The Kevin Sheehan Show - Popeyes and MAGA Hats

Episode Date: November 5, 2019

Kevin and Thom opened the show talking about Popeye's Chicken Sandwiches and then moved to the Nats' White House visit which included Kurt Suzuki wearing a MAGA hat and Ryan Zimmerman apparently revealing his pro-Trump politics. They talked about Bill Callahan's reluctance to name Dwayne Haskins the starter for the Redskins' next game. They also discussed Trent Williams asking out of the NFL/NFLPA investigation of his accusation that the Redskins were negligent in handling his cancer scare. <p> </p><p>Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices">podcastchoices.com/adchoices</a></p> Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You want it. You need it. It's what everyone's talking about. The Kevin Sheehan Show. Now here's Kevin. You're listening to The Sports Fix. So excited today, because Tommy's in studio for the first time in what feels like maybe a month or so. It feels like a month. I haven't seen you here in a while, which means I don't get the complaining about the drive-in and all of those issues. But it's good to see you here. I think it's always, I think you and I had a relationship doing the show that we did for. many years that was different for me and that I always felt like it was better when we were together. I agree. Absolutely. Well, I think most shows are, but in particular, I think ours was. Now, I did a show with Cooley where we were rarely in the same place and it never really, I don't think, impacted it. For me, though, you needed, like, visual clues. I think you needed some stimulation, some physical stimulation. Well, you know what?

visual stimulation, not physical stimulation. And I thought that that was always important. But I think we've done this podcast with you on the phone, and it hasn't really been, you know, that much different. No, no. And look, it's always good. I just think it's better sometimes when you and I are together. And we usually were. You know, the only time I actually know that I think about it, that we were ever separate was when just one of us went to the Super Bowl.

There was that stretch of years where the company could only afford for one of us to go to the Super Bowl. and we and you got I guess I got some of the I got San Francisco and New York and New York and you got Indianapolis and New Orleans. You got New Orleans and that was sort of the trade. I said fine, I'll do New York and San Francisco. But if you get New Orleans, you got to take Indianapolis. That was the thing. You wanted to go to Indianapolis.

I did not want to go to Indianapolis. That's true. And there were also. And we know what? We had a hell of a good time in Indiana. We came back with some stories. You did come back because I think you fooled flim flam some people into believing that you were a former Notre Dame player. A Notre Dame nose guard.

Yeah, exactly. Yes, that happened in Indianapolis. I remember that. You know, I'm amazed that at what you've done with the studio since I've been gone, I see some batteries on the shelf over there. Yes. There are in case we run out of juice. And some napkins? Yeah.

You know, so you've really made some changes here. Just like my office for many years. But the other times, too, that we were not in the same place is when you went to Vegas for a fight. Yeah. But that was usually one. You and I went. We went several times together. Several times together.

Yeah. But anyway. So before we get into the news of the day, the sports of the day, which also was sort of the news of the day or yesterday with the White House visit by the Nationals, I wanted to tell both of you about an experience that I had last night. and it's topical because these Popeye's chicken sandwiches have been, you know, big news here recently. Are you familiar with the whole Popeye's chicken sandwich? I'm familiar with the phenomenon. Okay. So, Aaron, you're obviously familiar with it.

Have you had a Popeye's chicken sandwich yet? I have not had the chance to have one. Have you, Tommy? No, I'm not a Popeye's guy. Oh, really? Oh, no. Absolutely not. Are you a fried chicken person?

Oh, yeah. Well, what's your favorite fried chicken? Oh, actually, Roy Rogers. Roy Rogers has some good fried chicken. They do. Roy Rogers, Royal Farms, and then KFC. Royal Farms. Well, KFC, no, KFC would not be on my list for fried chicken.

Popeyes is definitely on my list. But the Roy Rogers thing, you and I both love Roy Rogers. So last night I was with my son. We had to go to this thing together, and then we were in Tenly where there is a Popeye's. And he said, guess what? Popeyes has the chicken sandwiches back. And I followed the story a little bit. And he also went on to tell me that somebody had been stabbed at an Oxen Hill Popeye's in line.

Like there's been some real violence over cutting in line for these Popeye's chicken sandwiches. Anyway, those of you that know the Tenley area know that there's that stretch of restaurants, Z Burger is there. I love Z burger, by the way. I think it's very underrated. And you know who loves Z burger? And that particular Z burger was Obama. Really? When he was president because Sidwell Friends is right down the street where his girls went.

And so there were, I think, multiple times during his presidency that he went into that Z Burger. I've never had Z Burger either. Z Burger's pretty good. So anyway, there's that Z burger. There's a Chapoelay. There's a Popeye. There's a bunch of restaurants there. So we were close.

So we went and we parked the car and we're walking around to the front door and there's this line out basically, you know, coming through the front door. I'm like, no, no, no. I don't want to do this. And my son, Corbyn's like, no, no, let's do it. It won't be that line. It won't be that long. So we walked in Tommy, and I looked at the front register area, and there were three registers, and just one of them was where the line was going, and I realized very quickly that the line

was snaking. Like, we walked in the door, and then after about 30 seconds standing there, somebody goes, that's not the line. The line's over here in the front. they had created somehow a snake line that went from, if you, if you're, let me draw the picture. So you're looking at the front counter. There's register one far right, register two right in the middle,

register three flush left, okay? The line started at the front counter, at the register that was far left, and then snaked back towards the front door, and then went around to the register that was on the far right. So to get in line, you had to go to the front counter and get in this snake line. So it was like a you almost. It was a you.

Okay. Now, I'm looking at this thing, and immediately I'm like, something doesn't make sense to me here, because there was another register, the one in the middle, with a person standing at the register, a Popeye's employee, that looked like they wanted to take orders. But no one was in that line. So I didn't do the asshole thing of just walking right up to that. Okay? I didn't.

I thought about it. But what I did is I made myself very clear to everybody in the store. I'm sorry, why is the, are you open this middle line? And she said yes. And I looked to everybody and I said, this register is open. Did you guys not know that? And they're like, well, the line's back over here. I said, I know that.

But it shouldn't be. There should be two lines here for the two registers that are open. And then with that, somebody from the back, like the manager or the assistant manager, heard. And it wasn't like there was no confrontation. I was just saying to everybody, I think really what we should do, everybody, is create a second line here and forget this snake thing and just go with the two lines. People are like, no, no, no, man. And you can't cut.

Like people were assuming I was, I'm not cutting. I'm just saying this. person sitting here ready to wait on us and no one wants to go in this line. With that, the manager comes to the front and goes, hey, we got two lines here. If everybody would get into two lines, I cut everybody's time in half, Tommy. I mean, I was working for the people. So you were like a hero. I was. You might have prevented somebody from getting stabbed. I think I perhaps, I think I prevented some violence. Yes, because who knows what would have happened, tempers might have flared in that snake line if it took too long.

And you, you like relieve the pressure. I cut everybody's time in half. What was remarkable to me? Did you get it? You should have got a free sandwich. Well, you know, it was funny because then I started, I was the ringleader of making sure that the snake got divided into the two lines. Oh, this doesn't surprise me at all. This does not surprise me at all.

So I, you know, there were a couple of people that immediately started to walk to the second line. I'm like, no, no, no, no, we got to go with the people that go in the order in which the snake is. Right. In other words, divide the snake line. Exactly. And then the person who, the first person who leaves the snake line is in front of the second line. We're going to take the snake in order and create the two lines. I mean, you can't just go from the back of the snake line because you're closest to the middle register and jump in line.

You're last in line. And a couple of people tried to make that move. Oh, and they did the old. Oh, yeah, yeah, no, no, you're right. You're right. And then when we had the two lines formed, there was a woman who was in the back that said, I was in front of those people. And I said, well, then you come right up.

And I said to this gentleman, I said, she was in front of you in the snake line. If you'll move back a little bit, everything was fine. It was fine. You know, so, Aaron, call WRCTV. We've got a follow-up on the murder over to chicken sandwich. We have the good Samaritan here. Yeah, we do. It's a better story.

It's a much better story. Do you think a statue will be built at this location? Yeah, and it'll be made out of chicken. By the way, the chicken sandwich is pretty good. Is it? Is it? Yeah, I mean, I do like Popeyes. I think they're fried chicken.

The spicy fried chicken is just the best. Roy Rogers is great, too. Don't get me wrong. The chicken sandwich, so by the way, it became a very lively crowd in the store, and people started talking about Chick-fil-A versus this particular. Some people had had the sandwich before. I had not had the sandwich. And a lot of people seemed to me still think that Chick-fil-A is a little

bit better. Personally, I think if you told me now after having the Popeye's chicken sandwich, if I had a choice, like go to, I'm hungry, I think I'd go Chick-fil-A spicy chicken sandwich. Oh, I don't eat Chick-fil-A. Yeah. Oh, you don't? No. Why? Is that also like Chipotle a girl thing? No, that's not a girl thing. That's a personal preference thing. Tommy once thought that he thought, Tommy didn't once think. Tommy still thinks. Tommy still thinks that Chipotle is for girls. It is. I don't get that. That's why guys go. You'll have to elaborate on this one. That's why guys go because it's for girls. That one I've never been able to follow.

But anyway, there's my chicken sandwich story. I got the spicy without pickles, which was a bit controversial. I don't like pickles on my sandwich. You know, you should send this clip to Popeye's. I'll bet you Kevin can get like six months' worth of free chicken sandwiches at us. I will tell you this. A couple of the people that were in line. They wanted to buy your chicken sandwich?

They weren't ordering one chicken sandwich. There was somebody that ordered 20 of them. Really? Yeah. Did they have a limit as to how many you could order? They did not. Not that I know of. Because somebody said that somebody was taking a long time said, yeah, they ordered 20. Wow. Anyway, okay, that's enough of that. How you doing? I'm doing great.

How much fun. We talked about the World Series already, because we did a show on Thursday together. How about Saturday? What a cool day. Oh, it was absolutely great. And I didn't know how much I was in when I, you know, first of all, I did the morning show with Nick on 1067 fan. Right. And then from there, made my way over, drove over to the parade route. And I was lucky because I got a parking space on the street, like a block from Independence Avenue. Wow.

Yeah. What time did you get down there? I got there probably 1230. Okay. You know? And I got this great spot. So I walked over to the mall and I sat on a bench and I had a, you know, a, a, you know, post-show cigar.

You know, I'm thinking, well, I don't know how much I'm really going to be into this. I mean, I don't have to stay, you know, all this stuff is going to be on TV. Right. I got to write a column. But, I mean, I can kind of get the gist of it and leave if I wanted to. Well, that never, I never left. Right. I mean, I really, I didn't leave until it was over because it was so, it turned out to be such a cool thing to see.

I was lucky enough to get a. Did you get high? No, no, no, I didn't do that. You could have secondhand down there. Not where I was. Oh, really? Not where I was. I mean, I was right near the stage.

Yeah. And I was this small, tight area. Yeah. But I had a really good, I mean, I was right on the rail of the parade route. In other words, like, there were a lot of people who were in the parade, who saw me, who knew me, and who came over to say hi to me. That's how close I was. That's awesome. Yeah.

We had a broadcast position next to Penn Quarter Sports Tavern, and there were a lot of people that stopped by to say hello. I was surprised at that because we did not really promote that we were going to be doing programming for whatever. There were a couple of reasons for that, but anyway, I'm not going to get into those reasons. But a lot of people came by, said hello. We were right next to Penn Quarter Sports Tavern where I believe the team party was that night after the whole parade. And it was, first of all, and I said this yesterday, but I haven't said it to you. I love my city.

I mean, I am definitely, you know, not objective. I love Washington. I'm from here. I'm born here. I've lived here my entire life. I've spent a lot of time in other places, but this is my hometown. And I love our city now so much more than I ever did when I was younger. It's just a better city.

And so many, they're neighborhoods now. There are areas that are just thriving, and it's a better young person city than it's ever been. But when I drove to down there, I'm driving down Massachusetts. Massachusetts Avenue, and it starts on embassy row with all the embassies where I'm just starting to see people in Natskir. And we're a couple of miles away at that point. And people are walking up and down. It's beautiful fall Saturday.

And the difference between this parade and the Caps Parade is the Caps Parade was a workday. It was a weekday. This is a Saturday, a beautiful fall day. Now that works both ways. Like I point out to somebody, a work day means you get the work crowd that will come out for the parade as well. Yeah, I just think more people have the ability to go to the parade on a non-work day. Well, it depends.

I mean, there's a lot of people working in D.C. during the week. Yeah, that's true. You know, and you really don't know how many people, you know, their bosses said, go ahead, go out, you know, go out to the parade. So. So, like, in driving down there and then eventually getting, you know, and driving around DuPont Circle, it was amazing to me. Like, DuPont Circle just hordes of people, crowds of people. We are still, you know, ten. blocks away. And just driving down, it was, the whole city was buzzing and lit up with

Nats gear, people in Nats gear. And then I parked in that city center area. I walked around Chinatown, walked around, packed, people excited, people going to, people coming from. It was just, I don't know, it made me, uh... It was communal. It was very communal. It was very communal, and I've said this for years. The CACs parade was, too. Yes, it was. I'm not a parade guy, are you? I am.

I am a parade guy. In fact, when the Mets won the World Series in 86, I was living in Maryland working for the Baltimore Sun, I got on a train the morning of the ticker tape parade and went up to Manhattan and went to the parade for the Mets in 86. There are very few, if any, things that unify us as people anymore. Like I've always said, you're the king of your castle. You never have to leave your house right now. You can order food. You can order medicine.

You can, you know, you never have to leave. So the connections that we have are not as strong as they used to be. People don't go to church as much they used to. They don't join groups as much as they used to. They don't bowl in bowling leagues as much as they used to. Well, they might in some ways. But sports still is still the one thing where we gather as different people. for a common reason.

And the parade was the ultimate of that to me. I mean, so yeah, this is the value of professional sports in a city. It's one of the last unifiers. Yeah, I mean, you felt a lot of that. Certainly, I went to game three. I did not go to games four or five, but you felt a lot of that on that Friday afternoon all day long leading up to game three, the first World Series game in D.C.

that whole scene down, you know, at the stadium and in the bullpen. And then, you know, on all of those. On half street and stuff. It was incredible. It turns out that the before the game experience for the three World Series games was better than the game experience. But that was pretty awesome. And, you know, you got the sense that you get.

And you haven't done this a lot. I've done it. Aaron's done it where you go to some big college football games. And it's a whole day. and half of the people that are there aren't even going to the game. They just want to participate in this communal thing. And I guarantee you a lot of people down, you know, on the Southeast waterfront for that weekend were not, didn't go to the game. Right.

They were just hanging out watching the game with everybody. But anyway, Saturday was just cool. I didn't mention this yesterday, and I saw it again. Somebody sent me the link to it. but Chris Mad Dog Russo, who I love, you know I love him. I've always been a big fan of his, and I like that show High Heat he does on MLB Network, but he referred to us on Monday, I think it was Monday, maybe it was Friday, I forget when it came from, he was like, this is really a cool thing for, you know, a small market town like Washington, D.C.

I know, and I heard him say that, and I'm like, you know what, that's such a New Yorker thing to say. It really is. And a lot of my friends who live in New York or Connecticut or New Jersey, you know, and aren't from here, it's sort of the way they view D.C. Hello, you know, it's the number six market in the country. It's not a small market at all. Washington would be considered a big market team. I believe it would be, just not by people from New York. Anyway, I don't know why I slipped that in.

I just thought it was a really cool day and cool night overall. But anyway, let me do a quick read here from mybooky.h.g. And then we'll get to the White House visit yesterday, which certainly stirred social media up yesterday afternoon. If you guys have been looking for a place to wager and bet, by the way, I didn't lean on the game last night, right, Aaron? I was very clear that I did not like a side on the game last night. I did not play the game personally.

I didn't like the Giants, I didn't like the Cowboys. Some of you were saying I didn't give a lien one way or the other. It's probably it's because I didn't have one. I should have maybe emphasized that. But anyway, if you're looking for a place to wager on football the rest of the year, basketball, hockey, whatever, you've got to find a place that you can trust more than anything else. And mybooky.orgie.orgie.g is one of those places. It's where a lot of people I know play.

They've got fast payouts. They've got quality and fair lines. you're able to wager in any way you want to wager, straight bets, parles, teasers, futures, in-game action, they've got it all available to you. You just go to my bookie.ag, and if you use my promo code, they'll double your first deposit. If you're the kind of guy, by the way, that, you know, is concerned about payouts or the kind of guy that is thinking, okay, they're going to double my first deposit. That means I can just go there, make a couple of wagers and get it out.

That's not how it works. There is a commitment you have to make when you take on that promo, that promotion of doubling your first deposit. If you want to go in there and not use my promo code and bet with my bookie.ag, you can do that too, and you'll get your payout whenever you want if you're up. But if you use this promo code, I want to be very clear, they will double your first deposit. So if you put 500 bucks in, you're going to have $1,000 to wager with. I would do that. I mean, there should be no hurry for you to take it out. Put in only what you can afford to lose.

It's good, by the way, advice when it comes to gambling. Don't gamble more than you can afford to lose. But anyway, I would use my promo code, Kevin D.C., K-E-V-I-N-D-C. They'll double that deposit, and then you've got to play at a certain level for a certain period of time before you can actually get your money back. So I wanted to be clear on that. You just can't make the deposit and make one bet and say, hey, let me have all of the money, including that doubling of my first deposit.

back. It doesn't work that way. Go to my bookie.ag. Use my promo code Kevin D.C. You play, you win, you get paid. So yesterday, the Nats visited the White House, which, you know, Tommy, there was a time where the championship teams in any of the four professional sports, it was a very benign event, very innocent to go continue the celebration of being at the White House. Yes, it wasn't like walking into a closet full of dynamite. No, no. It wasn't. And there was a closet full of dynamite yesterday because Kurt Suzuki was called up by the president. When he got up there, he put on a MAGA hat, Make America Great Again hat, and said, I love you, I love you to the crowd, shook the president's hand, shook the first lady's hand, and walked off. And then it was Ryan Zimmerman's turn. Ryan Zimmerman got called up. He handed the president a jersey, a jersey, a guy. Nat's jersey with the number 45 on it and his name Trump on it. And then he said the following. Mr. President, me and my teammates, first of all, I would like to thank you for having us here.

This is an incredible honor that I think all of us will never, we'll never forget. And we'd also like to thank you for keeping everyone here safe in our country and continuing to make America the greatest country to live in the world. That was Ryan Zimmerman. First of all, real quickly, on Zimmerman. When you heard that, did you hear that live? Yeah. And what did you think immediately? I thought, oh, this guy just stuck his hand into a hornet's nest. Okay, good. That was what I thought. It was the first thing I thought. Because I was surprised, I did a whole hour and a half on this on radio this morning. There were some people that said, you know, he may have just been being respectful. It may not

have been revealing of his political bent. I think it was personally. That's what I heard. But I am open to the possibility that he was just being very respectful to the office and to the president in that particular situation. And he wasn't revealing his political persuasion. But that's what I heard. I heard the same thing you did. And by the way, more importantly, that's what everybody else heard pretty much. Yes, it is. Because after Suzuki, you know, donned the MAGA hat and Zimmerman said what he said, all hell broke loose on the internet. Absolutely. And here I'm going to give you just a sampling of some of the responses.

You know, a lot of people tweeted this out. And what I like to do on social media in events like this is read the tweets, but then read the responses, you know, to the actual news of what was said. And I went on a couple of people like, you know, Steinberg, you know, who tweeted out. There are a lot of responses in other places as well. On Zimmerman, people said, wow, I had, this is one tweet. Wow, I had been a fan of his since he was drafted in 45 seconds. I don't really care for him at all now.

Second one, this is really depressing. He was always my favorite. Third one, you broke my heart, hashtag Zimmerman. A fourth one, never meet your heroes, folks. A fifth one, WTF, Zim, this makes me sick. And they kept going on and on and on, and really, many of them were vile. For Suzuki, he had to lock his Twitter account yesterday. You saw that, right?

The responses were so. awful towards him. My general sense of it is, I could be wrong, in reading all the responses, 90% of them were negative and maybe 10% of them were supportive. But again, Sean Doolittle, you know, to me, very eloquently stated last week on Friday, I think it was, or maybe it was over the weekend, why he wasn't going to go to the White House. And it had to do with the fact that he just did not agree with the kind of person Trump was and Trump's rhetoric, et cetera. And I'm sure he got a lot of angry feedback as well. I would assume that he did.

I'm sure he did. A lot of the tweets came from, you know, not people with three followers, but people with thousands of followers. You know, and one of them, I was reading, shame on the nationals for appearing at the White House and normalizing this shit show of a presidency.

Shame on Kurt Suzuki and Ryan Zimmerman, both who have shown their true colors. Disgusting. Kudos to all the Nats players who refused to attend. Another one. Ryan Zimmerman just single-handedly ruined his reputation this afternoon,

showed us all who he really is. This is who the nationals want as the face of their franchise. Looks like they made the right decision in not picking up his option. Let him sign somewhere else. This was for me, maybe your experience was different. For me, this was 90% of the reaction on social media.

I was going to say 95%. Maybe it was. It was overwhelming. I was stunned at how people were off put by this. Really? You didn't think it was predictable? Well, no, in the sense that I thought people, I mean, since most of the teams have gone to the White House,

I think, the Warriors were the only team, I think, that actually didn't go. Yeah, but a lot of players have backed out. Yeah, but a handfuls of players here and here. I mean, the Cubs showed up a couple years ago and made a big deal. A good chunk of the Red Sox didn't. I want to say it was about a third of the Red Sox players didn't show up. Yeah, that's true, including the manager. By the way, just if people are wondering, seven of the 25 players that were on the World Series roster did not go.

Sean Doolittle, as I mentioned, was the only one to voice his reason for passing on the chance to go. And again, I thought he was very eloquent, thoughtful. And he said, you know, essentially he's not a fan of the president, the president's policies, the president's personal behavior or rhetoric. And he chose not to attend. The other six that didn't show up, I don't think. We have no idea why. didn't show up. Gara, Gara, was getting married this weekend. That's right. I think I did read that. And Robles supposedly had already booked his travel.

We have not heard anything from any of the people who didn't show up, like Rendon or anything like that, that there was any particular reason for their absence. But I would guess, we don't know what the reasons are. I would guess that they had something to do with them not feeling comfortable because of President Trump. That would be my guess. I wouldn't even jump to that. I conclude with Rendon, I just think he just had enough. Reddon wasn't even at the Caps game, was he? I don't know.

He wasn't even. So Rendon, I think. I mean, you know, he may just have had enough of all the attention. So the other five, do you think any of those five decided not to go? Who are the? I don't even remember who the other five were. But I think it's possible that none of the other five stayed away for political reasons. I think it could all be for other reasons than politics.

I'd be surprised if all five of them stayed away for reasons that weren't political or weren't in terms of their personal feelings towards the president. But you know what? That's actually not what we're here to talk about and guess on percentages of those that missed. What was your, so why were you so surprised at the reaction of that? Because I thought, right when I heard him say it, I'm like, uh-oh. Well, when he said that, I mean, the visit itself, I thought that, I didn't think that people would overreact to the visit. I mean, there are some people that said they should have never visit. at the White House in the first place.

And I still think enough teams are doing that, that that's the accepted norm that basically teams still visit the White House. Here's my thoughts on two things on this. First of all, it shouldn't be a shock to anybody that millionaires like the president. That should not be a shock. And these guys are millionaires.

Okay? They have tons of money. And in most baseball clubhouses, I would venture to say that you find more Trump supporters than not. Okay, so that's the one thing. The second thing is, and this is what I speak to all the time, constantly, and teams never learn. The Nationals as a group had to be assembled before that White House visit by somebody with a brain in the organization and say, look, this is potentially a volatile situation. we're not telling you if you feel like you want to express yourself politically we're not telling you not to

but we're going to tell you what will happen if you do this is what will happen if you if you express anything other than just a neutral benign uh enjoying a celebration as opposed to any kind of political connection or embraced with the president is this you're going to be hurt as a result Now, you might not care about that. If you want to express yourself politically, that's fine. But this is what the consequences will be. Somebody needed to talk to that group and tell them that. I'm betting that that didn't happen, that this was all just haphazard.

I'm wondering why you were surprised then at the reaction. I wasn't surprised at the reaction to what Zimmerman and Suzuki did. Oh. I was surprised by some to the reaction that they visited it all. I mean, I got a lot of, they should have never even made the visit. And I just think that that's wishful thinking, that that team still, like I said, the Cubs visited the White House and made a big deal of it when they won the World Series. So that's all.

I mean, they didn't get good advice. And Suzuki seemed shocked by the reaction. Well, he claimed afterwards that it was sort of a jokey thing that he was doing. I think he was, I think he was. It's not, it's, by the way, I agree with you. That in, the other thing that I thought was interesting is that the Nat spokespeople did not comment on any of this, which by the way, I think is 100% the right thing to do. And they didn't let anybody do interviews on this visit, which was also the right thing to do. It was protective, which is what you were suggesting they should have been up front.

And we don't know that they weren't. Right, we don't. But I'm assuming that they weren't. I mean, yeah, because. You know, Suzuki could have said, I can't wait to meet him. I'm a big fan of his.

I'm an ultra, you know, conservative. I'm going to put this hat on. Somebody should have said, you can do that. It is your right to do that. Absolutely.

Understand that you, it will be a shit show following it if you do that. And by the way, and I want to get into this, I actually wonder whether or not their actions yesterday could hurt them professionally. Oh, I think in this town,

if Kurt Suzuki showed up at Fan Fest, well, not fan fest, but if he showed up at a game now, like a week from now, he'd be booed. Zimmerman, I don't know about, but Suzuki, he'd be booed. I think Zim's thing, as you were saying, whether or not you believe it, you can at least write it off as respecting, you know, the office of the president. Yeah, but he went too far. He did go too far, but you can spin it. You can't spin Suzuki.

No. With Zimmerman, it's, look, Tommy and I both felt the same way, and I think most people did. When you heard him, you felt like he just revealed that he was a big Trump supporter. Yeah. You know, if he had actually said the words, you know, making America great again, instead of, where's the quote here? I had it here. Making America the greatest country in the world kind of thing. If he had said making America great again, you would have known for sure.

Yeah. You know, but personally, I don't think that that's debatable. I think it was revealing, but it may not be, but he'd have to come out and say that today and say something like, and he hasn't, as far as I know at this point, said something like, look, my comments to the president were respectful of the office and the position. It was not revealing of my political persuasion or feelings in any way, shape, or form. That was a misread. And by the way, don't misread these comments either. Yes. You know, but I'm staying, you know, I'm going to, I'm not being, I was not being political there at all.

He could say that, but he hasn't said that as far as I'm, as far as I'm at this point. I haven't seen anything like that. But again, it shouldn't surprise anybody that baseball players are, are conservative, some ultra-conservative and are supportive of a president who cut their taxes. That should not be a surprise. So I would, I would disagree with you. I would agree with you that there are. definitely, you know, that definitely people with high incomes certainly more likely than not support a lot of his policies. But I also look at sports and you have a significant percentage of minorities in sports. I would not say that the majority of clubhouses or locker rooms around professional sports are pro-Trump. I would say it's not majority. In baseball,

they are. Why? Because I just, for one thing, I just think they do. What about what about the whole Latino portion of a team in a clubhouse and how significant that is in baseball. I know, but it's not the majority. It's like a quarter, 25%. I would be surprised if it's a majority that are pro-Trump. By the way, one way or the other, I don't necessarily care. It just didn't, when you said that, it didn't ring true to me. It would be a minority, certainly in the other sports it would be. It would be a significant minority in the NBA and in the NFL. And maybe in the NHL, it's close. And then don't forget, don't forget, like Michael Jordan once said, Republicans buy sneakers.

Yeah, they do. So, I mean, just because somebody is a minority, you don't know what side of the fence they're going to come down on, whether they're going to come down on their pocketbook or their conscience. Here's my big thought on this. I have a couple of them. But the big one is this. After reading all of those responses, everybody's entitled to their own opinion. but I really don't understand, and I would suggest to people, that, you know, if you really were so off put as to you're not going to root for the team, or you're not going to root for either player ever again, and this is somehow really ruined the last month for you, which a lot of people said. Yes.

I don't get that. Why would you deprive yourself of something like this? Like I personally have always viewed sports. It's a job for us, obviously. But beyond that, it's a diversion. It's a diversion away from, you know, the things in your life that aren't as thrilling, that aren't as happy, that aren't as competitive if you get into that part of it. You know, things that make you happy. This is a diversion from the things that make you unhappy to something that makes you happy.

Like, why would you deprive yourself of that because of the way two players believe and they're entitled to believe politically? It doesn't make any sense to me. You're entitled to feel that way. You're entitled to have this move you in a direction of, I can't root for that team anymore. And I certainly can't root for these two players. I just would never, ever. Like, I don't go to a concert and listen to, you know, guy, it bothers me when they get very political. but someone's, Clint Eastwood movies, if I were a liberal, I'd still go to Clint Eastwood movies and enjoy them.

Bob De Niro's movies, if I were a conservative, I wouldn't stop going to his movies because I disagree with him politically. Okay, but here's what you keep saying. You keep saying the word politically. For these people, this is beyond politics. This is not politics. I mean, for a lot of people in this country who are speaking up about, lot of people who are speaking up about this, this has gone over the political edge. This is a, this is the right side of history kind of question. This is not a political question anymore. No, I know what you're saying. And that leads to this, because it was, it was sort of my second point, is that you and I have had some of these political conversations over the years, you know, off the air. Aaron and I have, have as well. And I can't stand the extremes on either side. I view

the extremes on both, the left and the right, to be actually very hypocritical, because, you know, in the case of the far left, it's not that much different from the far right, they essentially want you to know that you're not entitled to your wrong opinion. You know, your wrong opinion is up for them to decide whether or not you are cancelable. Are you familiar with this whole cancel culture? Aaron is, do you know what the cancel culture is that we're living in right now? Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay, so if you're not familiar with it, look it up, read about it. Part of it involves public social media shaming of people who don't believe what certain people believe. You're canceled in certain progressive circles if you don't believe in what they believe.

By the way, that's not so progressive sounding to me. It's among the least tolerant and most close-minded approaches I've ever seen for people who preach tolerance and open-mindedness. I Tommy have some personal experience with this recently, and I'm not going to go into the great details of it, but it involves one of my kids, all right, and they're friends. You know, I can just tell you that tolerance and broad-minded don't ultimately lead to public shaming of people on social media because they don't believe with your views. I don't get it. The far right also screams the same thing that you're essentially not entitled to your wrong opinion, you know, when it doesn't mean. match up to theirs. There's no moderate in this country anymore. There's no centrist. There's no practical or pragmatist. I mean, you can't get elected in your own party, you know,

politically if you're not far left or far right. You can't even win the nomination. But that's part of the problem, Kevin. That's part of the problem. The far left, the far right, the fringe. Yeah. Okay. The fringe used to serve a purpose in this country in that they push the envelope, but they weren't part of the, they weren't part of, of the interior. No words, like they pushed it. One way or the other, they would push, but they weren't the power. Now they've become the power. And now, now, I mean, now, you know, and that's.

You certainly argue that. And that's the damage. That's the damage that's done right now. And that's why this cancel culture is being, being promoted. Cancelling Tommy, the cancel culture is, you know, know what? You have some hate in you because you don't agree with me and we are going to publicly shame you on social media. And by the way, that's not a very open-minded view. How about, how about, you know, instead of being viewed as the Woffler or the stradler or, you know, that you're, hey,

I'm a liberal and I can listen to you and maybe learn something from you, Mr. Conservative. and I'm a conservative and I'm actually going to listen to you, you know, a Mr. Left Wing to see if I can learn anything from you and then I'll make my mind up. But you're entitled to your opinion and I'm entitled to mine. And you can disagree with me, but you can't publicly shame me, you know, on social media, which is what these people were trying to do to Ryan Zimmerman and Kurt Suzuki. You saw that fringe yesterday and you're right. It's become more significant. It's not fringe anymore. No. Okay? And that to me, first of all, when it comes to my original point, I just personally wouldn't let Kurt Suzuki or Ryan Zimmerman or Clint Eastwood or Vince Vaughn's views in the same way that I wouldn't let Bob De Niro's views deprive me of my diversion and entertainment. I just wouldn't take it that seriously. But some do, and I thought that they went overboard yesterday. But again, they're entitled to their opinion, their wrong opinion.

You know, I think ultimately it will fade, you know, as time goes on. What will fade? I mean, the reaction. The Suzuki and Zimmerman thing? I think it will fade as time goes on. But, you know, either guy should not have been surprised. If they're surprised at the reaction, they shouldn't have been at what happened. It's fair.

I mean, they shouldn't have been, they were in the ballpark when the president got booed. They should not have been surprised by the reaction. I bet Suzuki was surprised. Well, then he's not a very sharp answer. Well, I don't know that he's not sharp. I'm not suggesting that he isn't, but his reaction up there was sort of like, I don't, I'm clueless as to what's coming here

in the moments that follow this little hat wearing. Oh, I think he was stunned by the reaction. Yeah. I think he was stunned. by it. But I think you're right about Zimmerman. If Zimmerman were actually revealing himself to be, you know, a Trump supporter, to me, I bet Zimmerman was not surprised with the reaction. Now, let me get to this. By the way, you know, Bell, to your point, I agree with you. It's going to fade. Like Nat's fans who were so angry that are major, you know, Democrats can't stand the president.

And even those centrists and moderates who can't stand the president. You know, that's the other conversation that's going on in this country. Can you actually support his policies and hate him? I think the answer is yes. A lot of people do not believe that that's the right answer. They believe essentially, if you support this president, you're a racist. You know, you believe in what he believes in personally. I don't, you know, I listen to Michael Jackson's music. I love it still. Thriller's a great album. Off the Wall is one of the greatest albums of all time. I am not pro-petophilia because I listen to Michael Jackson's music. An artist and a president are two different things.

Okay, that's, that's fair to a certain degree, but I think it's the same thing conceptually. In terms of, you know, you can be detached from their politics. You can be detached from their personal behavior and still enjoy the art or the, yeah. I don't think you can. I don't think you can. Well, you and I disagree on that. But let me get to what I said to you earlier. Do you think that these, these, I think it'll fade for the most part like you, just like it does with Brady and Belichick every time they, you know,

know, say that they're friends with Trump. Yeah. Okay. But could it, in this town in particular, could it hurt Zimmerman? Do you think the team would ever consider, if they were considering resigning him for a one-year deal and bringing him back? Do you think this could change their mind?

No. No, I don't think so. I just don't think so. What's Suzuki's contract deal, Aaron? I believe he has another year on it. Yeah. And Suzuki is such a valuable guy in that club. It's not going to affect the standing of either player with their team.

I guess my question should be better put. Is it bad business to bring Zimmerman back? Do you think that anybody in the organization will consider it to be bad business to bring Zimmerman back? No. No in the learners, absolutely not. I don't think so. Mike Rizzo, absolutely not. Exactly.

So did we just reveal what Rizzo's politics are? No, no. I just don't think he would let any politics one way or the other affect a decision. bring back a baseball player. I agree with you, but I think that that should have been part of the, let me prepare you for this day from their PR people. Yeah. You know, you can do whatever you want, but, you know, freedom of speech does not equal freedom of consequence. Right. As Colin Kaepernick can tell you. Yes, freedom of speech, the First Amendment means the government can't put you in jail for what you say. It doesn't mean your boss can't

fire you or people can't criticize you. That's right. And Suzuki's got one year left on his deal. Yes. So I just, I think that I think this will fade like you pointed out with Belichick and Brady, a very good comparison. I mean, you know, I mean, they've written letters to support.

They've spoken up in support and New England fans. New England, Massachusetts, it's Maryland in the sense, you know, in terms of being liberal, Massachusetts doesn't seem to affect the way people love the Patriots. No, that's true. That is true. Yeah, I think, God, you know, in thinking about this last part of the conversation, it will fade.

It will absolutely fade. That's what I would put my money on. Yeah. That by the time we get to spring training and by the time we get to the opener and opening day and they're hanging a banner, that these people that were so livid on Twitter yesterday and are threatening and absolutely have dug their heels on that they're not going to root for the team or they're not going to root for Zimmerman. and Suzuki, at that point he'll say, eh, they're just athletes. I want to go enjoy the game.

Because I asked one of my callers today. Actually, it was Ion, your favorite. I asked Ian. Ion, you know, went off on, you know, he doesn't think he can root for the team, the players, etc. And I said, so, it's the NLDS next year. It's game five. They're playing, you know, the Cardinals,

and the bases are loaded. They're down two with Zimmerman up at the plate. You're rooting for him to, with two outs. You're rooting for him to make the final out and he goes yes I think that will fade yeah I think it will too I do too all right we've got other things to get to

including the latest on Trent Williams you know this is amazing what none of these topics neither one of these two topics has anything to do with with anything that's happened on the field and by the way the next two topics will be that is that what you're saying yeah all the topics today are nothing about games well we could talk

about the Wizards game oh no no no no I want to do that? No, no, no, no. Because I did watch some of it for the first time this year. They're actually not as terrible as you think. Do you like the, what's his name, Hachamore? He's, he looked pretty good. I like them.

I haven't watched any of the games because they went head-to-head with the four World Series games and then the parade. Also, could have gone right over to Chinatown to watch the game. They were home Saturday night. But anyway, I don't want to talk about the Wizards. Nobody wants to hear us recap the Wizards game. I'll tell you a player I really like. I like Mo Wagner a lot.

And when they signed him, when he was part of that deal, I said that he's going to be a good pro. I always liked him at Michigan. And Hotchimer so far looks really good. Looks really good. They got some shooters. They played a team last night that didn't have anybody there. Blake Griffin was out.

Reggie Jackson was out. Somebody else was out. I forget who it was. We could talk about the Monday night game. If you want to talk about the games? No. Me neither. The Cowboys, by the way, I don't think are very good right now,

but they blew out the Giants slate. All right, quick word about our app. We have an app now. that you can access on your iPhone in the app store. And if you've got an Android, you can get it in the Google store. It's another way to listen to the show. It's another way to have the show right there when it's done sitting there. You can also get access to our Facebook page, the Twitter page that Aaron updates every day.

My personal Twitter as well, try it out and let us know how you feel. So far, I think the feedback's been really good, and we appreciate that. And if you download the app, all right, if you get the app, rate us highly please, five stars. It would be nice. And review us if you don't mind. But continue to listen to us on, you know, Apple Podcasts, iTunes, Spotify, tune in, Stitcher, you know, Google Play. If that's how you're listening to us, that's fine too. Also the website, the Kevin Shan Show.com.

All right. Let's get to the Callahan stuff from yesterday. So Bill Callahan yesterday announced that he's not going to make up. his mind on the quarterback situation until next Monday. That's his plan, his next Monday, and he was peppered by our

local media. Were you proud of them? Yes. I think they did a good job. They did not, John Kime kicked it off and said, you know, you're going to name a quarterback and, you know, Callahan did his thing, and then it was one person after another, Craig Hoffman included in there. And he basically

said, you know, I'm not making a decision. I've got time. here. We've got the bye week to go back and look at a lot of different things. That's the posture we're taking. We haven't determined anything yet. He said, I quote, I think we've got some time here. We have a bye week. We don't play for two weeks. So I just want to gather all the information. I want to look at a lot of things on film. Go back into the self-scout, which he talked about a lot yesterday. And I just want to take my time and decide where we're going to go in, and the direction we're going to go in, closed quote. Go ahead.

look the first thing that thing that puzzles me the thing that i'm just like obsessed with right now what the heck is the owner thinking what does this mean i mean we we have to assume that if the owner wanted dwayne haskins to start he'd be starting i mean this is the interim head coach we're talking about here it's not like he'd have a problem pushing bill callahan around to tell him who should start. So why doesn't the owner want Dwayne Haskins to start? The owner and Bruce Allen. I lump them together.

I mean, the two of them are together. Why don't they want them to start? Is it legitimate football reasons? Or do they think that, oh, my God, we really messed up. This guy can't play. I didn't see anything on Sunday that would indicate to me that you should be scared to put Dwayne Haskins on the field. I mean, he didn't turn the ball over,

that he was very limited in what they asked him to do, but there was nothing I saw that would say to me, oh, my God, if you put him out there, it's going to be a train wreck. It might be a slow-moving caboose, but I didn't see train wreck out there. So I don't know why you wouldn't put him out on the field the rest of the year moving forward.

There's nothing in there that I saw on. Sunday. Maybe they see something different in practice that would indicate to me that he would embarrass himself beyond reproach if you put him on the field. Yeah, I mean, I think I said it yesterday, and by the way, if you guys haven't listened to the podcast yesterday, Cooley came on, had already done a film breakdown of Haskins' performance in Buffalo and thought the same thing that I had said early in the show yesterday, which was, what's everybody afraid of? What's everybody been afraid of?

Yes. The guy was fine. He was no worse than Keenham would have been or McCoy would have been. Honestly, I think he's better than McCoy would have been. That's a bit much. I know. I just did that for your purposes since you're here. But first of all, I think he's going to start.

I don't think there's any chance he's not going to start. So I don't. It'd be stunning if he wouldn't start. It would be the dumbest thing of all time. It would just be, it would be, would that be a red flag? Well, I think we've already gotten the red flag on him by it taking so long. Yes. But, of course, it wouldn't be a red flag.

It would be, you know, a crimson. What's the darkest red possible? Not crimson. Burgundy's a pretty dark red. Or as Jim Zorn would say maroon. Maroon. So I think he's going to start. I don't know anything.

I just can't imagine that he started in Buffalo. He didn't soil himself in Buffalo. Nothing was, you know, your chance. of winning the game wasn't compromised with him in the game because he couldn't call plays or he couldn't get to the line of scrimmage in time. You know, it wasn't so scaled down that you had no chance of winning. Because this dude, Callahan, who goes on and on and on, my God, I mean, his press conference yesterday, I pulled up 10 NFL press conferences Mondays. His was five minutes on average longer than everybody else's. It's amazing the answers he comes up

with and how long-winded he is. He seems like a very nice man, though, doesn't he? I've heard he's a very nice man, but Tommy, come on. He's not as funny as Jay, though. No, he's humorless. And he's really, really trying so hard to sound so smart. It is, I talked about it this morning. It is the, so there's, there's this consulting group called McKinsey. It's one of the largest.

It's where a lot of Harvard, you know, a lot of eight Harvard Business School guys go and they work there and then they get placed from there. CEOs and companies. It's like they're really polished. They're really smooth. They use all the business buzz terms. And that's him. Like he's trying so hard to be that person. And he's not, by the way, but he's had some sort of exposure to those people like Bruce has, I'm sure. And they're trying so hard to be this polished professional that Jay, by the way, wasn't, of course. And it's just not impressing me. I can't speak for anybody else. It's not impressing me. He's a he's a, he's a gas bag in these press conferences. And he says nothing, but he goes on and on and on and gives you the itinerary. I've been playing that sound on the radio show. It's just, it's insufferable. But

anyway, he's going to start Dwayne Haskins. I don't know why he's going through this. It may be because he wants Haskins to continue to feel like he has to earn it. You know, during this by week, you know, he doesn't want Dwayne to take the week off. There have been some questions and some things implied that Dwayne's not the first one in, last one to leave every day. It's stunning. I know, but I would be shocked if he's not the starter against the Jets. And it may not be what Callahan wants because Callahan wants to prove to Bruce and Dan that he can be the head coach next year, but it's definitely what Dan and Bruce won, I think,

at this point. Yeah, I mean, if he, like I said, if he's not starting against the Jets, then you might as well start scouting quarterbacks in next year's draft. Exactly. Yes. Yeah, you know, I mean, that's where you're at, at that, at that, at that. point. Now the Jets, arguably, not arguably, the Jets are a worst organization than the Redsons. I don't know. It's pretty close. It's very close. And again, if you're a Redskins fan,

don't use that to make you feel better. Greg Williams preferred to work for that organization than this one. So take that, you know, into consideration. Not that everybody loves Greg Williams, but he had the choice and he chose the Jets. Yes. My point being is, as bad as the Jets may be, that Greg Williams is going to do everything he can to embarrass Dwayne Haskins. He is going to, that's a revenge game for Greg Williams. Why? Because I'm sure for him, it just is. Because they didn't hire him as the head coach.

I'm sure every time he plays the Redskins. He had a chance to come back here last year if he wanted to. And potentially he would have been the head coach right now. That's true. You know, he would have. Yeah. I think Kaskins will start. I think the insanity of not starting him is now a reality to everybody out there.

I do think that they believe that at 1 and 8, that now it's time to find out what he has. I think they're also, my guess is that out there, this is a guess, don't know this for sure, that Sunday at least gave them comfort, that it wasn't going to be a total unraveling, professionally at the position. You know, I think this guy's got some, you know, backbone. I think, you know, he's played at Ohio State. He played in some massive games in front of big, bigger audiences than the one he's playing in front of with the Redskins right now.

And I always felt watching him in the preseason that, you know, he's not a fragile, psyche guy, you know, that he would be more of a gamer if you put him out there. And there was a lot about what he did that I liked. By the way, somebody said, so do you think he's going to be good now? No, I don't. I personally don't think he's going to be like the long-term answer, but I thought he played pretty well Sunday. I believe both of those things. And what I really believe is I got to see more. As a fan, as someone who loves football, I need to see him for these final seven games. Got to see, you know, does he grow? Does he compete? Does he lead? One of the very subtle things about Sunday's game that Cooley pointed out, and I think is true, is, Watch him, you know, in between plays. He was on to the next play. He was getting the play.

He was trying to hurry Callahan and O'Connell up to get it in. He was really immersed and on top of it. How many delay games did they have? Zero. Zero. And we've seen under Jay Gruden delay a game was a chronic problem. Yeah. I mean, we've seen it with O'Connell a couple times.

So, but, you know, several people said to me after the show yesterday, So now you're a Dwayne Haskins fan. Look, both of these things can be sort of mutually exclusive of one another. I can say about Sunday's game, I gave him a B minus, and I thought he played pretty well. And the bar, you know, admittedly, was pretty low going in. Yes. Okay. But I can also say that my gut is that he's not going to be an elite quarterback.

That is my gut. I felt that way about him coming out of the draft. I feel that way about him now. But I'm not giving up on the possibility that he could be because we haven't seen him. enough. We've got to see him. You know, nobody's, the experts aren't right about quarterbacks most of the time. Most of the time, they get it wrong. Hopefully, you know, those of us that don't think he's going to be a great quarterback have it wrong. But anyway, I think he's going to start against the Jets.

I'd be shocked if he did. And it would, to your point, it would be the darkest of red flags of all time if he doesn't. It would really be saying, wow, You suck. We all recognize that you suck. And the season's gone, and it still doesn't matter. We don't want to see you. The only other plausible explanation would be that the Dwayne group, you know, the people, along with Dan, are having a conversation that goes like this. Callahan's not going to be here. Bruce might not even be here. There's going to be a whole new group of people. why expose him and have him learn an offense that isn't going to be here under a coach who isn't going to be here? Why not have him start from scratch with the new coach that is bought into Dwayne, presumably, because you've hired him and have him start from scratch?

I personally think that's a bogus argument. I think you can learn a lot. Who cares that he's... If you don't think you can learn from something about Dwayne Haskins playing these seven games in this system, trust me, a lot of what he does, It's translatable to other systems and other coaches or things that he can't do, totally translatable or transferable to other coaches and other systems. So I just want to see him play. I mean, by the way, there's no other reason to watch them the rest of the way if he doesn't play. That alternative theory that you put out there, I mean, the main risk of that is you have no idea who will be your coach next time around. You don't know who you're going to be able to hire even.

Right. You don't even know who's going to take the job. And the person that takes it presumably is going to have to say, like Gruden did with RG3, I'm all in on Dwayne. Yes. You know, so I will say this, by the way, back to, you know, my gut is still that he's not going to be an elite starting quarterback in the NFL. But I will say this about the game on Sunday and some of the preseason stuff that I saw.

I am more encouraged than I was watching him at Ohio State last year and sort of doing my own fan thing of what kind of pro quarterback will. be because I was not a big fan of him as a first rounder. I didn't think he, I just didn't think he was going to be a good pro quarterback. But I'm more, more encouraged about that possibility than I have been. Like I heard Zabe yesterday on his show. He just, he did the thing, by the way, he did the thing that, that springs and smoot and Clinton, all the ex-players warned about playing Dwayne is that he's not going to be ready and the fans and the media are going to turn on him. You thought they would too. Well, I thought he would be worse than what we saw on Sunday. I thought he would be a train

wreck based on what I heard about him. And I said to you that even if it is a train wreck, that people are going to be more patient. They want to see him play. They realize he was a first round pick. He's a rookie. That they'll be more patient. Well, Zabe came out yesterday and said, what are we doing here? He goes, he stinks. Can't you all see this? He's stinks. He's no good. He's not going to be any good. It's why they couldn't even make a decision after Sunday about him being the starter. It's why he didn't start before. And he may ultimately stink, but God, it's way too premature to know that for sure, although it wouldn't surprise me if down the road it doesn't work out for him. And by the way, if I was forced to bet,

is he going to be a top 15 quarterback, top 10 quarterback or not? I would bet no. But I want to see him play these final seven games. I mean, you keep dismissing the notion that fans would turn on him. I want to point out that the train wreck didn't happen on Sunday, and it was in Buffalo. I wouldn't expect Buffalo fans to turn on him. Let's see how he does when he's home before 30,000 Redskins fans. By the way, if he doesn't start that, they should start him just for the reason that they might get 30,000. Because without him in the starting lineup, that crowd, will be the worst of all time in terms of attendance, not the opponent's fans,

because there aren't going to be any opponents fans either. Like the Jets Redskins game on November or whatever date that is now. What is that date? The 17th. On November 17th, if Case Keenham were the starter, you will not have 30,000 people in that stadium, Tommy. No chance. Wow.

It will be the worst attended game. Because you're right. Except for that bad weather game. traveling down to see the Jets play. They don't even go see them up in the giant stadium. The bad weather game they played against the Chiefs in 2013, Shanahan's last few games when it was snowing and sleeting. That was a true empty stadium pretty much.

You would see, I think it kicked off. I don't know if it's a nice day, no more than $25,000. Wow. Even I wouldn't drop that low. Now, if Haskins is going to start, you've got a chance to get $40,000 in the stadium, don't you think? No, I don't think he's worth 25,000 fans. Kevin, come on. He's worth 25,000 people deciding to go with the tickets they have. I don't know about that. That's probably true. That's probably true. He's not worth 25, he's worth 10,000 fans.

Yeah, he might be worth 10,000. I think he's worth 10,000 fans. All right, one last thing on on Callahan's press conference. First of all, he kept referring to the self-scout. For those that don't know what that means, during the by week, all these teams basically take the opportunity to scout themselves. By the way, a lot of teams, and I was told this because I had a conversation with somebody that I know very well that knows the NFL and how it works last night, said that a lot of teams self-scout themselves every week. You know, the really good teams, basically self-scout themselves after every game. And, you know, what they do is they come back with trend breakers. You know, they know that somebody studied them this way and they're expecting this. They do other things.

The Redskins under Jay Gruden and now under Callahan seem to think that the only time you can do a self-scout is during the buy week. Well, Kevin, that's a lot of work. It's a lot of work. I mean, come on. It's a hard enough job as it is. But he kept talking about the self-scout. I kept thinking to myself, we can do your self-scout for you. You suck.

Like you're terrible on defense. You're even worse on offense. But you've got a really good punter. There's your self-scout. Yes. He also, I mean, this is where, like, as he's going, as he's giving these long-winded dancers, you know, he'll hit on something and I'll be like, oh, my God, listening to it. So I have to, like, make notes because I'm dozing, usually, listening to these press conferences. But he was talking about his defense on third down, and he said, there are manageable positions.

There's always that 35%, 40% chance that a team's going to convert. that's the basis of our league. Translation, the average in the league on third down is 35, 40% defensively. But when you get into longer downs and distances, those are the areas that we've got to contain. And when we get into double digits, we've got to do a better job, meaning third and double digits or longer. He says, the play that sticks out for all of us and that we'd love to have back was the third and 18 at the end of the game. For that to happen, it's uncharacteristic. It shouldn't happen.

The third and 18 in the Buffalo game followed the Minnesota game where Minnesota made a third in 19. Right. On that final drive, it's not that uncharacteristic. In fact, it's pretty typical with this team. But then again, they're sort of detached from the reality of what they are. But it made me think about, and I know I mentioned this season a lot, and it ended with that giant game, which you've referred too many times, and we all remember. that 2016 defense, this has been a problem for the Redskins now for many, many years under several different defensive coordinators.

They are consistently a horrible third and long team. And part of that reason is they haven't had the dominant pass rusher. They haven't had a truly elite pass rush or pass rusher. And, you know, when you pin your ears back on third and nine, third and ten, you know, but teams, in 2016, the Redskins had the worst third and eight or longer defense since the merger began. Wow. And that season ended eight, seven, and one. And that's the season for me, and so many people are out there, you know, oh, he's about to go Kirk on you. I'm not about to go Kirk on everybody. They were really good offensively. I know they struggled in the red zone. If they had just sucked on defense rather than been historically

bad on defense, that would have easily been a playoff team. They would have easily won 10 games and had a chance with that team to win 11 for the first time since 91. That's the team, the 2016 team, the team that destroyed Green Bay on the Sunday night and had a bunch of big offensive outputs during the course of the year, but they could never get off the field. You know, in that giant game that we've talked about many times, the giants were like in that first half, I'm going to go back and find it. They rushed for more yards than they had ever rushed for all season long. And in the game, like in the first half, they were like five for nine on third downs in that first half. They couldn't get the Giants off the field in that game.

Now, Kirk was terrible in that game. Both things can be true. But that 2016 season, that was the one in recent years that I was legitimately all in on. I was like, this team could actually do something until we started to see how bad they were. were on defense. And it's not been solved. You know, their defense, which Rob Ryan proclaimed has top five talent, is the 31st-ranked defense on third down in the league, and they're one of the worst third and long defenses in the league right now. How can't they fix that? Why do they always suck on defense? By the way, you know, you know what? It was interesting. I was watching, you know, after the game,

I switched over to NBC Sports Washington for the post-game show. And they showed Ryan Carrigan walking through the tunnel. He's terrible right now. I'm thinking, did he play? I know. I mean, was he in the game? He is really taking a step back this year. They have some talent on defense.

I'm going to continue to believe that. I think they do. I mean, I've listened, you know what? One of the things I do, and I know you would think this is really geeky and boring, but I always listen to the other coaches post-game. presser as well just to see what they say about the team. And in the last, I haven't listened to the Buffalo coach McDermott yet. That was enough of the Buffalo game. But I listened to Zimmer after the Viking game and Kyle Shanahan after the 49er game. And both of them unsolicited went out of their way to say

that's a really good and talented defensive front over there. And that was said by another team earlier in the season. I think it was said by Dallas. I think it was said by Jason Garrett, actually. but they do have some talent there. But why do they just consistently stink on defense? They haven't been good on defense in years. I mean, really, and they're drafting defensively more than they have. They've got a good interior defensive mix. They must really be horribly coached on defense.

And it's been that way, going back to Joe Barry. Yeah. You know, before that. And Jim Haslett? And Jim Hazlet? before that. Jim Hazley, yeah. I just don't,

why can't they figure that part out? I don't know. Anyway, what else did we have? Oh, we got the Trent Williams stuff. What are you looking at? Nothing. Did you want to add more about the Buffalo game? I have nothing more to add about the Buffalo game.

Okay. Let's move into this Trent Williams situation, which I, did we talk about this on Thursday or not? Because he hadn't, had he spoken yet? Had he given his presser on Thursday? I forget. I don't think he had when we recorded the podcast. I don't think we did.

Okay, so. See, this is a whole podcast in itself, Kevin. It is? The Trent Williams thing. Really? Okay, well, good. Well, let's get to it then. So just to catch everybody up to speed chronologically.

So he had the long holdout. He came back, you know, right before the trade deadline on Thursday for the first time we heard from Trent, where he accused the organization of being negligent for six years in detecting and diagnosing the cancer that he had. We also heard from him about the horrific and very scary situation he went through with cancer, with being told to get his affairs in order, which is something I shared with everybody on the podcast, I think in August, that that was something I had learned about him being truly frightened and terrified by this situation, that it was a life or death scare for him. He's got young children, and you could hear that in his voice when he talked on Thursday.

And then the team responded with not a statement about what Trent said, but asking for this third-party independent investigation between the league and the NFLPA. And then on Sunday, and I talked about this on the podcast yesterday, the NFLPA came out with a statement. Actually, chronologically, there was the Charlie Casserly. report. And we played that for you yesterday. I'll net it out. Charlie Casserly essentially reported based on his sources that Trent knew about this and was told about this by the team three years ago and told to do something about it and he chose not to. And then the NFLPA came out with this

statement on Sunday and I talked about it yesterday where essentially, you know, they threatened those that were giving misinformation about Trent Williams. And they were specifically referring to the Charlie Casserly comments. Right. And that, and I said in reading through that statement, I said, I think they're on the verge, potentially. I talked about this on the podcast, of maybe deciding not to go through with this third-party investigation, which to me, if they do that, it will come off as very fishy and will

deserve some scrutiny over why. And sure enough, after the podcast yesterday, there was a report from the NFL PA, I think actually it was first spoken about on the junkies on your station with D'Mor Smith, right? Yes. Who said they're not going to pursue this thing. Trent does not, would, prefers not to move forward with this third party investigation, which would be an independent investigation that would reveal all of the facts of this situation

from the Redskins side and from Trent's side. And I thought that there was the possibility that could happen and we got that yesterday. the podcast was over, and I don't, I think it's completely reasonable for reasonable people to wonder why and to think, well, that is fishy, because that says to, you can reasonably say, that makes me believe that he doesn't want this investigation because the facts when they come out will go beyond what he just said in that presser on Thursday, which, by the way, I think that he probably did leave a lot out. That's my viewpoint based on some of the information I know. He did have cancer, okay? He did have a surgery. He was, you know, this was a serious situation.

I can't give you the degrees of seriousness with this. I can just tell you it was serious enough that it had to be removed and that it was cancerous and it scared the hell out of him. Now, with respect to how the team handled it over the six-year period, were they completely negligent over six years? He says, yes, my sense is if they spoke, they would say no. They haven't said anything. They just asked for the third-party investigation, which now he doesn't want going forward.

Before you answer, I will say this. I am open to the possibility that the truth is that this was such a traumatic experience for him that he doesn't want to relive it, which is what the NFLPA statement said. I am open to the possibility that this was so awful for him and so scary for him. him, that he knows he's going to be questioned and he's going to have to relive this thing, which, by the way, he relived it Thursday during his press conference. But I don't, but that's, I'm open to that being a possibility, but I think the probability is that he doesn't want all of the facts to come out.

That's what I would guess based on him not wanting to move forward with this, because if the facts completely supported what he talked about last Thursday, I would think he would want to go forward with this. Go ahead. the facts partially supported what he said? That might not be good enough at this point for him. I think they would partially support some of what he said. Okay, so here's this.

But I think it also might take the team off the hook to a certain degree as well. Well, I know. I think what will happen is like everything, the so-called truth that Bruce Allen knows, like somewhere in the middle. Right. I think his side, their side in the truth. Right. Yeah.

And so I think it's entirely possible that part of what he has claimed, will turn out to be true. And part of what he has claimed, you know, that has made the team look bad, would turn out to be questionable, if not not true. What I don't understand is why there's a segment of Redskins fans, and it shows how warped you all are out there, by the way, that you're so willing to pounce on this player who had cancer. and you're so willing to stick by and defend an organization that's so reprehensible

and so with a track record of disgust and deceit. And your first move is to attack the player and back the team. I don't understand how you can do that. Are people doing that? Oh, my gosh, yes. Do you think that that's what I just did? No. No, I think you opened up the possibility that, that,

It's a reasonable position to believe that he doesn't want to relive this again. But let me just be clear on this. I don't want you to mistake my feelings. What you think is likely. My likelihood is that he made a mistake and realizes he shouldn't have accused the organization publicly of what he accused them of on Thursday. And that there are major pieces of the puzzle missing from this story that when they come out will make the organization look better. than the way he made it look. That's my gut feel.

That's what I think is likely. Still likely, not good. But by the way, I don't, if people took this step of going beyond not believing that he had cancer or had this growth, that's ridiculous. And this whole notion,

I've seen a lot of people attack him for this so-called personal responsibility that why didn't you get on your own that's what Charlie said. Get your own second opinion. Here, look, I've known people who have had cancer and people react to those words

in all kinds of different circumstances if Treg was told at one point not to worry about this growth your first you don't what you don't do is you don't most people or a lot of people won't go searching for a reason to believe otherwise I don't disagree with you on that at all

okay so you can't interpret how people will react when they're concerned about cancer if they're told they to have cancer, if they're told not to worry about it, there are all kinds of different reactions, and to admonish him for not getting a second opinion, it may have been foolish, but it was certainly a human reaction to do that, especially if he was told not to worry about it in the first place. So stop attacking this guy for not making the right steps to protect his health.

You know, I mean, there are people. I've known people who have had cancer who refuse to get things looked at until the very end of the moment. I mean, everybody out there knows people that are told, you know, you better go take care of this. And they're like, I'm fine. Yes. I'm fine. At the same time, let me also throw this out sort of as a flip side. At the same time, sometimes you can hear things from doctors that you completely blow out of proportion as well.

Yes. Like he may have heard. Now, get your affairs in order if that was said. that's pretty definitive. So I'm not going to suggest that he could have misinterpreted that because that's a serious tone and a serious, you don't even need the tone. Mr. Williams, you need to get your affairs in order.

How else could that be sort of taken? But, you know, to hear that, you know, it's a good thing you got a hold of this thing now because if you didn't, you know, could have potentially down the road gotten to your brain or whatever. And for him to blow that up into, I was about, if it hadn't, you know, if I hadn't gotten it taken care of, it was about to become brain cancer. Like, there are a lot of ways that people interpret things that are just, and handle things that aren't necessarily the right way to interpret it or the right way to handle it.

Like you just said, it may not, he could have certainly heard, hey, that thing that's growing in your head, it's fine. All he needed to do is hear that it was fine once to completely think that he was off the hook and he was fine. Absolutely. That's a normal. That's a human reaction. And to be permanently sort of stuck to that first impression of, yeah, we think it's fine. It's probably just a cyst. And at some point maybe somebody said, now, you actually got to go look at it. And depending on the tone and the way that was described or communicated, it could have been received. Yeah, but you remember when you told me it wasn't a big deal? I'll stick with that one for now. You don't know. So that bothers me. The reaction against, look, I'm not a big Trent Williams fan. I could care less about him as a player one way or the other. But as a human being, what he seemed to have gone through, I just don't get that this attack on him and this willingness to so quickly,

I mean, to believe this organization, I know it's hard for you to actually look at your Redskins gear on Sunday and realize that you are dawning. I mean, you're putting on the evil empire's uniform. That's what you're doing. I don't think. You're rooting for an organization that is an embarrassment. I think you're projecting here.

I think you are assuming that people might be now really skeptical of Trent's story. I'm telling you the feedback that I've got. That are doing it because they're pro-organization. I'm not projecting anything. Okay. I'm telling you. I think a lot of people, I think people can't stand when they, people can't stand dishonesty or, you know, and again, I don't know if he was being dishonest or he just left significant portions

of the story out or if he actually believes that this is the way it went down or if he's 100% accurate and didn't leave anything out. I'm just saying to you that I think a lot of people, when he decides not to move forward with an independent investigation of this, that by the way, might make it easier for him to sue the organization for medical malpractice and get back a lot of the lost money that he had. That it's not unreasonable for people to say that's fishy, and by the way, it has nothing to do with me being pro-organization. I'm not talking about that.

Okay. I am not talking about that. You're saying the people have reached out to you. Even before the independent investigation came up, this was the reaction I was getting from a lot of Redskins fans on social media, was that their first move was to back the organization and to attack Trent. I agree with you. The fact that he would beg off on an independent investigation.

Yeah, I was going to ask you. What do you think? Look, your first reaction would probably think, well, there's something that he doesn't want to get out. Right. I understand that. That's normal reaction. That said, this is not as clear cut as the good guys and the bad guys here. But the bad guy is not Trent Williams, okay?

I mean, and just, I'm just, I'm so put off by the reaction by so many fans that I've gotten. So I think you're going to get a lot of those reactions even more than I because you're so, you know, critical of the team. and by the way, I haven't defended them much here over the last three or four years either. And by the way, they mess things up so much already that it's almost like part of me is thinking, maybe they didn't mess this one up, but it doesn't matter because they're going to mess the next one up. But I think that, you know, Trent Williams, you don't want to, I like Trent Williams. I don't want to believe that this was all about money.

and he essentially made something into something that it wasn't, just so that he could, you know, mask the fact that this was all about money all along. I do think it was about both of those things. I think there's some mistrust there. I think that definitely there wasn't a sense of urgency relayed for a period of time on this thing. But I also really more likely than not think that he doesn't want this investigation to continue because it won't make him look good, ultimately. What do you think, not just Redskins players,

what do you think NFL players believe? That's another part of this. So here's the problem that the team has. Two things. One, this was going to come out regardless of whether or not he was traded people, just so you understand, if he had gotten, if he were in Cleveland or New England or Houston right now, he would have still held that press conference,

still talked about what happened. The team would have still then asked for the independent investigation, and this would still be a thing. They didn't, you know, they would not have been able to avoid all of this by trading him. It would have come out anyway. But you bring up something else that I talked about on the show today. Because here's the problem that the team has, and the team needs to try to defend itself here, especially if they believe that they're right and that he's wrong,

or that it's, you know, that his truth is far from the truth, even if it's partially true, is because when he was doing that presser in that locker room, you had his own teammates sitting there yelling, preach, preach, preach, supportive of him, less than 100 yards away from the people they work for. And then players around the league, the perception is that Trent, when he accused them of negligence and said he doesn't trust them, is that it's another Redskins thing. They're bad, they were wrong, they effed him. And they're not even going to worry about the rest of them.

this story. They have a problem with this. They have a problem. This is what I've been maintaining all along. It doesn't matter what the truth is at this point. The perception is and people are so willing, particularly around the league, to believe the worst of the Redskins. Yeah. Because they've earned that reputation.

So they have a big perception problem. Once he came out and said he doesn't trust the team, well, through his, you know, through Santana and DiAngelo and et cetera. Right. And that, It's a medical situation. They had a big problem with their perception then at that point on. And look, I know I've had this argument on social media this week where people say free agents don't care.

It's always about money. Well, you know what? Health is money for players. If players believe they're going to an organization that won't take care of them right medically, that will cost them money. It's the same thing. So, I mean, this will affect free agents. coming to Washington. You know, so I do think it's a big deal for the team.

I do think if I were the team, by the way, I think from a public relation standpoint, they do everything so wrong. I actually think they're handling this the right way. I think that they didn't say anything for months, despite the fact that there were others out speaking on behalf of Trent. They never said anything other than Bruce saying, I've spoken him and we know what the truth is kind of a thing. And then on Friday, when they asked for that third-party investigation, I think that was the smart thing to do, because if they had come out and said anything, first of all, their HIPAA provisions, although they could have said, and it would not have been in violation of HIPAA, we heard what Trent Williams said. We believe in a different version of the story. We think we believe in our medical people. We believe that we did the right things, whatever. But I think they did the right thing by asking for this third party, because anything they say isn't believable by anybody. But back to what.

what I was just going to say based on what you said. You know what? It's like the Suzuki and the Zimmerman thing. Ultimately, we came to the conclusion after beating it to death. People, by the time we get to opening day, they're going to be like, ah, whatever. You know, go root for Zimmerman, root for Suzuki, root for the Nats. And in this particular situation, players around the league, if they don't have, you know, great options,

if the Redskins are one of two or three bad options and they're offering the most money, they'll take the money, and they'll come here. So, I mean, I don't think so. I think sometimes. I think you're underestimating. I think you're underestimating the fact that the union will be telling them about the Redskins. Well, and with the union, what do you think the union feels about, what do you think the union feels about Trent begging off of this investigation? What do you think they really feel?

I'm not sure what they really feel. What do you think? I didn't ask you what you're sure of. What do you think that they're disappointed? They may be. I don't know. I don't think that that's a big a deal. I think what you're going to see is the union advising its players do not sign with this team.

They can't do that. I know they can't do that. They can't do that. But they'll do it through their message. They already did it. They already did it with their Twitter, with their tweets. Yeah. I don't know.

I mean, for players, this will have long-lasting impact. And health is money. If everything's equal and you're going to go to an organization that you think will cut your playing career short because they can't treat you medically, that's money. Yeah, I mean, I'm glad Trent's healthy. I think that Trent, you know, through initially, you know, some of the indirect, you know, that Santanas and the DeAngelo Halls who were sort of speaking on his behalf, I think he did himself a disservice there. I think that press conference the other day probably wasn't the smartest thing he's ever done. I think also this organization, when it comes to this particular player, they were very, very lenient. They were very understanding when he went through two separate suspensions.

They remained loyal to him. He was a great player. Yeah, he was there. Okay. I understand that. Yeah. They also at the time gave him a blockbuster deal that was front end loaded. I also think they're incredibly petty at the same time

and want to win this particular feel like the player it's all about money and he needs to come back and it's a problem like we said, there's his side, there's their side, and then there's the truth. I don't know if we'll ever get to it. I know now without the third-party investigation, we're not going to get to it. And that may be convenient for both parties.

Maybe ultimately the Redskins are sitting back saying, you know what, he doesn't want this to come out and he'll back off of this thing and it'll be good for us for not to come out either. But it'll make us, you know, really what, you know what Trent should have done, Tommy? He shouldn't have backed out of this investigation because first of all, it would have taken so long.

And by the time we got to the conclusion, people would have moved on to so many different things that they would have forgotten about all the details to begin with. It's like the McLuhan thing. You and I had this debate. I told you that eventually firing him with cause, that some independent arbitrator is going to find that they fired him with,

cause justifiably and that he's not going to win that arbitration and he's not going to get a Senate of money and he didn't but it took a year and a half and nobody cared by the time that they got to that yeah like there wasn't this big celebration that the team was right the team by the way didn't really you know break their arms patting themselves on the back publicly about it either Trent probably the NFL PA should have said Trent if you're worried about this we're worried about reliving it it's going to take a while to get to all this anyway and if you do back off of this, there's going to be some criticism. People are going to wonder why you backed out of it. You should just hang in there, let them start this process. It'll be a year or so by the time the

results come out. And by the way, at that point, you're going to be in a new place anyway playing and nobody's going to care. You know, they could still ask for the NFL. Yes, they could. Could still do an investigation, but you can't do one without Trent's cooperation. That's right. And by the way, Trent and the NFLPA could still decide, oh, we changed your mind. And we, like, they, don't you think, actually, the more that I think about it, he should have just said, they should have talked him into doing this. It would have taken, it's going to take forever. Yeah, it will. I mean, they wouldn't even got, they wouldn't have even gotten to the point where they were questioning him until like after the first of the year.

Yeah. You know, he'd be in, I don't know. Maybe it could have been resolved quickly. Usually these things take time. I don't know if you followed the whole Russia probe for two years. We won't get political there. Okay, what else? That's it, boss.

That's a full plate right there. But you just said the Trent Williams thing is a full show or a group of shows, whatever you said. It is and it isn't. It isn't. You know what, Tommy, the bottom line is this team has stepped into shit so often, so many times in the past that even if they didn't in this particular case, it doesn't really matter. Because there's another pile of it right around the corner that they will step into. Yes, they will. Because that's what they are.

They really are. It's a shit organization that finds their way into this all the time. And yes, my gut feel is that they probably didn't do a hell of a lot that was really wrong and injurious towards Trent Williams in this particular situation. That's my guess. But it doesn't really matter. It's not going to make Dwayne Haskins any better. And it's not going to – the only thing it could lead to – because remember Trent talked about how much he likes to – Dan, maybe this is the thing that gets Dan to say, hey, Bruce, the hell out of here.

Get out. Yeah, but he likes Bruce more. Bruce is his best friend. The other guys are just his player friends. For the second straight year, I'm going to give you this in November. I think Bruce is going to be gone at the end of this season. Well, you know what? If you keep doing it, you're bound to be right.

One day, yeah, because he can't live forever. Nope. All right. That's it for the day. So we are taking tomorrow off from the podcast. We are taking tomorrow off because it's a bye week and we need a day off from the podcast. So tomorrow, no podcast. Back on Thursday with Tommy, I'm sure Dwayne Haskins will have been named the starter by then.

Or maybe not. And I just want to remind anybody, you can read my stuff into Washington Times. Damn right, you can. Go to Washington Times.com slash sports. And there's no podcast tomorrow, but you can hear me on with Chad Duke's. tomorrow from 4 to 6 on 106-7 to fan. And you can hear me on the all-sports radio station, the Team 980, which is also, by the way, now on 95.9 FM, which driving around the city comes in pretty

good in most places. 95.9 FM, you can listen to us on that, and I'm on in the morning, 7 to 10, following Al-Galdi's morning blitz from 6 to 7, and then Doc and Al follow me, and then it's Brian and Scott, and then it's Zabe. And so listen to me 7 to 10 in the morning. on 980. All right. What else?

That's it. That's it. Have a great day.