The Kevin Sheehan Show - Sustained Culture vs. Disease

Episode Date: August 6, 2020

Kevin and Thom today on Ron Rivera's challenge of building a sustained WFT culture against the backdrop of a diseased organization. Plenty of other things on the show too including Thom's Covid 19 test, Nats, The Go-Gos, Pete Hamill and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You want it. You need it. It's what everyone's talking about. The Kevin Sheehan Show. Now here's Kevin. You're listening to The Sports Fix. A Sports Fix Thursday, Tommy by phone, I'm in studio. A couple things to get to.

I do have a very, I think, complicated Tommy, Redskins, I'm sorry, Washington football team topic that I want to explain to you. I did not do a great job. don't think explaining it to my callers this morning. We got a lot of calls on the subject, but a lot of people said, I'm not really exactly sure what you're getting at. It was one of those things that I think was too abstract, especially for some of the callers to the radio show. I think you'll understand it, but we'll wait on that here, because right before we started the show, can I start by telling you something about my granddaughter? So go ahead.

Well, we picked up our granddaughter, who flew in with my oldest son volunteered to go out to Spokane to get her and to bring her back for a visit. You know, she usually comes with us to the beach every year. We'll be going to the beach in about a week. Right. So she came last night. She's about to turn 11. And, you know, she's great. I mean, she's a lot of fun.

She's got a lot of personality. And we got in, we were watching Captain Marvel last night. And it's the first time I've seen Captain Marvel. I wasn't wanting to see it, but my wife didn't want to see it. So finally, I found somebody with my mentality, an 11 to 10-year-old who wanted to see it. So we started, you know, we started talking about superheroes. and I said, well, the Hulk is the superhero, and she insisted it was the Flash,

and it became a very heated argument between the Flash and the Hulk. Uh-huh. So for the first time ever... I hope you didn't argue with her the same way you argue with me. Oh, of course I do. Of course I do. She needs to learn how to be a Laverro. Okay.

Okay. Yeah. So for the first time, I posted a poll on Twitter. I've never posted a poll before because I think they're kind of self-serving and useless. Why do you think they're self-serving? Well, because I don't see what the point is. I mean, they're usually serving your purpose. Self-serving is something that serves your purpose.

Yeah, I will tell you that the polls for me when I've done them are purposefully done so that I have a topic for the show the next day. Okay. Don't interrupt me when I'm right, okay? You're right. Okay. So I posted this. Granddaughter is here. First night of her visit, we got into a heated debate. Who is the greatest superhero, the Flash, or the Hulk? So why not the first poll I've ever posted on Twitter, given their values?

And so far, I've got 111 votes, and I posted it 17 minutes ago. And? Oh, well, the Hulk has got a fuck. I didn't mean to crush her dreams, but the Hulk is going to win. He's already winning by, you know, 6633. Have you? It's not even an argument, Kim. Have you shown her the results of the poll? I mean, that would be fun for her to track.

Well, I will. But like I said, I only posted it 17 minutes ago. So, you know, I will. I'll post it. Was the flash what led Tom Hanks to Frank Abagnale-July, Junior, and him realizing that he's a kid and he made the reference to the pinstripes and a kid that was from New York. Was it the flash?

I don't remember. In big? Movie big? No, no, no, no. In Catch Me if you can. Oh, I don't know. Because there's a, there's a, he uses, whatever. I'm not, I think you know this.

I'm not a superhero comic book guy. Right. get that. But I remember Hanks is at a diner, you know, as the guy that's chasing Frank Abagnale Jr.'s, Frank Abagnale Jr. is forging checks all over the country as an airline pilot. And he, there's a name that's tied to the flash that the waiter mentions to Hanks and Hanks goes, wait a minute, what did you say? and then he says, well, I saw that you had this name written down. That's who the flash is. And then that was a clue that the guy that he was searching for was a kid.

And then one of the calls he had referred to the Yankees and the pinstripes. And, you know, he said he's a kid from New York. And that led them to the mother's house and the picture in the yearbook where he said, oh, that's him. you remember a lot from that movie that must be one of your favorite movies I love that movie I absolutely love that movie

I wouldn't rank it you know as one of my favorites but it certainly was memorable for you I love that movie and I think that I don't know what it is but DiCaprio in so many of his movies over the last 15 years

I mean I don't know what he did before the Titanic which is a movie you haven't seen but I love Isn't that great? It is amazing. I'm so proud of that.

Of course you would be proud of that. I think that, you know, the Tarantino movies in particular, including the last one once upon a time in Hollywood, he's just so good and he's so versatile. And he was great and Catch Me If You Can. I think there is a flash reference there. I'm sure you're right. You're probably right?

I may not be right, because I'm not a comic book guy. Hey, did you get your COVID-19 test? Oh, yes, I did. That's right. Somebody asked about it. I got it last Friday. It was a drive-through testing in Frederick. I had to wait two hours in line in a car to get it.

Which is no big deal. I didn't mind. It's not like I got anything to do. And it was the big swab where they stick it up your nose, like 15 seconds. And it was uncomfortable but tolerable. You know, I'd have no problem having it done again if I had to do it that way. You got the long swab up your nose, right?

Yes, yes, I did. And you say, did you just, I'm sorry, I missed that. Did you say? It was uncomfortable but tolerable. Okay, my reaction, as you know, was that it tickled and I felt like sneezing when it was over. Well, that's what somebody else described as how it would feel, but it didn't feel that way to me. It was a bit uncomfortable. Well, maybe I have bigger nose.

Maybe I've got more space up there in my nostril. I think you may. You know, I have a small nose. Yes, you know. I have a classical Roman nose. A classical Roman nose. Hmm. Yes.

Yes, I do. Not the big Italian snods, but the classical Roman nose. That's what I've. got. It's one of the handful of things that God got right. Yeah. Well, it hits my nose. So I probably have a small cavity in there. Hopefully you got, you know, more Italian and less Irish and other parts of your body. But anyway, the, so you won't get results back. I mean, people are waiting two, three weeks to get the results. Not in, not in major league baseball. No, I know. Or hockey.

Yeah. Hockey and basketball. Spotless. record right now. Yes. Yes. They may have found, they may have found a solution, you know, isolation, mass testing. Who knew? These are novel content. Yeah.

True. I mean, clearly a bubble is, I mean, I don't know that it wasn't obvious before, though. I mean, that a bubble would have a better chance of succeeding than teams that were going home and going out and getting onto planes and going to different cities. Obviously. The question is, can you play football in a bubble city? Do you know, and I was thinking about this, that this area would be potentially an NFL bubble city because of all of the stadiums within a short distance of one another? You know, the Baltimore, Washington area being 30, 35 miles between each other with all of these stadiums. You would have M&T Bank.

You would have the University of Maryland Stadium. You would have FedEx Field. You would have Marine Corps at Navy. You have a lot of stadiums in a very tight, you know, college park, Landover, Annapolis, and Baltimore. I mean, you're talking about a 30-mile stretch max of 4.5. major stadiums that you could play in. Am I? I would think the Bay Area would be comparable.

Yes, the Bay Area would be comparable. The 49ers play an hour away from the Bay. Oh, that's why it wouldn't be. Yeah, they play in Santa Clara now, so it wouldn't be. Is Keyzar Stadium still standing? Yeah, right. Candlestick is not there anymore. So, you know, Tommy,

it wouldn't shock me at all with the results that are coming out of Orlando, Toronto, and Vancouver, with zero positive tests now from both the leagues through the last testing period. If the NFL is trying to come up with an answer as to whether or not they could pull this off. Oh, I think they have to be considering it. I mean, look, I mean, I've revaluated my position on the NFL, certainly. although I should have been obvious to me when they decided to play in Canada. But the NBA in particular, because so far they've been able to keep guys from busting out,

except for the occasional trip out for wings at the strip club. Right. But other than that, they've managed to contend. And I should have a shorter, they have a shorter goal. They just have to get through their playoff. You know, so, and so, I mean, I should have recognized. When I said none of these leads will finish, I may have to amend that unless there's some kind of big breakout

and where, you know, NBA players start to go a little nuts and go to Universal Studios instead of Disney World to look for a little fun. I think this may succeed. and if you're the NFL, you've got to say, well, you know, give me a plan. Give me a plan in 48 hours where we could pull this off and at least consider it. Yeah, I mean, they've got to be considering a lot of those things. You know, college football is obviously optimistic because now all these leagues are releasing their schedules now. The Big Ten released their schedule yesterday for a conference-only situation.

And it's odd because Ohio State and Michigan have closed the regular season against each other for like 700 years. And this is the first year that it's not going to happen. They're going to play each other in mid-October if it does happen. And a lot that's going into the thinking is, you know, we've got to have flexibility with our games earlier in the year mid-season if we have to cancel and we can then move them to the end of the year. So if Ohio State and Michigan were scheduled for the end of the year and it got to. canceled or postponed, you're running out of room before the championship game. So they want to make sure they play it rather than risk not playing it. But I don't know. I mean, I'll just keep saying it's not very, you know, interesting. I just don't know how anybody really knows. But the thing that

we are learning is that the bubble cities and the fact that they're late in their seasons, to your point, and in the case of the NHL, they've already started their postseason with several of the teams. And they just have a much better chance of succeeding. And you see also real quick, one more component of this, which I think comes into play for baseball and the NFL in particular, is the calendar. They're going to be playing in a time that what's anticipated by some experts, will be a very difficult time to contain a virus in the fall and the winter.

Right. All right. Real quickly, I want to mention mybooky.ag. They're a sponsor of this show, and they give me a bunch of copy to read, and I don't read the copy because I know gambling, I know how to gamble online, and I know what will be important to all of you. If you're considering a second or third site to gamble through or your first site, MyBooky.ag is one you should consider.

You need to be confident that you are getting fair point spreads, fair money lines, fair pricing, and of course that if you win, you're going to get paid, and you get that through mybooky. By the way, they don't just have a sports book, which they have, which allows you to bet on all these games, and bet a lot of futures bets. They've got a lot of stuff on their side. I was going through it last night. They've got the U.S. presidential election odds. you can bet on a lot of different things in addition to sports.

But they also have a live casino. Now, I would tread lightly on the casino. I've got a little bit of experience in playing online blackjack, online craps, Tommy, and it can become very addictive and very dangerous. You know, when you're sitting at a table with a bunch of friends drinking beers in Vegas playing cards, it's a social experience. If you're just playing online, I mean, think about the things you can. do online that all of a sudden you come up for air and it's like seven hours later.

Well, that can get dangerous, you know, if you're gambling online. But they've got so many options to keep you entertained in their online casino. So many different blackjack options, so many different poker options, craps options. So they have that as well. And if you're a horse guy, which I don't know how many of you are, Tommy is, you can bet the horses too at mybooky.ag. Go to mybooky.ag. Also, tell them that you heard about them from me. If you do that and you mention my promo code, Kevin D.C., you'll get a free $10 MLB wager. MyBooky.ag for a reliable fair site where if you win, you get paid. I wanted to share something with you real quickly. I don't want to spend a lot of time on this. But

I was reading last night, somebody sent me this story from Forbes. It was written yesterday by Tommy Beer in Forbes magazine, and it's titled Washington's NFL team received national attention, but high schools are also abandoning Redskins' name. So the story is not that long, but basically speaks to that many high schools off of the Washington football team ending their name, the Redskins, that some high schools, or what they referred to as secondary schools across the U.S. are following

the Washington football team's lead on this. The opening paragraph, Tommy reads as follows, with Washington's NFL team finally succumbing to public and financial pressure and retiring the Redskins name and logo, high schools throughout the country that have carried the same name for decades have similarly decided to drop it, though not all have made that call. And what's really interesting as you get into this story, you realize that those schools around the country that had the Redskins as their name. And according to this story, they reference the LA Times. 53 high schools, you know, prior to the Redskins dropping their name, still had the Redskins as their school team nickname and mascot. And they reference a few schools like Forest Hills in Cincinnati and Clinton High School in Michigan

and a couple of others. And then they mention this. Some American secondary schools have publicly declared they have no intention of changing names despite the raging controversy. Red Mesa High School is located in Arizona and its student body is almost exclusively Native American. Its website reads, we are proud of our ancestry, we are proud of who we are, and we are proud to be the home of the Redskins. Andre Ponder, who is Red Mesa's superintendent, told the Arizona Republic that the community and alumni support, I'm sorry, the community and alumni support the current logo of the school, closed quote. Well-pinned high school in the state of Washington, which is not mentioned in this story, but is a famous

Native American high school in this name conversation because it was that high school's system that thought back in 2014, wow, there's a lot of pressure from a lot of media people for us to change the school's nickname from Redskins to something else. Maybe we're missing something. Maybe we need to look at this a little bit further. And they did a bunch of research and they held a couple of community events, and then they held a vote. And overwhelmingly the vote was, oh, we've spent some time thinking about this. We don't want you to tell us what we should be offended by. We're keeping the name. And that school system and that school still has and still uses Redskins as its school nickname. This story basically indicates that a lot of non-Native American schools

are dropping the name, but that the Native American schools that have had the name are not dropping the name. And I just, this has been part of, to me, Tommy, all along, something that should have been a disconnect to a certain degree for the Max Kellermans and the, you know, and the Florios and the Peter Kings and the Mike Wisees of, okay, maybe it isn't so cut and dried. Maybe the fact that Native American high schools have the name and refuse to change it, maybe I should rethink that this is such a slam dunk issue. But as I mentioned, in the recording of this for historical purposes over the last month, there's no mention of any of this. I give Forbes this guy credit because he intended to write a story where every high school in America was following the pro football team's lead. But what he

found out is, oh, yeah, every high school except for those with Native America. Americans in it. They're not following the lead. You know, Kevin, we've talked about this before, and we've been in agreement on this, is that it's sort of disingenuous at the outrage that you have about this name among some people when compared to the Native Americans, a significant number of which have weighed in on two different polls, and now with the opportunity to change the name or saying, no, this is something we're proud of. We're not going to change it.

This shows sort of the hypocrisy of the whole movement. That just gets drowned out. It's always been drowned out, though. You know, I mean, people look at you like you have two heads when you try to defend this. I know. I get that. But again, you know, it's never been about, at least for me, hey, this is, you shut up, you be quiet.

This poll that came out in 2016 or the one in 2004 from Annenberg or the survey last year that associated the word with proud among Native Americans, we shouldn't be discussing this at all. That's never been my position. My position has always been, well, what about these things? I mean, doesn't this make it a lot? It doesn't this make it worth discussing, worth debating, rather than it's the N-word, it's dictionary-defined racist, drop the mic, walk away and say, don't want to hear it. You know, I'm putting my hands over my ears. You've got to change the name.

You're a racist if you use it. I mean, it's just so stupid. It's so, and I'm trying to get away from being caring and being frustrated about this anymore. But what really bothers me is what I told you two, three weeks ago when it all came about is that, you know, 20 years from now, people are going to look back at the time that the name finally changed in July of 2020, and they're going to read all these columns, then they're going to think, oh, my God, how did it last that long? If it was so awful and so shamefully racist, how could this fan base and this owner and these people root for a team with that terribly racist name? Because that's what they've written here over the last couple of weeks. And of course, that isn't a fair or accurate description of what this has been about. Because they've been very disingenuous in those columns.

Barry's Rulugue is the only column. I'm sure others have done this. Zverluga is the only column I read where he said, it's time for the change, but then acknowledged, which Florio never does, which Peter King never does, which Max Kellerman never does, that this has been a complex issue.

And it's been complex because the people that should matter the most are conflicted. And not just conflicted, every piece of data out there says that an overwhelming percentage of them don't deem this word to be insensitive and in fact don't want it changed. But whatever. The ship is sailed. I thought that that column was interesting because, again, you know, yes, primarily non-Native American high schools are following suit.

They're being pressured, I'm sure. But the high schools that aren't following suit, ironically, are those with mostly Native Americans in it. You know, it's... In 20 years, Dan Snyder will be 75 years old. Yes. Well, you brought up the 20-year mark. I'm just giving you something else to look forward to too. That's true.

Will he still own the team? Probably. No, I say not. And will they have won more than 10 games in the season over the next 20 years? So if you made that that 20 years ago, and you said, no, you would have won. Will they win more than 10 games one time? over the next 20 years? Yes. I mean, the odds favorite. I mean, come on. You would think so, but they favored it 20 years ago, and that didn't work.

That's true. That's true. So I wanted to read three quotes to you from Kendall Fuller. Kendall Fuller, the new Redskins cornerback, who played on a Super Bowl winning team last January, last February, in Kansas City. Kendall Fuller, the Kendall Fuller, who was traded part of the trade that brought Alex Smith here in 2018. He was asked three questions that I wanted to just read back the answers to. First of all, he was asked on the differences with the organization now from the first time he played here. And I want you to listen carefully, Tom. Listen carefully to what he said because there's a phrase that he's using that he uses a few times. It's way different, and everybody's still trying to figure it out.

Coach Rivera is still trying to build that culture, kind of just shifting everyone's mentality. I think the good thing about it is that everybody's trusting him and just going full steam ahead and just giving all our trust to him. Like we said, just trying to build that culture, a sustainable culture. We have to do that day in and day out to build that. So that's where we're focused on. Then he was asked another question. He said, tell us about Coach Rivera. He said, quote, I think Coach Rivera is just trying to build a different culture.

We're just coming in every day with that mentality. Coach Rivera, when he talks about culture, he always makes sure to say sustainable culture. The biggest thing right now is just building that trust. Coach Rivera wants to trust us and we want to trust him. I think that's our main focus as we have to build that day in and day out. And then he speaks to his time in Kansas City saying, I think the one thing that I picked up from Kansas City is when you're in the building, the work never stops. They always had us doing walkthroughs a little bit earlier,

before practice. If we got out there five or ten minutes early, getting out there just to get more reps, if you're in a period and you're not doing anything instead of sitting around, you've got to get up and do something. I think that's probably the biggest thing. If we were on the field, there was no sitting around. We were working at all times. Coach Rivera is already like that, but it's definitely something I took from Kansas City. Now, back to the first two quotes. Culture, sustainable culture, over and over again. You know, and we've had this conversation so many times together over the years. The NFL is designed for every bad team to have a good season. A good season does not make a good organization. Right. The accidental winning season.

The accidental winning season. It's designed for it. It's designed for even Washington to have the accidental nine and seven playoff season. The last time they did it was 2015. But that the best organizations have great culture that allows for sustained winning. You know, you know, you you know, sustained competitiveness. And this is where I don't want to go crazy, all right, because I know you don't necessarily feel the same way. And I, you know what I think of your opinion when it comes to things like this, and that is don't let, you know, history get in the way of your new narrative or your new thought.

But I love that Ron Rivera is coming into this situation with eyes wide open. I don't think there's a lot of naivete there. I think he realized when he took the gig what kind of job it was. It wasn't just about reshaping a roster. It was about reshaping an organization and changing a terrible culture into a good culture that gives the organization a chance to have sustained winning. And he's communicating that certainly to his players. We've heard him say it over and over again.

And now you're getting it from the players, which means he is saying it a lot. And Kendall Fuller said, Coach Rivera talks about culture. He always makes sure to say sustainable culture, because that's the goal of all of these organizations, is to create something that gives you a chance not to win this year, but to win for the next 10 years. And that's never, that possibility has never existed here. Never. Not with Joe Gibbs, not with Mike Shanahan, not with anybody, not with quality coaches. And he's coming in, and I think, Tommy, the difference is he's coming in not to be the coach, not to take the money and be the coach. He's coming in understanding that he's being asked to change

the whole organization and that his eyes are wide open and he's very aware of just, how bad it's been. If his eyes are wide open, like you say, then he knows the cause. He knows who patient zero is in this fire. Do you think? Yes, I do, which makes me curious about the kind of deal he has here, which we don't have any inkling as to what that deal is. The only thing we know is that it's a five-year deal.

We don't know anything about the money. We don't know anything about what he got contractually. You know, I remember before the last hire with Gruden, if I were an agent of a coach that had options, and Washington was one of them, I would make sure not only that I had full autonomy, but if the owner basically broke that agreement, he was forced to pay me double on the way out.

Like I would make it so punitive if he got involved to the degree that he's gotten involved in before, which has been damaging to the organization. But I also, Tommy, let me also just mention that I think Ron could have been convinced, and it's true to a certain degree, that Bruce was a big problem too. And it wouldn't surprise me if Gibbs said, Dan will get out of your way if you win. To your point, he better make it happen quickly. Bruce is the problem, and he's gone.

All that is feasible. Look, if they win and win quickly and Ron Rivera would become so beloved and popular, that's his shield against the owner's dysfunction. But sometimes even that doesn't protect you from it. I mean, you know, it didn't protect Marty, you know, who went eight and three in his last 11 games. So it doesn't always protect you. But I'm not sure that Ron Rivera really truly recognizes. He hasn't seen Dan Snyder yet.

And I'm sure he's probably saying, what are people talking about? This guy's great, you know? He's been absolutely wonderful for me. You know, I haven't seen the horns or the tail or anything like that. You know, so, I mean, I'm still very skeptical because I don't think they'll be a good team early on. And once football starts, I think you're going to have an owner who's going to be involved in the football opposition, just like he's always been to some extent. You might be right. You might be right.

I would certainly – I wouldn't bet that it works. I've made that statement before, but I do like Ron Rivera. I liked him as a football coach, and I liked his answer to, do you have any regrets? I believed it. I know you didn't. I also like that I hear culture and I hear sustainable culture, and I see a guy that went in and took a 2 and 14 program that wasn't very good

and turned it around in Carolina. and I just think that he, I think he knows, you know, I mentioned Bruce, but I think he knows Dan's part of the problem too. And I hope he built something in contractually to protect himself from that. I think that you're on to something and you've been on to something about getting results quickly. But yet, other than chasing Amari Cooper for a big deal, you know, it's not like they went after every big free agent, and they had plenty of space and plenty of cap space and plenty of money

to do it. And he keeps talking about a three, four, five military, you know, change in culture. I know. Almost as a way to say to the owner, you're going to have to be patient. You're going to have to live with this. Yeah, but I mean, that's not a new message. That's what every comes said. True.

When they come in to take over a bad team. And I'm sure the owner has heard it before that it's going to take three, four, five years. to turn this around. And eventually, that gets stuck in the recesses of his brain that don't work. Yeah. Yep. Probably true. That's not a new message.

No. I mean, if I was the owner, and I was taking over, I hired a coach to take over a 3 and 13 team, I wouldn't expect any kind of playoff results until the fourth year. Okay, so that leads me into this, which, I'm, going to get to right after I mentioned window nation window nation has a great deal going right now many of you know that I've been a long time endorser of window nation I do as much as any product that I've endorsed over the years I am so confident that if you use window nation it will

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That's 86690 Nation or windownation.com and mention my name. So let me get to this. I guess it was confusing for some listeners this morning. And I'll pitch it the same way I pitched it to them and I'll see if you get it or not. Because it's sort of dovetails on the conversation that we were having there at the end about whether or not they'll ever win. Tommy, if the skins were just a normal middle-of-the-pack NFL franchise, with none of the ancillary issues that they've had caused by a bad owner and a bad team president and bad general managers, et cetera, just a franchise that was, you know, nondescript.

The Carolina Panthers, the Chicago Bears, not great franchises, but far from the worst. franchises that aren't mocked consistently for being bad on the field and incompetent off it like the Washington football team. If you could pretend for just one moment and act as if the situation were normal, this goes to your Alex smithing. If all things were equal, so it's a hypothetical. It's a sports talk hypothetical. So pretend for a moment that you can erase the fact that Dan Snyder owns the team, that it's been going through tough times, that it's been a laughing stock, that the team president didn't say things like winning off the field or we're close

or our culture is damn good, that they were just owned by a nondescript, uninvolved owner, and they were a middle-of-the-road franchise who just hired Ron Rivera and Jack Del Rio, and they've got some nice talent on defense, and they just drafted Chase Young, and they've got a quarterback who last year the football people picked at number 15 overall, would it change the way you think about this team? Because in many ways, if you can step outside of reality and pretend for a moment that they're a normal organization, it will allow an objective football evaluation or assessment.

And so I laid it out that way and then said, if you can put yourself into that mindset, how many games do they win this year, and how quickly will they get to the playoffs? How long will it take before they're a playoff team? First of all, was that too difficult to understand? No. Very, very understandable.

Okay. It helped that while you were talking, I popped a couple of my stupid pills, so I could fully grasp it. Right. And that seems, they seem to be kicking in right now. Okay, good. So, well, good, I got to you before the stupid pills kicked in. So if you could play pretend and act like this is just a normal, nondescript franchise,

and now we just started to talk about the football operation, it's almost a question about, well, how optimistic would we be? I think you should be optimistic. Me too. A first-round quarterback, a young defense that, you know, you have to figure that part of the problem was coaching for their failure to achieve more last year than they did. I mean, it's an optimistic picture.

without the disease. Right. Right. Yes. It's a clean bill of health. I don't know what made me think about this. I think it was the Kendall Fuller quotes. And I just started to think, you know what?

I really am optimistic about Ron Rivera. However, there is this disease, as you describe it, which we all know exists and has been the problem for 21 years. No matter, you know, you can blame Bruce, He can blame Vinny. He hired these people. He gave them some authority. But if you step back from that, I think they have a really good coach. I do think he's a good coach. I don't want to hear from the people that tell me that I'm overrating Ron Rivera and that he's only had three winning seasons. He coached there for eight and a half seasons and went to the playoffs four times and won three divisions

and went to a Super Bowl after a 15 and one season. Tell me that you wouldn't take that right now over the next eight and a half years if you're a Washington football fan. I have no reason. Based on the information we have, there's no reason to believe that Ron Rivera is not a good coach. A great coach, not necessarily, but a good coach. He's a good coach, and, you know, he's a defensive head coach, and the talent on this team happens to be on defense where we think it's underachieved here recently, and we blame the defensive coaching staff, which I think probably deserves, you know, a significant portion of the blame. His teams were always good defensively, hard-nosed smart defensively. And we know that if you

play really good defense, you're a competitive team. Doesn't make you a playoff team. But then you get to, on the flip side, if they didn't have the owner who basically made the selection of Dwayne Haskins at number 15 in the 2019 draft, maybe we would feel differently about the quarterback. I'm already optimistic about the quarterback, even with the disease context around it. I think Dwayne's got a chance to be a good quarterback. So if we took all of the shenanigans and acted like they didn't exist, I think I'd be very optimistic about the future of this team. I would be thinking that they'd have a chance to go eight and eight this year and be in the playoffs or certainly be a playoff contender in 2021. I agree with a lot.

what you said. I mean, you know, without the owner, without the aura of self-destruction that has engulfed this franchise for more than two decades, reasonable people can think if you have a good defense and they should have a good defense, you can keep yourself competitive in most games and your first year being competitive could wind up being eight and eight. Yeah. Yeah.

No, Tommy, you know, one of the things that's interesting is if you, you know, there are a lot of the NFL analysts out there that are less involved in just how bad it is here. They're optimistic about Washington being a potential good team. You know, it's funny because, you know, I've had conversations with Adam Schaefter on and off the air, you know, and Adam's so plugged in, maybe more so, than any reporter, NFL reporter out there. Certainly he has more... Would you say that Adam Schaefter's the number one followed NFL reporter in media? I think so. I think the most plugged in.

I think one of the things that I've always... I mean, I like Adam a lot, and I know you do too. But, you know, he's told me before, you know, people... They may have a problem with Dan, but, you know, they don't have as much of a problem with him as you think, and they definitely don't have as much of a problem with Bruce as you think. Bruce is respected. He told us that one day.

And so my point is there are some people out there that aren't in the day-to-day like we are, you know, suffering from what we've had to suffer from over 21 years, that just are able to look at the organization from a football standpoint only. And a lot of those people actually say, look out. I'm trying to think, Bucky Brooks, Bucky Brooks, who covers the NFL for NFL.com NFL Network. I think he was the one that said there's going to be a parade in that city in a couple of years with what they've put together.

Well, look, you had the moron who was doing Monday night football last year before the Redskins played, declared what a great job that Bruce Allen was doing. Oh, my God. Bougar said that, didn't he? Yeah. I said, heck, I was going to the outfield. Whoa. I mean, that's an indication of, well, that could be an agenda driven because he was tight with Bruce.

But that's an indication of the difference outside as opposed to up close. Right. Yeah, that was strange. I mean, most people have not heard the terms winning off the field for, I think it's a damn good culture. Yeah. Most people outside of our market aren't familiar with those firms, which have become biblical to us. Yeah, they have been. Do you ever think that we blow it out of proportion?

No. No, no, no. If you live with the disease every day, you know how sick you are. I agree with that. You know, I sometimes will have a conversation with people that will say, you know, bottom line is it comes down to players and a lot of what goes on in the locker room is totally separate from how bad the owner is and a lot of that stuff gets overblown. But personally, I think, you know, when you're 50 games or whatever it is under 500 with one playoff win, because I don't

even count the 99 season playoff win is Snyders. That was not, he hadn't had a chance to put his his fingerprints all over the franchise. In 20 years, that's really an indictment, man. In a league that's designed for parity, in a league that's designed for, you know, good teams, bad teams to, you know, have more wins and more playoff appearances, this organization's been in the desert by itself. I mean, you know, you throw in Cleveland and Detroit and, you know, a couple of the others. But I don't think. think that we overblow it either. I think we've seen the damage that's been done over the years with the hires. And as opposed to Detroit, which really is ground zero for the worst franchise in

NFL football over time, I think what makes the Washington football team situation look worse is because people recognize how great it can be when it's great, which illustrates how far they fall. That's a really good point. I won an NFL championship in 1957. Okay? I mean, people here still recognize how great it can be, which makes it more painful. Which is something that Ron Rivera recognizes too.

And it's one of the things that I like about Rivera and what I've been hearing from him as well, is that Rivera has spoken multiple times about the. team's history. He hasn't dwelt on it. He hasn't, you know, bathed in nostalgic, you know, memories, but he was on a team that played this team three times in the postseason in the 80s. And he's talked about what this team was in the 80s and what Joe Gibbs was and what RFK Stadium was like. So there is, you know, this challenge. And that's what he said in response to the question about whether or not he and his family have any regrets taking this job with everything that's been going on, I think he thinks he's the right guy to turn it around.

I mean, I'd rather have that guy than the guy that's just come in and here blind, like a Gruden. I get that. And look, we've discussed this before. I really worry about the intelligence of somebody who privately doesn't have regrets about coming to this organization. between December and now. Well, maybe he's just, maybe he knew it was coming. Maybe he knew, maybe he knew that it was going to be something because it always is here, and I'm going to have to overcome it,

but I'm the guy to get us through these things. Well, if he knew that was coming, then they should go 16 and 0 because he should be able to figure out what the other team is going to be doing every week if he's that clairvoyant. You don't have to be that clairvoyant to have expected off-the-field controversy and embarrassment. That's true. All right. Last thing before we finish up. Not the last thing, because I got something I want to get.

Okay. Well, I was just going to ask you about the Nats. You know, it looks like Scherzer isn't injured. Seriously, he gets taken out after the first inning with a tweaked hamstring. I watched a lot of the game last night. First of all, Soto, in his first appearance, had an RBI double. He also, very strangely, in the first inning, on a sack fly, didn't throw home on a shallow foul ball. to left field. It was weird. But they're four and five. It's a short season.

And you know, it's really odd? The Marlins with basically a shell of their team are five and one. You know, it would be so great if the Marlins wound up winning this. It would be such the perfect statement to this season, if there is a season still. It'd be so funny if the Marlins wound up winning it. Yeah. I got nothing for you on the net. All right.

Give me what you have. Okay. Pete Hamill died. Do you know who Pete Hamill? Yeah, the New York Times, the New York, you know, long-time columnist. Daily News, New York Post. I heard Tony talking about him. I've heard Tony talk about him in the past.

Oh, I mean, one of the great newspaper column that's of his era. I mean, at one time, the New York Daily News had Pete Hamill and Jimmy Bredsler. Wow. in the same paper. I mean, they're in the 70s, you know. They're in the Sun of Sam thing. They were both working for the Daily News. I mean, that's absolutely remarkable.

These guys were columnists. They were metro columnists. They were city columnists. It's a different kind of a reporter, and their personality come to identify with the city, like Mike Royko in Chicago. Right. was like that.

Mike Barnacle was like that in Boston, so he got buses from plagiarism. Steve Lopez in Philadelphia at the Inquirer was like that. Pete Dexter at the Philly Daily News, these are guys who would go out of the street and tell the story of the city through everyday people. And I wanted to be that. That was my goal.

Who was your guy? Who was your guy? Well, Breisland was my guy. guy. I wanted to be Jimmy Breslin. That's who I want. I wanted to be him. And when I was working at the Baltimore Sun, and I was the editor of one of their suburban editions, remember the Post used to have like a Maryland edition? Yeah. And then a DC, well, I was the editor, I was the editor of the Howard County edition. And I got to write a column with that. And I worked so hard on that, because I figured that was going to be my path to be able to get to. With the son.

Yeah, but the sun, they had main paper columnists, you know, like the Metro column. Right. I was just writing for one of the suburban sections. Got it. And I wanted what, like, in Baltimore, it was Dan Rogers and Michael Lest. I wanted to do what they did, and I wanted to do it so bad. And I won first place in the National Society of Newspaper Columnist in 1986 for columns I wrote. to Howard County edition.

But that never happened. It just never happened. Now, I became a sports columnist, which is certainly, in my mind, the next best thing, and what I wanted to do when I was 10 years old, but when I got in this business and I saw the heart and soul

that a local columnist can have, that's what I wanted to be. And it just didn't happen for me. So I never really achieved what I wanted to. in this business. It's interesting in Washington since I've been here in 83. The Post only had had one guy, one person who has come close to that, and that's Mark Fisher. He was pretty good at it.

You've got to have what we call. You've got to have legs to go out to be a metro columnist. You can't sit in your house. Right. Right. Of course not. You can't sit in a bar in Sydney during the opening ceremonies. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Mark Fisher, but the Post never really had anyone who was like a Breslin or a Pete Hamill. Pete Hamill, not only was a great columnist, he dated Shirley MacLean. Oh, really? Yeah, when Charlie McLean was hot. He dated Jackie O'Nack.

Oh, my God. I didn't know this. Yes. This guy, you know, there's a line. This is why you respect him so much. No, no, no, no, I do. That's part of it. There's a line in the paper where Robert Duvall said to the Glenn Close,

he's trying to get a rave, that we live in their world, the world of the rich, the world of the elite, but we are not of their world. Pete Hamill made the crossover. Yeah, he did. It sounds like it. He was of their world. Did Breslin? Both of us don't make that.

Breslin, no. Breslin didn't care about it. any of that. Jimmy Breslin was married to the same woman for years, and Jimmy Breslin, all he cared about was reporting about New York City. And still, to this day, I have two collections of poems, book columns by Jimmy Breslin, that I read both of them at least once a year. And just to remind me that what I do is child's play. I have a question for you about, you know, street reporters or columnists, you like Pete Hamill and, you know, Jimmy Breslin and other people like that. Back in the day, were they recognizable when they were out on the street?

Or were they anonymous? I think they were recognizable. They usually had their picture next to their column. So I think they were, you know, very recognizable. Particularly a guy like Breslin. Breslin did a lot of TV as well. but he was such a colorful character. But his Brezlin ran, Norman Mailer ran for mayor of New York one year,

and Jimmy Breslin ran his city council president of New York. So Brezlin was a character. He was a larger than like figure, in addition to being the greatest metro news columnist of all time. When you get to a certain status as a newspaper, reporter or columnist. Does it get easier for you or more difficult to get stories? I think it gets easier.

It should, right? Son of Sam wrote Jimmy Breslin. Yeah. Okay? He didn't just write the Daily News. He wrote to Brezlin. Yeah. I mean, people want, people know the power that you have. People like what you do.

Right. They think they know you. and yes, they will call you and give you tips. It wasn't the greatest movie in the world, but Continental Divide with John Volusci, which I'd like because it's a newspaper movie, and the characters kind of based on Mike Boyceau, is an illustration of how people will recognize you

and give you information. So, yeah, the bigger you are, the easier your job is to get those stories. But you earned that right. You earn that status. Every day in the newspaper when you write, you earn that. Let's not forget, you know, one of the biggest examples of that would have been, you know, Grey Grantham and Darby Shaw.

I mean, she wrote the Pelican brief, and then she searched out Greg Grantham, Denzel Washington, and gave him a copy of the Pelican brief, which led to the, you know, Victor Matisse, I think his name was, who was the president's biggest donor, president's biggest donor and he's the one that had the judges knocked off so that he gets to that oil in New Orleans. Not one of my favorite movies. I don't know why. I have to go back and watch that. You know, that movie actually out of what's his face's novels, the guy that wrote all the lawyer novels,

John Grisham. John Grisham. Yeah, the Grisham novels that turned into movies like the Pelican Brief and, you know, the firm. I think the Pelican Brief was the best of all of them. Really? Because I like the firm. You know, I've told you that I was celebrating my honeymoon in 1993 at the Hyatt, Grand Cayman, and they were filming at the pool, the scene. And I've told you that at the same time, I was at the same time.

I was at the Holiday Inn down the road. You were at a worst hotel. They were filming the bar scenes. Yes, I know. But I don't think that the firm is a real... I don't think the firm's that good of a movie. I think the Pelican Brief is a better movie. Oh, I like the firm a lot.

By the resident piece of Wilford Brindley, who played a pretty good bad guy. He just passed away, right? Yes. Yeah, he did play a good, a bad guy. The other one that's not bad is a time to kill. And I think that's Grisham. Because I think that's the Matthew McConaughey and Samuel L. Jackson movie. That's a Grisham novel, right?

A Time to Kill? Yes, it is. Yeah, that was pretty good. Yeah, the firm was okay. The firm was just okay. By the way, my poll at this point, after one hour, 279 votes. Nice. Very good.

All right. Do you have anything else? I got nothing else for you, Buck. Okay. I'm glad you told everybody about Pete Hamill, because I think there are a lot of people that are listening that know that. And I did see on PTI last night, Tony talking about Hamill is his favorite. And I've heard him talk about Pete Hamill in the past as well. Let me recommend a book called A Drinking Life. It's about Pete. It's basically Pete Hamlet's biography, but it's centered. around how alcohol was such a much big part of his life, and he stopped drinking in his later

year. It's called it Drinking Life. I highly recommend it. And if you find his college online, I recommend them as well. You know, remember we were talking a couple of weeks ago or last week about a couple of the music documentaries that have been out there, and I told you that I thought the Leonard Skinner documentary was really good? Yes. There was another music group documentary that was on Showtime over the weekend. It debuted on Showtime, and I just happened to have flipped on Showtime as it was getting started. I don't think this is going to thrill you much because this is definitely an 80s thing, which was for me high school and college. But there's a really good documentary on the Go-Go's. The Go-Gos were the first all-female band to play their own

instruments and write their own music. Joan Jett was, you know, part of the runaways prior to that, but that wasn't an all-female band, and the go-goes sort of took pop music by storm in the early 80s and had, you know, a really interesting career that was shortened by drugs and debauchery and infighting, and that became very entertaining as part of the documentary. For people that... Sort of like my radio career. Sort of like your radio career.

Belinda Carlyle was a big star as a solo artist, pop artist, coming out of that band. But man, these five women, woo, they did some drugs, they drank some alcohol, and they lived the rock life as an all-female band. And I found that the documentary on Showtime, which aired Saturday night, I found it to be very entertaining. And I was very familiar with the band. I can just remember Tommy, in high school and in college, every girl I knew loved the go-goes. And because of that, I remember seeing them at King's Dominion with a bunch of friends, a lot of girls, and probably somewhere else to maybe Merryweather.

The King's Dominion, though, thing was one of those nights. where I don't remember the entire night. We'll leave it at that. I've got one song on my playlist from the Gogo's. Arrow Lips or Seal. Yeah, well, that was there. That and we got the beat, which turned out to be a song

that so many movies and commercials, you know, licensed over the years. Anyway, apparently, too, and that there was a Broadway show in recent years about their band. I had no idea. Okay, that's it. Enjoy the day. Everybody, stay safe, stay well. I will be in tomorrow, more likely than not. Still planning on trying to get a couple of days in here between now and the end of the summer before football season starts. Tommy, take care. I'll talk to you on Tuesday. All right, buddy. That was fun.