The Kevin Sheehan Show - QB Debates No More

Episode Date: June 17, 2025

Kevin and Thom today with a litany of topics including music, movies, tv, sports, and local politics. The boys also discussed the fact that this is the quietest year in decades for quarterback talk among Washington Football fans. NBA Finals, RFK delays, and Dave Martinez's job security a part of the show as well. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You don't want it. You don't need it. But you're going to get it anyway. The Kevin Cheon Show. He is Kevin. Tommy's here. I'm here. The show's presenting sponsors, always,

Window Nation 86690, Nathan, Window Nation.com. This from J-L, J-A-Y-E-L. I said jail. It's probably J-L, I guess. Hi, Kevin. I love listening to you and Tommy, especially when you guys are speaking on cultural topics, listening to you now speaking about

Brian Wilson in particular. I could listen to you guys full time talking about music, movies, the TV shows, Wiffleball, boxing, the glory days of the Redskins, etc. The historical context you provide always hits home and resonates. Very enjoyable and much appreciated. With that said, I'm going to try one last time to get you guys to watch Taboo with Tom. I'm hearty. I won't bug you again about it. I tried once before. Great acting and unique story. Easy eight episodes to binge. As a fan of True Detective season one in Fargo, et cetera, would love to hear your reactions to it. There's one scene in particular when we meet Atticus for the first time. He's the actor from The Adolescent Show, just a great scene in particular, episode two, I believe.

Anyhow, I think you would enjoy much love and respect to all. What? I have to admit. I don't recall this request before. I don't either. I like Tom Hardy a lot. I don't. Yeah.

Who's Tom Hardy? I don't even think I know who Tom Hardy is. Oh, he played both twin brothers in the movie about the craze, the gangsters from England. He played Bain in the Dark Night Returns. Mm-hmm. He's been in a lot of stuff. He was in the movie with Leonardo DiCaprio, when they're back in the 1800s and they're trappers and they're chasing each other.

Right. Or something like that. That was Tom Hardy. Okay. I don't think I've ever heard this request. In fact, I'm looking it up right now. I don't think I know the show. I don't think I've ever heard of this show.

It's a 2017 show. Yeah. To J-L-L for not remembering this. J-L, yeah. But I think, oh, look, I'm like, you know how to say it? I'm, I'm, J-A-Y-E-L, J-L. I think it's, it certainly sounds better than jail. Yes, I didn't say that.

Right. You know, I said that. Isn't that Superman's father's name? J.L? Yeah. I don't know. You're much more of a... I think you're much more of a...

Joel. Joel. Comic book, Marvel. Okay. Yeah, but that's a DC comic, and I'm not a DC comic guy. Okay. Superman. Okay, Taboo with Tom Hardy.

Let's look into it because he's a fan of True Detective Season 1. We both are. We both love Fargo. I have to finish Fargo. And, yeah, you know, from last week when we talked about Brian Wilson's passing, there was a day over the weekend. I was just sitting in front of my computer and I went into a major deep dive into the wrecking crew. You know, we talked about the wrecking crew, Carol Kaye and that whole group that, you know,

recorded with Phil Spector and then recorded with Brian Wilson, just brilliant session, you know, musicians in L.A. And some of that stuff is just fascinating. And obviously the stuff that he brought to them was, you know, a form of pop music that just hadn't really happened yet. Yes. And then he and clearly Lennon and McCartney went back and forth there for a while. I can only imagine what it was like. You know, the 60s music is so great.

I think the first song, my father, I told you, was very much into music. I think that Penny Lane and the Beatles were really the first music I can remember. And that song in particular, because it was very melodic, you know, and during that era of psychedelic and, you know, Sergeant Pepper and, you know, in those albums at the end of the 60s. But my father was also a huge Elvis guy. And I never, even to this day, I like Elvis. But I never became obsessed with Elvis. My father was, and so those were the first, the Beatles and Elvis are the first sort of musical,

you know, are the first songs that I heard and that I can remember as a kid. I liked Elvis, not obsessed with him. Penny Lane was 1967. Yeah. And here's the amazing thing about the Beatles. Yeah. When they were in that stretch, like in the 60s, from 64 to 67, 68,

both sides of a single were hit. I know. The flip side, Penny Lane was Strawberry Fields Forever. Oh, my God. Well, it was on Strawberry Fields Forever, right? Isn't that the album? That would have been the album, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, no, I mean, the Beatles would occupy literally on the Billboard charts, like that, you know, seven of the top ten songs in any given week. You know, it's just amazing. Like, they could put out anything and it went straight to number one. I mean, I bet if we went through their discography, I mean, how many number one hits did the Beatles have? It's got to be an all-time record, right? I would assume. I'm not going to assume that that's the case, you know, given Taylor Swift's emergence, you know?

And I don't even know how the industry operates anymore. It's different. Beatles number one hits. How many number one hits the Beatles have? 20 number one hits on the Billboard Top 100. I don't think they hold the record anymore, though. Artists with most number one songs on Billboard 100. Here's a story about it.

The Beatles, 20, is number one. Okay. Mariah Carey is number two with 19. Oh, God. Rihanna's number three with 14. Michael Jackson's number four with 13. Drake's number five with 13. Madonna has 12 at number six.

The Supremes are seventh. Taylor Swift, good Tommy. Eighth. Whitney Houston, ninth. Janet Jackson, 10th. Wow. There's your top 10, all-time number ones on Billboard. I've told you this before, but in Brooklyn, growing up,

we argued about two things as kids, baseball and music. Now, all of us had older brothers and sisters, a lot of us did, and since they were into music, we were into music. I used to watch American bandstand every day, because it was on every day then. It was on every day? Every afternoon. I remember when it was on every Saturday. No, it was on every afternoon from Philadelphia.

Wow. With Dick Clark. Yes, with Dick Clark. and I remember when the Beatles came over and then the British invasion and I was on the wrong side of this argument. I was a Dave Clark 5 guy, and I was convinced that Dave Clark 5 was better than the Beatles. They would be the bigger group.

And I used to argue this with my friends all the time. Right. Dave Clark 5 was a good band, but I was way off on that one. Yeah, I mean, you know, like, The 60s, the argument, like the rivalry between the Beach Boys and the Beatles was one thing. But it was, correct me if I'm wrong, but in terms of the argument in terms of which band that you liked, it was the Rolling Stones or the Beatles, right? Yes. Yes.

I personally, and for me, the beginning of really listening to the music is the 70s, I always love the stones more than the Beatles, even today. I still love the Stones or the Beatles. I do too. Yeah, but you know, it's funny because not that this was a 60s band, because they really started in, I guess, 6970. But today, and I didn't feel this way as a younger person, but I'd probably pick Zeppelin over the Stones and the Beatles in terms of just the overall catalog of songs.

but it's close with the stones for me. Not a huge Zeppelin guy. I wasn't for a handful of songs, but they're not high on my list. They were never high on everyone else's list. But let me just tell you, I was not into Zeppelin as a younger person. This was more of the last 20 years thing,

you know, maybe 20, 25 years ago. And they are the one band. I've seen the stones. I've seen the stones several times. Um, that's the one band that, you know, if I could go back and see a concert of a band in their prime, I think that's what I'd love to go back and see is them at some point in like the mid-70s. Yeah, that would be the one. Do you have one?

A band that you never saw, that you never saw. A band, it's not a band. Okay. Artist. Okay, who's the artist? Otis Redding. Otis Redding, yeah. If I, if I could see Otis.

Redding, that would be it for me. You know, I was lucky enough to see James Brown. So Otis Redding would do it for me. What was James Brown like live? Must have been amazing. This was 1981, so he could still move is pretty good. Yeah. And he was.

He was absolutely amazing, you know? The whole intro, you know, he's got about six nicknames. They give him a big intro. He comes out there. He does the thing with the cape where they drag, you know, and he tried to take him off the stage with the cape and he throws it off. And Wilson Pickett was the opening act. Oh, my God.

Wow. Yeah. Yeah. At the Valley Forch Music Fair, I think, in 81. Mm. I saw him. And it was, it was priceless. All right.

There was another email that I wanted to read to open up the show. Okay. This is from Kevin. Much easier name to pronounce. Thank you, Kevin. Subject heading commies. Kevin, first time writing, simply said, yours is the best produced show covering DC sports in the broader sports world. Well, thank you, Kevin.

I even don't mind the curmudgeon that joins you from time to time. I think I'm familiar with who you're talking about, Kevin. I'm writing to highlight the fact that the Skins Ownership Group has a net worth well over $20 billion. Their resources are effectively limitless. they can afford anything and everything, so that should cease being a question. And what he's referring to is my conversation last week, just bringing up the possibility that the big cash outlay required for Terry McClurene's new contract, which would be the biggest cash outlay of any player that they have signed to a contract

or contract extension in this case, may not be the easiest thing in the world. Now, let me just say, I came to the conclusion that they can afford it, certainly, but $6 billion to buy the team less than two years ago. We're coming up on the two-year anniversary of that in about a month, and we know that they needed, you know, 20-plus limited partners to get there. They have invested 75 to 100 million roughly into the existing stadium just to make it safe for people to go to games. have a massive expenditure coming at some point down the road with RFK, if it were to happen. We'll talk about that on the podcast today. And they're looking ahead to 2027 where they will very likely pay Jaden Daniels the biggest contract in the history of the NFL.

And, you know, they hadn't, if you looked at all the deals, their first offseason here with Dan Quinn, lots of one-year deals, not a lot of cash out of pocket. Same thing this year, with the exception of a couple of the deals, like the Kinlaw deal. And, you know, I just suggested maybe it's about the cash. And so Kevin says, you know, this should cease to be a question. Josh Harris has 34.3 million shares of Apollo, which effectively serves as his piggy bank, which is roughly $4.5 billion. He obviously has other assets as well. The real question should be about the accounting for large deals. Yes, Kevin, I agree. Does the cash come off the team's balance sheet? And is it sufficiently funded or would large cash outlays for Terry, Laramie, JD, etc., require a

new infusion of cash from the ownership group? Yes, that's, we're talking about their balance sheet. their operating budget for the team. If so, what does the operating agreement say about new equity? Anti-dilution rights, other shareholder protections, of course. If you're going to go out and raise more capital, get a cash infusion from the current ownership group, you know, they're getting equity for that. I would assume unless they're doing it as a loan. I don't even know if you can do that and then transfer it to the balance sheet. I don't know how that works. Josh, as the general principle, has a lot latitude, but this could be one small item that could be slowing up some of the large cash player investments, which have to go into escrow. That was my point. So some intrepid reporting,

looking at Tommy, should do a little research and provide your audience with the answers so that these don't have the money questions can be put to bed once and for all. I'll just call them and ask them. Call them and ask them. No problem. Yeah. Yeah, I'll just call them and ask. Don't tell me. You want to sell books? Yeah, here are books. And of course we have the money.

That was the thing. Remember I said to you last week, I think I said this to you while we were recording. I said, you know, there is somebody, there are a couple of people I could call, but they're not going to tell me that they can't afford it, obviously. But no, Kevin, you hit on all of the key pieces to this is would they actually have to go and infuse cash, whether it was their own cash? whether it was their own cash or from other limited partners. And then you get into anti-dilution and all of that. Anti-dilution, by the way, being the major scene, remember from the Facebook movie, when the co-founder signed away basically, you know, all of his equity

because he didn't read the agreement to see that the infusion of cash diluted him, but didn't dilute the other shareholders. What was the name of that movie? Why am I blanking on the Facebook movie? Social something? The social? Yeah, the Social Network. The Social Network.

There you go. Right? That was a good movie. Jesse, whatever his name is. It was a good movie, but you know what? And this will open up a whole other subject. You know, when I was watching it, I was comparing it to the newspaper movies I've seen because this is a whole different era, the digital era.

Right. You know? And the social network was such a soulless movie. It was good, but there was no soul in the hot. I mean, there was nobody to root for. You know, in a newspaper movie, there's grit, there's heart, there's determination, there's good guys, there's bad guys. Everybody was a bad guy in the social network.

What's the best newspaper movie ever written? Oh, well, the paper, I would highly recommend to everyone. Yeah. The paper is this captures. Is that the Michael Keaton? Is that the Michael Keaton movie? Okay. Yeah.

Love that movie. That captures the atmosphere of a newsroom. Right. As accurately as said, but my favorite is a real old journal's movie called Unholy Partners in 1941 with Evergey Robinson. But I would recommend the paper to anybody as a single journal as a movie to really get the flavor of what it's like. I mean, newsrooms are crazy places. At least they used to be. Now they're empty places.

Well, look. Broadcast News was a story about, you know, a television newsroom. You know, I loved that movie because it came out when I was literally working my first job, which was at Channel 5, Fox Channel 5 in the sports department with Ernie Bauer and Steve Buckeants, etc. And there was a lot that was very realistic about that movie, about, you know, what it's like in a television newsroom. I love that movie. It was actually on recently. The only part of that movie,

I always thought Holly Hunter was kind of annoying in that movie. But the guy that was hysterical in that movie was Albert Brooks. Albert Brooks. Yeah. Funny in everything. Hysterically funny in that movie. And why am I blanking on the guy that played, you know, the haircut? William Hurd.

William Hurd. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. William Hurd, who, you know, had the line that the line in that, movie that I love is when William Hurt says to him, says Albert Brooks, what do you do when your life exceeds your dreams? Yeah. And Albert Brooks says, don't tell anybody.

Yeah. All right. I don't even know how we got to that. Oh, you were talking about the paper off of whatever we were talking about. Off of the Facebook movie. Oh, yeah, the Facebook movie. And I don't know how we got there. You know, the way you described it, you know, there's nobody to root for in that movie is true.

There's really nobody to root for. It's a flawless business. You can't stand Zuckerberg. You can't stand his co-founder who comes off as kind of a whiner and didn't, you know, really put in the effort that everybody else did. Justin Timberlake, who plays, you know, the Napster founder, Sean Parker, who, by the way, Timberlake's great. everything and he was good in that movie, but you can't root for him. I'm forgetting, you know, you had those, the Winkle. The Winkle Goss people twins couldn't root for them or whatever their names were.

No. Yeah. No. No, the two college chocks? Yeah. That basically claimed it was their idea and Zuckerberg stole it. Um, okay. Well, we've talked a lot about non-neutral.

sports things to open up the show. And we haven't even touched on Iran and Israel. We'll do that on Thursday. Why don't we wait to see what happens here in the next couple of days. If we're still here, we'll be here. We're going to be okay. All right. There is sports, the NBA finals last night. The stadium situation, which I talked about, I definitely want Tom's thoughts on that. And Davy Martinez, is this going to be his final week managing the team? We'll get to all. All of that and more right after these words from a few of our sponsors. So, guys, if you're starting to notice your hair thinning when you look in the mirror, join the club, you're not alone. Life gets busier and busier and you don't have much time to think about it or do something about it.

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Restrictions apply. See website for full details and important safety information. This segment of the show brought you by Window Nation. If you didn't know, there is a heat wave coming next week, Tommy. I don't know if you've been following this. Temperatures next week in the 90s, upper 90s, maybe north of 100 degrees for a few days. The weather people are going nuts about, you know,

perhaps a record-breaking late. June heat wave for the East Coast. Do you know that that's coming? Yes, I do. Yes, I do. And most people, I think, would, well, maybe not in the moment they won't. But right now, they would welcome anything besides rain. Oh, my God, that's true.

It has been very depressing with all of the rain. I agree with that. Look, if you have older windows, it's moments like these that. really cost you money. I mean, when you have to hit that air conditioning and have that thing running 24-7 because your windows are letting in that heat, your heating bill in the winter and you've been thinking about the bill in the summer just is much higher than it should be. If you've been thinking about new windows, beat the heat with Window Nation's semi-annual sale. That sale includes four free windows with every four purchased, a free exterior door when

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90 Nation or go to windonation.com. Mention my name, and they'll come out and give you a free in-home estimate. NBA finals last night, game five. You said, you told me before the show you watched the first half of the game. What did you think? I thought it was, again, like the first time I watched the first half, I thought it was well played for the most part. I see what you say about Oklahoma City.

they are a very tough defensive team. And, you know, it wasn't classic. You know, I know you're going to say like this series is a classic series. It's not. But, you know, it has not turned me off. I'd say it's been relatively entertaining. I'm not going to say it's a classic series. There's not a, you know, other than game one, there isn't a moment, you know.

These games have, you know, games three and four. in particular in Indianapolis were great sort of, you know, haymaker after haymaker, but then at the very end, the game didn't come down to, you know, the final 30 seconds where, you know, memories are made. So I wouldn't call it a classic series. I've enjoyed it. I think the defense in particular has been as good as I can remember in an NBA series and in particular by one team. Last night's game, I'll just start with this. It was very, it was sloppy. It looked

tired for much of it. And I think that the way these teams have played against each other for four games, I think there is definitely some physical wear and tear. And I thought you saw that at times last night. Look, literally there was wear and tear on Tyrese Halliburton who, you know, had a right calf injury and was just brutal in the game. I'll get to that in a moment, but overall, the game was, you know, just it looked tired after the very beginning of the game, which was an unbelievable start. I think the first, out of the first 14 shots taken, 12 were made. And then you just saw, I think, the team that is the better team, it's close. It's much closer than I thought before the series started, and I said that going into game four. I thought Oklahoma City looked dead on

Friday night in game four at one point. I thought the series was on the verge of being over, and then they came back and they won that game, and they won last night. I mean, they're just so spectacular defensively. And then Jalen Williams, who is really the other big star, an NBA all-star, he had a game. You know, he had one of those memorable two-two game fives. He had 40. points. It was his best game of the series because he has been a bit up and down in some of the games in this series. SGA had 31 and 10. Everybody's saying, ah, he dished it out last night. He dished it out in game four, too. He had zero assists because the team was three for 17 on threes. I guarantee you if they had made some of those wide open threes that he created,

he would have had some assists. You know, an assist requires the person that you pass it to to make the shot. And they didn't make many shots, even though they won game four. But fantastic performance by Jalen Williams. You know, Shea Gilgis Alexander has certainly proved to be, you know, a superstar player. I thought he was sloppy at times. I thought Oklahoma City was sloppy at times offensively. They used him to bring up the ball against the full court pressure, which I said after game three. That's got to be the adjustment. Don't use him to beat pressure. And they didn't in game four, and it really saved him. I didn't, last night's game, it got dramatic in the fourth quarter when Indiana,

with T.J. McConnell in the game and Halliburton on the bench, they made a run, and they drew to within two. And I'm like, oh my God, here we go again, just like game one. They've been dominated, and here it is a two-point game with eight and a half to go in the fourth quarter. But from that moment on, Oklahoma City really turned up the defensive pressure. And they had five steals on the next seven Indiana possessions. And they knocked down Jalen Williams in particular, knocked down everything he looked at. And they pulled away from up two to up 15.

They won by 11. They covered again. And I think, you know, a big story coming out of the game is, of course, Tyrese Allberton. And I had this email from somebody earlier. Let me just find it because I did read it on radio. Oh, it came from Bobby. Bobby wrote, Kevin Rick Carlisle pulled a Mike Shanahan last night. He should have pulled Halliburton, but instead left him out there, put him at risk,

and they lost the game. You know, he should have pulled Tyrese Halliburton. It's not an easy call for a couple. coach to pull, you know, a guy that's basically gotten you to where you are. And he's claiming he's healthy enough to go. But he was off the court in the first half, getting treatment. And it was very obvious that he could not be himself. And at times they were playing four on five with him in the game.

And T.J. McConnell was amazing. So, yeah, look, it's not comparable to RG3 and my. Mike Shanahan because RG3 lied to the head coach. RG3 had, you know, basically a corroboration from the doctor who said to Mike Shanahan, it's the brace. It's not the knee. The brace was off in the first half, which is why it looked like he was dragging his leg to the sideline.

We have the audio of him telling Trent Williams, don't tell anybody, but it's hurt, you know. And then we have just the whole, these are championship games. The best players are going to want to play. Don't go down this path again, okay? I think you made your point about this without talking about RG3 anymore. Why? Because, I mean, because, again, all of what you might say would be true, but anybody with two eyes could see what a disaster that was that day.

What I was going to add, and I was going to conclude with, it is very hard with competitive professional athletes for both coach and player in a moment which is we win or we go home. That wasn't last night, but for all intents and purposes, it was, you know, game five of a two, two NBA championship series. It's hard for the coach to look at the player who wants to stay in the game and it's the star player that helped you get to where. you are, and the players saying, I'm good, and for the coach to say, no, you're not. Last night, it was very obvious that they would have been better off with T.J. McConnell in the game, but I still think it's a hard decision for Rick Barlowell to make. But that's what they're getting paid for to make the hard decisions. I mean, that's part of coaching, is to gauge how healthy your players are.

Yeah, but you've got visions of him pulling it out. at the end, just like RG3 did against the Cowboys and against, you know, multiple times during that year. Look, I'll just net it out with this if you think we're talking too much about RG3 and Mike Shanahan. The situations are not comparable. They're not. I would agree with that.

Last night, Rick Carlisle knew. You know what, it's hard for me to get worked up about it. You know, because I grew up with Willis Reed. Yeah. The standard for court courage is free still. Yeah. The guy who walked out in the locker room on one leg and made the first two shots at game seven against the Lakers.

The guy who, when he walked out and shot warm-ups, Will Chamberlain, Jerry West, Elgin Baylor, and Rest in the Lakers all stopped what they were doing and watched him. Yeah. So I'm kind of spoiled when it. comes to guys stepping up on a court when they're hurt. Oklahoma City, I think it's going to win this, but wouldn't shock me if they lose game six. But a lot will, you know, certainly rest on Tyrese Halliburton's health.

Yes, I agree with that. I don't think they can win, although McConnell's been so good in these playoffs. But I don't know if he has to play 38 minutes versus 22 minutes if it will be the same thing. But I will say this. Because this series has been so intense in terms of the defense, but it's not going to be a memorable series because there haven't been memorable moments other than game one. I would love to see a triple overtime Indiana game six win and then a phenomenal memorable game seven. But I don't think we're going to see that.

I have a feeling Oklahoma City is going to win on Thursday night and end this thing. You know, the last time that franchise won an NBA championship, Tommy, they were the Seattle Super Sonics. That's right. You know who they beat? Washington Bullets. They did. Game 5, June 79. DJ, Dennis Johnson, was the MVP.

He was a... What did he really? Yeah. He was a great... player. What a great player he was. I'm almost positive. I mean, it could have been Gus Williams, but I think it was Dennis Johnson. Wasn't Jack Sigma?

No, I remember him being. No, it was definitely not Sigma. It would have been either Gus Williams or DJ. It was Dennis Johnson. I was right. Dennis Johnson was the MVP. This franchise, Oklahoma City, which looks like the best team in a league right now, didn't even exist the last time the Wizards won 50s.

games. What was a figment of everyone's imagination. Didn't even exist, okay? Move to Oklahoma City, played in the NBA finals once, right? Didn't it? Those guys play? Yep.

Yeah. The play in the game, watch your team fall apart, rebuilt it back up, and now they're on the verge of winning the NBA title. All within that whole era, when the Wizards have not to be won 50 games in the season. I think you should stop. it right there. I think you've said enough.

I mean, what else can you say? We've been doing this for 15 years. Yeah. You know, the draft is a week from tomorrow night. And these now are, well, these now are

the moments in which you know, Will Dawkins and company have to deliver a superstar. They got to get these things right. This is what they're doing. They're whole, mode of operation is to deliver high-level draft choices. Of course, they ended up with the sixth pick after the lottery. Lots of draft choices, take lots of swings and land on a few. And they have three picks a week from tomorrow night, all in the top 40, number 6, 18, and

number 40. And the future of their franchise, basically, comes down to what they do in these drafts the next couple of years. I don't know that they landed on a star last year or the year before. Maybe they landed on a good player or two, but not a star more likely than that. Right. Right. And, you know, just because they've got those picks, doesn't mean they have to hang on to them. You know, just because they're picking six doesn't mean they have to wind up picking six.

Yeah. But they probably will. They're not making a big trade for Janice Sotentacompo. No, I don't mean that. To move up. Oh, to move up in the draft. Yeah, that's what I mean. I mean, they certainly, I mean, if you're going to move up,

you want to move up to one or two, I think, in this draft. ESPN.com mocked it out, and they had the wizards taking Ace Bailey from Rutgers. I think that would be a massive mistake. And look, these are... I'm hearing bad things about Ace Bailey right now. I watched him play Maryland. Derek Queen went for 29 and 15, and Ace Bailey left the game with the sniffles with four points and tapped out.

And I made a mental note, I'm like, I do not want him if the Wizards end up with like number two and don't end up getting Cooper flag. And they mocked out Ace Bailey to the Wizards at number six overall. He's not, he's turning down visits to some team. Yeah. He's not working out for others. I'm hearing some, I'm reading some reports that would raise some red flags.

He's also 18 years old and nobody can predict what he will be like as a 24-year-old, which is, you know, that's the problem. He is talented. He's got talent, that's for sure. I wanted to just real quickly talk about something that came out a couple of weeks ago, and I don't think the two of us have talked about this. But PFF now has a essentially put out their rankings of every position group entering 2025. And they had Jaden Daniels number six on the quarterback list behind Mahomes 1, Burrow 2, Lamar Jackson, 3, Josh Allen, 4, and Jalen Hertz 5. I'll just tell you, I personally would have Jaden on this list at 5 with the chance to move up

even further next year. I wouldn't have Jalen Hertz in front of Jaden Daniels. But I thought about something, and I talked about it a little bit on the radio show today. We're not talking about quarterbacks during this offseason. We're not talking about the position of quarterback as it relates to this franchise. It's the first time we haven't been obsessed with quarterback conversation in the off season. It's just, like I thought about it, my God, every single year, you know, going into the draft, free agency, into the draft,

and then afterwards after they had made the decisions on whomever the quarterback was going to be or whatever the competition was going to be. I mean, I could come up with, the two of us could come up with three or four topics a week, all based on the quarterback. We don't have the quarterback to talk about. It's just not even a subject. This is what comfort and security feels, sounds like. It makes it harder because here's the thing is that the majority of people who are fans of football,

fans of a team, they can go deep on one or two areas, and they can go into other areas, but not deep. Quarterback is the deepest area in which they can go. So you can come up with a million ways to talk about the quarterback. and everybody feels like, uh-uh, that's not the right answer. I got the right answer on this one. It's harder to do that with the rest of the team, but you're right. This is security. This is, you know, and you know, and this fan base, they could argue vehemently.

We had some of the most intense arguments about Rex Grossman and John Beck. Yeah, we did. Think about that. I know. That whole... I mean, that's such insane. It was insane. It was.

You know what rivals it? What were the arguments about Sam Howe? Again, these are guys. These are the quarterbacks that generated exactly what you're talking about. Over the last 15 years, okay, going, you know, last year, 24, they had Jaden Daniels, but not everybody agreed on it. Not everybody agreed. And there were conversations just about do you start them right from the beginning?

Do you bring them along? You sign Marcus Marioo. How should he be played? Should he run? Should you install, you know, should you have a lot of under-centered? Like what's Cliff Kingsbury's offense going to look like? There was all of that. So this is the first year.

We don't have anything. It's all about what they're building around him. That's the conversation. Sam Howell. in 23. Oh my God. That was, thank God we had the one game that he started at the end of 22, because that's what really, we went from a guy that we were hearing couldn't play even a little bit, to the coach who didn't want to play him, had to get talked into it by Taylor Heineke, to all of a sudden we got our starter after a meaningless season finale against the Cowboys.

That might have been Ron Rivera's most insane moment. He was searching, man. I mean, he was praying. I'll tell you what. He was trying to wipe Carson Went from the memory bank. The Sam Howe 23 off season, look, there have been a lot of quarterback conversations that have gotten very heated and very emotional, and I will put myself at the front of that during the current cousin's years.

Okay, I understand that. And I probably went overboard. But the people that were already saying, we got it. We got it. They got him in the fifth round. Did you see the way he played against the Cowboys? I mean, that was an indication that our fan base had really changed in terms of a lot of things. 22, Carson Wentz.

I mean, people were all in on Carson Wentz. Oh, yeah. And the year before that was Ryan Fitzpatrick. I actually liked that signing in the moment. I thought that they had a chance to be better offensively in 21 with Fitzpatrick. Ryan Fitzpatrick had had and was coming into that year off the two best years of his career, but of course he lasted all of a quarter. The year before that was, is it time to see Dwayne Haskins?

the year before that was Case Keenham, but, you know, there was Haskins who got picked in the first round. The year before that was Alex Smith. The year before that was Kirk, but on the franchise tag, the year before that was Kirk. And really, if you want to go back to a year in which there wasn't much disagreement over the starting quarterback. And by the way, some level of comfort and security on the starting quarterback, 2016, and 2017 would be those two years. 2017, though, he was playing on the franchise tag, and we realized it would be the last year. And they should have traded him.

15 was the summer of Jay Gruden deciding, yeah, we can't play RG3 or I will lose the team entirely. We're starting Kirk Cousins. For the opener? No, for the season. And you keep going back into the RG3 years, Beck Grossman. McNabb in 2010. We don't have any of that because we got a top five to,

in PFF's case, a top six elite level quarterback. And the conversation is about everything but the quarterback. And really, to me, the focus of the football product is the defense and what the defense will be in 2025. But it's very nice not to have this for the first

time ever since we've been doing this. And at the same time, you know, not having quarterback to talk about means that the conversations tend to be less fiery. Yes, yes, they do. All right. I want to hear what you think about the stadium stuff that came out and about Dave Martinez. We'll get to that and more after these words from a few of our sponsors. All right, Tommy, tell us about Shelley. Well, I've told you many times before what a great location, Shelly's backroom is at 1331 S Street Northwest. For events for either a personal event or for your company or association, as you well know, they host the D.C. Graves Cigars and Curve Balls events every year.

And a big part of the success of that event is having it at Shelly's. It's such a great atmosphere and location. last week, there was an organization that held an event at Shelly's. I think a lot of people would be impressed with this. The NFL Players Association had a big event at Shelly's last week. I know DeMores Smith, a former executive director of the association, used to be a regular at Shelley's background. So it gives you a kind of an idea of the Pinoche at a place like Shelby Cs. Good word.

Yes. Yes. And status that it holds where, you know, the NFL players union has, of all the places you can go, Washington, D.C. And there's many of them. They chose Shelly's back room to hold their meeting, you know, because there's not, of all the places in D.C. where you can do that, you can't go any place but Shelly's and have a cigar, okay, while you're doing it. You can find out more at Shelly's Backroom. All right. Let's start with Dave Martinez. The Nats lost to Colorado last night. They took a

four-three lead into the ninth. And then Kyle Finnegan gave up back-to-back home runs. First two home runs of the season that he's given up. And they lost to a horrible baseball team in the Colorado Rockies. They've got three more games against Colorado. I'll let you talk about this. I talked about it yesterday with Chelsea James on the podcast. Is he in trouble this week if they don't win games? I don't think he's in trouble this week, but you can't keep letting this go on. There's no obvious replacement on the coaching staff. Okay. You know, there's no manager in waiting that I can see on the coaching staff. So, you know, I mean, you know, I mean, Darnell

Colts the hitting coach, Jim Hickey to pitching coach, there's no manager on that staff. So, it wouldn't be easy to make that. Plus, there are transistors you can cook. One of the big reasons they're losing is because they're not scored any runs. And they were for a while.

I know that. I know, but I told you that over the course of 162 games, they don't have the offense to sustain scoring runs. They just don't. They didn't at the start of the season. They didn't when they put this roster together. Mike Rizzo knew it when under the budget restrictions that he was given by the learner family.

They just don't have enough offense to generate runs consistently yet. They're relying too much on a couple of young players who really just got here. Right. You know? And to help Dylan Cruz has he even been on the field and we. So, I mean, again, to me, the problem, you know, is easy. It sits with the front office's failure to commit to the off-season roster. Now, that's not going to do Davey Martinez any good in June if they lose 15, 20 games in a row.

You haven't commented on his comments after the loss of the Marlins when he said it's never the coaches. he was a response to he's very protective of his staff it was a wrong-headed comment to make and uh his comeback the next day i don't think was very good uh you know in response to it uh but i mean he's he's he's going to be defending his coaches and in a way he's he's he's right it's always it's almost always about the players in this case, but for Davey to say something like that, I mean, he's been criticized for being too protective of his players. Right.

And you never see him verbally take a shot at a player under any way, shape, or form. But it was a mistake to say something like that. He didn't clean it up very good. But again, I don't see the learners being, I don't see Rizzo, and then I don't see the learners firing this until it snowballs, and it could happen, until it snowballs

into something that the whole world is saying, well, you got to do something, you can't keep losing games, so they need to win some games for David, to Dave Ortiz to kind of quell that. Okay, they're not a very good team. They have some good part, but they're not a very good team.

Woods a good part. He had another home run last night. He's on pace for 40 and a half home runs right now. He's got 18 through their 72 games. Here's a question that, you know, I don't want the Nats fans, those of you who are hardcore Nats fans to get upset with, but I'm going to ask Tommy anyway. in a lot of baseball cities, there would be a lot of sort of an outcry for Dave Martinez to be fired at this point. He's got a losing overall record. They just got swept by the Marlins. If the Rockies who are on pace for one of the worst seasons in Major League Baseball history end up taking three or four from the Nats here, already took, you know, the first game. you would have baseball cities and several of them across the country where ownership would probably bend.

You know, optically, they would want to just get it done. I don't feel like that's the case here, that there's a lot of fan pressure, public pressure, for the learners to do anything. Do you agree with that or not? Well, yeah, but in a lot of cities, like New York or Philly, They wouldn't have put up with the lack of commitment by ownership for the past three years in the first place. Fair. Yeah.

That's what they would have, they would have been much harder on ownership's willing, unwillingness to spend money in $80 million payroll. Can you imagine doing that in some place like Philly? No, no, no. And getting away with it. They would be disgusted with the whole thing. They would not put up with a manager who has had a losing record year after year like it. But before that, they would not have put up with ownership

and their lack of financial commitment to putting a winning team on the field. Is Davy doing a bad job, or is it that he just doesn't have enough to work with? He doesn't have enough to work with. I mean, there are, you know, managers sitting at home that are convinced that he doesn't run the bullpen right. He brought in his closer west night, one of the best closers in the league. okay. I mean, so there's nothing wrong with that. No. The guy gives up for all months.

But in every city in America, the big number one topic of arguments about managers is the bullpen. Yeah. Okay? I mean, it's a hit and miss proposition. Do I think Davey does a great job of managing the bullpen? I wouldn't say he does a great job. But the only manager I've ever known who's done a great job managing the bullpen is Davy Johnson. Right.

rest of them are all suspect from time to time. So I think, I think that it's a player problem, like he said, but you can't say that. It's an ownership problem, but you can't say that either. Well, you can say that. The manager can't. You can't say it. Do you know what the attendance was last night? I know.

It was a Monday night. It was rainy. It was ugly. It was the Rockies. And it was the Rocky. But do you know what it was? 10,000, maybe? 11,000, 370.

Yeah, I know. I'm surprised their attendance isn't worse this year. So going to the game tonight, I could probably just take a row. Or section, maybe. I actually have been... Is it supposed to rain again tonight? Yeah, I think it is. I think it is.

Yeah. You know, after this series with Colorado, they go, Dodgers, Padres, and then Angels, West Coast, and then come back against Detroit, Boston. So this could really get ugly between now and the All-Star break. Yes, it could. But you know what? It could snowball beyond anyone's control and something would have to be done. But they do have a star in the making in James Wood, that's for sure.

All right. I wrote that column last week saying that James Wood stands to be the, biggest black baseball star in Washington since Josh Gibson. Another guy who hit Mammoth home runs. Right. Howie Kendrick was a pretty damn good star in the postseason in 2019. I know. I know what you're saying. He had the moment of all moments. Yes, he did. Yes. Um, yeah, interesting. Interesting. Um, all right. Uh, let's finish up with this.

What do you know or what do you think about the post story that suggests the council wants to delay the vote on the RFK deal that Mayor Bowser and the team struck at the end of April? Mayor Bowser says that the team is, quote, outraged, closed quote. The team has said that they are willing to work morning and. and night with the council to get the deal passed by the date that they wanted it voted on July 15th. What are you hearing? What are your thoughts? Well, where did they team say this? Do you know?

Where did the team say this? Yeah. Well, this is... I've been trying to find it. Well, this is the mayor saying that the team is outraged. You know, that came from the mayor last week. The mayor said the team is outraged at the suggestion of... of delaying the vote.

And she said, uh, it, it, quote, sacrifices are exclusive seat at the table and 2.7 billion in private investment. And then, um,

uh, she suggested that, well, no, the commanders here, the quote here, and I don't know what this is from, the commanders said they would be willing to work,

quote, morning and night closed quote, with the council to get the deal passed in July. Okay. You know, uh, when they had the press, conference. They trotted out. One of the, one of the other, many graphics they trotted out

was a graphic that set up a schedule of, and this was the team that did this. And it said summer 2025 council approval. Right. You know, well, summer lasts a long time, doesn't it? Well, July 15th was the date for exclusivity as it relates to, you know, the commanders can't go to Maryland, Virginia, but they can after July 15th if it's not voted on. Exclusive. Look, this is a joke. Okay, they're not going anywhere. They're not, you know, that the deadline means nothing, except maybe their costs, you know,

of building the stadium could wind up going up the longer it takes. I don't think an extra couple weeks are going to make any difference. This is the biggest public expenditure in the history. of Washington, D.C. City, I think the county council and the government has every right to take their time about willing to allocate $1.1 billion when the city is struggling through financial crisis and budget problems, when they're rating on Moody's is dropping like every month, I think the city council members are doing a responsible thing. You know, government, this is the way government runs.

You don't dictate to council members that we want your $1.1 billion and we want it by this date. Okay, the deadline is ridiculous. The commanders aren't going anywhere. Oh, God. Just the frustration from people like Josh Harris to hear that answer that two and a half months isn't enough.

You know, what's interesting about your answer is that I thought you would say, Because remember, for many, many months, if not a few years, you predicted Landover, that that's ultimately where it would land. And even when this announcement was made in April, even though you said, look, it definitely looks like D.C. now. You know, and you had come around. But you said, they still got to get this through the council. Who knows?

I know that. But before I was aware of the lucrative deal the commanders would have for this, the acreage that they're going to be handed over by the city to develop as they see fit and pocket the profits from. There's no other stadium deal that's been made in the NFL where the team has been given land in addition to the stadium and the city has said here go ahead, you know, build whatever

you guys want, keep the money, we're good. You know, if the council is smart, they're going to negotiate a better deal to get a slice of that money. We've talked about that since April 28. I had Phil Mendelsohn on the show and he said, we're going to work to get a better deal, which of course they should.

They absolutely shouldn't just take the term sheet as is, vote on it, vote yes, and move on. they you know one of the potential mistakes and i don't think it's a mistake because i think you know there was a real good feeling on that day is to make it very clear if they hadn't already we don't want to be anywhere else this is where we want to be well i agree that the city council you know in it by the way in conjunction with those that help the mayor negotiate this deal the term sheet that they have should work to get a better deal It just shouldn't have to take two and a half months.

This is where you and I will probably just disagree. And I'm not saying that there isn't great complexity. And they're complaining that they haven't gotten everything they need from the mayor. So this could certainly be on the mayor's side as well, not just the city council. But government works slower than the private sector. And it makes private sector people pull their hair out. because Josh Harris and Mitch Rails and Mark Eind would have said, let's lock ourselves in a room together for as long as it takes a weekend.

We'll have food brought in, catered the whole thing. Let's pound out a deal. We've got a deadline. We're going to meet it. And there never seems to be in government that same level of urgency. So I think July 15th from a term sheet that was signed on or around April 28th, seems reasonable, but apparently it isn't. We'll see.

I think it'll get voted on by July 15th and passed. I do. But... It probably will. Yeah. It probably will. But, again, you know, government does not operate like the private sector. No.

And when people always say to me, well, they should, and I'll say, well, how many companies have you worked for that you think would be good to run the government? they usually don't have a good answer. How many radio stations have you worked for? That would be great at running the government. You're picking the wrong industry. But how many other industries?

The problem is none of those people would ever go into government because it doesn't pay well enough. But yeah, I think there are probably many industries that could probably do, put it this way. I don't know how it would turn out, but it would be done differently. and it would be done with more urgency. I think ultimately this gets done. It's in the best interest that would seem for everybody,

especially with that polling that came out that indicated that the city's, you know, residents want this. I think, look, democracy, at least the way I remember it, okay? It's usually supposed to be inclusive, and sometimes it's messy and slow. Yeah, and thinking about the radio industry, can you imagine if Simple Jack tried to get in the middle of doing this on behalf of the City Council? Oh, my God, we've had some Butes and radio. That's for sure. Yes.

All right. What else? I got nothing else for you today, boss. I think we put in a full day. We put in a full day. We have a full show to provide you. All right. I'll be back tomorrow.

Logan Paulson will be on the show with me tomorrow. All right, Tommy. I'll talk to you Thursday. Okay, boss. I'll see you.