The Kevin Sheehan Show - Moody Gone; Miami Recap

Episode Date: August 18, 2026

Kevin opened with the news that Jake Moody is getting released by the Commanders meaning the kicking job goes to rookie Drew Stevens. Kevin discussed whether or not he thinks the starters should play Saturday in Detroit. He also recapped the Miami game with his good, bad, and other from Friday night's 20-7 preseason win. More on the Jayden Daniels PR blunder from hell and a study that came out evaluating NFL fan bases by the level of local market passion.   For all your football betting needs: DCRELOAD at MyBookie for a 50% Deposit Match   Chime is not just smarter banking, it is the most rewarding way to bank. Head to www.Chime.com/SHEEHAN. It only takes a few minutes to sign up.   Ready to do your own spring reset? Join Thrive Market with my link www.ThriveMarket.com/SHEEHAN for $20 off your first three orders plus you’ll get a FREE $60 gift.   If you want to try Momentous Signature Spec Creatine, head to livemomentous.com and use code SHEEHAN for up to 35% off your entire first order.   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 is Kevin. He barely does get him on board. We've got the joint. A joint indeed.

Not exactly Zane Gonzalez vintage from a few years ago in a certain playoff game in Tampa. That was a lucky Jake Moody banking one in from just 29 yards out. His luck ran out today. reports are he is going to be cut. The team is going to go with the rookie, Drew Stevens. The show's presenting sponsor is always Window Nation. If you need new Windows, I highly recommend calling Windonation. 86690 Nation is the number.

You can also go to Window Nation.com. Mention my name and they'll schedule a fast, free, convenient in-home estimate. Real quickly, the highlight that I came in with, the call was from the Miami broadcast network. I was looking for the Channel 9 call on YouTube of the Moody Bankton

29-yarder. I couldn't find it, but I did want to say that I thought Dan Helly, Rigo, and Brian Mitchell were really good together. That is not an easy thing to do these preseason games. They were entertaining. They were informative. They didn't let the game get in the way of their

fun because the game is not that important. preseason games. It's about the information you're getting, what they've learned from coaches, their evaluations of the players while the game's going on. It's not about game flow. It's not about score. And then, you know, they had a good time, too. I thought they did a great job. My preseason game number one recap coming up in the next segment, what I liked, didn't like a few other observations. I'll finish up this show with a not-so-surprising study. about our football team's local popularity.

So Jake Moody's out. The rookie Drew Stevens is in. My strong, I would say somewhat informed hunch, is that as of now, they're not planning on bringing in any competition for Stevens. I mean, he could go on a bad run here over the rest of the summer. He could get injured, God forbid. their plan is to go with Drew Stevens, the rookie, as their kicker.

And if he makes it to the regular season, which is what they're anticipating, and he actually kicks in a regular season game. I saw some of these numbers, and I updated them a little bit, from Nikki Javala from the athletic. If he makes it to the season opener, he will be the 12th kicker since 2020 to kick for the team and the eighth in just the last two years. Do you want the list of 12?

I'm going to give it to you. In order, Dustin Hopkins, Brian Johnson, Chris Blewitt, Joey Sly, Cade York, Greg Joseph, Zane Gonzalez, Austin Seibert, Matthew Wright, Jake Moody, Matt Gay, and then Stevens would be the 12th. In the last two years, eight kickers, Stevens would be the eighth, along with Moody, Gay, Wright, Cyberk, Gonzalez, Joseph, and York. Not the strongest position on the team in recent years.

Really, it's been a long time since it's been a position of strength. I was thinking about the list since 2020. And I think the one that maybe they should have kept around is Joey Sly. He's got a huge leg. He kicked a 61-yarder for us. He's kicked a 63-yarder since leaving us. He did that in New England in 2024. He kicked for the Titans last year, and he's kicking for the Titans again this year.

In fact, in their pre-season win, Tennessee's over San Francisco this past weekend, out in Santa Clara, he made a 53, 55, and 58-yarder. So he's got, you know, one of those legs where it's like, all right, just. get him to just get the ball to like the 45, 44, 43 yard lines, something like that, and you got a shot for three. Remember the game he had in 2022 at Philadelphia on Monday night football. He was four for four in that stunning upset over the Eagles. Washington was an 11-point underdog.

They won the game 32 to 21. He had a 55 and 58-yarder in that game. and the skins pulled it off. It was the first of three straight wins that got them to seven and five. Remember heading in to December. They were in the five spot in the NFC playoff race, and then they tied the Giants and then lost to the Giants and the Browns and the rest is history.

That Philadelphia Monday Night game was the game in which Taylor Heineke, remember at the end of the game on a third and super long, baited Brandon Graham into a late hit that basically, sealed the game. Kickers for this franchise, lots of them. And the latest will be Drew Stevens. He's got a massive leg. He's made a lot of big kicks outdoors in rough weather at Iowa. And he's been the more impressive kicker throughout camp. And then on Friday night, he made his only attempt from 41 yards out. He made his lone PAT, although if you were paying attention, that PAT that he made followed a PAT that he kicked after the whistle blew the play dead and he actually pushed it wide right, but it didn't count. This from Rhett.

Ret writes, Kevin, with Marcus Marriota injured, no reason to risk Jaden in the preseason. the Eagles game is the only game that matters. Rhett Dan Quinn was asked by Nikki Javala yesterday about that very subject here is what he said. Dan, does Marcus's injury affect your plan for Jaden in the preseason at all? Yeah, definitely thinking, you know, that was like a question on the top of my head. And I was staying in the block this week really before we get into the preparation for that, as far as the game goes.

So not right now. It doesn't, Nikki. I recognize the question for sure. But right now we're kind of going into like these two days as still like a training camp mode. That'll be like Tuesday and Wednesday and big pad of stuff. So as far as like how much and starters and what we do, some of it will depend on what I'm seeing on Tuesday and Wednesday. So we've got a bunch of situations that I'm trying to work through two minutes, four minutes, you know, some goal line stuff.

So this is kind of like our most heightened training camp. can't block coming up, so I'm excited to see that, but we haven't got in terms of like planning of the game yet, of that part. Dan Quinn on Marcus Marriota's injury, the sprained MCL, affecting or not affecting his decision to play Jaden Daniels in the preseason. You know, at one point early in his answer, he actually said that the Mariotta injury will not affect his decision. But then I thought the rest of his answer was a bit of a lean in the direction of Jaden not playing the rest of the preseason

and it being because they don't want to risk having two-one healthy quarterbacks in week one, even though early in the press conference, he did say they expect Marcus Mariotto will be back, healthy, and available if needed for the opener in Philadelphia on September 13th. I don't know, he talked about the padded practices tomorrow and Wednesday. Remember they've got a joint practice scheduled with the Ravens next week. I have a feeling that's going to be the activity for Jaden, and it's not going to come against the Lions on Saturday or the Ravens in the preseason finale.

I hope I'm wrong because if he doesn't play against Detroit on Saturday, let me be the first to say, on this show anyway, Tommy will be back with me tomorrow and he can weigh in. I don't like it. I want him to play. I don't care if it's for a series or two. I want him to play some football. He hasn't played football since that Minnesota game in early December, and that's not a great memory. I'd like to see him out there with a new center,

with a new offensive coordinator, with a new tight end, with a new receiver, with a new running back. I wouldn't let the Mario de injury influence playing Jaden in the preseason. I wouldn't. I mean, what do I know? A lot of other starting quarterbacks played over the weekend. and that list includes more accomplished veteran quarterbacks, like Joe Burrow and Josh Allen.

Yeah, I'd play him on Saturday with starters. Both sides of the ball. I want to see starters. He didn't play on Friday night. If he doesn't play against the Lions, then his next action against an opponent would be the joint practice, as long as it comes off. Remember what the Ravens did with the last time they had a joint practice.

scheduled between the two. They canceled. But as long as they face the Ravens on August 26th, the possibility exists that between August 12th, the day they joint practiced with the Dolphins, and August 26th, the day they're scheduled to joint practice with the Ravens, two weeks in between facing an opponent. I'd like to see the starting quarterback and the starting offense and the starting defense play some football between now and the season opener. 90% of the starters sat on Friday night. I hope it's flipped on Saturday. I hope 90% of the starters start and play a little bit against the Lions.

They obviously know a hell of a lot more than I do and than you do, but, you know, Jaden played a bit last year. Remember in the preseason, he had that touchdown run against Cincinnati that probably scared the crap out of them. He played in the preseason as a rookie. Why not this Saturday against the Lions? You know, the Baltimore game is August 28th, and the Lions game is the 14th. So if he plays against the Lions, you got 22 days until the opener. I mean, it's such a long period of time.

Maybe that's the argument for not playing him. It's like, what's the point? You know, basically three weeks' worth of regular season games are going to fly by, you know, until he plays again anyway. I don't know. I'd like to see him play. I'd like to see the starters play against the lions. I think there is some value in it. And it's not, you know, the Doc Walker pitch, even though I think Doc's been right many, many times over the years about, you know, football players to get ready for the football season where they play tackle football. They need to play some tackle football to be ready for the beginning of the season. Here's another thing I don't like right now. Why is Sam Hartman on this? team. He's not a legitimate NFL quarterback. You know, we knew that at the end of last year when they played 39-year-old Josh Johnson instead of him in games that didn't matter down the stretch. I think that's an important roster right at this moment in particular because Mario is out for the

rest of the preseason. If Jaden doesn't play, who's throwing to all of these receivers to give them the best chance of making the team. I mean, there's a bottleneck at wide receiver. Hartman is not the best option for a third string quarterback. He isn't. I thought the kid from Rutgers was fine. I don't know. Hartman being on this roster because he's Jaden's really good friend, that can't be it, can it? I don't know. Maybe his mother insists on it. Josh Johnson, he's the third string quarterback in Cincinnati behind Burrow and Flacco. So he wanted to play another year. Wouldn't have been a bad idea to bring him back.

Jeff Driscoll is still out there. He's been on this roster before. He can play quarterback in an NFL game. Sam Hartman can't. Anyway, I want the starters to play some football before the season begins. I'd love to see it for a series or two. It doesn't need to be for a half. Doesn't even need to be for a quarter.

How about the first two series, offense and defensively, against the Lions, on Saturday afternoon? Before I get to my recap of the game on Friday night, I mean, how about this Jaden Daniels situation and how he has been absolutely torched over the last four days by social media and the internet? I'm sure you've seen this over the top, over the top response to what his, team around him foolishly did last week. I knew from the moment I saw the story on ESPN.com on Thursday morning and I said it. I knew it was not going to go well for him that this was a real unforced PR error, a self-inflicted PR blunder. I didn't see this with all corners of pop culture weighing in and literally using him as a punching bag. It's really quite amazing. It's really

quite amazing because this is a great player who's been well-liked, who's had one of the top-selling jerseys in the NFL, highly respected among his teammates. He's really a good kid. There isn't one story, I swear to all of you, not one story that I think any of us have heard from anybody that would indicate, yeah, you guys actually don't know him. It's a little bit different behind closed doors. He's a little bit of luf or he's a little bit arrogant or he's hard to coach. None of that. None of that. Overwhelming, gushing praise time and time again. And look at what has happened to him over the last four days. I'm sure Tommy can't wait to weigh in on this situation on tomorrow's show. Remember, he was the first to give us the information about Jaden's

mother at Arizona State where she was banned for five years after breaking NCAA rules, getting Arizona State in trouble along the way when she arranged for flights and travel for visiting recruits during a dead recruiting period. Yeah, banned five years from Arizona State. Tommy read about it and put it in his column and talked about it on the podcast. He didn't break the news. Someone else had, you know, reported it a few years earlier. Look, I don't have any different takes on this subject from what I shared with you on Thursday and Friday show.

But I do want to emphasize this. You know, for LSU and its fans, this is a big deal. Some have said the damage done to that relationship is not repairable. I hope that that is not right. I actually don't believe that it's, you know, over and done with with LSU. I think time heals. and I think LSU Nation knows what I think many of us know and that this wasn't him, this was his team, his mother.

For us, it's not nearly as big of a deal as it is at LSU. But to the people responsible for seriously, one of the worst self-inflicted PR disasters I've ever seen in sports, I hope those people learned something from this. You know, the lesson is you don't need to speak on behalf of the only person that matters in this conversation when it comes to his current football team, the Washington commanders, and to its fans, Washington fans, to the fans in Baton Rouge, to fans throughout the country. The only one that matters in this conversation is Jaden himself. He's the star. Nobody else is.

and he's an adult and he's the boss. Yes, his mother is his agent, but agents work for players, not the other way around. I'm not saying that she can't be the boss at home. Of course she is. She's his mother, but professionally,

he doesn't need a hovering parent. I've seen it at the youth levels. I'm sure many of you have as well. You know, out of control, hovering parents, They create more problems than they solve. And we saw that as a case in point last week. Our fan base doesn't care as much about this whole thing because he's playing football for us.

He's an active player and he's got a chance to go out beginning on September 13th and make us forget all about this by playing well and winning and leading his team in sort of a turnaround season. LSU's in a different spot because it's about the past. He can't suit up and play for them anymore. Those are responsible, though, for last week, and it wasn't him. I promise you, this was not him. I'm not saying that he wasn't hurt or maybe upset by his number being given away.

And actually, I think LSU F that up seven ways to Sunday. But that's really not the point. the reaction to it is the point. And I don't think the reaction of a cease and desist and of a, you know, reaching out to ESPN to unveil the story with quotes. The people that are responsible for it, I hope they learned a lesson from this. I just, the damage they did to his reputation,

making him literally a punching bag for four days, counting. He's going to get over it. I'm sure. We're already over it because we're ready for him to play football. Hopefully LSU will one day get over it as well. But what we all learned is that his team or his mother, they're way too involved as friends, as family members. And if nothing has learned from this, and the lesson is he's a big boy, he's an adult, he's a professional, stop hovering and stop speaking on his behalf, stop making decisions that are PR-related and have nothing to do with football.

Sure, she's going to be involved in the contract negotiations next year. But if nothing is learned from this, then another big mistake, another big distraction is looming around the corner. And that's not something he needs or this team needs. I've never seen anything like it. Not in sports.

Not with the kind of person and the kind of player he is. There weren't people waiting to pounce on him. An amazing, amazing. And really, in some ways, just completely irrational response. And look, part of the response is what it is because a lot of people realize who made the mistake.

And it's really about her or the people around him as much as it is about him. Now, a lot of people don't know, but the people in Baton Rouge know, and I think the people here know as well. All right, my recap a Friday night next. Back to school isn't fun for the kids, and their anxiety isn't fun for you. Let me make a recommendation that will ease the angst. Thrive Market is your answer to lunchbox dread, label concern, and it replaces that target or whole foods run that you have to make every week. Thrive Market takes all the guesswork out of what time.

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to the good, the bad, and some other observations. This is obvious to the large majority of you, but some of you, I think, need the annual preseason reminder that these games are primarily for player evaluation, not team evaluation. Now, you can make observations. Now, you can make observations about did they come out with the right amount of energy? Did they or did they lack it? You know, last year in the preseason opener against New England, that was not a great effort. There wasn't a spirit and energy to the team. I felt like it was there on Friday night. But these games are not played for the purposes of improving the position that you have in any sort of standings. They're played to evaluate players. And for the most part, our team, a large percentage

of the players that were evaluated on Friday night are players who were just fighting to make the 53-man roster or even the 17-man practice squad. 26 players didn't dress for the game. Most of those players were starters and or immediate backups. Players on offense like Jaden Daniels, Terry McClorn, Stefan Diggs, Chigga Conquo, Kroski Merritt,

Rashad White, Josh Connerly, Jr., Sam Cosmy, Nick Allegretti, he's coming, he's injured right now. They didn't play. The only offensive starters, expected starters that played were Chris Paul and Brandon Coleman. Defensively pretty much the same thing. Kinlaw Payne, Settle, Oway, Chason, Louvre, Armstrong, just coming back from an injury. Amos, you know, just coming back now from an injury. Sanristil, Cross, Reeves, Amic Robertson. you know, call it 90% of the players that hope to be out there on September 13th as starters or rotational contributors, they didn't play. On defense, we did see Sunny Stiles and Leo Chanel. We saw both of them out there. I thought it was notable that Cross and Reeves were the

two safeties that didn't dress. I know we've been talking about Jeremy Reeves potentially being in the starting lineup. I think that was controversial. information the other night. Man, Suter was damn right about Jeremy Reeves. I mean, he started saying from the beginning of his film breakdowns last year, how do they keep Reeves off the field on defense? Well, this new defensive coordinator apparently can't. He's going to be the starting free safety with Nick Cross as the starting strong safety. Look, it's a waste of time to get into any sort of thought, because it's wasted on game flow or the results or situational football, it makes no sense to do that. The players that will be out there when the real games begin were not out there on Friday night.

Add to that, the backups and the backups to the backups actually faced some of the Miami starters early in the game. And I do think that the performance from our backups primarily against their ones early was not necessarily. necessarily impressive. And look, last year, if you recall, much of the season was backups and backups to the backups playing against the other team's ones. Didn't work out. So you'd like to see some improvement with the depth in this particular roster. Yeah.

So look, that's the overall, hey, every year, it's just know what you're watching. It's a terrible watch. It is a horrendous, horrendous watch. All right, with all that said, here it goes for whatever it's worth to any of you. Probably not a lot. So the most impressive player on the field, and I didn't actually think it was very close, was Robert Henry Jr., the running back from UTSA. He was running with the twos and the threes against twos and threes,

but you can, you know, watch as a football fan and identify natural running ability. And he has it as a runner. Excellent vision. Really, really good patience and a burst. Really good feet, decisive, good cutback ability, perfect for a zone run scheme. He played at UTSA, that's the University of Texas at San Antonio,

if you don't know. they've been pretty decent in recent years. They opened up last year. I went and looked this up to see if they played any good defenses and how he did. The opener last year was against Texas A&M. Texas A&M had one of the better defenses in the country. It actually weakened a little bit as they got towards the end of the season. And then in the playoff game, Mark Fletcher, the running back for Miami,

ran through them, especially in the second half, fourth quarter in particular. And that ended up being the decisive part of the game. but early in the season, A&M's defense was stout. In the season opener last year, UTSA in College Station, they lost the game 42 to 27, but Robert Henry Jr. rushed for 177 yards against that defense on just 16 carries, 11.2 yards per carry. He had two touchdowns as well. That's an impressive result.

He's not big. You know, not big at all, but he is built for zone run inside, outside zone runs. They were balanced at UTSA last year. They had a ton of inside and outside zone in their offense. He's a natural fit for it. He just is. I don't know if there's room for him on the roster. You know, I've heard people say, well, Ketron Allen's, you know, draft status will protect

him and give him the edge. He was drafted in the sixth round. I mean, come on. I liked Ketron Allen coming out of Penn State. I was really impressed with Robert Henry Jr. I thought Ketron Allen started slowly. He dropped a pass. I don't think at least Friday night he looked as natural as Robert Henry Jr. did.

But I do like Ketron Allen. Don't get me wrong. Henry Jr., man, he was back on kickoffs, punts. They saw something in him over the last few weeks, the offseason and they wanted to see it. And guess what? They saw it. They saw a guy that definitely helped

himself, whether it's for this team, who knows it might be for somebody else. Robert Henry Jr., for me, he was the absolute star of the night, if you want to call it that. The player that most impressed me. I liked Antonio Hamilton

Senior number 34 in this game. You know, they brought him back a couple of months ago. Last year, at the end of the year, I went back and looked at my notes at the end of the year. He played very well against the Giants on defense. He was a very good special teams player throughout. Remember, you know, they lost some key special teams players. Nick Ballore being number one who retired. I think Antonio Hamilton, senior, if he wasn't a lock to make this team, after the way he played the other night on special teams, he flies around. He hits people. And in the game, he had a pass. He had a pass.

ass breakup. He had a tackle for loss. I said on Friday, if you're going to make a mistake, make him at full speed. He was full speed all night long. I liked Joshua Joseph's number 48. I thought he stood out to me. Not so much because there were a lot of tackles or sacks. He had a couple of pressures. He just looks the part and he moves like he is the part. You know, he played behind James Pierce two years ago, the guy that really played well as a rookie last year in Atlanta and then got arrested in the offseason. I think he's already been suspended for at least eight games. He might go to jail. But he's tall, he's lean, he's long. He looks like the kind of athlete that Durante Jones,

if he's coaching a Brian Flores-style defense, can do something with. I don't know about the intangible stuff. I don't know about the personal stuff. I know that he apparently played really well in the joint practice against the dolphins. He is definitely somebody to watch. I think he's going to make the team. That would be my guess right now. And I think he's even one of those guys that could be at a, you know, a loaded position right now, pass rusher. He's got some versatility to him.

There's something there with Joshua Joseph's. You know, speaking a Souter, Souter didn't like the film breakdown of Josephs. He didn't see anything special. I would love for him to see this guy when he starts playing real games. We'll see. I mean, that's what stood out to me. Not so much the results, but the look. He looked like a player that would be in a Brian Flores defense.

Jaden Bradley, the receiver that Terry McCorn talked about during the offseason, he nearly blocked two punts. He's tall, man. He's big. Six-four had two catches in the game. That stood out to me. Byron Cowert, a former Terp, came in in the second half. I thought he played well in the game.

Again, twos, threes, guys that aren't going to be playing in the NFL. Cowert's had an interesting career. He got drafted by the Patriots out of Maryland back in 2019 in the fifth round, and he has bounced around. Number of teams, cut, injured, was with the Jets in 25, signed with Washington. High motor, you know. I remember him at Maryland. He was a high motor player at Maryland as well.

he stood out one other thing on the list of things that I liked the uniforms looked awesome I mean all we got to do is get that logo back on the helmet at some point but I felt like I was watching my team that was the first time we've seen him in the burgundy tops burgundy tops white pants last year remember the alt uniforms were the two white uniforms at home that they were against Denver and against Dallas all right the thing things that I didn't like the Marcus Marriota injury, of course. So this is going to appear at first glance to be more of a team evaluation, but it's player evaluation. The twos and threes, primarily the twos that were out there, including

Sunny Stiles and Leo Channal, who might be ones on defense, man, they got run over, run over by Miami. Fourteen plays 93 yards touchdown. down seven minutes and six seconds. There's no game planning, okay, of course. And they, Durante Jones showed nothing on Friday night. You know, no blitzes, no exotics. We're going to have all the exotics, week one against Philly. But in terms of player evaluation up front, they didn't do a good job. Johnny Newton didn't look good. He's losing some, I think, faith among those that were fans of him. I'm not talking about fans outside the building. I'm talking about inside the building. But here's the one thing from that drive in watching Sunny Stiles. I know that

some people, I guess, really crush Sunny Stiles for his performance. Do you guys realize that he only played 14 plays, just the one drive? Like there was a whole rest of the game. If it were a regular season game, he wouldn't have come out. Here's the one thing, and I talked about this when they drafted him. You know, number one is just go watch the Ohio State film. What he did at the Combine is not what he did at Ohio State. Yes, he's a terrific, long, rangy, athletic dude, but he's not the greatest athlete you've ever seen on the field. That never showed up at Ohio State. What you saw was an excellent athlete, definitely athletic. I'm not saying he's not. But he's not, you know, like I've used the example before, he's not a Sean

Taylor blur, you know, defensively. He's long and rangy and can cover a lot of ground. The concern you have with Sunny Stiles at his height and his weight early in his career before maybe he reaches maximum, you know, physical maturity is if you get those big offensive linemen to that second level, can he hold up? Because number one, defensively this year, with all of their new players and their new coordinator, is you've got to start. stop the run. You have to stop the run in the NFL. If you don't stop the run, all those fancy new shiny toy pass rushers that they got aren't going to have a fair chance. Third and threes, third and twos, or no third downs at all, because they're gaining first downs on first

and second down, is not a good recipe for a great pass rushing year. You won't get the opportunities. So you've got to stop the run, and I'm going to be interested to see what kind of early down group they put out there. Because you've got to stop the run, and it's going to be a major, major area of observation starting against Philadelphia. Settle Ken Law pain. Are they keeping the big guys off of the next level, especially please don't let them get to double teaming Sunny Stiles? They might not have to early in his career. You know, he's in coverage a lot. I think he's going to be outstanding in coverage.

I think he'll be outstanding as a pass rush. I think he's going to get his hands on balls and knock him down. I think O'A will be that way as well. But, you know, you worry about him physically in the run-stopping game as a young player. That's all. What else was on my list of not good? Well, I had put down Jake Moody, the 29-yard doink. it obviously cost him an opportunity to continue to compete for the job.

Okay, other observations. So Ketron Allen, 23 carries 85 yards, 3.7 yards. It's a lot of carries, man, for a preseason game. I know he's the sixth round pick. And I thought he got better as the game went on, and he probably faced more players that have a much longer shot of making an NFL roster. I didn't think he was as good as Robert Henry Jr. in terms of his natural running ability.

He also dropped a pass early. But I liked Ketron Allen coming out, and it's one game, and he bounced back after a tough start with really good resilience and toughness. And, you know, he showed the ability, yards after contact to not, you know, get stopped for,

in some cases, what looked like something that should have resembled a loss on the play. I thought the coordinators, Quinn said that the coordinator, did a nice job. There were no major bottlenecks. There was one moment where the defense had to call a time out, and you saw Durante Jones trying to get organized. It's hard when you've got all of these players, a 90-man roster, you know, call it 45 and 45 on each side of the ball, whatever it ends up being. It's hard to coordinate all that. You're not game planning, so it's not like you're looking at your

sheet. And, oh, here are the defenses we plan to call against this team on third and five. I thought they did a nice job. What other observations? Oh, I wanted to mention if you didn't see this on Friday because it broke after the show, but Dorrance Armstrong suspended for the season opener for one game by the NFL for conduct detrimental. Apparently goes back to an arrest for assault and battery over a year ago. I want Doran's Armstrong back on the field. Craig Reynolds, they signed earlier today, the running back from Detroit.

Obviously, Blow's got some experience with him. I think that's because Jeremy McNichols is hurt, and Reynolds can return kicks. It could be a sign about McCaffrey, who did not have a catch the other night. I don't know. You know, they've got plenty of options on kickoff returns if McCaffrey doesn't make this team. One other observation. I thought Malik Willis, was what he was last year when he had a chance to play for the Packers,

especially in that late December Saturday night game at Soldier Field when he came into that game for Jordan Love. He is really calm, he's poised, and he's accurate. He's accurate on the move. He's accurate from the pocket. If they've got a running game with A-chan, the dolphins are going to stink this year. More likely than not, who the hell knows?

It's the NFL. Anything can happen. I kind of was impressed with Malik Willis last year, and I was impressed the other night. Like there's a calm, a poise, an accuracy, an ability to just kind of function at an NFL starting quarterback level that he certainly did not show when he was at Tennessee his first two years. He's improved his mechanics. Apparently, he's really gotten after it. Matt LaFleur and the group in Green Bay really helped him. You can see that.

Yeah, I mean, this time last year, I've said it a million times, it speaks to the NFL's craziness year to year, but Malik Willis was thought to be just a terrible draft pick, no chance of playing NFL quarterback, and he ended up being the number one quarterback in free agency. And he's a starter in Miami this year with a pretty nice-sized contract that I'm sure even he didn't see coming a year ago. All right, there was a story that came out a little while ago. about just the overall popularity of NFL teams in their own market. I'll share that with you when we return after these words from a few of our sponsors. Summer can really add up when it comes to how much money you spend,

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If you want to bet on football, I would do it at MyBooky, even if you have another place. It doesn't matter if you're already betting somewhere else. You should have more than one spot. And my bookie's offering my listeners a cash bonus when you sign up or when you re-up if you're an existing customer. Use my promo code Kevin D.C. to get a cash bonus. Everything you need for week one of the regular season is up. And every future's betting opportunity for the season is up.

Washington remains a four and a half point dog at Philadelphia. in week one. The total is at 46.5. The biggest line in week one, the Chargers, 10 and a half point favorites over the Cardinals. Did you see what the Cardinals did to Jeremiah Love? They ran them a lot, 23 snaps in his first game, rushed the ball 11 times. They threw to him three times, and he had a high ankle sprain. He got injured. He may not be available to the Cardinals in their season opener. That line didn't change because of that. It's been the highest line in week one, the Cardinals with the lowest over under win total in the NFL. This preseason week number two card includes Detroit as a four and a half point favorite over Washington Saturday

afternoon. 12 noon kick, by the way, if you didn't know that, on Saturday. MyBooky.com or mybooky.orgie.org a.g. Use my promo code, Kevin, D.C. By the way, preseason week number one, all underdogs and all unders. 13 and 4 against the number for underdogs, 12 and 5 for the unders. That was somewhat predictable after the first game of the preseason, the Hall of Fame game, when Carolina beat Arizona 33 to 30. You see these super low numbers that you never see in the regular season. and I think the public likes to bet overs.

They lost. It would have been a good weekend for the smell test, but the smell test does not operate during the preseason. All right. I wanted to end the show with this. I saw this right after the radio show today, and I thought it was interesting. It's the first ever Nielsen NFL fandom index.

Nielsen, the big rating services, service, excuse me, first ever measuring of how passionate NFL fans are in each of the team's home markets. They based it on eight metrics, eight key metrics, number one being not necessarily in this order. In fact, it isn't, you know, weighted on one thing more than any other. But apparel purchases is a metric that gets measured. Event attendance, so live attendance, linear TV viewership, streaming viewership, radio listening, betting intent, social media following, and then something they call general interest. I don't know what that means.

And basically, those eight key metrics created a total score. for each NFL team and how they are, you know, followed the passion level in each of their home markets. Now, let me just mention something because, you know, the mistake that somebody that's never paid attention to this, the mistake that gets made might be, well, the big markets are going to rule. No, it's actually the small markets that usually rule, along with the markets that have one dominant team, the dominant team being an NFL team. So number one on Nielsen's first ever local NFL fandom index, the Buffalo fan base.

Buffalo is a small market. It's all they have. I know they have a hockey team, but the bills are everything in Western New York. And the bills came in at number one in terms of the most passionate NFL fan base in the home market. Obviously, if we're, to take, you know, globally, the Cowboys would be number one.

But based on their own market, Buffalo was one, Kansas City was two, Green Bay was three, Cincinnati was four, Philadelphia, five. Buffalo, Kansas City, and Green Bay have always done very, very well in local TV numbers. Washington used to do very, very, very, very well. Washington used to do very, very, very very well. And I'm talking about, you know, 15 plus years ago now, well, even more than that. We're now 20 years and counting. The real diminishing of this fan base, the evaporation of this fan base, I think, really started in 2008. Obviously, there was a return in 2012, and then the real downfall came over those last six or so years under Snyder. But Washington used to play in this range TV numbers in particular, but everything else that's mentioned here in the Buffalo,

Kansas City, Green Bay Range. You know, Denver used to be a big part of that. They're 12th in these rankings. New Orleans, because it's essentially a one-team market. They came in at eight. Pittsburgh, by the way, was six, Baltimore seven, Detroit, eight, New Orleans, nine, Cleveland, 10, Minneapolis, 11, Denver 12, Jacksonville, 13. Seattle 14. I would have thought Seattle would have been higher. Nashville 15, Charlotte 16, Indy 17, Houston 18, Dallas, Fort Worth, 19, Chicago 20. Now, you'll start to hear some of the bigger markets. Obviously, we've had a big market or two mentioned already.

You know, Philly would be the biggest out of the markets so far in the top 15. So dominated by small markets, but again, that's not unusual when these smaller markets are dominated by one team, and that being their NFL team in this particular instance. The big markets have multiple teams that in some cases have a more passionate following, certainly in New York. New York was dead last on this list because the bottom line is the Giants and the Jets are not as popular in New York as the Yankees are or the Knicks are right now. Los Angeles, obviously, is not an NFL-first market. They're 29th on this list. 21st, tied for 21st, Boston and D.C. Now, if you look at the rest of the list, Atlanta comes in next, Phoenix, Tampa, San Francisco, Oakland, Miami, Los Angeles, and New York.

it's not 21 out of 32 because New York and Los Angeles are one market even though or New York is one market even though they have two teams and the Bay Area is one market even though they have two teams. So it's essentially 30 markets that are ranked for avid local team interests. So Washington came in 21 out of 30 markets. That is a massive, massive change from 20 years ago. 20 years ago, this same kind of study, Washington would have been in the top five, easily in the top five. They used to lead the NFL in local television ratings. And if they didn't lead the NFL, they were easily in the top five consistently over a long period of time. The markets that are below Washington, Atlanta, their football team isn't necessarily number one in the market like Washington's is.

Phoenix, not necessarily number one. Tampa, yes, I guess. The Bay Area, no, baseball's big in the Bay Area. Basketball's obviously big in the Bay Area as well. I'm not saying that the 49ers aren't number one in the market. I think they are. But I think it's certainly one of those situations that is dynamic. It changes based on who's winning.

Miami's really not a great sports town to begin with, nor is L.A. a football first or New York a football first market. So out of the football first markets, you could make the case that Washington's next to last if you view or third to last if you consider Tampa and the Bay Area to be football first markets. Yeah. Not surprising to me where Washington is. I've kind of followed this story. I've gotten over the years some of the numbers in terms of the financials. associated with the team, you know, in years like 2018,

2019, 2020, 2020, 2021. 2020 is obviously the outlier because of COVID, but, you know, some of those seasons 18, 19, 21, 22, compared to what they had been 10 years earlier or 15 years earlier. It was really a slog, and the bottom line is that business was not a healthy business relative to the way it used to be. not a surprise there. All right, done for the day.

Back tomorrow with Tommy back from vacation.