The Kevin Sheehan Show - Rivera On QBs & More

Episode Date: August 23, 2021

Kevin solo today w/some WFT cut news and plenty of follow up to a few of Ron Rivera's thoughts about the preseason game Friday night against the Bengals and the one coming up against the Ravens. Kevin reacted to some other NFL news and you'll hear what happened 10 years ago today when he was on the air at ESPN 980 (EARTHQUAKE!).  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 don't want it. You don't need it. But you're going to get it anyway. The Kevin Cheon Show. Here's Kevin. Not a long show today, but a lot of Ron Rivera from his Zoom press conference on Saturday. He said a lot about the quarterbacks. He also had a very interesting take on the running back position, and I want you to hear that as well.

What is going to be typical, I think, of the next few weeks, and really during the season as well, is that news breaks after my radio show. So sometimes the first chance to talk about it is on the podcast. And Stephen Sims Jr. was released right after the radio show today. Haven't had a chance to weigh in on that. Not a surprise if you listen to my recap show from the Cincinnati game on late Friday night or Saturday morning. I thought he didn't do himself many favors. He short-armed that long ball by Kyle Allen from Kyle Allen in the second half.

half. And let's face it, he was a major liability on returns last year. I think that there was a lot of excitement prior to last year about what they saw from Sims Jr. on tape and the way they viewed him in Scott Turner's offense as a guy that could potentially be a guy that touched the ball, five, six, seven times a game in a lot of different areas because of his playmaking ability. But ultimately, you know, that's a Curtis Samuel role. That's an Adam Humphrey's role. And Scott Turner will use a lot of people in that role. I think the lead returner is clearly D'Andre Carter, unless they give Patterson a chance on Saturday night to return punts,

gave him a chance to return kicks against the Bengals, and he returned 137 yards. But it would appear as if D'Andre Carter is going to be the last receiver and then the lead returner. I don't know if he'll also return kickoffs. Potentially, it could be Patterson on kickoffs and Carter and punts. I'm sure from a roster spot, standpoint, you know, when we get to the regular season, they wouldn't mind having one guy

fill both positions. That would be a nice luxury to have Carter as the punt returner and the kickoff returner or to have Patterson as both. We'll see how that gets handled. I'd actually like to see Patterson get a chance to return a punt on Saturday night against the Ravens, who have won now 19 preseason games in a row that ties the Packers record. We talk about. We talked about that last week. So Washington has a chance to end the Ravens six-year pre-season win streak. People ask me about what that means. Somebody said, do you think it's more Harbaugh or more that they've been a good team with a really good depth over the years? You know, the depth thing is clearly, you know, probably tied into this is that when they're

playing their second and third teamers, and probably they're releasing players that were pretty good that made other teams, that they performed better than maybe some other teams. But I think it's more horrible. I think it's just his total disposition, that everything is about a philosophy, about an identity. The Ravens are tough. They're physical. They take things seriously.

And, you know, you can debate among yourselves as to whether or not you think it's paid off. Obviously, the link between, you know, you could make a link between pre-searchie. winning and all of their winning seasons. But the truth is, during some of those winning seasons, the Ravens didn't make the postseason. They didn't have great years. You know, if you go back to 2016 for the Ravens, they didn't make the postseason. They lost at the end of the year in a gut-wrenching fashion to go eight and eight, didn't make the postseason. In 2017, they didn't make the postseason. Finish nine and seven in Cincinnati beat him in the final game

of the year on a bomb late. And then 2018, remember, was the year that they ended up going from Flacco to Jackson. They did make the playoffs, but they needed to make a big run at the end of the year to finish 10 and 6 and to make the postseason. So anyway, it's not like they have won a Super Bowl during this preseason run. And, you know, it's not even like they've been to an NFC or an AFC title game. They lost to the Chargers that one year. They got shocked at home by Tennessee.

And then last year, they won a game before losing in the divisional round at Buffalo. So they've been a good regular season team or a competitive regular season team, certainly the last three years. Anyway, the cut down is tomorrow by 4 p.m., the 85 to 80. Washington re-signed David Sharp off the COVID-19 list, so they actually have five players to cut. Several people ask me on Twitter, who do you think they're going to cut tomorrow? I have no idea. I actually have one player that I'm convinced won't get cut, and I'll mention him here in a few moments.

But the cut-down date tomorrow is 85 to 80, and then a week from tomorrow it goes from 80 to 53. And then you'll end up with, I think, one of the best 53-man rosters that this franchise has had in 15 to 20 years. It's true. 2005, maybe, 2000, in terms of the completeness of the roster? Yeah, I think that's true when it gets cut down to 53 this year. So anyway, I wanted to mention one player.

I mentioned this player on radio this morning with Ben Standing because I found him in my notes and I don't think I mentioned him on Saturday, but I was looking through my notes and I failed to mention him, I think, in my recap podcast on Saturday. But I wanted to mention him because he ended up with, more defensive snaps than any player in the game. And I wrote this note to myself Friday night. Number 30, Apkey always makes his presence felt. He may not be a great player and he may not make the final roster. Cooley used to say about Apke, my God, he's got major depth perception

issues. Like, he can't tell where the ball and the receiver are, you know, as the final man. And we've seen that from him in coverage. But my God, does he run well? And he, he, hits and tackles, and he was a really good special teams player last year. So I don't know if, I don't think he's going to get cut in this 85 to 80. And I don't know if he'll make the final squad. I don't know, but man, every single time he plays, and I went back and looked at this, he played more defensive snaps than anybody in the game. Appke can really motor, and he really can tackle and hit. Coverage, though, is an issue for him. I wanted to mention there was NFL news today also after the radio show. Some interesting NFL news. First of all, it would

appear as if Matt Nagy, the head coach of the Chicago Bears, is going to go with Andy Dalton as his starter when the season begins. He's going to not take a chance on Justin Fields as a rookie. He's going to go with Matt Nagy. Nagy had a press conference today, talked a lot about the decision making that Andy Dalton's made, even though he hasn't made a lot of plays. He loves the decision making. And, you know, I've looked at the Bears a little bit as I've been looking through the league at various teams, really for the purposes of just looking at some prop bets, you know, some over-under bets, and maybe some division bets as well. You know, the Bears actually have a decent roster defensively. Like, they should be pretty good defensively. They've been good.

defensively. Now Chicago, there was another report actually just reminded me that the Raiders actually tried to trade for Khalil Mack again in the offseason to bring him back. I mean, that trade was incredible, but the Bears didn't want anything to, didn't want to have anything to do with it. But they have Khalil Mack, they've got Akeem Hicks, they've got Roquan Smith who really busted out last year. It's a decent defensive football team, not coached by Vic Fangio anymore. And I think Vic Fangio is one of the great defensive minds in the game. But a decent defense with decent playmakers in Allen Robinson and with the emergence last year of David Montgomery and then Cole commit the second round tight end at a Notre Dame last year.

But they have two big issues. Offensive line is a disaster. They added Jason Peters, but it's a disaster. And then at quarterback. That's why they, you know, trade it up to draft Justin Fields. There are two ways to look at this team. If you are Matt Nagy and you think you can be a competitive team this year and Fields isn't ready and you want veteran presence

and you want better decision making, more experienced decision making, that's fine. If you don't think you're a deep into the postseason kind of team, you play the rookie. We've done this before, this exercise of quarterbacks taken in the top half of the draft over the last 10, 11 years, that essentially if you don't play in the first five weeks of your rookie season and your name isn't Patrick Mahomes, then you pretty much sucked, and that's why you didn't play. So I think personally, we will see Justin Fields in the first five weeks of the season. The other thought on this is their offensive line is a train wreck. And Fields is the kind of

player that can make a bad offensive line not look better, but can create opportunities for your offense to stay on the field where I think Andy Dalton is just going to get bum rushed. But anyway, interesting decision. I don't think it's a decision that a lot of Chicago Bear fans are happy about. That's for sure. A couple of other quick NFL news items. First of all, Tennessee coach Mike Brable tested positive for COVID-19. Just so you know, for those that were asking, and I saw on Twitter, well, was he vaccinated or unvaccinated?

They're in that tier of employees in an NFL team where they wouldn't be there if they weren't vaccinated. They were required to get vaccinated, coaches, staff members, et cetera. So he was vaccinated, but he got COVID anyway. Two more NFL things to mention, and then we'll get to a lot of the stuff that Ron Rivera said on Saturday following the Cincinnati game that I thought was interesting. First up is Dak Prescott. How about the Schefter report from over the weekend? Shefter reporting

that Dak Prescott quote, he's not fully back, he may not be back all season long. Closed quote. He's not suggesting that the shoulder strain that he has may keep him from playing, but that he may not be fully back and fully healthy.

That changes the division. You know, Dallas goes from the favorite to the team picked to finish last in the division if Dak Prescott is hampered this year. I mean, who do they have? Garrett Gilbert, Ben Danuto or Danucci or whatever his name is, Cooper Rush, they're in big trouble without Prescott. Big, big trouble. It would be such a disappointment and would be so funny and pleasant for all of us if Prescott isn't completely healthy. Last thing real quickly, before we get to the Rivera stuff, is this NFL top 100 list, Terry McClure not being on it. I talked about it last week.

Remember, I said with AJ Brown at 62, McClorn's definitely not going to be on the list. Well, he wasn't. The only players on the list are Brandon Sheriff and Chase Young at 61. And really, you know what? Terry McCorn should be on that list, as I mentioned last week, certainly in front of Cole Beasley, certainly in front of Corey Davis. I think personally, even though he's a slot receiver in front of Chris Godwin, but he's not.

So hopefully this will be used by him and anybody else that didn't make it. Montez Sweat, John Allen, Duran Payne, who am I forgetting? Who else could be considered for that top 100, whatever? Hopefully they'll use it as incentive. It's a players popularity contest. We've talked about that. It's like the equivalent of the Pro Bowl. They vote for who they like.

They don't get to play these guys. I don't even get to watch a lot of these guys. And sometimes it's tied to an agent that they share or, you know, a marketing rep that they share. I wouldn't get too hung up on it. I know many of you are, and I would have preferred to have seen Terry on that list, too. I think he deserved it. I think he's one of the top 100 players in the game. The receivers that ended up being on the list all the way up to number 11, which is where they are, into the top 10,

he's going to be like the number 20 wide receiver in the game. He's better than that. But as we talked about a few weeks ago, I don't know that he's a lot better than 15 right now, but he could be. All right, a lot of what Ron Rivera said on Saturday about the Friday night game, but more importantly,

just about a lot of stuff related to the quarterbacks. That's next right after. These words from a few of our sponsors. Don't want you to forget about my bookie at mybooky.orgie. Right now, my bookie is doubling your first ever deposit dollar for dollar if you use my promo code, Kevin D.C. They've got all the football preseason football, lots of prop bets. Fairpoint spreads, money lines, and great pricing. Even if you have a place, you should have a second. If you're taking

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night had a lot to say about the quarterback position. He was asked by Nikki Javala, and you'll hear her question about whether or not he was ready to name a starter. At this point, are you able to say that Ryan Fitzpatrick is your starter for week one? Yeah, I can. Will you? Okay. There's not, I mean, you know, we don't place for 21 days. I mean, you know, so whenever, you know, It's time to say it. I'll say it whenever we've got to put out the first depth chart, you know, you guys will see. But right now, that's not the important thing. The important thing is we continue to work and prepare and get ready and everybody competes,

whether it's, you know, fade accompli or not. I just think, you know, we get caught up right now in something that's not as important as practicing and developing and learning and doing things the right way. So some of you heard that and said, Hineke's still got an opening. There's still a chance for my guy, number four, to work his way into the starting lineup for the Chargers. No, that's not going to happen.

I don't really believe that's going to happen at all. I think it's just Ron not answering the question because he doesn't have to right now. He doesn't have to until he's asked to submit the actual week one depth chart. I'm sure we'll get it after Saturday night. but I don't. I think these coaches get into, and I think Rivera is one of these coaches,

and I actually applaud him for it. You know, don't give out information until you have to give it out. What was interesting, though, is after answering that question, Nikki had a follow-up question about Taylor Heineckee and Kyle Allen. Listen to the answer

and listen to who he spends more time talking about than trying to answer the question. What would you like to see from Taylor Heineke and Kyle Allen? over these last week or so of training camp. Just continued growth. I think those two guys have done a nice job and they've gotten opportunities.

I mean, you go back and you look at some of things that Taylor did the first two games, and you watch what Kyle did in the last one, and you see that they're developing growing. There's still young football players. There's still a lot of football left for those guys to play. The nice thing about Fitz is he's such a veteran guy. Things come so natural, so easy.

You know, and when you watch, the comparison in my mind between the three of them, you do see the savvy veteran and fits show. It's just, you know, his experience just stands out. And, you know, what I've said is we're looking for a guy that can manage the game, make plays when he has to get players to grow and develop, and we're getting that right now. And so I'm excited about what we can potentially be, you know, and as we go through this, like I said, with about 21 more days left to go, we'll just keep working. more discussion about Ryan Fitzpatrick in that answer than the other two quarterbacks.

I believe, as I have for a while, that there's never been a competition, just like Terry McCorn is going to be a starter, Chase Young's going to be a starter, Montes-Swett's going to be a starter. There's no discussion about whether or not they're in competition to start. I don't think that there is competition for Ryan Fitzpatrick. He's going to be the starting quarterback. He's going to be given every opportunity. as a veteran, as you heard Ron say, a veteran that has a real understanding of what they're doing, he's going to be given the opportunity this year for $10 million to keep them alive in a

playoff hunt and hopefully put them back in to the playoffs. They needed a veteran quarterback, they needed somebody to run this offense, they needed somebody more capable than what they had last year. And you have all that in Ryan Fitzpatrick. You don't have, you know, a backup quarterback as a starter. He has started many more games than he's backed up over the years. And his last two years have been years in which he has excelled. Now, is he elite? No. Is he going to, you know, is he going to hurt you a lot at times? Probably. Is he going to help you a lot at times? Yes. And, you know, just to make myself very clear about my position as it's been all along, There were many other directions I wish the team had taken, starting with Matt Stafford, or then, you know, Deshawn Watson, or if Aaron Rogers had become available.

Obviously, the latter two didn't materialize. I was happy they went after Matt Stafford. I would have preferred that. That's a, you know, that's a three to five year answer, and you don't have to worry about it, and it puts them in the top three or four in the NFC easily had they made that move. That's not what Ryan Fitzpatrick did for them. They're not a top three NFC team. or even a top four NFC team. They're not even the favorite in their division with him. But they upgraded at quarterback, and they got themselves somebody who's going to play differently than Alex Smith played and differently, certainly than Dwayne Haskins played. Now, those of you that think Taylor Heineke deserves a shot, I told you what I thought about the Friday Night game.

I think he does one thing at a very high level. I think he is really natural and athletic as an extend-the-play, creating a second and third opportunity after an initial pass rush guy. It's a really good weapon to have. I think everything else he does, he does fairly average. However, I haven't seen him for a season. I'm not totally dismissing his chances to ever be a starting quarterback. I didn't at all going into this season.

I just wanted them to have something that was more of a sure thing, which would have been Matt Stafford. And the Ryan Fitzpatrick thing is actually more of a sure thing in my mind's than Heineke or Allen is. Again, is it going to be great? Who knows? Washington's such a difficult team to figure out going into this season. There are a lot of teams that aren't going to be super hard to figure out.

You know, at the top, you pretty much know what you're going to get with Tampa Bay as the defending champions. You know in the AFC what you're going to get with Kansas City. You pretty much know what you're going to get with Baltimore and Tennessee. You have a pretty good sense of what you're going to get with the Packers and maybe even the Rams and the teams in the NFC West. which seems like a loaded division top to bottom. Washington's one of those teams, and I think almost all four teams in the division, I've said it before, I'll say it again, nothing will surprise me.

No result will surprise me in this division in terms of who wins it, who finishes second, third, and fourth. But I do think that I want to see Ryan Fitzpatrick. I didn't think he played great the other night, but it's not a concern. I want to see him. I want to see them have a chance to be a competitive team, a team that can win, you know, nine, 10 games maybe, you know, and have a chance to get back into the postseason. I'd rather see that.

If it doesn't happen and the season starts to go south, then for those of you that are absolutely sure about Heineke, you'll get your chance. Because I think he's going to be the backup. I do. I think he is solidified that backup position. Now, Rivera had more on Ryan Fitzpatrick in his decision-making specific to the game on Friday night. here's what he said. You know, you were talked about Ryan's decision making last night. You were pleased with it overall,

and there were a couple times where it looks like right decision, his arm gets hit, whatever. But there are a couple times, too, where it looks like he locked in maybe a little bit on Adam over the middle. Is that what you don't think so on those? No. When you watch the tape and you see those things, more than anything,

it's a little bit more developing that feel between himself and the receivers. He is anticipating. something different from the receiver and the receiver did something opposite. Okay. So that's just comes to working and refining, getting a good feel for it. I love the decision. Unfortunately, he threw it too far out in front of a Logan twice. One time for the first down, the other time for a touchdown. He had, he had Adam. I love the decision. One time he just overthrew Adam through the middle. He led down him just a little bit too much. he had Adam Humphrey he thought Adam was going to was going to cross face and Adam felt because the guy squared him up he had to go and pivot back out.

So again, that's just getting a little bit more feel and understanding of one another. You know, there's a lot of natural things that happen. You know, if there's anything that I would say about Brian that's, you know, that I would ever wonder about is in practice every now that he will try and force the ball. And that's, you know, I think that's, you know, just a guy that's very good. confident his ability to throw that ball through that window? Yeah, Ron, that's what he does. He'll force some throws. He is a high-risk, high-reward quarterback. That's what we're going to get from this guy unless he changes his stripes, which I think at 37 years old, that's not going to happen. It's going to take a lot of high-risk

throws. He's going to give chances to receivers. He's going to throw tight window throws, and sometimes it's not going to work out well this year. Be prepared for that. What you hope is that there are many more successes than failures with his high risk, high reward, you know, way of playing. I don't want to see him just manage a game, as Ron said. I want to see him push the ball down the field, you know, the way Taylor Heineke did in the playoff game. I want to see those chances. They've got much better weapons this year.

And I think that's the way they will play. I think it's going to be a neat scheme with Turner because I think we saw some of that last year. he did a pretty good job of utilizing the weapons that he had and the kind of quarterbacks that he had. And I think that there is going to be much more freedom for Turner to be even more creative because of the weapons he has this year and the quarterback that he has as well. One last thing on the offense specifically, not only the preseason game on Friday night, but really the first two. Many of you seemed very concerned about the lack of touchdowns with the first team offense. William tweeted me, I guess after the podcast, it would have been after the podcast, I'm recapping the game. William tweeted me, Sheehan, I am alarmed at how casual to use one of your words, you've taken the non-scoring from the first team offense.

It's an indication that you're not as sharp as you used to be when it comes to talking about football. Thank you, William, for the tweet. You can tweet me at Kevin Sheen, D.C. No, I don't care about scoring in the preseason. I think I went through the list of teams that have been shut out and beaten badly in preseason games and couldn't score or couldn't barely score that went on to win playoff games and go to the Super Bowl, like the Rams from a couple of years ago, who got beat 33 to 7 and 28 to nothing in the preseason. But I digress because that's not really the point.

apples to apples. I would love to see an offense score more, but I think what's more important is that you see that they've got the ability to move the football. And I understand that the first team offense didn't move the football on every single drive the other night. If you go back, first of all, Ryan Fitzpatrick and the starting offense together with Ryan Fitzpatrick, they've had six drives, okay? Two in that opener against New England, five plays 34 yards, and they didn't go for the fourth and one in New England territory, and then a 10-play, 43-yard drive where you had a missed field goal. That was it for him in the opener, and then Taylor Heineke came into the game. The other night, he played a lot more. He played four series of the game, four series in the

game with the starting offense. The first drive, he did have a big play to Logan Thomas right off, you know, first down. And then he missed on a third and six to Logan Thomas. four plays 32 yards. Second drive, seven plays 22 yards. They were on the move and they missed the fourth and won on that drive when they had Gibson in there. Third drive was the Cam Sims fumble. You know, that was following a sack, and he got pressured a lot the other night. That was one of the things I didn't love from the game. He got pressured a ton. And then he found Sims on a third and 14. It was going to be short of the first down, and Sims fumbled. And then on the fourth drive, plays 64 yards with a real mix, really using Gibson in that drive a lot, mix of play calls,

and they ended up kicking a field goal, and he missed some things in the red zone, but he got him down to the red zone. I would be much more alarmed if this team was three and out, three and out, three and out, and looked totally without any sort of cohesiveness. And I haven't seen that. They've moved the ball a little bit. They haven't been sharp and weren't the other night. But no, scoring touchdowns doesn't bother me. You'll hear Chris Russell. from the press conference on Saturday. Ask Ron about this. In general, do you think it's important for your first team offense to go into the regular

season with a touchdown scoring drive at least? Or is that something that's overrated? Because through two games, obviously, that hasn't happened. And you only have one last crack. Well, I think it's important you go in feeling good about your offense, their ability to move the ball, do some consistent things. I think that's what's important more than anything else. So do I feel pretty good about us?

Yes, I do. Would I like to see the score touchdowns? Yes, so I would have liked it seen that. But I'm not going to sweat it right now. I like exactly what we're doing. I like how we're moving the ball. And it's just a matter of us continue to work and keep improving at what we're doing. Bottom line, it's not super important to him either.

I mean, you heard what he said. It's more important that he sees, you know, he talked about moving the football a little bit. And that's what you want to see. I think, but again, these are really hard games for coaches to evaluate the overall production of the team. When you're not game planning, when the game situation isn't necessarily dictating what you're doing, you're doing things to, at times, just to get a better look at a specific player that may be on the bubble late. I mean, these second halves, I heard somebody call in to our radio station on Saturday morning,

caller, and I'm sorry, I don't know who was hosting. I think we simulcasted the 1067 Saturday morning show on 980. And I heard a caller calling in talking about what a great second half team we were last year, and so far you've seen it in the first two preseason games. Second half team, who guys? You do realize that in the second halves of these games, half the players, that are playing aren't going to be on your roster in the regular season. And look, that's a caller, okay? But you don't have to worry about overall points or scoring or third down conversions or time of possession for a game.

You want to look at something and you want to look at your first team offense, first team defense, you know, and get a sense as to whether or not you're ready to play. I can buy into that. I can't buy into overall, you know, game stats or from a, a preseason game. All right, the last Rivera that I wanted to play for you. I thought there was something, a really good question asked that he had a very interesting answer to. I don't know who asked the question. I'm sorry. It may have been Matt Paris. I'm forgetting right now. But the question

you'll hear it, essentially, is about the running back position and why undrafted running backs make teams more than any other position in terms of undrafted players. By the way, I don't even know if that's true, but there's something that rings true about that. You know, running backs historically as young players, rookie players, have made the biggest impact as rookies because there isn't much to the position, really. And if you can protect, which is so important in today's game, then you're going to be out there if you're pretty good at carrying the ball. But listen to Rivera's answer on this.

I thought it was interesting. The theory might be wrong, so I feel free to correct if it is, but it seems like of undrafted players, the guys who always kind of make the roster are running backs. Do you have any idea of like why that position, like what about that position sets up for an undrafted guy to make? You know, there used to be a time where you used to say there's so many of them that you're going to miss on one or two of them. But I think what's happened too is I think that position has been so undervalued in the last recent, last few years, last. recent few drafts that I don't think we spend enough time really studying like we should. I was, you know, we were very fortunate that one of our scouts, our Northeast scout, Peter Piccarelli absolutely loved the kit.

And he hammered Marty and Martin on him. We liked him, but just listening to our scouts just really kind of, you know, just let us know, hey, this guy, we got, then you really put the tape on. on really truly look at the kid and all of a sudden you think there's something there. We had a drop more great on them. And what happened was some of our other needs were standing out a little bit more. And I will be honest too, Chase called and because they know each other. They grew up.

They work out together. And he said, hey, how's my guy doing? And I said, Chase, we got him on the board. We liked them. Okay, I tell you he wants to be here. And I do, I listen to the players. We're listening to the players, you know, they know. And so it was one of those things we kept a real good eye on him.

And what I really do think what's happened is that position is very undervalued right now because everybody's willing to want to throw the ball 35, 45, 55, 50 times a game and only run it 10 to 20. You know, so I think the game's changing a little bit, that the value of the running back isn't there like it used to be. you know, you don't see a lot of high-priced, high-valued running backs unless they have some potential in terms of the passing game. So that's, I think, something that's kind of slipping right now. I had a curiosity, what was your guys a draft grade on them? It was a good grade. It was a good grade.

It was good enough to be drafted, that's for sure. Interesting that he suggests that the position isn't scouted the same way anymore. I actually find that sort of hard to believe because to me it seems like no player at any position, you know, no stone is left unturned. And, you know, I could see on the long snapper front, maybe even on the kicker and punter, and, you know, missing something in scouting, especially if you've got that position already nailed down. But Jared Patterson, you know, had name recognition in college. football last year. You know, he tied the NCAA record with eight touchdowns in a game. So I thought

he would get drafted. He was one of the backs that I talked about coming out that I really liked and figured he'd be, honestly, I figured he'd be like a fourth round pick. And he didn't get drafted at all. But it is interesting to hear Rivera talk about in this era, just running backs potentially not being scouted in the same way. There was a time where running backs were loaded and they were at the top of every draft. It's been a while. I understand that. But, you know, to me, Patterson wasn't lightly scouted, you know, and I'm not suggesting that he was talking about Patterson specifically. But when he tied the record, the NCAA record with eight touchdowns in a game, and rushed, by the way, for 409 yards in that game. He was 18 yards of the single game college record held by Samagee P. Rine.

who did it for Oklahoma in 2014. I think that, you know, people especially, well, I can tell you this, Beters knew who he was because he was part of, you know, the Mid-American Conference, the Mac. And you saw a lot of what we call Mackian on Tuesday nights and Wednesday nights. And anyway, I thought that was an interesting answer from Ron Rivera. I lied. There's one more Ron Rivera bite. He was asked about what the plan is for this week heading into the Ravens game.

We've talked a lot about how these teams are all doing it differently, right? Through two preseason games, you've got teams that haven't played anybody. They just haven't played anybody yet. And I'm talking about their key players, and they're not going to. And then other teams like Washington, they played a lot of their players, you know, including their starters. This was Rivera on the plan for the third and final preseason game. We're going to approach this, Olivia, as a as a, as a, as a, as a, as a, regular season week. We will put together 100% game plan.

We will introduce it to the players on Tuesday. So Tuesday will technically be what our normal Wednesday will be. Wednesday will be our normal Thursday. Thursday will be our normal Friday as far as game plan prep. I want to see how we handle that as we go through these things. I want to see how everybody seems to adjust and adapt. We will pay attention how these guys retain. how they adjust and just how they handle the whole week.

That's going to be a real good indicator as to our readiness or in terms of getting ready for the regular season. So we'll approach that and everybody will get, you know, they'll get their game plans just like we would in normal week. So we're going to approach it that way. And, you know, again, we're just going to try and see how guys handle the whole week of preparation. What you didn't hear him say in that answer,

because he talked a lot about the week of preparation leading into the Saturday night game. They would treat this like a regular season week in terms of preparation. You didn't hear him say anything about how long the starters will go. You know, if he's treating it like a dress rehearsal third, you know, preseason game from the past, then they'll play probably a half and who knows, maybe a series of the third quarter. But he didn't say that. He was talking more about the preparation. Now, I would take that and then extend it to believe that he's going to play his starters for longer than he's played him in the first two games.

But he didn't say that specifically. He just talked about the preparation for the Ravens game. But I've talked about this since the schedule came out. With 15 days between this Ravens game and the Chargers game, you got plenty of time, plenty of time to rest, recover, make your cuts, get your roster set, get everybody all healthed up and ready for the opener. The Chargers meantime, they're not playing anybody. I mean, their key players have just sat and they're going to continue to sit through this preseason.

It'll be interesting how to see how the early part of the season goes and if anybody thinks that the teams that played more of their starters versus the teams that sat their starters if there was any difference. Typically, there hasn't been that much of a difference because not every team and every coach has handled the preseason the same way. All right, one last segment and that will be it for the day. you'll hear a sound clip of what happened 10 years ago on this date when I was on the air. And I will update you on something I talked about briefly on the postgame show about the crowd size on Friday night. Both of those things, after these words from a few of our sponsors. All right, a couple of things to finish up the show today. I mentioned on Saturday's recap podcast that obviously the crowd was a disappointing crowd.

pretty credible people who were there told me lucky if there was 10,000 people in the stadium. That would be a crowd not really even close to a lot of the crowds we've seen around the NFL for these preseason games with stadiums being open for the first time in a long time, or a lot of them being open for the first time in a long time, and allowing fans en masse. So, okay, you know, it was a preseason game, was a preseason game against the Bengals, it was a Friday night in this town. We know what traffic is, et cetera, et cetera.

Still, I mean, 10,000 or less, that was probably a big surprise. Maybe it wasn't, but it's overall probably alarming to those in charge. So I wanted to just add this. The official game book of the game, the NFL game book, which lists paid attendance, had the paid attendance for Friday night's game at 38,817. Now that's paid attendance. Understand that season ticket holders have to pay for the preseason game. Doesn't mean that's the number of people who were there.

That was not listed. And I don't know if it gets listed in the preseason. They're just listing paid attendance. So 38,817 people paid for tickets to the game Friday night, even though there were 10,000 or less actually in the stadium. Now, because you have to pay for the preseason. season games as a regular season ticket holder, this gives us an idea of what the season ticket base is. Now, let's just assume that of the 10,000 in the stadium Friday night, that they weren't all

season ticket holders, that let's just say a third. I mean, we're dealing with small numbers. That it'll just say 3,000 of them. Three thousand of those people paid just for that single game ticket and went to the game on Friday night. That means that 35,000 people have season tickets, and that's it. 35,000 people have season tickets. I don't know if that's higher than what it was at the end of 2019 or would have been last year. I don't know the answer to that. But what it says, and I could be wrong in the way I'm figuring this out, but I can tell you I mentioned it on radio this morning. I haven't heard from anybody. And usually when I get something really wrong, I usually hear from somebody at the team. I think this is just a back of the envelope way to figure out what their

season ticket base is, because they have to list per the NFL game book, the official game book, their paid attendance. So if they've got 35,000 season ticket holders, that's less than half the stadium. I think the capacity, even with the covered up seats up top, is 72. I could be wrong about that. it might be in the high 60s now. I think it was 72,000 in 2019. So at 35,000 season ticket holders, it's less than 50% capacity in season ticket holders. They know this.

They're going to have to earn it. You know, this is the discussion I had the other day following the game on Friday night and talking about the crowd. We're in a little bit of a bubble here. You know, those of us that do these podcasts and host these radio shows and those of you who listen, which I, appreciate so much. And, you know, sometimes the conversation about the football team is as interesting as the team itself. We're watching the games. And I've gotten that a lot, as has

everybody else that does this in the market. We've all gotten that a lot over the years. But what does it mean for this year? Well, it probably means that the, you know, at least early in the season, it's going to be hard to sell out one of these games. I still think the Charger game, when we get to a few days out, you know, and it's the NFL and it's opening day, and the Chargers are a pretty good team, and it's a 1 p.m. Sunday afternoon kick, and if the weather's going to be beautiful, you could get a pretty significant walk-up. Walk-up, by the way. We're talking about walk-up for a Washington football team game.

I mean, we went, you know, close to 50 years without talking about a walk-up. But you could. You could get a significant walk-up, and you could get a significant walk-up, and you could get a 50, 60,000 into the stadium. And at that point, you know, that's what you want. You want the crowd to be there. You want them to be ginned up. You want it to be loud. You've got a great potential, great defensive team, potentially a great defensive team. There's nothing better than having a great defensive team to root for at home. The crowd can add so much to that and really make it an incredible home field advantage. So I think the Charger games, I don't know. I don't know. I don't

know. But I would think that, you know, you'd get 50 to 60 when all said and done. Maybe not a sellout. That seems like a bit of a stretch. But it'd be great if it did. But if I'm right about the season ticket base, that's the challenge they have right now, you know? And I can tell you, because I was told this, you know, two, three years ago, the most lucrative part of their season ticket base is the part that's left them. And that's what hurts the most. Because, your big ticket buyers, the people, whether it was corporate or individuals that bought blocks of tickets and bought premium seats.

That was a big deal. All right. Last thing for the day. Ten years ago today was the earthquake, the 5.8 magnitude earthquake here in D.C. It was centered, the epicenter was somewhere in central Virginia and the whole area felt it and it did a lot of damage. You know, it damaged the cathedral.

It damaged the monument. There was, I think, hundreds of millions of dollars worth of damage across the area. It's a day I'll never, ever forget. And maybe many of you feel the same way. But for me, I was on the air. I was doing my show. Ten years ago to the day, almost to the exact time, a couple of hours short of it, I was on the air doing my midday show, which I co-hosted with time.

Tommy. Tommy and I had the midday show on the team 980, on ESPN 980 at the time. And Tommy was on vacation this August 23rd, 2011. Our producer, Mark Stern, who is, of course, Nigel on the Tony Cornheiser show, was also off that day. Or he may have been scheduled to produce a show later in the day because it was the vacation time of the summer. And there's a lot of mixing and matching going on, you know, during these. these weeks leading into September. So I was doing the show solo and Steven Specter, who was a part-time guy at the time. And Stephen now runs a radio station in Kansas City, which is the flagship for the Chiefs. He's been doing that for several years. He was a big Kansas City Chiefs fan,

even though he was from here. He was a big Chiefs fan. He ended up getting a job in Kansas City, and now he's the program director of 610 sports in Kansas City. Anyway, Stephen, great guy, and he was producing the show with me that day. And here's what it sounded like. When the earthquake hit at 151 p.m., we were basically about six minutes away from going off the air for the day. The show ended at 2.

We would have been going off at 156, 157, somewhere around there. It was 151 Eastern time when the earthquake hit, and this is what it sounded like with me on the air, with a caller actually talking as the earthquake hit. We were taking calls and Stephen producing. I think under Spurrier, the skins were four and out. Now, I won't compare Spurrier to Shannon, but what I will compare is a preseason exciting. I got to interrupt you. I don't know if we just had an earthquake here or we're in the midst of an earthquake here,

but the studio is shaking. Stephen, what's going on here? I have no idea. We got to go. We got to go. All right, folks, Kevin Sheehan here, ESPN 980. Our alarms going off. We're not sure what it is in this building.

Could have been the building, but it felt like an earthquake. Stephen, am I right? That was freaky. I have to say that was really creepy. We've got to see if anybody's reporting this right now. If you're in Montgomery County, we're in Rockville, that's where our studios are, there was some significant shaking and rattling. We've got to go. How about the caller, first of all, talking about preseason differences between Shanahan and Spurrier.

Remember, Spurrier had the famous Osaka game and went four and oh in the preseason and thought, oh, this NFL's easy. For the old ball coach, he didn't realize there was a big difference between the preseason. and the regular season in the NFL. So it's so cool to hear that after all these years. And thank you to Steve Solomon, by the way, who kept this sound clip because I couldn't find it anywhere. So a couple of things happened.

So, you know, when we first said we got to go, it's because Spector got into my ear because somebody had come into his control room and said, get Sheehan out of there, we got to go. And so he said that in my ear. He said, we got to go. And I said, we got to go. And I said, we got to go.

And then we came back because it wasn't, it didn't turn out to be anything big. And people were still trying to figure it out. And I said, no, no, no, we got to get back in there and get back on the air as long as we can be on the air. And so we were on the air then for, as you heard for like another 30 seconds before our fearless leader, our CEO at the time, Rick Carmine was his name. Rick opened up the studio door and said to me, get out now. And that's the last thing you heard. We're like, we got to go.

And I've talked about this so many times because I remember like five, on the five year anniversary of this thing, I think everybody had me on their show at the station. Like coach and Doc had me on their show and Zabe and, you know, Galdi, I think, whoever it was. And I do remember one thing. I do remember thinking it was an earthquake right from the jump, which I mentioned. I've never been in an earthquake. but I had been in San Francisco with a significant aftershock a long time ago,

and it felt like that. All of the microphones, which were suspended from the ceiling, hung from the ceiling, were swaying back and forth like you wouldn't believe in the whole thing, the whole studio was shaking. But when the CEO was panic-stricken and screamed into the studio, we got to go now. then as we were climbing the steps to get out of the building, I did think for a brief moment that maybe like a bomb had gone off in the building.

Then I wasn't thinking earthquake at that point. But we got outside and it was a beautiful day and we looked up and the building was still intact. And, you know, a lot of people, it was weird like Rockville Pike had come to a standstill. And people were just, you know, everybody had heard at that point that it was an earthquake. So there you go. 10 years ago, I'm sure many of you who were in the area at the time remember it. And yeah, I'm sure a lot of people in real earthquake, you know, seismic zones or whatever they're called out west, you know, had a field day and talking about our 5.8.

But I've talked to people, I've got a couple of good friends that live in Northern California in particular. And they've said to me before, look, 5.8, you know, it's not 3.8. 5.8 is, as they've said before, that's a pretty good shake. And it was. It was a pretty good shake that day. weird for this area. And we've had a couple of tremors here and there over the years,

but nothing like that day 10 years ago. All right, that's it for the day. Back tomorrow with Tommy. I don't know if we just had an earthquake here, or we're in the midst of an earthquake here, but the studio is shaking.