The Kevin Sheehan Show - Questions for Rivera

Episode Date: June 26, 2020

Kevin opened with the increasing infection rate among athletes, the response from among others Saints safety Malcolm Jenkins, and where the start and restart of professional sports stands as of now. Ben Standig/The Athletic and Kevin then spent an hour talking Redskins. Included were 11 questions Ben thinks Ron Rivera will have to answer when before training camp. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You want it. You need it. It's what everyone's talking about. The Kevin Sheehan Show. Now here's Kevin. Ben Standing's going to be on the show today from The Athletic. He's written a column, 11 questions. He will direct towards Ron Rivera or should be directed towards Ron Rivera when training camp begins. Ben Standing coming up in about five to ten minutes. And we'll talk not only about his column, but about a lot of other things, including he wrote a column recently, identified. the best free agent signing of the Dan Snyder era and the worst free agent signing of the Dan Snyder era. So a lot with Ben coming up here shortly. Some breaking news after the radio show this morning in the world of golf. Denny McCarthy, who I had on the radio show a couple of weeks ago. He's an up-and-comer on the PGA tour. I know his uncle very well. I know his father. Denny's a great guy. Georgetown prep guy, UVA guy. Denny's really made strides on the PGA tour. He tested positive for coronavirus, and he had to withdraw from the travelers in Connecticut. As far as his health, there's nothing here on the story about it, but Denny's a young, healthy guy, so we wish him the best. He's really a great guy.

But now we've had, you know, several players withdraw from this tournament. Some like Kepka and Graham McDowell and Webb Simpson, who weren't necessarily positive tests for the virus, but they had come in contact with guys that had tested positive. In the case of Kepka and McDowell, their caddies both tested positive. I think with Webb Simpson, it was a member of his family who had tested positive. But we wish Denny McCarthy the best. local, really good young player, and we had a lot of fun with him on a long radio interview a few weeks back before the tour had started back up. Also some news from this morning after the radio show,

NBA players are getting tested, you know, as they prepare for this restart to the season, which will be very interesting to see if they can get this done, but six, of 302 NBA players tested positive for coronavirus. This is the first wave they're calling it of mandatory testing done in preparation for the start of the season. So out of 302 players, that's a 5.3% hit rate of positive tests league-wide. Any player who tests positive will remain in self-isolation until they're able to test negative. a period of time. The players' names weren't disclosed. We know that some players like Malcolm Brogden and Jabari Parker and Alex Lenn have already publicly acknowledged that they recently

tested positive. The season's scheduled to resume a month from now, July 30th, so a month in five days, a month in four days from now, with 22 teams converging on Orlando. Orlando. Mandatory workouts are July 1st, and then teams can start to arrive in Florida in preparation for the ending of the regular season and then the postseason on July 7th. So we'll see how that plays out. This is what we've been seeing a lot of in recent days. We've seen a lot of athletes testing positive from golf to pro football, Zeke Elliott to college football, the 23 players at Clemson, to the NBA players. Many NBA players opting. out. And before we get to Ben Standing, I wanted to start with this story. And it's the Malcolm Jenkins

story and interview from CNN yesterday. Malcolm Jenkins very outspoken. Remember in the Drew Breez situation, he's a 12-year veteran. He's a member of the NFL Players Association. He, of course, had a really good years in Philadelphia, in particular. Malcolm Jenkins spoke out yesterday about coronavirus. And let's keep in mind that this came a day after Zeke Elliott, who had tested positive and was getting better, he was getting much better. But Zeke Elliott said, you know, he's very concerned about football starting back up with families at home and kids at home. It wasn't even about him as he was on the men, but he questioned whether or not it could be done in a healthy way. and Malcolm Jenkins essentially said the same thing yesterday to CNN.

I'm going to read you a few of the quotes. Jenkins said that football is essentially a non-essential business. Here's the quote, and I'll read all of them, but this is really the money quote. I think until we get to the point where we have protocols in place, and until we get to a place as a country where we feel safe doing it, it. We have to understand that football is a non-essential business, and so we don't need to do it. And so the risk has to be really eliminated before we, before I would feel comfortable going back. That was Malcolm Jenkins, a 12-year veteran player, a big voice in the NFL. He continued. He said in

discussing what the NBA is doing with a hub city. He said the NBA is a lot different than the NFL because they can actually quarantine all of their players or whoever is going to participate. We have over 2,000 players, even more coaches and staff. We can't do that. So we'll end up being kind of on this trust system, the honor system, where we just have to hope that guys are social distancing and things like that. And that puts all of us at risk. Not only us as players and who's in the building, but when you go home to your families, you know, I have parents that I don't want to see get sick, closed quote. That's Malcolm Jenkins, a day after Zeke Elliott had similar thoughts.

Tommy's been on this thought from players. Now, I think the environment here has changed a little bit here over the last week with COVID-19 infections on the rise again. I think also as these players get closer to the beginning of the season, they get a little bit more angst ridden over this. You know, a month ago, it was easy for players, especially if infections were starting to die down. It was easy for players to say, we've got to get back to work. We got to play football. Country needs us. And now with all of the infections in Clemson and Texas and Alabama and all of these different sports, the feelings a little bit different. And the issue is going to be how many players feel this way. We did a segment this

morning on the radio show. It was a segment that basically asked a two-part question. Do you think the NFL will start on time? And do you think the NFL will complete its 2020 season? I said, based on today, right now, I don't think it'll start on time. And I don't think there will be a full 16 game regular season. This will change, I would predict, because it seems as if the guidance in all of the data and all of the expertise changes all the time. And we understand that at this point after four and a half months of all of this. We understand that nobody's really got it figured out. They really don't know.

They're trying their best. I was listening to something between the radio show and the podcast today about how much progress is being made on the vaccine, that there are two or three that are very much in play for some time maybe as early as the fall or the end of the year, and that production is moving forward on those vaccines. Rather than waiting to see if the vaccine works and then starting to produce it, they really can't do that. They've got to produce it even without clear evidence that it works. I think the NFL and all of these leagues right now, it is up in the air. The good news is young people still, for the most part, aren't getting terrible.

sick, but one real sick person could be the Rudy Gobert of the next attempt at sports. Rudy Gobert tested positive at shut down sports. That's not going to happen again. We know that. But the first person that gets seriously ill and is on a ventilator, God forbid, and we hope it doesn't happen. Player, not coach. Let me be clear on that. I think if it's an older player or coach, it wouldn't shut down the league or even sports. But I think if one player in any of these sports, young, healthy, no underlying diseased player, get seriously ill or worse, that would be the Rudy Gobert equivalent here in round two of trying to make sports work.

Hopefully it won't happen. The odds are it won't. But it is interesting to see the players getting very angst-ridden. over a potential return with all of these positive tests. All right, let's get to Ben Standing, but before we do, quick word about hydrant. Top performers in business and sports often attribute their success to their morning routine, whether it's waking up early, setting their goals for the day, exercise, or meditation. But not everybody's got the time to do it all.

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That's drink hydrant, H-Y-D-R-A-N-T-D-R-A-N-T-com for 25% off your first order. All right. All right. You can get the athletic right now 30 days for free. I encourage you to do it if you haven't done it yet. It's the perfect time to read all of Ben's stuff. He is prolific on the athletic in terms of writing about the Redskins. He's got another column that came out this morning, which is why we have, we're having Ben on,

but we don't need a reason to bring him on. We'll get to his column where he's got 11 questions for Ron Rivera ahead of training camp. But follow Ben on Twitter at Ben Standing. But in all seriousness, I'm a subscriber to the athletic and have been for a while. It is great for local sports, really good local sports. writers and Ben does such a phenomenal job on the Redskins, as you all know. Before we get to your column, du jour, what did you make of the Del Rio Twitter thing from the other night where he clearly stated for anybody that had any doubts going in that he is a Trump supporter? He retweeted

a fake AOC tweet. There was just a lot going on there. What did you make of that? And what do you think the Redskins thought of it, like Dan Snyder and Ron Rivera? Yeah, as always, thanks for having me and being my PRR rep. I appreciate that. Well, I mean, look, I mean, you know, we'll get to the bulk of the column, but this is woven in there because I think, you know, we can, you know, people I know, just stick to sports and that whole thing, but realistically, that's not the world we're living in anymore. This week, multiple times this week. Look, we're all going through a lot, you know, living in our homes in this pandemic, and, you know, there's fear as the spikes are going up with different parts of the country and how

are we going to deal with this? And, you know, for our purposes, specifically, what is this going to mean for sports? I know the numbers are down a little bit in this area, but the NFL, you know, for what we care about in terms of our professions, the spikes are happening in the NFL state. So what does this mean? And my point is that we're all on edge these days. And, you know, I think there's going to be some questions that Rivera, we're going to have to ask Rivera. And among them, I think, for me is, how are you going to handle,

you're trying to change this culture, you're trying to build a new team. You are new to this group. So, all your coaches, except for your special teams coach and your running backs coach, how are you going to get the players, this largely black locker room of young men, to buy in to what people are saying

when the defensive coordinator is making comments, that go directly, seemingly against, or he's at least backing a side that goes against what a lot of these players are standing for. Dwayne Haskins went to the protest to join one of the protests in D.C. following George Floyd's murder, which is about many things, but including police brutality and racial inequality. Adrian Peterson has talked that he's going to kneel, which is obviously what Colin Kaepernick has, you know, did in the past, and that's become a top, it become, a way to show support for those areas as well. And obviously, I'm sure there's other players who feel the same way, whether they've said publicly or not.

And it doesn't matter whether you agree with or against what Del Rio said. And I'm not talking about Del Rio's right to speak up. That is part of, we all have that right to speak up. But what you're doing it in a way where you need these people to buy into what you are selling effectively, to be a cohesive unit. You try to build, you know, if you're trying to focus on football, Does that become more complicated when the politics are aired publicly? I don't see how it can't be.

Now, it's interesting that we haven't heard any, at least as far as I know, none of the players at this moment have spoken up publicly about this, the way they say the Oklahoma State kid did when Mike Gundy was shown wearing an OAN shirt, a network that promotes messages that seemingly go again, or not seemingly to go against, these, you know, did the current movement out there? That player made a point of speaking up, and we'll see what happens with him and Gundy. They had a conversation,

and we'll see what happens down the line on that on that and other fronts. But, yeah, I mean, I think it's, I can't comprehend that Ron Rivera would have been happy with what Del Rio had the, what Del Rio did. Again, you can think what you think, but if you do it publicly, you take, you know, I think, I know, I'm rambling here.

People misunderstand, I think, you have the right to say what you want, but there's also the right to others to react to it. And that's going to be interesting to see what happens here. And I do think it's something that Revere will have to address. Maybe he blows it off if we ask, but I can't comprehend how he doesn't address it internally. Yeah, freedom of speech does not mean freedom of consequence. And that's the conversation that Tommy and I had yesterday.

I had it on radio a few days ago the morning after he went pretty active on Twitter. Twitter. And I'm very surprised, actually, at this point, it's Friday that those tweets went out Tuesday night. I'm very surprised we haven't had any reaction from not even one player, not one coach. I believe that George Carl, of all people, I saw there was a reaction to Del Rio's tweets from George Carl, a rather critical response on social media. But other than that, you know, there have been stories written about it. about Jack Del Rio doing what he did the other night, but nothing at this point from players or team. I'm really surprised about that.

I don't know what I was expecting necessarily, but I wasn't expecting complete silence on the matter unless somehow it was handled as an organization, and we haven't heard about it yet, which I guess is possible, but man, that would be incredible for that organization to have gotten everybody together and come to some, you know, Del Rio spoke in his mind and everybody being fine with it and silent about it.

I'm very surprised. You mentioned Mike Gundy. We immediately got a response from their best player, which created a major national story at the college level. He was just wearing a T-shirt. Now, we know what the T-shirt more likely was making a statement about. He acted naive to it, but Jack Del Rio didn't pull any punches on Twitter the other night. Not to mention, he looked like a bit of a dope retweeting a fake tweet for the second time in two months.

And nothing. When you brought that up moments ago, we talked about this in a follow-up yesterday that nothing happened, and I basically completely forgot on radio this morning to bring it up again to say, still no reaction. but there hasn't been. I'm really surprised. It sounds like you are, too. Yeah, I mean, to your point, I don't quite know what to expect, but, yeah, it's a little surprising.

I mean, it was, as he said, people, you know, various national websites did aggregate the story. You know, our friend Dan Steinberg with The Washington Post, you know, made it, you know, he took the screenshots of Del Rio's tweets and likes and put up on Twitter that night, which because of Dan reached locally and nationally, you know, that generated some more attention, I'm sure. And, yeah, I mean, it hasn't been. I don't know if that's, you again, maybe they did something internally. Maybe the players have had a conversation that said nobody reacts.

You know, I don't know, maybe they just, I don't know, maybe it didn't bother them to a degree. I mean, I'm sure it bothered them, but socially, but maybe in terms of feeling compelled to, you know, state their opinion out loud that they didn't feel that was necessary. So, yeah, I don't know what necessarily. was expecting, but it is a little surprising that we haven't heard

anything. And, you know, again, I think the fact that it is, you know, it's almost hard to remember the NFL calendar under these circumstances with everything so crazy. But, you know, right now would be the dead period for Washington, for all the NFL team. All the, you know, we would be done with OTAs

and mini-cants. These guys would be vacationing somewhere with their family or who knows what. And maybe they're still of that mindset, and therefore they're kind of away from it. But, look, from the media goes everywhere. But yeah, it's a little surprising, for sure, that we haven't heard anything, but, you know, we'll see what happens.

And like I said, I can't comprehend the topic is going away. The only thing that's happened is he's gone silent on Twitter for two days. That's basically it. And, you know, there are plenty of other periods for him going silent for multiple days on Twitter, even though he's very active for a coach anyway on Twitter. Well, you know. By the way, sorry to interrupt, but like, you know, this is also not a group that is, and look, there are so many different social media platforms, I can't keep track.

I basically focus on Twitter and a little bit with Instagram, but I don't like, maybe I'm wrong, but in terms of the amount of the players that we're looking at on this roster, I don't think they're the most socially media active politically group there is relative to some others. I mean, Chase Young was part of that video with the NFL players a few weeks ago that got of attention, but I'm not, you know, I don't, I don't know how much he's tweeting about this or other guys. So, you know, it just may not be their nature, which is, you know, absolutely fine as well, but, you know, I mean, there's other players, other teams that are far more active on social media on these fronts than I feel like these guys are. It's probably true. I also think, you know,

when you think about the defensive side of the ball, you've got, you know, some veterans there, in addition to obviously the rookie that they picked in the first round, but guys like Thomas Davis and Ryan Carrigan. And at this point, you know, even though he isn't truly a veteran, but John Allen certainly with his maturity, behaves like one. And Sean Davis is a long-time player, you know, in the league now. So, you know, Ronald Darby, you know, maybe it's just, look, let's deal with it when we all get together at training camp. Let's not make a big deal out of it now. You know, there's one other part, and I failed to mention this with Tommy on the podcast yesterday. You know, the Redskins are one of those sports teams that generate a lot of corporate, you know, relationship money through defense contractors in the past, military-related organizations being here in D.C.

And there's always been a tightrope that they've had to walk on some of these issues. You know, Dan Snyder has been a contributor to Republican campaigns, including the Trump campaign. and I am sure that he is very likely a Republican. I mean, I think you could draw that conclusion pretty easily. I don't know if that means that he's, you know, a Trump supporter now like he was in 2016. But what he is is reliant on more conservative-related areas of industry for a revenue stream, for an advertising revenue stream. And so that puts the Redskins in a bit of a different predicament

than some teams. It's almost the equivalent of, you know, during the kneeling Kaepernick situation back in 2017, you know, a lot of people said, look, this isn't a big deal in the big cities, but it's going to be a big deal in Kansas City, and it's going to be a big deal in Green Bay, and it's going to, you know, and anywhere in Texas. Well, it was a big deal here, and it was a big deal here. In addition to, you know, many fans who work, you know, in government, work at the Pentagon, work, you know, for defense-related contractors, et cetera, it may have been a big issue. I can't tell you what percentage, but I can tell you that a bigger revenue stream, which would have been some of those corporate dollars and sponsorships, they've got to be careful, especially now for them where they've lost

so much revenue in recent years because of the performance of the product. So that's just something else to keep in mind. You know, Tommy and I didn't talk about it yesterday, but I always remember that after the fact that that is a factor with this organization always has been. Yes, for sure. And look, I mean, all these topics are incredibly, all these topics are nuanced and complicated on various fronts if we weren't dealing with a global pandemic. If we weren't dealing with an economic downturn, in large part because of the

the pandemic, the fear that comes with this, with coronavirus, you know, the fear of getting sick or worse. So there's so much going on. And, you know, there's, it's really, I think everybody is so on edge these days. And I think that's one reason why, regardless of what these topics are, we're getting so many people wanting to immediately react one way or the other. And, you know, look, I mean, context is always key and it's difficult sometimes even when you're retweeting these things to, you know, or even if you're tweeting about stuff, to make a major point about these important topics and do so, you know, 100 or 280 characters or whatever, whatever.

Very difficult. And so context is always key. You know, I don't know Jack, though, were you other than these press conferences. Maybe these players know him better and know whatever he was saying. Does it reflect the guys they've met or known? I don't know. But, yeah, I mean, these topics are so complicated. that it is why social,

it's among the many reasons why social media is hardly the ideal platform to discuss because, you know, how do you get out of message? And not to mention tone is always incredibly challenging only fronts, you know, when you're typing things out and all that. Yeah, no doubt.

Netting it out, too, on Del Rio, I mean, I don't know what I expected, and I would not predict how it plays out, but I think in play is the opposite of something that causes some level of angst or disruption. And that is they got a bunch of players like John Allen and Duran Payne and Ryan Carrigan and Thomas Davis and Landon Collins and Sean Davis that don't care about their coaches politics. And when they get together, it's going to be all about football. There's always that possibility as well. I just think, you know, again, in this climate, the fact that,

that it's now been two and a half days, it's odd that nothing has come out from at least just one player that he either is about to coach or maybe even used to play for him. All right. Before we get to your column, Malcolm Jenkins in New Orleans had some pretty strong comments on CNN yesterday about the return to football. And I opened the show with this topic, and I want your thoughts as well. If you missed it, Ben, he told CNN, he said, until we get to the point where we have protocols in place, and until we get to a place as a country where we feel safe doing it,

we have to understand that football is a non-essential business, and so we don't need to do it. And so the risk has to be really eliminated before we, before I, would feel comfortable with going back. asked about the NBA versus the NFL, the NBA's Hub City. He pointed out that, quote, the NBA is a lot different than the NFL because they can actually quarantine all of their players or whoever is going to participate.

We have over 2,000 players, even more coaches and staff. We can't do that. So we'll end up being kind of on the trust system, the honor system, where we just have to hope that guys are social distancing and things like that. and that puts us all at risk, not only us as players and who's in the building, but when you go home to your families, he said, you know, I have parents, I don't want to get them sick, closed quote. This comes a day after Zeke Elliott spoke out about his concerns and family concerns after he did test positive and he's getting better, and also the first real step that we've seen with the NFL being forced to cancel something other than OTAs in minicamp,

and that was the cancellation of the Hall of Fame game, the Steelers and Cowboys on August 6th, even though as of now the plan is to open up training camps on time. What do you make of now back-to-back days of players expressing real concern about a return to football? What's your guess right now on whether or not the NFL will start on time? And then the second part of that is, do you think the NFL will play a complete 2020 season? Well, I mean, if these guys are watching the news like the rest of us, I don't know how they could have any reaction other than concern and some pessimism over this idea.

I mean, you know, just this morning it was announced in the state of Florida that over 8,000 people, I think, tested positive for COVID-19 in the last 24 hours, which was by far a record. And obviously, I understand testing does not automatically mean getting sick or dying, but obviously it's concern. And because the numbers are spiking so rapidly, it's not just a matter of, well, one day, we'll all get it. It's a matter of if it's happening so rapidly, then the hospital will get overwhelmed. People who do need care may not be able to get it. And, you know, tragedy ensues. So obviously, there's a big concern. I mean, I'm working on a project that I'll unveil in a few weeks for the athletic.

And in conversations that I'm having with people for, you know, the topic of what you think about this reopening. you know, comes up. And some people are bullish think, you know, that it's not a big deal. Others believe that, hey, look, whatever you think of the NFL, they're going to try to do the right thing, teams as well. And therefore, you know, it can't be too worried about it. But there are other people who, you know, point to, hey, look, I mean, this disease is particularly affecting black men and women, people who have underlying conditions.

A lot of NFL players who are, you know, big guys, obesity to some degree, factors into some of these things. There may be conditions from that, and there is some concern about what this means. I mean, of course, the reality, the pace reality is, you know, there's an insane amount of money at play, and this is the overriding factor if it was just about safety, then obviously they wouldn't bother playing it at all, any of these sports. But that's not the case, and yes, it's not a, what's the term, it's not an essential business, but it's, you know, it's hard to just imagine and just wipe it away and say, you know, well, we can, you know,

we'll just let all the money ride and move on. Obviously, the owners aren't going to be that way. So I think, you know, I don't know if it's going to start on time. It is hard to figure out how you're going to play 16 games because there'll be spikes in different parts of the country or some teams will have, you know, even if it's just one team that has, not just one case, not just two cases, but many cases that go through a locker room, the way the common, the way a cold or a flu does.

I'm not comparing the two. I'm just saying this is how viruses occur. You often hear a team will have, you know, several players dealing with the flu because they're around each other. And this thing will likely will spread in those terms. I've had people tell me they're more concerned about players in the locker room than they are about players on the field because of the, you know, the closed quarters, indoors, things like that.

So I'm definitely, definitely concerned. I have been saying for months, until there's a vaccine, I just find it hard to figure out how everybody can move forward with all these things and feel good about it unless you're just completely bearing your head in the sand. It feels like fewer people are doing that today than they were yesterday. I don't know what that means for tomorrow, though, if I'm just being honest. Yeah, really the whole thing's hard to predict. All right. I want to get to your column, but real quickly on a column that you wrote last week, I think it was. you and I would urge again everybody to go read this

and I'm not going to spoil all the terrific thoughts on this subject that are in there you got to go read it for yourself but Ben did a thing where he asked a bunch of local people about the best Redskins free agent signing and the worst free agent Redskins signing I was asked to be a participant on this and I completely dropped the ball

I've already apologized to Ben it was very much unlike me but it was over a weekend and somehow I got sidetracked. But anyway. You Rod Gardner, the situation? I did. It was right there, too. I mean, it was a perfectly thrown ball. The best free agent signing in Redskins history for you is who?

Well, so this was technically we did it in the Dan Snyder era, just to sort of limit it a little bit. So from that perspective, it was London Fletcher. I mean, if we went all time, boy, I don't even know. I mean, you know, John Reagan, the Joe Seyzer. something like that. But in terms of the Snyder era, I mean, London Fletcher was a pretty easy call. Pierre Garsohn

got some love. Those are the two guys, I think we're pretty clear. But I mean, London Fletcher, you know, I forget the exact number, but, you know, however many games he played over his time in D.C., he started every game, played every game. You know, he's the type of guy when Rivera is talking now about, you know, setting,

changing the culture. Like, that's the type of guy that he's talking about. It was just back then. You only kind of had one of those guys and you had so much chaos around it that those positive traits of a guy doing the right things seemingly on and off the field just couldn't completely take root because there was just so much else going on. That's a no-brainer. London Fletcher is the greatest free agent signing in franchise history, certainly during the Dan Snyder era. No one was more productive. And, you know, I saw the list, and I'm not going to give it to everybody, but they've

got basically a top five with honorable mention. I think one of the more underrated free agent signings during the Dan Snyder era, and you have this in your top five. So I'll just mention him, and he would have been somebody that would have come to mind for me immediately was Cornelius Griffin. Griffin was really a good player here, an excellent player here when they signed him from the Giants. And he was their best interior defensive linemen on really the last, few teams the Redskins had. You literally have to go back to some of those teams, 2005, six, seven, certainly seven in particular to find a good defensive football team. It's been a horrific defensive program here for years. But Griffin was really crucial to the 2007 run that

they had and the better defense that they played during the Snyder era. So you had him in here at number five. There were three players in between. I'm going to force everybody to go read it. The worst free agent signing in franchise history, this had to be a complete consensus, unanimous vote, Albert Hainsworth. You know what? It was not, and because of me. In fact, I'll give you my case. Hear me out. I actually put Haynesworth third, but hear me out. Obviously, you could argue he's the worst free agent signing of all time in NFL history when you factor in the hype, the numbers, the laying down on the field, complete, utter, an abject failure in every way, shape, or form. However, I didn't put him first

because of my own sort of personal reasons, and that was, the person I put first was Jeff George. You know what? That's, I was just going to guess, did you pick Jeff George because he would have been my number two. But let me just mention before you go through it, he would have been in contention. I figured that everybody would say Albert Hainsworth, and that's why he was number one, and I just assumed it was unanimous. But Jeff George was poisonous and really cost the Redskins the 2000 season and potentially the 2001 start to the season. But go ahead. Yeah, and so for me, it was a symbolic, my top two picks on the defense, on the defense, on the worst free agents,

were symbolic for me of how I've used this franchise for the last 20 years. Because Jeff George was the really first sign we had of how things were going to ultimately go. You had a highly competent quarterback in Brad Johnson, who just took your team to the playoff. He was already going to, he would later take another team to win the Super Bowl.

He was very good. He was significantly better than a quarterback that had for years, but he was also incredibly boring. He wasn't marketable. Jeff George, that dude was marketable. You have the arm, the gunslinger. He had had success with Minnesota, but the negatives were pretty extreme as well,

some of which he just mentioned. And yet Dan Snyder brought him in, gave him, I think he actually, even though the contractor funny money, as we know, I think he was actually getting more money to be the quote-unquote backup than Brad Johnson got as the starter, and that didn't last long. They trade Brad Johnson out. Jeff George is the starter until Marty Schottommer

not just benches and he gets rid of them altogether. They left in one month into the season. But the idea that you would even consider, it was such the ultimate unforced error that you would even consider bringing him in showed what I think Snyder's mentality was, what how this organization was thinking. And honestly, that was the thinking

basically up until the point that McLuhan showed up, And at least from that point on, not necessarily the thing because of McLuhan, but probably, that thing started to go down the path of, all right, we're going to build through the draft, we'll make the occasional free agent splash, but we're going to do it, you know, smart, not completely sabotaged ourselves as a way that one did. The second one for me on that list, so my unholy trinity of the worst of the movie that really set things off, and when I was still a fan that kind of told me, you better check out here emotionally because things are going to go along. first was Jeff George.

Second was firing Schadenheimer after one year when they improved so much through it. And third was signing Adam Archeletta to make him the highest paid safety in the league. I mean, it just was another move. Like, what? Why are you effectively bidding against

yourself? And it almost just felt like, again, another symbol of what was going to happen. Other teams wanted him. Arteletta seemingly wanted to go somewhere else. And the organization decided, you know what? We're going to make it impossible for you to believe that you could go anywhere else. We're going to pay you so much money that would be incomprehensible,

and then it completely bombed to boot. So to me, so that's why I put Archoletta second, because for me personally, those three moves said to me, oh, no, this whole thing is off the rails, and I don't see how this is going to go get fixed, and obviously that's kind of how things have gone for most of the last 20 years. Yeah, you know, the Archelaida came during what could be, you know, labeled as the worst offseason of the Dan Snyder era, the 2006 off season. It was an utter

shit show of terrible move after terrible move, desperation moves late in preseason, T.J. Duckett Trade, et cetera. But the Jeff George thing is, I thought everybody would pick Haynesworth, and I think I would too, but I think the Jeff George signing in some ways was more damaging. And the way you put it actually is really perfect and it is the first indication that we've got an owner that's way too involved. We've got an owner that knows nothing about football yet is about to get super involved. Now we didn't know where it would lead that he'd be a serial interferer for those first 10 years with any football person that he had in the organization with the exception of the one that he couldn't interfere with contractually, which was Marty. But, you know, but you.

you had, you know, the story is that Snyder, after he got ownership of the team, tried to undo the Jeff George deal in 1999 prior to the season. The Redskins gave up multiple picks to the Vikings, including a first rounder. That me for Brad Johnson. Yeah, for Brad Johnson. Did I say, Jeff George, my fault. Yeah, for Brad Johnson in 1999. And Snyder tried to undo the Brad Johnson trade after he became owner, but couldn't do it. It was too late.

It was done. Casserly and company in the group before on their way out made that deal in 99. And it turned out to be a phenomenal deal. I mean, Brad Johnson, his first year here, he wasn't good. He was great. He had one of the great seasons in the history of the franchise that year, threw for over 4,000 yards. And the Redskins went 10 and 6 with, by the way, a bad defense.

They were prolific at times offensively in 199 with Brad Johnson. and they put up 40 plus points, I think, three times that year. They had a 50 burger that they hung on the jets, I think, early in the season or the Giants. It was one of the other early in that season. It was a really good team, and they were very close to advancing to the NFC championship game. Brad Johnson was hurt in that playoff game against the Buccaneers. He had a sore shoulder. I've had him on the show several times over the years.

and the Redskins blew a 13, a 10-0 lead and lost to the Buccaneers when they never got a field goal attempt off late to try to win it. That would have put them in the NFC championship game against the Rams, the greatest show on turf. And I don't know if they would have gone to St. Louis and won. But realistically, that is the closest during the Dan Snyder era, year one, they have been to the NFC championship game. easily the closest, unless you want to take the Seattle game where Carlos Rogers had a pick six in his hands for a 10-0-0 lead early, but it was really that first year. And for him to go out and be infatuated the way he was with Jeff George,

here's a part of the story that I think some people have heard. You know who really was infatuated with Jeff George? I mean, loved him was Sonny Jurgensen, and Sonny was an advisor to Snyder. Sonny loved watching Jeff George throw the football. Who didn't? I mean, Jeff George has one of the greatest arms in the history of the game. And his season, correct me if I'm wrong, he had come from Minnesota like Brad Johnson had the year before,

where he had replaced Randall Cunningham at one point and won a bunch of games the year before. So it should have been almost a red flag that Minnesota didn't want him back. and here he comes into that season in 2000, and, you know, right from the jump, North Turner is being, you know, pushed in his back and notes are being left for him to get Jeff George in the game. You know, we've seen enough of Brad. Let's get Jeff George in the game. And the Redskins, unfortunately, with Brad Johnson, had a rough start.

They lost, I remember they lost a game at Detroit, a game that they were favored to win in. They lost a Monday nighter to the Cowboys at home. and all of a sudden the door opened for Jeff George to get in and that really in many ways sabotaged the season. George did have one great start that year, and it was a Monday night game in St. Louis against the Rams where he had a big game and they won the game like 35 to 20 and that kept him very much in the playoff picture.

They were very much in the playoff picture until the end when they lost that. that really close game to the Giants, Eddie Murray was asked to kick a field goal that he told Norv he couldn't kick before he went into the game. That's one of my favorite all-time stories is Eddie Murray's asked to go out and kick a 48-yarder to beat the Giants down 9 to 7. And he tells Norv, I can't kick it that far, not in this direction. Norv says, get out there and kick it anyway. And sure enough, it was short. It was short. It was over. And Norv's season ended and career in Washington ended as well. But that is a good.

good one. Brad Johnson really was a destructive force here. Marty didn't wait long, did he? It was week two. It was after 9-11. If my memory serves me correctly, he started a game in that 2000 season, in the 2001 season started a game at Green Bay in week two following 9-11. They got completely blown out and Marty cut him. You know, he started the season against San Diego and then I think that week two game against Green Bay after the one week suspended play after 9-11, George went into LAMBO and they got beat like 39 to 38 nothing, something like that. And George, they cut him the next day. And there's no other coach that could have done that, but Marty got control.

Marty got total control and told Vinny and Dan to go to hell essentially that Jeff George can't be our quarterback and we can't win with someone like this in our locker. locker room. Fascinating times. First of all, God bless your memory. I literally don't remember what I did yesterday, let alone who started what game. I can't remember what happened yesterday either. But for whatever reason, I can remember what happened 20 years ago. But by the way, just to sort of connect this to where we are now. Like when Rivera was talking about early in the offseason about wanting to bring in

quarterback, there was maybe real competition. And we're all thinking, okay, well, he's talking about Cam Newton, a guy he know there were we talking about drafting to a Tung of Iola. And in each case, my whole thought was, look, if you do this, you have to get rid of Haskins. You can't just pretend that, like, you're going to have Cam Newton here, but

Dwayne Haskin has a real shot to get this job. Cam Newton would be a massive distraction. And that's why Kyle Allen on some level is like sort of the perfect option because of the fact that, like, he's somebody very familiar with the offensive system of Vera was bringing you over, but hardly a distraction, because

of his, you know, an undrafted free agent, and, you know, he doesn't have Duane Haskins' gifts and things like that. That, like, that's, like, sort of where we are, why, if you want to take some hope for the current regime is that when given the opportunity to do the obvious thing and just bring in a guy who helped him go to the Super Bowl, you know, we don't quite know if Cam Newton's healthy and things like that, but, like, he didn't do that. He said, I'm assuming, effectively, he said, we're going to give this kid a chance.

we want Dwayne Haskill, this organization invested a first round pick in Haskins. There is still some upside. He played better, you know, the last two starts of the season where his best two starts of his rookie year. Bringing Kim New is a whole other story, and it would lead to all kinds of distractions, and Haskins would have to have just an incredible amount of mental focus

to not get rattled by that guy's presence. And I'm sure the other guys in the team would think, you know, some more things. So I think that's almost sort of, on some level, the difference maybe. Maybe if we want to look positive Snyder's getting some religion over time,

is that here is almost the exact same chance to do, I mean, granted, he's the one that picked Askins, but regardless, Cam Newton's a bigger deal. You can sell Cam Newton easily, that they didn't do that. So if you want to be optimistic about where things are now, I would maybe point to that as a corollary to what they didn't

do 20 years ago with Brad Johnson and Jeff George. Yeah, I think that's probably true, because it's probably been that way for a few years now. You've got to go back to McNabb and then the real excitement over RG3 and trading up to draft a star. But your point is such a good one about 2000. And that is, you know, it was Snyder who basically told the football people, we can get Jeff George.

Have you seen Jeff George, he's a star. Sonny likes him too. Sunny says he can really throw it. And that, you know, belt buckle kid getting involved in football decisions, that was really the first indication. Because, you know, the truth is about that incredible, you know, free agency period in 2000 when it was Jeff George and Dion Sanders and Bruce Smith and Mark Carrier and the whole group that came in, it was like the biggest splash in NFL history for free agency. and, you know, people that say to you as Redskins fans, I knew it, I knew it wouldn't work.

I think they're being disingenuous because I'm as big a Redskin fan as anybody. And I remember being really excited about free agency in 2000 in the moment. Like, wow, you know, we were a point away from being in the NFC championship game last year. And this guy, this new owner, he is willing to spend some money. money, you know, and they need a corner to go opposite Darrell Green. And Dion can be a punt returner. I remember being, I remember being legit excited about Dion. Because wherever Dion went, remember at that point, he won it all. You know, Dallas, San Francisco, I really think it's incredible revisionist history to, as a Redskin fan, say, oh, I knew it was terrible,

and I knew that, oh, we got it, we had a terrible owner. I remember being very curious and not thrilled about George because George was a loser. You know, Jeff George was just a loser attitude, a loser player, even though he did have, I'm pretty sure the year before it was the year before, because it wouldn't have been the year before that, because it was Brad Johnson, who was in Minnesota before that. But the Randall George combination, he played well there. but I was, God, Ben, I'm telling you, 2000, I was excited about all those free agents. Do you know, and I mentioned this recently, I think with Tommy, do you know that that is the last time?

2000, because I've done this, I've gone through this exercise of looking at sort of preseason predictions from every year. 2000 was the last year. The Washington Redskins were one of a. few Super Bowl contenders. They were near the top of the list. There hasn't been a season since where the Redskins were one of the favorites, you know, top two, three, four favorites to win the Super Bowl. I would bet they haven't been in the top, you know, eight or nine favorites to win the Super Bowl. But in 2000, there was tremendous excitement about the Redskins. They were one of the favorites to win the whole thing. And that's the last time that happened. That'll tell you a little

bit about the franchise if you're coming in without any knowledge. It's been 20 years since they had a perceived legitimate Super Bowl contending team. I mean, now that you phrase like that, it sounds right, which is, you know, to your point, it just shows how things have gone. I think also collectively, we as an NFL consumers, both analysts and fans, have wizened up a bit with those moves when they were made now. If they were to be, if the same things were to be done now, I don't think people would be would as favorably because you have a lot of older players coming in.

And so I'm totally with you. I mean, anybody who pretends that they were down on that collectively is, you know, come on, that's this Monday morning quarterbacking. But I will say on the Dion front, not a fan. I mean, obviously an amazing talent and showman and all that. But what I didn't like about that, and this sort of connects also with what I was just discussing about Snyder's thinking is that, you know, earlier that, like they were chasing Dion to get him, but earlier that off-season.

they let Brian Mitchell leave in free agency. And then when Dion shows up, Darryl Green at this point is 40 years old, so let me not pretend he was like, you know, the same guy had been his whole career. But Dion replaced Brian Mitchell and effectively put Darrell Green on the sideline. And in that single move, right there,

plus with the other free agents, it eliminated on some level the idea of we give a crap about what it means to be a redskinned, that we care about the culture, because those were sort of the two last vestiges, of the Gibbs era, and now it was just going to be a whole bunch of... But they had been losing, remember, and 99 was the first, like, okay, we're back. It had been six, seven years.

Well, 92 was the last season. They had been a playoff team, and those were miserable years, with the exception of the last year at RFK, which, you know, started off seven and one and then deteriorated. But it was nice to be... I remember feeling it was nice to be back and feel like we're one of the prominent teams in the league again. Yeah, yeah, for sure. I guess my thing is that, like, even though, yeah, you're right,

it wasn't like they were still crushing it from the, from the, from the, from the, from the, from the give there. But it went from being, we still in our heads had this idea of what it meant to be a red skin, that there were still the smells of this team that knew had to do right things. And that all season turned it into the mercenaries are taking over the. locker room and power will be dictated by money, not by, not by performance, not by attitude, but by who gets paid. And that, I think, really changed everything for the next many years, again, until somewhat recently when it started rebuilding through the draft, it was never any more of a sense of

what it meant to be a part of this organization. And that's one of the overriding factors. We can talk about talent and this trade didn't work and that free agent didn't work. But overall, for me, the biggest difference between then and now then, the sort of the Gibbs 1.0 era, and now is the culture aspect. Like, what does it mean to be a red skin? And I think this is where Ron Rivera, I totally agree with his, yes, maybe it's coach-speak, but all his actions are of a guy who is trying to reestablish how to play winning football,

what it means to play for each other. We always hear good things about players wanting to play for Rivera. That, to me, is the most optimistic point. And most of their free-agent moves, yes, I know they try to get Amari Cooper, but they didn't. And other than Kendall Fuller, they mostly just got guys for depth play, for competition, and for people who I think Rivera believes will play the way he wants to to reestablish a different type of identity and culture. And I think, like I said, for a long time, that's been the problem around here that it just, anybody would show up, and it was no sense of what that

meant. You were not held accountable to any standard because there was none. Yeah. I was just looking through that 2000 season. Nine of their 16 games were high-profile file games, five of them at night and four of them in that late afternoon Fox. Back then it was 415, not 425 time slot. There was a lot of excitement over that particular team going into that year. And they were struggling early and then they got it going a little bit late and then here comes after a loss at Arizona. Here comes Jeff Georgian to start. And, um, It didn't go well after that. And one of the famous moments from that season was a late season game at Dallas.

And that was when, what's his face was coaching? Ray Rhodes would not take over as the Redskins coach. And it was, why am I blanking on who the coach? Is that Terry Rivsky? Yeah, Terry Rivisky. Or is Dion referred to him, Terry Rubinski? Terry Ribski took over because Ray Rhodes wouldn't. And Jeff George gets blindsided and he's rolling around in the field and not one redskin offensive player came to help him out.

And that was pretty telling in that moment in that 2000 season. All right. Took us a while to get here. But I want to go through real quickly your column that you have out right now titled, From Haskins to Healing, which you've addressed a little bit, 11 questions for Ron Rivera ahead of training camp. The first question for Ron Rivera you think is, now that you finally had a chance to watch Dwayne Haskins practice, how will you specifically gauge his progress?

Why do you think that, did you put these questions in a particular order or not of importance? No, not any particular order of importance. I mean, obviously people are interested in the quarterback, I think of probably to go with with the go with with with Haskins first. But the quarterback's a good place to start. Okay, so. So why would it be about, you know, him specifically being able to gauge his progress now that he can see him? Are you leading to, is he going to start?

Well, that's sort of a set. That's one of the next follow-up questions. But it's more of like I'm trying to think, okay, what would I actually ask for there? And then, yeah, hey, what do you think, what do you think, Glenn Haskins' potential is this year? an easy answer. And it gives Rivera all kinds of outs to just give answers that don't necessarily pin him down on anything. But I want to know what are we actually talking about here? Because obviously by now in a normal year, we would have seen OTAs and minicamp. And we, the media, would have an opportunity to see ourselves what Dwayne Haskins is looking like. I remember

RG3's, the year when Kirk Cousins became the starter and watching RG3 and OTAs, when there's effectively no pass rush, there's no real hitting, and he was holding onto the ball forever in a day, and just thinking to myself, this is over. Come on, get out of here. We've got to go with cousins, let's move on. So let's see what Haskins can do. People can be as optimistic as they want. I've heard some people say that, and if you're talking about it from a long-term perspective, totally fine, I understand that. But we're just talking to 2020. I have no reason why anybody could sit here and say, oh, it's going to be great or he's going to be really good based on what? We haven't seen him do anything yet other than we've seen that he's lost some weight.

So that's why I want to ask Rivera, what are you actually looking for? Is it footwork? Is it you want to see a guy commanding the huddle? Do you want to see a guy who's smiling out there in the sense of he's feeling confident and that confidence will carry over to the rest of the team? What is it exactly you actually want to see other than just telling me he's got a big arm and we like where he's headed? And here's the answer.

The answer from Rivera should be. Let me tell you what I think the answer should be. we want to see Dwayne master the offense and know it better than anybody in our locker room with the exception of our coaching staff, Scott Turner. We want to see Dwayne completely comfortable in running the offense and executing the offense, and we want to see Dwayne continue to take strides to become the leader that we all want our quarterback to be. Like that's going to be somewhat the leadership thing and knowing the offense, which is a reflection of the commitment to the playbook and being an expert about this new

playbook is going to be a big deal for him. This is, and by the way, I have no doubt that he'll be able to learn it and catch on to it and become an expert. But they want Dwayne to be able to tell Terry McLaurin, no, no, no, Terry, it's the other side on this formation. And Terry looks at Dwayne and says, my guy knows it better than anybody here. I think that's, that's, we're going to hear a lot of answers about leadership and a lot of

understanding and mastering the offense is going to tie into leadership. Sure. And this sort of goes to the other question that I had with regards to Haskins, I mentioned a little bit earlier, and that is Rivera preached the idea of a competition throughout, but we haven't heard as much lately. There's a reason for that, I think in part, like Rivera answers the question. questions we asked him and nobody asked, myself included, nobody asked questions about the competition over the last several weeks we moved on to other topics and there were plenty

to choose from. So what's the deal? Is there still a competition? And then part the question is if, you know, you and I talk about this maybe the last time I was on this podcast, there's definitely downside to not starting asking the week one, primarily just it would raise all kinds of questions and controversy and whatever. but in terms of winning week one, it's a decent chance.

The best quarterback for week one is going to be the guy who knows the system inside it out, who Rivera can say definitively, positive things about what you just said is going to be what he's looking for in Haskin. He's already got that in Kyle Allen. So I wonder, you know, what's the deal? Is there a competition or not?

State that case. If he says there isn't, okay, cool. Then we kind of know, but if he says there is, I'm not saying, I wouldn't even take that as definitive that there really is. but let's just hear. We haven't heard about this in a while. What's the deal with this quarterback's competition, supposedly? And, you know, let's see. And I think from that, we can get a sense of what he's thinking both about Haskins, both about the season, and also, you know, to some degree, the other quarterback. Yeah, well, your second question that you'd ask Ron Rivera at training camp is, regardless of Duane's potential, how do you weigh the long-term future with putting this team in the best position possible against the Eagles in week one?

The questions go hand in hand a little bit. I think his answer to both of them will be all of our quarterbacks, all of our players at every position are competing for, you know, for starter spots. No one's earned anything. This is what training camps for. This is a new day. They're going to have to earn it. I don't see him handing something publicly to Dwayne at the beginning of training camp, do you?

Probably not, and I guess my only point would be it feels like collectively, we, the local media, have to sort of gone back now to a Paskin's job and we're kind of blowing off Kyle Allen, despite the fact that the head coach for weeks before we even knew who the other quarterback would be, but we were all in a tizzy. Wow, he said there was going to be a real competition. Well, what could this mean? Is it Cam Newton? Is it somebody else?

Marcus Marriotto, who was considering? Who could it be? And now it's Kyle Allen, and because Kyle Allen is not sexy. because Connell Allen was not a first-round pick. You know, we're kind of like, whatever, even though there's so many advantages in Kyle Allen's column, including, hello, he's leaving the offense, that they're going to have to execute in short order for week one.

And, again, it isn't just that, like, Dwayne Haskins is, it has to, I mean, he's learning the offense in the playbook sense, but now we have to do it on the field, and he has to do it when the tight end position is probably the weakest on the team, but other than Terry McCorn, we don't really know what to make of the receiver's spot, the left side of the offensive line. I mean, what are we even talking about right now? We have no idea who's playing left tackle.

The running back, there's some good, interesting options, but, again, what's the plan there? And you're going to throw Dwayne Haskins into this. He's learning his third system in three years. He's had no practical work on the field to this point. That's just a lot to ask, and it doesn't mean he shouldn't be the starter. It's just to say, hey, there's a lot of reasons you think somebody else the other guy should be the starter, considering Conall Allen is fluent,

this offense. He's not as fluent in Terry McCorn, per se, or Adrian Peterson the way Haskins is, but, you know, if we're just objectively saying, week one, forget everything else, forget controversy, forget the long term, make and make a compelling case of Connell Island should start. And I think that's just getting overlooked a bit. Again, not saying he will or that he should. I'm just saying that, you know, I don't know how we don't re-address this again because the coach himself is the one who kept talking about competition. I think he should talk about competition until he's ready to name a starter, even if he, until he publicly wants to name a starter, which let's just call it before the third

preseason game, or maybe it's after the preseason all together. If there is a preseason, we're being pretty presumptuous here. But I will bet you any amount of money that barring injury, Dwayne Haskins, is the starter on opening day. I just don't see any possible upside. to starting Kyle Allen, regardless of how much more ready he would be in that moment from an understanding of the offense perspective. I just don't see it.

I mean, to your point, there was that training camp where we're watching Griffin throw in shells and he's been given the defensive plays basically before the practice or try to really help him out. and he's still holding on to the ball forever, and he comes off the field and says, man, you know, I had a really good practice, and little did anybody know at the time, I think B Mitch broke this news or docted, that he basically was given the defensive plays prior to it.

But I remember the same thing. Good God, would you get rid of the ball? And you could hear the coaches saying, get rid of it, get rid of it, Robert. You can't hold it. And we knew. But we'd have to have almost, a situation like that where they feared for Dwayne's health and the health of others.

If they put him out there, I don't see that happening. I think they'll get them ready to play. Yeah, and I don't disagree with that. My larger point is even less about Haskins and more about Rivera. He's the one who made the point over and over again of a quarterback competition. So I think for me, honestly, part of what I'm still going through is trying to understand the guy that I have to cover now. What is he about?

When he says things, does that actually, is it just words, or is there heft behind the message? And I think for the most part, there is, from what I've seen so far. But if we just roll in and Dwayne Haskins is a starter before we even take a snap, then all that talk about real, I mean, I pin him.

Right. I want to know, that's all. All right, ask me question number four. Do you have them in front of you? but that's the offensive tackle question. Yeah. So I don't have the exact phrase in front of, but basically the question is, how much patience are you going to have in training camp

before you determine whether you're starting left tackle is on the team or not? Love Sadiq, love Christian, love Lucas, we're good at that spot. One of these guys is going to emerge into a really good left tackle for us this year. That's going to be the answer. I mean, but like, you know, we just came off a year where I'm sure Jay Gruden said something similar, and Donald Penn showed up. I know, but he's not going to admit, hey, you know, they've got a week here to show us what they got, or we're going to go out and find somebody, because going out and finding somebody,

they're going to want to have some leverage going out to get people, and they don't want anybody knowing that they're going to go out and get anybody. So I think that's the answer that he would provide. That's all I was just saying. Yeah, yeah. No, and I get fair. And like I said, I just, you know, it's not a matter of trying to pin these, you know, I know some people out there probably, oh, you're just a reporter trying to pin these guys down.

look, I want to know, I want to know what this guy thinks. I want to try to get a sense of what he's at. You're right. He's not going to just say, well, you know, if we don't have a starter, clearly by August 10th, we'll have to figure something out. But at the same point, you know, you can get a sense of what, I mean, you know, I remember when, like, Rob Kelly got, you know, was a guy who was a complete nobody. And then all of a sudden he became fat, Rob, and all of a sudden he's a starting running back.

The genesis of that happening was listening to Jay Gruden praised his rando in ways he wasn't talking about other guys. And from that, you could start to glean this is somebody that this coach likes and go from there. And on the flip side, last year I got some people gave me some notice for predicting from the start of training camp that Josh Dawson wouldn't make the 53. And why did I do that in part? Well, part of the one I listened to the head coach not praise him at all. he clearly he would feel he effectively rolled his eyes constantly you know not not literally necessarily but like in the way he would talk about Dodson

and that's all something I'm just sort of curious when what is what is Rivera what is Rivera what did he do does he have ticks does he have anything does he show maybe he's just straightforward in all his comments and that's fine whatever it is let me see what he what this guy thinks and this is obviously I mean let's tackle again if somebody out there has you know can say definitively what's going to happen

you know, good for you. I'm not that smart because there's no way on guys greener if I can figure out how anybody could definitively tell me who's starting a left tackle. None of these three guys, as it stands, has a resume. That's a guess they're the guy. I agree. So, you know, so that's why I want to know, like, how long did that? I mean, we only have this amount of time.

By now they would have had a lot of practices, and maybe they would sign, I've already signed somebody else by now. We don't have that. So how long will they wait before you get, you know, the blind side protector, unless they determine that one of these guys, as is the guy. I used to love, though, what Jay used to do specifically with running backs. He used to mention all of them with running backs in particular. He loved Mack Brown. Remember, he couldn't get enough of talking about Mac Brown. You know, Fat Rob, Rob Kelly, he was talking about

early on. Some of those guys late in some of those seasons that they acquired, he would start talking about some of those guys. Can't even remember Lashon Daniels. Byron Marshall. He loved Byron Marshall. Jay would mention every running back on the practice squad and on the roster when he was going through running back.

So I always found that pretty interesting. Speaking of running backs, that's another question you have down here for Ron Rivera. The question that you wrote is, while we understand the desire for competition across all What's the planet running back in terms of roles when there are six obvious names for maybe only five spots? By the way, did you see Adrian Peterson said the other day on TMZ sports? He wants to play another four years.

I mean, that guy, father time is not rushing Adrian Peterson out. No, he isn't. He's going to wait in the corner until Mr. Peterson says he's ready to go. Yeah, I mean, I think there's two aspects here. One is, you know, is there a realistic world or can it even conceivable that six guys make this team? Now, we don't know Bryce loves health, and that could be a factor. You know, who knows if he's not ready to go, then that's the whole other story. And maybe we're talking about a pup situation.

But if we are assuming that everybody will be available, you know, how does that work? Typically, you know, the previous group would only have like maybe four running back at most, not five. And that's what we're looking at. But even beyond that, again, there may be smarter people out there than me. Are you definitely telling me 1 million percent that Adrian Peterson is the go-to running back on this team? I totally would get the logic and he would be my bet, but he is not the type of running back that you typically have in the offense that Scott Turner is looking to run. As somebody, I think Josh Norris for Rodo World pointed out the other day that whether

was a Scott or North Turner offense, the last, one of those, a player from that system led the NFL running backs and targets the last three years. That's not Adrian Peterson, no matter what he is. And also, he's 35 years old if this thing feels a bit like a rebuild, which it does to me this year, is that the guy you're going to say, well, we need to give Adrian Peterson all the work, rather than give Darius Geist if he's healthy,

a full chance to be the main guy, because Geis could be a three-down back. But, of course, he's only played five games in two years because of the injuries. We still don't really know what to make of Antonio Gibson, no matter how much we want to study his work at Memphis because it was such a unique situation. He barely ran the ball, yet he's a running back. J.D. McKissick is here. He's the new Chris Thompson. Okay, cool. But how much is he on the field when you have these other three guys I just mentioned?

And then there's Peyton Barbara, a guy who's a very solid pro. They signed him for a reason, not a lot of money, but they signed him for a reason. He's arguably the safest bet of the whole group, other than maybe Peterson. he also may not even make the team. So I just think that it's such a fascinating group, in a good way, fascinating. I mean, I think there's some hope here, there's some potential. But at the same point, you know, from like a fantasy football perspective, if somebody said, who's the running back you want?

I mean, I don't even have to answer that right now because I don't really have a sense what their roles are. So I would be curious for the coach to, you know, he's not going to. But, you know, shed some light on that. What do you see happening here? I think the last time you were on, we talked about this, but when you have a new coaching staff, a complete new regime, you get big surprises as fans, as media members in terms of the players that make the team and the players that don't make the team. They're going to be some big surprises

because we aren't super familiar with the kind of fit for the system. They're looking for the kind of person. We're in the midst of a culture change here. There's going to be a lot at work here in determining a final roster, and then you have obviously the, you know, a very unique offseason that they've been through where they haven't even had enough time over the course of the last four or five months to really get to know these players. I'm going to hit you with one more of your 11 questions for Ron Rivera head of training camp. As I've mentioned, everybody else, go to the athletic. It's a 30-day free trial period, and you can read all of Ben's stuff, and you can read all of the other questions that he would ask.

Ron Rivera at training camp. I'm going to go to the last one of the ones that I wanted to get you to talk about. And I think this is a really interesting one. And boy, I hope you ask it or somebody asks it. I'd be curious to know what his position is or to at least watch him handle the question. It's not football related, but you would ask him, what is your stance on the team name? Why would you ask it of him? And what do you think his answer would be?

Well, similar to the earlier topic we discussed, and even more so, about what we talked about politics to some degree entering the locker room. I mean, look, obviously, the Redskins team name is not a new topic, but it has gained new momentum for those who want to get rid of it. Because of the way people are connecting into the conversation we're having nationally about racial injustice and racism and things all in those lines, and what that redskins name connotates to people in this country, to some people, at least in this country. And, you know, I think arguably we dropped the ball, meaning the local media when we didn't ask him previously. He spoke on June 10th.

George Floyd passed, I think, was murdered May 25th somewhere in there. So it already had come up now, but we didn't ask that. I can make a little bit of excuses. We're doing it over Zoom. We're not doing it. face-to-face. It makes a little bit more awkward. And this is really a question for Dan Snyder, not so much the guy who's been here for 10 minutes.

But, you know, since then, Mayor Bowser has come out and, you know, she had softened her stance a couple of years ago on this topic, but now she's back saying they should probably change the name. You had the Washington Post editorial board with an op-ed saying they need to change the name. And if Rivera's, you know, if this coach-centered situation, if he's the one who's going to go out there,

if Dan Snyder is not going to address it publicly, on a statement or anything, or even if he does, whoever standing in front of that mic next is going to get the question. It's impossible to avoid. And again, this is not a matter of what one thinks or doesn't think about this topic. It has to be asked.

And look, they must be one of the only teams of the main four professional sports that did not put out any type of statement, official statement, I believe, about their reaction to the George Floyd situation, about police brutality, about all these topics, in part because when they attempted to make a social media point,

it got taken over by people saying, well, here's a way to help the issue once you just change your name. So if they haven't done that, I mean, when Rivera spoke to it, he did make a statement about George Floyd and police brutality and all that, and it was a poignant statement, and he said it, I believe with a lot of sincerity, but it sort of underlined the point of why are you doing this? But look, if he's a guy that he's presented as the guy who's the face of this organization day to day when Dan Snyder won't talk, there is no team president, there is no general manager right now, then he's going to have to get the question. And there's no doubt it's coming this time, whether it's me or 10 other people, somebody is asking this question next time. Yeah, he'll probably point you back in the direction of Mr. Snyder. That's probably what he'll do.

Thank you, Ben, for doing this. I always enjoy this. It's great conversation, and people should go subscribe to the athletic. You can do so right now for free. Follow Ben on Twitter at Ben Standing, but Ben writes really prolifically about the Redskins. He writes as much as anybody, if not more than anybody. There's always a new story that's Redskins-related, and this is the off-season. So imagine what he'll be writing about.

following and newsbreaking when we get back to hopefully an NFL season. Thanks so much. Have a good weekend. I'll talk to you soon. I would appreciate a man. Really appreciate Ben Standing. Love catching up with Ben. He does such a great job covering the Redskins on the Athletic.

All of the other local reporters do a great job as well. It's a no-brainer. 30-day free trial. I promise you will thank me. Don't forget, I am on radio 6 to 9 a.m. Eastern on the Team 980 here in D.C. That's 980 AM, 95.9 FM. If you're outside the market and you want to listen to Team 980.com or the Team 980 app,

or you can listen on Alexa. Same thing you can do with this podcast as well. Have a great, safe weekend. We'll talk next week.