The Kevin Sheehan Show - Santana Moss On Everything!

Episode Date: August 27, 2021

Kevin opened with a quick wish list for the Washington-Baltimore preseason game tomorrow night. Then at 14:00 Santana Moss joined Kevin to talk about the current Washington Football team and to discuss his career in Washington as well. So many good stories from Santana including a few that you haven't heard before. Daniel Kaplan/The Athletic joined Kevin at 61:00 for the final segment of the show to discuss the latest on the NFL and its Covid protocols as well as a story about why Lakers' owner Jeannie Buss mentioned the Washington Football team in a recent interview.  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. A busy show today. Santana Moss will be our guest. Daniel Kaplan from the Athletic will be our guest.

There was discussion yesterday about potentially the NFL mandating vaccines. The NFLPA weighed in on that. Daniel Kaplan, the business writer, one of the business writers, at The Athletic. We'll join us. We'll talk about that. And by the way, he did an interview recently with Jeannie Bus, the owner of the Lakers. And she had something to say about the Washington football team. So you will hear what Daniel Kaplan got from Jeannie Bus about the Washington football team a little bit later on in the program. I start by asking you to subscribe to the podcast if you haven't done that. That really helps us. And as we're approaching, football season, it's really important that we have even more people subscribed. I know a lot of you listen to the show, but a lot of you aren't subscribed to the show. It doesn't cost you a thing, but what it does is it guarantees us the ability to go out to advertisers and sell more subscribed customers. We have a great deal, and we're pleased with it, and we're proud of it, and we're

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beginning in that first year of the podcast. But for all of you that haven't done it, it really helps us on that front as well. I just want to mention MyBooky at MyBooky.ag. They are matching, if you use my bonus code, Kevin D.C., your first ever deposit. If you haven't made deposit with my bookie. They will double your first deposit dollar for dollar. So if you open up an account with $250, they're going to put $500 into your account. An extra $250, you'll have a balance of $500. You've got all of the NFL stuff that is out there and available. All of the 2021 season prop bets, the week one lines have been up for a while, and we are fast approaching week one. And if you're One of those people that wants to bet preseason, they've got that as well.

I would recommend that you tread lightly in that area. MyBooky at mybooky.orgie.orgie. They've got $500,000 in contest prizes live on their site. They've got a full-fledged sports book, a full-fledged casino, and a lot more. Just use my code, Kevin D.C., so they know that you came from this podcast. Okay, let's start the show with the preseason game tomorrow night against Baltimore. A few things that I'd like to see is Baltimore goes for an NFL record 20th straight preseason win dating back to 2015. Someone asked me earlier in the week, why do you think that is?

Is it Harbaugh? Is it Baltimore's depth? Is it important? Look, they didn't make the postseason. I don't think in 2015, 2016, or 2017. They've made it the last three years once Jackson took over. in 2018, and then they didn't do very well in the postseason. So it's not like you can, you know, directly correlate great preseason success with great regular season and postseason success.

But I guess it's probably a combination of Harbaugh, you know, takes it more seriously than some coaches. And yes, the Ravens have been very good at roster construction. And they've had some deep teams over the years, and that may play into it as well. As far as Washington goes, this was Ron Rivera answering John Kimes's question about how much the starters will play tomorrow night. Curious, first of all, do you know as far as the starters Saturday, how much they're going to play? Starters will play what we think they need to play. All right. Seriously.

He seemed a little bit perturbed with the question. I'm not sure. why. I don't think there's much of a competitive advantage or disadvantage to disclosing who's going to play and who isn't in the preseason finale. But that's fine. I don't expect a lot of starters minutes tomorrow night against the Ravens. Here are a couple of things that I'd like to see out of the game tomorrow night. Number one, no injuries, obviously. That goes without saying in the preseason, knock on wood. They've been pretty lucky so far with the injuries. You just have the lingering Curtis Samuel, you know, soft tissue injury, which is a concern. We'll ask Santana Moss about that. Number two is I'd like to see, as I've said before,

each and every preseason game, the quarterback, the starting quarterback, if he plays, get into some rhythm with the wide receivers and just the overall pass catchers, as he has a couple of times in the preseason so far. I don't need to see touchdowns. Of course, I'd prefer touchdowns at the end of drives. I just want to see them move the football, move the chains, get into some sort of rhythm, and then get the hell out of there. This concern or this obsession over they haven't scored any touchdowns. The first team offense is absurd, in my opinion. It's meaningless. It's how they play. Fitzpatrick said that. Rivera said that. I agree with them. It's how they look. Look, if they had 10 possessions in the preseason and they went three and out on

eight of them and on the other two there were turnovers. Yeah, I'd be concerned. But they have moved the sticks, they've moved the chains, they've gotten in position to, you know, potentially score and they didn't. They missed a field goal. I think they made a field goal, whatever it is. They haven't scored a touchdown, so what. I don't think it's that big of a deal. A lot of these teams aren't even playing their starters at all. I mean, there's just been a wide range of approaches to these preseason games. I'd love to see some rhythm offensively and then get the hell out of there. I'd love to see if the Ravens trot their starting offense out there. I'd like to see the matchup against their run game. I don't know if that's what they'll do. You know, if Lamar Jackson's

going to run any in the game. He probably shouldn't in a preseason game. But, you know, they seem to take these things more seriously than others. I think. think the defense, the first team defense, has really looked good and athletic and physical, and it would be a really good matchup to face Baltimore. I think run-stopping is going to be so important to this defense this year. And I've seen signs that they play with a lot of energy, with a ton of athleticism, obviously. I'd like to see that matchup for a series or two. I'd like to see Jared Patterson on punt returns. I don't know if it's going to happen. I don't think it will happen. He got that opportunity to return kickoffs last week, and he returned 137 yards. But can you

imagine if he is a natural punt returner and he's better than, you know, anybody else they have as a punt returner? How valuable that would be to be able to put him not only on the team, which he's going to make the team, but put him on the roster each week and have him as a kickoff. returner and punt returner to go with however else you're going to use them. I mean, that could make certain guys expendable or practice squattable, Dax Mill, you know, D'Andre Carter, et cetera, and then Danny Johnson defensively, and it might allow you to keep other players. And that leads to this. And that is, you know, I'm not obsessed with 53-man roster projections like a lot of people. I don't, you know, have any problem with those that are. I love the, you know,

deep, deep, granular detail interest that, you know, many of you have. I'm watching these roster battles as well. I'm just not going to do a 53-man projection because I really don't have any idea. I mean, I know what the position groups of interest are running back. Will Peyton Barber make the team? Because there's no doubt that Gibson, McKissick, and Jared Patterson are on the team. How many receivers are they going to keep? been after the top five of McLaren, Humphrey, Samuel, Diami, Brown, and Cam Sims.

Who's number six, who's number seven if there is a seventh? Do you count that, you know, if Carter makes it as the kick returner, punt returner, is Gandy Golden going to make it? They really like Dax Mill and we've heard a lot about him. The secondary will be of interest, certainly. I think Troy Apke is going to make the team. I've been leaning or leaning in that direction for a while now. I think he's going to make the team. He's too good of his special teams player, and he just flashes when he's out there defensively, and he gives Ron and Jack Del Rio what they like, some position flexibility.

But, you know, that's something to keep an eye on. Certainly, I would imagine, of the 53 spots, 51 of them are accounted for. I doubt that any more than one to two positions are on the line in this game. They might be. I could be wrong. But that's typically the case. Whatever happens tomorrow night, hopefully they're healthy, and the result on Tuesday at 4 p.m. when they cut down to 53 will be one of the best rosters they've had in years. Okay, up next, Santana Moss, right after these words from a few of our sponsors. Let's bring Santana Moss onto the podcast. Santana is going to be doing the pregame show on the flagship home for Washington football this year, the team 980. So every game day, three hours prior to kickoff, maybe three hours, two hours, three hours prior to kick off,

you'll be able to hear Santana Moss talking about the game upcoming. And, you know, I texted you last night to ask you if you'd come on the podcast. And per usual, you always are very accommodating, and I appreciate that. But I said to you, you know, we've always talked about the team that's playing now in Washington. and we've very rarely sort of gone down the path of talking about you. So I'm going to mix some of the present about this team that's playing now in Washington with some of the past and your career in Washington, which was very memorable and had many memorable games and plays.

But let me begin by asking you this, and it's about this team. Give me a player from your era that Terry McLaurin remind you of. From my era, does it have to necessarily be a Washington player? No, it can be any player. Any player from the league? I mean, any player that he, the way he plays, he reminds you of who? I almost look at him like, you know, I think I heard that he's a fan of Mara Harrison. I can say that guy just because of the, you know.

Who did you say? Marvin Harrison. Oh, Marvin Harrison. Got it. I can say him. It's another guy, and I think the name's going to come to me as a show going on. I can't think of the game. But who do you play for?

I can't think of the team either, but I know the guy, I can see the game. I just got to, I get it together. You could come back to me with it. Okay. Marvin Harrison would be a good one. I mean, that would be. Probably because of just the speed. Right.

And just, you know, Terry, if he's not spoke to or acts to speak, he's a very, you know, calm and collect guys. So that's why Marvin stands out. And then he also was a big fan of him. So you can tell he modeled his game a lot, you know, like his. But that's why I say Marvin. But it's a guy that really like to me, I can really pinpoint and say his game is like I just can't think of him right now. I have a brain freeze. That's all right. Well, we'll see if we can extract it from that brain before the end of this conversation. How many catches, how many career catches would you have had had you played with Peyton? Manning for the majority of your career. Because Marvin had 11002.

Man, you know, man, honestly, man, I'd never been a guy that had been caught up in the ifs and what would have happened. I just live in a moment, man. Whatever happened happened. And I think I, to be honest with you, looking back, I love talking to people about my career because I really get a chance to talk about it now.

You know, when I played the game, I was so, I fear, not doing what I did before, so I never wanted to dwell on the moment, you know? So just thinking about it now, man, I'm pleased they even have the opportunity. But it's been times that I've looked back and I say, man, why I wasn't I lucky to have like one solid quarterback that I could have really. Right. And really allowed him to really make me a better player because, you know, believe it or not, the quarterbacks make the receiver. You know, we can have as much talent as God given. But if you're not hitting me when I'm open, if you're not giving me a chance to really see the field like you see it and let me know, you know, when to come into a hole, when to sit down, when to take, you know, take the top off of defense, you know, all those things, some of the best quarterbacks that I played with gave me those hints in the middle of games and allow me to have some of those highlights that a lot of people see of me.

So I appreciate those guys for allowing me to, you know, be that player, but it was all about them, you know? So I had this on my list of questions to ask, but I was going to get to it later, but it's perfect to get to it now. The quarterback that you played with that you felt gave you the best chance at having success. Mark Brnell. Hands down, Mark Borenell. I mean, if we want to talk about Washington, it's Mark Borenell. If we want to talk about New York is Vinnie Testabird. And folks might be like, wow, how.

You know, those guys are so old at the time. I play with him. Yes, but and besides Mark, I can say the young, like if you want to meet a name a young guy, I can say a young guy that I, that I was really getting to hang, you know, really getting to build some chemistry with it is, it's Kirk. Kirk really showed me like from day one that he can hit you when you're open. He knows how to read the defense and hit you when you open. And I tell folks time and time again, as a receiver, you know, you always hear the saying, oh, they're divas and they always want the ball. screw that. I don't want the ball when I'm not open. Give me it when I know I killed my man.

And Mark was one of those guys that Mark would ask me a question in the middle of a game. And I swear to you, you will be like, you better tell him the right thing because he's coming back to you. You know? And I used to be like, I'm open, Mark. Like, trust me, I won't lie to you. And he's like, pro, damn, I missed it. And I swear to God, if we called that play again, Mark is down in it up and hitting me. And so, you know, he's one of those guys, man. Trust me, people don't understand how 2006 was, how I felt in 2006 when they took Mark out of the lineup. Like, that hurted me that I couldn't go out there and finish that season with Mark. Knowing what we did in 2005 and knowing how we started, 06, I was crushed to know that he had to sit down and we had to bring somebody else in there.

Is it fair to say that you weren't the type of receiver that we've kind of gotten used to over the years? I mean, hell, I mean, for Washington fans, you can go back to. Gary Clark, he was this way, in which you were always telling your quarterback every single time you got back to the huddle or every time you walked over to the sideline, I'm open. I'm always open. Is it fair to say that you weren't that type of player? That's what, you know, you know, that wasn't my game. I was brought up in a system at an early age in high school where we didn't even throw the

ball to the receiver. I was the only receiver in a wing T offense. We had a fullback and two running back. in the backfield with a quarterback that ran the option that can put up 15 hundred yards with his legs also. And the coach wouldn't throw me the ball until he felt that I was ready. So there was games when I would come back from a game and, you know, my classroom was like, bro, he was wide open.

And I'm like, no, that's the play design. I have to take the top off just to get everybody out of there. So our quarterback can do his magic with the option. And week after week after week, folks realized that, hey, this guy here. can run so they found a way to implement a passing game in this offense and then my senior year I blew up and we went to state and we won't state doing that. But I learned then that, you know, be thankful for what you get. So I could say my coach humbled me at an early age. So when I got to college and the University of Miami was throwing me four or five balls a game and I was

taking at least two of them to the house, that kind of made me say like, man, you can give me this. I'm satisfied. And so when I got to the league, I never. had to ask for the ball unless they just wasn't giving it to me, you know? But I would never come back to the huddle and tell a quarterback something that he didn't see because I didn't want to be put in a situation where if they came to me at a time of what I wasn't open, now we have to deal with a turnover or, you know, someone saying that damn, Tanna didn't get open. I want to make sure that he's ready when I'm ready. Who was the player that you played with that was what we think of sometimes with receivers that annoyingly always was open even when they weren't?

Who was the player that was the opposite of you? I don't think I played with too many on Washington. I know Lavernees would say it a lot when we was in New York, but Lavernees had guests got into that role with being the guy. So he was, he had a, you know, he had a chip on his shoulder anyway because he wanted to prove that, you know, he should have been drafted higher and he was a better receiver than. and people expect it. So I can understand.

If I had to think of somebody in Washington, I would say Brandon Lloyd. I remember that year with him. But I think it was fair because Brandon, you know, to me, I used to be pissed off also that year in 06. B. Lloyd was so good, but they would throw me the ball, you know, not as much as I needed it,

or I would like for them to, but they will never involve B. Lloyd when I thought that together we could have killed the NFCs, you know, we would have did a lot of things great together, just knowing how he can get open, his route running skills, you know, the way he caught the ball. If you use both of us and found a way

to, you know, you know, when folks was kind of, you know, trying to you know, shade my way, allow Brandon to do his thing, we would have dominated. But like I said before, we could have only done that with Mark Brunel. When they took Mark away from our game plan, you know,

you know, you know, you know, Campbell was so young at the time. He just wasn't ready to be able to see the field like that. And so a lot of the times, you know, Jason was sitting back there patting the ball, not knowing, bro, you got two killers on the outside, just giving the ball. You know, and I used to go back and forward with Jason, like, just get rid of the ball. If you don't see anything, run, use your legs or get rid of the football. So I think Brandon Lloyd would have been that guy because I've had those sit downs with him a lot when he's just going at it, like calling every. coached out of their name because he wasn't getting the rock.

You know what's so interesting about him? I think that many of us misunderstand the Brandon Lloyd thing. It was, you know, they traded picks for him. They tore up his contract when he still had years left on it, gave him a big new deal. You have said this about Brandon Lloyd before. Clinton has said it. Coley has said it about how gifted he was and how he was not used the right way. but why so why didn't it with a coach like Gibbs and an OC like, you know, Al Saunders?

And we can, you know, we've talked about that, you know, in the past before. But why didn't it work out for him? Was he the same reason why you will look at a Santana Mawal have a 1,400-something yards in 05 and come and have 799 in 2006. If my play declined that much in that offense and Brennan, Brennan Lloyd's never got off, that's why. Because if you have a guy like myself with my skill set and the things that I showed you that I can do in 05,

that my play dropped off that drastically, it's no way Brennolly can get off. Because I need to get off, you understand? And so I tell folks all the time, like, that offense was not for us. We didn't have the kind of players that can run that offense. Mark could have winged it and made plays in it, but we didn't have to change.

I didn't understand why we brought in Alessanis, which don't get me wrong now. I love Aless. He was a great coach. But we didn't need that system. And that system was designed for guys, for a quarterback that can throw timing routes. Our routes in 05 was drew up in the dirt. We literally said, run a post on the backside.

I'm hitting you and I'm going to hit you. Run a comeback, I'm going to hit you. That's what Mark did in 05. That's what won us games. We literally would take passing plays from any team that played the team that we're playing that week. And coach would say, Santana, can you run this route? yes coach we're going to run this route we're going to put up a touchdown we did that week in and week out throughout the entire 05 and then 06 we say we're going to new coordinator i didn't understand it so that's why brandy lloyd never got off because you didn't allow your star player myself to get off you know what's interesting about that you know it's interesting about that and i've always felt this you know joe was back for you know um that was his second year in 05 and he had been away from the game for a while

And for whatever reason, and I've talked to Cooley about this a lot over the years, I think Joe lost some confidence in what he was as an offensive guy. And yet, 2005, it was all coming together. Now, it didn't end well because you guys had injuries, and Mark wasn't right in those playoff games, you know, against Tampa and Seattle. But I agree with you. And I remember feeling the same way, no, Joe, you're just starting to hit your stride and you're starting to get everything back.

But do you think that maybe Joe just thought maybe time had passed him by a little bit offensively? I don't necessarily think he thought the time passed him by. I think it was just too much for them. You know, you had Joe, you had bugle, you had another

coach, bro, bro or something. Yeah, bro. And we had like almost three officer coordinators in one year. It was funny. Like, I would have someone come and get me. Like, I told you, 2005, my first season here, And I would literally come to work every morning early because I knew they had a package just for me to look over to make sure I can get it by practice. And that's why I say that season was so magical because if you really looked at it, I literally looked at a paper with routes on it and say there was 20 or 15 routes from other teams that players ran. And I would literally say, I could do them all, coach.

And he's like, you sure, you can get them by practice. Yeah, I get them out practice. practice come that day, I run every route. We are some kind of way put it in, implement it into our offense, and I run it. And they will have my tongue hanging out of my mouth because I'll be that tired. And come Sunday, we're putting up points,

scoring touchdown, so I'm not complaining. Then the next year, we put in this high-powered Rams offense that you don't have a Kurt Warner, you don't have an Isaac Bruce, you don't have a Tori Hope running this stuff. Yeah, you have myself, give us credit. I can run anything and everything, you want. But if you don't have that kind of quarterback throwing a time and pass to me,

then why are we running this offense? You understand? So, you know, you take Mark out of there. Yes, he wasn't playing well earlier in that season because the offense sucked for that, for the skill set guys that we had. But now you put in Jason Campbell. He can't throw a time and pass. He's too young. His arm is so big that everything he's thrown is really deep and is over his guys. And half of the time is late or hard. So and, you know, Jason finally got on probably his second or third year, we hit stride and I had my first thousand-yard season with him. But I just feel like a lot of the times that I've been here, offensively or defensively, we had a plan not designed for the guys that we had in the room. Right. You know, I think the 2005

season was the closest to, roster-wise, to what they have now. I'll get to that in a moment. But But it's also the closest over the last 21 years this team was to an NFC championship game. Because if Carlos Rogers hangs on to that pick six with you guys up 3-0 early in the second quarter, with the way the defense was playing, I think you may have beaten Seattle in that playoff game. Don't remind me. I've been in two games like that. One in New York. My last year's crazy.

It was my last year before I even came to Washington. and one in Washington. My first year, it's crazy. Two games back-to-back years, 0-4 and 05, where we got the game wrap. All we got to do is do our part, and we lost the game when we're not doing our part. So, yeah, that game was one of those games, man.

But, you know, I look back at it all the time, and I just look at it and I say maybe, well, I always think everything happens for a reason. So it just wasn't meant, you know, I don't think we mentally, you know, we was ready to go and see that next step in a playoff. know. We had a good team. A lot of our games was one late in the season for us to even get in the play. Yeah, we won five straight at the end of the year to get in. Yeah. So I just feel like,

man, the things that we did, we kind of shot our ward. You know what I mean? We really shot our wide. We felt like, hey, yes, we have a good team. We're hitting on all cylinders, clicking at the right time of the season. But we just shot our wide, man. We didn't have, we had a lot of young talent out there too. And we had a lot of guys out there just basically, man, we had a lot of individual play that made us what we were as a team. It wasn't a team effort. It was a lot of guys out there playing ultimately at some of their best football and that allowed us to be, you know, a great team.

Because offensively, it was basically like, hey, Cooley, Tanner, and Portis, take us, you know, do what you do. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? And defensively, now, those guys was playing. They was sound. I think it's the best defensive team since the team we have now. No doubt. They was playing sound football. That's one of the reason why to this day I love Greg Williams. I saw something in how he coached them and how he prepared them. Like I would sit on the sideline and practice and me and Porter's and think about it's my first year here on the team. So I'm like, man, I see a difference in them and us. Every day I would say something about that. And Porter's like, what you mean? I'm like, bro, they're really practicing. We're over here talking right now. You know what I'm saying? Like we were sitting over here just, you know, have. with a nice day out here on sitting on our helmets, you know what I'm saying?

Right. We did practice. I'm not saying I'm not taking nothing away from my coaching staff on the off of the side. We did, but it just seemed like the defense was on another level. Like they was a team inside of our team, you know, on their own. All right. Let's get back to this team for a moment. A big story since June has been the injury to Curtis Samuel.

Should we be concerned? Hell, I'm concerned, you know, because I'm a receiver and I know growing injuries too well. You know, I've been, I dealt with a lot of them. Those soft tissue injuries, they suck. They suck. And I hope Curtis have a personal guy that he's seeing because it wasn't until I got here in Washington until I realized that in order for me to be on the field, I had to pay the plate. And I went through four years in New York where one knee injury kind of basically took everything out of me. Like, you know, my first year I got, you know, I hurt my knee. And my body was just out of whack. I tore a corn, I tore my groin, I tore my quad, I tore my hamstring time and

time again, all because of my alignment from my knee injury. And as a young player, you don't know that. You don't know how valuable it is to see a chiropractor, to see masseuse, to have soft tissue experts, you know, and I got the DC and, you know, to the grace of God, you know, I have to, you know, really thank Bluefoot, Sean Springs for bringing up his trainer. Because Once I met him, you know, it took, it took my game and it took my career to another level. So thinking about Curtis and where he's coming from off of that soft tissue, you know, one of the things he had to do is get back to just, you know, he's a very explosive player like myself. And folks felt to realize those injuries are going to come more than often, more than they will often will for another player because we're always running. And the gears that we're shifting in and out of is nowhere near some of the other guys on the team.

So I'm concerned knowing that he had so much time off. And I'm just not sure how healthy it is right now. And will it be a problem when he feel like he had his healthiest? And he goes out there and he gets a couple of games on his belt. And then it's tired. He doesn't treat it the right way. And it goes again. Why was Sean Springs' nickname Bluefoot?

I've never heard that before. I mean, to tell you the truth, I never asked the question. But I assume that he was so black that he was. was almost blue. That's what I thought. That would be my answer to that. Okay. What kind of year do you think Ryan Fitzpatrick is going to have?

I think he can have a pretty productive year. You know, the one thing that I like about Ryan Fitzpatrick is he reminds me a lot of those quarterbacks I talked about in Mark and Benny. He's a veteran guy. He's seen so much of the game that he's going to have these guys on the outside. he's going to will and deal him now. They got to get ready, especially Terry. Because Ryan's going to find him.

And when you have a guy like Logan in the inside and you have the running backs that we have in the back field, Terry's going to get a lot of opportunities this year that he should have had last year. And you might say that's crazy because Terry caught so many passes, but it was a lot of things up on the field that Terry should have had more opportunities. So Ryan is going to give him those opportunities.

The one question I would ask myself is that can we make sure Ryan is not being that guy that's trying to do too much. We don't need him to try so hard. I think we have enough on the offensive side that he don't have to take chances with the ball. You know what I'm saying? We do need that ball down field time and time, you know, here and there. But we don't need those, those, that old Fitzmagic sometimes. Right, that turns Fitz tragic.

Yeah, that turns into turnovers and why did he throw that? You know, we don't need that. I'm just hoping that he can be upright for the entire season. And I hope that just those coaches is just basically letting them know, like, look, what you have still at this age in your career, we can still win a lot of games with you. But don't go out there and try to do it yourself. You have the talent around you.

Let these guys give them the ball when the time is needed and letting them do the work. You know, it's interesting that you bring that up because the other day on the radio show and on the podcast, I played a soundbite from Ron Rivera, who actually used the phrase, we need Ryan to manage the game. I listened to your show that day. I was listening. Yes.

So I think it's interesting because what you just said, you don't change a guy 17 years into his NFL career. You know, what you just hope Ryan Fitzpatrick becomes, which is more of a, hey, we got a lot of guys that can do it. You can be a distributor. Don't make any mistakes. How do you change a guy's personality, which is high risk, high reward in year 17? Well, when I heard that, and I remember all the call-ins and the people were saying what they were saying,

and I heard how you felt about it. What I took from it is that Ron is saying, look, I can't make you somebody else. You're going to be you. You know how to get the ball down the field. you know how to do what you do. You know what makes you, you know, Ryan or Fis Magic or Fis Patrick, whatever you want to be called. But what I would say is all I want from you to know now or do now in this late in your career

is understand that there's going to be situation when you need to do that. And that's going to be times that we don't need it. So know when to do that and know when not to do it. To me, that's managing the game. That's being a manager saying that I need to take a chance right now. we're in the red zone. We have all this field that they have to, you know, they have to cover if, you know,

if I miss. But back here, backed up, I can't take those chances because now I'm giving them short field. That's how I look at him saying that, you know, when it comes to being more of a manager. Just know when to shoot your ward or no when to take those chances. You know a lot of the people, a lot of the

people in the fan base believe in Taylor Heineke after five quarters of football last year. So I'm going to ask you this question. What percent chance in your mind do you think Taylor Heineke has of eventually becoming a starter in the NFL, like a legitimate starter? I mean, I'm going to give him a 50 percent chance. 50 percent.

That's pretty high. I think that's average. I think I can, because I got to give anybody deserves a chance, no matter who you are, you know. Well, if you were to bet on that 50-50, which way would you bet? I would bet it if the time happened where something happened and, you know, with a team that he needed to come in and play, then that's the, that's what I'm saying, though, is that he proves to be a legitimate starting quarterback year and year out in the NFL. Would you bet that he will eventually prove that or not? I have to say not. Okay.

I have to say not. And I'm not, you know, and I like Heineke. I'm not taking that away from his game. And I hope he proved me wrong. I just look at it more as than, don't get me wrong, the game has evolved until more quarterbacks looking like Heineke. They use their legs a lot, you know, and here and there they can work their magic with their arm.

But you also have to still know how to manipulate that pocket and get that ball out your hands to the right guy. So until I see more of that from him, you know, the little bite size that we've all seen from him, it wasn't enough, you know. Don't get me wrong. He played lights out in the playoffs. And he's been playing pretty decent. in these preseason games.

But I'm a receiver, man. And I can't be productive with that kind of play from my quarterback when I'm just running out here, running my routes getting open and I'm not getting the ball. So I would say that most teams, you know, you can't be successful

which is a quarterback doing a lot of that. You know, the Patrick Mahomes is a little different because he's hitting the open guy. You know, he gets you lost back there without some of those scrambles, but he finds that guy downfield. If he can, if he can involve his games into that kind of a quarterback,

then he can go and start right now. All right. You are an NFL head coach and you get one receiver for the upcoming season in the NFL. Who's the receiver that you would pick? You can pick any receiver for one season this season. Who would you take? Any receiver, I would say Devonte Adams. Why?

One, I think what separates him right now, it's a lot of things. he runs some of the best routes he's faster than the average guy his size he has incredible he has myths he has some some great hands and he's just he's just the guy he's that kind of receiver that you want to have

on your team you don't hit a drama all you see is to work you know and the other thing I would say you know with all that being said is he has Aaron Rogers so yeah That helps. But that helps a lot.

They helps a lot. But without even having an Aaron Rogers, if you just had to look at what he brings, when I watch him running routes, he's getting separation every time. So, you know, when you have a receiver like that, the quarterback has an easy job. It's giving the ball. You know, he's going to separate. And his size, his skill set, he's just the kind of wire receiver you want. When it comes to that question, you ask him.

Who's the receiver in mind? But there's a lot comes with him. And I think... Who's that? Odell Beckham. Okay. I love Odell. I'm a big fan of Odell Beckham.

I watched Odell. RG3 had us come up to Arizona and work out with him the year Odell was coming out in the draft. And it was a bunch of kids from college out there working out with us also. Michael Irvin was up there. Me and Michael Irvin was talking, you know, there's two UM guys talking about the talent that's out there. You know, I'm going into my 14th year, I believe, that year. Mm-hmm. And I watched Odell run two routes, and I was like, oh, look.

And me and Mike both looked at each other like, you see that? And the way he ran his routes and caught the ball, you would have thought he was a season veteran in the NFL already. You wouldn't have thought this was a kid coming out of college. And I remember coming back home that year, me and Trent Williams was sitting there playing cars one night. And Trent Williams told me he was a big fan of Sammy Watkins. and I told him the best receiver that's in this drive is Odell Beckle. And we bet on it. And four games at the season, Trent was looking at me like, I told you.

And I'm like, bro, I'm telling you, Odell just got hurt. He's the best receiver in the draft. And when Odell stopped on that field, after two games, Trent came to me and said, bro, I take that back. You know what the hell you're talking about. Well, he's always being one of those guys for me. And the reason why is that he can do everything. It's nothing that he couldn't do.

And that's how I saw myself. I mean, I'm not sitting here and just saying that about myself because it's me. If you really want to cut on a film and watch what I can do when I was asked, it wasn't nothing they couldn't ask me to do in this small frame. And I felt like that's what some of the things that no team, probably one or two years we took advantage of. A lot of my coaches never took advantage of I can do any and everything acts to me. If you want to me to be a guy in the backfield, I can be a scatback, I can be a receiver. I can run some of the best routes.

I can go in and I'm tough. You don't get guys my size that can take hits the way I took his. I was the ideal receiver when it came to, you know, if we need somebody to go out and run and play, go call on Tana. And we didn't use that enough. And I look at Odell that way. He can do it all.

I want to get to this because you brought up his name. And I had this on my list. I didn't know if I would get to it or not. But you mentioned that RG3 brought all those people together. You know, and that's when you first saw Becca. there's going to be eventually a 30 for 30 or some sort of documentary on the rise and fall of RG3. That's going to happen sometime down the road. And you know what?

You're going to be one of those people that they're going to reach out to and say, we'd like to sit down and interview you about your time playing with Robert Griffin. When they ask you what happened, you know, how he went from 2012 rookie of the year, best rookie season in the history of the NFL to never really producing anything again in the NFL. What are the reasons you're going to give them? You didn't tell me you had a hot seat on your podcast. I would say that he just didn't get a chance to really, what they asked of RG. See, I'm probably say this.

And this is probably a great example or a great analogy. For what RG brought to the game, I don't think he wanted to be that person. His game was Lamar Jackson all day. RG had a big strong arm. He can throw the ball anywhere on the field. It might be hot. It might be high sometime. Might be, you know, late sometime.

But he can get it there. We saw he can win games with that arm. but his athletically skill set was man when things break down get missing use your legs and Lamar Jackson is what RG3 should have been but I think from the way RG was brought up and the way Lamar was brought up because Lamar was brought up in South Florida that's how we play football you know he's from Fort out of them from Miami right we're you know right next door to each other that's the way the quarterbacks that I know play football. My quarterback in high school was Lamar Jackson.

Probably wasn't his same speed, but that's how he ran with the ball. That's how he threw the ball. That's where I thought R.G. was going to be. But R.G. saw the game in the league wanting him to be paid many, Tom Brady, and RG is the wrong guy to tell that this is how you need to do it because he's going to feel that he can do that and he can be that person. And so he tried his hardest to be a Rogers, a manning, a breeze, and sit in the pocket, and that just wasn't his game.

So I would say that's what happened. He didn't allow his game to be his game. He tried to change into something that he wasn't. And that's that caused him his career. To me, that's my answer. I totally agree with you. I think that, you know, what Mike and Kyle designed for him was exactly what he should have been. And maybe he would have become a better pocket passer with those guys.

Over time. If you look at Michael Vick, man, Michael Vick didn't become that pocket passenger until Andy Reed gave him that second chance. Andy Reed was the quarterback whisper that Michael Vick needed in his career. That's why I say everything for a reason. Who would have known Michael Vick to be Michael Vick in his last couple of years if he never got to Andy Reed? So that's what happens to quarterbacks like that. Over the years of you dominating with your legs, eventually you might tire out. any but why you're tiring out you learning more right about being a pocket passer about how to

manipulate the pocket a little differently with your skill set and you can take advantage of it and still be a threat with your legs and i used to tell i used to tell rj all the time he i'm sure he can vouch for this i say bro you don't have to necessarily run but with what you have if things go eight crap run because you have it you know what i'm saying and that's what you know, that's the same, same things I used to tell Jason Campbell. Like, you couldn't put me a quarterback and I have what I have. Because I'm going to say, man, if I can't see it clear as I need to see it, I'm going to go get five yards.

I'm going to move these chains one way or another. And if I'm a quarterback with that, man, that's why, to me, why deck dominates like he does. That is the prime example. That reminds me of McNabb. Both of these guys probably have a little more skill set of how to sit in the pocket and throw it from there, but they also know that they're dominant with their legs. And if they don't see it clear enough, they're going to use their legs because that's going

to allow the offense to move down the field accordingly. You know, a couple of things you said. First of all, I totally agree with you. I think that if he wasn't resistant to playing the way he played in 2012, he would have had success. With that said, though, unlike Lamar Jackson, he was injury prone. So he was always going to be prone to injury. He had that, you know, you know this.

He had that track, you know, straight line speed, you know, athleticism. And he didn't have the vision that Lamar Jackson had necessarily as a runner. He couldn't slide. He couldn't get down. So I think eventually he would have gotten hurt. And then, two, the irony of him turning on Mike and that coaching staff is they would have been the best coaching staff. to develop him as a passer, as more of what he wanted to be eventually. Yeah.

No, you hit the day on the head. I don't think his football, when it comes to how he played the game of football, it was nowhere near, you know, Lamar Jackson. I mean, they played the game a lot differently. R.G. is not, he's not taking on no hits like that. His body wasn't made for that. But like I said before, you don't have to. to be that guy to get five yards, six yards.

Like it's given. You take two steps, you got four yards with that kind of speed. Just learn how to get down, you know? And that's what I feel like he had to put with his game. And like you said, resisting what Mike and Kyle designed for you. To me, I think that's another thing that, you know, would come up because honestly, I think he could have rolled that out, man, for at least two contracts, you know what I'm saying?

Like that offense was designed to that. dominate. That's why Cal has success everywhere else. Because that offense is designed to dominate. You don't even have to be an RG3 to dominate in that kind of offense. Every receiver flourished in that offense. I was telling folks like, that's one of the reasons what I was so mad because I'm like, when Mike brought me into that office in 2012, RG3's first year, and I remember the talk we had that offseason.

I was going through some stuff, you know, personally that folks didn't know about. I was damn near. I never knew what stress was until 2000. nine-ish, 10, and 11. I never knew how stressed, you know, as football players, as me and me, I'm not stressed.

I'm not stressed. Then I looked at my body. I'm like, oh, shit. What was the source of the stress, if you can tell us? If it's too personal, that's fine. I was saved it for my book. I got a book coming, so I'm going.

I'm going to put it all out on the table then. All right. I ate myself to a size that I never thought I can ever be because I was stressed out, you know, or some person who matters. But the one thing that saved me with those things I was dealing with was football.

So even with me being 200-something pounds in this small, 5-9-and-a-half, 5-10 frame, I still went out there and dominated at what I know how to do best. At that size, at that weight, even knowing that I felt like, man, I feel like a butterball out here. I dominated guys at 200-something pounds, 210 at one time, had a thousand yards with all that weight on me.

So 2012 comes and I get a call from those guys. And I had been telling myself, you need to lose weight this all season. You need to lose weight this all season. You need to do something different. And, you know, as humans, we tell ourselves a lot. And sometimes we say, hey, just give me a sign or give me something that's going to allow me to really go through

with what I'm telling myself. I need somebody, I need some reassurance that I'm telling myself the right thing. I got a call from Mike and I got a call from my agent. They said, hey, but, you know, Drew, hey, but. Oh, man, Mike's not happy with your size. He thinks that you can be more dominant if you lose some weight. Drew, don't say no more. Don't say no more, Drew.

That's all I needed. I was unhappy with my size, Drew. This is not what I want to be. I'm going through some shit. You know what I'm going through, Drew. But guess what? I'm a big guy. I can handle it.

Let me get the work. And I did it. I got back to what I needed to be at. And so I come into that season, like, I'm going to dominate this year. Because I know what I did at this size in 2010. 2011, I got hurt in the middle of the season, so I couldn't really get back, you know, get my feet back to where I was at when I came back.

But I'm like, oh, man, I'm lighter than I've ever been. Like, this is my high school. This is my high school college weight. And they might bring me into the office and say, you know, I want you to be a slot receiver. And I'm like, fuck, no, man. Like, you know, no. Like, you just got me back down to this size.

And if I dominated at 200 pounds, what you think I'm going to do at 1? And he was like, the thing, the reason why is because I feel like with the offense we have, you're not going to always get the ball. But when you come in the game on third down, you would be number one in the read. That's when we need you, Tanya. We need to. I'm going to try to preserve as much as I can of your career right now and get you to play some more years.

Was he right? So when he said preserve and play more years as a veteran and as a guy who never been selfish and always thought about team before himself, that's what I needed to hear. I said, coach, if that's how you feel, I'm going to do it. And he had to tell me nothing else. And deep down the side, I hated it because every man wants to be a star. Everybody wants to go out there, and especially after what I went through in my career

from being hurt when I came in the league and to finally get back to where I was at, I just feel like I should be that guy. And I say, you know what, I'm going to do it. And 2012 was a magical year with me coming in on third down. Like, I literally lit up the damn scoreboard. The giant game. I had eight touchdowns that year. I mean, it was just unbelievable.

So when I saw that offense and how I was flourishing, how Pierre was flourishing, how, you know, Al and Leonard and you name it, all those, we all had 500-something yards plus and a whole heap of touchdowns. I'm like, you know what, this is the offense for us. Like, we don't need nothing else. I know I can play this offense forever if you allowed me to because I'm not using it. much of my mom, but I'm coming in and dominate my man on third down. And so I was kind of upset to see that that go to waste. You know what I mean? I feel like they did so much to design that offense to be equipped for R.G. and for the talent that he had around him. And, you know, Alfred Morris just 10 of the league year after year, you know, with his Russian stats. It was just

unbelievable, man. And I was hurt, honestly, man. I was really hurt to see what we did in 2012 and the years after that, I was really hurt. I was disappointed. Well, I mean, you know, as you're sitting there talking, I'm just having the memories, you know, of the giant game in the Meadowlands when he hits you, you know, late in the fourth quarter for the lead, the game where you caught that incredible sort of back shoulder in the end zone on Thanksgiving Day in Dallas when you guys blew out. I think it was to give you a 28 to 3 lead, you know, at the end of the first half. But, you know, everybody flourished because every defense. had to play Robert as a potential runner on every play. Because when he would stick that ball and Alfred's gut and everybody came up,

man, it made everything easier behind it, didn't it? Yeah, no, I mean, that's, that's to me, that's, that's something that you don't have to, you know, I talk about the things that's going on now with our team. And I'm like, look, sometimes you have a player or two that allows the officer coordinator's job to be just that much easier because the element of their game will make a defense second-guess themselves. And that's what Robert Griffin brought to the game. Every week.

Every week. We can't blink because this guy would be down the sideline in a heartbeat. And when you have that kind of skill set and you have that going for your offense, if you just do the little things right, man, you can go far. And that's what we did. That's why we went so far. That's why we were so good.

And I think the only reason why we didn't have the season that we should have had because it's an injury. If he don't get hurt, we're not losing to Seattle. No, you're up 14 nothing. I promise you. I promise you. We're not losing that game. I promise, man. And that's why I was sitting there like, Lord, boy, we don't have no luck over here. Like, I was looking around like, where's the damn, you know, rim reprat? Where is he? I know, it always seemed that way because, you know, the way it's set up to, you got a 14-0 lead. and he's not back to full health. We know that, obviously.

But if you hang on and he doesn't go down in a heap on the field in that Seattle game, you go to Atlanta the next week. I think the way you guys were playing, you would have beaten Atlanta. Now, I don't know if you guys would have beaten the Niners that year in the NFC championship game. You'll be a tough one, man, but when you're riding high, you thought you could beat any more. Of course. You know what I'm saying? I didn't intend.

to do this, but Santana was so good and he had another 30 minutes of conversation in him, storytelling in him, including an incredible story about a conversation that he had with Sean Taylor at the end of a game in 2005, about what he wished he would have done more of in the NFL with respect to a certain job responsibility and more. And so I'm going to cut it into two parts because there was another 30 minutes left and it just gets a little bit too long for one podcast. So you just heard Santana Moss conversation part one and the part two I will air on Monday's podcast. When we come back, Daniel Kaplan from the athletic answers some questions about the story that came out yesterday where the NFL was and maybe still is considering

mandating vaccines. That right after these words from a few of of our sponsors. All right, let's bring in Daniel Kaplan. Daniel writes for the athletic. He is at Kaplan's SportsBiz on Twitter. And I thought of you because I was reading yesterday about the NFL and the NFLPA and the mandating potentially of vaccines, et cetera. I want to get to that in a moment.

But I read through your interview from last week, I guess it was, with Jeannie Buss, the owner of the Lakers. And it was a fascinating interview. It was very well done. But tell everybody what her references to the Washington football team were about. Right. I was interviewing Jeannie for a profile I did on Dean Spanos, the Chargers owner. They're L.A. sports team owners, offspring of original team owners.

So I thought it would be a good opportunity to catch up with Jeannie. And Jeannie being Jeannie, she talked about a lot of things. other than Dean. And one of the things she mentioned was, because we were talking about how do you follow a team in L.A. when there were no NFL teams, and she said she played fantasy football.

And then she mentioned she stopped playing fantasy football because she objected to the former name of the Washington football team. And she went through all that. She'd been dating Phil Jackson, who I believe has Native American ancestry. So, and she said he... talked to her about it. And so she gave up some time ago, fantasy football, and a silent protest over the team name in Washington. It was amazing to me. Like, I'm reading through this and I'm like,

she gave up playing fantasy football because she had a difficult time with the name, which, by the way, is not the debate that I want to get into. It's over anyway with respect to whether or not they'll ever have the name. They haven't had it for over a year now. But to just say, you know what, fantasy football, I kind of enjoy it, but I just can't say that team name anymore. But she admitted that she stopped drafting players from the team because of the name in her fantasy football league. But all she had to do was draft players from other teams and continue to have fun and not deprive herself of what is fantasy football. Well, I wasn't going to grill her on her decision and the intricacies of what she could have done, especially since that wasn't my agenda item.

But I thought it was interesting enough to mention in the piece I wrote about her. All right. Here's what I wanted to get to. The NFL a couple of months ago, you know, came out with what their protocols on COVID would be this year. And it really put heavy emphasis on you better get your players vaccinated because teams with higher unvaccination rates are going to be potentially at a competitive. competitive disadvantage because they'll get tested more. There will be more restrictions on them in team facilities and on the road, etc. Where are they right now on the current protocols for COVID-19 entering this season with a high vaccination rate league-wide, but with this new variant?

Right now, there are almost a 93% of players vaccinated, which is obviously if the country was at that rate we wouldn't have a problem with Delta. So I thought it was interesting that the league decided to resuscitate the talk of a COVID mandate when there's just a few percentage points away from 100%. But the protocols clearly will be tougher for those who are not vaccinated. We saw that with Cam Newton with his recent incident. If a player who is unvaccinated has a COVID infection. he's out for 10 days.

A player with a who's vaccinated, who gets COVID, it's much shorter term. I believe it's five days. And, of course, they have to test out. The NFL proposed mandating vaccination for players. How far did that get? The NFLPA has made it clear from the beginning. They're against mandates. And I'm not really sure where this crifuffle first emerged,

J.C. Tredder, the NFLPA president said a few days ago that the NFL never asked for a mandate. The NFL in a conference call yesterday disputed that. But the bottom line is the NFLPA has long been against the mandate, but they've agreed with the NFL that they should use a carrot rather than a stick. And the carrot being more freedoms if you're vaccinated. And that message seems have gone through. A few months ago, the percentage of players who were vaccinated probably hovered around 50%. We're now at 93%, and probably going to go a little higher. So I'm not really sure of this vaccine mandate question, debate, is that useful? Fair enough. Now, that percentage, you know, is on roster sizes that are now down to 80, so it's possible that percentage could drop

if, you know, a significant lead. It could. Yeah. What about the hard stance from the NFL on forfeiting games, on not rescheduling games that might be impacted by a significant number of COVID cases? Do you think they'll stick to that? They will stick to that. But there's a lot of flexibility with the, the 2020 rules with expanded rosters remain in effect.

So there would have to be a complete outbreak that removed a significant number of players from a team's roster. The NFL was clear yesterday in their conference call that there have been new outbreaks. There have been clusters, meaning a few players, but there have been no outbreaks. There's been some faulty reporting describing what's happening with Tennessee and some other teams as outbreaks. The NFL looks at them as clusters, not the kind of outbreaks we saw in 2020. Yeah, I mean, with that said, last year, you know, there were outbreaks. Teams had significant numbers of players that weren't eligible. And so they, you know, they postponed those games.

They moved those games. Baltimore and Pittsburgh played a game on a Wednesday afternoon. You know, we had multiple Mondays and Tuesdays of games. But you're suggesting that if you have one of these outbreaks, they won't try to, you know, schedule. a game that's postponed, they'll just forfeit and move on. That's correct. I don't, they're very confidence internally that that won't come to that.

That what you didn't have in 2020 was vaccines. So it's a different terrain. And I know we have, we have Delta. But if you have 93% of the league vaccinated, say that drops to 90% with roster cut down, that's still a very significant number. In terms of the players who are getting sidelined, so far 68 players have tested positive for COVID since, I think, early August, the vast majority are unvaccinated. Yeah, I think that would be interesting. I think that the league showed incredible flexibility last year.

They were able to get every single game in, even though there was risk, you know, with scheduling, et cetera, of a couple of, you know, there were a couple of spots there. it looked like it was going to be difficult. I just think if you end up with a situation where a team with a high vaccination rate ends up with, you know, some sort of outbreak, because we've obviously seen vaccinations doesn't mean that you can't get it, just reduces even more the likelihood that you would get sick from it. But I just can't imagine that they would forfeit a game that could be rescheduled for, say, two days later. I would be shocked if that ends up happening, if there is an outbreak with vaccinated teams. clearly the NFL can make the rules up as they go along.

This is not constitutional law here. If the NFL wants to change his position, they can. Obviously, there's a threat here. It's not just a threat to the players. It's a threat to the team. They're the great financial distress to the team that caused the forfeit. They'd be responsible for the other team's expenses, lost revenue. It would be a steep, steep hit.

So I do imagine if the scenario you outlined occurred where it could be moved a couple days out, the team that had the quote-unquote outbreak would be putting heavy pressure on the NFL to do that. Daniel Kaplan is our guest. I'll close with this because I know I've had you on the show before to talk about, you know, some of the things that were going on with the Washington football team, the Beth Wilkinson case, etc. the league waived that debt limit for Snyder to buy out his minority investors. In fact, they loaned him some of the money to buy out his minority investors. Do you think that there was a quid pro quo on that from this standpoint that maybe he will bring on another group? This is my gut feel. I don't know anything.

And I'm just curious as to whether or not you have any similar thoughts or maybe other thoughts. that he bought out as minority investors. He and his sister now own 100% of the team's equity. And I just wonder whether or not they are going to require Dan to take on perhaps, you know, a diverse group of minority owners down the road. I thought that that may have been the quid pro quo for loaning him the money and waiving the debt limit to allow him to buy out his last group of minority shareholders. What do you think?

If he does bring on minority investors or limited partners, it would hardly be a surprise if it's a person of color, a person from a disadvantaged community. You've seen the team get religion when it comes to hiring people of diverse backgrounds. So it certainly wouldn't be a surprise. Now, whether there is a quip-pro quo with the NFL, I can't say, but the dirty tricks that occurred with limited partners and their... very bitter fight with Dan. Look, I mean, the NFL, as much as they've had issues with Dan, he never went to the, you know,

to the depths that the limited partners did in that fight. Yeah, I mean, talking specifically about, you know, the potential of what Dwight Schar was involved in with some of the stories that went through that, you know, India Media Company. Actually, last question here, for real. Were you surprised that there wasn't more done by the league, which referred to the Beth Wilkinson investigation is revealing a very toxic culture for women? Were you surprised that it ended up being essentially just a $10 million team fine?

I was surprised there wasn't a more formal suspension of Dan. I thought of the owner, I thought they would at least give him a few months of suspension. And I realize now that he, you know, I realize that, of course, he's not involved with the operations of the team, at least for the time being. But I was, I was surprised that, A, there was no report apparently written, and B, that he was not. suspended in a formal way. I think it would have benefited him, Daniel, and the league if they had suspended him. And I think that's the irony of it, is that it actually would have made it seem to be more commensurate maybe with what was going on here and would have benefited him from a

perception standpoint in the league to do that. I think the league bought his argument that he was an absentee owner. And as we all know, he lay a lot of the blame. the feet of Bruce Allen, the former team president for the culture. But at the end of the day, the buck stops with the owner. And the NFL, I mean, I'm in total agreement. The fine is one thing. But there should have been more of it, you know, more than just that slap on the wrist.

Subscribe to the athletic. We say it all the time. We have so many people from the athletic on. It's totally worth it. I'm a customer. It's just either so many great writers. Daniel does such a great job in covering the business of sports. Subscribe to the athletic at Kaplan SportsBiz on Twitter.

Thank you so much. I really appreciate the time. All right. Thanks for having me. All right. That's it for the day. I will be back either late tomorrow night or early Sunday morning with a podcast recap of the Washington Baltimore preseason game.

And then don't forget, part two of the Santana Moss conversation on Monday. Santana had some really good stories, another three or four good ones, including one about Sean Taylor, and he had a prediction about this year's team as well. So that'll be on Monday's podcast. Enjoy the weekend, but again, we will reconvene either tomorrow night, Sunday morning, with a recap of the Baltimore preseason game. This is what good offense is when you can make plays in this situation, good defense is when you can stop those plays. from the 30. Brunel going deep from Morsick and he makes the catch and Santana Mors for a touchdown.

Wow. And again it's Lynn and Williams on the coverage. He beats the same two guys. Unbelievable. He just outran him and Mark Brunel got it out there.