The Kevin Sheehan Show - Lerners Shamed Into $100/Week

Episode Date: June 1, 2020

Kevin solo today opened with the Nats' $100 per week controversy. He weighed in on the events of the weekend and talked some Reuben Foster too. 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.

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heart-pumping playlist. Join us on June 13th from coast to coast as we come together to climb, conquer, and cure. Register at lLS.org slash big climb. You want it. You need it. It's what everyone's talking about. The Kevin Sheehan Show. Now here's Kevin. All right, getting started today a little bit later than anticipated. My apologies, just me solo today. Actually, glad I waited a little bit because this Nationals minor league story got very interesting over the last hour. I'll get to that here momentarily. I'll weigh in on everything that's happened here in our world, in our country, in our city here in Washington over the last few days.

I want to respond to some of the 4th and 15 discussion from Friday and also talk a little bit about Ruben Foster on the podcast today. Won't be a long one today. Tommy will be with me tomorrow. I'm sure it'll be a lengthy version tomorrow. First of all, let me just say that I really appreciate Ben Standing spending as much time as he did with us on Friday. And I'm very happy that many of you enjoyed that. I saw the feedback on. Twitter over the weekend. Ben's great. You know, Ben does a really good job covering the Redskins. He did a really good job covering the Wizards and the other teams in town that he covered before he got to the athletic. But he knows what's going on in that organization. He talks to a lot of people inside and outside the organization in the know. He's got good sense when it comes to,

you know, putting pieces together logically. And I always enjoy my conversations with Ben. So I know it was a long interview with Ben. I think he was on with us for over an hour on Friday, but I enjoyed it. So thanks to him. Let me just start with this Nationals story from today. So I'm assuming with everything that's been going on, most of you probably miss this.

But the Nationals over the weekend decided that they were going to cut their minor league stipends by 25%. Minor league players get about $400 per week, and they were going to cut it back to $300 per week for the month of June. Now, what happened after that was several players on the Washington Nationals' big league roster got together via Zoom, all right, and they unanimously decided to make up that $100 per minor league player out of their own pocket. This is what Sean Doolittle tweeted out, that the players were going to pick up the difference out of their own pocket. Essentially, for all intents and purposes, shaming the learners into paying it themselves. Now, Doolittle's tweet drew praise on social media, drew criticism for the learners.

And just moments ago, the Nats changed course. And they're going to pick up the $100. They're going to go back to the $400 per week. Britt Giroli of the Athletic wrote that the nationals facing significant backlash over the $100 per week cuts for their minor league players have decided to re-up the stipend. While the team did not issue a public statement, it stands to reason that the reaction from fans,

as well as Nationals' players, helped spark the shift. Upon further internal discussion read an internal memo this afternoon, they announced the change. Washington did cut 40 players last week, made up of many minor league free agents in particular who were told that they wouldn't be needed because there wasn't going to be a season. I think most people do understand that. And while nothing's officially been announced when it comes to minor league baseball, it does seem inevitable that. there's not going to be a 2020 minor league season. At this point, we're still unsure as to whether or not there's going to be a major league season. But anyway, they were going to cut it by 100 bucks per player.

I mean, that really does look bad. I can't do the math because I don't know how many minor league system players there are. But whatever the number is at 100 bucks per pop, it isn't going to add up. to such an overwhelming number that the learners couldn't pick it up themselves. So they are now. Britt Jiroli from the Athletic had that story and had that news about the Nats, basically turning back 180 degrees on their decision, which was interesting. It really shamed them into doing it.

So baseball, as long as we're on the subject, The players made their counterproposal to the owners. Basically, ESPN had the story. Jeff Passon had the story at ESPN. They're offering up a 114 game season, deferred salaries in the event of a canceled postseason, and, by the way, the option for all players to opt out of the season if they've got coronavirus concerns. That's something that, you know, Tommy's been talking about a lot, that he thinks that there are a lot of players that are going to,

opt out of this until they really feel it's safe for not only themselves, but their families. The proposal is expected to be immediately dismissed by the owners. The owners won an 82 game season, in part because they claim the more games they play, the more money they lose under the current economics that were agreed to in March. the union, the players remain very strong on receiving full pro-rated salaries, even though they would take deferred salaries if a postseason was canceled. The fact that that's even presented tells you that the players are thinking in terms of, yeah, there's a chance we won't finish the season at all.

I mean, a canceled postseason probably means a suspended regular season. season as well, which they would get paid in full for based on the pro-rated salary structure in March. Actually, the owner's proposal last week would have guaranteed the players, their pro-rated salaries, even if the season got cut short. Anyway, we'll see where this goes. The season that the players are suggesting time-wise would start at the end of June and run until the end of October, if that's going to happen with at least a two to three week kind of spring training, they're going to have to get this thing agreed to pretty quickly this week, or maybe there won't be baseball this year. That would be a bad thing, I really believe,

for the players. All right, I'll get to a couple of things here in a moment. Redskins-related Ruben Foster, a couple of thoughts on him. Also, some follow-up to the fourth and fifth. discussion that we had the other day. I want to get to some of your tweets on that. I do want to just weigh in a little bit on what happened over the weekend. And if you want to go listen to a longer version with lots of phone calls, you can listen to this morning's radio show that I did at Team 980 on Twitter. Download the Team 980 app and you can listen to it. But before I get into that, I did want to just mention something that I'm pretty, sure I mentioned on the podcast a year or so ago. I think I had this conversation with Tommy.

But I'm definitely part of a family that debates and has lively debates and heated arguments over a lot of different things. In my immediate family with my three grown boys now, most of it is sports related. You know, 50 to 60 percent of the arguments, especially with two of my three boys, are, you know, LeBron versus Michael and Magic or other sports-related discussion. They're very much into it. But a lot of the discussion we have, probably 25%, at least, is political. They're aware of what's going on in their world. I'm happy about that. You know, they're not totally aware and totally immersed in it, but they pay attention. And then, you know, the rest of it that we get into arguments or discussion or debate about is music is always a big part of it. Um, pop culture,

other things. Religion will eventually get into a conversation if we really want, uh, to get into a topic that can be, um, divisive. Uh, but anyway, um, that's my family. Extended and immediate. Lots of people with lots of opinions and varied opinions in perspectives. Um, Obviously, I have one too. But I bring that up because I think it was a year ago or so, and I'm pretty sure I shared this story with Tommy. I got into an argument. It wasn't a superheated argument, but somehow it came up because I think Tommy and I were talking about something. And Tommy said these are incredibly divisive times and polarizing times.

And this is the argument I had gotten into with an extended family member. And I remember saying to that extended family member, you know, I understand. understand that we have a president that is polarizing for sure. But, you know, when I hear people talk about how scary it is and how terrified they are living in this country right now and how dire the situation is, I just, I, you know, a year ago anyway, in the midst of this conversation, I argued that, you know, that's hyperbole. You know, we had a civil war in this country 160 years ago. You know, just over 50 years ago, half of our cities were burning to the ground in the spring and summer of 1968. And that was the argument a year ago.

That was my position. Well, certainly things have changed in a year. You know, we've had a pandemic that's caused incredible amount of death and sickness and simultaneous destruction of the economy. And then last week, you know, we get another one of these cases and the reaction to these cases of police brutality against African Americans. In this particular case, what happened to George Floyd in Minneapolis, the reaction across many of the big cities in this country included some peaceful assembly and protest as afforded by our Constitution, and some of it not so peaceful, and not necessarily resembled. a protest of much of anything. We're learning, you know, even more about that, you know, today, that, you know, there are endless videos now out there of young white men, you know, activists, getting caught, you know, essentially paying people to wreak havoc or wreaking havoc themselves. And

it is different what we've seen over the last, you know, few days, certainly than it was in 1968. But anyway, it was a bad weekend in many cities, including our city, for those of you that listen and live in the D.C. area. And I know that there are a lot of you that listen out in California in L.A. I mean, I see the numbers. I know where a lot of our listeners are. And most of you listen because you're Redskinned fans, even if you're living in different places. But, you know, if you're in New York or L.A. or Atlanta or Dallas or Detroit or Chicago or any of those markets, cities, you know, it wasn't a great weekend. It wasn't here. I'm sure that most of the people assembling peacefully intended it to be, but, you know, there were certainly a few, if not more

than a few, that fucked it up for everybody. You know, I don't know who these people are. I don't know who lit the fires, looted stores, and vandalized some of our city's monuments. But I talked about this this morning, this situation is, it's not different in African American men being treated unfairly and inhumanely by law enforcement. We've seen this. Obviously, there's a history of it. But it's different for a couple of reasons. And the reason is you go back to a week ago tonight when George Floyd was murdered. You know, there's this video that is just so clear cut, so clear cut. I don't know many people that disagree that video clearly shows that George Floyd was

murdered by Derek Chauvin, a Minneapolis police officer a week ago tonight. And I have seen the autopsy report that was out yesterday. I hadn't seen it before the radio show this morning, but I was sent part of it that apparently ran last night. The autopsy included the following. The autopsy revealed no physical findings that support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation. Mr. Floyd had underlying health conditions, including coronary artery disease and hypertensive heart disease. The combined effects of Mr. Floyd being restrained by the police is underlying health conditions and any potential intoxicants in his system likely contributed to his death-closed

quote that the autopsy part of the autopsy's findings. I can tell you this. If Derek Chauvin somehow walks eventually down the road off of this, that would be criminal in my view. But I'm not, I'm not, you know, I'm going to be on that jury. I'm not involved in the investigation. I don't know nearly enough. But to me, what sort of unified people and made this particular situation unique over the last several days was everybody's unanimous feeling without any sort of dissent that George Floyd was murdered by this guy, Derek Chauvin, who wouldn't take his knee off Floyd's neck for nine minutes. You know, the video was about as clear cut as any video of police brutality we've seen, you know, what degree of murder?

You know, murder in the third degree, which was manslaughter, was the initial charge. It didn't seem like enough. Not after watching this poor man plead for his life. I can't breathe. I can't breathe. And then in just heartbreaking fashion, calling for his mother, a mother who, by the way, had passed away years ago, to hear him on the ground with that knee on his neck, pleading for his life and calling for his mother,

that was really tough to hear. Nearly nine minutes, cuffed with Derek Chauvin's knee forcefully on his neck, seemingly totally dispassionate about George Floyd's condition. You know, he's dying and people are telling, this officer that he's killing him. Nine minutes with knee on neck. It seemed to me when I heard the charges on Friday

that it wasn't going to be enough to stop any potential violence. It seemed to me that it was more than manslaughter. I'm not an expert on what degree of murder Chauvin committed a week ago. But I'm pretty sure that Derek Chauvin contributed significantly to George Floyd's death and everybody else knows it too. That's what makes this sort of unique. I haven't heard many people disagree. We're all in agreement. You know, there's no dissent on this. White, black, doesn't matter. The whole world seems to agree that George Floyd was killed by Derek Chauvin. The whole world believes that Chauvin should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Every person of authority in this country that I watched over the weekend were red over the weekend. You know,

Every chief of police both retired and current, any resumed law enforcement person that weighed in on TV or print, they all agree. There's like universal agreement among everybody that George Floyd was murdered and the killer was Derek Chauvin, the police officer. It doesn't matter what your political affiliation is or, you know, what your race or gender or age is. I haven't heard one person say otherwise. This isn't one of those situations where you have some wait-and-see voice out there. Nobody's waiting for the backstory or the context on this one, and maybe we're starting to get it with some of the autopsy results, and who knows where that arrow's pointed.

But nobody's trying to rationalize or justify the officer's behavior. Not my circle of life. nobody has said that this was okay. You know, everybody is in agreement that Chauvin was aggressive, excessive, and unsympathetic, and was a bad cop with 18 prior complaints. There's no controversy on this point. You know, nationwide, worldwide, condemnation for Derek Chauvin. That's what makes this one a little bit different, I think.

There are other reasons. By the way, everybody also agrees that the other police officers that stood by and let this happen must be prosecuted as well. Universal agreement on that point. You know, it's every police chief in America on board with all of that. I think these guys are going to end up in jail for a long time. I think that's what they deserve based on that video. You know? And the other thing is that most of us,

Most normal people, and I know normal is subjective, but most normal people, hopefully you know who I'm referring to. And most of those people are you, I think. Almost everybody's an agreement on the right to assemble peacefully in protest. And almost everyone is an agreement also that rioting and looting is a bad thing. You know, black people don't like rioting and looting. white people don't like rioting and looting. Not many of any race disagree on this point. Nobody normal regardless of their personal circumstance wants unrest,

you know, at the expense of innocent people in innocent businesses. Everybody seems to be in agreement too that, you know, there's history between law enforcement and African Americans, and it's been bad. White people know this, you know, despite the numbers and the studies, by, you know, Harvard and others. Most of us understand that the historical relationship

between the police and African Americans has put African American men in particular on the defensive. And I mentioned this, and I've mentioned this in the past, and I talked about it on the radio show, and this has always been, again, one of those things that's really heartbreaking for anybody that has empathy. You know, what a black guy minds is, age has to think about when getting pulled over is not what I have had to think about.

What a black man or woman, for that matter, has to teach their children about the relationship with police and how a simple traffic violation can go wrong if it's not handled properly is not exactly what I've had to teach my children. I recognize that. Most reasonable people are in agreement on the big things this week. You know, the big things, George Floyd murdered, history between law enforcement and African Americans, not good. You know, looting and rioting, bad reaction. You know, these things are the big things, and we're all in agreement on all of these things. And I'm not suggesting that we haven't all been in agreement on prior situations. you know, any of these other previous incidents, whether, you know, it was Freddie Gray or Philando

Castile or any of these, you know, I think part of it is because the video was so utterly awful in convincing. But while, you know, most people are in agreement on the big things, we still went from total agreement on the big things, total agreement based on race, gender, age, any demographic description you want to come up with, and yet this incident led to total chaos as a follow-up. You know, I don't know how we get from total agreement on all of these things to where our cities have been the last few days and nights. you know, specific to this incident, there are some things that happened early on that I think were factors. I think there were some mistakes in Minneapolis. You know, there was a perceived delay in getting the charge against Chauvin, which didn't come until Friday. There was the charge of murder in the

third degree, which for a lot of people didn't seem to be enough. Again, I don't know how you go about charging someone for murder in every state, city, you know, jurisdiction. You know, they're all different animals, I'm sure. I know there are risks to going too quickly and potentially charging someone inaccurately and all of that. I understand that. They claim to have left room for a change from third degree to something else, but manslaughter wasn't perceived by many as enough. And then there was the lack of charges against the other officers, which still haven't come, I don't believe, not as of now. So all of that didn't help. But, you know, that's really side story to the big issue, which is just race.

Not just police brutality towards minorities. There's a lot more to all of this. Other racial inequality. That other racial inequality is always a part of these emotional response equations. You know, and then, by the way, in this particular situation, add to it a pandemic, lost jobs, mass unemployment, economic hardship, you know, all leading to, by the way, lots of free time for lots of people. You know, this was a bit of a powder keg situation just because of the environment we were in because of the last three months. Peaceful protests in these situations often devolve into, you know, awful nights like the nights we've seen.

It's not unique to see this happen. But again, the irony, everybody's, you know, normal seems to be in agreement. You know, he was murdered. Protest peacefully is a good thing. Burning, looting is not necessarily a good thing. We're mostly in agreement on all that, and yet we have these situations. I will just tell you real quickly to finish up. The things over the weekend that made me.

you know, get emotionally upset, you know, starting with continuing to watch the video of George Floyd, it's heartbreaking. There's nothing worse than that. I mean, seeing him cry out for his mother twice as he realizes he's dying is just so terrible. It's so awful. And I read stories about him over the weekend. There was a really good story about him in a Houston newspaper about how he was, you know, a good Christian, but a participating Christian with young people and in his church. And he had recently moved to Minneapolis. And every single person that spoke about him said that this was a good guy. I don't know how he got a fake $20 bill in his hands. Who knows? I mean, he could have gotten that from anybody.

We'll probably find out at some point whether or not he legitimately broke the law or unintentionally broke the law. But the story of George Floyd is just awful. That video is awful. I get upset and angry when these things come up because we still haven't figured out how to root out those in law enforcement. that are capable of what Derek Chauvin did. And by the way, others who are capable of less but still unacceptable behavior towards minorities. We haven't figured this out after all these years. We haven't rooted it out.

Is it systemic? I'll leave that up to somebody else. There's certainly bad apples in the group. And I also get equally upset that law enforcement overall, and, you know, after these situations, are painted with this broad brush, as if all of them are bad. It's an unbelievable profession. And my belief is that the overwhelming majority of policemen and women are there to help us, regardless of skin color.

The cops out there last night and the night before, you know, trying to keep the peace are white, they're black, they're Hispanic, their native. American, there are many other ethnicities, and the majority of them are in agreement with the people that they are face to face with on all of the big things. That's the irony. Like there you are, you're watching this stuff over the weekend and you're like, most of those people that are trying to keep the peace are in agreement with those that are peacefully protesting. I trust the police. I think George Floyd was murdered by a bad cop And you can say I trust the police because I'm white

That's fine But I think most of you Regardless of your race would agree that there are more good cops than bad Our experiences with law enforcement Based on our color are completely different Most of us, regardless of color have understood that I can't put myself into your shoes into an African-American shoes.

I've not experienced it, but I'm certainly aware of it and sensitive to it. I get very upset and did over the weekend when I see, you know, a lot of the mayhem being caused by people that, to me, intuitively aren't there to protest, you know, George Floyd's death peacefully. They're opportunists, they're agitators, their attention seekers. You know, one of the things that we're learning even today, you know, in recent hours here, is that a lot of what's gone on here over the last few days is, you know, is, you. you know, white activists. I mean, we've seen the pictures.

We've seen the video. There are just as many white people out in the violent portions of the protests. Then there are black. You know, and we're seeing that some of these white activists, whether left wing or right wing, you know, they're getting caught. You know, they're getting caught on video. and it's different. I'm not saying like this one is totally different than the last one but it's certainly different than 1968. But yeah, I get upset when I see people taking a legitimate

cause that should be highlighted through peaceful protest and turning it into a law-breaking rampage that hurts people and people's businesses, innocent people. This can't, this can't be allowed. It can't be. And over the last few days, more than I can remember it was allowed. I mean, the news the other night about that Minneapolis police precinct giving in, per the mayor's orders, demonstrators entering, and the police abandoning their precinct at the request of the mayor. I mean, what country is this? Here was the the official statement from the police spokesman. Quote,

police cleared the third precinct when demonstrators forcibly entered and ignited several fires. Mayor Jacob Fry said he made the decision to pull police out of the precinct. He said, you know, brick and mortar is not as important as life. He called the vandalism and arson

unacceptable, but vowed that officers would still patrol the community served by the third precinct. We will continue to do our jobs in that area, closed quote. I mean, the most troubling aspect of the last week was the video and George Floyd being murdered. To me, the second most disturbing part of the last week was that a police precinct conceded, submitted to demonstrators who came in and burned the precinct to the ground. Are you kidding me?

I mean, I'm sorry, but that mayor, weak, weak. I still can't believe that that happened. You know, how much of what followed in Minneapolis was because of them not resisting, that the police basically laid down their arms and left. Are you kidding me? And then I'm watching Saturday night. I'm watching these goons attack the scene. and N building in Atlanta, throwing rocks, bricks, firecrackers at police.

And then I mentioned this this morning in the radio show. There's this one dude, a young white guy with a skateboard. He's banging his skateboard against the glass, middle fingering the riot police. And look, I'm not an expert in riot control. I don't know what they're supposed to do or not supposed to do. I can just tell you as a viewer, you know, the fact that nothing was done was infuriating. This guy has got a skateboard. He's giving the middle finger to the riot control, bashing in the glass of the CNN building. He's vandalizing and they just let him get away with it.

But, you know, if you're a police precinct, you know, your mayor can't order you to abandon ship. If people come in with the intent to burn your precinct to the ground, you arrest them. them and you throw them into jail. You don't allow that to happen? I'm not a big fan of criticizing the police in a lot of these situations which, you know, all I heard all weekend long as I flip stations back and forth, the media tends to do. You know, they're being berated. They're being attacked in many of these non-peaceful protest situations. I'm sure there are a few excessive police reactions, but most of it looks justified from where I sit. Now, again, again, you're Again, you know, the irony is that most of the police and most of the protesters, I think,

are all in agreement with one another. But the troublemakers need to be dealt with because they seem to be coming in as not necessarily interested in protesting George Floyd's death or protesting, you know, brutal, unfair treatment of African Americans. That's not what they were there for. They were there to cause mayhem. I don't know if they're leftists, rightists, white supremacists. white supremacist, Antifa.

I don't know that anybody knows for sure. How could you at this point? And, you know, that's going to take some serious investigation, I would think. But who really cares? You know, what's clear is that there was some organized mayhem behind the last several days. You had pallets of bricks being dropped off on corners in cities. You know, that's not run-of-the-mill, you know, somebody losing their mind over the death of George Floyd. Now, there's some of that too, but there's some organization.

And then there are, you know, the local troublemakers and knuckleheads that are taking advantage of the opportunities. You know, the immediate solution comes from Minneapolis where the other men that were there a week ago tonight need to be charged. And, you know, we'll take it from there. I can only imagine if there's a trial, you know, nine months from now, a year from now, and that guy, Derek Chauvan doesn't get significant prison time what's going to happen in this country. But there's a long time between now and then. Anyway, a quick word about Roman. If you were to guess on average how many days people in the U.S. have to wait to see a doctor,

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That's get-Roman.com promo code Sheehan for a free online visit and free two-day shipping. So I wanted to follow up on this 4th and 15 real quickly from Friday, a conversation about the 4th and 15 ruling being tabled by the NFL, not even getting voted on. And I don't think it's going to pass. I thought it was. I don't think it will now. I mentioned that the play as proposed to the league by the Eagles was to be an untimed play. And I mentioned on Friday that I didn't understand why that would be because the onside kick is actually a timed play.

And several of you actually reached out to me and mentioned and wrote to me why that would be. and it made total sense. And here's the explanation. And I don't know if this was part of the proposal and I just missed it, or many of you picked up on something that I didn't pick up on, good for you. Which is if the team that is using the 4th and 15 alternative to an onside kick ends up being the team that just took the lead. So let's just say a team scores a touchdown to take a 28-24 lead

with five seconds left in the game. They may choose the alternative to an on-side kick and then run a play that takes five seconds so that you never have to kick off and give the other team a chance. They could run out the clock effectively. Yes, that makes total sense to me. Makes total sense. So that's why it was proposed as an untimed down.

It's preventative. It's a preventative measure, as Andrew tweeted me and several others tweeted me to stop teams that take the lead from running the clock out. Now, you could just make a part of the rule be that if you have the lead, you can't choose the fourth and 15 alternative to the onside kick. You could do that too, and then you'd be forced to kick off. But anyway, thank you for that. I wanted to talk real quickly about Ruben Foster.

Jack Del Rio in a recent video conference call with reporters said about Ruben Foster, quote, I think he's done a good job of trying to be involved in the meetings, and we've approached it as though he'll be there, meaning be there at training camp. Then we'll see whether we get the clearance or not for him to actually go, closed quote. Jack Del Rio said last week, he hasn't, or someone reported, excuse me, that Jack Del Rio said, whether it was on that call or after the call, that Foster hasn't been medically cleared. Now, remember, the fifth year option on Foster's rookie deal was not picked up by the team. I'm really interested as to whether or not Ruben Foster, in their mind, is a part of the

equation because Ruben Foster comes with baggage, as we know. He's also coming off a very serious injury. You know, this was an injury that was combined, torn ACL, torn MCL, and then nerve damage as well. You know, there was a report last year that the nerve damage was significant and that he would miss more than just the entire 2019 season. Ron Rivera's going through a culture change. We've heard John Bostic's name mentioned a bunch. You know, we heard Jack Del Rio, mention almost every linebacker last week with the exception of Rubin Foster and Nate Orchard. He did talk about Ryan Anderson. Some of you said he didn't mention Ryan Anderson.

In the one quote, he didn't mention Ryan Anderson, but that's because he had already been asked about Ryan Anderson and weighed in on Ryan Anderson. I think Ryan Anderson's a big part of their plan. I don't know that for sure. It just makes sense to me because to me, Ryan Anderson looks more like a four-three outside linebacker than a three-four edge outside linebacker. I'm not sure about Ruben Foster. I have this gut feeling that he's going to be given the opportunity if he's healthy to go. And if he isn't, that there's another season potentially where he ends up on injured reserve to start the year. And maybe they

sort of defer or push the decision back to later on in the year. But I think one of the reasons Thomas Davis was signed, and one of the reasons we've already heard Ron Rivera refer to John Bostic as a leader. We have already heard Jack Del Rio single out KPL, as he referred to him. I had to look it up. It's Kevin Pierre Lewis, the free agent that they signed out of Chicago from the Bears. I think we all believe that Cole Holcomb has a really good chance to be sort of a weak side linebacker with that speed. I mean, hell, Del Rio even mentioned Kaleek Hudson, their fifth rounder in the draft before mentioning Ruben Foster. He's got Josh Harvey Clemens, he's got Sean Dionne Hamilton.

I am going to just guess right now that Ruben Foster is not. going to be part of the 2020 season when it begins and probably for the first half of the season. And if they have to make a decision on him, it's going to be put off until later in the year with him on injured reserve. You know, maybe designated for return at some point. Maybe it's designated for return and release. I forget how that actually works. But I'm just getting the sense more and more that Ruben Foster is either, is either a candidate to be put on injured reserve or maybe a candidate to be released if he's healthy. He's talented, and we've heard John Allen and others talk about how talented he is

and how excited some that certainly played with him at Alabama are about his possibilities. But, again, other than Ron Rivera referring to him recently, and just, you know, it's a pretty short quote. You know, he's done a good job of trying to be involved in the meetings, and we'll see whether he gets the clearance for him to actually go. So we'll see on that. I think the Redskins have some depth at linebacker. I just don't know if it's quality depth.

They have a lot of players, and it'll have to sort itself out. The quality depth, I believe, comes up front. I think many of you believe that to be true as well. All right, we're done for the day. Kept it short today. Back tomorrow with Tommy.