which the quarterback regressed. He wasn't anywhere near as good as you thought he was going to be. I mean, there was an obvious regression. No, there wasn't. The regression was in the number of games he played from 20 in 2024, which is a pretty large sample size for an NFL season and is only possible if you play in three playoff games, which he did, versus the four complete games that he played in in 2025. Why Tommy is this even a thing to discuss Jaden Daniels regressing? I don't, it's totally... I don't get it either. It doesn't make any sense.

It's not like, look, he wasn't as sharp, obviously as he was in certain games, but he wasn't... He had talent that had come off the street that he was throwing to. Okay? It's not like he was throwing interceptions left and right. He had eight touchdowns and three interceptions, you know? I mean, I had Dan Quinn on the show two weeks ago, I think,

something like that. And I said to him, I go, look, I know you guys don't use injuries as an excuse, but those of us that have observed football for any, you know, reasonable amount of time, know that they are a reality. They're not, you know, an excuse. And you guys were the most injured team in the league, especially when it came to your best players. How do you evaluate, you know, players this season? And he said, I'm glad you put it that way, because it does make very hard. And then he got into this whole thing about, you know, reviewing, really evaluating more why the injuries happened. You know, he's not, I promise you people, I promise you that no one out in Ashburn is looking at Jaden's QBR and saying, man, just wasn't the same guy that he was in

2024. Just wasn't anywhere near the same guy. Wow, what a regression was not expecting that. No one is saying that out there. Nobody is. What they're saying is impossible to evaluate Jaden's season because he barely played, didn't even play enough for the 44.7 QBR to be statistically viable. You have to play a certain number of games or snaps. And when he did play, he didn't have the people that he needed to have around him

to elevate him not only on offense, but on defense. And here's the other thing, too. Let's think about this, though, for a minute, okay? When he was good in 2024, he had, except for Terry, but chlorine, he had average talent, okay? Austin Echler is a good back, but he's an average back. Okay, uh, Noah Brown, you know, it's just a receiver. That's all. No, it's like what he was really good.

we talked about, boy, if he had better talent, how much better he'd be. And then the next year, he doesn't even have that mid-level talent. No. He's down near the bottom. So even the talent that we didn't think was good in the first place, he didn't even have that to throw to. No, and he didn't even have that to throw to. I mean, I also think that those that say, well, Kevin, there were, you know, you've said it,

he played in four games, start to finish. And he didn't play very well. Really? The four games that he played start to finish. The Giants game, the Green Bay game, which he did not play healthy, start to finish. The Chargers game and the Bears game. All right? Those were the four.

The Giant game is week one. He was fine in that game. You know, he threw for 233 a touchdown, no picks. He rushed for 68 yards in that game. They handled the Giants. his QBR was 50.5. His rating was almost 100. The Green Bay game was not only rough for him,

it was rough for everybody. I mean, they had no chance at the line of scrimmage in that game. The Chargers game, after he got hurt in the Green Bay game and missed, you know, a game or two, he was outstanding. After those first two drives, he was outstanding in that game. I mean, they beat a really good defensive football team 27 to 10.

And he looked like Jaden Daniels in that game. He looked like Jaden Daniels in the Chicago game until the fumble at the end. He threw one bad ball in the first half, but he was 19 of 26 for 2.11, three touchdowns, one interception, 10 rushes for 52 yards. And the game was basically over if it's not pouring raining and if he doesn't fumble. It was a bad mistake. He blew that game. He did.

But he played well in that game up until that point. The Dallas game, he was playing a good football in before he got hurt in. So, look, the Seattle game was ugly. You know, they had, you know, Robbie Chosen and Chris Moore and Trey Burks after three days of practice on the field. You know, that was the game in which there was an anonymous coach from the NFC that played Washington late in the season said that essentially it was the easiest they had it all year long. Now, that was more about their defense, and it was either Detroit or Seattle who said that, because they couldn't get off the field defensively. And he shouldn't have Detroit.

I think it was Detroit, too. By the way, in that Seattle game, without any players around him, I mean, I'm just looking at it right now. He was 16 of 22, completed 73 percent of his passes for 153 yards and rushed for 51 yards. Remember, he was taking off early in that game because guys were running the wrong routes. and then the Minnesota game, he played in three series, three. So anyway, I just, this keeps popping up. I mean, I don't understand why some of you can't get it through your heads. He barely played football this year.

If you count the other three games in which he barely played before getting hurt, Now, he did play a lot of the Seattle game, got hurt in the fourth quarter, but basically he played in seven out of 17, and he played start to finish in four out of 17, and he played start to finish completely healthy in three games this year. I'm not saying that everybody feels this way, but this keeps popping up over and over again. I mean, prompts the question, was 2025 an outlier, or was it 2024? He has played one NFL season right now. That's the way I view his career. He's played one NFL season. And it might prove to be an outlier,

but I don't know that until I see him play his second and third NFL seasons. And hopefully we will see in 2026 a full season. But measuring things like QBR and passer rating and oh my God, he ran too quick. he didn't see things. Go back as Steve Suter did here after the Seattle game and watch the film. Suter said

my God, he's got nothing and the guys are running to spots that can't possibly be right. And then we had the report, you know, that came out that said basically in that game, they had receivers that were not running the correct routes because they hadn't been with the team long enough.

Yeah. So, I don't know. That gets him. me a little bit every time I see that. It's just like I it's such a worthless conversation to have. If you don't think Jaden Daniels is good and isn't going to be good, that's fine. But don't tell me it's because of the season he had in 2025. Because at that point, I feel like you didn't pay attention to their 2025 season. If you paid attention to their 2025 season, you know that basically he didn't

have a season. He wasn't available enough, not even enough to be statistically in that qualifying area where his stats actually count for anything. Speaking of our football team, the team's surveys came out. Now, not in detail, because if you recall, the NFLPA is not making the report cards public this year following a grievance filed by the NFL, which claimed the survey violated the collective bargaining agreement. But an arbiter agreed with that saying the report cards did violate the CBA disparaging NFL clubs, but there's stories about how the teams ranked without all the detail. Miami ranked first overall in the NFL Players Association annual report card.

and then it was Minnesota, followed by Washington. And remember, the first year they did this, Washington was pretty much F or D-minus across the board and were dead last in the way the players viewed a lot of different aspects of the organization. Their third, it was something that I give Josh Harris a lot of credit. He saw that and he said, we've got to improve this.

Yeah. Absolutely. So they did. Yes, they did. The organization is fine right now, people. It's fine. It was a shitty season. Shitty season.

And they got a lot of work to do here in this off season. Because this next season does feel like a rather important one. I'm not denying that. But the organization is in a much different place than it's been. I think I talked about this yesterday with somebody who was on the show. It may have been Ben standing. But, you know, there was a time in which, you know, the organization, I would say about them, one good season does not make a good organization.

You know, good organizations have sustained success. And Washington was never for two decades plus set up for sustained success. Every NFL team has a good season here or there. but it doesn't make them a good franchise. A bad season doesn't make them a bad franchise either all the time. And I think that's where we are now. I think this bad season is not attributable to the franchise being bad. I think the franchise is in a completely different position.

And I think I told you this the other day that when Adam Peters spoke on Tuesday, you know, he said that a lot of their own players want to stay. because they love Dan Quinn and they love the culture that he's created in that locker room. I believe him. Do you? Yeah, I do. Okay. I think they do.

But I understand why people are frustrated. One bad season does not make an organization, does not define an organization. But this organization will continue to be defined by its failures until they put up consistent success. that's look I'm judging this organization on what this organization is doing I know that you feel like there's a lot of PTSD and I'm not denying that and and maybe even that others on the outside will you know haven't gotten over you know Washington's Washington you know it's who they are but I I can't view it that way anymore this organization's completely different than it was three years ago and I expect them to have much more success because of that. And we'll see. I mean, if they didn't have the quarterback, I might still say they're a much better organization,

but until they get the quarterback, they're probably not going to have the success to sort of show that they're a better organization. But I think because they have the quarterback and because I believe they're a better organization, I do think we're going to see a lot more in successful seasons, say, over the next five to start with than the season that we just saw.

All right, we got a few more things to finish up the show, including the guy that for me, I now have decided is the guy that I want to be available at number seven in the draft. Get to that after these words from a few of our sponsors. Hey, guys, I introduced you recently to Thrive Market. I told you it's a product that I use that I think you should use too. Now I want to tell you why membership makes a lot of sense. Thrive Markets a membership-based grocery service where you can shop

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plus a free $60 gift. It's thrivemarket.com slash sheen. All right, Tommy, we're coming down the home stretch here. All right. You've done a great job here on the show today. Can you tell us about Shelley's today? Yes, I can. Okay.

When we talk about Shelley's back room at 1331 F Street, Northwest, in the district, we always talk about the excellent, the excellent cigars, first of all, because this is a cigar bar. The best cigars you'll find anywhere, the top shelf liquor, but really gets Kevin Gist up as the menu, food menu, which we've explained. Once you go there, you'll be surprised at how good the menu is and the food. And the best part we always talk about is Shelley's custom blend beef.

They have their own blend of beef that they use for their burgers. And, you know, I didn't know this, but you can get sliders with custom blend beef. Wow. Why wouldn't you be able to? I mean, just a smaller burger? Yeah. Yeah. You can get three mini shelley's custom blend burgers as part of their sliders, as part of their appetizers menu. And you know what, people go to bars, I think they tend to eat appetizers sometimes more than they do the other part of the menu. And shelley's has great appetizers. Meatballs and marinereritex mess egg rolls. chicken or chili nachos, chicken cassidia, stuffed poppers, and chips and salsa fresca, all kinds of appetizers at Shelley's Backroom. We always serve appetizers at the Cigars and Curveballs podcast fundraiser that we have every maid at Shelly's.

And people love the food that they have there, plus they have great wings. You can find out more by going to shelley's Backroom.com and check out the menu for yourself online. And they go in and see what I'm talking about. Joey's back room. Did you see the other day that Manny Pachial and Floyd Mayweather are going to meet in, you know, at the sphere in September in Vegas? I know. And you know why they're doing it. Why?

Because they're broke. Especially Floyd. It's unbelievable. Floyd made so much money. and he's broke, supposedly. Seriously? Yes. And this is a guy who doesn't drink, doesn't do drugs.

He gambles. Yes. Has he lost at all gambling? Maybe. Maybe he did. But this is going to make a lot of money for, you know, what are they, like 47, 48? I don't know how old. Mayweather's 49 and Pacquiao's 47.

Yeah. Yeah, they're almost both 50. it's sad. You know, it's a sad. But the whole boxing scenario these days is sad. Jake Paul has been the biggest draw in boxing recently. So that's all you need to know. He'll probably fight the winner of this, you know,

to make some money out of it. But, yeah, they're doing it because they're broke. Pacquiao has already come back and had a couple of fights, I think. And this is Floyd's, you know, fight back in a while. He's done some exhibitions and some other farces here and there. But the word in the business is that Floyd is broke. He made between $200 and $250 million for the first Pachial fight alone. How can he be broke?

He made over $100 million for the McGregor fight, I think. Oh, my God. Or more. Mayweather Pachiao is the biggest boxing live gate in Vegas history, May 2nd, 2015, at 72.2 million. And they think that this fight in September could break the record for the most viewed sporting event ever. Currently, a distinction held by Paul versus Tyson. They had 108 million global viewers. This is on Netflix, so this is a pay-per-view.

Yeah. This is Netflix. So at least you will get sapped in the spending money on this thing if you have Netflix already. Well, if you want to bet that fight, I promise you that MyBooky will have odds on it. And if you want to bet sports in general, MyBooky's the place to go. MyBooky.com or MyBooky.orgy.orgia. Promocode DC Reload to get a 50% cash bonus when you sign up for the first time or when you are a returning customer making a new deposit.

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You know, the best edge rushers have longer arms. They don't have shorter arms. You know, that's been a big issue between tackle and guard. Like, you know, when the skins drafted Brandon Sheriff, Jay Gruden's told me several times, it's like, we knew the first day he wasn't a tackle. His arms were too short. We moved him inside almost immediately because he just couldn't possibly play tackle with short arms. And part of that is because they're going up against great edge rushers with long arms. Well, Rubin Bain's arm length measured today at the Indy Combine, 30 and 7 eighths inches.

The widely held standard for edge rushers is 33 inches. There have been just three players at the Combine measured with shorter arms since 2010. Now, I'm just going to say this. He's a hell of a player. And he has a very low center of gravity, and he's got great strength, he's got moves. I think he's going to be a hell of a pro personally. but the guy that for me, I am most excited about. And I also feel like if he drops to seven, maybe I'm missing something.

But my favorite player in the draft after just, you know, a few days of getting more into it and watching a lot of college football. But the guy that I really hope falls to seven is David Bailey from Texas Tech. 6-3, 250 pounds, quick twitch, super strong. he's the guy that produced at the college level. Arvel Reese did not really produce. The production isn't there, even though people love the talent. But in his first year at Texas Tech, 14 and a half sacks, three forced fumbles. This dude was an absolute unstoppable wrecking force defensively.

And to me, you just see a guy that he did it at a high level. He did it against high level competition. and I just don't see the floor being very low. I see the floor being high with also a very high ceiling. And I see him being the player defensively that most creates the opportunity for them to be really dynamic defensively and have big plays that impact the scoreboard. You know, Quinn said to me two weeks ago,

I said, give me your, you know, if I granted you one wish for a certain type of, player. He first said, I need a defensive pass rusher that can really, you know, mess up a game. That's David Bailey for me. He also said a corner that can cover or a receiver or a playmaker offensively that can score when he touches the ball from anywhere on the field. David Bailey, I think, would be their best offensive player because I think he's going to cause a lot of mayhem as a defensive pass rusher. And I don't know if it happens right away. You know, there's a maturity, a physical maturity, a mental maturity, you know, at the NFL level.

I mean, sometimes it takes guys a year or two. But that's who I want. Right now on February 26th, I want David Bailey. If he fell to seven, I'd actually be a bit concerned that I'm missing something because, of course, we don't know the intangible side. We don't know what they found out about the player. Do they love football? Are they smart?

Are they reliable? Are they, that whole thing? But he's the guy that I, I want. The other guy that I would want would be Caleb Downs. He may be the best player in the draft, the safety from Ohio State. Bailey won Downs to, I hope one of those two players falls to seven. I had a smoot on the show today, and he says it's not even close for him. He thinks the linebacker from Ohio State's sunny styles will be there and should be the pick. He sees an absolute star in styles, and there are a lot of people that think styles stock will really rise over the next few days.

We'll get your draft projections and your, you know, your small board when we get into April. You don't have to make a pick right now. All right, boss. All right, you go get them, get some soup, get some rest, and I'll talk to you Tuesday. Feel better. Thank you. Okay, I'll see you. Back tomorrow, everybody.